{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76522/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76522","id":"gutenberg_76522","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76522","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - Ancient","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysteries, Religious","Pythagoras and Pythagorean school"],"text":"PYTHAGORAS\n\n\n\n\n      \u201cKnow thyself, and thou wilt know the Universe and the\n      Gods.\u201d--_Inscription on the Temple of Delphi._\n\n            Evolution is the law of Life,\n            Number is the law of the Universe,\n            Unity is the law of God.\n\n\n\n\n                               PYTHAGORAS\n\n                                   AND\n\n                          THE DELPHIC MYSTERIES\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                             EDOUARD SCHUR\u00c9\n\n\n                              TRANSLATED BY\n\n                            F. ROTHWELL, B.A.\n\n\n                                NEW YORK\n                     THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO.\n                            244, LENOX AVENUE\n                                  1909\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n    CHAPTER                                                    PAGE\n\n       I. GREECE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY                             3\n\n      II. YEARS OF TRAVEL                                        12\n\n     III. THE TEMPLE OF DELPHI                                   32\n            _The Science of Apollo--Theory of Divination--The\n            Pythoness Theoclea._\n\n      IV. THE ORDER AND THE DOCTRINE                             63\n            _The Test--First Degree: Preparation--Second\n            Degree: Purification--Third Degree: Perfection--\n            Fourth Degree: Epiphany._\n\n        V. MARRIAGE OF PYTHAGORAS--REVOLUTION AT CROTON--THE\n             MASTER\u2019S END--THE SCHOOL AND ITS DESTINY           162\n\n\n\n\n                               PYTHAGORAS\n\n\n                                CHAPTER I\n\n                       GREECE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY\n\n\nThe soul of Orpheus had passed like a divine meteor across the troubled\nheavens of a new-born Greece. When the meteor had disappeared, the land\nwas again wrapt in darkness. After a series of revolutions, the tyrants\nof Thrace committed his books to the flames, overthrew his temples and\ndrove away his disciples. The Greek kings and numerous cities followed\nthis example, more jealous of their unbridled licence than of that\njustice which is the source of pure doctrine. They were determined to\nefface his very memory, to leave no sign of his existence, and they\nsucceeded so well, that, a few centuries after his death, a portion of\nGreece even doubted whether he had ever lived. It was in vain that the\ninitiates kept alive his tradition for over a thousand years; in vain\nthat Pythagoras and Plato spoke of him as divine; the sophists and\nthe rhetoricians saw in him no more than a legend regarding the origin\nof music. Even at the present time, savants stoutly deny the existence\nof Orpheus, basing their assertion on the fact that neither Homer\nnor Hesiod mentioned his name. The silence of these poets, however,\nis fully explained by the interdict under which the local government\nhad placed the great initiator. The disciples of Orpheus lost no\nopportunity of rallying all the powers under the supreme authority of\nthe temple of Delphi, and never tired of repeating that the differences\narising between the divers states of Greece must be laid before the\ncouncil of the Amphictyons. This was displeasing to demagogues and\ntyrants alike. Homer, who probably received his initiation in the\nsanctuary of Tyre, and whose mythology is the poetical translation of\nthe theology of Sankoniaton, Homer the Ionian might very well have\nknown nothing of the Dorian Orpheus whose tradition was kept all the\nmore secret as it was the more exposed to persecution. As regards\nHesiod, who was born near Parnassus, he must have known the name and\ndoctrine of Orpheus through the temple at Delphi; but silence was\nimposed on him by his initiators, and that for good reasons.\n\nAnd yet Orpheus was living in his work, in his disciples, and even in\nthose who denied his very existence. What is this work, where can the\nsoul of his life be sought? In the ferocious, military oligarchy of\nSparta, where science was despised, ignorance erected into a system,\nand brutality exacted as being the complement of courage? In those\nimplacable wars of Messenia in which the Spartans were seen persecuting\na neighbouring people to the point of extermination, and these Romans\nof Greece preparing for the Tarpeian rock and the bleeding laurels of\nthe Capitol by hurling the heroic Aristomenes, the defender of his\ncountry, into an abyss? Or should it rather be sought in the turbulent\ndemocracy of Athens, ever ready to convert itself into a tyranny? Or\nin the praetorian guard of Pisistratus, or the dagger of Harmodius and\nAristogiton, concealed under a myrtle branch? Or in the many towns and\ncities of Hellas, of greater Greece and Asia Minor, of which Athens and\nSparta offer us two opposing types? Is it in all these envious, these\njealous democracies and tyrannies ever ready to tear one another into\npieces?--No; the soul of Greece is not there. It is in her temples,\nher mysteries and their initiates. It is in the sanctuary of Jupiter\nat Olympia, of Juno at Argos, of Ceres at Eleusis; it reigns over\nAthens with Minerva, it sheds its beams over Delphi with Apollo, who\npenetrates every temple with his light. Here is the centre of Hellenic\nlife, the heart and brain of Greece. Here come for instruction poets\nwho translate sublime truth into living images for the masses, sages\nwho propagate these truths in subtle dialectics. The spirit of Orpheus\nis felt wherever beats the heart of immortal Greece. We find it in\npoetry and gymnastic contests, in the Delphic and Olympian games,\na glorious project instituted by the successors of the Master with\nthe object of drawing nearer together and uniting the twelve Greek\ntribes. We are brought into direct contact with it in the court of\nthe Amphictyons, in that assembly of the great initiates, a supreme,\narbitrary tribunal, which met at Delphi, a mighty centre of justice and\nconcord, in which alone Greece recovered her unity in times of heroism\nand abnegation.[1]\n\nAnd yet Greece in the time of Orpheus; her intellect, an unsullied,\ntemple-guarded doctrine; her soul, a plastic religion; and her body,\na lofty court of justice with Delphi as its centre, had begun to\ndecline early in the seventh century. The orders sent out from Delphi\nwere no longer respected, the sacred territories were violated. The\nrace of men of mighty inspiration had disappeared, the intellectual and\nmoral tone of the temples deteriorated; the priests sold themselves to\npoliticians. From that time the Mysteries themselves became corrupted.\n\nThe general aspect of Greece had changed. The old sacerdotal and\nagricultural royalty was succeeded either by tyranny pure and simple,\nby military aristocracy, or by anarchical democracy. The temples had\nbecome powerless to check the threatening ruin. A new helper was\nneeded. It was therefore necessary to popularize esoteric teaching. To\nenable the thought of Orpheus to live and expand in all its beauty,\nthe knowledge of the temples must pass over to the lay classes.\nAccordingly, under different disguises, it penetrated the brains of\ncivil legislators, the schools of the poets, and the porticoes of the\nphilosophers. The latter felt in their teachings the very necessity\nOrpheus had recognized in religion, that of two doctrines: the one\npublic and the other secret, manifesting the same truth in different\ndegree and form, and suited to the development of the pupil. This\nevolution gave Greece her three great centuries of artistic creation\nand intellectual splendour. It permitted the Orphic thought, at once\nthe initial impulse and the ideal synthesis of Greece, to concentrate\nits entire light and radiate it over the whole world, before her\npolitical edifice, undermined by internal dissensions, tottered beneath\nthe power of Macedonia and finally crumbled away under the iron hand of\nRome.\n\nMany contributed to the evolution we are speaking of. It brought out\nnatural philosophers like Thales, legislators like Solon, poets like\nPindar, and heroes like Epaminondas. It had also a recognized head,\nan initiate of the very first rank, a sovereign, organizing, creating\nintelligence. Pythagoras is the master of lay as Orpheus is the master\nof sacerdotal Greece. He translates and continues the religious thought\nof his predecessor, applying it to the new times. His translation,\nhowever, is a creation, for he co-ordinates the Orphic inspirations\ninto a complete system, gives scientific proof of them in his teachings\nand moral proof in his institute of education, and in the Pythagorean\norder which survived him.\n\nAlthough appearing in the full light of historical times, Pythagoras\nhas come down to us as almost a legendary character. The main reason\nfor this is the terrible persecution of which he was the victim in\nSicily, and which cost so many of his followers their lives. Some\nwere crushed to death beneath the ruins of their burning schools,\nothers died of hunger in temples. The Master\u2019s memory and teaching\nwere only perpetuated by such survivors as were able to escape into\nGreece. Plato, at great trouble and cost, obtained through Archytas a\nmanuscript of the Master, who, it must be mentioned, never transferred\nto writing his esoteric teachings except under symbols and secret\ncharacters. His real work, like that of all reformers, was effected\nby oral instruction. The essence of the system, however, comes down\nto us in the _Golden Verses_ of Lysis, the commentary of Hierocles,\nfragments of Philolaus and in the Timaeus of Plato, which contains the\ncosmogony of Pythagoras. To sum up, the writers of antiquity are full\nof the spirit of the Croton philosopher. They never tire of relating\nanecdotes depicting his wisdom and beauty, his marvellous power over\nmen. The Neoplatonists of Alexandria, the Gnostics, and even the early\nFathers of the Church quote him as an authority. These are precious\nwitnesses through whom may be felt continually vibrating that mighty\nwave of enthusiasm the great personality of Pythagoras succeeded in\ncommunicating to Greece, the final eddies of which were still to be\nfelt eight hundred years after his death.\n\nHis teaching, regarded from above, and unlocked with the keys of\ncomparative esoterism, affords a magnificent whole, the different\nparts of which are bound together by one fundamental conception. In\nit we find a rational reproduction of the esoteric teaching of India\nand Egypt, which he illumined with Hellenic simplicity and clearness,\ngiving it a stronger sentiment and a clearer idea of human liberty.\n\nAt the same time and at different parts of the globe, mighty reformers\nwere popularizing similar doctrines. Lao-Tse in China was emerging from\nthe esoterism of Fo-Hi; the last Buddha Sakya-Mouni was preaching on\nthe banks of the Ganges; in Italy, the Etrurian priesthood sent to Rome\nan initiate possessed of the Sibylline books. This was King Numa, who,\nby wise institutions, attempted to check the threatening ambition of\nthe Roman Senate. It was not by chance that these reformers appeared\nsimultaneously among such different peoples. Their diverse missions\nhad one common end in view. They prove that, at certain periods, one\nidentical spiritual current passes mysteriously through the whole of\nhumanity. Whence comes it? It has its source in that divine world, far\naway from human vision, but of which prophets and seers are the envoys\nand witnesses.\n\nPythagoras crossed the whole of the ancient world before giving his\nmessage to Greece. He saw Africa and Asia, Memphis and Babylon, along\nwith their methods of initiation and political life. His own troubled\nlife resembles a ship driving through a storm, pursuing its course,\nwith sails unfurled, a symbol of strength and calmness in the midst\nof the furious elements. His teachings convey the impression of a\ncool fragrant night after the bitter fire and passion of an angry,\nblood-stained day. They call to mind the beauty of the firmament\nunrolling, by degrees, its sparkling archipelagoes and ethereal\nharmonies over the head of the seer.\n\nAnd now we will attempt to set forth both his life and his teaching\napart from the obscurities of legend and the prejudices of the schools\nalike.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n\n                             YEARS OF TRAVEL\n\n\nAt the beginning of the sixth century before our era, Samos was one of\nthe most flourishing islands of Ionia. Its harbour fronted the violet\npeaks of a slumbering Asia Minor, the abode of luxury and charm. The\ntown was situated on a wide bay with verdant coasts, and retreated,\ntier upon tier, up the mountain in the form of an amphitheatre,\nitself lying at the foot of a promontory on which stood the temple of\nNeptune. It was dominated by the colonnades of a magnificent palace,\nthe abode of the tyrant Polycrates. After depriving Samos of her\nliberty he had given the island all the lustre of art and Asiatic\nsplendour. Courtesans from Lesbos had, at his bidding, taken up their\nabode in a neighbouring palace to which they invited the young men\nand maidens of the town. At these _f\u00eates_ they taught them the most\nrefined voluptuousness, accompanied with music, dancing and feasting.\nAnacreon, on the invitation of Polycrates, was transported to Samos in\na trireme with purple sails and gilded masts; the poet, a goblet of\nchased silver in his hand, sang before this high court of pleasure his\nlanguishing odes. The good fortune of Polycrates had become proverbial\nthroughout Greece. He had as a friend the Pharaoh Amasis who often\nwarned him to be on his guard against such unbroken fortune, and above\nall not to pride himself on it. Polycrates answered the Egyptian\nmonarch\u2019s advice by flinging his ring into the sea. \u201cThis sacrifice I\noffer unto the gods,\u201d he said. The following day a fisherman brought\nback to the tyrant the precious jewel, which he had found in the belly\nof a fish. When the Pharaoh heard of this, he said he would break off\nhis friendship with Polycrates, for such insolent good fortune would\ndraw down on him the vengeance of the gods.--Whatever we may think\nof the anecdote, the end of Polycrates was a tragic one. One of his\nsatraps enticed him into a neighbouring province, tortured him to\ndeath, and ordered his body to be fastened to a cross on Mount Mycale.\nAnd so, one evening as the blood-red orb of the sun was sinking in\nthe west, the inhabitants of Samos saw the corpse of their tyrant,\ncrucified on a promontory in sight of the island over which he had\nreigned in glory and abandonment.\n\nTo return to the beginning of Polycrates\u2019 reign. One star-lit night a\nyoung man was seated in a wood of agnus castus, with its glimmering\nfoliage, not far from the temple of Juno, the Doric front of which was\nbathed in the rays of the moon, whose light added to the mystic majesty\nof the building. A papyrus roll, containing a song of Homer, had\nslipped to the ground, and lay at his feet. His meditation, begun at\ntwilight, was continued into the silence of the night. The sun had long\nago disappeared beneath the horizon, but its flaming disc still danced\nin unreal presence before the eyes of the young dreamer. His thoughts\nhad wandered far from the world of visible things.\n\nPythagoras was the son of a wealthy jeweller of Samos and of a woman\nnamed Parthenis. The Pythoness of Delphi, when consulted during a\njourney by the young married couple, had promised them: \u201ca son who\nwould be useful to all men and throughout all time.\u201d The oracle had\nsent them to Sidon, in Phoenicia, so that the predestined son might be\nconceived, formed, and born far from the disturbing influences of his\nown land. Even before his birth the wonderful child, in the moon of\nlove, had been fervently consecrated to the worship of Apollo by his\nparents. The child was born; and when he was a year old his mother,\nacting on advice already received from the priest of Delphi, bore him\naway to the temple of Adona\u00ef, in a valley of Lebanon. Here the high\npriest had given him his blessing and the family returned to Samos.\nThe child of Parthenis was very beautiful and gentle, calm and sedate.\nIntellectual passion alone gleamed from his eyes, giving a secret\nenergy to his actions. Far from opposing, his parents had encouraged\nhim in his precocious leaning towards the study of wisdom. He had been\nleft free to confer with the priests of Samos and the savants who were\nbeginning to establish in Ionia schools in which the principles of\nnatural philosophy were taught. At the age of eighteen he had attended\nthe classes of Hermodamas of Samos, at twenty those of Pherecydes at\nSyros; he had even conferred with Thales and Anaximander at Miletus.\nThese masters had opened out new horizons, though none had satisfied\nhim. In their contradictory teachings he tried to discover the bond\nand synthesis, the unity of the great whole. The son of Parthenis had\nnow reached one of those crises in which the mind, over-excited by the\ncontradictions of things, concentrates all its faculties in one supreme\neffort to obtain a glimpse of the end, to find a path leading to the\nsun of truth, to the centre of life.\n\nThroughout that glorious night Pythagoras fixed his gaze on the earth,\nthe temple, and the starry heavens in turn. Demeter, the earth-mother,\nthe Nature whose secrets he wished to pierce, was there, beneath and\naround him. He inhaled her powerful emanations, felt the invincible\nattraction which enchained him, the thinking atom, to her bosom, an\ninseparable part of herself. The sages he had consulted had said to\nhim: \u201cIt is from her that all springs. Nothing comes from nothing. The\nsoul comes from water, or fire, or from both. This subtle emanation of\nthe elements issues from them only to return. Eternal Nature is blind\nand inflexible, resign thyself to her fatal laws. The only merit thou\nwilt have will be that thou knowest them, and art resigned thereto.\u201d\n\nThen he looked at the firmament and the fiery letters formed by the\nconstellations in the unfathomable depths of space. These letters must\nhave a meaning. For if the infinitely small, the movement of atoms,\nhas its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_, why not also the infinitely great, the widely\nscattered stars, whose grouping represents the body of the universe?\nYes; each of these worlds has its own law; all move together according\nto number and in supreme harmony. But who will ever decipher the\nalphabet of the stars? The priests of Juno had said to him: \u201cThis is\nthe heaven of the gods, which was before the earth. Thy soul comes\ntherefrom. Pray to them, that it may mount again to heaven.\u201d\n\nThese meditations were interrupted by a voluptuous chant, coming from\na garden on the banks of the Imbrasus. The lascivious voices of the\nLesbian women, in languishing strains, were heard accompanying the\nmusic of the cithara, responded to in the Bacchic airs chanted by the\nyouths. Suddenly other cries, piercing and mournful, from the direction\nof the harbour, mingled with these voices. They were the cries of\nrebels whom Polycrates was embarking to sell as slaves in Asia. They\nwere being struck with nail-studded thongs, to compel them to crouch\nbeneath the pontoons of the rowers. Their shrieks and blasphemous cries\ndied away in the night and silence reigned over all.\n\nA painful thrill ran through the young man\u2019s frame; he checked it in\nan attempt to regain possession of himself. The problem lay before\nhim, more pressing and poignant than before. Earth said: _Fatality_.\nHeaven said: _Providence_. Mankind, between the two, replied: _Madness!\nPain! Slavery!_ In the depths of his own nature, however, the future\nadept heard an invincible voice replying to the chains of earth and\nthe flaming heavens with the cry: _Liberty!_ Who were right; sages, or\npriests, the wretched or the mad, or was it himself? In reality all\nthese voices spoke the truth, each triumphed in its own sphere, but\nnone gave up to him its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_. The three worlds all existed,\nunchangeable as the heart of Demeter, the light of the constellations\nand the human breast, but only the one who could find agreement between\nthem and the law of their equilibrium would be truly wise; he alone\nwould be in possession of divine knowledge and capable of aiding\nmankind. It was in the synthesis of the three worlds that the secret of\nthe _Kosmos_ lay!\n\nAs he gave utterance to this discovery he had just made, Pythagoras\nrose to his feet. His eager glance was fixed on the Doric fa\u00e7ade of\nthe temple; the majestic building seemed transfigured beneath Diana\u2019s\nchaste beams. There he believed that he saw the ideal image of the\nworld and the solution of the problem he was seeking. The base,\ncolumns, architrave, and triangular pediment suddenly represented, in\nhis eyes, the triple nature of man and the universe, of the microcosm\nand the macrocosm crowned by divine unity, itself a trinity. The\nKosmos, controlled and penetrated by God, formed\n\n\u201cThe sacred Quaternion, the source of Nature; whose cause is\neternal.\u201d[2]\n\nYes, here concealed in these geometrical lines was the key of the\nuniverse, the science of numbers, the ternary law regulating the\nconstitution of beings, and the septenary law that governs their\nevolution. Pythagoras saw the worlds move through space in accordance\nwith the rhythm and harmony of the sacred numbers. He saw the\nbalance of earth and heaven of which human liberty holds control;\nthe three worlds, the natural, the human, and the divine, sustaining\nand determining one another, and playing the universal drama in a\ndouble--ascending and descending--movement. He divided the spheres\nof the invisible enveloping the visible world and ever animating it;\nfinally, he conceived of the purification and liberation of man, on\nthis globe, by triple initiation. All this he saw, along with his life\nand work, in an instantaneous flash of illumination, with the absolute\ncertainty of the spirit brought face to face with Truth. Now he must\nprove by Reason what his pure Intelligence had obtained from the\nAbsolute, and this needed a human life, it was the task of a Hercules.\n\nWhere could he find the knowledge necessary to bring such a labour to a\nsuccessful issue? Neither the songs of Homer, nor the sages of Ionia,\nnor the temples of Greece would suffice.\n\nThe spirit of Pythagoras, which had suddenly found wings, began to\nplunge into his past life, into his mist-enveloped birth and his\nmother\u2019s mysterious love. Childhood\u2019s memory returned to him with\nstriking clearness. He recalled the fact that his mother had carried\nhim in her arms, when only a babe of twelve months, to the temple\nof Adona\u00ef, in a vale of Lebanon. He saw himself again as a child,\nclinging to the neck of Parthenis, with mighty forests and mountains\nall around, whilst the river formed a waterfall close by. She was\nstanding on a terrace shaded with giant cedars. In front of her stood a\nmajestic-looking, white-bearded priest, smiling on the mother and child\nas he uttered grave-sounding words the little one did not understand.\nOften had his mother brought back to his mind the strange utterance of\nthe hierophant of Adona\u00ef: \u201cO woman of Ionia, thy son shall be great\nin wisdom; but remember that, though the Greeks still possess the\nscience _of the gods_, the knowledge _of God_ can no longer be found\nelsewhere than in Egypt.\u201d These words came back to him along with his\nmother\u2019s smile, the old man\u2019s beautiful face, and the distant murmur of\nthe waterfall dominated by the priest\u2019s voice, with that magnificent\nscenery all around, like the dream of another life. For the first\ntime he guessed the meaning of the oracle. He had indeed heard of the\nwonderful knowledge of Egyptian priests and their dreadful mysteries,\nthough he thought he could do without it all. Now he understood that\nhe needed this \u201cscience of God,\u201d to penetrate to the very heart of\nnature, and that he could find it only in the temples of Egypt. It was\nthe gentle Parthenis who, with maternal instinct, had prepared him for\nthis work, and borne him as an offering to the sovereign God! From this\nmoment he made up his mind to go to Egypt, and there undergo initiation.\n\nPolycrates prided himself on being the protector of philosophers\nas well as of poets. He willingly gave Pythagoras a letter of\nrecommendation to Pharaoh Amasis, who introduced him to the priests of\nMemphis. The latter were opposed to receiving him, and were induced\nto consent only with the utmost difficulty. Egyptian sages distrusted\nGreeks, whom they charged with being fickle and inconstant. They did\nall they could to discourage the young Samian. The novice, however,\nsubmitted with unfaltering patience and courage to the delays and\ntests imposed on him. He knew beforehand that he would only attain to\nknowledge by entirely mastering his will throughout his entire being.\nHis initiation under the pontificate of Sonchis the high priest lasted\ntwenty-two years. All the trials and temptations, the soul-rending\ndread and ecstatic joy passed through by Hermes, the initiate of\nIsis, even to the apparent, or cataleptic death of the adept and his\nresurrection in the light of Osiris, were experienced by Pythagoras,\nso that he now realized, not as a vain theory, but as something lived\nthrough, the doctrine of the Logos-Light, or of the universal Word, and\nthat of human evolution through seven planetary cycles. At each step\nof this giddy ascent the tests became more formidable. A hundred times\nthe risk of death was incurred, especially if one\u2019s object was to gain\ncontrol over occult forces, and attain to the dangerous practice of\nmagic and theurgy. Like all great men, Pythagoras believed in his star.\nNo path that led to knowledge disheartened him, the fear of death could\nnot check him, for he saw life beyond. When the Egyptian priests had\nrecognized that he possessed extraordinary strength of soul and that\nimpersonal passion for wisdom, which is the rarest thing in the world,\nthey opened out to him the treasures of their experience. Whilst with\nthem he daily improved, and became filled with divine knowledge. He\nmastered sacred mathematics and the science of numbers, or universal\nprinciples, which he formulated anew and made the centre of his system.\nThe severity of the Egyptian discipline in the temples also impressed\non him the prodigious power of the human will when wisely trained and\nexercised, the endless applications, both to body and to soul, that\ncan be made of it. \u201cThe science of numbers and the art of will-power,\u201d\nsaid the priests of Memphis, \u201care the two keys of magic; they open\nup all the gates of the universe.\u201d It was in Egypt that Pythagoras\nobtained that view from above, which allows of one seeing the spheres\nof life and the sciences in concentric order, and understanding the\n_involution_ of the spirit into matter by universal creation, and\nits _evolution_ or re-ascent towards unity by way of that individual\ncreation called the development of a consciousness.\n\nPythagoras had reached the summit of Egyptian priesthood, and was\nperhaps thinking of returning to Greece, when war, with all its misery,\nburst upon the valley of the Nile, carrying away the initiate of Osiris\nin another direction. The despots of Asia had long been meditating\nthe ruin of Egypt. Their repeated attacks had failed, for centuries\npast, before the wisdom of the Egyptian institutions, the power of\nthe priesthood, and the energy of the Pharaohs. But the refuge of the\nscience of Hermes, the kingdom from time immemorial, was not to remain\nfor ever. Cambyses, son of the conqueror of Babylon, descended on Egypt\nwith his innumerable hosts, famished as clouds of locusts, and put an\nend to the institution of the Pharaohs, the origin of which was lost\nin the night of time. In the eyes of the sages this was a catastrophe\nfor the whole world. Hitherto Egypt had sheltered Europe against\nAsia. Her protecting influence still extended over the whole basin\nof the Mediterranean, by means of the temples of Phoenicia, Greece,\nand Etruria, with which the high Egyptian priesthood were in constant\nconnection. This rampart once overthrown, the Bull, with lowered head,\nwas about to burst upon the land of Greece. Pythagoras saw Cambyses\ninvade Egypt, he may have beheld the Persian despot, worthy scion of\nthe crowned villains of Nineveh and Babylon, plunder the temples of\nMemphis and Thebes, and destroy that of Ammon. He may have seen the\nPharaoh Psammitichus brought in chains before Cambyses, placed on a\nmound, and surrounded by the priests, the principal families, and the\nroyal court. He may have witnessed the Pharaoh\u2019s daughter, clad in\nrags and followed by all her maids of honour similarly demeaned, the\nroyal prince and two thousand young men, brought forward, bit in mouth\nand bridle on neck, before being beheaded; the Pharaoh Psammitichus,\nchoking back his sobs before the frightful scene, and the infamous\nCambyses, seated on his throne, gloating over the anguish of his\nvanquished enemy. Cruel though instructive this lesson of history\nafter those of science! What a picture of the animal nature let\nloose in man, culminating in this monster of despotism who tramples\neverything under foot, and, by his horrible apotheosis, imposes on\nhumanity the reign of a most implacable destiny!\n\nCambyses had Pythagoras taken to Babylon, with a portion of the\nEgyptian priesthood, and kept him within the gates.