CHAPTER II.

Of the Mysteries,

The path by which to Deity we climb

Is arduous, rough, ineffable, sublime ;

And the strong massy gates thro' which we pass,

In our first course, are bound with chains of brass;

Those men the first who of Egyptian birth,

Drank the fair water of Nilotic earth,

Disclosed by actions infinite this road.

And many paths to God Phoenicians showed :

This road the Assyrians pointed out to view,

And this the Lydians and Chaldeans knew.

Oracle of Apollo, from Eusebius.

WE have shown in our history that the Greeks
were not ignorant of the Hermetic Art,
which they borrowed with their metaphysics (so
far indeed as such things may be borrowed which
pertain to reason) from the Egyptians and Persians,
whose temples were visited by nearly every
philosopher of note.

Now the Egyptian, that is the Hermetic Art, or
Art of Divine works, was by the Greeks called
Theurgy ; and was extensively practised at
Eleusis, and more or less in other temples of their
Gods. On no subject has more difference of opinion
arisen amongst the learned : the high veneration
in which the Mysteries were held, the intellectual
enthusiasm with which the Alexandrians speak
of them, the philosophic explanations given in
detail by Iamblicus and others, concerning the
motive and divine nature of the initiatory rites
and the spectacles they procured, have puzzled
many inquirers who, unable in latter times to
account rationally, have disposed of the greater
part as a pantomymic show, sanctified by priestly
artifice and exaggerated by a wild imagination,

182 More Esoteric View.

natural as it has been supposed to those Ethnic
souls. But then the Fathers of our Church, what
frenzy should have possessed them, that St.
Augustin, Cyrillus, Synesius and the rest, should
imitate their follies, transferring the very language,
disciplines, and rites of those " odious mysteries,"
to their own ceremonial worship as Christians, and
that Clemens Alexandrinus should call them
" blessed " ? This has seemed extraordinary, and
the authorities have been quoted and requoted and
turned in many various ways by modern writers
each to the support of his own peculiar view or
modification, often, as may be imagined, at
variance with the original sense in context.

War burton's bias is negative and singularly mis-
leading : he regarded the whole scheme of the
Mysteries as a political fraud, came to the con-
clusion that the gods were dead men deified, and
that the greater mysteries were instituted solely
with a view to nullify the lesser.1 But, as is natural,
he who so shamelessly charged others with a base
expediency, quickly ceased to be respected as an
authority himself, and his notions are accordingly
quite obsolete. Sainte Croix, whose researches
are otherwise the most complete, sets all in an
astronomical and eminently superficial aspect.2
Gebelin and La Pluche see all with vacant agri-
cultural eyes ;3 whilst the author of "Antiquity
Unveiled," notwithstanding so much learning to
his aid, has found out only the foolishness of the
ancients, and thinks that the mysteries should be
regarded as a depository of the religious melan-
choly of the first men.4 Every trifling interpreta-
tion in short has been given, and everything
imputed to the Mysteries except a discovery of
the Wisdom which they professed. For although

1 See the Divine Legation, vol. i.

2 Sainte Croix des Mysteres, 2 vols. 8vo.

3 Gebelin, Monde Primitif. La Pluche des Cieux.

4 L'Antiquite devoilee par ses Usages, &c.

The Mysteries. 183

some with superior mind, as Thomas Taylor for
example, have examined philosophically ; yet
from lack of evidence, and being without a guide
from anything analogous in modern times they
too dispose of them as immaterial ceremonies,
representations at best of abstract philosophic
truths.5

Now this and all such, as the foregoing opinions,
are discordant to our apprehension, and injurious
to the spirit of Antiquity, which not alone upholds
philosophy, that is to say, Ontological Wisdom,
as the true object of initiation, but represents the
rites themselves as really efficacious to procure it.
As the Platonists and Psellus, before cited to the
point, distinctly declare, and Cicero, they were truly
called Initia, for they were the beginning of a life
of reason and virtue ; whence men not only
derived a better subsistence here, as being drawn
from an irrational and brutal life, but were led
on to hope and aspire for a more blessed immor-
tality hereafter.6

