{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24507/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24507","id":"gutenberg_24507","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24507","summary":null,"tags":["Anthroposophy","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity and other religions","Mysteries, Religious","Mysticism"],"text":"Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Jeannie Howse and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from scanned images of public domain\nmaterial from the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |\n    | been preserved.                                           |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |\n    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AS\nMYSTICAL FACT\nAND\nTHE MYSTERIES OF ANTIQUITY\n\n\nBY\n\nDR. RUDOLF STEINER\nAUTHOR OF \"MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE,\" \"THE GATES\nOF KNOWLEDGE,\" ETC.\n\n\n_THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_\n\n\nEDITED BY H. COLLISON\n\n\nTHE AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION\n\n\nG.P. PUTNAM'S SONS\nNEW YORK AND LONDON\nThe Knickerbocker Press\n1914\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1914\nBY\nH. COLLISON\n\n\nThe copyrights, the publishing rights, and the editorial\nresponsibility for the translations of the works of Rudolf Steiner,\nPh.D., with the exception of those already published under the\neditorial supervision of Mr. Max Gysi, are now vested in Mr. Harry\nCollison, M.A., Oxon.\n\nThe Knickerbocker Press, New York\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION\n\n\n_Christianity as Mystical Fact_ was the title given by the author to\nthis work, when, eight years ago, he gathered into it the substance of\nlectures delivered by him in 1902. The title indicated the special\ncharacter of the book. In it the attempt was made, not merely to\nrepresent historically the mystical content of Christianity, but to\ndescribe the origin of Christianity from the standpoint of mystical\ncontemplation. Underlying this intention was the thought that at the\ngenesis of Christianity mystical facts were at work which can only be\nperceived by such contemplation.\n\nIt is only the book itself which can make clear that by \"mystical\" its\nauthor does not imply a conception which relies more on vague feelings\nthan on \"strictly scientific statements.\" It is true that \"mysticism\"\nis at present widely understood in the former sense, and hence it is\ndeclared by many to be a sphere of the human soul-life with which\n\"true science\" can have nothing to do. In this book the word\n\"mysticism\" is used in the sense of the representation of a spiritual\nfact, which can only be recognised in its true nature when the\nknowledge of it is derived from the sources of spiritual life itself.\nIf the kind of knowledge drawn from such sources is rejected, the\nreader will not be in a position to judge of the contents of this\nbook. Only one who allows that the same clearness may exist in\nmysticism as in a true representation of the facts of natural science,\nwill be ready to admit that the content of Christianity as mysticism\nmay also be mystically described. For it is not only a question of the\ncontents of the book, but first and foremost of the methods of\nknowledge by means of which the statements in it are made.\n\nMany there are in the present day who have a most violent dislike to\nsuch methods, which are regarded as conflicting with the ways of true\nscience. And this is not only the case with those willing to admit\nother interpretations of the world than their own, on the ground of\n\"genuine knowledge of natural science,\" but also with those who as\nbelievers wish to study the nature of Christianity.\n\nThe author of this book stands on the ground of a conception which\nsees that the achievements of natural science in our age must lead up\ninto true mysticism. In fact, any other attitude as regards knowledge\nactually contradicts everything presented by the achievements of\nnatural science. The facts of natural science itself indeed cannot be\ncomprehended by means of those methods of knowledge which so many\npeople would like to employ to the exclusion of others, under the\nillusion that they stand on the firm ground of natural science. It is\nonly when we are prepared to admit that a full appreciation of our\npresent admirable knowledge of nature is compatible with genuine\nmysticism, that we can take the contents of this book into\nconsideration.\n\nThe author's intention is to show, by means of what is here called\n\"mystical knowledge,\" how the source of Christianity prepared its own\nground in the mysteries of pre-Christian times. In this pre-Christian\nmysticism we find the soil in which Christianity throve, as a germ of\nquite independent nature. This point of view makes it possible to\nunderstand Christianity in its independent being, even though its\nevolution is traced from pre-Christian mysticism. If this point of\nview be overlooked, it is very possible to misunderstand that\nindependent character, and to think that Christianity was merely a\nfurther development of what already existed in pre-Christian\nmysticism. Many people of the present day have fallen into this error,\ncomparing the content of Christianity with pre-Christian conceptions,\nand then thinking that Christian ideas were only a continuation of the\nformer. The following pages are intended to show that Christianity\npresupposes the earlier mysticism just as a seed must have its soil.\nIt is intended to emphasise the peculiar character of the essence of\nChristianity, through the knowledge of its evolution, but not to\nextinguish it.\n\nIt is with deep satisfaction that the author is able to mention that\nthis account of the nature of Christianity has found acceptance with\na writer who has enriched the culture of our time in the highest sense\nof the word, by his important works on the spiritual life of humanity.\nEdouard Schure, author of _Les Grands Inities_,[1] is so far in accord\nwith the attitude of this book that he undertook to translate it into\nFrench, under the title, _Le mystere chretien et les mysteres\nantiques_. It may be mentioned by the way, and as a symptom of the\nexistence at the present time of a longing to understand the nature of\nChristianity as presented in this work, that the first edition was\ntranslated into other European languages besides French.\n\nThe author has not found occasion to alter anything essential in the\npreparation of this second edition. On the other hand, what was\nwritten eight years ago has been enlarged, and the endeavour has been\nmade to express many things more exactly and circumstantially than was\nthen possible. Unfortunately the author was obliged, through stress\nof work, to let a long period elapse between the time when the first\nedition was exhausted, and the appearance of the second.\n\n                                        RUDOLF STEINER.\n\n  May, 1910.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] This book is to be had in an English translation, by F. Rothwell,\nunder the title of _The Great Initiates_, A Sketch of the Secret\nHistory of Religions, by Edouard Schure (Pub., Rider & Son, London).\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                             PAGE\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION                                 iii\n\nCHAPTER\n\n   I.--POINTS OF VIEW                                           1\n\n  II.--THE MYSTERIES AND THEIR WISDOM                          10\n\n III.--THE GREEK SAGES BEFORE PLATO IN THE LIGHT OF THE\n       WISDOM OF THE MYSTERIES                                 39\n\n  IV.--PLATO AS A MYSTIC                                       63\n\n   V.--THE WISDOM OF THE MYSTERIES AND THE MYTH                93\n\n  VI.--THE MYSTERY WISDOM OF EGYPT                            127\n\n VII.--THE GOSPELS                                            147\n\nVIII.--THE LAZARUS MIRACLE                                    159\n\n  IX.--THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN                             177\n\n   X.--JESUS AND HIS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND                    198\n\n  XI.--THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY                             203\n\n XII.--CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHEN WISDOM                        215\n\nXIII.--ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE CHURCH                           227\n\n       NOTES                                                  239\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AS MYSTICAL FACT\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nChristianity as Mystical Fact\n\nI\n\nPOINTS OF VIEW\n\n\nNatural Science has deeply influenced modern thought. It is becoming\nmore and more impossible to speak of spiritual needs and the life of\nthe soul, without taking into consideration the achievements and\nmethods of this science. It must be admitted, however, that many\npeople satisfy these needs, without letting themselves be troubled by\nits influence. But those who feel the beating of the pulse of the age\nmust take this influence into consideration. With increasing swiftness\ndo ideas derived from natural science take possession of our brains,\nand, unwillingly though it may be, our hearts follow, often in\ndejection and dismay. It is not a question only of the number thus won\nover, but of the fact that there is a force within the method of\nnatural science, which convinces the attentive observer that that\nmethod contains something which cannot be neglected, and is one by\nwhich any modern conception of the universe must be profoundly\naffected. Many of the outgrowths of this method compel a justifiable\nrejection. But such rejection is not sufficient in an age in which\nvery many resort to this way of thinking, and are attracted to it as\nif by magic. The case is in no way altered because some people see\nthat true science long ago passed, by its own initiative, beyond the\nshallow doctrines of force and matter taught by materialists. It would\nbe better, apparently, to listen to those who boldly declare that the\nideas of natural science will form the basis of a new religion. If\nthese ideas also appear shallow and superficial to one who knows the\ndeeper spiritual needs of humanity, he must nevertheless take note of\nthem, for it is to them that attention is now turned, and there is\nreason to think they will claim more and more notice in the near\nfuture.\n\nAnother class of people have also to be taken into account, those\nwhose hearts have lagged behind their heads. With their reason they\ncannot but accept the ideas of natural science. The burden of proof is\ntoo much for them. But those ideas cannot satisfy the religious needs\nof their souls,--the perspective offered is too dreary. Is the human\nsoul to rise on the wings of enthusiasm to the heights of beauty,\ntruth, and goodness, only for each individual to be swept away in the\nend like a bubble blown by the material brain? This is a feeling which\noppresses many minds like a nightmare. But scientific concepts oppress\nthem also, coming as they do come with the mighty force of authority.\nAs long as they can, these people remain blind to the discord in their\nsouls. Indeed they console themselves by saying that full clearness in\nthese matters is denied to the human soul. They think in accordance\nwith natural science so long as the experience of their senses and the\nlogic of their intellect demand it, but they keep to the religious\nsentiments in which they have been educated, and prefer to remain in\ndarkness as to these matters,--a darkness which clouds their\nunderstanding. They have not the courage to battle through to the\nlight.\n\nThere can be no doubt whatever that the habit of thought derived from\nnatural science is the greatest force in modern intellectual life, and\nit must not be passed by heedlessly by any one concerned with the\nspiritual interests of humanity. But it is none the less true that the\nway in which it sets about satisfying spiritual needs is superficial\nand shallow. If this were the right way, the outlook would indeed be\ndreary. Would it not be depressing to be obliged to agree with those\nwho say: \"Thought is a form of force. We walk by means of the same\nforce by which we think. Man is an organism which transforms various\nforms of force into thought-force, an organism the activity of which\nwe maintain by what we call 'food,' and with which we produce what we\ncall 'thought.' What a marvellous chemical process it is which could\nchange a certain quantity of food into the divine tragedy of Hamlet.\"\nThis is quoted from a pamphlet of Robert G. Ingersoll, bearing the\ntitle, _Modern Twilight of the Gods_. It matters little if such\nthoughts find but scanty acceptance in the outside world. The point is\nthat innumerable people find themselves compelled by the system of\nnatural science to take up with regard to world-processes an attitude\nin conformity with the above, even when they think they are not doing\nso.\n\nIt would certainly be a dreary outlook if natural science itself\ncompelled us to accept the creed proclaimed by many of its modern\nprophets. Most dreary of all for one who has gained, from the content\nof natural science, the conviction that in its own sphere its mode of\nthought holds good and its methods are unassailable. For he is driven\nto make the admission that, however much people may dispute about\nindividual questions, though volume after volume may be written, and\nthousands of observations accumulated about the struggle for existence\nand its insignificance, about the omnipotence or powerlessness of\nnatural selection, natural science itself is moving in a direction\nwhich, within certain limits, must find acceptance in an\never-increasing degree.\n\nBut are the demands made by natural science really such as they are\ndescribed by some of its representatives? That they are not so is\nproved by the method employed by these representatives themselves. The\nmethod they use in their own sphere is not such as is often described,\nand claimed for other spheres of thought. Would Darwin and Ernst\nHaeckel ever have made their great discoveries about the evolution of\nlife if, instead of observing life and the structure of living beings,\nthey had shut themselves up in a laboratory and there made chemical\nexperiments with tissue cut out of an organism? Would Lyell have been\nable to describe the development of the crust of the earth if, instead\nof examining strata and their contents, he had scrutinised the\nchemical qualities of innumerable rocks? Let us really follow in the\nfootsteps of these investigators who tower like giants in the domain\nof modern science. We shall then apply to the higher regions of\nspiritual life the methods they have used in the study of nature. We\nshall not then believe we have understood the nature of the \"divine\"\ntragedy of Hamlet by saying that a wonderful chemical process\ntransformed a certain quantity of food into that tragedy. We shall\nbelieve it as little as an investigator of nature could seriously\nbelieve that he has understood the mission of heat in the evolution of\nthe earth, when he has studied the action of heat on sulphur in a\nretort. Neither does he attempt to understand the construction of the\nhuman brain by examining the effect of liquid potash on a fragment of\nit, but rather by inquiring how the brain has, in the course of\nevolution, been developed out of the organs of lower organisms.\n\nIt is therefore quite true that one who is investigating the nature of\nspirit can do nothing better than learn from natural science. He need\nonly do as science does, but he must not allow himself to be misled by\nwhat individual representatives of natural science would dictate to\nhim. He must investigate in the spiritual as they do in the physical\ndomain, but he need not adopt the opinions they entertain about the\nspiritual world, confused as they are by their exclusive\ncontemplation of physical phenomena.\n\nWe shall only be acting in the spirit of natural science if we study\nthe spiritual development of man as impartially as the naturalist\nobserves the sense-world. We shall then certainly be led, in the\ndomain of spiritual life, to a kind of contemplation which differs\nfrom that of the naturalist as geology differs from pure physics and\nbiology from chemistry. We shall be led up to higher methods, which\ncannot, it is true, be those of natural science, though quite\nconformable with the spirit of it. Such methods alone are able to\nbring us to the heart of spiritual developments, such as that of\nChristianity, or other worlds of religious conceptions. Any one\napplying these methods may arouse the opposition of many who believe\nthey are thinking scientifically, but he will know himself, for all\nthat, to be in full accord with a genuinely scientific method of\nthought.\n\nAn investigator of this kind must also go beyond a merely historical\nexamination of the documents relating to spiritual life. This is\nnecessary just on account of the attitude he has acquired from his\nstudy of natural history. When a chemical law is explained, it is of\nsmall use to describe the retorts, dishes, and pincers which have led\nto the discovery of the law. And it is just as useless, when\nexplaining the origin of Christianity, to ascertain the historical\nsources drawn upon by the Evangelist St. Luke, or those from which the\n\"hidden revelation\" of St. John is compiled. History can in this case\nbe only the outer court to research proper. It is not by tracing the\nhistorical origin of documents that we shall discover anything about\nthe dominant ideas in the writings of Moses or in the traditions of\nthe Greek mystics. These documents are only the outer expression for\nthe ideas. Nor does the naturalist who is investigating the nature of\nman trouble about the origin of the word \"man,\" or the way in which it\nhas developed in a language. He keeps to the thing, not to the word in\nwhich it finds expression. And in studying spiritual life we must\nlikewise abide by the spirit and not by outer documents.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE MYSTERIES AND THEIR WISDOM\n\n\nA kind of mysterious veil hangs over the manner in which spiritual\nneeds were satisfied during the older civilisations by those who\nsought a deeper religious life and fuller knowledge than the popular\nreligions offered. If we inquire how these needs were satisfied, we\nfind ourselves led into the dim twilight of the mysteries, and the\nindividual seeking them disappears for a time from our observation. We\nsee how it is that the popular religions cannot give him what his\nheart desires. He acknowledges the existence of the gods, but knows\nthat the ordinary ideas about them do not solve the great problems of\nexistence. He seeks a wisdom which is jealously guarded by a community\nof priest-sages. His aspiring soul seeks a refuge in this community.\nIf he is found by the sages to be sufficiently prepared, he is led up\nby them, step by step, to higher knowledge, in places hidden from the\neyes of outward observers. What then happens to him is concealed from\nthe uninitiated. He seems for a time to be entirely removed from\nearthly life and to be transported into a hidden world.\n\nWhen he reappears in the light of day a different, quite transformed\nperson is before us. We see a man who cannot find words sublime enough\nto express the momentous experience through which he has passed. Not\nmerely metaphorically but in a most real sense does he seem to have\ngone through the gate of death and to have awakened to a new and\nhigher life. He is, moreover, quite certain that no one who has not\nhad a similar experience can understand his words.\n\nThis was what happened to those who were initiated into the Mysteries,\ninto that secret wisdom withheld from the people and which threw light\non the greatest questions. This \"secret\" religion of the elect existed\nside by side with the popular religion. Its origin vanishes, as far as\nhistory is concerned, into the obscurity in which the origin of\nnations is lost. We find this secret religion everywhere amongst the\nancients as far as we know anything concerning them; and we hear their\nsages speak of the Mysteries with the greatest reverence. What was it\nthat was concealed in them? And what did they unveil to the initiate?\n\nThe enigma becomes still more puzzling when we discover that the\nancients looked upon the Mysteries as something dangerous. The way\nleading to the secrets of existence passed through a world of terrors,\nand woe to him who tried to gain them unworthily. There was no greater\ncrime than the \"betrayal\" of secrets to the uninitiated. The \"traitor\"\nwas punished with death and the confiscation of his property. We know\nthat the poet AEschylus was accused of having reproduced on the stage\nsomething from the Mysteries. He was only able to escape death by\nfleeing to the altar of Dionysos and by legally proving that he had\nnever been initiated.\n\nWhat the ancients say about these secrets is significant, but at the\nsame time ambiguous. The initiate is convinced that it would be a sin\nto tell what he knows and also that it would be sinful for the\nuninitiated to listen. Plutarch speaks of the terror of those about to\nbe initiated, and compares their state of mind to preparation for\ndeath. A special mode of life had to precede initiation, tending to\ngive the spirit the mastery over the senses. Fasting, solitude,\nmortifications, and certain exercises for the soul were the means\nemployed. The things to which man clings in ordinary life were to lose\nall their value for him. The whole trend of his life of sensation and\nfeeling was to be changed.\n\nThere can be no doubt as to the meaning of such exercises and tests.\nThe wisdom which was to be offered to the candidate for initiation\ncould only produce the right effect upon his soul if he had previously\npurified the lower life of his sensibility. He was introduced to the\nlife of the spirit. He was to behold a higher world, but he could not\nenter into relations with that world without previous exercises and\ntests. The relations thus gained were the condition of initiation.\n\nIn order to obtain a correct idea on this matter, it is necessary to\ngain experience of the intimate facts of the growth of knowledge. We\nmust feel that there are two widely divergent attitudes towards that\nwhich the highest knowledge gives. The world surrounding us is to us\nat first the real one. We feel, hear, and see what goes on in it, and\nbecause we thus perceive things with our senses, we call them real.\nAnd we reflect about events, in order to get an insight into their\nconnections. On the other hand, what wells up in our soul is at first\nnot real to us in the same sense. It is \"merely\" thoughts and ideas.\nAt the most we see in them only images of reality. They themselves\nhave no reality, for we cannot touch, see, or hear them.\n\nThere is another way of being connected with things. A person who\nclings to the kind of reality described above will hardly understand\nit, but it comes to certain people at some moment in their lives. To\nthem the whole connection with the world is completely reversed. They\nthen call the images which well up in the spiritual life of their\nsouls actually real, and they assign only a lower kind of reality to\nwhat the senses hear, touch, feel, and see. They know that they\ncannot prove what they say, that they can only relate their new\nexperiences, and that when relating them to others they are in the\nposition of a man who can see and who imparts his visual impressions\nto one born blind. They venture to impart their inner experiences,\ntrusting that there are others round them whose spiritual eyes, though\nas yet closed, may be opened by the power of what they hear. For they\nhave faith in humanity and want to give it spiritual sight. They can\nonly lay before it the fruits which their spirit has gathered. Whether\nanother sees them, depends on his spiritual eyes being opened or not.\n\nThere is something in man which at first prevents him from seeing with\nthe eyes of the spirit. He is not there for that purpose. He is what\nhis senses are, and his intellect is only the interpreter and judge of\nthem. The senses would ill fulfil their mission if they did not insist\nupon the truth and infallibility of their evidence. An eye must, from\nits own point of view, uphold the absolute reality of its perceptions.\nThe eye is right as far as it goes, and is not deprived of its due by\nthe eye of the spirit. The latter only allows us to see the things of\nsense in a higher light. Nothing seen by the eye of sense is denied,\nbut a new brightness, hitherto unseen, radiates from what is seen. And\nthen we know that what we first saw was only a lower reality. We see\nthat still, but it is immersed in something higher, which is spirit.\nIt is now a question of whether we realise and feel what we see. One\nwho lives only in the sensations and feelings of the senses will look\nupon impressions of higher things as a Fata Morgana, or mere play of\nfancy. His feelings are entirely directed towards the things of sense.\nHe grasps emptiness when he tries to lay hold of spirit forms. They\nwithdraw from him when he gropes after them. They are just \"mere\"\nthoughts. He thinks them, but does not live in them. They are images,\nless real to him than fleeting dreams. They rise up like bubbles while\nhe is standing in his reality; they disappear before the massive,\nsolidly built reality of which his senses tell him.\n\nIt is otherwise with one whose perceptions and feelings with regard to\nreality have changed. For him that reality has lost its absolute\nstability and value. His senses and feelings need not become numbed,\nbut they begin to be doubtful of their absolute authority. They leave\nroom for something else. The world of the spirit begins to animate the\nspace left.\n\nAt this point a possibility comes in which may prove terrible. A man\nmay lose his sensations and feelings of outer reality without finding\nany new reality opening up before him. He then feels himself as if\nsuspended in the void. He feels as if he were dead. The old values\nhave disappeared and no new ones have arisen in their place. The world\nand man no longer exist for him. This, however, is by no means a mere\npossibility. It happens at some time or other to every one who is\nseeking for higher knowledge. He comes to a point at which the spirit\nrepresents all life to him as death. He is then no longer in the\nworld, but under it,--in the nether world. He is passing through\nHades. Well for him if he sink not! Happy if a new world open up\nbefore him! Either he dwindles away or he appears to himself\ntransfigured. In the latter case he beholds a new sun and a new\nearth. The whole world has been born again for him out of spiritual\nfire.\n\nIt is thus that the initiates describe the effect of the Mysteries\nupon them. Menippus relates that he journeyed to Babylon in order to\nbe taken to Hades and to be brought back again by the successors of\nZarathustra. He says that he swam across the great water on his\nwanderings, and that he passed through fire and ice. We hear that the\nMystics were terrified by a flashing sword, and that blood flowed. We\nunderstand this when we know from experience the point of transition\nfrom lower to higher knowledge. We then feel as if all solid matter\nand things of sense had dissolved into water, and as if the ground\nwere cut away from under our feet. Everything is dead which we felt\nbefore to be alive. The spirit has passed through the life of the\nsenses, as a sword pierces a warm body; we have seen the blood of\nsense-nature flow. But a new life has appeared. We have risen from the\nnether-world. The orator Aristides relates this: \"I thought I touched\nthe god and felt him draw near, and I was then between waking and\nsleeping. My spirit was so light that no one who is not initiated can\nspeak of or understand it.\" This new existence is not subject to the\nlaws of lower life. Growth and decay no longer affect it. One may say\nmuch about the Eternal, but words of one who has not been through\nHades are \"mere sound and smoke.\" The initiates have a new conception\nof life and death. Now for the first time do they feel they have the\nright to speak about immortality. They know that one who speaks of it\nwithout having been initiated talks of something which he does not\nunderstand. The uninitiated attribute immortality only to something\nwhich is subject to the laws of growth and decay. The Mystics,\nhowever, did not merely desire to gain the conviction that the kernel\nof life is eternal. According to the view of the Mysteries, such a\nconviction would be quite valueless, for this view holds that the\nEternal is not present as a living reality in the uninitiated. If such\nan one spoke of the Eternal, he would be speaking of something\nnon-existent. It is rather the Eternal itself that the Mystics are\nseeking. They have first to awaken the Eternal within them, then they\ncan speak of it. Hence the hard saying of Plato is quite real to them,\nthat the uninitiated sinks into the mire, and that only one who has\npassed through the mystical life enters eternity. It is only in this\nsense that the words in the fragment of Sophocles can be understood:\n\"Thrice-blessed are the initiated who come to the realm of the shades.\nThey alone have life there. For others there is only misery and\nhardship.\"\n\nIs one therefore not describing dangers when speaking of the\nMysteries? Is it not robbing a man of happiness and of the best part\nof his life to take him to the portals of the nether-world? Terrible\nis the responsibility incurred by such an act. And yet ought we to\nrefuse that responsibility? These were the questions which the\ninitiate had to put to himself. He was of opinion that his knowledge\nbore the same relation to the soul of the people as light does to\ndarkness. But innocent happiness dwells in that darkness, and the\nMystics were of opinion that that happiness should not be\nsacrilegiously interfered with. For what would have happened in the\nfirst place if the Mystic had betrayed his secret? He would have\nuttered words and only words. The feelings and emotions which would\nhave evoked the spirit from the words would have been absent. To do\nthis preparation, exercises, tests, and a complete change in the life\nof sense were necessary. Without this the hearer would have been\nhurled into emptiness and nothingness. He would have been deprived of\nwhat constituted his happiness, without receiving anything in\nexchange. One may also say that one could take nothing away from him,\nfor mere words would change nothing in his life of feeling. He would\nonly have been able to feel and experience reality through his senses.\nNothing but a terrible misgiving, fatal to life, would be given him.\nThis could only be construed as a crime.\n\nThe wisdom of the Mysteries is like a hothouse plant, which must be\ncultivated and fostered in seclusion. Any one bringing it into the\natmosphere of everyday ideas brings it into air in which it cannot\nflourish. It withers away to nothing before the caustic verdict of\nmodern science and logic. Let us therefore divest ourselves for a\ntime of the education we gained through the microscope and telescope\nand the habit of thought derived from natural science, and let us\ncleanse our clumsy hands, which have been too busy with dissecting and\nexperimenting, in order that we may enter the pure temple of the\nMysteries. For this a candid and unbiassed attitude of mind is\nnecessary.\n\nThe important point for the Mystic is at first the frame of mind in\nwhich he approaches that which to him is the highest, the answers to\nthe riddles of existence. Just in our day, when only gross physical\nscience is recognised as containing truth, it is difficult to believe\nthat in the highest things we depend upon the key-note of the soul.\nKnowledge thereby becomes an intimate personal concern. But this is\nwhat it really is to the Mystic. Tell some one the solution of the\nriddle of the universe! Give it him ready-made! The Mystic will find\nit to be nothing but empty sound, if the personality does not meet the\nsolution half-way in the right manner. The solution in itself is\nnothing; it vanishes if the necessary feeling is not kindled at its\ncontact. A divinity approaches you. It is either everything or\nnothing. Nothing, if you meet it in the frame of mind with which you\nconfront everyday matters. Everything, if you are prepared, and\nattuned to the meeting. What the Divinity is in itself is a matter\nwhich does not affect you; the important point for you is whether it\nleaves you as it found you or makes another man of you. But this\ndepends entirely on yourself. You must have been prepared by a special\neducation, by a development of the inmost forces of your personality\nfor the work of kindling and releasing what a divinity is able to\nkindle and release in you. What is brought to you depends on the\nreception you give to it.