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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
+Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation, by Edward Maitland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation
+
+Author: Edward Maitland
+
+Editor: Samuel Hopgood Hart
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2012 [EBook #38590]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA KINGSFORD, EDWARD MAITLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ron Stephens and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    THE STORY
+
+    OF
+
+    ANNA KINGSFORD AND
+    EDWARD MAITLAND
+
+    AND OF
+
+    THE NEW GOSPEL OF
+    INTERPRETATION
+
+    BY
+
+    EDWARD MAITLAND.
+    EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
+
+
+    "The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing away;
+    The Gospel of Interpretation cometh."
+
+    "There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient
+    shall be interpreted."
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom
+    of the Mother of God."--_C.W.S._, Part I. No. ii. (part 2) 10. 11.
+    and Part II. No. xiii. 31.
+
+    THIRD AND ENLARGED EDITION.
+
+    PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE.
+
+    BIRMINGHAM:
+    THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFORD STREET.
+    1905.
+
+
+
+
+    _1st Edition ... Christmas, 1893._
+    _2nd Edition ... Christmas, 1894._
+    _3rd Edition ... Christmas, 1905._
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS.
+
+
+This book is designed (1) in satisfaction of the widely-expressed desire
+for a more particular account than has yet been rendered concerning the
+genesis of the writings claiming to constitute a "New Gospel of
+Interpretation"; and (2) in fulfilment of the duty incumbent on me as
+the survivor of the two recipients of such Gospel to spare no means
+which may minister to its recognition and acceptance by the world, for
+whose benefit it has been vouchsafed.
+
+Although largely biographical in character, this book is not a history
+of individuals, but of a Work, and involves only such personal
+references as are necessary to such history. It is not, however, a full
+or a final account that is contained in it. Such an account can be given
+only in the form of the regular biography which is in course of
+preparation. This book is an instalment only of that biography, being
+put forth in advance of it, partly, as said above, to meet a present
+need, and partly, to prevent a total loss of the record in the event of
+my failure to complete it--a contingency of which, in view of the
+magnitude of the task and my advanced age, I am bound to take account.
+
+    E.M.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+
+Since the publication in 1893 of this book which, as stated in Chapter
+VII., was "intended but as an epitome and instalment" of a far larger
+book then in course of preparation, the full and final account of the
+"New Gospel of Interpretation" has been given to the world. In 1896
+Edward Maitland published his _magnum opus_, "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," in two large volumes of 420 pages, "illustrated with
+portraits, views, and facsimiles." This is, and will always be, the
+biography _par excellence_ of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and it
+is absolutely indispensable for those who would know all that there is
+to be known of them and their work and of the "New Gospel of
+Interpretation." As that book, however, on account of its great length,
+must always be a costly book, and therefore beyond the means of many who
+would like to have some reliable information concerning Anna Kingsford
+and Edward Maitland and their work, and as there are many who, on
+account of their time for reading being limited or their inclination to
+read being little, require information within the compass of a small
+book or go without it altogether, there will, notwithstanding the
+publication of the "Life of Anna Kingsford," be a demand for this
+shorter "Story," which is so admirably suited to meet the needs or
+requirements of these classes of persons; for, be it noted, the
+publication of "The Life of Anna Kingsford" has not in any way
+depreciated the value of this book in this sense that, having been
+written by one of the two recipients of the "New Gospel of
+Interpretation," it is a first authority second to none for the
+statements therein contained.
+
+The change in the title of the book from "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation" to the present title calls for some explanation and
+justification, because the former title was an excellent one in many
+respects, and the book has become known to many by that title. The
+"Gospel of Interpretation" is the name or description which was given by
+its Divine Inspirers, the Hierarchy of the Spheres Celestial, to the
+work of which this book tells the story, in token of its relation to the
+previous "Gospel of Manifestation." The former title implied, as the
+Author pointed out in his preface, that that which this book propounded
+was "not really a new Gospel, but one of Interpretation only"; and this
+is not really new, but, as the Author has also pointed out, "so old as
+to have become forgotten and lost, being the purely spiritual sense, as
+discerned from the purely spiritual standpoint originally intended and
+insisted on by Scripture itself as its true sense and standpoint, and
+those which alone render Scripture intelligible"[1]. But notwithstanding
+this, and notwithstanding that on the front page it was expressly stated
+that "There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient shall
+be interpreted," the former title failed to convey to the minds of some
+the meaning that it was intended to convey, and it gave no indication of
+the biographical nature of the work. Many who otherwise would have read
+the book refrained from doing so because they thought that a new Gospel,
+inconsistent with and perhaps opposed to if not intended to supersede
+the old Gospel, was propounded. It is necessary, therefore, for me to
+state, if possible more explicitly than it was stated in the previous
+editions of this book, that this is not an attempt to create a new
+Gospel differing from that of Jesus Christ[2]. Anna Kingsford's and
+Edward Maitland's mission and aim was to interpret the Christ, not to
+rival or supersede Him. The "New Gospel" is, first and foremost,
+_interpretative_, and is destructive only in the sense of
+reconstructive. "It tells nothing new; it simply restores and reinforces
+the old, even the Gnosis, which, as the doctrine of the Church unfallen,
+is that also of the Church fallen, though the latter has lost the key to
+its interpretation"[3]. Nor is the teaching represented by this book
+opposed to the existence of an objective Church. Anna Kingsford and
+Edward Maitland fully recognised the necessity of such an organisation
+for the formulation, propagation, and exposition of religion. Their
+opposition was "only to the recognition by the Church of the objective,
+historical, and materialistic aspect of religion, _to the exclusion_ of
+that which really constitutes religion, namely, its subjective,
+spiritual, and substantial aspect, wherein alone it appeals to the mind
+and soul, and is efficacious for redemption." The aim of the New Gospel
+"is defined exactly," said Edward Maitland, "in the following citation
+from St. Dionysius the Areopagite 'not to destroy, but to construct; or,
+rather, to destroy by construction; to conquer error by the full
+presentment of truth.' As will be obvious, such a design does not
+necessarily involve the destruction of anything that exists whether of
+symbol or ritual, or ecclesiastical organisation, but only their
+regeneration by means of their translation into their spiritual and
+divinely intended sense. And it is precisely because that sense has been
+lost--as declared in Scripture it had long been, and would yet long be,
+lost--that a new 'Gospel of Interpretation' has been vouchsafed in
+fulfilment of the promises in Scripture to that effect; and this from
+the source of the original Divine revelation, namely, the Church
+Celestial, and by the method which always was that of such revelation,
+namely, the intuition operating under special illumination.... Even the
+priest, though hitherto deservedly regarded as the 'enemy of man,' will
+not be destroyed under the new _régime_ whose inauguration we are
+witnessing. For in becoming interpreter as well as administrator, he
+will be prophet as well as priest, and speak out the things of God and
+the soul instead of concealing them under a veil. So will the 'veil be
+taken away,' and Cain, the priest, instead of killing Abel, the prophet,
+as hitherto, will unite with him, becoming prophet and priest in one.
+And instead of any longer corrupting the 'woman' Intuition, and
+suppressing the 'man' Intellect, he will purify and exalt her, and
+enable her to fulfil her proper function as 'the Mother of God' in man,
+and will recognise the intellect, when duly conjoined with her, as the
+heir of all things. Thus, becoming interpreter as well as administrator,
+prophet as well as priest, and recognising interpretation as the
+corollary of the understanding, the prophet-priest of the regeneration
+will give to men freely of the waters of life, that only true bread of
+Heaven, which is the food of the understanding, instead of the
+indigestible 'stones' and poisonous 'serpents' of doctrines, the
+profession of which, by divorcing assent from conviction, involves that
+moral and intellectual suicide, to induce others to join him in
+committing which Cardinal Newman wrote his 'Grammar of Assent,' True it
+is 'faith that saves,' but the faith that is without understanding is
+not faith, but credulity"[4]. It is for the above-mentioned reasons that
+the title of this book has been changed. The title must be subservient
+to the book, and it is hoped that, the change having been made, there
+will not be any further misunderstanding--even on the part of those who
+are most superficial--as to the nature and object of "The Story of the
+New Gospel of Interpretation."
+
+Edward Maitland did not long survive the completion of the great task
+that he undertook when he set himself to write a full account of his
+life and that of his colleague. He retained his full mental vigour until
+the publication of "The Life of Anna Kingsford"; but after that he
+rapidly declined, and on the 2nd October, 1897, at the close of his
+seventy-third year, a little over nine years after the death of Anna
+Kingsford[5], he passed away peacefully at "The Warders" at Tonbridge,
+the home (at that time) of his friends Colonel and Mrs. Currie, with
+whom, and under whose loving care, he spent the last few months of his
+life--a life concerning which, as also that of Anna Kingsford, I will
+not say anything here, for this book will testify. Blessed are the souls
+whom the just commemorate before God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many who read these pages will not rest until they know more of those
+great prophets the story of whose lives is here told, and of the Divine
+Gnosis that it was their high mission to proclaim. I have indicated
+whence they can obtain this information. This "Story," interesting as it
+is and much as there is in it, is little more than an indication of some
+of the facts that are fully stated and dealt with in "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," and there is much of importance that (as it could not
+possibly receive proper treatment in a book of this size) was passed
+over here to be related in the larger biography. I have not thought it
+expedient to alter the character of or to add much to this book, but I
+have enlarged it by incorporating therein, from "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," some additional matter which is of interest, and which
+should add to the value of the book. The most important additions are
+the account of Anna Kingsford's vision of "The Doomed Train," on p.p.
+43-47; the account of Anna Kingsford's vision of Adonai, on pp. 64-68;
+the "Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes," on pp. 110-112; the verses
+"Concerning the Passage of the Soul," on pp. 169-170; and the
+illumination of Anna Kingsford concerning the "Work of Power," on
+pp. 180-181. I have also amplified the text in some places when, on
+comparing it with corresponding passages in "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," I found that I could do so with advantage. These
+amplifications are not otherwise noted. Finally, I have added some notes
+where I thought that further explanation was desirable or would prove
+acceptable.
+
+    SAML. HOPGOOD HART.
+
+    Croydon, December, 1905.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 29th August, 1891.
+
+[2] See further as to this, an article by A.K. and E.M. in "Light" of
+23rd September, 1882, reprinted in Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 77.
+
+[3] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 22nd July, 1893.
+
+[4] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 17th December, 1892.
+
+[5] A.K. died on the 22nd February, 1888
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+There are certain introductory remarks which, in view of the prevailing
+tendency to reject prior to examination whatever conflicts with strongly
+cherished preconceptions--as anything purporting to be a "new Gospel" is
+undoubtedly calculated to do--may be made with advantage. Those remarks
+are as follows:--
+
+(1) As its title implies[6], that which is propounded is not really a
+new Gospel, but one of Interpretation only, which is precisely what is
+admitted by all serious and thoughtful persons to be the supreme need of
+the times. It was said, for instance, by the late Matthew Arnold, "At
+the present moment there are two things about the Christian religion
+which must be obvious to every percipient person: one, that men cannot
+do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is."
+
+(2) As also its title implies[6] nothing new is told in it, but that
+only which is old is interpreted; and the appeal on its behalf is not to
+authority, whether of Book, Tradition, or Institution, but to the
+Understanding--a quality which accords not only with the spirit of the
+times, but also--as shewn herein--with that of religion itself, properly
+so called.
+
+(3) Scripture manifestly comprises two conflicting systems of doctrine
+and practice, having for their representatives respectively the priest
+and the prophet, one only of which systems, and this the system
+reprobated in Scripture itself, has hitherto obtained recognition from
+Christendom. It is the purpose of the New Gospel of Interpretation to
+expound the system represented by the prophet and approved in Scripture,
+with a view to replacing the other.
+
+(4) For those who attach value to the prophecies contained in the Bible,
+so far from there being an _a priori_ improbability against the delivery
+of a new revelation in interpretation, confirmation, or completion of
+the former revelation, and in correction of the false presentment of it,
+the probability ought to be all in favour of such an event. This is
+because Scripture abounds in predictions of a restoration both of
+faculty and of knowledge, as to take place at the present time and under
+the existing conditions of Church and World; and this of such kind as
+shall constitute a second and spiritual manifestation of the Christ in
+rectification of the perversion of the import of His first and personal
+manifestation, and in arrest of the great Apostacy, not only from the
+true faith of Christ but from religion itself, of which that perversion
+has been the cause.
+
+(5) So far from the idea of a new revelation which shall have for its
+end the disclosure, as the true sense of Scripture and Dogma, of a
+sense differing so widely from that hitherto accepted as to be virtually
+destructive of it,--so far from this idea being universally repugnant to
+orthodox ecclesiastics, it has found warm recognition from one of the
+foremost of modern churchmen. This is the late Cardinal Newman.
+
+Said Dr Newman in his _Apologia pro vitâ suâ_, speaking of his earlier
+days, "The broad philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away; the
+philosophy, not the theological doctrine.... Some portions of their
+teaching, magnificent in themselves, came like music to my inward ear,
+as if the response to ideas, which, with little external to encourage
+them, I had cherished so long. These were based on the mystical or
+sacramental principle, and spoke of the various Economies or
+Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these passages to mean that
+the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation
+to our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable:
+Scripture was an allegory:.... The process of change had been slow; it
+had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure, 'at sundry times and
+in divers manners,' first one disclosure and then another, till the
+whole evangelical doctrine was brought into full manifestation. And thus
+room was made for the anticipation of further and deeper disclosures of
+truths still under the veil of the letter, and in their season to be
+revealed. The visible world still remains without its divine
+interpretation: Holy Church in her sacraments and her hierarchical
+appointments, will remain, even to the end of the world, after all but a
+symbol of those heavenly facts which fill eternity. Her mysteries are
+but the expressions, in human language, of truths to which the human
+mind is unequal"[7].
+
+Dr Newman is credited also with the remark, made on visiting Rome for
+his investiture, that he saw no hope for religion save in a new
+revelation.
+
+These are utterances the value of which is in no way diminished by the
+fact that their utterer failed to bring his own life into accordance
+with them. He could write, indeed, the hymn "Lead, kindly light"; but
+when the "kindly light" was vouchsafed him of those suggestions of a
+system of thought concealed within the Christian Symbology, "magnificent
+in themselves" and making "music to his inward ear," which he found in
+the patristic writings; instead of following that lead, and striving to
+exhume the treasures of divine truth thus buried and hidden from sight,
+for the salvation of a world perishing for want of them,--he turned his
+back upon it, and--entering the Church of Rome--wrote his "Grammar of
+Assent," calling upon others to follow him in committing the suicide,
+intellectual and moral, of renouncing the understanding and divorcing
+profession from conviction.
+
+This was a catastrophe the explanation of which is not far to seek. Dr
+Newman had in him the elements which go to make both priest and prophet.
+But the former proved the stronger; and the Cain, the priest in him,
+suppressed the Abel, the prophet in him. Thus was he a type of the
+Church as hitherto she has been. But, happily, not as henceforth she
+will be. For "now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom
+of the Mother of God," even the "Woman," Intuition,--the mind's feminine
+mode, wherein it represents the perceptions and recollections of the
+Soul--who is ever "Mother of God" in man, and whose sons the prophets
+ever are, the greatest of them being called emphatically, for the
+fulness and purity of his intuition, the "Son of the Woman" and she a
+"virgin."
+
+    E.M.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] The original title of this book was "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation." See preface to the present edition. S.H.H.
+
+[7] Apologia pro vitâ suâ, by J. H. Newman. New edition of 1893, pp. 26,
+27.
+
+
+
+
+FRONTISPIECES.
+
+
+     I.--PORTRAIT OF DR. ANNA KINGSFORD.
+    _Born, Sep. 16th, 1846; Died, Feb. 22nd, 1888._
+
+    II.--PORTRAIT OF EDWARD MAITLAND (_B.A., Cantab_).
+    _Born, Oct. 27th, 1824; Died, Oct, 2nd, 1897._
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+    PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS                          v.
+
+    PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION                              vii.-xiii.
+
+    INTRODUCTION                                                xv.-xix.
+
+    TABLE OF CONTENTS                                          xx.-xxii.
+
+    ABBREVIATIONS                                                 xxiii.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.
+
+    THE VOCATION.
+
+    The Instruments--Their early lives--Their consciousness of a special
+      mission, and intimations of a call--Their training in respect of
+      circumstance, character, and faculty, until brought together
+      for their Joint work.                                         1-36
+
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+
+    THE INITIATION.
+
+    A baptism of the Spirit--"At last I have found a man through whom
+      I can speak!"--Intimation of the nature and aim of their work--The
+      Doomed train, "No one on the engine!"--Instantaneous
+      transfer of inspiration--"Woman, what have I to do with
+      thee?"--The recovery of a Gospel scene, and its import--"The
+      woman taken in adultery"--Vision of Adonai--Source of the
+      opening sentences in St. John's Gospel--Chapter from the recovered
+      Gnosis--The Generation of the Word.                          37-70
+
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+
+    THE COMMUNICATION.
+
+    The perfect love that casts out fear." In the presence of celestial
+      visitants--A parable of the Intuition--"The Wonderful
+      Spectacles"--The Greek element in the work--Hermes and John the
+      Baptist--The "heresy of Prometheus"--The Fig-tree, a symbol of the
+      inward understanding; the time come for it to bear fruit--The
+      Seeress's faculty--Her relations with Hermes--"Thou art the
+      Rock" addressed to Hermes--The parable of the Fig-tree--The
+      Mystic Woman of Holy Writ--"Go thy way, Daniel....
+      Thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days"--The
+      prophecy of the book of Esther--The Angel Genius, his account
+      of himself and his office--Divine revelation the supreme common
+      sense--The source and method of the New Revelation--Its chief
+      recipient "not a medium or a seer, but a prophet"--An instruction
+      and a caution concerning the survival of tendencies encouraged
+      in past lives--Communion with souls of the departed--The
+      conditions of such intercourse--An instruction concerning
+      Inspiration and Prophesying--The prophecy of "the kingdom of
+      the Mother of God."                                         71-108
+
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+
+    THE ANTAGONISATION.
+
+    "Ye are not yet perfected"--Our respective _Auras_--An
+      exhortation--The Seven Spirits of God, their co-operation
+      necessary for a perfect work--"You belong to us now, to do our
+      work and not your own"--Enforced silence--"The Powers of the Air;"
+      their mode of attack--A strange visitant and his communication--A
+      strained situation--Visions of guidance--The "refractory team,"
+      and the "Two Stars"--The promised land reached only through
+      the wilderness--"The Word a Word of mystery, and they who
+      guard it Seven"--"One Neophyte could not save himself"--A
+      Horoscope--A descent into hell--Counsels of Perfection--A
+      "Merry Christmas"--A timely arrival--Neoplatonic recognition
+      of Hermes--The one Truth, never without a witness in the
+      world--The key of knowledge restored--Problems solved--The mystic
+      "Woman" of Holy Writ.                                      109-141
+
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+
+    THE RECAPITULATION.
+
+    The key to the mystery of the Bible; the "Veil of Moses"
+      withdrawn--The secret laid bare of the world's sacrificial system,
+      and the feud between priest and prophet--The Memory of the
+      Soul--The Standpoint of the Bible--All that is true is
+      Spiritual--The revelation of "that wicked one"--The seals broken
+      and the books opened--The New Gospel of
+      Interpretation--Sacerdotalism the "Jerusalem which killed the
+      prophets"--The suppressed doctrines--Reincarnation the corollary
+      and condition of Regeneration and implicit in the
+      Bible--"Ye _must_ be born again of Virgin Mary and Holy
+      Ghost"--The doctrines of the Trinity and Divine Incarnation as now
+      interpreted, necessary and self-evident truths--Evolution the
+      manifestation of a divine inherency; accomplished only by the
+      realisation of Divinity--The process of regeneration, and therein
+      of salvation, interior to the individual--Adam and Christ the
+      initial and final stages in the spiritual evolution of every
+      man--The "Christ within" of St Paul--The _Credo_ an epitome of the
+      spiritual history of the Sons of God.                      142-162
+
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+
+    THE EXEMPLIFICATION.
+
+    Spontaneity of the Seeress's faculty--Specific illuminations, in
+      illustration, chiefly, of the process of Regeneration; concerning
+      (1) Holy Writ; (2) Redemption; (3) Sin and death; (4) The Twelve
+      Gates of Regeneration; (5) The Passage of the Soul; (6) The
+      Mystic Exodus; (7) The Spiritual Phoibos and the order of the
+      Christs; (8) The Previous Lives of Jesus, and Reincarnation;
+      (9) The Work of Power; the land and tongue of the New
+      Revelation, why ours.                                      163-183
+
+
+    CHAPTER VII.
+
+    THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.
+
+    Accordance of all the dates with those prophesied--Other
+      coincidences--Why our work has remained so long unknown to the
+      generality--Notable recognitions, by representative Kabalists,
+      Mystics, Occultists and Divines, Catholic, Anglican, and
+      others--Spiritualism, Theosophy, and the New Gospel of
+      Interpretation as fellow-agents in the unfoldment of the world's
+      spiritual consciousness, and the unsealing of the world's Bibles,
+      prophesied to take place at this epoch--"Abraham, Isaac, and
+      Jacob," the Hebrew equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, to
+      denote the mysteries of India, Egypt, and Greece, the Spirit, the
+      Soul, and the Body, and therein the Gnosis of which the Christ is
+      the fulfilment and personal demonstration, and the restoration of
+      which was prophesied by Jesus as to mean the Regeneration of the
+      Church and the establishment of the divine kingdom on
+      earth--Mysticism and Occultism, the distinction between them, and
+      the necessity of both physical and spiritual science to a perfect
+      system of thought and rule of life--Conclusion.            184-204
+
+
+
+
+ABBREVIATIONS.
+
+
+     A.K., for Anna Kingsford.
+
+     B.O.A.I., for "The Bible's Own Account of Itself," by E.M.; second
+     edition, 1905.
+
+     C.W.S., for "Clothed With The Sun," being the book of the
+     Illuminations of A.K.; edited by E.M., 1889.
+
+     D. and D.-S., for "Dreams and Dream-Stones," by A.K., edited by
+     E.M.; second edition, 1888.
+
+     E.C.U., for "The Esoteric Christian Union," founded by E.M. in
+     1891.
+
+     E. and I., for "England and Islam; or, The Counsel of Caiaphas," by
+     E.M., 1877.
+
+     E.M., for Edward Maitland.
+
+     Life A.K., for "The Life of Anna Kingsford," by E.M., 1896.
+
+     P.W., for "The Perfect Way; or, The Finding of Christ," by A.K. and
+     E.M.; third edition, revised, 1890.
+
+     Statement, E.C.U., for "The New Gospel of Interpretation; being an
+     Abstract of the Doctrine and Statement of the Objects of the
+     Esoteric Christian Union," by E.M.; revised and enlarged edition,
+     1892.
+
+
+
+
+    BIRMINGHAM:
+    THE RUSKIN PRESS, RUSKIN HOUSE,
+    STAFFORD STREET.
+    1905.
+
+[Illustration: Edward Maitland]
+
+[Illustration: Anna Kingsford]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+STORY OF ANNA KINGSFORD AND
+
+EDWARD MAITLAND
+
+AND
+
+OF THE NEW GOSPEL OF
+
+INTERPRETATION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE VOCATION.
+
+
+My colleague in the work, the history of which I am about to render some
+account, was the late Anna Kingsford, _née_ Bonus, M.D. of the
+University of Paris.
+
+There was a link between her husband's family and mine, but we were not
+personally acquainted until, in the summer of 1873, she was led by
+reading one of my books[8] to open a correspondence with me, which
+disclosed so striking a community between us of ideas, aims, and
+methods, that I accepted an invitation to visit her at her husband's
+rectory at Pontesbury, Salop, in Shropshire, for the sake of a fuller
+discussion of them. This visit which lasted nearly a fortnight, took
+place in February, 1874[9].
+
+The account I received of her history was in this wise. Born at
+Stratford, in Essex, on the 16th September, 1846, long after the last of
+her many brothers and sisters, and endowed with the most fragile of
+constitutions and liabilities the most distressing of bodily weakness
+and suffering, and differing widely, moreover, in temperament from all
+with whom she was associated, her young life had enjoyed but a scanty
+share of human sympathy, and was largely one of solitude and meditation,
+and such as to foster the highly artistic, idealistic, and mystic
+tendencies with which she was born. Singularly energetic of will, and
+conscious of powers both transcending in degree and differing in kind
+from any that she recognised in others, she assiduously exercised her
+faculties in many and various directions in the hope of discovering the
+special direction in which her mission lay. For, from her earliest
+childhood she had been conscious of a mission, for the accomplishment of
+which she had expressly come into the earth-life. And she claimed even
+to have distinct recollection of having been strongly dissuaded from
+coming, on account of the terrible suffering which awaited her in the
+event of her assuming a body of flesh. Indeed, so little conscious was
+she of the reality of her human parentage that she was wont to look upon
+herself as a suppositious child of fairy origin; and on her first visit
+to the pantomime, when the fairies made their appearance on the stage,
+she declared that they were her proper people, and cried and struggled
+to get to them with such vehemence that it was necessary to remove her
+from the theatre. Among her amusements, her chief delight was in the
+ample gardens around her homes at Stratford and Blackheath, where she
+would hold familiar converse with the flowers, putting into their petals
+tiny notes for her lost relatives, the fairies, who in return would
+visit her in her dreams and assure her of their continued affection, and
+counsel her to have patience and courage.
+
+The chief occupation of her girlhood was the writing of poems and
+tales[10] which were tinged with an exquisite mysticism, and showed a
+ripeness of soul and maturity of feeling and knowledge wholly
+unaccountable for by her years, her experiences, or her physical
+heredity. At school she always obtained the first prizes for
+composition, and her faculty of improvisation was the delight of her
+companions; the subjects of these her earlier romances being lovely
+princesses, gallant knights, castles, dragons, and the like, when--as
+may readily be supposed--her tall and slender frame, long golden hair,
+delicacy of complexion, deep-set hazel eyes, beauty of feature, the brow
+and the mouth being especially notable, the brightness of her looks,
+vivacity of her manner, her musical voice, and the easy eloquence of her
+diction,--all combined to make her an ideal heroine for her own
+romances. She could hardly, however, be said to be a _persona grata_
+with her pastors and masters. For while her independence of character
+and strength of will were apt to bring her into conflict with rules and
+regulations of which she failed to recognise the need, her thirst for
+knowledge, especially on religious subjects, prompted her to the
+proposition of questions which were highly embarrassing to her teachers;
+and nothing that they could say succeeded in convincing her that her
+duty lay in believing what she was told, and not in understanding it.
+She very early learnt to resent the disabilities of her sex, and to
+insist that they were not real but artificial, the result of masculine
+selfishness and injustice. This hatred of injustice and its correlative
+cruelty, especially towards animals, attained in her the force and
+dignity of a passion, her sensitiveness on this score making the chief
+mental misery of her life.
+
+Of one gift possessed by her she early learnt to repress the
+manifestation. This was the faculty for seeing apparitions and divining
+the characters and fortunes of people. For she was a born seer. But the
+inability of her elders to comprehend the faculty, and their consequent
+ascription of it to pathological causes, were wont to lead to references
+to the family doctor with results so eminently disagreeable and even
+injurious to her, as soon to suggest the wisdom of keeping silence
+respecting her experiences.
+
+Her first published compositions were written at the age of
+thirteen[11], the editors who accepted her contributions to their
+magazines being under the impression that they came from a grown-up
+person and not from the mere child that she was. They cost her, she
+assured me, little labour, especially the poems, but seemed to come to
+her ready-made, and to flow through her spontaneously. And whatever the
+country in which their scene lay, the local colouring and descriptions
+were always faithful and vivid, as if the places and their inhabitants
+were familiar and even actually visible to her.
+
+It was not, however, to any encouragement of her peculiar gifts that
+such excellency as she exhibited was due. Rather were they severely
+repressed, especially in respect of drawing, singing and music, lest she
+should be tempted to follow them as a profession; a fear which had been
+excited by the suggestions of her masters that she would be certain of
+success in any of those lines.
+
+Her innate consciousness of a mission seemed to her to indicate her as
+destined for some redemptive work, not only for others, but also for
+herself. For, while the instincts of the Champion and the Saviour were
+potent in her, she was dimly conscious of its possessing also an
+expiatory element, in virtue of which her own salvation would largely
+depend upon her endeavours to save others. She had as yet no theory
+whereby to explain this or any other of the problems she was to herself.
+All that she knew was that she possessed, or rather was possessed of,
+these feelings and impulses. It was easy to see by her account of
+herself that she was as one driven of the Spirit long before the Spirit
+definitely revealed itself to her. The two departments of humanity which
+she felt especially impelled to succour and save were her own sex and
+the animals. For she would recognise no hard and fast line between
+masculine and feminine, human and animal, or even between animal and
+plant. In her eyes everything that lived was humanity, only in different
+stages of its unfoldment. Even the flowers were persons for her.
+
+As she approached womanhood she found herself looking forward to
+marriage far less for its own sake than as a means of emancipation from
+restrictions on her choice of a career. Her father died while she was
+yet wanting two or three years of her majority, leaving her mistress of
+an income ample for a single woman. And when at length she became
+engaged to Algernon Godfrey Kingsford, a cousin to whom she had some
+time been attached, it was on the understanding that she should remain
+unfettered in this respect. He held at the time a post in the Civil
+Service; but soon after their marriage, which took place on the last day
+of 1867, determined to read for holy orders. This gave her an
+opportunity for making herself acquainted with Anglican theology, of
+which--thirsting for knowledge of all kinds--she eagerly availed
+herself, accompanying him in all his studies, and greatly facilitating
+them by her admirable scholarly methods. This proved to be the first
+great step in her religious and intellectual training for her destined
+mission.
+
+One of the occupations of her early married life was the editing of a
+lady's magazine, which she purchased with a view of making it an
+instrument for the dissemination of her ideas especially in regard to
+her sex. And she accordingly took an active part in the movement then
+recently originated for the enfranchisement of women, achieving an
+extraordinary success as a public speaker. But, becoming convinced that
+their cause would be best advanced by the practical demonstration of
+their fitness for the promotion they sought, and also feeling her own
+need for the discipline of a severe intellectual training to balance the
+emotional side of her nature, she soon withdrew from active
+participation in the movement. She moreover recognised as a grave
+mistake the disposition evinced by her fellow-workers to suppress their
+womanliness in favour of a factitious masculinity, under the impression
+that they would thereby exalt their sex; her idea being, that their true
+policy lay in magnifying rather than in depreciating their womanhood.
+Meanwhile she had given birth to a daughter, her only child.
+
+Her magazine was given up after a couple of years, the results failing
+to justify the expenditure of time, labour and money, requisite for its
+continuance. Not that it lacked adequate support; but the principles on
+which she insisted on conducting it proved to be incompatible with
+commercial success. She resolutely refused all advertisements of
+articles, whether of food or of clothing, of which she disapproved; and
+she had adopted the pythagorean regimen and discarded as unhygienic
+sundry articles of attire ordinarily deemed indispensable by her sex. It
+was in her magazine that she first struck the note which proved the
+initiation of the holy warfare since waged against the horrors of the
+physiological laboratory, a warfare in which she bore a foremost part
+and developed the malady of which she died.
+
+In 1870, a long and severe illness, which compelled her return to her
+mother's house at Hastings to be nursed, led to her entry upon another
+phase in her inner life, and a further stage in the process of her
+education for her mission. She had early recoiled from the faith in
+which she had been reared. This was Protestantism in its most unlovely
+form, cold, harsh, narrow, dogmatic. Her closer acquaintance with it as
+a clergyman's wife had done nothing to mitigate her judgment of it.
+Explaining nothing and lacking fervour and poetry, it left head and
+heart alike unsatisfied. Her residence as an invalid at Hastings brought
+her into intimacy with some devout Catholics, the effect of which was to
+intensify the repugnance already set up. She attended the Catholic
+services, and visited the sisters in the convent, reading their books of
+devotion and even making an extended study of Catholic doctrine, for she
+would do nothing by halves. She found what satisfied her heart and
+artistic tastes. But the chief determining cause of the change upon
+which she at length resolved, was her reception by night of sundry
+visitations, purporting to be of angelic nature, and enjoining on her,
+for the sake of the mission to which she was called--the knowledge of
+which, she was told, would in due time be revealed to her--that she join
+the Roman communion. Well aware that the confession of such experiences,
+whether to her relations or to a minister of her own Church, would
+elicit only a smile of pity or contempt, with a recommendation to seek
+medical advice, and involve other contingencies equally distasteful, she
+resolved to see how the same confession would be treated by a Catholic
+priest. The result of the essay was that she was listened to with
+respect and sympathy, and informed that the Church fully recognised such
+visitations as coming within the divine order, and as being a token of
+high spiritual favour and grace; and while it refrained from pronouncing
+positively on them, considered that they ought not to be lightly
+disregarded. She was soon afterwards received into the Roman Church,
+being baptised on September 14, 1870. On June 9, 1872, she was confirmed
+by Archbishop Manning, who admonished her to utilise her attractions in
+making converts. And on each occasion she received additional names, in
+virtue of which she now bore the names of all the five women who were by
+the Cross and at the Sepulchre.
+
+None the less, however, did she retain her independence of mind and
+conduct. She accepted no direction, and professed no tenet that she did
+not understand. And it was soon made clear to her that the Spirit, of
+whom she was being impelled, did not intend her to regard her adoption
+of Catholicism as more than a step in her education for the work
+required of her. For the following year saw her bent on seeking a
+medical degree, under the impression that such a step was in some way
+related to the mission of which she had received such and so many
+mysterious intimations. And she had scarcely commenced her study of
+medicine when this impression was reinforced by the following incident,
+the scene of which was her home in Shropshire, in the parish of which
+her husband had then recently become incumbent, and where I first
+visited them.
+
+This was the receipt of a letter from a lady who was a stranger to her,
+written from a distant part of the country, and saying that she, the
+writer, had read with profound interest and admiration a story[12] of
+Mrs Kingsford which, after appearing in her magazine, had been published
+as a book, and that after reading it she had received from the Holy
+Spirit a message for her which was to be delivered in person. After some
+hesitation as to what reply to make, Mrs Kingsford--whose account I am
+following exactly--agreed to receive her; an appointment was made, and
+the stranger duly presented herself. She was tall, erect, distinguished
+looking, with hair of iron-grey and strangely brilliant eyes, and was
+perfectly calm and collected of demeanour. The message was to the effect
+that Mrs Kingsford was to remain in retirement for five years,
+continuing the studies and mode of life on which she had entered,
+whatever they might be--for that the messenger did not know--and to
+suffer nothing and no one to draw her aside from them. That when these
+probationary five years were past, the Holy Spirit would bring her
+forth from her seclusion, and a great work would be given her to do. All
+this was uttered with a rapt and inspired expression, as though she had
+been a Sibyl pronouncing an oracle. After delivering her message, the
+messenger kissed her on both cheeks and departed, first asking only
+whether she thought her mad; a question to which for a moment Mrs
+Kingsford found it somewhat difficult to make reply. But only for a
+moment. For then there rushed on her the conviction that it was all
+genuine and true, and was but a fresh unfoldment of the mystery of her
+life and destiny, and in full accordance with her own foreshadowings
+from the beginning.
+
+Some four years later, at a time when Mrs Kingsford was in great straits
+for want of a suitable home in London in which to carry on her studies,
+the same lady was similarly commissioned on her behalf, while totally
+ignorant both of her whereabouts and her need, and with results entirely
+satisfactory. On which occasion I had the privilege of making her
+acquaintance, and the satisfaction of finding her not merely perfectly
+sane, but a person entitled to the highest consideration, noted for her
+pious devotion to works of beneficence involving complete
+self-abnegation; and in short a veritable "Mother in Israel."
+
+The event above related occurred in the spring of 1873, the summer of
+which year saw Mrs Kingsford impelled to do what led to the most crucial
+of the events upon which her destined mission hinged, namely, to write
+to me the letter which led to my visit to her home. In the autumn of the
+same year she passed her matriculation examination at the Apothecaries'
+Hall with success so great as to fill her with high hopes of a
+triumphant passage through the course of her student-life. But
+immediately afterwards her hopes were dashed, for the English medical
+authorities saw fit to close their schools to women, and the way to her
+anticipated career was shut against her.
+
+Such was the position when, in February, 1874, I visited the Shropshire
+rectory, and such in brief the history which was gradually unfolded to
+me as my evident sympathy and appreciation gained the confidence of the
+still young couple, whose senior I was by some twenty years. Both
+husband and wife were at their wits' end, the situation being aggravated
+by a circumstance which was first brought to my knowledge on my
+suggestion of the postponement of her design until such time as the
+medical authorities should come to their right minds and re-open their
+schools to women. The circumstance in question was her terrible
+liability on the ground of ill-health, and especially of asthma, to
+which she was a martyr, life in the country being impossible to her for
+the greater part of the year, when it was only in some large city that
+she was able to breathe. With the schools closed against her in England,
+her thoughts turned towards France, the University of Paris being open
+to women. But for obvious reasons her husband, who could not absent
+himself from his duties to accompany her, would not consent to her going
+thither unless under suitable protection. For himself he had but one
+wish, that she should follow her bent and fashion her life as seemed
+best to her; for he recognised her as entitled by her endowments and
+aspirations, as well as by the terms of their engagement, to full
+liberty of action, while the conditions of her health claimed all
+consideration from him. If, indeed, the Gods had destined her for a
+mission requiring freedom of action combined with the shelter and
+support of a husband's name, it seemed to me that in him they had
+created a man expressly for the office. For some time, however, the
+difficulty seemed insuperable, and one that would yield to no amount of
+deliberation, even with the best will of all concerned.
+
+Meanwhile her self-revelations continued, being evidently prompted, at
+least as much by the desire to obtain some explanation of herself for
+herself, to whom she was, she avowed, a complete puzzle, as by the
+desire to elicit answering confidences from me. And they became with
+each disclosure more and more striking, until I could hardly resist the
+conviction that she was possessed of some faculty in virtue of which she
+was able to have direct perception of conclusions to which I had won my
+way by dint of long and arduous thinking, and in some instances in
+advance of me. She had read my mental history between the lines of my
+books, and was fully prepared to learn that I too had a consciousness,
+analogous to her own, of a mission in life perhaps also analogous to her
+own.
+
+This, I was able to assure her, was indeed the case, and that all my
+books had been written in the idea of finding my way to it by dint of
+free, unfettered thinking. For, brought up in the strictest of
+evangelical sects, I had even as a lad begun to be revolted by the creed
+in which I was reared, and had very early come to regard its tenets,
+especially of total depravity and vicarious atonement, as a libel
+nothing short of blasphemous against both God and man, and to feel that
+no greater boon could be bestowed on the world than its emancipation
+from the bondage of a belief so degrading and so destructive of any
+lofty ideal. I had felt strongly that only in such measure as I might be
+the means of its abolition would my life be a success and a satisfaction
+to myself. It even seemed to me that my own credit was involved in the
+matter; and that in disproving such beliefs I should be vindicating my
+own character. For if God were evil, as those doctrines made Him, I
+could by no possibility be good, since I must have my derivation from
+Him. And I knew that, however weak and unwise I might be, I was not
+evil.
+
+Then, too, my life, like hers, had been one of much isolation and
+meditation. I had felt myself a stranger even with my closest intimates.
+For I was always conscious of a difference which separated me from them,
+and of a side to which they could not have access. I had graduated at
+Cambridge with the design of taking orders; but only to find that I
+could not do so conscientiously, and to feel that to commit myself to
+any conditions incompatible with absolute freedom of thought and
+expression would be a treachery against both myself and my kind;--for it
+was for no merely personal end that I wanted to discover the truth. I
+longed to get away from all my surroundings in order, first, to think
+myself out of all that I had been taught, and so to make my mind as a
+clean sheet whereon to receive true impressions and at first hand; and,
+next, to think myself into a condition and to a level wherein I could
+see all things--myself, nature, and God--face to face, with vision
+undimmed and undistorted by beliefs which, being inherited only and
+traditional, instead of the result of conviction honestly arrived at,
+were factitious and unreal; no living outcome of my own growth and
+observation, but a veritable straitwaistcoat, stifling life and
+restraining development. And so it had come that--as related in my first
+novel, "The Pilgrim and the Shrine"[13], which was essentially
+autobiographical--I had eagerly fallen in with a proposal to join an
+expedition to the then newly-discovered placers of California, an
+enterprise which, besides promising to gratify the love for adventure,
+physical as well as mental, which was strong in me, would postpone if
+not solve the difficulty of my position. It possessed, moreover, the
+high recommendation of taking me to the world of the fresh,
+unsophisticated West, instead of to that East which had been made almost
+hateful to me by its association with the tenets by which existence had
+been poisoned for me.
+
+So, setting my face towards the sunset, I became one of the band of
+"Forty-niners" in California, and remained abroad in the continents and
+isles of the Pacific, from America passing to Australia, until the
+intended year of my absence had grown into nearly ten years, and I had
+experienced well-nigh every vicissitude and extreme which might serve to
+heighten the consciousness, toughen the fibre, and try the soul of man.
+But throughout all, the idea of a mission remained with me, gathering
+force and consistency, until it was made clear to me that not
+destruction merely, but construction, not the exposure of error but the
+demonstration of truth, was comprised in it. For I saw that it was
+possible to reduce religion to a series of first principles, necessary
+truths and self-evident propositions, and that only in such measure as
+it was thus reduced and discerned, was it really true and really
+believed;--in short, that faith and knowledge are identical. To accept a
+religion on the ground that one had been born in it, and apart from its
+appeal to the mind and moral conscience, and thus to make it dependent
+upon the accident of birth and parentage, was to resemble the African
+savage who for the same reason worships Mumbo Jumbo. How, moreover,--I
+asked myself--could a religion which was not in accord with first
+principles, represent a God, Who, to be God, must Himself be the first
+of, and must comprise all principles; must account logically for all the
+facts of consciousness, be it unfolded as far as it may? Granting that,
+as the poet says, "an honest man's the noblest work of God," it was for
+me no less true that "an honest God's the noblest work of man." And it
+was precisely such a being that I longed to elaborate out of, or
+discover in, my own consciousness, confident that the achievement meant
+the solution of all problems, the rectification of all difficulties, the
+satisfaction of all aspirations, intellectual, moral, and spiritual.
+Following such trains of thought, I arrived at the assurance that I had
+within my own consciousness both the truth itself and the verification
+of the truth, and that it remained only to find these.
+
+Returning to England in 1857, and, after an interval, devoting myself to
+literature, all that I wrote, whether essay or fiction, represented the
+endeavour by probing the consciousness to the utmost in every direction
+to discover a central, radiant, and indefeasible point from which all
+things could be deduced, and on which, as a pivot they must depend and
+revolve. I read largely, and went much among people, always in search of
+aid in my quest; but only with the result of finding that neither from
+books nor from persons could I even begin to get what I sought, but only
+from thought.
+
+Meanwhile everything seemed ordered with a view to the end ultimately
+attained. For, so far from having left behind me for ever the
+vicissitudes, and struggles, and trials, and ordeals, in which the
+wildernesses of the western and southern worlds had been so fruitful, I
+was found of them in the old world to which I had returned; and this in
+number, kind, and degree, such as to make it appear as if what I had
+borne before had been inflicted expressly for the purpose of enabling me
+to bear what was put upon me now. And it was only when I had learnt by
+experience that the very capacity for thought is enhanced by feeling no
+less than by thinking, that the "ministry of pain" found its
+explanation. For the feeling required of me proved to be that of the
+inner, not merely of the outer man, of the soul, not merely of the body;
+and the faculty, to be the intuition, and not merely the intellect.
+Hence I was made to learn by experience, long before the fact was
+formulated for me in words, that only "by the bruising of the outer, the
+inner is set free," and "man is alive only so far as he has felt."
+
+Everything seemed contrived expressly in order to force me in this
+inward direction. Even in my literary work, nothing of the "trade"
+element was permitted to intrude. I could not write except when writing
+to or from my own centre. Faculty itself was shut off, if turned to any
+other purpose. Everything I wrote must minister to and represent a step
+in my own unfoldment.
+
+I can confidently affirm that the only books which really helped me
+were, with scarcely an exception, those which I wrote myself. Of the
+exceptions the chief was Emerson. His essays had been my _vade mecum_ in
+all my world-wide wanderings. And there were three sentences of his
+which, to use his own phrase, "found" me as no others had done. They
+were these: "The talent is the call"; "I the imperfect adore my own
+perfect"; and, "Beware when God lets loose a thinker on the earth." Like
+Emerson himself, I had yet to learn that man's own perfect is God, and
+self-culture is God-culture, provided the self be the inmost self. The
+two other books which most helped me were Bailey's "Festus," and
+Carlyle's "Hero-Worship." And I owed something to Tucker's "Light of
+Nature." By which it will be seen that my affinity was always for the
+prophets rather than the priests of literature; for the intuitionalists
+rather than the externalists.
+
+Gradually two leading ideas took definite form in my mind, which,
+however, proved to be but two aspects or applications of one and the
+same idea. And that idea proved to be the keynote of all that I was
+seeking after. For it finally solved the problems of existence, of
+religion, of the Bible, of Being itself. Hence the necessity of this
+reference to it.
+
+This idea was that of a duality subsisting in every unity, such as I had
+nowhere read or heard of. I was, of course, aware that the theological
+doctrine of the Trinity involved a Duality. But not of a kind to find a
+response in my mind. And being unable to assimilate it as it stood, I
+ignored it; putting it aside until it should present itself to me in an
+aspect in which it was intelligible. I felt, however vaguely, that the
+Duality I sought was in the Bible, though it had been missed by the
+official expositors of that book. And the conviction that it was in some
+way connected with my life-work was so strong that I constructed for the
+covers of my two first books a monogram symbolical of Genesis i. 27. And
+I looked to the unfoldment of what I felt to be the secret significance
+of that utterance for the explication of all the mysteries the solution
+of which engrossed me. The thought did not seem to originate in any of
+my experiences, but rather to be part of my original stock of innate
+ideas, supposing that there are such ideas, and to derive confirmation
+and explanation from my experiences.
+
+Those experiences were in this wise. It had been my privilege to have
+the friendship of several women of a type so noble that to know them was
+at once an education and a religion; women whose perfection of character
+had served more than anything else to make me believe in God, when all
+other grounds had failed. I could in no wise account for them on the
+hypothesis of a fortuitous concourse of unintelligent atoms. And not
+only did I find that the higher the type the more richly they were
+endowed with precisely the faculty of which I myself was conscious as
+distinguishing me from my fellows; I found also that I was unable to
+recognise any woman as of a high type as woman save in so far as she was
+possessed of it. I had failed to find any who possessed the knowledge I
+craved, and who were thereby able to help me in my thought. They helped
+me nevertheless, but it was by _being_ what they were, rather than by
+_knowing_ and _doing_, be they admirable as they might in these
+respects. I recognised in them that which supplemented and complemented
+my mental self in such wise as to suggest unbounded possibilities of
+results to accrue from the intimate association of two minds thus
+attuned to each other, and duly unfolded by thought and study. It
+needed, it seemed to me, but the reverberation and intensification of
+thought, induced by the apposition of two minds thus related, for the
+production of the divine child Truth in the very highest spheres of
+thought. So that the results would by no means be restricted to the mere
+sum of the associated capacities of the two minds themselves. And in
+view of such high possibilities I found myself appropriating and
+applying the ejaculation which Virgil puts into the mouth of Anna when
+urging the union of her sister Dido with Æneas--
+
+                  "Quæ surgere regna
+    Conjugio tali!"
+
+and I felt with Tennyson that
+
+    "They two together well might move the world."
+
+So boundless seemed to me the kingdoms of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
+which would spring from such conjunction.
+
+It goes without saying that such relationship was contemplated by me
+only as the accompaniment of a happy re-marriage. [For I had married in
+Australia only to be widowered after a year's wedlock.] But such a
+prospect was so long withheld as to make me dubious of its
+realisation[14]. Nevertheless, some inner voice was ever saying: "Wait;
+wait. Everything comes to him who waits, provided only he do so in faith
+and patience, looking to the highest." But that I did wait, and
+accordingly kept myself free for what ultimately was assigned to me, was
+due far less to the expectation of finding that for which I waited, than
+to the vivid consciousness which I had of the bitterness that would come
+of finding it, only to be withheld from it through a previous disposal
+of myself in some other and incompatible quarter. This was an impression
+which served largely to keep my life as free as I desired my thought to
+be. But that the as yet undisclosed arbiters of my destiny deemed it
+insufficient as a deterrent, appeared from their reinforcement of it in
+a manner which effectually debarred me from marriage save on the
+condition, impossible to me, of a mercenary alliance. This was a
+reversal of fortune through a succession of losses so serious as to be
+the cause of reducing my means to the minimum compatible with existence
+at all in my own station, which soon afterwards happened. That there
+were yet further reasons for this imposition on me of the rule of
+poverty, arising out of the nature of the work required of me, was in
+due time made manifest, and also what those reasons were. They need not
+be specified here, excepting only this one. It made impossible the
+ascription to my destined colleague of mercenary motives for her
+association with me. In this I came to recognise a delicate providence
+for which I felt I could not be too thankful. In the meantime, even
+while smarting severely from this dispensation, and others yet more
+bitter which were heaped on me for no apparent cause or fault of my own
+that I could discern, the thought that most of all served to sustain me
+under what I felt would have utterly broken down in heart or head, or in
+both of these organs, any other person whatever of whom I had
+knowledge,--that thought was the surmise or suspicion that all these
+things, hard to bear as they were, and undeserved as they seemed, might
+prove to be blessings in disguise, in ministering to the realisation of
+the controlling ambition of my life by educating me for it; and that
+according to the manner in which I bore them might be the result.
+
+There is yet one more personal disclosure essential to this part of my
+relation. It concerns my own mental standpoint at the time at which my
+narrative has arrived. Bent as I was on penetrating the secret of things
+at first hand, and by means of a thought absolutely free, I was never
+for a moment disposed to turn, as my so-called free-thinking
+contemporaries one and all had turned, a scornful back upon whatever
+related to or savoured of the current religion. Scripture and dogma were
+not for me necessarily either false or inscrutable because their
+official exponents had presented them in an aspect which outraged my
+reason and revolted my conscience. I felt bound--if only in justice to
+them and myself--at least to find out what they did mean before finally
+discarding them. And in this act of justice I was strangely sustained
+by a sense of the possibility that the truth, if any, contained in them,
+was no other than that of which I was in search. This is to say, that in
+all my investigations I kept before me the idea that, if I could discern
+the actual nature of existence and the intended sense of the Bible and
+Christianity, independently of each other, they might prove on
+comparison to be identical; in which case the latter would really
+represent a true revelation. Meanwhile, I found myself constrained to
+believe, as an axiomatic proposition, that the higher and nobler the
+conception I framed in my imagination of the nature of existence, and
+the more in accordance with my ideas of what, to be perfect, the
+constitution of the universe ought to be, the nearer I should come to
+the actual truth.
+
+Similarly with religion. For a religion to be true, it must, I felt
+absolutely assured, be ideally perfect after the most perfect ideal that
+we can frame. This is to say, that not only must it be in itself such as
+to satisfy both head and heart, mind and moral conscience, spirit and
+soul; it must also be perfectly simple, obviously reasonable, coherent,
+self-evident, founded in the nature of things, incapable--when once
+comprehended--of being conceived of as otherwise, absolutely equitable,
+eternally true, and recognisable as being all these, invariable in
+operation, independent of all accidents of time, place, persons and
+events, and comparable to the demonstration of a mathematical problem in
+that it needs no testimony or authority beyond those of the mind; and
+requiring for its efficacious observance, nothing that is extraneous or
+inaccessible to the subject-individual, but within his ability to
+recognise and fulfil, provided only that he so will. It must also be
+such as to enable him by the observance of it to turn his existence to
+the highest possible account imaginable by him, be his imagination as
+developed as it may: and all this as independently of any being other
+than himself, as if he were the sole personal entity in the universe,
+and were himself the universe. That is to say, the means of a man's
+perfectionment must inhere in his own system, and he must be competent
+of himself effectually to apply them. It is further necessary, because
+equitable, that he be allowed sufficient time and opportunity for the
+discovery, understanding and application of such means.
