part in them. It is true he could not at once

give to the whole community the experiences
of the Mysteries, nor would he have wished

The Gospels 157

to do so. But he wished to give to all the
certainty of the truth contemplated in the
Mysteries. He wished to cause the life,
which flowed within the Mysteries, to flow
through the further historical evolution of
humanity, and thus to raise mankind to a
higher stage of existence. "Blessed are they
that have not seen, and yet have believed."
He wished to plant unshakably in human
hearts, in the form of confidence, the cer-
tainty that the divine really exists. One
who stands outside initiation and has this
confidence will certainly go further than one
who is without it. It must have weighed
like a mountain on the mind of Jesus to
think that there might be many standing
outside who do not find the way. He wished
to lessen the gulf between those to be initiated
and the "people." Christianity was to be a
means by which every one might find the
way. Should one or another not yet be ripe,
at any rate he is not cut off from the possibil-
ity of sharing, more or less unconsciously, in
the benefit of the spiritual current flowing
through the Mysteries. "The Son of Man
is come to seek and to save that which was

158 Christianity as Mystical Fact

lost. " Henceforward even those who cannot
yet share in initiation may enjoy some of the
fruits of the Mysteries. Henceforth the
Kingdom of God was not to be dependent on
outward ceremonies : "Neither shall they say,
Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the King-
dom of God is within you." With Jesus the
point in question was not so much how far
this or that person advanced in the kingdom
of the spirit, as that all should be convinced
that that kingdom exists. "In this rejoice
not, that the spirits are subject unto you;
but rather rejoice, because your names are
written in heaven. " That is, have confidence
in the divine. The time will come when
you will find it. ^

VIII

THE LAZARUS MIRACLE

AMONGST the "miracles" attributed to
Jesus, very special importance must be
attached to the raising of Lazarus at Bethany.
Everything combines to assign a prominent
position in the New Testament to that which
is here related by the Evangelist. We must
bear in mind that St. John alone relates it,
the Evangelist who by the weighty words
with which he opens his Gospel claims for
it a very definite interpretation.

St. John begins with these sentences: **In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the word was a God. . . .
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us, and we beheld his glory, a glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth."

One who places such words at the be-

159

i6o Christianity as Mystical Fact

ginning of his narrative is plainly indicating
that he wishes it to be interpreted in a
very deep sense. The man who approaches
it with merely intellectual explanations, or
otherwise in a superficial way, is like one
who thinks that Othello on the stage really
murders Desdemona. What then is it that
St. John means to say in his introductory
words? He plainly says that he is speak-
ing of something eternal, w^hich existed at
the beginning of things. He relates facts,
but they are not to be taken as facts ob-
served by the eye and ear, and upon which
logical reason exercises its skill. He hides
behind facts the "Word" which is in the
Cosmic Spirit. For him, the facts are the
medium in which a higher meaning is ex-
pressed. And we may therefore assume that
in the fact of a man being raised from the
dead, a fact which offers the greatest difficul-
ties to the eye, ear, and logical reason, the
very deepest meaning lies concealed.

Another thing has to be taken into con-
sideration. Renan, in his Life of Jesus, has
pointed out that the raising of Lazarus un-
doubtedly had a decisive influence on the end

The Lazarus Miracle i6i

of the life of Jesus. Such a thought appears
impossible from the point of view which
Renan takes. For why should the fact that
the belief was being circulated amongst the
populace that Jesus had raised a man from
the dead appear to his opponents so danger-
ous that they asked the question, ''Can
Jesus and Judaism exist side by side?" It
does not do to assert with Renan: "The other
miracles of Jesus were passing events, re-
peated in good faith and exaggerated by
popular report, and they were thought no
more of after they had happened. But this
one was a real event, publicly known, and by
means of which it was sought to silence the
Pharisees. All the enemies of Jesus were
exasperated by the sensation it caused. It is
related that they sought to kill Lazarus."
It is incomprehensible why this should be if
Renan were right in his opinion that all that
happened at Bethany was the getting up of
a mock scene, intended to strengthen belief
in Jesus. "Perhaps Lazarus, still pale from
his illness, had himself wrapped in a shroud
and laid in the family grave. These tombs

were large rooms hewn out of the rock, and
II

1 62 Christianity as Mystical Fact

entered by a square opening which was closed
by an immense slab. Martha and Mary
hastened to meet Jesus, and brought him
to the grave before he had entered Bethany.
The painful emotion felt by Jesus at the
grave of the friend whom he believed to be
dead (John xi. 33, 38) might be taken by
those present for the agitation and tremors
which were wont to accompany miracles.
According to popular belief, divine power
in a man was like an epileptic and con-
vulsive element. Continuing the above hy-
pothesis, Jesus wished to see once more the
man he had loved, and the stone having
been rolled away, Lazarus came forth in
his grave-clothes, his head bound with a nap-
kin. This apparition naturally was looked
upon by every one as a resurrection. Faith
knows no other law than the interest of
what it holds to be true." Does not such
an explanation appear absolutely naive, when
Renan adds the following opinion: "Every-
thing seems to suggest that the miracle of
Bethany materially contributed to hasten
the death of Jesus"? Yet there is undoubt-
edly an accurate perception underlying this

The Lazarus Miracle 163

last assertion of Renan. But with the means
at his disposal he is not able to interpret or
justify his opinion.

Something of quite special importance
must have been accomplished by Jesus at
Bethany, in order that such words as the
following may be accounted for: "Then
gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees
a council, and said, 'What do we? for this
man doeth many miracles"* (John xi. 47).
Renan, too, conjectures something special:
*'It must be acknowledged," he says, "that
John's narrative is of an essentially different
kind from the accounts of miracles of which
the Synoptists are full, and which are the
outcome of the popular imagination. Let
us add that John is the only Evangelist with
accurate knowledge of the relations of Jesus
with the family at Bethany, and that it
would be incomprehensible how a creation
of the popular mind could have been inserted
in the frame of such personal reminiscences.
It is, therefore, probable that the miracle in
question was not amongst the wholly legend-
ary ones, for which no one is responsible. In
other words, I think that something took ^

164 Christianity as Mystical Fact

place at Bethany which was looked upon as a
resurrection." Does not this really mean
that Renan surmises that something hap-
pened at Bethany which he cannot explain?
He entrenches himself behind the words:
"At this distance of time, and with only one
text bearing obvious traces of subsequent
additions, it is impossible to decide whether,
in the present case, all is fiction, or whether a
real fact which happened at Bethany served
as the basis of the report that was spread
abroad. " Might it not be that we have to do
here with something of which we might
arrive at a true understanding merely by
reading the text in the right way? In that
case, we should perhaps no longer speak of
"fiction."

It must be admitted that the whole narra-
tive of this event in St. John's Gospel is
wrapped in a mysterious 'veil. To show this,
we need only mention one point. If the
narrative is to be taken in the literal, physical
sense, what meaning have these words of
Jesus: "This sickness is not unto death, but
for the glory of God, that the Son of God
might be glorified thereby." This is the

The Lazarus Miracle 165

usual translation of the words, but the actual
state of the case is better arrived at, if they
are translated, "for the vision (or manifesta-
tion) of God, that the Son of God might be
manifested thereby." This translation is
also correct according to the Greek original.
And what do these other words mean, "Jesus
said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the
life: he that believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live"? (John xi. 4,
25). It would be a triviality to think that
Jesus meant to say that Lazarus had only
become ill in order that Jesus might manifest
His skill through him. And it would again
be a triviality to think that Jesus meant to
assert that faith in Him brings to life again
one who in the ordinary sense is dead. What
would there be remarkable about a person
who has risen from the dead, if after his
resurrection he were the same as he was
before dying? Indeed what would be the
meaning of describing the life of such a
person in the words, "I am the resurrection
and the life"? Life and meaning at once
come into the words of Jesus if we under-
stand them to be the expression of a spiritual

1 66 Christianity as Mystical Fact

occurrence and then, in a certain sense,
literally as they stand in the text. Jesus
actually says that He is the resurrection that
has happened to Lazarus, and that He is
the life that Lazarus is living. Let us
take literally what Jesus is in St. John's
Gospel.

He is "the Word that was made flesh.'*
He is the Eternal that existed in the begin-
ning. If he is really the resurrection, then
the Eternal, Primordial has risen again in
Lazarus. We have, therefore, to do with a
resurrection of the eternal "Word," and this
"Word" is the life to which Lazarus has
been raised. It is a case of illness, not one
leading to death, but to the glory, i. e., the
manifestation of God. If the eternal Word
has reawakened in Lazarus, the whole event
conduces to manifest God in Lazarus. For
by means of the event Lazarus has become a
different man. Before it, the Word, or spirit
did not live in him, now it does. The spirit
has been born within him. It is true that
every birth is accompanied by illness, that
of the mother, but the illness leads to new life,
not to death. In Lazarus that part of him

The Lazarus Miracle 167

becomes ill from which the "new man,*
permeated by the "Word," is bom.

Where is the grave from which the "Word "
is born? To answer this question we have
only to remember Plato, who calls man's
body the tomb of the soul. And we have
only to recall Plato's speaking of a kind of
resurrection when he alludes to the coming
to life of the spiritual world in the body.
What Plato calls the spiritual soul, St. John
denominates the "Word." And for him,
Christ is the "Word." Plato might have
said, "One who becomes spiritual has caused
something divine to rise out of the grave of
his body." For St. John, that which took
place through the life of Jesus was that
resurrection. It is not surprising, there-
fore, if he makes Jesus say, "I am the
resurrection."

