IBRARY IIVERSITYOF ;ALIFORNIA AN c;eco . MO. S3 THE TRUE MYSTIC BY THE REV. HOLDEN E. SAMPSON AUTHOR OF " PROGRESSIVE CREATION," " PROGRESSIVE REDEMPTION " " THE MESSAGE OF THE SUN " ETC. LONDON WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED 1914 TO THE MEMORY OF ASA MAHAN, D.D., LL.D. ONE-TIME PRESIDENT OF OBERLIN UNIVERSITY U.S.A. MY SPIRITUAL FATHER, FRIEND AND TEACHER, IN THE BEGINNING OF MY SPIRITUAL LIFE I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME PREFACE THE Lectures contained in this volume were delivered in December last at Folkestone, England, and also in London. In these Lectures I have put together the salient and fundamental principles belonging to the great subject of Mysticism, which will be found more exhaustively treated in my books " Progressive Creation " and " Pro- gressive Redemption." 1 The Lectures con- tain necessarily a very brief and inadequate outline and sketch of the great subject. I have therefore to make apologies to my readers for the sketchiness of this effort to elucidate so wide and profound a theme. Considering the immense area of the ground covered primordial, primeval, prehistoric, primitive, medieval, and modern eras of time the reader will forgive me if he finds cause to complain of inconvenient but 1 Obtainable from Glaishers, Ltd., Holborn, London, W.C. vi Preface necessary omissions, and general cursoriness. I may also venture to express the hope that these Lectures may whet the appetite of many who read them, and induce them to study the above-mentioned larger works, to which this small volume may rightly be described as an introduction. In sending this volume forth, I must not be found wanting in acknowledging my indebtedness to those many writers of distinction whose contributions to Mystical knowledge have proved of the greatest value to myself. By way of personal testimony, of interest to Mystical students, I feel it incumbent upon me to say that the substance of these books came to me from intuitive and mystical sources, the result of ten years' practice of the methods herein specified as the " Four Tokens of the Mystic." It was literally " in the wilderness " that these things came to me, and I wrote them down at "first hand." Reading and study of the large body of literature, of antiquity and of modern times, have confirmed every line of the teaching I received. Memory declines to recall every writer's name whose works I have read, to confirm the original funda- Preface vii menta of my books. But some notable works stand out strongly in my recollection, and for the benefit of my readers I here name them, and commend them to their notice : " The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," by Anna Kingsford and Edward Mait- land. " Fragments of a Faith Forgotten," by G. R. S. Mead. " Mysticism " and " The Mystic Way," by Evelyn Underbill. " The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail," by Edward A. Waite. " On a Gold Basis" by Isabelle de Steiger. " Superhumanity ," by the same author, published serially in " The Path," 1913. " The Idea of Reincarnation," by Kehler. " The Philosophy of Natural and Revealed Religion," by Chevalier Ramsay, Arch- bishop of Cambray, published in the early i8th century. " I sis Unveiled" and " The Secret Doctrine," by H. P. Blavatsky. Articles by various writers in " The Occult Review." viii Preface " The Interior, or Hidden Life of the Soul," by Dr. Upham. " The Life of Madame de la Mothe Guy on," by Dr. Upham. " Hebrew Mysticism," by Prof. Abelson. " Esoteric Christianity," by Annie Besant. Works of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Lodge, and other scientists. Emerson's Essays, Maeterlinck's " Treasure of the Humble," etc. If in any statements made in this volume I have criticized movements and propa- ganda in language calculated to hurt the feelings of others, I take this opportunity of expressing my sorrow. Religious views always tend to unfortunate divisions among those who ardently and sincerely follow them, and too often the personal feelings are aroused when religious views come into contact with other variants of thought. True Mysticism has no variance of thought, and the firm belief of the writer is that the dispersal of religious " sectarianism " and mutual intolerance will be in proportion to the general acceptance of the tenets of True Mysticism. All that is True, in all sects and Preface ix divisions of the religious unit, finds its perfect expression in Mysticism. If, again, I have been so unfortunate as to have unfairly represented any teaching I have ventured to criticize, mine be the fault, and no one will be more ready to acknowledge the error, and more pleased to learn that he is mistaken, than myself. It may be, also, that some critical readers may complain of dogmatism in this book, when I have spoken with emphasis on the special features of experience in Mysticism. It is not, however, in the spirit of dogmati- zation that I have spoken, nor as " laying down the law." I would not be thought to assert that there is absolute uniformity of experience in attaining the Mystic State. Human character and disposition vary in each person. Pre-natal differences are as numerous as human characters. The passage of the Soul through the " Wilderness- journey " for some may be like Abraham's journey to Canaan, without tribulation, and with a " retinue " of pleasant circumstances. For others, it may be like that of the Children of Israel under Moses, full of wanderings and affliction. Some may have x Preface the experience of a Paul, and be able to record their " rapture " to the " third heaven." Others may have these passages in states of unconsciousness. All who reach the Mystic State, nevertheless, have certain Knowledge of the Way they journeyed, and absolute assurance of the results of the journey in their Soul's experience. //, then, the end is gained the Mystic State that is the main point ; and I earnestly hope that this book may help many to " know them- selves " and to pursue the Path. H. E. S. January, 1914. FOLKESTONE, ENGLAND. CONTENTS FIRST LECTURE PAGE MYSTICISM OF THE PAST . i SECOND LECTURE MYSTICISM OF THE PRESENT . 66 THIRD LECTURE MYSTICISM OF THE FUTURE . . .117 The True Mystic FIRST LECTURE INTRODUCTORY Mysticism " in the air." It is not needful to remind you that, at the present time, the subject of Mysticism is much to the front in people's minds. Mysticism is "in the air " to-day as it never has been for many ages past. It is an historical fact connected with all new developments of thought, that what at one time floats mistily " in the air," becomes a concrete and accepted belief at a later time. That it will prove the same in regard to Mysticism, I have not the least doubt. Many of us probably have spent the greater part of our lives groping, more or less blindly, after the things unseen. We know they are realities, but no light appears 2 The True Mystic to be shed upon them, to enable us to trace and grasp them. Some of us have suffered constantly, both in material and spiritual circumstances, in the conscious and unconscious struggle our souls have made to reach and grasp spiritual realities, which to all the world around us both religious and secular seem so unreal, so unimportant. We cannot make light of them as all the world seems to do. We have to brave much comment and criticism in this struggle for the light. The way leads to so many deviations from beaten tracks. Our souls have had that much of experi- ence, at certain sacred and memorable times in our lives, to certify to these realities. We cannot doubt them, nor quench the hunger and thirst for their fulness. Yet at the same time they are for the most part still ungrasped, and we are incapable of express- ing or demonstrating them. How near to us these mysteries have been, and yet how far they are ! Sometimes we thought we had grasped them, but they receded from us when our hands stretched out to seize them. We have had so-called " occult " experi- Introductory 3 ence of them, we have had inexpressible dreams of them, we have had feelings of them, baffling our intelligence and our descriptive powers. They remain " mys- teries " to us to-day, as they were from the beginning. Mysticism is the quest of the mystic life. Now this kind of experience of quest and seeking is what is broadly termed " Mysti- cism." Yet not one of us, who has come so far on the path, can be denominated a " Mystic." A " Mystic " is one who has attained the " Gnosis," the " Sophia," the Wisdom of the Divine Mysteries, the " Theo-Sophia." He is an Initiate, a " Gnostic." But Mysticism is the search for and science of the Theo-Sophia. It is the spirit of enquiry, and the process of attainment, which, if persevered in, ends in attain- ment, and the " Mystic" Life. Tokens of experience. There are certain cognizable tokens of experience which in varying degrees mark the " Mystic," and distinguish him from other persons (how- ever much pursuing Mysticism) who have not attained to the Mystic. 4 The True Mystic A state of being. For it is a state of being that constitutes the Mystic, and places him apart from other men. Yet the Mystic may seem not in the least unlike other men who are not Mystics, and the latter may seem more like Mystics than the Mystic himself. This is so because the " state of being " constituting the Mystic is not outwardly demonstrable, nor dependent on " pheno- mena," or peculiar attributes. Attributes and phenomena of the Mystic not exhibited. The Mystic has peculiar attributes, and he is a phenomenal person. But he does not exhibit his phenomena, nor announce his peculiar attributes. If they are drawn from him by the force of outward appeal, or prayer, or faith, or by the attraction of those whose sympathies and needs call them forth, he responds freely. Spiritualist " mediumship." The Spirit- ualist deals in objective phenomena. It is his metier to do so. Spiritualism is based entirely on phenomena ; they are necessary to justify its claims. The Mystic makes no claims, has no need of phenomena to adver- tise a propaganda, or to make good his pretensions. The Mystic makes no pretensions. It does not concern him whether or not people know him to be a Mystic. Discernibility of the Mystic not easy. Therefore it is not an easy thing to discern a Mystic. Mystics discern themselves clearly, intuitively ; but they do not go about saying, " I am a Mystic." Nor do they presume to declare that other people, who say they are Mystics, are not Mystics, even when their intuition informs them that they are not. There are many people who, because they have had some experiences of an " occult " nature, say they are Mystics ; but the Mystic knows that they are not. He would not, however, say they are not. A single rose does not make a summer. " Occultism " has so many illusions. Touch its fringe, and experience is so strik- ing, so wonderful, that many go no further than the " fringe," the borderland of Mysticism, and fancy themselves Mystics. They dwell on that wonderful " fringe " experience, and dream not of anything 6 The True Mystic beyond it. Whereas they have not the smallest inkling of the journey they must take before the Mystic state is reached. It is this which creates trouble for Mysticism, and prejudices it in the eyes of religious and orthodox people. Disasters of misguided Mysticism. For nearly always pseudo-Mysticism ends in disaster and grief, injuring the sacred cause of Mysticism. Premature Mysticism pre- cipitates disaster. And the disasters from misguided Mysticism are very serious. One is reminded of the little girl, who, running too hastily into the drawing-room, fell over the door-mat. Asked by her mother how she came to meet with the mishap, she answered in tears, " / c-comed in afore I c-comed ! " There are many too- eager Mystics who " come in before they come." Reticence of the Mystic. I have said that there are certain cognizable and general tokens of a Mystic. But do not expect that a Mystic will readily talk to you about these tokens in himself. You will always find the Mystic to be a very meek and humble person, and most reticent about himself. Introductory 7 Ask a Mystic if he is a Mystic, and he will be silent. Ask him if any other persons, of the past or the present, are or were Mystics, and he will be silent. But ask him what are the Tokens of the Mystic, and you will find him eager and eloquent. He is always eager to propagate Mysticism, to induce people to pursue the Mystic Path. It is his " mission " to do so. Only he is cautious for fear that he may be " casting his pearls before swine." His life proclaims the Mystic, his character reflects the Mystic, his teaching, and the power behind his words, prove the Mystic. But do not look for " miracles," or wonder- ful sensations of " occult " phenomena, from him. They may occur, they sometimes do occur ; but never in response to curious- minded expectancy, nor to sensation-loving phenomena-hunters. There are plenty of people who deal in the wares of phenomena, miracles, and psychical wonders psychometry, clairvoy- ance, trance-mediumship, astrology, palmis- try, psycho-therapeutics, and such like. They are not Mystics by such tokens. The Mystic hides himself when people buzz around him, asking curious questions, 8 The True Mystic and saying, " Show us a sign," " Prove to us that you are a Mystic." He does not traffic in " signs" ; he is not a phenomenalist. I. THE FOUR TOKENS OF A MYSTIC The indefinable Tokens of a Mystic. You ask, What are the Tokens of a Mystic ? I will endeavour to give an answer to that question. It can only be done partially, for there are certain tokens and criteria of the Mystic impossible to define in words, and other tokens impermissible to speak of. The following Tokens, I would ask you to bear in mind, are not uniform experiences in all Mystics, nor are they always necessarily experiences of an objective kind. Many Mystics have attained the Mystic state without the ability of defining these tokens as definitely conscious experiences. Asceti- cism, for instance, is a relative term, defining the perfect Renunciation of the Senses for the attainment of the Christ in them. There is a " Holy Ground " in the Mystic's experience which the Mystic alone can and dare tread. The tokens within this " Holy Ground " are the surest and most defined The Four Tokens of a Mystic 9 tokens of all. Every person who is a Mystic knows them, and by them he is certain of his Mystic state. If you have reached this " Holy Ground " you will never have a doubt, though all the world turns against you, and shouts denial. On this " Holy Ground " you are brought face to face with " the Christ " in the " Burn- ing Bush." The " Real Presence " is more clearly manifest to you than by the naked eye. The definable Tokens of the Mystic are as follows : (1) Asceticism. (2) Ekstasis, or Rapture. (3) Initiation. (4) Intuition, or Vision. (i) Asceticism and RENUNCIATION Asceticism and Renunciation are ideas deeply embedded in the Religion and Philosophy of the ancient Theo-Sophia, or Wisdom of God. It is inseparable from Mysticism. To become a Mystic, a person must always become an Ascetic, always an Ascetic in spirit and intention, often an Ascetic in act and fact. (i) Asceticism. There are also times, in io The True Mystic the Path of the Mystic, when he must in spirit become a Hermit. Some Mystics have been Ascetics and Hermits all their days, in the most literal sense, not from personal necessity, but for reasons of special vocation and choice. During certain specific periods in his life, a Mystic becomes both an Ascetic and Hermit. Asceticism being an attitude of mind and will, it is a matter purely of outward cir- cumstances if the rigid course of experience is compelled. Many Mystics have, by circumstances, been " driven into the wilder- ness " in the most physical and literal sense. Many others have maintained the attitude of Asceticism, in mind and will, and have not been compelled by circumstances to adopt the literal Ascetic and Hermit life. In spirit and will, all Mystics are Ascetics and Hermits. The Mystic is indifferent to the pleasures of the senses. He is free from the behests of the body and mind which he has renounced. When occasions drive him into the wilderness, to fast and pray, or to undergo his " Temptations," he is as happy and contented as if called to feastings and pleasures. The Four Tokens of a Mystic n His body is recognized and gratified only for the sake of the soul. It is a necessary instrument of the soul, and must be nourished or deprived as the soul requires. Sometimes the soul requires an attenuated and etherealized body ; sometimes, to func- tion in the body, the soul requires it well nourished ; and sometimes, for the cause of the Faith, the soul requires the body to feast and banquet. Necessity for Asceticism. Asceticism operates usually, in Mysticism, for certain specific purposes, to fit the body for corre- spondence with the soul in certain conditions in the pursuit of the Mystic Path. Among these are the following instances : Tempta- tions, Ekstasis, Initiation, Contemplation, Special " Missions," Penance, and Sacra- ments. TEMPTATIONS The purposes of Temptations. Asceticism is generally practised in times of Temptation. " Temptations " are experiences preceding the passage of the soul into " Ekstasis " for " Initiation." They follow after a course of Instruction and Training in the special 12 The True Mystic Teaching connected with the degree of Initiation at the time contemplated. Solitude. Temptations are undergone in Solitude, after a period of rigorous abstinence from food, and of intense mental concentra- tion. The disciple departs into some desert place, unfrequented by mankind, or, like the monks of old, interns himself in his cell. By fasting, prayer, and mental concen- tration, he gradually attunes himself, his physical nature to his spiritual nature. Then he begins to find himself consciously functioning in his spiritual nature. He becomes clairvoyant and clairaudient, and sees and hears his Spiritual Teachers in the physically unseen. He follows their guidance and instructions, and is passed through severe Tests, or Temptations, directed to prove his cour- age, obedience, faith, and love. Evil attacks him in alluring forms, appealing to his senses, his passions, and his appetites. Forms of seductive temptations are pre- sented before him, or suggested to him. Evil spirits whisper in his ear, and seek to seduce him to commit acts of sin, dis- obedience, or to distrust his Masters. The Four Tokens of a Mystic 13 If he fail under these ordeals, and yield in any way to the wiles of evil, he is put back and forbidden farther progress for the time, until, by continued Prayer and Fasting, if he remains steadfast and penitent, he is again tested, and again, until he is fit to proceed to his Initiations, or to carry out the special duties for which these Tempta- tions were to fit him. You will see, therefore, that Temptations are in many cases an important factor in Mysticism, and a part of the Ascetism which is a Token of the Mystic. (2) Ekstasis Nothing in connection with Mysticism has suffered more from misconstruction and misrepresentation than the mystical state which is called Ekstasis. A term that more clearly defines this experience is Rapture, for reasons which shall be shown. Experience only can define Ekstasis. It is difficult to name any spiritual experience that so defies the art of language to describe or define it. Being an experience, it can only be comprehended by experience. As well try to define in words the taste of a 14 The True Mystic strawberry, or the bouquet of a special vintage of wine, as try to define this experi- ence, its meaning and its phenomena. Warnings about Ekstasis. Concerning Ekstasis warning is needed of many kinds of pseudo-experiences often mistaken for Ekstasis. They are known in the common experiences of spiritualism, or psychic phenomena. Indeed, in each of the four natures of man's constitution, a form of experience may be developed, open to confusion with what the Mystic means by Ekstasis. In Psychics the strange pheno- menon of Katalepsis experienced by de- veloped " trance-mediumship " bears so close a resemblance, physically, to Ekstasis, that the two are often taken for one and the same thing. Any person who has experi- enced Ekstasis knows what a gulf lies between them. The Mystic never con- fuses them ; they are entirely dissimilar. Ekstasis is the harmonious correlation of the whole being, of all the four Natures, in perfect equilibrium and union. Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit are awake and alert, in the conscious activity of their faculties. The " sleep " of the physical body is no The Four Tokens of a Mystic 15 indication of its actual unconsciousness. In the sleep of Ekstasis the body is sub- consciously functioning all the time that the cognate natures are also functioning on their several planes. Paul describes Ekstasis, or Rapture, in the following words : Paul's Ekstasis. " I will come to visions and revela- tions of the Lord. I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not ; or out of the body, I know not] ; such a one caught up into the third heaven and I know such a man (whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not ; God knoweth) ; how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter." The purpose of Fasting. In the state of Ekstasis the body is first freed, by Fasting, from all material obstructions, and the mind is clarified from all clouds, by Prayer and mental concentration. The Soul then be- comes en rapport with the Body. The mind 16 The True Mystic and body become as " sounding-boards," the body responsive to the vibrations of the mind, and the mind to the vibrations of the soul. The physical organism is freed from the clogging of matter caused by food-digestion. The nerve-forces for the time being are centred on the promotion of the state of Ekstasis, and the psychic and mental organs are reinforced and sensitized. Psychic Communion. Temptation and Asceticism having performed their part, the Initiate is drawn into psychic and mental communion with the Spirit-Being who is his Celestial Teacher and Guide. The Initiate places himself unreservedly in his hands, and obeys his instructions. The fact that every Soul has a Celestial Master and Guide is taught and acknowledged by all Mystics. That all Mystics consciously visualize or know their Masters is not always the case. But no man is a Mystic who is not consciously following a definite system in conscious obedience to his Master, whether or not the Master has revealed himself to him. Then comes the time in his Initiations when he cannot help visualizing The Four Tokens of a Mystic 17 and knowing his Master, and not him only, but all the Celestial Beings. Safety of True Ekstasis. At this stage, of spiritual and psychic communion, after Asceticism and Temptation have done their work, the neophyte, or disciple is qualified to pass into Ekstasis. Under such ineffable conditions he is safe, as under no other conditions is it safe to venture into any occult state whatsoever. Promiscuous and misguided " occultism " is extremely risky and dangerous, and utterly unbeneficial, when it is realized how great and power- ful is the environment of evil that besets us in this fallen world and its astral environ- ment. The Process of Ekstasis. Ekstasis begins by the Initiate falling into a gentle sleep, which gradually passes into torpor. The body becomes rigid. The mind is preter- naturally active and acute. He sees, hears, and knows every detail that is happening. He never loses mental or psychic conscious- ness, and physically he is in a subconscious state of sensibility, though wrapt in the torpor of sleep. The " cord " of life. Gently he emerges c i8 The True Mystic from his torpid and recumbent body, stands over it, and surveys it, as an object outside of himself. A fine ray of light attaches himself to his body all the while, accompanying him wherever he goes a psychical " umbilical cord," which, so long as it is not broken, maintains the life of the body. The " cord " broken means instant death to the body, and its speedy dissolution. The Spiritual Plane. He finds the material plane recede from him into mist- like shadow, and the spiritual plane assumes a quasi-physical and objective aspect. He functions organically on the spiritual plane, and corresponds to spiritual environment, with the same objectivity in which, in the flesh, he functioned on the material plane. Spiritual Company. He discovers him- self to be not alone. In the darkness of the astral plane he has entered he is surrounded by a company of the Heavenly host, who panoply him, and protect him from the astral dangers. For, in the astral plane (the Scripture " Hades "), besides its being the vestibule, as it were, to the planetary circles of the Kingdom of Heaven, are the abodes of spirits of darkness, departed this life in The Four Tokens of a Mystic 19 rebellion against God, and in various condi- tions of degeneracy, and of hatred towards God, malignant and pernicious beings who prey upon mortals, and make victims of passing spirits. Therefore the Company of Heaven surround and protect the souls of the good passing through Hades, and never leave them to be the prey of evil spirits, conveying them in due time to their planetary Paradises. Familiarity with the Planetary regions and people. Under this sublime escort he is wafted upward to the planetary circles, through the crowded regions of Hades. In Hades he stays and converses with souls discarnate, and by sympathy and counsel he aids some to rise with him to Paradise. For many souls remain in the purgatorial state of Hades, unable to reach the pure state that loosens the earth-grip and liberates them for translation to Paradise. In the Paradisaical regions he finds everything is familiar to him, that he is returning on a visit to places of a former residence. People and surroundings are familiar to him. Paradise is his real home, his true fatherland. His companions are 2o The True Mystic his real friends and brethren. Earthly friendships are as nothing to these eternal cosmic friendships. He also perceives that many of his earthly friends and loved ones, those still in the incarnate life, and many in Hades and Paradise, belong also to his heavenly friendships. Thus he is " caught up into Paradise." He hears and sees things that are " unspeak- able," which " it is not lawful for a man to utter." This is " Ekstasis," the Second Token of a Mystic. He cannot demonstrate it, and rarely will he be drawn out to speak of it. Ekstasis is in the power of all to attain, and one of the peculiar experiences appertaining to the Mystic state. (3) Initiation Initiations heavenly ceremonies, not earthly. Concerning the subject of Initiation much has been surmised and written that is misleading. The general supposition seems to be that the ceremonies of Initiation are performed upon the earth, in certain " Lodges," or The Four Tokens of a Mystic 21 " Temples," of material construction, by men who are called " Masters." Hence the numbers of people who have passed these material " initiations " think that it is the real thing, and that, by virtue of them, they are real initiates. They suppose that they know the " Mysteries " by virtue of these material ceremonies. This assumption is not to be denied to some, given that the True and Real Initia- tions in the Heavenly places have truly preceded them. Earthly Counterpart-Initiations. It is also the truth, in every " Ekklesia," or " Lodge," where the Mysteries are known and taught by Initiate-Masters, there are earthly cere- monies of Initiation, counterparts of the Initiations that already have taken