THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF THEOSOPHIC/iL BOOK GIFT INSTITUTE Central Fiuiirc aftrr a I'oinpcian W allpaiiitiiuj ot /'' 'M ^ ^ The Enthroned Sun-God and His Twelve Powers " Behold, around mine own celestial throne Are set twelve others, like a jewelled zone Within the Realm that evermore endures." THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT THE HELLENIC FRAGMENTS, FREED FROM THE PSEUDO-JEWISH INTERPOLATIONS, HARMONIZED, AND DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE AND PROSE WITH INTRODUCTORY ANALYSES, AND COMMENTARIES, GIVING AN INTERPRETATION ACCORDING TO ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY AND A NEW LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS, WITH INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARIES BY JAMES MORGAN PRYSE ^iXoao(f>wT€pov Koi cnrovoaiOTtpov Trotr/o'is IcrTopia^ itTTiv Poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history — Aristotle LOS ANGELES JOHN M. PRYSE LONDON JOHN M. WATKINS 21 CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, W. C. 2 Sold by The Theosophicai Press Wheaton. Illinois Copyright, 1914, by John M. Pryse, New York Copyright, Great IJritain All rights reserved (PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.) (Fourth Edition.) TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Preface vii Part First. The Genuine Portions of the New Testament, WITH Introductory Analyses, and Commentaries. General Introduction 3 Introduction to the Anointing of Iesous 19 The Anointing of Iesous (Restored from the Synoptic Gospels), with Commentary 33 The Crowning of Jesus (Metrical Version) 152 Selections from the Fourth Gospel, with Commentary . 239 Introduction to the Initiation of Ioannes 249 The Initiation of Ioannes (Prose Version of the Apoca- lypse), WITH Commentary 287 Initiation (Metrical Version of the Apocalypse) . . . 403 The Letters of Paulos. Introduction 462 Letter to the Galatians 467 Letter to the Korinthians 469 Letter to the Thessalonikans 471 Part Second. The Synoptic Gospels, Translated into Mod- ern English, with Comments on the Spurious Portions. Introduction 475 [ [Tpie Good Tidings] ] According to Mark 481 [[The Good Tidings]] According to Matthew ... 568 [[The Good Tidings]] According TO Luke 686 Glossary 813 G9856i2 LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Enthroned Sun-God and His Twelve Powers (Colored Plate) Frontispiece The Seven Principal Ganglia 12 Constellations of the First Five Disciples 53 Poseidon in His Chariot 72 The Key of the Sacred Science (Colored Plate) . . . facing 249 The Gnostic Chart Concealed in the Apocalypse 250 The Cubical City Unfolded 255 The Light of the Cosmos 295 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Agnus Dei, 320 Aphrodite, 309 Apocalyptic Zodiac, The, 260 Apollon, 321 Apollon and Artemis, 324 Ares, 305 Artemis, 338 Athena, 40, yy, 361 Cetus, 355 Crater, 376 Demeter, 244 Deukalion and Pyrrha, 37 Dionysos, 44; Ancient Mystical, 58 Draco, 350 Hekate, 102 Helios, 143, 307 Hephaistos, Kratos and Bia Chain- ing Prometheus, 137 Hermes, 80, 311, 343 Hermes and Solar Bird, 141 Interlaced Triangles, 279 Kronos, 300 Medusa, 358 Cannes, 34 Phiale, 369 Plouton and Persephone, 75 Plouton Enthroned, 88 Rhea, 56 Seal, 319 Selene, 312 Seven Cities in Asia, The, 299 Sickle, 365 Thyrsos, 145 Trumpet, 334 Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, The, 15 Virgo, 349 Zeus, 303 Zeus Enthroned, 89 PREFACE In the work here presented the portions of the hfczv Testament which the author holds to be genuine are construed in verse, and are interpreted along the lines of ancient philosophy and psychology. The work is, therefore, not concerned with theological views or any of the creeds, dogmas and doctrines of the many Christian sects. For the author, while cherishing the greatest respect for all that is pure and noble in the Christian religion and all other religions, is not, and never has been, a Christian. In interpreting the New Testament from a non-sectarian, and therefore possibly non-Chris- tian, point of view, he has tried to avoid offending needlessly those who cling to one or another form of Christian faith ; but this inter- pretation differs radically from that offered by the so-called orthodox commentators, and in the attempt to restore the admittedly corrupt text of the Nezi' Testament, more especially that of the Gospels^ the author has found it necessary to undermine the foundation upon which the structure of dogmatic theology has been reared. Not in a controversial spirit, and with no iconoclastic zeal, but simply with the purpose of purifying the text of the Gospels and restoring it approximately to its primitive form, in order to bring out more clearly the beauty and sublimity of the allegory which vitalizes it, lie had to undertake the uncongenial task of showing, by dissecting the text of the Gospels, that the founders of the Christian Church, whoever they were, deliberately falsified that text throughout, and thereby committed the darkest crime known in the history of litera- ture. Freed from the forgeries foisted in the text by these priestly criminals, the allegory of the Crucified is Hellenic in form, and viii PREFACE embodies in its simple majesty the profoundest truths of archaic religion; and it is solely for the elucidation of its spiritual meaning that the present commentary was written. The phrase "New Testament" is retained in the title because it is the commonly accepted name of the collection of writings so desig- nated ; but the claim that the writings set forth a new testament, covenant or dispensation, as distinguished from the so-called Mosaic dispensation, is rejected by the author as a theological fiction. The theory upon which this attempted restoration of the allegory is based is that all those portions of the New Testament which may be regarded as genuine are, with the exception of a few fragments of the Epistles, prose plagiaries from ancient Greek sacred poems, the allegorical dramas forming part of the ritual in the Mysteries, and that all the passages by which the lesous-mythos is connected with the Old Testament, staged in Judaea, and given a semblance of his- toricity, are the work of forgers, who employed stolen notes of the Greek Mystery-ritual in fabricating a "sacred" scripture