Nor did the ancients promise this indiscrimi-
nately, but to those who were initiated in the
Greater Mysteries only, as the Pythagoreans and
Plato in Phcedo assert that by such means an
assimilation was induced, and final contact with
the object of rational inquiry, which is that iden-
tity whence, as a principle, we make our first
descent. But Iamblicus more particularly explains
that it was by arts divinely potent, and not by
theoretic contemplation only or by mere doctrinal
faith or representations either of reality ; but
by certain ineffable and sublime media that
Theurgists became cognizant partakers in the
Wisdom of true Being.7 Heraclitus calls these awi,
medicines, as being the help and remedy of imper-
fect souls ; they possessed a power of healing the

6 Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries

6 De Legibus, lib. ii. cap. xiv.

7 Iamblicus on the Mysteries ; Taylor, p. 109.

184 More Esoteric View.

body likewise, which was extensively practised
in the temples of Esculapius with various minor
physico-magical arts. But philosophy, according
to Strabo, was the object of the Eleusinian rites,
and without the initiations of Bacchus and Ceres,
he considers the most important branch of human
knowledge would never have been attained.
Servius, commenting on Virgil, observes that the
sacred rites of Bacchus pertained to the purification
of souls. Liberi patris sacra ad purgationem
animarum pertinebant ; and again, Animae aere
ventilantur, quod erat in sacris Liberi purgationis
genus. — The Greeks conceived that the welfare
of the states was moreover secured by these
celebrations, and the records refer to them as
bestowing that on which human nature stands
principally in need, viz., moral enlightenment and
purification of life ; without the revelation and
support afforded by them, indeed, existence was
esteemed no better than a living death ; the
tragedians echoing the sense of the people made
the chief felicity to consist therein, as Euripides,
by Hercules says, — I was blessed when I got a sight
of the mysteries : — and in Bacchis, 0 blessed and
happy he who knowing the mysteries of the gods,
sanctifies his life, celebrating orgies in the moun-
tains with holy purifications. And Sophocles, to
the same purport, — Life only is to be had there,
all other places are full of misery and evil.8 The
doctrine of the Greater Mysteries, says Clemens
Alexandrinus, related to the whole universe ; here
all instruction ended ; nature and all things she
contains were unveiled ; — 0 mysteries truly
sacred, 0 pure light ! at the light of torches the
veil that covers deity and heaven falls off. I am
holy now that I am initiated ; it is the Lord
himself who is the hierophanta ; he sets his seal
upon the adept whom he illuminates with his

8 See Praetextus, Hist. Nov. lib. iv. Divine Legation, vol. i.
p. 198. De Septchenes, chap. ii. p. 174, &c.

The Mysteries. 185

beams ; and whom, as a recompense for his faith,
he will recommend to the eternal love of the
Father. These are the orgies of the Mysteries,
concludes the bishop, in pious transport, come ye
and be initiated. But the usage of the church was
not to discover its mysteries to the profane,
especially those that relate to the final apotheosis.
It is even unwilling to speak of them to the Cate-
chumens, says St. Cyrillus, except in obscure terms,
in such a manner, however, as that the faithful
who are initiated may comprehend, and the
rest be discouraged. For by these enigmas the
Dagon is overthrown.9

There was undoubtedly a secret, hanging about
these celebrations, both Ethnic and Christian,
which no record has divulged or common sense
literally succeeded to explain away ; the belief in
providence and a future state were freely promul-
gated, and ordinary worship apart from these
mysteries with which they ought not by any
means to be confounded ; since that might indeed
be perpetuated anywhere, and has been without
essentially changing the state of life.

Previous, however, to more fully entering, we
are desirous to observe that a few writers on
Animal Magnetism, having within these few years
become enlightened by that singular discovery,
suggest their Trance and its phenomena as a revela-
tion of the temple mysteries and various religious
rites. But no one, that we are aware, has developed
his suggestion or carried the idea sufficiently
above the therapeutic sphere ; they appear to have
taken a broad view, without particular inquiry
into the nature of their rites from the ancients
themselves. Had they done this (we speak of the
more advanced minds), we are persuaded that
with that key in hand, their attention would have
been drawn in new directions, and their satisfac-

* See the extracts rendered by De Septchenes, in his Religion
of the Greeks, chap. ii. from Meursius, Eleusinea et Cecropia.

186 More Esoteric View.

tion about the modern use of it become much
modified by observing the far superior results
which, through their Theurgic disciplines, the
ancients aspired after, different too, as they were
superior to any that we are accustomed to imagine
even at the present day.