There can be no doubt that the occurrence
at Bethany was an awakening in the spiritual
sense. Lazarus became something different
from what he was before. He was raised
to a life of which the Eternal Word could say,
"I am that life." What then took place in

i68 Christianity as Mystical Fact

Lazarus? The spirit came to life within
him. He became a partaker of the Hfe which
is eternal. We have only to express his
experience in the words of those who were
initiated into the Mysteries, and the meaning
at once becomes clear. What does Plutarch
{vide supra p. 26 et seq.) say about the
object of the Mysteries? They were to serve
to withdraw the soul from bodily life and
to unite it with the gods. Schelling thus
describes the feelings of an initiate :

"The initiate through his initiation be-
came a link in the magic chain, he himself
became a Kabir. He was admitted into an
indestructible association and, as ancient
inscriptions express it, joined to the army
of the higher gods" (vSchclling, Philosophie
der Offenharung). And the revolution that
took place in the life of one who received
initiation cannot be more significantly de-
scribed than in the words spoken by Adesius
to his disciple, the Emperor Constantine:
''If one day thou shouldst take part in the
Mysteries, thou wilt feel ashamed of having
been born merely as a man."

If we fill our souls with such feelings as

The Lazarus Miracle 169

these, we shall gain the right attitude to-
wards the event that took place at Bethany,
and have a peculiarly characteristic expe-
rience through St. John's narrative. A cer-
tainty will dawn upon us which cannot be
obtained by any logical interpretation or by
any attempt at rationalistic explanation. A
mystery in the true sense of the word is before
us. The "Eternal Word" entered into Laza-
rus. In the language of the Mysteries, he
became an initiate (vide p. 132 et seq,), and
the event narrated to us must be the process
of initiation.

Let us look upon the whole occurrence as
though it were an initiation. Lazarus is
loved by Jesus (John xi. 36). No ordinary
affection can be meant by this, for it would
be contrary to the spirit of St. John's
Gospel, in which Jesus is **The Word."
Jesus loved Lazarus because he found him
ripe for the awakening of "the Word" within
him. Jesus had relations with the family at
Bethany. This only means that Jesus had
made everything ready in that family for the
final act o! the drama, the raising of Lazarus.
The latter was a disciple of Jesus, such an

170 Christianity as Mystical Fact

one that Jesus could be quite sure that in
him the awakening would be consummated.
The final act in a drama of awakening con-
sisted in a symbolical action. The person
involved in it had not only to understand
the words, "Die and become!" He had to
fulfil them himself by a real, spiritual action.
His earthly part, of which his higher being
in the Spirit of the Mysteries must be
ashamed, had to be put away. The earthly
must die a symbolic-real death. The putting
of his body into a somnambulic sleep for
three days can only be denoted an outer
event in comparison with the greatness of
the transformation which was taking place
in him. An incomparably more momentous
spiritual event corresponded to it. But this
very process was the experience which divides
the life of the Mystic into two parts. One
who does not know from experience the
inner significance of such acts cannot under-
stand them. They can only be suggested by
means of a comparison.

The substance of Shakespeare's Hamlet
may be compressed into a few words. Any
one who learns these words may say that in

The Lazarus Miracle 171

a certain sense he knows the contents of
Hamlet; and logically he does. But one who
has let all the wealth of the Shakespearian
drama stream in upon him knows Hamlet
in a different way. A life-current has passed
through his soul which cannot be replaced
by any mere description. The idea of Ham-
let has become an artistic, personal expe-
rience within him.

On a higher plane of consciousness, a simi-
lar process takes place in man when he experi-
ences the magically significant event which
is bound up with initiation. What he attains
spiritually, he lives through symbolically.
The word ''symbolically" is used here in the
sense that an outer event is really enacted
on the physical plane, but that as such, it is
nevertheless a symbol. It is not a case of an
unreal, but of a real symbol. The earthly
body has really been dead for three days.'

* This and other circumstances connected with the
so-called raising of Lazarus from the dead are to be under-
stood in the light of the fact, that Lazarus' death-sleep
was at the same time symbolic and real — it was in other
words a symbolic reality, a reality symbolising other
realities, and but for the action of Christ, Lazarus would
have remained dead.

172 Christianity as Mystical Fact

New life comes forth from death. This life
has outlived death. Man has gained confi-
dence in the new life.

It happened thus with Lazarus. Jesus had
prepared him for resurrection. His illness
was at once symbolic and real, an illness
which was an initiation {cf. p. 132 et seq.)y
and which leads, after three days, to a really
new life.

Lazarus was ripe for undergoing this ex-
perience. He wrapped himself in the gar-
ment of the Mystic, and fell into a condition
of lifelessness which was symbolic death.
And when Jesus came, the three days had
elapsed. "Then they took away the stone
from the place where the dead was laid. And
Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, 'Father, I
thank thee that thou hast heard me'"
(John xi. 41). The Father had heard Jesus,
for Lazarus had come to the final act in the
great drama of knowledge. He had learned
how resurrection is attained. An initiation
into the Mysteries had been consummated.
It was a case of such an initiation as had
been understood as such during the whole of
antiquity. It had taken place through

The Lazarus Miracle 173

Jesus, as the initiator. Union with the di-
vine had always been conceived of in this
way.

In Lazarus Jesus accomplished the great
miracle of the transmutation of life in the
sense of immemorial tradition. Through
this event, Christianity is connected with
the Mysteries. Lazarus had become an
initiate through Christ Jesus Himself, and
had thereby become able to enter the higher
worlds. He was at once the first Christian
initiate and the first to be initiated by Christ
Jesus Himself. Through his initiation he had
become capable of recognising that the
"Word" which had been awakened within
him had become a person in Christ Jesus,
and that consequently there stood before
him in the personality of his awakener, the
same force which had been spiritually mani-
fested within him. From this point of view,
these words of Jesus are significant, "And I
knew that thou hearest me always: but be-
cause of the people w^hich stand by I said it,
that they may believe that thou hast sent
me." This means that the point is to make
evident this fact: in Jesus lives the "Son of

174 Christianity as Mystical Fact

the Father" in such a way that when he
awakens his own nature in man, man be-
comes a Mystic. In this way Jesus made it
plain that the meaning of Hfe was hidden in
the Mysteries and that they were the path
to this understanding. He is the living Word ;
in Him was personified what had been im-
memorial tradition. And therefore the Evan-
gelist is justified in expressing this in the
sentence, "in Him the Word was made flesh. "
He rightly sees in Jesus himself an incarnated
Mystery. On this account, St. John's Gospel
is a Mystery. In order to read it rightly, we
must bear in mind that the facts are spiritual
facts. If a priest of the old order had
written it, he would have described tradi-
tional rites. These for St. John took the
form of a person, and became the life of
Jesus.

An eminent modern investigator of the
Mysteries, Burkhardt in Die Zeit Konstantins,
says that they "will never be cleared up."
This is because he has not found out how to
explain them. If we take the Gospel of St.
John and see in it the working out in sym-
bolic-corporeal reality the drama of know-

The Lazarus Miracle 175

ledge presented by the ancients, we are really
gazing upon the Mystery itself.

In the words, "Lazarus, come forth," we
can recognise the call with which the Egyp-
tian priestly initiators summoned back to
every-day life those who, temporarily re-
moved from the world by the processes of
initiation, had undergone them in order to
die to earthly things and to gain a conviction
of the reality of the eternal. Jesus in this
way revealed the secret of the Mysteries.
It is easy to understand that the Jews could
not let such an act go unpunished, any more
than the Greeks could have refrained from
punishing ^schylus, if he had betrayed the
secrets of the Mysteries.

The main point for Jesus was to represent
in the initiation of Lazarus before all "the
people which stood by," an event which in
the old days of priestly wisdom could only
be enacted in the recesses of the mystery-
temples. The initiation of Lazarus was to
prepare the way to the understanding of the
"Mystery of Golgotha." Previously only
those who "saw," that is to say, who were
initiated, were able to know something of

176 Christianity as Mystical Fact

what was achieved by initiation, but now a
conviction of the Mysteries of higher worlds
could also be gained by those who "had not
seen, and yet had believed."

IX

THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN

AT the end of the New Testament stands
a remarkable document, the Apo-
calypse, the secret Revelation of St. John. We
have only to read the opening words to feel
the deep mystic character of this book. '' The
Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to shew unto his servants how
the necessary things are shortly going to
happen ; and this is sent in signs by the angel
of God unto his servant John." What is here
revealed is ''sent in signs." Therefore we
must not take the literal meaning of the words
as they stand, but seek for a deeper meaning
of which the words are only signs. But there
are other things also which point to a hidden
meaning. St. John addresses himself to the
seven churches in Asia. Not actual, mate-
rial churches are meant ; the number seven is
13 177

1 78 Christianity as Mystical Fact

the sacred number, chosen on account of its
symboHc meaning. The actual number of
the Asiatic churches was different. And the
manner in which St. John arrived at the
revelation also points to something mys-
terious. ''I was in the Spirit on the Lord's
day, and heard behind me a great voice, as
of a trumpet, saying, 'What thou seest,
write in a book, and send it unto the seven
churches."* Thus, we have to do with a
revelation received by St. John in the spirit.
And it is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Wrapped in a hidden meaning there appears
what Christ Jesus manifested to the world.
Therefore we must also look for this hidden
meaning in the teachings of Christ. This
revelation bears the same relation to ordi-
nary Christianity as was borne by the revela-
tion of the Mysteries, in pre-Christian times,
to the people's religion. On this account the
attempt to treat the Apocalypse as a mystery
appears to be justified.

