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THIS IS PART 2 of the
The
The Finding of Christ
By
Anna Bonus Kingsford
&
Edward Maitland
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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Part 2 of 2
THIS IS PART
2 of the
THE
AbstractPreface
Lecture the FirstFirstIntroductory
Lecture the SecondSecondThe Soul; and
the substance of existence
Lecture the ThirdThirdThe various orders
of Spirits; and to discern them
Lecture the FourthFourthThe Atonement
Lecture the FifthFifthThe nature and
constitution of the ego
Lecture the SixthSixthThe Fall (1)
Lecture the SeventhSeventhThe Fall (2)
Lecture the EightEightThe Redemption
Lecture the NinthNinth God as the Lord;
or, the Divine Image
APPENDICES
Concerning the interpretation of
scripture
Concerning the hereafter
On prophesying; and prophecy
Concerning the nature of Sin
Concerning the "Great Work" and
the share of Christ Jesus therein
The time of the End
The Higher Alchemy
Concerning Revelation
Concerning the Poet
Concerning the One Life
Concerning the Mysteries
Hymn to the Planet God
Fragments of the "Golden Book of
Venus"
Part -1-Hymn of Aphrodite
Part -2- A discourse of communion
of souls, and of the uses of love
between creature and creature.
Hymn to Hermes
The Secret of Satan
Plates (in preparation )
Figure - 1 - The Cherubim of Exekiel and
the Apocalypse
Figure - 2 - The tabernacle in the
wilderness
Figure - 3 - Section of the Great Pyramid
of Gizeh
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Theosophical Society in Wales-------
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Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
LECTURE THE EIGHTH.
THE
REDEMPTION.
PART I
1. THAT,
then, which, mystically, is called the Fall of Man, does not mean, as
commonly
supposed, the lapse, through a specific act, of particular individuals
from a state
of original perfection; nor, as sometimes supposed, a change from a
fluidic to a
material condition. It means such an inversion of the due relations
between the
soul and the body of a personality already both spiritual and
material, as
involves a transference of the central will of the system
concerned, from
the soul – which is its proper seat – to the body, and the
consequent
subjection of the soul to the body, and liability of the individual
to sin,
disease, and all other evils which result from the limitations of
Matter.
2. That,
therefore, which, mystically, is called the Redemption, and which is
the converse
of the Fall, does not mean, as commonly supposed, the remission, or
transference
from the guilty to the innocent, of the penalties incurred through
the Fall. No
penalty incurred by man ever is or can be remitted by God, since
the Divine
Justice is just. Nor, for the same reason, can it be borne by
another,
since a substitution of the innocent for the guilty would in itself be
a violation
of justice. Wherefore the doctrine of Vicarious Redemption, as
ordinarily
accepted, represents a total misconception of the truth, and one
derogatory to
the Divine Character. The Redemption means such removal of the
will of the
individual system concerned, from the body, and reinstatement of it
in the soul,
as thenceforth to secure to the soul full control over the body,
and to exempt
the individual from further liability to transgression. He who is
redeemed
cannot sin, that is, mortally.
3. It is
according to the Divine order of Nature that the soul should control
the body.
For, as a manifested entity, man is a dual being, consisting of soul
and body; and
of these, in point both of duration and function, and therefore in
all respects
of value, the precedence belongs to the soul. For the soul is the
real,
permanent Individual, the Self, the everlasting, substantial Idea, of
which the
body is but the temporary residence and phenomenal expression. The
soul,
nevertheless, has, properly speaking, no will of her own, since she is
feminine and
negative. And she is therefore, by her nature, bound to obey the
will of some
other than herself. This other can be only the Spirit or the Body;
– the Within
and the Above, which is Divine, and is God; or the Without and the
Below, which,
taken by itself and reduced to its last expression, is the
“devil”. It
is, therefore, to the Spirit and soul as one, that obedience is due.
Hence, in
making the body the seat of the will, the man revolts, not merely
against the
soul, but against God; and the soul, by participation, does the
same. Of such
revolt the consequence is disease and misery of both soul and
body, with
the liability, ultimately, to extinction of the soul as well as of
the body. For
the soul which persistently rejects the Divine Will in favor of
the bodily
will, sins mortally, and, becoming mortal, at length dies. For her
life is
withdrawn and her constituents are scattered to the elements; so that,
without any
actual loss either of the Life or of the Substance of the universal
existence,
the individuality constituted by her perishes. The “man” is no more.
4. The
result, on the other hand, of the soul’s steadfast aspiration towards
God, – the
Spirit, that is, within her – and of her consequent action upon the
body, is that
this also becomes permeated and suffused by the Spirit as, at
last, to have
no will of its own, but to be in all things one with the soul and
Spirit, and
to constitute with these one perfectly harmonious system, of which
every element
is under full control of the central Will. It is this unification,
occurring
within the individual, which constitutes the Atonement. And in him in
whom it
occurs in its fullest extent, Nature realizes the ideal to attain which
she first
came forth from God. For in the man thus redeemed, purified, and
perfected in
the image of God, and having in himself the power of life eternal,
she herself
is vindicated and glorified, and the Divine Wisdom is justified of
her children.
The process, however, is one which each individual must accomplish
in and for
himself. For, being an interior process, consisting in
self-purification,
it cannot be performed from without. That whereby perfection
is attained
is experience, which implies suffering. For this reason the man who
is reborn in
us of “Water and the Spirit,” – our own regenerate Self, the Christ
Jesus and Son
of Man, who in saving us is called the Captain of our salvation, –
is said to be
made perfect through suffering. This suffering must be borne by
each man for
himself. To deprive any one of it by putting the consequences of
his acts upon
another, so far from aiding that one, would be to deprive him of
his means of
redemption.
5. There are
two senses in which the term Fall is used, each of them having
relation to
an indispensable epoch in the process of the universe. The one is
the fall of
Spirit, the other of the Soul. The first occurs in the universal,
and concerns
the Macrocosm. The second occurs in the individual, and concerns
the
Microcosm. The first and general descent of Spirit into Matter consists in
that original
projection of the Divine Substance from pure Being into the
condition of
Existence, whereby Spirit becomes Matter, and Creation occurs. The
doctrine
which regards the universe as the Thought of God, is a true doctrine.
But the
universe is not therefore unsubstantial. God is real Being, and that
which God
thinks is also God. Wherefore in consisting of the thought of the
Divine Mind,
the Universe consists of the Substance of that Mind, the Substance,
that is, of
God. God’s Ideas, like God, are real beings, Divine Personages, that
is, Gods. Put
forth by, and, in a sense divided from, God, in order to
accomplish
God’s purposes, these become messengers of God, that is, Angels. And,
of them,
those to whom is assigned a condition below that of God, – a condition
no longer of
Spirit, – are called “Fallen Angels.” Wherefore the “Fall of the
Angels”,
denotes simply the original and cosmic descent of Spirit into the
condition of
Matter, – the precipitation, that is, of the Divine Substance from
a state of
pure Being, into the various elements and modes which are comprised
in and which
constitute Existence or Creation. Creation is thus, not, as
ordinarily
supposed, a making out of that which is not, but a manifestation or
putting
forth, – by the conversion of essence into things – of that which
already is,
but which subsists unmanifest. It is true, that prior to such
manifestation,
there is no thing. But this is not because there is nothing; but
because
before things can exist, the ideas of them must subsist. For a thing is
the result of
an idea, and except as such cannot exist. Thus, Matter, as the
intensification,
or densification, of Idea, is a mode of the Divine
consciousness,
put forth through an exercise of the Divine Will; and being so,
it is
capable, through an exercise of the Divine Love, of reverting to its
original,
unmanifest condition of Spirit. The recall of the universe to this
condition
constitutes the final Redemption or “Restitution of all things.” And
it is brought
about by the operation of the Divine Spirit within the whole.
6. The
Redemption from the other of the two Falls specified, is due to the
operation of
the divine element within the individual. And it is of this alone
that we
propose to treat on this occasion. As already stated, this Fall does not
consist in
the original investment of the soul with a material body. Such
investment –
or incarnation – is an integral and indispensable element in the
process of
the individualization of soul-substance, and of its education into
humanity. And
until perfected, or nearly so, the body is necessary to the soul
in turn as
nursery, school, house of correction, and chamber of ordeal. It is
true that
redemption involves deliverance from the need of the body. But
redemption
itself is from the power of the body; and it is from its fall under
the power of
the body that the soul requires redemption. For it is this fall
which, by
involving the alienation of the individual from God, renders necessary
a
reconciliation or at-one-ment. And inasmuch as this can be effected only
through the
total renunciation of the exterior or bodily will, and the
unreserved
acceptance in its place of the interior or divine will, this
at-one-ment
constitutes the essential element of that Redemption which forms the
subject of
the present discourse.
7. Although
Redemption, as a whole, is one, the process is manifold, and
consists in a
series of acts, spiritual and mental. Of this series, the part
wherein the
individual finally surrenders his own exterior will, with all its
exclusively
material desires and affections, is designated the Passion. And the
particular
act whereby this surrender is consummated and demonstrated is called
the
Crucifixion. This crucifixion means a complete, unreserving surrender, – to
the death, if
need be, – without opposition, even in desire, on the part of the
natural man.
Without these steps is no atonement. The man cannot become one with
the Spirit
within him, until by his “Passion” and “Crucifixion,” he has utterly
vanquished
the “Old Adam” of his former self. Through the atonement made by
means of this
self-sacrifice he becomes as one without sin, being no more liable
to sin; and
is qualified to enter, as his own high-priest, into the holy of
holies of his
own innermost. For thus he has become of those who, being pure in
heart alone
can face God.
8. The
“Passion” and “Crucifixion” have their immediate sequel in the Death and
Burial of the
Self thus renounced. And these are followed by the Resurrection
and Ascension
of the true immortal Man and new spiritual Adam, who by his
Resurrection
proves himself to be – like the Christ – “virgin-born,” – in that
he is the
offspring, not of the soul and her traffic with Matter and Sense, but
of the soul
become “immaculate,” and of her spouse, the Spirit. The Ascension
with which
the Drama terminates, is that of the whole Man, now regenerate, to
his own
celestial kingdom within himself, where – made one with the Spirit – he
takes his
seat for ever “at the right hand of the Father.”
9. Although
the Resurrection of the man regenerate has a twofold relation, in
that it sometimes
affects the body, the resurrection is not of the body in any
sense
ordinarily supposed, nor is the body in any way the object of the process.
The Man, it
is true, has risen from the dead. But it is from the condition of
deadness in
regard to things spiritual, and from among those who, being in that
condition,
are said to be “dead in trespasses and sins.” In these two respects,
namely, as
regards his own past self and the world generally, he has “risen from
the dead”;
and “death,” of this kind, “has no more dominion over him.” And even
if he has
redeemed also his body and made of it a risen body, this by no means
implies the
resuscitation of an actual corpse. In this sense there has been for
him no death,
and in this sense there is for him no resurrection. It was through
misapprehension
of the true doctrine, and the consequent expectation of the
resurrection
of the dead body, that the practice – originally symbolical and
special – of
embalming the corpse as a mummy, became common, and that interment
was
substituted for the classic and far more wholesome practice of cremation. In
both cases,
the object was the delusive one of facilitating a resuscitation at
once
impossible and undesirable, seeing that if reincarnation be needful, a soul
can always
obtain for itself a new body.
10. That
which constitutes the Great Work, is, not the resuscitation of the dead
body, but the
redemption of Spirit from Matter. Until man commits what,
mystically,
is called idolatry, he has no need of such redemption. So long as he
prefers the
inner to the outer, and consequently polarizes towards God, the will
of his soul
is as the Divine Will, and she has, in virtue thereof, power over
his body, as
God has over the universe. Committing idolatry, by reason of
perverse will
to the outer, – looking back, and down, that is, and preferring
the form to
the substance, the appearance to the reality, the phenomenon to the
idea, the
“city of the Plain” to the “mount of the Lord,” – she loses this
power, and
becomes, as already said, a “pillar of Salt,” fixed and material.
Thus does Man
become “naked,” for he has brought his soul to degradation and
shame and
profaned the temple of the Spirit. He has eaten of the “Forbidden
Fruit” of
Sense; “
regain it.
PART II
11. IN order
to obtain an adequate conception of the vastness of the interval
between the
condition of man “fallen” and man “redeemed,” it will be necessary
to speak yet
more particularly of the Man perfected and having power. Thus
contrasted
the heights and depths of humanity will appear in their true extent.
It is but a
sketch, comparatively slight, which can here be given of what they
must endure,
who, for love of God, desire God, and who, by love of God, finally
attain to and
become God; and who, becoming God without ceasing to be man,
become
God-Man, – God manifest in the flesh, – at once God and
to this end
is one and the same for all, whenever, wherever, and by whomsoever
followed. For
perfection is one, and all seekers after it must follow the same
road. The
reward and the means towards it, are also one. For “the Gift of God is
eternal
Life.” And it is by means of God, – the Divine Spirit working within
him, to build
him up in the Divine Image, – he, meanwhile co-operating with the
Spirit, –
that man achieves Divinity. In the familiar, but rarely understood
terms,
“Philosopher’s Stone,” “Elixir of Life,” “universal Medicine,” “Holy
Grail,” and
the like, is implied this supreme object of all quest. For these are
but terms to
denote pure Spirit, and its essential correlative, a Will
absolutely
firm and inaccessible alike to weakness from within and assault from
without.
Without measure of this Spirit is no understanding – and therefore no
interpretation
– of the Sacred Mysteries of existence. Spiritual themselves,
they can be
comprehended only by those who have, nay, rather, who are Spirit;
for God is
Spirit, and they who worship God must worship in the Spirit.
12. The
attainment in himself of a pure and Divine Spirit, is, therefore the
first object
and last achievement of him who seeks to realize the loftiest ideal
of which
humanity is capable. He who does this, is not an “Adept” merely. The
“Adept”
covets power in order to save himself only; and knowledge is him thing
apart from
love. Love saves others as well as oneself. And it is love that
distinguishes
the Christ; – a truth implied, among other ways, in the name and
character
assigned in mystic legends, to the favourite disciple of the Christs.
To Krishna,
his Arjun; to Buddha, his Ananda; to Jesus, his John; – all terms
identical in
meaning, and denoting the feminine and tender moiety of the Divine
Nature. He
therefore, and he alone who possesses this spirit in quality and
quantity
without measure, has, and is, “Christ.” He is God’s anointed, suffused
and brimming
with the Spirit, and having in virtue thereof the power of the
“Dissolvent”
and of “Transmutation,” in respect of the whole man. Herein lay the
grand secret
of that philosophy which made “Hermes” to be accounted the “trainer
of the
Christs.” Known as the Kabalistic philosophy, it was a philosophy – or
rather a
science – based upon the recognition in Nature of an universal
Substance,
which man can find and “effect,” and in virtue of which he contains
within
himself the seed of his own regeneration, a seed of which – duly cultured
– the fruit
is God, because the seed itself also is God. Wherefore the “Hermetic
science” is
the science of God.
13. “Christ,”
then, is, primarily, not a person, but a process, a doctrine, a
system of
life and thought, by the observance of which man becomes purified from
Matter, and
transmuted into Spirit. And he is a Christ who, in virtue of his
observance of
this process to its utmost extent while yet in the body,
constitutes a
full manifestation of the qualities of Spirit. Thus manifested, he
is said to
“destroy the works of the devil,” for he destroys that which gives
pre-eminence
to Matter, and so re-establishes the kingdom of Spirit, that is, of
God.
14. This, the
interior part of the process of the Christ is the essential part.
Whether first
or last, the spiritual being must be perfected. Without this
interior
perfection, nothing that is done in the body, or exterior man only is
of any avail,
save, in so far as it may minister to the essential end. The body
is but an
instrument, existing for the use and sake of the soul and not for
itself. And
it is for the soul, and not for itself, that it must be perfected.
Being but an
instrument, the body cannot be an end. That which makes the body an
end, ends
with the body and the end of the body is corruption. Whatever is given
to the body
is taken from the Spirit. From this it will be seen what is the true
value of
Asceticism. Divested of its rational and spiritual motive, self-denial
is worthless.
Rather is it worse than worthless; it is materialistic and
idolatrous;
and, being in this aspect a churlish refusal of God’s good gifts it
impugns the
bounteousness of the Divine nature. The aim of all endeavor should
be to bring
the body into subjection to, and harmony with, the spirit, by
refining and
subliming it, and so heightening its powers as to make it sensitive
and
responsive to all the motions of the Spirit. This it can be only when,
deriving its
sustenance from substances the purest and most highly solarized,
such as the
vegetable kingdom alone affords, it suffers all its molecules to
become
polarized in one and the same direction, and this the direction of the
central Will
of the system, the “Lord God of Hosts” of the Microcosmic Man –
Whose mystic
name is Adonai.
15. The
reason of this becomes obvious when it is understood that the Christs
are, above
all things, Media. But this not as ordinarily supposed, even by many
who are
devoted students of spiritual science. For, so far from suffering his
own vivifying
spirit to step aside in order that another may enter, the Christ
is one who so
develops, purifies, and in every way perfects his spirit, as to
assimilate
and make it one with the universal Spirit, the God of the Macrocosm,
so that the
God without and the God within may freely combine and mingle, making
the universal
the individual, the individual the universal. Thus inspired and
filled with
God, the soul kindles into flame; and God, identified with the man,
speaks
through him, making the man utter himself in the name of God.
16. It is in
his office and character as Christ, and not in his own human
individuality,
that the Man Regenerate proclaims himself “the way, the truth,
and the
life,” “the door,” and the like. For, in being, as has been said, the
connecting
link between the creature and God, the Christ truly represents the
door or gate
through which all ascending souls must pass to union with the
Divine; and
save through which “no man cometh unto the Father.” It is not,
therefore, in
virtue of an extraneous, obsessing spirit that the Christ can be
termed a
“Medium,” but in virtue of the spirit itself of the man, become Divine
by means of
that inward purification by the life or “blood” of God, which is the
secret of the
Christs, and “doubled” by union with the parent Spirit of all, –
the “Father”
of all spirits. This Spirit it is Whom the typical Regenerate Man
of the
Gospels is represented as calling the “Father.” It is the Unmanifest God,
of Whom the
Christ is the full manifestation.
17. Hence he
disavows for himself the authorship of his utterances, and says,
“The words
which I speak unto you I speak not of myself. The Father which
dwelleth in
me, He doeth the works.” The Christ is, thus, a clear glass through
which the
divine glory shines. As it is written of Jesus, “And we beheld his
glory, the
glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth.” Now,
this “Only Begotten” is not mortal man at all, but He Who from all
eternity has
been in the bosom of the Father, namely, the Word or Logos, the
Speaker, the
Maker, the Manifestor, He Whose mystic name, as already said, is
Adonai, and
of whom Christ is the counterpart.
18. To attain
to the perfection of the Christ, – to polarize, that is, the
Divine Spirit
without measure, and to become a “Man of Power” and a Medium for
the Highest,
– though open potentially to all, – is, actually and in the
present,
open, if to any, but to few. And these are, necessarily, they only who,
having passed
through many transmigrations and advanced far on their way towards
maturity,
have sedulously turned their lives to the best account by means of the
steadfast
development of all the higher faculties and qualities of man; and who,
while not
declining the experiences of the body, have made the spirit, and not
the body,
their object and aim. Aspiring to the redemption in himself of each
plane of
man’s fourfold nature, the candidate for Christhood submits himself to
discipline
and training the most severe, at one physical, intellectual, moral,
and
spiritual, and rejects as valueless or pernicious whatever would fail to
minister to
his one end, deeming no task too onerous, no sacrifice too painful,
so that he be
spiritually advanced thereby. And how varied soever the means,
there is one
rule to which he remains constant throughout, the rule, namely, of
love. The
Christ he seeks is the pathway to God; and to fail, in the least
degree in
respect of love, would be to put himself back in his journey. The
sacrifices,
therefore, in the incense of which his soul ascends, are those of
his own lower
nature to his own higher, and of himself for others. And life
itself, it
seems to him, would be too dearly bought, if purchased at the expense
of another,
however little or mean, – unless, indeed, of a kind irremediably
noxious,
whose extinction would benefit the world. For, – be it remembered, –
though always
Saviour, the Christ is sometimes also Purifier, as were all his
types, the
Heroes, – or Men Regenerate, – of classic story. Enacting, thus, when
necessary the
executioner’s part, he slays for no self-gratification, but “in
the name of
the Lord.”
19. They who
have trod this path of old have been many, and their deeds have
formed the
theme of mystical legends innumerable. Epitomizing these, we find
that the
chief qualifications are as follows: – In order to gain “Power and the
Resurrection,”
a man must, first of all, be a Hierarch. This is to say, he must
have attained
the magical age of thirty-three years, having been, in the mystic
sense of the
terms, immaculately conceived, and born of a king’s daughter;
baptized with
water and with fire; tempted in the wilderness, crucified and
buried,
having borne five wounds on the cross. He must, moreover, have answered
the riddle of
the Sphinx. To attain the requisite age, he must have accomplished
the Twelve
Labors symbolized in those of Heracles, and in the signs of the
Zodiac;
passed within the Twelve Gates of Holy City of his own regenerate
nature;
overcome the five Senses; and obtained dominion over the Four Elements.
Achieving all
that is implied in these terms, “his warfare is accomplished,” he
is free of
Matter, and will never again have a phenomenal body.
20. He who
shall attain to this perfection must be one who is without fear and
without
desire, save towards God; who has courage to be absolutely poor and
absolutely
chaste; to whom it is all one whether he have money or whether he
have none,
whether he have house and lands or whether he be homeless, whether he
have worldly
reputation or whether he be an outcast. Thus is he voluntarily
poor, and of
the spirit of those of whom it is said that they inherit the
kingdom of
heaven. It is not necessary that he has nothing; it is necessary only
that he care
for nothing. Against attacks and influences of whatever kind, and
coming from
whatever quarter without his own soul’s kingdom, he must impregnably
steel
himself. If misfortune be his, he must make it his fortune; if poverty, he
must make it
his riches; if loss, his gain; if sickness, his health; if pain,
his pleasure.
Evil report must be to him good report; and he must be able to
rejoice when
all men speak ill of him. Even death itself he must account as
life. Only
when he has attained this equilibrium is he “Free.” Meanwhile he
makes
Abstinence, Prayer, Meditation, Watchfulness and Self-restraint to be the
decades of
his Rosary. And knowing that nothing is gained without toil, or won
without
suffering, he acts ever on the principle that to labor is to pray, to
ask is to
receive, to knock is to have the door open, and so strives
accordingly.
21. To gain
power over Death, there must be self-denial and governance. Such is
the
“Excellent Way,” though it be the Via Dolorosa. He only can follow it who
accounts the
Resurrection worth the Passion, the Kingdom worth the Obedience,
the Power
worth the Suffering. And he, and he only, does not hesitate, whose
time has
come.
22. The last
of the “Twelve Labors of Heracles “ is the conquest of the
three-headed
dog, Cerberus. For by this is denoted the final victory over the
body with its
three (true) senses. When this is accomplished, the process of
ordeal is no
longer necessary. The Initiate is under a vow. The Hierarch is
free. He has
undergone all his ordeals, and has freed his will. For the object
of the Trial
and the Vow is Polarization. When the Fixed is Volatilized, the
Magian is
Free. Before this, he is “subject.”
23. The man
who seeks to be a Hierarch must not dwell in cities. He may begin
his
initiation in a city, but he cannot complete it there. For he must not
breathe dead
and burnt air, – air, that is, the vitality of which is quenched.
He must be a
wanderer, a dweller in the plain and the garden and the mountains.
He must
commune with the starry heavens, and maintain direct contact with the
great
electric currents of living air and with the unpaved grass and earth of
the planet,
going barefoot and oft bathing his feet. It is in unfrequented
places, in
lands such as are mystically called the “East,” where the
abominations
of “Babylon” are unknown, and where the magnetic chain between
earth and
heaven is strong, that the man who seeks Power, and who would achieve
the “Great
Work,” must accomplish his initiation.
PART III
24. IN
assigning to the Gospels their proper meaning, it is necessary to
remember
that, as mystical Scriptures, they deal primarily, not with material
things or
persons, but with spiritual significations. Like the “books of Moses,”
therefore,
and others which, in being mystical, are, in the strictest sense,
prophetical,
the Gospels are addressed, not to the outer sense and reason, but
to the soul.
And, being thus, their object is not to give an historical account
of the
physical life of any man whatever, but to exhibit the spiritual
possibilities
of humanity at large, as illustrated in a particular and typical
example. The
design is, thus, that which is dictated by the nature itself of
Religion. For
Religion is not in its nature historical and dependent upon
actual,
sensible, events, but consists in processes, such as Faith and
Redemption,
which, being interior to all men, subsist irrespectively of what any
particular
man has at any time suffered or done. That alone which is of
importance,
is what God has revealed. And therefore it is that the narratives
concerning
Jesus are rather parables founded on a collection of histories, than
any one
actual history, and have a spiritual import capable of universal
application.
And it is with this spiritual import, and not with physical facts,
that the
Gospels are concerned.
25. Such were
the principles which, long before the Christian era, and under
divine
control, had led the Mystics of Egypt, Persia, and India to select
Osiris,
Mithras, and Buddha as names or persons representative of the Man
Regenerate
and constituting a full manifestation of the qualities of Spirit. And
it was for
the same purpose and under the same impulsion that the Mystics of the
West, who had
their headquarters at Alexandria, selected Jesus, using him as a
type whereby
to exhibit the history of all souls which attain to perfection;
employing
physical occurrences as symbols, and relating them as parables, to
interpret
which literally would be to falsify their intended import. Their
method was,
thus, to universalize that which was particular, and to spiritualize
that which
was material; and, writing, as they did, with full knowledge of
previous
mystical descriptions of the Man Regenerate, his interior history and
his relations
to the world, – notable among which descriptions was the
fifty-third
chapter of the miscellaneous, fragmentary, prophetic utterances
collected
together under the typical name of Isaiah, – they would have had no
difficulty in
presenting a character consistent with the general anticipation of
those who
were cognizant of the meaning of the term “Christ,” even without an
actual
example.
26. The
failure to interpret the mystical Scriptures by the mystical rule, was
due to the
loss, by the Church, of the mystical faculty, or inner, spiritual
Vision,
through which they were written. Passing under a domination exclusively
sacerdotal
and traditional, and losing thereby the intuition of things
spiritual,
the Church fell an easy prey to that which is the besetting sin of
priesthoods,
– Idolatry; and in place of the simple, true, reasonable Gospel, to
illustrate
which the history of Jesus had been expressly designed, fabricated
the
stupendous and irrational superstition which has usurped his name. Converted
by the
exaltation of the Letter and the symbol in place of the Spirit and the
signification,
into an idolatry every whit as gross as any that preceded it,
Christianity
has failed to redeem the world. Christianity has failed, that is,
not because
it was false, but because it has been falsified. And the
falsification,
generally, has consisted in removing the character described
under the
name Jesus, from its true function as the portrait of that of which
every man has
in him the potentiality, and referring it exclusively to an
imaginary
order of being between whom and man could be no possible relation,
even were
such a being himself possible. Instead of recognizing the Gospels as a
written hieroglyph,
setting forth, under terms derived from natural objects and
persons,
processes which are purely spiritual and impersonal, the Churches have
– one and all
– fallen into that lowest mode of fetish worship which consists in
the adoration
of a mere symbol, entirely irrespective of its true import. To the
complaint
that will inevitably be made against this exposition of the real
nature of the
Gospel history, – that it has “taken away the Lord,” – the reply
is no less
satisfactory than obvious. For he has been taken away only from the
place wherein
so long the Church has kept him, that is, – the sepulchre. There,
indeed, it
is, with the dead, – bound about with cerements, a figure altogether
of the past,
– that Christians have laid their Christ. But at length the “stone”
of
Superstition has been lifted and rolled away by the hand of the Angel of
Knowledge,
and the grave it concealed is discovered to be empty. No longer need
the soul seek
her living Master among the dead. Christ is risen, – risen into
the heaven of
a living Ideal, whence he can again descend into the hearts of all
who desire
him, none the less real and puissant, because a spiritual and not
merely an
historic personage; none the less mighty to save because, instead of
being a
single Man Regenerate, he is every Man Regenerate, ten thousand times
ten thousand,
– the “Son of Man” himself.
