< The Adeptship of Jesus Christ (continued from page 11-231) >
portant parts of the teachings of Jesus, but they have not been preserved in their integrity. The interpretation that Clement gives, however, to the words of Jesus, only shows that at that early time, even, was the doctrine already perverted.
Jesus Christ being asked when his kingdom should come,—answered: “When two” (the Soul and the Spirit) “shall be one,” (united, instead of being, as now, dissevered) “and that which is without” (the Spirit and manifest Self-will) “as that which is within;” (the Soul or involitional vital part) “and the male with the female,” (the Spirit and the Soul) “neither male nor female.” (but one wholly holy and united being). The explanation (in parentheses) is esoteric, and no$ that of Clement.
The life (the Soul) within you is a particle of the Omniscient. Identifying yourself with the life-principle, the inner Self, You become—by a remarkable change called Re-birth or Regeneration—One with the Life that permeates the Universe, which is God? If you throw yourself into the arms of your Real Eternal Self—in the Soul, which is God the Father- how can you fear to become lost?!
We come now to one of the most difficult truths to comprehend: the Kabbalistic doctrine of the Trinity in Man.
God is one and indivisible: He is the One, the All. The Trinity is in Man Like most of the words of Jesus, those referring to the Trinity in Man were misunderstood if not perverted. One of the principle perversions, or texts, whereon the exoteric trinitarian doctrine was based, has been recognised as spurious, and is expunged from the Revised Version.
As a seed that is thrown into fertile ground take? root, expands and grows, so does the pure human Spirit, when he throws himself into the fertile ground of the Soul. And, even as the seed must apparently die to live and grow, so must the Spirit die to his lower Self, in order to attain to real Self, and become a Regenerate and Divine Being.
This is not mere theological talk, but practical truth and experience.
When the Spirit has become regenerate, he is no more dissevered from, but united with the Soul. He becomes a whole Spirit, and, as such, is Perfect and Holy. The Holy Spirit is latent in every human being, but is only recognised as “the Holy Spirit,” when Spirit and Soul are regenerate and united. Man is “the Father” of his own Regenerate Being. The Regenerate Being is “the Son.” But as God is the active vital principle in man urging him to Regeneration, from the Deific standpoint it is not Man, but God, the Divine Soul, who is “the Father,” and the Regenerate Man is “the Only Begotten Son of God.” The “Holy Spirit” that “proceeds from the Father and the Son” (from God and the Regenerate Man) is the complete or Divine manifest Soul, or God and Man united as a wholly Holy Spirit.
This truth can only be acquired by earnest thought, Perhaps the XIIth. Magical Aphorism of the English Kabbalist, “Eugenius Philalethes,” (Thomas Vaughan) will give the reader an idea of the esoteric Trinity. It reads as follows: “It is the Father of all Creation, and from the created Son—by the vital dissolution of the Son—is the Father generated. Here you have the whole mystery of the circle of generation: It is the Son’s Son that was the Son’s Father. Amen in Mercurio, &c.”
The Mystical Esoterism of all nations is identical, An Adept is a Kabbalist, no matter to what nation he belongs. What are Mysticism and Kabbalism? Mysticism is the Soul seeking God; and Kabbalism, is the Soul receiving God, and God receiving the Soul. This direct Communion between God and Man has ever been the Great Arcanum of all Divine and true Esoterism. Communion with God is the highest mystery. When some official priests heard thereof they thought, “Now we have it,” and instituted a Sacrament, which they called “Communion,” or, the Eucharist,” which ceremony is as perverted as it is useless. From being the Great Arcanum of the Occult Church, it has, with the Official Church, degenerated, into an empty word. In papistical countries, a Sacrament is merely something to swear by.
The knowledge of right food was among the ancient Initiates kept a close secret. Anterior to Porphyry’s treatise on abstinence from animal food, no plain directions as to what food was to be considered as right for occult practice, are to be discovered in the writings of the Ancients. It was not safe to strive for the Absolute among a pharisaic priesthood, who considered their mechanical lip-piety and ostentatious blood-sacrifices of greater merit than a life of purity, as it was also of pecuniary and other worldly advantage to them. The Nazir had to make atonement to the impure for being pure, as his purity was accounted sinful. Even among his disciples Jesus thought it best not to divulge that most important secret concerning the right food, for there was one among them who, as Jesus knew, thought of betraying him. Taking the unfermented bread, and instead of saying plainly: “This is the right bread for you to eat if you would become pure. I have all my life eaten of this bread only;” and taking the cup of which he desired to tell them: “This unfermented fruit juice is the purest and most vitalizing fluid you can drink;” he said merely (as there was a devil among them) breaking the bread: “This is my body;” giving them to understand that his body was entirely built up of this pure unfermented bread; and of the cup he said: “This is my blood.” And he continued: “Remember this.” That is to say, “If you desire to have the power I have, then live ye on the same food as I did, and remember my words and life.”
The few (or perhaps only John, the beloved disciple) whom the Father drew, understood Jesus rightly, while to the rest it was mere verbiage. And these hitter in memory of him, at times, broke bread, and drank out of a cup; and when the true meaning of the words of Jesus had become lost, the ceremony called the Eucharist was, by the Official Church, instituted, and made out to be the Communion. And, down to the present time, official priests take fermented wine—which is an impure intoxicant, and from which Jesus abstained all his life,—with a wafer which is utterly worthless, and food for neither man nor beast; and giving an utterly perverted meaning to the performance, they continue in the rut of thoughtless custom, and impose on their believers that they give them a supper—a Lord’s supper —where the body and blood of the Lord are to be cannibally devoured and drunk. May good digestion wait no the depraved appetites of the believers!
It is really marvellous how the words of Jesus have become perverted, and how their true meaning has been overlooked for so many centuries. Custom, apparently, when it is once set going, continues to spin around interminably like a self-satisfied teetotum, until it knocks itself against a truth; then it goes off at a tangent, and only when repeatedly tripped up by immovable truths, does it fall and is no more a custom.
John, the beloved disciple, is the only one that seems to ha ve rightly grasped the true and esoteric doctrine of Jesus. It is, also, his record that we find the most complete. The criticisms and objections that are ignorantly made regarding the Gospel of John, and the theory that it is the production of a Neo-Platonist, can only be valid if the works of Philo and of Plato are also the productions of Neo-Platonists. Then it can be said that the Alexandrian School only had the true doctrine of the Divine Kabbala, and among that School only were Adepts, while Jesus Christ and his diciples were only visionaries.
As the doctrine of one Adept is the doctrine of all Adepts, so must the doctrine of Christ be the doctrine <... continues on page 11-233 >