The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the n

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of t

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 3:32 am

CHAPTER V. THE RECAPITULATION.

The first compendious statement of the doctrine which it was intended to restore, was given to us at Paris in the summer of 1878, in the form of an exposition of the principles of Biblical interpretation, under the following circumstances.

We had been following our respective tasks[65] for several months without any open or special illumination, and I had written enough to make a considerable volume in exposition of the principles which appeared to me to be those on which, in order to be a book of the soul, the Bible ought to be constructed, and by which, therefore, it must be interpreted. It was not intended for publication, but as an exercise for myself, being purely tentative; though I was conscious of being aided by the occasional suggestion of ideas which served as points of light and guidance. Meanwhile, I was entirely without help from books; for, besides being desirous of evolving the whole from my own consciousness, as in the case of the demonstration of any mathematical problem, I was not aware of any books which would help me; the little I knew of Swedenborg at this time—who was the only writer known to me as a worker in a similar direc[143]tion—having failed to make much impression on me. I could accept his general principles, but not his particular applications of them. I felt also that the sources of the knowledges vouchsafed to us, far transcended those to which Swedenborg had access. And I accounted for the length of the interval which had elapsed without any larger measure of light being vouchsafed, by supposing that it was intended for me to exhaust my own resources first.

The time had come when these were exhausted, and I was reduced to the conviction that if the work was to be carried any further, assistance must be rendered, whether for confirmation, for correction, or for extension. And on retiring to rest one night[66], painfully oppressed by the sense of my own lack, and the prolonged absence of the needed light, I stood at the open window, and in presence of a sky resplendent with stars mentally addressed to those whom we were wont to speak of as the Gods, and of whose presence I seemed to be dimly conscious, a strong expression of my need, declaring my utter inability to advance another step unassisted. Having done which I went to bed, but in a mood the reverse of sanguine; so many were the months for which they had been silent.

In the course of the following day, "Mary"—who knew nothing either of my need or of my adjuration of the preceding night, and could not of herself have helped me—found herself under an access of exaltation of faculty which she described as resembling what might be produced by a [144]draught of spiritual champagne. For she felt herself at her very best, having all her knowledge at her finger-ends. The expression recurred to my mind some time afterwards on our receiving an explanation of the "New Wine of Dionysos" in the ancient mysteries. In this state she went down to the schools, where an examination in her subjects was being held, in order to see how the candidates comported themselves, and to compare them with herself; for it was an oral examination. From this she returned home in high delight, declaring that she could have answered every question asked, and far better than any of the students had done. I hoped that her state might be an indication of the renewal of her illuminations. But the events of the evening put all thoughts in this direction entirely out of my mind. For, as if poisoned by the atmosphere of the schools, she was seized with an attack of sickness so intense and prolonged as seriously to endanger her life through the exhaustion induced. And it was a late hour—past midnight—before she could be left alone.

Nevertheless she was up betimes in the morning, and on our meeting handed me a paper which she had written in pencil on waking, saying it was something she had read in her sleep, and asking if it was anything that I wanted, as she had written it down so rapidly that she scarcely observed what it was about, and she had not had time to read it over and think about it. Having read it, I found that it met my every difficulty, and shed on the Bible a light which rendered it luminous from beginning to end, disclosing it as pervaded by a system of thought which, when once seen, was as obvious as it had previously been unsuspected.

And while it confirmed me in respect of principles and method, it corrected both of us in respect of sundry particulars. It even referred directly to one of my tentative hypotheses, at once negativing it and giving another altogether satisfactory. This was my supposition of Adam and Eve as possibly denoting spirit and matter. The following is the writing:—

"If, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to have a mystic consideration. But the fault of most writers lieth in this,—that they distinguish not between the books of Moses the prophet, and those books which are of an historical nature. And this is the more surprising because not a few of such critics have rightly discerned the esoteric character, if not indeed the true interpretation, of the story of Eden; yet have they not applied to the remainder of the allegory the same method which they found to fit the beginning; but so soon as they are over the earlier stanzas of the poem, they would have the rest of it to be of another nature.

"It is, then, pretty well established and accepted of most authors, that the legend of Adam and Eve, and of the miraculous tree and the fruit which was the occasion of death, is, like the story of Eros and Psyche, and so many others of all religions, a parable with a hidden, that is, with a mystic meaning. But so also is the legend which follows concerning the sons of these mystical parents, the story of Cain and Abel his brother, the story of the Flood, of the Ark, of the saving of the clean and unclean beasts, of the rainbow, of the twelve sons of Jacob, and, not stopping there, of the whole relation concerning the flight out of Egypt. For it is not to be supposed that the two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of Adam, were real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed that the apple which caused the doom of mankind, was a real apple. It ought to be known, indeed, for the right understanding of the mystical books, that in their esoteric [146]sense they deal, not with material things, but with spiritual realities; and that as Adam is not a man, nor Eve a woman, nor the tree a plant in its true signification, so also are not the beasts named in the same books real beasts, but that the mystic intention of them is implied. When, therefore, it is written that Abel took of the firstlings of his flock to offer unto the Lord, it is signified that he offered that which a lamb implies, and which is the holiest and highest of spiritual gifts. Nor is Abel himself a real person, but the type and spiritual presentation of the race of the prophets; of whom, also, Moses was a member, together with the Patriarchs. Were the prophets, then, shedders of blood? God forbid; they dwelt not with things material, but with spiritual significations. Their lambs without spot, their white doves, their goats, their rams, and other sacred creatures, are so many signs and symbols of the various graces and gifts which a mystic people should offer to Heaven. Without such sacrifices is no remission of sin. But when the mystic sense was lost, then carnage followed, the prophets ceased out of the land, and the priests bore rule over the people. Then, when again the voice of the prophets arose, they were constrained to speak plainly, and declared in a tongue foreign to their method, that the sacrifices of God are not the flesh of bulls or the blood of goats, but holy vows and sacred thanksgivings, their mystical counterparts. As God is a spirit, so also are His sacrifices spiritual. What folly, what ignorance, to offer material flesh and drink to pure power and essential being! Surely in vain have the prophets spoken, and in vain have the Christs been manifested!

"Why will you have Adam to be spirit, and Eve matter, since the mystic books deal only with spiritual entities? The tempter himself even is not matter, but that which gives matter the precedence. Adam is, rather, intellectual force: he is of earth. Eve is the moral conscience: she is the mother of the living. Intellect, then, is the male, and Intuition the female principle. And the sons of Intuition, [147]herself fallen, shall at last recover Truth, and redeem all things. By her fault, indeed, is the moral conscience of humanity made subject to the intellectual force, and thereby all manner of evil and confusion abounds, since her desire is unto him, and he rules over her until now. But the end foretold by the seer is not far off. Then shall the Woman be exalted, clothed with the Sun, and carried to the throne of God. And her sons shall make war with the dragon, and have victory over him. Intuition, therefore, pure and a virgin, shall be the mother and redemptress of her fallen sons, whom she bore under bondage to her husband the intellectual force."


This marvellously luminous exposition, she then told me, had been read by her in a book she had found in a library which she had visited in sleep, the owner of which was a courtly old gentleman in the costume of the last century. The leaves of the book were of silver and reflected her back to herself as she read. I took this as symbolising the Intuition. The event proved that her host was no other than Swedenborg, and that—as her Genius informed us—she had been enabled, "under the magnetism of Swedenborg's presence, to recover a memory of no small value," thus confirming my surmise about its intuitional character. The event proved also that it was Swedenborg's doctrine, but without his limitations. We ardently desired a continuation of it, and on the next night but one, she received the following addition to it:—

"Moses, therefore, knowing the mysteries of the religion of the Egyptians, and having learned of their occultists the value and signification of all sacred birds and beasts, delivered like mysteries to his own people. But certain of the sacred animals of Egypt he retained not in honour, for motives which were equally of mystic origin. [148]And he taught his initiated the spirit of the heavenly hieroglyphs, and bade them, when they made festival before God, to carry with them in procession, with music and with dancing, such of the sacred animals as were, by their interior significance, related to the occasion. Now, of these beasts, he chiefly selected males of the first year, without spot or blemish, to signify that it is beyond all things needful that man should dedicate to the Lord his intellect and his reason, and this from the beginning, and without the least reserve. And that he was very wise in teaching this, is evident from the history of the world in all ages, and particularly in these last days. For what is it that has led men to renounce the realities of the spirit, and to propagate false theories and corrupt sciences, denying all things save the appearance which can be apprehended by the outer senses, and making themselves one with the dust of the ground? It is their intellect which, being unsanctified, has led them astray; it is the force of the mind in them, which, being corrupt, is the cause of their own ruin, and of that of their disciples. As, then, the intellect is apt to be the great traitor against heaven, so also is it the force by which men, following their pure intuition, may also grasp and apprehend the truth. For which reason it is written that the Christs are subject to their mothers. Not that by any means the intellect is to be dishonoured; for it is the heir of all things, if only it be truly begotten and be no bastard.

"And besides all these symbols, Moses taught the people to have beyond all things an abhorrence of idolatry. What, then, is idolatry, and what are false gods?

"To make an idol is to materialise spiritual mysteries. The priests, then, were idolaters, who coming after Moses, and committing to writing those things which he by word of mouth had delivered unto Israel, replaced the true things signified, by their material symbols, and shed innocent blood on the pure altars of the Lord.

"They also are idolaters who understand the things of sense where the things of the spirit are alone implied, and [149]who conceal the true features of the Gods with material and spurious presentations. Idolatry is materialism, the common and original sin of men, which replaces spirit by appearance, substance by illusion, and leads both the moral and intellectual being into error, so that they substitute the nether for the upper, and the depth for the height. It is that false fruit which attracts the outer senses, the bait of the serpent in the beginning of the world. Until the mystic man and woman had eaten of this fruit, they knew only the things of the spirit, and found them suffice. But after their fall, they began to apprehend matter also, and gave it the preference, making themselves idolaters. And their sin, and the taint begotten of that false fruit, have corrupted the blood of the whole race of men, from which corruption the sons of God would have redeemed them."


She had received this, also in sleep, as one of a class of neophytes seated in an ancient amphitheatre of white stone, and listening to a lecture delivered by a man in priestly garb, of which they took notes the while. She complained that her notes had disappeared on waking, thus preventing her from rendering what she had heard as perfectly as she could have wished; for she had trusted to her notes for it.

The more we pondered these communications, the higher was our appreciation of them. We felt that the "veil of Moses" was at length "taken away" as promised, and we had been enabled to tap a reservoir of boundless wisdom and knowledge. For we found in them the longed-for solution of the purpose and nature of the Bible and Christianity, and the key to man's spiritual history. The method of the Bible-writers, the meaning of idolatry, the secret of the Cain and Abel feud between priest and prophet, as the[150] ministers respectively of the sense-nature and of the intuition, and the process whereby the religion of Jesus had become distorted into the orthodoxy which has usurped His name;—all these things were now clear to us as the demonstration of a proposition in geometry, the witness of which was in our own minds. And we, too, we rejoiced to think, were of the school of the prophets, in that with all the force of our minds we had "exalted the Woman," Intuition, and refused to make the word of God of none effect by priestly traditions.