upon which to found a new religion. Therefore the author rejects as spurious many passages of the Gospels, all of the Acts, and nearly everything in the Epistles. There is very little that is of any value in the Epistles except a few doctrines stolen from the writings of Phil5n Judaios, the great Jewish philosopher; and the Acts is merely a fantastic work of fiction. The Apocalypse is treated as a prose version of a Greek Mystery-poem; but the version seems to have been made with honest motives by a writer conversant with the esoteric meaning of the original, and who presumably gave it a superficially Jewish coloring to preserve it from being destroyed by the fanatics of the new faith, who were endeavoring to suppress everything in ancient literature which betrayed, or tended to prove, the fact that the new religion they had invented and Instituted was founded on a fabricated "history," and was merely a travesty of PREFACE ix the older religions. In this Restored New Testament the Apoca- lypse and the story of lesous as found in the Synoptic Gospels are translated into English verse, the metrical form being more suitable than prose for this attempted restoration of the lost original dra- matic poems. A prose version of each is given, however, as a basis for the commentary. The prose translation of the Apocalypse is strictly literal ; that of the composite Gospel formed from the Synoptics, although a free rendering, follows the Greek text faith- fully except in some passages which by their pitiable poverty of ex- pression called for expansion, and in others which have been so falsified by the ecclesiastical forgers that the meaning of the original is now but a matter for conjecture. In the second part of the work a literal translation is given of the full text of the Synoptics, with comments on the spurious passages only. In restoring the allegory, a careful literary analysis of the text of the Synoptic Gospels has been made, tracing the peculiar devices and methods of the forgers and interpolators, with the purpose of undoing their work as far as possible; and the mythico-astronomical system of the ancient solar cult, and the mystical sense of the allegory, have been followed in replacing the incidents of the mythos in their correct sequence. As this work aims to present its subject-matter in popular style, unburdened by any material not strictly needed in the interpretation of the lesous-allegory as found in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, no attempt is made to sustain the author's conclusions by evidence and arguments drawn from comparative religions, from the incau- tious admissions made by early Christian writers, or from the scholarly works of modern Biblical critics who have demonstrated that the Gospels are a literary patchwork, discordant, and not to be regarded by any disciplined mind as authentic history. Important and interesting as these subjects are, they could not be dealt with adequately in the present work without expanding it to too great X PREFACE bulk, and thereby distracting attention from the central theme which it seeks to elucidate, the lesous-mythos as an allegory of initiation— the mystical story of a Man who by his own efforts became a God. James Morgan Pryse. New York City, October i, 1914. TO THE ETERNAL SELF A Paraphrase of the "Lord's Prayer" Thou Self Divine, whose heavenly throne Outshines the sun in visioned splendor, O hear me reverently intone Thy Name with accent low and tender ; And let that Name, thus breathed, set free The Power that wafts my soul to thee. Let gleaming solar forces weave My royal robe of light supernal ; Triumphant, may I then receive The promised crown of life eternal. And thus within thy realm regain My right with thee fore'er to reign. While yet my soul must meekly v.ear Its mortal vesture, dark and lowly. Unwearied may I strive with care To do on earth thy Will most holy, That here below thy boundless love Undimmed may shine from heaven above. O give me now the power sublime To read fair Wisdom's wondrous pages : Unhindered then by space and time My soul would haste, through fleeting ages, With thee among the Gods to dine On Wisdom's hallowed bread and wine. PART FIRST THE GEx\UIXE PORTIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, WITH INTRODUCTORY ANALYSES, AND COMMENTARIES GENERAL INTRODUCTION As but few readers may be expected to have even a superficial acquaintance with ancient philosophy and various other associated subjects which must be understood, to some extent, before the allegorical portions of the Nczu Testament can be studied intel- ligently and to advantage, a brief sketch will here be given of the topics that are pertinent to this interpretation. Every thoughtful student of the literature of the ancient religions, including that of early Christianity, can not but be impressed by the fact that in each and all of them may be found very clear intimations of a secret traditional lore, an arcane science, handed down from times immemorial. This secret body of knowledge will in this work be termed the Gnosis ; the word is here used, however, in a general sense, to denote the higher knowledge, and without any special refer- ence to, or endorsement of, the Christian Gnosticism of the early cen- turies. Each of the great nations of antiquity had an esoteric as well as an exoteric religion : the Gnosis was reserved for temple-initiates ; while the popular religion was made up of moral precepts, myths, allegories and ceremonial observances, which reflected, more or less faithfully, the mystic tenets. ''All the eastern nations," says Ori- genes, "the people of India, the Persians, the Syrians, conceal sacred mysteries under their religious myths; the sages and philosophers of all religions penetrate the true meaning, while the ignorant see only the exterior symbol— the bark that covers it." But this was equally true of all the cultured nations of antiquity; and the noblest of the philosophers and sages, with but few exceptions, gained their pro- founder knowledge through regular initiation at the schools of the* Mysteries, which in ancient times were the true centres of learning. In Greece the Mysteries were established in various forms, and were under the direction of the state. The most notable were the Eleu- sinia, which were of great antiquity, and