+
+Such are the terms and conditions of an ideally perfect religion, as I
+conceived of them. It is a definition which excludes well-nigh, if not
+quite, all the characteristics ordinarily regarded as appertaining to
+religion, and notably to that of Christendom. For in excluding
+everything extraneous to the actual subject-individual, and requiring
+religion to be self-evident and necessarily true, it excludes as
+superfluous and irrelevant, history, tradition, authority, revelation,
+as ordinarily conceived of, ecclesiastical ordinance, priestly
+ministration, mediatorial function, vicarious satisfaction, and even the
+operation of Deity as subsisting without and apart from the man, all of
+which are essential elements in the accepted conception of religion.
+Nevertheless, profound as was my distrust of the faithfulness of the
+orthodox presentation, I could not reconcile myself to a renunciation of
+the originals on which that presentation was founded, until I had
+satisfied myself that I had fathomed their intended and real meaning.
+
+I had, moreover, very early conceived a personal affection for Jesus as
+a man, so strong as to serve as a deterrent both from abandoning the
+faith founded on Him, and from accepting it as it is as worthy of Him.
+
+Such was my standpoint, intellectual and religious, at the period in
+question. The time came when it found full justification; our results
+being such as to verify it in everyone of its manifold aspects. And not
+this only. The doctrine which had so mysteriously evolved itself out of
+my consciousness to attain by slow degrees the position of a controlling
+influence in my life, the doctrine, namely of a Duality subsisting in
+the Original Unity of Underived Being, and as inhering therefore in
+every unit of derived being, this doctrine proved to be the key to the
+mysteries both of Creation and of Redemption, as propounded in the Bible
+and manifested in the Christ; the key also to the nature of man,
+disclosing the facts both of his possession of divine potentialities as
+his birthright, and his endowment with the faculty whereby to discern
+and to realise them. And while it proved constructive in respect of
+Divine Truth, it proved destructive in respect of the falsification of
+that truth which had passed for orthodoxy, by disclosing the source, the
+motive, the method and the agents of that falsification.
+
+But these things were still in the future. At the time with which we are
+now concerned, I had commenced a book to represent the standpoint just
+described, "The Keys of the Creeds." The first and initial draft of
+that book was written under the sympathetic eye of one of the order of
+noble women to which reference has been made, and owed much to the
+enhancement of faculty derived by me from such conjunction of minds. The
+second and final draft was written under like relationship with another
+member of the self-same order, even she who proved to be my destined
+collaborator in the work of which this book recounts the story. It was
+published in 1875. It is necessary only to say further of the book thus
+produced, that notwithstanding certain defects of expression, due
+chiefly to an insufficient acquaintance with the terminology of
+metaphysics, it proved an invaluable help to very many, as was amply
+shown by the letters of grateful appreciation received from them by me.
+The keynote was that which afterwards found expression in the
+utterance,--
+
+"There is no enlightenment from without: the secret of things is
+revealed from within.
+
+"From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within beareth
+witness"[15].
+
+For the lesson it contained was the lesson that the phenomenal world
+cannot disclose its own secret. To find this, man must seek in that
+substantial world which lies within himself, since all that is real is
+within the man. From which it followed that if there is no within, or if
+that within be inaccessible, either there is no reality, or man has no
+organon of knowledge, and is by constitution agnostic. Meanwhile, the
+very fact of my possession of an ideal exempt from the limitations of
+the apparent, constituted for me a strong presumption in favour of the
+reality of the ideal.
+
+The moment of contact between my destined colleague and myself, was as
+critical for one as for the other, only that in my case the crisis was
+intellectual. I could see to the end of the argument I was then
+elaborating; and that it landed me close to the dividing barrier between
+the two worlds of sense and spirit, supposing the latter to have any
+being[16]. But I neither saw beyond, nor knew how to ascertain whether
+or not there is a beyond. We were discussing the question of there being
+an inner sense in Scripture, such as my book suggested; and whether,
+supposing it to have such a sense, it required for its discernment any
+faculty more recondite than a subtle imagination; and if it did, is
+there such a faculty? and what is its nature? By which it will be seen
+that I was still in ignorance of the nature of the faculty I found in
+myself and recognised as especially subsisting in women, and which, for
+me, really made the woman.
+
+The reply rendered by her to these questionings constituted the proof
+positive that I had at length discovered the mind which my own had so
+long craved as its sorely needed complement. In response to them she
+gave me a manuscript in her own writing, asking me to read it and tell
+her frankly what I thought of it. Having read and re-read it, I
+enquired how and where she had got it. She replied by asking what I
+thought of it. I answered, "If there is such a thing as divine
+revelation, I know of nothing that comes nearer to my ideal of what it
+ought to be. It is exactly what the world is perishing for want of--a
+reasonable faith." She then told me that it had come to her in her
+sleep, but whence or how she did not know; nor could she say whether she
+had seen it or heard it, but only that it came suddenly into her mind,
+without her having ever heard or thought of such teaching before. It was
+an exposition of the Story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable
+having a significance purely spiritual, wholly reasonable, and of
+universal application, physical persons, things, and events described in
+it disappearing in favour of principles, processes, and states
+appertaining to the soul; no mere local history, therefore, but an
+eternal verity. The experience, she went on to tell me, was far from
+exceptional; she had received many things which had greatly struck and
+pleased her in the same way, and sometimes while in the waking state in
+a sort of day-dream. It was subsequently incorporated into our book,
+"The Perfect Way."
+
+Her account of her faculty, of which she related several instances,
+produced a profound impression on me. It differed altogether from any
+that I had heard of as claimed by the votaries of "Spiritualism," a
+creed to which neither of us had assented; such little experience as we
+had of it having failed to convince us of the genuineness of its
+phenomena; though she, on her part, confessed to having been somewhat at
+a loss to account for some things she had seen. But though not
+spiritualists, we were not materialists. Rather were we idealists, who
+had yet to learn and, as the event proved, were destined shortly to
+learn, that the Ideal _is_ the Real, and is Spiritual.
+
+The event also proved that in order to learn it and to know it
+positively by experience, there were two conditions to be fulfilled, on
+both of which she had already entered, but I had yet to enter. One of
+these conditions was physical, the other was emotional. The former
+consisted in the renunciation of flesh-food in favour of a diet derived
+from the vegetable kingdom. The latter condition consisted in the
+kindling of our enthusiasm for the ideal into a flame of such ardour and
+intensity as to make it the dominant passion of our lives, and one in
+which all others would be swallowed up. It was to be an enthusiasm at
+once for Humanity, for Perfection, for God.
+
+Had we been in any degree instructed in spiritual or occult science, we
+should have known that the renunciation of flesh-food, though in itself
+a physical act, has ever been recognised by initiates as the prime
+essential in the unfoldment of the spiritual faculties; since only when
+man is purely nourished can he attain clearness and fulness of spiritual
+perception. As it was, neither of us had ever heard of occult science,
+or of the necessity of such a regimen to the perfectionment of faculty.
+She had adopted it on grounds physiological, chemical, hygienic,
+æsthetic, and moral; not on grounds mental or spiritual. I now undertook
+to adopt it partly on the same grounds which had influenced her, and
+partly with a view to enhance and consolidate the sympathy subsisting
+between us. The mental and spiritual advantages of the regimen made
+themselves known to us by experience.
+
+The other condition found its fulfilment through the knowledge I derived
+from her of the methods of the physiologists. That savages, sorcerers,
+brigands, religious fanatics, and corrupt priesthoods had always been
+wont to make torture their gain or their pastime, I was well aware, and
+believed that evolution would sweep them and their practices away in its
+course. But the discovery now first made to me that identical
+barbarities are systematically perpetrated by the leaders of modern
+science on the pretext of benefiting humanity, in an age which claims to
+represent the summit of such evolution as has yet been accomplished; and
+that after all its boasts, the best that science can do for the world is
+to convert it into a hell and its population into fiends, by the
+deliberate renunciation of the distinctive sentiments of humanity,--this
+was a discovery which filled me with unspeakable horror and amazement,
+at once raising to a white heat the enthusiasm of love for the ideal
+already kindled within me, and adding to it a like enthusiasm of
+detestation for its opposite. From which it came that I found myself
+under the impulsion simultaneously of two mighty influences, the one
+attracting, the other repelling, but both operating in the same
+direction. For while by the former I was drawn upwards by the beauty of
+an ideal indefinitely enhanced by its contrast with the foul actual
+below, by the latter I was impelled upwards by the hideousness of that
+actual. The sight of the moral abyss disclosed to me in Vivisection, as
+I perused volume after volume of the annals of the practice written by
+the perpetrators themselves, and now first made accessible to me,
+effectually purged out of my system any particle of dilettanteism that
+might have still lurked in it, compelling me to regard as of the utmost
+urgency all and more than all that I had hitherto contemplated doing
+deliberately.
+
+This was the construction of a system of thought which by force of its
+appeal to both those two indispensable constituents of humanity, the
+head and the heart, shall compel acceptance from all persons really
+human, and in presence of which the whole system of which Vivisection
+was the typical outcome and symbol should vanish from off the earth.
+This system was Materialism of which only now did I discern the full
+significance. The systematic organisation of wholesale, protracted,
+uncompensatable torture, for ends purely selfish, was--I saw with
+absolute distinctness--not an accidental and avoidable outcome of
+Materialism, but its logical and inevitable outcome. And it was to the
+eradication of Materialism that, from that moment, I dedicated myself.
+It was a rescue work for both man and beast, seeing that humanity itself
+was menaced with extinction. For the materialist, of course, that which
+makes the man is the form. For me it was the character, and it was this,
+the character of mankind present and to come, that was at stake. For man
+demonised is no longer man. In the overthrow of Materialism, I saw
+absolutely, was salvation alone to be found, whether for man or beast.
+The consideration that only as an abstainer from flesh-food I could with
+entire consistency contend against vivisection, was a potent factor in
+determining my change of diet. True, the distinction between death and
+torture was a broad one. But the statistics I now for the first time
+perused, of the slaughter-house and the cattle-traffic, showed beyond
+question, that torture, and this prolonged and severe, is involved in
+the use of animals for food as well as for science. And over and above
+this was the instinctive perception of the probability that neither
+would they who had them killed, whether for food, for sport, or for
+clothing, be allowed the privilege of rescuing them from the hands of
+the physiologist; nor would the animals be allowed to accept their
+deliverance at the hands of those who thus used them. They who would
+save others, we felt, must first make sacrifice in themselves. And in
+the presence of the joy of working to effect such salvation, sacrifice
+would cease to be sacrifice.
+
+This, too, we noted, and with no small satisfaction--that to make the
+rescue of the animals an immediate and urgent motive, was in no way to
+abandon the original motive of hatred to the tenet of vicarious
+atonement. For we recognised vivisection itself as but the extension to
+the domain of science, of the very principle by which we had been
+inexpressibly revolted in the domain of religion;--the principle of
+seeking one's own salvation by the sacrifice of another, and that the
+innocent. And so we learnt that "New Scientist is but Old Priest writ
+differently,"--to vary Milton's expression; and that in both domains the
+tenet had its root in Materialism. When the time came for our mission to
+be more particularly defined, our satisfaction was unbounded on
+receiving the charge, "We mean you to lay bare the secrets of the
+world's sacrificial system." It expressed with absolute conciseness and
+exactitude all that we had in our minds, far better than we could have
+expressed it.
+
+The importance of this question of vivisection in vitalising us for the
+work before us, will be seen by the following fact. The time came when
+we knew that the work committed to us was that revelation anew of the
+Christ which was to constitute His Second Advent, inasmuch as it was the
+interpretation of the truth of which He was the manifestation. It was to
+be a spiritual coming; in the "clouds of heaven," the heaven of the
+"kingdom within" of man's restored understanding. And, as at His first
+advent so at His second, He was to have His birth among the animals.
+
+And so it verily was. For--as I have elsewhere stated[17]--"Their
+terrible wrongs, culminating at the hands of their scientific
+tormentors, were the last drops which filled to overflowing with
+anguish, indignation and wrath, hearts already brimming with the sense
+of the world's degradation and misery, wringing from them the cry which
+rent the heavens for His descent, and in direct and immediate response
+to which He came.
+
+"For the New Gospel of Interpretation was vouchsafed in express
+recognition of the determined endeavour, by means of a thought
+absolutely fearless and free, to scale the topmost heights, fathom the
+lowest depths, and penetrate to the inmost recesses of Consciousness, in
+search of the solution of the problem of Existence, under the assured
+conviction that, when found, it would prove to be one that would make
+above all things Vivisection impossible, if only by demonstrating the
+constitution of things to be such that, terrible as is the lot of the
+victims of the practice here, they are not without compensation
+hereafter, while the lot of their tormentors will be unspeakably worse
+than even that of their victims here. And so it proved, with absolute
+certainty to be the case, to the full vindication at the same time of
+the Divine Justice and the Divine Love;" no experience being withheld
+which would qualify us to bear positive testimony thereto. For, although
+at the outset we were, as I have said, in no wise believers in the
+possibility of such experiences, the time came, and came quickly, when
+the veil was withdrawn, and the secrets of the Beyond were disclosed to
+us in plenitude, in its every sphere, from the abyss of hell to the
+heights of heaven. And we learnt that this had become possible through
+the passionate energy with which, in our search for the highest truth,
+for the highest ends, and in purest love to redeem, we had directed our
+thought inwards and upwards, living at the same time the life requisite
+to qualify us for such perceptions. Thus did we obtain practical
+realisation of the promise that they who do the divine will, by living
+the divine life, shall know of the divine doctrine. Our whole mental
+attitude had been one of prayer in its essential sense; which is not
+that of _saying_ prayers, but as it came to be defined for us--"the
+intense direction of the will and desire towards the Highest; an
+unchanging intent to know nothing but the Highest." Because "to think
+inwardly, to pray intensely, and to imagine centrally, is to hold
+converse with God." And we had done this without knowing it was prayer,
+or calling it by that name. For, knowing only the conventional
+conception of prayer, we had recoiled from it as from other conventional
+conceptions of things religious.
+
+Now, however, we found that we had done instinctively and spontaneously
+precisely what was necessary to bring us into relations at once with our
+spiritual selves and with the world of those who consist only of the
+spiritual self. For, by thus becoming vitalised and sensitive in that
+part of man's system which endures and passes on, we had come into open
+conditions with the world of those who have thus endured and passed on,
+and are no longer of the terrestrial, but of the celestial, having
+surmounted all lower and intermediate planes. All this came to us
+without anticipation on our part, or any conscious seeking for it; but
+yet without causing dismay or surprise when it came. For it came so
+gradually as to seem to be but the natural and orderly result of the
+unfoldment of our own spiritual consciousness, and excited only feelings
+of joy and thankfulness at finding our method and aspirations crowned
+with so high a success. Thus was it made absolutely clear to us that, so
+far from divine revelation involving miracle, or requiring for its
+instruments persons other in kind than the ordinary, it is a prerogative
+of man, belonging to him as man; and requiring for its reception only
+that he be fully man, alive and sensitive in his own innermost and
+highest, in his centre as in his circumference. Thus living on the quick
+and finding no others who did so, it seemed to us as if we alone were
+the quick, and all others were dead.
+
+We noted yet another way in which we supplemented and complemented each
+other. It was in this wise. As I was bent on the construction of a
+system of thought which should be at once a science, a philosophy, a
+morality, and a religion, and recognisable by the understanding as
+indubitably true; she was bent on the construction of a rule of life
+equally obvious and binding, and recognisable by the sentiments as alone
+according with them, its basis being that sense of perfect justice which
+springs from perfect sympathy.
+
+By which it will be seen that while it was her aim to establish a
+perfect practice, which might or might not consist with a perfect
+doctrine, it was my aim to establish a perfect doctrine which would
+inevitably issue in a perfect practice, by at once defining it and
+supplying an all-compelling motive for its observance.
+
+These, as we at once recognised, were the two indispensable halves of
+one perfect whole. But we had yet to learn the nature and source of the
+compelling motive for its enforcement.
+
+The deficiency was made good by the discovery of the fact of man's
+permanence as an individual. The revelation of this truth was the
+demonstration to us of the inanity--not to use a stronger term--of the
+system called "Positivism." In ignoring the soul, that system lacks the
+motive and repudiates the source of the sentiments on which it insists,
+and to the experiences of which those sentiments are due.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] The book was "By and By: An Historical Romance of the Future," its
+object being to show a state of society in which the intuition is
+supreme, and individuals follow their own ideals. It represents a step
+in E.M.'s unfoldment, but not his final conclusions. In 1873 A.K.,
+having read a review of this book in the _Examiner_ (which also
+contained a notice of one of her tales), communicated with E.M. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 27.)
+
+[9] This was not the first time that E.M. met A.K. He had met her once
+before, in January, 1874, in a picture gallery in London. "It was but
+for a short time, and during a single afternoon"; but it was "sufficient
+to convince" him of "the unusual character of the personality" with
+which he had come into contact. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 32.)
+
+[10] Her "very first published production" was a poem in a religious
+magazine, when she was "but nine years old." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 29.)
+
+[11] "Beatrice: A Tale of the Early Christians," was written by A.K. in
+1859, for the _Churchman's Companion_, "but the publisher thought it
+worthy to make a separate volume, and offered to bring it out in that
+form, and to give her a present for it," which offer was accepted. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 4.)
+
+[12] The Story was "In my Lady's Chamber," and purported to be a
+"speculative romance touching a few questions of the day." It was
+afterwards published separately as by "Colossa." (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+21, 22.)
+
+[13] The first edition of "The Pilgrim and the Shrine" was published in
+1867.
+
+[14] E.M. did not marry again. He had one child, Charles Bradley
+Maitland, and he died on the 16th February, 1901.
+
+[15] See p. 100
+
+[16] E.M. says that "The Keys of the Creeds" brought his thought up to
+the extreme limits of a thought merely intellectual, to transcend which
+it would be necessary to penetrate the barrier between the worlds of
+sense and of spirit. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 54.)
+
+[17] Statement E.C.U. p. 80.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE INITIATION.
+
+
+My visit to the rectory resulted in an intimacy which made me to such
+extent a member of the family as to remove all obstacles to the
+collaboration required of us. It was soon made evident that not only our
+association, but her design of seeking a medical education was for both
+of us an indispensable element in our preparation for our now recognised
+joint-mission. In its general aspect that mission had for its purpose
+the overthrow of Materialism, and in order to qualify us for it, it was
+deemed necessary that we undergo a training in the most materialistic of
+the world's schools. This was the University of Paris. She alone was to
+seek a diploma. For me it was enough that I accompany her in her
+studies, and that we submit the teachings received by her to rigid
+analysis by our combined faculties. Doing this, we found ourselves
+competent to declare positively the falsity of the materialistic system
+on the strength both of logical processes and of practical
+demonstration, by means of the experiences of which we found ourselves
+the recipients. For although we had never heard of such things as
+"psychic faculties,"--the very phrase was not yet invented--we found
+ourselves possessed of them in such measure that no longer did the veil
+which divides the world sensible from the world spiritual constitute an
+impassable barrier, but both were open to view, and the latter was as
+real and accessible as the former.
+
+It was about the middle of 1876 that this remarkable accession of
+faculty began to manifest itself in plenitude, I being the first to
+experience it, notwithstanding my previous total lack of any faculty of
+the kind, or of belief in the possibility of my having it. But the
+purification which my physical system had undergone by means of my new
+dietary regimen, and the constant and intense direction of my thought
+inwards and upwards, the forcible concentration of my mind upon the
+essential and substantial ideas of things, and this under impulsion of
+an enthusiasm kindled to a white heat--an enthusiasm, as already said,
+both of aspiration and of repulsion--and the enhancement of faculty
+through sympathetic association,--these had so attenuated the veil that
+it no longer impeded my vision of spiritual realities. And I found
+myself--without seeking for or expecting it--spiritually sensitive in
+respect of sight, hearing, and touch, and in open, palpable relations
+with a world which I had no difficulty in recognising as of celestial
+nature; so far did it transcend everything of which I had heard or read
+in the annals of the contemporary spiritualism; so entirely did it
+accord with my conceptions of the divine.
+
+That I refrain from employing the terms "supernatural" and "superhuman,"
+is because they assume the knowledge of the limits of the natural and
+the human, and arbitrarily exclude from those categories regions of
+being which may really belong to them. The celestial and the divine are
+not necessarily either superhuman or supernatural; they may be but the
+higher human and the higher natural. If they are at all, they are
+according to natural order, and it is natural for them to be.
+
+Nevertheless, vast as was the interval it represented between my past
+and present states, it came so naturally and easily as to be clearly the
+result, not of any abnormal or accidental cataclysm involving a breach
+of continuity, but of a perfectly orderly unfoldment every step of which
+was distinctly traceable. For though the process was akin to that of the
+attainment of sight by one previously blind, and the final issue was
+sudden, the issue had been led up to in such wise as to render it
+legitimate and normal. For its earliest indication[18] was an opening of
+the mind in such wise that subjects hitherto beyond my grasp, and
+problems deemed insoluble, became comprehensible and clear; while whole
+vistas of thought perfectly continuous and coherent, would disclose
+themselves to my view, stretching far away towards their source in the
+very principles of things, so that I found myself intellectually the
+master of questions which previously had baffled me.
+
+The experience I am about to relate was not only remarkable in itself,
+it was remarkable also as striking what proved to be the keynote of all
+our subsequent work, the doctrine, namely, of the _substantial_ identity
+of God and man. It had suddenly flashed on my mind as a necessary and
+self-evident truth, the contrary of which was absurd; and I had seated
+myself at my writing-table to give it expression for a book I had lately
+commenced[19]. I was alone and locked in my room in my chambers off
+Pall Mall, Mrs Kingsford being at the time in Paris, accompanied by her
+husband. It was past midnight, and all without was quiet; there was not
+a sound to break my abstraction. This was so profound that I had written
+some four pages without drawing breath, the matter seeming to flow not
+merely from but through me without conscious mental effort of my own. I
+_saw_ so clearly that there was no need to _think_. In the course of the
+writing I became distinctly aware of a presence as of someone bending
+over me from behind, and actively engaged in blending with and
+reinforcing my mind. Being unwilling to risk an interruption to the flow
+of my thought, I resisted the impulse to look up and ascertain who or
+what it was. Of alarm at so unlooked-for a presence I had not a
+particle. Be it whom it might, the accord between us was as perfect as
+if it had been merely a projection of my own higher self. I had never
+heard of higher selves in those days, or of the possibility of such a
+phenomenon; but the idea of such an explanation occurred to me then and
+there. But this solution of the problem of my visitant's personality was
+presently dissipated by the event.
+
+The passage I had been writing concluded with these words:--
+
+     "The perfect man of any race is no other than the perfect
+     expression in the flesh of all the essential characteristics of the
+     soul of that race. Escaping the limitations of the individual man,
+     such an one represents the soul of his people. Escaping the
+     limitations of the individual people, he represents the soul of
+     all peoples, or Humanity. Escaping the limitations of Humanity, but
+     still preserving its essential characteristics, he represents the
+     soul of the system of which the earth is but an individual member.
+     And finally, after climbing many a further step of the infinite
+     ladder of existence, and escaping the limitations of all systems
+     whatever, he represents--nay, finds that he is--the soul of the
+     universe, even God Himself, once 'manifested in the flesh,' and now
+     'perfected through suffering,' 'purified, sanctified, redeemed,
+     justified, glorified,' 'crowned with honour and glory,' and 'seated
+     for ever at the right hand of the Father,' 'one with God,' even God
+     Himself."
+
+At this moment--my mind being so wholly preoccupied with the utterance
+and all that I saw it involved, as to make me oblivious of all else--the
+presence I had felt bending over me darted itself into me just below the
+cerebral bulb at the back of my neck, the sensation being that of a
+slight tap, as of a finger-touch; and then in a voice full, rich, firm,
+measured, and so strong that it resounded through the room, exclaimed,
+in a tone indicative of high satisfaction, "At last I have found a man
+through whom I can speak!"
+
+So powerful was the intonation that the tympana of my ears vibrated to
+the sound, palpably bulging outwards, showing that they had been struck
+on the inner side, and that the presence had actually projected itself
+into my larynx and spoken from within me, but without using my organs of
+speech, I was conscious of being in radiant health at the time, and was
+unable to detect any symptom of being otherwise. My thought, too, and
+observation were perfectly coherent and continuous, and I could discern
+no smallest pretext for distrust of the reality of the experience. And
+my delight and satisfaction, which were unbounded, found expression in
+the single utterance, "Then the ancients were right, and the Gods ARE!"
+so resistless was the conviction that only by a divinised being could
+the wisdom and power be manifested of the presence of which I was
+conscious. The words, "At last I have found a man" were incompatible
+with the theory of its being an objectivation of my own particular ego,
+and, moreover, they indicated the speaker as one high in authority over
+the race.
+
+Nothing more passed on that occasion; but a vivid impression was left
+with me that my visitant belonged to the order of spirits called
+"Planetaries." But as I had then no knowledge of such beings, I put
+aside the question of his identity for the solution which I trusted
+would come of further enlightenment. This came in due time, with the
+result of confirming the impression given me at the time. The
+explanation, however, does not come within the scope of this present
+writing. Some time afterwards, when searching at the library of the
+British Museum in the writings of the old occultists for experiences
+analogous to our own, I came upon one account which described the
+entrance into the man of an overshadowing spirit exactly as it had
+occurred to me, so far as it concerned the nape of the neck as the point
+of entry and the slightness of the sensation. The only further reference
+to the incident necessary here is as follows.
+
+A little later Mrs Kingsford had returned to England, being compelled to
+quit Paris by a severe illness which she had contracted immediately on
+her arrival there; and was pursuing her studies in London, making her
+home with a relative in Chelsea. The event proved that she had been sent
+back by the supervisors of our work expressly in order to be within
+reach of me. Indeed, an intimation had been given me before she had gone
+that she would not be allowed to stay abroad, as our near contiguity was
+indispensable, and I had accordingly viewed her departure with
+considerable disquietude, circumstances rendering it impossible for me
+to leave home just then. Prior to coming back she had obtained from the
+Minister of Education the exceptional privilege of a permit allowing her
+attendance at a London hospital to count in her Paris course.
+
+The first experience received by her in relation to our work, after her
+return to London, was the terrific vision of "The Doomed Train"[20].
+
+On bringing it to me on the morning of its occurrence, she exclaimed as
+she entered the room, "Oh, I have had such a terrific dream! It has
+quite shattered me. And I have brought it for you to try and find its
+meaning, if it has one. I wrote it down the moment I was able." Her
+appearance fully confirmed her statement. It alarmed me. This is the
+account:--
+
+"I was visited, last night, by a dream of so strange and vivid a kind
+that I feel impelled to communicate it to you, not only to relieve my
+own mind of the oppression which the recollection of it causes me, but
+also to give you an opportunity of finding the meaning, which I am still
+far too much shaken and terrified to seek for myself.
+
+"It seemed to me that you and I were two of a vast company of men and
+women, upon all of whom, with the exception of myself--for I was there
+voluntarily--sentence of death had been passed. I was sensible of the
+knowledge--how obtained I know not--that this terrible doom had been
+pronounced by the official agents of some new reign of terror. Certain I
+was that none of the party had really been guilty of any crime deserving
+of death; but that the penalty had been incurred through their
+connection with some regime, political, social, or religious, which was
+doomed to utter destruction. It became known among us that the sentence
+was about to be carried out on a colossal scale; but we remained in
+absolute ignorance as to the place and method of the intended execution.
+Thus far my dream gave me no intimation of the scene which next burst on
+me,--a scene which strained to their utmost tension every sense of
+sight, hearing, and touch in a manner unprecedented in any dream I have
+previously had.
+
+"It was night, dark and starless, and I found myself, together with the
+whole company of doomed men and women who knew that they were soon to
+die, but not how or where, in a railway train hurrying through the
+darkness to some unknown destination. I sat in a carriage quite at the
+rear end of the train, in a corner seat, and was leaning out of the open
+window, peering into the darkness, when, suddenly, a voice, which seemed
+to speak out of the air, said to me in a low, distinct, intense tone,
+the mere recollection of which makes me shudder,--'The sentence is being
+carried out even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the train is a
+frightful precipice of monstrous height, and at its base beats a
+fathomless sea. The railway ends only with the abyss. Over that will the
+train hurl itself into annihilation. THERE IS NO ONE ON THE ENGINE!'
+
+"At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and looked round at the faces
+of the persons in the carriage with me. No one of them had spoken, or
+had heard those awful words. The lamplight from the dome of the carriage
+flickered on the forms about me. I looked from one to the other, but saw
+no sign of alarm given by any of them. Then again the voice out of the
+air spoke to me,--'There is but one way to be saved. You must leap out
+of the train!'
+
+"In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage-door and stepped out on the
+footboard. The train was going at a terrific pace, swaying to and fro as
+with the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind of its passage beat
+my hair about my face and tore at my garments.
+
+"Until this moment I had not thought of you, or even seemed conscious of
+your presence in the train. Holding tightly on to the rail by the
+carriage-door, I began to creep along the footboard towards the engine,
+hoping to find a chance of dropping safely down on the line.
+Hand-over-hand I passed along in this way from one carriage to another;
+and as I did so I saw by the light within each carriage that the
+passengers had no idea of the fate upon which they were being hurried.
+At length, in one of the compartments, I saw _you_. 'Come out!' I
+cried; 'come out! Save yourself! In another minute we shall be dashed to
+pieces!'
+
+"You rose instantly, wrenched open the door, and stood beside me outside
+on the footboard. The rapidity at which we were going was now more
+fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled onwards. The wind
+shrieked as we were carried through it. 'Leap down!' I cried to you.
+'Save yourself! It is certain death to stay here. Before us is an abyss;
+and there is no one on the engine!'
+
+"At this you turned your face full upon me with a look of intense
+earnestness, and said, 'No, we will not leap down; we will stop the
+train.'
+
+"With these words you left me, and crept along the footboard towards the
+front of the train. Full of half-angry anxiety at what seemed to me a
+Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages we passed I saw my
+mother and eldest brother, unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached
+the last carriage, and saw by the lurid light of the furnace that the
+voice had spoken truly, and that there was no one on the engine.
+
+"You continued to move onwards. 'Impossible! Impossible!' I cried; 'it
+cannot be done. Oh, pray, come away!'
+
+"Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said, 'You are right. It cannot
+be done in that way; but we can save the train. Help me to get these
+irons asunder.'
+
+"The engine was connected with the train by two great iron hooks and
+staples. By a tremendous effort, in making which I almost lost my
+balance, we unhooked the irons and detached the train; when, with a
+mighty leap as of some mad supernatural monster, the engine sped on its
+way alone, shooting back as it went a great flaming trail of sparks, and
+was lost in the darkness. We stood together on the footboard, watching
+in silence the gradual slackening of the speed. When at length the train
+had come to a standstill, we cried to the passengers, 'Saved! Saved!'
+And then, amid the confusion of opening the doors and descending and
+eager talking, my dream ended, leaving me shattered and palpitating with
+the horror of it."
+
+This vision was intended to show us the destruction, moral,
+intellectual, and spiritual, towards which the world was tending by
+following materialistic modes of thought, and the part we were to bear
+in arresting its progress towards the fatal precipice, at all hazards to
+ourselves. The startling announcement made to her by the invisible voice
+when the crowded train was rushing at full speed to its doom, "There is
+no one on the engine!" exactly represented the philosophy which, denying
+mind in the universe, recognises only blind force.
+
+I had determined to include an account of this vision in the book on
+which I was then engaged, "England and Islam." And I was alone in my
+rooms, reading the proofs of it, my mind being occupied solely with the
+letterpress, until I came to the remark ascribed to me in the vision, as
+made in reply to her entreaty that I would jump out with her to save
+ourselves, "No, we will not leap down, we will stop the train." At this
+moment the voice which shortly before[21] had said to me, "At last I
+have found a man through whom I can speak!" addressed me again, saying
+in a pleased and encouraging tone, as if the speaker had been following
+me in my reading, and desired to remove any doubts I might have of the
+reality of our mission,--"Yes! Yes! I have trusted all to you!" This
+time he spoke from without me, but apparently quite close by. And among
+the impressions which at the same instant were flashed into my mind, was
+the impression, amounting to a conviction, that whatever might be the
+part assigned to others in the work of the new illumination in progress
+and the restoration thereby to the world of one true doctrine of
+existence, the exposition of its innermost and highest sphere, the head
+corner-stone of the pyramid of the system which is to make the humanity
+of the future, had been committed to us alone. And now, writing nearly
+twenty years later, I can truly say that this conviction has never for a
+moment been weakened, but on the contrary has gathered confirmation and
+strength with every successive accession of experience and knowledge,
+and while cognisant of and fully appreciating all that has taken place
+in the unfoldment of the world's thought during the interval.
+
+Ever since that memorable winter of 1876-7, the conviction, shared
+equally by my colleague, has been with me that the controlling spirit of
+the Hebrew prophets was that also of our work, the purpose of which was
+the accomplishment of their prophecies, by the promotion of the world's
+spiritual consciousness to a level surpassing any yet attained by it, to
+the regeneration of the church and the establishment of the kingdom of
+God with power. Having which conviction, there was for us but one object
+in life:--to fulfil at whatever cost to ourselves the conditions
+necessary to make us fitting instruments for the perfect accomplishment
+of a work which we recognised as the loftiest that could be committed to
+mortals.
+
+My colleague's enforced return to London was promptly signalised by an
+experience which served not only yet further to demonstrate the reality
+and nature of our mission, and of her primacy in our work, but to
+disclose its essentially Christian character, which hitherto had been an
+open question for us. For that upon which we ourselves were bent was the
+discovery of the nature of existence at first hand, and independently of
+any existing system whatever. It was truth and truth alone that we
+sought, and to this end we had laboured to make ourselves as those of
+whom it is said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." For in divesting
+ourselves of all prepossessions and prejudices, we had made ourselves as
+"little children." We were neither believers nor disbelievers, but pure
+sceptics in that best sense of the term in which it denotes the unbiased
+seeker after God and truth. This is to say, we were, and we gloried in
+being, absolutely free thinkers, a term which, in its true acceptation,
+we regarded as man's noblest title. This is the sense in which it
+denotes a thought able to exercise itself in all directions open to
+thought, outwards and downwards to matter and negation, and inwards and
+upwards to spirit and reality. And our work proved in the event to be
+the supreme triumph of Free Thought.
+
+The experience in question was as follows. It was night and I was alone
+and locked in my chambers, and was writing at full speed, lest it
+should escape me, an exposition of the place and office of woman under
+the coming regeneration. And I was conscious of an exaltation of faculty
+such as might conceivably be the result of an enhancement of my own mind
+by junction with another and superior mind. I was even conscious, though
+in a far less degree than before, of an invisible presence. But I was
+too much engrossed with my idea to pay heed to persons, be they whom
+they might, human or divine, as well as anxious to take advantage of
+such assistance. I had clearly and vividly in my mind all that I desired
+to say for several pages on. Then, suddenly and completely, like the
+stoppage of a stream in its flow through a tube by the quick turning of
+a tap, the current of my thought ceased, leaving my mind an utter blank
+as to what I had meant to say, and totally unable to recall the least
+idea of it. So palpable was its withdrawal, that it seemed to me as if
+it must still be hovering somewhere near me, and I looked up and
+impatiently exclaimed aloud to it, "Where are you?" At length, after
+ransacking my mind in vain, I turned to other work, for I was perfectly
+fresh, and the desertion had been in no way due to exhaustion, physical
+or mental. On taking note of the time of the disappearance, I found it
+was 11.30 precisely.
+
+The next morning failed to bring my thought back to me as I had hoped it
+would do; but it brought instead, an unusually early visit from Mrs.
+Kingsford, who was--as I have said--staying in Chelsea. "Such a curious
+thing happened to me last night," she began, on entering the room, "and
+I want to tell you of it and see if you can explain it. I had finished
+my day's work, but though it was late I was not inclined to rest, for I
+was wakeful with a sense of irritation at the thought of what you are
+doing, and at my exclusion from any share in it. And I was feeling
+envious of your sex for the superior advantages you have over ours of
+doing great and useful work. As I sat by the fire thinking this, I
+suddenly found myself impelled to take a pencil and paper, and to write.
+I did so, and wrote with extreme rapidity, in a half-dreamy state,
+without any clear idea of what I was writing, but supposing it to be
+something expressive of my discontent. I had soon covered a page and a
+half of a large sheet with writing different from my own, and it was
+quite unlike what was in my mind, as you will see."
+
+On perusing the paper I found that it was a continuation of my missing
+thought, taken up at the point where it had left me, but translated to a
+higher plane, the expression also being similarly elevated in accordance
+both with the theme and the writer, having the exquisiteness so
+characteristic of her genius. To my enquiry as to the hour of the
+occurrence, she at once replied, "Half-past eleven exactly; for I was so
+struck by it that I took particular notice of the time."
+
+What I had written was as follows:--
+
+     "Those of us who, being men, refuse to accord to women the same
+     freedom of evolution for their consciousness which we claim for
+     ourselves, do so in consequence of a total misconception of the
+     nature and functions both of Humanity and of Existence at large.
+     The notion that men and women can by any possibility do each
+     other's work, is utterly absurd. Whom God hath distinguished, none
+     can confound. To do the same thing is not to do the same work;
+     inasmuch as the spirit is more than the fact, and the spirit of man
+     and of woman is different. While for the production of perfect
+     results it is necessary that they work harmoniously together, it is
+     necessary also that they fulfil separate functions in regard to
+     that work"[22].
+
+This was the point at which my thought had failed me, to be taken up by
+her at the same instant two miles away, without her knowing even that I
+contemplated treating that particular theme, as I had purposely reserved
+it until I should have completed the expression, hoping to give her a
+pleasant surprise; for it was one very near to her heart. This is her
+continuation of it. It will be seen that, besides complementing my
+thought, it responded remedially to her own mood:--
+
+     "In a true mission of redemption, in the proclamation of a gospel
+     to save, it is the man who must preach; it is the man who must
+     stand forward among the people; it is the man who, if need be, must
+     die. But he is not alone. If his be the glory of the full noontide,
+     his day has been ushered in by a goddess. Aurora has preceded
+     Phoibos Apollo; Mary has been before Christ. For, mark that He
+     shall do His first and greatest work at her suggestion. To her
+     shall ever belong the glory of the inauguration; of her shall the
+     gospel be born; from her lips shall the Christ take the bidding for
+     His first miracle; from her shall His earliest inspiration be
+     drawn. The people are athirst for the living wine, which shall be
+     better, sweeter, purer, stronger, than any they have yet tasted.
+     The festival lags, the joy slackens, for need of it. The Christ is
+     in their midst, but He opens not His lips; His heart is sealed, His
+     hour is not yet come. Mark that the first inspiration falls on the
+     woman by His side, on Mary the Mother of God; she saith unto Him,
+     'They have no wine.' She has spoken, the impulse is given to
+     Divinity. His soul awakens, His pulse quickens, He utters the word
+     that works the miracle. Hail, Mary, full of grace; Christ is thy
+     gift to the world! Without thee He could not have been; but for
+     thine impulse He could have worked no mighty work. This shall be
+     the history of all time; it shall be the sign of the Christ. Mary
+     shall feel; Christ shall speak. Hers the glory of setting His heart
+     in action; hers the thrill of emotion to which His power shall
+     respond. But for her He shall be powerless; but for her He shall be
+     dumb; but for her He shall have no strength to smite, no hand to
+     help. It is the seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's
+     head. The Christ, the true prophet, is her child, her gift to the
+     world. 'Woman, behold thy Son!'"
+
+Such was the first intimation and the manner thereof, given us of the
+truth subsequently revealed in plenitude,--the presence in Scripture of
+a mystical sense concealed within the apparent sense, as a kernel in its
+shell, which, and not the literal sense, is the intended sense[23]. As
+was later shown us in regard to the story of the cursing of the
+fig-tree, that of the marriage in Cana was a parable having a spiritual
+import; and the character of Jesus was cleared from the reproaches based
+on the literal sense. Striving for fuller unfoldment and enlightenment,
+we were at length enabled to discern the tremendous mistake which
+orthodoxy has made; the mistake of confounding, first, Jesus with
+Christ, and, next, Mary the mother of Jesus, with the Virgin Mary, the
+mother of Christ, and the conversion thereby of a perfect philosophy
+into a gross idolatry. Meanwhile, the experience was a further
+demonstration to us of the reality and accessibility not merely of the
+world spiritual, but of the world celestial also, and of the high source
+of the commission under which we had become associated together. It was
+also an indication that as concerned ourselves our work appertained to
+the spiritual, rather than to the social plane. Such application of it
+would follow in due time. No other hypothesis that we could devise would
+account for the facts. Nor could we imagine any source other than the
+Church invisible for an interpretation so noble of the Scriptures of the
+Church visible.
+
+Not that the hypothesis of an extraneous source accounted for all our
+experiences. For besides receiving knowledge from such influences, there
+were instances in which we actually saw and seemed to remember scenes,
+events, and persons, long since vanished from earth, and felt at the
+time that it needed only that the period of lucidity be sufficiently
+prolonged to enable us to recover from personal recollection the whole
+history concerned.
+
+I was somewhat surprised by finding the first experiences of this
+nature, as well as certain others of an equally high and rare order,
+occurring to me rather than to my colleague, of the superiority of whose
+faculty and of whose primacy in our work I had no manner of doubt. The
+explanation at length vouchsafed was in this wise. It was in order to
+qualify me for recognising by my own experiences the reality and value
+of hers when they should come. Not otherwise should I know enough to be
+able to believe. It proved, moreover, to be part of the plan ordained
+to withdraw from me, in a great measure, the faculty requisite for them,
+when I had become familiar with them. The reason for according her such
+preference over and above the superiority of her gifts will presently
+appear. It was another and an exquisite illustration of the depth and
+tenderness of the mystical element underlying Christianity as divinely
+conceived and intended.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The partial withdrawal from me of faculty just alluded to took place
+early in 1877, but not until I had undergone a thorough experiential
+training in its varied manifestations. Among these were two which call
+for relation here, by reason of their serving to show that nothing was
+withheld which might minister to the completeness of the work set us.
+The first was as follows:--
+
+Being seated at my writing-table, and meditating on the gospel
+narrative, with a strange sense of being separated by only a narrow
+interval from a full knowledge of all that it implied, I found myself
+impelled to seek the precise idea intended to be conveyed by the story
+of the woman taken in adultery. No account that I had read of it had
+satisfied me, least of all that which was proposed in the "Ecce Homo" of
+Professor Seeley, a book then recent and enjoying a repute which filled
+me with a strong feeling of personal resentment. For his account,
+especially of the feelings excited in Jesus by the sight of the accused
+woman, revolted me by its inscription to Him of a sense of impropriety
+at once monkish and conventional, and of a limitation of charity
+altogether incompatible with the abounding sympathy which was the
+essence of His nature. It made Him that most odious of characters, a
+_prude_.
+
+As I meditated, and in following my idea I passed into a state which,
+though highly interior, was not sufficiently interior for my
+purpose--for I wanted, so to speak, to _see_ my idea--a voice audible
+only to the inner hearing, yet quite distinct, said to me, "You have it
+within you. Seek for it." Thus encouraged, I made a further effort at
+concentration, when--to my utter surprise, for I had no expectation or
+conception of such a thing--the whole scene of the incident appeared
+palpably before me, like a living picture in a _camera obscura_, so
+natural, minute and distinct as to leave nothing to be desired, and, at
+the same time, utterly unlike any pictorial representation I had ever
+seen of it. Close before me, on my right hand, stood the Temple, with
+Jesus seated on a stone ledge in the porch, while ranged before Him was
+a crowd of persons in the costumes of the country and the time; each
+costume showing the grade or calling of its wearer. Standing together in
+a group in front of Him were the disciples, and immediately beside them
+were the accusers, who were readily recognisable by their ample robes
+and sanctimonious demeanour; and quite close to Him, between Him and
+them, stood the accused woman. As I approached the scene, moving
+meteor-like through the air, He was in the act of lifting Himself up
+from stooping to write on the ground, and I had a perfect view of His
+face. He was of middle age, but, to my surprise, the type was that of a
+Murillo, rather than a Raffaelle, and the lower portion of the face was
+covered with a short, dark beard. The expression was worn and anxious,
+and somewhat weary. The skin was rough as from exposure to the weather.
+The eyes were deep-set and lustrous, and remarkable for the tenderness
+of their gaze. One of the apostles, whom I at once recognised by his
+comparative youthfulness as John, though his back was towards me as I
+approached, was in the act of bending forwards to read the words just
+traced in the dust on the pavement; and, as if drawn to him by some
+potent attraction, I at once passed unhesitatingly into him as he bent
+forward, and tried to read the words through his eyes. Their exact
+purport escaped me; but the impression I obtained was that they were
+unimportant in themselves, having been written merely to enable Jesus to
+collect and calm Himself. For He was filled with a mighty indignation,
+which was directed, not against the accused woman, but against the
+by-standing representatives of the conventional orthodoxies, the chief
+priests and Pharisees, her sanctimonious and hypocritical
+accusers,--those moral vivisectors through whose pitilessness the
+shrinking woman stood there exposed to the public gaze, while her fault
+was so brutally blurted out in her presence for all to hear; for her
+attitude showed her ready to sink with shame into the ground, and afraid
+to look either her accusers or her Judge in the face. He, her Judge,
+also has heard it, and knows that they who utter it are themselves a
+thousand-fold greater sinners than she, inasmuch as that which she has
+yielded through exigency either of passion or of compassion, has with
+them been a cold-blooded habit engendered of ingrained impurity.
+
+In contrast with them she stands out in His eyes an angel of innocence;
+and an overwhelming indignation takes possession of Him, so that He will
+not at once trust Himself to speak. His impulse is to drive them forth
+with blows and reproaches from His presence, as once already He has
+driven the barterers from the Temple. And so, to keep His wrath from
+exploding, He stoops down and scribbles on the ground,--no matter what,
+anything to keep Himself within bounds. In the exercise His spirit
+calms. Indignation, He reflects, is too noble a thing to be expended
+upon insensates such as they, and exhortation would be vain. He will try
+sarcasm. So He raises himself up, and looks at them, very quietly, and
+even assentingly. Yes, they are quite right; the law must be vindicated,
+and so flagrant a sin severely punished. But, of course, only the
+guiltless is entitled to inflict punishment on the guilty. Therefore He
+says, "He of you who is blameless in respect of this sin, let him first
+cast a stone at her." And having said this, He stoops down again to
+write, this time to hide His smiles at their confusion, the sight of
+which would but have incensed and hardened them. What! no rush for
+ammunition wherewith to pound to death this only too human specimen of
+humanity[24]! What can be the meaning of the general move among these
+self-appointed censors of morals? "They which heard Him, being convicted
+of their own consciences, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest
+even unto the last." No wonder they crucified Him when they got their
+chance. And no wonder that most of the ancient authorities omit all
+mention of the incident. Even of His immediate biographers only he
+records it who is styled "the Beloved," and whose name, office, and
+character indicate him as the representative especially of the
+love-principle in humanity.
+
+Such were the impressions made on me by this vision while it lasted, and
+written down at the time. And so strong in me was the feeling that I
+could similarly recall the whole history of Jesus, that I mentally
+addressed to the presences which I felt, though I could not see, around
+me an inquiry whether I should then and there begin the attempt. The
+reply, similarly given, was a decided negative so far as that present
+time was concerned, but accompanied by an intimation that our future
+work would comprise something of the kind; a prediction which was duly
+fulfilled.
+
+I found myself perplexed beyond measure to comprehend the _modus
+operandi_ of this experience. No explanation was forthcoming, whether
+from my own mind or from my illuminators, until long afterwards; and
+when it came it was in reference immediately to similar experiences
+received by my colleague, some of which likewise involved corresponding
+personal recollections coinciding with but surpassing mine. In the
+meantime the teaching given us comprised the doctrine of reincarnation,
+stated so positively, systematically, and scientifically that, when
+taken in conjunction with our experiences, we found that it, and it
+alone, afforded a satisfactory explanation of them. And then it was
+shown us that the method of the new Gospel of Interpretation, of which
+we were the appointed recipients, was so ordered as to be itself a
+demonstration of the truth of that doctrine, and that among the lives we
+had lived, which qualified us for our mission, were those in which we
+had been in association with Jesus and with each other[25]. Concerning
+this doctrine, the motive for its suppression, and the fatal
+consequences thereof to the religion of Christ, it will be time to speak
+when describing the results attained by us. It is with our initial
+experiences--those which constituted our initiation--that the present
+concern lies.
+
+There is one supreme experience in the spiritual life, known to mystics
+as "the vision of Adonai," or God as the Lord. The reception of this
+vision by us was, we were assured, a conclusive proof that nothing would
+be withheld that was necessary to our full equipment for a complete
+work. Although described several times in the Bible as an actual
+occurrence, it had failed to find any response in our own consciousness,
+more than if it had no existence. Nor had it ever been the subject of
+intelligent comment by any Bible-expositors known to us. Rather did it
+seem to have been entirely passed over as a matter wholly apart from
+human cognition. Hence, when it was vouchsafed to us, it was entirely
+without anticipation of its occurrence or previous knowledge even of its
+possibility.
+
+It was received first by myself, the manner of it being as follows. I
+had observed that when I was following an idea inwards in search of its
+primary meaning, and to that end concentrated my mind upon a point lying
+within and beyond the apparent concept, I saw a whole vista of related
+ideas stretching far away as if towards their source, in what I could
+only suppose to be the Divine Mind; and I seemed at the same time to
+reach a more interior region of my own consciousness; so that, supposing
+man's system to consist of a series of concentric spheres, each fresh
+effort to focus my mind upon a more recondite aspect of the idea under
+analysis was accompanied and marked by a corresponding advance of the
+perceptive point of the mind itself towards my own central sphere and
+radiant point. And I was prompted to try to ascertain the extent to
+which it was possible thus to concentrate myself interiorly, and what
+would be the effect of reaching the mind's ultimate focus. I was
+absolutely without knowledge or expectation when I yielded to the
+impulse to make the attempt. I simply experimented on a faculty of
+which I found myself newly possessed, with the view of discovering the
+range of its capacity, being seated at my writing-table the while in
+order to record the results as they came, and resolved to retain my hold
+on my outer and circumferential consciousness no matter how far towards
+my inner and central consciousness I might go. For I knew not whether I
+should be able to regain the former if I once quitted my hold of it, or
+to recollect the facts of the experience. At length I achieved my
+object, though only by a strong effort, the tension occasioned by the
+endeavour to keep both extremes of the consciousness in view at once
+being very great.
+
+Once well started on my quest, I found myself traversing a succession of
+spheres or belts of a medium, the tenuity and luminance of which
+increased at every stage of my progress; the impression produced being
+that of mounting a vast ladder stretching from the circumference towards
+the centre of a system, which was at once my own system, the solar
+system, and the universal system, the three systems being at once
+diverse and identical. My progress in this ascent was clearly dependent
+upon my ability to concentrate the rays of my consciousness into a
+focus. For, while to relax the effort was to recede outwards, to
+intensify it was to advance inwards. The process was like that of
+travelling by will power from the orbit of Saturn to the Sun--taking
+Saturn as representing the seventh and outermost sphere of the spiritual
+kosmos, and the Sun its central and radiant point--with the intermediate
+orbits for stepping-stones and stages, I trying the while to keep both
+extremes in view. Presently, by a supreme, and what I felt must be a
+final, effort--for the tension was becoming too much for me, unless I
+let go my hold of the outer--I succeeded in polarising the whole of the
+convergent rays of my consciousness into the desired focus. And at the
+same instant, as if through the sudden ignition of the rays thus fused
+into a unity, I found myself confronted with a glory of unspeakable
+whiteness and brightness, and of a lustre so intense as well-nigh to
+beat me back. At the same instant, too, there came to me, as by a sudden
+recollection, the sense of being already familiar with the phenomenon,
+as also with its whole import, as if in virtue of having experienced it
+in some former and forgotten state of being. I knew it to be the "Great
+White Throne" of the seer of the Apocalypse. But though feeling that I
+had no need to explore further, I resolved to make assurance doubly sure
+by piercing, if I could, the almost blinding lustre, and seeing what it
+enshrined. With a great effort I succeeded, and the glance revealed to
+me that which I had felt must be there. This was the dual form of the
+Son, the Word, the Logos, the Adonai, the "Sitter on the Throne," the
+first formulation of Divinity, the unmanifest made manifest, the
+unformulate formulate, the unindividuate individuate, God as the Lord,
+proving by His Duality that God is Substance as well as Force, Love as
+well as Will, feminine as well as masculine, Mother as well as Father.
