Chapter 5

Chapter I.

✦

THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EELIGIONS.

Many, perhaps most, who see the title of
this book will at once traverse it, and will
deny that there is anything valuable which
can be rightly described as " Esoteric Chris-
tianity." There is a widespread, and withal
a popular, idea that there is no such thing
as an occult teaching in connection with
Christianity, and that "The Mysteries,"
whether Lesser or Greater, were a purely
Pagan institution. The very name of "The
Mysteries of Jesus," so familiar in the ears
of the Christians of the first centuries, would
come with a shock of surprise on those of
their modern successors, and, if spoken as
denoting a special and definite institution in
the Early Church, would cause a smile of

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incredulity. It has actually been made a
matter of boast that Christianity has no
secrets, that whatever it has to say it says
to all, and whatever it has to teach it
teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to
be so simple, that "a way-faring man,
though a fool, may not err therein," and
the "simple Gospel" has become a stock
phrase.

It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly
that in the Early Church, at least, Chris-
tianity was no whit behind other great re-
ligions in possessing a hidden side, and that
it guarded, as a priceless treasure, the
secrets revealed only to a select few in its
Mysteries. But ere doing this it will be
well to consider the whole question of this
hidden side of religions, and to see why such
a side must exist if a religion is to be strong
and stable ; for thus its existence in Chris-
tianity will appear as a foregone conclusion,
and the references to it in the writings of
the Christian Fathers will appear simple
and natural instead of surprising and unin-
telligible. As a historical fact, the exist-
ence of this esotericism is demonstrable; but

The Hidden Side of Religions

it may also be shown that intellectually it is
a necessity.

The first question we have to answer is:
What is the object of religions? They are
given to the world by men wiser than the
masses of the people on whom they are be-
stowed, and are intended to quicken human
evolution. In order to do this effectively
they must reach individuals and influence
them. Now all men are not at the same
level of evolution, but evolution might be
figured as a rising gradient, with men sta-
tioned on it at every point. The most high-
ly evolved are far above the least evolved ,
both in intelligence and character; the ca-
pacity alike to understand and to act varies
at every stage. It is, therefore, useless to
give to all the same religious teaching; that
which would help the intellectual man would
be entirely unintelligible to the stupid, while
that which would throw the saint into
ecstasy would leave the criminal untouched.
If, on the other hand, the teaching be suit-
able to help the unintelligent, it is intoler-
ably crude and jejune to the philosopher,
while that which redeems the criminal is

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utterly useless to the saint. Yet all the
types need religion, so that each may reach
upward to a life higher than that which he
is leading, and no type or grade should be
sacrificed to any other. Religion must be as
graduated as evolution, else it fails in its
object.

Next comes the question : In what way do
religions seek to quicken human evolution?
Religions seek to evolve the moral and intel-
lectual natures, and to aid the spiritual na-
ture to unfold itself. Regarding man as a
complex being, they seek to meet him at
every point of his constitution, and therefore
to bring messages suitable for each, teach-
ings adequate to the most diverse human
needs. Teachings must therefore be adapted
to each mind and heart to which they are
addressed. If a religion does not reach and
master the intelligence, if it does not purify
and inspire the emotions, it has failed in its
object, so far as the person addressed is con-
cerned.

Not only does it thus direct itself to the
intelligence and the emotions, but it seeks,
as said, to stimulate the unfoldment of the

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spiritual nature. It answers to that inner
impulse which exists in humanity, and
which is ever pushing the race onwards.
For deeply within the heart of all — often
overlaid by transitory conditions, often sub-
merged under pressing interests and anxie-
ties— there exists a continual seeking after
God. " As the hart panteth after the water-
brooks, so panteth " 1 humanity after God.
The search is sometimes checked for a space,
and the yearning seems to disappear.
Phases recur in civilisation and in thought,
wherein this cry of the human Spirit for the
divine — seeking its source as water seeks
its level, to borrow a simile from Giordano
Bruno — this yearning of the human Spirit
for that which is akin to it in the universe,
of the part for the whole, seems to be stilled,
to have vanished; none the less does that
yearning reappear, and once more the same
cry rings out from the Spirit. Trampled on
for a time, apparently destroyed, though the
tendency may be, it rises again and again
with inextinguishable persistence, it repeats
itself again and again, no matter how often