The Apocalypse is addressed to seven
churches. For the reason of this we have
only to single out one of the seven messages
sent. In the first of these it is said, "Unto

The Apocalypse of St. John 179

the angel of the church of Ephesus write;
these things saith he that holdeth the seven
stars in his right hand, who walketh in the
midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I
know thy works, and thy labour, and thy
patience, and how thou canst not bear them
which are evil: and thou hast tried them
which say they are apostles, and are not,
and hast found them liars: and hast borne,
and hast patience, and for my name's sake
hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Never-
theless I have somewhat against thee, because
thou hast left thy highest love. Remember
therefore from whence thou art fallen, and
repent, and do the best works; or else I
will come unto thee quickly, and will remove
thy candlestick out of his place, except thou
repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest
the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also
hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches; to
him that overcometh will I give to eat of the
tree of life, which is in the midst of the para-
dise of God. " This is the message addressed
to the angel of the first community. The
angel, who represents the spirit of this com-

i8o Christianity as Mystical Fact

munity, has entered upon the path pointed
out by Christianity. He is able to distinguish
between the false adherents of Christianity
and the true. He wishes to be Christian,
and has founded his work on the name of
Christ. But it is required of him that he
should not bar his own way to the highest
love by any kind of mistakes. He is shown
the possibility of taking a wrong course
through such errors. Through Christ Jesus
the way for attaining to the divine has been
pointed out. Perseverance is needed for
advancing further in the spirit in which the
first impulse was given. It is possible to
believe too soon that one has the right spirit.
This happens when the disciple lets himself
be led a short way by Christ and then leaves
his leadership, giving way to false ideas about
it. The disciple thereby falls back again
into the lower self. He has left his "highest
love.'* The knowledge which is attached to
the senses and intellect may be raised into a
higher sphere, becoming wisdom, by being
spiritualised and made divine. If it does not
reach this height, it remains amongst perish-
able things. Christ Jesus has pointed out

The Apocalypse of St. John i8i

the path to the Eternal, and knowledge must
with unwearied perseverance follow the path
which leads to its becoming divine. Lovingly-
must it trace out the methods which trans-
mute it into wisdom. The Nicolaitanes were
a sect who took Christianity too lightly.
They saw one thing only, that Christ is the
Divine Word, the Eternal Wisdom which is
born in man. Therefore they concluded that
human wisdom was the Divine Word, and
that it was enough to pursue human know-
ledge in order to realise the divine in the
world. But the meaning of Christian wisdom
cannot be construed thus. The knowledge
which in the first instance is human wisdom
is as perishable as anything else, unless it is
first transmuted into divine wisdom. ''Thou
art not thus," says the ** Spirit " to the angel of
Ephesus; ''thou hast 'not relied' merely upon
human wisdom. Thou hast patiently trod-
den the Christian path. But thou must not
think that the ' highest ' love is not needed to
attain to the goal. Such a love is necessary
which far surpasses all love to other things.
Only such can be the ' highest ' love. The path
to the divine is an infinite one, and it is to h <*

1 82 Christianity as Mystical Fact

understood that when the first step has been
gained, it can only be the preparation for
ascending higher and higher." Such is the
first of these messages, as they are to be
interpreted. The meaning of the others may
be found in a similar way.

St. John turned, and saw "seven golden
candlesticks," and "in the midst of the
seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of
Man, clothed with a garment down to the
foot, and girt about the paps with a golden
girdle. His head and his hairs were white
like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were
as a flame of fire." We are told (i. 20)
that "the seven candlesticks are the seven
churches." This means that the candle-
sticks are seven different ways of attaining
to the divine. They are all more or less
imperfect. And the Son of Man "had in
his right hand seven stars" (v. 16). The
seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches (v. 20). The guiding spirits, or
daimons {cf. p. 87), of the wisdom of the
Mysteries have here become the guiding
angels of the churches. The churches are
represented as bodies for spiritual beings,

The Apocalypse of St. John 183

and the angels are the souls of those bodies,
just as human souls are the guiding powers
of human bodies. The churches are the im-
perfect ways to the divine, and the souls of
the churches were to become guides along
those paths. For this purpose they must
themselves have for their leader the being
who has in his right hand seven stars. "And
out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged
sword: and his countenance was as the sun
shineth in his strength." This sword is also
found in the Mysteries. The candidate for
initiation was terrified by a flashing sword
(cf. p. 18). This indicates the situation of
one who wishes to know the divine by ex-
perience, so that the face of wisdom may
shine upon him like the sun. St. John also
goes through this experience. It is to be a
test of his strength (cf. p. 18). "And when
I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he
laid his right hand upon me, saying imto me,
Fear not" (v. 17). The candidate for initia-
tion must pass through the experiences which
otherwise man only undergoes at the gate of
death. His guide must lead him beyond the
region in which birth and death have a

1 84 Christianity as Mystical Fact

meaning. The initiate enters upon a new
life. "And I was dead; and, behold, I am
alive for evermore, Amen; and have the
keys of hell and of death. "

Thus prepared, St. John is led on to learn
the secrets of existence. "After this I looked,
and, behold, a door was opened in heaven:
and the first voice which I heard was as it
were of a trumpet talking with me; which
said. Come up hither, and I will shew thee
things which must be hereafter." The mes-
sages to the seven spirits of the churches
make known to St. John what is to take
place in the physical world in order to pre-
pare the way for Christianity. What he now
sees "in the Spirit" takes him to the spiritual
fountain-head of things, hidden behind phy-
sical evolution, but which will be realised,
in a spiritualised age, in the near future, by
means of physical evolution. The initiate
experiences now in the spirit what is to
happen in the future, — "And immediately I
was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was
set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
And he that sat was to look upon like a
jasper and a sardine stone: and there was

The Apocalypse of St. John 185

a rainbow round about the throne, in sight
Hke unto an emerald." In this way is de-
scribed the source of things in the world of
sense, in the pictures in which it appears to
the seer. "And round about the throne were
four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I
saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed
in white raiment; and they had on their
heads crowns of gold" (iv. 2-4). The
beings far advanced on the path of wisdom
thus surround the fountain-head of existence,
to gaze on its infinite essence and bear testi-
mony to it. "And in the midst of the throne,
and round about the throne, were four beasts
full of eyes before and behind. And the first
beast was like a lion, and the second beast
like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a
man, and the fourth beast was like a flying
eagle. And the four beasts had each of them
six wings about him; and they were full of
eyes within : and they rest not day and night,
saying. Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty,
which was, and is, and is to come. " It is not
difficult to see that the four beasts represent
the supersensible life underlying physical
forms of life. Afterwards, when the trumpets

1 86 Christianity as Mystical Fact

sound, they lift up their voices, i. e., when
the Hfe expressed in sense-forms has been
transmuted into spiritual life.

In the right hand of him who sits on the
throne is the book in which the path to the
highest wisdom is traced out (v. i). There
is only one worthy to open the book. "Be-
hold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root
of David, hath prevailed to open the book and
to loose the seven seals thereof. " The seven
seals of the book denote that human wisdom is
sevenfold. That this is so is again connected
with the sacred character of the number
seven. The mystic wisdom of Philo desig-
nates as seals the eternal cosmic thoughts
which come to expression in things. Human
wisdom seeks for those creative thoughts;
but only in the book, which is sealed with
them, is divine truth to be found. The
fundamental thoughts of creation must first
be unveiled, the seals must be opened, before
what is in the book can be revealed. Jesus,
the Lion, has power to open the seals. He
has given a direction to the great creative
thoughts which, through them, leads to wis-
dom. The Lamb that was slain and that

The Apocalypse of St. John 187

has bought its divinity with its blood, Jesus,
who drew down the Christ into Himself and
who thus, in the supreme sense, passed
through the Life- Death- Mystery, opens the
book (v. 9, 10). And as each seal is opened
(vi) , the four beasts declare what they know.

At the opening of the first seal, St. John
sees a white horse, on which sits a rider with
a bow. The first universal power, an em-
bodiment of Creative Thought, becomes visi-
ble. It is put into the right direction by
the new rider, Christianity. Strife is allayed
by the new faith. At the opening of the
second seal a red horse appears, ridden by
one who takes away from the earth Peace, —
the second universal power, so that human-
ity may not neglect, through sloth, to culti-
vate divine things. The opening of the third
seal shows the universal power of Justice,
guided by Christianity. The fourth brings
the power of Religion which, through Chris-
tianity, has received new dignity.

The meaning of the four beasts thus be-
comes plain. They are the four chief uni-
versal powers, to which Christianity giVes a
new direction : War (the lion) ; Peaceful Work

/

1 88 Christianity as Mystical Fact

(the bull) ; Justice (the being with the human
face); and Religious Enthusiasm (the eagle).
The meaning of the third being becomes clear
when it is said, at the opening of the third
seal, "A measure of wheat for a penny, and
three measures of barley for a penny," and
that the rider holds "a pair of balances.'*
And at the opening of the fourth seal a rider
becomes visible whose name "was Death,
and Hell followeci with him." This rider is
Religious Justice (vi. 6, 8). When the fifth
seal is opened there appear the souls of those
who have already acted in the spirit of
Christianity. Creative thought itself, em-
bodied in Christianity, shows itself here; but
by this Christianity is at first meant only the
first Christian community, which was transi-
tory like other forms of creation. The sixth
seal is opened (vi.) ; it is made evident that
the spiritual world of Christianity is an eter-
nal world. The people at large seem to be
permeated by that spiritual world out of
which Christianity itself proceeded. What it
has itself created becomes sanctified. "And
I heard the number of them which were
sealed : and there were sealed an hundred and

The Apocalypse of St. John 189

forty and four thousand of all the tribes of
the children of Israel" (vii. 4). They are
those who prepared for the Eternal before
the coming of Christianity, and who were
transformed by the Christ-impulse.

