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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser
+Mysteries, by Annie Besant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries
+
+Author: Annie Besant
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2008 [EBook #26938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Erica Hills, Henry Craig, and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: The many inconsistently spelt words in this book
+(e.g. Samskrit/Sanskrit) have been retained as in the original.
+
+
+ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY
+OR
+THE LESSER MYSTERIES.
+
+
+
+BY
+ANNIE BESANT.
+
+
+
+[SECOND EDITION]
+
+
+
+The Theosophical Publishing Society.
+LONDON AND BENARES.
+1905.
+
+
+
+
+     In proceeding to the contemplation of the mysteries of knowledge,
+     we shall adhere to the celebrated and venerable rule of tradition,
+     commencing from the origin of the universe, setting forth those
+     points of physical contemplation which are necessary to be
+     premised, and removing whatever can be an obstacle on the way; so
+     that the ear may be prepared for the reception of the tradition of
+     the Gnosis, the ground being cleared of weeds and fitted for the
+     planting of the vineyard; for there is a conflict before the
+     conflict, and mysteries before the mysteries.--_S. Clement of
+     Alexandria._
+
+     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.--_Ibid._
+
+     He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.--_S. Matthew._
+
+
+
+
+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"[1]--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."[2]
+
+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 Alexandria says quite bluntly, after alluding to the
+Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them underfoot, and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true Light to swinish and untrained hearers."[3]
+
+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[4] 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,[5] 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,"[6] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                              PAGE
+FOREWORD                                      vii.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS                  1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY              36
+
+CHAPTER III.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY              69
+    (_concluded_)
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+  THE HISTORICAL JESUS                        120
+
+CHAPTER V.
+  THE MYTHIC CHRIST                           145
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+  THE MYSTIC CHRIST                           170
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+  THE ATONEMENT                               193
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+  RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION                  231
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+  THE TRINITY                                 253
+
+CHAPTER X.
+  PRAYER                                      276
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+  THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS                     301
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+  SACRAMENTS                                  324
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+  SACRAMENTS (_continued_)                    346
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+  REVELATION                                  369
+
+AFTERWORD                                     386
+
+INDEX                                         388
+
+
+
+
+
+ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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 Early Church, would cause a smile of incredulity. It
+has actually been made a matter of boast that Christianity has no
+secrets, that whatever it has to say it says to all, and whatever it has
+to teach it teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to be so simple,
+that "a way-faring man, though a fool, may not err therein," and the
+"simple Gospel" has become a stock phrase.
+
+It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly that in the Early Church,
+at least, Christianity was no whit behind other great religions in
+possessing a hidden side, and that it guarded, as a priceless treasure,
+the secrets revealed only to a select few in its Mysteries. But ere
+doing this it will be well to consider the whole question of this hidden
+side of religions, and to see why such a side must exist if a religion
+is to be strong and stable; for thus its existence in Christianity will
+appear as a foregone conclusion, and the references to it in the
+writings of the Christian Fathers will appear simple and natural instead
+of surprising and unintelligible. As a historical fact, the existence
+of this esotericism is demonstrable; but it may also be shown that
+intellectually it is a necessity.
+
+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"[7] 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 reappear,
+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 outgrown 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."[8]
+
+
+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
+Krishna, a Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly civilised
+but lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-man of the savage. God
+is a composite photograph of the innumerable Gods who are the
+personifications of the forces of nature. And so forth. It is all summed
+up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a common trunk--human
+ignorance.
+
+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 over-arching 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
+develope 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 develope 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 Alexandria
+mentions this division of the Mysteries. After purification, he says,
+"are the Minor Mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and
+of preliminary preparation for what is to come after; and the Great
+Mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but
+only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things."[9]
+
+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 Greece, such as Plato, went to Saïs and to Thebes to be
+initiated by Egyptian Teachers of Wisdom. The Mithraic Mysteries of the
+Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries and the later Eleusinian
+semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia,
+Chaldea, are familiar in name, at least, as household words. Even in the
+extremely diluted form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their value is most
+highly praised by the most eminent men of Greece, as Pindar, Sophocles,
+Isocrates, Plutarch, and Plato. Especially were they regarded as useful
+with regard to _post-mortem_ existence, as the Initiated learned that
+which ensured his future happiness. Sopater further alleged that
+Initiation established a kinship of the soul with the divine Nature, and
+in the exoteric Hymn to Demeter covert references are made to the holy
+child, Iacchus, and to his death and resurrection, as dealt with in the
+Mysteries.[10]
+
+From Iamblichus, 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,"[11] and was practised
+in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings.
+The theory on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus
+stated: There is ONE, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the
+solitude of His own unity. From THAT arises the Supreme God, the
+Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all things, the Root, the God of
+Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into Light.[12] From Him
+springs the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the Universal Mind,
+the _Nous_ and the incorporeal or intelligible Gods belong to this.
+From this the World-Soul, to which belong the "divine intellectual forms
+which are present with the visible bodies of the Gods."[13] Then come
+various hierarchies of superhuman beings, Archangels, Archons (Rulers)
+or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &c. Man is a being of a lower order,
+allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing them; this
+knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with
+God.[14] In the Mysteries these doctrines are expounded, "the
+progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the
+entire domination of the One,"[15] and, further, these different Beings
+were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere
+presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being
+benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying
+abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a
+union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they are yet in body,
+to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their eternal and
+intelligible principle."[16] For "the soul having a twofold life, one
+being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all
+body,"[17] it is most necessary to learn to separate it from the body,
+that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual and
+divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and the
+truths of the intelligible world.[18] "The presence of the Gods, indeed,
+imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and,
+in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It exhibits
+that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those of
+the body."[19] When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a liberation
+from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy entirely
+more excellent, and participates of divine love and an immense joy."[20]
+By this we gain a divine life, and are rendered in reality divine.[21]
+
+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 Yogî would term high Samâdhi, 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."[22] 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.[23]
+
+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
+Augöeides, 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."[24]
+
+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 Iamblichus
+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 Iamblichus,[25] 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.[26] 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."[27]
+
+The Pythagorean School in Magna Græcia was closed at the end of the
+sixth century B.C., owing to the persecution of the civil power, but
+other communities existed, keeping up the sacred tradition.[28] Mead
+states that Plato intellectualised it, in order to protect it from an
+increasing profanation, and the Eleusinian rites preserved some of its
+forms, having lost its substance. The Neo-Platonists inherited from
+Pythagoras and Plato, and their works should be studied by those who
+would realise something of the grandeur and the beauty preserved for
+the world in the Mysteries.
+
+The Pythagorean School itself may serve as a type of the discipline
+enforced. On this Mead gives many interesting details,[29] and remarks:
+"The authors of antiquity are agreed that this discipline had succeeded
+in producing the highest examples, not only of the purest chastity and
+sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a taste for
+serious pursuits which was unparalleled. This is admitted even by
+Christian writers." The School had outer disciples, leading the family
+and social life, and the above quotation refers to these. In the inner
+School were three degrees--the first of Hearers, who studied for two
+years in silence, doing their best to master the teachings; the second
+degree was of Mathematici, wherein were taught geometry and music, the
+nature of number, form, colour, and sound; the third degree was of
+Physici, who mastered cosmogony and metaphysics. This led up to the true
+Mysteries. Candidates for the School must be "of an unblemished
+reputation and of a contented disposition."
+
+The close identity between the methods and aims pursued in these various
+Mysteries and those of Yoga in India is patent to the most superficial
+observer. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the nations of
+antiquity drew from India; all alike drew from the one source, the Grand
+Lodge of Central Asia, which sent out its Initiates to every land. They
+all taught the same doctrines, and pursued the same methods, leading to
+the same ends. But there was much intercommunication between the
+Initiates of all nations, and there was a common language and a common
+symbolism. Thus Pythagoras journeyed among the Indians, and received in
+India a high Initiation, and Apollonius of Tyana later followed in his
+steps. Quite Indian in phrase as well as thought were the dying words of
+Plotinus: "Now I seek to lead back the Self within me to the
+All-self."[30]
+
+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."[31] 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."[32] 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."[33]
+
+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."[34] 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."[35]
+"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."[36]
+
+Nor were the Hebrews without their secret knowledge and their Schools of
+Initiation. The company of prophets at Naioth presided over by
+Samuel[37] formed such a School, and the oral teaching was handed down
+by them. Similar Schools existed at Bethel and Jericho,[38] and in
+Cruden's _Concordance_[39] there is the following interesting note: "The
+Schools or Colleges of the prophets are the first [schools] of which we
+have any account in Scripture; where the children of the prophets, that
+is, their disciples, lived in the exercises of a retired and austere
+life, in study and meditation, and reading of the law of God.... These
+Schools, or Societies, of the prophets were succeeded by the
+Synagogues." The _Kabbala_, which contains the semi-public teaching, is,
+as it now stands, a modern compilation, part of it being the work of
+Rabbi Moses de Leon, who died A.D. 1305. It consists of five books,
+Bahir, Zohar, Sepher Sephiroth, Sepher Yetzirah, and Asch Metzareth, and
+is asserted to have been transmitted orally from very ancient times--as
+antiquity is reckoned historically. Dr. Wynn Westcott says that "Hebrew
+tradition assigns the oldest parts of the Zohar to a date antecedent to
+the building of the second Temple;" and Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai is said
+to have written down some of it in the first century A.D. The Sepher
+Yetzirah is spoken of by Saadjah Gaon, who died A.D. 940, as "very
+ancient."[40] Some portions of the ancient oral teaching have been
+incorporated in the _Kabbala_ as it now stands, but the true archaic
+wisdom of the Hebrews remains in the guardianship of a few of the true
+sons of Israel.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+_(a)_ 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 wide-spread
+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 "Holy Place," in the
+Temple, so that all who are capable of receiving it may follow its lines
+of published thought; and secondly, Occult Christianity will again
+descend into the Adytum, dwelling behind the Veil which guards the "Holy
+of Holies," into which only the Initiate may enter. Then again will
+occult teaching be within the reach of those who qualify themselves to
+receive it, according to the ancient rules, those who are willing in
+modern days to meet the ancient demands, made on all those who would
+fain know the reality and truth of spiritual things.
+
+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
+exstasy, 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 kingdom of God, but
+unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.'" And
+later: "With many such parables spake He the word unto them, as they
+were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not unto them; and
+when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples."[41] Mark
+the significant words, "when they were alone," and the phrase, "them
+that are without." So also in the version of S. Matthew: "Jesus sent the
+multitude away, and went into the house; and His disciples came unto
+Him." These teachings given "in the house," the innermost meanings of
+His instructions, were alleged to be handed on from teacher to teacher.
+The Gospel gives, it will be noted, the allegorical mystic explanation,
+that which we have called The Lesser Mysteries, but the deeper meaning
+was said to be given only to the Initiates.
+
+Again, Jesus tells even His apostles: "I have yet many things to say to
+you, but ye cannot bear them now."[42] Some of them were probably said
+after His death, when He was seen of His disciples, "speaking of the
+things pertaining to the kingdom of God."[43] None of these have been
+publicly recorded, but who can believe that they were neglected or
+forgotten, and were not handed down as a priceless possession? There was
+a tradition in the Church that He visited His apostles for a
+considerable period after His death, for the sake of giving them
+instruction--a fact that will be referred to later--and in the famous
+Gnostic treatise, the _Pistis Sophia_, we read: "It came to pass, when
+Jesus had risen from the dead, that He passed eleven years speaking with
+His disciples and instructing them."[44] Then there is the phrase, which
+many would fain soften and explain away: "Give not that which is holy to
+the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine"[45]--a precept which
+is of general application indeed, but was considered by the early
+Church to refer to the secret teachings. It should be remembered that
+the words had not the same harshness of sound in the ancient days as
+they have now; for the words "dogs"--like "the vulgar," "the
+profane"--was applied by those within a certain circle to all who were
+outside its pale, whether by a society or association, or by a
+nation--as by the Jews to all Gentiles.[46] It was sometimes used to
+designate those who were outside the circle of Initiates, and we find it
+employed in that sense in the early Church; those who, not having been
+initiated into the Mysteries, were regarded as being outside "the
+kingdom of God," or "the spiritual Israel," had this name applied to
+them.
+
+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."[47]
+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."[48] 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,"[49] 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.[50] 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,"[51] 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."[52] 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,[53] those 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.[54] 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 Kingdom of Heaven, such entrance being more
+difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; with men
+such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.[55] Only
+God in man can pass that barrier.
+
+This text has been variously explained away, it being obviously
+impossible to take it in its surface meaning, that a rich man cannot
+enter a post-mortem state of happiness. Into that state the rich man may
+enter as well as the poor, and the universal practice of Christians
+shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches imperil their
+happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven
+be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that
+knowledge of God which is Eternal Life[56] cannot be gained till
+everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything
+has been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which
+henceforth may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give
+up his inner wealth as well, so far as he holds it as his own against
+the world; until he is stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway.
+Such has ever been a condition of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience,
+chastity," has been the vow of the candidate.
+
+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."[57]
+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;"[58] this is the first Initiation;
+a later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire,"[59] 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.[60] How thoroughly this
+imagery was familiar among the mystic of the Jews is shown by the
+surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic
+phraseology: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these
+things?"[61]
+
+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."[62] 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,"[63] 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.'[64] 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[65] I have laid the foundation,' and 'ye are the temple
+of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.' 'Let a man so account
+of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of
+God.'"
+
+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."[66] 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."[67] These Colossians he bids pray
+"that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of
+Christ,"[68] a passage to which S. Clement refers as one in which the
+apostle "clearly reveals that knowledge belongs not to all."[69] So
+also he writes to his loved Timothy, bidding him select his deacons from
+those who hold "the Mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," that
+great "Mystery of Godliness," that he had learned,[70] knowledge of
+which was necessary for the teachers of the Church.
+
+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,"[71] 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,"[72] 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"[73]--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: "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy
+trust"[74]--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"[75]--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."[76]
+
+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."[77] 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.[78] 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."[79]
+
+The ordinary believer had "put on Christ;" "as many of you as have been
+baptised into Christ have put on Christ."[80] 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_."[81] Already he was their
+spiritual father, having "begotten you through the gospel."[82] 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;"[83] 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 fulness of Christ."[84] Then he, as S.
+Paul was doing, filled up the sufferings of Christ in his own flesh,[85]
+and always bore "about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,"[86] so
+that he could truly say: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I
+live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."[87] Thus was the Apostle
+himself suffering; thus he describes himself. And when the struggle is
+over, how different is the calm tone of triumph from the strained effort
+of the earlier years: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
+departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
+course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a
+crown of righteousness."[88] This was the crown given to "him that
+overcometh," of whom it is said by the ascended Christ: "I will make him
+a pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go no more out."[89] For
+after the "Resurrection" the Initiate has become the Perfect Man, the
+Master, and He goes out no more from the Temple, but from it serves and
+guides the worlds.
+
+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.[90]
+Referring to the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, he speaks of the
+Red 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.[91]
+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.[92] The writer of the Epistle
+to the Hebrews allegorises the whole Jewish system of worship. In the
+Temple he sees a pattern of the heavenly Temple, in the High Priest he
+sees Christ, in the sacrifices the offering of the spotless Son; the
+priests of the Temple are but "the example and shadow of heavenly
+things," of the heavenly priesthood serving in "the true tabernacle." A
+most elaborate allegory is thus worked out in chapters iii.-x., and the
+writer alleges that the Holy Ghost thus signified the deeper meaning;
+all was "a figure for the time."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY(_concluded_).
+
+(_(b)_) 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 Early Church, who bear witness to the existence of the Mysteries.
+For among these are pupils of the Apostles themselves, though the most
+definite statements belong to those removed from the Apostles by one
+intermediate teacher. Now, as soon as we begin to study the writings of
+the Early Church, we are met by the facts that there are allusions which
+are only intelligible by the existence of the Mysteries, and then
+statements that the Mysteries are existing. This might, of course, have
+been expected, seeing the point at which the New Testament leaves the
+matter, but it is satisfactory to find the facts answer to the
+expectation.
+
+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,[93] 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"[94]--writing, apparently, before reaching full Initiation.
+Barnabas speaks of communicating "some portion of what I have myself
+received,"[95] and after expounding the Law mystically, declares that
+"we then, rightly understanding His commandments, explain them as the
+Lord intended."[96] Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, a disciple of S.
+John,[97] 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,"[98] and he speaks of them as "initiated into the
+mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred."[99] 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 æons, 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."[100] 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."[101]
+
+We come next to S. Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the two
+writers of the second and third centuries who tell us most about the
+Mysteries in the Early Church; though the general atmosphere is full of
+mystic allusions, these two are clear and categorical in their
+statements that the Mysteries were a recognised institution.
+
+Now S. Clement was a disciple of Pantænus, 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,"[102] his link with the Apostles
+themselves consisting thus of only one intermediary. He was the head of
+the Catechetical School of Alexandria in A.D. 189, and died about A.D.
+220. Origen, born about A.D. 185, was his pupil, and he is, perhaps,
+the most learned of the Fathers, and a man of the rarest moral beauty.
+These are the witnesses from whom we receive the most important
+testimony as to the existence of definite Mysteries in the Early Church.
+
+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,"[103] and also describes them as memoranda of the teachings
+he had himself received from Pantænus. 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[104] 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."[105]
+
+This passage, if it stood alone, would suffice to establish the
+existence of a secret teaching in the Early Church. But it stands by no
+means alone. In Chapter xii. of this same Book I., headed, "The
+Mysteries of the Faith not to be divulged to all," Clement declares
+that, since others than the wise may see his work, "it is requisite,
+therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son of God
+taught." Purified tongue of the speaker, purified ears of the hearer,
+these were necessary. "Such were the impediments in the way of my
+writing. And even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them under foot and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true light, to swinish and untrained hearers. For scarcely could
+anything which they could hear be more ludicrous than these to the
+multitude; nor any subjects on the other hand more admirable or more
+inspiring to those of noble nature. But the wise do not utter with their
+mouth what they reason in council. 'But what ye hear in the ear,' said
+the Lord, 'proclaim upon the houses'; bidding them receive the secret
+traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft and
+conspicuously; and as we have heard in the ear, so to deliver them to
+whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without
+distinction, what is said to them in parables. But there is only a
+delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth sown sparse and
+broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up seeds like
+jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each one of them will
+germinate and will produce corn."
+
+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 undazzled 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."[106] He
+then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding Pythagorean,
+Hebrew, Egyptian,[107] 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?"[108] 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 25-27. "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 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."[109] Further referring to S. Paul, he
+comments on his remark to the Romans that he will "come in the fulness
+of the blessing of Christ,"[110] and says that he thus designates "the
+spiritual gift and the Gnostic interpretation, while being present he
+desires to impart to them present as 'the fulness of Christ, according
+to the revelation of the Mystery sealed in the ages of eternity, but now
+manifested by the prophetic Scriptures'[111].... 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.'"[112]
+
+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."[113] 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."[114]
+
+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.[115] S. Clement naturally confined the higher
+instruction to the learned. "Our Gnostic will be deeply learned,"[116]
+he says. "Now the Gnostic must be erudite."[117] 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."[118] "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."[119] "The Gnostic avails himself of branches of
+learning as auxiliary preparatory exercises."[120] 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."[121] 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_,"[122] 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
+Hermas, 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."[123]
+
+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.[124]
+
+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."[125]
+
+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.'"[126]
+
+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."[127] 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 on high."[128]
+
+So also, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Chap, xv., dealing
+with the episode of the Syro-Phœnician 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."[129] Sinners came to be
+healed: "For there are in the divinity of the Word some helps towards
+the cure of those who are sick.... Others, again, which to the pure in
+soul and body exhibit the 'revelation of the Mystery, which was kept
+secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures
+of the prophets,' and 'by the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,' which
+'appearing' is manifested to each one of those who are perfect, and
+which enlightens the reason in the true knowledge of things."[130] Such
+appearances of divine Beings took place, we have seen, in the Pagan
+Mysteries, and those of the Church had equally glorious visitants. "God
+the Word," he says, "was sent as a physician to sinners, but as a
+Teacher of Divine Mysteries to those who are already pure, and who sin
+no more."[131] "Wisdom will not enter into the soul of a base man, nor
+dwell in a body that is involved in sin;" hence these higher teachings
+are given only to those who are "athletes in piety and in every virtue."
+
+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."[132] Such
+only might learn the realities of the unseen worlds, and might enter
+into the sacred precincts where, as of old, angels were the teachers,
+and where knowledge was given by sight and not only by words. It is
+impossible not to be struck with the different tone of these Christians
+from that of their modern successors. With them perfect purity of life,
+the practice of virtue, the fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail
+of outer conduct, the perfection of righteousness, were--as with the
+Pagans--only the beginning of the way instead of the end. Nowadays
+religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its object when
+it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted its
+highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the
+Beatific Vision.
+
+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."[133]
+
+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."[134] 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 Israel the cord of his inheritance."
+This is the wording of the Septuagint, not that of the English
+authorised version, but it is very suggestive of the title the "Lord"
+being regarded as that of the Ruling Angel of the Jews only, and not of
+the "Most High," _i.e._ God. This view has disappeared, from ignorance,
+and hence the impropriety of many of the statements referring to the
+"Lord," when they are transferred to the "Most High," _e.g._ Judges i.
+19.
+
+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."[135] 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...."[136]
+
+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 ..."[137] as did Celsus.
+
+After remarking that "the object of Christianity is that we should
+become wise,"[138] 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."[139]
+
+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."[140] 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."[141] 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."[142] 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.[143] "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."[144] 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."[145] 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.[146]
+
+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."[147] 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."[148] But as the doctrines in the
+creeds are to be found clearly stated in the Gospels and Epistles, this
+position is wholly untenable, all these having been already divulged to
+the world at large; and in all of them the members of the Church were
+certainly thoroughly instructed. The repeated statements as to secrecy
+become meaningless if thus explained. The Cardinal, however, says that
+whatever "has not been thus authenticated, whether it was prophetical
+information or comment on the past dispensations, is, from the
+circumstances of the case, lost to the Church."[149] That is very
+probably, in fact certainly, true, so far as the Church is concerned,
+but it is none the less recoverable.
+
+Commenting on Irenæus, 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."[150] In a part of the section dealing
+with the allegorising method, he writes in reference to the sacrifice of
+Isaac, &c., as "typical of the New Testament revelation": "In
+corroboration of this remark, let it be observed, that there seems to
+have been[151] 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."[152]
+
+The social and political convulsions that accompanied its dying now
+began to torture the vast frame of the Roman Empire, and even the
+Christians were caught up in the whirlpool of selfish warring interests.
+We still find scattered references to special knowledge imparted to the
+leaders and teachers of the Church, knowledge of the heavenly
+hierarchies, instructions given by angels, and so on. But the lack of
+suitable pupils caused the Mysteries to be withdrawn as an institution
+publicly known to exist, and teaching was given more and more secretly
+to those rarer and rarer souls, who by learning, purity, and devotion
+showed themselves capable of receiving it. No longer were schools to be
+found wherein the preliminary teachings were given, and with the
+disappearance of these the "door was shut."
+
+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 exstasy, to spiritual vision. This
+latter, however, divorced from knowledge, rarely attained the true
+exstasis, 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."[153]
+
+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 Europe of the Middle Ages, by his force of
+character no less than by his learning and piety. He asserts
+"Revelation" as one source of knowledge, Scripture and tradition being
+the two channels in which it runs, and the influence, seen in his
+writings, of the Pseudo-Dionysius links him to the Neo-Platonists. The
+second source is Reason, and here the channels are the Platonic
+philosophy and the methods of Aristotle--the latter an alliance that did
+Christianity no good, for Aristotle became an obstacle to the advance of
+the higher thought, as was made manifest in the struggles of Giordano
+Bruno, the Pythagorean. Thomas Aquinas was canonised in A.D. 1323, and
+the great Dominican remains as a type of the union of theology and
+philosophy--the aim of his life. These belong to the great Church of
+western Europe, vindicating her claim to be regarded as the transmitter
+of the holy torch of mystic learning. Around her there also sprang up
+many sects, deemed heretical, yet containing true traditions of the
+sacred secret learning, the Cathari and many others, persecuted by a
+Church jealous of her authority, and fearing lest the holy pearls should
+pass into profane custody. In this century also S. Elizabeth of Hungary
+shines out with sweetness and purity, while Eckhart (A.D. 1260-1329)
+proves himself a worthy inheritor of the Alexandrian Schools. Eckhart
+taught that "The Godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not
+only by man but also by Itself; It is darkness and absolute
+indeterminateness, _Nicht_ in contrast to _Icht_, or definite and
+knowable existence. Yet It is the potentiality of all things, and Its
+nature is, in a triadic process, to come to consciousness of Itself as
+the triune God. Creation is not a temporal act, but an eternal
+necessity, of the divine nature. I am as necessary to God, Eckhart is
+fond of saying, as God is necessary to me. In my knowledge and love God
+knows and loves Himself."[154]
+
+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, Iamblichus, and
+Proclus, who in turn followed Plato and Pythagoras.[155] 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 Augustinian 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 à 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 exstatic--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 Böhme (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 Rome in
+canonising these, wiser than the Reformation that persecuted Böhme, but
+the spirit of the Reformation was ever intensely anti-mystical, and
+wherever its breath hath passed the fair flowers of mysticism have
+withered as under the sirocco.
+
+Rome, 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.[156]
+
+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 Norwich, of the fourteenth
+century, jewels of Christendom, too little known, but justifying
+Christianity to the world.
+
+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 Lévi,
+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."[157]
+
+Will the Churches of to-day 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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.[158]
+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 again until Christ be formed in you";[159] here S. Paul obviously
+cannot refer to a historical Jesus, but to some forthputting 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;[160] 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 Sorrows, 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 Palestine B.C. 105, during the consulate of Publius Rutilius Rufus
+and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. His parents were well-born though poor, and
+he was educated in a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. His fervent
+devotion and a gravity beyond his years led his parents to dedicate him
+to the religious and ascetic life, and soon after a visit to Jerusalem,
+in which the extraordinary intelligence and eagerness for knowledge of
+the youth were shown in his seeking of the doctors in the Temple, he was
+sent to be trained in an Essene community in the southern Judæan desert.
+When he had reached the age of nineteen he went on to the Essene
+monastery near Mount Serbal, a monastery which was much visited by
+learned men travelling from Persia and India to Egypt, and where a
+magnificent library of occult works--many of them Indian of the
+Trans-Himâlayan regions--had been established. From this seat of mystic
+learning he proceeded later to Egypt. He had been fully instructed in
+the secret teachings which were the real fount of life among the
+Essenes, and was initiated in Egypt as a disciple of that one sublime
+Lodge from which every great religion has its Founder. For Egypt has
+remained one of the world-centres of the true Mysteries, whereof all
+semi-public Mysteries are the faint and far-off reflections. The
+Mysteries spoken of in history as Egyptian were the shadows of the true
+things "in the Mount," and there the young Hebrew received the solemn
+consecration which prepared him for the Royal Priesthood he was later to
+attain. So superhumanly pure and so full of devotion was he, that in his
+gracious manhood he stood out pre-eminently from the severe and somewhat
+fanatical ascetics among whom he had been trained, shedding on the stern
+Jews around him the fragrance of a gentle and tender wisdom, as a
+rose-tree strangely planted in a desert would shed its sweetness on the
+barrenness around. The fair and stately grace of his white purity was
+round him as a radiant moonlit halo, and his words, though few, were
+ever sweet and loving, winning even the most harsh to a temporary
+gentleness, and the most rigid to a passing softness. Thus he lived
+through nine-and-twenty years of mortal life, growing from grace to
+grace.
+
+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 Rome. Ere
+it started on its journey a World-Saviour must appear, to stand in
+blessing beside the cradle of the infant Hercules.
+
+A mighty "Son of God" was to take flesh upon earth, a supreme Teacher,
+"full of grace and truth"--[161] 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,"[162] 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,[163] and
+from that time forward "Jesus began to preach,"[164] and was that
+wondrous mystery, "God manifest in the flesh"[165]--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?"[166] 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,[167] 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 Judæa, attracting no attention among the many apparently
+similar communities of the time, studying the profound truths He taught
+them and acquiring "the gifts of the Spirit."
+
+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."[168] They had not so
+far learned the distribution of the angelic orders, of part whereof
+Ignatius speaks.[169] 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."[170] 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;[171] by that knowledge men became Christs for such "men are
+myself, and I am these men," for Christ is that highest Mystery.[172]
+Knowing that, men are "transformed into pure light and are brought into
+the light."[173] 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."[174]
+
+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 Judæa
+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 Michelangelo, that shone before the eyes of Murillo, and that gave
+the power that raised the marvels of the world, the Duomo 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 à 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+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 differens Cultes_, of
+Dupuis' _Origine 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 Early Church. Justin Martyr, for instance,
+crowds his pages with references to the religions of his time, and if a
+modern assailant of Christianity would cite a number of cases in which
+Christian teachings are identical with those of elder religions, he can
+find no better guides than the apologists of the second century. They
+quote Pagan teachings, stories, and symbols, pleading that the very
+identity of the Christian with these should prevent the off-hand
+rejection of the latter as in themselves incredible. A curious reason
+is, indeed, given for this identity, one that will scarcely find many
+adherents in modern days. Says Justin Martyr: "Those who hand down the
+myths which the poets have made adduce no proof to the youths who learn
+them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the
+influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human
+race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the
+Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished
+by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the
+impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the
+things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales,
+like the things which were said by the poets." "And the devils, indeed,
+having heard this washing published by the prophet, instigated those who
+enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and
+burnt offerings, also to sprinkle themselves; and they cause them also
+to wash themselves entirely as they depart." "Which [the Lord's Supper]
+the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding
+the same thing to be done."[175] "For I myself, when I discovered the
+wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine
+doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them,
+laughed."[176]
+
+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 Apollinarian 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."[177]
+
+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.[178]
+
+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."[179]
+
+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
+Krishna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also
+with the recurrent crown of stars, and with her child Tammuz on her
+knee. Mercury and Æsculapius, Bacchus and Hercules, Perseus and the
+Dioscuri, Mithras and Zarathustra, were all of divine and human birth.
+
+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."[180]
+
+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 Rome, in order that while
+the heathen were busy with their ceremonies [the Brumalia, in honour of
+Bacchus] the Christians might perform their rites undisturbed.' Gibbon
+in his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, writes: 'The [Christian]
+Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his [Christ's
+birth] fixed the solemn festival to the 25th December, the Brumalia or
+winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
+Sun.' King, in his _Gnostics and their Remains_, also says: 'The ancient
+festival held on the 25th December in honour of the birthday of the
+Invincible One,[181] and celebrated by the great games at the Circus,
+was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the birth of Christ,
+the precise date of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown;'
+while at the present day Canon Farrar writes that 'all attempts to
+discover the month and day of the nativity are useless. No data whatever
+exist to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy.'
+From the foregoing it is apparent that the great festival of the winter
+solstice has been celebrated during past ages, and in widely separated
+lands, in honour of the birth of a God, who is almost invariably alluded
+to as a 'Saviour,' and whose mother is referred to as a pure virgin. The
+striking resemblances, too, which have been instanced not only in the
+birth but in the life of so many of these Saviour-Gods are far too
+numerous to be accounted for by any mere coincidence."[182]
+
+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, Mâyâdevî, 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.[183]
+
+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 hallmark 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 Constantinople, held about the year 680, that
+it was ordained that instead of the ancient symbol, the figure of a
+_man_ fastened to a cross should be represented. This canon was
+confirmed by Pope Adrian I."[184] The very ancient Pisces is also
+assigned to Jesus, and He is thus pictured in the catacombs.
+
+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 Babylonia and Syria, as were Adonis in
+Syria and Greece, and Attis in Phrygia, pictured "as a man fastened with
+a lamb at the foot."[185] Mithras' death was similarly celebrated in
+Persia, and that of Bacchus and Dionysius--one and the same--in Greece.
+In Mexico the same idea re-appears, as usual accompanied with the cross.
+
+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 that the name of Easter has been traced to the virgin-mother of
+the slain Tammuz, Ishtar.[186]
+
+It is interesting also to notice that the fast preceding the death at
+the vernal equinox,--the modern Lent--is found in Mexico, Egypt, Persia,
+Babylon, Assyria, Asia Minor, in some cases definitely for forty
+days.[187]
+
+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 midnight sky was filled with the rejoicing hosts of the
+celestials, and
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MYSTIC CHRIST.
+
+
+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,[188] 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."[189] 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.[190] Intelligent also must they be, of well-developed and
+well-trained minds.[191] 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 Chrêstos 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."[192] 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."[193] 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."[194] 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.[195] 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."[196] 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."[197] 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."[198] 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,"[199] the disciple of
+Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he
+did not follow with them.[200] Further, he must acquire the _Faith_ to
+which nothing is impossible,[201] and the _Balance_ which is described
+by the Apostle.[202] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are
+above,"[203] and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union
+with God.[204] 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 high
+point, accompanying it with moral development, brings the evolving man
+to the condition of the candidate. The second aspect of the Spirit is
+that of Love, and the evolution of that is the evolution of the Christ.
+In the true Mysteries this evolution is undergone--the disciple's life
+is the Mystery Drama, and the Great Initiations mark its stages. In the
+Mysteries performed on the physical plane these used to be dramatically
+represented, and the ceremonies followed in many respects "the pattern"
+ever shown forth "on the Mount," for they were the shadows in a
+deteriorating age of the mighty Realities in the spiritual world.
+
+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,"[205] 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."[206] 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."[207]
+
+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
+the translation reads: "and was incarnate _by_ the Holy Ghost _of_ the
+Virgin Mary."[208] 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,[209] so that both the life and the matter
+surround Him as a vesture."[210]
+
+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 all 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 Judæa, 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[211] 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.[212] 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 comes 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 pourtrayed 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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 own destruction."[213] 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 Early Church on the doctrine of the
+Atonement was that Christ, as the Representative of Humanity, faced and
+conquered Satan, the representative of the Dark Powers, who held
+humanity in bondage, wrested his captive from him, and set him free.
+Slowly, as Christian teachers lost touch with spiritual truths, and they
+reflected their own increasing intolerance and harshness on the pure and
+loving Father of the teachings of the Christ, they represented Him as
+angry with man, and the Christ was made to save man from the wrath of
+God instead of from the bondage of evil. Then legal phrases intruded,
+still further materialising the once spiritual idea, and the "scheme of
+redemption" was forensically outlined. "The seal was set on the
+'redemption scheme' by Anselm in his great work, _Cur Deus Homo_, and
+the doctrine which had been slowly growing into the theology of
+Christendom was thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church.
+Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, alike
+believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character of the atonement
+wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between them on this point. I
+prefer to allow the Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the
+character of the atonement.... Luther teaches that 'Christ did truly and
+effectually feel for all mankind the wrath of God, malediction, and
+death.' Flavel says that 'to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God
+without mixture, to the very torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and
+that by the hand of his own father.' The Anglican homily preaches that
+'sin did pluck God out of heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains
+of death,' and that man, being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of the
+devil, 'was ransomed by the death of his only and well-beloved son'; the
+'heat of his wrath,' 'his burning wrath,' could only be 'pacified' by
+Jesus, 'so pleasant was the sacrifice and oblation of his son's death.'
+Edwards, being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin
+being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty of sin,
+being twice inflicted, first on Jesus, the substitute of mankind, and
+then on the lost, a portion of mankind; so he, in common with most
+Calvinists, finds himself compelled to restrict the atonement to the
+elect, and declared that Christ bore the sins, not of the world, but of
+the chosen out of the world; he suffers 'not for the world, but for them
+whom thou hast given me.' But Edwards adheres firmly to the belief in
+substitution, and rejects the universal atonement for the very reason
+that 'to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that
+he died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed.' He
+declares that 'Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins'; that
+'God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell
+for,' sin. Owen regards Christ's sufferings as 'a full valuable
+compensation to the justice of God for all the sins' of the elect, and
+says that he underwent 'that same punishment which ... they themselves
+were bound to undergo.'"[214]
+
+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."[215]
+
+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 of
+sacrifice into their most solemn rites. In Hinduism, the dawn of
+manifestation is said to be by sacrifice,[216] mankind is emanated with
+sacrifice,[217] and it is Deity who sacrifices Himself;[218] 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,[219] 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-mazdâo was born of an act of sacrifice.[220]
+
+In the Christian religion the same idea is indicated in the phrase: "the
+Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,"[221] 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."[222]
+
+"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."[223]
+
+When the Logos comes forth from "the bosom of the Father" in that "Day"
+when He is said to be "begotten,"[224] the dawn of the Day of Creation,
+of Manifestation, when by Him God "made the worlds,"[225] 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.[226]
+
+"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."[227]
+
+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"[228] 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.[229]
+
+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,"[230] 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,[231] 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 fulness, "the power of an
+endless life."[232]
+
+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
+reflexions.
+
+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"[233] 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"[234] 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."[235] 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,'[236] 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."[237]
+
+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."[238]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+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 death-like 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."[239]
+
+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 subdivision 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."[240] 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.[241]
+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,[242] 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 Man.
+
+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 anæsthetics,
+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
+subdivision 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."[243] 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,[244] can realise the union of the Son with the Father.[245] 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."[246] 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 not 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,"[247] 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
+"Paradise," or as a "waiting period." The heavenly world is almost
+universally, in modern Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no
+very definite or general idea as to its nature, or as to the progress or
+stationary condition of those attaining to it. In early Christianity
+this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the
+progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the
+pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result
+was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition,
+though often a very prolonged one, lasting for "an age"--as stated in
+the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the
+man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress--and not
+"everlasting," as in the mistranslation of the English authorised
+version.[248]
+
+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, &c., 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,"[249] 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."[250]
+
+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."[251]
+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."[252] 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."[253] 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,"[254] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+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."[255] "Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses, "The Lord
+our God is one Lord."[256] "To us there is but one God,"[257] declares
+S. Paul. "There is no God but God," affirms the founder of Islâm, and
+makes the phrase the symbol of his faith. One Existence unbounded, known
+in Its fulness 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, Kadmon the pure Light, and En Soph the Infinite,[258]
+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.'"[259]
+
+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
+Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus; it was the
+fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy;
+it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the
+Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be
+quoted from Philo on the impossibility that the first self-existing
+Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in
+Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord Himself spoke no new
+doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when
+they declared 'that no man had seen God at any time.' In conformity with
+this principle the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures,
+instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity,
+had interposed either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of
+communication. According to one accredited tradition alluded to by S.
+Stephen, the law was delivered 'by the disposition of angels'; according
+to another this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called
+the Angel of the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others the Metatron. But the
+more ordinary representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind
+of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the
+same appellation is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and
+the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish
+commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to
+the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
+been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme."[260]
+
+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; Brahmâ, 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 Amitâbha, 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: "Om! Thou art Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Mahesha
+(Shiva) ... I adore Thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names and
+under various forms, in the shape of Buddha, the God of Mercy."[261]
+
+In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In Egypt it
+dominated all religious worship. "We have a hieoroglyphical inscription
+in the British Museum as early as the reign of Senechus of the eighth
+century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity
+in Unity already formed part of their religion."[262] This is true of a
+far earlier date. Râ, Osiris, and Horus formed one widely worshipped
+Trinity; Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshipped at Abydos; other names
+are given in different cities, and the triangle is the frequently used
+symbol of the Triune God. The idea which underlay these Trinities,
+however named, is shown in a passage quoted from Marutho, in which an
+oracle, rebuking the pride of Alexander the Great, speaks of: "First
+God, then the Word, and with Them the Spirit."[263]
+
+In Chaldæa, Anu, Ea, and Bel were the Supreme Trinity, Anu being the
+Origin of all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China
+Williamson remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice
+every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese
+saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty
+philosophical system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures:
+'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and
+Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems
+to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity.'"[264]
+
+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;"[265]
+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,"[266] the reference to the three functions being
+very clear.[267] 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."[268]
+
+This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God,
+He that "was and is and is to come,"[269] 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,"[270] and also His Mother, yielding of
+Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His
+power.[271] 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 become 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,"[272] 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."[273] He shines out, as it were, from the infinite Darkness, a
+Point of Light, the centre of a future universe, a Unit, in whom all
+exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field
+of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the
+Point in every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power.
+This is the making of "the earth by His Power," spoken of by
+Jeremiah.[274] Thus the full symbol is a Point within a sphere,
+represented usually as a Point within a circle. The Second Person is
+represented by a Line, a diameter of this circle, a single complete
+vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in every direction
+within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain signifies also
+His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit--a unity in the First
+Person--are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is
+represented by a Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each
+other within the circle, the second line of the Cross separating the
+upper part of the circle from the lower. This is the Greek Cross.[275]
+
+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,"[276] a statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that
+He "laid the foundations of the earth;"[277] we have here the marking
+out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void."[278]
+
+On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit,
+who "moved upon the face of the waters,"[279] 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."[280]
+
+The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of
+His Wisdom "established the world,"[281] building all globes and all
+things upon them, "all things were made by Him."[282] He is the
+organising Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.[283]
+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,[284] all must be gathered up in
+Him, and why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[285]
+
+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,"[286] the "God of the Spirits of all flesh,"[287] 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,"[288]
+and is able to become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
+is perfect."[289]
+
+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, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own
+Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."[290]
+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."[291] 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 Man. This nature of the Mediator He has
+retained, and is thus a link between the celestial and terrestrial
+Trinities, "God with us"[292] He has ever been called.
+
+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."[293]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PRAYER.[294]
+
+
+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?"[295] 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, &c. 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.[296] 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[297]--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;"[298] 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,[299]
+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.[300] 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 blackbeetle.[301] 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 Bristol,
+before he was known to the world as a philanthropist, when he was
+beginning his charitable work, and was without friends or money. He
+prayed for food for the children who had no resource save his bounty,
+and money always came sufficient for the immediate needs. What had
+happened? His prayer was a strong, energetic desire, and that desire
+creates a form, of which it is the life and directing energy. That
+vibrating, living creature has but one idea, the idea that ensouls
+it--help is wanted, food is wanted; and it ranges the subtle world,
+seeking. A charitable man desires to give help to the needy, is seeking
+opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft iron, so is such a person to
+the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It rouses in his brain
+vibrations identical with its own--George Müller, his orphanage, its
+needs--and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws a
+cheque, and sends it. Quite naturally, George Müller would say that God
+put it into the heart of such a one to give the needed help. In the
+deepest sense of the words that is true, since there is no life, no
+energy, in His universe that does not come from God; but the
+intermediate agency, according to the divine laws, is the desire-form
+created by the prayer.
+
+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 daresay 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, no 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 react 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."[302]
+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.[303] "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my
+voice, and open the door, I will come in to him."[304]
+
+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.'"[305]
+
+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 exstasy 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"[306] 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 Iamblichus on this subject is useful. Iamblichus 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 Union with the divinities, in whom it
+establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and thus causes the
+soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from these
+three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant
+adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but
+supernally extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian
+apples of gold. The first of these pertains to illumination; the second
+to a communion of operation; but through the energy of the third we
+receive a perfect plenitude of divine fire.... No operation, however, in
+sacred concerns, can succeed without the intervention of prayer. Lastly,
+the continual exercise of prayer nourishes the vigour of our intellect,
+and renders the receptacle of the soul far more capacious for the
+communications of the Gods. It likewise is the divine key, which opens
+to men the penetralia of the Gods; accustoms us to the splendid rivers
+of supernal light; in a short time perfects our inmost recesses, and
+disposes them for the ineffable embrace and contact of the Gods; and
+does not desist till it raises us to the summit of all. It also
+gradually and silently draws upward the manners of our soul, by
+divesting them of everything foreign to a divine nature, and clothes us
+with the perfections of the Gods. Besides this, it produces an
+indissoluble communion and friendship with divinity, nourishes a divine
+love, and inflames the divine part of the soul. Whatever is of an
+opposing and contrary nature in the soul, it expiates and purifies;
+expels whatever is prone to generation and retains anything of the dregs
+of mortality in its ethereal and splendid spirit; perfects a good hope
+and faith concerning the reception of divine light; and in one word,
+renders those by whom it is employed the familiars and domestics of the
+Gods."[307]
+
+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, O God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law
+is within my heart."[308] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+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.[309] So also of one woman it was said: "Her sins, which are
+many, are forgiven, for she loved much."[310] 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."[311]
+
+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."[312]
+
+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 springtime 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,"[313] and at
+another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."[314] So in
+the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the
+world is bound by action,"[315] and that a man "recovereth the
+characteristics of his former body;"[316] and yet it is said that "even
+if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he, too, must be
+accounted righteous."[317] 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,[318]
+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.[319] 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."[320] 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 clashes 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-Gîtâ_ 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."[321] The essence of sin lies 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."[322]
+
+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."[323] 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," re-admitting 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"[324] 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."[325] "The divine potency which is all in all does not
+proffer or withhold, except through assimilation or rejection by
+oneself."[326] "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."[327]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+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.[328] 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[329] 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"[330] when the
+foundations of the earth were laid amid the choiring of the Morning
+Stars.
+
+Others 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.[331] 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.[332] 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.[333] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SACRAMENTS (_continued_).
+
+
+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.[334] 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.'"[335] 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 practise of Baptism in Egypt, Persia, Thibet,
+Mongolia, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and among the
+Druids.[336] Some of the prayers quoted are very fine: "I pray that this
+celestial water, blue and light blue, may enter into thy body and there
+live. I pray that it may destroy in thee, and put away from thee, all
+the things evil and adverse that were given to thee before the beginning
+of the world." "O child! receive the water of the Lord of the world who
+is our life: it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove the sin
+which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since all of
+us are under its power."
+
+Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among non-Christian
+nations in a passage already quoted,[337] 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 Roman Churches a small receptacle for
+holy water is placed near every door, and every incoming worshipper
+touches it, making with it on himself the sign of the cross ere he goes
+onward towards the altar. On this Robert Taylor remarks: "The baptismal
+fonts in our Protestant churches, and we need hardly say more especially
+the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not
+imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the
+same _aqua minaria_, or _amula_, which the learned Montfaucon, in his
+_Antiquities_, shows to have been vases of holy water, which were placed
+by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves
+with upon entering those sacred edifices."[338]
+
+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 to-day.