27. The true
design and method of the Gospels, together with the process of
their
degradation, become clear in proportion as the nature of their real
subject – the
Man Regenerate – is understood. In dealing with this we are met at
the outset by
an example of perversion, one of the most conspicuous and
disastrous in
the whole history of religion. This is the perversion of the
doctrine of the
“Incarnation.” Of this doctrine the original basis was a
prophecy – or
declaration of universal import founded in the nature of existence
– of the
means whereby, both as race and as individual, man is redeemed. Born
originally of
Matter and subject to the limitations of Matter, Man, according to
this
prophecy, is redeemed, and made superior to those limitations, by being
reborn of
Spirit, a process by which he is converted from a phenomenal into a
substantial being,
one in nature with original Deity, and having, therefore, in
himself the
power of life eternal. Of this perfected man the foster-father is
always that
which, spiritually, is called Egypt – the body or Matter, and, by
derivation,
the Intellect, or reason of the merely earthly mind – the mystic
name of which
is always “Joseph.” On his first appearance in the drama of the
soul, as set
forth in the Bible, this Joseph is represented as a youth already
sufficiently
developed, in his affectional nature, to return good for evil and
to succor his
kindred; in his intellectual nature, to fill with credit posts of
responsibility
and to secure the confidence of his sovereign; and in his moral
nature, to
resist the seductions of the world. He is, thus, a type of the
philosophical
element, both in itself and in its relations with the State; and a
representative
of the rising Hebrew Mysteries. In the Gospels he reappears –
like Egypt
itself – aged and past the glories of his prime. And he is
represented as
the adoptive father only of the Man Regenerate, because this last
is really the
product, not of the mind, but of the soul; not of “Egypt,” but of
“Israel;” not
of the “man” Intellect, but of the “woman” Intuition, being
“begotten”
through her, not by any physical process, but by Divine spiritual
operation.
Nevertheless he has the benefit of the wisdom and knowledge of his
“foster-father,”
for he is instructed in the sacred Mysteries of Egypt, which
are, indeed,
one with those of Israel, only first of Egypt, – a priority
denoting the
precedence, in point of time, of the development of the intellect
over that of
the intuition. In representing Joseph as the foster-father only,
and not the
real father, the parable implies that man, when regenerate, is so
exclusively
under the influence of his soul, or Mother, as to have but a slender
connection
with his external part, using it only for shelter and nourishment,
and such
other purposes as may minister to the soul’s welfare.
28. He who
would redeem and save others, must first be himself redeemed and
saved. The
Man Regenerate, therefore, first saves himself, by becoming
regenerate.
He receives, accordingly, a name expressive of this function. For,
of Jesus one
of the significations is Liberator. This name is given, not on the
birth of the
man physical, nor to the man physical, – of whose birth and name
the Gospels
take no note, – but to the man spiritual, on his initiation, or new
birth from
the material to the spiritual plane. And it is the name, not of a
person, but
of an Order, the Order of all those who – being regenerate and
attaining
perfection – find, and are called, “Christ Jesus.” (As see Eph. iii.
15.)
29. Of the
miracles worked by the Regenerate Man, some are on the physical, some
on the
spiritual plane; for, being himself regenerate in all, he is master of
the spirits
of all the elements. But while the terms in which the Miracles are
described are
uniformly derived from the physical plane, the true value and
significance
of these Miracles are spiritual. That, for example, known as the
Raising of
Lazarus, is altogether a parable, being constructed on lines rigidly
astronomical,
and having an application purely spiritual. To a like category
belongs also
the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. For the “loaves”
given to the
multitude represent the general doctrine of the lesser Mysteries,
whose “grain”
is of the Earth, the kingdom of Demeter, and of the outer; and the
“fishes” –
given after the loaves – denote the greater Mysteries, those of
Aphrodite, –
fishes symbolizing the element of the sea-born Queen of Love, and
her dominion,
the inner kingdom of the soul. It may be noted in this relation
that the
Gospels represent their typical Man as at first speaking explicitly to
the people,
but afterwards, warned by experience, addressing them in parables
only. Of the
Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, also, notwithstanding
that these
have a physical correspondence, the signification intended to he
enforced, and
which alone is valuable, is spiritual. Wherefore the Gospel
narrative,
though told as of an actual particular person, is a mystical history
only of any
person, and implies the spiritual possibilities of all persons. And,
being thus,
it represents, designedly, that which is general rather than that
which is
particular, and makes no pretence to an accuracy which is merely
historical,
the object being not to relate facts, but to illustrate doctrines.
30. There is,
moreover, a yet further explanation of the indifference to
identity of
detail by which everywhere this narrative is characterized. Being
four in
number, and disposed in order corresponding to that of the four
divisions of
man’s nature, the Gospels have for standpoint, and bear relation
to, different
regions of existence. Thus, the Gospel of Matthew, which
represents
the lower and physical plane, appeals more particularly on behalf of
the character
ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth as fulfilling the promises of the
Messiah of
the Old Testament, and is pervaded by one principle, the fulfillment
in him at
once of the Law and of the prophecies. The Gospel of Mark is adapted
to the plane
next above this, namely, the rational; its appeal on behalf of the
divinity of
the mission of Jesus, being founded on the nature of his doctrine
and works.
The Gospel of Luke represents the further ascent to the plane of the
soul and the
intuition. Hence it occupies itself chiefly with accounts of the
spiritual parentage
of the Man Regenerate, – setting forth under a parabolic
narrative his
genesis from the operation of God in a pure soul. To the same end,
this Gospel
gives prominence to the familiar conversations, rather than to the
formal
teaching of its Subject, since it is in these that the affectional nature
of a man is
best manifested. In the Fourth Gospel the scene changes to a sphere
transcending
all the others, being in the highest degree interior, mystic,
spiritual.
This Gospel, therefore, corresponds to the Nucleolus, or Divine
Spirit, of
the microcosmic entity, and exhibits the Regenerate Man as having
surmounted
all the elements exterior and inferior of his system, and won his way
to the inmost
recess of his own celestial kingdom, where, arrived at his centre
and source,
he and his Father are One; and he knows positively that God is Love,
since it is
by Love that he himself has found and become God. Such being the
controlling
idea of this Gospel, its composition is appropriately assigned to
that “Beloved
Disciple” whose very name denotes the feminine and love principle
of existence.
And to “John,” surnamed “the Divine” in respect of the character
thus ascribed
to his ministry, is unanimously assigned the emblem of the Eagle,
as representing
the highest element in the human kingdom. With regard to the
distribution
of the other three symbols, it is obvious – when once the intention
of each
division of the Christian evangel is understood – that Matthew, who
corresponds
to the earth or body, is rightly represented by the Ox; Mark, the
minister of
the astral or fire, by the Lion; and Luke, whose pen is chiefly
occupied with
the relation of Christ to the Soul, by and Angel with the face of
a man to
denote the sea-god Poseidon, the “father of Souls.” The Gospels are
thus
dedicated, each to one of the elemental spirits, Demeter, Hephaistos,
Poseidon, and
Pallas. Owing, however, to the loss by the Church of the doctrine
which
determines this distribution, much confusion and difference of opinion
exist among
ecclesiastical authorities with regard to the correct assignment of
the elemental
emblems. All the Fathers are agreed in giving the Eagle to the
Fourth
Golpeller, and but little doubt exists respecting the claim of Mark to
the Lion; but
the Ox and Angel have been generally misplaced in order.
PART IV
31. IN every
part of the world of antiquity exist memorials of the Sacred
Mysteries and
tokens of the ceremonials which accompanied initiation into them.
The scene of
these ceremonials was generally a subterranean labyrinth, natural
or
artificial, the object being to symbolize the several acts in the Drama of
Regeneration
as occurring in the interior and secret recesses of man’s being.
The Catacombs
of Rome, used for similar purposes by the early Christians, were
suggestive of
the same idea, though this was not the immediate motive for the
selection of
such a retreat to be the home of the infant Church. And explorers
of the
passages under the Great Temple of Edfou relate how, after traversing
with extreme
difficulty a tunnel thirty inches high and forty-two inches wide,
they emerge
into a large hall adorned with a profusion of sacred paintings and
hieroglyphs.
Similar excavations have been found at Hermione in Greece, Nauplia,
Gadara,
Ptelion, Phyle, and other places. And all accounts agree in stating that
the
Mysteries, were variously celebrated in pyramids, pagodas, and labyrinths
which were
furnished with vaulted rooms, extensive wings, open and spacious
galleries, and
numerous secret caverns, passages, and vistas, terminating in
mysterious
adyta. And in describing a catacomb in Upper Egypt, called Biban el
Moluk,
Belzoni mentions an alabaster chest deposited therein, which, though
surmised by
him to have been intended as a sarcophagus, resembled rather the
coffers used
in the religious celebration for which such labyrinths were
designed.
Similar constructions, of vast antiquity, abound in Upper Egypt, and
bear in their
hieroglyphical remains indications of having been meant for
similar
purposes. The story of the Labyrinth at Crete, and the Minotaur who,
until finally
subdued by Theseus, devoured those who entered therein, is a
parable of
the Mysteries and the dangerous nature of the ordeals to be
encountered
by candidates for initiation.
32. But of
all existing memorials of these institutions, the most wonderful is
that known as
the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, the formative idea of purpose of which
has for ages
baffled inquirers. This artificial mountain of stone is, however,
no other than
a religious symbol setting forth in its every detail from base to
apex the
method of that which constitutes the title and subject of these
lectures,
namely the Perfect Way and The Finding of Christ. Outwardly, its form
denotes the
ascent of the soul, as a flame ever aspiring from the material plane
to union with
the Divine, and attaining this union through Christ, who, as “the
Headstone of
the corner,” is symbolized by the topmost point of the pyramid, and
in whom, as
the culmination, completion, and perfection of the whole creation,
the earthly
is “taken up” into the heavenly, or existence into pure Being. The
successive
layers of stone form a series of steps from the base to the summit,
and represent
the various stages of the soul’s upward progress in its ascent of
the “hill of
the Lord;” – an idea expressed by Peter when he writes, – “Be ye
also as
living stones built up a spiritual house, acceptable to God by Christ
Jesus. As it
is said, Behold I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone, elect and
precious.”
Similarly, Paul says, – “Christ Jesus himself is the chief
cornerstone,
in whom all the building being fitly framed together, groweth up
into an holy
temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are built together, into an
habitation of
God in the Spirit.” Thus is the whole intention of Creation, from
its lowest to
his highest plane, recognized as finding its fulfillment and
realization
in the headstone which is at once the Christos and the Chrestos, the
“Anointed “
and the “Best,” being Anointed because the Best, and the Best
because the
Anointed. In being, moreover, four-sided like the Heavenly city of
the
Apocalypse, and culminating in respect of each side in an angle, the Pyramid
denotes the
fourfold nature at once of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, and the
final
assumption of each kingdom of Nature, through Evolution into the
At-one-ment
of Christ. [ The statement of Manetho and Herodotus, that this
pyramid was
built by the Egyptians under compulsion of a foreign and hated
people who
obtained temporary dominion over them, may be regarded as due to a
literal
acceptation of some mystical legend intended to imply that it was built
by Egypt’s
body or State at the dictation of Egypt’s soul or Church, by the
physical
element, that is, of the country, in obedience to the spiritual
element, and
as a monument in illustration of the power of the soul over the
body, and of
Spirit working in Matter.]
33.
Interiorly, the Pyramid is designed to illustrate, both in character and in
duration, the
various stages of the soul’s history, from her first immergence in
Matter to her
final triumphant release and return to Spirit. In this view was
constructed
the complicated system of shafts, passages, and chambers recently
described and
drawn after researches involving extraordinary toil, skill, and
care, by
Professor Piazzi Smyth. Of the two shafts, one, whereby the light from
without
enters the edifice, points directly to the Pole star at its lower
culmination
2,500 BC, the date given as that of the erection of the Pyramid. By
this is
indicated the idea of the soul as a ray proceeding from God as the
Pole-star and
source of all things, whose Seven Spirits – like the seven stars
of the
constellation called by us the Great Bear, but by the Mystics of old,
more
significantly, the Sheepfold – keep watch and ward over the universe, yet
ever indicate
the Supreme. Of this shaft the opposite extremity terminates in a
pit lying
below the centre of the Pyramid. Constituting the only portion of the
whole
structure which is unpaved, this pit represents the bottomless abyss of
negation,
and, consequently, final destruction. Descending thither, the ray
would become
extinguished; and such is the fate of the soul which, entering into
Matter,
persists in a downward course. The pyramid, however, is designed
expressly to
represent the way of salvation; and it accordingly provides a
passage
turning out of that just described, and leading upwards towards the
centre of the
edifice, just beyond which centre lies the principal apartment,
which is
called the “King’s Chamber.” This is reached by a series of passages,
steep, narrow
intricate, and in some parts so contracted in dimensions as to
compel the
explorer to traverse them on his hands and knees. Such peculiarities
of
construction, involving an exercise of great ingenuity, skill, and labor
could not, it
is obvious, have been introduced into a structure intended, as
some have
suggested, as a granary or as a tomb. The “King’s Chamber,” which
terminates
the series, is a large vaulted apartment having six roofs or
ceilings,
composed in all of seven stones, placed one above another, the two
topmost
stones forming an angle. In the centre of this chamber is a coffer,
hollowed out
of a single stone, and representing in its proportions and
dimensions
the idea thus expressed in the Epistle to the Ephesians: – “When we
all meet in
the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” In a
coffer such
as this, the candidate who had successfully encountered all the
ordeals
symbolized in the passages of the pyramid, was, at his final initiation,
laid as a
corpse in a sarcophagus. And the Initiator, who presided on the
occasion, was
a woman – a priestess – who was called the “Mother,” and who acted
as the
sponsor representative of Isis, the universal soul and intuition of
Humanity. By
this funeral ceremony was denoted the death of the candidate to
things merely
material and sensible, and his attainment of the grade of a Man
Regenerate.
It has its continuance and correspondence in the rite whereby, in
the Catholic
Church, candidates for reception into the “religious” life make
final
profession of the vows which sever them from the world. This burial
concluded, as
still in the Catholic Church, by the “rising from the dead” of the
candidate,
who, having quitted the tomb, was invested with the insignia of his
new
condition, and received the “new “ or “religious” name, bestowed by the
Sponsor. This
name in the Egyptian and allied Mysteries, was Issa, the son, by
initiation,
of Isis, and therein child of the Soul, and “Seed of the Woman”.
Thus was
symbolized the gift of eternal life through Christ, the second or new
birth of the
Man Regenerate, attained only by gradual and painful processes of
ascent,
extending over many lives, and requiring for their accomplishment desire
so fervent,
perseverance so great, and courage so indomitable, as not only to
deter many of
the candidates at the outset but to turn some, even when far
advanced. It
is manifestly from the details of this ceremonial, with which, as
an
“Initiate,” the Jesus of the Gospels was familiar, that was derived his
allusion to
the “Second Birth,” and the idea expressed in the warning: “Strait
is the gate
and narrow is the way that leadeth unto Life, and few there be that
find it.”
34. Such was
the mode whereby was accomplished initiation into those greater
Mysteries of
which the culminating stage was termed the Ascension. The lesser
Mysteries,
the “acts” of which were designated the Baptism or Betrothal, the
Temptation or
Trial, and the Passion, are symbolized in the great pyramid by the
apartment
called the Queen’s Chamber. This is situated considerably below the
King’s
Chamber and in the northern section of the building; and is reached by a
level
passage, at the commencement of which is a precipitous chasm, having for
bottom the
pit already described, and betokening the fate of those who fail to
become
regenerate, and consequently the danger escaped by those who have
attained
initiation into things spiritual. The Queen’s chamber serves also as
the “Banqueting
Hall,” wherein, after his accomplishment of the three acts
named, the
candidate celebrates the “Solemnization.” He is then qualified to
proceed to
the greater Mysteries of which the final scene is the “King’s
Chamber.”
This, as already said, is placed at the extreme summit of the
passages, and
beyond the centre of the Pyramid; and its purpose is to symbolize
that kingdom
of heaven which the Initiate attains by what is called the Divine
Marriage, an
act which separates him altogether from his life of the past. The
six
superposed beams which compose the ceiling of this chamber denote the “six
crowns” of
the Man Regenerate, that is, the six acts or stages of initiation, of
which three
appertain to the lesser and three to the greater Mysteries. These
“crowns,”
therefore, are Baptism, Temptation, Passion, Burial, Resurrection, and
Ascension. Of
all these the ultimate object is that full and complete Redemption
which, by its
realization of the soul’s supreme felicity, is termed the
“Marriage of
the Son of God.” And in the second shaft passing upwards through
the pyramid,
from the topmost point of the last gallery, and pointing in one
direction to
the coffer in the King’s Chamber, and in the other direction to the
Pole-star at
it greatest altitude, may be seen symbolized the return to God of
the soul,
perfected and triumphant, on her final release from Matter. So that by
the two
pole-star-pointing shafts are typified respectively the forces
centrifugal
and centripetal, the Will and the Love, from the operation of which
proceed
Creation and Redemption. (Fig. 3.)
35. Between
the “Resurrection” and “Ascension” of the Man Regenerate, is an
interval
which – in accordance with the mystical system of making all dates
which relate
to the soul’s history coincide with the corresponding solar periods
– is termed
“Forty Days.” The actual length of the period, however, is dependent
upon
individual circumstance. The New Testament contains nothing in compatible
with the
suggestion that Jesus may have lived on the earth for many years after
his
“Resurrection,” and was therefore still in the body when seen of Paul. For
that which
occurs at the expiration of this cycle is not a quittance of the
earth in the
physical sense ordinarily supposed, but the complete withdrawal of
the man into
his own interior and celestial region. The Spirit attains the
Sabbath of
perfection only by attaining Rest or Quiescence; and to this Sabbath
– or Nirvana
– the Man Regenerate necessarily attains, sooner or later, after
his
“Crucifixion” and “Resurrection;” and the attainment of it constitutes his
“Ascension.”
There are then no longer two wills. The man has “ascended to his
Father,” and
he and God are One. Henceforth he is Lord of his own microcosmic
universe,
having the “kingdom, the power, and the glory” thereof. And all things
in “heaven”
and on “earth” are subject to him. “He hath put all things under his
feet, that
God may be all in all.”
36. But
although the true signification of the Gospel narrative of the Ascension
is spiritual
only, the process of Redemption is not without its physical
results; for
every faculty is enhanced thereby to the degree ordinarily deemed
“miraculous,”
rendering the Subject clairvoyant and clairaudient, enabling him
to impart
health and recall life by the touch or by the will, to project himself
in visible
form through material obstructions, and to withdraw himself from
sight at
will. And not only is disease eliminated from and rendered impossible
to his
system, but his organism becomes so highly refined and vitalized that
wounds,
however severe, heal by first intention and even instantaneously. So
that, if only
for this reason, it is quite impossible that the Gospels should
have intended
to represent their typical regenerate man as dying, in a physical
sense, of the
injuries described by them as received on the cross.
37. By the
Crucifixion of the Man Regenerate is denoted no physical or brief
exterior act,
but the culmination of a prolonged Passion, and its termination in
the complete
surrender of the soul. And this arrival of the “last hour” of the
earthly man,
or old Adam, is symbolized by the action of tasting the very dregs
and lees of
the cup of suffering, – the soul’s experience, that is, of the
limitations
of existence. Accordingly it is written: – “Jesus, knowing that all
things were
accomplished, said, I thirst. And they put a sponge full of vinegar
upon a reed,
and gave him to drink. Jesus, then, when he had tasted the vinegar,
said, It is
consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.” By this
exclamation
is announced the emptying of that cup of spiritual bitterness which
may not pass
from the Christ until the dregs even be consumed. This selfsame cup
it is, of
which the symbol, fixed on the summit of a reed, was borne in the hand
of an
attendant priestess at the ceremony of final initiation as practiced in
the
Mysteries.
38. By this
cup is represented the chalice of Existence or Incarnation, wherein
is contained
that Substantial Water, or Soul, which by the “marriage” of the
will of the
man with the Will of God, becomes the Wine of the holy Sacrament, or
Communion
with God. The Reed which supports this Cup is the universal rod or
Staff which
so constantly recurs in Hermetic Scriptures, and is at once the rod
of Moses, the
wand of the Magician, the sceptre of the King, the reed of the
Angel, the
rod of Joseph that flowers, and the caduceus of Hermes himself. For
it is the
symbol of Force, the Line, or Jod, by which is typified alike the
creative act
of projection into Matter and individualization thereby and the
energy of the
will – inflexible and undivided – through which the return to
Spirit is
accomplished and salvation achieved. Of these cup-surmounted reeds the
bearers, in
the Greek Mysteries, were called Canephorae, or reed bearers. And
the
corresponding celebration in the Gospels is appropriately described as
occurring at
Cana of Galilee, where, as may be gathered from Josephus, was a
cave of
initiation. The nature of the occasion depicted in Fig. 9 is further
denoted by
the symbol carried in the right hand, both of the priestess and of
the
candidate. This is the Crux ansata, or handled cross, called the Cross of
Osiris, and
already referred to as an indispensable emblem in all religious
ceremonials,
in that, combining the cross with the circle, it denotes
Renunciation
as the means whereby Eternal Life, the object of initiation, is
attained.
This symbol it was which, transferred to Christian hands, became the
model of the
Papal Keys of the kingdom of heaven; while, mounted on four steps,
or traversed
by four bars, it indicated also the fourfold nature of the
existence to
be comprehended by those who would attain to perfection. The
character of
this perfection is, moreover, symbolized in the cross, in that,
being formed
of two transverse beams, it portrays the at-one-ment between the
divine and
human wills. The “new-born” is represented as overshadowed by a dove
– emblem of
the Holy Spirit – as is the Man Regenerate of the Gospels at his
baptism of
initiation. The two figures on either side of the candidate are,
respectively,
the male representative of Thoth or Hermes, wearing the ram’s
horns –
emblematic of Intelligence; and the female representative of Isis, the
initiating
priestess, bearing the Rosary of the Five wounds or Decades already
mentioned. By
the presence of these two, as representatives of the Intellect and
the
Intuition, is denoted the absolute necessity to the individual of perfecting
himself alike
in both regions – the masculine and feminine – of his nature, so
that by tile
coequal unfoldment of head and heart he may attain to the stature
of the whole
humanity. It is the man thus complete and become, spiritually, man
and woman in
one, that, primarily is typified by the Greeks under the dual form
of
Hermaphroditus, the joint child, as his name denotes, of Intelligence and
Love.
39. As the last
substance tasted by the Regenerate Man of the Gospels before his
death on the
cross, is the “vinegar” of the exhausted Chalice of the Passion, so
the first
food partaken by him after his resurrection is “fish,” to which some
add “an
honeycomb”. By these is symbolized the commencement of the new life
inaugurated
by the greater Mysteries. For the fish, as already stated, is the
symbol of
Water, and therein of the Soul, its Greek name being the monogram of
the Christ
and the tessera of redemption. And the honey, uniting sweetness of
taste with
the color of gold, and contained in the six-sided cell on “cup” of
the comb,
typifying the six acts of the Mysteries, – is the familiar emblem of
the Land of
Promise “beyond Jordan,” to which only the Man Risen can attain.
For, as the
River of Egypt denotes the Body, and the Euphrates the Spirit, – the
redeemed man
being promised the dominion of the whole region contained within
these
(Genesis xv, 18.) – so the Hiddekel, the Ganges, and the Jordan, in the
mystical
systems of their respective countries, denote the Soul, and constitute
the boundary
between “the wilderness” of the Material, and the “Garden” of the
Spirit.
40. It is in
Jordan, therefore, that the Man Regenerate of the Gospels
celebrates
the first scene of that supreme act, his spiritual marriage – the
Betrothal or
initiatory purification by baptism. On this occasion the Divine
Spirit
announces to him his Sonship; and thenceforth he knows himself divine.
The second
scene is the Solemnization, which is celebrated on the “third day,”
at the Cana
of Galilee already mentioned, in the “banqueting hall” of the
Mysteries.
The whole narrative is constructed on astronomical lines, and in its
exterior
sense denotes the ripening of the grape and arrival of the vintage
season in the
month which follows the “assumption” of the constellation Virgo.
For then the
Sun, or emblem of the Man Regenerate, transmutes the watery element
into wine.
And this process, though prompted, as it were, by the genius of
August,
cannot be accomplished save by the genius of September; hence the
remonstrance
represented as addressed by Jesus to his “Mother.” The time of
vintage was
“not yet come.” The mysteries represented on this occasion are those
of Bacchus
whose mystic name is Iacchos. And it is the more interior mysteries
of Iacchos
which really are implied in the parable. For the “beginning of
miracles” for
the Man Regenerate is always the transmutation of the “Water” of
his own Soul
into the “Wine” of the Divine Spirit. And the impelling influence
under which
the change is effected, is always the “woman” in the man, his own
pure
intuition, who is the “virgin Mother of God” within himself.
41. The third
and final scene of the “Marriage” belongs to the greater
Mysteries.
The “Crucifixion” is the last stage of the lesser Mysteries, and
closes
initiation into them. Immediately on “giving up the ghost,” – or
renouncing altogether
the lower life, – the Christ “enters into his kingdom;”
and “the veil
of the Temple is rent from the top to the bottom.” For this veil
is that which
divides the Covered Place from the Holy of Holies; and by its
rending is
denoted the passage of the individual within the kingdom of God, or
of the soul,
– typified by the King’s Chamber. The first three acts – the
Baptism or
Betrothal, the Temptation or Trial, and the Passion or Renunciation –
belong to the
Mysteries of the Rational Humanity as distinguished from those of
the Spiritual
Humanity. The last three acts – the Burial, the Resurrection, and
the Ascension
– belong to the greater Mysteries of the Soul and Spirit, the
Spirit being
the central Lord, King, and Adonai of the system, and the “Spouse”
of the Bride
or Soul. These Mysteries, therefore, belong to the “kingdom of
God,” and are
performed in the “King’s Chamber,” that is to say, within the veil
and in the
holy of Holies. The hour of the “Death” which follows the
“Crucifixion”
witnesses the passage of this veil; and the exclamation
“Consummatum
est” – uttered at this “ninth hour” of “the twelve in which man may
work” in the
process of regeneration – signifies that at length the Kingdom is
entered, the
King’s Chamber attained, the conflict of the Soul crowned with
victory. The
seventh and concluding act of the whole process follows the
accomplishment
of the three stages of the greater Mysteries of the King or
Spirit, and
is called the “Consummation of the Marriage of the Son of God.” In
this act the
“King” and “Queen,” “Spirit and Bride,” and are indissolubly
united; the
Man becomes pure Spirit; and the Human is finally taken up into the
Divine.
PART V
42. IT was no
part of the design of the Gospels to represent either the course
of a man
perfect from the first, or the whole course from the first of the man
made perfect.
