Clothed With The Sun
Being The Book Of The Illuminations
of Anna Bonus Kingsford~ Section 2, Lections 11 - 20 ~
"Illuminations is the Light of Wisdom, whereby man perceiveth heavenly secrets. Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him the things of God" ~Illuminations No. 11.
No. 11: Concerning the Prophecy of
The Time of the EndAS there was a return of the spirit, or angel, of Elias in the person of John the Baptist before the advent of Jesus, so there will be a return of the angel of Daniel, before the next manifestation of the Christ. Daniel's angel is he who specially foretold the culmination and the hour of overthrow of the world's materialistic system. And when he had completed his prediction he told Daniel that he--Daniel--should rest for the present, but when the time was accomplished, and the end was at hand, he should return and stand again in his place, and prophesy before the world. And the token whereby the approach of the end should be known would be the spectacle of the "abomination of desolation standing in the holy place." A like assurance was given also to John. Now, the holy place is always--whether in the universal or the individual, in the macrocosm or the microcosm--the place of God and the Soul; and the abomination of desolation, or which maketh desolate, is that system of thought which, putting matter in the chief place, and making it the source, substance, and object of existence, abolishes God out of the universe, and the soul out of man, and thus, depriving existence of its light and life, makes it empty, desolate and barren, a very abomination of desolation.
Jesus, recalling this prophecy, and citing the words of Daniel's angel, also foretold the same event as marking the end of that "adulterous" generation [a term identical with idolatrous as denoting the worship of and illicit association with matter], and the coming of the kingdom of God; and warned the elect in mystic phrase, thus to be interpreted:--
"When, therefore, ye shall see matter exalted to the holy place of God and the soul, and made the all and in all of existence;
"Then let the spiritual Israel betake themselves to the hills where alone salvation is to be found, even the heights and fastnesses of the divine life.
"And let him who has overcome the body, beware lest he return to the love of the flesh, or seek the things of the world.
"Neither let him who is freed from the body become again re-incarnate.
"And woe to the soul whose travail is yet unaccomplished, and which has not yet become weaned from the body.
"And beseech God that these things find you not at a season either of spiritual depression and feebleness, or of spiritual repose and unwatchfulness.
"For the tribulation shall be without parallel;
"And such that except those days shall be few in number, escape from the body would be impossible.
"But for the elect's sake they shall be few.
"And if any shall then declare that here, or there, the Christ has appeared as a person, believe it not. For there shall arise delusive apparitions and manifestations, together with great signs and marvels, such as might well deceive even the elect. Remember, I have told you beforehand. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold he is in the desert, whether of the East or of the West--join him not. Or, Behold he is in darkened rooms and secret assemblies--pay no regard.
"For, like lightning coming out of the East and illuminating the West, so shall be the world's spiritual awakening to the recognition of the Divine in Humanity.
"But wheresoever the dead carcase of error remains, around it, like vultures, will gather both deceivers and deceived.[1]
"And upon them, the profane, there shall be darkness; the Spirit shall be quenched and the soul extinct; and there shall be no more any light in heaven, or in heavenly science any truth and meaning. And the power of heaven upon men shall be shaken.
"Then shall appear the new sign, the Man in Heaven, upon the rain-clouds of the last chrism and mystery, with great power and glory.
"And his missioners shall gather the elect with a great voice, from the four winds and from the farthest bounds of heaven.
"Behold the FIG-TREE, and learn her parable. When the branch thereof shall become tender, and her buds appear, know that the day of God is upon you."
Wherefore, then, saith the Lord that the budding of the fig-tree shall foretell the end?
Because the fig-tree is the symbol of the divine woman, as the vine of the divine man.
The fig is the similitude of the matrix, containing inward buds, bearing blossoms on its placenta, and bringing forth fruit in darkness. It is the cup of life, and its flesh is the seed-ground of new births.
The stems of the fig-tree run with milk: her leaves are as human hands, like the leaves of her brother the vine.
And when the fig-tree shall bear figs, then shall be the second advent, the new sign of the man bearing water, and the manifestation of the virgin-mother crowned.
For when the Lord would enter the holy city, to celebrate his Last Supper with his disciples, he sent before him the fisherman Peter to meet the man of the coming sign.
"There shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water."
Because, as the Lord was first manifest at a wine-feast in the morning, so must he consummate his work at a wine-feast in the evening.[2]
It is his Pass-Over; for thereafter the sun must pass into a new sign.
After the Fish, the Water-Carrier; but the Lamb of God[3] remains always in the place of victory, being slain from the foundation of the world.
For his place is the place of the sun's triumph.
After the vine the fig; for Adam is first formed, then Eve.
And because our Lady is not yet manifest, our Lord is crucified.
Therefore came he vainly seeking fruit upon the fig-tree, "for the time of figs was not yet."
And from that day forth, because of the curse of Eve, no man has eaten fruit of the fig-tree.
For the inward understanding has withered away, there is no discernment any more in men. They have crucified the Lord because of their ignorance, not knowing what they did.
Wherefore, indeed, said our Lord to our Lady:--"Woman, what is between me and thee? For even my hour is not yet come."
Because until the hour of the man is accomplished and fulfilled, the hour of the woman must be deferred.
Jesus is the vine; Mary is the fig-tree. And the vintage must be completed and the wine trodden out, or ever the harvest of the figs be gathered.
But when the hour of our Lord is achieved, hanging on his Cross, he gives our Lady to the faithful.
The chalice is drained, the lees are wrung out: then says he to his elect:--"Behold thy Mother!"
But so long as the grapes remain unplucked, the vine has nought to do with the fig-tree, nor Jesus with Mary.
He is first revealed, for he is the Word; afterwards shall come the hour of its interpretation.
And in that day every man shall sit under the vine and the fig-tree; the dayspring shall arise in the orient, and the fig-tree shall bear her fruit.
For, from the beginning, the fig-leaf covered the shame of incarnation, because the riddle of existence can be expounded only by him who has the woman's secret. It is the riddle of the Sphinx.
Look for that tree which alone of all trees bears a fruit blossoming interiorly, in concealment, and thou shalt discover the fig.
Look for the sufficient meaning of the manifest universe and of the written Word, and thou shalt find only their mystical sense.
Cover the nakedness of matter and of nature with the fig-leaf; and thou hast hidden all their shame. For the fig is the interpreter.
So when the hour of interpretation comes, and the fig-tree puts forth her buds, know that the time of the end and the dawning of the new day are at hand,--"even at the doors."
1. The foregoing part of this utterance was received at Paris, December 6, 1879, in sleep, the inspiring influence impressing itself upon the seeress as being the angel Gabriel--a circumstance which caused some perplexity--her usual instructor being Hermes (= Raphael)--until it was remembered that Gabriel was the inspiring angel of Daniel, whose return had been foretold. The remainder was received under waking illumination in July 1886, while preparing the second edition of The Perfect Way, in which it appeared. E. M. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 310-320.
2. Wine is the symbol for the spirit, as water for the soul. E. M.
3. The pure spirit everlastingly shed by Deity for the world's creation, sustenance, and redemption. E. M.
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No. 12: Concerning the Soul: Its Origin, Nature, and Potentialities(1) |
THE Soul, in its first beginning, is not something added to the body, but is generated in the body by the polarisation of the astral elements. Once generated, it enters and passes through many bodies, until finally perfected.
As there are two of the outer, so also of the inner. The two of the inner are spirit and soul. In the translation of the Scriptures the word spirit is often used where soul is meant. For only the man created in God's own image is a living soul, that is, a soul which has the Spirit superadded to it.[2]
The clearest understanding may be obtained of the soul by defining it as the divine idea. Before anything can exist outwardly and materially, the idea of it must subsist in the Divine Mind. The soul, therefore, may be understood to be divine and everlasting in its nature. But the soul does not act directly upon matter. It is put forth by the Divine Mind; but the body is put forth by the sideral or fiery body. As the spirit on the celestial plane is the parent of the soul, so the fire on the material plane begets the body.
The soul, being in its nature eternal, passes from one form to another until, in its highest stage, it polarises sufficiently to receive the spirit. It is in all organised things. Nothing of an organic nature exists without a soul. It is the individual, and it perishes if abandoned of the spirit.