place in the planetary spheres. Unless these Spiritual Initiations have taken place, the earthly counterpart-ceremonies of Initiation are empty performances, even though, by their solemnity, their sublime ritual, and their content of profound mystical teach- ing, they are most illuminating and in- spiring. Modern survivals of Counterpart-Initia- 22 The True Mystic tions. The Seven Sacraments of the Church, the Initiation-Rites of Free-Masonry, and of Rosicrucianism, and similar institutions, are survivals of these counterpart-Initiations which follow the Heavenly Ceremonies of Initiation. The performance of initiation, or the solemnization of the Sacraments, in earthly Lodges, Temples, or Churches, do not, in these days, signify any sequence of the Heavenly Rites they were originally instituted to follow and certify. The Heavenly rites are not performed, after a spiritual and unconscious manner, simultaneously accompanying the earthly rites, and as a matter of course. They are the most clear and conscious Ceremonies, remembered for ever in the minds of Initiates, and followed afterwards by material forms in earthly Rites, attesting and certifying the Heavenly Ceremonials they counterpart. Counterpart-Initiations are certifications of Heavenly Initiations. In fact, earthly counterpartal Initiations are really certifica- tions and attestations in the earthly Ekklesia of the Real and True Initiations ; and only are they so if they have followed the clearly The Four Tokens of a Mystic 23 remembered and conscious initiations pre- viously performed in the heavens. Planetary Spheres the scenes of Initiation. Let it therefore be understood that the earth is not the scene of these sublime Rites. Actual Initiation can only take place in the planetary spheres, in a Divine Temple of the Holy Mysteries. The Supreme Master of Initiation. The Only Initiator is the Supreme Master of the Mysteries, the Great High-Priest of Heaven and Earth, the Only-Begotten Son of God. No intermediary or deputy can perform these Sacred Rites. Masters of earthly " Ekklesiae," or Lodges, can only perform the earthly Rites of counterpartal Initiation. Seven Planetary Temples of Initiation. There are Seven Temples in the Heavenly Spheres in which the Rites of Initiation are performed, One Temple in each of the Seven Planetary Circles, each answering to one of the Seven Mysteries, representing one of the Seven Gates in the Path of the Mystic. Into each one of these Temples, to the Supreme Temple of the Seventh Gate, the Candidate-Initiate is brought, in the several times of his Ekstasis, and there he is 24 The True Mystic Initiated in the Mystery of the Planetary Circle in which the Temple is constituted. These Seven Mysteries anciently were called the " Seven Gates of the Mystic Path of the Kingdom of Heaven." The Seven Mysteries, or Gates. The Seven Gates, or Mysteries, of the Kingdom of Heaven were defined and designated by the Seven Acts of the Incarnate Life of the Lord Jesus Christ : (1) BIRTH. (4) DEATH. (2) BAPTISM. (5) BURIAL. (3) PASSION. (6) RESURRECTION. (7) ASCENSION. Ekstasis, the mode of entrance to the Planetary Circles. These Seven Initiations take place at the time when the Initiate is in the state of Ekstasis, and is " Rapt," or " Caught up " to the " Heaven " of the Mystery in which he has qualified to be Initiated. By means of Ekstasis, following Asceticism, he enters the Kingdom of Heaven. (4) Intuition Intuition is the faculty of Thought, and interior Sight, by development. Each The Four Tokens of a Mystic 25 nature has its own organic system of Thought and Sight, which a person may develop to perfect harmony and union with the whole constitution, so that all the nature- systems of Thought and Sight are One System, operating from the interior to the exterior, and vice versa, as the solar systems of the cosmos operate from the Sun to its outermost circles of sidereal systems. The work of Mysticism is to create harmony and union in the human constitution, broken and destroyed by the sin of man. Intuition reaches the perfect state by Initiation. In this state a man becomes a " Prophet " and a " Seer." Intuition springs from Spirit. Intuition springs from the Spirit of God in the human soul. It is proportionately perfect as the Soul is purified and freed from the dominance and material bands of the body. The Spirit is the " sun " of the human constitution, as the sun is the centre of the cosmic constitu- tion. The Spirit of God in man permeates and governs the Soul, Mind, and Body, in greater or lesser degree as the Soul, Mind, and Body are purified from matter, and equilibrated 26 The True Mystic and harmonized. Mysticism is the process of equilibration and harmonization. Intui- tion is the state of equilibration and har- monization. Spirit, the link between God and man. The Spirit is the Divine link between man and God, through which man, in body, mind, and soul, functions in perfect relation to God, when the state of Intuition is perfectly attained ; and relatively, according to the degree attained by the processes of Mysticism. God is the Fount and Centre of All-Truth and All- Knowledge. A Mystic is one who has travelled the whole of the Mystic Path to the Centre of All-Truth and All-Know- ledge. He has At-Oned with God. Consciously and actively the Mystic func- tions in Spirit, in God. He is One with the Infinite Divine Being. At-Onement. This One-ness, or At-One- ment, is the meaning of the Mystical term " Unio Mystica," or Divine Union, the Goal of Mysticism. This Goal is reached when the Initiate completes all his Initiations. All the Mysteries are in him, and he is in all the Mysteries. The Four Tokens of a Mystic 27 Sabbatic Rest. Arrived at the Centre, the End of his Initiations, he Rests in God. He Rests from all his Labours, and keeps his Eternal " Sabbath," He " Sits with Christ in the Heavenly Places." God is in Him, he in God. He speaks in God, and God speaks in Him. He walks in God, and God walks in him. He thinks in God, and God thinks in him. He needs no human " teacher," he is " taught of the Lord." Mentally he functions for the Spirit in spiritual things, register- ing the Thought of God in his mind, and expressing It in speech, writing, power, and action. Perfect Intuition in the " Gnostic." This is Intuition. He speaks from the Fulness of Interior All-Knowledge. He " knoweth all things." He is a " Gnostic." He possesses the " Gnosis." Development of Intuition. Intuition is developed and perfected by the same methods as Ekstasis and Initiation, by Prayer and Fasting, by Temptation, Re- nunciation, and Asceticism. Many persons have glimpses of this faculty, and are conscious of possessing it latently. 28 The True Mystic In some sensitive spiritual minds Intuition is comparatively a joyous and blessed possession. This knowledge of the latent possession of Intuition should encourage them to seek its Fulness of development. II. THE HISTORY OF MYSTICISM The Science of Mysticism. Mysticism is the science of the Mysteries, and the uni- versal method of approaching the Mysteries. It has descended from the ages, and has often suffered from the decay of the Know- ledge of the Mysteries. In the present day the idea of the Mysteries has become generally a thing apart from the Mysteries. We rarely find, in writings upon Mysti- cism, much direct reference or appeal to the Mysteries, and allusions to the Four Tokens of Mysticism are generally made without knowledge of their meaning and purpose. Asceticism, for instance, is deprecated and avoided, as a necessity of Mysticism. It is not a subject of pleasantness, and many people seem to teach a mysticism that knows no need for it, and views the practice of it among reputed Mystics of the past as in no The History of Mysticism 29 way an indication of the rule of Mysticism generally, and as a mere question of taste or expediency. No person likes Asceticism, but those who love and desire the Mystic state will welcome Asceticism with un- reserved joyfulness. Ekstasis also is an experience rather deprecated, as a more or less useless and unusual indulgence in dangerous forms of spiritual emotionalism ; whereas in fact it is a necessary factor of Mysticism. For so long a period have experiences of the Spiritual plane been unknown or unheard of, except in forms of psychic phenomena, that good and right- thinking people are afraid to countenance any kind of experience beyond those per- taining to the five physical senses. Yet they are obliged to admit that these experiences are frequently recorded in Holy Scripture, and form some of the principal evidences on which the Christian Faith is established. But according to these the days are over for the occurrence of Spiritual experiences. They may occasionally take place, but then they are described as " supernormal " ; whereas the truly normal is the super- normal, and what is " normal " now is in 3o The True Mystic truth " abnormal." Mysticism restores the right order, and makes that which now is put aside as " supernormal," the " normal " order of life. Essentials of bona fide Mysticism. Let it be understood that there is no bona fide Mysticism that does not acknowledge belief in the Mysteries, and in the legitimacy and regularity of the Four Tokens of the Mystic. The Mystic state cannot be attained without the experience of the Four Tokens. Mysti- cism has no other purpose but to lead up to the Mysteries, and the Mysteries cannot be attained except by the Initiations, and the Initiations are made possible only by the processes of Mysticism through the Four Tokens of the Mystic. Nevertheless, even interest in Mysticism, the thought and study of it, enquiry into the lives and experiences of the Saints who have generally been included among the Mystics, and all approximate attainments of the Mystic state, however far short of the perfect attainment of True Mysticism, is an advance, and a hopeful sign that the human mind is concerned in the idea of the Mystic, for which we may be most thank- The History of Mysticism 31 ful, and encourage ourselves in the promo- tion of a Mystical Mission. Catholicity of Mysticism. Mysticism is in the roots of all humanity the most catholic of all human ideas. It is found in the negroes of Africa, the aborigines of the Americas, Mexico, and Australasia. The Orient is its most ancient and cherished " home." From the East the great Masters sent their Royal Embassy to be the first to acknowledge their Great Master, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, at His Birth. Early Europe and Druidism. From time immemorial the Mystic Religion of Druidism was the cult of the people who were our own ancestors. Druidism was the religion of Britons, Danes, Norse, Normans, and Romans, all of whom intermixed in those early times and created the British, or Anglo-Saxon race. When the whole of Europe, in those early days of Druidic Mysticism, was rising from barbarism, and evolving in its earliest stages, to become the centre of Western culture and civilization, the Orient was shining with the effulgence of an old- 32 The True Mystic established Faith of Mysticism of the purest forms. Oriental Mysticism. In the Oriental Schools of Mysticism the Mysteries have been taught and attained from the earliest known times, by the same methods as have been described, with precisely the same Four Tokens of the Mystic. The Orient was closely associated with the Egyptian and Chaldaic Schools, many of whose greatest historical teachers journeyed to the East, and learned there the great principles of Mysticism which made early Egypt so famous, and raised so many great philo- sophers. Beneath the outer crust of Oriental life, the cult of the Mysteries, and the seeking of the Mystic state, are as strongly and austerely followed by more thousands than the Western missionaries and residents in India have any idea of. To judge of Oriental mysticism from the outside in India is as unfair as to judge of Christianity from the outside in Europe. Mysticism in the foundations of all religions. The Tokens of the Mystic, and the Princi- ples of the Ancient Mysteries, are the same The History of Mysticism 33 always, and in every place. Time alters them not, racial differences, language, en- vironment, have never changed nor destroyed one detail of the universal synthesis of the Mystical philosophy underlying every re- ligion of the world, and all their varying symbolisms and creeds. The Theo-Sophia of Antiquity. The Theo- Sophia of the Mysteries flourished in the Orient no less in ancient days than now. It was contemporary with, and, in fact, the source of, the Schools of Mystic Philosophy in Chaldaea, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. It has recently been proved that, in the world's most primitive times, of prehistoric date, there were important centres of the culture of the Mysteries in Mexico, in North and South America, in Africa, and in the submerged lands now buried beneath the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Monuments of ancient Mysticism. The ruins of ancient temples, time-preserved monuments and inscriptions, unearthed from the sand, soil, and waters of waste places, testify to the primitive existence of ancient hierarchies and systems of the universal Wisdom-Religion. Even the wonderful 34 The True Mystic mystical " lore " of the South African natives bears strong surviving reminiscences of the once flourishing and highly cultured Wisdom-Religion of their ancient, highly developed ancestors. Aborigines are the descendants of highly evolved extinct people. It is a mistake to think that the aborigines of so-called " barbarian " countries are unevolved, or partially evolved, peoples, centuries behind- hand in evolution ; or that the so-called " New Continents," and their indigenous inhabitants, are races not far removed in evolution from the " ape." They are, in fact, the real " aristocrats " of the world, being the decadent descendants of more highly evolved and cultured races than exist to-day in the most civilized countries. Apart from the knowledge which Mysticism enables us to ascertain to this effect, the above-mentioned archaeological discoveries, and the testimony of anthropological and morphological scientists, confirms this state- ment. They tell us that the cranium and brain of the South African negro are those of a people of a high degree of evolution, and quite equal to the civilized white races. The History of Mysticism 35 The Cataclysms, Atlantis and Lemuria. Previous to the great cataclysms ushering in the " Glacial Period," great continents, where now the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans cover their ancient cities and temples, united the Western and Eastern world. The whole earth was then one homogeneous whole, until the cataclysms broke up the earth-crust, and the oceanic deluges divided the remainder of the world. Centuries of coral formation, silting of sand, soil, and marine garbage, have buried these monuments of the past beneath miles of oceanic waters. Under the depths of desert sands also, in the African deserts, are buried great cities, like the Greek Pompeii, full of antiquarian interest of like signifi- cance. The pre-oceanic earth, At that pre-oceanic period there was no separation of land- areas. The present oceans and seas and deserts are entirely of post-cataclysmic origin, after the earth became " tohu bohu" (" without form and void ") ; and before the forming of the earth as it now exists. The world was then intercommunicable in ways unknown to to-day's science. We are now 36 The True Mystic on the material ascent towards scientific knowledge of the ancient ways of communi- cation, and this century will not conclude without scientific discovery of a great many truths which will transcend all that has been unearthed in the centuries that have passed since the Renaissance and the re- vival of Science. Separation of the human family. The cataclysms broke up the earth and separated the human family. Each portion of the Wisdom- Religion segregated in these human branches became a distinct cult and com- munity, and, as time went on, they varied in their exoteric uses, forms, rites, and verba sapientis. Esoterically the same catholic cult of the Mysteries has survived the wrack of time, and remains comparatively intact, and uncorrupted, at the bottom of all the world's exoteric varieties. Modern Oriental Mysticism. In modern times the Oriental Schools have kept them- selves very exclusive. Only in the most recent times have the facilities of travel and transportation brought the West and the East together, while the decadence of the The History of Mysticism 37 Mysteries in the West made any special rapprochement between East and West, in mystical things, extremely difficult and the work of considerable time. The oppo- sition of Western Christianity to Oriental mysticism rendered any fraternization practically impossible, until the rise of Theosophy, and its Western developments, largely opened the way to a closer fellowship between the East and West. The Eastern School is the oldest in existence, and in it the Ancient Mysteries are preserved with careful secrecy by their Masters and Mystics. Only in our own life- time have we come to the discovery of this ancient Worship, and the treasures of the " Gnosis " for so long a time kept guarded and close-sealed in the Orient. Whilst cautious and severely reticent to all Western people who show curiosity concerning their occult and mystical teachings, and wisely tolerant of the " missionaries " who, in their ignorance, preach the " heathenism " of India ; to sincere seekers after Mystical Truth, the Mystics and Teachers of Oriental Mysticism are always frankly open to the enquiry and quest of the Wisdom-Religion. 38 The True Mystic Modern Theosophy. Whatever be our personal opinions concerning much that goes by the name of " Theosophy," we must all acknowledge that the work of the late esteemed teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, and the labours of many of her successors, have been in the main a dispensation of light. Oriental exclusiveness. The exclusiveness of the Orient was not so great in pre- Christian times. When, from the third century, the Christian Church, under the Papacy, rejected the Mysteries and dis- honoured and persecuted the Mystics, the cleavage between the East and West be- came irreconcilable. Mysticism, which never ceased to be cultivated in the East, became a practically forbidden pursuit in the West. Hermes. The first historical character of ancient ages, who shone as a Great Master of the Mysteries, was Hermes, the " Thrice- Greatest," by whom the Sacred Mysteries, and their occult teaching, were established in Egypt. From this great Philosopher, not only the ancient Egyptian Mystery-Religion derived its establishment and general belief, The History of Mysticism 39 but also all the forms of the Mystery- Religion in the Western world emanated. Much that is counted in these days as legendary and mythical surrounds the name of Hermes, the " Divine Pymander." Many learned people deny that he ever existed, and others hold that he was only a name applied to the Egyptian Osiris. There can be not the slightest doubt that Hermes was a human and historical personality. The evidence on record is as strong in favour of this assumption as of the historical existence of Abraham or Moses. Some authorities have given the weight of their opinion to the identity of Hermes with Enoch, men- tioned in the " Book of Genesis," also in the " Epistle of Jude." Historians have also associated his name with that of Thothmes, the great King-Hierophant of Egypt of a period of famous memory in Egypt's greatness. Like others of the world's Great Masters, Hermes has been placed among the legendary " Gods." There are evidences that Hermes so- journed in the Orient, and that the Ancient Mystery-Religion which he inculcated was of Oriental origin, receiving its stimulus from 4o The True Mystic the Orient. No Great Master that has appeared to illumine the world with Divine Teaching but has, directly or indirectly, received the teaching of the Mysteries from the Eastern Sages, or received their im- primatur. Our Lord Jesus Christ received the homage of the King-Priests of the East, an event of remarkable significance, which Christian theologians have never properly grasped. History shows, and will continue to show, that the East has been, and will be, bound up with the religious destinies of the world. Hermes is the great personage at the beginning of the world's history and tradi- tion, who laid the foundations of the Mystery-Religion in the Western world. The Hermetic philosophy embraces the Wisdom of the Mysteries, and their attain- ment by Initiation as the goal of life, the end of human destiny. And it taught the Four Tokens of the Mystic as the system of practical attainment. Pythagoras. Following later in the teach- ing of Hermes, the next prominent school and cult of the Mysteries is centred in the personality of the great scientist and The History of Mysticism 41 philosopher, Pythagoras. Nothing in writing is supposed to exist directly from his pen or dictation. This is due to the fact prob- ably that his method of teaching followed that of most Masters of esoteric teaching, and was entirely oral. What has survived of his teaching is to be found in the writings of his pupils. Pythagoras stands forward among Mystical philosophers as the greatest of all scientists. To this day and particu- larly at the present conjuncture of scientific thought Pythagorean scientific philosophy is becoming more and more the philosophy of the modern researcher. And Pythagoras, be it remembered, was a Mystic Philosopher, whose teaching of natural and cosmical science he himself derived by mystical processes of intuitive intelligence. This Great Master likewise inculcated in his students the method of Mysticism and the Four Tokens of the Mystic. We need to lay these things to heart, for we shall see, in due course, that ancient science and philosophy were the output of Mysticism. All True Science and Philosophy that the world has ever known are the synthetic knowledge which every Mystic 42 The True Mystic knows by Intuition. Mystical science of nature can never be contradicted by the science of the world, and Mystical Science, as it was originally the foundation of all science, will yet come to its own as the determining and originating factor of modern scientific discovery and attainment. Greek Mysticism. At the same time that Pythagoras stands in history as the leader of Mystical Science, the ancient Greek philos- ophy of Orpheus and the Eleusinian Mysteries was strongly in the ascendant, and closely associated with Egypt and Italy. This is the wonderful romantic and poetic period of Greek and Italian ancient philosophy and mysticism. It was the age of the classical romantic poet Homer, whose poems convey, in the guise of exquisite myth, the Secret Doctrine of the Wisdom - Religion. The Odyssey and Iliad may well be described as the " Kabbala " of the Greeks. Also at this period Herodotus wrote his great historical works ; and Virgil and other great mystical writers, gave to the world, for all time, their classics, which to this day entomb the doc- trines of the Wisdom. As " Classics " they are with us, but as " Mystical literature " The History of Mysticism 43 no one to-day gives them even passing heed. Greek Romanticists. These romanticists handed down in cryptic legendary language, in poesy and history, the Ancient Mysteries, under the veil of parable, myth, legend, and allegory. The Mystic only can interpret their hidden meaning. Beneath their beauty of diction, their often wild imaginativeness, their heroic grandeur, are the same truths and principles, the same science and philosophy, of the Ancient Mysteries, which Hermes and Pythagoras taught, and have been the foundation of all that mankind has known and practised from the beginning to the end of time. And in these classical works the Four Tokens of the Mystic are denned and inculcated. Socrates and Plato. Following the Pytha- gorean period, and the age of the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries, came the philo- sophical era of Socrates and Plato, pupils of Pythagoras, and exponents of the Hermetic philosophy. The teaching of these Mystical philosophers, and those contemporary with them, embraced a general system of in- struction on the many questions of science 44 The True Mystic and philosophy, and the higher teaching of Mystical science and philosophy among the more advanced pupils. Many who crowded to their Schools were merely devoted to the solution of curious questions, but many more were those who resorted to the Schools for knowledge to make them " wise unto salvation," to whom the teachers imparted the esoteric knowledge of the Gnosis, and taught them the Secret Doctrine of the Mysteries. The Four Tokens of the Mystic were not wanting in the Socratic and Platonic philosophy. The Eremitic movement. During this period, and onward for centuries after Christ, a great Eremitic movement swept over the world. The fruits of Mysticism were manifesting in a devout and longing desire to practise the Four Tokens of the Mystic, and to free the life from the ob- structing, hampering, and distracting in- fluences of the world and its environment and influence. Many thousands of persons sought Initiation, and to further their desire resorted to the caves of Northern Egypt and Palestine, and desert places, where the life of the world could not intrude upon their The History of Mysticism 45 meditations and prayers. There they prac- tised the purpose of their espousal, and sought the attainment of the Mystic state, by the Four Tokens of the Mystic. Ascetics and Hermits. This was a remark- able movement of that age. Large com- munities of ascetics and hermits formed themselves, each choosing one of their number, of holy and noble repute, as their head, or Abbot. They practised the social communistic principles always associated with Mysticism, and tending towards that ultimate Age of Happiness which Mysticism counts as one of its " missions " to promote, the adjustment of social and economic conditions without which Mysticism must end in failure as a generally accepted system. They lived the common life, disowned the possession of property, placed their possessions, and those who were wage- earners, their wages, in the common treasury, labouring each for the needs of all, that none of the community might not be equally as happy and well-provided as themselves, so far as simplicity of life demanded fit provision. They practised purity, poverty, chastity, and benevolence. They likewise 46 The True Mystic exercised the Gift of Spiritual Healing. Moreover they were" diligent in propagating the Mystic Faith, sending forth their Initiates, in the Spirit of Prophecy and of the power to heal the sick and succour the afflicted, into the world outside, to teach and benefit mankind. Many of these strenuous souls attained such high gifts and qualities of Spirit, that thousands journeyed to their caves and cells and desert hiding- places, to receive Wisdom and Counsel, Healing and Grace. The Therapeutce and Essenes. On account of their healing work these communities received the popular name of " Thera- peutce " in Egypt, and " Essenes " in Palestine, both terms being the vernacular for " Healers." From the earliest times these communities abounded in Egypt and Palestine. The river Jordan was a favourite place for centres of such communities. Most of them consisted of Hebrews, drawn out of the official Hebrew Church through the decay of the Mosaic Faith so far back as the reign of Solomon, and more especially after the Babylonian exile. These large assemblages of