[3] This colossal\ncity, which Aristotle compares to a country surrounded by walls,\noffered at that time an immense field for observation. Ancient Babel,\nthe great prostitute of the Hebrew prophets, was more than ever,\nafter the Persian conquest, a pandemonium of nations, tongues, and\nreligions, in whose midst Asiatic despotism raised aloft its dizzy\ntower. According to Persian tradition, its foundation dates back to the\nlegendary Semiramis. She it is who was said to have constructed the\nmonster _enceinte_, over fifty miles in circumference: the Imgur-Bel,\nits walls on which two chariots ran abreast, its superimposed terraces,\nmassive palaces with polychrome reliefs, temples supported on stone\nelephants and surmounted by many-coloured dragons. There had followed\nin succession the series of despots who had brought into subjection\nChaldea, Assyria, Persia, a part of Tartara, Judaea, Syria, and Asia\nMinor. Hither Nebuchadnezzar, the assassin of the magi, had led\ncaptive the Jewish people who continued to practise their religion\nin one corner of the immense city which would have contained London\nfour times over. The Jews had even given the great king a powerful\nminister in the person of the prophet Daniel. With Balthazar, the son\nof Nebuchadnezzar, the walls of the old Babel had finally disappeared\nbeneath the avenging hand of Cyrus, and Babylon passed for several\ncenturies under Persian rule. By reason of this series of preceding\nevents, at the time Pythagoras came there, there were three different\nreligions side by side in the high priesthood of Babylon: the ancient\nChaldean priests, the survivors of the Persian magi, and the _\u00e9lite_ of\nthe Jewish captivity. The proof that these different priesthoods were\nin mutual agreement, on the esoteric side, is found in the part played\nby Daniel, who, whilst acknowledging the God of Moses, remained first\nminister under Nebuchadnezzar, Balthazar, and Cyrus.\n\nPythagoras was now obliged to enlarge his horizon, already so vast,\nby studying these doctrines and religions, the synthesis of which\nwas still preserved by a few initiates. In Babylon he was able to\nthoroughly study the knowledge in the possession of the magi, the heirs\nof Zoroaster. Though the Egyptian priests alone possessed the universal\nkeys of the sacred sciences, the Persian magi had the reputation\nof carrying farther the practice of certain arts. They claimed to\ncontrol those occult powers of nature called pantomorphic fire and\nastral light. In their temples, it was said, darkness reigned in broad\ndaylight, lamps were lit without human agency, the radiance of the Gods\nwas visible and the rumble of thunder could be heard. The magi gave\nthe name of _celestial lion_ to this incorporeal fire, the agent that\ngenerates electricity, which they could condense or disperse at will,\nand that of _serpents_ to the electric currents of the atmosphere and\nthe magnetic currents of the earth, which they claimed to be able to\ndirect like arrows against mankind. They had also made a special study\nof the suggestive, attractive, and creative power of the human word.\nTo evoke spirits they employed graduated formulas, borrowed from the\nmost ancient languages on earth. The following is the psychic reasoning\nthey themselves gave thereof: \u201cMake no change in the barbarous\nnames employed in evocation; for they are the pantheistic names of\nGod; they are magnetized with the worship of multitudes, and their\npower is ineffable.\u201d[4] These evocations, accompanied by prayer and\npurification, were, properly speaking, what was called at a later date,\nwhite magic.\n\nAccordingly we now see Pythagoras in Babylon, penetrating the arcana of\nancient magic. At the same time, in this den of despotism, he witnessed\na glorious spectacle; on the ruins of the crumbling religions of the\nEast, above their decimated and degenerate priesthood, a band of\ndauntless initiates, grouped together, were defending their science,\ntheir faith, and as well as they could, justice. Boldly facing the\ndespots, like Daniel in the den of lions, ever prepared to be torn to\npieces, they tamed and fascinated the wild beast of absolute power by\ntheir intellectual might, disputing, foot by foot, the ground they had\nwon.\n\nAfter his Egyptian and Chaldaean initiation, the child of Samos knew\nfar more than his teachers of natural philosophy, far more than any\nGreek, either priest or laic, of his time. He was acquainted with the\neternal principles of the universe and their application. Nature had\nopened up to him her secrets; the gross veils of matter had been torn\nfrom his eyes, enabling him to see the marvellous spheres of nature and\nspiritualized humanity. In the temples of Neith-Isis in Memphis, and\nBel in Babylon, he had learned many secrets as to the past history\nof religions, continents, and races. He had been able to compare the\nadvantages with the disadvantages of the Jewish monotheism, the Greek\npolytheism, the Hindu trinitarianism, and the Persian dualism. He knew\nthat all these religions were rays of one same truth, strained down\nthrough different degrees of intelligence and intended for different\nsocial conditions. He held the key, _i. e._ the synthesis of all these\ndoctrines, in esoteric science. His vision, compassing the past and\nplunging into the future, was bound to judge the present with singular\nlucidity. His experience showed him humanity threatened with the most\nterrible evils, through the ignorance of the priests, the materialism\nof the savants, and the lack of discipline in the democracies. In the\nmidst of this universal decay he saw Asiatic despotism increase; from\nthis dark cloud a terrible cyclone was about to burst upon defenceless\nEurope.\n\nAccordingly it was now the hour to return to Greece, there to fulfil\nhis mission and begin his work.\n\nPythagoras had been kept in Babylon for twelve years. To leave the\ncity, an order from the king of Persia was necessary. Democedes,\na compatriot of his and the king\u2019s physician, interceded in his\nfavour and obtained liberty for the philosopher. After an absence of\nthirty-four years Pythagoras returned to Samos. He found his country\ncrushed and ruined by a satrap of the great king. Schools and temples\nwere closed, poets and savants had fled like a cloud of swallows\nbefore Persian caesarism. He had the consolation however, of seeing\nHermodamas, his first master, take his last breath, and of meeting\nParthenis, his mother, the only one who had never doubted that he would\nreturn. For everyone thought that the adventurous son of the jeweller\nof Samos was dead. Not for a moment had she doubted the oracle of\nApollo. Well she divined that beneath the Egyptian priest\u2019s white robe,\nher son was preparing himself for some lofty mission. She knew that\nthere would come forth from the temple of Neith-Isis the beneficent\nmaster, the light-bearing prophet, of whom she had dreamed in the\nsacred wood of Delphi, and whom the hierophant of Adona\u00ef had promised\nher beneath the cedars of Lebanon.\n\nAnd now a light skiff was bearing away mother and son to a new exile\nover the azure waves of the Aegean sea. They were fleeing, with all\ntheir possessions, from an oppressed and ruined Samos, and were\nmaking sail for Greece. Neither the Olympic crowns nor the poet\u2019s\nlaurels tempted the son of Parthenis. His work was greater and more\nmysterious; it was to rouse to life the slumbering soul of the gods in\nthe sanctuaries, to restore the temple of Apollo to its former might\nand prestige, and then to found somewhere a school of science and of\nlife whence should come forth, not politicians and sophists, but men\nand women initiates, true mothers and pure heroes!\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER III\n\n                  THE TEMPLE OF DELPHI--THE SCIENCE OF\n                    APOLLO--THEORY OF DIVINATION--THE\n                           PYTHONESS THEOCLEA\n\nFrom the plain of Phocis the traveller mounts the smiling meadows\nbordering the banks of the Pleistus to plunge into a winding valley\nshut in between lofty mountains. At every step the way becomes narrower\nand the country more sublime and deserted. Finally a circle of rugged\nmountains, crowned with wild-looking peaks, a veritable storehouse of\nelectricity, over which storms often raged, is reached. Suddenly, far\nup the sombre gorge appears the town of Delphi, like an eagle\u2019s nest,\non a rock surrounded by precipices and dominated by the two peaks of\nParnassus. From the distance the bronze Victories are seen sparkling\nin the light, as well as the brazen horses, the innumerable statues of\ngold, marshalled along the sacred path and arranged like a guard of\nheroes and gods round the Doric temple of Ph\u0153bus Apollo.\n\nThis was the most sacred spot in Greece. Here, the Pythoness\nprophesied and the Amphictyons assembled; here, the different Hellenic\npeoples had built round the sanctuary chapels containing treasured\nofferings. Here, processions of men, women, and children, coming\nfrom afar, mounted the sacred path to greet the God of Light. From\ntime immemorial religion had consecrated Delphi to the veneration of\nthe people. Its central situation in Hellas, its rock sheltered from\nprofane hands and easy to defend, had contributed to this result.\nThe place was calculated to strike the imagination, for a singular\nquality gave it great prestige. In a cavern behind the temple was a\ncleft in the rock from which issued a cold, vapoury mist, inducing, it\nwas said, a state of inspiration and ecstasy. Plutarch relates that\nin by-gone times a shepherd, when seated by the side of this cleft,\nbegan to prophesy. At first he was looked upon as mad, but when his\npredictions became realized, people began to investigate. The priests\ntook possession of the spot and consecrated it to the divinity. Hence\nthe institution of the Pythoness, who was seated above the cleft on a\ntripod. The vapours exhaling from the abyss occasioned convulsions and\nstrange crises, provoking in her that _second sight_ noticed in certain\nsomnambulists. Eschylus, whose affirmation is not without weight, for\nhe was the son of a priest of Eleusis, and an initiate himself, tells\nus in his _Eumenides_, by the mouth of the Pythoness, that Delphi\nhad first been consecrated to the Earth, then to Themis (Justice),\nafterwards to Ph\u0153be (the interceding moon), and finally to Apollo, the\nsolar god. In temple symbolism each of these names represents long\nperiods, and embraces centuries of time. The fame of Delphi, however,\ndates from Apollo. Jupiter, according to the poets, wishing to find\nthe centre of the earth, started two eagles in their flight from east\nand west, and they met at Delphi. Whence comes this prestige, this\nworld-wide and unchallenged authority which constituted Apollo as the\ngod of Greece _par excellence_, and now makes the glory of his name\ninexplicable to us?\n\nHistory is dumb on this important point. Question orators, poets, and\nphilosophers, they will only give you superficial explanations. The\nreal answer to this question remained the secret of the temple. Let us\ntry to fathom it.\n\nIn Orphic thought, Dionysos and Apollo were two different revelations\nof the same divinity. Dionysos represented esoteric truth, the\nfoundation and interior of things, open to initiates alone. He held the\nmysteries of life, past and future existences, the relations between\nsoul and body, heaven and earth. Apollo personified the same truth\napplied to life on earth and social order. The inspirer of poetry,\nmedicine, and laws, he was science by divination, beauty by art,\npeace among nations by justice, and harmony between soul and body by\npurification. In a word, to the initiate Dionysos signified nothing\nless than the divine spirit in evolution in the universe; and Apollo,\nthe manifestation thereof to mankind on earth. The people had been made\nto understand this by a legend. The priests had told them that, in the\ntime of Orpheus, Bacchus and Apollo had vied with one another for the\ntripod of Delphi. Bacchus had willingly given it up to his brother, and\nwithdrawn to one of the peaks of Parnassus, where the Theban women were\nwont to celebrate his mysteries. In reality the two sons of Jupiter\ndivided between themselves the empire of the world. The one reigned\nover the mysterious Beyond, the other over the World of the Living.\n\nSo that we find in Apollo the solar Logos, the universal Word, the\nmighty Mediator, the Vishnu of the Hindus, the Mithras of the Persians,\nand the Horus of the Egyptians. The old ideas of Asiatic esoterism,\nhowever, took on, in the legend of Apollo, a plastic beauty, and an\nincisive splendour which made them penetrate the more deeply into human\nconsciousness, like the shafts of the God. \u201cWhite-winged serpents\nspringing forth from his golden bow,\u201d says Eschylus.\n\nApollo springs forth from the mighty night at Delos; all the goddesses\ngreet his birth; he walks and takes up his bow and lyre, his locks\nstream in the air and his quiver rattles on his shoulder; the sea\nquivers, and the whole island shines with his glory scattered abroad\nin floods of golden flame. This is the epiphany of divine light, which\nby its august presence creates order, splendour, and harmony, of which\npoetry is the marvellous echo. The god goes to Delphi and pierces with\nhis arrows a monstrous serpent which was ravaging and laying waste the\nland, he purifies the country and establishes the temple; the image of\nthe victory of this divine light over darkness and evil. In ancient\nreligions, the serpent symbolized at once the fatal circle of life and\nthe evil resulting therefrom. And yet, from this life once understood\nand overcome, springs forth knowledge. Apollo, slayer of the serpent,\nis the symbol of the initiate who pierces nature by science, tames it\nby his will, and breaking the Karmic circle of the flesh mounts aloft\nin spiritual splendour, whilst the broken fragments of human animality\nlie writhing in the sand. For this reason Apollo is the master of\nexpiation, of the purification of soul and body. Bespattered with the\nmonster\u2019s blood, he performed expiation, purified himself during an\neight years\u2019 exile beneath the bitter, health-giving laurels of the\nvale of Tempe.--Apollo, trainer of men, likes to take up his abode in\ntheir midst, he is pleased to be in towns with the youths and young\nmen, at contests of poetry and the palaestra, though he remains only\nfor a time. In autumn he returns to his own land, the home of the\nHyperboreans. This is the mysterious people of luminous and transparent\nsouls who dwell in the eternal dawn of perfect felicity. Here are his\ntrue priests, his beloved priestesses. He lives with them in strong,\nintimate communion, and when he wishes to make mankind a royal gift, he\nbrings back from the country of the Hyperboreans one of those mighty,\nradiant souls who is born on earth to teach and delight mortals. He\nhimself returns to Delphi every spring, when poems and hymns are sung\nin his honour. Visible to none but initiates he comes in dazzling\nHyperborean glory, in a chariot drawn by sweetly-singing swans. Again\nhe takes up his abode in the sanctuary, where the Pythoness speaks\nforth his oracles, and sages and poets listen. Then is heard the song\nof nightingales, the fountain of Castalia scatters silver spray on\nevery hand, dazzling light and celestial music penetrate the heart of\nman and reach the very veins of nature.\n\nIn this legend of the Hyperboreans may be found much light thrown on\nthe esoteric basis of the Apollo myth. The land of the Hyperboreans is\nthe Beyond, the empyrean of victorious souls, whose astral dawns light\nup its many-coloured zones. Apollo himself personifies the immaterial\nand intelligible light of which the sun is merely the physical image,\nand from which flows down all truth. The wonderful swans which bring\nhim are poets and divine geniuses, messengers of his mighty solar soul,\nleaving behind them flashes of light and strains of glorious music.\nHyperborean Apollo, accordingly, personifies the descent of heaven on\nto earth, the incarnation of spiritual beauty in flesh and blood, the\ninflow of transcendent truth by inspiration and divination.\n\nIt is now the moment to raise the golden veil of legend and enter the\ntemple itself. How was divination practised therein? Here we touch upon\nthe secrets of Apollonian science and of the mysteries of Delphi.\n\nIn antiquity, a strong tie united divination to the solar cults, and\nhere we have the golden key to all the so-called magic mysteries.\n\nThe worship of Aryan humanity from the beginning of civilization was\ndirected towards the sun as the source of light, heat, and life. When,\nhowever, the thought of the sages rose from the phenomenon to the\ncause, behind this sensible fire, this visible light, they formed the\nconcept of an immaterial fire, an intelligible light. They identified\nthe form with the male principle, the creative spirit or intellectual\nessence of the universe, and the latter with its female principle, its\nformative soul, its plastic substance. This intuition dates back to\ntime immemorial. The conception I speak of is connected with the most\nancient mythologies. It circulates in the Vedic hymns under the form\nof Agni, the universal fire which penetrates all things. It blossoms\nforth in the religion of Zoroaster, the esoteric part of which is\nrepresented by the cult of Mithras. Mithras is the male fire and Mitra\nthe female light. Zoroaster formally states that the Eternal, by means\nof the living Word, created the heavenly light, the seed of Ormuzd,\nthe principle of material light and material fire. For the initiate of\nMithras the sun is only a rude reflection of this light. In his obscure\ngrotto, whose vault is painted with stars, he invokes the sun of grace,\nthe fire of love, conqueror of evil, reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman,\npurifier and mediator, who dwells in the soul of the holy prophets. In\nthe crypts of Egypt, the initiates seek this same sun under the name\nof Osiris. When Hermes asks to be allowed to contemplate the origin\nof things, at first he feels himself plunged into the ethereal waves\nof a delicious light, in which move all living forms. Then, plunging\ninto the darkness of dense matter, he hears a voice which he recognizes\nas _the voice of light_. At the same time fire darts forth from the\ndepths, immediately all is light and chaos becomes order. In the _Book\nof the Dead_ of the Egyptians the souls journey painfully towards that\nlight in the barque of Isis. Moses fully adopted this doctrine in\nGenesis: \u201cElohim said: Let there be light; and there was light.\u201d Now\nthe creation of this light precedes that of the sun and stars. This\nmeans that, in the order of principles and cosmogony, intelligible\nprecedes material light. The Greeks, who moulded into human form and\ndramatized the most abstract ideas, expressed the same doctrine in the\nmyth of Hyperborean Apollo.\n\nConsequently the human mind, by inner contemplation of the universe,\nfrom the point of view of the soul and the intelligence, came to\nconceive of an intelligible light, an imponderable element serving as\nan intermediary between matter and spirit. It would be easy to show\nthat natural philosophers of modern times insensibly draw somewhere\nnear the same conclusion along an opposite path, _i. e._ by searching\nfor the constitution of matter and seeing the impossibility of\nexplaining it by itself. Even in the sixteenth century, Paracelsus,\nwhilst studying the chemical combinations and metamorphoses of bodies,\nwent so far as to admit of a universal occult agent by means of which\nthey are brought about. The natural philosophers of the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries, who conceived of the universe as being a dead\nmachine, believed in the absolute void of celestial space. Yet when\nit was discovered that light is not the emission of a radiant matter,\nbut rather the vibration of an imponderable element, one was obliged\nto admit that the whole of space is filled by an infinitely subtile\nfluid penetrating all bodies and through which waves of heat and light\nare transmitted. Thus a return was made to the Greek ideas of natural\nphilosophy and theosophy. Newton, who had spent his whole life in\nstudying the movements of the heavenly bodies, went even farther than\nthis. He called this ether _sensorium Dei_, or the brain of God, _i.\ne._ the organ by which divine thought acts in the infinitely great\nas well as in the infinitely small. In emitting this idea, which he\nregarded as necessary to explain the simple rotation of the heavenly\nbodies, the great natural philosopher had embarked on the open sea of\nesoteric philosophy. The very ether Newton\u2019s thought found in space\nParacelsus had discovered at the bottom of his alembics, and had named\nit astral light. Now this imponderable fluid, which is everywhere\npresent, penetrating all things, this subtile but indispensable agent,\nthis light, invisible to our eyes, but which is at the bottom of all\nphosphorescence and scintillation, has been proved to exist by a\nGerman natural philosopher in a series of well-appointed experiments.\nReichenbach had noticed that subjects of very sensitive nerve fibre,\nwhen placed in a perfectly dark room in front of a magnet, saw at its\ntwo ends strong rays of red, yellow, and blue light. Sometimes these\nrays vibrated with an undulatory movement. He continued his experiments\nwith all kinds of bodies, especially with crystals. Luminous emanations\nwere seen, by sensitive subjects, round all these bodies. Around the\nheads of men placed in the dark room they saw white rays; from their\nfingers issued small flames. In the first portion of their sleep\nsomnambulists sometimes see their magnetizer with these same signs.\nPure astral light appears only in a condition of lofty ecstasy, but\nit is polarized in all bodies, combines with all terrestrial fluids\nand plays diverse _r\u00f4les_ in electricity, in terrestrial and animal\nmagnetism.[5] The interest of Reichenbach\u2019s experiments is that\nthey make precise the limits and transition from physical to astral\nvision capable of leading on to spiritual vision. They also enable us\nto obtain a faint glimpse of the infinite subtleties of imponderable\nmatter. Along this path there is nothing to prevent our conceiving it\nas so fluid, so subtile and penetrating, that it becomes in some way\nhomogeneous with spirit, serving the latter as a perfect garment.\n\nWe have just seen that modern natural philosophy, in order to explain\nthe world, has been obliged to recognize an imponderable, universal\nagent, that it has even proved its presence, and, in this way, without\nknowing it, has fallen in with the notions of ancient theosophies.\nLet us now try to define the nature and function of cosmic fluid in\naccordance with the philosophy of occultism in all ages. On this main\nprinciple of cosmogony, Zoroaster is in agreement with Heraclitus,\nPythagoras with Saint Paul, the Kabbalists with Paracelsus. Cybele-Ma\u00efa\nreigns everywhere, the mighty soul of the world, the vibrating and\nplastic substance which the breath of the creative spirit uses at its\nwill. Her oceans of ether serve to cement together all the worlds. She\nis the great mediator between the invisible and the visible, between\nspirit and matter, between the within and the without of the universe.\nCondensed in enormous masses in the atmosphere beneath the action of\nthe sun, she flashes forth in a thunderbolt. Absorbed by the earth\nshe circulates in magnetic currents. Subtilized in the nervous system\nof the animal she transmits her will to the limbs, her sensations to\nthe brain. More than that, this subtile fluid forms living organisms\nsimilar to material bodies. It serves as substance to the astral body\nof the soul, a garment of light which the spirit is ever weaving\nfor itself. The fluid becomes transformed, it rarefies or densifies\naccording to the souls it clothes or the worlds it envelops. Not only\ndoes it embody spirit and spiritualize matter in its living bosom, it\nreflects in a perpetual mirage both things and the thoughts and wills\nof mankind. The strength and duration of these images is in proportion\nto the intensity of the will producing them. And, in truth, there\nis no other means of explaining thought suggestion and transmission\nat a distance, that principle of magic now-a-days acknowledged and\nrecognized by science.[6] Thus in the astral light the past of the\nworlds trembles in vague images, and the future is there also, with the\nliving souls inevitably destined to descend into flesh. This is the\nmeaning of the veil of Isis and the mantle of Cybele, into which all\nbeings are woven.\n\nIt is now seen that the theosophical doctrine of the astral light is\nidentical with the secret doctrine of the solar Word in the religions\nof Greece and the East. It is also seen how closely allied this\ndoctrine is to that of divination. The astral light is there revealed\nas the universal medium of the phenomena of vision and of ecstasy which\nit explains. It is at once the vehicle which transmits the movements\nof thought, and the living mirror in which the soul contemplates the\nimages of the material and spiritual world. Once transported into this\nelement, the spirit of the seer leaves corporeal conditions. For him\nthe measure of time and space is changed. In some way he participates\nin the ubiquity of the universal fluid. For him opaque matter becomes\ntransparent, and the soul, disengaging itself from the body and rising\nin its own light, penetrates, in a state of ecstasy, into the spiritual\nworld, sees souls clothed in their ethereal bodies and communicates\nwith them. All the initiates of former times had a clear notion of this\n_second sight_, or direct spiritual vision. Witness Eschylus, who puts\ninto the mouth of the shade of Clytemnestra: \u201cLook at these wounds,\nthy spirit can see them; when one is asleep, the spirit possesses a\nmore piercing vision; in broad daylight, the eyes of mortals see but a\nlittle way.\u201d\n\nLet me add that this theory of clairvoyance and ecstasy is in wonderful\nagreement with the numerous experiments, scientifically carried out\nby savants and doctors of modern times, on lucid somnambulists and\nclairvoyants of every kind.[7] From these contemporary facts I shall\nendeavour briefly to characterize the successive psychic conditions\nfrom simple clairvoyance to cataleptic ecstasy.\n\nThe state of clairvoyance, as is seen by thousands of well-established\nfacts, is a psychic one, differing as greatly from sleep as from a\nwaking condition. The intellectual faculties of the clairvoyant, far\nfrom diminishing, increase in marvellous fashion. His memory is more\ncorrect, his imagination more active, his intelligence more alert. The\nmain point, in a word, is that we have here developed a new sense,\nwhich is no longer corporeal, but rather belongs to the soul. Not\nonly are the thoughts of the magnetizer transmitted to him as in the\nsimple phenomenon of suggestion, which itself is outside the physical\nplane, but the clairvoyant even reads the thoughts of those present,\nsees through walls, penetrates hundreds of miles into homes where he\nhas never been, and reads the private life of people he does not know.\nHis eyes are closed, incapable of seeing anything, but his spirit sees\nfarther and better than his open eyes and seems to travel about freely\nin space.[8] In a word, though clairvoyance may be abnormal from the\nbodily point of view, it is a normal and superior state from the point\nof view of the spirit. The consciousness has become deeper, the vision\nwider. The ego remains the same, but it has passed over to a higher\nplane, where the vision, freed from the coarse organs of the body,\nembraces and penetrates a vaster horizon.[9] It is to be noted that\ncertain somnambulists, when submitting to the passes of the magnetizer,\nfeel themselves flooded with increasingly dazzling light, whilst the\nawaking seems to them an unpleasant return to darkness.\n\nSuggestion, thought reading, and distant vision are facts which already\nprove the independent existence of the soul, and transport us above the\nphysical plane of the universe without making us leave it altogether.\nClairvoyance, however, has infinite varieties and a scale of different\nstates far wider than that of the waking condition. In proportion as\nthe scale is mounted the phenomena become rarer and more extraordinary.\nI will mention only the principal stages. _Retrospection_ is a\nvision of past events preserved in the astral light and revived by\nthe sympathy of the seer. _Divination_, properly so called, is a\nproblematical vision of things to come either by introspection of the\nthoughts of the living which contain future actions in germ, or by\nthe occult influence of superior spirits which unfold the future in\nliving images before the soul of the clairvoyant. In both cases they\nare projections of thoughts into the astral light. Finally _ecstasy_ is\ndefined as a vision of the spiritual world, where good or evil spirits\nappear to the seer in human form and communicate with him. The soul\nseems really to be transported out of the body, which life has almost\nleft, and which stiffens into a state of catalepsy resembling death.\nFrom what those who have been in a condition of sublime ecstasy tell\nus, nothing in the universe can express the beauty and splendour of\nthese visions, or the sentiment of an ineffable fusion with the divine\nessence which they bring back, a very transport of light and music.\nThe reality of these visions may be doubted. It must, nevertheless, be\nadded that if the soul, in the average state of clairvoyance, has a\ncorrect perception of distant places and of absent ones, it is logical\nto admit that, in its loftiest exaltation, it may have the vision of a\nhigher and an immaterial reality.\n\nIn my opinion, it will be the task of the future to restore to the\ntranscendent faculties of the human soul their dignity and social\nfunction, by reorganizing them under the control of science and on the\nbasis of a religion which is truly universal, open to all truths. Then\nscience, regenerated by real faith and the spirit of love, will, with\nopen eyes, mount aloft to those spheres in which speculative philosophy\ngropes about with bandaged eyes. Yes, science will become clear-sighted\nand redeeming in her mission, just in proportion as the consciousness\nand love of humanity increase in her. Perhaps it is through \u201cthe gate\nof sleep and dreams,\u201d as Homer said, that divine Psyche, banished from\nour civilized life and weeping in silence beneath her veil, will regain\npossession of her altars.\n\nAnyhow, the phenomena of clairvoyance, studied from every aspect by\npresent-day savants and doctors, throw an altogether new light on\nthe _r\u00f4le_ of divination in antiquity and on a host of apparently\nsupernatural phenomena, with which the annals of every nation and\npeople are filled. Of course, a distinction must be made between legend\nand history, hallucination and real vision. Still, the experimental\npsychology of our times teaches us not to reject, in a body, facts\nwhich fall within human possibility, but rather to investigate them\nfrom the point of view of well-ascertained laws. If clairvoyance is a\nfaculty of the soul, we may no longer simply consign prophets, oracles,\nand sybils to the domain of superstition. Divination has really been\nknown and practised in temples of old, with fixed principles and a\nsocial and religious end in view. The comparative study of religions\nand esoteric traditions shows that these principles were the same\neverywhere, although their application may have varied infinitely. What\nhas discredited the art of divination is that its corruption has given\nrise to the worst abuses, and that its glorious manifestations are\npossible only in beings of exceptional purity.