1 Psalms, xlii. 1.
5

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it is silenced; and it thus proves itself to
be an inherent tendency in human nature,
an ineradicable constituent thereof. Those
who declare triumphantly, "Lo! it is
dead!" find it facing them again with un-
diminished vitality. Those who build with-
out allowing for it find their well-construc-
ted edifices riven as by an earthquake.
Those who hold it to be outgrown find the
wildest superstitions succeed its denial. So
much is it an integral part of humanity,
that man will have some answer to his ques-
tionings; rather an answer that is false,
than none. If he cannot find religious
truth, he will take religious error rather
than no religion, and will accept the crudest
and most incongruous ideals rather than ad-
mit that the ideal is non-existent.

Eeligion, then, meets this craving, and
taking hold of the constituent in human na-
ture that gives rise to it, trains it, strength-
ens it, purifies it, and guides it towards its
proper ending — the union of the human
Spirit with the divine, so "that God may be
all in all.'"

1 1 Cor. xv. 28.
6

The Hidden Side of Religions

The next question which meets us in our
enquiry is: What is the source of religions?
To this question two answers have been
given in modern times — that of the Com-
parative Mythologists and that of the Com-
parative Eeligionists. Both base their an-
swers on a common basis of admitted
facts. Research has indisputably proved
that the religions of the world are markedly
similar in their main teachings/ in their
possession of Founders who display super-
human powers and extraordinary moral ele-
vation, in their ethical precepts, in their use
of means to come into touch with invisible
worlds, and in the symbols by which they
express their leading beliefs. This similar-
ity, amounting in many cases to identity,
proves — according to both the above schools
— a common origin.

But on the nature of this common origin
the two schools are at issue. The Compar-
ative Mythologists contend that the common
origin is the common ignorance, and that
the loftiest religious doctrines are simply re-
fined expressions of the crude and barbarous

guesses of savages, of primitive men, re-

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garding themselves and their surroundings.
Animism, fetishism, nature-worship, sun-
worship — these are the constituents of the
primeval mud out of which has grown the
splendid lily of religion. A Krishna, a
Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly
civilised but lineal descendants of the whirl-
ing medicine-man of the savage. God is a
composite photograph of the innumerable
Gods who are the personifications of the forces
of nature. And so forth. It is all summed
up in the phrase: Eeligions are branches
from a common trunk — human ignorance.

The Comparative Religionists consider, on
the other hand, that all religions originate
from the teachings of Divine Men, who give
out to the different nations of the world,
from time to time, such parts of the funda-
mental verities of religion as the people are
capable of receiving, teaching ever the same
morality, inculcating the use of similar
means, employing the same significant sym-
bols. The savage religions — animism and
the rest — are degenerations, the results of
decadence, distorted and dwarfed descen-
dants of true religious beliefs. Sun-wor-

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ship and pure forms of nature-worship were,
in their day, noble religions, highly alle-
gorical but full of profound truth and
knowledge. The great Teachers — it is
alleged by Hindus, Buddhists, and by some
Comparative Religionists, such as Theoso-
phists — form an enduring Brotherhood of
men who have risen beyond humanity, who
appear at certain periods to enlighten the
world, and who are the spiritual guardians
of the human race. This view may be
summed up in the phrase: "Religions are
branches from a common trunk — Divine
Wisdom."

This Divine Wisdom is spoken of as the
Wisdom, the Gnosis, the Theosophia, and
some, in different ages of the world, have
so desired to emphasise their belief in this
unity of religions, that they have preferred
the eclectic name of Theosophist to any
narrower designation.