As already said, at the moment when the soul appears in any hitherto inorganic entity, it is by means of the convergence of the magnetic poles of the constituent molecules of that entity. The focusing of these poles gives rise to a circular magnetic current, and an electric combustion is the result. This vital spark is organic life, or the soul. This spontaneous combustion, or generation, is not a new creation; for nothing can be either added to or withdrawn from the universe. It is but a new condition of the one substance. The soul is to the material organ what the tune is to the musical instrument. The tune subsists in the mind of the composer (God), before the keys or strings of the instrument can give it expression. But unless for this expression it could not become manifest to sense. This tune can be played on many instruments, and transferred from one to another. We are thus brought to the great facts, the immortality of the soul, its transmigrations, and the metempsychosis.
The process of incarnation, and the method by which the soul takes new forms, are in this wise. When two persons ally themselves in the flesh and beget a child, the moment of impregnation is usually--though not invariably--the moment which attaches a soul to the newly conceived body. Hence, much depends upon the influences, astral and magnetic, under which impregnation and conception take place. The pregnant woman is the centre of a whirl of magnetic forces, and she attracts within her sphere a soul whose previous conduct and odic condition correspond either to her own or to the magnetic influences under which she conceives. This soul, if the pregnancy continues and progresses, remains attached to her sphere, but does not enter the embryo until the time of quickening, when it usually takes possession of the body, and continues to inhabit it until the time of delivery. A pregnant woman is swayed not by her own will alone, but as often by the will of the soul newly attached to her sphere; and the opposition and cross-magnetisms of these two wills often occasion many strange and seemingly unaccountable whims, alternations of character, and longings, on the part of the woman. Sometimes, however, the moment of impregnation or conception passes without attracting any soul, and the woman may even carry a false conception for some time, in which cases abortion occurs. There are innumerable accidents which may happen in this regard. Or, the soul, which has been attracted to her, may, under new influences, be withdrawn from her sphere, and from the embryo which, having quickened, may consume away; or, the soul originally drawn to her orbit may be replaced later by another, and so forth. Some clairvoyant women have been conscious of the soul attached to them, and have seen it, at times as a beautiful infant, at times in other shapes. Children begotten by ardent and mutual love are usually the best and healthiest, spiritually and physically, because the radical moment is seized by love, when the astral and magnetic influences are strongest and most ardent, and they attract the strongest and noblest souls.
For you to understand yet more clearly and fully the origin and nature of the soul, whence it comes, and how it passes from one body to another, you must know that the plane on which the celestials and the creatures touch each other is the astral plane. The substance of all created things is the begetter alike of body and soul. The soul, as I have said, is formed by polarisation of the elements of the astral body, and it is a gradual process; but when once formed it is art entity capable of passing from one body to another. Imagine the magnetic forces of innumerable elements directed and focused to one centre, and streams of electric power passing along all their convergent poles to that centre. Imagine these streams so focused as to create a fire in that central part,--a kind of crystallisation of magnetic force. This is the soul. This is the sacred fire of Hestia or Vesta, which burns continually. The body and person may fall away and disappear: but the soul, once begotten, is immortal until its perverse will extinguish it. For the fire of the soul, or central hearth, must be kept alive by the higher air or Divine Breath, if it is to endure for ever. It must converge, not diverge. If it diverge it will be dissipated. The end of progress is unity; the end of degradation is division. The soul, therefore, which ascends, tends more and more to union with the Divine.
And this is the manner thereof. Conceive of God as of a vast spiritual body constituted of many individual elements, but all these elements as having one will, and therefore being one. This condition of oneness with the Divine Will and Being constitutes the celestial Nirvāna. Again, conceive of the degraded soul as dividing more and more until at length it is scattered into many, and ceases to be as an individual, being, as. it were, split and broken up, and dispersed into many pieces. This is the Nirvāna of the Amen, or annihilation of the individual.[3]
"And whence," you inquire," is the supply of new souls for the continual increase of the world's population?" Souls, as you know, work up from animals and plants; for it is in the lowest forms of organic life that the soul is first engendered. Formerly the way of escape for human souls was more open and the path clearer, because, although ignorance of intellectual things abounded among the poorer sort, yet the knowledge of divine things and the light of faith were stronger and purer. Wherefore the souls of those ages of the world, not being enchained to earth as they now are, were enabled to pass more quickly through their avatārs, and but few incarnations sufficed where now many are necessary.
For in these days the ignorance of the mind is weighted by materialism instead of being lightened by faith. It is sunk to earth by love of the body and by atheism, and excessive care for the things of sense. And being crushed thereby, it lingers long in the atmosphere of earth, seeking many fresh lodgments, and so multiplies bodies.
And, furthermore, you must not conceive of Creation, or the putting-forth of things, as an act once accomplished and then ended. For the celestial Olympus, is continually creating and continually becoming. God never ceases giving of God for God's creatures. This also is the mystery of the divine incarnation and oblation. The celestial substance is continually individualising itself that it may build itself up into one perfect individual. Thus is the circle of life accomplished, and thus its ends meet the one with the other.
You have asked me--"How, if the planet consist of body, perisoul, soul, and spirit, can there be born of it entities which are not like it fourfold, but threefold or even twofold, as are minerals and severed parts of bodies, things made by art, and the like." I answer you that your error lies in looking on the planet as a thing apart from its offspring. Certainly, the planet is fourfold, and certainly also its offspring is fourfold. But of its offspring some lie in the astral region only, and are but twofold; and some in the watery region, and are but threefold, and some lie in the human region, and are fourfold. The body and perisoul are the metallic and gaseous envelope of the planet. The organic region composes its soul, and the human region its spirit, or divine part. For when it was but metallic, it had no soul. When it was but organic, it had no spirit. But when man was made in the image of God, then was its spirit breathed into its soul. Now, the metals have no soul; therefore they are not individuals. And not being individuals, they cannot transmigrate. But the plants and animals have souls. They are individuals, and do transmigrate and progress. And man has also a spirit; and so long as he is man--that is, truly human--he cannot re-descend into the body of an animal, or of any creature in the sphere beneath him, since that would be an indignity to the spirit. But if he lose his spirit, and become again animal, he may descend, yea, he may become altogether gross and horrible, and a creeping and detestable thing, begotten of filth and corruption. This is the end of persistently evil men. For God is not the God of creeping things, but Baal Zebub[4] is their God. And there were none of these in the Age of Gold: neither shall there be any when the earth is fully purged. O Men! your exceeding wickedness is the creator of your evil beasts; yea, your filthy torments are your own sons and abominable progenitors!
Remember that there is but one substance. Body, sideral body, soul, and spirit, all these are one in their essence. And the first three are differentialities of polarisation. The fourth is God's Self. When the Gods put forth the world, they put forth substance with its three potentialities, but all three in the condition of odic light. I have called the substantial light sometimes the sideral body, sometimes the perisoul; and this because it is both. For it is that which makes, that which becomes. It is fire, or the human spirit (not the divine), out of which and by which earth and water are generated. It is the fiery manifestation of soul, the magnetic factor of the body. It is space; it is substance; it is foundation. So that from it proceed the gases and the minerals, which are soulless, and also the organic world, which hath a soul. But man it could not make. For man is fourfold and of the divine ether or upper air, which is the province of Zeus, Father of Gods and men.
The outer envelope of the macrocosm and microcosm alike, which is represented by Demeter, is in reality not elemental at all, but is a compound of the other three elements. Her fertility is due to the "water," and her transmuting or chemical power to the fire. This water is the soul or protoplasma, which is put forth by Deity and constitutes the individual. Nor are you to look on fire as a true element. For fire is to the body what spirit is to the soul. As the soul is without the divine life until vivified by the spirit, so the body, or matter, is without physical life in the absence of fire. No matter is really "dead matter," for the fire-element is in all matter. But matter would be "dead" (that is, would cease to exist as matter) if motion were suspended--which is, if there were no fire. For, as wherever there is motion there is heat, and consequently fire, and motion is the condition of matter, so without fire would be no matter.