Not the least marvellous element in the case was the faculty whereby the seeress had been able to reproduce, after waking, with such evident faithfulness the things seen and heard at so great length in sleep. In reply to my questionings she said that the words seemed to show themselves to her again as she wrote[67].

Discoursing with her Genius on this subject of memory, she received the following, which is valuable also for its recognition of the mystical import of the Bible narratives, and confirmation of St Paul when he says in reference to certain narratives in Genesis, "These things are an allegory."

"Concerning memory; why should there any more be a difficulty in respect of it? Reflect on this saying,—'Man sees as he knows.' To thee the deeps are more visible than the surfaces of things; but to men generally the surfaces only are visible. The material can perceive only the [151]material, the astral the astral, and the spiritual the spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a question of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but slight, and thine organic memory is feeble and treacherous. It is hard for thee to perceive the surfaces of things and to remember their aspect. But thy spiritual perception is the stronger for this weakness, and the profound is that which thou seest the most readily. It is hard for thee to understand and to retain the memory of material facts; but their meaning thou knowest instantly and by intuition, which is the memory of the soul. For the soul takes no pains to remember; she knows divinely. Is it not said that the immaculate woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow and travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto 'Adam'"[68].


The following sentences sum up the conclusions to which, by degrees, we were led. The first two paragraphs are from an exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate Conception which we considered as one of the most sublime and momentous of all her illuminations[69].

"All that is true is spiritual.... No dogma is real that is not spiritual. If it be true, and yet seem to you to have a material signification, know that you have not solved it. It is a mystery; seek its interpretation. That which is true is for Spirit alone.

"For matter shall cease and all that is of it, but the Word of the Lord shall remain for ever. [152]And how shall it remain except it be purely spiritual; since, when matter ceases, it would then be no longer comprehensible?"

"For, though matter is eternally the mode whereby spirit manifests itself, matter is not itself eternal."

"The church has all the truth, but the priests have materialised it, making religion idolatry, and themselves and their people idolaters."

"In their real and divinely intended sense, its doctrines are eternal verities, founded in the nature of Being. As ecclesiastically propounded, they are blasphemous absurdities."

"All the mistakes made about the Bible arise out of the mystic books being referred to times, places, and persons material, instead of being regarded as containing only eternal verities about things spiritual."

"The Bible was written by intuitionalists, for intuitionalists, and from the intuitionalist standpoint. It has been interpreted by externalists, for externalists, and from the externalist standpoint. The most occult and mystical of books, it has been expounded by persons without occult knowledge or mystical insight"[70].

Thus gradually but surely we learnt that Ecclesiastical education has rigidly excluded from its curriculum all those branches of study which could throw light on the real nature of existence, [153]and consists in learning what other men have said who, themselves, did not know, but were mere hearsay scholars lacking the witness in themselves.

We marvelled much as to how the priesthoods will comport themselves when compelled to recognise the fact that a New Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed from the world celestial in correction of their perversion and mutilation of the former Gospel of Manifestation, and suppression of the true doctrine of salvation. Will Cain and Caiaphas still have the dominion, and ecclesiasticism be as ready to crucify the Christ on His second coming as it was on His first? And if not, how will it find courage to face the world with the humiliating confession that all through the long ages of its history, while arrogantly claiming to be the faithful and infallible minister of the Gospel of Christ, it has persistently withheld that gospel, and, losing the key to its meaning, has substituted for the wholesome "bread" of divine truth, the "stones" of innutritious because unintelligible dogmas; and for the "fish" of the living waters, the "serpents" of the letter which kills? and that when men have rightly suspected that Christianity has failed, not because it is false, but because it has been falsified, and have sought to their own inner light for the truth of which ecclesiasticism had defrauded them, it dealt out to them pitiless anathema and persecution, making the earth a scene of torture and slaughter in assertion of the right of the priesthoods to teach wrong?

That the work committed to us implied nothing less than the fulfilment of the prophecies of which the promise of the Second Coming of Christ was the culmination, while intimated to us from the[154] outset, was gradually unfolded into full assurance, and we were enabled to see that the very terms in which it was couched implied a spiritual advent, and one which should disclose the perfect system at once of science, philosophy, morality, and religion, of which Christ is both the foundation and the consummation. For the "clouds of heaven" in which it was to take place, were no other than the heaven of the kingdom within man of his restored spiritual consciousness. "That wicked one," "the son of perdition," and "mystery of iniquity" then to be revealed and destroyed, was no other than the inspiring evil spirit of an ecclesiasticism which had received indeed its doctrines from above, but their interpretation and application from below. And the "Spirit of His mouth," and the "Brightness of His Coming" were no other than a new Word of God, in the form of a New Gospel of Interpretation, so potent in its logic and so luminous in its exposition as to indicate the Logos Himself as its source, and the "Woman" Intuition, "clothed with the Sun" of full illumination, as its revealer.

We saw, too, that with this "Woman" thus rehabilitated, God's "Two Witnesses,"—who have so long lain dead in the streets of "that great city" wherein the Lord, the divinity in man, is ever systematically crucified; the city of the world's system as fashioned and controlled by an ecclesiasticism shrouded in the threefold veil of Blood, Idolatry, and the Curse of Eve,—will rise and stand on their feet, and ascend to the heaven of their proper supremacy, vice Lucifer deposed and fallen. And in them Lucifer himself will regain his lost estate, vindicating his title to be called the[155] Light-bearer, the bright and morning star, the herald and bringer-in of the perfect day of the Lord God. For, as the Intellect, he is the heir of all things, if only he be begotten of the Spirit, and be no bastard engendered of the Sense-Nature.

For—as we had come to learn—God's Two Witnesses in man are ever the Intellect and the Intuition, when duly unfolded and united in a pure spirit. Under such conditions the Shiloh comes, and mounted on them man rides triumphant as king into the holy city of his own regenerate nature. But divorced from her, the Intuition, and—leagued with the Sense-Nature—knowing matter only and the body, the Intellect becomes "prince of devils" in man, the maker of men into fiends, and of the earth into a hell. Wherefore his fall from the heaven of his power, on the advent of that whole Humanity, of whom it is said, "the Man is not without the Woman, nor the Woman without the Man, in the Lord," the humanity of intellect and intuition combined, has ever been exultingly hailed in anticipation by all true seers and prophets.

The chief points of the doctrine, the prospect of the restoration of which has thus been the sustaining hope of the percipient faithful in all ages, may be summarised as follows:—

The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the purpose of the Bible to affirm, and of the Christ to demonstrate, and in which reason entirely concurs, is no other than that of the divine potentialities of man, belonging to him in virtue of the nature of his constituent principles, the force and the substance of existence. These are the duality of the "heavens" which God is said to "create,"[156] meaning to put forth from Himself, "in the beginning," and of the mutual interaction of which all things are the product, varying according to the plane of operation, alike for creation and redemption, generation and regeneration. And that which Jesus really affirmed in the memorable but little understood words, "Ye must be born again, or from above, of Water and the Spirit," was both the possibility and the necessity to all men of realising the potential divinity belonging to them in virtue of the divinity of their constituent principles. And in affirming this He affirmed both the necessity and the possibility to every man of being born exactly as He Himself, as typical man regenerate, is said to have been born, of Virgin Mary and Holy Ghost, and also His own identity in kind with all other men. And He affirmed, moreover, the utter falsity of that priest-constructed system, which, ignoring Regeneration, insists on Substitution, as the means of salvation. For "Virgin Mary," and "Holy Ghost," are but the mystical synonyms with "Water and the Spirit," the substance and force, or soul and spirit, of which, man is constituted, in their divine because pure condition, the product of which in man is the new regenerate selfhood called, as by St Paul, the "Christ within." Begotten in man as matrix, of the pure Spirit and Substance which are God, this new selfhood is son at once of God and of man; and in him God and man are "reconciled" or "at-oned." And that man is said to be saved by his blood, is because the "blood of God" is pure spirit, and it is the pure spirit in the man that saves him; and that he is called the only-begotten[157] Son of God, is not because God begets no other of his kind, but because God, as God, begets directly none of any other kind.

This, then, as we came to learn, and to recognise as having learned it in our own long-past lives, is the doctrine which Jesus came to teach and to demonstrate in His own person. Matter is spirit, being spiritual substance, projected by force of the divine Will into conditions and limitations, and made exteriorly cognisable. And being spirit it can revert to the condition of spirit. In virtue of the divinity of his constituent principles, man has within himself the seed of his own regeneration, and the power to effectuate it. He has in him, this is to say, the potentiality of divinity realisable at will. And the secret and method of the achievement, which is no other than the secret and method of Christ, is inward purification and unfoldment, the unfoldment of the capacities, mental, moral, and spiritual, of his nature, of which inward purification is the first and essential condition. Thus is the Finding of Christ the realisation of the Ideal, and Christ is for every man the summit of his own evolution.

Stated in terms of modern science, but correcting its aberrations, the doctrine of Christ is in this wise. Evolution is the manifestation of inherency. Owing to the divinity of the constituent principles of existence, its Force and its Substance, both of which are God, the inherency of existence is divine. Wherefore, as the manifestation of a divine inherency, evolution is accomplished only by the attainment of divinity; and the cause of evolution is the tendency of substance to revert from its secondary and "created" condition of[158] matter, to its original and divine condition of pure spirit. Wherefore evolution is definable as the process of the individuation of Deity in and through Humanity.

Such is the genesis of the Christ in man. And he is called a Christ who, having accomplished this process in himself, returns into the earth-life when he has no need to do so for his own sake, out of pure love to redeem, by showing to others their own equal divine potentialities and the method of the realisation thereof.

This method consists in love, love of perfection, which is God, for its own sake, and love for others. The process is entirely interior to the individual. It consists in the sacrifice of the lower nature to the higher in himself, and of himself for others in love. That which directly saves the man is not the love of another for the man, but the love which he has in himself. All that can be done by another is to kindle this love in him.

The philosophy of this doctrine of salvation by love was formulated for us as follows:—"It is love which is the centripetal power of the universe; it is by love that all creation returns into the bosom of God. The force which projected all things is will, and will is the centrifugal power of the universe. Will alone could not overcome the evil which results from the limitations of matter; but it shall be overcome in the end by sympathy, which is the knowledge of God in others,—the recognition of the omnipresent Self. This is love.[159] And it is with the children of the spirit, the servants of love, that the dragon of matter makes war"[71].

In making the means of salvation extraneous to the individual, Sacerdotalism has defrauded man of his Saviour, making the first and personal coming of Christ of none effect. Hence the necessity for the second and spiritual coming represented by the New Gospel of Interpretation as was foretold:—the coming which was to be in the clouds of the heaven of man's restored understanding; the Hermes within.

But the process of regeneration is a prolonged one, extending over many earth-lives; and so also is the prior process of evolution, whereby man reaches the stage at which he is amenable to regeneration. Wherefore regeneration has for its corollary reincarnation. To tell man that he "must be born again" spiritually, and deny him the requisite opportunities of experience, which must be acquired while in the body—seeing that regeneration is from out of the body—would be to mock him.