The relative value of the contentions of

these two opposed schools must be judged

by the cogency of the evidence put forth by

each. The appearance of a degenerate form

of a noble idea may closely resemble that of

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a refined product of a coarse idea, and the
only method of deciding between degene-
ration and evolution would be the examina-
tion, if possible, of intermediate and remote
ancestors. The evidence brought forward
by believers in the Wisdom is of this kind.
They allege : that the Founders of religions,
judged by the records of their teachings,
were far above the level of average hu-
manity; that the Scriptures of religions
contain moral precepts, sublime ideals, poeti-
cal aspirations, profound philosophical state-
ments, which are not even approached in
beauty and elevation by later writings in
the same religions — that is, that the old is
higher than the new, instead of the new
being higher than the old ; that no case can
be shown of the refining and improving
process alleged to be the source of current
religions, whereas many cases of degeneracy
from pure teachings can be adduced; that
even among savages, if their religions be
carefully studied, many traces of lofty ideas
can be found, ideas which are obviously
above the productive capacity of the savages
themselves.

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This last idea has been worked out by Mr.
Andrew Lang, who — judging by his book
on The Making of Religion — should be
classed as a Comparative Eeligionist rath-
er than a Comparative Mythologist. He
points to the existence of a common tradi-
tion, which, he alleges, cannot have been
evolved by the savages for themselves,
being men whose ordinary beliefs are of the
crudest kind and whose minds are little
developed. He shows, under crude beliefs
and degraded views, loftjr traditions of a
sublime character touching the nature of
the Divine Being and His relations with
men. The deities who are worshipped are,
for the most part, the veriest devils, but
behind, beyond all these, there is a dim but
glorious over-arching Presence, seldom or
never named, but whispered of as source of
all, as power and love and goodness, too ten-
der to awaken terror, too good to require
supplication. Such ideas manifestly cannot
have been conceived by the savages among
whom they are found, and they remain as
eloquent witnesses of the revelations made
by some great Teacher — dim tradition of

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whom is generally also discoverable — who
was a Son of the Wisdom, and imparted
some of its teachings in a long bye-gone age.

The reason, and, indeed, the justification,
of the view taken by the Comparative
Mythologists is patent. They found in
every direction low forms of religious belief,
existing among savage tribes. These were
seen to accompany general lack of civilisa-
tion. Regarding civilised men as evolving
from uncivilised, what more natural than to
regard civilised religion as evolving from
uncivilised? It is the first obvious idea.
Only later and deeper study can show that
the savages of to-day are not our ancestral
types, but are the degenerated offsprings of
great civilised stocks of the past, and that
man in his infancy was not left to grow up
untrained, but was nursed and educated by
his elders, from whom he received his first
guidance alike in religion and civilisation.
This view is being substantiated by such
facts as those dwelt on by Lang, and will
presently raise the question, " Who were
these elders, of whom traditions are every-
where found? "

The Hidden Side of Religions

Still pursuing our enquiry, we come next
to the question: To what people were relig-
ions given? And here we come at once to
the difficulty with which every Founder of a
religion must deal, that already spoken of as
bearing on the primary object of religion
itself, the quickening of human evolution,
with its corollary that all grades of evolving
humanity must be considered by Him. Men
are at every stage of evolution, from the
most barbarous to the most developed ; men
are found of lofty intelligence, but also of
the most unevolved mentality ; in one place
there is a highly developed and complex
civilisation, in another a crude and simple
polity. Even within any given civilisation
we find the most varied types — the most ig-
norant and the most educated, the most
thoughtful and the most careless, the most
spiritual and the most brutal; yet each one
of these types must be reached, and each
must be helped in the place where he is. If
evolution be true, this difficulty is inevitable,
and must be faced and overcome by the
divine Teacher, else will His work be a fail-
ure. If man is evolving as all around him

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is evolving, these differences of develop-
ment, these varied grades of intelligence,
must be a characteristic of humanity every-
where, and must be provided for in each of
the religions of the world.