continued until the invasion 4 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT of Alaric the Goth, in the year 396 of the Christian era. During the first centur}' the Mysteries were the recognized rehgion of Greece, and were celebrated in every city of that country and in the Greek colonies in Asia Minor. The principal centre of the Greater Eleu- sinia was the superb temple at Eleusis, near Athens ; while the Lesser Eleusinia, at which candidates participated in the purificatory rites and were given elementary instruction, preparatory to initiation into the Greater Mysteries, had their seat at Agra, on the river Ilissos. The Lesser Mysteries were celebrated in February, and the Greater in September, annually. The celebration of the Greater Eleusinia, which lasted nine days, began in public as a pageant and festival in honor of DcMiieter and Persephone; but the telestic rites were cele- brated in the solemn secrecy of the temple, to which none but ini- tiates were admitted. Under Peisistratos the Festival of Demeter and Persephone was modified by additions from the Dionysiac and Asklepiadic Mysteries. The public ceremonies, however, were evi- dently designed merely for the benefit of the unconsecrated multi- tude, and presumably had no real connection with the proceedings which took place within the temple. Every initiate was bound by an oath of inviolable secrecy; hence nothing of any importance is known concerning the initiatory ceremonies. There is good reason for believing, however, that in the Eleusinian ritual the zodiacal symbolism was employed, and that some of the instruction was given in the form of dramatic representations. In fact, the drama seems to have originated in the Mysteries. The symbolism of the zodiac was really a cryptic language in which certain facts concern- ing the inner nature of man were expressed ; and it was common to the initiates of all ancient religions. There was no concealment of the fact that the telestic rites were designed for moral purification, the development of the spiritual faculties, and the attainment of conscious immortality ; nor was there any secrecy about the general principles of the perfective philosophy, which were openly incul- cated. Thus Plato, arguing always for the immortalit}^ of the soul and human perfectibility, expatiates upon moral subjects with the greatest clearness ; but whenever he has for his subject the inner constitution of man he is purposely vague, and in treating of the GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5 subjective worlds and the after-death states of the soul, he invari- ably employs the medium of allegory. Many passages in his writ- ings, as in the Tiuiaios, are quite unintelligible to any one who does not possess the key to the zodiacal language; and this is also true of most of the sacred writings of antiquity. The point where the arcane system sharply diverges from all the conventional schools of thought is in the means of acquiring know- ledge. To make this clear, Plato's analysis of the four faculties of the soul, with their four corresponding degrees of knowledge, may be taken. (Rep. vi. 511.) Tabulated, it is as follows: THE VISIBLE, SENSUOUS WORLD 1. Et/cacria, perception of images. | 8d|^a, opinion, 2. Iltcrn?, faith, psychic groping. J illusory knowledge. THE INTELLIGIBLE, SUPRASENSUOUS WORLD 3. AiduoLa, philosophic reason, | yi/oicrt?, iTnaTTJfJLr), wisdom, 4. Norycrt?, direct cognition. J true knowledge. The first of these degrees covers the whole field of the inductive physical sciences, which are concerned with investigating the phenomena of external nature ; the second degree embraces exoteric religion and all phases of blind belief; and these two degrees, per- taining to the phrenic or lower mind, comprise all the knowledge available to those whose consciousness does not transcend the illu- sions of the material world. The third degree relates to speculative philosophy, which seeks to arrive at first principles by the effort of pure reason ; the fourth degree is the direct apprehension of truth by the lucid mind independently of any reasoning process ; and these two degrees, pertaining to the noetic or higher mind, represent the field of knowledge open to those whose consciousness rises to the world of spiritual reality. Elsewhere Plato speaks of the niantic state, which he describes as a kind of madness produced "by a divine release from the ordinary ways of men." The exoteric scientist and religionist rely on the physical senses, the psychic emotions, and the intellectual faculties as these are in 6 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT the present stage of human evolution; and while the scientist some- what enlarges the scope of the senses by employing the telescope, the microscope, and other mechanical devices, the religionist puts his trust in the mutilated records of suppositional revelations re- ceived from the remote past. But the esotericist, refusing to be confined within the narrow limits of the senses and the mental faculties, and recognizing that the gnostic powers of the soul are hopelessly hampered and obscured by its imperfect instrument, the physical body, devotes himself to what may be termed intensive self- evolution, the conquest and utilization of all the forces and faculties that lie latent in that fontal essence within himself which is the primary source of all the elements and powers of his being, of all that he is, has been, and will be. By gaining conscious control of the hidden potencies which are the proximate causes of his indi- vidual evcjlution. he seeks to traverse in a comparatively brief period of time the path leading to spiritual illumination and liberation from terrestrial bondage, rushing forward, as it were, toward that goal which the human race as a whole, advancing at an almost imper- ceptible rate of progress, will reach only after seons of time. His effort is not so much to kiwn' as to bccouic; and herein lies the tremendous import of the Delphic inscription. "Know Thyself," which is the key-note of esotericism. For the esotericist under- stands that true self-knowdedge can be attained only through self- development in the highest possible sense of the term, a development which begins with introspection and the awakening of creative and regenerative forces