\n\nPlutarch has told us about this education, and of the greeting which\nthe Mystic offers the divinity approaching him; \"For the god, as it\nwere, greets each one who approaches him, with the words, 'Know\nthyself,' which is surely no worse than the ordinary greeting,\n'Welcome.' Then we answer the divinity in the words, 'Thou art,' and\nthus we affirm that the true, primordial, and only adequate greeting\nfor him is to declare that he is. In that existence we really have no\npart here, for every mortal being, situated between birth and\ndestruction, merely manifests an appearance, a feeble and uncertain\nimage of itself. If we try to grasp it with our understanding, it is\nas when water is tightly compressed and runs over merely through the\npressure, spoiling what it touches. For the understanding, pursuing a\ntoo definite conception of each being that is subject to accidents and\nchange, loses its way, now in the origin of the being, now in its\ndestruction, and is unable to apprehend anything lasting or really\nexisting. For, as Heraclitus says, we cannot swim twice in the same\nwave, neither can we lay hold of a mortal being twice in the same\nstate, for, through the violence and rapidity of movement, it is\ndestroyed and recomposed; it comes into being and again decays; it\ncomes and goes. Therefore, that which is becoming can neither attain\nreal existence, because growth neither ceases nor pauses. Change\nbegins in the germ, and forms an embryo; then there appears a child,\nthen a youth, a man, and an old man; the first beginnings and\nsuccessive ages are continually annulled by the ensuing ones. Hence it\nis ridiculous to fear one death, when we have already died in so many\nways, and are still dying. For, as Heraclitus says, not only is the\ndeath of fire the birth of air, and the death of air the birth of\nwater, but the same change may be still more plainly seen in man. The\nstrong man dies when he becomes old, the youth when he becomes a man,\nthe boy on becoming a youth, and the child on becoming a boy. What\nexisted yesterday dies to-day, what is here to-day will die to-morrow.\nNothing endures or is a unity, but we become many things, whilst\nmatter wanders around one image, one common form. For if we were\nalways the same, how could we take pleasure in things which formerly\ndid not please us, how could we love and hate, admire and blame\nopposite things, how could we speak differently and give ourselves up\nto different passions, unless we were endowed with a different shape,\nform, and different senses? For no one can rightly come into a\ndifferent state without change, and one who is changed is no longer\nthe same; but if he is not the same, he no longer exists and is\nchanged from what he was, becoming something else. Sense-perception\nonly led us astray, because we do not know real being, and mistook for\nit that which is only an appearance.\"[2]\n\nPlutarch often describes himself as an initiate. What he portrays here\nis a condition of the life of the Mystic. Man acquires a kind of\nwisdom by means of which his spirit sees through the illusive\ncharacter of sense-life. What the senses regard as being, or reality,\nis plunged into the stream of \"becoming\"; and man is subject to the\nsame conditions in this respect as all other things in the world.\nBefore the eyes of his spirit he himself dissolves, the sum-total of\nhis being is broken up into parts, into fleeting phenomena. Birth and\ndeath lose their distinctive meaning, and become moments of appearing\nand disappearing, just as much as any other happenings in the world.\nThe Highest cannot be found in the connection between development and\ndecay. It can only be sought in what is really abiding, in what looks\nback to the past and forward to the future.\n\nTo find that which looks (_i.e._ the spirit) backwards and forwards is\nthe first stage of knowledge. This is the spirit, which is manifesting\nin and through the physical. It has nothing to do with physical\ngrowth. It does not come into being and again decay as do\nsense-phenomena. One who lives entirely in the world of sense carries\nthe spirit latent within him. One who has pierced through the illusion\nof the world of sense has the spirit within him as a manifest reality.\nThe man who attains to this insight has developed a new principle\nwithin him. Something has happened within him as in a plant when it\nadds a coloured flower to its green leaves. It is true the forces\ncausing the flower to grow were already latent in the plant before the\nblossom appeared, but they only became effective when this took place.\nDivine, spiritual forces are latent in the man who lives merely\nthrough his senses, but they only become a manifest reality in the\ninitiate. Such is the transformation which takes place in the Mystic.\nBy his development he has added a new element to the world. The world\nof sense made him a human being endowed with senses, and then left him\nto himself. Nature had thus fulfilled her mission. What she is able to\ndo with the powers operative in man is exhausted; not so the forces\nthemselves. They lie as though spellbound in the merely natural man\nand await their release. They cannot release themselves. They fade\naway to nothing unless man seizes upon them and develops them, unless\nhe calls into actual being what is latent within him.\n\nNature evolves from the imperfect to the perfect. She leads beings,\nthrough a long series of stages, from inanimate matter, through all\nliving forms up to physical man. Man looks around and finds himself a\nchanging being with physical reality, but he also perceives within him\nthe forces from which the physical reality arose. These forces are not\nwhat change, for they have given birth to the changing world. They are\nwithin man as a sign that there is more life within him than he can\nphysically perceive. What they may make man is not yet there. He\nfeels something flash up within him which created everything,\nincluding himself, and he feels that this will inspire him to higher\ncreative activity. This something is within him, it existed before his\nmanifestation in the flesh, and will exist afterwards. By means of it\nhe became, but he may lay hold of it and take part in its creative\nactivity.\n\nSuch are the feelings animating the Mystic after initiation. He feels\nthe Eternal and Divine. His activity is to become a part of that\ndivine creative activity. He may say to himself: \"I have discovered a\nhigher ego within me, but that ego extends beyond the bounds of my\nsense-existence. It existed before my birth and will exist after my\ndeath. This ego has created from all eternity, it will go on creating\nin all eternity. My physical personality is a creation of this ego.\nBut it has incorporated me within it, it works within me, I am a part\nof it. What I henceforth create will be higher than the physical. My\npersonality is only a means for this creative power, for this Divine\nis within me.\" Thus did the Mystic experience his birth into the\nDivine.\n\nThe Mystic called the power that flashed up within him a daimon. He\nwas himself the product of this daimon. It seemed to him as though\nanother being had entered him and taken possession of his organs, a\nbeing standing between his physical personality and the all-ruling\ncosmic power, the divinity.\n\nThe Mystic sought this--his daimon. He said to himself: \"I have become\na human being in mighty Nature, but Nature did not complete her task.\nThis completion I must take in hand myself. But I cannot accomplish it\nin the gross kingdom of nature to which my physical personality\nbelongs. What it is possible to develop in that realm has already been\ndeveloped. Therefore I must leave this kingdom and take up the\nbuilding in the realm of the spirit at the point where nature left\noff. I must create an atmosphere of life not to be found in outer\nnature.\"\n\nThis atmosphere of life was prepared for the Mystic in the Mystery\ntemples. There the forces slumbering within him were awakened, there\nhe was changed into a higher creative spirit-nature. This\ntransformation was a delicate process. It could not bear the\nuntempered atmosphere of everyday life. But when once it was\ncompleted, its result was that the initiate stood as a rock, rising\nfrom the eternal and able to defy all storms. But it was impossible\nfor him to reveal his experiences to any one unprepared to receive\nthem.\n\nPlutarch says that the Mysteries gave deep understanding of the true\nnature of the daimons. And Cicero tells us that from the Mysteries,\n\"When they are explained and traced back to their meaning, we learn\nthe nature of things rather than that of the gods.\"[3] From such\nstatements we see clearly that there were higher revelations for the\nMystics about the nature of things than that which popular religion\nwas able to impart. Indeed we see that the daimons, _i.e._, spiritual\nbeings, and the gods themselves, needed explaining. Therefore\ninitiates went back to beings of a higher nature than daimons or gods,\nand this was characteristic of the essence of the wisdom of the\nMysteries.\n\nThe people represented the gods and daimons in images borrowed from\nthe world of sense-reality. Would not one who had penetrated into the\nnature of the Eternal doubt about the eternal nature of such gods as\nthese? How could the Zeus of popular imagination be eternal if he bore\nwithin him the qualities of a perishable being? One thing was clear to\nthe Mystics, that man arrives at a conception of the gods in a\ndifferent way from the conception of other things. An object belonging\nto the outer world compels us to form a very definite idea of it. In\ncontrast to this, we form our conception of the gods in a freer and\nsomewhat arbitrary manner. The control of the outer world is absent.\nReflection teaches us that what we conceive as gods is not subject to\nouter control. This places us in logical uncertainty; we begin to feel\nthat we ourselves are the creators of our gods. Indeed, we ask\nourselves how we have arrived at a conception of the universe that\ngoes beyond physical reality. The initiate was obliged to ask himself\nsuch questions; his doubts were justified. \"Look at all\nrepresentations of the gods,\" he might think to himself. \"Are they\nnot like the beings we meet in the world of sense? Did not man create\nthem for himself, by giving or withholding from them, in his thought,\nsome quality belonging to beings of the sense-world? The savage lover\nof the chase creates a heaven in which the gods themselves take part\nin glorious hunting, and the Greek peopled his Olympus with divine\nbeings whose models were taken from his own surroundings.\"\n\nThe philosopher Xenophanes (B.C. 575-480) drew attention to this fact\nwith a crude logic. We know that the older Greek philosophers were\nentirely dependent on the wisdom of the Mysteries. We will afterwards\nprove this in detail, beginning with Heraclitus. What Xenophanes says\nmay at once be taken as the conviction of a Mystic. It runs thus:\n\n\"Men who picture the gods as created in their own human forms, give\nthem human senses, voices, and bodies. But if cattle and lions had\nhands, and knew how to use them, like men, in painting and working,\nthey would paint the forms of the gods and shape their bodies as\ntheir own bodies were constituted. Horses would create gods in\nhorse-form, and cattle would make gods like bulls.\"\n\nThrough insight of this kind, man may begin to doubt the existence of\nanything divine. He may reject all mythology, and only recognise as\nreality what is forced upon him by his sense-perception. But the\nMystic did not become a doubter of this kind. He saw that the doubter\nwould be like a plant were it to say: \"My crimson flowers are null and\nfutile, because I am complete within my green leaves. What I may add\nto them is only adding illusive appearance.\" Just as little could the\nMystic rest content with gods thus created, the gods of the people. If\nthe plant could think, it would understand that the forces which\ncreated its green leaves are also destined to create crimson flowers,\nand it would not rest till it had investigated those forces and come\nface to face with them. This was the attitude of the Mystic towards\nthe gods of the people. He did not deny them, or say they were\nillusion; but he knew they had been created by man. The same forces,\nthe same divine element, which are at work in nature, are at work in\nthe Mystic. They create within him images of the gods. He wishes to\nsee the force that creates the gods; it comes from a higher source\nthan these gods. Xenophanes alludes to it thus: \"There is one god\ngreater than all gods and men. His form is not like that of mortals,\nhis thoughts are not their thoughts.\"\n\nThis god was also the God of the Mysteries. He might have been called a\n\"hidden God,\" for man could never find him with his senses only. Look\nat outer things around you, you will find nothing divine. Exert your\nreason, you may be able to detect the laws by which things appear and\ndisappear, but even your reason will not show you anything divine.\nSaturate your imagination with religious feeling, and you may be able\nto create images which you may take to be gods, but your reason will\npull them to pieces, for it will prove to you that you created them\nyourself, and borrowed the material from the sense-world. So long as\nyou look at outer things in your quality of simply a reasonable being,\nyou must deny the existence of God; for God is hidden from the senses,\nand from that reason of yours which explains sense-perceptions.\n\nGod lies hidden spellbound in the world, and you need His own power to\nfind Him. You must awaken that power in yourself. These are the\nteachings which were given to the candidate for initiation.\n\nAnd now there began for him the great cosmic drama with which his life\nwas bound up. The action of the drama meant nothing less than the\ndeliverance of the spellbound god. Where is God? This was the question\nasked by the soul of the Mystic. God is not existent, but nature\nexists. And in nature He must be found. There He has found an\nenchanted grave. It was in a higher sense that the Mystic understood\nthe words \"God is love.\" For God has exalted that love to its climax,\nHe has sacrificed Himself in infinite love, He has poured Himself out,\nfallen into number in the manifold of nature. Things in nature live\nand He does not live. He slumbers within them. We are able to awaken\nHim; if we are to give Him existence, we must deliver Him by the\ncreative power within us.\n\nThe candidate now looks unto himself. As latent creative power as yet\nwithout existence, the Divine is living in his soul. In the soul is a\nsacred place where the spellbound god may wake to liberty. The soul is\nthe mother who is able to conceive the god by nature. If the soul\nallows herself to be impregnated by nature, she will give birth to the\ndivine. God is born from the marriage of the soul with nature,--no\nlonger a \"hidden,\" but a manifest god. He has life, a perceptible\nlife, wandering amongst men. He is the god freed from enchantment, the\noffspring of the God who was hidden by a spell. He is not the great\nGod, who was and is and is to come, but yet he may be taken, in a\ncertain sense, as the revelation of Him. The Father remains at rest in\nthe unseen; the Son is born to man out of his own soul. Mystical\nknowledge is thus an actual event in the cosmic process. It is the\nbirth of the Divine. It is an event as real as any natural event, only\nenacted upon a higher plane.\n\nThe great secret of the Mystic is that he himself creates his god, but\nthat he first prepares himself to recognise the god created by him.\nThe uninitiated man has no feeling for the father of that god, for\nthat Father slumbers under a spell. The Son appears to be born of a\nvirgin, the soul having seemingly given birth to him without\nimpregnation. All her other children are conceived by the sense-world.\nTheir father may be seen and touched, having the life of sense. The\nDivine Son alone is begotten of the hidden, eternal, Divine, Father\nHimself.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Plutarch's Moral Works, _On the Inscription EJ at Delphi_, pp.\n17-18.\n\n[3] Plutarch, _On the Decline of the Oracles_; Cicero _On the Nature of\nthe Gods._\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE GREEK SAGES BEFORE PLATO IN THE LIGHT OF THE WISDOM OF THE\nMYSTERIES\n\n\nNumerous facts combine to show us that the philosophical wisdom of the\nGreeks rested on the same mental basis as mystical knowledge. We only\nunderstand the great philosophers when we approach them with feelings\ngained through study of the Mysteries. With what veneration does Plato\nspeak of the \"secret doctrines\" in the _Phaedo_. \"And it almost seems,\"\nsays he, \"as though those who have appointed the initiations for us\nare not at all ordinary people, but that for a long time they have\nbeen enjoining upon us that any one who reaches Hades without being\ninitiated and sanctified falls into the mire; but that he who is\npurified and consecrated when he arrives, dwells with the gods. For\nthose who have to do with initiations say that there are many\nthyrsus-bearers, but few really inspired. These latter are, in my\nopinion, none other than those who have devoted themselves in the\nright way to wisdom. I myself have not missed the opportunity of\nbecoming one of these, as far as I was able, but have striven after it\nin every way.\"\n\nIt is only a man who is putting his own search for wisdom entirely at\nthe disposal of the condition of soul created by initiation who could\nthus speak of the Mysteries. And there is no doubt that a flood of\nlight is poured on the words of the great Greek philosophers, when we\nillustrate them from the Mysteries.\n\nThe relation of Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 B.C.) to the Mysteries\nis plainly given us in a saying about him, to the effect that his\nthoughts \"were an impassable road,\" and that any one, entering upon\nthem without being initiated, found only \"dimness and darkness,\" but\nthat, on the other hand, they were \"brighter than the sun\" for any one\nintroduced to them by a Mystic. And when it is said of his book, that\nhe deposited it in the temple of Artemis, this only means that\ninitiates alone could understand him. (Edmund Pfleiderer has already\ncollected the historical evidence for the relation of Heraclitus to\nthe Mysteries. _Cf._ his book _Die Philosophie des Heraklit von\nEphesus im Lichte der Mysterienidee_. Berlin, 1886.) Heraclitus was\ncalled \"The Obscure,\" because it was only through the Mysteries that\nlight could be thrown on his intuitive views.\n\nHeraclitus comes before us as a man who took life with the greatest\nearnestness. We see plainly from his features, if we know how to\nreconstruct them, that he bore within him intimate knowledge which he\nknew that words could only indicate, not express. Out of such a temper\nof mind arose his celebrated utterance, \"All things fleet away,\" which\nPlutarch explains thus: \"We do not dip twice into the same wave, nor\ncan we touch twice the same mortal being. For through abruptness and\nspeed it disperses and brings together, not in succession but\nsimultaneously.\"\n\nA man who thus thinks has penetrated the nature of transitory things,\nfor he has felt compelled to characterise the essence of\ntransitoriness itself in the clearest terms. Such a description as\nthis could not be given, unless the transitory were being measured by\nthe eternal, and in particular it could not be extended to man without\nhaving seen his inner nature. Heraclitus has extended his\ncharacterisation to man. \"Life and death, waking and sleeping, youth\nand age are the same; this in changing is that, and that again this.\"\nIn this sentence there is expressed full knowledge of the illusionary\nnature of the lower personality. He says still more forcibly, \"Life\nand death are found in our living even as in our dying.\" What does\nthis mean but that it is only a transient point of view when we value\nlife more than death? Dying is to perish, in order to make way for new\nlife, but the eternal is living in the new life, as in the old. The\nsame eternal appears in transitory life as in death. When we grasp\nthis eternal, we look upon life and death with the same feeling. Life\nonly has a special value when we have not been able to awaken the\neternal within us. The saying, \"All things fleet away,\" might be\nrepeated a thousand times, but unless said in this feeling, it is an\nempty sound. The knowledge of eternal growth is valueless if it does\nnot detach us from temporal growth. It is the turning away from that\nlove of life which impels towards the transitory, which Heraclitus\nindicates in his utterance, \"How can we say about our daily life, 'We\nare,' when from the standpoint of the eternal we know that 'We are and\nare not?'\" (Cf. _Fragments of Heraclitus_, No. 81.) \"Hades and\nDionysos are one and the same,\" says one of the _Fragments_. Dionysos,\nthe god of joy in life, of germination and growth, to whom the\nDionysiac festivals are dedicated is, for Heraclitus, the same as\nHades, the god of destruction and annihilation. Only one who sees\ndeath in life and life in death, and in both the eternal, high above\nlife and death, can view the merits and demerits of existence in the\nright light. Then even imperfections become justified, for in them too\nlives the eternal. What they are from the standpoint of the limited\nlower life, they are only in appearance,--\"The gratification of men's\nwishes is not necessarily a happiness for them. Illness makes health\nsweet and good, hunger makes food appreciated, and toil rest.\" \"The\nsea contains the purest and impurest water, drinkable and wholesome\nfor fishes, it is undrinkable and injurious to human beings.\" Here\nHeraclitus is not primarily drawing attention to the transitoriness of\nearthly things, but to the splendour and majesty of the eternal.\n\nHeraclitus speaks vehemently against Homer and Hesiod, and the learned\nmen of his day. He wished to show up their way of thinking, which\nclings to the transitory only. He did not desire gods endowed with\nqualities taken from a perishable world, and he could not regard as a\nsupreme science, that science which investigates the growth and decay\nof things. For him, the eternal speaks out of the perishable, and for\nthis eternal he has a profound symbol. \"The harmony of the world\nreturns upon itself, like that of the lyre and the bow.\" What depths\nare hidden in this image! By the pressing asunder of forces, and again\nby the harmonising of these divergent forces, unity is attained. How\none sound contradicts another, and yet, together, they produce\nharmony. If we apply this to the Spiritual world, we have the thought\nof Heraclitus, \"Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal, living the\ndeath of mortals, dying the life of the Immortals.\"\n\nIt is man's original fault to direct his cognition to the transitory.\nThereby he turns away from the eternal, and life becomes a danger to\nhim. What happens to him, comes to him through life, but its events\nlose their sting if he ceases to set unconditioned value on life. In\nthat case his innocence is restored to him. It is as though he were\nfrom the so-called seriousness of life able to return to his\nchildhood. The adult takes many things seriously with which a child\nmerely plays, but one who really knows, becomes like a child.\n\"Serious\" values lose their value, looked at from the standpoint of\neternity. Life then seems like a play. On this account does Heraclitus\nsay, \"Eternity is a child at play, it is the reign of a child.\" Where\ndoes the original fault lie? In taking with the utmost seriousness\nwhat does not deserve to be so taken. God has poured Himself into the\nuniverse of things. If we take these things and leave God unheeded,\nwe take them in earnest as \"the tombs of God.\" We should play with\nthem like a child, and should earnestly strive to awaken forth from\nthem God, who sleeps spellbound within them.\n\nContemplation of the eternal acts like a consuming fire on ordinary\nillusions about the nature of things. The spirit breaks up thoughts\nwhich come through the senses, it fuses them. This is the higher\nmeaning of the Heraclitean thought, that fire is the primary element\nof all things. This thought is certainly to be taken at first as an\nordinary physical explanation of the phenomena of the universe. But no\none understands Heraclitus who does not think of him in the same way\nas Philo, living in the early days of Christianity, thought of the\nlaws of the Bible. \"There are people,\" he says, \"who take the written\nlaws _merely_ as symbols of spiritual teaching, who diligently search\nfor the latter, but despise the laws themselves. I can only blame\nsuch, for they should pay heed to both, to knowledge of the hidden\nmeaning and to observing the obvious one.\" If the question is\ndiscussed whether Heraclitus meant by \"fire\" physical fire, or\nwhether fire for him was only a symbol of eternal spirit which\ndissolves and reconstitutes all things, this is putting a wrong\nconstruction upon his thought. He meant both and neither of these\nthings. For spirit was also alive, for him, in ordinary fire, and the\nforce which is physically active in fire lives on a higher plane in\nthe human soul, which melts in its crucible mere sense-knowledge, so\nthat out of this the contemplation of the eternal may arise.\n\nIt is very easy to misunderstand Heraclitus. He makes Strife the\n\"Father of things,\" but only of \"things,\" not of the eternal. If there\nwere no contradictions in the world, if the most multifarious\ninterests were not opposing each other, the world of becoming, of\ntransitory things, would not exist. But what is revealed in this\nantagonism, what is poured forth into it, is not strife but harmony.\nJust because there is strife in all things, the spirit of the wise\nshould pass over them like a breath of fire, and change them into\nharmony.\n\nAt this point there shines forth one of the great thoughts of\nHeraclitean wisdom. What is man as a personal being? From the above\npoint of view Heraclitus is able to answer. Man is composed of the\nconflicting elements into which divinity has poured itself. In this\nstate he finds himself, and beyond this becomes aware of the spirit\nwithin him,--the spirit which is rooted in the eternal. But the spirit\nitself is born, for man, out of the conflict of elements, and it is\nthe first which has to calm them. In man, Nature surpasses her natural\nlimits. It is indeed the same universal force which created antagonism\nand the mixture of elements which is afterwards, by its wisdom, to do\naway with the conflict. Here we arrive at the eternal dualism which\nlives in man, the perpetual antagonism between the temporal and the\neternal. Through the eternal he has become something quite definite,\nand out of this, he is to create something higher. He is both\ndependent and independent. He can only participate in the eternal\nSpirit whom he contemplates, in the measure of the compound of\nelements which that eternal Spirit has effected within him. And it is\njust on this account that he is called upon to fashion the eternal\nout of the temporal. The spirit works within him, but works in a\nspecial way. It works out of the temporal. It is the peculiarity of\nthe human soul that a temporal thing should be able to work like an\neternal one, should grow and increase in power like an eternal thing.\nThis is why the soul is at once like a god and a worm. Man, owing to\nthis, stands in a mid-position between God and animals. The growing\nand increasing force within him is his daimonic element,--that within\nhim which pushes out beyond himself.\n\n\"Man's daimon is his destiny.\" Thus strikingly does Heraclitus make\nreference to this fact. He extends man's vital essence far beyond the\npersonal. The personality is the vehicle of the daimon, which is not\nconfined within the limit of the personality, and for which the birth\nand death of the personality are of no importance. What is the\nrelation of the daimonic element to the personality which comes and\ngoes? The personality is only a form for the manifestation of the\ndaimon.\n\nOne who has arrived at this knowledge looks beyond himself, backwards\nand forwards. The daimonic experiences through which he has passed are\nenough to prove to him his own immortality. And he can no longer limit\nhis daimon to the one function of occupying his personality, for the\nlatter can only be one of the forms in which the daimon is manifested.\nThe daimon cannot be shut up within one personality, he has power to\nanimate many. He is able to transform himself from one personality\ninto another. The great thought of reincarnation springs as a matter\nof course from the Heraclitean premises, and not only the thought but\nthe experience of the fact. The thought only paves the way for the\nexperience. One who becomes conscious of the daimonic element within\nhim does not recognise it as innocent and in its first stage. He finds\nthat it has qualities. Whence do they come? Why have I certain natural\naptitudes? Because others have already worked upon my daimon. And what\nbecomes of the work which I accomplish in the daimon if I am not to\nassume that its task ends with my personality? I am working for a\nfuture personality. Between me and the Spirit of the Universe,\nsomething interposes which reaches beyond me, but is not yet the same\nas divinity. This something is my daimon. My to-day is only the\nproduct of yesterday, my to-morrow will be the product of to-day; in\nthe same way my life is the result of a former and will be the\nfoundation of a future one. Just as mortal man looks back to\ninnumerable yesterdays and forward to many to-morrows, so does the\nsoul of the sage look upon many lives in his past and many in the\nfuture. The thoughts and aptitudes I acquired yesterday I am using\nto-day. Is it not the same with life? Do not people enter upon the\nhorizon of existence with the most diverse capacities? Whence this\ndifference? Does it proceed from nothing?\n\nOur natural sciences take much credit to themselves for having\nbanished miracle from our views of organic life. David Frederick\nStrauss, in his _Alter und Neuer Glaube_, considers it a great\nachievement of our day that we no longer think that a perfect organic\nbeing is a miracle issuing from nothing. We understand its perfection\nwhen we are able to explain it as a development from imperfection. The\nstructure of an ape is no longer a miracle if we assume its ancestors\nto have been primitive fishes which have been gradually transformed.\nLet us at least submit to accept as reasonable in the domain of spirit\nwhat seems to us to be right in the domain of nature. Is the perfect\nspirit to have the same antecedents as the imperfect one? Does a\nGoethe have the same antecedents as any Hottentot? The antecedents of\nan ape are as unlike those of a fish as are the antecedents of\nGoethe's mind unlike those of a savage. The spiritual ancestry of\nGoethe's soul is a different one from that of the savage soul. The\nsoul has grown as well as the body. The daimon in Goethe has more\nprogenitors than the one in a savage. Let us take the doctrine of\nreincarnation in this sense, and we shall no longer find it\nunscientific. We shall be able to explain in the right way what we\nfind in our souls, and we shall not take what we find as if created by\na miracle. If I can write, it is owing to the fact that I learned to\nwrite. No one who has a pen in his hand for the first time can sit\ndown and write offhand. But one who has come into the world with \"the\nstamp of genius,\" must he owe it to a miracle? No, even the \"stamp of\ngenius\" must be acquired. It must have been learned. And when it\nappears in a person, we call it a daimon. This daimon too must have\nbeen to school; it acquired in a former life what it puts into force\nin a later one.\n\nIn this form, and this form only, did the thought of eternity pass\nbefore the mind of Heraclitus and other Greek sages. There was no\nquestion with them of a continuance of the immediate personality after\ndeath. Compare some verses of Empedocles (B.C. 490-430). He says of\nthose who accept the data of experience as miracles:\n\n    Foolish and ignorant they, and do not reach\n      far with their thinking,\n    Who suppose that what has not existed can\n      come into being,\n    Or that something may die away wholly and\n      vanish completely;\n    Impossible is it that any beginning can come\n      from Not-Being,\n    Quite impossible also that being can fade into\n      nothing;\n    For wherever a being is driven, there will it\n      continue to be.\n    Never will any believe, who has been in these\n      matters instructed,\n    That spirits of men only live while what is\n      called life here endures,\n    That only so long do they live, receiving their\n      joys and their sorrows,\n    But that ere they were born here and when they\n      are dead, they are nothing.