Theosophy - The Perfect Way or, The Finding of Christ by Anna Bonus Kingsford & Edward Maitland -Part 1 of 2
THE
PERFECT WAY or The
Finding of Christ
BY ANNA
BONUS KINGSFORD AND EDWARD
MAITLAND
THIS
IS PART 1 of The PERFECT WAY
Click
here to to go to PART 2 - starts with Lecture -8-
(Revised and Enlarged Edition.)
Boston,
Mass.:
ESOTERIC
PUBLISHING COMPANY,
478
Shawmut Avenue.
1888.
AUTHORS’
EXPLANATION.
These
lectures were delivered in London, before a private audience, in the months
of May, June, and July, 1881.
The
changes made in this edition calling for indication, are, – the substitution
of another Lecture for No. V., and consequent omission of most of the plates;
the rewriting, in the whole or part, of paragraphs 6 - 8 and 28 in No. I.; 34
- 36 in No. II.; 5 - 8, 12, 13, 22, 23, 42, 43, 54, and 55, in No. IX. (the
latter paragraphs being replaced by a new one); the lengthening of Appendices
II, and VI; the addition of a new Part to Appendix XIII. (formerly No. IX);
and the substitution of eight new Appendices for Nos:. VII., and VIII.
The
alterations involve no change or withdrawal of doctrine, but only extension
of scope, amplification of statement, or modification of expression.
A
certain amount of repetition being inseparable from the form adopted, – that
of a series of expository lectures, each requiring to be complete in itself,
– and the retention of that form being unavoidable, – no attempt has been made
to deal with the instances in which repetition occurs.
PREFACE
TO THE AMERICAN EDITION
In
presenting an American edition of THE PERFECT WAY, or, The Finding of Christ,
to the reading and inquiring public, we have been actuated by the conviction
that a comprehensive textbook of the “new views,” or the restored wisdom and
knowledge of the ages regarding religion or the perfect life, was imperatively
required, wherein the subject was treated in a manner luminous, instructive,
and entertaining, and which, without abridgement, or inferiority of material
or workmanship, could yet be sold at a price that would bring the work within
the means of the general public.
THE
PERFECT WAY will be found to be an occult library in itself, and those desirous
of coming into the esoteric knowledge and significance of life, will be richly
repaid by its study or perusal; and especially will those who feel that they
cannot afford the means or time to purchase and read many books, do well to
make this one of their first choice. To such, and all who are seeking new light,
life, and higher inspiration, we respectfully dedicate the American edition.
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
As the writers rather
than the authors of this book, we propose on behalf of a more ready apprehension
of it, and the satisfaction of much questioning concerning it to take occasion
of the issue of this Edition to give a succinct account of its nature and import.
That
which The Perfect Way represents is neither an invention nor a compilation,
but first, a discovery, and next, a recovery. It represents a discovery because
it is the result of an attempt – proved successful by the issue – to ascertain
at first hand the nature and method of existence. And it represents a recovery
because the system propounded in it has proved to be that which constituted
the basic and secret doctrine of all the great religions of antiquity, including
Christianity, – the doctrine commonly called the Gnosis, and variously
entitled Hermetic and Kabbalistic.
In yet
another sense does The Perfect Way represent a recovery, and also – for
ourselves – a discovery, seeing that it was independent of any prior knowledge
on our part. This is as regards Faculty. For the knowledges concerned, although
verified by subsequent research in the ordinary manner, were obtained solely
by means of the faculty which consists in perception and recollection of the
kind called intuitional and psychic, and therefore by the method which in all
ages has been recognized as the means of access to knowledges transcendental
and divine. Being fully described in the book (e.g. Lect. i. pars.
4-18; App. iii., Part 1, etc.), this faculty needs no further definition here.
It is necessary, however, to state this in relation to it: That the value of
the recovery of the knowledges concerned, great as it is for the intrinsic interest
and importance of subject, is indefinitely enhanced by the manner of its accomplishment.
For, much as it is to know the conclusions of ancient wisdom concerning the
most momentous of topics, and to recognize their logical excellence, it is far
more to know their truth, seeing that they involve the nature and destiny of
man in all time. It is this supreme question which finds satisfactory solution
in the present case. Had the recovery been made in the ordinary manner, namely,
through the examination of neglected writings or the discovery of lost ones,
methods which, however successful would have been altogether inadequate for
the results actually attained, – no step would have been gained towards the
verification of the doctrines involved. Whereas, as it is, for ourselves, and
for all those who with us are cognizant of the genesis of this book, and who
are at the same time sufficiently matured in respect of the spiritual consciousness
to be able to accept the facts, – that is, for all who know to be able
to believe, – the book constitutes of itself an absolute confirmation of its
own teaching, and, therein, of the recovered Gnosis. For, being due to intuitional
recollection and perception, – faculties exercised in complete independence
of the physical organism, – it demonstrate the essentially spiritual nature
of existence; the reality of the soul as the true ego; the multiple rebirths
of this ego into material conditions; its persistence through all changes of
form and state; and its ability, while yet in the body, to recover and communicate
of the knowleges which, in the long ages of its past as an individualized entity,
it has acquired concerning God, the universe, and itself. In respect of all
these, the experiences of which this book is the result, – although themselves
rarely referred to in it, – have been such, both in kind and quantity, that
to regard them and the world to which they relate as delusory, would be to leave
ourselves without ground for belief in the genuineness of any experiences, or
of any world whatsoever. It is not, however, upon testimony merely personal
or extrinsic that the appeal on behalf of this book is rested, but upon that
which is intrinsic, and capable of appreciation by all who have intelligent
cognition of the subjects concerned.
Especially
is this book designed to meet the peculiar circumstances of the times, – so
aptly described by Mr. Matthew Arnold when he says that “at the present
moment there are two things about the Christian religion which must be obvious
to every percipient person; one, that men cannot do without it; the other, that
they cannot do with it as it is.” In an age distinguished, as is the present,
by all-embracing research, exhaustive analysis, and unsparing criticism, no
religious system can endure unless it appeals to the intellectual as well as
to the devotional side of man’s nature. At present the faith of Christendom
is languishing on account of a radical defect in the method of its presentation,
through which it is brought into perpetual conflict with science; and the harassing
and undignified task is imposed on its supporters of an incessant endeavour
to keep pace with the advances of scientific discovery, or the fluctuations
of scientific speculation. The method whereby it is herein endeavoured to obviate
the suspense and insecurity thus engendered, consists in the establishment of
these two positions:
(1) That
the dogmas and symbols of Christianity are substantially identical with those
of other and earlier religious systems; and
(2) That the true
plane of religious belief lies, not where hitherto the Church has placed it,
– in the sepulchre of historical tradition, among the dry bones of the past;
but in the living and immutable Heaven, to which those who truly desire to find
the Lord must in heart and mind ascend. “Why seek ye the living among the dead?
He is not here; He is risen.” This is to say, the true plane of religious belief
is not the objective and physical, but the subjective and spiritual.
It
is true that many men renowned for piety and learning, pillars – accounted –
of the faith, have denounced as in the highest degree impious the practice of
what they call, “wresting Scripture from its obvious meaning.” But their denunciation
of impiety includes not only the chief of those “lesser lights,” the Christian
Fathers and Jewish Commentators, but also those “two great lights,” Jesus and
Paul, seeing that each of these affirmed the mystic sense of Scripture, and
the duty of subordinating the Letter to the Spirit and seeking within the veil
for the meaning. The fact is, that in their use of the term “obvious,” the literalists
beg the questions involved. Those questions are, – To what faculty is the sense
of Scripture obvious, – to the outer or the inner perception? and, – To which
of these two orders of perception does the apprehension of spiritual things
belong? Nothing, assuredly, can be more obvious than the “impiety” of setting
aside the account which Holy Writ gives of itself, and ascribing to it falsehood,
folly, or immorality, on the strength of outward appearance, such as is the
letter. To those whom this volume represents, it is absolutely obvious that
the literal sense is not the sense intended; and that they who insist upon that
sense incur the reproach cast by Paul when, referring to the veil which Moses
put over his face, he says: “For their minds were blinded; for until
this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth unlifted.
Even unto this day the veil is upon their hearts.”
We will endeavour briefly to exhibit
the principles of this conclusion. The first lesson to be learnt in the school
of philosophy is the truth that the mind can apprehend and assimilate that only
which presents itself mentally. In other words, the objective must be translated
into the subjective before it can become pabulum for the spiritual part of man.
Truth is never phenomenal, but always metaphysical. The senses apprehend and
are concerned with phenomena. But the senses represent the physical part only
of man, and not that selfhood which the philosopher intends when he speaks of
Man. This, the true ego cannot come into relation with, or take account of,
events and persons which present themselves phenomenally and objectively only.
Thus, they are but vehicles and symbols by which truths, principles, and processes
are conveyed to the subjective apprehension, – the hieroglyphs, so to speak,
in which these are portrayed. Belonging to time and to matter, persons and events
are, – in their phenomenal aspect, – related only to the exterior and perishable
man; while principles and truths, being noumenal and eternal, are cognizable
only by that in man which, being also noumenal and eternal, is of like nature
with them, namely, his subjective and spiritual part. For the apprehender and
that which is apprehended must belong to the same category. And as the former
is, necessarily, the purely rational principle in man, the latter also must
be purely rational. For this reason, therefore, in order to maintain its proper
spirituality, religion must always – as Schelling points out, – present itself
esoterically in universals and in mysteries. Otherwise, being dependent for
its existence upon the continuance of an environment merely physical and sensible,
it becomes as evanescent as is this. From which it follows that so long as we
regard religious truth as essentially constituted of and dependent upon causes
and effects appertaining to the physical plane, we have not yet grasped its
real nature, and are spiritually unconscious and unilluminate. That which is
true in religion is for spirit alone.
The necessary
subjectivity of truth was affirmed also by Kant, who regarded the
historical element in Scripture as indifferent, and declared that the transition
of the Creed into a purely spiritual faith would be the coming of the kingdom
of God. Similarly the mystic Weigelius (A.D. 1650) says that in order to be
efficacious for salvation, that which is divinely written concerning the Christ
on the objective plane must be transferred to the subjective plane and
substantialized in the individual, being interiorly enacted by him. And the
pious and learned translator of the Hermetic books, Doctor Everard, writes:
– “I say there is not one word (of Scripture) true according to the letter.
Yet I say that every word, every syllable, every letter is true. But
they are true as He intended them that spake them; they are true as God meant
them, not as men will have them.” (Gospel Treasury Opened, A.D. 1659).
The reason
is that matter and its attributes constitute but the middle term in a series,
the Alpha and Omega of which are spirit. The world of ultimate effects, like
that of ultimate causes, is spiritual; and no finality can belong to the plane
of their middle term, this being a plane only of transition. The absolute is,
first, pure, abstract thought. It is, next, a heterization of that thought
by disruption into the atomism of time and space, or projection into nature,
a process whereby, from being non-molecular, it becomes molecular. Thirdly,
it returns from this condition of self-externalization and self-alienation back
into itself, resolving the heterization of nature, and becoming again subjective
and – as only thus it can become – self-cognizant. Such – as formulated by Hegel
– is, under manifestation, the process of universals; and such is, necessarily,
the process also of particulars, which are the product of universals. Wherefore
man, as the microcosm, must imitate, and identify himself with, the macrocosm,
and subjectivize, or spiritualize, his experience before he can relate it to
that ultimate principle of himself which constitutes the ego, or selfhood.
Such
a view of religion as this, however, is obviously incomprehensible save by the
educated and developed: its terms and its ideas alike being beyond the capacity
of the generality. This book, therefore, and the work which it inaugurates,
are addressed to the former class; – to persons of culture and thought, who,
recognizing the defects of the popular belief, have abandoned, as hopeless,
the attempt to systematize it and to relate it to their mental needs. There
never can be one presentation of religion suited equally to all classes and
castes of men; and the attempt of the Church to compass this impossibility has,
of necessity, resulted in the alienation of those who are unable to accept the
crude, coarse fare dealt out to the multitude. Enacting the part of a Procrustes
in respect of things spiritual, she has tried to fit to one measure minds of
all kinds and dimensions, in total disregard of the apostolic dictum: – “We
speak wisdom among the full-grown. . But not unto you as unto the spiritual,
but as unto the carnal, unto babes in Christ, feeding you with milk, not with
meat, being not yet able to receive it.”
For
these, then, – the uninstructed and undeveloped, – the Church must continue
to speak with veiled face, in parable and symbol. Our appeal is to those who,
having attained their intellectual and spiritual majority have put away childish
things, and who, accordingly, – instead of being content with the husk of the
letter, and ignoring the spirit for the form, or limiting it by the form, –
are impelled by the very necessity of their nature to seek behind the veil and
to read the spirit through the form, that “with unveiled face they may behold
the glory of the Lord, and be transformed into the same image.” They who are
thus ripe will in these pages learn what is the Reality which only Mind can
apprehend; and will understand that it belongs not to the objective and phenomenal
plane of mundane history, but to the subjective and noumenal plane of their
own souls, where seeking they will find enacted the process of Fall, Exile,
Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection, Ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit,
and – as the sequel – the attainment of Nirvana, the “peace that passeth understanding.”
For those thus initiated the mind is no longer concerned with history; the phenomenal
becomes recognized as the illusory, – a shadow projected by the Real, having
no substance in itself, and an accident only of the real. One thing is and abides,
– the Soul in man, – Mother of God, immaculate; descending – as Eve – into matter
and generation; assumed – as Mary – beyond matter into life eternal. One state,
supreme and perfect, epitomizes and resolves all others; – the state of Christ,
promised in the dawn of evolution; displayed in its process; glorified at its
consummation. To realize the assumption of Mary, to attain to the stature of
her Son, – these ends and aspirations constitute the desire of the illuminate.
And it is in order to indicate them anew and the method of seeking them intelligently,
that this book is written.
This
preface may – it seems to us – fittingly conclude with a token of the estimation
The Perfect Way has won from persons specially qualified to judge it.
The following is selected from numerous communications to the like effect, coming,
not only from various parts of the world, but from members of various nationalities,
races and faiths, and showing that our book is already accomplishing far and
wide its mission as an Eirenicon.
The veteran student
of the “divine science,” a reference to whom, as the friend, disciple, and literary
heir of the renowned magian, the late Abbe Constant (“Eliphas Levi”), will be
for all initiates a sufficient indication of his personality, thus writes to
us: –
“As with
the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the appeal on behalf of your book
is, really, to miracles: but with the difference that in your case the miracles
are intellectual ones and incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation.
And they have the further distinction of doing no violence to common
sense by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in complete
accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great Mother of
these, – the Kabbala. That miracles, such as I am describing, are to be found
in The Perfect Way, in kind and number unexampled, they who are
the best qualified to judge will be the most ready to affirm.
“And
here, apropos of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to offer you some
remarks on the Kabbala as we have it. It Is my opinion, –
“(1)
That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such as it was on its original
emergence from the sanctuaries.
“(2)
That when Guillaume Postel – of excellent memory – and his brother Hermetists
of the later middle age – the Abbot Trithemius and others – predicted that these
sacred books of the Hebrews should become known and understood at the end of
the era, and specified the present time for that event, they did not mean that
such knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these particular
Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new illumination, which should
eliminate from them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced, and
should reunite that great tradition with its source by restoring it in all its
purity.
“(3)
That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has been manifested in
The Perfect Way. For in this book we find all that there is of truth
in the Kabbala, supplemented by new intuitions, such as present in a body of
doctrine at once complete, homogeneous, logical and inexpugnable.
“Since
the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored to its original
purity, the prophecies of Postel, etc., are accomplished; and I consider that
from henceforth the study of the Kabbala will be but an object of curiosity
and erudition like that of Hebrew antiquities.
“Humanity
has always and everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: – Whence
come we? what are we? whither go we?
Now,
these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory,
in The Perfect Way. (This judgment is irrespective of the mode of presentation,
for any defect in which the responsibility rests with ourselves.)
As the
secrecy originally observed is, even were it still desirable, no longer practicable,
we have added our names to the title-page.
CHRISTMAS,
1886.
PREFACE
According to classical legend, the Goddess
Athena had once for votary a fair virgin named Medusa, who, becoming vain of her
beauty and weary of the pure service of the maiden Goddess, introduced folly and
defilement into the very sanctuary of the Temple in which she was wont to worship.
Thereupon a terrible fate overtook her. The beautiful face, which had been the
cause of her fall, assumed an aspect so terrible as to blight and petrify all
who looked upon it; her tresses, once the chief object of her pride: were changed
into vipers: and the hands which had ministered to heaven became as the talons
of a bird of prey. Thus transformed into a Gorgon, she brought forth monsters,
and for a time devastated the earth. At length the hero Perseus, “Son of God,”
commissioned by Athena and Hermes, and armed by them with wings and sword and
shield, slew the terrible creature, and smote off her venomous head. This exploit,
– itself fraught with great perils, – was followed by the achievement of another
not less difficult. Andromeda, daughter of the Aethiopian king, being doomed to
become the prey of a dragon which long had ravaged her father’s coasts, was already
chained to a rock on the seashore and on the point of being devoured, when Perseus,
– divinely guided to the scene of the intended sacrifice – vanquished the Dragon
and delivered the princess. And, having won her love and espoused her, the son
of Zeus bore her away from her father’s kingdom into heaven, to shine forever
beside him, redeemed, immortal, and glorious.
Now the
names Medusa and Andromeda have a common root, and signify respectively “guardian”
or “house” of Wisdom, and “the ruler” or “helpmeet” of Man. They are thus typical
names, the first of the Church, the second, of the Soul. And the two myths of
which their bearers are the heroines, together constitute a prophecy, – or perpetual
verity, – having special application to the present epoch. Medusa is that system
which, – originally pure and beautiful, the Church of God and the guardian of
the Mysteries, – has, through corruption and idolatry, become “the hold of every
unclean thing,” and the mother of a monstrous brood. And, moreover, like the
once lovely face of Medusa, the Doctrine which bore originally the divine impress
and reflected the Celestial Wisdom Herself, has become through the fall of the
Church converted into Dogma so pernicious and so deadly as to blight and destroy
the reason of all who come under its control. And the Perseus of the myth is
the true Humanity, – earth born indeed, but heaven begotten, – which endowed
by Wisdom and Understanding, with the wings of Courage, the shield of Intuition,
and the sword of Science, is gone forth to smite and destroy the corrupt Church
and to deliver the world from its blighting influence. But it is not enough
that the Gorgon be slain. A task yet greater and more glorious awaits achievement.
Andromeda, the Soul, the better part of Man, is on the point of being devoured
outright by the baleful dragon of Negation, the agent of the lower nature, and
the ravager of all the hopes of mankind. Her name, – identical with the terms
in which is described the first Woman of Hebrew story, – indicates her as the
helpmeet and ruler of man; her parentage denotes the origin of the Soul from
the astral Fire or Aether, signified by the land of Aethiopis; the brazen fetters
with which she is bound to the rock, typify the present bondage of the Divine
in man to his material part; and her redemption, espousal, and exaltation by
the hero Perseus, prefigure the final and crowning achievement of the Son of
God, who is no other than the Spiritual Manhood, fortified and sustained by
Wisdom and Thought. Of no avail against the monster which threatens to annihilate
the Soul, are the old devices of terrorism, persecution, and thraldom by which
the corrupt Church sought to subjugate mankind to her creed. The Deliverer of
the Soul must be free as air, borne on the wings of a Thought that knows no
fear and no restraint, and armed with the blade, two-edged and facing every
way, of a knowledge potent alike for attack and defence. And he must be wise
and free in every sense, bent, not on destruction merely, but on salvation likewise,
and his sword must be as apt to smite the fetters from the limbs of Andromeda,
as to deal the stroke of death to the Gorgon. It is not enough that he carry
to Olympus the dead Medusa’s head; he must bear thither also a living Bride.
His mission is not only to satisfy the Mind but to content the Heart. The Intellect,
–the “Man,” – it is, who handles the sword of the liberator; and the Intuition,
–the “Woman,” – it is, who weaves and constructs. But for her labour his prowess
would be vain, and his deeds without goal or reward. The hero brings home spoils
to the tent, and hangs up his shield and spear by the hearth-fire. All honour
to the warrior, alike as iconoclast, as scientist, as purifier of the earth.
His work, however, is but initiatory, preparing the way and making the path
straight for Her who carries neither torch nor weapon of war. By her is the
intellect crowned; by her is humanity completed; in her the Son of Zeus finds
his eternal and supreme reward; for she is the shrine at once of divinest Wisdom
and of perfect Love.
It is
thus evident that classical story, identical in substance with the allegorical
prophecies of Hebrew and Christian scripture, exhibits the work of the Saviour
or Liberator, as having a twofold character. Like Zeus, the Father of Spirits,
whose son he is, the Reason is at once Purifier and Redeemer. The task of Destruction
accomplished, that of Reconstruction must begin. Already the first is well-nigh
complete, but as yet no one seems to have dreamed of the last as possible. The
present age has witnessed the decline and fall of a system which, after having
successfully maintained itself for some eighteen centuries against innumerable
perils of assault from without, and of faction from within, has at length succumbed
to the combined arms of scientific and moral criticism. But this very overthrow,
this very demolition, creates a new void, to the existence of which the present
condition of the world and the apprehensions and cravings everywhere expressed,
bear ample testimony. On all sides men are asking themselves, “Who will show
us any good?” To whom or to what, if the old system be fallen, shall we turn
for counsel and salvation from Doom? Under what roof shall we shelter ourselves
if the whole Temple be demolished, and “not one stone be left upon another that
shall not be thrown down”? What way shall we take to Zion, if the old road be
buried beneath the avalanche? Agnosticism and Pessimism have seized upon the
best intellects of the age. Conscience has become eclipsed by self-interest,
mind obscured by matter, and man’s percipience of his higher nature and needs
suppressed in favour of his lower. The rule of conduct among men is fast becoming
that of the beast of prey: – self before all, and that the earthly, brutish,
and ignoble self. Everywhere are the meaning and uses even of life seriously
called in question; everywhere is it sought to sustain humanity by means which
are in themselves subversive of humanity; everywhere are the fountains of the
great deep of human society breaking up, and a deluge is seen to
be impending, the height, extent, and duration of which no one can forecast.
And nowhere yet is discernible the Ark, by taking refuge in which mankind may
surmount and survive the flood.
Nevertheless
this Ark so anxiously looked for, this Way so painfully sought, this work of
Reconstruction so sorely needed, are all attainable by man. The certainty of
their attainment is involved in the nature itself of existence, and ratified
in every expression given to the mysteries of that nature from the beginning
of the world.
The prime
object of the present work is, then, not to demolish, but to reconstruct. Already
the needful service of destruction has been widely and amply rendered. The old
Temple has been thrown down and despoiled, and the “children of Israel” have
been carried away captive to “Babylon,” – the mystic name of the stronghold
of Materialism. As it is written; “The vessels of the House of the Lord” – that
is, the doctrines of the Church – “great and small, and the treasures of the
Temple, and of the King, and of the princess, were carried away to Babylon.
And the enemies set fire to the House of God; and broke down the wall of Jerusalem,”
– that is, the Soul, – “and burnt all her towers, and whatsoever was precious
they destroyed.”
It is
now time for the fulfilment of the second and last act of the prophetical drama;
– “Thus saith Cyrus,” – that is KurioV the Lord, the Christ; –
“All the kingdoms of the earth hath the God of heaven given me, and He hath
charged me to build Him again a House in Jerusalem.” “Who is there of you, who
will go up and build again the Temple of the Lord God of Israel?”
In these
words is expressed the intention of the writers of this book. And if they have
preferred to withhold their names, it is neither because they distrust the genuineness
of their commission or the soundness of their work, nor because they shrink
from the responsibility incurred; but in order that their work may rest upon
its own merits and not upon theirs, – real or supposed; – in order, that is,
that it may be judged and not prejudged one way or the other. Such reservation
is in accordance with its whole tenor. For the criterion alone to which appeal
is made on its behalf is the Understanding, and this on the ground that it is
contrary to the nature of Truth to prevail by force of authority, or of aught
other than the understanding; since Truth – how transcendent so ever it be –
has its witness in the Mind, and no other testimony can avail it. If truth be
not demonstrable to mind, it is obvious that man, who is essentially mind, and
the product of mind, cannot recognize or appropriate it. What is indispensable
is, that appeal be made to the whole mind, and not to one department of it only.
In this
book no new thing is told; but that which is ancient – so ancient that either
it or its meaning has been lost – is restored and explained. But, while accepting
neither the presentations of a conservative orthodoxy, nor the conclusions of
a destructive criticism, its writers acknowledge the services rendered by both
to the cause of Truth. For, like the Puritans, who coated with plaster and otherwise
covered and hid from view the sacred images and decorations which were obnoxious
to them, orthodoxy has at least preserved through the ages the symbols which
contain the Truth, beneath the errors with which it has overlaid them. And criticism,
however fiercely infidel, has, by the very act of destruction, cleared the way
for rebuilding. It has fulfilled the man’s function, – that of analysis, and
made possible the woman’s, – that of synthesis. And this is according to the
Divine order.
In both
nature and method, therefore, this book is mainly, interpretative,
and, consequently, reconciliatory. And it is this, not only in respect
of the Hebrew, Christian, Oriental, and Classic systems in particular, but in
respect also of modern thought and human experience in general. It aims at making
at-one-ment between Mind and Heart by bringing together Mercy – that is, Religion
– and Truth – that is, Science. It seeks to assure man that his best and most
powerful friends on every plane are Liberty and Reason, as his worst enemies
are Ignorance and Fear; and that until his thought is free enough and strong
enough to bear him aloft to “heaven,” as well as to “the lowermost parts of
the earth,” he is no true Son of Hermes, whose- typical name is Thought, and
who yet is, in his supremest vocation, the Messenger and Minister of God “the
Father.”
ADVENT
1881.
ABSTRACT
OF
ARGUMENT
AND CONTENTS.
_____________________
PREFACE
TO THE REVISED EDITION
PREFACE
LECTURE
THE FIRST
INTRODUCTORY
PART
1 Purpose
of this book; to supply the existing need of a perfect system of thought and
life by one founded in the nature of existence. This not a new invention,
but a recovery of the original system which was the basis of all religions.
Its recovery due to the same means by which it was originally received, namely,
the Intuition, which represents the knowledges acquired by the Soul in its
past existences, and complements the intellect, being itself quickened and
enhanced by illumination of the Spirit. Revelation a proper prerogative of
man, belonging to him in virtue of his nature and constitution, and crowning
the reason. God, the supreme Reason. The Understanding, the “Rock” of the
true Church. Illustrations of Method, classic and rabbinical. Sketch of Doctrine.
Spirit and Matter: their nature, relations, and essential identity. Existence
and Being. The Kalpa, Sabbath, and Nirvana, Divinity of Substance: its unity
and trinity, and mode of individualization and development. The true doctrine
of creation by evolution; found in all religions, as also that of the progression
and migration of Souls; personal and historical testimony to its truth; recognized
in Old and New Testaments. Rudimentary man. The Sphinx.
PART
II. Relation of the system recovered to that in possession. The true heir.
Religion, being founded in the nature of existence, is necessarily non-historical,
independent of times, places, and persons, and appeals perpetually to the mind
and conscience. Objections anticipated. Persistency of religious ideas due to
their reality. The apparently new not necessarily really new. Christianity not
exempt from the influences which caused the deterioration of Judaism. Its future
development by means of new revelation foretold by its Founder. Need of such
new revelation to preserve, not only religion, but humanity from extinction.
The “man of sin” and “abomination that maketh desolate.” Substitution of Gospel
of Force by Gospel of Love. One name whereby is salvation, but many bearers.
The Christs.
LECTURE
THE SECOND.
THE
SOUL; AND THE SUBSTANCE OF EXISTENCE.
PART I.
The Soul, universal or individual, the supreme subject and object of culture;
the essential self, to know which is the only wisdom, involving the knowledge
of God. Mysticism or Spiritualism, and Materialism, the doctrines respectively
of Substance or Spirit, and of phenomenon. Matter a mode or condition of Spirit,
and indispensable to its manifestation. The object of all religion and subject
of all revelation the redemption of Spirit from Matter. Necessity to creation
of the idea of a No-God. The ascent from Nature’s Seeming to God’s Being. The
recovered system and Materialism respectively as Phoebus and Python.
PART
II. The Soul as individual, its genesis and nature: the divine idea, eternal
in its nature, but perishable if uninformed of the Spirit. The “Fire of the
hearth:” the Divine breath. Convergence and divergence: the celestial Nirvana,
and that of annihilation. The end of the persistently evil. The planet and its
offspring. The fourfold nature of existence, alike in macrocosm and microcosm,
due to differentialities of polarization of original substance.
PART
III. The Soul as individual, its history and progress: commencing in the
simplest organisms, it works upwards, moulding itself according to the tendencies
encouraged by it; its final object to escape the need of a body and return to
the condition of pure Spirit. Souls various in quality. The parable of the Talents.
PART
IV. Of the nature of God; as Living Substance, One; as Life and Substance,
Twain; the Potentiality of all things; the absolute Good, through the limitation
of whom by Matter comes evil. Subsists prior to creation as Invisible Light.
As Life, God is He; as Substance, She; respectively
the Spirit and Soul universal and individual; the Soul the feminine element
in man, having its representative in woman. God the original, abstract Humanity.
The seven Spirits of God. “Nature.” The heavenly Maria, her characteristics
and symbols. As Soul or Intuition, she is the “woman” by whom man attains his
true manhood; The defect of the age in this respect. No intuition, no organon
of knowledge. The Soul alone such organon.
PART
V. Divine Names, denotative of characteristics. Function of religion to
enable man to manifest the divine Spirit within him. Man as an expression of
God. The Christs, why called Sun gods. The Zodiacal planisphere a Bible or hieroglyph
of the Soul’s history. Bibles, by whom written. The “Gift of God”.
LECTURE
THE THIRD.
THE VARIOUS ORDERS OF SPIRITS; AND HOW TO DISCERN THEM.
PART
I. The sphere of the astral, its four circuli and their respective occupants.
The Shades; purgatory; “hell;” “devils;” “the Devil;” possession by devils;
“souls in prison;” “under the elements;” spirits of the elements, subject to
the human will; souls of the dead; the anima bruta and anima divina.
Metempsychosis and reincarnation; conditions of the latter; descent to lower
grades; cause of the Soul’s loss.
PART II.
The astral or magnetic spirits by which, ordinarily, “mediums” are “controlled;”
reflects rather than spirits; difficulty of distinguishing them from Souls;
elements of error and deception; delusive character of astral influences; their
characteristics; danger of a negative attitude of mind; necessity of a positive
attitude for Divine communication; spirits elemental and elementary; genii
loci; cherubim.
PART
III. The sphere of the celestial; the procession of Spirit; the triangle
of life; the Genius or guardian angel, his genesis, nature, and functions; the
Gods, or Archangels.
LECTURE
THE FOURTH.
THE
ATONEMENT
PART I.
This the central doctrine of religion, and, like the Cosmos, fourfold in its
nature. What the doctrine is not; its corruption by materialism; priestly degradation
of the character of Deity. The Bible represents the conflict between prophet
and priest, the former as the minister of the intuition, and the latter as the
minister of sense.
PART
II. The occult side of the sacrificial system. Effusion of blood efficacious
in the evocation of subhuman spirits, as shown by various examples. These spirits
visible in the fume of the sacrifices. Astral spirits personate the celestials.
Abhorrence of the true prophet for bloodshed, illustrated in Buddha’s rebuke
to the priests. The orthodox doctrine of vicarious atonement, a travesty due
to astral spirits, of the true doctrine. Pernicious effects of the use of blood
(or flesh) for food; impossibility, on such diet, of attaining full perception
of divine truth.
PART
III. Antiquity and universality of the Cross as the symbol of Life physical
and spiritual. Its application to the doctrine of the Atonement fourfold, having
a separate meaning for each sphere of man’s nature. Of these meanings the first
is of the physical and outer, denoting the crucifixion or rejection of the Man
of God by the world. The second is intellectual, and denotes the crucifixion
or conquest by man of his lower nature. The third, which refers to the Soul,
implies the passion and oblation of himself, whereby the man regenerate obtains
the power – by the demonstration of the supremacy of spirit over Matter – to
become a Redeemer to others. The fourth appertains to the Celestial and innermost,
and denotes the perpetual sacrifice of God’s Life and Substance for the creation
and salvation of His creatures. The pantheistic nature of the true doctrine.
LECTURE
THE FIFTH.
THE
NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF THE EGO.
PART
I. Psyche as the Soul and true Ego the result of Evolution, being individualized
through Matter.
PART
II. Man’s two personalities. Karma or the results of past conduct and consequent
destiny. The soul essentially immaculate.
PART
III. The Ego more than the sum total of the consciousnesses composing the
system, as representing these combined and polarized to a higher plane. The
Psyche alone subjective and capable of knowledge.
PART
IV. The Shade, the Ghost, and the Soul; their respective natures and
destinies.
PART
V. The anima Mundi, or Picture-World. The soul of the planet, like
that of the individual, transmigrates and passes on.
PART
VI. The Evolution of the Ego, and therein of the Church of Christ, implied
in the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the B. V. M.
LECTURE
THE SIXTH.
THE
FALL ( 1 )
PART
I. The first Church; its type the Kaabeh, or cube, denoting sixfoldness;
dates from “Paradise.” The Merkaba, or vehicle of God, drawn by the four
elements. The four rivers of Eden. Allegorical character of the Mystic Scriptures;
how recovered by Esdras; their origin and corruption.
PART
II. The parable of the Fall: its signification fourfold, being one for each
sphere of existence; the first, physical and social.
PART
III. The second signification rational and philosophical; the third, psychical
and personal.
PART
IV. The fourth signification spiritual and cosmical. The Restoration implied
in the Sabbath, and prophesied in the Zodiac, and in the arms of Pope Leo XIII
PART
V. A new Annunciation.
LECTURE
THE SEVENTH.
THE
FALL ( 2 )
PART I.
Interpretation of Scripture dual, intellectual and intuitional, or exterior
and interior; the Soul as the woman, through whose aspiration to God man becomes
Man in the mystic sense, and made in the image of God; and through whose inclination
to Matter he falls from that image. As the fall is through loss of purity, so
the Redemption is through restoration of purity.
PART
II. The Soul’s history as allegorized in the books of Genesis and Revelation.
PART
III. Source of errors of Biblical interpretation. The historical basis of
the Fall. The Church as the Woman. Rise and Fall of original Church. A primitive
mystic community. The source of doctrine, interior and superior to priesthoods.
PART
IV. Nature and method of historical Fall. The three steps by retracing which
the Restoration will come. Tokens of its approach.
LECTURE
THE EIGHTH
THE
REDEMPTION
PART I.
The “great work” the Redemption of Spirit from Matter: first in the individual,
next in the universal. Definition of mystic terms used to denote the process:
“Passion,” “Crucifixion,” “Death,” “Burial,” “Resurrection,” “Ascension”.
PART
II. The Man perfected and having power: the “philosopher’s stone,” and kindred
terms; the Adept and the Christ: sense in which the latter may be called a medium
for the Highest; not as ordinarily understood: the Hierarch or Magian, his qualifications
and conditions.
PART
III: Design of the Gospels to present perfect character of Man Regenerate;
selection of Jesus as subject; Church’s failure of comprehension through loss
of spiritual vision, due to materialism. Answer to objection; doctrine of Incarnation;
perversion and explanation: method of Gospel symbolism; the miracles; cosmic
order of Gospels.
PART
IV. The Sacred Mysteries of Regeneration, celebrated in caves, labyrinths,
and pyramids. The great pyramid a symbol of the Soul’s history; the six Crowns,
or Acts of initiation: “Betrothal,” “Trial," “Passion,” “Burial,” “Resurrection,”
and “Ascension.” The Cup of consummation; the divine Marriage: its three stages,
how represented in the Gospels.
PART
V. The Twelve Gates of the Heavenly Salem; the Tabernacle; the Round Table
and its “bright Lord;” the Number of Perfection; the genealogy of the Man Regenerate;
“Christ” no incarnate God or angel, but the highest human. The world’s present
condition due to sacerdotal degradation of truth. Christian gospels represent
later stages only of regeneration, the earlier ones having been exemplified
in the systems of Pythagoras and Buddha. Christianity framed with direct reference
to these, not to supersede but to complete them; Buddha and Jesus being necessary
to each other, as head and heart of same system. Of these combined will be produced
the Religion and Humanity of the future; hence the import of the connection
between England and the East. “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The “Kings of the
East,” and the “drying-up of the Euphrates.” The Transfiguration, a prophecy.
The “Eastern Question;” its interior significance; the destiny of Islamism.
LECTURE
THE NINTH.
GOD
AS THE LORD; OR, THE DIVINE IMAGE.
PART I.
The two modes of Deity; God as the Lord, in the Bible, the Kabbala, and the
Bhagavad-gîtâ. Swedenborg and his doctrine: his limitations and
their cause. The Hermetic doctrine. The “Mount of the Lord.” True meanings of
“Mystery;” sacerdotal degradation of the term, and its evil results.
PART
II. Function of the Understanding in regard to things spiritual. Its place
in the systems human and divine. The “Spirit of Understanding,” his various
names and symbols, and relation to the Christ. Cognate myths in illustration.
Hermes as regarded by the Neo-Platonists and by modern Materialists. Mystic
and Materialist, the feud between them. The School of Torturers. The “Mystery
of Godliness,” according to Kabbala and Paul. The Pauline doctrine concerning
Woman; its contrast with the doctrine of Jesus. Woman according to Plato, Aristotle,
Philo, the Fathers, the Church, the Reformation, Milton, Islamism, and Mormonism.
PART
III. Charges whereby it is sought to discredit the system of the Mystics;
Plagiarism and Enthusiasm: the signification and value of the latter. Ecstasy:
its nature and function. Mystics and Materialists, their respective
standpoints. Conspiracy of modern science against the Soul. Materialists, ancient
and modern, contrasted.
PART
IV. Man’s perception of God sensible as well as mental. The Divine Unity,
Duality, Trinity, and Plurality. The Logos, or Manifestor. The mystery of the
human Facepp.
PART
V. The Vision of Adonai.
PART
VI. “Christ” as the culmination of Humanity and point of junction with Deity.
The Credo of the Elect.
APPENDICES.
I.
CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
II.
CONCERNING THE HEREAFTER.
III.
ON PROPHESYING; AND A PROPHECY.
IV.
CONCERNING THE NATURE OF SIN
V.
CONCERNING THE “GREAT WORK,” AND THE SHARE OF CHRIST JESUS THEREIN.
VI.
THE TIME OF THE END.
VII.
THE HIGHER ALCHEMY.
VIII.
CONCERNING REVELATION.
IX.
CONCERNING THE POET.
X.
CONCERNING THE ONE LIFE.
XI.
CONCERNING THE MYSTERIES.
XII.
HYMN TO THE PLANET-GOD.
XIII.
FRAGMENTS FROM THE “GOLDEN BOOK OF VENUS.”
PART
I. HYMN OF APHRODITE.
PART
II. A DISCOURSE OF THE COMMUNION
OF SOULS, AND OF THE USES OF LOVE BETWEEN CREATURE AND CREATURE.
XIV.
HYMN TO HERMES
XV.
THE SECRET OF SATAN
PLATES.
Fig.
1. THE CHERUBIM OF EZEKIEL AND THE APOCALYPSE.
Fig.
2. THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS.
Fig.
3. SECTION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZEH..
“And
the Lord God said unto the serpent I will put enmities between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou
shalt lie in wait for her heel.” – Gen. iii. 14, 15.
“And
a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” – Apoc. xii.
I.
LECTURE
THE FIRST.
INTRODUCTORY.
PART
I.
THE purpose
of the Lectures, of which this is the first, is the exposition of a system of
Doctrine and Life, at once scientific, philosophic, and religious, and adapted
to all the needs and aspirations of mankind. This system is offered in substitution,
on the one hand, for that traditional and dogmatic Conventionalism which, by
its failure to meet the tests of science and to respond to the moral instincts,
is now by thoughtful persons nearly or wholly discarded; and, on the other hand,
for that agnostic Materialism which is rapidly overspreading the world to the
destruction of all that is excellent in the nature of man.
2. But
although offered in substitution both for that which experience has shown to
be defective, and that which is so recent as to be only now in course of reception,
the system to be proposed is not itself new; and its present exposition represents,
not an Invention as ordinarily understood, but a Restoration. For, as will be
shown indubitably, there has been in the world from the earliest ages a system
which fulfils all the conditions requisite for endurance; a system which, being
founded in the nature of Existence itself, is eternal in its truth and application,
and needs but due understanding and observance to enable man by means of it
to attain to the highest perfection and satisfaction he can by any possibility
imagine or desire. And, as also will be shown, this system is no other than
that which all the great religions of the world have, under various guises and
with varying degrees of success, striven to express.
3. Our
object, therefore, is to restore and to rehabilitate the Truth, by divesting
it of all the many limitations, degenerations, perversions, and distortions
to which throughout the ages it has been subjected; and by explaining the real
meaning of the formulas and symbols which thus far have served rather to conceal
than to reveal it. That which we shall propound, therefore, will be no new doctrine
or practice; but that only which is either so old as to have become forgotten,
or so profound as to have escaped the superficial gaze of modern eyes.
4. Now,
in order to be entitled to a hearing in respect of a subject thus momentous
and recondite, it is obviously necessary that the claimant should be able to
plead some special qualification in the shape of de possession either of an
exclusive source of information, or of an unusual faculty. Hence it becomes
necessary to include in these introductory remarks an account of the qualification
relied on in the present instance.