+
+Overjoyed at having this supreme problem solved in accordance with my
+highest aspirations, my one thought was to return and proclaim the glad
+news. But I had no sooner set myself to write down the things thus seen
+and remembered, than I found myself constrained to maintain regarding
+them the strictest silence, and this even as regarded my fellow-worker;
+and all that I was permitted to say at that time was, that under a
+sudden burst of illumination I had become absolutely aware of the truth
+of the doctrine of the Duality in Unity of Deity to which that in
+Humanity corresponds, both alike being twain in one. On seeking the
+reason for the reticence thus imposed on me, I learned that the stage in
+our work had not yet come when it could be given to the world, either
+with safety to myself or with advantage to others; and it was necessary
+that my colleague receive no intimation in advance of any experiences
+which were to be given to her--of which this experience was one--in
+order that her mind might be wholly free from bias or expectation. Only
+so would our testimony have its due value as that of two independent
+witnesses.
+
+In the following summer the same vision was vouchsafed to her in a
+measure and with a fulness far transcending mine[26].
+
+On the occasion she had been forewarned of something of unusual
+solemnity as about to occur, and prompted to make certain ceremonial
+preparations obviously calculated to impress the imagination. The access
+came upon her while standing by the open window, gazing at the moon,
+then close upon the full. The first effect of the _afflatus_ was to
+cause her to kneel and pray in a rapt attitude, with her arms extended
+towards the sky. It appeared afterwards, that under an access of
+spiritual exaltation, she had yielded to a sudden and uncontrollable
+impulse to pray that she might be taken to the stars, and shown all the
+glory of the universe. Presently she rose, and after gazing upwards in
+ecstasy for a few moments, lowered her eyes, and, clasping her arms
+around her head as if to shut out the view, uttered in tones of wonder,
+mingled with moans and cries of anguish, the following tokens of the
+intolerable splendour of the vision she had unwittingly invited:--
+
+"Oh, I see masses, masses of stars! It makes me giddy to look at them. O
+my God, what masses! Millions and millions! WHEELS of planets! O my God,
+my God, why didst Thou create? It was by Will, all Will, that Thou didst
+it. Oh! what might, what might of Will! Oh, what gulfs! what gulfs!
+Millions and millions of miles broad and deep! Hold me! hold me up! I
+shall sink--I shall sink into the gulfs. I am sick and giddy, as on a
+billowy sea. I am on a sea, an ocean--the ocean of infinite space. Oh,
+what depths! what depths! I sink--I fail! I cannot, cannot bear it!"
+
+"I shall never come back. I have left my body for ever. I am dying; I
+believe I am dead. Impossible to return from such a distance! Oh, what
+colossal forms! They are the angels of the planets. Every planet has its
+angel standing erect above it. And what beauty!--what marvellous beauty!
+I see Raphael. I see the Angel of the Earth. He has six wings. He is a
+God--the God of our planet. I see my genius, who called himself A.Z.;
+but his name is Salathiel. Oh, how surpassingly beautiful he is! My
+genius is a male, and his colour is ruby. Yours, Caro, is a female, and
+sapphire. They are friends--they are the same--not two, but one; and for
+that reason they have associated us together, and speak of themselves
+sometimes as _I_, sometimes as _We_. It is the Angel of the Earth
+himself that is your genius and mine, Caro. He it was who inspired you,
+who spoke to you. And they call me 'Bitterness.' And I see sorrow--oh,
+what unending sorrow do I behold! Sorrow, always sorrow, but never
+without love. I shall always have love. How dim is this sphere!... I am
+entering a brighter region now... Oh, the dazzling, dazzling brightness!
+Hide me, hide me from it! I cannot, cannot bear it! It is agony supreme
+to look upon. O God! O God! Thou art slaying me with Thy light. It is
+the Throne itself, the Great White Throne of God that I behold! Oh, what
+light! what light! It is like an emerald? a sapphire? No; a diamond! In
+its midst stands Deity erect, His right hand raised aloft, and from Him
+pours the light of light. Forth from His right hand streams the
+universe, projected by the omnipotent repulsion of His will. Back to His
+left, which is depressed and set backwards, returns the universe, drawn
+by the attraction of His love. Repulsion and attraction, will and love,
+right and left, these are the forces, centrifugal and centripetal, male
+and female, whereby God creates and redeems. Adonai! O Adonai! Lord God
+of life, made of the substance of light, how beautiful art Thou in Thine
+everlasting youth! with Thy glowing golden locks, how adorable! And I
+had thought of God as elderly and venerable! As if the Eternal could
+grow old! And now not as Man only do I behold Thee! For now Thou art to
+me as Woman. Lo, Thou art both. One, and Two also. And thereby dost Thou
+produce creation. O God, O God! why didst Thou create this stupendous
+existence? Surely, surely, it had been better in love to have restrained
+Thy will. It was by will that Thou createdst, by will alone, not by
+love, was it not?--was it not? I cannot see clearly. A cloud has come
+between.
+
+"I see Thee now as Woman. Maria is next beside Thee. Thou art Maria.
+Maria is God. Oh Maria! God as Woman! Thee, thee I adore!
+Maria-Aphrodite! Mother! Mother-God!
+
+"They are returning with me now, I think. But I shall never get back.
+What strange forms! how huge they are! All angels and archangels. Human
+in form, yet some with eagles' heads. All the planets are inhabited! how
+innumerable is the variety of forms! Oh! universe of existence, how
+stupendous is existence! Oh! take me not near the sun; I cannot bear its
+heat. Already do I feel myself burning. Here is Jupiter! It has nine
+moons! Yes; nine. Some are exceedingly small. And, oh, how red it is! It
+has so much iron. And what enormous men and women! There is evil there,
+too. For evil is wherever are matter and limitation. But the people of
+Jupiter are far better than we on earth. They know much more; they are
+much wiser. There is less evil in their planet. Ah! and they have
+another sense, too. What is it? No; I cannot describe it. I cannot tell
+what it is. It differs from any of the others. We have nothing like it.
+I cannot get back yet. I shall never get back. I believe I am dead. It
+is only my body you are holding. It has grown cold for want of me. Yet
+I must be approaching; it is growing shallower. We are passing out of
+the depths. Yet I can never wholly return--never--never!"[27]
+
+The account given of the vision of Adonai in Lecture IX. of "The Perfect
+Way," was written solely from our joint experiences. It was with an
+interest altogether novel in kind and degree that I now turned to the
+Bible narratives of the same vision, and found that in the record of its
+reception by the Elders of Israel, it is stated, as if in token of the
+power of the spiritual battery with which Moses had surrounded himself,
+that no less than seventy of his initiates were able to receive the
+vision without magnetic reinforcement by the imposition of their
+master's hands. But, as we learnt from our own manifold experiences, it
+does not follow that because there is no imposition of visible hands, no
+extraneous aid is rendered. The seeker after God cannot, even if he
+would, accomplish his quest alone; but always are there attracted to him
+those angelic beings whose office it is, as ministers of God, to sustain
+and illuminate souls by the imposition of hands invisible to the outer
+senses. In her case such aid was palpable. There was no effort on her
+part. And she held converse with those by whom she was upborne in her
+stupendous flight.
+
+When in due course the time came for us to receive the ancient and
+long-lost Gnosis which underlay the sacred religions and scriptures of
+antiquity, the following was given us, and we recognised in it the
+original Scripture from which the opening sentences in St John's Gospel
+are drawn.
+
+After defining the Elohim as comprising the two original principles of
+all Being, "the Spirit and the Water," or Force and Substance, and
+bringing up the process whereby Deity proceeds into manifestation to the
+point described in Genesis in the words, "And the Spirit of God moved
+upon the face of the Waters. And God _said_,"--the utterance thus
+continues,--
+
+     Then from the midst of the Divine Duality, the Only Begotten of God
+     came forth:
+
+     Adonai, the Word, the Voice invisible.
+
+     He was in the beginning, and by Him were all things discovered.
+
+     Without Him was not anything made which is visible.
+
+     For He is the Manifestor, and in Him was the life of the world.
+
+     God the nameless hath not revealed God, but Adonai hath revealed
+     God from the beginning.
+
+     He is the presentation of Elohim, and by Him the Gods are made
+     manifest.
+
+     He is the third aspect of the Divine Triad:
+
+     Co-equal with the Spirit and the heavenly deep.
+
+     For except by three in one, the Spirits of the Invisible Light
+     could not have been made manifest.
+
+     But now is the prism perfect, and the generation of the Gods
+     discovered in their order.
+
+     Adonai dissolves and resumes; in His two hands are the dual powers
+     of all things.
+
+     He is of His Father the Spirit, and of His Mother the great deep.
+
+     Having the potency of both in Himself, and the power of things
+     material.
+
+     Yet being Himself invisible, for He is the cause, and not the
+     effect.
+
+     He is the Manifestor, and not that which is manifest.
+
+     That which is manifest is the Divine Substance[28].
+
+The reason for the suppression by the translators of the Bible of its
+numerous affirmations of the Divine Duality, saving only those of
+Genesis i. 26, 27, was in due time disclosed to us; as also was the
+extent of the loss to man through the elimination of the feminine
+principle from his conception of Original Being, and the consequent
+perversion of the doctrine of the Trinity, and therein of the true
+nature of Existence, in both its aspects, Creation and Redemption.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] In 1875. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 73.)
+
+[19] The book was "England and Islam: or The Counsel of Caiaphas," which
+was published in 1877.
+
+[20] This vision occurred in London in November, 1876. It was merely
+referred to in the previous editions of this book, but I have inserted
+it here in full from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 115-117. It is also
+given in "England and Islam," pp. 438-442. S.H.H.
+
+[21] p. 41.
+
+[22] E. and I. p. 299.
+
+[23] It is probable that E.M. intended this statement to apply only to
+the N.T., or to the Gospels, because, before February, 1874, when he
+first visited A.K. at her house (p. 2), she had received in sleep "an
+exposition of the Story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a
+significance purely spiritual" and E.M. certainty regarded the Biblical
+Story of the Fall as "Scripture." S.H.H.
+
+[24] The expression of which the above is an adaptation, had recently
+been applied by Mr Gladstone to the Turkish power. For the period was
+the eve of the Turco-Russian War; and Mr Gladstone had found vent for
+his strong sacerdotal proclivities by siding fiercely against the
+priest-hating and prophet-venerating Turks, and demanding their
+expulsion from Europe, very much on the plea that "it was good for
+Europe that one nation die for the rest." It was in recognition of the
+part thus played by him that I took for the sub-title of my book
+("England and Islam") "The Counsel of Caiaphas." The book--which was
+written under a high degree of illumination--contained an earnest appeal
+to Mr Gladstone, which, if heeded, would have saved the country from its
+subsequent humiliations. Among other things I was clearly shown that the
+policy which sought to detach England from the East, was of infernal
+instigation, being intended to thwart the rapprochement between
+Christianity and Buddhism from which the new humanity was to spring. But
+the circumstances of the book's production--it was poured through me at
+great speed and printed off as it came--precluded due revision and
+elimination of redundant matter; and for these and other reasons, I have
+suffered it to go out of print. E.M.
+
+[25] There is another fact, referred to in "The Life of A.K.," that must
+be taken into consideration in connection with experiences of this
+nature, that is, "the survival for an indefinite period of the images of
+events occurring on the earth, in the astral light, or memory of the
+planet, called the anima mundi, which images can be evoked and beheld."
+(Life A.K. Vol I. p. 125.) S.H.H.
+
+[26] This "Vision of Adonai" by A.K. was merely referred to in the
+previous editions of this book. I have extracted the following account
+of the most interesting part of it from "The Life of A.K." (Vol. I. pp.
+193-196.) S.H.H.
+
+[27] Speaking of this vision, E.M. says:--"Her apprehension was not
+without justification; for her body was completely torpid, and several
+hours passed before consciousness was fully restored to it." (C.W.S. p.
+283.)
+
+[28] This is one of the illuminations that were received by A.K., during
+the latter part of 1878, "directly from the hierarchy of the Church
+Invisible and Celestial." Speaking of these illuminations, which "dealt
+with the profoundest subjects of cognition," E.M. says that he and A.K.
+found in them "a synthesis and an analysis combined of the sacred
+mysteries of all the great religions of antiquity, and the true
+_origines_ of Christianity as originally and divinely intended, together
+with the secret and method of its corruption and perversion into that
+which now bears its name"; and they "were at no loss to recognise in
+them the destined Scriptures of the future, so long promised and at
+length vouchsafed in interpretation of the Scriptures of the past."
+(Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 293, 294.) S.H.H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE COMMUNICATION.
+
+
+A striking feature for us was the exquisite tenderness and poetic
+delicacy, both in matter and manner, which characterised all that we
+received. Nor was there the intrusion of anything to suggest feelings
+such as are described by Daniel when he says, "I saw this great vision,
+and there remained no strength in me, neither was there breath left in
+me." And not only was the element of terror so completely absent as to
+make us feel as if we had entered on the dispensation of that "perfect
+love which casteth out fear," but there was occasionally an element of
+playfulness, and this on the part of our chiefest illuminators, the Gods
+themselves. While their instructions were replete with every graceful
+and delicate adornment such as could not but delight the poet and the
+artist, and this without abatement of profundity or solemnity. By these
+things it was intimated to us that the religion of the future was indeed
+to be one of sweetness and light, and for the severe and gloomy spirit
+of the Semite would be substituted the bright and joyous spirit of the
+Greek. All this, we learnt, was because the new dispensation was to be
+that of the "Woman," and in accord therefore with woman's nature and
+sentiments. It was moreover to be introduced by means of the Woman's
+faculty, the Intuition, and this as subsisting in _a_ woman.
+
+The following exquisite little apologue, which was given us in the early
+days of our novitiate, is an instance in point:--
+
+     A blind man once lost himself in a forest. An angel took pity on
+     him, and led him into an open place. As he went he received his
+     sight. Then he saw the angel, and said to him, "Brother, what doest
+     thou here? Suffer me to go before thee, for I am thine elder." So
+     the man went first, taking the lead. But the angel spread his wings
+     and returned to heaven. And darkness fell again upon him to whom
+     sight had been given.
+
+Here was a parable which, slight as it seemed, was truly Biblical for
+the depth and manifoldness of its signification. For while it applied to
+ourselves both separately and jointly, and to our work, it was also an
+eternal verity applicable alike to the individual, the collective, and
+the universal. For as the angel was to the man, so is the intuition to
+the intellect, which of itself cannot transcend the sense-nature, but
+remains blind and dark and lost in the wilderness of illusion. And as
+she, my colleague, had supplemented me, so were we each to supplement in
+ourselves intellect by intuition, in order to become capable of
+knowledge and understanding. It was, moreover, a parable of the Fall and
+of the Redemption, an epitome in short of man's spiritual history. And
+it had been spelt out for us by the tilting of a table in one of our
+earliest essays in spiritualism! So carefully guarded and daintily
+taught were we from the outset.
+
+The charming allegory of "The Wonderful Spectacles" which was given in
+London on the 31st January, 1877, to my colleague in sleep, was not only
+an instruction concerning the nature of her faculty and its
+indispensableness as an adjunct to mine for the work assigned to us; it
+was also a prophetic intimation of the character of that work, and of
+the nature of the influences controlling it, which at the time was
+altogether unsuspected by us. This is the account which she sent to me
+by letter, for we were not then together:--
+
+     I dreamt that I was walking alone on the sea-shore. The day was
+     singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape
+     ever seen; and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks
+     of which were white with glistening snow. Along the sands by the
+     sea towards me came a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a
+     letter. It was from you. It ran thus:--
+
+     "I have got hold of the rarest and most precious book extant. It
+     was written before the world began. The text is easy enough to
+     read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are in
+     such very minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them
+     out. I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used
+     to wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian
+     Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid. I
+     think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-glass
+     maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you can
+     get them for me"[29].
+
+     When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman
+     hastening away across the sands, and I called out to him, "Stop!
+     how am I to send the answer? Won't you wait for me?"
+
+     He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.
+
+     "I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter bag, "and I
+     shall deliver it immediately."
+
+     "How can you have the answer before I have written it?" said I.
+     "You are making a mistake."
+
+     "No," said he, "In the city from which I come, the replies are all
+     written at the office and sent out with the letters themselves.
+     Your reply is in my bag."
+
+     "Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from his wallet and
+     gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my own handwriting, this
+     answer, addressed to you:--
+
+     "The spectacles you want can be bought in London. But you will not
+     be able to use them at once, for they have not been worn for many
+     years, and they want cleaning sadly. This you will not be able to
+     do yourself in London, because it is too dark there to see, and
+     because your fingers are not small enough to clean them properly.
+     Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you."
+
+     I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and nodded at me;
+     and I saw then to my astonishment that he wore a camel's-hair tunic
+     round his waist. I had been on the point of addressing him--I know
+     not why--as _Hermes_. But I now saw that it was John the Baptist;
+     and in my fright at having spoken with so great a saint, I awoke.
+
+This was the second suggestion of a Greek element in our work, the first
+having been the slight allusion to Phoibos Apollo in the illumination
+concerning the Marriage in Cana of Galilee[30]. The signification of the
+connection between Hermes and John the Baptist remained unintelligible
+to us until the key to it was given us in a revelation of the method of
+the Bible-writers explaining their practice of representing principles
+as persons. We then found that by the baptism or purification, physical
+and mental, practised by John, was meant the course of life and thought
+whereby alone man develops the faculty of the understanding of spiritual
+things. And Hermes is the Greco-Egyptian name for the "second of the
+Gods," called by Isaiah the Spirit of Understanding. Hence the adoption
+of this name by the formulators of the Hermetic, or sacred books of
+Egypt; and the favourite motto of the Hermetists:--
+
+     "Est in Mercurio quicquid quoerunt sapientes,"
+
+All is in the understanding that the wise seek,--Mercury being the Latin
+equivalent for Hermes.
+
+The mention of Swedenborg and Andersen implied their possession of the
+faculty indispensable to our work, that of mystical insight, of which
+they were the most notable recent representatives.
+
+A larger part was played by Hermes in another instruction received a few
+months later[31]. This was also given in sleep, the vision taking the
+form of a "Banquet of the Gods" in which the seeress received the
+following exhortation from him, in enforcement of the necessity of pure
+and natural habits of life for the perfectionment of the faculties
+requisite for full spiritual perception, when, having put into her hands
+a branch of a fig-tree bearing upon it ripe fruit, he said:--
+
+     "If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do all things,
+     quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm and comfort you
+     externally: it is heaven's gift. But do not wrest it from its
+     rightful purpose, as did that betrayer of your race, to fill the
+     veins of humanity with its contagion, and to consume your interior
+     being with its breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the
+     image which Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen fire, and
+     it consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good gifts, none
+     is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your hot foods and
+     drinks have consumed and dried up the magnetic power of your
+     nerves, sealed your senses, and cut short your lives. Now, you
+     neither see nor hear; for the fire in your organs consumes your
+     senses. Ye are all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent
+     you a book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall be
+     opened."
+
+     Then, not recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name, Lord." At
+     this he laughed and answered, "I have been about you from the
+     beginning. I am the white cloud on the noon-day sky." "Do you,
+     then," I asked, "desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire
+     in preparing food and drink?"
+
+     Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show you the
+     excellent way. Two places only are vacant at our table. We have
+     told you all that can be shown you on the level on which you stand.
+     But our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond
+     your reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified
+     and have come up higher. The conditions are GOD'S; the will is with
+     you"[32].
+
+The allusion to Prometheus, and the fact that Hermes had been
+represented in the Greek tragedy of that name as the executor of the
+vengeance of the Gods upon Prometheus, as well also as the significance
+of the fig-branch and the fact of its being the symbol of Hermes as the
+Spirit of Understanding,--all these things were beyond her knowledge at
+the time, some of them indeed having been long lost. But all were made
+clear as our education for our work proceeded, and we learnt the
+intention and recognised the necessity of restoring the Greek
+presentment of the Sacred Mysteries in explanation of the Hebrew, and in
+correction of the ecclesiastical presentment of Christianity. The
+restoration was to be twofold, of faculty and of knowledge, the
+knowledge to be recovered through the faculty by which it was originally
+obtained. Hence the insistance on our adoption of the pure regimen of
+the Seers of all time. Hence, too, the presentation to her by Hermes of
+the fig-branch bearing ripe fruit. The parable of the cursing of the
+barren fig-tree was explained to us as denoting the loss by the church
+of the inward understanding, the Intuition. In the Seeress it was
+restored; she was the appointed representative of it. The "time of the
+end" was at hand, of the approach of which the budding of the fig-tree
+was to be the sign. And here it was not merely budding and blossoming,
+but bearing mature fruit to signify that in her the faculty was restored
+in its perfection.
+
+In an instruction subsequently given to me by her Genius, he said of
+her, "I have fashioned a perfect instrument," implying that the process
+of her preparation under his tuition had extended over numerous lives.
+And again, "The Gods have given to their own a perfect ear."
+
+Being desirous once to test the powers of a medium to whom she was
+totally unknown even by name, she asked his controlling spirit about
+herself and her faculty. "You are not a trance-medium at all!" the
+spirit exclaimed in reply. "My medium is a trance-medium. You are far
+beyond that. You are a spiritual lens. You are a mirror in which the
+highest spirits--the Gods--can reflect their faces. You take the light
+of the whole universe and divide it so that it can be understood, as it
+has never been understood yet. Your gift is very extraordinary. You are
+a glass to reflect the highest and the greatest to the world." This was
+in 1877, before she was known in connection with the spiritual movement
+of the age.
+
+The description given of himself by Hermes as "the white cloud in the
+noon-day sky," proved to be a quotation from an ancient ritual,
+subsequently recovered by her, in which the "Hymn to Hermes"[33] opens
+thus:--
+
+     As a moving light between heaven and earth: as a white cloud
+     assuming many shapes;
+
+     He descends and rises: he guides and illumines; he transmutes
+     himself from small to great, from bright to shadowy, from the
+     opaque image to the diaphanous mist.
+
+     Star of the East, conducting the Magi; cloud from whose midst the
+     holy voice speaketh; by day a pillar of vapour, by night a shining
+     flame.
+
+All these are symbolic expressions for the Understanding, especially in
+respect of divine things, so that Hermes is no individual soul or
+spirit, but the divine spirit Itself operating as the second of the
+Creative Elohim, and as a function therefore of man's own spirit when
+duly unfolded and purified, in token whereof it is said in the recovered
+hymn[34] to the Planet-God Iacchos--
+
+     Within thee, O Man, is the Universe; the thrones of all the Gods
+     are in thy temple....
+
+     And the Spirits which speak unto thee are of thine own kingdom.
+
+In the hymn of invocation summoning the Seeress to her mission in the
+name of the two first of the "Holy Seven," the Spirits of Wisdom and
+Understanding, both of whom were wont to manifest themselves to her,
+Hermes is referred to as "the God who knows"; the other being
+personified as Pallas Athena. "In the Celestial," we were informed, "all
+things are Persons."
+
+    "Wake, prophet-soul, the time draws near,
+      'The God who knows' within thee stirs
+      And speaks, for His thou art, and Hers
+    Who bears the mystic shield and spear.
+
+    A touch divine shall thrill thy brain,
+      Thy soul shall leap to life, and lo!
+      What she has known, again shall know,
+    What she has seen, shall see again.
+
+    The ancient past through which she came...."[35]
+
+As the Spirit of Understanding, the name of Hermes signifies both Rock
+and Interpreter. Hence the significance of the saying of Jesus, "Thou
+art the Rock, and upon this Rock I will build My Church," which He
+addressed not to the man Peter, but to the Spirit of Understanding whom
+He discerned as the prompter of Peter's confession of faith. By this
+Jesus implied that the only true and infallible church is that which is
+founded on the Understanding, and not on authority whether of book,
+tradition or institution. The utterance of Jesus was a citation from the
+proem to the hymn to Hermes[36] recovered by us:--
+
+     "He is as a rock between earth and heaven, and the Lord God shall
+     build His Church thereon.
+
+     As a city upon a mountain of stone, whose windows look forth on
+     either side."
+
+As our education proceeded we found indubitably that in excluding from
+its curriculum the whole range of the knowledges represented by the term
+"Hermetic," Ecclesiasticism has ignored the chief source of information
+concerning the Christian _origines_. Doing which it has incurred the
+reproach uttered by Jesus against those who took away the key of
+knowledge, neither entering in themselves, nor suffering others to enter
+in. And it was to restore this Gnosis, suppressed by the priests, that
+the new revelation was promised, with the reception of which we found
+ourselves charged, the prophecies pointing to a restoration both of
+faculty and of knowledge.
+
+Besides the Fig-branch of Hermes, there is another symbol of the
+intuitional understanding which was disclosed to us as having special
+and peculiar relation to the work set us. This symbol is Woman herself.
+She had already, in the instruction concerning the marriage in Cana[37],
+been shown to us as the inspirer and prompter. She was now shown to us
+as the interpreter. The reason why the fig-tree was the emblem of the
+inward understanding will be found in the citation presently to be
+given; which is a portion of an instruction received in interpretation
+of the prophecy of Daniel, re-enunciated by Jesus, concerning the
+recognition of the "abomination of desolation standing in the holy
+place"[38], as making and marking the time of the end of that generation
+which, for its materialisation of spiritual things, was called by Him an
+"adulterous," meaning an idolatrous, generation. It will be seen that in
+the Scripture symbology, as the soul is the feminine principle in man's
+spiritual system, and is called therefore the "Woman," the spirit being
+the masculine principle; so in man's mental system the intuition as the
+feminine mode of the mind is called the "Woman," and the intellect, as
+the masculine mode, the "Man." The following is the citation in
+question:--
+
+     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.
+
+     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 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."
+
+On handing me the first portion of the instruction of which the
+foregoing is the conclusion, "Mary"--to use the name which meanwhile had
+been bestowed on her by our Illuminators in token of her office as
+representative of the Soul and Intuition--confessed to some perplexity.
+Her usual Illuminator for revelations of this order was Hermes, whose
+Hebrew equivalent is Raphael. But on this occasion it had been a Hebrew
+one, Gabriel. Her surprise and delight were great on being reminded that
+Gabriel was Daniel's own inspirer in respect of the prophecy in
+question, and that he had prophesied his return, saying, "Go thy way,
+Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the
+end.... Thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."
+The explanation given us was that both Daniel's own spirit and his
+illuminating angel had come to her, the former serving as the vehicle of
+the latter. As with all our other results similarly obtained, we judged
+it entirely by its own intrinsic merits, and not by its alleged
+derivation. We knew too well the propensity of low influences to
+appropriate to themselves great and even divine names, and the liability
+of the recipients to be deceived and to make the names the criterion
+instead of the communication itself. But in no instance did it happen to
+us that we had any cause to distrust the genuineness either of messenger
+or of message, even when both claimed to be divine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The difference between the two interpretations or applications given us
+of the incident at the "Marriage in Cana of Galilee," was explained to
+us as an instance of the manifoldness of the sense of Scripture. The
+parables have a separate meaning for each of the four planes of
+existence[39].
+
+We wondered much whether there were any parallels in history to our work
+and to the manner of it; and especially as to how far an association
+such as ours coincided with the ideas of the Hebrews. It was true that
+they had both prophets and prophetesses, but did they work like us in
+supplement and complement of each other? As regarded the recovery of
+knowledge acquired in a previous life, Ezra also had ascribed his
+recovery of the long lost Law to intuitional recollection occurring
+under special illumination, saying, "The Spirit strengthened my memory."
+But no mention is made of a female coadjutor. Nor does it appear that
+the Vestal Virgins were similarly supplemented, except to be thrown into
+the magnetic trance-state. In her zeal for her sex and her corresponding
+distrust of men--sentiments which seemed to be inborn in her--"Mary" was
+disposed to think that most of the prophesying of old had been done by
+women, but that the credit had been appropriated by men. The answer to
+these questionings was of a kind altogether unexpected by us, both as
+regarded its manner and its matter. For neither of us had the smallest
+suspicion that the book referred to was capable of the interpretation
+given us of it. This was the book of Esther. The incident was as
+follows:--
+
+The occasion was an Easter Sunday[40], and we were at Paris. Electing
+to remain indoors rather than encounter the crowds of holiday makers,
+"Mary" was moved during the afternoon to sit for some communication by
+joint writing. But we were no sooner seated than it was written,--
+
+     "Do you, Caro[41], take a pencil and write, and let her look
+     inwards, and we will dictate slowly."
+
+"Mary" then became entranced, and delivered orally, repeating it slowly,
+without break or pause, after a voice heard interiorly, the following
+exposition of the book of Esther, an exposition entirely novel, as I
+have said, to us, and, we believed, to the world. Some divines have
+called the book a romance, but none have discovered that it is a
+prophecy in the form of a parable. Luther, indeed, pronounced both it
+and the Apocalypse to be so worthless that their destruction would be no
+loss.
+
+The most important book in the Bible for you to study now, and that most
+nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of the most mystic books in the Old
+Testament, the book of Esther.
+
+This book is a mystic prophecy, written in the form of an actual
+history. If I give you the key, the clue of the thread of it, it will be
+the easiest thing in the world to unravel the whole.
+
+     The great King Assuerus, who had all the world under his dominion,
+     and possessed the wealth of all the nations, is the genius of the
+     age.
+
+     Queen Vasthi, who for her disobedience to the king was deposed from
+     her royal seat, is the orthodox Catholic Church.
+
+     The Jews, scattered among the nations under the dominion of the
+     king, are the true Israel of God.
+
+     Mardochi the Jew represents the spirit of intuitive reason and
+     understanding.
+
+     His enemy Aman is the spirit of materialism, taken into the favour
+     and protection of the genius of the age, and exalted to the highest
+     place in the world's councils after the deposition of the orthodox
+     religion.
+
+     Now Aman has a wife and ten sons.
+
+     Esther--who, under the care and tuition of Mardochi, is brought up
+     pure and virgin--is that spirit of love and sympathetic
+     interpretation which shall redeem the world.
+
+     I have told you that it shall be redeemed by a "woman."
+
+     Now the several philosophical systems by which the councillors of
+     the age propose to replace the dethroned Church, are one by one
+     submitted to the judgment of the age; and Esther, coming last,
+     shall find favour.
+
+     Six years shall she be anointed with oil of myrrh, that is, with
+     study and training severe and bitter, that she may be proficient in
+     intellectual knowledge, as must all systems which seek the favour
+     of the age.
+
+     And six years with sweet perfumes, that is with the gracious
+     loveliness of the imagery and poetry of the faiths of the past,
+     that religion may not be lacking in sweetness and beauty.
+
+     But she shall not seek to put on any of those adornments of dogma,
+     or of mere sense, which, by trick of priestcraft, former systems
+     have used to gain power or favour with the world and the age, and
+     for which they have been found wanting.
+
+     Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise
+     upon the earth, two dragons[42].
+
+     And they fight and tear each other, until there arises a star, a
+     fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther[43].
+
+     I have given you the key. Unlock the meaning of all that is
+     written.
+
+     I do not tell you if in the history of the past these voices had
+     part in the world of men.
+
+     If they had, guess now who were Mardochi and Esther.
+
+     But I tell you that which shall be in the days about to come[44].
+
+On consulting the Bible-dictionary, we found this relation between
+Esther and Easter. The feast of Purim, which was instituted in token of
+the deliverance wrought through Esther, coincides in date with Easter.
+And it was on Easter day that this was given us, by way of enhancing the
+correspondence between the parts assigned to us and those of Mordecai
+and Esther. Later it was shown us that the parts assigned to Joseph and
+Mary were, in one aspect, also identical with those of Mordecai and
+Esther. This is the aspect in which Joseph represents the mind, and Mary
+the soul in the regenerated human system.
+
+Besides "Hermes," "Mary" received much of her illumination from her
+"Genius," her relations with whom far surpassed not only my relations
+with mine, but any that are recorded in history, the experiences of
+Socrates, the chief instance on record, being insignificant both in
+quantity and in quality as compared with hers. It is important,
+therefore, to give an account of the nature and office of this order of
+angels, which shall be rendered in his own words.
+
+     Every man is a planet, having sun, moon, and stars. The Genius of a
+     man is his satellite; 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 protective 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 it
+     is said--as by Jesus--"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....
+
+     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 because the Genius 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 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 showeth where it lieth."...
+
+     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 God, and thy minister. But thou
+     must obey him, for he hath no voice of his own, but sheweth thee
+     the will of the Spirit.
+
+We noted that the inspiring angel of the Apocalypse had twice similarly
+spoken when the seer was about to worship him;--"See thou do it not; for
+I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them
+which keep the sayings of this book: Worship God."
+
+The like positive injunctions were given us also against according
+divine honours to Jesus.
+
+Besides Socrates, there is another notable historical "Spiritualist" of
+whom our experiences vividly reminded us. This was Joan of Arc. The
+correspondence between her and "Mary," in gifts, experiences, and
+personal characteristics, was of the closest. We had no difficulty in
+believing her history. Each of them, moreover, had a mission of
+deliverance, the one political and national, the other spiritual and
+universal.
+
+Although we had learned to trust our Illuminators implicitly long before
+the receipt of the above instruction, we were still without assurance as
+to the source and method of the revelation. Be the knowledges received
+by us as new as they might to our external selves, they never failed to
+be familiar as recovered memories, excepting in such cases as they were
+couched in terms of which the sense, being mystical, was not at once
+recognised. But such difficulties were soon overcome, and the doctrine,
+when fully apprehended, was always to us as necessary and self-evident
+truth, and such as to excite wonder at the potency of the glamour which
+had hitherto withheld it from the world's recognition. In every detail,
+the revelation represented for us Common-Sense in its loftiest mode. For
+the agreement it represented was not that of all men merely, but that of
+all parts of Man: of mind, soul and spirit, intellect and intuition, and
+these purified and unfolded to the utmost, and perfectly equilibrated.
+Whatever the manner of its communication, whether heard by the interior
+ear, seen by the interior eye, flashed on the mind as vivid ideas,
+whether acquired waking or sleeping, or in the intermediate state of
+trance-lucidity, or given in writing, it always seemed that we knew it
+before, and did not require to be told it, but only to be reminded of
+it.
+
+The problem specially exercised myself. "Mary" had other work than the
+analysis of our spiritual experiences. That was my special function. I
+learnt to see in her a soul of surpassing luminousness and variousness,
+who had been entrusted to my charge expressly in order that by my study
+of her I might recover for the world's benefit the long-lost knowledge
+of the soul's being, nature, and history. And so many and various were
+her spiritual states, that she seemed to me to represent in turn every
+stage of the soul's evolution, and to be "not one, but all mankind's
+epitome."
+
+This also used to occur so frequently as to be observed by both of us
+and discussed between us. When in the process of my endeavour to find
+the solution of some problem, such as the meaning of a parabolic or
+otherwise obscure passage in Scripture, I had exhausted my stock of
+tentative hypotheses, but, through consideration for her other and
+engrossing work, refrained from imparting my need to her, she would
+receive in sleep the desired solution, which she wrote down on waking,
+and which invariably proved satisfactory beyond my highest imaginings.
+And besides showing intimate acquaintance with the course of my thought,
+it was couched in language which, for simplicity, dignity, purity, and
+lucidity, was without an equal in literature; the English being that of
+the best period of our literature, and better than the best even of that
+period. She herself had a remarkable mastery of English, but these
+compositions reduced her to despair, causing her to exclaim, "Why cannot
+I write as well when I am awake as I do in my sleep!" Of course the
+explanation lay in the limiting influence of the physical organism.
+
+The frequency of this occurrence led me, in the absence of authoritative
+explanation, to try the following, as an hypothesis purely tentative.
+The revelations generally came to her when, through my inability to
+find the interpretations which satisfied me, my work required them, and
+they came independently of any desire or knowledge on her part. Might it
+not be, then, that it was my own spirit who knew them and gave them to
+her, finding her more sensitive to impression than myself? The
+explanation was not one that either pleased or satisfied me, one reason
+being that I took a delight in recognising the primacy accorded to her.
+The idea occurred to me one night, and I pondered it the next day, but
+did not divulge it. What happened on the evening of that day led me to
+suspect that our Genii had suggested it to me in order to make it the
+occasion of imparting to me the knowledge in question, namely, that of
+the real source and method of the revelation.
+
+For the experience to be properly appreciated it must be remembered that
+"Mary" had no knowledge of the explanation suggested to me, and neither
+of us had as yet entertained the idea of past lives as the key to our
+present work. The question of Reincarnation itself had not come before
+us, and far less the possibility of recovering the memory of the things
+learnt in previous existences, much as we had been puzzled to account
+for our experiences in the absence of some such explanation.
+
+The proposal to sit for a written communication came from her, having
+evidently been prompted by our illuminators. The method was one which
+both they and we disliked, and it was adopted only when they desired to
+address us both at once. So we sat for writing.
+
+The result confirmed my surmise. We had scarcely seated ourselves when
+the writing began, as if we were being waited for. And this is what was
+written:--
+
+     "We are instructed to say several things to-night. We are your
+     Genii.
+
+     "(To CARO.) In the first place, you entirely misconceive the
+     process by which the Revelation comes to Mary. The method of this
+     revelation is entirely interior. Mary is not a Medium; nor is she
+     even a Seer as you understand the word. She is a Prophet. By this
+     we mean that all she has ever written or will write, is from
+     within, and not from without. She knows. She is not told. Hers is
+     an old, old spirit. She is older than you are, Caro, older by many
+     thousand years. Do not think that spirits other than her own are to
+     be credited with the authorship of the new Gospel. As a proof of
+     this, and to correct the false impression you have on the subject,
+     the holy and inner truth, of which she is the depositary, will not
+     in future be given to her by the former method. All she writes
+     henceforth, she will write consciously. Yes, she must finish the
+     new Evangel by conscious effort of brain and will."
+
+Coming from a source which we had learnt to trust implicitly, and
+according with our own highest conceptions, this message was supremely
+satisfactory, and was welcomed accordingly. But it was followed
+forthwith by another which excited feelings of a very different
+character. For, as if expressly in order to prevent her from being made
+vain-glorious and uplifted by it, they added--
+
+     "(To MARY.) It may serve to exhibit the path by which you have
+     come, and to suggest the nature of some ancient tendencies which
+     may yet tarnish the mirror of a soul destined to attain perfection,
+     to learn that you dwelt within the body of ----."
+
+Here were given the name and character of a certain Roman dame of some
+seventeen centuries ago, one of high station, but of a repute so evil as
+to cause an immense shock to both of us. It does not come within the
+design of this book to disclose the particular personalities with whom
+we had been identified in the past[45]. Concerning this one it must
+suffice to state here that, omitting from account one whole side of
+"Mary's" character, we both recognised in the other side traits strongly
+resembling those which had been indicated. And she subsequently
+recovered distinct recollections of scenes in the life in question which
+served to assure her on the point. Our discussions on the matter tended
+to conclusions of which fuller knowledge brought the verification. It
+was not one of those lives in virtue of which she was directly qualified
+for her present work; but it was one of those lives of which the sin and
+the suffering may well be conceived of as indispensable elements in the
+education of a soul called to a lofty work and destiny in the future, in
+accordance with the principle which finds expression in the sayings,
+"The greater the sinner the greater the saint," and "_Pecca Fortiter_."
+This also we discerned clearly, that, supposing it to be indeed a truth
+that man is "made perfect through suffering," the experiences in the
+course of which the suffering is undergone must imply sin as well as
+pain and sorrow; since otherwise there would be a whole region of his
+nature, namely the moral, in which he would remain unvitalised. The
+lesson of which is that a man is alive only so far as he has lived.
+There was yet another reflection that was prompted by the occasion in
+question, and one which crowned and glorified the rest. This was the
+assurance implied that none need despair. If the soul which had dwelt in
+the body of the person named, could nevertheless become within
+measureable time what "Mary" was now, and be "destined to attain
+perfection," there is hope for all, and the doctrine of Reincarnation is
+indeed a gospel of salvation. And herein we discerned a lesson hitherto
+unsuspected so far as we were aware, in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
+It is not the "elder brother" who stays at home that can best appreciate
+the divine order; but the prodigal who has gone forth into the world of
+experience to acquire knowledge for himself at first hand. They who have
+been the most fully satiated with the husks of materiality, can--when
+their time arrives for coming to their true selves--best estimate the
+fare provided in the "Father's House." "He loveth most to whom most has
+been forgiven.
+
+While sitting alone one day and pondering these things, and particularly
+the difficulty which people often find in correcting in themselves even
+the faults which they deplore, this pregnant sentence was spoken audibly
+to my inner hearing by a voice which I recognised as that of my
+Genius:--"Tendencies encouraged for ages cannot be cured in a single
+lifetime, but may require ages."
+
+This further reflection also was suggested to me: that souls of
+exceptional strength are reincarnated in bodies of exceptionally strong
+passional natures, expressly in order to obtain the discipline which
+comes of the effort to subdue them. All of which reflections tended to
+exhibit the rashness of judging outward judgment in respect of others.
+In order to judge righteous judgment it is necessary to know the
+strength of their temptations, and of their efforts to resist them. And
+these can be known only to God. The attainment of perfection, and
+therein of salvation by conquest and not by flight,--this is the
+principle of reincarnation. It is the _condition_ of Regeneration, which
+is _from out of_ the body.
+
+In due time we were able to recognise the whole plan of our work as so
+ordered as to make the work itself a demonstration of the doctrine of
+reincarnation. When once this doctrine had become a practical question
+for us, it assumed a prominent place both in our teachings and in our
+experiences. One instruction given us was no less striking in itself
+than in the circumstances of its communication. The messenger was one
+with whom we had never anticipated coming into relations, for, besides
+not courting intercourse with the souls of the departed, we had not paid
+to the writings of the person concerned the heed that would entitle us
+to count him among our cordial sympathisers; and still less as among our
+possible visitants. This was the famous Swedish Seer, Emmanuel
+Swedenborg. In the course of what we afterwards found to be a strikingly
+characteristic communication from him, he informed us that owing to the
+difficulty our angels had in approaching us just then, through the
+condition of the spiritual atmosphere, they had charged him with a
+message to us, in which "Mary's" Genius had spoken to him of her as "A
+soul of vast experience, who under his tuition had so painfully
+acquired the evangel of which she was the depositary"; adding that he,
+her Genius, "had been promised help to recover for her, in this
+incarnation, the memory of all that was in the past"; and--which was the
+point of the message--that it was to be put forward, not as we were then
+contemplating putting it forward, but "as fragmentary specimens of such
+recollection occurring to one now a woman, but formerly an initiate, who
+is beginning to recover this power."
+
+It will be interesting to remark on this experience, that to this day
+the followers of Swedenborg set their faces against the doctrine of
+reincarnation, expressly on the ground that their master denied it in
+his lifetime. Whether Swedenborg really denied it is uncertain. There is
+grave cause to doubt whether his writings on the subject have been
+rightly understood or fairly represented. It has been maintained with
+much show of reason that Swedenborg denied only the reincarnation of the
+astral soul, not of the true soul; in which case he would be right.
+Having once obtained access to us, his visits were for a time frequent,
+the manner of them being various. For he came to us jointly and
+separately, in waking and in sleeping--the latter to "Mary" only--and
+audibly and visibly--the latter also to "Mary" only. He alluded to a
+recent incarnation of mine, of which I have since had full and
+independent proof. And he recognised our work as not only a confirmation
+and continuation of his own, but also as a correction. For, as he gave
+us to understand, he had been too much under the influence of the
+current orthodoxy to be able to transmit the revelation given to him in
+its proper purity, and unbiased by his own preconceptions. The doctrine
+in respect of which he was chiefly desirous of being set right was that
+of the Incarnation, the orthodox presentment of which he now saw to be
+wrong, by reason of its deification of Jesus. In referring to the
+perversion of the truth by the formulators of the Christian orthodoxy,
+he said to us, with much emphasis, "Do not be too kind to the
+Christians."
+
+This allusion to an experience which belongs to the category of
+"spiritualism" rather than to that of our special work, may with
+advantage be followed by some account of our other experiences of the
+same order, partly for the sake of testifying to the genuineness of the
+experiences relied on by spiritualists, and partly in order to show the
+distinction between the two orders of experience, as discerned by
+persons whose familiarity with both qualified them to institute
+comparison between them. For, having once become sensitised in the inner
+and higher regions of the consciousness, we had become sensitised also
+in the intermediate regions, and were able therefore to hold palpable
+converse with the denizens of these also. And the converse thus held was
+of the most satisfactory character, on the ground both of the certainty
+of its reality and its intrinsic nature. Father, mother, wife, brothers,
+sundry dear friends, and others interested in our work, all came to me,
+and some of them to my colleague, and this several times, and in a
+manner impossible to be distrusted. For my mother more than once spoke
+to me aloud in her own unmistakeable voice, and in tones that anyone
+might have heard, as I sat alone in my study. My wife came repeatedly to
+both of us, jointly and separately, audibly, visibly, and tangibly;
+giving us timely warnings of dangers unsuspected by us but proving to be
+real. And one of my brothers cleared up a mystery which had hung over
+his death. No mere attenuated wraiths or soulless phantoms were they who
+thus visited us from "beyond the veil," they were strong, distinct,
+intelligent individualities, veritable souls, palpitating with vitality,
+and eager to render loving service. But they came spontaneously and
+unevoked, for we never sought to compel their presence. Our quest was
+purely and simply for truth, not for persons. But we considered that,
+when these also came, as they did come, to ourselves directly and
+without intervention of any third party, to refuse to receive them on
+the ground that they had put off their bodies, would be equivalent to
+repulsing our friends in the flesh on the ground that they had put off
+their overcoats.
+
+The spirit in which alone such intercourse is permissible will be seen
+by the following citations from the instructions received by us. Terms
+from the Hebrew, Greek, and Oriental Scriptures were used indifferently
+by our illuminators. The word _Ruach_ in the following--which is Hebrew
+for Spirit--is here used in a kabalistic sense to denote the astral soul
+or ghost, as distinguished from the divine soul, the _Psyche_ or
+_Neshamah_, and from the _Nephesh_ or mere phantom. The following is
+from an instruction given to "Mary" in sleep, in direct solution of
+certain perplexities.
+
+     "Thou knowest that in the end, when Nirvâna is attained, the soul
+     shall gather up all that it hath left within the astral of holy
+     memories and worthy experience, and to this end the Ruach rises in
+     the astral sphere, by the gradual decay and loss of its more
+     material affinities, until these have so disintegrated and
+     perished that its substance is thereby lightened and purified. But
+     continual commerce and intercourse with earth add, as it were,
+     fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these alive, and
+     hindering its recall to its spiritual ego. Thus, therefore, the
+     spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption into the
+     divine, and union therewith. For the Ruach shall not all die, if
+     there be in it anything worthy of recall. The astral sphere is its
+     purging chamber. For Saturn, who is Time, is the trier of all
+     things; he devoureth all the dross; only that escapeth which in its
+     nature is ethereal and destined to reign. And this death of the
+     Ruach is gradual and natural. It is a process of elimination and
+     disintegration, often--as men measure time--extending over many
+     decades, or even centuries. And those Ruachs which appertain to
+     wicked and evil persons, having strong wills inclined
+     earthwards,--these persist longest and manifest most frequently and
+     vividly, because they _rise not_, but, being destined to perish
+     utterly, are not withdrawn from immediate contact with the earth.
+     They are all dross; there is in them no redeemable element. But the
+     Ruach of the righteous complaineth if thou disturb his evolution.
+     'Why callest thou me? disturb me not. The memories of my earth-life
+     are chains about my neck; the desire of the past detaineth me.
+     Suffer me to rise towards my rest, and hinder me not with
+     evocations. But let thy love go after me and encompass me; so shalt
+     thou rise with me through sphere after sphere.'
+
+     "For the good man upon earth can love nothing less than the divine.
+     Wherefore that which he loveth in his friend is the divine, that
+     is, the true and radiant self. And if he love it as differentiated
+     from God, it is only on account of its separate tincture. For in
+     the perfect light there are innumerable tinctures. And according to
+     its celestial affinity, one soul loveth this or that splendour more
+     than the rest. And when the righteous friend of the good man dieth,
+     the love of the living man goeth after the true soul of the dead;
+     and the strength and divinity of this love helpeth the purgation
+     of the astral soul, the psychic ghost. It is to this astral soul,
+     which ever remaineth near the living friend, an indication of the
+     way it must also go,--a light shining upon the upward path that
+     leads from the astral to the celestial and everlasting. For love,
+     being divine, is _towards_ the divine. 'Love exalteth, love
+     purifieth, love uplifteth.'"
+
+And this also, which was similarly obtained, represents a further
+restoration of the original, pure, undistorted and unmutilated doctrine
+of Christianity concerning the communion of souls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     So weepest thou and lamentest, because the Soul thou lovest is
+     taken from thy sight.
+
+     And life seemeth to thee a bitter thing: yea, thou cursest the
+     destiny of all living creatures.
+
+     And thou deemest thy love of no avail, and thy tears as idle drops.
+
+     Behold, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are prayers.
+
+     And if thou have lived purely, thy fervent desire shall be counted
+     grace to the soul of thy dead.
+
+     For the burning and continual prayer of the just availeth much.
+
+     Yea, thy love shall enfold the soul which thou lovest: it shall be
+     unto him a wedding garment and a vesture of blessing.
+
+     The baptism of thy sorrow shall baptize thy dead, and he shall rise
+     because of it.
+
+     Thy prayers shall lift him up, and thy tears shall encompass his
+     steps: thy love shall be to him a light shining upon the upward
+     way.
+
+     And the angels of God shall say unto him, "O happy Soul, that art
+     so well-beloved; that art made so strong with all these tears and
+     sighs.
+
+     "Praise the Father of Spirits therefor: for this great love shall
+     save thee many incarnations.
+
+     "Thou art advanced thereby; thou art drawn aloft and carried upward
+     by cords of grace."
+
+     For in such wise do souls profit one another and have communion,
+     and receive and give blessing, the departed of the living, and the
+     living of the departed.
+
+     And so much the more as the heart within them is clean, and the way
+     of their intention is innocent in the sight of God....
+
+     Count not as lost thy suffering on behalf of other souls; for every
+     cry is a prayer, and all prayer is power.
+
+     That thou willest to do is done; thine intention is united to the
+     Will of Divine Love.
+
+     Nothing is lost of that which thou layest out for God and for thy
+     brother.
+
+     And it is love alone who redeemeth, and love hath nothing of her
+     own[46].
+
+But precious as is the communion of souls when thus conditioned, it was
+not to them that we looked for light and guidance in our work. Nor,
+indeed, to any persons at all in the sense in which the term is
+ordinarily used. We looked steadfastly and directly to the Highest,
+confidently leaving to the Highest the appointment both of the Messenger
+and of the Message, but never failing to submit both manner and matter
+to the keenest scrutiny of faculties which we had striven to the utmost
+to attune to divine things. We were, moreover, emphatically warned from
+the outset against allowing any intrusion into our work of the
+influences accessible to the ordinary sensitive, the two planes being
+absolutely distinct. Herein lay the significance of the saying of
+"Mary's" Genius, that he had been "promised help to enable her to
+recover in this incarnation the memory of all that is in the past." The
+Genii themselves, although of the celestial, belong to its
+circumferential and lowest sphere. They touch the astral, but do not
+enter it. The help spoken of was to come from the innermost and highest
+spheres. And the charge was accordingly given us, "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."
+
+The manner in which we received the first full and particular account
+respecting the method of revelation, was as follows. I was pondering to
+myself with much intentness the nature and source of inspiration, and
+desiring a test whereby to distinguish between true and false
+inspiration. But I refrained for various reasons from consulting my
+colleague, at least until I should have exhausted my own resources. And
+she was still without any intimation of my need when she received the
+instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying of which the
+following is a portion. It was received in sleep, and the date was
+shortly before we were told that her knowledges were due to experiences
+undergone in previous lives[47]. When I had read it she said, referring
+to the first verse, "But I did not ask." In reply to which I told her
+that I had asked. It was addressed equally to both of us, as making
+together one system.
+
+     "I heard last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me, and
+     saying--
+
+     "You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means
+     whereby God revealeth the Truth.
+
+     "Know that there is no enlightenment from without: the secret of
+     things is revealed from within.
+
+     "From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within
+     beareth witness.
+
+     "Think not that I tell you that which you know not: for except you
+     know it, it cannot be given to you.
+
+     "To him that hath it is given, and he hath the more abundantly.
+
+     "None is a prophet save he who knoweth: the instructor of the
+     people is a man of many lives.