\n\nThe Greek sage did not even raise the question whether there was an\neternal part in man, but only enquired in what this eternal element\nconsisted and how man can nourish and cherish it in himself. For from\nthe outset it was clear to him that man is an intermediate creation\nbetween the earthly and the divine. It was not a question of a divine\nbeing outside and beyond the world. The divine lives in man but lives\nin him only in a human way. It is the force urging man to make himself\never more and more divine. Only one who thinks thus can say with\nEmpedocles:\n\n    When leaving thy body behind thee, thou\n      soarest into the ether,\n    Then thou becomest a god, immortal, not\n      subject to death.\n\nWhat may be done for a human life from this point of view? It may be\nintroduced into the magic circle of the eternal. For in man there must\nbe forces which merely natural life does not develop. And the life\nmight pass away unused if the forces remained idle. To open them up,\nthereby to make man like the divine,--this was the task of the\nMysteries. And this was also the mission which the Greek sages set\nbefore themselves. In this way we can understand Plato's utterance,\nthat \"he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below\nwill lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation\nand purification will dwell with the gods.\" We have to do here with a\nconception of immortality, the significance of which lies bound up\nwithin the universe. Everything which man undertakes in order to\nawaken the eternal within him, he does in order to raise the value of\nthe world's existence. The fresh knowledge he gains does not make him\nan idle spectator of the universe, forming images for himself of what\nwould be there just as much if he did not exist. The force of his\nknowledge is a higher one, it is one of the creative forces of nature.\nWhat flashes up within him spiritually is something divine which was\npreviously under a spell, and which, failing the knowledge he has\ngained, must have lain fallow and waited for some other exorcist. Thus\na human personality does not live in and for itself, but for the\nworld. Life extends far beyond individual existence when looked at in\nthis way. From within such a point of view we can understand\nutterances like that of Pindar giving a vista of the eternal: \"Happy\nis he who has seen the Mysteries and then descends under the hollow\nearth. He knows the end of life, and he knows the beginning promised\nby Zeus.\"\n\nWe understand the proud traits and solitary nature of sages such as\nHeraclitus. They were able to say proudly of themselves that much had\nbeen revealed to them, for they did not attribute their knowledge to\ntheir transitory personality, but to the eternal daimon within them.\nTheir pride had as a necessary adjunct the stamp of humility and\nmodesty, expressed in the words, \"All knowledge of perishable things\nis in perpetual flux like the things themselves.\" Heraclitus calls the\neternal universe a play, he could also call it the most serious of\nrealities. But the word \"earnest\" has lost its force through being\napplied to earthly experiences. On the other hand, the realisation of\n\"the play of the eternal\" leaves man that security in life of which he\nis deprived by that earnest which has come out of transitory things.\n\nA different conception of the universe from that of Heraclitus grew\nup, on the basis of the Mysteries, in the community founded by\nPythagoras in the 6th century B.C. in Southern Italy. The Pythagoreans\nsaw the basis of things in the numbers and geometrical figures of\nwhich they investigated the laws by means of mathematics. Aristotle\nsays of them: \"They first studied mathematics, and, quite engrossed in\nthem, they considered the elements of mathematics to be the elements\nof all things. Now as numbers are naturally the first thing in\nmathematics, and they thought they saw many resemblances in numbers to\nthings and to development, and certainly more in numbers than in fire,\nearth, and water, in this way one quality of numbers came to mean for\nthem justice, another, the soul and spirit, another, time, and so on\nwith all the rest. Moreover they found in numbers the qualities and\nconnections of harmony; and thus everything else, in accordance with\nits whole nature, seemed to be an image of numbers, and numbers seemed\nto be the first thing in nature.\"\n\nThe mathematical and scientific study of natural phenomena must always\nlead to a certain Pythagorean habit of thought. When a string of a\ncertain length is struck, a particular sound is produced. If the\nstring is shortened in certain numeric proportions, other sounds will\nbe produced. The pitch of the sounds may be expressed in figures.\nPhysics also expresses colour-relations in figures. When two bodies\ncombine into one substance, it always happens that a certain definite\nquantity of the one body, expressible in numbers, combines with a\ncertain definite quantity of the other. The Pythagoreans' sense of\nobservation was directed to such arrangements of measures and numbers\nin nature. Geometrical figures also play a similar role. Astronomy,\nfor instance, is mathematics applied to the heavenly bodies. One fact\nbecame important to the thought-life of the Pythagoreans. This was\nthat man, quite alone and purely through his mental activity,\ndiscovers the laws of numbers and figures, and yet, that when he looks\nabroad into nature, he finds that things are obeying the same laws\nwhich he has ascertained for himself in his own mind. Man forms the\nidea of an ellipse, and ascertains the laws of ellipses. And the\nheavenly bodies move according to the laws which he has established.\n(It is not, of course, a question here of the astronomical views of\nthe Pythagoreans. What may be said about these may equally be said of\nCopernican views in the connection now being dealt with.) Hence it\nfollows as a direct consequence that the achievements of the human\nsoul are not an activity apart from the rest of the world, but that in\nthose achievements the cosmic laws are expressed. The Pythagoreans\nsaid: \"The senses show man physical phenomena, but they do not show\nthe harmonious order which these things follow.\" The human mind must\nfirst find that harmonious order within itself, if it wishes to behold\nit in the outer world. The deeper meaning of the world, that which\nbears sway within it as an eternal, law-obeying necessity, this makes\nits appearance in the human soul and becomes a present reality there.\nTHE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE IS REVEALED in the soul. This meaning is\nnot to be found in what we see, hear, and touch, but in what the soul\nbrings up to the light from its own unseen depths. The eternal laws\nare thus hidden in the depths of the soul. If we descend there, we\nshall find the Eternal. God, the eternal harmony of the world, is in\nthe human soul. The soul-element is not limited to the bodily\nsubstance which is enclosed within the skin, for what is born in the\nsoul is nothing less than the laws by which worlds revolve in\ncelestial space. The soul is not in the personality. The personality\nonly serves as the organ through which the order which pervades cosmic\nspace may express itself. There is something of the spirit of\nPythagoras in what one of the Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, said: \"It is\nsaid that human nature is something small and limited, and that God is\ninfinite, and it is asked how the finite can embrace the infinite. But\nwho dares to say that the infinity of the Godhead is limited by the\nboundary of the flesh, as though by a vessel? For not even during our\nlifetime is the spiritual nature confined within the boundaries of the\nflesh. The mass of the body, it is true, is limited by neighbouring\nparts, but the soul reaches out freely into the whole of creation by\nthe movements of thought.\"\n\nThe soul is not the personality, the soul belongs to infinity. From\nsuch a point of view the Pythagoreans must have considered that only\nfools could imagine the soul-force to be exhausted with the\npersonality.\n\nFor them, too, as for Heraclitus, the essential point was the\nawakening of the eternal in the personal. Knowledge for them meant\nintercourse with the eternal. The more man brought the eternal element\nwithin him into existence, the greater must he necessarily seem to\nthe Pythagoreans. Life in their community consisted in holding\nintercourse with the eternal. The object of the Pythagorean education\nwas to lead the members of the community to that intercourse. The\neducation was therefore a philosophical initiation, and the\nPythagoreans might well say that by their manner of life they were\naiming at a goal similar to that of the cults of the Mysteries.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nPLATO AS A MYSTIC\n\n\nThe importance of the Mysteries to the spiritual life of the Greeks\nmay be realised from Plato's conception of the universe. There is only\none way of understanding him thoroughly. It is to place him in the\nlight which streams forth from the Mysteries.\n\nPlato's later disciples, the Neo-Platonists, credit him with a secret\ndoctrine which he imparted only to those who were worthy, and which he\nconveyed under the \"seal of secrecy.\" His teaching was looked upon as\nmysterious in the same sense as the wisdom of the Mysteries. Even if\nthe seventh Platonic letter is not from his hand, as is alleged, it\ndoes not signify for our present purpose, for it does not matter\nwhether it was he or another who gave utterance to the view expressed\nin this letter. This view is of the essence of Plato's philosophy. In\nthe letter we read as follows: \"This much I may say about all those\nwho have written or may hereafter write as if they knew the aim of my\nwork,--that no credence is to be attached to their words, whether they\nobtained their information from me, or from others, or invented it\nthemselves. I have written nothing on this subject, nor would anything\nbe allowed to appear. This kind of thing cannot be expressed in words\nlike other teaching, but needs a long study of the subject and a\nmaking oneself one with it. Then it is as though a spark leaped up and\nkindled a light in the soul which thereafter is able to keep itself\nalight.\" This utterance might only indicate the writer's powerlessness\nto express his meaning in words,--a mere personal weakness,--if the\nidea of the Mysteries were not to be found in them. The subject on\nwhich Plato had not written and would never write, must be something\nabout which all writing would be futile. It must be a feeling, a\nsentiment, an experience, which is not gained by instantaneous\ncommunication, but by making oneself one with it, in heart and soul.\nThe reference is to the inner education which Plato was able to give\nthose he selected. For them, fire flashed forth from his words, for\nothers, only thoughts.\n\nThe manner of our approach to Plato's _Dialogues_ is not a matter of\nindifference. They will mean more or less to us, according to our\nspiritual condition. Much more passed from Plato to his disciples than\nthe literal meaning of his words. The place where he taught his\nlisteners thrilled in the atmosphere of the Mysteries. His words awoke\novertones in higher regions, which vibrated with them, but these\novertones needed the atmosphere of the Mysteries, or they died away\nwithout having been heard.\n\nIn the centre of the world of the Platonic Dialogues stands the\npersonality of Socrates. We need not here touch upon the historical\naspect of that personality. It is a question of the character of\nSocrates as it appears in Plato. Socrates is a person consecrated by\nhis dying for truth. He died as only an initiate can die, as one to\nwhom death is merely a moment of life like other moments. He\napproaches death as he would any other event in existence. His\nattitude towards it was such that even in his friends the feelings\nusual on such an occasion were not aroused. Phaedo says this in the\n_Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul_: \"Truly I found myself in\nthe strangest state of mind. I had no compassion for him, as is usual\nat the death of a dear friend. So happy did the man appear to me in\nhis demeanour and speech, so steadfast and noble was his end, that I\nwas confident that he was not going to Hades without a divine mission,\nand that even there it would be as well with him as it is with any one\nanywhere. No tender-hearted emotion overcame me, as might have been\nexpected at such a mournful event, nor on the other hand was I in a\ncheerful mood, as is usual during philosophical pursuits, and although\nour conversation was of this nature; but I found myself in a wondrous\nstate of mind and in an unwonted blending of joy and grief when I\nreflected that this man was about to die.\" The dying Socrates\ninstructs his disciples about immortality. His personality, which had\nlearned by experience the worthlessness of life, furnishes a kind of\nproof quite different from logic and arguments founded on reason. It\nseems as if it were not a man speaking, for this man was passing away,\nbut as if it were the voice of eternal truth itself, which had taken\nup its abode in a perishable personality. Where a mortal being is\ndissolving into nothing, there seems to be a breath of the air in\nwhich it is possible for eternal harmonies to resound.\n\nWe hear no logical proofs of immortality. The whole discourse is\ndesigned to lead the friends where they may behold the eternal. Then\nthey will need no proofs. Would it be necessary to prove that a rose\nis red, to one who has one before him? Why should it be necessary to\nprove that spirit is eternal, to one whose eyes we have opened to\nbehold spirit? Experiences, inner events, Socrates points to them, and\nfirst of all to the experience of wisdom itself.\n\nWhat does he desire who aspires after wisdom? He wishes to free\nhimself from what the senses offer him in every-day perception. He\nseeks for the spirit in the sense-world. Is not this a fact which may\nbe compared with dying? \"For,\" according to Socrates, \"those who\noccupy themselves with philosophy in the right way are really striving\nafter nothing else than to die and to be dead, without this being\nperceived by others. If this is true, it would be strange if, after\nhaving aimed at this all through life, when death itself comes they\nshould be indignant at that which they have so long striven after and\ntaken pains about.\" To corroborate this, Socrates asks one of his\nfriends: \"Does it seem to you befitting a philosopher to take trouble\nabout so-called fleshly pleasures, such as eating and drinking? or\nabout sexual pleasures? And do you think that such a man pays much\nheed to other bodily needs? To have fine clothes, shoes, and other\nbodily adornments,--do you think he considers or scorns this more than\nutmost necessity demands? Does it not seem to you that it should be\nsuch a man's whole preoccupation not to turn his thoughts to the body,\nbut as much as possible away from it and towards the soul? Therefore\nthis is the first mark of the philosopher, that he, more than all\nother men, relieves his soul of association with the body.\"\n\nOn this subject Socrates has something more to say, _i.e._, that\naspiration after wisdom has this much in common with dying, that it\nturns man away from the physical. But whither does he turn? Towards\nthe spiritual. But can he desire the same from spirit as from the\nsenses? Socrates thus expresses himself on this point: \"But how is it\nwith reasonable knowledge itself? Is the body a hindrance or not, if\nwe take it as a companion in our search for knowledge? I mean, do\nsight and hearing procure man any truth? Or is what the poets sing\nmeaningless, that we see and hear nothing clearly?... When does the\nsoul catch sight of truth? For when it tries to examine something with\nthe help of the body, it is manifestly deceived by the latter.\"\n\nEverything of which we are cognisant by means of our bodily senses\nappears and disappears. And it is this appearing and disappearing\nwhich is the cause of our being deceived. But when with our reasonable\nintelligence we look deeper into things, the eternal element in them\nis revealed to us. Thus the senses do not offer us the eternal in its\ntrue form. The moment we trust them implicitly they deceive us. They\ncease to deceive us if we confront them with our thinking insight and\nsubmit what they tell us to its examination.\n\nBut how could our thinking insight sit in judgment on the declarations\nof the senses, unless there were something living within it which\ntranscends sense-perception? Therefore the truth or falsity in things\nis decided by something within us which opposes the physical body and\nis consequently not subject to its laws. First of all, it cannot be\nsubject to the laws of growth and decay. For this something contains\ntruth within it. Now truth cannot have a yesterday and a to-day, it\ncannot be one thing one day and another the next, like objects of\nsense. Therefore truth must be something eternal. And when the\nphilosopher turns away from the perishable things of sense and towards\ntruth, he is turning towards an eternal element that lives within him.\nIf we immerse ourselves wholly in spirit, we shall live wholly in\ntruth. The things of sense around us are no longer present merely in\ntheir physical form. \"And he accomplishes this most perfectly,\" says\nSocrates, \"who approaches everything as much as possible with the\nspirit only, without either looking round when he is thinking, or\nletting any other sense interrupt his reflecting; but who, making use\nof pure thought only, strives to grasp everything as it is in itself,\nseparating it as much as possible from eyes and ears, in short from\nthe whole body, which only disturbs the soul and does not allow it to\nattain truth and insight when associated with the soul.... Now is not\ndeath the release and separation of the soul from the body? And it is\nonly true philosophers who are always striving to release the soul as\nfar as they can. This, therefore, is the philosopher's vocation, to\ndeliver and separate the soul from the body.... Therefore it would be\nfoolish if a man, who all his life has taken measures to be as near\ndeath as possible, should, when it comes, rebel against it.... In\ntruth the real seekers after wisdom aspire to die, and of all men they\nare those who least fear death.\" Moreover Socrates bases all higher\nmorality on liberation from the body. He who only follows what his\nbody ordains is not moral. Who is valiant? asks Socrates. He is\nvaliant who does not obey his body but the demands of his spirit when\nthese demands imperil the body. And who is temperate? Is not this he\nwho \"does not let himself be carried away by desires, but who\nmaintains an indifferent and moral demeanour with regard to them.\nTherefore are not those alone temperate who set least value on the\nbody and live in the love of wisdom?\" And so it is, in the opinion of\nSocrates, with all virtues.\n\nThence Socrates goes on to characterise intellectual cognition. What\nis it after all, to cognise? Undoubtedly we arrive at it by forming\njudgments. I form a judgment about some object; for instance, I say to\nmyself, what is in front of me is a tree. How do I arrive at saying\nthat? I can only do it if I already know what a tree is. I must\nremember my conception of a tree. A tree is a physical object. If I\nremember a tree, I therefore remember a physical object. I say of\nsomething that it is a tree, if it resembles other things which I have\npreviously observed and which I know to be trees. Memory is the medium\nfor this knowledge. It makes it possible for me to compare the various\nobjects of sense. But this does not exhaust my knowledge. If I see two\nsimilar things, I form a judgment and say, these things are alike.\nNow, in reality, two things are never exactly alike. I can only find a\nlikeness in certain respects. The idea of a perfect similarity\ntherefore arises within me without having its correspondence in\nreality. And this idea helps me to form a judgment, as memory helps me\nto a judgment and to knowledge. Just as one tree reminds me of others,\nso am I reminded of the idea of similarity by looking at two things\nfrom a certain point of view. Thoughts and memories therefore arise\nwithin me which are not due to physical reality.\n\nAll kinds of knowledge not borrowed from sense-reality are grounded on\nsuch thoughts. The whole of mathematics consists of them. He would be\na bad geometrician who could only bring into mathematical relations\nwhat he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands. Thus we have\nthoughts which do not originate in perishable nature, but arise out of\nthe spirit. And it is these that bear in them the mark of eternal\ntruth. What mathematics teach will be eternally true, even if\nto-morrow the whole cosmic system should fall into ruins and an\nentirely new one arise. Conditions might prevail in another cosmic\nsystem, to which our present mathematical truths would not be\napplicable, but these would be none the less true in themselves.\n\nIt is only when the soul is alone with itself that it can bring forth\nthese eternal truths. It is at these times related to the true and\neternal, and not to the ephemeral and apparent. Hence Socrates says:\n\"When the soul returning into itself reflects, it goes straight to\nwhat is pure and everlasting and immortal and like unto itself; and\nbeing related to this, cleaves unto it when the soul is alone, and is\nnot hindered. And then the soul rests from its mistakes, and is like\nunto itself, even as the eternal is, with whom the soul is now in\ntouch. This state of soul is called wisdom.... Look now whether it\ndoes not follow from all that has been said, that the soul is most\nlike the divine, immortal, reasonable, unique, indissoluble, what is\nalways the same and like unto itself; and that on the other hand the\nbody most resembles what is human and mortal, unreasonable, multiform,\nsoluble, never the same nor remaining equal to itself.... If,\ntherefore, this be so, the soul goes to what is like itself, to the\nimmaterial, to the divine, immortal, reasonable. There it attains to\nbliss, freed from error and ignorance, from fear and undisciplined\nlove and all other human evils. There it lives, as the initiates say,\nfor the remaining time truly with God.\"\n\nIt is not within the scope of this book to indicate all the ways in\nwhich Socrates leads his friends to the eternal. They all breathe the\nsame spirit. They all tend to show that man finds one thing when he\ngoes the way of transitory sense-perception, and another when his\nspirit is alone with itself. It is to this original nature of spirit\nthat Socrates points his hearers. If they find it, they see with\ntheir own spiritual eyes that it is eternal. The dying Socrates does\nnot prove the immortality of the soul, he simply lays bare the nature\nof the soul. And then it comes to light that growth and decay, birth\nand death, have nothing to do with the soul. The essence of the soul\nlies in the true, and this can neither come into being nor perish. The\nsoul has no more to do with the becoming than the straight has with\nthe crooked. But death belongs to the becoming. Therefore the soul has\nnothing to do with death. Must we not say of what is immortal, that it\nadmits of mortality as little as does the straight of the crooked?\nStarting from this point, \"must we not ask,\" adds Socrates, \"that if\nthe immortal is imperishable, is it not impossible for the soul to\ncome to an end when death arrives? For from what has been already\nshown, it does not admit of death, nor can it die any more than three\ncan be an even number.\"\n\nLet us review the whole development of this dialogue, in which\nSocrates brings his hearers to behold the eternal in human\npersonality. The hearers accept his thoughts, and they look into\nthemselves to see if they can find in their inner experiences\nsomething which assents to his ideas. They make the objections which\nstrike them. What has happened to the hearers when the dialogue is\nfinished? They have found something within them which they did not\npossess before. They have not merely accepted an abstract truth, but\nthey have gone through a development. Something has come to life in\nthem which was not living in them before. Is not this to be compared\nwith an initiation? And does not this throw light on the reason for\nPlato's setting forth his philosophy in the form of conversation?\nThese dialogues are nothing else than the literary form of the events\nwhich took place in the sanctuaries of the Mysteries. We are convinced\nof this from what Plato himself says in many passages. Plato wished to\nbe, as a philosophical teacher, what the initiator into the Mysteries\nwas, as far as this was compatible with the philosophical manner of\ncommunication. It is evident how Plato feels himself in harmony with\nthe Mysteries! He only thinks he is on the right path when it is\ntaking him where the Mystic is to be led. He thus expresses himself on\nthe subject in the Timaeus. \"All those who are of right mind invoke the\ngods for their small or great enterprises; but we who are engaged in\nteaching about the universe,--how far it is created and\nuncreated,--have the special duty, if we have not quite lost our way,\nto call upon and implore the gods and goddesses that we may teach\neverything first in conformity with their spirit, and next in harmony\nwith ourselves.\" And Plato promises those who follow this path, that\ndivinity, as a deliverer, will grant them illuminating teaching as the\nconclusion of their devious and wandering researches.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is especially the _Timaeus_ that reveals to us how the Platonic\ncosmogony is connected with the Mysteries. At the very beginning of\nthis dialogue there is mention of an initiation. Solon is initiated by\nan Egyptian priest into the formation of the worlds, and the way in\nwhich eternal truths are symbolically expressed in traditional myths.\n\"There have already been many and various destructions of part of the\nhuman race,\" says the Egyptian priest to Solon, \"and there will be\nmore in the future; the most extensive by fire and water, other lesser\nones through countless other causes. It is also related in your\ncountry that Phaethon, the son of Helios, once mounted his father's\nchariot, and as he did not know how to drive it, everything on the\nearth was burnt up, and he himself slain by lightning. This sounds\nlike a fable, but it contains the truth of the change in the movements\nof the celestial bodies revolving round the earth and of the\nannihilation of everything on the earth by much fire. This\nannihilation happens periodically, after the lapse of certain long\nperiods of time.\" This passage in the _Timaeus_ contains a plain\nindication of the attitude of the initiate towards folk-myths. He\nrecognises the truths hidden in their images.\n\nThe drama of the formation of the world is brought before us in the\n_Timaeus_. Any one who will follow up the traces which lead to this\nformation of the cosmos arrives at a dim apprehension of the\nprimordial force from which all things proceeded. \"Now it is difficult\nto find the Creator and Father of the universe, and when we have found\nHim, it is impossible to speak about Him so that all may understand.\"\nThe Mystic knew what this \"impossibility\" means. It points to the\ndivine drama. God is not present in what belongs merely to the senses\nand understanding. In those He is only present as nature. He is under\na spell in nature. Only one who awakens the divine within himself is\nable to approach Him. Thus He cannot at once be made comprehensible to\nall. But even to one who approaches Him, He does not appear Himself.\nThe _Timaeus_ says that also. The Father made the universe out of the\nbody and soul of the world. He mixed together, in harmony and perfect\nproportions, the elements which came into being when He, pouring\nHimself out, gave up His separate existence. Thereby the body of the\nworld came into being, and stretched upon it, in the form of a cross,\nis the soul of the world. It is what is divine in the world. It found\nthe death of the cross so that the world might come into existence.\nPlato may therefore call nature the tomb of the divine, a grave,\nhowever, in which nothing dead lies but the eternal, to which death\nonly gives the opportunity of bringing into expression the omnipotence\nof life. And man sees nature in the right light when he approaches it\nin order to release the crucified soul of the world. It must rise\nagain from its death, from its spell. Where can it come to life again?\nOnly in the soul of initiated man. Then wisdom finds its right\nrelation to the cosmos. The resurrection, the liberation of God, that\nis wisdom. In the _Timaeus_ the development of the world is traced from\nthe imperfect to the perfect. An ascending process is represented\nimaginatively. Beings are developed. God reveals Himself in their\ndevelopment. Evolution is the resurrection of God from the tomb.\nWithin evolution, man appears. Plato shows that in man there is\nsomething special. It is true the whole world is divine, and man is\nnot more divine than other beings. But in other beings God is present\nin a hidden way, in man he is manifest. At the end of the _Timaeus_ we\nread: \"And now we might assert that our study of the universe has\nattained its end, for after the world was provided and filled with\nmortal and immortal living beings, it, this one and only begotten\nworld, has itself become a visible being embracing everything visible,\nand an image of the Creator. It has become the God perceptible to the\nsenses, and the greatest and best world, the fairest and most perfect\nwhich there could be.\" But this one and only begotten world would not\nbe perfect if the image of its Creator were not to be found amongst\nthe images it contains. This image can only be engendered in the human\nsoul. Not the Father Himself, but the Son, God's offspring, living in\nthe soul, and being like unto the Father, him man can bring forth.\n\nPhilo, of whom it was said that he was the resurrected Plato,\ncharacterised as the \"Son of God\" the wisdom born out of man, which\nlives in the soul and contains the reason existing in the world. This\ncosmic reason, or Logos, appears as the book in which \"everything in\nthe world is recorded and delineated.\" It also appears as the Son of\nGod, \"following in the paths of the Father, and creating forms,\nlooking at their archetypes.\" The platonising Philo addresses this\nLogos as Christ, \"As God is the first and only king of the universe,\nthe way to Him is rightly called the 'Royal Road.' Consider this road\nto be philosophy ... the road which the company of the ancient\nascetics took, who turned away from the entangling fascination of\npleasure and devoted themselves to the noble and earnest cultivation\nof the beautiful. The law names this Royal Road, which we call true\nphilosophy, God's word and spirit.\"\n\nIt is like an initiation to Philo when he enters upon this path, in\norder to meet the Logos who, to him, is the Son of God. \"I do not\nshrink from relating what has happened to me innumerable times. Often\nwhen I wished to put my philosophical thoughts in writing, in my\naccustomed way, and saw quite clearly what was to be set down, I\nnevertheless found my mind barren and rigid, so that I was obliged to\ndesist without having accomplished anything, and seemed to be hampered\nwith idle fancies. At the same time I could not but marvel at the\npower of the reality of thought, with which it rests to open and to\nclose the womb of the human soul. Another time, however, I would begin\nempty and arrive, without any trouble, at fulness. Thoughts came\nflying like snowflakes or grains of corn invisibly from above, and it\nwas as though divine power took hold of me and inspired me, so that I\ndid not know where I was, who was with me, who I was, or what I was\nsaying or writing; for just then the flow of ideas was given me, a\ndelightful clearness, keen insight, and lucid mastery of material, as\nif the inner eye were able to see everything with the greatest\ndistinctness.\"\n\nThis is a description of a path to knowledge so expressed that we see\nthat any one taking this path is conscious of flowing in one current\nwith the divine, when the Logos becomes alive within him. This is also\nexpressed clearly in the words: \"When the spirit, moved by love, takes\nits flight into the most holy, soaring joyously on divine wings, it\nforgets everything else and itself. It only clings to and is filled\nwith that of which it is the satellite and servant, and to this it\noffers the incense of the most sacred and chaste virtue.\"\n\nThere are only two ways for Philo. Either man follows the world of\nsense, that is, what observation and intellect offer, in which case he\nlimits himself to his personality and withdraws from the cosmos; or he\nbecomes conscious of the universal cosmic force, and experiences the\neternal within his personality. \"He who wishes to escape from God\nfalls into his own hands. For there are two things to be considered,\nthe universal Spirit which is God, and one's own spirit. The latter\nflees to and takes refuge in the universal Spirit, for one who goes\nbeyond his own spirit says that it is nothing and connects everything\nwith God; but one who avoids God, abolishes the First Cause, and makes\nhimself the cause of everything which happens.