5. That
which is thus claimed is at once a faculty and a source of information, and
is, in these days, of rare though not novel occurrence. It is that mode of the
mind whereby, after exercising itself in an outward direction as Intellect,
in order to obtain cognition of phenomena, it returns towards its centre, as
Intuition, and be ascertaining the essential idea of the fact apprehended through
the senses, completes the process of its thought. And just as only by the combined
and equal operation of the modes termed centrifugal and centripetal, of force,
the solar system is sustained; so only by the equilibrium of the modes, intellectual
and intuitional, of the mind, can man complete the system of his thought, and
attain to certitude of truth. And as well might we attempt to construct the
solar system by means of an exercise of force in one direction, the human system
by means of one sex, or the nervous system by means of the motor roots only,
as to attain to knowledge by means of one mode only of mind. It is, however,
precisely in this manner that the materialistic hypothesis errs; and by its
error it has forfeited all claim to be accounted a system.
6. The
Intuition, then, is that operation of the mind whereby we are enabled to gain
access to the interior and permanent region of our nature, and there to possess
ourselves of the knowledge which, in the long ages of her past existences, the
Soul has made her own. For that in us which perceives and permanently remembers
is the Soul. And inasmuch as, in order to obtain her full development, she remains
for thousands of years in connection, more or less close, with Matter, until,
perfected by experience of all the lessons afforded by the body, she passes
on the higher conditions of being; it follows that no knowledge which the race
has once acquired in the past can be regarded as hopelessly lost to the present.
7. But
the memory of the soul is not the only factor in spiritual evolution. The faculty
which we have named the Intuition, is completed and crowned by the operation
of Divine Illumination. Theologically, this illumination is spoken of as the
Descent of the Holy Spirit, or outpouring of the heavenly efflux, which kindles
into a flame in the soul, as the sun’s rays in a lens. Thus, to the fruits of
the soul’s experience in the past, is added the “grace” or luminance of the
Spirit; the baptism of Fire which, falling from on high, sanctifies and consummates
the results of the baptism of Water springing from the earth. To be illumined
by this inward Light, to be united with this abiding divinity, was ever the
ardent aspiration of the seeker after God in all times and of all lands, whether
Egyptian Epopt, Hindu Yogi, Greek Neoplatonist, Arab Sufi, or Christian Gnostic.
By the last named it was styled the Paraclete and Revealer, by whom man is led
into all truth. With the Hindu it was Atman, the All-seeing, not subject to
rebirths like the soul, and redeeming from the vicissitudes of destiny. By the
combined operation of this Light, and the enhancement it effects in the intuitions
of the soul, – enabling her to convert her knowledge into wisdom, – the human
race has been from age to age perpetually carried up to higher levels of its
evolution, and will, in due course, be enabled to substantialize in itself and
to be all that in the past it has known and desired of perfection.
8. These
Lectures, then, represent the result of intuitional memory, quickened and enhanced,
we believe, by some measure of the divine influx, and developed by the only
mode of life ever found compatible with sound philosophic aspirations. And of
the doctrine we seek to restore, the basis is the Pre-existence and Perfectibility
of the Soul. The former, because, but for her persistence, progressive genesis,
or gradual becoming, would be impossible. For development depends upon memory,
and is the result of the intelligent application of knowledge gained by experience,
in satisfaction of the needs of the individual; the sense of need being complemented
by a sense of power.
And the
Perfectibility; because, as a portion of the Divine Being – which is God – constituted
of the Divine Substance and illumined by the Divine Spirit, she, the Soul, is
necessarily capable of all that her nature implies; and competent to realize
for the individuality animated by her, the injunction of the great Master of
mystical science; “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
9. It
is necessary for the elucidation of our system to speak yet further of the constitution
of man. Concerning this, our doctrine is that which has prevailed from the earliest
times, and in all philosophical religions. According to this doctrine, man is
possessed of a fourfold nature, a speciality which differentiates him from all
other creatures. The four elements which constitute him are, counting from without
inwards, the material body, the fluidic perisoul or astral body, the soul or
individual, and the spirit, or divine Father, and life of his system. This last
it is whose kingdom is described as the leaven taken by the woman, – the divine
Sophia or Wisdom, – and hidden in three measures of meal, namely, the soul,
the perisoul, and the body, until the whole is leavened; until, that is, the
whole man is so permeated and lightened by it that he is finally transmuted
into Spirit, and becomes “one with God.”
10. This
doctrine of the fourfold nature of man, finds expression also in the Hebrew
Scriptures, being symbolized by the four rivers of Eden – or human nature –
flowing from one source, which is God; and by the four elemental living beings
of Ezekiel, and their four wheels or circles, each of which denotes a region
and principality or power. It has its correspondence also in the four interpretations
of all mystical Scriptures, which are the natural, the intellectual, the ethical,
and the spiritual; and also in the unit of all physical existence, the physiologic
cell. For this, as the student of Histology knows, is composed, from without
inwards, first of cell-membrane or capsule, which is not a separable envelope,
but a mere coagulative sheathing of its fluidic part; secondly, of the protoplasmic
medium; thirdly, of the nucleus, itself a mode of protoplasmic substance; and,
lastly, of an element not present in all cells, and often when present difficult
to perceive, namely, the nucleolus, or inmost and perfectly transparent element.
Thus does man, as the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, exemplify in very detail of
his system the fundamental doctrine of the famous Hermetic philosophy by which
the expression of every true Bible is controlled, the doctrine, namely, of Correspondence.
“As is the outer, so is the inner; as is the small, so is the great: there
is but one law; and He that worketh is One. Nothing is small, nothing is great
in the Divine Economy.”
11. In
these words are contained at once the principle of the universe and the secret
of the Intuition. She it is, the Divine woman of man’s mental system, that opens
to him the “perfect way,” the “way of the Lord,” that “path of the just which,
as a shining light, shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” And her complete
restoration, crowning, and exaltation, is the one condition essential to that
realization of the ideal perfection of man’s nature, which, mystically, is called
“the Finding of Christ.”
12. Now,
the modes whereby the intuition operates are two, namely, Perception and Memory.
By the former, man understands and interprets; by the latter, he retains and
utilizes. Perceiving, recollecting, and applying, the mind enacts for itself
a process analogous to that which occurs in the physical organism. For its operations
correspond to the three physiological processes of Nutrition, – prehension,
digestion, and absorption.
13. When
the uninitiated person, or materialist, denies positively, as, with curious
inconsistency, such persons do deny, the possibility of positive knowledge,
and declares that “all that we know is, nothing can be known,” he speaks truly
so far as concerns himself and his fellows. “The natural man” as the
apostle declares, “perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit, for they
are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually
discerned. But the spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged
of no man.” While the two orders here indicated refer to the inner and outer,
or soul and body, of each individual, they refer also to the two great divisions
of mankind, – they who as yet recognize the body only, and they who are so far
unfolded in their interior nature as to recognize the soul also. Of these last
is the initiate of sacred mysteries. Following his intuition, such an one directs
the force of his mind inwards, and, – provided his will is subordinated to and
made one with the Divine will, – passes within the veil, and knows even as he
is known. For, as the apostle says again, “What man knoweth the things of a
man save the man himself? So, likewise, the things of God no man knoweth, save
the Spirit of God within the man. And the Spirit knoweth all things and revealeth
them unto the man.” As thus by means of our Divine part we apprehend the Divine,
no such apprehension is possible to him who does not, in some degree, reflect
the Divine image. “For if thine eye be evil, thy whole body is full of darkness.
If, then, the very means of light in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
14. Matter
is the antithetical ultimate of Spirit. Wherefore the enemy of spiritual vision
is always Materialism. It is therefore by the dematerialization of himself that
man obtains the seeing eye and hearing ear in respect of Divine things. Dematerialism
consists, not in the separation of the soul from the body, but in the purification
of both soul and body from the engrossment by the things of sense. It is but
another example of the doctrine of correspondence. As with the vision of things
physical, so with that of things spiritual. Purity alike of instrument and medium
is indispensable to perception.
15. This,
then, is the nature and function of the Intuition. By living so purely in thought
and deed as to prevent the interposition of any barrier between his exterior
and his interior, his phenomenal and his substantial self; and by steadfastly
cultivating harmonious relations between these two, – by subordinating the whole
of his system to the Divine central Will, whose seat is in the soul, – the man
gains full access to the stores of knowledge laid up in his soul, and attains
to the cognition alike of God and of the universe. And for him, as is said,
“ There is nothing hid which shall not be revealed.”
16. And
it is not his own memory alone that, thus endowed, he reads. The very planet
of which he is the offspring, is, like himself, a Person, and is possessed of
a medium of memory. And he to whom the soul lends her ears and eyes, may have
knowledge not only of his own past history, but of the past history of the planet,
as beheld in the pictures imprinted in the magnetic light whereof the planet’s
memory consists. For there are actually ghosts of events, manes of past circumstances,
shadows on the protoplasmic mirror, which can be evoked.
17. But
beyond and above the power to read the memory of himself or of the planet, is
the power to penetrate to that innermost sphere wherein the soul obtains and
treasures up her knowledge of God. This is the faculty whereby true revelation
occurs. And revelation, even in this its highest sense, is, no less than reason,
a proper prerogative of man, and belongs of right to him in his highest and
completest measure of development.
18. For
placed as is the soul between the outer and the inner, mediator between the
material and the spiritual, she looks inwards as well as outwards, and by experience
learns the nature and method of God; and according to the degree of her elevation,
purity, and desire, sees, reflects, and transmits God. It is in virtue of the
soul’s position between the worlds of substance and of phenomenon, and her consequent
ability to refer things to their essential ideas, that
in her, and her alone, resides an instrument of knowledge competent for the
comprehension of Truth even the highest, which she only is able to behold face
to face. It is no hyperbole that is involved in the saying, “The pure in heart
see God.” True, the man cannot see God. But the Divine in man sees God.
And this occurs when, by means of his soul’s union with God, the man becomes
“one with the Father,” and beholds God with the eyes of God.
19. That
is not really knowledge which is without understanding. And the knowledge acquired
by man through the soul, involves the understanding of all things apprehended.
Now, to understand a thing, is to get intellectually into, beyond, and around
it; to know the reasons of and for it; and to perceive clearly that it, and
it only under the circumstances, is and could by any possibility be true. Apart
from such knowledge and understanding, belief is impossible. For that is not
belief, in any sense worthy of the term, which is not of knowledge. And only
that belief saves which is conjoined with understanding. For the Rock on which
the true Church is built, is the Understanding.
20. Such
is the meaning of the words of Jesus on the memorable occasion of Peter’s confession
of him. It was not to the man Simon that was applied the apostrophe, – “Thou
art Peter, the rock, and upon this will I build my Church;” but to the eternal
and immutable Spirit of Understanding, by means of which the disciple had “Found
Christ.” Thus the utterance of Jesus had reference, not to the man, but to the
Spirit who informed the man, and whom with his spiritual eyes the Master discerned.
21. We
have said that the soul, with the eyes of understanding, looks two ways, inwards
as well as outwards. It is interesting to remember that this characteristic
of the soul was typified under the image of the two-faced divinity, Janus Bifron,
or, as called by Plutarch, Iannos. Now Janus is the same as Jonas. Wherefore
it is said that Simon, the expositor of the true doctrine, is the son of Jonas,
meaning the Understanding. Janus is also the doorkeeper, as is Peter in Catholic
tradition. And for this reason a door is called janua , and the first month
or entrance of the year, January. Janus thus came to be regarded, like Peter,
as the elder, the renewer of time, and the guardian of the outermost circle
of the system, and one therefore with Saturn. And as the former was called Pater
Janus, so the latter was called Peter Jonas, the Rock of Understanding. And
he is represented, as also is Peter, standing in a ship, and holding in one
hand a staff and in the other a key. By this is signified, that to the Understanding,
born of the experiences of Time, belong the Rod of the Diviner, – or the power
of the Will, – and the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Wherefore, the real chief
of the apostles in the true Church, – that which by its knowledge of the mysteries
of existence, alone can open the gates of eternal life, – is the Understanding.
22. The
priesthoods, materializing, as is their wont, divine things, have applied the
utterance of Jesus to the man Simon and his successors in office; but with the
most disastrous consequences. For, ignoring the understanding, and putting asunder
that which God has joined together, – Faith and Reason, – they have made something
other than Mind the criterion of truth.
To this
divorce between the elements masculine and feminine of man’s intellectual system,
is due the prevailing unbelief. For, converted thereby into superstition, religion
has been rendered ridiculous; and instead of being exhibited as the Supreme
Reason, – God has been depicted as the Supreme Unreason. Against religion, as
thus presented, mankind has done well to revolt. To have remained subject, had
been intellectual suicide. Wherefore the last person entitled to reproach the
world for its want of faith is the Priest; since it is his degradation of the
character of God, that has ministered to unbelief. Suppressing the “woman,”
who is the intuition, by putting themselves in her place, the priests have suppressed
also the man, who is the intellect. And so the whole of humanity is extinguished.
Of the influences under which Sacerdotalism has acquired its evil repute, a
full account will appear as we proceed.
23. In
these lectures, then, the practice denounced will be exchanged for the original
method of all true Churches. And appeal will be made to that consensus of
all the faculties, sensible, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, comprised in
the constitution of man, wherein consists Common Sense. It is not upon any authority
of book, person, tradition, or order, that we ourselves rely, or that we invite
the attention of others. Reference will indeed be made, as already, to various
sacred and other sources, but only for illustration, interpretation, or confirmation.
For, confident in the knowledge that all things have their procession from Mind,
and that consequently Mind is competent for the comprehension of all things;
and also that Mind is eternally one and the same; – we have no fear of antagonism
between the perceptions of the present and those of the past, however remote
that past be. Only let it be remembered, the appeal is, in all cases, to perception,
and in no case, to prejudice or convention. In proceeding from God, all things
proceed from pure Reason; and only by Reason which, in being unwarped by prejudice
and unobscured by Matter, is pure, can anything be rightly apprehended.
24. Hence
it is that the disposition which refers everything, for instance, to a book,
and this, perhaps, one arbitrarily selected from among many similar books; or
that refuses to accept truth save on the authority of miracle, is a superstitious
disposition, and one that opposes as insuperable a barrier to knowledge as does
the materialism, – no less superstitious, – which, constructing an hypothesis
independently of facts, rejects all evidence which conflicts with its hypothesis.
It is precisely a materialism such as this which, in the recoil from superstition
of one kind, has plunged the age headlong into superstition of another kind.
For the cultus of the present day, – that of Matter, – is the most stupendous
example of Fetish-worship the world has ever seen. But of this we shall have
more to say further on. It is necessary here but to remind those who worship
a book, that things are not true because they are in a Bible; but that they
are in a Bible because previously recognized as true. And miracles, – which
are natural effects of exceptional causes, – may indeed be proofs of occult
power and skill, but are no evidence of the truth of any doctrine.
25. The
following story from the Talmud will serve both to lighten our lecture and to
illustrate our position in this respect:
“On a
certain day, Rabbi Eliezer ben Orcanaz replied to the questions proposed to
him concerning his teaching; but his arguments being found to be inferior to
his pretensions, the doctors present refused to admit his conclusions. The Rabbi
Eliezer said, ‘My doctrine is true, and this karoub tree, which is near us shall
demonstrate the infallibility of my teaching.’ Immediately the karoub tree,
obeying the voice of Eliezer, arose out of the ground and planted itself a hundred
cubits farther off. But the Rabbis shook their heads and answered, ‘The karoub
tree proves nothing.’ ‘What,’ cried Eliezer, ‘you resist so great a miracle?
Then let this rivulet flow backwards, and attest the truth of my doctrine.’
Immediately the rivulet obeying the command of Eliezer, flowed backwards towards
its source. But again the Rabbis shook their heads and said, ‘The rivulet proves
nothing. We must understand before we can believe.’ ‘Will you believe me,’ said
Rabbi Eliezer, ‘if the walls of this house wherein we sit should fall down?’
And the walls, obeying him, began to fall, until Rabbi Joshua exclaimed, ‘By
what right do the walls interfere in our debates?’ Then the walls stopped in
their fall out of respect to Rabbi Joshua, but remained leaning out of respect
for Rabbi Eliezer, and remain leaning until this day. But Eliezer, mad with
rage, cried out: ‘Then in order to confound you, and since you compel me to
it, let a voice from heaven be heard!’ And immediately the Bath-Kol, or Voice
from heaven, was heard at a great height in the air, and it said, ‘What are
all the opinions of the Rabbis compared to the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer? When
he has spoken, his opinion ought to prevail.’ Hereupon Rabbi Joshua rose and
said, ‘It is written, “The law is not in heaven; it is in your mouth and in
your heart.” It is in your reason; for again it is written, “I have left you
free to choose between life and death and good and evil.” And it is in your
conscience; for “if ye love the Lord and obey His voice within you, you will
find happiness and truth.” Wherefore then does Rabbi Eliezer bring in a karoub
tree, a rivulet, a wall, and a voice to settle questions of doctrine? And what
is the only conclusion that can be drawn from such miracles, but that they who
have expounded the laws of nature have not wholly understood them, and that
we must now admit that in certain cases a tree can unroot itself, a rivulet
flow backwards, walls obey instructions, and voices sound in the air? But what
connection is there between these observations and the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer?
No doubt these miracles were very extraordinary, and they have filled us with
astonishment; but to amaze is not to argue, and it is argument, not phenomena,
that we require. When, therefore, Rabbi Eliezer shall have proved to us that
karoub trees, rivulets, walls, and unknown voices afford us, by unusual manifestations,
reasonings equal in value and weight to that reason which God has placed within
us to guide our judgment, then alone will we make use of such testimonies and
estimate them as Eliezer requires.’”
To the
same purport the famous commentator, Maimonides, says, “When thy senses affirm
that which thy reason denies, reject the testimony of thy senses, and listen
only to thy reason.”
26. Having
spoken of the Soul’s functions, and of her relation to man, we come now to speak
of her nature and history. Whether of the individual or of the universal, Soul
is Substance, that which sub-stands all phenomena. This substance is original
protoplasm; at once that which makes and that which becomes. The first manifestation
of substance is in the interplanetary ether, called by Homer the “Middle Air,”
and known in the terminology of Occultism as the Astral Fluid. This, be it observed,
is not soul, but that whereby soul is manifest, and in which it potentially
subsists. Matter is the ultimate expression of substance, and represents that
condition in which it is furthest removed from its original state, as the membranous
capsule which forms the circumference of the physiologic cell represents the
ultimate expression of the fluidic contents.
27. The
soul may be likened to the nucleus of the cell. The protoplasmic medium which
is found within the capsular envelope and in which the nucleus floats, may be
likened to the astral fluid, whether interplanetary or intercellular. But the
nucleus, the fluidic body surrounding it, and the exterior membrane, are all
equally protoplasmic in nature, and the potentiality of one is in all; the difference
actually observable among them being due only to difference of condition.
28. All
the elements of the cell, however, – the nucleus included, – are material; whereas
Matter itself is, whatever its kind, a mode of Substance, of which the nature
is spiritual. But though Substance is, by its nature, Spirit, there is a sense
in which Spirit is not Substance. This is the sense in which Spirit denotes
will or energy, as distinguished from the Substance in which this inheres. Under
impulsion of the Spirit as thus defined, Substance exchanges its static for
a dynamic condition, repose for activity, becoming molecularized, and therefore
materialized, in the process. It does not, however, cease to be Substance by
becoming Matter; but Matter ceases to be Matter by cessation of motion. Matter
may thus be defined as Substance in a state of incessant, intense activity,
which is the condition of every particle in the universe. From the microscopic
molecule to the planet everything revolves impelled by one force, and obeying
one law.
29. The
truth that Matter is Substance in its dynamic condition was well-known to the
hierophants of ancient India and Egypt, and finds expression in the Hebrew sacred
books, –which are Egyptian in origin, – in the phrase, – “And on the seventh
day, God ended his work, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had made.”
This
“resting” – which is not annihilation but repose, – involves the return of Matter
to its static condition of Substance. The idea presented is that of cessation
of active creative force, and the consequent return of phenomenal existence
into essential being. This stage it is which constitutes the termination of
the creative period, and the perfection of every creative work. It is at once
the “rest which remains for the people of God;” the attainment of perfection
by the individual, system, or race; and the return of the universe into the
bosom of God, by re-absorption into the original substance. The Buddhist terms
it Nirvana; and the period of which it is the termination is called by
the Hindus, Kalpa, a word signifying Form. And they hold that the universe
undergoes a succession of Kalpas, being at the end of each reabsorbed into Deity,
Who then rests awhile prior to the next manifestation, reposing upon Sesha,
the celestial “serpent,” or living circle of Eternity, the symbol of essential
Being, as opposed to existence in its strict sense of manifested Being.
30. For,
as will by-and-by be more fully shown, the substance of the soul, and therein
of all things, and the substance of Deity, are one and the same; since there
is but one Substance. And of this substance, the life is also called God, Who,
as living Substance, is at once Life and Substance, one and yet twain, or two
in one. And that which is begotten of these two, and is, theologically, called
the Son, and the Word, is necessarily the expression of both, and is, potentially,
the Universe, for He creates it after His own Divine image by means of the Spirit
He has received. Now the Divine Substance is, in its original condition, homogeneous.
Every monad of it, therefore, possesses the potentialities of the whole. Of
such a monad, in its original condition, every individual soul consists. And
of the same substance, projected into lower conditions, the material universe
consists. It undergoes, however, no radical change of nature through such projection;
but its manifestation – on whatever plane occurring – is always as is the evolution
of its Trinity. Thus – to reckon from without inwards, and below upwards – on
the plane physical it is Force, universal Ether, and their offspring the material
World. On the plane intellectual it is Life, Substance, and Formulation. On
the plane spiritual – its original point of radiation – it is Will, Wisdom,
and the Word. And on all planes whatsoever, it is, in some mode, Father, Mother,
and Child. For “there are Three which bear record in ‘heaven,’ or the
invisible, and these Three are One. And there are three which bear record
on ‘earth,’ or the visible, and these three agree in one, being Spirit,
Soul, and Body.”
31. The
soul’s entrance into Matter, and primal manifestation as an individual, occurs
in the lowest modes of organic life, and is due to the convergence of the magnetic
poles of the constituent molecules of some protoplasmic entity, an action due
to the working of the Spirit in the Matter concerned. For all Matter, it must
be remembered, has, and is, Spirit. The focusing of these poles gives rise to
a circular magnetic current, of which the result is an electric combustion,
which is the vital spark, organic life, Soul. It is, however, no new creation
in the ordinary sense of the term. For nothing can be either added to or withdrawn
from the universe. It is but a new condition of the one substance already
existing, a condition which constitutes a fresh act of individualization on
the part of that substance. It has become by self-generation, a soul or nucleus
to the cell in which it has manifested itself. Such is the mode of operation
of Substance, whether as manifested in the human soul or in the physiologic
cell.
32. The
doctrine of creation by development or evolution is a true doctrine, and is
in no way inconsistent with the idea of divine operation; but the development
is not of the original substance. Being infinite and eternal, that is perfect
always. Development is of the manifestation of the qualities of that substance
in the individual.
Development
is intelligible only by the recognition of the inherent consciousness of the
substance of existence. Of the qualities of that substance as manifested in
the individual, Form is the expression. And it is because development is directed
by conscious, experienced, and continually experiencing intelligence, which
is ever seeking to eliminate the rudimentary and imperfect, that progression
occurs in respect of Form. The highest product, man, is the result of the Spirit
working intelligently within. But man attains his highest, and becomes perfect
only through his own voluntary co-operation with the Spirit.
There
is no mode of Matter in which the potentiality of personality, and therein of
man, does not subsist. For every molecule is a mode of the universal consciousness.
Without consciousness is no being. For consciousness is being.
33. The
earliest manifestation of consciousness appears in the obedience paid to the
laws of gravitation and chemical affinity, which constitute the basis of the
later, evolved organic laws of nutritive assimilation. And the perception, memory,
and experience represented in man, are the accumulations of long ages of toil
and thought gradually advancing, through the development of the consciousness,
from inorganic combinations upward to God. Such is the secret meaning of the
old mystery story which relates how Deucalion and Pyrrha, under the direction
of Themis (Wisdom) produced men and women from stones, and so peopled the renewed
earth. These words of John the Baptist bear a similar signification: – “Verily
I say unto you, that even of these stones God is able to raise up children unto
Abraham.” And by children of Abraham, are denoted that “spiritual Israel,” the
pure seekers after God, who finally attain and become one with the object of
their quest.
34. As
between Spirit and Matter, so between the organic and the inorganic, there is
no real barrier. Nature works in spirals, and works intelligently. In all that
modern science has of truth, in respect of the doctrine of Evolution, it was
anticipated thousands of years ago. But the scientists of old, using a faculty
of the very existence of which those of the present day hear but to jeer at
it, discerned in Soul the agent, and in Mind, the efficient cause of all progress.
They perceived, as all now perceive who only allow themselves to think, that
were Matter, as ordinarily regarded, all that is, and blind force its impelling
agent, no explanation would be possible of the obviously intelligent adaptation
everywhere apparent of means to ends; the strong set of the current life in
the direction of beauty and goodness; and the differentiation of uses, functions,
and kinds, not only in cellular tissues, but even in crystalline inorganic elements.
Why should Matter, if only what ordinarily it is supposed, – unconscious, aimless,
purposeless, – differentiate, diversify, develop? This is the question the ancients
asked themselves; and they were keen enough to see that in their very ability
to ask it, lay the solution of the problem. For the question was prompted by
Mind, and the presence of Mind in the product man, involves its presence in
the substance whereof man consists, seeing that an extract cannot contain that
which is not in its original abstract.
35. The
reasonableness of this proposition is, however, at length beginning once again
to be recognized even in the prevailing school, by some of the more intelligent
of its members; one of these having recently declared it necessary, in order
to account for the facts of existence, to credit Matter with a “little feeling.”
(The late Professor Clifford.) This is an admission, which, carried to its legitimate
issue, involves the recognition of the system now under exposition. For it involves
the recognition of God and the Soul. Thus is modern science, painfully and against
its will, working back towards the great doctrine taught long ages ago in the
lodges of the Indian and Egyptian Mysteries, and verified by the spiritual experience
of every epopt who lived the life prescribed as the condition of illumination.
36. This
is the doctrine known as that of the Transmigration of Souls. Of this doctrine
the following concise description is taken from a translation dated 1650 of
one of the so-called Hermetic books, which emanating from Alexandria, and dating
from pre-Christian or early Christian times, represent – at least in a measure
– the esoteric doctrine of the Egyptian and other ancient religious systems.
Of this body of writings only a few fragments survive. The passage cited is
from book iv of the work called The Divine Pymander, or Shepherd, of
Hermes Trismegistus.
“From
one Soul of the Universe are all those Souls which in all the World are tossed
up and down as it were, and severally divided. Of these Souls there are many
Changes, some into a more fortunate Estate, and some quite contrary. And they
which are of Creeping Things are changed into those of Watery Things, and those
of Things Living in the Water to those of Things living on the Land; and Airy
ones into Men; and Human Souls that lay hold of Immortality are changed into
(holy) Daemons. And so they go on into the Sphere of the Gods. . . . And this
is the most perfect glory of the Soul. But the Soul entering into the Body of
a Man, if it continue evil, shall neither taste of Immortality nor be Partaker
of the Good; but being drawn back the same Way, it returneth into Creeping Things.
And this is the Condemnation of an evil Soul.”
37. The
doctrine of the Progression and Migration of Souls, and of the power of man,
while still in the body, to recover the recollections of his soul, constituted
the foundation of all those ancient religions out of which Christianity had
its birth; and was therefore universally communicated to all initiates of the
sacred mysteries. And, indeed, one of the special objects of the curriculum
of these institutions, was to enable the candidate to recover the memory of
his previous incarnations, with a view to his total emancipation from the body.
For the attainment of this power was regarded as a token that the final regeneration
of the individual – when he would no longer have need of the body and its lessons
– was well-nigh accomplished. Thus the prime object of the ancient lodges which
constituted the pre-Christian Churches, was the culture of the soul as the divine
and permanent element of the individual.
38. Various
eminent sages are said to have remembered some at least of their previous incarnations;
and notably Krishna, Pythagoras, Plato, Apollonius, and the Budha Gautama. This
last – the “Messenger,” who fulfilled for the mystics of the East the part which
six hundred years later was, for the mystics of the West, fulfilled by Jesus,
– is stated to have recovered the recollection of five hundred and fifty of
his own incarnations. And the chief end of his doctrine is to induce men so
to live as to shorten the number and duration of their earth-lives. “He,” say
the Hindu Scriptures, “who in his lifetime recovers the memory of all that his
soul has learnt, is already a god.”
Socrates
also is represented as distinctly asserting the doctrine of reincarnation; and
it was implied, if not expressed in the system formulated by the superb modern
thinker and scientist, Leibnitz.
39. Following
the Rabbins and especially the Pharisees, Josephus asserted the return of Souls
into new bodies. Nor are recognitions of the doctrine wanting in the Old and
New Testaments. Thus the writer of the Book of Wisdom says of himself: “Being
good, I came into a body undefiled.” The prophets Daniel and John are told by
their inspiring angel that they shall stand again on the earth in the last days
of the Dispensation. And of John it was also intimated by Jesus that he should
tarry within reach of the earth-life, either for reincarnation or metempsychosis,
when the appointed time should come. And of that great school which, apparently
because it approached too near the truth to be safely tolerated by a materializing
sacerdotalism, was denounced as the most dangerously heretical, – the school
of the Gnostics, – the leader Carpocrates, taught that the Founder of Christianity
also was simply a person who, having a soul of great age and high degree of
purity, had been enabled, through his mode of life, to recover the memory of
its past. And Paul’s description of him as a “Captain of Salvation made perfect
through suffering,” obviously implies a course of experience far in excess of
any that is predicable of a single brief career.
To these
instances must be added that of the question put to Jesus by his disciples respecting
the blind man whom he had cured: “Did this man sin, or his parents, that he
was born blind?” For it shows either that the belief in transmigration was a
popular one among the Jews, or that Jesus had inculcated it in his disciples.
His refusal to satisfy their curiosity is readily intelligible on the supposition
that he was unwilling to disclose the affairs of other souls.
40. The
opening chapters of the Book of Genesis imply the like doctrine. For they present
creation as occurring through a gradual evolution from the lowest types upwards,
–from gaseous elemental combinations to the crowning manifestation of humanity
in woman, –and thus indicate the animal as ministering to the human in a sense
widely differing from that ordinarily supposed; for they represent the animal
as the younger self of the man, namely, as man rudimentary. All this is involved
in the fact that the term applied to the genesis of living things below man,
signifies soul, (Heb., “NEPHESH”; i.e., the lowest mode of soul.)
and is so translated when applied to man: whereas applied to beasts it is rendered
“living creature.” Thus, had the Bible been accurately translated, the doctrine
that all creatures whatsoever represent incarnations, though in different conditions,
of one and the same universal soul, would not now need to be re-declared, or,
when re-declared would not be received with repugnance. That it does produce
such a feeling, is a sign how far man has receded from a level once attained,
at least in respect of his affectional nature. For the doctrine of a universal
soul is the doctrine of love, in that it implies the recognition of the larger
self. It represents, moreover, Humanity as the one universal creation of which
all living things are but different steps either of development or of degradation,
progression or retrogression, ascent or descent; that which determines the present
condition and ultimate destiny of each individual entity, being its own will
and affections. Animals appeared first on earth, not, as is vainly supposed,
to minister to man’s physical wants, but as an essential preliminary to humanity
itself. On no other hypothesis is their existence intelligible for the long
ages which elapsed before the appearance of man.
41. Thus,
not only is the doctrine respectable for its antiquity, universality, and the
quality and character of those who, on the strength of their own experience,
have borne testimony to it; it is indispensable to any system of thought which
postulates Justice as an essential element of Being. For it, and it alone of
all methods ever suggested, solves the problem of the universe by resolving
the otherwise insuperable difficulties which confront us in regard to the inequalities
of earthly circumstance and relation.
The importance
attached to it by the Egyptians is shown by the fact that they chose for their
chief religious symbol an embodiment of it. For in representing the lowest as
linked to the highest, – the loins of the creature of prey to the head and breast
of the Woman, – the Sphinx denoted at once the unity, and the method of development,
under individualization, of the soul of the universal humanity.
PART
II
42. WE
will now define more precisely the nature of the system we seek to restore,
and its relation towards that so long in possession in the West. Although neither
Christian nor Catholic in the accepted sense of these terms, it claims to be
both Christian and Catholic in their original and true sense, and to be itself
the lawful heir, whose inheritance has been usurped by a presentment altogether
corrupt, false, superstitious, idolatrous.
According
to the system recovered, the Christ Jesus, Redeemer, and Saviour, while equally
its beginning, middle, and end, is not a mere historical personage, but, above
and beyond this, a Spiritual Ideal and an Eternal Verity. Recognizing fully
that which Jesus was and did, it sets forth salvation as depending, not on what
any man has said or done, but on what God perpetually reveals. For, according
to it, Religion is not a thing of the past, or of any one age, but is an ever-present,
ever-occurring actuality; for every man one and the same; a process complete
in itself for each man; and for him subsisting irrespective of any other man
whatsoever. It thus recognizes as the actors in the momentous drama of the soul
two persons only, the individual himself and God. And whereas in it alone is
to be found a complete and reasonable exposition of the parts assigned to both
in the work of salvation, all competing systems must be regarded as but an aspiration
towards or a degeneration from it, and as true only in so far as they accord
with it.
43. And
here it may be remarked, that the doctrine of religion as a present reality,
needing no historic basis, is one which in this age ought to find especial welcome.
For, what now is the condition of men’s minds in respect to the historical
element of the existing religion? None but those who through lack of education
stand necessarily upon the old ways, have any reliance upon it. Critical analysis
– that function of the mind which, in its nature destructive, is, nevertheless,
really harmful only to that which, in being untrue, has not in itself the element
of perpetuity – has laid an unsparing axe to the forest of ancient tradition.
The science of Biblical exegesis has made it obvious to every percipient mind
that sacred books, so far from being infallible records of actual events, abound
with inaccuracies, contradictions, and interpolations; that sacred persons,
if they existed at all, had histories differing widely from those narrated of
them; that sacred events could not have occurred in the manner stated; and that
sacred doctrines are, for the most part, either intrinsically absurd, or common
to systems yet more ancient, whose claims to sanctity are denied.
44. Thus,
to take the leading items of Christian belief, – the whole story of the Incarnation,
the expectation of the Messiah, the announcement by the angel, the conception
by the Virgin, the birth at midnight in a cave, the name of the immaculate mother,
the appearance to shepherds of the celestial host, the visit of the Magi, the
flight from the persecuting Herod, the slaughter of the innocents, the finding
of the divine boy in the temple, the baptism, the fasting and trial in the wilderness,
the conversion of the water into wine, and other like marvels, the triumphal
entry into the holy city, the passion, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and
the ascension, and much of the teaching ascribed to the Saviour, – all these
are variously attributed also to Osiris, Mithras, Iacchos, Zoroaster, Krishna,
Buddha, and others, at dates long antecedent to the Christian era. And monuments
and sculptures still exist, showing that the entire story of the Divine Man
of the gospels was, long before Moses, taught to communicants and celebrated
in sacraments in numberless colleges of sacred mysteries.
45. The
Fathers of the Church, – who were well aware of these facts, – dealt with them
variously according to the tone and resources of their individual minds. Many
of the most notable, including St. Augustine, saw the truth in its proper light;
but the explanation accepted was, that the Devil, foreknowing the counsel and
intention of God, had maliciously forestalled the career of the true Messiah
by false semblances, causing it to be enacted in anticipation by a number of
spurious messiahs, so that when the world’s true redeemer should appear, he
might be lost, as it were, in the crowd of his predecessors, and shorn of all
particular glory.
46. And
what, it may be asked, of the personage just mentioned, who plays so enormous
part in the orthodox presentment? He, too, is a perversion of a truth, the real
meaning of which will by-and-by be exhibited. It is sufficient to remark here,
that, in being founded, – as by the current corrupt orthodoxy, – on the conception
of a personal and, virtually, a divine principle of evil, Christianity
is made to rest upon an hypothesis altogether monstrous and impossible.
47. There
is neither space nor need to particularize the strictures to which the Bible
throughout is fairly open, alike on grounds historical, moral, and scientific;
or to speak of the many ecclesiastical Councils which, from century to century,
have dealt with its component books, variously affirming or denying their canonicity;
or to point out the innumerable contradictions and inconsistencies, of doctrine
and of narrative with which it abounds. These things, already familiar to many,
are readily verifiable by all. This only must be insisted on: to be a student
of religion, to be a theologian in the true sense, it is necessary to have knowledge,
not of one religion only, but of all religions, not of one sacred book only,
but of all sacred books; and to deal with all as with the one, and with the
one as with all; to handle the Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Lalita-Vistara,
the Zend-Avesta, and the Kabbala with the same reverence as the Old and New
Testaments; and to apply to these the same critical touchstone as to those.
It is truth alone which is valuable, and this fears nothing. The crucible does
not hurt the gold. The dross alone falls away under the test; and of the dross
we are surely well rid.
48. And
when all this has been done; when the mind, purified from prejudice and disciplined
by experience, has become an instrument of knowledge competent for the discernment
of truth, what, it will be asked, remains to man of his faith and hope, his
God and his soul? We know the reply of the Materialist. He, as has been wittily
said, throws away the child with the water in which it has been washed. Because
he finds impurity obstructing the truth, he rejects the truth together with
the impurity. That which remains is the real, ever-living religion; a Divine
and operating Word, and not a testament of the dead; a God and a Soul who, as
Parent and Offspring, are able to come into direct and palpable relations with
each other. And the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption, and the Ascension –
rescued from the tomb of the past – become living and eternal verities, enacted
by every child of God in his own soul; and Inspiration once more lifts its voice
and is heard among us as truly as of old.
49. For
those, then, who, being indeed of Christ, as well as called by his name, know
by personal experience that “the kingdom of heaven is within,” there is no cause
for anxiety as to the issue of any investigation, critical, scientific, or historical,
how keen and unsparing so ever For they know that Religion – which is the Science
of Life Eternal, – appeals, not to the bodily senses, but to the soul, since
no mere physical phenomena can have any relation to spiritual needs. They know,
too, that in representing absolute, eternal verities, religious ideas are beyond
the reach of any power of earth to erase or destroy them. But they who, on the
contrary, have staked their all of faith in God and hope in heaven upon the
special events of a particular period and place, have indeed ground for dismay
and despair when they behold in the sculptured remains of other places and remoter
times, the effigies of the like events, – the crucifixion of Mithras, the infant
Horus or Krishna in the arms of an immaculate mother, the resurrection of Osiris,
and the ascension of Heracles. For they see in these, the invalidation, or at
least the perplexing multiplication, of events which, on their hypothesis, ought
to have happened but once in the world’s – nay in the universe’s – whole history,
and on the correct reporting of which their eternal welfare depends. The actual
value of these facts will appear as we proceed. They are cited here in demonstration
of the fallacy involved in the conception of religion as a thing dependent on
history. Rightly interpreted, they will show that the Soul has no relation to
phenomena, and that “the kingdom of Christ is not of this world.”
50. The
Gospels bear evidence of being compiled or adapted in great measure from older
Oriental Scriptures. But whether or not the events related happened only in
part or not at all; whether they were put into their present form by Alexandrian
Epopts some hundred years after the date assigned in them to the events they
record; or whether their central figure, being himself an Initiate and Adept
in the religious science of Egypt and India, actually rehearsed in his own person
the greater part of the sacred mysteries, – is, happily, but of secondary importance.
And even were it otherwise, it is obvious that the further we get away from
the period of the events relied on, and the more years multiply upon us, thrusting
that past into still remoter times and ever deepening shades of antiquity, the
more difficult must the task of verification become, and the weaker the influences
exerted upon man’s moral and intellectual nature. Alas for the hopes of the
generations yet to be born, if an historical Christianity be indeed essential
to salvation? Nor can we be blind to the injustice and cruelty of making salvation
dependent upon belief in occurrences concerning which only a learned few can
at any time be in a position to judge whether or not they ever took place; and
these, moreover, occurrences of a nature to be a priori incredible save
to an elect few. Assuredly, if any demonstration be needed of the necessary
unsoundness of a system which rests upon history, it is to be found in the present
condition of Christianity. Declining to entrust its doctrine to Reason, the
Church has taken its stand upon historical evidence, only to find this give
way under it; and it is now without any basis save that of Custom. The time
has come in which Christians are Christians, only because they are accustomed
to be Christians. Habit has superseded conviction.
51. Very
different is the relation between the human mind and the system under exposition.
Appealing to the understanding, and condemning as superstition the faith which
is not also knowledge, this system meets unshaken the tests alike of time and
of reason; and, so far from looking coldly on science, hails it as an indispensable
ally, stipulating only that it be science, and not that which is “falsely so
called.” Hoping everything and fearing nothing from the light of reason, it
welcomes the searching ray into every recess, and greets with eager hands the
philosopher, the historian, the critic, the philologist, the mathematician,
the classic, the physicist, and the occultist. For its appeal is to intelligence
as developed by knowledge, in the absolute assurance that where these exist
in the greatest plenitude, there it will gain the fullest recognition.
52. And
the intelligence appealed to is not the head only, but is also of the heart;
of the moral conscience as well as of the intellect. Insisting upon the essential
unity of all being, it admits of no antagonism between the human and the Divine.
But holding that the human is the Divine, and that that which is not
Divine is subhuman, it seeks, by the demonstration of the perfection of God,
to enable man to perfect himself after the image of God. And it claims, moreover,
to be the one philosophy wherein that image finds intelligent exposition, and
whereby it obtains practical recognition. To the question why, being in all
respects so admirable, it has become lost or perverted, the answer involves
the history of man’s original Fall, and will in due course appear.
53. There
are two or three classes of objectors, to whom reply will now be made in anticipation.
Of these classes one is that which, under the influence of the prevailing Materialism,
holds, that so far from the phrase just employed, “Image of God,” having any
basis in reality, modern science has practically demonstrated the non-existence
of God. If the following reply to this class involves a reference to regions
of being as yet unrecognized in their own science, it is not upon us that the
responsibility for the limitation rests. We speak of that which we know, having
learned it by experience.