\n\nDivination, as practised at Delphi, was founded on the principles we\nhave just set forth, the inner organization of the temple corresponded\nthereto. As in the great temples of Egypt, it consisted of an art\nand a science. The art consisted in penetrating the far-away past\nand future by clairvoyance or prophetic ecstasy; the science, in\ncalculating the future in accordance with the laws of universal\nevolution. Art and science checked one another. All I will say of\nthis science, called genethlialogy by the ancients, and of which\nthe astrology of the middle ages is only an imperfectly understood\nfragment, is that it took for granted the esoteric encyclopedia as\napplied to the future of peoples and individuals. Though very useful\nin showing the direction things were taking, it was always of very\ndoubtful application. Only the very loftiest minds knew how to use it.\nPythagoras had thoroughly mastered it in Egypt, but in Greece it was\npractised with a less thorough or clear understanding. On the other\nhand, clairvoyance and prophecy had made considerable progress.\n\nIt is well known that this art was practised in Delphi through the\nagency of women, both young and old. They were called Pythonesses,\nand played the passive _r\u00f4le_ of clairvoyant somnambulists. Their\noracles, often obscure, were interpreted, translated, and arranged by\nthe priests in accordance with their own lights. Modern historians have\nseen in the institution of Delphi scarcely anything more than the\nexploitation of superstition by intelligent charlatans. Besides the\nassent, however, given by the whole of philosophic antiquity to the\nDelphic science of divination, several oracles related by Herodotus,\nsuch as those regarding Croesus and the battle of Salamis, speak in\nits favour. Doubtless their art had its beginning, its condition of\nprosperity, and its decay. Charlatanism and corruption exercised\ntheir demoralizing influence in the end, as we see in the case of\nking Cleomenes, who bribed the high priestess of Delphi to deprive\nDemaratus of his throne. Plutarch wrote a treatise inquiring into the\nreasons for the decline and extinction of the oracles; this degeneracy\nwas felt to be a misfortune throughout all classes of antiquity. At\nfirst, divination was practised with a degree of religious sincerity\nand scientific thoroughness which raised it to the height of a\nreal ministration. On the pediment of the temple could be read the\ninscription: \u201cKnow thyself,\u201d and another one above the entrance door:\n\u201cLet no one enter here with impure hands.\u201d These words explained to\nall comers that earthly passions, falsehood and hypocrisy were not to\npass the threshold of the sanctuary, that within, in awe-inspiring\nsolemnity, reigned divine Truth.\n\nPythagoras reached Delphi only after having visited all the temples\nof Greece. He had stayed with Epimenides in the sanctuary of Idaean\nJupiter; he had been present at the Olympic games, and presided over\nthe mysteries of Eleusis, where the hierophant had given up his place\nto him. Everywhere had he been received as a master, and now he was\nexpected at Delphi. Here the art of divination was in a languishing\ncondition, and Pythagoras wished to restore its former prestige and\nmight. Accordingly he went there not so much to consult Apollo as to\nenlighten his interpreters and revive their enthusiasm and energy.\nThrough them his influence would mould the soul of Greece and prepare a\nfuture for the land.\n\nFortunately he found in the temple a marvellous instrument reserved for\nhim, to all appearance, by the hand of Providence.\n\nYoung Theoclea belonged to the college of the priestesses of Apollo.\nShe sprang from one of those families in which the priestly dignity\nis hereditary. Her childhood had been fed on the mighty impressions\nimparted by the sanctuary, the ceremonies, p\u00e6ans, and _f\u00eates_ of\nPythian and Hyperborean Apollo. Evidently she was one of those maidens\nborn with an instinctive abhorrence for the things which attracted\nothers. They love not Ceres and fear Venus, for the heavy atmosphere\nof earth troubles them, and the vague glimpse they have obtained of\nphysical love seems to them the rape of the soul, the pollution of\ntheir undefiled, virginal being. On the other hand, they are strangely\nsensitive to mysterious currents, to astral influences. When the moon\nwas shedding her soft beams on the sombre groves near the fountain\nof Castalia, Theoclea would see white forms gliding by. She heard\nvoices in open daylight. On exposing herself to the rays of the rising\nsun, their vibration threw her into a kind of ecstasy, during which\nshe heard the singing of invisible choirs. At the same time she was\nquite indifferent to popular superstition and idolatry; a feeling of\nhorror overcame her at the sacrifices of animals. She spoke to no one\nregarding the apparitions which disturbed her sleep, feeling with\nclairvoyant instinct that the priests of Apollo were not in possession\nof that supreme light she needed. The latter, however, had fixed on\nher with the object of persuading her to become Pythoness. She felt\nherself attracted by a higher world to which she had not the key. What\nwere these gods who manifested themselves to her in vibrations which\ntroubled her being, and to whom she owed her inspiration? This she\nwould know before giving herself up to them, for great souls need to\nsee clearly even in abandoning themselves to divine powers.\n\nWith what a deep thrill, with how mysterious a presentiment the soul\nof Theoclea must have been stirred when she saw Pythagoras for the\nfirst time, and heard his eloquent voice resound among the columns of\nthe sanctuary of Apollo! She felt the presence of the initiator for\nwhom she was waiting, she recognized her master. She wished to know;\nknowledge would come by him; he would make this inner world speak, this\nworld she bore within herself!--He, on his side, must have recognized\nin her, with sure and penetrating glance, the living, thrilling soul\nhe was seeking, to become the interpreter of his thoughts in the\ntemple and instil therein a new spirit. No sooner had their eyes met,\ntheir lips spoken, than an invisible chain bound the sage of Samos to\nthe young priestess, who listened to him without a word, drinking in\nhis utterances with eager, attentive eyes. Some one has said that a\nprofound vibration enables poet and lyre to recognize one another as\nthey approach. Thus did Pythagoras and Theoclea recognize one another.\n\nAt sunrise, Pythagoras had long conversations with the priests of\nApollo, ordained saints and prophets. He requested that the young\npriestess should be received by them, so that he might initiate her\ninto his secret teaching and prepare her for her mission. Accordingly\nshe was permitted to follow the lessons given daily in the sanctuary by\nthe master. Pythagoras was now in the prime of life. He wore a white\nrobe, girdled in Egyptian fashion; a purple band was wrapped round\nhis majestic brow. When he spoke, his grave, mild eyes were fastened\non his interlocutor, enveloping him in a warm, tender light. The very\natmosphere seemed to become lighter and electric with intelligence.\n\nThe conversations of the sage of Samos with the highest representatives\nof the Greek religion were of the utmost importance. It was not merely\na question of divination and inspiration, the future of Greece and\nthe destiny of the whole world were at stake. The knowledge, titles,\nand powers he had acquired in the temples of Memphis and Babylon\ngave him the greatest authority and influence. To those who inspired\nGreece he had the right to speak as a superior and a guide. This he\ndid with all the eloquence of his genius and the enthusiasm of his\nmission. To enlighten their minds, he began by telling them of his\nyouthful days, his struggles and Egyptian initiation. He spoke to them\nof Egypt, the mother of Greece, old as the world itself, immovable as\na mummy, covered with hieroglyphs in the recesses of its pyramids,\nthough possessing in its tombs the secrets of peoples, languages, and\nreligions. Before their eyes he unfolded the mysteries of great Isis,\ngoddess of earth and heaven, mother of gods and men; then, relating\nhis trials and ordeals, he plunged them, with himself, into the light\nof Osiris. Afterwards came the turn of Babylon, of the Chaldaean magi,\ntheir occult sciences, and those deep solid temples where they call\nforth the living fire, the abode of demons and gods.\n\nAs she listened to Pythagoras, Theoclea passed through wonderful\nsensations. All he said was branded in letters of fire in her mind.\nThese things appeared to her both marvellous and yet well known.\nInstead of hearing something new she seemed to be recalling what she\nhad already learned. The master\u2019s words set her turning over the pages\nof the universe like those of a book. No longer did she see the gods in\ntheir human image, but in their essence, forming things and spirits.\nWith them she flowed in space, rising and falling. At times there came\nthe illusion that she no longer felt the limits of her body, and was\nfading away into infinity. Thus her imagination entered by degrees into\nthe invisible world, and the former traces she found of it in her own\nsoul told her that this was the true and only reality; the other was\nonly apparent. She felt that her inner eyes would soon open and read\nthe truth.\n\nFrom these heights the master suddenly brought her back to earth by\nrelating the misfortunes of Egypt. After developing the greatness of\nEgyptian science, he showed how it was dying away under the Persian\ninvasion. He depicted the horrible atrocities committed by Cambyses,\nthe pillaged temples, the sacred books committed to the flames, the\npriests of Osiris killed or dispersed, the monster of Persian despotism\ncollecting beneath his iron hand all the old barbaric tribes of Asia,\nthe half-savage nomad races of India, and the centre of the continent,\nawaiting only a favourable opportunity to fall upon Europe. Yes, this\never-increasing cyclone must burst upon Greece as certainly as the\nthunderbolt, collecting in the sky, must flash forth from the cloud.\nWas divided Greece prepared to resist this terrible attack? She did not\neven suspect it. Nations cannot avoid their destinies, which the gods\nprecipitate upon them, unless they are ever watchful. Had not Egypt,\nthat wise nation of Hermes, crumbled to ruin after six thousand years\nof prosperity? Greece, alas! and beautiful Ionia will pass away even\nsooner! A time will come when the solar god will abandon this temple,\nwhen barbarian tribes will overthrow its very walls, and shepherds lead\ntheir flocks to pasture on the ruins of Delphi.\n\nBefore such sinister prophecies the countenance of Theoclea became\ntransformed, assuming a terrified expression. She sank to the ground,\nand, with arms clasped round a column and eyes fixed as though plunged\nin thought, she resembled the genius of Grief weeping over the tomb of\nGreece.\n\n\u201cThose are secrets,\u201d continued Pythagoras, \u201cwhich must be buried in the\ndepths of the temples. The initiate attracts death or repels it at his\npleasure. By forming the magic chain of wills, initiates in this way\nprolong the life of nations. It is for you to postpone the fatal hour,\nto cause Greece to shine in splendour and beam forth with the word of\nApollo. Nations and peoples are what their gods make them, but the\ngods reveal themselves only to such as appeal to them. What is Apollo?\nThe word of the one God manifesting himself eternally in the world.\nTruth is the soul of God, his body is the light. Only seers, sages,\nand prophets behold it; men see only its shadow. Legions of glorified\nspirits, whom we call heroes and demi-gods, inhabit this light in\nspheres beyond number. This is the real body of Apollo, the sun of\ninitiates, without his rays nothing great is done on earth. As the\nmagnet attracts iron, so by our thoughts, our prayers, and actions do\nwe attract divine inspiration. It is for you to hand over to Greece the\nword of Apollo, and Greece shall be resplendent with immortal light!\u201d\n\nWith such language Pythagoras succeeded in restoring to the priests\nof Delphi the consciousness of their mission. Theoclea drank in every\nword with silent, concentrated passion. She was visibly becoming\ntransformed beneath the thought and will of the master as by a slow\nincantation. Standing in the midst of the astonished elders, she untied\nher raven-black locks and thrust them back from her head as though she\nfelt flames of fire playing in and about them. Her eyes, transfigured\nand wide open, seemed to behold the solar and planetary gods in their\nradiant, glowing orbs.\n\nOne day she fell into a deep, lucid sleep. The five prophets surrounded\nher, but she remained insensible alike to their voice and touch.\nPythagoras drew near and said: \u201cRise and go where my thought sends\nthee. For now thou art the Pythoness!\u201d\n\nOn hearing the master\u2019s voice, a long vibrating thrill ran through the\nwhole of her body and she rose to her feet. Her eyes were closed, but\nshe saw from within.\n\n\u201cWhere art thou?\u201d asked Pythagoras.\n\n\u201cI am ascending----ascending all the time.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd now?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am bathing in the light of Orpheus.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat seest thou in the future?\u201d\n\n\u201cGreat wars----men of might----Apollo returns to dwell in his\nsanctuary, and I shall be his voice----! But thou, his messenger, thou\nart about to leave me, alas! thou wilt bear the torch of his light into\nItaly.\u201d\n\nLong did the seer speak, with closed eyes, in musical, panting,\nrhythmic voice; then suddenly, with a sob, she fell to the ground like\none dead.\n\nThus did Pythagoras pour a pure, undefiled stream of knowledge into\nTheoclea\u2019s breast, tuning her like a lyre for divine inspiration. Once\nexalted to these heights she became his torch, thanks to which he was\nable to sound his own destiny, see into the possible future, and direct\nhis path along the strandless zones of the invisible. Such a striking\ncounter-verification of the truths he taught filled the priests with\nadmiration, aroused their courage and revived their faith. The temple\nnow possessed an inspired Pythoness, and priests initiated into the\ndivine sciences and arts; Delphi could once again become a centre of\nlife and action.\n\nPythagoras remained there for a whole year. It was only after imparting\nto the priests all the secrets of his doctrine, and preparing Theoclea\nfor his ministry, that he took his departure for Greater Greece.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n\n                       THE ORDER AND THE DOCTRINE\n\n\nThe town of Croton was situated at the extremity of the Gulf of\nTarentum, near the Lacinian promontory, in front of the open sea. Like\nSybaris, it was one of the most flourishing cities in Southern Italy.\nIt was famed for its Doric constitution, its victorious athletes at\nthe Olympian games, and its doctors, rivals of the Asclepiads. The\nSybarites owe their immortality to their luxury and effeminacy. The\ninhabitants of Croton would perhaps be forgotten, spite of their\nvirtues, had theirs not been the glory of offering a home to the great\nschool of esoteric philosophy, known under the name of the Pythagorean\nsect, which may be looked upon as the mother of the school of Plato and\nthe ancestor of all idealist schools. However noble the descendants,\ntheir ancestors greatly surpassed them. The school of Plato issues from\nan incomplete tradition, whereas the Stoic school has already lost the\ntrue tradition. Other systems of ancient and modern philosophy are more\nor less fortunate speculations, whilst the teaching of Pythagoras\nwas based on experimental science and accompanied by a complete\norganization of life.\n\nThe secrets of the master\u2019s order and thought are now, like the ruins\nof the ancient town, buried deep underground. All the same we will try\nto resurrect them, for thus we shall have an opportunity of penetrating\nto the very heart of the theosophic doctrine, the arcanum of religions\nand philosophies, and raising a corner of the veil of Isis to the light\nof Greek genius.\n\nSeveral reasons influenced Pythagoras in choosing this Dorian colony\nas a centre of action. His aim was not merely to teach the esoteric\ndoctrine to a circle of chosen disciples, but also to apply its\nprinciples to the education of youth and to the life of the state. This\nplan comprised the foundation of an institution for laic initiation,\nwith the object of finally transforming the political organization of\nthe cities by degrees into the image of that philosophic and religious\nideal. Certainly none of the republics of Hellas or of Peloponnesus\nwould have tolerated this innovation. The philosopher would have been\naccused of conspiring against the State. The Greek towns of the Gulf\nof Tarentum, which were less preyed upon by demagogues, were more\nliberal-minded. Pythagoras made no mistake in expecting to find a\nfavourable reception for his reforms at the hands of the Croton senate.\nHis designs went also beyond Greece. Foreseeing the evolution of ideas,\nhe was prepared for the fall of Hellenism, and was thinking of sowing\nin the human mind the principles of a scientific religion. By founding\nhis school in the Gulf of Tarentum, he was spreading esoteric ideas\nthroughout Italy, and keeping in the precious vase of his doctrine the\npurified essence of Oriental wisdom for the peoples of the West.\n\nOn coming to Croton, which was at the time inclined to adopt the\nvoluptuous life of its neighbour Sybaris, Pythagoras produced a\nveritable revolution. Porphyry and Iamblichus have depicted the\ncommencement of his life there as being rather that of a magician\nthan of a philosopher. Assembling the youth in the Temple of Apollo,\nhe succeeded by his eloquence in tearing them away from a life of\ndebauchery. Summoning the women to the Temple of Juno, he persuaded\nthem to bring their golden robes and ornaments as trophies to celebrate\nthe defeat of vanity and luxury. He threw a veil of grace over the\nausterity of his teachings, a communicating flame flashed forth from\nhis words of wisdom. His beautiful face and noble bearing, the charm\nof his countenance and of his voice completely captivated them. The\nwomen compared him to Jupiter, the young men to Hyperborean Apollo. He\ncaptivated and seduced the crowds which, whilst listening to him, were\ngreatly astonished to find themselves enamoured of truth and virtue.\n\nThe senate of Croton, or _the Council of the Thousand_, grew uneasy at\nthe influence he was obtaining. They summoned Pythagoras to explain\nhis conduct, and to state the means he was making use of to master\nthe minds of the citizens. This gave him an opportunity to develop\nhis ideas on education, and demonstrate that, far from threatening\nwith ruin the Doric constitution of Croton, they only strengthened\nit the more. When he had won over to his side the wealthiest of the\ncitizens and the majority of the senate, he proposed that they should\nfound an institute for himself and his disciples. This brotherhood\nof laic initiates should live in common in a building constructed\nfor the purpose, though without separating themselves from civil\nlife. Those of them who already deserved the name of master, might\nteach physical, psychic, and religious sciences. Young men should be\nadmitted to the lessons of the masters and to the different grades of\ninitiation according to their intelligence or earnestness in study,\nunder the control of the head of the order. At the beginning, they\nmust submit to the rules of the common life and spend the whole day in\nthe institute, under the supervision of the masters. Those who should\nwish to enter the order formally were to give up their fortune to a\ntrustee, with permission to enter again into possession of it whenever\nthey pleased. In the institute there would be a section for women,\nalong with a parallel initiation, though different and more adapted to\nthe duties of their sex.\n\nThis plan was enthusiastically adopted by the senate of Croton, and,\nafter a few years, near the entrance to the town there rose a building\nsurrounded by vast porticoes and beautiful gardens. The inhabitants of\nCroton called it the Temple of the Muses, and, to tell the truth, in\nthe centre of the buildings, near the humble dwelling of the master,\nstood a temple dedicated to these divinities.\n\nThus sprang into being the Pythagorean institute, which became at\none and the same time a college of education, a science academy, and\na small model city under the control of a great initiate. It is by\ntheory and practice, by science and art combined that slow progress\nwas made to that science of sciences, that magical harmony of soul\nand intellect with the universe which Pythagoreans looked upon as the\narcanum of philosophy and religion. The Pythagorean school is of\nsupreme interest for us, inasmuch as it was a most remarkable attempt\nat laic initiation. Being an anticipated synthesis of Hellenism and\nChristianity, it grafted the fruit of science on the tree of life,\nit acquired the knowledge of that inner, that living realization, of\ntruth, which a profound faith alone can give. It was an ephemeral\nrealization, though one of the greatest importance, instinct with the\nfruitfulness of example.\n\nTo form some idea of it, let us enter the Pythagorean institute along\nwith the novice and follow his initiation step by step.\n\n\n                                THE TEST\n\nThe white dwelling of the brother initiates was situated on a hill,\nsurrounded by olive and cypress trees. On mounting from below, the\nporticoes, gardens, and gymnasium could distinctly be seen. The Temple\nof the Muses, with its circular colonnade of airy elegance, towered\nabove the two wings of the building. The terrace of the outer gardens\noverlooked the town with its Prytaneum, its harbour and meeting-place.\nAway in the distance stretched the gulf, between sharp rugged parts of\nthe coast as though in a cup of agate, whilst the Ionian sea shut in\nthe horizon with its line of azure blue. At times one might see women\nclad in divers-coloured costumes issue on the left and make their way\nin long files down to the sea, along the alley of cypresses. They were\ngoing to worship at the Temple of Ceres. And on the right also, men\nmight often be seen mounting in white robes to the Temple of Apollo. It\nwas not the least attraction to the inquiring imagination of youth to\nthink that the school of the initiates was placed under the protection\nof these two divinities, one of whom, the Mighty Goddess, held the\nprofound mysteries of Woman and of Earth, whilst the other, the Solar\nGod, revealed those of Man and of Heaven.\n\nSo we find this little city of the elect smiling down upon the populous\ntown beneath. The noble instincts of youth were attracted by its\npeaceful serenity, though nothing was seen of what was taking place\nwithin, and it was generally known that admittance was not easily\nobtained. The gardens connected with the institute of Pythagoras were\nseparated from the outside by nothing but a simple green hedge, and\nthe entrance gate remained open all day long. A statue of Hermes,\nhowever, might be seen there, and on its pedestal were the words:\n_Eskato Bebeloi_; No entrance for the profane! This commandment of the\nmysteries was universally respected.\n\nPythagoras was very stern in admitting novices, saying, \u201cthat not every\nkind of wood was fit for making a Mercury.\u201d The young men who wished\nto enter the association were obliged to undergo a period of test and\ntrial. On being introduced by their parents or by one of the masters,\nthey were first of all permitted to enter the Pythagorean gymnasium in\nwhich the novices played the games appropriate to their age. The young\nman at once noticed that this gymnasium was unlike that in the town.\nThere were no violent cries or noisy groups, no ridiculous boasting\nor vain display of strength by athletes in embryo, challenging one\nanother and exhibiting their muscles; but rather groups of courteous\nand distinguished-looking young men, walking in couples beneath the\nporticoes or playing in the arena. They invited him with graceful\nsimplicity to join in their conversation as though he were one of them,\nwithout greeting him with a suspicious glance or jeering smile. In the\narena they were racing, throwing quoits and javelins, and engaging in\nmock fights under the form of Doric dances. Pythagoras had, however,\nstrictly abolished wrestling, saying that it was superfluous and even\ndangerous to develop pride and hatred by strength and agility; that\nmen intended to practise the virtues of friendship ought not to begin\nby flinging one another on the ground and rolling in the sand like wild\nbeasts; that a real hero could fight with great courage though without\nfury; that hatred makes us inferior to any opponent whoever he be. The\nnew-comer heard these maxims from the lips of the masters repeated by\nthe novices, who were quite proud to impart their precocious wisdom. At\nthe same time they encouraged him to state his own opinions and freely\ncontradict them. Emboldened by such advances, the ingenuous aspirant\nquickly showed forth his real nature. Pleased at being listened to\nand admired, he would speak and dilate at his ease. Meanwhile the\nmasters closely watched him without ever uttering the slightest word of\nreprimand. Pythagoras would come up unexpectedly and study his gestures\nand words. He paid special attention to the gait and the laugh of young\nmen. Laughter, he said, is an infallible index to character, no amount\nof dissimulation can render agreeable the laugh of an evil-disposed\nman. He had also made such a profound study of the human face that he\ncould read therein the very depths of the soul.[10]\n\nSuch minute observation enabled the master to form a precise idea\nregarding his future disciples. A few months afterwards came decisive\ntests in imitation of Egyptian initiation, though greatly modified and\nadapted to the Greek nature, whose sensitiveness had not submitted\nto the mortal terrors of the crypts of Memphis and Thebes. The\nPythagorean aspirant was made to spend the night in a cavern, in the\noutskirts of the town, alleged to be haunted by various apparitions and\nmonsters. Those who had not sufficient strength to endure the terrible\nimpressions of solitude and night, who refused to enter or made their\nescape before the morning, were deemed too weak for initiation and\nrejected.\n\nThe moral test was a more serious one. Suddenly, without the least\npreparation, the would-be disciple would one fine morning find himself\nimprisoned in an empty, dismal-looking cell. A slate was given him and\nhe was coldly ordered to discover the meaning of one of the Pythagorean\nsymbols, as, for instance: What is the signification of the triangle\ninscribed in a circle? or: Why is the dodecahedron, confined within the\nsphere, the symbol of the universe? He spent a dozen hours in his cell\nwith his slate and the problem, and no other companion than a vase of\nwater and a piece of dry bread. Then he was taken into a room to face\nthe assembled novices. Under these circumstances the order had been\npassed round that they should ridicule without pity the wretched youth,\nwho, hungry and sullen, stood before them like a culprit. \u201cSo this is\nthe new philosopher,\u201d they would say. \u201cHow inspired he looks! He will\nnow tell us of his meditations. Do not conceal from us what you have\ndiscovered. You will in the same way go through all the symbols in\nturn. A month of this _r\u00e9gime_ and you will have become a great sage!\u201d\n\nAt this point the master would attentively observe the young man\u2019s\nattitude and expression. Irritated by his fast, overwhelmed with\nthese sarcastic words, and humiliated at not being able to solve\nan incomprehensible problem, no small effort was needed to control\nhimself. Some would weep with rage, others gave sarcastic replies,\nwhilst others again, unable to control themselves, dashed their slate\nmadly to the ground and burst out in imprecations against school,\nmaster, and disciples alike. Then Pythagoras came forward and calmly\nsaid that, as they had failed in the test of self-respect, they were\nbegged not to return to a school of which they had so bad an opinion,\nin which friendship and respect for the masters should be the most\nelementary of virtues. The rejected candidate would shamefacedly\nretire and sometimes become a redoubtable enemy of the order, like\nthe well-known Cylon who, later on, excited the people against the\nPythagoreans and brought about their downfall. On the other hand, those\nwho bore everything with firmness, and gave just and witty replies\nto the provoking words they listened to, declaring they were ready\nto repeat the test a hundred times if only they could attain to the\nleast degree of wisdom, were solemnly welcomed into the novitiate and\nreceived the enthusiastic congratulations of their new companions.\n\n\n                        FIRST DEGREE--PREPARATION\n\n                _The novitiate and the Pythagorean life_\n\nThen only began the novitiate called the _preparation_ (paraskeia),\nwhich lasted at least two years, and might be prolonged to five. The\nnovices, or _listeners_ (akousikoi), during the lessons they received,\nwere subjected to the rule of absolute silence. They had no right\neither to offer any objection to their masters or to discuss the\nteaching they were absorbing. This latter they were to receive with\nrespect and to meditate upon at length. To impress this rule in the\nmind of the new listener, he was shown the statue of a woman, enveloped\nin a long veil, her finger raised to her mouth, _The Muse of Silence_.