Had they been designed to represent the former, they had contained
no account of
a Crucifixion. For, of the man perfect, no crucifixion, in the
Mystical
sense, is possible, since he has no lower self or perverse will, or any
weakness, to
be overcome or renounced, the anima divina in him having become all
in all. That,
therefore, which the Gospels exhibit, is a process consisting of
the several degrees
of regeneration, on the attainment of the last of which only
does the man
become “perfect.” But of these successive degrees not all are
indicated.
For the Gospels deal, not with one whose nature is, at first wholly
unregenerate,
but with one who is already, in virtue of the use made of his
previous
earth-lives, so far advanced as to be within reach, in a single further
incarnation,
of full regeneration.
43. For,
owing to the complex and manifold nature of existence, every sphere or
plane of man’s
being requires for itself a redemptive process; and, for each,
this process
consists of three degrees. Of these the first three relate to the
Body, the
second three to the Mind, the third three to the Heart, and the fourth
three to the
Spirit. There are thus, in all, twelve Degrees or “Houses” of the
Perfect Man
or Microcosm, as there are Twelve Zodiacal Signs or Mansions of the
Sun in his
course through the heavens of the Macrocosm. And the Gospels set
forth mainly
the six of the Heart and Spirit. The crown both of the twelve
degrees and
of the six acts, – that which constitutes alike the “Sabbath” of the
Hebrews, the
“Nirvana” of the Buddhists, and the “Transmutation” of the
Alchemists, –
is the “Divine Marriage.” Of this, accordingly, types and parables
recur
continually in all Hermetic Scriptures. The last book of the Bible, the
Apocalypse of
John, fitly closes with a descriptive allegory of it. In this
allegory the
“Bride” herself is described as Salem, the Peace, or Rest, of God,
a “city lying
four-square,” having Twelve Foundations, and Four Aspects, all
equal to each
other, and upon every Aspect Three Gates. This heavenly Salem is,
thus, the
perfected Microcosm in whom is seen the At-one-ment of all the four
planes, the
physical, the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual; the
“Gates” of
each side, or plane, symbolizing the three degrees of Regeneration
appertaining
to each. And these twelve gates are described as being each of a
single pearl,
because, like pearls, the excellences denoted by them are
attainable
only through skill and courage, and devotion even to the death, and
require of
those who would attain them the divestment of every earthly
encumbrance.
44. The idea
of this heavenly Salem is expressed also in the Tabernacle of
Moses. For
this, too, was fourfold. The Outer Court, which was open, denoted the
Body or Man
physical and visible; the covered Tent, or Holy place, denoted the
Man
intellectual and invisible; and the Holy of Holies within the veil, denoted
the Heart or
Soul, itself the shrine of the Spirit of the man and of the divine
Glory, which,
in their turn, were typified by the Ark and Shekinah. And in each
of the four
Depositaries were three utensils illustrative of the regenerative
degrees
belonging to each. (Fig. 2) The Marriage Supper, then, can he celebrated
in the
Kingdom of the Father only, when all the “Twelve Apostles,” or elements
corresponding
to the twelve degrees, have been brought into perfect harmony and
at-one-ment,
and no defective element any longer exists among them. In the
central place
at this divine feast is the Thirteenth Personage, the Master or
Adonai of the
system, the founder and president of the banquet. He it is who in
later times
found a representative in the pure and heaven-born Arthur – Ar-Thor
– the “Bright
Lord” of the Round Table. For, as already stated, the number of
the Microcosm
is thirteen, the thirteenth being the occupant of the interior and
fourth place,
which, thus, he personifies, constituting the fourth and
completing
element, the Nucleolus of the whole cell or “Round Table.” “And of
this Fourth
the form is as the Son of God.” Thus the number thirteen, which on
the earthly
plane, and before the “Crucifixion,” is, through the treachery of
“Judas,” the
symbol of imperfection and ill fortune, becomes, in the “Kingdom of
the Father,”
the symbol of perfection. As the number of the lunar months, it is
the symbol
also of the Woman, and denotes the Soul and her reflection of God, –
the solar
number twelve being that of the Spirit. The two numbers in combination
form the
perfect year of that dual humanity which alone is made in the image of
God, the true
“Christian year,” wherein the two, – the inner and the outer,
Spirit and
Matter, – are as one. Thirteen then represents that full union of man
with God
wherein Christ becomes Christ.
45. In
representing the Regenerate Man as descended through his parents from the
house of
David and the tribe of Levi, the Gospels imply that man, when
regenerate is
always possessed of the intuition of the true prophet, and the
purity of the
true priest, for whom “David” and “Levi” are the mystical
synonyms.
Thus the spiritual blood of prophet, priest, and king mingles in the
veins of the
Messiah and Christ, whose lineage is the spiritual lineage of every
man
regenerate, and attainable by all men.
46. For, as
cannot be too clearly and forcibly stated, between the man who
becomes a
Christ, and other men, there is no difference whatever of kind. The
difference is
alone of condition and degree, and consists in difference of
unfoldment of
the spiritual nature possessed by all in virtue of their common
derivation.
“All things,” as has repeatedly been said, “are made of the divine
Substance.”
And Humanity represents a stream which, taking its rise in the
outermost and
lowest mode of differentiation of that Substance, flows inwards
and upwards
to the highest, which is God. And the point at which it reaches the
celestial,
and empties itself into Deity, is “Christ.” Any doctrine other than
this – any
doctrine which makes the Christ of a different and non-human nature –
is
anti-Christian and subhuman. And, of such doctrine the direct effect is to
cut off man
altogether from access to God and God from access to man.
47. Such a
doctrine is that which representing the Messiah as an incarnated God
or Angel who,
by the voluntary sacrifice of himself saves mankind from the
penalty due
for their sins, has distorted and obscured the true doctrine of
atonement and
redemption into something alike derogatory to God and pernicious
to man.
That from
which man requires to be redeemed is not the penalty of sin, but the
liability to
sin. It is the sin, and not the suffering which is his bane. The
suffering is
but the remedial agent. And from the liability to sin, and
consequently
to suffering, he can be redeemed only by being lifted into a
condition in
which sin is impossible to him. And no angel or third person, but
only the man
himself, co-operating with the God within him, can accomplish this.
Man is,
himself, the laboratory wherein God, as Spirit, works to save him, by
re-creating
him in God’s image. But – as always happens under a control
exclusively
sacerdotal religion has been presented as a way of escape, not from
sin, but from
punishment. With redemption degraded to this unworthy and
mischievous
end, the world has, as was inevitable, gone on sinning, more and
more, and, by
the ever-increasing grossness of its life and thought, sinking
itself deeper
and deeper into Matter, violating persistently on every plane of
existence,
the divine law of existence, until it has lost the very idea of
Humanity, and
– wholly unregenerate in Body, Mind, Heart, and Spirit – has
reached the
lowest depth of degradation compatible with existence. Thus, of
modern
society – as of Israel when reduced, through its own wickedness and folly
to the like
evil plight – it may he said that from the sole of the foot even
unto the
head, there is no soundness in it; but, wounds, and bruises, and
putrefying
sores.” And even though “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart
faint” at the
view of its own hopeless theory of existence, it seeks to “revolt
more and
more” by becoming increasingly pronounced in its denial of Being as a
divine
Reality, and so does its utmost to “bring upon itself swift destruction.”
Such, to eyes
in any degree regenerate, is the spectacle presented by the world
in this “Year
of Grace,” 1881.
48. As it was
no part of tile design of the Gospels to represent the whole
course, of
the Man Regenerate, so neither was it a part of that design to
provide, in
respect of religious life and doctrine, a system whole and complete
independently
of any which had preceded it. Having a special relation to the
Heart and
Spirit of the Man, and thereby to the nucleus of the cell and the Holy
of Holies of
the Tabernacle, Christianity, in its original conception, relegated
the regeneration
of the Mind and Body – the covered House and open Court of the
Tabernacle,
or exterior dualism of the Microcosm – to systems already existent
and widely
known and practiced. These systems were two in number, or rather,
were as two
modes or expressions of the one system, the establishment of which
constituted
the “Message” which preceded Christianity by the cyclical period of
six hundred
years. This was the Message of which the “Angels” were represented
in the Buddha
Gautama and Pythagoras. Of these two nearly contemporary prophets
and
redeemers, the system was, both in doctrine and in practice, essentially one
and the same.
And their relation to the system of Jesus, as its necessary
pioneers and
forerunners, finds recognition in the Gospel under the allegory of
the
Transfiguration. For the forms beheld in this – of Moses and Elias – are the
Hebrew
correspondences of Buddha and Pythagoras. And they are described as
beheld by the
three Apostles in whom respectively are typified the functions
severally
fulfilled by Pythagoras, Buddha, and Jesus; namely, Works,
Understanding,
and Love, or Body, Mind, and Heart. And by their association on
the Mount is
denoted the junction of all three elements, and the completion of
the whole
system comprising them, in Jesus as the representative of the Heart or
Innermost,
and as in a special sense the “beloved Son of God.”
49.
Christianity, then, was introduced into the world with a special relation to
the great
religions of the East, and under the same divine control. And so far
from being
intended as a rival and supplanter of Buddhism, it was the direct and
necessary
sequel to that system; and the two are but parts of one continuous,
harmonious
whole, whereof the later division is but the indispensable supplement
and
complement of the earlier. Buddha and Jesus are, therefore, necessary the
one to the
other; and in the whole system thus completed, Buddha is the Mind,
and Jesus is
the Heart; Buddha is the general, Jesus is the particular; Buddha
is the
brother of the universe, Jesus is the brother of men; Buddha is
Philosophy,
Jesus is Religion; Buddha is the Circumference, Jesus is the Within;
Buddha is the
System, Jesus is the Point of Radiation; Buddha is the
Manifestation,
Jesus is the Spirit; in a word, Buddha is the “Man,” Jesus is the
“Woman.” But
for Buddha, Jesus could not have been, nor would he have sufficed
the whole
man; for the man must have the Mind illuminated before the Affections
can be
kindled. Nor would Buddha have been complete without Jesus. Buddha
completed the
regeneration of the Mind; and by his doctrine and practice men are
prepared for
the grace which comes by Jesus. Wherefore no man can be, properly,
Christian,
who is not also, and first, Buddhist. Thus the two religions
constitute,
respectively, the exterior and interior of the same Gospel, the
foundation
being in Buddhism – the term including Pythagoreanism, – and the
illumination
in Christianity. And as without Christianity Buddhism is
incomplete,
so without Buddhism Christianity is unintelligible. The Regenerate
Man of the
Gospels stands upon the foundation represented by Buddha, the earlier
stages, that
is, of the same process of regeneration, so that without these he
would be
impossible. Hence the significance also of the Baptist’s part.
50. The term
Buddha, moreover, signifies the Word. And the Buddha and the Christ
represent,
though on different planes, the same divine Logos or Reason, and are
joint
expressions of the “Message” which, in preceding cycles had been preached
by
“Zoroaster” – the Sun-star – as well as by Moses, and typified in Mithras,
Osiris, and
Krishna. Of all these the doctrine was one and the same, for it was
the doctrine
of the Man Regenerate even the “Gospel of Christ.” It was, thus,
the treasure,
– beyond all other priceless – of which Israel, fleeing, “spoiled
the
Egyptians;” of which, that is, the soul, escaping the power of the body,
retains the
possession, having gained it through the experience of the body.
That Buddha,
great as was his “Renunciation,” underwent no such extremity of
ordeal as
that ascribed to his counterpart of the Gospels, is due to the
difference of
the parts enacted, and the stages attained by them. Suffering is
not of the
mind, but of the heart. And whereas, of their joint system, Buddha
represents
the intellect, and Jesus represents the affections; – in Jesus, as
its highest
typical expression of the love-element, Humanity fulfils the
injunction. “My
son, give me thine heart.” [ This relation between the two
systems, and
the necessity of each to the other, have found recognition among
the Buddhists
themselves. Of this, one instance which may be cited, is that of a
Cingalese
chief who had sent his son to a Christian school; and who, on finding
his
consistency called in question by a Christian, replied that the two
religious
were to each other as the canoe of his country, and the contrivance, –
called an
outrigger, – by means of which, when afloat, it is kept upright. “I
add on”, he
said, “your religion to my own, for I consider Christianity a very
good
outrigger to the Buddhism.” – Tennant’s Ceylon. ]
51. Since of
the spiritual union in the one faith of Buddha and Christ, will be
born the world’s
coming redemption, the relations between the two peoples
through whom,
on the physical plane, this union must be effected, becomes a
subject of
special interest and importance. Viewed from this aspect the
connection
subsisting between England and India rises from the sphere political
to the sphere
spiritual. As typical peoples of the West and of the East, of the
races light
and dark, these two, as representative Man and Woman of Humanity,
will in due
time constitute one Man, made in the image of God, regenerate and
having power.
And so shall the “lightning from the East”, after “illuminating
the West”, be
reflected back, purified and enhanced, “a light to lighten all
nations and
to be the glory of the spiritual Israel”. Thus, them, in Christ
Jesus the
holy systems of the past find their maturity and perfectionment. For
by Christ is
made possible the gift of the Divine Spirit, – the “Paraclete” –
who could not
come by Pythagoras nor by Buddha, because these represent the
outer
elements of the Microcosm; and the nucleolus, or Spirit, can be manifest
only in the
inner element, or Nucleus, of which Jesus is the representative. And
thus, as said
in Genesis xv. 16, “in the fourth generation,” shall the spiritual
seed of
Abraham, or Brahma, – for they are one and the same word and denote one
and the same
doctrine, – “return” to the promised land of their inheritance;
and, as said
by Jesus, “many shall come from the East and West, and shall sit
down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.”
52. For, as
the “three, Noah, Daniel, and Job” were, for the Hebrews, types of
Righteousness,
so the three, “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “were types of Truth,
ancestors of
the spiritual Israel, and representatives of the several sacred
mysteries of
whose “kingdom” the Man Regenerate is always, and the world
regenerate
will be ultimately, by adoption and grace, the inheritor. The
mysteries
specially denoted by “Abraham” are, as just indicated, those of India.
They are the
mysteries of the Spirit, or Innermost, and are sacred to the
Supreme
Being, Brahma, who represents Deity under process of self-manifestation
and,
therefore, in activity. In this process, the Original Being, Brahm becomes
Brahma; God
becomes the Lord, the Manifestor. And it is in recognition of this
change, that
Abram becomes Abraham. The history of this personage, his flight, –
always an
invariable element in such histories, as witness that of Bacchus, of
Israel, of
the Holy Family, of Mohammed, and others, – his adventures and
wanderings,
is the history of the migration of the mysteries of India, by way of
Chaldaea, to
that divinely selected centre and pivot of all true religions Egypt
– a term
denoting the body, which itself is the divinely-appointed residence of
the soul
during its term of probation. [ In accordance with Hindu usage, which
makes the
masculine the passive, and the feminine the active principle of
existence,
the mysteries are represented by the wives of the divine persons.
Thus, of
Brahma the active principle is his wife Saraswati; after whom the wife
of Abraham,
who is also his active principle, is called Sara, “the Lady,”
meaning of
heaven. The story of the long courtship and two wives of Jacob, is a
parable of
initiation into the mysteries, lesser and greater. And the finding of
the wife of
Isaac at a well – like the finding of Moses in a river by the king’s
daughter –
indicates the woman, or soul, as the agent of intuition, and thereby
of initiation
and redemption. The “Haran” and “Ur,” from which Abram comes,
denote the
place of spiritual light; and the pedigrees imply, not persons, but
spiritual
states. ]
The next
great order of mysteries refers to the soul, and is sacred to Isis, the
goddess of
the intuition, and “Mother” of the Christ. These mysteries were, for
the
Israelites, represented by Isaac, a name occultly connected with Isis and
Jesus, as
also with that of an important personage in the pedigree of this last,
namely Jesse,
the “father of David,” and a “keeper of sheep.” The third and
remaining
great order of the mysteries – that which refers to the body, and
which early
migrated to Greece is sacred to Bacchus, whose mystic name Iacchos
is identical
with Jacob. Comprising the three great divisions of existence, and
by
implication the fourth division also, these three combined orders of
mysteries
formed, in the original conception of Christianity a system of
doctrine and
life at once complete, harmonious, and sufficient for all needs and
aspirations
of humanity, both here and hereafter. And to this effect were the
terms
ascribed to Jesus in his reply to the inquiries made of him touching the
resurrection
of the dead. For, passing over the actual question, and coming at
once to its
mystic sense, he made a reply which referred, at least primarily,
not to the
individuals themselves who had been named, but to the systems implied
in their
names; and declaring those systems to be as full of vitality, and as
essential to
salvation, as when first divinely communicated to Moses in the
words: “I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” he
added that
“God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Wherefore,
according to
this and the concurrent prophecy quoted above, these mysteries
which are at
once Hindu, Chaldaean, Persian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and
Christian –
will, restored to their original purity, constitute the controlling
doctrine of
the ages to come.
53. In this
forecast of the now imminent future is to be found the clue to the
world’s
politics. The “kings of the East,” or Magi, may, in one sense, indeed,
be they who –
being in the West – hold political sovereignty over the provinces
of Hindustan.
But in the profounder sense they are those everywhere – whether in
the East or
in the West – who possess the “magical” knowledge or keys of the
kingdom of
the Spirit. For these are always Magians. Of one of the chief
depositaries of
this knowledge – the Bible – England has long been the foremost
guardian and
champion. For three centuries and a half– at once the mystic “time,
times, and
half a time,” and the “year of years” of the solar hero Enoch – has
England
lovingly and faithfully, albeit ignorantly, cherished the Letter which
now, by the
finding of the Interpretation, is – like its prototype –
“translated”
to the plane of the Spirit. Becoming thus a partaker of the divine
Gnosis,
England will be fitted for the yet loftier sovereignty to which she is
destined. For
then, through the union of East and West in the same doctrine, the
waters of
“the great river Euphrates” – symbol of the Spirit – will, as said of
old of the
Red Sea, be “dried up,” so that between the two hemispheres there
will no
longer be any barrier of creed, but a way divinely prepared and
safeguarded,
whereby the “kings of the East” may freely pass on their mission of
enlightenment
to all the world. All, therefore, that tends to bind England to
the Orient is
of Christ, and all that tends to sever them is of Antichrist. They
who seek to
wed Buddha to Jesus are of the celestial and upper; and they who
interpose to
forbid the banns are of the astral and nether. Between the two
hemispheres
stand the domain and faith of Islam, not to divide, but, as
umbilical
cord, to unite them. And nought is there in Islamism to hinder its
fulfillment
of this high function, and keep it from being a partaker of the
blessings to
result therefrom. For, not only is it the one really monotheistic
and
non-idolatrous religion now existing; but its symbolic Star and Crescent are
essentially
one with the Cross of Christ, in that they also typify the elements
masculine and
feminine of the divine existence, and the relation of the soul to
God. So that
lslamism has but to accomplish that other stage of its natural
evolution,
which will enable it to claim an equal place in the brotherhood of
the Elect.
This is the practical recognition in “Allah” of Mother as well as
Father, by
the exaltation of the woman to her rightful station on all planes of
man’s
manifold nature. This accomplished, Esau and Ishmael will be joined
together with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in Christ.
54. In this
recognition of the divine idea of humanity, and its ultimate
results, will
consist what are called the “Second Advent and millennial reign of
Christ.” Of
that advent – although described as resembling the coming of a thief
in the night
– the approach will not be unheeded. For even in the darkest of
spiritual
nights, there are always on the alert some who, as faithful shepherds,
keep constant
watch over the flocks of their own pure hearts, and who, “living
the life,
know of the doctrine.” And these, “dwelling by the well of clear
vision,” and
“discerning the signs of the times,” perceive already the mustering
of the
heavenly hosts, and the bright streamers of dawning of the
long-wished-for
better Day. [ See Appendices, Nos. V, VI. and VII. ]
-------Cardiff
Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206
Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
LECTURE THE NINTH.
GOD AS LORD;
OR, THE DIVINE IMAGE.
PART I
1. ALL sacred
books, of whatever people, concur in adopting, in respect of the
Deity, two
apparently opposite and antagonistic modes of expression. According
to one of
these modes, the Divine being is external, universal, diffused,
unformulated,
indefinable, and altogether inaccessible and beyond perception.
According to
the other, the Divine Being is near, particular, definite,
formulated,
personified, discernible, and readily accessible. Thus, on the one
hand it is
said that God is the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity, and
is past
finding out; that no man hath seen God at any time, neither heard God’s
voice, or can
see God and live. And, on the other hand, it is declared that God
has been
heard and beheld face to face, and is nigh to all who call upon God,
being within
their hearts; and that the knowledge of God is not only the one
knowledge
worth having, but that it is open to all who seek for it; and the pure
in heart are
promised, as their supreme reward, that they shall “see God.”
2. Numerous
instances, moreover, are recorded of the actual sensible vision of
God. Of the
Hebrew prophets, Isaiah says that he saw the Lord “high and lifted
up;” Ezekiel,
that he beheld the “glory of the God of Israel” as a figure of
fire; Daniel,
that he beheld God as a human form, enthroned in flame; and John
records in
the Apocalypse a similar vision. The writers of the book of Exodus
show their
cognizance of such experiences by ascribing the vision not only to
Moses, but to
the whole of the elders and leaders of Israel, in all,
seventy-four
persons. And of these many are represented as competent to receive
it in virtue
of their own unaided faculties. For, by the statement that “upon
the nobles
Moses laid not his hands,” it is implied that their own spiritual
condition was
such that they needed no aid from the magnetism of the great
hierarch
their chief. The sight of the “God of Israel” on this occasion is
described as
like that of “a devouring fire.”
3. Among
similar experiences related in other Scriptures is that in the Bhagavad
Gita, wherein
the “Lord Krishna” exhibits to the gaze of Arjun his “supreme and
heavenly
form,” “shining on all sides with light immeasurable like the sun a
thousand
fold,” and “containing is his breast all the Gods, or Powers, masculine
and feminine,
of the Universe.”
4. Yet,
notwithstanding the difference of the two natures thus described, the
Scriptures
regard both as appertaining to one and the same Divine Being; and,
combining the
names characteristic of both, declare that the Lord is God, and
God is the
Lord, and appoint the compound term Lord-God as the proper
designation
of Deity.
5. Besides
the title Lord, many various names are applied to Deity as subsisting
under this
mode. In the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, these names are
Jehovah, El
Shaddai, the Logos, the Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, Son of
God, the Only
Begotten, Adonai. The Hindus have Brahma, and also Ardha-Nari, –
identical
with Adonai. The Persians, Ormuzd; the Egyptians, Ra, or the Sun; the
Greeks, the
Demiourgos; the Kabbala has Adam Kadmon; and some later mystics
employ the
term “Grand Man.”
6. Of these
last the most notable, Emmanuel Swedenborg, asserts the vision to be
a fact in
respect of the angels, – whom he claims as his informants, – saying
that the Lord
is God manifested in the universe, as a man, and is thus beheld,
interiorly,
by the angels. (Divine Love and Wisdom, 97, etc., etc.)
7.
Swedenborg, however, identifies the Lord who is thus discerned with the
historical
Jesus, maintaining the latter to be very Deity, Jehovah in person,
who assumed a
fleshly body, and manifested Himself as a man, in order to save
men from
hell, and commanded His disciples to call Him Lord. (True Christian
Religion,
370; D. L. and W., 282, etc., etc.) Swedenborg, herein falls into the
common error
of confounding “our Lord” with “the Lord,” the Christ in the man
with Adonai
in the heavens of whom the former is the counterpart; – an error due
to his
failure to recognize the distinction between the manifest and unmanifest,
and between
the microcosmic and macrocosmic deity. [ In his presentation of the
Incarnation,
Swedenborg is at variance, not only with the Gnosis but with
himself. For
in it he sets aside the canon of interpretation formulated by
himself, his
recovery and general application of which – together with the
doctrine of
correspondence – constitute his chief merit. Thus, to cite his own
words: – “In
the internal sense there is no respect to any person, or anything
determined to
a person. But there are three things which disappear from the
sense of the
letter of the Word, when the internal sense is unfolded; that which
is of time,
that which is of space, and that which is of person.” “The Word is
written by
mere correspondence, and hence all its contents, to the most minute,
signify
things heavenly and spiritual” (Arcana Cœlestia, 5253 and 1401). He also
repeatedly
declares that the literal sense of the Word is rarely the truth, but
only the
appearance of the truth, and that to take the literal sense for the
true one is
to destroy the truth itself, since everything in it relates to the
heavenly and
spiritual, and becomes falsified when transferred to a lower plane
by being
taken literally (see e g. T. C. R. 254, 258.) According both to this
rule and the
Gnosis, that which is implied by the term Incarnation is an event
purely
spiritual in its nature, potential in all men and of perpetual
occurrence, inasmuch
as it takes place in every regenerate man, being at once
the cause and
effect of his regeneration.
The authority
twice cited by Swedenborg (T.C.R., 102 and 827) in support of his
doctrine, –
namely, an apparition professing to be the spirit of the Mother of
Jesus, – is
one which a duly instructed oculist would, at the least, have
hesitated to
regard as aught but a projection of his own magnetic aura, and as
merely a
mechanical reflect, therefore, of his own thought. Swedenborg had
learned little
or nothing from books, was ignorant of any system other the
Christian,
and also of the origin and meaning of the Christian symbology, and
trusted for
his information entirely to his own faculty; and this, extraordinary
as it was,
was allied to a temperament too cold and unsympathetic to generate
the
enthusiasm by which alone the topmost heights of perception and inmost core
of the
consciousness can be attained. Nevertheless, despite his limitations,
Swedenborg
was beyond question the foremost herald and initiator of the new era
opening in
the spiritual life of Christendom, and no student of religion can
dispense with
a knowledge of him. Only, he must be read with much discrimination
and
patience.]
8. In “the
Lord,” the Formless assumes a form, the Nameless a name, the Infinite
the definite,
and these human. But, although “the Lord is God, manifested as a
man,” in and
to the souls of those to whom the vision is vouchsafed, it is not
as man in the
exclusive sense of the term, and masculine only, but as man both
masculine and
feminine, at once man and woman, as is Humanity itself. The Lord
is God
manifested in substance; and is dual in form because Deity, though one in
essence, and
statistically is twofold in operation, or dynamically. And the
vision of
Deity under a definite form, dual and human, – or androgynous, thought
not as
ordinarily apprehended, – has been universal and persistent from the
beginning;
and this, not as a conception merely mental and “subjective,” but as
perception objective
to an interior faculty, in that it is actually beheld.
Hence it is,
that in terms employed to denote Deity, both sexes are expressed or
implied; and
where one sex only is designated, it is not because the other is
wanting, but
because it is latent. And hence it is also, that, in order to be
made in the
image of God; the individual must comprise within himself the
qualities
masculine and feminine of existence, and be, spiritually, both man and
woman. Man is
perfect only when the whole humanity is manifested in him; and
this occurs
only when the whole Spirit of Humanity – that is God – is manifested
through him.
Thus manifesting Himself, God, as the book of Genesis says,
“creates man
in His own Image, Male and Female.”
9. Such is
the doctrine of all Hermetic Scriptures. And when it is said, – as of
the Kabbala,
– that these Scriptures were delivered by God first of all to Adam
in Paradise,
and then to Moses on Sinai, it is meant that the doctrine contained
in them is
that which man always discerns when he succeeds in attaining to that
inner and
celestial region of his nature where he is taught directly of his own
Divine
Spirit, and knows even as he is known. The attainment of this divine
knowledge
constitutes existence a paradise. And it is symbolized by the ascent
of a
mountain, variously designated Nyssa, Sinai, Sion, Olivet. Peculiar to no
particular
period or place, the power to receive this knowledge is dependent
entirely upon
condition. And the condition is that of the understanding. Man
attains to
the image of God in proportion as he comprehends the nature of God.