\"\n\nThe Platonic view of the universe sets out to be knowledge which by\nits very nature is also religion. It brings knowledge into relation\nwith the highest to which man can attain through his feelings. Plato\nwill only allow knowledge to hold good when feeling may be completely\nsatisfied in it. It is then more than science, it is the substance of\nlife. It is a higher man within man, that man of which the personality\nis only an image. Within man is born a being who surpasses him, a\nprimordial, archetypal man, and this is another secret of the\nMysteries brought to expression in the Platonic philosophy.\nHippolytus, one of the Early Fathers, alludes to this secret. \"This is\nthe great secret of the Samothracians (who were guardians of a certain\nMystery-cult), which cannot be expressed and which only the initiates\nknow. But these latter speak in detail of Adam, as the primordial,\narchetypal man.\"\n\nThe Platonic _Dialogue on Love_, or the _Symposium_, also represents\nan initiation. Here love appears as the herald of wisdom. If wisdom,\nthe eternal word, the Logos, is the Son of the Eternal Creator of the\ncosmos, love is related to the Logos as a mother. Before even a spark\nof the light of wisdom can flash up in the human soul, a dim impulse\nor desire for the divine must be present in it. Unconsciously the\ndivine must draw man to what afterwards, when raised into his\nconsciousness, constitutes his supreme happiness. What Heraclitus\ncalls the \"daimon\" in man (see p. 49) is connected with the idea of\nlove. In the _Symposium_, people of the most various ranks and views\nof life speak about love,--the ordinary man, the politician, the\nscientific man, the satiric poet Aristophanes, and the tragic poet\nAgathon. They each have their own view of love, in keeping with their\ndifferent experiences of life. The way in which they express\nthemselves shows the stage at which their \"daimon\" has arrived (_cf._\np. 49). By love one being is attracted to another. The multiplicity,\nthe diversity of the things into which divine unity was poured,\naspires towards unity and harmony through love. Thus love has\nsomething divine in it, and owing to this, each individual can only\nunderstand it as far as he participates in the divine.\n\nAfter these men and others at different degrees of maturity have given\nutterance to their ideas about love, Socrates takes up the word. He\nconsiders love from the point of view of a man in search of knowledge.\nFor him, it is not a divinity, but it is something which leads man to\nGod. Eros, or love, is for him not divine, for a god is perfect, and\ntherefore possesses the beautiful and good; but Eros is only the\ndesire for the beautiful and good. He thus stands between man and God.\nHe is a \"daimon,\" a mediator between the earthly and the divine.\n\nIt is significant that Socrates does not claim to be giving his own\nthoughts when speaking of love. He says he is only relating what a\nwoman once imparted to him as a revelation. It was through mantic art\nthat he came to his conception of love. Diotima, the priestess,\nawakened in Socrates the daimonic force which was to lead him to the\ndivine. She initiated him.\n\nThis passage in the _Symposium_ is highly suggestive. Who is the \"wise\nwoman\" who awakened the daimon in Socrates? She is more than a merely\npoetic mode of expression. For no wise woman on the physical plane\ncould awaken the daimon in the soul, unless the daimonic force were\nlatent in the soul itself. It is surely in Socrates' own soul that we\nmust also look for this \"wise woman.\" But there must be a reason why\nthat which brings the daimon to life within the soul should appear as\nan outward being on the physical plane. The force cannot work in the\nsame way as the forces which may be observed in the soul, as belonging\nto and native to it. We see that it is the soul-force which precedes\nthe coming of wisdom which Socrates represents as a \"wise woman.\" It\nis the mother-principle which gives birth to the Son of God, Wisdom,\nthe Logos. The unconscious soul-force which brings the divine into the\nconsciousness is here represented as the feminine element. The soul\nwhich as yet is without wisdom is the mother of what leads to the\ndivine. This brings us to an important conception of mysticism. The\nsoul is recognised as the mother of the divine. Unconsciously it leads\nman to the divine, with the inevitableness of a natural force.\n\nThis conception throws light on the view of Greek mythology taken in\nthe Mysteries. The world of the gods is born in the soul. Man looks\nupon what he creates in images as his gods (_cf._ p. 33). But he must\nforce his way through to another conception. He must transmute into\ndivine images the divine force which is active within him before the\ncreation of those images. Behind the divine appears the mother of the\ndivine, which is nothing else than the original force of the human\nsoul. Thus side by side with the gods, man represents goddesses.\n\nLet us look at the myth of Dionysos in this light. Dionysos is the son\nof Zeus and a mortal mother, Semele. Zeus wrests the still immature\nchild from its mother when she is slain by lightning, and shelters it\nin his own side till it is ready to be born. Hera, the mother of the\ngods, incites the Titans against Dionysos, and they tear him in\npieces. But Pallas Athene rescues his heart, which is still beating,\nand brings it to Zeus. Out of it he engenders his son for the second\ntime.\n\nIn this myth we can accurately trace a process which is enacted in the\ndepths of the human soul. Interpreting it in the manner of the\nEgyptian priest who instructed Solon about the nature of myths (_cf._\np. 78 _et seq._), we might say, it is related that Dionysos was the\nson of a god and of a mortal mother, that he was torn in pieces and\nafterwards born again. This sounds like a fable, but it contains the\ntruth of the birth of the divine and its destiny in the human soul.\nThe divine unites itself with the earthly, temporal human soul. As\nsoon as the divine, Dionysiac element stirs within the soul, it feels\na violent desire for its own true spiritual form. Ordinary\nconsciousness, which once again appears in the form of a female\ngoddess, Hera, becomes jealous at the birth of the divine out of the\nhigher consciousness. It arouses the lower nature of man (the Titans).\nThe still immature divine child is torn in pieces. Thus the divine\nchild is present in man as intellectual science broken up. But if\nthere be enough of the higher wisdom (Zeus) in man to be active, it\nnurses and cherishes the immature child, which is then born again as a\nsecond son of God (Dionysos). Thus from science, which is the\nfragmentary divine force in man, is born undivided wisdom, which is\nthe Logos, the son of God and of a mortal mother, of the perishable\nhuman soul, which unconsciously aspires after the divine. As long as\nwe see in all this merely a process in the soul and look upon it as a\npicture of this process, we are a long way from the spiritual reality\nwhich is enacted in it. In this spiritual reality the soul is not\nmerely experiencing something in itself, but it has been released from\nitself and is taking part in a cosmic event, which is not enacted\nwithin the soul, in reality, but outside it.\n\nPlatonic wisdom and Greek myths are closely linked together, so too\nare the myths and the wisdom of the Mysteries. The created gods were\nthe object of popular religion, the history of their origin was the\nsecret of the Mysteries. No wonder that it was held to be dangerous to\n\"betray\" the Mysteries, for thereby the origin of the gods of the\npeople was \"betrayed.\" And a right understanding of that origin is\nsalutary, a misunderstanding is injurious.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE WISDOM OF THE MYSTERIES AND THE MYTH\n\n\nThe Mystic sought forces and beings within himself which are unknown\nto man as long as he remains in the ordinary attitude towards life.\nThe Mystic puts the great question about his own spiritual forces and\nthe laws which transcend the lower nature. A man of ordinary views of\nlife, bounded by the senses and logic, creates gods for himself, or\nwhen he gets to the point of seeing that he has made them, he\ndisclaims them. The Mystic knows that he creates gods, he knows why he\ncreates them, he sees, so to say, behind the natural law which makes\nman create them. It is as though a plant suddenly became conscious,\nand learned the laws of its growth and development. As it is, it\ndevelops in lovely unconsciousness. If it knew about the laws of its\nown being, its relation to itself would be completely changed. What\nthe lyric poet feels when he sings about a plant, what the botanist\nthinks when he investigates its laws, this would hover before a\nconscious plant as an ideal of itself.\n\nIt is thus with the Mystic with regard to the laws, the forces working\nwithin him. As one who knew, he was forced to create something divine\nbeyond himself. And the initiates took up the same attitude to that\nwhich the people had created beyond nature; that is to the world of\npopular gods and myths. They wanted to penetrate the laws of this\nworld of gods and myths. Where the people saw the form of a god, or a\nmyth, they looked for a higher truth.\n\nLet us take an example. The Athenians had been forced by the Cretan\nking Minos to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven\ngirls. These were thrown as food to a terrible monster, the Minotaur.\nWhen the mournful tribute was to be paid for the third time, the\nking's son Theseus accompanied it to Crete. On his arrival there,\nAriadne, the daughter of Minos interested herself in him. The Minotaur\ndwelt in the labyrinth, a maze from which no one could extricate\nhimself who had once got in. Theseus desired to deliver his native\ncity from the shameful tribute. For this purpose he had to enter the\nlabyrinth into which the monster's booty was usually thrown, and to\nkill the Minotaur. He undertook the task, overcame the formidable foe,\nand succeeded in regaining the open air with the aid of a ball of\nthread which Ariadne had given him.\n\nThe Mystic had to discover how the creative human mind comes to weave\nsuch a story. As the botanist watches the growth of plants in order to\ndiscover its laws, so did the Mystic watch the creative spirit. He\nsought for a truth, a nucleus of wisdom where the people had invented\na myth.\n\nSallust discloses to us the attitude of a mystical sage towards a myth\nof this kind. \"We might call the whole world a myth,\" says he, \"which\ncontains bodies and things visibly, and souls and spirits in a hidden\nmanner. If the truth about the gods were taught to all, the\nunintelligent would disdain it from not understanding it, and the\nmore capable would make light of it. But if the truth is given in a\nmystical veil, it is assured against contempt and serves as a stimulus\nto philosophic thinking.\"\n\nWhen the truth contained in a myth was sought by an initiate, he was\nconscious of adding something which did not exist in the consciousness\nof the people. He was aware of being above that consciousness, as a\nbotanist is above a growing plant. Something was expressed which was\ndifferent from what was present in the mythical consciousness, but it\nwas looked upon as a deeper truth, symbolically expressed in the myth.\nMan is confronted with his own sense-nature in the form of a hostile\nmonster. He sacrifices to it the fruits of his personality, and the\nmonster devours them, and continues to do so till the conqueror\n(Theseus) awakes in man. His intuition spins the thread by means of\nwhich he finds his way again when he repairs to the maze of the senses\nin order to slay his enemy. The mystery of human knowledge itself is\nexpressed in this conquering of the senses. The initiate knows that\nmystery. It points to a force in human personality unknown to ordinary\nconsciousness, but nevertheless active within it. It is the force\nwhich creates the myth, which has the same structure as mystical\ntruth. This truth finds its symbol in the myth.\n\nWhat then is to be found in the myths? In them is a creation of the\nspirit, of the unconsciously creative soul. The soul has well-defined\nlaws. In order to create beyond itself, it must work in a certain\ndirection. At the mythological stage it does this in images, but these\nare built up according to the laws of the soul. We might also say that\nwhen the soul advances beyond the stage of mythological consciousness\nto deeper truths, these bear the same stamp as did the myths, for one\nand the same force was at work in their formation.\n\nPlotinus, the philosopher of the Neo-Platonic school (A.D. 204-269),\nspeaks of this relation of mythical representation to higher knowledge\nin reference to the priest-sages of Egypt. \"Whether as the result of\nrigorous investigations, or whether instinctively when imparting\ntheir wisdom, the Egyptian sages do not use, for expressing their\nteaching and precepts, written signs which are imitations of voice and\nspeech; but they draw pictures, and in the outlines of these they\nrecord, in their temples, the thought contained in each thing, so that\nevery picture contains knowledge and wisdom, and is a definite truth\nand a complete whole, although there is no explanation nor discussion.\nAfterwards the contents of the picture are drawn out of it and\nexpressed in words, and the cause is found why it is as it is, and not\notherwise.\"\n\nIf we wish to find out the connection of mysticism with mythical\nnarratives, we must see what relationship to them there is in the\nviews of the great thinkers, those who knew their wisdom to be in\nharmony with the methods of the Mysteries. We find such harmony in\nPlato in the fullest degree. His explanations of myths and his\napplication of them in his teaching may be taken as a model (_cf._ p.\n78 _et seq._). In the _Phaedrus_, a dialogue on the soul, the myth of\nBoreas is introduced. This divine being, who was seen in the rushing\nwind, one day saw the fair Orithyia, daughter of the Attic king\nErectheus, gathering flowers with her companions. Seized with love for\nher, he carried her off to his grotto. Plato, by the mouth of\nSocrates, rejects a rationalist interpretation of this myth. According\nto this explanation, an outward, natural fact is poetically symbolised\nby the narrative. A hurricane seized the king's daughter and hurled\nher over the rocks. \"Interpretations of this sort,\" says Socrates,\n\"are learned sophistries, however popular and usual they may be....\nFor one who has pulled to pieces one of these mythological forms must,\nto be consistent, elucidate sceptically and explain naturally all the\nrest in the same way.... But even if such a labour could be\naccomplished, it would in any case be no proof of superior talents in\nthe one carrying it out, but only of superficial wit, boorish wisdom,\nand ridiculous haste.... Therefore I leave on one side all such\nenquiries, and believe what is generally thought about the myths. I do\nnot examine them, as I have just said, but I examine myself to see\nwhether I too may perhaps be a monster, more complicated and\ntherefore more disordered than the chimaera, more savage than Typhon,\nor whether I represent a more docile and simple being, to whom some\nparticle of a virtuous and divine nature has been given.\"\n\nWe see from this that Plato does not approve of a rationalistic and\nmerely intellectual interpretation of myths. This attitude must be\ncompared with the way in which he himself uses myths in order to\nexpress himself through them. When he speaks of the life of the soul,\nwhen he leaves the paths of the transitory and seeks the eternal in\nthe soul, when, therefore, images borrowed from sense-perception and\nreasoning thought can no longer be used, then Plato has recourse to\nthe myth. _Phaedrus_ treats of the eternal in the soul, which is\nportrayed as a car drawn by two horses winged all over, and driven by\na charioteer. One horse is patient and docile, the other wild and\nheadstrong. If an obstacle comes in the way of the car the troublesome\nhorse takes the opportunity of impeding the docile one and defying the\ndriver. When the car arrives where it has to follow the gods up the\ncelestial steep, the intractable horse throws the team into confusion.\nIf it is less strong than the good horse, it is overcome, and the car\nis able to go on into the supersensible realm. It thus happens that\nthe soul can never ascend without difficulties into the kingdom of the\ndivine. Some souls rise more to the vision of eternity, some less. The\nsoul which has seen the world beyond remains safe until the next\njourney. One who, on account of the intractable horse, has not seen\nbeyond, must try again on the next journey. These journeys signify the\nvarious incarnations of the soul. One journey signifies the life of\nthe soul in one personality. The wild horse represents the lower\nnature, the docile one the higher nature; the driver, the soul longing\nfor union with the divine.\n\nPlato resorts to the myth in order to describe the course of the\neternal spirit through its various transformations. In the same way he\nhas recourse, in other writings, to symbolical narrative, in order to\nportray the inner nature of man, which is not perceptible to the\nsenses.\n\nPlato is here in complete harmony with the mythical and allegorical\nmanner of expression used by others. For instance there is in ancient\nHindu literature a parable attributed to Buddha.\n\nA man very much attached to life, who seeks sensuous pleasures and\nwill die at no price is pursued by four serpents. He hears a voice\ncommanding him to feed and bathe the serpents from time to time. The\nman runs away, fearing the serpents. Again he hears a voice, warning\nhim that he is pursued by five murderers. Once more he escapes. A\nvoice calls his attention to a sixth murderer, who is about to behead\nhim with a sword. Again he flees. He comes to a deserted village.\nThere he hears a voice telling him that robbers are shortly going to\nplunder the village. Having again escaped, he comes to a great flood.\nHe feels unsafe where he is, and out of straw, wood, and leaves he\nmakes a basket in which he arrives at the other shore. Now he is safe,\nhe is a Brahmin.\n\nThe meaning of this allegory is that man has to pass through the most\nvarious states before attaining to the divine. The four serpents\nrepresent the four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. The five\nmurderers are the five senses. The deserted village is the soul which\nhas escaped from sense-impressions, but is not yet safe if it is alone\nwith itself, for if its lower nature lays hold of it, it must perish.\nMan must construct for himself the boat which is to carry him over the\nflood of the transitory from the one shore, the sense-nature, to the\nother, the eternal, divine world.\n\nLet us look at the Egyptian mystery of Osiris in this light. Osiris\nhad gradually become one of the most important Egyptian divinities; he\nsupplanted other gods in certain parts of the country; and an\nimportant cycle of myths was formed round him and his consort Isis.\n\nOsiris was the son of the Sun-god, his brother was Typhon-Set, and his\nsister was Isis. Osiris married his sister, and together they reigned\nover Egypt. The wicked brother, Typhon, meditated killing Osiris. He\nhad a chest made which was exactly the length of Osiris' body. At a\nbanquet this chest was offered to the person whom it exactly fitted.\nThis was Osiris and none other! He entered the chest. Typhon and his\nconfederates rushed upon him, closed the chest, and threw it into the\nriver. When Isis heard the terrible news she wandered far and wide in\ndespair, seeking her husband's body. When she had found it, Typhon\nagain took possession of it, and tore it in fourteen pieces which were\ndispersed in many different places. Various tombs of Osiris were shown\nin Egypt. In many places, up and down the country, portions of the god\nwere said to be buried. Osiris himself, however, came forth from the\nnether-world and vanquished Typhon. A beam shone from him upon Isis,\nwho in consequence bore a son, Harpocrates or Horus.\n\nAnd now let us compare this myth with the view which the Greek\nphilosopher, Empedocles (B.C. 490-430) takes of the universe. He\nassumes that the one original primeval being was once broken up into\nthe four elements, fire, water, earth, and air, or into the\nmultiplicity of being. He represents two opposing forces, which within\nthis world of existence bring about growth and decay, love and\nstrife. Empedocles says of the elements:\n\n    They remain ever the same, but yet by\n      combining their forces\n    Become transformed into men and the\n      numberless beings besides.\n    These are now joined into one, love binding the\n      many together,\n    Now once again they are scattered, dispersing\n      through hatred and strife.\n\nWhat then are the things in the world from Empedocles' point of view?\nThey are the elements in different combinations. They could only come\ninto being because the Primeval Unity was broken up into the four\nessences. Therefore this primordial unity was poured into the\nelements. Anything confronting us is part of the divinity which was\npoured out. But the divinity is hidden in the thing; it first had to\ndie that things might come into being. And what are these things?\nMixtures of divine constituents effectuated by love and hatred.\nEmpedocles says this distinctly:\n\n    See, for a clear demonstration, how the limbs of\n      a man are constructed,\n    All that the body possesses, in beauty and pride\n      of existence,\n    All put together by love, are the elements there\n      forming one.\n    Afterwards hatred and strife come, and fatally\n      tear them asunder,\n    Once more they wander alone, on the desolate\n      confines of life.\n    So it is with the bushes and trees, and the\n      water-inhabiting fishes,\n    Wild animals roaming the mountains, and ships\n      swiftly borne by their sails.\n\nEmpedocles therefore must come to the conclusion that the sage finds\nagain the Divine Primordial Unity, hidden in the world by a spell, and\nentangled in the meshes of love and hatred. But if man finds the\ndivine, he must himself be divine, for Empedocles takes the point of\nview that a being is only cognised by its equal. This conviction of\nhis is expressed in Goethe's lines: \"If the eye were not of the nature\nof the sun, how could we behold light? If divine force were not at\nwork in us, how could divine things delight us?\"\n\nThese thoughts about the world and man, which transcend\nsense-experience, were found by the Mystic in the myth of Osiris.\nDivine creative force has been poured out into the universe; it\nappears as the four elements; God (Osiris) is killed. Man is to raise\nhim from the dead with his cognition, which is of divine nature. He is\nto find him again as Horus (the Son of God, the Logos, Wisdom), in the\nopposition between Strife (Typhon) and Love (Isis). Empedocles\nexpresses his fundamental conviction in Greek form by means of images\nwhich border on myth. Love is Aphrodite, and strife is Neikos. They\nbind and unbind the elements.\n\nThe portrayal of the content of a myth in the manner followed here\nmust not be confused with a merely symbolical or even allegorical\ninterpretation of myths. This is not intended. The images forming the\ncontents of a myth are not invented symbols of abstract truths, but\nactual soul-experiences of the initiate. He experiences the images\nwith his spiritual organs of perception, just as the normal man\nexperiences the images of physical things with his eyes and ears. But\nas an image is nothing in itself if it is not aroused in the\nperception by an outer object, so the mythical image is nothing unless\nit is excited by real facts of the spiritual world. Only in regard to\nthe physical world, man is at first outside the exciting causes,\nwhereas he can only experience the images of myths when he is within\nthe corresponding spiritual occurrences. In order, however, to be\nwithin them, he must have gone through initiation. Then the spiritual\noccurrences within which he is perceiving are, as it were, illustrated\nby the myth-images. Any one who cannot take the mythical element as\nsuch illustration of real spiritual occurrences, has not yet attained\nto the understanding of it. For the spiritual events themselves are\nsupersensible, and images which are reminiscent of the physical world\nare not themselves of a spiritual nature, but only an illustration of\nspiritual things. One who lives merely in the images lives in a dream.\nOnly one who has got to the point of feeling the spiritual element in\nthe image as he feels in the sense-world a rose through the image of\na rose, really lives in spiritual perceptions. This is the reason why\nthe images of myths cannot have only one meaning. On account of their\nillustrative character, the same myths may express several spiritual\nfacts. It is not therefore a contradiction when interpreters of myths\nsometimes connect a myth with one spiritual fact and sometimes with\nanother.\n\nFrom this standpoint, we are able to find a thread to conduct us\nthrough the labyrinth of Greek myths. Let us consider the legend of\nHeracles. The twelve labours imposed upon Heracles appear in a higher\nlight when we remember that before the last and most difficult one, he\nis initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. He is commissioned by King\nEurystheus of Mycenae to bring the hell-hound Cerberus from the\ninfernal regions and take it back there again. In order to undertake\nthe descent into hell, Heracles had to be initiated. The Mysteries\nconducted man through the death of perishable things, therefore into\nthe nether-world, and by initiation they rescued his eternal part from\nperishing. As a Mystic, he could vanquish death. Heracles having\nbecome a Mystic overcomes the dangers of the nether-world. This\njustifies us in interpreting his other ordeals as stages in the inner\ndevelopment of the soul. He overcomes the Nemaean lion and brings him\nto Mycenae. This means that he becomes master of purely physical force\nin man; he tames it. Afterwards he slays the nine-headed Hydra. He\novercomes it with firebrands and dips his arrows in its gall, so that\nthey become deadly. This means that he overcomes lower knowledge, that\nwhich comes through the senses. He does this through the fire of the\nspirit, and from what he has gained through the lower knowledge, he\ndraws the power to look at lower things in the light which belongs to\nspiritual sight. Heracles captures the hind of Artemis, goddess of\nhunting: everything which free nature offers to the human soul,\nHeracles conquers and subdues. The other labours may be interpreted in\nthe same way. We cannot here trace out every detail, and only wish to\ndescribe how the general sense of the myth points to inner\ndevelopment.\n\nA similar interpretation is possible of the expedition of the\nArgonauts. Phrixus and his sister Helle, children of a Boeotian king,\nsuffered many things from their step-mother. The gods sent them a ram\nwith a golden fleece, which flew away with them. When they came to the\nstraits between Europe and Asia, Helle was drowned. Hence the strait\nis called the Hellespont. Phrixus came to the King of Colchis, on the\neast shore of the Black Sea. He sacrificed the ram to the gods, and\ngave its fleece to King AEetes. The king had it hung up in a grove and\nguarded by a terrible dragon. The Greek hero Jason undertook to fetch\nthe fleece from Colchis, in company with other heroes, Heracles,\nTheseus, and Orpheus. Heavy tasks were laid upon Jason by AEetes for\nthe obtaining of the treasure, but Medea, the king's daughter, who was\nversed in magic, aided him. He subdued two fire-breathing bulls. He\nploughed a field and sowed in it dragon's teeth from which armed men\ngrew up out of the earth. By Medea's advice he threw a stone into\ntheir midst, whereupon they killed each other. Jason lulls the dragon\nto sleep with a charm of Medea's and is then able to win the fleece.\nHe returns with it to Greece, Medea accompanying him as his wife. The\nking pursues the fugitives. In order to detain him, Medea slays her\nlittle brother Absyrtus, and scatters his limbs in the sea. AEetes\nstays to collect them, and the pair are able to reach Jason's home\nwith the fleece.\n\nEach of these facts requires a deep elucidation. The fleece is\nsomething belonging to man, and infinitely precious to him. It is\nsomething from which he was separated in times of yore, and for the\nrecovery of which he has to overcome terrible forces. It is thus with\nthe eternal in the human soul. It belongs to man, but man is separated\nfrom it by his lower nature. Only by overcoming the latter, and\nlulling it to sleep, can he recover the eternal. This becomes possible\nwhen his own consciousness (Medea) comes to his aid with its magic\npower. Medea is to Jason what Diotima was to Socrates, a teacher of\nlove (_cf._ p. 88). Man's own wisdom has the magic power necessary for\nattaining the divine after having overcome the transitory. From the\nlower nature there can only arise a lower human principle, the armed\nmen who are overcome by spiritual force, the counsel of Medea. Even\nwhen man has found the eternal, the fleece, he is not yet safe. He has\nto sacrifice part of his consciousness (Absyrtus). This is exacted by\nthe physical world, which we can only apprehend as a multiple\n(dismembered) world. We might go still deeper into the description of\nthe spiritual events lying behind the images, but it is only intended\nhere to indicate the principle of the formation of myths.\n\nOf special interest, when interpreted in this way, is the legend of\nPrometheus. He and his brother Epimetheus are sons of the Titan\nIapetus. The Titans are the offspring of the oldest generation of\ngods, Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth). Kronos, the youngest of the\nTitans, dethroned his father and seized upon the government of the\nworld. In return, he was overpowered, with the other Titans, by his\nson Zeus, who became the chief of the gods. In the struggle with the\nTitans, Prometheus was on the side of Zeus. By his advice, Zeus\nbanished the Titans to the nether-world. But in Prometheus there\nstill lived the Titan spirit, he was only half a friend to Zeus. When\nthe latter wished to exterminate men on account of their arrogance,\nPrometheus espoused their cause, taught them numbers, writing, and\neverything else which leads to culture, especially the use of fire.\nThis aroused the wrath of Zeus against Prometheus. Hephaistos, the son\nof Zeus, was commissioned to make a female form of great beauty, whom\nthe gods adorned with every possible gift. She was called Pandora, the\nall-gifted one. Hermes, messenger of the gods, brought her to\nEpimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. She brought him a casket, as a\npresent from the gods. Epimetheus accepted the present, although\nPrometheus had warned him against receiving any gift from the gods.\nWhen the casket was opened, every possible human evil flew out of it.\nHope alone remained, and this because Pandora quickly closed the box.\nHope has therefore been left to man, as a doubtful gift of the gods.\nBy order of Zeus, Prometheus was chained to a rock on the Caucasus, on\naccount of his relation to man. An eagle perpetually gnaws his liver,\nwhich is as often renewed. He has to pass his life in agonising\nloneliness till one of the gods voluntarily sacrifices himself,\n_i.e._, devotes himself to death. The tormented Prometheus bears his\nsufferings steadfastly. It had been told him that Zeus would be\ndethroned by the son of a mortal unless Zeus consented to wed this\nmortal woman. It was important for Zeus to know this secret. He sent\nthe messenger Hermes to Prometheus, in order to learn something about\nit. Prometheus refused to say anything. The legend of Heracles is\nconnected with that of Prometheus. In the course of his wanderings\nHeracles comes to the Caucasus. He slays the eagle which was devouring\nthe liver of Prometheus. The centaur Chiron, who cannot die, although\nsuffering from an incurable wound, sacrifices himself for Prometheus,\nwho is thereupon reconciled with the gods.\n\nThe Titans are the force of will, proceeding as nature (Kronos) from\nthe original universal spirit (Uranus). Here we have to think not\nmerely of will-forces in an abstract form, but of actual will-beings.