This doctrine of a multiplicity of earth-lives is implicit and sometimes explicit in the Bible. The notion that the Hebrews had no belief in a future state because of the failure of commentators to discover it in their Scriptures, is altogether futile. The permanence of the Ego was a matter of course with them, saving only the Sadducees. And the Bible contemplates the persistence of the individual soul through all the manifold stages of its [160]evolution, from the "Adam" stage to the "Christ" stage, saying, as by St Paul, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." But the Christ insisted on by him was not He Who is "after the flesh," not the man Jesus, who was but the vehicle of the Christ, but the Christ within both Jesus and all other regenerate men. For, as a highly illuminated follower of the Gnosis, St Paul was one who "after the way which" his orthodox accusers "called heresy, worshipped the God of his fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and are written in the prophets." Rejecting the doctrine of regeneration, and with it that of reincarnation, in favour of substitution, the orthodoxy which claims to be Christianity has practically rejected both the doctrine of St Paul and that of Jesus as declared to Nicodemus. And, as St Paul implies, the "mystery of iniquity" was working even already in his days to annul the gospel of Christ by substituting Jesus as the object of worship, and His physical blood-shedding as the means of salvation. And Christendom, yielding to sacerdotal dictation, has to this day accepted a doctrine which at once dishonours God and robs men of their equal divine potentialities with Jesus, thus preferring Barabbas. Professing to rest its faith on the Bible, it has accepted the presentation of religion which the Bible persistently condemns, that of the priests, and rejected that on which the Bible emphatically insists, that of the prophets. That St Paul employed sacerdotal modes of expression was in order to spiritualise them. He was a mystic of mystics.

Nevertheless the dogmas of the Church contain the truth, but this is not as the Church has pro[161]pounded them. And—to cite two crucial instances—so far from the Church's supreme dogmas, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, having any personal or physical reference, they are prophecies of the method of redemption for every individual soul. For, as the New Gospel of Interpretation explicitly declares, restoring the Gnosis persistently rejected by the builders of the orthodoxies,

The Immaculate Conception is none other than the prophecy of the means whereby the universe shall at last be redeemed. Maria—the sea of limitless space—Maria the Virgin, born herself immaculate and without spot, of the womb of the ages, shall in the fulness of time bring forth the perfect man, who shall redeem the race. He is not one man, but ten thousand times ten thousand, the Son of Man, who shall overcome the limitations of matter, and the evil which is the result of the materialisation of spirit[72].

By the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary we are secretly enlightened concerning the generation of the soul, who is begotten in the womb of matter, and yet from the first instant of her being is pure and incorrupt.... As the Immaculate Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the Assumption their crown.

For the entire object and end of kosmic evolution is precisely this triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the mystery presented by this dogma, we behold the consummation of the whole scheme of creation—the perpetuation and glorification of the individual human ego. The grave—the material and astral consciousness, cannot retain the immaculate Mother of God. She rises into the heavens; she assumes divinity.... From end to end the mystery [162]of the soul's evolution—the history, that is, of humanity and of the kosmic drama—is contained and enacted in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The acts and the glories of Mary are the one supreme subject of the holy mysteries[73].

"Allegory of stupendous significance!" exclaimed the seeress's illuminator when imparting to her the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. "Allegory of stupendous significance! with which the Church of God has so long been familiar, but which yet never penetrated its understanding, like the holy fire which enveloped the sacred Bush, but which nevertheless the Bush withstood and resisted[72]."


That such failure has been the rule and not the exception is the plea for the New Gospel of Interpretation. For lack of comprehension of its own symbols the Church has fallen into the disastrous errors of mistaking the man Jesus for the Christ within every man, and Mary the mother of Jesus for Virgin Mary the mother of that Christ, committing in both instances idolatry by preferring the form to the substance, persons to principles, and blinding men to the essential truth implied.
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Re: The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of t

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 3:40 am

CHAPTER VI. THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

This chapter will be devoted to some examples of the recovered Gnosis, bearing chiefly upon the supreme doctrine of Regeneration. As with all else received by the Seeress, they are the product of intuitional memory regained under divine illumination occurring mostly in sleep. And here I will take occasion to state explicitly and positively, that the states, whether of sleep or of trance, in which her faculty was exercised, were all natural and spontaneous, being induced by the Spirit itself; and that in no case were artificial means employed by either of us, whether drugs, mesmerism, hypnotism, crystal-gazing, or any other of the devices ordinarily used to induce abnormal states of consciousness or promote enhancement of faculty. Our work was to be a real work, done not only by us but in us, and we had from the first a profound instinctive distrust of results obtained by such artificial stimulation.

Nor was any change even of a word ever made in the teachings received. They came one and all in the finished perfection in which they are put forth, coming down as the holy city from the heaven of the upper and the within, and incapable of improvement. The following are the examples proposed:—

(1) Concerning Holy Writ.

All Scriptures which are the true Word of God, have a dual interpretation, the intellectual and the intuitional, the apparent and the hidden.

For nothing can come forth from God save that which is fruitful.

As is the nature of God, so is the Word of God's mouth.

The letter alone is barren; the spirit and the letter give life.

But that Scripture is the more excellent, which is exceeding fruitful and brings forth abundant signification.

For God is able to say many things in one, as the perfect ovary contains many seeds in its chalice.

Therefore there are in the Scriptures of God's Word certain writings which, as richly yielding trees, bear more abundantly than others in the self-same holy garden.

And one of the most excellent is the history of the generation of the heavens and the earth.

For therein is contained in order a genealogy, which has four heads, as a stream divided into four branches, a word exceeding rich.

And the first of these generations is that of the Gods.

The second is that of the kingdom of heaven.

The third is that of the visible world.

And the fourth is that of the Church of Christ.


(2) Concerning the Mystery of Redemption.

All things in heaven and in earth are of God, both the invisible and the visible.

Such as is the invisible, is the visible also, for there is no boundary line betwixt spirit and matter.

Matter is spirit made exteriorly cognisable by the force of the Divine Word.

And when God shall resume all things by love, the material shall be resolved into the spiritual, and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth.

Not that matter shall be destroyed, for it came forth from God, and is of God indestructible and eternal.

But it shall be indrawn and resolved into its true self.

[165]

It shall put off corruption, and remain incorruptible.

It shall put off mortality, and remain immortal.

So that nothing be lost of the Divine substance.

It was material entity: it shall be spiritual entity.

For there is nothing which can go out from the presence of God.

This is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: that is, the transfiguration of the body.

For the body, which is matter, is but the manifestation of spirit: and the Word of God shall transmute it into its inner being.

The will of God is the alchemic crucible: and the dross which is cast therein is matter.

And the dross shall become pure gold, seven times refined; even perfect spirit.

It shall leave behind it nothing: but shall be transformed into the Divine image.

For it is not a new substance: but its alchemic polarity is changed, and it is converted.

But except it were gold in its true nature, it could not be resumed into the aspect of gold.

And except matter were spirit, it could not revert to spirit.

To make gold, the alchemist must have gold.

But he knows that to be gold which others take to be dross.

Cast thyself into the will of God, and thou shalt become as God.

For thou art God, if thy will be the Divine Will.

This is the great secret: it is the mystery of Redemption.


(3) Concerning Sin and Death.

As is the outer so is the inner: He that worketh is One.

As the small is, so is the great: there is one law.

Nothing is small and nothing is great in the Divine Economy.

If thou wouldst understand the method of the world's corruption, and the condition to which sin hath reduced the work of God,

Meditate upon the aspect of a corpse; and consider the method of the putrefaction of its tissues and humours.

For the secret of death is the same, whether of the outer or of the inner.

The body dieth when the central will of its system no longer bindeth in obedience the elements of its substance.

Every cell is a living entity, whether of vegetable or of animal potency.

In the healthy body every cell is polarised in subjection to the central will, the Adonai of the physical system.

Health, therefore, is order, obedience, and government.

But wherever disease is, there is disunion, rebellion, and insubordination.

And the deeper the seat of the confusion, the more dangerous the malady, and the harder to quell it.

That which is superficial may be more easily healed; or, if need be, the disorderly elements may be rooted out, and the body shall be whole and at unity again.

But if the disobedient molecules corrupt each other continually, and the perversity spread, and the rebellious tracts multiply their elements; the whole body shall fall into dissolution, which is death.

For the central will that should dominate all the kingdom of the body, is no longer obeyed; and every element is become its own ruler, and hath a divergent will of its own.

So that the poles of the cells incline in divers directions; and the binding power which is the life of the body, is dissolved and destroyed.

And when dissolution is complete, then follow corruption and putrefaction.

Now, that which is true of the physical, is true likewise of its prototype.

The whole world is full of revolt; and every element hath a will divergent from God.

Whereas there ought to be but one will, attracting and ruling the whole man.

But there is no longer Brotherhood among you; nor order, nor mutual sustenance.

Every cell is its own arbiter; and every member is become a sect.

Ye are not bound one to another: ye have confounded your offices, and abandoned your functions.

Ye have reversed the direction of your magnetic currents: ye are fallen into confusion, and have given place to the spirit of misrule.

Your wills are many and diverse; and every one of you is an anarchy.

A house that is divided against itself, falleth.

O wretched man; who shall deliver you from this body of Death?


(4) Concerning the Twelve Gates of Regeneration.

Now, the Kingdom of God is within us; that is, it is interior, invisible, mystic, spiritual.

There is a power by means of which the Outer may be absorbed into the Inner.

There is a power by means of which Matter may be ingested into its original Substance.

He who possesses this power is Christ, and He has the devil under foot.

For He reduces chaos to order, and indraws the external to the centre.

He has learnt that Matter is illusion, and that Spirit alone is real.

He has found His own Central Point; and all power is given unto Him in heaven and on earth.

Now, the Central Point is the number Thirteen: it is the number of the Marriage of the Son of God.

And all the members of the microcosm are bidden to the banquet of the marriage.

But if there chance to be even one among them which has not on a wedding garment,

Such a one is a Traitor, and the microcosm is found divided against itself.

And that it may be wholly regenerate, it is necessary that Judas be cast out.

Now the members of the microcosm are Twelve: of the Senses three, of the Mind three, of the Heart three, and of the Conscience three.

For of the Body there are four elements; and the sign of the four is Sense, in the which are three Gates,

The gate of the Eye, the gate of the Ear, and the gate of the Touch[74].

Renounce vanity, and be poor: renounce praise, and be humble: renounce luxury, and be chaste.

Offer unto God a pure oblation: let the fire of the altar search thee, and prove thy fortitude.

Cleanse thy sight, thine hands, and thy feet: carry the censer of thy worship into the courts of the Lord; and let thy vows be unto the Most High.

And for the magnetic man[75] there are four elements: and the covering of the four is mind, in the which are three gates;

The gate of desire, the gate of labour, and the gate of illumination.

Renounce the world, and aspire heavenward: labour not for the meat which perishes, but ask of God thy daily bread: beware of wandering doctrines, and let the Word of the Lord be thy light.

Also of the soul there are four elements: and the seat of the four is the heart, whereof likewise there are three gates;

The gate of obedience, the gate of prayer, and the gate of discernment.

Renounce thine own will, and let the law of God only be within thee: renounce doubt: pray always and faint not: be pure of heart also, and thou shalt see God.