Such
knowledge constitutes, of itself, transmutation. For man is that which he
knows. And he
knows only that which he is. Wherefore the recognition, first of
God as the
Lord, and next of the Lord as the divine Humanity, constitutes at
once the
means of salvation and salvation itself. This is the truth which makes
free, – the
supreme mystery, called by Paul the “mystery of godliness.” And it
is by their
relegation of this mystery to the category of the incomprehensible,
that the
priesthoods have barred to man the way of redemption. They have
directed him,
indeed, to a Macrocosmic God subsisting exteriorly to man, and
having a
nature altogether different from man’s, and to a heaven remote and
inaccessible.
But they have suppressed altogether the Microcosmic God and the
kingdom
within, and have blotted the Lord and his true image out of all
recognition.
Now the main distinction between the uninitiate and the initiate,
between the
man who does not know and the man who does know, lies in this: – For
the one, God,
if subsisting at all, is wholly without. For the other, God is
both within
and without; and the God within is all that the God without is.
10. It cannot
be too emphatically stated, that the definition which sets forth
Mystery as
something inconsistent with or contradictory of sense and reason, is
a wrong
definition, and one in the highest degree pernicious. In its true
signification,
Mystery means only that which appertains to a region of which the
external
sense and reason are unable to take cognizance. It is, thus, the
doctrine of
Spirit and of the experiences connected therewith. And inasmuch as
the spiritual
is the within and source of the phenomenal, so far from the
doctrine of
Spirit contradicting and stultifying the experiences and conclusions
of the
external faculties, it corrects and interprets them; – precisely as does
reason
correct and interpret the sensible impression of the earth’s immobility,
and of the
diurnal revolution of the skies. That, therefore, which the
degradation
of the term Mystery to mean something incomprehensible, really
represents,
is the loss by the priesthoods of the faculty of comprehension.
Declining,
through “idolatry,” from the standard once attained by them, and
losing the
power either to discern or to interpret Substance, the Churches
abandoned the
true definition of Mystery which referred it to things
transcending
the outer sense and reason, and adopted a definition implying
something
contradictory of all sense and reason. Thenceforth, so far from
fulfilling
their proper function of supplying man with the wholesome “bread” of
a perfect
system of thought, they gave him instead the indigestible “stones” of
dogmas
altogether unthinkable; and for the “fish,” – or interior mysteries of
the soul, –
the “serpents,” or illusory reflects, of the astral. Reduced by this
act to a
choice between the suicide of an absolute surrender of the reason, and
open revolt,
the world adopted the lesser of the two evils. And this both
rightly and
of necessity. For man neither ought if he could, nor can if he
would,
suppress his reason. And now the Churches, having lost cognition of
Spirit, and
suppressed the faculty whereby alone it could be attained, are
absolutely
without a system of Thought wherewith to oppose the progress of that
fatal system
of No-thought which is fast engulfing the world. And so profound is
the despair
which reigns even in the highest ranks of Ecclesiasticism, as
recently,
from one of its most distinguished members, to elicit the confession
that he saw
no hope for Religion save in a new Revelation.[ Related of Cardinal
Newman, on
his investiture at Rome.]
PART II
11. IT is
necessary to devote a brief space to an exposition of the ancient and
true doctrine
in respect of the place and value of the Understanding in things
religious.
Four so we shall both further minister to the rehabilitation of this
supreme
faculty, and exhibit the extent to which sacerdotalism has departed from
the right
course. Mention has already been made of Hermes as the “trainer of the
Christs.” The
phrase is of a kind with those more familiar phrases which
describe
Christ as the “Son of David” and as the “Seed of the Woman;” and, in
short, with
all statements respecting the genealogy of the Christ, including the
declaration
that the Rock on which the Church of Christ is built is the
Understanding.
For of all such statements the meaning is, that the doctrine
represented
by the term Christ – so far from being a Mystery, in the sacerdotal
sense – is a
truth necessary and self-evident, and requiring for its discernment
as such, only
the full and free exercise of Thought. Now this term Thought is no
other than
name of the Egyptian equivalent of Hermes, the God Thaut, frequently
written
Thoth; these being for the Greeks and Egyptians respectively the
personification
of the Divine Intelligence. It has already been stated that in
the Celestial
all properties and qualities are Persons, the fact being that it
is always in
the guise of a person that the Divine Spirit of a man holds
intercourse with
him, the mode adopted on the occasion corresponding to the
function to
be exercised. Thoth and Hermes are, then, names expressive of the
personality
assumed by the supreme Nous of the Microcosm when operating
especially as
the Intelligence or Understanding. In different nations, while the
function is
the same, the name and form vary according to the genius of the
people. Thus,
to a Hebrew the same Spirit becomes manifest as Raphael. In the
Bhagavad-Gita
the Supreme Being, speaking as the Lord (Krishna), declares that
he himself is
the Spirit of Understanding. As the parent Spirit – the Nous, or
divine Mind –
is God, so the product Thought, or the “Word,” as a Son of God, is
also God. Nor
does the Divine procession cease at the first generation. For,
whereas of
such Divine Word the Christ is the manifestation “in ultimates,” the
Christ also
is Son of God, and therefore God.
12. But not
the less, however, is “Christ” the “Son of David,” though not by
physical
descent – his line had long been extinct – but in a spiritual sense.
Like the
patriarchs – who were therefore said to live in concubinage – David was
not “married
to the Spirit,” but held only occasional communion with it,
receiving but
a measure of illumination. “Christ” implies full regeneration and
illumination.
The attainment of this state is the ultimate aim of the science
called
Hermetic and Alchemic, the earliest formulation of which is ascribed to
the god
Thoth, – the Egyptian equivalent for the Divine Thought. Tracking the
Christ-idea
to this source, we have a yet further – though still but a secondary
–
signification for the saying, “Out of Egypt hast thou called thy Son.”
13. One of
the most general symbols of the Understanding, and of its importance
in the work
of regeneration, has always been the Ram. Hence the frequent
portrayal of
the representative of Hermes and Thoth with a ram’s head. For by
this was
denoted the power of the faculty of which the head is the seat, the act
of butting
with the horns typifying the employment of the intellect whether for
attack or
defence. The command to cover the holy place of the Tabernacle with a
ram’s fleece
implied that only to the understanding were the mysteries of the
Spirit
accessible. The mighty walls of the “Jericho” of Doubt are represented as
falling at
the sound of rams’ horns, after being “encompassed” during the
typical
period of seven days. The narrative of the previous entry – that of the
“spies” –
into this stronghold through the agency of a woman, is similarly
designed to
exalt the understanding, the direct reference being to the intuition
as essential
to the understanding, and therefore to the resolution of doubt. The
ascription to
this woman of the vocation of the Magdalen, accords with the
mystical usage
of regarding the soul as impure during the term – necessary for
her education
– of her association with Matter. This finished, she becomes
“virgin.” One
of the chief glories of Hermes – his conquest of the hundred-eyed
Argus –
denotes the victory of the understanding over fate. For Argus represents
the power of
the stars over the unenfranchised soul. Wherefore Hera, the queen
of the astral
spheres and persecutrix of the soul thus subject, is said to have
placed the
eyes of Argus in the train of her vehicular bird, the peacock.
14. The story
of the slaying of Goliath is a parable of like import. For Goliath
is the
formulation of the system represented by the “Philistines,” – that system
of doubt and
denial which finds its inevitable outcome in Materialism. The
killing of
Goliath signifies, thus, the discomfiture of Materialism by the
understanding.
And David, moreover, is represented – on arraying himself for the
conflict – as
declining the “king’s weapons,” or arms of the exterior reason,
and choosing
“a smooth stone out of a brook;” this being the “philosopher’s
stone” of a
pure spirit, a firm will, and a clear perception, such as is
attained only
through the secret operation of the soul, of which the brook is
the emblem.
Such a stone, also, is that which, “cut out without hands,” smites
in pieces, as
already explained, the giant image of Nebuchadnezzar. The reward
of David’s
achievement – the possession of the king’s daughter, the usual
termination
of such heroic adventure – denotes the attainment by the conqueror
of the
highest gifts and graces; – the daughter of Saul, or the outer Reason,
being the
inner Reason, or psychic faculty, developed from the “Man” and
constituting the
“Woman” in the man. Hence by David’s subsequent history in
relation to
Michal, is implied a spiritual retrogression on the soul’s part.
15. Similar
reasons dictated the selection of a dog as specially sacred to
Hermes, and
his representation as the dog-headed Anubis; the intelligence and
faithfulness
of this animal making it an apt type of the understanding as the
peculiar
friend of man. Raphael – the Hebrew equivalent of Hermes, and like him
called the
“physician of souls” – is also represented as accompanied by a dog
when
travelling with Tobias. And the name of the special associate of Joshua, –
a name
identical with Jesus, – the final leader of the chosen people into the
promised land
of their spiritual perfection, – namely, Caleb, signifies a dog,
and implies
the necessity of intelligence to the successful quest of salvation.
For the like
reason were “rams,” and the “fat of rams,” used as symbolic terms
to denote the
offering most acceptable to God. It was intended by them to teach
that man
ought to dedicate to the service of God all the powers of his mind
raised to
their highest perfection, and by no means to ignore or suppress them.
16. The like
high rank is accorded to understanding in all Hermetic Scriptures.
For, – as in
Isaiah xi. 2, – it is always placed second among the seven Elohim
of God, the
first place being assigned to Wisdom, which is accounted as one with
Love. The
same order is observed in the disposition of the solar system. For
Mercury is
Hermes, and his planet is next to the Sun. The ascription, in the
mythologies,
of a thievish disposition to this divinity, and the legends which
represent him
as the patron of thieves and adventurers, and stealing in turn
from all the
Gods, are modes of indicating the facility with which the
understanding
annexes everything and makes it its own. For Hermes denotes that
faculty of
the divine part in man which seeks and obtains meanings out of every
department of
existence, intruding into the province of every “God,” and
appropriating
some portion of the goods of each. Thus the understanding has a
finger upon
all things, and converts them to its own use, whether it be the
“arrows” of
Apollo, the “girdle” of Aphrodite, the “oxen” of Admetus, the
“trident” of
Poseidon, or the “tongs” of Hephaistos. Not only is Hermes – as
already said
– the rock on which the true church is built; he is also the
divinity
under whose immediate control all divine revelations are made, and all
divine
achievements performed. His are the rod of knowledge wherewith all things
are measured,
the wings of courage, the sword of the unconquerable will, and the
cap of
concealment or discretion. He is in turn the Star of East, conducting the
Magi; the
Cloud from whose mist the holy Voice speaks; by day the pillar of
Vapour, by
night the shining Flame, leading the elect soul on her perilous path
through the
noisome wilderness of the world, as she flies from the Egypt of the
Flesh, and
guiding her in safety to the promised heaven. He, too, it is who is
the shield of
saints in the fiery furnace of persecution or affliction, and
whose “form
is like the Son of God.” And by him the candidate for spiritual
knowledge
attains full initiation. For he is also the Communicator, and without
him is no
salvation. For, although that which saves is faith, that is not faith
which is
without understanding. Happily for the so-called “simple,” this
understanding
is not necessarily of the outer man; it suffices for salvation
that the
inner man has it. (See Apps. XII. 6 and XIV.)
17. “Hermes,
as the messenger of God,” says the Neoplatonist Proclus, “reveals
to us His
paternal will, and – developing in us the intuition – imparts to us
knowledge.
The knowledge which descends into the soul from above excels any that
can be
attained by the mere exercise of the intellect. Intuition is the
operation of
the soul. The knowledge received through it from above, descending
into the
soul, fills it with the perception of the interior causes of things.
The Gods
announce it by their presence, and by illumination, and enable us to
discern the
universal order.” Commenting on these words of a philosopher
regarded by
his contemporaries with a veneration approaching to adoration, for
his wisdom
and miraculous powers, a recent leader of the prevailing school
exclaims,
“Thus is Proclus consistent in absurdity!” [ G.H. Lewes, Biog. Hist.
Phil.]
Whereas, had the critic been aware of the truth concerning the reality,
personality, and
accessibility of the world celestial, so far from denouncing
Proclus as
“absurd,” he would have supremely envied him, and eagerly sought the
secret and
method of the Neoplatonists. “To know more,” says the writer in
question, “we
must be more.” But when the Mystic – who, in virtue of his supreme
sense of the
dignity and gravity of man’s nature, affirms nothing lightly or
rashly –
offers his solemn assurance that we are more, and prescribes a simple
rule, amply
verified by himself, whereby to ascertain the fact, he turns away in
disdain, and
proceeds in his own manner to make himself infinitely less, by
becoming a
ringleader of that terrible school of Biology, which does not
scruple, in
the outraged name of Science, to indulge its passion for knowledge
to the utter
disregard of humanity and morality, by the infliction of tortures
the most
atrocious and protracted, upon creatures harmless and helpless. Little
wonder is it
that between Mystic and Materialist should gulf so impassable, feud
so irreconcilable,
intervene; seeing that while the one seeks by the sacrifice
of his own
lower nature to his higher, and of himself for others, to prove man
potential
God, the other – turning vivisector – makes him actual fiend. [ This
paragraph was
written with a view to its publication in the lifetime of Mr.
Lewes.
Unhappily, the necessity for it has not ceased with his life. Hence its
appearance
now. Both in the schools and in the laboratory his writings and
influence
survive him. The work cited is an University textbook; and a
scholarship
has been instituted in his name for the promotion of vivisectional
research.]
18. To resume
our exposition of the “mystery of godliness,” or doctrine of God
as the Lord,
and of the duality of the Divine image. According to the Zohar –
the principal
of the Kabbala – the Divine Word by which all things are created
is the
celestial archetypal Humanity, which subsisting eternally in the Divine
Mind – makes
the universe in His own image. God, as absolute Being, having no
form or name,
cannot and may not be represented under any image or appellation.
Bent upon
self-manifestation, or creation, the Divine Mind conceives the Ideal
Humanity as a
vehicle in which to descend from Being into Existence. This is the
Merkaba, or
Car, already referred to; and that which it denotes is Human Nature
in its
perfection, at once twofold in operation, fourfold in constitution, and
sixfold in
manifestation, and as a cube – Kaabeh – “standing four-square to all
the winds of
heaven.” In virtue of its two-foldness this “vehicle” expresses the
corresponding
opposites, Will and Love, Justice and Mercy, Energy and Space,
Life and
Substance, Positive and Negative, in a word, Male and Female, both of
which subsist
in the Divine Nature in absolute plenitude and perfect
equilibrium.
Expressed in the Divine Idea – Adam Kadmon – the qualities
masculine and
feminine of existence are, in their union and co-operation, the
life and
salvation of the world; and in their division and antagonism, its death
and
destruction. One in the Absolute, but two in the Relative, this ideal – but
not therefore
the less real – Humanity resumes both in itself, and is king and
queen of the
universe, and as such is projected through every sphere of creation
to the
material and phenomenal, causing the outer, lower, and sensible world
everywhere to
be made in the image of the inner, upper and spiritual: so that
all that
subsists in the latter belongs to us here below and is in our image;
and the two
regions together make one uniform existence which is a vast Man,
being, like
the individual man, in constitution fourfold and in operation dual.
19. This
doctrine of Correspondence finds expression through Paul, first when he
declares that
“the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are
clearly seen,
being understood by the things which are made;” and again, when –
applying it
in its dual relation to the sexes of humanity – he says “Neither is
the man
without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord.” The
purity of its
doctrine in this respect constitutes a proof of the divinity of
the Kabbala.
For it shows that this famous compendium belongs to a period prior
to that
destruction by the priesthoods of the equilibrium of the sexes which
constituted
in one sense the “Fall”. Calling the woman the house and wall of the
man, without
whose bounding and redeeming influence he would inevitably be
dissipated
and lost in the abyss, the Kabbala describes her as constituting the
centripetal
and aspirational element in humanity, having a natural affinity for
the pure and
noble, to which, with herself, she always seeks to raise man, and
being
therefore his guide and initiator in things spiritual. Thus recognizing in
the sexes of humanity
respectively, the manifestation of the qualities masculine
and feminine
of the divine Nature, Its power and Its love, the Kabbala duly
inculcates
the worship of that true Lord God of Hosts, the knowledge of whom
constitutes
its possessors the “Israel of God.” “Not everyone who says Lord,
Lord, is of
this heavenly kingdom; but they only who do the will of the Father
Who is in
heaven,” and Who accordingly honor duly His “two Witnesses” on earth –
the man and
the woman – on every plane of man’s fourfold nature. It is by reason
of Christ’s
duality that humanity beholds in him its representative. And it is
only in those
who seek in this to be like him, that Christ can by any means be
born.
20. Close as
was the agreement between Paul and the Kabbala in respect – among
other
doctrines – of the dual nature of Deity, the agreement stopped short of
the due issue
of that doctrine. And it is mainly through Paul that the influence
we have
described as at once astral, rabbinical, and sacerdotal, found entrance
into the
Church. For, judged by the received text, Paul, when it came to a
matter of
practical teaching, exchanged the spirit of the Kabbala for that of
the Talmud,
and transmitted – aggravated and reinforced – to Christianity, the
traditional
contempt of his race for woman. The Talmud appoints to every pious
Jew, as a
daily prayer, these words: – “Blessed art thou, O Lord, that thou hast
not made me a
Gentile, an idiot, or a woman;” and, while enjoining the
instruction
of his sons in the Law, prohibits that of the daughters, on the
ground that
women are accursed. This reprobation of one whole moiety of the
divine
nature, instead of finding condemnation from Paul as erroneous, was
adopted by
him as the basis of his instructions concerning the position of women
in a
Christian society. For, after rightly defining the doctrine of the equality
of the sexes
“in the Lord,” we find him writing to the Corinthians in the
following
strain: “But I would have you know that the head of every man is
Christ, and
the head of the woman is the man. For a man indeed ought not to have
his head
veiled, for as much as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman
is the glory
of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the
man: for
neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man;
for this
cause ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head, because
of the
angels.” “Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I
permit not a
woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in
quietness.”
“Let the woman keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted
unto them to
speak, but let them be in subjection, as saith the Law. It is
shameful for
a woman to speak in the Church.” “For Adam was first formed, then
Eve; and Adam
was not beguiled; but the woman being beguiled, fell into
transgression.”
To the same purport writes Peter, who, as he certainly did not
derive the
doctrine from his Master, had doubtless been overborne in respect of
it by Paul.*
[ In 1 Pet. iii. 6, it is said that “Sara obeyed Abraham, calling
him lord;”
whereas, according to Genesis, Abraham rather obeyed Sarai, calling
her lady; for
the change made by him in her name – from Sarai to Sara – implies
an accession
of dignity. Thereby, from being “my lady” she became “the lady”,
and
representative of the feminine element in Divinity. The Deity is represented
moreover as
impressing on Abraham this injunction: – “In all that Sara hath said
unto thee,
hearken unto her voice.” The fault of Adam lay not – as might be
inferred from
the passage as it stands in Genesis – in “hearkening to the voice
of his wife,”
but in doing so when she was under beguilement “of the devil” – a
qualification
for the suppression of which the motive is obvious.] Thus
enforced, the
doctrine of the subjection of the woman became accepted as an
integral part
of the Christian system, constituting in it an element of
inevitable self-destruction.
21. The
utterance last cited from Paul gives the clue to the source and motive
of his
doctrine concerning woman. It is a perversion due to the influences
already
specified, of the parable of the Fall. When speaking in the Spirit, Paul
declares the
man and the woman alike to be “in the Lord.” Subsiding from this
level, – and
speaking – as, according to his own admission, he was not unwont to
speak –
“foolishly,” or of his own lower reason, he contradicts this statement,
and affirms
that the man alone is made in the image of God, – the divine Idea of
Humanity
comprising the male element only, – and implies that the woman is but a
mere
afterthought, contrived to meet an unexpected emergency, and made,
therefore, in
the image, not of God, but of the man. Thus substituting the
Letter for
the Spirit, and wholly losing sight of the latter, Paul degrades the
mystic
Scripture from its proper plane and universal signification, to a level
historical
merely and local. By making Adam and Eve no longer types of the
substantial
humanity in its two essential modes, the outer and inner
personality,
but an actual material couple, the first physical progenitors of
the race, he
accepts in all its gross, impossible crudity the fable of the apple
and the
snake, and declares that, because the first woman was beguiled,
therefore her
daughters – not her sons – must through all time to come bear the
penalty of
silence and servitude!
22. That
which Paul would have taught, had his vision been uniformly lightened,
is the truth
that, so far from the woman being an inferior part of humanity, it
is not until
she is, on all its planes, exalted, crowned, and glorified, that
humanity,
whether in the individual or in the race, can attain to Christhood,
seeing that
she, and not the “man,” is the bruiser of the serpent’s head, the
last to be
manifested, and therefore the first in dignity. For this reason it is
that only by
the restoration of the woman, on all planes of her manifestation,
can the
equilibrium of man’s nature, destroyed at the “Fall,” be re-established.
As it is, the
direct effect of the teaching of Paul in this, and in certain
allied
respects, – notably the doctrine of atonement by vicarious bloodshed, –
has been to
perpetuate the false balance introduced by the Fall, and therein to
confirm the
Curse, to remove which is the supreme mission of the Christ as the
“seed of the
woman.” On this subject Jesus himself had spoken very explicitly,
though only
in writings labeled “Apocryphal” are the utterances recorded. Of
these, one,
given by Clement, declares plainly that the kingdom of God can come
only “when
Two shall be One, and the Man as the Woman.” In the other, – recorded
in the
Egyptian gospel, – Jesus speaking mystically, says, “The kingdom of
Heaven shall
come when you women shall have renounced the dress of your sex;”
meaning, when
the representatives of the soul, namely women, no longer submit to
ordinances
which cause or imply inferiority on the part either of themselves or
of that which
they represent; but, with the soul are restored to their proper
place. But,
apart from any specific utterances, the whole character and teaching
of Jesus are
at variance with the doctrine and usage which have prevailed. For
that
character and teaching were in complete accordance with the course already
from the
beginning marked out in the planisphere of the Zodiac wherein the
rising of the
constellation Virgo is followed by Libra, the Balance, – emblem of
the Divine
Justice, – in token of the establishment of the Kingdom of
Righteousness
which should follow upon the rehabilitation of the “Woman.” Paul,
on the
contrary, – in his astral and non-lucid moments, – enforces the curse
which Jesus
would have put away; appeals to the Law which at other times he
repudiates
and denounces; and forges its chains anew by thrusting them around
the necks of
those who – he himself says – should be “no more under the Law, but
under Grace.”
[ According to the Apocryphal Epistles, and to ecclesiastical
tradition,
Paul, nevertheless, directed his own female associate – Theckla – to
preach in
public, and suffered her even to wear male attire. Paul, however,
following the
Levitical Code (Lev.xxi.13), draws a distinction between married
women and
virgins, saying he had no commandment about the latter.]
23. Thus does
Paul, to whose writings chiefly the various doctrinal systems of
Christianity
owe their origin, divide the Churches, and diminish the Reason, by
falling back
on convention and tradition. Now the Reason is not the “intellect,”
– this, as we
have insisted, represents but a moiety of the mind. The Reason is
the whole
humanity, which comprises the intuition as well as the intellect, and
is in God’s
Image, male and female. This supreme Reason it is which finds its
full
expression in the Logos or Lord. Wherefore, in denying her true place to
the woman in
his scheme of society, Paul denies to the Lord his due
manifestation
on earth, and exalts for worship some image other than the divine.
It is because
they recognize in the Reason the heir of all things, that the
devil and his
agents always make it their first concern to cast it out and slay
it. “This is
the Heir,” – the Reason, the Logos, the Lord, – “come let us kill
him, and the
inheritance shall be ours,” – say those ministers of Unreason, the
materialistic
orthodoxies of Church and World. And no sooner is the Reason
suppressed
and cast out, than madness, folly, and evil of every kind step in
and, taking
possession, bear rule, making the last state, – be it of community
or of
individual, – worse than the first. For then in place of Christ and the
divine image,
is antichrist and the “man of sin;” and the rule is that of
falsehood,
superstition, and all manner of unclean spirits, having neither
knowledge,
nor power, nor wisdom, nor aught that in any respect corresponds to
God. Of the
mutilation and defacement of the Divine Reason by the Church, under
the impulsion
of Paul, the present state of both Church and World is the
inevitable
sequel.
24. Besides
Paul, there are two others associated with the doctrine of the
Logos, of
names so notable as to necessitate a reference to them. These are
Plato, and
Philo called Judæus. They also recognized the Lord as the Logos and
Divine Reason
of things. But they failed to recognize the Dualism of the Divine
nature
therein, and by their failure ministered to the confirmation, rather than
to the
reversal, of the Fall and the Curse. Between Philo and Paul the points of
resemblance
are many striking, foremost among being the depreciation of woman,
and the
advocacy of vicarious blood shedding as a means of propitiating Deity.
Philo, who in
these respects in a thorough sacerdotalist, claims to have been
initiated
into spiritual mysteries directly by the spirit of Moses. This, it
will be now
understood, is a distinct and positive proof, were any wanting, of
the astral
character of much at least of Philo’s inspiration. He, too, like many
in our day,
was beguiled by a spirit of the astral, which, personating the great
prophet so
long dead, insisted, in the name of Moses, on the sacerdotal
degradations
of the teaching of Moses. Like Paul, – though never attaining his
elevation, –
Philo oscillated continually between the Talmud and the Kabbala,
the astral
and the celestial, mixing error and truth accordingly, and ignored
altogether
the contrary presentation given of the divine Sophia in the inspired
“Book of
Wisdom,” – a book of which some have nevertheless ascribed the
authorship to
Philo himself!
25. Plato,
and no less Aristotle, discerned in a perfect humanity the end and
aim of
creation, and in the universe a prelude to and preparation for the
perfect man.
Recognizing, however, the masculine element only of existence,
Aristotle
regarded every production of Nature other than a male of the human
species, as a
failure in the attempt to produce a man; and the woman as
something
maimed and imperfect, to be accounted for only on the hypothesis that
Nature,
though artist, is but blind. Similarly Plato – despite the intuition
whereby he
was enabled to recognize Intellect and Emotion as the two wings
indispensable
for man’s ascent to his proper altitude – was wholly insensible to
the
correspondence by virtue of which the latter finds in woman its highest
expression.
For the strain in which he treated of her was so bitter and
contemptuous,
as largely to minister to the making of his country – instead of
the Eden
which results where, and only where, the woman is honored and unfallen
– a veritable
rival of the “cities of the Plain.” In his view, only they who
have
previously disgraced themselves as men, become reincarnated as animals and
women. The
Logos of Plato is, clearly, no prototype of the Logos of that
Christianity
which based on the duality of the Divine Being, and requires of the
Christ that
he represent the whole humanity.
26. The
Fathers of the Church – stepfathers, rather, were they to the true
Christianity –
for the most part vied with each other in their depreciation of
woman; and,
denouncing her with every vile epithet, held it a degradation for a
saint to
touch even his own aged mother with the hand in order to sustain her
feeble steps.
And the Church, falling under a domination exclusively sacerdotal,
while
doctrinally it exalted womanhood to a level beside, though not to its
place in, the
Godhead, practically substituted priestly exclusiveness for
Christian
comprehension. For it declared woman unworthy, through inherent
impurity,
even to set foot within the sanctuaries of its temples; suffered her
to exercise
her functions of wife and mother only under the spell of a triple
exorcism; and
denied her, when dead, burial in its more sacred precincts, even
though she
were an abbess of undoubted sanctity.
27. The
Reformation altered, but did not better, the condition of woman.