\n\nPythagoras did not regard youth as being capable of understanding the\norigin and the end of things. He thought that exercising them in logic\nand reasoning, before inculcating in them the meaning of truth, made\nthem ignorant and assuming sophists. His idea was to develop in his\npupils, before everything else, intuition, that primordial and superior\nfaculty of mankind. To do this, he did not teach anything mysterious or\ndifficult. Starting from natural sentiments, the first duties of man on\nentering life, he showed their relations with the laws of the universe.\nWhilst first of all inculcating in youth parental love, he magnified\nthis sentiment by assimilating the idea of father to that of God, the\nmighty creator of the universe. \u201cNothing is more venerable,\u201d he said,\n\u201cthan the quality of fatherhood. Homer named Jupiter king of the gods,\nbut in order to show forth all his greatness, he called him the Father\nof gods and men.\u201d He compared the mother to generous and beneficent\nNature; as heavenly Cybele produces the stars and Demeter gives birth\nto the fruits and flowers of the earth, so does the mother feed the\nchild with every joy. Accordingly the son ought to honour in his father\nand mother the representatives, the earthly images, of these mighty\ndivinities. He also showed that the love of fatherland comes from the\naffection one feels in childhood for one\u2019s mother. Parents are given\nto us, not by chance, as is commonly believed, but in accordance with\na previous, a superior order, called Fortune or Necessity. To honour\nthem is _an obligation_; but a friend _must be chosen_. The novices\nwere invited to form themselves into couples, according to their\nseveral affinities. The younger should seek in the elder the virtues\nhe is himself aiming after, and the two companions should encourage\neach other towards a better life. \u201cA friend is another self; he must\nbe honoured as a god,\u201d said the master. Though the Pythagorean rules\nimposed on the \u201clistener\u201d novice absolute submission to his masters,\nit gave him full liberty in enjoying the charms of friendship, it even\nmade of this latter the stimulus of every virtue, the poetry of life,\nthe path leading to the ideal.\n\nIndividual energy was thus roused, morality became poetical and\ninstinct with life, a rule lovingly accepted ceased to be a constraint,\nit became the very affirmation of an individuality. It was the wish of\nPythagoras that obedience should be an assent and an approval. Besides\nthis, the moral prepared the way for the philosophical teaching. The\nrelations set up between social duties and the harmonies of the kosmos\ngave one a glimpse into the law of universal agreement and analogy. In\nthis law dwells the principle of the Mysteries, of occult teaching and\nof the whole of philosophy. The mind of the pupil thus grew accustomed\nto find the impress of an invisible order on visible realities. General\nmaxims and concise prescriptions opened out perspectives of this\nsuperior world. Morning and evening the _Golden Verses_ rang in the\npupil\u2019s ear:\n\n   \u201cFirst worship the immortal Gods, as they are\n      established and ordained by the Law.\n    Reverence the Oath, and next the Heroes, full\n      of goodness and light.\u201d\n\nIn commenting on this maxim, it was shown that the gods, though\napparently different, were really the same among all people, since\nthey corresponded with the same intellectual and soul forces active\nthroughout the universe. The sage could consequently honour the gods of\nhis own country, whilst forming of their very essence a different idea\nfrom that generally held. Tolerance for every cult; unity of people\nin one humanity; unity of religions in esoteric science: these new\nideas became vaguely outlined in the mind of the novice like glorious\ndivinities one might catch a glimpse of in the splendour of the\nsetting sun. And the golden lyre continued its lofty teachings:\n\n    \u201cHonour likewise the terrestrial D\u00e6mons by rendering them\n     the worship lawfully due to them.\u201d\n\nBesides these lines the novice saw beaming as through a veil the divine\nPsyche, the human soul. The heavenly pathway shone like a stream of\nlight, for in the worship of heroes and demi-gods, the initiate saw the\ndoctrine of the future life and the mystery of universal evolution.\nThis secret was not revealed to the novice, but he was made ready for\nits understanding by being told of a hierarchy of beings superior to\nhumanity, its guides and protectors, called heroes and demi-gods. It\nwas also stated that they served as intermediaries between man and\ndivinity, that by their help he might step by step succeed in drawing\nnearer to them if he practised heroic and divine virtues. \u201cBut how\ncould communication be obtained with these invisible spirits? Whence\ncomes the soul? Whither does it proceed? Wherefore the sombre mystery\nof death?\u201d The novice dared not formulate these questions in words, but\nhis looks revealed them, and the only reply his masters gave him was to\npoint to the strugglers on earth, the statues in the temple, and the\nglorified souls in heaven, \u201cin the fiery citadel of the god\u201d to which\nHercules had attained.\n\nAt the foundation of the ancient mysteries, all the gods were\nincluded in the only supreme God. This revelation, including all its\nconsequences, became the key of the Kosmos. This was the reason it\nwas entirely reserved for initiation, properly so called. The novice\nknew nothing of this, he was only permitted to catch a faint glimpse\nof this truth from what he was told of the powers of Music and Number.\n\u201cNumbers,\u201d said the master, \u201ccontain the secret of things, and God is\nuniversal harmony.\u201d The seven sacred modes, built up on the seven notes\nof the heptachord, correspond to the seven colours of light, to the\nseven planets, and to the seven modes of existence reproduced in all\nthe spheres of material and spiritual life from the smallest to the\ngreatest. The melodies of these modes when skilfully fused should tune\nthe soul and make it sufficiently harmonious to vibrate in accord with\nthe accents of truth.\n\nWith this purification of the soul corresponded of necessity that of\nthe body, which was obtained by means of hygiene and strict moral\ndiscipline. The first duty of initiation was to overcome one\u2019s\npassions. He who has not harmonized his own being cannot reflect\ndivine harmony. And yet the ideal of the Pythagorean life contained\nnothing of asceticism in it, for marriage was looked upon as sacred.\nChastity, however, was recommended to the novices, and moderation to\nthe initiates, as being a source of strength and perfection: \u201cOnly\nyield to voluptuousness when you consent to be less than yourself,\u201d\nsaid the master. He added that voluptuousness exists only in itself,\ncomparing it \u201cto the song of the Sirens who disappear when one\napproaches them, to find in their place nothing but broken bones and\nbleeding flesh on a wave-beaten rock, whilst true joy is like the\nconcert of the Muses, leaving celestial harmony behind in the soul.\u201d\nPythagoras believed in the virtues of the woman initiate, he greatly\nmistrusted the untrained woman. On a disciple asking him when he might\nbe permitted to approach a woman he replied in ironical accents: \u201cWhen\nyou are tired of your peace of mind.\u201d\n\nThe Pythagorean day was spent in the following manner. As soon as\nthe sun\u2019s glorious orb rose above the blue waves of the Ionian sea,\ngilding the columns of the Temple of the Muses, above the abode of\nthe initiates, the young Pythagoreans chanted a hymn to Apollo, the\nwhile performing a sacred, dignified dance. After the obligatory\nablutions, they proceeded in silence to the temple. Each awakening is a\nresurrection possessed of its flower of innocence. The soul must retire\nwithin itself at the beginning of the day and remain unsullied for the\nmorning lesson. In the sacred wood, groups were formed round the master\nor his interpreters and the lesson was given beneath the fragrance\nof the mighty trees or the shade of the porticoes. At noon, prayer\nwas offered to the heroes and benevolent spirits. Esoteric tradition\naffirmed that good spirits preferred to approach the earth with the\nradiance of the sun, whilst evil spirits haunted the shades and filled\nthe air when night came on. The frugal midday meal generally consisted\nof bread, honey, and olives. The afternoon was devoted to gymnastic\nexercises, then to study and meditation, afterwards to some mental work\non the morning\u2019s lesson. After the sun had set, prayer was offered in\ncommon, a hymn sung to the gods of the Kosmos, to heavenly Jupiter,\nto Minerva, Providence, and to Diana, guardian of the dead. Meanwhile\nstorax, manna, or incense were burning on the altar in the open air,\nand the hymn, mingling with the perfume, rose gently in the twilight,\nwhilst the early stars pierced the pale azure sky. The day ended with\nthe evening meal, after which the youngest member read aloud, comments\nbeing made thereon by the eldest.\n\nThus the day passed like a limpid spring, clear as a cloudless morn.\nThe year was divided according to the great astronomical events. Thus\nthe return of hyperborean Apollo and the celebration of the Mysteries\nof Ceres saw novices and initiates of every degree, both men and women,\nassembled together. Young girls played on ivory lyres, married women,\nin purple and saffron-coloured cloaks, performed alternate choruses,\naccompanied by songs, along with the harmonious movements of strophe\nand antistrophe, imitated later on in tragedy. In the midst of these\ngreat _f\u00eates_, at which a divine presence was manifested in grace of\nform and movement and the penetrating melody of the choruses, the\nnovice was conscious of a kind of presentiment of occult forces, the\nall-powerful laws of the animated universe, the deep, transparent\nheavens. Marriages and funeral rites were of a more intimate, but none\nthe less solemn, character. There was one original ceremony, calculated\nto strike the imagination. When a novice, of his own accord, left\nthe institute to take up once more the ordinary every-day life, or\nwhen a disciple had betrayed a secret of the doctrine, an occurrence\nwhich happened only once, the initiates raised a tomb for him in the\nconsecrated precincts, as though he were dead. The master said: \u201cHe is\nmore dead than the dead, for he has returned to an evil life; his body\nappears among men, but his soul is dead; let us weep for it!\u201d This tomb\nerected to a living man, persecuted him like his own phantom, like an\nevil omen.\n\n\n                     SECOND DEGREE--PURIFICATION[11]\n\n                           _Numbers--Theogony_\n\nIt was a happy day, \u201ca day of gold,\u201d as the ancients said, when\nPythagoras received the novice into his dwelling and solemnly welcomed\nhim into the rank of his disciples. First of all he entered into direct\nand connected relations with the master; he came into the inner court\nof his dwelling reserved for his faithful followers. Hence the name\nof _esoteric_ (those from within) in opposition to that of _exoteric_\n(those from without). The real initiation now began.\n\nThis revelation consisted of a complete, rational exposition of occult\ndoctrine, from its principles as contained in the mysterious science of\nnumbers to the final consequences of universal evolution, the destiny\nand end of divine Psyche, the human soul. This science of numbers\nwas known under different names in the temples of Egypt and Asia. As\nit afforded a key to the whole doctrine, it was carefully concealed\nfrom the people. The figures and letters, the geometric forms and\nhuman representations, which served as signs in this algebra of the\noccult world, were understood by none but the initiate. He divulged\ntheir meaning to the adepts only after receiving from them the oath of\nsilence. Pythagoras formulated this science in a book he wrote with\nhis own hand, called _hieros logos_ (the sacred word). This book has\nnot come down to us, but we are acquainted with its principles from\nthe subsequent writings of the Pythagoreans, Philolaus, Archytas, and\nHierocles, the dialogues of Plato, and the treatises of Porphyry and\nIamblichus. The reason they have remained a dead letter for modern\nphilosophers is that their meaning and bearing can only be understood\nby comparison with all the esoteric doctrines of the East.\n\nPythagoras called his disciples mathematicians, because his higher\nteaching began by the doctrine of numbers. These sacred mathematics,\nhowever, or science of principles, were both more transcendent and more\nliving than profane mathematics, which alone are known to our savants\nand philosophers. In them Number was not regarded as an abstract\nquantity but as the intrinsic and active virtue of the supreme One,\nof God the source of universal harmony. The science of _numbers_ was\nthat of the living forces, _of the divine faculties_ in action in the\nuniverse and in man, in the macrocosm and in the microcosm.----In\nexamining them, distinguishing and explaining their working, Pythagoras\nwas evolving nothing less than a rational theogony or theology. In a\nreal theology we should look for the principles of every science; it\nwill be the science of God only if it shows the unity and concatenation\nof the sciences of nature. It deserves its name only on condition it\nconstitutes the organ and the synthesis of all the rest. Now this is\nexactly the part played in the Egyptian temples by the science of the\nholy Word, formulated and made exact by Pythagoras under the name of\nthe science of numbers. It claimed to supply the key of being, of\nscience, and of life. The adept, under the guidance of his master,\nhad to begin by contemplating its principles in the light of his own\nintelligence, before following its many applications in the concentric\nimmensity of the spheres of evolution.\n\nA modern poet has had a presentiment of this truth in causing Faust to\ndescend to _the Mothers_ to restore life to the phantom of Helen. Faust\nseizes the magic key, the earth melts away beneath him, he becomes\nunconscious and plunges into the void of space. Finally he reaches the\nMothers who keep watch over the first forms of the mighty All, and\ncause beings to issue from the mould of the archetypes. These Mothers\nare the Numbers of Pythagoras, the divine forces of the world. The poet\nhas communicated to us the thrill of his own thought before this plunge\ninto the abyss of the Unfathomable. For the ancient initiate, in whom\nthe direct view of intelligence was gradually aroused as though it\nwere a new sense, this inner revelation seemed rather an ascent into\nthe incandescent sun of Truth, whence he contemplated in the fulness\nof light the forms and beings thrown out in the whirl of lives by a\nvertiginous irradiation.\n\nHe did not reach in a single day that inner possession of truth\nin which man realizes universal life by the concentration of his\nfaculties. Years of training were needed, and that agreement, so\ndifficult to effect, of the intelligence and the will. Before using the\ncreative word--and how few succeed in this!--one must spell out the\nsacred logos, letter by letter, syllable by syllable.\n\nPythagoras was in the habit of giving this teaching in the Temple of\nthe Muses. This temple had been built by the magistrates of Croton\nat his express request and according to his plans, in an enclosed\ngarden near his abode. The disciples of the second degree came there\nalone with the master. Inside this circular temple were the marble\nstatues of the nine Muses. Standing in the centre the solemn and\nmysterious Hestia, covered with a veil, kept watch. Her left hand\nafforded protection to the fire on the hearth, whilst with her right\nshe pointed to heaven. Both Greeks and Romans looked upon Hestia, or\nVesta, as the guardian of the divine principle present in all things.\nThe soul of sacred fire, she has her altar in the temple of Delphi,\nat the Prytaneum of Athens, as well as on the humblest hearth. In the\nsanctuary of Pythagoras she symbolized divine and central Science, or\nTheogony. In a circle around her, the esoteric Muses bore, in addition\nto their traditional and mythological names, that of the occult\nsciences and sacred arts of which they had the guardianship. _Urania_\npresided over astrology and astronomy; _Polyhymnia_ over the science of\nsouls in the other life and the art of divination; _Melpomene_, with\nher tragic mask, over the science of life and death, of transformations\nand re-births. These three superior Muses constituted together the\ncosmogony, or heavenly physics. _Calliope_, _Clio_, and _Euterpe_\npresided over the science of man, or psychology, with its corresponding\narts, medicine, magic, and moral philosophy. The last group,\n_Terpsichore_, _Erato_, and _Thalia_, embraced terrestrial physics, the\nscience of elements, stones, plants, and animals.\n\nThus at a glance the organism of the sciences, following that of the\nuniverse, appeared to the disciple in the living circle of the Muses,\nillumined by the divine flame.\n\nAfter leading his disciples into this small sanctuary, Pythagoras\nopened the book of the Word, and began his esoteric teaching.\n\n\u201cThese Muses,\u201d he said, \u201care only the earthly images of the divine\npowers whose immaterial and sublime beauty you will contemplate each\none in himself. Just as they have their eyes fixed upon the fire\nof Hestia, from which they spring and which gives them movement,\nrhythm, and melody--so you must plunge into the central fire of the\nuniverse, into the divine spirit, to mingle with it in its visible\nmanifestations.\u201d Then with bold, powerful hand, Pythagoras carried away\nhis disciples from the world of forms and realities; he effaced time\nand space and took them with him down into _the great Monad_, into the\npresence of the increate Being.\n\nPythagoras called it the first One in which existed harmony, the\nmasculine Fire traversing everything, the Spirit which moves by\nitself, the Indivisible and mighty non-Manifested of which the\nephemeral worlds manifest the creative thought, the Only, the Eternal,\nthe Unchangeable, concealed beneath the many things which pass away\nand change. \u201cEssence in itself escapes man,\u201d said Philolaus, the\nPythagorean. \u201cHe knows only the things of this world in which the\nfinite combines with the infinite. And how can he know them? for\nbetween things and himself there is a harmony and relation, a common\nprinciple; and this principle is given them by the One who gives to\nthem along with their very essence, measure and intelligibility. It is\nthe common measure between subject and object, the reason of things by\nwhich the soul participates in the final reason of the One.\u201d[12] But\nhow can one approach It, the inconceivable Being? Has any one ever seen\nthe Master of time, the Soul of the suns, the Spring of intelligences?\nNo; and it is only by mingling with it that one penetrates its\nessence. It is like an invisible fire placed in the centre of the\nuniverse, its nimble flame circulating throughout the worlds and moving\nthe circumference. He added that it was the work of initiation to draw\nnear the great Being, by resembling it, by making oneself as perfect\nas possible, dominating things by intelligence, thus becoming active\nlike it, and not passive like them. \u201cIs not your being, your soul, a\nmicrocosm, a small universe? Still, it is full of storm and discord.\nWell, the thing to do is to realize therein unity in harmony. Then\nand then only will God descend into your consciousness, and you will\nshare in his power and make of your will the hearth-stone, the altar of\nHestia, the throne of Jupiter!\u201d\n\nGod, the indivisible substance, has accordingly for number the Unity\nwhich contains the Infinite, for name, that of Father, Creator, or\nEternal-Masculine, and for sign, the living Fire, symbol of the Spirit,\nessence of the Whole. This is the first of the principles.\n\nBut the divine faculties are like the mystic lotus which the Egyptian\ninitiate, lying in his tomb, sees emerging from the blackness of the\nnight. At first it is only a shining spot, then it opens like a flower,\nand the glowing centre expands like the thousand leaves of a rose of\nlight.\n\nPythagoras said that the great Monad acts as a creative _Dyad_.\nImmediately God manifests himself, he is double; indivisible essence\nand divisible substance; active, animating, masculine principle, and\npassive, feminine principle, or animated plastic matter. Accordingly\nthe Dyad represented the union of the Eternal-Masculine and the\nEternal-Feminine in God, the two essential and corresponding divine\nfaculties. Orpheus had poetically expressed this idea in the line:\n\n              Jupiter is the divine Bridegroom and Spouse.\n\nAll polytheisms have intuitively been conscious of this idea,\nrepresenting the Divinity under the masculine, sometimes under the\nfeminine form.\n\nThis living, eternal Nature, this mighty Spouse of God, is not only the\nterrestrial but also the celestial nature, invisible to our eyes of\nflesh, the Soul of the world, the primordial Light, in turn Maia, Isis\nor Cybele, who, first vibrating beneath the divine impulse, contains\nthe essences of all souls, the spiritual types of all beings. Then\nit is Demeter, the living earth, and all earths with the bodies they\nenfold in which these souls have come to be incarnated. Afterwards it\nis Woman, the companion of Man. In humanity Woman represents Nature,\nand the perfect image of God is not Man alone, but Man and Woman.\nHence their invincible and fascinating, their fatal attraction, the\nintoxication of Love, in which the dream of infinite creations has\nplay, and the dim presentiment that the Eternal-Masculine and the\nEternal-Feminine enjoy perfect union in the bosom of God. \u201cHonour be to\nWoman, on earth as in heaven,\u201d said Pythagoras and all the initiates\nof old. \u201cShe enables us to understand that mighty Woman, Nature. May\nshe be the sanctified image of Nature and help us to mount gradually to\nthat great Soul of the World which gives birth, preserves and renews,\nto divine Cybele who bears along the people of souls in her mantle of\nlight.\u201d\n\nThe Monad represents the essence of God, the Dyad, his generative\nand reproductive faculty. The latter brings the world into being,\nthe visible unfolding of God in time and space. Now the real world\nis triple. For just as man is composed of three elements, which are\ndistinct though blended in one another, body, soul, and spirit; so\nthe universe is divided into three concentric spheres: the natural,\nthe human, and the divine world. The _Triad_ or _ternary law_ is\naccordingly the constitutive life of things and the real key to\nlife. It is met with at every step on the ladder of life, from the\nconstitution of the organic cell through the physiological constitution\nof the animal body, the working of the blood and the cerebro-spinal\nsystems, right on to the super-physical constitution of man, to that of\nthe universe and of God. Thus, as by enchantment, it opens up to the\namazed spirit the inner structure of the universe, shows the infinite\ncorrespondences of the microcosm and the macrocosm. It acts like a\nlight, passing into things to make them transparent, lighting up small\nand great worlds like so many magic lanterns.\n\nLet us explain this law by the essential correspondence of man with the\nuniverse.\n\nPythagoras affirmed that the mind of man, or the intellect, takes\nfrom God its immortal and invisible, its absolutely active, nature.\nFor the mind is that which moves itself. He defined the body as being\nits mortal, divisible, and passive part, and thought that what we\ncall _soul_ is closely united to the mind, though formed of a third\nintermediate element, coming from the _cosmic fluid_. The soul,\ntherefore, resembles an ethereal body which the spirit weaves and\nbuilds for itself. Without this ethereal body, the material body could\nnot be purified, it would be only an inert and lifeless mass.[13] The\nsoul possesses a form like that of the body it vivifies, and which it\nsurvives after dissolution or death. Then, as Pythagoras expresses\nit, in terms repeated by Plato, the _subtile chariot_ either carries\noff the spirit to divine spheres or allows it to fall back into the\ndusky regions of matter, according as it is more or less good or bad.\nThe constitution and evolution of man is repeated in ever-increasing\ncircles over the whole scale of beings and in every sphere. Just as the\nhuman Psyche struggles between the spirit which attracts and the body\nwhich holds it back, so also humanity evolves between the natural and\nanimal world into which it plunges by reason of its earthly roots, and\nthe divine world of pure spirits, its heavenly source, towards which\nit aspires to rise. And what happens in humanity happens in all lands\nand solar systems in ever differing proportions, ever new modes. Extend\nthe circle to infinity, and, if you can, form one single concept of the\nlimitless worlds. What will you find there? The creative thought, the\nastral fluid, and worlds in evolution: the spirit, soul, and body of\ndivinity. Raising veil after veil and fathoming the faculties of this\ndivinity itself, you will there see Tryad and Dyad clothing themselves\nin the dull depths of the Monad, like an efflorescence of stars in the\nabyss of immensity.\n\nFrom this rapid outline some estimate may be formed of the great\nimportance Pythagoras attached to the ternary law, which may be said\nto form the corner-stone of esoteric science. All the mighty religious\ninitiators have been conscious of it, every theosophist has had a\npresentiment of the same. An oracle of Zoroaster says as follows:\n\n    The number three reigns everywhere in the universe,\n    The Monad is its principle.\n\nThe incomparable merit of Pythagoras consists in having formulated it\nwith all the clearness of Greek genius. He made of it the centre of\nhis theogony and the foundation of the sciences. Already veiled in\nthe exoteric writings of Plato, though altogether misunderstood by\nsubsequent philosophers, this conception, in modern times, has been\ncomprehended by only a few rare initiates of the occult sciences.[14]\nHenceforth may be seen what a broad and solid basis the law of the\nuniversal ternary offered to the classification of sciences, and to the\nbuilding up of cosmogony and psychology.\n\nJust as the universal ternary is concentrated in the unity of God or in\nthe Monad, so the human ternary is concentrated in the conscience of\nthe ego and in the will which gathers together in its living unity all\nthe faculties of body, soul, and spirit. The human and divine ternary,\nsummed up in the Monad, constitutes the _sacred Tetrad_. But it is only\nrelatively that man realizes his own unity. His will which acts over\nthe whole of his being cannot, however, act fully and simultaneously\nin its three organs, _i. e._ in instinct, soul, and intellect. The\nuniverse and God himself appear to him only in turns, successively\nreflected by these three mirrors:--1. Seen through instinct and the\nkaleidoscope of the senses, God is multiple and as infinite as his\nmanifestations. Hence polytheism where the number of the gods is\nunlimited.--2. Seen through the reasonable soul, God is double, _i. e._\nmatter and spirit. Hence the dualism of Zoroaster, the Manichaeans,\nand several other religions.--3. Seen through pure intellect, he is\nthreefold, _i.e._ spirit, soul and body in all the manifestations of\nthe universe. Hence the trinitarian cults of India (Brahma, Vishnu and\nSiva) and the trinity of Christianity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost).--4.\nConceived of by the will which sums up the whole, God is one, and we\nhave the Hermetic monotheism of Moses in all its rigour. Here there is\nno longer personification or incarnation, we leave the visible universe\nand return to the Absolute. The Eternal alone rules over the world, now\nreduced to dust. The diversity of religions, accordingly, comes from\nthe fact that man realizes divinity only through his own being which is\nrelative and finite, whilst God is continually realizing the unity of\nthe three worlds in the harmony of the universe.\n\nThis final application would alone demonstrate the--in some way--magic\nvirtue of the _Tetragram_ in the order of ideas. In it was found not\nonly the principles of the sciences, the law of beings and their mode\nof evolution, but also the very reason of the different religions and\ntheir superior unity. This was in reality the universal key. Hence the\nenthusiasm with which Lysis speaks of it in the _Golden Verses_; one\ncan now understand why the Pythagoreans swore by this great symbol:\n\n    \u201cI swear it by him who has transmitted into our souls the\n     Sacred Quaternion, the source of nature, whose cause is\n     eternal.\u201d\n\nPythagoras carried a great deal farther the teaching of numbers. In\neach of them he defined a principle, a law, an active force of the\nuniverse. He said, however, that the essential principles are contained\nin the first four numbers, since all the others are formed by adding\nor multiplying them. In the same way the infinite variety of beings\ncomposing the universe is produced by the combinations of the three\nprimordial forces: matter, soul, spirit, under the creating impulse of\nthe divine unity which mingles and differentiates, concentrates and\nseparates. Along with the chief masters of esoteric science Pythagoras\nattached great importance to the numbers seven and ten. _Seven_, the\ncompound of three and four, signifies the union of man and divinity.\nIt is the figure of the adepts, of the great initiates, and, since it\nexpresses the complete realization in all things through seven degrees,\nit represents the law of evolution. The _number ten_ formed by the\naddition of the first four numbers, and containing the former number,\nis the perfect number, _par excellence_, for it represents all the\nprinciples of divinity, evolved and re-united in a new unity.\n\nOn finishing the teaching of his theogony, Pythagoras showed his\ndisciples the nine Muses, personifying the sciences, grouped three\nby three, presiding over the triple ternary evolved in nine worlds,\nand forming, along with Hestia, the divine science, guardian of the\nprimordial Fire--_the sacred Decad_.\n\n\n                      THIRD DEGREE--PERFECTION[15]\n\n                _Cosmogony and psychology.--The evolution\n                              of the soul._\n\nThe disciple had received the principles of science from his master.