which now slumber in man's inner protoplasmic nature, like the vivific potency in the ovum, and which when roused into activity transform him ultimately into a divine being bodied in a deathless ethereal form of ineffable beauty. This process of tran- scendental self -conquest, the giving birth to oneself as a spiritual being, evolving from the concealed essence of one's own embryonic nature a self-luminous immortal body, is the sole subject-matter of the Apocalypse, as it is also the great theme of the lesous-mythos. In the esoteric philosophy — the infelicitous word "esoteric" being used in this work merely because the English language appears to afford no happier one — the absolute Deity is considered to be GENERAL IXTRODUCTIOX 7 beyond the spheres of existence and ulterior to Being itself. The world of true Being is that of the Logos, or Nous, the realm of divine ideas, or archetypes, which are the eternal patterns, so to say, of all things in the manifested universe. By a paradox which defies the reasoning faculty, but which is readily resolved intuitively, the God is said to be apart from, and independent of. the universe, and yet to permeate every atom of it. The God is the abstract Unit, which is the origin of all number, but which never loses its unit- value, and can not be divided into fractions ; while the Logos is the manifested or collective Unit, a deific Lidividuality, the collectivity of a countless host of Logoi, who are differentiated into seven hierarchies, constituting in the aggregate the Second Logos, the uttered Thought, or Word. The mediate principle by which the Logos manifests in and from the God is termed in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel the Archeus iapXTj) ; it is the first element or substratum of substantive objec- tivity, that which becomes by differentiation first the subtile and then the gross material elements of the manifested worlds. If this primary substance is related back to the God, and considered as being prior to the Logos, the result is the refined dualism that mars some of the old systems of philosophy. But in the prologue the Logos is really coeval with the Archeus: the Logos is (subsists) in the Archeus, and the latter becomes, in the Logos, the principle of Life, which irradiates as Light. This Light of the Logos is iden- tical with the Pneuma, the Breath or Holy Spirit, and esoterically it is the pristine force which underlies matter in every stage, and is the producer of all the phenomena of existence. It is the one force from which differentiate all the forces in the cosmos. As specialized in the human organism, it is termed, in the Nczv Testament, the parakletos, the "Advocate," and is the regenerative force above referred to. From the Archetypal world, that of the Logos, emanate succes- sively the Psychic and the ^Material worlds ; and to these three may be added a fourth, which is usually included, by ancient writers, in the Psychic, though in reality it is distinct from it. This fourth world, which will here be called the Phantasmal — since the word 8 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT "hell" connotes misleading and lurid notions— is the region of phantoms, evil spirits, and psychic garbage generally. All that the universe contains is contained also in man. The origin of man is in the Deity, and his true self or individuality is a Logos, a manifested God. Analogous with the universe or macro- cosm, man, the microcosm, has three bodies, which are called in the Nczv Testament the spiritual body (pneumatikon suma), the psychic body (psychikon soma), and the physical body (soma, or sarx, "flesh"). In the Upanishads they are termed "causal body" (karaiia sharlra), "subtile body" (silhshnia slianra), and "gross body" (stliula sharlra). In mystical writings these three, together with the fourth, or perfected vesture of the immortal Self, are given as corresponding to the four occult elements, and also to the earth, moon, sidereal system, and sun, and hence are spoken of as the earthly or carnal body (the "muddy vesture of decay," as Shake- speare terms it), the lunar or water-body, the sidereal or air-body, and the solar or fire-body. The spiritual (pneumatic) body is, strictly speaking, not a body at all, but only an ideal, archetypal form, ensphered, as it were, by the pneuma or primordial principle which in the duality of mani- festation generates all forces and elements : it is therefore called the "causal body," because from its sphere all the other bodies are engendered ; and all these lower forms are enveloped by the same circumambient aura (called in the Nezv Testament "the radiance" or "glory," he doxa), which is visible to the seer as an oviform faint film of bluish haze. Semi-latent within this pneumatic ovum is the paraklete, the light of the Logos, which in energizing becomes what may be described as living, conscious electricity, of incredible voltage and hardly comparable to the form of electricity known to the physicist. This is the "good serpent" of ancient symbology; and, taken with the pneumatic ovum, it was also represented in the familiar symbol of the ^gg and the serpent. It is called in the Sanskrit writings kundalim, the annular or ring-form force, and in the Greek spcircma, the serpent-coil. It is this force which, in the telestic work, or cycle of initiation, weaves from the primal sub- stance of the auric ovum, upon the ideal form or archetype it con- GENERAL IXTRODUCTIOX 9 tains, and conforming thereto, the immortal Augoeides, or solar body {heliakon soma), so called because in its visible appearance it is self-luminous like the sun, and has a golden radiance. Its aureola displays a filmy opalescence. This solar body is of atomic, non- molecular substance. The psychic, or lunar, body, through which the Nous acts in the psychic world, is molecular in structure, but of far finer substance than the elements composing the gross physical form, to whose organism it closely corresponds, having organs of sight, hearing, and the rest. In appearance it has a silvery lustre, tinged with deli- cate violet ; and its aura is of palest blue, with an interchanging play of all the prismatic colors, rendering it iridescent. The physical body, in its physiological relation to psychology, will necessarily have to be considered somewhat in