The opening of the seventh seal follows.
It becomes evident what true Christianity is
to be in the evolution of- the world. The
seven angels, "which stood before God,"
appear (Rev. viii. 2). Again these angels
are spirits from the ancient Mysteries
transferred to Christianity. They are the
spirits who lead to the vision of God in
a really Christian way. Therefore what is
next accomplished is a leading to God: it is
an "initiation" which is bestowed upon St.
John. The proclamations of the angels are
accompanied by the necessary signs during
initiations. "The first angel sounded and
there followed hail and fire mingled v/ith
blood, and they were cast upon the earth:
and the third part of trees was burnt up,
and all green grass was burnt up." And
similar things take place when the other
angels sound their trumpets.

At this point we see that this was not

190 Christianity as Mystical Fact

merely an initiation in the old sense, but
that a new one was taking the place of the
old. Christianity was not to be confined,
like the ancient Mysteries, to a few elect
ones. It was to belong to the whole of
humanity. It was to be a religion of the
people; the truth was to be ready for each
one who "has ears to hear. " The old Mystics
were singled out from a great number; the
trumpets of Christianity sound for every one
who is willing to hear them. Whether he
draws near or not depends on himself. This
is the reason why the terrors accompanying
this initiation of humanity are so enormously
enhanced. What is to become of the earth
and its inhabitants in a far distant future
is revealed to St. John at his initiation.
Underlying this is the thought that initiates
are able to foresee in higher worlds what is
realised in the lower world only in the future.
The seven messages present the meaning of
Christianity to that age, the seven seals
represent what was then being prepared
through Christianity for future accomplish-
ment. The future is veiled and sealed to
the uninitiated; it is unsealed in initiation.

The Apocalypse of St. John 191

When the earthly period is over during which
the seven messages hold good, a more spirit-
ual time will begin. Then life will no more
flow on as it appears in physical forms,
but even outwardly it will be a copy of its
supersensible forms. These latter are repre-
sented by the four animals and the other
seal-pictures. In a still later future appears
that form of the earth which the initiate
experiences through the trumpets.

Thus the initiate prophetically goes through
what is to happen. And the Christian in-
itiate learns how the Christ-impulse inter-
poses and works on in earthly evolution.
After it has been shown how all that is too
much attached to perishable things perishes
to attain true Christianity, there appears
the mighty angel with a little book open in
his hand, which he gives to St. John. "And
he said unto me. Take it, and eat it up ; and
it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be
in thy mouth sweet as honey'* (x. 9). St.
John was not only to read the little book,
he was to absorb it and let its contents per-
meate him. What avails any knowledge
unless man is vitally and thoroughly imbued

/
/
/

192 Christianity as Mystical Fact

with it? Wisdom has to become life, man
must not merely recognise the divine, but
become divine himself. Such wisdom as is
written in the book no doubt causes pain to
the perishable part of man, *'it shall make
thy belly bitter," but so much the more
does it make happy the eternal part, "but
it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."

Only by such an initiation can Christianity
become actual on the earth. It kills every-
thing belonging to the lower nature. "And
their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the
great city, which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt, where also our Lord was cruci-
fied." By this is meant the followers of
Christ, who are ill-treated by the temporal
powers. But what is ill-treated is only the
mortal part of human nature, which they will
afterwards have conquered. Thereby their
fate is a copy of the prefiguring fate of Christ
Jesus. "Spiritually Sodom and Egypt" is
the symbol of a life which cleaves to the
outer and is not changed by the Christ-
impulse. Christ is everywhere crucified in
the lower nature. When the lower nature
conquers, all remains dead. The dead bodies

The Apocalypse of St. John 193

of men lie about in the public places of cities.
Those who overcome the lower nature and
awaken the crucified Christ hear the trumpet
of the seventh angel, *'the kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord,
and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever
and ever" (xi. 15). "And the temple of
God was opened in heaven, and there was
seen in his temple the ark of his testament"
(xi. 19).

In the vision of these events, the initiate
sees renewed the old struggle between the
lower and the higher natures. For every-
thing which the candidate for initiation form-
erly had to go through must be repeated in
one who follows the Christian path. Just
as Osiris was threatened by the evil Typhon
so now "the great dragon, that old serpent"
(xii. 9) must be overcome. The woman,
the human soul, gives birth to lower know-
ledge, which is an adverse power if it is not
raised to wisdom. Man must pass through
that lower knowledge. In the Apocalypse
it appears as the "old serpent." From the
remotest times the serpent had been the
symbol of knowledge in all mystic wisdom.

Z3

194 Christianity as Mystical Fact

Man may be led astray by this serpent, —
knowledge, — if he does not bring to life in
him the Son of God, who crushes the ser-
pent*s head. "And the great dragon was
cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil,
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world:
he was cast out into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him" (xii. 9). In these
words we can see what it was that Christian-
ity wished to be: — a new kind of initiation.
What had been attained in the Mysteries
was to be attained in a new form. For in
them too the serpent had to be overcome,
but this was no longer to take place in the
old way. The one, primeval mystery, the
Christian mystery, was to replace the many
mysteries of antiquity. Jesus, in whom the
Logos had been made flesh, was to become
the initiator of the whole of humanity, and
humanity was to be his own community of
Mystics.

What was to take place was not a separa-
tion of the elect, but a linking together of all.
As each grows up to it so does he become a
Mystic. The good tidings are announced to
all, he who has an ear to hear hastens to

The Apocalypse of St. John 195

learn the secrets. The voice of the heart is
to decide in each individual case. It is not
that one person at a time is introduced into
the Mystery-temples, but that the word is
to be spoken to all, to one it will then appeal
more strongly than to another. It will be
left to the daimon, the angel within each
individual, to decide how far the latter may
be initiated. The whole world is a Mystery-
temple. Not only is salvation to come to
those who see the wonderful processes in
the special temples for initiation, — processes
which give them a guarantee of eternal life,
but *' Blessed are they that have not seen,
and yet have believed. " Even if at first they
grope in the dark, the light may nevertheless
come to them later. Nothing is to be withheld
from any one; the way is to be open to all.

The latter part of the Apocalypse de-
scribes clearly the dangers threatening Chris-
tianity through anti-Christian powers, and
the final triumph of Christianity. All other
gods are merged in the one Christian di-
vinity : "And the city had no need of the sun,
neither of the moon to shine in it: for the
glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb

196 Christianity as Mystical Fact

is the light thereof" (xxi. 23). The secret
of the Revelation of St. John is that the
Mysteries are no longer to be kept under lock
and key. "And he saith unto me, Seal not
the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for
the time is at hand. "

The author of the Apocalypse has set forth
what he believes to be the relation of his
church to the churches of antiquity. He
wished to express in a spiritual mystery what
he thought about the Mysteries themselves.
He wrote his mystery on the isle of Patmos,
and he is said to have received the "Revela-
tion " in a grotto. These details indicate that
the revelation was of a mystery character.

Thus Christianity arose out of the Mys-
teries. Its wisdom is born as a mystery in
the Apocalypse, but a mystery which trans-
cends the limits of the old mystery world.
The separate Mysteries were to become one
universal one.

It may appear to be a contradiction to say
that the secrets of the Mysteries became
manifest through Christianity, and that
nevertheless a Christian mystery is to be
seen again in the spiritual visions of the

The Apocalypse of St. John 197

writer of the Apocalypse. The contradiction
disappears directly we reflect that the secrets
of the ancient Mysteries were revealed by
the events in Palestine. Through these
there became manifest what had previously
been veiled in the Mysteries. There is now
a new secret, namely what has been intro-
duced into the evolution of the world by the
appearance of the Christ. The initiate of
ancient times, when in the spiritual world,
saw how evolution points the way to the as
yet hidden Christ. The Christian initiate
experiences the unseen effects of the mani-
fested Christ.

X

JESUS AND HIS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

IN the wisdom of the Mysteries is to be
sought the soil out of which grew the
spirit of Christianity. All that was needed
was the gaining ground of the fundamental
conviction that this spirit must be introduced
into life in greater measure than had been the
case with the Mysteries. But such a convic-
tion was widely spread, as may be seen from
the manner of life of the Essenes and Thera-
peutae, who existed long before Christianity
arose.

The Essenes were a secluded sect, living
in Palestine, whose numbers at the time of
Christ were estimated at four thousand.
They formed a community which required
that its members should lead a life which
developed a higher life within the soul, and
brought about a new birth. The aspirant

198

Jesus and Historical Background 199

for admission was subjected to a severe test,
in order to ascertain whether he were ripe
for preparing himself for a higher life. If he
was admitted, he had to undergo a period
of probation, and to take a solemn oath that
he would not betray to strangers the secrets
of the Essenian discipline. The object of
this life was the conquest of the lower
nature in man, so that the spirit latent within
him might be awakened ever more and more.
One who had experienced up to a certain
point the spirit within him was raised to a
higher grade, and enjoyed a corresponding
degree of authority, not forced from without,
but conditioned by the nature of things.