The ordinary effects of Animal Magnetism, or
Mesmerism, or Vital Magnetism, or by whatever
other term the unknown agency is better expressed,
are now so familiarly known in practice that it
will be unnecessary to describe them ; they have
attracted the attention of the best and leading
minds of the present age, who have hailed with
admiration a discovery which enables man to
alleviate pain and maladies insurmountable by
other means, and by benevolent disposition of his
proper vitality, acting in accord, to restore health
and equilibriate repose to his suffering fellow
creatures. And thus it is true we can lull the senses,
cure the sick, sometimes to restore the blind and
deaf to hearing, sight and utterance ; and it is a
glorious step in progress, cheering and hopeful, a
blessing on our mortal suffering state.10 But are
we to halt here always, or how long ? The ordinary
phenomena of lucidity, prevision, community of
sense, will, and thought, have long been familiar
and might have instigated to more important
discovery ; but years have passed, and the science
has not grown, but retrograded rather in interest
and power, since De Mainaduc, Puysegur, Colqu-
houn, Elliotson, Townshend, Dupotet and the rest,
faithful spirits, first set their fellow-men on the
road of inquiry.

But the best effects of Mesmerism, if we connect
it with the ancients' Sacred Art, appear as trifles
in comparison ; the Supreme Wisdom they inves-
tigated, the Self-Knowledge and perfection of life
and immortality promised and said to be bestowed
on those initiated in the higher Mysteries ! What
10 See Zoist, passim.

The Mysteries. 187

has Mesmerism to do with these things ? What
wisdom does it unfold ? What is its philosophy,
or has it yet made an attempt even to investigate
the subject-being, the cause of its own effects ?
In common arts, the ingenuity is set to work how
it may advance and adapt them to the best advan-
tage ; new capabilities are discovered which, put
in action, often prove the fruitful source of more ;
whereas Mesmerism, dwelling altogether in the
practice (the same which, from the first, unfolded
nature as far as it was able), continues to run on
with her in the same common-place round. Our
sleepwakers are little better than dreamers, for
the most part, or resemble children born into a new
world, without a guide, unable of themselves to
educate their latent faculties, or discriminate truth
from falsehood in their revelations. And, as
respects the Universal Medium, they even, who
believe in such a thing, take it as it presents itself
naturally, having no knowledge of the capabilities
or means of improvement, whither it is able to
ascend or descend, or what is its right determina-
tion. The few experimental tests that have been
instituted hitherto prove nothing but to identify
the same " Imponderable ' through all ; and if
we make trial of the Spirit's instincts, asking for
revelations of prophecy and distant scenes or
journey ings through the air — and they follow us,
those patients of our will, we then go out from
them to philosophize, or wonder, or to think no
more about it, as the case may be ; repeating the
same mechanical operations, and witnessing simi-
lar effects continually over again, until at length
the enthusiasm which early characterized the
novelty and raised expectation about it, has very
generally and naturally died away.

Now this, according to our gatherings, was not
the sort of investigation that the ancients followed
in their Mysteries ; although working in the same
material and with similar instruments, on the same

188 More Esoteric View.

ground, yet their practice was different ; for it
was conducted upon established principles and
with a truly philosophic as well as benevolent aim.
Theurgists, indeed, condemn the Spirit of the
natural life as degraded and incapable of true
intelligence, nor did they therefore value the
revelations of its first included sphere ; but
proceeded at once, passing these, as it appears, in
the Lesser Mysteries, to dissolve the medium more
entirely ; and, as they knew how, to segregate the
Vital Spirit away from those defilements and
imaginative impressures which, by the birth into
sense, had become implanted there, obscuring its
intelligence and that divine eye which, as Plato
says, is better worth than ten thousand corporeal
eyes ; for by looking through this alone, when it is
purified and strengthened by appropriate aids, the
truth pertaining to all beings is perceived.

The Neoplatonists wrote largely of the Theur-
gical art ; many books are quoted by St. Augustine
and his contemporaries which are not transmitted,
but were destroyed probably through the sectarian
malice and shortsighted policy of the later Roman
government, which tolerated nothing but luxury
and arms. Yet sufficient remains to evince the
nature of the Mysteries, since, besides those before
named — Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry, Synesius,
and Iamblicus especially — all refer to them, de-
claring also the objects and revelations. And in
what the disease of the Spirit consists, and from
what cause it falsifies and is dulled, and how it
becomes clarified and defecated, and restored to its
innate simplicity, may be learned in part from
their philosophy ; for by the lustrations in the
Mysteries, as they describe, the soul becomes
liberated and passes into a divine condition of
being.