Socially, it
rescued her from the priest to make her the chattel of the husband;
and,
doctrinally, it expunged her altogether. Calvinism is, on all planes, a
repudiation
of the woman in favor of the man; inasmuch as it recognizes only
will and
force, and rejects love and goodness, as essential qualities of Being,
whether
Divine or human. And Protestantism at large, both Unitarian and
Trinitarian,
finds in its definition of the Substance of existence, place only
for the
masculine element. Even the great bard of Nonconformism, John Milton, –
though
finding woman so indispensable to him as to have thrice wedded, –
disfigured his
verse and belied his inspiration as poet, by his bitter and
incessant
depreciation of her without whom poetry itself would have no
existence.
For poetry is the function of genius, and genius, which is the
product of
sympathy, is not of the man, but of the woman in the man. And she
herself – as
her typical name Venus implies – is the “Sweet Song of God.” [ Such
also is the
signification of Anael, the Hebrew name of the “Angel” of her
planet. Venus
is said by some to be originally Phe-nus, having for root
Φημι.
For an
example of the nature of the true mysteries of this divinity, see
Appendices,
No. XIII.] In the same spirit the chief Instrument of the
Reformation,
Martin Luther, declared of the two sacred books which especially
point to the
woman as the agent of man’s final redemption – the books of Esther
and
Revelation – that “so far as he esteemed them, it would be no loss if they
were thrown
into the river.”
28. The
influence in question is not confined to the sphere of Christianity. It
dictated the
form assumed by Islamism. Originating in impulses derived from the
celestial,
this religion fell beneath the sway of the astral so soon as its
founder,
making a rich marriage, lived luxuriously and occupied himself with
worldly
matters. Sacerdotalism failed, it is true, to find in Islamism its
ordinary mode
of expression. But the principle of the doctrine of vicarious
sacrifice in
propitiation of the Deity, showed itself in the recognition of
bloodshed as
means of proselytism. And women were relegated to a position
altogether
inferior, being regarded as differing from men not merely in degree,
but in kind.
For they were denied the possession of a soul; and their place in
the Hereafter
was supplied by astral equivalents under the scarcely disguised
name of
Houris. The Koran itself is little else than an imitation of the Old
Testament,
conceived under astral suggestion. A yet more unmitigated form of
what may be called
Astralism is the religion known as Mormonism; the sacred
books of
which are, throughout, but astral travesties of Scripture; its doctrine
of “spiritual
wives,” and of the position of woman generally, being similarly
derived. It
thus constitutes an instance in point, of the unceasing endeavor of
the spirits
of the subhuman to established a kingdom of their own, instead of
that of the
Lord and the Divine Idea of Humanity.
PART III
29. IT will
be well, before proceeding to our conclusion, to take note of the
objections
with which it is usually sought to discredit – under the name of
Mysticism –
the system in course of exposition. These objections are comprised
under two
heads, of which the terms, respectively, are Plagiarism and
Enthusiasm. By
the former it is meant that the professors of Mysticism, instead
of being the
actual recipients of the experiences they record of themselves,
borrow them
from some common – but equally delusive – source. And by the latter
it is implied
that, at the best, the experiences, and the doctrines based upon
them, are due
to morbid conditions of mind. This, in plain language, means that
the opponents
of Mysticism – unable either to emulate or to confute it – try to
get rid of it
by charging its professors with dishonesty or insanity. And so far
from this
line of treatment being exceptional or rare, it is persistent and
constant
throughout the whole range of the literature characteristic of the age,
and this in
every class from the lowest to the highest, and in every branch of
intellectual
activity. Instead of being submitted to examination even the most
superficial,
the entire system comprised under the term Mysticism – its
witnesses,
its facts, and its doctrines – has in that literature been rejected
offhand, and
without inquiry, by the simple process of abrupt process
contradiction,
and the ascription, in no measured degree, to its representatives
and
exponents, of pretence, imposture, charlatanism, quackery, hallucination,
and madness –
an ascription preposterous in the extreme in view of the status,
moral and
intellectual, of the persons aspersed. For of these the character and
eminence have
been such as, of themselves, to entitle their statements to
attention the
most respectful; and the Order to which, one and all, they have
belonged,
comprises the world’s finest intellects, profoundest scholars,
maturest
judgments, noblest dispositions, ripest characters, and greatest
benefactors;
and, in short, as has already been said, all those sages, saints,
seers,
prophets, and Christs, through redeeming influence humanity has been
raised out of
the bottomless pit of its own lower nature, and preserved from the
abyss of
utter negation. Of these, and of numberless others, the testimony to
the reality
of mystical experiences, and the truth of mystical doctrine, has
been
concurrent, continuous, positive, and maintained at the cost of liberty,
reputation,
property, family ties, social position, and every earthly good, even
to life
itself, and this over a period extending from before the beginning of
history until
now. So that it may with absolute confidence be maintained, that
if the
declarations of Mystics are to be set aside, as insufficient to establish
their claims,
all human testimony whatever is worthless as a criterion of fact,
and all human
intelligence as criterion of truth.
30. The
charge of Plagiarism is soon disposed of. It is true that the
correspondence
upon which the charge is founded subsists. But it is also true
that this correspondence
is only that which necessarily subsists between the
accounts
given of identical phenomena by different witnesses. The world’s
Mystics have
been as a band of earnest explorers who, one after another, and
often in
complete ignorance of the results attained by their predecessors, have
ascended the
same giant mountain-range, and, returning, have brought back to the
dwellers in
the valleys below – too feeble or indifferent to make the ascent for
themselves –
the same report of its character and products, and of the tracts
discerned
from its various aspects and altitudes, showing thereby a perfect
coherence of
faculty and testimony. Such is the agreement which has been made
the pretext
for a charge of plagiarism against Mystics, simply because the
region
visited and reported on by them is a spiritual and not a spiritual and
not a
material one, and Materialists will not have it that any other than a
material
subsists. Precisely the agreement which in all other cases is made
indispensable
as a proof of trustworthiness, is, in this case, interpreted as a
token of
collusion.
31. To come
to the somewhat more plausible charge of Enthusiasm. It is alleged
that the
Mystics have conceived their system, not in that calm, philosophical
frame of mind
which alone favorable to the discovery of truth, but in a spirit
of excitement
and enthusiasm of which the inevitable product is hallucination.
Now, this
allegation is not only contrary to fact, it is intrinsically absurd,
whether as
applied to the phenomena or to the philosophy of Mysticism. For one
who, through
the unfoldment of his spiritual faculties, is enabled to enjoy open
conditions
with the spiritual world, the suggestion that his consequent
experiences
are the result of hallucination, constitutes an act of presumption
every whit as
gross as would be the like suggestion concerning the material
world if made
by a blind man to one possessed of eyesight. For, as already
observed,
such is the nature of the experiences in question, that if they are to
be
disregarded as insufficient to demonstrate the reality of the spiritual
world, no
ground remains whereon to believe in that of the material world, no
ground
remains whereon to believe in that of the material world. It is true that
the
Materialist cannot – as a rule – be made a partaker of the evidences in
question. But
neither can the blind man have ocular proof of the existence of
the material
world. For him there is no sun in the sky if he refuse to credit
those who alone
possess the faculty wherewith to behold it, and persist in
regarding
himself as a representative man.
32. The case
for the Mystic’s intellectual results is equally strong. Such are
the coherency
and completeness of the mystical system of thought, that by all
schools
whatever of thinkers it has ever, with one consent, been pronounced to
be
inexpugnable, and that alone which would, if provable, constitute an
explanation,
altogether satisfactory, of the phenomena of existence. In this
system, where
apprehended in its proper integrity, Reason has in vain sought to
detect a
flaw; and they who have rejected it, have done so solely through their
own inability
to obtain that sensible evidence of the reality of the spiritual
world, the
power to receive and interpret which, constitutes the Mystic.
33.
Nevertheless, of the fact of the Mystic’s enthusiasm there is no question.
But
enthusiasm is neither his instrument of observation nor that of inference.
And he is not
more fairly chargeable with conceiving his system by exercise of
an
imagination stimulated by enthusiasm, than is the believer in a world
exclusively
material. For, like the latter, he has sensible evidence of the
facts whereon
he builds; and he observes all possible deliberation and
circumspection
in his deductions therefrom. The only difference between them in
this
relation, is that the senses principally appealed to by his facts, are
those, not of
the man physical, but of the man spiritual, or soul, which, as
consisting of
substance, is necessarily alone competent for the appreciation of
the phenomena
of substance. Constituted as is man, while in the body, of both
Matter and
Spirit, he is a complete being – and therefore fully man – only when
he has
developed the faculties requisite for the discernment of both elements of
his nature.
34. In the
promotion of this development enthusiasm is a prime factor. By means
of it the man
is elevated to that region, interior and superior, where alone
serenity
prevails and perception is unobstructed, where are the beginnings of
the clues of
all objects of his search, and where his faculties are at their
best,
inasmuch as it is their native place, and they are there exempt from the
limitations
of the material organism. Attaining thus to his full altitude he no
longer has
need to reason and compare. For he sees and knows, and his mind is
content. For
him, in the divine order of his spiritual system, “the woman is
carried to
the throne of God.” The Zeus and Hera of his own celestial kingdom
are wedded.
The Adam, perfected, has found an infallible Eve. Existence is a
garden of
delights, whereof the fruits are the “golden apples” of knowledge and
goodness. For
the intellect and intuition, – divine man and woman of his
perfected
humanity, – are at one in the blissful home of his parent Spirit, the
Within or
fourth dimension of space, whence all things have their procession,
and where
alone, therefore, they can be comprehended. As well refuse credit to
the
researches of the Meteorologist on account of the upward impulses of the
vehicle in
which he gains the loftier strata of air, or of the superior purity
of the medium
in which he operates, as to those of the Mystic on account of the
enthusiasm by
means of which his ascent is accomplished. For enthusiasm is
simply his
impelling force, without which he could never have quitted the outer,
nether and
apparent, and gained the inner, upper and real. Wherefore, even when
the abstraction
from the outer world attains the intensity of Ecstasy, there is
nought in the
condition to invalidate the perceptions, sensible or mental, of
the seer. But
simply are his faculties heightened and perfected through the
exclusion of
all limiting or disturbing influences, and the consequent release
of the
consciousness from material trammel and bias. There is, as already said,
no really
“invisible world.” That which ecstasy does, is to open the vision to a
world
imperceptible to the exterior senses, – that world of substance which,
lying behind
phenomenon, necessarily requires for its cognition faculties which
are not of
the phenomenal but of the substantial man. Says one eminent Manualist
concerning
the Neoplatonic Mystics: – “Their teaching was a desperate
overleaping
and destruction of all philosophy.” [ Schwegler, Manual of
Philosophy.]
Says another: “In the desperate spring made at Alexandria, reason
was given up
for ecstasy.” [ G.H. Lewes, Biog. Hist. Phil. ] Whereas the truth
is, that the
only sense in which reason can be said to be given up by the
Mystic, is
that in which, not reason, but reasoning is given up, when, after
exhausting
conjecture blindfold, a man opens his eyes and sees, and so requires
no further
ratiocination. For ecstasy does but verify by actual vision the
highest
results of reason; though it may, and frequently does, thus operate in
advance of
the stage in his reasoning reached at the time by the seer. And so
far,
moreover, from superseding the necessity for the exercise of reason, it is
impossible,
without previous mental culture, duly to appreciate the results of
ecstatic,
more than of ordinary vision. For all understanding is of the mind;
and neither
the vision of things terrestrial nor that of things celestial can
dispense with
the exercise of this. Of course, with the advent of knowledge the
necessity for
reasoning ceases, and in this sense it is true that the Mystic
“destroys
philosophy by merging it in religion.” But in this sense only. For, in
his hands,
philosophy simply, and under compulsion of reason, acknowledges
religion as
its legitimate and inevitable terminus, when not, through a
limitation of
reason, arbitrarily withheld therefrom. And, in a world proceeding
from God, no
reason would be sound, no philosophy complete, of which the
conclusion, –
as well as the beginning, – was not religion. So far, also, from
such
religious philosophy involving, as constantly charged against it, the
abnegation of
self-consciousness; it involves and implies the due
self-completion
of the consciousness by the recognition of its true source and
nature. Thus,
so far from “losing,” the Mystic finds, himself thereby; for he
finds God,
the true and only Self of all. And if there be any who, recognizing
in these
pages aught of goodness, truth, or beauty transcending the ordinary,
inquire the
source thereof, the reply is, that the source is no other than that
just
described, namely, the Spirit operating under conditions which a
materialistic
science, bent on the suppression of man’s spiritual nature and the
eradication
of man’s religious instinct, designates “morbid,” and certifies as
qualifying
the subject for seclusion on the ground of insanity. [ In The
Nineteenth
Century for 1879, Dr. Maudsley declares his readiness to have
certified the
lunacy of various of the most eminent saints, seers, and prophets.
And the
medical profession generally, – following the lead of France, – treats
the claim to
be in open conditions with the spiritual world as proof positive of
insanity.
Said a member of this profession on a recent occasion, in support of
such action
on the part of his brethren: – “If we admit Spirits, we must admit
Spiritualism,
and what then be comes of the teachings of Materialism?” Thus, in
an age which
vaunts itself an age pre-eminently of free thought and experimental
philosophy,
are the expression of thought and confession of experience made the
highest
degree perilous when they conflict with the tenets of the prevailing
school. ]
35. We will
endeavor by a brief examination of the standpoints of the two
parties
respectively, to exhibit the genesis and nature of the Mystic’s
enthusiasm.
The Materialist – who regards Matter as the sole constituent of
existence, and
himself as derived from that which for its defect in respect of
consciousness,
he deems mean and contemptible – has for the supposed source and
substance of
his being, neither respect nor affection. No more than any one else
can he love
or honor the merely chemical or mechanical. Hence, like those who,
springing
from a low origin, have gained for themselves distinction, the last
thing he
covets is a return to that from which he came. How it arises that,
being wholly
of Matter, he has in him any impulse or faculty whereby to
transcend
even in desire his original level: whence come the qualities and
properties,
moral and intellectual, subsisting in humanity, but of which the
most
exhaustive analysis of Matter reveals no trace; whence the tendency of
evolution in
the direction of beauty, use, and goodness; whence evolution
itself; –
these are problems which are insoluble on his hypothesis, and which –
since he
rejects the solution proffered by the Mystic – must for ever remain
unsolved by
him.
36. The
Mystic, on the other hand, discerning through the intuition the
spiritual
nature of the substance of existence, recognizes himself, not as
superior to
that from which he has sprung, but as a limitation and
individualization
of that which itself is unlimited and universal, even the
absolutely
pure and perfect Spirit which is no other than God. Knowing himself
to be thence
derived and sustained, and only temporarily, and for a purpose
conceived in
infinite love and executed in infinite wisdom, subjected to
inferior
conditions, he yearns towards the whole of which he is a part, as a
child towards
its necessary parent, and strives, by divesting himself of the
withholding
influences of Matter, to rise into nearer resemblance to and contact
with his
divine Original.
37. The
Materialist, on the contrary, regarding Matter all, and its limitations
as inherent
in Being, sees in the endeavor to transcend those limitations but a
suicidal
attempt to escape from all Being. He strives, therefore, to attach
himself yet
more closely to Matter, little as he esteems it, and is content when
he has
succeeded in making from among things merely material, such selection as
best
ministers to his bodily satisfaction. And he cannot comprehend one of sound
mind seeking
more.
38. But such
mistake of the phenomenal for the substantial, of the apparent for
the real,
cannot be made by one who to the sensations of the body adds the
perceptions
and recollections of the soul. Such an one knows by a divine and
infallible
instinct, which every succeeding experience serves but to confirm,
that a
perfection and satisfaction far transcending aught that Materialist can
imagine or
Matter realize, are in very truth possible to humanity. And therefore
the
enthusiasm which inspires him is the enthusiasm, not of an earthly humanity,
immature,
rudimentary, and scarcely even suggestive of its own potentialities;
not of a
humanity which is exterior, transient, of form only and appearance; but
of a humanity
mature, developed, permanent, and capable of realizing its own
best promise
and highest aspirations; a humanity interior substantial, and of
the Spirit; a
humanity, though human, divine, in that it is worthy of its
progenitor
God, and at its best is God. The Materialist knows not perfection,
nor reality,
nor Spirit, nor God; and, knowing none of these, he knows not
enthusiasm.
Now, not to know enthusiasm, is not to know love. And he who knows
not love, is
not yet man. For he has yet to develop in him that which alone
completes and
makes the man, namely, the woman. Herein, then, is the full
solution of
the mystery of the Mystic’s enthusiasm, and of the Materialist’s
inability to
comprehend it. The one is already man, and, knowing what Being is,
loves. The
other is not yet man, and, incapable of love, has all to learn.
39. Not
always did Materialists contemn enthusiasm and repudiate its products.
Of one, at
least, history tells who with enthusiasm sang of enthusiasm as the
energizing
force of genius. It was no other than such a flight as that of the
rapt Mystic
in his ecstasy, which Lucretius ascribed to the inspired Epicurus,
when he
celebrated his vivida vis animi; for it was in virtue of his enthusiasm
for a
perfection transcending the animal, that Epicurus was enabled to overcome
the
limitations of the bodily sense, to “surpass the flaming walls of the world”
material, to
“traverse in spirit the whole immensity” of existence, and
returning –
“to bring back to men the knowledge of possible and impossible.” It
has been
reserved for the present age to produce the Materialist of a humanity
so stunted
and meagre that he knows not the meaning or value of enthusiasm, and
in his
ignorance makes of it a scoff.
PART IV
40. ACCEPTING
without limitation or reserve the dictum – already cited – that
“nothing
imperceptible is real;” the Mystic applies it in respect of the most
recondite of
all subjects of thought, namely, Deity, and both modes – the mental
and the
sensible – of perception. In doing this, he claims the justification of
his own
personal experience. For not only can he think God, he can also see God;
the mind with
which he does the first being a mind purified from obscuration by
Matter; and
the eyes with which he does the last being those of a more or less
regenerate
self. Of the seers of all ages the supreme beatific experience – that
which has
constituted for them the crowning confirmation of their doctrine
concerning
not only the being but the nature of Deity – has been the vision of
God as the
Lord. For those to whom this vision has been vouchsafed, hope the
most sanguine
is swallowed up in realization the most complete; belief the most
implicit is
merged in sight the most vivid; and knowledge the most absolute is
attained,
that the “kingdom of heaven is” in very truth “within,” and that the
king thereof
is – where alone a king should be – in the midst of his kingdom.
41. And yet
more than this. By the vision of God as the Lord, the seer knows
also that of
this celestial kingdom within, the King is also the Queen; that, in
respect of
form no less than of substance, man is created in God’s “own image,
male and
female;” and that in ascending to and becoming “one with the Father,”
man ascends
to and becomes one with the Mother. For in the form beheld in the
vision of
Adonai, both HE and SHE are manifested. Who, then, is Adonai? This is
a question
the reply to which involves the Mystery of the Trinity.
42.
Manifestation – it has already been explained – is by generation. Now
generation is
not of one but of twain. And inasmuch as that which is generated
partakes the
nature of the generators, it also is dual. That, then, which in the
current
presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity is termed the Father and
First Person
in the Godhead, is really the Father-Mother. And that which is
theologically
said to be begotten of them and called the Second Person and Son,
is also dual,
being not “Son” merely, but prototype of both sexes, and called in
token thereof
Io, Jehovah, El Shaddai, Adonai – names each of which implies
duality.
43. Having
for Father the Spirit which is Life, and for Mother the Great Deep
which is
Substance, Adonai possesses the potency of both, and wields the dual
powers of all
things. And from the Godhead thus constituted proceeds, through
Adonai, the
uncreated creative Spirit, the informer and fashioner of all things.
This Spirit
it is Who, theologically, is called the Holy Ghost, and the Third
Person, the
aspect of God as the Mother having been ignored or suppressed by a
priesthood
desirous of preserving a purely masculine conception of the Godhead.
By the above
presentation both the Churches, Eastern and Western, are right in
what they
affirm respecting the procession of the Holy Ghost, and wrong in what
they deny.
44. This, the
necessary method of the divine evolution and procession, for both
Macrocosm and
Microcosm, is duly set forth in the very commencement of the book
of Genesis;
being expressed in the words: – “And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of
the Waters: and God SAID, Let there be Light, and there was Light.”
For, whenever
and wherever creation – or manifestation by generation – occurs,
God the
Father co-operates with God the Mother – as Force, moving in Substance –
and produces
the Utterance, Word, Logos, or Adonai, – at once God and the
Expression of
God. And of this Logos the Holy Spirit, in turn, is the Expression
or creative
medium. For, as Adonai is the Word or Expression whereby is
manifested
God, so the Holy Spirit, or primal Light, – Itself Sevenfold, – is
the Radiance
whereby is revealed and manifested the Lord. Now the manifestation
of the Lord –
which also is the manifestation of God – occurs through the
working in
Substance of the Elohim or Seven Spirits of God – enumerated in our
second
discourse – from Whose number first of all the number seven derives its
sanctity.
They are the Powers under Whose immediate superintendence Creation,
whether of
great or small, occurs. And of them is the whole of the Divine
Substance
pervaded, – the Substance of all that is.
“These are
the Divine Fires which burn before the Presence of God: which proceed
from the
Spirit, and are One with the Spirit.
“God is
divided, yet not diminished: God is All, and God is One.
“For the
Spirit of God is a Flame of Fire which the Word of God divideth into
many; yet the
Original Flame is not decreased, nor the Power thereof, nor the
Brightness
thereof, lessened.
“Thou mayest
light many lamps from the flame of one; yet thou dost in nothing
diminish that
first flame.
“Now the
Spirit of God is expressed by the Word of God, which is Adonai.”
45. This then
is the order of the Divine Procession. First the Unity, or
“Darkness” of
the “Invisible Light.” Second, the Duality, the Spirit and Deep,
or Energy and
Space. Thirdly, the Trinity, the Father, the Mother, and Their
joint
expression or “Word.” Last, the Plurality, the Sevenfold Light and Elohim
of God. Such
is the “generation” of the Heavens or celestial region, both in the
universal and
in the individual. And within the experience of each, individual
lies the
possibility of the verification thereof. For in due time, to each who
seeks for it,
“the Holy Spirit teaches all things, and brings all things to
remembrance.”
46. The
Logos, or Adonai, is then God’s Idea of God’s Self, the Formulated,
Personified
Thought of the Divine Mind. And whereas God makes nothing save
through this
Idea, it is said of Adonai, –
“By Him all
things are made, and without Him is not anything made which is made.
“He is the
true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
“He is the
world, and the world is made by Him, and the world knoweth Him not.
“But as many
as receive Him, to them he giveth power to become Sons of God, even
to them that
believe on His Name.
“He is in the
Beginning with God, and He is God. He is the Manifestor by Whom
all things
are discovered
“And without
Him is not anything made which is visible.
“God the
Nameless doth not reveal God: but Adonai revealeth God from the
Beginning.
“Adonai
dissolveth and resumeth: in His two hands are the dual powers of all
things;
“Having the
potency of both in Himself; and being Himself invisible, for He is
the Cause,
and not the Effect.
“He is the
Manifestor; and not that which is manifest.
“That which
is manifest is the Divine Substance.
“Every Monad
thereof hath the potency of twain; as God is Twain in One.
“And every
Monad which is manifest, is manifest by the evolution of its Trinity.
“For thus
only can it bear record of itself, and become cognizable as an
Entity.” [ As
man, made in the “image” of Adonai, is the expression of God, so
is the
expression or countenance of man the express image of God’s nature, and
bears in its
features the impress of the celestial, showing him to be thence
derived.
Thus, in the human face, by the straight, central, protruding, and
vertical line
of the organ of respiration, is denoted Individuality, the divine
Ego, the I
AM, of the man. Though single exteriorly, and constituting one organ,
in token of
the Divine Unity, within it is dual, having a double function, and
two nostrils
in which resides the power of the Breath or Spirit, and which
represent the
Divine Duality. This duality finds its especial symbolization in
the two
spheres of the eyes, which – placed on a level with the summit of the
nose – denote
respectively Intelligence and Love, or Father and Mother, as the
supreme elements
of Being. Though exteriorly two, interiorly they are one, as
vision is
one. And of the harmonious co-operation of the two personalities
represented
by them, proceeds, as child, a third personality, which is their
joint
expression or “Word.” Of this the Mouth is at once the organ and symbol,
being in
itself dual, – when closed a line, when open a circle; and also
twofold,
being compounded of line and circle in the tongue and lips. And as the
place of
issue of the creative breath, it is below the other features, since
creation, in
coming from the Highest, is in its direction necessarily downwards.
Thus, in the
countenance of the “Image of God,” is expressed the nature of God,
– even the
Holy Trinity. For “these three are one,” being essential modes of the
same Being. ]
PART V
47. WE come
to that which, both in its nature and in its import, is the most
stupendous
fact of mystical experience, and the crowning experience of seers in
all ages from
the remotest antiquity to the present day. This is the Vision of
Adonai, a
vision which proves that not only subjectively but objectively, not
only mentally
and theoretically, but sensibly and actually, God, as the Lord, is
present and
cognizable in each individual, ever operating to build him up in the
Divine Image,
and succeeding so far – and only so far – as the individual, by
making the
Divine Will his own will, consents to co-operate with God.
48. In
respect of this vision, it matters not whether the seer have previous
experience or
knowledge on the subject; for the result is altogether
irrespective
of anticipation. It is possible to him when – having purified his
system,
mental and physical, from all deteriorative and obstructive elements –
he thinks
inwardly, desires intensely, and imagines centrally, resolved that
nothing shall
bar his ascent to his own highest and entrance to his own
innermost.
Doing this, and abstracting himself from the outer world of the
phenomenal,
he enters first the astral, where, more or less clearly, according
to the
measure of his percipience, he discerns successively the various spheres
of its
fourfold zone together with their denizens. In the process he seems to
himself,
while still individual, to have lost the limitations of the finite, and
to have
become expanded into the universal. For, while traversing the several
successive
concentric spheres of his own being, and mounting, as by the steps of
a ladder,
from one to another, he is as palpably traversing also those not of
the solar
system only, but of the whole universe of being; and that which
ultimately he
reaches, is, manifestly, the centre of each, the initial point of
radiation of
himself and of all things.
49.
Meanwhile, under the impulsion of the mighty enthusiasm engendered in him of
the Spirit,
the component consciousnesses of his system become more and more
completely
polarized towards their Divine centre, and the animating, Divine
Spirit of the
man, from being diffused, latent, and formless, becomes
concentrated,
manifest, and definite. For, bent on the highest, the astral does
not long
detain him; and soon he passes the Cherubim – the guardians from
without of
the celestial – and enters within the veil of the holy of holies.
Here he finds
himself amid a company innumerable of beings each manifestly
divine; for
they are the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and
all the
hierarchy of the “Heavens.” Pressing on through these towards the
centre, he
next finds himself in presence of a light so intolerable in its
lustre as
well nigh to beat him back from further quest. And of those who reach
thus far,
many adventure no farther, but, appalled, retire, well content,
nevertheless,
to have been privileged to approach, and actually to behold, the
“Great White
Throne” of the Almighty.
50. Enshrined
in this light is a Form radiant and glorious beyond all power of
expression.