The soul is not astral fluid, but is manifest by means of the astral fluid; for the soul itself is, like the idea, invisible and intangible. You will see the meaning best by following out the genesis of any particular action. The stroke of the pen on paper is the phenomenon; that is the outer body. The action which produces the stroke is the astral body, and, though physical, is not a thing, but a transition or medium between the result (the stroke) and its cause (the idea). The idea manifested in the act is not physical, but mental, and is the soul of the act. But even this is not the first cause. For the idea is put forth by the will, and this is the spirit. Thus, you will an idea as God wills the macrocosm. The real body (or immediate result) is the astral body; while the phenomenal body (or ultimate form) is the effect of motion and heat. If you could arrest motion, you would have as the result fire, and thereby would convert Demeter into Hephaistos. But fire itself also is material, since it is visible to the outer sense, as is the earth-body. But it has many degrees of subtlety. The astral or odic substance, therefore, is not the soul itself, but is the medium or manifestor of the soul, as the act is of the idea. If, however, the phrase misleads you, it is better to modify it, as thus:--
The act is the condition of the idea, in the same way as fire or incandescence is the condition of any given object. Light is of spirit, heat is of matter. Water is the result of the operation of Wisdom the Mother, or oxygen, and justice the Father, or hydrogen. Air is the result of the mixture, not combination, of wisdom and force. Those two are properly elements. They are soul and spirit. But Earth is not, properly speaking, an element at all. She is the result of the water and the fire, and her rocks and strata are either watery or igneous. She is water and air fused and crystallised. Fire also, the real maker of the body, is a mode and condition, and not a true element. See, then, that the only real and true and permanent elements are air and water, spirit and soul, will and idea, divine and substantial, father and mother; and out of these all the elements of earth are made by the aid of the condition of matter, which is, interchangeably, beat and motion.
Wisdom, justice, and Force, or oxygen, hydrogen, and azoth, are the three out of which the two true elements are produced. But water is a combination, air is a mixture. Wherefore the only two real entities, water and air, are unreal to the phenomenal; while the untrue elements, earth and fire, or body and electric fluid, are real in the phenomenal.
Souls are re-incarnated hundreds and thousands of times, but not the person (which implies the body), for the body perishes. These things were known to the Gnostics, Therapeutę, Essenes, and to Jesus; and the doctrine is embodied in the parable of the Talents, as thus explained:--Into the soul of the individual is breathed the Spirit of God, divine, pure, and without blemish. It is God. And the individual has, in his earth-life, to nourish that Spirit, and feed it as a flame with oil. When you put oil into a lamp, the. essence passes into and becomes flame. So is it with the soul of him who nourishes the Spirit. It grows gradually pure, and becomes the Spirit. By this means the Spirit becomes the richer. And, as in the parable of the Talents, where God has given five talents, man pays back ten; or he returns nothing, and perishes.
When a soul has once become regenerate, it returns to the body only by its own free will, and as a Redeemer or Messenger. Such a one regains in the flesh the memory of his past. Regeneration or transmutation may take place in an instant; but it is rarely a sudden thing, and it is best that it come gradually, so that the "Marriage" of the Spirit be only after a prolonged engagement.
The doctrine of "Counterparts," so familiar to certain classes of "Spiritualists," is a travesty, due to delusive spirits, of the "Marriage of Regeneration."
Regeneration does not affect the interior man only. A regenerate person may have his body such that no wounds will cause death.
When a person dies, a portion of the soul remains unconsumed,--untransmuted, that is, into spirit. The soul is fluid, and between it and vapour is this analogy. When there is a large quantity of vapour in a small space it becomes condensed, and is thick and gross. But when a portion is removed, the rest becomes refined, and is rarer and purer. So it is with the soul. By the transmutation of a portion of its material the rest becomes finer, rarer, and purer, and continues to do so more and more until--after many incarnations, made good use of--the whole of the soul is absorbed into the Divine Spirit, and becomes one with God, making God so much the richer for the usury. This is the celestial Nirvāna.[4] But, though becoming pure Spirit, or God, the individual retains his individuality; so that instead of all being merged in the One, the One becomes Many. Thus has God become millions. We, too, are legion, and therein resemble God. God is multitudes and nations, and kingdoms, and tongues. And the sound of God is as the sound of many waters.
1. London. Spoken in trance at different times in 1880 and 1881. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 394, 413-414, 421-423. S. H. H.
2. Spirit, being the substance of all things, is in all things, but does not become the Spirit until, from being diffuse and abstract, it becomes, by Polarisation, concentrate and formulate,--from heat becoming flame. E. M.
3. See Appendix, note A.
4. Impurity, or the active principle in putrefaction and corruption. E. M.
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No. 13: Concerning Persephone, or the Soul's Descent into Matter[1] |
I SEE God under two modes, one static or passive, the other dynamic or active. As the former, God is original Life, Will, Power. As the latter, God is the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit and the Substance of God are one. At first there is perfect rest. Then comes a movement of rotation round itself, and Substance becomes first ether, and at length matter. Every ultimate particle of matter moves in ether, as do the planets, and has two poles, that is in the intercellular ether. Their rotation is intensely rapid; it makes me giddy to look; and by this movement comes creation. This is accomplished in six periods, and then there is Rest, and the whole is re-absorbed. Wherefore there is an incessant Putting-Forth for six "days," and a recurring Sabbath of Rest.
The more rapid the movement of the particles of his body, the more material is the man. Hence the object of the saint is to attain perfect quiescence, and thereby union with the Divine One. The "Philosopher's Stone" signifies in one aspect perfect quiescence, or the re-absorption of matter into spirit through the absence of motion.
Thus the rigidity we know as matter is caused by the incessant intense movement of spirit. This truth, for the Greeks, is represented by Demeter, who is all that is in motion and solid. And whereas motion is begotten of the Holy Spirit in time, her parents are Rhea and Saturn. Rhea is "the mother" of the Gods, and is the same as Nox, the original Darkness or Invisible Light of Divinity prior to manifestation in creation. And Persephone, or Proserpine, is the daughter of Demeter or Motion--or that which makes visible--by Ether. Persephone is the liquid or psychic part of man, which consists both of his true soul and his "fiery" or magnetic perisoul. And the story of the stealing of Persephone, or rape of Proserpine, relates to the "fixing of the volatile," whereby the astral part becomes coagulated into the material. Belonging thus, half to the body, or lower world, and half to the heavens and upper world, and thus linking the two together, she is said to spend six months of the year in Hades and six on Olympus. And she would be updrawn altogether to the latter, but that as the consequence of her eating a pomegranate, which--like the apple of Eve--is the symbol of illusion or matter, she is fixed in the lower world or body, whence her mother, Demeter, seeks to withdraw her.
You are to understand, further, that this descent of Persephone into Hades comes about not only through the continued motion of the particles of the soul, but also through their depolarisation from the central and Divine Will. The body ought to be in such a state that the man can indraw and re-absorb it. But Persephone, through following her own will, reversed the poles of her constituent substance, and caused this to become fixed. Whenever, as was the case with Jesus, the man is in union with the central will of his system, he has power to indraw and re-absorb his body. And one of the purposes of the Gospel story of the water being changed into wine, was to typify this transmutation. Animals never have this power, as they have no divine spirit, and, therefore, no central will, to polarise. Man has it only by the Spirit's descent into him. The eating of the pomegranate implies the reversal of the poles, and the illusion whereby the outer becomes the inner, and the individual polarises outwardly instead of centrally, and, so, becomes fixed and material.
1. London, March 23, 1881. Spoken in trance.
No. 14: Concerning The Genius Or Daimon
PART I
EVERY human spirit-soul has attached to him a genius or daimon, as with Socrates; a ministering spirit, as with the apostles; or an angel, as with Jesus. All these are but different names for the same thing. My genius says that he does not care for the term angel because it is misinterpreted. He prefers the Christian nomenclature, and to be called minister, as their office is to guide, admonish, and illumine.