detail in elucidating the text; but before entering on this subject, it may be explained that another body is sometimes alluded to in mystical writings. It is called in Sanskrit kduia rupa, the form engendered by lust, and it comes into existence only after the death of the physical body, save in the exceptional case of the extremely evil sorcerer who, though alive physically, has become morally dead. It is a phantasm shaped from the dregs and elTiuvia of matter by the image-creating power of the gross animal mind. Of such nature are the daimones and ''unclean spirits" of the Nczv Testament, where also the "abomina- ble stench" (bdeliigma) seems to be a covert allusion to this mal- odorous shade. This phantasm has the shadowy semblance of the physical body from which it was derived, and is surrounded by a cloudy aura of brick-red hue. It should be observed that in the esoteric cosmogony the theory of "dead" matter has no place. The universe is a manifestation of life, of consciousness, from the Logos down to the very atoms of the material elements. But in this philosophy a sharp distinction is made between Being and existence : the Logos, the Archetypal world, is that of True Being, changeless and eternal ; while existence is a going outward into the worlds of becoming, of ceaseless change and transformation. The Nous, the immortal man, or mind (for the mind should be regarded as the real man), when incarnated 10 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT conies iinder tlic sway of this law of inutalion, cMitering upon a lonj^ cycle of incarnations, passing- from one mortal body to anotiier. The metaphysical aspect of this subject need not be discussed here; but it may be said that the fact of reincarnation, so far from being mysterious and difficult of proof, is really \'ery i)rosaic and sinijile, so that it has always been treated as exoteric in all archaic religions and philosophies. Positive knowledge of its truth, on a basis of personal experience, is one of the first results obtained by any one who enters ui)on the initial stages of self-conquest. It is then a fact as apparent to him as are the cognate facts of birth and death. The telestic work has for its object to achieve deliverance from reincar- nation, and this deliverance is comi)lete and fmal only when the deathless solar body is formed, and the perfected man is thereby freed from the necessity (jf reincarnating in the mortal ])hysical and psychic forms. The ph3'sical body may itself be considered to be an objective microcosm, an epitome of the material world, to every department of which its organs and functions correspond and are in direct rela- tion. Moreo\'er, as the organism through which the soul contacts external nature, its organs correspond to. and are the respective instruments of, the powers and faculties of the soul. Thus the body has four principal life-centres which are, roughly speaking, ana- log-ues of the four worlds, and of the four manifested generic powers of the soul ; these four somatic divisions are as follows : 1. The head, or brain, is the organ of the Nous, or higher mind. 2. The region of the lieart, inckiding all the organs above the diaphragm, is the seat of the lower mind (phren, or thiimos), in- cluding the psychic nature. 3. The region of the navel is the centre of the passional nature (cpithnniia), comprising the emotions, desires and passions. 4. The procreative centre is the seat of the vivifying forces on the lowest plane of existence. This centre is often ignored by an- cient writers, as, for instance, Plato, who assigns four faculties to the soul, but classifies only three of the somatic divisions, assigning the Nous, or Logos, to the head, thiiuws to the cardiac region, and cpitJiioiiia to the region below the midriff. Others, however, give GENERAL IXTRODUCTIOX ii the fourfold system, as does Philolaos the Pythagorean, who placed the seat and germ (archc) of reason in the head, that of the psychic principle in the heart, that of growth and germination in the navel, and that of seed and generation in the sexual parts. It is unnecessary, in this brief sketch, to go into further details concerning these correspondences, save only in regard to the nervous system and the forces operating through it. There are two nervous structures: the cerebro-spinal, consisting of the brain and the spinal cord; and the sympathetic or ganglionic system. These two struc- tures are virtually distinct yet intimately associated in their rami- fications. The sympathetic system consists of a series of distinct nerve-centres, or ganglia — small masses of vascular neurine— ex- tending on each side of the spinal column from the head to the coccyx. Some knowledge of these ganglia and the forces associated with them is indispensable in an examination into the esoteric mean- ing of the Nezv Testament ; and as their occult nature is more fully elucidated in the U panishads than in any other available ancient works, the teaching therein contained will here be referred to, and their Sanskrit terms employed. The ganglia are called chakras, "disks," and forty-nine of them are counted, of which the seven principal ones are the following: (i) sacral ganglion, mfdadhdra; (2) prostatic, adhishthana; (3) epigastric, manipiiraka; (4) car- diac, anahata; (5) pharyngeal, vishuddhi; (6) cavernous, djnd; and (7) the conarium, saJiasrdra. Of these only the seventh, the cona- rium or pineal body, need be considered here with particularity. It is a small conical, dark-gray body situated in the brain immediately behind the extremity of the third ventricle, in a groove between the nates, and above a cavity filled with sabulous matter composed of phosphate and of carbonate of lime. It is supposed by modern anatomists to be the vestige of an atrophied eye, and hence is termed by them "the unpaired eye." Though atrophied physically, it is still the organ of spiritual vision when its higher function is restored by the vivifying force of the speircma, or paraklete, and it is therefore called esoterically "the third eye," the eye of the seer. When, through the action of man's spiritual will, whether by his conscious effort or unconsciously so far as his phrenic mind is con- Conarium Sacral Cavernous Pharyngeal Cardiac Midriff Epigastric Prostatic The Seven Principal Ganglia GEXERAL