Synesius writes appositely on the early disci-
plines, showing the phantastical condition also of
the natural understanding essence, before it is

The Mysteries. 189

purified by art and exalted. This Etherial Spirit,
he says, is situated on the confines of the rational
and brutal life, and is of a corporeal and incor-
poreal degree ; and it is the medium which conjoins
divine natures with the lowest of all. And nature
extends the latitude of a phantastic essence
through every condition of things ; it descends
to animals in whom intellect is not present ; in
this case, however, it is not the understanding of a
divine part (as in man it ought to be) but becomes
the reason of the animal with which it is connected,
and is the occasion of its acting with much wisdom
and propriety. And it is obvious, he continues,
that many of the energies of the human life consist
from this nature, or if from something else (i.e.,
to say, from reason), yet this prevails most ; for
we are not accustomed to cogitate without imag-
ination, unless, indeed, some one should on a
sudden be enabled to pass into contact with an
intelligible essence.11

That is into the identical apperception of true
being ; which is not possible under the ordinary
conditions of thought in this life ; but reason is
always more or less debilitated in its energies by
the habitual dependence on sense for data and
objective proof, and by that modal consciousness
which prevents from transcending it. Nor is this
the only barrier, since when freed from the en-
cumbrance of the senses temporarily, when in a
state of trance they are quiescent, their impressure
yet remains, and, as Synesius says, a false imagina-
tion, which it is requisite to destroy, as well as to
banish all influxions from without, before the
understanding spirit can superinduce Divinity.

It is well known that Pythagoras instituted long
preparations and ordeals to train the minds of his
disciples, previously to admitting them4 into the
deeper mysteries of his school ; and his biographer

11 See Taylor's Proclus on Euclid, the extract from Synesius,
vol. ii.

190 More Esoteric View.

relates how, by divine arts and media, he healed
and purified the souls of his followers, and that by
constantly holding them allied to a certain
precedential good, their lives were preserved in
continual harmony and converse with the highest
causes. But dense thickets, which are full of briers,
says Iamblicus, surround the intellect and heart
of those who have not been purely initiated, and
obscure the mild and tranquil reasoning power,
and openly impede the intellective part from be-
coming increased and elevated : and again, — It
may be well to consider the length of time that
we consumed in wiping away the stains which had
insinuated themselves into our breasts, till, after
the lapse of some years, we became fit recipients
for the doctrines of Pythagoras ; for as dyers
previously purify garments, and then fix in the
colours with which they wish them to be imbued
in order that the dye may not be evanescent, after
the same manner also that divine man prepared
the souls of those that are lovers of Wisdom. For
he did not impart specious doctrines or a snare,
but he possessed a scientific knowledge of things
human and divine.12

The Egyptian Olympiodorus also speaks of the
natural imperfection of the human understanding,
and how far its conceptions are adverse to divine
illumination. The phantasy, says he, is an impedi-
ment to our intellectual conception ; hence, when
we are agitated by the inspiring influence of
divinity, and the phantasy intervenes, the enthu-
siastic energy ceases ; for enthusiasm and the
phantasy are contrary to each other. Should it be
asked whether the soul is able to energize without
the phantasy, we reply, that the "perception of
Universalis proves that it is able.lz

As a rational promise to this life of a higher
reality, the subsistence of these Universals cannot

12 Iamblicus' Life of Pythagoras, chap, xvi., xvii.

13 See Porphyry's Aids to Intelligibles. Taylor, p. 207, note.

The Mysteries. 191

be too often or too distinctly brought to mind ; for
not only do they reveal in us a necessity of Being
beyond present experience, but, adumbrating, as
it were, their antecedent light, assist much, if
perspicuously beheld, to introduce the Idea of
that consummate Wisdom, wherein this reason,
becoming passive, receives the substance of her
Whole. And the ancients glowingly describe the
truth so conceived as an unquestionable experi-
ence ; one and the same in all, where difference
is merged in objective union. And Iamblicus more-
over asserts, that Theurgic rites conspiring to this
end were scientifically disposed and early defined
by intellectual canons ; neither is it lawful to
consider these canons as mutable, since they are
the natural faith of life, and alone of all creeds
catholic and independent.

