The Theosophical Society,
Theosophy
and Religion
Esoteric Christianity
or
The Lesser Mysteries
By
Annie Besant
First Published 1914
CONTENTS
Forward
CHAPTER
I
The Hidden Side of Religions
II
The Hidden Side of Christianity
III
The Hidden Side of Christianity
IV
The Historical Christ
V
The Mythic Christ
VI
The Mystic Christ
VII
The Atonement
VIII
Resurrection and Ascension
IX
The Trinity
X
Prayer
XI
The Forgiveness of Sins
XII
Sacraments
XIII
Sacraments
(contd.)
XIV
Revelation
Afterword
FOREWORD
The object of this book is to suggest certain lines of thought as
to the deep truths underlying Christianity, truths generally overlooked, and
only too often denied. The generous wish to share with all what is precious, to
spread broadcast priceless truths, to shut out none from the illumination of
true knowledge, has resulted in a zeal without discretion that has vulgarised
Christianity, and has presented its teachings in a form that often repels the
heart and alienates the intellect. The command to "preach the Gospel to
every creature" [ S.Mark, xvi, 15] - though admittedly of doubtful
authenticity - has been interpreted as forbidding the teaching of the Gnosis to
a few, and has apparently erased the less popular saying of the same Great
Teacher: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your
pearls before swine". [S. Matt., vii,6]
This spurious sentimentality - which refuses to recognise the
obvious inequalities of intelligence and morality, and thereby reduces the
teaching of the highly developed to the level attainable by the least evolved,
sacrificing the higher to the lower in a way that injures both - had no place
in the virile common sense of the early Christians. S. Clement of
If true knowledge, the Gnosis, is again to form a part of
Christian teachings, it can only be under the old restrictions, and the idea of
levelling down to the capacities of the least developed must be definitely
surrendered. Only by teaching above the grasp of the little evolved can the way
be opened up for a restoration of arcane knowledge,
and the study of the Lesser Mysteries must precede that of the Greater. The
Greater will never be published through the printing-press; they can only be
given by Teacher to pupil, "from mouth to ear". But
the Lesser Mysteries the partial unveiling of deep truths, can even now be
restored, and such a volume as the present is intended to outline these, and to
show the nature of the teachings which have to be mastered. "Where
only hints are given, quiet meditation on the truths hinted at will cause their
outlines to become visible, and the clearer light obtained by continued
meditation will gradually show them more fully. For meditation quiets the lower
mind, ever engaged in thinking about external objects, and when the lower mind
is tranquil then only can it be illuminated by the Spirit. Knowledge of
spiritual truths must be thus obtained, from within and not from without, from
the divine Spirit whose temple we are [I. Cor., iii., .
] and not from an external Teacher. These things are "spiritually
discerned" by that divine indwelling Spirit, that "mind of
Christ", whereof speaks the great Apostle [Ibid.,
ii., 14, . ] and that inner light is shed upon the lower mind.
This is the way of the Divine Wisdom, the true THEOSOPHY. It is
not, as some think, a diluted version of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or
of any special religion. It is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric
Buddhism, and belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none. This is
the source of the suggestions made in this little volume, for the helping of
those who seek the Light - that "true Light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world", [ S.John, 1,9] though most have not yet opened
their eyes to it. It does not bring the Light. It only says: "Behold the
Light!" For thus have we heard. It appeals only to the few who hunger for
more than the exoteric teachings give them. For those who are fully satisfied
with the exoteric teachings, it is not intended; for why should bread be forced
on those who are not hungry? For those who hunger, may it prove bread, and not
a stone.
THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS
.MANY, perhaps most, who see the title of this book will at once
traverse it, and will deny that there is anything valuable which can be rightly
described as "Esoteric Christianity". There is a wide-spread, and
withal a popular, idea that there is no such thing as an occult teaching in
connection with Christianity, and that "The Mysteries", whether Lesser or Greater, were a purely Pagan institution. The very
name of "The Mysteries of Jesus", so familiar in the ears of the
Christians of the first centuries, would come with a shock of surprise on those
of their modern successors, and, if spoken as denoting a special and definite
institution in the
It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly that in the
The first question we have to answer is: What is the object of
religions? They are given to the world by men wiser than the masses of the
people on whom they are bestowed, and are intended to quicken human evolution.
In order to do this effectively they must reach individuals and influence them.
Now all men are not at the same level of evolution, but evolution might be
figured as a rising gradient, with men stationed on it at every point. The most
highly evolved are far above the least evolved, both in intelligence and
character; the capacity alike to understand and to act varies at every stage.
It is, therefore, useless to give to all the same religious teaching; that
which would help the intellectual man would be entirely unintelligible to the
stupid, while that which would throw the saint into ecstasy
would leave the criminal untouched. If, on the other hand, the teaching be
suitable to help the unintelligent, it is intolerably crude and jejune to the
philosopher, while that which redeems the criminal is utterly useless to the
saint. Yet all the types need religion, so that each may reach upward to a life
higher than that which he is leading, and no type or grade should be sacrificed
to any other. Religion must be as graduated as evolution,
else it fails in its object.
Next comes the question: In what way do
religions seek to quicken human evolution? Religions seek to evolve the moral
and intellectual natures, and to aid the spiritual nature to unfold itself.
Regarding man as a complex being, they seek to meet him at every point of his
constitution, and therefore to bring messages suitable for each, teachings
adequate to the most diverse human needs. Teachings must therefore be adapted
to each mind and heart to which they are addressed. If a religion does not
reach and master the intelligence, if it does not purify and inspire the
emotions, it has failed in its object, so far as the person addressed is
concerned.
Not only does it thus direct itself to the intelligence and the
emotions, but it seeks, as said, to stimulate the unfoldment of the spiritual
nature. It answers to that inner impulse which exists in humanity, and which is
ever pushing the race onwards. For deeply within the heart of all - often
overlaid by transitory conditions, often submerged under pressing interests and
anxieties - there exists a continual seeking after God. "As the hart
panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth" [ Psalms,
xlii,1] humanity after God. The search is sometimes checked for a space, and
the yearning seems to disappear. Phases recur in civilisation and in thought,
wherein this cry of the human Spirit for the divine - seeking its source as
water seeks its level, to borrow a simile from Giordano Bruno - this yearning
of the human Spirit for that which is akin to it in the universe, of the part
for the whole, seems to be stilled, to have vanished; none the less does that
yearning re-appear, and once more the same cry rings out from the Spirit.
Trampled on for a time, apparently destroyed, though the tendency may be, it
rises again and again with inextinguishable persistence, it repeats itself
again and again, no matter how often it is silenced; and it thus proves itself
to be an inherent tendency in human nature, an ineradicable constituent thereof.
Those who declare triumphantly, "Lo! it is dead!" find it facing them again with
undiminished vitality. Those who build without allowing for it find their
well-constructed edifices riven as by an earthquake. Those who hold it to be
out-grown find the wildest superstitions succeed its denial. So much is it an
integral part of humanity, that man will have some answer to his questionings;
rather an answer that is false, than none. If he cannot find religious truth,
he will take religious error rather than no religion, and will accept the
crudest and most incongruous ideals rather than admit that the ideal is
non-existent.
Religion, then, meets this craving, and taking hold of the constituent
in human nature that gives rise to it, trains it, strengthens it, purifies it
and guides it towards its proper ending - the union of the human Spirit with
the divine, so "that God may be all in all".[ I Cor., xv,28]
The next question which meets us in our enquiry is: What is the
source of religions? To this question two answers have been given in modern
times - that of the comparative Mythologists and that of the Comparative Religionists.
Both base their answers on a common basis of admitted facts. Research has
indisputably proved that the religions of the world are markedly similar in
their main teachings, in their possession of Founders who display superhuman
powers and extraordinary moral elevation, in their ethical precepts, in their
use of means to come into touch with invisible worlds, and in the symbols by
which they express their leading beliefs. This similarity, amounting in many
cases to identity, proves- according to both the above schools - a common
origin.
But on the nature of this common origin the two schools are at
issue. The Comparative Mythologists contend that the common origin is the
common ignorance, and that the loftiest religious doctrines are simply refined
expressions of the crude and barbarous guesses of savages, of primitive men,
regarding themselves and their surroundings. Animism, fetishism,
nature-worship, sun-worship - these are the constituents of the primeval mud
out of which has grown the splendid lily of religion. A
The Comparative Religionists consider, on the other hand, that
all religions originate from the teachings of Divine Men, who give out to the
different nations of the world, from time to time, such parts of the
fundamental verities of religion as the people are capable of receiving,
teaching ever the same morality, inculcating the use of similar means,
employing the same significant symbols. The savage religions - animism and the
rest-are degenerations, the results of decadence, distorted and dwarfed descendants
of true religious beliefs. Sun-worship and pure forms of nature-worship were,
in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth
and knowledge. The great Teachers-it is alleged by Hindus, Buddhists, and by
some Comparative Religionists, such as Theosophists-form an enduring
Brotherhood of men who have risen beyond humanity, who appear at certain
periods to enlighten the world, and who are the spiritual guardians of the
human race. This view may be summed up in the phrase: "Religions are
branches from a common trunk - Divine Wisdom".
This Divine Wisdom is spoken of as the Wisdom, the Gnosis, the
Theosophia, and some, in different ages of the world, have so desired to
emphasise their belief in this unity of religions, that they have preferred the
eclectic name of Theosophist to any narrower designation.
The relative value of the contentions of these two opposed
schools must be judged by the cogency of the evidence put forth by each. The
appearance of a degenerate form of a noble idea may closely resemble that of a
refined product of a coarse idea, and the only method of deciding between degeneration
and evolution would be the examination, if possible, of intermediate and remote
ancestors. The evidence brought forward by believers in the Wisdom is of this
kind. They allege: that the Founders of religions, judged by the records of
their teachings, were far above the level of average humanity that the
Scriptures of religions contain moral precepts, sublime ideals, poetical
aspirations, profound philosophical statements, which are not even approached
in beauty and elevation by later writings in the same religions - that is, that
the old is higher than the new, instead of the new; being higher than the old;
that no case can be shown of the refining and improving process alleged to be
the source of current religions, whereas many cases of degeneracy from pure
teachings can be
adduced; that even among savages, if their religions be carefully studied, many
traces of lofty ideas can be found, ideas which are obviously above the
productive capacity of the savages themselves.
This last idea has been worked out by Mr. Andrew Lang, who -
judging by his book on The Making of Religion - should be classed as a
Comparative Religionist rather than as a Comparative Mythologist. He points to
the existence of a common tradition, which, he alleges, cannot have been
evolved by the savages for themselves, being men whose ordinary beliefs are of
the crudest kind and whose minds are little developed. He shows, under crude
beliefs and degraded views, lofty traditions of a sublime character, touching
the nature of the Divine Being and His relations with men. The deities who are
worshipped are, for the most part, the veriest devils, but behind, beyond all
these, there is a dim but glorious overarching Presence, seldom or never named,
but whispered of as source of all, as power and love and goodness, too tender
to awaken terror, too good to require supplication. Such ideas manifestly
cannot have been conceived by the savages among whom they are found, and they
remain as eloquent witnesses of the revelations made by some great Teacher-dim
tradition of whom is generally also discoverable - who was a Son of the Wisdom,
and imparted some of its teachings in a long bye-gone age.
The reason, and, indeed, the justification, of the view taken by
the Comparative Mythologists is patent. They found in
every direction low forms of religious belief, existing among savage tribes.
These were seen to accompany general lack of civilisation. Regarding civilised
men as evolving from uncivilised, what more natural than to regard civilised
religion as evolving from uncivilised? It is the first obvious idea. Only later
and deeper study can show that the savages of to-day are not our ancestral
types, but are the degenerated offsprings of great civilised stocks. of the
past, and that man in his infancy was not left to grow up untrained, but was
nursed and educated by his elders, from whom he received his first guidance
alike in religion and civilisation. This view is being substantiated by such
facts as those dwelt on by Lang, and will presently raise the question,
"Who were these elders, of whom traditions are everywhere found? "
Still pursuing our enquiry, we come next to the question: To what
people were religions given? And here we come at once to the difficulty with
which every Founder of a religion must deal, that already spoken of as bearing
on the primary object of religion itself, the quickening of human evolution,
with its corollary that all grades of evolving humanity must be considered by
Him. Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most
developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved
mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation,
in another a crude and simple polity. Even within any given civilisation we
find the most varied types - the most ignorant and the most educated, the most
thoughtful and the most careless, the most spiritual and the most brutal; yet
each one of these types must be reached, and each must be helped in the place
where he is. If evolution be true, this difficulty is inevitable, and must be
faced and overcome by the divine Teacher, else will His work be a failure. If
man is evolving as all around him is evolving, these differences of
development, these varied grades of intelligence, must be a characteristic of
humanity everywhere, and must be provided for in each of the religions of the
world.
We are thus brought face to face with the position that we cannot
have one and the same religious teaching even for a single nation, still less
for a single civilisation, or for the whole world. If there be but one
teaching, a large number of those to whom it is addressed will entirely escape
its influence. If it be made suitable for those whose intelligence is limited,
whose morality is elementary, whose perceptions are obtuse, so that it may help
and train them, and thus enable them to evolve, it will be a religion utterly
unsuitable for those men, living in the same nation, forming part of the same
civilisation, who have keen and delicate moral perceptions, bright and subtle
intelligence, and evolving spirituality. But if, on the other hand, this latter
class is to be helped, if intelligence is to be given a philosophy that it can
regard as admirable, if delicate moral perceptions are to be still further
refined, if the dawning spiritual nature is to be enabled to develop into the
perfect day, then the religion will be so spiritual, so intellectual, and so
moral, that when it is preached to the former class it will not touch their
minds or their hearts, it will be to them a string of meaningless phrases,
incapable of arousing their latent intelligence, or of giving them any motive
for conduct which will help them to grow into a purer morality.
Looking, then, at these facts concerning religion, considering
its object, its means, its origin, the nature and varying needs of the people
to whom it is addressed, recognising the evolution of spiritual, intellectual,
and moral faculties in man, and the need of each man for such training as is
suitable for the stage of evolution at which he has arrived, we are led to the
absolute necessity of a varied and graduated religious teaching, such as will
meet these different needs and help each man in his own place.
There is yet another reason why esoteric teaching is desirable
with respect to a certain class of truths. It is eminently the fact in regard
to this class that "knowledge is power". The public promulgation of a
philosophy profoundly intellectual, sufficient to train an already highly
developed intellect, and to draw the allegiance of a lofty mind, cannot injure
any. It can be preached without hesitation, for it does not attract the
ignorant, who turn away from it as dry, stiff, and
uninteresting. But there are teachings which deal with the constitution of
nature, explain recondite laws, and throw light on hidden processes,
the knowledge of which gives control over natural energies, and enables
its possessor to direct these energies to certain ends, as a chemist deals with
the production of chemical compounds. Such knowledge may be very useful to
highly developed men, and may much increase their power of serving the race.
But if this knowledge were published to the world, it might and would be
misused, just as the knowledge of subtle poisons was misused in the Middle Ages by the Borgias and by others. It would pass into
the hands of people of strong intellect, but of unregulated desires, men moved
by separative instincts, seeking the gain of their separate selves and careless
of the common good. They would be attracted by the idea of gaining powers which
would raise them above the general level, and place ordinary humanity at their
mercy, and would rush to acquire the knowledge which exalts its possessors to a
superhuman rank. They would, by its possession, become yet more selfish and
confirmed in their separateness, their pride would be nourished and their sense
of aloofness intensified, and thus they would inevitably be driven along the
road which leads to diabolism, the Left Hand Path whose goal is isolation and
not union. And they would not only themselves suffer in their inner nature, but
they would also become a menace to Society, already suffering sufficiently at
the hands of men whose intellect is more evolved than their conscience. Hence
arises the necessity of withholding certain teachings from those who, morally,
are as yet unfitted to receive them; and this necessity presses on every
Teacher who is able to impart such knowledge. He desires to give it to those
who will use the powers it confers for the general good, for quickening human evolution;
but he equally desires to be no party to giving it to those who would use it
for their own aggrandisement at the cost of others.
Nor is this a matter of theory only, according to the Occult
Records, which give the details of the events alluded to in Genesis vi. et seq. This knowledge was, in
those ancient times and on the continent of Atlantis, given without any rigid
conditions as to the moral elevation, purity, and unselfishness of the
candidates. Those who were intellectually qualified were taught, just as men
are taught ordinary science in modern days. The publicity now so imperiously
demanded was then given, with the result that men became giants in knowledge
but also giants in evil, till the earth groaned under her oppressors and the
cry of a trampled humanity rang through the worlds. Then came
the destruction of Atlantis, the whelming of that vast continent beneath the
waters of the ocean, some particulars of which are given in the Hebrew
Scriptures in the story of the Noachian deluge, and in the Hindu Scriptures of
the further East in the story of Vaivasvata Manu.
Since that experience of the danger of allowing unpurified hands
to grasp the knowledge which is power, the great Teachers have imposed rigid
conditions as regards purity, unselfishness, and self-control on all candidates
for such instruction. They distinctly refuse to impart knowledge of this kind to
any who will not consent to a rigid discipline, intended to eliminate
separateness of feeling and interest. They measure the moral strength of the
candidate even more than his intellectual development, for the teaching itself
will develop the intellect while it puts a strain on the moral nature. Far
better that the Great Ones should be assailed by the ignorant for Their
supposed selfishness in withholding knowledge, than that They should
precipitate the world into another Atlantean catastrophe.
So much of theory we lay down as bearing on the necessity of a
hidden side in all religions. When from theory we turn to facts, we naturally
ask: Has this hidden side existed in the past, forming a part of the religions
of the world? The answer must be an immediate and unhesitating affirmative;
every great religion has claimed to possess a hidden teaching, and has declared
that it is the repository of theoretical mystic, and further of practical mystic,
or occult, knowledge. The mystic explanation of popular teaching was public,
and expounded the latter as an allegory, giving to crude and irrational
statements and stories a meaning which the intellect could accept. Behind this
theoretical mysticism, as it was behind the popular, there existed further the
practical mysticism, a hidden spiritual teaching, which was only imparted under
definite conditions, conditions known and published, that must /be fulfilled by
every candidate. S. Clement of
This position cannot be controverted as regards the ancient
religions. The Mysteries of Egypt were the glory of that ancient land, and the
noblest sons of
From lamblichus, the great theurgist of the third and fourth
centuries A.D., much may be learned as to the object of the Mysteries. Theurgy
was magic, "the last part of the sacerdotal science", [Psellus,
quoted in lamblichus on the Mysteries. T.
The culminating point of the Mysteries was when the Initiate
became a God, whether by union with a divine Being outside himself, or by the
realisation of the divine Self within him. This was termed ecstasy, and was a
state of what the Indian Yogi would term high Samadhi, the gross body being
entranced and the freed soul effecting its own union
with the Great One. This "ecstasy is not a faculty properly so called, it is a state of the soul, which transforms it in
such a way that it then perceives what was previously hidden from it. The state
will not be permanent until our union with God is irrevocable ; here, in earth
life, ecstasy is but a flash......Man can cease to become man, and become God;
but man cannot be God and man at the same time".[G. R. S. Mead. Plotinus,
p. . 3 ] Plotinus states that
he had reached this state "but three times as yet".
So also Proclus taught that the one salvation of the soul was to
return to her intellectual form, and thus escape from the "circle of
generation, from abundant wanderings", and reach true Being,
"to the uniform and simple energy of the period of sameness, instead of
the abundantly wandering motion of the period which is characterised by
difference". This is the life sought by those initiated by Orpheus into
the Mysteries of Bacchus and Proserpine, and this is the result of the practice
of the purificatory, or cathartic, virtues.[
lamblichus, p. 364, note on . ]
These virtues were necessary for the Greater Mysteries, as they
concerned the purifying of the subtle body, in which the soul worked when out
of the gross body. The political or practical virtues belonged to man's
ordinary life, and were required to some extent before he could be a candidate
even for such a School as is described below. Then came the cathartic virtues,
by which the subtle body, that of the emotions and
lower mind, was purified; thirdly the intellectual, belonging to the Augőeides,
or the light-form of the intellect; fourthly the contemplative, or
paradigmatic, by which union with God was realised. Porphyry writes: "He
who energises according to the practical virtues is a worthy man; but he who
energises according to the purifying virtues is an angelic man, or is also a
good daimon. He who energises according to the intellectual virtues alone is a
God; but he who energises according to the paradigmatic virtues is the Father
of the Gods". [G. R. S. Mead, Orpheus, pp. 285, .
]
Much instruction was also given in the Mysteries by the
archangelic and other hierarchies, and Pythagoras, the great teacher who was
initiated in India, and who gave "the knowledge of things that are"
to his pledged disciples, is said to have possessed such a knowledge of music
that he could use it for the controlling of men's wildest passions, and the
illuminating of their minds. Of this, instances are given by lamblichus in his
Life of Pythagoras. It seems probable that the title of Theodidaktos, given to
Ammonius Saccas, the master of Plotinus, referred less to the sublimity of his
teachings than to this divine instruction received by him in the Mysteries.
Some of the symbols used are explained by lamblichus, [ lamblichus, p. 864, note on p. . ] who bids Porphyry
remove from his thought the image of the thing symbolised and reach its
intellectual meaning. Thus "mire" meant everything that was bodily
and material; the "God sitting above the lotus" signified that God
transcended both the mire and the intellect, symbolised by the lotus, and was
established in Himself, being seated. If "sailing
in a ship", His rule over the world was pictured. And so on.[Ibid., p. 285, et seq. ] On this use of symbols Proclus
remarks that "the Orphic method aimed at revealing divine things by means
of symbols, a method common to all writers of divine lore". [G. B. S.
Mead. Orpheus, p. . ]
The
The
The close identity between the methods and aims pursued in these
various Mysteries and those of Yoga in
Among the Hindus the duty of teaching the supreme knowledge only
to the worthy was strictly insisted on. "The deepest mystery of the end of
knowledge .... is not to be declared to one who is not
a son or a pupil, and who is not tranquil in mind".
[Shvetăshvataropanishat, vi, . ] So again, after a
sketch of Yoga we read: "Stand up! awake ! having found the Great Ones, listen! The road is as difficult
to tread as the sharp edge of a razor. Thus say the wise". [Kathopanishat,
iii, . ] The Teacher is needed, for written teaching
alone does not suffice. The "end of knowledge" is to know God - not
only to believe; to become one with God - not only to worship afar off. Man
must know the reality of the divine Existence, and then know - not only vaguely
believe and hope - that his own innermost Self is one
with God, and that the aim of life is to realise that unity. Unless religion
can guide a man to that realisation, it is but "as sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal". [
So also it was asserted that man should learn to leave the gross
body: "Let a man with firmness separate it [the soul] from his own body,
as a grass-stalk from its sheath". [Kathopanishat, vi., .
] And it was written! "In the golden highest sheath dwells the stainless,
changeless Brahman; It is the radiant white Light of lights, known to the
knowers of the Self".[Mundakopanishat, II, ii, 9
] "When the seer sees the golden-coloured Creator, the Lord, the Spirit,
whose womb is Brahman, then, having thrown away merit and demerit, stainless,
the wise one reaches the highest union".[Ibid., Ill, i, . ]
Nor were the Hebrews without their secret knowledge and their
Schools of Initiation. The company of prophets at Naioth presided over by
Samuel [I Sam., xix, . ] formed such a School, and the
oral teaching was handed down by them. Similar Schools existed at
Brief as is this outline, it is sufficient to show the existence
of a hidden side in the religions of the world outside Christianity, and we may
now examine the question whether Christianity was an exception to this
universal rule.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURES
HAVING seen that the religions of the past claimed with one voice
to have a hidden side, to be custodians of "Mysteries", and that this
claim was endorsed by the seeking of initiation by the greatest men, we must
now ascertain whether Christianity stands outside this circle of religions, and
alone is without a Gnosis, offering to the world only a simple faith and not a
profound knowledge. Were it so, it would indeed be a sad and lamentable fact,
proving Christianity to be intended for a class only, and not for all types of
human beings. But that it is not so, we shall be able to prove beyond the
possibility of rational doubt.
And that proof is the thing which Christendom at this time most
sorely needs, for the very flower of Christendom is perishing for lack of
knowledge. If the esoteric teaching can be re-established and win patient and
earnest students, it will not be long before the occult is also restored.
Disciples of the Lesser Mysteries will become candidates for the Greater, and
with the regaining of knowledge will come again the authority of teaching. And
truly the need is great. For, looking at the world around us, we find that
religion in the West is suffering from the very difficulty that theoretically
we should expect to find. Christianity, having lost its mystic and esoteric
teaching, is losing its hold on a large number of the more highly educated, and
the partial revival during the past few years is co-incident with the
re-introduction of some mystic teaching. It is patent to every student of the
closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral
people have slipped away from the churches, because the teachings they received
there outraged their intelligence and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to
pretend that the widespread agnosticism of this period had its root either in
lack of morality or in deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully
studies the phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have
been driven out of Christianity by the crudity of the religious ideas set
before them, the contradictions in the authoritative teachings, the views as to
God, man, and the universe that no trained intelligence could possibly admit.
Nor can it be said that any kind of moral degradation lay at the root of the
revolt against the dogmas of the Church. The rebels were not too bad for their
religion; on the contrary, it was the religion that was too bad for them. The
rebellion against popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth
of conscience; it was the conscience that revolted, as well as the
intelligence, against teachings dishonouring to God and man alike, that
represented God as a tyrant, and man as essentially evil, gaining salvation by
slavish submission.
The reason for this revolt lay in the gradual descent of
Christian teaching into so-called simplicity, so that the most ignorant might
be able to grasp it. Protestant religionists asserted loudly that nothing ought
to be preached save that which every one could grasp, that the glory of the
Gospel lay in its simplicity, and that the child and the unlearned ought to be
able to understand and apply it to life. True enough, if by this it were meant
that there are some religious truths that all can grasp, and that a religion
fails if it leaves the lowest, the most ignorant, the most dull, outside the
pale of its elevating influence. But false, utterly false, if by this it be
meant that religion has no truths that the ignorant cannot understand, that it
is so poor and limited a thing that it has nothing to teach which is above the
thought of the unintelligent or above the moral purview of the degraded. False,
fatally false, if such be the meaning; for as that view spreads, occupying the
pulpits and being sounded in the churches, many noble men and women, whose
hearts are half-broken as they sever the links that bind them to their early
faith, withdraw from the churches, and leave their places to be filled by the
hypocritical and the ignorant. They pass either into a state of passive
agnosticism, or - if they be young and enthusiastic - into a condition of
active aggression, not believing that that can be the highest which outrages
alike intellect and conscience, and preferring the honesty of open unbelief to
the drugging of the intellect and the conscience at the bidding of an authority
in which they recognise nothing that is divine.
In thus studying the thought of our time we see that the question
of a hidden teaching in connection with Christianity becomes of vital
importance. Is Christianity to survive as the religion of the West? Is it to
live through the centuries of the future, and to continue to play a part in
moulding the thought of the evolving western races? If it is to live, it must
regain the knowledge it has lost, and again have its mystic and its occult
teachings; it must again stand forth as an authoritative teacher of spiritual
verities, clothed with the only authority worth anything, the authority of
knowledge. If these teachings be regained, their influence will soon be seen in
wider and deeper views of truth; dogmas, which now seem like mere shells and
fetters, shall again be seen to be partial presentments of fundamental
realities. First, Esoteric Christianity will reappear in the "
Once again we turn our eyes to history, to see whether
Christianity was unique among religions in having no inner teaching, or whether
it resembled all others in possessing this hidden treasure. Such a question is
a matter of evidence, not of theory, and must be decided by the authority of the
existing documents and not by the mere ipse dixit of modern Christians.
As a matter of fact both the "New Testament" and the
writings of the early Church make the same declarations as to the possession by
the Church of such teachings, and we learn from these the fact of the existence
of Mysteries - called the Mysteries of Jesus, or the Mystery of the Kingdom -
the conditions imposed on candidates, something of the general nature of the teachings
given, and other details. Certain passages in the "New Testament"
would remain entirely obscure, if it were not for the light thrown on them by
the definite statements of the Fathers and Bishops of the Church, but in that
light they became clear and intelligible.
It would indeed have been strange had it been otherwise when we
consider the lines of religious thought which influenced primitive
Christianity. Allied to the Hebrews, the Persians, and the Greeks, tinged by
the older faiths of India, deeply coloured by Syrian and Egyptian thought, this
later branch of the great religious stem could not do other than again
re-affirm the ancient traditions, and place in the grasp of western races the
full treasure of the ancient teaching. "The faith once delivered to the
saints" would indeed have been shorn of its chief value if, when delivered
to the West, the pearl of esoteric teaching had been withheld.
The first evidence to be examined is that of the "New
Testament". For our purpose we may put aside all the vexed questions of
different readings and different authors, that can
only be decided by scholars. Critical scholarship has much to say on the age of
MSS., on the authenticity of documents, and so on. But we need not concern
ourselves with these. We may accept the canonical Scriptures, as showing what
was believed in the early Church as to the teaching of the Christ and of His
immediate followers, and see what they say as to the existence of a secret
teaching given only to the few. Having seen the words put into the mouth of
Jesus Himself, and regarded by the Church as of supreme authority, we will look
at the writings of the great apostle S. Paul; then we will consider the
statements made by those who inherited the apostolic tradition and guided the
Church during the first centuries A.D. Along this unbroken line of tradition
and written testimony the proposition that Christianity had a hidden side can
be established. We shall further find that the Lesser Mysteries of mystic
interpretation can be traced through the centuries to the beginning of the 19th
century, and that though there were no Schools of Mysticism recognised as
preparatory to Initiation, after the disappearance of the Mysteries, yet great
Mystics, from time to time, reached the lower stages of ecstasy, by their own
sustained efforts, aided doubtless by invisible Teachers.
The words of the Master Himself are clear and definite, and were,
as we shall see, quoted by Origen as referring to the secret teaching preserved
in the Church. "And when he was alone, they that were about Him with the
twelve asked of Him the parable. And He said unto them, 'Unto you it is given
to know the mystery of the
Again, Jesus tells even His apostles: "I have yet many
things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now". [S. John, xvi, 12 ] Some of them were probably said after His death, when
He was seen of His disciples, "speaking of the things pertaining to the
There were several names, exclusive of the term "The
Mystery", or "The Mysteries", used to designate the sacred
circle of the Initiates or connected with Initiation: "The Kingdom",
"The Kingdom of God", "The Kingdom of Heaven", "The
Narrow Path", "The Strait Gate", "The Perfect",
"The Saved", "Life Eternal", "Life", "The
Second Birth", "A Little One", "A Little Child". The
meaning is made plain by the use of these words in early Christian writings,
and in some cases even outside the Christian pale. Thus the term, "The
Perfect", was used by the Essenes, who had three orders in their
communities: the Neophytes, the Brethren, and the Perfect - the latter being
Initiates; and it is employed generally in that sense in old writings.
"The Little Child" was the ordinary name for a candidate just
initiated, i.e., who had just taken his "second birth".
When we know this use, many obscure and otherwise harsh passages become
intelligible "Then said one unto Him: Lord, are there few that be saved?
And He said unto them: Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say
unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able". [S. Luke, xiii, 23, . ] If this be applied in the ordinary Protestant way to
salvation from everlasting hell-fire, the statement becomes incredible,
shocking. No Saviour of the world can be supposed to assert that many will seek
to avoid hell and enter heaven, but will not be able to do so. But as applied
to the narrow gateway of Initiation and to salvation from rebirth, it is
perfectly true and natural. So again: "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for
wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way
which leadeth unto life; and few there be that find it".[
S. Matt., vii, 13,14] The warning which immediately follows against the false
prophets, the teachers of the dark Mysteries, is most apposite in this
connection. No student can miss the familiar ring of these words used in this
same sense in other writings. The "ancient narrow way" is familiar to
all; the path "difficult to tread as the sharp edge of a razor",[Kathopanishat II, iv, 10, ..] already mentioned; the going
"from death to death" of those who follow the flower-strewn path of
desires, who do not know God; for those men only become immortal and escape
from the wide mouth of death, from ever repeated destruction, who have quitted
all desires.[ Brhadăranyakopanishat IV, iv, . ] The allusion to death is, of
course, to the repeated births of the soul into gross material existence,
regarded always as ''death" compared to the "life" of the higher
and subtler worlds.
This "Strait Gate" was the gateway of Initiation, and
through it a candidate entered "The Kingdom". And it ever has been,
and must be, true that only a few can enter that gateway, though myriads - an
exceedingly "great multitude, which no man could number", [Rev., vii,
9 ] not a few - enter into the happiness of the
heaven-world. So also spoke another great Teacher, nearly three thousand years
earlier: "Among thousands of men scarce one striveth for perfection; of
the successful strivers scarce one knoweth me in essence". [ Bhagavad Gita, vii, .] For the Initiates are few in each
generation, the flower of humanity; but no gloomy sentence of everlasting woe
is pronounced in this statement on the vast majority of the human race. The
saved are, as Proclus taught,[Ante, p. . ] hose who
escape from the circle of generation, within which humanity is bound.
In this connection we may recall the story of the young man who
came to Jesus, and, addressing Him as "Good Master", asked how he
might win eternal life - the well-recognised liberation from rebirth by
knowledge of God.[It must be remembered that the Jews
believed that all imperfect souls returned to live again on earth] His first
answer was the regular exoteric precept: "Keep the commandments". But
when the young man answered: "All these things have I kept from my youth
up"; then, to that conscience free from all knowledge of transgression,
came the answer of the true Teacher: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven;
and come and follow me". "If thou wilt be perfect", be a member
of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience must be embraced. And then to His own
disciples Jesus explains that a rich man can hardly enter the
The "second birth" is another well-recognised term for
Initiation; even now in India the higher castes are called
"twice-born", and the ceremony that makes them twice-born is a
ceremony of Initiation - mere husk truly, in these modern days, but the
"pattern of things in the heavens".[Heb., ix, 23] When Jesus is speaking
to Nicodemus, He states that "Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God", and this birth is spoken of as that "of water
and the Spirit", [S. John, iii, 3, 5 ] this is the first Initiation; a
later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire",[S. Matt., iii, . ]
the baptism of the Initiate in his manhood, as the first is that of birth,
which welcomes him as "the Little Child" entering the Kingdom.[Ibid.,
xviii, . ] How thoroughly this imagery was familiar among the mystics of the
Jews is shown by the surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His
mystic phraseology: "Art thou a master of
Another precept of Jesus which remains as "a hard
saying" to his followers is: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect". [S. Matt., v, .
] The ordinary Christian knows that he cannot possibly obey this command; full
of ordinary human frailties and weaknesses, how can he become perfect as God is
perfect? Seeing the impossibility of the achievement set before him, he quietly
puts it aside, and thinks no more about it. But seen as the crowning effort of
many lives of steady improvement, as the triumph of the God within us over the
lower nature, it comes within calculable distance, and we recall the words of
Porphyry, how the man who achieves " the paradigmatic virtues is the
Father of the Gods",[Ante, p. .] and that in the
Mysteries these virtues were acquired.