+
+     "Inborn knowledge and the perception of things, these are the
+     sources of revelation: the Soul of the man instructeth him, having
+     already learned by experience.
+
+     "Intuition is inborn experience; that which the soul knoweth of old
+     and of former years.
+
+     "And Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a man perceiveth
+     heavenly secrets.
+
+     "Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him
+     the things of God.
+
+     "Do not think that I tell you anything you know not; all cometh
+     from within: the Spirit that informeth is the Spirit of God in the
+     prophet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Inspiration may indeed be mediumship, but it is conscious; and the
+     knowledge of the prophet instructeth him.
+
+     "Even though he speak in an ecstasy, he uttereth nothing that he
+     knoweth not."
+
+Then followed this apostrophe to the Prophet:--
+
+     "Thou who art a prophet hast had many lives: yea, thou hast taught
+     many nations, and hast stood before kings.
+
+     And God hath instructed thee in the years that are past, and in the
+     former times of the earth.
+
+     By prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seeking, hast thou
+     attained that thou knowest.
+
+     There is no knowledge but by labour: there is no intuition but by
+     experience.
+
+     I have seen thee on the hills of the East: I have followed thy
+     steps in the wilderness: I have seen thee adore at sunrise: I have
+     marked thy night watches in the caves of the mountains.
+
+     Thou hast attained with patience, O prophet! God hath revealed the
+     truth to thee from within."
+
+     Thus, for the first time known to history, was given a definition
+     of the nature and method of inspiration and prophecy, at once
+     luminous, reasonable, and inexpugnable, to the full and final
+     solution of this stupendous problem; and comporting with and
+     explaining, as it did, all our own experiences, we felt that we
+     could bear unreserved testimony to its truth. But, vast as was the
+     addition thus made to the New Gospel of Interpretation, it did not
+     exhaust the treasures revealed and communicated on that wondrous
+     night; for it was followed immediately by a prophecy of the meaning
+     of the new dispensation on which the world is entering, and of
+     which our work is the introduction. At once Biblical in diction and
+     character, it reached in loftiness the highest level of Biblical
+     prophecy and inspiration, demonstrating the same world celestial
+     and divine as the source of both. For which reason, and the
+     crushing blow administered by it to the superstitions which have
+     made of Christianity a by-word and a reproach by their gross
+     materialisations of mysteries purely spiritual, it is reproduced in
+     full here. The heading is of our own devising:--
+
+A Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Soul, mystically called the Day of the
+Woman.
+
+     "And now I show you a mystery and a new thing, which is part of the
+     mystery of the fourth day of creation.
+
+     The word which shall come to save the world, shall be uttered by a
+     woman.
+
+     A woman shall conceive, and shall bring forth the tidings of
+     salvation.
+
+     For the reign of Adam is at its last hour; and God shall crown all
+     things by the creation of Eve.
+
+     Hitherto the man hath been alone, and hath had dominion over the
+     earth.
+
+     But when the woman shall be created, God shall give unto her the
+     kingdom; and she shall be first in rule and highest in dignity.
+
+     Yea, the last shall be first, and the elder shall serve the
+     younger.
+
+     So that women shall no more lament for their womanhood; but men
+     shall rather say, "O that we had been born women!"
+
+     For the strong shall be put down from their seat, and the meek
+     shall be exalted to their place.
+
+     The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing away: the
+     Gospel of Interpretation cometh.
+
+     There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient shall be
+     interpreted.
+
+     So that man the manifesto shall resign his office: and woman the
+     interpreter shall give light to the world.
+
+     Hers is the fourth office: she revealeth that which the Lord hath
+     manifested.
+
+     Hers is the light of the heavens, and the brightest of the planets
+     of the holy seven.
+
+     She is the fourth dimension; the eyes which enlighten; the power
+     which draweth inward to God.
+
+     And her kingdom cometh; the day of the exaltation of woman.
+
+     And her reign shall be greater than the reign of the man: for Adam
+     shall be put down from his place; and she shall have dominion for
+     ever.
+
+     And she who is alone shall bring forth more children to God, then
+     she who hath an husband.
+
+     There shall no more be a reproach against women: but against men
+     shall be the reproach.
+
+     For the woman is the crown of man, and the final manifestation of
+     humanity.
+
+     She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall be
+     revealed.
+
+     But the creation of woman is not yet complete: but it shall be
+     complete in the time which is at hand.
+
+     All things are thine, O Mother of God: all things are thine, O Thou
+     who risest from the sea; and Thou shalt have dominion over all the
+     worlds[48].
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] A.K. knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was unaware that he
+was an optician. Subsequent experience made it clear that the spectacles
+in question were intended to represent her own remarkable faculty of
+intuitional and interpretative perception. (See Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+150-1.) S.H.H.
+
+[30] Page 525
+
+[31] The 22nd September, 1877.
+
+[32] The book referred to was a treatise entitled "Fruit and Bread,"
+which had been sent to her anonymously the previous day. E.M.
+
+[33] The "Hymn to Hermes" was received by A.K. in 1878, "under
+illumination occurring in sleep." She remembered it so perfectly that on
+waking she wrote it without hesitation or error. Representing knowledges
+long lost, by no amount of mere scholarship could it have been
+reproduced. It is given at length in the P.W. pp. 357-358, and in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 287. S.H.H.
+
+[34] As to the recovery by A.K. of the Hymn to the Planet-God, see p.
+122-3.
+
+[35] These dream-verses are from "Through the Ages," a poem received by
+A.K., "in sleep," in 1880. In this poem, "some of her earliest
+incarnations" are referred to. (D. and D-S. p. 77.) S.H.H.
+
+[36] See p. 122 note.
+
+[37] See pp. 51-52-53 ante.
+
+[38] That is, in the place of God and the Soul.
+
+[39] The four planes being, from without inwards, those of the body,
+mind, soul, and spirit. S.H.H.
+
+[40] The 28th March, 1880. S.H.H.
+
+[41] The name by which I was thus addressed had been given me by our
+illuminators as an initiation name, as that of "Mary" to her. It denoted
+love as the dominant note of our work, and was an equivalent for "John
+the Beloved," who--we were given to understand--is one of the two
+controlling "angels" of the new illumination--Daniel being the other--in
+accordance with the intimations given by Jesus, one to His disciples and
+the other to the Seer of the Apocalypse himself, that John should tarry
+within reach of the earth-plane to bear part in the event which was to
+constitute the second advent of Christ. These names had a further
+correspondence in the Greek parable of Eros and Psyche, which denotes
+love as the vivifying principle of the soul. E.M.
+
+[42] Materialism and Superstition.
+
+[43] The name Esther denotes a star or fountain of light, a dawn or
+rising.
+
+[44] The spelling of the names is that of the Douay Version, the
+Protestants having relegated the second part of the book of Esther, in
+which the latter part of this narrative occurs, to the Apocrypha. As
+also that of Ezra above cited. E.M.
+
+[45] These are disclosed in "The Life of A.K." The personality referred
+to on this occasion was "Faustine, the Roman," the Empress of Marcus
+Aurelius. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 353-354.) S.H.H.
+
+[46] The "Hymn of Aphrodite," including the "Discourse of the Communion
+of Souls, and of the Uses of Love between Creature and Creature; being
+part of the Golden Book of Venus," from which latter the above is taken,
+is given in full in the P.W. pp. 350-356.
+
+[47] The instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying was received
+by A.K. in Paris on the 7th February, 1880. S.H.H.
+
+[48] P.W. pp. 311-314. Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 344-345.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ANTAGONISATION.
+
+
+Even had we been disposed, which happily we were not, to exalt ourselves
+on the strength of the loftiness of our mission, the constant proofs
+afforded us of the paucity of our knowledge in comparison with what
+remained to be known, would have effectually restrained us. But as it
+was, we were from the first penetrated by the conviction that only in so
+far as we succeeded in subordinating the individual to the universal,
+the personal to the divine, could the work be successfully accomplished.
+The man must make himself nothing that the God may be all. This was the
+burden of the injunctions enforced on us throughout; the failures of
+others through self-exaltation being adduced in illustration. For, as we
+were plainly given to understand, "many are called but few are chosen";
+the weak point in their system, the "Judas" by whom they are betrayed
+and fail, being generally vanity. They are as instruments which mistake
+themselves for the mind and hand which wield them.
+
+Humility and Love, the violet and the red, these are the two extremes of
+the prism which comprise between them all the Seven Spirits of God.
+Blended, they make the royal purple; but the hue of that purple depends
+on the spiritual states of the individuals themselves whose tinctures
+they are. They were, we were told, the tinctures of our own souls as
+indicated by the colours of our respective _auras_. "Mary's" was the
+"blood-red ray of the innermost sphere," the sphere of the "first of the
+Gods," wherein "love and wisdom are one." "For the Hebrews Uriel, for
+the Greeks Phoibos, the Bright One of God." Mine was the violet of the
+outermost sphere, that of the "last of the Gods," the "Spirit of the
+Fear of the Lord," and therein of Reverence and Humility; for the Greeks
+Saturn, and for the Hebrews Satan, the "Angel unfallen of the outermost
+sphere." Only when man is built up of all the Gods, and bears upon him
+the seal of each God, having climbed the ladder of his regeneration from
+circumference to centre, from "Saturn" to the "Sun," is the "week" of
+his new and spiritual creation accomplished. Similarly the co-operation
+of all these divine potencies was indispensable to our work. And we were
+emphatically warned of the dangers both to it and to ourselves, that
+would come of the lack of the divine presence in respect of any of them.
+Hence the necessity of maintaining the necessary conditions in
+ourselves, and the caution addressed to us by "Hermes," in view of the
+liability of mortals to appropriate to themselves the importance
+appertaining to their mission when this transcends the ordinary. To this
+end, in the following Exhortation, he disclosed to us the heights yet to
+be ascended, saying--
+
+     He whose adversaries fight with weapons of steel, must himself be
+     armed in like manner, if he would not be ignominiously slain or
+     save himself by flight.
+
+     And not only so, but forasmuch as his adversaries may be many,
+     while he is only one; it is even necessary that the steel he
+     carries be of purer temper and of more subtle point and contrivance
+     than theirs.
+
+     I, Hermes, would arm you with such, that bearing a blade with a
+     double edge, ye may be able to withstand in the evil hour.
+
+     For it is written that the tree of life is guarded by a sword which
+     turneth every way.
+
+     Therefore I would have you armed both with a perfect philosophy and
+     with the power of the divine life.
+
+     And first the knowledge; that you and they who hear you may know
+     the reason of the faith which is in you.
+
+     But knowledge cannot prevail alone, and ye are not yet perfected.
+
+     When the fulness of the time shall come, I will add unto you the
+     power of the divine life.
+
+     It is the life of contemplation, of fasting, of obedience, and of
+     resistance.
+
+     And afterwards the chrism, the power, and the glory. But these are
+     not yet.
+
+     Meanwhile remain together and perfect your philosophy.
+
+     Boast not, and be not lifted up; for all things are God's, and ye
+     are in God, and God in you.
+
+     But when the word shall come to you, be ready to obey.
+
+     There is but one way to power, and it is the way of obedience.
+
+     Call no man your master or king upon the earth, lest ye forsake the
+     spirit for the form and become idolaters.
+
+     He who is indeed spiritual, and transformed into the divine image,
+     desires a spiritual king.
+
+     Purify your bodies, and eat no dead thing that has looked with
+     living eyes upon the light of Heaven.
+
+     For the eye is the symbol of brotherhood among you. Sight is the
+     mystical sense.
+
+     Let no man take the life of his brother to feed withal his own.
+
+     But slay only such as are evil; in the name of the Lord.
+
+     They are miserably deceived who expect eternal life, and restrain
+     not their hands from blood and death.
+
+     They are miserably deceived who look for wives from on high, and
+     have not yet attained their manhood.
+
+     Despise not the gift of knowledge; and make not spiritual eunuchs
+     of yourselves.
+
+     For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
+
+     Ye are twain, the man with the woman, and she with him, neither man
+     nor woman, but one creature.
+
+     And the kingdom of God is within you[49].
+
+The knowledge of the "Seven Spirits" whereby Deity operates in the
+universe, has been completely dropped out of sight by the Christian
+world. It is necessary, therefore, if only in vindication of the
+importance attached to them by our illuminators, to recite the
+instruction received by us concerning them, which is as follows. It is a
+chapter from the recovered Gnosis[50]:--
+
+     "In the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods comprehended, as the
+     seven spirits of the prism, contained in the Invisible Light.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     By the Word of Elohim were the Seven Elohim manifest: even the
+     Seven Spirits of God in the order of their precedence:
+
+     The Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of
+     Counsel, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit
+     of Righteousness, and the Spirit of Divine Awfulness.
+
+     All these are coequal and coeternal.
+
+     Each has the nature of the whole in itself: and each is a perfect
+     entity.
+
+     And the brightness of their manifestation shineth forth from the
+     midst of each, as wheel within wheel, encircling the White Throne
+     of the Invisible Trinity in Unity.
+
+     These are the Divine fires which burn before the presence of God:
+     which proceed from the Spirit, and are one with the Spirit.
+
+     He is divided, yet not diminished: He is All, and He is One.
+
+     For the Spirit of God is a flame of fire which the Word of God
+     divideth into many: yet the original flame is not decreased, nor
+     the power thereof nor the brightness thereof lessened.
+
+     Thou mayest light many lamps from the flame of one; yet thou dost
+     in nothing diminish that first flame.
+
+     Now the Spirit of God is expressed by the Word of God, which is
+     Adonai.
+
+     For without the Word the Will could have had no utterance.
+
+     Thus the Divine Will divided the Spirit of God, and the seven fires
+     went forth from the bosom of God and became seven spiritual
+     entities.
+
+     They went forth into the Divine Substance, which is the substance
+     of all that is."
+
+As already stated, Hermes is the Greek name for the Second of the
+creative Elohim above enumerated. Hence his special relation to the New
+Gospel of Interpretation, the appeal of which is to the Understanding.
+
+Being shown one day in vision the path we had to traverse for the
+accomplishment of our work, "Mary" exclaimed:--
+
+     "What a dreadfully difficult thing it is to steer one's way amidst
+     such numbers of influences! I see a fine, bright-shining thread. It
+     is our own path, and it is a pathway of light. But, oh! so narrow,
+     so narrow, and all around are spirits trying to lure us from it.
+     Here is Hermes, shining like a silver light. My Genius says that
+     the way to get the utmost vitality on the spiritual plane is to
+     abandon the plane of the body, and keep it quite low, by not
+     indulging it. The time for bodily indulgence is passed with us.
+     Abstinence, we have been told, and watchfulness and fasting are
+     needful. And the time for the first of these has come. Nothing is
+     gained without labour or won without suffering. Fasting and
+     Watching and Abstinence, these are Beads and Rosary. It is a hard
+     way and a long way, and it makes one wishful to turn back. We are
+     not to be misled by the story, so much dwelt on to you by the
+     Astrals, of Moses and Aaron[51]. They both were failures, who
+     entered not into the land of Canaan. We must be patient and trust.
+     We have to be cultivated on both planes, the intellectual and the
+     spiritual, and not on the physical, for this draws from and saps
+     the others."
+
+So far as I was concerned, there was yet another rule that was made
+absolute: this was the rule of Poverty. Desiring at one time to mitigate
+the rigour of my enforced economies by working with a commercial intent,
+and to that end endeavouring to finish a tale some time before
+commenced, I found myself baffled by a complete withdrawal of power. I
+was well aware that no romance I could devise would compare with the
+romance I was living, and that any incidents I could invent would be
+tame before those of my actual life; but it was not this that withheld
+me. It was made clear to me that there was now only one direction and
+one plane in which I was accessible to ideas and in which therefore I
+could work, and this a direction and plane altogether incompatible with
+mundane ends. But I had not fully reconciled myself to the loss of my
+earning power, or resolved to refrain from further efforts in that
+behalf, when I received the following experience.
+
+I had gone to bed, but not to sleep, for thinking over the matter, when
+I became aware of the presence of a group of spiritual influences, one
+of whom, speaking for them all, said to me, in tones audible only to the
+inner hearing, but distinct, measured and authoritative--
+
+     "We whom you know as the Gods--Zeus, Phoibos, Hermes, and the
+     rest--are actual celestial personalities, who are appointed to
+     represent to mortals the principles and potencies called the Seven
+     Spirits of God. We have chosen you for our instrument, and have
+     tried you and proved you and instructed you; and you belong to us
+     to do our work and not your own, save in so far as you make it your
+     own. Only in such measure as you do this will you have any success.
+     For you can do nothing without us now: and it is useless for you to
+     attempt to do anything without our help."
+
+By this and manifold other experiences, we had practical demonstration
+of the existence of a celestial hierarchy consisting of souls perfected
+and divinised, divided into orders corresponding to the "Seven Spirits
+of God," and having for their function the illumination of those souls
+of men still on earth who are accessible by them; and to whom they
+manifest themselves in the forms recognised in the mysteries in which
+such persons have formerly been initiated.
+
+We had also manifold proofs of their power to arrest utterance before
+persons unfit to be entrusted with the mysteries. The first instance
+occurred to myself, and was in this wise. I was reading some passages in
+illustration of our work to an old clerical friend who came to see me in
+Paris, when I inadvertently turned to a part of the book which we had
+been charged to keep secret. But before I had read a line, the air round
+me became so dense with invisible presences that I was unable to see,
+and my heart was clutched, as if by an invisible hand, and lifted up
+towards my throat with such force as almost to choke me; while, at the
+same instant, an overwhelming sense of my fault was impressed on my
+mind, causing me for some hours to feel as one utterly God-forsaken and
+cast off.
+
+Not thinking that "Mary" was liable to err in the same way, or caring to
+tell her of my trespass, I kept silence respecting this experience. But
+a few weeks later it was repeated for her. She was speaking of our work
+to a spiritualist friend with whom we were spending the evening, and, in
+her eagerness, got upon topics which I recognised as forbidden. But
+before I had time to remind her, she suddenly stopped short and rose
+from her seat, gasping and dazed, and insisted on returning home
+forthwith, to our hostess's great amazement and disappointment. Divining
+what had occurred, I refrained from questioning her until we were
+outside and alone, when in reply to me she described exactly what had
+happened to me, using the words, "I did not want to be choked!" There
+were other occasions on which I was cut short under like circumstances,
+by having all that I meant to say suddenly and completely obliterated
+from my mind.
+
+Being desirous to know more of the adverse influences against which we
+had been warned, and from which we suffered, "Mary" consulted her
+illuminator respecting their origin and nature, when the following
+colloquy ensued:--
+
+     "They are," he said, "the powers which affect and influence
+     Sensitives. They do not control, for they have no force.... They
+     are Reflects. They have no real entity in themselves. They resemble
+     mists which arise 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 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 vituperation 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, in danger from them?" I asked. "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 is 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 an 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 an one, think you, be
+     vain-glorious 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."
+
+So far from our being sufficiently advanced to escape molestation from
+the sources thus indicated, there were times when we suffered much from
+their incursions, even to the hindrance, for the time being, of the work
+on which our whole hearts were set. Knowing that everything depended on
+our unanimity, they sought to make division between us, and what they
+lacked in force was more than made up for by subtlety[52]. Despite all
+our vigilance, they would insinuate themselves like barbed and poisoned
+arrows between the joints of our armour, there to rankle and envenom, so
+insidious were their suggestions. They did not flatter, but attacked
+us. So that it was a satisfaction to be assured that they attack those
+only who are worth attacking. The very nature of our work was such as to
+invite attack from them, being what they were.
+
+Meanwhile, no experience was withheld that would serve to qualify us for
+what proved to be an essential part of our work, the "discerning of
+spirits" in the sense, not merely of perceiving them, but of
+distinguishing their nature and character. And always was the lesson
+given in a form which combined with its other features that of total
+unexpectedness. Especially important was it for us to be able to
+distinguish between the spirits _of_ the astral, against which we were
+warned, and spirits _in_ the astral, namely, souls which had not yet
+accomplished their emancipation, but were in course of doing so. But
+while as regarded the former we were left to fight the battle for
+ourselves, as regarded the latter there was a control exercised, and
+none were permitted to approach us save such as had a message of service
+which would minister to the solution of a present problem. Of this the
+following experience was an instance. It helped us to a yet fuller
+comprehension, both of the reasons which had dictated our association,
+and of the liabilities to be guarded against.
+
+It was evening[53], and we were occupied in our respective tasks, and so
+entirely engrossed by them as to be disposed to resent any interruption,
+when "Mary" bent across the table, and speaking in a low tone, said to
+me, "There is a spirit in the room who wants to speak to us. Shall I let
+him?" I assented on the condition that he had something to tell us
+really worth hearing. She then became entranced, being magnetised by his
+presence; and after telling me that he spoke with a strong American
+accent and professed to be a "meta-physical doctor"--meaning, she
+supposed, a doctor in metaphysics--repeated the following after him; for
+I could neither see nor hear him:--
+
+     "You two have been put together for a work which you could not do
+     separately. I have been shown a chart of your past histories,
+     containing your characters and your past incarnations. She is of a
+     highly active, wilful disposition, and represents the centrifugal
+     force. You, Caro, are her opposite, and, being contemplative and
+     concentrated, represent the centripetal force. Without her
+     expansive energy you would become altogether indrawn and inactive
+     in deed; and without your restraining influence she would go forth
+     and become dissipated in expansiveness. So extraordinary is her
+     outward tendency that nothing but such an organism as she now has
+     could repress it and keep it within bounds. It is for the work she
+     has to do that she has been placed in a body of weakness and
+     suffering. She is the man--and you the woman--element in your joint
+     system. I can see only her female incarnations, but she has been a
+     man much oftener than a woman; while you have generally been a
+     woman, and would be one now but for the work you have to do. Even
+     as a woman she has always been much more man than woman, for her
+     wilfulness and recklessness have led her into enterprises of
+     incredible daring. Nothing restrained her when her will prompted
+     her. She would wreck any work to follow that, and only by
+     combination with your centripetal tendency can she do the present
+     work. As a man she has been initiated, once, a long time ago, in
+     Thebes, afterwards in India. The things she has done in her past
+     lives! Well, _I_ do not say they were wrong, for I
+     do not hold the existence of moral evil. All things are allowed for
+     good ends; but this is a difficult truth to express."
+
+Here she spoke in her own person, having under his magnetism recovered
+her own vision and recollection, saying--
+
+     "O Caro! I can see your past. You have been--no, it is all wiped
+     out. I cannot see it now. I am not allowed to see it. Why is this?
+     I see my own past. I see India:--a magnificent glittering white
+     marble temple, and elephants. How tame they are! They are all out,
+     and feeding in a field or enclosure. And there are such a number of
+     splendid red flowers, they are cactuses, and all prickly. The trees
+     have all their foliage on the top, and such long stems. They are
+     palms. The soil is of a white dust. And the sky is so clear and
+     blue! But the heat is terrible. I see you again. Your colour is
+     blue, inclining to indigo, owing to your want of expansiveness. But
+     I cannot see your past, except that you are mostly a woman. And now
+     I am by the Nile,--such a fine broad river!"
+
+Here she returned to her normal consciousness, our visitor having taken
+his departure.
+
+Subsequently, in March, 1881, under the influence of a higher
+illuminative power, she found herself as one of a group of initiates
+making solemn procession through the aisles of a vast Egyptian temple,
+and chanting in chorus the rituals which compose the marvellous "Hymn to
+the Planet-God, Iacchos"[54]. For, long as it is, she was able to
+reproduce it afterwards. It was thus, by her recovery of the memory of
+knowledges acquired in past existences, that the divine originals were
+recovered from which the Bible-writers largely derived at once their
+doctrine and their diction. This is not to say that these were mere
+borrowers and unilluminate. It is to say only that they recognised the
+divinity of a prior revelation, and regarded it as a common heritage.
+The truth is one.
+
+Among the uses of the painful experience we were now undergoing[55] was
+this one. It put me on a track of thought of high value in enabling me
+to determine our respective positions in regard to our work. It was
+clearly the endeavour of the astral influences by which we were being
+assailed--the "haters of the mysteries" as our Genii called them[56]--to
+break down our work by destroying that perfect harmony between us which
+was the first condition of it. And all my endeavours failing to discover
+in myself the weak point which rendered us accessible to them, carefully
+as I sought there for it, I was forced to look for it in her, and was
+disposed to ascribe it to the survival from the far past of some defect
+of the affectional nature. For, as we were now learning, man has a dual
+heredity, that of his physical parentage and that of his spiritual
+selfhood. From the former of which he derives his outward
+characteristics; and from the latter his inward character. The
+experience just recited served to confirm the surmise, but it did
+something else besides. It suggested to me the following explanation of
+the situation as growing out of the exigencies of our work. That work
+had for its purpose the accomplishment of the prophesied downfall of the
+"world's sacrificial system." It meant war to the knife against all the
+orthodoxies at once, religious, social, scientific. It meant a
+death-"wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
+against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
+against spiritual wickedness in high places." It meant, in short, the
+destruction foretold by the prophets of "that great city," the world's
+materialistic system in Church, State, and Society, wherein the "Lord,"
+the divinity in man, is ever systematically crucified, and its
+replacement by the "Holy City" or system which comes down from the
+heaven of a perfect ideal.
+
+What, then, I asked myself, was the foremost moral need for the
+instruments of such a work? Surely it was Courage. But courage subsists
+under two modes. There is the courage which manifests itself in action
+and aggression, and there is the courage which manifests itself in
+endurance and resistance. The former is its masculine mode, the latter
+its feminine mode. The former connotes Will, the latter connotes Love.
+And these were the parts assigned respectively to us in our joint
+system. Will and Love united had made the world; disunited, they had
+ruined the world; reunited, they would redeem the world. As He and She,
+King and Queen, positive and negative, centrifugal and centripetal, they
+are the dual powers of all things, the constituent principles at once of
+God and of Man. The whole Universe is Humanity, for it is the
+manifestation of God, and they are the divine man and woman of all
+being; in their conjunction omnipotent for good, in their disjunction
+omnipotent for evil. And whereas it is the function of Will to inflict,
+it is the function of Love to bear. It is not, then, to the lack of
+these qualities that our troubles are due, but to the defect of them,
+the defect of our respective qualities.
+
+The tension of feeling induced by the situation had for me reached a
+pitch at which I had cause for serious apprehension lest my organism
+prove unequal to the strain. For, resolute though I myself was to endure
+to the end, come what might, the effort involved had so greatly affected
+my organic system as nearly to double the number of the heart's
+pulsations, to the imminent risk of a rupture fatal to life or reason.
+Such was the emergency when, longing for light and aid, I received at
+night[57] the following experience, which I reproduce as recorded at the
+time:--
+
+     It seemed to me that I was sole spectator in some circus or
+     hippodrome. And in the arena were some horses, seven in number,
+     harnessed to a common centre, but all facing in different
+     directions like the spokes of a wheel, and pulling frantically, so
+     that the vehicle to which they were attached remained stationary
+     between them, through their counterbalancing each other; while at
+     the same time it seemed as if it must presently be dragged asunder
+     into pieces. On looking at it more closely, the vehicle seemed to
+     become a person who was attempting to drive the horses, but was
+     unable to get them into a line; and, strange to say, the driver was
+     one and identical both with the horses and the vehicle, so that it
+     was a living person who was in danger of being torn asunder by
+     creatures who were in reality himself. While wondering what this
+     meant, some one addressed me and said that if I would do any good,
+     I must help to control and direct the animals which were thus
+     pulling their owner asunder. And that the only way to do this was
+     by so disposing myself that I should be at one and the same time in
+     the centre with the driver, to help him to curb and direct his
+     steeds, and outside at their heads in order to compel their
+     submission. And not only must I be indifferent to their ramping and
+     chafing, I must even suffer myself to be struck and wounded and
+     trampled upon to any extent without flinching; for only when I was
+     so unconscious of self as to be indifferent as to what might happen
+     to me, would they cease to have power against me. And the reason
+     why I must be also in the centre was that only there could I
+     effectually co-operate with the driver to enable him to do his part
+     in directing what in reality were the forces, as yet unbroken in,
+     of his own system, into the road it was necessary for us both to
+     follow. We were destined to be fellow-travellers, and our journey
+     was to be made together and with that team. It could not be made by
+     one of us without the other, and the failure to effect a complete
+     conjunction and co-operation would bring certain ruin to the hopes
+     of both of us and of all who looked to us. The owner of the horses,
+     I was assured, could not of himself control them, and I could only
+     enable him to do so by an absolute surrender of myself.
+
+Applying this vision to the situation, the moral was obvious so far as I
+was concerned, and I wondered whether "Mary" would receive anything
+equally suggestive for herself. In the morning, after remaining
+unusually late in her room, she silently handed me the following account
+of an experience which had similarly and simultaneously been received by
+her:--
+
+     "I was shown two stars near each other, both of them shining with a
+     clear bright light, only that of one the light had a purple tinge,
+     and of the other a blood colour; and a great Angel stood beside me
+     and bade me look at them attentively. I did so, and saw that the
+     stars were not round, but seemed to have a piece cut out of the
+     globe of each of them. And I said to the Angel, 'The stars are not
+     perfect; but instead of being round, they are uneven.' He told me
+     to look again; and I did so, and saw that each globe was really
+     perfect, but that in each a small portion remained dark so as to
+     present the appearance of having a piece out; and I noticed that
+     these dark portions of the two stars were turned towards each
+     other. Upon this I looked to the Angel for the explanation.
+
+     And the Angel said to me, 'These stars derive their light not only
+     from the sun but from each other. If there be darkness in one of
+     them, the corresponding face of the other will likewise be
+     darkened; and how shall either reflect perfectly the image of the
+     sun if it be dark to its companion star? For how shall it respond
+     to that which is above all, if it respond not to that which is
+     nearest?'
+
+     And I said, 'Lord, if the darkness in one of these stars be caused
+     by the darkness in its fellow, which of them was first darkened?'
+
+     Then he answered me and said, 'These stars are of different
+     tinctures; one is of the sapphire, the other of the sardonyx. Of
+     the first the atmosphere is cool and equable; of the other it is
+     burning and irregular. The spirit of the first is as God towards
+     man; the spirit of the second is as the soul towards God. The first
+     loves; the second aspires. And the office of the spirit which loves
+     is outwards; while the office of the spirit which aspires is
+     upwards. The light of the first, which is blue, enfolds, and
+     contains, and embraces, and sustains. The light of the second,
+     which is red, is as a flame which scorches, and burns, and
+     troubles, and seeks God only, and his duty is not to the outward,
+     for it is not given to him to love. God, whom he seeks, _is_ love;
+     and therefore is he drawn upward to God only. But the spirit of his
+     fellow descends. She indraws, and blesses, and confers; and hers is
+     the office which redeems. Wherefore if she fail in her love, her
+     failure is greater than his who hath no love; and to be perfect she
+     must forgive until the seventy times seven, and be great in
+     humility. For the violet, which is the colour of humility, is of
+     the blue. And if she seek her own, or yield not in outward things,
+     her nature is not perfected, and her light is darkened. Let Love,
+     therefore, think not of herself, for she hath no self, but all that
+     she hath is towards others, and only in giving and forgiving is she
+     rich. If, on the contrary, she make a self withinwards, her light
+     is withdrawn and troubled, and she is not perfect, and if she
+     demand of another that which he hath not, then she seeketh her own,
+     and her light is darkened. And if she be darkened towards him, he
+     also will darken towards her, in respect, that is, of
+     enlightenment. And thus her failure of love will break the
+     communion with the Divine, which is through him. He cannot darken
+     outwardly first; for love is not of him. If he darken of himself,
+     it must be within towards God. But that which he receives of God,
+     he gives not forth himself. But he burns centrally and enlightens
+     his fellow, and she gives it forth according to her office. And if
+     she darken in any way outwardly, she cannot receive enlightenment,
+     but darkens the burning star likewise, and so hinders their
+     inter-communion.'
+
+Having thus spoken, the Angel looked upon me and said, 'Ye are the two
+stars, and to one is given the office of the Prophet, and to the other
+the office of the Redeemer. But to be Prophet and Redeemer in one, this
+is the glory of the Christ.'"
+
+Here again was an intimation that on one plane at least of our
+respective systems she was of masculine and I of feminine potency, with
+functions to correspond. That these functions were capable of being
+described in the terms employed was, we felt, no reason for arrogating
+high places to ourselves. Rather did we consider that everything is
+according to its degree; and that, as for persons, if the Gods were to
+wait until they found perfect instruments, or at least perfect persons
+for their instruments, they would never begin. And this also, that if
+the world were in a condition to produce such persons, it would have no
+need of redemption. Had not even Jesus Himself been "crucified through
+weakness"?
+
+In view of the intensity of the distress undergone in this connection, I
+found myself recalling the remark of Plato, "Many begin the mysteries,
+but few complete them." My only wonder was that any should survive the
+ordeals, if they approached ours in severity. Meanwhile it was said to
+us by way of encouragement, "Be sure there is trouble in store. No man
+ever got to the Promised Land without first going through the
+wilderness."
+
+The instruction to "Mary" had not only justified my surmise, it also met
+and corrected her in respect of the chief cause of our trouble. This was
+her disposition, at astral instigation, to withhold from me the products
+of her illuminations, and even to refrain from writing them down[58], on
+the specious pretext that they were meant for her own exclusive
+benefit, and were too sacred to be given to the world, or even to me;
+and she had failed to discern the source and motive of these
+suggestions. So effectually had what were really spirits of darkness
+disguised themselves as angels of light.
+
+The importance attached to the occult significance of our "tinctures"
+received illustration in this wise. Permission had been given us to make
+an exception to the rule of secrecy imposed with regard to certain of
+the Scriptures received by us, in favour of a friend[59] who took so
+warm an interest in our work as to be eager to render it material aid in
+the future should occasion arise. It was her mission, she declared, to
+do so. But when the day appointed for the reading came, "Mary" was so
+ill that her going seemed to be impossible, and the question accordingly
+arose as to whether I might go alone and read them without her. We had
+no sooner begun to consider the point than she became entranced, and was
+shown a large open volume, the book of the Greater Mysteries to which
+our Scriptures belonged, surrounded by an Iris composed of all the
+colours of the rainbow. She was then shown the following lines, which I
+wrote down as she repeated them:--
+
+     "The one in Red guards his privileges, and claims to be present
+     whatever is read.
+
+     For the air is filled with the haters of the Mysteries.
+
+     Therefore for your sake the chain must be complete;
+
+     And the Light must be refracted round you seven times.
+
+     He who is Red stands within the holy circle.
+
+     And the Violet guards the outermost.
+
+     For the Word is a Word of Mystery, and they who guard it are Seven.
+
+     Beware that nothing you hear be told unless the circle be perfect.
+
+     And this charge we lay upon you until the work be accomplished.
+
+     Fire and sword and war are against you; you walk in the midst of
+     commotion.
+
+     And your life is in peril every hour until the words be completed."
+
+Up to the latest moment of the interval before the appointment it seemed
+impossible for her to go. She then suddenly recovered as by miracle, and
+was able to attend the reading.
+
+The liabilities of our position subsequently[60] received this further
+illustration. "Mary" was introduced in sleep, by her Genius, into an
+apartment in the spiritual world which purported to be the laboratory of
+William Lilly, the famous astrologer who had foretold the great plague
+and fire of London in 1666, in order to have her horoscope told by him,
+he still pursuing his favourite studies. On quitting him she caught
+sight of a pile of books, one of which contained the Gnosis we were in
+course of recovering. The following colloquy then ensued:--
+
+"You also have these Scriptures!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," said he, "but I keep them for myself alone."
+
+"And why so," she asked, "since, if you have them, they are for the
+learning of others likewise? Will you not rather communicate these
+saving truths to thirsty souls?"
+
+"I will communicate them," said he, fixing his eyes on her intently,
+"when I can find Seven Men who for forty days have tasted no flesh,
+whose hands have shed no blood, and whose tongues have tasted of none."
+
+"But if you find not Seven?"
+
+"Then, mayhap, I shall find Five."
+
+"And if not Five?"
+
+"Then, maybe, I shall meet with Three."
+
+"But even this may be hard to find, and if you should not meet with
+Three, what then will you do?"
+
+"One Neophyte would not be able to protect himself."
+
+In communicating to her the results of his calculations, he had said
+that owing to the propensities indulged in certain of her former lives,
+she had made for herself a destiny which ensured suffering and failure,
+except when living in a similar manner; doing which she would have a
+life of unbounded success. "But," he continued, "your horoscope has
+nothing for you but misfortune so long as you persist in a virtuous
+course of life, and, indeed, it is now too late to adopt another. I
+speak herein according to your Fortune, not in regard to your Inner
+life. With that I have no concern. I tell you what is forecast for you
+on the material and actual planisphere of your Nativity.... I see
+nothing but misfortune before you. Yea, if you persist in virtue, it is
+not unlikely that you may be stript of all your worldly goods, and of
+all you possess, and this evil fortune will follow your nearest
+associates."
+
+To her enquiry, "Can I never overcome this evil prognostic?" he replied
+that she could do so only by outliving the time appointed for her
+natural life in the career indicated, and added this advice, "Steel
+yourself; learn to suffer; become a Stoic; care not. If Misfortune be
+yours, make it your Fortune. Let Poverty become to you Riches. Let Loss
+be Gain. Let Sickness be Health. Let Pain be Pleasure. Let Evil Report
+be Good Report. Yea, let Death be Life. Fortune is in the Imagination.
+If you believe you have all things, they are truly yours." He concluded
+with an explanation reconciling destiny with free will, and vindicating
+the divine justice, in a manner which removed all our difficulties on
+those points, and, as we later came to learn, was entirely in accordance
+with the Hindu doctrine of "Karma," of which at this time we had never
+heard[61].
+
+There was no exaggeration in the terms of the warning of danger. We were
+constantly made aware of the presence of the malignant entities above
+described focusing their influences on us to prevent the accomplishment
+of our work, and requiring the utmost vigilance on our part, as well
+also as on the part of our illuminators, to thwart their purpose. And we
+had good reason to believe that our difficulties and dangers were
+enhanced through "Mary's" attendances at the schools and hospitals,
+owing to the evil nature of the influences there dominant under a
+regimen grossly materialistic, and her liability to be fastened upon and
+accompanied home by them. The outer walls of her spiritual system--it
+was explained to us--were not yet completed, owing to the vastness of
+the circuit of her selfhood; and hence her accessibility to the
+incursion of noxious influences from without. The treatment of the
+patients by men trained in the physiological laboratory, and bent upon
+turning the hospital ward also into a laboratory with the patients
+themselves for the victims of cruel and wanton experimentation, would
+send her home boiling with indignation and wrath, to the destruction of
+the serenity and self-control requisite for our spiritual work.
+
+It was clear to us that no experience was to be wanting to exhibit the
+contrast between the world's actual and the world's possible. The
+overthrow of "the world's sacrificial system" meant salvation for man
+and beast. The condition of all really redemptive work is a "descent
+into hell." The following instruction to us is a typical one:--
+
+     "Teach the doctrine of the Universal Soul and the Immortality of
+     all creatures. Knowledge of this is what the world most needs, and
+     this is the keynote of your joint mission. On this you must build;
+     it is the key-stone of the arch. The perfect life is not attainable
+     for man alone. The whole world must be redeemed under the new
+     gospel you are to teach."
+
+The following "Counsel of Perfection" which was received[62] by "Mary,"
+is an exquisite expression of the same theme:--
+
+     I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in it seven
+     persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and each of them had
+     before him a scroll, some having books also; and all were
+     greyheaded and bent with age save one, and this was a youth of
+     about twenty, without hair on his face. One of the aged men, who
+     had his finger on a place in a book open before him, said:
+
+     "This spirit, who is of our order, writes in this book,--'Be ye
+     perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.' How shall
+     we understand this word 'perfection'?" And another of the old men,
+     looking up, answered, "It must mean Wisdom, for wisdom is the sum
+     of perfection." And another old man said, "That cannot be; for no
+     creature can be wise as God is wise. Where is he among us who could
+     attain to such a state? That which is part only, cannot comprehend
+     the whole. To bid a creature to be wise as God is wise would be
+     mockery."
+
+     Then a fourth old man said:--"It must be Truth that is intended;
+     for truth only is perfection." But he who sat next the last speaker
+     answered, "Truth also is partial; for where is he among us who
+     shall be able to see as God sees?"
+
+     And the sixth said, "It must surely be Justice; for this is the
+     whole of righteousness." And the old man who had spoken first,
+     answered him:--"Not so; for justice comprehends vengeance, and it
+     is written that vengeance is the Lord's alone."
+
+     Then the young man stood up with an open book in his hand and
+     said:--"I have here another record of one who likewise heard these
+     words. Let us see whether his rendering of them can help us to the
+     knowledge we seek." And he found a place in the book and read
+     aloud:--
+
+     "Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful."
+
+     And all of them closed their books and fixed their eyes upon me.
+
+That it was possible at all for her to study medicine in a school in
+which vivisection was an all prevailing practice, was only because she
+set her face resolutely against it, by refusing to attend any place or
+occasion where or on which it took place, and relying for her own
+education chiefly on private tuition. It was an essential part of her
+plan to prove that such experimentation was not necessary for a degree.
+And this she effectually demonstrated by accomplishing her
+student-course with rare expedition and distinction, despite her many
+and severe illnesses and her frequent change of professors. For one
+after another resigned the office on account of her refusal to allow
+them to experiment on live animals at her lessons. Not until she had
+secured her diploma did she enter a physiological laboratory. And then
+only in order to qualify herself by personal experience to denounce the
+practice. For herself it was not necessary, she declared, to see a
+murder or a robbery committed to know that it is a crime.
+
+The following incident shows how adverse the conditions of modern life
+were to our spiritual work:--
+
+Being in London one Christmas evening[63], and speaking to me under
+illumination, "Mary" suddenly broke off and said--
+
+"Do not ask me such deep questions just now, for I cannot see clearly,
+and it hurts me to look. The atmosphere is thick with the blood shed for
+the season's festivities. The Astral Belt is everywhere dense with
+blood. My Genius says that if we were in some country where the
+conditions of life are purer, we could live in constant communication
+with the spiritual world. For the earth here whirls round as in a cloud
+of blood like red fire. He says distinctly and emphatically that the
+salvation of the world is impossible while people nourish themselves on
+blood. The whole globe is like one vast charnel-house. The magnetism is
+intercepted. The blood strengthens the bonds between the Astrals and the
+Earth.... This time, which ought to be the best for spiritual communion,
+is the worst, on account of the horrid mode of living. Pray wake me up:
+I cannot bear looking; for I see the blood and hear the cries of the
+poor slaughtered creatures." Here her distress was so extreme that she
+wept bitterly, and some days passed before she fully recovered her
+composure.
+
+Our first acquaintance with any literature kindred to our special work
+took place toward the close of our sojourn in Paris[64]. It was due to
+the arrival of the friend in whose favour the exception had been made in
+respect of the reading of our Mysteries, and who was the possessor of an
+excellent library, which she placed at our disposal, of precisely the
+books it had now become necessary for us to read. This was Marie,
+Countess of Caithness and Duchesse de Pomár, who had for many years been
+a spiritualist of zeal so ardent that--as I now came to learn--she had
+been wont to make my conversion to that faith a matter of special
+prayer, long before I had been able to contemplate such an event as
+within the range of probability. Of wide culture, open mind, and large
+sympathies, she had an enthusiastic and intelligent appreciation of our
+work, and her arrival on the scene proved so timely as to point to
+superior direction. We were now able to begin to make acquaintance with
+many of the seers, mystics, and occultists of past ages, from the
+Neoplatonists, Hermetists, Rosicrucians, and other orders of initiates,
+to Boehme, Swedenborg and "Eliphas Levi," and to see what the various
+spiritualistic schools of the present day had to say for themselves.
+
+The following recognition of Hermes by one of the greatest of the
+Neoplatonists, Proclus, who lived in the fifth century of our era, was
+especially gratifying to us as proving the continuity of our experiences
+with those of past ages. Proclus, it must be remembered, was so eminent
+for his wisdom and powers as to be regarded by his contemporaries with a
+veneration approaching to adoration. Says Proclus, "Hermes, as the
+messenger of God, reveals to us His paternal Will, and--developing in us
+the Intuition--imparts to us knowledge. The knowledge which descends
+into the soul from above, excels any that can be attained by the mere
+exercise of the intellect. Intuition is the operation of the soul. The
+knowledge received through it from above, descending into the soul,
+fills it with the perception of the interior causes of things. The Gods
+announce it by their presence, and by illumination, and enable us to
+discern the universal order." Here was exactly the doctrine received by
+us, and the manner of it, only that the Intuition was further disclosed
+to us as due to interior recollection, as declared by Plato, as well as
+to perception.
+
+The results of the investigations thus begun, and afterwards continued
+in the library of the British Museum, proved satisfactory and gratifying
+beyond all that we could have anticipated. For while it was made clear
+to us that there had never been a time when there were not some in the
+world who had the witness to the truth in themselves, and this one and
+the same truth, it was also made clear that whereas others had received
+it in limitation, and beheld it as "through a glass darkly," we were
+receiving it in plenitude and "face to face," to the realisation of the
+high anticipations of the sages, saints, seers, prophets, redeemers, and
+Christs of all time; and this, too, at the period, in the manner, and
+under the conditions declared by them as to mark and make the "time of
+the end."
+
+For in the illuminations vouchsafed to us the key had been restored
+which unlocked the meaning of the symbols in which the doctrines of all
+the churches, pre-Christian as well as Christian, had been at once
+concealed and revealed, to the elucidation of all the problems which
+have so sorely perplexed the world, and the verification, by actual
+experience, of the truth contained in them. No longer now was there for
+us any doubt as to the meaning of allegories such as the Fall, the
+Deluge, the Exodus, and others were now shown us to be; or of prophecies
+such as those of the crushing of the serpent's head by the Woman and her
+seed; the return of Astræa with her progeny of divine sons; the fall
+from heaven of Lucifer and Satan; the Return of the Gods; the reign of
+Michael, "that great prince who standeth for the children of God's
+people"; the breaking of the seals, and opening of the books; the
+recognition of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place;
+the budding of the fig-tree, and the end of that "adulterous
+generation"; the revelation of "that wicked one, the mystery of iniquity
+and son of perdition, whom the Lord, at His coming in the clouds of
+heaven with power and great glory, shall consume with the spirit of His
+mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His coming"; the two
+Witnesses, their resurrection from the dead, and their ascent into
+heaven; the drying up of the great river Euphrates, and the coming of
+the kings of the East by the way thus prepared; the binding of Satan,
+and the acceptable year of the Lord to follow; the exaltation to heaven,
+and clothing with the sun, of the mystic "Woman" of the Apocalypse; the
+advent of the angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to
+proclaim unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people; the
+coming of many from the East, and the West, and the North, and the
+South, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of
+heaven; and the battle of Armageddon, and the end of the world. To all
+these, and other sacred enigmas of like nature, the key had been given
+us. And they one and all proved to be prophecies of one and the same
+event, the restoration of the faculty of inward understanding, and of
+the divine knowledges which only through it are possible. And whereas
+this was the faculty, the corruption and loss of which had made the
+Fall, which was that of the original Church, so was it the faculty, the
+purification and restoration of which was to reverse the Fall,
+accomplishing the Redemption. For by it man will regain his mental
+balance, in virtue of which he was "made upright," and become again
+sound, whole, and sane, and be by _condition_ that which he has been
+divinely declared from the first to be by _constitution_,--an instrument
+of understanding, competent for the comprehension of all truth. For only
+thus is he really man, and made in the divine image; seeing that he is
+not really man, but infant only, until he attains his spiritual majority
+and is able to understand. And that which thus makes him man on the
+plane mental and spiritual, is that which makes him man on the plane
+physical. It is his recognition and appropriation of the "Woman" of that
+plane, the mystic "Woman" of Holy Writ, the mind's feminine mode, the
+Intuition. It is of her first identification by us, as the key to the
+whole mystery of the Bible, that the manner will now be recounted.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] The occasion of the receipt by A.K. and E.M. of the above was one
+of peculiar interest. It was given in reference to a visit from the late
+Laurence Oliphant, an account of which will be found in "The Life of
+A.K." It will suffice to say here that, having heard of their work,
+Oliphant came to them as an emissary from his chief in America, Thomas
+Lake Harris, to summon them to place themselves and all that they were
+and had, at his disposal as the king and Christ of the new dispensation.
+The above instruction was given to them in direct reference to this
+incident. It was followed by others fully exposing the delusive source
+and nature of the doctrine and practice of Laurence Oliphant and Thomas
+Lake Harris. The above Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes is now
+given in full in this book for the first time. It is taken from "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 282-283. S.H.H.
+
+[50] See note p. 7
+
+[51] The above reference is to an experience of mine which does not call
+for relation here. E.M.
+
+[52] Says E.M. in "The Life of A.K."--"The subtlety with which my most
+sensitive places were searched out, and the mercilessness with which
+they were probed by the influences which had now obtained access to us,
+seemed to me to belong altogether to the infernal." (Life A.K. Vol. I.
+p. 318.) S.H.H.
+
+[53] The date was 27th March, 1880. S.H.H.
+
+[54] The Hymn to the Planet-God has been referred to on p. 79. It is
+given in full in the P.W. pp. 341-349: a portion of it concerning the
+passage of the Soul, and concerning the Mystic Exodus, are given on pp.
+169-173 post. The method of the recovery by A.K. of this most important
+Hymn "was such as to constitute it a proof positive of the great
+doctrine set forth in it, the doctrine of Reincarnation; for it was as
+one of a band of initiates, making solemn procession through the aisles
+of a vast Egyptian temple, chanting it in chorus, that 'Mary,' being
+asleep, recollected it." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 456.) S.H.H.
+
+[55] That is, the "strained conditions" under which their association
+was then maintained and their work carried on. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p.
+374.) S.H.H.
+
+[56] See p. 130.
+
+[57] On the night of the 23rd June, 1880. This vision was received by
+E.M. as he pondered and while he was awake. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+376-377.) S.H.H.
+
+[58] Some of A.K.'s illuminations have thus been lost to the world.
+(Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.
+
+[59] Lady Caithness. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 329.) See pp. 137 and 185
+post. S.H.H.
+
+[60] On the 13th-14th January, 1881. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 435.) S.H.H.
+
+[61] A full account of this interview with William Lily is given in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 435-441.
+
+[62] On the 9th April, 1877, in London. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 172.)
+S.H.H.
+
+[63] Christmas Day, 1880. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 430.)
+
+[64] The time referred to was September, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+285-385.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RECAPITULATION.
+
+
+The first compendious statement of the doctrine which it was intended to
+restore, was given to us at Paris in the summer of 1878, in the form of
+an exposition of the principles of Biblical interpretation, under the
+following circumstances.
+
+We had been following our respective tasks[65] for several months
+without any open or special illumination, and I had written enough to
+make a considerable volume in exposition of the principles which
+appeared to me to be those on which, in order to be a book of the soul,
+the Bible ought to be constructed, and by which, therefore, it must be
+interpreted. It was not intended for publication, but as an exercise for
+myself, being purely tentative; though I was conscious of being aided by
+the occasional suggestion of ideas which served as points of light and
+guidance. Meanwhile, I was entirely without help from books; for,
+besides being desirous of evolving the whole from my own consciousness,
+as in the case of the demonstration of any mathematical problem, I was
+not aware of any books which would help me; the little I knew of
+Swedenborg at this time--who was the only writer known to me as a worker
+in a similar direction--having failed to make much impression on me. I
+could accept his general principles, but not his particular applications
+of them. I felt also that the sources of the knowledges vouchsafed to
+us, far transcended those to which Swedenborg had access. And I
+accounted for the length of the interval which had elapsed without any
+larger measure of light being vouchsafed, by supposing that it was
+intended for me to exhaust my own resources first.
+
+The time had come when these were exhausted, and I was reduced to the
+conviction that if the work was to be carried any further, assistance
+must be rendered, whether for confirmation, for correction, or for
+extension. And on retiring to rest one night[66], painfully oppressed by
+the sense of my own lack, and the prolonged absence of the needed light,
+I stood at the open window, and in presence of a sky resplendent with
+stars mentally addressed to those whom we were wont to speak of as the
+Gods, and of whose presence I seemed to be dimly conscious, a strong
+expression of my need, declaring my utter inability to advance another
+step unassisted. Having done which I went to bed, but in a mood the
+reverse of sanguine; so many were the months for which they had been
+silent.