For it is “made of the substance of Light;” and the form is that of
the “Only
Begotten,” the Logos, the Idea, the Manifestor of God, the Personal
Reason of all
existence the Lord God of Hosts, the Lord Adonai. From the right
hand upraised
in attitude indicative of will and command, proceeds, as a stream
of living
force, the Holy Life and Substance whereby and whereof creation
consists. With
the left hand, depressed and open as in attitude of recall, the
stream is
indrawn, and Creation is sustained and redeemed. Thus projecting and
recalling,
expanding and contracting, Adonai fulfils the functions expressed in
the mystical
formula Solve et Coagula. And as in this, so also in constitution
and form,
Adonai is dual, comprising the two modes of humanity, and appearing to
the beholder
alternately masculine and feminine according as the function
exercised is
of man or the woman, and is centrifugal or centripetal. And as,
continuing to
gaze, the beholder acquires clearer vision, he discovers that, of
the images
thus combined, while one is manifested the more fully exteriorly, the
other
appertains rather to the interior, and shines in a measure through its
fellow,
itself remaining meanwhile in close contiguity to the heart and spirit.
And whereas
of these forms the inner is the feminine, the beholder learns that
of the two
modes of humanity, womanhood is the nearer to God.
51. Such is
the “vision of Adonai.” And by whatever name denoted, no other
source,
centre, sustenance, or true Self can mortal or immortal find, than God
as the Lord
Who is thus beheld; and no other can he who has once beheld it, –
however dimly
or afar off, – desire. For, finding Adonai, the soul is content;
the summit
and centre of Being is reached; all ideals of Truth, Goodness,
Beauty, and
Power are realized; there is no Beyond to which to aspire. For All
is in Adonai;
since in Adonai dwells the infinite sea of Power and Wisdom which
is God. And
all of God which can be revealed, all that the soul can grasp be her
powers
expanded as they may, is revealed in Adonai.
52. Of the
term Adonai, as already stated, the Hindu equivalent, “Ardha-Nari,”
is
represented as androgynous in form. But the personality denoted is that of
Brahm, or
pure being, become Brahma, the Lord. And of the Hindu “Trimurti,” the
right hand,
which typifies the creative energy, is Vishnu; the left, which
represents
the power of dissolution and return, is Siva, Adonai Himself being
Brahma. The
conditions on which this vision is vouchsafed are thus set forth for
the benefit
of his “beloved disciple,” Arjun, by the “holy one,” Krishna: –
“Thou hast
beheld this My wondrous form, so difficult of apprehension, which
even angels
may in vain desire to see. But I am not to be seen as thou hast seen
me, by means
of mortifications, of sacrifices, of gifts, of alms. I am to be
seen and
truly known, and to be obtained by means of that worship which is
offered to Me
alone. He whose works are done for Me alone, who serves Me only,
who cares
nought for consequences, and who dwelleth among men without hatred, –
he alone
cometh unto Me.”
PART VI
53. THIS discourse
and series of discourses will fitly close with an exposition
of the
relations subsisting between the Adonai, the Christ, and the man.
As Adonai the
Lord is the manifestation of God in Substance, so Christ is the
manifestation
of the Lord in Humanity. The former occurs by Generation; the
latter by
Regeneration. The former is from within, outwards; the latter is from
below,
upwards. Man, ascending by evolution from the material and lowermost
stratum of
existence, finds his highest development in the Christ. This is the
point where
the human stream, as it flows upwards into God, culminates. Reaching
this point by
regeneration, man is at once Son of Man and of God, and is
perfect,
receiving in consequence the baptism of the Logos or Word, Adonai.
Being now
“virgin” in respect of matter, and quickened by the “one life,” that
of the
Spirit, man becomes like unto God, in that he has the “Gift of God,” or
Eternal Life
through the power of self-perpetuation. The Logos is celestial: the
man, terrestrial.
Christ is their point of junction, without whom they could not
touch each
other. Attaining to this point by means of that inward purification
which is the
secret and method of the Christs, the man receives his suffusion
by, or
“anointing” of, the Spirit, and forthwith has, and is, “Christ.”
Christhood is
attained by the reception into man’s own spirit of the Logos. This
accomplished,
the two natures, the Divine and the human, combine; the two
streams, the
ascending and the descending, meet; and the man knows and
understands
God. And this is said to occur through Christ, because for every man
it occurs
according to the same method, Christ being for all alike the only way.
Having received
the Logos, Who is Son of God, the man becomes also Son of God,
as well as
Son of Man, – this latter title being his in virtue of his
representing
a regeneration or new birth out of humanity. And the Son of God in
him reveals
to him the “Father,” a term which includes the “Mother.” Knowing
these, he
knows the Life and Substance whereof he is constituted, – knows,
therefore,
his own nature and potentialities. Thus made “one with the Father,”
through the
Son, the man “in Christ” can say truly, “I and the Father are one.”
This is the
import of the confession of Stephen. “Behold,” he cried in his
ecstasy, “I
see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand
of God.” For
at that supreme moment the Spirit revealed to him, in visible
image, the
union through Christ of the Human and the Divine. Attaining to this
union, man
becomes “Christ Jesus;” “he dwells in God, and God in him;” he is
“one with God
and God with him.” It is at this point – Christ – that God and the
man finally
lay hold of each other and are drawn together. Thenceforth they
flow, as two
rivers united, in one stream. The man is finally made in the image
of God; and
God, as the Lord, is eternally manifested in him, making him an
individualized
portion of Divinity itself. Being thereby rendered incapable of
relapse into
material conditions, he is called a “fixed God,” – a state which,
as says
Hermes in the Divine Pymander, “is the most perfect glory of the soul.”
54.
Recognizing thus divine truth as an eternal verity in perpetual process of
realization
by the individual soul, and words Now and Within as the keys to all
sacred
mysteries, the Elect translate the symbols of their faith into terms of
the present,
and recite accordingly their Credo in this wise: –
“I believe in
one God, the Father and Mother Almighty; of Whose Substance are
the
generations of Heaven and of Earth; and in Christ-Jesus the son of God, our
Lord; who is
conceived of the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary; suffereth
under the
rulers of this world, is crucified, dead, and buried; who descendeth
into Hell;
who riseth again from the dead; who ascendeth into Heaven, and
sitteth at
the right hand of God; by whose law the quick and the dead are
judged. I
believe in the Seven Spirits of God; the Kingdom of Heaven; the
communion of
the Elect; the passing-through of Souls; the redemption of the
Body; the
Life everlasting; and the Amen.”
APPENDICES.
_____________________
APPENDIX No.
1
CONCERNING
THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
(A FRAGMENT.)
PART I
“IF,
therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to have a Mystic
Consideration.
But the fault of most Writers lieth in this, – that they
distinguish
not between the Books of Moses the Prophet, and those Books which
are of an
historical Nature. And this is the more surprising because not a few
of such
Critics have rightly discerned the esoteric Character, if not indeed the
true
Interpretation, of the Story of Eden; yet have they not applied to the
Remainder of
the Allegory the same Method which they found to fit the Beginning;
but so soon
as they are over the earlier Stanzas of the Poem, they would have
the Rest of
it to be of another Nature.
“It is, then,
pretty well established and accepted of most Authors, that the
Legend of
Adam and Eve and of the Miraculous Tree and the Fruit which was the
Occasion of
Death, is, like the Story of Eros and Psyche, and so many others of
all
Religions, a Parable with a hidden, that is, with a Mystic Meaning. But so
also is the
Legend which follows concerning the Sons of these Mystical Parents,
the story of
Cain and Abel his Brother, the Story of the Flood, of the Ark, of
the saving of
the clean and unclean Beasts, of the Rainbow, of the twelve Sons
of Jacob,
and, not stopping there, of the whole Relation concerning the Flight
out of Egypt.
For it is not to be supposed that the two Sacrifices offered to
God by the
Sons of Adam, were real Sacrifices, any more than it is to be
supposed that
the Apple which caused the Doom of Mankind, was a real Apple. It
ought to be
known, indeed, for the right Understanding of the Mystical Books,
that in their
esoteric Sense they deal, not with material Things, but with
spiritual
Realities; and that as Adam is not a Man, nor Eve a Woman, nor the
Tree a Plant
in its true Signification, so also are not the Beasts named in the
same Books
real Beasts, but that the Mystic Intention of them is implied. When,
therefore, it
is written that Abel took of the Firstlings of his Flock to offer
unto the
Lord, it is signified that he offered that which a Lamb implies, and
which is the
holiest and highest of spiritual Gifts. Nor is Abel himself a real
Person but
the Type and spiritual Presentation of the Race of the Prophets; of
whom, also,
Moses was a Member, together with the Patriarchs. Were the Prophets,
then,
Shedders of Blood? God forbid; they dealt not with Things material, but
with
spiritual Significations. Their Lambs without Spot, their white Doves,
their Goats,
their Rams, and other sacred Creatures, are so many signs and
symbols of
the various Graces and Gifts which a Mystic people should offer to
Heaven.
Without such Sacrifices is no Remission of Sin. But when the Mystic
Sense was
lost, then Carnage followed, the Prophets ceased out of the Land, and
the Priests
bore rule over the People. Then, when again the Voice of the
Prophets
arose, they were constrained to speak plainly, and declared in a Tongue
foreign to
their Method, that the Sacrifices of God are not Flesh of Bulls or
the Blood of
Goats, but holy Vows and Sacred Thanksgiving, their Mystical
Counterparts.
As God is a Spirit, so also are His Sacrifices Spiritual. What
Folly, what
Ignorance, to offer material Flesh and Drink to pure Power and
essential
Being! Surely in vain have the Prophets spoken, and in vain have the
Christs been
manifested!
“Why will you
have Adam to be Spirit and Eve Matter, since the Mystic Books deal
only with
spiritual Entities? The Tempter himself even is not Matter, but that
which gives
Matter the Precedence. Adam is, rather, intellectual Force: he is of
Earth. Eve is
the moral Conscience: she is the Mother of the Living. Intellect,
then, is the
male, and Intuition the female Principle. And the Sons of
Intuition,
herself fallen, shall at last recover Truth and redeem all Things. By
her Fault,
indeed, is the moral Conscience of Humanity made subject to the
intellectual
Force, and thereby all Manner of Evil and Confusion abounds, since
her Desire is
unto him, and he rules over her until now. But the End foretold by
the Seer is
not far off. Then shall the Woman be exalted, clothed with the Sun,
and carried
to the Throne of God. And her Sons shall make War with the Dragon,
and have
Victory over him. Intuition, therefore, pure and a Virgin, shall be the
Mother and
Redemptress of her fallen Sons, whom she bore under Bondage to her
Husband the
intellectual Force.”
PART II
“MOSES,
therefore, knowing the Mysteries of the Religion of Egypt, and having
learned of
its Occultists the Value and Signification of all sacred Birds and
Beasts,
delivered like Mysteries to his own People. But certain of the sacred
Animals of
Egypt he retained not in Honor, for Motives which were equally of
Mystic
Origin. And he taught his Initiated the Spirit of the heavenly
Hieroglyphs,
and bade them, when they made Festival before God, to carry with
them in
Procession, with Music and with Dancing, such of the sacred Animals as
were, by
their interior Significance, related to the Occasion. Now, of these
Beasts, he
chiefly selected Males of the first Year, without Spot or Blemish, to
signify that
it is beyond all Things needful that Man should dedicate to the
Lord his
Intellect and his Reason, and this from the Beginning and without the
least
Reserve. And that he was very wise in teaching this, is evident from the
History of
the World in all Ages, and particularly in these last Days. For what
is it that
has led Men to renounce the Realities of the Spirit, and to propagate
false
Theories and corrupt Sciences, denying all Things save the Appearance
which can be
apprehended by the outer Senses, and making themselves one with the
Dust of the
Ground? It is their Intellect which, being unsanctified, has led
them astray;
it is the Force of the Mind in them, which, being corrupt, is the
Cause of
their own Ruin, and that of their Disciples. As, then, the Intellect is
apt to be the
great Traitor against Heaven, so also is it the Force by which
Men,
following their pure Intuition, may also grasp and apprehend the Truth. For
which Reason
it is written that the Christs are subject to their Mothers. Not
that by any
means the Intellect is to be dishonored; for it is the Heir of all
Things, if
only it be truly begotten and be no Bastard.
“And besides
all these Symbols, Moses taught the People to have beyond all
Things an
Abhorrence of Idolatry. What, then, is Idolatry, and what are the
False Gods?
“To make an
Idol, is to materialize spiritual Mysteries. The Priests, then, were
Idolaters,
who, coming after Moses, and committing to Writing those Things which
he by Word of
Mouth had delivered unto Israel, replaced the true Things
signified, by
their material Symbols, and shed innocent Blood on the pure Altars
of the Lord.
“They also
are Idolaters, who understand the Things of Sense where the Things of
the Spirit
are alone implied, and who conceal the true Features of the Gods with
material and
spurious Presentations. Idolatry is Materialism, the common and
original Sin
of Men, which replaces Spirit by Appearance, Substance by Illusion,
and leads
both the moral and intellectual Being into Error, so that they
substitute
the Nether for the Upper, and the Depth for the Height. It is that
false Fruit
which attracts the outer Senses, the Bait of the Serpent in the
Beginning of
the World. Until the Mystic Man and Woman had eaten of this Fruit,
they knew
only the Things of the Spirit, and found them to suffice. But after
their Fall,
they began to apprehend Matter also, and gave it the Preference,
making
themselves Idolaters. And their Sin, and the Taint begotten of that false
Fruit, have
corrupted the Blood of the whole Race of Men, from which Corruption
the Sons of
God would have redeemed them.”
APPENDIX No.
2
CONCERNING
THE HEREAFTER.
WHEN a man
parts at death with his material body, that of him which survives is
divisible
into three parts, the anima divina, or, as in the Hebrew, Neshamah;
the anima
bruta, or Ruach, which is the persona of the man; and the shade, or
Nephesh,
which is the lowest mode of soul-substance. In the great majority of
persons the
consciousness is gathered up and centered in the anima bruta, or
Ruach; in the
few wise it is polarized in the anima divina. Now, that part of
man which
passes through, or transmigrates, – the process whereof is called by
the Hebrews
Gilgal Neshamoth, – is the anima divina, which is the immediate
receptacle of
the deific Spirit. And whereas there is in the world nothing save
the human,
actual or potential, the Neshamah subsists also in animals, though
only as a
mere spark, their consciousness being therefore rudimentary and
diffuse. It
is the Neshamah which finally escapes from the world and is redeemed
into eternal
life. The anima bruta, or earthly mind, is that part of man which
retains all
earthly and local memories, reminiscent affections, cares and
personalities
of the world or planetary sphere, and bears his family or
earth-name.
After death this anima bruta, or Ruach, remains in the “lower Eden,”
within sight
and call of the magnetic earth-sphere. But the anima divina, the
Neshamah, –
the name of which is known only to God, – passes upwards and
continues its
evolutions, bearing with it only a small portion, and that the
purest, of
the outer soul, or mind. This anima divina is the true Man. It is not
within hail
of the magnetic atmosphere; and only on the rarest and most solemn
occasions,
does it return to the planet unclothed. The astral shade, the
Nephesh, is
dumb; the earthly soul, the anima bruta, or Ruach, speaks and
remembers;
the divine soul, the Neshamah, which contains the divine Light,
neither
returns nor communicates, that is, in the ordinary way. That which the
anima bruta
remembers, is the history of one incarnation only, because it is
part of the
astral man, and the astral man is renewed at every incarnation of
the Neshamah.
But very advanced men become reincarnate, not on this planet, but
on some other
nearer the Sun. The anima bruta has lived but once, and will never
be
reincarnate. It continues in the “lower Eden,” a personality in relation to
the earth,
and retaining the memories, both good and bad, of its one past life.
If it have
done evil, it suffers indeed, but is not condemned; if it have done
well, it is
happy, but not beatified. It continues in thought its favourite
pursuits of
earth, and creates for itself houses, gardens, flowers, books, and
so forth, out
of the astral light. It remains in this condition more or less
strongly
defined, according to the personality it had acquired, until the anima
divina, one
of whose temples it was, has accomplished all its Avatars. Then,
with all the
other earthly souls belonging to that divine soul, it is drawn up
into the
celestial Eden, or upper heaven, and returns into the essence of the
Neshamah. But
all of it does not return; only the good memories; the bad sink to
the lowest
stratum of the astral light, where they disintegrate. For, if the
divine soul
were permanently, in its perfected state, to retain the memories of
all its evil
doings, its misfortunes, its earthly griefs, its earthly loves, it
would not be
perfectly happy. Therefore only those loves and memories return to
the Neshamah,
which have penetrated the earthly soul sufficiently to reach the
divine soul,
and to make part of the man. It is said that all Marriages are made
in Heaven.
This means that all true love-unions are made in the Celestial within
the man. The
mere affections of the anima bruta are evanescent, and belong only
to it. When
this, the Ruach, is interrogated, it can speak only of one life, for
it has lived
but one. Of that one it retains all the memories and all the
affections.
If these have been strong, it remains near those persons whom
especially it
loved, and overshadows them. A single Neshamah may have as many of
these former
selves in the astral light, as a man may have changes of raiment.
But when the
divine soul is perfected and about to be received into “the Sun,”
or Nirvana,
she indraws all these past selves, and possesses herself of their
memories; but
only of the worthy parts of these, and such as will not deprive
her of
eternal calm. In “the planets,” the soul forgets; in “the Suns,” she
remembers.
For, in memoria eterna erit Justus. (Ps. A. V. cxii., D. V. cxi. 6.)
Not until a
man has accomplished his regeneration, and become a Son of God, a
Christ, can
he have these memories of his past lives. Such memories as a man, on
the upward
path, can have of his past incarnations, are by reflection only; and
the memories
are not of events usually, but of principles and truths, and habits
formerly
acquired. If these memories relate to events, they are vague and
fitful,
because they are reflections from the overshadowing of his former selves
in the astral
light. For the former selves, the deserted temples of the anima
divina,
frequent her sphere and are attracted towards her, especially under
certain
conditions. From them she learns through the intermediary of the Genius,
or Moon, who
lights up the camera obscura of the mind, and reflects on its
tablet the
memories cast by the overshadowing Past. The anima bruta seems to
itself to
progress, because it has a vague sense that sooner or later it will be
lifted to
higher spheres. But of the method of this it is ignorant, because it
can only know
the Celestial by union with it. The Ruach seems to itself to
progress, but
its learning is acquired by reflected soul-rays coming from the
terrestrial.
Advanced men on the earth assist and teach the astral soul, and
hence its
fondness for their spheres. It learns by reflected intellectual
images, or
Thoughts. The Ruach is right when it says it is immortal. For the
better part
of it will in the end be absorbed into the Neshamah. But if one
interrogate a
Ruach of even two or three centuries old, it seldom knows more
than it knew
in its earth-life, unless, indeed, it gains fresh knowledge from
its
interrogator. The reason why some communications are astral, and others
celestial, is
simply that some persons – the greater number – communicate by
means of the
anima bruta in themselves, and others – the few purified – by means
of their
anima divina. For, Like attracts Like. The earthly souls of animals are
rarely met
with; they come into communion with animals rather than with man,
unless an
affection between a man and an animal have been very strong. If a man
would meet
and recognize his Beloved in Nirvana, he must make his affection one
of the
Neshamah, not of the Ruach. There are many degrees of Love. True Love is
stronger than
a thousand deaths. For though one die a thousand times, a single
Love may yet
perpetuate itself past every death from birth to birth, growing
and,
culminating in intensity and might.
Now all these
three, Nephesh, Ruach, and Neshamah, are discrete modes of one and
the same
universal Being which is at once Life and Substance and is instinct
with
Consciousness, inasmuch as it is, under whatever mode, Holy Spirit.
Wherefore
there inheres in them all a Divine potency. Evolution, which is the
manifestation
of that which is inherent, is the manifestation of this potency.
The first
formulation of this inherency, above the plane of the material, is the
Nephesh, this
being the soul by which are impelled the lower and earlier forms
of life. It
is the “moving” soul that breathes and kindles. The next, – the
Ruach, – is
the “Wind” that rushes forth to vivify the mind. Higher, because
more inward
and central, is the Neshamah, which, borne on the bosom of the
Ruach, is the
immediate receptacle of the Divine Particle, and without which
this cannot
be individualized and become an indiffusible personality. Both the
“Wind” and
the “Flame” are Spirit; but the Wind is general, the Flame
particular;
the Wind fills the House; the Flame designates the Person. The Wind
is the Divine
Voice resounding in the ear of the Apostle and passing away where
it listeth;
the Flame is the Divine Tongue uttering itself in the word of the
Apostle.
Thus, then, in the Soul impersonal are perceived the breath and
afflatus of
God; but in the Soul personal is formulate the express Utterance of
God. Now,
both of Nephesh and Ruach that which is gathered up and endures, is
Neshamah.
APPENDIX No.
3
CONCERNING
PROPHESYING; AND PROPHECY.
(The
references, apparently personal, in this or any subsequent Appendix, are to
be understood
generally, – that is, of principles and offices, and not of actual
individuals.)
PART I
1-“YOU ask
the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means whereby God
revealeth the
truth.
2. Know that
there is no enlightenment from without; the secret of things is
revealed from
within.
3. From
without cometh no Divine Revelation; but the Spirit within beareth
witness.
4. To him
that hath it is given, and he hath the more abundantly.
5. None is a
prophet save he who knoweth; the Instructor of the people is a man
of many
lives.
6. Inborn
knowledge and the Perception of things, these are the sources of
Revelation;
the Soul of the man instructeth him, having already learned by
experience.
7. Intuition
is Inborn Experience; that which the Soul knoweth of old and of
former years.
8. And
Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a man perceiveth heavenly
secrets.
9. Which
Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him the things
of God.
10. Do not
think that I tell you anything you know not; all cometh from within;
the Spirit
that informeth is the Spirit of God in the prophet.
11. What,
then, you ask, is the Medium; and how are to be regarded the
utterances of
one speaking in trance?
12. God
speaketh through no man in the way you suppose; for the Spirit of the
Prophet
beholdeth God with open eyes. If he fall into a trance, his eyes are
open, and his
interior man knoweth what is spoken by him.
13. But when
a man speaketh that which he knoweth not, he is obsessed; an impure
Spirit, or
one that is bound, hath entered into him.
14. There are
many such, but their words are as the words of men who know not;
these are not
prophets nor inspired.
15. God
obsesseth no man; God is revealed; and he to whom God is revealed
speaketh that
which he knoweth.
16. Christ
Jesus understandeth God; he knoweth that of which he beareth witness.
17. But they
who, being Mediums, utter in trance things of which they have no
knowledge,
and of which their own Spirit is uninformed; these are obsessed with
a spirit of
divination, a strange spirit, not their own.
18. Of such
beware, for they speak many lies, and are deceivers, working often
for gain or
for pleasure sake; and they are a grief and a snare to the faithful.
19.
Inspiration may indeed be mediumship, but it is conscious; and the knowledge
of the
prophet instructeth him.
20. Even
though he speak in an ecstasy, he uttereth nothing that he knoweth not.
21. Thou who
art a prophet hast had many lives; yea, thou hast taught many
nations, and
hast stood before kings.
22. And God
hath instructed thee in the years that are past; and in the former
times of the
earth.
23. By
prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seeking, hast thou attained
that thou
knowest.
24. There is
no knowledge but by labor; there is no intuition but by experience.
25. I have
seen thee on the hills of the East; I have followed thy steps in the
Wilderness; I
have seen thee adore at sunrise; I have marked thy night watches
in the caves
of the mountains.
26. Thou hast
attained with patience, O prophet; God hath revealed the truth to
thee from
within.
PART II
27. AND now I
show you a Mystery and a new thing, which is part of the Mystery
of the Fourth
Day of Creation.
28. The word
which shall come to save the world, shall be uttered by a Woman.
29. A Woman
shall conceive, and shall bring forth the tidings of Salvation.
30. For the
reign of Adam is at its last hour, and God shall crown all things by
the creation
of Eve.
31. Hitherto
the Man hath been alone, and hath had dominion over the earth.
32. But when
the Woman shall be created, God shall give unto her the kingdom;
and she shall
be first in rule and highest in dignity.
33. Yea, the
last shall be first; and the elder shall serve the younger.
34. So that
women shall no more lament for their womanhood; but men shall rather
say, “Oh that
we had been born women!”
35. For the
strong shall be put down from their seat; and the meek shall be
exalted to
their place.
36. The days
of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing away; the Gospel of
Interpretation
cometh.
37. There
shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient shall be
interpreted.
38. So that
Man the Manifestor shall resign his office; and Woman the
Interpreter
shall give light to the world.
39. Here is
the Fourth Office; she revealeth that which the Lord had manifested.
40. Here is
the Light of the Heavens, and the brightest of the planets of the
holy Seven.
41. She is
the Fourth Dimension: the Eyes which enlighten, the Power which
draweth
inward to God.
42. And her
kingdom cometh, the day of the exaltation of Woman.
43. And her
reign shall be greater than the reign of the Man; for Adam shall be
put down from
his place; and she shall have dominion forever.
44. And she
who is alone shall bring forth more children to God, than she who
hath an
husband.
45. There
shall no more be a reproach against women; but against men shall be
the reproach.
46. For the
Woman is the crown of Man, and the final manifestation of Humanity.
47. She is
the nearest to the Throne of God, when she shall be revealed.
48. But the
creation of Woman is not yet complete; but it shall be complete in
the time
which is at hand.
49. All
things are thine, O Mother of God; all things are thine, O Thou who
risest from
the Sea; and Thou shalt have dominion over all the worlds.
APPENDIX No.
4
CONCERNING
THE NATURE OF SIN
1. AS is the
Outer so is the Inner; He that worketh is One.
2. As the
small is, so is the great; there is one Law.
3. Nothing is
small and nothing is great in the Divine Economy.
4. If thou
wouldst understand the method of the world’s corruption, and the
condition to
which Sin hath reduced the work of God,
5. Meditate
upon the aspect of a Corpse; and consider the method of the
putrefaction
of its tissues and humors.
6. For the
secret of Death is the same, whether of the Outer or of the Inner.
7. The Body
dieth when the Central Will of its system no longer bindeth in
obedience the
elements of its Substance.
8. Every Cell
is a living Entity, whether of vegetable or of animal potency.
9. In the
healthy body every Cell is polarized in subjection to the Central
Will, the
Adonai of the physical system.
10. Health,
therefore, is Order, Obedience, and Government.
11. But
wherever Disease is, there is Disunion, Rebellion, and Insubordination.
12. And the
deeper the seat of the confusion, the more dangerous the malady, and
the harder to
quell it.
13. That
which is superficial may be more easily healed, or, if need be, the
disorderly
elements may be rooted out, and the body shall be whole and at unity
again.
14. But if
the disobedient molecules corrupt each other continually, and the
perversity spread,
and the rebellious tracts multiply their elements; the whole
body shall
fall into Dissolution, which is Death.
15. For the
Central Will that should dominate all the kingdom of the body, is no
longer
obeyed; and every element is become its own ruler, and hath a divergent
will of its
own.
16. So that
the poles of the cells incline in divers directions; and the binding
power which
is the life of the body, is dissolved and destroyed.
17. And when
Dissolution is complete, then follow Corruption and Putrefaction.
18. Now, that
which is true of the Physical, is true likewise of its prototype.
19. The whole
world is full of Revolt; and every element hath a will divergent
from God.
20. Whereas
there ought to be but one Will, attracting and ruling the whole Man.
21. But there
is no longer Brotherhood among you; nor Order, nor Mutual
Sustenance.
22. Every
Cell is its own Arbiter; and every Member is become a Sect.
23. Ye are
not bound one to another; ye have confounded your offices, and
abandoned
your functions.
24. Ye have
reversed the direction of your magnetic currents; ye are fallen into
confusion,
and have given place to the Spirit of Misrule.
25. Your
Wills are many and diverse; and every one of you is an Anarchy.
26. A house
that is divided against itself, falleth.
27. O
wretched Man; who shall deliver you from this body of Death?
APPENDIX No.
5
CONCERNING
THE “GREAT WORK,” THE REDEMPTION AND THE
SHARE OF
CHRIST JESUS THEREIN.