S. Paul follows in the footsteps of his Master, and speaks in
exactly the same sense, but, as might be expected from his organising work in
the Church, with greater explicitness and clearness. The student should read
with attention chapters ii. and
iii. and verse 1 of chapter iv. of the First Epistle
to the Corinthians, remembering, as he reads, that the words are addressed to
baptised and communicant members of the Church, full members from the modern
standpoint, although described as babes and carnal by the Apostle. They were
not catechumens or neophytes, but men and women who were in complete possession
of all the privileges and responsibilities of Church membership, recognised by
the Apostle as being separate from the world, and expected not to behave as men
of the world. They were, in fact, in possession of all that the modern Church
gives to its members. Let us summarise the Apostle's words:
"I came to you bearing the divine testimony, not alluring
you with human wisdom but with the power of the Spirit. Truly ' we speak wisdom
among them that are perfect but it is no human wisdom. ' We
speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God
ordained before the world' began, and which none even of the princes of this
world know. The things of that wisdom are beyond men's thinking, 'but God hath
revealed them unto us by his Spirit . . the deep things of God'. 'which the
Holy Ghost teacheth'.[Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jeans in S.
John, xvi, 12 - 14: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you
into all truth . . . He will show you things to come . . . He shall receive of
mine and shall show it unto you". ] These are spiritual things, to be
discerned only by the spiritual man, in whom is the
mind of Christ. ' And I, brethren, could not speak
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. .
. Ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For
ye are yet carnal'. As a wise master-builder [Another technical name in
the Mysteries.] I have laid the foundation' and 'ye are the
Can any one read this passage - and all that has been done in the
summary is to bring out the salient points - without recognising the fact that
the Apostle possessed a divine wisdom given in the Mysteries, that his
Corinthian followers were not yet able to receive? And note the recurring
technical terms: the "wisdom", the "wisdom of God in a
mystery", the "hidden wisdom", known only to the
"spiritual" man; spoken of only among the "perfect", wisdom
from which the non-"spiritual", the "babes in Christ", the
"carnal", were excluded, known to the "wise master
builder", the "steward of the Mysteries of God".
Again and again he refers to these Mysteries. Writing to the
Ephesian Christians he says that "by revelation", by the unveiling,
had been "made known unto me the Mystery", and hence his
"knowledge in the Mystery of Christ"; all might know of the
"fellowship of the Mystery". [ Eph., iii, 3,
4, .] Of this Mystery, he repeated to the Colossians, he was "made a
minister", "the Mystery which hath been hid from ages and from
generations, but now is made manifest to His saints"; not to the world,
nor even to Christians, but only to the Holy Ones. To them was unveiled " the glory of this Mystery"; and what was it? "Christ
in you" - a significant phrase, which we shall see, in a moment, belonged
to the life of the Initiate; thus ultimately must every man learn the wisdom,
and become "perfect in Christ Jesus". [
Now S. Timothy holds an important position, as representing the
next generation of Christian teachers. He was a pupil of S. Paul, and was
appointed by him to guide and rule a portion of the Church. He had been, we
learn, initiated into the Mysteries by S. Paul himself, and reference is made
to this, the technical phrases once more serving as a clue. "This charge I
commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on
thee", [I.Tim.,i,. ] the solemn benediction of
the Initiator, who admitted the candidate; but not alone was the Initiator
present: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by
prophecy, by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery",[Ibid., iv,. ]
of the Elder Brothers. And he reminds him to lay hold of that "eternal
life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession
before many witnesses" [ Ibid., vi,.] - the vow
of the new Initiate pledged in the presence of the Elder Brothers, and of the
assembly of Initiates. The knowledge then given was the sacred charge of which
S. Paul cries out so forcibly: "0 Timothy, keep that which is committed to
thy trust" [Ibid., 20] - not the knowledge commonly possessed by
Christians, as to which no special obligation lay upon S. Timothy, but the
sacred deposit committed to his trust as an Initiate, and essential to the
welfare of the Church. S. Paul later recurs again to this, laying stress on the
supreme importance of the matter in a way that would be exaggerated had the
knowledge been the common property of Christian men: "Hold fast the form
of sound words which thou hast heard of me .... That good thing which was
committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us" [II.
Tim., i, 13,.] - as serious
an adjuration as human lips could frame. Further, it was his duty to provide
for the due transmission of this sacred deposit, that it might be handed on to
the future, and the Church might never be left without teachers: "The
things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses" - the sacred oral
teachings given in the assembly of Initiates, who bore witness to the accuracy
of the transmission - " the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be
able to teach others also". [Ibid, ii, . ]
The knowledge - or, if the phrase be preferred, the supposition -
that the Church possessed these hidden teachings throws a flood of light on the
scattered remarks made by S. Paul about himself, and when they are gathered
together, we have an outline of the evolution of the Initiate. S. Paul asserts
that though he was already among the perfect, the Initiated - for he says:
"Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded" - he had
not yet "attained", was indeed not yet wholly "perfect",
for he had not yet won Christ, he had not yet reached the "high calling of
God in Christ", "the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of
His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death"; and he was
striving, he says, "if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead". [Phil,, iii, 8, 10-12,14, . ] For
this was the Initiation that liberated, that made the Initiate the Perfect
Master, the Risen Christ, freeing Him finally from the "dead", from
the humanity within the circle of generation, from the bonds that fettered the
soul to gross matter. Here again we have a number of technical terms, and even
the surface reader should realise that the "resurrection of the dead"
here spoken of cannot be the ordinary resurrection of the modern Christian,
supposed to be inevitable for all men, and therefore obviously not requiring
any special struggle on the part of any one to attain to it. In fact the very
word "attain" would be out of place in referring to a universal and
inevitable human experience. S. Paul could not avoid that resurrection,
according to the modern Christian view. What then was the resurrection to
attain which he was making such strenuous efforts? Once more the only answer
comes from the Mysteries. In them the Initiate approaching the Initiation that
liberated from the cycle of rebirth, the circle of generation, was called
"the suffering Christ", he shared the sufferings of the Saviour of
the world, was crucified mystically, "made conformable to His death,"
and then attained the resurrection, the fellowship of the glorified Christ,
and, after, that death had over him no power.[Rev., i,
. "I am He that liveth, and was dead and behold, I am alive for evermore.
Amen." ] This was "the prize" towards
which the great Apostle was pressing, and he urged "as many as be
perfect", not the ordinary believer, thus also to strive. Let them not be
content with what they had gained, but still press onwards.
This resemblance of the Initiate to the Christ is, indeed, the very
groundwork of the Greater Mysteries, as we shall see more in detail when we
study "The Mystical Christ". The Initiate was no longer to look on
Christ as outside himself: "Though we have known Christ after the flesh,
yet now henceforth know we Him no more".[II.
Cor., v, 16 ]
The ordinary believer had "put on Christ", as many of
you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. "
[ Gal.,iii,.] Then they were the "babes in Christ" to whom
reference has already been made, and Christ was the Saviour to whom they looked
for help, knowing Him "after the flesh". But when they had conquered
the lower nature and were no longer "carnal",
then they were to enter on a higher path, and were themselves to become Christ.
This which he himself had already reached, was the longing of the Apostle for
his followers: " My little children, of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." [Gal., iv, . ] Already he was their spiritual father, having
"begotten you through the gospel". [I Cor., iv,. ]
But now "again" he was as a parent, as their mother
to bring them to the second birth. Then the infant Christ, the Holy
Child, was born in the soul, "the hidden man of the heart" [ I.S.Pet., iii,.] the Initiate thus became that
"Little Child"; henceforth he was to live out in his own person the
life of the Christ, until he became the "perfect man", growing
"unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ".[Eph.,
iv,.] Then he, as S. Paul was doing, filled up the sufferings of Christ in his
own flesh,[
It may be well to point out, ere closing this chapter, that S.
Paul himself sanctions the use of the theoretical mystic teaching in explaining
the historical events recorded in the Scriptures. The history therein written
is not regarded by him as a mere record of facts, which occurred on the
physical plane. A true mystic, he saw in the physical events the shadows of the
universal truths ever unfolding in higher and inner worlds, and knew that the
events selected for preservation in occult writings were such as were typical,
the explanation of which would subserve human instruction. Thus he takes the
story of Abraham, Sarai, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac, and saying, "which
things are an allegory", he proceeds to give the mystical
interpretation.[Gal., iv, 22-31 ] Referring to the escape of the Israelites
from Egypt, he speaks of the Bed Sea as a baptism, of the manna and the water
as spiritual meat and spiritual drink, of the rock from which the water flowed
as Christ.[I. Cor., x, 1-4] He sees the great mystery of the union of Christ
and His Church in the human relation of husband and wife, and speaks of
Christians as the flesh and the bones of the body of Christ.[Eph., v, 23-.] The
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews allegorises the whole Jewish system of
worship. In the
In this view of the sacred writings, it is not alleged that the
events recorded did not take place, but only that their physical happening was
a matter of minor importance. And such explanation is the unveiling of the
Lesser Mysteries, the mystic teaching which is permitted to be given to the
world. It is not, as many think, a mere play of the imagination, but is the outcome
of a true intuition, seeing the patterns in the heavens, and not only the shadows cast by them on the screen of earthly time.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH
WHILE it may be that some would be willing to admit the
possession by the Apostles and their immediate successors of a deeper knowledge
of spiritual things than was current among the masses of the believers around them,
few will probably be willing to take the next step, and, leaving that charmed
circle, accept as the depository of their sacred learning the Mysteries of the
Early Church. Yet we have S. Paul providing for the transmission of the
unwritten teaching, himself initiating S. Timothy, and instructing S. Timothy
to initiate others in his turn, who should again hand it on to yet others. We
thus see the provision of four successive generations of teachers, spoken of in
the Scriptures themselves, and these would far more than overlap the writers of
the
The first witnesses are those called the Apostolic Fathers, the
disciples of the Apostles; but very little of their writings, and that
disputed, remains. Not being written controversially, the statements are not as
categorical as those of the later writers. Their letters are for the
encouragement of the believers. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and fellow-disciple
with Ignatius of S. John,[Vol. I. The Martyrdom of
Ignatius, ch. iii. - The translations used are those of Clarke's Ante-Nicene
Library, a most useful compendium of Christian antiquity. The number of the
volume which stands first in the references is the number of the volume in that
Series. ] expresses a hope that his correspondents are "
well versed in the sacred Scriptures and that nothing is hid from you;
but to me this privilege is not yet granted" [Ibid., The Epistle of
Polycarp, ch. xii.] - writing, apparently, before reaching full Initiation.
Barnabas speaks of communicating "some portion of what I have myself
received",[Ibid., The Epistle of Barnabas, ch. i.
] and after expounding the Law mystically, declares that "we then, rightly
understanding His commandments, explain them as the Lord intended".[Ibid.,
ch. x. ] Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, a disciple of S. John,[Ibid.,
The Martyrdom of Ignatius, ch. i.] speaks of himself as "not yet perfect
in Jesus Christ. For I now begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my
fellow-disciples", [Ibid., Epistle of Ignatius to
the Ephesians, ch. iii. ] and he speaks of them as "initiated into the
mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred".[ Ibid., ch.
xii.] Again he says: "Might I not write to you things more full of
mystery? But I fear to do so, lest I should inflict injury on you who are but
babes. Pardon me in this respect, lest, as not being able to receive their
weighty import, ye should be strangled by them. For even I, though I am bound
[for Christ] and am able to understand heavenly things, the angelic orders, and
the different sorts of angels and hosts, the distinction between powers and
dominions, and the diversities between thrones and authorities, the mightiness
of the eons, and the pre-eminence of the cherubim and seraphim, the sublimity
of the Spirit, the kingdom of the Lord, and above all the incomparable majesty
of Almighty God - though I am acquainted with these things, yet am I not
therefore by any means perfect, nor am I such a disciple as Paul or
Peter". [ Ibid to the Trallians, ch. v. 2 ] This
passage is interesting, as indicating that the organisation of the celestial
hierarchies was one of the subjects in which instruction was given in the
Mysteries. Again he speaks of the High Priest, the Hierophant, '' to whom the
holy of holies has been committed, and who alone has been entrusted with the
secrets of God". [Ibid., to the Philadelphians,
ch. ix. ]
We come next to S. Clement of
Now S. Clement was a disciple of Pantaenus, and he speaks of him
and of two others, said to be probably Tatian and Theodotus, as
"preserving the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from
the holy Apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul',[Vol. IV. Clement of
The Stromata, or Miscellanies, of S. Clement are our source of
information about the Mysteries in his time. He himself speaks of these
writings as a "miscellany of Gnostic notes, according to the true
philosophy", [Vol. IV. Stromata, bk. I., oh.
xxviii. ] and also describes them as memoranda of the
teachings he had himself received from Pantaenus. The passage is instructive:
"The Lord . . . allowed us to communicate of those divine Mysteries, and
of that holy light, to those who are able to receive them. He did not certainly
disclose to the many what did not belong to the many; but to the few to whom He
knew that they belonged, who were capable of receiving and being moulded
according to them. But secret things are entrusted to speech, not to writing,
as is the case with God. And if one say [It appears that even in those days
there were some who objected to any truth being taught secretly! ] that it is written, ' There is nothing secret which
shall not be revealed, nor hidden which shall not be disclosed,' let him also
hear from us, that to him who hears secretly, even what is secret shall be
manifested. This is what was predicted by this oracle. And to him who is able
secretly to observe what is delivered to him, that which is veiled shall be
disclosed as truth; and what is hidden to the many shall appear manifest to the
few. . . . The Mysteries are delivered mystically, that what is spoken may be
in the mouth of the speaker; rather not in his voice, but in his understanding
. . . The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak when
compared with that spirit, full of grace, which I was privileged to hear. But
it will be an image to recall the archetype to him who was struck with the
Thyrsus." The Thyrsus, we may here interject, was the wand borne by
Initiates, and candidates were touched with it during the ceremony of
Initiation. It had a mystic significance, symbolising the spinal cord and the
pineal gland in the Lesser Mysteries, and a Rod, known to Occultists, in the
Greater. To say, therefore, "to him who was struck with the Thyrsus"
was exactly the same as to say, "to him who was initiated in the
Mysteries". Clement proceeds: "We profess not to explain secret
things sufficiently - far from it - but only to recall them to memory, whether
we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not forgetting. Many
things, I well know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped
away unwritten. . . . There are then some things of which we have no
recollection; for the power that was in the blessed men was great". A
frequent experience of those taught by the Great Ones, for Their
presence stimulates and renders active powers which are normally latent, and
which the pupil, unassisted, cannot evoke. "There are also some things
which remained unnoted long, which have now escaped; and others which are
effaced, having faded away in the mind itself, since such a task is not easy to
those not experienced; these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I
purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I
guarded against speaking; not grudging - for that were
wrong - but fearing for my readers, lest they should stumble by taking them in
a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be found "reaching a
sword to a child". For it is impossible that what has been written should
not escape [become known], although remaining unpublished by me. But being
always revolved, using the one only voice, that of writing, they answer nothing
to him that makes enquiries beyond what is written; for they require of
necessity the aid of some one, either of him who wrote, or of some one else who
has walked in his footsteps. Some things my treatise will hint; on some it will
linger; some it will merely mention. It will try to speak imperceptibly, to
exhibit secretly, and to demonstrate silently". [Ibid.,
bk. I, ch i. ]
This passage, if it stood alone, would suffice to establish the
existence of a secret teaching in the
Clement might have added that to "proclaim upon the
houses" was to proclaim or expound in the assembly of the Perfect, the
Initiated, and by no means to shout aloud to the man in the street.
Again he says that those who are "still blind and dumb, not
having understanding, or the un-dazzled and keen
vision of the contemplative soul . . . must stand outside of the divine choir.
. . . Wherefore, in accordance with the method of concealment, the truly sacred
Word, truly divine and most necessary for us, deposited in the shrine of truth,
was by the Egyptians indicated by what were called among them adyta, and by the
Hebrews by the veil. Only the consecrated . . . were allowed access to them.
For Plato also thought it not lawful for ' the impure to touch the pure. Thence
the prophecies and oracles are spoken in enigmas, and the Mysteries are not
exhibited incontinently to all and sundry, but only after certain purifications
and previous instructions".[Ibid., bk.V, ch.iv.]
He then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding Pythagorean, Hebrew,
Egyptian, [Ibid, ch. v-viii] and then remarks that the ignorant and unlearned
man fails in understanding them. "But the Gnostic apprehends. Now then it
is not wished that all things should be exposed indiscriminately to all and
sundry, or the benefits of wisdom communicated to those who have not even in a
dream been purified in soul (for it is not allowed to hand to every chance
comer what has been procured with such laborious efforts); nor are the
Mysteries of the Word to be expounded to the profane". The Pythagoreans
and Plato, Zeno, and Aristotle had exoteric and esoteric teachings. The
philosophers established the Mysteries, for "was it not more beneficial
for the holy and blessed contemplation of realities to be concealed?" [Ibid., ch. ix.] The Apostles also approved of "veiling
the Mysteries of the Faith", "for there is an instruction to the
perfect", alluded to in Colossians i, 9-11 and
25-. "So that, on the one hand, then, there are the Mysteries which were
hid till the time of the Apostles, and were delivered by them as they were
received from the Lord, and, concealed in the Old Testament, were manifested to
the saints. And, on the other hand, there is ' the riches of the glory of the
mystery in the Gentiles,' which is faith and hope in Christ; which in another
place he has called the ' foundation'". He quotes S. Paul to show that
this "knowledge belongs not to all", and says, referring to Heb. v.
and vi., that "there were certainly among the Hebrews, some things
delivered unwritten"; and then refers to S. Barnabas, who speaks of God,
"who has put into our hearts wisdom and the understanding of His
secrets", and says that "it is but for few to comprehend these
things", as showing a "trace of Gnostic tradition".
"Wherefore instruction, which reveals hidden things, is called illumination,
as it is the teacher only who uncovers the lid of the ark".[Ibid., bk. V,
ch. x ] Further referring to S. Paul, he comments on his remark to the Romans
that he will "come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ, [Loc. Cit,
XX, .]" a and says that he thus designates "the spiritual gift and
the Gnostic interpretation, which being present he desires to impart to them
present as ' the fullness of Christ, according to the revelation of the Mystery
sealed in the ages of eternity, but now manifested by the prophetic Scriptures'
[Ibid., xvi;ten, 25-26; the version quoted differs in words, but not in
meaning, from the English Authorised Version ] .....But only to a few of them
is shown what those things are which are contained in the Mystery. Rightly,
then, Plato, in the epistles, treating of God, says: ' We must speak in
enigmas; that should the tablet come by any mischance on its leaves either by
sea or land, he who reads may remain ignorant'." [Stromata, bk. V, ch. x ]
After much examination of Greek writers, and an investigation
into philosophy, S. Clement declares that the Gnosis "imparted and
revealed by the Son of God, is wisdom. . . . And the Gnosis itself is that
which has descended by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by
the Apostles". [Ibid., bk. VI, ch. vii] A very
long exposition of the life of the Gnostic, the Initiate, is given, and S.
Clement concludes it by saying: "Let the specimen suffice to those who
have ears. For it is not required to unfold the mystery, but only to indicate
what is sufficient for those who are partakers in knowledge to bring it to
mind".[Ibid., bk. VII, ch. xiv.]
Regarding Scripture as consisting
of allegories and symbols, and as hiding the sense in order to stimulate
enquiry and to preserve the ignorant from danger. [Ibid., bk. VI, ch. xv.] S. Clement naturally confined the
higher instruction to the learned. "Our Gnostic will be deeply
learned", [Ibid., bk. VI, x ] he says. "Now
the Gnostic must be erudite".[Ibid., bk. VI, vii ] Those who had acquired
readiness by previous training could master the deeper knowledge, for though
"a man can be a believer without learning, so also we assert that it is
impossible for a man without learning to comprehend the things which are
declared in the faith". [Ibid., bk. I,ch. vi] "Some who think themselves naturally gifted,
do not wish to touch either philosophy or logic; nay more, they do not wish to
learn natural science. They demand bare faith alone. . . So also I call him
truly learned who brings everything to bear on the truth - so that, from
geometry, and music, and grammar, and philosophy itself, culling what is
useful, he guards the faith against assault. How necessary is it for him who
desires to be partaker of the power of God, to treat of intellectual subjects
by philosophising".[Ibid., ch. ix. ]"The
Gnostic avails himself of branches of learning as auxiliary preparatory
exercise." [Ibid., BK. VI, ch. x. ] So far was S.
Clement from thinking that the teaching of Christianity should be measured by
the ignorance of the unlearned. "He who is conversant with all kinds of
wisdom will be pre-eminently a Gnostic". [Ibid.,
bk. I, ch. xiii. ]" Thus while he welcomed the
ignorant and the sinner, and found in the Gospel what was suited to their
needs, he considered that only the learned and the pure were fit candidates for
the Mysteries. "The Apostle, in contradistinction to Gnostic perfection,
calls the common faith the foundation, and sometimes milk", [Vol. XII.
Stromata, bk. V, ch. iv. ] but on
that foundation the edifice of the Gnosis was to be raised, and the food of men
was to succeed that of babes. There is nothing of
harshness nor of contempt in the distinction he draws, but only a calm
and wise recognition of the facts.
Even the well-prepared candidate, the learned and trained pupil,
could only hope to advance step by step in the profound truths unveiled in the
Mysteries. This appears clearly in his comments on the vision of Hennas, in
which he also throws out some hints on methods of reading occult works.
"Did not the Power also, that appeared to Hermas in the Vision, in the
form of the Church, give for transcription the book which she wished to be made
known to the elect? And this, he says, he transcribed to the letter, without
finding how to complete the syllables. And this signified that the Scripture is
clear to all, when taken according to base reading; and that this is the faith
which occupies the place of the rudiments. Wherefore also the figurative
expression is employed, 'reading according to the letter', while we understand
that the gnostic unfolding of Scriptures, when faith has already reached an
advanced state, is likened to reading according to the syllables . . . Now that
the Saviour has taught the Apostles, the unwritten rendering of the written
(scriptures) has been handed down also to us, inscribed by the power of God on
hearts new, according to the renovation of the book. Thus those of highest
repute among the Greeks dedicate the fruit of the pomegranate to Hermes, who
they say is speech, on account of its interpretation. For speech conceals much.
. . . That it is therefore not only to those who read simply that the
acquisition of the truth is so difficult, but that not even to those whose
prerogative the knowledge of the truth is, is the contemplation of it
vouchsafed all at once, the history of Moses teaches; until accustomed to gaze,
as the Hebrews on the glory of Moses, and the prophets of Israel on the visions
of angels, so we also become able to look the splendours of truth in the face. ' [lbid., bk. VI, lh. xv. ]
Yet more references might be given, but these should suffice to
establish the fact that S. Clement knew of, had been initiated into, and wrote
for the benefit of those who had also been initiated into, the Mysteries in the
Church.
The next witness is his pupil Origen, that most shining light of
learning, courage, sanctity, devotion, meekness, and zeal, whose works remain
as mines of gold wherein the student may dig for the treasures of wisdom.
In his famous controversy with Celsus attacks were made on
Christianity which drew out a defence of the Christian position in which frequent
references were made to the secret teachings. [Book I, of Against Celsus is
found in Vol. X of the Ante-Nicene Library. The remaining books are in Vol.
XXIII. ]
Celsus had alleged, as a matter of attack, that Christianity was
a secret system, and Origen traverses this by saying that while certain
doctrines were secret, many others were public, and that this system of
exoteric and esoteric teachings, adopted in Christianity, was also in general
use among philosophers. The reader should note, in the following passage, the
distinction drawn between the resurrection of Jesus, regarded in a historical
light, and the "mystery of the resurrection".
"Moreover, since he [Celsus] frequently calls the Christian
doctrine a secret system [of belief], we must confute him on this point also,
since almost the entire world is better acquainted with what Christians preach
than with the favourite opinions of philosophers. For who is ignorant of the
statement that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that He was crucified, and that
His resurrection is an article of faith among many, and that a general judgment
is announced to come, in which the wicked are to be punished according to their
deserts, and the righteous to be duly rewarded? And yet the Mystery of the
resurrection, not being understood, is made a subject of ridicule among
unbelievers. In these circumstances, to speak of the Christian doctrine as a
secret system, is altogether absurd. But that there should be certain
doctrines, not made known to the multitude, which are [revealed] after the
exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but
also of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others
esoteric. Some of the hearers of Pythagoras were content with his ipse dixit;
while others were taught in secret those doctrines which were not deemed fit to
be communicated to profane and insufficiently prepared ears. Moreover, all the
Mysteries that are celebrated everywhere throughout Greece and barbarous
countries, although held in secret, have no discredit thrown upon them, so that
it is in vain he endeavours to calumniate the secret doctrines of Christianity,
seeing that he does not correctly understand its nature". [Vol. X. Origen
against Celsus, bk. I, ch. vii.
]
It is impossible to deny that, in this important passage, Origen
distinctly places the Christian Mysteries in the same category as those of the
Pagan world, and claims that what is not regarded as a discredit to other
religions should not form a subject of attack when found in Christianity.
Still writing against Celsus, he declares that the secret
teachings of Jesus were preserved in the Church, and refers specifically to the
explanations that He gave to His disciples of His parables, in answering Celsus'
comparison of "the inner Mysteries of the Church of God" with the
Egyptian worship of Animals. " I have not yet
spoken of the observance of all that is written in the Gospels, each one of
which contains much doctrine difficult to be understood, not merely by the
multitude, but even by certain of the more intelligent, including a very
profound explanation of the parables which Jesus delivered to ' those without,'
while reserving the exhibition of their full meaning for those who had passed
beyond the stage of exoteric teaching, and who came to Him privately in the
house. And when he comes to understand it, he will admire the reason why some
are said to be' without,' and others ' in the house.' [Vol. X. Origen against
Celsus, bk. I, ch. vii. ]
And he refers guardedly to the "mountain" which Jesus
ascended, from which he came down again to help "those who were unable to
follow Him whither His disciples went".The allusion is to "the Mountain
of Initiation", a well-known mystical phrase, as Moses also made the
Tabernacle after the pattern "showed thee in the mount". [Ex. xx.v,
40, xxvi, 30, and compare with Heb., viii, 5, and ix, .
] Origen refers to it again later, saying that Jesus showed himself to be very
different in his real appearance when on the "Mountain", from what
those saw who could not " follow Him so
high."[Origen against Celsus, bk. IV, ch. xvi. ]
So also, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Chap, xv,
dealing with the episode of the Syro-Phoenician woman, Origen remarks:
"And perhaps, also, of the words of Jesus there are some loaves which it
is possible to give to the more rational, as to children, only; and others as
it were crumbs from the great house and table of the well-born, which may be
used by some souls like dogs".
Celsus complaining that sinners were brought into the Church,
Origen answers that the Church had medicine for those that were sick, but also
the study and the knowledge of divine things for those who were in health.
Sinners were taught not to sin, and only when it was seen that progress had
been made, and men were "purified by the Word", "then, and not
before, do we invite them to participation in our Mysteries. For we speak
wisdom among them that are perfect".[Origen
against Celsus, bk.
Christians did not admit the impure to this knowledge, but said:
"Whoever has clean hands, and, therefore, lifts up holy hands to God .. . let him come to us ....
whoever is pure not only from all defilement, but from what are regarded as
lesser transgressions, let him be boldly initiated in the Mysteries of Jesus,
which properly are made known only to the holy and the pure". Hence also,
ere the ceremony of Initiation began, he who acts as Initiator, according to
the precepts of Jesus, the Hierophant, made the significant proclamation
"to those who have been purified in heart: He, whose soul has, for a long
time, been conscious of no evil, especially since he yielded himself to the
healing of the Word, let such a one hear the doctrines which were spoken in
private by Jesus to His genuine disciples". This was the opening of the
"initiating those who were already purified into the sacred
Mysteries".[Origen against Celsus, bk.
The same fact of secret teaching comes out again, when Origen is
discussing the arguments of Celsus as to the wisdom of retaining ancestral
customs, based on the belief that "the various quarters of the earth were
from the beginning allotted to different superintending Spirits, and were thus
distributed among certain governing Powers, and in this way the administration
of the world is carried on". [Vol. XXIII. Origen against
Celsus, bk. V, ch. xxv. ]
Origen having animadverted on the deductions of Celsus, proceeds:
"But as we think it likely that some of those who are accustomed to deeper
investigation will fall in with this treatise, let us venture to lay down some
considerations of a profounder kind, conveying a mystical and secret view
respecting the original distribution of the various quarters of the earth among
different superintending Spirits". [Ibid., ch.
xxviii. ] He says that Celsus has misunderstood the deeper reasons relating to
the arrangement of terrestrial affairs, some of which are even touched upon in
Grecian history. Then he quotes Deut., xxxii, 8-9: "When the Most High
divided the nations, when he dispersed the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of
the people according to the number of the Angels of God; and the Lord's portion
was his people Jacob, and
Origen then relates the history of the Tower of Babel, and
continues: "But on these subjects much, and that of a mystical kind, might
be said; in keeping with which is the following:' It is good to keep close the
secret of a king,' Tobit, xii, 7, in order that the doctrine of the entrance of
souls into bodies (not, however, that of the transmigration from one body into
another) may not be thrown before the common understanding, nor what is holy
given to the dogs, nor pearls be cast before swine. For such a procedure would
be impious, being equivalent to a betrayal of the mysterious declarations of God's
wisdom ... It is sufficient, however, to represent in the style of a historic
narrative what is intended to convey a secret meaning in the garb of history,
that those who have the capacity may work out for themselves all that relates
to the subject". [Vol. XXIII. Origen against Celsus, bk.
V, ch. xxix. ] He then expounds more fully the Tower of Babel story, and
writes: "Now, in the next place, if any one has the capacity let him
understand that in what assumes the form of history, and which contains some
things that are literally true, while yet it conveys a deeper meaning. . .
." [Ibid., ch. xxxi ]
After endeavouring to show that the "Lord" was more
powerful than the other superintending Spirits of the different quarters of the
earth, and that he sent his people forth to be punished by living under the
dominion of the other powers, and afterwards reclaimed them with all of the
less favoured nations who could be drawn in, Origen concludes by saying:
"As we have previously observed, these remarks are to be understood as
being made by us with a concealed meaning, by way of pointing out the mistakes
of those who assert. . . ."[Ibid., ch. xxxii ] as
did Celsus.
After remarking that " the object
of Christianity is that we should become wise",[Ibid., ch. xlv. ] Origen
proceeds: "If you come to the books written after the time of Jesus, you
will find that those multitudes of believers who hear the parables are, as it
were, ' without,' and worthy only of exoteric doctrines, while the disciples
learn in private the explanation of the parables. For, privately, to His own
disciples did Jesus open up all things, esteeming above the multitudes those
who desired to know His wisdom. And He promises to those who believe on Him to
send them wise men and scribes. . . . And Paul also in
the catalogue of 'Charismata' bestowed by God, placed first 'the Word of
wisdom', and second, as being inferior to it,' the word of knowledge,' but
third, and lower down, 'faith'. And because he regarded 'the Word' as higher
than miraculous powers, he for that reason places 'workings of miracles' and
'gifts of healings' in a lower place than gifts of the Word". [Vol. XXIII.
Origen against Celsus, bk. V, ch. xlvi]
The Gospel truly helped the ignorant, "but it is no
hindrance to the knowledge of God, but an assistance, to have been educated,
and to have studied the best opinions, and to be wise". [Ibid., chs. xlvii-liv. ] As for the unintelligent, "I
endeavour to improve such also to the best of my ability, although I would not
desire to build up the Christian community out of such materials. For I seek in preference those who are more clever and acute,
because they are able to comprehend the meaning of the hard sayings".
[Vol. XXIII. Origen against Celsus, bk. V, ch, Ixxiv.
] Here we have plainly stated the ancient Christian idea, entirely at one with
the considerations submitted in Chapter I of this book. There is room for the
ignorant in Christianity, but it is not intended only for them, and has deep
teachings for the "clever and acute".
It is for these that he takes much pains to show that the Jewish
and Christian Scriptures have hidden meanings, veiled under stories the outer
meaning of which repels them as absurd, alluding to the serpent and the tree of
life, and "the other statements which follow, which might of themselves
lead a candid reader to see that all these things had, not inappropriately, an
allegorical meaning".[Ibid., bk. IV, oh. xxxix.]
Many chapters are devoted to these allegorical and mystical meanings, hidden beneath
the words of the Old and New Testaments, and he alleges that Moses, like the
Egyptians, gave histories with concealed meanings". [Vol. X. Origen
against Celsus, bk. I, ch. xvii and
others. ] "He who deals candidly with histories" - this is
Origen's general canon of interpretation - "and would wish to keep himself
also from being imposed on by them, will exercise his judgment as to what
statements he will give his assent to, and what he will accept figuratively,
seeking to discover the meaning of the authors of such inventions, and from
what statements he will withhold his beliefs, as having been written for the
gratification of certain individuals. And we have said this by way of
anticipation respecting the whole history related in the Gospels concerning
Jesus". [Vol. X. Origen against Celsus, bk. I, ch. xlii. ] A great part of his Fourth Book is taken up
with illustrations of the mystical explanations of the Scripture stories, and
anyone who wishes to pursue the subject can read through it.
In the De Principiis, Origen gives it as the received teaching of
the Church " that the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God, and
have a meaning, not only such as is apparent at first sight, but also another,
which escapes the notice of most. For those [words] which are written are the
forms of certain Mysteries, and the images of divine things. Respecting which
there is one opinion throughout the whole Church, that the whole law is indeed spiritual;
but that the spiritual meaning which the law conveys is not known to all, but
to those only on whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is bestowed in the word of
wisdom and knowledge". [Vol. X. De Principiis, Preface, p. .] Those who remember what has already been quoted will
see in the "Word of wisdom" and "the word of knowledge" the
two typical mystical instructions, the spiritual and the intellectual.
In the Fourth Book of De Principiis, Origen explains at length
his views on the interpretation of Scripture. It has a "body", which
is the "common and historical sense"; a "soul", a
figurative meaning to be discovered by the exercise of the intellect; and a
" spirit," an inner and divine sense, to be known only by those who
have "the mind of Christ". He considers that incongruous and
impossible things are introduced into the history to arouse an intelligent
reader, and compel him to search for a deeper explanation, while simple people would
read on without appreciating the difficulties. [Ibid.,
ch. i. ]
Cardinal Newman, in his Arians of the Fourth Century, has some
interesting remarks on the Disciplina Arcani, but, with the deeply-rooted
ingrained scepticism of the nineteenth century, he cannot believe to the full
in the "riches of the glory of the Mystery", or probably never for a
moment conceived the possibility of the existence of such splendid realities.
Yet he was a believer in Jesus, and the words of the promise of Jesus were
clear and definite: "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.
Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I
live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and
ye in me, and I in you". [S. John, xiv, 18-. ]
The promise was amply redeemed, for He came to them and taught them in His
Mysteries; therein they saw Him, though the world saw Him no more, and they
knew the Christ as in them, and their life as Christ's.