But to transcend the sensible life in rational
energy permanently apart is described as not less
difficult than fortunate to attain ; hence Plato
appropriates the possession of Wisdom to old age,
signifying by this Intellect divining intuitively
without imaginative error ; a Wisdom such as is
not worldly, since it by no means belongs to the
common life of man, nor is to be hoped for at all
either in the early awakening of the life within, but
by a transition gradually effected by Art away
from the profound stains of a baser affection,
it is carried up through the love of truth by faith
into vivid contact with its Whole.

And the extremity of all evil in this life consists,
according to the ancients, in not perceiving the
present evil and how much human nature* stands
in need of amelioration ; and this is a part of that
two-fold ignorance which Plato execrates, which
being ignorant that it is ignorant has no desire to
emerge, but may be compared to a body all over
indurated by disease, which, being no longer
tormented with pain, is neither anxious to be
cured. But he who lives in the consciousness of

192 More Esoteric View.

something better will meditate improvement, and
desire is the first requisite ; indeed, without desire
on our part, art will labour for us in vain, since
Will is the greatest part of purgation. And
through the means of this, says Synesius, both our
deeds and discourses extend their hands to assist
us in our assent ; but this being taken away the
soul is deprived of every purifying machine
because destitute of assent, which is the greatest
pledge of reconciliation. Hence disciplines willingly
endured become of far greater utility, while they
oppose vexation to evil and banish the love of
stupid pleasure from the soul.

But the phantastic Spirit may be purified, even
in brutes, continues this author, so that something
better may be induced : how much will not the
regression of the rational soul be therefore base, if
she neglects to restore that which is foreign to her
nature, and leaves lingering upon earth that which
rightly belongs on high ? Since it is possible, by
labour and a transition into other lives, for the
imaginative soul to be purified and to emerge from
this dark abode. And this restoration indeed one
or two may obtain as a gift of divinity and initiation.
Then, indeed, the soul acquires fortitude with
divine assistance, but it is no trifling contest to
abrogate the confession and compact which she
has made with sense. And in this case force will
be employed, for the material inflictors will then
be roused to vengeance, by the decrees of fate,
against the rebels of her laws ; and this is what the
Sacred Discourse testifies by the labours of Her-
cules, and the dangers which he was required to
endure, and which every one must experience who
bravely contends for liberty, till the Understanding
Spirit rises superior to the dominion of nature and
is placed beyond the jeach of her hands.14

14 See Taylor's History of the Restoration of the Platonic
Philosophy in vol. ii. of his Proclus on Euclid. This Synesius
was the Christian Platonist, Bishop of Alexandria, before men-

The Mysteries. 193

Hence, and from the foregoing evidence, it may
have become probable that modern art has hitherto
unfolded but a small and inferior part only of
the Spirit's life ; nor has experience yet opened
into those temptations and trials which the con-
sciousness must necessarily pass through, all the
while regressive, before it reaches into the central
illumination of truth. Nor does anything occur to
us more beautifully suggestive than the whole of
the passage, from which we here gather, wherein
Synesius describes not only the life that is operated
upon and, in graceful terms, the artifice, but shows
the conditions of desire and will, so indispensable
for advancement, the labours and dangers likewise
which attend those who aspire to the upper grades
of Intellectual Science. And is it not true, as he
remarks so far, we do lead for the most part a
phantastic life ? Nor least they who least suspect
it, for it is the shining of truth that makes this
visible, as a cloud before her face. Are we not filled
too with conceits and roving imaginations and
idols, which we are evermore mistaking for the
real good ? Do we not abound in sects and
dissensions, heresies and doubts, so that scarcely
two are to be found agreeing on all points ? And
the causes are obvious ; without a standard and
sure foundation to build on, we judge, as we are
only able, with the rudimentary faculties and
senses that are born in us, and of all nature, as
through a glass darkly. If, therefore, with this
same misunderstanding and infected Spirit, we
enter in for the discovery and contemplation of
ourselves, it will be useless ; we shall not there
discern the true hypostasis, but err amongst the
turbulent and shadowy impressures of this life's
•birth and sphere of accidents. Thus mingling
with the soul of the universe, without purification

tioned in the history ; one well experienced, according to his
own account, in the Hermetic philosophy, and whose writings
on the art of transmutation have in part descended to this day.