1. “FOR this
cause is Christ manifest, that he may destroy the works of the
devil.”
2. In this
text of the holy writings is contained the explanation of the mission
of the
Christ, and the nature of the Great Work.
3. Now the
devil, or old serpent, the enemy of God, is that which gives
pre-eminence
to Matter.
4. He is
disorder, confusion, distortion, falsification, error. He is not
personal, he
is not positive, he is not formulated. Whatever God is, that the
devil is not.
5. God is
Light, Truth, Order, Harmony, Reason; and God’s Works are
Illumination,
Knowledge, Understanding, Love, and Sanity.
6. Therefore
the devil is darkness, falsehood, disorder, discord, ignorance; and
his works are
confusion, folly, division, hatred, and delirium.
7. The devil
is therefore the negation of God’s Positive. God is I AM; the devil
is NOT. He
has no individuality and no existence; for he represents the not
being.
Wherever God’s kingdom is not, the devil reigns.
8. Now the
Great Work is the Redemption of Spirit from Matter; that is, the
establishment
of the Kingdom of God.
9. Jesus
being asked when the Kingdom of God should come, answered, “When Two
shall be as
One, and that which is Without as that which is Within.”
10. In saying
this, he expressed the nature of the Great Work. The Two are
Spirit and
Matter; the Within is the real invisible; the Without is the illusory
visible.
11. The
Kingdom of God shall come when Spirit and Matter shall be one substance,
and the
phenomenal shall be absorbed into the real.
12. His
design was therefore to destroy the dominion of Matter, and to dissipate
the devil and
his works.
13. And this
he intended to accomplish by proclaiming the knowledge of the
Universal
Dissolvent, and giving to men the keys of the Kingdom of God.
14. Now, the
Kingdom of God is within us; that is, it is interior, invisible,
mystic,
spiritual.
15. There is
a power by means of which the Outer may be absorbed into the Inner.
16. There is
a power by means of which Matter may be ingested into its original
substance.
17. He who
possesses this power is Christ, and he has the devil under foot.
18. For he
reduces chaos to order, and indraws the external to the centre.
19. He has
learnt that Matter is illusion, and that Spirit alone is real.
20. He has
found his own Central Point; and all power is given unto him in
heaven and on
earth.
21. Now, the
central Point is the number Thirteen; it is the number of the
Marriage of
the Son of God.
22. And all
the members of the microcosm are bidden to the banquet of the
marriage.
23. But if
there chance to be even one among them which has not on a wedding
garment;
24. Such an
one is a Traitor; and the microcosm is found divided against itself.
25. And that
it may be wholly regenerate, it is necessary that Judas be cast
out.
26. Now the
members of the microcosm are Twelve: of the Senses three, of the
Mind three,
of the Heart three, and of the Conscience three.
27. For of
the Body there are four elements; and the sign of the four is Sense,
in the which
are three Gates,
28. The gate
of the Eye, the gate of the Ear, and the gate of the Touch.
29. Renounce
vanity, and be poor; renounce praise, and be humble; renounce
luxury and be
chaste.
30. Offer
unto God a pure oblation; let the fire of the altar search thee, and
prove thy
fortitude.
31. Cleanse
thy sight, thine hands, and thy feet; carry the censer of thy
worship into
the courts of the Lord; and let thy vows be unto the Most High.
32. And for
the Magnetic Man there are four elements; and the covering of the
four is Mind,
in the which are three gates,
33. The gate
of Desire, the gate of Labor, and the gate of Illumination.
34. Renounce
the world, and aspire heavenward; labor not for the meat which
perishes, but
ask of God thy daily bread; beware of wandering doctrines; and let
the Word of
the Lord be thy light.
35. Also of
the Soul there are four elements; and the seat of the four is the
Heart,
whereof likewise there are three gates.
36. The gate
of Obedience, the gate of Prayer, and the gate of Discernment.
37. Renounce
thy own will, and let the Law of God only be within thee; renounce
doubt; pray
always and faint not; be pure of heart also, and thou shalt see God.
38. And
within the Soul is the Spirit; and the Spirit is One, yet has it
likewise
three elements.
39. And these
are the gates of the Oracle of God, which is the Ark of the
Covenant;
40. The Rod,
the Host, and the Law;
41. The force
which solves, and transmutes, and divines; the Bread of Heaven
which is the
substance of all things and the food of Angels; the Table of the
Law, which is
the Will of God, written with the Finger of the Lord.
42. If these
three be within thy spirit, then shall the Spirit of God be within
thee.
43. And the
glory shall be upon the Propitiatory, in the holy place of thy
prayer.
44. These are
the twelve gates of Regeneration; through which if a man enter he
shall have
right to the Tree of Life.
45. For the
number of that Tree is Thirteen.
46. It may
happen to a man to have three, to another five, to another seven, to
another ten.
47. But until
a man have twelve, he is not master over the last enemy.
48. Therefore
was Jesus betrayed to death by Judas; because he was not yet
perfected.
49. But he
was perfected through suffering; yea, by the Passion, the Cross, and
the Burial.
50. For he
could not wholly die; neither could his body see corruption.
51. So he
revived: for the elements of death were not in his flesh; and his
molecules
retained the polarity of life eternal.
52. He
therefore was raised and became perfect; having the power of the
Dissolvent
and of Transmutation.
53. And God
glorified the Son of Man; yea, he ascended into heaven, and sits at
the right
hand of the Majesty on high.
54. Thence
also the Christ shall come again, in power like unto the power of his
ascension.
55. For as
yet the devil is undissipated; the Virgin indeed has crushed his
head; but
still he lies in wait for her heel.
56. Therefore
the Great Work is yet to be accomplished.
57. When the
Leaven shall have leavened the whole lump; when the seed shall have
become a
tree; when the Net shall have gathered all things into it.
58. For in
the same power and glory he had at his ascension, shall Christ Jesus
be manifested
from heaven before angels and man.
59. For when
the cycle of the creation is completed, whether of the macrocosm or
of the
microcosm, the Great Work is accomplished.
60. Six for
the Manifestation, and six for the Interpretation; six for the
Outgoing, and
six for the Ingathering; six for the Man, and six for the Woman.
61. Then shall
be the Sabbath of the Lord God.
See plates,
Fig. 2.
APPENDIX No.
6
THE TIME OF
THE END
THE token
whereby the approach of the End shall be known, will be the spectacle
of “the
Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place.” Now the “holy
place” is
always, – whether in the universal or the individual, in the Macrocosm
or the
Microcosm, – the place of God and the Soul. And “the Abomination of
Desolation” –
or “that which maketh desolate” – is that system of thought which,
putting
Matter in the chief place, and making it the source, substance, and
object of
existence, abolishes God out of the universe and the Soul out of man,
and thus,
depriving existence of its light and life, makes it empty, desolate,
and barren, a
very “abomination of desolation.”
Jesus,
recalling this prophecy, and citing the words of Daniel’s Angel, also
foretold the
same event as marking the end of that “adulterous” generation [a
term
identical with idolatrous as denoting the worship of and illicit
association
with Matter], and the coming of the kingdom of God; and warned the
Elect in
mystic phrase, thus to be interpreted: –
“When,
therefore, ye shall see Matter exalted to the holy place of God and the
Soul, and
made the all and in all of existence,
“Then let the
spiritual Israel betake themselves to the hills where alone
salvation is
to be found, even the heights and fastnesses of the Divine Life.
“And let him
who has overcome the body, beware lest he return to the love of the
flesh, or
seek the things of the world.
“Neither let
him who is freed from the body, become again reincarnate.
“And woe to
the soul whose travail is yet unaccomplished, and which has not yet
become weaned
from the body.
“And beseech
God that these things find you not at a season either of spiritual
depression
and feebleness, or of spiritual repose and unwatchfulness.
“For the
tribulation shall be without parallel;
“And such
that except those days shall be few in number, escape from the body
would be
impossible.
“But for the
Elect’s sake they shall be few.
“And if any
shall then declare that here, or there, the Christ has appeared as a
Person,
believe it not. For there shall arise delusive apparitions and
manifestations,
together with great signs and marvels, such as might well
deceive even
the Elect. Remember, I have told you beforehand. Wherefore, if they
shall say
unto you, Behold he is in the desert, whether of the East or of the
West, – join
him not. Or, Behold he is in darkened rooms and secret assemblies,
– pay no
regard.
“For, like
lightning coming out of the East and illuminating the West, so shall
be the
world’s spiritual awakening to the recognition of the Divine in Humanity.
“But
wheresoever the dead carcass of error remains, around it, like vultures,
will gather
both deceivers and deceived.
“And upon
them, the profane, there shall be darkness; the Spirit shall be
quenched and
the Soul extinct; and there shall be no more any light in heaven,
or in
heavenly science any truth and meaning. And the power of heaven upon men
shall be
shaken.
“Then shall
appear the new sign, the Man in Heaven, upon the rain-clouds of the
last Chrism
and Mystery, with power and glory.
“And his
missioners shall gather the Elect with a great voice, from the four
winds and
from the farthest bounds of heaven.
“Behold the
FIG-TREE, and learn her parable. When the branch thereof shall
become
tender, and her buds appear, know that the day of God is upon you.”
Wherefore,
then, saith the Lord that the budding of the Fig-Tree shall foretell
the end?
Because the
Fig-Tree is the symbol of the Divine Woman, as the Vine of the
Divine Man.
The Fig is
the Similitude of the Matrix, containing inward buds, bearing
blossoms on
its placenta, and bringing forth fruit in darkness. It is the Cup of
Life, and its
flesh is the feed-ground of new births.
The stems of
the Fig-Tree run with milk; her leaves are as human hands, like the
leaves of her
brother the Vine.
And when the
Fig-Tree shall bear figs, then shall be the Second Advent, the new
sign of the
Man bearing Water, and the manifestation of the Virgin-Mother
crowned.
For when the
Lord would enter the holy city, to celebrate his Last Supper with
his
disciples, he sent before him the Fisherman Peter to meet the Man of the
Coming Sign.
“There shall
meet you a Man bearing a pitcher of Water.”
Because, as
the Lord was first manifest at a wine-feast in the morning, so must
he consummate
his work at a wine-feast in the evening.
It is his
Pass-Over; for thereafter the Sun must pass into a new Sign.
After the
fish, the Water-Carrier; but the Lamb of God remains always in the
place of
victory, being slain from the foundation of the world.
For his place
is the place of the Sun’s triumph.
After the
Vine the Fig; for Adam is first formed, then Eve.
And because
our Lady is not yet manifest, our Lord is crucified.
Therefore
came he vainly seeking fruit upon the Fig-Tree, “for the time of figs
was not yet.”
And from that
day forth, because of the curse of Eve, no man has eaten fruit of
the Fig-Tree.
For the
inward understanding has withered away, there is no discernment any more
in men. They
have crucified the Lord because of their ignorance, not knowing
what they
did.
Wherefore,
indeed, said our Lord to our Lady: – “Woman, what is between me and
thee? For
even my hour is not yet come.”
Because until
the hour of the Man is accomplished and fulfilled, the hour of the
Woman must be
deferred.
Jesus is the
Vine; Mary is the Fig-Tree. And the vintage must be completed and
the wine
trodden out, before the harvest of the Figs be gathered.
But when the
hour of our Lord is achieved, hanging on his Cross, he gives our
Lady to the
faithful.
The chalice
is drained, the lees are wrung out; then says he to his Elect: –
“behold thy
Mother!”
But so long
as the grapes remain unplucked, the Vine has nought to do with the
Fig-Tree, nor
Jesus with Mary.
He is first
revealed, for he is the Word; afterwards shall come the hour of its
Interpretation.
And in that
day every man shall sit under the VINE and the FIG-TREE; the
Dayspring
shall arise in the Orient, and the FIG-TREE shall bear her fruit.
(Zach. iii,
10; Mich. iv, 4; Cant. ii, 13.)
For, from the
beginning, the Fig-leaf covered the shame of Incarnation, because
the riddle of
existence can be expounded only by him who has the Woman’s secret.
It is the
riddle of the Sphinx.
Look for that
tree which alone of all Trees bears a fruit blossoming interiorly,
in
concealment, and thou shalt discover the Fig.
Look for the
sufficient meaning of the manifest universe and of the written
Word, and
thou shalt find only their mystical sense.
Cover the
nakedness of Matter and of Nature with the Fig-leaf, and thou hast
hidden all
their shame. For the Fig is the Interpreter.
So when the
hour of Interpretation comes, and the Fig-Tree puts forth her buds,
know that the
time of the End and the dawning of the new Day are at hand, –
“even at the
doors.”
APPENDIX No. 7
THE HIGHER
ALCHEMY
1. ALL things
in Heaven and in Earth are of God; both the Invisible and the
Visible.
2. Such as is
the Invisible is the Visible also; for there is no impassable
bound between
Spirit and Matter.
3. Matter is
spirit made exteriorly cognizable by the force of the Divine Word.
4. And when
God shall resume all things by Love, the Material shall be resolved
into the
Spiritual; and there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth.
5. Not that
Matter shall be destroyed; for it came forth from God and is of God,
indestructible
and eternal.
6. But it
shall be indrawn, and resolved into its true Self.
7. It shall
put off corruption, and remain incorruptible.
8. It shall
put off mortality, and remain immortal.
9. So that
nothing be lost of the Divine Substance.
10. It was
material Entity; it shall be Spiritual Entity.
11. For there
is nothing that can go out from the Presence of God.
12. This is
the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead; that is, the
Transfiguration
of the Body.
13. For the
Body, which is Matter, is but the Manifestation of Spirit; and the
Word of God
shall transmute it into its inner being.
14. The Will
of God is the Alchemic Crucible; and the Dross which is cast
therein is
Matter.
15. And the
Dross shall become pure Gold, seven times refined, even perfect
Spirit.
16. It shall
leave behind it nothing, but shall be transformed into the Divine
Image.
17. For it is
not a new Substance; but it’s Alchemic polarity is changed, and it
is converted.
18. But
except it were Gold in its true Nature, it could not be resumed into the
aspect of
Gold.
19. And
except Matter were Spirit, it could not revert to Spirit.
20. To make
Gold the Alchemist must have Gold.
21. But he
knows that to be Gold which others take to be Dross.
22. Cast
thyself into the Will of God, and thou shalt become as God.
23. For thou
art God if thy will be the Divine Will.
24. This is
the Great Secret; it is the Mystery of Redemption.
APPENDIX No.
8
CONCERNING REVELATION
ALL true and
worthy Illuminations are Revelations, or Re-veilings. Mark the
meaning of
this word. There can be no true or worthy Illumination which destroys
distances and
exposes the details of things.
Look at this
Landscape. Behold how its Mountains and Forests are suffused with
soft and
delicate Mist, which half conceals and half discloses their shapes and
tints. See
how this Mist like a tender veil enwraps the distances, and merges
the reaches
of the Land with the Clouds of Heaven!
How beautiful
it is, how orderly and wholesome its fitness, and the delicacy of
its appeal to
the eye and heart! And how false would be that sense which should
desire to
tear away this clinging veil, to bring far objects near, and to reduce
everything to
foreground in which details only should be apparent, and all
outlines
sharply defined!
Distance and
Mist make the beauty of Nature; and no Poet would desire to behold
her otherwise
than through this lovely and modest veil.
And as with
Exoteric, so with Esoteric Nature. The secrets of every human Soul
are sacred
and known only to herself. The Ego is inviolable, and its personality
is its own
right for ever.
Therefore
mathematical rules and algebraic formulas cannot be forced into the
study of
human lives; nor can human personalities be dealt with as though they
were mere
ciphers or arithmetical quantities.
The Soul is
too subtle, too instinct with Life and Will for treatment such as
this.
One may
dissect a corpse; one may analyze and classify chemical constituents;
but it is
impossible to dissect or analyze any living thing.
The moment it
is so treated it escapes. Life is not subject to dissection.
The opening
of the Shrine will always find it empty: the God is gone.
A Soul may
know her own past, and may see in her own light; but none can see it
for her if
she see it not.
Herein is the
beauty and sanctity of Personality.
The Ego is
self-centered and not diffused; for the tendency of all Evolution is
towards
Centralization and Individualism.
And Life is
so various, and so beautifully diverse in its Unity, that no hard
and fast
mathematical lawmaking can imprison its manifoldness.
All is order;
but the elements of this order harmonize by means of their
infinite
diversities and gradations.
The true
Mysteries remained always content with Nature’s harmony; they sought
not to drag
distances into foregrounds; or to dissipate the mountain nebula, in
whose bosom
the Sun is reflected.
For these
sacred Mists are the media of Light, and the glorifiers of Nature.
Therefore the
Doctrine of the Mysteries is truly Reveilation, – a veiling and a
re-veiling of
that which it is not possible for eye to behold without violating
all the Order
and Sanctities of Nature.
For distance
and visual rays, causing the diversities of far and near, of
perspective
and mergent tints, of horizon and foreground, are part of Natural
Order and
Sequence; and the Law expressed in their properties cannot be
violated.
For no Law is
ever broken.
The hues and
aspects of Distance and Mist indeed may vary and dissolve according
to the
quality and quantity of the Light which falls upon them; but they are
there always,
and no human eye can annul or annihilate them.
Even words,
even pictures are symbols and veils. Truth itself is unutterable,
save by God
to God.
APPENDIX No. 9
CONCERNING
THE POET
THOU mayest
the more easily gather somewhat of the character of the heavenly
Personality
by considering the Quality of that of the highest type of mankind on
Earth, – the
Poet.
The Poet hath
no Self apart from his larger Self. Other men pass indifferent
through Life
and the World, because the Selfhood of Earth and Heaven is a thing
apart from
them, and toucheth them not.
The Wealth of
Beauty in Earth and Sky and Sea lieth outside their being, and
speaketh not
to their heart.
Their
interests are individual and limited; their Home is by one Hearth; four
walls are the
boundary of their kingdom, – so small is it!
But the
Personality of the Poet is Divine; and being Divine it hath no limits.
He is supreme
and ubiquitous in consciousness; his heart beats in every Element.
The Pulses of
all the infinite Deep of Heaven vibrate in his own; and responding
to their
strength and their plenitude, he feels more intensely than other men.
Not merely he
sees and examines these Rocks and Trees, these variable Waters,
and these
glittering Peaks;
Not merely he
hears this plaintive Wind, these rolling Peals;
But he is all
these; and with them – nay, in them – he rejoices and weeps, and
shines and
aspires, and sighs and thunders.
And when he
sings, it is not he – the Man – whose Voice is heard; it is the
Voice of all
the Manifold Nature herself.
In his Verse
the Sunshine laughs; the Mountains give forth their sonorous
Echoes; the
swift Lightenings flash.
The great continual
cadence of universal Life moves and becomes articulate in
human
language.
O Joy
profound! O boundless Selfhood! O God-like Personality!
All the Gold
of the Sunset is thine; the Pillars of Chrysolite; and the purple
Vault of
Immensity!
The Sea is
thine with its solemn Speech; its misty Distance, and its radiant
Shallows!
The Daughters
of Earth love thee; the Water-nymphs tell thee their secrets; thou
knowest the
Spirit of all silent things!
Sunbeams are
thy Laughter, and the Raindrops of Heaven thy Tears; in the wrath
of the Storm
thine Heart is shaken; and thy Prayer goeth up with the Wind unto
God.
Thou art
multiplied in the Conscience of all living Creatures; thou art young
with the
Youth of Nature; thou art all-feeling as the Starry Skies;
Like unto
Gods; therefore art thou their Beloved; yea, if thou wilt They shall
tell thee all
things;
Because thou
only understandest, among all the Sons of Men!
APPENDIX No. 10
CONCERNING
THE ONE LIFE
(1)
THE Spirit
absorbed in Man or in the Planet does not exhaust Deity.
Nor does the
Soul evolved upward through Matter exhaust Substance.
There remains
then ever in the Fourth Dimension – the Principium – above the
manifest,
unmanifest God and Soul.
The
Perfection of Man and of the Planet is attained when the Soul of the one and
of the other
is throughout illuminate by Spirit.
But Spirit is
never the same thing as Soul. It is always celestial Energy, and
Soul is
always Substance.
That which
creates is Spirit (God).
The immanent
consciousnesses (spirits) of all the cells of a man’s entity, cause
by their
polarization a central unity of consciousness, which is more than the
sum total of
all their consciousnesses, because it is on a higher round or
plane.
For in
spiritual science every thing depends upon levels; and the man’s
evolution
works round spirally, as does the planetary evolution.
In this
relation consider the Worlds of Form and Formless Worlds of Form and
Formless
Worlds of Hindu theosophy.
Similarly the
soul of the planet is more than the associated essences of the
souls upon
it; because this soul also is on a higher plane than they.
Similarly,
too, the consciousness of the solar system is more than that of the
associated
world-consciousnesses.
And the
consciousness of the manifest universe is greater than that of the
corporate
systems.
But that of
the Unmanifest is higher and greater still: as God the Father is
greater than
God the Son.
(2)
THE Elemental Kingdoms represent Spirit on its
downward path into Matter.
There are
three of these before the Mineral is reached.
These are the
formless worlds before the worlds of form.
They are in
the Planet, and also in Man.
All the
planets inhabited by manifest forms are themselves manifest.
After the form-worlds
come other formless worlds, caused by the upward arc of
ascending
Spirit; but these also are in the planet.
They are also
in the man, and are the states of pure thought.
The Thinker,
therefore, who is son of Hermes, is a far beyond the Medium who is
controlled
and who is not self-conscious, as the formless worlds of the
ascending arc
are beyond the formless worlds of the elemental, or descending,
arc.
In the planet
and in the man they only seem contiguous because each round is
spiral.
But each
round takes the One Life higher in the spiral.
Neither the
planet-soul nor the man-soul goes over exactly the same ground
again.
But perverse
and disobedient will may reverse the direction of the spiral.
Individuals
in whom the will so acts, are finally abandoned by the planet to the
outer sphere.
(3)
THE One Life
is the point of consciousness.
The will is
the impulse which moves it.
In the
Celestial the One Life is the Elohim; and the Will is the Father.
The One Life
is manifest by Effulgence (the Son).
So then the
Will begets in Substance the Effulgence, which is the manifestation
of the One
Life.
In man and
the planet the Effulgence is dim and diffuse until it moves into the
soul. Then
only Christ is born.
The One Life
is invisible until Christ manifests it.
Christ in Man
has for counterpart Adonai in the Heavens.
So then the
One Life is in the Father-Mother latently, until manifest by the Son
(Effulgence).
Herein is the
difference reconciled between the Greek and Latin Churches.
The point of
consciousness shineth more and more unto the Perfect Day of
Brightness
(“Nativity of Christ”).
(4)
THE object of
creation is the production of “Ancients” (A. V., “Elders,” Apoc.
iv.)
They are the
first-fruits of the souls of the planets; or “First Resurrection.”
They are not
themselves creators; but are regenerators of that which is created.
The
Regenerator is the Holy Spirit, through Christ.
Because Will
can create only when it is in the abstract; the derived does not
create.
The father
creates through Adonai by means of the Holy Spirit.
The Will of
the Perfect Man renovates through the Effulgence of his Own Life.
His Karma is
poured out over the world to save mankind.
He is the
Saviour through his precious life.
There are
twenty-four Ancients, because there are twelve Avatars of the Lord,
and every one
is dual.
(5)
WILL, when it
is derived through existence, begets Karma.
God has no
Karma. God does not exist: God IS.
Karma is the
channel of Initiation. God is not initiated.
The Perfect
Man saves himself and saves others by his Righteousness.
The two terms
of existence are Creation and Redemption.
The first is
God’s work; the second is the work of Christ: – God in Man.
The reason
why the Ancient cannot create is because he is not infinite.
He is
immortal, not eternal; he is derived, not self-sufficient.
His is the
point of Grace: not the point of Projection.
The thrones
of the Ancients are round about the Throne of God and below it.
APPENDIX No. 11
CONCERNING THE MYSTERIES
IT is
necessary, in relation to the Mysteries, to distinguish between the
Unmanifest
and the Manifest, and between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm. These
last,
however, are identical, in that the process of the universal and the
process of
the individual are one.
Mary is the
Soul, and as such the Matrix of the Divine Principle, – God – made
Man by
Individualization, through descent into the “Virgin’s Womb.” But the
Seven
Principles of universal Spirit are concerned in this conception; since it
is through
their operation in the Soul that she becomes capable of polarizing
Divinity.
[This is the
secret aspect of the Mosaic week of Creation, each day of which
week denotes
the operation of one of the Seven creative Elohim or Divine
Potencies concerned
in the elaboration of the spiritual Microcosm.]
It is said
that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Daughter, Spouse, and Mother of
God. But,
inasmuch as Spiritual Energy has two conditions, one of Passivity and
one of
Activity, – which latter is styled the Holy Spirit, – it is said that
Mary’s Spouse
is not the Father, but the Holy Ghost, these terms implying
respectively
the static and the dynamic modes of Deity. For the Father denotes
the
Motionless, the Force passive and potential, in Whom all things are
subjectively.
But the Holy Ghost represents Will in action, – Creative Energy,
Motion and
Generative Function. Of this union of the Divine Will in action, –
the Holy
Ghost, – with the human soul, the product is Christ, the God-Man, and
our Lord. And
through Christ, the Divine Spirit, by whom he is begotten flows
and operates.
In the
Trinity of the Unmanifest, the Great Deep, or Ocean of Infinitude –
Sophia –
corresponds to Mary, and has for Spouse the creative Energy of whom is
begotten the
Manifestor, Adonai, the Lord. This “Mother” is coequal with the
Father, being
primary and eternal. In Manifestation the “Mother” is derived,
being born of
Time (Anna,) and has for Father the Planet-God, – for our planet
Iacchos
(Joachim;) (And also Jacob, as in Ps. xxiv. 6, cxxxii. 2, 5, etc., where
he is
specially invoked as the God of Might. The name is applied equally to the
Planet-God
and his elect people.) so that the paternity of the First Person of
the Trinity
is vicarious only. The Church, therefore, being a Church of the
Manifest,
deals with Mary (Substance,) under this aspect alone, and hence does
not specify
her as coequal with the First Principle. In the Unmanifest, being
underived,
she has no relation to Time.
APPENDIX No. 12
HYMN TO THE
PLANET-GOD
(1)
FATHER
Iacchos; thou art Lord of the Body, God manifest in the flesh;
2.
Twice-born, baptized with fire, quickened by the Spirit, instructed in secret
things
beneath the Earth;
3. Who
wearest the horns of the Ram, who ridest upon an Ass, whose symbol is the
Vine, and the
new Wine thy Blood;
4. Whose
Father is the Lord God of Hosts; whose Mother is the Daughter of the
King.
5. Evoi,
Iacchos, Lord of Initiation; for by means of the Body is the Soul
initiated;
6. By Birth,
by Marriage, by Virginity, by Sleep, by Waking, and by Death;
7. By Fasting
and Vigil, by Dreams and Penance, by Joy, and by Weariness of the
Flesh.
8. The Body
is the Chamber of Ordeal: therein is the Soul of Man tried.
9. Thine
Initiates, O Master, are they who come out of great tribulation; whose
robes are
washed in the Blood of the Vine.
10. Give me
to drink of the Wine of the Cup, that I may live for evermore;
11. And to
eat of the Bread whose grain cometh up from the Earth, as the Corn in
the Ear.
12. Yea; for
the Body in which Man is redeemed, is of the Earth; it is broken
upon the
cross; cut down by the sickle, crucified between grindstones.
13. For by
the suffering of the Outer, is the inner set free.
14. Therefore
the Body which Thou givest is Meat indeed; and the Word of thy
Blood is
Drink indeed.
I5. For Man
shall live by the Word of God.