Cardinal Newman recognises a secret tradition, handed down from
the Apostles, but he considers that it consisted of Christian doctrines, later
divulged, forgetting that those who were told that they were not yet fit to
receive it were not heathen, nor even catechumens
under instruction, but full communicating members of the Christian Church. Thus
he states that this secret tradition was later "authoritatively divulged
and perpetuated in the form of symbols", and was embodied "in the
creeds of the early Councils". [Loc. cit., ch. i,
Commenting on Ireneeus, who in his work Against Heresies lays
much stress on the existence of an Apostolic Tradition in the Church, the
Cardinal writes: "He then proceeds to speak of the clearness and cogency
of the traditions preserved in the Church, as containing that true wisdom of
the perfect, of which S. Paul speaks, and to which the Gnostics pretended. And,
indeed, without formal proofs of the existence and the authority in primitive
times of an Apostolic Tradition, it is plain that there must have been such a
tradition, granting that the Apostles conversed, and their friends had
memories, like other men. It is quite inconceivable that they should not have
been led to arrange the series of revealed doctrines more systematically than
they record them in Scripture, as soon as their converts became exposed to the
attacks and misrepresentations of heretics; unless they were forbidden to do
so, a supposition which cannot be maintained. Their statements thus occasioned
would be preserved as a matter of course; together with those other secret but
less important truths, to which S. Paul seems to allude, and which the early
writers more or less acknowledge, whether concerning the types of the Jewish
Church, or the prospective fortunes of the Christian. And such recollections of
apostolical teaching would evidently be binding on the faith of those who were
instructed in them; unless it can be supposed that, though coming from inspired
teachers, they were not of divine origin". [ Ibid.,
pp. 54, . ] In a part of the section dealing with the allegorising method, he
writes in reference to the sacrifice of Isaac, etc., as "typical of the
New Testament revelation": "In corroboration of this remark, let it
be observed, that there seems to have been ["Seems to have been" is a
somewhat weak expression, after what is said by Clement arid Origen, of which
some specimens are given in the text. ] in the Church
a traditionary explanation of these historical types, derived from the
Apostles, but kept among the secret doctrines, as being dangerous to the
majority of hearers; and certainly S. Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
affords us an instance of such a tradition, both as existing and as secret
(even though it be shown to be of Jewish origin), when, first checking himself
and questioning his brethren's faith, he communicates, not without hesitation,
the evangelical scope of the account of Melchisedec, as introduced into the
book of Genesis". [ Ibid., p. . ]
The social and political convulsions that accompanied its dying
now began to torture the vast frame of the
Two streams may nevertheless be tracked through Christendom,
streams which had as their source the vanished Mysteries. One was the stream of
mystic learning, flowing from the Wisdom, the Gnosis, imparted in the
Mysteries; the other was the stream of mystic contemplation, equally part of
the Gnosis, leading to the ecstasy, to spiritual vision. This latter, however,
divorced from knowledge, rarely attained the true ecstasies, and tended either
to run riot in the lower regions of the invisible worlds, or to lose itself
amid a variegated crowd of subtle superphysical forms, visible as objective
appearances to the inner vision - prematurely forced by fastings, vigils, and
strained attention - but mostly born of the thoughts and emotions of the seer.
Even when the forms observed were not externalised thoughts, they were seen
through a distorting atmosphere of preconceived ideas and beliefs, and were
thus rendered largely unreliable. None the less, some of the visions were
verily of heavenly things, and Jesus truly appeared from time to time to His
devoted lovers, and angels would sometimes brighten with their presence the
cell of monk and nun, the solitude of rapt devotee and patient seeker after
God. To deny the possibility of such experiences would be to strike at the very
root of that "which has been most surely believed" in all religions,
and is known to all Occultists - the intercommunication between Spirits veiled
in flesh and those clad in subtler vestures, the touching of mind with mind
across the barriers of matter, the unfolding of the Divinity in man, the sure
knowledge of a life beyond the gates of death.
.
Glancing down the centuries we find no time in which Christendom was
left wholly devoid of mysteries. "It was probably about the end of the 5th
century, just as ancient philosophy was dying out in the Schools of Athens,
that the speculative philosophy of neo-Platonism made a definite lodgment in
Christian thought through the literary forgeries of the Pseudo-Dionysius. The
doctrines of Christianity were by that time so firmly established that the
Church could look upon a symbolical or mystical interpretation of them without
anxiety. The author of the Theologica Mystica and the other works ascribed to
the Areopagite proceeds, therefore, to develop the doctrines of Proclus with
very little modification into a system of esoteric Christianity. God is the
nameless and supra-essential One, elevated above goodness itself. Hence
'negative theology', which ascends from the creature to God by dropping one
after another every determinate predicate, leads us nearest to the truth. The
return to God is the consummation of all things and the goal indicated by
Christian teaching. The same doctrines were preached with more of churchly
fervour by Maximus, the Confessor, (580-622). Maximus represents almost the
last speculative activity of the Greek Church, but the influence of the
Pseudo-Dionysian writing was transmitted to the West in the ninth century by
Erigena, in whose speculative spirit both the scholasticism and the mysticism
of the Middle Ages have their rise. Erigena translated Dionysius into Latin
along with the commentaries of Maximus, and his system is essentially based
upon theirs. The negative theology is adopted, and God is stated to be
predicateless Being, above all categories, and
therefore not improperly called Nothing [query, No-Thing]. Out of this Nothing
or incomprehensible essence the world of ideas or primordial causes is
eternally created. This is the Word or Son of God, in whom all things exist, so
far as they have substantial existence. All existence is a theophany, and as
God is the beginning of all things, so also is He the end. Erigena teaches the
restitution of all things under the form of the Dionysian adunatio or
deificatio. These are the permanent outlines of what may be called the
philosophy of mysticism in Christian times, and it is remarkable with how
little variation they are repeated from age to age". [Article on
"Mysticism".- Encyc. Britan.]
.
In the eleventh century Bernard of Clairvaux (A.D. 1091-1153) and Hugo
of S. Victor carry on the mystic tradition, with Richard of S. Victor in the
following century, and S. Bonaventura the Seraphic Doctor, and the great S.
Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1227-1274) in the thirteenth. Thomas Aquinas dominates the
.
Eckhart is followed, in the fourteenth century, by John Tauler, and
Nicolas of Basel, "the Friend of God in the Oberland". From these
sprang up the Society of the Friends of God, true mystics and followers of the
old tradition. Mead remarks that Thomas Aquinas, Tauler, and Eckhart followed
the Pseudo-Dionysius, who followed Plotinus, lamblichus, and Proclus, who in
turn followed Plato and Pythagoras. [Orpheus, pp. 53, .
] So linked together are the followers of the Wisdom in all ages. It was
probably a "Friend" who was the author of Die Deutsche Theologie, a
book of mystical devotion, which had the curious fortune of being approved by
Staupitz, the Vicar-General of the Augustiman Order, who recommended it to
Luther and by Luther himself, who published it A.D. 1516, as a book which
should rank immediately after the Bible and the writings of S. Augustine of
Hippo. Another "Friend" was Ruysbroeck, to whose influence with Groot
was due the founding of the Brethren of the Common Lot or Common Life -a
Society that must remain ever memorable, as it numbered among its members that
prince of mystics, Thomas a Kempis (A. D. 1380-1471), the
author of the immortal Imitation of Christ.
.
In the fifteenth century the more purely intellectual side of mysticism
comes out more strongly than the ecstatic - so dominant in these societies of
the fourteenth - and we have Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, with Giordano Bruno, the
martyred knight-errant of philosophy, and Paracelsus, the much slandered
scientist, who drew his knowledge directly from the original eastern fountain,
instead of through Greek channels.
.
The sixteenth century saw the birth of Jacob Bohme (A.D. 1575-1624), the
"inspired cobbler", an Initiate in obscuration truly, sorely
persecuted by unenlightened men; and then too came S. Teresa, the
much-oppressed and suffering Spanish mystic; and S. John of the Cross, a
burning flame of intense devotion; and S. Francois de Sales. Wise was
.
Borne, however, who, though she canonised Teresa dead, had sorely
harried her while living - did ill with Mme. de Guyon (A. D. 1648-1717), a true
mystic, and with Miguel de Molinos (1627-1696), worthy to sit near S. John of
the Cross, who carried on in the seventeenth century the high devotion of the
mystic, turned into a peculiarly passive form - the Quietist.
.
In this same century arose the school of Platonists in Cambridge, of
whom Henry More (A. D. 1614-1687) may serve as salient example; also Thomas
Vaughan, and Robert Fludd the Rosicrucian; and there is formed also the
Philadelphian Society, and we see William Law (A.D. 1686-1761) active in the
eighteenth century, and overlapping S. Martin (A. D. 1743-1803), whose writings
have fascinated so many nineteenth century students.[Obligation must be here
acknowledged to the Article "Mysticism", in the Encyc. Brit., though
that publication is by no means responsible for the opinions expressed.]
.
Nor should we omit Christian Rosenkreutz (d. A.D. 1484), whose mystic
Society of the Rosy Cross, appearing in 1614, held true knowledge, and whose
spirit was reborn in the "Comte de S. Germain", the mysterious figure
that appears and disappears through the gloom, lit by lurid flashes, of the
closing eighteenth century. Mystics too were some of the Quakers, the
much-persecuted sect of Friends, seeking the illumination of the Inner Light,
and listening ever for the Inner Voice. And many another mystic was there,
"of whom the world was not worthy", like the wholly delightful and
wise Mother Juliana of
.
Yet, as we salute reverently these Children of the Light, scattered over
the centuries, we are forced to recognise in them the absence of that union of
acute intellect and high devotion which were welded together by the training of
the Mysteries, and while we marvel that they soared so high, we cannot but wish
that their rare gifts had been developed under that magnificent disciplina
arcani.
. Alphonse
Louis Constant, better known under his pseudonym, Eliphas Levi, has put rather
well the loss of the Mysteries, and the need for their re-institution. "A
great misfortune befell Christianity. The betrayal of the Mysteries by the
false Gnostics - for the Gnostics, that is, those who know, were the Initiates
of primitive Christianity - caused the Gnosis to be rejected, and alienated the
Church from the supreme truths of the Kabbala, which contain all the secrets of
transcendental theology .... Let the most absolute science, let the highest
reason, become once more the patrimony of the leaders of the people; let the
sacerdotal art and the royal art take the double sceptre of antique
initiations, and the social world will once more issue from its chaos. Burn the
holy images no longer; demolish the temples no more; temples and images are
necessary for men; but drive the hirelings from the house of prayer; let the
blind be no longer leaders of the blind, reconstruct the hierarchy of
intelligence and holiness, and recognise only those who know as the teachers of
those who believe". [The Mysteries of Magic.
Trans, by A. E. Waite, pp. 58 and .]
.
Will the Churches of today again take up the mystic teaching, the Lesser
Mysteries, and so prepare their children for the re-establishment of the
Greater Mysteries, again drawing down the Angels as Teachers, and having as
Hierophant the Divine Master, Jesus? On the answer to that question depends the
future of Christianity.
.
THE HISTORICAL CHRIST
.
WE have already spoken, in the first chapter, on the identities existing
in all the religions of the world, and we have seen that out of a study of
these identities in beliefs, symbolisms, rites, ceremonies, histories, and
commemorative festivals, has arisen a modern school which relates the whole of these
to a common source in human ignorance, and in a primitive explanation of
natural phenomena. From these identities have been drawn weapons for the
stabbing of each religion in turn, and the most
effective attacks on Christianity and on the historical existence of its
Founder have been armed from this source. On entering now on the study of the
life of the Christ, of the rites of Christianity, its sacraments, its
doctrines, it would be fatal to ignore the facts marshalled by Comparative
Mythologists. Rightly understood, they may be made serviceable instead of
mischievous. We have seen that the Apostles and their successors dealt very
freely with the Old Testament as having an allegorical and mystic sense far
more important than the historical, though by no means negating it, and that
they did not scruple to teach the instructed believer that some of the stories
that were apparently historical were really purely allegorical. Nowhere,
perhaps, is it more necessary to understand this than when we are studying the
story of Jesus, surnamed the Christ, for when we do not disentangle the
intertwisted threads, and see where symbols have been taken as events,
allegories as histories, we lose most of the instructiveness of the narrative
and much of its rarest beauty. We cannot too much insist on the fact that
Christianity gains, it does not lose, when knowledge is added to faith and
virtue, according to the apostolic injunction. [II. S.Peter, i,. ] Men fear that Christianity will be weakened when reason
studies it, and that it is "dangerous" to admit that events thought
to be historical have the deeper significance of the mythical or mystical
meaning. It is, on the contrary, strengthened, and the student finds, with joy,
that the pearl of great price shines with a purer, clearer lustre when the
coating of ignorance is removed and its many colours are seen.
.
There are two schools of thought at the present time, bitterly opposed
to each other, who dispute over the story of the great Hebrew Teacher.
.
According to one school there is nothing at all in the accounts of His
life save myths and legends - myths and legends that were given as explanations
of certain natural phenomena, survivals of a pictorial way of teaching certain
facts of nature, of impressing on the minds of the uneducated certain grand
classifications of natural events that were important in themselves, and that
lent themselves to moral instruction.
.
Those who endorse this view form a well-defined school to which belong
many men of high education and strong intelligence, and round them gather
crowds of the less instructed, who emphasise with crude vehemence the more
destructive elements in their pronouncements.
.
This school is opposed by that of the believers in orthodox
Christianity, who declare that the whole story of Jesus is history,
unadulterated by legend or myth.
.
They maintain that this history is nothing more than the history of the
life of a man born some nineteen centuries ago in Palestine, who passed through
all the experiences set down in the Gospels, and they deny that the story has
any significance beyond that of a divine and human life.
.
These two schools stand in direct antagonism, one asserting that
everything is legend, the other declaring that everything is history.
.
Between them lie many phases of opinion generally labelled
"freethinking", which regard the life-story as partly legendary and
partly historical, but offer no definite and rational method of interpretation,
no adequate explanation of the complex whole.
.
And we also find, within the limits of the Christian Church, a large and
ever-increasing number of faithful and devout Christians of refined
intelligence, men and women who are earnest in their faith and religious in
their aspirations, but who see in the Gospel story more than the history of a
single divine Man, They allege - defending their position from the received
Scriptures - that the story of the Christ has a deeper and more significant
meaning than lies on the surface; while they maintain the historical character
of Jesus, they at the same time declare that THE CHRIST is more than the man
Jesus, and has a mystical meaning. In support of this contention they point to
such phrases as that used by S. Paul: "My little children, of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you"; [Gal., iv,.] here
S. Paul obviously cannot refer to a historical Jesus, but to some forth-putting
from the human soul which is to him the shaping of Christ therein. Again the
same teacher declares that though he had known Christ after the flesh yet from
henceforth he would know him thus no more; [II.Cor., v, .] obviously implying
that while he recognised the Christ of the flesh - Jesus - there was a higher
view to which he had attained which threw into the shade the historical Christ.
This is the view which many are seeking in our own days, and - faced by the
facts of Comparative Religion, puzzled by the contradictions of the Gospels,
confused by problems they cannot solve so long as they are tied down to the
mere surface meanings of their Scripture - they cry despairingly that the
letter killeth while the spirit giveth life, and seek to trace some deep and
wide significance in a story which is as old as the religions of the world, and
has always served as the very centre and life of every religion in which it has
reappeared. These struggling thinkers, too unrelated and indefinite to be
spoken of as forming a school, seem to stretch out a hand on one side to those
who think that all is legend, asking them to accept a historical basis; on the
other side they say to their fellow Christians that there is a growing danger
lest, in clinging to a literal and unique meaning, which cannot be defended
before the increasing knowledge of the day, the spiritual meaning should be
entirely lost. There is a danger of losing "the story of the Christ,"
with that thought of the Christ which has been the support and inspiration of
millions of noble lives in East and West, though the Christ be called by other
names and worshipped under other forms; a danger lest the pearl of great price
should escape from our hold, and man be left the poorer for evermore.
.
What is needed, in order that this danger may be averted, is to
disentangle the different threads in the story of the Christ, and to lay them
side by side - the thread of history, the thread of legend, the thread of
mysticism. These have been intertwined into a single strand, to the great loss
of the thoughtful, and in disentangling them we shall find that the story
becomes more, not less, valuable as knowledge is added to it, and that here, as
in all that is basically of the truth, the brighter the light thrown upon it
the greater the beauty that is revealed.
. We will study
first the historical Christ; secondly, the mythic Christ; thirdly, the mystic
Christ. And we shall find that elements drawn from all these make up the Jesus
Christ of the Churches. They all enter into the composition of the grandiose
and pathetic Figure which dominates the thoughts and the emotions of
Christendom, the Man of Borrows, the Saviour, the Lover and Lord of Men.
.
THE HISTORICAL CHRIST OR JESUS THE HEALER AND TEACHER
.
The thread of the life-story of Jesus is one which may be disentangled
from those with which it is intertwined without any great difficulty. We may
fairly here aid our study by reference to those records of the past which
experts can reverify for themselves, and from which certain details regarding
the Hebrew Teacher have been given to the world by H. P. Blavatsky and by
others who are experts in occult investigation. Now in the minds of many there
is apt to arise a challenge when this word
"expert" is used in connection with occultism. Yet it only means a
person who by special study, by special training, has accumulated a special
kind of knowledge, and has developed powers that enable him to give an opinion
founded on his own individual knowledge of the subject with which he is
dealing. Just as we speak of Huxley as an expert in biology, as we speak of a
Senior Wrangler as an expert in mathematics, or of Lyell as an expert in
geology, so we may fairly call a man an expert in occultism who has first
mastered intellectually certain fundamental theories of the constitution of man
and the universe, and secondly has developed within himself the powers that are
latent in everyone - and are capable of being developed by those who give
themselves to appropriate studies - capacities which enable him to examine for
himself the more obscure processes of nature. As a man may be born with a
mathematical faculty, and by training that faculty year after year may
immensely increase his mathematical capacity, so may a man be born with certain
faculties within him, faculties belonging to the Soul, which he can develop by
training and by discipline. When, having developed those faculties, he applies
them to the study of the invisible world, such a man becomes an expert in
Occult Science, and such a man can at his will reverify the records to which I
have referred. Such reverification is as much out of the reach of the ordinary
person as a mathematical book written in the symbols of the higher mathematics
is out of the reach of those who are untrained in mathematical science. There
is nothing exclusive in the knowledge save as every science is exclusive; those
who are born with a faculty, and train the faculty, can master its appropriate
science, while those who start in life without any faculty, or those who do not
develop it if they have it, must be content to remain in ignorance. These are
the rules everywhere of the obtaining of knowledge, in Occultism as in every
other science.
.
The occult records partly endorse the story told in the Gospels, and
partly do not endorse it; they show us the life, and thus enable us to
disentangle it from the myths which are intertwined therewith.
.
The child whose Jewish name has been turned into that of Jesus was born
in
.
This superhuman purity and devotion fitted the man Jesus, the disciple,
to become the temple of a loftier Power, of a mighty, indwelling Presence. The
time had come for one of those Divine manifestations which from age to age are
made for the helping of humanity, when a new impulse is needed to quicken the
spiritual evolution of mankind, when a new civilisation is about to dawn. The
world of the West was then in the womb of time, ready for the birth, and the
Teutonic sub-race was to catch the sceptre of empire falling from the failing
hands of
.
A mighty "Son of God" was to take flesh upon earth, a supreme
Teacher, "full of grace and truth" - [S. John, i, .
] One in whom the Divine Wisdom abode in fullest measure, who was verily
"the Word" incarnate, Light and Life in outpouring richness, a very
Fountain of the Waters of Life. Lord of Compassion and of Wisdom - such was His
name - and from His dwelling in the Secret Places He came forth into the world
of men.
.
For Him was needed an earthly tabernacle, a human form, the body of a
man, and who so fit to yield his body in glad and willing service to One before
whom Angels and men bow down in lowliest reverence, as this Hebrew of the
Hebrews, this purest and noblest of "the Perfect", whose spotless
body and stainless mind offered the best that humanity could bring? The man Jesus
yielded himself a willing sacrifice, "offered himself without spot"
to the Lord of Love, who took unto Himself that pure form as tabernacle, and
dwelt therein for three years of mortal life.
. This epoch is marked in the traditions
embodied in the Gospels as that of the Baptism of Jesus, when the Spirit was
seen "descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him",[Ibid., i, . ] and a celestial voice proclaimed Him as the
beloved Son, to whom men should give ear. Truly was He the beloved Son in whom
the Father was well-pleased, [S. Matt., iii, 17 ] and
from that time forward "Jesus began to preach", [Ibid., iv. . ] and
was that wondrous mystery, "God manifest in the flesh" [ I. Tim.,
iii, 16] - not unique in that He was God, for: "Is it not written in your
law, I said, Ye are Gods? If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God
came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath
sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the
Son of God?" [S. John x, 34-. ] Truly all men are
Gods, in respect to the Spirit within them, but not in all is the Godhead
manifested, as in that well-beloved Son of the Most High.
.
To that manifested Presence the name of "the Christ" may
rightly be given, and it was He who lived and moved in the form of the man
Jesus over the hills and plains of Palestine, teaching, healing diseases, and
gathering round Him as disciples a few of the more advanced souls. The rare
charm of His royal love, outpouring from Him as rays from a sun, drew round Him
the suffering, the weary, and the oppressed, and the subtly tender magic of His
gentle wisdom purified, ennobled, and sweetened the lives that came into
contact with His own. By parable and luminous imagery He taught the
uninstructed crowds who pressed around Him, and, using the powers of the free
Spirit, He healed many a disease by word or touch, reinforcing the magnetic
energies belonging to His pure body with the compelling force of His inner
life. Rejected by His Essene brethren among whom He first laboured - whose
arguments against His purposed life of loving labour are summarised in the
story of the temptation - because he carried to the people the spiritual wisdom
that they regarded as their proudest and most secret treasure, and because His
all-embracing love drew within its circle the outcast and the degraded - ever
loving in the lowest as in the highest, the Divine Self - He saw gathering
round Him all too quickly the dark clouds of hatred and suspicion. The teachers
and rulers of His nation soon came to eye Him with jealousy and anger; His
spirituality was a constant reproach to their materialism, His power a
constant, though silent, exposure of their weakness. Three years had scarcely
passed since His baptism when the gathering storm outbroke, and the human body
of Jesus paid the penalty for enshrining the glorious Presence of a Teacher more
than man.
.
The little band of chosen disciples whom He had selected as repositories
of His teachings were thus deprived of their Master's physical presence ere
they had assimilated His instructions, but they were souls of high and advanced
type, ready to learn the Wisdom, and fit to hand it on to lesser men. Most
receptive of all was that "disciple whom Jesus loved", young, eager,
and fervid, profoundly devoted to his Master, and sharing His spirit of
all-embracing love. He represented, through the century that followed the
physical departure of the Christ, the spirit of mystic devotion that sought the
exstasis, the vision of and the union with the Divine, while the later great
Apostle, S. Paul, represented the wisdom side of the Mysteries.
.
The Master did not forget His promise to come to them after the world
had lost sight of Him,[S. John, xiv, 18, . ] and for something over fifty years
He visited them in His subtle spiritual body, continuing the teachings He had
begun while with them, and training them in a knowledge of occult truths. They
lived together, for the most part, in a retired spot on the outskirts of
.
These inner instructions, commenced during His physical life among them
and carried on after He had left the body, formed the basis of the
"Mysteries of Jesus", which we have seen in early Church History, and
gave the inner life which was the nucleus round which gathered the heterogeneous
materials which formed ecclesiastical Christianity.
.
In the remarkable fragment called the Pistis Sophia, we have a document
of the greatest interest bearing on the hidden teaching, written by the famous
Valentinus. In this it is said that during the eleven years immediately after
His death Jesus instructed His disciples so far as "the regions of the
first statutes only, and up to the regions of the first mystery, the mystery
within the veil".[Valentinus. Trans, by G. B. S. Mead.
Pistis Sophia, bk. i. .] They had not so far learned
the distribution of the angelic orders, of part whereof Ignatius speaks.[Ante, p. . ] Then Jesus, being "in the Mount"
with His disciples, and having received His mystic Vesture, the knowledge of
all the regions and the Words of Power which unlocked them, taught His
disciples further, promising: "I will perfect you in every perfection,
from the mysteries of the interior to the mysteries of the exterior: I will
fill you with the Spirit, so that ye shall be called spiritual, perfect in all
perfections".[Ibid., . ] And He taught them of
Sophia, the Wisdom, and of her fall into matter in her attempt to rise unto the
Highest, and of her cries to the Light in which she had trusted, and of the
sending of Jesus to redeem her from chaos, and of her crowning with His light,
and leading forth from bondage. And He told them further of the highest
Mystery, the ineffable, the simplest and clearest of all, though the highest,
to be known by him alone who utterly renounced the world; [Ibid., bk. ii, . ]
by that knowledge men became Christs, for such "men are myself, and I am
these men", for Christ is that highest Mystery. [ Ibid.,
. ] Knowing that, men are "transformed into pure light and are brought
into the light". [Ibid., .] And He performed for
them the great ceremony of Initiation, the baptism "which leadeth to the
region of truth and into the region of light", and bade them celebrate it
for others who were worthy: "But hide ye this mystery, give it not unto
every man, but unto him [only] who shall do all things which I have said unto
you in my commandments". [Ibid., . ]
.
Thereafter, being fully instructed, the apostles went forth to preach,
ever aided by their Master.
.
Moreover these same disciples and their earliest colleagues wrote down
from memory all the public sayings and parables of the Master that they had
heard, and collected with great eagerness any reports they could find, writing
down these also, and circulating them all among those who gradually attached
themselves to their small community. Various collections were made, any member
writing down what he himself remembered, and adding selections from the
accounts of others. The inner teachings, given by the Christ to His chosen
ones, were not written down, but were taught orally to those deemed worthy to
receive them, to students who formed small communities for leading a retired
life, and remained in touch with the central body.
.
The historical Christ, then, is a glorious Being belonging to the great
spiritual hierarchy that guides the spiritual evolution of humanity, who used
for some three years the human body of the disciple Jesus; who spent the last
of these three years in public teaching throughout Judaea and Samaria; who was
a healer of diseases and performed other remarkable occult works; who gathered
round Him a small band of disciples whom He instructed in the deeper truths of
the spiritual life; who drew men to Him by the singular love and tenderness and
the rich wisdom that breathed from His Person; and who was finally put to death
for blasphemy, for teaching the inherent Divinity of Himself and of all men. He
came to give a new impulse of spiritual life to the world; to re-issue the
inner teachings affecting spiritual life; to mark out again the narrow ancient
way; to proclaim the existence of the "Kingdom of Heaven", of the
Initiation which admits to that knowledge of God which is eternal life; and to
admit a few to that Kingdom who should be able to teach others. Round this
glorious Figure gathered the myths which united Him to the long array of His
predecessors, the myths telling in allegory the story of all such lives, as
they symbolise the work of the Logos in the Kosmos and the higher evolution of
the individual human soul.
. But it
must not be supposed that the work of the Christ for His followers was over
after He had established the Mysteries, or was confined to rare appearances
therein. That Mighty One who had used the body of Jesus as His vehicle, and
whose guardian care extends over the whole spiritual evolution of the fifth
race of humanity, gave into the strong hands of the holy disciple who had
surrendered to Him his body the care of the infant Church. Perfecting his human
evolution, Jesus became one of the Masters of Wisdom, and took Christianity
under His special charge, ever seeking to guide it to the right lines, to
protect, to guard and nourish it. He was the Hierophant in the Christian
Mysteries, the direct Teacher of the Initiates. His the inspiration that kept
alight the Gnosis in the Church, until the superincumbent mass of ignorance
became so great that even His breath could not fan the flame sufficiently to
prevent its extinguishment. His the patient labour
which strengthened soul after soul to endure through the darkness, and cherish
within itself the spark of mystic longing, the thirst to find the Hidden God. His the steady inpouring of truth into every brain ready to
receive it, so that hand stretched out to hand across the centuries and passed
on the torch of knowledge, which thus was never extinguished. His the Form
which stood beside the rack and in the flames of the burning pile, cheering His
confessors and His martyrs, soothing the anguish of their pains, and filling
their hearts with His peace. His the impulse which
spoke in the thunder of Savonarola, which guided the calm wisdom of Erasmus,
which inspired the deep ethics of the God-intoxicated Spinoza. His the energy which impelled Roger Bacon, Galileo, and
Paracelsus in their searchings into nature. His the beauty that allured Fra
Angelica and Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, that inspired the genius of
Michael-Angelo, that shone before the eyes of Murillo, and that gave the power
that raised the marvels of the world, the Duorno of Milan, the San Marco of
Venice, the Cathedral of Florence. His the melody that breathed in the masses
of Mozart, the sonatas of Beethoven, the oratorios of Handel, the fugues of
Bach, the austere splendour of Brahms. His the
Presence that cheered the solitary mystics, the hunted occultists, the patient
seekers after truth. By persuasion and by menace, by the eloquence of a S.
Francis and by the gibes of a Voltaire, by the sweet submission of a Thomas ŕ
Kempis, and the rough virility of a Luther, He sought to instruct and awaken,
to win into holiness or to scourge from evil. Through the long centuries He has
striven and laboured, and, with all the mighty burden of the Churches to carry,
He has never left uncared for or unsolaced one human heart that cried to Him
for help. And now He is striving to turn to the benefit of Christendom part of
the great flood of the Wisdom poured out for the refreshing of the world, and
He is seeking through the Churches for some who have ears to hear the Wisdom, and
who will answer to His appeal for messengers to carry it to His flock;
"Here am I; send me".
.
THE MYTHIC CHRIST
WE have already seen the use that is made of Comparative
Mythology against Religion, and some of its most destructive attacks have been
levelled against the Christ. His birth of a Virgin at "Christmas",
the slaughter of the Innocents, His wonder-working and His teachings, His
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension - all these events in the story of His
life are pointed to in the stories of other lives, and His historical existence
is challenged on the strength of these identities. So far as the wonder-working
and the teachings are concerned, we may briefly dismiss these first with the
acknowledgment that most great Teachers have wrought works which, on the
physical plane, appear as miracles in the sight of their contemporaries, but
are known by occultists to be done by the exercise of powers possessed by all
Initiates above a certain grade. The teachings He gave may also be acknowledged
to be non-original; but where the student of Comparative Mythology thinks that
he has proved that none is divinely inspired, when he shows
that similar moral teachings fell from the lips of Manu, from the lips of the
Buddha, from the lips of Jesus, the occultist says that certainly Jesus must
have repeated the teachings of His predecessors, since He was a messenger from
the same Lodge. The profound verities touching the divine and the human Spirit
were as much truths twenty thousand years before Jesus was born in Palestine as
after He was born; and to say that the world was left without such teaching,
and that man was left in moral darkness from his beginnings to twenty centuries
ago, is to say that there was a humanity without a Teacher, children without a
Father, human souls crying for light into a darkness that gave them no answer -
a conception as blasphemous of God as it is desperate for man, a conception
contradicted by the appearance of every Sage, by the mighty literature, by the
noble lives, in the thousands of ages ere the Christ came forth.
Recognising then in Jesus the great Master of the West, the
leading Messenger of the Lodge to the western world, we must face the
difficulty which has made havoc of this belief in the minds of many: Why are
the festivals that commemorate events in the life of Jesus found in pre-Christian
religions, and in them commemorate identical events in the lives of other
Teachers?
Comparative Mythology, which has drawn public attention to this
question in modern times, may be said to be about a century old, dating from
the appearance of Dulaure's Histoire Abrégée de différents Cultes, of Dupuis'
Origines de tous les Cultes, of Moor's Hindu Pantheon, and of Godfrey Higgins'
Anacalypsis. These works were followed by a shoal of others, growing more
scientific and rigid in their collection and comparison of facts, until it has
become impossible for any educated person to even challenge the identities and
similarities existing in every direction. Christians are not to be found, in these
days, who are prepared to contend that Christian symbols, rites, and ceremonies
are unique - except, indeed, among the ignorant. There we still behold
simplicity of belief hand-in-hand with ignorance of facts; but outside this
class we do not find even the most devout Christians alleging that Christianity
has not very much in common with faiths older than itself. But it is well known
that in the first centuries "after Christ" these likenesses were on
all hands admitted, and that modern Comparative Mythology is only repeating
with great precision that which was universally recognised in the
These identities were thus regarded as the work of devils, copies
of the Christian originals, largely circulated in the pre-Christian world with
the object of prejudicing the reception of the truth when it came. There is a
certain difficulty in accepting the earlier statements as copies and the later
as originals, but without disputing with Justin Martyr whether the copies
preceded the original or the original the copies, we may be content to accept
his testimony as to the existence of these identities between the faith
flourishing in the Roman empire of his time and the new religion he was engaged
in defending.
Tertullian speaks equally plainly, stating the objection made in
his days also to Christianity, that "the nations
who are strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their
idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy". "So they
do", he answers quite frankly, "but these cheat themselves with
waters that are widowed. For washing is the channel through which they are
initiated into some sacred rites of some notorious Isis or Mithra; and the Gods
themselves they honour by washings .... At the
Appollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptised; and they presume that the
effect of their doing that is the regeneration and the remission of the
penalties due to their perjuries. Which fact, being acknowledged, we recognise
here also the zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God, while we find him
too practising baptism in his subjects". [ Vol.
VII. Tertullian, On Baptism, ch. v.] To solve the
difficulty of these identities we must study the Mythic Christ, the Christ of
the solar myths or legends, these myths being the pictorial forms in which
certain profound truths were given to the world.
Now a "myth" is by no means what most people imagine it
to be - a mere fanciful story erected on a basis of fact, or even altogether
apart from fact. A myth is far truer than a history, for a history only gives a
story of the shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast
the shadows. As above so below; and first above and then
below. There are certain great principles according to which our system
is built; there are certain laws by which these principles are worked out in
detail; there are certain Beings who embody the principles and whose activities
are the laws; there are hosts of inferior beings who act as vehicles for these
activities, as agents, as instruments; there are the Egos of men intermingled
with all these, performing their share of the great kosmic drama. These
multifarious workers in the invisible worlds cast their shadows on physical
matter, and these shadows are "things" - the bodies, the objects,
that make up the physical universe. These shadows give but a poor idea of the
objects that cast them, just as what we call shadows down here give but a poor
idea of the objects that cast them; they are mere outlines, with blank darkness
in lieu of details, and have only length and breadth, no depth.
History is an account, very imperfect and often distorted, of the
dance of these shadows in the shadow-world of physical matter. Anyone who has
seen, a clever Shadow-Play, and has compared what goes on behind the screen on
which the shadows are cast with the movements of the shadows on the screen, may
have a vivid idea of the illusory nature of the shadow-actions, and may draw
therefrom several not misleading analogies.[The
student might read Plato's account of the "Cave" and its inhabitants,
remembering that Plato was an Initiate. Republic, bk. vii.