And within the soul is the Spirit: and the Spirit is One, yet has it likewise three elements.

And these are the gates of the oracle of God, which is the ark of the covenant;

The rod, the host[76], and the law:

The force which solves, and transmutes, and divines: the bread of heaven which is the substance of all things and the food of angels; the table of the law, which is the will of God, written with the finger of the Lord.

If these three be within thy spirit, then shall the Spirit of God be within thee.

And the glory shall be upon the propitiatory, in the holy place of thy prayer.

These are the twelve gates of regeneration: through which if a man enter he shall have right to the tree of life.

For the number of that Tree is Thirteen.

It may happen to a man to have three, to another five, to another seven, to another ten.

But until a man have twelve, he is not master over the last enemy.


(5) Concerning the Passage of the Soul[77].

Evoi, Father Iacchos, Lord God of Egypt: initiate thy servants in the halls of thy Temple;

Upon whose walls are the forms of every creature: of every beast of the earth, and of every fowl of the air;

The lynx, and the lion, and the bull: the ibis and the serpent: the scorpion and every flying thing.

And the columns thereof are human shapes; having the heads of eagles and the hoofs of the ox.

All these are of thy kingdom: they are the chambers of ordeal, and the houses of the initiation of the soul.

For the soul passeth from form to form; and the mansions of her pilgrimage are manifold.

Thou callest her from the deep, and from the secret places of the earth; from the dust of the ground, and from the herb of the field.

Thou coverest her nakedness with an apron of fig-leaves; thou clothest her with the skins of beasts.

Thou art from of old, O soul of man; yea, thou art from the everlasting.

Thou puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture dost thou fold them up.

They perish, but thou remainest: the wind rendeth and scattereth them; and the place of them shall no more be known.

For the wind is the Spirit of God in man, which bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it shall go.

Even so is the spirit of man, which cometh from afar off and tarrieth not, but passeth away to a place thou knowest not.


(6) Concerning the Mystic Exodus[77].

Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of the Sphinx; who linkest the lowest to the highest; the loins of the wild beast to the head and breast of the woman.

Thou holdest the chalice of divination: all the forms of nature are reflected therein.

Thou turnest man to destruction: then thou sayest, Come again, ye children of my hand.

Yea, blessed and holy art thou, O Master of Earth: Lord of the cross and the tree of salvation.

Vine of God, whose blood redeemeth; bread of heaven, broken on the altar of death.

There is corn in Egypt; go thou down into her, O my soul, with joy.

For in the kingdom of the Body, thou shalt eat the bread of thine initiation.

But beware lest thou become subject to the flesh, and a bond-slave in the land of thy sojourn.

Serve not the idols of Egypt; and let not the senses be thy taskmasters.

For they will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will bitterly oppress the Israel of God.

An evil time shall come upon thee; and the Lord shall smite Egypt with plagues for thy sake.

Thy body shall be broken on the wheel of God; thy flesh shall see trouble and the worm.

Thy house shall be smitten with grievous plagues; blood, and pestilence, and great darkness; fire shall devour thy goods; and thou shalt be a prey to the locust and creeping thing.

Thy glory shall be brought down to the dust; hail and storm shall smite thine harvest; yea, thy beloved and thy first-born shall the hand of the Lord destroy;

Until the body let the soul go free; that she may serve the Lord God.

Arise in the night, O soul, and fly, lest thou be consumed in Egypt.

The angel of the understanding shall know thee for his elect, if thou offer unto God a reasonable faith.

Savour thy reason with learning, with labour, and with obedience.

Let the rod of thy desire be in thy right hand: put the sandals of Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with strength.

Then shalt thou pass through the waters of cleansing, which is the first death in the body.

The waters shall be a wall unto thee on thy right hand and on thy left.

And Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee; for he is thy cloud of darkness by day, and thy pillar of fire by night.

All the horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof; her princes, her counsellors, and her mighty men:

These shall pursue thee, O soul, that fliest; and shall seek to bring thee back into bondage.

Fly for thy life; fear not the deep; stretch out thy rod over the sea; and lift thy desire unto God.

Thou hast learnt wisdom in Egypt; thou has spoiled the Egyptians; thou hast carried away their fine gold and their precious things.

Thou hast enriched thyself in the body; but the body shall not hold thee; neither shall the waters of the deep swallow thee up.

Thou shalt wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration; the blood of atonement shall redeem thee to God.

This is thy chrism and anointing, O soul; this is the first death; thou art the Israel of the Lord,

Who hath redeemed thee from the dominion of the body; and hath called thee from the grave, and from the house of bondage,

Unto the way of the cross, and to the path in the midst of the wilderness;

Where are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and the burning sand.

For the feet of the saint are set in the way of the desert.

But be thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then shall thy raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax old upon thee.

And thy desire shall heal thy diseases; it shall bring streams for thee out of the stony rock; it shall lead thee to Paradise.

Evoi, Father Iacchos, Jehovah-Nissi[78]; Lord of the garden and of the vineyard;

Initiator and lawgiver; God of the cloud and of the mount.

Evoi, Father Iacchos; out of Egypt has thou called thy Son.


To vindicate the suppressed mysteries of the pre-Christian churches by disclosing them as the true origines of Christianity, and to replace the false doctrine of the exclusive divinity of one man by the true doctrine of the potential divinity of all men,—these are among the foremost objects of the New Gospel of Interpretation. And it is especially in order to reinforce the last named, that it has restored the following hymn in celebration of the supreme results of regeneration, which formed part of the ritual of the greater mysteries of the Greeks. It is addressed to the first of the Holy Seven, the Spirit of Wisdom, as represented by his "angel," the angel of the sun, even "that light which Adonai created on the first day," "whose name is, in the Hebrew, Uriel, and in the Greek, Phoibos, the Bright One of God." Breathing both the Spirit and the letter of the Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, the hymns, of which this is one, indicate unmistakeably the identity in source and substance of the Hebrew and the Christian with the other sacred mysteries of antiquity, and the derivation of the later [174]through the earlier from their common source in the world celestial when once again they have been restored. And they supply also the motive which led the Christians to destroy the second Alexandrian library, showing that motive to have been the desire to conceal, first, the derivation of the Christian presentment from its predecessors, and next, the perversion of their doctrine in the interests of an unscrupulous sacerdocy.

Taken in connection with its fellow-hymns, similarly recovered, to others of the "Holy Seven," the hymn to Phoibos throws a flood of light on the creative week of Genesis, showing it to be no mere proem to Scripture, or concerned with the world physical merely, but an integral portion of Scripture, being an epitome of eternal verities ever in process, and appertaining both to Creation and to Redemption. The Hymn to Her who is mystically the fourth, but really the third of the Gods, the "Spirit of Counsel" of Isaiah, is especially notable for its solution of the problem of the inversion of the order of the third and fourth days of creation. These hymns, moreover, show indubitably that the order of the solar system was no secret to the hierophants of the sacred mysteries of antiquity.

(7) Hymn to Phoibos, the First of the Gods.

"Strong art thou and adorable, Phoibos Apollo, who bearest life and healing on thy wings, who crownest the year with thy bounty, and givest the spirit of thy divinity to the fruits and precious things of all the worlds.

Where were the bread of the initiation of the Sons of God, except thou bring the corn to ear; or the wine of their mystical chalice, except thou bless the vintage?

Many are the angels who serve in the courts of the spheres of heaven: but thou, Master of Light and of Life, art followed by the Christs of God.

And thy sign is the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and of the Just made perfect;

Whose path is as a shining light, shining more and more unto the innermost glory of the day of the Lord God.

Thy banner is blood-red, and thy symbol is a milk-white lamb, and thy crown is of pure gold.

They who reign with thee are the Hierophants of the celestial mysteries; for their will is the will of God, and they know as they are known.

These are the sons of the innermost sphere; the Saviours of men, the Anointed of God.

And their name is Christ Jesus, in the day of their initiation.

And before them every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and of things on earth.

They are come out of great tribulation, and are set down for ever at the right hand of God.

And the Lamb, which is in the midst of the seven spheres, shall give them to drink of the river of living water.

And they shall eat of the tree of life, which is in the centre of the garden of the kingdom of God.

These are thine, O Mighty Master of Light; and this is the dominion which the Word of God appointed thee in the beginning:

In the day when God created the light of all the worlds, and divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Phoibos, and the darkness God called Python.

Now the darkness was before the light, as the night forerunneth the dawn.

These are the evening and the morning of the first cycle of the Mysteries.

And the glory of that cycle is as the glory of seven days; and they who dwell therein are seven times refined;

Who have purged the garment of the flesh in the living waters;

And have transmuted both body and soul into spirit, and are become pure virgins.

For they were constrained by love to abandon the outer elements, and to seek the innermost which is undivided, even the Wisdom of God.

And wisdom and love are one.


In view of the restoration of the Gods to recognition by the New Gospel of Interpretation, it must be explained that the doctrines of Monotheism and Polytheism are not necessarily incompatible. This has already been shown in Chapter IV., in the utterance commencing—"In the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods comprehended, as the seven spirits of the prism contained in the Invisible Light." For as light is one though its rays are seven and each ray is light, so is God one though His spirits are seven and each spirit is God.

And yet further. The deities recognised under various names or by various peoples are not necessarily different Gods, but may be either the same God or different modes or aspects of the same God. Notably is this the case with the Gods of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Christians. For while by the term Elohim is denoted the two principles, masculine and feminine, of Force and Substance, which constitute Original Being, by Jehovah or Yahveh, Adonai and Shaddai, is denoted the resultant of the interaction of these two principles as Father and Mother, who is called therefore their word, expression, and Son. By the[177] Holy Ghost is denoted the same two principles in activity, having procession from the "Father-Mother" through the "Son," to be the constituent principles of creation, being Deity dynamic as distinguished from Deity static. By the Seven Spirits of God—as by the seven great Gods of the Greeks,—are denoted the seven potencies into which Deity differentiates on emerging as Holy Ghost from the prism constituted of Father, Mother, and Son, which are to each other as the force, substance, and phenomenon of which every manifest entity consists. For "Every entity that is manifest, is manifest by the evolution of its trinity." And by Christ is denoted the ultimate issue of such procession of Deity into manifestation, namely, divinity individuated by means of its passage through matter, and elaborated by co-operation of the Seven Spirits of God, into a perfected spiritual Ego, who is at once God and man, and subsists under two modes—the microcosmic or individual, and the macrocosmic or universal, and who is always in process of increase, because, in manifestation, "the Father is greater than the Son;" and "the manifest never exhausts the unmanifest."

Now the process of the Christ is by regeneration, and of this, as has been said, reincarnation is the condition. The New Gospel of Interpretation contains an utterance of Jesus on this subject which will fitly conclude this series of examples. It was recovered by "Mary" under illumination early in 1880, and consequently when we had not fully come to realise the actuality of the doctrine and the possibility of the recovery of the memories of past lives. Hence[178] she sought from her illuminators confirmation of the genuineness of the experience, when she was distinctly and positively assured that the incident had actually occurred, and that she had borne part in it, though no record of it survives. Such is the extrinsic testimony on which it rests. We found the intrinsic no less satisfactory, whether as regards the substance or the form.