We are thus brought face to face with the
position that we cannot have one and the
same religious teaching even for a single
nation, still less for a single civilisation, or
for the whole world. If there be but one
teaching, a large number of those to whom
it is addressed will entirely escape its influ-
ence. If it be made suitable for those whose
intelligence is limited, whose morality is ele-
mentary, whose perceptions are obtuse, so
that it may help and train them, and thus
enable them to evolve, it will be a religion
utterly unsuitable for those men, living in
the same nation, forming part of the same
civilisation, who have keen and delicate
moral perceptions, bright and subtle intelli-
gence, and evolving spirituality. But if,
on the other hand, this latter class is to be
helped, if intelligence is to be given a phi-
losophy that it can regard as admirable, if
delicate moral perceptions are to be still

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further refined, if the dawning spiritual
nature is to be enabled to develope into the
perfect day, then the religion will be so
spiritual, so intellectual, and so moral, that
when it is preached to the former class it
will not touch their minds or their hearts,
it will be to them a string of meaningless
phrases, incapable of arousing their latent
intelligence, or of giving them any motive
for conduct which will help them to grow
into a purer morality.

Looking, then, at these facts concerning
religion, considering its object, its means,
its origin, the nature and varying needs of
the people to whom it is addressed, recog-
nising the evolution of spiritual, intel-
lectual, and moral faculties in man, and
the need of each man for such training
as is suitable for the stage of evolution at
which he has arrived, we are led to the
absolute necessity of a varied and graduated
religious teaching, such as will meet these
different needs and help each man in his
own place.

There is yet another reason why esoteric
teaching is desirable with respect to a cer-

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tain class of truths. It is eminently the
fact in regard to this class that "knowledge
is power," The public promulgation of a
philosophy profoundly intellectual, sufficient
to train an already highly developed intel-
lect, and to draw the allegiance of a lofty
mind, cannot injure any. It can be
preached without hesitation, for it does not
attract the ignorant, who turn away from
it as dry, stiff, and uninteresting. But
there are teachings which deal with the con-
stitution of nature, ^xplain recondite laws,
and throw light on hidden processes, the
knowledge of which gives control over nat-
ural energies, and enables its possessor to
direct these energies to certain ends, as a
chemist deals with the production of chemi-
cal compounds. Such knowledge may be
very useful to highly developed men, and
may much increase their power of serving
the race. But if this knowledge were pub-
lished to the world, it might and would be
misused, just as the knowledge of subtle
poisons was misused in the Middle Ages by
the Borgias and by others. It would pass
into the hands of people of strong intellect,

The Hidden Side of Religions

but of unregulated desires, men moved by
separative instincts, seeking the gain of
their separate selves and careless of the com-
mon good. They would be attracted by the
idea of gaining powers which would raise
them above the general level, and place or-
dinary humanity at their mercy, and would
rush to acquire the knowledge which exalts
its possessors to a superhuman rank. They
would, by its possession, become yet more
selfish and confirmed in their separateness,
their pride would be nourished and their
sense of aloofness intensified, and thus they
would inevitably be driven along the road
which leads to diabolism, the Left Hand
Path whose goal is isolation and not union.
And they would not only themselves suffer
in their inner nature, but they would also
become a menace to Society, already suffer-
ing sufficiently at the hands of men whose
intellect is more evolved than their con-
science. Hence arises the necessity of with-
holding certain teachings from those who,
morally, are as yet unfitted to receive
them; and this necessity presses on every
Teacher who is able to impart such know-

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ledge. He desires to give it to those who
will use the powers it confers for the gen-
eral good, for quickening human evolu-
tion ; but he equally desires to be no party
to giving it to those who would use it
for their own aggrandisement at the cost
of others.

Nor is this a matter of theory only, ac-
cording to the Occult Eecords, which give
the details of the events alluded to in Gene-
sis vi. et seq. This knowledge was, in those
ancient times and on the continent of Atlan-
tis, given without any rigid conditions as to
the moral elevation, purity, and unselfish-
ness of the candidates. Those who were
intellectually qualified were taught, just as
men are taught ordinary science in modern
days. The publicity now so imperiously
demanded was then given, with the result
that men became giants in knowledge but
also giants in evil, till the earth groaned
under her oppressors and the cry of a tram-
pled humanity rang through the worlds.
Then came the destruction of Atlantis, the
whelming of that vast continent beneath the
waters of the ocean, some particulars of

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which are given in the Hebrew Scriptures in
the story of the Noachian deluge, and in the
Hindu Scriptures of the further East in the
story of Vaivasvata Manu.