Mystical Jews The History of Mysticism 47 held firmly to the Esoteric Mysticism of Abraham and Moses, which the latter imparted to his followers in the wilderness in the Inner Circle of Israel. After the beginning of the Kingdom of Israel under human kingship, the Esoteric Faith ceased to be taught and practised by the official priesthood, and it sank out of memory, to be revived for a brief time by one or another devoted king, such as Josiah and Hezekiah. During this time of darkness and degeneracy from the Covenant of God, the Light of the Mysteries was kept alive in the " Schools of the Prophets," communities of Mystics who practised the principles of Mysticism, and preserved the Esoteric Faith. These were the earlier pioneers of the later communities of the Therapeutae and Essenes. To them belonged the line of the Prophets, among whom were Samuel, Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The Essenes in Palestine. At the time of the Birth of Jesus Christ the Essenes were established in several large communities in the country of Palestine. Noted centres were at Carmel, Nazareth, Samaria, and En-geddi on the Jordan. They differed 48 The True Mystic little from the Egyptian Therapeutae, and both were in communion with the Persian " Magi " and the Oriental Mystics. The disciples of our Lord were of the Essenes, and Jesus Himself, His father and mother, also were Essenes. The membership of the Essene Brotherhood was so secretly kept that many of the priests and Pharisees were Essenes. At the time Jesus was born the whole Mystic Fraternity from Egypt and Greece, to the farthest East, were expecting the Birth of Jesus Christ, the Great Master, and " waiting for the consolation of Israel." John Baptist. Every characteristic of John the Baptist, his life and personality, his asceticism, his desert-abode, and his practice of the Mystic Rite of Baptism, proclaimed him an Essene and an Initiate of the Mysteries. From the Essenes he took his commission as the pre-Messianic Prophet and Witness of the coming Great Master. Joseph and Mary were likewise Mystics of the Essene Fraternity, both being " virgins," the Mystical term denoting an Initiate, or one who has purified himself, and become the Temple of God by Initiation and the Four Tokens of the Mystic. Jesus The History of Mysticism 49 taught nothing " new " in His Message and Ministry. He taught that which was known by all Essenes, practised by them, and propagated by them. This accounts for the general rallying of the people to Him when He commenced His Ministry, and for the remarkable success of His Apostles after His Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost. The Essenes knew well, and had taught well, the Mystical significance of the Passion, Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. Therefore the people flocked into His Church after the day of Pentecost. The " Diaspora." Mention must be made of one remarkable fact of these ages, viz. that the Hebrews, especially those of the " Diaspora," or Dispersion, mainly were the peoplewhoformedthecommunitiesof Ascetics and Hermits, the Therapeutae and Essenes. The decay of Hebrew Mysticism. After the decay of the Esoteric Faith of Abraham and Moses, in the Hebrew nation, caused by the insistence of the people in having a temporal king, like other nations, thereby renouncing the faith and obedience of God, through His priests and prophets in the 50 The True Mystic Divine Hierarchy ; the oral teaching of the Mysteries carried out by Moses to the Inner Circle of the Congregation ceased to be employed. The nation became more tem- poral, worldly, and imspiritual. They failed even under Joshua to purify the country which God had chosen for them, and led them into. By this failure, and their emulation of the conditions of the nations around, they opened the door to the intru- sion of false, superstitious, and depraved paganism which had corrupted the once pure Faiths of the Canaanites and Phoenicians. The faithful Hebrews then retired into secret communities, conserving the Holy Mysteries, and practising the Faith, under their Masters and Initiates, from which the Prophets came forth at various periods to warn the people and their rulers, and to teach and comfort the faithful. Oral teaching of the Hebrew Mysteries. The oral teaching of Moses and the " Teach- ing Priesthood " of the Temple was the same Mystery-Religion of Hermes, taught in the Schools of Egypt. In these Schools Moses was trained and instructed, and became " learned in all the Wisdom of Egypt." The History of Mysticism 51 Abraham, the founder of Israel, was himself a Priest of the Mysteries in the Chaldaean School, from whence he was drawn forth to carry out his mission as the " father " of the Chosen People, from whom the Great Master, Jesus Christ, eventually was to be born. Abraham and Moses. Abraham handed down the oral teaching of the Esoteric Mysteries to his descendants, and Moses continued the same teaching. The wilder- ness-journey was symbolical of the Mystic Way, as the life of Jesus Christ at a later period gave the same symbolization. The " Law " exoteric. In the Pentateuch is embodied the " Law of Moses," which consists of a compendium of " exoteric " teaching and legislation, connected both with the Mysteries, their earthly mediaries in the sacrificial and sacerdotal system, and with the social and domestic order and regulation of community life. The " Prophets " esoteric. The " esoteric " teaching of the Mysteries is contained in the " Prophets," and was given to the Congre- gation of Initiates and disciples orally and in secret. These teachings were handed down and transmitted in the Order of the Priest- 52 The True Mystic hood and Prophets, from generation to generation. The Holy Scriptures do not contain this oral teaching. It was not committed to writing till a later date in Hebrew history than the books of the Pen- tateuch and most of the Prophetic writings. The " Kaballa." Not until some centuries after Christ was this oral teaching com- mitted to writing in the ancient Hebrew uncials. So carefully was this transcription effected by the employment of glyphs and symbols, numerical and geometrical signs, that practically the whole of the Secret Doctrine was preserved to the Initiates, who alone were competent to decipher and interpret them. These ancient Hebraic writings were called the " Kaballa." Until quite recently they have been almost inaccessible to European students. It is interesting to note that in the year 1912 the " Kaballa " was translated verbatim in the French language. A most useful and informing book by Professor Abelson, published by the " Quest Society," entitled " Hebrew Mysticism," throws new and important light on the Mysticism of the " Kaballa." The History of Mysticism 53 The " Talmud." Following the compila- tion of the secret doctrine of the Mysteries in the Kaballa, a series of " Commentaries " on the Kaballic doctrine was compiled, forming a " text-book " on the Hebrew Mystic Teaching, and treated with great reverence amongst the Jews to this day. This compilation is called the " Talmud." In the Talmud the teaching is fully Mystical. In both the Kaballa and the Talmud containing the Esoteric Faith of Abraham and Moses the doctrines of Pre-existence and Reincarnation are prominently set forth. In fact, the whole content of cosmogony of the Kaballa presupposes these doctrines. Professor Abelson, the most able and learned of Hebrew exponents of the Kaballa and Talmud, mentions this fact, which is the more interesting when we remember that Jesus and the Apostles were taught in the doctrines of the Kaballa and Talmud, there- by indicating the fact that they believed and taught the doctrines of Pre-existence and Reincarnation. Paul's doctrine of Predestination has only one possible inter- pretation, in the idea of Pre-existence and Reincarnation, as taught in the authorita- 54 The True Mystic tive doctrines of the Hebrew Faith, of which Paul was a profound exponent. Both these ancient works show clearly that the Hebrew Faith, the Faith of Abra- ham and Moses, embodied in them, is the same Mystery-Religion of the ancient world, of the Orient, of Chaldaea, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, and of the prehistoric peoples and hierarchies now for ages extinct, except in their late survivors among the " abori- gines " of the old continents of the pre- Glacial period. Only One Catholic Religion. There is, and eternally has been, Only One True Religion under the sim the Religion, the One Theo-Sophia, which Mysticism represents and inculcates that Religion which one day. God willing, will be restored to our present- day denuded and depleted Christianity. III. THE MYSTICISM OF JESUS CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES I will in this lecture touch very briefly on the Mysticism of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, as in my next lecture I shall speak more fully of the Historical and the Mystical Christ. The Mysticism of Jesus Christ 55 What I desire now to show to you is that Jesus was a Teacher of the Ancient Mystery- Religion which I have traced down the ages from the beginning of time ; that He Him- self in the flesh attained the Mysteries, and practised and taught the Four Tokens of the Mystic. The Birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was born of Joseph and Mary, both of whom were " Virgins," or pure Initiates of the Mystery-Religion, under the Essene rule. Both came to birth from a long line of hereditary " Virginity," and therefore were fit mediaries of the "Seed" of the Son of God Most High for natural generation. " Virgin-Birth." In our present state of Christian ignorance and superstitious be- liefs concerning the Mystical idea of " Vir- ginity " of birth, we have become accustomed for centuries to think that the " Virginity " of Mary was a physical and sexual virginity, and that Joseph had no procreative share in the birth of Jesus. " Virginity " of birth is purely a Mystical term denoting nothing of a unique or " miraculous " nature of conception. Virginity is the state of con- ceptual and procreative conditions that all 56 The True Mystic mankind normally should enjoy, and which Mysticism will restore, so that " immaculate conceptions," through pure Virginity of men and women in Marriage, shall become general. The Mystery-Life of Jesus Christ. The Life of Jesus Christ was a life of Mystery ; i.e., His Life-Epochs are symbolical of the Life-Epochs, or Initiations, of the Mystic. The Life-Epochs of Jesus Christ were the same Seven Mystery-experiences of the Mystic's Initiations : (1) BIRTH. (4) DEATH. (2) BAPTISM. (5) BURIAL. (3) PASSION. (6) RESURRECTION. (7) ASCENSION. The early Fathers, to the time of Augus- tine, spoke of Initiation in the Mysteries of Christ as definite experiences, associated with the Seven Sacraments. Every Mystic will tell you that the Seven Epochs of the Life of Jesus Christ are the Seven Steps, or Gates, of the Mystic Way, severally passed in Initiations, to reach the " Sabbath " state of Rest, the " Session at the Right Hand of God," or the " Unio Mystica," sometimes termed the " Divine Marriage." 1. BIRTH. IV. V. BAPTISM. PASSION. The Mysticism of Jesus Christ 57 The Seven Golden Keys of the Seven Gates of the Mystic Path. The Mystic Path has been shown to have Seven Gates of Initia- tion, marked by the Seven Life-Epochs of the Life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Each Gate has a Golden Key, the attainment of which opens the Gate to the faithful Disciple. The Golden Keys are these : The Golden Key SELF-ABNE- GATION. ,, EQUILIBRIUM. INSENSI- BILITY, or In- difference to pleasure or pain. ,, DETACHMENT. DETERMINA- TION, or Per- severance. KNOWLEDGE I GNOSIS. SABBATH : REST, or Ses- sion at the Right Hand of God. DEATH. BURIAL. VI. RESURRECTION. Vll. ASCENSION. 58 The True Myshc Jesus Christ, for His own body's sake, and for the Redemption of the bodies of all humanity, entered into these Gates of Initiation, and qualified to enter by the attainment of the Seven Golden Keys. As " Captain of our Salvation " He passed the " Ordeals," endured the " Temptations," and was Crowned the Conqueror of Death. " Christ died for us, leaving us an Example, that we should FOLLOW HIS STEPS." Apostolical Mysticism. The Apostolical teaching unfolds the Mystical purpose of the Master, Jesus Christ. John, Peter, and Paul speak as with one voice of the Mysteries of the Kingdom, and the Way of their attainment. In his Epistles Paul makes frequent use of the term " Mystery." Such an expression, among numerous other Mystical terms found so repeatedly in the Apostolical writings, is of the greatest significance. In the days they were written these terms belonged only to the tech- nology of Mysticism, and gave the Mystic sign to their writers, as Masonic terms and expressions found in certain literary works to-day point to their Masonic authorship. The Mysticism of Jesus Christ 59 Paul speaks technically of Mysticism as follows : " Unto me was this Grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the Mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God Who created all things." Pauline doctrine of Mysticism. Already I have shown that this Mystery of Mysteries is the same that has been the search and quest of Mystics and Saints, in all ages, and in all parts of the world. It is no monopoly of any one religion. No religion claims or holds exclusive copyright and entail of the Sacred Mysteries. The " Mystery " which the Apostle de- clared he was called to make known, of which the Master gave command to all His Apostles to " make disciples " in " all the world," " of every creature," is the Mystery of Christ which embraces the Seven Gates of the Mystic Way. These Seven Gates are Seven graduated Steps of Initiation and attainment, won by the Four Tokens of the Mystic Asceticism, 60 The True Mystic Ekstasis, Initiation, and Intuition. The most elementary knowledge of Mysticism will enable us to detect Paul's Mystic meaning. He speaks of being : (a) "Baptized into Christ'' BAPTISM. (b) " Suffering with Christ" PASSION. (c) " Crucified with Christ " DEATH. (d) " Buried with Christ " BURIAL. (e) " Raised with Christ " RESURRECTION. (f) " Ascended with Christ " ( ASCENSION \ R (g) "Seated with Christ " I SESSION / These applications of the Life-Epochs of Christ to the Disciples of Christ are referred to as definite and distinct experiences of the body and soul in this life. No sanction is found in any part of the Scriptures for a " vicarious " or " substitutionary " experi- ence of the same by Christ only, and imputed to the believer. The purpose of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. We thus may comprehend that the Supreme Divine Mediator incarnated in our fallen and corruptible flesh, the common flesh of fallen humanity ; that He partook of the abnormal, mortal, and suffering nature of " His Brethren," was Tempted, The Mysticism of Jesus Christ 61 Suffered, Died, was Buried, Descended into Hades, was Raised from the dead, Ascended into Heaven, and Sat down on the Right Hand of God, "from henceforth waiting until His enemies be made His footstool." The Via Dolor osa. Traversing the " Via Dolor osa " alone, on His Own account as one of fallen mankind, and on behalf of man- kind, He opened and entered each Gate of the Path. Through each of the Seven Gates His Disciples individually must pass, that their personal At-Onement may be sealed in each Degree of the Mysteries, by Initiation. In passing each of the Seven Gates the " Twelve Labours of Heracles " must be per- formed, the " Sisyphean Task " fulfilled, not once only, but Four Times, for the Purifying and Liberating of the Four Natures Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit. We see the real purpose of the Incarnation of the Son of God, to restore this fallen earth to union with God, and with the Cosmos ; to " make Propitiation," or "At- Onement." The Redeeming of the body. The In- carnation of Jesus Christ had special refer- 62 The True Mystic ence to the " body," in which the souls of all creatures are imprisoned in corrupt matter. The body is the " dead-weight " of all creatures, from man downwards in the scale of creation. Animals of all species suffer this soul-imprisonment, even more materially than do human beings. The sin of man, and its consequences, have fallen more acutely on these innocent creatures than on ourselves, who, in the beginning, were personally partakers in, and responsible for, the Fall, and all the Evil it has brought upon creation. Immortality. This " dead- weight " of Sin and Corruption drags us down, and sinks us earthward, when we naturally should rise heavenward. We have lost our "Immor- tality," and become the creatures of "Mortality," from the time that "Sin entered into the world," and " Death by Sin." Our bodies have become " bodies of death." The Christ incarnated that He might " bring Life and Immortality to light." Mortality. The body is an intrinsic part of the creature-organism. It is not the mere earthly " shell " that is cast off at death, like the shell of a mollusc, or that of The Mysticism of Jesus Christ 63 a nut. A being, in all states of existence, is an incomplete organism if he is soul without body. " Mortality " has seized upon his being at his reincarnation, and he can only be made immortal by Redemption and Regeneration. Until the body is Regenerated, as well as the soul, and thereby Redeemed, it remains mortal, and cannot have Eternal Life, nor abide in the spheres of Immortality. To attain Eternal Life and Immortality, a being must " Follow in the Steps of Christ " to the Mystical Gate of Resurrection, and Regenerate his body, as Christ Redeemed and Regenerated His body, by the Christ in Him. For all men have the Christ in them, needing to be " quick- ened " and "formed" in them. It is the Christ in them that is the Regenerating Power. Until the " body " has been Redeemed from " mortality," man and beast are doomed to reincarnate continually, the being alternating between the life here and the life beyond, fluctuating and restless souls, longing for Paradise and Rest, but perpetually frustrated by the mortal ele- ments persisting in the flesh, chaining them 64 The True Mystic to the earth. By Mysticism, therefore, a man not only frees himself from " mortality," but from reincarnation. Once Mystically " Dead," he " dieth no more," " death hath no more dominion over him," for he re- incarnates no more. The Mystery of Christ in the flesh. For the sake of Redeeming man's body, and so saving his soul, the Christ Himself incarnated in mortal flesh, and, by the Christ in His mortal flesh, He Redeemed it. He destroyed death in His flesh, by the Christ in His mortal flesh, suffering, dying, buried, raised, and glorified in the flesh. It is the same Christ in the flesh, the same " Mystery, of Christ in you, the Hope of Glory," that will Redeem you and me in the flesh, by the same Sevenfold Mystery of Mysteries. No more death. The reward of the Mystic is, that, dying, he dies no more. He returns no more to the earth, or re- incarnates, for the sake of his own Redemp- tion. He has fulfilled all that his reincarna- tions required of him. He has Redeemed his body from mortality, and broken away from the " dead- weight " of matter which held him bound to the earth. The Mysticism of Jesus Christ 65 The Restitution of all things. In his long home in Paradise he is waiting, with all the " Blessed dead," who have Redeemed themselves from mortality, for the " Re- stitution of all things," the Redemption of " the whole creation which groaneth and travaileth together with humanity, waiting for the Adoption, to wit, the Redemption of the body." END OF FIRST LECTURE SECOND LECTURE MYSTICISM OF THE PRESENT I. ALEXANDRIAN MYSTICISM AND GNOSTICISM IN the preceding lecture the fact was pointed out that the early Mysticism of Egypt, which became an established Cult through the propagation of the Hermetic and Pytha- gorean Philosophy, was largely a Hebrew development, after the decay of the Esoteric "Law of Moses " and the " Faith of Abra- ham." The Hebrews who remained faithful to the "Law and the Prophets," maintained the Faith in exile in Egypt, and in the wil- derness security of the Essene communities of Palestine. Through the combined influences of Greek and Italian philosophy, the teachings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other great philosophical Mystics, and of the Hebrew Mysticism, later embodied in the " Kaballa," a powerful and influential eclectic School, or University, of Mystical Philosophy grew up 66 Alexandrian Mysticism and Gnosticism 67 in the great City of learning, built by Alex- ander the Great as a Centre of Learning in his world-empire, Alexandria. Alexander the Great. Alexander, whose conquest of Egypt raised him to the supreme monarchy of the Western world, himself became an Initiate. The dream of his life was the notable one of uniting corporately the Mystical Schools of the East and the West. He saw, as many in this day are seeing, that the Faith of the Mysteries was the same in the Orient as in the Occident, and that this Faith was the Divine and natural focal centre of unity in the world. To create a world- hierarchy was his dream. In order to ac- complish it, the world must be conquered by force of arms, the antagonism of ignorant and superstitious people, forming the thick outer crust of society everywhere, must be subjugated. The kernel of society, the people who were awakened to the Mysteries, the pure and holy Mystics and Saints, whom he recognized as the " salt of the earth," must gain the ascendancy in the world-polity, and be drawn from obscurity and seclusion, and united in fellowship, for the Regenera- tion of the world. Therefore he set forth to 68 The True Mystic conquer the East. To unite Alexandria with the central seat of Oriental learning, so to girdle the world with the One Faith of the Mysteries, this was his dream, his great enterprise. How nearly he succeeded ! But on his great expedition to the conquest of India he died ; and so his great dream was unfulfilled. Yet it was a true dream, only the time of its fulfilment was not yet. It still awaits it, and the present day, the British occupation of India, the open water- way and land-way, and the free inter- course between Orient and Occident, have prepared the way for this dream of Mys- tical unity between the Mystery-Religion of the East and the Mystery-Religion of the West. Alexandrian Gnosticism. The Alexan- drian development of Mystical philosophy led to the amalgamation of Oriental, Egyp- tian, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew Mysticism. Alexandria became the greatest metro- politan Seat of Learning in the world, of an international Cult of Divine Wisdom and Philosophy, under the name of " GNOS- TICISM." Initiates, Masters, and philoso- phers of this world-embracing School of Alexandrian Mysticism and Gnosticism 69 the Mysteries were denominated " Gnostics," or, people who know. They taught with the " authority " of Intuitive Knowledge, " and not as the Scribes," whose knowledge was " book-learning " and merely intellectualism, In the early days of Gnosticism the Mysteries and the Gnosis were purely and powerfully taught, orally, in the many Schools of Masters and Philosophers at Alexandria. The city grew to be a great University of Mysticism, and students flocked to it from all parts of the world, Degenerate and Pseudo-Gnosticism. As almost invariably happens in connection with highly spiritual and occult movements, discredit is brought upon them by the influx of false professors of the pure teaching and practice, and their exploitation of the powers of occultism to ulterior and often evil ends. So, in the case of Alexandrian Gnosticism, many spurious, injudicious, distorted, or false doctrines and practices came into vogue. Strange and sensational perversions of the Gnosis, wild and pernicious heresies and occult practices, perverted the Secret Doc- trine. Many were deceived and corrupted by the occult manifestations of " Black 7O The True Mystic Magic," simulating the psychic and spiritual phenomena of the Pure " White Magic " of the true Gnostic Mystics. They departed from the Faith of Mysticism, led away to gross thaumaturgical rites and doctrines, and magical arts, and fell into the snare of astral necromancy and demoniacal divina- tion, forming many " sects " of spurious philosophy, which they scrupled not to label with the same term, " Gnosticism." This evil encroachment of the " Black Magic," astral Gnosticism, ultimately caused the philosophers of the true Gnosticism to teach and practise the Faith in secrecy. Finally, after continuing for a time in the Alexandrian Schools, the false Gnosticism having gained greater ascendancy, the true Gnosticism, after a period of grievous perse- cution and trouble, ended in almost total extinction in Alexandria, when most of their Initiates and Masters were put to death, and the rest disappeared, with their valuable literary treasures and archives. Alexandria, the Seat of Mysticism. Try to picture in your minds this wonderful city and country of the prehistoric Faith of the Christ-Logos, whose primeval Mystery- Alexandrian Mysticism and Gnosticism 71 Wisdom was memorialized and taught in the greatest monument of Mystical Masonry the world still has kept preserved for our wonder and perplexity the PYRAMID and SPHINX. To-day the scientist and archeologist are only beginning to pierce the great Mystery veiled in these marvellous structures. The Mysticism of the Gnostics was the identical knowledge and practice of the Mysteries secreted in the dimensions and interior construction of these venerable piles of prehistoric origin. Picture this great cosmopolitan Univer- sity, containing most of the virile intellect and spirituality of the noblest age of in- tellectuality and spirituality, of Jews and Greeks and Egyptians, Persians, Orientals, Italians, and people from the scattered races of Africa and the Far West ; the crowds of men and women, and boys and girls, drawn to Mysticism, flocking to Alexandria, and filling the auditoria of the Schools, drinking the Gnosis hungrily a cosmopolitan multi- tude of earnest thinking souls, eager to tread the Path of the Cross, the Mystic Way of the Christ, hailing from the four quarters of the world ; all this wonderful Mystical activity 72 The True Mystic before the birth of Christ, and the era of Christianity ! The Roman Empire. We now come to the period of the Roman conquest, the age of the Caesars. The Golden Day of Greece, its Mysticism and culture, has waned, and the grey dawn of the Iron Day of Rome swallows up the horizon in gloomy clouds of dark portent. Egypt and Greece, after Alex- ander's death, were breaking up. The ancient regime that fostered the noble traditions and philosophy of Hermes, Pythagoras, and Moses was rapidly in decline. Terrible events were looming, already foreseen by the Alexandrian Mystics. The crisis of Gnosticism. In this transi- tional hour, behind the imminent tragedy, the Mystics remained calm and unperturbed, as Mystics always are, whatever befalls in the circumstances of life. They knew that the very events that were to bring disaster to their temporal destinies were that series of occurrences which Mystical foreknowledge and prophecy foresaw, but did not seek to avert. They recognized in them the signal of a New Age, a " Dispensation " of time, when the Gnosis was to take a new departure Alexandrian Mysticism and Gnosticism 73 of a world-wide significance, which was to be sealed by their own blood. A crisis and turning-point in the history of the Mystery-Religion was approaching, for which the past had been preparatory, and the coming series