+
+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 re-affirm 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"[339] 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.[340]
+
+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?"[341] 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 Tibet and Tartary. Jeremiah
+speaks of the cakes and the drink offered to the Queen of Heaven by the
+Jews in Egypt, they taking part in the Egyptian worship.[342] In Genesis
+we read that Melchisedek, the King-Initiate, used bread and wine in the
+blessing of Abraham.[343] In the various Greek Mysteries bread and wine
+were used, and Williamson mentions their use also among the Mexicans,
+Peruvians, and Druids.[344]
+
+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."[345] 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 the 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."[346]
+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 Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
+Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
+bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."[347] So S. Paul wrote that
+the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.[348]
+
+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."[349]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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 Vedântin and the most illiterate Vallabhâchârya, 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 _Kurân_. 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."[350] 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.[351] 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.[352]
+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."[353]
+
+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.[354] 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 re-inforce 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, &c. 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.[355] 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 its
+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.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.                               PAGE
+
+_Acts of the Apostles_ referred to;  281
+
+À Kempis, Thomas;  115
+
+Afterword;  376
+
+Allegory;  66
+
+Allegories, Old Testament; 121
+
+All-wide Consciousness; 281 _et seq._
+
+Ammonius Saccas; 28
+
+Animal Symbols of Zodiac; 165
+
+Anselm and Redemption; 195
+
+Answers to Prayer; 277
+  "        Subjective Prayer; 290
+
+Apollonius of Tyana; 31
+
+Apostolic Fathers; 70
+
+Appearances of Divine Beings; 93
+
+Aquinas, Thomas; 112
+
+_Arians of the Fourth Century_, quoted; 103
+
+Aristotle, Effect on Mediæval Christianity; 112
+
+Ascension, The; 231, 250
+  "      and Solar Myth; 231
+  "      of the Christ; 249
+
+_Asiatic Researches_, quoted; 258
+
+Aspects of the ONE; 262
+
+Athanasius, Story of; 353
+
+Athanasian Creed, quoted; 263, 367
+
+Atlantis, Continent of; 18
+
+At-one-ment; 209
+
+Atonement as one of Lesser Mysteries; 200
+  "     Early Church on the; 195
+  "     Calvinistic View of; 197
+  "     Edwards on the; 197
+  "     Flavel on the; 196
+  "     Luther's Views on the; 196
+  "     Dr. McLeod Campbell on the; 199
+  "     F. D. Maurice on the; 199
+  "     Vicarious and Substitutionary; 196
+
+Atonement--Views of Dwight, Jeune, Jenkyn, Liddon, Owen,
+             Stroud, and Thomson; 198
+  "     Truth underlying the Doctrine of; 199
+  "     Pamphlet on, quoted; 198
+  "     _Nineteenth Century_ quoted on; 205
+
+Augöeides; 27
+
+
+Barnabas; 71
+
+Baptism, A Mantram in; 350
+  "     A Minor Form of; 349
+  "     Belief in Death-bed; 352
+  "     Infant; 353
+  "     In the Early Church; 352
+  "     In Other Religions; 348
+  "     of Initiate; 53
+  "     of Holy Ghost and Fire; 188
+  "     of Jesus; 133
+  "     of the Christ; 186
+  "     Tertullian on; 349
+
+Beatific Vision, The; 95, 295
+
+Bernard of Clairvaux; 112
+
+Bel-fires; 164
+
+_Bhagavad Gîtâ_ referred to; 50, 202, 270, 306, 318
+
+Bible Account of Creation; 179
+
+Birth, Second; 247
+
+Blavatsky, H. P., referred to; 127
+
+Blood of Christ symbolised in Eucharist; 359
+
+Böhme, Jacob; 115
+
+Body, Causal; 239, 247
+  "   Desire, Changes in;  244
+  "   Meaning of a; 234
+  "   Mental; 236
+  "     "     Building of; 245
+  "   Natural or Physical; 236
+  "   Natural, of St. Paul; 237
+  "   of Bliss; 240
+  "   of Desire; 236
+  "   Physical, Changes in; 243
+  "   Resurrection; 240
+
+Body, Spiritual; 239
+
+_Book of Job_, quoted; 268, 332
+  "  _of the Dead_, referred to; 339
+  "  _of Wisdom_, quoted; 266
+
+Bread, General Symbol in Sacraments; 358
+
+_Brihadâranyakopanishat_, quoted; 50, 202
+
+Brotherhood of Great Teachers; 9
+
+Bruno, Giordano, referred to; 5, 113, 115, 225, 322
+
+Buddha, Birth Story of; 164
+
+Buddhist Trinity; 258
+
+
+Calvinistic Doctrine; 197
+
+Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa; 115
+
+Cathari, The, referred to; 113
+
+Cave of Initiation; 186
+
+Celsus--Controversy with Origen; 88
+
+_Chhândogyopanishat_, quoted; 253
+
+Chrêstos and Christos; 174
+
+Christ as Hierophant of Mysteries; 231
+  "   Baptism of; 186
+  "   Crucifixion of; 183
+  "   Disciples of; 223
+  "   in the Spiritual Body; 137
+  "   Life of the; 217
+  "   of the Mysteries; 191
+  "   The; 132, 134
+  "   the Crucified; 182
+  "   the Historical; 120, 140
+  "   the Kosmic; 179
+  "   the Mystic; 170
+  "   the Mythic; 145
+  "   Sufferings of the; 223
+
+_Christian Creed_, referred to; 180, 181
+  "                quoted; 206, 207, 229
+
+Christian Disciples--their work; 223
+
+_Christian Records_, quoted; 348
+
+Christian Symbols, &c., not unique; 148
+
+Christianity has the Gnosis; 36
+
+Christmas Day; 159, 161
+
+Christmas Festival, rightly regarded; 164
+
+_Clarke's Ante-Nicene_ Library, quoted; viii., 21, 58, 71, 72, 73, 74,
+    77, 78, 80 _et seq._, 87, 88, 90 _et seq._, 103, 150, 151, 266
+
+Classes of Prayers; 283
+
+Clement of Alexandria, quoted; viii., 20
+  "  "     referred to; 73
+  "  "     on the Gnosis; 83, 84
+  "  "     on Scripture Allegories; 83
+  "  "     on Symbols; 80
+  "  "     and Catechetical School; 73
+  "  "     a Pupil of Pantænus; 73
+
+_Colossians, Epistle to_, referred to;  58, 65, 81, 177
+
+Comparative Mythologists; 7
+  "  "  Theory of; 8
+  "  Religionists; 7, 8
+  "  Mythology; 147
+
+Consecrated Objects; 382
+
+Consecration of Churches, Cemeteries, &c.; 385
+
+Constant, Alphonse Louis; 118
+
+Conversion, Phenomenon of; 313 _et seq._
+
+_Corinthians, Epistles to_, quoted; ix., x., 6, 32, 55, 64, 67, 124,
+    175, 177, 232, 239, 240, 241, 251, 253, 270, 356, 373
+
+Creed, taught after Baptism in Early Church; 352
+
+_Cruden's Concordance_, quoted; 33
+
+_Cur Deus Homo_ of Anselm; 195
+
+
+Dangers to Christianity; 125
+
+Dark Powers in Nature;  186, 187
+
+Dean Milman, quoted; 255 _et seq._
+
+Death of Solar Heroes; 166
+
+_De Principiis_ of Origen; 101, 102
+
+_Deuteronomy_, quoted; 96, 253
+
+_Diegesis_ of R. Taylor, quoted; 350
+
+_Die Deutsche Theologie_; 114
+
+Dionysius the Areopagite; 110
+
+Disappearance of the Mysteries; 184
+
+Disciples, The; 136
+  "  Work of the; 223
+  "  Writings of the; 140
+
+Divine Beings, Appearance in Mysteries; 93
+
+"Divine Grace," What it is;  224
+  "  Ideation; 359
+  "  Illumination; 377
+  "  Incarnations; 273, 274
+
+Duality of Manifested Existence; 235
+  "  of Second Person of Trinity; 265
+
+
+Easter Festival; 159
+
+Eckhart, Teachings of; 113
+
+Edwards on the Atonement; 197
+
+Egypt and the Mysteries; 131
+
+_Encyclopædia Britannica_, referred to; 22, 23, 117
+  "  "  quoted; 110 _et seq._
+
+_Ephesians, Epistle to_, quoted; 57, 65, 67, 366
+
+_Epistle of James_, quoted;  276
+  "  _of Peter_, quoted; 64, 121, 194, 354, 371
+
+Esoteric Christianity, Popular Denial of; 2
+  "  Teaching in Early Church; 2
+
+Essentials of Religion; 4
+
+Eucharist, Bread and Wine of; 357
+  "  Change of Substance in; 361
+  "  connected with Law of Sacrifice; 357
+  "  Meaning and Use of;  357
+  "  Sacrifice of; 355
+  "  Unworthy Participants in; 362
+
+_Exodus, Book of_, quoted; 91
+
+Exstasy; 295
+
+
+Faith Needed for Forgiveness; 312
+
+Fathers, The Christian, on Scriptures; 371
+
+Festivals; 147
+
+Fish Symbol in Religions; 166
+
+Flavel on Atonement; 196
+
+Fludd, Robert; 116
+
+Forgiveness of Sins; 301
+  "  in Lesser Mysteries; 323
+  "  in most Religions; 303
+  "  ultimately refers to _Post-Mortem_ Penalties; 307
+
+Fourth Manifestation Feminine; 261
+  "  Person; 263
+
+Free-thinking in Christianity; 123
+
+_Friends of God in the Oberland_; 114
+
+Friends, Society of; 117
+
+Future of Christianity; 41
+
+
+_Galatians, Epistle to_, quoted; 64, 65, 66, 124
+
+_Genesis_, quoted; 18, 180, 268, 269, 271, 279, 358
+
+Germain, Comte de S.; 117
+
+Gestures in Sacraments;  338
+
+Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of R. Empire_, quoted;  162
+
+Giles, Rev. Dr., quoted;  347
+
+Gnosis, The;   viii., 9, 108
+  "      " in Christianity;  36
+
+Gnostic, The, of S. Clement; 84 _et seq._
+
+_Gnostics and their Remains_, quoted; 162
+
+Gods in the Mysteries; 25
+
+Grades of Hierarchies; 331
+
+Grand Lodge of Central Asia; 31
+
+Greek Cross, The;  267
+
+Guyon, Mme. de; 116
+
+
+Haug, Dr., _Essay on Parsis_, cited; 202
+
+_Hebrews, Epistle to_, quoted; 53, 67, 81, 91, 175, 176, 205,
+    216, 222, 223, 247, 270, 274, 280
+
+Hebrew Trinity; 254
+
+Hell-fire Dogma, The; 48
+
+_Heroic Enthusiasts, The_, quoted; 323
+
+Hidden God, The;  207
+  "  Meanings in Jewish and Christian Scriptures; 100
+  "  Side of Christianity; 36
+  "  Teaching in all Religions; 20
+
+Hierarchies of Divine Beings; 331
+  "  of Superhuman Beings; 23
+
+Hindu, Trinity, The; 257
+
+History _versus_ Myth; 153
+
+Holy Spirit as Creator; 269
+
+Holy Water; 343, 349, 351
+
+Human Evolution repeats Kosmic Process; 271
+
+Huxley, T. H., quoted; 282
+
+Hyde, Dr., quoted;  347
+
+_Hymn to Demeter_; 22
+
+
+Iamblichus, _On the Mysteries_, quoted; 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29,
+    296 _et seq._
+
+Iamblichus, _Life of Pythagoras_, referred to; 28
+
+Ignatius; 71
+
+Incarnation of Logos;  179
+
+Initiation and Rebirth;  51, 53
+  "  Cave of;  186
+  "  Ceremonies of; 247 _et seq._
+  "  Conditions of; 173
+  "  Mount of;  91
+
+Inspiration, True; 378
+
+Intelligences in Invisible Worlds; 279
+
+Inviolability of Law; 305
+
+Invisible Helpers; 280
+
+Invisible Worlds interpenetrate the Visible; 279
+
+Irenæus, _Against Heresies_, referred to; 105
+
+_Isaiah_, quoted; 210, 295, 366, 377
+
+Isomeric Compounds; 361
+
+
+_Jeremiah, Book of_, quoted; 262, 357
+
+Jesus at Mount Serbal;  130
+  "  Baptism of;  133
+  "  Date and Place of Birth; 130
+  "  His Work in Christendom;  143
+  "  in Egypt; 130
+  "  Inner Instructions of; 137
+  "  Master of the West; 147
+  "  Sacrifice of; 133
+  "  the Divine Teacher; 183
+  "  the Healer and Teacher; 127
+  "  training in Essene Community; 130
+  "  the Master; 142
+
+_Judges, Book of_, quoted;  97
+
+Juliana Mother; 117
+
+Justin Martyr;  148
+  "  "  quoted; 149 _et seq._
+
+
+_Kabbala_, Five Books of, referred to; 34
+
+Karma;  288, 309
+
+_Kathopanishat_, quoted; 32, 33, 49
+
+_Key to Theosophy_, quoted; 294
+
+Kingdom of Heaven--real meaning; 52
+
+_Kings, Book of_, quoted; 33, 354
+
+Kosmic Christ, The; 179
+  "  Process of becoming; 268
+  "  Sacrifice; 183
+
+
+Lang, Andrew, referred to; 11, 12
+
+Language of Symbols; 153
+
+Latin Cross, Origin of; 206
+  "  Use of, in Roman Church; 337
+
+Law of Sacrifice; 201
+  "  "  in Hinduism;  202
+  "  "  in Nature of Logos;  204
+  "  "  in Zoroastrianism;  202
+  "  "  or Manifestation; 203
+
+Law, William; 117
+
+Left-hand Path; 17
+
+Lent; 167
+
+Levi Eliphas; 118
+
+_Leviticus_, quoted; 358
+
+_Light on the Path_, quoted; 220
+
+"Little Child"; 65
+
+Logos, Birth of the; 205
+  "  and Sacrifice; 204
+  "  Life of, in every form; 208
+  "  Meaning of the Term; 172
+  "  of Plato; 182
+  "  Perpetual Sacrifice of; 209
+
+Loss of Mystic Teaching in Christianity; 37
+
+_Luke, Gospel of_, quoted; 45, 48, 175, 176, 264, 289, 302, 312
+
+Luther on the Atonement; 196
+
+
+Madonnas; 160
+
+Magnetic Cures, Secret of; 342
+  "  Change in Sacramental Substance; 342
+  "  Energies in Ether;  341
+
+Magnetisation of Substances; 341
+
+_Making_ of _Religion_, The, referred to; 11
+
+Man as Microcosm;  271
+  "  and Woman Complementary; 365
+  "  develops Second Aspect; 272
+
+Man's Manifold Nature; 234
+
+_Mandakopanishat_, quoted; 202
+
+"Mantras"; 335
+  "  essential in Sacraments; 338
+  "  in rite of Baptism; 350
+  "  in Sanskrit;  336
+  "  spoilt by translation; 337
+
+_Mark, Gospel of_, quoted; vii., 45, 47
+
+Martin, St.; 117
+
+Marriage, Deeper meaning of; 365
+  "  in Lesser Mysteries; 368
+  "  Mystery of; 366
+  "  Sacrament of;  364
+  "  type of union between God and Man; 366
+
+Mary, the World Mother;  206
+
+Master, Jesus, the; 142
+
+_Matthew, Gospel of_, quoted;   vii., 45, 46, 49, 52, 53, 54, 92, 134,
+    176, 177, 186, 210, 216, 240, 271, 274, 281, 306, 319
+
+Maurice, cited; 254
+
+Mead, G. R. S., quoted; 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 114
+
+Mediator, Nature of;  274
+
+Meditation--What it is; 293
+  "  Growth by; 299
+
+Men at different levels; 3
+
+Miguel de Molinos; 116
+
+Ministry of Angels, The; 287, 289
+
+Miracles; 145
+
+Mithras, Birth of; 161
+
+Modern Spirit antagonistic to Prayer; 276
+
+More, Henry; 116
+
+Mother Juliana of Norwich; 117
+
+Mount Serbal; 130
+
+Mount of Initiation; 91, 188
+
+Müller, George, Case of; 284 _et seq._
+
+Music in Worship; 335, 337
+
+Myers (F.), St. Paul; 378
+
+Mystery Gods; 25
+  "  of Christ;  57
+
+Mysteries, Christian, Symbolism of; 247
+
+Mysteries and Yoga; 31
+  "  Christ as Hierophant of; 231
+  "  Disappearance of the; 184
+  "  Eliphas Levi on the; 118
+  "  established by Christ; 142
+  "  Greater, The; ix., 1, 22, 27, 63
+  "  in the Gospels; 45
+  "  in Egypt; 131
+  "  in relation to Myth; 157
+  "  Lesser; ix., 1, 22
+  "  "  and Prayer; 280
+  "  "  as to Bodies; 237
+  "  "  Teaching of; 251
+  "  Names in Christianity; 47
+  "  of Bacchus; 21, 27
+  "  of Chaldæa, Egypt, Eleusis, Mithras, Orpheus, Samothrace,
+        Scythia; 21
+  "  of God; 57
+  "  of Jesus; 1, 42, 94
+  "  of the Early Church; 69 _et seq_.
+  "  of Magic, quoted; 157
+  "  praised by Learned Greeks; 21
+  "  Pseudo, and Sun-God Story; 167
+  "  source of Mystic Learning; 108
+  "  The; 171, 178
+  "  taught, _Post-mortem_ Existence; 21
+  "  The True; 179
+  "  The Christ of the; 184
+  "  Theory of the; 22
+  "  withdrawn; 108
+
+Mystic Christ, The; 170
+  "  "  Twofold; 178
+  "  Vesture, The; 138
+
+Mythic Christ, The; 145
+
+Myth, Meaning of; 152, 153
+  "  Solar; 156
+
+Mythology Comparative; 147
+
+
+Natural and Spiritual Bodies; 232
+  "  Body--of St. Paul; 237
+
+Natural Body, The; 235 _et seq._
+
+Need for Graded Religion; 14
+
+Neoplatonists;  29, 112
+
+Newman, Cardinal, quoted; 103 _et seq._
+  "  Recognises a Secret Tradition; 104
+
+New Testament Proofs of Esotericism; 42 _et seq._
+
+Nicene Creed; 181
+
+Nicolas of Basel; 114
+
+Noachian Deluge; 19
+
+_Nous Demiurgos_ of Plato; 255
+
+_Numbers, Book of_, quoted; 270
+
+
+Object of all Religions; 3
+
+Occult Experts; 127
+  "  Knowledge, Danger of; 16
+  "  Records; 18
+  "  "  and the Gospels; 129
+  "  side of Nature; 279
+  "  use of Sounds;  334
+
+Old Testament Allegories; 121
+
+One Existence, The; 253
+
+One, The, Three aspects of; 262
+ "  "  Manifest; 261
+
+Origen _Against Celsus_; 88 _et seq._
+  "  "  ";  95
+  "  on the Need of Wisdom; 99
+  "  "  Mysteries;  89
+  "  "  Scriptures; 372
+  "  "  Tower of Babel; 97
+  "  referred to;  44
+  "  Shining Light of Learning; 87
+
+_Orpheus_, Mead's, quoted; 28, 29, 30, 114
+
+Owen on Atonement; 197
+
+
+Pantænus; 73, 74
+
+Paracelsus; 115
+
+Paradise; 242
+
+Path of Discipleship; 174
+
+_Philippians, Epistle to_, quoted; 62
+
+Physical Ailments final expression of Karma; 310
+
+Physical Body, Changes in; 243
+  "  Material in Sacraments; 340
+
+Pilgrimages, Rationale of; 382
+
+_Pistis Sophia_, quoted; 46, 138, 139, 302 _et seq._,
+    319 _et seq._, 340
+  "  "  referred to; 137
+
+Plato's Cave; 153
+
+Plato initiated in Egypt; 21
+
+Platonists of Cambridge; 116
+
+Plotinus, Dying Words of; 31
+  "  referred to; 23
+  "  Mead's, quoted; 31
+
+Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna; 70
+
+Popular Christianity, Mistake of; vii.
+  "  Denial of Esoteric Christianity; 1
+
+Porphyry, quoted;  27, 54
+
+Prayer; 276
+  "  Answers to; 277
+  "  as Will; 285
+  "  Class B--general principle; 292
+  "  Failure of; 287
+  "  for Spiritual Enlightenment; 291
+  "  for the Student of Lesser Mysteries; 296
+  "  Highest form of; 293
+  "  Puzzling Facts as to; 277
+
+Prayers classified; 278
+
+Probationary Path, The; 247
+
+"Proclaim upon the houses"--Mystical meaning; 79
+
+Proclus, Teaching of; 26, 29, 51
+
+Psalms, quoted; 5, 299
+
+Pseudo-Mysteries and Sun-God Drama; 167
+
+Pupils of the Apostles; 70
+
+Purgatory; 242
+
+Purification; 244
+
+Pythagoras, referred to; 28
+  "  in India; 31
+
+Pythagorean School, Discipline of; 29, 30
+
+
+Qualifications of Disciple; 175
+
+Quietists, The; 116
+
+
+Regions of the Invisible Worlds; 239
+
+Re-incarnation;  239
+
+Religion, Need for graded; 14
+
+_Religion of Ancient Persians_, quoted; 347
+
+Religions, Common origin of; 7
+  "  Custodians of Sacred Books; 369
+  "  Essentials of; 4
+  "  fitted for Stages of Growth; 13
+  "  Object of all; 3
+  "  Source of all; 7
+
+Religious Founders; 10
+  "  Scriptures; 10
+  "  Teachers; 9
+
+Resurrection and Solar Myth; 231, 250
+  "  Body; 240
+  "  of the Christ; 249
+  "  of the Dead; 62
+  "  The--Part of Lesser Mysteries; 231
+
+Revelation; 369
+   "  Fragments of in Sacred Books; 370
+   "  in Cypher; 370
+   "  of Deity in Kosmos; 375
+
+_Revelations, Book of_, quoted; 50, 63, 66, 249, 263,
+    292, 322, 331
+
+Revolt against Dogma; 38
+
+Roman Empire dying; 107
+
+_Romans, Epistle to_, quoted; 82, 363
+
+Rosenkreutz Christian; 117
+
+Ruling Angel of Jews; 96, 98
+
+Ruysbroeck; 115
+
+
+Sacrament, a kind of crucible; 326
+  "  a Pictorial Allegory; 325
+  "  Change in substance at; 343
+  "  link between Visible and Invisible; 326, 327
+  "  of Baptism; 347
+  "  of Eucharist; 347
+  "  of Marriage; 347, 364
+  "  of Penance; 340
+
+Sacraments; 324
+  "  Angels connected with; 343
+  "  defined in Church Catechism; 329
+
+Sacraments, Gestures used in; 338
+  "  in all Religions; 324
+  "  Lost at Reformation; 327
+  "  Mantrams in; 338
+  "  of Christian Church; 327
+  "  Peculiar Characteristics; 324
+  "  Seven, of Christianity; 327, 346
+  "  Signs, Seals, or Sigils in; 339
+  "  "Substance" and "Accidents" of; 361
+  "  Twofold Nature of; 324 _et seq._
+  "  Two, In Protestant Communities; 328, 346
+
+Sacred Places and Objects; 380
+
+Sacred Quaternery, The; 261
+
+Sacrifice as Joy; 210 _et seq._
+  "  Law of; 201
+  "  "  Four Stages in; 212
+  "  Lessons in; 212 _et seq._
+  "  of Jesus; 133
+
+Saint Bonaventura; 112
+  "  Elizabeth; 113
+  "  Francois de Sales; 116
+  "  John of the Cross; 116
+  "  _John's Gospel_, quoted; x., 46, 52, 53, 54, 56, 103, 132, 133,
+       134, 137, 177, 180, 216, 240, 246, 250, 262, 270, 273, 292, 382
+  "  Paul, quoted; 55 _et seq._, 124, 184
+  "  Paul an Initiate; 61
+  "  "  and Mysteries; 57
+  "  "  and Timothy; 59, 69
+  "  "  on Allegory; 66
+  "  Peter, quoted; 194
+  "  Teresa; 116
+  "  Timothy, referred to; 59
+
+_Samuel, Book of_, quoted; 33
+
+Savage Deities; 11
+
+Savages as Descendants of Civilisation; 12
+
+Saviour, The True; 219 _et seq._
+
+Sayings of Jesus; 53, 54, 301
+
+Scientific Analysis of Vehicles; 237
+
+Search for God, The; 5
+
+Secret Teachings of Jesus; 90
+  "  Tradition recognised by Newman; 104
+
+Second Birth; 185, 247
+
+_Sepher Yetzirah_, quoted; 34
+
+_Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology_, quoted; 259
+
+_Shvetâshvataropanishat_, quoted; 32
+
+"Sign of Power"; 339
+
+Society of Friends; 117
+
+Solar Gods; 160
+  "  Myth, Root of; 178
+
+Sopater, quoted; 21
+
+Sophia--The Wisdom; 138
+
+Soul--Dual; 233
+
+Sound and Form in the Invisible Worlds; 333
+
+Sound, Occult use of; 334
+
+Source of Religions; 7
+
+Spirit and Matter; 367
+
+Spirit threefold; 233
+  "  manifested as triple Self; 330
+
+Spiritual Body, Divisions of; 240 _et seq._
+
+"Star of Initiation"; 186
+
+"Strait Gate" term of Initiation; 49, 50, 174, 177
+
+_Stromata_ or Miscellanies of S. Clement, quoted; 58, 74 _et seq._,
+   78, 83, 84, 85, 87
+
+Sufferings of the Christ; 223
+
+Superintending Spirits; 98
+
+Sun God Legend; 158
+  "  "  Symbol of Logos; 171
+  " Heroes; 165
+  " Myths, recurring; 169
+  " of Righteousness; 249
+  " Symbol of the Logos; 154
+  " Symbols; 155
+
+Survival of Christianity?; 40
+
+Symbol of Jesus; 165
+  "  of Trinity; 267
+
+Symbols--animal, in Zodiac; 165
+  "  Language of; 153
+
+Symbols of Logoi; 266 _et seq._
+
+
+Tatian and Theodotus, referred to;  73
+
+Tauler, John; 114
+
+Taylor, Robert, quoted; 350
+
+Teachings common to all Religions; 146
+  "  in the hands of Spiritual Brotherhood; 374
+
+Tertullian on Baptism; 151
+
+The Christ; 132, 134
+
+The Hidden Side of Religions; 1
+  "  of Christianity; 36
+
+The Disciples; 136
+
+The "Simple Gospel"; 39
+
+The title of Lord; 96
+
+The Testimony of the Scriptures; 36
+
+The Tower of Babel; 97
+
+The Thyrsus; 75
+
+The True Exstasis; 108
+
+The Trinity; 253
+  "  among the Hebrews; 254
+  "  Hindu; 257
+  "  in Buddhism; 258
+  "  in Chaldæa; 259
+  "  in China; 259
+  "  in Extinct Religions; 258
+  "  in Egypt; 259
+  "  in Man; 177, 233
+  "  in Manifestation; 254
+  "  in Zoroastrianism; 257
+
+The Word of Wisdom, of Knowledge; 102
+
+Theological Hell; 308
+
+_Theosophical Review_, quoted; 228
+
+_Thessalonians, Epistle to_, quoted; 233
+
+Three Worlds, The; 241
+
+_Timothy, Epistle to_, quoted; 59, 60, 61, 65, 134, 227
+
+Tradition of _Post-mortem_ Teaching of Jesus; 46
+
+Transubstantiation--Truth Underlying; 360
+
+Triangle as a Symbol of Trinity; 267
+
+Trinity, A Second; 263
+  "  of Spirit; 233
+
+Trinity in Christian agrees with other Faiths; 260
+
+Triple Aspect of Matter; 264
+
+Triplicity in Nature; 261
+
+True Theosophy defined; x.
+
+Two Schools of Christian Interpretation; 122
+
+Two-fold Division of Man Insufficient; 232
+
+
+Vaivasvata Manu; 19
+
+Valentinus; 137
+
+Vaughan, Thomas; 116
+
+Vehicles of Consciousness, Need for Different; 238
+
+Vibrations; 334
+
+Vibratory Effects of Mass; 338
+
+Virgin Matter; 264
+  "  "  and Third Person of Trinity; 265
+  "  "  and Second  "  " ; 265
+  "  Mother; 264
+
+Virgin's Womb, Meaning of; 180
+
+Virgo, Zodiacal Sign of; 158, 160
+
+Virtues in the Mysteries; 27
+
+_Voice of the Silence_, quoted; 249
+
+_Voice Figures_--Mrs. Watts Hughes, referred to; 333
+
+
+Williamson's _Great Law_, quoted; 161, 163 _et seq._,
+   166, 167, 203, 255, 259, 348, 358.
+
+Will as Prayer; 285
+
+Words of Power; 335
+
+Work of the Holy Spirit; 179, 268
+  "  Second Person; 179, 269
+  "  First Person; 270
+
+Working of Logos in Matter; 182
+
+Workers in Kosmos; 283
+  "  the Invisible Worlds; 152, 280
+
+World Bibles, fragments of Revelation; 374
+
+World Soul, The; 23
+
+World Symbols; 266
+
+Writings of the Disciples; 140
+
+
+_Zechariah_, quoted; 268
+
+Zodiac, The; 160
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] S. Mark xvi. 15.
+
+[2] S. Matt vii. 6.
+
+[3] Clarke's Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. Clement of
+Alexandria. _Stromata_, bk. I., ch. xii.
+
+[4] I. Cor. iii. 16.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, ii. 14, 16.
+
+[6] S. John, i. 9.
+
+[7] Psalms, xlii. 1.
+
+[8] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
+
+[9] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. _Stromata_,
+bk. V., ch. xi.
+
+[10] See Article on "Mysteries," _Encyc. Britannica_ ninth edition.
+
+[11] Psellus, quoted in _Iamblichus on the Mysteries_. T. Taylor, p.
+343, note on p. 23, second edition.
+
+[12] _Iamblichus_, as _ante_, p. 301.
+
+[13] _Ibid._, p. 72.
+
+[14] The article on "Mysticism" in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ has
+the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204-206 A.D.): "The One
+[the Supreme God spoken of above] is exalted above the _nous_ and the
+'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether and is not cognisable by
+reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from its
+own fulness, an image of itself, which is called _nous_, and which
+constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The soul is
+in turn the image or product of the _nous_, and the soul by its motion
+begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways--towards the
+_nous_, from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is
+its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the
+sensible; material existence is itself estrangement from God.... To
+reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for
+thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the
+motionless rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent
+deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence,
+_contact_." Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all a system of complete
+rationalism; it is assumed, in other words, that reason is capable of
+mapping out the whole system of things. But, inasmuch as a God is
+affirmed beyond reason, the mysticism becomes in a sense the necessary
+complement of the would-be all-embracing rationalism. The system
+culminates in a mystical act."
+
+[15] _Iamblichus_, as _ante_, p. 73.
+
+[16] _Ibid_, pp. 55, 56.
+
+[17] _Ibid_, pp. 118, 119.
+
+[18] _Ibid_, p. 118, 119.
+
+[19] _Ibid_, pp. 95, 100.
+
+[20] _Ibid_, p. 101.
+
+[21] _Ibid_, p. 330.
+
+[22] G. R. S. Mead. _Plotinus_, p. 42.
+
+[23] _Iamblichus_, p. 364, note on p. 134.
+
+[24] G. R. S. Mead. _Orpheus_, pp. 285, 286.
+
+[25] _Iamblichus_, p. 364, note on p. 134.
+
+[26] _Iamblichus_, p. 285, _et seq._
+
+[27] G. R. S. Mead. _Orpheus_, p. 59.
+
+[28] _Ibid_, p. 30.
+
+[29] _Ibid_, pp. 263, 271.
+
+[30] G. R. S. Mead. _Plotinus_, p. 20.
+
+[31] _Shvetâshvataropanishat_, vi., 22.
+
+[32] _Kathopanishat_, iii., 14.
+
+[33] I. Cor. xiii. 1.
+
+[34] _Kathopanishat_, vi. 17.
+
+[35] _Mundakopanishat_, II., ii. 9.
+
+[36] _Ibid_., III., i. 3.
+
+[37] I Sam. xix. 20.
+
+[38] II. Kings ii. 2, 5.
+
+[39] Under "School."
+
+[40] Dr. Wynn Westcott. _Sepher Yetzirah_, p. 9.
+
+[41] S. Mark iv. 10, 11, 33, 34. See also S. Matt. xiii. 11, 34, 36,
+and S. Luke viii. 10.
+
+[42] S. John xvi. 12.
+
+[43] Acts i. 3.
+
+[44] _Loc. cit._ Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. I. i. 1.
+
+[45] S. Matt. vii. 6.
+
+[46] As to the Greek woman: "It is not meet to take the children's
+bread, and to cast it unto the dogs."--S. Mark vii. 27.
+
+[47] S. Luke xiii. 23, 24.
+
+[48] S. Matt. vii. 13, 14.
+
+[49] _Kathopanishat_ II. iv. 10, 11.
+
+[50] _Brihadâranyakopanishat_. IV. iv. 7.
+
+[51] Rev. vii. 9.
+
+[52] _Bahgavad Gîtâ_, vii. 3.
+
+[53] _Ante_, p. 26.
+
+[54] It must be remembered that the Jews believed that all imperfect
+souls returned to live again on earth.
+
+[55] S. Matt. xix. 16-26.
+
+[56] S. John xvii. 3.
+
+[57] Heb. ix. 23.
+
+[58] S. John. iii. 3, 5.
+
+[59] S. Matt. iii. 11.
+
+[60] _Ibid._ xviii. 3.
+
+[61] S. John iii. 10.
+
+[62] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[63] _Ante_, p.24
+
+[64] Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus 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."
+
+[65] Another technical name in the Mysteries.
+
+[66] Eph. iii. 3, 4, 9.
+
+[67] Col i. 23, 25-28. But S. Clement, in his _Stromata_, translates
+"every man," as "the whole man." See Bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[68] Col. iv. 3.
+
+[69] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. _Stromata_,
+bk. V. ch. x. Some additional sayings of the Apostles will be found in
+the quotations from Clement, showing what meaning they bore in the
+minds of those who succeeded the apostles, and were living in the same
+atmosphere of thought.
+
+[70] I. Tim. iii. 9, 16.
+
+[71] I. Tim. i. 18.
+
+[72] _Ibid._, iv. 14.
+
+[73] _Ibid._, vi. 13.
+
+[74] _Ibid._, 20.
+
+[75] II. Tim. i. 13, 14.
+
+[76] _Ibid._, ii. 2.
+
+[77] Phil. iii. 8, 10-12, 14, 15.
+
+[78] Rev. i. 18. "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am
+alive for evermore. Amen."
+
+[79] II. Cor. v. 16.
+
+[80] Gal. iii. 27.
+
+[81] Gal. iv. 19.
+
+[82] I. Cor. iv. 15.
+
+[83] I. S. Pet. iii. 4.
+
+[84] Eph. iv. 13.
+
+[85] Col. i. 24.
+
+[86] II. Cor. iv. 10.
+
+[87] Gal. ii. 20.
+
+[88] II. Tim. iv. 6, 8.
+
+[89] Rev. iii. 12.
+
+[90] Gal. iv. 22-31.
+
+[91] I Cor. x. 1-4.
+
+[92] Eph. v. 23-32.
+
+[93] 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.
+
+[94] _Ibid. The Epistle of Polycarp_, ch. xii.
+
+[95] _Ibid. The Epistle of Barnabas_, ch. i.
+
+[96] _Ibid._ ch. x.
+
+[97] _Ibid. The Martyrdom of Ignatius,_ ch. i.
+
+[98] _Ibid. Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians_, ch. iii.
+
+[99] _Ibid._ ch. xii.
+
+[100] _Ibid. to the Trallians_, ch. v.
+
+[101] _Ibid. to the Philadelphians_, ch. ix.
+
+[102] Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria _Stromata_, bk. I. ch. i.
+
+[103] Vol. IV. _Stromata_, bk. I. ch. xxviii.
+
+[104] It appears that even in those days there were some who objected
+to any truth being taught secretly!
+
+[105] _Ibid._ bk. I, ch. i.
+
+[106] _Ibid._ bk. V., ch. iv.
+
+[107] _Ibid._ ch. v.-viii.
+
+[108] _Ibid._ ch. ix.
+
+[109] _Ibid._ bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[110] Loc. Cit. xv. 29.
+
+[111] _Ibid._ xvi. 25, 26; the version quoted differs in words, but
+not in meaning, from the English Authorised Version.
+
+[112] _Stromata_, bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[113] _Ibid._ bk. VI., ch. vii.
+
+[114] _Ibid._ bk. VII., ch. xiv.
+
+[115] _Ibid._ bk. VI., ch. xv.
+
+[116] _Ibid._ bk. VI. x.
+
+[117] _Ibid._ bk. VI. vii.
+
+[118] _Ibid._ bk. I. ch. vi.
+
+[119] _Ibid._ ch. ix.
+
+[120] _Ibid._ bk. VI. ch. x.
+
+[121] _Ibid._ bk. I. ch. xiii.
+
+[122] Vol XII. _Stromata_, bk. V. ch. iv.
+
+[123] _Ibid._ bk. VI. ch. xv.
+
+[124] Book I. of _Against Celsus_ is found in Vol. X. of the
+Ante-Nicene Library. The remaining books are in Vol. XXIII.
+
+[125] Vol. X. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. I. ch. vii.
+
+[126] _Ibid._
+
+[127] Ex. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30, and compare with Heb. viii. 5, and ix.
+25.
+
+[128] _Origen against Celsus_, bk. IV. ch. xvi.
+
+[129] _Ibid._ bk. III. ch. lix.
+
+[130] _Ibid._ ch. lxi.
+
+[131] _Ibid._ ch. lxii.
+
+[132] _Ibid._, ch. lx.
+
+[133] Vol. XXIII. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. V. ch. xxv.
+
+[134] _Ibid._ ch. xxviii.
+
+[135] _Ibid._ ch. xxix.
+
+[136] _Ibid._ ch. xx xi.
+
+[137] _Ibid._ ch. xxxii.
+
+[138] _Ibid._ ch. xlv.
+
+[139] _Ibid._ ch. xlvi.
+
+[140] _Ibid._ chs. xlvii.-liv.
+
+[141] _Ibid._ ch. lxxiv.
+
+[142] _Ibid._ bk. IV., ch. xxxix.
+
+[143] Vol. X. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. I., ch. xvii, and others.
+
+[144] _Ibid._ ch. xlii.
+
+[145] Vol. X. _De Principiis_, Preface, p. 8.
+
+[146] _Ibid._ ch. i.
+
+[147] S. John xiv. 18-20.
+
+[148] _Loc. cit._ ch. i. sec. III. p. 55.
+
+[149] _Ibid._ ch. I. Sec. III. pp. 55, 56.
+
+[150] _Ibid._ pp. 54, 55.
+
+[151] "Seems to have been" is a somewhat weak expression, after what
+is said by Clement and Origen, of which some specimens are given in
+the text.
+
+[152] _Ibid._, p. 62.
+
+[153] Article on "Mysticism."--_Encyc. Britan._
+
+[154] Article "Mysticism." _Encyclopædia Britannica._
+
+[155] _Orpheus_, pp. 53, 54.
+
+[156] 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.
+
+[157] _The Mysteries of Magic._ Trans. by A. E. Waite, pp. 58 and 60.
+
+[158] II. S. Peter i. 5.
+
+[159] Gal. iv. 19.
+
+[160] II. Cor. v. 16.
+
+[161] S. John i. 14.
+
+[162] S. John i. 32.
+
+[163] S. Matt. iii. 17.
+
+[164] _Ibid._ iv. 17.
+
+[165] I. Tim. iii. 16.
+
+[166] S. John x. 34-36.
+
+[167] S. John xiv. 18, 19.
+
+[168] Valentinus. Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. _Pistis Sophia_, bk. i., I.
+
+[169] _Ante_, p. 72.
+
+[170] _Ibid._ 60.
+
+[171] _Ibid._ bk. ii., 218.
+
+[172] _Ibid._ 230.
+
+[173] _Ibid._ 357.
+
+[174] _Ibid._ 377.
+
+[175] Vol. II. Justin Martyr. _First Apology_, §§ liv., lxii., and
+lxvi.
+
+[176] Vol. II. Justin Martyr. _Second Apology_, § xiii.
+
+[177] Vol. VII. Tertullian, _On Baptism_, ch. v.
+
+[178] The student might read Plato's account of the "Cave" and its
+inhabitants, remembering that Plato was an Initiate. _Republic_, Bk.
+vii.
+
+[179] Eliphas Lévi _The Mysteries of Magic_, p. 48.
+
+[180] Bonwick. _Egyptian Belief_, p. 157. Quoted in Williamson's
+_Great Law_, p. 26.
+
+[181] The festival "Natalis Solis Invicti," the birthday of the
+Invincible Sun.
+
+[182] Williamson. _The Great Law_, pp. 40-42. Those who wish to study
+this matter as one of Comparative Religion cannot do better than read
+_The Great Law_, whose author is a profoundly religious man and a
+Christian.
+
+[183] _Ibid._ pp. 36, 37.
+
+[184] _The Great Law_, p. 116.
+
+[185] _Ibid._ p. 58.
+
+[186] _Ibid._ p. 56.
+
+[187] _Ibid._ pp. 120-123.
+
+[188] See on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i. 1-5. 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.
+
+[189] See _Ante_, pp. 124.
+
+[190] See _Ante_, pp. 93-94.
+
+[191] See _Ante_, p. 85.
+
+[192] II. Cor. iv. 18.
+
+[193] II. Cor. v. 7.
+
+[194] Heb. v. 14.
+
+[195] S. Luke xv. 16.
+
+[196] _Ibid._ xiv. 26.
+
+[197] S. Matt. v. 28.
+
+[198] Heb. xi. 27.
+
+[199] S. Matt v. 45.
+
+[200] S. Luke ix. 49, 50.
+
+[201] S. Matt xvii. 20.
+
+[202] II. Cor. vi. 8-10.
+
+[203] Col. iii. 1.
+
+[204] S. Matt. v. 8, and S. John xvii. 21.
+
+[205] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[206] S. John i. 3.
+
+[207] _The Christian Creed_, p. 29. This is a most valuable and
+fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning of the creeds.
+
+[208] _Ibid._ p. 42.
+
+[209] A name of the Holy Ghost.
+
+[210] _Ibid._ p. 43.
+
+[211] _Ante_, p. 124.
+
+[212] S. Matt. xviii. 3.
+
+[213] 2 S. Peter iii. 15, 16.
+
+[214] A. Besant. _Essay on the Atonement._
+
+[215] _Ibid._
+
+[216] _Brihadâranyakopanishat_, I. i. 1.
+
+[217] _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, iii. 10.
+
+[218] _Brihadâranyakopanishat_, I. ii. 7.
+
+[219] _Mundakopanishat_, II. ii. 10.
+
+[220] Haug. _Essays on the Parsîs_, pp. 12-14.
+
+[221] Rev. xiii. 8.
+
+[222] W. Williamson. _The Great Law_, p. 406.
+
+[223] A. Besant. _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1895, "The Atonement."
+
+[224] Heb. i. 5.
+
+[225] _Ibid._, 2.
+
+[226] C.W. Leadbeater. _The Christian Creed_, pp. 54-56.
+
+[227] _Ibid._ pp. 56, 57.
+
+[228] S. Matt. xxv. 21, 23, 31-45.
+
+[229] Is. liii. 11.
+
+[230] S. Matt. xvi. 25.
+
+[231] S. John xii. 25.
+
+[232] Heb. vii. 16.
+
+[233] _Light on the Path_, § 8.
+
+[234] Heb. vii. 25.
+
+[235] Heb. v. 8, 9.
+
+[236] I Tim. iii. 16.
+
+[237] Annie Besant. _Theosophical Review_, Dec., 1898, pp. 344, 345.
+
+[238] C. W. Leadbeater. _The Christian Creed_, pp. 61, 62.
+
+[239] I Cor. xv. 44.
+
+[240] I Thess. v. 23.
+
+[241] See Chapter IX., "The Trinity."
+
+[242] See _Ante_, pp. 84, 99, 100.
+
+[243] 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.
+
+[244] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[245] S. John xvii. 22, 23.
+
+[246] 2 Cor. v. 1.
+
+[247] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
+
+[248] This mistranslation was a very natural one, as the translation
+was made in the seventeenth century, and all idea of the pre-existence
+of the soul and of its evolution had long faded out of Christendom,
+save in the teachings of a few sects regarded as heretical and
+persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+[249] S. John iii. 13.
+
+[250] Heb. v. 9.
+
+[251] Rev. i. 18.
+
+[252] H. P. Blavatsky. _The Voice of the Silence_, p. 90, 5th Edition.
+
+[253] S. John. xvii. 5.
+
+[254] 1 Cor. xv. 20.
+
+[255] _Chhândogyopanishat_, VI. ii., 1.
+
+[256] Deut. vi. 4.
+
+[257] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
+
+[258] An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the Trinity, but the
+One Existence, manifested in the Three; nor is Kadmon, or Adam Kadmon,
+one Sephira, but their totality.
+
+[259] Quoted in Williamson's _The Great Law_, pp. 201, 202.
+
+[260] H. H. Milman. _The History of Christianity_, 1867, pp. 70-72.
+
+[261] _Asiatic Researches_, i. 285.
+
+[262] S. Sharpe. _Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christology_, p. 14.
+
+[263] See Williamson's _The Great Law_, p. 196.
+
+[264] _Loc. Cit._, pp. 208, 209.
+
+[265] S. John i. 3.
+
+[266] Jer. li. 15.
+
+[267] See _Ante_, pp. 179-180.
+
+[268] Athanasian Creed.
+
+[269] Rev. iv. 8.
+
+[270] S. Luke. i. 38.
+
+[271] _Ibid_, 35.
+
+[272] Book of Wisdom, viii. 1.
+
+[273] Vol. IV. Ante-Nicene Library. S. Clement of Alexandria.
+_Stromata_, bk. V., ch. ii.
+
+[274] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[275] See _Ante_, p. 207.
+
+[276] Gen. i. 1.
+
+[277] Job xxxviii. 4; Zech. xii. 1; &c.
+
+[278] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[279] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[280] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[281] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[282] S. John i. 3.
+
+[283] _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ ix. 4.
+
+[284] 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28.
+
+[285] S. John xiv. 6. See also the further meaning of this text on p.
+272.
+
+[286] Heb. xii. 9.
+
+[287] Numb. xvi. 22.
+
+[288] Gen. i. 26.
+
+[289] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[290] S. John xvii. 5.
+
+[291] S. John v. 26.
+
+[292] S. Matt. i. 22.
+
+[293] Heb. ii. 18.
+
+[294] Much of this chapter has already appeared in an earlier work by
+the author, entitled, _Some Problems of Life_.
+
+[295] S. James i. 17.
+
+[296] Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.
+
+[297] See Chapter xii.
+
+[298] Heb. i. 14.
+
+[299] S. Matt. x. 29.
+
+[300] Acts xvii. 28.
+
+[301] T. H. Huxley. _Essays on some Controverted Questions_, p. 36.
+
+[302] S. Luke xxii. 41, 43.
+
+[303] S. John i. 11.
+
+[304] Rev. iii. 20.
+
+[305] H. P. Blavatsky. _Key to Theosophy_, p. 10.
+
+[306] Is. xxxiii. 17.
+
+[307] _On the Mysteries_, sec. v. ch. 26.
+
+[308] Ps. xl. 7, 8, Prayer Book version.
+
+[309] S. Luke, v. 18-26.
+
+[310] _Ibid._ vii. 47.
+
+[311] G. R. S. Mead, translated. _Loc. cit._, bk. ii., §§ 260, 261.
+
+[312] _Ibid._ §§ 299, 300.
+
+[313] S. Matt. xii. 36.
+
+[314] _Ibid._ ix. 2.
+
+[315] _Loc. cit._ iii. 9.
+
+[316] _Ibid._ vi. 43.
+
+[317] _Ibid._ ix. 30.
+
+[318] See _ante_, Chap. VIII.
+
+[319] 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.
+
+[320] S. Luke, vii. 48, 50.
+
+[321] _Loc. cit._, ix. 31.
+
+[322] S. Matt. vii. 1.
+
+[323] _Loc. cit._, bk. ii. § 305.
+
+[324] Rev. iii. 20.
+
+[325] G. Bruno, trans. by L. Williams. _The Heroic Enthusiasts_, vol.
+i., p. 133.
+
+[326] _Ibid._, vol. ii., pp. 27, 28.
+
+[327] _Ibid._, pp. 102, 103.
+
+[328] Rev. iv. 5.
+
+[329] 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. 264.
+
+[330] Job xxxviii. 7.
+
+[331] See on forms created by musical notes any scientific book on
+Sound, and also Mrs. Watts-Hughes' illustrated book on _Voice
+Figures_.
+
+[332] See _ante_, p. 138 and p. 302.
+
+[333] 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.
+
+[334] See _ante_ p. 329.
+
+[335] _Christian Records_, p. 129.
+
+[336] _The Great Law_, pp. 161-166.
+
+[337] See _ante_, p. 151.
+
+[338] _Diegesis_, p. 219.
+
+[339] 1 Pet. iii. 4.
+
+[340] 2 Kings vi. 17.
+
+[341] 1 Cor. x. 16.
+
+[342] Jer. xliv.
+
+[343] Gen. xiv. 18, 19.
+
+[344] _The Great Law_, pp. 177-181, 185.
+
+[345] Lev. xvii. 11.
+
+[346] Rom. xii. 1.
+
+[347] Isaiah liv. 5; lxii. 5.
+
+[348] Eph. v. 23-32.
+
+[349] Athanasian Creed.
+
+[350] 2 Pet. i. 20.
+
+[351] 1 See _ante_, p. 102.
+
+[352] 2 Cor. iii. 6.
+
+[353] 1 Cor. ii. 11, 13.
+
+[354] Is. vi. 6, 7.
+
+[355] S. John v. 4.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM BYLES & SONS, PRINTERS, BRADFORD.
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser
+Mysteries, by Annie Besant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries
+
+Author: Annie Besant
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2008 [EBook #26938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Erica Hills, Henry Craig, and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+{~--- UTF-8 BOM ---~}Transcriber's Note: The many inconsistently spelt words in this book
+(e.g. Samskrit/Sanskrit) have been retained as in the original.
+
+
+ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY
+OR
+THE LESSER MYSTERIES.
+
+
+
+BY
+ANNIE BESANT.
+
+
+
+[SECOND EDITION]
+
+
+
+The Theosophical Publishing Society.
+LONDON AND BENARES.
+1905.
+
+
+
+
+     In proceeding to the contemplation of the mysteries of knowledge,
+     we shall adhere to the celebrated and venerable rule of tradition,
+     commencing from the origin of the universe, setting forth those
+     points of physical contemplation which are necessary to be
+     premised, and removing whatever can be an obstacle on the way; so
+     that the ear may be prepared for the reception of the tradition of
+     the Gnosis, the ground being cleared of weeds and fitted for the
+     planting of the vineyard; for there is a conflict before the
+     conflict, and mysteries before the mysteries.--_S. Clement of
+     Alexandria._
+
+     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.--_Ibid._
+
+     He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.--_S. Matthew._
+
+
+
+
+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"[1]--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."[2]
+
+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 Alexandria says quite bluntly, after alluding to the
+Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them underfoot, and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true Light to swinish and untrained hearers."[3]
+
+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[4] 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,[5] 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,"[6] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                              PAGE
+FOREWORD                                      vii.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS                  1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY              36
+
+CHAPTER III.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY              69
+    (_concluded_)
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+  THE HISTORICAL JESUS                        120
+
+CHAPTER V.
+  THE MYTHIC CHRIST                           145
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+  THE MYSTIC CHRIST                           170
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+  THE ATONEMENT                               193
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+  RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION                  231
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+  THE TRINITY                                 253
+
+CHAPTER X.
+  PRAYER                                      276
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+  THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS                     301
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+  SACRAMENTS                                  324
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+  SACRAMENTS (_continued_)                    346
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+  REVELATION                                  369
+
+AFTERWORD                                     386
+
+INDEX                                         388
+
+
+
+
+
+ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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 Early Church, would cause a smile of incredulity. It
+has actually been made a matter of boast that Christianity has no
+secrets, that whatever it has to say it says to all, and whatever it has
+to teach it teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to be so simple,
+that "a way-faring man, though a fool, may not err therein," and the
+"simple Gospel" has become a stock phrase.
+
+It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly that in the Early Church,
+at least, Christianity was no whit behind other great religions in
+possessing a hidden side, and that it guarded, as a priceless treasure,
+the secrets revealed only to a select few in its Mysteries. But ere
+doing this it will be well to consider the whole question of this hidden
+side of religions, and to see why such a side must exist if a religion
+is to be strong and stable; for thus its existence in Christianity will
+appear as a foregone conclusion, and the references to it in the
+writings of the Christian Fathers will appear simple and natural instead
+of surprising and unintelligible. As a historical fact, the existence
+of this esotericism is demonstrable; but it may also be shown that
+intellectually it is a necessity.
+
+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"[7] 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 reappear,
+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 outgrown 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."[8]
+
+
+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
+Krishna, a Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly civilised
+but lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-man of the savage. God
+is a composite photograph of the innumerable Gods who are the
+personifications of the forces of nature. And so forth. It is all summed
+up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a common trunk--human
+ignorance.
+
+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 over-arching 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
+develope 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 develope 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 Alexandria
+mentions this division of the Mysteries. After purification, he says,
+"are the Minor Mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and
+of preliminary preparation for what is to come after; and the Great
+Mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but
+only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things."[9]
+
+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 Greece, such as Plato, went to Saïs and to Thebes to be
+initiated by Egyptian Teachers of Wisdom. The Mithraic Mysteries of the
+Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries and the later Eleusinian
+semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia,
+Chaldea, are familiar in name, at least, as household words. Even in the
+extremely diluted form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their value is most
+highly praised by the most eminent men of Greece, as Pindar, Sophocles,
+Isocrates, Plutarch, and Plato. Especially were they regarded as useful
+with regard to _post-mortem_ existence, as the Initiated learned that
+which ensured his future happiness. Sopater further alleged that
+Initiation established a kinship of the soul with the divine Nature, and
+in the exoteric Hymn to Demeter covert references are made to the holy
+child, Iacchus, and to his death and resurrection, as dealt with in the
+Mysteries.[10]
+
+From Iamblichus, 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,"[11] and was practised
+in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings.
+The theory on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus
+stated: There is ONE, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the
+solitude of His own unity. From THAT arises the Supreme God, the
+Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all things, the Root, the God of
+Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into Light.[12] From Him
+springs the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the Universal Mind,
+the _Nous_ and the incorporeal or intelligible Gods belong to this.
+From this the World-Soul, to which belong the "divine intellectual forms
+which are present with the visible bodies of the Gods."[13] Then come
+various hierarchies of superhuman beings, Archangels, Archons (Rulers)
+or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &c. Man is a being of a lower order,
+allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing them; this
+knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with
+God.[14] In the Mysteries these doctrines are expounded, "the
+progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the
+entire domination of the One,"[15] and, further, these different Beings
+were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere
+presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being
+benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying
+abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a
+union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they are yet in body,
+to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their eternal and
+intelligible principle."[16] For "the soul having a twofold life, one
+being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all
+body,"[17] it is most necessary to learn to separate it from the body,
+that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual and
+divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and the
+truths of the intelligible world.[18] "The presence of the Gods, indeed,
+imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and,
+in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It exhibits
+that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those of
+the body."[19] When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a liberation
+from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy entirely
+more excellent, and participates of divine love and an immense joy."[20]
+By this we gain a divine life, and are rendered in reality divine.[21]
+
+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 Yogî would term high Samâdhi, 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."[22] 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.[23]
+
+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
+Augöeides, 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."[24]
+
+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 Iamblichus
+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 Iamblichus,[25] 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.[26] 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."[27]
+
+The Pythagorean School in Magna Græcia was closed at the end of the
+sixth century B.C., owing to the persecution of the civil power, but
+other communities existed, keeping up the sacred tradition.[28] Mead
+states that Plato intellectualised it, in order to protect it from an
+increasing profanation, and the Eleusinian rites preserved some of its
+forms, having lost its substance. The Neo-Platonists inherited from
+Pythagoras and Plato, and their works should be studied by those who
+would realise something of the grandeur and the beauty preserved for
+the world in the Mysteries.
+
+The Pythagorean School itself may serve as a type of the discipline
+enforced. On this Mead gives many interesting details,[29] and remarks:
+"The authors of antiquity are agreed that this discipline had succeeded
+in producing the highest examples, not only of the purest chastity and
+sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a taste for
+serious pursuits which was unparalleled. This is admitted even by
+Christian writers." The School had outer disciples, leading the family
+and social life, and the above quotation refers to these. In the inner
+School were three degrees--the first of Hearers, who studied for two
+years in silence, doing their best to master the teachings; the second
+degree was of Mathematici, wherein were taught geometry and music, the
+nature of number, form, colour, and sound; the third degree was of
+Physici, who mastered cosmogony and metaphysics. This led up to the true
+Mysteries. Candidates for the School must be "of an unblemished
+reputation and of a contented disposition."
+
+The close identity between the methods and aims pursued in these various
+Mysteries and those of Yoga in India is patent to the most superficial
+observer. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the nations of
+antiquity drew from India; all alike drew from the one source, the Grand
+Lodge of Central Asia, which sent out its Initiates to every land. They
+all taught the same doctrines, and pursued the same methods, leading to
+the same ends. But there was much intercommunication between the
+Initiates of all nations, and there was a common language and a common
+symbolism. Thus Pythagoras journeyed among the Indians, and received in
+India a high Initiation, and Apollonius of Tyana later followed in his
+steps. Quite Indian in phrase as well as thought were the dying words of
+Plotinus: "Now I seek to lead back the Self within me to the
+All-self."[30]
+
+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."[31] 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."[32] 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."[33]
+
+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."[34] 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."[35]
+"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."[36]
+
+Nor were the Hebrews without their secret knowledge and their Schools of
+Initiation. The company of prophets at Naioth presided over by
+Samuel[37] formed such a School, and the oral teaching was handed down
+by them. Similar Schools existed at Bethel and Jericho,[38] and in
+Cruden's _Concordance_[39] there is the following interesting note: "The
+Schools or Colleges of the prophets are the first [schools] of which we
+have any account in Scripture; where the children of the prophets, that
+is, their disciples, lived in the exercises of a retired and austere
+life, in study and meditation, and reading of the law of God.... These
+Schools, or Societies, of the prophets were succeeded by the
+Synagogues." The _Kabbala_, which contains the semi-public teaching, is,
+as it now stands, a modern compilation, part of it being the work of
+Rabbi Moses de Leon, who died A.D. 1305. It consists of five books,
+Bahir, Zohar, Sepher Sephiroth, Sepher Yetzirah, and Asch Metzareth, and
+is asserted to have been transmitted orally from very ancient times--as
+antiquity is reckoned historically. Dr. Wynn Westcott says that "Hebrew
+tradition assigns the oldest parts of the Zohar to a date antecedent to
+the building of the second Temple;" and Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai is said
+to have written down some of it in the first century A.D. The Sepher
+Yetzirah is spoken of by Saadjah Gaon, who died A.D. 940, as "very
+ancient."[40] Some portions of the ancient oral teaching have been
+incorporated in the _Kabbala_ as it now stands, but the true archaic
+wisdom of the Hebrews remains in the guardianship of a few of the true
+sons of Israel.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+_(a)_ 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 wide-spread
+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 "Holy Place," in the
+Temple, so that all who are capable of receiving it may follow its lines
+of published thought; and secondly, Occult Christianity will again
+descend into the Adytum, dwelling behind the Veil which guards the "Holy
+of Holies," into which only the Initiate may enter. Then again will
+occult teaching be within the reach of those who qualify themselves to
+receive it, according to the ancient rules, those who are willing in
+modern days to meet the ancient demands, made on all those who would
+fain know the reality and truth of spiritual things.