Since that experience of the danger of al-
lowing unpurified hands to grasp the know-
ledge which is power, the great Teachers
have imposed rigid conditions as regards
purity, unselfishness, and self-control on all
candidates for such instruction. They dis-
tinctly refuse to impart knowledge of this
kind to any who will not consent to a rigid
discipline, intended to eliminate separateness
of feeling and interest. They measure the
moral strength of the candidate even more
than his intellectual development, for the
teaching itself will develope the intellect
while it puts a strain on the moral nature.
Far better that the Great Ones should be
assailed by the ignorant for Their supposed
selfishness in withholding knowledge, than
that They should precipitate the world into
another Atlantean catastrophe.

So much of theory we lay down as bearing
on the necessity of a hidden side in all relig-
ions. When from theory we turn to facts,

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we naturally ask: Has this hidden side
existed in the past, forming a part of the
religions of the world? The answer must
be an immediate and unhesitating affir-
mative ; every great religion has claimed to
possess a hidden teaching, and has declared
that it is the respository of theoretical mys-
tic, and further of practical mystic, or oc-
cult, knowledge. The mystic explanation
of popular teaching was public, and ex-
pounded the latter as an allegory, giving to
crude and irrational statements and stories
a meaning which the intellect could accept.
Behind this theoretical mysticism, as it was
behind the popular, there existed further the
practical mysticism, a hidden spiritual teach-
ing, which was only imparted under definite
conditions, conditions known and published,
that must be fulfilled by every candidate.
S. Clement of Alexandria mentions this
division of the Mysteries. After purifica-
tion, he says, "are the Minor Mysteries,
which have some foundation of instruction
and of preliminary preparation for what is
to come after; and the Great Mysteries, in
which nothing remains to be learned of the

The Hidden Side of Religions

universe, but only to contemplate and com-
prehend nature and things.'51

This position cannot be controverted as
regards the ancient religions. The Myste-
ries of Egypt were the glory of that ancient
land, and the noblest sons of Greece, such
as Plato, went to Sals and to Thebes to be
initiated by Egyptian Teachers of Wisdom.
The Mithraic Mysteries of the Persians, the
Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries and the later
Eleusinian semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the
Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia, Chaldea,
are familiar in name, at least, as household
words. Even in the extremely diluted form
of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their value is
most highly praised by the most eminent
men of Greece^ as Pindar, Sophocles, Isoc-
rates, Plutarch, and Plato. Especially
were they regarded as useful with regard
to post-mortem existence, as the Initiated
learned that which ensured his future hap-
piness. Sopater further alleged that Initia-
tion established a kinship of the soul with
the divine Nature, and in the exoteric Hymn

1 Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexan-
dria. Stromata, bk. V., ch. xi.

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to Demeter covert references are made to
the holy child, Iacchus, and to his death and
resurrection, as dealt with in the Mysteries.1
From Iamblichus, the great theurgist of
the third and fourth centuries A.D., much
may be learned as to the object of the Mys-
teries. Theurgy was magic, "the last part
of the sacerdotal science,"2 and was prac-
tised in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the
appearance of superior Beings. The theory
on which these Mysteries were based may be
very briefly thus stated : There is One, prior
to all beings, immovable, abiding in the
solitude of His own unity. From That
arises the Supreme God, the Self-begotten,
the Good, the Source of all things, the Root,
the 'God of Gods, the First Cause, unfolding
Himself into Light.3 From Him springs
the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the
Universal Mind, the Nous, and the incor-
poreal or intelligible Gods belong to this.

18ee Article on " My steries, " Encyc. Britannica, ninth
edition.

2 Psellus, quoted in Iamblichus on the Mysteries. T.
Taylor, p. 343, note on p. 23, second edition.
z Iamblichus, as ante, p. 301.