of tragic events was to render this crisis possible. I ask you kindly to keep in your minds this narrative sketch, for it is necessary now to digress from the narrative in order to review certain points that must be gathered up before proceeding with the historical side of our subject. These points relate especially to the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the dual concept of His Historical and Mystical Personality. May I also say why I regard these con- siderations of such paramount importance ? It is because I think I see in a great deal of theology of the present time, and in much of the mysticism, occultism, and theosophy that is being taught, a missing quantity the comparative absence of consciousness concerning the great Personage Whose Nativity Christendom is celebrating, at the season which for centuries has been called the " CHRIST'S MASS." 74 The True Mystic II. THE HISTORICAL AND THE MYSTICAL CHRIST The Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ stands out, in the devout estimation of Christendom, as the most momentous event in the world's history. And surely, whatever be our individual religion or philosophy, there is something in this event so remark- able that, if only in the light of its historical consequences, it is next to impossible to over- state its importance. The overshadowing of the Mystical Christ concept by the concept of the Historical Christ. Yet it is possible to err in disproportion of emphasis on one special aspect of Jesus Christ in His relation to mankind. The consequence of this error is to place Him in an ill-balanced representation, a distorted perspective, and the perfect view of this transcendent Figure is blurred, and put out of proportion. The misfortune of this failure will be apparent, and to it is due the very widespread depreciation and neglect of Jesus Christ. There are many who practically The Historical and the Mystical Christ 75 deny the Incarnation of the Son of God ; there are many who exaggerate it, and reject any other idea of the Christ but that of His Divine Humanity. These errors are open ways to " materialism" on the one hand, or to " superstition " on the other. The tendency referred to is strongly marked in Christian theology in the present day. The beautiful personality of the Incarnate Son of God has captured the thought and adoration of Christendom, almost to the total exclusion of the equally beautiful concept and personality of the Mystical Christ, Whom the flesh of Jesus enclothed and en veiled for a short season in His Divine existence. The eternal lustre and glory of the Mystical Christ have been overshadowed, if not utterly eclipsed, by the concept of the Historical and Incarnate Christ. Yet it is the Mystical Christ, and not the Incarnate Christ, Who essentially is the Great World-Saviour, the " Redeemer," the " Logos made flesh." The ages of Redemption. The Redemption of the earth did not begin at the Incarnation, and end at the Ascension. Redemption had 76 The True Mystic not to be waited for until it pleased God to send His Son into the world. The Christ has been perpetually fulfilling His Redemptive work throughout the past ages, from the moment that man, in a long-past reincarnate state, brought the world to the condition necessitating Redemption. The drama of Redemption. The Incarna- tion of the " Logos," or the Mystical Christ, has always formed a specific and essential part of the Redemptive Plan, an " Act " of the ages-long " Drama," to which many preceding "Acts" and "Scenes" have been leading. In all these prior " Acts " and " Scenes " the Mystical Christ has been the principal Figure, not more so in the Incarna- tion than in previous ages. True Christ-Worship. The Mystical Christ in the Historical Christ is the " Persona " of the Godhead Whom men should worship. To worship the Incarnate Christ without intelligent reference to the Mystical Christ is superstition and practically heathenism. In many ways in Christian worship Christ is made an object of " idolatry." The Saints and the Mystical Christ. The The Historical and the Mystical Christ 77 study of the lives of the Saints of Western Christianity shows that Saintship always has been attained through the interior discovery of the Mystical Christ. The Saints passed from objective and exoteric devotion to the Christ of the Manger and Calvary, to the quest and search for the subjective Christ secreted in their own souls and bodies. The exoteric worship of Christ, imaged in the Crucifix, worshipped at the Altar, sup- plicated in the Prayers, opened the door of their minds to the esoteric worship of the Eternal " Logos," implanted, incarnated, and in-formating within their own incarnate beings. It led them on to the struggle and Path-climbing which ends in attainment of every degree, " to the measure of the stature of the Fulness of the Christ." Painfully and perseveringly they learned how to attain the Mystical Christ, practising the Four Tokens of the Mystic, often blindly and unconsciously, scarce perceiving the drift of their progress, but attaining approximate standards and degrees in the Mystic Ascent. With many nothing short of the " Unio Mystica," the " Divine 78 The True Mystic Marriage," was the Goal of their quest and striving. Many of the Saints travelled as far as it was possible to go on the line of Saintship. Wonderful was it, without organized Mys- tical instruction, that they so succeeded in perseverance ! Some went beyond the point where the line of Saintship merges into the line of Mysticism. Some few journeyed a further distance on the " line of Mysticism," and learned somewhat of the great secrets and experiences of the Mystic Path leading through the wilderness to the Mystery-Land. The Saints' Progress. To these " excur- sions " into Mysticism, beyond the " line of Saintship," is due the lustre and glory attached to the names and posthumous fame of the many " Saints " who live immortal in religious memory. They are the " Joshuas " and " Calebs," who have penetrated the coast-lands of the " Promised Land" They have brought " Grapes of Eshcol" testifying to the beauty and plenty of the rich country, the " land flowing with milk and honey." But, like the Israelite explorers, they went no further, afraid of The Historical and the Mystical Christ 79 the " giants " to be fought and overcome, and the " walled cities " menacing the Path of Conquest. Saintship and Mysticism, the Two Lines of Mystical Progress. The " Saint " and the " Mystic " need to be differentiated in the reader's mind. The two may be said to journey together on two parallel lines the Line of Saintship and the Line of Mysticism. The distinction between these two lines is due, not to Divine intention, nor of intrinsic necessity, but solely to human defect in the matter of teaching and understanding. The line of Mysticism is not at present open to more than a few souls who force their way into it by strenuous labour. The lines run so contiguously that practically for a long distance they are indistinguishable. The Solitary Path of the Mystic. From a certain point, however, the line of Mysticism is a Solitary Path, and that point is " Initia- tion," and all that Initiation requires and implies. It is at this point that the Mystic knows he is a Mystic, and all Mystics enter the " Charmed Circle " of Fellowship that none else know, and none but they can define and mutually reciprocate. So Gladly indeed the Saint would follow that Path to its farther direction, if he knew how, and if the Church, which honours the Saint, and denies the Mystic, provided the means and facilities for the cultivation of Mysticism, and encouraged the method and practice of the Four Tokens of the Mystic. Closing of the Line of Mysticism. Since Apostolical and early Gnostic times, the line of Mysticism has practically been closed to Western Christianity, beyond the individual " excursions " of some of the Catholic Saints, frowned at by the official Church, and enterprised at great self-sacrifice, per- secution, and life-risk. The dividing-point of Initiation. The quest of the " Mystical Christ " led many of the Saints " beyond Jordan," but none were able to continue to the conquest of the " Promised Land." There is no uncharity in saying this, and it would be confusing the point that needs the clearest emphasis if this were not stated quite frankly. Indeed, it is a most notable and wonderful thing that Saintship was attained, even to far lengths of Mystical experience, by so many heroic souls, in days when the Church had lapsed The Historical and tlw Mystical Christ 81 into almost " Egyptian darkness," during the Middle Ages. To such high degrees of the " measure of the stature of the Fulness of Christ " some Saints reached, that the uninitiated might well believe and call them Mystics, and the Church's Calendar is replete with the adornment of the names of the Saints. But none of them, strictly speaking, according to the present definition of the term, were Mystics. The "Hall- Mark," and " Sign-Manual," of a Mystic is INITIATION. " Initiation," and the " Mysteries," were, in those days of medieval Saintship, unknown and forgotten. The Saints lacked the light of Mysticism to lead them on that Solitary Path to the confines of the Mystic Way. Glimpses and visions of the Way they assuredly had, and the feet of many of the Saints trod the Way for great distances but none reached the end of the Way. There is not the least evidence in their illuminating writings to show that any of the Saints made such an assumption, or possessed the knowledge of Initiation. Official Church intervention and obscuran- tism. The earnest reader, weighing very seriously this statement, will at once ask, 82 The True Mystic " Why was this so ? " It is probable that many will disagree with me, especially those who have benefited from the study of the lives of the Saints, of Santa Theresa, and so many whose experiences transcend the common experience of the religious life. They cannot concede that there is any experience and attainment beyond such lofty Saintship. Likewise, the only true answer that can be given to this question is a sad one indeed, and likely to give pain to many who read it. The true reason is that the official Church always proceeded on a systematic and stern policy of intervention and obscurantism, and prohibited the Saints with severe penal- ties from progressing permanently beyond the coast-line of Mysticism. Beyond that coast-line were the heights of the Gnosis, and the beauteous Path to those heights was INITIATION, leading to INTUITION, and Intuition demanded an unfettered mind, a liberated speech, and a Free Spirit. These demands the Church for centuries had determinedly silenced by its exactions of obedience and subjection, of mind, speech, and faith, to the stereotyped and authority- The Historical and the Mystical Christ 83 bound dogmatism of Scholasticism. The Mystic must be a free and independent Spirit, or he must die under the " ban " of Ecclesiasticism. Madame de la Mothe Guy on. Notably may be mentioned, as a single instance, the case of the devoted lady of France, Madame de la Mothe Guyon, Saint and Martyr. Her sorrowful life of joyous sanctity and patient suffering, under the harsh inquisition of ecclesiastical persecutors, you probably have all read, in her life and writings, so admirably recorded by her biographer, Dr. Upham, himself a mystical writer of great insight. This lady passed a lifetime of suffering, of intense intellectual and spiritual strain under the harrying cross-examinations of her harsh and unfeeling confessor, Bishop Bossuet. Her controversy with this stern ecclesiastic was maintained with unfailing patience, modesty, and lofty intellectual understanding, which baffled her persecutors in their persistent efforts to overtake her, at a weak moment, in the committing of a dialectical error, or a failure of her super- human patience. Madame Guyon had gone too far in independent expression of her 84 The True Mystic Intuitive Gift of Knowledge. She was in danger of becoming a Mystic, and her popularity extended over the whole Church. Therefore she must be suppressed. As a Saint she was honoured, as a Mystic she was extinguished. When the Church has not persecuted the seeker of the Mystic Path, it has never failed to hamper and discourage the quest. Dally on the coast-line we may, but conquer the land, no, we may not. If all good Christians to-day became Mystics (" So mote it be ! "), it would imperil too many ecclesiastical and temporal " vested interests," to be safe for the body-politic of Church and State. The line of Saintship now obscurated. For a long period in the Christian Church, practically since the Reformation, the " line of Saintship " has also been in a great measure obscurated. The Protestant Church, since the time of Luther, has never regarded the Christian Faith as a process of attain- ment of Saintship. Protestant " Evan- gelicalism " treats Saintship as something imputed to the believer by faith in the Incarnate Christ. His Saintship and Righteousness are believed to answer before The Historical and the Mystical Christ 85 God for the believer's Saintship and Righteousness. Wherefore all desire and seeking after individual perfection of Holi- ness and Righteousness were nullified by this doctrine of " imputed righteousness." The Historical Christ was the " Persona " of the believer's Faith, His Incarnate Life was substituted for the believer's life, His Incarnate obedience for the believer's obedi- ence. The Mystical Christ had no place in their thought or faith. Mysticism was dead. The Narrow Way was hidden from view. Only believe in the Divine-Human " Substi- tute " and Salvation was secure for ever. This was and still is in " Evangelical " circles the popular " Simple Gospel " preached from Evangelical pulpits. An imputed Saintship, a substituted righteousness, a Divine victim of Divine wrath, substituted for human sinners, saving them from ever- lasting hell-fire provided by the Divine Judge, Himself the Punisher and the Saviour. Under such teaching it is not astonishing that Saintship is not sought after, nor thought of, as a matter of personal attainment. Those who instinctively seek after Saintship in the Christian Church are 86 The True Mystic scarce and few. The mothers' breasts are dried up, the children are no longer suckled as in former days. How much less is the Mystic known, or the Mystic Way heard of ! How much less is there the knowledge of the Gnosis, and the Mystical Christ ! How rarely is the pheno- menon of the Mystic Path set forth in the Christian pulpit as the Christian aim and quest ! The Mystic is a " voice crying in the wilderness." Present-day energies, devo- tions, and propaganda are centred in the objective and exoteric \vorship of the Sacred Person of the Historical Christ now in Heaven. The form of the dying man of the Crucifix the Church venerates and worships, not the " Lamb of God," " in the midst of the Throne, standing as it had been slain before the foundation of the world." The idolatry of the Historical Christ. The Man Christ Jesus, incarnate in our flesh, never was posited before mankind as an object of worship. The idea that Jesus in Heaven now is a humanly constituted being, different from the nature He eternally was before His Incarnation, is an utterly The Historical and the Mystical Christ 87 erroneous one. That it is a metamorphosed Son of God, Who, in response to man's prayers and intercessions, presents His glorified human body before the Father, mediating for man's forgiveness and exemp- tion from punishment, by virtue of His substitutionary sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary, is a false " Gospel." It is not " the Christ according to the flesh " that is our Salvation. His personal physical wounds, blood-shedding and death never were sub- stituted for man's suffering and death, as an expiation of man's sin. Paul teaches us this in his striking words (which have no meaning to most Christians) " Henceforth know we no more the Christ according to the flesh." The Incarnation of Jesus Christ was a temporary incident of His Redemptive work in the sequence of its ages of operation. His spiritual body temporarily materialized in the carnate state, by natural birth, in the same manner as all our spiritual bodies materialize in mortal flesh when we re- incarnate in the flesh of our earthly parent- age. To worship His carnate body, to imagine we eat His carnate flesh, or drink His carnate blood, in the Holy Sacrament is 88 The True Mystic Idolatry and a gross Superstition. It is the worship of " mortality," the material and corruptible ; a sacrament of the " mortal," and not of the " immortal." III. THE MYSTICAL CHRIST THE LOGOS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD The Power of the Mystical Christ. What then conquered the " mortality " and cor- ruptibility of our Lord's human body ? What caused it to triumph over death, and the grave, and Hades ? \Vhat made it free of the astral plane, and enabled it finally to soar above the clouds and find its rest in the Throne of God ? W r hat enabled it to live the sinless life, inheriting as it did, with all human flesh, propensities of sin inherent in all fallen human flesh, and susceptibility to temptation to sin, in the world-environ- ment ? It was the Power of the Mystical Christ, the Eternal " Logos," veiled and enshrined in His human flesh the same Mystical Christ veiled and enshrined in all human flesh. Transfiguration. The Transfiguration of The Mystical Christ 89 His body was the work of the Mystical Christ in the Incarnate Christ. It was the result of the practice to the finish of the Four Tokens of the Mystic. By these means He transmuted the " base metal " of the carnate flesh to the Gold of the Spiritual Body. The Spiritual Body of the Mj^stical Christ absorbed the material body of the Incarnate Christ. This Transmutation was finished before His Crucifixion, as evidenced by the record of the manifestation of His Transfigured state before His Apostles. Yet, by reason of the fact that the transmuted body was not free from the earth-matter assimilated and contracted in the earth-environment, He must needs suffer death, as all must surfer death, to be free from the earth-matter Death set free the body and soul from the accretions of the dust and clay of the earth, and the transmutation was complete. The grave and Hades had no more hold of Him. Translation. Hence followed the Resur- rection and Ascension, or Translation, to the Heavens. His Transfiguration attested His arrival at the state of freedom from the " dead-weight " of terrestrial matter, of go The True Mystic which His death gave Him the final and complete release. After His death He was able to resume the Divine state of His normal and Eternal soul and body, freed now from the coils and elements of mortality con- tracted in His Incarnation and earth-life. His post-resurrection appearances were in His Spiritual and glorified Body i.e. the same body that materialized in the flesh of His Incarnation, that suffered, died, and was buried, and thereby was divested of the mortal elements incident to the un- redeemed matter of the human body. That which made His body mortal, Jesus Christ removed, and so made His body immortal. He made His fallen body un- f alien, redeeming it from corruptibility and death. The difference between the Incarnate Christ and mankind, one of personality , not of body. There certainly was a difference between the Incarnate Christ and other mortal men. This was a difference of personality, not of nature. The same kind of difference exists in all persons in the reincarnate state. All men inherit the same fallen human nature. But all persons' " Spiritual Bodies," and The Mystical Christ 91 cosmical personalities, are not alike. Their varieties are unnumbered. The difference between the Incarnate Christ and other mortal men, Christ was incarnate in order to remove, to a certain extent. That is to say, that all " Egos " are Mystical Christs in embryo, or in various degrees of development. The Mystical Christ of a " God " or an " Angel " is inferior in personality, but not in nature or degree, to the Christ of God. There is but One Christ, the Son of God. All Souls are Christs, Sons of God, through Him, by union with, and derivation from, Him. But there is another difference between the Incarnate Son of God and other mortal men, a difference which He incarnated to remove entirely. This difference is, that He was the Mystical Christ, in perfection of Divinity, incarnate in fallen humanity. The finite, fallen, and peccable body which His Spiritual Body became from His birth was perfectly led, controlled, and con- strained to captivity to the obedience of the Mystical Christ, eternally the same unfallen, impeccable, and untemptible Son of Most High God. g2 The True Mystic I have said that the Incarnation of the Mystical Christ removes the difference be- tween the Incarnate Christ and other fallen and mortal men. By the several Life-Epochs of Jesus, He voluntarily undertook to purchase, and provide the means of attaining the Mystical Christ in our own souls and bodies, in the same efficient power to effect the same complete conquests that He achieved, the same all-conquering, death-destroying Christ of God in man in you and me, and every man and woman on the earth. This is the Message of the Gospel ; this is " the Mystery, . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, Whom we preach, ad- monishing every man in all the Wisdom, that we may present every man Perfect in the Christ." Only in the " measure " that every man attains to the " stature of the Fulness of the Christ " is he endowed with the interior Power of the Mystical Christ, to be all that the Incarnate Christ was, to do all that He did, conquering, mastering, and ruling the body, transmuting, and absorbing it in the Mystical Christ in Him. Christ the " Ransom " 93 This is the work of Mysticism, the End of the Mystic Path leading through the Seven Gates of the Mysteries, the purpose of the " Four Tokens of the Mystic." IV. CHRIST THE RANSOM You see then in what way Christ offered Himself as the " Ransom " or " Propitiatory Sacrifice " for mankind ; how, by His voluntary Incarnation and Suffering in mortal flesh, for the redeeming of His own soul and body, He purchased and provided for us the means and knowledge by which we may ourselves redeem our souls and bodies, and attain the Mystical Christ and Immortality. Do not let it be supposed that the concept of the Incarnate Christ I have laid before you in the least derogates from the dignity and glory of the Man Christ Jesus. Inherently both the Historical and the Mystical Christ, the Eternal and the Temporal, are one and the same. The Cosmical " Lamb of God." When John Baptist pointed to the young man Jesus, and said, " Behold the Lamb of God, 94 The True Mystic which taketh away the sin of the world," he was alluding to the Mystical Christ incarnate in Jesus, apocalyptically figured in the vision of St. John, as " the Lamb in the midst of the Throne, standing as it had been slain before the foundation of the world." John saw no necessity for Jesus to undergo the primary Initiation Rite of Baptism, knowing Him to be Himself the Supreme Hierophant, the Only Initiator of Initiates, the Great Master, the God of the Gods. How could John, an earthly Initiator, Baptize Him Who had Initiated him in the Heavenly Mysteries ? How could the Christ need Himself to be Baptized ? The reason was not one of expediency ; it was a reason of necessity ; that obliged Jesus to "fulfil all righteousness." It was on His own account, as well as for the sake of every man, that He sought the earthly Initiation Rite of Baptism. John over- looked that it was for His own body's sake that Jesus needed Initiation. His body had not yet been Transmuted, and this was the First Step in the Path that ends in Trans- figuration and Immortality. Redemptory development. The concept of Christ the " Ransom " 95 the " Ransom " takes us back to primeval times, and the event of the Fall of man. All the pages of history, all the ages of pre- historic times, all the eras of terrestrial formation laid bare in geological research, all the mutations of races and nations, combine to reveal the gradual stages of redemptory development, necessary before the "fulness of time " for the Incarnation of the Christ of God, the Eternal " Lamb " giving Life to the whole creation. World-preparation for the Incarnation. The world had to be prepared for the Incar- nation of the " Logos." The pre-Roman ages led up gradually to this crucial event in history. The human race, for ages separated into vast groups of people alien and inaccessible to one another, for the most part sunken from the primordial heights of evolution and culture, to the lowest depths of degradation and barbarism had to be brought approximately to a level of in- tellectual and moral receptivity, through the influences of " Civilization." Until the development of racial levelling up, and opening out, the Incarnation would have been premature. Physical and intellectual 96 The True Mystic avenues to the whole world must first be opened out, before the Message of the " Mystery of Christ in you the hope of glory " could be " proclaimed to every man," i.e. to the world universally. When the Orient was civilized and illu- mined with the Divine Wisdom ; when Egypt and parts of Southern Europe, and countries in the nearer East, had lapsed, or were lapsing, into decay, from past highly enlightened conditions ; the Western Conti- nents were sunken in ignorance and bar- barism, from the primeval conditions of highly evolved states, and were closed to the influences of the Divine Wisdom. From these " Gentile " races, as Paul says, the " Mystery " was " hidden." The Roman Conquest. Following upon the great kingdoms of Egypt, Chaldaea, Babylonia, Persia, and Greece, there arose a strong and forceful nation, to subjugate with iron hand the nations and peoples of the world. It was given to this nation, by force of conquest, to create great trade- routes, by sea and land, girdling the earth with civilization, and opening out the fenced places of distant inhabited continents, to Christ the " Ransom " 97 the messengers of the Light of the East. This nation was Rome, under the Caesars. Then was the time fulfilled for the Advent of the Christ, the Eternal Son of God. The prehistoric story of the Fall. I now come to the crucial point of the whole philos- ophy of Mysticism. The prehistoric ages tell the story of the introduction and devastation of disease, decay, and death, and of the metamorphosis and corruption of matter. They tell the tale of the descent of man and beast, from the Parnassus of greatness and divinity, to the Inferno of barbarism. Science has been misled, by the physical records, into the supposition that man has ascended from the present orders of species, and that the ape is the nearest ancestor of man in evolution. Science is right in the idea of evolution, but wrong in its hypothesis of its method. Mysticism is the guide to interpret the records of nature, and to teach the Science of Evolution. Science investigates physical phenomena, and experiments for the solution of nature-problems. Mysticism furnishes the " Gnosis," the Science of Certitude. H 98 The True Mystic The Mystical Science of Evolution. The Mystic reads the whole tragic tale of the descent of man and beast from primordial perfection and divinity of structure, to its present abnormal corruption and materiality. He reads the true story of the geological ages, of the Earth's cataclysmic fall into the abyss of " Evil." He translates the hiero- glyphics of the " stone age," the " iron age," and the " cave men," of