\nPrometheus is one of them, and this describes his nature. But he is\nnot altogether a Titan. In a certain sense he is on the side of Zeus,\nthe Spirit, who enters upon the rulership of the world after the\nunbridled force of nature (Kronos) has been subdued. Prometheus is\nthus the representative of those worlds which have given man the\nprogressive element, half nature-force, half spiritual force, man's\nwill. The will points on the one side towards good, on the other,\ntowards evil. Its fate is decided according as it leans to the\nspiritual or the perishable. This fate is that of man himself. He is\nchained to the perishable, the eagle gnaws him, he has to suffer. He\ncan only reach the highest by seeking his destiny in solitude. He has\na secret which is that the divine (Zeus) must marry a mortal (human\nconsciousness bound up with the physical body), in order to beget a\nson, human wisdom (the Logos) which will deliver the deity. By this\nmeans consciousness becomes immortal. He must not betray this secret\ntill a Mystic (Heracles) comes to him, and annihilates the power which\nwas perpetually threatening him with death. A being half animal, half\nhuman, a centaur, is obliged to sacrifice itself to redeem man. The\ncentaur is man himself, half animal, half spiritual. He must die in\norder that the purely spiritual man may be delivered. That which is\ndisdained by Prometheus, human will, is accepted by Epimetheus, reason\nor prudence. But the gifts offered to Epimetheus are only troubles and\nsorrows, for reason clings to the transitory and perishable. And only\none thing is left--the hope that even out of the perishable the\neternal may some day be born.\n\nThe thread running through the legends of the Argonauts, Heracles and\nPrometheus, is continued in Homer's _Odyssey_. Here we find ourselves\ncompelled to use our own method of interpretation. But on closer\nconsideration of everything which has to be taken into account, even\nthe sturdiest doubter must lose all scruples about such an\ninterpretation. In the first place, it is a startling fact that it is\nalso related of Odysseus that he descended into the nether-world.\nWhatever we may think about the author of the _Odyssey_ in other\nrespects, it is impossible to imagine his representing a mortal\ndescending to the infernal regions, without his bringing him into\nconnection with what the journey into the nether-world meant to the\nGreeks. It meant the conquest of the perishable and the awakening of\nthe eternal in the soul. It must therefore be conceded that Odysseus\naccomplished this, and thereby his experiences and those of Heracles\nacquire a deeper significance. They become a delineation of the\nnon-sensuous, of the soul's progress of development. Hence the\nnarrative in the _Odyssey_ is different from what is demanded by a\nhistory of outer events. The hero makes voyages in enchanted ships.\nActual geographical distances are dealt with in most arbitrary\nfashion. It is not in the least a question of what is physically real.\nThis becomes comprehensible, if the physically real events are only\nrelated for the sake of illustrating the development of a soul.\nMoreover the poet himself at the opening of the book says that it\ndeals with a search for the soul:\n\n\"O Muse, sing to me of the man full of resource, who wandered very\nmuch after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy, and saw the\ncities of many men, and learned their manners. Many griefs also in his\nmind did he suffer on the sea, although seeking to preserve his own\nsoul, and the return of his companions.\"\n\nWe have before us a man seeking for the soul, for the divine, and his\nwanderings during this search are narrated. He comes to the land of\nthe Cyclopes. These are uncouth giants, with only one eye and that in\nthe centre of the forehead. The most terrible, Polyphemus, devours\nseveral of Odysseus' companions. Odysseus himself escapes by blinding\nthe Cyclopes. Here we have to do with the first stage of life's\npilgrimage. Physical force or the lower nature has to be overcome. It\ndevours any one who does not take away its power, who does not blind\nit. Odysseus next comes to the island of the enchantress Circe. She\nchanges some of his companions into grunting pigs. She also is subdued\nby Odysseus. Circe is the lower mind-force, which cleaves to the\ntransitory. If misused, it may thrust men down even deeper into\nbestiality. Odysseus has to overcome it. Then he is able to descend\ninto the nether-world. He becomes a Mystic. Now he is exposed to the\ndangers which beset the Mystic on his progress from the lower to the\nhigher degrees of initiation. He comes to the Sirens, who lure the\npasser-by to death by sweet magic sounds. These are the forms of the\nlower imagination, which are at first pursued by one who has freed\nhimself from the power of the senses. He has got so far that his\nspirit acts freely, but is not initiated. He pursues illusions, from\nthe power of which he must break loose. Odysseus has to accomplish the\nawful passage between Scylla and Charybdis. The Mystic, at the\nbeginning of the path wavers between spirit and sensuousness. He\ncannot yet grasp the full value of spirit, yet sensuousness has\nalready lost its former attraction. All Odysseus' companions perish in\na shipwreck; he alone escapes and comes to the nymph Calypso, who\nreceives him kindly and takes care of him for seven years. At length,\nby order of Zeus, she dismisses him to his home. The Mystic has\narrived at a stage at which all his fellow-aspirants fail; he alone,\nOdysseus, is worthy. He enjoys for a time, which is defined by the\nmystically symbolic number seven, the rest of gradual initiation.\nBefore Odysseus arrives at his home, he comes to the isle of the\nPhaeaces, where he meets with a hospitable reception. The king's\ndaughter gives him sympathy, and the king, Alcinous, entertains and\nhonours him. Once more does Odysseus approach the world and its joys,\nand the spirit which is attached to the world, Nausicaa, awakes within\nhim. But he finds the way home, to the divine. At first nothing good\nawaits him at home. His wife, Penelope, is surrounded by numerous\nsuitors. Each one she promises to marry, when she has finished weaving\na certain piece of work. She avoids keeping her promise by undoing\nevery night what she has woven by day. Odysseus is obliged to vanquish\nthe suitors before he can be reunited to his wife in peace. The\ngoddess Athene changes him into a beggar so that he may not be\nrecognised at his entrance; and thus he overcomes the suitors.\nOdysseus is seeking his own deeper consciousness, the divine powers of\nthe soul. He wishes to be united with them. Before the Mystic can find\nthem, he must overcome everything which sues for the favour of that\nconsciousness. The band of suitors spring from the world of lower\nreality, from perishable nature. The logic directed against them is a\nspinning which is always undone again after it has been spun. Wisdom\n(the goddess Athene) is the sure guide to the deepest powers of the\nsoul. It changes man into a beggar, _i.e._, it divests him of\neverything of a transitory nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Eleusinian festivals, which were celebrated in Greece in honour of\nDemeter and Dionysos, were steeped in the wisdom of the Mysteries. A\nsacred road led from Athens to Eleusis. It was bordered with\nmysterious signs, intended to bring the soul into an exalted mood. In\nEleusis were mysterious temples, served by families of priests. The\ndignity and the wisdom which was bound up with it were inherited in\nthese families from generation to generation. (Instructive information\nabout the organisation of these sanctuaries will be found in Karl\nBoetticher's _Ergaenzungen zu den letzten Untersuchungen auf der\nAkropolis in Athen_, Philologus, Supplement, vol. iii, part 3.) The\nwisdom, which qualified for the priesthood, was the wisdom of the\nGreek Mysteries. The festivals, which were celebrated twice a year,\nrepresented the great world-drama of the destiny of the divine in the\nworld, and of that of the human soul. The lesser Mysteries took place\nin February, the greater in September. Initiations were connected with\nthe festivals. The symbolical presentation of the cosmic and human\ndrama formed the final act of the initiations of the Mystics, which\ntook place here.\n\nThe Eleusinian temples had been erected in honour of the goddess\nDemeter. She was a daughter of Kronos. She had given to Zeus a\ndaughter, Persephone, before his marriage with Hera. Persephone, while\nplaying, was carried away by Hades (Pluto), the god of the infernal\nregions. Demeter wandered far and wide over the earth, seeking her\nwith lamentations. Sitting on a stone in Eleusis, she was found by the\ndaughters of Keleus, ruler of the place; in the form of an old woman\nshe entered the service of his family, as nurse to the queen's son.\nShe wished to endow this boy with immortality, and for this purpose\nhid him in fire every night. When his mother discovered this, she wept\nand lamented. After that the bestowal of immortality was impossible.\nDemeter left the house. Keleus then built a temple. The grief of\nDemeter for Persephone was limitless. She spread sterility over the\nearth. The gods had to appease her, to prevent a great catastrophe.\nThen Zeus induced Hades (Pluto) to release Persephone into the upper\nworld, but before letting her go, he gave her a pomegranate to eat.\nThis obliged her to return periodically to the nether-world for\nevermore. Henceforward she spent a third of the year there, and\ntwo-thirds in the world above. Demeter was appeased and returned to\nOlympus; but at Eleusis, the place of her suffering, she founded the\ncult which should keep her fate in remembrance.\n\nIt is not difficult to discover the meaning of the myth of Demeter and\nPersephone. It is the soul which lives alternately above and below.\nThe immortality of the soul and its perpetually recurring\ntransformation by birth and death are thus symbolised. The soul\noriginates from the immortal--Demeter. But it is led astray by the\ntransitory, and even prevailed upon to share its destiny. It has\npartaken of the fruits in the nether-world, the human soul is\nsatisfied with the transitory, therefore it cannot permanently live in\nthe heights of the divine. It has always to return to the realm of the\nperishable. Demeter is the representative of the essence from which\nhuman consciousness arose; but we must think of it as the\nconsciousness which was able to come into being through the spiritual\nforces of the earth. Thus Demeter is the primordial essence of the\nearth, and the endowment of the earth with the seed-forces of the\nproduce of the fields through her, points to a still deeper side of\nher being. This being wishes to give man immortality. She hides her\nnursling in fire by night. But man cannot bear the pure force of fire\n(the spirit). Demeter is obliged to abandon the idea. She is only able\nto found a temple service, through which man is able to participate in\nthe divine as far as this is possible.\n\nThe Eleusinian festivals were an eloquent confession of the belief in\nthe immortality of the human soul. This confession found symbolic\nexpression in the Persephone myth. Together with Demeter and\nPersephone Dionysos was commemorated in Eleusis. As Demeter was\nhonoured as the divine creatress of the eternal in man, so in Dionysos\nwas honoured the ever-changing divine in the world. The divine poured\ninto the world and torn to pieces in order to be spiritually reborn\n(_cf._ p. 90) had to be honoured together with Demeter. (A brilliant\ndescription of the spirit of the Eleusinian Mysteries is found in\nEdouard Schure's book, _Sanctuaires d'Orient_. Paris, 1898.)\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE MYSTERY WISDOM OF EGYPT\n\n    When leaving thy body behind thee, thou soarest into the ether,\n    Then thou becomest a god, immortal, not subject to death.\n\n\nIn this utterance of Empedocles (_cf._ p. 55) is epitomised what the\nancient Egyptians thought about the eternal element in man and its\nconnection with the divine. The proof of this may be found in the\nso-called _Book of the Dead_, which has been deciphered by the\ndiligence of nineteenth-century investigators (_cf._ Lepsius, _Das\nTotenbuch der alten Aegypter_, Berlin, 1842). It is \"the greatest\ncontinuous literary work which has come down to us from ancient\nEgypt.\" All kinds of instructions and prayers are contained in it,\nwhich were put into the tomb of each deceased person to serve as a\nguide when he was released from his mortal tenement. The most intimate\nideas of the Egyptians about the Eternal and the origin of the world\nare contained in this work. These ideas point to a conception of the\ngods similar to that of Greek mysticism.\n\nOsiris gradually became the favourite and most universally recognised\nof the various deities worshipped in different parts of Egypt. In him\nwere comprised the ideas about the other divinities. Whatever the\nmajority of the Egyptian people may have thought about Osiris, the\n_Book of the Dead_ indicates that the priestly wisdom saw in him a\nbeing that might be found in the human soul itself. Everything said\nabout death and the dead shows this plainly. While the body is given\nto earth, and kept by it, the eternal part of man enters upon the path\nto the primordial eternal. It comes before the tribunal of Osiris, and\nthe forty-two judges of the dead. The fate of the eternal part of man\ndepends on the verdict of these judges. If the soul has confessed its\nsins and been deemed reconciled to eternal justice, invisible powers\napproach it and say: \"The Osiris N. has been purified in the pool\nwhich is south of the field of Hotep and north of the field of\nLocusts, where the gods of verdure purify themselves at the fourth\nhour of the night and the eighth hour of the day with the image of the\nheart of the gods, passing from night to day.\" Thus, within the\neternal cosmic order, the eternal part of man is addressed as an\nOsiris. After the name Osiris comes the deceased person's own name.\nAnd the one who is being united with the eternal cosmic order also\ncalls himself \"Osiris.\" \"I am the Osiris N. Growing under the blossoms\nof the fig-tree is the name of the Osiris N.\" Man therefore becomes an\nOsiris. Being Osiris is only a perfect stage in human development. It\nseems obvious that even the Osiris who is a judge within the eternal\ncosmic order is nothing else but a perfect man. Between being human\nand divine, there is a difference in degree and number. The mystic\nview of the mystery of \"number\" underlies this. Osiris as a cosmic\nbeing is One, yet on this account he exists undivided in each human\nsoul. Each person is an Osiris, yet the One Osiris must be\nrepresented as a separate being. Man is in course of development; at\nthe end of his evolutionary career, he becomes divine. In taking this\nview, we must speak of divinity, or becoming divine, rather than of a\nseparate divine being, complete in himself.\n\nIt cannot be doubted but that according to this view only he can\nreally enter upon the Osiris existence, who has reached the portals of\nthe eternal cosmic order as an Osiris. Thus, the highest life which\nman can lead must consist in his changing himself into Osiris. Even\nduring mortal life, a true man will live as a perfect Osiris as far as\nhe can. He becomes perfect when he lives as an Osiris, when he passes\nthrough the experiences of Osiris. In this way, we see the deeper\nsignificance of the Osiris myth. It becomes the ideal of the man who\nwishes to awaken the eternal within him.\n\nOsiris is torn to pieces and killed by Typhon. The fragments of his\nbody are preserved and cared for by his consort, Isis. After his death\nhe let a ray of his own light fall upon her, and she bore him Horus.\nThis Horus takes up the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second\nOsiris, still imperfect, but progressing towards the true Osiris.\n\nThe true Osiris is in the human soul, which at first is of a\ntransitory nature; but as such, it is destined to give birth to the\neternal. Man may, therefore, regard himself as the tomb of Osiris. The\nlower nature (Typhon) has killed the higher nature in him. Love in his\nsoul (Isis) must take care of the dead fragments of his body, and then\nthe higher nature, the eternal soul (Horus) will be born, which can\nprogress to Osiris life. The man who is aspiring to the highest kind\nof existence must repeat in himself, as a microcosm, the macrocosmic\nuniversal Osiris process. This is the meaning of Egyptian initiation.\nWhat Plato (_cf._ p. 80) describes as a cosmic process, _i.e._, that\nthe Creator has stretched the soul of the world on the body of the\nworld in the form of a cross, and that the cosmic process is the\nrelease of this crucified soul,--this process had to be enacted in man\non a smaller scale if he was to be qualified for Osiris life. The\ncandidate for initiation had to develop himself in such a way that\nhis soul-experience, his becoming an Osiris, became blended into one\nwith the cosmic Osiris process.\n\nIf we could look into the temples of initiation in which people\nunderwent the transformation into Osiris, we should see that what took\nplace represented microcosmically the building of the cosmos. Man who\nproceeded from the \"Father\" was to give birth to the Son in himself.\nWhat he actually bears within him, divinity hidden under a spell, was\nto become manifest in him. This divinity is kept down in him by the\npower of the earthly nature; this lower nature must first be buried in\norder that the higher nature may arise.\n\nFrom this we are able to interpret what we are told about the\nincidents of initiation. The candidate was subjected to mysterious\nprocesses, by means of which his earthly nature was killed, and his\nhigher part awakened. It is not necessary to study these processes in\ndetail, if we understand their meaning. This meaning is contained in\nthe confession possible to every one who went through initiation. He\ncould say: \"Before me was the endless perspective at the end of which\nis the perfection of the divine. I felt that the power of the divine\nis within me. I buried what in me keeps down that power. I died to\nearthly things. I was dead. I had died as a lower man, I was in the\nnether-world. I had intercourse with the dead, _i.e._, with those who\nhave already become part of the chain of the eternal cosmic order.\nAfter my sojourn in the nether-world, I arose from the dead. I\novercame death, but now I have become different. I have nothing more\nto do with perishable nature. It has in me become saturated with the\nLogos. I now belong to those who live eternally, and who will sit at\nthe right hand of Osiris. I myself shall be a true Osiris, part of the\neternal cosmic order, and judgment of life and death will be placed in\nmy hands.\" The candidate for initiation had to submit to the\nexperience which made such a confession possible to him. Thus this was\nan experience of the highest kind.\n\nLet us now imagine that a non-initiate hears of such experiences. He\ncannot know what has really taken place in the initiate's soul. In\nhis eyes, the initiate died physically, lay in the grave, and rose\nagain. What is a spiritual reality at a higher stage of existence\nappears when expressed in the form of sense-reality as an event which\nbreaks through the order of nature. It is a \"miracle.\" So far\ninitiation was a miracle. One who really wished to understand it must\nhave awakened within him powers to enable him to stand on a higher\nplane of existence. He must have approached these higher experiences\nthrough a course of life specially adapted for the purpose. In\nwhatever way these prepared experiences were enacted in individual\ncases, they are always found to be of quite a definite type. And so an\ninitiate's life is a typical one. It may be described independently of\nthe single personality. Or rather, an individual could only be\ndescribed as being on the way to the divine if he had passed through\nthese definite typical experiences.\n\nSuch a personality was Buddha, living in the midst of his disciples.\nAs such an one did Jesus appear to his community. Nowadays we know of\nthe parallelism that exists between the biographies of Buddha and of\nJesus. Rudolf Seydel has convincingly proved this parallelism in his\nbook, _Buddha und Christus_. (Compare also the excellent essay by Dr.\nHuebbe-Schleiden, \"Jesus ein Buddhist.\") We have only to follow out the\ntwo lives in detail in order to see that all objections to the\nparallelism are futile.\n\nThe birth of Buddha is announced by a white elephant, which descends\nfrom heaven and declares to the queen, Maya, that she will bring forth\na divine man, who \"will attune all beings to love and friendship, and\nwill unite them in a close alliance.\" We read in St. Luke's Gospel:\n\"To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of\nDavid; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her,\nand said, 'Hail, thou that art highly favoured.... Behold, thou shalt\nconceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name\nJesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the\nHighest.'\"\n\nThe Brahmins, or Indian priests, who know what the birth of a Buddha\nmeans, interpret Maya's dream. They have a definite, typical idea of\na Buddha, to which the life of the personality about to be born will\nhave to correspond. Similarly we read in Matthew ii. _et seq._, that\nwhen Herod \"had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the\npeople together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.\" The\nBrahmin Asita says of Buddha: \"This is the child which will become\nBuddha, the redeemer, the leader to immortality, freedom, and light.\"\nCompare with this Luke ii. 25: \"And, behold, there was a man in\nJerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and\ndevout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was\nupon him.... And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do\nfor him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms,\nand blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart\nin peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy\nsalvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a\nlight to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.\"\n\nIt is related of Buddha that at the age of twelve he was lost, and\nfound again under a tree, surrounded by poets and sages of the olden\ntime, whom he was teaching. With this incident the following passage\nin St. Luke corresponds: \"Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year\nat the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they\nwent up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had\nfulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind\nin Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they,\nsupposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and\nthey sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they\nfound him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And\nit came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple,\nsitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking\nthem questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his\nunderstanding and answers\" (Luke ii. 41-47).\n\nAfter Buddha had lived in solitude, and returned, he was received by\nthe benediction of a virgin, \"Blessed is thy mother, blessed is thy\nfather, blessed is the wife to whom thou belongest.\" But he replied,\n\"Only they are blessed who are in Nirvana,\" _i.e._, who have entered\nthe eternal cosmic order. In St. Luke's Gospel (xi. 27), we read: \"And\nit came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the\ncompany lifted up her voice and said unto him, 'Blessed is the womb\nthat bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.' But he said,\n'Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep\nit.'\"\n\nIn the course of Buddha's life, the tempter comes to him and promises\nhim all the kingdoms of the earth. Buddha refuses everything in the\nwords: \"I know well that I am destined to have a kingdom, but I do not\ndesire an earthly one. I shall become Buddha and make all the world\nexult with joy.\" The tempter has to own that his reign is over. Jesus\nanswers the same temptation in the words: \"Get thee hence, Satan, for\nit is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt\nthou serve. Then the devil leaveth him\" (Matthew iv. 10, 11). This\ndescription of the parallelism might be extended to many other points\nwith the same result.\n\nThe life of Buddha ended sublimely. On a journey, he felt ill; he came\nto the river Hiranja, near Kuschinagara. There he lay down on a carpet\nwhich his favourite disciple, Ananda, spread for him. His body began\nto be luminous from within. He died transfigured, his body irradiating\nlight, saying, \"Nothing endures.\"\n\nThe death of Buddha corresponds with the transfiguration of Jesus.\n\"And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took\nPeter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as\nhe prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment\nwas white and glistering.\"\n\nBuddha's earthly life ends at this point, but it is here that the most\nimportant part of the life of Jesus begins,--His suffering, death, and\nresurrection. Other accounts of Buddha's death need not here be\nconsidered, even though they reveal profound aspects.\n\nThe agreement in these two redemptive lives leads to the same\nconclusion. The narratives themselves indicate the nature of this\nconclusion. When the priest-sages hear what kind of birth is to take\nplace, they know what is involved. They know that they have to do with\na Divine man; they know beforehand what kind of personality it is who\nis appearing. And therefore his course of life can only correspond\nwith what they know about the life of a Divine man. In the wisdom of\ntheir Mysteries such a life is traced out for all eternity. It _can_\nonly be as it _must_ be; it comes into manifestation like an eternal\nlaw of nature. Just as a chemical substance can only behave in a\ncertain definite way, so a Buddha or a Christ can only live in a\ncertain definite way. His life is not described merely by writing a\ncasual biography; it is much better described by giving the typical\nfeatures which are contained for all time in the wisdom of the\nMysteries. The Buddha legend is no more a biography in the ordinary\nsense than the Gospels are meant to be a biography in the ordinary\nsense of the Christ Jesus. In neither is the merely accidental given;\nboth relate the course of life marked out for a world-redeemer. The\nsource of the two accounts is to be found in the mystery traditions\nand not in outer physical history. Jesus and Buddha are, to those who\nhave recognised their Divine nature, initiates in the most eminent\nsense. Hence their lives are lifted out of things transitory, and what\nis known about initiates applies to them.[4] The casual incidents in\ntheir lives are not narrated. Of such it might be announced \"In the\nbeginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a\nGod and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.\"\n\nBut the life of Jesus contains more than that of Buddha. Buddha's ends\nwith the Transfiguration; the most momentous part of the life of Jesus\nbegins after the Transfiguration. In the language of initiates this\nmeans that Buddha reached the point at which divine light begins to\nshine in men. He faces mortal death. He becomes the light of the\nworld. Jesus goes farther. He does not physically die at the moment\nwhen the light of the world shines through him. At that moment he is a\nBuddha. But at that very moment he enters upon a stage which finds\nexpression in a higher degree of initiation. He suffers and dies. What\nis earthly disappears. But the spiritual element, the light of the\nworld, does not. His resurrection follows. He is revealed to his\nfollowers as Christ. Buddha, at the moment of his Transfiguration,\nflows into the blissful life of the Universal Spirit. Christ Jesus\nawakens the Universal Spirit once more, but in a human form, in\npresent existence. Such an event had formerly taken place at the\nhigher stages of initiation. Those initiated in the spirit of the\nOsiris myth attained to such a resurrection. In the life of Jesus,\nthis \"great\" initiation was added to the Buddha initiation. Buddha\ndemonstrated by his life that man is the Logos, and that he returns to\nthe Logos, to the light, when his earthly part dies. In Jesus, the\nLogos himself became a person. In him, the Word was made flesh.\n\nTherefore, what was enacted in the innermost recesses of the temples\nby the guardians of the ancient Mysteries has been apprehended,\nthrough Christianity, as a historical fact. The followers of Christ\nJesus confessed their belief in Him, the initiate, of unique and\nsupreme greatness. He proved to them that the world is divine. In the\nChristian community, the wisdom of the Mysteries was indissolubly\nbound up with the personality of Christ Jesus. That which man\npreviously had sought to attain through the Mysteries was now replaced\nby the belief that Christ had lived on earth, and that the faithful\nbelonged to him.\n\nHenceforward, part of what was formerly only to be gained through\nmystical methods, could be replaced, in the Christian community, by\nthe conviction that the divine had been manifested in the Word present\namongst them. Not that for which each individual soul underwent a long\npreparation was now decisive, but what those had heard and seen who\nwere with Jesus, and what was handed down by them. \"That which was\nfrom the beginning, which we have heard, which ... our hands have\nhandled, of the Word of life ... that which we have seen and heard\ndeclare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.\" Thus\ndo we read in the first Epistle of St. John. And this immediate\nreality is to embrace all future generations in a living bond of\nunion, and as a church is mystically to extend from race to race. It\nis in this sense that the words of St. Augustine are to be understood,\n\"I should not believe the Gospels unless the authority of the Catholic\nChurch induced me to do so.\" Thus the Gospels do not contain within\nthemselves testimony to their truth, but they are to be believed\nbecause they are founded on the personality of Jesus, and because the\nChurch from that personality mysteriously draws the power to make the\ntruth of the Gospels manifest.\n\nThe Mysteries handed down traditionally the means of arriving at\ntruth; the Christian community itself propagates the truth. To the\nconfidence in the mystical forces which spring up in the inmost being\nof man, during initiation, was added the confidence in the One,\nprimordial Initiator.\n\nThe Mystics sought to become divine, they wished to experience\ndivinity. Jesus was divine, we must hold fast to Him, and then we\nshall become partakers of His divinity, in the community founded by\nHim; this became Christian conviction. What became divine in Jesus was\nmade so for all His followers. \"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the\nend of the world.\" The one who was born in Bethlehem has an eternal\ncharacter independent of time. The Christmas anthem thus speaks of the\nbirth of Jesus, as if it took place each Christmas, \"Christ is born\nto-day, the Saviour has come into the world to-day, to-day the angels\nare singing on earth.\"\n\nIn the Christ-experience is to be seen a definite stage of initiation.\nWhen the Mystic of pre-Christian times passed through this\nChrist-experience, he was, through his initiation, in a state which\nenabled him to perceive something spiritually,--in higher worlds,--to\nwhich no fact in the world of sense corresponded. He experienced that\nwhich surrounds the Mystery of Golgotha in the higher world. If the\nChristian Mystic goes through this experience by initiation, he at the\nsame time beholds the historical event which took place on Golgotha,\nand knows that in that event, enacted within the physical world, there\nis the same content as was formerly only in the supersensible facts of\nthe Mysteries. Thus there was poured out on the Christian community,\nthrough the \"Mysteries of Golgotha,\" that which formerly had been\npoured out on the Mystics within the temples. And initiation gives\nChristian Mystics the possibility of becoming conscious of what is\ncontained in the \"Mystery of Golgotha,\" whereas faith makes man an\nunconscious partaker of the mystical stream which flowed from the\nevents depicted in the New Testament, and which has ever since been\npervading the spiritual life of humanity.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] The great initiates raised themselves through initiation up into\nthe sphere of the Logos and carried this Logos influence with them in\ntheir human life. The fundamental difference between them and Jesus was\nthe fact that the Logos in the course of its evolution individualised\nitself into One Divine Individuality who descended into Jesus of\nNazareth at the Baptism, and so that the Logos manifested its whole\nDivine individuality through the personality of Jesus as far as it was\npossible to express Divinity by human means. Such was the unique\ncharacter of the Christ Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE GOSPELS\n\n\nThe accounts of the life of Jesus which can be submitted to historical\nexamination are contained in the Gospels. All that does not come from\nthis source might, in the opinion of one of those who are considered\nthe greatest historical authorities on the subject (Harnack), be\n\"easily written on a quarto page.\"\n\nBut what kind of documents are these Gospels? The fourth, that of St.