\nThis first initiation had dispelled the dense scales of matter\nwhich covered the eyes of his spirit. Tearing away the shining veil\nof mythology, it had removed him from the visible world to cast\nhim blindly into boundless space and plunge him into the sun of\nIntelligence, whence Truth beams forth over the three worlds. The\nscience of numbers, however, was nothing but the beginning of the\ngreat initiation. Armed with these principles, he had now to descend\nthe heights of the Absolute and plunge into the depths of nature,\nthere to lay hold of the divine thought in the formation of things and\nthe evolution of the soul through the worlds. Esoteric cosmogony and\npsychology touched the greatest mysteries of life as well as dangerous\nand jealously-guarded secrets of the occult arts and sciences.\n\nFor this reason Pythagoras loved to give these lessons, when the\nprofane light of day had disappeared, at night by the sea-side, on\nthe terraces of the Temple of Ceres, before the gentle murmur of\nthe Ionian sea with its melodious cadence, and beneath the distant\nphosphorescence of the starry kosmos; or else in the crypts of the\nsanctuary where a gentle steady light was given by Egyptian lamps of\nnaphtha. Female initiates were present at these night meetings. At\ntimes, priests or priestesses from Delphi or Eleusis came to confirm\nthe master\u2019s teachings by relating their experiences or through the\nlucid words of clairvoyant sleep.\n\nThe material and the spiritual evolution of the world are two inverse\nmovements, though parallel and concordant along the whole scale of\nbeing. The one can be explained only by the other, and, considered\ntogether, they explain the world. Material evolution represents the\nmanifestation of God in matter by the soul of the world which works out\nmatter. Spiritual evolution represents the working out of consciousness\nin the individual monads and their attempts, through the cycle of\nlives, to rejoin the divine spirit from which they emanate. To see the\nuniverse from the physical or from the Spiritual point of view is not\nconsidering something different, it is looking at the world by the\ntwo opposite ends. From the terrestrial point of view, the rational\nexplanation of the world ought to begin by material evolution, for it\nis this side of it which appears to us, but by enabling us to see the\nwork of the universal spirit in matter and to follow up the development\nof the individual monads, it insensibly leads on to the spiritual point\nof view and causes us to pass from the without to the within of things,\nfrom the reverse of the world to its face side.\n\nThis, at any rate, was the procedure of Pythagoras, who regarded the\nuniverse as a living being, animated by a great soul and filled with\na mighty intelligence. The second part of his teaching began with the\ncosmogony.\n\nIf we relied on the divisions of the heavens we find in the exoteric\nfragments of the Pythagoreans, this astronomy would be similar to that\nof Ptolemy; the earth motionless and the sun with the planets and the\nwhole of the firmament turning round it. The very principle of this\nastronomy, however, warns us that it is purely symbolical. In the\ncentre of his universe Pythagoras places Fire (of which the sun is\nonly a reflection). Now in the whole of Eastern esoterism, Fire is the\nrepresentative sign of Spirit, of divine, universal Consciousness. What\nour philosophers generally take as the natural philosophy of Pythagoras\nand Plato is accordingly nothing else than an imaged description of\ntheir secret philosophy, clear and light-giving to initiates, but all\nthe more impenetrable by the mass of people as it was considered to\nbe simple natural philosophy. We must consequently seek therein a kind\nof cosmography of the life of souls and nothing else. The sublunary\nregion designates the sphere in which terrestrial attraction operates\nand is called the circle of generation. Initiates mean by this that for\nus the earth is the region of corporeal life. Here take place all the\noperations accompanying the incarnation and disincarnation of souls.\nThe sphere of the six planets and of the sun responds to ascending\ncategories of spirits. Olympus, conceived as a rolling sphere, is\ncalled the heaven of the stationary, because it is assimilated to the\nsphere of perfect souls. This infantile astronomy accordingly masks a\nconception of the spiritual universe.\n\nEverything, nevertheless, inclines us to believe that the initiates of\nold, and especially Pythagoras, had far more correct notions of the\nphysical universe. Aristotle positively affirms that the Pythagoreans\nbelieved in the movement of the earth around the sun. Copernicus\nasserts that the idea of the rotation of the earth on its axis came to\nhim whilst reading, in Cicero, that a certain Hycetas of Syracuse had\nspoken of the daily motion of the earth. Pythagoras taught the double\nmovement of the earth to his disciples of the third degree. Without\nhaving the exact measurements of modern science, he knew, as did the\npriests of Memphis, that the planets which come from the sun turn\naround it; that the stars are so many solar systems governed by the\nsame laws as ours, and that each has its place in the immense universe.\nHe also knew that each solar world forms a small universe which has its\ncorrespondence in the spiritual world and its own heaven. The planets\nserved to mark the scale thereof. Still, these notions which would\nhave overthrown popular mythology, and would have been set down by the\npeople as sacrilegious, were never entrusted to popular writing. They\nwere taught only under the seal of profound secrecy.[16]\n\nThe visible universe, said Pythagoras, the heavens with all their\nstars, are only a passing form of the soul of the world, of the great\nMaia who concentrates the scattered matter in the infinitudes of space\nand then dissolves it and scatters it in an imponderable cosmic fluid.\nEach solar vortex possesses a fragment of this universal soul, which\nevolves in its bosom for millions of centuries with a special force of\nimpulse and measure. As regards the powers and kingdoms, the species\nand the living souls which appear successively in the constellations of\nthis little world, they come from God, descending from the Father; that\nis to say, they emanate from an immutable and superior spiritual order,\nas well as from a former material evolution, I mean an extinct solar\nsystem. Of these invisible powers, some, which are altogether immortal,\ndirect the formation of this world, the others await its unfolding in\ncosmic sleep or in divine dream, to return into visible generations,\naccording to their rank and in obedience to eternal law. All the same,\nthe solar soul and its central fire, moved directly by the great Monad,\nworks the matter into a state of fusion. The planets are daughters\nof the sun. Each of them, elaborated by the forces of attraction and\nrotation inherent in matter, is endowed with a semi-conscious soul\nissuing from the solar soul; it has its distinct character, its special\n_r\u00f4le_ in evolution. As each planet is a different expression of the\nthought of God, as it exercises a special function in the planetary\nchain, the ancient sages have identified the names of the planets with\nthose of the great gods who represent the divine faculties in action in\nthe universe.\n\nThe _four elements_, of which the constellations and all beings are\nformed, designate four graduated states of matter. The first, being the\ndensest, is the one most refractory to spirit; the last, being the most\nrefined, shows great affinity for spirit. _Earth_ represents the solid\nstate; _water_, the liquid state; _air_, the gaseous state, and _fire_,\nthe imponderable state. The fifth, the _etheric_ element, represents\na state of matter so fine and vivid that it is no longer atomic, and\npossesses the property of universal penetration. It is the original,\ncosmic fluid, the astral light or soul of the world.\n\nAfterwards Pythagoras spoke to his disciples of the earth\u2019s\nrevolutions, according to the traditions of Egypt and Asia. He knew\nthat the earth, in a state of fusion, was first surrounded by a gaseous\natmosphere which, becoming liquefied by successive coolings, had formed\nthe seas. As was his wont, he summed up this idea metaphorically by\nsaying that the seas were produced _by the tears of Saturn_ (cosmic\ntime).\n\nAnd now the kingdoms appear, and invisible germs, floating in the\nethereal _aura_ of the earth, whirl about in its gaseous robe and\nare then attracted to the deep bosom of the ocean and over the first\ncontinents that pierce their way to the surface. The vegetable and\nanimal worlds, still in confusion, appear almost at the same time.\nEsoteric teachings admit of the transformation of animal species, not\nonly in accordance with the secondary law of selection, but also by\nthe primary law of the percussion of the earth by celestial powers,\nand of all living beings by intelligible principles and invisible\nforces. When a new species appears on the globe, the reason is that a\nrace of souls of a superior type is being incarnated at a given epoch\nin the descendants of the former species, to cause it to mount a step\nin the ladder of evolution by moulding it afresh and transforming it\ninto its image. Thus the esoteric doctrine explains the appearance of\nman on earth. From the point of view of terrestrial evolution, man\nis the latest branch, the crown of all the former species. But this\npoint of view is no more sufficient to explain his entrance on to\nthe stage of life, than it would be to explain the appearance of the\nfirst sea-weed or the first crustacean in the depths of the sea. All\nthese successive creations infer, as does each birth, the percussion\nof the earth by the invisible powers which create life. That of man\ninfers the previous reign of a celestial humanity presiding over the\nunfolding of terrestrial humanity, and sends it, like the waves of a\nformidable tide, fresh torrents of souls which become incarnate in its\nwomb and cause to shine forth the first beams of a divine light in that\nbold, impulsive, terrified being who, though only just freed from the\ndarkness of animality, is forced, in order to live, to struggle with\nall the powers of nature.\n\nPythagoras had obtained in Egyptian temples clear notions as to the\nmighty revolutions of the globe. The Indian and Egyptian teachings\nspoke of the existence of the ancient austral continent which had\nproduced the red race and a powerful civilization, called by the\nGreeks, the Atlantides. They attributed the alternate emergence\nand immersion of continents to the oscillation of the poles and\nacknowledged that humanity had thus passed through six deluges. Each\ninterdiluvian cycle brings about the predominance of a great human\nrace. In the midst of the partial eclipses of civilization and human\nfaculties, there is a general ascending movement.\n\nHere we have humanity constituted and the races launched in their\ncareer through the cataclysms of the globe. But on this globe which,\nat birth, we take as being the immutable base of the world and which\nitself is carried along floating in space, on these continents which\nemerge from the seas to disappear afresh, amid these passing peoples,\nthese crumbling civilizations, what is the mighty and poignant, the\neternal mystery? This is the great inner problem, that of each and all,\nthe problem of the soul which discovers in itself an abyss of darkness\nand light, regarding itself with a mixture of delight and terror and\nsaying to itself: \u201cI am not of this world, for it is not sufficient to\nexplain me. I do not come from earth and I am going elsewhere. Where?\u201d\nThat is the mystery of Psyche, the mystery containing all the rest.\n\nThe cosmogony of the visible world, said Pythagoras, has led us to\nthe history of the earth, and the latter to the mystery of the human\nsoul. With it we touch the sanctuary of sanctuaries, the holy of\nholies. Once its consciousness aroused, the soul becomes for itself\nthe most astonishing of sights. But even this consciousness is only\nthe enlightened surface of its being, in which it suspects there to\nbe dark and unfathomable abysses. In its unknown depths, the divine\nPsyche contemplates with fascinated look all lives and worlds, past\nand present, and the future joined to them by Eternity. \u201cKnow thyself,\nand thou shalt know the universe of the gods.\u201d Such was the secret of\nthe sages and initiates. To penetrate through this narrow door into\nthe immensity of the invisible universe, let us awake in ourselves\ndirect vision of the purified soul, and arm ourselves with the torch of\nintelligence, with the science of the sacred principles and numbers.\n\nPythagoras thus passed from physical cosmogony to spiritual cosmogony.\nAfter the evolution of the earth, he told of that of the soul through\nthe different worlds. Outside of initiation, this doctrine is known\nunder the name of _transmigration of souls_. Regarding no part of\nsecret doctrine has there been more false reasoning than here, to such\nan extent indeed that ancient and modern literature are acquainted with\nit only through puerile travesties. Plato himself, who more than any\nother philosopher contributed to the popularizing of the doctrine, has\nonly given fantastic and at times extravagant glimpses of it, either\nbecause prudence or his oath of secrecy prevented him from telling all\nhe knew. Few now doubt the fact that it must have had for initiates\na scientific aspect, opening up endless perspectives and affording\ndivine consolation to the soul. The doctrine of the ascensional life\nof the soul through series of existences is the common feature of\nesoteric traditions and the crown of theosophy. I will add that it is\nof the utmost importance to us. For the man of the present day rejects\nwith equal scorn the abstract and vague immortality of philosophy\nand the childish heaven of an infant religion. And yet he abhors the\ndryness and nothingness of materialism. Unconsciously he aspires to\nthe consciousness of an _organic immortality_ responding at once to\nthe demands of his reason and the indestructible needs of his soul.\nBesides, it can well be understood why the initiates of the ancient\nreligions, though they were acquainted with these truths, kept them\nso secret. They are of a nature to turn the minds of those untrained\nto receive them. They are closely allied to the profound mysteries of\nspiritual generation, of sex and generation by flesh, on which hang the\ndestinies of future humanity.\n\nIt was therefore with a kind of dread that the supreme hour for this\nesoteric teaching was awaited. Through the words of Pythagoras, as by\nsome slow incantation, heavy matter seemed to lose its weight, the\nthings of earth became transparent, those of heaven visible to the\nspirit. Golden and azure spheres, furrowed with luminous essence,\nunfolded their orbs right into the infinitudes of space.\n\nThe disciples, both men and women, grouped round the master in\na subterranean part of the Temple of Ceres called the crypt of\nProserpine, listened with throbbing emotions to _the celestial history\nof Psyche_.\n\nWhat is the human soul? A portion of the mighty soul of the world,\na spark of the divine spirit, an immortal monad. Still, though its\npossible future opens out into the unfathomable splendours of divine\nconsciousness, its mysterious dawn dates back to the origin of\norganized matter. To become what it is in present-day humanity, it\nmust have passed through all the reigns of nature, the whole scale of\nbeings gradually developing through a series of innumerable existences.\nThe spirit which fashions the worlds and condenses cosmic matter into\nenormous masses manifests itself with varying intensity and an ever\ngreater concentration in the successive reigns of nature. A blind and\nconfused force in the mineral, individualized in the plant, polarized\nin the sensations and instincts of animals, it stretches towards\nthe conscious monad in this slow elaboration; and the elementary\nmonad is visible in the most inferior of animals. The animal and\nspiritual element accordingly exists in every kingdom, though only in\ninfinitesimal quantities in the lower kingdoms. The souls which exist\nin the state of germs in the lower kingdoms stay there without moving\naway for immense periods of time, and it is only after great cosmic\nrevolutions that, in changing planets, they pass to a higher reign.\nAll they can do during a planet\u2019s period of life is to mount a few\ndegrees. Where does the monad begin? As well ask at what hour a nebula\nwas formed or a sun shone for the first time. Anyhow, what constitutes\nthe essence of any man must have evolved for millions of years through\na chain of lower planets and kingdoms, keeping through all these\nexistences an individual principle which follows it everywhere. This\nobscure but indestructible individuality constitutes the divine seal of\nthe monad in which God wills to manifest himself through consciousness.\n\nThe higher one ascends in the series of organisms, the more the\nmonad develops the principles latent in it. Polarized force becomes\ncapable of sensation, capacity of sensation becomes instinct, and\ninstinct becomes intelligence. In proportion as the flickering flame\nof consciousness is lit, this soul becomes more independent of the\nbody, more capable of existing freely. The fluid, nonpolarized soul\nof minerals and vegetables is bound to the elements of earth. That\nof animals, strongly attracted by terrestrial fire, stays there for\nsome time after leaving its body, and then returns to the surface\nof the globe to re-incarnate in its species without ever having the\npossibility of leaving the lower layers of the air. These are peopled\nwith elementals or animal souls which play their part in atmospheric\nlife and have a great occult influence over man. The human soul alone\ncomes from the sky, and returns there after death. At what period of\nits long cosmic existence has the elementary become the human soul?\nThrough what incandescent crucible, what ethereal flame has it passed?\nThe transformation has been possible in an interplanetary period only\nby the meeting of human souls already fully formed which have developed\nin the elementary soul its spiritual principle and have impressed their\ndivine prototype like a seal of fire in its plastic substance.\n\nBut what journeys and incarnations, what planetary cycles must still\nbe traversed for the human soul thus formed to become the man we are\nacquainted with! According to the esoteric traditions of India and\nEgypt, the individuals of whom mankind at present consists, began their\nhuman existence on other planets, in which matter is far less dense\nthan our own. Man\u2019s body was then almost vaporous, his incarnations\nlight and easy. His faculties of direct spiritual perception were\nevidently very powerful and subtile in this first human phase; reason\nand intelligence on the other hand were in an embryonic condition. In\nthis half-corporeal, half-spiritual state, man saw spirits, everything\nwas full of splendour and charm to his eyes, full of music to his\nears. He could hear the harmony of the spheres. He neither thought nor\nreflected, scarcely even willed, but simply lived, drinking in sounds,\nforms and light, floating like a dream from life to death and from\ndeath to life. It was this that the Orphic poems called _the heaven\nof Saturn_. It is only by becoming incarnate on planets ever denser\nand denser that man became materialized, according to the doctrine\nof Hermes. By becoming incarnate in denser matter, humanity has lost\nits spiritual sense, but by an ever-increasing struggle with the\noutside world, it has powerfully developed its reason, intelligence\nand will. The earth is the last rung of this descent into matter which\nMoses calls the exit from paradise, and Orpheus, the fall into the\nsublunary circle. From these depths man can, with difficulty, reascend\nthe circles in a series of new existences and regain his spiritual\nfaculties by the free exercise of his intellect and will-power. Then\nonly, say the disciples of Hermes and Orpheus, does man acquire by his\n_action_ the consciousness and the possession of the divine; then only\ndoes he become the _son of God_. Those who have borne this name on\nearth must, before appearing among us, have descended and remounted the\ndreadful spiral.\n\nThen what is the humble Psyche at its origin? A passing breath, a\nfloating germ, a wind-swept bird, migrating from life to life. And yet,\nafter innumerable lapses, and millions of years, it has become the\ndaughter of God and no longer recognizes any other home than heaven!\nThis is why Greek poetry, so profound and luminous in its symbolism,\ncompared the soul sometimes to the winged insect, sometimes to the\nearth-worm, and again to the heavenly butterfly. How often has it been\na chrysalis, and how often a winged creature of light? Though it will\nnever know this, it still feels that it has wings!\n\nSuch is the vertiginous past of the human soul. It affords us an\nexplanation of its present condition and enables us to glimpse into its\nfuture.\n\nWhat is the position of divine Psyche in earth life? The slightest\nreflection suffices to show us that we could not imagine a stranger or\nmore tragic one, since being painfully roused to consciousness in the\ndense atmosphere of earth, the soul has entwined itself in the folds\nof the body. Only through it does the soul live, breathe, and think,\nand yet it is not the body. In proportion as it develops, it feels\nincreasing within itself a quivering light, something invisible and\nimmaterial which it calls its spirit, its conscience. Yes, man has an\ninnate sentiment of his triple nature, for, even in his instinctive\nlanguage, he distinguishes his body from his soul, and his soul from\nhis spirit. The soul, however, captive and troubled, struggles between\nits two companions as between the thousand twining folds of a serpent\nand an invisible genius calling it, whose presence, however, can only\nbe felt by passing gleams and the beating of his wings. At times this\nbody absorbs it to such an extent that it is only through its passions\nand sensations that the soul lives; with the body it rolls in the\nblood-stained orgies of anger or the dense mist of carnal pleasures,\nuntil, of its own accord, it becomes terrified by reason of the\nprofound silence of its invisible companion. Then again, attracted by\nthe latter, it rises to such lofty heights of thought, that it forgets\nthe existence of the body until a peremptory call reminds it of its\npresence. And yet an inner voice tells it that between itself and the\ninvisible guest the bond cannot be broken, whilst death will break its\nconnection with the body.\n\nTossed to and fro between the two in an eternal struggle, the soul\nseeks in vain for happiness and truth. In vain does it seek to find\nitself in passing sensations, in fugitive thoughts, in the world which\nchanges like a mirage. Finding that nothing is lasting, troubled and\ndriven about like a leaf in the wind, it has doubts of itself and of\na divine world which is only revealed to it by its own pain and the\nimpossibility it feels of reaching this world. Human ignorance is\nwritten in the contradictions of pretended sages, and human sadness\nin the unfathomable hunger of the human glance. Finally, whatever the\nrange of his knowledge, birth and death shut in man between two fatal\nbounds. These are two gates of darkness, beyond which he sees nothing.\nThe flame of his life is lit as he enters the one and extinguished as\nhe leaves the other. Can it be so with the soul? If not, then what\nbecomes of it?\n\nMany have been the replies which philosophers have given to this\npoignant problem. In its essence that given by theosophical initiates\nof all times is the same. It is in accord with universal feeling and\nthe inner spirit of religions. The latter has expressed the truth only\nunder superstitious or symbolical forms. The esoteric doctrine opens\nup far wider perspectives; its affirmations are strictly related to\nthe laws of universal evolution. This is what initiates, instructed\nby tradition and by the many experiences of psychic life, have said\nto man: That which is restless in thyself, which thou callest thy\nsoul, is an ethereal double of the body which contains in itself an\nimmortal spirit. The spirit builds and forms for itself, by its own\nactivity, its spiritual body. Pythagoras calls it _the subtile chariot\nof the soul_, because it is destined to remove it from earth after\ndeath. _This spiritual body is the organ of the spirit_, its sensitive\nenvelope and instrument of volition; it serves to animate the body,\nwhich would otherwise remain inert. In apparitions of the dying or the\ndead, _this double_ becomes visible, under circumstances, however,\nwhich always presuppose a special nervous condition of the seer. The\ndegree of fineness, power and perfection of the spiritual body varies\naccording to the quality of the spirit which it contains, and between\nthe substance of souls woven in the astral light, though impregnated\nwith the imponderable fluids of earth and heaven, there are more\nnumerous distinctions, greater differences than between all earthly\nbodies and all states of ponderable matter. This astral body, though\nfar finer and more perfect than the earthly one, is not immortal as is\nthe monad which it contains. It changes and becomes purified according\nto its different environments. The spirit is perpetually moulding and\ntransforming it into its own image; it never leaves it however, though\nit unrobes itself of it by degrees; it is continually clothing itself\nwith more ethereal substances. This was the teaching of Pythagoras, who\ncould not conceive of abstract spiritual entity, the formless monad.\nSpirit in itself, whether in the far-away sky or on earth, must have\nan organ; that organ is the living soul, whether bestial or sublime,\nobscure or radiant, retaining, however, the human form, the image of\nGod.\n\nWhat happens at death? When the final hour approaches, the soul\ngenerally has a presentiment of its coming separation from the body.\nIt sees over again its earthly existence in abridged scenes rapidly\nsucceeding one another and of startling clearness. When the exhausted\nlife stops in the brain, the soul becomes perplexed and altogether\nloses consciousness. If it is holy and pure, its spiritual senses\nhave already been aroused by gradual detachment from matter. Before\ndying, in some way or other, if only by the introspection of its own\nstate, it has already felt the presence of another world. Beneath the\nsilent, distant appeals, the vague beams of the Invisible, earth has\nalready lost its consistence, and when the soul finally leaves the\ncold corpse, rejoicing in its deliverance, it feels itself carried\naway into a glorious light, towards the spiritual family to which it\nbelongs. It is not so, however, with the ordinary man, whose life has\nbeen divided between material instincts and higher aspirations. He\nawakes in a state of semi-consciousness, as though in the torpor of a\nnightmare. No longer has he an arm to stretch forth or a voice to cry\nout with; still, he remembers and suffers, existing, as he does, in a\nlimbus of darkness and terror. All that he sees is the body from which\nhe is detached, but for which he still feels an invincible attraction.\nIt is for it that he lived; and now, what is it? In terror he looks\nfor himself in the icy fibres of his brain, in the stagnant blood of\nhis veins, and no longer finds himself. Is he dead or living? He would\nlike to see, to hold on to something, but he cannot see, he can take\nhold of nothing. Darkness is all around, chaos within. He sees only one\nthing, and this thing attracts and terrifies him at the same time--the\nsinister phosphorescence of his own earthly tenement; and the nightmare\nrecommences.\n\nThis state may be prolonged for months or years. Its duration depends\non the strength of the material instincts of the soul. Still, good or\nevil, infernal or celestial, this soul will gradually become conscious\nof itself and of its new condition. Once free from its body, it will\nescape into the abysses of the terrestrial atmosphere, whose electric\nstreams carry it here and there, and whose many-shaped inhabitants,\nwandering about, more or less like itself, it is beginning to perceive,\nlike fugitive flashes in a thick mist. Then there begins a desperate,\nvertiginous struggle on the part of the soul, which is still dull and\nheavy, to rise into the upper strata of the air, to free itself from\nearthly attraction and reach, in the heaven of our planetary system,\nthe region proper to it and which friendly guides alone can show it.\nBut before this can take place, a long period must often intervene.\nThis phase of the life of the soul has borne different names in\nreligions and mythologies. Moses called it Horeb; Orpheus, Erebus;\nChristianity, Purgatory, or _the Valley of the Shadow of Death_. The\nGreek initiates identified it with the cone of shadow which the earth\nis always trailing behind it, which shadow reaches as far as the moon;\nfor this reason they called it the _abyss of Hecate_. In these mirky\ndepths, say the disciples of Orpheus and of Pythagoras, are tossed to\nand fro the souls which make desperate efforts to reach the circle of\nthe moon, though the violence of the winds beats them back to earth\nby thousands. Homer and Virgil compare them with whirling leaves, or\nswarms of birds maddened by the tempest.\n\nThe moon played an important part in ancient esoterism. On its surface,\nfacing the heavens, the souls were regarded as purifying their astral\nbody before continuing their celestial ascent. It was also supposed\nthat heroes and great spirits took up their abode for a time on the\nportion of its surface turned towards the earth, in order to clothe\nthemselves in bodies appropriate to our world before reincarnation.\nThere was attributed to the moon, in a certain measure, the power to\nmagnetize the soul for earthly incarnation, and to demagnetize it\nfor its heavenly abode. In a general way, these assertions, to which\ninitiates attached a meaning that was at once real and symbolical,\nsignified that the soul must pass through an intermediary stage of\npurification and free itself from the impurities of earth before\ncontinuing its journey.\n\nIn what terms can one describe the arrival of the pure soul into its\nown world? The earth has disappeared like a dream. A fresh sleep, a\ndelightful swoon now envelops it as in a caressing embrace. All that it\nnow sees is its winged guide carrying it away with lightning rapidity\ninto the depths of space. What can we say of its awakening in the\nvales of some ethereal star, devoid of elemental atmosphere, where\neverything--mountains, flowers and vegetation--is of an exquisite,\nsensitive and eloquent nature? Above all else, what can one say of\nthose luminous forms, men and women, surrounding it like a sacred\nprocession, to initiate it into the sacred mystery of its new life?