+
+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
+exstasy, 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 kingdom of God, but
+unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.'" And
+later: "With many such parables spake He the word unto them, as they
+were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not unto them; and
+when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples."[41] Mark
+the significant words, "when they were alone," and the phrase, "them
+that are without." So also in the version of S. Matthew: "Jesus sent the
+multitude away, and went into the house; and His disciples came unto
+Him." These teachings given "in the house," the innermost meanings of
+His instructions, were alleged to be handed on from teacher to teacher.
+The Gospel gives, it will be noted, the allegorical mystic explanation,
+that which we have called The Lesser Mysteries, but the deeper meaning
+was said to be given only to the Initiates.
+
+Again, Jesus tells even His apostles: "I have yet many things to say to
+you, but ye cannot bear them now."[42] Some of them were probably said
+after His death, when He was seen of His disciples, "speaking of the
+things pertaining to the kingdom of God."[43] None of these have been
+publicly recorded, but who can believe that they were neglected or
+forgotten, and were not handed down as a priceless possession? There was
+a tradition in the Church that He visited His apostles for a
+considerable period after His death, for the sake of giving them
+instruction--a fact that will be referred to later--and in the famous
+Gnostic treatise, the _Pistis Sophia_, we read: "It came to pass, when
+Jesus had risen from the dead, that He passed eleven years speaking with
+His disciples and instructing them."[44] Then there is the phrase, which
+many would fain soften and explain away: "Give not that which is holy to
+the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine"[45]--a precept which
+is of general application indeed, but was considered by the early
+Church to refer to the secret teachings. It should be remembered that
+the words had not the same harshness of sound in the ancient days as
+they have now; for the words "dogs"--like "the vulgar," "the
+profane"--was applied by those within a certain circle to all who were
+outside its pale, whether by a society or association, or by a
+nation--as by the Jews to all Gentiles.[46] It was sometimes used to
+designate those who were outside the circle of Initiates, and we find it
+employed in that sense in the early Church; those who, not having been
+initiated into the Mysteries, were regarded as being outside "the
+kingdom of God," or "the spiritual Israel," had this name applied to
+them.
+
+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."[47]
+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."[48] 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,"[49] 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.[50] 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,"[51] 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."[52] 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,[53] those 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.[54] 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 Kingdom of Heaven, such entrance being more
+difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; with men
+such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.[55] Only
+God in man can pass that barrier.
+
+This text has been variously explained away, it being obviously
+impossible to take it in its surface meaning, that a rich man cannot
+enter a post-mortem state of happiness. Into that state the rich man may
+enter as well as the poor, and the universal practice of Christians
+shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches imperil their
+happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven
+be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that
+knowledge of God which is Eternal Life[56] cannot be gained till
+everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything
+has been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which
+henceforth may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give
+up his inner wealth as well, so far as he holds it as his own against
+the world; until he is stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway.
+Such has ever been a condition of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience,
+chastity," has been the vow of the candidate.
+
+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."[57]
+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;"[58] this is the first Initiation;
+a later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire,"[59] 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.[60] How thoroughly this
+imagery was familiar among the mystic of the Jews is shown by the
+surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic
+phraseology: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these
+things?"[61]
+
+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."[62] 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,"[63] 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.'[64] 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[65] I have laid the foundation,' and 'ye are the temple
+of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.' 'Let a man so account
+of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of
+God.'"
+
+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."[66] 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."[67] These Colossians he bids pray
+"that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of
+Christ,"[68] a passage to which S. Clement refers as one in which the
+apostle "clearly reveals that knowledge belongs not to all."[69] So
+also he writes to his loved Timothy, bidding him select his deacons from
+those who hold "the Mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," that
+great "Mystery of Godliness," that he had learned,[70] knowledge of
+which was necessary for the teachers of the Church.
+
+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,"[71] 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,"[72] 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"[73]--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: "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy
+trust"[74]--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"[75]--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."[76]
+
+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."[77] 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.[78] 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."[79]
+
+The ordinary believer had "put on Christ;" "as many of you as have been
+baptised into Christ have put on Christ."[80] 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_."[81] Already he was their
+spiritual father, having "begotten you through the gospel."[82] 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;"[83] 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 fulness of Christ."[84] Then he, as S.
+Paul was doing, filled up the sufferings of Christ in his own flesh,[85]
+and always bore "about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,"[86] so
+that he could truly say: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I
+live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."[87] Thus was the Apostle
+himself suffering; thus he describes himself. And when the struggle is
+over, how different is the calm tone of triumph from the strained effort
+of the earlier years: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
+departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
+course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a
+crown of righteousness."[88] This was the crown given to "him that
+overcometh," of whom it is said by the ascended Christ: "I will make him
+a pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go no more out."[89] For
+after the "Resurrection" the Initiate has become the Perfect Man, the
+Master, and He goes out no more from the Temple, but from it serves and
+guides the worlds.
+
+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.[90]
+Referring to the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, he speaks of the
+Red 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.[91]
+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.[92] The writer of the Epistle
+to the Hebrews allegorises the whole Jewish system of worship. In the
+Temple he sees a pattern of the heavenly Temple, in the High Priest he
+sees Christ, in the sacrifices the offering of the spotless Son; the
+priests of the Temple are but "the example and shadow of heavenly
+things," of the heavenly priesthood serving in "the true tabernacle." A
+most elaborate allegory is thus worked out in chapters iii.-x., and the
+writer alleges that the Holy Ghost thus signified the deeper meaning;
+all was "a figure for the time."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY(_concluded_).
+
+(_(b)_) 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 Early Church, who bear witness to the existence of the Mysteries.
+For among these are pupils of the Apostles themselves, though the most
+definite statements belong to those removed from the Apostles by one
+intermediate teacher. Now, as soon as we begin to study the writings of
+the Early Church, we are met by the facts that there are allusions which
+are only intelligible by the existence of the Mysteries, and then
+statements that the Mysteries are existing. This might, of course, have
+been expected, seeing the point at which the New Testament leaves the
+matter, but it is satisfactory to find the facts answer to the
+expectation.
+
+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,[93] 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"[94]--writing, apparently, before reaching full Initiation.
+Barnabas speaks of communicating "some portion of what I have myself
+received,"[95] and after expounding the Law mystically, declares that
+"we then, rightly understanding His commandments, explain them as the
+Lord intended."[96] Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, a disciple of S.
+John,[97] 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,"[98] and he speaks of them as "initiated into the
+mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred."[99] 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 æons, 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."[100] 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."[101]
+
+We come next to S. Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the two
+writers of the second and third centuries who tell us most about the
+Mysteries in the Early Church; though the general atmosphere is full of
+mystic allusions, these two are clear and categorical in their
+statements that the Mysteries were a recognised institution.
+
+Now S. Clement was a disciple of Pantænus, 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,"[102] his link with the Apostles
+themselves consisting thus of only one intermediary. He was the head of
+the Catechetical School of Alexandria in A.D. 189, and died about A.D.
+220. Origen, born about A.D. 185, was his pupil, and he is, perhaps,
+the most learned of the Fathers, and a man of the rarest moral beauty.
+These are the witnesses from whom we receive the most important
+testimony as to the existence of definite Mysteries in the Early Church.
+
+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,"[103] and also describes them as memoranda of the teachings
+he had himself received from Pantænus. 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[104] 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."[105]
+
+This passage, if it stood alone, would suffice to establish the
+existence of a secret teaching in the Early Church. But it stands by no
+means alone. In Chapter xii. of this same Book I., headed, "The
+Mysteries of the Faith not to be divulged to all," Clement declares
+that, since others than the wise may see his work, "it is requisite,
+therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son of God
+taught." Purified tongue of the speaker, purified ears of the hearer,
+these were necessary. "Such were the impediments in the way of my
+writing. And even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them under foot and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true light, to swinish and untrained hearers. For scarcely could
+anything which they could hear be more ludicrous than these to the
+multitude; nor any subjects on the other hand more admirable or more
+inspiring to those of noble nature. But the wise do not utter with their
+mouth what they reason in council. 'But what ye hear in the ear,' said
+the Lord, 'proclaim upon the houses'; bidding them receive the secret
+traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft and
+conspicuously; and as we have heard in the ear, so to deliver them to
+whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without
+distinction, what is said to them in parables. But there is only a
+delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth sown sparse and
+broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up seeds like
+jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each one of them will
+germinate and will produce corn."
+
+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 undazzled 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."[106] He
+then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding Pythagorean,
+Hebrew, Egyptian,[107] 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?"[108] 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 25-27. "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 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."[109] Further referring to S. Paul, he
+comments on his remark to the Romans that he will "come in the fulness
+of the blessing of Christ,"[110] and says that he thus designates "the
+spiritual gift and the Gnostic interpretation, while being present he
+desires to impart to them present as 'the fulness of Christ, according
+to the revelation of the Mystery sealed in the ages of eternity, but now
+manifested by the prophetic Scriptures'[111].... 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.'"[112]
+
+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."[113] 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."[114]
+
+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.[115] S. Clement naturally confined the higher
+instruction to the learned. "Our Gnostic will be deeply learned,"[116]
+he says. "Now the Gnostic must be erudite."[117] 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."[118] "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."[119] "The Gnostic avails himself of branches of
+learning as auxiliary preparatory exercises."[120] 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."[121] 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_,"[122] 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
+Hermas, 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."[123]
+
+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.[124]
+
+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."[125]
+
+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.'"[126]
+
+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."[127] 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 on high."[128]
+
+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."[129] Sinners came to be
+healed: "For there are in the divinity of the Word some helps towards
+the cure of those who are sick.... Others, again, which to the pure in
+soul and body exhibit the 'revelation of the Mystery, which was kept
+secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures
+of the prophets,' and 'by the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,' which
+'appearing' is manifested to each one of those who are perfect, and
+which enlightens the reason in the true knowledge of things."[130] Such
+appearances of divine Beings took place, we have seen, in the Pagan
+Mysteries, and those of the Church had equally glorious visitants. "God
+the Word," he says, "was sent as a physician to sinners, but as a
+Teacher of Divine Mysteries to those who are already pure, and who sin
+no more."[131] "Wisdom will not enter into the soul of a base man, nor
+dwell in a body that is involved in sin;" hence these higher teachings
+are given only to those who are "athletes in piety and in every virtue."
+
+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."[132] Such
+only might learn the realities of the unseen worlds, and might enter
+into the sacred precincts where, as of old, angels were the teachers,
+and where knowledge was given by sight and not only by words. It is
+impossible not to be struck with the different tone of these Christians
+from that of their modern successors. With them perfect purity of life,
+the practice of virtue, the fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail
+of outer conduct, the perfection of righteousness, were--as with the
+Pagans--only the beginning of the way instead of the end. Nowadays
+religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its object when
+it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted its
+highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the
+Beatific Vision.
+
+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."[133]
+
+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."[134] 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 Israel the cord of his inheritance."
+This is the wording of the Septuagint, not that of the English
+authorised version, but it is very suggestive of the title the "Lord"
+being regarded as that of the Ruling Angel of the Jews only, and not of
+the "Most High," _i.e._ God. This view has disappeared, from ignorance,
+and hence the impropriety of many of the statements referring to the
+"Lord," when they are transferred to the "Most High," _e.g._ Judges i.
+19.
+
+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."[135] 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...."[136]
+
+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 ..."[137] as did Celsus.
+
+After remarking that "the object of Christianity is that we should
+become wise,"[138] 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."[139]
+
+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."[140] 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."[141] 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."[142] 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.[143] "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."[144] 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."[145] 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.[146]
+
+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."[147] 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."[148] But as the doctrines in the
+creeds are to be found clearly stated in the Gospels and Epistles, this
+position is wholly untenable, all these having been already divulged to
+the world at large; and in all of them the members of the Church were
+certainly thoroughly instructed. The repeated statements as to secrecy
+become meaningless if thus explained. The Cardinal, however, says that
+whatever "has not been thus authenticated, whether it was prophetical
+information or comment on the past dispensations, is, from the
+circumstances of the case, lost to the Church."[149] That is very
+probably, in fact certainly, true, so far as the Church is concerned,
+but it is none the less recoverable.
+
+Commenting on Irenæus, 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."[150] In a part of the section dealing
+with the allegorising method, he writes in reference to the sacrifice of
+Isaac, &c., as "typical of the New Testament revelation": "In
+corroboration of this remark, let it be observed, that there seems to
+have been[151] 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."[152]
+
+The social and political convulsions that accompanied its dying now
+began to torture the vast frame of the Roman Empire, and even the
+Christians were caught up in the whirlpool of selfish warring interests.
+We still find scattered references to special knowledge imparted to the
+leaders and teachers of the Church, knowledge of the heavenly
+hierarchies, instructions given by angels, and so on. But the lack of
+suitable pupils caused the Mysteries to be withdrawn as an institution
+publicly known to exist, and teaching was given more and more secretly
+to those rarer and rarer souls, who by learning, purity, and devotion
+showed themselves capable of receiving it. No longer were schools to be
+found wherein the preliminary teachings were given, and with the
+disappearance of these the "door was shut."
+
+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 exstasy, to spiritual vision. This
+latter, however, divorced from knowledge, rarely attained the true
+exstasis, 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."[153]
+
+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 Europe of the Middle Ages, by his force of
+character no less than by his learning and piety. He asserts
+"Revelation" as one source of knowledge, Scripture and tradition being
+the two channels in which it runs, and the influence, seen in his
+writings, of the Pseudo-Dionysius links him to the Neo-Platonists. The
+second source is Reason, and here the channels are the Platonic
+philosophy and the methods of Aristotle--the latter an alliance that did
+Christianity no good, for Aristotle became an obstacle to the advance of
+the higher thought, as was made manifest in the struggles of Giordano
+Bruno, the Pythagorean. Thomas Aquinas was canonised in A.D. 1323, and
+the great Dominican remains as a type of the union of theology and
+philosophy--the aim of his life. These belong to the great Church of
+western Europe, vindicating her claim to be regarded as the transmitter
+of the holy torch of mystic learning. Around her there also sprang up
+many sects, deemed heretical, yet containing true traditions of the
+sacred secret learning, the Cathari and many others, persecuted by a
+Church jealous of her authority, and fearing lest the holy pearls should
+pass into profane custody. In this century also S. Elizabeth of Hungary
+shines out with sweetness and purity, while Eckhart (A.D. 1260-1329)
+proves himself a worthy inheritor of the Alexandrian Schools. Eckhart
+taught that "The Godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not
+only by man but also by Itself; It is darkness and absolute
+indeterminateness, _Nicht_ in contrast to _Icht_, or definite and
+knowable existence. Yet It is the potentiality of all things, and Its
+nature is, in a triadic process, to come to consciousness of Itself as
+the triune God. Creation is not a temporal act, but an eternal
+necessity, of the divine nature. I am as necessary to God, Eckhart is
+fond of saying, as God is necessary to me. In my knowledge and love God
+knows and loves Himself."[154]
+
+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, Iamblichus, and
+Proclus, who in turn followed Plato and Pythagoras.[155] 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 Augustinian 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 à 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 exstatic--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 Böhme (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 Rome in
+canonising these, wiser than the Reformation that persecuted Böhme, but
+the spirit of the Reformation was ever intensely anti-mystical, and
+wherever its breath hath passed the fair flowers of mysticism have
+withered as under the sirocco.
+
+Rome, 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.[156]
+
+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 Norwich, of the fourteenth
+century, jewels of Christendom, too little known, but justifying
+Christianity to the world.
+
+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 Lévi,
+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."[157]
+
+Will the Churches of to-day 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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.[158]
+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 again until Christ be formed in you";[159] here S. Paul obviously
+cannot refer to a historical Jesus, but to some forthputting 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;[160] 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 Sorrows, 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 Palestine B.C. 105, during the consulate of Publius Rutilius Rufus
+and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. His parents were well-born though poor, and
+he was educated in a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. His fervent
+devotion and a gravity beyond his years led his parents to dedicate him
+to the religious and ascetic life, and soon after a visit to Jerusalem,
+in which the extraordinary intelligence and eagerness for knowledge of
+the youth were shown in his seeking of the doctors in the Temple, he was
+sent to be trained in an Essene community in the southern Judæan desert.
+When he had reached the age of nineteen he went on to the Essene
+monastery near Mount Serbal, a monastery which was much visited by
+learned men travelling from Persia and India to Egypt, and where a
+magnificent library of occult works--many of them Indian of the
+Trans-Himâlayan regions--had been established. From this seat of mystic
+learning he proceeded later to Egypt. He had been fully instructed in
+the secret teachings which were the real fount of life among the
+Essenes, and was initiated in Egypt as a disciple of that one sublime
+Lodge from which every great religion has its Founder. For Egypt has
+remained one of the world-centres of the true Mysteries, whereof all
+semi-public Mysteries are the faint and far-off reflections. The
+Mysteries spoken of in history as Egyptian were the shadows of the true
+things "in the Mount," and there the young Hebrew received the solemn
+consecration which prepared him for the Royal Priesthood he was later to
+attain. So superhumanly pure and so full of devotion was he, that in his
+gracious manhood he stood out pre-eminently from the severe and somewhat
+fanatical ascetics among whom he had been trained, shedding on the stern
+Jews around him the fragrance of a gentle and tender wisdom, as a
+rose-tree strangely planted in a desert would shed its sweetness on the
+barrenness around. The fair and stately grace of his white purity was
+round him as a radiant moonlit halo, and his words, though few, were
+ever sweet and loving, winning even the most harsh to a temporary
+gentleness, and the most rigid to a passing softness. Thus he lived
+through nine-and-twenty years of mortal life, growing from grace to
+grace.
+
+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 Rome. Ere
+it started on its journey a World-Saviour must appear, to stand in
+blessing beside the cradle of the infant Hercules.
+
+A mighty "Son of God" was to take flesh upon earth, a supreme Teacher,
+"full of grace and truth"--[161] 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,"[162] 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,[163] and
+from that time forward "Jesus began to preach,"[164] and was that
+wondrous mystery, "God manifest in the flesh"[165]--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?"[166] 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,[167] 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 Judæa, attracting no attention among the many apparently
+similar communities of the time, studying the profound truths He taught
+them and acquiring "the gifts of the Spirit."
+
+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."[168] They had not so
+far learned the distribution of the angelic orders, of part whereof
+Ignatius speaks.[169] 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."[170] 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;[171] by that knowledge men became Christs for such "men are
+myself, and I am these men," for Christ is that highest Mystery.[172]
+Knowing that, men are "transformed into pure light and are brought into
+the light."[173] 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."[174]
+
+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 Judæa
+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 Michelangelo, that shone before the eyes of Murillo, and that gave
+the power that raised the marvels of the world, the Duomo 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 à 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+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 differens Cultes_, of
+Dupuis' _Origine 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 Early Church. Justin Martyr, for instance,
+crowds his pages with references to the religions of his time, and if a
+modern assailant of Christianity would cite a number of cases in which
+Christian teachings are identical with those of elder religions, he can
+find no better guides than the apologists of the second century. They
+quote Pagan teachings, stories, and symbols, pleading that the very
+identity of the Christian with these should prevent the off-hand
+rejection of the latter as in themselves incredible. A curious reason
+is, indeed, given for this identity, one that will scarcely find many
+adherents in modern days. Says Justin Martyr: "Those who hand down the
+myths which the poets have made adduce no proof to the youths who learn
+them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the
+influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human
+race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the
+Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished
+by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the
+impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the
+things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales,
+like the things which were said by the poets." "And the devils, indeed,
+having heard this washing published by the prophet, instigated those who
+enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and
+burnt offerings, also to sprinkle themselves; and they cause them also
+to wash themselves entirely as they depart." "Which [the Lord's Supper]
+the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding
+the same thing to be done."[175] "For I myself, when I discovered the
+wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine
+doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them,
+laughed."[176]
+
+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 Apollinarian 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."[177]
+
+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.[178]
+
+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."[179]
+
+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
+Krishna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also
+with the recurrent crown of stars, and with her child Tammuz on her
+knee. Mercury and Æsculapius, Bacchus and Hercules, Perseus and the
+Dioscuri, Mithras and Zarathustra, were all of divine and human birth.
+
+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."[180]
+
+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 Rome, in order that while
+the heathen were busy with their ceremonies [the Brumalia, in honour of
+Bacchus] the Christians might perform their rites undisturbed.' Gibbon
+in his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, writes: 'The [Christian]
+Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his [Christ's
+birth] fixed the solemn festival to the 25th December, the Brumalia or
+winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
+Sun.' King, in his _Gnostics and their Remains_, also says: 'The ancient
+festival held on the 25th December in honour of the birthday of the
+Invincible One,[181] and celebrated by the great games at the Circus,
+was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the birth of Christ,
+the precise date of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown;'
+while at the present day Canon Farrar writes that 'all attempts to
+discover the month and day of the nativity are useless. No data whatever
+exist to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy.'
+From the foregoing it is apparent that the great festival of the winter
+solstice has been celebrated during past ages, and in widely separated
+lands, in honour of the birth of a God, who is almost invariably alluded
+to as a 'Saviour,' and whose mother is referred to as a pure virgin. The
+striking resemblances, too, which have been instanced not only in the
+birth but in the life of so many of these Saviour-Gods are far too
+numerous to be accounted for by any mere coincidence."[182]
+
+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, Mâyâdevî, 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.[183]
+
+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 hallmark 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 Constantinople, held about the year 680, that
+it was ordained that instead of the ancient symbol, the figure of a
+_man_ fastened to a cross should be represented. This canon was
+confirmed by Pope Adrian I."[184] The very ancient Pisces is also
+assigned to Jesus, and He is thus pictured in the catacombs.
+
+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 Babylonia and Syria, as were Adonis in
+Syria and Greece, and Attis in Phrygia, pictured "as a man fastened with
+a lamb at the foot."[185] Mithras' death was similarly celebrated in
+Persia, and that of Bacchus and Dionysius--one and the same--in Greece.
+In Mexico the same idea re-appears, as usual accompanied with the cross.
+
+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 that the name of Easter has been traced to the virgin-mother of
+the slain Tammuz, Ishtar.[186]
+
+It is interesting also to notice that the fast preceding the death at
+the vernal equinox,--the modern Lent--is found in Mexico, Egypt, Persia,
+Babylon, Assyria, Asia Minor, in some cases definitely for forty
+days.[187]
+
+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 midnight sky was filled with the rejoicing hosts of the
+celestials, and
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MYSTIC CHRIST.
+
+
+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,[188] 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."[189] 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.[190] Intelligent also must they be, of well-developed and
+well-trained minds.[191] 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 Chrêstos 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."[192] 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."[193] 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."[194] 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.[195] 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."[196] 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."[197] 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."[198] 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,"[199] the disciple of
+Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he
+did not follow with them.[200] Further, he must acquire the _Faith_ to
+which nothing is impossible,[201] and the _Balance_ which is described
+by the Apostle.[202] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are
+above,"[203] and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union
+with God.[204] 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 high
+point, accompanying it with moral development, brings the evolving man
+to the condition of the candidate. The second aspect of the Spirit is
+that of Love, and the evolution of that is the evolution of the Christ.
+In the true Mysteries this evolution is undergone--the disciple's life
+is the Mystery Drama, and the Great Initiations mark its stages. In the
+Mysteries performed on the physical plane these used to be dramatically
+represented, and the ceremonies followed in many respects "the pattern"
+ever shown forth "on the Mount," for they were the shadows in a
+deteriorating age of the mighty Realities in the spiritual world.
+
+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,"[205] 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."[206] 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."[207]
+
+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
+the translation reads: "and was incarnate _by_ the Holy Ghost _of_ the
+Virgin Mary."[208] 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,[209] so that both the life and the matter
+surround Him as a vesture."[210]
+
+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 all 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 Judæa, 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[211] 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.[212] 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 comes 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 pourtrayed 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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 own destruction."[213] 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 Early Church on the doctrine of the
+Atonement was that Christ, as the Representative of Humanity, faced and
+conquered Satan, the representative of the Dark Powers, who held
+humanity in bondage, wrested his captive from him, and set him free.
+Slowly, as Christian teachers lost touch with spiritual truths, and they
+reflected their own increasing intolerance and harshness on the pure and
+loving Father of the teachings of the Christ, they represented Him as
+angry with man, and the Christ was made to save man from the wrath of
+God instead of from the bondage of evil. Then legal phrases intruded,
+still further materialising the once spiritual idea, and the "scheme of
+redemption" was forensically outlined. "The seal was set on the
+'redemption scheme' by Anselm in his great work, _Cur Deus Homo_, and
+the doctrine which had been slowly growing into the theology of
+Christendom was thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church.
+Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, alike
+believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character of the atonement
+wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between them on this point. I
+prefer to allow the Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the
+character of the atonement.... Luther teaches that 'Christ did truly and
+effectually feel for all mankind the wrath of God, malediction, and
+death.' Flavel says that 'to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God
+without mixture, to the very torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and
+that by the hand of his own father.' The Anglican homily preaches that
+'sin did pluck God out of heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains
+of death,' and that man, being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of the
+devil, 'was ransomed by the death of his only and well-beloved son'; the
+'heat of his wrath,' 'his burning wrath,' could only be 'pacified' by
+Jesus, 'so pleasant was the sacrifice and oblation of his son's death.'
+Edwards, being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin
+being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty of sin,
+being twice inflicted, first on Jesus, the substitute of mankind, and
+then on the lost, a portion of mankind; so he, in common with most
+Calvinists, finds himself compelled to restrict the atonement to the
+elect, and declared that Christ bore the sins, not of the world, but of
+the chosen out of the world; he suffers 'not for the world, but for them
+whom thou hast given me.' But Edwards adheres firmly to the belief in
+substitution, and rejects the universal atonement for the very reason
+that 'to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that
+he died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed.' He
+declares that 'Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins'; that
+'God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell
+for,' sin. Owen regards Christ's sufferings as 'a full valuable
+compensation to the justice of God for all the sins' of the elect, and
+says that he underwent 'that same punishment which ... they themselves
+were bound to undergo.'"[214]
+
+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."[215]
+
+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 of
+sacrifice into their most solemn rites. In Hinduism, the dawn of
+manifestation is said to be by sacrifice,[216] mankind is emanated with
+sacrifice,[217] and it is Deity who sacrifices Himself;[218] 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,[219] 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-mazdâo was born of an act of sacrifice.[220]
+
+In the Christian religion the same idea is indicated in the phrase: "the
+Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,"[221] 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."[222]
+
+"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."[223]
+
+When the Logos comes forth from "the bosom of the Father" in that "Day"
+when He is said to be "begotten,"[224] the dawn of the Day of Creation,
+of Manifestation, when by Him God "made the worlds,"[225] 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.[226]
+
+"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."[227]
+
+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"[228] 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.[229]
+
+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,"[230] 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,[231] 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 fulness, "the power of an
+endless life."[232]
+
+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
+reflexions.
+
+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"[233] 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"[234] 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."[235] 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,'[236] 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."[237]
+
+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."[238]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+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 death-like 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."[239]
+
+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 subdivision 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."[240] 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.[241]
+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,[242] 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 Man.
+
+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 anæsthetics,
+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
+subdivision 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."[243] 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,[244] can realise the union of the Son with the Father.[245] 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."[246] 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 not 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,"[247] 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
+"Paradise," or as a "waiting period." The heavenly world is almost
+universally, in modern Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no
+very definite or general idea as to its nature, or as to the progress or
+stationary condition of those attaining to it. In early Christianity
+this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the
+progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the
+pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result
+was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition,
+though often a very prolonged one, lasting for "an age"--as stated in
+the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the
+man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress--and not
+"everlasting," as in the mistranslation of the English authorised
+version.[248]
+
+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, &c., 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,"[249] 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."[250]
+
+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."[251]
+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."[252] 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."[253] 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,"[254] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+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."[255] "Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses, "The Lord
+our God is one Lord."[256] "To us there is but one God,"[257] declares
+S. Paul. "There is no God but God," affirms the founder of Islâm, and
+makes the phrase the symbol of his faith. One Existence unbounded, known
+in Its fulness 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, Kadmon the pure Light, and En Soph the Infinite,[258]
+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.'"[259]
+
+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
+Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus; it was the
+fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy;
+it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the
+Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be
+quoted from Philo on the impossibility that the first self-existing
+Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in
+Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord Himself spoke no new
+doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when
+they declared 'that no man had seen God at any time.' In conformity with
+this principle the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures,
+instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity,
+had interposed either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of
+communication. According to one accredited tradition alluded to by S.
+Stephen, the law was delivered 'by the disposition of angels'; according
+to another this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called
+the Angel of the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others the Metatron. But the
+more ordinary representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind
+of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the
+same appellation is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and
+the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish
+commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to
+the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
+been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme."[260]
+
+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; Brahmâ, 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 Amitâbha, 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: "Om! Thou art Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Mahesha
+(Shiva) ... I adore Thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names and
+under various forms, in the shape of Buddha, the God of Mercy."[261]
+
+In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In Egypt it
+dominated all religious worship. "We have a hieoroglyphical inscription
+in the British Museum as early as the reign of Senechus of the eighth
+century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity
+in Unity already formed part of their religion."[262] This is true of a
+far earlier date. Râ, Osiris, and Horus formed one widely worshipped
+Trinity; Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshipped at Abydos; other names
+are given in different cities, and the triangle is the frequently used
+symbol of the Triune God. The idea which underlay these Trinities,
+however named, is shown in a passage quoted from Marutho, in which an
+oracle, rebuking the pride of Alexander the Great, speaks of: "First
+God, then the Word, and with Them the Spirit."[263]
+
+In Chaldæa, Anu, Ea, and Bel were the Supreme Trinity, Anu being the
+Origin of all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China
+Williamson remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice
+every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese
+saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty
+philosophical system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures:
+'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and
+Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems
+to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity.'"[264]
+
+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;"[265]
+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,"[266] the reference to the three functions being
+very clear.[267] 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."[268]
+
+This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God,
+He that "was and is and is to come,"[269] 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,"[270] and also His Mother, yielding of
+Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His
+power.[271] 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 become 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,"[272] 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."[273] He shines out, as it were, from the infinite Darkness, a
+Point of Light, the centre of a future universe, a Unit, in whom all
+exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field
+of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the
+Point in every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power.
+This is the making of "the earth by His Power," spoken of by
+Jeremiah.[274] Thus the full symbol is a Point within a sphere,
+represented usually as a Point within a circle. The Second Person is
+represented by a Line, a diameter of this circle, a single complete
+vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in every direction
+within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain signifies also
+His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit--a unity in the First
+Person--are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is
+represented by a Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each
+other within the circle, the second line of the Cross separating the
+upper part of the circle from the lower. This is the Greek Cross.[275]
+
+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,"[276] a statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that
+He "laid the foundations of the earth;"[277] we have here the marking
+out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void."[278]
+
+On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit,
+who "moved upon the face of the waters,"[279] 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."[280]
+
+The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of
+His Wisdom "established the world,"[281] building all globes and all
+things upon them, "all things were made by Him."[282] He is the
+organising Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.[283]
+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,[284] all must be gathered up in
+Him, and why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[285]
+
+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,"[286] the "God of the Spirits of all flesh,"[287] 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,"[288]
+and is able to become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
+is perfect."[289]
+
+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, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own
+Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."[290]
+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."[291] 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 Man. This nature of the Mediator He has
+retained, and is thus a link between the celestial and terrestrial
+Trinities, "God with us"[292] He has ever been called.
+
+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."[293]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PRAYER.[294]
+
+
+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?"[295] 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, &c. 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.[296] 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[297]--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;"[298] 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,[299]
+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.[300] 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 blackbeetle.[301] 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 Bristol,
+before he was known to the world as a philanthropist, when he was
+beginning his charitable work, and was without friends or money. He
+prayed for food for the children who had no resource save his bounty,
+and money always came sufficient for the immediate needs. What had
+happened? His prayer was a strong, energetic desire, and that desire
+creates a form, of which it is the life and directing energy. That
+vibrating, living creature has but one idea, the idea that ensouls
+it--help is wanted, food is wanted; and it ranges the subtle world,
+seeking. A charitable man desires to give help to the needy, is seeking
+opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft iron, so is such a person to
+the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It rouses in his brain
+vibrations identical with its own--George Müller, his orphanage, its
+needs--and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws a
+cheque, and sends it. Quite naturally, George Müller would say that God
+put it into the heart of such a one to give the needed help. In the
+deepest sense of the words that is true, since there is no life, no
+energy, in His universe that does not come from God; but the
+intermediate agency, according to the divine laws, is the desire-form
+created by the prayer.
+
+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 daresay 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, no 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 react 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."[302]
+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.[303] "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my
+voice, and open the door, I will come in to him."[304]
+
+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.'"[305]
+
+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 exstasy 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"[306] 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 Iamblichus on this subject is useful. Iamblichus 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 Union with the divinities, in whom it
+establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and thus causes the
+soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from these
+three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant
+adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but
+supernally extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian
+apples of gold. The first of these pertains to illumination; the second
+to a communion of operation; but through the energy of the third we
+receive a perfect plenitude of divine fire.... No operation, however, in
+sacred concerns, can succeed without the intervention of prayer. Lastly,
+the continual exercise of prayer nourishes the vigour of our intellect,
+and renders the receptacle of the soul far more capacious for the
+communications of the Gods. It likewise is the divine key, which opens
+to men the penetralia of the Gods; accustoms us to the splendid rivers
+of supernal light; in a short time perfects our inmost recesses, and
+disposes them for the ineffable embrace and contact of the Gods; and
+does not desist till it raises us to the summit of all. It also
+gradually and silently draws upward the manners of our soul, by
+divesting them of everything foreign to a divine nature, and clothes us
+with the perfections of the Gods. Besides this, it produces an
+indissoluble communion and friendship with divinity, nourishes a divine
+love, and inflames the divine part of the soul. Whatever is of an
+opposing and contrary nature in the soul, it expiates and purifies;
+expels whatever is prone to generation and retains anything of the dregs
+of mortality in its ethereal and splendid spirit; perfects a good hope
+and faith concerning the reception of divine light; and in one word,
+renders those by whom it is employed the familiars and domestics of the
+Gods."[307]
+
+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, O God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law
+is within my heart."[308] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+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.[309] So also of one woman it was said: "Her sins, which are
+many, are forgiven, for she loved much."[310] 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."[311]
+
+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."[312]
+
+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 springtime 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,"[313] and at
+another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."[314] So in
+the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the
+world is bound by action,"[315] and that a man "recovereth the
+characteristics of his former body;"[316] and yet it is said that "even
+if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he, too, must be
+accounted righteous."[317] 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,[318]
+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.[319] 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."[320] 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 clashes 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-Gîtâ_ 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."[321] The essence of sin lies 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."[322]
+
+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."[323] 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," re-admitting 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"[324] 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."[325] "The divine potency which is all in all does not
+proffer or withhold, except through assimilation or rejection by
+oneself."[326] "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."[327]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+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.[328] 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[329] 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"[330] when the
+foundations of the earth were laid amid the choiring of the Morning
+Stars.
+
+Others 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.[331] 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.[332] 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.[333] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SACRAMENTS (_continued_).
+
+
+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.[334] 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.'"[335] 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 practise of Baptism in Egypt, Persia, Thibet,
+Mongolia, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and among the
+Druids.[336] Some of the prayers quoted are very fine: "I pray that this
+celestial water, blue and light blue, may enter into thy body and there
+live. I pray that it may destroy in thee, and put away from thee, all
+the things evil and adverse that were given to thee before the beginning
+of the world." "O child! receive the water of the Lord of the world who
+is our life: it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove the sin
+which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since all of
+us are under its power."
+
+Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among non-Christian
+nations in a passage already quoted,[337] 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 Roman Churches a small receptacle for
+holy water is placed near every door, and every incoming worshipper
+touches it, making with it on himself the sign of the cross ere he goes
+onward towards the altar. On this Robert Taylor remarks: "The baptismal
+fonts in our Protestant churches, and we need hardly say more especially
+the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not
+imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the
+same _aqua minaria_, or _amula_, which the learned Montfaucon, in his
+_Antiquities_, shows to have been vases of holy water, which were placed
+by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves
+with upon entering those sacred edifices."[338]
+
+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 to-day.
+
+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 re-affirm 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"[339] 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.[340]
+
+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?"[341] 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 Tibet and Tartary. Jeremiah
+speaks of the cakes and the drink offered to the Queen of Heaven by the
+Jews in Egypt, they taking part in the Egyptian worship.[342] In Genesis
+we read that Melchisedek, the King-Initiate, used bread and wine in the
+blessing of Abraham.[343] In the various Greek Mysteries bread and wine
+were used, and Williamson mentions their use also among the Mexicans,
+Peruvians, and Druids.[344]
+
+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."[345] 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 the 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."[346]
+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 Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
+Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
+bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."[347] So S. Paul wrote that
+the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.[348]
+
+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."[349]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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 Vedântin and the most illiterate Vallabhâchârya, 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 _Kurân_. 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."[350] 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.[351] 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.[352]
+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."[353]
+
+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.[354] 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 re-inforce 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, &c. 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.[355] 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 its
+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.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.                               PAGE
+
+_Acts of the Apostles_ referred to;  281
+
+À Kempis, Thomas;  115
+
+Afterword;  376
+
+Allegory;  66
+
+Allegories, Old Testament; 121
+
+All-wide Consciousness; 281 _et seq._
+
+Ammonius Saccas; 28
+
+Animal Symbols of Zodiac; 165
+
+Anselm and Redemption; 195
+
+Answers to Prayer; 277
+  "        Subjective Prayer; 290
+
+Apollonius of Tyana; 31
+
+Apostolic Fathers; 70
+
+Appearances of Divine Beings; 93
+
+Aquinas, Thomas; 112
+
+_Arians of the Fourth Century_, quoted; 103
+
+Aristotle, Effect on Mediæval Christianity; 112
+
+Ascension, The; 231, 250
+  "      and Solar Myth; 231
+  "      of the Christ; 249
+
+_Asiatic Researches_, quoted; 258
+
+Aspects of the ONE; 262
+
+Athanasius, Story of; 353
+
+Athanasian Creed, quoted; 263, 367
+
+Atlantis, Continent of; 18
+
+At-one-ment; 209
+
+Atonement as one of Lesser Mysteries; 200
+  "     Early Church on the; 195
+  "     Calvinistic View of; 197
+  "     Edwards on the; 197
+  "     Flavel on the; 196
+  "     Luther's Views on the; 196
+  "     Dr. McLeod Campbell on the; 199
+  "     F. D. Maurice on the; 199
+  "     Vicarious and Substitutionary; 196
+
+Atonement--Views of Dwight, Jeune, Jenkyn, Liddon, Owen,
+             Stroud, and Thomson; 198
+  "     Truth underlying the Doctrine of; 199
+  "     Pamphlet on, quoted; 198
+  "     _Nineteenth Century_ quoted on; 205
+
+Augöeides; 27
+
+
+Barnabas; 71
+
+Baptism, A Mantram in; 350
+  "     A Minor Form of; 349
+  "     Belief in Death-bed; 352
+  "     Infant; 353
+  "     In the Early Church; 352
+  "     In Other Religions; 348
+  "     of Initiate; 53
+  "     of Holy Ghost and Fire; 188
+  "     of Jesus; 133
+  "     of the Christ; 186
+  "     Tertullian on; 349
+
+Beatific Vision, The; 95, 295
+
+Bernard of Clairvaux; 112
+
+Bel-fires; 164
+
+_Bhagavad Gîtâ_ referred to; 50, 202, 270, 306, 318
+
+Bible Account of Creation; 179
+
+Birth, Second; 247
+
+Blavatsky, H. P., referred to; 127
+
+Blood of Christ symbolised in Eucharist; 359
+
+Böhme, Jacob; 115
+
+Body, Causal; 239, 247
+  "   Desire, Changes in;  244
+  "   Meaning of a; 234
+  "   Mental; 236
+  "     "     Building of; 245
+  "   Natural or Physical; 236
+  "   Natural, of St. Paul; 237
+  "   of Bliss; 240
+  "   of Desire; 236
+  "   Physical, Changes in; 243
+  "   Resurrection; 240
+
+Body, Spiritual; 239
+
+_Book of Job_, quoted; 268, 332
+  "  _of the Dead_, referred to; 339
+  "  _of Wisdom_, quoted; 266
+
+Bread, General Symbol in Sacraments; 358
+
+_Brihadâranyakopanishat_, quoted; 50, 202
+
+Brotherhood of Great Teachers; 9
+
+Bruno, Giordano, referred to; 5, 113, 115, 225, 322
+
+Buddha, Birth Story of; 164
+
+Buddhist Trinity; 258
+
+
+Calvinistic Doctrine; 197
+
+Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa; 115
+
+Cathari, The, referred to; 113
+
+Cave of Initiation; 186
+
+Celsus--Controversy with Origen; 88
+
+_Chhândogyopanishat_, quoted; 253
+
+Chrêstos and Christos; 174
+
+Christ as Hierophant of Mysteries; 231
+  "   Baptism of; 186
+  "   Crucifixion of; 183
+  "   Disciples of; 223
+  "   in the Spiritual Body; 137
+  "   Life of the; 217
+  "   of the Mysteries; 191
+  "   The; 132, 134
+  "   the Crucified; 182
+  "   the Historical; 120, 140
+  "   the Kosmic; 179
+  "   the Mystic; 170
+  "   the Mythic; 145
+  "   Sufferings of the; 223
+
+_Christian Creed_, referred to; 180, 181
+  "                quoted; 206, 207, 229
+
+Christian Disciples--their work; 223
+
+_Christian Records_, quoted; 348
+
+Christian Symbols, &c., not unique; 148
+
+Christianity has the Gnosis; 36
+
+Christmas Day; 159, 161
+
+Christmas Festival, rightly regarded; 164
+
+_Clarke's Ante-Nicene_ Library, quoted; viii., 21, 58, 71, 72, 73, 74,
+    77, 78, 80 _et seq._, 87, 88, 90 _et seq._, 103, 150, 151, 266
+
+Classes of Prayers; 283
+
+Clement of Alexandria, quoted; viii., 20
+  "  "     referred to; 73
+  "  "     on the Gnosis; 83, 84
+  "  "     on Scripture Allegories; 83
+  "  "     on Symbols; 80
+  "  "     and Catechetical School; 73
+  "  "     a Pupil of Pantænus; 73
+
+_Colossians, Epistle to_, referred to;  58, 65, 81, 177
+
+Comparative Mythologists; 7
+  "  "  Theory of; 8
+  "  Religionists; 7, 8
+  "  Mythology; 147
+
+Consecrated Objects; 382
+
+Consecration of Churches, Cemeteries, &c.; 385
+
+Constant, Alphonse Louis; 118
+
+Conversion, Phenomenon of; 313 _et seq._
+
+_Corinthians, Epistles to_, quoted; ix., x., 6, 32, 55, 64, 67, 124,
+    175, 177, 232, 239, 240, 241, 251, 253, 270, 356, 373
+
+Creed, taught after Baptism in Early Church; 352
+
+_Cruden's Concordance_, quoted; 33
+
+_Cur Deus Homo_ of Anselm; 195
+
+
+Dangers to Christianity; 125
+
+Dark Powers in Nature;  186, 187
+
+Dean Milman, quoted; 255 _et seq._
+
+Death of Solar Heroes; 166
+
+_De Principiis_ of Origen; 101, 102
+
+_Deuteronomy_, quoted; 96, 253
+
+_Diegesis_ of R. Taylor, quoted; 350
+
+_Die Deutsche Theologie_; 114
+
+Dionysius the Areopagite; 110
+
+Disappearance of the Mysteries; 184
+
+Disciples, The; 136
+  "  Work of the; 223
+  "  Writings of the; 140
+
+Divine Beings, Appearance in Mysteries; 93
+
+"Divine Grace," What it is;  224
+  "  Ideation; 359
+  "  Illumination; 377
+  "  Incarnations; 273, 274
+
+Duality of Manifested Existence; 235
+  "  of Second Person of Trinity; 265
+
+
+Easter Festival; 159
+
+Eckhart, Teachings of; 113
+
+Edwards on the Atonement; 197
+
+Egypt and the Mysteries; 131
+
+_Encyclopædia Britannica_, referred to; 22, 23, 117
+  "  "  quoted; 110 _et seq._
+
+_Ephesians, Epistle to_, quoted; 57, 65, 67, 366
+
+_Epistle of James_, quoted;  276
+  "  _of Peter_, quoted; 64, 121, 194, 354, 371
+
+Esoteric Christianity, Popular Denial of; 2
+  "  Teaching in Early Church; 2
+
+Essentials of Religion; 4
+
+Eucharist, Bread and Wine of; 357
+  "  Change of Substance in; 361
+  "  connected with Law of Sacrifice; 357
+  "  Meaning and Use of;  357
+  "  Sacrifice of; 355
+  "  Unworthy Participants in; 362
+
+_Exodus, Book of_, quoted; 91
+
+Exstasy; 295
+
+
+Faith Needed for Forgiveness; 312
+
+Fathers, The Christian, on Scriptures; 371
+
+Festivals; 147
+
+Fish Symbol in Religions; 166
+
+Flavel on Atonement; 196
+
+Fludd, Robert; 116
+
+Forgiveness of Sins; 301
+  "  in Lesser Mysteries; 323
+  "  in most Religions; 303
+  "  ultimately refers to _Post-Mortem_ Penalties; 307
+
+Fourth Manifestation Feminine; 261
+  "  Person; 263
+
+Free-thinking in Christianity; 123
+
+_Friends of God in the Oberland_; 114
+
+Friends, Society of; 117
+
+Future of Christianity; 41
+
+
+_Galatians, Epistle to_, quoted; 64, 65, 66, 124
+
+_Genesis_, quoted; 18, 180, 268, 269, 271, 279, 358
+
+Germain, Comte de S.; 117
+
+Gestures in Sacraments;  338
+
+Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of R. Empire_, quoted;  162
+
+Giles, Rev. Dr., quoted;  347
+
+Gnosis, The;   viii., 9, 108
+  "      " in Christianity;  36
+
+Gnostic, The, of S. Clement; 84 _et seq._
+
+_Gnostics and their Remains_, quoted; 162
+
+Gods in the Mysteries; 25
+
+Grades of Hierarchies; 331
+
+Grand Lodge of Central Asia; 31
+
+Greek Cross, The;  267
+
+Guyon, Mme. de; 116
+
+
+Haug, Dr., _Essay on Parsis_, cited; 202
+
+_Hebrews, Epistle to_, quoted; 53, 67, 81, 91, 175, 176, 205,
+    216, 222, 223, 247, 270, 274, 280
+
+Hebrew Trinity; 254
+
+Hell-fire Dogma, The; 48
+
+_Heroic Enthusiasts, The_, quoted; 323
+
+Hidden God, The;  207
+  "  Meanings in Jewish and Christian Scriptures; 100
+  "  Side of Christianity; 36
+  "  Teaching in all Religions; 20
+
+Hierarchies of Divine Beings; 331
+  "  of Superhuman Beings; 23
+
+Hindu, Trinity, The; 257
+
+History _versus_ Myth; 153
+
+Holy Spirit as Creator; 269
+
+Holy Water; 343, 349, 351
+
+Human Evolution repeats Kosmic Process; 271
+
+Huxley, T. H., quoted; 282
+
+Hyde, Dr., quoted;  347
+
+_Hymn to Demeter_; 22
+
+
+Iamblichus, _On the Mysteries_, quoted; 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29,
+    296 _et seq._
+
+Iamblichus, _Life of Pythagoras_, referred to; 28
+
+Ignatius; 71
+
+Incarnation of Logos;  179
+
+Initiation and Rebirth;  51, 53
+  "  Cave of;  186
+  "  Ceremonies of; 247 _et seq._
+  "  Conditions of; 173
+  "  Mount of;  91
+
+Inspiration, True; 378
+
+Intelligences in Invisible Worlds; 279
+
+Inviolability of Law; 305
+
+Invisible Helpers; 280
+
+Invisible Worlds interpenetrate the Visible; 279
+
+Irenæus, _Against Heresies_, referred to; 105
+
+_Isaiah_, quoted; 210, 295, 366, 377
+
+Isomeric Compounds; 361
+
+
+_Jeremiah, Book of_, quoted; 262, 357
+
+Jesus at Mount Serbal;  130
+  "  Baptism of;  133
+  "  Date and Place of Birth; 130
+  "  His Work in Christendom;  143
+  "  in Egypt; 130
+  "  Inner Instructions of; 137
+  "  Master of the West; 147
+  "  Sacrifice of; 133
+  "  the Divine Teacher; 183
+  "  the Healer and Teacher; 127
+  "  training in Essene Community; 130
+  "  the Master; 142
+
+_Judges, Book of_, quoted;  97
+
+Juliana Mother; 117
+
+Justin Martyr;  148
+  "  "  quoted; 149 _et seq._
+
+
+_Kabbala_, Five Books of, referred to; 34
+
+Karma;  288, 309
+
+_Kathopanishat_, quoted; 32, 33, 49
+
+_Key to Theosophy_, quoted; 294
+
+Kingdom of Heaven--real meaning; 52
+
+_Kings, Book of_, quoted; 33, 354
+
+Kosmic Christ, The; 179
+  "  Process of becoming; 268
+  "  Sacrifice; 183
+
+
+Lang, Andrew, referred to; 11, 12
+
+Language of Symbols; 153
+
+Latin Cross, Origin of; 206
+  "  Use of, in Roman Church; 337
+
+Law of Sacrifice; 201
+  "  "  in Hinduism;  202
+  "  "  in Nature of Logos;  204
+  "  "  in Zoroastrianism;  202
+  "  "  or Manifestation; 203
+
+Law, William; 117
+
+Left-hand Path; 17
+
+Lent; 167
+
+Levi Eliphas; 118
+
+_Leviticus_, quoted; 358
+
+_Light on the Path_, quoted; 220
+
+"Little Child"; 65
+
+Logos, Birth of the; 205
+  "  and Sacrifice; 204
+  "  Life of, in every form; 208
+  "  Meaning of the Term; 172
+  "  of Plato; 182
+  "  Perpetual Sacrifice of; 209
+
+Loss of Mystic Teaching in Christianity; 37
+
+_Luke, Gospel of_, quoted; 45, 48, 175, 176, 264, 289, 302, 312
+
+Luther on the Atonement; 196
+
+
+Madonnas; 160
+
+Magnetic Cures, Secret of; 342
+  "  Change in Sacramental Substance; 342
+  "  Energies in Ether;  341
+
+Magnetisation of Substances; 341
+
+_Making_ of _Religion_, The, referred to; 11
+
+Man as Microcosm;  271
+  "  and Woman Complementary; 365
+  "  develops Second Aspect; 272
+
+Man's Manifold Nature; 234
+
+_Mandakopanishat_, quoted; 202
+
+"Mantras"; 335
+  "  essential in Sacraments; 338
+  "  in rite of Baptism; 350
+  "  in Sanskrit;  336
+  "  spoilt by translation; 337
+
+_Mark, Gospel of_, quoted; vii., 45, 47
+
+Martin, St.; 117
+
+Marriage, Deeper meaning of; 365
+  "  in Lesser Mysteries; 368
+  "  Mystery of; 366
+  "  Sacrament of;  364
+  "  type of union between God and Man; 366
+
+Mary, the World Mother;  206
+
+Master, Jesus, the; 142
+
+_Matthew, Gospel of_, quoted;   vii., 45, 46, 49, 52, 53, 54, 92, 134,
+    176, 177, 186, 210, 216, 240, 271, 274, 281, 306, 319
+
+Maurice, cited; 254
+
+Mead, G. R. S., quoted; 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 114
+
+Mediator, Nature of;  274
+
+Meditation--What it is; 293
+  "  Growth by; 299
+
+Men at different levels; 3
+
+Miguel de Molinos; 116
+
+Ministry of Angels, The; 287, 289
+
+Miracles; 145
+
+Mithras, Birth of; 161
+
+Modern Spirit antagonistic to Prayer; 276
+
+More, Henry; 116
+
+Mother Juliana of Norwich; 117
+
+Mount Serbal; 130
+
+Mount of Initiation; 91, 188
+
+Müller, George, Case of; 284 _et seq._
+
+Music in Worship; 335, 337
+
+Myers (F.), St. Paul; 378
+
+Mystery Gods; 25
+  "  of Christ;  57
+
+Mysteries, Christian, Symbolism of; 247
+
+Mysteries and Yoga; 31
+  "  Christ as Hierophant of; 231
+  "  Disappearance of the; 184
+  "  Eliphas Levi on the; 118
+  "  established by Christ; 142
+  "  Greater, The; ix., 1, 22, 27, 63
+  "  in the Gospels; 45
+  "  in Egypt; 131
+  "  in relation to Myth; 157
+  "  Lesser; ix., 1, 22
+  "  "  and Prayer; 280
+  "  "  as to Bodies; 237
+  "  "  Teaching of; 251
+  "  Names in Christianity; 47
+  "  of Bacchus; 21, 27
+  "  of Chaldæa, Egypt, Eleusis, Mithras, Orpheus, Samothrace,
+        Scythia; 21
+  "  of God; 57
+  "  of Jesus; 1, 42, 94
+  "  of the Early Church; 69 _et seq_.