\nJohn, differs so much from the others, that those who think themselves\nobliged to follow the path of historical research in order to study\nthe subject, come to the conclusion: \"If John possesses the genuine\ntradition about the life of Jesus, that of the first three Evangelists\n(the Synoptists) is untenable. If the Synoptists are right, the Fourth\nGospel must be rejected as a historical source\" (Otto Schmiedel, _Die\nHauptprobleme der Leben Jesu Forschung_, p. 15). This is a statement\nmade from the standpoint of the historical investigator.\n\nIn the present work, in which we are dealing with the mystical\ncontents of the Gospels, such a point of view is neither to be\naccepted nor rejected. But attention must certainly be drawn to such\nan opinion as the following: \"Measured by the standard of consistency,\ninspiration, and completeness, these writings leave very much to be\ndesired, and even measured by the ordinary human standard, they suffer\nfrom not a few imperfections.\" This is the opinion of a Christian\ntheologian (Harnack, _Wesen des Christentums_).\n\nOne who takes his stand on a mystical origin of the Gospels easily\nfinds an explanation of what is apparently contradictory, and also\ndiscovers harmony between the fourth Gospel and the three others. For\nnone of these writings are meant to be mere historical tradition in\nthe ordinary sense of the word. They do not profess to give a\nhistorical biography (_cf._ p. 140 _et seq._). What they intended to\ngive was already shadowed forth in the traditions of the Mysteries, as\nthe typical life of a Son of God. It was these traditions which were\ndrawn upon, not history. Now it was only natural that these traditions\nshould not be in complete verbal agreement in every Mystery centre.\nStill, the agreement was so close that the Buddhists narrated the life\nof their divine man almost in the same way in which the Evangelists\nnarrated the life of Christ. But naturally there were differences. We\nhave only to assume that the four Evangelists drew from four different\nmystery traditions. It testifies to the extraordinary personality of\nJesus that in four writers, belonging to different traditions, he\nawakened the belief that he was one who so perfectly corresponded with\ntheir type of an initiate, that they were able to describe him as one\nwho lived the typical life marked out in their Mysteries. They each\ndescribed his life according to their own mystic traditions. And if\nthe narratives of the first three Evangelists resemble each other, it\nproves nothing more than that they drew from similar mystery\ntraditions. The fourth Evangelist saturated his Gospel with ideas\nwhich are, in many respects, reminiscent of the religious philosopher,\nPhilo (_cf._ p. 82). This only proves that he was rooted in the same\nmystic tradition as Philo.\n\nThere are various elements in the Gospels. Firstly, facts are related,\nwhich seem to lay claim to being historical. Secondly, there are\nparables, in which the narrative form is only used to symbolise a\ndeeper truth. And, thirdly, there are teachings characteristic of the\nChristian conception of life. In St. John's Gospel there is no real\nparable. The source from which he drew was a mystical school which\nconsidered parables unnecessary.\n\nThe part played by ostensibly historical facts and parables in the\nfirst three Gospels is clearly shown in the narrative of the cursing\nof the fig tree. In St. Mark xi. 11-14, we read: \"And Jesus entered\ninto Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round\nabout upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto\nBethany with the twelve. And on the morrow, when they were come from\nBethany, he was hungry: and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves,\nhe came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to\nit, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And\nJesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter\nfor ever.\" In the corresponding passage in St. Luke's Gospel, he\nrelates a parable (xiii. 6, 7): \"He spake also this parable; A certain\nman had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought\nfruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his\nvineyard, Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig\ntree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?\" This\nis a parable symbolising the uselessness of the old teaching,\nrepresented by the barren fig tree. That which is meant\nmetaphorically, St. Mark relates as a fact appearing to be historical.\nWe may therefore assume that, in general, facts related in the Gospels\nare not to be taken as only historical, or as if they were only to\nhold good in the physical world, but as mystical facts; as\nexperiences, for the recognition of which spiritual vision is\nnecessary, and which arise from various mystical traditions. If we\nadmit this, the difference between the Gospel of St. John and the\nSynoptists ceases to exist. For mystical interpretation, historical\nresearch has not to be taken into account. Even if one or another\nGospel were written a few decades earlier or later than the others,\nthey are all of like historical value to the mystic, St. John's Gospel\nas well as the others.\n\nAnd the \"miracles\" do not present the least difficulty when\ninterpreted mystically. They are supposed to break through the laws of\nnature. They only do this when they are considered as events which\nhave so come about on the physical plane, in the perishable world,\nthat ordinary sense-perception could see through them offhand. But if\nthey are experiences which can only be fathomed on a higher stage of\nexistence, namely the spiritual, it is obvious that they cannot be\nunderstood by means of the laws of physical nature.\n\nIt is thus first of all necessary to read the Gospels correctly; then\nwe shall know in what way they are speaking of the Founder of\nChristianity. Their intention is to relate his life in the manner in\nwhich communications were made through the Mysteries. They relate it\nin the way in which a Mystic would speak of an initiate. Only, they\ngive the initiation as the unique characteristic of one unique being.\nAnd they make salvation depend on man's holding fast to the initiate\nof this unique order. What had come to the initiates was the \"kingdom\nof God.\" This unique being has brought the kingdom to all who will\ncleave to him. What was formerly the personal concern of each\nindividual has become the common concern of all those who are willing\nto acknowledge Jesus as their Lord.\n\nWe can understand how this came about if we admit that the wisdom of\nthe Mysteries was imbedded in the popular religion of the Jews.\nChristianity arose out of Judaism. We need not therefore be surprised\nat finding engrafted on Judaism, together with Christianity those\nmystical ideas which we have seen to be the common property of Greek\nand Egyptian spiritual life. If we examine national religions, we find\nvarious conceptions of the spiritual; but if, in each case, we go\nback to the deeper wisdom of the priests, which proves to be the\nspiritual nucleus of them all, we find agreement everywhere. Plato\nknows himself to be in agreement with the priest-sages of Egypt when\nhe is trying to set forth the main content of Greek wisdom in his\nphilosophical view of the universe. It is related of Pythagoras that\nhe travelled to Egypt and India, and was instructed by the sages in\nthose countries. Thinkers who lived in the earlier days of\nChristianity found so much agreement between the philosophical\nteachings of Plato and the deeper meaning of the Mosaic writings, that\nthey called Plato a Moses with Attic tongue.\n\nThus Mystery wisdom existed everywhere. In Judaism it acquired a form\nwhich it had to assume if it was to become a world-religion.\n\nJudaism expected the Messiah. It is not to be wondered at that when\nthe personality of an unique initiate appeared, the Jews could only\nconceive of him as being the Messiah. Indeed this circumstance throws\nlight on the fact that what had been an individual matter in the\nMysteries became an affair of the whole nation. The Jewish religion\nhad from the beginning been a national religion. The Jewish people\nlooked upon itself as one organism. Its Jao was the God of the whole\nnation. If the son of this God were to be born, he must be the\nredeemer of the whole nation. The individual Mystic was not to be\nsaved apart from others, the whole nation was to share in the\nredemption. That one is to die for all is founded on the fundamental\nideas of the Jewish religion.\n\nIt is also certain that there were mysteries in Judaism, which could\nbe brought out of the dimness of a secret cult into the popular\nreligion. A fully-developed mysticism existed side by side with the\npriestly wisdom which was attached to the outer formalism of the\nPharisees. This mystery wisdom is spoken of among the Jews just as it\nis elsewhere. When one day an initiate was speaking of it, and his\nhearers sensed the secret meaning of his words, they said: \"Old man,\nwhat hast thou done? Oh, that thou hadst kept silence! Thou thinkest\nto navigate the boundless ocean without sail or mast. This is what\nthou art attempting. Wilt thou fly upwards? Thou canst not. Wilt thou\ndescend into the depths? An immeasurable abyss is yawning before\nthee.\" And the Kabbalists, from whom the above is taken, also speak of\nfour Rabbis; and these four Rabbis sought the secret path to the\ndivine. The first died; the second lost his reason; the third caused\nmonstrous evils, and only the fourth, Rabbi Akiba, went in and out of\nthe spiritual world in peace.\n\nWe thus see that within Judaism also there was a soil in which an\ninitiate of an unique kind could develop. He had only to say to\nhimself: \"I will not let salvation be limited to a few chosen people.\nI will let all people participate in it.\" He was to carry out into the\nworld at large what the elect had experienced in the temples of the\nMysteries. He had to be willing to take upon himself to be, in spirit,\nto his community, through his personality, that which the cult of the\nMysteries had heretofore been to those who took part in them. It is\ntrue he could not at once give to the whole community the experiences\nof the Mysteries, nor would he have wished to do so. But he wished to\ngive to all the certainty of the truth contemplated in the Mysteries.\nHe wished to cause the life, which flowed within the Mysteries, to\nflow through the further historical evolution of humanity, and thus to\nraise mankind to a higher stage of existence. \"Blessed are they that\nhave not seen, and yet have believed.\" He wished to plant unshakably\nin human hearts, in the form of confidence, the certainty that the\ndivine really exists. One who stands outside initiation and has this\nconfidence will certainly go further than one who is without it. It\nmust have weighed like a mountain on the mind of Jesus to think that\nthere might be many standing outside who do not find the way. He\nwished to lessen the gulf between those to be initiated and the\n\"people.\" Christianity was to be a means by which every one might find\nthe way. Should one or another not yet be ripe, at any rate he is not\ncut off from the possibility of sharing, more or less unconsciously,\nin the benefit of the spiritual current flowing through the Mysteries.\n\"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.\"\nHenceforward even those who cannot yet share in initiation may enjoy\nsome of the fruits of the Mysteries. Henceforth the Kingdom of God was\nnot to be dependent on outward ceremonies: \"Neither shall they say, Lo\nhere! or, Lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.\"\nWith Jesus the point in question was not so much how far this or that\nperson advanced in the kingdom of the spirit, as that all should be\nconvinced that that kingdom exists. \"In this rejoice not, that the\nspirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names\nare written in heaven.\" That is, have confidence in the divine. The\ntime will come when you will find it.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE LAZARUS MIRACLE\n\n\nAmongst the \"miracles\" attributed to Jesus, very special importance\nmust be attached to the raising of Lazarus at Bethany. Everything\ncombines to assign a prominent position in the New Testament to that\nwhich is here related by the Evangelist. We must bear in mind that St.\nJohn alone relates it, the Evangelist who by the weighty words with\nwhich he opens his Gospel claims for it a very definite\ninterpretation.\n\nSt. John begins with these sentences: \"In the beginning was the Word,\nand the Word was with God, and the word was a God.... And the Word was\nmade flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, a glory as of\nthe only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.\"\n\nOne who places such words at the beginning of his narrative is\nplainly indicating that he wishes it to be interpreted in a very deep\nsense. The man who approaches it with merely intellectual\nexplanations, or otherwise in a superficial way, is like one who\nthinks that Othello on the stage really murders Desdemona. What then\nis it that St. John means to say in his introductory words? He plainly\nsays that he is speaking of something eternal, which existed at the\nbeginning of things. He relates facts, but they are not to be taken as\nfacts observed by the eye and ear, and upon which logical reason\nexercises its skill. He hides behind facts the \"Word\" which is in the\nCosmic Spirit. For him, the facts are the medium in which a higher\nmeaning is expressed. And we may therefore assume that in the fact of\na man being raised from the dead, a fact which offers the greatest\ndifficulties to the eye, ear, and logical reason, the very deepest\nmeaning lies concealed.\n\nAnother thing has to be taken into consideration. Renan, in his _Life\nof Jesus_, has pointed out that the raising of Lazarus undoubtedly had\na decisive influence on the end of the life of Jesus. Such a thought\nappears impossible from the point of view which Renan takes. For why\nshould the fact that the belief was being circulated amongst the\npopulace that Jesus had raised a man from the dead appear to his\nopponents so dangerous that they asked the question, \"Can Jesus and\nJudaism exist side by side?\" It does not do to assert with Renan: \"The\nother miracles of Jesus were passing events, repeated in good faith and\nexaggerated by popular report, and they were thought no more of after\nthey had happened. But this one was a real event, publicly known, and\nby means of which it was sought to silence the Pharisees. All the\nenemies of Jesus were exasperated by the sensation it caused. It is\nrelated that they sought to kill Lazarus.\" It is incomprehensible why\nthis should be if Renan were right in his opinion that all that\nhappened at Bethany was the getting up of a mock scene, intended to\nstrengthen belief in Jesus. \"Perhaps Lazarus, still pale from his\nillness, had himself wrapped in a shroud and laid in the family grave.\nThese tombs were large rooms hewn out of the rock, and entered by a\nsquare opening which was closed by an immense slab. Martha and Mary\nhastened to meet Jesus, and brought him to the grave before he had\nentered Bethany. The painful emotion felt by Jesus at the grave of the\nfriend whom he believed to be dead (John xi. 33, 38) might be taken by\nthose present for the agitation and tremors which were wont to\naccompany miracles. According to popular belief, divine power in a man\nwas like an epileptic and convulsive element. Continuing the above\nhypothesis, Jesus wished to see once more the man he had loved, and the\nstone having been rolled away, Lazarus came forth in his grave-clothes,\nhis head bound with a napkin. This apparition naturally was looked upon\nby every one as a resurrection. Faith knows no other law than the\ninterest of what it holds to be true.\" Does not such an explanation\nappear absolutely naive, when Renan adds the following opinion:\n\"Everything seems to suggest that the miracle of Bethany materially\ncontributed to hasten the death of Jesus\"? Yet there is undoubtedly an\naccurate perception underlying this last assertion of Renan. But with\nthe means at his disposal he is not able to interpret or justify his\nopinion.\n\nSomething of quite special importance must have been accomplished by\nJesus at Bethany, in order that such words as the following may be\naccounted for: \"Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a\ncouncil, and said, 'What do we? for this man doeth many miracles'\"\n(John xi. 47). Renan, too, conjectures something special: \"It must be\nacknowledged,\" he says, \"that John's narrative is of an essentially\ndifferent kind from the accounts of miracles of which the Synoptists\nare full, and which are the outcome of the popular imagination. Let us\nadd that John is the only Evangelist with accurate knowledge of the\nrelations of Jesus with the family at Bethany, and that it would be\nincomprehensible how a creation of the popular mind could have been\ninserted in the frame of such personal reminiscences. It is,\ntherefore, probable that the miracle in question was not amongst the\nwholly legendary ones, for which no one is responsible. In other\nwords, I think that something took place at Bethany which was looked\nupon as a resurrection.\" Does not this really mean that Renan surmises\nthat something happened at Bethany which he cannot explain? He\nentrenches himself behind the words: \"At this distance of time, and\nwith only one text bearing obvious traces of subsequent additions, it\nis impossible to decide whether, in the present case, all is fiction,\nor whether a real fact which happened at Bethany served as the basis\nof the report that was spread abroad.\" Might it not be that we have to\ndo here with something of which we might arrive at a true\nunderstanding merely by reading the text in the right way? In that\ncase, we should perhaps no longer speak of \"fiction.\"\n\nIt must be admitted that the whole narrative of this event in St.\nJohn's Gospel is wrapped in a mysterious veil. To show this, we need\nonly mention one point. If the narrative is to be taken in the\nliteral, physical sense, what meaning have these words of Jesus: \"This\nsickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of\nGod might be glorified thereby.\" This is the usual translation of the\nwords, but the actual state of the case is better arrived at, if they\nare translated, \"for the vision (or manifestation) of God, that the\nSon of God might be manifested thereby.\" This translation is also\ncorrect according to the Greek original. And what do these other words\nmean, \"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he\nthat believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live\"? (John\nxi. 4, 25). It would be a triviality to think that Jesus meant to say\nthat Lazarus had only become ill in order that Jesus might manifest\nHis skill through him. And it would again be a triviality to think\nthat Jesus meant to assert that faith in Him brings to life again one\nwho in the ordinary sense is dead. What would there be remarkable\nabout a person who has risen from the dead, if after his resurrection\nhe were the same as he was before dying? Indeed what would be the\nmeaning of describing the life of such a person in the words, \"I am\nthe resurrection and the life\"? Life and meaning at once come into the\nwords of Jesus if we understand them to be the expression of a\nspiritual occurrence and then, in a certain sense, literally as they\nstand in the text. Jesus actually says that He is the resurrection\nthat has happened to Lazarus, and that He is the life that Lazarus is\nliving. Let us take literally what Jesus is in St. John's Gospel.\n\nHe is \"the Word that was made flesh.\" He is the Eternal that existed\nin the beginning. If he is really the resurrection, then the Eternal,\nPrimordial has risen again in Lazarus. We have, therefore, to do with\na resurrection of the eternal \"Word,\" and this \"Word\" is the life to\nwhich Lazarus has been raised. It is a case of illness, not one\nleading to death, but to the glory, _i.e._, the manifestation of God.\nIf the eternal Word has reawakened in Lazarus, the whole event\nconduces to manifest God in Lazarus. For by means of the event Lazarus\nhas become a different man. Before it, the Word, or spirit did not\nlive in him, now it does. The spirit has been born within him. It is\ntrue that every birth is accompanied by illness, that of the mother,\nbut the illness leads to new life, not to death. In Lazarus that part\nof him becomes ill from which the \"new man,\" permeated by the \"Word,\"\nis born.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere is the grave from which the \"Word\" is born? To answer this\nquestion we have only to remember Plato, who calls man's body the tomb\nof the soul. And we have only to recall Plato's speaking of a kind of\nresurrection when he alludes to the coming to life of the spiritual\nworld in the body. What Plato calls the spiritual soul, St. John\ndenominates the \"Word.\" And for him, Christ is the \"Word.\" Plato might\nhave said, \"One who becomes spiritual has caused something divine to\nrise out of the grave of his body.\" For St. John, that which took\nplace through the life of Jesus was that resurrection. It is not\nsurprising, therefore, if he makes Jesus say, \"I am the resurrection.\"\n\nThere can be no doubt that the occurrence at Bethany was an awakening\nin the spiritual sense. Lazarus became something different from what\nhe was before. He was raised to a life of which the Eternal Word could\nsay, \"I am that life.\" What then took place in Lazarus? The spirit\ncame to life within him. He became a partaker of the life which is\neternal. We have only to express his experience in the words of those\nwho were initiated into the Mysteries, and the meaning at once becomes\nclear. What does Plutarch (_vide supra_ p. 26 _et seq._) say about the\nobject of the Mysteries? They were to serve to withdraw the soul from\nbodily life and to unite it with the gods. Schelling thus describes\nthe feelings of an initiate:\n\n\"The initiate through his initiation became a link in the magic chain,\nhe himself became a Kabir. He was admitted into an indestructible\nassociation and, as ancient inscriptions express it, joined to the\narmy of the higher gods\" (Schelling, _Philosophie der Offenbarung_).\nAnd the revolution that took place in the life of one who received\ninitiation cannot be more significantly described than in the words\nspoken by Aedesius to his disciple, the Emperor Constantine: \"If one\nday thou shouldst take part in the Mysteries, thou wilt feel ashamed\nof having been born merely as a man.\"\n\nIf we fill our souls with such feelings as these, we shall gain the\nright attitude towards the event that took place at Bethany, and have\na peculiarly characteristic experience through St. John's narrative. A\ncertainty will dawn upon us which cannot be obtained by any logical\ninterpretation or by any attempt at rationalistic explanation. A\nmystery in the true sense of the word is before us. The \"Eternal Word\"\nentered into Lazarus. In the language of the Mysteries, he became an\ninitiate (_vide_ p. 132 _et seq._), and the event narrated to us must\nbe the process of initiation.\n\nLet us look upon the whole occurrence as though it were an initiation.\nLazarus is loved by Jesus (John xi. 36). No ordinary affection can be\nmeant by this, for it would be contrary to the spirit of St. John's\nGospel, in which Jesus is \"The Word.\" Jesus loved Lazarus because he\nfound him ripe for the awakening of \"the Word\" within him. Jesus had\nrelations with the family at Bethany. This only means that Jesus had\nmade everything ready in that family for the final act of the drama,\nthe raising of Lazarus. The latter was a disciple of Jesus, such an\none that Jesus could be quite sure that in him the awakening would be\nconsummated. The final act in a drama of awakening consisted in a\nsymbolical action. The person involved in it had not only to\nunderstand the words, \"Die and become!\" He had to fulfil them himself\nby a real, spiritual action. His earthly part, of which his higher\nbeing in the Spirit of the Mysteries must be ashamed, had to be put\naway. The earthly must die a symbolic-real death. The putting of his\nbody into a somnambulic sleep for three days can only be denoted an\nouter event in comparison with the greatness of the transformation\nwhich was taking place in him. An incomparably more momentous\nspiritual event corresponded to it. But this very process was the\nexperience which divides the life of the Mystic into two parts. One\nwho does not know from experience the inner significance of such acts\ncannot understand them. They can only be suggested by means of a\ncomparison.\n\nThe substance of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ may be compressed into a few\nwords. Any one who learns these words may say that in a certain sense\nhe knows the contents of _Hamlet_; and logically he does. But one who\nhas let all the wealth of the Shakespearian drama stream in upon him\nknows _Hamlet_ in a different way. A life-current has passed through\nhis soul which cannot be replaced by any mere description. The idea of\n_Hamlet_ has become an artistic, personal experience within him.\n\nOn a higher plane of consciousness, a similar process takes place in\nman when he experiences the magically significant event which is bound\nup with initiation. What he attains spiritually, he lives through\nsymbolically. The word \"symbolically\" is used here in the sense that\nan outer event is really enacted on the physical plane, but that as\nsuch, it is nevertheless a symbol. It is not a case of an unreal, but\nof a real symbol. The earthly body has really been dead for three\ndays.[5] New life comes forth from death. This life has outlived\ndeath. Man has gained confidence in the new life.\n\nIt happened thus with Lazarus. Jesus had prepared him for\nresurrection. His illness was at once symbolic and real, an illness\nwhich was an initiation (_cf._ p. 132 _et seq._), and which leads,\nafter three days, to a really new life.\n\nLazarus was ripe for undergoing this experience. He wrapped himself in\nthe garment of the Mystic, and fell into a condition of lifelessness\nwhich was symbolic death. And when Jesus came, the three days had\nelapsed. \"Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead\nwas laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, 'Father, I thank thee\nthat thou hast heard me'\" (John xi. 41). The Father had heard Jesus,\nfor Lazarus had come to the final act in the great drama of knowledge.\nHe had learned how resurrection is attained. An initiation into the\nMysteries had been consummated. It was a case of such an initiation as\nhad been understood as such during the whole of antiquity. It had\ntaken place through Jesus, as the initiator. Union with the divine\nhad always been conceived of in this way.\n\nIn Lazarus Jesus accomplished the great miracle of the transmutation\nof life in the sense of immemorial tradition. Through this event,\nChristianity is connected with the Mysteries. Lazarus had become an\ninitiate through Christ Jesus Himself, and had thereby become able to\nenter the higher worlds. He was at once the first Christian initiate\nand the first to be initiated by Christ Jesus Himself. Through his\ninitiation he had become capable of recognising that the \"Word\" which\nhad been awakened within him had become a person in Christ Jesus, and\nthat consequently there stood before him in the personality of his\nawakener, the same force which had been spiritually manifested within\nhim. From this point of view, these words of Jesus are significant,\n\"And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people\nwhich stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent\nme.\" This means that the point is to make evident this fact: in Jesus\nlives the \"Son of the Father\" in such a way that when he awakens his\nown nature in man, man becomes a Mystic. In this way Jesus made it\nplain that the meaning of life was hidden in the Mysteries and that\nthey were the path to this understanding. He is the living Word; in\nHim was personified what had been immemorial tradition. And therefore\nthe Evangelist is justified in expressing this in the sentence, \"in\nHim the Word was made flesh.\" He rightly sees in Jesus himself an\nincarnated Mystery. On this account, St. John's Gospel is a Mystery.\nIn order to read it rightly, we must bear in mind that the facts are\nspiritual facts. If a priest of the old order had written it, he would\nhave described traditional rites. These for St. John took the form of\na person, and became the life of Jesus.\n\nAn eminent modern investigator of the Mysteries, Burkhardt in _Die\nZeit Konstantins_, says that they \"will never be cleared up.\" This is\nbecause he has not found out how to explain them. If we take the\nGospel of St. John and see in it the working out in symbolic-corporeal\nreality the drama of knowledge presented by the ancients, we are\nreally gazing upon the Mystery itself.\n\nIn the words, \"Lazarus, come forth,\" we can recognise the call with\nwhich the Egyptian priestly initiators summoned back to every-day life\nthose who, temporarily removed from the world by the processes of\ninitiation, had undergone them in order to die to earthly things and\nto gain a conviction of the reality of the eternal. Jesus in this way\nrevealed the secret of the Mysteries. It is easy to understand that\nthe Jews could not let such an act go unpunished, any more than the\nGreeks could have refrained from punishing AEschylus, if he had\nbetrayed the secrets of the Mysteries.\n\nThe main point for Jesus was to represent in the initiation of Lazarus\nbefore all \"the people which stood by,\" an event which in the old days\nof priestly wisdom could only be enacted in the recesses of the\nmystery-temples. The initiation of Lazarus was to prepare the way to\nthe understanding of the \"Mystery of Golgotha.\" Previously only those\nwho \"saw,\" that is to say, who were initiated, were able to know\nsomething of what was achieved by initiation, but now a conviction of\nthe Mysteries of higher worlds could also be gained by those who \"had\nnot seen, and yet had believed.\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] This and other circumstances connected with the so-called raising\nof Lazarus from the dead are to be understood in the light of the fact,\nthat Lazarus' death-sleep was at the same time symbolic and real--it\nwas in other words a symbolic reality, a reality symbolising other\nrealities, and but for the action of Christ, Lazarus would have\nremained dead.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN\n\n\nAt the end of the New Testament stands a remarkable document, the\nApocalypse, the secret Revelation of St. John. We have only to read\nthe opening words to feel the deep mystic character of this book. \"The\nRevelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his\nservants how the necessary things are shortly going to happen; and\nthis is sent in signs by the angel of God unto his servant John.\" What\nis here revealed is \"sent in signs.\" Therefore we must not take the\nliteral meaning of the words as they stand, but seek for a deeper\nmeaning of which the words are only signs. But there are other things\nalso which point to a hidden meaning. St. John addresses himself to\nthe seven churches in Asia. Not actual, material churches are meant;\nthe number seven is the sacred number, chosen on account of its\nsymbolic meaning. The actual number of the Asiatic churches was\ndifferent. And the manner in which St. John arrived at the revelation\nalso points to something mysterious. \"I was in the Spirit on the\nLord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,\nsaying, 'What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven\nchurches.'\" Thus, we have to do with a revelation received by St. John\nin the spirit. And it is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Wrapped in a\nhidden meaning there appears what Christ Jesus manifested to the\nworld. Therefore we must also look for this hidden meaning in the\nteachings of Christ. This revelation bears the same relation to\nordinary Christianity as was borne by the revelation of the Mysteries,\nin pre-Christian times, to the people's religion. On this account the\nattempt to treat the Apocalypse as a mystery appears to be justified.\n\nThe Apocalypse is addressed to seven churches. For the reason of this\nwe have only to single out one of the seven messages sent. In the\nfirst of these it is said, \"Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus\nwrite; these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right\nhand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I\nknow thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst\nnot bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they\nare apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: and hast borne,\nand hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not\nfainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast\nleft thy highest love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,\nand repent, and do the best works; or else I will come unto thee\nquickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou\nrepent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the\nNicolaitanes, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear\nwhat the Spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I\ngive to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise\nof God.