An Adept on "The Occult Brothers"
It has given me great pleasure to read the able and impartial review of Mr. Sinnett’s book, The Occult World, in the latest numbers of The Spiritualist. While agreeing with the view you have taken of the Occultism of the Theosophical Society, I would only state that the phenomena attendant upon real Adeptship are on an entirely different plane from Spiritualism.
Of these phenomena very confused accounts have hitherto been given in books relating to the Occult. In order to render further mystification impossible, I intend to define in a future article the “Grades of Magic,” whereby your readers will be able to differentiate the phenomena pertaining to adeptship from those of mere mediumship. I will also endeavour to elucidate briefly how those things are done.
The age of mystery is past. Let those who know tell what they know, that it may be known whether their knowledge is worth knowing. However, I do not promise that all who read the article shall become thereby adepts. “One must be born a magician,” says Paracelsus: but by a right initiation and a aright mode of lite, even one who is not hereditarily gifted for the occult may accomplish more than one who is a born magician, yet who does not live the life required for the exercises of this supreme gift.
One thing in our art is incommunicable, and that is the absolute. An adept can teach how one should live in order to attain to the absolute, but no man or spirit can impart it. This Part of the secret, the absolute itself, being incommunicable no unworthy being can become an adept. For the absolute is omniscient, it is latent; in the unregenerate, and manifest in regenerate soul, and although unwise assertions may have been made to the contrary the absolute is God, and not a spirit. The secret is therefore quite safe, for no one can deceive his own divine soul. The manifestation of the occult will only take place when spirit and soul, the volitional and involitional parts of our being are in a state of purity.
Incidental reference having been made to me in the said review, and the question being put whether I am one of “the Brothers,” I beg to reply that I know nothing of their existence. My Hierophant is a Western gentleman, but acting upon the experience “Nulla propheta in patriu,”he prefers to remain unknown to all except a small circle of private friends.
Our Hermetic circle excludes the world, because the world will persistently exclude itself. We will not “compel them to enter.”
One need not be on the Himalayas to be in a safe retreat. The adept's inaccessible retreat is his own soul, consequently I carry the Himalayas always about with me, and in the midst of London I am quite safe in my retreat, for no stranger will ascend to my mountain-top; for if a man does come to be on equal footing with me, then I regard him not as a stranger, but as a brother.
If the Hindoo or Thibetan “Brothers” are on the Soul-plane, then we too of the Western Hermetic Circle may be regarded as “Brothers.” If, on the other hand, they are external to the Soul-plane, be their performances ever so astonishing, truth is its own law, and force is not an illustration of truth; we care not for what they may know, if their knowledge is not divine, for we are aware that even as there is a true and divine Kabbalah, culminating in God, there is also a false and diabolic practice that culminates in Slave-Magic, i.e., enslaving spirits to do one’s will, More information on this subject will be given in the article on Magic.
After making attentive enquiries concerning the existing Hindoo Adepts, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the Yogis are deceitful lazy beggars. At best—mediums. A few of the Yogis however, are on a higher plane. These latter are good beneficent beings who heal disease by means of their pure and powerful influence; they direct spiritual searchers to the Om within, and, although they do not gain notoriety by a tragic end, their life, which is passed in the love of Om, or of God, will bear comparison with the life of Jesus.
The performances of “the Brothers” can be discerned as white magic, in as far as they are given. Ho one tells us whether they know that there is a still higher, a divine magic, and whether they practice it.
If one of “the Brothers” had come openly with his magical power, healing the diseased and teaching the true doctrine in the manner of Jesus, we should at once have known who and what he was. But the way they (if they exist) have set about their work in order to teach, or rather not to teach, what they presumably know, renders it impossible to decide what they really are and whether they exist at all.
If they are true adepts they have not shown much woridly wisdom, and the organisation which is to inculeate their doctrine is a complete <... continues on page 11-124 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ An Adept on "The Occult Brothers" by J.K., London Spiritualist, No. 461, July 24, 1881, pp. 293-94
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 461, July 24, 1881, pp. 293-94