+  "  of Magic, quoted; 157
+  "  praised by Learned Greeks; 21
+  "  Pseudo, and Sun-God Story; 167
+  "  source of Mystic Learning; 108
+  "  The; 171, 178
+  "  taught, _Post-mortem_ Existence; 21
+  "  The True; 179
+  "  The Christ of the; 184
+  "  Theory of the; 22
+  "  withdrawn; 108
+
+Mystic Christ, The; 170
+  "  "  Twofold; 178
+  "  Vesture, The; 138
+
+Mythic Christ, The; 145
+
+Myth, Meaning of; 152, 153
+  "  Solar; 156
+
+Mythology Comparative; 147
+
+
+Natural and Spiritual Bodies; 232
+  "  Body--of St. Paul; 237
+
+Natural Body, The; 235 _et seq._
+
+Need for Graded Religion; 14
+
+Neoplatonists;  29, 112
+
+Newman, Cardinal, quoted; 103 _et seq._
+  "  Recognises a Secret Tradition; 104
+
+New Testament Proofs of Esotericism; 42 _et seq._
+
+Nicene Creed; 181
+
+Nicolas of Basel; 114
+
+Noachian Deluge; 19
+
+_Nous Demiurgos_ of Plato; 255
+
+_Numbers, Book of_, quoted; 270
+
+
+Object of all Religions; 3
+
+Occult Experts; 127
+  "  Knowledge, Danger of; 16
+  "  Records; 18
+  "  "  and the Gospels; 129
+  "  side of Nature; 279
+  "  use of Sounds;  334
+
+Old Testament Allegories; 121
+
+One Existence, The; 253
+
+One, The, Three aspects of; 262
+ "  "  Manifest; 261
+
+Origen _Against Celsus_; 88 _et seq._
+  "  "  ";  95
+  "  on the Need of Wisdom; 99
+  "  "  Mysteries;  89
+  "  "  Scriptures; 372
+  "  "  Tower of Babel; 97
+  "  referred to;  44
+  "  Shining Light of Learning; 87
+
+_Orpheus_, Mead's, quoted; 28, 29, 30, 114
+
+Owen on Atonement; 197
+
+
+Pantænus; 73, 74
+
+Paracelsus; 115
+
+Paradise; 242
+
+Path of Discipleship; 174
+
+_Philippians, Epistle to_, quoted; 62
+
+Physical Ailments final expression of Karma; 310
+
+Physical Body, Changes in; 243
+  "  Material in Sacraments; 340
+
+Pilgrimages, Rationale of; 382
+
+_Pistis Sophia_, quoted; 46, 138, 139, 302 _et seq._,
+    319 _et seq._, 340
+  "  "  referred to; 137
+
+Plato's Cave; 153
+
+Plato initiated in Egypt; 21
+
+Platonists of Cambridge; 116
+
+Plotinus, Dying Words of; 31
+  "  referred to; 23
+  "  Mead's, quoted; 31
+
+Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna; 70
+
+Popular Christianity, Mistake of; vii.
+  "  Denial of Esoteric Christianity; 1
+
+Porphyry, quoted;  27, 54
+
+Prayer; 276
+  "  Answers to; 277
+  "  as Will; 285
+  "  Class B--general principle; 292
+  "  Failure of; 287
+  "  for Spiritual Enlightenment; 291
+  "  for the Student of Lesser Mysteries; 296
+  "  Highest form of; 293
+  "  Puzzling Facts as to; 277
+
+Prayers classified; 278
+
+Probationary Path, The; 247
+
+"Proclaim upon the houses"--Mystical meaning; 79
+
+Proclus, Teaching of; 26, 29, 51
+
+Psalms, quoted; 5, 299
+
+Pseudo-Mysteries and Sun-God Drama; 167
+
+Pupils of the Apostles; 70
+
+Purgatory; 242
+
+Purification; 244
+
+Pythagoras, referred to; 28
+  "  in India; 31
+
+Pythagorean School, Discipline of; 29, 30
+
+
+Qualifications of Disciple; 175
+
+Quietists, The; 116
+
+
+Regions of the Invisible Worlds; 239
+
+Re-incarnation;  239
+
+Religion, Need for graded; 14
+
+_Religion of Ancient Persians_, quoted; 347
+
+Religions, Common origin of; 7
+  "  Custodians of Sacred Books; 369
+  "  Essentials of; 4
+  "  fitted for Stages of Growth; 13
+  "  Object of all; 3
+  "  Source of all; 7
+
+Religious Founders; 10
+  "  Scriptures; 10
+  "  Teachers; 9
+
+Resurrection and Solar Myth; 231, 250
+  "  Body; 240
+  "  of the Christ; 249
+  "  of the Dead; 62
+  "  The--Part of Lesser Mysteries; 231
+
+Revelation; 369
+   "  Fragments of in Sacred Books; 370
+   "  in Cypher; 370
+   "  of Deity in Kosmos; 375
+
+_Revelations, Book of_, quoted; 50, 63, 66, 249, 263,
+    292, 322, 331
+
+Revolt against Dogma; 38
+
+Roman Empire dying; 107
+
+_Romans, Epistle to_, quoted; 82, 363
+
+Rosenkreutz Christian; 117
+
+Ruling Angel of Jews; 96, 98
+
+Ruysbroeck; 115
+
+
+Sacrament, a kind of crucible; 326
+  "  a Pictorial Allegory; 325
+  "  Change in substance at; 343
+  "  link between Visible and Invisible; 326, 327
+  "  of Baptism; 347
+  "  of Eucharist; 347
+  "  of Marriage; 347, 364
+  "  of Penance; 340
+
+Sacraments; 324
+  "  Angels connected with; 343
+  "  defined in Church Catechism; 329
+
+Sacraments, Gestures used in; 338
+  "  in all Religions; 324
+  "  Lost at Reformation; 327
+  "  Mantrams in; 338
+  "  of Christian Church; 327
+  "  Peculiar Characteristics; 324
+  "  Seven, of Christianity; 327, 346
+  "  Signs, Seals, or Sigils in; 339
+  "  "Substance" and "Accidents" of; 361
+  "  Twofold Nature of; 324 _et seq._
+  "  Two, In Protestant Communities; 328, 346
+
+Sacred Places and Objects; 380
+
+Sacred Quaternery, The; 261
+
+Sacrifice as Joy; 210 _et seq._
+  "  Law of; 201
+  "  "  Four Stages in; 212
+  "  Lessons in; 212 _et seq._
+  "  of Jesus; 133
+
+Saint Bonaventura; 112
+  "  Elizabeth; 113
+  "  Francois de Sales; 116
+  "  John of the Cross; 116
+  "  _John's Gospel_, quoted; x., 46, 52, 53, 54, 56, 103, 132, 133,
+       134, 137, 177, 180, 216, 240, 246, 250, 262, 270, 273, 292, 382
+  "  Paul, quoted; 55 _et seq._, 124, 184
+  "  Paul an Initiate; 61
+  "  "  and Mysteries; 57
+  "  "  and Timothy; 59, 69
+  "  "  on Allegory; 66
+  "  Peter, quoted; 194
+  "  Teresa; 116
+  "  Timothy, referred to; 59
+
+_Samuel, Book of_, quoted; 33
+
+Savage Deities; 11
+
+Savages as Descendants of Civilisation; 12
+
+Saviour, The True; 219 _et seq._
+
+Sayings of Jesus; 53, 54, 301
+
+Scientific Analysis of Vehicles; 237
+
+Search for God, The; 5
+
+Secret Teachings of Jesus; 90
+  "  Tradition recognised by Newman; 104
+
+Second Birth; 185, 247
+
+_Sepher Yetzirah_, quoted; 34
+
+_Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology_, quoted; 259
+
+_Shvetâshvataropanishat_, quoted; 32
+
+"Sign of Power"; 339
+
+Society of Friends; 117
+
+Solar Gods; 160
+  "  Myth, Root of; 178
+
+Sopater, quoted; 21
+
+Sophia--The Wisdom; 138
+
+Soul--Dual; 233
+
+Sound and Form in the Invisible Worlds; 333
+
+Sound, Occult use of; 334
+
+Source of Religions; 7
+
+Spirit and Matter; 367
+
+Spirit threefold; 233
+  "  manifested as triple Self; 330
+
+Spiritual Body, Divisions of; 240 _et seq._
+
+"Star of Initiation"; 186
+
+"Strait Gate" term of Initiation; 49, 50, 174, 177
+
+_Stromata_ or Miscellanies of S. Clement, quoted; 58, 74 _et seq._,
+   78, 83, 84, 85, 87
+
+Sufferings of the Christ; 223
+
+Superintending Spirits; 98
+
+Sun God Legend; 158
+  "  "  Symbol of Logos; 171
+  " Heroes; 165
+  " Myths, recurring; 169
+  " of Righteousness; 249
+  " Symbol of the Logos; 154
+  " Symbols; 155
+
+Survival of Christianity?; 40
+
+Symbol of Jesus; 165
+  "  of Trinity; 267
+
+Symbols--animal, in Zodiac; 165
+  "  Language of; 153
+
+Symbols of Logoi; 266 _et seq._
+
+
+Tatian and Theodotus, referred to;  73
+
+Tauler, John; 114
+
+Taylor, Robert, quoted; 350
+
+Teachings common to all Religions; 146
+  "  in the hands of Spiritual Brotherhood; 374
+
+Tertullian on Baptism; 151
+
+The Christ; 132, 134
+
+The Hidden Side of Religions; 1
+  "  of Christianity; 36
+
+The Disciples; 136
+
+The "Simple Gospel"; 39
+
+The title of Lord; 96
+
+The Testimony of the Scriptures; 36
+
+The Tower of Babel; 97
+
+The Thyrsus; 75
+
+The True Exstasis; 108
+
+The Trinity; 253
+  "  among the Hebrews; 254
+  "  Hindu; 257
+  "  in Buddhism; 258
+  "  in Chaldæa; 259
+  "  in China; 259
+  "  in Extinct Religions; 258
+  "  in Egypt; 259
+  "  in Man; 177, 233
+  "  in Manifestation; 254
+  "  in Zoroastrianism; 257
+
+The Word of Wisdom, of Knowledge; 102
+
+Theological Hell; 308
+
+_Theosophical Review_, quoted; 228
+
+_Thessalonians, Epistle to_, quoted; 233
+
+Three Worlds, The; 241
+
+_Timothy, Epistle to_, quoted; 59, 60, 61, 65, 134, 227
+
+Tradition of _Post-mortem_ Teaching of Jesus; 46
+
+Transubstantiation--Truth Underlying; 360
+
+Triangle as a Symbol of Trinity; 267
+
+Trinity, A Second; 263
+  "  of Spirit; 233
+
+Trinity in Christian agrees with other Faiths; 260
+
+Triple Aspect of Matter; 264
+
+Triplicity in Nature; 261
+
+True Theosophy defined; x.
+
+Two Schools of Christian Interpretation; 122
+
+Two-fold Division of Man Insufficient; 232
+
+
+Vaivasvata Manu; 19
+
+Valentinus; 137
+
+Vaughan, Thomas; 116
+
+Vehicles of Consciousness, Need for Different; 238
+
+Vibrations; 334
+
+Vibratory Effects of Mass; 338
+
+Virgin Matter; 264
+  "  "  and Third Person of Trinity; 265
+  "  "  and Second  "  " ; 265
+  "  Mother; 264
+
+Virgin's Womb, Meaning of; 180
+
+Virgo, Zodiacal Sign of; 158, 160
+
+Virtues in the Mysteries; 27
+
+_Voice of the Silence_, quoted; 249
+
+_Voice Figures_--Mrs. Watts Hughes, referred to; 333
+
+
+Williamson's _Great Law_, quoted; 161, 163 _et seq._,
+   166, 167, 203, 255, 259, 348, 358.
+
+Will as Prayer; 285
+
+Words of Power; 335
+
+Work of the Holy Spirit; 179, 268
+  "  Second Person; 179, 269
+  "  First Person; 270
+
+Working of Logos in Matter; 182
+
+Workers in Kosmos; 283
+  "  the Invisible Worlds; 152, 280
+
+World Bibles, fragments of Revelation; 374
+
+World Soul, The; 23
+
+World Symbols; 266
+
+Writings of the Disciples; 140
+
+
+_Zechariah_, quoted; 268
+
+Zodiac, The; 160
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] S. Mark xvi. 15.
+
+[2] S. Matt vii. 6.
+
+[3] Clarke's Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. Clement of
+Alexandria. _Stromata_, bk. I., ch. xii.
+
+[4] I. Cor. iii. 16.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, ii. 14, 16.
+
+[6] S. John, i. 9.
+
+[7] Psalms, xlii. 1.
+
+[8] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
+
+[9] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. _Stromata_,
+bk. V., ch. xi.
+
+[10] See Article on "Mysteries," _Encyc. Britannica_ ninth edition.
+
+[11] Psellus, quoted in _Iamblichus on the Mysteries_. T. Taylor, p.
+343, note on p. 23, second edition.
+
+[12] _Iamblichus_, as _ante_, p. 301.
+
+[13] _Ibid._, p. 72.
+
+[14] The article on "Mysticism" in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ has
+the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204-206 A.D.): "The One
+[the Supreme God spoken of above] is exalted above the _nous_ and the
+'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether and is not cognisable by
+reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from its
+own fulness, an image of itself, which is called _nous_, and which
+constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The soul is
+in turn the image or product of the _nous_, and the soul by its motion
+begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways--towards the
+_nous_, from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is
+its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the
+sensible; material existence is itself estrangement from God.... To
+reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for
+thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the
+motionless rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent
+deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence,
+_contact_." Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all a system of complete
+rationalism; it is assumed, in other words, that reason is capable of
+mapping out the whole system of things. But, inasmuch as a God is
+affirmed beyond reason, the mysticism becomes in a sense the necessary
+complement of the would-be all-embracing rationalism. The system
+culminates in a mystical act."
+
+[15] _Iamblichus_, as _ante_, p. 73.
+
+[16] _Ibid_, pp. 55, 56.
+
+[17] _Ibid_, pp. 118, 119.
+
+[18] _Ibid_, p. 118, 119.
+
+[19] _Ibid_, pp. 95, 100.
+
+[20] _Ibid_, p. 101.
+
+[21] _Ibid_, p. 330.
+
+[22] G. R. S. Mead. _Plotinus_, p. 42.
+
+[23] _Iamblichus_, p. 364, note on p. 134.
+
+[24] G. R. S. Mead. _Orpheus_, pp. 285, 286.
+
+[25] _Iamblichus_, p. 364, note on p. 134.
+
+[26] _Iamblichus_, p. 285, _et seq._
+
+[27] G. R. S. Mead. _Orpheus_, p. 59.
+
+[28] _Ibid_, p. 30.
+
+[29] _Ibid_, pp. 263, 271.
+
+[30] G. R. S. Mead. _Plotinus_, p. 20.
+
+[31] _Shvetâshvataropanishat_, vi., 22.
+
+[32] _Kathopanishat_, iii., 14.
+
+[33] I. Cor. xiii. 1.
+
+[34] _Kathopanishat_, vi. 17.
+
+[35] _Mundakopanishat_, II., ii. 9.
+
+[36] _Ibid_., III., i. 3.
+
+[37] I Sam. xix. 20.
+
+[38] II. Kings ii. 2, 5.
+
+[39] Under "School."
+
+[40] Dr. Wynn Westcott. _Sepher Yetzirah_, p. 9.
+
+[41] S. Mark iv. 10, 11, 33, 34. See also S. Matt. xiii. 11, 34, 36,
+and S. Luke viii. 10.
+
+[42] S. John xvi. 12.
+
+[43] Acts i. 3.
+
+[44] _Loc. cit._ Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. I. i. 1.
+
+[45] S. Matt. vii. 6.
+
+[46] As to the Greek woman: "It is not meet to take the children's
+bread, and to cast it unto the dogs."--S. Mark vii. 27.
+
+[47] S. Luke xiii. 23, 24.
+
+[48] S. Matt. vii. 13, 14.
+
+[49] _Kathopanishat_ II. iv. 10, 11.
+
+[50] _Brihadâranyakopanishat_. IV. iv. 7.
+
+[51] Rev. vii. 9.
+
+[52] _Bahgavad Gîtâ_, vii. 3.
+
+[53] _Ante_, p. 26.
+
+[54] It must be remembered that the Jews believed that all imperfect
+souls returned to live again on earth.
+
+[55] S. Matt. xix. 16-26.
+
+[56] S. John xvii. 3.
+
+[57] Heb. ix. 23.
+
+[58] S. John. iii. 3, 5.
+
+[59] S. Matt. iii. 11.
+
+[60] _Ibid._ xviii. 3.
+
+[61] S. John iii. 10.
+
+[62] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[63] _Ante_, p.24
+
+[64] Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus 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."
+
+[65] Another technical name in the Mysteries.
+
+[66] Eph. iii. 3, 4, 9.
+
+[67] Col i. 23, 25-28. But S. Clement, in his _Stromata_, translates
+"every man," as "the whole man." See Bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[68] Col. iv. 3.
+
+[69] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. _Stromata_,
+bk. V. ch. x. Some additional sayings of the Apostles will be found in
+the quotations from Clement, showing what meaning they bore in the
+minds of those who succeeded the apostles, and were living in the same
+atmosphere of thought.
+
+[70] I. Tim. iii. 9, 16.
+
+[71] I. Tim. i. 18.
+
+[72] _Ibid._, iv. 14.
+
+[73] _Ibid._, vi. 13.
+
+[74] _Ibid._, 20.
+
+[75] II. Tim. i. 13, 14.
+
+[76] _Ibid._, ii. 2.
+
+[77] Phil. iii. 8, 10-12, 14, 15.
+
+[78] Rev. i. 18. "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am
+alive for evermore. Amen."
+
+[79] II. Cor. v. 16.
+
+[80] Gal. iii. 27.
+
+[81] Gal. iv. 19.
+
+[82] I. Cor. iv. 15.
+
+[83] I. S. Pet. iii. 4.
+
+[84] Eph. iv. 13.
+
+[85] Col. i. 24.
+
+[86] II. Cor. iv. 10.
+
+[87] Gal. ii. 20.
+
+[88] II. Tim. iv. 6, 8.
+
+[89] Rev. iii. 12.
+
+[90] Gal. iv. 22-31.
+
+[91] I Cor. x. 1-4.
+
+[92] Eph. v. 23-32.
+
+[93] 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.
+
+[94] _Ibid. The Epistle of Polycarp_, ch. xii.
+
+[95] _Ibid. The Epistle of Barnabas_, ch. i.
+
+[96] _Ibid._ ch. x.
+
+[97] _Ibid. The Martyrdom of Ignatius,_ ch. i.
+
+[98] _Ibid. Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians_, ch. iii.
+
+[99] _Ibid._ ch. xii.
+
+[100] _Ibid. to the Trallians_, ch. v.
+
+[101] _Ibid. to the Philadelphians_, ch. ix.
+
+[102] Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria _Stromata_, bk. I. ch. i.
+
+[103] Vol. IV. _Stromata_, bk. I. ch. xxviii.
+
+[104] It appears that even in those days there were some who objected
+to any truth being taught secretly!
+
+[105] _Ibid._ bk. I, ch. i.
+
+[106] _Ibid._ bk. V., ch. iv.
+
+[107] _Ibid._ ch. v.-viii.
+
+[108] _Ibid._ ch. ix.
+
+[109] _Ibid._ bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[110] Loc. Cit. xv. 29.
+
+[111] _Ibid._ xvi. 25, 26; the version quoted differs in words, but
+not in meaning, from the English Authorised Version.
+
+[112] _Stromata_, bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[113] _Ibid._ bk. VI., ch. vii.
+
+[114] _Ibid._ bk. VII., ch. xiv.
+
+[115] _Ibid._ bk. VI., ch. xv.
+
+[116] _Ibid._ bk. VI. x.
+
+[117] _Ibid._ bk. VI. vii.
+
+[118] _Ibid._ bk. I. ch. vi.
+
+[119] _Ibid._ ch. ix.
+
+[120] _Ibid._ bk. VI. ch. x.
+
+[121] _Ibid._ bk. I. ch. xiii.
+
+[122] Vol XII. _Stromata_, bk. V. ch. iv.
+
+[123] _Ibid._ bk. VI. ch. xv.
+
+[124] Book I. of _Against Celsus_ is found in Vol. X. of the
+Ante-Nicene Library. The remaining books are in Vol. XXIII.
+
+[125] Vol. X. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. I. ch. vii.
+
+[126] _Ibid._
+
+[127] Ex. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30, and compare with Heb. viii. 5, and ix.
+25.
+
+[128] _Origen against Celsus_, bk. IV. ch. xvi.
+
+[129] _Ibid._ bk. III. ch. lix.
+
+[130] _Ibid._ ch. lxi.
+
+[131] _Ibid._ ch. lxii.
+
+[132] _Ibid._, ch. lx.
+
+[133] Vol. XXIII. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. V. ch. xxv.
+
+[134] _Ibid._ ch. xxviii.
+
+[135] _Ibid._ ch. xxix.
+
+[136] _Ibid._ ch. xx xi.
+
+[137] _Ibid._ ch. xxxii.
+
+[138] _Ibid._ ch. xlv.
+
+[139] _Ibid._ ch. xlvi.
+
+[140] _Ibid._ chs. xlvii.-liv.
+
+[141] _Ibid._ ch. lxxiv.
+
+[142] _Ibid._ bk. IV., ch. xxxix.
+
+[143] Vol. X. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. I., ch. xvii, and others.
+
+[144] _Ibid._ ch. xlii.
+
+[145] Vol. X. _De Principiis_, Preface, p. 8.
+
+[146] _Ibid._ ch. i.
+
+[147] S. John xiv. 18-20.
+
+[148] _Loc. cit._ ch. i. sec. III. p. 55.
+
+[149] _Ibid._ ch. I. Sec. III. pp. 55, 56.
+
+[150] _Ibid._ pp. 54, 55.
+
+[151] "Seems to have been" is a somewhat weak expression, after what
+is said by Clement and Origen, of which some specimens are given in
+the text.
+
+[152] _Ibid._, p. 62.
+
+[153] Article on "Mysticism."--_Encyc. Britan._
+
+[154] Article "Mysticism." _Encyclopædia Britannica._
+
+[155] _Orpheus_, pp. 53, 54.
+
+[156] 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.
+
+[157] _The Mysteries of Magic._ Trans. by A. E. Waite, pp. 58 and 60.
+
+[158] II. S. Peter i. 5.
+
+[159] Gal. iv. 19.
+
+[160] II. Cor. v. 16.
+
+[161] S. John i. 14.
+
+[162] S. John i. 32.
+
+[163] S. Matt. iii. 17.
+
+[164] _Ibid._ iv. 17.
+
+[165] I. Tim. iii. 16.
+
+[166] S. John x. 34-36.
+
+[167] S. John xiv. 18, 19.
+
+[168] Valentinus. Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. _Pistis Sophia_, bk. i., I.
+
+[169] _Ante_, p. 72.
+
+[170] _Ibid._ 60.
+
+[171] _Ibid._ bk. ii., 218.
+
+[172] _Ibid._ 230.
+
+[173] _Ibid._ 357.
+
+[174] _Ibid._ 377.
+
+[175] Vol. II. Justin Martyr. _First Apology_, §§ liv., lxii., and
+lxvi.
+
+[176] Vol. II. Justin Martyr. _Second Apology_, § xiii.
+
+[177] Vol. VII. Tertullian, _On Baptism_, ch. v.
+
+[178] The student might read Plato's account of the "Cave" and its
+inhabitants, remembering that Plato was an Initiate. _Republic_, Bk.
+vii.
+
+[179] Eliphas Lévi _The Mysteries of Magic_, p. 48.
+
+[180] Bonwick. _Egyptian Belief_, p. 157. Quoted in Williamson's
+_Great Law_, p. 26.
+
+[181] The festival "Natalis Solis Invicti," the birthday of the
+Invincible Sun.
+
+[182] Williamson. _The Great Law_, pp. 40-42. Those who wish to study
+this matter as one of Comparative Religion cannot do better than read
+_The Great Law_, whose author is a profoundly religious man and a
+Christian.
+
+[183] _Ibid._ pp. 36, 37.
+
+[184] _The Great Law_, p. 116.
+
+[185] _Ibid._ p. 58.
+
+[186] _Ibid._ p. 56.
+
+[187] _Ibid._ pp. 120-123.
+
+[188] See on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i. 1-5. 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.
+
+[189] See _Ante_, pp. 124.
+
+[190] See _Ante_, pp. 93-94.
+
+[191] See _Ante_, p. 85.
+
+[192] II. Cor. iv. 18.
+
+[193] II. Cor. v. 7.
+
+[194] Heb. v. 14.
+
+[195] S. Luke xv. 16.
+
+[196] _Ibid._ xiv. 26.
+
+[197] S. Matt. v. 28.
+
+[198] Heb. xi. 27.
+
+[199] S. Matt v. 45.
+
+[200] S. Luke ix. 49, 50.
+
+[201] S. Matt xvii. 20.
+
+[202] II. Cor. vi. 8-10.
+
+[203] Col. iii. 1.
+
+[204] S. Matt. v. 8, and S. John xvii. 21.
+
+[205] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[206] S. John i. 3.
+
+[207] _The Christian Creed_, p. 29. This is a most valuable and
+fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning of the creeds.
+
+[208] _Ibid._ p. 42.
+
+[209] A name of the Holy Ghost.
+
+[210] _Ibid._ p. 43.
+
+[211] _Ante_, p. 124.
+
+[212] S. Matt. xviii. 3.
+
+[213] 2 S. Peter iii. 15, 16.
+
+[214] A. Besant. _Essay on the Atonement._
+
+[215] _Ibid._
+
+[216] _Brihadâranyakopanishat_, I. i. 1.
+
+[217] _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, iii. 10.
+
+[218] _Brihadâranyakopanishat_, I. ii. 7.
+
+[219] _Mundakopanishat_, II. ii. 10.
+
+[220] Haug. _Essays on the Parsîs_, pp. 12-14.
+
+[221] Rev. xiii. 8.
+
+[222] W. Williamson. _The Great Law_, p. 406.
+
+[223] A. Besant. _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1895, "The Atonement."
+
+[224] Heb. i. 5.
+
+[225] _Ibid._, 2.
+
+[226] C.W. Leadbeater. _The Christian Creed_, pp. 54-56.
+
+[227] _Ibid._ pp. 56, 57.
+
+[228] S. Matt. xxv. 21, 23, 31-45.
+
+[229] Is. liii. 11.
+
+[230] S. Matt. xvi. 25.
+
+[231] S. John xii. 25.
+
+[232] Heb. vii. 16.
+
+[233] _Light on the Path_, § 8.
+
+[234] Heb. vii. 25.
+
+[235] Heb. v. 8, 9.
+
+[236] I Tim. iii. 16.
+
+[237] Annie Besant. _Theosophical Review_, Dec., 1898, pp. 344, 345.
+
+[238] C. W. Leadbeater. _The Christian Creed_, pp. 61, 62.
+
+[239] I Cor. xv. 44.
+
+[240] I Thess. v. 23.
+
+[241] See Chapter IX., "The Trinity."
+
+[242] See _Ante_, pp. 84, 99, 100.
+
+[243] 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.
+
+[244] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[245] S. John xvii. 22, 23.
+
+[246] 2 Cor. v. 1.
+
+[247] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
+
+[248] This mistranslation was a very natural one, as the translation
+was made in the seventeenth century, and all idea of the pre-existence
+of the soul and of its evolution had long faded out of Christendom,
+save in the teachings of a few sects regarded as heretical and
+persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+[249] S. John iii. 13.
+
+[250] Heb. v. 9.
+
+[251] Rev. i. 18.
+
+[252] H. P. Blavatsky. _The Voice of the Silence_, p. 90, 5th Edition.
+
+[253] S. John. xvii. 5.
+
+[254] 1 Cor. xv. 20.
+
+[255] _Chhândogyopanishat_, VI. ii., 1.
+
+[256] Deut. vi. 4.
+
+[257] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
+
+[258] An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the Trinity, but the
+One Existence, manifested in the Three; nor is Kadmon, or Adam Kadmon,
+one Sephira, but their totality.
+
+[259] Quoted in Williamson's _The Great Law_, pp. 201, 202.
+
+[260] H. H. Milman. _The History of Christianity_, 1867, pp. 70-72.
+
+[261] _Asiatic Researches_, i. 285.
+
+[262] S. Sharpe. _Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christology_, p. 14.
+
+[263] See Williamson's _The Great Law_, p. 196.
+
+[264] _Loc. Cit._, pp. 208, 209.
+
+[265] S. John i. 3.
+
+[266] Jer. li. 15.
+
+[267] See _Ante_, pp. 179-180.
+
+[268] Athanasian Creed.
+
+[269] Rev. iv. 8.
+
+[270] S. Luke. i. 38.
+
+[271] _Ibid_, 35.
+
+[272] Book of Wisdom, viii. 1.
+
+[273] Vol. IV. Ante-Nicene Library. S. Clement of Alexandria.
+_Stromata_, bk. V., ch. ii.
+
+[274] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[275] See _Ante_, p. 207.
+
+[276] Gen. i. 1.
+
+[277] Job xxxviii. 4; Zech. xii. 1; &c.
+
+[278] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[279] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[280] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[281] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[282] S. John i. 3.
+
+[283] _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ ix. 4.
+
+[284] 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28.
+
+[285] S. John xiv. 6. See also the further meaning of this text on p.
+272.
+
+[286] Heb. xii. 9.
+
+[287] Numb. xvi. 22.
+
+[288] Gen. i. 26.
+
+[289] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[290] S. John xvii. 5.
+
+[291] S. John v. 26.
+
+[292] S. Matt. i. 22.
+
+[293] Heb. ii. 18.
+
+[294] Much of this chapter has already appeared in an earlier work by
+the author, entitled, _Some Problems of Life_.
+
+[295] S. James i. 17.
+
+[296] Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.
+
+[297] See Chapter xii.
+
+[298] Heb. i. 14.
+
+[299] S. Matt. x. 29.
+
+[300] Acts xvii. 28.
+
+[301] T. H. Huxley. _Essays on some Controverted Questions_, p. 36.
+
+[302] S. Luke xxii. 41, 43.
+
+[303] S. John i. 11.
+
+[304] Rev. iii. 20.
+
+[305] H. P. Blavatsky. _Key to Theosophy_, p. 10.
+
+[306] Is. xxxiii. 17.
+
+[307] _On the Mysteries_, sec. v. ch. 26.
+
+[308] Ps. xl. 7, 8, Prayer Book version.
+
+[309] S. Luke, v. 18-26.
+
+[310] _Ibid._ vii. 47.
+
+[311] G. R. S. Mead, translated. _Loc. cit._, bk. ii., §§ 260, 261.
+
+[312] _Ibid._ §§ 299, 300.
+
+[313] S. Matt. xii. 36.
+
+[314] _Ibid._ ix. 2.
+
+[315] _Loc. cit._ iii. 9.
+
+[316] _Ibid._ vi. 43.
+
+[317] _Ibid._ ix. 30.
+
+[318] See _ante_, Chap. VIII.
+
+[319] 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.
+
+[320] S. Luke, vii. 48, 50.
+
+[321] _Loc. cit._, ix. 31.
+
+[322] S. Matt. vii. 1.
+
+[323] _Loc. cit._, bk. ii. § 305.
+
+[324] Rev. iii. 20.
+
+[325] G. Bruno, trans. by L. Williams. _The Heroic Enthusiasts_, vol.
+i., p. 133.
+
+[326] _Ibid._, vol. ii., pp. 27, 28.
+
+[327] _Ibid._, pp. 102, 103.
+
+[328] Rev. iv. 5.
+
+[329] 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. 264.
+
+[330] Job xxxviii. 7.
+
+[331] See on forms created by musical notes any scientific book on
+Sound, and also Mrs. Watts-Hughes' illustrated book on _Voice
+Figures_.
+
+[332] See _ante_, p. 138 and p. 302.
+
+[333] 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.
+
+[334] See _ante_ p. 329.
+
+[335] _Christian Records_, p. 129.
+
+[336] _The Great Law_, pp. 161-166.
+
+[337] See _ante_, p. 151.
+
+[338] _Diegesis_, p. 219.
+
+[339] 1 Pet. iii. 4.
+
+[340] 2 Kings vi. 17.
+
+[341] 1 Cor. x. 16.
+
+[342] Jer. xliv.
+
+[343] Gen. xiv. 18, 19.
+
+[344] _The Great Law_, pp. 177-181, 185.
+
+[345] Lev. xvii. 11.
+
+[346] Rom. xii. 1.
+
+[347] Isaiah liv. 5; lxii. 5.
+
+[348] Eph. v. 23-32.
+
+[349] Athanasian Creed.
+
+[350] 2 Pet. i. 20.
+
+[351] 1 See _ante_, p. 102.
+
+[352] 2 Cor. iii. 6.
+
+[353] 1 Cor. ii. 11, 13.
+
+[354] Is. vi. 6, 7.
+
+[355] S. John v. 4.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM BYLES & SONS, PRINTERS, BRADFORD.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser
+Mysteries, by Annie Besant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries
+
+Author: Annie Besant
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2008 [EBook #26938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Erica Hills, Henry Craig, and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="transnote"><div class="blockquot-nar">
+<h4>Transcriber's Note: The many inconsistently spelt words in this book
+(e.g. Samskrit/Sanskrit) have been retained as in the original.</h4></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY</h1>
+<h2>OR</h2>
+<h1>THE LESSER MYSTERIES.</h1>
+
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>ANNIE BESANT.</h2>
+
+<div class="biggap"></div>
+
+<h3>[SECOND EDITION]</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>The Theosophical Publishing Society.</h3>
+<h5>London and Benares.</h5>
+<h5>1905.</h5>
+
+<div class="biggap"></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="blockquot-nar"><p>In proceeding to the contemplation of the mysteries of knowledge,
+we shall adhere to the celebrated and venerable rule of tradition,
+commencing from the origin of the universe, setting forth those
+points of physical contemplation which are necessary to be
+premised, and removing whatever can be an obstacle on the way; so
+that the ear may be prepared for the reception of the tradition of
+the Gnosis, the ground being cleared of weeds and fitted for the
+planting of the vineyard; for there is a conflict before the
+conflict, and mysteries before the mysteries.&mdash;<i>S. Clement of
+Alexandria.</i><br  /></p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot-nar"><p>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.&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i><br  /></p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot-nar"><p>He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.&mdash;<i>S. Matthew.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page vii --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a>FOREWORD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>&mdash;though admittedly of doubtful authenticity&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><!-- Page viii --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This spurious sentimentality&mdash;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&mdash;had no place in the virile common sense of the early Christians.
+S. Clement of Alexandria says quite bluntly, after alluding to the
+Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them underfoot, and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true Light to swinish and untrained hearers."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page ix --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>  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 <i>nature</i> 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<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and not from an external Teacher. These things are
+"spiritually discerned" by that divine indwelling Spirit,<!-- Page x --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>  that "mind of
+Christ," whereof speaks the Great Apostle,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and that inner light is
+shed upon the lower mind.</p>
+
+<p>This is the way of the Divine Wisdom, the true <span class="smcap">Theosophy</span>. 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&mdash;that "true Light which
+lighteth every man that cometh into the world,"<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="Table of contents">
+<tr><td class="toc">Foreword,</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter I.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Hidden Side of Religions.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Hidden Side of Christianity.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Hidden Side of Christianity. (concluded)</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter IV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Historical Jesus.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Mythic Christ.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Mystic Christ.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter VII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Atonement.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter VIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">Resurrection and Ascension.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter IX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Trinity.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter X.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">Prayer.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter XI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">The Forgiveness of Sins.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter XII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">Sacraments.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter XIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">Sacraments.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Chapter XIV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocin">Revelation.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_369">369</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Afterword.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_386">386</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Index.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_388">388</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toc">Footnotes.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_405">405</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h1><a name="ESOTERIC_CHRISTIANITY" id="ESOTERIC_CHRISTIANITY"></a>ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY.</h1>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="Chapter_I" id="Chapter_I"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> I.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 2 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+denoting a special and definite
+institution in the Early Church, would cause a smile of incredulity. It
+has actually been made a matter of boast that Christianity has no
+secrets, that whatever it has to say it says to all, and whatever it has
+to teach it teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to be so simple,
+that "a way-faring man, though a fool, may not err therein," and the
+"simple Gospel" has become a stock phrase.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly that in the Early Church,
+at least, Christianity was no whit behind other great religions in
+possessing a hidden side, and that it guarded, as a priceless treasure,
+the secrets revealed only to a select few in its Mysteries. But ere
+doing this it will be well to consider the whole question of this hidden
+side of religions, and to see why such a side must exist if a religion
+is to be strong and stable; for thus its existence in Christianity will
+appear as a foregone conclusion, and the references to it in the
+writings of the Christian Fathers will appear simple and natural instead
+of surprising and unintelligible. As a historical<!-- Page 3 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+  fact, the existence
+of this esotericism is demonstrable; but it may also be shown that
+intellectually it is a necessity.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 4 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Not only does it thus direct itself to the intelligence and the
+emotions, but it seeks,<!-- Page 5 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+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&mdash;often overlaid by transitory conditions, often
+submerged under pressing interests and anxieties&mdash;there exists a
+continual seeking after God. "As the hart panteth after the
+water-brooks, so panteth"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+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&mdash;seeking its source as water seeks its level, to borrow a
+simile from Giordano Bruno&mdash;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 reappear,
+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<!-- Page 6 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+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 outgrown find the wildest
+superstitions succeed its denial. So much is it an integral part of
+humanity, that man <i>will</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the union of the
+human Spirit with the divine, so "that God may be all in all."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a><!-- Page 7 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;according to both the above schools&mdash;a common origin.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 8 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+primitive men, regarding themselves and their surroundings. Animism,
+fetishism, nature-worship, sun-worship&mdash;these are the constituents of
+the primeval mud out of which has grown the splendid lily of religion. A
+K&#7771;i&#7779;h&#7751;a, a Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly civilised
+but lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-man of the savage. God
+is a composite photograph of the innumerable Gods who are the
+personifications of the forces of nature. And so forth. It is all summed
+up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a common trunk&mdash;human
+ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;animism
+and the rest&mdash;are degenerations, the results of decadence, distorted and
+dwarfed descendants of true<!-- Page 9 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+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&mdash;it is alleged by Hindus, Buddhists, and by some Comparative
+Religionists, such as Theosophists&mdash;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&mdash;Divine Wisdom."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 10 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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.<!-- Page 11 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This last idea has been worked out by Mr. Andrew Lang, who&mdash;judging by
+his book on <i>The Making of Religion</i>&mdash;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 over-arching 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&mdash;dim tradition of<!-- Page 12 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+whom is generally also discoverable&mdash;who was
+a Son of the Wisdom, and imparted some of its teachings in a long
+bye-gone age.</p>
+
+<p>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?"<!-- Page 13 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<!-- Page 14 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 15 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>  perceptions are to be still
+further refined, if the dawning spiritual nature is to be enabled to
+develope 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>There is yet another reason why esoteric teaching is desirable with
+respect to a<!-- Page 16 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 17 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>  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.<!-- Page 18 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>et seq.</i>
+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<!-- Page 19 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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 develope 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.</p>
+
+<p>So much of theory we lay down as bearing on the necessity of a hidden
+side in all religions. When from theory we<!-- Page 20 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>  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 Alexandria
+mentions this division of the Mysteries. After purification, he says,
+"are the Minor Mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and
+of preliminary preparation for what is to come after; and the Great
+Mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of<!-- Page 21 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>  the universe, but
+only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Greece, such as Plato, went to Sa&iuml;s and to Thebes to be
+initiated by Egyptian Teachers of Wisdom. The Mithraic Mysteries of the
+Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries and the later Eleusinian
+semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia,
+Chaldea, are familiar in name, at least, as household words. Even in the
+extremely diluted form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their value is most
+highly praised by the most eminent men of Greece, as Pindar, Sophocles,
+Isocrates, Plutarch, and Plato. Especially were they regarded as useful
+with regard to <i>post-mortem</i> existence, as the Initiated learned that
+which ensured his future happiness. Sopater further alleged that
+Initiation established a kinship of the soul with the divine Nature, and
+in<!-- Page 22 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>  the exoteric Hymn to Demeter covert references are made to the holy
+child, Iacchus, and to his death and resurrection, as dealt with in the
+Mysteries.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>From Iamblichus, the great theurgist of the third and fourth centuries
+<span class="smcap">A.D.</span>, much may be learned as to the object of the Mysteries. Theurgy was
+magic, "the last part of the sacerdotal science,"<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> and was practised
+in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings.
+The theory on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus
+stated: There is <span class="smcap">One</span>, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the
+solitude of His own unity. From <span class="smcap">That</span> arises the Supreme God, the
+Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all things, the Root, the God of
+Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into Light.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> From Him
+springs the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the Universal Mind,
+the <i>Nous</i> and the incorporeal<!-- Page 23 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>  or intelligible Gods belong to this.
+From this the World-Soul, to which belong the "divine intellectual forms
+which are present with the visible bodies of the Gods."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Then come
+various hierarchies of superhuman beings, Archangels, Archons (Rulers)
+or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &amp;c. Man is a being of a lower order,
+allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing them; this
+knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with
+God.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> In the Mysteries these<!-- Page 24 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>  doctrines are expounded, "the
+progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the
+entire domination of the One,"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and, further, these different Beings
+were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere
+presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being
+benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying
+abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a
+union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they are yet in body,
+to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their eternal and
+intelligible principle."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><!-- Page 25 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>  For "the soul having a twofold life, one
+being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all
+body,"<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> it is most necessary to learn to separate it from the body,
+that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual and
+divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and the
+truths of the intelligible world.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> "The presence of the Gods, indeed,
+imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and,
+in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It exhibits
+that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those of
+the body."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a liberation
+from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy entirely
+more excellent, and participates of divine love and an immense joy."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>
+By this we gain a divine life, and are rendered in reality divine.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 26 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>  divine Self within him. This was termed ecstasy, and
+was a state of what the Indian Yog&icirc; would term high Sam&acirc;dhi, 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."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Plotinus states
+that he had reached this state "but three times as yet."</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 27 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>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
+Aug&ouml;eides, 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<!-- Page 28 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>  virtues alone is a God; but he who energises according
+to the paradigmatic virtues is the Father of the Gods."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 Iamblichus
+in his <i>Life of Pythagoras</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the symbols used are explained by Iamblichus,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> who bids
+Porphyry remove from his thought the image of the thing symbolised and
+reach its intellectual meaning. Thus "mire" meant everything<!-- Page 29 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Pythagorean School in Magna Gr&aelig;cia was closed at the end of the
+sixth century <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, owing to the persecution of the civil power, but
+other communities existed, keeping up the sacred tradition.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Mead
+states that Plato intellectualised it, in order to protect it from an
+increasing profanation, and the Eleusinian rites preserved some of its
+forms, having lost its substance. The Neo-Platonists inherited from
+Pythagoras and Plato, and their works should be studied by those who
+would realise something of the grandeur<!-- Page 30 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>  and the beauty preserved for
+the world in the Mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>The Pythagorean School itself may serve as a type of the discipline
+enforced. On this Mead gives many interesting details,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> and remarks:
+"The authors of antiquity are agreed that this discipline had succeeded
+in producing the highest examples, not only of the purest chastity and
+sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a taste for
+serious pursuits which was unparalleled. This is admitted even by
+Christian writers." The School had outer disciples, leading the family
+and social life, and the above quotation refers to these. In the inner
+School were three degrees&mdash;the first of Hearers, who studied for two
+years in silence, doing their best to master the teachings; the second
+degree was of Mathematici, wherein were taught geometry and music, the
+nature of number, form, colour, and sound; the third degree was of
+Physici, who mastered cosmogony and metaphysics. This led up to the true
+Mysteries. Candidates for the School<!-- Page 31 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>  must be "of an unblemished
+reputation and of a contented disposition."</p>
+
+<p>The close identity between the methods and aims pursued in these various
+Mysteries and those of Yoga in India is patent to the most superficial
+observer. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the nations of
+antiquity drew from India; all alike drew from the one source, the Grand
+Lodge of Central Asia, which sent out its Initiates to every land. They
+all taught the same doctrines, and pursued the same methods, leading to
+the same ends. But there was much intercommunication between the
+Initiates of all nations, and there was a common language and a common
+symbolism. Thus Pythagoras journeyed among the Indians, and received in
+India a high Initiation, and Apollonius of Tyana later followed in his
+steps. Quite Indian in phrase as well as thought were the dying words of
+Plotinus: "Now I seek to lead back the Self within me to the
+All-self."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>Among the Hindus the duty of teaching the supreme knowledge only to the
+worthy<!-- Page 32 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The Teacher is needed, for written teaching alone does not
+suffice. The "end of knowledge" is to know God&mdash;not only to believe; to
+become one with God&mdash;not only to worship afar off. Man must know the
+reality of the divine Existence, and then know&mdash;not only vaguely believe
+and hope&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>So also it was asserted that man should learn to leave the gross body:
+"Let a man with firmness separate it [the soul]<!-- Page 33 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>  from his own body, as a
+grass-stalk from its sheath."<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>
+"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."<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor were the Hebrews without their secret knowledge and their Schools of
+Initiation. The company of prophets at Naioth presided over by
+Samuel<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> formed such a School, and the oral teaching was handed down
+by them. Similar Schools existed at Bethel and Jericho,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> and in
+Cruden's <i>Concordance</i><a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> there is the following interesting note: "The
+Schools or Colleges of the prophets are the first [schools] of which we
+have any account in Scripture; where the children of the prophets, that
+is, their disciples, lived in<!-- Page 34 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>  the exercises of a retired and austere
+life, in study and meditation, and reading of the law of God.... These
+Schools, or Societies, of the prophets were succeeded by the
+Synagogues." The <i>Kabbala</i>, which contains the semi-public teaching, is,
+as it now stands, a modern compilation, part of it being the work of
+Rabbi Moses de Leon, who died <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1305. It consists of five books,
+Bahir, Zohar, Sepher Sephiroth, Sepher Yetzirah, and Asch Metzareth, and
+is asserted to have been transmitted orally from very ancient times&mdash;as
+antiquity is reckoned historically. Dr. Wynn Westcott says that "Hebrew
+tradition assigns the oldest parts of the Zohar to a date antecedent to
+the building of the second Temple;" and Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai is said
+to have written down some of it in the first century <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> The Sepher
+Yetzirah is spoken of by Saadjah Gaon, who died <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 940, as "very
+ancient."<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> Some portions of the ancient oral teaching have been
+incorporated in the <i>Kabbala</i> as it now stands, but the true archaic
+wisdom of the Hebrews<!-- Page 35 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>  remains in the guardianship of a few of the true
+sons of Israel.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 36 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_II" id="Chapter_II"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter II.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY.</h2>
+
+
+<h3><i>(a)</i> The Testimony of the Scriptures.</h3>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And that proof is the thing which<!-- Page 37 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 38 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>  to pretend that the wide-spread
+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.</p>
+
+<p>The reason for this revolt lay in the gradual descent of Christian
+teaching into<!-- Page 39 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 40 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>  to be filled by the hypocritical and the
+ignorant. They pass either into a state of passive agnosticism, or&mdash;if
+they be young and enthusiastic&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>the</i> 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<!-- Page 41 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>  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 "Holy Place," in the
+Temple, so that all who are capable of receiving it may follow its lines
+of published thought; and secondly, Occult Christianity will again
+descend into the Adytum, dwelling behind the Veil which guards the "Holy
+of Holies," into which only the Initiate may enter. Then again will
+occult teaching be within the reach of those who qualify themselves to
+receive it, according to the ancient rules, those who are willing in
+modern days to meet the ancient demands, made on all those who would
+fain know the reality and truth of spiritual things.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 42 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+authority of the existing documents and not by the mere <i>ipse dixit</i> of
+modern Christians.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;called the Mysteries of Jesus, or the Mystery of
+the Kingdom&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 43 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 44 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>  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
+<span class="smcap">A.D</span>. 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
+exstasy, by their own sustained efforts, aided doubtless by invisible
+Teachers.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 45 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>  of the kingdom of God, but
+unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.'" And
+later: "With many such parables spake He the word unto them, as they
+were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not unto them; and
+when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Mark
+the significant words, "when they were alone," and the phrase, "them
+that are without." So also in the version of S. Matthew: "Jesus sent the
+multitude away, and went into the house; and His disciples came unto
+Him." These teachings given "in the house," the innermost meanings of
+His instructions, were alleged to be handed on from teacher to teacher.
+The Gospel gives, it will be noted, the allegorical mystic explanation,
+that which we have called The Lesser Mysteries, but the deeper meaning
+was said to be given only to the Initiates.</p>
+
+<p>Again, Jesus tells even His apostles: "I have yet many things to say to
+you, but<!-- Page 46 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>  ye cannot bear them now."<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Some of them were probably said
+after His death, when He was seen of His disciples, "speaking of the
+things pertaining to the kingdom of God."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> None of these have been
+publicly recorded, but who can believe that they were neglected or
+forgotten, and were not handed down as a priceless possession? There was
+a tradition in the Church that He visited His apostles for a
+considerable period after His death, for the sake of giving them
+instruction&mdash;a fact that will be referred to later&mdash;and in the famous
+Gnostic treatise, the <i>Pistis Sophia</i>, we read: "It came to pass, when
+Jesus had risen from the dead, that He passed eleven years speaking with
+His disciples and instructing them."<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Then there is the phrase, which
+many would fain soften and explain away: "Give not that which is holy to
+the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine"<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>&mdash;a precept which
+is of general application indeed, but was considered by the early<!-- Page 47 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+Church to refer to the secret teachings. It should be remembered that
+the words had not the same harshness of sound in the ancient days as
+they have now; for the words "dogs"&mdash;like "the vulgar," "the
+profane"&mdash;was applied by those within a certain circle to all who were
+outside its pale, whether by a society or association, or by a
+nation&mdash;as by the Jews to all Gentiles.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> It was sometimes used to
+designate those who were outside the circle of Initiates, and we find it
+employed in that sense in the early Church; those who, not having been
+initiated into the Mysteries, were regarded as being outside "the
+kingdom of God," or "the spiritual Israel," had this name applied to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>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,"<!-- Page 48 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>  "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&mdash;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>i.e.</i>, who had just
+taken his "second birth."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>
+If this be applied in the ordinary Protestant way to salvation from
+everlasting hell-fire, the statement becomes incredible, shocking. No
+Saviour of the<!-- Page 49 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> 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<!-- Page 50 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>  from the wide mouth of death,
+from ever repeated destruction, who have quitted all desires.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;an exceedingly
+"great multitude, which no man could number,"<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> not a few&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> 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<!-- Page 51 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>  saved are, as Proclus taught,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> those who escape from the circle
+of generation, within which humanity is bound.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the well-recognised liberation from rebirth by knowledge
+of God.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> 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 Kingdom of Heaven, such entrance<!-- Page 52 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>  being more
+difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; with men
+such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> Only
+God in man can pass that barrier.</p>
+
+<p>This text has been variously explained away, it being obviously
+impossible to take it in its surface meaning, that a rich man cannot
+enter a post-mortem state of happiness. Into that state the rich man may
+enter as well as the poor, and the universal practice of Christians
+shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches imperil their
+happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven
+be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that
+knowledge of God which is Eternal Life<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> cannot be gained till
+everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything
+has been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which
+henceforth may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give
+up his inner wealth as well, so far as he holds it<!-- Page 53 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>  as his own against
+the world; until he is stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway.