IXTRODUCTIOX 13 cerned, the latent kitiidalinl (spcirc))ia), which in the Upaiiishads is poetically said to lie coiled up like a slumbering serpent, is aroused to activity, it displaces the slow-moving nervous force or neuricity and becomes the agent of the telestic or perfecting work. As it passes from one ganglion to another its voltage is raised, the ganglia being like so many electric cells coupled for intensity ; and moreover in each ganglion, or chakra, it liberates and partakes of the quality peculiar to that centre, and it is then said to "conquer" the cJiakra. In Sanskrit mystical literature very great stress is laid upon this "concjuering of the chakras.'' The currents of the kundaluil, as also the channels they pursue, are called nddls, "pipes" or "channels," and the three principal ones are: (i) sushumnd, which passes from the terminus of the spinal cord to the top of the cranium, at a point termed the hrahmarandra, or "door of Brahma"; (2) piiigala, which corresponds to the right sympathetic; and (3) idd, which corresponds to the left sympathetic. The force, as specialized in the ganglionic system, becomes the seven tattras, which in the Apocalypse are called the seven piicuuiafa, "breaths," since they are differentiations of the Great Breath, the "\\'orld-Mother," sym- bolized by the moon. Concurrent with these seven lunar forces are five solar forces pertaining to the cerebro-spinal system, called the five prdnas, "vital airs," or "life-winds," which in the Apocalypse are termed "winds" (aucmoi). The tattvas, or subtile elements, with the ganglia (chakras) to which they respectively correspond, are as follows: pritJiivi, "earth," sacral; apas, "water," prostatic; tcjas, "fire," epigastric; vdyu, "air," cardiac; dkdsha, "aether," pharyngeal; avyakta, "undifferentiated," cavernous; and Brahma, "the Evolver" (Logos), conarium. The prdnas are the following: vydna, the "distributing life-wind," connected with prithiv'i; apdiia, the "down-going life-wind," with apas; saindna, the "uniting life- wind," with tcjas; prdna, the "out-going life-wind," with vdyu; and udd)ia, the "up-going life-wind," with dkdsJia. Some writers give apdna as corresponding with prithiz'l, and zydna with apas; but this is erroneous. The Apocalypse represents these twelve forces, the seven "breaths" and the fi\e "winds," as corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac. This arrangement is shown In 14 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT .^on of the Sa Diagram of the Zodiac and Correspondences the accompanying diagram, w ith each tattvo placed in the sign to which its special chakra pertains. The Hellenic Gods of Olympos, who were designated as the Guardian-divinities of the signs, are also inserted in the diagram for the purpose of comparison. The zodiac is a belt of the celestial sphere, about seventeen de- grees in breadth, containing the twelve constellations which the sun traverses during the year in passing around the ecliptic. Within this zone are confined the apparent motions of the moon and major planets. The zodiacal circle was divided by the ancients into twelve equal portions '^'^'led signs, "-hich w^.-e designated by the names of the constellations then adjacent to them in the following order: Aries, the Ram ; Taurus, the Bull ; Gemini, the Twins ; Cancer, the GENERAL INTRODUCTION 15 Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Balance; Scor- pio, the Scorpion ; Sagittarins, the Bowman ; Capricornus, the Goat ; Aquarius, the Water-bearer; and Pisces, the Fishes. Owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the signs of the echptic are now about one place ahead of the corresponding zodiacal constellations, which constitute the fixed zodiac. Aside from its astronomical utility, the scheme of the zodiac was employed to symbolize the relations be- tween the macrocosm and the microcosm, each of the twelve signs being made to correspond to one of the twelve greater Gods of the ancient pantheon and assigned as the ''house" of one of the seven sacred planets ; each sign, moreover, being said to govern a par- ticular portion of the human body, as shown in the following chart. ^^ 5f^ ^ * ^ >a2^ The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac The zodiac is also divided into four trigons ("triangles"), named respectively after the four manifested elements, earth, water, fire and air, to each of which three signs are ascribed. Each zodiacal sign is divided into three decans, or parts contain- ing ten degrees each, there being three hundred and sixty degrees in the circle; and to each decan is attributed one of the thirtv-six i6 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT constellations which he north and south of the zodiac. The constel- lations thus associated with a sign are termed its paranatellons. Thus there are forty-eight ancient constellations, forming, as it were, four zodiacs; and the sun and its planets may be considered as a sort of central constellation, thus making uj) the mystic number forty-nine, or seven times seven. Each of these constellations being made to symbolize a principle, force or faculty in man, the entire scheme constitutes a symbolic being, a celestial man, pictured on the starry vault. The Sun-God is the Self of this "Grand Man," and the four ([uarters of the zodiac, with the portions of the heavens associated with them, are the somatic divisions of the manifested form of the Heavenly Man. The element a.'ther is ascribed to the Regent of the Sun; and four Guardian-Gods, corresponding with the four manifested elements, are designated as Regents of the Four Regions, Earth, Ocean, Sky, and the Rivers. In the Baby- lonian records, so far as known, only twenty- four paranatellons are given, and only three Regions and Element-Gods, Anu, the Sky- God, Ea, the Ocean-God, and Bel, the Earth-God ; but it is a fair presumption that the Babylonians had all the forty-eight constella- tions known to the Greeks, and assigned a fourth Region to the Fire-God, as is done in the Apocalypse, the Upanishads, and other ancient works. These fourfold manifested Powers are, of course, correlated with the prdnas. In the Apocalypse the Region of Fire, which corresponds with the Heart-region, is termed "the Rivers and Springs," by which are to be understood the streams of solar