Akin to the Essenes were the Therapeutae,
who dwelt in Egypt. We get all desirable
details of their mode of life in a treatise by
the philosopher Philo, On the Contemplative
Life, (The dispute as to the authenticity
of this work must now be regarded as settled,
and it may be rightly assumed that Philo
really described the life of a community
existing long before Christianity, and well
known to him. Cf. on the subject, G. R.
Mead's Fragments oj a Faith Forgotten.) _ A

200 Christianity as Mystical Fact

few passages from Philo's treatise will give
an idea of the main tenets of the Therapeutae.
*'The dweUings of the members of the com-
munity are extremely simple, only affording
necessary shelter from extreme heat and cold.
The dwellings are not built close together,
as in towns, for contiguity has no attraction
for one who wishes for solitude; nor are they
at a great distance one from another, in
order that the social relations, so dear to
them, may not be made difficult, and that
they may easily be able to assist each other
in case of an attack by brigands. In each
house is a consecrated room called a temple
or monasterion, a small room or cell in which
the mysteries of the higher life are cultivated.
. . . They also possess works by ancient
authors who once directed their school, a-nd
left behind many explanations about the
customary method used in allegorical writ-
ings. . . . Their interpretation of sacred
writings is directed to the deeper meaning
of allegorical narratives."

We thus see that what had been striven
after in the narrower circle of the Mysteries
was being made general. But such a gener-

Jesus and Historical Background 201

alisation naturally weakened their severe
character. The Essene and Therapeutic
communities form a natural transition from
the Mysteries to Christianity. But Chris-
tianity wished to extend to humanity in
general what with the Essenes and Thera-
peutae was an affair of a sect. This of course
prepared the way for a still further weaken-
ing of the old severe forms.

The existence of such sects makes it possi-
ble to understand how far the time was ripe
for the comprehension of the mystery of
Christ. In the Mysteries, a man was arti-
ficially prepared for the dawning upon his
consciousness, at the appropriate time, of the
spiritual world. Within the Essene or Thera-
peutic community the soul sought, by a
certain mode of life, to become ripe for the
awakening of the higher man. A further step
forward is that man struggles through to a
feeling that a human individuality may have
evolved to higher and higher stages of per-
fection in repeated earth lives. One who had
arrived at a glimpse of this truth would also
be able to feel that in Jesus a being of lofty
spirituality had appeared. The loftier the

202 Christianity as Mystical Fact

spirituality, the greater the possibility of ac-
complishing something of importance. Thus
the individuality of Jesus could become
capable of accomplishing the deed which the
Evangelists so mysteriously indicate in the
Baptism by John, and which, by the way
in which they speak of it, they so clearly
point out as of the utmost importance. The
personality of Jesus became able to receive
into its own soul Christ, the Logos, who was
made flesh in that soul. Thenceforward
the Ego of Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ,
and the outer personality was the vehicle
of the Logos. The event of the Ego of Jesus
becoming the Christ is enacted in the Bap-
tism by St. John. During the period of the
Mysteries, "union with the Spirit" was only
for those who were initiated. Amongst the
Essenes, a whole community cultivated a
life by means of which all its members were
able to arrive at the mystical union. In the
coming of Christ, something, i. e,, the deeds
of Christ, was placed before the whole of
humanity, so that all might share in the
mystical union.

XI

THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY

THE deepest effect must have been pro-
duced upon believers in Christianity
by the fact that the Divine, the Word, the
eternal Logos, no longer came to them in the
dim twilight of the Mysteries, as Spirit only,
but that when they spoke of the Logos, they
were made to think of the historical, human
personality of Jesus. Formerly the Logos
had only been seen in different degrees of
human perfection. The delicate, subtle dif-
ferences in the spiritual life of personalities
could be observed, and the manner and
degree in which the Logos became living
within those seeking initiation. A higher
degree of maturity was to be interpreted as a
higher stage of evolution of spiritual life.
The preparatory steps had to be sought in a

203

204 Christianity as Mystical Fact

spiritual life already passed through, and the
present life was to be regarded as the prepara-
tory stage for future degrees of spiritual evo-
lution. The conservation of the spiritual
power of the soul and the eternity of that
force might be stated in the words of the
Jewish occult teaching in the book of Sohar,
"Nothing in the world is lost, nothing falls
into the void, not even the words and voice
of man: everything has its place and pur-
port." Personality was but a metamor-
phosis of the soul, which develops from one
personality to another. The single life of the
personality was only considered as a link in
the chain of development stretching back-
wards and forwards.

■ This Logos metamorphosing itself in the
many separate human personalities has
through Christianity been directed away
from these to the one unique personality
of Jesus. What had previously been dis-
tributed throughout the world was now
united in a single personality. Jesus became
the unique God-Man. In Jesus something
was present once which must appear to man
as the greatest of ideals, and with which, in

The Nature of Christianity 205

the course of man's repeated earthly lives,
he ought to be more and more united. Jesus
took upon Himself the divinisation of the
whole of humanity. In Him was sought
what formerly could only be sought in a
man's own particular soul. One did not any
m.ore behold the divine and eternal within
the personality of a man; all that was now
beheld in Jesus. It is not the eternal part
of the soul that conquers death and is raised
through its own power as divine, but it is
that which was in Jesus, the one God that
will appear and raise the souls.

It follows from this that an entirely new
meaning was given to personality. The
eternal, immortal part had been taken from
it. Only the personality, as such, was left.
If immortality be not denied, it has to be
admitted as pertaining to the personality
itself. Out of the belief in the soul's eternal
metamorphosis came the belief in personal
immortality. The personality acquired in-
finite importance, because it was the only
thing which was left to man.

Henceforth there is nothing between the
personality and the infinite God. A direct

2o6 Christianity as Mystical Fact

relation with Him must be established. Man
was no longer capable of himself becoming
divine, in a greater or less degree. He was
simply man, standing in a direct but out-
ward relation to God. This brought quite a
new note into the conception of the world
for those who knew the point of view held
in the ancient Mysteries. There were many
people in this position during the first cen-
turies of Christianity. They knew the nature
of the Mysteries. If they wished to become
Christians, they were obliged to come to an
understanding with the older conceptions.
This brought them most difficult conflicts
within their souls. They sought in most
various ways to effect a settlement between
the two tendencies in the conception of the
world. This conflict is reflected in the
writings of early Christian times: in those of
heathens attracted by the sublimity of Chris-
tianity, as well as in the writings of those
Christians who found it hard to give up the
conceptions of the Mysteries. Slowly did
Christianity grow out of these Mysteries.
On the one hand Christian convictions were
presented in the form of the Mystery truths.

The Nature of Christianity 207

and on the other, the Mystery wisdom was
clothed in Christian words.

Clement of Alexandria (ob. 217 A.D.), a
Christian writer whose education had been
pagan, is an instance of this. "God has not
forbidden us to rest from good deeds when
keeping the sabbath. He permits those who
can grasp them to share in the divine mys-
teries and in the sacred light. He has not
revealed to the crowd what is not suitable
for them. He judged it fitting to reveal it
only to a few, who are able to grasp it and
to work out in themselves the unspeakable
mystery which God confided to the Logos,
not to the written word. And God hath set
some in the Church as apostles; and some
prophets; and some evangelists; and some
pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of
the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ." In-
dividual souls in those days sought by very
different paths to find the way from the
ancient views to the Christian ones. And
the one who thought he was on the right
path called others heretics. In the mean-
while, the Church grew stronger and stronger

2o8 Christianity as Mystical Fact

as an outward institution. The more power
it gained, the more did the path, recognised
as the right one by the decisions of councils,
take the place of personal investigation. It
was for the Church to decide who deviated
too far from the divine truth which she
guarded. The idea of a "heretic" took
firmer and firmer shape. During the first
centuries of Christianity, the search for the
divine path was a much more personal mat-
ter than it afterwards became. A long
distance had been travelled before Augus-
tine's conviction became possible: " I should
not believe in the truth of the Gospels unless
the authority of the Catholic Church forced
me to do so" (cf. p. 143).

The conflict between the method of the
Mysteries and that of the Christian religion
acquired a special stamp through the various
Gnostic sects and writers. We may class as
Gnostics all the writers of the first Christian
centuries who sought for a deep, spiritual
meaning in Christian teachings. (A brilliant
account of the development of the Gnosis is
given in G. R. S. Mead's book mentioned
above. Fragments of a Faith Forgotten,) We

The Nature of Christianity 209

understand the Gnostics when we look upon
them as saturated with the ancient wisdom
of the Mysteries, and striving to understand
Christianity from that point of view. For
them, Christ was the Logos, and as such of a
spiritual nature. In His primal essence, He
cannot approach man from without. He
must be awakened in the soul. But the
historical Jesus must bear some relation to
the spiritual Logos. This was the crucial
point for the Gnostics. Some settled it in
one way, some in another. The essential
point common to them all was that to arrive
at a true understanding of the Christ-idea,
mere historical tradition was not enough,
but that it must be sought either in the
wisdom of the Mysteries, or in the Neo-
Platonic philosophy which was derived from
the same source. The Gnostics had confi-
dence in human wisdom, and believed it capa-
ble of bringing forth a Christ by whom the
historical Christ could be measured: in fact,
through whom alone the latter could be
understood and beheld in the right light.