+Such has ever been a condition of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience,
+chastity," has been the vow of the candidate.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;mere husk truly,
+in these modern days, but the "pattern of things in the heavens."<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a>
+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;"<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> this is the first Initiation;
+a later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire,"<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> How thoroughly this
+imagery was familiar among the mystic of the Jews is shown<!-- Page 54 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>  by the
+surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic
+phraseology: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these
+things?"<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> and that in the Mysteries these
+virtues were acquired.</p>
+
+<p>S. Paul follows in the footsteps of his<!-- Page 55 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>  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:</p>
+
+<p>"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<!-- Page 56 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>  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.'<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> I have laid the foundation,' and 'ye are the temple
+of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.' 'Let a man<!-- Page 57 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>  so account
+of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of
+God.'"</p>
+
+<p>Can any one read this passage&mdash;and all that has been done in the summary
+is to bring out the salient points&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Of this Mystery, he repeated<!-- Page 58 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>  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 <i>in you</i>"&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> These Colossians he bids pray
+"that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of
+Christ,"<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> a passage to which S. Clement refers as one in which the
+apostle "clearly reveals that knowledge belongs not to all."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a><!-- Page 59 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>  So
+also he writes to his loved Timothy, bidding him select his deacons from
+those who hold "the Mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," that
+great "Mystery of Godliness," that he had learned,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> knowledge of
+which was necessary for the teachers of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> of the
+Elder Brothers.<!-- Page 60 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>  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"<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>&mdash;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: "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy
+trust"<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>&mdash;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"<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>&mdash;as<!-- Page 61 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>  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"&mdash;the sacred oral teachings given in the assembly
+of Initiates, who bore witness to the accuracy of the transmission&mdash;"the
+same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others
+also."<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p>
+
+<p>The knowledge&mdash;or, if the phrase be preferred, the supposition&mdash;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&mdash;for he says: "Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be
+thus minded"&mdash;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<!-- Page 62 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> 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 <i>that</i>
+resurrection, according to the modern Christian view. What then was the
+resurrection to attain<!-- Page 63 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> This was "the prize" towards which the great Apostle was
+pressing, and he urged "as many as be perfect," <i>not the ordinary
+believer</i>, thus also to strive. Let them not be content with what they
+had gained, but still press onwards.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 64 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>  after the
+flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more."<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>The ordinary believer had "put on Christ;" "as many of you as have been
+baptised into Christ have put on Christ."<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> 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 <i>in you</i>."<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> Already he was their
+spiritual father, having "begotten you through the gospel."<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> 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;"<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a><!-- Page 65 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>  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 fulness of Christ."<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> Then he, as S. Paul
+was doing, filled up the sufferings of Christ in his own flesh,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> and
+always bore "about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,"<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> so that
+he could truly say: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
+yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> Thus was the Apostle himself
+suffering; thus he describes himself. And when the struggle is over, how
+different is the calm tone of triumph from the strained effort of the
+earlier years: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
+departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
+course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a
+crown of righteousness."<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> This was the crown given to "him that
+overcometh," of whom it is said by the ascended Christ: "I will make him
+a pillar in the<!-- Page 66 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>  temple of my God; and he shall go no more out."<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> For
+after the "Resurrection" the Initiate has become the Perfect Man, the
+Master, and He goes out no more from the Temple, but from it serves and
+guides the worlds.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>
+Referring to the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, he<!-- Page 67 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>  speaks of the
+Red 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.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> The writer of the Epistle
+to the Hebrews allegorises the whole Jewish system of worship. In the
+Temple he sees a pattern of the heavenly Temple, in the High Priest he
+sees Christ, in the sacrifices the offering of the spotless Son; the
+priests of the Temple are but "the example and shadow of heavenly
+things," of the heavenly priesthood serving in "the true tabernacle." A
+most elaborate allegory is thus worked out in chapters iii.-x., and the
+writer alleges that the Holy Ghost thus signified the deeper meaning;
+all was "a figure for the time."</p>
+
+<p>In this view of the sacred writings, it is not alleged that the events
+recorded did not take place, but only that their<!-- Page 68 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 69 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY(<i>concluded</i>).</h2>
+
+<h3><i>(b)</i> The Testimony of the Church.</h3>
+
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 70 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>  teachers, spoken of in the
+Scriptures themselves, and these would far more than overlap the writers
+of the Early Church, who bear witness to the existence of the Mysteries.
+For among these are pupils of the Apostles themselves, though the most
+definite statements belong to those removed from the Apostles by one
+intermediate teacher. Now, as soon as we begin to study the writings of
+the Early Church, we are met by the facts that there are allusions which
+are only intelligible by the existence of the Mysteries, and then
+statements that the Mysteries are existing. This might, of course, have
+been expected, seeing the point at which the New Testament leaves the
+matter, but it is satisfactory to find the facts answer to the
+expectation.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 71 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>  Ignatius of S. John,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> 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"<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>&mdash;writing, apparently, before reaching full Initiation.
+Barnabas speaks of communicating "some portion of what I have myself
+received,"<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> and after expounding the Law mystically, declares that
+"we then, rightly understanding His commandments, explain them as the
+Lord intended."<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, a disciple of S.
+John,<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> 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,"<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> and he speaks of them as "initiated into the
+mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the<!-- Page 72 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>  martyred."<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> 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 &aelig;ons, 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&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> 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<!-- Page 73 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p>
+
+<p>We come next to S. Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the two
+writers of the second and third centuries who tell us most about the
+Mysteries in the Early Church; though the general atmosphere is full of
+mystic allusions, these two are clear and categorical in their
+statements that the Mysteries were a recognised institution.</p>
+
+<p>Now S. Clement was a disciple of Pant&aelig;nus, 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,"<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> his link with the Apostles
+themselves consisting thus of only one intermediary. He was the head of
+the Catechetical School of Alexandria in <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 189, and died about <span class="smcap">A.D.</span>
+220. Origen,<!-- Page 74 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>  born about <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 185, was his pupil, and he is, perhaps,
+the most learned of the Fathers, and a man of the rarest moral beauty.
+These are the witnesses from whom we receive the most important
+testimony as to the existence of definite Mysteries in the Early Church.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Stromata</i>, 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,"<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> and also describes them as memoranda of the teachings
+he had himself received from Pant&aelig;nus. 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<!-- Page 75 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+one say<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> 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<!-- Page 76 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>  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&mdash;far
+from it&mdash;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.<!-- Page 77 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>  Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise
+selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking; not
+grudging&mdash;for that were wrong&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p>
+
+<p>This passage, if it stood alone, would suffice to establish the
+existence of a secret teaching in the Early Church. But it stands by no
+means alone. In Chapter<!-- Page 78 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>  xii. of this same Book I., headed, "The
+Mysteries of the Faith not to be divulged to all," Clement declares
+that, since others than the wise may see his work, "it is requisite,
+therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son of God
+taught." Purified tongue of the speaker, purified ears of the hearer,
+these were necessary. "Such were the impediments in the way of my
+writing. And even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them under foot and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true light, to swinish and untrained hearers. For scarcely could
+anything which they could hear be more ludicrous than these to the
+multitude; nor any subjects on the other hand more admirable or more
+inspiring to those of noble nature. But the wise do not utter with their
+mouth what they reason in council. 'But what ye hear in the ear,' said
+the Lord, 'proclaim upon the houses'; bidding them receive the secret
+traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft<!-- Page 79 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>  and
+conspicuously; and as we have heard in the ear, so to deliver them to
+whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without
+distinction, what is said to them in parables. But there is only a
+delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth sown sparse and
+broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up seeds like
+jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each one of them will
+germinate and will produce corn."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Again he says that those who are "still blind and dumb, not having
+understanding, or the undazzled 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<!-- Page 80 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>  among them <i>adyta</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> He
+then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding Pythagorean,
+Hebrew, Egyptian,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> 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<!-- Page 81 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>  esoteric teachings. The philosophers established the Mysteries, for
+"was it not more beneficial for the holy and blessed contemplation of
+realities to be concealed?"<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> 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 25-27. "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 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<!-- Page 82 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> Further referring to S. Paul, he
+comments on his remark to the Romans that he will "come in the fulness
+of the blessing of Christ,"<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> and says that he thus designates "the
+spiritual gift and the Gnostic interpretation, while being present he
+desires to impart to them present as 'the fulness of Christ, according
+to the revelation of the Mystery sealed in the ages of eternity, but now
+manifested by the prophetic Scriptures'<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>.... 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<!-- Page 83 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>  on its
+leaves either by sea or land, he who reads may remain ignorant.'"<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> S. Clement naturally confined the higher
+instruction to the learned. "Our Gnostic<!-- Page 84 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>  will be deeply learned,"<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>
+he says. "Now the Gnostic must be erudite."<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> "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&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> "The Gnostic avails himself of branches of
+learning as auxiliary preparatory<!-- Page 85 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>  exercises."<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> 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 <i>the
+foundation</i>, and sometimes <i>milk</i>,"<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 86 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>  vision of
+Hermas, 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<!-- Page 87 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 88 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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<!-- Page 89 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>  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 <i>secret</i> 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
+<i>ipse dixit</i>; 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<!-- Page 90 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 91 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>  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.'"<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> 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 on high."<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a><!-- Page 92 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So also, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Chap, xv., dealing
+with the episode of the Syro-Ph&oelig;nician 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Sinners came to be
+healed: "For there are in the divinity of the Word some helps towards
+the cure of those who are sick.... Others, again, which to the pure in
+soul<!-- Page 93 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>  and body exhibit the 'revelation of the Mystery, which was kept
+secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures
+of the prophets,' and 'by the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,' which
+'appearing' is manifested to each one of those who are perfect, and
+which enlightens the reason in the true knowledge of things."<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> Such
+appearances of divine Beings took place, we have seen, in the Pagan
+Mysteries, and those of the Church had equally glorious visitants. "God
+the Word," he says, "was sent as a physician to sinners, but as a
+Teacher of Divine Mysteries to those who are already pure, and who sin
+no more."<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> "Wisdom will not enter into the soul of a base man, nor
+dwell in a body that is involved in sin;" hence these higher teachings
+are given only to those who are "athletes in piety and in every virtue."</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 94 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> Such
+only might learn the realities of the unseen worlds, and might enter
+into the sacred precincts where, as of old, angels were the teachers,
+and where knowledge was given by sight and not only by words. It is
+impossible not to be struck with the different tone of these Christians
+from<!-- Page 95 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>  that of their modern successors. With them perfect purity of life,
+the practice of virtue, the fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail
+of outer conduct, the perfection of righteousness, were&mdash;as with the
+Pagans&mdash;only the beginning of the way instead of the end. Nowadays
+religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its object when
+it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted its
+highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the
+Beatific Vision.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p>
+
+<p>Origen having animadverted on the deductions of Celsus, proceeds: "But
+as<!-- Page 96 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> 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 Israel the cord of his inheritance."
+This is the wording of the Septuagint, not that of the English
+authorised version, but it is very suggestive of the title the "Lord"
+being regarded as that of the Ruling Angel of the Jews only, and not of
+the "Most High," <i>i.e.</i> God. This view has disappeared, from<!-- Page 97 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>  ignorance,
+and hence the impropriety of many of the statements referring to the
+"Lord," when they are transferred to the "Most High," <i>e.g.</i> Judges i.
+19.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> He then expounds more fully<!-- Page 98 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>  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...."<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 ..."<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> as did Celsus.</p>
+
+<p>After remarking that "the object of Christianity is that we should
+become wise,"<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> Origen proceeds: "If you come to<!-- Page 99 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> As for the<!-- Page 100 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> 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 <i>only</i> for them, and has deep teachings for the "clever and
+acute."</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> Many chapters
+are devoted to these allegorical and mystical meanings, hidden<!-- Page 101 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>  beneath
+the words of the Old and New Testaments, and he alleges that Moses, like
+the Egyptians, gave histories with concealed meanings.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> "He who
+deals candidly with histories"&mdash;this is Origen's general canon of
+interpretation&mdash;"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."<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>De Principiis</i>, Origen gives it as the received teaching of the
+Church "that<!-- Page 102 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>In the Fourth Book of <i>De Principiis</i>, 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<!-- Page 103 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Newman, in his <i>Arians of the Fourth Century</i>, has some
+interesting remarks on the <i>Disciplina Arcani</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> The promise was amply<!-- Page 104 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> But as the doctrines in the
+creeds are to be found clearly stated in the Gospels and Epistles, this
+position is wholly untenable, all these having been already divulged to
+the world at large; and in all of them the members of the Church were
+certainly thoroughly instructed. The repeated statements as to secrecy
+become<!-- Page 105 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>  meaningless if thus explained. The Cardinal, however, says that
+whatever "has not been thus authenticated, whether it was prophetical
+information or comment on the past dispensations, is, from the
+circumstances of the case, lost to the Church."<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> That is very
+probably, in fact certainly, true, so far as the Church is concerned,
+but it is none the less recoverable.</p>
+
+<p>Commenting on Iren&aelig;us, who in his work <i>Against Heresies</i> 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<!-- Page 106 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> In a part of the section dealing
+with the allegorising method, he writes in reference to the sacrifice of
+Isaac, &amp;c., as "typical of the New Testament revelation": "In
+corroboration of this remark, let it be observed,<!-- Page 107 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>  that there seems to
+have been<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p>
+
+<p>The social and political convulsions that accompanied its dying now
+began to torture the vast frame of the Roman Empire, and even the
+Christians were caught up in the whirlpool of selfish warring interests.
+We still find scattered references to special knowledge imparted to the
+leaders and teachers of the Church, knowledge of the<!-- Page 108 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>  heavenly
+hierarchies, instructions given by angels, and so on. But the lack of
+suitable pupils caused the Mysteries to be withdrawn as an institution
+publicly known to exist, and teaching was given more and more secretly
+to those rarer and rarer souls, who by learning, purity, and devotion
+showed themselves capable of receiving it. No longer were schools to be
+found wherein the preliminary teachings were given, and with the
+disappearance of these the "door was shut."</p>
+
+<p>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 exstasy, to spiritual vision. This
+latter, however, divorced from knowledge, rarely attained the true
+exstasis, 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<!-- Page 109 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>  the inner
+vision&mdash;prematurely forced by fastings, vigils, and strained
+attention&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing down the centuries we find no time in which Christendom was
+left<!-- Page 110 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>  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
+<i>Theologica Mystica</i> 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<!-- Page 111 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>  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 [<i>query</i>,
+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 <i>adunatio</i> or <i>deificatio</i>.
+These are the permanent outlines<!-- Page 112 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the eleventh century Bernard of Clairvaux (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 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 (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1227-1274) in the thirteenth. Thomas
+Aquinas dominates the Europe of the Middle Ages, by his force of
+character no less than by his learning and piety. He asserts
+"Revelation" as one source of knowledge, Scripture and tradition being
+the two channels in which it runs, and the influence, seen in his
+writings, of the Pseudo-Dionysius links him to the Neo-Platonists. The
+second source is Reason, and here the channels are the Platonic
+philosophy and the methods of Aristotle&mdash;the latter an alliance that did
+Christianity no good, for Aristotle became an obstacle to the advance of
+the higher thought, as was made manifest in the struggles<!-- Page 113 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>  of Giordano
+Bruno, the Pythagorean. Thomas Aquinas was canonised in <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1323, and
+the great Dominican remains as a type of the union of theology and
+philosophy&mdash;the aim of his life. These belong to the great Church of
+western Europe, vindicating her claim to be regarded as the transmitter
+of the holy torch of mystic learning. Around her there also sprang up
+many sects, deemed heretical, yet containing true traditions of the
+sacred secret learning, the Cathari and many others, persecuted by a
+Church jealous of her authority, and fearing lest the holy pearls should
+pass into profane custody. In this century also S. Elizabeth of Hungary
+shines out with sweetness and purity, while Eckhart (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1260-1329)
+proves himself a worthy inheritor of the Alexandrian Schools. Eckhart
+taught that "The Godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not
+only by man but also by Itself; It is darkness and absolute
+indeterminateness, <i>Nicht</i> in contrast to <i>Icht</i>, or definite and
+knowable existence. Yet It is the potentiality of all things, and Its
+nature is, in a triadic<!-- Page 114 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>  process, to come to consciousness of Itself as
+the triune God. Creation is not a temporal act, but an eternal
+necessity, of the divine nature. I am as necessary to God, Eckhart is
+fond of saying, as God is necessary to me. In my knowledge and love God
+knows and loves Himself."<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, Iamblichus, and
+Proclus, who in turn followed Plato and Pythagoras.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> So linked
+together are the followers of the Wisdom in all ages. It was probably a
+"Friend" who was the author of <i>Die Deutsche Theologie</i>, a book of
+mystical devotion, which had the curious fortune of being approved by
+Staupitz, the Vicar-General of the Augustinian Order, who recommended it
+to Luther, and by<!-- Page 115 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>  Luther himself, who published it <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1516, as a book
+which should rank immediately after the <i>Bible</i> 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&mdash;a Society that must remain ever memorable, as it numbered
+among its members that prince of mystics, Thomas &agrave; Kempis (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span>
+1380-1471), the author of the immortal <i>Imitation of Christ</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the fifteenth century the more purely intellectual side of mysticism
+comes out more strongly than the exstatic&mdash;so dominant in these
+societies of the fourteenth&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The sixteenth century saw the birth of Jacob B&ouml;hme (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1575-1624), the
+"inspired cobbler," an Initiate in obscuration truly, sorely persecuted
+by<!-- Page 116 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>  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 Rome in
+canonising these, wiser than the Reformation that persecuted B&ouml;hme, but
+the spirit of the Reformation was ever intensely anti-mystical, and
+wherever its breath hath passed the fair flowers of mysticism have
+withered as under the sirocco.</p>
+
+<p>Rome, however, who, though she canonised Teresa dead, had sorely harried
+her while living&mdash;did ill with Mme. de Guyon (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 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&mdash;the
+Quietist.</p>
+
+<p>In this same century arose the school of Platonists in Cambridge, of
+whom Henry More (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1614-1687) may serve as salient example; also
+Thomas Vaughan, and Robert Fludd the Rosicrucian; and there is formed
+also the<!-- Page 117 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>  Philadelphian Society, and we see William Law (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1686-1761)
+active in the eighteenth century, and overlapping S. Martin (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span>
+1743-1803), whose writings have fascinated so many nineteenth century
+students.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nor should we omit Christian Rosenkreutz (d. <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 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 Norwich, of the fourteenth
+century, jewels of Christendom,<!-- Page 118 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>  too little known, but justifying
+Christianity to the world.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>disciplina arcani</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Alphonse Louis Constant, better known under his pseudonym, Eliphas L&eacute;vi,
+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&mdash;for the Gnostics, that is, <i>those
+who know</i>, were the Initiates of primitive Christianity&mdash;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<!-- Page 119 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p>
+
+<p>Will the Churches of to-day 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 120 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_IV" id="Chapter_IV"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter IV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE HISTORICAL CHRIST.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 121 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a>
+Men fear that Christianity will be weakened when reason<!-- Page 122 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<!-- Page 123 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>  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,<!-- Page 124 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>  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&mdash;defending their
+position from the received Scriptures&mdash;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 <span class="smcap">The Christ</span> 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 again until Christ be formed in you";<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> here S. Paul obviously
+cannot refer to a historical Jesus, but to some forthputting 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;<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> obviously implying
+that while he recognised the Christ of the flesh&mdash;Jesus&mdash;there was a
+higher view to which he<!-- Page 125 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>  had attained which threw into the shade the
+historical Christ. This is the view which many are seeking in our own
+days, and&mdash;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&mdash;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<!-- Page 126 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 127 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>  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 Sorrows, the
+Saviour, the Lover and Lord of Men.</p>
+<div class="biggap"></div>
+
+<h2>THE HISTORICAL CHRIST, OR JESUS THE HEALER AND TEACHER.<br  /></h2>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 128 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>  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&mdash;and are capable of being developed by those who give
+themselves to appropriate studies&mdash;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<!-- Page 129 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The child whose Jewish name has been turned into that of Jesus was born
+in<!-- Page 130 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>  Palestine <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 105, during the consulate of Publius Rutilius Rufus
+and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. His parents were well-born though poor, and
+he was educated in a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. His fervent
+devotion and a gravity beyond his years led his parents to dedicate him
+to the religious and ascetic life, and soon after a visit to Jerusalem,
+in which the extraordinary intelligence and eagerness for knowledge of
+the youth were shown in his seeking of the doctors in the Temple, he was
+sent to be trained in an Essene community in the southern Jud&aelig;an desert.
+When he had reached the age of nineteen he went on to the Essene
+monastery near Mount Serbal, a monastery which was much visited by
+learned men travelling from Persia and India to Egypt, and where a
+magnificent library of occult works&mdash;many of them Indian of the
+Trans-Him&acirc;layan regions&mdash;had been established. From this seat of mystic
+learning he proceeded later to Egypt. He had been fully instructed in
+the secret teachings which were the real fount of life among the
+Essenes, and was initiated in<!-- Page 131 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>  Egypt as a disciple of that one sublime
+Lodge from which every great religion has its Founder. For Egypt has
+remained one of the world-centres of the true Mysteries, whereof all
+semi-public Mysteries are the faint and far-off reflections. The
+Mysteries spoken of in history as Egyptian were the shadows of the true
+things "in the Mount," and there the young Hebrew received the solemn
+consecration which prepared him for the Royal Priesthood he was later to
+attain. So superhumanly pure and so full of devotion was he, that in his
+gracious manhood he stood out pre-eminently from the severe and somewhat
+fanatical ascetics among whom he had been trained, shedding on the stern
+Jews around him the fragrance of a gentle and tender wisdom, as a
+rose-tree strangely planted in a desert would shed its sweetness on the
+barrenness around. The fair and stately grace of his white purity was
+round him as a radiant moonlit halo, and his words, though few, were
+ever sweet and loving, winning even the most harsh to a temporary
+gentleness, and the most rigid to a passing softness. Thus he lived<!-- Page 132 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+through nine-and-twenty years of mortal life, growing from grace to
+grace.</p>
+
+<p>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 Rome. Ere
+it started on its journey a World-Saviour must appear, to stand in
+blessing beside the cradle of the infant Hercules.</p>
+
+<p>A mighty "Son of God" was to take flesh upon earth, a supreme Teacher,
+"full of grace and truth"&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> 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<!-- Page 133 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>  of Life. Lord of
+Compassion and of Wisdom&mdash;such was His name&mdash;and from His dwelling in
+the Secret Places He came forth into the world of men.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> 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<!-- Page 134 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>  was well-pleased,<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> and
+from that time forward "Jesus began to preach,"<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> and was that
+wondrous mystery, "God manifest in the flesh"<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a>&mdash;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?"<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 135 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>  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&mdash;whose arguments against
+His purposed life of loving labour are summarised in the story of the
+temptation&mdash;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&mdash;ever loving in the lowest as in the highest the Divine
+Self&mdash;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<!-- Page 136 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Master did not forget His promise<!-- Page 137 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>  to come to them after the world
+had lost sight of Him,<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> 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 Jud&aelig;a, attracting no attention among the many apparently
+similar communities of the time, studying the profound truths He taught
+them and acquiring "the gifts of the Spirit."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In the remarkable fragment called the <i>Pistis Sophia</i>, we have a
+document of the greatest interest bearing on the hidden teaching,
+written by the famous Valentinus.<!-- Page 138 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> They had not so
+far learned the distribution of the angelic orders, of part whereof
+Ignatius speaks.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> 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<!-- Page 139 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>  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;<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> by that knowledge men became Christs for such "men are
+myself, and I am these men," for Christ is that highest Mystery.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a>
+Knowing that, men are "transformed into pure light and are brought into
+the light."<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thereafter, being fully instructed, the apostles went forth to preach,
+ever aided by their Master.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover these same disciples and their earliest colleagues wrote down
+from<!-- Page 140 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Jud&aelig;a
+and Samaria; who was a healer of diseases and performed other remarkable
+occult works; who gathered round Him a small<!-- Page 141 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>But it must not be supposed that the work of the Christ for His
+followers was over after He had established the<!-- Page 142 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 143 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>  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 Michelangelo, that shone before the eyes of Murillo, and that gave
+the power that raised the marvels of the world, the Duomo 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<!-- Page 144 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>  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 &agrave; 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."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 145 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_V" id="Chapter_V"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter V.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE MYTHIC CHRIST.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<!-- Page 146 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>  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&mdash;a conception as blasphemous of God as it is desperate for man, a
+conception contradicted<!-- Page 147 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>  by the appearance of every Sage, by the mighty
+literature, by the noble lives, in the thousands of ages ere the Christ
+came forth.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Histoire Abr&eacute;g&eacute;e de differens Cultes</i>, of
+Dupuis' <i>Origine de tous les Cultes</i>, of Moor's <i>Hindu Pantheon</i>, and of
+Godfrey Higgins' <i>Anacalypsis</i>. 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<!-- Page 148 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>  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&mdash;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 Early Church. Justin Martyr, for instance,
+crowds his pages with references to the religions of his time, and if a
+modern assailant of Christianity would cite a number of cases in which
+Christian teachings are identical with those of elder religions, he can
+find no better guides than the apologists of the second century. They
+quote Pagan teachings, stories, and symbols, pleading that the very
+identity of<!-- Page 149 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>  the Christian with these should prevent the off-hand
+rejection of the latter as in themselves incredible. A curious reason
+is, indeed, given for this identity, one that will scarcely find many
+adherents in modern days. Says Justin Martyr: "Those who hand down the
+myths which the poets have made adduce no proof to the youths who learn
+them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the
+influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human
+race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the
+Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished
+by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the
+impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the
+things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales,
+like the things which were said by the poets." "And the devils, indeed,
+having heard this washing published by the prophet, instigated those who
+enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and
+burnt offerings, also to<!-- Page 150 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>  sprinkle themselves; and they cause them also
+to wash themselves entirely as they depart." "Which [the Lord's Supper]
+the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding
+the same thing to be done."<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> "For I myself, when I discovered the
+wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine
+doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them,
+laughed."<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 151 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>  the Roman empire of his
+time and the new religion he was engaged in defending.</p>
+
+<p>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 Apollinarian 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."<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p>
+
+<p>To solve the difficulty of these identities we must study the Mythic
+Christ, the<!-- Page 152 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>  Christ of the solar myths or legends, these myths being the
+pictorial forms in which certain profound truths were given to the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Now a "myth" is by no means what most people imagine it to be&mdash;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 <i>first</i> above and <i>then</i>
+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<!-- Page 153 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>  are
+"things"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 154 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>  Just as here we have words which stand for
+things&mdash;as the word "table" is a symbol for a recognised article of a
+certain kind&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 155 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 156 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>  and that his mission was of a lower order.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 157 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p>
+
+<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<!-- Page 158 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;we are on the north of the
+equatorial line&mdash;surrounded with perils in his infancy, and the reign of
+the darkness far longer than his in his early<!-- Page 159 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>  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&mdash;"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&mdash;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<!-- Page 160 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the type of all future Madonnas with their divine Babes, showing
+the origin of the symbol. Devak&icirc; is likewise figured with the divine
+K&#7771;i&#7779;h&#7751;a in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also
+with the recurrent crown of stars, and with her child Tammuz on her
+knee. Mercury and &AElig;sculapius, Bacchus and Hercules, Perseus and the
+Dioscuri,<!-- Page 161 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>  Mithras and Zarathustra, were all of divine and human birth.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the fixing of the 25th December as the birthday of Jesus, Williamson
+has the following: "All Christians know that the 25th December is <i>now</i>
+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<!-- Page 162 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>  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 <span class="smcap">A.D.</span>, and
+S. Chrysostom, writing in 390, says: 'On this day [<i>i.e.</i> 25th December]
+also the birth of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that while
+the heathen were busy with their ceremonies [the Brumalia, in honour of
+Bacchus] the Christians might perform their rites undisturbed.' Gibbon
+in his <i>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>, writes: 'The [Christian]
+Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his [Christ's
+birth] fixed the solemn festival to the 25th December, the Brumalia or
+winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
+Sun.' King, in his <i>Gnostics and their Remains</i>, also says: 'The ancient
+festival held on the 25th December in honour of the birthday of the
+Invincible One,<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> and celebrated by the great games at the Circus,
+was afterwards transferred to the<!-- Page 163 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>  commemoration of the birth of Christ,
+the precise date of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown;'
+while at the present day Canon Farrar writes that 'all attempts to
+discover the month and day of the nativity are useless. No data whatever
+exist to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy.'
+From the foregoing it is apparent that the great festival of the winter
+solstice has been celebrated during past ages, and in widely separated
+lands, in honour of the birth of a God, who is almost invariably alluded
+to as a 'Saviour,' and whose mother is referred to as a pure virgin. The
+striking resemblances, too, which have been instanced not only in the
+birth but in the life of so many of these Saviour-Gods are far too
+numerous to be accounted for by any mere coincidence."<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the case of the Lord Buddha we may see how a myth attaches itself to
+a<!-- Page 164 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>  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, M&acirc;y&acirc;dev&icirc;, the archaic myth
+finding in Him a new Hero.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 165 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>  universal
+acceptance, is found the hallmark of truth.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the Lamb of God.
+The use of the Lamb as His symbol, often leaning on a cross, is common
+in the<!-- Page 166 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>  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 Constantinople, held about the year 680, that
+it was ordained that instead of the ancient symbol, the figure of a
+<i>man</i> fastened to a cross should be represented. This canon was
+confirmed by Pope Adrian I."<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> The very ancient Pisces is also
+assigned to Jesus, and He is thus pictured in the catacombs.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a posture originally
+of benediction, not of suffering. The death of Tammuz was annually
+bewailed at the spring equinox in Babylonia and Syria, as were Adonis in
+Syria and Greece, and Attis in Phrygia, pictured "as a man fastened with
+a lamb at the foot."<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a><!-- Page 167 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>  Mithras' death was similarly celebrated in
+Persia, and that of Bacchus and Dionysius&mdash;one and the same&mdash;in Greece.
+In Mexico the same idea re-appears, as usual accompanied with the cross.</p>
+
+<p>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 that the name of Easter has been traced to the virgin-mother of
+the slain Tammuz, Ishtar.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is interesting also to notice that the fast preceding the death at
+the vernal equinox,&mdash;the modern Lent&mdash;is found in Mexico, Egypt, Persia,
+Babylon, Assyria, Asia Minor, in some cases definitely for forty
+days.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 168 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>  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 midnight sky was filled with the rejoicing hosts of the
+celestials, and</p>
+
+<p>
+Very early, very early, Christ was born.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 169 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 170 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_VI" id="Chapter_VI"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter VI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE MYSTIC CHRIST.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that, go back as far as we may into antiquity, we find
+everywhere recognised the existence of a hidden<!-- Page 171 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>  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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 172 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+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,<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> 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&mdash;hence called in man "the<!-- Page 173 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+Christ."<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;such were some of the descriptive phrases used of
+them.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> Intelligent also must they be, of well-developed and
+well-trained minds.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> 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&mdash;all
+this belongs to the ordinary life of an evolving<!-- Page 174 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>  man. When all this is
+done, the man has become "a good man," the Chr&ecirc;stos 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these attributes&mdash;they are all mental and moral&mdash;is
+<i>Discrimination</i>; this means that the aspirant must begin to separate in
+his mind the Eternal from the<!-- Page 175 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> Next,
+this sense of unreality must breed in him <i>Disgust</i> with the unreal and
+the fleeting, the mere husks of life, unfit to satisfy hunger, save the
+hunger of swine.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> This stage is described in the emphatic language
+of Jesus: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,<!-- Page 176 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life
+also, he cannot be my disciple."<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> 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
+<i>Control of thoughts</i>, and this will lead to <i>Control of actions</i>, the
+thought being, to the inner eye, the same as the action: "Whosoever
+looketh on a woman to lust after her, <i>hath committed adultery</i> with her
+already in his heart."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> He must acquire <i>Endurance</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> He must add to these <i>Tolerance</i>, 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,"<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> the disciple of
+Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he
+did not follow with them.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a><!-- Page 177 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>  Further, he must acquire the <i>Faith</i> to
+which nothing is impossible,<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> and the <i>Balance</i> which is described
+by the Apostle.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are
+above,"<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union
+with God.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Spirit in man is the gift of the Supreme God, and contains
+within itself the three aspects of the Divine Life&mdash;Intelligence, Love,
+Will&mdash;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 high
+point, accompanying it with moral development, brings the evolving man
+to the condition of the candidate. The second<!-- Page 178 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>  aspect of the Spirit is
+that of Love, and the evolution of that is the evolution of the Christ.
+In the true Mysteries this evolution is undergone&mdash;the disciple's life
+is the Mystery Drama, and the Great Initiations mark its stages. In the
+Mysteries performed on the physical plane these used to be dramatically
+represented, and the ceremonies followed in many respects "the pattern"
+ever shown forth "on the Mount," for they were the shadows in a
+deteriorating age of the mighty Realities in the spiritual world.</p>
+
+<p>The Mystic Christ, then, is twofold&mdash;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."<!-- Page 179 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Let us consider first the kosmic Christ, Deity becoming enveloped in
+matter, the becoming incarnate of the Logos, the clothing of God in
+"flesh."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the Holy Spirit&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>These processes are very distinctly stated in the <i>Bible</i>; when the
+"Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" in the darkness that
+was "upon the face<!-- Page 180 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>  of the deep,"<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> 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."<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 181 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>  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&mdash;"Thou did'st not despise the Virgin's womb."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>of</i> the Holy Ghost <i>and</i> the Virgin Mary," whereas
+the translation reads: "and was incarnate <i>by</i> the Holy Ghost <i>of</i> the
+Virgin Mary."<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> 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="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> so that both the life and the matter
+surround Him as a vesture."<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p>
+
+<p>This is the descent of the Logos into matter, described as the birth of
+the Christ<!-- Page 182 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>  of a Virgin, and this, in the Solar Myth, becomes the birth
+of the Sun-God as the sign Virgo rises.</p>
+
+<p>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 all 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<!-- Page 183 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 184 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>  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 Jud&aelig;a, and the kosmic Christ of the Mysteries, with the
+lineaments of the Jesus of history, thus became the central Figure of
+the Christian Church.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> 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<!-- Page 185 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+in a man follows the outline of the Gospel story in its striking
+incidents, which we have seen to be universal, and not particular.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Let us trace this life-story, ever newly repeated in spiritual
+experience, and see the Initiate living out the life of the Christ.</p>
+
+<p>At the first great Initiation the Christ is born in the disciple; it is
+then that he realises for the first time <i>in himself</i> 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"&mdash;the names ever given to the<!-- Page 186 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>  new Initiates. Such is the meaning
+of the words of Jesus, that a man must become a little child to enter
+into the Kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> It is significantly said in some of the early
+Christian writers that Jesus was "born in a cave"&mdash;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<!-- Page 187 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>  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."</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 188 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>  bread for the stilling of his own cravings
+feeds "five thousand men, besides women and children," with a few
+loaves.</p>
+
+<p>Into his life of ceaseless service comes another brief period of glory,
+when he ascends "a high mountain apart"&mdash;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&mdash;repelling the tempting words of one of his
+disciples&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 189 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 190 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 191 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the story lived through in the true Mysteries of old and now,
+and dramatically pourtrayed 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,<!-- Page 192 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>  like Him, is faithful through
+death and beyond&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 193 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_VII" id="Chapter_VII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter VII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE ATONEMENT.</h2>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 194 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;as also in all his
+epistles&mdash;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 own destruction."<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> For
+the texts that tell of the identity of the Christ with His<!-- Page 195 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>The general teaching in the Early Church on the doctrine of the
+Atonement was that Christ, as the Representative of Humanity, faced and
+conquered Satan, the representative of the Dark Powers, who held
+humanity in bondage, wrested his captive from him, and set him free.
+Slowly, as Christian teachers lost touch with spiritual truths, and they
+reflected their own increasing intolerance and harshness on the pure and
+loving Father of the teachings of the Christ, they represented Him as
+angry with man, and the Christ was made to save man from the wrath of
+God instead of from the bondage of evil. Then legal phrases intruded,
+still further materialising the once spiritual idea, and the "scheme of
+redemption" was forensically outlined. "The seal was set on the
+'redemption scheme' by Anselm in his great work, <i>Cur Deus Homo</i>, and
+the doctrine which had been slowly growing<!-- Page 196 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>  into the theology of
+Christendom was thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church.
+Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, alike
+believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character of the atonement
+wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between them on this point. I
+prefer to allow the Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the
+character of the atonement.... Luther teaches that 'Christ did truly and
+effectually feel for all mankind the wrath of God, malediction, and
+death.' Flavel says that 'to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God
+without mixture, to the very torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and
+that by the hand of his own father.' The Anglican homily preaches that
+'sin did pluck God out of heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains
+of death,' and that man, being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of the
+devil, 'was ransomed by the death of his only and well-beloved son'; the
+'heat of his wrath,' 'his burning wrath,' could only be 'pacified' by
+Jesus, 'so pleasant was the sacrifice and oblation of<!-- Page 197 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>  his son's death.'
+Edwards, being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin
+being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty of sin,
+being twice inflicted, first on Jesus, the substitute of mankind, and
+then on the lost, a portion of mankind; so he, in common with most
+Calvinists, finds himself compelled to restrict the atonement to the
+elect, and declared that Christ bore the sins, not of the world, but of
+the chosen out of the world; he suffers 'not for the world, but for them
+whom thou hast given me.' But Edwards adheres firmly to the belief in
+substitution, and rejects the universal atonement for the very reason
+that 'to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that
+he died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed.' He
+declares that 'Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins'; that
+'God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell
+for,' sin. Owen regards Christ's sufferings as 'a full valuable
+compensation to the justice of God for all the sins' of the elect, and
+says that he underwent 'that same punishment<!-- Page 198 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>  which ... they themselves
+were bound to undergo.'"<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 199 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>  says that the
+'divine victim' paid more than was absolutely necessary."<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a></p>
+
+<p>These are the views against which the learned and deeply religious Dr.
+McLeod Campbell wrote his well-known work, <i>On the Atonement</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, as we look backwards over the effects produced by this
+doctrine, we find that belief in it, even in its legal&mdash;and to us crude
+exoteric&mdash;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<!-- Page 200 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 201 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>All the great religions of the world have declared that the universe
+begins by an act of sacrifice, and have incorporated the idea of
+sacrifice into their most solemn<!-- Page 202 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>  rites. In Hinduism, the dawn of
+manifestation is said to be by sacrifice,<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> mankind is emanated with
+sacrifice,<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> and it is Deity who sacrifices Himself;<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> the act of sacrifice is called "the dawn" of
+creation.</p>
+
+<p>In the Zoroastrian religion it was taught that in the Existence that is
+boundless, unknowable, unnameable, sacrifice was performed and manifest
+Deity appeared; Ahura-mazd&acirc;o was born of an act of sacrifice.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the Christian religion the same idea is indicated in the phrase: "the
+Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,"<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> 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<!-- Page 203 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p>
+
+<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<!-- Page 204 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;an act done for the<!-- Page 205 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p>
+
+<p>When the Logos comes forth from "the bosom of the Father" in that "Day"
+when He is said to be "begotten,"<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> the dawn of the Day of Creation,
+of Manifestation, when by Him God "made the worlds,"<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> He by His own
+will limits Himself, making as it were a sphere enclosing the Divine
+Life, coming forth as<!-- Page 206 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p>
+
+<p>"In tracing the symbolism of the Latin cross, or rather of the crucifix,
+back into<!-- Page 207 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>  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&mdash;the joy of freely giving&mdash;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 <i>we</i> may come into
+being."<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 208 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>  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&mdash;the <i>vis a fronte</i>&mdash;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<!-- Page 209 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>  of it&mdash;that germ of
+Himself, which the Logos is brooding over&mdash;then He draws away His
+energy, and the form disintegrates&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 210 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> 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&mdash;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.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 211 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 212 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 213 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>  Heaven was to be won, happiness was to
+be enjoyed on the other side of death&mdash;such was the reward for
+sacrifices made during the life led on earth.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 214 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>  to the inner life when the outer is all torture.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 215 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>feeling</i> with the form,
+though <i>knowing</i> 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<!-- Page 216 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>  truth of the saying of the Christ that "he that
+will save his life shall lose it,"<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> 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,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> 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 fulness, "the power of an
+endless life."<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such is an outline of the Law of<!-- Page 217 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>  Sacrifice, based on the primary
+Sacrifice of the Logos, that Sacrifice of which all other sacrifices are
+reflexions.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The beginning of what may be called the ministry of the Christ come to
+manhood is in that intense and permanent<!-- Page 218 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 219 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus he lives and labours, a true Saviour of men, until the time comes
+when he<!-- Page 220 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>  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&mdash;truly is "the centre everywhere," for Christ is <i>in</i> all,
+and God in Christ&mdash;and no embodied life, nothing "out of the
+Eternal"<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> 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<!-- Page 221 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 222 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+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"<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> who seek the Divine through him.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 223 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 224 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 225 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>  effective. As Giordano Bruno once put it&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 226 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>  mistaken for a
+personal substitution, and thus the spiritual truth was lost in the
+harshness of a judicial exchange.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he comes to a knowledge of his place in the world, of his function
+in nature&mdash;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<!-- Page 227 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>  the
+whole world with him as he rises, the path is easier for all men,
+because he has trodden it.</p>
+
+<p>"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,'<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"This it is, in part, to be a Christ; but<!-- Page 228 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 229 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a><!-- Page 230 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 231 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_VIII" id="Chapter_VIII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 death-like trance, during which he,
+as a liberated soul,<!-- Page 232 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 233 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Every Christian who has made even a superficial study of the human
+constitution recognises in it three distinct constituents&mdash;Spirit, Soul,
+and Body. This division is sound, though needing further subdivision 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."<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> That
+threefold division is accepted in Christian Theology.</p>
+
+<p>The Spirit itself is really a Trinity, the reflexion and image of the
+Supreme Trinity, and this we shall study in the following chapter.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a>
+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<!-- Page 234 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>These divisions and sub-divisions are somewhat confusing and perplexing
+to the dull, and hence Origen and Clement, as we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> 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 Man.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 235 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>  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&mdash;Spirit.
+The student must study and re-study this fundamental fact&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Man has a "natural body," and this is<!-- Page 236 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>  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 an&aelig;sthetics,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 237 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+subdivision 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.<!-- Page 238 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 239 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>  would be no thought in the brain
+were there none in the mental body.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;taught in the Early Church&mdash;and
+who understand that human evolution needs very many successive lives on
+earth, ere the germinal soul of the<!-- Page 240 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>  savage can become the perfected
+soul of the Christ, and then, becoming perfect as the Father in
+Heaven,<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> can realise the union of the Son with the Father.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> 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 not 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,<!-- Page 241 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>  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."</p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 242 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+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 <i>post mortem</i> purification; but they agree
+broadly that there is an intermediate state, sometimes spoken of as
+"Paradise," or as a "waiting period." The heavenly world is almost
+universally, in modern Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no
+very definite or general idea as to its nature, or as to the progress or
+stationary condition of those attaining<!-- Page 243 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>  to it. In early Christianity
+this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the
+progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the
+pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result
+was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition,
+though often a very prolonged one, lasting for "an age"&mdash;as stated in
+the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the
+man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress&mdash;and not
+"everlasting," as in the mistranslation of the English authorised
+version.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The physical body is in a constant<!-- Page 244 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>  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, &amp;c., and were
+desired to be very careful as to the people with whom they associated,
+and the places to which they went.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 245 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As a man enters the higher evolution, this body comes into independent
+activity on this side of death, and he gradually<!-- Page 246 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>  becomes conscious of
+his heavenly life, even amid the whirl of mundane existence. Then he
+becomes "the Son of man which is in heaven,"<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> 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<!-- Page 247 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>  term applied to the Initiate, not to
+the Christ risen and glorified but to the Son while he is yet "being
+made perfect."<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p>
+
+<p>During the stages of evolution that lead up to and include the
+Probationary Path, the first division of the spiritual body&mdash;the Causal
+Body&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>In the Christian Mysteries&mdash;as in the ancient Egyptian, Chaldean, and
+others&mdash;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,<!-- Page 248 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>  sometimes merely on the stone floor, in
+the posture of a crucified man. He was then touched with the thyrsus on
+the heart&mdash;the "spear" of the crucifixion&mdash;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<!-- Page 249 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> He is the risen
+Christ, the Christ triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>The Ascension of the Christ was the Mystery of the third part of the
+spiritual<!-- Page 250 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 251 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>  not a unique personality, but "the first
+fruits of them that slept,"<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> 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.<!-- Page 252 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 253 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_IX" id="Chapter_IX"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE TRINITY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;"One
+only without a second."<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> "Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses, "The Lord
+our God is one Lord."<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> "To us there is but one God,"<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> declares
+S. Paul. "There is no God but God," affirms the founder of Isl&acirc;m, and
+makes the phrase the symbol of his faith. One Existence unbounded, known
+in Its fulness only to Itself&mdash;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.<!-- Page 254 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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, Kadmon the pure Light, and En Soph the Infinite,<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a>
+is the omnipotent<!-- Page 255 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>  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 <i>Nous Demiurgos</i>. He is the Holy Spirit who ... pervades,
+animates, and governs this boundless universe.'"<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p>
+
+<p>The bearing of this doctrine on Christian teaching is indicated by Dean
+Milman in his <i>History of Christianity</i>. 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
+Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus; it was the
+fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy;
+it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the
+Platonic Judaism of the<!-- Page 256 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>  Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be
+quoted from Philo on the impossibility that the first self-existing
+Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in
+Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord Himself spoke no new
+doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when
+they declared 'that no man had seen God at any time.' In conformity with
+this principle the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures,
+instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity,
+had interposed either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of
+communication. According to one accredited tradition alluded to by S.
+Stephen, the law was delivered 'by the disposition of angels'; according
+to another this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called
+the Angel of the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others the Metatron. But the
+more ordinary representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind
+of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the
+same appellation<!-- Page 257 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>  is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and
+the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish
+commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to
+the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
+been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme."<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p>
+
+<p>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; Brahm&acirc;, 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&mdash;for the Second Person in a
+Trinity is ever dual, deteriorated in modern days into an opposing God
+and Devil&mdash;and the<!-- Page 258 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>  Universal Wisdom, Armaiti. In Northern Buddhism we
+find Amit&acirc;bha, 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&mdash;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: "Om! Thou art Brahm&acirc;, Vishnu, and Mahesha
+(Shiva) ... I adore Thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names and
+under various forms, in the shape of Buddha, the God of Mercy."<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p>
+
+<p>In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In Egypt it
+dominated all religious worship. "We have a hieoroglyphical inscription
+in the British Museum as early as the reign of Senechus of the eighth
+century before the Christian<!-- Page 259 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>  era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity
+in Unity already formed part of their religion."<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> This is true of a
+far earlier date. R&acirc;, Osiris, and Horus formed one widely worshipped
+Trinity; Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshipped at Abydos; other names
+are given in different cities, and the triangle is the frequently used
+symbol of the Triune God. The idea which underlay these Trinities,
+however named, is shown in a passage quoted from Marutho, in which an
+oracle, rebuking the pride of Alexander the Great, speaks of: "First
+God, then the Word, and with Them the Spirit."<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a></p>
+
+<p>In Chald&aelig;a, Anu, Ea, and Bel were the Supreme Trinity, Anu being the
+Origin of all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China
+Williamson remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice
+every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese
+saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty
+philosophical<!-- Page 260 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>  system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures:
+'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and
+Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems
+to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity.'"<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>persona</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 261 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>But there is one other point that must be remembered ere we leave the
+exoteric statement of the Trinity&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see the inner truth.</p>
+
+<p>The One becomes manifest as the First Being, the Self-Existent Lord, the
+Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word<!-- Page 262 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>  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&mdash;Wisdom; Power is guided by Wisdom, and therefore it is
+written that "without Him was not anything made that is made;"<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a>
+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&mdash;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,"<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> the reference to the three functions being
+very clear.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects
+of One. Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of<!-- Page 263 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p>
+
+<p>This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God,
+He that "was and is and is to come,"<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> and He is the root of the
+fundamental triplicity in life, in consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 264 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>  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,"<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> and also His Mother, yielding of
+Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His
+power.<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> Regarded carefully She is seen to be triple also, existing
+in three inseparable aspects, without which She could not be. These are
+Stability&mdash;Inertia or Resistance&mdash;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<!-- Page 265 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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 become 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 266 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>  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&mdash;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,"<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> which sustains and
+preserves the universe.</p>
+
+<p>In the world-symbols, found in every religion, the Point&mdash;that which has
+position only&mdash;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."<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> He shines out, as it were, from the infinite Darkness, a
+Point of Light, the centre of a future universe,<!-- Page 267 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>  a Unit, in whom all
+exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field
+of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the
+Point in every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power.
+This is the making of "the earth by His Power," spoken of by
+Jeremiah.<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> Thus the full symbol is a Point within a sphere,
+represented usually as a Point within a circle. The Second Person is
+represented by a Line, a diameter of this circle, a single complete
+vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in every direction
+within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain signifies also
+His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit&mdash;a unity in the First
+Person&mdash;are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is
+represented by a Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each
+other within the circle, the second line of the Cross separating the
+upper part of the circle from the lower. This is the Greek Cross.<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p>
+
+<p>When the Trinity is represented as a Unity, the Triangle is used,
+either<!-- Page 268 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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,"<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> a statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that
+He "laid the foundations of the earth;"<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> we have here the marking
+out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void."<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a></p>
+
+<p>On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit,
+who "moved upon the face of the<!-- Page 269 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>  waters,"<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> the vast ocean of matter.
+Thus His was the first activity, though He was the Third Person&mdash;a point
+of great importance.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a></p>
+
+<p>The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of
+His<!-- Page 270 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>  Wisdom "established the world,"<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> building all globes and all
+things upon them, "all things were made by Him."<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> He is the
+organising Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a>
+The life of the Son thus manifested in the matter prepared by the Holy
+Spirit&mdash;again the great "Myth" of the Incarnation&mdash;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,<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> all must be gathered up in
+Him, and why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a></p>
+
+<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,"<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> the "God of the Spirits of all flesh,"<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> and His is
+the<!-- Page 271 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>  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&mdash;from whom came forth the Son
+and the Holy Spirit&mdash;is a Unity like Himself, with the three aspects in
+One, and man is thus truly made "in our image, after our likeness,"<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a>
+and is able to become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
+is perfect."<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such is the kosmic process, and in human evolution it is repeated; "as
+above, so below."</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 272 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own
+Self, with the glory which I<!-- Page 273 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>  had with Thee before the world was."<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 274 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>  has maintained the union in Himself of Spirit
+and Matter, the duality of the Second Person&mdash;all divine Incarnations in
+all religions are therefore connected with the Second Person in the
+Trinity&mdash;and hence can readily re-clothe Himself for physical
+manifestation, and again become Man. This nature of the Mediator He has
+retained, and is thus a link between the celestial and terrestrial
+Trinities, "God with us"<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> He has ever been called.</p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is in the humanity behind Him that lies this possibility of divine
+Incarnation; He comes down, having climbed up, in<!-- Page 275 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 276 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_X" id="Chapter_X"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter X.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>PRAYER.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>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?"<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> Yet he finds in his own experience and in that
+of others "answers to prayer," a definite sequence of a request and a
+fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these do not refer to subjective<!-- Page 277 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 278 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;prayers for food, clothing, money, employment, success in
+business, recovery from illness, &amp;c. These may be grouped together as
+class A. Then we have prayers for help in moral and intellectual
+difficulties and for spiritual growth&mdash;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&mdash;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 <span class="smcap">THAT<!-- Page 279 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></span>  which is inherently
+attractive, that compels the love of the heart. These we will call Class
+C.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> Some of these Intelligences are mighty spiritual Powers,
+others are exceedingly limited beings, inferior in consciousness to man.