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From this the World-Soul, to which belong
the " divine intellectual forms which are
present with the visible bodies of the Gods." 1
Then come various hierarchies of superhu-
man beings, Archangels, Archons (Eulers)
or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &c.
Man is a being of a lower order, allied to
these in his nature, and is capable of know-
ing them ; this knowledge was achieved in
the Mysteries, and it led to union with
God.2 In the Mysteries these doctrines are

1 Ibid., p. 72.

2 The article on " Mysticism " in the Encyclopedia Britan-
nica has the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204 — 206
a.d.): "The One [the Supreme God spoken of above] is
exalted above the nous and the ' ideas ' ; it transcends ex-
istence altogether and is not cognisable by reason. Re-
maining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from its
own fulness, an image of itself, which is called nous, and
which constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible
world. The soul is in turn the image or product of the
nous, and the soul by its motion begets corporeal matter.
The soul thus faces two ways — towards the nous, from
which it springs, and towards the material life, which is
its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the re-
pudiation of the sensible; material existence is itself

estrangement from God To reach the ultimate goal,

thought itself must be left behind ; for thought is a form
of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the motionless

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expounded, " the progression from, and the
regression of all things to, the One, and the
entire domination of the One," 1 and, further,
these different Beings were evoked, and ap-
peared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by
Their mere presence, to elevate and purify.
"The Gods," says Iamblichus, " being be-
nevolent and propitious, impart their light
to theurgists in unenvying abundance, call-
ing upwards their souls to themselves, pro-
curing them a union with themselves, and
accustoming them, while they are yet in
body, to be separated from bodies, and to be
led round to their eternal and intelligible
principle."2 For " the soul having a two-
fold life, one being in conjunction with
body, but the other being separate from all

rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcend-
ent deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy,
coalescence, contact.'''' Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all
a system of complete rationalism ; it is assumed, in other
words, that reason is capable of mapping out the whole
system of things. But, inasmuch as a God is affirmed be-
yond reason, the mysticism becomes in a sense the neces-
sary complement of the would-be all-embracing rationalism.
The system culminates in a mystical act."

1 Iamblichus, as ante, p. 73.

Ubid., pp. 55? 56.

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body,"1 it is most necessary to learn to sep-
arate it from the body, that thus it may
unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual
and divine part, and learn the genuine prin-
ciples of knowledge, and the truths of the
intelligible world.2 "The presence of the
Gods, indeed, imparts to us health of body,
virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and, in one
word, elevates everything in us to its proper
nature. It exhibits that which is not body
as body to the eyes of the soul, through
those of the body."3 When the Gods ap-
pear, the soul receives " a liberation from the
passions, a transcendent perfection, and an
energy entirely more excellent, and partici-
pates of divine love and an immense joy."4
By this we gain a divine life, and are ren-
dered in reality divine.5

The culminating point of the Mysteries
was when the Initiate became a God,
whether by union with a divine Being out-
side himself, or by the realisation of the di-
vine Self within him. This was termed ec-

lIbid., pp. 118, 119. >Ibid., pp. 118, 119.

3 Ibid., pp. 95, 100. 4 Ibid., p. 101.

"Ibid., p. 330.
25

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stasy, and was a state of what the Indian
Yogi would term high Samadhi, the gross
body being entranced and the freed soul
effecting its own union with the Great One.
This "ecstasy is not a faculty properly so
called, it is a state of the soul, which trans-
forms it in such a way that it then per-
ceives what was previously hidden from it.
The state will not be permanent until our
union with God is irrevocable; here, in

earth life, ecstasy is but a flash

Man can cease to become man, and become
God ; but man cannot be God and man at
the same time."1 Plotinus states that he
had reached this state "but three times as
yet.'5

So also Proclus taught that the one sal-
vation of the soul was to return to her
intellectual form, and thus escape from the
"circle of generation, from abundant wan-
derings," and reach true Being, "to the
uniform and simple energy of the period of
sameness, instead of the abundantly wan-
dering motion of the period which is char-
acterised by difference." This is the life

1 G. R. S. Mead. Plotinus, p. 42.
26

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sought by those initiated by Orpheus into
the Mysteries of Bacchus and Proserpine,
and this is the result of the practice of the
purificatory, or cathartic, virtues. 1