Of special interest from this point of view
is the doctrine given in the books of Diony-
14

210 Christianity as Mystical Fact

sius the Areopagite. It is true that there is
no mention of these writings till the sixth
century; it matters little when and where
they were written, the point is that they give
an account of Christianity which is clothed
in the language of the Neo-Platonic philo-
sophy and presented in the form of a spirit-
ual contemplation of the higher world. At
all events this is a form of delineation which
belongs to the first Christian centuries. In
older times the truth was handed on in
the form of oral tradition; the most impor-
tant things were not entrusted to v/riting.
The Christianity described in the writings
of Dionysius is set forth in the mirror of the
Neo-Platonic conception of the world. Sense-
perception troubles man*s spiritual vision.
He must reach out beyond the senses. But
all human ideas are primarily derived from
observation by the senses. What man per-
ceives with his senses, he calls existence;
what he does not so perceive, he calls non-
existence. Therefore if he wishes to open up
an actual view of the Divine, he must rise
above existence and non-existence, for these
also, as he conceives them, have their origin

The Nature of Christianity 21 1

in the sphere of the senses. In this sense God
is neither existent nor non-existent; he is
super-existent. Consequently he cannot be
attained by means of ordinary cognition,
which has to do with existing things. We
have to be raised above ourselves, above our
sense-observation, above our reasoning logic,
if we are to find the way to spiritual vision.
Thence we are able to get a glimpse into the
perspectives of the Divine.

But this super-existent Divinity has
brought forth the Logos, the basis of the
universe, filled with wisdom. To him man's
lower powers are able to attain. He is
present in the cosmos as the spiritual Son of
God, he is the Mediator between God and
man. He may be present in man in various
degrees. He may for instance be realised
in an external institution, in which those
diversely imbued with his spirit are grouped
into a hierarchy. A "church" of this kind is
the outer reality of the Logos, and the power
which lives in it lived in a personal way in
the Christ become flesh, in Jesus. Thus the
Church is through Jesus united to God : Jesus
is its meaning and crowning-point.

212 Christianity as Mystical Fact

One thing was clear to all Gnosis, that one
must come to an understanding about the
personality of Jesus. Christ and Jesus must
be brought into connection with one another.
Divinity was taken away from human per-
sonality and must, in one way or another, be
recovered. It must be possible to find it
again in Jesus. The Mystic had to do with a
degree of divinity within himself, and with
his earthly personality. The Christian had
to do with the latter, and also with a perfect
God, far above all that is attainable by
humanity. If we hold firmly to this point of
view, a fundamental mystic attitude of the
soul is only possible when the soul's spiritual
eyes are opened ; when, through finding higher
spiritual possibilities within itself, the soul
throws itself open to the light which issues
from Christ in Jesus. The union of the soul
with its highest powers is at the same time
union with the historical Christ. For mys-
ticism is an immediate consciousness and
feeling of the divine within the soul. But a
God far transcending everything human can
never dwell in the soul in the real sense
of the word. The Gnosis and all subsequent

The Nature of Christianity 213

Christian mysticism represent the effort, in
some way or other, to lay hold of that God,
and to apprehend Him directly in the soul.

A conflict in this case was inevitable. It
was really only possible for a man to find his
own divine part, but this is both human and
(divine,— the divine at a certain stage of
development. Yet the Christian God is a
definite one, perfect in himself. It was pos-
sible for a person to find in himself the power
to strive upwards to this God, but he could
not say that what he experienced in his own
soul, at any stage of development, was one
with God. A great gulf was fixed between
what it was possible to find in the soul, and
what Christianity called divine. It is the
gulf between science and faith, between
knowledge and religious feeling.

This gulf does not exist for the Mystic in
the old sense of the word. For he knows for
a certainty that he can only comprehend
the divine by degrees, and he also knows
why this is so. It is clear to him that this
gradual attainment is a real attainment of
real divine life, and he finds it difficult to
speak of a perfect, isolated divine principle.

514 Christianity as Mystical Fact

A Mystic of this kind does not seek a perfect
God, but he wishes to experience the divine
life. He seeks to be made divine, not to gain
an external relation to the Godhead.

It is of the essence of Christianity that
its mysticism in this sense starts with an
assumption. The Christian Mystic seeks to
behold divinity within him, but at the same
time he looks up to the historical Christ as
his physical eyes do to the sun. Just as the
sun is the means by which physical eyes
behold physical objects, so does the Christian
Mystic intensify his inner nature that it may
behold the divine, and the light which makes
such vision possible for him is the fact of the
appearance of Christ. It is He who enables
man to attain his highest possibilities. It
is in this way that the Christian Mystics
of the Middle Ages differ from the Mystics
of the ancient Mysteries {cf. my book,
Mystics of the Renaissance),

XII

CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHEN WISDOM

AT the time of the first beginnings of
Christianity, there appear in heathen
civilisation conceptions of the universe which
seem to be a continuation of the Platonic
philosophy, and which may also be taken as
a deepening and spiritualisation of the wis-
dom of the Mysteries. The beginning of
such conceptions is to be dated from Philo
of Alexandria (b.c. 25-A.D. 50). From his
point of view the processes which lead to the
divine take place in the innermost part of the
human soul. We might say that the temple
in which Philo seeks initiation is wholly
within him, and his higher experiences are
the Mysteries. In his case processes of a
purely spiritual nature replace the initiatory
ceremonies of the sanctuary.

215

2i6 Christianity as Mystical Fact

According to Philo, sense-observation and
knowledge gained through the logical intel-
lect do not lead to the divine. They have
merely to do with what is perishable. But
there is a way by which the soul may rise
above these methods. It must come out of
what it calls its ordinary self: from this it
must withdraw. Then it enters a state of
spiritual exaltation and illumination, in which
it no longer knows, thinks, and judges in the
ordinary sense of the words; for it has be-
come merged, identified with the divine,
which is experienced in its essence, and can-
not be imparted in thought-concepts or ab-
stract ideas. It is experienced, and one who
goes through this experience knows that no
one can impart it, for the only way of reach-
ing it is to live it. The visible world is an
image of this mystic reality which is ex-
perienced in the inmost recesses of the soul.
The world has come forth from the invisible,
inconceivable God. The harmony of the
cosmos, which is steeped in wisdom, and to
which sense-phenomena are subject, is a di-
rect reflection of the Godhead, its spiritual
image. It is divine spirit poured out into the

Heathen Wisdom 217

world, — cosmic reason, the Logos, the off-
spring or Son of God. The Logos is the
mediator between the world of sense and the
unimaginable God. When man steeps him-
self in knowledge, he becomes united with
the Logos, which is embodied in him. The
person who has developed spirituality is the
vehicle of the Logos. Above the Logos is
God; beneath is the perishable world. It is
man's vocation to form the link between the
two. What he experiences in his inmost
being, as spirit, is the universal Spirit. Such
ideas are directly reminiscent of the Py-
thagorean manner of thinking (cf. p. 57 et
seq.).

The centre of existence is sought in the
inner life, but this life is conscious of its
cosmic value. St. Augustine was thinking
in virtually the same way as Philo, when he
said: "We see all created things because they
are; but they are, because God sees them."
And he adds, concerning what and how we
see: "And because they are, we see them out-
wardly; because they are perfect, we see
them inwardly."

Plato has the same fundamental idea (cf.

2i8 Christianity as Mystical Fact

p. 63 et seq.). Like Plato, Philo sees in the
destiny of the human soul the closing act
of the great cosmic drama, the awakening
of the divinity that is under a spell. He thus
describes the inner actions of the soul: the
wisdom in man's inner being walks along,
*' tracing the paths of the Father, and shapes
the forms while beholding the archetypes/*
It is no personal matter for man to create
forms in his inner being ; they are the eternal
wisdom, they are the cosmic life.

This is in harmony with the interpretation
of the myths of the people in the light of the
Mysteries. The Mystic searches for the
deeper truth in the myths {cf. p. 94 et seq.).
And as the Mystic treats the myths of pa-
ganism, Philo handles Moses* story of the
creation. The Old Testament accounts
are for him images of inner soul-processes.
The Bible relates the creation of the world.
One who merely takes it as a description
of outer events only half knows it. It is
certainly written, "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth. And the
earth was without form and void, and dark-
ness was on the face of the deep. And

Heathen Wisdom 219

the spirit of God moved on the face of the
waters." But the real inner meaning of
the words must be lived in the depths of
the soul. God must be found within, then
He appears as the " Primal Splendour, who
sends out innumerable rays, not perceptible
by the senses, but collectively thinkable."
This is Philo's expression. In the Timceus
of Plato, the words are almost identical with
the Bible ones, "Now when the Father, who
had created the universe, saw how it had
become living and animated, and an image
of the eternal gods, he felt pleasure therein. '*
In the Bible we read, "And God saw that it
was good."

The recognition of the divine is for Philo,
as well as for Plato and in the wisdom of the
Mysteries, to live through the process of
creation in one's own soul. The history of
creation and the history of the soul which is
becoming divine, in this way flow into one.
Philo is convinced that Moses* account of the
creation may be used for writing the history
of the soul which is seeking God. Everything
in the Bible thereby acquires a profoundly
symbolical meaning, of which Philo becomes

220 Christianity as Mystical Fact

the interpreter. He reads the Bible as a
history of the soul.