54. A
true Idea is the reflect of a true Substance. It is because religious ideas
are true ideas that they are common to all ages and peoples; the differences
being of expression merely, and due to the variation of density and character
of the magnetic atmosphere through which the image passes. The fact that every
nation in every age has conceived, in some shape, of the Gods, constitutes of
itself a proof that the Gods really are. For nothing projects no image
upon the magnetic light; and where an image is universally perceived, there
is certainly an object which projects it. An Idea, inborn, ineradicable, constant,
which sophism, ridicule, or false science has power to break only, but not to
dispel: – an image which, however disturbed, invariably returns on itself and
reforms, as does the image of the sky or the stars in a lake, however the reflecting
water may be momentarily shaken by a stone or a passing vessel: – such an image
as this is necessarily the reflection of a real and true thing, and no illusion
begotten of the water itself. In the same manner the constant Idea of the Gods,
persistent in all minds in all ages is a true image; for it is verily, and in
no metaphoric sense, the projection upon the human perception of the Eidola
of the Divine persons. The Eidolon is the reflection a true object in
the magnetic atmosphere; and the magnetic atmosphere is a transparent medium,
through which the soul receives sensations. For sensation is the only means
of knowledge, whether for the body or for the reason. The body perceives by
means of the five avenues of touch. The soul perceives in like manner by the
same sense, but of a finer sort and put into action by subtler agents. The soul
can know nothing not perceptible; and nothing not perceptible is real. For that
which is not can give no image. Only that which is can be reflected.
55. To
the other classes of objectors, who are chiefly of the religious and orthodox
order, the following considerations are addressed:
a.
The apparently new, is not necessarily the really new; but may be a recovery
– providential, timely, and precious – of the old and original which has been
forgotten, perverted, or suppressed.
b.
So far from it being incumbent on Christians to accept the established in religion
as necessarily the true and the right, the condemnation by the later Hebrew
prophets of the established form of Judaism, as no longer in their time representing
the religion divinely given through Moses, imposes on Christians the duty of
exercising, at the least, hesitation before accepting the established form of
Christianity as faithfully representing the religion divinely given through
Jesus. Christendom has been exposed for a far longer period than was Israel,
to influences identical with those which caused the deterioration denounced
by the prophets, namely, the abandonment of religion, without prophetic guidance
or correction, to a control exclusively sacerdotal, and therein to Tradition
uninterpreted by Intuition. And not only so, but on the first formal definition
and establishment of Christianity under Constantine, – himself an ardent votary
of a sun-worship become grossly materialistic, – the dominant conception was
far more in accordance with the principles of sacerdotalism than with those
of its Founder. There remains, also, the strong a priori improbability
that a system identical with that which, in consequence of the efforts of Jesus
to purify it, became his destroyer, – a system exclusively sacerdotal and traditional
– should, even though calling itself Christian, prove a trusty guardian and
faithful expositor of his doctrine.
c.
The belief that Christianity was indeed divinely intended and adapted to effect
the redemption of the world from engrossment by the elements merely material
of existence, to the recognition and appreciation of its spiritual and true
substance; and the fact that thus far Christianity has signally failed to accomplish
that object, – make it in the highest degree obligatory on Christians, both
to seek diligently the cause of such failure, and to seek it elsewhere than
in an original defect of the religion itself.
d.
According to numerous indications – including the express declarations of Jesus
himself – much that is essential to the proper comprehension and practical application
of Christian doctrine, was reserved for future disclosure. History has yet to
record the full manifestation of that “Spirit of Truth,” who was to testify
of Jesus, and lead his followers into all truth. And the world has still to
see the Christ-ideal so “lifted up” and exhibited as, by force of its perfection
as a system of life and thought, irresistibly to “draw all men” to it.
e.
In point alike of character and of time, the present period coincides with that
indicated in numerous prophecies, as appointed for the close of the old and
the commencement of a new era. This is necessarily an event which can come about
only through some radical change in the course of the world’s thought. For,
in being, however unconsciously to it self, a product of Mind, the world always
follows its thought. The world has now followed its thought in the direction
of Matter and blind force, until, for the first time in man’s history, its recognized
intellect has, almost with one consent, pronounced decidedly against the idea
of God. This, therefore, is no other than that “time of the end” whereof the
token should be the exaltation of Matter instead of Spirit, and the obtrusion
into the “holy place” of God and the soul, of the “abomination that maketh desolate,”
to the utter extinction of the world’s spiritual life and of the idea of a divine
Humanity. Now is “that wicked one” and “man of sin” – that is, humanity deliberately
self-made in the image of the Not-God – definitely revealed; and the gospel
of Love is confessedly replaced by the gospel of Force. (It is not a little
remarkable, that the foremost symbol of this new gospel should have for the
name the Greek term for force; dynamite being simply dunamiz.) Of the
prophecies, moreover, which referred to the period in question, it was declared
that the words should be “closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” The
very discovery of a true interpretation of mystical Scriptures would therefore
constitute an indication that the “end is at hand.”
f.
If it be, indeed, that man is not to “go down quick into the pit” that he has
dug for himself, the emergency is one with which religion alone can grapple.
But, so far from the religion already in the world being competent for the task,
it has, by reason of its own degeneracy, ministered to the evil. Wherefore only
by a religion which is not that now in vogue, can man be saved. Time can, of
course, alone determine if, or by what means, the needed redemption will be
wrought. Enough has been said to show that, from the religious point of view,
there is ample reason in favour of according a serious hearing even to doctrines
and claims so strange and unfamiliar to most persons as those herein advanced.
56. Finally,
to close this Introductory Lecture, and to reassure those who, desirous to know
more, are yet apprehensive of finding themselves in the issue, like the patriarch
of old, robbed of their gods, we add this final reflection: – The end in view
is not denial, but interpretation; not destruction, but reconstruction, and
this with the very materials hitherto in use. No names, personages or doctrines
now regarded as divine will be rejected or defamed. And even though the indubitable
fact be recognized, that the “one name given under heaven whereby men can be
saved” has been shared by many, that name will still be the name of salvation,
and the symbol of its triumph will still be the cross of Jesus, even though
borne before him by, or in the name of, an Osiris , a Mithras, a Krishna, a
Dionysos, or a Buddha, or any others who, overcoming by love the limitations
of Matter, have been faithful to the death mystically called the death of the
cross, and, attaining thereby the crown of eternal life for themselves, have
shown to men the way of salvation.
Instead,
then, of indulging apprehension on the score indicated, let heed rather be given
to the true moral of the story of all the Christs, how many so ever they be,
by whom is enacted in its fullness, while yet in the body, the divine drama
of the soul. For, with Christ, all may, in their degree, be redeemers alike
of themselves and of others; and with him, to redeem, they must themselves first
love and suffer and die. For, as said the German mystic, Scheffler, two centuries
ago, –
“Though Christ a thousand times
in Bethlehem be born,
But not within thyself,
thy soul will be forlorn:
The cross of Golgotha thou
lookest to in vain,
Unless within thyself it
be set up again.”
LECTURE
THE SECOND
THE
SOUL; AND THE SUBSTANCE OF EXISTENCE.
PART
I
1. OUR theme
is that which is at once the supreme subject and object of culture, and the
necessary basis of all real religion and science. For it is the substance of
existence, the Soul, universal and individual, of humanity. Only when we know
the nature of this, can we know what we ourselves are, and what we have it in
us to become. For our potentialities necessarily depend upon the substance whereof
we are made.
2. This
is not Matter. Wherefore a science which, in being restricted to the cognition
of phenomena, is a materialistic science, cannot help us to an understanding
of ourselves. But, on the contrary, to such understanding such science is, in
its issues, the greatest enemy. Matter is not God: and in order to understand
ourselves, it is necessary to understand God. God is the Substance of existence.
Be that substance what it may, it still is God; and of God no other definition
is possible or desirable, but all conditions are satisfied by it. To know God,
then, is to know this substance; and to know this, is to know ourselves, and
only by knowing this can we know ourselves.
3. Such,
and no other or less, was the meaning of the famous mystic utterance inscribed
on the temple porch at Delphi, – Know thyself, – a sentence which, notwithstanding
its brevity, comprehends all wisdom. An attempt, it is true, has been made to
improve upon it in the saying, – Ignore thyself, and learn to know thy God.
By that which is intended in the latter, is, albeit unsuspected by its framer,
comprised in the former. For, as is known to the Mystic – or student of Substance,
such is the constitution of the universe, that man cannot know himself without
knowing God, and cannot know God without knowing himself. And as, moreover,
only through the knowledge of the one can the knowledge of the other be attained,
so the knowledge of the one implies and involves that of the other. For, as
the Mystic knows, there is but one substance alike of man and of God.
4. This
substance, we repeat, is not Matter; and a science which recognizes Matter only,
so far from ministering towards the desired comprehension of ourselves, is the
deadly foe of such comprehension. For, as Matter is, in the sense already described,
the antithesis of Spirit, so is Materialism the antithesis of the system under
exposition, namely, of Mysticism, or, as we propose to call it, Spiritualism.
And here it must be understood that we use this latter term, not in its modern,
debased and limited sense, but in its ancient proper purity and plenitude, that
wherein it signifies the science, not of spirits merely, but of Spirit,
that is, of God, and therein of all Being. Thus adopting and rehabilitating
the term Spiritualism, we define as follows: – first, the system we have recovered
and seek to establish; and, next the system we condemn and seek to destroy.
5. Dealing
with both substance and phenomena, Spirit and Matter, the eternal and the temporal,
the universal and the individual; constituting respecting existence a complete
system of positive doctrine beyond which neither mind nor heart can aspire;
providing a rule of knowledge, of understanding, of faith, and of conduct; derived
from God’s own Self; transmitted and declared by the loftiest intelligences
in the worlds human and celestial; and in every respect confirmed by the reason,
the intuition, and the experience of the earth’s representative men, its sages,
saints, seers, prophets, redeemers, and Christs, and by none in any respect
confuted; – the system comprised under the term Spiritualism is not only at
once a science, a philosophy, a morality, and a religion, but is the science,
the philosophy, the morality, and the religion of which all others are, either
by aspiration or by degeneration, limitations merely. And according to the degree
of its acceptance by man, it ministers to his perfection and satisfaction here
and hereafter.
6. But
its antithesis: – Springing from the bottomless pit of man’s lower nature; having
for its criterion, not the conclusions of the mind or the experiences of the
soul, but only the sensations of the body; and being, therefore, not a science,
nor a philosophy, nor a morality, nor a religion, but the opposite of each and
all of these, – the system comprised under the term Materialism is not a limitation
of Spiritualism, but is the negation of it, and is to it what darkness is to
light, nonentity to existence, the “devil” to God. And in proportion to the
degree of its acceptance by man, it ministers to his deterioration and destruction
here and hereafter.
7. Between
the two extremes thus presented, having liberty to choose, and power to determine
his own destination, man, according to mystical doctrine, is placed, in pursuance
of the Divine Idea of which creation is the manifestation. And whereas, implying
the culture of the substantial, Spiritualism, as we use the term, represents
Reality; and in implying the culture of the phenomenal only, Materialism represents
Illusion, the choice between them is the choice between the Perfection and the
Negation of Being.
8. But
whatever the quarrel of the Spiritualist with Materialism for its exclusive
recognition of Matter, and consequent idolatry of form and appearance, with
Matter itself he has no quarrel. For, although, by reason of its limitations,
the cause of evil, Matter is not in itself evil. On the contrary, it comes forth
from God, and consists of that whereof God’s Self consists, namely, Spirit.
It is Spirit, by the force of Divine will subjected to conditions and
limitations, and made exteriorly cognizable.
9. Matter
is thus a manifestation of that which in its original condition is unmanifest,
namely, Spirit. And Spirit does not become evil by becoming manifest. Evil is
the result of the limitation of Spirit by Matter. For Spirit is God, and God
is good. Wherefore, in being the limitation of God, Matter is the limitation
of good. Such limitation is essential to creation. For without a projection
of Divine Substance, that is, of God’s Self, into conditions and limitations,
– of Being, which is absolute, into Existence, which is relative, – God would
remain inoperative, solitary, unmanifest, and consequently unknown, unhonored
and unloved, with all God’s power and goodness potential merely and unexercised.
For aught else to exist that God, there must be that which is by limitation,
inferior to God. And for this to exist in plenitude corresponding to God’s infinitude,
it must involve the idea of the opposite and negation of God. This is to say:
– Creation, to be worthy of God, must involve the idea of a No-God. God’s absolute
plenitude in respect of all the qualities and properties which constitute Being,
must be contrasted by that utter deprivation of all such properties and qualities,
which constitutes Not-Being. Between no narrower extremes can a Divine creation
be contained. By no lesser contrast can God be fully manifested. The darkness
of God’s shadow must correspond in intensity with the brightness of God’s light.
And only through the full the knowledge of the one, can the other be duly apprehended
and appreciated. He only can thoroughly appreciate good, who has ample knowledge
of evil. It is a profound truth, that “the greater the sinner, the greater the
saint.” That exquisite epitome of the Soul’s history, the parable of the Prodigal
Son, is based upon the same text. Only they who have gone out from God, returning,
know God. At once consequence and cause of the going out from God, Matter is
an indispensable minister to Creation, without which and its limitations Creation
were not.
10. But
mere creation does not represent the totality of the Divine purpose. And a creation
restricted to the actualities of Matter would be the reverse of a boon to itself
or a credit to God. For by a creation thus limited, Deity would have shown Itself
to be that only which the Materialist imagines It, namely, Force. Whereas “God
is Love.” And Love is that, not which merely creates and after brief caress
repudiates and discards; but which sustains, redeems, perfects, and perpetuates.
And to these ends Matter ministers indispensably, and therein contributes towards
that second creation which is the supplement and complement of the first. This
second creation is called Redemption, and in it the Creator finds His
recognition and glorification, and man his perfection and perpetuation. For
Redemption is the full compensation, both to God and to the universe, for all
that is undergone and suffered by and trough Creation. And it is brought about
by the return from Matter of Spirit, to its original condition of purity, but
individualized and enriched by the results of all that has been gained through
the processes to which it has been subjected; – results which, but for Matter,
could not have been. Matter is thus indispensable to the processes both of creation
and of perfection. For that through which we are made perfect is experience,
or suffering; and we are only really alive and exist in so far as we have felt.
Now, of this divine and indispensable ministry of experience, Matter is the
agent.
11. Such
being for the Spiritualist, who also is Mystic and not Phenomenalist merely,
the origin, nature, and final cause of Matter, he has with it no ground of quarrel.
But recognizing it as intended, not to conceal but to reveal God, and to minister
to man’s creation in the image of God, he regards the material universe as a
divine revelation, and seeks, by humble, reverent, and loving analysis of it,
to learn both it and God, and thus to make it minister to his own perfection.
“Imitation,” it has been said, and truly, “is the sincerest flattery.” And man
best honours God when he seeks to be like God. In this pursuit it is that, following
his intuition of Spirit, he ascends from the exterior sphere of Matter and appearance,
– that sphere which, as the outermost of man’s system, constitutes the borderland
between him and negation, and is therefore next neighbour, to that which, mystically,
is called the devil, – to the interior sphere of Spirit and Reality,
where God subsists in His plenitude. And so, from Nature’s Seeming he attains
to the cognition at once of God’s and his own Being.
12. The
system by the knowledge and observance of which these supreme ends are attained,
and which is now for the first time in the world’s history openly disclosed,
has constituted the hidden basis of all the world’s divine revelations and religions.
For from the beginning there has been one divine Revelation, constantly re-revealed
in whole or in part, and representing the actual eternal nature of existence;
and this in such measure as to enable those who receive it to make of their
own existence the highest and best that can possibly be imagined or desired.
Known by various names, delivered at various places and periods, and finding
expression under various symbols, this revelation has constituted a Gospel of
Salvation for all who have accepted it, enabling them to escape the limitations
of Matter and return to the condition of pure Spirit, and therein to attain
immunity, not merely, as is ordinarily desired, from the consequences of sin,
but from the liability to sin. And, as history shows, wherever it has succeeded
in obtaining full manifestation, Materialism, with all its foul brood, has fled
discomfited, like Python, the mighty Serpent of Darkness, before the darts of
Phoebus, to make its dwelling in the caverns and secret places of earth.
PART
II
13. COMING,
then, to the proper subject of this Lecture, we will now treat of the Soul,
universal and individual, commencing with the latter.
The soul,
or permanent element in man, is first engendered in the lowest forms of organic
life, from which it works upwards, through plants and animals, to man. Its earliest
manifestation is in the ethereal or fluidic material called the astral body;
and it is not something added to that body, but is generated in it by the polarization
of the elements. Once generated, it enters into and passes through many bodies,
and continues to do so until finally perfected or finally dissipated and lost.
The process of its generation is gradual. The magnetic forces of innumerable
elements are directed and focused to one center; and streams of electric power
pass along all their convergent poles to that center, until they create there
a fire, a kind of crystallization of magnetic force. This is the Soul, the sacred
fire of the hearth, called by the Greeks Hestia, or Vesta, which must be kept
burning continually. The astral and fluidic body, its immediate matrix, – called
also the perisoul, – and the material or fixed body put forth by this,
may fall away and disappear; but the soul, once begotten and made an individual,
is immortal, until its own perverse will extinguishes it. For the fire of the
soul must be kept alive by the Divine Breath, if it is to endure for ever. It
must converge, not diverge. If it diverge, it will be dissipated. The end of
progress is unity; the end of degradation is division. The soul, therefore,
which ascends, tends more and more to union with and absorption into the Divine.
14. The
clearest understanding may be obtained of the soul by defining it as the Divine
Idea. Before anything can exist outwardly and materially, the idea of it must
subsist in the Divine Mind. The soul, therefore, may be understood to be divine
and everlasting in its nature. But it does not act directly upon Matter. It
is put forth by the Divine Mind; but the body is put forth by the astral, or
“fiery”, body. As Spirit, on the celestial plane, is the parent of the soul,
so Fire, on the material plane, begets the body. The plane on which the celestial
and creatures touch each other, is the astral plane.
15. The
soul, being in its nature eternal, passes from one form to another until, in
its highest stage, it polarizes sufficiently to receive the spirit. It is in
all organized things. Nothing of an organic nature exists without a soul. It
is the individual, and perishes finally if uninformed of the spirit.
16. This
becomes readily intelligible if we conceive of God as of a vast spiritual body
constituted of many individual elements, all having but one will and therefore
being one. This condition of oneness with the Divine Will and Being, constitutes
what, in Hindu mysticism, is called the celestial Nirvana. But though becoming
pure Spirit, or God, the individual retains his individuality. So that, instead
of all being finally merged in the One, the One becomes Many. Thus does God
become millions. “God is multitudes, and nations, and kingdoms, and tongues;
and the voice of God is as the sound of many waters.”
17. The
Celestial Substance is continually individualizing Itself, that It may build
Itself up into One perfect Individual. Thus is the Circle of Life accomplished,
and thus its ends meet the one with the other. But the degraded soul, on the
other hand, must be conceived of as dividing more and more, until, at length,
it is scattered into many, and ceases to be as an individual, becoming, as it
were, split, and broken up, and dispersed into many pieces. This is the Nirvana
of annihilation. (See Appendices, No. IV.)
18. The
Planet must not be looked upon as something apart from its offspring. It, also,
is a Person, fourfold in nature, and having four orders of offspring, of which
orders man alone comprises the whole. Of its offspring some lie in the astral
region only, and are but twofold; some in the watery region, and are threefold;
and some in the human region, who are fourfold. The metallic and gaseous envelope
of the planet, are its body and perisoul. The organic region comprises its soul;
and the human region its spirit, or divine part. When it was but metallic it
had no individualized soul. When it was but organic it had no divine spirit.
But when man was made in the image of God, then was its spirit breathed into
its soul. In the metallic region soul is diffused and unpolarized; and the metals,
therefore, are not individual; and not being individual, their transmutation
does not involve transmigration. But the plants and animals are individual,
and their essential element transmigrates and progresses. And man has also a
divine spirit; and so long as he is man – that is truly human – he cannot re-descend
into the body of an animal or any creature in the sphere beneath him, since
that would be an indignity to the spirit. But if he lose his spirit, and become
again animal, he may descend, and – disintegrating – become altogether gross
and horrible. This is the end of persistently evil men. For God is not the God
of creeping things; but Impurity – personified by the Hebrews as Baalzebub –
is their god. And there were none of this in the Age of Gold, neither shall
there be any when the earth is fully purged. Man’s own wickedness is the creator
of his evil beasts. (Comp. Bhagavat-Gita, 1. xvi.)
19. The
soul is not astral fluid, but is manifest by astral fluid. For the soul itself
is, like the idea, invisible and intangible. This may be best seen by following
out the genesis of any particular action. For instance, the stroke of the pen
on paper is the phenomenon, that is, the outer body. The action which produces
the stroke is the astral body; and, though physical, it is not a thing, but
a transition or medium between the result and its cause, – between, that is,
the stroke and the idea. The idea, manifested in the act, is not physical, but
mental, and is the soul of the act. But even this is not the first cause. For
the idea is put forth by the will, and this is the spirit. Thus, we will an
idea, as God wills the Macrocosm. The potential body, its immediate result,
is the astral body; and the phenomenal body, or ultimate form, is the effect
of motion and heat. If we could arrest motion, we should have as the result,
fire. But fire itself also is material, since, like the earth or body, it is
visible to the outer sense. It has, however, many degrees of subtlety. The astral,
or odic, substance, therefore, is not the soul itself, but is the medium
or manifestor of the soul, as the act is of the idea.
20. To
pursue this explanation a little further. The act is a condition of the
idea, in the same way as fire, or incandescence, is the condition of any given
object. Fire is, then, the representative of that transitional medium termed
the Astral body; as Water – the result of the combined interaction of Wisdom
the Mother, or Oxygen, and Justice the Father, or Hydrogen – is of the Soul.
Air, which is produced by the mixture – not combination – of Wisdom and Force
(Azoth), represents the Spirit – One in operation, but ever Twain in constitution.
Earth is not, properly speaking, an element at all. She is the result of the
Water and the Air, fused and crystallized by the action of the Fire; and her
rocks and strata are either aqueous or igneous. Fire, the real maker of the
body, is, as we have seen, a mode and condition, and not a true element. The
only real, true, and permanent elements, therefore, are Air and Water, which
are, respectively, as Spirit and Soul, Will and Idea, Father and Mother. And
out of this are made all the elements of earth by the aid of the condition
of Matter, which is, interchangeably, Heat and Motion. Wisdom, Justice, and
Force, or Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Azote, are the three out of which the two true
elements are produced.
21. Material
body, astral fluid or sideral body, soul, and spirit, all these are one in their
essence. And the first three are differentialities of polarization. The fourth
is God’s Self. When the Gods – the Elohim or Powers of the Hebrews – put forth
the world, they put forth substance with its three potentialities, but all in
the condition of “odic” light. This substantial light is called sometimes the
sideral or astral body, sometimes the perisoul, and this because it is both.
It is that which makes, and that which becomes. It is fire, or the anima
bruta (as distinguished from the Divine), out of and by means of which body
and soul are generated. It is the fiery manifestation of the soul, the magnetic
factor of the body. It is space, it is substance, it is foundation; so that
from it proceed the gases and the minerals, which are unindividualized, and
from it also the organic world which is individualized. But man it could not
make; for man is fourfold and of the divine ether, the province assigned by
the Greeks to Zeus, the father of the Gods and men.
22. The
outer envelope of the macrocosm and the microcosm alike, the Earth or body,
is thus in reality not elemental at all, but is a compound of the other three
elements. Its fertility is due to the water, and its transmutory or chemical
power to the fire. The water corresponds to the soul, – the “best principle”
of Pindar, – while fire is to the body what spirit is to the soul. As the soul
is without divinity and life until vivified by the spirit, so the body – earth
or Matter – is without physical life in the absence of fire. No Matter is really
dead Matter, for the fire element is in all Matter. But Matter would be dead,
would cease, that is, to exist as Matter, if motion were suspended, which is,
if there were no fire. For, as wherever there is motion there is heat, and consequently
fire; and motion is the condition of Matter, so without fire would be
no Matter. In other words, Matter is a mode of life.
PART
III
23. WE
come now to the history and progress of the soul. Souls, we have said, work
upwards from plants and animals to man. In man they attain their perfection
and the power to dispense altogether with material bodies. Their ability to
do this is the cause and consequence of their perfection. And it is the attainment
of this that is the object of the culture of the soul – the object, that is,
of religion. Spirit alone is good, is God. Matter is that whereby spirit is
limited, and is, therein, the cause of evil; for evil is the limitation of good.
Wherefore to escape from Matter and its limitations, and return to the condition
of spirit, is to be superior to the liability to evil.
24. Formerly
the way of escape for human souls was more open than now, and the path clearer.
Because, although ignorance of intellectual things abounded, specially among
the poorer folk, yet the knowledge of divine things, and the light of faith,
were stronger and purer. The anima bruta, or earthly mind, was less strongly
defined and fixed, so that the anima divina, or heavenly mind, subsisted
in more open conditions. Wherefore the souls of those ages of the world, not
being enchained to earth as they now are, were enabled to pass more quickly
through their avatars; and but few incarnations sufficed where now many are
necessary. For in these days the mind’s ignorance is weighted by materialism,
instead of being lightened by faith; and the soul is sunk to earth by love of
the body, by atheism, and by excessive care for the things of sense. And being
crushed thereby, it lingers long in the atmosphere of earth, seeking many fresh
lodgements, and so multiplies bodies, the circumstances of each of which are
influenced by the use made of the previous one.
25. For
every man makes his own fate, and nothing is truer than that character is Destiny.
It is by their own hands that the lines of some are cast in pleasant places,
of some in vicious, and of some in virtuous ones, so that there is nothing arbitrary
or unjust. But in what manner so ever a soul conduct itself in one incarnation,
by that conduct, by that order of thought and habit, it builds for itself its
destiny in a future incarnation. For the soul is enchained by these prenatal
influences, which irresistibly force it into a new nativity at the time of such
conjunction of planets and signs as oblige it into certain courses and incline
it strongly thereto. But if the soul oppose itself to these influences and adopt
some other course, – as it well may to its own real advantage, – it brings itself
under a “curse” for such period as the planets and ruling signs of that incarnation
have power. But though this mean is misfortune in a worldly sense, it is true
fortune for the soul in a spiritual sense. For the soul is therein striving
to atone and make restitution for the evil done in its own past; and thus striving,
it advances towards higher and happier conditions. Wherefore man is, strictly,
his own creator, in that he makes himself and his conditions, according to the
tendencies he encourages. The process of such reformation, however, may be a
long one. For, tendencies encouraged for ages cannot be cured in a single lifetime,
but may require ages for their cure.
And herein
is a reflection to make us as patient towards the faults of others, as we ought
to be impatient of our own faults.
26. The
doctrine of the soul is embodied in the parable of the Talents. Into the soul
of the individual is breathed the Spirit of God, divine, pure, and without blemish.
It is God. And the individual has, in his earth-life, to nourish that Spirit
and feed it as a flame with oil. When we put oil into a lamp, the essence passes
into and becomes flame. So is it with the soul of him who nourishes the Spirit.
It grows gradually pure and becomes Spirit. By this spirit the body is enlightened
as a lamp by the flame within it. Now, the flame is not the oil, for the oil
may be there without the light; yet the flame cannot be there without the oil.
The body, then, is the lamp-case into which the oil is poured; and this, the
oil, is the soul, a fine and combustible fluid; and the flame is the Divine
Spirit, which is not born of the oil, but is communicated by God from within.
We may quench this Spirit utterly, and thenceforward we shall have no immortality;
but when the lamp-case breaks, the oil will be spilt on the earth, and a few
fumes will for a time arise from it, and then it will expend itself, leaving
at last no trace. Thus, as in the parable of the Talents, where God has given
five talents, man pays back ten; or he pays back nothing, and perishes.
27. Some
oils are finer and more combustible than others. The finest is that of the soul
of the poet; and in such a medium the flame of God’s Spirit burns more clearly
and powerfully, and brightly, so that sometimes mortal eyes can hardly endure
its lustre. Of such an one the soul is filled with holy rapture. He sees as
no other man sees; and the atmosphere about him is enkindled. His soul becomes
transmuted into flame; and when the lamp of his body is shattered, his flame
mounts and soars, and is united to the Divine Fire. (See Appendices,
No. IX)
PART
IV
28. WE
come to treat of that from which the soul of the individual proceeds, and of
which it consists. For, as already observed, it is upon the nature of this that
our potentialities depend. Let us, then, for awhile, ignoring the universe of
things, cast our minds backward to the point wherein, prior to existence,
substance necessarily, subsists alone and undifferentiated, and pure Being is
all.
29. That
which subsists before the beginning of things, is necessarily the potentiality
of things. This necessarily is homogeneous. As the Substance of things, and
pervaded by Life, it is Living Substance; and being homogeneous, it is One.
But, consisting of Life and Substance, it is Twain. Constituting the life and
substance of Persons, it is necessarily personal; and being self-subsistent,
infinite, eternal, and personal, it is God; and God is Twain in One. By virtue
of the potency of this duality, God subsists and operates. And every monad of
God’s substance possesses the potency of Twain. Wherever are Life and Substance,
there is God. Wherever God is, there is Being; and wherever Being is, there
is God; for God is Being. The universe is Existence, that is, God manifested.
Prior to the universe, God subsisted unmanifest. Subsistence and Existence,
these are the two terms which denote respectively God in God’s Self, and God
in Creation.
30. Before
the beginning of things, the great and invisible God alone subsisted. There
was no motion, nor darkness, nor space, nor matter. There was no other then
God, the One, the Uncreate, the Self-subsistent, Who subsisted as invisible
Light.
31. God
is Spirit, God is Life, God is Mind, God is the Subject and Object of mind:
at once the thought, the thinker, and that which is thought of. God is positive
and personal Being; the potential Essence of all that is or can be; the one
and only Self; that alone in the universe which has the right to say, “I”. Wherever
a Presence is, there is God; and where God is not, is no Being.
32. In
God subsist, in absolute plenitude and perfect equilibrium, all qualities and
properties which, opposed to and yet corresponding with each other, constitute
the elements masculine and feminine of existence. God is perfect will, and perfect
love, perfect knowledge and perfect wisdom, perfect intelligence and perfect
sympathy, perfect justice and perfect mercy, perfect power and perfect goodness.
And from God, as original and abstract humanity, proceeds the derived and concrete
humanity which, when perfected, manifests God. God is light, truth, order, harmony,
reason; and God’s works are illumination, knowledge, understanding, love, and
sanity. And inasmuch as anything is absolute, strong, perfect, true, inasmuch
it resembles God and is God. Perfect and complete from eternity, God is beyond
possibility of change or development. Development pertains only to the manifestation
of God in creation. As God is one, so is God’s method one, and without variation
or shadow of turning. God works from within outwards; for God’s kingdom is within,
being interior, invisible, mystic, spiritual. And God’s Spirits, Other Spirits
of the Invisible Light, are Seven: – the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding,
the spirit of counsel, the spirit of power, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit
of righteousness, and the spirit of divine awfulness. These are the Powers,
or Elohim, of God. They are coequal and co-eternal. Each has in itself the nature
of the whole. Each is a perfect entity. Of them all is the whole of God’s substance
pervaded. And in their individual manifestations they are the Gods.
33. In
God, before the beginning, all things visible and invisible were potential;
and of God’s fullness have we all received. Before the beginning negation was
not. There was no other than God.
34. As
Living Substance, God is One. As Life and Substance, God is Twain. HE is the
Life, and SHE is the Substance. And to speak of HER, is to speak of Woman in
her supremest mode. She is not “Nature;” Nature is the manifestation of the
qualities and properties with which, under suffusion of the Life and Spirits
of God, Substance is endowed. She is not matter; but is the potential essence
of Matter. She is not Space; but is the within of space, its fourth and
original dimension, that from which all proceed, the containing element of Deity,
and of which space is the manifestation. As original Substance, the substance
of all others substances, She underlies that whereof all things are made; and,
like life and mind, is interior, mystical, spiritual, and discernible only when
manifested in operation. In the Unmanifest, She is the Great Deep, or Ocean,
of Infinitude, the Principium or Arche, the heavenly Sophia, or Wisdom, Who
encircles and embraces all things; of Whom are dimension and form and appearance;
Whose veil is the astral fluid, and Who is, Herself, the substance of all souls.
35. On
the plane of manifestation, as the Soul macrocosmic and microcosmic, She appears
as the Daughter, Mother, and Spouse of God. Exhibiting in a perfect Humanity
the fullness of the life she has received of God, she is mystically styled the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and in token of her Divine Motherhood and heavenly derivation
and attributes, is represented as clad in celestial azure, and bearing in Her
arms the infant Man, in whom, regenerate and reborn of Her own immaculate substance,
the universe is redeemed. In Her subsist inherently all the feminine qualities
of the Godhead. As Venus, the brightest of the mystic Seven who represent the
Elohim of God, She corresponds to the third, the spirit of counsel, in that
counsel is wisdom, and love and wisdom are one. Thus, in mystical art She is
portrayed as Aphrodite the Sea-Queen, and Mary the Star of the Sea, and as the
soul from whose pure intuition of God proceeds the perfected man. Correspondingly,
in mystical science She appears as Sodium, or Salt, whose ray in the spectrum,
as the place of Venus among the planets, is the third, whose light is the brightest,
and whose colour is the yellow. Among the metals, copper is dedicated to Venus.
For of copper the crystals are the deep sea-blue. And, inasmuch as She, as love,
is the enlightener, and as salt the purifier, and the pure in heart see God,
so is its sulphate a balm for ailing eyes. As Pallas or Minerva, She is “Our
Lady of Victories,” adversary of demons and dragons, wearing the panoply of
heaven, and the insignia of wisdom and righteous war. As Isis or Artemis, She
is pre-eminently the Initiator, the Virgin clothed in white, standing on the
Moon, and ruling the waters.
36. Also
is She “Mother of Sorrows,” whose bitterness pervades all things below; and
only by her salting with affliction, purification by trial, and purchase of
wisdom by dear-bought experience, is the perfection that is of Her attained.
Nevertheless She is also “Mother of Joys,” since Her light is gilded by the
solar rays; and of Her pain and travail as the soul in the individual, comes
the regeneration of Her children. And She is for them no more a sea of bitterness
when once their warfare with evil has been accomplished: for then is She “our
Lady, Glory of the Church triumphant.” Thus is the Microcosm.
37. In
the Macrocosm She is that Beginning or Wisdom wherein God makes the heavens
and the earth; the substantial waters upon whose face He, the Energizing Will,
moves at every fresh act of creation, and the ark or womb from which all creatures
proceed. And it is through the “gathering together”, or coagulation, of Her
“waters” that the “dry land” of the earth or body, which is Matter, appears.
For she is that spiritual substance which, polarizing interiorly, is – in the
innermost – God; and coagulating exteriorly, becomes – in the outermost – Matter.
And She, again, it is, who as the soul of humanity, regaining full intuition
of God, overwhelms the earth with a flood of Her waters, destroying the evil
and renewing the good, and bearing unharmed on Her bosom the elect few who have
suffered Her to build them up in the true image of God. Thus to these is She
“Mother of the Living.”
38. And
as, on plane physical, man is not Man – but only Boy, rude, froward, and solicitous
only to exert and exhibit his strength – until the time comes for him to recognize,
appreciate, and appropriate Her as the woman; so on the plane spiritual, man
is not Man – but only Materialist, having all the deficiencies, intellectual
and moral, the term implies – until the time comes for him to recognize, appreciate,
and appropriate Her as the Soul, and, counting Her as his better half, to renounce
his own exclusively centrifugal impulsions, and yield to Her centripetal attractions.
Doing this with all his heart, he finds that She makes him, in the highest sense,
Man. For, adding to his intellect Her intuition, She endows him with that true
manhood, the manhood of Mind. Thus, by Her aid obtaining cognition of substance,
and from the phenomenal fact ascending to the essential idea, he weds understanding
to knowledge, and attains to certitude of truth, completing thereby the system
of his thought.
39. Rejecting,
as this age has done, the soul and her intuition, man excludes from the system
of his humanity the very idea of the woman, and renounces his proper manhood.
An Esau, he sells, and for a mess of pottage, his birthright, the faculty of
intellectual comprehension. Cut off by his own act from the intuition of spirit,
he takes Matter for Substance; and sharing the limitations of Matter, loses
the capacity for knowledge. Calling the creature thus self-mutilated, Man, the
age declares by the unanimous voice of its exponents, that Man has no instrument
of knowledge, and can know nothing with certainty, excepting – for it is not
consistent even in this – that he can know nothing. Of this the age is quite
sure, and accordingly – complacent in its discovery – styles itself Agnostic.
And, as if expressly to demonstrate the completeness of its deprivation in respect
to all that goes to the making of Man, it has recourse to devices the most nefarious
and inhuman on the pretext of thereby obtaining knowledge.
40. Whereas,
had but the soul received the recognition and honour her due, no pretext had
remained for the abominations of a science become wholly materialistic. For,
as the substance and framer of all things, she necessarily is competent for
the interpretation of all things. All that she requires of man, is that she
be duly tended and heeded. No summit then will be too lofty of goodness or truth,
for man to reach by her aid. For, recognized in her plenitude she reveals herself
in her plenitude; and her fullness is the fullness of God.
PART
V
41. The
wise of old, who, exalting the Woman in themselves, attained to full intuition
of God, failed not to make recognition of Her in the symbols whereby they denoted
Deity. Hence the significance of the combination, universal from the first,
of the symbols I, O, the unit and the cipher, in the names designative of Deity.
For, as the Line of force, and the Circle of comprehension and multiplication,
these two represent at once Energy and Space, Will and Love, Life and Substance,
Father and Mother. And though two, they are one, inasmuch as the circle is but
the line turning round and following upon itself, instead of continuing into
the abyss to expend its force in vain. Thus Love is self-completion by the union
of corresponding opposites in the same substance, and Sex has its origin in
the very nature of Deity. The principle of duality is for the Kabbalists – the
heirs and interpreters of Hebrew transcendentalism – the true God of Hosts.
Hence the universal use of its emblems religious worship, wherein nations gave
the preference to the one or to the other, according to their own characteristics.
42. While
these symbols conjoined find expression in terms Jehovah or Yahveh, Jove, Jao,
and numerous similar appellations of Deity, the names Zeus, Dyaus, Theos, and
Deus represent but the forceful and masculine element in the feminine azure
sphere of the sky, the electric flash from the bosom of the heavens. That name
of Deity which, occurring in the Old Testament, is translated the Almighty,
namely, El Shaddai, signifies the Breasted God, and is used when the mode of
the Divine nature implied, is of a feminine character. The arbitrary and harsh
aspect under which Jehovah is chiefly presented in the Hebrew Scriptures, is
due not to any lack of the feminine element either in His name or in His nature,
or to any failure on the part of the inspired leaders of Israel to recognize
this quality; but to the rudimentary condition of the people at large, and their
consequent amenability to a delineation of the sterner side only of the Divine
character. It is according to the Divine order that this, the masculine element
of existence, should be the first to find exercise. In the initiation of any
system, the centrifugal, or repellant mode of force must precede the centripetal
or attractive mode; since only when the former has accomplished its part, is
there opportunity for the exercise of the latter. True, the Love Who prompts
to creation is present from the beginning; but She reserves the manifestation
of Herself until the subject of Her creative impulsion is able to bear its part
in the recognition of Her. First Will, therefore, then Love; first Projection,
then Recall; first Expansion, then Contraction; first Centrifugal, then Centripetal;
first Motor, then Sensory; first Intellectual, then Intuitional; first Sensible,
then Spiritual; in short, first Man and then Woman, – such invariably is the
order by which the Universal Heart of existence manifests its essential dualism
of nature and operation. And in the sequence set forth in the Bible – the sequence,
of Law and Gospel, of Old Testament and New – the same rule prevails. To the
masculine function is accorded precedence in point of time; to the feminine,
in point of dignity. And it is thus that the manifestation of the Divine will
and power in Creation is followed by the manifestation of the Divine love and
wisdom in Redemption, and that the agent of this last is always the “woman.”
She it is who, by Her intuition of God, bruises the head of the Serpent of Matter,
and Her sons they are who get the victory over him.
43. Even
where not yet recognized by men in general, there were always some by whom the
true character of Deity in this respect could be discerned. And to these are
due all those utterances in which the mystical Scriptures express the justice,
mercy, long-suffering, and other qualities of the Divine nature, which, in being
moral and of the soul, are feminine, and when manifested of the Spirit as persons,
take form, not as “Gods”, but “Goddesses.” They to whom this truth was known
were prophets: and they spoke, not of that which appertains to any one period,
but of that which is eternal, though finding expression more or less palpable
at various periods. And that thereby they knew so much, was not the outer sense
and reason, but the inner perception and recollection – the knowledge, that
is, which the soul of the individual has of her own larger self, the Soul of
the Universal. For only Soul can read Soul. And only he is a prophet who has
acquired the knowledge of his own soul. And that which above all else the Soul
tells him, is that God is, first and foremost, Love; and that, inasmuch as God
is the Substance of humanity, whatever subsists in the Divine nature must, in
due course, first in the individual and next in the race, find full expression
and recognition.
44. If
it be asked whether God can indeed find such expression in man, and, if so,
how so great a marvel comes about, we reply that it is precisely the purpose
of these lectures to afford demonstration on both points. For the object of
the system under exposition is this, and no more, no less. For that object is
– as was the object of all sacred mysteries, whether of our Bible or other –
to enable man anew so to develop the Soul, or Essential Woman, within him, as
to become, through Her, a perfect reflection of the universal Soul, and made,
therefore, in what, mystically, is called the image of God.