the day of the "giants" and "monsters." He knows the whole long story of the Living Church of God, of the ages past, of its beneficent rule in the great nations of civilization remaining after, and reigning before, the Glacial Period of terrestrial cataclysm. He traces its history, its progress, its vicissitudes and constant decays, its Divine government, its Hier- archical ministrations, its Mystery-Religion, and its occult power exercised over man- kind, gradually raising peoples after peoples, to preserve the Faith, themselves destined to uprise in the scale of development to the stages of civilization. The " Chosen People." He knows also the profound significance of the dispensational " Chosen People," fore-ordained to a peculiar Christ the " Ransom " 99 purpose in the world, creating a line of heredity, from Abraham the Chaldsean prince-priest, Joseph the Egyptian Magician, Moses the Divine Law-giver and Master of the Hebrew Mysteries, David the King, Solomon, the Prophets; leading ultimately to the fulfilment of the ancient Adamic promise, " the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," repeated to Abraham and the patriarchal ancestors of " Israel," " in thy Seed shall all the families of the Earth be Blessed "; that same promise the fulfilment of which the Oriental Masters were the first recorded to have recognized, and to have journeyed from the far East to pay their homage to their Great Master, the " new- born King." Thus, not a day too soon, nor a day too late, the Son of God was born, prov- ing the veracity of cosmical, apocalyptic, and astrological prophecy ; the Supreme Hierophant of the universe, the Great Master and Initiator, incarnated, and was born of a woman, herself hereditarily prepared, an Initiated " Virgin," to con- ceive Him. What, then, does Mysticism teach us con- ioo The True Mystic cerning the purpose of this unique event ? What is it that we are, in these days, in danger of losing sight of ? Mysticism, the Divine Science. Mysticism teaches us the Knowledge of the Divine economy, the whole system of creative and sustentative energy in the cosmos. It teaches us the functions of the eternal " Lamb of God " in the heavens, that " in Him dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily," that, as the " Logos," " all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made," and that " in Him all things consist " ; that down the " ladder " of existences and creative agents descend the graduated orders of heavenly beings (created by primordial Evolution), the "Gods" (Elohim), and the " Angels " (" Cherubim " and " Seraphim "), performing mediatorial functions as the media of the Christ-Logos in the Divine Essence of Life and Substance the basis of being and form, in existence ; that these " orders " continue in the earth-sphere of the Divine Economy, in the human media- torial agency, the Church of the Living God, the corporate and Mystical " Body of the Christ the " Ransom " 101 Christ " ; that the Christ-Logos is the " One Mediator between God " and the whole cosmical creation. The " One Mediator," or Channel of the Divine Essence of Life. In apocalyptic figure He, the Christ-Logos, is shown as the "Lamb of God," "standing as it had been slain" from Whose open side eternally have flowed the Streams of Life to feed and sustain the cosmical and creative channels, or media, for creative, sustentative, and (in regard to the fallen earth) also the redemp- tive, functions, from the highest heavenly " orders " to the lowest earthly mediatorial " orders." CHRIST, THE DIVINE MAGNET By Christ, therefore, the cohesion and One-ness of cosmical creation consists, and is maintained and supported. He is the Divine Magnet, drawing to Himself, and projecting from Himself, the units of the Cosmos. Of the innumerable systems of " magnets " in the cosmos, He is the dynamic and magnetic Centre, and none can cohere or exist, independently of Him. The Cosmical Chain of Life. This being IO2 The True Mystic the case, all existing creatures and organisms constitute an infinite Chain of Life, con- sisting of an infinitude of " links," each link a unit in itself, an infinite gradation of created beings, in evolution. All the links of the Chain are One Chain, by virtue of the magnetic current flowing unceasingly from the Divine Magnet, Christ, the " Logos." The broken link. But if one link breaks away from the Chain, it is disconnected from the Divine Magnet. That link, or part of the Chain, falls away, and sinks into the abyss. It enters the state of " death," and ultimately will disintegrate, and dissolve, unless it is Redeemed. THE " FALL " This precisely is what happened to this planet at the Fall. The Highest Deific Order of organic and human beings in the Chain of Life, in the final karmic life on the earth the " Sons of the Gods " transgressed cosmic Law, and the Divine Magnetic Chain of Life was broken asunder at the " Adamic " link. The whole of the chain of creature- life below this link fell with it, every creature of all the creative orders on the earth. Christ the " Ransom " 103 The Fall of the " Sons of the Gods." Whither the sundered organic links fell, no created beings could descend to their deliverance from the abyss, without them- selves breaking from the Divine Magnetic Chain. The fallen links are sunk beyond the reach of any of their fellow-links of creation to rescue them, even of the Highest Heavenly orders of the " Gods " and the " Angels." The only means of deliverance. Only one means of deliverance was possible in the Cosmos, to pick up the fallen links, and restore them to the Cosmic Chain. The Christ-Logos, the Divine Magnet, alone Creator, and not creature, could perform this task, by a supreme, almost inconceivable, sacrifice, in coming to His fallen family of man, as one of them, and lifting up the race by His Own Self-conquest and Self-purifica- tion. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all men up unto Me." When His soul and body were redeemed from " mortality," He was " lifted up from the earth," and consequently He has raised one end of the Chain as the " Second Adam" the restored " link," by which He will " draw 104 The True Mystic all men unto Him," the rest of the fallen "links," by "following His Steps" in the Mystic Path which leads to union with the Mystical Christ. By His Incarnation, therefore, having restored the broken Chain, He sends forth the Divine Magnetism to the earth. In His Own redeemed body and soul, His self- assumed human " link," He has raised one end of the fallen Chain, and brought it back to its place in the Divine Magnetic Chain. By each " link " on earth redeeming itself, and rising with Him, He forms His " body " still upon the earth, in each body uniting with Him through the Mystery of the Christ, the corporate body of the Mystical Christ on the earth. This is the " Church of the Christ " ; and the duty of the Church is to " proclaim to every man the Mystery, which is, Christ in you, the hope of glory." V. GNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY Now let us return to the narrative-sketch from which I was bound to break off in order to review the academic points connected Gnosticism and Christianity 105 with the subject of the Christ, historical and mystical. Alexandrian pseudo-Gnosticism. Already, as I have pointed out, a pseudo-Gnosticism was gaining ground in Alexandria, con- flicting with the True Gnosticism which had its foundations in the teaching of Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, Moses, and the Eastern Masters. It arose out of the gross paganiza- tion of the Faiths of Phoenicia, Chaldaea, Canaan, later Egypt, and the degenerated Hebrew nation. The blood-orgies of Bel and Ashtaroth, and the demon-cults of these occult extravagances under the name of religion, corrupted many who began in the True Faith. The captivation of the physical, mental, and psychic senses, the subtle impostures of demon-oracles, the " black " occult pheno- mena accompanying the practice of divina- tion, sorcery, necromancy, and thaumatur- gical arts ; created many corrupt sects and societies of false Gnosticism, and brought into the cult of Mysticism perilous inroads of astral forces. The glamour and deceptive- ness of these innovations drew multitudes into the seduction of these evil forces of io6 The True Mystic delusion. New theories and doctrines sprang up, and Alexandrian thought became a congeries of divided sects and schools teaching divers vain doctrines. False initia- tion rites were practised, and false occultism prevailed, in many schools professing the Gnosis. From this time the true Initiates of the pure Gnosis were driven to secrecy and exclusiveness. This nevertheless did not prevent them from suffering the stigma of identification with these pseudo-Gnostic sects. Neo-Platonism. The Gnosticism of Alex- andria received a great impetus and revival when Apostolical Christianity spread to Egypt. " Ekklesiae " of disciples were established in Alexandria, and joined with the Gnostics. The inclusion of Christian Mysticism led to a new movement of Gnosticism, known as " Neo-Platonism" It was a still more eclectic movement than early Gnosticism, and a fuller interpretation of Mysticism. Though containing so strong an infusion of Christian Mysticism, Neo- Platonism remained Non-Christian, an Eclectic School. Among many of the Gnosticism and Christianity 107 principal exponents of this School, whose writings we possess, were Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry, and lamblichus. To these Schools of Mysticism we thankfully owe the writings and testimony of two of their pupils revered by the Church to this day, Origen and Clement. Church persecution of the Gnostics. It is pathetically strange that the Church which succeeded to the Apostles were the perse- cutors of those who followed the Faith of Christ and the Apostles. In my last lecture I showed how the Hebrew Church departed from the Faith of Moses, when they de- manded a king to rule over them, like other nations, and a temporal nationality. History repeated itself in the post-Apostolical Christian Church. Papal and Imperial federation. In the reign of Constantine the decay of the Faith began in Christianity. This wicked and hypocritical monarch, reigning at the period of the decline of the Empire, seeing the peril to the State of the growth of the Christian Faith, that it was likely materially to under- mine and injure imperial interests and the " status quo," seduced the Bishop of Rome io8 The True Mystic by making him Supreme Pontiff, thereby amalgamating under the Papal Head the pantheistic pagan systems, which, out of national policy, the Caesars had encouraged ; and thereby saved the State, by giving them individual respect and acknowledgment. To this " Pantheon " of religions that of Jesus had been added. Constantine yielded to Jesus by appointing His Chief Minister in Rome the Supreme Head, not of the Christian Church only, but of the pagan communities domiciled in the Roman dominions. Sylvester was the first Pope, reigning as Sovereign Potentate over the Christian and Pagan subjects of Constantine. He was invested with quasi-imperial powers, pomp, and national and temporal prerogatives. His successors increased the Papal status, and ultimately the Imperial State was absorbed in the Papal. The Christian Church became a Papal Empire. So diametrically contrary to the principles of the Faith of Christ and the Apostles was this development of the ecclesiastical system, that the faithful Gnostics (after the example of the esoteric Hebrews before them) hid Gnosticism and Christianity 109 themselves, and held aloof from this new departure. Retirement of the faithful Gnostics. They continued to practise the Mystic Faith, in secrecy, and held together in the way of life inaugurated by the Apostles. They gathered many adherents in all parts of the Papal Empire. For this reason the Church opposed and hampered the Gnostics. Mysticism became the greatest foe to ecclesiasticism Mysticism menaced the ecclesiastical body- politic (as it had done the Imperial State), the authority of the Church, its vested interests, and its dominion over men's liberties of thought and action. Exoteric remains of Mysticism in the Catholic Church. One, or the other, must be wiped out. Mysticism and Ecclesias- ticism could not walk together, one must eventually devour the other. Ecclesias- ticism proved the strongest, and Mysticism was driven out of the Church. The esoteric side of the Christian Rites was eliminated from the Church's teaching, and soon was forgotten. The exoteric rites still remained, shorn of their Mysticism, and received a magnified importance, making up, in some no The True Mystic small measure, for the disappearance of the Divine Mysteries they formerly represented. Ecclesiastical stamping out of Mysticism. The Gnostics were not suffered to live in peace, they were hunted and persecuted and harassed. The taint of heresy, by being identified wrongly with the false Gnostics, was attached to them. Many of their distinctive and Divine Truths such as " pre-existence," " metempsychosis," and the doctrine of " Initiation " were pro- claimed " heresy " and anathematized. Mysticism was denounced and prohibited. Councils of Bishops, (Ecumenical and other- wise, met, and banned as " heresy " the True Gnosticism with its many false ver- sions. The Church set out to destroy Gnosticism, and all that savoured of Mysti- cism. Mysticism had to be destroyed, for its first principles are in deadly opposition to the Ecclesiastical doctrine of " authority " of the Church in all matters of faith and practice. The authority of " Initiation " and " Intuition " could not be allowed, in a Church that set itself up as the first and last arbiter of faith and doctrine. Gnostic martyrs. Many of the noblest and Gnosticism and Christianity in wisest men of the age, Mystics, Initiates, Masters, and Philosophers, were put to death. The Schools of the Mysteries were closed, and the teachers who survived were scattered. The great Library of Alexandria was destroyed by fire. The Initiates dis- appeared from the Papal dominions, and the Therapeutse and Essenes were no more to be found. The survivors took refuge in the far East, carrying many of their vast literary treasures with them, and have never been heard of by Christendom since. MEDIEVAL SAINTSHIP The curtain has been drawn for centuries over the history of Mysticism. Yet Mysti- cism is not dead. It has had many revivals and partial returns to Christendom. The decline of the Papacy, the loosening of the bands of " Authority," outside the now wide area of Christendom that has rejected the Papal sway and pretensions, have opened the way to the restoration of the Mysteries. Nineteenth -century Revivals of Mystical- Thought. In the nineteenth century the Mystical idea faintly returned to the Chris- 112 The True Mystic tian consciousness. But in medieval times, in the Church's darkest days, before the Reformation struck the blow that loosened the bands of Papal domination, the cult of Saintship, as we have seen, was a remarkable movement in the Church that had extin- guished Mysticism. But when Mysticism raised itself above Saintship it was studi- ously nipped in the bud. The lives and cult of the Saints in the Roman Church, and in Anglican Catholicism, are cherished to-day as much as ever by devout Catholics. For this we have to be devoutly thankful. But the present pursuit of Saintship has almost ceased to be more than a pious remem- brance. Nowhere is it set forth as a science of religion, nor encouraged as an individual pursuit. Saintship has an unfortunate tendency to cause its votaries to incline to " kick over the traces " of Ecclesiastical and Scholastic " authority." No person is allowed to think for himself, except as his thoughts are directed and inspired by the dicta of Church " authority." Modern Christianity. Modern Christianity is split up into countless groups of conten- tious people, all calling themselves Chris- Gnosticism and Christianity 113 tians. The Holy Rites, originally the concomitants and vehicles of the Mysteries, and confined to Initiates only, no longer are parts of Initiation ceremonies, nor connected with any semblance of the ancient Mystery- Religion of the Christ. No " tests " are applied upon their participators, nor are Initiations taught as represented by them. The lost Mysteries. When the Mysteries were eliminated from the Church, the Church lost its cohesion, and disintegrated and divided into ever-multiplying sects. In all these divisions and sub-divisions, and outside of them, thousands of souls are hungering and thirsting, for they know not what ! It is the lost Mysteries really they are seeking. But there is no one to tell them so. The legend of the " Quest of the Holy Grail," the search for the " lost secrets " of Freemasonry, the quest after the " Philoso- pher's Stone," the " Magnum Opus," and the " Elixir Vita " of Alchemy, the philosophy of Rosicrucianism, and all like movements they are, one and all, the same seeking after the Mysteries, the clue to which lies deep in every man's soul ! The whole of Christendom, rocking on its ii4 The True Mystic foundations, is seething with unrest. The nineteenth century saw, as I have said, the first awakening movements towards the return of Mysticism. Revivals followed one another with remarkable swiftness. The real motive of John Wesley, which brought him into conflict with the Ecclesiastical " authority," was not his evangelical preach- ing. It was his newly discovered idea of " Christian Perfection," which he learned from the Moravian Saints, the idea of attaining the perfect and sinless life. We have to-day printed records of his contro- versies with the Church on this doctrine. Following the " Wesley an Revival " came the " Evangelical Revival," under the preach- ing of Charles Simeon, and others. Quickly on the heels of this movement was the " Catholic Revival " in the great " Trac- tarian " movement under Pusey, Keble, Newman, and others. This awakened in the Church the consciousness of Mystery con- nected with the Sacraments, and the sense of the need of personal Holiness. Europe was stirred by reports of the wonderful " American Revival " under the powerful preaching of the saintly and fiery Gnosticism and Christianity 115 Dr. Finney, of Oberlin, and the impetus given to the cause of Holiness, or " Entire Sanctification," by the revered President of Oberlin University, Dr. Asa Mahan. After this came the evangelistic invasion of England and the Continent by the American revivalists, Moody and Sankey. Simultane- ously the remarkable " Holiness " movement was started by Pearsall Smith, Dr. Mahan, and other powerful exponents of the old Wesleyan doctrine of " Entire Sanctifica- tion." Whilst the " High Church " clergy were being stirred and enthused by the Tractarian teachers from Oxford, the " Evangelical " school was being similarly moved by these wonderful revivals. Con- ventions were held at Brighton, Oxford, Mildmay, Keswick, and all round England, and on the Continent, for the " Deepening of the Spiritual Life." The Mystic Path still hidden. All these movements were symptomatic of the awakening of Christendom from its long sleep of ignorance concerning the Mysteries. Men's hearts were then beginning to hunger after the Blessedness of the Mystic Life. But the Mystic Path, and its " Seven n6 The True Mystic Gates," still remain hidden, plainly though it is set forth in Holy Scripture, and writ large on the sands of time-history. Partial glimpses have penetrated the understanding of some here and there. But the Mystery of the Pyramids and the Sphinx, the Gnosis of the Christ and the Apostles, are still Mysteries unknown. END OF SECOND LECTURE THIRD LECTURE MYSTICISM OF THE FUTURE I. MODERN MYSTICAL MOVEMENTS THE many movements of the present day give promise of revival of the knowledge of the lost Mysteries. The observer of these modern developments of spiritual thought cannot help noticing the rapid strides of " occult " study in the direct line of ap- proach to the true principles of Mysticism. Much advance has yet to be made before the true knowledge of the Mystic Path has been cleared of the overgrowths of ignorance, and errors, and dangerous tendencies, which the unsophisticatedness of the seekers has prevented them from discerning, and from learning to distinguish them from the Truth of the Mystic Philosophy. It is an interesting and noticeable fact, that the first indications of the return to European thought of Mystical philosophy, 117 n8 The True Mystic come from the East, the ages-long Home of Mysticism. The Theosophical Movement. The rapid rise and growth of the movement known as " Theosophy," and " Esoteric Buddhism," bear remarkable significance as a great factor in the development of the Mysticism of the future. Theosophy has aroused the people of Europe and America with the tocsin of appeal to the memories and lost truths of antiquity. The scholasticism and ecclesiasticism of the Catholic Church, and the secularization of the nonconformist bodies, side by side with the secularist and atheistic movement through the growth of modern science, were creating world-wide discontent and religious unrest. The con- science of mankind refused the stones of negation, on the one hand, and the dry bones of dogma, on the other. The soul has facul- ties crying out for recognition : the mind is torn between the evidences of both religion and science ; and the spirit comes between the two, and asserts an invincible faith in God and the Divine Verities. At this juncture " Theosophy " has stepped before the " footlights," and ex- Modern Mystical Movements ng posed a wholly new aspect of science and religion new, that is to say, to the modern world-mind, but old as the hills. The par- ticular feature of the Theosophical move- ment is that it has always professed, col- lectively, to be an eclectic society of thinking and aspiring souls, holding no dogmas, no creeds, and no definite religious foundations. The Theosophical Society consists, or pro- fesses to consist, of disinterested and earnest thinking people, whose personal religious persuasions are neither a barrier to member- ship, nor an obstacle to remaining in the religion to which they are attached. The objects of the Society profess to be the search for the Synthesis of basic Truth which makes all religions at their founda- tions One Religion. There is a danger in this method, and one that Theosophy has at times, and in certain places, fallen into : namely, of the identifi- cation of Theosophy with errors and super- stitions associated with some particular lines of thought. The difficulty of maintain- ing an undogmatic and open mind has sometimes proved too great for Theosophy to surmount. Consequently the name of 120 The True Mystic Theosophy now and then, here and there, becomes a term of reproach and obloquy, because it has had too forcibly associated with it some stray ideas of individual Theosophical leaders, ideas of an extrava- gant, and sometimes of a pernicious character. This being said, it still remains a fact that Theosophy, as an upward movement, has revived many truths of cosmical significance, and has rescued many souls from the down- ward drift into infidelity and irreligion. It has helped thousands to form definite beliefs, and standards of religious attitude, when the pulpits and platforms of religion, and religionaires, have failed to do so. It is to Theosophy that we owe our gratitude for much noble literature ; notably, Anna Kingsford's and Edward Maitland's :< The Perfect Way : or, The Finding of Christ " ; H. P. Blavatsky's great works, " I sis Unveiled" and " The Secret Doctrine" ; and the massive contributions to revived Gnosticism by G. R. S. Mead, in his " Frag- ments of a Faith Forgotten," " Pistis Sophia," and many other learned works. Theosophy teaches Mysticism from Oriental sources, and therefore is strongly Modern Mystical Movements 121 tinged with Oriental colour and terminology. This has been a decided benefit, in removing the " blinkers " from our eyes, and enabling us to see that the Orient is something more, something better, than a land seething with gross heathenism, which the Christian " missionary " is accustomed to describe it as. But Orientalism has its drawbacks when imported to Occidental countries. Theosophists need to " take a leaf out of the book " of antiquity, and remember that the Orient never forced its system and method, its forms and local colour, upon the Occi- dental Mystic Schools of Egypt, Greece, and Italy. All worked harmoniously, and the Orient largely governed the development of Mysticism and Gnosticism, but never by importing its own local dress and exoteric system. The union between the Orient and Occident can never be other than the Union of the Spirit of Mysticism, and not that of the letter. The same axiom may be taken to heart by Theosophists in the Occident, at the present time, when there appear to be so many points of cleavage, due to the error of dogmatism, leading to the intrusion of the 122 The True Mystic very evil that the fundamental objects of the Society were intended to avoid : namely, " Sectarianism." A gifted writer in the December " Vahan " truly says : " Let us not forget that liberty of thought is the very basis of Theosophy. Let us respect the ideas of others, as we wish them to respect ours ; and, finally, let us remember that diversity is necessary on the plane of intellect, and that this diversity is as nothing compared with the idea of Unity on the Spiritual plane." " SPIRITUALISM " Another movement arose in the last century, which helped to arouse and stimu- late interest in Mysticism Spiritualism. It is noteworthy concerning Spiritualism that it has attracted scientific attention, and not a few scientists of world-wide repute have given testimony to the reality of psychic phenomena. It is also an instructive fact that it has fallen to the lot of secular and scientific circles, outside of conventional religion, to begin the work of restoring the lost truth of the immanence of spiritual agencies and forces, beings and entities, investing the Modern Mystical Movements 123 world with their presence, and functioning with the minds and bodies of mankind. Until this movement, the idea that " spirits " communicate intelligently with men, energize and actuate their motives, prompt their thoughts and volitions, and perform acts of their own volition in the bodies and minds of men had almost ceased to exist in the world. The Evidential value of Spiritualism. The objective results of Spiritualism, in mediumship and psychic phenomena, have established the fact beyond dispute, that spiritual powers and personalities, of im- mense functional and intellectual potencies, are in our immediate environment, unseen, and mostly unknown. The residuum of absolute testimony, when we have sifted the true from the untrue, the genuine from the fraudulent, the certain from the doubtful, furnishes evidence for spiritualistic pheno- mena so colossal and so incontrovertible that the cult of spiritualism may well be certified to be established as a factor of religion, which the great historical religious institutions, and the learned scientific societies, will have to reckon with in the not distant future. 