(8) Concerning the previous lines of Jesus, and Reincarnation.

This morning between sleeping and waking I saw myself, together with many other persons, walking with Jesus in the fields round about Jerusalem, and while He was speaking to us, a man approached, who looked very earnestly upon Him. And Jesus turned to us and said, "This man whom you see approaching is a seer. He can behold the past lives of a man by looking into his face." Then, the man being come up to us, Jesus took him by the hand and said, "What readest thou?" And the man answered, "I see Thy past, Lord Jesus, and the ways by which Thou hast come." And Jesus said to him, "Say on." So the man told Jesus that he could see Him in the past for many long ages back. But of all that he named, I remember but one incarnation, or, perhaps, one only struck me, and that was Isaac. And as the man went on speaking, and enumerating the incarnations he saw, Jesus waved His right hand twice or thrice before his eyes, and said, "It is enough," as though He wished him not to reveal further. Then I stepped forward from the rest and said, "Lord, if, as thou hast taught us, the woman is the highest form of humanity, and the last to be assumed, how comes it that Thou, the Christ, art still in the lower form of man? Why comest Thou not to lead the perfect life, and to save the world as woman? For surely Thou has attained to womanhood." And Jesus answered, "I have attained to womanhood, as thou sayest; and [179]already have I taken the form of woman. But there are three conditions under which the soul returns to the man's form; and they are these:—

"1st. When the work which the Spirit proposes to accomplish is of a nature unsuitable to the female form.

"2nd. When the Spirit has failed to acquire, in the degree necessary to perfection, certain special attributes of the male character.

"3rd. When the Spirit has transgressed, and gone back in the path of perfection, by degrading the womanhood it had attained.

"In the first of these cases the return to the male form is outward and superficial only. This is my case. I am a woman in all save the body. But had My body been a woman's, I could not have led the life necessary to the work I have to perform. I could not have trod the rough ways of the earth, nor have gone about from city to city preaching, nor have fasted on the mountains, nor have fulfilled My mission of poverty and labour. Therefore am I—a woman—clothed in a man's body that I may be enabled to do the work set before Me.

"The second case is that of a soul who, having been a woman perhaps many times, has acquired more aptly and readily the higher qualities of womanhood than the lower qualities of manhood. Such a soul is lacking in energy, in resoluteness, in that particular attribute of the Spirit which the prophet ascribes to the Lord when he says, 'The Lord is a Man of war.' Therefore the soul is put back into a man's form to acquire the qualities yet lacking.

"The third case is that of the backslider, who, having nearly attained perfection,—perhaps even touched it,—degrades and soils his white robe, and is put back into the lower form again. These are the common cases; for there are few women who are worthy to be women"[79].


(9) Concerning the "Work of Power."

You have asked me if the Work of Power is a difficult one, and if it is open to all.

It is open to all potentially and eventually, but not actually and in the present. In order to regain power and the resurrection, a man must be a Hierarch; that is to say, he must have attained the magical age of thirty-three. This age is attained by having accomplished the Twelve Labours, passed the Twelve Gates, overcome the Five Senses, and obtained dominion over the Four Spirits of the elements. He must have been born Immaculate, baptised with Water and Fire, tempted in the Wilderness, crucified and buried. He must have borne Five Wounds on the Cross, and he must have answered the riddle of the Sphinx. When this is accomplished he is free of matter, and will never again have a phenomenal body.

Who shall attain to this perfection? The Man who is without fear and without concupiscence; who has courage to be absolutely poor and absolutely chaste. When it is all one to you whether you have gold or whether you have none, whether you have a house and lands or whether you have them not, whether you have worldly reputation or whether you are an outcast,—then you are voluntarily poor. It is not necessary to have nothing, but it is necessary to care for nothing. When it is all one to you whether you have a wife or husband, or whether you are celibate, then you are free from concupiscence. It is not necessary to be a virgin; it is necessary to set no value on the flesh. There is nothing so difficult to attain as this equilibrium. Who is he who can part with his goods without regret? Who is he who is never consumed by the desires of the flesh? But when you have ceased both to wish to retain and to burn, then you have the remedy in your own hands, and the remedy is a hard and a sharp one, and a terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, be not afraid. Deny the five senses, and above all the taste and the touch. The power is within you if you will to attain it. The Two Seats [181]are vacant at the Celestial Table, if you will put on Christ. Eat no dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. Make living elements of all the elements of your body. Mortify the members of earth. Take your food full of life, and let not the touch of death pass upon it. You understand me, but you shrink. Remember that without self-immolation, there is no power over death. Deny the touch. Seek no bodily pleasure in sexual communion; let desire be magnetic and soulic. If you indulge the body, you perpetuate the body, and the end of the body is corruption. You understand me again, but you shrink. Remember that without self-denial and restraint there is no power over death. Deny the taste first, and it will become easier to deny the touch. For to be a virgin is the crown of discipline. I have shown you the excellent way, and it is the Via Dolorosa. Judge whether the resurrection be worth the passion; whether the kingdom be worth the obedience; whether the power be worth the suffering. When the time of your calling comes, you will no longer hesitate.

When a man has attained power over his body, the process of ordeal is no longer necessary. The Initiate is under a vow; the Hierarch is free. Jesus, therefore, came eating and drinking; for all things were lawful to Him. He had undergone, and had freed His will. For the object of the trial and the vow is polarisation. When the fixed is volatilised, the Magian is free. But before Christ was Christ He was subject; and His initiation lasted thirty years. All things are lawful to the Hierarch; for he knows the nature and value of all[80].


This chapter may appropriately terminate with a few remarks in reply to the inevitable question, why our country and language were selected as the place and tongue of the new revelation in preference to all others.

It is, as we were enabled to see, because the British people are recognised in the celestial world, as possessing that peculiar quality of soul which, in spite of their many and grievous limitations, has made them to be the foremost witness among the nations to God and the Conscience, in such wise as to constitute them the counterpart of Israel in the modern world. Others besides ourselves have recognised this characteristic. Said Milton, speaking of a crisis which, momentous as it was, pales in presence of that which now is, seeing that Religion itself as Religion was not menaced then as in our time—

"Now once again, by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of devout and holy men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is beginning to devise some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He then, but address Himself to His servants, and—as His manner is—first to His Englishmen."

To which we may add in reference to the present, "And having by the hands of His Intellectualists, beaten down the false interpretation of His holy Word, accomplishing the work of destruction, is about by the hands of His Intuitionalists, to establish the true interpretation, accomplishing the work of re-construction."

Nor are there wanting specific historical facts pointing in the same direction. To Britain it was given by a timely act of revolt against a domination at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the[183] letter of Scripture from suppression and virtual extinction at the hands of an order bent only on exalting itself at whatever cost to truth and humanity. Meanwhile, for three centuries and a half—period suggestive of the mystical "time, times, and half a time,"—Britain has faithfully and lovingly, albeit unintelligently and mistakenly, guarded and cherished the letter thus rescued, even to the erecting of it into a fetish. And it may well be that she has now, for her guerdon, been further commissioned to be the recipient and minister of its interpretation.

Moreover, as Mistress of the Sea, the especial symbol of the Soul, she has a prescriptive claim to be the vehicle of the latest and crowning message to earth, of which the Soul herself is at once the source, the subject, and the object.

Nor are the universality of her language and the grandeur of her literature elements to be left out of consideration. All things point to her language as destined to become, practically, the language of the world; and hence its peculiar fitness to be the vehicle of that "eternal gospel" which it is declared should, at the end of the age, be proclaimed "unto them that dwell on the earth, even unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people."
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CHAPTER VII. THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

As will readily be imagined, the interest was intense with which we watched the progress of our work, in order to see whether the crucial event of its promulgation would coincide with the date prophesied for the turning point between the outgoing and the incoming dispensations. The predictions covered a period of six years, namely from 1876 to 1881 inclusive. In this period was to be laid the foundation of a universal kingdom of justice and knowledge, which should constitute the reign of Michael, and spring from a new illumination, one feature of which was to be the "return of the Gods" in 1876. It was in the autumn of this year that they first came to us, and the intimation was given us that the reign of Michael was then actually commencing; we having no knowledge either of the meaning or of the fact of such predictions. For, while the Bible references to Michael were altogether unintelligible to us, we had not learnt to refer the event to any assignable period. The fulfilment of this prediction disposed us to attach value to those which pointed to the year 1881 as that in which our work—supposing our estimate of its significance to be correct—ought to see the light. For our illuminators observed silence respecting times and seasons, contenting themselves with bringing under our notice the books containing the pre[185]dictions, the application being left to our own perspicacity. We were powerless to influence events, even had we desired to do so. We could but work steadily on, as we did, "without haste, without rest," until my colleague had finished her university course and obtained her diploma. This she accomplished in the summer of 1880, soon after which we returned to England; and in the summer of 1881 we delivered in London, to a private audience, the lectures which constituted the first promulgation of our work. These were published in the following winter under the title of "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," our excellent friend at Paris faithfully fulfilling the mission she had accepted in relation to us and our work[81]. Thus were fulfilled exactly all the predictions respecting the dates, the character, and the manner of our work.

There were many other coincidences of a kind so remarkable as to make us feel that to ascribe them to accident would require a larger measure of credulity than to ascribe them to design. Among the most striking were those which concerned "Mary's" names, and which were in this wise.

When first the significance of the Apocalyptic utterance concerning the river Euphrates and the kings of the East was flashed on my mind, I asked her if she knew that she was mentioned, even to her very name, in the book of Revelation. To which she replied, smiling, that she had known it for some time, but which of her names did I mean? I said that I meant her married surname, which [186]fitted exactly a way made for kings across a river, by the drying up of its waters, namely a king's ford; the "Kings of the East," meaning those principles in man whereby he has knowledge of divine things—the East being the mystical expression for the place of the dawn of spiritual light, such as that of which she was the revealer. While the Euphrates means, in the Apocalypse as in Genesis, the highest principle in the fourfold kosmos of man, the Spirit or Will[82]. Only when this principle in man is "dried up," or sublimated by being made one with the divine Will, is man accessible to the divine knowledges brought by the "Kings of the East." As the channel by which these knowledges were being restored to the world, she was the kings' ford implied. She then told me, what I had not yet observed, that her baptismal and maiden names were equally appropriate, as the Latin for the "acceptable year of the Lord," or good time, announced as to follow the restoration of the knowledges brought by the Kings of the East, is—allowing for difference of gender—Annus Bonus. The coincidence of names did not end here, for we shortly afterwards, in the course of our researches, came upon an old prophecy declaring that the initials of the "Messenger" of the new Avâtar, due at this time, would be A. K.!

She further identified the "Kings of the East" as functions of the three principles in man, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind; being respectively, right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right [187]perception, which is of the Soul; and right judgment, which is of the Mind; the combination of which is the necessary and sufficient condition of divine knowledge.