194 More Esoteric View.

or any distinction of its light, our vehicle disports
herself oftentimes in many mingling forms ; as it
is with those who dream or make to themselves
a fool's paradise with the druggist's gas ; since
this, even impure as it is and full of folly, being
of like nature with our life, coalesces ; and would,
if allowed to persist, consume its rationality. And
on this account we observe the ancients more
particularly warn about the treatment of their
Spirit, which, though of a higher birth and instinct
(as we may observe in the comparison of mes-
merized patients and those under the influence
of chloroform or common aether,) and capable of
so much higher, even as they say of the highest
intelligence, yet in proportion may suffer also the
most fearful degradation^ Accordingly if the will
incline downwards, persisting to grovel, or evil
agencies intervene, then, as the Sacred Discourse
has it, the Spirit grows heavy and sinks into
profound Hades. It is necessary that the. mind,
once seated in this Spirit, should either follow or
draw or be drawn by it. Hence, if growing pre-
dominant in folly, she should cease to aspire, the
whole identity, being submerged together, would
be converted to her life.

For is she not that very Sphinx of the Labyrinth,
the devourer of strangers and all who have not the
wit to unriddle her and know themselves ? At all
events, such is said to be the nature of the Phan-
tastic Spirit before it is mundifled, that he who
enters so far as to be profoundly conscious in her
essence, will be lost in irrational confusion, if he
assume not quickly his intellectual energies and
solve, that is comprehend, it on its own ground*
For, if reason remains passive, this nature at
length prevailing, will ravage and devastate
and take possession of the whole mind, destroying
its active energies and converting them to herself.
Thus Iamblicus, speaking of this mundane spirit,
says — it grows upon and fashions all the powers of

The Mysteries. 195

the soul, exciting in opinion the illuminations
from the senses, and fixes in that life which is
extended from body the impressions which descend
from intellect. And Proclus, concerning the same
nature, declares that — it folds itself about the
indivisibility of true intellect (which is in its
centre), conforms itself to all formless species, and
becomes perfectly everything from which dianoia
and our individual reason consist. And, as it is
commonly observed to be a vain labour to infuse
doctrine into a perplexed and turbid brain, or for
a merely practical unspeculative soul to judge
of abstract propositions ; just so, no doubt, the
best constituted minds would be inadequate to
self-inspection on their first entrance into life.
For the Spirit understands the affections of the
mind, and reflects its image as it is, whether good
or evil. But the primary and proper vehicle of the
mind, when it is in a wise and purified condition,
is attenuated and clear seeing ; when however the
mind is sensually affected, then this vehicle is
dulled and becomes terrene ; the instincts are said
to be imperfect just in proportion as the perceptive
medium is impure, and therefore it needs altera-
tion and solution, as the oracles teach, for the
discernment of good and evil, and the proper
choice of life.

It is therefore that the Alchemists so much
declaim against the vulgar Matter as it is at first
made known, full of heterogeneous qualities and
notions, as a subject fallen from its sphere and
defiled. Hence all those preparations, solutions,
calcinations, &c, before it becomes to be the
' Mercury of Philosophers " — pure, agile, intelli-
gent, living — as they say, in her own sphere, as a
queen upon her throne. Take, says Albertus
Magnus, the occult arcanum, which is our brass*
and wash it that it may be pure and clean. . . .
The first rule of the work is a perfect solution.1"
15 Secret. Tract. Alberti, in fine. Artis Auriferae, p. 130, &c.

196 More Esoteric View.

All which we understand with reference to the
universal Mundane Spirit, as it is at first con-
sciously revealed in the recipient life of humanity ;
which Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, calls passive
intellect, because capable of receiving and being
converted to all — the best or worst inclination,
the highest truth or the most delusive imaginings
— of manifesting motives in vital effects, and
within certain limits of organizing even and
transporting them.

And this we take to be the identical agent which
is spread abroad in the present day mesmerizing,
the photogenic medium, our " New Imponder-
able,'' for it is the Common Soul ; also the subject-
matter of the Alchemists aforesaid, when they
call it a thing indifferent, abject, and exposed
in all hands, moving here below in shadowy
manifestation, invisibly and unconsciously con-
verted to every will and various use. It is what
the world cares not for, as the adept says, but
disesteems it ; it hath it in its sight, carries it in
its hands, yet is ignorant thereof ; for it passeth
away with a sudden pace without being known ;
yet these treasures are the chiefest, and he that
knows the Art, and the expressions, and hath the
medium, will be richer than any other.16 But, in
its natural state, the microcosmic life is not dis-
similar from the vitality of the greater world,
which is included by respiration in the blood of.
all creatures, maintaining its perpetual pulsation,
as of the wind and waves, their flux and re-flux ;
supplying to all existence the food of life. And
how much such a life is in need of melioration, how
much it suffers and desires, and how far its
beneficience falls short of human hope and
capability, may be apparent, and that in her
Door-keeper, Isis is not revealed.