fire; in the Upa)iisJiads the channels (uddis) of the prdnas are said to ramify from the heart. The foregoing covers the topics which must necessarily be re- ferred to in elucidating the recondite meaning of the Xezv Testa- ment; but to convey a clearer conception of its practical and psychological application, further explanation will now be given of the action of the "serpent force" {speirema) in the telestic or per- fective work. This work has to be preceded by the most rigid purificatory discipline, which includes strict celibacy and abstemious- ness, and it is possible only for the man or woman who has attained a very high state of mental and physical purity. To the man who is GENERAL INTRODUCTION 17 gross and sensual, or whose mind is sullied by evil thoughts or con- stricted by bigotry, the holy paraklete does not come ; the unpurified person who rashly attempts to invade the adytum of his inner God can arouse only the lower psychic forces of his animal nature, forces which are cruelly destructive and never regenerative. The neophyte who has acquired the "purifying virtues" before entering upon the systematic course of introspective meditation by which the spiritual forces are awakened, must also as a necessary preliminary gain almost complete mastery of his thoughts, with the ability to focus his mind undeviatingly upon a single detached idea or abstract concept, excluding from the mental field all associated ideas and irrelevant notions. If successful in this mystic meditation, he even- tually obtains the power of arousing the spcirema, or paraklete, and can thereby at will enter into the state of uianfcia, the sacred trance of seership. The four mantic states are not psychic trances or som- nambulic conditions; they pertain to the noetic, spiritual nature ; and in every stage of the mantcia complete consciousness and self-com- mand are retained, whereas the psychic trances rarely transcend the animalistic phrenic nature, and are usually accompanied by uncon- sciousness or semi-consciousness. Proficiency in the noetic contemplation, with the arousing of the speircina and the conquest of the life-centres, leads to knowledge of spiritual realities (the science of which constitutes the Gnosis), and the acquirement of certain mystic powers, and it culminates in emancipation from physical existence through the "birth from above" when the deathless solar body has been fully formed. This telestic w^ork requires the unremitting effort of many years, not in one life only but carried on through a series of incarnations until the final result is achieved. But almost in its initial stages the con- sciousness of the aspirant becomes disengaged from the mortal phrenic mind and centred in the immortal noetic mind, so that from incarnation to incarnation his memory carries over, more or less clearly according to the degree he has attained, the knowledge ac- quired; and with this unbroken memory and certainty of knowledge he is in truth immortal even before his final liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. i8 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT In arousing the kiindalinl by conscious effort in meditation, the siishumna, though it is the all-important force, is ignored, and the mind is concentrated upon the two side-currents; for the siishumna can not be energized alone, and it does not start into activity until the Ida and the piiigala have preceded it, forming a positive and a negative current along the spinal c(jrd. These two currents, on reaching the sixth cliakra, situated back of the nasal passages, radiate to the right and left, along the line of the eyebrows; then the sushitnmd, starting at the base of the spinal cord, proceeds along the spinal marrow, its passage through each section thereof (corre- sponding to a sympathetic ganglion) being accompanied by a violent shock, or rushing sensation, due to the accession of force — increased "voltage" — until it reaches the conarium, and thence passes outward through the brohinarandra, the three currents thus forming a cross in the brain. In the initial stage the seven psychic colors are seen, and when the sushiniiud impinges upon the brain there follows the lofty consciousness of the seer, whose mystic "third eye" now be- comes, as it has been poetically expressed, "a w^indow into space." In the next stage, as the brain-centres are successively "raised from the dead" by the serpent-force, the seven "spiritual sounds" are heard in the tense and vibrant aura of the seer. In the succeeding stage, sight and hearing become blended into a single sense, by which colors are heard, and sounds are seen — or, to word it differ- ently, color and sound become one, and are perceived by a sense that is neither sight nor hearing but both. Similarly, the psychic senses of taste and smell become unified ; and next the two senses thus reduced from the four are merged in the interior, intimate sense of touch, which in turn vanishes into the epistemonic faculty, the gnostic power of the seer — exalted above all sense-perception — to cognize eternal realities. This is the sacred trance called in Sanskrit samddhi, and in Greek manteia; and in the ancient litera- ture of both these languages four such trances are spoken of. These stages of seership, however, are but the beginning of the telestic labor, the culmination of which is, as already explained, rebirth in the imperishable solar body. INTRODUCTION TO THE ANOINTING OF lESOUS The Synoptic Gospels, when carefully compared, are seen to be compilations evidently made from the same source or sources, and they can not reasonably be regarded as independently written nar- ratives. Though traditionally Matthew, Mark and Luke are cred- ited with the authorship of these three Gospels, it is not known who Matthew, Mark and Luke were, or when or where the Gospels were written or compiled. These names, as transliterated in the Greek text, probably represent Mattitheah, Marcus and Lucanus, the first being a Jewish name (though this is conjectural), and the others being Roman. In Part II of this work literal translations of these Gospels are presented, the source from which they were drawn is suggested, and the literary methods by which they have been placed in their present form are traced. To afford a more comprehensive view of their subject