+
+In the course of the following day, "Mary"--who knew nothing either of
+my need or of my adjuration of the preceding night, and could not of
+herself have helped me--found herself under an access of exaltation of
+faculty which she described as resembling what might be produced by a
+draught of spiritual champagne. For she felt herself at her very best,
+having all her knowledge at her finger-ends. The expression recurred to
+my mind some time afterwards on our receiving an explanation of the "New
+Wine of Dionysos" in the ancient mysteries. In this state she went down
+to the schools, where an examination in her subjects was being held, in
+order to see how the candidates comported themselves, and to compare
+them with herself; for it was an oral examination. From this she
+returned home in high delight, declaring that she could have answered
+every question asked, and far better than any of the students had done.
+I hoped that her state might be an indication of the renewal of her
+illuminations. But the events of the evening put all thoughts in this
+direction entirely out of my mind. For, as if poisoned by the atmosphere
+of the schools, she was seized with an attack of sickness so intense and
+prolonged as seriously to endanger her life through the exhaustion
+induced. And it was a late hour--past midnight--before she could be left
+alone.
+
+Nevertheless she was up betimes in the morning, and on our meeting
+handed me a paper which she had written in pencil on waking, saying it
+was something she had read in her sleep, and asking if it was anything
+that I wanted, as she had written it down so rapidly that she scarcely
+observed what it was about, and she had not had time to read it over and
+think about it. Having read it, I found that it met my every difficulty,
+and shed on the Bible a light which rendered it luminous from beginning
+to end, disclosing it as pervaded by a system of thought which, when
+once seen, was as obvious as it had previously been unsuspected.
+
+And while it confirmed me in respect of principles and method, it
+corrected both of us in respect of sundry particulars. It even referred
+directly to one of my tentative hypotheses, at once negativing it and
+giving another altogether satisfactory. This was my supposition of Adam
+and Eve as possibly denoting spirit and matter. The following is the
+writing:--
+
+     "If, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to have a
+     mystic consideration. But the fault of most writers lieth in
+     this,--that they distinguish not between the books of Moses the
+     prophet, and those books which are of an historical nature. And
+     this is the more surprising because not a few of such critics have
+     rightly discerned the esoteric character, if not indeed the true
+     interpretation, of the story of Eden; yet have they not applied to
+     the remainder of the allegory the same method which they found to
+     fit the beginning; but so soon as they are over the earlier stanzas
+     of the poem, they would have the rest of it to be of another
+     nature.
+
+     "It is, then, pretty well established and accepted of most authors,
+     that the legend of Adam and Eve, and of the miraculous tree and the
+     fruit which was the occasion of death, is, like the story of Eros
+     and Psyche, and so many others of all religions, a parable with a
+     hidden, that is, with a mystic meaning. But so also is the legend
+     which follows concerning the sons of these mystical parents, the
+     story of Cain and Abel his brother, the story of the Flood, of the
+     Ark, of the saving of the clean and unclean beasts, of the rainbow,
+     of the twelve sons of Jacob, and, not stopping there, of the whole
+     relation concerning the flight out of Egypt. For it is not to be
+     supposed that the two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of
+     Adam, were real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed that
+     the apple which caused the doom of mankind, was a real apple. It
+     ought to be known, indeed, for the right understanding of the
+     mystical books, that in their esoteric sense they deal, not with
+     material things, but with spiritual realities; and that as Adam is
+     not a man, nor Eve a woman, nor the tree a plant in its true
+     signification, so also are not the beasts named in the same books
+     real beasts, but that the mystic intention of them is implied.
+     When, therefore, it is written that Abel took of the firstlings of
+     his flock to offer unto the Lord, it is signified that he offered
+     that which a lamb implies, and which is the holiest and highest of
+     spiritual gifts. Nor is Abel himself a real person, but the type
+     and spiritual presentation of the race of the prophets; of whom,
+     also, Moses was a member, together with the Patriarchs. Were the
+     prophets, then, shedders of blood? God forbid; they dwelt not with
+     things material, but with spiritual significations. Their lambs
+     without spot, their white doves, their goats, their rams, and other
+     sacred creatures, are so many signs and symbols of the various
+     graces and gifts which a mystic people should offer to Heaven.
+     Without such sacrifices is no remission of sin. But when the mystic
+     sense was lost, then carnage followed, the prophets ceased out of
+     the land, and the priests bore rule over the people. Then, when
+     again the voice of the prophets arose, they were constrained to
+     speak plainly, and declared in a tongue foreign to their method,
+     that the sacrifices of God are not the flesh of bulls or the blood
+     of goats, but holy vows and sacred thanksgivings, their mystical
+     counterparts. As God is a spirit, so also are His sacrifices
+     spiritual. What folly, what ignorance, to offer material flesh and
+     drink to pure power and essential being! Surely in vain have the
+     prophets spoken, and in vain have the Christs been manifested!
+
+     "Why will you have Adam to be spirit, and Eve matter, since the
+     mystic books deal only with spiritual entities? The tempter himself
+     even is not matter, but that which gives matter the precedence.
+     Adam is, rather, intellectual force: he is of earth. Eve is the
+     moral conscience: she is the mother of the living. Intellect, then,
+     is the male, and Intuition the female principle. And the sons of
+     Intuition, herself fallen, shall at last recover Truth, and redeem
+     all things. By her fault, indeed, is the moral conscience of
+     humanity made subject to the intellectual force, and thereby all
+     manner of evil and confusion abounds, since her desire is unto him,
+     and he rules over her until now. But the end foretold by the seer
+     is not far off. Then shall the Woman be exalted, clothed with the
+     Sun, and carried to the throne of God. And her sons shall make war
+     with the dragon, and have victory over him. Intuition, therefore,
+     pure and a virgin, shall be the mother and redemptress of her
+     fallen sons, whom she bore under bondage to her husband the
+     intellectual force."
+
+This marvellously luminous exposition, she then told me, had been read
+by her in a book she had found in a library which she had visited in
+sleep, the owner of which was a courtly old gentleman in the costume of
+the last century. The leaves of the book were of silver and reflected
+her back to herself as she read. I took this as symbolising the
+Intuition. The event proved that her host was no other than Swedenborg,
+and that--as her Genius informed us--she had been enabled, "under the
+magnetism of Swedenborg's presence, to recover a memory of no small
+value," thus confirming my surmise about its intuitional character. The
+event proved also that it was Swedenborg's doctrine, but without his
+limitations. We ardently desired a continuation of it, and on the next
+night but one, she received the following addition to it:--
+
+     "Moses, therefore, knowing the mysteries of the religion of the
+     Egyptians, and having learned of their occultists the value and
+     signification of all sacred birds and beasts, delivered like
+     mysteries to his own people. But certain of the sacred animals of
+     Egypt he retained not in honour, for motives which were equally of
+     mystic origin.
+
+     And he taught his initiated the spirit of the heavenly hieroglyphs,
+     and bade them, when they made festival before God, to carry with
+     them in procession, with music and with dancing, such of the sacred
+     animals as were, by their interior significance, related to the
+     occasion. Now, of these beasts, he chiefly selected males of the
+     first year, without spot or blemish, to signify that it is beyond
+     all things needful that man should dedicate to the Lord his
+     intellect and his reason, and this from the beginning, and without
+     the least reserve. And that he was very wise in teaching this, is
+     evident from the history of the world in all ages, and particularly
+     in these last days. For what is it that has led men to renounce the
+     realities of the spirit, and to propagate false theories and
+     corrupt sciences, denying all things save the appearance which can
+     be apprehended by the outer senses, and making themselves one with
+     the dust of the ground? It is their intellect which, being
+     unsanctified, has led them astray; it is the force of the mind in
+     them, which, being corrupt, is the cause of their own ruin, and of
+     that of their disciples. As, then, the intellect is apt to be the
+     great traitor against heaven, so also is it the force by which men,
+     following their pure intuition, may also grasp and apprehend the
+     truth. For which reason it is written that the Christs are subject
+     to their mothers. Not that by any means the intellect is to be
+     dishonoured; for it is the heir of all things, if only it be truly
+     begotten and be no bastard.
+
+     "And besides all these symbols, Moses taught the people to have
+     beyond all things an abhorrence of idolatry. What, then, is
+     idolatry, and what are false gods?
+
+     "To make an idol is to materialise spiritual mysteries. The
+     priests, then, were idolaters, who coming after Moses, and
+     committing to writing those things which he by word of mouth had
+     delivered unto Israel, replaced the true things signified, by their
+     material symbols, and shed innocent blood on the pure altars of the
+     Lord.
+
+     "They also are idolaters who understand the things of sense where
+     the things of the spirit are alone implied, and who conceal the
+     true features of the Gods with material and spurious presentations.
+     Idolatry is materialism, the common and original sin of men, which
+     replaces spirit by appearance, substance by illusion, and leads
+     both the moral and intellectual being into error, so that they
+     substitute the nether for the upper, and the depth for the height.
+     It is that false fruit which attracts the outer senses, the bait of
+     the serpent in the beginning of the world. Until the mystic man and
+     woman had eaten of this fruit, they knew only the things of the
+     spirit, and found them suffice. But after their fall, they began to
+     apprehend matter also, and gave it the preference, making
+     themselves idolaters. And their sin, and the taint begotten of that
+     false fruit, have corrupted the blood of the whole race of men,
+     from which corruption the sons of God would have redeemed them."
+
+She had received this, also in sleep, as one of a class of neophytes
+seated in an ancient amphitheatre of white stone, and listening to a
+lecture delivered by a man in priestly garb, of which they took notes
+the while. She complained that her notes had disappeared on waking, thus
+preventing her from rendering what she had heard as perfectly as she
+could have wished; for she had trusted to her notes for it.
+
+The more we pondered these communications, the higher was our
+appreciation of them. We felt that the "veil of Moses" was at length
+"taken away" as promised, and we had been enabled to tap a reservoir of
+boundless wisdom and knowledge. For we found in them the longed-for
+solution of the purpose and nature of the Bible and Christianity, and
+the key to man's spiritual history. The method of the Bible-writers, the
+meaning of idolatry, the secret of the Cain and Abel feud between priest
+and prophet, as the ministers respectively of the sense-nature and of
+the intuition, and the process whereby the religion of Jesus had become
+distorted into the orthodoxy which has usurped His name;--all these
+things were now clear to us as the demonstration of a proposition in
+geometry, the witness of which was in our own minds. And we, too, we
+rejoiced to think, were of the school of the prophets, in that with all
+the force of our minds we had "exalted the Woman," Intuition, and
+refused to make the word of God of none effect by priestly traditions.
+
+Not the least marvellous element in the case was the faculty whereby the
+seeress had been able to reproduce, after waking, with such evident
+faithfulness the things seen and heard at so great length in sleep. In
+reply to my questionings she said that the words seemed to show
+themselves to her again as she wrote[67].
+
+Discoursing with her Genius on this subject of memory, she received the
+following, which is valuable also for its recognition of the mystical
+import of the Bible narratives, and confirmation of St Paul when he says
+in reference to certain narratives in Genesis, "These things are an
+allegory."
+
+     "Concerning memory; why should there any more be a difficulty in
+     respect of it? Reflect on this saying,--'Man sees as he knows.' To
+     thee the deeps are more visible than the surfaces of things; but to
+     men generally the surfaces only are visible. The material can
+     perceive only the material, the astral the astral, and the
+     spiritual the spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a
+     question of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but
+     slight, and thine organic memory is feeble and treacherous. It is
+     hard for thee to perceive the surfaces of things and to remember
+     their aspect. But thy spiritual perception is the stronger for this
+     weakness, and the profound is that which thou seest the most
+     readily. It is hard for thee to understand and to retain the memory
+     of material facts; but their meaning thou knowest instantly and by
+     intuition, which is the memory of the soul. For the soul takes no
+     pains to remember; she knows divinely. Is it not said that the
+     immaculate woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow and
+     travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto
+     'Adam'"[68].
+
+The following sentences sum up the conclusions to which, by degrees, we
+were led. The first two paragraphs are from an exposition concerning the
+dogma of the Immaculate Conception which we considered as one of the
+most sublime and momentous of all her illuminations[69].
+
+"All that is true is spiritual.... No dogma is real that is not
+spiritual. If it be true, and yet seem to you to have a material
+signification, know that you have not solved it. It is a mystery; seek
+its interpretation. That which is true is for Spirit alone.
+
+"For matter shall cease and all that is of it, but the Word of the Lord
+shall remain for ever. And how shall it remain except it be purely
+spiritual; since, when matter ceases, it would then be no longer
+comprehensible?"
+
+"For, though matter is eternally the mode whereby spirit manifests
+itself, matter is not itself eternal."
+
+"The church has all the truth, but the priests have materialised it,
+making religion idolatry, and themselves and their people idolaters."
+
+"In their real and divinely intended sense, its doctrines are eternal
+verities, founded in the nature of Being. As ecclesiastically
+propounded, they are blasphemous absurdities."
+
+"All the mistakes made about the Bible arise out of the mystic books
+being referred to times, places, and persons material, instead of being
+regarded as containing only eternal verities about things spiritual."
+
+"The Bible was written by intuitionalists, for intuitionalists, and from
+the intuitionalist standpoint. It has been interpreted by externalists,
+for externalists, and from the externalist standpoint. The most occult
+and mystical of books, it has been expounded by persons without occult
+knowledge or mystical insight"[70].
+
+Thus gradually but surely we learnt that Ecclesiastical education has
+rigidly excluded from its curriculum all those branches of study which
+could throw light on the real nature of existence, and consists in
+learning what other men have said who, themselves, did not know, but
+were mere hearsay scholars lacking the witness in themselves.
+
+We marvelled much as to how the priesthoods will comport themselves when
+compelled to recognise the fact that a New Gospel of Interpretation has
+actually been vouchsafed from the world celestial in correction of their
+perversion and mutilation of the former Gospel of Manifestation, and
+suppression of the true doctrine of salvation. Will Cain and Caiaphas
+still have the dominion, and ecclesiasticism be as ready to crucify the
+Christ on His second coming as it was on His first? And if not, how will
+it find courage to face the world with the humiliating confession that
+all through the long ages of its history, while arrogantly claiming to
+be the faithful and infallible minister of the Gospel of Christ, it has
+persistently withheld that gospel, and, losing the key to its meaning,
+has substituted for the wholesome "bread" of divine truth, the "stones"
+of innutritious because unintelligible dogmas; and for the "fish" of the
+living waters, the "serpents" of the letter which kills? and that when
+men have rightly suspected that Christianity has failed, not because it
+is false, but because it has been falsified, and have sought to their
+own inner light for the truth of which ecclesiasticism had defrauded
+them, it dealt out to them pitiless anathema and persecution, making the
+earth a scene of torture and slaughter in assertion of the right of the
+priesthoods to teach wrong?
+
+That the work committed to us implied nothing less than the fulfilment
+of the prophecies of which the promise of the Second Coming of Christ
+was the culmination, while intimated to us from the outset, was
+gradually unfolded into full assurance, and we were enabled to see that
+the very terms in which it was couched implied a spiritual advent, and
+one which should disclose the perfect system at once of science,
+philosophy, morality, and religion, of which Christ is both the
+foundation and the consummation. For the "clouds of heaven" in which it
+was to take place, were no other than the heaven of the kingdom within
+man of his restored spiritual consciousness. "That wicked one," "the son
+of perdition," and "mystery of iniquity" then to be revealed and
+destroyed, was no other than the inspiring evil spirit of an
+ecclesiasticism which had received indeed its doctrines from above, but
+their interpretation and application from below. And the "Spirit of His
+mouth," and the "Brightness of His Coming" were no other than a new Word
+of God, in the form of a New Gospel of Interpretation, so potent in its
+logic and so luminous in its exposition as to indicate the Logos Himself
+as its source, and the "Woman" Intuition, "clothed with the Sun" of full
+illumination, as its revealer.
+
+We saw, too, that with this "Woman" thus rehabilitated, God's "Two
+Witnesses,"--who have so long lain dead in the streets of "that great
+city" wherein the Lord, the divinity in man, is ever systematically
+crucified; the city of the world's system as fashioned and controlled by
+an ecclesiasticism shrouded in the threefold veil of Blood, Idolatry,
+and the Curse of Eve,--will rise and stand on their feet, and ascend to
+the heaven of their proper supremacy, _vice_ Lucifer deposed and fallen.
+And in them Lucifer himself will regain his lost estate, vindicating his
+title to be called the Light-bearer, the bright and morning star, the
+herald and bringer-in of the perfect day of the Lord God. For, as the
+Intellect, he is the heir of all things, if only he be begotten of the
+Spirit, and be no bastard engendered of the Sense-Nature.
+
+For--as we had come to learn--God's Two Witnesses in man are ever the
+Intellect and the Intuition, when duly unfolded and united in a pure
+spirit. Under such conditions the Shiloh comes, and mounted on them man
+rides triumphant as king into the holy city of his own regenerate
+nature. But divorced from her, the Intuition, and--leagued with the
+Sense-Nature--knowing matter only and the body, the Intellect becomes
+"prince of devils" in man, the maker of men into fiends, and of the
+earth into a hell. Wherefore his fall from the heaven of his power, on
+the advent of that whole Humanity, of whom it is said, "the Man is not
+without the Woman, nor the Woman without the Man, in the Lord," the
+humanity of intellect and intuition combined, has ever been exultingly
+hailed in anticipation by all true seers and prophets.
+
+The chief points of the doctrine, the prospect of the restoration of
+which has thus been the sustaining hope of the percipient faithful in
+all ages, may be summarised as follows:--
+
+The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the purpose of the Bible
+to affirm, and of the Christ to demonstrate, and in which reason
+entirely concurs, is no other than that of the divine potentialities of
+man, belonging to him in virtue of the nature of his constituent
+principles, the force and the substance of existence. These are the
+duality of the "heavens" which God is said to "create," meaning to put
+forth from Himself, "in the beginning," and of the mutual interaction of
+which all things are the product, varying according to the plane of
+operation, alike for creation and redemption, generation and
+regeneration. And that which Jesus really affirmed in the memorable but
+little understood words, "Ye _must_ be born again, or from above, of
+Water and the Spirit," was both the possibility and the necessity to all
+men of realising the potential divinity belonging to them in virtue of
+the divinity of their constituent principles. And in affirming this He
+affirmed both the necessity and the possibility to every man of being
+born exactly as He Himself, as typical man regenerate, is said to have
+been born, of Virgin Mary and Holy Ghost, and also His own identity in
+kind with all other men. And He affirmed, moreover, the utter falsity of
+that priest-constructed system, which, ignoring Regeneration, insists on
+Substitution, as the means of salvation. For "Virgin Mary," and "Holy
+Ghost," are but the mystical synonyms with "Water and the Spirit," the
+substance and force, or soul and spirit, of which, man is constituted,
+in their divine because pure condition, the product of which in man is
+the new regenerate selfhood called, as by St Paul, the "Christ within."
+Begotten in man as matrix, of the pure Spirit and Substance which are
+God, this new selfhood is son at once of God and of man; and in him God
+and man are "reconciled" or "at-oned." And that man is said to be saved
+by his blood, is because the "blood of God" is pure spirit, and it is
+the pure spirit in the man that saves him; and that he is called the
+only-begotten Son of God, is not because God begets no other of his
+kind, but because God, as God, begets directly none of any other kind.
+
+This, then, as we came to learn, and to recognise as having learned it
+in our own long-past lives, is the doctrine which Jesus came to teach
+and to demonstrate in His own person. Matter is spirit, being spiritual
+substance, projected by force of the divine Will into conditions and
+limitations, and made exteriorly cognisable. And being spirit it can
+revert to the condition of spirit. In virtue of the divinity of his
+constituent principles, man has within himself the seed of his own
+regeneration, and the power to effectuate it. He has in him, this is to
+say, the potentiality of divinity realisable at will. And the secret and
+method of the achievement, which is no other than the secret and method
+of Christ, is inward purification and unfoldment, the unfoldment of the
+capacities, mental, moral, and spiritual, of his nature, of which inward
+purification is the first and essential condition. Thus is the Finding
+of Christ the realisation of the Ideal, and Christ is for every man the
+summit of his own evolution.
+
+Stated in terms of modern science, but correcting its aberrations, the
+doctrine of Christ is in this wise. Evolution is the manifestation of
+inherency. Owing to the divinity of the constituent principles of
+existence, its Force and its Substance, both of which are God, the
+inherency of existence is divine. Wherefore, as the manifestation of a
+divine inherency, evolution is accomplished only by the attainment of
+divinity; and the cause of evolution is the tendency of substance to
+revert from its secondary and "created" condition of matter, to its
+original and divine condition of pure spirit. Wherefore evolution is
+definable as the process of the individuation of Deity in and through
+Humanity.
+
+Such is the genesis of the Christ in man. And he is called _a_ Christ
+who, having accomplished this process in himself, returns into the
+earth-life when he has no need to do so for his own sake, out of pure
+love to redeem, by showing to others their own equal divine
+potentialities and the method of the realisation thereof.
+
+This method consists in love, love of perfection, which is God, for its
+own sake, and love for others. The process is entirely interior to the
+individual. It consists in the sacrifice of the lower nature to the
+higher in himself, and of himself for others in love. That which
+directly saves the man is not the love of another for the man, but the
+love which he has in himself. All that can be done by another is to
+kindle this love in him.
+
+The philosophy of this doctrine of salvation by love was formulated for
+us as follows:--"It is love which is the centripetal power of the
+universe; it is by love that all creation returns into the bosom of God.
+The force which projected all things is will, and will is the
+centrifugal power of the universe. Will alone could not overcome the
+evil which results from the limitations of matter; but it shall be
+overcome in the end by sympathy, which is the knowledge of God in
+others,--the recognition of the omnipresent Self. This is love. And it
+is with the children of the spirit, the servants of love, that the
+dragon of matter makes war"[71].
+
+In making the means of salvation extraneous to the individual,
+Sacerdotalism has defrauded man of his Saviour, making the first and
+personal coming of Christ of none effect. Hence the necessity for the
+second and spiritual coming represented by the New Gospel of
+Interpretation as was foretold:--the coming which was to be in the
+clouds of the heaven of man's restored understanding; the Hermes within.
+
+But the process of regeneration is a prolonged one, extending over many
+earth-lives; and so also is the prior process of evolution, whereby man
+reaches the stage at which he is amenable to regeneration. Wherefore
+regeneration has for its corollary reincarnation. To tell man that he
+"must be born again" spiritually, and deny him the requisite
+opportunities of experience, which must be acquired while in the
+body--seeing that regeneration is _from out of the body_--would be to
+mock him.
+
+This doctrine of a multiplicity of earth-lives is implicit and sometimes
+explicit in the Bible. The notion that the Hebrews had no belief in a
+future state because of the failure of commentators to discover it in
+their Scriptures, is altogether futile. The permanence of the Ego was a
+matter of course with them, saving only the Sadducees. And the Bible
+contemplates the persistence of the individual soul through all the
+manifold stages of its evolution, from the "Adam" stage to the "Christ"
+stage, saying, as by St Paul, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall
+all be made alive." But the Christ insisted on by him was not He Who is
+"after the flesh," not the man Jesus, who was but the vehicle of the
+Christ, but the Christ within both Jesus and all other regenerate men.
+For, as a highly illuminated follower of the Gnosis, St Paul was one who
+"after the way which" his orthodox accusers "called heresy, worshipped
+the God of his fathers, believing all things which are according to the
+law, and are written in the prophets." Rejecting the doctrine of
+regeneration, and with it that of reincarnation, in favour of
+substitution, the orthodoxy which claims to be Christianity has
+practically rejected both the doctrine of St Paul and that of Jesus as
+declared to Nicodemus. And, as St Paul implies, the "mystery of
+iniquity" was working even already in his days to annul the gospel of
+Christ by substituting Jesus as the object of worship, and His physical
+blood-shedding as the means of salvation. And Christendom, yielding to
+sacerdotal dictation, has to this day accepted a doctrine which at once
+dishonours God and robs men of their equal divine potentialities with
+Jesus, thus preferring Barabbas. Professing to rest its faith on the
+Bible, it has accepted the presentation of religion which the Bible
+persistently condemns, that of the priests, and rejected that on which
+the Bible emphatically insists, that of the prophets. That St Paul
+employed sacerdotal modes of expression was in order to spiritualise
+them. He was a mystic of mystics.
+
+Nevertheless the dogmas of the Church contain the truth, but this is not
+as the Church has propounded them. And--to cite two crucial
+instances--so far from the Church's supreme dogmas, the Immaculate
+Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, having any personal
+or physical reference, they are prophecies of the method of redemption
+for every individual soul. For, as the New Gospel of Interpretation
+explicitly declares, restoring the Gnosis persistently rejected by the
+builders of the orthodoxies,
+
+     The Immaculate Conception is none other than the prophecy of the
+     means whereby the universe shall at last be redeemed. Maria--the
+     sea of limitless space--Maria the Virgin, born herself immaculate
+     and without spot, of the womb of the ages, shall in the fulness of
+     time bring forth the perfect man, who shall redeem the race. He is
+     not one man, but ten thousand times ten thousand, the Son of Man,
+     who shall overcome the limitations of matter, and the evil which is
+     the result of the materialisation of spirit[72].
+
+     By the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
+     Mary we are secretly enlightened concerning the generation of the
+     soul, who is begotten in the womb of matter, and yet from the first
+     instant of her being is pure and incorrupt.... As the Immaculate
+     Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the Assumption
+     their crown.
+
+     For the entire object and end of kosmic evolution is precisely this
+     triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the mystery presented by
+     this dogma, we behold the consummation of the whole scheme of
+     creation--the perpetuation and glorification of the individual
+     human ego. The grave--the material and astral consciousness, cannot
+     retain the immaculate Mother of God. She rises into the heavens;
+     she assumes divinity.... From end to end the mystery of the soul's
+     evolution--the history, that is, of humanity and of the kosmic
+     drama--is contained and enacted in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin
+     Mary. The acts and the glories of Mary are the one supreme subject
+     of the holy mysteries[73].
+
+     "Allegory of stupendous significance!" exclaimed the seeress's
+     illuminator when imparting to her the mystery of the Immaculate
+     Conception. "Allegory of stupendous significance! with which the
+     Church of God has so long been familiar, but which yet never
+     penetrated its understanding, like the holy fire which enveloped
+     the sacred Bush, but which nevertheless the Bush withstood and
+     resisted[10].
+
+That such failure has been the rule and not the exception is the plea
+for the New Gospel of Interpretation. For lack of comprehension of its
+own symbols the Church has fallen into the disastrous errors of
+mistaking the man Jesus for the Christ within every man, and Mary the
+mother of Jesus for Virgin Mary the mother of that Christ, committing in
+both instances idolatry by preferring the form to the substance, persons
+to principles, and blinding men to the essential truth implied.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[65] A.K. was preparing for her second Doctorat, and E.M. was
+elaborating out of his own consciousness "a key to the interpretation
+especially of the initial chapters of Genesis." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p.
+264.)
+
+[66] On the 4th June, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 265.)
+
+[67] E.M. says:--"Her notes, of course, disappeared with her dream, and
+she had to reproduce it from memory. But this was abnormally enhanced,
+for she said that the words presented themselves again to her as she
+wrote, and stood out luminously to view." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 269.)
+
+[68] That is the outer sense and lower reason.
+
+[69] The illumination in question was received by A.K. in Paris on the
+night of the 25th July, 1877, and was written down under trance. Further
+portions are given on pp. 158, 159, 161. It is given in full in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 202-203.
+
+[70] See further on this most important subject "The Bible's Own Account
+of Itself," by E.M., the only complete edition of which is published by
+"The Ruskin Press," Ruskin House, Stafford Street, Birmingham. S.H.H.
+
+[71] From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate
+Conception, referred to on p. 151.
+
+[72] From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate
+Conception, referred to on p. 151.
+
+[73] From the exposition concerning the Christian Mysteries given in
+full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 99-100.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EXEMPLIFICATION.
+
+
+This chapter will be devoted to some examples of the recovered Gnosis,
+bearing chiefly upon the supreme doctrine of Regeneration. As with all
+else received by the Seeress, they are the product of intuitional memory
+regained under divine illumination occurring mostly in sleep. And here I
+will take occasion to state explicitly and positively, that the states,
+whether of sleep or of trance, in which her faculty was exercised, were
+all natural and spontaneous, being induced by the Spirit itself; and
+that in no case were artificial means employed by either of us, whether
+drugs, mesmerism, hypnotism, crystal-gazing, or any other of the devices
+ordinarily used to induce abnormal states of consciousness or promote
+enhancement of faculty. Our work was to be a real work, done not only by
+us but in us, and we had from the first a profound instinctive distrust
+of results obtained by such artificial stimulation.
+
+Nor was any change even of a word ever made in the teachings received.
+They came one and all in the finished perfection in which they are put
+forth, coming down as the holy city from the heaven of the upper and the
+within, and incapable of improvement. The following are the examples
+proposed:--
+
+(1) Concerning Holy Writ.
+
+     All Scriptures which are the true Word of God, have a dual
+     interpretation, the intellectual and the intuitional, the apparent
+     and the hidden.
+
+     For nothing can come forth from God save that which is fruitful.
+
+     As is the nature of God, so is the Word of God's mouth.
+
+     The letter alone is barren; the spirit and the letter give life.
+
+     But that Scripture is the more excellent, which is exceeding
+     fruitful and brings forth abundant signification.
+
+     For God is able to say many things in one, as the perfect ovary
+     contains many seeds in its chalice.
+
+     Therefore there are in the Scriptures of God's Word certain
+     writings which, as richly yielding trees, bear more abundantly than
+     others in the self-same holy garden.
+
+     And one of the most excellent is the history of the generation of
+     the heavens and the earth.
+
+     For therein is contained in order a genealogy, which has four
+     heads, as a stream divided into four branches, a word exceeding
+     rich.
+
+     And the first of these generations is that of the Gods.
+
+     The second is that of the kingdom of heaven.
+
+     The third is that of the visible world.
+
+     And the fourth is that of the Church of Christ.
+
+(2) Concerning the Mystery of Redemption.
+
+     All things in heaven and in earth are of God, both the invisible
+     and the visible.
+
+     Such as is the invisible, is the visible also, for there is no
+     boundary line betwixt spirit and matter.
+
+     Matter is spirit made exteriorly cognisable by the force of the
+     Divine Word.
+
+     And when God shall resume all things by love, the material shall be
+     resolved into the spiritual, and there shall be a new heaven and a
+     new earth.
+
+     Not that matter shall be destroyed, for it came forth from God, and
+     is of God indestructible and eternal.
+
+     But it shall be indrawn and resolved into its true self.
+
+     It shall put off corruption, and remain incorruptible.
+
+     It shall put off mortality, and remain immortal.
+
+     So that nothing be lost of the Divine substance.
+
+     It was material entity: it shall be spiritual entity.
+
+     For there is nothing which can go out from the presence of God.
+
+     This is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: that is, the
+     transfiguration of the body.
+
+     For the body, which is matter, is but the manifestation of spirit:
+     and the Word of God shall transmute it into its inner being.
+
+     The will of God is the alchemic crucible: and the dross which is
+     cast therein is matter.
+
+     And the dross shall become pure gold, seven times refined; even
+     perfect spirit.
+
+     It shall leave behind it nothing: but shall be transformed into the
+     Divine image.
+
+     For it is not a new substance: but its alchemic polarity is
+     changed, and it is converted.
+
+     But except it were gold in its true nature, it could not be resumed
+     into the aspect of gold.
+
+     And except matter were spirit, it could not revert to spirit.
+
+     To make gold, the alchemist must have gold.
+
+     But he knows that to be gold which others take to be dross.
+
+     Cast thyself into the will of God, and thou shalt become as God.
+
+     For thou art God, if thy will be the Divine Will.
+
+     This is the great secret: it is the mystery of Redemption.
+
+(3) Concerning Sin and Death.
+
+     As is the outer so is the inner: He that worketh is One.
+
+     As the small is, so is the great: there is one law.
+
+     Nothing is small and nothing is great in the Divine Economy.
+
+     If thou wouldst understand the method of the world's corruption,
+     and the condition to which sin hath reduced the work of God,
+
+     Meditate upon the aspect of a corpse; and consider the method of
+     the putrefaction of its tissues and humours.
+
+     For the secret of death is the same, whether of the outer or of the
+     inner.
+
+     The body dieth when the central will of its system no longer
+     bindeth in obedience the elements of its substance.
+
+     Every cell is a living entity, whether of vegetable or of animal
+     potency.
+
+     In the healthy body every cell is polarised in subjection to the
+     central will, the Adonai of the physical system.
+
+     Health, therefore, is order, obedience, and government.
+
+     But wherever disease is, there is disunion, rebellion, and
+     insubordination.
+
+     And the deeper the seat of the confusion, the more dangerous the
+     malady, and the harder to quell it.
+
+     That which is superficial may be more easily healed; or, if need
+     be, the disorderly elements may be rooted out, and the body shall
+     be whole and at unity again.
+
+     But if the disobedient molecules corrupt each other continually,
+     and the perversity spread, and the rebellious tracts multiply their
+     elements; the whole body shall fall into dissolution, which is
+     death.
+
+     For the central will that should dominate all the kingdom of the
+     body, is no longer obeyed; and every element is become its own
+     ruler, and hath a divergent will of its own.
+
+     So that the poles of the cells incline in divers directions; and
+     the binding power which is the life of the body, is dissolved and
+     destroyed.
+
+     And when dissolution is complete, then follow corruption and
+     putrefaction.
+
+     Now, that which is true of the physical, is true likewise of its
+     prototype.
+
+     The whole world is full of revolt; and every element hath a will
+     divergent from God.
+
+     Whereas there ought to be but one will, attracting and ruling the
+     whole man.
+
+     But there is no longer Brotherhood among you; nor order, nor mutual
+     sustenance.
+
+     Every cell is its own arbiter; and every member is become a sect.
+
+     Ye are not bound one to another: ye have confounded your offices,
+     and abandoned your functions.
+
+     Ye have reversed the direction of your magnetic currents: ye are
+     fallen into confusion, and have given place to the spirit of
+     misrule.
+
+     Your wills are many and diverse; and every one of you is an
+     anarchy.
+
+     A house that is divided against itself, falleth.
+
+     O wretched man; who shall deliver you from this body of Death?
+
+(4) Concerning the Twelve Gates of Regeneration.
+
+     Now, the Kingdom of God is within us; that is, it is interior,
+     invisible, mystic, spiritual.
+
+     There is a power by means of which the Outer may be absorbed into
+     the Inner.
+
+     There is a power by means of which Matter may be ingested into its
+     original Substance.
+
+     He who possesses this power is Christ, and He has the devil under
+     foot.
+
+     For He reduces chaos to order, and indraws the external to the
+     centre.
+
+     He has learnt that Matter is illusion, and that Spirit alone is
+     real.
+
+     He has found His own Central Point; and all power is given unto Him
+     in heaven and on earth.
+
+     Now, the Central Point is the number Thirteen: it is the number of
+     the Marriage of the Son of God.
+
+     And all the members of the microcosm are bidden to the banquet of
+     the marriage.
+
+     But if there chance to be even one among them which has not on a
+     wedding garment,
+
+     Such a one is a Traitor, and the microcosm is found divided against
+     itself.
+
+     And that it may be wholly regenerate, it is necessary that Judas be
+     cast out.
+
+     Now the members of the microcosm are Twelve: of the Senses three,
+     of the Mind three, of the Heart three, and of the Conscience three.
+
+     For of the Body there are four elements; and the sign of the four
+     is Sense, in the which are three Gates,
+
+     The gate of the Eye, the gate of the Ear, and the gate of the
+     Touch[74].
+
+     Renounce vanity, and be poor: renounce praise, and be humble:
+     renounce luxury, and be chaste.
+
+     Offer unto God a pure oblation: let the fire of the altar search
+     thee, and prove thy fortitude.
+
+     Cleanse thy sight, thine hands, and thy feet: carry the censer of
+     thy worship into the courts of the Lord; and let thy vows be unto
+     the Most High.
+
+     And for the magnetic man[75] there are four elements: and the
+     covering of the four is mind, in the which are three gates;
+
+     The gate of desire, the gate of labour, and the gate of
+     illumination.
+
+     Renounce the world, and aspire heavenward: labour not for the meat
+     which perishes, but ask of God thy daily bread: beware of wandering
+     doctrines, and let the Word of the Lord be thy light.
+
+     Also of the soul there are four elements: and the seat of the four
+     is the heart, whereof likewise there are three gates;
+
+     The gate of obedience, the gate of prayer, and the gate of
+     discernment.
+
+     Renounce thine own will, and let the law of God only be within
+     thee: renounce doubt: pray always and faint not: be pure of heart
+     also, and thou shalt see God.
+
+     And within the soul is the Spirit: and the Spirit is One, yet has
+     it likewise three elements.
+
+     And these are the gates of the oracle of God, which is the ark of
+     the covenant;
+
+     The rod, the host[76], and the law:
+
+     The force which solves, and transmutes, and divines: the bread of
+     heaven which is the substance of all things and the food of angels;
+     the table of the law, which is the will of God, written with the
+     finger of the Lord.
+
+     If these three be within thy spirit, then shall the Spirit of God
+     be within thee.
+
+     And the glory shall be upon the propitiatory, in the holy place of
+     thy prayer.
+
+     These are the twelve gates of regeneration: through which if a man
+     enter he shall have right to the tree of life.
+
+     For the number of that Tree is Thirteen.
+
+     It may happen to a man to have three, to another five, to another
+     seven, to another ten.
+
+     But until a man have twelve, he is not master over the last enemy.
+
+(5) Concerning the Passage of the Soul[77].
+
+     Evoi, Father Iacchos, Lord God of Egypt: initiate thy servants in
+     the halls of thy Temple;
+
+     Upon whose walls are the forms of every creature: of every beast of
+     the earth, and of every fowl of the air;
+
+     The lynx, and the lion, and the bull: the ibis and the serpent: the
+     scorpion and every flying thing.
+
+     And the columns thereof are human shapes; having the heads of
+     eagles and the hoofs of the ox.
+
+     All these are of thy kingdom: they are the chambers of ordeal, and
+     the houses of the initiation of the soul.
+
+     For the soul passeth from form to form; and the mansions of her
+     pilgrimage are manifold.
+
+     Thou callest her from the deep, and from the secret places of the
+     earth; from the dust of the ground, and from the herb of the field.
+
+     Thou coverest her nakedness with an apron of fig-leaves; thou
+     clothest her with the skins of beasts.
+
+     Thou art from of old, O soul of man; yea, thou art from the
+     everlasting.
+
+     Thou puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture dost thou
+     fold them up.
+
+     They perish, but thou remainest: the wind rendeth and scattereth
+     them; and the place of them shall no more be known.
+
+     For the wind is the Spirit of God in man, which bloweth where it
+     listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
+     whence it cometh, nor whither it shall go.
+
+     Even so is the spirit of man, which cometh from afar off and
+     tarrieth not, but passeth away to a place thou knowest not.
+
+(6) Concerning the Mystic Exodus[77].
+
+     Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of the Sphinx; who linkest the lowest to the
+     highest; the loins of the wild beast to the head and breast of the
+     woman.
+
+     Thou holdest the chalice of divination: all the forms of nature are
+     reflected therein.
+
+     Thou turnest man to destruction: then thou sayest, Come again, ye
+     children of my hand.
+
+     Yea, blessed and holy art thou, O Master of Earth: Lord of the
+     cross and the tree of salvation.
+
+     Vine of God, whose blood redeemeth; bread of heaven, broken on the
+     altar of death.
+
+     There is corn in Egypt; go thou down into her, O my soul, with joy.
+
+     For in the kingdom of the Body, thou shalt eat the bread of thine
+     initiation.
+
+     But beware lest thou become subject to the flesh, and a bond-slave
+     in the land of thy sojourn.
+
+     Serve not the idols of Egypt; and let not the senses be thy
+     taskmasters.
+
+     For they will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will bitterly
+     oppress the Israel of God.
+
+     An evil time shall come upon thee; and the Lord shall smite Egypt
+     with plagues for thy sake.
+
+     Thy body shall be broken on the wheel of God; thy flesh shall see
+     trouble and the worm.
+
+     Thy house shall be smitten with grievous plagues; blood, and
+     pestilence, and great darkness; fire shall devour thy goods; and
+     thou shalt be a prey to the locust and creeping thing.
+
+     Thy glory shall be brought down to the dust; hail and storm shall
+     smite thine harvest; yea, thy beloved and thy first-born shall the
+     hand of the Lord destroy;
+
+     Until the body let the soul go free; that she may serve the Lord
+     God.
+
+     Arise in the night, O soul, and fly, lest thou be consumed in
+     Egypt.
+
+     The angel of the understanding shall know thee for his elect, if
+     thou offer unto God a reasonable faith.
+
+     Savour thy reason with learning, with labour, and with obedience.
+
+     Let the rod of thy desire be in thy right hand: put the sandals of
+     Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with strength.
+
+     Then shalt thou pass through the waters of cleansing, which is the
+     first death in the body.
+
+     The waters shall be a wall unto thee on thy right hand and on thy
+     left.
+
+     And Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee; for he is thy cloud
+     of darkness by day, and thy pillar of fire by night.
+
+     All the horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof; her princes,
+     her counsellors, and her mighty men:
+
+     These shall pursue thee, O soul, that fliest; and shall seek to
+     bring thee back into bondage.
+
+     Fly for thy life; fear not the deep; stretch out thy rod over the
+     sea; and lift thy desire unto God.
+
+     Thou hast learnt wisdom in Egypt; thou has spoiled the Egyptians;
+     thou hast carried away their fine gold and their precious things.
+
+     Thou hast enriched thyself in the body; but the body shall not hold
+     thee; neither shall the waters of the deep swallow thee up.
+
+     Thou shalt wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration; the blood of
+     atonement shall redeem thee to God.
+
+     This is thy chrism and anointing, O soul; this is the first death;
+     thou art the Israel of the Lord,
+
+     Who hath redeemed thee from the dominion of the body; and hath
+     called thee from the grave, and from the house of bondage,
+
+     Unto the way of the cross, and to the path in the midst of the
+     wilderness;
+
+     Where are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and the burning
+     sand.
+
+     For the feet of the saint are set in the way of the desert.
+
+     But be thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then shall thy
+     raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax old upon thee.
+
+     And thy desire shall heal thy diseases; it shall bring streams for
+     thee out of the stony rock; it shall lead thee to Paradise.
+
+     Evoi, Father Iacchos, Jehovah-Nissi[78]; Lord of the garden and of
+     the vineyard;
+
+     Initiator and lawgiver; God of the cloud and of the mount.
+
+     Evoi, Father Iacchos; out of Egypt has thou called thy Son.
+
+To vindicate the suppressed mysteries of the pre-Christian churches by
+disclosing them as the true _origines_ of Christianity, and to replace
+the false doctrine of the exclusive divinity of one man by the true
+doctrine of the potential divinity of all men,--these are among the
+foremost objects of the New Gospel of Interpretation. And it is
+especially in order to reinforce the last named, that it has restored
+the following hymn in celebration of the supreme results of
+regeneration, which formed part of the ritual of the greater mysteries
+of the Greeks. It is addressed to the first of the Holy Seven, the
+Spirit of Wisdom, as represented by his "angel," the angel of the sun,
+even "that light which Adonai created on the first day," "whose name is,
+in the Hebrew, Uriel, and in the Greek, Phoibos, the Bright One of God."
+Breathing both the Spirit and the letter of the Bible, from Genesis to
+the Apocalypse, the hymns, of which this is one, indicate unmistakeably
+the identity in source and substance of the Hebrew and the Christian
+with the other sacred mysteries of antiquity, and the derivation of the
+later through the earlier from their common source in the world
+celestial when once again they have been restored. And they supply also
+the motive which led the Christians to destroy the second Alexandrian
+library, showing that motive to have been the desire to conceal, first,
+the derivation of the Christian presentment from its predecessors, and
+next, the perversion of their doctrine in the interests of an
+unscrupulous sacerdocy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Taken in connection with its fellow-hymns, similarly recovered, to
+others of the "Holy Seven," the hymn to Phoibos throws a flood of light
+on the creative week of Genesis, showing it to be no mere proem to
+Scripture, or concerned with the world physical merely, but an integral
+portion of Scripture, being an epitome of eternal verities ever in
+process, and appertaining both to Creation and to Redemption. The Hymn
+to Her who is mystically the fourth, but really the third of the Gods,
+the "Spirit of Counsel" of Isaiah, is especially notable for its
+solution of the problem of the inversion of the order of the third and
+fourth days of creation. These hymns, moreover, show indubitably that
+the order of the solar system was no secret to the hierophants of the
+sacred mysteries of antiquity.
+
+(7) Hymn to Phoibos, the First of the Gods.
+
+     "Strong art thou and adorable, Phoibos Apollo, who bearest life and
+     healing on thy wings, who crownest the year with thy bounty, and
+     givest the spirit of thy divinity to the fruits and precious things
+     of all the worlds.
+
+     Where were the bread of the initiation of the Sons of God, except
+     thou bring the corn to ear; or the wine of their mystical chalice,
+     except thou bless the vintage?
+
+     Many are the angels who serve in the courts of the spheres of
+     heaven: but thou, Master of Light and of Life, art followed by the
+     Christs of God.
+
+     And thy sign is the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and of the
+     Just made perfect;
+
+     Whose path is as a shining light, shining more and more unto the
+     innermost glory of the day of the Lord God.
+
+     Thy banner is blood-red, and thy symbol is a milk-white lamb, and
+     thy crown is of pure gold.
+
+     They who reign with thee are the Hierophants of the celestial
+     mysteries; for their will is the will of God, and they know as they
+     are known.
+
+     These are the sons of the innermost sphere; the Saviours of men,
+     the Anointed of God.
+
+     And their name is Christ Jesus, in the day of their initiation.
+
+     And before them every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and of
+     things on earth.
+
+     They are come out of great tribulation, and are set down for ever
+     at the right hand of God.
+
+     And the Lamb, which is in the midst of the seven spheres, shall
+     give them to drink of the river of living water.
+
+     And they shall eat of the tree of life, which is in the centre of
+     the garden of the kingdom of God.
+
+     These are thine, O Mighty Master of Light; and this is the dominion
+     which the Word of God appointed thee in the beginning:
+
+     In the day when God created the light of all the worlds, and
+     divided the light from the darkness.
+
+     And God called the light Phoibos, and the darkness God called
+     Python.
+
+     Now the darkness was before the light, as the night forerunneth the
+     dawn.
+
+     These are the evening and the morning of the first cycle of the
+     Mysteries.
+
+     And the glory of that cycle is as the glory of seven days; and they
+     who dwell therein are seven times refined;
+
+     Who have purged the garment of the flesh in the living waters;
+
+     And have transmuted both body and soul into spirit, and are become
+     pure virgins.
+
+     For they were constrained by love to abandon the outer elements,
+     and to seek the innermost which is undivided, even the Wisdom of
+     God.
+
+     And wisdom and love are one.
+
+In view of the restoration of the Gods to recognition by the New Gospel
+of Interpretation, it must be explained that the doctrines of Monotheism
+and Polytheism are not necessarily incompatible. This has already been
+shown in Chapter IV., in the utterance commencing--"In the bosom of the
+Eternal were all the Gods comprehended, as the seven spirits of the
+prism contained in the Invisible Light." For as light is one though its
+rays are seven and each ray is light, so is God one though His spirits
+are seven and each spirit is God.
+
+And yet further. The deities recognised under various names or by
+various peoples are not necessarily different Gods, but may be either
+the same God or different modes or aspects of the same God. Notably is
+this the case with the Gods of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the
+Christians. For while by the term Elohim is denoted the two principles,
+masculine and feminine, of Force and Substance, which constitute
+Original Being, by Jehovah or Yahveh, Adonai and Shaddai, is denoted the
+resultant of the interaction of these two principles as Father and
+Mother, who is called therefore their word, expression, and Son. By the
+Holy Ghost is denoted the same two principles in activity, having
+procession from the "Father-Mother" through the "Son," to be the
+constituent principles of creation, being Deity dynamic as distinguished
+from Deity static. By the Seven Spirits of God--as by the seven great
+Gods of the Greeks,--are denoted the seven potencies into which Deity
+differentiates on emerging as Holy Ghost from the prism constituted of
+Father, Mother, and Son, which are to each other as the force,
+substance, and phenomenon of which every manifest entity consists. For
+"Every entity that is manifest, is manifest by the evolution of its
+trinity." And by Christ is denoted the ultimate issue of such procession
+of Deity into manifestation, namely, divinity individuated by means of
+its passage through matter, and elaborated by co-operation of the Seven
+Spirits of God, into a perfected _spiritual_ Ego, who is at once God and
+man, and subsists under two modes--the microcosmic or individual, and
+the macrocosmic or universal, and who is always in process of increase,
+because, in manifestation, "the Father is greater than the Son;" and
+"the manifest never exhausts the unmanifest."
+
+Now the process of the Christ is by regeneration, and of this, as has
+been said, reincarnation is the condition. The New Gospel of
+Interpretation contains an utterance of Jesus on this subject which will
+fitly conclude this series of examples. It was recovered by "Mary" under
+illumination early in 1880, and consequently when we had not fully come
+to realise the actuality of the doctrine and the possibility of the
+recovery of the memories of past lives. Hence she sought from her
+illuminators confirmation of the genuineness of the experience, when she
+was distinctly and positively assured that the incident had actually
+occurred, and that she had borne part in it, though no record of it
+survives. Such is the extrinsic testimony on which it rests. We found
+the intrinsic no less satisfactory, whether as regards the substance or
+the form.
+
+(8) Concerning the previous lines of Jesus, and Reincarnation.
+
+     This morning between sleeping and waking I saw myself, together
+     with many other persons, walking with Jesus in the fields round
+     about Jerusalem, and while He was speaking to us, a man approached,
+     who looked very earnestly upon Him. And Jesus turned to us and
+     said, "This man whom you see approaching is a seer. He can behold
+     the past lives of a man by looking into his face." Then, the man
+     being come up to us, Jesus took him by the hand and said, "What
+     readest thou?" And the man answered, "I see Thy past, Lord Jesus,
+     and the ways by which Thou hast come." And Jesus said to him, "Say
+     on." So the man told Jesus that he could see Him in the past for
+     many long ages back. But of all that he named, I remember but one
+     incarnation, or, perhaps, one only struck me, and that was _Isaac_.
+     And as the man went on speaking, and enumerating the incarnations
+     he saw, Jesus waved His right hand twice or thrice before his eyes,
+     and said, "It is enough," as though He wished him not to reveal
+     further. Then I stepped forward from the rest and said, "Lord, if,
+     as thou hast taught us, the woman is the highest form of humanity,
+     and the last to be assumed, how comes it that Thou, the Christ, art
+     still in the lower form of man? Why comest Thou not to lead the
+     perfect life, and to save the world as woman? For surely Thou has
+     attained to womanhood." And Jesus answered, "I have attained to
+     womanhood, as thou sayest; and
+     already have I taken the form of woman. But there are three
+     conditions under which the soul returns to the man's form; and they
+     are these:--
+
+     "1st. When the work which the Spirit proposes to accomplish is of a
+     nature unsuitable to the female form.
+
+     "2nd. When the Spirit has failed to acquire, in the degree
+     necessary to perfection, certain special attributes of the male
+     character.
+
+     "3rd. When the Spirit has transgressed, and gone back in the path
+     of perfection, by degrading the womanhood it had attained.
+
+     "In the first of these cases the return to the male form is outward
+     and superficial only. This is my case. I am a woman in all save the
+     body. But had My body been a woman's, I could not have led the life
+     necessary to the work I have to perform. I could not have trod the
+     rough ways of the earth, nor have gone about from city to city
+     preaching, nor have fasted on the mountains, nor have fulfilled My
+     mission of poverty and labour. Therefore am I--a woman--clothed in
+     a man's body that I may be enabled to do the work set before Me.
+
+     "The second case is that of a soul who, having been a woman perhaps
+     many times, has acquired more aptly and readily the higher
+     qualities of womanhood than the lower qualities of manhood. Such a
+     soul is lacking in energy, in resoluteness, in that particular
+     attribute of the Spirit which the prophet ascribes to the Lord when
+     he says, 'The Lord is a Man of war.' Therefore the soul is put back
+     into a man's form to acquire the qualities yet lacking.
+
+     "The third case is that of the backslider, who, having nearly
+     attained perfection,--perhaps even touched it,--degrades and soils
+     his white robe, and is put back into the lower form again. These
+     are the common cases; for there are few women who are worthy to be
+     women"[79].