45. An
illustration will conduce to the comprehension of this. We are, let us suppose,
in a meadow covered with grass and flowers. It is early morning, and everything
is bespangled with dew. And in each dewdrop is everything reflected from the
sun itself down to the minutest object. All reflect God. All is in every drew-drop.
And God is in each individual according to his capacity for reflecting God.
Each in his degree reflects God’s image. And the capacity of each, and the degree
of each, depend upon the development and purity of his soul. The soul that fully
reflects the sun, becomes itself a sun, the brightness of the Divine glory and
the express image of the Divine persons.
46. Such,
in all mystical Scriptures, has ever been the mode in which perfected souls
have been regarded. For, in being the redeeming element in man, that whereby
he escapes from the dominion of spiritual darkness and death, – from the limitations,
that is, of an existence merely material,– the soul is as a spiritual sun, corresponding
in all things with the solar orb. Wherefore all they who, by virtue of their
constituting for men a full manifestation of the powers of the soul, have been
to them as a redeeming sun, – have been designated Sun gods., and invested with
careers corresponding to the apparent annual course of the sun. Between the
phenomena of this course and the actual history of the perfected soul is an
exact correspondence requiring for its recognition but due knowledge of both.
And it is because the soul’s history is one, and this a history corresponding
with the sun’s, that all those who have earned of their fellows the supreme
title of Saviour of men, have been invested with it, and represented as having
exhibited the same phenomena in their own lives. Thus the history ascribed alike
to Osiris, Zoroaster, Krishna, Mithras, Pythagoras, Buddha, and Jesus, has not,
as sciolists vainly imagine, been plagiarized in one case from another, or borrowed
from some common source in itself unreal; but it has been lived, spiritually,
by the men themselves indicated by those names. And, being the history of the
soul of the Man Regenerate, it corresponds to that of the sun, – the vitalizing
center of the physical system, – and has accordingly been described in terms
derived from the solar phenomena as indicated in the zodiacal planisphere. Thus
the soul’s history is written in the stars; and the heavens are her chroniclers,
and tell the glory at once of her and of God. A Bible is always a hieroglyph
of the soul. And the Zodiac is simply the first and most stupendous of Bibles,
– a Bible which, like all other Bibles, was written by men who, attaining to
the knowledge of their own souls, to that of all souls, and of God, Who is the
Life and Substance of souls.
47. And
these were men who followed steadfastly that Perfect Way, which is in
the power of each, according to his degree, to follow, until, by the development
of their own natural potentialities, they attained to that which, mystically,
is called the Finding of Christ. And this is the perfection which, in
that it is God, is its own exceeding great reward. For the “gift of God is eternal
life.” As God is One, so is the Soul one; and these are One also both in nature
and method. All that is in God as universal subsists also in God as individual.
Wherefore God is nothing that man is not. And what man is, that God is likewise.
God withholds nothing of God from man. For “God is love,” and “love hath nothing
of her own.”
48. This
is the doctrine of the Soul, mystically called the Woman. It is a doctrine which,
by showing men that of which they are made, and therefore that which they have
it in them to be, makes them, when they receive it, heartily ashamed of being
what, for the most part, they are. (See Appendices, No. I, Part I.)
LECTURE
THE THIRD
THE
VARIOUS ORDERS OF SPIRITS; AND HOW TO DISCERN THEM.
PART
I
01.
WE have spoken of the Soul and of Spirit. We come now to speak of Spirits;
for the understanding of these also is necessary to a true doctrine concerning
Existence. But though speaking especially of Spirits, it will be necessary
to refer also to Souls; for though Spirits, properly so called, have not souls,
Souls have spirits. In either case, however, we shall treat mainly of the
Unembodied, or the Disembodied. And as the region or sphere which is immediately
contiguous to the Material, and which we ourselves enter upon quitting the
Material, is the Astral, it is this and its occupants, which will first engage
our attention.
02.
To understand fully the place and value of this sphere, it is necessary to
have in the mind a clear conception of the places and values of all the spheres
which are comprised in and which constitute that manifestation of Being which
is termed Existence. To this end we will commence with the following succinct
recapitulation .The Spirit and Soul, which are original life and substance,
are Divine and uncreated. The astral and material bodies are the “created”
that is, the manifested – part. The astral – which is called also the
sideral, the odic, the magnetic, the fiery – is fluidic, and constitutes the
bond between the soul and the material body. It is the original body being
that which makes and that which becomes. The original, permanent individual
consists of soul and spirit; and when manifested it is by means of the astral
or fluidic body, of which the material or fixed body is the outer manifestation
– the manifestation, as it is called, in ultimates.
03.
Every creation, or complete manifested entity, whether it be macrocosmic or
microcosmic, is a compound of two dualisms, which are respectively celestial
and terrestrial, or spiritual and material. The celestial, or kingdom of heaven,
which consists of soul and spirit, is within. And the terrestrial, or kingdom
of this world, which consists of astral body – the seat of the anima bruta
– and of phenomenal body, is without. Of these two dualisms, each is to the
other the Beyond. And between them, saving only where one and the same
Divine Will – the will which has its seat in, and which is, the Spirit – pervades
the whole being, is antagonism. They are respectively the spiritual man and
the natural man. But in the suffusion of the entire personality thus constituted,
by one and the same Divine Will, consists what mystically is termed the At-one-ment,
or reconciliation between man and God, but which is commonly called the Atonement.
04.
As the whole is, thus, fourfold, so with the exception of the spirit, are
the parts. The external, material body, whether of planet or of man, is fourfold
in that it is gaseous, mineral, vegetable, animal. The astral body, or perisoul,
is fourfold, being magnetic, purgatorial, limbic, cherubic, – terms presently
to be explained. The soul is fourfold, namely, elemental, instinctive, vital,
rational. And the spirit is threefold, or triune, because there is no external
to spirit. Being threefold, it is the Essence, the Father, the Word; and is
desirous, willing, obedient. And being God, it is one, because God is one.
And thus the magical number, mystically called the number of Perfection and
of the Woman, the number Thirteen, derives its sanctity from the constitution
of the perfected individual.
05.
The astral sphere, zone, or circulus, – variously called the perisoul, the
magnetic, sideral, and odic fluid or body, – is the same with the “wheel”
of Ezekiel, of which the four living creatures are the four elemental spirits.
It contains four orders of entities, which are represented by four magnetic
circuli or wheels encircling the earth, and full of lives. The highest and
uppermost of these circuli is that of the elemental spirits or “winged creatures”;
the second is that of the souls; the third is that of the shades; and the
fourth and lowest is that of the magnetic spirits commonly called astrals.
06.
These circuli correspond to Air, Water, Earth, and Fire, beginning at the
outer and uppermost and going inwards and downwards. The magnetic emanations,
or astrals, are under the dominion of the Fire. They are not souls, or divine
personalities; they are simply emanations or phantasms, and have no real being.
07.
Every event or circumstance which has taken place upon the planet, has an
astral counterpart or picture in the magnetic light; so that, as already said
there are actually ghosts of events as well as of persons. The magnetic existences
of this circle are the shades, or manes, of past times, circumstances, thoughts,
and acts of which the planet has been the scene; and they can be evoked and
conjured. The appearances on such occasions are but shadows left on the protoplasmic
mirror. This order, then, corresponds to that of Fire and is the fourth and
lowest.
08.
The next circulus, the third, with its spirits, corresponds to Earth, and
contains the shades, Lares and Penates, of the dead. These are of many different
kinds. Some are mere shades, spiritual corpses, which will soon be absorbed
by the fourth circulus just described and become mere magnetic phantoms. Some
are “ghosts,” or astral souls not containing the divine particle, but representing
merely the “earthly minds” of the departed. These are in Limbo or the “Lower
Eden.” Others are really Souls, and of the celestial order, or anima divina,
who are in Purgatory, being bound to the astral envelope, and unable to quit
it. They are sometimes called “earthbound spirits,” and they often suffer
horrible torments in their prison; not because this circulus is itself a place
of torment, but because to the anima divina the body, whether material
or astral, is a “house of bondage” and chamber of ordeal. The strong wills,
love, and charity of those on earth may relieve these souls and lessen the
time of their purgatorial penance. Of some of them the retention is due ignorance,
of others to sensuality, and of others to crimes of violence, injustice, and
cruelty.
09.
This sphere is also inhabited by a terrible class, that of the “devils,” some
of whom are of great power and malice. Of these the souls are never set free;
they are in what is called “Hell.” But they are not immortal. For, after a
period corresponding to their personal vitality and the strength of their
rebellious wills, they are consumed, and perish for ever. For a soul may be
utterly gross at last, and deprived of all spirit of the Divine order, and
yet may have so strong a vitality or mortal spirit of its own, that it may
last hundreds of years in low atmospheres. But this occurs only with souls
of very strong will, and generally of indomitable wickedness. The strength
of their evil will, and the determination to be wicked, keep them alive. But,
though devils, they are mortal, and must go out at last. Their end is utter
darkness. They cease to exist. Meanwhile they can be evoked by incantation.
But the practice is of the most dangerous and wicked kind; for the endeavour
of these lost spirits is to ruin every soul to which they have access.
10.
In the sense ordinarily understood, there is no personal Devil. That which,
mystically, is called the Devil, is the negation and opposite of God. And
whereas God is I AM, or positive Being, the Devil is NOT. He is not positive,
not self-subsistent, not formulate. God is all these; and the Devil, in being
the opposite of these, is none of them. God, as has been said, is Light, Truth,
Order, Harmony, Reason; and God’s works are illumination, knowledge, understanding,
love, and sanity. The Devil, therefore, is darkness, falsehood, discord, and
ignorance; and his works are confusion, folly, division, hatred, and delirium.
He has no individuality and no being. For he represents the Not-being. Whatever
God is, that the Devil is NOT. Wherever God’s kingdom is not, the Devil
reigns.
11.
It is the principle of Not-being which, taking personality in man, becomes
to him the Devil. For by divesting him of his divine qualities, actual or
potential, it makes him in the image of God’s opposite, that is, a devil.
And of such an one the end is destruction, or, as the Scriptures call it,
eternal death. And this of necessity from the nature of the case. For evil
has not in itself the element of self-perpetuation. God alone is Life, or
the principle of eternal generation. And, as Life, God comprises all things
necessary to life, to its production, that is, to its perfection, and to its
perpetuation. And God is Spirit, whereof the antithetical ultimate is Matter.
The Devil is that which gives to Matter the pre-eminence over Spirit. That
is, since there is nothing but God’s creation to be set in opposition to God,
the Devil exalts the mere material of creation in the place of God.
Of such preference for Matter over Spirit, for appearance over reality, for
Seeming over Being, the end is the forfeiture of reality, and therein, of
Being. In representing, therefore, the contest between good and evil, – a
contest corresponding to that between light and darkness, – creation represents
the contest between Being and Not-being. To “give place to the Devil,” is
thus, in its ultimate result, to renounce Being. And, as a free agent, man
is able to do this. God, while giving to all the opportunity and choice, compels
no one to remain in Being. God accepts only willing service, and there is
no such thing as compulsory salvation. God – that is Good, – must be loved
and followed for the sake of God and Good, not through fear of possible penalties,
or hope of possible rewards.
12.
Now the sign, above all others, whereby to distinguish the Devil, is this:
God is, first and foremost, Love. The Devil, therefore, is, before all else,
Hate. He is to be known, then, first by the limitation, and next by the negation,
of Love.
13. The Devil is not to be confounded
with “Satan,” though they are sometimes spoken of in Scriptures as if they
were identical. The truth concerning “Satan” belongs to those greater mysteries
which have always been reserved from general cognition.
(See Appendices, No. XV.)
14.
Not withstanding that the Devil is the Nonentity above described, he is the
most potent, and, indeed, sole power of evil. And no one is in so great danger
from him, as he who does not believe in him. The whole function of the Christ
is to oppose, and rescue men from him. And therefore it is written, “For this
cause is Christ manifest, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
15.
But, be it remembered, though there is no self-subsistent, positive evil being,
– such as the Devil is ordinarily presented, – but only the negation of God,
– which is to God what darkness is to light, and the outermost void to the
solar system, – there are evil spirits, the souls of bad man on their downward
way to final extinction. And these are wont to associate themselves with persons
in the flesh for whom they have affinity. And they do this partly in order
to gratify their own evil propensities by inciting to wickedness and mischief,
and partly to obtain from them the vitality necessary to prolong their own
existence. For, as their career approaches its end, they become so low in
vitality that a sentence of expulsion from the person in whom they have taken
refuge may involve their immediate extinction, unless they can find other
location – a contingency obviously contemplated in the case of the Gadarene
demoniacs. The ailments, physical or mental, of men are sometimes caused or
aggravated by extraneous malignant entities of this order. And occultists
hold that they even share with the elementals the power of inducing the conditions
under which sudden storms and other elemental disturbances occur. Evil spirits
have no chief, no organization or solidarity; nothing that corresponds to
God. The worse they are; the lower and nearer to extinction. The conditions
which attract them are due to men themselves, and may be result of pre natal
misconduct.
16.
The next and second circulus of the planet, – that which corresponds to the
Water, – is the kingdom of the souls which are mystically described as being
in “Brahma’s bosom.” These are the purified who are at rest before seeking
reincarnation. This circulus is not confined to human souls. Therein are all
creatures both great and small, but without “fiery” envelope. Between these
and the kingdom of the earthbound souls in prison to their own astral bodies,
a great gulf is fixed; and they cannot pass from one to the other save on
accomplishing their purgation. “Thou comest not out thence until thou hast
paid the last mite.” The souls in the second circulus, however, though
purified, are still “under the elements.” For purification is not regeneration,
though a necessary step towards it. And not being ready for transmutation
into spirit, they must, sooner or later, seek fresh incarnations. They are,
therefore, still in the sphere of the planet. Whereas the regenerated or transmuted
souls have passed beyond the astral zone altogether and it contains no trace
of them. This second circulus was placed under the dominion of the sea-god
Poseidon, because, first, being protoplasmic and devoid of any limiting principle,
water corresponds to the substance of the Soul. Next, it is the baptismal
symbol of purification from materiality. And, thirdly, it is the source of
life and the contrary of fire. “Let Lazarus dip the tip of his finger in
water, and cool my tongue,” cries the soul in the prison of the “fiery”
body to the soul in the zone of the water.
17.
To the first and highest circulus belong the spirits of the elements, which
pervade all things, not only of the Macrocosmic planet, but of the Microcosm
man. Of these elementals, the air-spirits preside over the function of respiration,
and the organs which accomplish it. The water-spirits preside over the humors
and secretions of the body, and in particular the blood. The earth-spirits
have for their domain the various tissues of the body. And animal heat, assimilation,
and nutrition are dependent on the fire-spirits.
18.
An initiate of the highest grade, on who has power to hush the storm and still
the waves, can, through the same agency, heal the disorders and regenerate
the functions of the body. And he does this by an impulsion of will acting
on the magnetic atmosphere, every particle of which has a spirit capable of
responding to the human will.
19.
The common phrase, “Spirits of the dead,” is incorrect. There are only shades
of the dead souls of the dead. But these last are of two kinds, the earthly,
or anima bruta, and the heavenly, or anima divina. The shade,
larva, or spectre – which is the outer element of the ghost – is always dumb.
The true “ghost” consists of the exterior and earthly portion of the soul,
that portion which, being weighted with cares attachments and memories merely
mundane, is detached by the soul and remains in the astral sphere, an existence
more or less definite and personal, and capable of holding, through a Sensitive,
converse with the living. It is, however, but as a cast-off vestment of the
soul, and is incapable of endurance as ghost. The true soul and real
person, the anima divina, parts at death with all those lower affections
which would have retained it near its earthly haunts, and either passes on
at once to higher conditions, attaining its perfection by post mortem evolution,
or continues its peregrinations in a new body. This, the true soul, may, by
Divine permission, and on special occasions, communicate with the living,
returning for that purpose from the purgatorial world; but such an event is
of the rarest and most solemn kind. Reincarnation pertains only to the true
soul. The astral soul, or fluidic envelope, does not again become incarnate;
so that they are not in error who assert that a person is never twice
incarnate. That which transmigrates is the essential germ of the individual,
the seat of all his divine potencies. In some this exists as a mere dim spark,
and in others as a luminous sun.
20.
Metempsychosis, in its strict sense, consists in the overshadowing of a soul
already incarnate, by one which has completed its transmigrations, and become
freed from Matter and all planetary bonds. This divine overshadowing differs
both in kind and in degree from those astral visitations which are familiar
to so many under the names of “guides,” and “controls,” and which as will
presently be shown, are often not even “ghosts,” but mere astral mirages of
the seer or the invoker. When not of this kind, the control is either of the
spirits known as Elementals, or of the shades or larvæ of the recently
dead, the Manes, Lares, and Penates of the Latins. The river Lethe, of which
the dead are said to drink in order to attain oblivion of their past before
returning to new earth-bodies, represents the process of separation between
the anima divina and anima bruta, whereby the former doffs for
a time the garment of its memory. Souls may, according to circumstances, either
become reincarnate immediately after such divestment of their astral part,
or their astral part, or proceed to accomplish their purification in the purgatorial
world. (See Appendices, No. II.)
21.
It is as penance or expiation that souls re-descend from the human into the
animal form. This return occurs through the forfeiture of the divine-human
spirit, so that the spirit itself does not incur dishonor. True, the penance
involves disgrace; but the disgrace is not in the penance, but in the sin
through which the need for the penance is incurred. The man who sullies his
humanity by cruelty or impurity, is already below the grade of humanity; and
the form which his soul assumes is the mere natural consequence of that degradation.
Form is the expression of qualities. These are dependent upon the condition
of substance, so that the soul takes necessarily its form according to its
condition. And this is dependent upon the will or affections of the individual.
Wherefore it is an error to hold “Nature” responsible for fierce and horrible
creatures. All that “Nature” does, is to enable creatures to take form according
to the image in which they have made themselves by the tendencies they have
voluntarily encouraged. She allows that which is interior to the individual
to manifest itself exteriorly. Were this not so, no character of any creature
could be known by its appearance. The “mark set upon Cain” has its counterpart
in the stripe of the tiger; and the crustacea denote selfish spirits, who
are hard exteriorly to all the world, and soft only interiorly to themselves.
The adept in Psychology can tell whether the soul of an animal is on its upward
or its downward path. He can discern also the animal beneath the human form,
when the progressing soul has not yet wholly shed the animal nature; for the
exterior form of humanity is reached in full while its interior reality is
reached in part only. Thus, for the adept there are more animals than men
to be seen in the streets of a city, despite the humanity of their forms.
The individual is already partly human before it has ceased to wear the form
of a rudimentary man, that is, of an animal. The matrix can bring forth only
its own kind, in the semblance of the generators; and as soon as the human
is attained, even in the least degree, the soul has power to put on body of
humanity. Thus, too, the adept can see the human shape in creatures under
torture in the physiological laboratory. He can discern the potential form
of a man with limbs and lineaments resembling those of his tormentors, hidden
within the outward form as a child in its mother’s womb, and writhing and
moaning under the lacerations of the knife. And he sees also the tiger and
the devil rapidly developing within the still human forms of the torturers,
and knows certainly that to such grades they will descend on quitting the
human. For he knows, having learned it by the long experiences of his own
soul, that God, who is before all else Love, is also before all else Justice,
and this because God is Love; for Justice is Sympathy.
Wherefore,
by the inexorable law of Justice, he who makes existence a hell for others,
prepares, inevitably, a hell for himself, wherein he will be his own devil,
the inflictor of his own torments. His victims will, indeed, find compensation
at the Divine hands; but for him will be no escape, no alleviation, until
“he has paid the last mite.” For the pitiless, and for the pitiless alone,
there is no pity. Such, the adept of spiritual science knows absolutely, is
the doom that awaits both the tormentor himself, and, in their degree, those
who by accepting the results of his practice, consent to his method.
22.
That which leads to the loss of the soul, is not isolated crime, however heinous,
or even a repetition of this; but a continued condition of the heart, in which
the will of the individual is in persistent opposition to the Divine Will;
for this is a state in which repentance is impossible. The condition most
favourable to salvation, and speedy emancipation from successive incarnations,
is the attitude of willing obedience, – freedom and submission. The great
object to be attained is emancipation from the body, – the redemption, that
is, of Spirit from Matter.
PART
II
23.
WE will now speak particularly of that order of spirits by which, ordinarily,
“mediums” are “controlled;” or, more correctly, sensitives are influenced,
since these spirits which are called astrals, have no force, and cannot exercise
the least control. Born of the emanations of the body, they occupy the perisoul,
or fluidic astral and magnetic bond which unites the soul to the body.
24.
In this fluid, which is the magnetism of the earth, – the lowest circulus
of the Fire, – and which may be more clearly denoted by the term latent
light, – analogous to latent heat, – take place those changes, currents,
and modifications which result and are expressed in the phenomena – of late
days familiar to numbers – produced by astral spirits. Through this fluidic
element are passed two currents, one refracted from above, and the other reflected
from below, – one being celestial, as coming direct from the spirit, and the
other terrestrial, as coming from the earth or body; and the adept must know
how to distinguish the ray from reflection. When a medium, or sensitive, passes
into the negative, and thence into the somnambulic state, the mind of such
sensitive is controlled by the will of the magnetizer. The will of this second
person directs and controls the procession and expression of the image perceived.
But the magnetizer, unless an adept, will not be able to discern the true
origin of the images evoked.
25.
Now, in this magnetic sphere are two orders of existences. Of these orders,
one is that – already mentioned – of the shades of the dead; the other consists
of reflects of the living; and the difficulty of distinguishing between
these two orders is, to the uninitiated, a source of error. Error of a more
serious kind arises through the complex character of the astral region itself,
and the variety of the grades of spirits by which every division is tenanted.
Spirits of the subhuman order, moreover, are wont under control of the wish
of their invokers, to personate spirits of a higher grade.
26.
It will thus be seen that the elements of deception are broadly, twofold.
In the first place, to enter the astral region, is not to enter the celestial;
and the ray reflected from below, and which bears the imprint of the body,
may easily be mistaken for the ray refracted from above, and which alone is
pure and divine. In the second place, the astral region itself contains various
orders of spirits, of which some only bear relation to actual souls, and the
others consist of phantasmal and illusory reflects. These latter, – the astral
spirits properly so called, – are in no cases entities, or intelligent personalities;
but reflections, traces, echoes, or footprints of a soul which is passing,
or which has passed, through the astral medium; or else they are reflections
of the individual himself who beholds or who evokes them, and may thus represent
an equal compound of both sensitive and magnetizer.
27.
Now, the atmosphere with which a man surrounds himself, – his soul’s respiration,
– affects the astral fluid. Reverberations of his own ideas come back to him.
His soul’s breath colours and savors what a sensitive conveys to him. But
he may also meet with contradictions, with a systematic presentation of doctrine
or of counsels at variance with his own personal views, through his mind not
being sufficiently positive to control all the manifestations of the electric
agent. The influence of the medium, moreover, through which the words come,
interposes. Or, as is often the case, a magnetic battery of thought has overcharged
the elements and imparted to it a certain current. Thus, new doctrines are
“in the air,” and spread like wildfire. One or two strongly positive minds
give the initiative, and the impulse flies through the whole mass of latent
light, correspondingly influencing all who are in relation with it.
28.
The merely magnetic spirits are like mists which rise from the damp earth
of low-lying lands, or vapours in high altitudes upon which if a man’s shadow
falls he beholds himself as a giant. For these spirits invariably flatter
and magnify a men to himself, telling one that he is, or shall be, a king,
a Christ, or the wisest and most famous of mortals; and that if he will be
wholly negative, and give himself up entirely to them, suppressing his own
intelligence and moral sense, they will enable him to realize his utmost ambition.
Being born of the fluids of the body, they are unspiritual and live of
the body. And not only have they no aspirations beyond the body, but they
ignore, and even deny, the existence of any sphere above their own. They speak,
indeed, of God, especially under the name of Jehovah, but with complete ignorance
of its meaning; and they insist on material renderings and applications of
any doctrine of which they may catch the terms. They are profuse alike of
promises and of menaces, and indulge freely in prophecies. But when informed
of their failures they declare that even God cannot surely foresee the future,
but can judge only according to apparent probabilities. Of contradictions
in their own statements they are altogether unconscious; and be these gross
and palpable as they may, they remain wholly unabashed by the disclosure of
them. Especially are they bitter against the “Woman.” For, in her intuition
of Spirit, they recognize their chief enemy. And whenever they attach themselves
either to a man or to a woman, they make it their endeavour to exalt the masculine
or force element, of mind or body, at the expense of the feminine element.
And these, generally, are their signs. Is there anything strong? they make
it weak. Is there anything wise? they make it foolish. Is there anything sublime?
they distort and travesty it. And where suffered to expatiate unchecked, they
descend to blasphemy and obscenity without measure, and incite to courses
in turn sensuous, vicious, malicious, or cruel, encouraging to gross and luxurious
living, – the flesh of animals, and stimulants being especially favourable
to their production and nurture. They are the forms beheld in delirium, and
are frequent agents in producing the phenomena of hysteria. They are the authors,
too, of those hasty impulses by yielding to which people do in a moment mischief
which a lifetime cannot efface or repair. And, as they live upon the vital
spirits of the blood, they deplete the vital energy, and are as vampires to
those upon whom they fasten. They are able, moreover, to carry elsewhere the
knowledge they get from any one; – being the “powers of the air” spoken of
in Scripture, and the “bird that carries the voice and tells the matter.”
For the term rendered “bird” signifies a winged creature, and implies an astral.
Hence one of the reasons for observing secrecy concerning Sacred Mysteries.
For, by seeming to have knowledge of these, the astrals are able to persuade
and mislead people, mixing up a little truth with dangerous error, and getting
the error accepted on the strength of the truth, or of some Divine name or
phrase with which they associate it, themselves being ignorant of its import.
Being impersonal, they have no organon of knowledge, for this is of Soul,
and the astrals have no positive existence, but subsist subjectively in human
beings. Having no souls, they are not individuals, and have no idea of right
and wrong, true and false, but, like a mirror, reflect what comes before them,
and, in reflecting, reverse it. Catching any prominent quality in a person’s
mind they make the most of it by reflecting and magnifying it. Hence they
are not to be heeded. We must heed only the God within. Of the enormous ladder
within us, at the apex of which is the Absolute, these magnetic phantasmagoria
are at the base.
29.
Unable to grasp or conceive of anything beyond the atmosphere of their own
circle, the astral phantoms – unless under the influence of a strongly positive
mind – deny altogether the existence of the upper dualism, which, with the
lower, constitutes man a fourfold being. They assert, indeed, that man consists
of body and soul; but they mean thereby the material body and earthly mind,
and represent these as constituting the man. The soul and spirit, which are
really the man, have for them no existence; and they usually refuse, in consequence,
to admit the doctrine of Transmigration or Reincarnation. For, as they are
aware, the body and perisoul perish, and the anima bruta cannot transmigrate
or become reincarnate Their inability to recognize the soul and spirit, leads
them to deny the existence of any source of knowledge superior to themselves,
and to assert that they themselves are man’s true and only inspiring spirits
and guardian angels. And one of their favourite devices consists in building
up, out of the magnetic emanations of the individual, a form which they present
as his own “counterpartal angel” and divine spirit, from whom, say they, he
was separated in what – affecting Scripture phraseology – they call the Adamic
period of his being, and by reunion with which he attains his final perfection.
In this they travesty at once the doctrine of that divine marriage between
soul and spirit, which, occurring in the individual, constitutes his final
perfection, or Nirvana; and the relations of the genius, or true guardian
angel, with his client. For, being unintelligent, they fail to perceive that
perfection is to be attained, not by accretion or addition from without, but
only by development or unfoldment from within. Thus the process itself of
regeneration, becomes altogether an absurdity in their hands. And in this,
as in all other matters, the object of the astrals is to obtain all credit
and support for their own order, by substituting for the Spirit a
spirit, and this one of themselves.
30.
It is to astral instigation, generally, that are due the various communities
and sects which have for their basis some peculiar relation between the sexes.
That modern form of the cultus of what is called “Free Love,” which sets forth,
not the human, but the female body as the temple of God, and with this couples
the doctrine of “counterpartal angels,” is entirely of astral contrivance.
And so also is the notion, far from uncommon, that by abjuring the ordinary
marriage relation, and devoting herself wholly to her astral associate, a
woman may in the most literal sense, become an immaculate mother of Christs.
It is to their materialization of this and other doctrines, which properly
are spiritual only, – and, notably, as will by and by be shown of the doctrine
of Vicarious Atonement, – that is due the degradation of Christianity from
a spiritual to a materialistic, and therein to an idolatrous religion, and
its consequent failure, thus far, to accomplish its intended end. But of this
more on a future occasion. It is sufficient to add here in this connection,
that, not in doctrine only, but also in practice, – as in the formation of
habits of life, – astral influence is always exerted in the direction of the
gross, the selfish and the cruel. It is always the influence under which men,
whether they be conscious of it or not, lower the standard of their conduct,
and seek their own gratification at the cost of others. Of those hideous blots
upon modern life, the frequent sins of violence, greed, and intemperance,
the astrals are active promoters. And to them is due in no small degree that
extension of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice – originally their own invention
– from the sacerdotal to the social and scientific planes, which has made
of Christendom little else than a vast slaughterhouse and chamber of torture.
No less than the priest of a sacrificial religion, are the butcher, the sportsman,
and the vivisector, ministers to the astral in man. Nevertheless, though thus
indictable, these spirits are not in themselves evil. They do but reflect
and magnify the evil which men harbour and encourage in themselves.
31.
It is characteristic of the astrals, that always strenuously insist on the
most absolute passivity on the part of those whom they influence or address.
This condition of unintelligent passivity must be carefully distinguished
from the reasonable reflective state favourable to divine communion,
and called the “Night-time of the Soul.” Such is the unsubstantiality of the
astrals, that the smallest exercise of an adverse will throws them into confusion
and deprives them of the power of utterance. They shun a person in whom the
flame of the spirit burns up straightly and ardently; but where it spreads
out and is diffused, they flock round him like moths. The more negative the
mind and weak the will of the person, the more apt and ready he is to receive
them. And the more positive his mind and pronounced his will, – in the right
direction, – the more open he is to Divine communication. The kingdom of the
Within yields, not to indifference and inaction, but to enthusiasm and concentration.
Wherefore it is said, “To labour is to pray; to ask is to receive; to knock
is to have the door open.” When we think inwardly, pray intensely, and imagine
centrally, then we converse with God. When we allow ourselves to be inert
and mechanically reflective, then we are at the mercy of the astrals,
and ready to accept any absurdity as divine truth.
32.
The astrals, it will be useful to many to be assured, not only cannot confer
the Divine life, they cannot rise to be partakers of it themselves. In describing
them, the exigencies of language compel the use of terms implying personality.
But it must be clearly understood that these “spirits” are mere vehicles,
and are no more possessed of independent volition or motive than is the electric
current by which telegraphic messages are conveyed, and which, like them,
is a medium of thought; or than the air, which, according to circumstances,
transmits the germs of health or of disease. Thus, although they are not intelligent
personalities, they are often the media of intelligent ideas, and operate
as means of communication between intelligent personalities. Ideas, words,
sentences, whole systems of philosophy, may be borne in on the consciousness
by means of the currents of magnetic force, as solid bodies are conveyed on
a stream, though water is no intelligent agent. The minutest cell is an entity,
for it has the power of self-propagation, which the astral has not.
33.
Few are they, even of the highest orders of mind, who have not at times fallen
under astral influence, and with disastrous results. And herein we have the
key, not only to the anomalies of various systems, otherwise admirable, of
philosophy and religion, but also to those discordant utterances of the most
pious mystics, which have so sorely perplexed and distressed their followers.
When we have named a Plato, a Philo, a Paul, a Milton, and a Bœhme, as conspicuous
instances in point, enough will have been said to indicate the vastness of
the field to which the suggestion applies. Few, indeed, are they who can always
find the force to penetrate through the astral and dwell solely in the celestial.
Hence, for the true ray refracted from above, men mistake and substitute the
false ray reflected from below, foul with the taint of earth, and savouring
of the limitations of the lower nature, and, like the image in the glass,
exactly reversing the truth. Wherever we find a systematic depreciation of
woman, advocacy of bloodshed, and materialization of things spiritual, there,
we may be confident, does astral influence prevail. The profound Bœhme frankly
admits his own liability in this respect.
34.
Though inhabiting the astral region, the spirits called elemental or nature-spirits,
and presiding spirits or genii loci, are of very different orders from
those just described. Of this last class are the spirits known to all early
nations as haunting forests, mountains, cataracts, rivers, and all unfrequented
places. They are the dryads, naiads, kelpis, elves, fairies, and so forth.
The elementals are often mysterious, terrifying, and dangerous. They are the
spirits invoked by the Rosicrucians and mediaeval magicians, and also by some
in the present day. They respond to pentagrams and other symbols, and it is
dangerous even to name them at certain times and places. The most powerful
of them are the salamanders, or fire-spirits. The ability of the elementals
to produce physical phenomena, and their lack of moral sense, render them
dangerous. In this they differ from the celestial spirits, for to these no
physical demonstration is possible, as they do not come into contact with
Matter.
35.
The marvels of the adept are performed chiefly through the agency of the elementals.
And it was the knowledge of and belief in them, on the part of the centurion
in the gospels, that elicted from Jesus his expression of surprise, “I have
not found such faith even in Israel.” For the centurion’s reply had indicated
his recognition of the fact that, just as he himself had soldiers under him
to do his bidding, so Jesus had spirits under him. Others than adepts may
be, and are, thus associated with the elementals; but only for one who, like
an adept, has first purified and perfected himself in mind and spirit, is
the association free from danger to himself or to others. Where not mastered,
they become masters, and exact absolute subservience, showing themselves pitiless
in the infliction of vengeance for disobedience to their behests.
36.
To this order and sphere belong the class called by the Hebrews cherubim.
They inhabit the “upper astral” immediately outside and below the celestial;
and are the “covering angels,” who encompass and guard the sanctuary of the
innermost of man’s system, the “holy of holies” of his own soul and spirit.
Passing, by their permission, within the sacred precincts, we enter the presence
of the celestials, of whom now we will speak.
PART
III
37.
BUT first, in order to comprehend the procession of Spirit, it should be explained
that Life may be represented by a triangle, at the apex of which is God. Of
this triangle the two sides are formed by two streams, the one flowing outwards,
the other upwards. The base may be taken to represent the material plane.
Thus, from God proceed the Gods, the Elohim, or divine powers, who are the
active agents of creation. From the Gods proceed all the hierarchy of heaven,
with the various orders from the highest to the lowest. And the lowest are
the orders of the genii, or guardian angels. These rest on the astral plane,
but do not enter it. The other side of the triangle is a continuation of the
base. And herein is the significance alike of the pyramid and of the obelisk.
The pyramid represents the triangle of Life, fourfold, and resting on the
earth. The obelisk, the summit only of which is pyramidal, represents a continuation
of the base, and is covered with sculptured forms of animal life. For, of
this base of the triangle of life, the continuation contains the lowest expressions
of life, the first expressions of incarnation, and of the stream which, unlike
the first, flows inwards and upwards. The side of the triangle represented
by this stream, culminates in the Christ, and empties itself into pure Spirit,
which is God. There are, consequently, spirits which by their natures never
have been and never can be incarnate; and there are others which reach their
perfection through incarnation. And the genii, dæmons, or guardian angels,
have nothing in common with the astrals, but are altogether different and
superior in kind. Standing, as they do, within the celestial sphere, their
function is to lift man from below to their own high region, which, properly,
is also his.
38.
The day and night of the Microcosm, man, are its projective and reflective
states. In the projective state we seek actively outwards; we aspire and will
forcibly; we hold active communion with the God without.
39.
In the reflective state we look inwards, we commune with our own heart; we
indraw and concentrate ourselves secretly and interiorly. During this condition
the “Moon” enlightens our hidden chamber with her torch, and shows us ourselves
in our interior recess.
40.
Who or what, then, is this Moon? It is part of ourselves, and revolves with
us. It is our celestial affinity, – of whose order it is said, “Their angels
do always behold the face of My Father.”
41.
Every human soul has a celestial affinity, which is part of his system and
a type of his spiritual nature. This angelic counterpart is the bond of union
between the man and God; and it is in virtue of his spiritual nature that
this angel is attached to him. Rudimentary creatures have no celestial affinity;
but from the moment that the soul quickens, the cord of union is established.
42.
The Genius of a man is this satellite. Man is a planet. God, – the God of
the man – is its sun. And the moon of this planet is Isis, its initiator,
angel or genius. The genius ministers to the man, and gives him light. But
the light he gives is from God, and not of himself. He is not a planet but
a moon; and his function is to light up the dark places of his planet.
43. It
is in virtue of man’s being a planet that he has a moon. If he were not fourfold,
as is the planet, he could not have one. Rudimentary men are not fourfold.
They have not the Spirit.
44.
Every human spirit-soul has attached to him a genius, variously called, by
Socrates, a dæmon; by Jesus an angel; by the apostles, a ministering spirit.
All these are but different names for the same thing.
45.
The genius is linked to his client by a bond of soul-substance. Persistent
ill-living weakens this bond; and after several incarnations, – even to the
mystical seventy times seven, – thus ill-spent, the genius is freed, and the
soul definitively lost.
46.
The genius knows well only the things relating to the person to whom he ministers.
About other things he has opinions only. The relation of the ministering spirit
to his client, is very well represented by that of the Catholic confessor
to his penitent. He is bound to keep towards every penitent profound secrecy
as regards the affairs of other souls. If this were not the case, there would
be no order, and no secret would be safe. The genius of each one knows about
another person only so much as that other’s genius chooses to reveal.
47.
The genius is the moon to the planet man, reflecting to him the sun, or God,
within him. For the divine Spirit which animates and eternizes the man, is
the God of the man, the sun that enlightens him. And this sun it is, and not
the outer and planetary man, that his genius, as satellite, reflects to him.
Thus attached to the planet, the genius is the complement of the man; and
his “sex” is always the converse of the planet’s. And because he reflects,
not the planet, but the sun, not the man (as do the astrals), but the God,
his light is always to be trusted.
48.
The genius never “controls” his client, never suffers the soul to step aside
from the body, to allow the entrance of another spirit. The person “controlled”
by an astral or elementary, on the contrary, speaks not in his own person,
but in that of the spirit operating. And the gestures, expression, intonation,
and pitch of voice, change with the obsessing spirit. A person prophesying
speaks always in the first person, and says, either, “Thus saith the Lord,”
or, “So says some one else,” never losing his own personality.
49.
The genii are not fighting spirits, and cannot prevent evils. They were allowed
to minister to Jesus only after his exhaustion in combat with the lower spirits.
Only they are attacked by these, who are worth attacking. No man ever got
to the promised land without going through the desert. The best weapon against
them is prayer. Prayer means the intense direction of the will and desire
towards the Highest, an unchanging intent to know nothing but the Highest.
So long as Moses held his hands up towards heaven, the Israelites prevailed;
when he dropped them, then the Amalekites.
50.
Now, there are two kinds of memory, the memory of the organism and the memory
of the soul. The first is possessed by all creatures. The second, which is
obtained by Recovery, be longs to the fully regenerate man. For the Divine
Spirit of a man is not one with his soul until regeneration, which is the
intimate union constituting what, mystically, is called the “marriage” of
the hierophant, an event in the life of the initiate, one of the stages of
which is set forth in the parable of the Marriage in Cana of Galilee.
51.
When this union takes place, there is no longer need of an initiator; for
then the office of the genius is ended. For, as the moon, or Isis, of the
planet man, the genius reflects to the Soul the Divine Spirit, with which
she is not yet fully united. In all things is order. Wherefore, as with the
planets, so with the Microcosm. They who are nearest Divinity, need no moon.
But so long as they have night, – so long, that is, as any part of the soul
remains unilluminated, and her memory or perception obscure, – so long, the
mirror of the angel continues to reflect the sun to the soul.
52.
For the memory of the soul is recovered by a threefold operation – that of
the soul herself, of the moon, and of the sun. The genius is not an informing
spirit. He can tell nothing to the soul. All that she receives is already
hers. But in the darkness of the night, it would remain undiscovered, but
for the torch of the angel who enlightens. “Yea,” says the angel genius to
his client, “I illuminate thee, but I instruct thee not. I warn thee, but
I fight not. I attend, but I lead not. Thy treasure is within thyself. My
light showeth where it lieth.” (Respecting the complete, final recovery of
memory, see Appendice. No.II.)
53.
When regeneration is fully attained, the divine Spirit alone instructs the
hierophant. “For the gates of his city shall never be shut; there shall be
no night there, the night shall be no more. And they shall not need the light
of the lamp, because the Lord God shall enlighten them.” The prophet is a
man illumined by his angel. The Christ is a man married to his Spirit. And
he returns out of pure love to redeem, needing no more to return to the flesh
for his own sake. Wherefore he baptizes with the holy Ghost, and with the
Divine Fire itself. He is always “in heaven.” And in that he ascends, it is
because the Spirit uplifts him, even the Spirit who descends upon him. “And
in that he descends, it is because he has first ascended beyond all spheres
into the highest Presence. For he that ascends, ascends because he also descended
first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also
who ascended above all the heavens, to fill all things.” Such an one returns,
therefore, from a higher world; he belongs no more to the domain of Earth.
But he comes from the sun itself, or from some nearer sphere to the sun than
ours; having passed from the lowest upwards.
54.
And what, it will be asked, of the genius himself? Is he sorry when his client
attains Perfection, and needs him no more?
“He
that hath the bride is the bridegroom. And he that standeth by rejoiceth greatly
because of the bridegroom’s voice.” The genius, therefore, returns to his
source, for his mission is ended, and his Sabbath is come. He is one with
the Twain.
55.
The genius, then, remains with his client so long as the man is fourfold.
A beast has no genius. A Christ has none. For first, all is latent light.