+This occult side of Nature&mdash;of which more will presently be
+said<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a>&mdash;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<!-- Page 280 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>  minister;"<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> 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<!-- Page 281 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>  God Himself, potent and responsive at every point of His realm, of
+Him without whose knowledge not a sparrow falleth to the ground,<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a>
+not a dumb creature thrills in joy or pain, not a child laughs or
+sobs&mdash;that all-pervading, all-embracing, all-sustaining Life and Love,
+in which we live and move.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> 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 <i>man</i> 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<!-- Page 282 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>  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 blackbeetle.<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> 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<!-- Page 283 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now take the classes into which we have divided prayers, and see
+the methods by which they will be answered.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 284 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>  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 M&uuml;ller, of Bristol,
+before he was known to the world as a philanthropist, when he was
+beginning his charitable work, and was without friends or money. He
+prayed for food for the children who had no resource save his bounty,
+and money always came sufficient for the immediate needs. What had
+happened? His prayer was a strong, energetic desire, and that desire
+creates a form, of which it is the life and directing energy. That
+vibrating, living creature has but one idea, the idea that ensouls
+it&mdash;help is wanted, food is wanted; and it ranges the subtle world,
+seeking. A charitable man desires to give help to the needy, is seeking
+opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft iron, so is such a person to
+the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It rouses in his brain
+vibrations identical with its<!-- Page 285 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>  own&mdash;George M&uuml;ller, his orphanage, its
+needs&mdash;and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws a
+cheque, and sends it. Quite naturally, George M&uuml;ller would say that God
+put it into the heart of such a one to give the needed help. In the
+deepest sense of the words that is true, since there is no life, no
+energy, in His universe that does not come from God; but the
+intermediate agency, according to the divine laws, is the desire-form
+created by the prayer.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 286 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 287 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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 daresay 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.</p>
+
+<p>The failure of prayers of this class is<!-- Page 288 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>  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, no 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<!-- Page 289 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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 react 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."<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a>
+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<!-- Page 290 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 291 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 292 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my
+voice, and open the door, I will come in to him."<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 293 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>  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?</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 294 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+divine Image. "Meditation is silent or <i>unuttered</i> 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.'"<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a></p>
+
+<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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the easiest means&mdash;of union with God. In this the
+consciousness, limited by the brain, contemplates in mute exstasy the<!-- Page 295 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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"<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> will remember, and they will understand.</p>
+
+<p>When prayer is thus understood, its perennial necessity for all who
+believe in religion will be patent, and we see why its<!-- Page 296 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>  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 Iamblichus on this subject is useful. Iamblichus 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 Union with the<!-- Page 297 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>  divinities, in whom it
+establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and thus causes the
+soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from these
+three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant
+adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but
+supernally extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian
+apples of gold. The first of these pertains to illumination; the second
+to a communion of operation; but through the energy of the third we
+receive a perfect plenitude of divine fire.... No operation, however, in
+sacred concerns, can succeed without the intervention of prayer. Lastly,
+the continual exercise of prayer nourishes the vigour of our intellect,
+and renders the receptacle of the soul far more capacious for the
+communications of the Gods. It likewise is the divine key, which opens
+to men the penetralia of the Gods; accustoms us to the splendid rivers
+of supernal light; in a short time perfects our inmost recesses, and
+disposes them for the ineffable embrace and contact of the Gods; and
+does not desist till it raises us<!-- Page 298 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>  to the summit of all. It also
+gradually and silently draws upward the manners of our soul, by
+divesting them of everything foreign to a divine nature, and clothes us
+with the perfections of the Gods. Besides this, it produces an
+indissoluble communion and friendship with divinity, nourishes a divine
+love, and inflames the divine part of the soul. Whatever is of an
+opposing and contrary nature in the soul, it expiates and purifies;
+expels whatever is prone to generation and retains anything of the dregs
+of mortality in its ethereal and splendid spirit; perfects a good hope
+and faith concerning the reception of divine light; and in one word,
+renders those by whom it is employed the familiars and domestics of the
+Gods."<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 299 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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, O God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law
+is within my heart."<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a><!-- Page 300 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 301 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XI" id="Chapter_XI"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"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<!-- Page 302 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>  that his sins were
+forgiven.<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> So also of one woman it was said: "Her sins, which are
+many, are forgiven, for she loved much."<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> In the famous Gnostic
+treatise, the <i>Pistis Sophia</i>, 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<!-- Page 303 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>  of the destruction of the sins and iniquities
+of all sinners."<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 304 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>  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 springtime 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.</p>
+
+<p>Modern thinkers, who have thoroughly assimilated the idea of changeless
+laws<!-- Page 305 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 306 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>  thereof in the day of judgment,"<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> and at
+another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> So in
+the <i>Bhagavad G&icirc;t&acirc;</i> we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the
+world is bound by action,"<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> and that a man "recovereth the
+characteristics of his former body;"<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> and yet it is said that "even
+if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he, too, must be
+accounted righteous."<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 307 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>  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
+<i>post-mortem</i> 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,<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a>
+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&mdash;except in modern Protestant communities&mdash;was<!-- Page 308 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>  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&mdash;which existed only in the clouded imagination of the
+believer&mdash;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<!-- Page 309 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>  the unenlightened,
+let us return into the realm of fact and right reason.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a convenient and now widely-used term, originally
+Samskrit, expressing this connection or identity, literally meaning
+"action"&mdash;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<!-- Page 310 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> 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<!-- Page 311 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>  is completed, and the
+sufferer is brought&mdash;by the agency of some Angel, as an administrator of
+the law&mdash;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<!-- Page 312 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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>i.e.</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> 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&mdash;as the water-spring breaks through the encumbering
+earth-clods&mdash;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,<!-- Page 313 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>And this brings us to the heart of the subject&mdash;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&mdash;knowing nothing of the mysteries of
+his own nature, nothing of "the inner God" that is verily
+himself&mdash;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<!-- Page 314 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>  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?<!-- Page 315 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 clashes 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.</p>
+
+<p>He then resolves to change his life, he turns determinedly on his steps,
+he faces<!-- Page 316 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>But this change of front means that he<!-- Page 317 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>  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<!-- Page 318 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>The key to this change in the man, that brings about "forgiveness," is
+given in the verse of the <i>Bhagavad-G&icirc;t&acirc;</i> already partly quoted: "Even
+if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he too must be
+accounted righteous, <i>for he hath rightly resolved</i>." On that right
+resolution follows the inevitable result: "Speedily he becometh dutiful
+and goeth to peace."<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> The essence of sin lies 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<!-- Page 319 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Pistis Sophia</i>, 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<!-- Page 320 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> 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<!-- Page 321 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>  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," re-admitting 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 322 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>  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"<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 323 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>  with the affection
+of the will."<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> "The divine potency which is all in all does not
+proffer or withhold, except through assimilation or rejection by
+oneself."<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> "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."<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 324 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XII" id="Chapter_XII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>SACRAMENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;not<!-- Page 325 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>The second characteristic property of a Sacrament belongs to the facts
+of the<!-- Page 326 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>  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.<!-- Page 327 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 328 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 329 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 330 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>in</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Stretching between the Trinity and humanity are many grades and
+hierarchies<!-- Page 331 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> 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<!-- Page 332 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>  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<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> 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"<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> when the
+foundations of the earth were laid amid the choiring of the Morning
+Stars.<!-- Page 333 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Others beings are below us in evolution&mdash;animals, plants, minerals, and
+elemental lives&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> In the subtle matter<!-- Page 334 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 335 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 336 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>  them in the East, where the
+science of mantras has been much studied and elaborated. It is not
+necessary that a mantra&mdash;a succession of sounds arranged in a particular
+manner to bring about a definite result&mdash;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.<!-- Page 337 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 338 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>Such mantras form an essential part of every Sacrament.</p>
+
+<p>The next essential part of the Sacrament, in its outward and visible
+form, are certain gestures. These are called<!-- Page 339 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>  Signs, or Seals, or
+Sigils&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Book
+of the Dead</i> is described the <i>post-mortem</i> 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<!-- Page 340 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>  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 <i>Pistis
+Sophia</i>, before mentioned.<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Further, in all Sacraments some physical material is used, or should be
+used.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> 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<!-- Page 341 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<!-- Page 342 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or, in the religious term,
+consecrates&mdash;it. Further, the Word and the Sign of Power summon to the
+celebration the<!-- Page 343 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>  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 <i>similar</i>,
+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<!-- Page 344 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 345 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>  out their benign and
+gracious influences; and thus all who are worthy participants in the
+ceremony&mdash;sufficiently pure and devoted to be tuned by the vibrations
+caused&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 346 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XIII" id="Chapter_XIII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>SACRAMENTS  (<i>continued</i>).</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 347 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>  as given
+in the definition in the Catechism of the Church of England already
+quoted.<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or adult&mdash;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 <i>Religion of the Ancient Persians</i>,
+xxxiv. 406, tells us that it prevailed among that people. 'They do not
+use circumcision for their children, but only baptism, or washing for<!-- Page 348 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+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.'"<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> 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&mdash;such sprinkling entering into all Hindu worship. Williamson
+gives authorities for the practise of Baptism in Egypt, Persia, Thibet,
+Mongolia, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and among the
+Druids.<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> Some of the prayers quoted are very fine: "I pray that this
+celestial water,<!-- Page 349 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>  blue and light blue, may enter into thy body and there
+live. I pray that it may destroy in thee, and put away from thee, all
+the things evil and adverse that were given to thee before the beginning
+of the world." "O child! receive the water of the Lord of the world who
+is our life: it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove the sin
+which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since all of
+us are under its power."</p>
+
+<p>Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among non-Christian
+nations in a passage already quoted,<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> and others of the Fathers
+refer to it.</p>
+
+<p>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 Roman Churches a small receptacle for
+holy water is placed near every door, and every incoming worshipper
+touches it,<!-- Page 350 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>  making with it on himself the sign of the cross ere he goes
+onward towards the altar. On this Robert Taylor remarks: "The baptismal
+fonts in our Protestant churches, and we need hardly say more especially
+the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not
+imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the
+same <i>aqua minaria</i>, or <i>amula</i>, which the learned Montfaucon, in his
+<i>Antiquities</i>, shows to have been vases of holy water, which were placed
+by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves
+with upon entering those sacred edifices."<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 351 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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,<!-- Page 352 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 353 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>  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 to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The custom of Infant Baptism gradually<!-- Page 354 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>  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 re-affirm 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"<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> 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.<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a></p>
+
+<p>We come to the second of the Sacraments<!-- Page 355 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 356 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>  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?"<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> 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&mdash;which become
+assimilated in the body and enter into its ingredients&mdash;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<!-- Page 357 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>  from the hand of
+another&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The employment of bread and wine as the materials for this
+Sacrament&mdash;like the use of water in the Sacrament of Baptism&mdash;is of very
+ancient and general usage. The Persians offered bread and wine to
+Mithra, and similar offerings were made in Tibet and Tartary. Jeremiah
+speaks of the cakes and the drink offered to the Queen of Heaven by the
+Jews in Egypt, they taking part in the Egyptian worship.<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> In Genesis
+we read that Melchisedek, the<!-- Page 358 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>  King-Initiate, used bread and wine in the
+blessing of Abraham.<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> In the various Greek Mysteries bread and wine
+were used, and Williamson mentions their use also among the Mexicans,
+Peruvians, and Druids.<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> 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&mdash;usually mingled with water&mdash;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<!-- Page 359 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>  life of the Christ, and become of His kin,
+one with Him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 360 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 361 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>  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 the 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 362 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The worthy partaker, then, becomes one with the Sacrifice, with the
+Christ, and so becomes at one with also, united to,<!-- Page 363 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a>
+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<!-- Page 364 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 365 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 366 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>  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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
+Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
+bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> So S. Paul wrote that
+the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a><!-- Page 367 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 368 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 369 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Chapter_XIV" id="Chapter_XIV"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XIV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>REVELATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>Bible</i>. However far apart may
+be the philosophic Ved&acirc;ntin and the most illiterate Vallabh&acirc;ch&acirc;rya, they
+both regard the same <i>Vedas</i> as supreme. However bitterly opposed to
+each other may be the Shias<!-- Page 370 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>  and the Sunnis, they both regard as sacred
+the same <i>Kur&acirc;n</i>. 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&mdash;a cypher, in
+fact&mdash;sometimes in symbols, recognisable by the instructed, sometimes in
+allegories written as histories, and in many other ways. These Books,
+indeed,<!-- Page 371 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>  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."<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> 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<!-- Page 372 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> 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<!-- Page 373 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>  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.<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a>
+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."<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a></p>
+
+<p>The reason for this method of Revelation is not far to seek; it is the
+only way in which one teaching can be made<!-- Page 374 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>The world-Bibles, then, are fragments&mdash;fragments of Revelation, and
+therefore are rightly described as Revelation.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 375 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<!-- Page 376 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 377 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> 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.<!-- Page 378 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>  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&mdash;he knows, or knows
+that he has known.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>S. Paul</i>. 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:</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+
+
+<span class="i0">So, even I, athirst for His inspiring,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">I, who have talked with Him, forget again;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Offer to God a patience and a pain.</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<!-- Page 379 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span><br />
+<span class="i0">Then through the mid complaint of my confession,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Then through the pang and passion of my prayer,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Leaps with a start the shock of His possession,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there.</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<br />
+<span class="i0">Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Mene and Mene in the folds of flame,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Think ye could any memories thereafter</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Wholly retrace the couplet as it came?</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<br />
+<span class="i0">Lo, if some strange intelligible thunder</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Sang to the earth the secret of a star,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Scarce should ye catch, for terror and for wonder,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Shreds of the story that was pealed so far!</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<br />
+<span class="i0">Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand.</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Only the power that is within me pealing</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Lives on my lips, and beckons to my hand.</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<br />
+<span class="i0">Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<br />
+<span class="i0">Rather the world shall doubt when her retrieving</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Pours in the rain and rushes from the sod;</span><br />
+<span class="i0">Rather than he in whom the great conceiving</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Stirs in his soul to quicken into God.</span><br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<br />
+<span class="i0">Nay, though thou then shouldst strike him from his glory,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Blind and tormented, maddened and alone,</span><br />
+<span class="i0">E'en on the cross would he maintain his story,</span><br />
+<span class="i2">Yes, and in Hell would whisper, "I have known."</span><br /></div></div>
+<p><!-- Page 380 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 381 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>  machine will affect other bodies near which
+it may be placed.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a Crucifix, a Madonna and Child,
+an Angel, a Saint&mdash;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 re-inforce 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.<!-- Page 382 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An application of these same occult laws may be made to explain the use
+of all consecrated objects&mdash;relics, amulets, &amp;c. They are all magnetised
+objects, more or less powerful, or useless, according to the knowledge,
+purity, and spirituality of the person who magnetises them.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> 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<!-- Page 383 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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<!-- Page 384 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>  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 its
+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,<!-- Page 385 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>  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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 386 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="AFTERWORD" id="AFTERWORD"></a>AFTERWORD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;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?</p>
+
+<p>Yet since in man abides His very Self, who shall forbid him to pass
+within the Veil, and to see with "open face the<!-- Page 387 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>  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."</p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Peace to all Beings</span></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 388 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2>INDEX.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="table">
+
+<br />
+<i>Acts of the Apostles</i> referred to;  <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a><br />
+<br />
+&Agrave; Kempis, Thomas;  <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Afterword;  <a href='#Page_376'><b>376</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Allegory;  <a href='#Page_66'><b>66</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Allegories, Old Testament; <a href='#Page_121'><b>121</b></a><br />
+<br />
+All-wide Consciousness; <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Ammonius Saccas; <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Animal Symbols of Zodiac; <a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Anselm and Redemption; <a href='#Page_195'><b>195</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Answers to Prayer; <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Subjective Prayer; <a href='#Page_290'><b>290</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Apollonius of Tyana; <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Apostolic Fathers; <a href='#Page_70'><b>70</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Appearances of Divine Beings; <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Aquinas, Thomas; <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Arians of the Fourth Century</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Aristotle, Effect on Medi&aelig;val Christianity; <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Ascension, The; <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a>, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; and Solar Myth; <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; of the Christ; <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Asiatic Researches</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Aspects of the <span class="smcap">One</span>; <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Athanasius, Story of; <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Athanasian Creed, quoted; <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a>, <a href='#Page_367'><b>367</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Atlantis, Continent of; <a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a><br />
+<br />
+At-one-ment; <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Atonement as one of Lesser Mysteries; <a href='#Page_200'><b>200</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Early Church on the; <a href='#Page_195'><b>195</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Calvinistic View of; <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Edwards on the; <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Flavel on the; <a href='#Page_196'><b>196</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Luther's Views on the; <a href='#Page_196'><b>196</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Dr. McLeod Campbell on the; <a href='#Page_199'><b>199</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  F. D. Maurice on the; <a href='#Page_199'><b>199</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Vicarious and Substitutionary; <a href='#Page_196'><b>196</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 389 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span><br />
+Atonement&mdash;Views of Dwight, Jeune, Jenkyn, Liddon, Owen,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">Stroud, and Thomson; <a href='#Page_198'><b>198</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Truth underlying the Doctrine of; <a href='#Page_199'><b>199</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Pamphlet on, quoted; <a href='#Page_198'><b>198</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  <i>Nineteenth Century</i> quoted on; <a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Aug&ouml;eides; <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Barnabas; <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Baptism, A Mantram in; <a href='#Page_350'><b>350</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  A Minor Form of; <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Belief in Death-bed; <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Infant; <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  In the Early Church; <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  In Other Religions; <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  of Initiate; <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  of Holy Ghost and Fire; <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  of Jesus; <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  of the Christ; <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  Tertullian on; <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Beatific Vision, The; <a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a>, <a href='#Page_295'><b>295</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Bernard of Clairvaux; <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Bel-fires; <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Bhagavad G&icirc;t&acirc;</i> referred to; <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>, <a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a>, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>, <a href='#Page_318'><b>318</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Bible Account of Creation; <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Birth, Second; <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Blavatsky, H. P., referred to; <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Blood of Christ symbolised in Eucharist; <a href='#Page_359'><b>359</b></a><br />
+<br />
+B&ouml;hme, Jacob; <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Body, Causal; <a href='#Page_239'><b>239</b></a>, <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Desire, Changes in;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Meaning of a; <a href='#Page_234'><b>234</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Mental; <a href='#Page_236'><b>236</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp;  "&nbsp; &nbsp;  Building of; <a href='#Page_245'><b>245</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Natural or Physical; <a href='#Page_236'><b>236</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Natural, of St. Paul; <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  of Bliss; <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  of Desire; <a href='#Page_236'><b>236</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Physical, Changes in; <a href='#Page_243'><b>243</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Resurrection; <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 390 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span><br />
+Body, Spiritual; <a href='#Page_239'><b>239</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Book of Job</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a>, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; <i>of the Dead</i>, referred to; <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; <i>of Wisdom</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_266'><b>266</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bread, General Symbol in Sacraments; <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Brihad&acirc;ranyakopani&#7779;hat</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>, <a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Brotherhood of Great Teachers; <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Bruno, Giordano, referred to; <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>, <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a>, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>, <a href='#Page_322'><b>322</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Buddha, Birth Story of; <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Buddhist Trinity; <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Calvinistic Doctrine; <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa; <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Cathari, The, referred to; <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Cave of Initiation; <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Celsus&mdash;Controversy with Origen; <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Chh&acirc;naogyopanishat</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Chr&ecirc;stos and Christos; <a href='#Page_174'><b>174</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Christ as Hierophant of Mysteries; <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Baptism of; <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Crucifixion of; <a href='#Page_183'><b>183</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Disciples of; <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  in the Spiritual Body; <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Life of the; <a href='#Page_217'><b>217</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  of the Mysteries; <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  The; <a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a>, <a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  the Crucified; <a href='#Page_182'><b>182</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  the Historical; <a href='#Page_120'><b>120</b></a>, <a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  the Kosmic; <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  the Mystic; <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  the Mythic; <a href='#Page_145'><b>145</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp;  Sufferings of the; <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Christian Creed</i>, referred to; <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a>, <a href='#Page_181'><b>181</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; quoted; <a href='#Page_206'><b>206</b></a>, <a href='#Page_207'><b>207</b></a>, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Christian Disciples&mdash;their work; <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Christian Records</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Christian Symbols, &amp;c., not unique; <a href='#Page_148'><b>148</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Christianity has the Gnosis; <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Christmas Day; <a href='#Page_159'><b>159</b></a>, <a href='#Page_161'><b>161</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 391 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span><br />
+Christmas Festival, rightly regarded; <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Clarke's Ante-Nicene</i> Library, quoted; viii., <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>, <a href='#Page_58'><b>58</b></a>, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a>, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_77'><b>77</b></a>, <a href='#Page_78'><b>78</b></a>, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a>, <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a>, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a>, <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a>, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>, <a href='#Page_266'><b>266</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Classes of Prayers; <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Clement of Alexandria, quoted; viii., <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp;  referred to; <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp;  on the Gnosis; <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a>, <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp;  on Scripture Allegories; <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp;  on Symbols; <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp;  and Catechetical School; <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp;  a Pupil of Pant&aelig;nus; <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Colossians, Epistle to</i>, referred to;  <a href='#Page_58'><b>58</b></a>, <a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a>, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Comparative Mythologists; <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Theory of; <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Religionists; <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Mythology; <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Consecrated Objects; <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Consecration of Churches, Cemeteries, &amp;c.; <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Constant, Alphonse Louis; <a href='#Page_118'><b>118</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Conversion, Phenomenon of; <a href='#Page_313'><b>313</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+<i>Corinthians, Epistles to</i>, quoted; ix., x., <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>, <a href='#Page_55'><b>55</b></a>, <a href='#Page_64'><b>64</b></a>, <a href='#Page_67'><b>67</b></a>, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_175'><b>175</b></a>, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a>, <a href='#Page_232'><b>232</b></a>, <a href='#Page_239'><b>239</b></a>, <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a>, <a href='#Page_241'><b>241</b></a>, <a href='#Page_251'><b>251</b></a>, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>, <a href='#Page_356'><b>356</b></a>, <a href='#Page_373'><b>373</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Creed, taught after Baptism in Early Church; <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Cruden's Concordance</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Cur Deus Homo</i> of Anselm; <a href='#Page_195'><b>195</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Dangers to Christianity; <a href='#Page_125'><b>125</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Dark Powers in Nature;  <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>, <a href='#Page_187'><b>187</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Dean Milman, quoted; <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Death of Solar Heroes; <a href='#Page_166'><b>166</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>De Principiis</i> of Origen; <a href='#Page_101'><b>101</b></a>, <a href='#Page_102'><b>102</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Deuteronomy</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_96'><b>96</b></a>, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Diegesis</i> of R. Taylor, quoted; <a href='#Page_350'><b>350</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Die Deutsche Theologie</i>; <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Dionysius the Areopagite; <a href='#Page_110'><b>110</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Disappearance of the Mysteries; <a href='#Page_184'><b>184</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Disciples, The; <a href='#Page_136'><b>136</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Work of the; <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Writings of the; <a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 392 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span><br />
+Divine Beings, Appearance in Mysteries; <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a><br />
+<br />
+"Divine Grace," What it is;  <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Ideation; <a href='#Page_359'><b>359</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Illumination; <a href='#Page_377'><b>377</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Incarnations; <a href='#Page_273'><b>273</b></a>, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Duality of Manifested Existence; <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Second Person of Trinity; <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Easter Festival; <a href='#Page_159'><b>159</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Eckhart, Teachings of; <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Edwards on the Atonement; <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Egypt and the Mysteries; <a href='#Page_131'><b>131</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i>, referred to; <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; quoted; <a href='#Page_110'><b>110</b></a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Ephesians, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_57'><b>57</b></a>, <a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a>, <a href='#Page_67'><b>67</b></a>, <a href='#Page_366'><b>366</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Epistle of James</i>, quoted;  <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; <i>of Peter</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_64'><b>64</b></a>, <a href='#Page_121'><b>121</b></a>, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>, <a href='#Page_354'><b>354</b></a>, <a href='#Page_371'><b>371</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Esoteric Christianity, Popular Denial of; <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Teaching in Early Church; <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Essentials of Religion; <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Eucharist, Bread and Wine of; <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Change of Substance in; <a href='#Page_361'><b>361</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; connected with Law of Sacrifice; <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Meaning and Use of;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Sacrifice of; <a href='#Page_355'><b>355</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Unworthy Participants in; <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Exodus, Book of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Exstasy; <a href='#Page_295'><b>295</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Faith Needed for Forgiveness; <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Fathers, The Christian, on Scriptures; <a href='#Page_371'><b>371</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Festivals; <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Fish Symbol in Religions; <a href='#Page_166'><b>166</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Flavel on Atonement; <a href='#Page_196'><b>196</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Fludd, Robert; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Forgiveness of Sins; <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Lesser Mysteries; <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in most Religions; <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; ultimately refers to <i>Post-Mortem</i> Penalties; <a href='#Page_307'><b>307</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fourth Manifestation Feminine; <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Person; <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 393 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span><br />
+Free-thinking in Christianity; <a href='#Page_123'><b>123</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Friends of God in the Oberland</i>; <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Friends, Society of; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Future of Christianity; <a href='#Page_41'><b>41</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Galatians, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_64'><b>64</b></a>, <a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a>, <a href='#Page_66'><b>66</b></a>, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Genesis</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a>, <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a>, <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a>, <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a>, <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a>, <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a>, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Germain, Comte de S.; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Gestures in Sacraments;  <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Gibbon's <i>Decline and Fall of R. Empire</i>, quoted;  <a href='#Page_162'><b>162</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Giles, Rev. Dr., quoted;  <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Gnosis, The;   viii., <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>, <a href='#Page_108'><b>108</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; " in Christianity;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gnostic, The, of S. Clement; <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+<i>Gnostics and their Remains</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_162'><b>162</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Gods in the Mysteries; <a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Grades of Hierarchies; <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Grand Lodge of Central Asia; <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Greek Cross, The;  <a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Guyon, Mme. de; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Haug, Dr., <i>Essay on Parsis</i>, cited; <a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Hebrews, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a>, <a href='#Page_67'><b>67</b></a>, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>, <a href='#Page_175'><b>175</b></a>, <a href='#Page_176'><b>176</b></a>, <a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_216'><b>216</b></a>, <a href='#Page_222'><b>222</b></a>, <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>, <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a>, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a>, <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hebrew Trinity; <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Hell-fire Dogma, The; <a href='#Page_48'><b>48</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Heroic Enthusiasts, The</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Hidden God, The;  <a href='#Page_207'><b>207</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Meanings in Jewish and Christian Scriptures; <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Side of Christianity; <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Teaching in all Religions; <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hierarchies of Divine Beings; <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Superhuman Beings; <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hindu, Trinity, The; <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a><br />
+<br />
+History <i>versus</i> Myth; <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Holy Spirit as Creator; <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Holy Water; <a href='#Page_343'><b>343</b></a>, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>, <a href='#Page_351'><b>351</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Human Evolution repeats Kosmic Process; <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Huxley, T. H., quoted; <a href='#Page_282'><b>282</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Hyde, Dr., quoted;  <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Hymn to Demeter</i>; <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 394 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Iamblichus, <i>On the Mysteries</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>, <a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a>, <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a>, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_296'><b>296</b></a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+Iamblichus, <i>Life of Pythagoras</i>, referred to; <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Ignatius; <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Incarnation of Logos;  <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Initiation and Rebirth;  <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a>, <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Cave of;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Ceremonies of; <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Conditions of; <a href='#Page_173'><b>173</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Mount of;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Inspiration, True; <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Intelligences in Invisible Worlds; <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Inviolability of Law; <a href='#Page_305'><b>305</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Invisible Helpers; <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Invisible Worlds interpenetrate the Visible; <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Iren&aelig;us, <i>Against Heresies</i>, referred to; <a href='#Page_105'><b>105</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Isaiah</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a>, <a href='#Page_295'><b>295</b></a>, <a href='#Page_366'><b>366</b></a>, <a href='#Page_377'><b>377</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Isomeric Compounds; <a href='#Page_361'><b>361</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Jeremiah, Book of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>, <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Jesus at Mount Serbal;  <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Baptism of;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Date and Place of Birth; <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; His Work in Christendom;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_143'><b>143</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Egypt; <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Inner Instructions of; <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Master of the West; <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Sacrifice of; <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; the Divine Teacher; <a href='#Page_183'><b>183</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; the Healer and Teacher; <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; training in Essene Community; <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; the Master; <a href='#Page_142'><b>142</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Judges, Book of</i>, quoted;  <a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Juliana Mother; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Justin Martyr;  <a href='#Page_148'><b>148</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; quoted; <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Kabbala</i>, Five Books of, referred to; <a href='#Page_34'><b>34</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Karma;  <a href='#Page_288'><b>288</b></a>, <a href='#Page_309'><b>309</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Kathopanishat</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>, <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Key to Theosophy</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 395 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span><br />
+Kingdom of Heaven&mdash;real meaning; <a href='#Page_52'><b>52</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Kings, Book of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>, <a href='#Page_354'><b>354</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Kosmic Christ, The; <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Process of becoming; <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Sacrifice; <a href='#Page_183'><b>183</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Lang, Andrew, referred to; <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Language of Symbols; <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Latin Cross, Origin of; <a href='#Page_206'><b>206</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Use of, in Roman Church; <a href='#Page_337'><b>337</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Law of Sacrifice; <a href='#Page_201'><b>201</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; in Hinduism;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; in Nature of Logos;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_204'><b>204</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; in Zoroastrianism;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; or Manifestation; <a href='#Page_203'><b>203</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Law, William; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Left-hand Path; <a href='#Page_17'><b>17</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Lent; <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Levi Eliphas; <a href='#Page_118'><b>118</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Leviticus</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Light on the Path</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_220'><b>220</b></a><br />
+<br />
+"Little Child"; <a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Logos, Birth of the; <a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; and Sacrifice; <a href='#Page_204'><b>204</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Life of, in every form; <a href='#Page_208'><b>208</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Meaning of the Term; <a href='#Page_172'><b>172</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Plato; <a href='#Page_182'><b>182</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Perpetual Sacrifice of; <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Loss of Mystic Teaching in Christianity; <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Luke, Gospel of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a>, <a href='#Page_48'><b>48</b></a>, <a href='#Page_175'><b>175</b></a>, <a href='#Page_176'><b>176</b></a>, <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a>, <a href='#Page_289'><b>289</b></a>, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Luther on the Atonement; <a href='#Page_196'><b>196</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Madonnas; <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Magnetic Cures, Secret of; <a href='#Page_342'><b>342</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Change in Sacramental Substance; <a href='#Page_342'><b>342</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Energies in Ether;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Magnetisation of Substances; <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Making</i> of <i>Religion</i>, The, referred to; <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Man as Microcosm;  <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; and Woman Complementary; <a href='#Page_365'><b>365</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; develops Second Aspect; <a href='#Page_272'><b>272</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 396 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span><br />
+Man's Manifold Nature; <a href='#Page_234'><b>234</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Mandakopanishat</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a><br />
+<br />
+"Mantras"; <a href='#Page_335'><b>335</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; essential in Sacraments; <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in rite of Baptism; <a href='#Page_350'><b>350</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Sanskrit;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; spoilt by translation; <a href='#Page_337'><b>337</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Mark, Gospel of</i>, quoted; vii., <a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a>, <a href='#Page_47'><b>47</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Martin, St.; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Marriage, Deeper meaning of; <a href='#Page_365'><b>365</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Lesser Mysteries; <a href='#Page_368'><b>368</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Mystery of; <a href='#Page_366'><b>366</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Sacrament of;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_364'><b>364</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; type of union between God and Man; <a href='#Page_366'><b>366</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mary, the World Mother;  <a href='#Page_206'><b>206</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Master, Jesus, the; <a href='#Page_142'><b>142</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Matthew, Gospel of</i>, quoted;   vii., <a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a>, <a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a>, <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a>, <a href='#Page_52'><b>52</b></a>, <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a>, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>, <a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_176'><b>176</b></a>, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a>, <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>, <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a>, <a href='#Page_216'><b>216</b></a>, <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a>, <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a>, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a>, <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a>, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Maurice, cited; <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mead, G. R. S., quoted; <a href='#Page_26'><b>26</b></a>, <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a>, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>, <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a>, <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a>, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mediator, Nature of;  <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Meditation&mdash;What it is; <a href='#Page_293'><b>293</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Growth by; <a href='#Page_299'><b>299</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Men at different levels; <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Miguel de Molinos; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Ministry of Angels, The; <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a>, <a href='#Page_289'><b>289</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Miracles; <a href='#Page_145'><b>145</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mithras, Birth of; <a href='#Page_161'><b>161</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Modern Spirit antagonistic to Prayer; <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a><br />
+<br />
+More, Henry; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mother Juliana of Norwich; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mount Serbal; <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mount of Initiation; <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a><br />
+<br />
+M&uuml;ller, George, Case of; <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Music in Worship; <a href='#Page_335'><b>335</b></a>, <a href='#Page_337'><b>337</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Myers (F.), St. Paul; <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Mystery Gods; <a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Christ;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_57'><b>57</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mysteries, Christian, Symbolism of; <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 397 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span><br />
+Mysteries and Yoga; <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Christ as Hierophant of; <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Disappearance of the; <a href='#Page_184'><b>184</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Eliphas Levi on the; <a href='#Page_118'><b>118</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; established by Christ; <a href='#Page_142'><b>142</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Greater, The; ix., <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a>, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>, <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a>, <a href='#Page_63'><b>63</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in the Gospels; <a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Egypt; <a href='#Page_131'><b>131</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in relation to Myth; <a href='#Page_157'><b>157</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Lesser; ix., <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a>, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; and Prayer; <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; as to Bodies; <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Teaching of; <a href='#Page_251'><b>251</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Names in Christianity; <a href='#Page_47'><b>47</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Bacchus; <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>, <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Chald&aelig;a, Egypt, Eleusis, Mithras, Orpheus, Samothrace,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Scythia; <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of God; <a href='#Page_57'><b>57</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Jesus; <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a>, <a href='#Page_42'><b>42</b></a>, <a href='#Page_94'><b>94</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of the Early Church; <a href='#Page_69'><b>69</b></a> <i>et seq</i>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Magic, quoted; <a href='#Page_157'><b>157</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; praised by Learned Greeks; <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Pseudo, and Sun-God Story; <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; source of Mystic Learning; <a href='#Page_108'><b>108</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; The; <a href='#Page_171'><b>171</b></a>, <a href='#Page_178'><b>178</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; taught, <i>Post-mortem</i> Existence; <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; The True; <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; The Christ of the; <a href='#Page_184'><b>184</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Theory of the; <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; withdrawn; <a href='#Page_108'><b>108</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mystic Christ, The; <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Twofold; <a href='#Page_178'><b>178</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Vesture, The; <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mythic Christ, The; <a href='#Page_145'><b>145</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Myth, Meaning of; <a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a>, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Solar; <a href='#Page_156'><b>156</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mythology Comparative; <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Natural and Spiritual Bodies; <a href='#Page_232'><b>232</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Body&mdash;of St. Paul; <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 398 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span><br />
+Natural Body, The; <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Need for Graded Religion; <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Neoplatonists;  <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>, <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Newman, Cardinal, quoted; <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Recognises a Secret Tradition; <a href='#Page_104'><b>104</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+New Testament Proofs of Esotericism; <a href='#Page_42'><b>42</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Nicene Creed; <a href='#Page_181'><b>181</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Nicolas of Basel; <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Noachian Deluge; <a href='#Page_19'><b>19</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Nous Demiurgos</i> of Plato; <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Numbers, Book of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Object of all Religions; <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Occult Experts; <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Knowledge, Danger of; <a href='#Page_16'><b>16</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Records; <a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; and the Gospels; <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; side of Nature; <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; use of Sounds;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_334'><b>334</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Old Testament Allegories; <a href='#Page_121'><b>121</b></a><br />
+<br />
+One Existence, The; <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a><br />
+<br />
+One, The, Three aspects of; <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Manifest; <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Origen <i>Against Celsus</i>; <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; ";&nbsp; <a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; on the Need of Wisdom; <a href='#Page_99'><b>99</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Mysteries;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Scriptures; <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Tower of Babel; <a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; referred to;&nbsp; <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Shining Light of Learning; <a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Orpheus</i>, Mead's, quoted; <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a>, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>, <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a>, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Owen on Atonement; <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Pant&aelig;nus; <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Paracelsus; <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Paradise; <a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Path of Discipleship; <a href='#Page_174'><b>174</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Philippians, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_62'><b>62</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Physical Ailments final expression of Karma; <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 399 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span><br />
+Physical Body, Changes in; <a href='#Page_243'><b>243</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Material in Sacraments; <a href='#Page_340'><b>340</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Pilgrimages, Rationale of; <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Pistis Sophia</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a>, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>, <a href='#Page_139'><b>139</b></a>, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_340'><b>340</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; referred to; <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Plato's Cave; <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Plato initiated in Egypt; <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Platonists of Cambridge; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Plotinus, Dying Words of; <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; referred to; <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Mead's, quoted; <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna; <a href='#Page_70'><b>70</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Popular Christianity, Mistake of; vii.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Denial of Esoteric Christianity; <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Porphyry, quoted;  <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a>, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Prayer; <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Answers to; <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; as Will; <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Class B&mdash;general principle; <a href='#Page_292'><b>292</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Failure of; <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; for Spiritual Enlightenment; <a href='#Page_291'><b>291</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; for the Student of Lesser Mysteries; <a href='#Page_296'><b>296</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Highest form of; <a href='#Page_293'><b>293</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Puzzling Facts as to; <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Prayers classified; <a href='#Page_278'><b>278</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Probationary Path, The; <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a><br />
+<br />
+"Proclaim upon the houses"&mdash;Mystical meaning; <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Proclus, Teaching of; <a href='#Page_26'><b>26</b></a>, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>, <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Psalms, quoted; <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>, <a href='#Page_299'><b>299</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Pseudo-Mysteries and Sun-God Drama; <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Pupils of the Apostles; <a href='#Page_70'><b>70</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Purgatory; <a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Purification; <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Pythagoras, referred to; <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in India; <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Pythagorean School, Discipline of; <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>, <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Qualifications of Disciple; <a href='#Page_175'><b>175</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Quietists, The; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Regions of the Invisible Worlds; <a href='#Page_239'><b>239</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 400 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span><br />
+Re-incarnation;  <a href='#Page_239'><b>239</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Religion, Need for graded; <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Religion of Ancient Persians</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Religions, Common origin of; <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Custodians of Sacred Books; <a href='#Page_369'><b>369</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Essentials of; <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; fitted for Stages of Growth; <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Object of all; <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Source of all; <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Religious Founders; <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Scriptures; <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Teachers; <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Resurrection and Solar Myth; <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a>, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Body; <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of the Christ; <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of the Dead; <a href='#Page_62'><b>62</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; The&mdash;Part of Lesser Mysteries; <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Revelation; <a href='#Page_369'><b>369</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"&nbsp; Fragments of in Sacred Books; <a href='#Page_370'><b>370</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"&nbsp; in Cypher; <a href='#Page_370'><b>370</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"&nbsp; of Deity in Kosmos; <a href='#Page_375'><b>375</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Revelations, Book of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>, <a href='#Page_63'><b>63</b></a>, <a href='#Page_66'><b>66</b></a>, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>, <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_292'><b>292</b></a>, <a href='#Page_322'><b>322</b></a>, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Revolt against Dogma; <a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Roman Empire dying; <a href='#Page_107'><b>107</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Romans, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>, <a href='#Page_363'><b>363</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Rosenkreutz Christian; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Ruling Angel of Jews; <a href='#Page_96'><b>96</b></a>, <a href='#Page_98'><b>98</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Ruysbroeck; <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Sacrament, a kind of crucible; <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; a Pictorial Allegory; <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Change in substance at; <a href='#Page_343'><b>343</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; link between Visible and Invisible; <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a>, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Baptism; <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Eucharist; <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Marriage; <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>, <a href='#Page_364'><b>364</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Penance; <a href='#Page_340'><b>340</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sacraments; <a href='#Page_324'><b>324</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Angels connected with; <a href='#Page_343'><b>343</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; defined in Church Catechism; <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 401 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span><br />
+Sacraments, Gestures used in; <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in all Religions; <a href='#Page_324'><b>324</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Lost at Reformation; <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Mantrams in; <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Christian Church; <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Peculiar Characteristics; <a href='#Page_324'><b>324</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Seven, of Christianity; <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Signs, Seals, or Sigils in; <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "Substance" and "Accidents" of; <a href='#Page_361'><b>361</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Twofold Nature of; <a href='#Page_324'><b>324</b></a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Two, In Protestant Communities; <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sacred Places and Objects; <a href='#Page_380'><b>380</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Sacred Quaternery, The; <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Sacrifice as Joy; <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Law of; <a href='#Page_201'><b>201</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Four Stages in; <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Lessons in; <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Jesus; <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Saint Bonaventura; <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Elizabeth; <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Francois de Sales; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; John of the Cross; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; <i>John's Gospel</i>, quoted; x., <a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a>, <a href='#Page_52'><b>52</b></a>, <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a>, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>, <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a>, <a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a>, <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a>, <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a>, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a>, <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a>, <a href='#Page_216'><b>216</b></a>, <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a>, <a href='#Page_246'><b>246</b></a>, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a>, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>, <a href='#Page_273'><b>273</b></a>, <a href='#Page_292'><b>292</b></a>, <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Paul, quoted; <a href='#Page_55'><b>55</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a>, <a href='#Page_184'><b>184</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Paul an Initiate; <a href='#Page_61'><b>61</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; and Mysteries; <a href='#Page_57'><b>57</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; and Timothy; <a href='#Page_59'><b>59</b></a>, <a href='#Page_69'><b>69</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; on Allegory; <a href='#Page_66'><b>66</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Peter, quoted; <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Teresa; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Timothy, referred to; <a href='#Page_59'><b>59</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Samuel, Book of</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Savage Deities; <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Savages as Descendants of Civilisation; <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Saviour, The True; <a href='#Page_219'><b>219</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Sayings of Jesus; <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a>, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Scientific Analysis of Vehicles; <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a><br />
+<!-- Page 402 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span><br />
+Search for God, The; <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Secret Teachings of Jesus; <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Tradition recognised by Newman; <a href='#Page_104'><b>104</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Second Birth; <a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a>, <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Sepher Yetzirah</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_34'><b>34</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Shvet&acirc;shvataropanishat</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a><br />
+<br />
+"Sign of Power"; <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Society of Friends; <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Solar Gods; <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Myth, Root of; <a href='#Page_178'><b>178</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sopater, quoted; <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Sophia&mdash;The Wisdom; <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Soul&mdash;Dual; <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Sound and Form in the Invisible Worlds; <a href='#Page_333'><b>333</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Sound, Occult use of; <a href='#Page_334'><b>334</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Source of Religions; <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Spirit and Matter; <a href='#Page_367'><b>367</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Spirit threefold; <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; manifested as triple Self; <a href='#Page_330'><b>330</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Spiritual Body, Divisions of; <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+"Star of Initiation"; <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a><br />
+<br />
+"Strait Gate" term of Initiation; <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a>, <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>, <a href='#Page_174'><b>174</b></a>, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Stromata</i> or Miscellanies of S. Clement, quoted; <a href='#Page_58'><b>58</b></a>, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><a href='#Page_78'><b>78</b></a>, <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a>, <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a>, <a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a>, <a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sufferings of the Christ; <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Superintending Spirits; <a href='#Page_98'><b>98</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Sun God Legend; <a href='#Page_158'><b>158</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; Symbol of Logos; <a href='#Page_171'><b>171</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">" Heroes; <a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">" Myths, recurring; <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">" of Righteousness; <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">" Symbol of the Logos; <a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">" Symbols; <a href='#Page_155'><b>155</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Survival of Christianity?; <a href='#Page_40'><b>40</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Symbol of Jesus; <a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Trinity; <a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Symbols&mdash;animal, in Zodiac; <a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Language of; <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 403 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span><br />
+Symbols of Logoi; <a href='#Page_266'><b>266</b></a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Tatian and Theodotus, referred to;  <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Tauler, John; <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Taylor, Robert, quoted; <a href='#Page_350'><b>350</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Teachings common to all Religions; <a href='#Page_146'><b>146</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in the hands of Spiritual Brotherhood; <a href='#Page_374'><b>374</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Tertullian on Baptism; <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The Christ; <a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a>, <a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The Hidden Side of Religions; <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Christianity; <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Disciples; <a href='#Page_136'><b>136</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The "Simple Gospel"; <a href='#Page_39'><b>39</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The title of Lord; <a href='#Page_96'><b>96</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The Testimony of the Scriptures; <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The Tower of Babel; <a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The Thyrsus; <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The True Exstasis; <a href='#Page_108'><b>108</b></a><br />
+<br />
+The Trinity; <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; among the Hebrews; <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Hindu; <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Buddhism; <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Chald&aelig;a; <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in China; <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Extinct Religions; <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Egypt; <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Man; <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a>, <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Manifestation; <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; in Zoroastrianism; <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Word of Wisdom, of Knowledge; <a href='#Page_102'><b>102</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Theological Hell; <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Theosophical Review</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Thessalonians, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Three Worlds, The; <a href='#Page_241'><b>241</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Timothy, Epistle to</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_59'><b>59</b></a>, <a href='#Page_60'><b>60</b></a>, <a href='#Page_61'><b>61</b></a>, <a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a>, <a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a>, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Tradition of <i>Post-mortem</i> Teaching of Jesus; <a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Transubstantiation&mdash;Truth Underlying; <a href='#Page_360'><b>360</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Triangle as a Symbol of Trinity; <a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Trinity, A Second; <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; of Spirit; <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a></span><br />
+<!-- Page 404 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span><br />
+Trinity in Christian agrees with other Faiths; <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Triple Aspect of Matter; <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Triplicity in Nature; <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a><br />
+<br />
+True Theosophy defined; x.<br />
+<br />
+Two Schools of Christian Interpretation; <a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Two-fold Division of Man Insufficient; <a href='#Page_232'><b>232</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Vaivasvata Manu; <a href='#Page_19'><b>19</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Valentinus; <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Vaughan, Thomas; <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Vehicles of Consciousness, Need for Different; <a href='#Page_238'><b>238</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Vibrations; <a href='#Page_334'><b>334</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Vibratory Effects of Mass; <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Virgin Matter; <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; and Third Person of Trinity; <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; "&nbsp; and Second&nbsp; "&nbsp; " ; <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Mother; <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Virgin's Womb, Meaning of; <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Virgo, Zodiacal Sign of; <a href='#Page_158'><b>158</b></a>, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Virtues in the Mysteries; <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Voice of the Silence</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Voice Figures</i>&mdash;Mrs. Watts Hughes, referred to; <a href='#Page_333'><b>333</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Williamson's <i>Great Law</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_161'><b>161</b></a>, <a href='#Page_163'><b>163</b></a> <i>et seq.</i>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><a href='#Page_166'><b>166</b></a>, <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a>, <a href='#Page_203'><b>203</b></a>, <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a>, <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a>, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a>, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Will as Prayer; <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Words of Power; <a href='#Page_335'><b>335</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Work of the Holy Spirit; <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a>, <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; Second Person; <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a>, <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; First Person; <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+Working of Logos in Matter; <a href='#Page_182'><b>182</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Workers in Kosmos; <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"&nbsp; the Invisible Worlds; <a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a>, <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+World Bibles, fragments of Revelation; <a href='#Page_374'><b>374</b></a><br />
+<br />
+World Soul, The; <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a><br />
+<br />
+World Symbols; <a href='#Page_266'><b>266</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Writings of the Disciples; <a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Zechariah</i>, quoted; <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a><br />
+<br />
+Zodiac, The; <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a><br />
+</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><!-- Page 405 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> S. Mark xvi. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> S. Matt vii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Clarke's Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. Clement of
+Alexandria. <i>Stromata</i>, bk. I., ch. xii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> I. Cor. iii. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ii. 14, 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> S. John, i. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Psalms, xlii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 1 Cor. xv. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria.
+<i>Stromata</i>, bk. V., ch. xi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See Article on "Mysteries," <i>Encyc. Britannica</i> ninth
+edition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Psellus, quoted in <i>Iamblichus on the Mysteries</i>. T.
+Taylor, p. 343, note on p. 23, second edition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Iamblichus</i>, as <i>ante</i>, p. 301.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The article on "Mysticism" in the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia
+Britannica</i> has the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204-206
+<span class="smcap">A.D.</span>): "The One [the Supreme God spoken of above] is exalted above the
+<i>nous</i> and the 'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether and is not
+cognisable by reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it
+were, from its own fulness, an image of itself, which is called <i>nous</i>,
+and which constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The
+soul is in turn the image or product of the <i>nous</i>, and the soul by its
+motion begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways&mdash;towards
+the <i>nous</i>, from which it springs, and towards the material life, which
+is its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the
+sensible; material existence is itself estrangement from God.... To
+reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought
+is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the motionless
+rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent deity is not
+so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence, <i>contact</i>."
+Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all a system of complete rationalism; it
+is assumed, in other words, that reason is capable of mapping out the
+whole system of things. But, inasmuch as a God is affirmed beyond
+reason, the mysticism becomes in a sense the necessary complement of the
+would-be all-embracing rationalism. The system culminates in a mystical
+act."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Iamblichus</i>, as <i>ante</i>, p. 73.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, pp. 55, 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, pp. 118, 119.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 118, 119.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, pp. 95, 100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 330.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> G. R. S. Mead. <i>Plotinus</i>, p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Iamblichus</i>, p. 364, note on p. 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> G. R. S. Mead. <i>Orpheus</i>, pp. 285, 286.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Iamblichus</i>, p. 364, note on p. 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Iamblichus</i>, p. 285, <i>et seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> G. R. S. Mead. <i>Orpheus</i>, p. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, p. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, pp. 263, 271.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> G. R. S. Mead. <i>Plotinus</i>, p. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Shvet&acirc;shvataropani&#7779;hat</i>, vi., 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Ka&#7789;hopaniá¹£&#7779;hat</i>, iii., 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> I. Cor. xiii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Ka&#7789;hopani&#7779;hat</i>, vi. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Mu&#7751;dakopani&#7779;hat</i>, II., ii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>., III., i. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> I Sam. xix. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> II. Kings ii. 2, 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Under "School."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Dr. Wynn Westcott. <i>Sepher Yetzirah</i>, p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> S. Mark iv. 10, 11, 33, 34. See also S. Matt. xiii. 11,
+34, 36, and S. Luke viii. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> S. John xvi. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Acts i. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>Loc. cit.</i> Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. I. i. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> S. Matt. vii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> As to the Greek woman: "It is not meet to take the
+children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs."&mdash;S. Mark vii. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> S. Luke xiii. 23, 24.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> S. Matt. vii. 13, 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>Ka&#7789;hopani&#7779;hat</i> II. iv. 10, 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Brihad&acirc;ra&#7751;yakopani&#7779;hat</i>. IV. iv. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Rev. vii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Bahgavad G&icirc;t&acirc;</i>, vii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <i>Ante</i>, p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> It must be remembered that the Jews believed that all
+imperfect souls returned to live again on earth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> S. Matt. xix. 16-26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> S. John xvii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Heb. ix. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> S. John. iii. 3, 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> S. Matt. iii. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xviii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> S. John iii. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> S. Matt. v. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>Ante</i>, p.24</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a>
+Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Another technical name in the Mysteries.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Eph. iii. 3, 4, 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Col i. 23, 25-28. But S. Clement, in his <i>Stromata</i>,
+translates "every man," as "the whole man." See Bk. V., ch. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Col. iv. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria.
+<i>Stromata</i>, bk. V. ch. x. Some additional sayings of the Apostles will
+be found in the quotations from Clement, showing what meaning they bore
+in the minds of those who succeeded the apostles, and were living in the
+same atmosphere of thought.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> I. Tim. iii. 9, 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> I. Tim. i. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, iv. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, vi. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> II. Tim. i. 13, 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ii. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Phil. iii. 8, 10-12, 14, 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Rev. i. 18. "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and
+behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> II. Cor. v. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Gal. iii. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Gal. iv. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> I. Cor. iv. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> I. S. Pet. iii. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Eph. iv. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Col. i. 24.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> II. Cor. iv. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Gal. ii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> II. Tim. iv. 6, 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Rev. iii. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Gal. iv. 22-31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> I Cor. x. 1-4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Eph. v. 23-32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Vol. I. <i>The Martyrdom of Ignatius</i>, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <i>Ibid. The Epistle of Polycarp</i>, ch. xii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> <i>Ibid. The Epistle of Barnabas</i>, ch. i. </p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>Ibid. The Martyrdom of Ignatius,</i> ch. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <i>Ibid. Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians</i>, ch. iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> <i>Ibid. to the Trallians</i>, ch. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> <i>Ibid. to the Philadelphians</i>, ch. ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria <i>Stromata</i>, bk. I. ch. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Vol. IV. <i>Stromata</i>, bk. I. ch. xxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> It appears that even in those days there were some who
+objected to any truth being taught secretly!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. I, ch. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. V., ch. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. v.-viii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. V., ch. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Loc. Cit. xv. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xvi. 25, 26; the version quoted differs in words,
+but not in meaning, from the English Authorised Version.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> <i>Stromata</i>, bk. V., ch. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VI., ch. vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VII., ch. xiv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VI., ch. xv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VI. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VI. vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. I. ch. vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VI. ch. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. I. ch. xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> Vol XII. <i>Stromata</i>, bk. V. ch. iv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. VI. ch. xv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Book I. of <i>Against Celsus</i> is found in Vol. X. of the
+Ante-Nicene Library. The remaining books are in Vol. XXIII.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Vol. X. <i>Origen against Celsus</i>, bk. I. ch. vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Ex. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30, and compare with Heb. viii. 5, and
+ix. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> <i>Origen against Celsus</i>, bk. IV. ch. xvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. III. ch. lix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. lxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. lxii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ch. lx.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Vol. XXIII. <i>Origen against Celsus</i>, bk. V. ch. xxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xxix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xx xi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xxxii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xlv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xlvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> chs. xlvii.-liv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. lxxiv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. IV., ch. xxxix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Vol. X. <i>Origen against Celsus</i>, bk. I., ch. xvii, and
+others.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. xlii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> Vol. X. <i>De Principiis</i>, Preface, p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> S. John xiv. 18-20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> <i>Loc. cit.</i> ch. i. sec. III. p. 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ch. I. Sec. III. pp. 55, 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 54, 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> "Seems to have been" is a somewhat weak expression, after
+what is said by Clement and Origen, of which some specimens are given in
+the text.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Article on "Mysticism."&mdash;<i>Encyc. Britan.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> Article "Mysticism." <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> <i>Orpheus</i>, pp. 53, 54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Obligation must be here acknowledged to the Article
+"Mysticism," in the <i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, though that publication is by no
+means responsible for the opinions expressed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> <i>The Mysteries of Magic.</i> Trans. by A. E. Waite, pp. 58
+and 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> II. S. Peter i. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Gal. iv. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> II. Cor. v. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> S. John i. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> S. John i. 32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> S. Matt. iii. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iv. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> I. Tim. iii. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> S. John x. 34-36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> S. John xiv. 18, 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Valentinus. Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. <i>Pistis Sophia</i>, bk.