\nAre they gods or goddesses? No; they are souls like itself; the wonder\nconsists in the fact that their inmost thoughts beam forth in their\ncountenance, that tenderness and love, desire or fear radiate through\nthose diaphanous bodies in a scale of luminous colorations. Here, body\nand countenance are no longer the mask of the soul; the transparent\nsoul appears in its real form, shining forth in the clear light of\nunpolluted truth. Psyche has returned to her divine home. The secret\nlight in which she laves herself, which emanates from her and returns\nin the smile of beloved ones; this light of great felicity is the soul\nof the world wherein she is conscious of the presence of God! No more\nobstacles now! She will love and know; she will live with no other\nlimit than her own desire to soar. Strange and marvellous happiness!\nShe feels that strong, profound affinities unite her to all her\ncompanions. For in the life beyond, those who do not love flee from one\nanother; those alone meet together who understand one another. With\nthem she will celebrate the divine mysteries in more beautiful temples,\nin a more perfect communion. These will be living poems, ever new,\neach soul of which will be a strophe, and each one will live again\nits life in that of others. Then, quivering with delight, she will\nspring forth into the radiance on high, to the call of the Messengers,\nthe winged Spirits, those who are called Gods, for they have escaped\nthe circle of generations. Led on by these sublime intelligences, she\nwill try to decipher the great poem of the Secret Word, to understand\nwhat she can grasp of the symphony of the universe. She will receive\nhierarchical information from the circles of Divine Love; she will\nendeavour to see the Essences which the animating Spirits scatter\nthroughout the worlds; she will contemplate the glorified Spirits,\nliving rays of the God of Gods, but without being able to bear their\nblinding glory which makes suns look pale as smoky lamps! Then, when\nshe returns terrified from these dazzling flights--for she shudders\nin presence of such immensities--she will hear from afar the call of\nbeloved voices, and will fall back on the golden strands of her star,\nbeneath the rose-coloured veil of a billowy sleep, peopled with forms\nclothed in white, and filled with sweet perfumes and melodious strains.\n\nSuch is the heavenly life of the soul, scarcely conceived of by our\nearth-clouded minds, but divined by initiates, lived by seers and\ndemonstrated by the law of analogy and universal concordance. In vain\ndo our rude imagery and imperfect language attempt to translate it;\neach living soul, however, feels the germ of this life in its hidden\ndepths. Though in our present condition it is impossible for us to\nrealize it, the philosophy of occultism has formulated its psychical\nconditions. The idea of ethereal constellations, invisible to us,\nthough forming part of our solar system and serving as an abode for\nhappy souls, is often found in the secrets of esoteric tradition.\nPythagoras calls it a counterpart of the earth: the _antichthone_,\nlit up by the central Fire, _i.e._, by the divine light. At the end\nof the _Phaedo_, Plato describes this spiritual land at some length,\nthough in disguised fashion. He says that it is as light as air, and is\nsurrounded by an ethereal atmosphere. In the other life, we see that\nthe soul preserves the whole of its individuality. Of its terrestrial\nexistence it retains none but noble memories, leaving the others to\nfall into that forgetfulness which the poets called the waves of Lethe.\nFreed from all defilement, the human soul feels its consciousness\nrestored, so to speak. From without the universe, it has come back to\nwithin it; Cybele-Ma\u00efa, the soul of the world, has, with deep yearning,\ndrawn it back to her bosom. Here, Psyche will work out her dream,\nthat dream continually broken and ever being recommenced on earth. She\nwill work it out in accordance with her earthly effort and acquired\nintelligence, but she will magnify it an hundredfold. Crushed hopes\nwill again revive beneath the dawn of her divine life; the gloomy\nsunsets of earth will kindle into the dazzling light of day. Though man\nhad lived only one hour of enthusiasm or self-denial, that single pure\nnote, torn away from the discordant scale of his earthly life, will\nbe repeated in his after-life in marvellous progressions and \u00e6olian\nharmonies. The fugitive delights that we obtain from the enchantment\nof music, the ecstasy of love or the raptures of charity are only\nthe stray notes of a harmony to which we shall then be listening. Is\nthis simply saying that such life will be only one long dream, one\nmagnificent hallucination? What is there truer than that which the soul\nfeels within itself and which it realizes by its divine communion with\nother souls? Initiates, being consistent and transcendent idealists,\nhave always thought that the only real and lasting things on earth are\nmanifestations of spiritual Beauty, Love and Truth. As the after-life\ncan have no other object than this Truth, this Beauty and this Love for\nthose who make them the object of their lives, they are convinced that\nheaven will be truer than earth.\n\nThe heavenly life of the soul may last hundreds or thousands of years,\naccording to its degree or strength of impulse. It belongs, however,\nonly to the perfect, to the most sublime souls, to those which have\npassed beyond the circle of generations, to prolong it indefinitely.\nThe latter have not only attained to temporary rest, but to immortal\naction in truth; they have created wings for themselves. Being light\nitself, they are inviolable; seeing across the worlds, they rule them.\nThe rest are carried along by an inflexible law to re-incarnation, in\norder to undergo a fresh trial, and to rise to a higher rung or to fall\nlower if they fail.\n\nThe spiritual, like the terrestrial life, has its beginning, its apogee\nand its decline. When this life is exhausted, the soul feels itself\novercome with heaviness, giddiness and melancholy. An invincible force\nonce again attracts it to the struggles and sufferings of earth. This\ndesire is mingled with terrible dread and a mighty grief at leaving\ndivine life. But the time has come; the law must be obeyed. The\nheaviness increases, a sensation of dimness is felt. The soul no longer\nsees its companions of light except through a veil, and this veil, ever\ndenser and denser, gives a presentiment of the coming separation. It\nhears their sad farewells; the tears of the blest, the loved ones whom\nit is leaving, fall over it like heavenly dew which will leave in its\nheart the burning thirst of an unknown happiness. Then--with solemn\noaths--_it promises_ to remember--to remember the light when in the\nworld of darkness, to remember truth when in the world of falsehood,\nand love when in the world of hatred. The return, the immortal crown,\ncan only be acquired at this cost. It awakens in a dense atmosphere;\nethereal constellation, diaphanous souls, oceans of light--all have\ndisappeared. And now it is back on earth, in the abyss of birth and\ndeath. Nevertheless, it has not yet lost its celestial memory; the\nwinged guide still visible to its eyes points out the woman who is to\nbe its mother. The latter bears within her womb the germ of a child,\nbut this germ will only live if the spirit comes in to animate it.\nThen for nine months is accomplished the most impenetrable mystery of\nearthly life, that of incarnation and maternity.\n\nThe mysterious fusion operates slowly but with perfect wisdom--organ\nby organ, fibre by fibre. Accordingly as the soul plunges into that\nwarm cavern, which roars and swarms with life, in proportion as it\nfeels itself caught up in the meanderings of the viscera with their\nthousand recesses and folds, the consciousness of its divine life\nbecomes effaced and dies out. For between it and the light above are\ninterposed waves of blood and tissues of flesh, crushing it and filling\nit with darkness. This distant light is already nothing more than a\ndying flicker. Finally, a terrible pang compresses it in a vice; a\nbloody convulsion tears it from the mother soul and fastens it down\ninto a throbbing, palpitating body. The child is born, a pitiful image\nof earth, and he cries aloud with fright. The memory of the celestial\nregions however has returned to the occult depths of the Unconscious;\nit will only be revived either by Knowledge or by Pain, by Love or by\nDeath!\n\nAccordingly, the law of incarnation and disincarnation unfolds to us\nthe real meaning of life and death. It constitutes the principal phase\nin the evolution of the soul, enabling us to follow it backwards and\nforwards right into the depths of nature and divinity. For this law\nreveals to us the rhythm and measure, the reason and object of the\nsoul\u2019s immortality. From being abstract or fantastic, it makes it\nliving and logical by showing the correspondences of life and death.\nTerrestrial birth is death from the spiritual point of view, and\ndeath is a celestial resurrection. The alternation of both lives is\nnecessary for the development of the soul, and each of them is at once\nthe consequence and the explanation of the other. Whosoever is imbued\nwith these truths is at the very heart of the mysteries, at the centre\nof initiation.\n\nBut, we shall be asked, what is there to prove for us the continuity\nof the soul, of the monad, the spiritual entity through all these\nexistences, since it loses the memory of them in succession? What is\nthere to prove, we shall reply, the identity of your person during\nwaking existence and during sleep? You wake up every morning from\na state as strange, as inexplicable as death; you rise from this\ncondition of nothingness to return to it again at night. Was it\nnothingness? No, for you have been dreaming, and your dreams have\nbeen as real to you as the reality of the waking state. A change in\nthe physiological conditions of the brain has modified the relations\nof soul and body and displaced your psychical point of view. You were\nthe same individual but you found yourself in another environment, and\nliving another existence. In magnetized subjects, somnambulists and\nclairvoyants, sleep develops new faculties which to us seem miraculous,\nthough they are the natural faculties of the soul when detached from\nthe body. Once aroused, these clairvoyants no longer remember what\nthey have seen, said or done during their lucid sleep, but they\nremember perfectly well in one sleep what happened in the previous\none, and at times predict with mathematical certainty what will happen\nin the next. They have, then, two consciousnesses as it were, two\nalternate lives entirely distinct from one another, but each of which\nhas its own rational continuity. They roll themselves round the same\nindividuality like cords of different colours round an invisible thread.\n\nConsequently, it is in a very deep sense that the initiate poets of old\ncalled sleep _the brother of death_. A veil of forgetfulness separates\nthe sleeping from the waking state, like birth and death, and, just\nas our earthly life is divided into two parts always alternating, so\nalso the soul, in the immensity of its cosmic evolution, alternates\nbetween incarnation and spiritual life, between earth and heaven.\nThis alternate passage from one plane of the universe to another,\nthis reversing of the poles of its being, is no less necessary for\nthe development of the soul than alternate waking and sleeping is\nnecessary for the bodily life of man. When passing from one existence\nto the other, we need the waters of Lethe. In this present existence,\na salutary veil conceals from us past and future alike. But oblivion\nis not complete, since light passes through the veil. Innate ideas\nalone prove a former existence. There is more, however; we are born\nwith a world of vague remembrances, mysterious impulses, divine\npresentiments. In children born of gentle quiet parents we find\noutbursts of wild passions which atavism does not sufficiently explain,\nand which come from a former existence. Sometimes in the humblest life\nwe find fidelity to a sentiment or an idea, altogether sublime and\ninexplicable. Is not this a result of the promises and oaths of the\ncelestial life? The occult memory the soul has kept of them is stronger\nthan all earthly reasoning. According as it attaches itself to this\nmemory or abandons it, is it seen to overcome or to succumb. True faith\nconsists in this mute fidelity of the soul to itself. For this reason,\none may conceive that Pythagoras like all theosophists considered\nbodily life as a necessary elaboration of the will, and heavenly life\nas a spiritual growth, an accomplishment.\n\nLives follow without resembling one another, but a pitiless logic\nlinks them together. Though each of them has its own law and special\ndestiny, the succession is controlled by a general law, which might\nbe called _the repercussion of lives_.[17] In accordance with this\nlaw, the actions of one life have, fatally, their repercussion in\nthe following one. Not only will man be born again with the instincts\nand faculties he has developed in his preceding incarnation, but the\nvery manner of his existence will be largely determined by the good\nor bad use he has made of his liberty in the preceding life. There is\nno word or action which has not its echo in eternity, says a proverb.\nAccording to esoteric doctrine, this proverb is literally applied\nfrom one life to another. Pythagoras considered that the apparent\ninjustice of destiny, the difformity and wretchedness of one\u2019s lot,\nmisfortunes of every kind, find their explanation in the fact that each\nexistence is the reward or the punishment of the former one. A criminal\nlife engenders one of expiation, an imperfect life, one of trial. A\ngood life determines a mission, a superior life, a perfected mission\nby the re-establishment of initiation and the spiritual selection\nof marriages. In this way races follow one another and humanity\nprogresses. The initiates of old saw much further into the future than\nthose of our days. They acknowledged that a time would come when the\ngreat mass of people constituting present-day humanity would pass on\nto another planet, there to begin a new cycle. In the series of cycles\nof which the planetary chain consists, the whole of humanity will\ndevelop the intellectual, spiritual and transcendent principles which\ngreat initiates have developed in themselves in this life, and will\nthus bring them to general fruition. It goes without saying that such a\ndevelopment embraces not merely thousands, but millions of years, and\nthat it will bring about changes in human conditions such as we cannot\nat present form any imagination of. In expressing them, Plato says that\nin those times the gods will really inhabit the temples of men. It is\nlogical to admit that in the planetary chain, _i.e._ in the successive\nevolutions of our humanity on other planets, its incarnations should\nbecome more and more ethereal in their nature, insensibly approaching\nthe purely spiritual state of that eighth sphere which is outside the\ncircle of generation, and by which the divine state was denoted by\ntheosophists of old. It is also natural that, as all do not start from\nthe same point, and many loiter on the way or fall back, the number of\nthe elect should continually diminish in this marvellous ascent. Our\nearth-limited intelligences are dazed by this conception, but heavenly\nintelligences contemplate it without the least fear, just as we regard\na single life. Is not the evolution of souls, thus understood, in\nconformity with the unity of the Spirit, the principle of principles;\nwith the homogeneity of Nature, the law of laws; and with the\ncontinuity of movement, the force of forces? Seen through the prism of\nspiritual life, a solar system does not constitute a material mechanism\nonly, but a living organism, a celestial kingdom in which souls travel\nfrom world to world like the very breath of God animating it.\n\nWhat then is the final end of man and humanity, according to esoteric\ndoctrine? After so many lives, deaths, re-births, periods of calm and\npoignant awakings, is there any limit to the labours of Psyche? Yes,\nsay the initiates, when the soul has definitely conquered matter,\nwhen, developing all its spiritual faculties, it has found in itself\nthe principle and end of all things, then, incarnation being no longer\nnecessary, it will enter the divine state by a complete union with the\ndivine intelligence. Since we have scarcely any presentiment of the\nspiritual life of the soul after each earthly life, how shall we form\nany idea of this perfect life which must follow the whole series of\nits spiritual existences? This heaven of heavens will be to all former\nhappiness as the ocean is to a river. In the mind of Pythagoras, the\napotheosis of man was not a plunge into unconsciousness, but rather\ncreative activity in supreme consciousness. The soul which has become\npure spirit does not lose its individuality, but rather perfects\nit as it rejoins its archetype in God. It remembers all its former\nexistences, which it regards as so many ladders to reach the point at\nwhich it embraces and penetrates the universe. In this state, man is no\nlonger man, as Pythagoras said, but demi-god. For in his entire being\nhe reflects the ineffable light with which God fills immensity. For\nhim, knowledge is power; love is creation; being is radiating truth and\nbeauty.\n\nIs this a definite limit? Spiritual eternity has other measures than\nsolar time, though it, too, has its stages, norms, and cycles. They\nentirely transcend human conception, however. Still, the law of\nprogressive analogy in the ascending scale of nature allows of our\naffirming that the spirit, once it has reached this sublime state,\ncan no longer return, that though the visible worlds change and pass\naway, the invisible world, which is its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_, its source and\nbasis, and of which the divine Psyche forms a part, is immortal.\n\nIt was in such a brilliant perspective that Pythagoras ended the\nhistory of the _divine Psyche_. The last word had died away on the\nlips of the sage, but the meaning of that incommunicable truth\nremained suspended in the motionless air of the crypt. Each listener\nbelieved that he had finished the dream of lives, and was awaking\nto life in the mighty peace and boundless ocean of the one life. The\nnaphtha lamps quietly lit up the statue of Persephone, standing there\nin the character of a heavenly reaper; they revived her symbolical\nhistory in the sacred frescoes of the sanctuary. At times, a priestess\nwho had entered a state of ecstasy under the harmonious voice of\nPythagoras seemed to incarnate in her attitude and the radiance of her\ncountenance the unspeakable beauty of the vision she saw. Then, the\ndisciples--seized with a thrill of religious emotion--looked on in\nsilence. Soon, however, the master, with a slow commanding gesture,\nbrought back to earth the inspired prophetess. By degrees the tension\nof her features was relieved, she sank back into the arms of her\ncompanions and fell into a profound lethargy, from which she awoke\ntroubled and sorrowful, and apparently exhausted after her heavenly\nflight.\n\nThen, leaving the crypt they mounted to the gardens of Ceres just as\nmorning was beginning to dawn over the sea, and the stars to disappear\nfrom mortal sight.\n\n\n                         FOURTH DEGREE--EPIPHANY\n\n                 _The adept.--The woman initiate.--Love\n                             and marriage._\n\nWith Pythagoras we have now reached the summit of initiation in ancient\ntimes. From these heights the earth appears drowned in shadow, like\na dying star. Sidereal perspectives open out--and the vision from\non high, the epiphany of the universe,[18] is unfolded before one\u2019s\nwondering gaze in its entirety. The object of his instruction, however,\nwas not the absorption of man in contemplation or ecstasy. The master\nhad brought his disciples into the unmeasurable regions of the Kosmos,\nplunging them into the abyss of the invisible. After this terrifying\njourney, the true initiates were to return to earth better, stronger\nand more prepared for the trials of life.\n\nThe initiation of the intelligence was to be followed by that of the\nwill, the most difficult of all. The disciple had now to become imbued\nwith truth in the very depths of his being, to put it into practice\nin everyday life. To attain to this ideal, one must, according to\nPythagoras, unite three kinds of perfection: the realization of truth\nin intelligence, of virtue in soul and of purity in body. This latter\nwas to be maintained by a prudent system of hygiene and a well-balanced\nchastity. This was demanded not as an end but as a means to an end. All\nbodily excesses leave marks, impurities, so to speak, in the astral\nbody, the living organism of the soul, and consequently in the mind.\nFor the astral body participates in all the acts of the physical body;\nindeed, it is the former which gives effect to them, the material body\nbeing, without it, nothing but an inert mass. Accordingly the body\nmust be pure for the soul to be pure also. Then the soul, continually\nenlightened by the intelligence, must acquire courage, self-denial,\ndevotion and faith, in a word, virtue, by which a second nature must\nbe made to replace the first. Finally, the intellect must reach wisdom\nthrough knowledge, so that in everything it may be able to distinguish\ngood from evil and see God in the smallest of beings as well as in the\nimmensity of worlds. On reaching these heights, man becomes an adept;\nand, if he possesses sufficient energy, he enters into possession of\nnew faculties and powers. The inner senses of the soul expand, and\nthe senses of the body are dominated by the radiant will. His bodily\nmagnetism, penetrated by the potency of his astral soul, electrified\nby his will, acquires an apparently miraculous power. At times he\ncures the sick by the laying on of hands or simply by his presence.\nHis look alone often penetrates the thoughts of men. Sometimes, in the\nwaking state, he sees events taking place afar off.[19] He acts at a\ndistance by the concentration of thought and will on such persons as\nare attached to him by bonds of personal sympathy, causing his image\nto appear to them as though his astral body could be transported out\nof his material body. The appearance of the dying or the dead to their\nfriends affords exactly the same phenomenon. The apparition however\nwhich the dying man or the soul of the dead man generally produces\nthrough an unconscious desire, in the last few moments of life or in\nthe second death, is generally produced by the adept when in perfect\nhealth and consciousness. Still, he can only do this during sleep, and\na sleep which is almost always of a lethargic nature. Finally, the\nadept feels himself as it were surrounded and protected by invisible\nbeings, superior spirits of light, who lend him their strength and aid\nhim in his mission.\n\nAdepts are rare, but even more rare are those who attain to this\npower. Greece knew but three: Orpheus at the dawn of Hellenism,\nPythagoras at its apogee, and Apollonius of Tyana in its final decline.\nOrpheus was the mighty and inspired initiator of Greek religion;\nPythagoras, the organizer of esoteric science and the philosophy of\nthe schools; Apollonius, the moralizing stoic and popular magician\nof the decadence. In all three, however, in spite of differences and\ndegrees, there beams the divine ray, the mind passionately inflamed for\nthe salvation of souls, indomitable energy clothed in gentleness and\nserenity. But do not draw too near these mighty, calm brows; a silent\nfire is beneath, the furnace of an ardent but ever restrained will.\n\nPythagoras accordingly represents to us an adept of the highest type,\npossessed of the scientific mind and cast in philosophic mould to which\nthe spirit of modern times most nearly approaches. But he himself\nneither could, nor pretended to make perfect adepts of his disciples.\nA great inspirer is always at the beginning of every great epoch.\nHis disciples and their pupils form the magnetic chain which carries\nhis thought out into the world. In the fourth degree of initiation,\nPythagoras therefore contented himself with teaching his followers how\nto apply his doctrine to life. The _Epiphany_, the vision from above,\nset forth an ensemble of profound, regenerating views on things of\nearth.\n\n_The origin of good and evil_ remains an incomprehensible mystery for\nwhomsoever has not taken into account the origin and the end of things.\nA morality which does not consider the final destiny of man will be\nmerely utilitarian and very imperfect. Besides, human liberty does not\nreally exist for such as always feel themselves the slaves of their\npassions, nor does it by right exist for such as believe neither in the\nsoul nor in God, for whom life is a lightning flash between two states\nof darkness. The first live in the servitude of the soul, enchained by\nthe passions; the latter in the slavery of intelligence limited to the\nphysical world. It is not so for the religious man, or for the true\nphilosopher, nor with much greater reason for the theosophist initiate\nwho realizes truth in the trinity of his being and the unity of his\nwill. To understand the origin of good and evil, the initiate regards\n_the three worlds_ with the spiritual eye. He sees the murky world\nof matter and animalism in which inevitable _Destiny_ holds sway. He\nsees the luminous world of the Spirit which, for us, is the invisible\nworld, the immense hierarchy of liberated souls who are themselves\n_Providence_ in action, the world where divine law reigns. Between\nthe two he catches a dim glimpse of humanity, the lower elements of\nwhich plunge into the natural world whilst the higher ones touch the\ndivine spheres. The genius and spirit of humanity is _Liberty_; for\nthe moment man perceives truth and error, he is free to choose, to\nassociate with Providence in accomplishing truth, or, by following\nerror, to fall beneath the law of destiny. The act of will joined to\nthat of intelligence is nothing but a mathematical point, but from this\npoint springs forth the spiritual universe. Every spirit partially\nfeels by instinct what the theosophist totally understands by his\nintellect: that Evil is what causes man to descend to the fatality of\nmatter, and that Good is what makes him rise towards the divine law of\nthe Spirit. His true destiny is to be ever rising higher, and that from\nhis own efforts. But to do this he must also be free to descend again\nto the very lowest. The circle of liberty widens out to the infinitely\ngreat in proportion as one ascends, it shrinks to the infinitely small\nin proportion as one descends. The higher one rises, the freer he\nbecomes; for the more one enters into light, the more power for good\nhe acquires. And the more one descends, the more enslaved does he\nbecome; for each fall into evil diminishes the intelligence of the\ntrue and the capacity for good. Destiny accordingly reigns over the\npast, Liberty over the future, and Providence over both, _i.e._ over\nthe ever-existing present, which may be called Eternity.[20] From\nthe combined action of Destiny, Liberty and Providence spring the\ninnumerable destinies, the hells and the paradises of souls. Evil,\nbeing discord with divine law, is not the work of God but that of\nman, and has only a relative, an apparent and transitory existence.\nGood, being accord with divine law, alone really and eternally\nexists. Neither the priests of Delphi and Eleusis, nor the initiate\nphilosophers would ever reveal these profound thoughts to the people,\nwho might have misunderstood and misused them. In the Mysteries this\ndoctrine was symbolically represented by the mutilation of Dionysos,\nthough what was called _the sufferings of God_ was hidden from the\nprofane by an impenetrable veil.\n\nThe greatest of all religious and philosophical discussions deal with\nthe question of the origin of good and evil. We have just seen that\nesoteric teachings hold the key to this question. There is another\nimportant question on which the social and political problem depends:\n_the inequality of human conditions_. In the very spectacle of evil\nand pain there is something terrifying. Their apparently arbitrary and\nunjust distribution may be said to be the origin of all hatred, revolt\nand denial. Here again the profound esoteric teaching brings into our\nearthly darkness its sovereign light of peace and hope. The diversity\nof souls, conditions and destinies can indeed only be justified by\nplurality of existences and the doctrine of reincarnation. If man is\nborn for the first time into this life, what explanation can be given\nof the innumerable evils which seem to fall on him as the effect of\nchance? How can it be admitted that there is such a thing as eternal\njustice, when some are born under conditions which fatally bring about\nmisery and humiliation, whilst others are born fortunate and live the\nhappiest of lives? If, however, it is true that we have lived other\nlives, and shall do so again after death, that through all these\nexistences there reigns the law of recurrence and repercussion--then\nthe differences of soul, of condition and destiny, will be nothing but\nthe results of previous lives and the manifold applications of this\nlaw. Differences of condition spring from an unequal employment of\nliberty in past lives, and intellectual differences from the fact that\nmen belong to extremely different degrees of evolution, which range\nfrom the semi-animal condition of retrogressing races to the angelic\nstates of saints and the divine kingship of genius. In reality earth\nresembles a vessel, and all we who inhabit it are travellers coming\nfrom far-away lands, dispersing, by degrees, in every direction of\nthe compass. The doctrine of reincarnation gives a _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_,\nin accordance with eternal justice and logic, for the most terrible\nsuffering as well as for the most envied happiness. The idiot will now\nbe understood by us if we think that his dull, stupid condition, of\nwhich he is half conscious and from which he suffers, is the punishment\nfor a criminal use of his intelligence in another life. All the\ndegrees of physical and moral suffering, of happiness and misfortune\nin their innumerable varieties, will appear to us as the natural and\nwisely-graduated blossomings of the instincts and actions, the faults\nand virtues of a long past, for in its occult depths the soul retains\neverything it accumulates in its divers existences. According to hour\nand influence, the former births reappear and disappear, and destiny,\nor rather the spirits who control it, proportion the soul\u2019s kind of\nreincarnation to its degree and quality. Lysis expresses this truth,\nbeneath a veil, in the _Golden Verses_--\n\n     \u201cThou wilt likewise know, that men draw upon themselves\n      their own misfortunes voluntarily, and of their own free\n      choice. Unhappy that they are! They neither see nor\n      understand that their good is near them.