That is one. And this one becomes two, that is, body and astral body. And
these two become three; that is, a rational soul is born in the midst of the
astral body. This rational soul is the person; itself dual, in virtue of its
earthly and its divine parts. And from that moment this personality is an
individual existence, as a plant or as an animal. These three become four;
that is, human. And the fourth is the Nous, not yet one with the soul,
but overshadowing it, and transmitting light as it were through a glass, that
is, through the initiator. But when the four become three, – that is, when
the “marriage” takes place, and the soul and the spirit are indissolubly united,
– there is no longer need either of migration or of genius. For the Nous has
become one with the soul, and the cord of union is dissolved. And yet again,
the three become twain at the dissolution of the body; and again, the twain
become one, that is, the Christ-spirit-soul. The Divine Spirit and the genius,
therefore, are not to be regarded as diverse, nor yet as identical. The genius
is flame, and is celestial, that is, he is Spirit, and one in nature with
the Divine; for his light is the Divine Light. He is as a glass, as a cord,
as a bond between the soul and her divine part. He is the clear atmosphere
through which the divine ray passes, making a path for it in the astral medium.
56.
In the celestial plane, all things are personal. And therefore the bond between
the soul and spirit is a person. But when a man is what is mystically called
“born again,” he no longer needs the bond which unites him to his Divine Source.
The genius, or flame, therefore, returns to that Source; and this being itself
united to the soul, the genius also becomes one with the Twain. For the genius
is the Divine Light in the sense that he is but a divided tongue of it, having
no isolating vehicle. But the tincture of this flame differs according to
the celestial atmosphere of the particular soul. The Divine Light, indeed,
is white, being Seven in One. But the genius is the flame of a single colour
only. And this colour he takes from the soul, and by that ray transmits to
her the light of the Nous, her Divine Spouse. The angel-genii are of all the
tinctures of all the colours
57.
While in the celestial plane all things are persons, in the astral plane they
are reflects, or at most impersonal. The genius is a person because he is
a celestial, and of soul-spirit, or substantial nature. But the astrals are
of fluidic nature, having no personal part. In the celestial plane, spirit
and substance are one, dual in unity; and thus are all celestials constituted.
But in the astral plane they have no individual, and no divine part. They
are protoplasmic only, without either nucleus or nucleolus.
58.
The voice of the angel-genius is the voice of God; for God speaks through
him as a man through the horn of a trumpet. He may not be adored; for he is
the instrument of God, and man’s minister. But he must be obeyed; for he has
no voice of his own, but shows the will of the Spirit.
59.
They, therefore, who desire the Highest, will not seek to “controls;” but
will keep their temple – which is their body – for the Lord God of Hosts;
and will turn out of it the moneychangers and the dove-sellers and the dealers
in curious arts, yea, with a scourge of cords, if need be.
60.
Of the superior orders in the celestial hierarchy – of those, that is, who,
being Gods and Archangels, are to the Supreme Spirit as the seven rays of
the prism are to light, and the seven notes of the scale are to sound – the
knowledge appertains to the Greater Mysteries, and is reserved for those who
have fulfilled the conditions requisite for initiation therein. (See Appendices,
No. III. Part 1.) Of those conditions the first is the complete renunciation
of a diet of flesh, the reason being fourfold, – spiritual, moral, intellectual
and physical, – according to the fourfold constitution of man. This is imperative.
Man cannot receive, the Gods will not impart the mysteries of the Kingdom
of Heaven on other terms. The conditions are God’s; the will is with man.
LECTURE
THE FOURTH.
THE
ATONEMENT.
PART
I
1. WE have
chosen to speak thus early in our series of the doctrine of the Atonement, because
it is that around which all religious teaching, ancient and modern, pure and
corrupt, is alike grouped, and in which it all centres. Constituting thus the
pivot and point of radiation of Religion itself, this doctrine, expounded in
its pure and ancient sense, is at once the glory of the saint and the hope of
the fallen; expounded in its modern and corrupt sense, it is to the latter a
license, and to the former a shame and perplexity.
2. As
will by-and-by be fully shown, sacred Mysteries are, like all things cosmic,
fourfold, in that they contain, like the whorls of a flower, or the elements
of an organic cell, four mutually related and yet distinct Modes and Ideas.
And these four are – from without inwards – the Physical, the Intellectual,
the Ethical, and the Spiritual. We propose in this lecture to explain the doctrine
of the Atonement from each of these points of view, in order to do which with
clearness and without fear of misapprehension, we shall first expose the common
errors in regard to it.
3. The
popular and corrupt view of the doctrine of the Atonement presents us with one
of the most salient examples extant of that materialism in things religious,
which constitutes Idolatry. To commit the sin of Idolatry is to materialize
Spiritual Truth, by concealing under gross images the real substantial Ideas
implied, and setting up the images for worship in place of the celestial verities.
Now, the current doctrine of Christ’s Atonement starts with the irrational,
and therefore false, hypothesis, that between physical blood and moral guilt
there is a direct and congruous relation, in virtue of which the opening of
veins and laceration of muscular tissue constitute a medium of exchange by which
may be ransomed an indefinite number of otherwise forfeited souls.
4. In
opposition to this and other kindred conceptions, it is necessary to insist
on the principle which, being, so to speak, the cornerstone and center of gravitation
of Religion, was in our Introductory Lecture prominently placed before the reader,
– the principle that sacred Mysteries relate only to the Soul, and have no concern
with phenomena or any physical appearances or transactions. The keynote of Religion
is sounded in the words, “My kingdom is not of this world.” All
her mysteries, all her oracles, are conceived in this spirit, and similarly
are all sacred scriptures to be interpreted. For anything in Religion to be
true and strong, it must be true and strong for the Soul. The Soul is the true
and only person concerned; and any relation which Religion may have to the body
or phenomena man, is indirect, and by, correspondence only. It is for the Soul
that the Divine Word is written; and it is her nature, her history, her functions,
her conflicts, her redemption, which are ever the theme of sacred narrative,
prophecy, and doctrine.
5. But
a priesthood fallen from the apprehension of spiritual things, and only competent,
therefore, to discern the things of sense – a priesthood become, in a word,
idolatrous, – is necessarily incapable of attaining to the level of the original
framers of the Mysteries appertaining to the Soul; and therefore it is that
invariably in the hands of, such priesthood, the Soul has been ignored in favour
of the body, and a signification grossly materialistic substituted for that
which had been addressed only to the spiritual man.
6. To
the thoughtful mind there is nothing more perplexing than the doctrine and practice
of bloody sacrifice, commonly believed to be inculcated in that portion of the
Hebrew scriptures which is known as the Pentateuch. And the perplexity is increased
by a comparison of this with the prophetical books in which occur such utterances
as the following:
“Sacrifice
and oblation Thou dost not desire: but Thou hast opened ears for me.
“Burnt-offering
and sin-offering Thou wouldest not; but that I should come to do Thy Will.
“The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a lowly and contrite heart, O God.”
And,
yet more emphatically and indignantly, the prophet Isaias:
“Hear
the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, ye
people of Gomorrah.
“To what
purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims? saith the Lord. I desire
not holocausts of rams and fatlings, the blood of calves, and sheep, and goats.
“When
you come to appear before Me, who hath required these things at your hands?
“Offer
sacrifice no more, your new moons and festivals I cannot abide; your assemblies
are wicked.
“My soul
hateth your solemnities, when you stretch forth your hands I turn away Mine
eyes, for your hands are full of blood.”
And again
Jeremias;
“I, the
Lord, spake not to your fathers, and I commanded them not in the day that I
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt-offerings
and sacrifices.
“But
this one thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken to My voice, and walk in My
way.
“But
they have set their abominations in the house that is called by My Name, to
pollute it.”
7. In
the presence of these truly Divine words, what must be our verdict upon certain
contrary declarations and prescriptions in the Pentateuch? We must say, as indeed
all sound criticism and inference based on careful examination of internal evidence
justify us in saying, that the greater part of the Five Books, and especially
the chapters prescriptive of ritual and oblations, are of far later date than
that usually assigned to them, and are not in any sense the work of the inspired
Moses, or of his initiates and immediate successors, but of a corrupted priesthood,
in the age of the kings, – a priesthood greedy of gifts, tithes, and perquisites;
ever replacing the spirit by the letter, and the idea by the symbol; ignorant
of the nature of Man, and therefore ever trampling under foot his true and better
self, the Soul, whose type is Woman; “taking away the key of knowledge, entering
not themselves into the Kingdom, and hindering those who would have entered.”
But for these bloody and idolatrous sacrifices, there would have been neither
occupation nor maintenance for the numerous ecclesiastics who subsisted by means
of them; and but for the false and corrupt conception of a God whose just anger
was capable of being appeased by slaughter, – and this of the innocent, – and
whose favour could be bought by material gifts, the whole colossal scheme of
ceremonial rites and incantations which gave the priesthood power and dominion
over the people, would never have found place in a system originally addressed
wholly to the needs of the Soul. (See Appendices, No. I., Part II.)
Thus,
even with the Old Testament alone as evidence, our verdict must be given to
the Prophet as against the Priest, seeing that while the former, as the true
Man of God directed his appeal to the soul, the latter as the minister of sense,
cared only to exalt his own Order, no matter at what cost to the principles
of religion.
8. Turning
to the New Testament, a significant fact confronts us. It is that Jesus appears
never to have sanctioned by his presence any of the Temple services; an abstention
which cannot but be regarded as a tacit protest against the sacrificial rites
then in vogue. Nor in all the utterances ascribed to him is there any reference
to these rites even in connection with the common belief that they were designed
as types of the death supposed to be ordained for the Messiah in his character
of Redeemer and Victim.
9. And
truly, it is inconceivable that if the special object and end of his incarnation
had been, as is currently held, to be immolated on the Cross, a spotless sin-offering
for men, in propitiation of the wrath of God against the guilty, no word implying
a doctrine so essential and tremendous should have been uttered by the Divine
Victim himself, or that it should have been left to the commentators of a century
later notably to men who were never the immediate disciples of Jesus, – Paul
and Apollos, – to formulate and expound it. Nor can we regard as other than
fatuous the conduct of a priesthood, which, while throwing upon the Cross of
Calvary the burdens of the salvation of the whole world in all ages, and teaching
mankind that to the innocent sacrifice thereon offered is alone due their rescue
from eternal damnation, yet sees fit to execrate and brand with infamy the very
men who procured the consummation of that sacrifice, – and to whom, therefore,
next to Jesus himself, the world is indebted for ransom from hell, and for the
opening of the gates of heaven, – Caiaphas Pontius Pilate, and – most important
of all – Judas the traitor!
10. The
truth is, that far from depicting Priest and Prophet as co-operating for the
welfare of man, the sacred scriptures exhibit them in constant conflict; – the
Priest, as the minister of Sense, perpetually undoing the work performed by
the Prophet as the minister of the Intuition. And so it is seen that when, at
length, the greatest of all the prophetical race appears, the priesthood does
not fail to compass his death also, and subsequently to exalt the crime into
a sacrifice, and that of such a nature as to render it the apotheosis of the
whole sacerdotal system, and to advance the sacerdotal order to the position
which, throughout Christendom, it has ever since maintained.
PART
II
11. AT
this point another aspect of our subject claims attention. It relates, not to
any particular sacrifice, but to the whole question of the origin and nature
of bloody sacrifices generally. And it involves reference to influences and
motives yet darker and more potent than any mere human desire of gain or power,
in exposing which, it will be necessary to speak of occult subjects, unfamiliar,
save to those, who, being acquainted with the science of magic, understand at
least something of the nature and conditions of “spiritual” apparitions.
12. The
effusion of physical blood has, in all ages, been a means whereby magicians
have evoked astral phantoms or phantasmagoric reflects in the magnetic light.
These efflorescences of the lower atmosphere immediately related to the body,
have a direct affinity for the essential element, called by the old physiologists,
the “vital spirits,” of the blood, and are enabled by means of its effusion
to manifest themselves materially. Thus, as one recent writer says, “Blood begets
phantoms, and its emanations furnish certain spirits with the materials requisite
to fashion their temporary appearances.” (Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled.)
Another speaks of blood as “the first incarnation of the universal fluid, materialized
vital light; the arcanum of physical life.” (Eliphas Levi, La Haute
Magie.) The famous Paracelsus also asserts that by the fumes of blood one
is able to call forth any spirit desired, for by its emanations the spirit can
build for itself a visible body. This, he says, is Sorcery, a term always of
ill-repute. The hierophants of Baal made incisions all over their bodies, in
order to produce visible objective phantoms. There are sects in the East, especially
in Persia, whose devotees celebrate religious orgies in which, whirling frantically
round in a ring, they wound themselves and each other with knives, until their
garments and the ground are soaked with blood. Before the end of the orgy, every
man has evoked a spectral companion which whirls round with him, and which may
sometimes be distinguished from the devotee by having hair on its head, the
devotees being closely shorn. The Yakuts of Eastern Siberia still maintain the
practice of the once famed witches of Thessaly, offering nocturnal sacrifices
and evoking evil spectres to work mischief for them. Without the fumes of blood
these beings could not become visible; and were they deprived of it, they would,
the Yakuts believe, suck it, from the veins of the living. It is further held
by these people that good spirits do not thus manifest themselves to view, but
merely make their presence felt, and require no preparatory ceremonial. The
Yezidis, inhabiting Armenia, and Syria, hold intercourse with certain
aerial spirits which they call Jakshas, – probably mere astral
phantoms, – and evoke them by means of whirling dances, accompanied, as in the
case of the sect already mentioned, by self-inflicted wounds. Among the manifestations
thus obtained is the apparition of enormous globes of fire, which gradually
assume grotesque and uncouth animal forms. (Lady Hester Stanhope.)
13. Reverting
to earlier times, we find in the writings of Epiphanius, a passage concerning
the death of Zacharias, which bears directly on the Levitical practice in regard
to this subject. He says that Zacharias, having seen a vision in the Temple,
and being, through surprise, about to disclose it, was suddenly and mysteriously
deprived of the power of speech. He had seen at the time of offering incense
after the evening sacrifice, a figure in the form of an ass, standing by the
altar. Going out to the people, he exclaimed, – “Woe unto you! who do ye
worship?” and immediately “he who had appeared to him in the Temple struck
him with dumbness.” Afterwards, however, he recovered his speech and related
the vision, in consequence of which indiscretion the priests slew him. It was
asserted by the Gnostics that the use of the little bells attached to the garments
of the high-priest was enjoined by the Jewish ordinance-makers with special
reference to these apparitions, in order that on his entry into the sanctuary
at the time of sacrifice, the goblins might have warning of his approach in
time to avoid being caught in their natural hideous shapes.
14. An
experience of the writer’s during the summer of the present year, strikingly
illustrates the foregoing citations. Conducted in magnetic sleep by her guardian
Genius into a large hall of temple-like structure, she beheld a number of persons
grouped in adoration around four altars upon which were laid as many slaughtered
bullocks. And above the altars, in the fume of the spirits of the blood arising
from the slain beasts, were misty colossal figures, half-formed only, from the
waist upwards, and resembling the Gods. One of them in particular attracted
the writer’s attention. It was the head and bust of a woman of enormous proportions,
and wearing the insignia of Diana. And the Genius said: “These are the Astral
Spirits, and thus will do until the end of the world.”
Such
were the spurious phantom-images, which, with emaciated forms and pallid countenances,
presented themselves to the Emperor Julian, and, claiming to be the veritable
Immortals, commanded him to renew the sacrifices, for the fumes of which, since
the establishment of Christianity, they had been pining. And he, able only to
see, but not to discern, spirits, took these spectres – as so many still do
– for what they pretended to be, and, seeking to fulfil their behests, earned
for himself the title of “Apostate.” To the impulsion of spirits of this order
are to be ascribed those horrible human sacrifices of which in ancient times
Canaan was the chief scene and Molech the chief recipient. In these sacrifices
the Jews themselves largely indulged, the crowning example being that of which
the high priest Caiaphas was the prompter.
15. But
idolatry and bloody sacrifice have ever been held in abhorrence by the true
prophet and the true redeemer. The aspect under which these things present themselves
to the eyes of such men is epitomized in the divine and beautiful rebuke addressed
by Gautama Buddha to the priests of his day, for an exquisite rendering of which
the reader is referred to Mr. Edwin Arnold’s recent poem, “The Light of Asia.”
(p.129ss. The appearance of this remarkable book constitutes a sign of
the times of no small importance.) Buddha, it will be observed,
classed with the practice of bloody sacrifice the habit of flesh-eating, and
included both in his unsparing denunciation. The reason is not far to seek.
Man, as the Microcosm, resembles in all things the Macrocosm, and like the latter,
therefore, he comprises within his own system an astral plane or circulus. In
eating flesh, and thereby ingesting the blood principle, – flesh and
blood being inseparable, – he sacrifices to the astral emanations of his
own magnetic atmosphere, and so doing, ministers to the terrene and corruptible.
This is to “eat of things offered to idols,” for blood is the food of the astral
eidola, and the eater of blood is infested by them.
16. It
should be observed that this astral medium and its emanations are incapable
of originating ideas, for these are positive entities and come from the
celestial or spiritual “heaven.” The astral, being reflective merely, and unsubstantial,
receives divine ideas but to reverse and travesty them. Thus, the doctrine of
sacrifice and of atonement are true doctrines, and celestial origin; but the
sacrifice must be of the lower human self to the higher divine self, and of
personal extraneous affections to the love of God and of principles. But the
astral mind, reversing the truth, converts these aspirations into the sacrifice
of the higher to the lower nature, of the soul to the body, and of others to
oneself. Again, the truth that man is saved by the perpetual sacrifice of God’s
own Life and Spirit to be his life and spirit, finds a like distortion in the
notion that man is saved by taking the life of a God and appropriating his merits.
The true meaning of the word “atonement” is reconciliation, rather than
“propitiation.” For “Heaven” cannot be “propitiated” save by at-one-ment.
17. As,
moreover, the astral and the physical planes are intimately united, and both
are ephemeral and evanescent, of Time and of Matter, that which feeds and ministers
to the astral stimulates the physical, to its own detriment and that of the
inner and permanent Twain, – soul and spirit, – the true man and his Divine
Particle, – since these, being celestial, have neither part nor communion with
the merely phenomenal and phantasmal. For the astral emanations resemble clouds
which occupy the earthy atmosphere between us and heaven, and which, filmy and
incorporeal though they be, are nevertheless material, and are born of the exhalations
of the earth. To perpetuate and do sacrifice to these phantoms, is to thicken
the atmosphere, to obscure the sky, to gather fog and darkness and tempest about
us, as did the old storm-witches of the North.
Such
is that worship which is spoken of as the worship of the Serpent of the Dust;
and thus does he who ingests blood; for he makes thereby oblation to the infernal
gods of his own system, as does the sacrificing priest to the powers of the
same sphere of the Macrocosm.
18. And
this occult reason for abstaining from the ingestion of flesh, is that which
in all ages and under all creeds has ever powerfully and universally influenced
the Recluse, the Saint, and the Adept in Religion. As is well known, the use
of flesh was in former time, invariably abjured by the hermit-fathers, by the
ascetics of both East and West, and in short by all religious persons, male
and female, who, aspiring after complete detachment from the things of sense,
sought interior vision and intimate union with the Divine; and it is now similarly
abjured by the higher devotional orders of the Catholic Church and of Oriental
adepts.
Let us
say boldly, and without fear of contradiction from those who really know,
that the Interior Life and the clear Heaven are not attainable by men who are
partakers of blood; – men whose mental atmosphere is thick with the fumes of
daily sacrifices to idols. For so long as these shadows infest the Man, obscuring
the expanse of the higher and divine Ether beyond, he remains unable to detach
himself from the love for Matter and from the attraction of Sense, and can at
best but dimly discern the Light of the Spiritual Sun.
19. Abstinence
from bloody oblations on all planes, is therefore the gate of the Perfect Way,
the test of illumination, the touchstone and criterion of sincere desire for
the fullness of Beatific Vision.
The Holy
Grail, the New Wine of God’s Kingdom on which all souls must drink if they would
live forever and in whose cleansing tide their garments must be made white,
is, most assuredly not that plasmic humour of the physical body, common to all
grades of material life, which is known to us under the name of blood. But,
as this physical humour is the life of the phenomenal body, so is the blood
of Christ the Life of the Soul, and it is in this interior sense, which
is alone related to the Soul, that the word is used by those who framed the
expression of the Mysteries.
PART
III
20. THIS
brings us to speak of what the Atonement is, and of the sense in which
we are to understand it, in its fourfold interpretation.
First,
let us remind the reader, the Cross and the Crucified are symbols which come
down to us from pre-historic ages, and are to be found depicted on the ruined
monuments, temples, and sarcophagi of all nations, – Coptic, Ethiopian, Hindu,
Mexican, Tartar. In the rites of all these peoples, and especially in the ceremonials
of initiation field in the Lodges of their Mysteries, the Cross had a prominent
place. It was traced on the forehead of the neophyte with water or oil, as now
in Catholic Baptism and Confirmation; it was broidered on the sacred vestments,
and carried in the hand of the officiating hierophant, as may be seen in all
the Egyptian religious tablets. And this symbolism has been adopted by and incorporated
into the Christian theosophy, not, however, through a tradition merely imitative,
but because the Crucifixion is an essential element in the career of the Christ.
For, as says the Master, expounding the secret of Messiahship, “Ought not the
Christ to suffer these things, and so to enter into his glory?” Yes, for this
Cross of Christ – the spiritual Phoebus, – is made by the sun’s equinoctial
passage across the line of the Ecliptic, – a passage which points on the one
hand to the descent into Hades; and on the other to the ascent into the kingdom
of Zeus the Father. It is the Tree of Life; the Mystery of the Dual Nature,
male and female; the Symbol of. Humanity perfected, and of the Apotheosis of
Suffering. It is traced by “our Lord the Sun” on the plane of the heavens; it
is represented by the magnetic and diamagnetic forces of the earth; it is seen
in the ice-crystal and in the snow-flake; the human form itself is modeled upon
its pattern; and all nature bears throughout her manifold spheres the impress
of this sign, at once the prophecy and the instrument of her redemption.
21. Fourfold
in meaning, having four points, and making four angles, dividing the circle
into four equal parts, the cross portrays the perfect union, balance, equality,
and at-one-ment on all four planes, and in all four worlds – phenomenal, intellectual,
psychic, and celestial – of the Man and the Woman, the Spirit and the Bride.
It is supremely, transcendently, and excellently, the symbol of the Divine Marriage;
that is, the Sign of the Son of Man IN HEAVEN. For the Divine
Marriage is consummated only when the Regenerate Man enters the Kingdom of the
Celestial, which is within. When the Without is as the Within, and the Twain
are as One in Christ Jesus.
22. Being
thus the key of all the worlds, from the outer to the inner, the Cross presents,
as it were, four wards or significations; and according to these, the mystery
of the Crucifixion bears relation:
First,
to the natural and actual sense, and typifies the Crucifixion of the Man of
God by the world.
Secondly,
to the intellectual and philosophical sense; and typifies the Crucifixion in
man of the lower nature.
Thirdly,
to the personal and sacrificial sense, and symbolizes the Passion and Oblation
of the Redeemer.
Fourthly,
to the celestial and creative sense, and represents the Oblation of God for
the Universe.
23. First
in order, from without inwards, the Crucifixion of the Man of God implies that
persistent attitude of scorn, distrust, and menace with which the Ideal and
Substantial is always met by the worldly and superficial, and to the malignant
expression of which ill-will the Idealist is always exposed. We have noted that
Isaias, rebuking the materialists for their impure and cruel rites, addresses
them as “rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah.” So likewise, the Seer of the
Apocalypse speaks of the two divine Witnesses as slain “in the streets of the
great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also the Lord
was crucified.” This city, then, is the world, the materializing, the idolatrous,
the blind, the sensual, the unreal; the house of bondage, out of which the sons
of God are called. And the world being all these, is cruel as hell, and will
always crucify the Christ and the Christ-Idea. For the world, which walks in
a vain shadow, can have no part in the kingdom of heaven; the man who seeks
the Within and the Beyond is to it a dotard, a fool, an impostor, a blasphemer,
or a madman, and according to the sense of its verdict, it ridicules, maligns,
despoils, punishes, or sequesters him. And thus every great and merciful deed,
every noble life, every grand and holy name, is stamped with the hall-mark of
the Cross.
Scorn
and contumely and the cries of an angry crowd surround that altar on which the
Son of God makes oblation of himself; and cross after cross strews the long
Via Dolorosa of the narrow path that leadeth unto Life.
For indeed
the world is blind, and every redemption must be purchased by blood.
24. Yes,
by blood and tears and suffering, and that not of the body only; for the Son
of God, to attain that Sonship, must have first crucified in himself the old
Adam of the earth. This is the second meaning of the Cross; it sets forth that
interior process of pain which precedes regeneration; that combat with and victory
over the tempter, through which all the Christs alike have passed; the throes
of travail which usher in the New-Born. And the crucified, regenerate Man, having
made At-on-ment throughout his own fourfold nature, and with the Father through
Christ, bears about in himself the “marks” of the Lord, – the five wounds of
the five senses overcome, the “stigmata” of the saints. This crucifixion is
the death of the body; the rending of the veil of the flesh; the uniting of
the human will with the Divine Will; or, as it is sometimes called, the Reconciliation
– which is but another word for the At-one-ment. It is the consummation of the
prayer, “Let Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven;” let Thy will, O
Father, be accomplished throughout the terrene and astral, even as it is in
the inmost adytum, that in all the microcosmic system no other will be found
than the Divine.
25. This,
also, is the secret of transmutation, – the changing of the water into wine,
of Matter into Spirit, of man into God. For this blood of Christ and of the
Covenant – this wine within the holy Chalice, of which all must drink who nevermore
would thirst – is the Divine Life, the vital, immortal principle, having
neither beginning nor end, the perfect, pure, and incorruptible Spirit, cleansing
and making white the vesture of the soul as no earthly purge can whiten; the
gift of God through Christ, and the heritage of the elect. To live the Divine
Life is to be partaker in the blood of Christ and to drink of Christ’s cup.
It is to know the love of Christ which “passeth understanding,” the love which
is Life, or God, and whose characteristic symbol is the blood-red ray of the
solar prism. By this: mystical blood we are saved, – this blood, which is no
other than the secret of the Christs, whereby man is transmuted from the material
to the spiritual plane, the secret of inward purification by means of Love.
For this “blood,” which, throughout the sacred writings is spoken of as the
essential principle of the “Life,” is the spiritual Blood of the spiritual Life,
– Life in its highest, intensest, and most excellent sense, – not the mere physical
life understood by materialists, – but the very substantial Being, the inward
Deity in man. And it is by means of this Blood of Christ only – that is by means
of Divine Love only – that we can “come to the Father,” and inherit the
kingdom of heaven. For, when it is said that “the blood of Christ cleanseth
from all sin,” it is signified that sin is impossible to him who is perfect
in Love.
26. But
the Christ is not only the type of the sinless Man, the hierarch of the mysteries;
he is also the Redeemer. Now, therefore, we come to speak of the Vicarious and
Redemptive office of the Divine Man, of his Passion, Sacrifice, and Oblation
for others.
There
is a true and there is a false rendening of this Mystery of Redemption which
is the central mystery of the Divine Life, the gold of the target, the heart
of Jesus, the bond of all grace, the very core and focus and crown of Love.
This
third aspect of the Cross is in itself two-fold, because Wisdom and Love, though
one in essence are twain in application, since Love cannot give without receiving,
nor receive without giving. We have, therefore, in this double mystery both
the oblation and lifting-up of the Christ in Man, and the Passion and
Sacrifice for others of the Man in whom Christ is manifest. For even as Christ
is one in us are we one with Christ, because as Christ loves and
gives himself for us, we also, who are in Christ, give ourselves for others.
27. But
the notion that man requires, and can be redeemed only by a personal Saviour
in the flesh, extraneous to himself, is an idolatrous travesty of the truth.
For that whereby a man is “saved” is his own re-birth and At-one-ment in a sense
transcending the phenomenal. And this process is altogether interior to the
man, and incapable of being performed from without or by another; a process
requiring to be enacted anew in each individual, and impossible of fulfillment
by proxy in the person of another. True, the new spiritual Man thus born of
Water and the Spirit, or of the Pure Heart and the Divine Life; the Man making
oblation on the cross, overcoming Death and ascending to Heaven is named Christ-Jesus,
the Only Begotten, the Virgin-born, coming forth from God to seek and to save
the lost; but this is no other than the description of the man himself after
transmutation into the Divine Image. It is the picture of the regenerate man,
made “alive in Christ,” and “like unto him.” For the Christos or Anointed, the
Chrestos or Best, are but titles signifying Man Perfect; and the name of Jesus,
at which every knee must bow, is the ancient and ever Divine Name of all the
Sons of God – Iesous or Yesha, he who shall save, and Issa the Illuminated,
or Initiate of Isis. For this name Isis, originally Ish-Ish, was Egyptian for
Light-Light; that is, light doubled, the known and the knowing made one, and
reflecting each other. It is the expression of the apostolic utterance, “Face
to face, knowing as we are known, transformed into the image of His glory.”
Similarly our affirmatives is and yes; for in both Issue and lesous
“all the promises of God are Yes,” because God is the supreme Affirmative and
Positive of the universe, enlightening every soul with truth and life and power.
God is the Sun of the soul, whereof the physical sun is the hieroglyph, as the
physical man is of the true eternal spiritual Man.
28. The
light is positive, absolute, the sign of Being and of the everlasting “Yes;”
and “the children of the Light” are they who have the gnosis and eternal
Life thereby. But the negation of God is “Nay,” the Night, the Destroyer and
the devil. The name therefore of Antichrist is Denial, or Unbelief, the spirit
of Materialism and of Death. And the children of darkness are they who have
quenched in themselves the divine Love, and “know not whither they go, because
darkness hath blinded their eyes.” Hence the Serpent of the Dust is spoken of
as “the Father of Lies,” that is, of negation; for the word “lie” means
nothing else than “denial.” “No denial is of the truth,” says St. John, “for
this is Antichrist, even he that denieth. Every spirit which annulleth Jesus
(or the divine Yes) is not of God. By this we know the spirit of Truth, and
the spirit of Error.”
29. Christ
Jesus, then, is no other than the hidden and true man of the Spirit, the Perfect
Humanity, the Express Image of the Divine Glory. And it is possible to man,
by the renunciation – which mystically is the crucifixion – of his outer and
lower self, to rise wholly into his inner and higher self, and, becoming suffused
or anointed of the Spirit, to “put on Christ,” propitiate God, and redeem the
earthly and material.
30. And
that which they who, in the outer manifestation, are emphatically called Christs
– whether of Palestine, of India, of Egypt or of Persia, – have done for man,
is but to teach him what man is able to be in himself by bearing, each
for himself, that Cross of renunciation which they have borne. And inasmuch
as these have ministered to the salvation of the world thereby, they are truly
said to be saviors of souls, whose doctrine and love and example have redeemed
men from death and made them heirs of eternal life. The Wisdom they attained,
they kept not secret, but freely gave as they had freely received. And that
which thus they gave was their own life, and they gave it knowing that the children
of darkness would turn on them and rend them because of the gift. But, with
the Christs, Wisdom and Love are one, and the testament of Life is written in
the blood of the testator. Herein is the difference between the Christ and the
mere adept in knowledge. The Christ gives and dies in giving, because Love constrains
him and no fear withholds; the adept is prudent, and keeps his treasure for
himself alone. And as the At-on-ment accomplished in and by the Christs, is
the result of the unreserved adoption of the Divine Life, and of the unreserved
giving of the Love mystically called the Blood of Christ, those who adopt that
Life according to their teaching, and who aspire to be one with God, are truly
said to be saved by the Precious Blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. For the Lamb of God is the spiritual Sun in Aries, the spring-tide
glory of ascending Light, the symbol of the Pure Heart and the Righteous Life,
by which humanity is redeemed. And this Lamb is without spot, white as snow,
because white is the sign of Affirmation and of the “Yes;” as black is of Negation
and of the devil. It is Iesous Chrestos, the Perfect Yes of God
who is symbolized by this white Lamb, and who, like his sign in heaven, was
lifted up on the Cross of Manifestation from the foundation of the world.
31. In
the holy Mysteries, dealing with the process of that second and new creation,
which – constituting a return from Matter to Spirit – is mystically called Redemption,
– every term employed refers to some process or thing subsisting or occurring
within the individual himself. For, as man is a Microcosm, and comprises within
all that is without, the processes of Creation by Evolution, and of Redemption
by Involution, occur in the Man as in the Universe, and thereby in the Personal
as in the General, in the One as in the Many. With the current orthodox symbolism
of man’s spiritual history, the Initiate, or true Spiritualist, has no quarrel.
That from which he seeks to be saved is truly the Devil, who through the sin
of the Adam has power over him; that whereby he is saved is the precious blood
of the Christ, the Only-begotten, whose mother is the immaculate ever-virgin
Maria. And that to which, by means of this divine oblation, he attains is the
Kingdom of Heaven and eternal Life. But, with the current orthodox interpretation
of these terms, the Initiate is altogether at variance. For he knows that all
these processes and names refer to Ideas, which are actual and positive, not
to physical transcripts, which are reflective and relative only. He knows that
it is within his own microcosmic system he must look for the true Adam, for
the real Tempter, and for the whole process of the Fall, the Exile, the Incarnation,
the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the coming
of the Holy Spirit. And any mode of interpretation which implies other than
this, is not celestial but terrene, and due to that intrusion of earthy elements
into things divine, that conversion of the inner into the outer, that “Fixing
of the Volatile” or materialization of the Spiritual, which constitutes idolatry.
32. For,
such of us as know and live the inner life, are saved, not by any Cross on Calvary
eighteen hundred years ago, not by any physical blood-shedding, not by any vicarious
passion of tears and scourge and spear; but by the Christ-Jesus, the God with
us, the Immanuel of the heart, born, working mighty works, and offering oblation
in our own lives, redeeming us from the world, and making us sons of God and
heirs of everlasting life.
33. But,
if we are thus saved by the love of Christ, it is by love also that we manifest
Christ to others. If we have received freely, we also give freely, shining in
the midst of night, that is, in the darkness of the world. For so long as this
darkness prevails over the earth, Love hangs on his cross; because the darkness
is the working of a will at variance with the Divine Will, doing continual violence
to the Law of Love.
34. The
wrongs of others wound the Son of God, and the stripes of others fall on his
flesh.
He is smitten with the pains
of all creatures, and his heart is pierced with their wounds.
There is no offence done and
he suffers not, nor any wrong and he is not hurt thereby.
For his heart is in the breast
of every creature, and his blood in the veins of all flesh.
For to know perfectly is to
love perfectly, and so to love is to be partaker in the pain of the beloved.
And inasmuch as a man loves
and succors and saves even the least of God’s creatures, he ministers unto the
Lord.
Christ is the perfect Lover,
bearing the sorrows of all the poor and oppressed.
And the sin and injustice and
ignorance of the World are the nails in his hands, and in his feet.
O Passion of Love, that givest
thyself freely, even unto death!
For no man can do Love’s perfect
work unless Love thrust him through and through.
But, if he love perfectly,
he shall be able to redeem; for strong Love is a Net which shall draw all souls
unto him.
Because unto Love is given
all power, both in heaven and on earth;
Seeing that the will of him
who loves perfectly is one with the Will of God:
And unto God and Love, all
things are possible.
35. We
come now to the last and innermost of the fourfold Mysteries of the Cross; the
Oblation of God in and for the Macrocosmic Universe.
The fundamental
truth embodied in this aspect of the holy symbol, is the doctrine of Pantheism;
God, and God only, in and through All. The celestial Olympus – Mount of Oracles
– is ever creating; God never ceases giving of the Divine Self alike for Creation
and for Redemption.
God is in
all things, whether personal or impersonal, and in God they live and move and
have being. And that stage of purification through which the Cosmos is now passing,
is God’s Crucifixion; the process of Transmutation and Redemption of Spirit
from Matter, of Being from Existence, of Substance from Phenomenon, which is
to culminate in the final At-one-nient of the ultimate Sabbath of Rest awaiting
God’s redeemed universe at the end of the Kalpa. In the Man Crucified, we have,
therefore, the type and symbol of the continual Crucifixion of God manifest
in the flesh, God suffering in the creature, the Invisible made Visible, the
Volatile Fixed, the Divine Incarnate, which manifestation, suffering, and crucifixion
are the causes of purification and therefore of Redemption. Thus, in the spiritual
Sense, the six days of creation are always Passion Week, in that they represent
the process of painful experience, travail, and passing through, whereby the
Spirit accomplishes the redemption of the Body; or the return of Matter into
Substance. Hence in the sacred writings, God, in the person of Divine Humanity,
is represented as showing the Five Mystical Wounds of the Passion to the Angels,
and saying: – “These are the Wounds of My Crucifixion, wherewith I am wounded
in the House of My Friends.” For, so long as pain and sorrow and sin endure,
God is wounded continually in the persons of all creatures, small and great;
and the temple of their body is the House wherein the Divine Guest suffers.
36. For
the Bread which is broken and divided for the children of the Kingdom is the
Divine Substance, which with the Wine of the Spirit, constitute the holy Sacrament
of the Eucharist, the Communion of the Divine and the Terrene, the Oblation
of Deity in Creation.
37. May
this holy Body and Blood, Substance and Spirit, Divine Mother and Father, inseparable
Duality in Unity, given for all creatures, broken and shed, and making oblation
for the world, be everywhere known, adored, and venerated. May
we, by means of that Blood, which is the Love of God and the Spirit of Life,
be redeemed, indrawn, and transmuted into that Body which is Pure Substance,
immaculate and ever virgin, express Image of the Person of God! That we hunger
no more, neither thirst any more; and that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
height, nor depth, nor any creature, be able to separate us from the Love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus.
That
being made one through the At-one-ment of Christ, who only hath Immortality
and inhabiteth Light inaccessible;
We also
beholding the glory of God with open face; may be transformed into the same
Image, from glory to glory by the power of the Spirit. (See Appendices, Nos.
V. VIL)
LECTURE
THE FIFTH.
THE
NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF THE EGO.
PART
I
01. EVOLUTION
as revealed by the facts of physical science is inexplicable on the materialistic
hypothesis, as also are the facts of occult experience and science. This is
because, by its failure to recognize consciousness as subsisting prior to organism,
and inherent in substance, that hypothesis ignores the condition essential to
evolution.
02. But
for evolution something more even than consciousness is requisite, – namely,
memory. For memory is the condition of segregation; the cause and consequence
of individualization. Hence every molecule, both in its individual and its collective
capacity, is capable of memory; for every experience leaves, in its degree,
its impression or scar on the substance of the molecule to be transmitted to
its descendants. This memory of the most striking effects of past experience,
is the differentiating cause which, accumulated over countless generations,
leads up from the amæba to man. Were there no such memory, instead of
progress, or evolution, there would be a circle returning into and repeating
itself: whereas, the modifying effects of accumulated experience convert what
would otherwise be a circle into a spiral, whose eccentricity – though imperceptible
at the outset – becomes greater and more complex at every step. [
See Unconscious Memory, ch. Xiii., by S. Butler. 1880.]
03. Consciousness
being inherent in substance, every molecule in the universe is able to feel
and to obey after its kind, – the inorganic as well as the organic, between
which there is no absolute distinction, as ordinarily supposed. For even the
stone has a moral platform, embracing a respect for and obedience to the laws
of gravitation and chemical affinity. Wherever there are vibration and motion,
there are life and memory; and there are vibration and motion at all times and
in all things. Herein may be seen the cause of the failure of the attempt to
divide the ego from the non-ego. Strictly speaking, there is one thing and one
action; for unconsciousness is no more a positive thing, than darkness. It is
the privation, more or less complete, of consciousness, as obscurity is of light.
04. We
come to speak of the substantial ego, the soul or Psyche, the superior
human reason, the nucleus of the human system. [ Using the term
Psyche in the higher sense usually attached to it by the post-Homeric Greeks,
and not that of the animal life as by Paul.] In every living entity there
are four inherent powers. We are speaking now not of component parts but of
forces. The first and lowest mode of power is the mechanical; the second is
the chemical; the third is the electrical, – an order which includes the mental;
and the fourth is the psychical. The first three belong to the domain of physiological
science; the last to that of spiritual science. It is this last mode of power
which belong to the “Immaculate” and Essential. It is inherent in the Substantial,
and is, therefore, a permanent and indefeasible quantity. It is in the Arche,
and is wherever there is organic life. Thus is Psyche at once the “living
mother” and “mother of the living.” And she is from the Beginning latent and
diffused in all matter. She is the unmanifest, by the divine Will made manifest;
the invisible, by energy made visible. Wherefore every manifested entity is
a Trinity, whose three “persons” are, – (1) that which makes visible; (2) that
which is made visible; and (3) that which is visible. Such are Force, Substance,
and the expression or “Word” of these.
05. Of
this Energy, or Primordial Force, there are two modes, – for everything is dual,
– the centrifugal, or accelerating force, and the centripetal, or moderating
force; or which the latter, in being derivative, reflex, and complementary,
is as feminine to the other’s masculine. By means of the first mode substances
become matter. By means of the second mode substance resumes her first condition.
In all matter there is a tendency to revert to substance, and hence to polarize
Soul by means of evolution. For the instant the centrifugal mode of force comes
into action, that instant its derivative, the centripetal force, begins also
to exercise its influence. And the primordial substance has no sooner assumed
the condition of matter, than matter itself begins to differentiate, – being
actuated by its inherent force, – and by differentiation to beget individualities.
06. Then
Psyche, once abstract and universal, becomes concrete and individual, and through
the gate of matter issues forth into new life. A minute spark in the globule,
she becomes – by continual accretion and centralization – a refulgent blaze
in the globe. As along a chain of nerve-cells the current of magnetic energy
flows to its central point, – being conveyed, as is a mechanical shock, along
a series of units, with ever-culminating impetus, – so is the psychic energy
throughout nature developed. Hence the necessity of centres, of associations,
of organisms. And thus, by the systemization of congeries of living entities,
that which in each is little, becomes great in the whole. The quality of
Psyche is ever the same; her potentiality is invariable.