My genius looks like Dante, and like him is always in red. And he has a cactus in his hand, which he says is my emblem. (Speaking of Dante, I see that Beatrice represents the soul. She is to him what the woman should be to the man.) He tells me to say that the best weapon against the astrals is prayer. Prayer means the intense direction of the will and desire towards the Highest; an unchanging intent to know nothing but the Highest. So long as Moses held up his hands towards heaven, the Israelites prevailed. When he dropped them, then the Amalekites. The genii are not fighting spirits, and cannot prevent evils. They were allowed to minister to Jesus only after his exhaustion in combat with the lower spirits. Only they are attacked by these, who are worth attacking.
I am to inform you that the genius never "controls" his client, never suffers the soul to step aside from the body to allow the entrance of another spirit. The person controlled by an astral or elemental, on the contrary, speaks not in his own person, but in that of the spirit controlling; and the gestures, expression, intonation, and pitch of voice, change with the obsessing spirit. A person prophesying speaks always in the first person, and says, either, "Thus saith the Lord," or "So says some one else," never losing his own personality. This is one sign of difference whereby to distinguish between the various orders of spirits.
Another sign, he says, whereby to distinguish extraneous spirits from one's genius, is this,--the genius is never absent. Provided the mind is in a condition to see, he is always present. Other spirits need times to be appointed and engagements to be made for certain hours, because they may be elsewhere at any moment. These spirits, moreover, know nothing of the Gods. Their very names are secrets from them, and if they have heard them they are, but names to them.[1] They are unable to grasp or conceive of anything beyond the atmosphere of their own circle. It is true that they speak of God, but it is without understanding the meaning of the word. The more negative the mind of the individual, the more ready and apt he is to receive these spirits. And, on the contrary, the more positive and pronounced the will of the individual, the more open he is to divine communication. The command always is--"To labour is to pray"; "To ask is to receive"; "To knock is to have the door open." "I have often said," says my genius, "Think for yourself. When you think inwardly, pray intensely, and imagine centrally, then you converse with God."
He knows, he says, concerning our immediate future, but will not tell. All he will say is this,--"Be sure there is trouble. No man ever got to the Land of Promise without going through the desert." Again he holds up to me the cactus, and he says: "Do not fret yourself about trying to get into the lucid state. In a short time it will be unnecessary to become somnolent at all." He tells me that to-night I shall recollect a great part of what has been said, and the next time more, and so on until my mind is quite clear on the subject. It is a weakness and an imperfection when the mind does not retain what has been said. At night, when my brain is free from disturbing influences, I recollect more perfectly all I have seen and heard. And this, he says, should always be the case, because my place is not taken by any other entity. No other spirit steps in to dispossess me. But it is I myself who see and hear and speak,--my spiritual self, that is.
The genius is linked to his client by a bond of soul-substance. Persistent ill-living weakens this bond, and after several incarnations--even to "seventy times seven"--thus ill-spent, the genius is freed and the soul definitively lost. It is not isolated crime, as murder, adultery, or incest, or even a repetition of these, which breaks this bond; but a continued condition of the heart in which the will of the individual is in persistent opposition to the Divine Will. For this is a state in which repentance is impossible. The condition most favourable to salvation and speedy emancipation from successive incarnations, is the attitude of willing obedience,--freedom and submission. The great object to be attained is emancipation from the body,--from the power and need of the body, that is.
In order the better to comprehend the procession of Spirit, it must be understood that Life may be represented by a triangle, at the apex of which is God. Of this triangle the two sides are formed by two streams, the one flowing outwards, the other upwards. The base may be taken to represent the material plane. Thus, from God proceed the Gods. From the Gods proceed all the hierarchy of heaven, with the various orders from the highest to the lowest. And the lowest is the order of the genii, or guardian angels. These rest on the material plane, but do not enter it. The other side of the triangle is a continuation of the base. The initiatory forms of the base of the triangle are the lowest expressions of life. These are the first expressions of incarnation, and of the stream which, unlike the first, flows inwards and upwards. The side of the triangle represented by this stream, culminates in the Christ, and empties itself into pure spirit, which is God. There are, consequently, spirits who, by their nature, never have been and never can be incarnate. And there are others who reach their perfection through incarnation. You will see, then, that the genii and the astrals have nothing in common. For the space contained in the triangle, and separating on the one hand the apex from the base, and on the other hand the two opposing sides, is a space occupied by the planetary fluid.
There are but two eternal generations,--that of the celestials who begin from the Spirit and are "begotten"; and that of the created entities who accrete a body exteriorly. The astrals are between these two. They are as planes which cannot focus the Divine Spirit, since their rays are reflected in all directions, and do not converge to a central point. They cannot know God. They are not microcosms. Man--alone of the created entities is a microcosm, and he is this because the Divine Spirit, the nucleolus, contains necessarily the potentiality of the whole celestial cell. In God are all the Gods included; and the nucleolus in the perfected created cell is, therefore, multiple. Every man is a planet, having sun, moon, and stars. The genius of a man is his satellite. Man is a planet. God--the God of the man--is his sun, and the moon of this planet is Isis, its initiator, or genius. The genius is made to minister to the man, and to give him light. But the light he gives is from God, and not of himself. He is not a planet but a moon, and his function is to light up the dark places of his planet.
The day and night of the microcosm, man, are its positive and passive, or projective and reflective states. In the projective state we seek actively outwards; we aspire and will forcibly; we hold active communion with the God without. In the reflective state we look inwards, we commune with our own heart; we indraw and concentrate ourselves secretly and interiorly. During this condition the "Moon" enlightens our hidden chamber with her torch, and shows us ourselves in our interior recess.
Who or what, then, is this moon? It is part of ourselves, and revolves with us. It is our celestial affinity,--of whose order is it said, "Their angels do always behold the face of My Father."
Every human soul has a celestial affinity, which is part of his system and a type of his spiritual nature. This angelic counterpart is the bond of union between the man and God; and it is in virtue of his spiritual nature that this angel is attached to him. Rudimentary creatures have no celestial affinity; but from the moment that the soul quickens, the cord of union is established.
It is in virtue of man's being a planet that he has a moon. If he were not fourfold, as is the planet, he could not have one. Rudimentary men are not fourfold. They have not the Spirit.
The genius is the moon to the planet man, reflecting to him the sun, or God, within him. For the divine Spirit which animates and eternises the man, is the God of the man, the sun that enlightens him. And this sun it is, and not the outer and planetary man, that his genius, as satellite, reflects to him. Thus attached to the planet, the genius is the complement of the man; and his "sex" is always the converse of the planet's. And because he reflects, not the planet, but the sun, not the man (as do the astrals), but the God, his light is always to be trusted.
The genius knows well only the things relating to the person to whom he ministers. About other things he has opinions only. The relation of the ministering spirit to his client, is very well represented by that of the Catholic confessor to his penitent. He is bound to keep towards every penitent profound secrecy as regards the affairs of other souls. If this were not the case, there would be no order, and no secret would be safe. The genius of each one knows about another person only so much as that other's genius chooses to reveal.
1. One of their commonest modes of deception is by the assumption of divine names; but their utterances are always pretentious and inane. E. M.
PART 2[1]
Now, there are two kinds of memory, the memory of the organism and the memory of the soul. The first is possessed by all creatures. The second, which is obtained by Recovery, belongs to the fully regenerate man. For the Divine Spirit of a man is not one with his soul until regeneration, which is the intimate union constituting what, mystically, is called the "marriage of the hierophant."
When this union takes place, there is no longer need of an initiator; for then the office of the genius is ended. For, as the moon, Isis, or "Mother," of the planet man, the genius reflects to the soul the Divine Spirit, with which she is not Yet fully united. In all things is order. Wherefore, as with the planets, so with the microcosm. They who are nearest Divinity, need no moon. But so long as they have night,--so long, that is, as any part of the soul remains unilluminated, and her memory or perception obscure,--so long the mirror of the angel continues to reflect the sun to the soul.
For the memory of the soul is recovered by a threefold operation,--that of the soul herself, of the moon, and of the sun. The genius is not an informing spirit. He can tell nothing to the soul. All that she receives is already within herself. But in the darkness of the night, it would remain there undiscovered, but for the torch of the angel who enlightens. "Yea," says the angel genius to his client, "I illuminate thee, but I instruct thee not. I warn thee, but I fight not. I attend, but I lead not. Thy treasure is within thyself. My light sheweth where it lieth."