\u201d\n\nFar from weakening the sentiment of brotherhood and of the solidarity\nof all men, such teaching is bound to strengthen it. We owe help,\nsympathy and charity to all; for we are all of the same race, though\nwe have reached different stages. All suffering is sacred, for pain\nis the test of the soul. All sympathy is divine, for it enables us to\nfeel, as by a magnetic thrill, the invisible chain binding together\nall the worlds. The virtue of grief is the reason of genius. Sages and\nsaints, prophets and divine creators shine with more resplendent beauty\nin the eyes of those who know that they too come forth from universal\nevolution. How many lives, what innumerable victories have been needed\nto acquire this might which fills us with wonder? What heavens have\nalready been traversed to bring to us this innate light of genius? We\nknow not; but these lives have been lived, these heavens do exist.\nThe conscience of nations is not mistaken; the prophets have not lied\nin calling these men the sons of God, messengers from heavenly places.\nTheir mission is demanded by eternal Truth, they are protected by\ninvisible legions and the living Word speaks in them!\n\nThere is one difference in men springing from the primitive essence\nof individuals, and another, as we have just said, coming from the\ndegree of spiritual evolution to which they have attained. From this\nlatter point of view, we see that men may be placed in four classes,\ncomprising every subdivision and degree.\n\n1. In the great majority of men, the will acts especially in the body.\nThese may be designated as _instinctive_ persons. Their sphere includes\nnot only physical work, but also the exercise and development of the\nintelligence in the physical world, consequently commerce and industry.\n\n2. In the second degree of human development the will, and consequently\nthe consciousness, has its abode in the soul, _i. e._ in sensitiveness,\nreacted on by intelligence, which constitutes understanding. These are\n_animic, or passionate persons_. According to temperament, they are\nfitted to become warriors, artists or poets. The great majority of\nsavants and literary men belong to this class. They live in relative\nideas, modified by passions or limited by a fixed horizon, without\nrising to the height of pure Idea or Universality.\n\n3. In a third class of men, a far rarer one, the will has acquired\nthe habit of acting principally in pure intellect, of setting free\nthe intelligence, in its special function, from the tyranny of the\npassions and of the limits of matter, thus giving all their conceptions\na character of universality. These are the _intellectual_ persons.\nThey include such heroes as perish in martyrdom for their country, the\nhighest type of poets, and especially true philosophers and sages,\nthose whose mission it is, according to Pythagoras and Plato, to govern\nhumanity. In these men, passion is not extinct; for without it nothing\ncould be effected; it constitutes fire and electricity in the moral\nworld. The passions have here become the servants of intelligence,\nwhilst in the former category intelligence is, oftener than not, the\nslave of the passions.\n\n4. The loftiest human ideal is realized by a fourth class of men,\nthose who have added to the dominion of the intelligence over soul\nand instinct, that of the will over their whole being. They exercise\nsupreme mastery through the control and possession of all their\nfaculties. In the human trinity they have realized unity. Owing to\nthis marvellous concentration, which collects together all the powers\nof life, their will, by projecting itself into others, acquires an\nalmost limitless strength, a radiating and creative magic. These\nmen have borne different names in history. They are primordial men,\n_adepts_, _great initiates_, sublime geniuses who transform and\nmetamorphose humanity. So rare are they that they may be counted in\nhistory; Providence scatters them here and there at long intervals of\ntime, like stars in the heavens.[21]\n\nEvidently this last category is outside of all rule or classification,\nstill, such a constitution of human society as takes no account of\nthe first three categories, without granting each its normal function\nand the means needed for self-development, is merely external, it is\nanything but _organic_. It is clear that, in primitive times, probably\ndating back to the Vedic epoch, the Brahmans of India founded the\ndivision of society into castes on the ternary principle. In time,\nhowever, this division, so just and fruitful a one, became changed into\nan aristocratic and sacerdotal privilege. The principle of vocation\nand initiation was replaced by that of heredity. The closed castes\nfinally became petrified and the irretrievable decadence of India\nfollowed. Egypt, which maintained, during the rule of the Pharaohs, the\nternary constitution with the movable and open castes, the principle\nof initiation as applied to the priesthood and that of examination\nand control of all military and civil functions, existed for a\nperiod ranging between five and six thousand years without a change\nof constitution. As for Greece, her lively, versatile temperament\ncaused her to pass rapidly from aristocracy to democracy, and from\nthe latter to tyranny. She turned round in this vicious circle like\na sick man passing from fever to lethargy and back again to fever.\nPerhaps she needed this excitement to produce her unparalleled work:\nthe translation of the profound though obscure wisdom of the East\ninto clear, universal language; the creation of the Beautiful by Art;\nand the foundation of an open and reasonable science following on a\nsecret, intuitive initiation. And none the less was she indebted to\nthe principle of initiation for her religious organization and her\nloftiest inspirations. Speaking from a social and political standpoint,\nit may be said that she always lived in whatever was provisional\nand excessive. Pythagoras, in his capacity as an adept, had well\nunderstood, from the heights of initiation, the eternal principles\nwhich control society, and was following out the plan of a mighty\nreform in accordance with these truths. Soon we shall see how his\nschool and himself suffered shipwreck in the storms of democracy.\n\nFrom the pure, undefiled summits of his teachings the life of the\nworlds rolls on, in accordance with the rhythm of Eternity. Glorious\nepiphany! Beneath the magic rays, however, of the unveiled firmament,\nearth, humanity and life also unfold to us their secret depths. To feel\nthe presence of God, the infinitely great must be recognized in the\ninfinitely small. This is what the disciples of Pythagoras experienced\nwhen, to crown his teaching, the master demonstrated to them how\neternal Truth is manifested in the union of man and woman in marriage.\nThe beauty of the sacred numbers they had heard and contemplated in the\nInfinite they were about to recognize at the very heart of life, for\nthem God was reflected in the great mystery of Sex and Love.\n\nAntiquity had grasped an important truth which succeeding ages have too\nlong misunderstood. Woman, effectively to fulfil her duties as wife\nand mother, needs special instruction and initiation. Hence a purely\nfeminine initiation; that is to say, one reserved altogether for women.\nThis existed in India, where in Vedic times the woman was a priestess\nat the domestic altar. In Egypt it dates back to the mysteries of Isis.\nOrpheus organized this initiation in Greece. Right on to the decay\nof paganism we see it flourishing in the Dionysiac mysteries as well\nas in the temples of Juno, Diana, Minerva and Ceres. It consisted of\nsymbolic rites and ceremonies, in festivals by night as well as in\nspecial instruction given by aged priestesses or by the high priest,\nand dealing with the most private concerns of married life. Advice and\nregulations were given regarding the relations between the sexes, the\ntimes of the year and month favourable for healthy conception. The\nhighest importance was attached to the physical and moral hygiene of\nwoman during pregnancy, so that the sacred work, the creation of the\nchild, might be accomplished in accordance with divine law. In a word,\nthe science of conjugal life and the art of maternity were taught. The\nlatter extended to some years after the birth of the child. Up to the\nage of seven, the children remained in the gyn\u00e6ceum--which the husband\nnever entered--under the mother\u2019s exclusive control. The wisdom of\nantiquity looked upon the child as being a delicate plant, which, if\nit is to be kept from wasting away, needs the warm, cheering atmosphere\nof a mother\u2019s love. The father would stunt its growth, a mother\u2019s kiss\nand embrace are needed to enable it to blossom forth; a woman\u2019s mighty\nencircling love to protect from outside attack this soul which a new\nlife fills with terror and dismay. It is because woman consciously\nfulfilled these lofty functions which antiquity regarded as divine,\nthat she was in very truth the priestess of the family, the guardian of\nthe sacred fire of life, the Vesta of the hearth. Feminine initiation\nmay accordingly be regarded as the veritable reason of the beauty of\nthe race, its robust descendants and the length of duration of the\nfamily in Greek and Roman antiquity.[22]\n\nIn establishing a section for women in his Institute, Pythagoras merely\ndeepened and refined what already existed. The women he initiated\nreceived from him, along with rites and precepts, the final principles\nof their functions. In this way he bestowed the consciousness of\ntheir _r\u00f4le_ on such as were deserving of it. He revealed to them the\ntransfiguration of love in perfect marriage, which is the blending\nof two souls at the very centre of life and truth. Is not man in his\nstrength the representative of the creative spirit and principle? And\ndoes not woman in the totality of her power personify nature in its\nplastic force, its wonderful realizations, at once terrestrial and\ndivine? Then if these two beings succeed in a complete mingling of\nbody, soul and spirit, they will form between them an epitome of the\nuniverse. To believe in God, however, woman needs to see him living in\nman; and to effect this, man must be an initiate. He alone, by reason\nof his profound knowledge of life and creative will-power, is capable\nof fecundating the feminine soul, of transforming it by means of his\ndivine ideal. This ideal the loved one gives him back manifold in her\nvibrating thoughts, her keen sensations and profound divinations. She\nsends him back his image transfigured by enthusiasm, she _becomes_\nhis ideal, for she realizes it by the power of love in her own soul.\nThrough her he becomes living and visible, he is made flesh and blood.\nFor if man creates through desire and will, woman, both physically and\nspiritually, brings into being through love.\n\nIn her _r\u00f4le_ as lover or wife or mother or being inspired, she\nis no less great and is even more divine than man. For love is\nself-forgetfulness. The woman who forgets self and loses herself in\nher love must ever be sublime. In such self-abasement she finds her\ncelestial re-birth, her crown of light and the immortal radiance of her\nentire being.\n\nIn modern literature love has been reigning as a master for the past\ntwo centuries. This is not the purely sensual love, born of bodily\nbeauty, as in the poetry of old, nor is it the insipid worship of an\nabstract and conventional ideal as in the middle ages; it is rather a\nlove both sensual and psychic which gives full scope to its liberty and\nindividual fancy. Oftener than not both sexes wage war in love itself.\nThere is the revolt of the woman against man\u2019s egoism and brutality;\nthe scorn of the man at woman\u2019s deceit and vanity, carnal exclamations\nand the ineffectual wrath of the victims to voluptuousness, the slaves\nto debauchery. With all this we find deep-rooted passions and terrible\nattractions, all the more powerful from being trammeled and fettered\nby worldly conventions and social institutions. Hence a love full of\npassion and storm, of moral ruin and tragic catastrophe, on which the\nmodern novel and drama are almost exclusively based. One might say that\ntired man, finding God neither in religion nor in science, in despair\nseeks for him in woman. And he does well, but it is only through the\ninitiation of the great truths that he will find Him in Her and Her in\nHim. In these souls, which know neither themselves nor one another,\nwhich sometimes leave one another with mutual maledictions, there\nis, as it were, a mighty desire for self-penetration, for finding in\nsuch intermingling a happiness that is impossible. In spite of the\naberrations, the outbursts of debauchery resulting therefrom, this\ndesperate search is necessary; it springs from an unconscious divinity.\nIt will be a vital element in the reconstruction of the future. For\nwhen man and woman have found themselves and one another through the\nchannels of profound love and initiation, the fusion of the two will be\nthe radiating and creative force _par excellence_.\n\nIt is only quite recently, then, that psychic love, the soul\u2019s\nlove-passion, has entered into literature and through it into universal\nconsciousness. It has its origin, however, in the initiation of the\npast. The reason Greek literature scarcely mentions it, is that it was\na most rare exception. Another reason may be found in the profound\nsecrecy of the mysteries. And yet religious and philosophic tradition\nhave handed down traces of the woman initiate. Away behind official\npoetry and philosophy appear a few half-veiled though luminous woman\nforms. We have already mentioned Theoclea who inspired Pythagoras;\nlater on will come Corinna, the priestess, ofttimes the fortunate\nrival of Pindar, who himself was the greatest initiate among the Greek\nlyric poets; finally, the mysterious Diotima appeared at the banquet\nof Plato to give the supreme revelation of Love. By the side of these\nexceptional _r\u00f4les_ the Greek woman exercised her veritable priesthood\nat the fireside and in the gyn\u00e6ceum. Indeed, she created those heroes,\nartists and poets whose sublime deeds, sculptures and songs we so\ngreatly admire. It was she who conceived them in the mystery of love,\nwho formed them in her womb with the desire and love of beauty, who\nbrought them to birth after protecting them beneath her motherly wings.\nIt must be added that for the man and woman who are real initiates\nthe creation of the child has an infinitely finer signification and\ngreater importance than for us. When father and mother know that the\nsoul of the child existed previous to its birth on earth, conception\nbecomes a sacred act, the summons of a soul to submit to incarnation.\nBetween the incarnate soul and the mother there is almost always\nconsiderable similarity. Just as evil-minded and wicked women attract\nspirits possessed of demons, divine spirits are attracted to gentle\ntender-hearted mothers. Is not this invisible soul, long waited for,\nwhich is to come and finally appears--so wonderfully and yet so\nsurely--something divine in its nature? Painful will be its birth and\nimprisonment in flesh. For though a dense veil gathers between itself\nand the heaven it has left, though it no longer remembers--alas! it\nsuffers none the less on that account! Sacred and divine is the task of\nthe mother who is to create for it a fresh dwelling, to mitigate the\nharshness of its prison and render the trial easier to bear.\n\nThus we see that the teaching of Pythagoras, which had begun by the\ndivine trinity in the profound recesses of the Absolute, ended in the\nhuman trinity at the centre of life. In Father, Mother and Child, the\ninitiate could now recognize the Spirit, Soul and Heart of the living\nuniverse. For him this final initiation constituted the foundation\nof the social work, conceived of in all the height and beauty of the\nideal, a building to whose construction each initiate had to bring his\nstone.\n\n\n\n\n                                CHAPTER V\n\n                  MARRIAGE OF PYTHAGORAS--REVOLUTION AT\n                CROTON--THE MASTER\u2019S END--THE SCHOOL AND\n                               ITS DESTINY\n\n\nAmong the women who followed the master\u2019s teaching was a maiden of\ngreat beauty. Her father, an inhabitant of Croton, was named Brontinos.\nHis daughter\u2019s name was Theano. Pythagoras was now sixty years of\nage, but mastery over passion and a pure life wholly consecrated to\nhis mission, had kept him in perfect health and strength. The youth\nof the soul, that immortal flame the great initiate draws from his\nspiritual life and nourishes on the hidden forces of nature, shone\nforth in him, throwing into subjection all around. The Grecian mage was\nnot at the decline, but rather at the height of his might. Theano was\nattracted to Pythagoras by the almost supernatural radiance emanating\nfrom his person. Grave and reserved, she had sought from the master an\nexplanation of the mysteries she loved though without understanding\nthem. When, however, beneath the light of truth and the tender glow\nwhich gradually enveloped her, she felt her inmost soul expand like\nthe mystic rose with its thousand petals, when she felt that this\nblossoming forth came from him and his words--she silently conceived\nfor the master a boundless enthusiasm and a passionate love.\n\nPythagoras had made no effort to attract her. His love and affection\nwere bestowed on all his disciples; he thought only of his school, of\nGreece and the future of the world. Like many great adepts, he had\ndenied himself the pleasures of earthly love to devote himself to\nhis work. The magic of his will, the spiritual possession of so many\nsouls he had formed and who remained devoted to him as to a well-loved\nfather, the mystic incense of all those unexpressed affections which\ncame to him, and that exquisite fragrance of human sympathy which\nbound together the Pythagorean brethren--all this took the place of\nvoluptuousness, of human happiness and love. One day, as he was alone,\nmeditating on the future of his school in the crypt of Proserpine, he\nsaw coming to him, with grave, resolute steps, this beautiful virgin\nto whom he had never spoken in private. She sank on her knees at his\nfeet, and with downcast eyes begged the master--the one who could do\neverything!--to set her free from an impossible, an unhappy love which\nwas consuming her, body and soul. Pythagoras wished to know the name\nof the one she loved. After much hesitation, Theano confessed that it\nwas himself, but that, ready for any sacrifice, she would submit to his\nwill. Pythagoras made no reply. Encouraged by his silence, she raised\nher head with suppliant look. Her eyes seemed to contain the very\nessence of a life and soul offered as a sacrifice to the master.\n\nThe sage was greatly disturbed; he could overcome his senses and\nimagination, but the electric flash from that soul had pierced his own.\nIn this virgin, matured by passion, her countenance transfigured by a\nsentiment of utter devotion, he had found his companion, and caught a\nfaint glimpse of a more complete realization of his work. With troubled\nlook, Pythagoras raised the maiden to her feet, and Theano saw from the\nmaster\u2019s eyes that their destinies were for ever united.\n\nBy his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed _the seal of\nrealization_ to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives was\ncomplete. One day when the master\u2019s wife was asked what length of time\nelapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a man,\nshe replied: \u201cIf it is with her husband, she is pure all the time; if\nwith another man, she is never pure.\u201d Many women would smilingly remark\nthat to give such a reply one must be the wife of Pythagoras, and love\nhim as Theano did.\n\nAnd they would be in the right, for it is not marriage which sanctifies\nlove, it is love which justifies marriage. Theano entered so thoroughly\ninto the thought and life of her husband, that after his death she\nbecame a centre for the Pythagorean order, and a Greek author quotes\nher opinion as that of an authority on the doctrine of Numbers. She\nbore Pythagoras two sons, Arimnestes and Telauges, and a daughter Damo.\nAt a later date Telauges became the master of Empedocles, to whom he\nhanded down the secrets of the doctrine.\n\nThe family of Pythagoras offered the order a real model to follow. His\nhouse was called the Temple of Ceres, and his court the Temple of the\nMuses. In domestic and religious festivals, the mother led the women\u2019s\nchorus, and Damo that of the maidens. In all respects Damo was worthy\nof her parents. Pythagoras entrusted to her certain writings expressly\nforbidding her to communicate them to any one outside the family. After\nthe dispersion of the Pythagoreans, Damo fell into great poverty. She\nwas offered a large sum for the precious manuscript, but, faithful to\nher father\u2019s will, she always refused to part with it.\n\nPythagoras lived in Croton for thirty years. Within twenty years this\nextraordinary man had acquired such power that those who called him a\ndemi-god were not looked upon as exaggerating. This power seemed to\nhave something miraculous about it, no like influence had ever been\nexercised by a philosopher. It extended not merely to the school of\nCroton and its ramifications in other towns on the coast of Italy,\nbut even to the politics of all these small states. Pythagoras was\na reformer in the whole acceptation of the term. Croton, a colony\nof Acha\u00efa, had an aristocratic constitution. The _Council of the\nThousand_, drawn from the noblest families, carried on the legislative\nand kept watch over the executive power. Popular assemblies existed,\nthough their power was restricted. Pythagoras, who wished the State\nto be all order and harmony, was no more enamoured of oligarchical\ncompression than of the chaos of demagogy. Accepting the Doric\nconstitution as it was, he simply tried to introduce a fresh mechanism\ninto it. The idea was a bold one, for it consisted in the creation,\nover and above the political power, of a scientific one with a\ndeliberative and consultative voice in questions of vital interest,\nand becoming the key-stone, the supreme regulator of the State. Above\nthe Council of the Thousand, he organized the _Council of the Three\nHundred_, chosen by the former, but recruited from among the initiates\nalone. The number was sufficient for the task. Porphyrus relates\nthat two thousand of the citizens of Croton gave up their wonted\nmode of living and united in order to live together with their wives\nand children after placing their possessions in one common stock. It\nwas thus the wish of Pythagoras that at the head of the State there\nshould be a scientific government, not so mysterious though quite as\nimportant as the Egyptian priesthood. What he realized for a short time\nremained the dream of all such initiates as dealt with politics, viz.\nthe introduction of the principle of initiation and examination into\nthe government of the State, and the reconciliation in this superior\nsynthesis of the elective or democratic principle with a government\nconstituted of a select number of intelligent and virtuous citizens.\nThe result was that the Council of the Three Hundred formed a kind\nof political, scientific and religious order, of which Pythagoras\nhimself was the recognized head. The members were bound to him by a\nsolemn and an awful oath of absolute secrecy, as was the case in the\nMysteries. These societies or \u1f11\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1\u03b9 spread from Croton, the seat\nof the original society, throughout almost the whole of the towns in\nGreater Greece, where they exercised a powerful political influence.\nThe Pythagorean order also tended to become the head of the State\nthroughout the whole of Southern Italy. Its ramifications extended to\nTarentum, Heracleium, Metapontum, Rhegium, Himera, Catana, Agrigentum,\nSybaris and, according to Aristoxenes, even among the Etruscans. As\nregards the influence of Pythagoras on the government of these rich and\nmighty cities, nothing loftier, nothing more liberal or pacific could\nbe imagined. Wherever he appeared, order, justice and concord were\nrestored. Once, when summoned into the presence of a tyrant of Sicily,\nhe persuaded him, by his eloquence alone, to restore the wealth he had\nunjustly acquired and to abdicate a power he had usurped. Such towns as\nwere subject to one another he made independent and free. So beneficent\nwere his actions that when he went into a town the inhabitants would\nsay: \u201cHe has not come to teach but rather to heal.\u201d\n\nThe sovereign influence of a great mind and character, that magic\nof soul and intelligence, arouses jealousy and hatred which is only\nthe more terrible and violent because it is itself the less capable\nof attack. His sway lasted a quarter of a century; the reaction came\nwhen the indefatigable adept had reached the age of ninety. It began\nin Sybaris, the rival of Croton, where a rising of the people took\nplace and the aristocratic party was overthrown. Five hundred exiles\nasked the inhabitants of Croton to receive them, but the Sybarites\ndemanded their extradition. Dreading the anger of a hostile town, the\nmagistrates of Croton were on the point of complying with this demand\nwhen Pythagoras intervened. At his entreaty, they refused to hand over\nthe unhappy suppliants to their implacable enemies, whereupon Sybaris\ndeclared war upon Croton. The Croton army, however, commanded by the\nfamous athlete, Milon, a disciple of Pythagoras, completely defeated\nthe Sybarites. The downfall of Sybaris followed; the town was taken and\nplundered, utterly destroyed and converted into a wilderness of ruins.\nIt is impossible to admit that Pythagoras could have approved of so\nterrible a revenge, which was altogether opposed to his principles, as,\nindeed, to those of all initiates. Neither he nor Milon, however, could\ncheck the unbridled passions of a conquering army, when once inflamed\nby long-standing jealousy and excited by an unjust attack.\n\nRevenge, whether in individuals or in nations, always brings about a\nrecoil of the passions let loose. The Nemesis of this vengeance was\na terrible one; its consequences fell on Pythagoras and the whole of\nhis order. After taking Sybaris, the people demanded a division of the\nland. Not content with obtaining this, the democratic party proposed a\nchange of constitution, depriving the Council of the Thousand of its\nprivileges, and suppressing the Council of the Three Hundred; they were\nno longer willing to admit any other authority than universal suffrage.\nNaturally the Pythagoreans, members of the Council of the Thousand,\nwere opposed to a reform which was contrary to their principles and was\nundermining the patient work of their master. They had already become\nthe object of that dull hatred which mystery and superiority ever\narouse in the masses. Their political attitude excited the anger of the\ndemagogy, and personal hatred against the master proved the spark which\nkindled the fire.\n\nA certain Cylon had, some time before this, offered himself as a\ncandidate for the School. Pythagoras, who was very strict in accepting\ndisciples, refused him because of his violent and headstrong\ndisposition. This rejected candidate became a bitter enemy. When\npublic opinion began to turn against Pythagoras he organized a club,\na large popular society in opposition to that of the Pythagoreans.\nHe succeeded in attracting to himself the principal leaders of the\npeople, and at the meetings hatched a revolution which was to begin by\nthe expulsion of the Pythagoreans. Cylon rises to his feet in front\nof a sea of upturned excited faces and reads extracts stolen from the\nsecret book of Pythagoras, entitled: The Sacred Word (_hi\u00e9ros logos_).\nThese extracts are then travestied and wrongly interpreted. A few of\nthe speakers make an attempt to defend the brothers of silence, who\nrespect even dumb animals. Such are greeted with outbursts of laughter.\nCylon ascends the tribune again and again. He demonstrates that the\nreligious catechism of the Pythagoreans is a crime against liberty.\n\u201cAnd that is a slight charge,\u201d he adds. \u201cIs this master, this would-be\ndemi-god, whose least word is blindly obeyed, and who has merely a\ncommand to give, to have all his brethren exclaiming: \u2018The master has\nsaid it!\u2019--any other than the tyrant of Croton, and the worst of all\ntyrants, an occult one? What else than scorn and disdain for the people\nis this indissoluble friendship which unites all the members of the\nPythagorean \u1f11\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1\u03b9 composed of? They are never tired of repeating\nthe words of Homer when he says that the prince should be the shepherd\nof his people. In their eyes the people are evidently nothing better\nthan a worthless flock. The very existence of the order, I say, is a\npermanent conspiracy against the rights of the people. Until it is\ndestroyed liberty will be a vain word in Croton!\u201d One of the members\nof the meeting, animated by a feeling of loyalty, exclaimed: \u201cLet\nPythagoras and his followers be given an opportunity, at any rate, to\njustify their conduct in our presence before we condemn them.\u201d Cylon\nreplied haughtily: \u201cHave not these Pythagoreans deprived you of the\nright to judge and decide upon public matters? What right have they\nto ask you to listen to them now? They did not consult you when they\ndeprived you of the right to exercise justice, now it is your turn to\nstrike without listening to them!\u201d Such vehement opinions were greeted\nwith rounds of applause, and popular frenzy and passion rose higher\nthan ever.\n\nOne evening, when forty of the principal members of the order had met\nat the abode of Milon, the tribune collected his followers and the\nhouse was surrounded. The Pythagoreans, who had the master with them,\nbarricaded the doors. The enraged crowd set fire to the building,\nwhich speedily became enveloped in flames. Thirty-eight Pythagoreans,\nthe very first of the master\u2019s disciples and constituting the flower\nof the order, along with Pythagoras himself, perished either in the\nflames or at the hands of the people. Archippus and Lysis alone escaped\nmassacre.