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THIS IS PART 1 of The
The
The Finding of Christ
by
Anna Bonus Kingsford
& Edward Maitland
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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Part 1 of 2 THE
BY ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD AND EDWARD MAITLAND
THIS IS PART 1 of The
THE
AbstractPreface
Lecture the FirstFirstIntroductory
Lecture the SecondSecondThe Soul; and
the substance of existence
Lecture the ThirdThirdThe various orders
of Spirits; and to discern them
Lecture the FourthFourthThe Atonement
Lecture the FifthFifthThe nature and
constitution of the ego
Lecture the SixthSixthThe Fall (1)
Lecture the SeventhSeventhThe Fall (2)
Lecture the EightEightThe Redemption
Lecture the NinthNinth God as the Lord;
or, the Divine Image
APPENDICES
Concerning the interpretation of
scripture
Concerning the hereafter
On prophesying; and prophecy
Concerning the nature of Sin
Concerning the "Great Work" and
the share of Christ Jesus therein
The time of the End
The Higher Alchemy
Concerning Revelation
Concerning the Poet
Concerning the One Life
Concerning the Mysteries
Hymn to the Planet God
Fragments of the "Golden Book of
Venus"
Part -1-Hymn of Aphrodite
Part -2- A discourse of communion
of souls, and of the uses of love
between creature and creature.
Hymn to Hermes
The Secret of Satan
Plates
Figure - 1 - The Cherubim of Ezekiel and
the Apocalypse
Figure - 2 - The tabernacle in the
wilderness
Figure - 3 - Section of the Great Pyramid
of Gizeh
(Revised and
Enlarged Edition.)
ESOTERIC
PUBLISHING COMPANY,
1888.
AUTHORS’
EXPLANATION.
These
lectures were delivered in
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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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.
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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”.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
l-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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.)
l-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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.
l-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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)
l-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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 ]
l-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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 ]
l-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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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