We may say that Philo's manner of reading
the Bible corresponds to a feature of his age
which originated in the wisdom of the Mys-
teries. He indeed relates that the Thera-
peutas interpreted ancient writings in the
same way. **They also possess works by
ancient authors who once directed their school
and left behind many explanations about
the customary method pursued in allegorical
writings. . . . The interpretation of such
writings is directed to the deeper meaning
of the allegorical narratives" {cf, p. 200).
Thus Philo*s aim was to discover the deeper
meaning of the ''allegorical" narratives in
the Old Testament.

Let us try to realise whither such an inter-
pretation could lead. We read the account
of creation and find in it not only a narrative
of outward events, but an indication of the
way which the soul has to take in order to
attain to the divine. Thus the soul must
reproduce in itself, as a microcosm, the ways
of God, and in this alone can its efforts after
wisdom consist. The drama of the universe

Heathen Wisdom 221

must be enacted in each individual soul. The
inner life of the mystical sage is the realisation
of the image given in the account of creation.
Moses wrote not only to relate historical
facts, but to represent pictorially the paths
which the soul must travel if it would find

God.

All this, in Philo's conception of the uni-
verse, is enacted within the human soul.
Man experiences within himself what God
has experienced in the universe. The word
of God, the Logos, becomes an event in the
soul. God brought the Jews from Egypt
into Palestine; he let them go through dis-
tress and privation before giving them that
Land of Promise. That is the outward event.
Man must experience it inwardly. He goes
from the land of Egypt, the perishable world,
through the privations which lead to the
suppression of the sense-nature, into the
Promised Land of the soul, he attains
the eternal. With Philo it is all an inward
process. The God who poured Himself forth
into the world consummates His resurrection
in the soul when that soul understands His
creative word and echoes it. Then man has

i/

222 Christianity as Mystical Fact

spiritually given birth within himself to di-
vinity, to the divine spirit which became man,
to the Logos, Christ. In this sense know-
ledge was, for Philo and those who thought
like him, the birth of Christ within the world
of spirit. The Neo-Platonic philosophy,
which developed contemporaneously with
Christianity, was an elaboration of Philo' s
thought. Let us see how Plotinus (a.d.
204-269) describes his spiritual experiences:
"Often when I come to myself on awaking
from bodily sleep and, turning from the
outer world, enter into myself, I behold
wondrous beauty. Then I am sure that I
have been conscious of the better part of
myself. I live my true life, I am one with
the divine and, rooted in the divine, gain the
power to transport myself beyond even the
super- world. After thus resting in God,
when I descend from spiritual vision and
again form thoughts, I ask myself how it has
happened that I now descend and that my
soul ever entered the body at all, since, in its
essence, it is what it has just revealed itself
to me. What can the reason be for souls
forgetting God the Father since they come

Heathen Wisdom 223

from the beyond and belong to Him, and,
when they forget Him, know nothing of Him
or of themselves? The first false step they
take is indulging in presumption, the desire
to becom.e, and in forgetfulness of their true
self and in the pleasure of only belonging to
themselves. They coveted self-glorification,
they rushed about in pursuit of their desires
and thus went astray and fell completely
away. Thereupon they lost all knowledge of
their origin in the beyond, just as children,
early separated from their parents and
brought up elsewhere, do not know who
they themselves and their parents are."
Plotinus delineates the kind of life which the
soul should strive to develop. "The life of
the body and its longings should be stilled,
the soul should see calm in all that surrounds
it: in earth, sea, air, and heaven itself no
movement. It should learn to see how the
soul pours itself from without into the serene
cosmos, streaming into it from all sides; as
the Sim's rays illuminate a dark cloud and
make it golden, so does the soul, on entering
the body of the world encircled by the sky,
give it life and immortality. "

224 Christianity as Mystical Fact

It is evident that this vision of the world
is very similar to that of Christianity. Be-
lievers of the community of Jesus said:
"That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled, of the Word of life . . .
declare we unto you." In the same way it
might be said in the spirit of Neo-Platonism,
''That which was from the beginning, which
cannot be heard and seen, must be spiritually
experienced as the Word of life."

And so the old conception of the universe
is developed and splits into two leading ideas.
It leads in Neo-Platonism and similar sys-
tems to an idea of Christ which is purely
spiritual; on the other hand, it leads to a
fusion of the idea of Christ with a historical
manifestation, the personality of Jesus. The
writer of the Gospel of St. John may be said
to unite these two conceptions. "In the
beginning was the Word." He shares this
conviction with the Neo-Platonists. The
Word becomes spirit within the soul, thus
do the Neo-Platonists conclude. The Word
was made flesh in Jesus, thus does St. John

Heathen Wisdom 225

conclude, and with him the whole Christian
community. The inner meaning of the man-
ner in which the Word was made flesh was
given in all the ancient cosmogonies. Plato
says of the macrocosm: "God has extended
the body of the world on the soul of the
world in the form of a cross." The soul of
the world is the Logos. If the Logos is to be
made flesh, he must recapitulate the cosmic
process in fleshly existence. He must be
nailed to the cross, and rise again. In spirit-
ual form this most momentous thought of
Christianity had long before been prefigured
in the old cosmogonies. The Mystic went
through it as a personal experience in initia-
tion. The Logos become man had to go
through it in a way that made this fact one
that is true for or valid to the whole of
humanity. Something which was present
under the old dispensation as an incident
in the Mysteries becomes a historical fact
through Christianity. Hence Christianity
was the fulfilment not only of what the
Jewish prophets had predicted, but also of
the truth which had been prefigured in the
Mysteries.

IS

226 Christianity as Mystical Fact

The Cross of Golgotha gathers together
in one fact the whole cult of the Mysteries of
antiquity. We find the cross first in the
ancient cosmogonies. At the starting-point
of Christianity it confronts us in an unique
event which has supreme value for the whole
of mankind. It is from this point of view that
it is possible for the reason to apprehend the
mystical element in Christianity. Christian-
ity as a mystical fact is a milestone in the
process of human evolution ; and the incidents
in the Mysteries, with their attendant results,
are the preparation for that mystical fact.

XIII

ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE CHURCH

THE full force of the conflict which was
enacted in the souls of Christian be-
lievers during the transition from paganism
to the new religion is exhibited in the person
of St. Augustine (a.d. 354-430) . The spiritual
struggles of Origen, Clement of Alexandria,
Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, and others are
full of mysterious interest when we see them
calmed and laid to rest in the mind of
Augustine.

In Augustine*s personality deep spiritual
needs developed out of a passionate nature.
He passed through pagan and semi-Christian
ideas. He suffered deeply from the most
appalling doubts of the kind which attack
one who has felt the impotence of many
varieties of thought in the face of spiritual
problems, and who has tasted the depressing

227

228 Christianity as Mystical Fact

effect of the question: **Can man know
anything whatever?"

At the beginning of his struggles, Augus-
tine's thoughts clung to the perishable things
of sense. He could only picture the spiritual
to himself in material images. It is a de-
liverance for him when he rises above this
stage. He thus describes it in his Confessio?is:
** When I wished to think of God, I could only
imagine immense masses of bodies and be-
lieved that was the only kind of thing that
could exist. This was the chief and almost
the only cause of the errors which I could not
avoid. " He thus indicates the point at which
a person must arrive who is seeking the true
life of the spirit. There are thinkers, not a
few, who maintain that it is impossible to
arrive at pure thought, free from any material
admixture. These thinkers confuse what
they feel bound to say about their own inner
life, with what is humanly possible. The
truth rather is that it is only possible to
arrive at higher knowledge when thought
has been liberated from all material things,
when an inner life has been developed in
which images of reality do not cease when

St. Augustine and the Church 229

their demonstration in sense-impressions
comes to an end. Augustine relates how he
attained to spiritual vision. Everywhere he
asked where the divine was to be found. "I
asked the earth and she said 'I am not it'
and all that was upon the earth said the same.
I asked the ocean and the abysses and all
that lives in them, which said, ' We are not thy
God, seek beyond us.' I asked the winds,
and the whole atmosphere and its inhabitants
said, *The philosophers who sought for the
essence of things in us were under an illusion,
we are not God.' I asked the sun, moon,
and stars, which said, 'We are not God whom
thou seekest."* And it came home to St.
Augustine that there is only one thing which
can answer his question about the divine — his
own soul. The soul said, **No eyes nor ears
can impart to thee what is in me. For I
alone can tell thee, and I tell thee in an un-
questionable way." "Men may be doubtful
whether vital force is situate in air or in fire,
but who can doubt that he himself lives,
remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows,
and judges? If he doubts, it is a proof that
he is alive, he remembers why he doubts, he

230 Christianity as Mystical Fact

understands that he doubts, he will assure
himself of things, he thinks, he knows that
he knows nothing, he judges that he must
not accept anything hastily.** Outer things
do not defend themselves when their essence
and existence are denied, but the soul does
defend itself. It could not be doubtful of
itself unless it existed. By its doubt it con-
firms its own existence. "We are and we
recognise our being, and we love our own
being and knowledge. On these three points
no illusion in the garb of truth can trouble us,
for we do not apprehend them with our bodily
senses like external things." Man learns
about the divine by leading his soul to know
itself as spiritual, so that it may find its way,
as a spirit, into the spiritual world. Augus-
tine had battled his way through to this
knowledge. It was out of such an attitude
of mind that there grew up in pagan nations
the desire to knock at the gate of the Mys-
teries. In the age of Augustine, such convic-
tions might lead to becoming a Christian.
Jesus, the Logos become man had shown the
path which must be followed by the soul if it
would attain the goal which it sees when in

St. Augustine and the Church 231

communion with itself. In A.D. 385, at
Milan, Augustine was instructed by St. Am-
brose. All his doubts about the Old and
New Testaments vanished when his teacher
interpreted the most important passages,
not merely in a literal sense, but **by lifting
the mystic veil by force of the spirit."