+
+(9) Concerning the "Work of Power."
+
+     You have asked me if the Work of Power is a difficult one, and if
+     it is open to all.
+
+     It is open to all potentially and eventually, but not actually and
+     in the present. In order to regain power and the resurrection, a
+     man must be a Hierarch; that is to say, he must have attained the
+     _magical_ age of thirty-three. This age is attained by having
+     accomplished the Twelve Labours, passed the Twelve Gates, overcome
+     the Five Senses, and obtained dominion over the Four Spirits of the
+     elements. He must have been born Immaculate, baptised with Water
+     and Fire, tempted in the Wilderness, crucified and buried. He must
+     have borne Five Wounds on the Cross, and he must have answered the
+     riddle of the Sphinx. When this is accomplished he is free of
+     matter, and will never again have a phenomenal body.
+
+     Who shall attain to this perfection? The Man who is without fear
+     and without concupiscence; who has courage to be absolutely poor
+     and absolutely chaste. When it is all one to you whether you have
+     gold or whether you have none, whether you have a house and lands
+     or whether you have them not, whether you have worldly reputation
+     or whether you are an outcast,--then you are voluntarily poor. It
+     is not necessary to have nothing, but it is necessary to care for
+     nothing. When it is all one to you whether you have a wife or
+     husband, or whether you are celibate, then you are free from
+     concupiscence. It is not necessary to be a virgin; it is necessary
+     to set no value on the flesh. There is nothing so difficult to
+     attain as this equilibrium. Who is he who can part with his goods
+     without regret? Who is he who is never consumed by the desires of
+     the flesh? But when you have ceased both to wish to retain and to
+     burn, then you have the remedy in your own hands, and the remedy is
+     a hard and a sharp one, and a terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, be not
+     afraid. Deny the five senses, and above all the taste and the
+     touch. The power is within you if you will to attain it. The Two
+     Seats
+     are vacant at the Celestial Table, if you will put on Christ. Eat
+     no dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. Make living elements of
+     all the elements of your body. Mortify the members of earth. Take
+     your food full of life, and let not the touch of death pass upon
+     it. You understand me, but you shrink. Remember that without
+     self-immolation, there is no power over death. Deny the touch. Seek
+     no bodily pleasure in sexual communion; let desire be magnetic and
+     soulic. If you indulge the body, you perpetuate the body, and the
+     end of the body is corruption. You understand me again, but you
+     shrink. Remember that without self-denial and restraint there is no
+     power over death. Deny the taste first, and it will become easier
+     to deny the touch. For to be a virgin is the crown of discipline. I
+     have shown you the excellent way, and it is the _Via Dolorosa_.
+     Judge whether the resurrection be worth the passion; whether the
+     kingdom be worth the obedience; whether the power be worth the
+     suffering. When the time of your calling comes, you will no longer
+     hesitate.
+
+     When a man has attained power over his body, the process of ordeal
+     is no longer necessary. The Initiate is under a vow; the Hierarch
+     is free. Jesus, therefore, came eating and drinking; for all things
+     were lawful to Him. He had undergone, and had freed His will. For
+     the object of the trial and the vow is polarisation. When the fixed
+     is volatilised, the Magian is free. But before Christ was Christ He
+     was subject; and His initiation lasted thirty years. All things are
+     lawful to the Hierarch; for he knows the nature and value of
+     all[80].
+
+This chapter may appropriately terminate with a few remarks in reply to
+the inevitable question, why our country and language were selected as
+the place and tongue of the new revelation in preference to all others.
+
+It is, as we were enabled to see, because the British people are
+recognised in the celestial world, as possessing that peculiar quality
+of soul which, in spite of their many and grievous limitations, has made
+them to be the foremost witness among the nations to God and the
+Conscience, in such wise as to constitute them the counterpart of Israel
+in the modern world. Others besides ourselves have recognised this
+characteristic. Said Milton, speaking of a crisis which, momentous as it
+was, pales in presence of that which now is, seeing that Religion itself
+as Religion was not menaced then as in our time--
+
+"Now once again, by all concurrence of signs, and by the general
+instinct of devout and holy men, as they daily and solemnly express
+their thoughts, God is beginning to devise some new and great period in
+His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He
+then, but address Himself to His servants, and--as His manner is--first
+to His Englishmen."
+
+To which we may add in reference to the present, "And having by the
+hands of His Intellectualists, beaten down the false interpretation of
+His holy Word, accomplishing the work of destruction, is about by the
+hands of His Intuitionalists, to establish the true interpretation,
+accomplishing the work of re-construction."
+
+Nor are there wanting specific historical facts pointing in the same
+direction. To Britain it was given by a timely act of revolt against a
+domination at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the letter of
+Scripture from suppression and virtual extinction at the hands of an
+order bent only on exalting itself at whatever cost to truth and
+humanity. Meanwhile, for three centuries and a half--period suggestive
+of the mystical "time, times, and half a time,"--Britain has faithfully
+and lovingly, albeit unintelligently and mistakenly, guarded and
+cherished the letter thus rescued, even to the erecting of it into a
+fetish. And it may well be that she has now, for her guerdon, been
+further commissioned to be the recipient and minister of its
+interpretation.
+
+Moreover, as Mistress of the Sea, the especial symbol of the Soul, she
+has a prescriptive claim to be the vehicle of the latest and crowning
+message to earth, of which the Soul herself is at once the source, the
+subject, and the object.
+
+Nor are the universality of her language and the grandeur of her
+literature elements to be left out of consideration. All things point to
+her language as destined to become, practically, the language of the
+world; and hence its peculiar fitness to be the vehicle of that "eternal
+gospel" which it is declared should, at the end of the age, be
+proclaimed "unto them that dwell on the earth, even unto every nation,
+and tribe, and tongue, and people."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[74] Taste and smell being modes of touch. E.M.
+
+[75] _I.e._, the astral and mental part of man, which is accounted a
+person or system in itself. E.M.
+
+[76] The Sacramental bread called by the Hebrews "showbread."
+
+[77] See note on p. 122, ante.
+
+[78] The names Nyssa, Nysa, Nysas, and Nissi are identical with each
+other, and also with Sinai, Sion, and those of other sacred mounts. For
+they all are names for the Mount of Regeneration, the mount or "holy
+hill" of the Lord, within the man, to be on which is to be in the
+Spirit. The river Hiddekel has the like import. It is the river of the
+soul, herself fluidic and called Maria (waters), which, as the
+receptacle of the divine nucleus, winds about and encompasses the
+Spirit. Thus Daniel is said to be "on Hiddekel" when under divine
+illumination. ("The Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 459.)
+
+[79] A.K. was distinctly and positively assured that the incident then
+shown to her was one that actually occurred, and that she had borne part
+of it though no record of it survives. S.H.H.
+
+[80] This instruction is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I, pp.
+424-425.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.
+
+
+As will readily be imagined, the interest was intense with which we
+watched the progress of our work, in order to see whether the crucial
+event of its promulgation would coincide with the date prophesied for
+the turning point between the outgoing and the incoming dispensations.
+The predictions covered a period of six years, namely from 1876 to 1881
+inclusive. In this period was to be laid the foundation of a universal
+kingdom of justice and knowledge, which should constitute the reign of
+Michael, and spring from a new illumination, one feature of which was to
+be the "return of the Gods" in 1876. It was in the autumn of this year
+that they first came to us, and the intimation was given us that the
+reign of Michael was then actually commencing; we having no knowledge
+either of the meaning or of the fact of such predictions. For, while the
+Bible references to Michael were altogether unintelligible to us, we had
+not learnt to refer the event to any assignable period. The fulfilment
+of this prediction disposed us to attach value to those which pointed to
+the year 1881 as that in which our work--supposing our estimate of its
+significance to be correct--ought to see the light. For our illuminators
+observed silence respecting times and seasons, contenting themselves
+with bringing under our notice the books containing the predictions,
+the application being left to our own perspicacity. We were powerless to
+influence events, even had we desired to do so. We could but work
+steadily on, as we did, "without haste, without rest," until my
+colleague had finished her university course and obtained her diploma.
+This she accomplished in the summer of 1880, soon after which we
+returned to England; and in the summer of 1881 we delivered in London,
+to a private audience, the lectures which constituted the first
+promulgation of our work. These were published in the following winter
+under the title of "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," our
+excellent friend at Paris faithfully fulfilling the mission she had
+accepted in relation to us and our work[81]. Thus were fulfilled exactly
+all the predictions respecting the dates, the character, and the manner
+of our work.
+
+There were many other coincidences of a kind so remarkable as to make us
+feel that to ascribe them to accident would require a larger measure of
+credulity than to ascribe them to design. Among the most striking were
+those which concerned "Mary's" names, and which were in this wise.
+
+When first the significance of the Apocalyptic utterance concerning the
+river Euphrates and the kings of the East was flashed on my mind, I
+asked her if she knew that she was mentioned, even to her very name, in
+the book of Revelation. To which she replied, smiling, that she had
+known it for some time, but which of her names did I mean? I said that I
+meant her married surname, which fitted exactly a way made for kings
+across a river, by the drying up of its waters, namely a _king's ford_;
+the "Kings of the East," meaning those principles in man whereby he has
+knowledge of divine things--the East being the mystical expression for
+the place of the dawn of spiritual light, such as that of which she was
+the revealer. While the Euphrates means, in the Apocalypse as in
+Genesis, the highest principle in the fourfold kosmos of man, the Spirit
+or Will[82]. Only when this principle in man is "dried up," or
+sublimated by being made one with the divine Will, is man accessible to
+the divine knowledges brought by the "Kings of the East." As the channel
+by which these knowledges were being restored to the world, she was the
+_kings' ford_ implied. She then told me, what I had not yet observed,
+that her baptismal and maiden names were equally appropriate, as the
+Latin for the "acceptable year of the Lord," or _good time_, announced
+as to follow the restoration of the knowledges brought by the Kings of
+the East, is--allowing for difference of gender--_Annus Bonus_. The
+coincidence of names did not end here, for we shortly afterwards, in the
+course of our researches, came upon an old prophecy declaring that the
+initials of the "Messenger" of the new Avâtar, due at this time, would
+be A.K.!
+
+She further identified the "Kings of the East" as functions of the three
+principles in man, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind; being
+respectively, right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right
+perception, which is of the Soul; and right judgment, which is of the
+Mind; the combination of which is the necessary and sufficient condition
+of divine knowledge.
+
+Had we been sanguine of a favourable reception of our book by the press
+at large--which we were not--our disappointment would have been great.
+But we were by no means prepared either for the gross misrepresentation
+and even vulgar ribaldry with which it was treated by the few organs in
+the literary press which noticed it at all, or for the complete neglect
+of it by that portion of the press which especially concerns itself with
+religious exegesis. In no instance was any attempt made to exhibit its
+plan, purpose, and real nature, or any recognition accorded to its
+luminous solutions of the profound problems dealt with. The very claim
+to have experiential knowledge of things spiritual was accounted an
+offence; and it seemed as if the word had gone forth to adopt towards it
+an attitude which should effectually restrain the public from making its
+acquaintance, even though it met absolutely the need recognised on all
+hands as the world's supreme need, and vindicated its claim thereto by
+the presentation of teachings avowedly of divine derivation and
+demonstrating their divinity by their intrinsic character to all who are
+in the smallest degree spiritually percipient. To this day that attitude
+has never been abandoned or relaxed; and notwithstanding the assiduous
+endeavours made to counteract its influence, the whole mass of our
+people, saving only a few select circles, have yet to learn that the
+longed-for New Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed,
+having been for years in their midst waiting but to be recognised of
+them,--a "light shining in darkness and the darkness comprehending it
+not"[83].
+
+In compliance with the injunctions of our illuminators, we had withheld
+our names from our first edition, in order to secure for it a judgment
+unbiased by any personal element. But though we ourselves thus escaped
+the opprobrium attaching to our book, "Mary" was at first inclined to
+repent of having exposed her pearls to such profanation; and was only
+reassured by the suggestion that it showed how desperate was the need
+for precisely the change our work was designed to accomplish, and how
+exactly was fulfilled the prophecy which foretold the wrath of the
+dragon and his angels at the advent of the "Woman" Intuition, their
+destined destroyer, and the consequent shortness of their own time. We
+knew of course better than to regard such criticism as being in any
+sense a measure of our work. For us it was, like criticism in general, a
+measure not of the thing criticised but of the critics themselves. And
+these, in our case, but truly represented the condition of the age, and
+knew not what they were doing.
+
+Such is the reason why so many will hear for the first time from this
+book that a New Gospel of Interpretation has been received. To turn to
+the other and compensating side. With those who were specially qualified
+to judge, it was far otherwise. And among the most notable of the
+recognitions received from this quarter was the weighty utterance which
+appears in the preface to the second and succeeding editions, coming
+from that veteran student of the "Divine Science," the friend, disciple,
+and literary heir of the renowned Kabalist and magian, the late Abbé
+Constant ("Eliphas Levi"), namely, Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles, who
+though then an entire stranger to us, wrote to us as follows--for I
+think it may with advantage be reproduced here:--
+
+     "As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the appeal on
+     behalf of your book is, really, to miracles, but with the
+     difference that in your case they are intellectual ones, and
+     incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation. And they
+     have the further distinction of doing no violence to common sense
+     by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in
+     complete accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with
+     the great Mother of these, the Kabala. That miracles such as I am
+     describing are to be found in _The Perfect Way_, in kind and number
+     unexampled, they who are the best qualified to judge will be the
+     most ready to affirm.
+
+     "And here, _apropos_ of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to
+     offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we have it. It is my
+     opinion--
+
+     "(1) That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such as it
+     was on its original emergence from the sanctuaries.
+
+     "(2) That when Guillaume Postel--of excellent memory--and his
+     brother Hermetists of the later middle age--the Abbot Trithemius
+     and others--predicted that these sacred books of the Hebrews should
+     become known and understood at the end of the era, and specified
+     the present time for that event, they did not mean that such
+     knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these
+     particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new
+     illumination, which should eliminate from
+     them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced, and
+     should re-unite that great tradition with its source by restoring
+     it in all its purity.
+
+     "(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has
+     been manifested in _The Perfect Way_. For in this book we find all
+     that there is of truth in the Kabala, supplemented by new
+     intuitions, such as present a body of doctrine at once complete,
+     homogeneous, logical and inexpungnable.
+
+     "Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored
+     to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel and his
+     fellow-Hermetists are accomplished; and I consider that from
+     henceforth the study of the Kabala will be but an object of
+     curiosity and erudition, like that of Hebrew antiquities.
+
+     "Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three
+     supreme questions: Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now,
+     these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory,
+     and consolatory, in _The Perfect Way_"[84].
+
+He subsequently wrote:--
+
+     "If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe
+     they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures of the
+     past, these writings will assuredly hold the foremost place among
+     them"[85].
+
+For those who are unacquainted with the Kabala, its origin, nature, and
+intent, it will be well to state that it represents the transcendental
+and esoteric doctrine of the Hebrews, as handed down from the remotest
+times. In recognition of its divine origin, the Rabbins describe it as
+having been communicated by God, first, to "Adam in Paradise," and,
+next, to "Moses on Sinai." By which expressions they implied that its
+doctrine was due to the highest possible illumination.
+
+It was also in recognition of this element in our book that Mr.
+MacGregor Mathers dedicated his learned work, "The Kabala Unveiled," to
+us, saying--
+
+     "I have much pleasure in dedicating this work to the authors of
+     _The Perfect Way_, as they have in that excellent and wonderful
+     book touched so much on the doctrines of the Kabala, and laid such
+     value on its teachings. _The Perfect Way_ is one of the most deeply
+     occult works that has been written for centuries."
+
+As the foregoing testimonies represent the _consensus_ of the Kabalists,
+Hermetists, and other great ancient schools of spiritual science in the
+West, so the following represents the _consensus_ of the corresponding
+schools of the East. As will be seen, it involves a coincidence so
+notable as to point to a source transcending the human and terrestrial,
+as that of the great spiritual revival which our age is witnessing. That
+coincidence is in this wise:--
+
+Within two years of the commencement of our collaboration in the work
+which proved to be that of the restoration of the _Gnosis_ of the
+West--the divine doctrine of which, as we had come to learn, Christ was
+the personal demonstration, and the religion called after Him ought to
+have been the expression; a collaboration was commenced which had for
+its end the like exposition in regard to the religious systems of the
+East. This is the collaboration, also of a woman and a man, which had
+its issue in the Theosophical Society. The two pairs of collaborators
+worked simultaneously through the succeeding years in entire ignorance
+of each other and their work, until the commencement of the publication
+of our results in 1881, at which time the Theosophical Society was still
+so far from having completed the system of its doctrine, that neither of
+its two now fundamental tenets had yet been recognised by it, the
+tenets, namely, of Reincarnation and Karma--its chief text-book, the
+"Isis Unveiled" of its foundress, not containing them. We, on the
+contrary, had both of these doctrines, having derived them, as already
+stated herein, directly from celestial sources and wholly independently
+of human authority and tradition, of spiritualism, and of our own
+prepossessions.
+
+It was clear, both by this fact and by the avowals of the parties
+concerned, that up to this time the chiefs of the Theosophical Society
+had been unable to obtain from those whom they claimed as their masters
+more than a very meagre instalment of their doctrine. But after the
+arrival of our book in India this state of things was changed. It was
+then declared on behalf of the "masters" that we had obtained, from
+original and independent sources, a system of doctrine substantially
+identical with that of which they had for ages been, as they supposed,
+in exclusive possession, but had never been permitted to divulge, as it
+had always been reserved for initiates. The revelation of it through us,
+we were further informed, had "forced the hands of the masters," by
+showing them that the time had come when secrecy was no longer possible,
+and compelling them, if only in vindication of their own claims, to
+relax their rule of silence in regard to their mysteries.
+
+The coincidence between their doctrine and ours comprised sundry
+particulars the most recondite, including--besides the two great tenets
+already named--the multiplicity of principles in the human system, and
+their separation and respective conditions after death,--a subject lying
+outside the cognisance of "Spiritualism." Among other points of
+agreement was that of their recognition of the great antiquity of the
+soul of "Mary," whom they pronounced to be "the greatest natural mystic
+of the present day, and countless ages ahead of the great majority of
+mankind, the foremost of whom--the most civilised--belong to the last
+race of the fourth round, while she belongs to the first race of the
+fifth round."
+
+In presence of these and other proofs of the possession by the Eastern
+occultists, of knowledges which we had obtained directly at first hand
+from celestial sources, we could not but pay respectful heed to the
+claims of the representatives of the Theosophical Society, and welcome
+any token which might indicate it as a destined fellow-agent in the
+great spiritual revival of the age. So might it constitute, with
+"Spiritualism" and the work represented by us, a threefold power for
+accomplishing the promotion predicted for this era, of the consciousness
+of the race to a level which should transcend any yet reached by it as a
+race. With Spiritualism to represent the phenomenal and personal,
+Theosophy the philosophical and occult, and our own work the mystical
+and divine, every region of man's higher nature would find its due
+recognition and unfoldment. Meanwhile, the organ of the Society in India
+thus expressed itself respecting "The Perfect Way":--
+
+     "A grand book, keen of insight and eloquent in exposition; an
+     upheaval of true spirituality.... We regard its authors as having
+     produced one of the most--perhaps the most--important and
+     spirit-stirring of appeals to the highest instincts of mankind
+     which modern European literature has evolved"[86].
+
+We had a yet further warrant, derived from Scripture itself, for looking
+to the Theosophical Society as possibly a divinely appointed factor in
+the spiritual evolution of the time. The unsealing of the World's Bibles
+was upon us, and not of that of Christendom only. And we saw in the
+following saying of Jesus an obvious allusion to the present epoch, "In
+those days many shall come from the East, and the West, and the North,
+and the South, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the
+kingdom of heaven." Not that the terms East, West, North, and South,
+denoted for us the quarters of the physical globe. We had learnt to
+understand them in their mystical sense, wherein they denote the various
+human temperaments, the intuitional, the traditional, the intellectual,
+and the emotional, all of which would find satisfaction in the doctrine
+then to be recovered. It was in the terms Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
+that the significance of the utterance lay for us; these being in one
+aspect the Hebrew equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, and
+denoting the mysteries respectively of India, Egypt, and Greece, of the
+Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein of the whole Man. For these
+mysteries together comprised the perfect doctrine of Existence, called
+also in Scripture the "Word of God," the "Law and the Prophets," and the
+"_Theou Sophia_," "Wisdom of God," and "hidden Wisdom," of which the
+Christ, as the typical Man regenerate, is the fulfilment and personal
+demonstration. This is to say, they constituted that Gnosis, or
+Knowledge, with the taking away and withholdment of the key of which
+Jesus so bitterly reproached, in the Ecclesiasticism of His time, that
+of all time, and, therefore, that knowledge to the restoration of which,
+in our day, through the faculty by means of which it was originally
+obtained and can alone be discerned, the prophecies one and all pointed,
+as to mark and to make the "time of the end" of the "adulterous,"
+because idolatrous, "generation," hitherto in possession in the Church,
+and to introduce the "kingdom of God with power."
+
+Having warrant so high for anticipating the restoration at this time of
+the faculties and knowledges represented by the various movements in
+question, and knowing also, if only by the example of ourselves, that
+the divinity of a mission is not invalidated by the limitations, real or
+supposed, of its instruments, but that these must be educated by
+experience, and in such sense "perfected through suffering" to be fitted
+for their appointed tasks;--we had no doubt as to the attitude it was
+our duty to maintain towards all candidates for a share in that which we
+recognised as the greatest of all the endeavours yet made by the human
+soul to regain her long-lost rightful dominion over the minds and hearts
+of men, leaving it to time to determine that which was of divine
+appointment, and that which was not.
+
+It will have been observed that I have used the terms "mystical" and
+"occult" in such wise as to imply a distinction between them. It is
+important to the purpose of this book to define and emphasise that
+distinction. The instructions received by us from our illuminators were
+explicit and positive on this point.
+
+This is because they refer to two different domains of man's system.
+Occultism deals with transcendental physics, and is of the intellectual,
+belonging to science. Mysticism deals with transcendental metaphysics,
+and is of the spiritual, belonging to religion. Occultism, therefore,
+has for its domain the region which, lying between the body and the
+soul, is interior to the body but exterior to the soul; while Mysticism
+has for its domain the region which, comprising the soul and the spirit,
+is interior to the soul, and belongs to the divine. Of course, the terms
+themselves, which are respectively the Latin and the Greek for the same
+thing, and mean hidden from the outer senses and also from
+non-initiates, do not imply such distinction, but they have come by
+usage to be thus referable.
+
+The following citations are from the teachings received by us in this
+connection. They account for the scientific part of the training imposed
+on us.
+
+     "The science of the Mysteries can be understood only by one who has
+     studied the physical sciences, because it is the climax and crown
+     of all these, and must be learned last and not first. Unless thou
+     understand the physical
+     sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctrine of _Vehicles_,
+     which is the basic doctrine of occult science. 'If thou understood
+     not earthly things, how shall I make thee understand heavenly
+     things?' Wherefore, get knowledge, and be greedy of knowledge, ever
+     more and more. It is idle for thee to seek the inner chamber, until
+     thou hast passed through the outer. This, also, is another reason
+     why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To the
+     unlearned no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy is the royal
+     science[87]; if thou would reach the king's presence chamber, there
+     is no way save through the outer rooms and galleries of the
+     palace[88].
+
+     "The adept or occultist is, at best, a religious scientist; he is
+     not a 'saint.' If occultism were all, and held the key of heaven,
+     there would be no need of 'Christ.' But occultism, although it
+     holds the 'power,' holds neither the 'kingdom' nor the 'glory,' for
+     these are of Christ. The adept knows not the kingdom of heaven, and
+     'the least in this kingdom are greater than he.'
+
+      "'Desire _first_ the kingdom of God and God's righteousness; and
+     all these things shall be added unto you.' As Jesus said of
+     Prometheus[89], 'Take no thought for to-morrow. Behold the lilies
+     of the field and the birds of the air, and trust God as these,' For
+     the saint has faith; the adept has knowledge. If the adepts in
+     occultism or in physical science could suffice to man, I would have
+     committed no message to you. But the two are not in opposition.
+     All things are yours, even the kingdom and the power, but the glory
+     is to God. Do not be ignorant of their teaching, for I would have
+     you know all. Take, therefore, every means to know. This knowledge
+     is of man, and cometh from the mind. Go, therefore, to man to learn
+     it. 'If you will be perfect, learn also of these.' 'Yet the wisdom
+     which is from above, is above all.' For one man may begin from
+     within, that is, with wisdom, and wisdom is one with love. Blessed
+     is the man who chooseth wisdom, for she leaveneth all things. And
+     another man may begin from without, and that which is without is
+     power. To such there shall be a thorn in the flesh[90]. For it is
+     hard in such case to attain to the within. But if a man be first
+     wise inwardly, he shall the more easily have this also added unto
+     him. For he is born again and is free. Whereas at a great price
+     must the adept buy freedom. Nevertheless, I bid you seek;--and in
+     this also you shall find. But I have shown you a more excellent way
+     than theirs. Yet both Ishmael and Isaac are sons of one father, and
+     of all her children is Wisdom justified. So neither are they wrong,
+     nor are you led astray. The goal is the same; but their way is
+     harder than yours. They take the kingdom by violence, if they take
+     it, and by much toil and agony of the flesh. But from the time of
+     Christ within you, the kingdom is open to the sons of God. Receive
+     what you can receive; I would have you know all things. And if you
+     have served seven years for wisdom, count it not loss to serve
+     seven years for power also. For if Rachel bear the best beloved,
+     Leah hath many sons, and is exceeding fruitful. But her eye is not
+     single; she looketh two ways, and seeketh not that which is above
+     only. But to you Rachel is given first, and perchance her beauty
+     may suffice. I say not, let it suffice; it is better to know all
+     things, for if you know not all, how can you judge all? For as a
+     man heareth, so must he judge. Will you therefore be regenerate in
+     the without, as well as in the within? For they are renewed in the
+     body, but you in the soul. It is well to be baptised into John's
+     baptism, if a man receive also the Holy Ghost. But some know not so
+     much as that there is any Holy Ghost. Yet Jesus also, being Himself
+     regenerate in the spirit, sought unto the Baptism of John, for thus
+     it became Him to fulfil Himself in all things. And having
+     fulfilled, behold, the 'Dove' descended on Him. If then you will be
+     perfect, seek both that which is within and that which is without;
+     and the circle of being, which is the 'wheel of life,' shall be
+     complete in you."
+
+The Scriptural allusions in this teaching, which was received by "Mary"
+under illumination occurring in sleep, proved to be on the lines of the
+Kabala.
+
+There were sundry other tokens of recognition which are entitled to
+reproduction here, as showing to how wide a range of educated and
+intelligent opinion within the pale of Christianity our work appeals.
+Their value is due to their representing a class of minds which, while
+possessed of the ordinary ecclesiastical training, are not restricted to
+the knowledge thereby acquired. For, seeing that such training means
+little, if anything, more than the mechanical learning of what other men
+have said who, themselves, had no real knowledge, the opinions,
+expressed on the strength of it, are neither educated nor intelligent,
+but adoptive only and perfunctory, and represent learning without
+insight. And as such precisely are the opinions which constitute
+ecclesiastical orthodoxy, the judgment of the representatives of that
+orthodoxy on our work possesses no more real value than did that of
+Caiaphas and his coadjutors on Jesus and His work[91]. Denouncing Him
+as a blasphemer, they were themselves blasphemers. And inasmuch as they
+were types of the votaries of ecclesiastical orthodoxy of all time, it
+is obvious that the only new revelation--if any--which would find
+acceptance at their hands, would be one that confirmed and reinforced
+their errors, instead of exposing and correcting them. Proceeding, as
+was declared by Jesus, from their "father, the devil," a
+priest-constructed system ever prefers Barabbas to Christ;--prefers,
+that is, a system which defrauds--hence the force of the term "robber"
+as applied to Barabbas--man of the divine potentialities which Christ
+came to reveal to him by demonstrating them in His own person, together
+with the manner of their realisation.
+
+Not that all who bear the title of Ecclesiastics come under this
+condemnation. In every age of the Church there have been those who,
+while holding office in it, have not consented to the "Scarlet Woman" of
+Sacerdotalism. And never was there a time when the proportion of these
+was larger, or when their sense of the need of a New Gospel of
+Interpretation was more keen and urgent than now: so intolerable to
+multitudes of the clergy of all sections of the Church has become the
+antagonism recognised by them as subsisting between the traditional and
+official presentation of religion and their own clear perceptions of
+goodness and truth[92].
+
+The testimonies which remain to be added are valuable as coming from men
+who, while possessed of ecclesiastical training, have been taught also
+of the Spirit, and, adding to tradition intuition, and to learning
+insight, have in themselves the witness to that which they utter.
+
+A distinguished French ecclesiastic, the Abbé Roca, writing in
+_L'Aurore_, says of our books--
+
+     "These books seem to me to be the chosen organs of the Divine
+     Feminine" (_i.e._ the interpretative) "Principle, in view of the
+     new revelation of Revelation."
+
+By which it will be seen that he shared Cardinal Newman's expectation
+referred to in the introduction; and accepted as realised the forecast
+of Joseph de Maistre when he said "Religion and Science, in virtue of
+their natural affinity, will meet in the brain of some man of
+genius--perhaps of more than one--and the world will get what it needs
+and cries for, _not a new religion, but the revelation of Revelation_."
+As the event shows, for "the brain of some man," he should have said
+"the mind and soul of a woman."
+
+The Rev. Dr. John Pulsford, author of "The Supremacy of Man," "Quiet
+Hours," "Morgenrothe," and other works distinguished for the depth of
+their piety and insight, thus wrote to me on the publication of "Clothed
+with the Sun"--
+
+     "I cannot tell you with what thankfulness and pleasure I have read
+     _Clothed with the Sun_. It is impossible for a spiritually
+     intelligent reader to doubt that these teachings were received from
+     _within_ the astral veil. They are full of the concentrated and
+     compact wisdom of the Holy Heavens and of God. If Christians knew
+     their own religion, they would find in these priceless records our
+     Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly illustrated and
+     confirmed. The regret is that so few, comparatively, who read the
+     book, will be aware of the tithe of its pearls. But that such
+     communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the
+     world, is a sign, and a most promising sign of our age.
+
+     "It is no little joy to me to feel that I am so much more in
+     sympathy with God's daughter, the Seeress, than I supposed. The
+     testimony is so clearly above, and distinct from, aught that is
+     derived from the occult powers of the universe, rather than from
+     the Supreme Spirit and Father-Mother of our Spirits."
+
+Another notable student of spiritual science, a Priest, writing in
+_Light_ of 21st October, 1882, after describing _The Perfect Way_ as
+"that most wonderful of all books which has appeared since the beginning
+of the Christian Era," said:--"It is a book that no student can be
+without if he will know _the truth_ on these matters. It furnishes us
+with a master-key to the phenomena which so perplex the minds of
+enquirers, and gives a system, the like of which has not been seen for
+eighteen centuries." The late Rev. John Manners, a man venerable of
+years and mature of spirit, and deeply versed in the sciences of both
+worlds, declared of these illuminations, "the Great I Am speaks in
+every line of them. Only the Logos Himself could be their source." Lady
+Caithness, already referred to, upon receiving a copy of _The Perfect
+Way_, wrote: "I have got another Bible, the _most complete_ Revelation,
+_certainly_, that has yet been given to man on this planet"[93]. And a
+Parsee scholar, a native of India, wrote: "_The Perfect Way_ has made me
+a much nobler man--a man of tranquility and calmness, due to the
+knowledge of the philosophy of Being imbibed by me from it, and for
+which my mind was fortunately prepared"[94].
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As stated in the preface, this present book is intended but as an
+epitome and instalment of the far larger book in course of preparation.
+For, as with the old Gospel of Manifestation, so with the New Gospel of
+Interpretation, the excusable hyperbole is no less appropriate to
+it,--"I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books
+which might be written."
+
+For the human soul is a theme as inexhaustible as it is paramount. And,
+as never in the world's history have the need and the desire for the
+knowledge of it been so urgent as they now are, so never in the world's
+history has there been a revelation of it comparable with that which has
+been vouchsafed in our day, and is contained in the narrative, the
+completion of which, and this alone, will enable me to "depart in
+peace," having no apprehension of after disquietude on the score of
+having left unaccomplished a portion so important of the task committed
+to me.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[81] The French edition, subsequently issued at Paris, is also due to
+her zeal and generosity. See p. 137, ante.
+
+[82] For the meaning of the "Four Rivers of Eden" see P. W., vi. par. 6.
+See note on p. 172, ante as to meaning of river Hiddekel.
+
+[83] This indictment is as true to-day as it was twelve years ago, when
+the above passage was written. S.H.H.
+
+[84] Cited from the preface to the second and succeeding editions of
+"The P. W."
+
+[85] Cited from "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. p. 155.
+
+[86] The Theosophist, May, 1882.
+
+[87] The term Theosophy is here used in its Pauline and ancient sense of
+the science of the realisation of man's potential divinity;--the
+process, that is, of the Christ.--1 Cor. ii. 7. E.M.
+
+[88] From an address given on the 17th July, 1883, by A.K. to the
+Theosophical Society, a full report of which is given in "The Life of
+A.K." Vol. II. pp. 124-128.
+
+[89] A term which signifies forethought. The remonstrance is against
+undue anxiety and alarm on the soul's behalf while in the path of duty,
+as implying distrust of the divine sufficiency. E.M.
+
+[90] Meaning that in such case the flesh itself is the impediment.
+
+[91] In a letter on "The Church and the Bible," in the "Agnostic
+Journal" of 5th January, 1895, E.M. says:--
+
+"Among the fallacies to be discarded is the fallacy which consists in
+believing that the Church, so vehemently denounced in its own sacred
+books for its manifold, grievous, and fatal perversions of the truth
+contained in those books, and so ignorant as to be unaware either of the
+source or of the meaning of its own dogmas, must understand its
+doctrines better than I understand them, whose high privilege it is to
+have been one of the two recipients of the New Gospel of Interpretation,
+which has been vouchsafed expressly to correct those perversions, and
+who not only have that gospel by heart, but who know absolutely by my
+own soul's experience--as also did my colleague--the truth of every word
+of it." (A long extract from this letter, including the above, is
+printed in the appendix to B.O.A.I. p. 83.) S.H.H.
+
+[92] See also E.M.'s remarks to the same effect in the "Statement
+E.C.U." pp. 10-11.
+
+[93] See Life A.K. Vol. II. pp. 52-53.
+
+[94] See Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 241.
+
+
+
+
+"SCRIPTURES OF THE FUTURE."
+
+
+Books rapidly coming into use in the Roman, Greek and Anglican
+communions as the text-books which represent the prophesied restoration
+of the Ancient Esoteric doctrine which, by interpreting the mysteries of
+religion, should reconcile faith and reason, religion and science, and
+accomplish the downfall of that sacerdotal system, which--"making the
+word of God of none effect by its traditions"--has hitherto usurped the
+name and perverted the truth of Christianity. Their standpoint is that
+Christian doctrines, when rightly understood, are necessary and
+self-evident truths, recognisable as founded in and representing the
+actual nature of existence, incapable of being conceived of as
+otherwise, and constituting a system of thought at once scientific,
+philosophic and religious, absolutely inexpugnable, and satisfactory to
+man's highest aspirations, intellectual, moral and spiritual.
+
+=The Perfect Way;= or The Finding of Christ. By Anna Kingsford and
+Edward Maitland. Third English Edition, Price 6s. net.
+
+=The Life of Anna Kingsford=; by Edward Maitland. A new edition in
+preparation.
+
+=The New Gospel of Interpretation;= being an Abstract of the doctrine
+and Statement of the objects of The Esoteric Christian Union, founded by
+Edward Maitland, Nov., 1891.
+
+=The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and of The New Gospel
+of Interpretation=; by Edward Maitland. Third and enlarged Edition, 228
+pp., edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart, Cloth Gilt, Back and Side; Price 3s.
+6d. net; Post Free 3s. 10d. The Ruskin Press, Stafford Street,
+Birmingham.
+
+=The Bible's Own Account of Itself=; by Edward Maitland. Second Edition,
+edited by Saml. Hopgood Hart, complete, with Appendix. Crown 8vo. 96
+pp., Stiff Paper Covers, Price 6d.; Post Free 7d,; or in Cloth Covers,
+Gilt, 1s. 6d. net; Post Free 1s. 8d. The Ruskin Press, Birmingham.
+
+All the above Works may be obtained from
+
+=_THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM._=
+
+(_Postages in addition to the above Prices._)
+
+=_Some Testimonies of notable profiolents in religious science._=
+
+     "If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe
+     they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures of the
+     past, these writings will assuredly hold the foremost place among
+     them.... They present a body of doctrine at once complete,
+     homogeneous, logical and inexpugnable, in which the three supreme
+     questions, Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? at length
+     find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory."--BARON
+     SPEDALIERI (_The Kabalist_).
+
+     "It is impossible for a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt
+     that these teachings were received from within the astral veil.
+     They are full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy
+     Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own religion, they
+     would find in these priceless records our Lord Christ and His vital
+     process abundantly illustrated and confirmed. That such
+     communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the
+     world, in a sign, and a most promising sign, of our age."--REV. DR.
+     JOHN PULSFORD.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIBLE'S OWN ACCOUNT OF ITSELF.
+
+By EDWARD MAITLAND (_B.A., Cantab_)
+
+
+Author of "The Keys of the Creeds," "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation," "The Life of Anna Kingsford," etc.; and Joint Writer
+with Dr. Anna Kingsford of "The Perfect Way," etc.
+
+EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
+
+=Second Edition, (Complete) with Appendix, PRICE SIXPENCE.=
+
+Or in Cloth Covers, gilt, One Shilling and Sixpence.
+
+"Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise upon
+the earth, two dragons. And they fight and tear each other, until there
+arises a star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther."--The Vision
+of Mordecai, as interpreted in "Clothed with the Sun," I., IX.
+
+BIRMINGHAM: The Ruskin Press, Stafford St., and all Booksellers.
+
+
+SOME PRESS OPINIONS
+
+OF
+
+_The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of The New Gospel
+of Interpretation._
+
+_Literary World_--"A strangely interesting book--very curious--few who
+have any sympathy with mental phenomena of the 'occult' kind will fail
+to read it with sustained interest."
+
+_Light_--"A psychic history of umblemished veracity and astounding
+facts--supremely interesting--'full of beauty and perfect simplicity of
+purpose'--and showing that the 'fig-tree of the inward understanding is
+no longer barren, but has budded and blossomed and borne fruit.'"
+
+_Church Bells, 27th April, 1894_--"Mr. Maitland has written a
+fascinating book."
+
+_The Gentleman's Journal, March, 1894_--"Nothing Mr. Maitland writes
+would I like to miss--I never study his searching and striking pages
+without profit."
+
+_Agnostic Journal_--"A fascinating volume--the history of a work
+calculated to effect a fundamental revolution in religion--told in
+language which leaves nothing to be desired."
+
+_The Illustrated Church News, 31st March, 1894_--"This work is to
+Christians of real interest; for it enables them to study Gnosticism
+alive and vigorous in the nineteenth century."
+
+_Brighouse Gazette_--"One of those really great books associated with
+the names of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland."
+
+_The Unknown World_--"There is no man now known to be living in England
+who has had such an abundant transcendental experience."
+
+
+
+
+RELIGION AND MENTAL PHENOMENA.
+
+_From the "Christian Union."_
+
+
+Whatever may be said in favour or disfavour of Mr. Edward Maitland's
+"Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation," it is one of the most
+remarkable and most fascinating books on mental-visional perceptions of
+Divine Revelation that has appeared at any time. It is a book that
+carries the reader away from the materialistic to the mystical and
+spiritual. The author claims to bring to the old revelation a new
+interpretation, or more correctly, to restore the original and spiritual
+interpretation which has been lost through literalism. According to the
+narrative, the two persons concerned were for some years in reception of
+revelations which convinced them that they had been enabled "to tap a
+boundless reservoir of wisdom and knowledge" before the method and
+source were declared to them.... At length it was made clear to them
+that the knowledges they had acquired were due to intuitional
+recollection occuring under Divine illumination. "Inborn knowledge and
+the perception of things--these are the sources of Revelation. The soul
+of the man instructeth him, having already learned by experience.
+Intuition is inborn experience, that which the soul knoweth of old and
+of former lives." The ordinary mind will doubtless be ready to pronounce
+it to be strange mental phenomena, and nothing more. But surely mental
+phenomena of an extraordinary character must have an extraordinary use
+and purpose. And so few persons know enough of the psyhic powers latent
+in man, to be able to believe in the reality of these manifestations....
+The nature of the results is such as to negative all materialistic
+explanations. For the knowledges recovered are real, solving problems in
+the profoundest domains of theology, hitherto given up as mysteries
+hopeless of solution. And they are being thus recognised far and wide by
+the profoundest students of spiritual science.... Judge the story of the
+New Gospel of Interpretation in what light we may, it has in it all the
+evidences of a marvellous work in its mental and spiritual conception,
+exposition, interpretation, illustration, and Divine communication. It
+stands out conspicuously as a fuller development of Biblical truth, such
+as Cardinal Newman must have anticipated when he said that he saw no
+hope for religion, save in a new Revelation.
+
+THE RUSKIN PRESS.
+
+STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM,
+
+PRINTERS.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcribers notes:
+
+Maintained original spelling and punctuation.
+
+Silently corrected obvious typesetting errors.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
+Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation, by Edward Maitland
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA KINGSFORD, EDWARD MAITLAND ***
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
+Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation, by Edward Maitland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation
+
+Author: Edward Maitland
+
+Editor: Samuel Hopgood Hart
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2012 [EBook #38590]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA KINGSFORD, EDWARD MAITLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ron Stephens and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 487px;">
+<img src="images/cover1.jpg" width="487" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<div class="p6" />
+<h3>THE STORY</h3>
+
+<h5>OF</h5>
+
+<h1>ANNA KINGSFORD AND<br />
+EDWARD MAITLAND</h1>
+
+<h5>AND OF</h5>
+
+<h2>THE NEW GOSPEL OF<br />
+INTERPRETATION</h2>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h4>EDWARD MAITLAND.<br />
+EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="tdc">"The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing away;<br />
+The Gospel of Interpretation cometh."</p>
+
+<p class="tdc">"There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient<br />
+shall be interpreted."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p class="tdc">"Now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom<br />
+of the Mother of God."&mdash;<i>C.W.S.</i>, Part I. No. ii. (part 2) 10. 11.<br />
+and Part II. No. xiii. 31.</p>
+
+<h5>THIRD AND ENLARGED EDITION.</h5>
+
+<h4>PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE.</h4>
+
+<h4>BIRMINGHAM:</h4>
+<p class="tdct">THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFORD STREET.<br />
+1905.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p class="tdc"><i>
+1st Edition ... Christmas, 1893.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+2nd Edition ... Christmas, 1894.<br />
+3rd Edition ... Christmas, 1905.</i><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[v]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="tdc">TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>This book is designed (1) in satisfaction of the
+widely-expressed desire for a more particular
+account than has yet been rendered concerning
+the genesis of the writings claiming to constitute
+a "New Gospel of Interpretation"; and (2) in
+fulfilment of the duty incumbent on me as the
+survivor of the two recipients of such Gospel to
+spare no means which may minister to its recognition
+and acceptance by the world, for whose
+benefit it has been vouchsafed.</p>
+
+<p>Although largely biographical in character, this
+book is not a history of individuals, but of a Work,
+and involves only such personal references as are
+necessary to such history. It is not, however, a
+full or a final account that is contained in it.
+Such an account can be given only in the form of
+the regular biography which is in course of preparation.
+This book is an instalment only of that
+biography, being put forth in advance of it, partly,
+as said above, to meet a present need, and partly,
+to prevent a total loss of the record in the event of
+my failure to complete it&mdash;a contingency of which,
+in view of the magnitude of the task and my
+advanced age, I am bound to take account.</p>
+
+<p class="tdr">
+E. M.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[vii]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="PREFACE3" id="PREFACE3"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="tdc">TO THE THIRD EDITION.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Since the publication in 1893 of this book which,
+as stated in Chapter VII., was "intended but as
+an epitome and instalment" of a far larger book
+then in course of preparation, the full and final
+account of the "New Gospel of Interpretation"
+has been given to the world. In 1896 Edward Maitland
+published his <i>magnum opus</i>, "The Life of
+Anna Kingsford," in two large volumes of 420
+pages, "illustrated with portraits, views, and facsimiles."
+This is, and will always be, the
+biography <i>par excellence</i> of Anna Kingsford and
+Edward Maitland, and it is absolutely indispensable
+for those who would know all that there is
+to be known of them and their work and of the
+"New Gospel of Interpretation." As that book,
+however, on account of its great length, must
+always be a costly book, and therefore beyond the
+means of many who would like to have some
+reliable information concerning Anna Kingsford
+and Edward Maitland and their work, and as there
+are many who, on account of their time for reading
+being limited or their inclination to read being
+little, require information within the compass of
+a small book or go without it altogether, there will,
+notwithstanding the publication of the "Life of
+Anna Kingsford," be a demand for this shorter
+"Story," which is so admirably suited to meet the<span class="pagenum">[viii]</span>
+needs or requirements of these classes of persons;
+for, be it noted, the publication of "The Life of
+Anna Kingsford" has not in any way depreciated
+the value of this book in this sense that, having
+been written by one of the two recipients of the
+"New Gospel of Interpretation," it is a first
+authority second to none for the statements therein
+contained.</p>
+
+<p>The change in the title of the book from "The
+Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation" to the
+present title calls for some explanation and justification,
+because the former title was an excellent
+one in many respects, and the book has become
+known to many by that title. The "Gospel of
+Interpretation" is the name or description which
+was given by its Divine Inspirers, the Hierarchy
+of the Spheres Celestial, to the work of which this
+book tells the story, in token of its relation to the
+previous "Gospel of Manifestation." The former
+title implied, as the Author pointed out in his
+preface, that that which this book propounded was
+"not really a new Gospel, but one of Interpretation
+only"; and this is not really new, but, as the
+Author has also pointed out, "so old as to have
+become forgotten and lost, being the purely
+spiritual sense, as discerned from the purely
+spiritual standpoint originally intended and
+insisted on by Scripture itself as its true sense and
+standpoint, and those which alone render Scripture
+intelligible"<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>. But notwithstanding this, and
+notwithstanding that on the front page it was
+expressly stated that "There shall nothing new
+be told; but that which is ancient shall be inter<span class="pagenum">[ix]</span>preted,"
+the former title failed to convey to the
+minds of some the meaning that it was intended
+to convey, and it gave no indication of the
+biographical nature of the work. Many who otherwise
+would have read the book refrained from doing
+so because they thought that a new Gospel,
+inconsistent with and perhaps opposed to if
+not intended to supersede the old Gospel, was propounded.
+It is necessary, therefore, for me to
+state, if possible more explicitly than it was stated
+in the previous editions of this book, that this is
+not an attempt to create a new Gospel differing
+from that of Jesus Christ<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>. Anna Kingsford's
+and Edward Maitland's mission and aim was
+to interpret the Christ, not to rival or supersede
+Him. The "New Gospel" is, first and foremost,
+<i>interpretative</i>, and is destructive only in the sense
+of reconstructive. "It tells nothing new; it
+simply restores and reinforces the old, even the
+Gnosis, which, as the doctrine of the Church unfallen,
+is that also of the Church fallen, though the
+latter has lost the key to its interpretation"<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>. Nor
+is the teaching represented by this book opposed to
+the existence of an objective Church. Anna Kingsford
+and Edward Maitland fully recognised the
+necessity of such an organisation for the formulation,
+propagation, and exposition of religion. Their
+opposition was "only to the recognition by the
+Church of the objective, historical, and materialistic
+aspect of religion, <i>to the exclusion</i> of that which
+<span class="pagenum">[x]</span>really constitutes religion, namely, its subjective,
+spiritual, and substantial aspect, wherein alone it
+appeals to the mind and soul, and is efficacious
+for redemption." The aim of the New Gospel
+"is defined exactly," said Edward Maitland, "in
+the following citation from St. Dionysius the
+Areopagite 'not to destroy, but to construct; or,
+rather, to destroy by construction; to conquer
+error by the full presentment of truth.' As will
+be obvious, such a design does not necessarily
+involve the destruction of anything that exists
+whether of symbol or ritual, or ecclesiastical
+organisation, but only their regeneration by means
+of their translation into their spiritual and divinely
+intended sense. And it is precisely because that
+sense has been lost&mdash;as declared in Scripture it
+had long been, and would yet long be, lost&mdash;that
+a new 'Gospel of Interpretation' has been vouchsafed
+in fulfilment of the promises in Scripture to
+that effect; and this from the source of the original
+Divine revelation, namely, the Church Celestial,
+and by the method which always was that of such
+revelation, namely, the intuition operating under
+special illumination.... Even the priest,
+though hitherto deservedly regarded as the 'enemy
+of man,' will not be destroyed under the new
+<i>régime</i> whose inauguration we are witnessing. For
+in becoming interpreter as well as administrator,
+he will be prophet as well as priest, and speak out
+the things of God and the soul instead of concealing
+them under a veil. So will the 'veil be taken
+away,' and Cain, the priest, instead of killing
+Abel, the prophet, as hitherto, will unite with him,
+becoming prophet and priest in one. And instead
+of any longer corrupting the 'woman' Intuition,<span class="pagenum">[xi]</span>
+and suppressing the 'man' Intellect, he will
+purify and exalt her, and enable her to fulfil her
+proper function as 'the Mother of God' in man,
+and will recognise the intellect, when duly conjoined
+with her, as the heir of all things. Thus,
+becoming interpreter as well as administrator,
+prophet as well as priest, and recognising interpretation
+as the corollary of the understanding, the
+prophet-priest of the regeneration will give to men
+freely of the waters of life, that only true bread
+of Heaven, which is the food of the understanding,
+instead of the indigestible 'stones' and poisonous
+'serpents' of doctrines, the profession of which,
+by divorcing assent from conviction, involves that
+moral and intellectual suicide, to induce others to
+join him in committing which Cardinal Newman
+wrote his 'Grammar of Assent,' True it is 'faith
+that saves,' but the faith that is without understanding
+is not faith, but credulity"<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>. It is for
+the above-mentioned reasons that the title of this
+book has been changed. The title must be subservient
+to the book, and it is hoped that, the
+change having been made, there will not be any
+further misunderstanding&mdash;even on the part of
+those who are most superficial&mdash;as to the nature
+and object of "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation."</p>
+
+<p>Edward Maitland did not long survive the completion
+of the great task that he undertook when he
+set himself to write a full account of his life and
+that of his colleague. He retained his full mental
+vigour until the publication of "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford"; but after that he rapidly declined,
+<span class="pagenum">[xii]</span>and on the 2nd October, 1897, at the close of his
+seventy-third year, a little over nine years after the
+death of Anna Kingsford<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>, he passed away peacefully
+at "The Warders" at Tonbridge, the home (at
+that time) of his friends Colonel and Mrs. Currie,
+with whom, and under whose loving care, he spent
+the last few months of his life&mdash;a life concerning
+which, as also that of Anna Kingsford, I will not
+say anything here, for this book will testify.
+Blessed are the souls whom the just commemorate
+before God.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="p2">Many who read these pages will not rest until
+they know more of those great prophets the story
+of whose lives is here told, and of the Divine
+Gnosis that it was their high mission to proclaim.
+I have indicated whence they can obtain this
+information. This "Story," interesting as it is
+and much as there is in it, is little more than an
+indication of some of the facts that are fully stated
+and dealt with in "The Life of Anna Kingsford,"
+and there is much of importance that (as it could
+not possibly receive proper treatment in a book of
+this size) was passed over here to be related in the
+larger biography. I have not thought it expedient
+to alter the character of or to add much to this
+book, but I have enlarged it by incorporating
+therein, from "The Life of Anna Kingsford,"
+some additional matter which is of interest, and
+which should add to the value of the book. The
+most important additions are the account of Anna
+Kingsford's vision of "The Doomed Train," on
+p.p. 43-47; the account of Anna Kingsford's vision
+<span class="pagenum">[xiii]</span>of Adonai, on pp. 64-68; the "Exhortation of Hermes
+to his Neophytes," on pp. 110-112; the verses "Concerning
+the Passage of the Soul," on pp. 169-170; and
+the illumination of Anna Kingsford concerning the
+"Work of Power," on pp. 180-181. I have also amplified
+the text in some places when, on comparing it with
+corresponding passages in "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," I found that I could do so with advantage.