124 The True Mystic The Church's indifference to Spiritualistic evidence. The most remarkable thing is that the Church takes no interest in the Spiritualistic movement. No notice is taken of the significance of the researches made into supra-mundane influences around us, exposed to light by spiritualism and psy- chism. The ordinary thoughtful person, aware of these things, would suppose that the Church would welcome so powerful a witness to Biblical truth, considering that the tendency of modern thought and criti- cism is all in the line of negation of the supernatural. Strange to say, the Church goes on its way unheeding, whilst half the world ignores Christianity, because it gives no rational explanation of its own beliefs, and fails to exhibit the least element of the supernatural. Spiritualistic indifference to the doctrine and fact of " Evil." On the other hand, it is equally astonishing that spiritualism generally stops short at belief in " Evil," in demoniacal possession, or in the existence of " wicked " and " unclean " spirits, of which the Bible is so full, and which are attested by the history of the world of past ages. Modern Mystical Movements 125 The methods of " Spirit-control." This must be borne in mind, that in the most advanced mediumship " trance "-medium- ship, materialization, etc. the medium is an unconscious agent, an inanimate tool, the slave, mentally, psychically, and physically, of the " spirit-controls," the "familiar spirits " who move them to action and speech. I have personally spent many years in study and investigation of all kinds of spiritualistic and psychic phenomena. I say solemnly, that however valuable the testimony of pheno- mena is to the veracity of Holy Scripture, and to the religious claim of supernaturalism, the cultivation of spiritualism and psychism is attended with perils and consequences too terrible to speak of. My message is that men and women, and alas ! children, are placing themselves in the greatest danger of rushing blindly into the most subtle of all kinds of evil, by any kind of dealings with " spirits " from the astral plane. Is it possible even now to convince spiritualists that in no single instance is it right and normal to invoke an astral spirit, to invite an astral entity to occupy their unconscious bodies, to operate their yielded minds and 126 The True Mystic wills ? Will they not believe those who try to persuade them that no spirit from the astral plane ought to " return," and that many who purport to " return " are frauds of demoniacal causation ? Guilelessness of Spiritualists their chief danger. Spiritualistic practices are, as a general rule, conducted with so much ignorance, such guileless enthusiasm, such childlike confidence in their innocuousness, and such assurance of their divine and heavenly authorship, that it is almost hopeless to convince them that underneath are concealed the " evil ones," the implacable, malevolent spirit foes of mankind, the myriads of malefic beings, many of most supernatural and semi-deific potentiality, who prey unmercifully upon man and beast vampires of the abyss. Delusive security in goodness. I am aware that good spiritualists say that a good soul repels bad spirits ; that " like attracts like." But this is a delusion. The best motives, the loftiest and noblest characters, of men and mediums, are not the slightest security against " evil spirits." You would not dream of lying down to sleep on the " hole Modern Mystical Movements 127 of an asp," or a nest of snakes, however good and noble-minded you are. Goodness never repelled a snake. And goodness has no power to repel a demon or a wicked spirit. As long as man is in his present constitu- tion, no matter how high-principled and virtu- ous, or pure in mind ; if he permits his body and mind to become unconscious, and opens the threshold of his soul for the entrance of astral denizens, deluding himself in his waking hours that the entities who con- trol him in his state of " Katalepsis " are good and holy spirits ; if he once gives them access to his soul and mind, he is giving himself up to forces of the subtlest, most diabolically crafty and deceitful male- volence. Let all who are attracted to the cultivation of psychic functions, and are allured to " spirit-communion," through the spiritual- istic method of " Katalepsis " (falsely called " trance "), suspect the most ennobling, elevating, and heavenly-seeming communi- cations, " trance-addresses," the most honeyed language, the sagest counsels, of these " controls." They are all, without 128 The True Mystic exception, under these conditions, decep- tions and frauds, perpetrated by beings who for ages have been " arch-deceivers," capable of disguising themselves as " angels of light," and as the actual personalities of the " departed." II. MYSTICISM AND HEALING The Healing Gift. Already I have spoken of the great communities before the Christian Era, the Therapeutae and the Essenes. These Mystics practised the culture of the Mysteries by the " Four Tokens of the Mystic." By these practices they acquired the Spiritual Gifts which always accompany this cultivation of Prophecy, and Intui- tion, or Seership, and the Gift of Healing. By this last Gift, which naturally appealed most strongly to the popular imagination, they received the name of " Healers." The Healing Gift, however, was not the only spiritual endowment developed by these recluses. It came as a natural result of the Mystical processes setting free the spiritual functions to operate in the souls, minds, and Mysticism and Healing 129 bodies of Initiates. The power to heal is in all bodies alike, latently, and awaiting the development of the spiritual faculties. Healing and Mysticism have in all ages been inseparable. Wherever Mysticism is pursued, Healing always follows. There has never been an instance of Mysticism un- accompanied by the manifestation of the Healing Gift, the revival of interest in Divine Healing, and its attainment on the part of those drawn to the study and pursuit of Mysticism. Disease accidental, not incidental to exist- ence. Let me remind you that disease, and all kinds of suffering of mind and body, are accidental, and not incidental to cosmical existence. They are effects and accompani- ments, or consequences, of that sad element of terrestrial life and experience which we call " evil." Evil was not created by God, it never has been a part of the Divine economy of cos- mical evolution. Strange ideas are in vogue in these days, concerning this subject of evil, which postulate that evil, suffering, disease, and death are strictly normal features of cosmology. Such ideas are 130 The True Mystic wholly erroneous, and misinterpretative of the Divine Wisdom. The Theosophical idea of the Fall. It seems to me that in many modern organiza- tions of philosophical and spiritual thought, the " Fall " is treated in a wholly mistaken and confused aspect. It is regarded, not as a calamity, a casualty of human nature, but as a necessary part of the normal process of cosmical evolution the descent of spirit into matter. In Theosophy, the account or the only account treated in its literature of the " Fall " is so defined, namely, as a part of the complex evolutionary system, by which every new advance in development, in Spirit, is converted from the " volatile " to the "fixed" state, by descending into the moulds of terrestrial matter, by re- incarnation, and the life of suffering and temptation in the evil conditions of the earth. The idea is that, by descent into evil, every increment of cumulative experience and knowledge gathered in Karma and Devachan, in, and following after, each reincarnation, is, in the earth-life, assimilated and interwoven in the warp and woof of the cosmical ego, to form the ultimate perfect Mysticism and Healing 131 and Divine personality it hereafter is destined to become. The descent of spirit into matter. To the cosmological view of the descent of spirit into matter, for karmic and evolutionary purposes, no exception can be taken. It is a perfectly true and sound concept. It is a first-principle of the Mystery-Faith of the Christ. Two fundamental ideas confused. But in one particular this presentment is sometimes erroneously represented. The teaching I am venturing to criticize arises from the confusion of two most distinct fundamental ideas : (i) The descent of spirit into matter, for the development of ego and form in cosmical evolution, and (2) the Fall of man, and of terrestrial matter, into the state of evil sin and depravity with the physical consequences of disease, decay, and death ; and, in consequence of man's Fall, the Fall of the whole organum of terrestrial nature. Of this latter " Fall," I frankly say that I find no clear and definite statement in the literature of these schools of philosophy and occultism. Individuals there may be who have not gone so far as to abandon the 132 The True Mystic ancient truth of human depravity. Tacitly it may be understood as an unexpressed belief, generally. But it has no place in the publications of these societies, from which source alone the outside student can diagnose their tenets. The fatal omission, in Theosophy, of the Fall into Evil. Of the truth of the terres- trial Fall into evil, and of human depravity, such an omission of teaching, or clear expression, and, sometimes, even direct denial, renders the teachings both impracti- cable and irrational. In the case of some I am sure it is solely due to the above-men- tioned confusion of the two ideas I have stated. In other cases it can only be attri- buted to misunderstanding of the facts of life and experience, and of the spiritual truths they attempt to interpret. Perhaps, too, the personal equation may have stepped in, and then the idea of human depravity and guilt becomes distasteful to the pride of man. Evil is destructive, not constructive. Any philosophy, or religious system, which blinds people to the fact of evil, and its cause, or attempts to explain it as normal, and inci- Mysticism and Healing 133 dental to evolution ; obscuring the fact that evil is abnormal, transient, and cos- mically unnecessary a blot on the fair features of cosmical creation, and a grief to God and the heavenly beings ; that asserts evil to be, not destructive, but constructive ; is an anomaly, obscurating Truth, and stultifying any good that otherwise exists in such philosophy, or religious system. In this world, where abounds so much occult deception, we who seek the Highest must beware of the subtle powers which would divert our search, and lead us blindly to the lowest. There are astral enmities to Truth, and the Truth-seeker, bent implac- ably on keeping us out of the Truth the knowledge of which would set free the whole world from evil. The mistaken view of the purpose of reincarnation. The purpose of reincarna- tion, and terrestrial existence, contains no such idea as that good has to be developed by passing through evil. It forms no part of cosmical evolution, that evolving crea- tures, in order to evolve, must wallow and struggle in the morasses of terrestrial and karmic evil suffering, disease, decay and 134 The True Mystic death nor that they must labour and groan under the burden and pains of the present- constituted body and mind. Conquest of Evil proves, and improves, the Ego. I do not here suggest that conflict of life, and conquest of evil, have no value in the Redemptive system. I refer only to the Creative system. The conquest of evil in Redemptive Karma constitutes one of the most important factors in the proving and improving of the ego. This is the result of life in countless heroic and noble instances, far more frequently than religion accounts for. Evolution is not operative in tins planet ; it is effected in the planetary spheres. There is another reason, of cosmical purpose, why evil does not, cannot, and never will, serve creation as a factor of evolution. Since the era of Redemption, commencing at the Fall, in consequence of evil, and its disorganiza- tion of the cosmical system of evolution, no evolution has been in progress in the cosmos. The cessation of Evolution. When sin and evil entered the terrestrial organization, evolution at once ceased to proceed in the cosmos. The procession of evolutionary Mysticism and Healing 135 creatures from the cosmical creative spheres was suspended ; the machinery of cosmical evolution was reversed for the Redemption of the earth and its fallen creatures. Not one single creature, or organism, has evolved from one type or species to another, since the Fall. The whole cosmos evolutionally has been in suspense, marking time, each grade of evolutionary creatures, not involved in the Fall, remaining stationary in their several planetary circles and spheres, during all the long period of sin and Redemption, waiting for the time of the " Restitution of all things," the " Redemption of the body." The present era of Redemption. We are living to-day ; we have for ages been living ; not in the era of creation, but in a temporary and transient era of Redemption. The machinery of creation has been reversed, to restore to the system of creation the lost and shattered parts, broken and disorganized by the disobedience of man. This restoration of the creative machinery to working order is what the Apostle Paul referred to when he said : " The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together with us (the human family), waiting for the Redemption of the body." 136 The True Mystic This is the coming time of " the Restitution of all things." The creatures reincarnating to-day, the same who originally lived during the Fall. Not a single fresh creature has entered the earth-planet, nor evolved from species to species, since the Fall. Modifications of types of species varieties occur frequently, but no passage from one species to another. All creatures now living the reincarnate life, or who have lived the reincarnate life, or who will live the reincarnate life, are the same creatures, who either were the guilty ones, or the helpless victims, of the original sin which brought upon the earth the con- sequences of the Fall disease, decay, death and upon the " whole creation " of the cosmos the disorganization of the evolu- tionary labours of the heavenly hierarchies, on which account St. Paul tell us that " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together with us, waiting for the Redemption of the body." The fallen creatures " working out their own salvation " by reincarnation and the Mysteries. In all the past ages we have been, and we still are, " working out our own salvation," Mysticism and Healing 137 redeeming our souls and bodies from the wreck of the Fall, our past reincarnations fitting us to respond, in the fulness of time, to the Messages of the Mystery of the Christ. The time now has come that, if he will, " every man " may complete his Redemption in this lifetime, by the " Seven Gates of the Mystic Path," and the Four Tokens of the Mystic. In this Catholic Message, catholically obeyed, we see the " hope of glory," of the earth's Redemption, and the " Joy of the Angels of God," and of the " whole creation," con- summated in the long-looked-for " Restitu- tion of all things " through the " redemption of the body." Wrong conclusions of the permanency of evil. For so many years we have been born into evil ; in the environment of evil we have lived so many times ; evil compasses us about in our lifetimes with its innumerable and unmitigable forms ; that it is not un- natural, it is almost inevitable (without the revelation which Mysticism furnishes), that mankind jumps to the wrong conclusion, that evil is the normal condition of this planet, and that there never could have been a time when there was no evil. 138 The True Mystic Incompatibility of evil with the concept of Divine Personality and Creation. Yet the revelation of Mysticism shows us that this is not the case ; and surely a little reflection will convince us of the utter incompatibility of any rational concept of Divine Personality and Creation, with the idea of cosmical economy which postulates evil as a necessary part of a Divinely created and organized system of evolution to deity the creatures' highest destiny. The idea is too monstrous logically to be considered, that, in the mak- ing of the Gods, the process of making should include the fearful repetitions of terrestrial karrna which the original sin of man has caused to be the lot of man and beast reincarnating in the earth's present evil conditions. Amelioration and evasion of evil the universal striving of life. What then was it that brought about the calamity of the Fall, and introduced into the world the universal decay of nature, the ghastly spectacle of mortality, disease, suffering, and the cruelty of life, as we see and experience it in all departments of existence ? In order to treat the subject of Remedy, we have first Mysticism and Healing 139 to consider the subject of the Origin of the evils to be remedied. Nine-tenths of the world's activities, most of the learned professions and vocations of mankind, the researches of science, and the great learned Societies, the cultivation of the Arts and Crafts, the great mechanical and scientific inventions, and all the altruism and philanthropies of humanity ; have their raisons d'etre in the doing and discovering all that man can do and discover, to lessen, to ameliorate, or to escape, the effects of evil, to erect buffers and cushions to counter- vail the force of evil which menaces the life and happiness of all creatures inhabiting this planet. Yet there are those who would have us believe that evil is a divine and beneficent invention, or instrument, of evolution to the Divine. Some years ago I was lecturing to a large audience of thoughtful and cul- tured people in a Midland city, and was dealing with this subject of evil, treating it just as I am doing now. The chairman suddenly stood up, and abruptly stopped my lecture, saying, " / will listen to no more of this ! There is no evil ! What is called 140 The True Mystic evil is undeveloped good ! " This good man lived to see and acknowledge his error. Not a great while ago, years after the event, he wrote to me and asked my forgiveness for his conduct on that occasion, saying he had since learned that evil is a very real and terrible thing, and that he was now devoting his life to combating it by Spiritual Healing. Of course, I know that those who hold that evil has no existence are themselves the finest examples of doing all they can to mitigate evil. Evil not a Divine beneficence. Let us therefore understand that evil is not " un- developed good," but perverted good, corrupted good, fallen and diseased good ; that evil is not a " blessing in disguise," nor Provi- dence's sweet messenger to raise us higher. Evil is nature cursed, by no Divine fiat, but the fate of every terrestrial creature, to which mankind doomed himself and his fellow- creatures, when, in the beginning, he broke the Laws of God which govern cosmical nature. We all of us are reaping what we have sown, when, in that distant age, in the glorious state of our Divine forms and perfect structures, we deliberately fell into Mysticism and Healing 141 sensualism, and dragged down with us into abysmal darkness and suffering the whole of terrestrial nature. Original sin and guilt of the human race. You ask, Can this be true ? Are we guilty, not only of our own sufferings, but of the sufferings of all creatures under the Sun, or in the astral abyss, the Hell of lost souls ? Is the present state of matter on this planet due to our own personal transgression and crime ? I answer, for myself, as for all our- selves, " Yes, indeed it is true." How many of us have revolted against the old " evan- gelical " doctrine of the sin and guilt of Adam being " imputed " to his offspring who were wholly innocent of the sin of Adam ! How we gave up belief in Chris- tianity because of this revolting injustice to God's character, and to mankind ! Yet, now you see that the old doctrine of "original sin " and " original guilt " is a true doctrine, when we see that we ourselves were living that perfect primordial life; that we our- selves were represented in the figurative " Adam and Eve," and we ourselves were participators in the sin ; that we ourselves brought upon ourselves the consequences 142 The True Mystic of our own sin, when evil entered the world. " Yes, indeed it is true." We are guilty, we have been guilty all along the past lives we have lived, when we were " working out our own salvation." We are still guilty, now that the Gates of the Mysteries are opened to us, and the " Second Adam " has bridged the abyss, and given us the Way to ascend into the heavenly places with Him. You again ask, " How did this dreadful thing happen ?" To this my answer must be brief, with a brevity unbefitting the im- portance of the theme: But I will make it as clear as possible. III. THE PRIMORDIAL STATE OF THE EARTH, AND ITS DEPARTURE Ether-radiant substance. In the beginning, this earth of ours was beautiful with a beauty in contrast with which the present beauty of nature is as a bad dream. It was a vastly more expansive sphere, composed of a wondrous ether-radiant substance, the nature of which has completely passed away, and The Primordial State of the Earth 143 its translucence nowhere has left a reminis- cence behind. A self-luminous globe of glory. Initiates, who have seen the constitution of the earth's daughter-Planets, alone are compe- tent to describe the Terrestrial Mother- Planet of Planets in its primordial glory. It was a self-luminous globe of effulgent splendour. It exhaled, or radiated, from its interior an active radiation, pervading its surface and substance to the centre. The nature of this primordial radiation we are beginning to discover from its material remains now being extracted from the mineral deposits of the earth, in " radium," and other radio-active minerals. All-pervading Ether-mists. The opal-hued Ether vibrated through the body of terres- trial substance (now the degenerate sub- stance of terrestrial " matter "), giving to the whole planet, from pole to pole, the same equable temperature and verdant fruitfulness. Water, as we know that element now, then had no existence. The material element of " water " is a resultant of the earth's materialization after the Fall. The primordial element consisted of soft and 144 The True Mystic gentle ether-mists arising from the ground, fertilizing the earth, the sweet-scented and luminous " elixir vita." Primordial flora, verdure and vegetation. The earth brought forth trees, and verdure, and vegetation, of transcendent glory. They were of inconceivable magnificence of form and fruitfulness. None dropped their leaves, none died or decayed ; all were immortal, ever-green, and brought forth fruits peren- nially. Their fruits were the food of all the creatures, food of a character that nourished them mentally, psychically, spiritually, as well as physically. The trees and vegetation of the world as we know it, beautiful as nature still is, are the grossest, dwarfed, and distorted reflections of their pristine grandeur and beauty. Primordial fauna, genera and species. The orders of genera and species of the creatures, in their several ranks of cosmical evolution, in those pristine days of in- corruption, were creatures of perfect form. All creatures, from the highest species of the human genus, down to the lowest orders of created species, communicated mutually with one another, not by " language," but The Primordial State of the Earth 145 by the hidden powers of communion the nature of which is shadowed in the latest scientific discoveries of telegraphy and tele- pathy. The creatures were all intelligent beings, with their minds and souls open to all beings to read and to understand. It is only since the Fall that the " lower orders " of creation and mankind have ceased to communicate. The structures and forms of the creatures corresponded to the primordial earth's structure and form. The real ancestors of man in cosmic evolution. These are the creatures whom scientifically we can point to as the real ancestors of our human race. From these majestic families of beings all evolutionary ranks have ascended. We may take the utmost pride in considering the doctrine of evolution, when we know the types and kinds of specific creatures the noble forms of original and unfallen mankind have ascended from. On the other hand, with what shame and debasement do we contem- plate the gross forms and structures of the present fallen genera and species, so utterly undescriptive of their original state! Yet, even now, the lover of animals can elicit 146 The True Mystic many indications of atrophied intelligence, understanding, mind and soul, in the poor creatures whom we of the human race have brought down to their present evil state. The human genus, and " rudimentary " species. Man was a genus alone, divided into numerous graduated species-ranks of " rudimentary " types. The human species ranged from the lowest type of " anthropo- morphic " animal, through the many rudi- mentary types of species, to the " Adamic " (roseate radiant) Species, " deo-morphic " men, or the " Sons of the Gods." The " Adamic " Species of deo-morphic men, or " Sons of the Gods." These " Adamic " men were the highest evolu- tionary types of terrestrial creation brought forth by the cosmical Mother Earth and the Divine Father. They were only one degree lower than the Gods, and the angels, who had passed that last terrestrial degree, and attained to Deity. They were in their final metempsychosis, and nigh to the state of Unity with the Deity the Oriental " Nir- vana." The rudimentary human species. Beneath these arch-human beings, descending down The Primordial State of the Earth 147 the scale of cosmic evolution, were the various species of the human genera. These species of men corresponded to the various planetary creative homes of evolution, who were passing through their paradisaical and blissful " karmas " on the Mother- Planet, Earth, to which all evolutionary creatures successively transmigrate, from one planetary circle and another, in the aeonial course of their evolution. The Adamic Mediators of the Divine Magnetism. The Adamic Species were the Divine-Human Rulers and Guardians of the Earth, the Mediators of the Highest to the lowest orders of the human genus, and, through them, down the scale of mediatorial rank, to the lowest orders of genera and spe- cies of creation. The Adamic Species was the Highest Link of the Divine Magnetic Chain, connecting the heavenly Chain to the terrestrial ; and all were connected with the Central Divine Magnet, the Christ of God. Such is a poor and rough attempt to describe and visualize to you something of the kind of sphere this earth was pri- mordially. I may leave it to your own imagination to picture the sublimity of life 148 The True Mystic that we enjoyed on this pure translucent earth, where no sin, no disease, no decay, no suffering, no sorrow, no death, were known or thought of. May I too leave it to your conscience to decide what you may now do to restore this primordial state ? THE PRIMEVAL TRAGEDY What, then, happened to change the face of creation, to drag the earth to the present state, in which its translucence is gone, its verdure and vegetation and fruit trees are degraded to their present state, and the earth brings forth thorns, and thistles, and weeds, wherever man's labour and sweat avail not to preserve it ; where it is not buried in oceanic submergence, sterile sands, and wastes of barrenness ? What occurred to make creature-life a ceaseless and futile struggle, against disease, decay, and death ? What tremendous upheaval has changed the world to a scene of universal " struggle for existence, and the survival of the fittest," the " Law " which Science has invented as an apology for the wastage and leakage of creature-life, through disease, and decay, fear and servitude ? The Primordial State of the Earth 149 That great fierce contest for ever waging between man and beast, between man and man, to stave off poverty, starva- tion, and death ? That insensate strife to gain possession individually of the contracted and limited portions of the earth, that mankind has wrested from waste, and uses to preserve his life and happiness, and to retain them against the rivalries of mankind ? Which first brought in the God-dishonour- ing laws of property, vested interests, and private-ownership in the earth the "Earth," which " is the Lord's, and the Fulness thereof," the " Earth," its land and its fruits, and the labour, skill, and craftsman- ship of mankind, belonging to no one man, nor to one class of men, whether by merit, or by hire, or by inheritance, or by pur- chase or gift ; any more than belonging to all humanity and all creation, by common right in all creatures of the inheritance of the earth, by Divine Gift in eternity ? The cosmical species of the human genus. I have said that the human genus consisted primordially of a number of species, in ordered evolutionary ranks, from the 150 The True Mystic " anthropo-morphic " animal to the " deo- morphic " man. The Fall came through the breach of Law, in the first instance incited by the sin of the " deo-morphic " men, the " Sons of the Gods " our first ancestors. The Highest Link of the Divine Magnetic Chain in its terrestrial part broke away from the Higher Celestial Links, and dragged into the abyss all the links below it, be- longing to the terrestrial Chain. The Broken Law. You ask, What was this Law which the Sons of the Gods broke ? Do you remember the story you were told in the nursery, of " Adam and Eve " and the " Garden of Eden " and the " Tree of Know- ledge of Good and Evil " ? That exquisitely painted little allegory depicts the story of the Fall. Warnings were given to man- kind, the Cosmical Law was inculcated ; and the Sons of the Gods disobeyed the Law, reduced by the temptation to sensualism and unlawful sexualism. For the Sons of the Gods had reached the Highest organic state, the " Androgyne." Like the " angels of God," they " neither marry nor are given in marriage." Generation came through them androgynously, and not by the sexual The Primordial State of the Earth 151 organs. This is a Mystery of Nature only revealed, in its fulness, in the Initiation of the Mystery which the " Sacrament of Marriage " represented in the days of Mysticism. I can only mention it here to show how great a trespass of Cosmical Law this Sin of Adam was. The warning of Death. To the Adamic Species, the Sons of the Gods, it was said " the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Death, we know, is the result of disease and decay. If there were no disease or decay in the " matter " of our organism, there would be no death. It was then by no judicial sentence of death on the Creator's part, no threat of omnipotent vengeance, nor of punishment by statute. Naturally death followed as the certain sequence of transgression of Law, the first consequences of which are disease and decay, the precursors of death. By no other way could death enter this planet, or any other part of the created universe, than by an act of trans- gression of the creatures. Only by man's act could disease intervene in the creation. Man transgressed the Cosmical Law, and 152 The Tnie Mystic brought in Evil disease, decay, and death not upon the individual transgressors only, but spreading from the Highest Link to the lowest. The broken Law recorded in the Book of Genesis. You will find a brief and clear record of this act of transgression told as an historical fact in the sixth chapter of the Book of Genesis, in the following words : "And it came to pass, when men 1 began to multiply on the face of the Earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were very fair ; and took them wives of all that they chose." The planetary spheres creative : the earth karmic and generative. That was the Fall. The Sons of the Gods broke the Cosmical Law, first, by violating their cosmical natures by " sexual intercourse," and, secondly, by the licentious act of cohabiting with other species. Intermarriage of the 1 These " men " refer to the " rudimentary " species of the human genus. The Primordial State of the Earth 153 species is a breach of Cosmical Law. It is a mistake to suppose that marriage is an evolutionary instrument, and that species advance by consanguinity. Evolution achieves no specific advances in progressive creation on the Terrestrial sphere, but only in the Planetary spheres. The Earth is the karmic and generative sphere only, and not a creative sphere. On the earth the creative work done on other planets is completed, by generation, and- probation, and thereby the " fixation " of the " volatile " evolutionary states into cosmic and eternal " form " and " struc- ture is accomplished." Each species was a distinct evolutionary stage and type of itself. By mingling the specific types and stages of evolution in terrestrial existence, a disaster occurred in evolution which the Law of the Sexual Segregation of Species was provided and inculcated in order to avert. The breach of this Law at once brought confusion and chaos in the evolutionary species on the terrestrial planet, and disorganized the whole system of evolution. Thereby the cessation and suspension of the creative system was 1 54 The True Mystic necessary, until the damage done to the machinery of the system has been remedied and overcome through the processes of Redemption at once set on foot in Cosmical Law. The origin of the " human race." By this breach of the Law of Species Segregation, all the species of the human genus became intermingled, creating a new and abnormal order of humanity, of mixed specific char- acter, an abnormal single type, which we to-day call the " human race." The purpose of Redemption, which Mysticism reveals, is the restoration of order and organization out of this chaos of disorganization ; to bring back the species of the human genus to their normal specific ranks. This is the ultimate and rationale of Redemption, the secret of which, and its processes, are revealed in Mysticism. The physical, moral and spiritual con- sequences of the Fall enter in as inci- dental, but extremely baffling, purposes of Redemption which need to be accomplished in order to bring about the " ultimate " the " manifestation of the Sons of God," as St. Paul tells us " For the earnest expecta- Primitive Humanity 155 tion of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the Sons of God." IV. PRIMITIVE HUMANITY Terrible occurrences ensued upon the transgression of the Sons of the Gods. Rapidly one evil followed another, and the power to avert these evils was practically lost when the highest order of terrestrial beings severed the connection of the earth Life-Chain from the dynamic Centre, the Divine Magnet, the Christ of God, and from the intermediary chains of Hierarchical Mediators in the Celestial and Planetary Spheres. The Earth denuded. The earth was de- nuded of its principal source of Divine Wisdom, Life and Health. The streams of the Divine Essence henceforth only could trickle through the media of the few faithful Mediators still abiding on the earth, true to the Holy Mysteries, which eternally had upheld the earth in its past sublime state of glory. The Church of the Living God. These faithful Mediators formed the Small Centre 156 The True Mystic of Divine Mediation, and constituted the primeval " Church of the Living God." The history of the Church can be traced up the line of prehistoric and historical times, to the present day. Already I have sketched this history. But let me now relate briefly the primeval story of this Church, its fearful vicissitudes and sufferings, its one-time almost total extinction, and its later restora- tion, as it is told us in the allegorical story of the Book of Genesis. In that story is recorded man's history subsequent to the Fall, in the allegories of " Cain and Abel," of " Seth " and " Enosh," of the two posterities of Enosh and Cain, of the great city and federation of " Babel," of the final dispersion, of the origin of races and nations, and of the great human quarrel, in the " struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest/' which caused the " dispersion " of the human race, and added a thousandfold to the curse of the Fall on man and beast. Recent archceological discoveries in evidence of the truth of Genesis. Information has recently been published of remarkable dis- coveries on some ridges of land, which have been examined by submarine exploration, in Primitive Humanity 157 the bed of the Atlantic ocean. On these ridges of primeval rock have been found skeletons of human remains of gigantic proportions. They measure in stature fifteen feet and upwards. By the side of some of these skeletons were found lying heavy wooden clubs measuring fifteen feet in length, evidently weapons used for defence against marauding monsters then existing, and against human attack. In this period of prehistoric existence, before the waters rose and swept away the land, the struggle for existence had been very acute, between man and man, and between man and beast. The great saurians of primeval life were the earlier metamorphosed and degenerate descendants of the primordial animal kingdom. They mostly were a carnivorous and destructive menace to mankind, and only the strongest and best- equipped could succeed in surviving the ravages of these monsters. As great a peril to life was also the fierce struggle for exist- ence waging between man and man, when the sparse land became the serious object of individual and tribal possession, and of the competitive struggle to wrest from 158 The True Mystic one another such valuable assets of existence. Such facts as these coming to light are particularly interesting and valuable, con- firming the truth of the Genesis story, and helping to corroborate the views I am endeavouring to enunciate. The " Genesis " account of primeval humanity. In the same passage of the Book of Genesis I have already quoted from (Chapter VI) the following words follow : "And Jehovah said, My Spirit in man shall not always be at strife on account of his having become flesh. Therefore his days shall be limited to an hundred and twenty years. " The Nephilim came to be in the earth in those days; after that the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them. The same were the mighty men of old, the men of renown. "And Jehovah saw that the wicked- ness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of his heart was only evil continually." Primitive Humanity 159 The " Nephilim " and " Saurian " mon- sters. These " Nephilim," or gigantic people, were the offspring of the " human race " which was immediately propagated after the fusion of the Sons of the Gods with the rudimentary human species. These human colossi, and the Saurian " monsters," of many breeds and types, were the anthro- pological and zoological resultants of the Fall, in a few generations after. Gradually, as the earth contracted, and failed to produce the food and living-conditions for their continuity, their gigantic proportions decreased, and men and beasts diminished in size as the earth's dimensions were reduced by disease and contraction. The earth was gradually metamorphosing, and portions were continually upheaving and falling in, as death, corruption, and disease of creation increasingly infected the ground. The "Cain and Abel" allegory of the " World" and the "Church." The Genesis allegory, after the " Eden " story, goes on to describe the story of " Cain and Abel," representing the great division of the human race into the " World " and the " Church." " Cain " is a word meaning " Getting," or 160 The True Mystic seizing possession. "Abel" was a Pastor, or Shepherd. "And the man knew Eve his wife ; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. ''And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. "And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. " And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth ? and why is thy countenance fallen ? If thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door. And unto thee shall be his Primitive Humanity 161 desire, and thou shall ride over him. "And Cain told Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, thai Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is A bel thy brother ? And he said, I know not : am I my brother's keeper? And He said, What hast thou done ? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall no more yield unto thee her strength ; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth" Genesis iv. " Cain," the Getter, represents the " world "- system of life. The character of Cain's offering indicates his relations to God. He was outside of the Divine Society of the Mysteries. His offering showed that he knew not, or despised, the sacred Mystery and Symbol of the " Lamb of God." His M 162 The True Mystic offering was alien to the Mysteries, " of the fruit of the ground." Why had not God respect unto Cain's offering ? Was it not as good an offering as Abel's ? What about the toil of hands it represented, the sweat of brow, the skill and patience ? the devo- tion, the adoration, the faith, the worship, it implied, in presenting the "fruit of the ground " unto the Lord ? Cain represents, in this allegory, the " world," and his offering the religion and votive offering of the " world." What more meritorious, more self-congratulatory, more suggestive, than the offering of the fruits of toil, skill, and diligence ? Yet God had not respect unto the offering of Cain. There were causes which made Cain's offering nugatory. It represented the predominant prideful idea in Cain's mind, the motive of his offering the declaration of possession, of merit, of achievement, and of the pious thought of " the help of the Lord." It was a present to God out of his own possessions, the confession that " by the help of the Lord I have gotten possession." He had " gotten possession," and neither God nor man had any claim on it. It was his this ground he Primitive Humanity 163 tilled by right of conquest over unwill- ing and depraved nature, over the com- petitive contests of rivals among men and beasts, and by his own prowess, skill, and labour. The "fruits of the ground" were his, because he had made them his own. Out of his own he spared a little as an offering to God, as a testimony of his worth and his merits, in making a good thing of this life and of his strength. He denied the common possession of himself and the earth to every man. The earth is God's Freehold, including, not the ground only, and the beasts of the earth, but man also, and all that constitutes his endowments, of mind, soul, and body. All are God's possession, and no man's " property " ; leased out for no man's individual pleasure or possession, except in the common right of all mankind to enjoy their fruits and benefits. Cain came before God as an individualist, a " land-lord," a capitalist. His offering was an ostentation of individual pride of posses- sion and achievement, as a " self-made man." " Abel," the Shepherd, represents the " Church of the Living God." Abel's offering 164 The True Mystic was a " Mystery," a Sacramentum. In that prostrate Lamb on the Altar, was represented Abel's Faith in the Divine Mystery of the " Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," the Mystical " Lamb, standing as it had been slain before the foundation of the world " ; the Source of Life and Immor- tality, on which Abel, in his offering, confessed his sole dependence, and which, by the same token, he was striving to attain. The " enmity " between the " world " and the " Church of the Living God." The alle- gory then proceeds to its denouement. A tragic scene follows these offerings. Cain and Abel enter into a state of " enmity." Cain finds his offering futile. His preten- sions to the sacred privileges of the Divine Mysteries the sole reason for offering, worship, and religion are exposed in their naked emptiness and vanity. His pride is wounded, his self-sufficiency rejected, his presumption laid bare. So the " enmity " first appeared between the "world" and the "Church." The " world " knows nothing, cares nothing, for the Mystical " Lamb of God." It coquettes Primitive Humanity 165 with religion by profuse devotion to material objects in worship and offering. It elevates the " alms-dish " before the Holy Table, but not the sacred " Host " of the " Lamb of God." It imitates the Mystery of the " slain Lamb," in carnal sacrifices, in blood- shedding, and in its Christian representation and belief in the human material sacrifice of the incarnate " Lamb of God," and the superstition of the carnal blood-shedding of Calvary having efficacy to take away sin once and for all, an efficacy belonging only to the Mystical and Eternal " Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world." The symbol of the Cross of Calvary has been substituted for the reality it symbolizes. The blood of the crucified human body of Jesus has been substituted for the Eternal Life-Blood of the Mystical Christ. The world-religion and the Mystery-Re- ligion. Cain is the stronger. He has taken every advantage of the earth, and possessed it. The earth is his right, his home, his creation. His energies are concentrated on winning in the struggle for life and posses- sion. It is his life-pursuit. He becomes skilled in the arts and handicrafts, and 1 66 The True Mystic resourceful and inventive in the newly discovered uses of the minerals that are forming beneath his feet, and the many natural treasures which the earth's de- generation has created. Abel is the weaker. He is detached from the things of the world. He seeks its res- toration to the Divine state. To make the best of it in its corrupted state is dis- tasteful to him. It is so much wasted time, when there is all that is to be done to make the earth right and pure again. He " seeks a city yet to come, whose Builder and Founder is God." He ignores and despises the efforts of his brother Cain, who spends his days in making the earth yield, out of its curse, the things that make existence, under the curse, endurable, even pleasurable. Cain is on the earth to stay, a settler, building his cities, and decorating his life. Abel is a " pilgrim," a dweller in tents, a stranger in the world. His actions, his life, his speech, his religion, his relations to mankind, all speak of a " better country." The murder of Abel The unchangeable hereditary spirit of enmity between the Primitive Humanity 167 " world " and the " Church " of the Mys- teries is set forth in the allegory of Cain and Abel. The spirit of murder, hate, jealousy, treachery, and competitiveness, is the spirit of Cain. The spirit of meekness, dependence upon, and submission to, God, of separateness from the world, of prayer, faith, love, self-sacrifice, and altruism, is the spirit of Abel. The story of the murder of Abel, like most allegories, was based on an historical fact, which the allegory records. Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel. So, in that early primeval period we may learn that the first persecution and martyr- dom of the Church occurred. The " world " rose up, in those black days of wicked- ness and rebellion against God, and de- stroyed the faithful followers of the Christ- Mysteries. They slew the Initiates and their followers. The extinction of the Church, and the world's plunge into wickedness. For a period we may gather that the Church of the Living God was practically extinguished. Then followed a period of the most unlicensed wickedness and corruption. The tide of moral depravity and gross orgies of sen- 1 68 The True Mystic suality was unloosed, and overswept humanity. Bereft of the " Salt of the earth " in the Church, which only could preserve the earth from decay, the ravages of disease and corruption filled the ground with pollution of disease, decay, and death, corrupting, corroding, and shattering the structure of the earth, and its primordial substance. The earth's deprivation of the Divine Essence of Life. The destruction of the ;4fo/-Hierarchy of the Divine Mysteries, deprived the earth of its Divine medium of the Essence of Life. The Church had stood, as it must always stand, as the apex of the triangle of Life, the earth being the base. The Divine Essence descended upon the Church, and was mediated to the earth and the creatures, purifying and nourishing them. The Church, crushed and extin- guished, left the earth robbed of the sus- tentative and preservative medium of the Divine Life-forces. The " Salt " removed, the earth decayed. Thus we understand the meaning of the Divine curse upon Cain, " when thou tillest the ground, it shall no longer yield her fruit." Primitive Humanity 169 The posterity of Cain. You see, then, what is the great apocalyptic significance of the Cain and Abel allegory. Cain the "getter," slew Abel the "pastor." Cain depicts the " world-spirit " of acquisition, of possession, of making the best of a fallen estate. He tilled the ground to gain its products. His posterity advanced further, and extracted the metals of the newly formed rock, making iron and brass implements of industry, and warfare, and utility. They developed the arts, and made instruments of music. So they advanced in " Civilization " out of the total barbarism into which their ancestors had fallen. Placing and piecing together these ancient fragments of primeval history, it is not difficult to trace the story through to historical and known times. We see the gradual degradation of the offspring of Adam the " human race " to the lowest depths of barbarism and cruel animalism, struggling for the sparse food the earth then produced. We see the jealousy and hatred of these barbaric people against the Church of the Living God, and the extinction of the latter by the brute force of these tribal 170 The True Mystic creatures, more like ferocious animals than mankind. We see the gradual rising of intellect and intelligence from the wreck of mind and soul, and the cultivation of the arts and crafts. We see humanity slowly raising itself from the " Stone Age" and the state of the "Cave men" to the culture of mentality, artistry, and industry. Thus we see the working of the Redemptive system, gradually making for the time when the consciousness of humanity would rise to correspondence with the Highest, to the heavenly stimuli, and ultimately to the Mysteries. As is the case with all great world- movements, it was begun and inspired by sensualism, and for purely selfish ends. For sensual ends every kind of social progress has originated in the world's history. Every advance of civilization, opening out means and possibilities for disseminating the Mysteries and the Wisdom of God, had, for its inception and end, in the first in- stance, the human pursuit of material or sensual things. In this way God uses man's sensualism to His own Spiritual ends. The " Enosk " era of the Church. WTien Primitive Humanity 171 the Church was destroyed in the Cainite uprising, its extinction was only for a brief period, howsoever disastrous. The Spirit of God is ever in all men, and in the lowest ebb of degeneration, the Spirit will cause a turn in the tide. The Church had its rebirth in the generations that succeeded Abel. " And Adam knew Eve his wife again ; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth : for, she said, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel; for Cain slew him. And to Seth, to him also was born a son ; and he called his name Enosh : then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." Thus is recorded the revival of the Church in the Enosh era, when once again " men began to call upon the Name of Jehovah." The Noachian era of Cataclysm. Genera- tions of the Enosh era followed, when, in due time, we reach the record of Enoch, who " walked with God," marking a period of great development of Mysticism, which some suppose to be the " Hermetic period." 