]
Myth is an account of the movements of those who cast the
shadows; and the language in which the account is given is what is called the
language of symbols. Just as here we have words which stand for things - as the
word "table" is a symbol for a recognised article of a certain kind -
so do symbols stand for objects on higher planes. They are a pictorial
alphabet, used by all myth-writers, and each has its recognised meaning. A
symbol is used to signify a certain object just as words are used down here to
distinguish one thing from another, and so a knowledge
of symbols is necessary for the reading of a myth. For the original tellers of
great myths are ever Initiates, who are accustomed to use the symbolic
language, and who, of course, use symbols in their fixed and accepted meanings.
A symbol has a chief meaning, and then various subsidiary
meanings related to that chief meaning. For instance, the Sun is the symbol of
the Logos; that is its chief or primary significance. But it stands also for an
incarnation of the Logos, or for any of the great Messengers who represent Him
for the time, as an ambassador represents his King. High Initiates
who are sent on special missions to incarnate among men and live with them for
a time as Rulers or Teachers, would be designated by the symbol of the Sun; for
though it is not their symbol in an individual sense, it is theirs in virtue of
their office.
All those who are signified by this symbol have certain
characteristics, pass through certain situations, perform
certain activities, during their lives on earth. The Sun is the physical
shadow, or body, as it is called, of the Logos; hence its yearly course in
nature reflects His activity, in the partial way in which a shadow represents
the activity of the object that casts it. The Logos, "the Son of God",
descending into matter, has as shadow the annual course of the Sun, and the
Sun-Myth tells it. Hence, again, an incarnation of the Logos, or one of His
high ambassadors, will also represent that activity, shadow-like, in His body
as a man. Thus will necessarily arise identities in
the life-histories of these ambassadors. In fact, the absence of such
identities would at once point out that the person concerned was not a full
ambassador, and that his mission was of a lower order.
The Solar Myth, then, is a story which primarily representing the
activity of the Logos, or Word, in the kosmos, secondarily embodies the life of
one who is an incarnation of the Logos, or is one of His ambassadors. The Hero
of the myth is usually represented as a God, or Demi-God, and his life, as will
be understood by what has been said above, must be outlined by the course of
the Sun, as the shadow of the Logos. The part of the course lived out during
the human life is that which falls between the winter solstice and the reaching
of the zenith in summer. The Hero is born at the winter solstice, dies at the
spring equinox, and, conquering death, rises into
mid-heaven.
The following remarks are interesting in this connection, though
looking at myth in a more general way, as an allegory, picturing inner truths:
"Alfred de Vigny has said that legend is frequently more
true than history, because legend recounts not acts which are often
incomplete and abortive, but the genius itself of great men and great nations.
It is pre-eminently to the Gospel that this beautiful thought is applicable,
for the Gospel is not merely the narration of what has been; it is the sublime
narration of what is and what always will be. Ever will the Saviour of the
world be adored by the kings of intelligence, represented by the Magi; ever
will He multiply the eucharistic bread, to nourish and comfort our souls; ever,
when we invoke Him in the night and the tempest, will He come to us walking on
the waters, ever will He stretch forth His hand and make us pass over the
crests of the billows; ever will He cure our distempers and give back light to
our eyes; ever will He appear to His faithful, luminous and transfigured upon
Tabor, interpreting the law of Moses and moderating the zeal of Elias".
[Eliphas Levi. The Mysteries of Magic, p. . ]
We shall find that myths are very closely related to the
Mysteries, for part of the Mysteries consisted in showing living pictures of
the occurrences in the higher worlds that became embodied in myths. In fact in
the Pseudo-Mysteries, mutilated fragments of the living pictures of the true
Mysteries were represented by actors who acted out a drama, and many secondary
myths are these dramas put into words.
The broad outlines of the story of the Sun-God are very clear,
the eventful life of the Sun-God being spanned within the first six months of
the solar year, the other six being employed in the general protecting and
preserving. He is always born at the winter solstice, after the shortest day in
the year, at the midnight of the 24th of December, when the sign Virgo is
rising above the horizon; born as this sign is rising, he is born always of a
virgin, and she remains a virgin after she has given birth to her Sun-Child, as
the celestial Virgo remains unchanged and unsullied when the Sun comes forth
from her in the heavens. Weak, feeble as an infant is he, born when the days
are shortest and the nights are longest - we are on the north of the equatorial
line - surrounded with perils in his infancy, and the reign of the darkness far
longer than his in his early days. But he lives through all the threatening
dangers, and the day lengthens towards the spring equinox, till the time comes
for the crossing over, the crucifixion, the date varying with each year. The
Sun-God is sometimes found sculptured within the circle of the horizon, with
the head and feet touching the circle at north and south, and the outstretched
hands at east and west - "He was crucified". After this he rises
triumphantly and ascends into heaven, and ripens the corn and the grape, giving
his very life to them to make their substance and through them to his
worshippers. The God who is born at the dawning of December 25th is ever
crucified at the spring equinox, and ever gives his life as food to his
worshippers - these are among the most salient marks of the Sun-God. The fixity
of the birth-date and the variableness of the death-date are full of
significance, when we remember that the one is a fixed and the other a variable
solar position. "Easter" is a movable event, calculated by the
relative positions of sun and moon, an impossible way of fixing year by year
the anniversary of a historical event, but a very natural and indeed inevitable
way of calculating a solar festival. These changing dates do not point to the
history of a man, but to the Hero of a solar myth.
These events are reproduced in the lives of the various Solar
Gods, and antiquity teems with illustrations of them. Isis of Egypt like Mary
of Bethlehem was our Immaculate Lady, Star of the Sea, Queen of Heaven, Mother
of God. We see her in pictures standing on the crescent moon, star-crowned; she
nurses her child Horus, and the cross appears on the back of the seat in which
he sits on his mother's knee. The Virgo of the Zodiac is represented in ancient
drawings as a woman suckling a child-the type of all future Madonnas with their
divine Babes, showing the origin of the symbol. Devakî is likewise figured with
the divine Krshna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of
The relation of the winter solstice to Jesus is also significant.
The birth of Mithras was celebrated in the winter solstice with great
rejoicings, and Horus was also then born: "His birth is one of the greatest
mysteries of the [Egyptian] religion. Pictures representing it appeared on the
walls of temples. . . . He was the child of Deity. At Christmas time, or that
answering to our festival, his image was brought out of the sanctuary with
peculiar ceremonies, as the image of the infant Bambino is still brought out
and exhibited at Rome".[Bonwiok. Egyptian Belief, p. .
Quoted in Williamson's The Great Law, p. 26 ]
On the fixing of the 25th December as the birthday of Jesus,
Williamson has the following: "All Christians know that the 25th December
is now the recognised festival of the birth of Jesus, but few are aware that
this has not always been so. There have been, it is said, one hundred and
thirty-six different dates fixed on by different Christian sects. Lightfoot
gives it as 15th September, others as in February or August. Epiphanius
mentions two sects, one celebrating it in June, the
other in July. The matter was finally settled by Pope Julius I, in 337 A. D.,
and S. Chrysostom, writing in 390, says: ' On this day [.i.e., 25th December]
also the birth of Christ was lately fixed at
In the case of the Lord Buddha we may see how a myth attaches
itself to a historical personage. The story of His life is well known, and in
the current Indian accounts the birth-story is simple and human. But in the
Chinese account He is born of a virgin, Mâyâdevi, the archaic myth finding in
Him a new Hero.
Williamson also tells us that fires were and are lighted on the
25th December on the hills among Keltic peoples, and these are still known
among the Irish and the Scotch Highlanders as Bheil or Baaltinne, the fires
thus bearing the name of Bel, Bal, or Baal, their ancient Deity, the Sun-God,
though now lighted in honour of Christ.[Ibid., pp. 36,
. ]
Rightly considered, the Christmas festival should take on new
elements of rejoicing and of sacredness, when the lovers of Christ see in it
the repetition of an ancient solemnity, see it stretching all the world over,
and far, far back into dim antiquity; so that the Christmas bells are ringing
throughout human history, and sound musically out of the far-off night of time.
Not in exclusive possession, but in universal acceptance, is found the
hall-mark of truth.
The death-date, as said above, is not a fixed one, like the
birth-date. The date of the death is calculated by the relative positions of
Sun and Moon at the spring equinox, varying with each year, and the death-date
of each Solar Hero is found to be celebrated in this connection. The animal
adopted as the symbol of the Hero is the sign of the Zodiac in which the Sun is
at the vernal equinox of his age, and this varies with the precession of the
equinoxes. Oannes of Assyria had the sign of Pisces, the Fish, and is thus
figured. Mithra is in Taurus, and, therefore, rides on a Bull, and Osiris was
worshipped as Osiris-Apis, or Serapis, the Bull. Merodach of Babylon was
worshipped as a Bull, as was Astarte of Syria. When the Sun is in the sign of
Aries, the Ram or Lamb, we have Osiris again as Ram, and so also Astarte, and
Jupiter Ammon, and it is this same animal that became the symbol of Jesus - the
Lamb of God. The use of the Lamb as His symbol, often leaning on a cross, is
common in the sculptures of the catacombs. On this Williamson says: "In
the course of time the Lamb was represented on the cross, but it was not until
the sixth synod of
The death and resurrection of the Solar Hero at or about the
vernal equinox is as wide-spread as his birth at the winter solstice. Osiris
was then slain by Typhon, and He is pictured on the circle of the horizon, with
outstretched arms, as if crucified - a posture originally of benediction, not
of suffering. The death of Tammuz was annually bewailed at the spring equinox
in
In all these cases the mourning for the death is immediately
followed by the rejoicing over the resurrection, and on this it is interesting
to notice hat the name of Easter has been traced to the virgin-mother of the
slain Tammuz, Ishtar.[Ibid., p. . ]
It is interesting also to notice that the fast preceding the
death at the vernal equinox, - the modern Lent - is found in
In the Pseudo-Mysteries, the Sun-God story was dramatised, and in
the ancient Mysteries it was lived by the Initiate, and hence the solar
"myths" and the great facts of Initiation became interwoven together.
Hence when the Master Christ became the Christ of the Mysteries, the legends of
the older Heroes of those Mysteries gathered round Him, and the stories were again
recited with the latest divine Teacher as the representative of the Logos in
the Sun. Then the festival of His nativity became the immemorial date when the
Sun was born of the Virgin, when the
Very early, very early, Christ was born.
As the great legend of the Sun gathered round Him, the sign of
the Lamb became that of His crucifixion as the sign of the Virgin had become
that of His birth. We have seen that the Bull was sacred to Mithras and the
Fish to Oannes, and that the Lamb was sacred to Christ, and for the same
reason; it was the sign of the spring equinox, at the period of history in
which He crossed the great circle of the horizon, was "crucified in
space".
These Sun myths, ever recurring throughout the ages, with a
different name for their Hero in each new recension, cannot pass unrecognised
by the student, though they may naturally and rightly be ignored by the
devotee; and when they are used as a weapon to mutilate or destroy the majestic
figure of the Christ, they must be met, not by denying the facts, but by
understanding the deeper meaning of the stories, the spiritual truths that the
legends expressed under a veil.
Why have these legends mingled with the history of Jesus, and
crystallised round Him, as a historical personage? These are really the stories
not of a particular individual named Jesus but of the universal Christ; of a
Man who symbolised a Divine Being, and who represented a fundamental truth in
nature; a Man who filled a certain office and held a certain characteristic
position towards humanity; standing towards humanity in a special relationship,
renewed age after age, as generation succeeded generation, as race gave way to
race. Hence He was, as are all such, the "Son of Man", a peculiar and
distinctive title, the title of an office, not of an individual. The Christ of
the Solar Myth was the Christ of the Mysteries, and we find the secret of the
mythic in the mystic Christ.
THE MYSTIC CHRIST (concluded)
WE now approach that deeper side of the Christ story that gives
it its real hold upon the hearts of men. We approach that perennial life which
bubbles up from an unseen source, and so baptises its representative with its
lucent flood that human hearts cling round the Christ, and feel that they could
almost more readily reject the apparent facts of history than deny that which
they intuitively feel to be a vital, an essential truth of the higher life. We
draw near the sacred portal of the Mysteries, and lift a corner of the veil
that hides the sanctuary.
We have seen that, go back as far as we may into antiquity, we
find everywhere recognised the existence of a hidden teaching, a secret
doctrine, given under strict and exacting conditions to approved candidates by
the Masters of Wisdom. Such candidates were initiated into "The
Mysteries" - a name that covers in antiquity, as we have seen, all that
was most spiritual in religion, all that was most profound in philosophy, all
that was most valuable in science. Every great Teacher of antiquity passed
through the Mysteries and the greatest were the Hierophants of the Mysteries;
each who came forth into the world to speak of the invisible worlds had passed
through the portal of Initiation and had learned the secret of the Holy Ones
from Their own lips: each who came forth came forth with the same story, and
the solar myths are all versions of this story, identical in their essential
features, varying only in their local colour.
This story is primarily that of the descent of the Logos into
matter, and the Sun-God is aptly His symbol, since the Sun is His body, and He
is often described as "He that dwelleth in the Sun". In one aspect,
the Christ of the Mysteries is the Logos descending into matter, and the great
Sun-Myth is the popular teaching of this sublime truth. As in previous cases,
the Divine Teacher, who brought the Ancient Wisdom and republished it in the
world, was regarded as a special manifestation of the Logos, and the Jesus of
the Churches was gradually draped with the stories which belonged to this great
One; thus He became identified, in Christian nomenclature, with the Second
Person in the Trinity, the Logos, or Word of God,[See
on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i, 1-. The name Logos, ascribed to
the manifested God, shaping matter - "all things were made by Him" -
is Platonic, and is hence directly derived from the Mysteries; ages before
Plato, Vâk, Voice, derived from the same source, was used among Hindus, ] and the salient events recounted in the myth of the
Sun-God became the salient events of the story of Jesus, regarded as the
incarnate Deity, the "mythic Christ". As in the macrocosm, the
kosmos, the Christ of the Mysteries represents the Logos, the Second Person in
the Trinity, so in the microcosm, man, does He represent the second aspect of
the Divine Spirit in man - hence called in man "the Christ".[See
Ante, pp. 106-107] The second aspect of the Christ of the Mysteries is then the
life of the Initiate, the life which is entered on at the first great
Initiation, at which the Christ is born in man, and after which He develops in
man. To make this quite intelligible, we must consider the conditions imposed
on the candidate for Initiation, and the nature of the Spirit in man.
Only those could be recognised as candidates for Initiation who
were already good as men count goodness, according to the strict measure of the
law. Pure, holy, without defilement, clean from sin, living without
transgression - such were some of the descriptive phrases used of them.[See Ante, p. . 3 ] Intelligent also must they be, of
well-developed and well-trained minds.[See Ante, p. . ] The evolution carried
on in the world life after life, developing and mastering the powers of the
mind, the emotions, and the moral sense, learning through exoteric religions,
practising the discharge of duties, seeking to help and lift others - all this
belongs to the ordinary life of an evolving man. When all this is done, the man
has become "a good man", the Chręstos of the Greeks, and this he must
be ere he can become the Christos, the Anointed. Having accomplished the
exoteric good life, he becomes a candidate for the esoteric life, and enters on
the preparation for Initiation, which consists in the fulfilment of certain
conditions.
These conditions mark out the attributes he is to acquire, and
while he is labouring to create these, he is sometimes said to be treading the
Probationary Path, the Path which leads up to the "Strait Gate",
beyond which is the "Narrow Way", or the "Path of
Holiness", the " Way of the Cross". He is not expected to
develop these attributes perfectly, but he must have made some progress in all
of them, ere the Christ can be born in him. He must prepare a pure home for
that Divine Child who is to develop within him.
The first of these attributes - they are all mental and moral -
is Discrimination; this means that the aspirant must begin to separate in his
mind the Eternal from the Temporary, the Real from the Unreal, the True from
the False, the Heavenly from the Earthly. "The things which are seen are
temporal", says the Apostle; "but the things which are not seen are
eternal". [II. Cor., IV, .] Men are constantly
living under the glamour of the seen, and are blinded by it to the unseen. The
aspirant must learn to discriminate between them, so that what is unreal to the
world may become real to him, and that which is real to the world may to him
become unreal, for thus only is it possible to "walk by faith, not by
sight". [Ibid., v, . ] And thus also must a man
become one of those of whom the Apostle says that they "are of full age,
even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil". [Heb., v, . ] Next, this sense of
unreality must breed in him Disgust with the unreal and the fleeting, the mere
husks of life, unfit to satisfy hunger, save the hunger of swine.[S. Luke, xv, .
] This stage is described in the emphatic language of Jesus: "If any man
come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my
disciple".[Ibid., xiv, 26 ] Truly a "hard saying", and yet out
of this hatred will spring a deeper, truer, love, and the stage may not be
escaped on the way to the Strait Gate. Then the aspirant must learn Control of
thoughts, and this will lead to Control of actions, the thought being, to the
inner eye, the same as the action: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart".[ S.
Matt., v, .] He must acquire Endurance, for they who aspire to tread "the
Way of the Cross" will have to brave long and bitter sufferings, and they
must be able to endure, "as seeing Him who is invisible". [Heb., xi, . ] He must add to these Tolerance, if he would be the
child of Him who "maketh His sun to rise on the evil, and on the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust",[S.
Matt., v, . ] the disciple of Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to
use His name because he did not follow with them.[S. Luke, ix, 49, .] Further,
he must acquire the Faith to which nothing is impossible,[S.
Matt., xvii, . ] and the Balance which is described by the Apostle.[II. Cor., vi, 8-.] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which
are above",[Col., iii, . ] and long to reach the
beatitude of the vision of and union with God.[S. Matt., v, 8; and S. John,
xvii, 21 ] When a man has wrought these qualities into his character he is
regarded as fit for Initiation, and the Guardians of the Mysteries will open
for him the Strait Gate. Thus, but thus only, he becomes the prepared
candidate.
Now, the Spirit in man is the gift of the Supreme God, and
contains within itself the three aspects of the Divine Life - Intelligence,
Love, Will - being the Image of God. As it evolves, it first develops the
aspect of Intelligence, develops the intellect, and this evolution is effected
in the ordinary life in the world. To have done this to a
The Mystic Christ, then, is twofold - the Logos, the Second
Person of the Trinity, descending into matter, and the Love, or second, aspect
of the unfolding Divine Spirit in man. The one represents kosmic processes
carried on in the past and is the root of the Solar Myth; the other represents
a process carried on in the individual, the concluding stage of his human
evolution, and added many details in the Myth. Both of these have contributed
to the Gospel story, and together form the Image of the "Mystic
Christ".
Let us consider first the kosmic Christ, Deity becoming enveloped
in matter, the becoming incarnate of the Logos, the clothing of God in
"flesh".
When the matter which is to form our solar system is separated
off from the infinite ocean of matter which fills space, the Third Person of
the Trinity - the Holy Spirit - pours His Life into this matter to vivify it,
that it may presently take form. It is then drawn together, and form is given
to it by the life of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, who
sacrifices Himself by putting on the limitations of matter, becoming the
"Heavenly Man", in whose Body all forms exist, of whose Body all
forms are part. This was the kosmic story,
dramatically shown in the Mysteries - in the true Mysteries seen as it occurred
in space, in the physical plane Mysteries represented by magical or other
means, and in some parts by actors.
These processes are very distinctly stated in the Bible; when the
"Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" in the darkness
that was "upon the face of the deep", [Gen., i, .
3 ] the great deep of matter showed no forms, it was void, inchoate. Form was
given by the Logos, the Word, of whom it is written that "all things were
made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made".[S. John, i, . ] C. W. Leadbeater has well put it:
"The result of this first great outpouring [the 'moving' of the Spirit] is
the quickening of that wonderful and glorious vitality which pervades all
matter (inert though it may seem to our dim physical eyes), so that the atoms
of the various planes develop, when electrified by it, all sorts of previously
latent attractions and repulsions, and enter into combinations of all kinds".
[The Christian Creed, p. . This is a most valuable and
fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning of the creeds.]
Only when this work of the Spirit has been done can the Logos,
the kosmic Mystic Christ, take on Himself the clothing of matter, entering in
very truth the Virgin's womb, the womb of Matter as yet virgin, unproductive.
This matter had been vivified by the Holy Spirit, who, overshadowing the Virgin, poured into it His life, thus preparing it to
receive the life of the Second Logos, who took this matter as the vehicle for
His energies. This is the becoming incarnate of the Christ, the taking flesh -
"Thou did'st not despise the Virgin's womb".
In the Latin and English translations of the original Greek text
of the Nicene Creed, the phrase which describes this phase of the descent has
changed the prepositions and so changed the sense. The original ran: "and
was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary", whereas he
translation reads: " and was incarnate by the
Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary." [The Christian Creed, p. 42] The Christ
"takes form not of the ' Virgin' matter alone, but of matter which is
already instinct and pulsating with the life of the Third Logos,[A name of the
Holy Ghost ] so that both the life and the matter surround Him as a
vesture".[Ibid., p. 43]
This is the descent of the Logos into matter, described as the
birth of the Christ of a Virgin, and this, in the Solar Myth, becomes the birth
of the Sun-God as the sign Virgo rises.
Then come the early workings of the
Logos in matter, aptly typified by the infancy of the myth. To all the
feebleness of infancy His majestic powers bow themselves, letting but little
play forth on the tender forms they ensoul. Matter imprisons, seems as though
threatening to slay, its infant King, whose glory is veiled by the limitations
He has assumed. Slowly He shapes it towards high ends, and lifts it into
manhood, and then stretches Himself on the cross of matter that He may pour
forth from that cross alt the powers of His surrendered life. This is the Logos
of whom Plato said that He was in the figure of a cross on the universe ; this
is the Heavenly Man, standing in space, with arms outstretched in blessing;
this is the Christ crucified, whose death on the cross of matter fills all matter
with His life. Dead He seems and buried out of sight, but He rises again
clothed in the very matter in which He seemed to perish, and carries up His
body of now radiant matter into heaven, where it receives the downpouring life
of the Father, and becomes the vehicle of man's immortal life. For it is the
life of the Logos which forms the garment of the Soul in man, and He gives it
that men may live through the ages and grow to the measure of His own stature.
Truly are we clothed in Him, first materially and then spiritually.
He sacrificed Himself to bring many sons into glory, and He is with us always,
even to the end of the age.
The crucifixion of Christ, then, is part of the great kosmic
sacrifice, and the allegorical representation of this in the physical
Mysteries, and the sacred symbol of the crucified man in space, became
materialised into an actual death by crucifixion, and a crucifix bearing a
dying human form; then this story, now the story of a man, was attached to the
Divine Teacher, Jesus, and became the story of His physical death, while the
birth from a Virgin, the danger-encircled infancy, the resurrection and
ascension, became also incidents in His human life. The Mysteries disappeared,
but their grandiose and graphic representations of the kosmic work of the Logos
encircled and uplifted the beloved figure of the Teacher of Judaea, and the
kosmic Christ of the Mysteries, with the lineaments of the Jesus of history,
thus became the central Figure of the Christian Church.
But even this was not all; the last touch of fascination is added
to the Christ-story by the fact that there is another Christ of the Mysteries,
close and dear to the human heart - the Christ of the human Spirit, the Christ
who is in every one of us, is born and lives, is crucified, rises from the
dead, and ascends into heaven, in every suffering and triumphant "Son of
Man".
The life-story of every Initiate into the true, the heavenly
Mysteries, is told in its salient features in the Gospel biography. For this
reason, S. Paul speaks as we have seen [Ante, p. . ]
of the birth of the Christ in the disciple, and of His evolution and His full
stature therein. Every man is a potential Christ, and the unfolding of the
Christ-life in a man follows the outline of the Gospel story in its striking
incidents, which we have seen to be universal, and not particular.
There are five great Initiations in the life of a Christ, each
one marking a stage in the unfolding of the Life of Love. They are given now,
as of old, and the last marks the final triumph of the Man who has developed
into Divinity, who has transcended humanity, and has become a Saviour of the
world.
Let us trace this life-story, ever newly repeated in spiritual
experience, and see the Initiate living out the life of the Christ.
At the first great Initiation the Christ is born in the disciple;
it is then that he realises for the first time in himself the outpouring of the
divine Love, and experiences that marvellous change which makes him feel himself to be one with all that lives. This is the
"Second Birth", and at that birth the heavenly ones rejoice, for he
is born into " the kingdom of heaven", as
one of the " little ones," as "a little child " - the names
ever given to the new initiates. Such is the meaning of the words of Jesus,
that a man must become a little child to enter into the Kingdom.[S. Matt., xviii, . ] It is significantly said in some of
the early Christian writers that Jesus was "born in a cave" - the
"stable" of the gospel narrative; the "Cave of Initiation"
is a well-known ancient phrase, and the Initiate is ever born therein; over
that cave "where the young child" is, burns the "Star of
Initiation", the Star that ever shines forth in the East when a
Child-Christ is born. Every such child is surrounded by perils and menaces,
strange dangers that befall not other babes; for he is anointed with the chrism
of the second birth and the Dark Powers of the unseen world ever seek his
undoing. Despite all trials, however, he grows into manhood, for the Christ
once born can never perish, the Christ once beginning to develop can never fail
in his evolution; his fair life expands and grows, ever-increasing in wisdom
and in spiritual stature, until the time comes for the second great Initiation,
the Baptism of the Christ by Water and the Spirit, that gives him the powers
necessary for the Teacher, who is to go forth and labour in the world as
"the beloved Son".
Then there descends upon him in rich measure the divine Spirit,
and the glory of the unseen Father pours down its pure radiance on him; but
from that scene of blessing is he led by the Spirit into the wilderness and is
once more exposed to the ordeal of fierce temptations. For now the powers of
the Spirit are unfolding themselves in him, and the Dark Ones strive to lure
him from his path by these very powers, bidding him use them for his own
helping instead of resting on his Father in patient trust. In the swift, sudden
transitions which test his strength and faith, the whisper of the embodied
Tempter follows the voice of the Father, and the burning sands of the wilderness
scorch the feet erstwhile laved in the cool waters of the holy river. Conqueror
over these temptations he passes into the world of men to use for their helping
the powers he would not put forth for his own needs, and he who would not turn
one stone to bread for the stilling of his own cravings feeds "five
thousand men, besides women and children", with a few loaves.
Into his life of ceaseless service
conies another brief period of glory, when he ascends "a high mountain
apart" - the sacred Mount of Initiation. There he
is transfigured and there meets some of his great Forerunners, the Mighty Ones
of old who trod where he now is treading. He passes thus the third great
Initiation, and then the shadow of his coming Passion falls on him, and he
steadfastly sets his face to go to Jerusalem - repelling the tempting words of
one of his disciples - Jerusalem, where awaits him the baptism of the Holy
Ghost and of Fire. After the Birth, the attack by Herod;
after the Baptism, the temptation in the wilderness; after the Transfiguration,
the setting forth towards the last stage of the Way of the Cross. Thus
is triumph ever followed by ordeal, until the goal is reached.
Still grows the life of love, ever fuller and more perfect, the
Son of Man shining forth more clearly as the Son of God, until the time draws
near for his final battle, and the fourth great Initiation leads him in triumph
into Jerusalem, into sight of Gethsemane and Calvary. He is now the Christ
ready to be offered, ready for the sacrifice on the cross- He is now to face
the bitter agony in the Garden, where even his chosen ones sleep while he
wrestles with his mortal anguish, and for a moment prays that the cup may pass
from his lips; but the strong will triumphs and he stretches out his hand to
take and drink, and in his loneliness an angel comes to him and strengthens
him, as angels are wont to do when they see a Son of Man bending beneath his
load of agony. The drinking of the bitter cup of betrayal, of desertion, of
denial, meets him as he goes forth, and alone amid his
jeering foes he passes to his last fierce trial. Scourged by physical pain,
pierced by cruel thorns of suspicion, stripped of his fair garments of purity
in the eyes of the world, left in the hands of his foes, deserted apparently by
God and man, he endures patiently all that befalls him, wistfully looking in
his last extremity for aid. Left still to suffer, crucified, to die to the life
of form, to surrender all life that belongs to the lower world, surrounded by
triumphant foes who mock him, the last horror of great darkness envelopes him,
and in the darkness he meets all the forces of evil; his inner vision is
blinded, he finds himself alone, utterly alone, till the strong heart, sinking
in despair, cries out to the Father who seems to have abandoned him, and the
human soul faces, in uttermost loneliness, the crushing agony of apparent
defeat. Yet, summoning all the strength of the "unconquerable
spirit", the lower life is yielded up, its death is willingly embraced,
the body of desire is abandoned, and the Initiate "descends into
hell", that no region of the universe he is to help may remain untrodden
by him, that none may be too outcast to be reached by
his all-embracing love. And then springing upwards from the darkness, he sees
the light once more, feels himself again as the Son, inseparable from the
Father whose he is, rises to the life that knows no ending, radiant in the
consciousness of death faced and overcome, strong to help to the uttermost
every child of man, able to pour out his life into every struggling soul. Among
his disciples he remains awhile to teach, unveiling to them the mysteries of the
spiritual worlds, preparing them also to tread the path he has trodden, until,
the earth-life over, he ascends to the Father, and, in the fifth great
Initiation, becomes the Master triumphant, the link between God and man.
Such was the story lived through in the true Mysteries of old and
now, and dramatically portrayed in symbols in the physical plane Mysteries,
half veiled, half shown. Such is the Christ of the Mysteries in His dual
aspect, Logos and man, kosmic and individual. Is it any wonder that this story,
dimly felt, even when unknown, by the mystic, has woven itself into the heart,
and served as an inspiration to all noble living? The Christ of the human heart
is, for the most part, Jesus seen as the mystic human Christ, struggling,
suffering, dying, finally triumphant, the Man in whom humanity is seen
crucified and risen, whose victory is the promise of victory to every one who,
like Him, is faithful through death and beyond - the Christ who can never be
forgotten while He is born again and again in humanity, while the world needs
Saviours, and Saviours give themselves for men.
THE ATONEMENT
WE will now proceed to study certain aspects of the Christ-Life,
as they appear among the doctrines of Christianity. In the exoteric teachings
they appear as attached only to the Person of the Christ; in the esoteric they
are seen as belonging indeed to Him, since in their primary, their fullest and
deepest meaning they form part of the activities of the Logos, but as being
only secondarily reflected in the Christ, and therefore also in every
Christ-Soul that treads the way of the Cross. Thus studied they will be seen to
be profoundly true, while in their exoteric form they often bewilder the
intelligence and jar the emotions.
Among these stands prominently forward the doctrine of the
Atonement; not only has it been a point of bitter attack from those outside the
pale of Christianity, but it has wrung many sensitive consciences within that
pale. Some of the most deeply Christian thinkers of the last half of the
nineteenth century have been tortured with doubts as to the teaching of the
churches on this matter, and have striven to see, and to present it, in a way
that softens or explains away the cruder notions based on an unintelligent
reading of a few profoundly mystical texts. Nowhere, perhaps, more than in
connection with these should the warning of S. Peter be borne in mind:
"Our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him,
hath written unto you - as also in all his epistles - speaking in them of these
things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their
own destruction". [2 S. Peter, III, 15,. ] For
the texts that tell of the identity of the Christ with His brother-men have
been wrested into a legal substitution of Himself for
them, and have thus been used as an escape from the results of sin, instead of
as an inspiration to righteousness.
The general teaching in the
To show that these views were still authoritatively taught in the
churches, I wrote further: "Stroud makes Christ drink 'the cup of the
wrath of God'. Jenkyn says 'He suffered as one disowned and reprobated and
forsaken of God Dwight considers that he endured God's 'hatred and contempt'.
Bishop Jeune tells us that 'after man had done his worst, worse remained for
Christ to bear. He had fallen into his father's hands'. Archbishop Thomson
preaches that 'the clouds of God's wrath gathered thick over the whole human
race: they discharged themselves on Jesus only'. He 'becomes a curse for us and
a vessel of wrath'. Liddon echoes the same sentiment: 'The apostles teach that mankind are slaves, and that Christ on the cross is paying
their ransom. Christ crucified is voluntarily devoted and accursed'; he even
speaks of 'the precise amount of ignominy and pain needed for the redemption',
and says that the 'divine victim' paid more than was absolutely
necessary". [A. Besant. Essay on the Atonement. ]
These are the views against which the learned and deeply
religious Dr. McLeod Campbell wrote his well-known work, On the Atonement, a
volume containing many true and beautiful thoughts; F. D. Maurice and many
other Christian men have also striven to lift from Christianity the burden of a
doctrine so destructive of all true ideas as to the relations between God and
man.
None the less, as we look backwards over the effects produced by
this doctrine, we find that belief in it, even in its legal - and to us crude
exoteric - form, is connected with some of the very highest developments of
Christian conduct, and that some of the noblest examples of Christian manhood
and womanhood have drawn from it their strength, their inspiration, and their
comfort. It would be unjust not to recognise this fact. And whenever we come
upon a fact that seems to us startling and incongruous, we do well to pause
upon that fact, and to endeavour to understand it. For if this doctrine
contained nothing more than is seen in it by its assailants inside and outside
the churches, if it were in its true meaning as repellent to the conscience and
the intellect as it is found to be by many thoughtful Christians, then it could
not possibly have exercised over the minds and hearts of men a compelling
fascination, nor could it have been the root of heroic self-surrenders, of
touching and pathetic examples of self-sacrifice in the service of man.
Something more there must be in it than lies on the surface, some hidden kernel
of life which has nourished those who have drawn from it their inspiration. In
studying it as one of the Lesser Mysteries we shall find the hidden life which
these noble ones have unconsciously absorbed, these souls which were so at one
with that life that the form in which it was veiled could not repel them.
When we come to study it as one of the Lesser Mysteries, we shall
feel that for its understanding some spiritual development is needed, some
opening of the inner eyes. To grasp it requires that its spirit should be
partly evolved in the life, and only those who know practically something of
the meaning of self-surrender will be able to catch a glimpse of what is
implied in the esoteric teaching on this doctrine, as the typical manifestation
of the Law of Sacrifice. We can only understand it as applied to the Christ,
when we see it as a special manifestation of the universal law, a reflection
below of the Pattern above, showing us in a concrete human life what sacrifice
means.
The Law of Sacrifice underlies our system and all systems, and on
it all universes are builded. It lies at the root of evolution, and alone makes
it intelligible. In the doctrine of the Atonement it takes a concrete form in
connection with men who have reached a certain stage in spiritual development,
the stage that enables them to realise their oneness with humanity, and to
become, in very deed and truth, Saviours of men.
All the great religions of the world have declared that the
universe begins by an act of sacrifice and have incorporated the idea o
sacrifice into their most solemn rites In Hinduism, the dawn of manifestation
is said to be by sacrifice,[Brhadăaranyakopanishat, I, i, . ] mankind is
emanated with sacrifice ,[Bhagavad-Gita, iii, .] and it is Deity who sacrifices
Himself;,[Brhadăranyakopanishat, I, ii,7 ] the object of the sacrifice is manifestation;
He cannot become manifest unless an act of sacrifice be performed and inasmuch
as nothing can be manifest until He manifests, [ Mundakopanishat, II, ii, . ]
the act of sacrifice is called "the dawn" of creation.