16 Aquarium Sapientum, part ii. in fine. Vaughan's Coelum-
Terrse, p. 80, &c.

The Mysteries. 197

But so far we have yet advanced only to the
gate of the great Labyrinth, where the Sphinx
is even now present, rapidly propounding her dark
riddles in the world, images of the obscure and
intricate nature of the human spirit ; which, by
the devious windings, delusive attractions and
similitudes of its own included sphere, leads im-
perceptibly, as it were, by an alluring grace, into
that Hermetic wilderness and wild of Magic in
which so many adventurers have gone astray.
This is the Monster and the Eternal Riddle ex-
plained to common sense as suits it, but misunder-
stood to this day ; that Compound Simple and
ground of the magians' elements — a thing so
perplexedly treated of by them, and having about
it such a latitude for sophistication, that it is almost
impossible to collect or unravel what has been
said of it. Or how should reason attempt to define
an essence all comprehending, yet separated in
each particular, by so great an interval from
itself ? But this is that Augean Stable that was
to be cleansed, that most famous labour of the
philosophic Hercules ; nor the least of labours,
to turn the current of life into another channel,
and purify the natural source.

Close upon the revealment of the Medial Life
then, as we take it, in order of the Mysteries
followed the Purine at ive Rites, which were de-
signed also to restore the monarchy of reason in
the soul, and this not either as an end so much, but
as preparatory to undergoing the final initiations.
We are induced, however, to dwell longer on this
first step, and on the necessity of intellectual
preparation and auxiliaries ; because it may be
objected, as we proceed to unfold the ultimate
tradition of this Wisdom, that we have no valid
witness to our side ; that any individual may
declare according to the revelations of his mind,
and introduce a various imagination to the idea
of truth ; that even supposing the mind included

i\)ti More Esoteric View.

for a while and entirely free from outward im-
pressions, still, retaining as it must the original
bias, not only of sense but of birth and education,
its experience will be neither trustworthy nor
important to this life : and then nothing of a
universal character, such as the ancients speak of,
has been observed ; or if asserted, how should it
be scarcely proved ? Reason in these days is not
content with affirmation ; it will have objective
response to its faith ; all pretensions, therefore,
to internal lights and revelations have ceased to
attract the attention of mankind. And, again,
it may be inquired why, if true Being is everywhere
totally present, it is not so perceived ; and why
all things partaking do not enjoy the light of the
so-called superstantial world ?

In reply to this last objection, we would ask if
it be not because that very Light is drawn out-
wardly, and enchanted by sense that it is inter-
nally unconscious and oblivious everywhere of the
great Identity whence it springs ? If that were
applied inwardly which now looks out, and every
natural impediment removed, experience might
then reveal to us the antecedent life. But the
former objections recur here : there are impedi-
ments ; and it behoves us to consider scrupulously,
but without prejudice, the possibility and tests
of such an experience ; for if by this traditionary
fall and outbirth, the understanding is so polluted
as to be no more able, as Lord Bacon supposes,17
to reflect the total reason to itself, introspection
will be useless, and the central mystery remains,
as respects humanity, a hopeless problem after all.

None better than the ancients (who profess to
have enjoyed the rational life in its most intimate
spheres, and to have reaped its most real and
lasting advantages,) describe the folly and fatal
allurements to which they are subjected who trust
themselves to remain passively dreaming in the
17 See his Instauration of the Sciences, sub init.

The Mysteries. 199

region of the phantasy, with its notions and
instincts, often more false, fleeting, and evil than
the corporeal images with which sense is conver-
sant. It is for this cause they insist so much that,
before any one betakes himself to the inner life
of contemplation — before he hopes, we mean, to
pass into its Reason — that all else be effectually
obliterated, and the mental atmosphere made
clear and passive before its objective light. With-
out this, they promise nothing ; with it, all. And
on this possibility, namely, of purifying the human
Understanding Essence, and developing to con-
sciousness its occult Causality, the transcendental
philosophy of the mystics may be observed to
hinge entirely and exceed every other.

For that there is a foundation of truth in exist-
ence, is as necessary for us to admit as that we are
ignorant of it ; and the doubt rather remains also
about the discover}^ of means, than the possibility
of self-knowledge.