When regeneration is fully attained, the divine Spirit alone instructs the hierophant. "For the gates of his city shall never be shut; there shall be no night there; the night shall be no more. And they shall not need the light of the lamp, because the Lord God shall enlighten them." The prophet is a man illumined by his angel. The Christ is a man married to the Spirit. And he returns out of pure love to redeem, needing no more to return to the flesh for his own sake. Wherefore he is said to come down from heaven. For he hath attained, and is a medium for the Highest. He baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and with the Divine Fire itself. He is always "in heaven." And in that he ascendeth, it is because the Spirit uplifteth him, even the Spirit who descendeth upon him. "And in that he descendeth, it is because he has first ascended beyond all spheres into the highest Presence. For he that ascendeth, ascendeth because he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also who ascendeth above all the heavens, to fill all things." Such an one returns, therefore, from a higher world; he belongs no more to the domain of Dionysos. But he comes from the "sun" itself, or from some nearer sphere to the sun than ours; having passed from the lowest upwards.
And what of the genius himself? I asked. Is he sorry when his client attains perfection, and needs him no more?
And he said, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. And he that standeth by rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." I return, therefore, to my source, for my mission is ended, and my Sabbath is come. And I am one with the twain.
Here he led me into a large chamber where I saw four bullocks lying slaughtered upon altars, and a number of persons standing round in the act of adoration. And above, in the fumes arising from the spirits of the blood, were misty colossal shapes, half-formed, from the waist upwards, and resembling the Gods. And he said "These are Astrals. And thus will they do until the end of the world."[2]
After this instruction concerning the degradation of religion through the materialisation of the spiritual doctrine of sacrifice, he resumed:--
The genius, then, remains with his client so long as the man is fourfold. A beast has no genius. A Christ has none. For first, all is latent light. That is one. And this one becomes two; that is, body and astral body. And these two become three; that is, a rational soul is born in the midst of the astral body. This rational soul is the true Person. From that moment, therefore, this personality is an individual existence, as a plant or as an animal. These three become four; that is, human. And the fourth is the Nous, not yet one with the soul, but overshadowing it, and transmitting light as it were through a glass, that is, through the initiator. But when the four become three,--that is, when the "marriage" takes place, and the soul and spirit are indissolubly united,--there is no longer need either of migration or of genius. For the Nous has become one with the soul, and the cord of union is dissolved. And yet again, the three become twain at the dissolution of the body; and again, the twain become one, that is, the Christ-spirit-soul. The Divine Spirit and the genius, therefore, are not to be regarded as diverse, nor yet as identical. The genius is flame, and is celestial; that is, he is spirit, and one in nature with the Divine; for his light is the divine light. He is as a glass, as a cord, as a bond between the soul and her divine part. He is the clear atmosphere through which the divine ray passes, making a path for it in the astral medium.
In the celestial plane, all things are personal. And therefore the bond between the soul and spirit is a person. But when a man is "born again," he no longer needs the bond which unites him to his divine source. The genius, or flame, therefore, returns to that source; and this being itself united to the soul, the genius also becomes one with the twain. For the genius is the divine light in the sense that he is but a divided tongue of it, having no isolating vehicle. But the tincture of this flame differs according to the celestial atmosphere of the particular soul. The divine light, indeed, is white, being seven in one. But the genius is a flame of a single colour only. And this colour he takes from the soul, and by that ray transmits to her the light of the Nous, her divine spouse. The angel-genii are of all the tinctures of all the colours.
I have said that in the celestial plane all things are personal, but in the astral plane they are reflects. The genius is a person because he is a celestial, and of soul-spirit, or substantial nature. But the astrals are of fluidic nature, having no personal part. In the celestial plane, spirit and substance are one, dual in unity; and thus are all celestials constituted. But in the astral plane they have no individual, and no divine part. They are protoplasmic only, without either nucleus or nucleolus.
The voice of the genius is the voice of God; for God speaks through him as a man through the horn of a trumpet. Thou mayest not adore him, for he is the instrument of Cod, and thy minister. But thou must obey him, for he hath no voice of his own, but sheweth thee the will of the Spirit.
1. London, May 28, 1881. Received in sleep. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, pp. 12-14.
2 Meaning, "the end of materialism in Religion" (see Part I, No. V (2), p. 15, note). S. H. H.
No. 15: Concerning The "Powers Of The Air"[1]
PART I
I SAW last night in my sleep my genius clothed with a red flame and standing in a dark place. He held in his hand a cup, into which he bade me look. I did so, and as I looked a mist gathered in the cup like a cloud; and I saw in the cloud spirits wrestling with each other. Then the cup seemed to widen, until it became a great table upon which scenes and words were written. And I saw the vapour filled with astral spirits, ephemeral, flame-like, chimerical; and upon the mist which enveloped and swept around them was written, "The Powers of the Air."
And I said to my genius, "Are these the spirits which control mediums?" And he said, "Do not use that word Medium; for it is misleading. These are the powers which affect and influence Sensitives.[2] They do not control, for they have no force. They are light as vapour. See!" Then he breathed on the table, and they were dispersed on all sides like smoke. And I said, "Whence do these spirits come, and what is their origin and nature?" And he answered,--"They are Reflects. They have no real entity in themselves. They resemble mists which rise from the damp earth of low-lying lands, and which the heat of the sun disperses. Again, they are like vapours in high altitudes, upon which if a man's shadow falls he beholds himself as a giant. For these spirits invariably flatter and magnify a man to himself. And this is a sign whereby you may know them. They tell one that he is a king; another, that he is a Christ; another, that he is the wisest of mortals, and the like. For, being born of the fluids of the body, they are unspiritual and live of the body."
"Do they, then," I asked, "come from within the man?"
"All things," he replied, "come from within. A man's foes are they of his own household."
"And how," I asked, "may we discern the astrals from the higher spirits?"
"I have told you of one sign;--they are flattering spirits. Now I will tell you of another. They always depreciate woman. And they do this because their deadliest foe is the Intuition. And these, too, are their signs. Is there anything strong? they will make it weak. Is there anything wise? they will make it foolish. Is there anything sublime? they will distort and travesty it. And this they do because they are exhalations of matter, and have no spiritual nature. Hence they pursue and persecute the Woman continually, sending after her a flood of eloquence like a torrent to sweep her away. But it shall be in vain. For God shall carry her to His throne, and she shall tread on the necks of them.
"Therefore the high Gods will give through a woman the interpretation which alone can save the world. A woman shall open the gates of the kingdom to mankind, because intuition only can redeem. Between the woman and the astrals there is always enmity; for they seek to destroy her and her office, and to put themselves in her place. They are the delusive shapes who tempted the saints of old with exceeding beauty and wiles of love, and great show of affection and flattery. Oh, beware of them when they flatter, for they spread a net for thy soul."
"Am I, then," I asked, "in danger from them? Am I, too, a Sensitive?" And he said,--
"No, you are a Poet. And in that is your strength and your salvation. Poets are the children of the Sun, and the Sun illumines them. No poet can be vain or self-exalted; for he knows that he speaks only the words of God. 'I sing,' he says, 'because I must.' Learn a truth which is known only to the Sons of God. The Spirit within you is divine. It is God. When you prophesy and when you sing, it is the Spirit within you which gives you utterance. It is the 'New Wine of Dionysos.' By this Spirit your body is enlightened, as a lamp by the flame within it. Now, the flame is not the oil, for the oil may be there without the light. Yet the flame cannot be there without the oil. Your body, then, is the lamp-case into which the oil is poured. And this--the oil--is your soul, a fine and combustible fluid. And the flame is the divine Spirit, which is not born of the oil, but is conveyed to it by the hand of God. You may quench this Spirit utterly, and thenceforward you will have no immortality; but when the lamp-case breaks, the oil will be spilt on the earth, and a few fumes will for a time arise from it, and then it will expend itself and leave at last no trace. Some oils are finer and more spontaneous than others. The finest is that of the soul of the poet. And in such a medium the flame of God's Spirit burns more clearly, and powerfully, and brightly, so that sometimes mortal eyes can hardly endure its brightness. Of such a one the soul is filled with holy raptures. He sees as no other man sees, and the atmosphere about him is enkindled. His soul becomes transmuted into flame; and when the lamp of his body is shattered, his flame mounts and soars, and is united to the Divine Fire. Can such a one, think you, be vainglorious, or self-exalted, and lifted up? Oh, no, he is one with God, and knows that without God he is nothing. I tell no man that he is a reincarnation of Moses, of Elias, or of Christ. But I tell him that he may have the Spirit of these if, like them, he be humble and self-abased, and obedient to the Divine Word.