+These amplifications are not otherwise noted.
+Finally, I have added some notes where I thought
+that further explanation was desirable or would
+prove acceptable.</p>
+
+<p class="tdr">
+SAML. HOPGOOD HART.<br /></p>
+<p>
+Croydon, December, 1905.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[xv]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2></div>
+
+
+<p>There are certain introductory remarks which, in
+view of the prevailing tendency to reject prior to
+examination whatever conflicts with strongly
+cherished preconceptions&mdash;as anything purporting
+to be a "new Gospel" is undoubtedly calculated
+to do&mdash;may be made with advantage. Those
+remarks are as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(1) As its title implies<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>, that which is propounded
+is not really a new Gospel, but one of
+Interpretation only, which is precisely what is
+admitted by all serious and thoughtful persons to
+be the supreme need of the times. It was said, for
+instance, by the late Matthew Arnold, "At the
+present moment there are two things about the
+Christian religion which must be obvious to every
+percipient person: one, that men cannot do without
+it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is."</p>
+
+<p>(2) As also its title implies<a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> nothing new is told
+in it, but that only which is old is interpreted;
+and the appeal on its behalf is not to authority,
+<span class="pagenum">[xvi]</span>whether of Book, Tradition, or Institution, but to
+the Understanding&mdash;a quality which accords not
+only with the spirit of the times, but also&mdash;as
+shewn herein&mdash;with that of religion itself, properly
+so called.</p>
+
+<p>(3) Scripture manifestly comprises two conflicting
+systems of doctrine and practice, having
+for their representatives respectively the priest and
+the prophet, one only of which systems, and this
+the system reprobated in Scripture itself, has
+hitherto obtained recognition from Christendom.
+It is the purpose of the New Gospel of Interpretation
+to expound the system represented by the
+prophet and approved in Scripture, with a view to
+replacing the other.</p>
+
+<p>(4) For those who attach value to the prophecies
+contained in the Bible, so far from there being an
+<i>a priori</i> improbability against the delivery of a
+new revelation in interpretation, confirmation, or
+completion of the former revelation, and in correction
+of the false presentment of it, the probability
+ought to be all in favour of such an event. This
+is because Scripture abounds in predictions of a
+restoration both of faculty and of knowledge, as
+to take place at the present time and under the
+existing conditions of Church and World; and
+this of such kind as shall constitute a second and
+spiritual manifestation of the Christ in rectification
+of the perversion of the import of His first
+and personal manifestation, and in arrest of the
+great Apostacy, not only from the true faith of
+Christ but from religion itself, of which that
+perversion has been the cause.</p>
+
+<p>(5) So far from the idea of a new revelation
+which shall have for its end the disclosure, as the<span class="pagenum">[xvii]</span>
+true sense of Scripture and Dogma, of a sense
+differing so widely from that hitherto accepted as
+to be virtually destructive of it,&mdash;so far from this
+idea being universally repugnant to orthodox
+ecclesiastics, it has found warm recognition from
+one of the foremost of modern churchmen. This
+is the late Cardinal Newman.</p>
+
+<p>Said Dr Newman in his <i>Apologia pro vitâ suâ</i>,
+speaking of his earlier days, "The broad philosophy
+of Clement and Origen carried me away; the
+philosophy, not the theological doctrine.... Some
+portions of their teaching, magnificent in themselves,
+came like music to my inward ear, as if the
+response to ideas, which, with little external to
+encourage them, I had cherished so long. These
+were based on the mystical or sacramental principle,
+and spoke of the various Economies or Dispensations
+of the Eternal. I understood these
+passages to mean that the exterior world, physical
+and historical, was but the manifestation to our
+senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was
+a parable: Scripture was an allegory:.... The
+process of change had been slow; it had been done
+not rashly, but by rule and measure, 'at sundry
+times and in divers manners,' first one disclosure
+and then another, till the whole evangelical doctrine
+was brought into full manifestation. And
+thus room was made for the anticipation of further
+and deeper disclosures of truths still under the veil
+of the letter, and in their season to be revealed.
+The visible world still remains without its divine
+interpretation: Holy Church in her sacraments
+and her hierarchical appointments, will remain,
+even to the end of the world, after all but a symbol
+of those heavenly facts which fill eternity. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span>
+mysteries are but the expressions, in human
+language, of truths to which the human mind is
+unequal"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Dr Newman is credited also with the remark,
+made on visiting Rome for his investiture, that he
+saw no hope for religion save in a new revelation.</p>
+
+<p>These are utterances the value of which is in no
+way diminished by the fact that their utterer failed
+to bring his own life into accordance with them.
+He could write, indeed, the hymn "Lead, kindly
+light"; but when the "kindly light" was vouchsafed
+him of those suggestions of a system of
+thought concealed within the Christian Symbology,
+"magnificent in themselves" and making "music
+to his inward ear," which he found in the patristic
+writings; instead of following that lead, and
+striving to exhume the treasures of divine truth
+thus buried and hidden from sight, for the salvation
+of a world perishing for want of them,&mdash;he
+turned his back upon it, and&mdash;entering the Church
+of Rome&mdash;wrote his "Grammar of Assent," calling
+upon others to follow him in committing the
+suicide, intellectual and moral, of renouncing the
+understanding and divorcing profession from
+conviction.</p>
+
+<p>This was a catastrophe the explanation of which
+is not far to seek. Dr Newman had in him the
+elements which go to make both priest and prophet.
+But the former proved the stronger; and the Cain,
+the priest in him, suppressed the Abel, the prophet
+in him. Thus was he a type of the Church as
+hitherto she has been. But, happily, not as hence<span class="pagenum">[xix]</span>forth
+she will be. For "now is the Gospel of Interpretation
+come, and the kingdom of the Mother
+of God," even the "Woman," Intuition,&mdash;the
+mind's feminine mode, wherein it represents the
+perceptions and recollections of the Soul&mdash;who is
+ever "Mother of God" in man, and whose sons
+the prophets ever are, the greatest of them being
+called emphatically, for the fulness and purity of
+his intuition, the "Son of the Woman" and she
+a "virgin."</p>
+
+<p class="tdr">
+E.M.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6">
+<h2><a name="FRONTISPIECES" id="FRONTISPIECES"></a>FRONTISPIECES.</h2></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Ill.">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;I.&mdash;<big><span class="smcap">Portrait of Dr. Anna Kingsford.</span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><i>Born, Sep. 16th, 1846; Died, Feb. 22nd, 1888.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">II.&mdash;<big><span class="smcap">Portrait of Edward Maitland</span> (<i>B.A., Cantab</i>).</big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><i>Born, Oct. 27th, 1824; Died, Oct, 2nd, 1897.</i></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[xx]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS"></a>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC">
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td>
+<td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#PREFACE">Preface to the First and Second Editions</a></span></big></td><td align="right">v.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#PREFACE3">Preface to the Third Edition</a></span></big></td><td align="right">vii.-xiii.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></span></big></td><td align="right">xv.-xix.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">Table of Contents</a></span></big></td><td align="right">xx.-xxii.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#ABBREVIATIONS">Abbreviations</a></span></big></td><td align="right">xxiii.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Chapter I.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE VOCATION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The Instruments&mdash;Their early lives&mdash;Their consciousness of a special</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">mission, and intimations of a call&mdash;Their training in respect of</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">circumstance, character, and faculty, until brought together</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">for their Joint work.</span></td><td align="right"> 1-36</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE INITIATION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A baptism of the Spirit&mdash;"At last I have found a man through whom</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can speak!"&mdash;Intimation of the nature and aim of their work&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doomed train, "No one on the engine!"&mdash;Instantaneous</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">transfer of inspiration&mdash;"Woman, what have I to do with</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">thee?"&mdash;The recovery of a Gospel scene, and its import&mdash;"The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">woman taken in adultery"&mdash;Vision of Adonai&mdash;Source of the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">opening sentences in St. John's Gospel&mdash;Chapter from the recovered</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gnosis&mdash;The Generation of the Word.</span></td><td align="right"> 37-70</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Chapter III.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE COMMUNICATION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"The perfect love that casts out fear." In the presence of celestial</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">visitants&mdash;A parable of the Intuition&mdash;"The Wonderful Spectacles"&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greek element in the work&mdash;Hermes and John the Baptist&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"heresy of Prometheus"&mdash;The Fig-tree, a symbol of the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">inward understanding; the time come for it to bear fruit&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seeress's faculty&mdash;Her relations with Hermes&mdash;"Thou art the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rock" addressed to Hermes&mdash;The parable of the Fig-tree&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mystic Woman of Holy Writ&mdash;"Go thy way, Daniel....</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum">[xxi]</span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days"&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">prophecy of the book of Esther&mdash;The Angel Genius, his account</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">of himself and his office&mdash;Divine revelation the supreme common</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">sense&mdash;The source and method of the New Revelation&mdash;Its chief</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">recipient "not a medium or a seer, but a prophet"&mdash;An instruction</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">and a caution concerning the survival of tendencies encouraged</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">in past lives&mdash;Communion with souls of the departed&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">conditions of such intercourse&mdash;An instruction concerning</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Inspiration and Prophesying&mdash;The prophecy of "the kingdom of</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Mother of God."</span></td><td align="right">71-108</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Chapter IV.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE ANTAGONISATION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">"Ye are not yet perfected"&mdash;Our respective <i>Auras</i>&mdash;An</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">exhortation&mdash;The Seven Spirits of God, their co-operation necessary for</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">a perfect work&mdash;"You belong to us now, to do our work and not your</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">own"&mdash;Enforced silence&mdash;"The Powers of the Air;" their mode</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">of attack&mdash;A strange visitant and his communication&mdash;A strained</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">situation&mdash;Visions of guidance&mdash;The "refractory team," and</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">the "Two Stars"&mdash;The promised land reached only through</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">the wilderness&mdash;"The Word a Word of mystery, and they who</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">guard it Seven"&mdash;"One Neophyte could not save himself"&mdash;A</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Horoscope&mdash;A descent into hell&mdash;Counsels of Perfection&mdash;A</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Merry Christmas"&mdash;A timely arrival&mdash;Neoplatonic recognition</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Hermes&mdash;The one Truth, never without a witness in the world&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">key of knowledge restored&mdash;Problems solved&mdash;The mystic</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Woman" of Holy Writ.</span></td><td align="right">109-141</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Chapter V.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE RECAPITULATION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">The key to the mystery of the Bible; the "Veil of Moses" withdrawn&mdash;The</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">secret laid bare of the world's sacrificial system, and the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">feud between priest and prophet&mdash;The Memory of the Soul&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Standpoint of the Bible&mdash;All that is true is Spiritual&mdash;The revelation</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">of "that wicked one"&mdash;The seals broken and the books</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">opened&mdash;The New Gospel of Interpretation&mdash;Sacerdotalism the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Jerusalem which killed the prophets"&mdash;The suppressed</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">doctrines&mdash;Reincarnation the corollary and condition of Regeneration</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">and implicit in the Bible&mdash;"Ye <i>must</i> be born again of Virgin</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mary and Holy Ghost"&mdash;The doctrines of the Trinity and Divine</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum">[xxii]</span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Incarnation as now interpreted, necessary and self-evident</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">truths&mdash;Evolution the manifestation of a divine inherency; accomplished</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">only by the realisation of Divinity&mdash;The process of</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">regeneration, and therein of salvation, interior to the individual&mdash;Adam</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Christ the initial and final stages in the spiritual</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">evolution of every man&mdash;The "Christ within" of St Paul&mdash;The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Credo</i> an epitome of the spiritual history of the Sons of God.</span></td><td align="right">142-162</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE EXEMPLIFICATION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Spontaneity of the Seeress's faculty&mdash;Specific illuminations, in</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">illustration, chiefly, of the process of Regeneration; concerning (1)</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holy Writ; (2) Redemption; (3) Sin and death; (4) The Twelve</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gates of Regeneration; (5) The Passage of the Soul; (6) The</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mystic Exodus; (7) The Spiritual Phoibos and the order of the</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christs; (8) The Previous Lives of Jesus, and Reincarnation;</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(9) The Work of Power; the land and tongue of the New</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Revelation, why ours.</span></td><td align="right">163-183</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"> &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><big><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Chapter VII.</a></span></big></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">Accordance of all the dates with those prophesied&mdash;Other coincidences&mdash;Why</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">our work has remained so long unknown to the generality&mdash;Notable</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">recognitions, by representative Kabalists, Mystics,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Occultists and Divines, Catholic, Anglican, and others&mdash;Spiritualism,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Theosophy, and the New Gospel of Interpretation as</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">fellow-agents in the unfoldment of the world's spiritual consciousness,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the unsealing of the world's Bibles, prophesied to take</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">place at this epoch&mdash;"Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," the Hebrew</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, to denote the mysteries</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">of India, Egypt, and Greece, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">and therein the Gnosis of which the Christ is the fulfilment and</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal demonstration, and the restoration of which was prophesied</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Jesus as to mean the Regeneration of the Church and</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">the establishment of the divine kingdom on earth&mdash;Mysticism and</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Occultism, the distinction between them, and the necessity of</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">both physical and spiritual science to a perfect system of thought</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">and rule of life&mdash;Conclusion.</span></td><td align="right">184-204</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</a></span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[xxiii]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="ABBREVIATIONS" id="ABBREVIATIONS"></a>ABBREVIATIONS.</h2></div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>A.K., for Anna Kingsford.</p>
+
+<p>B.O.A.I., for "The Bible's Own Account of Itself," by
+E.M.; second edition, 1905.</p>
+
+<p>C.W.S., for "Clothed With The Sun," being the book
+of the Illuminations of A.K.; edited by
+E.M., 1889.</p>
+
+<p>D. and D.-S., for "Dreams and Dream-Stones," by A.K.,
+edited by E.M.; second edition, 1888.</p>
+
+<p>E.C.U., for "The Esoteric Christian Union," founded
+by E.M. in 1891.</p>
+
+<p>E. and I., for "England and Islam; or, The Counsel of
+Caiaphas," by E.M., 1877.</p>
+
+<p>E.M., for Edward Maitland.</p>
+
+<p>Life A.K., for "The Life of Anna Kingsford," by E.M.,
+1896.</p>
+
+<p>P.W., for "The Perfect Way; or, The Finding of Christ,"
+by A.K. and E.M.; third edition, revised,
+1890.</p>
+
+<p>Statement, E.C.U., for "The New Gospel of Interpretation;
+being an Abstract of the Doctrine
+and Statement of the Objects of the
+Esoteric Christian Union," by E.M.;
+revised and enlarged edition, 1892.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6">
+<p class="tdc">
+BIRMINGHAM:<br />
+THE RUSKIN PRESS, RUSKIN HOUSE,<br />
+STAFFORD STREET.<br />
+<small>1905.</small><br /></p></div>
+
+
+<div class="p6" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 370px;">
+<img src="images/illus024-2.jpg" width="370" height="600" alt="Edward Maitland" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Edward Maitland</span>
+</div>
+<div class="p6" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;">
+<img src="images/illus026-2.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="Anna Kingsford" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Anna Kingsford</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6">
+<h1><a name="THE" id="THE"></a>THE
+
+STORY OF ANNA KINGSFORD AND<br />
+
+EDWARD MAITLAND</h1></div>
+
+<h5>AND</h5>
+
+<h1>OF THE NEW GOSPEL OF<br />
+
+INTERPRETATION.</h1>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE VOCATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>My colleague in the work, the history of which I
+am about to render some account, was the late
+Anna Kingsford, <i>née</i> Bonus, M.D. of the
+University of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>There was a link between her husband's family
+and mine, but we were not personally acquainted
+until, in the summer of 1873, she was led by reading
+one of my books<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> to open a correspondence
+with me, which disclosed so striking a community
+between us of ideas, aims, and methods, that I
+accepted an invitation to visit her at her husband's
+rectory at Pontesbury, Salop, in Shropshire, for
+the sake of a fuller discussion of them. <a name="This_visit" id="This_visit"></a>This visit
+which lasted nearly a fortnight, took place in
+February, 1874<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[2]</span></p>
+<p>The account I received of her history was in this
+wise. Born at Stratford, in Essex, on the 16th
+September, 1846, long after the last of her many
+brothers and sisters, and endowed with the most
+fragile of constitutions and liabilities the most
+distressing of bodily weakness and suffering, and
+differing widely, moreover, in temperament from
+all with whom she was associated, her young life
+had enjoyed but a scanty share of human sympathy,
+and was largely one of solitude and meditation,
+and such as to foster the highly artistic,
+idealistic, and mystic tendencies with which she
+was born. Singularly energetic of will, and
+conscious of powers both transcending in degree
+and differing in kind from any that she recognised
+in others, she assiduously exercised her
+faculties in many and various directions in the
+hope of discovering the special direction in which
+her mission lay. For, from her earliest childhood
+she had been conscious of a mission, for the accomplishment
+of which she had expressly come into
+<span class="pagenum">[3]</span>the earth-life. And she claimed even to have distinct
+recollection of having been strongly dissuaded
+from coming, on account of the terrible
+suffering which awaited her in the event of her
+assuming a body of flesh. Indeed, so little conscious
+was she of the reality of her human
+parentage that she was wont to look upon herself
+as a suppositious child of fairy origin; and on her
+first visit to the pantomime, when the fairies made
+their appearance on the stage, she declared that
+they were her proper people, and cried and
+struggled to get to them with such vehemence that
+it was necessary to remove her from the theatre.
+Among her amusements, her chief delight was in
+the ample gardens around her homes at Stratford
+and Blackheath, where she would hold familiar
+converse with the flowers, putting into their
+petals tiny notes for her lost relatives, the fairies,
+who in return would visit her in her dreams and
+assure her of their continued affection, and counsel
+her to have patience and courage.</p>
+
+<p>The chief occupation of her girlhood was the
+writing of poems and tales<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> which were tinged
+with an exquisite mysticism, and showed a ripeness
+of soul and maturity of feeling and knowledge
+wholly unaccountable for by her years, her
+experiences, or her physical heredity. At school
+she always obtained the first prizes for composition,
+and her faculty of improvisation was the delight
+of her companions; the subjects of these her earlier
+romances being lovely princesses, gallant knights,
+<span class="pagenum">[4]</span>castles, dragons, and the like, when&mdash;as may readily
+be supposed&mdash;her tall and slender frame, long
+golden hair, delicacy of complexion, deep-set
+hazel eyes, beauty of feature, the brow and the
+mouth being especially notable, the brightness of
+her looks, vivacity of her manner, her musical
+voice, and the easy eloquence of her diction,&mdash;all
+combined to make her an ideal heroine for her
+own romances. She could hardly, however, be
+said to be a <i>persona grata</i> with her pastors and
+masters. For while her independence of character
+and strength of will were apt to bring her into
+conflict with rules and regulations of which she
+failed to recognise the need, her thirst for knowledge,
+especially on religious subjects, prompted
+her to the proposition of questions which were
+highly embarrassing to her teachers; and nothing
+that they could say succeeded in convincing her
+that her duty lay in believing what she was told,
+and not in understanding it. She very early learnt
+to resent the disabilities of her sex, and to insist
+that they were not real but artificial, the result of
+masculine selfishness and injustice. This hatred of
+injustice and its correlative cruelty, especially
+towards animals, attained in her the force and
+dignity of a passion, her sensitiveness on this score
+making the chief mental misery of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Of one gift possessed by her she early learnt to
+repress the manifestation. This was the faculty
+for seeing apparitions and divining the characters
+and fortunes of people. For she was a born seer.
+But the inability of her elders to comprehend the
+faculty, and their consequent ascription of it to
+pathological causes, were wont to lead to references
+to the family doctor with results so eminently<span class="pagenum">[5]</span>
+disagreeable and even injurious to her, as soon to
+suggest the wisdom of keeping silence respecting
+her experiences.</p>
+
+<p>Her first published compositions were written
+at the age of thirteen<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>, the editors who accepted
+her contributions to their magazines being under
+the impression that they came from a grown-up
+person and not from the mere child that she was.
+They cost her, she assured me, little labour,
+especially the poems, but seemed to come to her
+ready-made, and to flow through her spontaneously.
+And whatever the country in which their
+scene lay, the local colouring and descriptions were
+always faithful and vivid, as if the places and their
+inhabitants were familiar and even actually
+visible to her.</p>
+
+<p>It was not, however, to any encouragement of
+her peculiar gifts that such excellency as she
+exhibited was due. Rather were they severely
+repressed, especially in respect of drawing, singing
+and music, lest she should be tempted to
+follow them as a profession; a fear which had been
+excited by the suggestions of her masters that she
+would be certain of success in any of those lines.</p>
+
+<p>Her innate consciousness of a mission seemed to
+her to indicate her as destined for some redemptive
+work, not only for others, but also for herself.
+For, while the instincts of the Champion and the
+Saviour were potent in her, she was dimly conscious
+of its possessing also an expiatory element,
+<span class="pagenum">[6]</span>in virtue of which her own salvation would largely
+depend upon her endeavours to save others. She
+had as yet no theory whereby to explain this or any
+other of the problems she was to herself. All that
+she knew was that she possessed, or rather was
+possessed of, these feelings and impulses. It was
+easy to see by her account of herself that she was
+as one driven of the Spirit long before the Spirit
+definitely revealed itself to her. The two departments
+of humanity which she felt especially
+impelled to succour and save were her own sex
+and the animals. For she would recognise no hard
+and fast line between masculine and feminine,
+human and animal, or even between animal and
+plant. In her eyes everything that lived was
+humanity, only in different stages of its unfoldment.
+Even the flowers were persons for her.</p>
+
+<p>As she approached womanhood she found herself
+looking forward to marriage far less for its own
+sake than as a means of emancipation from restrictions
+on her choice of a career. Her father died
+while she was yet wanting two or three years of
+her majority, leaving her mistress of an income
+ample for a single woman. And when at length
+she became engaged to Algernon Godfrey Kingsford,
+a cousin to whom she had some time been
+attached, it was on the understanding that she
+should remain unfettered in this respect. He held
+at the time a post in the Civil Service; but soon
+after their marriage, which took place on the last
+day of 1867, determined to read for holy orders.
+This gave her an opportunity for making herself
+acquainted with Anglican theology, of which&mdash;thirsting
+for knowledge of all kinds&mdash;she eagerly
+availed herself, accompanying him in all his<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p7" id="p7"></a>7]</span>
+studies, and greatly facilitating them by her
+admirable scholarly methods. This proved to be
+the first great step in her religious and intellectual
+training for her destined mission.</p>
+
+<p>One of the occupations of her early married life
+was the editing of a lady's magazine, which she
+purchased with a view of making it an instrument
+for the dissemination of her ideas especially in
+regard to her sex. And she accordingly took an
+active part in the movement then recently originated
+for the enfranchisement of women, achieving
+an extraordinary success as a public speaker. But,
+becoming convinced that their cause would be best
+advanced by the practical demonstration of their
+fitness for the promotion they sought, and also
+feeling her own need for the discipline of a severe
+intellectual training to balance the emotional side
+of her nature, she soon withdrew from active participation
+in the movement. She moreover recognised
+as a grave mistake the disposition evinced
+by her fellow-workers to suppress their womanliness
+in favour of a factitious masculinity, under
+the impression that they would thereby exalt their
+sex; her idea being, that their true policy lay in
+magnifying rather than in depreciating their
+womanhood. Meanwhile she had given birth to a
+daughter, her only child.</p>
+
+<p>Her magazine was given up after a couple of
+years, the results failing to justify the expenditure
+of time, labour and money, requisite for its continuance.
+Not that it lacked adequate support;
+but the principles on which she insisted on conducting
+it proved to be incompatible with
+commercial success. She resolutely refused all
+advertisements of articles, whether of food or of<span class="pagenum">[8]</span>
+clothing, of which she disapproved; and she had
+adopted the pythagorean regimen and discarded as
+unhygienic sundry articles of attire ordinarily
+deemed indispensable by her sex. It was in her
+magazine that she first struck the note which
+proved the initiation of the holy warfare since
+waged against the horrors of the physiological
+laboratory, a warfare in which she bore a foremost
+part and developed the malady of which she died.</p>
+
+<p>In 1870, a long and severe illness, which compelled
+her return to her mother's house at Hastings
+to be nursed, led to her entry upon another phase
+in her inner life, and a further stage in the process
+of her education for her mission. She had early
+recoiled from the faith in which she had been
+reared. This was Protestantism in its most unlovely
+form, cold, harsh, narrow, dogmatic. Her closer
+acquaintance with it as a clergyman's wife had
+done nothing to mitigate her judgment of it.
+Explaining nothing and lacking fervour and
+poetry, it left head and heart alike unsatisfied.
+Her residence as an invalid at Hastings brought
+her into intimacy with some devout Catholics, the
+effect of which was to intensify the repugnance
+already set up. She attended the Catholic services,
+and visited the sisters in the convent, reading their
+books of devotion and even making an extended
+study of Catholic doctrine, for she would do
+nothing by halves. She found what satisfied her
+heart and artistic tastes. But the chief determining
+cause of the change upon which she at
+length resolved, was her reception by night of
+sundry visitations, purporting to be of angelic
+nature, and enjoining on her, for the sake of the
+mission to which she was called&mdash;the knowledge of<span class="pagenum">[9]</span>
+which, she was told, would in due time be revealed
+to her&mdash;that she join the Roman communion.
+Well aware that the confession of such experiences,
+whether to her relations or to a minister of her own
+Church, would elicit only a smile of pity or contempt,
+with a recommendation to seek medical
+advice, and involve other contingencies equally
+distasteful, she resolved to see how the same confession
+would be treated by a Catholic priest.
+The result of the essay was that she was listened
+to with respect and sympathy, and informed that
+the Church fully recognised such visitations as
+coming within the divine order, and as being a
+token of high spiritual favour and grace; and while
+it refrained from pronouncing positively on them,
+considered that they ought not to be lightly disregarded.
+She was soon afterwards received into
+the Roman Church, being baptised on September
+14, 1870. On June 9, 1872, she was confirmed by
+Archbishop Manning, who admonished her to
+utilise her attractions in making converts. And
+on each occasion she received additional names,
+in virtue of which she now bore the names of all
+the five women who were by the Cross and at the
+Sepulchre.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, however, did she retain her independence
+of mind and conduct. She accepted no
+direction, and professed no tenet that she did not
+understand. And it was soon made clear to her
+that the Spirit, of whom she was being impelled,
+did not intend her to regard her adoption of
+Catholicism as more than a step in her education
+for the work required of her. For the following
+year saw her bent on seeking a medical degree,
+under the impression that such a step was in some<span class="pagenum">[10]</span>
+way related to the mission of which she had
+received such and so many mysterious intimations.
+And she had scarcely commenced her study of
+medicine when this impression was reinforced by
+the following incident, the scene of which was her
+home in Shropshire, in the parish of which her
+husband had then recently become incumbent,
+and where I first visited them.</p>
+
+<p>This was the receipt of a letter from a lady who
+was a stranger to her, written from a distant part
+of the country, and saying that she, the writer,
+had read with profound interest and admiration a
+story<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> of Mrs Kingsford which, after appearing
+in her magazine, had been published as a book, and
+that after reading it she had received from the
+Holy Spirit a message for her which was to be
+delivered in person. After some hesitation as to
+what reply to make, Mrs Kingsford&mdash;whose
+account I am following exactly&mdash;agreed to receive
+her; an appointment was made, and the stranger
+duly presented herself. She was tall, erect, distinguished
+looking, with hair of iron-grey and
+strangely brilliant eyes, and was perfectly calm
+and collected of demeanour. The message was to
+the effect that Mrs Kingsford was to remain in
+retirement for five years, continuing the studies
+and mode of life on which she had entered, whatever
+they might be&mdash;for that the messenger did not
+know&mdash;and to suffer nothing and no one to draw
+her aside from them. That when these probationary
+<span class="pagenum">[11]</span>five years were past, the Holy Spirit would bring
+her forth from her seclusion, and a great work
+would be given her to do. All this was uttered
+with a rapt and inspired expression, as though she
+had been a Sibyl pronouncing an oracle. After
+delivering her message, the messenger kissed her
+on both cheeks and departed, first asking only
+whether she thought her mad; a question to which
+for a moment Mrs Kingsford found it somewhat
+difficult to make reply. But only for a moment.
+For then there rushed on her the conviction that
+it was all genuine and true, and was but a fresh
+unfoldment of the mystery of her life and destiny,
+and in full accordance with her own foreshadowings
+from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>Some four years later, at a time when Mrs
+Kingsford was in great straits for want of a suitable
+home in London in which to carry on her
+studies, the same lady was similarly commissioned
+on her behalf, while totally ignorant both of her
+whereabouts and her need, and with results entirely
+satisfactory. On which occasion I had the privilege
+of making her acquaintance, and the satisfaction
+of finding her not merely perfectly sane,
+but a person entitled to the highest consideration,
+noted for her pious devotion to works of beneficence
+involving complete self-abnegation; and in
+short a veritable "Mother in Israel."</p>
+
+<p>The event above related occurred in the spring
+of 1873, the summer of which year saw Mrs Kingsford
+impelled to do what led to the most crucial of
+the events upon which her destined mission hinged,
+namely, to write to me the letter which led to my
+visit to her home. In the autumn of the same year
+she passed her matriculation examination at the<span class="pagenum">[12]</span>
+Apothecaries' Hall with success so great as to fill
+her with high hopes of a triumphant passage
+through the course of her student-life. But immediately
+afterwards her hopes were dashed, for the
+English medical authorities saw fit to close their
+schools to women, and the way to her anticipated
+career was shut against her.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the position when, in February, 1874,
+I visited the Shropshire rectory, and such in brief
+the history which was gradually unfolded to me as
+my evident sympathy and appreciation gained the
+confidence of the still young couple, whose senior
+I was by some twenty years. Both husband and
+wife were at their wits' end, the situation being
+aggravated by a circumstance which was first
+brought to my knowledge on my suggestion of the
+postponement of her design until such time as the
+medical authorities should come to their right
+minds and re-open their schools to women. The
+circumstance in question was her terrible liability
+on the ground of ill-health, and especially of
+asthma, to which she was a martyr, life in the
+country being impossible to her for the greater
+part of the year, when it was only in some large
+city that she was able to breathe. With the schools
+closed against her in England, her thoughts turned
+towards France, the University of Paris being open
+to women. But for obvious reasons her husband,
+who could not absent himself from his duties to
+accompany her, would not consent to her going
+thither unless under suitable protection. For himself
+he had but one wish, that she should follow her
+bent and fashion her life as seemed best to her;
+for he recognised her as entitled by her endowments
+and aspirations, as well as by the terms of<span class="pagenum">[13]</span>
+their engagement, to full liberty of action, while
+the conditions of her health claimed all consideration
+from him. If, indeed, the Gods had destined
+her for a mission requiring freedom of action combined
+with the shelter and support of a husband's
+name, it seemed to me that in him they had created
+a man expressly for the office. For some time,
+however, the difficulty seemed insuperable, and
+one that would yield to no amount of deliberation,
+even with the best will of all concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile her self-revelations continued, being
+evidently prompted, at least as much by the
+desire to obtain some explanation of herself
+for herself, to whom she was, she avowed,
+a complete puzzle, as by the desire to elicit
+answering confidences from me. And they
+became with each disclosure more and more
+striking, until I could hardly resist the conviction
+that she was possessed of some faculty in virtue
+of which she was able to have direct perception of
+conclusions to which I had won my way by dint
+of long and arduous thinking, and in some
+instances in advance of me. She had read my
+mental history between the lines of my books,
+and was fully prepared to learn that I too had a
+consciousness, analogous to her own, of a mission
+in life perhaps also analogous to her own.</p>
+
+<p>This, I was able to assure her, was indeed the
+case, and that all my books had been written in
+the idea of finding my way to it by dint of free,
+unfettered thinking. For, brought up in the
+strictest of evangelical sects, I had even as a lad
+begun to be revolted by the creed in which I was
+reared, and had very early come to regard its
+tenets, especially of total depravity and vicarious<span class="pagenum">[14]</span>
+atonement, as a libel nothing short of blasphemous
+against both God and man, and to feel that no
+greater boon could be bestowed on the world than
+its emancipation from the bondage of a belief so
+degrading and so destructive of any lofty ideal.
+I had felt strongly that only in such measure as
+I might be the means of its abolition would my life
+be a success and a satisfaction to myself. It even
+seemed to me that my own credit was involved
+in the matter; and that in disproving such beliefs
+I should be vindicating my own character. For
+if God were evil, as those doctrines made Him, I
+could by no possibility be good, since I must have
+my derivation from Him. And I knew that, however
+weak and unwise I might be, I was not evil.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, my life, like hers, had been one of
+much isolation and meditation. I had felt myself
+a stranger even with my closest intimates. For
+I was always conscious of a difference which
+separated me from them, and of a side to which
+they could not have access. I had graduated at
+Cambridge with the design of taking orders; but
+only to find that I could not do so conscientiously,
+and to feel that to commit myself to any conditions
+incompatible with absolute freedom of thought
+and expression would be a treachery against both
+myself and my kind;&mdash;for it was for no merely personal
+end that I wanted to discover the truth. I
+longed to get away from all my surroundings in
+order, first, to think myself out of all that I had
+been taught, and so to make my mind as a clean
+sheet whereon to receive true impressions and at
+first hand; and, next, to think myself into a condition
+and to a level wherein I could see all things&mdash;myself,
+nature, and God&mdash;face to face, with<span class="pagenum">[15]</span>
+vision undimmed and undistorted by beliefs which,
+being inherited only and traditional, instead of
+the result of conviction honestly arrived at, were
+factitious and unreal; no living outcome of my
+own growth and observation, but a veritable straitwaistcoat,
+stifling life and restraining development.
+And so it had come that&mdash;as related in my
+first novel, "The Pilgrim and the Shrine"<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>,
+which was essentially autobiographical&mdash;I had
+eagerly fallen in with a proposal to join an expedition
+to the then newly-discovered placers of
+California, an enterprise which, besides promising
+to gratify the love for adventure, physical as well
+as mental, which was strong in me, would postpone
+if not solve the difficulty of my position. It
+possessed, moreover, the high recommendation of
+taking me to the world of the fresh, unsophisticated
+West, instead of to that East which had
+been made almost hateful to me by its association
+with the tenets by which existence had been
+poisoned for me.</p>
+
+<p>So, setting my face towards the sunset, I became
+one of the band of "Forty-niners" in California,
+and remained abroad in the continents and isles of
+the Pacific, from America passing to Australia,
+until the intended year of my absence had grown
+into nearly ten years, and I had experienced well-nigh
+every vicissitude and extreme which might
+serve to heighten the consciousness, toughen the
+fibre, and try the soul of man. But throughout all,
+the idea of a mission remained with me, gathering
+force and consistency, until it was made clear to
+<span class="pagenum">[16]</span>me that not destruction merely, but construction,
+not the exposure of error but the demonstration
+of truth, was comprised in it. For I saw that it
+was possible to reduce religion to a series of first
+principles, necessary truths and self-evident propositions,
+and that only in such measure as it was
+thus reduced and discerned, was it really true and
+really believed;&mdash;in short, that faith and knowledge
+are identical. To accept a religion on the
+ground that one had been born in it, and apart
+from its appeal to the mind and moral conscience,
+and thus to make it dependent upon the accident
+of birth and parentage, was to resemble the African
+savage who for the same reason worships Mumbo
+Jumbo. How, moreover,&mdash;I asked myself&mdash;could
+a religion which was not in accord with first
+principles, represent a God, Who, to be God, must
+Himself be the first of, and must comprise all
+principles; must account logically for all the facts
+of consciousness, be it unfolded as far as it may?
+Granting that, as the poet says, "an honest man's
+the noblest work of God," it was for me no less true
+that "an honest God's the noblest work of man."
+And it was precisely such a being that I longed to
+elaborate out of, or discover in, my own consciousness,
+confident that the achievement meant the
+solution of all problems, the rectification of all
+difficulties, the satisfaction of all aspirations, intellectual,
+moral, and spiritual. Following such
+trains of thought, I arrived at the assurance that
+I had within my own consciousness both the
+truth itself and the verification of the truth, and
+that it remained only to find these.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to England in 1857, and, after an
+interval, devoting myself to literature, all that I<span class="pagenum">[17]</span>
+wrote, whether essay or fiction, represented the
+endeavour by probing the consciousness to the
+utmost in every direction to discover a central,
+radiant, and indefeasible point from which all
+things could be deduced, and on which, as a pivot
+they must depend and revolve. I read largely,
+and went much among people, always in search
+of aid in my quest; but only with the result of
+finding that neither from books nor from persons
+could I even begin to get what I sought, but only
+from thought.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile everything seemed ordered with a
+view to the end ultimately attained. For, so far
+from having left behind me for ever the vicissitudes,
+and struggles, and trials, and ordeals, in
+which the wildernesses of the western and southern
+worlds had been so fruitful, I was found of them
+in the old world to which I had returned; and this
+in number, kind, and degree, such as to make it
+appear as if what I had borne before had been
+inflicted expressly for the purpose of enabling me
+to bear what was put upon me now. And it was
+only when I had learnt by experience that the very
+capacity for thought is enhanced by feeling no
+less than by thinking, that the "ministry of pain"
+found its explanation. For the feeling required of
+me proved to be that of the inner, not merely of
+the outer man, of the soul, not merely of the body;
+and the faculty, to be the intuition, and not merely
+the intellect. Hence I was made to learn by experience,
+long before the fact was formulated for me
+in words, that only "by the bruising of the outer,
+the inner is set free," and "man is alive only so far
+as he has felt."</p>
+
+<p>Everything seemed contrived expressly in order<span class="pagenum">[18]</span>
+to force me in this inward direction. Even in my
+literary work, nothing of the "trade" element
+was permitted to intrude. I could not write
+except when writing to or from my own centre.
+Faculty itself was shut off, if turned to any other
+purpose. Everything I wrote must minister to and
+represent a step in my own unfoldment.</p>
+
+<p>I can confidently affirm that the only books
+which really helped me were, with scarcely an
+exception, those which I wrote myself. Of the
+exceptions the chief was Emerson. His essays had
+been my <i>vade mecum</i> in all my world-wide wanderings.
+And there were three sentences of his which, to
+use his own phrase, "found" me as no others had
+done. They were these: "The talent is the call";
+"I the imperfect adore my own perfect"; and,
+"Beware when God lets loose a thinker on the
+earth." Like Emerson himself, I had yet to learn
+that man's own perfect is God, and self-culture is
+God-culture, provided the self be the inmost self.
+The two other books which most helped me were
+Bailey's "Festus," and Carlyle's "Hero-Worship."
+And I owed something to Tucker's "Light of
+Nature." By which it will be seen that my affinity
+was always for the prophets rather than the priests
+of literature; for the intuitionalists rather than
+the externalists.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually two leading ideas took definite form
+in my mind, which, however, proved to be but two
+aspects or applications of one and the same idea.
+And that idea proved to be the keynote of all that
+I was seeking after. For it finally solved the
+problems of existence, of religion, of the Bible,
+of Being itself. Hence the necessity of this reference
+to it.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[19]</span></p>
+
+<p>This idea was that of a duality subsisting
+in every unity, such as I had nowhere read or
+heard of. I was, of course, aware that the theological
+doctrine of the Trinity involved a Duality.
+But not of a kind to find a response in my mind.
+And being unable to assimilate it as it stood, I
+ignored it; putting it aside until it should present
+itself to me in an aspect in which it was intelligible.
+I felt, however vaguely, that the Duality
+I sought was in the Bible, though it had been
+missed by the official expositors of that book. And
+the conviction that it was in some way connected
+with my life-work was so strong that I constructed
+for the covers of my two first books a monogram
+symbolical of Genesis i. 27. And I looked to the
+unfoldment of what I felt to be the secret significance
+of that utterance for the explication of all
+the mysteries the solution of which engrossed me.
+The thought did not seem to originate in any of
+my experiences, but rather to be part of my
+original stock of innate ideas, supposing that there
+are such ideas, and to derive confirmation and
+explanation from my experiences.</p>
+
+<p>Those experiences were in this wise. It had been
+my privilege to have the friendship of several
+women of a type so noble that to know them was
+at once an education and a religion; women whose
+perfection of character had served more than anything
+else to make me believe in God, when all
+other grounds had failed. I could in no wise
+account for them on the hypothesis of a fortuitous
+concourse of unintelligent atoms. And not only
+did I find that the higher the type the more richly
+they were endowed with precisely the faculty of
+which I myself was conscious as distinguishing<span class="pagenum">[20]</span>
+me from my fellows; I found also that I was
+unable to recognise any woman as of a high type as
+woman save in so far as she was possessed of it. I
+had failed to find any who possessed the knowledge
+I craved, and who were thereby able to help me in
+my thought. They helped me nevertheless, but it
+was by <i>being</i> what they were, rather than by
+<i>knowing</i> and <i>doing</i>, be they admirable as they
+might in these respects. I recognised in them
+that which supplemented and complemented
+my mental self in such wise as to suggest
+unbounded possibilities of results to accrue
+from the intimate association of two minds thus
+attuned to each other, and duly unfolded by
+thought and study. It needed, it seemed to me,
+but the reverberation and intensification of
+thought, induced by the apposition of two minds
+thus related, for the production of the divine child
+Truth in the very highest spheres of thought. So
+that the results would by no means be restricted to
+the mere sum of the associated capacities of the
+two minds themselves. And in view of such high
+possibilities I found myself appropriating and
+applying the ejaculation which Virgil puts into the
+mouth of Anna when urging the union of her
+sister Dido with Æneas&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poemblock">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"Quæ surgere regna</span><br /><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conjugio tali!"<br /><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p class="noi">and I felt with Tennyson that</p>
+
+<p class="tdc">
+"They two together well might move the world."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>So boundless seemed to me the kingdoms of Truth,
+Goodness, and Beauty which would spring from
+such conjunction.</p>
+
+<p>It goes without saying that such relationship
+was contemplated by me only as the accompani<span class="pagenum">[21]</span>ment
+of a happy re-marriage. [For I had married
+in Australia only to be widowered after a year's
+wedlock.] But such a prospect was so long withheld
+as to make me dubious of its realisation<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>.
+Nevertheless, some inner voice was ever saying:
+"Wait; wait. Everything comes to him who waits,
+provided only he do so in faith and patience,
+looking to the highest." But that I did wait, and
+accordingly kept myself free for what ultimately
+was assigned to me, was due far less to the expectation
+of finding that for which I waited, than to
+the vivid consciousness which I had of the bitterness
+that would come of finding it, only to be
+withheld from it through a previous disposal of
+myself in some other and incompatible quarter.
+This was an impression which served largely to
+keep my life as free as I desired my thought to be.
+But that the as yet undisclosed arbiters of my destiny
+deemed it insufficient as a deterrent, appeared
+from their reinforcement of it in a manner which
+effectually debarred me from marriage save on the
+condition, impossible to me, of a mercenary
+alliance. This was a reversal of fortune through a
+succession of losses so serious as to be the cause of
+reducing my means to the minimum compatible
+with existence at all in my own station, which soon
+afterwards happened. That there were yet further
+reasons for this imposition on me of the rule of
+poverty, arising out of the nature of the work
+required of me, was in due time made manifest,
+and also what those reasons were. They need not
+be specified here, excepting only this one. It made
+<span class="pagenum">[22]</span>impossible the ascription to my destined colleague
+of mercenary motives for her association with me.
+In this I came to recognise a delicate providence
+for which I felt I could not be too thankful. In
+the meantime, even while smarting severely from
+this dispensation, and others yet more bitter which
+were heaped on me for no apparent cause or fault
+of my own that I could discern, the thought that
+most of all served to sustain me under what I felt
+would have utterly broken down in heart or head,
+or in both of these organs, any other person whatever
+of whom I had knowledge,&mdash;that thought
+was the surmise or suspicion that all these things,
+hard to bear as they were, and undeserved as they
+seemed, might prove to be blessings in disguise, in
+ministering to the realisation of the controlling
+ambition of my life by educating me for it; and
+that according to the manner in which I bore them
+might be the result.</p>
+
+<p>There is yet one more personal disclosure essential
+to this part of my relation. It concerns my
+own mental standpoint at the time at which my
+narrative has arrived. Bent as I was on penetrating
+the secret of things at first hand, and by
+means of a thought absolutely free, I was never
+for a moment disposed to turn, as my so-called
+free-thinking contemporaries one and all had
+turned, a scornful back upon whatever related to or
+savoured of the current religion. Scripture and
+dogma were not for me necessarily either false or
+inscrutable because their official exponents had
+presented them in an aspect which outraged my
+reason and revolted my conscience. I felt bound&mdash;if
+only in justice to them and myself&mdash;at least
+to find out what they did mean before finally dis<span class="pagenum">[23]</span>carding
+them. And in this act of justice I was
+strangely sustained by a sense of the possibility
+that the truth, if any, contained in them, was no
+other than that of which I was in search. This is
+to say, that in all my investigations I kept before
+me the idea that, if I could discern the actual
+nature of existence and the intended sense of the
+Bible and Christianity, independently of each
+other, they might prove on comparison to be identical;
+in which case the latter would really
+represent a true revelation. Meanwhile, I found
+myself constrained to believe, as an axiomatic
+proposition, that the higher and nobler the conception
+I framed in my imagination of the nature
+of existence, and the more in accordance with my
+ideas of what, to be perfect, the constitution of the
+universe ought to be, the nearer I should come to
+the actual truth.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly with religion. For a religion to be true,
+it must, I felt absolutely assured, be ideally perfect
+after the most perfect ideal that we can frame.
+This is to say, that not only must it be in itself
+such as to satisfy both head and heart, mind and
+moral conscience, spirit and soul; it must also be
+perfectly simple, obviously reasonable, coherent,
+self-evident, founded in the nature of things,
+incapable&mdash;when once comprehended&mdash;of being
+conceived of as otherwise, absolutely equitable,
+eternally true, and recognisable as being all these,
+invariable in operation, independent of all accidents
+of time, place, persons and events, and
+comparable to the demonstration of a mathematical
+problem in that it needs no testimony or authority
+beyond those of the mind; and requiring for its
+efficacious observance, nothing that is extraneous<span class="pagenum">[24]</span>
+or inaccessible to the subject-individual, but within
+his ability to recognise and fulfil, provided only
+that he so will. It must also be such as to enable
+him by the observance of it to turn his existence
+to the highest possible account imaginable by him,
+be his imagination as developed as it may: and
+all this as independently of any being other than
+himself, as if he were the sole personal entity in
+the universe, and were himself the universe. That
+is to say, the means of a man's perfectionment
+must inhere in his own system, and he must be
+competent of himself effectually to apply them.
+It is further necessary, because equitable, that he
+be allowed sufficient time and opportunity for the
+discovery, understanding and application of such
+means.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the terms and conditions of an ideally
+perfect religion, as I conceived of them. It is a
+definition which excludes well-nigh, if not quite,
+all the characteristics ordinarily regarded as appertaining
+to religion, and notably to that of
+Christendom. For in excluding everything
+extraneous to the actual subject-individual, and
+requiring religion to be self-evident and necessarily
+true, it excludes as superfluous and irrelevant,
+history, tradition, authority, revelation, as
+ordinarily conceived of, ecclesiastical ordinance,
+priestly ministration, mediatorial function, vicarious
+satisfaction, and even the operation of Deity
+as subsisting without and apart from the man, all
+of which are essential elements in the accepted
+conception of religion. Nevertheless, profound as
+was my distrust of the faithfulness of the orthodox
+presentation, I could not reconcile myself to a
+renunciation of the originals on which that pre<span class="pagenum">[25]</span>sentation
+was founded, until I had satisfied myself
+that I had fathomed their intended and real
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>I had, moreover, very early conceived a personal
+affection for Jesus as a man, so strong as to
+serve as a deterrent both from abandoning the
+faith founded on Him, and from accepting it as it
+is as worthy of Him.</p>
+
+<p>Such was my standpoint, intellectual and religious,
+at the period in question. The time came
+when it found full justification; our results being
+such as to verify it in everyone of its manifold
+aspects. And not this only. The doctrine which
+had so mysteriously evolved itself out of my consciousness
+to attain by slow degrees the position
+of a controlling influence in my life, the doctrine,
+namely of a Duality subsisting in the Original
+Unity of Underived Being, and as inhering therefore
+in every unit of derived being, this doctrine
+proved to be the key to the mysteries both of
+Creation and of Redemption, as propounded in the
+Bible and manifested in the Christ; the key also
+to the nature of man, disclosing the facts both of
+his possession of divine potentialities as his birthright,
+and his endowment with the faculty whereby
+to discern and to realise them. And while it proved
+constructive in respect of Divine Truth, it proved
+destructive in respect of the falsification of that
+truth which had passed for orthodoxy, by disclosing
+the source, the motive, the method and the
+agents of that falsification.</p>
+
+<p>But these things were still in the future. At
+the time with which we are now concerned, I had
+commenced a book to represent the standpoint just
+described, "The Keys of the Creeds." The first<span class="pagenum">[26]</span>
+and initial draft of that book was written under
+the sympathetic eye of one of the order of noble
+women to which reference has been made, and
+owed much to the enhancement of faculty derived
+by me from such conjunction of minds. The second
+and final draft was written under like relationship
+with another member of the self-same order,
+even she who proved to be my destined collaborator
+in the work of which this book recounts the story.
+It was published in 1875. It is necessary only to
+say further of the book thus produced, that notwithstanding
+certain defects of expression, due
+chiefly to an insufficient acquaintance with the
+terminology of metaphysics, it proved an invaluable
+help to very many, as was amply shown by
+the letters of grateful appreciation received from
+them by me. The keynote was that which afterwards
+found expression in the utterance,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is no enlightenment from without: the
+secret of things is revealed from within.</p>
+
+<p>"From without cometh no Divine Revelation:
+but the Spirit within beareth witness"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>For the lesson it contained was the lesson that
+the phenomenal world cannot disclose its own
+secret. To find this, man must seek in that substantial
+world which lies within himself, since all
+that is real is within the man. From which it
+followed that if there is no within, or if that within
+be inaccessible, either there is no reality, or man
+has no organon of knowledge, and is by constitution
+agnostic. Meanwhile, the very fact of my
+<span class="pagenum">[27]</span>possession of an ideal exempt from the limitations
+of the apparent, constituted for me a strong presumption
+in favour of the reality of the ideal.</p>
+
+<p>The moment of contact between my destined
+colleague and myself, was as critical for one as for
+the other, only that in my case the crisis was
+intellectual. I could see to the end of the argument
+I was then elaborating; and that it landed
+me close to the dividing barrier between the two
+worlds of sense and spirit, supposing the latter to
+have any being<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>. But I neither saw beyond, nor
+knew how to ascertain whether or not there is a
+beyond. We were discussing the question of there
+being an inner sense in Scripture, such as my book
+suggested; and whether, supposing it to have such
+a sense, it required for its discernment any faculty
+more recondite than a subtle imagination; and if
+it did, is there such a faculty? and what is its
+nature? By which it will be seen that I was still
+in ignorance of the nature of the faculty I found in
+myself and recognised as especially subsisting in
+women, and which, for me, really made the
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>The reply rendered by her to these questionings
+constituted the proof positive that I had at length
+discovered the mind which my own had so long
+craved as its sorely needed complement. In response
+to them she gave me a manuscript in her own
+writing, asking me to read it and tell her frankly
+what I thought of it. Having read and re-read it, I
+<span class="pagenum">[28]</span>enquired how and where she had got it. She replied
+by asking what I thought of it. I answered, "If
+there is such a thing as divine revelation, I know
+of nothing that comes nearer to my ideal of what
+it ought to be. It is exactly what the world is
+perishing for want of&mdash;a reasonable faith." She
+then told me that it had come to her in her sleep,
+but whence or how she did not know; nor could
+she say whether she had seen it or heard it, but
+only that it came suddenly into her mind, without
+her having ever heard or thought of such teaching
+before. It was an exposition of the Story of the
+Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a significance
+purely spiritual, wholly reasonable, and of
+universal application, physical persons, things,
+and events described in it disappearing in favour
+of principles, processes, and states appertaining to
+the soul; no mere local history, therefore, but an
+eternal verity. The experience, she went on to
+tell me, was far from exceptional; she had
+received many things which had greatly struck
+and pleased her in the same way, and sometimes
+while in the waking state in a sort of day-dream.