\" This is the message addressed to the angel of the first\ncommunity. The angel, who represents the spirit of this community,\nhas entered upon the path pointed out by Christianity. He is able to\ndistinguish between the false adherents of Christianity and the true.\nHe wishes to be Christian, and has founded his work on the name of\nChrist. But it is required of him that he should not bar his own way\nto the highest love by any kind of mistakes. He is shown the\npossibility of taking a wrong course through such errors. Through\nChrist Jesus the way for attaining to the divine has been pointed out.\nPerseverance is needed for advancing further in the spirit in which\nthe first impulse was given. It is possible to believe too soon that\none has the right spirit. This happens when the disciple lets himself\nbe led a short way by Christ and then leaves his leadership, giving\nway to false ideas about it. The disciple thereby falls back again\ninto the lower self. He has left his \"highest love.\" The knowledge\nwhich is attached to the senses and intellect may be raised into a\nhigher sphere, becoming wisdom, by being spiritualised and made\ndivine. If it does not reach this height, it remains amongst\nperishable things. Christ Jesus has pointed out the path to the\nEternal, and knowledge must with unwearied perseverance follow the\npath which leads to its becoming divine. Lovingly must it trace out\nthe methods which transmute it into wisdom. The Nicolaitanes were a\nsect who took Christianity too lightly. They saw one thing only, that\nChrist is the Divine Word, the Eternal Wisdom which is born in man.\nTherefore they concluded that human wisdom was the Divine Word, and\nthat it was enough to pursue human knowledge in order to realise the\ndivine in the world. But the meaning of Christian wisdom cannot be\nconstrued thus. The knowledge which in the first instance is human\nwisdom is as perishable as anything else, unless it is first\ntransmuted into divine wisdom. \"Thou art not thus,\" says the \"Spirit\"\nto the angel of Ephesus; \"thou hast 'not relied' merely upon human\nwisdom. Thou hast patiently trodden the Christian path. But thou must\nnot think that the 'highest' love is not needed to attain to the goal.\nSuch a love is necessary which far surpasses all love to other things.\nOnly such can be the 'highest' love. The path to the divine is an\ninfinite one, and it is to be understood that when the first step has\nbeen gained, it can only be the preparation for ascending higher and\nhigher.\" Such is the first of these messages, as they are to be\ninterpreted. The meaning of the others may be found in a similar way.\n\nSt. John turned, and saw \"seven golden candlesticks,\" and \"in the\nmidst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed\nwith a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden\ngirdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow;\nand his eyes were as a flame of fire.\" We are told (i. 20) that \"the\nseven candlesticks are the seven churches.\" This means that the\ncandlesticks are seven different ways of attaining to the divine. They\nare all more or less imperfect. And the Son of Man \"had in his right\nhand seven stars\" (v. 16). The seven stars are the angels of the seven\nchurches (v. 20). The guiding spirits, or daimons (_cf._ p. 87), of\nthe wisdom of the Mysteries have here become the guiding angels of the\nchurches. The churches are represented as bodies for spiritual\nbeings, and the angels are the souls of those bodies, just as human\nsouls are the guiding powers of human bodies. The churches are the\nimperfect ways to the divine, and the souls of the churches were to\nbecome guides along those paths. For this purpose they must themselves\nhave for their leader the being who has in his right hand seven stars.\n\"And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his\ncountenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.\" This sword is\nalso found in the Mysteries. The candidate for initiation was\nterrified by a flashing sword (_cf._ p. 18). This indicates the\nsituation of one who wishes to know the divine by experience, so that\nthe face of wisdom may shine upon him like the sun. St. John also goes\nthrough this experience. It is to be a test of his strength (_cf._ p.\n18). \"And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his\nright hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not\" (v. 17). The candidate\nfor initiation must pass through the experiences which otherwise man\nonly undergoes at the gate of death. His guide must lead him beyond\nthe region in which birth and death have a meaning. The initiate\nenters upon a new life. \"And I was dead; and, behold, I am alive for\nevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.\"\n\nThus prepared, St. John is led on to learn the secrets of existence.\n\"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and\nthe first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with\nme; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must\nbe hereafter.\" The messages to the seven spirits of the churches make\nknown to St. John what is to take place in the physical world in order\nto prepare the way for Christianity. What he now sees \"in the Spirit\"\ntakes him to the spiritual fountain-head of things, hidden behind\nphysical evolution, but which will be realised, in a spiritualised\nage, in the near future, by means of physical evolution. The initiate\nexperiences now in the spirit what is to happen in the future,--\"And\nimmediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in\nheaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon\nlike a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round\nabout the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.\" In this way is\ndescribed the source of things in the world of sense, in the pictures\nin which it appears to the seer. \"And round about the throne were four\nand twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders\nsitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns\nof gold\" (iv. 2-4). The beings far advanced on the path of wisdom thus\nsurround the fountain-head of existence, to gaze on its infinite\nessence and bear testimony to it. \"And in the midst of the throne, and\nround about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and\nbehind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like\na calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast\nwas like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six\nwings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not\nday and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was,\nand is, and is to come.\" It is not difficult to see that the four\nbeasts represent the supersensible life underlying physical forms of\nlife. Afterwards, when the trumpets sound, they lift up their voices,\n_i.e._, when the life expressed in sense-forms has been transmuted\ninto spiritual life.\n\nIn the right hand of him who sits on the throne is the book in which\nthe path to the highest wisdom is traced out (v. 1). There is only one\nworthy to open the book. \"Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the\nRoot of David, hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven\nseals thereof.\" The seven seals of the book denote that human wisdom\nis sevenfold. That this is so is again connected with the sacred\ncharacter of the number seven. The mystic wisdom of Philo designates\nas seals the eternal cosmic thoughts which come to expression in\nthings. Human wisdom seeks for those creative thoughts; but only in\nthe book, which is sealed with them, is divine truth to be found. The\nfundamental thoughts of creation must first be unveiled, the seals\nmust be opened, before what is in the book can be revealed. Jesus, the\nLion, has power to open the seals. He has given a direction to the\ngreat creative thoughts which, through them, leads to wisdom. The Lamb\nthat was slain and that has bought its divinity with its blood,\nJesus, who drew down the Christ into Himself and who thus, in the\nsupreme sense, passed through the Life-Death-Mystery, opens the book\n(v. 9, 10). And as each seal is opened (vi), the four beasts declare\nwhat they know.\n\nAt the opening of the first seal, St. John sees a white horse, on\nwhich sits a rider with a bow. The first universal power, an\nembodiment of Creative Thought, becomes visible. It is put into the\nright direction by the new rider, Christianity. Strife is allayed by\nthe new faith. At the opening of the second seal a red horse appears,\nridden by one who takes away from the earth Peace,--the second\nuniversal power, so that humanity may not neglect, through sloth, to\ncultivate divine things. The opening of the third seal shows the\nuniversal power of Justice, guided by Christianity. The fourth brings\nthe power of Religion which, through Christianity, has received new\ndignity.\n\nThe meaning of the four beasts thus becomes plain. They are the four\nchief universal powers, to which Christianity gives a new direction:\nWar (the lion); Peaceful Work (the bull); Justice (the being with the\nhuman face); and Religious Enthusiasm (the eagle). The meaning of the\nthird being becomes clear when it is said, at the opening of the third\nseal, \"A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley\nfor a penny,\" and that the rider holds \"a pair of balances.\" And at\nthe opening of the fourth seal a rider becomes visible whose name \"was\nDeath, and Hell followed with him.\" This rider is Religious Justice\n(vi. 6, 8). When the fifth seal is opened there appear the souls of\nthose who have already acted in the spirit of Christianity. Creative\nthought itself, embodied in Christianity, shows itself here; but by\nthis Christianity is at first meant only the first Christian\ncommunity, which was transitory like other forms of creation. The\nsixth seal is opened (vi.); it is made evident that the spiritual\nworld of Christianity is an eternal world. The people at large seem to\nbe permeated by that spiritual world out of which Christianity itself\nproceeded. What it has itself created becomes sanctified. \"And I heard\nthe number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred\nand forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of\nIsrael\" (vii. 4). They are those who prepared for the Eternal before\nthe coming of Christianity, and who were transformed by the\nChrist-impulse.\n\nThe opening of the seventh seal follows. It becomes evident what true\nChristianity is to be in the evolution of the world. The seven angels,\n\"which stood before God,\" appear (Rev. viii. 2). Again these angels\nare spirits from the ancient Mysteries transferred to Christianity.\nThey are the spirits who lead to the vision of God in a really\nChristian way. Therefore what is next accomplished is a leading to\nGod: it is an \"initiation\" which is bestowed upon St. John. The\nproclamations of the angels are accompanied by the necessary signs\nduring initiations. \"The first angel sounded and there followed hail\nand fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and\nthe third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt\nup.\" And similar things take place when the other angels sound their\ntrumpets.\n\nAt this point we see that this was not merely an initiation in the\nold sense, but that a new one was taking the place of the old.\nChristianity was not to be confined, like the ancient Mysteries, to a\nfew elect ones. It was to belong to the whole of humanity. It was to\nbe a religion of the people; the truth was to be ready for each one\nwho \"has ears to hear.\" The old Mystics were singled out from a great\nnumber; the trumpets of Christianity sound for every one who is\nwilling to hear them. Whether he draws near or not depends on himself.\nThis is the reason why the terrors accompanying this initiation of\nhumanity are so enormously enhanced. What is to become of the earth\nand its inhabitants in a far distant future is revealed to St. John at\nhis initiation. Underlying this is the thought that initiates are able\nto foresee in higher worlds what is realised in the lower world only\nin the future. The seven messages present the meaning of Christianity\nto that age, the seven seals represent what was then being prepared\nthrough Christianity for future accomplishment. The future is veiled\nand sealed to the uninitiated; it is unsealed in initiation. When the\nearthly period is over during which the seven messages hold good, a\nmore spiritual time will begin. Then life will no more flow on as it\nappears in physical forms, but even outwardly it will be a copy of its\nsupersensible forms. These latter are represented by the four animals\nand the other seal-pictures. In a still later future appears that form\nof the earth which the initiate experiences through the trumpets.\n\nThus the initiate prophetically goes through what is to happen. And\nthe Christian initiate learns how the Christ-impulse interposes and\nworks on in earthly evolution. After it has been shown how all that is\ntoo much attached to perishable things perishes to attain true\nChristianity, there appears the mighty angel with a little book open\nin his hand, which he gives to St. John. \"And he said unto me, Take\nit, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be\nin thy mouth sweet as honey\" (x. 9). St. John was not only to read the\nlittle book, he was to absorb it and let its contents permeate him.\nWhat avails any knowledge unless man is vitally and thoroughly imbued\nwith it? Wisdom has to become life, man must not merely recognise the\ndivine, but become divine himself. Such wisdom as is written in the\nbook no doubt causes pain to the perishable part of man, \"it shall\nmake thy belly bitter,\" but so much the more does it make happy the\neternal part, \"but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.\"\n\nOnly by such an initiation can Christianity become actual on the\nearth. It kills everything belonging to the lower nature. \"And their\ndead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which\nspiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was\ncrucified.\" By this is meant the followers of Christ, who are\nill-treated by the temporal powers. But what is ill-treated is only\nthe mortal part of human nature, which they will afterwards have\nconquered. Thereby their fate is a copy of the prefiguring fate of\nChrist Jesus. \"Spiritually Sodom and Egypt\" is the symbol of a life\nwhich cleaves to the outer and is not changed by the Christ-impulse.\nChrist is everywhere crucified in the lower nature. When the lower\nnature conquers, all remains dead. The dead bodies of men lie about\nin the public places of cities. Those who overcome the lower nature\nand awaken the crucified Christ hear the trumpet of the seventh angel,\n\"the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and\nof his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever\" (xi. 15). \"And\nthe temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his\ntemple the ark of his testament\" (xi. 19).\n\nIn the vision of these events, the initiate sees renewed the old\nstruggle between the lower and the higher natures. For everything\nwhich the candidate for initiation formerly had to go through must be\nrepeated in one who follows the Christian path. Just as Osiris was\nthreatened by the evil Typhon so now \"the great dragon, that old\nserpent\" (xii. 9) must be overcome. The woman, the human soul, gives\nbirth to lower knowledge, which is an adverse power if it is not\nraised to wisdom. Man must pass through that lower knowledge. In the\nApocalypse it appears as the \"old serpent.\" From the remotest times\nthe serpent had been the symbol of knowledge in all mystic wisdom.\nMan may be led astray by this serpent,--knowledge,--if he does not\nbring to life in him the Son of God, who crushes the serpent's head.\n\"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the\nDevil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out\ninto the earth, and his angels were cast out with him\" (xii. 9). In\nthese words we can see what it was that Christianity wished to be:--a\nnew kind of initiation. What had been attained in the Mysteries was to\nbe attained in a new form. For in them too the serpent had to be\novercome, but this was no longer to take place in the old way. The\none, primeval mystery, the Christian mystery, was to replace the many\nmysteries of antiquity. Jesus, in whom the Logos had been made flesh,\nwas to become the initiator of the whole of humanity, and humanity was\nto be his own community of Mystics.\n\nWhat was to take place was not a separation of the elect, but a\nlinking together of all. As each grows up to it so does he become a\nMystic. The good tidings are announced to all, he who has an ear to\nhear hastens to learn the secrets. The voice of the heart is to\ndecide in each individual case. It is not that one person at a time is\nintroduced into the Mystery-temples, but that the word is to be spoken\nto all, to one it will then appeal more strongly than to another. It\nwill be left to the daimon, the angel within each individual, to\ndecide how far the latter may be initiated. The whole world is a\nMystery-temple. Not only is salvation to come to those who see the\nwonderful processes in the special temples for initiation,--processes\nwhich give them a guarantee of eternal life, but \"Blessed are they\nthat have not seen, and yet have believed.\" Even if at first they\ngrope in the dark, the light may nevertheless come to them later.\nNothing is to be withheld from any one; the way is to be open to all.\n\nThe latter part of the Apocalypse describes clearly the dangers\nthreatening Christianity through anti-Christian powers, and the final\ntriumph of Christianity. All other gods are merged in the one\nChristian divinity: \"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of\nthe moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the\nLamb is the light thereof\" (xxi. 23). The secret of the Revelation of\nSt. John is that the Mysteries are no longer to be kept under lock and\nkey. \"And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of\nthis book, for the time is at hand.\"\n\nThe author of the Apocalypse has set forth what he believes to be the\nrelation of his church to the churches of antiquity. He wished to\nexpress in a spiritual mystery what he thought about the Mysteries\nthemselves. He wrote his mystery on the isle of Patmos, and he is said\nto have received the \"Revelation\" in a grotto. These details indicate\nthat the revelation was of a mystery character.\n\nThus Christianity arose out of the Mysteries. Its wisdom is born as a\nmystery in the Apocalypse, but a mystery which transcends the limits\nof the old mystery world. The separate Mysteries were to become one\nuniversal one.\n\nIt may appear to be a contradiction to say that the secrets of the\nMysteries became manifest through Christianity, and that nevertheless\na Christian mystery is to be seen again in the spiritual visions of\nthe writer of the Apocalypse. The contradiction disappears directly\nwe reflect that the secrets of the ancient Mysteries were revealed by\nthe events in Palestine. Through these there became manifest what had\npreviously been veiled in the Mysteries. There is now a new secret,\nnamely what has been introduced into the evolution of the world by the\nappearance of the Christ. The initiate of ancient times, when in the\nspiritual world, saw how evolution points the way to the as yet hidden\nChrist. The Christian initiate experiences the unseen effects of the\nmanifested Christ.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nJESUS AND HIS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND\n\n\nIn the wisdom of the Mysteries is to be sought the soil out of which\ngrew the spirit of Christianity. All that was needed was the gaining\nground of the fundamental conviction that this spirit must be\nintroduced into life in greater measure than had been the case with\nthe Mysteries. But such a conviction was widely spread, as may be seen\nfrom the manner of life of the Essenes and Therapeutae, who existed\nlong before Christianity arose.\n\nThe Essenes were a secluded sect, living in Palestine, whose numbers\nat the time of Christ were estimated at four thousand. They formed a\ncommunity which required that its members should lead a life which\ndeveloped a higher life within the soul, and brought about a new\nbirth. The aspirant for admission was subjected to a severe test, in\norder to ascertain whether he were ripe for preparing himself for a\nhigher life. If he was admitted, he had to undergo a period of\nprobation, and to take a solemn oath that he would not betray to\nstrangers the secrets of the Essenian discipline. The object of this\nlife was the conquest of the lower nature in man, so that the spirit\nlatent within him might be awakened ever more and more. One who had\nexperienced up to a certain point the spirit within him was raised to\na higher grade, and enjoyed a corresponding degree of authority, not\nforced from without, but conditioned by the nature of things.\n\nAkin to the Essenes were the Therapeutae, who dwelt in Egypt. We get\nall desirable details of their mode of life in a treatise by the\nphilosopher Philo, _On the Contemplative Life_. (The dispute as to the\nauthenticity of this work must now be regarded as settled, and it may\nbe rightly assumed that Philo really described the life of a community\nexisting long before Christianity, and well known to him. _Cf._ on the\nsubject, G.R. Mead's _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_.) A few\npassages from Philo's treatise will give an idea of the main tenets of\nthe Therapeutae. \"The dwellings of the members of the community are\nextremely simple, only affording necessary shelter from extreme heat\nand cold. The dwellings are not built close together, as in towns, for\ncontiguity has no attraction for one who wishes for solitude; nor are\nthey at a great distance one from another, in order that the social\nrelations, so dear to them, may not be made difficult, and that they\nmay easily be able to assist each other in case of an attack by\nbrigands. In each house is a consecrated room called a temple or\nmonasterion, a small room or cell in which the mysteries of the higher\nlife are cultivated.... They also possess works by ancient authors who\nonce directed their school, and left behind many explanations about\nthe customary method used in allegorical writings.... Their\ninterpretation of sacred writings is directed to the deeper meaning of\nallegorical narratives.\"\n\nWe thus see that what had been striven after in the narrower circle of\nthe Mysteries was being made general. But such a generalisation\nnaturally weakened their severe character. The Essene and Therapeutic\ncommunities form a natural transition from the Mysteries to\nChristianity. But Christianity wished to extend to humanity in general\nwhat with the Essenes and Therapeutae was an affair of a sect. This of\ncourse prepared the way for a still further weakening of the old\nsevere forms.\n\nThe existence of such sects makes it possible to understand how far\nthe time was ripe for the comprehension of the mystery of Christ. In\nthe Mysteries, a man was artificially prepared for the dawning upon\nhis consciousness, at the appropriate time, of the spiritual world.\nWithin the Essene or Therapeutic community the soul sought, by a\ncertain mode of life, to become ripe for the awakening of the higher\nman. A further step forward is that man struggles through to a feeling\nthat a human individuality may have evolved to higher and higher\nstages of perfection in repeated earth lives. One who had arrived at a\nglimpse of this truth would also be able to feel that in Jesus a being\nof lofty spirituality had appeared. The loftier the spirituality, the\ngreater the possibility of accomplishing something of importance. Thus\nthe individuality of Jesus could become capable of accomplishing the\ndeed which the Evangelists so mysteriously indicate in the Baptism by\nJohn, and which, by the way in which they speak of it, they so clearly\npoint out as of the utmost importance. The personality of Jesus became\nable to receive into its own soul Christ, the Logos, who was made\nflesh in that soul. Thenceforward the Ego of Jesus of Nazareth was the\nChrist, and the outer personality was the vehicle of the Logos. The\nevent of the Ego of Jesus becoming the Christ is enacted in the\nBaptism by St. John. During the period of the Mysteries, \"union with\nthe Spirit\" was only for those who were initiated. Amongst the\nEssenes, a whole community cultivated a life by means of which all its\nmembers were able to arrive at the mystical union. In the coming of\nChrist, something, _i.e._, the deeds of Christ, was placed before the\nwhole of humanity, so that all might share in the mystical union.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n\nThe deepest effect must have been produced upon believers in\nChristianity by the fact that the Divine, the Word, the eternal Logos,\nno longer came to them in the dim twilight of the Mysteries, as Spirit\nonly, but that when they spoke of the Logos, they were made to think\nof the historical, human personality of Jesus. Formerly the Logos had\nonly been seen in different degrees of human perfection. The delicate,\nsubtle differences in the spiritual life of personalities could be\nobserved, and the manner and degree in which the Logos became living\nwithin those seeking initiation. A higher degree of maturity was to be\ninterpreted as a higher stage of evolution of spiritual life. The\npreparatory steps had to be sought in a spiritual life already passed\nthrough, and the present life was to be regarded as the preparatory\nstage for future degrees of spiritual evolution. The conservation of\nthe spiritual power of the soul and the eternity of that force might\nbe stated in the words of the Jewish occult teaching in the book of\nSohar, \"Nothing in the world is lost, nothing falls into the void, not\neven the words and voice of man: everything has its place and\npurport.\" Personality was but a metamorphosis of the soul, which\ndevelops from one personality to another. The single life of the\npersonality was only considered as a link in the chain of development\nstretching backwards and forwards.\n\nThis Logos metamorphosing itself in the many separate human\npersonalities has through Christianity been directed away from these\nto the one unique personality of Jesus. What had previously been\ndistributed throughout the world was now united in a single\npersonality. Jesus became the unique God-Man. In Jesus something was\npresent once which must appear to man as the greatest of ideals, and\nwith which, in the course of man's repeated earthly lives, he ought\nto be more and more united. Jesus took upon Himself the divinisation\nof the whole of humanity. In Him was sought what formerly could only\nbe sought in a man's own particular soul. One did not any more behold\nthe divine and eternal within the personality of a man; all that was\nnow beheld in Jesus. It is not the eternal part of the soul that\nconquers death and is raised through its own power as divine, but it\nis that which was in Jesus, the one God that will appear and raise the\nsouls.\n\nIt follows from this that an entirely new meaning was given to\npersonality. The eternal, immortal part had been taken from it. Only\nthe personality, as such, was left. If immortality be not denied, it\nhas to be admitted as pertaining to the personality itself. Out of the\nbelief in the soul's eternal metamorphosis came the belief in personal\nimmortality. The personality acquired infinite importance, because it\nwas the only thing which was left to man.\n\nHenceforth there is nothing between the personality and the infinite\nGod. A direct relation with Him must be established. Man was no\nlonger capable of himself becoming divine, in a greater or less\ndegree. He was simply man, standing in a direct but outward relation\nto God. This brought quite a new note into the conception of the world\nfor those who knew the point of view held in the ancient Mysteries.\nThere were many people in this position during the first centuries of\nChristianity. They knew the nature of the Mysteries. If they wished to\nbecome Christians, they were obliged to come to an understanding with\nthe older conceptions. This brought them most difficult conflicts\nwithin their souls. They sought in most various ways to effect a\nsettlement between the two tendencies in the conception of the world.\nThis conflict is reflected in the writings of early Christian times:\nin those of heathens attracted by the sublimity of Christianity, as\nwell as in the writings of those Christians who found it hard to give\nup the conceptions of the Mysteries. Slowly did Christianity grow out\nof these Mysteries. On the one hand Christian convictions were\npresented in the form of the Mystery truths, and on the other, the\nMystery wisdom was clothed in Christian words.\n\nClement of Alexandria (ob. 217 A.D.), a Christian writer whose\neducation had been pagan, is an instance of this, \"God has not\nforbidden us to rest from good deeds when keeping the sabbath. He\npermits those who can grasp them to share in the divine mysteries and\nin the sacred light. He has not revealed to the crowd what is not\nsuitable for them. He judged it fitting to reveal it only to a few,\nwho are able to grasp it and to work out in themselves the unspeakable\nmystery which God confided to the Logos, not to the written word. And\nGod hath set some in the Church as apostles; and some prophets; and\nsome evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of\nthe saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body\nof Christ.\" Individual souls in those days sought by very different\npaths to find the way from the ancient views to the Christian ones.\nAnd the one who thought he was on the right path called others\nheretics. In the meanwhile, the Church grew stronger and stronger as\nan outward institution. The more power it gained, the more did the\npath, recognised as the right one by the decisions of councils, take\nthe place of personal investigation. It was for the Church to decide\nwho deviated too far from the divine truth which she guarded. The idea\nof a \"heretic\" took firmer and firmer shape. During the first\ncenturies of Christianity, the search for the divine path was a much\nmore personal matter than it afterwards became. A long distance had\nbeen travelled before Augustine's conviction became possible: \"I\nshould not believe in the truth of the Gospels unless the authority of\nthe Catholic Church forced me to do so\" (_cf._ p. 143).\n\nThe conflict between the method of the Mysteries and that of the\nChristian religion acquired a special stamp through the various\nGnostic sects and writers. We may class as Gnostics all the writers of\nthe first Christian centuries who sought for a deep, spiritual meaning\nin Christian teachings. (A brilliant account of the development of the\nGnosis is given in G.R.S. Mead's book mentioned above, _Fragments of a\nFaith Forgotten_.) We understand the Gnostics when we look upon them\nas saturated with the ancient wisdom of the Mysteries, and striving to\nunderstand Christianity from that point of view. For them, Christ was\nthe Logos, and as such of a spiritual nature. In His primal essence,\nHe cannot approach man from without. He must be awakened in the soul.\nBut the historical Jesus must bear some relation to the spiritual\nLogos. This was the crucial point for the Gnostics. Some settled it in\none way, some in another. The essential point common to them all was\nthat to arrive at a true understanding of the Christ-idea, mere\nhistorical tradition was not enough, but that it must be sought either\nin the wisdom of the Mysteries, or in the Neo-Platonic philosophy\nwhich was derived from the same source. The Gnostics had confidence in\nhuman wisdom, and believed it capable of bringing forth a Christ by\nwhom the historical Christ could be measured: in fact, through whom\nalone the latter could be understood and beheld in the right light.\n\nOf special interest from this point of view is the doctrine given in\nthe books of Dionysius the Areopagite. It is true that there is no\nmention of these writings till the sixth century; it matters little\nwhen and where they were written, the point is that they give an\naccount of Christianity which is clothed in the language of the\nNeo-Platonic philosophy and presented in the form of a spiritual\ncontemplation of the higher world. At all events this is a form of\ndelineation which belongs to the first Christian centuries. In older\ntimes the truth was handed on in the form of oral tradition; the most\nimportant things were not entrusted to writing. The Christianity\ndescribed in the writings of Dionysius is set forth in the mirror of\nthe Neo-Platonic conception of the world. Sense-perception troubles\nman's spiritual vision. He must reach out beyond the senses. But all\nhuman ideas are primarily derived from observation by the senses. What\nman perceives with his senses, he calls existence; what he does not so\nperceive, he calls non-existence. Therefore if he wishes to open up an\nactual view of the Divine, he must rise above existence and\nnon-existence, for these also, as he conceives them, have their\norigin in the sphere of the senses. In this sense God is neither\nexistent nor non-existent; he is super-existent. Consequently he\ncannot be attained by means of ordinary cognition, which has to do\nwith existing things. We have to be raised above ourselves, above our\nsense-observation, above our reasoning logic, if we are to find the\nway to spiritual vision. Thence we are able to get a glimpse into the\nperspectives of the Divine.