In the Zoroastrian religion it was taught that in the Existence
that is boundless, unknowable, unnameable, sacrifice was performed and manifest
Deity appeared; Ahura-mazdao was born of an act of sacrifice.[Hang.
Essays on the Parsis, pp. 12-. 1 ]
In the Christian religion the same idea is indicated in the
phrase: "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world",[Rev., xiii, . ] slain at the origin of things. These words
can but refer to the important truth that there can be no founding of a world
until the Deity has made an act of sacrifice. This act is explained as limiting
Himself in order to become manifest. "The Law of Sacrifice might perhaps
more truly be called The Law of Manifestation, or the Law of Love and of Life,
for throughout the universe, from the highest to the lowest, it is the cause of
manifestation and life".[W. Williamson. The Great Law, p.
. ]
"Now, if we study this physical world, as being the most
available material, we find that all life in it, all growth, all progress,
alike for units and for aggregates, depend on continual sacrifice and the
endurance of pain. Mineral is sacrificed to vegetable, vegetable to animal,
both to man, men to men, and all the higher forms again break up, and reinforce
again with their separated constituents the lowest kingdom. It is a continual
sequence of sacrifices from the lowest to the highest, and the very mark of
progress is that the sacrifice from being involuntary and imposed becomes
voluntary and self-chosen, and those who are recognised as greatest by man's
intellect and loved most by man's heart are the supreme sufferers, those heroic
souls who wrought, endured, and died that the race might profit by their pain.
If the world be the work of the Logos, and the law of
the world's progress in the whole and the parts is sacrifice, then the Law of
Sacrifice must point to something in the very nature of the Logos; it must have
its root in the Divine Nature itself. A little further thought shows us that if
there is to be a world, a universe at all, this can only be by the One
Existence conditioning Itself and thus making manifestation possible, and that
the very Logos is the Self-limited God; limited to become manifest; manifested
to bring a universe into being; such self-limitation and manifestation can only
be a supreme act of sacrifice, and what wonder that on every hand the world should
show its birth-mark, and that the Law of Sacrifice should be the law of being,
the law of the derived lives.
"Further, as it is an act of sacrifice in order that
individuals may come into existence to share the Divine bliss, it is very truly
a vicarious act - an act done for the sake of others; hence the fact already
noted, that progress is marked by sacrifice becoming voluntary and self-chosen,
and we realise that humanity reaches its perfection in the man who gives
himself for men, and by his own suffering purchases for the race some lofty
good.
"Here, in the highest regions, is the inmost verity of
vicarious sacrifice, and however it may be degraded and distorted, this inner
spiritual truth makes it indestructible, eternal, and the fount whence flows
the spiritual energy which, in manifold forms and ways, redeems the world from
evil and draws it home to God". [A. Besant. Nineteenth Century, June,
1895, "The Atonement" ]
When the Logos comes forth from "the bosom of the
Father" in that "Day" when He is said to be
"begotten", [Heb., i, .] the dawn of the Day
of Creation, of Manifestation, when by Him God "made the worlds",
[Heb., i, .] He by His own will limits Himself, making as it were a sphere
enclosing the Divine Life, coming forth as a radiant orb of Deity, the Divine
Substance, Spirit within and limitation, or Matter, without. This is the veil
of matter which makes possible the birth of the Logos, Mary, the World-Mother,
necessary for the manifestation in time of the Eternal, that
Deity may manifest for the building of the worlds.
That circumscription, that self-limitation, is the act of
sacrifice, a voluntary action done for love's sake, that
other lives may be born from Him. Such a manifestation has been regarded as a
death, for, in comparison with the unimaginable life of God in Himself, such circumscription in matter may truly be called
death. It has been regarded, as we have seen, as a crucifixion in matter, and
has been thus figured, the true origin of the symbol of the cross, whether in
its so-called Greek form, wherein the vivifying of matter by the Holy Ghost is
signified, or in its so-called Latin, whereby the Heavenly Man is figured, the
supernal Christ. [C. W. Leadbeater.- The Christian
Creed pp 54-56]
"In tracing the symbolism of the Latin cross, or rather of
the crucifix, back into the night of time, the investigators had expected to
find the figure disappear, leaving behind what they
supposed to be the earlier cross-emblem. As a matter of fact exactly the
reverse took place, and they were startled to find that eventually the cross
drops away, leaving only the figure with uplifted arms. No longer is there any
thought of pain or sorrow connected with that figure, though still it tells of
sacrifice; rather is it now the symbol of the purest joy the world can hold -
the joy of freely giving - for it typifies the Divine Man standing in space
with arms upraised in blessing, casting abroad His gifts to all humanity, pouring
forth freely of Himself in all directions, descending into that 'dense sea' of
matter, to be cribbed, cabined, and confined therein, in order that through
that descent we may come into being".[C. W. Leadbeater. The Christian
Creed, pp. 56, .]
This sacrifice is perpetual, for in every form in this universe
of infinite diversity this life is enfolded, and is its very heart, the
"Heart of Silence" of the Egyptian ritual, the "Hidden
God". This sacrifice is the secret of evolution. The Divine Life, cabined
within a form, ever presses outwards in order that the form may expand, but
presses gently, lest the form should break ere yet it had reached its utmost
limit of expansion. With infinite patience and tact and discretion, the divine One keeps up the constant pressure that expands, without
loosing a force that would disrupt. In every form, in mineral, in vegetable, in
animal, in man, this expansive energy of the Logos is ceaselessly working. That
is the evolutionary force, the lifting life within the forms, the rising energy
that science glimpses, but knows not whence it comes. The botanist tells of an
energy within the plant, that pulls ever upwards; he knows not how, he knows
not why, but he gives it a name - the vis a fronte - because he finds it there,
or rather finds its results. Just as it is in plant life, so is it in other
forms as well, making them more and more expressive of the life within them.
When the limit of any form is reached, and it can grow no further, so that
nothing more can be gained through it by the soul of it - that germ of Himself,
which the Logos is brooding over - then He draws away His energy, and the form
disintegrates - we call it death and decay. But the soul is with Him, and He
shapes for it a new form, and the death of the form is the birth of the soul
into fuller life. If we saw with the eyes of the Spirit instead of with the
eyes of the flesh, we should not weep over a form, which is a corpse giving
back the materials out of which it was builded, but we should joy over the life
passing onwards into nobler form, to expand under the unchanging process the
powers still latent within.
Through that perpetual sacrifice of the Logos all lives exist; it
is the life by which the universe is ever becoming. This life is One, but it
embodies itself in myriad forms, ever drawing them together and gently
overcoming their resistance. Thus it is an At-one-ment, a unifying force, by
which the separated lives are gradually made conscious of their unity,
labouring to develop in each a self-consciousness, which shall at last know
itself to be one with all others, and its root One and divine.
This is the primary and ever-continued sacrifice, and it will be
seen that it is an outpouring of Life directed by Love, a voluntary and glad
pouring forth of Self for the making of other Selves.
This is "the joy of thy Lord" [S. Matt., xxv, 21, 23, 31-45 ] into
which the faithful servant enters, significantly followed by the statement that
He was hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, a stranger and in prison, in the helped or
neglected children of men. To the free Spirit to give itself is joy, and it
feels its life the more keenly the more it pours itself forth. And the more it
gives, the more it grows, for the law of the growth of life is that it
increases by pouring itself forth and not by drawing from without - by giving,
not by taking. Sacrifice, then, in its primary meaning, is a thing of joy the
Logos pours Himself out to make a world, and, seeing the travail of His soul,
is satisfied.[Is.liii,11 ]
But the word has come to be associated with suffering, and in all
religious rites of sacrifice some suffering, if only that of a trivial loss to
the sacrificer, is present. It is well to understand how this change has come
about, so that when the word "sacrifice" is used the instinctive
connotation is one of pain.
The explanation is seen when we turn from the manifesting Life to
the forms in which it is embodied, and look at the question of sacrifice from
the side of the forms. While the life of Life is in giving, the life, or
persistence, of form is in taking, for the form is wasted as it is exercised,
it is diminished as it is exerted. If the form is to continue, it must draw
fresh material from outside itself in order to repair its losses,
else will it waste and vanish away. The form must grasp, keep, build into
itself what it has grasped, else it cannot persist; and the law of growth of
the form is to take and assimilate that which the wider universe supplies. As
the consciousness identifies itself with the form, regarding the form as
itself, sacrifice takes on a painful aspect; to give, to surrender, to lose
what has been acquired, is felt to undermine the persistence of the form, and
thus the Law of Sacrifice becomes a law of pain instead of a law of joy.
Man had to learn by the constant breaking up of forms, and the
pain involved in the breaking, that he must not identify himself with the
wasting and changing forms, but with the growing persistent life, and he was
taught his lesson not only by external nature, but by the deliberate lessons of
the Teachers who gave him religions.
We can trace in the religions of the world four great stages of
instruction in the Law of Sacrifice. First, man was taught to sacrifice part of
his material possession in order to gain increased material prosperity, and
sacrifices were made in charity to men and in offerings to Deities, as we may
read in the scriptures of the Hindus, the Zoroastrians, the Hebrews, indeed all
the world over. The man gave up something he valued to insure future prosperity
to himself, his family, his community, his nation. He sacrificed in the present
to gain in the future. Secondly, came a lesson a little harder to learn;
instead of physical prosperity and worldly good, the fruit to be gained by
sacrifice was celestial bliss. Heaven was to be won, happiness was to be enjoyed
on the other side of death - such was the reward for sacrifices made during the
life led on earth.
A considerable step forward was made when a man learned to give
up the things for which his body craved for the sake of a distant good which he
could not see nor demonstrate. He learned to surrender the visible for the
invisible, and in so doing rose in the scale of being; for so great is the
fascination of the visible and the tangible, that if a man be able to surrender
them for the sake of an unseen world in which he believes, he has acquired much
strength and has made a long step towards the realisation of that unseen world.
Over and over again martyrdom has been endured, obloquy has been faced, man has learned to stand alone, bearing all that his race
could pour upon him of pain, misery, and shame, looking to that which is beyond
the grave. True, there still remains in this a longing for celestial glory, but
it is no small thing to be able to stand alone on earth and rest on spiritual
companionship, to cling firmly to the inner life when the outer is all torture.
The third lesson came when a man, seeing himself as part of a
greater life, was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the whole, and
so became strong enough to recognise that sacrifice was right, that a part, a
fragment, a unit in the sum total of life, should subordinate the part to the
whole, the fragment to the totality. Then he learned to do right, without being
affected by the outcome to his own person, to do duty, without wishing for
result to himself, to endure because endurance was right not because it would
be crowned, to give because gifts were due to humanity not because they would
be repaid by the Lord. The hero-soul thus trained was ready for the fourth
lesson: that sacrifice of all the separated fragment possesses is to be offered
because the Spirit is not really separate but is part of the divine Life, and
knowing no difference, feeling no separation, the man pours himself forth as
part of the Life Universal, and in the expression of that Life he shares the
joy of his Lord.
It is in the three earlier stages that the pain-aspect of
sacrifice is seen. The first meets but small sufferings; in the second the
physical life and all that earth has to give may be sacrificed; the third is
the great time of testing, of trying, of the growth and evolution of the human
soul. For in that stage duty may demand all in which life seems to consist, and
the man, still identified in feeling with the form, though knowing himself
theoretically to transcend it, finds that all he feels as life is demanded of
him, and questions: "If I let this go, what then will remain?" It
seems as though consciousness itself would cease with this surrender, for it
must loose its hold on all it realises, and it sees nothing to grasp on the
other side. An over-mastering conviction, an imperious voice,
call on him to surrender his very life. If he shrinks back, he must go
on in the life of sensation, the life of the intellect, the life of the world,
and as he has the joys he dared not resign, he finds a constant dissatisfaction,
a constant craving, a constant regret and lack of pleasure in the world, and he
realises the truth of the saying of the Christ, that "he that will save
his life shall lose it",[S. Matt., xvi, . ] and that the life that was
loved and clung to is only lost at last. Whereas if he risks all in obedience
to the voice that summons, if he throws away his life, then in losing it, he
finds it unto life eternal,[S. John, xii, .] and he discovers that the life he
surrendered was only death in life, that all he gave up was illusion, and that
he found reality. In that choice the metal of the soul is proved, and only the
pure gold comes forth from the fiery furnace, where life seemed to be
surrendered but where life was won. And then follows the joyous discovery that
the life thus won is won for all, not for the separated self, that the
abandoning of the separated self has meant the realising of the Self in man,
and that the resignation of the limit which alone seemed to make life possible
has meant the pouring out into myriad forms, an undreamed vividness and
fullness, " the power of an endless life". [Heb., vii, . ]
Such is an outline of the Law of Sacrifice, based on the primary
Sacrifice of the Logos, that Sacrifice of which all other sacrifices are
reflections.
We have seen how the man Jesus, the Hebrew disciple, laid down
His body in glad surrender that a higher Life might descend and become embodied
in the form He thus willingly sacrificed, and how by that act He became a
Christ of full stature, to be the Guardian of Christianity, and to pour out His
life into the great religion founded by the Mighty One with whom the sacrifice
had identified Him. We have seen the Christ-Soul passing through the great
Initiations - born as a little child, stepping down into the river of the
world's sorrows, with the waters of which he must be baptised into his active
ministry, transfigured on the Mount, led to the scene of his last combat, and
triumphing over death. We have now to see in what sense he is an atonement, how in the Christ-life the Law of Sacrifice
finds a perfect expression.
The beginning of what may be called the ministry of the Christ
come to manhood is in that intense and permanent sympathy with the world's
sorrows which is typified by the stepping down into the river. From that time
forward the life must be summed up in the phrase, "He went about doing good"; for those who sacrifice the separated life to be
a channel of the divine Life, can have no interest in this world save the
helping of others. He learns to identify himself with the consciousness of
those around him, to feel as they feel, think as they think, enjoy as they
enjoy, suffer as they suffer, and thus he brings into his daily waking life
that sense of unity with others which he experiences in the higher realms of
being. He must develop a sympathy which vibrates in perfect harmony with the
many-toned chord of human life, so that he may link in himself the human and
the divine lives, and become a mediator between heaven and earth.
Power is now manifested in him, for the Spirit is resting on him,
and he begins to stand out in the eyes of men as one of those who are able to
help their younger brethren to tread the path of life. As they gather round
him, they feel the power that comes out from him, the divine Life in the
accredited Son of the Highest. The souls that are hungry come to him and he
feeds them with the bread of life; the diseased with sin approach him, and he
heals them with the living word which cures the sickness and makes whole the soul;
the blind with ignorance draw nigh him, and he opens their eyes by the light of
his wisdom. It is the chief mark in his ministry that the lowest and the
poorest, the most desperate and the most degraded, feel in approaching him no
wall of separation, feel as they throng around him welcome and not repulsion;
for there radiates from him a love that understands and that can therefore
never wish to repel. However low the soul may be, he never feels the
Christ-Soul as standing above him but rather as standing beside him, treading
with human feet the ground he also treads; yet as filled with some strange
uplifting power that raises him upwards and fills him also with new impulse and
fresh inspiration.
Thus he lives and labours, a true Saviour of men, until the time
comes when he must learn another lesson, losing for awhile his consciousness of
that divine Life of which his own has been becoming ever more and more the
expression. And this lesson is that the true centre of divine Life lies within
and not without. The Self has its centre within each human soul - truly is
"the centre everywhere", for Christ is in all, and God in Christ -
and no embodied life, nothing "out of the Eternal' [Light on the Path, § . ]"can help him in his
direst need. He has to learn that the true unity of Father and Son is to be
found within and not without, and this lesson can only come in uttermost
isolation, when he feels forsaken by the God outside himself. As this trial
approaches, he cries out to those who are nearest to him to watch with him
through his hour of darkness; and then, by the breaking of every human
sympathy, the failing of every human love, he finds himself thrown back on the
life of the divine Spirit, and cries out to his Father, feeling himself in
conscious union with Him, that the cup may pass away. Having stood alone, save
for that divine Helper, he is worthy to face the last ordeal, where the God
without him vanishes, and only the God within is left. "My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?" rings out the bitter cry of startled love and
fear. The last loneliness descends on him, and he feels himself forsaken and
alone. Yet never is the Father nearer to the Son than at the moment when the
Christ-Soul feels himself forsaken, for as he thus touches the lowest depth of
sorrow, the hour of his triumph begins to dawn. For now he learns that he must
himself become the God to whom he cries, and by feeling the last pang of
separation he finds the eternal unity, he feels the fount of life is within,
and knows himself eternal.
None can become fully a Saviour of men nor sympathise perfectly
with all human suffering, unless he has faced and conquered pain and fear and
death unaided, save by the aid he draws from the God within him. It is easy to
suffer when there is unbroken consciousness between the higher and the lower;
nay, suffering is not, while that consciousness remains unbroken, for the light
of the higher makes darkness in the lower impossible, and pain is not pain when
borne in the smile of God. There is a suffering that men have to face, that
every Saviour of man must face, where darkness is on the human consciousness,
and never a glimmer of light comes through; he must know the pang of the
despair felt by the human soul when there is darkness on every side, and the
groping consciousness cannot find a hand to clasp. Into that darkness every Son
of Man goes down, ere he rises triumphant; that bitterest experience is tasted
by every Christ, ere he is "able to save them to the uttermost"
[Heb., vii, . ] who seek the Divine through him.
Such a one has become truly divine, a Saviour of men, and he
takes up the world-work for which all this has been the preparation. Into him
must pour all the forces that make against man, in order that in him they may
be changed into forces that help. Thus he becomes one of the Peace-centres of the
world, which transmute the forces of combat that would otherwise crush man. For
the Christs of the world are these Peace-centres into which pour all warring
forces, to be changed within them and then poured out as forces that work for
harmony.
Part of the sufferings of the Christ not yet perfect lies in this
harmonising of the discord-making forces in the world. Although a Son, he yet
learns by suffering and is thus "made perfect". [
Heb., v, 8, . ] Humanity would be far more full of combat and rent with
strife were it not for the Christ-disciples living in its midst, and
harmonising many of the warring forces into peace.
When it is said that the Christ suffers "
for men", that His strength replaces their weakness, His purity
their sin, His wisdom their ignorance, a truth is spoken; for the Christ so
becomes one with men that they share with Him and He with them. There is no substitution
of Him for them, but the taking of their lives into His, and the pouring of His
life into theirs. For, having risen to the plane of unity, He is able to share
all He has gained, to give all He has won. Standing above the plane of
separateness and looking down at the souls immersed in separateness, He can
reach each while they cannot reach each other. Water can flow from above into
many pipes, open to the reservoir though closed as regards each other, and so
He can send His life into each soul. Only one condition is needed in order that
a Christ may share His strength with a younger brother: that in the separated
life the human consciousness will open itself to the
divine, will show itself receptive of the offered life, and take the freely
outpoured gift. For so reverent is God to that Spirit which is Himself in man,
that He will not even pour into the human soul a flood of strength and life
unless that soul is willing to receive it. There must be an opening from below
as well as an outpouring from above, the receptiveness of the lower nature as
well as the willingness of the higher to give. That is the link between the
Christ and the man; that is what the churches have called the outpouring of
"divine grace"; that is what is meant by the "faith" necessary
to make the grace effective. As Giordano Bruno once put it - the human soul has
windows, and can shut those windows close. The sun outside is shining, the
light is unchanging; let the windows be opened and the sunlight must stream in.
The light of God is beating against the windows of every human soul, and when
the windows are thrown open, the soul becomes illuminated. There is no change
in God, but there is a change in man; and man's will may not be forced, else
were the divine Life in him blocked in its due evolution.
Thus in every Christ that rises, all humanity is lifted a step
higher, and by His wisdom the ignorance of the whole world is lessened. Each
man is less weak because of His strength, which pours out over all humanity and
enters the separated soul Out of that doctrine, seen narrowly, and therefore
mis-seen, grew the idea of the vicarious Atonement as a legal transaction
between God and man, in which Jesus took the place of the sinner. It was not
understood that One who had touched that height was verily one with all His
brethren; identity of nature was mistaken for a personal substitution, and thus
the spiritual truth was lost in the harshness of a judicial exchange.
"Then he comes to a knowledge of
his place in the world, of his function in nature - to be a Saviour and to make
atonement for the sins of the people. He stands in the inner Heart of the
world, the Holy of Holies, as a High Priest of Humanity. He is one with all his
brethren, not by a vicarious substitution, but by the unity of a common life.
Is any sinful? he is sinful in them, that his purity
may purge them. Is any sorrowful? in them he is the man
of sorrows; every broken heart breaks his, in every pierced heart his heart is
pierced. Is any glad? in them he is joyous, and pours
out his bliss. Is any craving? in them he is feeling
want that he may fill them with his utter satisfaction. He has everything, and
because it is his it is theirs. He is perfect; then they are perfect with him.
He is strong; who then can be weak, since he is in them? He climbed to his high
place that he might pour out to all below him, and he lives in order that all
may share his life. He lifts the whole world with him as he rises,
the path is easier for all men because he has trodden it.
"Every son of man may become such a manifested Son of God,
such a Saviour of the world. In each such Son is 'God manifest in the flesh',
[1 Tim., iii, .] the atonement that aids all mankind,
the living power that makes all things new. Only one thing is needed to bring
that power into manifested activity in any individual soul; the soul must open
the door and let Him in. Even He, all-permeating, cannot force His way against
His brother's will; the human will can hold its own alike against God and man,
and by the law of evolution it must voluntarily associate itself with divine
action, and not be broken into sullen submission. Let the will throw open the
door and the life will flood the soul. While the door is closed it will only
gently breathe through it its unutterable fragrance, that
the sweetness of that fragrance may win, where the barrier may not be forced by
strength. .
"This it is, in part, to be a Christ; but how can mortal pen
mirror the immortal, or mortal words tell of that which is beyond the power of speech?
Tongue may not utter, the unillumined mind may not grasp, that mystery of the
Son who has become one with the Father, carrying in His bosom the sons of
men". [Annie Besant. Theosophical Review, Dec.,1898,
pp. 344, . ]
Those who would prepare to rise to such a life in the future must
begin even now to tread in the lower life the path of the Shadow of the Cross.
Nor should they doubt their power to rise, for to do so is to doubt the God
within them. "Have faith in yourself", is one of the lessons that
comes from the higher view of man, for that faith is really in the God within.
There is a way by which the shadow of the Christ-life may fall on the common
life of man, and that is by doing every act as a sacrifice, not for what it
will bring to the doer but for what it will bring to others, and, in the daily
common life of small duties, petty actions, narrow interests, by changing the
motive and thus changing all. Not one thing in the outer life need necessarily
be varied; in any life sacrifice may be offered, amid any surroundings God may
be served. Evolving spirituality is marked not by what a man does, but by how
he does it; not in the circumstances, but in the attitude of a man towards
them, lies the opportunity of growth. "And indeed
this symbol of the cross may be to us as a touchstone to distinguish the good
from the evil in many of the difficulties of life. 'Only
those actions through which shines the light of the cross are worthy of the
life of the disciple', says one of the verses in a book of occult maxims; and
it is interpreted to mean that all that the aspirant does should be prompted by
the fervour of self-sacrificing love. The same thought appears in a later
verse: 'When one enters the path, he lays his heart upon the cross; when the
cross and the heart have become one, then hath he reached the goal'. So,
perchance, we may measure our progress by watching whether selfishness or
self-sacrifice is dominant in our lives". [C.W. Leadbeater. The Christian
Creed, pp. 61, . ]
Every life which begins thus to shape itself is preparing the
cave in which the Child-Christ shall be born, and the life shall become a
constant at-one-ment, bringing the divine more and more into the human. Every
such life shall grow into the life of a "beloved Son" and shall have
in it the glory of the Christ. Every man may work in that direction by making
every act and power a sacrifice, until the gold is purged from the dross, and
only the pure ore remains.
RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
THE doctrines of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ also
form part of the Lesser Mysteries, being integral portions of "The Solar
Myth", and of the life-story of the Christ in man.
As regards Christ Himself they have their historical basis in the
facts of His continuing to teach His apostles after His physical death, and of His appearance in the Greater Mysteries as
Hierophant after His direct instructions had ceased, until Jesus took His
place. In the mythic tales the resurrection of the hero and his glorification
invariably formed the conclusion of his death-story; and in the Mysteries, the
body of the candidate was always thrown into a deathlike trance, during which
he, as a liberated soul, travelled through the invisible world, returning and
reviving the body after three days. And in the life-story of the individual,
who is becoming a Christ, we shall find, as we study it, that the dramas of the
Resurrection and Ascension are repeated.
But before we can intelligently follow that story, we must master
the outlines of the human constitution, and understand the natural and
spiritual bodies of man. "There is a natural body, and there is a
spiritual body".[1 Cor., xv, . ]
There are still some uninstructed people who regard man as a mere
duality, made up of "soul" and "body". Such people use the
words "soul" and "spirit" as synonyms, and speak
indifferently of "soul and body", or "spirit and body",
meaning that man is composed of two constituents, one of which perishes at
death, while the other survives. For the very simple and ignorant this rough
division is sufficient, but it will not enable us to understand the mysteries
of the Resurrection and Ascension.
Every Christian who has made even a superficial study of the
human constitution recognises in it three distinct constituents - Spirit, Soul,
and Body. This division is sound, though needing further sub-division for more
profound study, and it has been used by S. Paul in his prayer that "your
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless" [1 Thess., v, . ]
That threefold division is accepted in Christian Theology.
The Spirit itself is really a Trinity, the reflexion and image of
the Supreme Trinity, and this we shall study in the following chapter.[See Chapter IX, "The Trinity" ] The true man,
the immortal, who is the Spirit, is the Trinity in man. This is life,
consciousness, and to this the spiritual body belongs, each aspect of the
Trinity having its own Body. The Soul is dual, and comprises the mind and the
emotional nature, with its appropriate garments. And the Body is the material
instrument of Spirit and Soul. In one Christian view of man he is a twelve-fold
being, six modifications forming the spiritual man, and six the natural man;
according to another, he is divisible into fourteen, seven modifications of
consciousness and seven corresponding types of form. This latter view is
practically identical with that studied by Mystics, and it is usually spoken of
as seven-fold, because there are really seven divisions, each being two-fold,
having a life-side and a form-side.
These divisions and sub-divisions are somewhat confusing and
perplexing to the dull, and hence Origen and Clement, as we have seen,[See Ante, pp. 72, 84, .] laid great stress on the need for
intelligence on the part of all who desired to become Gnostics. After all,
those who find them troublesome can leave them on one side, without grudging
them to the earnest student, who finds them not only illuminative, but
absolutely necessary to any clear understanding of the Mysteries of Life and
The word Body means a vehicle of consciousness, or an instrument of
consciousness; that in which consciousness is carried about, as in a vehicle,
or which consciousness uses to contact the external world, as a mechanic uses
an instrument. Or, we may liken it to a vessel, in which consciousness is held,
as a jar holds liquid. It is a form used by a life, and we know nothing of
consciousness save as connected with such forms. The form may be of rarest,
subtlest, materials, may be so diaphanous that we are only conscious of the
indwelling life; still it is there, and it is composed of Matter. It may be so
dense, that it hides the indwelling life, and we are conscious only of the
form; still the life is there, and it is composed of the opposite of Matter -
Spirit. The student must study and re-study this fundamental fact - the duality
of all manifested existence, the inseparable co-existence of Spirit and Matter
in a grain of dust, in the Logos, the God manifested. The idea must become part
of him; else must he give up the study of the Lesser Mysteries. The Christ, as
God and Man, only shows out on the kosmic scale the same fact of duality that
is repeated everywhere in nature. On that original duality everything in the
universe is formed.
Man has a "natural body", and this is made up of four
different and separable portions, and is subject to death. Two of these are
composed of physical matter, and are never completely separated from each other
until death, though a partial separation may be caused by anaesthetics, or by
disease. These two may be classed together as the Physical Body. In this the
man carries on his conscious activities while he is awake; speaking
technically, it is his vehicle of consciousness in the physical world.
The third portion is the Desire Body, so called because man's
feeling and passional nature finds in this its special vehicle. In sleep, the
man leaves the physical body, and carries on his conscious activities in this,
which functions in the invisible world closest to our visible earth. It is
therefore his vehicle of consciousness in the lowest of the super-physical
worlds, which is also the first world into which men pass at death.
The fourth portion is the Mental Body, so called because man's
intellectual nature, so far as it deals with the concrete, functions in this.
It is his vehicle of consciousness in the second of the super-physical worlds,
which is also the second, or lower heavenly world, into which men pass after
death, when freed from the world alluded to in the preceding paragraph.
These four portions of his encircling form, made up of the dual
physical body, the desire body, and the mental body, form the natural body of
which S. Paul speaks.
This scientific analysis has fallen out of the ordinary Christian
teaching, which is vague and confused on this matter. It is not that the
churches have never possessed it; on the contrary, this knowledge of the
constitution of man formed part of the teachings in the Lesser Mysteries; the
simple division into Spirit, Soul, and Body was exoteric, the first rough and
ready division given as a foundation. The sub-division as regards the
"Body" was made in the course of later instruction, as a preliminary
to the training by which the instructor enabled his pupil to separate one
vehicle from another, and to use each as a vehicle of consciousness in its
appropriate region.
This conception should be readily enough grasped. If a man wants
to travel on the solid earth, he uses as his vehicle a carriage or a train. If
he wants to travel on the liquid seas, he changes his vehicle, and takes a
ship. If he wants to travel in the air, he changes his vehicle again and uses a
balloon. He is the same man throughout, but he is using three different
vehicles, according to the kind of matter he wants to travel in. The analogy is
rough and inadequate, but it is not misleading. When a man is busy in the
physical world, his vehicle is the physical body, and his consciousness works
in and through that body. When he passes into the world beyond the physical, in
sleep and at death, his vehicle is the desire body, and he may learn to use
this consciously, as he uses the physical consciously. He already uses it
unconsciously every day of his life when he is feeling and desiring, as well as
every night of his life. When he goes on into the heavenly world after death,
his vehicle is the mental body, and this also he is daily using, when he is
thinking, and there would be no thought in the brain were there none in the
mental body.
Man has further "a spiritual body". This is made up of
three separable portions, each portion belonging to one of, and separating off,
the three Persons in the Trinity of the human Spirit. S. Paul speaks of being
"caught up to the third heaven", and of there hearing
"unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter".[2 Cor., xii, 2, .] These different regions of the
invisible supernal worlds are known to Initiates, and they are well aware that
those who pass beyond the first heaven need the truly spiritual body as their
vehicle, and that according to the development of its three divisions is the
heaven into which they can penetrate.
The lowest of these three divisions is usually called the Causal
Body, for a reason that will be only fully assimilable by those who have
studied the teaching of Reincarnation - taught in the Early Church - and who
understand that human evolution needs very many successive lives on earth, ere
the germinal soul of the savage can become the perfected soul of the Christ,
and then, becoming perfect as the Father in Heaven,[S.
Matt., v, . ] can realise the union of the Son with the Father. [S. John.xvii,
22,. ] It is a body that lasts from life to life, and
in it all memory of the past is stored. From it come forth the causes that
build up the lower bodies. It is the receptacle of human experience, the
treasure-house in which all we gather in our lives is stored up, the seat of
Conscience, the wielder of the Will.
The second of the three divisions of the spiritual body is spoken
of by S. Paul in the significant words: " We have
a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens".
[2 Cor., v, . ] That is the Bliss Body, the glorified
body of the Christ, "the Resurrection Body". It is not a body which
is "made with hands", by the working of consciousness in the the
lower vehicles; it is hot formed by experience, not builded out of the
materials gathered by man in his long pilgrimage. It is a body which belongs to
the Christ-life, the life of Initiation; to the divine unfoldment in man; it is
builded of God, by the activity of the Spirit, and grows during the whole life
or lives of the Initiate, only reaching its perfection at "the
Resurrection".
The third division of the spiritual body is the fine film of
subtle matter that separates off the individual Spirit as a Being, and yet
permits the interpenetration of all by all, and is thus the expression of the
fundamental unity. In the day when the Son Himself shall "be subject unto
Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all", [1 Cor.,
xv, .] this film will be transcended, but for us it remains the highest
division of the spiritual body, in which we ascend to the Father, and are
united with Him.
Christianity has always recognised the existence of three worlds,
or regions, through which a man passes; first, the physical world; secondly, an
intermediate state into which he passes at death; thirdly, the heavenly world.
These three worlds are universally believed in by educated Christians; only the
uninstructed imagine that a man passes from his death-bed into the final state
of beatitude. But there is some difference of opinion as to the nature of the
intermediate world. The Roman Catholic names it Purgatory, and believes that
every soul passes into it, save that of the Saint, the man who has reached
perfection, or that of a man who has died in "mortal sin". The great
mass of humanity pass into a purifying region, wherein a man remains for a
period varying in length according to the sins he has committed, only passing
out of it into the heavenly world when he has become pure. The various
communities that are called Protestant vary in their teachings as to details,
and mostly repudiate the idea of post mortem purification; but they agree
broadly that there is an intermediate state, sometimes spoken of as "
In order to complete the outline necessary for the understanding
of the Resurrection and Ascension, we must see how these various bodies are
developed in the higher evolution.
The physical body is in a constant state of flux, its minute
particles being continually renewed, so that it is ever building; and as it is
composed of the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the air we breathe, and
particles drawn from our physical surroundings, both people and things, we can
steadily purify it, by choosing its materials well, and thus make it an ever
purer vehicle through which to act, receptive of subtler vibrations, responsive
to purer desires, to nobler and more elevated thoughts. For this reason all who
aspired to attain to the Mysteries were subjected to rules of diet, ablution,
etc., and were desired to be very careful as to the people with whom they
associated, and the places to which they went.
The desire body also changes, in similar fashion, but the
materials for it are expelled and drawn in by the play of the desires, arising
from the feelings, passions, and emotions. If these are coarse, the materials
built into the desire body are also coarse, while as these are purified, the
desire body grows subtle and becomes very sensitive to the higher influences.
In proportion as a man dominates his lower nature, and becomes unselfish in his
wishes, feelings, and emotions, as he makes his love for those around him less
selfish and grasping, he is purifying this higher vehicle of consciousness; the
result is that when out of the body in sleep he has higher, purer, and more
instructive experiences, and when he leaves the physical body at death he
passes swiftly through the intermediate state, the desire body disintegrating
with great rapidity, and not delaying him in his onward journey.
The mental body is similarly being built now in this case by
thoughts. It will be the vehicle of consciousness in the heavenly world, but is
being built now by aspirations, by imagination, reason, judgment, artistic
faculties, by the use of all the mental powers. Such as the man makes it, so
must he wear it, and the length and richness of his heavenly state depend on
the kind of mental body he has built during his life on earth.