07. Our
souls, then, are the agglomerate essences of the numberless consciousnesses
composing us. They have grown, evolving gradually from rudimentary entities
which were themselves evolved, by polarization, from gaseous and mineral matter.
And these entities combine and coalesce to form higher, – because more complex,
– entities, the soul of the individual representing the combined forces of their
manifold consciousnesses, polarized and centralized into an indefeasible unity.
08. While
the material and the physical are to each other respectively the world of Causes
and the world of Effects, the material is, itself, the effect of the spiritual,
being the middle term between the spiritual and the physical. It is therefore
true that organism is the result of Idea, and that Mind is the cause of evolution.
The explanation is, that Mind is before matter in its abstract, though
not in its concrete condition. This is to say, that Mind, greater than,
and yet identical with, that which results from organism, precedes and is the
cause of organism.
09. This
Mind is God, as subsisting prior to and apart from creation, which is manifestation.
God is spirit or essential substance, and is impersonal if the term person
be taken in its etymological sense, but personal in the highest and truest
sense if the conception be of essential consciousness. For God has no limitations.
God is a pure and naked fire burning in infinitude, whereof a flame subsists
in all creatures. The Cosmos is a tree having innumerable branches, each connected
with and springing out of various boughs, and these again originating in and
nourished by one stem and root. And God is a fire burning in this tree, and
yet consuming it not. God is I AM. Such is the nature of infinite and essential
Being. And such is God before the worlds. [ Terms
implying succession, when used in relation to the infinite and eternal, are
to be understood logically, not chronologically.]
10. What,
then, is the purpose of evolution, and separation into many forms, – the meaning,
that is, of Life? Life is the elaboration of soul through the varied transformation
of matter.
Spirit
is essential and perfect in itself, having neither beginning nor end. Soul is
secondary and perfected, being begotten of spirit. Spirit is the first principle,
and is abstract. Soul is the derivative, and is therefore concrete. Spirit is
thus the primary Adam; and Soul is Eve, the “woman” taken out of the side of
the “man.”
11. The
essential principle of personality, – that which constitutes personality in
its highest sense, – is consciousness, is spirit; and this is God. Wherefore
the highest and innermost principle of every monad is God. But this primary
principle, – being naked essence, – could not be separated off into individuals
unless contained and limited by a secondary principle. This principle, – being
derived, – is, necessarily evolved. Spirit, therefore, is projected into the
condition of matter in order that soul may be evolved thereby. Soul is begotten
in matter by means of polarization; and spirit, of which all matter consists,
returns to its essential nature in soul, – this being the medium in which spirit
is individualized, – and from abstract becomes concrete; so that by means of
creation God the One becomes God the Many.
PART
II
12. WE
have spoken of an outer personality and an inner personality, and of a material
consciousness as differing from a spiritual consciousness. We have now to speak
of a spiritual energy as differing from a material energy. The energy whereby
the soul polarizes and accretes, is not dependent upon the undulations of the
ether as are material energies. The astral ether is the first state of matter.
And to the first state of matter corresponds the primordial force, the rotatory,
or centrifugal and centripetal in one. But before and within force is Will;
that is, Necessity, which is the will of God. It is inherent in substance, which
is the medium in which it operates. Such as the primordial will is in relation
to the primordial substance, the individual will is to the derived soul. And
when the current of spiritual energy, or will, is strong enough in the complex
organism to polarize and kindle centrally, then the individual Psyche conceives
Divinity within her and becomes God- conscious. In the rudimentary stages of
matter, this current is not strong enough or continuous enough thus to polarize.
13. When
Psyche has once gathered force sufficient to burn centrally, her flame is not
quenched by the disintegration of the physical elements. These, indeed, fall
asunder and desquamate many times during life; yet the consciousness and memory
remain the same. We have not in our physical bodies a single particle which
we had some few years ago, and yet our ego is the same and our thought continuous.
The Psyche in us, therefore, has grown up out of many elements; and their interior
egos are perpetuated in our interior ego, because their psychic force is centralized
in our individuality. And when our Psyche is disengaged from the disintegrating
particles of our systems, she will, – after due purgation, – go forth to new
affinities and the reversion of matter to substance will still continue.
14. Is
it asked, – If the soul be immaculate how comes she to be attracted by material
affinities? The reply is, that the link between her and earth is that which
the Hindus call Karma, namely, the results of past conduct, and consequent
destiny. Immaculate though she be in her virginal essence, Psyche is not the
“espoused Bride” until the bond between her and the earth be severed. And this
can be only when every molecule of her essence is pervaded by spirit, and indissolubly
married therewith, as God with Arche in the Principle.
The soul,
like water, can never really be other than “immaculate,” and hence the peculiar
propriety of water as the mystical symbol for the soul. Being a chemical combination
of two gases, – hydrogen and oxygen, – themselves pure, water itself also is
pure and cannot be otherwise. The condition called foulness occurs, not by the
admission of foreign substances entering into combination with it, but only
by mechanical admixture with these, and the holding of them in suspension in
such wise that may be eliminated by distillation. Such is the relation of the
soul to “sin.” When regeneration, the equivalent of distillation, – is accomplished,
“Karma” is no longer operative.
PART
III
15. THE
law inherent in the primordial substance of matter obliges all things to evolve
after the same mode. The worlds in the infinite abyss of the heavens are in
all respects similar to the cells in vegetable or animal tissue. Their evolution
is similar, their distribution similar, and their mutual relations are similar.
For this reason we may, by the study of natural science, learn the truth not
only in regard to this, but in regard also to occult science; for the facts
of the first are as a mirror to the facts of the last.
16. We
have already said that our souls are the agglomerate essences of the numberless
consciousnesses composing us. Our souls are not, however, limited in capacity
to the sum total of those consciousnesses as they are in their separate state;
but represent them combined into One Life polarized to a plane indefinitely
higher. For the synthetical resultant thus attained is not a mere aggregate
of constituents; but represents a new condition of these, precisely as in chemistry
H2O – the symbol for water – represents a new condition of 2H+O, and differs
from it by a reformulation of state. After such a reformulation, the sum of
the activities of the molecules of the resulting product is different from that
previously possessed by its factors. In such sense is to be understood the synthesis
of consciousness by means of which our individuality is constituted; and, –
referring this this synthetic energy to a yet higher plane, – the formulation
of the God-consciousness peculiar to our world.
This
idea was familiar to the ancients. They were wont to regard every heavenly orb
as a deity, having for his material body the visible planet; for his astral
nature its vegetable and animal intelligences; and for his Soul, man’s substantial
part, his spirit being the Nous of man, and therefore Divine. And as,
when speaking of the planet-God they specially meant that Nous, it was said
with truth that our Divine part is no other than the planet-God, – in our case
Dionysos, or Jehovah-Nyssi, the “God of the emerald,” or green earth,
called also Iacchos, the mystic Bacchos. [ See Appendices No.
XII. The Earth’s place in the “Seven Planets” is that of the green ray in the
spectrum. Hence the emerald “Tablet of Trismegistus” and signet of the
Popes.]
17. Such
as all creatures composing the planet are to the planet, all the planets are
to universe, and such are the Gods to God (in manifestation). The supreme Ego
of the universe is the sum total of all the Gods; His Personality is their agglomerate
personality; to pray to Him is to address all the celestial host, and, by inclusion,
the souls of all just men. But as in man, the central unity of consciousness
constituted of the association of all the consciousness of his system, is more
than the sum total of these, inasmuch as it is on a higher level; – so in the
planet and the universe. The soul of the planet is more than the associated
essences of the souls composing it. The consciousness of the system is more
than that of associated world-consciousnesses. The consciousness of the manifest
universe is more than that of the corporate systems; and that of the Unmanifest
Deity is greater than that of them all. For the Manifest does not exhaust the
Unmanifest; but “the Father is greater than the Son.” [ See Appendices,
No. X., I.]
18. And
here it is necessary that this distinction between the manifest and unmanifest
God be insisted on and defined. “No man,” it is declared, “hath seen the Father
at any time,” because the Father is Deity unmanifest. And again, “He that hath
seen the Son, hath seen the Father also,” because the Son is Deity in manifestation,
and is the “Express Image” or Revelation of the Father, being brought forth
in the “fulness of time” as the crown of cosmic evolution. This latter mode
of Deity is therefore synthetical and cumulative; the terminal quantity of the
whole series of the universal Life-process (Lebens-prozess) as exhibited
in successive planes of generative activity, the Omega of concretive developments.
But the Father is Deity under its abstract mode, logically precedent to and
inclusive of the secondary and manifest mode; the Alpha of all things and processes,
the supra-cosmic, primordial Being, impersonal (in the etymological sense of
the term) and unindividualized; that wherein consciousness subsists in its original
mode, and whereby it is subsequently conditioned and compelled. This unmanifest
Deity must necessarily represent some mode of Self-hood; but its nature remains
inscrutable to us, and can be known only through the Person of the Son; – that
is, in manifestation.
The difference
between the two modes of Deity finds apt illustration in the physiology of embryonic
development. The first condition of the fecundated ovum is one of generalized
and informulate vitality. An activity, at once intelligent and unindividualized,
permeates the mass of potential differentiations, and directs their manifestation.
Under the direction of this inherent activity, the mass divides, segregates,
and constitutes itself into discrete elements; and these in their turn sub-divide,
and elaborate new individuations; until, by means of successive aggregations
of cellular entities, various strata and tissues are formed. In this way, is
built up, little by little, a new glomerate creature, the consciousness of which,
though manifold and diverse, is yet one and synthetic. But this synthetic individuality
is not of itself. It was begotten in the bosom of the inherent and primordial
intelligence pervading the essential matter out of which it was constructed,
and to which, as Father, it is Son.
19. The
Gods are not limited in number. Their numbers denote orders only. Beyond number
are the orbs in infinite space, and each of them is a God. Each globe has its
quality corresponding to the conditions of the elements which compose it. And
every physical world of causes has its psychic world of effects. All things
are begotten by fission, or section, in an universal protoplast; and the power
which causes this generation is centrifugal.
20. God
unmanifest and abstract is the Primordial Mind, and the cosmic universe is the
ideation of that Mind. Mind in itself is passive; it is organ, not function.
Idea is active; it is function. As soon, therefore, as Mind becomes operative,
it brings forth Ideas, and these constitute existence. Mind is abstract; Ideas
are concrete. To think is to create. Every thought is a substantial action.
Wherefore Thoth – Thought – is the creator of the Cosmos. Hence the identification
of Hermes (Thoth) with the Logos.
21. Nevertheless,
there is but one God; and in God are comprehended all thrones, and dominions,
and powers, and principalities, and archangels, and cherubim in the celestial
world, – called by Kabbalists the “Exemplary World,” or world of archetypal
ideas. And through these are the worlds begotten in time and space, each with
its astral sphere. And every world is a conscient individuality. Yet they all
subsist in one consciousness, which is one God. For all things are of spirit,
and God is spirit, and spirit is consciousness.
22. The
science of the Mysteries is the climax and crown of the physical sciences, and
can be fully understood only by those who are conversant therewith. Without
this knowledge it is impossible to comprehend the basic doctrine of occult science,
the doctrine of Vehicles. The knowledge of heavenly things must be preceded
by that of earthly things. “If, when I have spoken to you of earthly things,
you understand not,” says the Hierophant to his neophytes, “how shall you understand
when I speak to you of heavenly things?” It is vain to seek the inner chamber
without first passing through the outer. Theosophy, or the science of the Divine,
is the Royal Science. And there is no way to reach the King’s chamber save through
the outer rooms and galleries of the palace. Hence one of the reasons why occult
science cannot be unveiled to the generality of men. To the uninstructed no
truth is demonstrable. They who have not learned to appreciate the elements
of a problem, cannot appreciate its solution.
23. All
the component consciousnesses of the individual polarize to form an unity, which
is as a sun to his system. But this polarization is fourfold, being distinct
for each mode of consciousness. And the central, innermost, or highest point
of radiance – and it alone – is subjective. They who stop short at the secondary
consciousness and imagine it to be the subjective, have failed to penetrate
to the innermost and highest point of the consciousness in themselves, and in
so far are defective as to their humanity. Whereas they who have developed in
themselves the consciousness of every zone of the human system, are truly human,
and do, of themselves, represent humanity as no majority, however great, of
undeveloped and rudimentary men can do. Being thus, they represent Divinity
also. Theocracy consists in government by them.
24. Let
us take for illustration the image of an incandescent globe, or ball of fire,
fluid and igneous throughout its whole mass. Supposing this globe divided into
several successive zones, each containing its precedent, we find that the central
interior zone only contains the radiant point, or heart of the fiery mass, and
that each successive zone constitutes a circumferential halo, more or less intense
according to its nearness to the radiant point; but secondary and derived only,
and not in itself a source of luminous radiation.
25. It
is thus with the macrocosm, and also with the human kingdom. In the latter the
soul is the interior zone, and that which alone contains the radiant point.
By this one indivisible effulgence the successive zones are illuminated in unbroken
continuity; but the source of it is not in them. And this effulgence is consciousness,
and this radiant point is the spiritual ego or Divine spark. God is the Shining
One, the radiant point of the universe. God is the supreme consciousness, and
the Divine radiance also is consciousness. And man’s interior ego is conscient
only because the radiant point in it is Divine. And this consciousness emits
consciousness; and transmits it, first, to the Psyche; next to the anima
bruta; and last, to the physical system. The more concentrated the consciousness,
the brighter and more effulgent the central spark.
26. Again:
in from the midst of this imagined globe of fire the central incandescent spark
be removed, the whole globe does not immediately become dark; but the effulgence
lingers in each zone according to its degree of proximity to the centre. And
it is thus when dissolution occurs in the process of death. The anima bruta
and physical body may retain consciousness for a while after the soul is
withdrawn, and each part will be capable of memory, thought, and reflection
according to its kind.
27. Apart
from the consciousness which is of the Psyche, man is necessarily agnostic.
For, of the region which, being spiritual and primary, interprets the sensible
and secondary, he has no perception. He may know things, indeed, but not the
meaning of things; appearances, but not realities; resultant forms, but not
formative ideas; still less the source of these. The world and himself are fellow-phantoms;
aimless apparitions of an inscrutable something, or, may-be, nothing; a succession
of unrelated, unstable states.
28. From
this condition of non-entity, the spiritual consciousness redeems him, by withdrawing
him inward from materiality and negation, and disclosing to him a noumenal,
and, therefore, stable ego, as the cognizer of the unstable states of his phenomenal
ego. The recognition of this noumenal ego in himself involves the recognition
of a corresponding ego, of which it is the counterpart, without himself: – involves,
that is, the perception of God. For the problem of the ego in man is the problem
also of God in the universe. The revelation of one is the revelation of both,
and the knowledge of either involves that of the other. Wherefore for man to
know himself, is to know God. Self-consciousness is God-consciousness. He who
possesses this consciousness, is, in such degree, a Mystic.
29. That
whereby the mystic is differentiated from other men, is degree and quality of
sensitiveness. All are alike environed by one and the same manifold Being. But
whereas the majority are sensitive to certain planes or modes only, and these
the outer and lower, of the common environment, he is sensitive to them all,
and especially to the inner and higher; having developed the corresponding mode
in himself. For man can recognize without himself that only which he has within
himself. The mystic is sensitive to the God-environment, because God is spirit,
and he has developed his spiritual consciousness. That is, he has and knows
his noumenal ego. Psyche and her recollections and perceptions are his.
30. Hence
the radiant point of the complex ego must be distinguished from its perceptive
point. The first is always fixed and immutable. The second is mutable; and its
position and relations vary with different individuals. The consciousness of
the soul, or even – in very rudimentary beings – of the mind may lie beyond
the range of the perceptive consciousness. As, this advances and spreads inwards,
the environment of the ego concerned expands; until, when, finally, the perceptive
point and the radiant point coincide, the ego attains regeneration and emancipation.
31. When
the physiologists tell us that memory is a biological processus, and
that consciousness is a state dependent upon the duration and intensity of molecular
nervous vibration, a consensus of a vital action in the cerebral cells;
a complexity, unstable and automatic, making and unmaking itself at each instant,
as does the material flame, and similarly evanescent, – they do not touch the
Psyche. For what is it that cognizes these unstable states? To what Subject
do these successive and ephemeral conditions manifest themselves, and how are
they recognized? Phenomenon is incapable of cognizing itself, and appears not
to itself, being objective only. So that unless there be an inner, subjective
ego to perceive and remember this succession of phenomenal states, the condition
of personality would be impossible; whereas, there is of necessity such an ego;
for apparition and production are processes affecting – and therefore implying
– a subject. Now this subject is, for man, the Psyche; for the universe, God.
In the Divine mind subsist eternally and substantially all those things of which
we behold the appearances. And as in nature there are infinite gradations from
simple to complex, from coarse to fine, from dark to light, so is Psyche reached
by innumerable degrees; and they who have not penetrated to the inner, stop
short at the secondary consciousness, which is ejective only, and imagine
that the subjective – which alone explains all – is undemonstrable.
32. A
prime mistake of the biologists consists in their practice of seeking unity
in the simple, rather than in the complex. They thus reverse and invert the
method of evolution, and nullify its end. They refuse unity to the man, in order
to claim it for the molecule alone. Claiming unity and, thereby, individuality,
for the ultimate element, indivisible and indestructible by thought, – for the
simple monad only, –they divinize the lowest instead of the highest,
and so deprive evolution of its motive and end. Whereas Psyche is the most complex
of extracts; and the dignity and excelence of the human soul consist, not in
her simplicity, but in her complexity. She is the summit of evolution, and all
generation works in order to produce her. The occult law which governs evolution
brings together, in increasingly complex and manifold entities, in numerable
unities, in order that they may, of their substantial essence, polarize one
complex essential extract: – complex, because evolved from and by the concurrence
of many simpler monads: – essential, because in its nature ultimate and indestructible.
The human ego is, therefore, the synthesis, the Divine Impersonal personified;
and the more sublimed is this personality, the profounder is the consciousness
of the Impersonal. The Divine consciousness is not ejective, but subjective.
The secondary personality and consciouness are to the primary as the water reflecting
the heavens; the nether completing and returning to the upper its own concrete
reflex.
33. It
is necessary clearly to understand the difference between the objective and
the ejective on the one hand, and the subjective on the other. The study of
the material is the study of the two former; and the study of the substantial
is the study of the latter. That, then, which the biologists term the subjective,
is not truly so, but is only the last or interior phase of phenomenon. Thus
, for example, the unstable states which constitute consciousness, are, in their
view, subjective states. But they are objective to the true subject, which is
Psyche, because they are perceived by this latter, and whatever is perceived
is objective. There are in the microcosm two functions, that of the revealer,
and that of the entity to which revelation is made. The unstable states of the
biologist, which accompany certain operations of organic force are so many modes
whereby exterior things are revealed to the interior subject. Constituting a
middle term between object and subject, these states are strictly ejective,
and are not, therefore, the subject to which revelation is made. It is hopeless
to seek to attain the subjective by the same method of study which discovers
the ejective and objective. We find the latter by observation from without;
the former by intuition from within. The human cosmos is a complexity of many
principles, each having its own mode of operation. And it is on the rank and
order of the principle affected by any special operation that the nature of
the effect produced depends. When, therefore, for example, the biologist speaks
of unconscious cerebration, he should ask himself to whom or to what such cerebration
is unconscious, knowing that in all vital processes there is infinite gradation.
Questions of duration affect the mind; questions of intensity affect the Psyche.
All processes which occur in the objective are relative to something;
there is but one thing absolute and that is the subject. Unconscious cerebration
is therefore only relatively unconscious in regard to that mode of perception
which is conditioned in and by duration. But inasmuch as any such process of
cerebration is intense, it is perceived by that perceptive centre which is conditioned
by intensity; and in relation to that centre it is not unconscious. The interior
man being spiritual, knows all processes; but many processes are not apprehended
by the man merely mental. We see herein the distinction between the human principles,
and their separability even on this plane of life. And if our mundane ego and
our celestial ego be so distinct and separable, even while vitally connected,
that a nervous process conscious to the latter is unconscious to the former
much more shall separability be possible when the vital bond is broken. If the
polarities of our entire system were single and identical in direction, we should
be conscious of all processes and nothing would be unknown to us; because the
central point of our perception would be the precise focus of all convergent
radii. But no unregenerate man is in such case. In most men the perceptive point
lies in the relative man, – ejective or objective, – and by no means in the
substantial and subjective man. Thus the convergent radii pass unheeded of the
individual consciousness, because, as yet, the man knows not his own spirit.
Being thus incapable of absolute cognition, such as these may be said to be
asleep while they live.
PART
IV
34. THE
higher the entity undergoing death, the easier is the detachment of the Psyche
from the lower consciousness by which she is enshrined. The saint does not fear
death, because his consciousness is gathered up into his Psyche, and she into
her spouse the Spirit. Death, for him, is the result, not of any pathological
process, but of the normal withdrawal, first, of the animal life into the astral
or magnetic; and, next, of this into the psychic, to the reinforcement of the
latter, precisely as in the cell about to disintegrate, its protoplasmic contents
are seen to become better defined and to increase, as their containing capsule
becomes more tenuous and transparent. In this wise have passed away saints and
holy man innumerable of all lands and faiths; and with a dissolution of this
kind the relations of the redeemed Psyche with materiality may terminate altogether.
Such an end is the consummation of the redemption from the power of the body,
and from the “sting of death.” Forasmuch, however, as the righteous has attained
this condition by what Paul calls “dying daily” during a long period to the
lower elements, death for him, – whatever the guise in which it may finally
come – is no sudden event, but the completion of a process long in course of
accomplishment. That which to others is a violent shock, comes to him by insensible
degrees, and as a release wholly comfortable. Hence the aspiration of the prophet,
“Let me die the death of the just, and let my last end be like his.”
35. In
dissolution, the consciouness speedily departs from the outermost and lowest
sphere, that of the physical body. In the shade, spectre, or astral body (Hebrew,
Nephesh) – which is the lowest mode of soul, – consciousness lingers
a brief while before being finally dissipated. In the astral soul, anima
bruta, or ghost (Hebrew, Ruach) consciousness persists, – it may
be for centuries, – according to the strength of the lower will of the individual,
manifesting the distinctive characteristics of his outer personality. In the
soul (Hebrew, Neshamah), the immediate receptacle of the Divine Spirit,
– the consciousness is everlasting as the soul herself. And while the ghost
remains below in the astral sphere, the soul, obeying the same universal law
of gravitation and affinity, detaches herself and mounts to the higher atmosphere
suited to her; – unless, indeed, she be yet too gross to be capable of such
aspiration. In which case, she remains “bound” in her astral envelope as in
a prison. This separability of principles is recognized in Homer when Odysseus
is made to say of his interview with the shades: – “Then I perceived Herakles,
but only in phantom, for he himself is with the gods.” [ As pointed out
by Dr. Hayman, Pindar similarly emphasizes the distinction between the hero
and his immortal essence. And Chaucer has the line: “Though thou here walked,
thy spirit is in hell”(Man of Law’s Tale). These distinctions are more
than poetic imaginings. They represent occult knowledges as verified by the
experience of all ages.]
36. The
ghosts of the dead resemble mirrors having two opposed surfaces. On the one
side they reflect the earth-sphere and its pictures of the past. On the other
they receive influxes from those higher spheres which have received their higher,
because spiritual, egos. The interval between these principles is, however,
better described as of state or condition than as of locality. For this belongs
to the physical and mundane, and for the freed soul has no existence. There
is no far nor near in the Divine.
37. The
ghost, however, has hopes which are not without justification. It does not all
die, if there be in it anything worthy of recall. The astral sphere is then
its place of purgation. For Saturn, who as Time is the Trier of all things,
devours all the dross, so that only that escapes which in its nature is celestial
and destined to reign. The soul, on attaining Nirvana, gathers up all that it
has left in the astral of holy memories and worthy experiences. To this end
the ghost rises in the astral by the gradual decay and loss of its more material
affinities, until these have so disintegrated and perished that its substance
is thereby enlightened and purified. But continued commerce and intercourse
with earth add, as it were, fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these
alive, and so hinder its recall to its spiritual ego. And thus, therefore, the
spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption into, and union with,
the Divine.
38. This
dissolution of the ghost is gradual and natural. It is a process of disintegration
and elimination extending over periods which are greater or less according to
the character of the individual. Those ghosts which have belonged to evil persons
possessed of strong wills and earthly tendencies, persist longest and manifest
most frequently and vividly, because they do not rise, but – being destined
to perish – are not withdrawn from immediate contact with the earth. These are
all dross, having in them no redeemable element. The ghost of the righteous,
on the other hand, complains if his evolution be disturbed. “Why callest thou
me?” he may be regarded as saying: “disturb me not. The memories of my earth-life
are chains about my neck; the desire of the past detains me. Suffer me to rise
towards my rest, and hinder me not with evocations. But let thy love go after
me and encompass me; so shalt thou rise with me through sphere after sphere.”
Thus even though, as often happens, the ghost of a righteous person remains
near one who, being also righteous, has loved him, it is still after the true
soul of the dead that the love of the living friend goes, and not after his
lower personality represented in the ghost. And it is the strength and divinity
of this love which helps the purgation of the soul, being to it an indication
of the way it ought to go, “a light shining upon the upward path” which leads
from the earthly to the celestial and everlasting. For the good man upon earth
can love nothing other than the Divine. Wherefore, that which he loves in his
friend is the Divine, – his true and radiant self. [ See Appendices,
Nos. II and XIII, Part 2.]
PART
V
39. Of
the four constituent spheres of the planet one subsists in two conditions, present
and past. This is its magnetic atmosphere or astral soul, called the Anima
Mundi. In the latter condition it is the Picture-world wherein are stored
up all the memories of the planet; its past life, its history, its affections
and recollections of physical things. The adept may interrogate this phantom-world,
and it shall speak for him. It is the cast-off vestment of the planet; yet it
is living and palpitating, for its very fabric is spun of psychic substance,
and its entire parenchyma is magnetic. And forasmuch as the planet is
an entity ever being born and ever dying; so this astral counterpart of itself,
which is the mirror of the globe, a world encompassing a world is ever in process
of increase.
40. What
the disintegrating Ruach is to man, this astral zone is to the planet.
In fact, the great magnetic sphere of the planet is itself composed and woven
out of the magnetic egos of its offspring, precisely as these in their turn
are woven out of the infinitely lesser atoms which compose the individual man.
So that by a figure, we may represent the whole astral atmosphere of the planet
as a system of so many minute spheres, each reflecting and transmitting special
rays. But as the Divine Spirit of the planet is not in its magnetic circle,
but in the celestial; so the true soul and spirit of the man are not in this
astral sphere, but are of the higher altitudes.
41. Each
world has its astral soul which remains always with it. But the world’s true
soul migrates and interchanges, which is the secret of the creation of worlds.
Worlds, like men, have their karma; and new cosmic globes arise out of the ruins
of former states. As the soul of the individual human unit transmigrates and
passes on, so, likewise does the Psyche of the planet. From world to world in
ceaseless intercourse and impetus, the living Neshamah pursues her variable
way. And as she passes, the tincture of her divinity changes. Here, her spirit
is derived through Iacchos; there through Aphrodite; and, again, through Hermes,
or another god. Here, again, she is weak; and there, strong. Our planet – it
must be understood – did not begin this Avatar in strength. An evil karma overwhelmed
its soul; a karma which has endured throughout the last pralaya, or interval
intervening between the former period of vivification of the planet and its
re birth, to new activities, – and which, from the outset of the fresh manifestation
– commonly called creation – dominated the reconstruction of things. This planetary
karma was, by the Scandinavian theology, presented under the figure of the “golden
dice of destiny,” which, after the “twilight of the Gods,” or “night of the
Kalpa,” were found again unchanged in the growing grass of a new risen earth.
For, as the kabbalistic interpreters of Genesis teach, the moral formations
of all created things preceded their objective appearance. So that “every plant
of the field before it sprang, and every herb of the ground before it grew,”
had its “generation” unalterably determined. And, so long as these moral destinies
which constitute the planetary karma remain operative, so long the process of
alternate passivity and activity will continue. The revolutions and evolution
of matter, the interchanges of destruction and renovation, mark the rhythmic
swing of this resistless force, the expression of essential Justice. “The might
of the Gods increase: the might of the powers of evil dwindles.” [ The
Dharmasastra Sutras.]
42. As
with man so with the planet. For small and great there is One Law; though one
star differs from another in glory. And so throughout the infinite vistas and
systems of the heavens. From star to star, from sun to sun, from galaxy to galaxy,
the cosmic souls migrate and interchange. But every God keeps his tincture and
maintains indefeasibly his personality.
PART
VI
43. To
apply what has been said to the elucidatior of catholic doctrine and practice.
The object set before the saint is so to live as to render the soul luminous
and consolidate with the spirit, that thereby the spirit may be perpetually
one with the soul, and thus eternize its individuality. For individuality appertains
to the soul, inasmuch as it consists in separateness, which it is the function
of soul-substance to accomplish in respect of spirit. [ While Christianity
teaches the everlasting persistence of acquired personality of the redeemed,
and makes redemption consist in this, Buddhism insists that personality is an
illusion belonging to the sphere of existence, - as distinguished from Being,
- and makes redemption consist in the escape from it. But the difference between
the two doctrines is one of presentation only, and is not a real difference.
The explanation is that there are to each individual two personalities or selfhoods,
the one exterior and phenomenal, which is transient, and the other interior
and substantial, which is permanent. And while Buddhism declares truly the evanescence
of the former, Christianity declares truly the continuance of the latter. It
is the absorption of the individual into this inner and divine selfhood, and
his consequent withdrawal from Existence, that constitutes Nirvana, “the peace
that passeth understanding.” ] Thus, though eternal and immaculate in
her substance, the soul acquires individuality by being born in matter and time;
and within her is conceived the divine element, which, divided from God, is
yet God and man. Wherefore catholic dogma and tradition, while making Mary the
“mother of God,” represent her as born of Anna, the year, of time. [ The
Hebrew forms of these names, - Miriam and Hannah, - do not bear quite the same
meanings. But, as is obvious from the analogies used and accepted in Catholic
teaching, the name of the Virgin has always been related to its Latin signification,
so that it is consistent to accept the name of her mother accordance with this
practice, especially as the latter is not mentioned by any other Evangelists,
but occurs only in Latin tradition.]
44. The
two terms of the history of creation, or evolution, are formulated by the Church
in two dogmas. These are (1), the Immaculate Conception; and (2), the Assumption,
of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [ It is true that the doctrine of the Assumption
is not a dogma in the technical sense of the term, inasmuch as it has not yet
been formally promulgated as an article of faith. But it has always subsisted
in the Church as a “pious belief,” and in promulgating it we are but anticipating
the Church’s intention; – excepting that we present it as a conclusion of reason
no less than as an article of faith. How far our action may be agreeable to
ecclesiastical authority we have not thought necessary to inquire. Neither deriving
our information from ecclesiastical sources, nor being under ecclesiastical
direction, we commit no breach of ecclesiastical propriety. In any case it has
the notable effect of securing the fulfilment of the prophecy implied in the
choice of his official title and insignia by Pope Leo XIII. – the prophecy that
his pontificate should witness the promulgation in question. For further explanation
see Lect. VI. 39.] The former concerns the generation of the soul, presenting
her as begotten in the womb of matter, and by means of matter brought into world,
and yet not of matter, but from the first moment of her being, pure and incorrupt.
Otherwise she could not be “Mother of God.” In her bosom, as Nucleus, is conceived
the bright and holy Light, the Nucleolus, which – without participation of matter
– germinates in her and manifests itself as the express image of the Eternal
and Ineffable Selfhood. To this image she gives individuality; and through and
in her it is focused and polarized into a perpetual and self-subsistent Person,
at once human and Divine, Son of God and of Man. Thus is the soul at once Daughter,
Spouse, and Mother of God. By her is crushed the head of the Serpent. And from
her triumphant springs the Man Regenerate, who, as the product of a pure soul
and divine spirit, is said to be born of water (Maria) and the Holy Ghost.
45. The
declarations of Jesus to Nicodemus are explicit and conclusive as to the purely
spiritual nature both of the entity designated “Son of Man,” and of the process
of his generation. Whether incarnate or not, the “Son of Man” is of necessity
always “in heaven,” – his own “kingdom within.” Accordingly the terms describing
his parentage are devoid of any physical reference. “Virgin Maria” and “Holy
Ghost” are synonymous, respectively, with “Water” and “the Spirit”; and these,
again, denote the two constituents of every regenerated selfhood, its purified
soul and divine spirit. Wherefore the saying of Jesus, – “Ye must be born again
of Water and of the Spirit,” was a declaration, first, that it is necessary
to every one to be born in the manner in which he himself is said to have been
born; and, next, that the gospel narrative of his birth is really a presentation,
dramatic and symbolical, of the nature of regeneration.
46. As
the Immaculate Conception is the foundation of the Mysteries, so the Assumption
is their crown. For the entire object and end of cosmic evolution is precisely
this triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In this Mystery is beheld the consummation
of the whole scheme of creation, – the perfectionment, perpetuation, and glorification
of the individual human ego. The grave – that is the astral and material consciousness
– cannot retain the Mother of God. She rises into heaven; she assumes its Queenship,
and is – to cite the “Little Office the Blessed Virgin Mary” – “taken up into
the chamber where the King of kings sits on His starry throne”; her festival,
therefore, being held at the corresponding season in the astronomical year,
when the constellation Virgo reaches the zenith and is lost to view in the solar
rays. Thus, from end to end, the mystery of the soul’s evolution – the argument,
that is, of the cosmic drama and the history of Humanity – is contained and
enacted in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin. The Acts and the Glories of Mary
are the one and supreme theme of the sacred Mysteries. [ See Appendices,
No. XI.]
47. Now
this discourse on the nature and constitution of the Ego, is really a discourse
on the nature and constitution of the Church of Christ. [ See Appendices.
No. X ]
LECTURE
THE SIXTH
THE
FALL ( No. I )
PART
I
01. IN
the city of Mecca, the birthplace of the iconoclast Mohammed, is a square edifice,
thirty feet high, called the Kaabeh, or Cube. The Koran says that is was the
first house of worship built for mankind. It has been known from time immemorial
as Beit-Allah, which name is the exact equivalent of the Hebrew word Beth-El,
House of God. According to Moslem legend, it was originally built by Adam, after
the pattern of a similar structure in Paradise, and was restored by Abraham.
It contains a white stone, – now blackened by time and by the kisses of pilgrims,
– which stone was also, according to tradition, brought from Paradise. But,
ages before the birth of Mohammed, the Kaabeh was an object of veneration as
a Pantheon of the Gods, and the white stone was adored as a symbol of Venus.
02. This
cubic House is a figure of the Human Kingdom framed on the pattern of the Universal
Kingdom constructed in the primal Age or “Beginning.” And the original builder
of the Kaabeh is said to have been Adam, because by “Adam” is understood the
first Church of the Elect, the first Community of men “made in the Image of
God.” This Church, having forfeited “Paradise,” and fallen away from perfection,
was restored by Abraham, the Father of the Faithful or Initiates, this great
Ancestor of the chosen people of God being no other than the personified Church
of Brahma in India, whence the Mysteries “went down into Egypt,” and ultimately
into all the world. The name Beth-El given to the Human House, denotes that
man, when “cubic” or six-fold, is the habitation of Deity. In a future discourse
it will be shown that these six stages or “days” of the creative week of the
microcosm, correspond to the processes included in the Lesser and Greater Mysteries,
and are, in order, Baptism, Temptation, Passion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension;
the “Marriage of the Lamb” being equivalent of the Sabbath, or Within of
the Cube, the Seventh, last and supremest of all the Acts of the Soul. The white
stone, which, as we have seen, has always been the object of special veneration,
is the well-known symbol of the Divine Spirit, the nucleolus of the Cell, the
Sun of the system, the Head of the Pyramid. It was regarded as sacred to Venus,
because she is the Genius of the Fourth Day, the Revealer of the Sun and heavenly
system, and to her, therefore, was peculiarly dedicated the emblem of Celestial
Light. The Kaabeh is, by its very name, identified with the Kabbalistic Merkaba,
the “car” in which the Lord God was said to descend to earth, – a phrase indicating
the work of Manifestation, or Incarnation of Divine Being in “Creation.” The
Merkaba, or Vehicle of God, is described by Ezekiel as resembling a throne of
sapphire, upon which is seated Adonai; and supporting and drawing it are four
living creatures or cherubim, having four faces, the face of an ox, the face
of a lion, the face of a man, and the face of an eagle. And there are also four
wheels of the chariot, a wheel by each cherub, “in appearance like chrysolite.”
“And their whole body, and their necks, and their hands, and their wings, and
the circles are full of eyes.”
03. The
perusal of this descriptive vision, which is identical with certain passages
in the Apocalypse of St. John, was permitted only by the ancient Hebrews to
men who had attained the age of thirty years. [ Epistles of Jerome.]
This age represents maturity, manhood, and reason, as typified in the solar
month. Thus the Ark of Noë in which the Elect are preserved, is thirty cubits
in height; the vision above cited occurs in his thirtieth year to Ezekiel, whose
name signifies Strength of God; and Jesus, at the commencement of his mission
of salvation, “begins to be about thirty years of age.” Similarly the Kaabeh,
or Cubic House of the Microcosm, is thirty feet high.
04. This
car, then, – within which Adonai rides, – typified by the Stone, called sapphire
by Ezekiel, and jasper by St. John, is the Human Kingdom; and the living creatures
which draw it are the four elements of that Kingdom, Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit,
corresponding respectively to the elemental spirits of Earth, Fire, Water, and
Air, which constitute the Macrocosmic system. Of these living creatures the
first in order, from without inwards, is the Ox, symbolizing the earth or body,
ploughed by the sacred Kine of Demeter, laborious and obedient; the next is
the Lion, type of the magnetic or “fiery” mind, whose reason is destructive
and whose energy is rapacious, the seat of daring and of the masculine will,
which, suffered to expatiate uncontrolled, would rend and profane the sacred
mysteries. Third, in order, comes the genius of the Soul, having a human face,
and symbolizing the true Person of the Microcosm, to whom, as to the Keeper
of the House, belongs the constructive reason, the restraining and conservative
force of the system. Last, and “over all the rest,” is the Eagle, the bird of
the Sun or Adonai, type of light, strength, and freedom, and of the wind on
whose wings the Spirit rides. As it is written. “Behold, he shall come up as
an eagle and fly.” All these four cherubim are united in one, and make one fourfold
creature, the wings of one being joined to the wings of another (Fig. 1.)
05. Over
and around the seat or car of Adonai, as described by the seers of both Old
and New Testaments, is a Rainbow, or Arch. This, the symbol of the Cup, of the
Heavens encircling and enclosing the Cosmos, is in the Scriptures termed Mount
Sion and the Mount of the Lord; by the Hindus it is called Mount Meru, and by
the Greeks Olympus, the home of the Gods. And with all it is the symbol of the
Celestial Kingdom, the Uncreate, which “was and is, and is to come;” wherein
dwell the Seven Spirits of Light, the Elohim of the Godhead. From this holy
Mount proceed all the oracles and dispensations of Heaven, and nothing is done
in the macrocosmic or microcosmic worlds that is not first conceived and perfect
eternally in the divine counsel. “For ever, O Lord,” says the psalmist, “Thy
word is written in Heaven.” And for this reason the Scriptures declare that
everything in the Tabernacle of the Wilderness was “made after the pattern of
it in the holy Mount.” For the Tabernacle in the Wilderness is, like the Kaabeh,
a figure of the Human House of God, pitched in the wilderness of the material
world, and removable from one place to another.
06. The
Mystery implied in the vision of Ezekiel, is in Genesis presented under the
hieroglyph of the Four Rivers which, flowing from one Source, go out to water
Paradise. This source is in the holy place of the Upper Eden. It is the “well
of the Water of Life,” or God, Who is the Life and Substance of all things.
And the Four heads of the river have names corresponding to the zones of the
fourfold unit of existence, as exemplified in the Cell, and therefore to the
faces of the fourfold cherub.
Thus,
Phison, the first stream, is the Ancient, or the Body, which surrounds and encloses
the agricultural or mineral Earth, wherein lies gold, prosperity, and renown.
The second river is Gehon, signifying the vale of Gehenna or Purgation, the
stream which traverses “Ethiopia” or Ath-opis, a compound word meaning literally
the Fire-Serpent, or Astral Fluid. This river, therefore, is the igneous body
or magnetic belt. The third river, which is Hiddekel, signifies the Double Tongue
of Two Meanings, the stream which rises from and flows back to ancient or anterior
ages, and which guides to Assyria, the land or place of Perfection. This river
is the Soul, the permanent element in man, having neither beginning nor end,
taking its origin in God anterior to time, and returning whence it came individualized
and perfected. Divine in nature and human in experience, the language of the
Soul is double, holding converse alike with heaven and earth. The fourth river
is Euphrates, that is, the Power of the Pharaoh, – or Phiourah, Voice of Heaven,
the oracle and divine Will of the human system. And the “paradise” watered by
these four rivers is the equilibrated human nature, the “garden which the Lord
God has planted in Eden,” or the Cosmos; that is, the Particular in the bosom
of the Universal.
07. Not
without deep meaning and design is the Book of Genesis or of Beginnings made
to open with this description of the Four Rivers of Paradise. For their names
and attributes supply the four wards of the Key wherewith to unlock all the
mysteries of the Scriptures whose Prologue and Argument Genesis represents.
These mysteries are, like the Rivers of Eden, distributed into four channels,
each belonging to a distinct region of the fourfold human kingdom, whose queen
and priestess is the Soul. And of these mystic or secret Scriptures, one of
the most precious profound is the Drama of the Fall, whose acts, depicted in
the first chapters of the Bible, serve, as a series of hieroglyphic tableaux,
to delineate at once the history of Man and the object of Religion.
