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vol. title: vol. period: 1881 pages in vol.: 439 |
< Order Above Us, Religion, or Christian Theosophy (continued from page 11-230) >
from spinning metaphysical cobwebs which may only trouble the eyes of others, I am tempted to throw out a few suggestions which may tend, at least, to stimulate thought in speculating on these profoundly momentous subjects.
There appear to be three degrees of mind which beget, respectively, three conceptions of causation, First, the simply sensuous degree, that of the savage and most physicists of the present day; in spite of their spectrum analyses, telephones, and so forth. This answers to fetishism or atheism: it suits either. Secondly, the rational degree, which answers to the more respectable religions—Pagan, Catholic, and Protestant—acknowledging an invisible sphere of existence consisting of spiritual-moral beings. And, thirdly, the spiritual degree of the soul, which answers to a conception of the Divine and our relations thereto, resting on and proceeding from the Christian ideal, either in Christendom or elsewhere, and never sinking below it.
The battle between the flesh and the spirit, or, rather, the subjection of the flesh to the spirit, is the work of humanity: the endeavour to make the ideal the actual, in other words, the embodiment of truth.
Truth is the perception of the right relations of things. These relations are infinitely complex, and depend upon the compound nature of man —his physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual constitution. Man’s proper condition is only attained when he becomes a microcosm in which the several kingdoms are in perfect co-ordination, and, therefore, harmony. This is in religious phraseology termed the “regenerate state.”
The mistake of philosophy has been to suppose that it was possible to arrive at absolute truth— which is unattainable by man—and that, too, by merely logical processes ignoring spiritual causation. The characteristic failure of religions has been to confound spiritual indefinite truths and realities with symbolical representations, to confine universal truths with partial, local and temporary expressions.
The peculiar glory of Christianity lay in the elevation of the moral into the spiritual, and then the endowment of the spiritual in man with a universal divine character. In these respects it contains the germs of infinite progress. But Christianity is imperfect, and is, in most of its forms, a hindrance to the development of man; because of its fantastic embodiments of the unseen worlds and man’s relation thereto, and its depreciation of the intellectual sphere of his being.
Modern Spiritualism affords such an enlargement of our acquaintance with the realms of physical, mental and moral causation, as amounts to a new world of truth, the conquest of which will probably be attended hereafter with far-reaching results on which it is vain to speculate.
Darmstadt, August, 1881.
<Untitled> (Mrs. Guppy-Volckman...)
Mrs. Guppy-Volckman desires ua to announce that she has received on behalf of Mrs. Mary Marshall's Testimonial: Mr. A. Dobson, 2s. 6d, Mrs. Mary Allen, 10s.
The Adeptship of Jesus Christ
Jesus was a Kabbalist, and his doctrine can only be rightly understood by a Kabbalist.* His sayings have an esoteric meaning, which the Official Church never fathomed. Among the Hebrews there were two classes —those who knew, and those who knew nothing. The former were very few, the latter extremely numerous. Of the former, the school of Nahveeim or “Knowers” was composed. These men stood in no connection with priestcraft, but by a pure natural life attained to a knowledge of the Absolute, and became the true Priests, the Kabbalists, i.e., the Receivers of the Divine Logos. Their writings speak of their individual experiences, and are partly of individual and partly of general interest; partly they may be prophetic, but for the greater part they are mystical directions how to attain to that Divine Absolute state, wherein they, the Kabbalists, attained to their knowledge of God, the Supreme Good.
Not only among the Hebrews, but among all civilised nations, are to be found men, and writings analogous to those of the Hebrews.
The religion of the masses was subject to a “Blood-delusion” in antiquity, even as much as in the present time. Then slaughtered innocent animals were supposed to be necessary to propitiate the gods, while Official Christianity introduced the incomprehensible theory that the mere belief is necessary—that one third of God (in the form of an innocent man) was found on earth, and slaughtered like a thief to propitiate God the Father, and God the Holy Ghost.
While the Devil’s Official Churches multiplied upon the world, the true Church of God, the Occult Church, was represented in the time of Jesus only by various misunderstood and persecuted sects, as the Nazarites, Nahveeim, Essenes, Ebionites, Mendaites, Ssabeans, &c., which were simply schools of Divine Kabbalism.
All higher Religions and Philosophic Systems derive their origin from the Divine Kabbala, and have an Occult Esoterism. Religious rites—such as do not originate in ceremonial magic, and such as are not exoteric inventions—are Kabbalistic Mnemonics for spiritual exercise. When they cease to be living, and have become fossilized as Orthodoxies and are practised mechanically, they are dead to the Soul and the Soul is dead to them. We must go beyond the pale of the Official Church, our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, in order to arrive at the higher, living, absolute truth. There is no salvation possible, but outside of the Official Church.
Several oi the recorded sayings of Jesus indicate that he considered himself akin with the so-called Prophets (Nahveeim), and that he regarded them as Brother-Adepts.
The esoteric doctrine of Jesus Christ is identical with that of all Divine Kabbalists. Like every Kabbalist he has, however, a phraseology of his own, which requires to be rightly understood. Jesus always applied illustrations to himself, and gave himself as an illustration. “The Son of Man,” that he continually spoke of, is the Individual Regenerate Being, the Manifest Divine Soul, and is not to be confounded with the historical Jesus. “The Son of Man” is really the Son of Man’s own Being, and must be individually experienced to be known.
The Mediator between God and man is the Regenerate Man himself. The vain Man-God becomes the humble God-Man. It is all one Being throughout but how changed! There is a saving in Clement that contains more Esoterism than the entire Sermon or the Mount; although the latter, as well, contains im-<... continues on page 11-232 >
* Anyone can mis-onderstand the words of Jesus, as is instanced by laymen as well as the churchmen.
Editor's notes
Sources
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Medium and Daybreak, v. 12, No. 596, September 2, 1881, pp. 553-56
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Medium and Daybreak, v. 12, No. 596, September 2, 1881, p. 547