Had we been sanguine of a favourable reception of our book by the press at large—which we were not—our disappointment would have been great. But we were by no means prepared either for the gross misrepresentation and even vulgar ribaldry with which it was treated by the few organs in the literary press which noticed it at all, or for the complete neglect of it by that portion of the press which especially concerns itself with religious exegesis. In no instance was any attempt made to exhibit its plan, purpose, and real nature, or any recognition accorded to its luminous solutions of the profound problems dealt with. The very claim to have experiential knowledge of things spiritual was accounted an offence; and it seemed as if the word had gone forth to adopt towards it an attitude which should effectually restrain the public from making its acquaintance, even though it met absolutely the need recognised on all hands as the world's supreme need, and vindicated its claim thereto by the presentation of teachings avowedly of divine derivation and demonstrating their divinity by their intrinsic character to all who are in the smallest degree spiritually percipient. To this day that attitude has never been abandoned or relaxed; and notwithstanding the assiduous endeavours made to counteract its influence, the whole mass of our people, saving only a few select circles, have yet to learn that the longed-for New Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed, having been for years in their midst waiting[188] but to be recognised of them,—a "light shining in darkness and the darkness comprehending it not"[83].

In compliance with the injunctions of our illuminators, we had withheld our names from our first edition, in order to secure for it a judgment unbiased by any personal element. But though we ourselves thus escaped the opprobrium attaching to our book, "Mary" was at first inclined to repent of having exposed her pearls to such profanation; and was only reassured by the suggestion that it showed how desperate was the need for precisely the change our work was designed to accomplish, and how exactly was fulfilled the prophecy which foretold the wrath of the dragon and his angels at the advent of the "Woman" Intuition, their destined destroyer, and the consequent shortness of their own time. We knew of course better than to regard such criticism as being in any sense a measure of our work. For us it was, like criticism in general, a measure not of the thing criticised but of the critics themselves. And these, in our case, but truly represented the condition of the age, and knew not what they were doing.

Such is the reason why so many will hear for the first time from this book that a New Gospel of Interpretation has been received. To turn to the other and compensating side. With those who were specially qualified to judge, it was far otherwise. And among the most notable of the recognitions received from this quarter was the weighty utterance which appears in the preface to the second [189]and succeeding editions, coming from that veteran student of the "Divine Science," the friend, disciple, and literary heir of the renowned Kabalist and magian, the late Abbé Constant ("Eliphas Levi"), namely, Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles, who though then an entire stranger to us, wrote to us as follows—for I think it may with advantage be reproduced here:—

"As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the appeal on behalf of your book is, really, to miracles, but with the difference that in your case they are intellectual ones, and incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation. And they have the further distinction of doing no violence to common sense by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in complete accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great Mother of these, the Kabala. That miracles such as I am describing are to be found in The Perfect Way, in kind and number unexampled, they who are the best qualified to judge will be the most ready to affirm.

"And here, apropos of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we have it. It is my opinion—

"(1) That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such as it was on its original emergence from the sanctuaries.

"(2) That when Guillaume Postel—of excellent memory—and his brother Hermetists of the later middle age—the Abbot Trithemius and others—predicted that these sacred books of the Hebrews should become known and understood at the end of the era, and specified the present time for that event, they did not mean that such knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new illumination, which should eliminate from [190]them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced, and should re-unite that great tradition with its source by restoring it in all its purity.

"(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has been manifested in The Perfect Way. For in this book we find all that there is of truth in the Kabala, supplemented by new intuitions, such as present a body of doctrine at once complete, homogeneous, logical and inexpungnable.

"Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel and his fellow-Hermetists are accomplished; and I consider that from henceforth the study of the Kabala will be but an object of curiosity and erudition, like that of Hebrew antiquities.

"Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now, these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory, in The Perfect Way"[84].

He subsequently wrote:—

"If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures of the past, these writings will assuredly hold the foremost place among them"[85].


For those who are unacquainted with the Kabala, its origin, nature, and intent, it will be well to state that it represents the transcendental and esoteric doctrine of the Hebrews, as handed down from the remotest times. In recognition of its divine origin, the Rabbins describe it as having been communicated by God, first, to "Adam in [191]Paradise," and, next, to "Moses on Sinai." By which expressions they implied that its doctrine was due to the highest possible illumination.

It was also in recognition of this element in our book that Mr. MacGregor Mathers dedicated his learned work, "The Kabala Unveiled," to us, saying—

"I have much pleasure in dedicating this work to the authors of The Perfect Way, as they have in that excellent and wonderful book touched so much on the doctrines of the Kabala, and laid such value on its teachings. The Perfect Way is one of the most deeply occult works that has been written for centuries."


As the foregoing testimonies represent the consensus of the Kabalists, Hermetists, and other great ancient schools of spiritual science in the West, so the following represents the consensus of the corresponding schools of the East. As will be seen, it involves a coincidence so notable as to point to a source transcending the human and terrestrial, as that of the great spiritual revival which our age is witnessing. That coincidence is in this wise:—

Within two years of the commencement of our collaboration in the work which proved to be that of the restoration of the Gnosis of the West—the divine doctrine of which, as we had come to learn, Christ was the personal demonstration, and the religion called after Him ought to have been the expression; a collaboration was commenced which had for its end the like exposition in regard to the religious systems of the East. This is the collaboration, also of a woman and a man, which had its issue in the Theosophical Society. The two[192] pairs of collaborators worked simultaneously through the succeeding years in entire ignorance of each other and their work, until the commencement of the publication of our results in 1881, at which time the Theosophical Society was still so far from having completed the system of its doctrine, that neither of its two now fundamental tenets had yet been recognised by it, the tenets, namely, of Reincarnation and Karma—its chief text-book, the "Isis Unveiled" of its foundress, not containing them. We, on the contrary, had both of these doctrines, having derived them, as already stated herein, directly from celestial sources and wholly independently of human authority and tradition, of spiritualism, and of our own prepossessions.

It was clear, both by this fact and by the avowals of the parties concerned, that up to this time the chiefs of the Theosophical Society had been unable to obtain from those whom they claimed as their masters more than a very meagre instalment of their doctrine. But after the arrival of our book in India this state of things was changed. It was then declared on behalf of the "masters" that we had obtained, from original and independent sources, a system of doctrine substantially identical with that of which they had for ages been, as they supposed, in exclusive possession, but had never been permitted to divulge, as it had always been reserved for initiates. The revelation of it through us, we were further informed, had "forced the hands of the masters," by showing them that the time had come when secrecy was no longer possible, and compelling[193] them, if only in vindication of their own claims, to relax their rule of silence in regard to their mysteries.

The coincidence between their doctrine and ours comprised sundry particulars the most recondite, including—besides the two great tenets already named—the multiplicity of principles in the human system, and their separation and respective conditions after death,—a subject lying outside the cognisance of "Spiritualism." Among other points of agreement was that of their recognition of the great antiquity of the soul of "Mary," whom they pronounced to be "the greatest natural mystic of the present day, and countless ages ahead of the great majority of mankind, the foremost of whom—the most civilised—belong to the last race of the fourth round, while she belongs to the first race of the fifth round."

In presence of these and other proofs of the possession by the Eastern occultists, of knowledges which we had obtained directly at first hand from celestial sources, we could not but pay respectful heed to the claims of the representatives of the Theosophical Society, and welcome any token which might indicate it as a destined fellow-agent in the great spiritual revival of the age. So might it constitute, with "Spiritualism" and the work represented by us, a threefold power for accomplishing the promotion predicted for this era, of the consciousness of the race to a level which should transcend any yet reached by it as a race. With Spiritualism to represent the phenomenal and personal, Theosophy the philosophical and occult, and our own work the mystical and divine, every region of man's higher nature would find its due[194] recognition and unfoldment. Meanwhile, the organ of the Society in India thus expressed itself respecting "The Perfect Way":—

"A grand book, keen of insight and eloquent in exposition; an upheaval of true spirituality.... We regard its authors as having produced one of the most—perhaps the most—important and spirit-stirring of appeals to the highest instincts of mankind which modern European literature has evolved"[86].


We had a yet further warrant, derived from Scripture itself, for looking to the Theosophical Society as possibly a divinely appointed factor in the spiritual evolution of the time. The unsealing of the World's Bibles was upon us, and not of that of Christendom only. And we saw in the following saying of Jesus an obvious allusion to the present epoch, "In those days many shall come from the East, and the West, and the North, and the South, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Not that the terms East, West, North, and South, denoted for us the quarters of the physical globe. We had learnt to understand them in their mystical sense, wherein they denote the various human temperaments, the intuitional, the traditional, the intellectual, and the emotional, all of which would find satisfaction in the doctrine then to be recovered. It was in the terms Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the significance of the utterance lay for us; these being in one aspect the Hebrew equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, and denoting the mysteries respectively of India, Egypt, and Greece, of the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein [195]of the whole Man. For these mysteries together comprised the perfect doctrine of Existence, called also in Scripture the "Word of God," the "Law and the Prophets," and the "Theou Sophia," "Wisdom of God," and "hidden Wisdom," of which the Christ, as the typical Man regenerate, is the fulfilment and personal demonstration. This is to say, they constituted that Gnosis, or Knowledge, with the taking away and withholdment of the key of which Jesus so bitterly reproached, in the Ecclesiasticism of His time, that of all time, and, therefore, that knowledge to the restoration of which, in our day, through the faculty by means of which it was originally obtained and can alone be discerned, the prophecies one and all pointed, as to mark and to make the "time of the end" of the "adulterous," because idolatrous, "generation," hitherto in possession in the Church, and to introduce the "kingdom of God with power."

Having warrant so high for anticipating the restoration at this time of the faculties and knowledges represented by the various movements in question, and knowing also, if only by the example of ourselves, that the divinity of a mission is not invalidated by the limitations, real or supposed, of its instruments, but that these must be educated by experience, and in such sense "perfected through suffering" to be fitted for their appointed tasks;—we had no doubt as to the attitude it was our duty to maintain towards all candidates for a share in that which we recognised as the greatest of all the endeavours yet made by the human soul to regain her long-lost rightful dominion over the minds and hearts of[196] men, leaving it to time to determine that which was of divine appointment, and that which was not.

It will have been observed that I have used the terms "mystical" and "occult" in such wise as to imply a distinction between them. It is important to the purpose of this book to define and emphasise that distinction. The instructions received by us from our illuminators were explicit and positive on this point.

This is because they refer to two different domains of man's system. Occultism deals with transcendental physics, and is of the intellectual, belonging to science. Mysticism deals with transcendental metaphysics, and is of the spiritual, belonging to religion. Occultism, therefore, has for its domain the region which, lying between the body and the soul, is interior to the body but exterior to the soul; while Mysticism has for its domain the region which, comprising the soul and the spirit, is interior to the soul, and belongs to the divine. Of course, the terms themselves, which are respectively the Latin and the Greek for the same thing, and mean hidden from the outer senses and also from non-initiates, do not imply such distinction, but they have come by usage to be thus referable.

The following citations are from the teachings received by us in this connection. They account for the scientific part of the training imposed on us.

"The science of the Mysteries can be understood only by one who has studied the physical sciences, because it is the climax and crown of all these, and must be learned last and not first. Unless thou understand the physical [197]sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctrine of Vehicles, which is the basic doctrine of occult science. 'If thou understood not earthly things, how shall I make thee understand heavenly things?' Wherefore, get knowledge, and be greedy of knowledge, ever more and more. It is idle for thee to seek the inner chamber, until thou hast passed through the outer. This, also, is another reason why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To the unlearned no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy is the royal science[87]; if thou would reach the king's presence chamber, there is no way save through the outer rooms and galleries of the palace[88].