08. Maimonides,
the most learned of the Rabbis, speaking of the Book of Genesis, says, “We ought
not to take literally that which is written in the story of the Creation, nor
entertain the same ideas of it as are common with the vulgar. If it were otherwise,
our ancient sages would not have taken so much pains to conceal the sense, and
to keep before the eyes of the uninstructed the veil of allegory which conceals
the truths it contains.” In the same spirit it was observed by Jerome, that
“the most difficult and obscure of the holy books contain as many secrets as
they do words, concealing many things even under each word.” “All the Fathers
of the second century,” says Mosheim, “attributed a hidden and mysterious sense
to the words of Scripture.” Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus,
Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Ambrose, held that the Mosaic account
of Creation and of the Fall was a series of allegories. The opinion of Origen
on the same subject was plainly expressed. “What man,” he asks, “is so simple
as to believe that God personifying a gardener, planted a garden in the East?
that the tree of Life was a real tree which could be touched, and of which the
fruit had the power of conferring immortality?”
09. It
is hardly necessary to enlarge on this point, or to bring forward further authorities.
Suffice it to say that this interior method of interpreting sacred writings
was, and still is, the method of all who posses the Gnosis, or secret knowledge
of the mysteries, their mere letter being abandoned to the vulgar and to the
“critics,” as the husk or shell, which serves but to conceal, encase, and preserve
the life-giving seed, the priceless pearl of the true “Word.”
10. Both
the story of the Fall, and all cognate Myths or Parables, are far older and
more universal than the ordinary unlearned reader of the Bible supposes. For
the Bible itself, in its Hebrew form, is a comparatively recent compilation
and adaptation of mysteries, the chief scenes of which were sculptured on temple
walls, and written or painted on papyri, ages before the time of Moses. History
tells us, moreover, that the Book of Genesis as it now stands, is the work,
not even of Moses, but of Ezra or Esdras, who lived at the time of the Captivity,
– between five and six hundred years before our era, – and that he recovered
it and other writings by the process already described as Intuitional Memory.
“My heart,” he says, “uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast: for
the Spirit strengthened my memory.” If, then, by such means he recovered
what Moses had previously delivered orally to Israel, it is obvious that Esdras
must have been initiated into the ancient tradition in a former state of existence;
since no memory could have enabled him to recover that which he had never
known, and which, – when the Divine commission to rewrite it was given him,
– was so wholly lost that “no man knew any of the things that had been done
in the world since the beginning.” As the Talmud says, “Ezra could not have
received the Word, if Moses had not first declared it.”
11. Neither
must it be supposed that we have the Books of Moses as recovered and edited
by Esdras. The system of interpolation and alteration already referred to as
largely applied to the Bible, especially affected the Pentateuch. And foremost
among those who thus perverted it were the Pharisees, denounced in the New Testament,
who greatly modified the text, introducing their own ritual into the law, incorporating
with it their commentaries, and suppressing portions which condemned their doctrine
and practice. According to Spinoza, “there was before the time of the Maccabees,
no canon of holy writ extant; the books we now have were selected from among
many others by and on the authority of the Pharisees of the second Temple, who
also instituted the formulae for the prayers used in the synagogue. [ Tractatus
Theologicol-Politicus ]
12. Sacerdotal
or rabbinical as were these interpolations and corruptions, they effected principally
the books of ceremonial law and historical narrative, and referred to public
customs, temple rites, priestly privileges, and questions of mere national interest.
They hardly touched the great parabolic Myths which lie embedded in the Hebrew
Scriptures like so many gems encased in clay. And gems these are, which, from
prehistoric times, have been the universal property of all initiated nations,
and especially of the Hindu and Egyptian races, from which last indeed Moses
originally drew them, as is occultly intimated when it is said: “And the children
of Israel borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold; and
they spoiled the Egyptians.”
13. With
regard to this particular Myth of the Fall, the walls of ancient Thebes, Elephantine,
Edfou and Karmak bear evidence that long before Moses taught, and certainly
ages before Esdras wrote, its acts and symbols were embodied in the religious
ceremonials of the people, of whom, according to Manetho, Moses was himself
a priest. And “the whole history of the fall of man is,” as says Sharpe in a
work on Egypt, “of Egyptian origin. The temptation of woman by the serpent and
of man by the woman, the sacred tree of knowledge, the cherubs guarding with
flaming swords the door of the Garden, the warfare declared between the woman
and the serpent, may all be seen upon the Egyptian sculptured monuments.”
PART
II
14. LET
us now examine, in the order indicated by the hieroglyphic symbol of the Four
Rivers, the significations of the mystic story to which it is prefixed.
Taking
first the meaning corresponding to the river Phison or the Body we have presented
to us the condition of humanity in the perfect state, with special reference
to the just and harmonious relations existing in that state between the Body
and the Soul. This perfect, condition is exemplified by a picture of the first
Mystic Community, Lodge, or Church of men formed by the image of God, who under
the name of Sons of God, were distinguished from mere rudimentary men not made
in the Divine image, – the still materialistic part of mankind.
This
perfect condition was, and still is, reached – in the aggregate, as in the individual
– by a process of evolution, or gradual unfoldment and growth from the lowest
to the highest. They who first attained to this perfect state are celebrated
by Ovid and others as the men of the “Golden Age,” the primal Sabbath of the
world under Saturn. The Age is reached, whether individually or collectively,
whenever the Divine Spirit working within, has completed the generation of Man,
making him spiritually “in the image of God, male and female,” “Such is the
Son of God” having power, because in him the soul dominates the body, and the
body has no will of his own apart from that of the Divine Spirit.
15. In
this aspect of the parable, then, “Adam” represents the bodily or sensuous nature
in man; and his wife his psychic and spiritual nature. The epithet translated
“help,” “helper,” or “helpmeet,” applied to the woman, signifies an overseeing
guide; and the name Isha, by which at first she is designated, denotes the generative
substance, or feminine principle, of humanity. After the fall she is Chavah,
or Eve, a term denoting the circle of life, and represented by a serpent. As
the soul, she has two aspects, the earthly and the heavenly, and is indicated,
therefore, by two kinds of serpent, the serpent of the dust, or tempter, and
the serpent which represents the Divine wisdom or Sophia: in which aspect she
is man’s initiator into divine knowledges. This heavenly serpent, the representative
of the solar ray, – as opposed to the serpent of the subterraneous fire, – is
familiar to us under the name of “Seraph,” the title given to angels of the
highest order in the celestial hierarchy, and signifying “the burning,” – Sons
of the Sun. In Egyptian symbology the Divine Seraph or Serpent appears constantly,
surmounting a Cross and wearing the crown of Maut, the Mother,
that is, the Living Mother, who is the original and celestial Reason. This is
the Serpent on the Cross by looking to which, another sacred parable tells us,
the Israelites were healed of the venomous bites inflicted on them by the Serpent
of the Dust, the earthly and destructive reason, whose figure is derived, not
from the life-giving sun-ray, but from the flame of the devouring and rapacious
fire. And thus it is said in the Gospel, that by the exhibition of this Divine
Wisdom, by the restoration of the “Woman” or “Mother of the Living” to her rightful
throne, will the world finally be redeemed from the dominion of the serpent
of the Abyss, that is, of the lower and materialistic reason. “For as Moses
lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up.” For “Christ” is identical with Amun-Ra, “our Lord the Sun,” offspring of
the heavenly Maut. And the means of delivery for mankind from the “ravenous
lion” and the “fiery serpents” of the outer intellect or earthly “wilderness
of Sin” will be the exaltation of the Dual humanity at once “Mother” and “Son.”
16. In
the individual or microcosmic system, the celestial Wisdom or Soul of the Universe,
finds expression as the Soul of the Man. And the condition of humanity “unfallen”
and sinless, is one of obedience on the part of the sense-nature, or “Adam,”
to the rule of the Soul, or “Eve.” But, by the “Fall” this state of things is
directly reversed, and the “woman” or the “Living” becomes subject to this sense-nature.
This is “the Curse.” And the curse will be removed, Paradise regained,
and the second Sabbath of the Golden Age restored, only when the “woman” is
again invested with her rightful supremacy.
17. Eve
is said to be taken from the side of the sleeping Adam, because, although, the
Soul subsists in all men, she becomes revealed only in such as have transcended
the consciousness of the Body. When the “Adam” is asleep, passive, unassertive,
the Soul, or Living man, is made manifest. Hers it is to guide, to rule, to
command; hers the vocation of the Seer, the Pythoness, the Interpreter and Guardian
of the Mysteries.
18. Tokens
of the superior respect once accorded to the Soul, and to Woman as the Soul’s
representative, abound in the historical remains of Egypt, where, as we learn
from numberless sculptures, writings, and paintings, the goddess Isis held rank
above her husband, the chief instructor in the Mysteries was represented as
a woman, priestly and noble families traced their pedigree through the female
line, and public acts and chronicles were dated by the name of the high priestess
of the year.
19. Such
then in the “Edenic” or unfallen state, are the mutual relations of Adam and
Eve, – Sense and Soul. And the parable sets forth the end of the Edenic Sabbath,
the ruin of the Golden Age, the “Fall” of the Church, as brought about by disobedience
to the Divine Voice, or Central Spirit to which the Soul ought to be always
dutiful. Sin thus originates with the Soul, as the responsible part of man;
and she whose office is to be to him overseer and guide, becomes his betrayer.
The forbidden fruit communicated by the Soul to Adam is the vital flame or Consciousness,
described by classical poets as the “Fire of Heaven.” For, as God is supreme
and original Consciousness, the first manifestation of human consciousness has
its seat in the Soul. In the pure, Edenic state, or, as it is called, the state
of innocence, therefore, the shrine of this heavenly Fire is in the spiritual
part of man. But Prometheus, or pseudo-thought, – the spurious thought as opposed
to the true Hermetic reason, – steals or “draws down” this Fire from its original
place, and transfers it to the outer man or body. Thenceforward, the consciousness
of man ceases to reside in the soul, and takes up its abode in the body. That
is to say, that man in his “fallen” condition is conscious only of the selfhood
of the body, and until regenerate, or redeemed from the “Fall,” he does not
again become conscious and vitalized in the soul. To find the Soul is the first
step towards finding Christ; that is, as the Catholic Church puts it, “Mary
brings us to Jesus.” The materialistic, unregenerate man is totally unconscious
of his soul. He is aware only of the body, and his percipience of life is limited
to the bodily sense. By the transference of the vitalizing Fire from the “heaven”
to the “earth” of the human system, the lower nature is inflamed and set at
war with the Divine Spirit or “Zeus” within the man. This act is the Promethean
Theft, punished so terribly by the “Father” at the hand of Hermes, the true
Thought, or Angel of Understanding. For by this act, man becomes bound and fettered
to the things of sense, the victim of a perverse will, which, as an insatiable
bird of prey, continually rends and devours him. Thus is formulated that condition
which Paul so graphically laments: – “I find then a law, that when I would do
good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward
man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched
man! who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
20. Although,
then, sin originates in the soul, the bodily nature is the ultimate offender.
Hence it is to “Adam” that the interrogation is addressed: – “Hast thou eaten
of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” And the penalty
pronounced upon “Adam” enumerates the sorrows of the body in its “fallen” state,
and foretells its inevitable return to the “dust” and “earth” of which it is;
– a penalty, be it observed, which is not incurred by “Eve,” the soul. And of
her we read that her will, ceasing to polarize itself inwards and upwards upon
her Divine Centre, is now, by the effect of the “Fall,” directed outwards and
downwards towards her earthly mate. Like “Lot’s Wife,” in another and cognate
parable, “she looks back, and straightway becomes a pillar of Salt.” Salt was,
in alchemic terminology, a synonym for Matter. This transformation into Salt
is the converse of the “Great Work”; it is the Fixation of the Volatile.
The Great Work is, in alchemic science, the Volatilization of the Fixed.
By this act of depolarization the soul imprisons herself definitely in the body,
and becomes his subject until that “Redemption” for which, says Paul, “all creation
groans and travails in the pain of desire.”
21. In
this first of the four explanations of our parable, the Tree of Life is the
secret of Transmutation or of Eternal Life, of which it is impossible for the
rebellious Adam to taste. For, as long as the elements of disorder remain in
the body, so long as the flesh lusts against the spirit, so long as the Microcosm
admits two diverse wills and is swayed by two adverse laws; – so long is the
Fruit of this Tree unattainable. If it were possible for this ruined and disobedient
Adam to “eat and live for ever,” that eternal life would necessarily be the
eternal hell of the Calvinists, that endless condition of torment and defiance
of God, that life indestructible in the midst of destruction, which would –
were it possible – constitute the division of the universe, and set up in opposition
to the Divine rule, an equal and co-eternal throne of devildom.
22. As,
in this reading of the myth, Adam represents the body, Eve the soul, and the
Divine Voice the Spirit, so the serpent typifies the astral element or lower
reason. For this subtle element is the intermediary between soul and body, the
“fiery serpent” whose food is the “dust” that is, the perception of the senses,
which are concerned with the things of time and matter only. This “serpent,”
if not controlled and dominated by the will of the Initiate, leads the soul
into bondage and perdition, by destroying the equilibrium of the system and
dividing the Hearth-Fire. But though, when not thus dominated, the astral fire
becomes, through its function of Tempter, the Destroyer and agent of Typhon
or Negation, it is also, when under the dominion of the married spirit and soul,
an element of power and a glass of vision.
23. The
deposition from her rightful place of the Living Mother, Isha, Chavah, or Eve,
typified by the celestial serpent, is then brought about by the seductions of
the earthly and astral serpent. Thence ensues the ruin of the Edenic order.
The soul is subject to the body, intuition to sense, the inner to the outer,
the higher to the lower. Henceforth the monitions of the soul must be suppressed,
her aspirations quenched, her conceptions difficult, her fruit quickened and
brought forth with labour and sorrow. Intuition wars with passion, and every
victory of the spiritual man is bought with anguish. And between the kabbalistic
“woman” and the astral “serpent” there must be perpetual enmity; for henceforward
the astral is antagonistic to the psychic, and between the intellectual and
the intuitional “a great gulf is fixed.” For this astral serpent is the terrene
Fire, and the kabbalistic woman is the Water, the Maria, which is destined to
quench it. “She shall crush his head, and he shall lie in wait for her heel.”
Such
is, on the plane historical, whether of the individual or of the Church, the
meaning of “Paradise” and its “loss” – the gradual attainment of a certain high
grade, an the decline therefrom; a loss, the immediate effects of which manifest
themselves in a subversion of the divine-natural order, and in the supremacy
of the outer over the inner, the lower over the higher.
24. To
humanity in Paradise, made in the divine Image, and unfallen, were given as
meat the tree-fruits and the herb-grains; then, as Ovid tells us, “men were
contented with the food which Nature freely bestowed.” For the bodily appetites
knew no law but that of a healthy natural intuition, and obeyed the impulse
of the God within, desiring no other nourishment than that for which alone the
body was anatomically and physiologically designed. But, so soon as it acquired
a perverse, selfish will, a new lust arose; for a new and subhuman nature appeared
in it, the nature of the beast of prey, whose image the fallen body has put
on. That this is literal truth, all the poets, all the seers, all the regenerate
testify, bearing witness also that Paradise can never be regained, Regeneration
never completed, man never fully redeemed, until the body is brought under the
law of Eden, and has cleansed itself thoroughly from the stain of blood. None
will ever know the joys of Paradise who cannot live like Paradise-men; none
will ever help to restore the Golden Age to the world who does not first restore
it in himself. No man, being a shedder of blood, or an eater of flesh, ever
touched the Central Secret of things, or laid hold of the Tree of Life. Hence
it is written of the Holy City: “Without are dogs.” For the foot of the carnivorous
beast cannot tread the golden floors; the lips polluted with blood may not pronounce
the Divine Name. Never was spoken a truer word than this; and if we should speak
no other, we should say all that man need know. For if he will but live the
life of Eden, he shall find all its joys and its mysteries within his grasp.
“He who will do the will of God, shall know of the doctrine.” But until “father
and mother” are forsaken, – that is, until the disciple is resolved to let no
earthly affections or desires withhold him from entering the Perfect Way, –
Christ will not be found nor Paradise regained. “Many indeed begin the rites,”
says Plato, “but few are fully purified.” And a greater than Plato has warned
us that “the Way is strait and the Gate narrow that lead unto Life, and few
they are who find it.”
PART
III
25. COMING
next to the philosophical reading of our Parable, we find that on this plane
the Man is the Mind or rational Intellect, out of which is evolved the Woman,
the Affection or Heart; that the Tree of Knowledge represents Maya or Illusion;
the Serpent, the Will of the Body; the Tree of Life, the Divine Gnosis – or
interior knowledge; and the sin which has brought and which brings ruin on mankind,
Idolatry.
In this
aspect of the Fall, we have presented to us the decline of Religion from the
celestial to the astral. The affection of the unfallen mind is fixed on things
above, spiritual and real, and not on things beneath, material and phantasmal.
Idolatry is the adoration of the shadow instead of the substance, the setting
up of eidolon in the place of the God. It is thus no specific art, but
the general tendency towards Matter and Sense, that constitutes the Fall. And
of this tendency the world is full, for it is the “original sin” of every man
born of the generation of “Adam”; and only that man is free of it who is “born
again of the Spirit” and made “one with the Father,” his own central God.
26. Into
this sin of Idolatry the human Heart declines by listening to the monitions
and beguilements of the lower will, the will of the sensual nature. Withdrawing
her desire from the Tree of Life, – the Gnosis, – the Affection fixes on the
false and deceitful apples of Illusion, pleasant and desirable “to the eyes”
or outer senses. “Your eyes shall be opened,” urges the lower will, “and you
shall be as Gods, knowing both worlds.” The Affection yields to the seductions
of this promise, she entangles herself in Illusion, she communicates the poison
to the Mind, and all is lost. Man knows indeed, but the knowledge he has gained
is that of his own shame and nakedness. “Their eyes were opened, and they knew
– that they were naked.” By this act of idolatry man becomes instantly
aware of the body, of sense, of Matter, of appearance; he falls into another
and a lower world, precipitated headlong by that fatal step outwards from the
celestial to the astral terrene. Henceforth the fruit of the divine Gnosis,
the healing Tree, is not for him, he has lost the faculty of discerning Substance
and Reality; the eye of the Spirit is closed, and that of Sense is opened; he
is immersed in delusion and shadow, and the glamour of Maya. Sudden divorce
has taken place between the spirit and the soul. He has lost the “Kingdom, the
Power, and the Glory.” And, so long as he remains in the “wilderness” of the
illusory world, the Gnosis is guarded against him by the Elementary Spirits
and their fourfold swords, which, to the man having lost both the power and
the secret of the Dissolvent, are an impenetrable barrier.
27. We
now enter on the Ethical and Psychic interpretation of the myth, which interpretation
is itself a dual character, affecting on the one hand the Church, on the other
the Individual.
In this
third aspect of the parable the Man represents the human Reason; the Woman,
Faith, or the religious Conscience; the Serpent, the lower nature; the Tree
of Knowledge the kingdom of this world; and the Tree of Life the kingdom of
God. The religious Conscience set over the human Reason as his guide, overseer,
and ruler, whether in the general, as the Church, or in the particular, as the
Individual, falls when – listening to the suggestions of the lower nature –
she desires, seeks, and at length defiles herself with the ambitions, vanities,
and falsehoods of the kingdom of this present world. Nor does she fall alone.
For ceasing to be a trustworthy guide, she becomes herself serpent and seducer
to human Reason, leading him into false paths, betraying and deluding him at
every turn, until, if she have her way, she will end by plunging him into the
lowest depths of abject ignorance, foolishness, and weakness, there to be devoured
by the brood of Unreason, and annihilated forever. For she is now no longer
the true wife Faith, she is become the wanton, Superstition; and rather than
heed to obey monitions such as hers, he must, if he would save himself, assert
dominion over her and keep her in bondage and subjection to his authority. Better
far that he should be master in the Man, than Superstition, whose method is
folly, whose end is madness and death.
28. The
church at her best, unfallen, is the glass to the lamp of Truth, guarding the
sacred flame within, and transmitting unimpaired to her children the light received
upon its inner surface. Such is the function of the priesthood, in idea and
intention; but not, now at least, in fact and deed. For through the failure
of the priesthood to resist the materializing influences of the world upon the
side exposed to the world, the lamp-glass has become clouded that the light
within is either unable to pass through it at all, or passes only to cast around,
instead of genial rays, ghastly and misleading shadows. Or, may – be, the light
has expired altogether; and, not the maintenance of the flame, but the concealment
of its loss, is become the prime object of solicitude for its whilom guardians.
29. The
world’s history shows that hitherto this Fall has been the common fate of all
Churches. Nor is its cause far to seek, seeing that all human histories are
essentially one and the same, whether the subject be an individual or an aggregation
of individuals. A Church is, like every other personal organism, a compound
organism. Between the circumferential containing body, and the central informing
spirit, – having a side turned to each, and uniting the mental with the spiritual,
– stands the soul to which the Church, Priesthood, or Intuition corresponds,
in order by her meditation to reconcile the world to God and maintain the Man
in grace. And so long as, by virtue of the purity of such medium, the stream
of life and light from the central spirit of Truth is enabled to find free course
and circulation, perfect health continues in the system. But when, inclining
towards the outer and lower elements, the Church abandons the inner and higher,
and becomes of the earth earthy, the flame within her shrine, choked and quenched,
departs, leaving the sanctuary tenantless. Then, no longer of the heavenly,
but of the earthly kingdom, the fallen Church becomes the betrayer and the enemy
of man. To confess the truth – that she has suffered the sacred flame to expire
– would, in respect of all for which she is now solicitous, – her material sway
and interests, – be fatal. Hence the fact that she is naked and empty must be
studiously concealed, and all approach forbidden, that no one not concerned
to keep the secret may spy upon her darkened shrine. Thenceforth the Church
stands between God and the people, not to bring them together, but to keep them
apart. With light and spirit lost to view, and the way to the kingdom of God
blocked by superstition, the rational man either ceases to believe that any
such kingdom subsists, and, falling in his turn, he plunges into the gulf of
atheism or agnosticism; or, withheld by his traitor spouse from attaining the
fruition of the Tree of Life, contents himself with “stones for bread,” and
with “serpents” of the astral in place of the true celestial mysteries.
30. Thus
fallen and degraded, the Church becomes, as mankind too well knows, a Church
“of this world,” greedy of worldly dignities, emoluments, and dominion, intent
on foisting on the belief of her votaries, in the name of authority and orthodoxy,
fables and worse than fables, apples of Sodom and Gomorrah, Dead-sea fruit;
– a Church jealous of “the Letter which killeth;” ignorant of, or bitterly at
enmity with, “the Spirit which giveth life.”
PART
IV
31. WE
now reach the last and innermost interpretation of our fourfold hieroglyph,
the spiritual and creative secret embodied in the Edenic allegory. This secret
is sometimes more obscurely alluded to as the Lapse of heavenly beings from
their first happy estate into sub-celestial spheres, and their final redemption
by means of penance done through incarnation in the flesh. It need scarcely
be said that this imagined Lapse is also a parable designed to veil and preserve
a truth. And in its interpretation is found the creative secret, the projection
of Spirit into Matter; the Fall or Descent of Substance into Maya or Illusion.
Hence results Chavah, the Eve of Genesis, and circle of life conditioned as
past, present, and future, and corresponding to Jehovah, the covenant name of
Deity. In this reading of the parable the Tree of Divination or Knowledge becomes
Motion, or the Kalpa, – the period of Existence as distinguished from Being;
the Tree of Life is Rest, or the Sabbath, the Nirvana; Adam is Manifestation;
the Serpent – no longer of the lower but of the higher sphere – is the celestial
Serpent or Seraph of heavenly Counsel. For now the whole signification of the
myth is changed, and the act of Arche, the Woman, is the Divine act of Creation.
Ase, the root of the Hebrew word for Woman, signifies the generating female
Fire, the Living Substance producing or causing production. Its Coptic form,
Est, gives Esta or Hestia, the goddess of the temple-fire, for the continual
preservation of which the order of Vestal virgins was established. This word,
Est, is identical also with the Latin and Greek equivalents of IS, whence are
derived all the modern European forms of the same affirmative, as also the names
Esther and Easter.
32. Adam
signifies the Red, hence the Blood; and in Blood, Substance becomes incarnate
and takes form as Nature or Isis, which name is, of course, but another rendering
of the affirmative EST. Hence Nature, the incarnate Archë, is said to be born
from the side of Adam, or Manifestation by Blood. “Blood,” as says “Eliphas
Levi,” “is the first incarnation of the Universal Fluid; it is the materialized
vital Light. It lives only by perpetually transforming itself, for it the universal
Proteus, the great Arcanum of Life.”
33. Now,
as has been said in a former discourse, Motion is the means by which Spirit
becomes visible as Matter, for Spirit and Matter represent two conditions of
one thing. Therefore by the Tree of Divination of Good and Evil, in this interpretation,
must be understood that condition by means of which Spirit, projected into appearance,
becomes manifested under the veil of Maya.
34. Among
the sacred symbols and insignia of the Gods depicted in Egyptian sculpture,
none is repeated so often as the Sphere. This Sphere is the emblem of Creative
Motion, because the Manifesting Force is rotatory; being, in fact, the “Wheel
of the Spirit of Life” described by Ezekial as “a wheel within a wheel,” inasmuch
as the whole system of the universe, from the planet to its ultimate particle,
revolves in the same manner. And for this reason, and as an evidence of the
knowledge which dictated the ancient symbology of the Catholic Church, the Eucharistic
Wafer, figure of the Word made Flesh, is circular. The sacramental sphere,
poised on the head of a Serpent or Seraph, is a common hieroglyph in Egyptian
sacred tableaux; and sculptures bordered with processions of such emblematic
figures are frequent in the ancient temples. The apple, or round Fruit of the
Tree of the Kalpa, – of which, by the advice of the “Serpent” of heavenly Counsel,
the Divine Archë partakes, and thereby brings about the “Fall” or Manifestation
of Spirit in Matter, – is no other than the Sacramental Host, type of the Bread
of Life or Body of God, figured in the Orb of the Sun, reflected in the disk
of every star, planet, and molecule, and elevated for adoration on the Monstrance
of the universe.
35. Only
when the Naros, or Cycle of the Six Days, shall again reach their Seventh Day,
will “the Lord of the Seventh” – whom the Latins adored with unveiled heads
under the name of Septimianus, – return, and the veil of Illusion or
Maya, be taken away. The anticipation of the Seventh Day of the renewed Arcadia,
the Seven Days’ festival of liberty and peace, was held by the Greeks under
the name of the Kronia, and by the Latins under that of the Saturnalia.
This redemptive Sabbath is spoken of in the gospel as the “harvest of the end
of the world,” when Saturn or Sator (the Sower) as “Lord of the Harvest,” “shall
return again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” And when that day comes,
the Fruit of the Tree of Life, or Nirvana, shall be given for the healing of
the universe; rest from motion shall put an end to Matter; and Substance, now
by the “Fall” brought under the dominion of Adam or Manifestation, shall return
to Her original divine estate.
36. It
remains only to speak of the symbolic Bow or Cup encircling the microcosmic
car of Adonai, and representing, as already explained, the heavenly Mount, of
which the phenomenal heaven is the transcript. The planisphere of the heavens,
familiar in all ancient astrological science, is divided into two parts by a
line passing from east to west, and representing the horizon. The portion of
the planisphere below this horizontal line comprises the lower and invisible
hemisphere; that which is above, the upper and visible. At the opening of the
year the constellation of the Celestial Virgin, Astræa, Isis, or Ceres, is in
ascension. She has beneath her feet in the lower horizon the sign Python or
Typhon, the Dragon of the Tree of the Hesperides, who rises after her, pursuing
her, and aiming his fangs at her heel.
37. This
heavenly Virgin is the regenerate Eve, Maria the Immaculate, the Mother of the
Sun-God. Her first “decan” is that of the Sun, whose birth as Mithras was celebrated
on the twenty-fifth day of December, – the true birth of the year, – at midnight,
at which time she appears above the visible horizon. The figure of the sun was
consequently placed over this “decan” on the planispheric chart, and rests,
therefore, on the head of the Virgin, while the first “decan” of Libra, which
is that of the Moon, is under her feet. In her we recognize the Woman of the
Apocalypse, victorious over her adversary the Dragon, and restoring by her manifestation
the equilibrium – Libra – of the universe.
38. Thus
the Heavens eternally witness to the promise of the final redemption of the
Earth, and of the return of the Golden Age, and the restoration of Eden. And
the keynote of that desired harmony is to be found in the exaltation on all
the universal fourfold planes, physical, philosophical, physic, and celestial,
of the WOMAN.
Once again,
in the end as in the beginning, shall the Soul rehabilitated, the Affection
regenerated, the Intuition purified, the Divine Substance redeemed from Matter,
be throned, crowned, and glorified.
39. That
the time of rising of this Celestial Virgin and of the rehabilitation of truth
by the Woman-Messias of the Interpretation is near at hand, they who watch the
“times” and the “heavens” may know by more than one token. To name but one:
the sign Leo, which upon the celestial chart precedes the ascension of the Woman,
going before her as her herald, is the sign of the present Head of the Catholic
Church. When assuming that title, he declared his office to be that of the “Lion
of the Tribe of Juda ,” the domicile of the Sun, the tribe appointed to produce
the Christ. To the ascension of this constellation, preparing, as it were, the
Way of the Divine Virgin, the prophecy of Israel in Genesis refers: –
“Juda
is a strong lion; my son, thou art gone up. The sceptre shall not be taken away
from Juda till the coming of the Messenger – or Shiloh – the expectation of
the nations.”
And not
only does the chief Bishop of the Church bear this significant name of the “Lion,”
but he is also the thirteenth of that name, and Thirteen is the number of the
Woman and of the lunar cycle, the number of Isis and of the Microcosm. It is
the number which indicates the fullness of all things, and the consummation
of the “Divine Marriage,” the At-one-ment of Man and God.
Moreover
the Arms of Leo XIII. represent a Tree on a Mount, between two triune Lilies,
and in the dexter chief point a blazing Star; with the motto “Lumen in Coelo.”
What is this tree but the Tree of Life? these lilies but the Lilies of the new
Annunciation, – of the Ave which is to reverse the curse of Eva?
What star is this, if not the Star of the Second Advent? History repeats itself
only because all history is already written in “heaven.”
40. For the
signs of the Zodiac, or of the “Wheel of Life,” as the name signifies, are not
arbitrary, they are the Words of God, traced on the planisphere by the finger
of God, and first expressed in intelligible hieroglyphs by men of the “Age of
Saturn,” who knew the truth, and held the Key of the Mysteries. The Wheel of
the Zodiac thus constituted the earliest Bible; for on it is traced the universal
history of the whole Humanity. It is a mirror at once of Past, Present and Future;
for these three are but modes of the Eternal NOW, which, philosophically, is
the only tense. And its twelve signs are the twelve Gates of the heavenly City
of religious science; the Kingdom of God the Father.
41. The
philosophy of the day, unable, through its ignorance of the soul, to solve the
riddle of the Zodiac, concludes that all sacred history is a mere tissue of
fables, framed in accordance with the accidental forms of the constellations.
But, as the Initiate knows, these signs are written on the starry chart because
they represent eternal verities in the experience of the soul. They are the
processes or acts of the soul, under individualization in Man. And so far from
being ascribed to Man because written in the Zodiac, they were written in the
Zodiac because recognized as occurring in humanity. In the Divine order, pictures
precede written words as the expression of ideas. The planisphere of the Zodiac
is thus a picture-bible; and the images embodied in it have controlled
the expression of all written Revelation.
PART
V
42. THIS
discourse was closed for the writer by a vision, an account of which will form
an equally fitting conclusion for the reader. This vision was as follows: –
“A golden
chalice, like those used in Catholic rites, but having three linings, was given
to me by an Angel. These linings, he told me, signified the three degrees of
the heavens, – purity of life, purity of heart, and purity of doctrine. Immediately
afterwards, there appeared a great dome-covered temple, Moslem in style, and
on the threshold of it a tall Angel clad in linen, who with an air of command
was directing a party of men engaged in destroying and throwing into the street
numerous crucifixes, bibles, prayer-books, altar-utensils, and other sacred
emblems. As I stood watching, somewhat scandalized at the apparent sacrilege,
a Voice at a great height in the air, cried with startling distinctness, “All
the idols he shall utterly destroy!” Then the same Voice, seeming to ascend
still higher, cried to me, “Come hither and see!” Immediately it appeared to
me that I was lifted up by my hair and carried above the earth. And suddenly
there arose in mid-air the apparition of a man of majestic aspect, in an antique
garb, and surrounded by a throng of prostrate worshippers. At first the appearance
of this figure was strange to me; but while I looked intently at it, a change
came over the face and dress, and I thought I recognized Buddha, – the Messiah
of India. But scarcely had I convinced myself of this, than a great Voice, like
a thousand voices shouting in unison, cried to the worshippers: “Stand upright
on your feet: – worship God only!” And again the figure changed, as though a
cloud had passed before it, and now it seemed to assume the shape of Jesus.
Again, I saw the kneeling adorers, and again the mighty Voice cried, “Arise!
worship God only!” The sound of this Voice was like thunder, and I noted that
it had seven echoes. Seven times the cry reverberated, ascending with each utterance,
as though mounting from sphere to sphere. Then suddenly I fell through the air,
as though a hand had been withdrawn from sustaining me: and again touching the
earth, I stood within the temple I had seen in the first part of my vision.
At its east end was a great altar, from above and behind which came faintly
a white and beautiful Light, the radiance of which was arrested and obscured
by a dark curtain suspended from the dome before the altar. And the body of
the temple, which, but for the curtain, would have been fully illuminated, was
plunged in gloom, broken only by the fitful gleams of a few half-expiring oil-lamps,
hanging here and there from the vast cupola. At the right of the altar stood
the same tall Angel I had before seen on the temple threshold, holding in his
hand a smoking censer. Then, observing that he was looking earnestly at me,
I said to him: “Tell me, what curtain is this before the Light, and why is the
temple in darkness?” And he answered, “This veil is not One, but Three; and
the Three are Blood, Idolatry, and the Curse of Eve. And to you it is given
to withdraw them; be faithful and courageous; the time has come.” Now the first
curtain was red, and very heavy; and with a great effort I drew it aside, and
said, “I have put away the veil of blood from before Thy Face; shine, O Lord
God!” But a Voice from behind the folds of the two remaining coverings answered
me, “I cannot shine, because of the idols.” And lo, before me a curtain of many
colours, woven about with, woven about with all manner of images, crucifixes,
madonnas, Old and New Testaments, prayer-books, and other religious symbols,
some strange and hideous like the idols of China and Japan, some beautiful like
those of the Greeks and Christians. And the weight of the curtain was like lead,
for it was thick with gold and silver embroideries. But with both hands I tore
it away, and cried, “I have put away the idols from before Thy Face; shine,
O Lord God!” And now the Light was clearer and brighter. But yet before me hung
a third veil, all of black; and upon it was traced in outline the figure of
four Lilies on a single stem inverted, their cups opening downwards. And from
behind this veil, the Voice answered me again, “I cannot shine, because of the
curse of Eve.” Then I put forth all my strength, and with a great will rent
away the curtain, crying, “I have put away her curse from before Thee. Shine,
O Lord God!”
And there
was no more a veil, but a landscape, more glorious and perfect than words can
paint, a Garden of absolute beauty, filled with trees of palm, and olive, and
fig, rivers of clear water and lawns of tender green; and distant groves and
forests framed about by mountains crowned with snow; and on the brow of their
shining peaks a rising Sun, whose light it was I had seen behind the veils.
And about the Sun, in mid-air hung white misty shapes of great Angels, as clouds
at morning float above the place of dawn. And beneath, under a mighty tree of
cedar, stood a white elephant, bearing in his golden houdah a beautiful woman
robed as queen, and wearing a crown. But while I looked, entranced, and longing
to look for ever, the garden, the altar, and the temple were carried up from
me into Heaven. Then as I stood gazing upwards, came again the Voice, at first
high in the air, but falling earthwards as listened. And behold, before me appeared
the white pinnacle of a minaret, and around and beneath it the sky was all gold
and red with the glory of the rising Sun. And I perceived that now the voice
was that of a solitary Muezzin standing on the minaret with uplifted hands and
crying: –
“Put away Blood from among you!
Destroy your Idols!
Restore your Queen!”
And straightway
a Voice, like that of an infinite multitude, coming as though from above and
around and beneath my feet, – a Voice like a wind rising upwards from caverns,
under the hills to their loftiest far-off heights among the stars, – responded,
–
“Worship God alone!” [ See Appendice, No III, Part 2 ]
LECTURE
THE SEVENTH
THE
FALL ( No. II )
PART
I
01. OUR
subject is again the cataclysmal event mystically called the Fall of Man. Before
entering upon it we will recapitulate briefly what has been said respecting
the nature of man. As already explained this is fourfold. This fourfold nature
is itself included in a dual personality. Consisting of male and female, Reason
and Intuition, Man is, in this sense, a twofold being. But the masculine moiety
comprises the dualism of Sense and Intellect; and the feminine moiety, the dualism
of Soul and Conscience.
02. Owing
to this duality of his constitution, every doctrine relating to Man has, primarily
a dual significance and application. And owing to his fourfoldness, it has also,
secondarily, a fourfold significance and application. The interpretation, therefore,
of any doctrine must, to be complete, be at the least twofold. And since there
is between the inner and outer spheres of man’s being an exact correspondence,
by virtue of which, whatever subsists or occurs in the one sphere has its counterpart
in the other, the terms which describe the one apply also to the other; and
no interpretation or application is complete which does not include both spheres.
03. Thus
it comes, – to quote a fragment of Hermetic derivation, – that: –
“All
Scriptures which are the true Word of God have a dual interpretation, the Intellectual
and the Intuitional, the Apparent and the Hidden.
“For nothing can come forth
from God save that which is fruitful.
“As is the nature of God, so
is the Word of God’s Mouth.
“The Letter alone is barren;
the Spirit and the Letter give Life.
“But that Scripture is the
more excellent which is exceeding fruitful, and brings forth abundant signification.
“For God is able to say many
things in one; as the perfect Ovary contains many seeds in its Chalice.
“Therefore there are in the
Scriptures of God’s Word certain Writings which, as richly yielding Trees, bear
more abundantly than others in the self-same holy Garden.
“And one of the most excellent
is the Parable of the Fall, which, as a stream parted into four branches, has
a fourfold head, and is a word exceeding rich.”
For a
parable it is, and not a history, as ordinarily understood, but having a hidden,
that is, a mystic meaning; – a parable, moreover, which, while founded indeed
upon a particular fact, is true for all time, in that it is perpetually being
enacted. Being thus, the Parable of the Fall constitutes an Eternal Verity.
04. The
opening chapters of the sacred books exhibit, then, not merely events occurring
in, and having relation to, a particular place or time, but the meaning and
object of religion at large, the creation of man, the nature of sin, and the
method of salvation; and all these as perpetually subsisting. These chapters
constitute thus a kind of argument or abstract prefixed to the divine drama
of man’s spiritual history. And the key to their interpretation is the word
NOW.
05. For,
in the Divine Mind, there is no past, in the Divine economy, no future. God
is I AM, and always IS. The term Jehovah combines in one word the tenses past,
present, and future of the verb I AM. Scripture is a record of that which is
always taking place. Thus, the Spirit of God, which is original Life, is always
moving upon the face of the waters, or heavenly deep, which is original Substance.
And the One, which consists of these two, is always putting forth alike the
Macrocosm of the universe and the Microcosm of the individual, and is always
making man in the image of God, and placing him in a garden of innocence and
perfection, the garden of his own unsophisticated nature. And man is always
falling away from that image and quitting that garden for the wilderness of
sin, being tempted by the serpent of sense, his own lower element. And from
this condition and its consequences he is always being redeemed by the blood
of the sacrifice always being made for him by the Christ Jesus, who is Son at
once of God and of man, and is always being born of a pure virgin: – dying,
rising, and ascending into heaven.
06. For
these are, one and all, mystic terms denoting facts of perpetual recurrence
in the history of the Soul, and necessary to salvation. It depends, however,
upon the sense in which they are understood, whether they minister to salvation
or to condemnation. The letter, it is declared, killeth; the letter and the
spirit together have and confer life. For, while interpreted in one sense –
the sense of the spirit – they are divine truths; interpreted in another sense
– the sense of the letter – they are idolatrous falsehoods. And inasmuch as
idolatry consists in the materialization of spiritual mysteries, and the substitution
for the true things signified, of their material symbols; those interpretations
are idolatrous which give to mystical doctrines physical applications. Now,
all Scripture given by inspiration of God is mystical; and, in its esoteric
sense, deals not with material things, but with spiritual realities, the mystic
intention of the things named being alone implied, and by no means the things
themselves. And this rule holds good alike of those two divisions of Scripture
which are called respectively the Old and the New Testament.
07. In
accordance, then, with the fourfold constitution of existence, the Parable of
the Fall has a fourfold signification. But, inasmuch as that which is true of
the race is true also of the individual, and that which is true of the individual
is true also of the race, each portion of the fourfold signification has a twofold
application, namely, to the race and to the individual. For each alike it is
true on the planes spiritual, moral, intellectual, and physical. And it is constructed
in terms derived from this last, because only thus it can find on any plane
universal recognition; – since the physical is the universal mirror of the unmanifest,
and is the only medium capable of reflecting at once all the three planes above
itself. Thus represented in terms derived from the physical, it possesses a
meaning for all, if only as an allegory of the Seasons, for – having an astronomical
basis – such it also is.