What had been guarded in the Mysteries
was embodied for Augustine in the historical
tradition of the Evangelists and in the com-
munity where that tradition was preserved.
He comes by degrees to the conviction that
**the law of this tradition, which consists in
believing what it has not proved, is moderate
and without guile." He arrives at the idea,
**Who could be so blind as to say that the
Church of the Apostles deserves to have no
faith placed in it, when it is so loyal and is
supported by the conformity of so many
brethren; when these have handed down
their writings to posterity so conscientiously,
and when the Church has so strictly main-
tained the succession of teachers, down to
our present bishops?"

Augustine's mode of thought told him, that
with the coming of Christ other conditions

232 Christianity as Mystical Fact

had set in for souls seeking after the spirit than
those which had previously existed. For him
it was firmly established that in Christ Jesus
had been revealed in outer historical fact
that which the Mystic had sought in the
Mysteries through preparation. One of his
most significant utterances is the following,
**What is now called the Christian religion
already existed amongst the ancients and
was not lacking at the very beginnings of
the human race. When Christ appeared in
the flesh, the true religion already in exist-
ence received the name of Christian."
There were two ways possible for such a
method of thought. One way is that if the
human soul develops within it the forces
which lead it to the knowledge of its true self,
it will, if it only goes far enough, come also
to the knowledge of the Christ and of every-
thing connected with him. This would have
been a mystery-wisdom enriched through the
Christ event. The other way is taken by
Augustine and is that by which he became
the great model for his successors. It consists
in cutting off the development of the forces of
the soul at a certain point, and in borrowing

St. Augustine and the Church 233

the ideas connected with the coming of Christ
from written accounts and oral traditions.
Augustine rejected the first way as spring-
ing from pride of the soul; he thought the
second was the way of true humility. Thus
he says to those who wished to follow the
first way: ''You may find peace in the truth,
but for that humility is needed, which
does not suit your proud neck." On the
other hand, he was filled with boundless in-
ward happiness by the fact that since the
coming of Christ in the flesh, it was possible
to say that every soul can come to spiritual
experience which goes as far as it can in seek-
ing within itself, and then, in order to attain
to the highest, has confidence in what the
written and oral traditions of the Christian
Church tell us about the Christ and his
revelation. He says on this point: ''What
bHss, what abiding enjoyment of supreme
and true good is offered us, what serenity,
what a breath of eternity! How shall I
describe it? It has been expressed, as far as
it could be, by those great incomparable souls
who we admit have beheld and still behold.
. . . We reach a point at which we ac-

234 Christianity as Mystical Fact

knowledge how true is what we have been
commanded to beUeve and how well and
beneficently we have been brought up by
our mother, the Church, and of what benefit
was the milk given by the Apostle Paul to
the little ones. ..." (It is beyond the
scope of this book to give an account of the
alternative method which is evolved from
the Mystery Wisdom, enriched through the
Christ event. (The description of this method
will be found in An Outline of Occult Sci-
ence, see advt., front page.) Whereas in
pre-Christian times one who wished to seek
the spiritual basis of existence was neces-
sarily directed to the way of the Mysteries,
Augustine was able to say, even to those
souls who could find no such path within
themselves, "Go as far as you can on the
path of knowledge with your human powers,
thence trust (faith) will carry you up into the
higher spiritual regions." It was only going
one step further to say, it is natural to the
human soul only to be able to arrive at a
certain stage of knowledge through its own
powers: thence it can only advance further
through trust, through faith in written and

St. Augustine and the Church 235

oral tradition. This step was taken by
the spiritual movement which assigned to
knowledge a certain sphere above which the
soul could not rise by its own efforts, but
everything which lay beyond this domain
was made an object of faith which has to be
supported by written and oral tradition and
by confidence in its representatives. Thomas
Aquinas, the greatest teacher within the
Church (1224- 1 2 74), has set forth this doc-
trine in his writings in a variety of ways.
His main point is that human knowledge
can only attain to that which led Augustine
to self-knowledge, to the certainty of the
divine. The nature of the divine and its
relation to the world is given by revealed
theology, which is not accessible to man*s own
researches and is, as the substance of faith,
superior to all knowledge.

The origin of this point of view may be
studied in the theology of John Scotus Eri-
gena, who lived in the ninth century at the
court of Charles the Bald, and who represents
a natural transition from the earliest ideas
of Christianity to the ideas of Thomas
Aquinas. His conception of the universe is

236 Christianity as Mystical Fact

couched in the spirit of Neo-Platonism. In
his treatise De Divisione Naturce, Erigena
has elaborated the teaching of Dionysius
the Areopagite. This teaching started from
a God far above the perishable things of
sense, and it derived the world from Him
{Cf. p. 208 et seq.). Man is involved in
the transmutation of all beings into this
God, Who finally becomes what He was
from the beginning. Everything falls back
again into the Godhead which has passed
through the universal process and has finally
become perfected. But in order to reach
this goal man must find the way to the
Logos who was made flesh. In Erigena
this thought leads to another: that what
is contained in the writings which give an
account of the Logos leads, when received
in faith, to salvation. Reason and the au-
thority of the Scriptures, faith and know-
ledge stand on the same level. The one does
not contradict the other, but faith must
bring that to which knowledge never can
attain by itself.

The knowledge of the eternal which the

St. Augustine and the Church 237

ancient Mysteries withheld from the multi-
tude became, when presented in this way by
Christian thought and feeling, the content of
faith, which by its very nature had to do
with something unattainable by mere know-
ledge. The conviction of the pre-Christian
Mystic was that to him was given knowledge
of the divine, while the people were obliged
to have faith in its expression in images.
Christianity came to the conviction that God
has given his wisdom to mankind through
revelation, and man attains through his
knowledge an image of this divine revelation.
The wisdom of the Mysteries is a hothouse
plant, which is revealed to a few individuals
ripe for it. Christian wisdom is a Mystery
revealed as knowledge to none, but as a con-
tent of faith revealed to all. The standpoint
of the Mysteries lived on in Christianity, but
in a different form. All, not only the special
individual, were to share in the truth, but
the process was that at a certain point man
owned his inabiUty to penetrate farther by
means of knowledge, and thence ascended
to faith. Christianity brought the content
of the Mysteries out of the obscurity of the

238 Christianity as Mystical Fact

temple into the clear light of day. The one
Christian movement mentioned led to the
idea that this content must necessarily be
retained in the form of faith.

NOTES

P. 5 — To one who has true perception, the " Spirit of
Nature" speaks powerfully in the facts currently expressed
by the catchword, " struggle for existence, " etc. ; but not in
the opinions which modern science deduces from them. In
the first statement lies the reason why natural science is
attracting more and more widespread attention. But it
follows from the second statement that scientific opinions
should not be taken as if they necessarily belonged to a
knowledge of facts. The possibility of being led astray by
mere opinion is, in these days, infinitely great.

P. 9 — It should not be concluded from these remarks
about the sources of St. Luke's Gospel, that purely histori-
cal research is undervalued by the writer of this book. This
is not the case. Historical research is absolutely justified,
but it should not be impatient with the method of presenta-
tion proceeding from a spiritual point of view. It is not
considered of importance to make various kinds of quota-
tions in this book ; but one who is willing will be able to see
that a really unprejudiced, broad-minded judgment will
not find anything that is here stated to be contrary to what
has been actually and historically proved. One who will
not be broad-minded, but who holds this or that theory
to be a firmly-established fact, may easily think that
assertions made in this book are untenable from a scien-
tific point of view, and are made without any objective
foundation.

239

240 Notes

p. 15 — It is said above that those whose spiritual eyes
are opened are able to see into the spiritual world. The
conclusion must not on this account be drawn that only
one who possesses spiritual sight is able to form an intelli-
gent opinion about the results arrived at by the initiate.
Spiritual sight belongs only to the investigator. If he
afterwards communicates what he has discovered, every
one can understand it who gives fair play to his reason and
preserves an unbiassed sense of truth. And such an one
may also apply the results of research to life and derive
satisfaction from them without himself having spiritual
sight.

P. 20 — "The sinking into the mire" spoken of by Plato
must also be interpreted in the sense referred to in the
last note.

P. 20 — What is said about the impossibility of imparting
the teaching of the Mysteries has reference to the fact that
they could not be communicated to those unprepared in
the same form in which the initiate experienced them;
but they were always communicated to those outside in
such a form as was possible for the uninitiated to under-
stand. For instance the myths gave the old form, in order
to communicate the content of the Mysteries in a way
that was generally comprehensible.

P. 88 — Everything that relates to knowledge gained
through the "eyes of the spirit" is called by ancient mys-
ticism "Mantik. " "Telestik, " on the other hand, is the
indication of the ways which lead to initiation.

P. 168 — "Kabirs, " according to ancient mysticism,
are beings with a consciousness far above the human con-
sciousness of to-day. Schelling means that man through
initiation ascends to a state of consciousness above his
present one.

Notes 241

p. 186 — An explanation of the meaning of the number
seven may be obtained in An Outline of Occult Science (see
advt., front page).

P. 187 — The meanings of the Apocalyptic signs can only
be given quite shortly here. Of course, all these things
might be much more thoroughly explained, but of this the
scope of this book does not allow.

The End

il/

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