"Do not, then, seek after 'controls.' Keep your temple for the Lord God of Hosts; and turn out of it the money-changers, the dove-sellers, and the dealers in curious arts, yea, with a scourge of cords if need be."
1. London, November 17, 1880. See Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 391-393.
2. That this is not intended to be an exhaustive account of the experiences of Sensitives will be seen from Nos. XXXIX, XL, and XLVI.
PART 2[1]
"The astral existences, although they are not intelligent personalities, are frequently the media of intelligent ideas, and operate as means of communication between intelligent personalities. Ideas, words, sentences, whole systems of philosophy, may be borne in on the consciousness by means of the currents of magnetic force, as solid bodies are conveyed on a stream, though water is no intelligent agent. The minutest cell is an entity, for it has the power of self-propagation, which the astral has not. It is an imprint only, a shadow, a reflect, an echo.
"The atmosphere with which a man surrounds himself--his soul's respiration--affects the astral fluid. Reverberations of his own ideas come back to him. His soul's breath colours and savours what a sensitive conveys to him. But he may also meet with contradictions, with a systematic presentation of doctrine or of counsels at variance with his own personal views, through his mind not being sufficiently positive to control all the manifestations of the electric agent. The influence of the medium, moreover, through which the words come, interposes. Or, as is often the case, a magnetic battery of thought has overcharged the element and imparted to it a certain current. Thus, new doctrines are "in the air," and spread like wildfire. One or two strongly positive minds give the initiative; and the impulse flies through the whole mass of latent light, correspondingly influencing all who are in relation with it.
"In man the astral fluid becomes transformed into human life at the moment of conception. It is the envelope of the soul, and constitutes the sideral body, which, in its turn, is the generator of the external body. The internal man--he who ultimately is immortal--consists of soul and spirit. The sideral phantom and the outer body are perishable, save when they undergo transmutation during the tenancy of the soul and spirit. Hence the sideral body, being the generator of sense, is the "Tempter," which--inclining to matter--gives matter the precedence over spirit. Of time and of sense, it beguiles the intuitive part of man. In this way spirit and matter represent, respectively, good and evil. For, in the day that thou givest thyself over to matter, thou becomest liable to extinction."
1. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 400-402.
No. 16: Concerning The Devil and Devils[1]
BEING unable to reconcile the statement that there is no personal Devil, but that what is called the Devil is simply the negation of God, with the evidences of the possession of individuals by devils or evil spirits, I received in my sleep this explanation.
"There is no supreme personal positive evil existence such as the Devil is ordinarily supposed to be. There is only the negation of God, which is to God what darkness is to light, the outermost void to the solar system. But there are evil spirits, the souls of bad men on their downward road to final extinction. And these are wont to associate themselves with persons in the flesh for whom they have affinity, partly in order to gratify their evil propensities by inciting them to wickedness and mischief, and partly to obtain from them the vitality necessary to prolong their own existence. Sometimes they are so low in vitality that a sentence of expulsion from the person in whom they have taken refuge, involves their immediate extinction, unless they can find other location, though it be only in an animal. And this was the case with the devils whom Jesus, on expelling them, suffered to enter into the herd of swine. For it is the fact that the disorders of men do in some cases result from their possession by distinct personal entities as foreign and evil spirits, and are not merely disorders of their own physical constitution. Evil spirits have no chief, no organisation, or solidarity, nothing that corresponds to God. The worse they are the lower they are, and the nearer to extinction. The conditions which attract them are due to men themselves.
1. Paris, October 26, 1877.
No. 17: Concerning The Gods[1]
A TRUE Idea is the reflect of a true Substance. It is because religious ideas are true ideas that they are common to all ages and peoples; the differences being of expression merely, and due to the variation of density and character of the magnetic atmosphere through which the image passes. The fact that every nation in every age has conceived, in some shape, of the Gods, constitutes of itself a proof that the Gods really are. For Nothing projects no image upon the magnetic light; and where an image is universally perceived, there is certainly an object which projects it. An Idea, inborn, ineradicable, constant, which sophism, ridicule, or false science has power to break only, but not to dispel: -an image which, however disturbed, invariably returns on itself and re-forms, as does the image of the sky or the stars in a lake, however the reflecting water may be momentarily shaken by a stone or a passing vessel:--such an image as this is necessarily the reflection of a real and true thing, and no illusion begotten of the water itself.
In the same manner the constant idea of the Gods, persistent in all minds in all ages, is a true image; for it is verily, and in no metaphoric sense, the projection upon the human perception of the Eidola of the Divine persons. The Eidolon is the reflection of a true object in the magnetic atmosphere; and the magnetic atmosphere is a transparent medium, through which the soul receives sensations. For sensation is the only means of knowledge, whether for the body or for the reason. The body perceives by means of the five avenues of touch. The soul perceives in like manner by the same sense, but of a finer sort, and put into action by subtler agents. The soul can know nothing not perceptible; and nothing not perceptible is real. For that which is not can give no image. Only that which is can be reflected.
[1. London, December 20, 1880. Spoken in trance. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, p. 412.]
No. 18: Concerning The Greek Mysteries[1]
IN the celebration of the mysteries of Phoibos Apollo, it was forbidden to eat anything upon which terrestrial fire had passed. Wherefore all the food of his votaries was sun-baked, and his chief sacrifice consisted in fruits from high trees ripened by the sun's rays.
With these mysteries of Apollo were associated those of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen, because both man and woman are admitted to the highest; and also because Eve and Adam, being thus initiated, were eaters only of fruits uncooked; and, in one of the historical senses of the allegory, Eve and Adam were the first Messengers. It was, therefore, an offence against Phoibos and Zeus for their votaries to eat anything on which fire had passed, or any fermented wine. Their wine was the pure juice of the grape drunken new, and their bread was unleavened and sun-baked.
The last Messengers must be initiated, as were Eve and Adam, into these inmost and highest mysteries of the perfect humanity, which constitute the highest of all castes, and entitle those who attain to them to sit on the golden seats.[2]
These mysteries have also an inward significance which is not hard to find.
In the mysteries of Phoibos and Zeus, the initiated attained to the condition of a grand Hierophant. ("See! I tell you all things.") He was enlightened by the "sun," and was in the fourth interior circle of spirits, which is that of the Christs of God.[3] To this interior circle Jesus of Nazareth aimed to pass after his resuscitation; as was implied when he said, "I will drink no more of the grape until I drink its blood new in the kingdom of God."
In the mysteries of Hermes, the second circle,--the God who guards the Soul,--it was forbidden to eat any creature which had life, or, rather, which had seeing eyes.[4] For Hermes is the Seer. His votaries partook only of vegetable food, which might be cooked with terrestrial fire, and of wine, which might be fermented.
Next in order were the orgies of Her who rose from the sea; and in these the initiates might eat fish which are truly fish, having fins and scales, but baked with fire, not raw. Wherefore as that
Goddess is the Angel of Harmony, or of the Sweet Song, the eating of fish became a symbol of brotherly love and union; and two small fishes together was the mystical type of little children dwelling together in unity or charity.[5] For fishes swim in pairs; and He who fished for men drew them unto him by love. And all fishers were under the protection of the Sea-Queen. There are two mystical truths belonging to the mysteries of Maria the Sea-Star; and they are, in their interior sense, the two fishes which Jesus imparted to the multitude. Of this I shall tell you more afterwards when I speak to you of the twelve baskets of bread. For these are the baskets which the twelve virgins carried in the divine orgies.