matter, a composite Gospel has been constructed from the Synoptics under the title, "The Anointing of lesous," in which all the genuine and valuable portions of the text are given, rearranged so as to form a consistent narrative. The allegory, or lesous-mythos, as thus restored, is interpreted as a whole and in detail. The prose version and accompanying commentary are then followed by a metrical version, "The Crowning of Jesus." This portion of the work is devoted to the esoteric or spiritual mean- ing of the allegory; all other matters are left for consideration in Part II. But the theory upon which the text has been reconstructed, and the interpretation given the story of lesous, are so directly in conflict with the opinions commonly held to be orthodox, that it is necessary to state here, briefly, what that theory is ; and, owing to the corrupt and mutilated condition of the text, it is, unfortunately, impossible to confine the commentary wholly to esoteric interpreta- tion. 20 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT The three Gospels are treated as if they were but tliree variants of the same text. The original source from which they were drawn is considered to liave been an allegorical drama which formed part of the ritual of the Greek Mysteries. As an allegory, this drama was expressed in the zodiacal language, and hence has an astronom- ical rendering throughout : its hero is the Sun-God, in this astro- nomical interpretation, which is only superficial ; but in a spiritual sense he is a neophyte undergoing the trials of initiation, and so personifies the Sun-God. Judging by portions of the text, the orig- inal drama was a superb poem ; but the compilers of the Synoptic Gospels had only incomplete prose notes of it, presumably made from memory, and these notes they could have obtained only by dis- honorable means. To utilize these notes of the Mystery-play as the sacred waitings for a new religion, the Sun-God was made out to be a historical personage ; but to do this the Greek setting of the drama necessarily had to be abandoned, and so the "history" w^as staged in Judaea. The Sun-God was metamorphosed into a Jewish Messiah and made out to be a reincarnation of King David ; and the other characters in the play became Jews and Romans. The men who thus turned a Greek drama into Jewish mock-history were not Jews, and were ignorant of the Hebrew language. They wrote, in the unmistakably amateurish style of uncultured men, the common Greek vernacular of their day, a debased form of the Attic dialect ; and their only sources of information concerning the Jews were the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures (the Septuagint) and the writings of Josephus and Tacitus. Their ignorance of Jewish cus- toms and of the geographical features of Palestine is everywhere apparent in their work; and the Jewish coloring which they have given the narrative rubs off like a cheap paint as one turns the pages of the Gospels, revealing a solar allegory which is Hellenic in form and substance. The work of the forgers was not all done at one time ; the text shows several successive stages of degradation. The first compilers, being "pagan" Greeks, were familiar with the doc- trine of reincarnation ; and they connected their new "history" with the Jewish sacred writings by making out that its characters were reincarnated Jewish worthies. But as the new religion developed. INTRODUCTION TO THE ANOINTING OF lESOUS 21 abandoning, one after another, the basic truths of the great rehgions of antiquity, the doctrine of reincarnation was eventually repu- diated, and the new scriptures were made to centre wholly on the Messianic idea, while the distinctively Christian doctrine of eternal damnation was formulated and made a lurid feature of the new cult. The literary peculiarities of the text show conclusively that the period of ''inspiration" during which the Gospels were revised to suit the growing theological notions of the fanatics of the new faith extended over several centuries. The erasing-knife and sponge paved the way for the "inspired" pens of the priests who were slowly formulating the Christian religion ; for the early theologians, in- stead of deriving their doctrines from their "revealed" scriptures, revised the scriptures to suit the policy of the church. A complete restoration of the original drama is of course impos- sible: the compilers could not have had access to the original text of the sacred Alystery-play ; they had only imperfect notes of it, which they used for a dishonest purpose. Their work shows that they had no knowledge of the esoteric meaning of the myth, and that they were men without culture, literary training, inventiveness or imagi- nation. They were simply exoteric priests, coarse, cunning and un- scrupulous. But, fortunately, the essential elements of the allegory have been preserved — thanks to the very ignorance of the ecclesias- tics through whose hands it has passed — and an approximate restoration of the lesous-mythos is here submitted, with the pseudo- Jewish features and theological interpolations eliminated. The translation, under the title "The Crowning of Jesus," is in verse, and follows the narrative style, without attempting to restore the dramatic form in which the original poem was undoubtedly cast. The prose version, "The Anointing of lesous," is presented merely as a basis for the commentary. The narrative begins, as in Mark, with the appearance of loannes, "the baptist." All the introductory matter in Matthew and Luke, telling of the birth of lesous and of loannes, is unquestionably spurious. The drama, which as a whole is an allegory of the initia- tion of lesous, that is, of his spiritual rebirth, is not concerned with the birth of his physical body, the incidents of his childhood, or, in 22 THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT fact, with anything- relating to the pers(;nal Hfe, or external phases of existence; but the "historicized" version of the niythos was seen to be incomplete without some account of the early days of lesous, and so, later on, these forgeries were added to the text by the priests who were constantly trying to improve the scriptures. In his true Hellenic character loannes (whose name appears to be a variant of Oannes) is "the bather," 6vhpdvo