+i., I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> <i>Ante</i>, p. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> bk. ii., 218.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 230.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 357.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 377.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Vol. II. Justin Martyr. <i>First Apology</i>, &sect;&sect; liv., lxii.,
+and lxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Vol. II. Justin Martyr. <i>Second Apology</i>, &sect; xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> Vol. VII. Tertullian, <i>On Baptism</i>, ch. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> The student might read Plato's account of the "Cave" and
+its inhabitants, remembering that Plato was an Initiate. <i>Republic</i>, Bk.
+vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Eliphas L&eacute;vi <i>The Mysteries of Magic</i>, p. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Bonwick. <i>Egyptian Belief</i>, p. 157. Quoted in
+Williamson's <i>Great Law</i>, p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> The festival "Natalis Solis Invicti," the birthday of the
+Invincible Sun.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Williamson. <i>The Great Law</i>, pp. 40-42. Those who wish to
+study this matter as one of Comparative Religion cannot do better than
+read <i>The Great Law</i>, whose author is a profoundly religious man and a
+Christian.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 36, 37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <i>The Great Law</i>, p. 116.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 58.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 120-123.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> See on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i. 1-5.
+The name Logos, ascribed to the manifested God, shaping matter&mdash;"all
+things were made by Him"&mdash;is Platonic, and is hence directly derived
+from the Mysteries; ages before Plato, V&acirc;k, Voice, derived from the same
+source, was used among Hindus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, pp. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, pp. 93-94.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> II. Cor. iv. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> II. Cor. v. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> Heb. v. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> S. Luke xv. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> xiv. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> S. Matt. v. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> Heb. xi. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> S. Matt v. 45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> S. Luke ix. 49, 50.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> S. Matt xvii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> II. Cor. vi. 8-10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Col. iii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> S. Matt. v. 8, and S. John xvii. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> Gen. i. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> S. John i. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <i>The Christian Creed</i>, p. 29. This is a most valuable and
+fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning of the creeds.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> A name of the Holy Ghost.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> <i>Ante</i>, p. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> S. Matt. xviii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> 2 S. Peter iii. 15, 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> A. Besant. <i>Essay on the Atonement.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> <i>Brihad&acirc;ranyakopani&#7779;hat</i>, I. i. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> <i>Bhagavad G&icirc;t&acirc;</i>, iii. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> <i>Brihad&acirc;ranyakopani&#7779;hat</i>, I. ii. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> <i>Mu&#7751;&#7693;akopani&#7779;hat</i>, II. ii. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> Haug. <i>Essays on the Pars&icirc;s</i>, pp. 12-14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Rev. xiii. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> W. Williamson. <i>The Great Law</i>, p. 406.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> A. Besant. <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, June, 1895, "The
+Atonement."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> Heb. i. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> C.W. Leadbeater. <i>The Christian Creed</i>, pp. 54-56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 56, 57.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> S. Matt. xxv. 21, 23, 31-45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Is. liii. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> S. Matt. xvi. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> S. John xii. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> Heb. vii. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> <i>Light on the Path</i>, &sect; 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> Heb. vii. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Heb. v. 8, 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> I Tim. iii. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> Annie Besant. <i>Theosophical Review</i>, Dec., 1898, pp. 344,
+345.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> C. W. Leadbeater. <i>The Christian Creed</i>, pp. 61, 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> I Cor. xv. 44.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> I Thess. v. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> See Chapter IX., "The Trinity."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, pp. 84, 99, 100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> S. Matt. v. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> S. John xvii. 22, 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> 2 Cor. v. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> 1 Cor. xv. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> This mistranslation was a very natural one, as the
+translation was made in the seventeenth century, and all idea of the
+pre-existence of the soul and of its evolution had long faded out of
+Christendom, save in the teachings of a few sects regarded as heretical
+and persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> S. John iii. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Heb. v. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Rev. i. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> H. P. Blavatsky. <i>The Voice of the Silence</i>, p. 90, 5th
+Edition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> S. John. xvii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> 1 Cor. xv. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> <i>Chh&acirc;ndogyopani&#7779;hat</i>, VI. ii., 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Deut. vi. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> 1 Cor. viii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the Trinity, but
+the One Existence, manifested in the Three; nor is Kadmon, or Adam
+Kadmon, one Sephira, but their totality.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> Quoted in Williamson's <i>The Great Law</i>, pp. 201, 202.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> H. H. Milman. <i>The History of Christianity</i>, 1867, pp.
+70-72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> <i>Asiatic Researches</i>, i. 285.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> S. Sharpe. <i>Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christology</i>,
+p. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> See Williamson's <i>The Great Law</i>, p. 196.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <i>Loc. Cit.</i>, pp. 208, 209.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> S. John i. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Jer. li. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, pp. 179-180.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Athanasian Creed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Rev. iv. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> S. Luke. i. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>, 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> Book of Wisdom, viii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Vol. IV. Ante-Nicene Library. S. Clement of Alexandria.
+<i>Stromata</i>, bk. V., ch. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, p. 207.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> Gen. i. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> Job xxxviii. 4; Zech. xii. 1; &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Gen. i. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> Gen. i. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> See <i>Ante</i>, p. 262.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> S. John i. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> <i>Bhagavad G&icirc;t&acirc;</i> ix. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> S. John xiv. 6. See also the further meaning of this text
+on p. 272.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> Heb. xii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> Numb. xvi. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> Gen. i. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> S. Matt. v. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> S. John xvii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> S. John v. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> S. Matt. i. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> Heb. ii. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> Much of this chapter has already appeared in an earlier
+work by the author, entitled, <i>Some Problems of Life</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> S. James i. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> See Chapter xii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> Heb. i. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> S. Matt. x. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Acts xvii. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> T. H. Huxley. <i>Essays on some Controverted Questions</i>, p.
+36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> S. Luke xxii. 41, 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> S. John i. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> Rev. iii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> H. P. Blavatsky. <i>Key to Theosophy</i>, p. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> Is. xxxiii. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> <i>On the Mysteries</i>, sec. v. ch. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> Ps. xl. 7, 8, Prayer Book version.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> S. Luke, v. 18-26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> vii. 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> G. R. S. Mead, translated. <i>Loc. cit.</i>, bk. ii., &sect;&sect; 260,
+261.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> &sect;&sect; 299, 300.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> S. Matt. xii. 36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ix. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> <i>Loc. cit.</i> iii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> vi. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> ix. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> See <i>ante</i>, Chap. VIII.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> S. Luke, vii. 48, 50.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> <i>Loc. cit.</i>, ix. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> S. Matt. vii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> <i>Loc. cit.</i>, bk. ii. &sect; 305.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> Rev. iii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> G. Bruno, trans. by L. Williams. <i>The Heroic
+Enthusiasts</i>, vol. i., p. 133.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, vol. ii., pp. 27, 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 102, 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> Rev. iv. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> 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 <i>Ante</i>, p. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> Job xxxviii. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> See on forms created by musical notes any scientific book
+on Sound, and also Mrs. Watts-Hughes' illustrated book on <i>Voice
+Figures</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> See <i>ante</i>, p. 138 and p. 302.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> See <i>ante</i> p. 329.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> <i>Christian Records</i>, p. 129.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> <i>The Great Law</i>, pp. 161-166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> See <i>ante</i>, p. 151.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> <i>Diegesis</i>, p. 219.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> 1 Pet. iii. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> 2 Kings vi. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> 1 Cor. x. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> Jer. xliv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> Gen. xiv. 18, 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> <i>The Great Law</i>, pp. 177-181, 185.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> Lev. xvii. 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> Rom. xii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> Isaiah liv. 5; lxii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> Eph. v. 23-32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> Athanasian Creed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> 2 Pet. i. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> 1 See <i>ante</i>, p. 102.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> 2 Cor. iii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> 1 Cor. ii. 11, 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> Is. vi. 6, 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> S. John v. 4.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
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@@ -0,0 +1,8696 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser
+Mysteries, by Annie Besant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries
+
+Author: Annie Besant
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2008 [EBook #26938]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Erica Hills, Henry Craig, and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: The many inconsistently spelt words in this book
+(e.g. Samskrit/Sanskrit) have been retained as in the original.
+
+
+ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY
+OR
+THE LESSER MYSTERIES.
+
+
+
+BY
+ANNIE BESANT.
+
+
+
+[SECOND EDITION]
+
+
+
+The Theosophical Publishing Society.
+LONDON AND BENARES.
+1905.
+
+
+
+
+     In proceeding to the contemplation of the mysteries of knowledge,
+     we shall adhere to the celebrated and venerable rule of tradition,
+     commencing from the origin of the universe, setting forth those
+     points of physical contemplation which are necessary to be
+     premised, and removing whatever can be an obstacle on the way; so
+     that the ear may be prepared for the reception of the tradition of
+     the Gnosis, the ground being cleared of weeds and fitted for the
+     planting of the vineyard; for there is a conflict before the
+     conflict, and mysteries before the mysteries.--_S. Clement of
+     Alexandria._
+
+     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.--_Ibid._
+
+     He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.--_S. Matthew._
+
+
+
+
+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"[1]--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."[2]
+
+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 Alexandria says quite bluntly, after alluding to the
+Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them underfoot, and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true Light to swinish and untrained hearers."[3]
+
+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[4] 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,[5] 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,"[6] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                              PAGE
+FOREWORD                                      vii.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS                  1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY              36
+
+CHAPTER III.
+  THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY              69
+    (_concluded_)
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+  THE HISTORICAL JESUS                        120
+
+CHAPTER V.
+  THE MYTHIC CHRIST                           145
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+  THE MYSTIC CHRIST                           170
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+  THE ATONEMENT                               193
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+  RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION                  231
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+  THE TRINITY                                 253
+
+CHAPTER X.
+  PRAYER                                      276
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+  THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS                     301
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+  SACRAMENTS                                  324
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+  SACRAMENTS (_continued_)                    346
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+  REVELATION                                  369
+
+AFTERWORD                                     386
+
+INDEX                                         388
+
+
+
+
+
+ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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 Early Church, would cause a smile of incredulity. It
+has actually been made a matter of boast that Christianity has no
+secrets, that whatever it has to say it says to all, and whatever it has
+to teach it teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to be so simple,
+that "a way-faring man, though a fool, may not err therein," and the
+"simple Gospel" has become a stock phrase.
+
+It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly that in the Early Church,
+at least, Christianity was no whit behind other great religions in
+possessing a hidden side, and that it guarded, as a priceless treasure,
+the secrets revealed only to a select few in its Mysteries. But ere
+doing this it will be well to consider the whole question of this hidden
+side of religions, and to see why such a side must exist if a religion
+is to be strong and stable; for thus its existence in Christianity will
+appear as a foregone conclusion, and the references to it in the
+writings of the Christian Fathers will appear simple and natural instead
+of surprising and unintelligible. As a historical fact, the existence
+of this esotericism is demonstrable; but it may also be shown that
+intellectually it is a necessity.
+
+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"[7] 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 reappear,
+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 outgrown 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."[8]
+
+
+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
+Krishna, a Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly civilised
+but lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-man of the savage. God
+is a composite photograph of the innumerable Gods who are the
+personifications of the forces of nature. And so forth. It is all summed
+up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a common trunk--human
+ignorance.
+
+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 over-arching 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
+develope 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 develope 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 Alexandria
+mentions this division of the Mysteries. After purification, he says,
+"are the Minor Mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and
+of preliminary preparation for what is to come after; and the Great
+Mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but
+only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things."[9]
+
+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 Greece, such as Plato, went to Sais and to Thebes to be
+initiated by Egyptian Teachers of Wisdom. The Mithraic Mysteries of the
+Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries and the later Eleusinian
+semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia,
+Chaldea, are familiar in name, at least, as household words. Even in the
+extremely diluted form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their value is most
+highly praised by the most eminent men of Greece, as Pindar, Sophocles,
+Isocrates, Plutarch, and Plato. Especially were they regarded as useful
+with regard to _post-mortem_ existence, as the Initiated learned that
+which ensured his future happiness. Sopater further alleged that
+Initiation established a kinship of the soul with the divine Nature, and
+in the exoteric Hymn to Demeter covert references are made to the holy
+child, Iacchus, and to his death and resurrection, as dealt with in the
+Mysteries.[10]
+
+From Iamblichus, 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,"[11] and was practised
+in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings.
+The theory on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus
+stated: There is ONE, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the
+solitude of His own unity. From THAT arises the Supreme God, the
+Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all things, the Root, the God of
+Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into Light.[12] From Him
+springs the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the Universal Mind,
+the _Nous_ and the incorporeal or intelligible Gods belong to this.
+From this the World-Soul, to which belong the "divine intellectual forms
+which are present with the visible bodies of the Gods."[13] Then come
+various hierarchies of superhuman beings, Archangels, Archons (Rulers)
+or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &c. Man is a being of a lower order,
+allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing them; this
+knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with
+God.[14] In the Mysteries these doctrines are expounded, "the
+progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the
+entire domination of the One,"[15] and, further, these different Beings
+were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere
+presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being
+benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying
+abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a
+union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they are yet in body,
+to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their eternal and
+intelligible principle."[16] For "the soul having a twofold life, one
+being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all
+body,"[17] it is most necessary to learn to separate it from the body,
+that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual and
+divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and the
+truths of the intelligible world.[18] "The presence of the Gods, indeed,
+imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and,
+in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It exhibits
+that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those of
+the body."[19] When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a liberation
+from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy entirely
+more excellent, and participates of divine love and an immense joy."[20]
+By this we gain a divine life, and are rendered in reality divine.[21]
+
+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."[22] 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.[23]
+
+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
+Augoeides, 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."[24]
+
+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 Iamblichus
+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 Iamblichus,[25] 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.[26] 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."[27]
+
+The Pythagorean School in Magna Graecia was closed at the end of the
+sixth century B.C., owing to the persecution of the civil power, but
+other communities existed, keeping up the sacred tradition.[28] Mead
+states that Plato intellectualised it, in order to protect it from an
+increasing profanation, and the Eleusinian rites preserved some of its
+forms, having lost its substance. The Neo-Platonists inherited from
+Pythagoras and Plato, and their works should be studied by those who
+would realise something of the grandeur and the beauty preserved for
+the world in the Mysteries.
+
+The Pythagorean School itself may serve as a type of the discipline
+enforced. On this Mead gives many interesting details,[29] and remarks:
+"The authors of antiquity are agreed that this discipline had succeeded
+in producing the highest examples, not only of the purest chastity and
+sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a taste for
+serious pursuits which was unparalleled. This is admitted even by
+Christian writers." The School had outer disciples, leading the family
+and social life, and the above quotation refers to these. In the inner
+School were three degrees--the first of Hearers, who studied for two
+years in silence, doing their best to master the teachings; the second
+degree was of Mathematici, wherein were taught geometry and music, the
+nature of number, form, colour, and sound; the third degree was of
+Physici, who mastered cosmogony and metaphysics. This led up to the true
+Mysteries. Candidates for the School must be "of an unblemished
+reputation and of a contented disposition."
+
+The close identity between the methods and aims pursued in these various
+Mysteries and those of Yoga in India is patent to the most superficial
+observer. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the nations of
+antiquity drew from India; all alike drew from the one source, the Grand
+Lodge of Central Asia, which sent out its Initiates to every land. They
+all taught the same doctrines, and pursued the same methods, leading to
+the same ends. But there was much intercommunication between the
+Initiates of all nations, and there was a common language and a common
+symbolism. Thus Pythagoras journeyed among the Indians, and received in
+India a high Initiation, and Apollonius of Tyana later followed in his
+steps. Quite Indian in phrase as well as thought were the dying words of
+Plotinus: "Now I seek to lead back the Self within me to the
+All-self."[30]
+
+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."[31] 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."[32] 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."[33]
+
+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."[34] 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."[35]
+"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."[36]
+
+Nor were the Hebrews without their secret knowledge and their Schools of
+Initiation. The company of prophets at Naioth presided over by
+Samuel[37] formed such a School, and the oral teaching was handed down
+by them. Similar Schools existed at Bethel and Jericho,[38] and in
+Cruden's _Concordance_[39] there is the following interesting note: "The
+Schools or Colleges of the prophets are the first [schools] of which we
+have any account in Scripture; where the children of the prophets, that
+is, their disciples, lived in the exercises of a retired and austere
+life, in study and meditation, and reading of the law of God.... These
+Schools, or Societies, of the prophets were succeeded by the
+Synagogues." The _Kabbala_, which contains the semi-public teaching, is,
+as it now stands, a modern compilation, part of it being the work of
+Rabbi Moses de Leon, who died A.D. 1305. It consists of five books,
+Bahir, Zohar, Sepher Sephiroth, Sepher Yetzirah, and Asch Metzareth, and
+is asserted to have been transmitted orally from very ancient times--as
+antiquity is reckoned historically. Dr. Wynn Westcott says that "Hebrew
+tradition assigns the oldest parts of the Zohar to a date antecedent to
+the building of the second Temple;" and Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai is said
+to have written down some of it in the first century A.D. The Sepher
+Yetzirah is spoken of by Saadjah Gaon, who died A.D. 940, as "very
+ancient."[40] Some portions of the ancient oral teaching have been
+incorporated in the _Kabbala_ as it now stands, but the true archaic
+wisdom of the Hebrews remains in the guardianship of a few of the true
+sons of Israel.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+_(a)_ 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 wide-spread
+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 "Holy Place," in the
+Temple, so that all who are capable of receiving it may follow its lines
+of published thought; and secondly, Occult Christianity will again
+descend into the Adytum, dwelling behind the Veil which guards the "Holy
+of Holies," into which only the Initiate may enter. Then again will
+occult teaching be within the reach of those who qualify themselves to
+receive it, according to the ancient rules, those who are willing in
+modern days to meet the ancient demands, made on all those who would
+fain know the reality and truth of spiritual things.
+
+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
+exstasy, 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 kingdom of God, but
+unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.'" And
+later: "With many such parables spake He the word unto them, as they
+were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not unto them; and
+when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples."[41] Mark
+the significant words, "when they were alone," and the phrase, "them
+that are without." So also in the version of S. Matthew: "Jesus sent the
+multitude away, and went into the house; and His disciples came unto
+Him." These teachings given "in the house," the innermost meanings of
+His instructions, were alleged to be handed on from teacher to teacher.
+The Gospel gives, it will be noted, the allegorical mystic explanation,
+that which we have called The Lesser Mysteries, but the deeper meaning
+was said to be given only to the Initiates.
+
+Again, Jesus tells even His apostles: "I have yet many things to say to
+you, but ye cannot bear them now."[42] Some of them were probably said
+after His death, when He was seen of His disciples, "speaking of the
+things pertaining to the kingdom of God."[43] None of these have been
+publicly recorded, but who can believe that they were neglected or
+forgotten, and were not handed down as a priceless possession? There was
+a tradition in the Church that He visited His apostles for a
+considerable period after His death, for the sake of giving them
+instruction--a fact that will be referred to later--and in the famous
+Gnostic treatise, the _Pistis Sophia_, we read: "It came to pass, when
+Jesus had risen from the dead, that He passed eleven years speaking with
+His disciples and instructing them."[44] Then there is the phrase, which
+many would fain soften and explain away: "Give not that which is holy to
+the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine"[45]--a precept which
+is of general application indeed, but was considered by the early
+Church to refer to the secret teachings. It should be remembered that
+the words had not the same harshness of sound in the ancient days as
+they have now; for the words "dogs"--like "the vulgar," "the
+profane"--was applied by those within a certain circle to all who were
+outside its pale, whether by a society or association, or by a
+nation--as by the Jews to all Gentiles.[46] It was sometimes used to
+designate those who were outside the circle of Initiates, and we find it
+employed in that sense in the early Church; those who, not having been
+initiated into the Mysteries, were regarded as being outside "the
+kingdom of God," or "the spiritual Israel," had this name applied to
+them.
+
+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."[47]
+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."[48] 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,"[49] 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.[50] 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,"[51] 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."[52] 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,[53] those 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.[54] 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 Kingdom of Heaven, such entrance being more
+difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; with men
+such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.[55] Only
+God in man can pass that barrier.
+
+This text has been variously explained away, it being obviously
+impossible to take it in its surface meaning, that a rich man cannot
+enter a post-mortem state of happiness. Into that state the rich man may
+enter as well as the poor, and the universal practice of Christians
+shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches imperil their
+happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven
+be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that
+knowledge of God which is Eternal Life[56] cannot be gained till
+everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything
+has been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which
+henceforth may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give
+up his inner wealth as well, so far as he holds it as his own against
+the world; until he is stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway.
+Such has ever been a condition of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience,
+chastity," has been the vow of the candidate.
+
+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."[57]
+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;"[58] this is the first Initiation;
+a later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire,"[59] 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.[60] How thoroughly this
+imagery was familiar among the mystic of the Jews is shown by the
+surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic
+phraseology: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these
+things?"[61]
+
+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."[62] 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,"[63] 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.'[64] 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[65] I have laid the foundation,' and 'ye are the temple
+of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.' 'Let a man so account
+of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of
+God.'"
+
+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."[66] 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."[67] These Colossians he bids pray
+"that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of
+Christ,"[68] a passage to which S. Clement refers as one in which the
+apostle "clearly reveals that knowledge belongs not to all."[69] So
+also he writes to his loved Timothy, bidding him select his deacons from
+those who hold "the Mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," that
+great "Mystery of Godliness," that he had learned,[70] knowledge of
+which was necessary for the teachers of the Church.
+
+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,"[71] 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,"[72] 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"[73]--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: "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy
+trust"[74]--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"[75]--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."[76]
+
+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."[77] 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.[78] 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."[79]
+
+The ordinary believer had "put on Christ;" "as many of you as have been
+baptised into Christ have put on Christ."[80] 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_."[81] Already he was their
+spiritual father, having "begotten you through the gospel."[82] 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;"[83] 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 fulness of Christ."[84] Then he, as S. Paul
+was doing, filled up the sufferings of Christ in his own flesh,[85] and
+always bore "about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,"[86] so that
+he could truly say: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
+yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."[87] Thus was the Apostle himself
+suffering; thus he describes himself. And when the struggle is over, how
+different is the calm tone of triumph from the strained effort of the
+earlier years: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
+departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
+course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a
+crown of righteousness."[88] This was the crown given to "him that
+overcometh," of whom it is said by the ascended Christ: "I will make him
+a pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go no more out."[89] For
+after the "Resurrection" the Initiate has become the Perfect Man, the
+Master, and He goes out no more from the Temple, but from it serves and
+guides the worlds.
+
+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.[90]
+Referring to the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, he speaks of the
+Red 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.[91]
+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.[92] The writer of the Epistle
+to the Hebrews allegorises the whole Jewish system of worship. In the
+Temple he sees a pattern of the heavenly Temple, in the High Priest he
+sees Christ, in the sacrifices the offering of the spotless Son; the
+priests of the Temple are but "the example and shadow of heavenly
+things," of the heavenly priesthood serving in "the true tabernacle." A
+most elaborate allegory is thus worked out in chapters iii.-x., and the
+writer alleges that the Holy Ghost thus signified the deeper meaning;
+all was "a figure for the time."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY(_concluded_).
+
+(_(b)_) 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 Early Church, who bear witness to the existence of the Mysteries.
+For among these are pupils of the Apostles themselves, though the most
+definite statements belong to those removed from the Apostles by one
+intermediate teacher. Now, as soon as we begin to study the writings of
+the Early Church, we are met by the facts that there are allusions which
+are only intelligible by the existence of the Mysteries, and then
+statements that the Mysteries are existing. This might, of course, have
+been expected, seeing the point at which the New Testament leaves the
+matter, but it is satisfactory to find the facts answer to the
+expectation.
+
+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,[93] 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"[94]--writing, apparently, before reaching full Initiation.
+Barnabas speaks of communicating "some portion of what I have myself
+received,"[95] and after expounding the Law mystically, declares that
+"we then, rightly understanding His commandments, explain them as the
+Lord intended."[96] Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, a disciple of S.
+John,[97] 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,"[98] and he speaks of them as "initiated into the
+mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred."[99] 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 aeons, 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."[100] 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."[101]
+
+We come next to S. Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the two
+writers of the second and third centuries who tell us most about the
+Mysteries in the Early Church; though the general atmosphere is full of
+mystic allusions, these two are clear and categorical in their
+statements that the Mysteries were a recognised institution.
+
+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,"[102] his link with the Apostles
+themselves consisting thus of only one intermediary. He was the head of
+the Catechetical School of Alexandria in A.D. 189, and died about A.D.
+220. Origen, born about A.D. 185, was his pupil, and he is, perhaps,
+the most learned of the Fathers, and a man of the rarest moral beauty.
+These are the witnesses from whom we receive the most important
+testimony as to the existence of definite Mysteries in the Early Church.
+
+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,"[103] 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[104] 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."[105]
+
+This passage, if it stood alone, would suffice to establish the
+existence of a secret teaching in the Early Church. But it stands by no
+means alone. In Chapter xii. of this same Book I., headed, "The
+Mysteries of the Faith not to be divulged to all," Clement declares
+that, since others than the wise may see his work, "it is requisite,
+therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son of God
+taught." Purified tongue of the speaker, purified ears of the hearer,
+these were necessary. "Such were the impediments in the way of my
+writing. And even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before
+swine, lest they tread them under foot and turn and rend us.' For it is
+difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting
+the true light, to swinish and untrained hearers. For scarcely could
+anything which they could hear be more ludicrous than these to the
+multitude; nor any subjects on the other hand more admirable or more
+inspiring to those of noble nature. But the wise do not utter with their
+mouth what they reason in council. 'But what ye hear in the ear,' said
+the Lord, 'proclaim upon the houses'; bidding them receive the secret
+traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft and
+conspicuously; and as we have heard in the ear, so to deliver them to
+whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without
+distinction, what is said to them in parables. But there is only a
+delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth sown sparse and
+broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up seeds like
+jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each one of them will
+germinate and will produce corn."
+
+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 undazzled 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."[106] He
+then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding Pythagorean,
+Hebrew, Egyptian,[107] 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?"[108] 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 25-27. "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 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."[109] Further referring to S. Paul, he
+comments on his remark to the Romans that he will "come in the fulness
+of the blessing of Christ,"[110] and says that he thus designates "the
+spiritual gift and the Gnostic interpretation, while being present he
+desires to impart to them present as 'the fulness of Christ, according
+to the revelation of the Mystery sealed in the ages of eternity, but now
+manifested by the prophetic Scriptures'[111].... 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.'"[112]
+
+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."[113] 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."[114]
+
+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.[115] S. Clement naturally confined the higher
+instruction to the learned. "Our Gnostic will be deeply learned,"[116]
+he says. "Now the Gnostic must be erudite."[117] 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."[118] "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."[119] "The Gnostic avails himself of branches of
+learning as auxiliary preparatory exercises."[120] 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."[121] 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_,"[122] 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
+Hermas, 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."[123]
+
+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.[124]
+
+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."[125]
+
+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.'"[126]
+
+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."[127] 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 on high."[128]
+
+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."[129] Sinners came to be
+healed: "For there are in the divinity of the Word some helps towards
+the cure of those who are sick.... Others, again, which to the pure in
+soul and body exhibit the 'revelation of the Mystery, which was kept
+secret since the world began, but now is made manifest by the Scriptures
+of the prophets,' and 'by the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,' which
+'appearing' is manifested to each one of those who are perfect, and
+which enlightens the reason in the true knowledge of things."[130] Such
+appearances of divine Beings took place, we have seen, in the Pagan
+Mysteries, and those of the Church had equally glorious visitants. "God
+the Word," he says, "was sent as a physician to sinners, but as a
+Teacher of Divine Mysteries to those who are already pure, and who sin
+no more."[131] "Wisdom will not enter into the soul of a base man, nor
+dwell in a body that is involved in sin;" hence these higher teachings
+are given only to those who are "athletes in piety and in every virtue."
+
+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."[132] Such
+only might learn the realities of the unseen worlds, and might enter
+into the sacred precincts where, as of old, angels were the teachers,
+and where knowledge was given by sight and not only by words. It is
+impossible not to be struck with the different tone of these Christians
+from that of their modern successors. With them perfect purity of life,
+the practice of virtue, the fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail
+of outer conduct, the perfection of righteousness, were--as with the
+Pagans--only the beginning of the way instead of the end. Nowadays
+religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its object when
+it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted its
+highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the
+Beatific Vision.
+
+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."[133]
+
+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."[134] 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 Israel the cord of his inheritance."
+This is the wording of the Septuagint, not that of the English
+authorised version, but it is very suggestive of the title the "Lord"
+being regarded as that of the Ruling Angel of the Jews only, and not of
+the "Most High," _i.e._ God. This view has disappeared, from ignorance,
+and hence the impropriety of many of the statements referring to the
+"Lord," when they are transferred to the "Most High," _e.g._ Judges i.
+19.
+
+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."[135] 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...."[136]
+
+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 ..."[137] as did Celsus.
+
+After remarking that "the object of Christianity is that we should
+become wise,"[138] 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."[139]
+
+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."[140] 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."[141] 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."[142] 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.[143] "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."[144] 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."[145] 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.[146]
+
+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."[147] 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."[148] But as the doctrines in the
+creeds are to be found clearly stated in the Gospels and Epistles, this
+position is wholly untenable, all these having been already divulged to
+the world at large; and in all of them the members of the Church were
+certainly thoroughly instructed. The repeated statements as to secrecy
+become meaningless if thus explained. The Cardinal, however, says that
+whatever "has not been thus authenticated, whether it was prophetical
+information or comment on the past dispensations, is, from the
+circumstances of the case, lost to the Church."[149] That is very
+probably, in fact certainly, true, so far as the Church is concerned,
+but it is none the less recoverable.
+
+Commenting on Irenaeus, 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."[150] In a part of the section dealing
+with the allegorising method, he writes in reference to the sacrifice of
+Isaac, &c., as "typical of the New Testament revelation": "In
+corroboration of this remark, let it be observed, that there seems to
+have been[151] 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."[152]
+
+The social and political convulsions that accompanied its dying now
+began to torture the vast frame of the Roman Empire, and even the
+Christians were caught up in the whirlpool of selfish warring interests.
+We still find scattered references to special knowledge imparted to the
+leaders and teachers of the Church, knowledge of the heavenly
+hierarchies, instructions given by angels, and so on. But the lack of
+suitable pupils caused the Mysteries to be withdrawn as an institution
+publicly known to exist, and teaching was given more and more secretly
+to those rarer and rarer souls, who by learning, purity, and devotion
+showed themselves capable of receiving it. No longer were schools to be
+found wherein the preliminary teachings were given, and with the
+disappearance of these the "door was shut."
+
+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 exstasy, to spiritual vision. This
+latter, however, divorced from knowledge, rarely attained the true
+exstasis, 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."[153]
+
+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 Europe of the Middle Ages, by his force of
+character no less than by his learning and piety. He asserts
+"Revelation" as one source of knowledge, Scripture and tradition being
+the two channels in which it runs, and the influence, seen in his
+writings, of the Pseudo-Dionysius links him to the Neo-Platonists. The
+second source is Reason, and here the channels are the Platonic
+philosophy and the methods of Aristotle--the latter an alliance that did
+Christianity no good, for Aristotle became an obstacle to the advance of
+the higher thought, as was made manifest in the struggles of Giordano
+Bruno, the Pythagorean. Thomas Aquinas was canonised in A.D. 1323, and
+the great Dominican remains as a type of the union of theology and
+philosophy--the aim of his life. These belong to the great Church of
+western Europe, vindicating her claim to be regarded as the transmitter
+of the holy torch of mystic learning. Around her there also sprang up
+many sects, deemed heretical, yet containing true traditions of the
+sacred secret learning, the Cathari and many others, persecuted by a
+Church jealous of her authority, and fearing lest the holy pearls should
+pass into profane custody. In this century also S. Elizabeth of Hungary
+shines out with sweetness and purity, while Eckhart (A.D. 1260-1329)
+proves himself a worthy inheritor of the Alexandrian Schools. Eckhart
+taught that "The Godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not
+only by man but also by Itself; It is darkness and absolute
+indeterminateness, _Nicht_ in contrast to _Icht_, or definite and
+knowable existence. Yet It is the potentiality of all things, and Its
+nature is, in a triadic process, to come to consciousness of Itself as
+the triune God. Creation is not a temporal act, but an eternal
+necessity, of the divine nature. I am as necessary to God, Eckhart is
+fond of saying, as God is necessary to me. In my knowledge and love God
+knows and loves Himself."[154]
+
+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, Iamblichus, and
+Proclus, who in turn followed Plato and Pythagoras.[155] 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 Augustinian 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 exstatic--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 Boehme (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 Rome in
+canonising these, wiser than the Reformation that persecuted Boehme, but
+the spirit of the Reformation was ever intensely anti-mystical, and
+wherever its breath hath passed the fair flowers of mysticism have
+withered as under the sirocco.
+
+Rome, 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.[156]
+
+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 Norwich, of the fourteenth
+century, jewels of Christendom, too little known, but justifying
+Christianity to the world.
+
+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."[157]
+
+Will the Churches of to-day 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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.[158]
+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 again until Christ be formed in you";[159] here S. Paul obviously
+cannot refer to a historical Jesus, but to some forthputting 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;[160] 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 Sorrows, 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 Palestine B.C. 105, during the consulate of Publius Rutilius Rufus
+and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. His parents were well-born though poor, and
+he was educated in a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. His fervent
+devotion and a gravity beyond his years led his parents to dedicate him
+to the religious and ascetic life, and soon after a visit to Jerusalem,
+in which the extraordinary intelligence and eagerness for knowledge of
+the youth were shown in his seeking of the doctors in the Temple, he was
+sent to be trained in an Essene community in the southern Judaean desert.
+When he had reached the age of nineteen he went on to the Essene
+monastery near Mount Serbal, a monastery which was much visited by
+learned men travelling from Persia and India to Egypt, and where a
+magnificent library of occult works--many of them Indian of the
+Trans-Himalayan regions--had been established. From this seat of mystic
+learning he proceeded later to Egypt. He had been fully instructed in
+the secret teachings which were the real fount of life among the
+Essenes, and was initiated in Egypt as a disciple of that one sublime
+Lodge from which every great religion has its Founder. For Egypt has
+remained one of the world-centres of the true Mysteries, whereof all
+semi-public Mysteries are the faint and far-off reflections. The
+Mysteries spoken of in history as Egyptian were the shadows of the true
+things "in the Mount," and there the young Hebrew received the solemn
+consecration which prepared him for the Royal Priesthood he was later to
+attain. So superhumanly pure and so full of devotion was he, that in his
+gracious manhood he stood out pre-eminently from the severe and somewhat
+fanatical ascetics among whom he had been trained, shedding on the stern
+Jews around him the fragrance of a gentle and tender wisdom, as a
+rose-tree strangely planted in a desert would shed its sweetness on the
+barrenness around. The fair and stately grace of his white purity was
+round him as a radiant moonlit halo, and his words, though few, were
+ever sweet and loving, winning even the most harsh to a temporary
+gentleness, and the most rigid to a passing softness. Thus he lived
+through nine-and-twenty years of mortal life, growing from grace to
+grace.
+
+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 Rome. Ere
+it started on its journey a World-Saviour must appear, to stand in
+blessing beside the cradle of the infant Hercules.
+
+A mighty "Son of God" was to take flesh upon earth, a supreme Teacher,
+"full of grace and truth"--[161] 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,"[162] 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,[163] and
+from that time forward "Jesus began to preach,"[164] and was that
+wondrous mystery, "God manifest in the flesh"[165]--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?"[166] 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,[167] 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 Judaea, attracting no attention among the many apparently
+similar communities of the time, studying the profound truths He taught
+them and acquiring "the gifts of the Spirit."
+
+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."[168] They had not so
+far learned the distribution of the angelic orders, of part whereof
+Ignatius speaks.[169] 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."[170] 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;[171] by that knowledge men became Christs for such "men are
+myself, and I am these men," for Christ is that highest Mystery.[172]
+Knowing that, men are "transformed into pure light and are brought into
+the light."[173] 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."[174]
+
+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 Michelangelo, that shone before the eyes of Murillo, and that gave
+the power that raised the marvels of the world, the Duomo 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 a 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+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 Abregee de differens Cultes_, of
+Dupuis' _Origine 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 Early Church. Justin Martyr, for instance,
+crowds his pages with references to the religions of his time, and if a
+modern assailant of Christianity would cite a number of cases in which
+Christian teachings are identical with those of elder religions, he can
+find no better guides than the apologists of the second century. They
+quote Pagan teachings, stories, and symbols, pleading that the very
+identity of the Christian with these should prevent the off-hand
+rejection of the latter as in themselves incredible. A curious reason
+is, indeed, given for this identity, one that will scarcely find many
+adherents in modern days. Says Justin Martyr: "Those who hand down the
+myths which the poets have made adduce no proof to the youths who learn
+them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the
+influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human
+race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the
+Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished
+by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the
+impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the
+things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales,
+like the things which were said by the poets." "And the devils, indeed,
+having heard this washing published by the prophet, instigated those who
+enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and
+burnt offerings, also to sprinkle themselves; and they cause them also
+to wash themselves entirely as they depart." "Which [the Lord's Supper]
+the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding
+the same thing to be done."[175] "For I myself, when I discovered the
+wicked disguise which the evil spirits had thrown around the divine
+doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside others from joining them,
+laughed."[176]
+
+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 Apollinarian 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."[177]
+
+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.[178]
+
+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."[179]
+
+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. Devaki is likewise figured with the divine
+Krishna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also
+with the recurrent crown of stars, and with her child Tammuz on her
+knee. Mercury and Aesculapius, Bacchus and Hercules, Perseus and the
+Dioscuri, Mithras and Zarathustra, were all of divine and human birth.
+
+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."[180]
+
+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 Rome, in order that while
+the heathen were busy with their ceremonies [the Brumalia, in honour of
+Bacchus] the Christians might perform their rites undisturbed.' Gibbon
+in his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, writes: 'The [Christian]
+Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his [Christ's
+birth] fixed the solemn festival to the 25th December, the Brumalia or
+winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
+Sun.' King, in his _Gnostics and their Remains_, also says: 'The ancient
+festival held on the 25th December in honour of the birthday of the
+Invincible One,[181] and celebrated by the great games at the Circus,
+was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the birth of Christ,
+the precise date of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown;'
+while at the present day Canon Farrar writes that 'all attempts to
+discover the month and day of the nativity are useless. No data whatever
+exist to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy.'
+From the foregoing it is apparent that the great festival of the winter
+solstice has been celebrated during past ages, and in widely separated
+lands, in honour of the birth of a God, who is almost invariably alluded
+to as a 'Saviour,' and whose mother is referred to as a pure virgin. The
+striking resemblances, too, which have been instanced not only in the
+birth but in the life of so many of these Saviour-Gods are far too
+numerous to be accounted for by any mere coincidence."[182]
+
+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, Mayadevi, 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.[183]
+
+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 hallmark 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 Constantinople, held about the year 680, that
+it was ordained that instead of the ancient symbol, the figure of a
+_man_ fastened to a cross should be represented. This canon was
+confirmed by Pope Adrian I."[184] The very ancient Pisces is also
+assigned to Jesus, and He is thus pictured in the catacombs.
+
+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 Babylonia and Syria, as were Adonis in
+Syria and Greece, and Attis in Phrygia, pictured "as a man fastened with
+a lamb at the foot."[185] Mithras' death was similarly celebrated in
+Persia, and that of Bacchus and Dionysius--one and the same--in Greece.
+In Mexico the same idea re-appears, as usual accompanied with the cross.
+
+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 that the name of Easter has been traced to the virgin-mother of
+the slain Tammuz, Ishtar.[186]
+
+It is interesting also to notice that the fast preceding the death at
+the vernal equinox,--the modern Lent--is found in Mexico, Egypt, Persia,
+Babylon, Assyria, Asia Minor, in some cases definitely for forty
+days.[187]
+
+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 midnight sky was filled with the rejoicing hosts of the
+celestials, and
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MYSTIC CHRIST.
+
+
+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,[188] 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."[189] 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.[190] Intelligent also must they be, of well-developed and
+well-trained minds.[191] 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 Chrestos 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."[192] 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."[193] 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."[194] 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.[195] 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."[196] 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."[197] 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."[198] 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,"[199] the disciple of
+Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he
+did not follow with them.[200] Further, he must acquire the _Faith_ to
+which nothing is impossible,[201] and the _Balance_ which is described
+by the Apostle.[202] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are
+above,"[203] and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union
+with God.[204] 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 high
+point, accompanying it with moral development, brings the evolving man
+to the condition of the candidate. The second aspect of the Spirit is
+that of Love, and the evolution of that is the evolution of the Christ.
+In the true Mysteries this evolution is undergone--the disciple's life
+is the Mystery Drama, and the Great Initiations mark its stages. In the
+Mysteries performed on the physical plane these used to be dramatically
+represented, and the ceremonies followed in many respects "the pattern"
+ever shown forth "on the Mount," for they were the shadows in a
+deteriorating age of the mighty Realities in the spiritual world.
+
+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,"[205] 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."[206] 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."[207]
+
+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
+the translation reads: "and was incarnate _by_ the Holy Ghost _of_ the
+Virgin Mary."[208] 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,[209] so that both the life and the matter
+surround Him as a vesture."[210]
+
+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 all 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[211] 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.[212] 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 comes 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 pourtrayed 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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 own destruction."[213] 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 Early Church on the doctrine of the
+Atonement was that Christ, as the Representative of Humanity, faced and
+conquered Satan, the representative of the Dark Powers, who held
+humanity in bondage, wrested his captive from him, and set him free.
+Slowly, as Christian teachers lost touch with spiritual truths, and they
+reflected their own increasing intolerance and harshness on the pure and
+loving Father of the teachings of the Christ, they represented Him as
+angry with man, and the Christ was made to save man from the wrath of
+God instead of from the bondage of evil. Then legal phrases intruded,
+still further materialising the once spiritual idea, and the "scheme of
+redemption" was forensically outlined. "The seal was set on the
+'redemption scheme' by Anselm in his great work, _Cur Deus Homo_, and
+the doctrine which had been slowly growing into the theology of
+Christendom was thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church.
+Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, alike
+believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character of the atonement
+wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between them on this point. I
+prefer to allow the Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the
+character of the atonement.... Luther teaches that 'Christ did truly and
+effectually feel for all mankind the wrath of God, malediction, and
+death.' Flavel says that 'to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God
+without mixture, to the very torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and
+that by the hand of his own father.' The Anglican homily preaches that
+'sin did pluck God out of heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains
+of death,' and that man, being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of the
+devil, 'was ransomed by the death of his only and well-beloved son'; the
+'heat of his wrath,' 'his burning wrath,' could only be 'pacified' by
+Jesus, 'so pleasant was the sacrifice and oblation of his son's death.'
+Edwards, being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin
+being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty of sin,
+being twice inflicted, first on Jesus, the substitute of mankind, and
+then on the lost, a portion of mankind; so he, in common with most
+Calvinists, finds himself compelled to restrict the atonement to the
+elect, and declared that Christ bore the sins, not of the world, but of
+the chosen out of the world; he suffers 'not for the world, but for them
+whom thou hast given me.' But Edwards adheres firmly to the belief in
+substitution, and rejects the universal atonement for the very reason
+that 'to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that
+he died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed.' He
+declares that 'Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins'; that
+'God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell
+for,' sin. Owen regards Christ's sufferings as 'a full valuable
+compensation to the justice of God for all the sins' of the elect, and
+says that he underwent 'that same punishment which ... they themselves
+were bound to undergo.'"[214]
+
+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."[215]
+
+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 of
+sacrifice into their most solemn rites. In Hinduism, the dawn of
+manifestation is said to be by sacrifice,[216] mankind is emanated with
+sacrifice,[217] and it is Deity who sacrifices Himself;[218] 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,[219] 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.[220]
+
+In the Christian religion the same idea is indicated in the phrase: "the
+Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,"[221] 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."[222]
+
+"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."[223]
+
+When the Logos comes forth from "the bosom of the Father" in that "Day"
+when He is said to be "begotten,"[224] the dawn of the Day of Creation,
+of Manifestation, when by Him God "made the worlds,"[225] 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.[226]
+
+"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."[227]
+
+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"[228] 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.[229]
+
+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,"[230] 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,[231] 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 fulness, "the power of an
+endless life."[232]
+
+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
+reflexions.
+
+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"[233] 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"[234] 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."[235] 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,'[236] 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."[237]
+
+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."[238]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+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 death-like 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."[239]
+
+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 subdivision 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."[240] 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.[241]
+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,[242] 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 Man.
+
+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
+subdivision 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."[243] 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,[244] can realise the union of the Son with the Father.[245] 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."[246] 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 not 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,"[247] 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
+"Paradise," or as a "waiting period." The heavenly world is almost
+universally, in modern Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no
+very definite or general idea as to its nature, or as to the progress or
+stationary condition of those attaining to it. In early Christianity
+this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the
+progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the
+pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result
+was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition,
+though often a very prolonged one, lasting for "an age"--as stated in
+the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the
+man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress--and not
+"everlasting," as in the mistranslation of the English authorised
+version.[248]
+
+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, &c., 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,"[249] 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."[250]
+
+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."[251]
+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."[252] 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."[253] 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,"[254] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+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."[255] "Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses, "The Lord
+our God is one Lord."[256] "To us there is but one God,"[257] 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 fulness 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, Kadmon the pure Light, and En Soph the Infinite,[258]
+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.'"[259]
+
+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
+Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus; it was the
+fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy;
+it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the
+Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be
+quoted from Philo on the impossibility that the first self-existing
+Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in
+Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord Himself spoke no new
+doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when
+they declared 'that no man had seen God at any time.' In conformity with
+this principle the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures,
+instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity,
+had interposed either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of
+communication. According to one accredited tradition alluded to by S.
+Stephen, the law was delivered 'by the disposition of angels'; according
+to another this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called
+the Angel of the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others the Metatron. But the
+more ordinary representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind
+of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the
+same appellation is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and
+the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish
+commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to
+the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
+been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme."[260]
+
+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; Brahma, 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 Amitabha, 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: "Om! Thou art Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesha
+(Shiva) ... I adore Thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names and
+under various forms, in the shape of Buddha, the God of Mercy."[261]
+
+In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In Egypt it
+dominated all religious worship. "We have a hieoroglyphical inscription
+in the British Museum as early as the reign of Senechus of the eighth
+century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity
+in Unity already formed part of their religion."[262] This is true of a
+far earlier date. Ra, Osiris, and Horus formed one widely worshipped
+Trinity; Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshipped at Abydos; other names
+are given in different cities, and the triangle is the frequently used
+symbol of the Triune God. The idea which underlay these Trinities,
+however named, is shown in a passage quoted from Marutho, in which an
+oracle, rebuking the pride of Alexander the Great, speaks of: "First
+God, then the Word, and with Them the Spirit."[263]
+
+In Chaldaea, Anu, Ea, and Bel were the Supreme Trinity, Anu being the
+Origin of all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China
+Williamson remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice
+every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese
+saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty
+philosophical system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures:
+'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and
+Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems
+to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity.'"[264]
+
+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;"[265]
+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,"[266] the reference to the three functions being
+very clear.[267] 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."[268]
+
+This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God,
+He that "was and is and is to come,"[269] 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,"[270] and also His Mother, yielding of
+Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His
+power.[271] 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 become 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,"[272] 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."[273] He shines out, as it were, from the infinite Darkness, a
+Point of Light, the centre of a future universe, a Unit, in whom all
+exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field
+of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the
+Point in every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power.
+This is the making of "the earth by His Power," spoken of by
+Jeremiah.[274] Thus the full symbol is a Point within a sphere,
+represented usually as a Point within a circle. The Second Person is
+represented by a Line, a diameter of this circle, a single complete
+vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in every direction
+within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain signifies also
+His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit--a unity in the First
+Person--are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is
+represented by a Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each
+other within the circle, the second line of the Cross separating the
+upper part of the circle from the lower. This is the Greek Cross.[275]
+
+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,"[276] a statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that
+He "laid the foundations of the earth;"[277] we have here the marking
+out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void."[278]
+
+On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit,
+who "moved upon the face of the waters,"[279] 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."[280]
+
+The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of
+His Wisdom "established the world,"[281] building all globes and all
+things upon them, "all things were made by Him."[282] He is the
+organising Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.[283]
+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,[284] all must be gathered up in
+Him, and why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[285]
+
+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,"[286] the "God of the Spirits of all flesh,"[287] 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,"[288]
+and is able to become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
+is perfect."[289]
+
+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, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own
+Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."[290]
+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."[291] 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 Man. This nature of the Mediator He has
+retained, and is thus a link between the celestial and terrestrial
+Trinities, "God with us"[292] He has ever been called.
+
+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."[293]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PRAYER.[294]
+
+
+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?"[295] 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, &c. 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.[296] 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[297]--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;"[298] 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,[299]
+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.[300] 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 blackbeetle.[301] 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 Mueller, of Bristol,
+before he was known to the world as a philanthropist, when he was
+beginning his charitable work, and was without friends or money. He
+prayed for food for the children who had no resource save his bounty,
+and money always came sufficient for the immediate needs. What had
+happened? His prayer was a strong, energetic desire, and that desire
+creates a form, of which it is the life and directing energy. That
+vibrating, living creature has but one idea, the idea that ensouls
+it--help is wanted, food is wanted; and it ranges the subtle world,
+seeking. A charitable man desires to give help to the needy, is seeking
+opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft iron, so is such a person to
+the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It rouses in his brain
+vibrations identical with its own--George Mueller, his orphanage, its
+needs--and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws a
+cheque, and sends it. Quite naturally, George Mueller would say that God
+put it into the heart of such a one to give the needed help. In the
+deepest sense of the words that is true, since there is no life, no
+energy, in His universe that does not come from God; but the
+intermediate agency, according to the divine laws, is the desire-form
+created by the prayer.
+
+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 daresay 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, no 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 react 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."[302]
+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.[303] "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my
+voice, and open the door, I will come in to him."[304]
+
+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.'"[305]
+
+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 exstasy 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"[306] 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 Iamblichus on this subject is useful. Iamblichus 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 Union with the divinities, in whom it
+establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and thus causes the
+soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from these
+three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant
+adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but
+supernally extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian
+apples of gold. The first of these pertains to illumination; the second
+to a communion of operation; but through the energy of the third we
+receive a perfect plenitude of divine fire.... No operation, however, in
+sacred concerns, can succeed without the intervention of prayer. Lastly,
+the continual exercise of prayer nourishes the vigour of our intellect,
+and renders the receptacle of the soul far more capacious for the
+communications of the Gods. It likewise is the divine key, which opens
+to men the penetralia of the Gods; accustoms us to the splendid rivers
+of supernal light; in a short time perfects our inmost recesses, and
+disposes them for the ineffable embrace and contact of the Gods; and
+does not desist till it raises us to the summit of all. It also
+gradually and silently draws upward the manners of our soul, by
+divesting them of everything foreign to a divine nature, and clothes us
+with the perfections of the Gods. Besides this, it produces an
+indissoluble communion and friendship with divinity, nourishes a divine
+love, and inflames the divine part of the soul. Whatever is of an
+opposing and contrary nature in the soul, it expiates and purifies;
+expels whatever is prone to generation and retains anything of the dregs
+of mortality in its ethereal and splendid spirit; perfects a good hope
+and faith concerning the reception of divine light; and in one word,
+renders those by whom it is employed the familiars and domestics of the
+Gods."[307]
+
+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, O God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law
+is within my heart."[308] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+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.[309] So also of one woman it was said: "Her sins, which are
+many, are forgiven, for she loved much."[310] 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."[311]
+
+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."[312]
+
+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 springtime 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,"[313] and at
+another: "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."[314] So in
+the _Bhagavad Gita_ we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the
+world is bound by action,"[315] and that a man "recovereth the
+characteristics of his former body;"[316] and yet it is said that "even
+if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he, too, must be
+accounted righteous."[317] 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,[318]
+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.[319] 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."[320] 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 clashes 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-Gita_ 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."[321] The essence of sin lies 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."[322]
+
+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."[323] 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," re-admitting 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"[324] 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."[325] "The divine potency which is all in all does not
+proffer or withhold, except through assimilation or rejection by
+oneself."[326] "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."[327]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+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.[328] 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[329] 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"[330] when the
+foundations of the earth were laid amid the choiring of the Morning
+Stars.