08. So
far, however, from being intended to represent the actual natural history, either
of the planet or of man, or to be what now-a-days it is the fashion to call
scientific, it is so contrived as to make that history appear to be the reverse
of what it really is. For, read by the superficial sense, it represents man
as created perfect from the first, by a power working from without; whereas,
the truth is, that he is created by gradual development from rudimentary being,
by a power – the Divine Spirit – working from within. For this is ever the method
of the Divine procedure, and it is this that the parable really implies.
09. But
only when it is understood what the mystic books mean by Man, does the true
meaning appear. And as, until this is understood, it is vain to attempt to interpret
those books, a definition of the term Man, as therein employed, must be our
first concern.
A materialistic
science, discerning only the outward appearance of things, and taking, therefore,
no account of qualities, necessarily makes the Form all. Hence, for it, man
is but a primate among the animals, and sufficiently defined under the terms
Mammal, Biped, Bimanous, and the like. The notion that the form, to be
valid, must be filled up, and that he who is man in form only, and is
devoid of all the qualities, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, which are comprised
in the term humanity, is not really man, is a notion which does not enter into
the conception of the Materialist.
10. According
to mystical doctrine, on the other hand, he who is human in form only, is but
man rudimentary, and to be classed, in all essential respects, with those lower
grades of humanity, the plants and animals. He has, like them, the potentiality
only of humanity, and is no realized humanity. For, according to this doctrine,
man’s supreme function is knowledge; SO that he is not man until he knows, or,
at least, has an organon of knowledge, and is capable of knowing. Besides, the
very term knowledge, has, in this relation, a special meaning. For the mystic
applies it only to the cognition which is of Realities. That alone for him is
knowledge, which has for its subject the nature of Being, his own nature, that
is, and God’s; not phenomena merely, but Substance, and its method of operation.
And, forasmuch as, in order to have this knowledge, a man must have attained
his spiritual consciousness, it follow that, according to mystical definition,
man is not man until he has attained the consciousness of his spiritual nature.
To attain this, and this alone, is to attain true manhood. And, prior to the
attainment of this, the individual is but as an infant, incompetent to fulfil,
or even to comprehend, the functions of manhood.
11. The
reason of this it, that man as dual being, not masculine only or feminine only,
but both of these; not man only or woman only, but man and woman. And he is
this in respect, not of his exterior and physical, but of his interior and spiritual
nature. For, since humanity is dual, that which, being man, represents humanity,
must be dual also. And this cannot be on the plane merely physical, whereon
but one moiety only of the human dualism can be expressed in the same individual.
On this plane it takes two persons, a man and a woman to express the whole humanity.
And it is by means of its two sexes that the body constitutes a symbol of the
humanity which, in being interior and permanent, is alone the humanity which
is real.
12. For,
– as already stated, – that whereby the man attains to manhood is woman. It
is his power to recognize, appreciate and appropriate her, that stamps him,
physically, man. She it is who, influencing him through the affections kindled
by her in him, withdraws him from his outward and aimless course, in which left
to himself, he would sooner or later be dissipated and lost; and who, gathering
him round herself, as centre, redeems him and makes him into a system capable
of self-perpetuation, supplementing and complementing meanwhile his masculine
qualities as will, force, and intellect with her feminine qualities, as endurance,
love, and intuition. Thus, by the addition of herself she makes him Man. It
is not to the male moiety of the dualism constituted by them, that the term
Man is properly applicable, any more than to the female moiety. Neither of them
separately is Man; and it is by an unfortunate defect of language, that the
masculine half of man is called a man. [ Much and serious misconception
has arisen from the use of the same term to denote both the whole humanity and
the masculine half of humanity. The confusion is identical with that which arises
from the use of the word Earth to denote both the entire globe of earth
and water, and the solid portion only of the globe. As in its former sense earth
and water are equally Earth, the one being as earth masculine, and the other
as earth feminine, so man and woman are equally Man, the one being man masculine,
and the other man feminine. For her as well as for him, the exterior personality
is what mystically is called the “man,” and the interior being is the “woman.”]
He is man male, as she is man female. And only when wedded, that is welded,
into one by a perfect marriage, does Man result, the two together thus blended
making one humanity, – as earth and water make one Earth, – and by their power
of self-perpetuation and multiplication demonstrating the completeness and perfection
of their system.
13. Only
because it is already so with Humanity on the inner plane, is it so on the outer.
Whatever the sex of the person, physically, each individual is a dualism, consisting
of exterior and interior, manifested personality and essential individuality,
body and soul, which are to each other masculine and feminine, man and woman;
he the without, and she the within. And all that the woman on the planes physical
and social, is to the man, that she is also on the planes intellectual and spiritual.
For, as Soul, and intuition of Spirit, she withdraws him, physically and mentally,
from dissipation and perdition in the outer and material and by centralizing
and substantializing him redeems and crowns him; – from a phantom converting
him into an entity, from a mortal into an immortal, from a man into a god. Without
her, it were better both for himself and for others that he should not be at
all. On no plane of being is it good that the man-element be alone. For without
Love, Force can but work evil until it be spent. And such is man and his doom
until he finds and is found of her, the soul and woman within him. She is to
him very “mother of the living,” and without her is no life. And she is this
because she is, by her nature, that wherein the Divine Life, resides. For, as
the soul is the life of the man, so is the spirit, which is God, the life of
the soul. Thus is she mediator between man and God, to draw them together in
herself. And only he is truly alive, is truly Man, and made after the Divine
Image, in whom she thus operates. Redeeming him from chaos and making him a
Cosmos, she is the centripetal to his centrifugal, the attractive to his separative,
the constructive to his destructive, the synthesis to his analysis, the being
to his seeming, the reality to his illusory. With her advent he begins to be;
and thenceforth, through her, he can claim kindred with the I AM.
14. Man,
then, in our parable, is represented as created perfect in that he is, in the
mystical sense, male and female; that is, he has a soul – anima divina
– superadded to his exterior personality, – anima bruta, – each of which
is conscious of the separate existence of each. Their attainment of this consciousness
is represented under the allegory of the creation of the woman; they first then
begin to exist for each other. The time chosen for the attainment of this stage
in their history is an important element in the process. For it is the same
for all men. It is not while engaged in the active exercise of his masculine
qualities that man first becomes conscious of his other and better, because
interior and divine, self. His aggressive and destructive tendencies must have
been exhausted, and the animal in him, his own exterior self, – in a word, the
man part of him, – cast into deep slumber, before the woman in him can
reveal herself, and make him conscious of something, or rather some one,
within him, – himself, yet differing from himself, and higher and better than
anything he has before had or been.
15. Once
recognized, and her reality and superiority admitted, there is no height of
goodness and knowledge to which she cannot raise him, if but only he follow
her lead, and keep her free from defilement by Matter and Sense, the direct
traffic with which appertains to him. In order properly to fulfil her function
in regard to the man, and attract his regards upwards to her, she must herself
aspire continually to the Divine Spirit within her, the central sun of herself,
as she is that of the man. If, withdrawing her gaze from this, she fix it on
things without and below, she falls, and in her fall takes him with her. Except
through her, he cannot fall; for only through her does he at all rise, being,
by his very nature the lowermost, and of himself incapable of rising. For he
rests on the material plane, and is earth earthy.
16. It
is not because Matter is in itself evil that the soul’s descent into it constitutes
a fall and ensures disaster. It is because to the soul Matter is a forbidden
thing. So that the act constitutes a disobedience. The prohibition, however,
is not an arbitrary one, but is founded in the soul’s own nature, as also is
the penalty attached to her transgression. Only by remaining spiritual substance
can soul subsist as soul, having all the potentialities of soul. By quitting
her own proper condition and descending into Matter, she takes upon herself
the limitations of Matter. As between Spirit and Matter there is no boundary
line, it is only by the maintenance of a will set exclusively spirit-wards that
a soul can be held from submitting into the lower condition of Matter, finally
to disintegrate and perish.
17. Such
a fall, it will be well to repeat, does not involve the loss of any portion
of the divine Substance. The animating spirit is withdrawn, and the constituent
elements are separated. That only which perishes is the individuality
constituted of these. And it perishes through its own persistent refusal of
that “Gift of God” which is Eternal Life, the gift, namely, of portion of God’s
Self or Spirit. Refusing this, man refuses life, as he is free to do. God rejects
and annihilates no one. Man, by his rejection of God, annihilates his own individuality.
And God cannot make man on any other terms. And this, for the reason that God
is omnipotent. God would not be omnipotent were the individual indestructible.
For then there would be something not God, possessing all the power of God.
So far from this doctrine being an impugnment of the Divine love and goodness,
it is essential to these qualities. God, we have said, rejects and destroys
nothing. But there is in things evil an element of self-destruction, in the
operation of which lies the safety of the universe. Were the fact otherwise,
– could individuals subsist forever in a condition of opposition to the Divine
will, – then would evil itself be eternized; and the universe, divided against
itself, would fall. And, on the other hand, were man not free to annihilate
himself, but salvation were compulsory, existence, instead of being a solemn
reality, would be a farce wherein man and the soul would be but mechanical puppets
altogether unworthy a divine creation. By the law of Heredity, God’s freedom
involves man’s freedom: and this involves the freedom to renounce God, and with
God, all being. Thus is the saying true, “For him who will not have God, God
is not.”
18. It
is through the soul, and the soul only, that man learns the Divine will, and
learning it, saves himself. And the clearness with which the soul, on her part,
discerns and transmits that will, depends upon her purity. In this word purity
lies the essence of all religion. It is the burden of the whole Bible and of
all bibles. Always is purity insisted on as the means to salvation; always impurity
as the cause of condemnation. To this uniformity of doctrine the Parable of
the Fall is no exception. With the soul pure, man dwells in Eden and “sees God.”
With the soul impure, he is driven forth into the Wilderness. Such, on the plane
spiritual, is the operation of that great law of gravitation which – as has
been said – is the one law of existence. Salvation and condemnation are matters
of spiritual gravitation. Man tends towards or away from God – the Tree of Life
– according to the specific gravity of his soul. Of this the density depends
upon the nature of the affections cultivated by him. And this, again, depends
upon his own Will, which is free. Wherefore, in being the regulator of his own
specific gravity, he is the arbiter of his own destiny; and according as he
himself wills, he tends inwards and upwards to salvation, or outwards and downwards
to extinction. Yielding to the Tempter Sense, and making Matter not his means
merely but his end, his soul loses at length her spiritual nature. Nevertheless,
while there is life in her there is hope for him. But only through a return
to purity. For only when she has regained her “virginity” and become “immaculate,”
can the Christ – her savior – be born of her.
PART
II
19. THE
full significance of the Parable under consideration, and the unity of the mystic
Scriptures, become conspicuously apparent when we collate their various corresponding
utterances, as by taking into account those also of the Book of Revelation.
For it is there that the doctrine of the Woman receives its crowning recognition
as the foundation of that true Christianity which those persistent suppressors
of the women – the world’s materializing priesthoods – have so nearly extinguished.
Let us, then, – though at the risk of some repetition – collate these two utterances,
between the delivery of which so many thousands of years elapsed.
20. In
creating Man, God creates one whole and perfect being, formed of two distinct
parts, Adam the earthly, exterior man, and Eve the spiritual and interior man,
his soul and “living mother.” These two are joined together by God in perfect
union as one creature, and made, for the time, indispensable to each other.
Adam, as the manifested personality or man, is not complete, that is, is not
a man having Manhood, until Eve, the soul or woman, is added to him as helpmeet
and guide. By the addition of her the two natures become one Humanity.
21. From
this state of perfection Humanity soon falls. For Eve, the soul, withdrawing
her steadfast gaze from the proper object of her regard, namely, her spirit,
God, fastens them on things below, things earthly and material, which are to
her the “forbidden fruit,” since her nature is spiritual. Beholding this fruit,
and finding it pleasant to the eyes, she puts forth her hand and plucks of it,
and gives of it to her husband, or Adam, to eat with her.
22. This
is ever the history of sin. The exterior personality cannot of itself sin, for
it is not a responsible being. Sin is of the soul; and it comes of the soul’s
inclination to the things of sense. Taking of this fruit and enjoying it, she
is said to eat it. And at her instigation “Adam” does likewise. And thenceforth,
instead of the soul operating within him to purify and enlighten him, and lead
him upwards towards the Spirit, together they become sensual and debased. And
thus the sin, which has its commencement in the thought of the soul, afterwards
becomes developed into action through the energy of the body or masculine part.
23. The
sin consummated, the result is inevitable. Adam and his wife, the man and his
soul, hear the voice of the Lord God speaking through their conscience. And
sensible that they are no longer clad in the purity which alone enables man
to face his Maker, they fly, as one caught naked, to hide from the Divine presence.
Having rejected God, and no longer looking up to Him, as her Lord and King,
the soul, Eve, falls under the sway of Adam and the body. He rules her, and
her desire is unto him: and thenceforth Matter has dominion in them over the
spirit. The garden of perfection is lost, and the world becomes for them a wilderness.
24. Meanwhile
Adam, being interrogated by the Divine Voice, lays the blame upon Eve. For,
but for the soul within him, the man had not known or been capable of committing
sin; sin being possible only where there is a sense of right and wrong, which
the soul alone possesses. Eve, interrogated in her turn, throws the blame on
the serpent of Matter – sense, or the lower nature – through whose allurements
she has fallen. It is no particular act that thus constitutes sin. And sin does
not consist in fulfilling any of the functions of nature. Sin consists in acting
without or against the spirit, and in not seeking the divine sanction in everything
that is done. For sin is not of the physical but of the spiritual man. And by
the spirit the act is redeemed or condemned. It is sheer materialism and idolatry
to regard an act as itself sinful. For to do this, is to invest that which is
merely physical with a spiritual attribute.
25. The
natural result of the soul’s enslavement to Matter, is her liability to extinction.
In her own nature the soul is immortal. That is, she does not partake the death
which befalls the body, but survives to take on other bodies, and continues
to do so until she has finally built up a spiritual man worthy and capable of
enduring for ever. But the lower she sinks herself into Matter, the lower become
her vitality and power of recovery. So that unless she turn and mend, she must
ultimately perish; for she will lose altogether the Divine Spirit which is her
necessary life.
26. Notwithstanding
the soul’s fall, then, there is still hope of recovery for man. She shall yet,
she is divinely assured, “crush the serpent’s head.” Not her seed only, but
herself, – the soul, – when fully restored. For this is the true rendering,
both in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the far older Bible of the Zodiac, – that
indefeasible prophecy of the soul’s history. So that she who has been the cause
of the fall, shall be the means also of redemption. “I will put enmity,” says
God to the Serpent, “between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed: She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” For
the fallen soul, retaining in some degree her spirituality, and recoiling from
a merely material estimate of things, constitutes in the man a constant protest
against his engrossment by his lower nature. It is, therefore, of the soul,
restored to her pure estate and not of the body and its animal propensities,
that the redeemed man must be born. The first Adam is of the earth, earthy,
and liable to death. The second is “from heaven,” and triumphant over death.
For “sin has no more dominion over him.” He, therefore, is the product of a
soul purified from defilement by Matter, and released from subjection to the
body. Such a soul is called virgin. And she has for spouse, not Matter – for
that she has renounced – but the Divine Spirit, which is God. And the man born
of this union is in the image of God, and is God made man; that is, he is Christ,
and it is the Christ thus born in every man who redeems him and endows him which
eternal life. For in him the man becomes transmuted from Matter into Spirit.
He is the man himself, by regeneration become a son at once of man and God.
Generation, degeneration, regeneration, – in these three terms is comprised
the whole process of the soul’s history.
27. This
triumphant consummation of the soul’s course is thus celebrated in the Apocalypse.
“I beheld, “says the seer, “a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the
sun having the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve starts.”
This is the soul invested with the light of supreme knowledge attained through
the experiences undergone in the long series of her past existences; standing
on the moon as victor over materiality and firm in the faith of a full intuition,
– states denoted respectively by the dark and light portions of the moon; and
superior evermore to the changes of mortal destiny, the stars which represent
this being the jewels of her crown, each of them denoting one of the “twelve
labours” necessary to be endured by the soul on her path to her final perfectionment,
and the spiritual gifts and graces acquired in the process.
28. Of
the woman or soul thus exalted the offspring is a “man-child,” who is persecuted
by the “serpent” of the lower world. It is a man-child for several reasons.
First, because it represents the good deeds, and not intention or thoughts merely,
but actual works and positive fruits of a soul overshadowed of the Divine Spirit,
and fertilized by the Divine Love. In the origination of such deeds, the outer
nature of man can have no part; they proceed wholly from the soul or woman.
And they constitute a man-child because deeds imply an exercise of the masculine
element of force. And they are necessary to salvation, not because they themselves
can save, but because they indicate the redemption of the individuals who perform
them. Faith and holy longing are feminine, and of themselves insufficient. They
must be supplemented by works – which are masculine – in order to win acceptance
in God’s sight. “For the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without
the man, in the Lord.” And “the Lord” means and is the whole humanity of man
and woman, as subsisting in the Divine Idea. Without the child, therefore, and
this a man-child, the allegory would have been incomplete.
29. Now
the good deeds thus engendered are the special aversion of the devil, or principle
of evil, since, more than all else, they endanger his kingdom. Hence he is represented
as seeking to annihilate both them and the soul which has given them birth.
But though the soul must yet remain in the world to endure trial and persecution
until the time come for God to end her probation and call her to her final joy
with Himself, it is not so with her offspring; but this is forthwith caught
up to God and His throne. For, the good deed once wrought cannot be destroyed;
but God accepts and preserves it, and the devil has no power over it. Wherefore
the latter, finding it useless to pursue the man-child, redoubles his efforts
against the soul, and pours forth a flood of temptations, in order, if possible,
to sweep her from God’s sight. She, however, though still in the “wilderness”
of the flesh, is divinely sustained and delivered. The rest of her seed, the
good deeds she continues to bring forth, are still the subject of persecution,
until the dragon is finally overcome through what mystically is called the Blood
of the Lamb, which is the pure doctrine and life whereby the elect are made
sons of God and heirs of eternal life.
30. In
the final exaltation which awaits her as the reward of her faithfulness, the
woman or soul, is described as arrayed by God in the white linen of righteousness,
the emblem of perfect purity, and given to be the bride of His “only son,” Christ
Jesus. This is the man perfected through experience of suffering, and made regenerate
through following his soul’s pure intuition of God. And is called the “only
son,” not because he is a single individual, but because only he is so designated
who comes up to this description. He always is a son of God, who is the product,
not of a soul defiled by contact of Matter, but of a soul pure and vitalized
of the Spirit. The character or “man” thus reborn is an “only begotten son of
God,” because God begets none of any other kind. Of men such as this are the
“saints” who “inherit the earth.” And under their rule, the “New Jerusalem,”
or state of perfection, which “cometh down from heaven,” – the city which has
God for its sun, and which has no temple because every man is himself a house
of God, – replaces the lost garden of Eden.
31. Side
by side with this epitome of the history of the pure and faithful soul, the
allegory traces that of the perverse soul, under the type of an abandoned woman
who sits upon the “seven hills” of the “seven deadly sins,” and allies herself
in wickedness with the “kings of the earth.” That is, who yields wholly to the
promptings of the lower nature, and accepts in all its grossness and cruelty
a civilization merely materialistic, in which the body is made all, and the
spirit and every divine principle are set at nought.
32. The
completeness of the parable in Genesis appears yet more distinctly when we compare
the curse pronounced on Adam with man’s actual condition in material respects.
The sentence in its proper integrity runs thus: – “And unto Adam God said. Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife when beguiled of the devil, and
hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat
of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;
and thou shalt eat, instead of the nobler fruit of the tree which grows spontaneously,
the grosser herb of the field which requires laborious cultivation. For, in
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground,
out of which thou wast taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
This is, God said to the bodily nature of man: “Because thou hast yielded to
the solicitations of thy mate, the soul, when turning from God, she inclined
to Matter, and from being spiritual became sensual, thou must lead a hard and
painful life, occupied by ignoble cares, and return by death to the lower elements
to perish. Thy mate, meanwhile, though also liable to perish, shall still have
long endurance, but henceforth – until finally purified and redeemed – shall
bring forth her works, as the slave of the body, in great trouble and compunction
for her fallen and degraded condition.”
PART
III
33. ALL
the mistakes made in Biblical interpretation come of referring statements of
which the intention is spiritual and mystical, implying principles or states,
to times, persons, or places. But, though these are never the essential element
in any such statement, it is, nevertheless true that the Bible parables are
either based upon certain special historic facts or are stated in terms derived
from actual occurrences; just as a hieroglyphical record is expressed in symbols
drawn from the animal world, and yet has no reference to that world; so that
the spiritual significations implied are not without a correspondence of some
sort on the natural plane.
34. Now,
the special historical fact upon the lines of which the parable of the Fall
is constructed, is one which – already implied in the account just given of
the soul individual of man – is to be sought in the history of the soul collective
of man, – in the history, that is, of the Church, an account of the Fall in
relation to which will occupy the rest of this lecture. Sacerdotalism has always
claimed for the Church the distinction of being the mystic woman through whose
exaltation redemption occurs. But it has never recognized the Church as also
the woman through whose fall comes the need of redemption. This reproach the
priest has bestowed in a quarter in which originally there was no idea of bestowing
it, and where it by no means belongs, namely, the feminine moiety of the human
race. Yet, notwithstanding this assumption of sacerdotalism, it is to the fall
of the Church from the standard attained in the Edenic period, that, in one
of its aspects, the parable refers.
35. Even
so, however, the interpretation is not to be restricted to any single or special
instance. It is only as a type of all Churches that the first or best Church
is employed, precisely as the soul of the first or best man may be employed
as a type of all souls. And any less general application would deprive the parable
of its due place as an eternal and universal verity, and reduce it to the level
of the merely historical and local.
36. Nor,
in likening all Churches one to another in respect of their fall, is it intended
to assimilate them in respect of the height from which they have fallen. All
that is meant is, that, whatever the level of spiritual perfection attained
by any mystic community or Church in the full flush of its enthusiasm and purity,
there is always a fall from such level, and the fall is due to one and the self-same
cause, namely, that which is implied in the parable of Eden, and of which account
has just been given in relation to the soul as individual. For of the soul’s
fall, whether in one or in many, the cause is always the same, – the inclination
to Matter.
37. The
rise also is the same, both in cause and in method. And it is of this – the
rise, that is, of the earliest known – perhaps the original – Church of Christ
– that we have first to speak. This, as with man himself, was by evolution from
rudimentary being. For the doctrine of creation by evolution is as already stated
a true doctrine: and it is true as regards both man’s physical and man’s spiritual
history. And it has been the doctrine of Mysticism from the beginning, the knowledge
of it being reserved for initiates of a high grade. But between it and the travesty
of it propounded by the science – wholly materialistic – of our day, is this
essential difference. That science, – “falsely so called,” – in its ignorance
of the nature of Substance, credits Matter with a power of evolution while denying
to it the properties through which alone evolution can occur, namely, inhering
life and consciousness. This science, moreover, contemplates as possible the
development of that which, being infinite and eternal, is necessarily all-perfection
perpetuity, namely, the substance of existence. For Mysticism, on the contrary,
existence – or, more properly Being – and consciousness are terms synonymous
and interchangeable; and all Substance, under whatever mode manifested, continues
still to be, in some mode, consciousness. And inasmuch as Substance itself is
incapable of development, in the sense of becoming more or better than it originally
is, development is not of the qualities of substance, but of the manifestation
of those qualities in individuated portions of it, a process which – consisting
in the unfoldment of qualities already subsisting, but latent – may fairly be
designated evolution.
38. The
man spiritual, like the man physical, – the Church, like the world, then, represents
a development from rudimentary being, occurring in virtue of the nature of the
substance of which that being represents the projection; and the only difference
between them is of degree or stage of development. And whereas the lowest or
material plane is that wherein the process commences, the highest and last to
be attained is the celestial. According to the degree in which he attains this,
man attains the divine and is at one with God, having, in virtue of the knowledge
thus derived, power “over things in heaven and things on earth,” – power, that
is, over both regions, the spiritual and the material, of his own nature, and
being altogether superior to the seductions of the illusory astral which lies
between.
39. This
celestial sphere was attained by the Edenic Church in a degree never reached
by any other. Wherefore, since that alone is such a Church in which it is attained,
no Church which has subsequently existed has been truly Edenic; but all have
been Churches of the Fall. In Eden alone was man made in the “image of God,”
being called in token thereof Adam and Eve. Then was the first man, according
to the mystical definition of the term. Men and women, indeed, had subsisted
on the earth for ages before him; but not man properly so called. They were
– as the vast majority of men and women still are – man only in the making,
or, it may be, in the marring. Man attains manhood and becomes Man, only when
he reaches his spiritual majority. The attainment of the celestial did not,
and does not, involve the abandonment of the terrestrial. The not uncommon notion
that man in his primal perfection was a non-material or fluidic being, having
no material body, is erroneous. Man, while yet in the body, attained “power
over the body;” from fixed, making it volatile, and, though not immortal, capable
of an indefinitely prolonged existence, its vitality meanwhile being such as
not only to render it superior to disease and injury in itself, but as to enable
it to communicate health to others. These results, however, – stupendous as
they would now be deemed, did not exhaust the potentialities of our race. There
is a superior stage of which account will be given when we come to treat particularly
of the redemption, and which belongs to a period of development transcending
that of the Adamic man. Nevertheless, though not realizing all the possibilities
of humanity, the Edenic Church attained, in its representative members, as no
other religious community has attained. And it was through that Church’s failure
to continue at the same high level, that the fall whereof we are treating, occurred.
By this fall, man receded from the celestial back towards his original level,
the terrestrial, becoming once more subject to Matter, and losing the power
over his body. There was no fall on the part of the individuals themselves who
had risen. These quitted the earth and passed on to higher conditions of being.
The Fall came through the failure of the succeeding generations, to attain the
level reached by their predecessors. Failing to attain, like them, the celestial,
man remained – where, with a few individual exceptions, he has ever since been
– in the astral and material.
40. Let
us attempt a description of that inmost sphere – the abode of the man celestial
– which is at once the source of doctrine and the sphere wherein – as representative
of the soul and intuition – the woman especially presides. It is a memory that
we are about to recall, a memory recovered of an age not absolutely but relatively
“golden,” to revisit which in thought, is to revert to a period in the world’s
youth, when, as yet unpoisoned by all-pervading sin and disease, the conditions
of life were so exquisite in their purity and harmony, as to make existence
itself a positive, intense delight. And while in the act of recovering that
memory, and enjoying again that remote past, the mind is able to look forward
as well as backward, and to behold the whole subsequent period of the world’s
course – that which is called the historical period – as but a season – brief
compared with that which preceded it – of sickness and suffering which the race,
by its own fault, has brought upon itself; but from which, it seems, rescue
is not impossible, can humanity but furnish the love needful for the task of
saving itself. For in those hyper-lucid moments it is made to appear as a self-evident
truth, that just as it has been possible for us in the past to live healthily
and happily, it will be possible for us to do so in the future. For Utopia is
Utopia only for those who insist that it shall for ever be Utopia and unrealized.
There is no force in the universe save will-force; and all that life needs for
life, is possible to will. And, continuing to operate over an indefinite period,
even a finite will becomes infinite. Wherefore man has but to will long enough,
to make the world as he would have it. But to will is not merely to wish, but
to work toward the desired end. It is for the woman in us to wish, and therein
to prompt. She is the inspirer. But the man in us must work. He is the executor.
Apart, powerless; together, they can move the world. He and She, Will and Love,
Spirit and Substance, operating in the celestial, created the world; and assuredly
they can redeem it.
41. That
which we propose to describe, – so far as the attempt to reconstruct it has
been successful, – is the innermost sphere, not, indeed, of the mystic community
of Eden itself, but of one of those ancient successors of and approximations
to it, which, as Colleges of the Sacred Mysteries, were the true heirs of Eden
and which, so recently even as by Plato, were described as places wherein were
repaired the effects of the Fall, and to quit which for the outer world was
to quit once more the garden for the wilderness. Once accessible to all, so
completely now has the true character of these institutions fallen from remembrance,
that even scholars write them down as instruments of imposture and oppression,
and devoid of special knowledge or faculty. Wherefore to recover them is to
re-create them; – no small task, seeing that the way to them, even in thought,
is barred and banned by all the priesthoods, so that only by facing and piercing
the formidable phalanx of sacerdotalism itself, can the forbidden ground of
those lost paradises be even approached.
42. For
– as recorded in classic legend – the golden fruit of a perfect doctrine and
life, produced on the union of Zeus and Hera, – the man and woman of the substantial
humanity, – is guarded not only by the dragon of man’s own lower nature, but
also by the “daughters of the sunset,” – the world’s materialized sacerdotalisms.
And these, together with dragon and sword of flame, keep watch and ward, lest
any, re-entering the closed garden, may find, and pluck, and eat, and know,
and, knowing, have life in himself, needing no assistance of priest. And so
fierce and vigilant is the watch kept, that only a Heracles – or man already
half divine – can succeed in piercing or evading the formidable phalanx.
43. Let
us suppose this done, and priestly lines safely passed and left behind. Traversing
the broad belt which divides these lines from the wished-for centre, the seeker
descries at length a Mount, towards the summit of which the sky appears
to dip, so that by the meeting of the two a junction is formed between the earth
and heaven. Thus does it appear to the interior vision, with which, to be a
successful follower of such quest, the seeker must be endowed. That which he
finds on reaching the Mount, is a community of beings, of both sexes, to the
ordinary eyes human, but to the interior divine also. And the life they lead
– though outwardly quiet, grave, uneventful, and, as some would deem it, even
ascetic – in reality throbs with intensest vitality, abounds in enterprise the
most lofty, and brims with keenest satisfaction. For, of this community the
members are, of all mankind, the profoundest of intelligence, widest of culture,
ripest of experience, tenderest of heart, purest of soul, maturest of spirit.
They are persons who – using life without abusing it, and having no perverse
will to the outer – have learnt all that the body has to teach, and who, rising
above earth by the steadfast subordination of their lower, and exaltation of
their higher nature, have at length – to use their own most ancient and significant
phrase – crucified in themselves the flesh, and thereby made of their bodies
instruments, instead of masters, for their souls, and means of expression, instead
of sources of limitation, for their spirits. Thus rising above the earth, they
have drawn down heaven to meet them; and, like the resolving rain-cloud of tropic
seas, formed a pillar of communication between the spheres upper and nether.
44. An
Order, or School, to these compose, whereof the initiates, while honoring the
man as the heir of all things, – if only he be lawfully begotten and be a true
child of the Spirit, – specially champion the woman, by exalting her within
themselves to share supremacy with the man, making themselves at once man and
woman. For together with the intellect, they cherish also the intuition, together
with the head, the heart, and combining in all things love with will, make it
their one object to enable the substance of their humanity to attain in them
the full manifestation of its qualities. Practicers as well as preachers of
the doctrine of creation by development, and – withheld by no prepossession
or prejudice – fearless followers of thought to its extremest spheres in every
direction, they are the earth’s sole genuine evolutionists and free-thinkers;
and to them alone, and those who, affiliated to them, know and follow their
method, it is given, while in the body, to live the life of the Spirit; to reach
their intellectual manhood; to complete the system of their thought, and find
certitude of truth even the highest; to attain the supreme common sense of all
the spheres and modes of being in which substance is wont to be manifested;
and, in a word, to be taught of the informing Spirit Itself of the universal
humanity, all the mysteries of that Kingdom which, being within, is the counterpart
of and sole key to that which is without.
45. Of
all who attain eminence in this School – and this have been, and haply shall
yet again be, many – the motive is one, and the history one. For the motive
is the love of perfection, for the sake, not of self only, but of perfection.
And this is a goal which, pursued as these pursue it, continues ever to rise,
and draws the pursuer after it. And the history is that of the soul. For, as
the soul is one, so also is her history one.
46. From
this Order, wherever established, have proceeded, as from a central sun, all
the light and heat of knowledge and goodness which, distributed through faithful
priesthoods, have ministered towards the world’s redemption from utter ignorance
and barbarism to such degree of humanity as it has reached. From the germs of
truth and beauty, in doctrine and conduct, idea and practice, thus originated,
and transferred to various soils, has sprung all that the world has of true
philosophy, morality, art, science, civilization, religion. And in so far as
the products have been lacking in excellence, the fault has been due, not to
the original seed, but to the soil and to the husbandmen.
47. How
stubborn that soil, and how inefficient or faithless those husbandmen, may be
inferred from the fact that rarely, since history began, has the Order found
in the smallest degree the recognition and gratitude its due. But, on the contrary,
whenever, in a period of degradation so extreme that humanity itself seemed
in its death-throe, and instead of men the earth bore monsters, – one of it
members had quitted his loved seclusion and, descending from his own celestial
“Mount” into the world below, has sought by conduct and precept to afford an
example of what humanity has in it to be, – he has by the world he sought to
rescue been subjected to persecution and affront, and in the official guardians
of the doctrine he represented and would have regenerated, has found his bitterest
foes.
48. Long
vanished from human view, the Order has been replaced by semblances, mechanical
merely and void of vitality; and for lack both of the knowledge and of the materials,
incompetent to build up a single specimen of humanity after its perfected pattern.
Nevertheless the true order still survives, though dwindled in numbers and no
longer having organization or appliance due; but as “a people scattered and
peeled,” lost tribes of a spiritual Israel, whose roll-call is no more on earth.
Once known and supremely honored by the titles of Magi, Wise men, Kings of the
East, and Sons of God, its initiates are now misknown and supremely contemned
under the designation of Mystics. Yet, notwithstanding the uncongenial climate
and evil entreaty of a civilization become wholly materialistic, these still
pursue, – unknown for the most part even to each other, – their ancient vocation;
and still is this, as of old, the Gnosis, or Divine Science. For its subject
is the Substance of the universal Humanity, and its object is the attainment
of personal perfection.
49. Of
all earthly Orders, this, by reason of its antiquity, its universality, its
objects, and its achievements, is incomparably the most notable, seeing that
from it have proceeded all the world’s true sages, saints, seers, prophets,
redeemers, and Christs; and through it all divine revelation. And its doctrine
is that one true doctrine of existence, and therein of religion, which, – always
in the world, – is now for the first time in its history published to the world
in language comprehensible by the world; – having, it is believed, been recovered
in the way it was originally received.
PART
IV
50. IT
remains to speak of the cause and manner of the fall from a level so lofty,
from a rule so beneficent. The truth is, that the world fell only because the
Church fell. And the Church, or collective soul of Humanity, fell, as does the
individual soul, by looking less and less upward to God, and more and more downward
to Matter. Cataclysmal as the result may appear when viewed in the totality
of its effects and from a distance of time, the declension was very gradual,
and extended over many generations. It may thus be compared to a diminution
of agricultural produce, such as occurs through the gradual impoverishment of
the soil. The spiritual possibilities of the race had, as it were, exhausted
themselves. Or it may be likened to a recession of the tides of the sea, and
to the seasons of the year. For, until finally united to God by what, mystically,
is called the Divine Marriage, man is subject to many fluctuations and alternations
in respect of his spiritual condition. And instead of the wave of his spiritual
life remaining always at high water, it falls back to rise in another tide,
– a tide, it may be, as in this case, to culminate only after another creative
“week” of man’s spiritual formation, of which every “day” should be a “thousand
years.” In the sense and manner ordinarily supposed, mankind never fell. Its
fall was gradual as its rise. Under the ripening influence of a vast wave of
spiritual light and heat, – to the production of which man himself had contributed
his necessary quota, by voluntary co-operation with the Divine Spirit working
within him, – he attained the first great summer of his perfection, in the time
and manner indicated in the parable of Eden and the legends of the Golden Age.
Upon the subsidence of this wave, – a subsidence due to himself, – he fell from
this summer back into the spiritual autumn and winter in which he has remained
buried more or less deeply ever since. And now he is at the lowest depth compatible
with any retention at all of existence. Another step in the same direction means
for Humanity, – in the mystical and true sense, and that is in every high sense,
– total extinction.
51. As
with the Individual, so with the Race. The path of ascent from rudimentary being,
is also the path of descent when, through a perverse will to the outer, descent
occurs. Man rose into man, and attained the full image of God, through the culture
of the woman within him. Representing his soul and intuition of God, she was
his initiator into the knowledge of Divine things. And led by the clear perceptions
which are her special gift when duly tended and honored, he learnt to shun idolatry,
– which is the preference for the Form over the Substance, – and bloodshed (whether
for soul or body), and with these whatever might serve to obscure or distort
his conceptions of the Divine Character. Thus exalting the woman on the spiritual
and intellectual planes of her manifestation in humanity, he exalted her also
on the planes social and political; and instead of seeing in her, – as do the
fallen philosophies and sacerdotalisms of all subsequent ages, – a thing maimed
and defective, and, – however fair, – a mistake and a blunder of Nature, to
be classed with criminals, idiots, and children, and yet to be held responsible
for all the evils of existence, – he regarded her as a later and higher development
upon himself, and as, of the two, the nearer to God. And richly did she repay
him for the preference, so long as it was accorded to her. For through her he
attained Paradise. But as, when pure and uncorrupted, the soul is man’s initiator
into things divine; so when, turning towards the things of sense, the soul loses
her purity, she becomes his initiator into things evil, and gives him of the
fruit of forbidden knowledge, making him a “sinner,” which, but for the soul,
he could not be. For “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” and the law is given
to the soul. The Fall, therefore, when at length it came, came not through any
individual person, woman or man, but through the fault of man, and was due to
the fall of the woman in herself. Following her intuition of God, he had ascended
from the material, through the astral to the celestial, and became made in the
“image of God.” Following her in her fall into Matter, he descended by the same
way to where he now is, his path being one continuous track of agony, tears,
and blood, due solely to the suppression within himself of the “woman.”
52. At
once the cause and consequence of the Fall, the manifestation of this suppression
is always threefold. The loss of the intuition means idolatry, and idolatry
means murder. Each of these is a condition of the other. Losing his intuition
of Spirit, man becomes Materialist, and instead of the spiritual idea, which
alone is real, worships the visible symbol. That is, he ignores the soul and
exalts the body of things. Exalting the body, he sacrifices all to the body,
and sheds, for its gratification, innocent blood. Thus he is murderer as well
as idolator. The woman in him falling, he becomes “Cain,” a cultivator of “the
fruits of the ground” only, or lower nature, whence proceeds all evil. In other
words, for a doctrine of love he substitutes a doctrine of selfishness. For
this is the sin of which bloodshed is the symbol and outcome.
53. Since
these are the three steps of his descent, to reverse his practice in respect
of them – in the Spirit as well as in the Letter – will be to reverse the Fall,
and to remount once more to the celestial. Already has the movement begun in
each regard. The position of woman on the lower planes is being rapidly revolutionized,
and soon will be so also on the higher. Little, however, do most of those who
are working to that end know what it means, and little will the end coincide
with their anticipations. For many who in our day are pretending to “exalt the
woman” are doing so by means subversive of her. And many even of the women who
are seeking to exalt themselves, are doing so by the repression, rather than
by the promotion, of their womanhood; and this, by reason, not of their doing
man’s work but of their doing it in man’s evil fashion, leaving out the woman.
Nevertheless, the woman shall be exalted. God will carry her to His throne,
and “will make the wrath of man to praise Him.” The outcry, surely gathering
volume and strength, against the slaughter and torture of our animal brethren,
whether for use or for pleasure, is another token of entrance upon the upward
path. It is not at the hands of those who kill or eat them that the animals
will be permitted to accept their salvation from the torturer. They who would
redeem others must first make sacrifice in themselves. When this truth is understood,
the redemption of the animals will be at hand. And in respect of idolatry the
prospect is even yet brighter. For the “Gospel of Interpretation” has come,
and the “letter which killeth” is henceforth shorn of its strength.
54. Do
we speak of signs? What sign more astounding could have been imagined than the
modern phenomenon known as “Spiritualism”? Herein man has already taken one
whole step upward towards the celestial. For in “Spiritualism” he has quitted
the exclusively material, and has actually entered the astral. Short of the
celestial now he cannot stop. The very profundity of his dissatisfaction with
his experiences of the astral, will compel him onwards. To this every “Spiritualist”
will testify. Backward man dare not turn, to the merely material. For he has
beheld in vivisection the abyss which confronts him there, and in healthy horror
has recoiled from the bottomless pit therein disclosed, of the possibilities
of his own lower nature. In vivisection the human is abandoned for the infernal.
55. The
cry, then, is onward, upward, inward to the celestial. And happy will they be
who first are uplifted thither, for they will surely draw all men up after them.
Reversing the Fall and the Curse of Eve, they will lead Man to a new Golden
Age, a new Sabbath of Perfection, and the glories of the New Jerusalem, that
true City of Hygieia, which cometh down from the heaven of his own pure Ideal.
Thus will the divine Virgin Astræa – forced to quit earth when the Golden Age
was no more – fulfil the promise of her return, bringing her progeny of divine
sons, to redeem the world. [ “Jam re it et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna,
Jam nova progenies cœlo dimittitur alto.” Virgil, Eclog. IV. ]
Thus, too, will Intuition and Intellect, as a new Esther and Mordecai, once
more gain favour with the world, and, redeeming from oppression the true Israel,
give the kingdom to the righteous. Moreover in these faculties, thus restored,
will the “two” Apocalyptic “Witnesses” rise, as from the dead, in “the streets
of the great City,” and “ascending into heaven,” reign supreme. And thus also
will the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar find its fulfillment, and the Golden Image
its destruction. For the Image is the symbol of a civilization whose head –
or intellect – is golden, but whose body is of silver mixed with brass, and
whose legs and feet are iron and clay; – that is, which rests on Force and Matter.
And the Stone, hewn without hand, which destroys it, is the Understanding, manifested
in a new Word or Gospel of Interpretation, which, smiting the monster miscalled
Civilization, shall “scatter in pieces the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver
and the gold, and make them as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.” But
the “Stone” by which the Image is destroyed shall “become a great mountain,
and fill the whole earth.” Becoming the “head corner stone,” by it the Great
Pyramid of the standard Humanity shall be completed.
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to Part 2 of The Perfect Way |