In the mysteries of Bacchos it was permitted to the outer circle to eat, if indeed they would, of all flesh save of the unclean. This is, they might eat of all clean beasts of the field and birds of the air. This was the fourth and lowest caste. But the votaries of Iacchos (the mystic Bacchos), having known all the higher rites, abstained from these things, though they allowed them to the multitude who are in the body only. For none of those who worshipped Dionysos (or Iacchos) were uninitiated in the rites of Demeter and Aphrodite. And for this reason there were substituted for the mysteries of Dionysos those of Ceres, the Earth Mother, in which the use of flesh was entirely prohibited. For this reason also one hears not of the mysteries of Bacchos save in connection with wine, whether fermented or not; for the interior significance of his rites had reference to the truth and meaning of things. The orgies of Ceres and Bacchos were therefore united, the Goddess being honoured in her bread, and the God in his chalice of truth. For in that these are body and spirit, solid and fluid, outer and inner, they comprise all things in earth and in heaven.
And beyond the circle of Dionysos lay yet another--that of a God who also had indeed his orgies, but these were forbidden save in certain fierce nations and barbarous times. For in the mysteries of Ares, the Man of War, they sacrificed and ate human flesh and the flesh of horses, which also war together with man. For this circle is outside the kingdom of the fourfold circles, and belongeth to the beasts of prey. And his star is red, as with the blood of the slain. But the orgies of Ares the Ram-headed no man celebrated save in war; and he who knew the God spared not his life, but freely sacrificed himself. For it was an abomination to eat at the altar of Ares in time of peace.
Yet hath Ares also his interior meaning:--O Knowledge, thou art hard of access! The Horse (which is the symbol of the intellect) dieth for thee, and the Warrior is pierced. Thou art the Man of War, and of iron are the wheels of thy chariot!
The Hebrew Scriptures describe the Lord Jehovah, or Logos, as operating as the Spirit of the fifth circle, when they speak of God as a Man of War. And the book of Wisdom (xviii. 15) thus represents Him. For the Divine Word takes many forms, appearing sometimes as one, sometimes as another, of His Seven Angels, or Elohim. These are only Seven, because this number comprises all the Spirits of God. So that when the seventh is passed, the octave begins again, and the same series of processes is repeated without, as reflects--becoming by distance weaker and weaker--of the same Seven Lights.
See that above all things you teach the doctrine of Caste. The Christians made a serious mistake in requiring the same rule of all persons. Castes are as ladders whereby to ascend from the lower to the higher. They are, properly, spiritual grades, and bear no relation to the outward condition of life. Like all other doctrines, that of caste has been materialised. The castes are four in number, and correspond to the fourfold nature of man.
The Daimons, Guardian Angels, or Genii belong to the order of Seraphs, or Serpents of Light, which surround and spring from the supreme orb. Hence the idea of the serpent as a fallen angel, the astrals being serpents of fire, springing from Hades, or the lower--the material and astral--world, which is the obverse of the upper.
Venus, or Aphrodite, is celestial Harmony,--that binding power of sympathy which purifies, enlightens, and beautifies. The Apple in her hand is the Kosmos (denoting the world sustained and redeemed by Love).
The Owl, sacred to Pallas, and the Cat to Hermes, are types of the Seer. For Wisdom and Understanding can behold things in dark places.
The Spoiling of the Egyptians has a secondary reference to the appropriation of their sacred mysteries by the Hebrews. The primary reference is to the enrichment and edification of the soul by means of the lessons obtained through the experiences of the body, symbolised as Egypt.
Air, Pallas, is the offspring of Ether, Jupiter, or original Substance in its masculine aspect. Ether is universally diffused, penetrating everywhere, or, rather, impossible to be excluded from anywhere. The whirling atoms of the densest solids revolve in ether, as do the planets in space. In a sense Ether is space.
The Soul, Persephone, is the daughter of Earth, Demeter or Motion, and of Ether, Zeus or Rest, respectively the visible and invisible. To him who knows the mysteries of Demeter or Ceres, the eating of flesh is an abomination.
These mysteries contained, among other things, the relation of the soul to the elements by which on either side it is beset, namely, to motion and matter on the outer side, and to rest and spirit on the inner. Hence Demeter and her mysteries are of profound import, and relate to secrets the most interior. As the force which causes spirit to become manifest as matter or earth, she is the Earth-Mother and the power whereby germination occurs. Constituting all that is fixed and solid, she is creation, or manifestation through action or motion, the invisible made visible. And to her is due the phenomenal or illusive by which her daughter Persephone--or the soul--is drawn outwards and downwards. Illusion, the "fiery" or electric body generated of motion, and operating as a veil to hide the inner reality, is Maya and Glamour; and the soul following this is carried off to Hades by its ruler Pluto (the God especially of riches, themselves, illusive as products of the earth). Eating of the Mystic Pomegranate (the "Apple" of Eve), the volatile becomes alchemically fixed, the soul is incorporated with the body, and in part, at least, materialised, and is no longer "virgin" or pure, because wedded to flesh and sense. At the entreaty of her mother, who fears her total immersion in matter, and consequent final loss, Zeus grants that she may divide her existence between the two worlds or conditions, the earthly and the heavenly, being--while in the lower--Queen of the Shades or those who sleep, being unconscious of things spiritual.
Thus the volatile or astral body, which is the immediate manifestation of the soul, is the daughter--or product--of Motion; and Motion is the daughter of Time (Kronos or Saturn), and of Substance, which is Rhea, or the Holy Spirit in its feminine aspect. This last is the Great Mother, the original Panthea. The production of the material body by the fixing of the particles of the volatile body comes of the reversal of the poles of those particles through the outward tendency of the will of the individual, and its separation or divergence from the divine or central will.
The force whereby Zeus, the central spirit, produces the soul or ethereal body, and which also the soul uses to project itself still further, is the same force whereby the system is transmuted and indrawn again to its divine centre and made volatile. The force is one, it is the will and direction that are various.
In one application Persephone is the grain of wheat, Ceres the soil, and Hades the darkness which hides the seed, until under solar influence it emerges and returns to the light. It was through a misunderstanding of the mysteries of Ceres, and of the true meaning of the resurrection of the body, that the custom of burning the dead was given up for that of burying them.
The Gods of the elements, Athena (air), Poseidon (water), Hephaistos (fire), and Demeter (earth), are among the greatest, and are close to the throne, having universal sway, inasmuch as their empire is universal.[6]
1. London, March 27, 1881. Received in sleep.
2. See No. XXII. also Dreams and Dream-Stories, No. IX.
3. Comp. Hymn to Phoibos, Part II, No. XI.]
4.. Comp. Hermes to his Neophytes, Part II, No. XII, pt. 2.
5. Comp. Hymn of Aphrodite, Part II, No. XIV (2).]
6.. See Part II, No. XIII, pt. 2, and Appendix, note R.
No. 19: Concerning The Origin Of Evil, and The Tree As The Type Of Creation
PART I[1]
SPEAK of the Tree and of its meaning. Of this the Hindūs understand more than you, for they represent their gods with many arms. This is because they recognise the fact that the type of all existence is a Tree, and that God's universal symbol is that of the vegetable kingdom. It is for this reason that the Tree was planted in the midst of the garden, forasmuch as it was and is the type of all existence, the centre from which radiates the whole of creation. Let the insight of the Hindūs instruct you on this matter.
"You have demanded also the origin of Evil. This is a great subject, and we would have withheld it from you longer, but that it seems to us now that you are in need of it. Understand, then, that evil is the result of creation. For creation is the projection of spirit into matter; and with this projection came the first germ of evil. We would have you know that there is no such thing as purely spiritual evil, but that evil is the result of the materialisation of spirit. If you examine carefully all we have said to you concerning the various forms of evil, you will see that every one is the result of the limitations of matter. Falsehood is the limitation of the faculty of perception; selfishness is the result of the limitation of the power to perceive that the whole universe is but the larger Self; and so of all the rest. It is, then, true that God created evil; but yet it is true that God is Spirit, and being Spirit, is incapable of evil. Evil is then, purely and solely, the result of the materialisation of God. This is a great mystery. We can but indicate it to-night."
1. Paris, July 21, 1877. This part was written down by the seeress herself while in trance. Part 2 was spoken in the same condition immediately afterwards. E. M.
Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 181-182.]