These virtues were necessary for the
Greater Mysteries, as they concerned the
purifying of the subtle body, in which the
soul worked when out of the gross body.
The political or practical virtues belonged to
man's ordinary life, and were required to
some extent before he could be a candidate
even for such a School as is described below.
Then came the cathartic virtues, by which
the subtle body, that of the emotions and
lower mind, was purified ; thirdly the intel-
lectual, belonging to the Augoeides, or the
light-form of the intellect; fourthly the
contemplative, or paradigmatic, by which
union with God was realised. Porphyry
writes: "He who energises according to the
practical virtues is a worthy man ; but he
who energises according to the purifying
virtues is an angelic man, or is also a good
daimon. He who energises according to
the intellectual virtues alone is a God ; but

1 JambUchus, p. 364, note on p. 134.
27

Esoteric Christianity

he who energises according to the paradig-
matic virtues is the Father of the Gods." 1

Much instruction was also given in the
Mysteries by the archangelic and other hier-
archies, and Pythagoras, the great teacher
who was initiated in India, and who gave
"the knowledge of things that are " to his
pledged disciples, is said to have possessed
such a knowledge of music that he could use
it for the controlling of men's wildest pas-
sions, and the illuminating of their minds.
Of this, instances are given by Iamblichus
in his Life of Pythagoras. It seems proba-
ble that the title of Theodidaktos, given to
Ammonius Saccas, the master of Plotinus,
referred less to the sublimity of his teach-
ings than to this divine instruction received
by him in the Mysteries.

Some of the symbols used are explained
by Iamblichus,2 who bids Porphyry remove
from his thought the image of the thing
symbolised and reach its intellectual mean-
ing. Thus " mire " meant everything that
was bodily and material; the "God sitting

1 G. R. S. Mead. Orpheus, pp. 285, 286.

2 Iamblichus, p. 364, note on p. 134. v

The Hidden Side of Religions

above the lotus " signified that God tran-
scended both the mire and the intellect,
symbolised by the lotus, and was established
in Himself, being seated. If " sailing in a
ship," His rule over the world was pictured.
And so on.1 On this use of symbols Proclus
remarks that "the Orphic method aimed
at revealing divine things by means of sym-
bols, a method common to all writers of di-
vine lore."2

The Pythagorean School in Magna Graecia
was closed at the end of the sixth century
B.C., owing to the persecution of the civil
power, but other communities existed, keep-
ing up the sacred tradition.3 Mead states
that Plato intellectualised it, in order to
protect it from an increasing profanation,
and the Eleusinian rites preserved some of
its forms, having lost its substance. The
Neo-Platonists inherited from Pythagoras
and Plato, and their works should be stud-
ied by those who would realise something of
the grandeur and the beauty preserved for
the world in the Mysteries.

1 Iamblichus, p. 285, et seq.

3G. R. S. Mead. Orpheus, p. 59. *lbid., p. 30.
29

Esoteric Christianity

The Pythagorean School itself may serve
as a type of the discipline enforced. On this
Mead gives many interesting details,1 and
remarks: "The authors of antiquity are
agreed that this discipline had succeeded in
producing the highest examples, not only of
the purest chastity and sentiment, but also
a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a
taste for serious pursuits which was unpar-
alleled. This is admitted even by Christian
writers." The School had outer disciples,
leading the family and social life, and the
above quotation refers to these. In the in-
ner School were three degrees — the first of
Hearers, who studied for two years in si-
lence, doing their best to master the teach-
ings ; the second degree was of Mathematici,
wherein were taught geometry and music,
the nature of number, form, colour, and
sound; the third degree was of Physici, who
mastered cosmogony and metaphysics. This
led up to the true Mysteries. Candidates
for the School must be "of an unblemished
reputation and of a contented disposition."