To continue then, partly on the authority of the
Greek philosophers and partly on some other
grounds hereafter to be disposed of, we are led
to infer that the Hermetic purifications and
Mysteries, celebrated in the Eastern temples and
by the priests at Eleusis, were real and efficacious
for the highest ends that philosophy can propose
to itself, namely, the purification and perfection
of human life ; and that inasmuch as the object
was different and immeasurably superior to those
proposed by modern Mesmerism, or any other art
or science of the present day, so also were the
means employed (the particulars of which are
further discussed under the Practice), and the
administration in proportion purer, holier, and
entirety scientific. For does not all our experiment-
alism and philosophy end in fact where the ancients
began, purifying the Vital Spirit in its proper Light?

Or if any one think we have been discussing all
the while a mere nothing, and developing a vain

200 More Esoteric View.

imagination, we admit it ; suggesting only that,
That which is, in his mind, so mere a nothing,
becomes in that of a philosopher to be the All in all.
But who will now conceive the full latitude and
substantiality of this principle, or the true meta-
physical use thereof ? Few, very few, Philalethes
said, there were in his day ; and who will even
inquire now, or believe that it is the very same
which solved and resolved, and wisely manipulated,
becomes to be the concrete Stone of philosophers ;
in its pure, passive expanse, a mirror of the
catholic reason of nature, and the medium of that
holy and sublime experience granted to man alone
in the divine alliance — Ex natura et divino factum
est, as Reuchlin, in The Mirific Word, expresses it
— Divinum enim quia cum divinitate conjunctum
divinas substantias facit.

Take that which is least, and draw it by artifice
into the true ferment of philosophers ; although
our metal is exteriorly dead, yet it has life within,
and wants nothing more than that That which in
the eyes of a philosopher is most precious should
be collected, and that That which the many set
more value on be rejected ; and these words are
manifest without envy, says the Greek Aristhenes.
0, how wonderful is that thing to which we add
nothing different and detract nothing, only in the
preparation removing superfluities.18

From that which is perfect nothing more can be
made ; for a perfect species is not changed in its
nature, neither from an utterly imperfect thing can
art produce perfection ; but this Universal Spirit
is described as a middle substance — passive,
undetermined, susceptible of conversion and all
extremes. And such accordingly we understand to
be the one thing requisite, purifying and to be
purified itself by itself, in turn agent and patient,
which are the Hermetic luminaries ; in their full
representative advancement, the Sun and Moon
18 Aristo teles in Rosario, and in the Lucerna Salis.

The Mysteries. 201

philosophical, passing through many phases from
imperfection to perfection in the true magistery.
And the Hermetic art would seem to consist
simply in the right disposition and manipulation of
this our Undetermined Subject, taking her where
nature leaves, and by divers operations, to be
hereafter noted, as of amalgamation, distillation,
filtration, digestion, and lastly by sublimation to
the Head of an appropriate Vessel, establishing
her in a new and concentric Form of Light.

Nor may this seem a fable to the wise,

Since all things live according to their kinds ;
Their life is light which in them hidden lies,
Discerned by the eyes of soaring minds,
To them discovered is true nature's map,
By whom produced nothing is by hap :

For she her secret agent doth possess,

Which in the universe is only one,
But is distinct thro' species numberless,
According to their seeds, which God alone
In the beginning did produce, and then
Set them their law, found out by mental men.19

But a long interval is between, and all the
labours of that Heroic Intellect to be passed
through before the rejected Keystone regains her
Head place. None but a philosopher ever achieved
the work, or, for reasons that are imperative, ever
will. The idle and vicious are totally excluded, nor
are the rewards of Wisdom to be won by fools
wanting the very principle of melioration in them-
selves.— Nemo enim dat id, quod non habet. —
He only that hath it can impart — and he only
has it who has laboured rationally in the pursuit.
As is exemplified in that saying of Esdras — The
earth giveth much mould, whereof earthen vessels
are made, but little dust that gold cometh of.20

Non levis adscensus, si quis petat ardua, sudor
Plurimus hunc tollit, nocturnse insomnis olivae
Immoritur, delet quod mox laudaverit in se,
Qui cupit aeternse donari frondis honore.

19 Eirenaeus' Marrow of Alchemy, book i. p. 12.

20 Esdras, cap. viii. book i.

202 More Esoteric View.