As a man enters the higher evolution, this body comes into
independent activity on this side of death, and he gradually becomes conscious
of his heavenly life, even amid the whirl of mundane existence. Then he becomes
"the Son of man which is in heaven", [S.John, iii, .]
who can speak with the authority of knowledge on heavenly things. When the man
begins to live the life of the Son, having passed on to the Path of Holiness,
he lives in heaven while remaining on earth, coming into conscious possession
and use of this heavenly body. And inasmuch as heaven is not far away from us,
but surrounds us on every side, and we are only shut out from it by our
incapacity to feel its vibrations, not by their absence; inasmuch as those vibrations
are playing upon us at every moment of our lives; all that is needed to be in
Heaven is to become conscious of those vibrations. We become conscious of them
with the vitalising, the organising, the evolution of this heavenly body,
which, being builded out of the heavenly materials, answers to the vibrations
of the matter of the heavenly world. Hence the "Son of man" is ever
in heaven. But we know that the "Son of man" is a term applied to the
Initiate, not to the Christ risen and glorified but to
the Son while he is yet "being made perfect". [Heb. v, 9]
During the stages of evolution that lead up to and include the
Probationary Path, the first division of the spiritual body - the Causal Body -
develops rapidly, and enables the man, after death, to rise into the second
heaven. After the Second Birth, the birth of the Christ in man,
begins the building of the Bliss Body "in the heavens". This is the
body of the Christ, developing during the days of His service on earth, and, as
it develops, the consciousness of the "Son of God" becomes more and
more marked, and the coming union with the Father illuminates the unfolding
Spirit.
In the Christian Mysteries - as in the ancient Egyptian,
Chaldean, and others - there was an outer symbolism which expressed the stages
through which the man was passing. He was brought into the chamber of
Initiation, and was stretched on the ground with his arms extended, sometimes
on a cross of wood, sometimes merely on the stone floor, in the posture of a
crucified man. He was then touched with the thyrsus on the heart - the
"spear" of the crucifixion - and, leaving the body, he passed into
the worlds beyond, the body falling into a deep trance, the death of the
crucified. The body was placed in a sarcophagus of stone, and there left,
carefully guarded. Meanwhile the man himself was treading first the strange
obscure regions called "the heart of the earth", and thereafter the
heavenly mount, where he put on the perfected bliss body, now fully organised
as a vehicle of consciousness. In that he returned to the body of flesh, to
re-animate it. The cross bearing that body, or the entranced and rigid body, if
no cross had been used, was lifted out of the sarcophagus and placed on a
sloping surface, facing the east, ready for the rising of the sun on the third
day. At the moment that the rays of the sun touched the face, the Christ, the
perfected Initiate or Master, re-entered the body, glorifying it by the bliss
body He was wearing, changing the body of flesh by contact with the body of
bliss, giving it new properties, new powers, new capacities, transmuting it
into His own likeness. That was the Resurrection of the Christ, and thereafter
the body of flesh itself was changed, and took on a new nature.
This is why the sun has ever been taken as the symbol of the
rising Christ, and why, in Easter hymns, there is constant reference to the
rising of the Sun of Righteousness. So also is it written of the triumphant
Christ: "I am He that liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive for
evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death".[
Rev., i, .] All the powers of the lower worlds have been taken under the
dominion of the Son, who has triumphed gloriously; over Him death no more has
power, "He holdeth life and death in His strong hand". [H. P.
Blavatsky. The Voice of the Silence, p. 90, 5th Edition.]
He is the risen Christ, the Christ triumphant.
The Ascension of the Christ was the Mystery of the third part of
the spiritual body, the putting on of the Vesture of Glory, preparatory to the
union of the Son with the Father, of man with God, when the Spirit re-entered
the glory it had "before the world was". [S.John, xvii, . ] Then the triple Spirit becomes one, knows itself
eternal, and the Hidden God is found. That is imaged in the doctrine of the
Ascension, so far as the individual is concerned.
The Ascension for humanity is when the whole race has attained
the Christ condition, the state of the Son, and that Son becomes one with the
Father, and God is all in all. That is the goal, prefigured in the triumph of
the Initiate, but reached only when the human race is perfected, and when
"the great orphan Humanity" is no longer an orphan, but consciously
recognises itself as the Son of God.
Thus studying the doctrines of the Atonement, the Resurrection,
and the Ascension, we reach the truths unfolded concerning them in the Lesser
Mysteries, and we begin to understand the full truth of the apostolic teaching
that Christ was not a unique personality, but "the first fruits of them
that slept", [1 Cor., xv, 20] and that every man was to become a Christ.
Not then was the Christ regarded as an external Saviour, by whose imputed
righteousness men were to be saved from divine wrath. There was current in the
Church the glorious and inspiring teaching that He was but the first fruits of
humanity, the model that every man should reproduce in himself,
the life that all should share. The Initiates have ever been regarded as these
first fruits, the promise of a race made perfect. To the early Christian,
Christ was the living symbol of his own divinity, the glorious fruit of the
seed he bore in his own heart. Not to be saved by an external Christ, but to be
glorified into an inner Christ, was the teaching of esoteric Christianity, of
the Lesser Mysteries. The stage of discipleship was to pass into that of
Sonship. The life of the Son was to be lived among men till it was closed by
the Resurrection, and the glorified Christ became one of the perfected Saviours
of the world.
How far greater a Gospel than the one of modern days ! Placed beside that grandiose ideal of esoteric
Christianity, the exoteric teaching of the churches seems narrow and poor
indeed.
THE TRINITY
ALL fruitful study of the Divine Existence must start from the
affirmation that it is One. All the Sages have thus
proclaimed It; every religion has thus affirmed It; every philosophy thus
posits It - "One only without a second".[Chhăndogyopanishat,
VI, ii, 1]"Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses, "The Lord our God is
one Lord". [Deut., vi, . ] "To us there is
but one God", [I Cor., viii, . ] declares S.
Paul. "There is no God but God", affirms the founder of Islam, and
makes the phrase the symbol of his faith. One Existence unbounded, known in Its fullness only to Itself - the word It seems more
reverent and inclusive than He, and is therefore used. That is the Eternal
Darkness, out of which is born the Light.
But as the Manifested God, the One appears as Three.
A Trinity of Divine Beings, One as God, Three as manifested
Powers. This also has ever been declared, and the truth is so vital in
its relation to man and his evolution that it is one which ever forms an essential
part of the Lesser Mysteries.
Among the Hebrews, in consequence of their anthropomorphising
tendencies, the doctrine was kept secret, but the Rabbis studied and worshipped
the Ancient of Days, from whom came forth the Wisdom, from whom the
Understanding - Kether, Chochmah, Binah, these formed the Supreme Trinity, the
shining forth in time of the One beyond time. The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon
refers to this teaching, making Wisdom a Being. " According to Maurice, '
The first Sephira, who is denominated Kether the Crown, Kadrnon the pure Light,
and En Soph the Infinite, [ An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the
Trinity, but the One Existence, manifested in the Three; nor is Kadrnon, or
Adam Kadmon, one Sephira, but their totality. ] is the
omnipotent Father of the universe. . . . The second is the Chochmah, whom we
have sufficiently proved, both from sacred and Rabbinical
writings, to be the creative Wisdom. The third is the Binah, or heavenly
Intelligence, whence the Egyptians had their Cneph, and Plato his Nous
Demiurgos. He is the Holy Spirit who . . . pervades, animates, and governs this
boundless universe'.[Quoted in Williamson's The Great
Law, pp. 201, .]
The bearing of this doctrine on Christian teaching is indicated
by Dean Milman in his History of Christianity. He says: "This Being [the
Word or the Wisdom] was more or less distinctly impersonated, according to the
more popular or more philosophic, the more material or the more abstract,
notions of the age or people. This was the doctrine from the
As above said by the learned Dean, the idea of the Word, the
Logos, was universal, and it formed part of the idea of a Trinity. Among the
Hindus, the philosophers speak of the manifested Brahman as Sat-Chit-Ananda -
Existence, Intelligence, and Bliss. Popularly, the Manifested God is a Trinity;
Shiva, the Beginning and the End; Vishnu, the Preserver; Brahmă, the Creator of
the Universe. The Zoroastrian faith presents a similar Trinity; Ahuramazdao,
the Great One, the First; then "the twins", the dual Second Person -
for the Second Person in a Trinity is ever dual, deteriorated in modern days
into an opposing God and Devil - and the Universal Wisdom, Armaiti. In Northern
Buddhism we find Ami-tabhă, the boundless Light; Avalokiteshvara, the source of
incarnations, and the Universal Mind, Mandjusri. In Southern Buddhism the idea
of God has faded away, but with significant tenacity the triplicity re-appears
as that in which the Southern Buddhist takes his refuge - the Buddha, the
Dharma (the Doctrine), the Sangha (the Order). But the Buddha Himself is
sometimes worshipped as a Trinity; on a stone in Buddha Gaya is inscribed a
salutation to Him as an incarnation of the Eternal One,
and it is said: "
In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In
In
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity we find a complete
agreement with other faiths as to the functions of the three Divine Persons,
the word Person coming from persona, a mask, that which covers something, the
mask of the One Existence, Its Self-revelation under a form. The Father is the
Origin and End of all; the Son is dual in His nature, and is the Word, or the
Wisdom; the Holy Spirit is the creative Intelligence, that
brooding over the chaos of primeval matter organises it into the materials out
of which forms can be constructed.
It is this identity of functions under so many varying names
which shows that we have here not a mere outer likeness, but an expression of
an inner truth. There is something of which this triplicity is a manifestation,
something that can be traced in nature and in evolution, and which, being
recognised, will render intelligible the growth of man, the stages of his
evolving life. Further, we find that in the universal language of symbolism the
Persons are distinguished by certain emblems, and may be recognised by these
under diversity of forms and names.
But there is one other point that must be remembered ere we leave
the exoteric statement of the Trinity-that in connection with all these
Trinities there is a fourth fundamental manifestation,
the Power of the God, and this has always a feminine form. In Hinduism each
Person in the Trinity has His manifested Power, the One and these six aspects
making up the sacred Seven. With many of the Trinities one feminine form
appears, then ever specially connected with the Second Person, and then there
is the sacred Quaternary.
Let us now see the inner truth.
The One becomes manifest as the First. Being, the Self-Existent
Lord, the Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word Will, or Power, seems best
to express this primary Self-revealing, since until there is Will to manifest
there can be no manifestation, and until there is Will manifested, impulse is
lacking for further unfoldment. The universe may be said to be rooted in the
divine Will. Then follows the second aspect of the One - Wisdom; Power is
guided by Wisdom, and therefore it is written that "without Him was not
anything made that is made";[S. John, i, . ]
Wisdom is dual in its nature, as will presently be seen. When the aspects of
Will and Wisdom are revealed, a third aspect must follow to make them effective
- Creative Intelligence, the divine mind in Action. A Jewish prophet writes:
" He hath made the earth by His Power, He hath established the world by
His Wisdom; and hath stretched out the heaven by His Understanding,"
[Jer., li,15] the reference to the three functions being very clear.[See Ante,
pp. 155, . ] These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects of One.
Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of clearness, but
cannot be disjoined. Each is necessary to each, and each is present in each. In
the First Being, Will, Power, is seen as predominant, as characteristic, but
Wisdom and Creative Action are also present; in the Second Being, Wisdom is
seen as predominant, but Power and Creative Action are none the less inherent
in Him; in the Third Being, Creative Action is seen as predominant, but Power
and Wisdom are ever also to be seen. And though the words First, Second, Third
are used, because the Beings are thus manifested in Time, in the order of
Self-unfolding, yet in Eternity they are known as interdependent and co-equal,
"None is greater or less than Another". [Athanasian Creed. a Rev iv 8 ]
This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the
Manifested God, He that "was and is and is to come", [Rev., iv,8] and He is the root of the fundamental triplicity in
life, in consciousness.
But we saw that there was a Fourth Person, or in some religions a
second Trinity, feminine, the Mother. This is That
which makes manifestation possible, That which eternally in the One is the root
of limitation and division, and which, when manifested, is called Matter. This
is the divine Not-Self, the divine Matter, the manifested
Nature. Regarded
as One, She is the Fourth, making possible the activity of the Three, the Field
of Their operations by virtue of Her infinite divisibility, at once the
"Handmaid of the Lord", [S. Luke, i,. ] and
also His Mother, yielding of Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when
overshadowed by His power.[Ibid., 35 ] Regarded carefully She is seen to be
triple also, existing in three inseparable aspects, without which She could not
be. These are Stability- Inertia or Resistance-Motion, and Rhythm; the
fundamental or essential qualities of Matter, these are called. They alone
render Spirit effective, and have therefore been regarded as the manifested
Powers of the Trinity. Stability or Inertia affords a basis, the fulcrum for
the lever; Motion is then rendered manifest, but could make only chaos; then
Rhythm is imposed, and there is Matter in vibration, capable of being shaped
and moulded When the three qualities are in
equilibrium there is the One, the Virgin Matter, unproductive. When the power
of the Highest overshadows Her, and the breath of the
Spirit comes upon Her, the qualities are thrown out of equilibrium and She
becomes the divine Mother of the worlds.
The first interaction is between Her and
the Third Person of the Trinity; by His action She becomes capable of giving
birth to form. Then is revealed the Second Person, who
clothes Himself in the material thus provided, and thus becomes the Mediator,
linking in His own Person Spirit and Matter, the Archetype of all forms.
Only through Him does the First Person become revealed, as the Father of all
Spirits.
It is now possible to see why the Second Person of the Trinity of
Spirit is ever dual; He is the One who clothes Himself in Matter, in whom the
twin-halves of Deity appear in union, not as one. Hence also is He Wisdom; for
Wisdom on the side of Spirit is the Pure Reason that knows itself as the One
Self and knows all things in that Self, and on the side of Matter it is Love,
drawing the infinite diversity of forms together, and making each form a unit,
not a mere heap of particles - the principle of attraction which holds the
worlds and all in them in a perfect order and balance. This is the Wisdom which
is spoken of as "mightily and sweetly ordering all things", [Book of
Wisdom, viii, 1 ] which sustains and preserves the
universe.
In the world-symbols, found in every religion, the Point - that
which has position only - has been taken as a symbol of the First Person in the
Trinity. On this symbol St. Clement of Alexandria remarks that we abstract from
a body its properties, then depth, then breadth, then length; "the point
which remains is a unit, so to speak, having position; from which if we
abstract position, there is the conception of unity".[Vol. IV. Ante-Nicene Library. S. Clement of
When the Trinity is represented as a Unity, the Triangle is used,
either inscribed within a circle, or free. The universe is symbolised by two
triangles interlaced, the Trinity of Spirit with the apex of the triangle
upward, the Trinity of Matter with the apex of the triangle downward, and if
colours are used, the first is white, yellow, golden or flame-coloured, and the
second black, or some dark shade.
The kosmic process can now be readily followed. The One has
become Two, and the Two Three, and the Trinity is
revealed. The Matter of the universe is marked out and awaits the action of
Spirit. This is the "in the beginning" of Genesis, when "God
created the heaven and the earth", [Gen., i, .] a
statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that He "laid the
foundations of the earth"; [Job, xxxviii, 4; Zech., xii,1: etc ] we have
here the marking out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and
void". [Gen., i, . ]
On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy
Spirit, who "moved upon the face of the waters", [Gen., i, . ]the vast ocean of matter. Thus
His was the first activity, though He was the Third Person - a point of great
importance.
In the Mysteries this work was shown in its detail as the
preparation of the matter of the universe, the formation of atoms, the drawing
of these together into aggregates, and the grouping of these together into
elements, and of these again into gaseous, liquid, and solid compounds. This
work includes not only the kind of matter called physical, but also all the
subtle states of matter in the invisible worlds. He further as the "Spirit
of Understanding" conceived the forms into which the prepared matter
should be shaped, not building the forms, but by the action of the Creative
Intelligence producing the ideas of them, the heavenly prototypes, as they are
often called. This is the work referred to when it is written, He " stretched out the heaven by His Understanding".[
See Ante, p..]
The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by
virtue of His Wisdom "established the world", [Ibid.
] building all globes and all things upon them, "all things were
made by Him".[S. John, i, . ] He is the organising Life of the worlds, and
all beings are rooted in Him.[Bhagavad-Gita, ix, 4]
The life of the Son thus manifested in the matter prepared by the Holy Spirit -
again the great "Myth" of the Incarnation - is the life that builds
up, preserves, and maintains all forms, for He is the Love, the attracting
power, that gives cohesion to forms, enabling them to grow without falling
apart, the Preserver, the Supporter, the Saviour. That is why all must be
subject to the Son, [I Cor,, xr, 27, . ] all must be gathered up in Him, and
why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[S. John, xiv, . See
also the further meaning of this text on p. .]
For the work of the First Person follows that of the Second, as
that of the Second follows that of the Third. He is spoken of as "the
Father of Spirits", [Heb., xii, . ] the "God
of the Spirits of all flesh",[Numb., xvi, . ] and His is the gift of the
divine Spirit, the true Self in man. The human Spirit is the outpoured divine
Life of the Father, poured into the vessel prepared by the Son, out of the
materials vivified by the Spirit. And this Spirit in man, being from the Father
- from whom came forth the Son and the Holy Spirit - is a Unity like Himself,
with the three aspects in One, and man is thus truly made "in our image,
after our likeness", [Gen., i, 26 ] and is able
to become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect".[ S. Matt., v, .]
Such is the kosmic process, and in human evolution it is
repeated; "as above, so below".
The Trinity of the Spirit in man, being in the divine likeness,
must show out the divine characteristics, and thus we find in him Power, which,
whether in its higher form of Will or its lower form of Desire,
gives the impulse to his evolution. We find also in him Wisdom, the Pure Reason
which has Love as its expression in the world of forms, and lastly
Intelligence, or Mind, the active shaping energy. And in man also we find that
the manifestation of these in his evolution is from the third to the second, and from the second to the first. The mass of
humanity is unfolding the mind, evolving the intelligence, and we can see its
separative action everywhere, isolating, as it were, the human atoms and
developing each severally, so that they may be fit materials for building up a
divine Humanity. To this point only has the race arrived, and here it is still
working.
As we study a small minority of our race, we see that the second
aspect of the divine Spirit in man is appearing, and we speak of it in
Christendom as the Christ in man. Its evolution lies, as we have seen, beyond
the first of the Great Initiations, and Wisdom and Love are the marks of the
Initiate, shining out more and more as he develops this aspect of the Spirit.
Here again is it true that "no man cometh to the Father but by Me", for only when the life of the Son is touching on
completion can He pray: "Now, 0 Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own
Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was". [S.John,
xvii,5] Then the Son ascends to the Father and becomes
one with Him in the divine glory; He manifests self-existence, the existence
inherent in his divine nature, unfolded from seed to flower, for "as the
Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in
Himself".[Ibid, v,26] He becomes a living self-conscious Centre in the
Life of God, a Centre able to exist as such, no longer bound by the limitations
of his earlier life, expanding to divine consciousness, while keeping the
identity of his life unshaken, a living, fiery Centre in the divine Flame.
In this evolution now lies the possibility of divine Incarnations
in the future, as this evolution in the past has rendered possible divine
Incarnations in our own world. These living Centres do not lose Their identity,
nor the memory of Their past, of aught that They have experienced in the long
climb upwards; and such a Self-conscious Being can come forth from the Bosom of
the Father, and reveal Himself for the helping of the world. He has maintained
the union in Himself of Spirit and Matter, the duality of the Second Person -
all divine Incarnations in all religions are therefore connected with the
Second Person in the Trinity - and hence can readily re-clothe Himself for
physical manifestation, and again become
Such a Being, the glorious fruit of a past universe, can come
into the present world with all the perfection of His divine Wisdom and Love,
with all the memory of His past, able by virtue of that memory to be the
perfect Helper of every living Being, knowing every stage because He has lived
it, able to help at every point because He has experienced all. ''In that He
Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are
tempted". [Heb., ii, . ]
It is in the humanity behind Him that lies
this possibility of divine Incarnation; He comes down, having climbed up, in
order to help others to climb the ladder. And as we understand these truths,
and something of the meaning of the Trinity, above and below, what was once a
mere hard unintelligible dogma becomes a living and vivifying truth. Only by
the existence of the Trinity in man is human evolution intelligible,
and we see how man evolves the life of the intellect and then the life of the
Christ. On that fact mysticism is based, and our sure hope that we shall know
God. Thus have the Sages taught, and as we tread the Path they show, we find
that their testimony is true.
PRAYER
WHAT is sometimes called "the modern spirit" is
exceedingly antagonistic to prayer, failing to see any causal nexus between the
uttering of a petition and the happening of an event, whereas the religious
spirit is as strongly attached to it, and finds its very life in prayer. Yet
even the religious man sometimes feels uneasy as to the rationale of prayer; is
he teaching the All-wise, is he urging beneficence on the All-Good, is he
altering the will of Him in "whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning? "[S. James, i, . ] Yet he finds in his
own experience and in that of others "answers to prayer" - a definite
sequence of a request and a fulfilment.
Many of these do not refer to subjective experiences, but to hard
facts of the so-called objective world. A man has prayed for money, and the
post has brought him the required amount; a woman has prayed for food, and food
has been brought to her door. In connection with charitable undertakings,
especially, there is plenty of evidence of help prayed for in urgent need, and
of speedy and liberal response. On the other hand, there is also plenty of
evidence of prayers left unanswered; of the hungry starving to death, of the
child snatched from its mother's arms by disease, despite the most passionate
appeals to God. Any true view of prayer must take into account all these facts.
Nor is this all. There are
many facts in this experience which are strange and puzzling. A prayer that
perhaps is trivial meets with an answer, while another on an important matter
fails; a passing trouble is relieved, while a prayer poured out to save a
passionately beloved life finds no response. It seems almost impossible for the
ordinary student to discover the law according to which a prayer is or is not
productive.
The first thing necessary in seeking to understand this law is to
analyse prayer itself, for the word is used to cover various activities of the
consciousness, and prayers cannot be dealt with as though they formed a simple
whole. There are prayers which are petitions for definite worldly advantages,
for the supply of physical necessities - prayers for food, clothing, money,
employment, success in business, recovery from illness, etc. These may be
grouped together as Class A. Then we have prayers for help in moral and intellectual
difficulties and for spiritual growth - for the overcoming of temptations, for
strength, for insight, for enlightenment. These may be grouped as Class B. Lastly, there are the prayers that ask for nothing, that
consist in meditation on and adoration of the divine Perfection, in intense
aspiration for union with God - the ecstasy of the mystic, the meditation of
the sage, the soaring rapture of the saint. This is the true "communion
between the Divine and the human", when the man pours himself out in love
and veneration for THAT which is inherently attractive, that compels the love
of the heart. These we will call Class C.
In the invisible worlds there exist many kinds of Intelligences,
which come into relationship with man, a veritable Jacob's ladder, on which the
Angels of God ascend and descend, and above which stands the Lord Himself.[Gen-
xxviii 12,13 ] Some of these Intelligences are mighty spiritual Powers, others
are exceedingly limited beings, inferior in consciousness to man. This occult
side of Nature - of which more will presently be said [See Chapter xii ] - is a fact recognised by all religions. All the world is filled with living things, invisible to
fleshly eyes. The invisible worlds interpenetrate the visible, and crowds of
intelligent beings throng round us on every side. Some of these are accessible
to human requests, and others are amenable to the human will. Christianity
recognises the existence of the higher classes of Intelligences under the
general name of Angels, and teaches that they are ministering spirits, sent
forth to minister",[Heb., i, 14] but what is their ministry what the
nature of their work, what their relationship to human beings, all that was
part of the instruction given in the Lesser Mysteries, as the actual
communication with them was enjoyed in the Greater, but in modern days these
truths have sunk into the background, except the little that is taught in the
Greek and Roman communions. For the Protestant, "the ministry of
angels" is little more than a phrase. In addition to all these, man is
himself a constant creator of invisible beings, for the vibrations of his
thoughts and desires create forms of subtle matter the only life of which is
the thought or the desire which ensouls them; he thus creates an army of
invisible servants, who range through the invisible worlds seeking to do his
will. Yet, again, there are in these worlds human
helpers, who work there in their subtle bodies while their physical bodies are
sleeping, whose attentive ear may catch a cry for help. And to crown all, there
is the ever-present, ever-conscious Life of God Himself, potent and responsive
at every point of His realm, of Him without whose knowledge not a sparrow falleth
to the ground, [S. Matt, x, 29] not a dumb creature thrills in joy or pain, not
a child laughs or sobs - that all-pervading, all-embracing, all-sustaining Life
and Love, in which we live and move.[Acts, xvii, . ]
As nought that can give pleasure or pain can touch the human body without the
sensory nerves carrying the message of its impact to the brain-centres, and as
there thrills down from those centres through the motor nerves the answer that
welcomes or repels, so does every vibration in the universe, which is His body,
touch the consciousness of God, and draw thence responsive action. Nerve-cells,
nerve-threads, and muscular fibres may be the agents of feeling and moving, but
it is the man that feels and acts; so may myriads of Intelligences be the agents,
but it is God who knows and answers. Nothing can be so small as not to affect
that delicate omnipresent consciousness, nothing so vast as to transcend it. We
are so limited that the very idea of such an all-embracing consciousness
staggers and confounds us; yet perhaps a gnat might be as hard bestead if he
tried to measure the consciousness of Pythagoras. Professor Huxley, in a
remarkable passage, has imagined the possibility of the existence of beings
rising higher and higher in intelligence, the consciousness ever expanding, and
the reaching of a stage as much above the human as the human is above that of
the black-beetle. [T. H. Huxley. Essays on Some Controverted Questions
] That is not a flight of the scientific imagination, but a description
of a fact. There is a Being whose consciousness is present at every point of
His universe, and therefore can be affected from any point. That consciousness
is not only vast in its field, but inconceivably acute, not diminished in
delicate capacity to respond because it stretches its vast area in every
direction, but is more responsive than a more limited consciousness, more
perfect in understanding than the more restricted. So far from it being the
case that the more exalted the Being the more difficult would it be to reach
His consciousness, the very reverse is true. The more exalted the Being, the more easily is His consciousness affected.
Now this all-pervading Life is everywhere utilising as channels
all the embodied lives to which He has given birth, and any one of them may be
used as an agent of that all-conscious Will. In order that that Will may
express itself in the outer world, a means of expression must be found, and
these beings, in proportion to their receptivity, offer the necessary channels,
and become the intermediary workers between one point of the kosmos and
another. They act as the motor nerves of His body, and bring about the required
action.
Let us now take the classes into which we have divided prayers,
and see the methods by which they will be answered.
When a man utters a prayer of Class A there are several means by
which his prayer may be answered. Such a man is simple in his nature, with a
conception of God natural, inevitable, at the stage of evolution in which he
is; he regards Him as the supplier of his own needs, in close and immediate touch
with his daily necessities, and he turns to Him for his daily bread as
naturally as a child turns to his father or mother. A typical instance of this
is the case of George Müller, of
The result could be obtained equally well by a deliberate
exercise of the will, without any prayer, by a person who understood the
mechanism concerned, and the way to put it in motion. Such a man would think
clearly of what he needed, would draw to him the kind of subtle matter best
suited to his purpose to clothe the thought, and by a deliberate exercise of
his will would either send it to a definite person to represent his need, or to
range his neighbourhood and be attracted by a charitably disposed person. There
is here no prayer, but a conscious exercise of will and knowledge.
In the case of most people, however, ignorant of the forces of
the invisible worlds and unaccustomed to exercise their wills, the concentration
of mind and the earnest desire which are necessary for successful action are
far more easily reached by prayer than by a deliberate mental effort to put
forth their own strength. They would doubt their own power, even if they
understood the theory, and doubt is fatal to the exercise of the will. That the
person who prays does not understand the machinery he sets going in no wise
affects the result. A child who stretches out his hand and grasps an object
need not understand anything of the working of the muscles, nor of the
electrical and chemical changes set up by the movement in muscles and nerves,
nor need he elaborately calculate the distance of the object by measuring the
angle made by the optic axes ; he wills to take hold
of the thing he wants, and the apparatus of his body obeys his will though he
does not even know of its existence. So is it with the man who prays, unknowing
of the creative force of his thought, of the living creature he has sent out to
do his bidding. He acts as unconsciously as the child, and like the child
grasps what he wants. In both cases God is equally the primal Agent, all power
being from Him; in both cases the actual work is done by the apparatus provided
by His laws.
But this is not the only way in which prayers of this class are
answered. Some one temporarily out of the physical body and at work in the
invisible worlds, or a passing Angel, may hear the cry for help, and may then
put the thought of sending the required aid into the brain of some charitable
person. "The thought of so-and-so came into my head this morning",
such a person will say. "I dare say a cheque would be useful to him".
Very many prayers are answered in this way, the link between the need and the
supply being some invisible Intelligence. Herein is part of the ministry of the
lower Angels, and they will thus supply personal
necessities, as well as bring aid to charitable undertakings.
The failure of prayers of this class is due to another hidden
cause. Every man has contracted debts which have to be paid; his wrong
thoughts, wrong desires, and wrong actions have built up obstacles in his way,
and sometimes even hem him in as the walls of a prison-house. A debt of wrong
is discharged by a payment of suffering; a man must bear the consequences of
the wrongs he has wrought. A man condemned to die of starvation by his own
wrong-doing in the past may hurl his prayers against that destiny in vain. The
desire-form he creates will seek but will not find; it will be met and thrown
back by the current of past wrong. Here, as everywhere, we are living in a
realm of law, and forces may be modified or entirely frustrated by the play of
other forces with which they come into contact. Two exactly similar forces
might be applied to two exactly similar balls; in one case, one other force
might be applied to the ball, and it might strike the mark aimed at; in the
other, a second force might strike the ball and send it entirely out of its
course. And so with two similar prayers ; one may go
on its way, unopposed and effect its object; the other may be flung aside by
the far stronger force of a past wrong. One prayer is answered, the other unanswered;
but in both cases the result is by law.
Let us consider Class B. Prayers for help in moral and
intellectual difficulties have a double result; they act directly to attract
help, and they re-act on the person who prays. They draw the attention of the
Angels, of the disciples working outside the body, who are ever seeking to help
the bewildered mind, and counsel, encouragement, illumination, are thrown into
the brain-consciousness, thus giving the answer to prayer in the most direct
way. "And he kneeled down and prayed ......... and there appeared an Angel
unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him". [S. Luke, xxii, 41, .] Ideas are suggested which clear away an intellectual
difficulty, or throw light on an obscure moral problem, or the sweetest comfort
is poured into the distressed heart, soothing its perturbations and calming its
anxieties. And truly if no Angel were passing that way, the cry of the
distressed would reach the "Hidden Heart of Heaven", and a messenger
would be sent to carry comfort, some Angel, ever ready to fly swiftly on
feeling the impulse, bearing the divine will to help.
There is also what is sometimes called a subjective answer to
such prayers, the re-action of the prayer on the utterer. His prayer places his
heart and mind in the receptive attitude, and this stills the lower nature, and
thus allows the strength and illuminative power of the higher to stream into it
unchecked. The currents of energy which normally flow
downwards, or outwards, from the Inner Man, are, as a rule, directed to
the external world, and are utilised in the ordinary affairs of life by the
brain-consciousness, for the carrying on of its daily activities. But when this
brain-consciousness turns away from the outer world, and shutting its
outward-going doors, directs its gaze inwards; when it deliberately closes
itself to the outer and opens itself to the inner; then it becomes a vessel
able to receive and to hold, instead of a mere conduit-pipe between the
interior and exterior worlds. In the silence obtained by the cessation of the
noises of external activities, the "still small voice
" of the Spirit can make itself heard, and the concentrated
attention of the expectant mind enables it to catch the soft whisper of the
Inner Self.
Even more markedly does help come
from without and from within, when the prayer is for spiritual enlightenment,
for spiritual growth. Not only do all helpers, angelic and human,
most eagerly seek to forward spiritual progress, seizing on every opportunity
offered by the upward-aspiring soul; but the longing for such growth liberates
energy of a high kind, the spiritual longing calling forth an answer from the
spiritual realm. Once more the law of sympathetic vibrations asserts itself,
and the note of lofty aspiration is answered by a note of its own order, by a liberation of energy of its own kind, by a vibration
synchronous with itself. The divine Life is ever pressing from above against
the limits that bind it, and when the upward-rising force strikes against those
limits from below, the separating wall is broken through, and the divine Life floods
the Soul. When a man feels that inflow of spiritual life, he cries: "My
prayer has been answered, and God has sent down His Spirit into my heart".
Truly so; yet he rarely understands that that Spirit is ever seeking entrance,
but that coming to His own, His own receive Him not. [S. John, i, . ]"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any
man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him". [Rev., iii, . ]
The general principle with regard to all prayers of this class is
that just in proportion to the submergence of the personality and the intensity
of the upward aspiration will be the answer from the wider life within and
without us. We separate ourselves. If we cease the separation and make
ourselves one with the greater, we find that light and life and strength flow
into us. When the separate will is turned away from its own objects and set to
serve the divine purpose, then the strength of the Divine pours into it. As a man
swims against the stream, he makes slow progress; but with it, he is carried on
by all the force of the current. In every department of Nature the divine
energies are working, and everything that a man does he does by means of the
energies that are working in the line along which he desires to do; his
greatest achievements are wrought, not by his own energies, but by the skill
with which he selects and combines the forces that aid him, and neutralises
those that oppose him by those that are favourable. Forces that would whirl us
away as straws in the wind become our most effective servants when we work
with. them. Is it then any wonder that in prayer, as
in everything else, the divine energies become associated with the man who, by
his prayer, seeks to work as part of the Divine?
This highest form of prayer in Class B merges almost
imperceptibly into Class C, where prayer loses its petitionary character, and
becomes either a meditation on, or a worship of, God. Meditation is the steady
quiet fixing of the mind on God, whereby the lower mind is stilled and
presently left vacant, so that the Spirit, escaping from it, rises into
contemplation of the divine Perfection, and reflects within himself the divine
Image. "Meditation is silent or unuttered prayer, or as Plato expressed
it: ' the ardent turning of the Soul towards the Divine; not to ask any
particular good (as in the common meaning of prayer), but for good itself, for
the Universal Supreme Good". [H. P. Blavatsky.Key to Theosophy, p. . ]
This is the prayer that, by thus liberating the Spirit, is the
means of union between man and God. By the working of the laws of thought a man
becomes that which he thinks, and when he meditates on the divine perfections
he gradually reproduces in himself that on which his mind is fixed. Such a
mind, shaped to the higher and not the lower, cannot bind the Spirit, and the
freed Spirit leaping upward to his source, prayer is lost in union and
separateness is left behind.
Worship also, the rapt adoration from which all petition is
absent, and which seeks to pour itself forth in sheer love of the Perfect,
dimly sensed, is a means - the easiest means - of union with God. In this the
consciousness, limited by the brain, contemplates in mute ecstasy the Image it
creates of Him whom it knows to be beyond imagining, and oft, rapt by the
intensity of his love beyond the limits of the intellect, the man as a free
Spirit soars upwards into realms where these limits are transcended, and feels
and knows far more than on his return he can tell in words or clothe in form.
Thus the Mystic gazes on the Beatific Vision; thus the Sage rests
in the calm of the Wisdom that is beyond knowledge; thus the Saint reaches the
purity wherein God is seen. Such prayer irradiates the worshipper, and from the
mount of such high communion descending to the plains of earth, the very face
of flesh shines with supernal glory, translucent to the flame that burns
within. Happy they who know the reality which no words may
convey to those who know it not. Those whose eyes have seen "the
King in His beauty" [Is., xxxiii,17] will
remember, and they will understand.