The close identity between the methods

lIMd.9 pp. 263, 271.
30

The Hidden Side of Religions

and aims pursued in these various Mysteries
and those of Yoga in India is patent to the
most superficial observer. It is not, how-
ever, necessary to suppose that the nations
of antiquity drew from India ; all alike drew
from the one source, the Grand Lodge of
Central Asia, which sent out its Initiates to
every land. They all taught the same doc-
trines, and pursued the same methods, lead-
ing to the same ends. But there was much
intercommunication between the Initiates
of all nations, and there was a common
language and a common symbolism. Thus
Pythagoras journeyed among the Indians,
and received in India a high Initiation, and
Apollonius of Tyana later followed in his
steps. Quite Indian in phrase as well as
thought were the dying words of Plotinus :
"Now I seek to lead back the Self within
me to the All-self."1

Among the Hindus the duty of teaching
the supreme knowledge only to the worthy
was strictly insisted on. "The deepest
mystery of the end of knowledge .... is
not to be declared to one who is not a son or

1 G. R S. Mead. Plotinus, p. 20.
31

Esoteric Christianity

a pupil, and who is not tranquil in mind." 1
So again, after a sketch of Yoga we read:
" Stand up! awake! having found the Great
Ones, listen! The road is as difficult to
tread as the sharp edge of a razor. Thus
say the wise." 2 The Teacher is needed, for
written teaching alone does not suffice.
The "end of knowledge" is to know God —
not only to believe; to become one with
God — not only to worship afar off. Man
must know the reality of the divine Exist-
ence, and then know — not only vaguely be-
lieve and hope — that his own innermost Self
is one with God, and that the aim of life is
to realise that unity. Unless religion can
guide a man to that realisation, it is but
"as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." 3
So also it was asserted that man should
learn to leave the gross body: "Let a man
with firmness separate it [the soul] from his
own body, as a grass-stalk from its sheath." 4
And it was written! "In the golden high-
est sheath dwells the stainless, changeless

1 ShvetdshvataropanisJiat, vi., 22.

2 Katfiopanishat, iii., 14. 8 1. Cor. xiii. 1.

4 KatJwpanisJiat, vi. 17.

The Hidden Side of Religions

Brahman ; It is the radiant white Light of
lights, known to the knowers of the Self." 1
" When the seer sees the golden-coloured
Creator, the Lord, the Spirit, whose womb
is Brahman, then, having thrown away
merit and demerit, stainless, the wise one
reaches the highest union." 2

Nor were the Hebrews without their se-
cret knowledge and their Schools of Initia-
tion. The company of prophets at Naioth
presided over by Samuel3 formed such a
School, and the oral teaching was handed
down by them. Similar Schools existed at
Bethel and Jericho,4 and in Cruden's Con-
cordance 5 there is the following interesting
note : " The Schools or Colleges of the proph-
ets are the first [schools] of which we have
any account in Scripture; where the chil-
dren of the prophets, that is, their disciples,
lived in the exercises of a retired and
austere life, in study and meditation, and
reading of the law of God. . . . These
Schools, or Societies, of the prophets were

1 Munclakopanishat, II., ii. 9. ^IMd., III., i. 3.
3 1. Sam. xix. 20. 4 II. Kings ii. 2, 5.

5 Under "School."
3 33

Esoteric Christianity

succeeded by the Synagogues." The Kab-
bala, which contains the semi-public teach-
ing, is, as it now stands, a modern compila-
tion, part of it being the work of Eabbi
Moses de Leon, who died a.d. 1305. It con-
sists of five books, Bahir, Zohar, Sepher
Sephiroth, Sepher Yetzirah, and Asch Met-
zareth, and is asserted to have been transmit-
ted orally from very ancient times— as an-
tiquity is reckoned historically. Dr. Wynn
Westcott says that " Hebrew tradition as-
signs the oldest parts of the Zohar to a date
antecedent to the building of the second
Temple;" and Eabbi Simeon ben Jochai is
said to have written down some of it in the
first century a.d. The Sepher Yetzirah is
spoken of by Saadjah Gaon, who died a.d.
940, as "very ancient."1 Some portions of
the ancient oral teaching have been incorpo-
rated in the Kabbala as it now stands, but
the true archaic wisdom of the Hebrews re-
mains in the guardianship of a few of the
true sons of Israel.

Brief as is this outline, it is sufficient to

1 Dr. Wynn Westcott. Sepher Yetzirah, p. 9.
34

The Hidden Side of Religions

show the existence of a hidden side in the
religions of the world outside Christianity,
and we may now examine the question
whether Christianity was an exception to
this universal rule.