[23]\n\nThus died this mighty sage, this divine man whose effort it had been\nto instil his own wisdom into human rule and government. The murder\nof the Pythagoreans was the signal for a democratic revolution in\nCroton and about the Gulf of Tarentum. The towns of Italy expelled\nfrom their walls the unfortunate disciples of the master. The order\nwas dispersed; fragments of it, however, spread throughout Sicily\nand Greece, propagating everywhere the master\u2019s words and teachings.\nLysis became the teacher of Epaminondas. After fresh revolutions, the\nPythagoreans were permitted to return to Italy on condition they no\nlonger formed a political body. They were still united in a touching\nfraternity, and looked upon themselves as one family. One of them\nwho had fallen upon sickness and poverty was kindly taken in by an\ninn-keeper. Before dying he traced a few mysterious signs on the door\nof the inn and said to the host: \u201cDo not be uneasy, one of my brothers\nwill pay my debt.\u201d A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this\ninn he saw the signs and said to the host: \u201cI am a Pythagorean; one\nof my brothers died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.\u201d The\norder existed for two hundred and fifty years; the ideas and traditions\nof the master have come down to the present times.\n\nThe regenerating influence of Pythagoras over Greece was immense.\nThis influence was exercised in mysterious though certain fashion,\nby means of the temples he had visited. At Delphi we have seen that\nhe gave new might to the science of divination, strengthened the\npriestly influence, and by his art formed a model Pythoness. Thanks to\nthis inner reform, which aroused enthusiasm in the very heart of the\nsanctuaries and in the soul of the initiates, Delphi became more than\never the moral centre of Greece. This was especially evident during\nthe Median wars. Scarcely had thirty years elapsed since the death of\nPythagoras when the Asiatic cyclone, predicted by the Samian sage,\nburst out upon the coasts of Hellas. In this epic struggle of Europe\nagainst a barbaric Asia, Greece, representing liberty and civilization,\nhas behind her the science and genius of Apollo. He it is whose\npatriotic and religious inspiration stirs up and silences the springing\nrivalry between Sparta and Athens. It is he, too, who is the inspirer\nof men like Miltiades and Themistocles. At Marathon, enthusiasm is so\ngreat that the Athenians believe they see two warriors, clad in light,\nfighting in their ranks. Some recognize in them Theseus and Echetos;\nothers, Castor and Pollux. When the invasion of Xerxes, tenfold more\nformidable than that of Darius, breaks over Thermopyl\u00e6 and submerges\nHellas, it is the Pythoness who, on her tripod, points out the way\nof safety to the envoys from Athens, and helps Themistocles to gain\nthe victory at Salamis. The pages of Herodotus thrill with her broken\nphrases: \u201cAbandon the homesteads and lofty hills if the city is built\nin a circle ... fire and dreadful Mars mounted on a Syrian chariot will\nbring your towers to ruins ... temples are tottering in their fall,\ntheir walls are dripping with cold sweat, whilst black blood is falling\nfrom their pinnacles ... depart from my sanctuary. Let a wooden wall be\nyour impregnable bulwark. Flee! turn your backs on numberless enemies\non foot and on horseback! O divine Salamis! How deadly wilt thou be to\nthose born of woman!\u201d[24] In the account given by Eschylus the battle\nbegins with a cry resembling the p\u00e6an, Apollo\u2019s hymn: \u201cSoon the day,\nled on white coursers, spreads throughout the world its resplendent\nlight. Immediately a mighty shout, resembling a sacred chant, rises\nfrom the ranks of the Greeks and the echoes of the island respond in a\nthousand loud-sounding voices.\u201d What wonder that, intoxicated with the\nwine of victory, the Greeks at the battle of Mycale, in the presence\nof stricken Asia, chose as a rallying cry: \u201cHebe, Eternal Youth!\u201d Yes,\nit is the breath of Apollo that moves through these wonderful Median\nwars. Religious enthusiasm, which works miracles, carries off both\nliving and dead, throws a dazzling light on victory, and gives a golden\nglory to the tomb. All the temples were plundered and destroyed, that\nof Delphi alone remained intact. The Persian hosts advanced to spoil\nthe holy town. A quiver of dread came over all. The solar god, however,\nsaid through the voice of the pontiff: \u201cI will defend myself!\u201d Orders\nwere given from the temple that the city be deserted, the inhabitants\ntake refuge in the grottoes of Parnassus, and the priests alone keep\nsacred guard on the threshold of the sanctuary. The Persian army enters\nthe town, all still as death; the statues alone look down as the hosts\nmarch along. A black cloud gathers at the foot of the gorge, the\nthunders roll and the lightning flashes on the invaders. Two enormous\nrocks roll down from the summit of Parnassus, crushing to death great\nnumbers of Persians.[25] At the same time noises and shouts issue from\nthe Temple of Minerva, flames leap from the ground beneath the very\nfeet of the invaders. Before such wonders the barbarians fall back in\nterror and the dismayed army takes to flight. The god has undertaken\nhis own defence.\n\nWould these wonders have happened, would these victories humanity looks\nupon as its own have taken place, had not Pythagoras, thirty years\nearlier, appeared in the Delphic sanctuary to kindle there the sacred\nfire? This may, indeed, be questioned.\n\nOne word more regarding the master\u2019s influence on philosophy. Before\nhis time, there had been natural philosophers on the one hand, and\nmoral philosophers on the other; Pythagoras included in a vast\nsynthesis, morality, science and religion. This synthesis is nothing\nelse than the esoteric doctrine, whose full glory I have endeavoured\nto reveal in the very basis of Pythagorean initiation. The philosopher\nof Croton was not the inventor but the light-bearing arranger of these\nfundamental truths, in the scientific order of things. Consequently I\nhave chosen his system as offering the most favourable framework to a\ncomplete account of the doctrine of the Mysteries as well as of true\ntheosophy.\n\nThose who have followed the master up to this point will have seen that\nat the basis of the doctrine there shines the sun of the one Truth.\nScattered rays may be discovered in philosophies and religions, but\nhere is their centre. What must be done to attain thereto? Observation\nand reasoning are not sufficient. In addition to and above all else\nis intuition. Pythagoras was an adept and an initiate of the highest\norder. His was the direct vision of the spirit, his the key to the\noccult sciences and the spiritual world. It was from the primal\nfount of Truth that he drew his supplies. And as he joined to these\ntranscendent faculties of an intellectual and spiritualized soul,\na careful and minute observation of physical nature and a masterly\nclassification of ideas by the aid of his lofty reason, no one could\nhave been better equipped than himself to build up the edifice of the\nknowledge of the Kosmos.\n\nIn truth this edifice was never destroyed. Plato, who took from\nPythagoras the whole of his metaphysics, had a complete idea\nthereof, though he unfolded it with less clearness and precision.\nThe Alexandrine school occupied the upper storeys of the edifice,\nwhilst modern science has taken the ground-floor and strengthened its\nfoundations. Numerous philosophical schools and mystical or religious\nsects have inhabited its many chambers. No philosophy, however, has yet\nembraced the whole of it. It is this whole I have endeavoured to reveal\nhere in all its harmony and unity.\n\n\n                                 THE END\n\n\n           _Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n        [1] The _Amphictyonic oath_ of the allied peoples gives\n            some idea of the greatness and social might of this\n            institution: \u201cWe swear that we will never overthrow\n            Amphictyonic towns, never, during either peace\n            or war, prevent them from obtaining whatever is\n            necessary for their needs. Should any power dare to\n            attempt this, we will march against it and destroy\n            its towns. Should impious hands remove the offerings\n            of the temple of Apollo, we swear that we will use\n            our feet, our arms, our voice, and all our strength\n            against them and their accomplices.\u201d\n\n        [2] _The Golden Verses of Pythagoras._\n\n        [3] Iamblichus relates this fact in his _Life of\n            Pythagoras_.\n\n        [4] _The Oracles of Zoroaster_, taken from the theurgy\n            of Proclus.\n\n        [5] Reichenbach called this fluid _odyle_. His work\n            has been translated into English by Gregory:\n            _Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Light,\n            Crystalization and Chemical Attraction_.--London,\n            1850.\n\n        [6] See the Bulletin of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Pyschologie\n            Physiologique. M. Charcot, president, 1885. See more\n            especially the fine book by M. Ochorowicz, _De la\n            Suggestion Mentale_, Paris, 1887.\n\n        [7] There is a great deal of literature on this subject,\n            very unequal in value, in France, Germany and\n            England. I will here mention two books in which the\n            subject is treated scientifically by men of real\n            worth.\n\n            (1) _Letters on Animal Magnetism_, by William Gregory,\n            London, 1850. Gregory was a professor of chemistry\n            at the University of Edinburgh. His book is a\n            profound study of the phenomena of animal magnetism,\n            from suggestion to vision at a distance and lucid\n            clairvoyance, on subjects observed by himself, in\n            accordance with scientific method, and with minute\n            exactness.\n\n            (2) _Die mystischen Erscheinungen der menschlichen\n            Natur_, von Maximilian Perty, Leipzig, 1872.\n            Perty is a professor of philosophy and medicine\n            at the University of Berne. His book presents an\n            immense repertory of all such occult phenomena as\n            have historical value. The extremely remarkable\n            chapter on clairvoyance (Schlafwachen), Volume I.,\n            contains twenty accounts of female and five of male\n            clairvoyants, related by the doctors who treated the\n            cases. That of Weiner, treated by the author, is\n            most curious. See also the treatises on magnetism by\n            Dupotet and Deleuze, and the very strange book, _Die\n            Seherin von Pr\u00e9vorst_, by Justinus Kerner.\n\n        [8] Numerous examples in Gregory\u2019s work: Letters XVI,\n            XVII, and XVIII.\n\n        [9] The German philosopher, Schelling, has acknowledged\n            the great importance of somnambulism in the question\n            of the immortality of the soul. He remarks that, in\n            lucid sleep, there is produced an elevation of the\n            soul, and its relative liberation with regard to\n            the body, which does not take place in the normal\n            state. In somnambulists, everything indicates the\n            loftiest consciousness, as though their whole being\n            were met in one luminous focus, uniting together\n            past, present and future. Far from losing all memory\n            of the past, it lies open before them, and even\n            the veil of the future is at times cast aside in\n            a glorious ray of light. If this is possible in\n            earthly life, Schelling inquires, is it not certain\n            that our spiritual personality, which follows us in\n            death, is at this very moment present in us, that\n            it is not born then but simply set free, and shows\n            itself when it is no longer bound by the senses to\n            the outside world? The post-mortem condition is\n            accordingly more real than the earthly one. For in\n            this life, that which is accidental, mingling with\n            the whole, paralyzes in us that which is essential.\n            Schelling calls the future state quite simply,\n            clairvoyance. The spirit liberated from everything\n            accidental in earthly life becomes stronger and more\n            alive; the wicked man becomes worse, the good better.\n\n            Quite recently Charles du Prel has advanced the same\n            opinion, supporting it with numerous facts and\n            details in a well-written volume, _Philosophie\n            der Mystik_ (1886). He starts from this fact: the\n            consciousness of the ego does not exhaust its\n            object. \u201cSoul and consciousness are not two adequate\n            terms; they do not cover one another as they have\n            not an equal scope. The sphere of the soul far\n            surpasses that of the consciousness.\u201d Consequently\n            there is _a latent ego_ in us. This latent ego,\n            which manifests itself in sleep and in dreams, is\n            the real ego, supra-terrestrial and transcendent,\n            whose existence precedes our terrestrial ego which\n            is bound to the body. The terrestrial ego is\n            perishable, the transcendent ego is immortal. This\n            is what St. Paul meant when he said--\u201c----the Lord\n            Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, so\n            that it be fashioned like unto His glorious body.\u201d\n\n       [10] Origen states that Pythagoras was the inventor of\n            physiognomy.\n\n       [11] _Katharsis_ in Greek.\n\n       [12] In transcendent mathematics it is demonstrated\n            algebraically that zero multiplied by infinity is\n            equal to One. Zero, in the order of absolute things,\n            signifies the indeterminate Being. The Infinite,\n            the Eternal in the language of the temples, was\n            marked by a circle of a serpent biting its tail,\n            signifying the Infinite moving itself. Now, once the\n            Infinite is determined it produces all the numbers\n            it contains in its great unity, and which it governs\n            in perfect harmony.\n\n            Such is the transcendent meaning of the first problem\n            of the Pythagorean theogony, the reason which brings it\n            to pass that the great Monad contains all the small\n            ones, and that all the numbers spring from the great\n            Unity in movement.\n\n       [13] Doctrine identical with that of the initiate St.\n            Paul, who speaks of the _spiritual body_.\n\n       [14] In the first rank of these must be placed Fabre\n            d\u2019Olivet (_Vers dor\u00e9s de Pythagore_). This living\n            conception of the forces of the universe, traversing\n            it from top to bottom, has nothing to do with the\n            _thesis_, the _antithesis_ and the _synthesis_ of\n            Hegel, which are simply _jeux d\u2019esprit_.\n\n       [15] In Greek: _Telei\u00f4tes_.\n\n       [16] Certain strange definitions, in metaphorical form,\n            which have been handed down to us and come from the\n            secret teaching of the master, give us some idea,\n            in their occult signification, of the magnificent\n            conception Pythagoras had of the Kosmos. Speaking\n            of the constellations, he called the Great and\n            the Little Bear the hands of Rhea-Kybele. Now\n            Rhea-Kybele means, esoterically, the rolling astral\n            light, the divine spouse of universal fire, or of\n            the creative Spirit, which, becoming concentrated in\n            the solar systems, attracts the immaterial essences\n            of beings, seizes them, and forces them into the\n            whirl of lives. He called the planets the dogs\n            of Proserpine. This strange expression has only\n            an esoteric meaning. Proserpine, the goddess of\n            souls, presided over their incarnation in matter.\n            Pythagoras accordingly called the planets the dogs\n            of Proserpine because they keep and retain the\n            incarnated souls, just as the mythological Cerberus\n            guards the souls in the infernal regions.\n\n       [17] The law called _Karma_ by Brahmans and Buddhists.\n\n       [18] The _epiphany_, or vision from above; the _autopsy_,\n            or direct vision; the _theophany_, or manifestation\n            of God, are so many correlative ideas and divers\n            expressions to indicate the state of perfection in\n            which the initiate, having united his soul to God,\n            contemplates truth in its entirety.\n\n       [19] I will here mention two well-known facts of\n            this kind, which are quite authentic. The first\n            belongs to antiquity, its hero being the famous\n            philosopher-magician, Apollonius of Tyana.\n\n            1. _Second sight of Apollonius of Tyana._--\u201cWhilst\n            these things (the assassination of the Emperor\n            Domitian) were taking place at Rome, Apollonius saw\n            them at Ephesus. Domitian was assailed by Clement\n            about noon; on the very same day, at that moment,\n            Apollonius was discoursing in the gardens close to\n            the Xystes. Suddenly he lowered his voice as though\n            smitten with sudden terror. He continued his speech,\n            but his language was of a different character, as\n            is the case often with those who are speaking or\n            thinking of something else. Then, he stopped, as\n            though he had lost the thread of his argument, gave\n            a terrified look on the ground, took three or four\n            steps forward and exclaimed: \u2018Strike the tyrant!\u2019\n            One would have said that he saw, not the image of\n            the deed in a mirror, but the deed itself in all its\n            reality. The Ephesians (for the whole of Ephesus was\n            present at the speech of Apollonius) were struck\n            with wonder. Apollonius stopped like a man waiting\n            to see the result of some doubtful event. Finally\n            he exclaimed: \u2018Be of good courage, Ephesians, the\n            tyrant has been killed to-day. To-day? Yes, by\n            Minerva! He was being assassinated the very moment\n            I interrupted my speech.\u2019 The Ephesians thought that\n            Apollonius had lost his senses; it was their keen\n            desire that he should have said what was true,\n            but they were afraid that some danger might come\n            to them as the result of this speech.... Soon,\n            however, messengers came bringing the good news and\n            testifying in favour of the knowledge of Apollonius,\n            for every detail: the murder of the tyrant, the\n            day of its consummation, the hour of noon, the\n            instigator of the murder whom Apollonius had\n            encouraged, were found to be in perfect conformity\n            with those the Gods had shown him on the day of his\n            discourse to the Ephesians.\u201d--_Life of Apollonius_,\n            by Philostratus.\n\n            2. _Second sight of Swedenborg._--The second fact\n            refers to the greatest seer of modern times. The\n            objective reality of Swedenborg\u2019s visions may be\n            discussed, but there can be no doubt regarding his\n            second sight, which has been attested by a multitude\n            of facts. Swedenborg\u2019s vision of the burning of\n            Stockholm, a distance of ninety miles away, caused\n            much wonderment in the second half of the eighteenth\n            century. Kant, the well-known German philosopher,\n            caused an inquiry to be made by a friend living at\n            Gothenburg, in Sweden; the following is his account\n            as related to a lady friend--\n\n            \u201cIn my opinion the following fact is of the greatest\n            demonstrative importance, and ought to do away\n            with any kind of doubt. In 1759, M. de Swedenborg,\n            one Saturday about four in the afternoon, about\n            the end of December, landed at Gothenburg, after a\n            journey to England. M. William Castel invited him\n            to his house, where a company of fifteen persons\n            was present. At six o\u2019clock in the evening, M. de\n            Swedenborg, who had left the room, returned, with\n            a look of consternation on his pallid face, and\n            said that \u2018at that very moment a fire had burst out\n            in Stockholm, at the Sudermalm, and was rapidly\n            spreading its ravages in the direction of his own\n            home....\u2019 He said that the house of one of his\n            friends, whom he named, was in ashes, and that\n            his own was in danger. At eight o\u2019clock, again\n            leaving the room, he returned and said joyfully:\n            \u2018Thank God! The fire has been extinguished at the\n            third door from my own house.\u2019 That very evening\n            the governor was informed of the fact. On Sunday\n            morning, Swedenborg was summoned before this\n            functionary, who questioned him on the matter.\n            Swedenborg gave an exact description of the fire,\n            its beginning and end, and the time it had lasted.\n            The same day, the news spread throughout the town,\n            which was all the more excited as the governor had\n            manifested interest in it, and many people were\n            anxious about their property and friends. On Monday\n            evening there arrived in Gothenburg a courier whom\n            the business men of Stockholm had despatched during\n            the conflagration. Among the letters the fire was\n            described in exactly the manner above mentioned.\n            What can be alleged against the authenticity of\n            this event? The friend who wrote to me has examined\n            the whole affair, not only in Stockholm, but, about\n            two months ago, at Gothenburg also; he is well\n            acquainted with the best-known families, and has\n            been able to obtain complete information in a town\n            where there are still living the majority of the\n            eye-witnesses, considering the short lapse of time\n            (nine years) since 1859.\u201d--Letter to Mademoiselle\n            Charlotte de Knoblich, quoted by Matter, in his\n            _Life of Swedenborg_.\n\n       [20] This idea springs logically from the human and\n            divine ternary, from the trinity of the microcosm\n            and the macrocosm we have spoken of in the previous\n            chapters. The metaphysical correlation of Destiny,\n            Liberty and Providence has been admirably drawn by\n            Fabre d\u2019Olivet, in his commentary on the _Golden\n            Verses of Pythagoras_.\n\n       [21] This classing of men corresponds to the four stages\n            of Pythagorean initiation, and forms the basis\n            of all initiations, even that of the primitive\n            freemasons, who were not without a smattering of\n            esoteric teaching.--See Fabre d\u2019Olivet, _les Vers\n            dor\u00e9s de Pythagore_.\n\n       [22] Montesquieu and Michelet are almost the only writers\n            who have made mention of the virtue of Greek wives.\n            Neither of them states its cause, which I point out\n            in these few lines.\n\n       [23] This is the version of Diogenes of La\u00ebrte regarding\n            the death of Pythagoras--according to Dicearchus,\n            quoted by Porphyry, the master escaped massacre,\n            along with Archippus and Lysis. He wandered from\n            town to town until he reached Metapontum, where\n            he died of hunger in the Temple of the Muses. The\n            inhabitants of Metapontum, on the other hand,\n            affirmed that the sage they had taken in, died\n            peacefully in their city. They pointed out to\n            Cicero his house, seat and tomb. It is noteworthy\n            that, long after the master\u2019s death, those cities\n            which had persecuted Pythagoras most, at the time\n            of the democratic change of opinion, claimed for\n            themselves the honour of having offered him refuge\n            and protection. The towns around the Gulf of\n            Tarentum claimed that they each contained the ashes\n            of the philosopher with as much desperation as the\n            towns of Ionia disputed among one another the honour\n            of having given birth to Homer.--See this question\n            discussed in M. Chaignet\u2019s conscientious work:\n            _Pythagore et la philosophie pythagoricienne_.\n\n       [24] In temple language the term _son of woman_ indicated\n            the lower degree of initiation, woman here\n            signifying nature. Above these were _the sons of\n            man_ or initiates of the Spirit and the Soul, _the\n            sons of the Gods_ or initiates of the cosmogonic\n            sciences, and _the sons of God_ or initiates in the\n            supreme science. The Pythoness calls the Persians\n            _sons of woman_, giving them this name from the\n            character of their religion. Interpreted literally,\n            her words would be devoid of meaning.\n\n       [25] \u201cThese may still be seen in the enclosure of\n            Minerva,\u201d said Herodotus, VIII. 39. The invasion of\n            the Gauls, which took place two centuries later,\n            was repelled in like manner. Here, too, a storm\n            gathers, thunderbolts fall time after time on the\n            Gauls; the earth quakes beneath their feet, they see\n            supernatural visions; and the temple of Apollo is\n            saved. These facts seem to prove that the priests of\n            Delphi were acquainted with the science of cosmic\n            fire and knew how to handle electricity by occult\n            power as did the Chald\u00e6an magi.--See Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Thierry,\n            _Histoire des Gaulois_, I. 246.\n\n\n\n\n                             +------------+\n                             | =THE WORD= |\n                             +------------+\n\n               =A Monthly Magazine devoted to Philosophy,\n        Science, Religion, Eastern Thought, Occultism, Theosophy\n                    and the Brotherhood of Humanity.=\n\n\n=The Word= is a magazine appearing monthly, with 64 pages, in large\ntype, easily readable. It is not intended to furnish additions to the\nfugitive literature that fills the market. =The Word= is a magazine for\npeople who =think=.\n\nMany think; but along what lines? A passing picture, a stray word,\na fugitive thought caught up by them sets in motion a long train of\ndreamy, unfashioned, unfinished thoughts. These readers, too, need not\nleaf through the pages of =The Word=. THE WORD is for the people who\n=want to think=.\n\nTHE WORD is for the people who want to =see=. Almost anybody is willing\nto look. That is not enough. One must want to look intently, must =want\nto see=.\n\nThen it will be seen that this little world floats in an occult world;\nnay, is supported on all sides by occult worlds, that occult worlds\nreach into it from everywhere and every-when. For those alone who want\nto =consciously see= this and =consciously think= of this, for those\nalone =The Word= is published, to those The Word is indeed a HIEROS\nLOGOS. It is a store of treasures of incomparable value.\n\nHere for the first time has been published =The Secret Science of the\nZodiac=. Up to August, 1907, thirty-three articles have been written by\nan unnamed author on =The Secret Science of the Zodiac=. Facts, things,\ntruths, of hidden import have been stated here so plainly and simply\nthat some may now perceive them and their occult meaning and occult\nvalue; to the unseeing or unthinking, they remain as unrelated and\nunsuspected as ever. THE SECRET SCIENCE OF THE ZODIAC is the THEOSOPHY\nOF CONSCIOUSNESS.\n\nThe future will bring, as did the past, articles by the Platonist,\nDr. Alexander Wilder, in whose pen is stored up the experience of\nsixty years of platonic enthusiasm. The old theosophist, Dr. Franz\nHartmann, author of \u201cMagic, White and Black,\u201d and an old-time friend of\nMadame Blavatsky, will continue to write for =The Word=. Knut M. Pauli\nwill continue the \u201cCorrespondences between the Human Soul, Numbers,\nGeometry, Music, Color, Astronomy, Chemistry, and the Human Body,\u201d\nand their practical application to modern problems. The Kabbalist,\nNurho de Manhar, will continue to translate and comment on the Sepher\nHa-Zohar, or Book of Light, and Eduard Herrmann and T. R. Prater will\neach continue his articles and translations from German Mystics.\n\u201cOur Magazine Shelf\u201d brings its usual impartial criticism from a\ntheosophical view of contemporaneous books coming under the subjects to\nwhich the magazine is devoted. \u201cA Friend\u201d will continue \u201c=Moments with\nFriends=.\u201d\n\nThe Word is not an experiment. Examine any of the five volumes which\nare completed.\n\n                            Half Morocco.   Cloth.\n\n        Vol. I.   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Macbeth Bain; cloth 50 cents.\n\n\n            Descriptive Illustrated Catalogue on Application.\n\n\n                    =THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY=\n                       244 Lenox Avenue, New York.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\nFive misspelled words were corrected. Words and phrases in italics are\nsurrounded by underscores, _like this_. Those in bold are surrounded by\nequal signs, =like this=. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and\nwere moved to the end of the book. Final stops missing at the end of\nabbreviations were added. \u1f11\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03b9 was changed to \u1f11\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1\u03b9.","title":"Pythagoras and the Delphic mysteries","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":40419}