When prayer is thus understood, its perennial necessity for all
who believe in religion will be patent, and we see why its practice has been so
much advocated by all who study the higher life. For the student of the Lesser
Mysteries prayer should be of the kinds grouped under Class B, and he should
endeavour to rise to the pure meditation and worship of the last class,
eschewing altogether the lower kinds. For him the teaching of lamblichus on
this subject is useful, lamblichus says that prayers "produce an
indissoluble and sacred communion with the Gods", and then proceeds to
give some interesting details on prayer, as considered by the practical
Occultist. " For this is of itself a thing worthy
to be known, and renders more perfect the science concerning the Gods. I say,
therefore, that the first species of prayer is Collective; and that it is also
the leader of contact with, and a knowledge of,
divinity. The second species is the bond of concordant Communion, calling
forth, prior to the energy of speech, the gifts imparted by the Gods, and
perfecting the whole of our operations prior to our intellectual conceptions.
And the third and most perfect species of prayer is the seal of ineffable
Out of such study and practice one inevitable result arises, as a
man begins to understand and as the wider range of human life unfolds before
him. He sees that by knowledge his strength is much increased, that there are
forces around him that he can understand and control, and that in proportion to
his knowledge is his power Then he learns that Divinity lies hidden within
himself, and that nothing that is fleeting can satisfy that God within; that
only union with the One, the Perfect, can still his cravings then there
gradually arises within him the will to set himself at one with the Divine; he
ceases to vehemently seek to change circumstances, and to throw fresh causes
into the stream of effects. He recognises himself as an agent rather than an
actor, a channel rather than a source, a servant rather than a master, and
seeks to discover the divine purposes and to work in harmony therewith.
When a man has reached that point, he has risen above all prayer,
save that which is meditation and worship; he has nothing to ask for, in this
world or in any other; he remains in a steadfast serenity, seeking but to serve
God. That is the state of Sonship, where the will of the Son is one with the
will of the Father, where the one calm surrender is made, "Lo, I come to
do Thy will, 0 God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law is within my
heart". [Ps., xl, 7, 8, Prayer Book version. ]
Then all prayer is seen to be unnecessary; all asking is felt as an impertinence; nothing can be longed for that is not
already in the purposes of that Will, and all will be brought into active
manifestation as the agents of that Will perfect themselves in the work.
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
"I BELIEVE in ... the forgiveness of sins". " I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of
sins". The words fall facilely from the lips of worshippers in every
Christian church throughout the world, as they repeat the familiar creeds
called those of the Apostles and the Nicene. Among the sayings of Jesus the
words frequently recur: "Thy sins are forgiven thee", and it is
noteworthy that this phrase constantly accompanies the exercise of His healing
powers, the release from physical and moral disease being thus marked as
simultaneous. In fact, on one occasion He pointed to the healing of a
palsy-stricken man as a sign that he had a right to declare to a man that his
sins were forgiven. [ S. Luke, v, ..] So also of one
woman it was said: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved
much".[S. Luke, vii, 47]' In the famous Gnostic
treatise, the Pistis Sophia, the very purpose of the Mysteries is said to be
the remission of sins. " Should they have been
sinners, should they have been in all the sins and all the iniquities of the
world, of which I have spoken unto you, nevertheless if they turn themselves
and repent, and have made the renunciation which I have just described unto
you, give ye unto them the mysteries of the kingdom of light; hide them not
from them at all. It is because of sin that I have brought these mysteries into
the world, for the remission of all the sins which they have committed from the
beginning. Wherefore have I said unto you aforetime, 'I came not to call the
righteous, 'Now, therefore, I have brought the mysteries, that the sins of all
men may be remitted, and they be brought into the kingdom of light. For these
mysteries are the boon of the first mystery of the destruction of the sins and
iniquities of all sinners'. [G. R. S. Mead,
translated. Loc. cit., bk. ii, §§ 260, .]
In these Mysteries, the remission of sin is by baptism, as in the
acknowledgment in the Nicene Creed. Jesus says: "Hearken, again, that I
may tell you the word in truth, of what type is the mystery of baptism which
remitteth sins.. . . When a man receiveth the
mysteries of the baptisms, those mysteries become a mighty fire, exceedingly
fierce, wise, which burneth up all sins; they enter into the soul occultly, and
devour all the sins which the spiritual counterfeit hath implanted in it".
And after describing further the process of purification, Jesus adds:
"This is the way in which the mysteries of the baptisms remit sins and
every iniquity". [G. R. S. Mead, translated. Loc.
Cit., bk ii, §§ 299, 300 ]
In one form or another the "forgiveness of sins"
appears in most, if not in all, religions; and wherever this consensus of
opinion is found, we may safely conclude, according to the principle already
laid down, that some fact in nature underlies it. Moreover, there is a response
in human nature to this idea that sins are forgiven; we notice that people
suffer under a consciousness of wrong-doing, and that when they shake
themselves clear of their past, and free themselves from the shackling fetters
of remorse, they go forward with glad heart and sunlit eyes, though erstwhile
enclouded by darkness. They feel as though a burden were lifted off them, a
clog removed. The sense of sin" has disappeared, and with it the gnawing
pain. They know the spring-time of the soul, the word of power which makes all
things new. A song of gratitude wells up as the natural outburst of the heart,
the time for the singing of birds is come, there is
"joy among the Angels". This not uncommon experience is one that
becomes puzzling, when the person experiencing it, or seeing it in another,
begins to ask himself what has really taken place, what has brought about the
change in consciousness, the effects of which are so manifest.
Modern thinkers, who have thoroughly assimilated the idea of
changeless laws underlying all phenomena, and who have studied the workings of
these laws, are at first apt to reject any and every theory of the forgiveness
of sins as being inconsistent with that fundamental truth, just as the
scientist, penetrated with the idea of the inviolability of law, repels all
thought which is inconsistent with it. And both are right in founding
themselves on the unfaltering working of law, for law is but the expression of
the divine Nature, in which there is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning. Any view of the forgiveness of sins that we may adopt must not clash
with this fundamental idea, as necessary to ethical as to physical science.
"The bottom would fall out of everything" if we could not rest
securely in the everlasting arms of the Good Law.
But in pursuing our investigations, we are struck with the fact
that the very Teachers who are most insistent on the changeless working of law
are also those who emphatically proclaim the forgiveness of sins. At one time
Jesus is saying: "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall
give account thereof in the day of judgment", [S. Matt, xii, . ] and at another:
"Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee".[Ibid., ix, 2] So
in the Bhagavad-Gltâ, we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the
world is bound by action".[Loc. cit., iii, . ] and that a man
"recovereth the characteristics of his former body", [Ibid, vi, 43]
and yet it is said that "even if the most sinful worship me, with
undivided heart, he, too, must be accounted righteous". [Ibid., ix, . ] It would seem, then, that whatever may have
been intended in the world's Scriptures by the phrase, "the forgiveness of
sins", it was not thought, by Those who best know
the law, to clash with the inviolable sequence of cause and effect.
If we examine even the crudest idea of the forgiveness of sins
prevalent in our own day, we find that the believer in it does not mean that
the forgiven sinner is to escape from the consequences of his sin in this
world; the drunkard, whose sins are forgiven on his repentance, is still seen
to suffer from shaken nerves, impaired digestion, and the lack of confidence
shown towards him by his fellow-men. The statements made as to forgiveness,
when they are examined, are ultimately found to refer to the relations between
the repentant sinner and God, and to the post-mortem penalties attached to
unforgiven sin in the creed of the speaker, and not to any escape from the
mundane consequences of sin. The loss of belief in reincarnation, and of a sane
view as to the continuity of life, whether it were spent in this or in the next
two worlds [See ante, Chap. VIII. ] brought with it
various incongruities and indefensible assertions, among them the blasphemous
and terrible idea of the eternal torture of the human soul for sins committed
during the brief span of one life spent on earth. In order to escape from this
nightmare, theologians posited a forgiveness which should release the sinner
from this dread imprisonment in an eternal hell. It did not, and was never
supposed to, set him free in this world from the natural consequences of his
ill-doings, nor - except in modern Protestant communities - was it held to
deliver him from prolonged purgatorial sufferings, the direct results of sin,
after the death of the physical body. The law had its course, both in this world
and in purgatory, and in each world sorrow followed on the heels of sin, even
as the wheels follow the ox. It was but eternal torture - which existed only in
the clouded imagination of the believer - that was escaped by the forgiveness
of sins; and we may perhaps go so far as to suggest that the dogmatist, having
postulated an eternal hell as the monstrous result of transient errors, felt
compelled to provide a way of escape from an incredible and unjust fate, and
therefore further postulated an incredible and unjust forgiveness. Schemes that
are elaborated by human speculation, without regard to the facts of life, are
apt to land the speculator in thought-morasses, whence he can only extricate
himself by blundering through the mire in an opposite direction. A superfluous
eternal hell was balanced by a superfluous forgiveness, and thus the uneven
scales of justice were again rendered level. Leaving these aberrations of the
unenlightened, let us return into the realm of fact and right reason.
When a man has committed an evil action he has attached himself
to a sorrow, for sorrow is ever the plant that springs from the seed of sin. It
may be said, even more accurately, that sin and sorrow are but the two sides of
one act, not two separate events. As every object has two sides, one of which
is behind, out of sight, when the other is in front, in sight, so every act has
two sides, which cannot both be seen at once in the physical world. In other
worlds, good and happiness, evil and sorrow, are seen as the two sides of the
same thing. This is what is called karma - a convenient and now widely-used
term, originally Samskrit, expressing this connection or identity, literally
meaning "action" - and the suffering is therefore called the karmic
result of the wrong. The result, the "other side", may not follow
immediately, may not even accrue during the present incarnation, but sooner or
later it will appear and clasp the sinner with its arms of pain. Now a result
in the physical world, an effect experienced through our physical
consciousness, is the final outcome of a cause set going in the past; it is the
ripened fruit; in it a particular force becomes manifest and exhausts itself.
That force has been working outwards, and its effects are already over in the
mind ere it appears in the body. Its bodily manifestation, its appearance, in
the physical world, is the sign of the completion of its course.[This is the cause of the sweetness and patience often noticed
in the sick who are of very pure nature. They have learned the lesson of
suffering, and they do not make fresh evil karma by impatience under the result
of past bad karma, then exhausting itself. ] If at such a moment the sinner,
having exhausted the karma of his sin, comes into contact with a Sage who can
see the past and the present, the invisible and the visible, such a Sage may
discern the ending of the particular karma, and, the sentence being completed,
may declare the captive free. Such an instance seems to be given in the story
of the man sick of the palsy, already alluded to, a
case typical of many. A physical ailment is the last expression of a past
ill-doing; the mental and moral outworking is completed, and the sufferer is
brought - by the agency of some Angel, as an administrator of the law - into
the presence of One able to relieve physical disease by the exertion of a
higher energy. First, the Initiate declares that the man's sins are forgiven,
and then justifies his insight by the authoritative word, "Arise, take up
thy bed, and go unto thine house". Had no such enlightened One been there,
the disease would have passed away under the restoring touch of nature, under a
force applied by the invisible angelic Intelligences, who carry out in this
world the workings of karmic law; when a greater One is acting, this force is
of more swiftly compelling power, and the physical vibrations are at once
attuned to the harmony that is health. All such forgiveness of sins may be
termed declaratory; the karma is exhausted, and a "knower of karma"
declares the fact. The assurance brings a relief to the mind, that is akin to
the relief experienced by a prisoner when the order for his release is given,
that order being as much a part of the law as the original sentence; but the
relief of the man who thus learns of the exhaustion of an evil karma is keener,
because he cannot himself tell the term of its action.
It is noticeable that these declarations of forgiveness are
constantly coupled with the statement that the sufferer showed
"faith", and that without this nothing could be done; i.e., the real
agent in the ending of this karma is the sinner himself. In the case of the
"woman that was a sinner", the two declarations are coupled:
"Thy sins are forgiven . . . Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace".
[S. Luke, vii, 48, . ] This "faith" is the
up-welling in man of his own divine essence, seeking the divine ocean of like
essence, and when this breaks through the lower nature that holds it in - as
the water-spring breaks through the encumbering earth-clods - the power thus
liberated works on the whole nature, bringing it into harmony with itself. The
man only becomes conscious of this as the karmic crust of evil is broken up by
its force, and that glad consciousness of a power within himself, hitherto
unknown, asserting itself as soon as the evil karma is exhausted, is a large
factor in the joy, relief, and new strength that follow on the feeling that sin
is "forgiven", that its results are past.
And this brings us to the heart of the subject - the changes that
go on in a man's inner nature, unrecognised by that part of his consciousness
which works within the limits of his brain, until they suddenly assert
themselves within those limits, coming apparently from nowhere, bursting forth
"from the blue", pouring from an unknown source. What wonder that a
man, bewildered by their downrush - knowing nothing of the mysteries of his own
nature, nothing of "the inner God" that is verily himself - imagines
that to be from without which is really from within, and, unconscious of his
own Divinity, thinks only of Divinities in the world external to himself. And
this misconception is the more easy, because the final touch, the vibration
that breaks the imprisoning shell, is often the answer from the Divinity within
another man, or within some superhuman being, responding to the insistent cry
from the imprisoned Divinity within himself; he oft-times recognises the
brotherly aid, while not recognising that he himself, the cry from his inner
nature, called it forth. As an explanation from a wiser than ourselves may make
an intellectual difficulty clear to our mind, though it is our own mind that,
thus aided, grasps the solution; as an encouraging word from one purer than
ourselves may nerve us to a moral effort that we should have thought beyond our
power, though it is our own strength that makes it; so may a loftier Spirit
than our own, one more conscious of its Divinity, aid us to put forth our own
divine energy, though it is that very putting forth that lifts us to a higher
plane. We are all bound by ties of brotherly help to those above us as to those
below us, and why should we, who so constantly find ourselves able to help in
their development souls less advanced than ourselves, hesitate to admit that we
can receive similar help from Those far above us, and that our progress may be
rendered much swifter by Their aid?
Now among the changes that go on in a man's inner nature, unknown
to his lower consciousness, are those that have to do with the putting forth of
his will. The Ego, glancing backward over his past, balancing up its results,
suffering under its mistakes, determines on a change of attitude, on a change
of activity. While his lower vehicle is still under his former impulses,
plunging along lines of action that bring it into sharp collisions with the
law, the Ego determines on an opposite course of conduct. Hitherto he has
turned his face longingly to the animal, the pleasures
of the lower world have held him fast enchained. Now he turns his face to the
true goal of evolution, and determines to work for loftier joys. He sees that
the whole world is evolving, and that if he sets himself against that mighty
current it dashes him aside, bruising him sorely in the process; he sees that
if he sets himself with it, it will bear him onwards on its bosom and land him
in the desired haven.
He then resolves to change his life, he turns determinedly on his
steps, he faces the other way The first result of the effort to turn his lower
nature into the changed course, is much distress and disturbance. The habits
formed under the impacts of the old views resist stubbornly the impulses
flowing from the new, and a bitter conflict arises. Gradually the consciousness
working in the brain accepts the decision made on higher planes, and then
"becomes conscious of sin" by this very recognition of the law. The
sense of error deepens, remorse preys on the mind; spasmodic efforts are made
towards improvement, and, frustrated by old habits, repeatedly fail, till the
man, overwhelmed by grief for the past, despair of the present, is plunged into
hopeless gloom. At last, the ever-increasing suffering wrings from the Ego a
cry for help, answered from the inner depths of his own nature, from the God
within as well as around him, the Life of his life. He turns from the lower
nature that is thwarting him to the higher which is his innermost being, from
the separated self that tortures him to the One Self that is the Heart of all.
But this change of front means that he turns his face from the
darkness, that he turns his face to the light. The light was always there, but
his back was towards it; now he sees the sun, and its radiance cheers his eyes,
and overfloods his being with delight. His heart was closed; it is now flung
open, and the ocean of life flows in, in full tide, suffusing him with joy.
Wave after wave of new life uplifts him, and the gladness of the dawn surrounds
him. He sees his past as past, because his will is set to follow a higher path,
and he recks little of the suffering that the past may bequeath to him, since
he knows he will not hand on such bitter legacy from his present. This sense of
peace, of joy, of freedom, is the feeling spoken of as the result of the
forgiveness of sins. The obstacles set up by the lower nature between the God
within and the God without are swept away, and that nature scarce recognises
that the change is in itself and not in the Oversoul. As a child, having thrust
away the mother's guiding hand and hidden its face against the wall, may fancy
itself alone and forgotten, until, turning with a cry, it finds around it the
protecting mother-arms that were never but a handsbreadth away, so does man in
his wilfulness push away the shielding arms of the divine Mother of the worlds,
only to find, when he turns back his face, that he has never been outside their
protecting shelter, and that wherever he may wander that guarding love is round
him still.
The key to this change in the man, that brings about
"forgiveness,"is given in the verse of the Bhagavad-Gitâ already
partly quoted: "Even if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart
he too must be accounted righteous, for he hath rightly resolved" On that
right resolution follows the inevitable result: "Speedily he becometh
dutiful and goeth to peace".[Loc. cit., ix, 31]' The essence of sin lees
in setting the will of the part against the will of the whole, the human
against the Divine. When this is changed, when the Ego puts his separate will
into union with the will that works for evolution, then, in the world where to
will is to do, in the world where effects are seen as present in causes, the
man is accounted righteous"; the effects on the lower planes must
inevitably follow; "speedily he becometh dutiful" in action, having
already become dutiful in will. Here we judge by actions, the dead leaves of
the past; there they judge by wills, the germinating seeds of the future. Hence
the Christ ever says to men in the lower world: "Judge not". [S.
Matt., vii, 1]
Even after the new direction has been definitely followed, and
has become the normal habit of the life, there come times of failure, alluded
to in the Pistis Sophia, when Jesus is asked whether a man may be again
admitted to the Mysteries, after he has fallen away, if he again repents. The
answer of Jesus is in the affirmative, but he states that a time comes when
re-admission is beyond the power of any save of the highest Mystery, who
pardons ever. "Amen, amen, I say unto you, whosoever shall receive the
mysteries of the first mystery, and then shall turn back and transgress twelve
times [even], and then should again repent twelve times, offering prayer in the
mystery of the first mystery, he shall be forgiven. But if he should transgress
after twelve times, should he turn back and transgress, it shall not be
remitted unto him for ever, so that he may turn again unto his mystery,
whatever it be. For him there is no means of
repentance unless he have received the mysteries of that ineffable, which hath
compassion at all times and remitteth sins for ever and ever.[Loc, cit.,bk. ii,
§ . ] These restorations after failure, in which "sin is remitted",
meet us in human life, especially in the higher phases of evolution. A man is
offered an opportunity, which taken, would open up to him new possibilities of
growth. He fails to grasp it, and falls away from the position he had gained
that made the further opportunity possible. For him, for the time, further
progress is blocked; he must turn all his efforts wearily to retread the ground
he had already trodden, and to regain and make sure his footing on the place
from which he had slipped. Only when this is accomplished will he hear the
gentle Voice that tells him that the past is out-worn, the weakness turned to
strength, and that the gateway is again open for his passage. Here again the
"forgiveness" is but the declaration by a proper authority of the
true state of affairs, the opening of the gate to the competent, its closure to
the incompetent. Where there had been failure, with its accompanying suffering,
this declaration would be felt as a "baptism for the remission of
sins", readmitting the aspirant to a privilege lost by his own act; this
would certainly give rise to feelings of joy and peace, to a relief from the
burden of sorrow, to a feeling that the clog of the past had at last fallen
from the feet.
Remains one truth that should never be forgotten: that we are
living in an ocean of light, of love, of bliss, that surrounds us at all times,
the Life of God. As the sun floods the earth with his radiance so does that
Life enlighten all, only that Sun of the world never sets to any part of it. We
shut this light out of our consciousness by our selfishness, our heartlessness,
our impurity, our intolerance, but it shines on us ever the same, bathing us on
every side, pressing against our self-built walls with gentle, strong
persistence. When the soul throws down these excluding walls, the light flows
in, and the soul finds itself flooded with sunshine,
breathing the blissful air of heaven. "For the Son of
man is in heaven", though he know it not, and its breezes fan his brow if
he bares it to their breaths. God ever respects man's individuality, and
will not enter his consciousness until that consciousness opens to give
welcome; "Behold I stand at the door and knock"[Rev., iii, . ] is the
attitude of every spiritual Intelligence towards the evolving human soul; not
in lack of sympathy is rooted that waiting for the open door, but in deepest
wisdom.
Man is not to be compelled; he is to be free. He is not a slave,
but a God in the making, and the growth cannot be forced, but must be willed
from within. Only when the will consents, as Giordano Bruno teaches, will God
influence man, though He be "everywhere present, and ready to come to the
aid of whosoever turns to Him through the act of the intelligence, and who
unreservedly presents himself with the affection of the will".[G. Bruno,
trans, by L. Williams, The heroic enthusiasts,vol. i, p. . ] The divine potency
which is all in all does not proffer or withhold, except through assimilation
or rejection by oneself."[Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 27,
. ]" It is taken in quickly, as the solar light, without hesitation, and
makes itself present to whoever turns himself to it and opens himself to it...
the windows are opened, but the sun enters in a moment, so does it happen
similarly in this case".[Ibid,., pp. 102, 103 ]
The sense of "forgiveness", then, is the feeling which
fills the heart with joy when the will is tuned to harmony with the Divine, when, the soul having opened its windows, the
sunshine of love and light and bliss pours in, when the part feels its oneness
with the whole, and the One Life thrills each vein. This is the noble truth
that gives vitality to even the crudest presentation of the "forgiveness
of sins" and that makes it often, despite its intellectual incompleteness,
an inspirer to pure and spiritual living. And this is the truth, as seen in the
Lesser Mysteries.
SACRAMENTS
IN all religions there exist certain ceremonials, or rites, which
are regarded as of vital importance by the believers in the religion, and which
are held to confer certain benefits on those taking part in them. The word
Sacrament, or some equivalent term, has been applied to these ceremonials, and
they all have the same character. Little exact exposition has been given as to
their nature and meaning, but this is another of the subjects explained of old
in the Lesser Mysteries.
The peculiar characteristic of a Sacrament resides in two of its
properties. First, there is the exoteric ceremony, which is a pictorial
allegory, a representation of something by actions and materials - not a verbal
allegory, a teaching given in words, conveying a truth; but an acted
representation, certain definite material things used in a particular way. The
object in choosing these materials, and aimed at in the ceremonies by which
their manipulation is accompanied, is to represent, as in a picture, some truth
which it is desired to impress upon the minds of the people present. That is
the first and obvious property of a Sacrament, differentiating it from other
forms of worship and meditation. It appeals to those who without this imagery
would fail to catch a subtle truth, and shows to them in a vivid and graphic
form the truth which otherwise would escape them. Every Sacrament, when it is
studied, should be taken first from this standpoint that it is a pictorial
allegory; the essential things to be studied will therefore be: the material
objects which enter into the allegory, the method in which they are employed,
and the meaning which the whole is intended to convey.
The second characteristic property of a Sacrament belongs to the
facts of the invisible worlds, and is studied by occult science. The person who
officiates in the Sacrament should possess this knowledge, as much, though not
all, of the operative power of the Sacrament depends on the knowledge of the
officiator. A Sacrament links the material world with the subtle and invisible
regions to which that world is related; it is a link between the visible and
the invisible. And it is not only a link between this world and other worlds,
but it is also a method by which the energies of the invisible world are
transmuted into action in the physical; an actual method of changing energies
of one kind into energies of another, as literally as in the galvanic cell
chemical energies are changed into electrical. The essence of all energies is
one and the same, whether in the visible or invisible worlds; but the energies
differ according to the grades of matter through which they manifest. A
Sacrament serves as a kind of crucible in which spiritual alchemy takes place.
An energy placed in this crucible and subjected to certain manipulations comes
forth different in expression. Thus an energy of a subtle kind, belonging to
one of the higher regions of the universe, may be brought into direct relation
with people living in the physical world, and may be made to affect them in the
physical world as well as in its own realm; the Sacrament forms the last bridge
from the invisible to the visible, and enables the energies to be directly
applied to those who fulfil the necessary conditions and who take part in the
Sacrament.
The Sacraments of the Christian Church lost much of their dignity
and of the recognition of their occult power among those who separated from the
Roman Catholic Church at the time of the "Reformation". The previous
separation between the East and the West, leaving the Greek Orthodox Church on
the one side and the Roman Church on the other, in no way affected belief in
the Sacraments. They remained in both great communities as the recognised links
between the seen and the unseen, and sanctified the life of the believer from
cradle to grave. The Seven Sacraments of Christianity cover the whole of life,
from the welcome of Baptism to the farewell of Extreme Unction. They were
established by Occultists, by men who knew the invisible worlds; and the
materials used, the words spoken, the signs made, were all deliberately chosen
and arranged with a view to bringing about certain results.
At the time of the Reformation, the seceding Churches, which
threw off the yoke of Rome, were not led by Occultists, but by ordinary men of
the world, some good and some bad, but all profoundly ignorant of the facts of
the invisible worlds, and conscious only of the outer shell of Christianity,
its literal dogmas and exoteric worship. The consequence of this was that the
Sacraments lost their supreme place in Christian worship, and in most
Protestant communities were reduced to two, Baptism and the Eucharist.
The sacramental nature of the others was not explicitly denied in
the most important of the seceding Churches, but the two were set apart from
the five, as of universal obligation, of which every member of the Church must
partake in order to be recognised as a full member.
The general definition of a Sacrament is given quite accurately,
save for the superfluous words, "ordained by Christ Himself", in the
Catechism of the Church of England, and even these words might be retained if
the mystic meaning be given to the word "Christ". A Sacrament is there
said to be: "An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace
given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the
same and a pledge to assure us thereof".
In this definition we find laid down the two distinguishing
characteristics of a Sacrament as given above. The 'outward and visible sign'
is the pictorial allegory, and the phrase, the "means whereby we receive
the inward and spiritual grace" covers the second property. This last
phrase should be carefully noted by those members of Protestant Churches who
regard Sacraments as mere external forms and outer ceremonies. For it distinctly alleges that the Sacrament is really a means
whereby the grace is conveyed, and thus implies that without it the grace does
not pass in the same fashion from the spiritual to the physical world.
It is the distinct recognition of a Sacrament in its second aspect, as a means
whereby spiritual powers are brought into activity on earth.
In order to understand a Sacrament, it is necessary that we
should definitely recognise the existence of an occult, or hidden, side of
Nature; this is spoken of as the life-side of Nature, the consciousness-side,
more accurately the mind in Nature. Underlying all sacramental action there is
the belief that the invisible world exercises a potent influence over the
visible, and to understand a Sacrament we must understand something of the
invisible Intelligences who administer Nature. We have seen in studying the
doctrine of the Trinity that Spirit is manifested as the triple Self, and that
as the Field for His manifestation there is Matter, the form-side of Nature,
often regarded, and rightly, as Nature herself. We have to study both these
aspects, the side of life and that of form, in order to understand a Sacrament.
Stretching between the Trinity and humanity are many grades and
hierarchies of invisible beings; the highest of these are the seven Spirits of
God, the seven Fires, or Flames, that are before the throne of God.[Rev., iv, . ] Each of these stands at the head of a vast
host of Intelligences, all of whom share His nature and act under His
direction; these are themselves graded, and are the Thrones, Powers, Princes,
Dominations, Archangels, Angels, of whom mention is found in the writings of
the Christian Fathers, who were versed in the Mysteries. Thus there are seven
great hosts of these Beings, and they represent in their intelligence the
divine Mind in Nature. They are found in all regions, and they ensoul the
energies of Nature. From the standpoint of occultism there is no dead force and
no dead matter. Force and matter alike are living and active, and an energy or a group of energies is the veil of an
Intelligence, of a Consciousness, who has that energy as his outer expression,
and the matter in which that energy moves yields a form which he guides or ensouls.
Unless a man can thus look at Nature all esoteric teaching must remain for him
a sealed book. Without these angelic Lives, these countless invisible
Intelligences, these Consciousnesses which ensoul the force and matter [The
phrase "force and matter" is used as it is so well-known in science.
But force is one of the properties of matter, the one mentioned as Motion. See
Ante, p. . ] which is Nature, Nature herself would not
only remain unintelligible, but she would be out of relation alike to the divine
Life that moves within and around her, and to the human lives that are
developing in her midst. These innumerable Angels link the worlds together;
they are themselves evolving while helping the evolution of beings lower than
themselves, and a new light is shed on evolution when we see that men form
grades in these hierarchies of intelligent beings. These angels are the
"sons of God" of an earlier birth than ours, who "shouted for
joy"; [Job, xxxviii, 7 ] when the foundations of
the earth were laid amid the choiring of the Morning Stars.
Other beings are below us in evolution - animals, plants,
minerals, and elemental lives - as the Angels are above us; and as we thus
study, a conception dawns upon us of a vast Wheel of Life, of numberless
existences, inter-related and necessary each to each, man as a living
Intelligence, as a self-conscious being, having his own place in this Wheel.
The Wheel is ever turning by the divine Will, and the living Intelligences who
form it learn to co-operate with that Will, and if in the action of those
Intelligences there is any break or gap due to neglect or opposition, then the
Wheel drags, turning slowly, and the chariot of the evolution of the worlds goes
but heavily upon its way.
These numberless Lives, above and below man, come into touch with
human consciousness in very definite ways, and among these ways are sounds and
colours. Each sound has a form in the invisible world, and combinations of
sounds create complicated shapes.[See on forms created
by musical notes any scientific book on Sound, and also Mrs. Watts-Hughes'
illustrated book on Voice Figures. ] In the subtle matter of those worlds all
sounds are accompanied by colours, so that they give rise to many-hued shapes,
in many cases exceedingly beautiful. The vibrations set up in the visible world
when a note is sounded set up vibrations in the worlds invisible, each one with
its own specific character, and capable of producing certain effects. In
communicating with the sub-human Intelligences connected with the lower
invisible world and with the physical, and in controlling and directing these,
sounds must be used fitted to bring about the desired results, as language made
up of definite sounds is used here. And in communicating with the higher
Intelligences certain sounds are useful, to create a harmonious atmosphere,
suitable for their activities, and to make our own subtle bodies receptive of
their influences.
This effect on the subtle bodies is a most important part of the
occult use of sounds. These bodies, like the physical, are in constant
vibratory motion, the vibrations changing with every thought or desire. These
changing irregular vibrations offer an obstacle to any fresh vibration coming
from outside, and, in order to render the bodies susceptible to the higher
influences, sounds are used which reduce the irregular vibrations to a steady
rhythm, like in its nature to the rhythm of the Intelligence sought to be
reached. The object of all often-repeated sentences is to effect
this, as a musician sounds the same note over and over again, until all the
instruments are in tune. The subtle bodies must be tuned to the note of the
Being sought, if his influence is to find free way through the nature of the
worshipper, and this was ever done of old by the use of sounds. Hence, music
has ever formed an integral part of worship, and certain definite cadences have
been preserved with care, handed on from age to age.
In every religion there exist sounds of a peculiar character,
called "Words of Power", consisting of sentences in a particular
language chanted in a particular way; each religion possesses a stock of such
sentences, special successions of sounds, now very generally called
"mantras", that being the name given to them in the East, where the science
of mantras has been much studied and elaborated. It is not necessary that a
mantra - a succession of sounds arranged in a particular manner to bring about
a definite result - should be in any one particular language. Any language can
be used for the purpose, though some are more suitable than others, provided
that the person who makes the mantra possesses the requisite occult knowledge.
There are hundreds of mantras in the Samskrit tongue, made by Occultists of the
past, who were familiar with the laws of the invisible worlds. These have been
handed down from generation to generation, definite words in a definite order
chanted in a definite way. The effect of the chanting is to create vibrations,
hence forms, in the physical and super-physical worlds, and according to the
knowledge and purity of the singer will be the worlds his song is able to
affect. If his knowledge be wide and deep, if his will be strong and his heart
pure, there is scarcely any limit to the powers he may exercise in using some
of these ancient mantras.
As said, it is not necessary that any one particular language
should be used. They may be in Samskrit, or in any one of the languages of the
world, in which men of knowledge have put them together.
This is the reason why, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Latin
language is always used in important acts of worship. It is not used as a dead
language here, a tongue "not understanded of the people", but as a
living force in the invisible worlds. It is not used to hide knowledge from the
people, but in order that certain vibrations may be set up in the invisible
worlds which cannot be set up in the ordinary languages of Europe, unless a
great Occultist should compose in them the necessary successions of sounds. To
translate a mantra is to change it from a "Word of Power" into an
ordinary sentence; the sounds being changed, other
sound-forms are created.
Some of the arrangements of Latin words, with the music wedded to
them in Christian worship, cause the most marked effects in the supra-physical
worlds, and any one who is at all sensitive will be conscious of peculiar
effects caused by the chanting of some of the most sacred sentences, especially
in the Mass. Vibratory effects may be felt by any one who will sit quiet and
receptive as some of these sentences are uttered by priest or choristers. And
at the same time effects are caused in the higher worlds directly affecting the
subtle bodies of the worshippers in the way above described, and also appealing
to the Intelligences in those worlds with a meaning as definite as the words
addressed by one person to another on the physical plane, whether as prayer or,
in some cases, as command. The sounds, causing active flashing forms, rise
through the worlds, affecting the consciousness of the Intelligences residing
in them, and bringing some of them to render the definite services required by
those who are taking part in the church office.
Such mantras form an essential part of every Sacrament.
The next essential part of the Sacrament, in
its outward and visible form, are certain gestures. These are called
Signs, or Seals, or Sigils - the three words meaning the same thing in a
Sacrament. Each sign has its own particular meaning, and marks the direction
imposed on the invisible forces with which the celebrant is dealing, whether
those forces be his own or poured through him In any case, they are needed to
bring about the desired result, and they are an essential portion of the
sacramental rite. Such a sign is called a "Sign of Power" as the
mantra is a "Word of Power'.
It is interesting to read in occult works of the past references
to these facts, true then as now true now as then. In the Egyptian Book of the
Dead is described the post-mortem journey of the Soul and we read how he is
stopped and challenged at various stages of that journey. He is stopped and
challenged by the Guardians of the gate of each successive world, and the Soul
cannot pass through the Gate and go on his way unless he knows two things: he
must pronounce a word the Word of Power: he must make a sign, the Sign of
Power. When that Word is spoken when that Sign is given, the bars of the Gate
fall down, and the Guardians stand aside to let the Soul pass through. A
similar account is given in the great mystic Christian Gospel the Pistis
Sophia, before mentioned.[See Ante, pp. 118,119 and .
] Here the passage through the worlds is not of a Soul set free from the body
by death, but of one who has voluntarily left it in the course of Initiation.
There are great Powers, the Powers of Nature, that bar his way, and till the
Initiate gives the Word and the Sign, they will not allow him to pass through
the portals of their realms. This double knowledge, then, was necessary - to
speak the Word of Power, to make the Sign of Power. Without these progress was
blocked, and without these a Sacrament is no Sacrament.