\n\nBut this super-existent Divinity has brought forth the Logos, the\nbasis of the universe, filled with wisdom. To him man's lower powers\nare able to attain. He is present in the cosmos as the spiritual Son\nof God, he is the Mediator between God and man. He may be present in\nman in various degrees. He may for instance be realised in an external\ninstitution, in which those diversely imbued with his spirit are\ngrouped into a hierarchy. A \"church\" of this kind is the outer reality\nof the Logos, and the power which lives in it lived in a personal way\nin the Christ become flesh, in Jesus. Thus the Church is through Jesus\nunited to God: Jesus is its meaning and crowning-point.\n\nOne thing was clear to all Gnosis, that one must come to an\nunderstanding about the personality of Jesus. Christ and Jesus must be\nbrought into connection with one another. Divinity was taken away from\nhuman personality and must, in one way or another, be recovered. It\nmust be possible to find it again in Jesus. The Mystic had to do with\na degree of divinity within himself, and with his earthly personality.\nThe Christian had to do with the latter, and also with a perfect God,\nfar above all that is attainable by humanity. If we hold firmly to\nthis point of view, a fundamental mystic attitude of the soul is only\npossible when the soul's spiritual eyes are opened; when, through\nfinding higher spiritual possibilities within itself, the soul throws\nitself open to the light which issues from Christ in Jesus. The union\nof the soul with its highest powers is at the same time union with the\nhistorical Christ. For mysticism is an immediate consciousness and\nfeeling of the divine within the soul. But a God far transcending\neverything human can never dwell in the soul in the real sense of the\nword. The Gnosis and all subsequent Christian mysticism represent the\neffort, in some way or other, to lay hold of that God, and to\napprehend Him directly in the soul.\n\nA conflict in this case was inevitable. It was really only possible\nfor a man to find his own divine part, but this is both human and\ndivine,--the divine at a certain stage of development. Yet the\nChristian God is a definite one, perfect in himself. It was possible\nfor a person to find in himself the power to strive upwards to this\nGod, but he could not say that what he experienced in his own soul, at\nany stage of development, was one with God. A great gulf was fixed\nbetween what it was possible to find in the soul, and what\nChristianity called divine. It is the gulf between science and faith,\nbetween knowledge and religious feeling.\n\nThis gulf does not exist for the Mystic in the old sense of the word.\nFor he knows for a certainty that he can only comprehend the divine by\ndegrees, and he also knows why this is so. It is clear to him that\nthis gradual attainment is a real attainment of real divine life, and\nhe finds it difficult to speak of a perfect, isolated divine\nprinciple. A Mystic of this kind does not seek a perfect God, but he\nwishes to experience the divine life. He seeks to be made divine, not\nto gain an external relation to the Godhead.\n\nIt is of the essence of Christianity that its mysticism in this sense\nstarts with an assumption. The Christian Mystic seeks to behold\ndivinity within him, but at the same time he looks up to the\nhistorical Christ as his physical eyes do to the sun. Just as the sun\nis the means by which physical eyes behold physical objects, so does\nthe Christian Mystic intensify his inner nature that it may behold the\ndivine, and the light which makes such vision possible for him is the\nfact of the appearance of Christ. It is He who enables man to attain\nhis highest possibilities. It is in this way that the Christian\nMystics of the Middle Ages differ from the Mystics of the ancient\nMysteries (_cf._ my book, _Mystics of the Renaissance_).\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND HEATHEN WISDOM\n\n\nAt the time of the first beginnings of Christianity, there appear in\nheathen civilisation conceptions of the universe which seem to be a\ncontinuation of the Platonic philosophy, and which may also be taken\nas a deepening and spiritualisation of the wisdom of the Mysteries.\nThe beginning of such conceptions is to be dated from Philo of\nAlexandria (B.C. 25-A.D. 50). From his point of view the processes\nwhich lead to the divine take place in the innermost part of the human\nsoul. We might say that the temple in which Philo seeks initiation is\nwholly within him, and his higher experiences are the Mysteries. In\nhis case processes of a purely spiritual nature replace the initiatory\nceremonies of the sanctuary.\n\nAccording to Philo, sense-observation and knowledge gained through the\nlogical intellect do not lead to the divine. They have merely to do\nwith what is perishable. But there is a way by which the soul may rise\nabove these methods. It must come out of what it calls its ordinary\nself: from this it must withdraw. Then it enters a state of spiritual\nexaltation and illumination, in which it no longer knows, thinks, and\njudges in the ordinary sense of the words; for it has become merged,\nidentified with the divine, which is experienced in its essence, and\ncannot be imparted in thought-concepts or abstract ideas. It is\nexperienced, and one who goes through this experience knows that no\none can impart it, for the only way of reaching it is to live it. The\nvisible world is an image of this mystic reality which is experienced\nin the inmost recesses of the soul. The world has come forth from the\ninvisible, inconceivable God. The harmony of the cosmos, which is\nsteeped in wisdom, and to which sense-phenomena are subject, is a\ndirect reflection of the Godhead, its spiritual image. It is divine\nspirit poured out into the world,--cosmic reason, the Logos, the\noffspring or Son of God. The Logos is the mediator between the world\nof sense and the unimaginable God. When man steeps himself in\nknowledge, he becomes united with the Logos, which is embodied in him.\nThe person who has developed spirituality is the vehicle of the Logos.\nAbove the Logos is God; beneath is the perishable world. It is man's\nvocation to form the link between the two. What he experiences in his\ninmost being, as spirit, is the universal Spirit. Such ideas are\ndirectly reminiscent of the Pythagorean manner of thinking (_cf._ p.\n57 _et seq._).\n\nThe centre of existence is sought in the inner life, but this life is\nconscious of its cosmic value. St. Augustine was thinking in virtually\nthe same way as Philo, when he said: \"We see all created things\nbecause they are; but they are, because God sees them.\" And he adds,\nconcerning what and how we see: \"And because they are, we see them\noutwardly; because they are perfect, we see them inwardly.\"\n\nPlato has the same fundamental idea (_cf._ p. 63 _et seq._). Like\nPlato, Philo sees in the destiny of the human soul the closing act of\nthe great cosmic drama, the awakening of the divinity that is under a\nspell. He thus describes the inner actions of the soul: the wisdom in\nman's inner being walks along, \"tracing the paths of the Father, and\nshapes the forms while beholding the archetypes.\" It is no personal\nmatter for man to create forms in his inner being; they are the\neternal wisdom, they are the cosmic life.\n\nThis is in harmony with the interpretation of the myths of the people\nin the light of the Mysteries. The Mystic searches for the deeper\ntruth in the myths (_cf._ p. 94 _et seq._). And as the Mystic treats\nthe myths of paganism, Philo handles Moses' story of the creation. The\nOld Testament accounts are for him images of inner soul-processes. The\nBible relates the creation of the world. One who merely takes it as a\ndescription of outer events only half knows it. It is certainly\nwritten, \"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And\nthe earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of\nthe deep. And the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.\" But\nthe real inner meaning of the words must be lived in the depths of the\nsoul. God must be found within, then He appears as the \"Primal\nSplendour, who sends out innumerable rays, not perceptible by the\nsenses, but collectively thinkable.\" This is Philo's expression. In\nthe _Timaeus_ of Plato, the words are almost identical with the Bible\nones, \"Now when the Father, who had created the universe, saw how it\nhad become living and animated, and an image of the eternal gods, he\nfelt pleasure therein.\" In the Bible we read, \"And God saw that it was\ngood.\"\n\nThe recognition of the divine is for Philo, as well as for Plato and\nin the wisdom of the Mysteries, to live through the process of\ncreation in one's own soul. The history of creation and the history of\nthe soul which is becoming divine, in this way flow into one. Philo is\nconvinced that Moses' account of the creation may be used for writing\nthe history of the soul which is seeking God. Everything in the Bible\nthereby acquires a profoundly symbolical meaning, of which Philo\nbecomes the interpreter. He reads the Bible as a history of the soul.\n\nWe may say that Philo's manner of reading the Bible corresponds to a\nfeature of his age which originated in the wisdom of the Mysteries. He\nindeed relates that the Therapeutae interpreted ancient writings in the\nsame way. \"They also possess works by ancient authors who once\ndirected their school and left behind many explanations about the\ncustomary method pursued in allegorical writings.... The\ninterpretation of such writings is directed to the deeper meaning of\nthe allegorical narratives\" (_cf._ p. 200). Thus Philo's aim was to\ndiscover the deeper meaning of the \"allegorical\" narratives in the Old\nTestament.\n\nLet us try to realise whither such an interpretation could lead. We\nread the account of creation and find in it not only a narrative of\noutward events, but an indication of the way which the soul has to\ntake in order to attain to the divine. Thus the soul must reproduce in\nitself, as a microcosm, the ways of God, and in this alone can its\nefforts after wisdom consist. The drama of the universe must be\nenacted in each individual soul. The inner life of the mystical sage\nis the realisation of the image given in the account of creation.\nMoses wrote not only to relate historical facts, but to represent\npictorially the paths which the soul must travel if it would find God.\n\nAll this, in Philo's conception of the universe, is enacted within the\nhuman soul. Man experiences within himself what God has experienced in\nthe universe. The word of God, the Logos, becomes an event in the\nsoul. God brought the Jews from Egypt into Palestine; he let them go\nthrough distress and privation before giving them that Land of\nPromise. That is the outward event. Man must experience it inwardly.\nHe goes from the land of Egypt, the perishable world, through the\nprivations which lead to the suppression of the sense-nature, into the\nPromised Land of the soul, he attains the eternal. With Philo it is\nall an inward process. The God who poured Himself forth into the world\nconsummates His resurrection in the soul when that soul understands\nHis creative word and echoes it. Then man has spiritually given birth\nwithin himself to divinity, to the divine spirit which became man, to\nthe Logos, Christ. In this sense knowledge was, for Philo and those\nwho thought like him, the birth of Christ within the world of spirit.\nThe Neo-Platonic philosophy, which developed contemporaneously with\nChristianity, was an elaboration of Philo's thought. Let us see how\nPlotinus (A.D. 204-269) describes his spiritual experiences:\n\n\"Often when I come to myself on awaking from bodily sleep and, turning\nfrom the outer world, enter into myself, I behold wondrous beauty.\nThen I am sure that I have been conscious of the better part of\nmyself. I live my true life, I am one with the divine and, rooted in\nthe divine, gain the power to transport myself beyond even the\nsuper-world. After thus resting in God, when I descend from spiritual\nvision and again form thoughts, I ask myself how it has happened that\nI now descend and that my soul ever entered the body at all, since, in\nits essence, it is what it has just revealed itself to me. What can\nthe reason be for souls forgetting God the Father since they come\nfrom the beyond and belong to Him, and, when they forget Him, know\nnothing of Him or of themselves? The first false step they take is\nindulging in presumption, the desire to become, and in forgetfulness\nof their true self and in the pleasure of only belonging to\nthemselves. They coveted self-glorification, they rushed about in\npursuit of their desires and thus went astray and fell completely\naway. Thereupon they lost all knowledge of their origin in the beyond,\njust as children, early separated from their parents and brought up\nelsewhere, do not know who they themselves and their parents are.\"\nPlotinus delineates the kind of life which the soul should strive to\ndevelop. \"The life of the body and its longings should be stilled, the\nsoul should see calm in all that surrounds it: in earth, sea, air, and\nheaven itself no movement. It should learn to see how the soul pours\nitself from without into the serene cosmos, streaming into it from all\nsides; as the sun's rays illuminate a dark cloud and make it golden,\nso does the soul, on entering the body of the world encircled by the\nsky, give it life and immortality.\"\n\nIt is evident that this vision of the world is very similar to that of\nChristianity. Believers of the community of Jesus said: \"That which\nwas from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with\nour eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of\nthe Word of life ... declare we unto you.\" In the same way it might be\nsaid in the spirit of Neo-Platonism, \"That which was from the\nbeginning, which cannot be heard and seen, must be spiritually\nexperienced as the Word of life.\"\n\nAnd so the old conception of the universe is developed and splits into\ntwo leading ideas. It leads in Neo-Platonism and similar systems to an\nidea of Christ which is purely spiritual; on the other hand, it leads\nto a fusion of the idea of Christ with a historical manifestation, the\npersonality of Jesus. The writer of the Gospel of St. John may be said\nto unite these two conceptions. \"In the beginning was the Word.\" He\nshares this conviction with the Neo-Platonists. The Word becomes\nspirit within the soul, thus do the Neo-Platonists conclude. The Word\nwas made flesh in Jesus, thus does St. John conclude, and with him\nthe whole Christian community. The inner meaning of the manner in\nwhich the Word was made flesh was given in all the ancient\ncosmogonies. Plato says of the macrocosm: \"God has extended the body\nof the world on the soul of the world in the form of a cross.\" The\nsoul of the world is the Logos. If the Logos is to be made flesh, he\nmust recapitulate the cosmic process in fleshly existence. He must be\nnailed to the cross, and rise again. In spiritual form this most\nmomentous thought of Christianity had long before been prefigured in\nthe old cosmogonies. The Mystic went through it as a personal\nexperience in initiation. The Logos become man had to go through it in\na way that made this fact one that is true for or valid to the whole\nof humanity. Something which was present under the old dispensation as\nan incident in the Mysteries becomes a historical fact through\nChristianity. Hence Christianity was the fulfilment not only of what\nthe Jewish prophets had predicted, but also of the truth which had\nbeen prefigured in the Mysteries.\n\nThe Cross of Golgotha gathers together in one fact the whole cult of\nthe Mysteries of antiquity. We find the cross first in the ancient\ncosmogonies. At the starting-point of Christianity it confronts us in\nan unique event which has supreme value for the whole of mankind. It\nis from this point of view that it is possible for the reason to\napprehend the mystical element in Christianity. Christianity as a\nmystical fact is a milestone in the process of human evolution; and\nthe incidents in the Mysteries, with their attendant results, are the\npreparation for that mystical fact.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nST. AUGUSTINE AND THE CHURCH\n\n\nThe full force of the conflict which was enacted in the souls of\nChristian believers during the transition from paganism to the new\nreligion is exhibited in the person of St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430).\nThe spiritual struggles of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory\nNazianzen, Jerome, and others are full of mysterious interest when we\nsee them calmed and laid to rest in the mind of Augustine.\n\nIn Augustine's personality deep spiritual needs developed out of a\npassionate nature. He passed through pagan and semi-Christian ideas.\nHe suffered deeply from the most appalling doubts of the land which\nattack one who has felt the impotence of many varieties of thought in\nthe face of spiritual problems, and who has tasted the depressing\neffect of the question: \"Can man know anything whatever?\"\n\nAt the beginning of his struggles, Augustine's thoughts clung to the\nperishable things of sense. He could only picture the spiritual to\nhimself in material images. It is a deliverance for him when he rises\nabove this stage. He thus describes it in his _Confessions_: \"When I\nwished to think of God, I could only imagine immense masses of bodies\nand believed that was the only kind of thing that could exist. This\nwas the chief and almost the only cause of the errors which I could\nnot avoid.\" He thus indicates the point at which a person must arrive\nwho is seeking the true life of the spirit. There are thinkers, not a\nfew, who maintain that it is impossible to arrive at pure thought,\nfree from any material admixture. These thinkers confuse what they\nfeel bound to say about their own inner life, with what is humanly\npossible. The truth rather is that it is only possible to arrive at\nhigher knowledge when thought has been liberated from all material\nthings, when an inner life has been developed in which images of\nreality do not cease when their demonstration in sense-impressions\ncomes to an end. Augustine relates how he attained to spiritual\nvision. Everywhere he asked where the divine was to be found. \"I asked\nthe earth and she said 'I am not it' and all that was upon the earth\nsaid the same. I asked the ocean and the abysses and all that lives in\nthem, which said, 'We are not thy God, seek beyond us.' I asked the\nwinds, and the whole atmosphere and its inhabitants said, 'The\nphilosophers who sought for the essence of things in us were under an\nillusion, we are not God.' I asked the sun, moon, and stars, which\nsaid, 'We are not God whom thou seekest.'\" And it came home to St.\nAugustine that there is only one thing which can answer his question\nabout the divine--his own soul. The soul said, \"No eyes nor ears can\nimpart to thee what is in me. For I alone can tell thee, and I tell\nthee in an unquestionable way.\" \"Men may be doubtful whether vital\nforce is situate in air or in fire, but who can doubt that he himself\nlives, remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? If he\ndoubts, it is a proof that he is alive, he remembers why he doubts,\nhe understands that he doubts, he will assure himself of things, he\nthinks, he knows that he knows nothing, he judges that he must not\naccept anything hastily.\" Outer things do not defend themselves when\ntheir essence and existence are denied, but the soul does defend\nitself. It could not be doubtful of itself unless it existed. By its\ndoubt it confirms its own existence. \"We are and we recognise our\nbeing, and we love our own being and knowledge. On these three points\nno illusion in the garb of truth can trouble us, for we do not\napprehend them with our bodily senses like external things.\" Man\nlearns about the divine by leading his soul to know itself as\nspiritual, so that it may find its way, as a spirit, into the\nspiritual world. Augustine had battled his way through to this\nknowledge. It was out of such an attitude of mind that there grew up\nin pagan nations the desire to knock at the gate of the Mysteries. In\nthe age of Augustine, such convictions might lead to becoming a\nChristian. Jesus, the Logos become man had shown the path which must\nbe followed by the soul if it would attain the goal which it sees when\nin communion with itself. In A.D. 385, at Milan, Augustine was\ninstructed by St. Ambrose. All his doubts about the Old and New\nTestaments vanished when his teacher interpreted the most important\npassages, not merely in a literal sense, but \"by lifting the mystic\nveil by force of the spirit.\"\n\nWhat had been guarded in the Mysteries was embodied for Augustine in\nthe historical tradition of the Evangelists and in the community where\nthat tradition was preserved. He comes by degrees to the conviction\nthat \"the law of this tradition, which consists in believing what it\nhas not proved, is moderate and without guile.\" He arrives at the\nidea, \"Who could be so blind as to say that the Church of the Apostles\ndeserves to have no faith placed in it, when it is so loyal and is\nsupported by the conformity of so many brethren; when these have\nhanded down their writings to posterity so conscientiously, and when\nthe Church has so strictly maintained the succession of teachers, down\nto our present bishops?\"\n\nAugustine's mode of thought told him, that with the coming of Christ\nother conditions had set in for souls seeking after the spirit than\nthose which had previously existed. For him it was firmly established\nthat in Christ Jesus had been revealed in outer historical fact that\nwhich the Mystic had sought in the Mysteries through preparation. One\nof his most significant utterances is the following, \"What is now\ncalled the Christian religion already existed amongst the ancients and\nwas not lacking at the very beginnings of the human race. When Christ\nappeared in the flesh, the true religion already in existence received\nthe name of Christian.\" There were two ways possible for such a method\nof thought. One way is that if the human soul develops within it the\nforces which lead it to the knowledge of its true self, it will, if it\nonly goes far enough, come also to the knowledge of the Christ and of\neverything connected with him. This would have been a mystery-wisdom\nenriched through the Christ event. The other way is taken by Augustine\nand is that by which he became the great model for his successors. It\nconsists in cutting off the development of the forces of the soul at a\ncertain point, and in borrowing the ideas connected with the coming\nof Christ from written accounts and oral traditions. Augustine\nrejected the first way as springing from pride of the soul; he thought\nthe second was the way of true humility. Thus he says to those who\nwished to follow the first way: \"You may find peace in the truth, but\nfor that humility is needed, which does not suit your proud neck.\" On\nthe other hand, he was filled with boundless inward happiness by the\nfact that since the coming of Christ in the flesh, it was possible to\nsay that every soul can come to spiritual experience which goes as far\nas it can in seeking within itself, and then, in order to attain to\nthe highest, has confidence in what the written and oral traditions of\nthe Christian Church tell us about the Christ and his revelation. He\nsays on this point: \"What bliss, what abiding enjoyment of supreme and\ntrue good is offered us, what serenity, what a breath of eternity! How\nshall I describe it? It has been expressed, as far as it could be, by\nthose great incomparable souls who we admit have beheld and still\nbehold.... We reach a point at which we acknowledge how true is what\nwe have been commanded to believe and how well and beneficently we\nhave been brought up by our mother, the Church, and of what benefit\nwas the milk given by the Apostle Paul to the little ones....\" (It is\nbeyond the scope of this book to give an account of the alternative\nmethod which is evolved from the Mystery Wisdom, enriched through the\nChrist event. The description of this method will be found in _An\nOutline of Occult Science_, see advt., front page.) Whereas in\npre-Christian times one who wished to seek the spiritual basis of\nexistence was necessarily directed to the way of the Mysteries,\nAugustine was able to say, even to those souls who could find no such\npath within themselves, \"Go as far as you can on the path of knowledge\nwith your human powers, thence trust (faith) will carry you up into\nthe higher spiritual regions.\" It was only going one step further to\nsay, it is natural to the human soul only to be able to arrive at a\ncertain stage of knowledge through its own powers: thence it can only\nadvance further through trust, through faith in written and oral\ntradition. This step was taken by the spiritual movement which\nassigned to knowledge a certain sphere above which the soul could not\nrise by its own efforts, but everything which lay beyond this domain\nwas made an object of faith which has to be supported by written and\noral tradition and by confidence in its representatives. Thomas\nAquinas, the greatest teacher within the Church (1224-1274), has set\nforth this doctrine in his writings in a variety of ways. His main\npoint is that human knowledge can only attain to that which led\nAugustine to self-knowledge, to the certainty of the divine. The\nnature of the divine and its relation to the world is given by\nrevealed theology, which is not accessible to man's own researches and\nis, as the substance of faith, superior to all knowledge.\n\nThe origin of this point of view may be studied in the theology of\nJohn Scotus Erigena, who lived in the ninth century at the court of\nCharles the Bald, and who represents a natural transition from the\nearliest ideas of Christianity to the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. His\nconception of the universe is couched in the spirit of Neo-Platonism.\nIn his treatise _De Divisione Naturae_, Erigena has elaborated the\nteaching of Dionysius the Areopagite. This teaching started from a God\nfar above the perishable things of sense, and it derived the world\nfrom Him (_Cf._ p. 208 _et seq._). Man is involved in the\ntransmutation of all beings into this God, Who finally becomes what He\nwas from the beginning. Everything falls back again into the Godhead\nwhich has passed through the universal process and has finally become\nperfected. But in order to reach this goal man must find the way to\nthe Logos who was made flesh. In Erigena this thought leads to\nanother: that what is contained in the writings which give an account\nof the Logos leads, when received in faith, to salvation. Reason and\nthe authority of the Scriptures, faith and knowledge stand on the same\nlevel. The one does not contradict the other, but faith must bring\nthat to which knowledge never can attain by itself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe knowledge of the eternal which the ancient Mysteries withheld\nfrom the multitude became, when presented in this way by Christian\nthought and feeling, the content of faith, which by its very nature\nhad to do with something unattainable by mere knowledge. The\nconviction of the pre-Christian Mystic was that to him was given\nknowledge of the divine, while the people were obliged to have faith\nin its expression in images. Christianity came to the conviction that\nGod has given his wisdom to mankind through revelation, and man\nattains through his knowledge an image of this divine revelation. The\nwisdom of the Mysteries is a hothouse plant, which is revealed to a\nfew individuals ripe for it. Christian wisdom is a Mystery revealed as\nknowledge to none, but as a content of faith revealed to all. The\nstandpoint of the Mysteries lived on in Christianity, but in a\ndifferent form. All, not only the special individual, were to share in\nthe truth, but the process was that at a certain point man owned his\ninability to penetrate farther by means of knowledge, and thence\nascended to faith. Christianity brought the content of the Mysteries\nout of the obscurity of the temple into the clear light of day. The\none Christian movement mentioned led to the idea that this content\nmust necessarily be retained in the form of faith.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n  P. 5--To one who has true perception, the \"Spirit of Nature\"\n  speaks powerfully in the facts currently expressed by the\n  catchword, \"struggle for existence,\" etc.; but not in the\n  opinions which modern science deduces from them. In the first\n  statement lies the reason why natural science is attracting more\n  and more widespread attention. But it follows from the second\n  statement that scientific opinions should not be taken as if they\n  necessarily belonged to a knowledge of facts. The possibility of\n  being led astray by mere opinion is, in these days, infinitely\n  great.\n\n  P. 9--It should not be concluded from these remarks about the\n  sources of St. Luke's Gospel, that purely historical research is\n  undervalued by the writer of this book. This is not the case.\n  Historical research is absolutely justified, but it should not be\n  impatient with the method of presentation proceeding from a\n  spiritual point of view. It is not considered of importance to\n  make various kinds of quotations in this book; but one who is\n  willing will be able to see that a really unprejudiced,\n  broad-minded judgment will not find anything that is here stated\n  to be contrary to what has been actually and historically proved.\n  One who will not be broad-minded, but who holds this or that\n  theory to be a firmly-established fact, may easily think that\n  assertions made in this book are untenable from a scientific point\n  of view, and are made without any objective foundation.\n\n  P. 15--It is said above that those whose spiritual eyes are opened\n  are able to see into the spiritual world. The conclusion must not\n  on this account be drawn that only one who possesses spiritual\n  sight is able to form an intelligent opinion about the results\n  arrived at by the initiate. Spiritual sight belongs only to the\n  investigator. If he afterwards communicates what he has\n  discovered, every one can understand it who gives fair play to his\n  reason and preserves an unbiassed sense of truth. And such an one\n  may also apply the results of research to life and derive\n  satisfaction from them without himself having spiritual sight.\n\n  P. 20--\"The sinking into the mire\" spoken of by Plato must also be\n  interpreted in the sense referred to in the last note.\n\n  P. 20--What is said about the impossibility of imparting the\n  teaching of the Mysteries has reference to the fact that they\n  could not be communicated to those unprepared in the same form in\n  which the initiate experienced them; but they were always\n  communicated to those outside in such a form as was possible for\n  the uninitiated to understand. For instance the myths gave the old\n  form, in order to communicate the content of the Mysteries in a\n  way that was generally comprehensible.\n\n  P. 88--Everything that relates to knowledge gained through the\n  \"eyes of the spirit\" is called by ancient mysticism \"Mantik.\"\n  \"Telestik,\" on the other hand, is the indication of the ways which\n  lead to initiation.\n\n  P. 168--\"Kabirs,\" according to ancient mysticism, are beings with\n  a consciousness far above the human consciousness of to-day.\n  Schelling means that man through initiation ascends to a state of\n  consciousness above his present one.\n\n  P. 186--An explanation of the meaning of the number seven may be\n  obtained in _An Outline of Occult Science_ (see advt., front\n  page).\n\n  P. 187--The meanings of the Apocalyptic signs can only be given\n  quite shortly here. Of course, all these things might be much more\n  thoroughly explained, but of this the scope of this book does not\n  allow.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Page 140: \"It can only be as is must be\" replaced with    |\n    |           \"It can only be as it must be\"                  |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"Christianity as Mystical Fact, and the Mysteries of Antiquity","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46375}