172 The True Mystic Generations after Enock we come to the story of Noah, allegorizing the cataclysmic catastrophe which resulted in the " Glacial Period " ; extending now to the part of the world covered by the great oceans, and the countries west of the Orient. The Cataclysms. The cataclysmic period followed the decay of the earth due to the inroad of corruption, disease, and death in all the kingdoms of nature, which ensued upon the rush of humanity into sensualism and unlicensed wickedness. Death became universal, disease rampant, ravaging nature to the earth's centre. The earth hardened and contracted. The primordial terrestrial elements composing the earth's substance solidified and materialized, forming the four elements of nature as we know them now, namely, earth, air, fire, and water. In these four elements the primordial elements were secreted, and converted into the material forms in which they are now constituted. These elements gradually be- came fast bound by materialization. The volatile elements, air, fire, and water, con- stantly broke the earth barriers, and burst forth with titanic violence. These upheavals Primitive Humanity 173 set free the imprisoned elements, which came into elemental contact, creating the conversion of the elements into the dynamic forces of electricity, steam, the gases, fire, and many sub-products of chemical pro- cesses thrown together. The earth melted by the force of the newly generated heat, and, as it cooled, was deposited in various beds of rocky strata, burying the calcined and carbonized wealth of vegetation, the compression of which, under such mighty pressures, caused the creation of the many mineral formations deposited in the various strata. The atmosphere. From the earth issued dense clouds and volumes of gaseous vapours, steam, smoke, and atoms of matter in com- bustion. The atmospheric zone of the earth, from being pure ether-mist, clear and translucent, became densified with these dark material elements of earth, air, fire, and water. By reason of this densifkation the atmosphere ever since has acted as a merciful providence of nature, forming a stupendous magnifying medium of the Ether-Light transfusing space from the Sun. The Sun is a beauteous and inconceivably large 174 The True Mystic Globe, the habitation of the Highest Beings of Divine Creation, from Whom are spread in the Cosmos the Light-Streams of Life- Essence from God. When the earth lost its translucence and luminosity, the atmosphere it created became like a colossal " magnify- ing-glass" refracting the Light-Rays of the Ether to fiery heat, which, falling upon the earth in this form, has ministered to the earth's reproductiveness, and its preserva- tion from total death. The Sea. In consequence of the earth's contraction, and the eruptions caused there- by, vast fissures and areas of depressed land occurred below, the great mountain-heights forced upward. The waters, into which the "mist"- moisture was converted, which burst forth in mighty deluges from beneath, filled these deep spaces, and so the great oceans and seas and lakes made their appearance, and the " dry land " rose above the waters. Thereafter the waters, refreshed by evaporation into the air, fell upon the land in rain and dew. Seasons and temperature. The declination of the earth's axis, and the regular rotations of the earth, and its elliptical revolutions Primitive Humanity 175 round the Sun, owing to these changes in the earth, caused the variations of the seasons, and the changes of the temperature in the various latitudes of the earth. Terrestrial sterility and disease. In many parts the ground became sand-covered and sterile, except in those places where nature mercifully provided more favourable condi- tions for the stunted vegetation, which man cultivated, and saved from general sterility. Disease decimated all living creatures, and in consequence impelled the human race to the study of the question of treating disease and staving off death. Hence arose the sciences of medicine and surgery, of herbal- ism and hygiene. Noah's Ark. The struggle for existence became more and more acute. Noah, the patriarchal figure personalizing this terrific period of cataclysm, allegorizes the Church preserved from being overwhelmed by the material elements. He taught the people to save themselves by building ships, and intro- duced the science of navigation, now that the oceans had come to divide the world. The " Ark " in the allegory is used to represent the Mysteries of Christ, by which 176 The True Mystic the earth will be saved from destruction, as the Noachian families, who obeyed Noah, saved themselves and the living creatures from a watery grave, when the cataclysm threatened their destruction. Under the guidance and teaching of the Noachian Initiates the people fled eastward, some settled in India, some in China. The word " Noah " is immortalized in Chinese traditions under the name of " Fohi," the Chinese equivalent for " Noah," who, they say, brought their ancestors to the coast of China, and founded the city of Pekin. The " Babel " federacy. Subsequent to the Noachian era, or during its later period, a large portion of the human race, following the Cainite system, formed a combination for mutual protection from the growing social complications of the struggle for existence, as the population increased, and the area of land-possession became more in demand. So they built the city of Babel, and inaugurated the world-system of citizen- ship, of legislation, of mutual protection of property, of defence against invasion, and of appeal to Heaven for aid and pros- perity, Primitive Humanity 177 "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they joiirneyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar ; and they dwelt there. And they said to one another, ' Go to, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they made bricks for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, ' Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. A nd the Lord said, ' Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language ; and this is what they begin to do : and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth : and they left off to build the city. Therefore 178 The True Mystic was the name of it called Babel ; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth : and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad ^ipon the face of the earth." As in the Noachian flight, the people of the Mystery-Religion, or the Church, scat- tered after the cataclysms, and planted families and branches of the Church in Eastern parts ; so in the Babel " disper- sion," the rest of mankind were driven forth from their attempted city of Babel, and scattered over the face of the earth. This is the brief account of the origin of the races of mankind, most of whom are the " aborigines " of recently opened continents, fallen from the state of primeval civilization. This is the origin of the nationalities of primeval history, and of the nationalistic system of to-day. It also accounts for the existence of a debased religion in all coun- tries, where there also exists the surviving Mystery-Religion of the ancient Church of the Living God. You now will see what I meant by saying, that " evil " is an accidental feature of our Mysticism and Evil 179 present state of existence, and not incidental to cosmical existence. From this view of evil disease, decay, and death you will see that evil, in all its forms, as it came through man, by man can be removed ; that the " Church," through the Christ, is the Pivot of Redemption. V. MYSTICISM AND EVIL Now for the short space still at my disposal, let me show you what is the Divine aspect of the great questions which are moving humanity to-day for the removal of Evil. Disease and the Mysteries. St. Paul re- minds us that the " last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Now I have shown that death is the natural consequence of disease and decay. As long as disease and decay last, death will continue inevitable. As we have seen that the cause of disease, decay, and death is due to the breaking away of the earth from the Divine Magnet, the Mystical Christ, Who, by His Incarnation, has brought up from the abyss one end of the Chain ; therefore the only way to 180 The True Mystic remove evil disease, decay, death, the struggle for existence, and all evil things is for mankind to co-operate with the Christ, and " the whole company of heaven," in the work of restoring union and com- munion of all the broken links on the earth, in every generation, with the Mystical Christ. This can only be brought about by every enlightened person himself seeking the Mystic Path, and practising the Mys- teries ; and also striving personally and collectively to propagate the Mysteries, and win to the Christ those who are still apart from Him, or ignorant of Him in His Mystical nature. Mystical Healing. I have pointed out that one of the signs symptomatic of the return of Mysticism is Spiritual, or Divine Healing. It is one of the first spiritual powers developing through the pursuit of the Mystic Path. Mysticism liberates the spiritual powers in the interior man which the fallen flesh and mind imprison. The Human Constitution. In the human constitution man consists of seven distinct organizations, or natures. Each replicates the others in organic functions. The central Mysticism and Evil 181 nature of man is the Spirit of God in man, his Eternal Ego. Ego, or Spirit, is the potential Christ in him, which Mysticism enables him to quicken, raise, form, and perfect. This is the purpose of the "Mystery of Christ in you, the hope of Glory." Mysticism teaches us how to seek and find the " Christ in us." Normally, the Christ-Spirit in man is the Master-Spirit, governing the whole sevenfold organization. But each one of these natures is capable of self-assertion, and of self-energy. Thus the " body " may become the man's master, the " mind " may become the master, the " soul " may become the master, or the " spirit " may be the master. When either, or all, of the three natures below the Spirit, become master, the Christ is shut up and imprisoned, and only fitfully and weakly can make any assertion of itself. The " Unio Mystica," or the Finding of the Christ, takes place when the man, in all his seven natures, is made One, which makes him One with the Christ-Logos. Spirit-pervasion. Then the Spirit per- vades the whole being, and is the " genius " and power energizing the whole organization. Mind, Soul, and Body, function, then, from 1 82 The True Mystic the motive-centre of the Spirit, the Christ- Force. So, when the Spirit is set free, it is free to exercise Spirit-directed and em- powered functions in all the natures and their combined functions a perfect spiritual and Divine Magnetic Dynamo. THE FOUR CENTRES OF FUNCTION There are four main centres of functioning energy in man, yielding forces of active beneficence, or maleficence, in their respec- tive planes. These are : (i) Body, (2) Mind, (3) Soul, (4) Spirit. From these four centres proceed every kind of energy, producing phenomena according to its kind. The original fountain of the energy which moves all these centres is the Spirit. Imprisoned as Spirit is, in the matter of the flesh and mind, yet it is Spirit alone from which life and energy are derived. But this energy, in fallen and unredeemed man, becomes perverted to evil, or ill-motived uses, or corrupted by exterior malefic forces, astral, carnal, or mundane, when it has passed from the Spirit-centre. Thus each nature becomes abnormally a Mysticism and Evil 183 kingdom in itself, working and energizing with an independent will of its own. The energy of Healing is one of these interior forces, originating from Spirit, but often held up in one or another, or in all of the three natures, mind, soul and body, and work more or less, or sometimes completely, independently of, or in opposition to, the will of Spirit ; and sometimes in obedience to an " astral " will. Equilibration, or Harmony, of the Four functioning natures, the Purpose of Mysticism. The purpose of Mysticism is to teach man the great Mystery of Equilibration, or Harmonization, of the Four functioning natures of man, and to bring them into Union with the Christ-Logos, in the Spirit. The Healing Power of the Mystical Christ, the " Lamb in the midst of the Throne of God," then comes into full force and sway in the four natures, energizing the functioning power of each nature in unison. Thus we understand why our Lord said, " Greater things than these shall ye do because I go unto the Father." When this Equilibration has been accom- plished, there will be no more talk of different 184 The. True Mystic planes of healing. The student of spiritual therapeutics will be confused no more by the variety of differentiations of healing, of which we hear so much nowadays, in the great movement of mystical healing in the world, physical healing (or animal mag- netism), mental healing, psychic healing, hypnotic healing, healing by faith, healing by denying disease, etc. (l) BODY, PHYSICAL HEALING, OR PERSONAL MAGNETISM Physico-Magnetic Therapeutics Physical healing power, or personal mag- netism, is not dependent upon special development. It is a power that exhales from the surface nature, and depends entirely on healthiness and positiveness of temperament. Every healthy person, with healthy tem- perament, strong out -going sympathies, and what Paul calls " cnr\a,yva, bowels of compassion," or love for mankind, sanguine- natured, optimistic and cheerful, whether consciously or unconsciously, exercises this beneficent gift. Such a person, by merely living with a Mysticism and Evil 185 sick person, whether diseased in mind, body, or soul, arouses in them the desire to be well, encourages the will to be well, and awakens the consciousness of being well ; and he most often is well. The healer instinctively takes a negative attitude to the disease, and a positive attitude towards the patient. He breathes health from his own superabundance of vitality. He exhales health from the pores of his skin. He projects health from his brain, his thought, the light of his eyes, the touch of his hands, and the vibrations of his nerve-system. The body is an atomic organism, and disease is not a really physical, or material, thing ; i.e., it is not a distinct thing from the person diseased. " Disease-microbes " are not " entities," or organisms, of them- selves. They are simply the " cells " of the diseased in a state of dis-order, or the cells of another diseased person in-drawn, or " contracted," by him through a weakened and non-resistive nervous-system, predis- posed to attract the floating diseased cells exhaled by the other diseased person, causing irritation in the cell-system, and disease. 1 86 TJie True Mystic By the expulsive force of the person dis- eased, stirred and stimulated by the impul- sive force of the healer, the diseased cells recover normal conditions, and return to molecular order ; and the foreign disease- cells, or bacterial matter, pass from the body in the natural out-draught, and flux of nature. These beneficent healing people we all of us have frequently met, but they are not now so numerous as they should be. The times do not conduce to the multiplication of physical healer s. So few are brave, san- guine, light-hearted people, in a world in which so much environs us to induce worry, depression, suspicion, self-centredness, and despondency. The physical healer lives above the tendency of yielding to the world-pressure around him. Religion and light-heartedness, reinforcing a calm, firm character, deter- mined to face life seriously, but not sadly are the sine qua non of a physical healer. All of us may so easily fulfil these condi- tions, and become live batteries of the vital force in the body of us all, absolutely curative of others, and immunitive for our- Mysticism and Evil 187 selves. Adjust the focus of sight, and all the senses, above the rank world, to the higher perspectives of life's potentialities, and the state is reached. (2) THE MIND, MENTAL HEALING A nimo-Magnetic Therapeutics There are many who, temperamentally, are not physical healers. But they are powerful mental healers. When both are combined they are very powerful to heal. The power of willing health in a diseased person, by deliberate thought-transference, or mental suggestion, even in the absence of physical magnetism, is a great force in ejecting foreign disease-matter, and restoring order to the disordered molecules of a diseased body. Some mental healers are the contrary of the physical healer, being rather forbidding and repellent characters, and very depres- sing. Yet, by mental concentration upon the diseased person, they are capable of forcing the denial of disease, the antithesis of disease, which results in the total removal of the symptoms. i88 The True Mystic A person trained in the science and prac- tice of mental therapeutics, and an adept at the not quite easy art of mental concentra- tion, can successfully heal any kind of disease, provided the assent of the patient is gained, and his subjection of mind and will to the mind and will of the healer ; other- wise, the establishment of mutual confidence and co-operation. In mental healing, the will of the healer is the active healing factor, and not, as in the case of physical healing, the will of the diseased person. The patient submits his will, and blends it with the will of the healer, and he is not aroused to exert a will to be healed entirely his own. It is the combined deliberate and concentrated pur- pose of the two wills, in conscious deter- mination, which creates the current of healing, and directs it to the disease cura- tively. (3) THE SOUL, PSYCHIC HEALING Psycho-Magnetic Therapeutics The psychic method of healing also is acquired by special treatment for develop- ment. A person may develop the psychic Mysticism and Evil 189 faculties and become a " medium " in all kinds of psychic functioning. By the occult power of psychic develop- ment he may become a " hypnotist." Some persons become hypnotists without any very conscious effort at development, being natural mediums. By inducing the hypnotic sleep, or " katalepsis," the hypnotist seizes the patient's mentality, his will, and his soul, exactly as I have before shown that " astral spirits " do, by the same method, and with the same results, precisely. He then commands the molecular disorder to return to order. He commands the mind and the will to obey him and assume health. He pronounces the person well, and tells him he is free from disease. He wakes him, and the person knows he is well, and acts instinctively as a healthy person. Included in this, and mental healing, are such methods as, healing by " charms," relics, spells, and the methods of " voodoo " and " obeah " healing (of which I have witnessed some most remarkable instances, performed by " wizard-doctors " and " voo- doo-witches "). Also in these categories I The True Mystic place the methods of Catholic " miracle "- healing, Lourdes and Knock, and other healing-places resorted to by Catholic pil- grims ; also the method adopted by the " Emmanuel " healing movement. Who shall say also how much of the happy results of the medical pharmacopoeia and practice are not due more to the influences of " occult " and personal magnetism, than by specific curative properties of medicinal treatment ? (4) THE SPIRIT, SPIRITUAL, OR MYSTICAL HEALING Pneumatico-Magnetic Therapeutics I have said that the Healing powers, in whatever method, or functioning plane, they operate, always emanate from one source in man, the Spirit in man. In the most undeveloped, as in the most developed ; in the Mystic, as in the states least approximating the Mystic state ; the Spirit of God is a living existence in him. In Spiritual Healing each of the six natures below the Spirit are six avenues, each having its own functioning powers, by which the Spirit exerts its Divine Power to Mysticism and Evil 191 heal. Thus all healing is Spiritual, in the fact that its power to heal is originally derived from the Spirit. The Healing Power is the vital magnetic force of the Mystical Christ, in every man, and waiting development to perfect function- ing faculty, in every man. The Mystic is one who has attained the Mystical Christ, and in him the Mystical Christ is in fully developed capacity to function. The Mystic has equilibrated his six natures to perfect harmony with his Spirit. His Spirit is the Master, and the Spirit is " the Christ in him." The mind, soul, and body are pure and free from all deterring or hindering elements. They are perfect operative instruments of the Christ within him. No evil can resist him, the will of the Christ is the One Will in his being. When the Christ wills him to heal, or to do the things of the Christ, he does them, unfail- ingly, as Christ did everything unfailingly He set His will to do. He heals not by mental healing, not by physical healing, nor by psychic healing. 1 92 The True Mystic But by Spiritual Healing he interpenetrates the body, mind, and soul, gathers up each their specific functional powers, harnessing them to the " chariot of fire " which per- forms the " mighty works," the Spirit of God in man. The Mystic, however, does not make a profession of Healing, nor does he cultivate Healing for Healing's sake. There are reasons and causes, which the Mystic knows, why the work of the Spiritual Healer is not specialized. No Initiate sets out in the ministry of healing, as ministers of healing. When brought face to face with the sick or diseased, the Power to Heal is drawn from him, or it is not, as the will of the Christ is in each case. The whole subject of Divine Healing is veiled in Mystery. Its attractiveness in the minds of compassionate and tender- hearted people leads them to the cultivation and study of the various planes and methods of healing. They imagine great potentiali- ties of blessing and good to the sick world, if healing could only become a Force to eradicate disease and to cure all the sick people in the world. Mysticism and Evil 193 Yet, when we reflect, was it not strange that Christ and the Apostles, and the Therapeutae and Essenes, did not practise as Healers in this general and promiscuous way, but only healed one here, one there, and very occasionally, as we might say, " let themselves go " in a more collective fashion ? The " schools " of these com- munities, and the " ekklesice " of the primi- tive Church, were not " healing development schools." Healing came as a direct power of Mystical development. It was a side- issue of the main and principal purpose of Mysticism. The Mystic never denies Healing to any sick person coming to him or who is brought to him. But he does not make Healing his profession or vocation. And he does not guarantee universal cures. In this era of Redemption, as I have already pointed out, " Evil " forms an important part of redemptive karma. Con- flict with evil, patience in suffering, peni- tence for sin (of the past lives, as well as of the present), and the docile mind to learn the lessons of suffering and evil ; these, and many more, " uses of adversity " and evil 194 The True Mystic are the Divine means of " proving and improving the Ego." Therefore the Initiate knows who they are who suffer karmically, why they suffer, and when they are in the state when the evil may be removed with safety to the Ego. Thus it is not according to the Divine Rule that the Gift of Healing be acquired for general practice. Mysticism does not encourage healing " missions," or specialism, in mental or psychic therapeutics. Mental, psychic, and physical healing are capable of successful practice in all cases of their application, given the necessary condi- tions, on all the planes. In thousands of cases persons have not the least right or need to be sick or diseased. They bring it upon themselves by their own volition, or they are eager for it, and assume a sickness which becomes real by self-suggestion. Many persons, lying " under treatment " in " Nursing Homes," or in their own dwellings, take delight in undergoing a " cure," wasting time and money in the utterly stupid self-satisfaction of the hypochondriac or valetudinarian. Your own doctor will tell you, if you ask him plainly, that many Mysticism and Evil 195 of his patients are not ill in reality, but fancy and suggest themselves into their pet com- plaints. The doctors would starve but for this foolish craze of illness, which they consider themselves bound to humour. Yes, these psychic and mental healing methods will at once cure these " sick " people, who defy the whole pharmacopoeia of medicine. They likewise can cure legitimate diseases. Under proper conditions there is no disease which the hypnotist, or the thought-transference healer, cannot cure. But the question remains whether they have the Divine right to practise the healing gift, generally and promiscuously. In many such cases, and in many more, if these methods become generalized, this healing practice defeats Divine purposes, and en- dangers the karma of those who benefit by it. Indeed, except by Mystical Healing, when the Healer is an Initiate, and operates solely and exclusively by the Will of the Christ, the Initiator, all kinds of " occult " thera- peutics are unsafe, and liable to lead to presumptuous interference with the Divine working of mankind's karmic destiny. I have only space to throw out these brief 196 The True Mystic reflections now. They are of more solemn import than can be so briefly treated. Another time opportunity may be given me to go more fully into this momentous matter. MYSTICISM, AND THE COMPLETE WORK OF REDEMPTION In the mind of the Mystic one thing only is paramount. The practice of Healing, and all spiritual manifestations of the Divine Power in Mysticism are subordinated to this one thing. A Divine Nucleus. This one thing is, the complete work of Redemption. Throughout the whole history of Mysticism may be seen the working out of one simple plan, the principal feature of which is the formation, or congregation, of a Nucleus of people, and through them the generation of a Divine Family, reproducing the Divine Seed for the development of the Church, as a segregated " Fold," fenced and protected from the world and the Astral enemies. The " Ekklesia " is a Calling Out of men and women from the world-life, and drawing them together, apart from the world, to cultivate the Mysteries, and to create a concentration of Mysticism and Evil 197 initiated people to serve Heaven as the Divine Magnetic Centre for the Christ, through which He may perform Divine functions in the earth's Redemption. This Plan of a Divine Family, a New Race, a Holy People, is precisely what Peter announces in the following plain language : " Ye are an Elect Race, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a People for God's Possession, that ye may show forth the Excellencies of Him Who Called you out of darkness into His marvellous Light." I Peter ii. 9. It was designed from the beginning, in the " Seth " Family, the " Enosh " Family, and so on, down the long genealogy to " Abraham." Each of the names recorded is the patriarchal name of the successive " founders " of the " Elect Race " in its continuity through the primeval ages. Abraham was " Called Out " of Chaldaea, and founded the Family of " Israel." Moses was " Called Out " of Egypt, leading Israel into the wilderness. The Apostles were " Called Out " by Jesus, and estab- 02 198 The True Mystic lished the " Ekklesiae " of Disciples, who separated themselves from the world, lived the " common life," and practised the Mysteries from the Apostolical Teaching : " And they that received his word were Baptized ; and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand Souls. And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' Teaching and Fellowship, in the Breaking of Bread, and the Prayers. And fear came upon every soul : and many mighty works were done by the Apostles. And all that Believed were together, ind had all things common ; and they sold their possessions and their goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need. . . . And the multi- tude of them that Believed were of One heart and soul : and not one of them said that aught of the things that he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common. And with great Power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus : and great Grace was upon them all. For Mysticism and Evil 199 neither was there among them any that lacked : for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the Apostles' feet ; and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need." Acts ii. 41-45 ; iv. 32-35- One can understand what effects this Apostolical movement must have had in the Roman Empire, when the Ekklesia of Jerusalem repeated itself in the flourishing Ekklesiae founded by St. Paul throughout Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. These " Gentile " Ekklesiae were founded on the same Apostolical lines, and when they penetrated into Rome itself, there is little surprise that the body-politic, under Caesar, looked with fear upon these growing com- munities of Mystics. So we can understand the violence of the Roman persecutions, visited upon them not for the sake of their religion, but on account of the social and political complications their communistic system was causing. T have already pointed out the cunning 2oo The True Mystic device by which the Roman Emperor sought to suppress the Ekklesia of Christ ; and how it succeeded by the founding of the Papal Empire, and the complete suppression of Mysticism. Only in this twentieth century is man's consciousness awaking from the torpor of the ages which succeeded the investment of Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, with the Papal Tiara. Mysticism, as I have said, is " in the air." Socialism, Syndicalism, Liberalism are political movements in the world, pointing to the ultimate institution of Communism. But, side by side with these political and democratic movements, there is the Spiritual and Mystical movement, which will permeate mankind, and lead to the beginning again of Apostolical Chris- tianity, on the foundations which the Apostles laid, and which their faithless successors removed and destroyed. Mysticism never dies, never can be destroyed. It revives after every departure and lapse of the Church of all the ages. It is reviving again in our own age, and for the last time. A new and great movement is on foot beneath the surface of the present Mysticism and Evil 20 1 universal unrest. The ancient Ekklesia will be restored. Many of us are looking and waiting for a Coming Teacher and Prophet, to head us all up, and lead us to the " Promised Land" once more. The Call is to us to harmonise ourselves, in body, mind, and soul, with the great future that is immi- nent, to fit ourselves to take our part in the Mystical Body of the Christ. The Mystic Path is not " hidden " from us ; it is open to our sight and knowledge. We may, one and all, take the First Step even now. That Step is Renunciation. 1 1 The Social and Economic aspect of Mystical develop- ment the Author has worked out in another treatise, shortly to be published : " The New Ekklesia, or, The Happiest People in the World. A Treatise on Social Revolution based on the teaching of Jesus Christ. In Eight Beatitudes.'" Notice of publication of this book will be duly announced. THE END PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH 000 812 596