PART 2
I see a lake, vast and deep and bright. I am not certain whether it is lake or sea. It has no borders that I can perceive. Its waters are so clear that I could see the pebbles shining at the bottom, if it had one. It is overspread by a flood of nebulous light, evenly diffused in all parts; and now, as I look, the light has become concentrated into flowers, and between them are spaces of darkness caused by the withdrawal of the light into the flowers. It is a vast floating garden of flowers, and in the midst of the garden is a Tree. The tree spreads out its arms everywhere. The garden is creation, the tree is God. And the tree seems in some way to be the flowers, and the flowers belong to the tree. I cannot discern the material of the tree; it evades me as I look. It is not matter; it is the substance of matter, the divinity underlying it. God is not light, but that of which light itself is the manifestation. God willed it to be. Light is the result of God's will. God said, "Let light be"; and it was. Matter is the intensification of Idea.[1] All things are made of God's thought. God is Spirit, and the substance of things. I see two forces ever in operation. They are the centrifugal and the centripetal. And they are one; yes, one and the same, for, I see the force rebound back to God. Creation is ever being projected from God as from a luminous centre; it is always being drawn back again also. Some parts refuse to return; they go into outer space; they are lost. Let me see,--can it be that they pass beyond the sphere of the Divine attraction? Yes; I see that it is so, and oh! they are lost. The Spirit is withdrawn; it is as if it were sucked out of them, and they wander away into darkness, and expend themselves. The rest, who approach God, develop the Spirit in them, becoming more and more like God. God is the richer for them. They continue to exist. They return, but do not become lost in God.
I thought I was describing orbs in space, projected from a central sun around which they circled; but, looking closer, I see them as individuals. They have become persons. It must be that the method of creation is the same for all.
God subsisted prior to creation; there was a time when God did not create; it was God's Sabbath of rest. Such Sabbaths recur,--when there is no material universe. This is when the Divine mind ceases from thinking. For God to think is to create. Matter itself is a result of the Divine thought; it was first produced by the intensification of Idea. It appears to me that its first form was like water-fluidic. Spirit is Divinity itself. God is dual. I see, on looking closer, that through this duality God produces creation. Evil is caused by creation, or the projection of spirit into matter; that is, it is spirit which, by being projected far enough from the Divine centre,[2] becomes matter. Perception is one; the senses are specialised modes of perception. God is perception itself. God is universal percipience. God is both that which sees and that which is seen. If we all could see all, hear all, touch all, and so forth, there would be no evil, for evil comes of the limitation of perception. Such limitation was necessary, if God was to produce aught other than God. Aught other than God must be less than God. Without evil, therefore, God would have remained alone. All things are God, according to the measure of the spirit in them. And now I see that the nearest of all to God is a woman.[3]
1. Compare No. XXXI.
2. The centre, that is, of the Divine operation, not of the Divine Being. E. M.
3. As type of the feminine or love aspect of the Divine Nature. E. M.
No. 20: Concerning The Great Pyramid, And The Initiations Therein[1]
SEE the Great Pyramid, and can tell you all about it. My genius informs me that the number of the pyramids in Egypt corresponds to the number of the mysteries of the Gods. No one has yet rightly found out the purpose of the great one. It was built simply in order to serve in initiations. I see a candidate and seven or eight hierophants going in procession with torches through the passages. Each passage represents a mystery, the chief one leading to the "king's chamber." This represents the greater mysteries. The "queen's chamber" represents the lesser mysteries. The coffer in the king's chamber is a measure representing the standard of the perfect Humanity. And in this the candidate was laid on his final initiation.
It appears to me that I was once there myself. My sensations about it are like a memory. It was not built to be a prophecy, but it may serve as a prophecy. In it is symbolised all the Wanderings in the Desert,--the history, that is, of the soul in the wilderness of the body. In representing the soul of the individual, it represents the soul also of the race, and thus is really a prophecy.
The new birth takes place in the king's chamber. It is the last stage. A person may be initiated several times in various incarnations; but he is regenerated once for all. The "baptism" took place in the queen's chamber. It belonged to the lesser mysteries. It is neither initiation nor regeneration, but purification. There are four stages to be passed before final initiation. They correspond to the four elements, earth, fire, water, and air; and they relate respectively to the four corresponding divisions of man's nature,--the body, the phantom or perisoul, the soul, and the spirit, which are the four rivers of Eden. And the candidate has to be tested and proved in each of them by the tempter."
The initiate was accompanied by his sponsor or "mother," a priestess or Sibyl. The central secret of the Mysteries was the tree of life in the midst of the garden; Immortality, the secret of Transmutation, or of changing "water" (substance) into "wine" (spirit). This, "Issa"--the son of Isis--or Jesus, is alone able to do. O incomprehensible secret, who shall understand thee! A soul, as has already been said, may be initiated more than once, in several lives, but only once regenerated. For she-the soul-can only once be born of the spirit, or "wisdom." To be regenerate is to be born into spiritual life, and to have united the individual will with the Divine Will.
This union of the two wills constitutes the spiritual marriage, the accomplishment of which is in the Gospels represented under the parable of the marriage at Cana of Galilee. This divine marriage, or union of the human and Divine Wills, is indissoluble; whence the idea of the indissolubility of human marriage. And inasmuch as it is a marriage of the spirit of man to that of God, and of the Spirit of God to that of man, it is a double marriage.
I see the ceremony actually taking place. The hierophant represents the Divine Spirit; and he and the candidate face each other, and crossing their arms grasp each with each hand a hand of the other. A soul may be partially and transiently illuminated by the Spirit; the Spirit may even descend upon an individual and make him a prophet, and pass away leaving him unregenerate, and out of the kingdom of God,--as occurred to John the Baptist. But it is the divine marriage only which constitutes regeneration, the sacrament of eternal marriage. Of this intimate union the soul itself is reborn, and its inmost recesses divinely illuminated. Of such marriage as this the Patriarchs were ignorant. Their connection with the Spirit was fitful and transient, and they were therefore represented as living in concubinage.
We have herein the reason why the Cup is denied to the laity. "Of every tree," it is said to the uninitiate Adam, "thou mayest freely communicate. But of the tree of knowledge thou mayest not communicate." The wine is the spirit of interior truth, the understanding of which gives eternal life; and to this the people cannot yet attain. They may receive only the bread, which represents only the element of substance. This, however, contains also the spirit, although unmanifested and unrecognised.
I now see the pyramid distinctly. It was built entirely for initiations, so far as its builders were concerned. In these ceremonials the Reed played an important part, and in sacred mythos generally. Thus, Moses was placed in a basket of reeds.
The Hindū divinity Kartikya was sheltered in infancy by reeds. The mysteries of Ceres, or Demeter, were carried in baskets of reeds, called canephorę; and the final stage in the initiation of Jesus is placed at Cana. A reed also was placed in his hand at his condemnation. And the virgin in the sacred marriage initiation also bore a reed with a cup on it. This is because, growing in and out of the water, which denotes the soul, and being a straight rod, the reed denotes the spirit. In India the Lotus has the same significance. I perceive that Jesus had been initiated in the mysteries of India and Egypt long before he was incarnated as Jesus, and he appears to me as having been a Brahmin.
The Egyptians and Hindūs appear to be of the same race, having their mysteries in common. For I am shown one of each people riding together on an elephant. Both countries were colonised at the same time from Thibet, and from thence all the mysteries proceeded.[2] In Egypt the initiations were generally in pyramids and temples. In India and Palestine they were underground, in caves. In Cana of Galilee there is a large cave, which was used for the purpose, with a "banqueting" room.
I am counting the pyramids. I see thirty-six, but I think there are more.[3]
1. London, March 22, 1881. Spoken in trance. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, p. 3.
2. Herein is suggested yet another application of the parable of the Deluge. Thibet, like Thebes, signifies Ark; and if, as long supposed, it was once the sole home of spiritual knowledge in the world and centre whence it was diffused, it may be said of the ancient Thibetan mysteries as of the dwellers in the Ark, "Of them was the whole earth overspread." The facts are noteworthy that Thibet is the highest table-land on the globe, and that the word Ararat is identical with the word Arhat, the Hindu term for the summit of spiritual attainment. E. M.
3. Concerning the method of recovery of these recollections, see note at end of No. XXXII.
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