Further, in all Sacraments some physical material is used, or
should be used.[ In the Sacrament of Penance the ashes
are now usually omitted, except on special occasions, but none the less they
form part of the rite. ] This is ever a symbol of that which is to be gained by
the Sacrament, and points to the nature of the "inward and spiritual
grace" received through it.This is also the material means of conveying
the grace, not symbolically, but actually, and a subtle change in this material
adapts it for high ends.
Now a physical object consists of the solid, liquid, and gaseous
particles into which a chemist would resolve it by analysis, and further of
ether, which interpenetrates the grosser stuffs. In this ether play the
magnetic energies. It is further connected with counterparts of subtle matter,
in which play energies subtler than the magnetic, but like them in nature and
more powerful.
When such an object is magnetised a change is effected in the
ethereal portion, the wave-motions are altered and systematised, and made to
follow the wave-motions of the ether of the magnetiser; it thus comes to share
his nature, and the denser particles of the object, played on by the ether,
slowly change their rates of vibration. If the magnetiser has the power of
affecting the subtler counterparts also he makes them similarly vibrate in
assonance with his own.
This is the secret of magnetic cures: the irregular vibrations of
the diseased person are so worked on as to accord with the regular vibrations
of the healthy operator, as definitely as an irregularly swinging object may be
made to swing regularly by repeated and timed blows. A doctor will magnetise
water and cure his patient therewith. He will magnetise a cloth, and the cloth,
laid on the seat of pain, will heal. He will use a powerful magnet, or a
current from a galvanic cell, and restore energy to a nerve. In all cases the
ether is thrown into motion, and by this the denser physical particles are
affected.
A similar result accrues when the materials used in a Sacrament
are acted on by the Word of Power and the Sign of Power. Magnetic changes are
caused in the ether of the physical substance, and the subtle counterparts are
affected according to the knowledge, purity, and devotion of the celebrant who
magnetises - or, in the religious term, consecrates - it. Further, the Word and
the Sign of Power summon to the celebration the Angels specially
concerned with the materials used and the nature of the act performed, and they
lend their powerful aid, pouring their own magnetic energies into the subtle
counterparts, and even into the physical ether, thus reinforcing the energies
of the celebrant. No one who knows anything of the powers of magnetism can
doubt the possibility of the changes in material objects thus indicated. And if
a man of science, who may have no faith in the unseen, has the power to so
impregnate water with his own vital energy that it cures a physical disease,
why should power of a loftier, though similar nature be denied to those of saintly
life, of noble character, of knowledge of the invisible? those
who are able to sense the higher forms of magnetism know very well that
consecrated objects vary much in their power, and that the magnetic difference
is due to the varying knowledge, purity, and spirituality of the priest who
consecrates them. Some deny all vital magnetism, and would reject alike the
holy water of religion and the magnetised water of medical science. They are
consistent, but ignorant. But those who admit the utility of the one, and laugh
at the other, show themselves to be not wise but prejudiced, not learned but
one-sided, and prove that their want of belief in religion biases their
intelligence, predisposing them to reject from the hand of religion that which
they accept from the hand of science. A little will be added to this with
regard to "sacred objects" generally in Chapter XIV.
We thus see that the outer part of the Sacrament is of very great
importance. Real changes are made in the materials used. They are made the
vehicles of energies higher than those which naturally belong to them; persons
approaching them, touching them, will have their own etheric and subtle bodies
affected by their potent magnetism, and will be brought into a condition very
receptive of higher influences, being tuned into accord with the lofty Beings
connected with the Word and the Sign used in consecration; Beings belonging to
the invisible world will be present during the sacramental rite, pouring out
their benign and gracious influences; and thus all who are worthy participants
in the ceremony - sufficiently pure and devoted to be tuned by the vibrations
caused - will find their emotions purified and stimulated, their spirituality
quickened, and their hearts filled with peace, by coming into such close touch
with the unseen realities.
We have now to apply these general principles to concrete
examples, and to see how they explain and justify the sacramental rites found
in all religions.
It will be sufficient if we take as examples three out of the
Seven Sacraments used in the Church Catholic. Two are recognised as obligatory
by all Christians, although extreme Protestants deprive them of their
sacramental character, giving them a declaratory and remembrance value only
instead of a sacramental; yet even among them the heart of true devotion wins
something of the sacramental blessing the head denies. The third is not
recognised as even nominally a Sacrament by Protestant Churches, though it
shows the essential signs of a Sacrament, as given in the definition in the
Catechism of the Church of England already quoted.[See Ante, p. . ] The first
is that of Baptism; the second that of the Eucharist; the third that of
Marriage. The putting of Marriage out of the rank of a Sacrament has much
degraded its lofty ideal, and has led to much of that
loosening of its tie that thinking men deplore.
The Sacrament of Baptism is found in all religions, not only at
the entrance into earth-life, but more generally as a ceremony of purification.
The ceremony which admits the new-born - or adult - incomer into a religion has
a sprinkling with water as an essential part of the rite, and this was as
universal in ancient days as it is now. The Rev. Dr. Giles remarks: "The
idea of using water as emblematic of spiritual washing is too obvious to allow
surprise at the antiquity of this rite. Dr. Hyde, in his treatise on the
Religion of the Ancient Persians, xxxiv, 406, tells us that it prevailed among
that people. ' They do not use circumcision for their
children, but only baptism, or washing for the purification of the soul. They
bring the child to the priest into the church, and, place him in front of the
sun and fire, which ceremony being completed, they
look upon him as more sacred than before. Lord says that they bring the water
for this purpose in bark of the Holm-tree; that tree is in truth the Haum of
the Magi, of which we spoke before on another occasion. Sometimes also it is
otherwise done by immersing him in a large vessel of water, as Tavernier tells
us. After such washing, or baptism, the priest imposes on the child the name
given by the parents".[Christian Records, ] A few weeks after the birth of
a Hindu child a ceremony is performed, a part of which consists in sprinkling
the child with water - such sprinkling entering into all Hindu worship.
Williamson gives authorities for the practice of Baptism in
Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among
non-Christian nations in a passage already quoted, [See Ante, p. . ] and others of the Fathers refer to it.
In most religious communities a minor form of Baptism accompanies
all religious ceremonies, water being used as a symbol of purification, and the
idea being that no man should enter upon, worship until he has purified his
heart and conscience, the outer washing symbolising the inner lustration. In
the Greek and
Whether in the Baptism of initial reception into the Church, or
in these minor lustrations, water is the material agent employed,
the great cleansing fluid in Nature, and therefore the best symbol for
purification. Over this water a mantra, is pronounced, in the English ritual
represented by the prayer, "Sanctify this water to the mystical washing
away of sin", concluding with the formula, "In the name of the
Father, and of the Son. and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen". This is the Word of Power, and it is accompanied by the Sign of
Power, the Sign of the Cross made over the surface of the water.
The Word and the Sign give to the water, as before explained, a
property it previously had not, and it is rightly named "holy water".
The dark powers will not approach it; sprinkled on the body it gives a sense of
peace, and conveys new spiritual life. When a child is baptised, the spiritual
energy given to the water by the Word and the Sign reinforces the spiritual
life in the child, and then the Word of Power is again spoken, this time over
the child, and the Sign is traced on his forehead, and in his subtle bodies the
vibrations are felt, and the summons to guard the life thus sanctified goes
forth through the invisible world; for this Sign is at once purifying and
protective - purifying by the life that is poured forth through it, protective
by the vibrations it sets up in the subtle bodies. Those vibrations form a
guardian wall against the attacks of hostile influences in the invisible
worlds, and every time that holy water is touched, the Word pronounced, and the
Sign made, the energy is renewed, the vibrations are reinforced, both being
recognised as potent in the invisible worlds, and bringing aid to the operator.
In the early Church, Baptism was preceded by a very careful
preparation, those admitted to the Church being mostly converts from
surrounding faiths. A convert passed through three definite stages of
instruction, remaining in each grade till he had mastered its teachings, and he
was then admitted to the Church by Baptism. Only after that was he taught the
Creed, which was not committed to writing, nor ever repeated in the presence of
an unbeliever; it thus served as a sign of recognition, and a proof of the
position of the man who was able to recite it, showing that he was a baptised
member of the Church. How truly in those days the grace conveyed by Baptism was
believed in is shown by the custom of death-bed Baptism that grew up. Believing
in the reality of Baptism, men and women of the world, unwilling to resign its
pleasures or to keep their lives pure from stain, would put off the rite of
Baptism until Death's hand was upon them, so that they might benefit by the
sacramental grace, and pass through Death's portal pure and clean, full of
spiritual energy. Against that abuse some of the great Fathers of the Church
struggled, and struggled effectively. There is a quaint story told by one of
them, I think by S. Athanasius, who was a man of caustic wit, not averse to the
use of humour in the attempt to make his hearers understand at times the folly
or perversity of their behaviour. He told his congregation that he had had a
vision, and had gone up to the gateway of heaven, where S. Peter stood as
Warder. No pleased smile had he for the visitant, but a frown of stern
displeasure. "Athanasius", said he, "why are you continually
sending me these empty bags, carefully sealed up, with nothing inside?" It
was one of the piercing sayings we meet with in Christian antiquity, when these
things were real to Christian men, and not mere forms, as they too often are
today.
The custom of Infant Baptism gradually grew up in the Church, and
hence the instruction which in the early days preceded Baptism came to be the
preparation for Confirmation, when the awakened mind and intelligence take up
and reaffirm the baptismal promises. The reception of the infant into the
Church is seen to be rightly done, when man's life is recognised as being lived
in the three worlds, and when the Spirit and Soul who have come to inhabit the
new-born body are known to be not unconscious and unintelligent, but conscious,
intelligent, and potent in the invisible worlds. It is right and just that the
"Hidden Man of the heart" [1 Pet., iii, 4 ] should be welcomed to the
new stage of his pilgrimage, and that the most helpful influences should be
brought to bear upon the vehicle in which he is to dwell, and which he has to
mould to his service. If the eyes of men were opened, as were of old those of
the servant of Elisha, they would still see the horses and chariots of fire
gathered round the mountain where is the prophet of the Lord.[2
Kings, vi, . ]
We come to the second of the Sacraments selected for study, that
of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, a symbol of the eternal Sacrifice already
explained, the daily sacrifice of the Church Catholic throughout the world
imaging that eternal Sacrifice by which the worlds were made, and by which they
are evermore sustained. It is to be daily offered, as its archetype is
perpetually existent, and men in that act take part in the working of the Law
of Sacrifice, identify themselves with it, recognise its binding nature, and
voluntarily associate themselves with it in its working in the worlds; in such
identification, to partake of the material part of the Sacrament is necessary,
if the identification is to be complete, but many of the benefits may be
shared, and the influence going forth to the worlds may be increased, by devout
worshippers, who associate themselves mentally, but not physically, with the
act.
This great function of Christian worship loses its force and
meaning when it is regarded as nothing more than a mere commemoration of a past
sacrifice, as a pictorial allegory without a deep ensouling truth, as a
breaking of bread and a pouring out of wine without a sharing in the eternal
Sacrifice. So to see it is to make it a mere shell, a dead picture instead of a
living reality. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
communion [the communication of, the sharing in] of the blood of Christ?"
asks the apostle. "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of
the body of Christ? "[1 Cor., x, 16 ] And he goes on to point out that all who eat of a
sacrifice become partakers of a common nature, and are joined into a single
body, which is united to, shares the nature of, that Being who is present in
the sacrifice. A fact of the invisible world is here concerned, and he speaks
with the authority of knowledge. Invisible Beings pour of their essence into
the materials used in any sacramental rite, and those who partake of those
materials - which become assimilated in the body and enter into its ingredients
- are thereby united to those whose essence is in it, and they all share a
common nature. This is true when we take even ordinary food from the hand of
another - part of his nature, his vital magnetism, mingles with our own; how
much more true then when the food has been solemnly and purposely impregnated
with higher magnetisms, which affect the subtle bodies as well as the physical.
If we would understand the meaning and use of the Eucharist we must realise
these facts of the invisible worlds, and we must see in it a link between the
earthly and the heavenly, as well as an act of the universal worship, a
co-operation, an association, with the Law of Sacrifice, else it loses the
greater part of its significance.
The employment of bread and wine as the materials for this
Sacrament - like the use of water in the Sacrament of Baptism - is of very
ancient and general usage. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra, and
similar offerings were made in
The bread stands as the general symbol for the food that builds
up the body, and the wine as symbol of the blood, regarded as the life-fluid,
"for the life of the flesh is in the blood".[Lev.,
xvii, . ] Hence members of a family are said to share the same blood, and to be
of the blood of a person is to be of his kin. Hence, also, the old ceremonies of the "blood-covenant"; when a stranger was
made one of a family or of a tribe, some drops of blood from a member were
transfused into his veins, or he drank them - usually mingled with water-and
was thenceforth considered as being a born member of the family or
tribe, as being of its blood. Similarly, in the Eucharist, the worshippers
partake of the bread, symbolising the body, the nature, of the Christ, and of
the wine symbolising the blood, the life of the Christ, and become of His kin,
one with Him.
The Word of Power is the formula "This is My Body",
"This is My Blood". This it is which works the change which we shall
consider in a moment, and transforms the materials into vehicles of spiritual
energies. The Sign of Power is the hand extended over the bread and the wine,
and the Sign of the Cross should be made upon them, though this is not always
done among Protestants. These are the outer essentials of the Sacrament of the
Eucharist.
It is important to understand the change which takes place in
this Sacrament, for it is more than the magnetisation previously explained,
though this also is wrought. We have here a special instance of a general law.
By the occultist, a visible thing is regarded as the last, the
physical, expression of an invisible truth. Everything is the physical
expression of a thought. An object is but an idea externalised and densified.
All the objects in the world are Divine ideas expressed in physical matter. That being so, the reality of the object does not lie in the outer
form but in the inner life, in the idea that has shaped and moulded the matter
into an expression of itself. In the higher worlds, the matter being
very subtle and plastic, shapes itself very swiftly to
the idea, and changes form as the thought changes. As matter becomes denser,
heavier, it changes form less readily, more slowly, until, in the physical
world, the changes are at their slowest in consequence of the resistance of the
dense matter of which the physical world is composed. Let sufficient time be
given, however, and even this heavy matter changes under the pressure of the
ensouling idea, as may be seen by the graving on the face of the expressions of
habitual thoughts and emotions.
This is the truth which underlies what is called the doctrine of
Transubstantiation, so extraordinarily misunderstood by the ordinary
Protestant. But such is the fate of occult truths when they are presented to
the ignorant. The "substance" that is changed is the idea which makes
a thing to be what it is; "bread" is not mere flour and water; the
idea which governs the mixing, the manipulation, of the flour and water, that
is the "substance" which makes it "bread", and the flour
and water are what are technically called the "accidents", the
arrangements of matter that give form to the idea. With a different idea, or
substance, flour and water would take a different form, as indeed they do when
assimilated by the body. So also chemists have discovered that the same kind
and the same number of chemical atoms may be arranged in different ways and
thus become entirely different things in their properties, though the materials
are unchanged; such "isomeric compounds" are among the most
interesting of modern chemical discoveries; the arrangement of similar atoms
under different ideas gives different bodies.
What, then, is this change of substance in the materials used in
the Eucharist? The idea that makes the object has been changed; in their normal
condition bread and wine are food-stuffs, expressive of the divine ideas of
nutritive objects, objects fitted for the building up of bodies. The new idea
is that of the Christ nature and life, fitted for the building up of the
spiritual nature and life of man. That is the change of substance; the object
remains unchanged in its "accidents", its physical material, but the
subtle matter connected with it has changed under the pressure of the changed
idea, and new properties are imparted by this change. They affect the subtle
bodies of the participants, and attune them to the nature and life of the
Christ. On the "worthiness" of the participant depends the extent to
which he can be thus attuned.
The unworthy participant, subjected to the same process, is
injuriously affected by it, for his nature, resisting the pressure, is bruised
and rent by the forces to which it is unable to respond, as an object may be
broken into pieces by vibrations which it is unable to reproduce.
The worthy partaker, then, becomes one with the Sacrifice, with
the Christ, and so becomes at one with, also united to, the divine Life, which
is the Father of the Christ. Inasmuch as the act of Sacrifice on the side of
form is the yielding up of the life it separates from others to be part of the
common Life, the offering of the separated channel to be a channel of the one
Life, so by that surrender the sacrificer becomes one with God. It is the
giving itself of the lower to be a part of the higher, the yielding of the body
as an instrument of the separated will to be an instrument of the divine Will,
the presenting of men's "bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God".[Rom., xii, . ] Thus it has been truly taught in the Church that
those who rightly take part in the Eucharist enjoy a partaking of the
Christ-life poured out for men. The transmuting of the lower into the higher is
the object of this, as of all, Sacraments. The changing of the lower force by
its union with the loftier is what is sought by those who participate in it; and
those who know the inner truth, and realise the fact of the higher life, may in
any religion, by means of its sacraments, come into fuller, completer touch
with the divine Life that upholds the worlds, if they bring to the rite the
receptive nature, the act of faith, the opened heart, which are necessary for
the possibilities of the Sacrament to be realised.
The Sacrament of Marriage shows out the marks of a Sacrament as
clearly and as definitely as do Baptism and the Eucharist. Both the outer sign
and the inward grace are there. The material is the Ring - the circle which is
the symbol of the everlasting. The Word of Power is the ancient formula,
"In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost".
The Sign of Power is the joining of hands, symbolising the joining of the
lives. These make up the outer essentials of the Sacrament.
The inner grace is the union of mind with mind, of heart with
heart, which makes possible the realisation of the unity of spirit, without
which Marriage is no Marriage, but a mere temporary conjunction of bodies. The
giving and receiving of the ring, the pronouncing of the formula, the joining
of hands, these form the pictorial allegory; if the inner grace be not
received, if the participants do not open themselves to it by their wish for
the union of their whole natures, the Sacrament for them loses its beneficent
properties, and becomes a mere form.
But Marriage has a yet deeper meaning; religions with one voice
have proclaimed it to be the image on earth of the union between the earthly
and the heavenly, the union between God and man. And even then its significance
is not exhausted, for it is the image of the relation between Spirit and
Matter, between the Trinity and the Universe. So deep, so far-reaching, is the
meaning of the joining of man and woman in Marriage.
Herein the man stands as representing the Spirit, the Trinity of
Life, and the woman as representing the Matter, the Trinity of formative
material. One gives life, the other receives and nourishes it. They are
complementary to each other, two inseparable halves of one whole, neither
existing apart from the other. As Spirit implies Matter and Matter Spirit, so
husband implies wife and wife husband. As the abstract Existence manifests in
two aspects, as a duality of Spirit and Matter, neither independent of the
other, but each coming into manifestation with the other, so is humanity
manifested in two aspects - husband and wife, neither able to exist apart, and
appearing together. They are not twain but one, a dual-faced unity. God and the
Universe are imaged in Marriage; thus closely linked are husband and wife.
It is said above that Marriage is also an image of the union
between God and man, between the universal and the individualised Spirits. This
symbolism is used in all the great scriptures of the world-Hindu, Hebrew,
Christian. And it has been extended by taking the individualised Spirit as a
Nation or a Church, a collection of such Spirits knit into a unity. So Isaiah
declared to
If we think of Spirit and Matter as latent, unmanifested, then we
see no production; manifested together, there is evolution. And so when the
halves of humanity are not manifested as husband and wife, there is no
production of fresh life. Moreover, they should be united in order that there
may be a growth of life in each, a swifter evolution, a more rapid progress, by the half that each can give to each, each
supplying what the other lacks. The twain should be blended into one, setting
forth the spiritual possibilities of man. And they show forth also the perfect
Man, in whose nature Spirit and Matter are both completely developed and
perfectly balanced, the divine Man who unites in his own person husband and
wife, the male and female elements in nature, as "God and Man are one
Christ". [Athanasian Creed. ]
Those who thus study the Sacrament of Marriage will understand
why religions have ever regarded Marriage as indissoluble, and have thought it
better that a few ill-matched pairs should suffer for a few years than that the
ideal of true Marriage should be permanently lowered for all. A nation must
choose whether it will adopt as its national ideal a spiritual or an earthly
bond in Marriage, the seeking in it of a spiritual unity, or the regarding it
as merely a physical union. The one is the religious idea of Marriage as a
Sacrament; the other the materialistic idea of it as an ordinary terminable
contract. The student of the Lesser Mysteries must ever see in it a sacramental
rite.
REVELATION
ALL the religions known to us are the custodians of Sacred Books,
and appeal to these books for the settlement of disputed questions. They always
contain the teachings given by the Founder of the religion, or by later
teachers regarded as possessing super-human knowledge. Even when a religion
gives birth to many discordant sects, each sect will
cling to the Sacred Canon, and will put upon its word the interpretation which
best fits in with its own peculiar doctrines. However widely may be separated
in belief the extreme Roman Catholic and the extreme Protestant, they both
appeal to the same Bible. However far apart may be the philosophic Vedantin and
the most illiterate Vallabhacharya, they both regard the same Vedas as supreme.
However bitterly opposed to each other may be the Shias and the Sunnis, they
both regard as sacred the same Kurăn. Controversies and quarrels may arise as
to the meaning of texts, but the Book itself, in every case, is looked on with
the utmost reverence. And rightly so; for all such books contain fragments of
The Revelation, selected by One of the great Ones who hold it in trust; such a
fragment is embodied in what down here we call a Revelation, or a Scripture,
and some part of the world rejoices in it as in a treasure of vast value. The
fragment is chosen according to the needs of the time, the capacity of the
people to whom it is given, the type of the race whom it is intended to
instruct. It is generally given in a peculiar form, in which the outer history,
or story, or song, or psalm, or prophecy, appears to the superficial or
ignorant reader to be the whole book; but in these deeper meanings lie
concealed, sometimes in numbers, sometimes in words constructed on a hidden plan
- a cypher, in fact - sometimes in symbols, recognisable by the instructed,
sometimes in allegories written as histories, and in many other ways. These
Books, indeed, have something of a sacramental character about them, an outer
form and an inner life, an outer symbol and an inner truth. Those only can
explain the hidden meaning who have been trained by those instructed in it;
hence the dictum of S. Peter that "no prophecy of the Scripture is of any
private interpretation". [2 Pet., i, . ] The
elaborate explanations of texts of the Bible, with which the volumes of
patristic literature abound, seem fanciful and overstrained to the prosaic
modern mind. The play upon numbers, upon letters, the apparently fantastic
interpretations of paragraphs that, on the face of them, are ordinary
historical statements of a simple character, exasperate the modern reader, who
demands to have his facts presented clearly and coherently, and above all,
requires what he feels to be solid ground under his feet. He declines absolutely
to follow the light-footed mystic over what seem to him to be quaking morasses,
in a wild chase after dancing will-o'-the-wisps, which appear and disappear
with bewildering and irrational caprice. Yet the men who wrote these
exasperating treatises were men of brilliant intellect and calm judgment, the
master-builders of the Church. And to those who read them aright they are still
full of hints and suggestions, and indicate many an obscure pathway that leads
to the goal of knowledge, and that might otherwise be missed.
We have already seen that Origen, one of the sanest of men, and
versed in occult knowledge, teaches that the Scriptures are three-fold,
consisting of Body, Soul, and Spirit.[See ante, p. . ]
He says that the Body of the Scriptures is made up of the outer words of the
histories and the stories, and he does not hesitate to say that these are not
literally true, but are only stories for the instruction of the ignorant. He even
goes so far as to remark that statements are made in those stories that are
obviously untrue, in order that the glaring contradictions that lie on the
surface may stir people up to inquire as to the real meaning of these
impossible relations. He says that so long as men are ignorant, the Body is
enough for them; it conveys teaching, it gives instruction, and they do not see
the self-contradictions and impossibilities involved in the literal statements,
and therefore are not disturbed by them. As the mind grows, as the intellect
develops, these contradictions and impossibilities strike the attention, and
bewilder the student; then he is stirred up to seek for a deeper meaning, and
he begins to find the Soul of the Scriptures. That Soul is the reward of the
intelligent seeker, and he escapes from the bonds of the letter that killeth.[2 Cor., iii, . ] The Spirit of the Scriptures may only be
seen by the spiritually enlightened man; only those in whom the Spirit is
evolved can understand the spiritual meaning: "The things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit of God. . . which things also we
speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth". [1 Cor., ii, 11, . ]
The reason for this method of Revelation is not far to seek; it
is the only way in which one teaching can be made available for minds at
different stages of evolution, and thus train not only those to whom it is
immediately given, but also those who, later in time, shall have progressed
beyond those to whom the Revelation was first made. Man is progressive; the
outer meaning given long ago to unevolved men must needs be very limited, and
unless something deeper and fuller than this outer meaning were hidden within
it, the value of the Scripture would perish when a few millennia had passed
away. Whereas by this method of successive meanings it is given a perennial
value, and evolved men may find in it hidden treasures, until the day when,
possessing the whole, they no longer need the part.
The world-Bibles, then, are fragments - fragments of Revelation,
and therefore are rightly described as Revelation.
The next deeper sense of the word describes the mass of teaching
held by the great Brotherhood of spiritual Teachers in trust for men; this
teaching is embodied in books, written in symbols, and in these is contained an
account of kosmic laws, of the principles on which the kosmos is founded, of
the methods by which it is evolved, of all the beings that compose it, of its
past, its present, its future; this is The Revelation. This is the priceless
treasure which the Guardians of humanity hold in charge, and from which they
select, from time to time, fragments to form the Bibles of the world.
Thirdly, the Revelation, highest, fullest, best is the
Self-unveiling of Deity in the kosmos, the revealing of attribute after
attribute, power after power, beauty after beauty, in all the various forms
which in their totality compose the universe. He shows His splendour in the
sun, His infinity in the star-flecked fields of space, His strength in
mountains, His purity in snow-clad peaks and translucent air, His energy in
rolling ocean-billows, His beauty in tumbling mountain-torrent in smooth, clear
lake, in cool, deep forest and in sunlit plain, His fearlessness in the hero,
His patience in the saint, His tenderness in mother-love, His protecting care
in father and in king, His wisdom in the philosopher, His knowledge in the
scientist, His healing power in the physician, His justice in the judge, His
wealth in the merchant, His teaching power in the priest, His industry in the
artisan. He whispers to us in the breeze, He smiles on us in the sunshine, He
chides us in disease, He stimulates us, now by success
and now by failure. Everywhere and in everything He gives us glimpses of
Himself to lure us on to love Him, and He hides Himself that we may learn to
stand alone. To know Him everywhere is the true Wisdom; to love Him everywhere
is the true Desire; to serve Him everywhere is the true Action. This
Self-revealing of God is the highest Revelation; all others are subsidiary and
partial.
The inspired man is the man to whom some of this Revelation has
come by the direct action of the universal Spirit on the separated Spirit that
is His offspring, who has felt the illuminating influence of Spirit on Spirit.
No man knows the truth so that he can never lose it, no man knows the truth so
that he can never doubt it, until the Revelation has come to him as though he
stood alone on earth, until the Divine without has spoken to the Divine within,
in the temple of the human heart, and the man thus knows by himself and not by
another.
In a lesser degree a man is inspired when one greater than he
stimulates within him powers which as yet are normally inactive, or even takes
possession of him, temporarily using his body as a vehicle. Such an illuminated
man, at the time of his inspiration, can speak that which is beyond his
knowledge, and utter truths till then unguessed. Truths are sometimes thus
poured out through a human channel for the helping of the world, and some One
greater than the speaker sends down his life into the human vehicle, and they
rush forth from human lips; then a great teacher speaks yet more greatly than
he knows, the Angel of the Lord having touched his lips with fire.[Is., vi, 6, . ] Such are the Prophets of the race, who at
some periods have spoken with overwhelming conviction, with clear insight, with
complete understanding of the spiritual needs of man. Then the words live with
a life immortal, and the speaker is truly a messenger from God. The man who has
thus known can never again quite lose the memory of the knowledge, and he
carries within his heart a certainty which can never quite disappear. The light
may vanish and the darkness come down upon him; the gleam from heaven may fade
and clouds may surround him; threat, question, challenge, may assail him; but
within, his heart there nestles the Secret of Peace - he knows, or knows that
he has known.
That remembrance of true inspiration, that reality of the hidden
life, has been put into beautiful and true words by Frederick Myers, in his
well-known poem, S. Paul. The apostle is speaking of his own experience, and is
trying to give articulate expression to that which he remembers; he is figured
as unable to thoroughly reproduce his knowledge, although he knows and his
certainty does not waver:
So, even I, athirst for His inspiring,
I, who have talked with Him, forget again ;
Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring,
Offer to God a patience and a pain.
Then through the mid complaint of my confession,
Then through the pang and passion of my prayer,
Leaps with a start the shock of His possession,
Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there.
Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter
Mene and Mene in the folds of flame,
Think ye could any memories thereafter
Wholly retrace the couplet as it came?
Lo, if some strange intelligible thunder
Sang to the earth the secret of a star,
Scarce should ye catch, for terror and for wonder,
Shreds of the story that was pealed so far !
Scarcely I catch the words of His
revealing,
Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand.
Only the power that is within me pealing
Lives on my lips, and beckons to my hand.
Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest
Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny ;
Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,
Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.
Rather the world shall doubt when her retrieving
Pours in the rain and rushes from the sod ;
Rather than he in whom the great conceiving
Stirs in his soul to quicken into
God.
Nay, though thou then shouldst strike him from his glory,
Blind and tormented, maddened and alone,
E'en on the cross would he maintain his story,
Yes, and in Hell would whisper, "I have known".
Those who have in any sense realised that God is around them, in
them, and in everything, will be able to understand how a place or an object
may become "sacred" by a slight objectivisation of this perennial
universal Presence, so that those become able to sense Him who do not normally
feel His omnipresence. This is generally effected by
some highly advanced man, in whom the inner Divinity is largely unfolded, and
whose subtle bodies are therefore responsive to the subtler vibrations of
consciousness. Through such a man, or by such a man, spiritual energies may be
poured forth, and these will unite themselves with his pure vital magnetism. He
can then pour them forth on any object, and its ether and bodies of subtler
matter will become attuned to his vibrations, as before explained, and further,
the Divinity within it can more easily manifest. Such an object becomes
"magnetised", and, if this be strongly done, the object will itself
become a magnetic centre, capable in turn of magnetising those who approach it.
Thus a body electrified by an electric machine will affect other bodies near
which it may be placed.
An object thus rendered "sacred" is a very useful
adjunct to prayer and meditation. The subtle bodies of the worshipper are
attuned to its high vibrations, and he finds himself quieted, soothed,
pacified, without effort on his own part. He is thrown into a condition in
which prayer and meditation are easy and fruitful instead of difficult and
barren, and an irksome exercise becomes insensibly delightful. If the object be
a representation of some sacred Person - a Crucifix, a Madonna and Child, an
Angel, a Saint - there is a yet further gain. The Being represented, if his
magnetism has been thrown into the image by the appropriate Word and Sign of
Power, can reinforce that magnetism with a very slight expenditure of spiritual
energy, and may thus influence the devotee, or even show himself through the
image, when otherwise he would not have done so. For in the spiritual world
economy of forces is observed, and a small amount of energy will be expended
where a larger would be withheld.
An application of these same occult laws may be made to explain
the use of all consecrated objects - relics, amulets, etc. They are all
magnetised objects, more or less powerful, or useless, according to the
knowledge, purity, and spirituality of the person who magnetises them.
Places may similarly be made sacred, by the living in them of
saints, whose pure magnetism, radiating from them, attunes the whole atmosphere
to peace-giving vibrations. Sometimes holy men, or Beings from the higher
worlds, will directly magnetise a certain place, as in the case mentioned in
the Fourth Gospel, where an Angel came at a certain season and touched the
water, giving it healing qualities.[S. John, v, . ] In such places even
careless worldly men will sometimes feel the blessed influence, and will be
temporarily softened and inclined toward higher things. The divine Life in each
man is ever trying to subdue the form, and mould it into an expression of
itself and it is easy to see how that Life will be aided by the form being
thrown into vibrations sympathetic with those of a more highly evolved Being,
its own efforts being reinforced by a stronger power. The outer recognition of
this effect is a sense of quiet, calm, and peace; the mind loses its
restlessness, the heart its anxiety. Any one who observes himself will find
that some places are more conducive to calm, to meditation, to religious
thought, to worship, than others. In a room, a building, where there has been a
great deal of worldly thought, of frivolous conversation, of mere rush of
ordinary worldly life, it is far harder to quiet the mind and to concentrate
the thought, than in a place where religious thought has been carried on year
after year, century after century; there the mind becomes calm and
tranquillised insensibly, and that which would have demanded serious effort in
the first place is done without effort in the second.
This is the rationale of places of pilgrimage, of temporary
retreats into seclusion; the man turns inward to seek the God within him, and
is aided by the atmosphere created by thousands of others, who before him have
sought the same in the same place. For in such a place there is not only the
magnetisation produced by a single saint, or by the visit of some great Being
of the invisible world; each person, who visits the spot with a heart full of
reverence and devotion, and is attuned to his vibrations, reinforces those
vibrations with his own life, and leaves the spot better than it was when he
came to it. Magnetic energy slowly disperses, and a sacred object or place
becomes gradually demagnetised if put aside or deserted. It becomes more
magnetised as it is used or frequented. But the presence of the ignorant
scoffer injures such objects and places, by setting up antagonistic vibrations
which weaken those already existing there. As a wave of sound may be met by
another which extinguishes it, and the result is silence, so do the vibrations
of the scoffing thought weaken or extinguish the vibrations of the reverent and
loving one. The effect produced will, of course, vary with the relative
strengths of the vibrations, but the mischievous one cannot be without result,
for the laws of vibration are the same in the higher worlds as in the physical,
and thought vibrations are the expression of real energies.
The reason and the effect of the consecration of churches,
chapels, cemeteries, will now be apparent. The act of consecration is not the
mere public setting aside of a place for a particular purpose; it is the
magnetisation of the place for the benefit of all those who frequent it. For
the visible and the invisible worlds are inter-related, interwoven, each with
each, and those can best serve the visible by whom the energies of the
invisible can be wielded. {
AFTERWORD
WE have reached the end of a small book on a great subject, and
have only lifted a corner of the Veil that hides the Virgin of Eternal Truth
from the careless eyes of men. The hem of her garment only has been seen, heavy
with gold, richly dight with pearls. Yet even this, as it waves slowly,
breathes out celestial fragrances - the sandal and rose-attar of fairer worlds
than ours. What should be the unimaginable glory, if the Veil were lifted, and we saw the splendour of the Face of the divine
Mother, and in Her arms the Child who is the very Truth? Before that Child the
Seraphim ever veil their faces; who then of mortal birth may look on Him and
live?
Yet since in man abides His very Self, who shall forbid him to
pass within the Veil, and to see with "open face the glory of the Lord?". From the Cave to highest Heaven; such was the
pathway of the Word made Flesh, and known as the Way of the Cross. Those who
share the manhood share also the Divinity, and may tread where He has trodden.
"What Thou art, That am I".
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.
The Theosophical Society,