16. Evoi,
Father Iacchos; bind Thy Church to the Vine, and her elect to the
choice Vine.
17. And let
them wash their garments in wine; and their vesture in the blood of
grapes.
(2)
18. EVOI,
Iacchos, Lord of the Body; and of the House whose Symbol is the Fig;
19. Whereof
the image is the figure of the Matrix, and the leaf as a man’s hand;
whose stems
bring forth milk.
20. For the
Woman is the Mother of the Living; and the crown and perfection of
Humanity.
21. Her Body
is the highest step in the ladder of Incarnation.
22. Which
leadeth from Earth to Heaven; upon which the Spirits of God ascend and
descend.
23. Thou art
not perfected, O Soul, that hast not known Womanhood.
24. Evoi,
Iacchos; for the day cometh wherein thy sons shall eat of the fruit of
the Fig; yea,
the Vine shall yield new grapes; and the Fig-tree shall be more
barren.
25. For the
Interpretation of hidden things is at hand; and men shall eat of the
precious
fruits of God.
26. They
shall eat manna from Heaven; and shall drink of the river of Salem.
27. The Lord
maketh all things new; he taketh away the Letter to establish the
Spirit.
28. Then
spakest thou with veiled face, in parable and dark saying: for the time
of Figs was
not yet.
29. And they
who came into the Tree of Life, sought fruit thereon and found it
not.
30. And from
thenceforth until now, hath no man eaten of the fruit of that Tree.
31. But now
is the Gospel of Interpretation come; and the Kingdom of the Mother
of God.
32. Evoi,
Iacchos, Lord of the Body; who art crowned with the Vine and with the
Fig.
33 For as the
Fig containeth many perfect fruits in itself; so the house of Man
containeth
many spirits.
34. Within
thee, O Man, is the Universe; the Thrones of all the Gods are in thy
Temple.
35. I have
said unto men, Ye are Gods; ye are all in the Image of the Most High.
36. No man
can know God unless he first understand himself.
37. God is
nothing that Man is not.
38. What Man
is, that God is likewise.
39. As God is
at the heart of the outer world; so also is God at the heart of
the world
within thee.
40. When the
God within thee shall be wholly united to the God without; then
shalt thou be
one with the Most High.
41. Thy Will
shall be God’s Will; and the Son shall be as the Father.
42. Thou art
ruler of the world, O Man: thy name is Legion; thou hast many under
thee.
43. Thou
sayest to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and the
cometh; and
to another, Do this, and he doeth it.
44. What thou
knowest is told thee from Within; what thou workest is worked from
Within.
45. When thou
prayest, thou invokest the God within thee, and from the God
within thee
thou receivest thy good things.
46. Thy
manifestations are inward; and the spirits which speak unto thee are of
thine own
kingdom.
47. And the
spirit which is greatest in thy kingdom, the same is thy Master and
thy Lord.
48. Let thy
Master be the Christ of God.
49. And
Christ shall be thy Lover and the Savior of thy Body; yea, he shall be
thy Lord God,
and thou shalt adore him.
50. But if
thou wilt not, then a stronger than thou art shall bind thee, and
spoil thine
house and thy goods.
51. An
uncleanly temple shalt thou be; the hold of all manner of strife and evil
beasts.
52. For a
man’s foes are of his own household.
53. But
scourge thou thence the moneychangers and the merchants; lest the House
of thy Prayer
become unto thee a den of thieves.
(3)
54. EVOI,
Father Iacchos: Lord of the Thyrsos and of the Pine-Cone.
55. As are
the involutions of the leaves of the Cone, so is the spiral of
Generation;
the progress and passing-through of the Soul;
56. From the
lower to the higher; from the coarse to the fine; from the base to
the apex;
57. From the
outer to the inner; yea, from the dust of the ground to the Throne
of the Most
High.
(4)
58. EVOI, Io
Nysaee: God of the Garden and of the Tree bearing fruit.
59. The dry
land is thine, and all the beauty of earth: the vineyard, the
garland, and
the valleys of corn;
60. The
forests, the secrets of the springs; the hidden wells and the treasures
of the
caverns;
61. The
harvest, the dance, and the festival; the snows of winter, and the icy
winds of
death.
62. Yea Lord
Iacchos; who girdest destruction with promise, and graftest
comeliness
upon ruin.
63. As the
green Ivy covereth the blasted tree, and the waste places of earth
where no
grass groweth;
64. So thy
touch giveth life and hope and meaning to decay.
65. Who so
understandeth thy mysteries, O Lord of the Ivy, hath overcome Death
and the fear
thereof.
(5)
66. EVOI,
Father Iacchos, Lord God of Egypt; initiate thy servants in the halls
of thy
Temple;
67. Upon
whose walls are the forms of every creature of every beast of the
earth, and
every fowl of the air.
68. The lynx,
and the lion, and the bull; the ibis and the serpent; and the
scorpion and
every flying thing.
69. And the
columns thereof are human shapes; having the heads of eagles and the
hoofs of the
ox.
70. All these
are of thy kingdom; they are the chambers of ordeal, and the
houses of the
initiation of the Soul.
71. For the
Soul passeth from form to form; and the mansions of her pilgrimage
are manifold.
72. Thou
callest her from the deep, and from the secret places of the earth;
from the dust
of the ground, and from the herb of the field.
73. Thou
coverest her nakedness with an apron of Fig-leaves; thou clothest her
with the skins
of beasts.
74. Thou art
from of old, O Soul of Man; yea, thou art from the everlasting.
75. Thou
puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture dost thou fold them
up.
76. They
perish, but thou remainest; the wind rendeth and scattereth them; and
the place of
them shall no more be known.
77. For the
Wind is the Spirits of God in Man, which bloweth where it listeth,
and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor
whither it
shall go.
78. Even so
is the Spirit of Man, which cometh from afar off and tarrieth not,
but passeth
away to a place thou knowest not.
(6)
79. EVOI,
Iacchos, Lord of the Sphinx; who linkest the lowest to the highest;
the loins of
the wild beast to the head and breast of the woman.
80. Thou
holdest the Chalice of Divination: all the forms of Nature are
reflected
therein.
81. Thou
turnest man to destruction; then thou sayest, Come again, ye children
of my hand.
82. Yea,
blessed and holy art thou, O Master of Earth: Lord of the Cross and the
Tree of
Salvation.
83. Vine of
God, whose Blood redeemeth; Bread of Heaven, broken on the Altar of
Death.
84. There is
Corn in Egypt; go thou down into her, O my soul, with joy.
85. For in
the kingdom of the Body, thou shalt eat the Bread of thine
Initiation.
86. But
beware lest thou become subject to the Flesh, and a bond-slave in the
land of thy
sojourn.
87. Serve not
the idols of Egypt; and let not the Senses be thy taskmasters.
88. For they
will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will bitterly oppress the
Israel of
God.
89. An evil
time shall come upon thee; and the Lord shall smite Egypt with
plagues for
thy sake.
90. Thy body
shall be broken on the wheel of God; thy flesh see trouble and the
worm.
91. Thy house
shall be smitten with grievous plagues; blood and pestilence, and
great
darkness; fire shall devour thy goods and thou shalt be a prey to the
locust and
creeping thing.
92. Thy glory
shall be brought down to the dust; hail and storm shall smite
thine
harvest; yea, thy beloved and thy firstborn shall the hand of the Lord
destroy;
93. Until the
Body let the Soul go free: that she may serve the Lord God.
94. Arise in
the night, O Soul, and fly, lest thou be consumed in Egypt.
95. The Angel
of the Understanding, shall know thee for his Elect, if thou offer
unto God a
reasonable faith.
96. Savor thy
Reason with Learning, with Labor and Obedience.
97. Let the
Rod of thy Desire be in thy hand; put the Sandals of Hermes on thy
feet; and
gird thy loins with Strength.
98. Then
shalt thou pass through the Waters of cleansing; which is the First
Death in the
Body.
99. The
Waters shall be a Wall unto thee on thy right hand and on thy left.
100. And
Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee: for he is the cloud of
Darkness by Day
and thy Pillar of Fire by Night.
101. All the
horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof; her princes, her
counselors,
and her mighty men;
102. These
shall pursue thee, O Soul, that fliest; and shall seek to bring thee
back into
bondage.
103. Fly for
thy life; fear not the Deep; stretch out thy Rod over the Sea; and
lift thy
Desire unto God.
104. Thou
hast learnt Wisdom in Egypt; thou hast spoiled the Egyptians; thou
hast carried
away their fine gold and their precious things.
105. Thou
hast enriched thyself in the Body; but the Body shall not hold thee;
neither shall
the waters of the Deep swallow thee up.
106. Thou
shalt wash thy robes in the Sea of Regeneration; the Blood of
Atonement
shall redeem thee to God.
107. This is
thy Chrism and Anointing, O Soul; this is the First Death; thou art
the Israel of
the Lord.
108. Who hath
redeemed thee from thy dominion of the Body; and hath called thee
from the
grave, and from the house of bondage.
109. Unto the
Way of the Cross, and to the Path in the midst of the Wilderness;
110. Where
are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and the burning sand.
111. For the
feet of the Saint are set in the way of the Desert.
112. But be
thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then shall thy raiment
endure, and
thy sandals shall not wax old upon thee.
113. And thy
Desire shall heal thy diseases; it shall bring streams for thee out
of the stony
rock; it shall lead the to Paradise.
114. Evoi,
father Iacchos, Jehovah-Nyssi: Lord of the Garden and of the
Vineyard;
115.
Initiator and Lawgiver: God of the Cloud and of the Mount.
116. Evoi,
Father Iacchos; out of Egypt hast thou called thy Son.
APPENDIX No.
13
FRAGMENTS FROM THE “GOLDEN BOOK OF VENUS.”
PART I
THE HYMN OF
APHRODITE.
(1)
I am the
Dawn, Daughter of Heaven and the Deep; the sea-mist covers my beauty
with a veil
of tremulous light.
2. I am
Aphrodite, the sister of Phoebos, opener of Heaven’s gates, the
beginning of
Wisdom, the herald of the Perfect Day.
3. Long had
the darkness covered the deep; the Soul of all things slumbered; the
valleys were
filled with shadows; only the mountains and the stars held commune
together.
4. There was
no light on the ways of the earth; the rolling world moved outward
on her axe;
gloom and mystery shrouded the faces of the Gods.
5. Then from
the Deep I arouse, dispeller of Night; the firmament of heaven
kindled with
the joy beholding me.
6. The
secrets of the waters were revealed; the eyes of Zeus looked down into
the heart
thereof.
7. Ruddy as
wine were the depths; the raiment of Earth was transfigured; as one
arising from
the dead she arose, full of favor and grace.
(2)
8. OF God and
the Soul is Love born; in the silence of twilight; in the mystery
of sleep.
9. In the
Fourth dimension of space; in the womb of the heavenly Principle; in
the heart of
the man of God; – there is Love enshrined.
10. Yea, I am
before all things; Desire is born of me; I impel the springs of
Life inward
unto God; by me the earth and heavens are drawn together.
11. But I am
hidden until the time of the Day’s appearing; I lie beneath the
waters of the
sea, in the deeps of the Soul; the bird of night seeth me not, the
herds in the
valleys, nor the wild goat in the cleft of the hill.
12. As the
fishes of the sea am I covered; I am secret and veiled from sight as
the children
of the deep.
13. That
which is occult hath the Fish for a symbol; for the fish is hidden in
darkness and
silence; he knoweth the secret places of the earth, and the springs
of the hollow
sea.
14. Even as
Love reacheth to the uttermost; so find I the secrets of all things;
having my
beginning and my end in the Wisdom of God.
15. The
Spirit of Counsel is begotten in the Soul; even as the fish in the boson
of the waters.
16. From the
sanctuary of the Deep Love ariseth; Salvation is of the sea.
(3)
17. I am the
Crown of manifold births and deaths; I am the Interpreter of
mysteries and
the Enlightener of Souls.
18. In the
elements of the Body is Love imprisoned; lying asleep in the caves of
Iacchos; in
the crib of the oxen of Demeter.
19. But when
the Daystar ariseth over the earth, then is the Epiphany of Love.
20. Therefore
until the labor of the Third Day be fulfilled, the light of Love
is
unmanifest.
21. Then shall
I unlock the gates of Dawn; and the glory of God shall ascend
before the
eyes of men.
(4)
22. THE
secret of the angel Anael is at the heart of the world; the Song of God
is the sound
of the stars in their courses.
23. O Love,
thou art the latent heat of the earth; the strength of the wine; the
joy of the
orchard and the cornfield; thou art the Spirit of song and laughter,
and all the
desire of Life!
24. By thee,
O Goddess, pure-eyed and golden, the Sun and the Moon are revealed;
Love is the
Counselor of Heaven.
25. Cloud and
vapor melt before thee; thou unveilest to earth the Rulers of the
immeasurable
skies.
26. Thou
makest all things luminous; thou discoverest all deeps,
27. From the
womb of the sea to the heights of heaven; from the shadowy Abyss to
the Throne of
the Lord.
28. Thy
Beloved is as a Ring-dove, wearing the ensign of the Spirit, and knowing
the secrets
thereof.
29. Fly, fly,
O Dove; the time of Spring cometh; in the far east the Dawn
ariseth; she
hath a message for thee to bear from earth to heaven!
PART II
A DISCOURSE
OF THE COMMUNION OF SOULS, AND OF THE
USES OF LOVE
BETWEEN CREATURE AND CREATURE.
HEREIN is Love’s Secret, and the Mystery of
the Communion of Saints.
2. Love
redeemeth, Love lifteth up, Love enlighteneth, Love advanceth Souls.
3. Love
dissolveth not, neither forgetteth; for she is of the Soul, and hath
everlasting
Remembrance.
4. Thou who
lovest, givest of thyself to thy Beloved, and he is dowered withal.
5. And if any
Creature whom thou lovest, suffereth Death and departeth from
thee,
6. Fain
wouldst thou give of thine Heart’s Blood to have him live always; to
sweeten the
Changes before him, and to lift him to some happy Place.
7. Thou
droppest Tears on the broken Body of thy Beloved; thy Desire goeth after
him, and thou
criest unto his Ghost;
8. “O
Dearest, would God that I might be with thee where now thou art; and know
what now thou
doest!
9. “Would God
that I might still guard and protect thee; that I might defend
thee from all
Pain and Wrong and Affliction!
10. “But what
Manner of Change is before thee I know not; neither can mine Eyes
follow thy
Steps.
11. “Many are
the Lives set before thee; and the Years, O Beloved, are long and
weary that
shall part us!
12. “Shall I
know thee again when I see thee; and will the Spirit of God say to
thee in that
Day, ‘This is thy Beloved’?
13. “Oh Soul
of my Soul! would God I were one with thee, even though it were in
Death!
14. “Thou
hast all my Love, my Desire, and my Sorrow; yea, my Life is mingled
with thine,
and is gone forth with thee!
15. “Visit me
in Dreams; comfort me in the Night-Watches; let my Ghost meet
thine in the
Land of Shadows and of Sleep.
16. “Every
Night with fervent Longing will I seek thee; Persephone and slumber
shall give me
back the Past.
17. “Yea,
Death shall not take thee wholly from me; for Part of me is in thee,
and where
thou goest, Dearest, there my Heart followeth!”
18. So
weepest thou and lamentest, because the Soul thou lovest is taken from
thy Sight.
19. And life
seemeth to thee a bitter Thing; yea, thou cursest the Destiny of
all living
Creatures.
20. And thou
deemest thy Love of no Avail, and thy Tears as idle Drops.
21. Behold!
Love is a Ransom, and the Tears thereof are Prayers.
22. And if
thou have lived purely, thy fervent Desire shall be counted Grace to
the Soul of
thy Dead.
23. For the
burning and continual Prayer of the Just availeth much.
24. Yea, thy
Love shall enfold the Soul which thou lovest; it shall be unto him
a Wedding
Garment, and a Vesture of Blessing.
25. The
Baptism of thy Sorrow shall baptize thy Dead; and he shall rise because
of it.
26. Thy
Prayers shall lift him up, and thy Tears shall encompass his Steps; thy
Love shall be
to him a Light shining upon the upward Way.
27. And the
Angels of God shall say unto him, “Oh happy Soul, that art so
well-beloved;
that art made so strong with all these Tears and Sighs.
28. “Praise
the Father of Spirits therefor; for this great Love shall save thee
many
Incarnations.
29. “Thou art
advanced thereby; thou art drawn aloft and carried upward by Cords
of Grace.”
30. For in
such wise do Souls profit one another, and have communion, and
receive and
give Blessing; the Departed of the Living, and the Living of the
Departed.
31. And so
much the more as the Heart within them is clean; and the Way of their
Intention
innocent in the Sight of God.
32. Yea, the
Saint is a strong Redeemer; the Spirit of God striveth within him.
33. And God
withstandeth not God: for Love and God are One.
34. As the
Love of Christ hath Power with the Elect, so hath Power in its Degree
the Love of a
Man for his Friend.
35. Yea,
though the Soul beloved be little and mean: a Creature not made in the
Likeness of
Men.
36. For in
the Eyes of Love there is nothing little nor poor, nor unworthy of
Prayer.
37. O little
Soul, thou art mighty if a Child of God love thee; yea, poor and
simple Soul,
thou art possessed of great Riches!
38. Better is
thy Portion than the Portion of Kings whom the Curse of the
Oppressed
pursueth.
39. For as
Love is strong to redeem and to advance a Soul, so is Hatred strong
to torment
and to detain.
40. Blessed
is to Soul whom the Just commemorate before God: for whom the poor
and the
Orphan and the dumb Creature weep.
41. And thou,
O Righteous Man, that with burning Love bewaileth the Death of the
Innocent,
whom thou canst not save from the Hands of the Unjust;
42. Thou who
wouldst freely give of thine own Blood to redeem thy Brother, and
to loosen the
Bonds of his Pain;
43. Know that
in the Hour of thy supreme Desire, God accepteth thine Oblation.
44. And thy
Love shall not return unto thee empty; according to the Greatness of
her Degree,
she shall accomplish thy Will.
45. And thy
Sorrow and Tears and the Travail of thy Spirit, shall be Grace and
Blessing to
the Soul thou wouldst redeem.
46. Count not
as lost thy Suffering on behalf of other Souls; for every Cry is a
Prayer, and
all Prayer is Power.
47. That thou
willest to do is done; thine Intention is united to the Will of
Divine Love.
48. Nothing
is lost of that which thou layest out for God and for thy Brother.
49. And it is
Love alone who redeemeth; and Love hath nothing of her own.
APPENDIX No. 14
HYMN TO HERMES (A FRAGMENT)
AS a moving light between heaven and earth; as
a white cloud assuming many
shapes;
2. He
descends and rises, he guides and illumines, he transmutes himself from
small to
great, from bright to shadowy, from the opaque image to the diaphanous
mist.
3. Star of
the East conducting the Magi; cloud from whose midst the holy voice
speaketh; by
day a pillar of vapor, by night a shining flame;
4. I behold
thee, Hermes, Son of God, slayer of Argus, Archangel, who bearest
the rod of
knowledge by which all things in heaven or on earth are measured.
5. Double
serpents entwine it, because as serpents they must be wise who desire
God.
6. And upon
thy feet are living wings, bearing thee fearless through space and
over the
abyss of darkness; because they must be without dread to dare the void
and the deep
who desire to attain and to achieve.
7. Upon thy
side thou wearest a sword of a single stone, two-edged, whose temper
resisteth all
things.
8. For they
who would slay or save must be armed with a strong and perfect will,
defying and
penetrating with no uncertain force.
9. This is
Herpë, the sword which destroyeth demons; by whose aid the hero
overcometh,
and the savior is able to deliver.
10. Except
thou bind it upon thy thigh thou shalt be overborne, and blades of
mortal making
shall prevail against thee.
11. Nor is
this all thine equipment, Son of God; the covering of darkness is
upon thine
head, and none is able to strike thee.
12. This is
the magic hat, brought from Hades, the region of silence, where they
are who speak
not.
13. He who
bears the worlds on his shoulders shall give it to thee, lest the
world fall on
thee and thou be ground into powder.
14. Keep a
bridle upon thy lips, and cover thy head in the day of battle.
15. These are
the four excellent things, the Rod, the Wings, the Sword, and the
Hat.
16.
Knowledge, which thou must gain with labor; the spirit of holy boldness,
which cometh
by faith in God; a mighty will, and a complete discretion.
APPENDIX No. 15
THE SECRET OF
SATAN
(1)
AND on the seventh day there went forth from
the presence of God a mighty angel
full of wrath
and consuming, and God gave unto him the dominion of the outermost
sphere.
2. Eternity
brought forth Time; the Boundless gave birth to Limit; Being
descended
into Generation.
3. As
lightning I beheld Satan fall from heaven, splendid in strength and fury.
4. Among the
Gods is none like unto him, into whose hand are committed the
kingdoms, the
power and the glory of the worlds;
5. Thrones
and empires, the dynasties of kings, the fall of nations, the birth
of churches,
the triumphs of Time.
6. They arise
and pass, they were and are not; the sea and the dust and the
immense
mystery of space devour them.
7. The tramp
of armies, the voices of joy and of pain, the cry of the new-born
babe, the
shout of the warrior mortally smitten;
8. Marriage,
divorce, division, violent deaths, martyrdoms, tyrannous
ignorances,
the impotence of passionate protest, and the mad longing for
oblivion;
9. The eyes
of the tiger in the jungle, the fang of the snake, the fetor of
slaughterhouses,
the wail of innocent beasts in pain;
10. The
innumerable incarnations of Spirit, the strife towards Manhood, the
ceaseless
pulse and current of Desire; –
11. These are
his who beareth all the Gods on his shoulders; who establisheth
the pillars
of Necessity and Fate.
12. Many
names hath God given him, names of mystery, secret and terrible.
13. God
called him Satan the Adversary, because Matter opposeth Spirit, and Time
accuseth even
the saints of the Lord.
14. And the
Destroyer, for his arm breaketh and grindeth to pieces; wherefore
the fear and
the dread of him are upon all flesh.
15. And the
Avenger, for he is the anger of God; his breath shall burn up all
the souls of
the wicked.
16. And the
Sifter, for he straineth all things through his sieve, dividing the
husk from the
grain; discovering the thought of the heart; proving and purifying
the spirit of
man.
17. And the
Deceiver, for he maketh the False appear true and concealeth the
Real under
the mask of Illusion.
18. And the
Tempter for he setteth snares before the feet of the elect; he
beguileth
with vain shows, and seduceth with enchantments.
19. Blessed
are they who withstand his subtlety; they shall be called the sons
of God, and
shall enter in at the beautiful gates.
20. For Satan
is the doorkeeper of the Temple of the King; he standeth in
Solomon’s
porch; he holdeth the Keys of the Sanctuary;
21. That no
man may enter therein save the anointed, having the arcanum of
Hermes.
22. For Satan
is the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of
wisdom. (Ps.
A.V. cxi., D.V. cx. 10; Is. xi. 2, 3. The first and “eldest of the
gods” in the
order of microcosmic evolution, Saturn (Satan) is the seventh and
last in the
order of macrocosmic emanation, being the circumference of the
kingdom of
which Phoebus (wisdom) is the centre.)
23. He is the
devourer of the unwise and the evil: they shall all be meat and
drink to him.
24.
Whatsoever he devoureth, that shall never more return into being.
25. Fear him,
for after he hath killed, he hath power to cast into hell.
26. But he is
the servant of the sons of God, and of the children of light.
27. They
shall go before him, and he shall follow the steps of the wise.
28. Stand in
awe of him and sin not; speak his name with trembling; and beseech
God daily to
deliver thee.
29. For Satan
is the magistrate of the Justice of God; he beareth the balance
and the
sword,
30. To
execute judgment and vengeance upon all who come short of the
commandments
of God; to weigh their works, to measure their desire, and to
number their
days.
31. For to
him are committed Weight and Measure and Number.
32. And all
things must pass under the rod and through the balance, and be
fathomed by
the sounding-lead.
33. Therefore
Satan is the Minister of God, Lord of the seven mansions of Hades,
the Angel of
the manifest worlds.
34. And God
hath put a girdle about his loins, and the name of the girdle is
Death.
35. Threefold
are its coils, for threefold is the power of Death, dissolving the
body, the
ghost, and the soul.
36. And that
girdle is black within, but where Phoebus strikes it is silver.
37. None of
the Gods is girt save Satan, for upon him only is the shame of
generation.
38. He hath
lost his virginal estate; uncovering heavenly secrets, he hath
entered into
bondage.
39. He
encompasseth with bonds and limits all things which are made; he putteth
chains round
about the worlds, and determineth their orbits.
40. By him
are Creation and Appearance; by him Birth and Transformation; the day
of Begetting
and the night of Death.
41. The glory
of Satan is the shadow of the Lord; the throne of Satan is the
footstool of
Adonai.
42. Twain are
the armies of God; in heaven the hosts of Michael; in the abyss
the legions
of Satan.
43. These are
the Unmanifest and the Manifest; the free and the bound; the
virginal and
the fallen.
44. And both
are the ministers of the Father, fulfilling the Word divine.
45. The
legions of Satan are the Creative Emanations, having the shapes of
dragons, of
Titans, and of elemental gods;
46. Forsaking
the Intelligible World, seeking manifestation, renouncing their
first estate;
47. Which
were cast out into chaos, neither was their place found any more in
heaven.
(2)
48. EVIL is
the result of limitation, and Satan is the Lord of Limit.
49. He is the
Father of Lies, because Matter is the cause of Illusion.
50. To
understand the secret of the Kingdom of God, and to read the riddle of
Maya, this is
to have Satan under foot.
51. He only
can put Satan under foot who is released by Thought from the bonds
of Desire.
52. Nature is
the allegory of Spirit; all that appeareth to the sense is deceit;
to know the
Truth, this alone shall make men free.
53. For the
kingdom of Satan is the house of Matter; yea his mansion is the
sepulchre of
Golgotha, wherein on the seventh day the Lord lay sleeping, keeping
the Sabbath
of the Unmanifest.
54. For the
day of Satan is the night of Spirit; the manifestation of the worlds
of Form is
the rest of the worlds informulate.
55. Holy and
venerable is the Sabbath of God; blessed and sanctified is the name
of the Angel
of Hades;
56. Whom the
Anointed shall overcome, rising again from the dead on the first
day of the
week.
57. For the
place of Satan is the bourne of divine impulsion; there is the
arrest of the
outgoing force; Luza, the station of pause and slumber;
58. Where
Jacob lay down and dreamed, beholding the ladder which reached from
earth to
heaven.
59. For Jacob
is the planetary Angel Iacchos, the Lord of the Body;
60. Who hath
left his Father’s House, and is gone out into a far country.
61. Yet is
Luza none other than Bethel; the kingdom of Satan is become the
kingdom of
God and of His Christ.
62. For there
the Anointed awakeneth, arising from sleep, and goeth his way
rejoicing;
63. Having seen
the vision of God, and beheld the secret of Satan;
64. Even as
the Lord arose from the dead and brake the seal of the Sepulchre;
65. Which is
the portal of heaven, Luza, the house of separation, the place of
stony sleep;
66. Where is
born the centripetal force, drawing the soul upward and inward to
God;
67. Recalling
Existence into Being, resuming the kingdoms of Matter in Spirit;
68. Until
Satan return unto his first estate, and enter again into the heavenly
obedience;
69. Having
fulfilled the Will of the Father, and accomplished his holy ministry;
70. Which was
ordained of God before the worlds, for the splendor of the
Manifest, and
for the generation of Christ our Lord;
71. Who shall
judge the quick and the dead, putting all things under his feet;
whose are the
dominion, the power, the glory, and the Amen.
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