"The adept or occultist is, at best, a religious scientist; he is not a 'saint.' If occultism were all, and held the key of heaven, there would be no need of 'Christ.' But occultism, although it holds the 'power,' holds neither the 'kingdom' nor the 'glory,' for these are of Christ. The adept knows not the kingdom of heaven, and 'the least in this kingdom are greater than he.'

"'Desire first the kingdom of God and God's righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.' As Jesus said of Prometheus[89], 'Take no thought for to-morrow. Behold the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and trust God as these,' For the saint has faith; the adept has knowledge. If the adepts in occultism or in physical science could suffice to man, I would have committed no message to you. But the two are not in [198]opposition. All things are yours, even the kingdom and the power, but the glory is to God. Do not be ignorant of their teaching, for I would have you know all. Take, therefore, every means to know. This knowledge is of man, and cometh from the mind. Go, therefore, to man to learn it. 'If you will be perfect, learn also of these.' 'Yet the wisdom which is from above, is above all.' For one man may begin from within, that is, with wisdom, and wisdom is one with love. Blessed is the man who chooseth wisdom, for she leaveneth all things. And another man may begin from without, and that which is without is power. To such there shall be a thorn in the flesh[90]. For it is hard in such case to attain to the within. But if a man be first wise inwardly, he shall the more easily have this also added unto him. For he is born again and is free. Whereas at a great price must the adept buy freedom. Nevertheless, I bid you seek;—and in this also you shall find. But I have shown you a more excellent way than theirs. Yet both Ishmael and Isaac are sons of one father, and of all her children is Wisdom justified. So neither are they wrong, nor are you led astray. The goal is the same; but their way is harder than yours. They take the kingdom by violence, if they take it, and by much toil and agony of the flesh. But from the time of Christ within you, the kingdom is open to the sons of God. Receive what you can receive; I would have you know all things. And if you have served seven years for wisdom, count it not loss to serve seven years for power also. For if Rachel bear the best beloved, Leah hath many sons, and is exceeding fruitful. But her eye is not single; she looketh two ways, and seeketh not that which is above only. But to you Rachel is given first, and perchance her beauty may suffice. I say not, let it suffice; it is better to know all things, for if you know not all, how can you judge all? For as a man heareth, so must he judge. Will you therefore be regenerate in the without, [199]as well as in the within? For they are renewed in the body, but you in the soul. It is well to be baptised into John's baptism, if a man receive also the Holy Ghost. But some know not so much as that there is any Holy Ghost. Yet Jesus also, being Himself regenerate in the spirit, sought unto the Baptism of John, for thus it became Him to fulfil Himself in all things. And having fulfilled, behold, the 'Dove' descended on Him. If then you will be perfect, seek both that which is within and that which is without; and the circle of being, which is the 'wheel of life,' shall be complete in you."


The Scriptural allusions in this teaching, which was received by "Mary" under illumination occurring in sleep, proved to be on the lines of the Kabala.

There were sundry other tokens of recognition which are entitled to reproduction here, as showing to how wide a range of educated and intelligent opinion within the pale of Christianity our work appeals. Their value is due to their representing a class of minds which, while possessed of the ordinary ecclesiastical training, are not restricted to the knowledge thereby acquired. For, seeing that such training means little, if anything, more than the mechanical learning of what other men have said who, themselves, had no real knowledge, the opinions, expressed on the strength of it, are neither educated nor intelligent, but adoptive only and perfunctory, and represent learning without insight. And as such precisely are the opinions which constitute ecclesiastical orthodoxy, the judgment of the representatives of that orthodoxy on our work possesses no more real value than did that of Caiaphas and his coadjutors[200] on Jesus and His work[91]. Denouncing Him as a blasphemer, they were themselves blasphemers. And inasmuch as they were types of the votaries of ecclesiastical orthodoxy of all time, it is obvious that the only new revelation—if any—which would find acceptance at their hands, would be one that confirmed and reinforced their errors, instead of exposing and correcting them. Proceeding, as was declared by Jesus, from their "father, the devil," a priest-constructed system ever prefers Barabbas to Christ;—prefers, that is, a system which defrauds—hence the force of the term "robber" as applied to Barabbas—man of the divine potentialities which Christ came to reveal to him by demonstrating them in His own person, together with the manner of their realisation.

Not that all who bear the title of Ecclesiastics come under this condemnation. In every age of the Church there have been those who, while holding office in it, have not consented to the "Scarlet Woman" of Sacerdotalism. And never was there a time when the proportion of these was larger, [201]or when their sense of the need of a New Gospel of Interpretation was more keen and urgent than now: so intolerable to multitudes of the clergy of all sections of the Church has become the antagonism recognised by them as subsisting between the traditional and official presentation of religion and their own clear perceptions of goodness and truth[92].

The testimonies which remain to be added are valuable as coming from men who, while possessed of ecclesiastical training, have been taught also of the Spirit, and, adding to tradition intuition, and to learning insight, have in themselves the witness to that which they utter.

A distinguished French ecclesiastic, the Abbé Roca, writing in L'Aurore, says of our books—

"These books seem to me to be the chosen organs of the Divine Feminine" (i.e. the interpretative) "Principle, in view of the new revelation of Revelation."


By which it will be seen that he shared Cardinal Newman's expectation referred to in the introduction; and accepted as realised the forecast of Joseph de Maistre when he said "Religion and Science, in virtue of their natural affinity, will meet in the brain of some man of genius—perhaps of more than one—and the world will get what it needs and cries for, not a new religion, but the revelation of Revelation." As the event shows, for "the brain of some man," he should have said "the mind and soul of a woman."

The Rev. Dr. John Pulsford, author of "The Supremacy of Man," "Quiet Hours," "Morgenrothe,"[202] and other works distinguished for the depth of their piety and insight, thus wrote to me on the publication of "Clothed with the Sun"—

"I cannot tell you with what thankfulness and pleasure I have read Clothed with the Sun. It is impossible for a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt that these teachings were received from within the astral veil. They are full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own religion, they would find in these priceless records our Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly illustrated and confirmed. The regret is that so few, comparatively, who read the book, will be aware of the tithe of its pearls. But that such communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the world, is a sign, and a most promising sign of our age.

"It is no little joy to me to feel that I am so much more in sympathy with God's daughter, the Seeress, than I supposed. The testimony is so clearly above, and distinct from, aught that is derived from the occult powers of the universe, rather than from the Supreme Spirit and Father-Mother of our Spirits."


Another notable student of spiritual science, a Priest, writing in Light of 21st October, 1882, after describing The Perfect Way as "that most wonderful of all books which has appeared since the beginning of the Christian Era," said:—"It is a book that no student can be without if he will know the truth on these matters. It furnishes us with a master-key to the phenomena which so perplex the minds of enquirers, and gives a system, the like of which has not been seen for eighteen centuries." The late Rev. John Manners, a man venerable of years and mature of spirit, and deeply versed in the sciences of both worlds,[203] declared of these illuminations, "the Great I Am speaks in every line of them. Only the Logos Himself could be their source." Lady Caithness, already referred to, upon receiving a copy of The Perfect Way, wrote: "I have got another Bible, the most complete Revelation, certainly, that has yet been given to man on this planet"[93]. And a Parsee scholar, a native of India, wrote: "The Perfect Way has made me a much nobler man—a man of tranquility and calmness, due to the knowledge of the philosophy of Being imbibed by me from it, and for which my mind was fortunately prepared"[94].

As stated in the preface, this present book is intended but as an epitome and instalment of the far larger book in course of preparation. For, as with the old Gospel of Manifestation, so with the New Gospel of Interpretation, the excusable hyperbole is no less appropriate to it,—"I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books which might be written."

For the human soul is a theme as inexhaustible as it is paramount. And, as never in the world's history have the need and the desire for the knowledge of it been so urgent as they now are, so never in the world's history has there been a revelation of it comparable with that which has been vouchsafed in our day, and is contained in the narrative, the completion of which, and this alone, will [204]enable me to "depart in peace," having no apprehension of after disquietude on the score of having left unaccomplished a portion so important of the task committed to me.

The End.
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FOOTNOTES:

[1] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 29th August, 1891.

[2] See further as to this, an article by A.K. and E.M. in "Light" of 23rd September, 1882, reprinted in Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 77.

[3] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 22nd July, 1893.

[4] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 17th December, 1892.

[5] A.K. died on the 22nd February, 1888

[6] The original title of this book was "The Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation." See preface to the present edition. S.H.H.

[7] Apologia pro vitâ suâ, by J. H. Newman. New edition of 1893, pp. 26, 27.

[8] The book was "By and By: An Historical Romance of the Future," its object being to show a state of society in which the intuition is supreme, and individuals follow their own ideals. It represents a step in E.M.'s unfoldment, but not his final conclusions. In 1873 A.K., having read a review of this book in the Examiner (which also contained a notice of one of her tales), communicated with E.M. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 27.)

[9] This was not the first time that E.M. met A.K. He had met her once before, in January, 1874, in a picture gallery in London. "It was but for a short time, and during a single afternoon"; but it was "sufficient to convince" him of "the unusual character of the personality" with which he had come into contact. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 32.)

[10] Her "very first published production" was a poem in a religious magazine, when she was "but nine years old." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 29.)

[11] "Beatrice: A Tale of the Early Christians," was written by A.K. in 1859, for the Churchman's Companion, "but the publisher thought it worthy to make a separate volume, and offered to bring it out in that form, and to give her a present for it," which offer was accepted. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 4.)

[12] The Story was "In my Lady's Chamber," and purported to be a "speculative romance touching a few questions of the day." It was afterwards published separately as by "Colossa." (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 21, 22.)

[13] The first edition of "The Pilgrim and the Shrine" was published in 1867.

[14] E.M. did not marry again. He had one child, Charles Bradley Maitland, and he died on the 16th February, 1901.

[15] See p. 100

[16] E.M. says that "The Keys of the Creeds" brought his thought up to the extreme limits of a thought merely intellectual, to transcend which it would be necessary to penetrate the barrier between the worlds of sense and of spirit. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 54.)

[17] Statement E.C.U. p. 80.

[18] In 1875. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 73.)

[19] The book was "England and Islam: or The Counsel of Caiaphas," which was published in 1877.

[20] This vision occurred in London in November, 1876. It was merely referred to in the previous editions of this book, but I have inserted it here in full from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 115-117. It is also given in "England and Islam," pp. 438-442. S.H.H.

[21] p. 41.

[22] E. and I. p. 299.

[23] It is probable that E.M. intended this statement to apply only to the N.T., or to the Gospels, because, before February, 1874, when he first visited A.K. at her house (p. 2), she had received in sleep "an exposition of the Story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a significance purely spiritual" and E.M. certainty regarded the Biblical Story of the Fall as "Scripture." S.H.H.