+
+Others 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.[331] 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.[332] 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.[333] 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SACRAMENTS (_continued_).
+
+
+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.[334] 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.'"[335] 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 practise of Baptism in Egypt, Persia, Thibet,
+Mongolia, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and among the
+Druids.[336] Some of the prayers quoted are very fine: "I pray that this
+celestial water, blue and light blue, may enter into thy body and there
+live. I pray that it may destroy in thee, and put away from thee, all
+the things evil and adverse that were given to thee before the beginning
+of the world." "O child! receive the water of the Lord of the world who
+is our life: it is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove the sin
+which was given to thee before the creation of the world, since all of
+us are under its power."
+
+Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among non-Christian
+nations in a passage already quoted,[337] 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 Roman Churches a small receptacle for
+holy water is placed near every door, and every incoming worshipper
+touches it, making with it on himself the sign of the cross ere he goes
+onward towards the altar. On this Robert Taylor remarks: "The baptismal
+fonts in our Protestant churches, and we need hardly say more especially
+the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not
+imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the
+same _aqua minaria_, or _amula_, which the learned Montfaucon, in his
+_Antiquities_, shows to have been vases of holy water, which were placed
+by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves
+with upon entering those sacred edifices."[338]
+
+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 to-day.
+
+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 re-affirm 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"[339] 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.[340]
+
+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?"[341] 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 Tibet and Tartary. Jeremiah
+speaks of the cakes and the drink offered to the Queen of Heaven by the
+Jews in Egypt, they taking part in the Egyptian worship.[342] In Genesis
+we read that Melchisedek, the King-Initiate, used bread and wine in the
+blessing of Abraham.[343] In the various Greek Mysteries bread and wine
+were used, and Williamson mentions their use also among the Mexicans,
+Peruvians, and Druids.[344]
+
+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."[345] 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 the 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."[346]
+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 Israel: "Thy Maker is thine Husband; the
+Lord of hosts is His name.... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
+bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."[347] So S. Paul wrote that
+the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and the Church.[348]
+
+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."[349]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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 _Kuran_. 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."[350] 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.[351] 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.[352]
+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."[353]
+
+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.[354] 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 re-inforce 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, &c. 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.[355] 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 its
+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.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.                               PAGE
+
+_Acts of the Apostles_ referred to;  281
+
+A Kempis, Thomas;  115
+
+Afterword;  376
+
+Allegory;  66
+
+Allegories, Old Testament; 121
+
+All-wide Consciousness; 281 _et seq._
+
+Ammonius Saccas; 28
+
+Animal Symbols of Zodiac; 165
+
+Anselm and Redemption; 195
+
+Answers to Prayer; 277
+  "        Subjective Prayer; 290
+
+Apollonius of Tyana; 31
+
+Apostolic Fathers; 70
+
+Appearances of Divine Beings; 93
+
+Aquinas, Thomas; 112
+
+_Arians of the Fourth Century_, quoted; 103
+
+Aristotle, Effect on Mediaeval Christianity; 112
+
+Ascension, The; 231, 250
+  "      and Solar Myth; 231
+  "      of the Christ; 249
+
+_Asiatic Researches_, quoted; 258
+
+Aspects of the ONE; 262
+
+Athanasius, Story of; 353
+
+Athanasian Creed, quoted; 263, 367
+
+Atlantis, Continent of; 18
+
+At-one-ment; 209
+
+Atonement as one of Lesser Mysteries; 200
+  "     Early Church on the; 195
+  "     Calvinistic View of; 197
+  "     Edwards on the; 197
+  "     Flavel on the; 196
+  "     Luther's Views on the; 196
+  "     Dr. McLeod Campbell on the; 199
+  "     F. D. Maurice on the; 199
+  "     Vicarious and Substitutionary; 196
+
+Atonement--Views of Dwight, Jeune, Jenkyn, Liddon, Owen,
+             Stroud, and Thomson; 198
+  "     Truth underlying the Doctrine of; 199
+  "     Pamphlet on, quoted; 198
+  "     _Nineteenth Century_ quoted on; 205
+
+Augoeides; 27
+
+
+Barnabas; 71
+
+Baptism, A Mantram in; 350
+  "     A Minor Form of; 349
+  "     Belief in Death-bed; 352
+  "     Infant; 353
+  "     In the Early Church; 352
+  "     In Other Religions; 348
+  "     of Initiate; 53
+  "     of Holy Ghost and Fire; 188
+  "     of Jesus; 133
+  "     of the Christ; 186
+  "     Tertullian on; 349
+
+Beatific Vision, The; 95, 295
+
+Bernard of Clairvaux; 112
+
+Bel-fires; 164
+
+_Bhagavad Gita_ referred to; 50, 202, 270, 306, 318
+
+Bible Account of Creation; 179
+
+Birth, Second; 247
+
+Blavatsky, H. P., referred to; 127
+
+Blood of Christ symbolised in Eucharist; 359
+
+Boehme, Jacob; 115
+
+Body, Causal; 239, 247
+  "   Desire, Changes in;  244
+  "   Meaning of a; 234
+  "   Mental; 236
+  "     "     Building of; 245
+  "   Natural or Physical; 236
+  "   Natural, of St. Paul; 237
+  "   of Bliss; 240
+  "   of Desire; 236
+  "   Physical, Changes in; 243
+  "   Resurrection; 240
+
+Body, Spiritual; 239
+
+_Book of Job_, quoted; 268, 332
+  "  _of the Dead_, referred to; 339
+  "  _of Wisdom_, quoted; 266
+
+Bread, General Symbol in Sacraments; 358
+
+_Brihadaranyakopanishat_, quoted; 50, 202
+
+Brotherhood of Great Teachers; 9
+
+Bruno, Giordano, referred to; 5, 113, 115, 225, 322
+
+Buddha, Birth Story of; 164
+
+Buddhist Trinity; 258
+
+
+Calvinistic Doctrine; 197
+
+Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa; 115
+
+Cathari, The, referred to; 113
+
+Cave of Initiation; 186
+
+Celsus--Controversy with Origen; 88
+
+_Chhandogyopanishat_, quoted; 253
+
+Chrestos and Christos; 174
+
+Christ as Hierophant of Mysteries; 231
+  "   Baptism of; 186
+  "   Crucifixion of; 183
+  "   Disciples of; 223
+  "   in the Spiritual Body; 137
+  "   Life of the; 217
+  "   of the Mysteries; 191
+  "   The; 132, 134
+  "   the Crucified; 182
+  "   the Historical; 120, 140
+  "   the Kosmic; 179
+  "   the Mystic; 170
+  "   the Mythic; 145
+  "   Sufferings of the; 223
+
+_Christian Creed_, referred to; 180, 181
+  "                quoted; 206, 207, 229
+
+Christian Disciples--their work; 223
+
+_Christian Records_, quoted; 348
+
+Christian Symbols, &c., not unique; 148
+
+Christianity has the Gnosis; 36
+
+Christmas Day; 159, 161
+
+Christmas Festival, rightly regarded; 164
+
+_Clarke's Ante-Nicene_ Library, quoted; viii., 21, 58, 71, 72, 73, 74,
+    77, 78, 80 _et seq._, 87, 88, 90 _et seq._, 103, 150, 151, 266
+
+Classes of Prayers; 283
+
+Clement of Alexandria, quoted; viii., 20
+  "  "     referred to; 73
+  "  "     on the Gnosis; 83, 84
+  "  "     on Scripture Allegories; 83
+  "  "     on Symbols; 80
+  "  "     and Catechetical School; 73
+  "  "     a Pupil of Pantaenus; 73
+
+_Colossians, Epistle to_, referred to;  58, 65, 81, 177
+
+Comparative Mythologists; 7
+  "  "  Theory of; 8
+  "  Religionists; 7, 8
+  "  Mythology; 147
+
+Consecrated Objects; 382
+
+Consecration of Churches, Cemeteries, &c.; 385
+
+Constant, Alphonse Louis; 118
+
+Conversion, Phenomenon of; 313 _et seq._
+
+_Corinthians, Epistles to_, quoted; ix., x., 6, 32, 55, 64, 67, 124,
+    175, 177, 232, 239, 240, 241, 251, 253, 270, 356, 373
+
+Creed, taught after Baptism in Early Church; 352
+
+_Cruden's Concordance_, quoted; 33
+
+_Cur Deus Homo_ of Anselm; 195
+
+
+Dangers to Christianity; 125
+
+Dark Powers in Nature;  186, 187
+
+Dean Milman, quoted; 255 _et seq._
+
+Death of Solar Heroes; 166
+
+_De Principiis_ of Origen; 101, 102
+
+_Deuteronomy_, quoted; 96, 253
+
+_Diegesis_ of R. Taylor, quoted; 350
+
+_Die Deutsche Theologie_; 114
+
+Dionysius the Areopagite; 110
+
+Disappearance of the Mysteries; 184
+
+Disciples, The; 136
+  "  Work of the; 223
+  "  Writings of the; 140
+
+Divine Beings, Appearance in Mysteries; 93
+
+"Divine Grace," What it is;  224
+  "  Ideation; 359
+  "  Illumination; 377
+  "  Incarnations; 273, 274
+
+Duality of Manifested Existence; 235
+  "  of Second Person of Trinity; 265
+
+
+Easter Festival; 159
+
+Eckhart, Teachings of; 113
+
+Edwards on the Atonement; 197
+
+Egypt and the Mysteries; 131
+
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, referred to; 22, 23, 117
+  "  "  quoted; 110 _et seq._
+
+_Ephesians, Epistle to_, quoted; 57, 65, 67, 366
+
+_Epistle of James_, quoted;  276
+  "  _of Peter_, quoted; 64, 121, 194, 354, 371
+
+Esoteric Christianity, Popular Denial of; 2
+  "  Teaching in Early Church; 2
+
+Essentials of Religion; 4
+
+Eucharist, Bread and Wine of; 357
+  "  Change of Substance in; 361
+  "  connected with Law of Sacrifice; 357
+  "  Meaning and Use of;  357
+  "  Sacrifice of; 355
+  "  Unworthy Participants in; 362
+
+_Exodus, Book of_, quoted; 91
+
+Exstasy; 295
+
+
+Faith Needed for Forgiveness; 312
+
+Fathers, The Christian, on Scriptures; 371
+
+Festivals; 147
+
+Fish Symbol in Religions; 166
+
+Flavel on Atonement; 196
+
+Fludd, Robert; 116
+
+Forgiveness of Sins; 301
+  "  in Lesser Mysteries; 323
+  "  in most Religions; 303
+  "  ultimately refers to _Post-Mortem_ Penalties; 307
+
+Fourth Manifestation Feminine; 261
+  "  Person; 263
+
+Free-thinking in Christianity; 123
+
+_Friends of God in the Oberland_; 114
+
+Friends, Society of; 117
+
+Future of Christianity; 41
+
+
+_Galatians, Epistle to_, quoted; 64, 65, 66, 124
+
+_Genesis_, quoted; 18, 180, 268, 269, 271, 279, 358
+
+Germain, Comte de S.; 117
+
+Gestures in Sacraments;  338
+
+Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of R. Empire_, quoted;  162
+
+Giles, Rev. Dr., quoted;  347
+
+Gnosis, The;   viii., 9, 108
+  "      " in Christianity;  36
+
+Gnostic, The, of S. Clement; 84 _et seq._
+
+_Gnostics and their Remains_, quoted; 162
+
+Gods in the Mysteries; 25
+
+Grades of Hierarchies; 331
+
+Grand Lodge of Central Asia; 31
+
+Greek Cross, The;  267
+
+Guyon, Mme. de; 116
+
+
+Haug, Dr., _Essay on Parsis_, cited; 202
+
+_Hebrews, Epistle to_, quoted; 53, 67, 81, 91, 175, 176, 205,
+    216, 222, 223, 247, 270, 274, 280
+
+Hebrew Trinity; 254
+
+Hell-fire Dogma, The; 48
+
+_Heroic Enthusiasts, The_, quoted; 323
+
+Hidden God, The;  207
+  "  Meanings in Jewish and Christian Scriptures; 100
+  "  Side of Christianity; 36
+  "  Teaching in all Religions; 20
+
+Hierarchies of Divine Beings; 331
+  "  of Superhuman Beings; 23
+
+Hindu, Trinity, The; 257
+
+History _versus_ Myth; 153
+
+Holy Spirit as Creator; 269
+
+Holy Water; 343, 349, 351
+
+Human Evolution repeats Kosmic Process; 271
+
+Huxley, T. H., quoted; 282
+
+Hyde, Dr., quoted;  347
+
+_Hymn to Demeter_; 22
+
+
+Iamblichus, _On the Mysteries_, quoted; 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29,
+    296 _et seq._
+
+Iamblichus, _Life of Pythagoras_, referred to; 28
+
+Ignatius; 71
+
+Incarnation of Logos;  179
+
+Initiation and Rebirth;  51, 53
+  "  Cave of;  186
+  "  Ceremonies of; 247 _et seq._
+  "  Conditions of; 173
+  "  Mount of;  91
+
+Inspiration, True; 378
+
+Intelligences in Invisible Worlds; 279
+
+Inviolability of Law; 305
+
+Invisible Helpers; 280
+
+Invisible Worlds interpenetrate the Visible; 279
+
+Irenaeus, _Against Heresies_, referred to; 105
+
+_Isaiah_, quoted; 210, 295, 366, 377
+
+Isomeric Compounds; 361
+
+
+_Jeremiah, Book of_, quoted; 262, 357
+
+Jesus at Mount Serbal;  130
+  "  Baptism of;  133
+  "  Date and Place of Birth; 130
+  "  His Work in Christendom;  143
+  "  in Egypt; 130
+  "  Inner Instructions of; 137
+  "  Master of the West; 147
+  "  Sacrifice of; 133
+  "  the Divine Teacher; 183
+  "  the Healer and Teacher; 127
+  "  training in Essene Community; 130
+  "  the Master; 142
+
+_Judges, Book of_, quoted;  97
+
+Juliana Mother; 117
+
+Justin Martyr;  148
+  "  "  quoted; 149 _et seq._
+
+
+_Kabbala_, Five Books of, referred to; 34
+
+Karma;  288, 309
+
+_Kathopanishat_, quoted; 32, 33, 49
+
+_Key to Theosophy_, quoted; 294
+
+Kingdom of Heaven--real meaning; 52
+
+_Kings, Book of_, quoted; 33, 354
+
+Kosmic Christ, The; 179
+  "  Process of becoming; 268
+  "  Sacrifice; 183
+
+
+Lang, Andrew, referred to; 11, 12
+
+Language of Symbols; 153
+
+Latin Cross, Origin of; 206
+  "  Use of, in Roman Church; 337
+
+Law of Sacrifice; 201
+  "  "  in Hinduism;  202
+  "  "  in Nature of Logos;  204
+  "  "  in Zoroastrianism;  202
+  "  "  or Manifestation; 203
+
+Law, William; 117
+
+Left-hand Path; 17
+
+Lent; 167
+
+Levi Eliphas; 118
+
+_Leviticus_, quoted; 358
+
+_Light on the Path_, quoted; 220
+
+"Little Child"; 65
+
+Logos, Birth of the; 205
+  "  and Sacrifice; 204
+  "  Life of, in every form; 208
+  "  Meaning of the Term; 172
+  "  of Plato; 182
+  "  Perpetual Sacrifice of; 209
+
+Loss of Mystic Teaching in Christianity; 37
+
+_Luke, Gospel of_, quoted; 45, 48, 175, 176, 264, 289, 302, 312
+
+Luther on the Atonement; 196
+
+
+Madonnas; 160
+
+Magnetic Cures, Secret of; 342
+  "  Change in Sacramental Substance; 342
+  "  Energies in Ether;  341
+
+Magnetisation of Substances; 341
+
+_Making_ of _Religion_, The, referred to; 11
+
+Man as Microcosm;  271
+  "  and Woman Complementary; 365
+  "  develops Second Aspect; 272
+
+Man's Manifold Nature; 234
+
+_Mandakopanishat_, quoted; 202
+
+"Mantras"; 335
+  "  essential in Sacraments; 338
+  "  in rite of Baptism; 350
+  "  in Sanskrit;  336
+  "  spoilt by translation; 337
+
+_Mark, Gospel of_, quoted; vii., 45, 47
+
+Martin, St.; 117
+
+Marriage, Deeper meaning of; 365
+  "  in Lesser Mysteries; 368
+  "  Mystery of; 366
+  "  Sacrament of;  364
+  "  type of union between God and Man; 366
+
+Mary, the World Mother;  206
+
+Master, Jesus, the; 142
+
+_Matthew, Gospel of_, quoted;   vii., 45, 46, 49, 52, 53, 54, 92, 134,
+    176, 177, 186, 210, 216, 240, 271, 274, 281, 306, 319
+
+Maurice, cited; 254
+
+Mead, G. R. S., quoted; 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 114
+
+Mediator, Nature of;  274
+
+Meditation--What it is; 293
+  "  Growth by; 299
+
+Men at different levels; 3
+
+Miguel de Molinos; 116
+
+Ministry of Angels, The; 287, 289
+
+Miracles; 145
+
+Mithras, Birth of; 161
+
+Modern Spirit antagonistic to Prayer; 276
+
+More, Henry; 116
+
+Mother Juliana of Norwich; 117
+
+Mount Serbal; 130
+
+Mount of Initiation; 91, 188
+
+Mueller, George, Case of; 284 _et seq._
+
+Music in Worship; 335, 337
+
+Myers (F.), St. Paul; 378
+
+Mystery Gods; 25
+  "  of Christ;  57
+
+Mysteries, Christian, Symbolism of; 247
+
+Mysteries and Yoga; 31
+  "  Christ as Hierophant of; 231
+  "  Disappearance of the; 184
+  "  Eliphas Levi on the; 118
+  "  established by Christ; 142
+  "  Greater, The; ix., 1, 22, 27, 63
+  "  in the Gospels; 45
+  "  in Egypt; 131
+  "  in relation to Myth; 157
+  "  Lesser; ix., 1, 22
+  "  "  and Prayer; 280
+  "  "  as to Bodies; 237
+  "  "  Teaching of; 251
+  "  Names in Christianity; 47
+  "  of Bacchus; 21, 27
+  "  of Chaldaea, Egypt, Eleusis, Mithras, Orpheus, Samothrace,
+        Scythia; 21
+  "  of God; 57
+  "  of Jesus; 1, 42, 94
+  "  of the Early Church; 69 _et seq_.
+  "  of Magic, quoted; 157
+  "  praised by Learned Greeks; 21
+  "  Pseudo, and Sun-God Story; 167
+  "  source of Mystic Learning; 108
+  "  The; 171, 178
+  "  taught, _Post-mortem_ Existence; 21
+  "  The True; 179
+  "  The Christ of the; 184
+  "  Theory of the; 22
+  "  withdrawn; 108
+
+Mystic Christ, The; 170
+  "  "  Twofold; 178
+  "  Vesture, The; 138
+
+Mythic Christ, The; 145
+
+Myth, Meaning of; 152, 153
+  "  Solar; 156
+
+Mythology Comparative; 147
+
+
+Natural and Spiritual Bodies; 232
+  "  Body--of St. Paul; 237
+
+Natural Body, The; 235 _et seq._
+
+Need for Graded Religion; 14
+
+Neoplatonists;  29, 112
+
+Newman, Cardinal, quoted; 103 _et seq._
+  "  Recognises a Secret Tradition; 104
+
+New Testament Proofs of Esotericism; 42 _et seq._
+
+Nicene Creed; 181
+
+Nicolas of Basel; 114
+
+Noachian Deluge; 19
+
+_Nous Demiurgos_ of Plato; 255
+
+_Numbers, Book of_, quoted; 270
+
+
+Object of all Religions; 3
+
+Occult Experts; 127
+  "  Knowledge, Danger of; 16
+  "  Records; 18
+  "  "  and the Gospels; 129
+  "  side of Nature; 279
+  "  use of Sounds;  334
+
+Old Testament Allegories; 121
+
+One Existence, The; 253
+
+One, The, Three aspects of; 262
+ "  "  Manifest; 261
+
+Origen _Against Celsus_; 88 _et seq._
+  "  "  ";  95
+  "  on the Need of Wisdom; 99
+  "  "  Mysteries;  89
+  "  "  Scriptures; 372
+  "  "  Tower of Babel; 97
+  "  referred to;  44
+  "  Shining Light of Learning; 87
+
+_Orpheus_, Mead's, quoted; 28, 29, 30, 114
+
+Owen on Atonement; 197
+
+
+Pantaenus; 73, 74
+
+Paracelsus; 115
+
+Paradise; 242
+
+Path of Discipleship; 174
+
+_Philippians, Epistle to_, quoted; 62
+
+Physical Ailments final expression of Karma; 310
+
+Physical Body, Changes in; 243
+  "  Material in Sacraments; 340
+
+Pilgrimages, Rationale of; 382
+
+_Pistis Sophia_, quoted; 46, 138, 139, 302 _et seq._,
+    319 _et seq._, 340
+  "  "  referred to; 137
+
+Plato's Cave; 153
+
+Plato initiated in Egypt; 21
+
+Platonists of Cambridge; 116
+
+Plotinus, Dying Words of; 31
+  "  referred to; 23
+  "  Mead's, quoted; 31
+
+Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna; 70
+
+Popular Christianity, Mistake of; vii.
+  "  Denial of Esoteric Christianity; 1
+
+Porphyry, quoted;  27, 54
+
+Prayer; 276
+  "  Answers to; 277
+  "  as Will; 285
+  "  Class B--general principle; 292
+  "  Failure of; 287
+  "  for Spiritual Enlightenment; 291
+  "  for the Student of Lesser Mysteries; 296
+  "  Highest form of; 293
+  "  Puzzling Facts as to; 277
+
+Prayers classified; 278
+
+Probationary Path, The; 247
+
+"Proclaim upon the houses"--Mystical meaning; 79
+
+Proclus, Teaching of; 26, 29, 51
+
+Psalms, quoted; 5, 299
+
+Pseudo-Mysteries and Sun-God Drama; 167
+
+Pupils of the Apostles; 70
+
+Purgatory; 242
+
+Purification; 244
+
+Pythagoras, referred to; 28
+  "  in India; 31
+
+Pythagorean School, Discipline of; 29, 30
+
+
+Qualifications of Disciple; 175
+
+Quietists, The; 116
+
+
+Regions of the Invisible Worlds; 239
+
+Re-incarnation;  239
+
+Religion, Need for graded; 14
+
+_Religion of Ancient Persians_, quoted; 347
+
+Religions, Common origin of; 7
+  "  Custodians of Sacred Books; 369
+  "  Essentials of; 4
+  "  fitted for Stages of Growth; 13
+  "  Object of all; 3
+  "  Source of all; 7
+
+Religious Founders; 10
+  "  Scriptures; 10
+  "  Teachers; 9
+
+Resurrection and Solar Myth; 231, 250
+  "  Body; 240
+  "  of the Christ; 249
+  "  of the Dead; 62
+  "  The--Part of Lesser Mysteries; 231
+
+Revelation; 369
+   "  Fragments of in Sacred Books; 370
+   "  in Cypher; 370
+   "  of Deity in Kosmos; 375
+
+_Revelations, Book of_, quoted; 50, 63, 66, 249, 263,
+    292, 322, 331
+
+Revolt against Dogma; 38
+
+Roman Empire dying; 107
+
+_Romans, Epistle to_, quoted; 82, 363
+
+Rosenkreutz Christian; 117
+
+Ruling Angel of Jews; 96, 98
+
+Ruysbroeck; 115
+
+
+Sacrament, a kind of crucible; 326
+  "  a Pictorial Allegory; 325
+  "  Change in substance at; 343
+  "  link between Visible and Invisible; 326, 327
+  "  of Baptism; 347
+  "  of Eucharist; 347
+  "  of Marriage; 347, 364
+  "  of Penance; 340
+
+Sacraments; 324
+  "  Angels connected with; 343
+  "  defined in Church Catechism; 329
+
+Sacraments, Gestures used in; 338
+  "  in all Religions; 324
+  "  Lost at Reformation; 327
+  "  Mantrams in; 338
+  "  of Christian Church; 327
+  "  Peculiar Characteristics; 324
+  "  Seven, of Christianity; 327, 346
+  "  Signs, Seals, or Sigils in; 339
+  "  "Substance" and "Accidents" of; 361
+  "  Twofold Nature of; 324 _et seq._
+  "  Two, In Protestant Communities; 328, 346
+
+Sacred Places and Objects; 380
+
+Sacred Quaternery, The; 261
+
+Sacrifice as Joy; 210 _et seq._
+  "  Law of; 201
+  "  "  Four Stages in; 212
+  "  Lessons in; 212 _et seq._
+  "  of Jesus; 133
+
+Saint Bonaventura; 112
+  "  Elizabeth; 113
+  "  Francois de Sales; 116
+  "  John of the Cross; 116
+  "  _John's Gospel_, quoted; x., 46, 52, 53, 54, 56, 103, 132, 133,
+       134, 137, 177, 180, 216, 240, 246, 250, 262, 270, 273, 292, 382
+  "  Paul, quoted; 55 _et seq._, 124, 184
+  "  Paul an Initiate; 61
+  "  "  and Mysteries; 57
+  "  "  and Timothy; 59, 69
+  "  "  on Allegory; 66
+  "  Peter, quoted; 194
+  "  Teresa; 116
+  "  Timothy, referred to; 59
+
+_Samuel, Book of_, quoted; 33
+
+Savage Deities; 11
+
+Savages as Descendants of Civilisation; 12
+
+Saviour, The True; 219 _et seq._
+
+Sayings of Jesus; 53, 54, 301
+
+Scientific Analysis of Vehicles; 237
+
+Search for God, The; 5
+
+Secret Teachings of Jesus; 90
+  "  Tradition recognised by Newman; 104
+
+Second Birth; 185, 247
+
+_Sepher Yetzirah_, quoted; 34
+
+_Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology_, quoted; 259
+
+_Shvetashvataropanishat_, quoted; 32
+
+"Sign of Power"; 339
+
+Society of Friends; 117
+
+Solar Gods; 160
+  "  Myth, Root of; 178
+
+Sopater, quoted; 21
+
+Sophia--The Wisdom; 138
+
+Soul--Dual; 233
+
+Sound and Form in the Invisible Worlds; 333
+
+Sound, Occult use of; 334
+
+Source of Religions; 7
+
+Spirit and Matter; 367
+
+Spirit threefold; 233
+  "  manifested as triple Self; 330
+
+Spiritual Body, Divisions of; 240 _et seq._
+
+"Star of Initiation"; 186
+
+"Strait Gate" term of Initiation; 49, 50, 174, 177
+
+_Stromata_ or Miscellanies of S. Clement, quoted; 58, 74 _et seq._,
+   78, 83, 84, 85, 87
+
+Sufferings of the Christ; 223
+
+Superintending Spirits; 98
+
+Sun God Legend; 158
+  "  "  Symbol of Logos; 171
+  " Heroes; 165
+  " Myths, recurring; 169
+  " of Righteousness; 249
+  " Symbol of the Logos; 154
+  " Symbols; 155
+
+Survival of Christianity?; 40
+
+Symbol of Jesus; 165
+  "  of Trinity; 267
+
+Symbols--animal, in Zodiac; 165
+  "  Language of; 153
+
+Symbols of Logoi; 266 _et seq._
+
+
+Tatian and Theodotus, referred to;  73
+
+Tauler, John; 114
+
+Taylor, Robert, quoted; 350
+
+Teachings common to all Religions; 146
+  "  in the hands of Spiritual Brotherhood; 374
+
+Tertullian on Baptism; 151
+
+The Christ; 132, 134
+
+The Hidden Side of Religions; 1
+  "  of Christianity; 36
+
+The Disciples; 136
+
+The "Simple Gospel"; 39
+
+The title of Lord; 96
+
+The Testimony of the Scriptures; 36
+
+The Tower of Babel; 97
+
+The Thyrsus; 75
+
+The True Exstasis; 108
+
+The Trinity; 253
+  "  among the Hebrews; 254
+  "  Hindu; 257
+  "  in Buddhism; 258
+  "  in Chaldaea; 259
+  "  in China; 259
+  "  in Extinct Religions; 258
+  "  in Egypt; 259
+  "  in Man; 177, 233
+  "  in Manifestation; 254
+  "  in Zoroastrianism; 257
+
+The Word of Wisdom, of Knowledge; 102
+
+Theological Hell; 308
+
+_Theosophical Review_, quoted; 228
+
+_Thessalonians, Epistle to_, quoted; 233
+
+Three Worlds, The; 241
+
+_Timothy, Epistle to_, quoted; 59, 60, 61, 65, 134, 227
+
+Tradition of _Post-mortem_ Teaching of Jesus; 46
+
+Transubstantiation--Truth Underlying; 360
+
+Triangle as a Symbol of Trinity; 267
+
+Trinity, A Second; 263
+  "  of Spirit; 233
+
+Trinity in Christian agrees with other Faiths; 260
+
+Triple Aspect of Matter; 264
+
+Triplicity in Nature; 261
+
+True Theosophy defined; x.
+
+Two Schools of Christian Interpretation; 122
+
+Two-fold Division of Man Insufficient; 232
+
+
+Vaivasvata Manu; 19
+
+Valentinus; 137
+
+Vaughan, Thomas; 116
+
+Vehicles of Consciousness, Need for Different; 238
+
+Vibrations; 334
+
+Vibratory Effects of Mass; 338
+
+Virgin Matter; 264
+  "  "  and Third Person of Trinity; 265
+  "  "  and Second  "  " ; 265
+  "  Mother; 264
+
+Virgin's Womb, Meaning of; 180
+
+Virgo, Zodiacal Sign of; 158, 160
+
+Virtues in the Mysteries; 27
+
+_Voice of the Silence_, quoted; 249
+
+_Voice Figures_--Mrs. Watts Hughes, referred to; 333
+
+
+Williamson's _Great Law_, quoted; 161, 163 _et seq._,
+   166, 167, 203, 255, 259, 348, 358.
+
+Will as Prayer; 285
+
+Words of Power; 335
+
+Work of the Holy Spirit; 179, 268
+  "  Second Person; 179, 269
+  "  First Person; 270
+
+Working of Logos in Matter; 182
+
+Workers in Kosmos; 283
+  "  the Invisible Worlds; 152, 280
+
+World Bibles, fragments of Revelation; 374
+
+World Soul, The; 23
+
+World Symbols; 266
+
+Writings of the Disciples; 140
+
+
+_Zechariah_, quoted; 268
+
+Zodiac, The; 160
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] S. Mark xvi. 15.
+
+[2] S. Matt vii. 6.
+
+[3] Clarke's Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. Clement of
+Alexandria. _Stromata_, bk. I., ch. xii.
+
+[4] I. Cor. iii. 16.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, ii. 14, 16.
+
+[6] S. John, i. 9.
+
+[7] Psalms, xlii. 1.
+
+[8] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
+
+[9] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. _Stromata_,
+bk. V., ch. xi.
+
+[10] See Article on "Mysteries," _Encyc. Britannica_ ninth edition.
+
+[11] Psellus, quoted in _Iamblichus on the Mysteries_. T. Taylor, p.
+343, note on p. 23, second edition.
+
+[12] _Iamblichus_, as _ante_, p. 301.
+
+[13] _Ibid._, p. 72.
+
+[14] The article on "Mysticism" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ has
+the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204-206 A.D.): "The One
+[the Supreme God spoken of above] is exalted above the _nous_ and the
+'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether and is not cognisable by
+reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from its
+own fulness, an image of itself, which is called _nous_, and which
+constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The soul is
+in turn the image or product of the _nous_, and the soul by its motion
+begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways--towards the
+_nous_, from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is
+its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the
+sensible; material existence is itself estrangement from God.... To
+reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for
+thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the
+motionless rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent
+deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence,
+_contact_." Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all a system of complete
+rationalism; it is assumed, in other words, that reason is capable of
+mapping out the whole system of things. But, inasmuch as a God is
+affirmed beyond reason, the mysticism becomes in a sense the necessary
+complement of the would-be all-embracing rationalism. The system
+culminates in a mystical act."
+
+[15] _Iamblichus_, as _ante_, p. 73.
+
+[16] _Ibid_, pp. 55, 56.
+
+[17] _Ibid_, pp. 118, 119.
+
+[18] _Ibid_, p. 118, 119.
+
+[19] _Ibid_, pp. 95, 100.
+
+[20] _Ibid_, p. 101.
+
+[21] _Ibid_, p. 330.
+
+[22] G. R. S. Mead. _Plotinus_, p. 42.
+
+[23] _Iamblichus_, p. 364, note on p. 134.
+
+[24] G. R. S. Mead. _Orpheus_, pp. 285, 286.
+
+[25] _Iamblichus_, p. 364, note on p. 134.
+
+[26] _Iamblichus_, p. 285, _et seq._
+
+[27] G. R. S. Mead. _Orpheus_, p. 59.
+
+[28] _Ibid_, p. 30.
+
+[29] _Ibid_, pp. 263, 271.
+
+[30] G. R. S. Mead. _Plotinus_, p. 20.
+
+[31] _Shvetashvataropanishat_, vi., 22.
+
+[32] _Kathopanishat_, iii., 14.
+
+[33] I. Cor. xiii. 1.
+
+[34] _Kathopanishat_, vi. 17.
+
+[35] _Mundakopanishat_, II., ii. 9.
+
+[36] _Ibid_., III., i. 3.
+
+[37] I Sam. xix. 20.
+
+[38] II. Kings ii. 2, 5.
+
+[39] Under "School."
+
+[40] Dr. Wynn Westcott. _Sepher Yetzirah_, p. 9.
+
+[41] S. Mark iv. 10, 11, 33, 34. See also S. Matt. xiii. 11, 34, 36,
+and S. Luke viii. 10.
+
+[42] S. John xvi. 12.
+
+[43] Acts i. 3.
+
+[44] _Loc. cit._ Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. I. i. 1.
+
+[45] S. Matt. vii. 6.
+
+[46] As to the Greek woman: "It is not meet to take the children's
+bread, and to cast it unto the dogs."--S. Mark vii. 27.
+
+[47] S. Luke xiii. 23, 24.
+
+[48] S. Matt. vii. 13, 14.
+
+[49] _Kathopanishat_ II. iv. 10, 11.
+
+[50] _Brihadaranyakopanishat_. IV. iv. 7.
+
+[51] Rev. vii. 9.
+
+[52] _Bahgavad Gita_, vii. 3.
+
+[53] _Ante_, p. 26.
+
+[54] It must be remembered that the Jews believed that all imperfect
+souls returned to live again on earth.
+
+[55] S. Matt. xix. 16-26.
+
+[56] S. John xvii. 3.
+
+[57] Heb. ix. 23.
+
+[58] S. John. iii. 3, 5.
+
+[59] S. Matt. iii. 11.
+
+[60] _Ibid._ xviii. 3.
+
+[61] S. John iii. 10.
+
+[62] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[63] _Ante_, p.24
+
+[64] Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus 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."
+
+[65] Another technical name in the Mysteries.
+
+[66] Eph. iii. 3, 4, 9.
+
+[67] Col i. 23, 25-28. But S. Clement, in his _Stromata_, translates
+"every man," as "the whole man." See Bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[68] Col. iv. 3.
+
+[69] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. _Stromata_,
+bk. V. ch. x. Some additional sayings of the Apostles will be found in
+the quotations from Clement, showing what meaning they bore in the
+minds of those who succeeded the apostles, and were living in the same
+atmosphere of thought.
+
+[70] I. Tim. iii. 9, 16.
+
+[71] I. Tim. i. 18.
+
+[72] _Ibid._, iv. 14.
+
+[73] _Ibid._, vi. 13.
+
+[74] _Ibid._, 20.
+
+[75] II. Tim. i. 13, 14.
+
+[76] _Ibid._, ii. 2.
+
+[77] Phil. iii. 8, 10-12, 14, 15.
+
+[78] Rev. i. 18. "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am
+alive for evermore. Amen."
+
+[79] II. Cor. v. 16.
+
+[80] Gal. iii. 27.
+
+[81] Gal. iv. 19.
+
+[82] I. Cor. iv. 15.
+
+[83] I. S. Pet. iii. 4.
+
+[84] Eph. iv. 13.
+
+[85] Col. i. 24.
+
+[86] II. Cor. iv. 10.
+
+[87] Gal. ii. 20.
+
+[88] II. Tim. iv. 6, 8.
+
+[89] Rev. iii. 12.
+
+[90] Gal. iv. 22-31.
+
+[91] I Cor. x. 1-4.
+
+[92] Eph. v. 23-32.
+
+[93] 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.
+
+[94] _Ibid. The Epistle of Polycarp_, ch. xii.
+
+[95] _Ibid. The Epistle of Barnabas_, ch. i.
+
+[96] _Ibid._ ch. x.
+
+[97] _Ibid. The Martyrdom of Ignatius,_ ch. i.
+
+[98] _Ibid. Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians_, ch. iii.
+
+[99] _Ibid._ ch. xii.
+
+[100] _Ibid. to the Trallians_, ch. v.
+
+[101] _Ibid. to the Philadelphians_, ch. ix.
+
+[102] Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria _Stromata_, bk. I. ch. i.
+
+[103] Vol. IV. _Stromata_, bk. I. ch. xxviii.
+
+[104] It appears that even in those days there were some who objected
+to any truth being taught secretly!
+
+[105] _Ibid._ bk. I, ch. i.
+
+[106] _Ibid._ bk. V., ch. iv.
+
+[107] _Ibid._ ch. v.-viii.
+
+[108] _Ibid._ ch. ix.
+
+[109] _Ibid._ bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[110] Loc. Cit. xv. 29.
+
+[111] _Ibid._ xvi. 25, 26; the version quoted differs in words, but
+not in meaning, from the English Authorised Version.
+
+[112] _Stromata_, bk. V., ch. x.
+
+[113] _Ibid._ bk. VI., ch. vii.
+
+[114] _Ibid._ bk. VII., ch. xiv.
+
+[115] _Ibid._ bk. VI., ch. xv.
+
+[116] _Ibid._ bk. VI. x.
+
+[117] _Ibid._ bk. VI. vii.
+
+[118] _Ibid._ bk. I. ch. vi.
+
+[119] _Ibid._ ch. ix.
+
+[120] _Ibid._ bk. VI. ch. x.
+
+[121] _Ibid._ bk. I. ch. xiii.
+
+[122] Vol XII. _Stromata_, bk. V. ch. iv.
+
+[123] _Ibid._ bk. VI. ch. xv.
+
+[124] Book I. of _Against Celsus_ is found in Vol. X. of the
+Ante-Nicene Library. The remaining books are in Vol. XXIII.
+
+[125] Vol. X. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. I. ch. vii.
+
+[126] _Ibid._
+
+[127] Ex. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30, and compare with Heb. viii. 5, and ix.
+25.
+
+[128] _Origen against Celsus_, bk. IV. ch. xvi.
+
+[129] _Ibid._ bk. III. ch. lix.
+
+[130] _Ibid._ ch. lxi.
+
+[131] _Ibid._ ch. lxii.
+
+[132] _Ibid._, ch. lx.
+
+[133] Vol. XXIII. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. V. ch. xxv.
+
+[134] _Ibid._ ch. xxviii.
+
+[135] _Ibid._ ch. xxix.
+
+[136] _Ibid._ ch. xx xi.
+
+[137] _Ibid._ ch. xxxii.
+
+[138] _Ibid._ ch. xlv.
+
+[139] _Ibid._ ch. xlvi.
+
+[140] _Ibid._ chs. xlvii.-liv.
+
+[141] _Ibid._ ch. lxxiv.
+
+[142] _Ibid._ bk. IV., ch. xxxix.
+
+[143] Vol. X. _Origen against Celsus_, bk. I., ch. xvii, and others.
+
+[144] _Ibid._ ch. xlii.
+
+[145] Vol. X. _De Principiis_, Preface, p. 8.
+
+[146] _Ibid._ ch. i.
+
+[147] S. John xiv. 18-20.
+
+[148] _Loc. cit._ ch. i. sec. III. p. 55.
+
+[149] _Ibid._ ch. I. Sec. III. pp. 55, 56.
+
+[150] _Ibid._ pp. 54, 55.
+
+[151] "Seems to have been" is a somewhat weak expression, after what
+is said by Clement and Origen, of which some specimens are given in
+the text.
+
+[152] _Ibid._, p. 62.
+
+[153] Article on "Mysticism."--_Encyc. Britan._
+
+[154] Article "Mysticism." _Encyclopaedia Britannica._
+
+[155] _Orpheus_, pp. 53, 54.
+
+[156] 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.
+
+[157] _The Mysteries of Magic._ Trans. by A. E. Waite, pp. 58 and 60.
+
+[158] II. S. Peter i. 5.
+
+[159] Gal. iv. 19.
+
+[160] II. Cor. v. 16.
+
+[161] S. John i. 14.
+
+[162] S. John i. 32.
+
+[163] S. Matt. iii. 17.
+
+[164] _Ibid._ iv. 17.
+
+[165] I. Tim. iii. 16.
+
+[166] S. John x. 34-36.
+
+[167] S. John xiv. 18, 19.
+
+[168] Valentinus. Trans. by G. R. S. Mead. _Pistis Sophia_, bk. i., I.
+
+[169] _Ante_, p. 72.
+
+[170] _Ibid._ 60.
+
+[171] _Ibid._ bk. ii., 218.
+
+[172] _Ibid._ 230.
+
+[173] _Ibid._ 357.
+
+[174] _Ibid._ 377.
+
+[175] Vol. II. Justin Martyr. _First Apology_, ch. liv., lxii., and
+lxvi.
+
+[176] Vol. II. Justin Martyr. _Second Apology_, ch. xiii.
+
+[177] Vol. VII. Tertullian, _On Baptism_, ch. v.
+
+[178] The student might read Plato's account of the "Cave" and its
+inhabitants, remembering that Plato was an Initiate. _Republic_, Bk.
+vii.
+
+[179] Eliphas Levi _The Mysteries of Magic_, p. 48.
+
+[180] Bonwick. _Egyptian Belief_, p. 157. Quoted in Williamson's
+_Great Law_, p. 26.
+
+[181] The festival "Natalis Solis Invicti," the birthday of the
+Invincible Sun.
+
+[182] Williamson. _The Great Law_, pp. 40-42. Those who wish to study
+this matter as one of Comparative Religion cannot do better than read
+_The Great Law_, whose author is a profoundly religious man and a
+Christian.
+
+[183] _Ibid._ pp. 36, 37.
+
+[184] _The Great Law_, p. 116.
+
+[185] _Ibid._ p. 58.
+
+[186] _Ibid._ p. 56.
+
+[187] _Ibid._ pp. 120-123.
+
+[188] See on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i. 1-5. 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, Vak, Voice, derived from the
+same source, was used among Hindus.
+
+[189] See _Ante_, pp. 124.
+
+[190] See _Ante_, pp. 93-94.
+
+[191] See _Ante_, p. 85.
+
+[192] II. Cor. iv. 18.
+
+[193] II. Cor. v. 7.
+
+[194] Heb. v. 14.
+
+[195] S. Luke xv. 16.
+
+[196] _Ibid._ xiv. 26.
+
+[197] S. Matt. v. 28.
+
+[198] Heb. xi. 27.
+
+[199] S. Matt v. 45.
+
+[200] S. Luke ix. 49, 50.
+
+[201] S. Matt xvii. 20.
+
+[202] II. Cor. vi. 8-10.
+
+[203] Col. iii. 1.
+
+[204] S. Matt. v. 8, and S. John xvii. 21.
+
+[205] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[206] S. John i. 3.
+
+[207] _The Christian Creed_, p. 29. This is a most valuable and
+fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning of the creeds.
+
+[208] _Ibid._ p. 42.
+
+[209] A name of the Holy Ghost.
+
+[210] _Ibid._ p. 43.
+
+[211] _Ante_, p. 124.
+
+[212] S. Matt. xviii. 3.
+
+[213] 2 S. Peter iii. 15, 16.
+
+[214] A. Besant. _Essay on the Atonement._
+
+[215] _Ibid._
+
+[216] _Brihadaranyakopanishat_, I. i. 1.
+
+[217] _Bhagavad Gita_, iii. 10.
+
+[218] _Brihadaranyakopanishat_, I. ii. 7.
+
+[219] _Mundakopanishat_, II. ii. 10.
+
+[220] Haug. _Essays on the Parsis_, pp. 12-14.
+
+[221] Rev. xiii. 8.
+
+[222] W. Williamson. _The Great Law_, p. 406.
+
+[223] A. Besant. _Nineteenth Century_, June, 1895, "The Atonement."
+
+[224] Heb. i. 5.
+
+[225] _Ibid._, 2.
+
+[226] C.W. Leadbeater. _The Christian Creed_, pp. 54-56.
+
+[227] _Ibid._ pp. 56, 57.
+
+[228] S. Matt. xxv. 21, 23, 31-45.
+
+[229] Is. liii. 11.
+
+[230] S. Matt. xvi. 25.
+
+[231] S. John xii. 25.
+
+[232] Heb. vii. 16.
+
+[233] _Light on the Path_, ch. 8.
+
+[234] Heb. vii. 25.
+
+[235] Heb. v. 8, 9.
+
+[236] I Tim. iii. 16.
+
+[237] Annie Besant. _Theosophical Review_, Dec., 1898, pp. 344, 345.
+
+[238] C. W. Leadbeater. _The Christian Creed_, pp. 61, 62.
+
+[239] I Cor. xv. 44.
+
+[240] I Thess. v. 23.
+
+[241] See Chapter IX., "The Trinity."
+
+[242] See _Ante_, pp. 84, 99, 100.
+
+[243] 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.
+
+[244] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[245] S. John xvii. 22, 23.
+
+[246] 2 Cor. v. 1.
+
+[247] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
+
+[248] This mistranslation was a very natural one, as the translation
+was made in the seventeenth century, and all idea of the pre-existence
+of the soul and of its evolution had long faded out of Christendom,
+save in the teachings of a few sects regarded as heretical and
+persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+[249] S. John iii. 13.
+
+[250] Heb. v. 9.
+
+[251] Rev. i. 18.
+
+[252] H. P. Blavatsky. _The Voice of the Silence_, p. 90, 5th Edition.
+
+[253] S. John. xvii. 5.
+
+[254] 1 Cor. xv. 20.
+
+[255] _Chhandogyopanishat_, VI. ii., 1.
+
+[256] Deut. vi. 4.
+
+[257] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
+
+[258] An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the Trinity, but the
+One Existence, manifested in the Three; nor is Kadmon, or Adam Kadmon,
+one Sephira, but their totality.
+
+[259] Quoted in Williamson's _The Great Law_, pp. 201, 202.
+
+[260] H. H. Milman. _The History of Christianity_, 1867, pp. 70-72.
+
+[261] _Asiatic Researches_, i. 285.
+
+[262] S. Sharpe. _Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christology_, p. 14.
+
+[263] See Williamson's _The Great Law_, p. 196.
+
+[264] _Loc. Cit._, pp. 208, 209.
+
+[265] S. John i. 3.
+
+[266] Jer. li. 15.
+
+[267] See _Ante_, pp. 179-180.
+
+[268] Athanasian Creed.
+
+[269] Rev. iv. 8.
+
+[270] S. Luke. i. 38.
+
+[271] _Ibid_, 35.
+
+[272] Book of Wisdom, viii. 1.
+
+[273] Vol. IV. Ante-Nicene Library. S. Clement of Alexandria.
+_Stromata_, bk. V., ch. ii.
+
+[274] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[275] See _Ante_, p. 207.
+
+[276] Gen. i. 1.
+
+[277] Job xxxviii. 4; Zech. xii. 1; &c.
+
+[278] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[279] Gen. i. 2.
+
+[280] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[281] See _Ante_, p. 262.
+
+[282] S. John i. 3.
+
+[283] _Bhagavad Gita_ ix. 4.
+
+[284] 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28.
+
+[285] S. John xiv. 6. See also the further meaning of this text on p.
+272.
+
+[286] Heb. xii. 9.
+
+[287] Numb. xvi. 22.
+
+[288] Gen. i. 26.
+
+[289] S. Matt. v. 48.
+
+[290] S. John xvii. 5.
+
+[291] S. John v. 26.
+
+[292] S. Matt. i. 22.
+
+[293] Heb. ii. 18.
+
+[294] Much of this chapter has already appeared in an earlier work by
+the author, entitled, _Some Problems of Life_.
+
+[295] S. James i. 17.
+
+[296] Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.
+
+[297] See Chapter xii.
+
+[298] Heb. i. 14.
+
+[299] S. Matt. x. 29.
+
+[300] Acts xvii. 28.
+
+[301] T. H. Huxley. _Essays on some Controverted Questions_, p. 36.
+
+[302] S. Luke xxii. 41, 43.
+
+[303] S. John i. 11.
+
+[304] Rev. iii. 20.
+
+[305] H. P. Blavatsky. _Key to Theosophy_, p. 10.
+
+[306] Is. xxxiii. 17.
+
+[307] _On the Mysteries_, sec. v. ch. 26.
+
+[308] Ps. xl. 7, 8, Prayer Book version.
+
+[309] S. Luke, v. 18-26.
+
+[310] _Ibid._ vii. 47.
+
+[311] G. R. S. Mead, translated. _Loc. cit._, bk. ii., chapters 260, 261.
+
+[312] _Ibid._ chapters 299, 300.
+
+[313] S. Matt. xii. 36.
+
+[314] _Ibid._ ix. 2.
+
+[315] _Loc. cit._ iii. 9.
+
+[316] _Ibid._ vi. 43.
+
+[317] _Ibid._ ix. 30.
+
+[318] See _ante_, Chap. VIII.
+
+[319] 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.
+
+[320] S. Luke, vii. 48, 50.
+
+[321] _Loc. cit._, ix. 31.
+
+[322] S. Matt. vii. 1.
+
+[323] _Loc. cit._, bk. ii. ch. 305.
+
+[324] Rev. iii. 20.
+
+[325] G. Bruno, trans. by L. Williams. _The Heroic Enthusiasts_, vol.
+i., p. 133.
+
+[326] _Ibid._, vol. ii., pp. 27, 28.
+
+[327] _Ibid._, pp. 102, 103.
+
+[328] Rev. iv. 5.
+
+[329] 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. 264.
+
+[330] Job xxxviii. 7.
+
+[331] See on forms created by musical notes any scientific book on
+Sound, and also Mrs. Watts-Hughes' illustrated book on _Voice
+Figures_.
+
+[332] See _ante_, p. 138 and p. 302.
+
+[333] 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.
+
+[334] See _ante_ p. 329.
+
+[335] _Christian Records_, p. 129.
+
+[336] _The Great Law_, pp. 161-166.
+
+[337] See _ante_, p. 151.
+
+[338] _Diegesis_, p. 219.
+
+[339] 1 Pet. iii. 4.
+
+[340] 2 Kings vi. 17.
+
+[341] 1 Cor. x. 16.
+
+[342] Jer. xliv.
+
+[343] Gen. xiv. 18, 19.
+
+[344] _The Great Law_, pp. 177-181, 185.
+
+[345] Lev. xvii. 11.
+
+[346] Rom. xii. 1.
+
+[347] Isaiah liv. 5; lxii. 5.
+
+[348] Eph. v. 23-32.
+
+[349] Athanasian Creed.
+
+[350] 2 Pet. i. 20.
+
+[351] 1 See _ante_, p. 102.
+
+[352] 2 Cor. iii. 6.
+
+[353] 1 Cor. ii. 11, 13.
+
+[354] Is. vi. 6, 7.
+
+[355] S. John v. 4.
+
+
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