[24] The expression of which the above is an adaptation, had recently been applied by Mr Gladstone to the Turkish power. For the period was the eve of the Turco-Russian War; and Mr Gladstone had found vent for his strong sacerdotal proclivities by siding fiercely against the priest-hating and prophet-venerating Turks, and demanding their expulsion from Europe, very much on the plea that "it was good for Europe that one nation die for the rest." It was in recognition of the part thus played by him that I took for the sub-title of my book ("England and Islam") "The Counsel of Caiaphas." The book—which was written under a high degree of illumination—contained an earnest appeal to Mr Gladstone, which, if heeded, would have saved the country from its subsequent humiliations. Among other things I was clearly shown that the policy which sought to detach England from the East, was of infernal instigation, being intended to thwart the rapprochement between Christianity and Buddhism from which the new humanity was to spring. But the circumstances of the book's production—it was poured through me at great speed and printed off as it came—precluded due revision and elimination of redundant matter; and for these and other reasons, I have suffered it to go out of print. E.M.

[25] There is another fact, referred to in "The Life of A.K.," that must be taken into consideration in connection with experiences of this nature, that is, "the survival for an indefinite period of the images of events occurring on the earth, in the astral light, or memory of the planet, called the anima mundi, which images can be evoked and beheld." (Life A.K. Vol I. p. 125.) S.H.H.

[26] This "Vision of Adonai" by A.K. was merely referred to in the previous editions of this book. I have extracted the following account of the most interesting part of it from "The Life of A.K." (Vol. I. pp. 193-196.) S.H.H.

[27] Speaking of this vision, E.M. says:—"Her apprehension was not without justification; for her body was completely torpid, and several hours passed before consciousness was fully restored to it." (C.W.S. p. 283.)

[28] This is one of the illuminations that were received by A.K., during the latter part of 1878, "directly from the hierarchy of the Church Invisible and Celestial." Speaking of these illuminations, which "dealt with the profoundest subjects of cognition," E.M. says that he and A.K. found in them "a synthesis and an analysis combined of the sacred mysteries of all the great religions of antiquity, and the true origines of Christianity as originally and divinely intended, together with the secret and method of its corruption and perversion into that which now bears its name"; and they "were at no loss to recognise in them the destined Scriptures of the future, so long promised and at length vouchsafed in interpretation of the Scriptures of the past." (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 293, 294.) S.H.H.

[29] A.K. knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was unaware that he was an optician. Subsequent experience made it clear that the spectacles in question were intended to represent her own remarkable faculty of intuitional and interpretative perception. (See Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 150-1.) S.H.H.

[30] Page 52.

[31] The 22nd September, 1877.

[32] The book referred to was a treatise entitled "Fruit and Bread," which had been sent to her anonymously the previous day. E.M.

[33] The "Hymn to Hermes" was received by A.K. in 1878, "under illumination occurring in sleep." She remembered it so perfectly that on waking she wrote it without hesitation or error. Representing knowledges long lost, by no amount of mere scholarship could it have been reproduced. It is given at length in the P.W. pp. 357-358, and in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 287. S.H.H.

[34] As to the recovery by A.K. of the Hymn to the Planet-God, see p. 122-3.

[35] These dream-verses are from "Through the Ages," a poem received by A.K., "in sleep," in 1880. In this poem, "some of her earliest incarnations" are referred to. (D. and D-S. p. 77.) S.H.H.

[36] See p. 122 note.

[37] See pp. 51-52-53 ante.

[38] That is, in the place of God and the Soul.

[39] The four planes being, from without inwards, those of the body, mind, soul, and spirit. S.H.H.

[40] The 28th March, 1880. S.H.H.

[41] The name by which I was thus addressed had been given me by our illuminators as an initiation name, as that of "Mary" to her. It denoted love as the dominant note of our work, and was an equivalent for "John the Beloved," who—we were given to understand—is one of the two controlling "angels" of the new illumination—Daniel being the other—in accordance with the intimations given by Jesus, one to His disciples and the other to the Seer of the Apocalypse himself, that John should tarry within reach of the earth-plane to bear part in the event which was to constitute the second advent of Christ. These names had a further correspondence in the Greek parable of Eros and Psyche, which denotes love as the vivifying principle of the soul. E.M.

[42] Materialism and Superstition.

[43] The name Esther denotes a star or fountain of light, a dawn or rising.

[44] The spelling of the names is that of the Douay Version, the Protestants having relegated the second part of the book of Esther, in which the latter part of this narrative occurs, to the Apocrypha. As also that of Ezra above cited. E.M.

[45] These are disclosed in "The Life of A.K." The personality referred to on this occasion was "Faustine, the Roman," the Empress of Marcus Aurelius. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 353-354.) S.H.H.

[46] The "Hymn of Aphrodite," including the "Discourse of the Communion of Souls, and of the Uses of Love between Creature and Creature; being part of the Golden Book of Venus," from which latter the above is taken, is given in full in the P.W. pp. 350-356.

[47] The instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying was received by A.K. in Paris on the 7th February, 1880. S.H.H.

[48] P.W. pp. 311-314. Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 344-345.

[49] The occasion of the receipt by A.K. and E.M. of the above was one of peculiar interest. It was given in reference to a visit from the late Laurence Oliphant, an account of which will be found in "The Life of A.K." It will suffice to say here that, having heard of their work, Oliphant came to them as an emissary from his chief in America, Thomas Lake Harris, to summon them to place themselves and all that they were and had, at his disposal as the king and Christ of the new dispensation. The above instruction was given to them in direct reference to this incident. It was followed by others fully exposing the delusive source and nature of the doctrine and practice of Laurence Oliphant and Thomas Lake Harris. The above Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes is now given in full in this book for the first time. It is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 282-283. S.H.H.

[50] See note p. 7

[51] The above reference is to an experience of mine which does not call for relation here. E.M.

[52] Says E.M. in "The Life of A.K."—"The subtlety with which my most sensitive places were searched out, and the mercilessness with which they were probed by the influences which had now obtained access to us, seemed to me to belong altogether to the infernal." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 318.) S.H.H.

[53] The date was 27th March, 1880. S.H.H.

[54] The Hymn to the Planet-God has been referred to on p. 79. It is given in full in the P.W. pp. 341-349: a portion of it concerning the passage of the Soul, and concerning the Mystic Exodus, are given on pp. 169-173 post. The method of the recovery by A. K. of this most important Hymn "was such as to constitute it a proof positive of the great doctrine set forth in it, the doctrine of Reincarnation; for it was as one of a band of initiates, making solemn procession through the aisles of a vast Egyptian temple, chanting it in chorus, that 'Mary,' being asleep, recollected it." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 456.) S.H.H.

[55] That is, the "strained conditions" under which their association was then maintained and their work carried on. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.

[56] See p. 130.

[57] On the night of the 23rd June, 1880. This vision was received by E.M. as he pondered and while he was awake. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 376-377.) S.H.H.

[58] Some of A.K.'s illuminations have thus been lost to the world. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.

[59] Lady Caithness. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 329.) See pp. 137 and 185 post. S.H.H.

[60] On the 13th-14th January, 1881. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 435.) S.H.H.

[61] A full account of this interview with William Lily is given in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 435-441.

[62] On the 9th April, 1877, in London. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 172.) S.H.H.

[63] Christmas Day, 1880. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 430.)

[64] The time referred to was September, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 285-385.)

[65] A.K. was preparing for her second Doctorat, and E.M. was elaborating out of his own consciousness "a key to the interpretation especially of the initial chapters of Genesis." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 264.)

[66] On the 4th June, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 265.)

[67] E.M. says:—"Her notes, of course, disappeared with her dream, and she had to reproduce it from memory. But this was abnormally enhanced, for she said that the words presented themselves again to her as she wrote, and stood out luminously to view." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 269.)

[68] That is the outer sense and lower reason.

[69] The illumination in question was received by A.K. in Paris on the night of the 25th July, 1877, and was written down under trance. Further portions are given on pp. 158, 159, 161. It is given in full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 202-203.

[70] See further on this most important subject "The Bible's Own Account of Itself," by E.M., the only complete edition of which is published by "The Ruskin Press," Ruskin House, Stafford Street, Birmingham. S.H.H.

[71] From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, referred to on p. 151.

[72] From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, referred to on p. 151.

[73] From the exposition concerning the Christian Mysteries given in full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 99-100.

[74] Taste and smell being modes of touch. E.M.

[75] I.e., the astral and mental part of man, which is accounted a person or system in itself. E.M.

[76] The Sacramental bread called by the Hebrews "showbread."

[77] See note on p. 122, ante.

[78] The names Nyssa, Nysa, Nysas, and Nissi are identical with each other, and also with Sinai, Sion, and those of other sacred mounts. For they all are names for the Mount of Regeneration, the mount or "holy hill" of the Lord, within the man, to be on which is to be in the Spirit. The river Hiddekel has the like import. It is the river of the soul, herself fluidic and called Maria (waters), which, as the receptacle of the divine nucleus, winds about and encompasses the Spirit. Thus Daniel is said to be "on Hiddekel" when under divine illumination. ("The Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 459.)

[79] A.K. was distinctly and positively assured that the incident then shown to her was one that actually occurred, and that she had borne part of it though no record of it survives. S.H.H.

[80] This instruction is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I, pp. 424-425.

[81] The French edition, subsequently issued at Paris, is also due to her zeal and generosity. See p 137, ante.

[82] For the meaning of the "Four Rivers of Eden" see P. W., vi. par. 6. See note on p. 172, ante as to meaning of river Hiddekel.

[83] This indictment is as true to-day as it was twelve years ago, when the above passage was written. S.H.H.

[84] Cited from the preface to the second and succeeding editions of "The P. W."

[85] Cited from "The Life of A. K." Vol. II. p. 155.

[86] The Theosophist, May, 1882.

[87] The term Theosophy is here used in its Pauline and ancient sense of the science of the realisation of man's potential divinity;—the process, that is, of the Christ.—1 Cor. ii. 7. E.M.

[88] From an address given on the 17th July, 1883, by A.K. to the Theosophical Society, a full report of which is given in "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 124-128.

[89] A term which signifies forethought. The remonstrance is against undue anxiety and alarm on the soul's behalf while in the path of duty, as implying distrust of the divine sufficiency. E.M.

[90] Meaning that in such case the flesh itself is the impediment.

[91] In a letter on "The Church and the Bible," in the "Agnostic Journal" of 5th January, 1895, E.M. says:—

"Among the fallacies to be discarded is the fallacy which consists in believing that the Church, so vehemently denounced in its own sacred books for its manifold, grievous, and fatal perversions of the truth contained in those books, and so ignorant as to be unaware either of the source or of the meaning of its own dogmas, must understand its doctrines better than I understand them, whose high privilege it is to have been one of the two recipients of the New Gospel of Interpretation, which has been vouchsafed expressly to correct those perversions, and who not only have that gospel by heart, but who know absolutely by my own soul's experience—as also did my colleague—the truth of every word of it." (A long extract from this letter, including the above, is printed in the appendix to B.O.A.I. p. 83.) S.H.H.

[92] See also E.M.'s remarks to the same effect in the "Statement E.C.U." pp. 10-11.

[93] See Life A.K. Vol. II. pp. 52-53.

[94] See Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 241.
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