+It was subsequently incorporated into our book,
+"The Perfect Way."</p>
+
+<p>Her account of her faculty, of which she related
+several instances, produced a profound impression
+on me. It differed altogether from any that
+I had heard of as claimed by the votaries of
+"Spiritualism," a creed to which neither of us
+had assented; such little experience as we had of
+it having failed to convince us of the genuineness
+of its phenomena; though she, on her part, confessed
+to having been somewhat at a loss to account
+for some things she had seen. But though not<span class="pagenum">[29]</span>
+spiritualists, we were not materialists. Rather
+were we idealists, who had yet to learn and, as the
+event proved, were destined shortly to learn, that
+the Ideal <i>is</i> the Real, and is Spiritual.</p>
+
+<p>The event also proved that in order to learn it
+and to know it positively by experience, there
+were two conditions to be fulfilled, on both of
+which she had already entered, but I had yet to
+enter. One of these conditions was physical, the
+other was emotional. The former consisted in the
+renunciation of flesh-food in favour of a diet
+derived from the vegetable kingdom. The latter
+condition consisted in the kindling of our enthusiasm
+for the ideal into a flame of such ardour and
+intensity as to make it the dominant passion of
+our lives, and one in which all others would be
+swallowed up. It was to be an enthusiasm at once
+for Humanity, for Perfection, for God.</p>
+
+<p>Had we been in any degree instructed in spiritual
+or occult science, we should have known that the
+renunciation of flesh-food, though in itself a
+physical act, has ever been recognised by
+initiates as the prime essential in the unfoldment
+of the spiritual faculties; since only when man is
+purely nourished can he attain clearness and fulness
+of spiritual perception. As it was, neither of
+us had ever heard of occult science, or of the
+necessity of such a regimen to the perfectionment
+of faculty. She had adopted it on grounds physiological,
+chemical, hygienic, æsthetic, and moral;
+not on grounds mental or spiritual. I now undertook
+to adopt it partly on the same grounds which
+had influenced her, and partly with a view to
+enhance and consolidate the sympathy subsisting<span class="pagenum">[30]</span>
+between us. The mental and spiritual advantages
+of the regimen made themselves known to us by
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>The other condition found its fulfilment through
+the knowledge I derived from her of the methods
+of the physiologists. That savages, sorcerers,
+brigands, religious fanatics, and corrupt priesthoods
+had always been wont to make torture their
+gain or their pastime, I was well aware, and
+believed that evolution would sweep them and
+their practices away in its course. But the discovery
+now first made to me that identical barbarities
+are systematically perpetrated by the
+leaders of modern science on the pretext of
+benefiting humanity, in an age which claims to
+represent the summit of such evolution as has yet
+been accomplished; and that after all its boasts,
+the best that science can do for the world is to
+convert it into a hell and its population into fiends,
+by the deliberate renunciation of the distinctive
+sentiments of humanity,&mdash;this was a discovery
+which filled me with unspeakable horror and
+amazement, at once raising to a white heat the
+enthusiasm of love for the ideal already kindled
+within me, and adding to it a like enthusiasm of
+detestation for its opposite. From which it came
+that I found myself under the impulsion simultaneously
+of two mighty influences, the one
+attracting, the other repelling, but both operating
+in the same direction. For while by the
+former I was drawn upwards by the beauty of
+an ideal indefinitely enhanced by its contrast with
+the foul actual below, by the latter I was impelled
+upwards by the hideousness of that actual. The
+sight of the moral abyss disclosed to me in Vivi<span class="pagenum">[31]</span>section,
+as I perused volume after volume of the
+annals of the practice written by the perpetrators
+themselves, and now first made accessible to me,
+effectually purged out of my system any particle
+of dilettanteism that might have still lurked in it,
+compelling me to regard as of the utmost urgency
+all and more than all that I had hitherto contemplated
+doing deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>This was the construction of a system of thought
+which by force of its appeal to both those two
+indispensable constituents of humanity, the head
+and the heart, shall compel acceptance from all
+persons really human, and in presence of which the
+whole system of which Vivisection was the typical
+outcome and symbol should vanish from off the
+earth. This system was Materialism of which only
+now did I discern the full significance. The
+systematic organisation of wholesale, protracted,
+uncompensatable torture, for ends purely selfish,
+was&mdash;I saw with absolute distinctness&mdash;not an
+accidental and avoidable outcome of Materialism,
+but its logical and inevitable outcome. And it was
+to the eradication of Materialism that, from that
+moment, I dedicated myself. It was a rescue work
+for both man and beast, seeing that humanity
+itself was menaced with extinction. For the
+materialist, of course, that which makes the man
+is the form. For me it was the character, and it
+was this, the character of mankind present and to
+come, that was at stake. For man demonised is
+no longer man. In the overthrow of Materialism,
+I saw absolutely, was salvation alone to be found,
+whether for man or beast. The consideration that
+only as an abstainer from flesh-food I could with
+entire consistency contend against vivisection, was<span class="pagenum">[32]</span>
+a potent factor in determining my change of diet.
+True, the distinction between death and torture
+was a broad one. But the statistics I now for the
+first time perused, of the slaughter-house and the
+cattle-traffic, showed beyond question, that torture,
+and this prolonged and severe, is involved in the
+use of animals for food as well as for science. And
+over and above this was the instinctive perception
+of the probability that neither would they who had
+them killed, whether for food, for sport, or for
+clothing, be allowed the privilege of rescuing them
+from the hands of the physiologist; nor would the
+animals be allowed to accept their deliverance at
+the hands of those who thus used them. They who
+would save others, we felt, must first make sacrifice
+in themselves. And in the presence of the joy of
+working to effect such salvation, sacrifice would
+cease to be sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>This, too, we noted, and with no small satisfaction&mdash;that
+to make the rescue of the animals
+an immediate and urgent motive, was in no way
+to abandon the original motive of hatred to the
+tenet of vicarious atonement. For we recognised
+vivisection itself as but the extension to the
+domain of science, of the very principle by which
+we had been inexpressibly revolted in the domain
+of religion;&mdash;the principle of seeking one's own
+salvation by the sacrifice of another, and that the
+innocent. And so we learnt that "New Scientist
+is but Old Priest writ differently,"&mdash;to vary
+Milton's expression; and that in both domains the
+tenet had its root in Materialism. When the time
+came for our mission to be more particularly
+defined, our satisfaction was unbounded on
+receiving the charge, "We mean you to lay bare<span class="pagenum">[33]</span>
+the secrets of the world's sacrificial system." It
+expressed with absolute conciseness and exactitude
+all that we had in our minds, far better than
+we could have expressed it.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of this question of vivisection
+in vitalising us for the work before us, will be
+seen by the following fact. The time came when
+we knew that the work committed to us was that
+revelation anew of the Christ which was to constitute
+His Second Advent, inasmuch as it was the
+interpretation of the truth of which He was the
+manifestation. It was to be a spiritual coming;
+in the "clouds of heaven," the heaven of the
+"kingdom within" of man's restored understanding.
+And, as at His first advent so at His second,
+He was to have His birth among the animals.</p>
+
+<p>And so it verily was. For&mdash;as I have elsewhere
+stated<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>&mdash;"Their terrible wrongs, culminating at
+the hands of their scientific tormentors, were the
+last drops which filled to overflowing with anguish,
+indignation and wrath, hearts already brimming
+with the sense of the world's degradation and
+misery, wringing from them the cry which rent
+the heavens for His descent, and in direct and
+immediate response to which He came.</p>
+
+<p>"For the New Gospel of Interpretation was
+vouchsafed in express recognition of the determined
+endeavour, by means of a thought absolutely
+fearless and free, to scale the topmost
+heights, fathom the lowest depths, and penetrate
+to the inmost recesses of Consciousness, in search
+of the solution of the problem of Existence, under
+the assured conviction that, when found, it would
+<span class="pagenum">[34]</span>prove to be one that would make above all things
+Vivisection impossible, if only by demonstrating
+the constitution of things to be such that, terrible
+as is the lot of the victims of the practice here,
+they are not without compensation hereafter, while
+the lot of their tormentors will be unspeakably
+worse than even that of their victims here. And
+so it proved, with absolute certainty to be the
+case, to the full vindication at the same time of
+the Divine Justice and the Divine Love;" no experience
+being withheld which would qualify us to
+bear positive testimony thereto. For, although at
+the outset we were, as I have said, in no wise
+believers in the possibility of such experiences,
+the time came, and came quickly, when the veil
+was withdrawn, and the secrets of the Beyond were
+disclosed to us in plenitude, in its every sphere,
+from the abyss of hell to the heights of heaven.
+And we learnt that this had become possible
+through the passionate energy with which, in our
+search for the highest truth, for the highest ends,
+and in purest love to redeem, we had directed our
+thought inwards and upwards, living at the same
+time the life requisite to qualify us for such perceptions.
+Thus did we obtain practical realisation
+of the promise that they who do the divine will, by
+living the divine life, shall know of the divine
+doctrine. Our whole mental attitude had been one
+of prayer in its essential sense; which is not that
+of <i>saying</i> prayers, but as it came to be defined for
+us&mdash;"the intense direction of the will and desire
+towards the Highest; an unchanging intent to
+know nothing but the Highest." Because "to
+think inwardly, to pray intensely, and to imagine
+centrally, is to hold converse with God." And we<span class="pagenum">[35]</span>
+had done this without knowing it was prayer, or
+calling it by that name. For, knowing only the
+conventional conception of prayer, we had recoiled
+from it as from other conventional conceptions of
+things religious.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, we found that we had done
+instinctively and spontaneously precisely what was
+necessary to bring us into relations at once with our
+spiritual selves and with the world of those who
+consist only of the spiritual self. For, by thus
+becoming vitalised and sensitive in that part of
+man's system which endures and passes on, we had
+come into open conditions with the world of those
+who have thus endured and passed on, and are no
+longer of the terrestrial, but of the celestial, having
+surmounted all lower and intermediate planes. All
+this came to us without anticipation on our part,
+or any conscious seeking for it; but yet without
+causing dismay or surprise when it came. For it
+came so gradually as to seem to be but the natural
+and orderly result of the unfoldment of our own
+spiritual consciousness, and excited only feelings
+of joy and thankfulness at finding our method and
+aspirations crowned with so high a success. Thus
+was it made absolutely clear to us that, so far from
+divine revelation involving miracle, or requiring
+for its instruments persons other in kind than the
+ordinary, it is a prerogative of man, belonging to
+him as man; and requiring for its reception only
+that he be fully man, alive and sensitive in his own
+innermost and highest, in his centre as in his
+circumference. Thus living on the quick and
+finding no others who did so, it seemed to us as if
+we alone were the quick, and all others were dead.</p>
+
+<p>We noted yet another way in which we supple<span class="pagenum">[36]</span>mented
+and complemented each other. It was in
+this wise. As I was bent on the construction of a
+system of thought which should be at once a
+science, a philosophy, a morality, and a religion,
+and recognisable by the understanding as indubitably
+true; she was bent on the construction of
+a rule of life equally obvious and binding, and
+recognisable by the sentiments as alone according
+with them, its basis being that sense of perfect
+justice which springs from perfect sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>By which it will be seen that while it was her
+aim to establish a perfect practice, which might or
+might not consist with a perfect doctrine, it was
+my aim to establish a perfect doctrine which would
+inevitably issue in a perfect practice, by at once
+defining it and supplying an all-compelling motive
+for its observance.</p>
+
+<p>These, as we at once recognised, were the two
+indispensable halves of one perfect whole. But we
+had yet to learn the nature and source of the compelling
+motive for its enforcement.</p>
+
+<p>The deficiency was made good by the discovery
+of the fact of man's permanence as an individual.
+The revelation of this truth was the demonstration
+to us of the inanity&mdash;not to use a stronger term&mdash;of
+the system called "Positivism." In ignoring
+the soul, that system lacks the motive and repudiates
+the source of the sentiments on which it
+insists, and to the experiences of which those sentiments
+are due.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[37]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE INITIATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>My visit to the rectory resulted in an intimacy
+which made me to such extent a member of the
+family as to remove all obstacles to the collaboration
+required of us. It was soon made evident
+that not only our association, but her design of
+seeking a medical education was for both of us an
+indispensable element in our preparation for our
+now recognised joint-mission. In its general
+aspect that mission had for its purpose the overthrow
+of Materialism, and in order to qualify us
+for it, it was deemed necessary that we undergo a
+training in the most materialistic of the world's
+schools. This was the University of Paris. She
+alone was to seek a diploma. For me it was enough
+that I accompany her in her studies, and that we
+submit the teachings received by her to rigid
+analysis by our combined faculties. Doing this,
+we found ourselves competent to declare positively
+the falsity of the materialistic system on the
+strength both of logical processes and of practical
+demonstration, by means of the experiences of
+which we found ourselves the recipients. For
+although we had never heard of such things as
+"psychic faculties,"&mdash;the very phrase was not yet
+invented&mdash;we found ourselves possessed of them
+in such measure that no longer did the veil which
+divides the world sensible from the world spiritual<span class="pagenum">[38]</span>
+constitute an impassable barrier, but both were
+open to view, and the latter was as real and accessible
+as the former.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the middle of 1876 that this remarkable
+accession of faculty began to manifest itself
+in plenitude, I being the first to experience it,
+notwithstanding my previous total lack of any
+faculty of the kind, or of belief in the possibility
+of my having it. But the purification which my
+physical system had undergone by means of my
+new dietary regimen, and the constant and intense
+direction of my thought inwards and upwards, the
+forcible concentration of my mind upon the essential
+and substantial ideas of things, and this under
+impulsion of an enthusiasm kindled to a white
+heat&mdash;an enthusiasm, as already said, both of
+aspiration and of repulsion&mdash;and the enhancement
+of faculty through sympathetic association,&mdash;these
+had so attenuated the veil that it no longer
+impeded my vision of spiritual realities. And I
+found myself&mdash;without seeking for or expecting it&mdash;spiritually
+sensitive in respect of sight, hearing,
+and touch, and in open, palpable relations with a
+world which I had no difficulty in recognising as of
+celestial nature; so far did it transcend everything
+of which I had heard or read in the annals of the
+contemporary spiritualism; so entirely did it
+accord with my conceptions of the divine.</p>
+
+<p>That I refrain from employing the terms "supernatural"
+and "superhuman," is because they
+assume the knowledge of the limits of the natural
+and the human, and arbitrarily exclude from those
+categories regions of being which may really
+belong to them. The celestial and the divine are
+not necessarily either superhuman or supernatural;<span class="pagenum">[39]</span>
+they may be but the higher human and the
+higher natural. If they are at all, they are
+according to natural order, and it is natural for
+them to be.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, vast as was the interval it represented
+between my past and present states, it came
+so naturally and easily as to be clearly the result,
+not of any abnormal or accidental cataclysm
+involving a breach of continuity, but of a perfectly
+orderly unfoldment every step of which was distinctly
+traceable. For though the process was akin
+to that of the attainment of sight by one previously
+blind, and the final issue was sudden, the issue had
+been led up to in such wise as to render it legitimate
+and normal. For its earliest indication<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> was
+an opening of the mind in such wise that subjects
+hitherto beyond my grasp, and problems deemed
+insoluble, became comprehensible and clear; while
+whole vistas of thought perfectly continuous and
+coherent, would disclose themselves to my view,
+stretching far away towards their source in the
+very principles of things, so that I found myself
+intellectually the master of questions which previously
+had baffled me.</p>
+
+<p>The experience I am about to relate was not only
+remarkable in itself, it was remarkable also as
+striking what proved to be the keynote of all our
+subsequent work, the doctrine, namely, of the
+<i>substantial</i> identity of God and man. It had suddenly
+flashed on my mind as a necessary and self-evident
+truth, the contrary of which was absurd;
+and I had seated myself at my writing-table to
+give it expression for a book I had lately com<span class="pagenum">[40]</span>menced<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>.
+I was alone and locked in my room in
+my chambers off Pall Mall, Mrs Kingsford being
+at the time in Paris, accompanied by her husband.
+It was past midnight, and all without was quiet;
+there was not a sound to break my abstraction.
+This was so profound that I had written some four
+pages without drawing breath, the matter seeming
+to flow not merely from but through me without
+conscious mental effort of my own. I <i>saw</i> so clearly
+that there was no need to <i>think</i>. In the course of
+the writing I became distinctly aware of a presence
+as of someone bending over me from behind, and
+actively engaged in blending with and reinforcing
+my mind. Being unwilling to risk an interruption
+to the flow of my thought, I resisted the impulse
+to look up and ascertain who or what it was. Of
+alarm at so unlooked-for a presence I had not a
+particle. Be it whom it might, the accord between us
+was as perfect as if it had been merely a projection
+of my own higher self. I had never heard of
+higher selves in those days, or of the possibility of
+such a phenomenon; but the idea of such an
+explanation occurred to me then and there. But
+this solution of the problem of my visitant's personality
+was presently dissipated by the event.</p>
+
+<p>The passage I had been writing concluded with
+these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The perfect man of any race is no other than the
+perfect expression in the flesh of all the essential characteristics
+of the soul of that race. Escaping the limitations
+of the individual man, such an one represents the soul of
+his people. Escaping the limitations of the individual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p41" id="p41"></a>[41]</span>people, he represents the soul of all peoples, or Humanity.
+Escaping the limitations of Humanity, but still preserving
+its essential characteristics, he represents the soul of the
+system of which the earth is but an individual member.
+And finally, after climbing many a further step of the
+infinite ladder of existence, and escaping the limitations
+of all systems whatever, he represents&mdash;nay, finds that he
+is&mdash;the soul of the universe, even God Himself, once
+'manifested in the flesh,' and now 'perfected through
+suffering,' 'purified, sanctified, redeemed, justified, glorified,'
+'crowned with honour and glory,' and 'seated for
+ever at the right hand of the Father,' 'one with God,' even
+God Himself."</p></div>
+
+<p>At this moment&mdash;my mind being so wholly preoccupied
+with the utterance and all that I saw it
+involved, as to make me oblivious of all else&mdash;the
+presence I had felt bending over me darted itself
+into me just below the cerebral bulb at the back of
+my neck, the sensation being that of a slight tap,
+as of a finger-touch; and then in a voice full, rich,
+firm, measured, and so strong that it resounded
+through the room, exclaimed, in a tone indicative
+of high satisfaction, "At last I have found a man
+through whom I can speak!"</p>
+
+<p>So powerful was the intonation that the tympana
+of my ears vibrated to the sound, palpably bulging
+outwards, showing that they had been struck on
+the inner side, and that the presence had actually
+projected itself into my larynx and spoken from
+within me, but without using my organs of speech,
+I was conscious of being in radiant health at the
+time, and was unable to detect any symptom of
+being otherwise. My thought, too, and observation
+were perfectly coherent and continuous, and I
+could discern no smallest pretext for distrust of the<span class="pagenum">[42]</span>
+reality of the experience. And my delight and
+satisfaction, which were unbounded, found expression
+in the single utterance, "Then the ancients
+were right, and the Gods ARE!" so resistless was
+the conviction that only by a divinised being could
+the wisdom and power be manifested of the
+presence of which I was conscious. The words,
+"At last I have found a man" were incompatible
+with the theory of its being an objectivation of my
+own particular ego, and, moreover, they indicated
+the speaker as one high in authority over the race.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more passed on that occasion; but a
+vivid impression was left with me that my visitant
+belonged to the order of spirits called "Planetaries."
+But as I had then no knowledge of such
+beings, I put aside the question of his identity for
+the solution which I trusted would come of further
+enlightenment. This came in due time, with the
+result of confirming the impression given me at the
+time. The explanation, however, does not come
+within the scope of this present writing. Some
+time afterwards, when searching at the library of
+the British Museum in the writings of the old
+occultists for experiences analogous to our own,
+I came upon one account which described the
+entrance into the man of an overshadowing spirit
+exactly as it had occurred to me, so far as it concerned
+the nape of the neck as the point of entry
+and the slightness of the sensation. The only
+further reference to the incident necessary here is
+as follows.</p>
+
+<p>A little later Mrs Kingsford had returned to
+England, being compelled to quit Paris by a severe
+illness which she had contracted immediately on
+her arrival there; and was pursuing her studies in<span class="pagenum">[43]</span>
+London, making her home with a relative in
+Chelsea. The event proved that she had been sent
+back by the supervisors of our work expressly in
+order to be within reach of me. Indeed, an intimation
+had been given me before she had gone
+that she would not be allowed to stay abroad, as
+our near contiguity was indispensable, and I had
+accordingly viewed her departure with considerable
+disquietude, circumstances rendering it
+impossible for me to leave home just then. Prior
+to coming back she had obtained from the Minister
+of Education the exceptional privilege of a permit
+allowing her attendance at a London hospital to
+count in her Paris course.</p>
+
+<p>The first experience received by her in relation
+to our work, after her return to London, was the
+terrific vision of "The Doomed Train"<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>On bringing it to me on the morning of its occurrence,
+she exclaimed as she entered the room, "Oh,
+I have had such a terrific dream! It has quite
+shattered me. And I have brought it for you to
+try and find its meaning, if it has one. I wrote it
+down the moment I was able." Her appearance
+fully confirmed her statement. It alarmed me.
+This is the account:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was visited, last night, by a dream of so
+strange and vivid a kind that I feel impelled to
+communicate it to you, not only to relieve my own
+mind of the oppression which the recollection of it
+<span class="pagenum">[44]</span>causes me, but also to give you an opportunity of
+finding the meaning, which I am still far too much
+shaken and terrified to seek for myself.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemed to me that you and I were two of a
+vast company of men and women, upon all of
+whom, with the exception of myself&mdash;for I was
+there voluntarily&mdash;sentence of death had been
+passed. I was sensible of the knowledge&mdash;how
+obtained I know not&mdash;that this terrible doom had
+been pronounced by the official agents of some new
+reign of terror. Certain I was that none of the
+party had really been guilty of any crime deserving
+of death; but that the penalty had been incurred
+through their connection with some regime,
+political, social, or religious, which was doomed to
+utter destruction. It became known among us
+that the sentence was about to be carried out on a
+colossal scale; but we remained in absolute
+ignorance as to the place and method of the
+intended execution. Thus far my dream gave me
+no intimation of the scene which next burst on
+me,&mdash;a scene which strained to their utmost
+tension every sense of sight, hearing, and touch in
+a manner unprecedented in any dream I have previously
+had.</p>
+
+<p>"It was night, dark and starless, and I found
+myself, together with the whole company of
+doomed men and women who knew that they were
+soon to die, but not how or where, in a railway
+train hurrying through the darkness to some
+unknown destination. I sat in a carriage quite at
+the rear end of the train, in a corner seat, and was
+leaning out of the open window, peering into the
+darkness, when, suddenly, a voice, which seemed
+to speak out of the air, said to me in a low, distinct,<span class="pagenum">[45]</span>
+intense tone, the mere recollection of which makes
+me shudder,&mdash;'The sentence is being carried out
+even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the
+train is a frightful precipice of monstrous height,
+and at its base beats a fathomless sea. The railway
+ends only with the abyss. Over that will the train
+hurl itself into annihilation. THERE IS NO ONE
+ON THE ENGINE!'</p>
+
+<p>"At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and
+looked round at the faces of the persons in the
+carriage with me. No one of them had spoken, or
+had heard those awful words. The lamplight from
+the dome of the carriage flickered on the forms
+about me. I looked from one to the other, but
+saw no sign of alarm given by any of them. Then
+again the voice out of the air spoke to me,&mdash;'There
+is but one way to be saved. You must leap out of
+the train!'</p>
+
+<p>"In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage-door
+and stepped out on the footboard. The train was
+going at a terrific pace, swaying to and fro as with
+the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind of
+its passage beat my hair about my face and tore at
+my garments.</p>
+
+<p>"Until this moment I had not thought of you,
+or even seemed conscious of your presence in the
+train. Holding tightly on to the rail by the
+carriage-door, I began to creep along the footboard
+towards the engine, hoping to find a chance of
+dropping safely down on the line. Hand-over-hand
+I passed along in this way from one carriage to
+another; and as I did so I saw by the light within
+each carriage that the passengers had no idea of
+the fate upon which they were being hurried. At<span class="pagenum">[46]</span>
+length, in one of the compartments, I saw <i>you</i>.
+'Come out!' I cried; 'come out! Save yourself!
+In another minute we shall be dashed to pieces!'</p>
+
+<p>"You rose instantly, wrenched open the door,
+and stood beside me outside on the footboard. The
+rapidity at which we were going was now more
+fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled
+onwards. The wind shrieked as we were carried
+through it. 'Leap down!' I cried to you. 'Save
+yourself! It is certain death to stay here. Before
+us is an abyss; and there is no one on the engine!'</p>
+
+<p>"At this you turned your face full upon me
+with a look of intense earnestness, and said, 'No,
+we will not leap down; we will stop the train.'</p>
+
+<p>"With these words you left me, and crept along
+the footboard towards the front of the train. Full
+of half-angry anxiety at what seemed to me a
+Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages
+we passed I saw my mother and eldest brother,
+unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached the
+last carriage, and saw by the lurid light of the
+furnace that the voice had spoken truly, and that
+there was no one on the engine.</p>
+
+<p>"You continued to move onwards. 'Impossible!
+Impossible!' I cried; 'it cannot be done. Oh,
+pray, come away!'</p>
+
+<p>"Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said,
+'You are right. It cannot be done in that way;
+but we can save the train. Help me to get these
+irons asunder.'</p>
+
+<p>"The engine was connected with the train by
+two great iron hooks and staples. By a tremendous
+effort, in making which I almost lost my balance,
+we unhooked the irons and detached the train;
+when, with a mighty leap as of some mad super<span class="pagenum">[47]</span>natural
+monster, the engine sped on its way alone,
+shooting back as it went a great flaming trail of
+sparks, and was lost in the darkness. We stood
+together on the footboard, watching in silence the
+gradual slackening of the speed. When at length
+the train had come to a standstill, we cried to the
+passengers, 'Saved! Saved!' And then, amid the
+confusion of opening the doors and descending and
+eager talking, my dream ended, leaving me shattered
+and palpitating with the horror of it."</p>
+
+<p>This vision was intended to show us the destruction,
+moral, intellectual, and spiritual, towards
+which the world was tending by following materialistic
+modes of thought, and the part we were to
+bear in arresting its progress towards the fatal
+precipice, at all hazards to ourselves. The startling
+announcement made to her by the invisible voice
+when the crowded train was rushing at full speed
+to its doom, "There is no one on the engine!"
+exactly represented the philosophy which, denying
+mind in the universe, recognises only blind force.</p>
+
+<p>I had determined to include an account of this
+vision in the book on which I was then engaged,
+"England and Islam." And I was alone in my
+rooms, reading the proofs of it, my mind being
+occupied solely with the letterpress, until I came to
+the remark ascribed to me in the vision, as made
+in reply to her entreaty that I would jump out
+with her to save ourselves, "No, we will not leap
+down, we will stop the train." At this moment
+the voice which shortly before<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> had said to me,
+"At last I have found a man through whom I can
+speak!" addressed me again, saying in a pleased
+<span class="pagenum">[48]</span>and encouraging tone, as if the speaker had been
+following me in my reading, and desired to remove
+any doubts I might have of the reality of our
+mission,&mdash;"Yes! Yes! I have trusted all to you!"
+This time he spoke from without me, but
+apparently quite close by. And among the impressions
+which at the same instant were flashed into
+my mind, was the impression, amounting to a
+conviction, that whatever might be the part
+assigned to others in the work of the new illumination
+in progress and the restoration thereby
+to the world of one true doctrine of existence, the
+exposition of its innermost and highest sphere, the
+head corner-stone of the pyramid of the system
+which is to make the humanity of the future, had
+been committed to us alone. And now, writing
+nearly twenty years later, I can truly say that
+this conviction has never for a moment been
+weakened, but on the contrary has gathered confirmation
+and strength with every successive
+accession of experience and knowledge, and while
+cognisant of and fully appreciating all that has
+taken place in the unfoldment of the world's
+thought during the interval.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since that memorable winter of 1876-7, the
+conviction, shared equally by my colleague, has
+been with me that the controlling spirit of the
+Hebrew prophets was that also of our work, the
+purpose of which was the accomplishment of their
+prophecies, by the promotion of the world's
+spiritual consciousness to a level surpassing any
+yet attained by it, to the regeneration of the
+church and the establishment of the kingdom of
+God with power. Having which conviction, there
+was for us but one object in life:&mdash;to fulfil at<span class="pagenum">[49]</span>
+whatever cost to ourselves the conditions necessary
+to make us fitting instruments for the perfect
+accomplishment of a work which we recognised as
+the loftiest that could be committed to mortals.</p>
+
+<p>My colleague's enforced return to London was
+promptly signalised by an experience which served
+not only yet further to demonstrate the reality and
+nature of our mission, and of her primacy in our
+work, but to disclose its essentially Christian
+character, which hitherto had been an open
+question for us. For that upon which we ourselves
+were bent was the discovery of the nature of existence
+at first hand, and independently of any
+existing system whatever. It was truth and truth
+alone that we sought, and to this end we had
+laboured to make ourselves as those of whom it is
+said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." For in
+divesting ourselves of all prepossessions and
+prejudices, we had made ourselves as "little
+children." We were neither believers nor disbelievers,
+but pure sceptics in that best sense of
+the term in which it denotes the unbiased seeker
+after God and truth. This is to say, we were, and
+we gloried in being, absolutely free thinkers, a term
+which, in its true acceptation, we regarded as
+man's noblest title. This is the sense in which it
+denotes a thought able to exercise itself in all
+directions open to thought, outwards and downwards
+to matter and negation, and inwards and
+upwards to spirit and reality. And our work
+proved in the event to be the supreme triumph
+of Free Thought.</p>
+
+<p>The experience in question was as follows. It
+was night and I was alone and locked in my
+chambers, and was writing at full speed, lest it<span class="pagenum">[50]</span>
+should escape me, an exposition of the place and
+office of woman under the coming regeneration.
+And I was conscious of an exaltation of faculty
+such as might conceivably be the result of an
+enhancement of my own mind by junction with
+another and superior mind. I was even conscious,
+though in a far less degree than before, of an
+invisible presence. But I was too much engrossed
+with my idea to pay heed to persons, be they whom
+they might, human or divine, as well as anxious
+to take advantage of such assistance. I had clearly
+and vividly in my mind all that I desired to say for
+several pages on. Then, suddenly and completely,
+like the stoppage of a stream in its flow through a
+tube by the quick turning of a tap, the current of
+my thought ceased, leaving my mind an utter
+blank as to what I had meant to say, and totally
+unable to recall the least idea of it. So palpable
+was its withdrawal, that it seemed to me as if it
+must still be hovering somewhere near me, and I
+looked up and impatiently exclaimed aloud to it,
+"Where are you?" At length, after ransacking
+my mind in vain, I turned to other work, for I was
+perfectly fresh, and the desertion had been in no
+way due to exhaustion, physical or mental. On
+taking note of the time of the disappearance, I
+found it was 11.30 precisely.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning failed to bring my thought
+back to me as I had hoped it would do; but it
+brought instead, an unusually early visit from
+Mrs. Kingsford, who was&mdash;as I have said&mdash;staying
+in Chelsea. "Such a curious thing happened to
+me last night," she began, on entering the room,
+"and I want to tell you of it and see if you can
+explain it. I had finished my day's work, but<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p51" id="p51"></a>51]</span>
+though it was late I was not inclined to rest, for
+I was wakeful with a sense of irritation at the
+thought of what you are doing, and at my exclusion
+from any share in it. And I was feeling
+envious of your sex for the superior advantages
+you have over ours of doing great and useful work.
+As I sat by the fire thinking this, I suddenly found
+myself impelled to take a pencil and paper, and
+to write. I did so, and wrote with extreme rapidity,
+in a half-dreamy state, without any clear idea of
+what I was writing, but supposing it to be something
+expressive of my discontent. I had soon
+covered a page and a half of a large sheet with
+writing different from my own, and it was quite
+unlike what was in my mind, as you will see."</p>
+
+<p>On perusing the paper I found that it was a
+continuation of my missing thought, taken up at
+the point where it had left me, but translated to a
+higher plane, the expression also being similarly
+elevated in accordance both with the theme and the
+writer, having the exquisiteness so characteristic
+of her genius. To my enquiry as to the hour of
+the occurrence, she at once replied, "Half-past
+eleven exactly; for I was so struck by it that I
+took particular notice of the time."</p>
+
+<p>What I had written was as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Those of us who, being men, refuse to accord to women
+the same freedom of evolution for their consciousness
+which we claim for ourselves, do so in consequence of a
+total misconception of the nature and functions both of
+Humanity and of Existence at large. The notion that
+men and women can by any possibility do each other's
+work, is utterly absurd. Whom God hath distinguished,
+none can confound. To do the same thing is not to do
+the same work; inasmuch as the spirit is more than the
+fact, and the spirit of man and of woman is different.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p52" id="p52"></a>[52]</span>While for the production of perfect results it is necessary
+that they work harmoniously together, it is necessary also
+that they fulfil separate functions in regard to that
+work"<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>This was the point at which my thought had
+failed me, to be taken up by her at the same instant
+two miles away, without her knowing even that I
+contemplated treating that particular theme, as I
+had purposely reserved it until I should have completed
+the expression, hoping to give her a pleasant
+surprise; for it was one very near to her heart.
+This is her continuation of it. It will be seen that,
+besides complementing my thought, it responded
+remedially to her own mood:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In a true mission of redemption, in the proclamation
+of a gospel to save, it is the man who must preach; it is
+the man who must stand forward among the people; it
+is the man who, if need be, must die. But he is not alone.
+If his be the glory of the full noontide, his day has been
+ushered in by a goddess. Aurora has preceded Phoibos
+Apollo; Mary has been before Christ. For, mark that He
+shall do His first and greatest work at her suggestion. To
+her shall ever belong the glory of the inauguration; of
+her shall the gospel be born; from her lips shall the
+Christ take the bidding for His first miracle; from her shall
+His earliest inspiration be drawn. The people are athirst
+for the living wine, which shall be better, sweeter, purer,
+stronger, than any they have yet tasted. The festival
+lags, the joy slackens, for need of it. The Christ is in their
+midst, but He opens not His lips; His heart is sealed, His
+hour is not yet come. Mark that the first inspiration
+falls on the woman by His side, on Mary the Mother of
+God; she saith unto Him, 'They have no wine.' She has
+spoken, the impulse is given to Divinity. His soul awakens,
+<span class="pagenum">[53]</span>His pulse quickens, He utters the word that works the
+miracle. Hail, Mary, full of grace; Christ is thy gift to
+the world! Without thee He could not have been; but for
+thine impulse He could have worked no mighty work.
+This shall be the history of all time; it shall be the sign
+of the Christ. Mary shall feel; Christ shall speak. Hers
+the glory of setting His heart in action; hers the thrill of
+emotion to which His power shall respond. But for her
+He shall be powerless; but for her He shall be dumb; but
+for her He shall have no strength to smite, no hand to
+help. It is the seed of the woman who shall bruise the
+serpent's head. The Christ, the true prophet, is her child,
+her gift to the world. 'Woman, behold thy Son!'"</p></div>
+
+<p>Such was the first intimation and the manner
+thereof, given us of the truth subsequently revealed
+in plenitude,&mdash;the presence in Scripture of a
+mystical sense concealed within the apparent
+sense, as a kernel in its shell, which, and not the
+literal sense, is the intended sense<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>. As was later
+shown us in regard to the story of the cursing of
+the fig-tree, that of the marriage in Cana was a
+parable having a spiritual import; and the
+character of Jesus was cleared from the reproaches
+based on the literal sense. Striving for fuller
+unfoldment and enlightenment, we were at length
+enabled to discern the tremendous mistake which
+orthodoxy has made; the mistake of confounding,
+first, Jesus with Christ, and, next, Mary the
+mother of Jesus, with the Virgin Mary, the mother
+<span class="pagenum">[54]</span>of Christ, and the conversion thereby of a perfect
+philosophy into a gross idolatry. Meanwhile, the
+experience was a further demonstration to us of
+the reality and accessibility not merely of the
+world spiritual, but of the world celestial also, and
+of the high source of the commission under which
+we had become associated together. It was also an
+indication that as concerned ourselves our work
+appertained to the spiritual, rather than to the
+social plane. Such application of it would follow
+in due time. No other hypothesis that we could
+devise would account for the facts. Nor could we
+imagine any source other than the Church invisible
+for an interpretation so noble of the Scriptures of
+the Church visible.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the hypothesis of an extraneous source
+accounted for all our experiences. For besides
+receiving knowledge from such influences, there
+were instances in which we actually saw and
+seemed to remember scenes, events, and persons,
+long since vanished from earth, and felt at the time
+that it needed only that the period of lucidity be
+sufficiently prolonged to enable us to recover from
+personal recollection the whole history concerned.</p>
+
+<p>I was somewhat surprised by finding the first
+experiences of this nature, as well as certain others
+of an equally high and rare order, occurring to me
+rather than to my colleague, of the superiority of
+whose faculty and of whose primacy in our work
+I had no manner of doubt. The explanation at
+length vouchsafed was in this wise. It was in order
+to qualify me for recognising by my own experiences
+the reality and value of hers when they
+should come. Not otherwise should I know enough
+to be able to believe. It proved, moreover, to be<span class="pagenum">[55]</span>
+part of the plan ordained to withdraw from me,
+in a great measure, the faculty requisite for them,
+when I had become familiar with them. The
+reason for according her such preference over and
+above the superiority of her gifts will presently
+appear. It was another and an exquisite illustration
+of the depth and tenderness of the mystical
+element underlying Christianity as divinely conceived
+and intended.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="p2">The partial withdrawal from me of faculty just
+alluded to took place early in 1877, but not until I
+had undergone a thorough experiential training in
+its varied manifestations. Among these were two
+which call for relation here, by reason of their
+serving to show that nothing was withheld which
+might minister to the completeness of the work
+set us. The first was as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Being seated at my writing-table, and meditating
+on the gospel narrative, with a strange sense of
+being separated by only a narrow interval from a
+full knowledge of all that it implied, I found myself
+impelled to seek the precise idea intended to be
+conveyed by the story of the woman taken in
+adultery. No account that I had read of it had
+satisfied me, least of all that which was proposed
+in the "Ecce Homo" of Professor Seeley, a book
+then recent and enjoying a repute which filled me
+with a strong feeling of personal resentment. For
+his account, especially of the feelings excited in
+Jesus by the sight of the accused woman, revolted
+me by its inscription to Him of a sense of impropriety
+at once monkish and conventional, and of a
+limitation of charity altogether incompatible with<span class="pagenum">[56]</span>
+the abounding sympathy which was the essence
+of His nature. It made Him that most odious of
+characters, a <i>prude</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As I meditated, and in following my idea I
+passed into a state which, though highly interior,
+was not sufficiently interior for my purpose&mdash;for
+I wanted, so to speak, to <i>see</i> my idea&mdash;a voice
+audible only to the inner hearing, yet quite distinct,
+said to me, "You have it within you. Seek
+for it." Thus encouraged, I made a further effort
+at concentration, when&mdash;to my utter surprise, for
+I had no expectation or conception of such a thing&mdash;the
+whole scene of the incident appeared palpably
+before me, like a living picture in a <i>camera
+obscura</i>, so natural, minute and distinct as to leave
+nothing to be desired, and, at the same time,
+utterly unlike any pictorial representation I had
+ever seen of it. Close before me, on my right
+hand, stood the Temple, with Jesus seated on a
+stone ledge in the porch, while ranged before Him
+was a crowd of persons in the costumes of the
+country and the time; each costume showing the
+grade or calling of its wearer. Standing together
+in a group in front of Him were the disciples, and
+immediately beside them were the accusers, who
+were readily recognisable by their ample robes and
+sanctimonious demeanour; and quite close to Him,
+between Him and them, stood the accused woman.
+As I approached the scene, moving meteor-like
+through the air, He was in the act of lifting
+Himself up from stooping to write on the ground,
+and I had a perfect view of His face. He was of
+middle age, but, to my surprise, the type was that
+of a Murillo, rather than a Raffaelle, and the lower
+portion of the face was covered with a short, dark<span class="pagenum">[57]</span>
+beard. The expression was worn and anxious, and
+somewhat weary. The skin was rough as from
+exposure to the weather. The eyes were deep-set and
+lustrous, and remarkable for the tenderness of
+their gaze. One of the apostles, whom I at once
+recognised by his comparative youthfulness as
+John, though his back was towards me as I
+approached, was in the act of bending forwards to
+read the words just traced in the dust on the pavement;
+and, as if drawn to him by some potent
+attraction, I at once passed unhesitatingly into
+him as he bent forward, and tried to read the
+words through his eyes. Their exact purport
+escaped me; but the impression I obtained was
+that they were unimportant in themselves, having
+been written merely to enable Jesus to collect and
+calm Himself. For He was filled with a mighty
+indignation, which was directed, not against the
+accused woman, but against the by-standing representatives
+of the conventional orthodoxies, the
+chief priests and Pharisees, her sanctimonious and
+hypocritical accusers,&mdash;those moral vivisectors
+through whose pitilessness the shrinking woman
+stood there exposed to the public gaze, while her
+fault was so brutally blurted out in her presence
+for all to hear; for her attitude showed her ready
+to sink with shame into the ground, and afraid to
+look either her accusers or her Judge in the face.
+He, her Judge, also has heard it, and knows that
+they who utter it are themselves a thousand-fold
+greater sinners than she, inasmuch as that which
+she has yielded through exigency either of passion
+or of compassion, has with them been a cold-blooded
+habit engendered of ingrained impurity.</p>
+
+<p>In contrast with them she stands out in His eyes<span class="pagenum">[58]</span>
+an angel of innocence; and an overwhelming
+indignation takes possession of Him, so that He
+will not at once trust Himself to speak. His
+impulse is to drive them forth with blows and
+reproaches from His presence, as once already He
+has driven the barterers from the Temple. And
+so, to keep His wrath from exploding, He stoops
+down and scribbles on the ground,&mdash;no matter
+what, anything to keep Himself within bounds.
+In the exercise His spirit calms. Indignation, He
+reflects, is too noble a thing to be expended upon
+insensates such as they, and exhortation would be
+vain. He will try sarcasm. So He raises himself
+up, and looks at them, very quietly, and even
+assentingly. Yes, they are quite right; the law
+must be vindicated, and so flagrant a sin severely
+punished. But, of course, only the guiltless is
+entitled to inflict punishment on the guilty.
+Therefore He says, "He of you who is blameless in
+respect of this sin, let him first cast a stone at her."
+And having said this, He stoops down again to
+write, this time to hide His smiles at their confusion,
+the sight of which would but have incensed
+and hardened them. What! no rush for ammunition
+wherewith to pound to death this only too
+human specimen of humanity<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>! What can be the
+<span class="pagenum">[59]</span>meaning of the general move among these self-appointed
+censors of morals? "They which heard
+Him, being convicted of their own consciences,
+went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even
+unto the last." No wonder they crucified Him
+when they got their chance. And no wonder that
+most of the ancient authorities omit all mention of
+the incident. Even of His immediate biographers
+only he records it who is styled "the Beloved," and
+whose name, office, and character indicate him as
+the representative especially of the love-principle
+in humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the impressions made on me by this
+vision while it lasted, and written down at the
+time. And so strong in me was the feeling that
+I could similarly recall the whole history of Jesus,
+that I mentally addressed to the presences which
+I felt, though I could not see, around me an
+inquiry whether I should then and there begin the
+attempt. The reply, similarly given, was a decided
+negative so far as that present time was concerned,
+but accompanied by an intimation that our future
+work would comprise something of the kind; a
+prediction which was duly fulfilled.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[60]</span></p>
+<p>I found myself perplexed beyond measure to
+comprehend the <i>modus operandi</i> of this experience.
+No explanation was forthcoming, whether from
+my own mind or from my illuminators, until long
+afterwards; and when it came it was in reference
+immediately to similar experiences received by my
+colleague, some of which likewise involved corresponding
+personal recollections coinciding with
+but surpassing mine. In the meantime the teaching
+given us comprised the doctrine of reincarnation,
+stated so positively, systematically, and
+scientifically that, when taken in conjunction with
+our experiences, we found that it, and it alone,
+afforded a satisfactory explanation of them. And
+then it was shown us that the method of the new
+Gospel of Interpretation, of which we were the
+appointed recipients, was so ordered as to be itself
+a demonstration of the truth of that doctrine, and
+that among the lives we had lived, which qualified
+us for our mission, were those in which we had
+been in association with Jesus and with each
+other<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>. Concerning this doctrine, the motive for
+its suppression, and the fatal consequences thereof
+to the religion of Christ, it will be time to speak
+when describing the results attained by us. It is
+with our initial experiences&mdash;those which constituted
+our initiation&mdash;that the present concern lies.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[61]</span></p>
+<p>There is one supreme experience in the spiritual
+life, known to mystics as "the vision of Adonai,"
+or God as the Lord. The reception of this vision by
+us was, we were assured, a conclusive proof that
+nothing would be withheld that was necessary to
+our full equipment for a complete work. Although
+described several times in the Bible as an actual
+occurrence, it had failed to find any response in our
+own consciousness, more than if it had no existence.
+Nor had it ever been the subject of intelligent comment
+by any Bible-expositors known to us. Rather
+did it seem to have been entirely passed over as a
+matter wholly apart from human cognition. Hence,
+when it was vouchsafed to us, it was entirely without
+anticipation of its occurrence or previous
+knowledge even of its possibility.</p>
+
+<p>It was received first by myself, the manner of it
+being as follows. I had observed that when I was
+following an idea inwards in search of its primary
+meaning, and to that end concentrated my mind
+upon a point lying within and beyond the apparent
+concept, I saw a whole vista of related ideas
+stretching far away as if towards their source, in
+what I could only suppose to be the Divine Mind;
+and I seemed at the same time to reach a more
+interior region of my own consciousness; so that,
+supposing man's system to consist of a series of
+concentric spheres, each fresh effort to focus my
+mind upon a more recondite aspect of the idea
+under analysis was accompanied and marked by a
+corresponding advance of the perceptive point of
+the mind itself towards my own central sphere and
+radiant point. And I was prompted to try to ascertain
+the extent to which it was possible thus to
+concentrate myself interiorly, and what would be
+the effect of reaching the mind's ultimate focus. I
+was absolutely without knowledge or expectation
+when I yielded to the impulse to make the attempt.<span class="pagenum">[62]</span>
+I simply experimented on a faculty of which I
+found myself newly possessed, with the view of
+discovering the range of its capacity, being seated
+at my writing-table the while in order to record
+the results as they came, and resolved to retain my
+hold on my outer and circumferential consciousness
+no matter how far towards my inner and
+central consciousness I might go. For I knew not
+whether I should be able to regain the former if I
+once quitted my hold of it, or to recollect the facts
+of the experience. At length I achieved my object,
+though only by a strong effort, the tension occasioned
+by the endeavour to keep both extremes
+of the consciousness in view at once being very
+great.</p>
+
+<p>Once well started on my quest, I found myself
+traversing a succession of spheres or belts of a
+medium, the tenuity and luminance of which
+increased at every stage of my progress; the
+impression produced being that of mounting
+a vast ladder stretching from the circumference
+towards the centre of a system, which
+was at once my own system, the solar system,
+and the universal system, the three systems
+being at once diverse and identical. My progress
+in this ascent was clearly dependent upon my
+ability to concentrate the rays of my consciousness
+into a focus. For, while to relax the effort was to
+recede outwards, to intensify it was to advance
+inwards. The process was like that of travelling
+by will power from the orbit of Saturn to the Sun&mdash;taking
+Saturn as representing the seventh and
+outermost sphere of the spiritual kosmos, and the
+Sun its central and radiant point&mdash;with the intermediate
+orbits for stepping-stones and stages, I trying<span class="pagenum">[63]</span>
+the while to keep both extremes in view. Presently,
+by a supreme, and what I felt must be a final,
+effort&mdash;for the tension was becoming too much for
+me, unless I let go my hold of the outer&mdash;I succeeded
+in polarising the whole of the convergent
+rays of my consciousness into the desired focus.
+And at the same instant, as if through the sudden
+ignition of the rays thus fused into a unity, I
+found myself confronted with a glory of unspeakable
+whiteness and brightness, and of a lustre so
+intense as well-nigh to beat me back. At the same
+instant, too, there came to me, as by a sudden
+recollection, the sense of being already familiar
+with the phenomenon, as also with its whole
+import, as if in virtue of having experienced it in
+some former and forgotten state of being. I knew
+it to be the "Great White Throne" of the seer of
+the Apocalypse. But though feeling that I had no
+need to explore further, I resolved to make assurance
+doubly sure by piercing, if I could, the almost
+blinding lustre, and seeing what it enshrined.
+With a great effort I succeeded, and the glance
+revealed to me that which I had felt must be there.
+This was the dual form of the Son, the Word, the
+Logos, the Adonai, the "Sitter on the Throne,"
+the first formulation of Divinity, the unmanifest
+made manifest, the unformulate formulate, the
+unindividuate individuate, God as the Lord,
+proving by His Duality that God is Substance as
+well as Force, Love as well as Will, feminine as
+well as masculine, Mother as well as Father.</p>
+
+<p>Overjoyed at having this supreme problem solved
+in accordance with my highest aspirations, my one
+thought was to return and proclaim the glad news.
+But I had no sooner set myself to write down the<span class="pagenum">[64]</span>
+things thus seen and remembered, than I found
+myself constrained to maintain regarding them the
+strictest silence, and this even as regarded my
+fellow-worker; and all that I was permitted to say
+at that time was, that under a sudden burst of illumination
+I had become absolutely aware of the
+truth of the doctrine of the Duality in Unity of
+Deity to which that in Humanity corresponds,
+both alike being twain in one. On seeking the
+reason for the reticence thus imposed on me, I
+learned that the stage in our work had not yet come
+when it could be given to the world, either with
+safety to myself or with advantage to others; and
+it was necessary that my colleague receive no intimation
+in advance of any experiences which were
+to be given to her&mdash;of which this experience was
+one&mdash;in order that her mind might be wholly free
+from bias or expectation. Only so would our testimony
+have its due value as that of two independent
+witnesses.</p>
+
+<p>In the following summer the same vision was
+vouchsafed to her in a measure and with a fulness
+far transcending mine<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>On the occasion she had been forewarned of
+something of unusual solemnity as about to occur,
+and prompted to make certain ceremonial preparations
+obviously calculated to impress the imagination.
+The access came upon her while standing by
+the open window, gazing at the moon, then close
+upon the full. The first effect of the <i>afflatus</i> was
+to cause her to kneel and pray in a rapt attitude,
+<span class="pagenum">[65]</span>with her arms extended towards the sky. It
+appeared afterwards, that under an access of
+spiritual exaltation, she had yielded to a sudden
+and uncontrollable impulse to pray that she might
+be taken to the stars, and shown all the glory of
+the universe. Presently she rose, and after
+gazing upwards in ecstasy for a few moments,
+lowered her eyes, and, clasping her arms around
+her head as if to shut out the view, uttered in
+tones of wonder, mingled with moans and cries
+of anguish, the following tokens of the intolerable
+splendour of the vision she had unwittingly
+invited:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see masses, masses of stars! It
+makes me giddy to look at them. O my God, what
+masses! Millions and millions! WHEELS of
+planets! O my God, my God, why didst Thou
+create? It was by Will, all Will, that Thou didst
+it. Oh! what might, what might of Will! Oh,
+what gulfs! what gulfs! Millions and millions
+of miles broad and deep! Hold me! hold me up!
+I shall sink&mdash;I shall sink into the gulfs. I am sick
+and giddy, as on a billowy sea. I am on a sea, an
+ocean&mdash;the ocean of infinite space. Oh, what
+depths! what depths! I sink&mdash;I fail! I cannot,
+cannot bear it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never come back. I have left my body
+for ever. I am dying; I believe I am dead. Impossible
+to return from such a distance! Oh, what
+colossal forms! They are the angels of the planets.
+Every planet has its angel standing erect above it.
+And what beauty!&mdash;what marvellous beauty! I see
+Raphael. I see the Angel of the Earth. He has six
+wings. He is a God&mdash;the God of our planet. I see
+my genius, who called himself A.Z.; but his name<span class="pagenum">[66]</span>
+is Salathiel. Oh, how surpassingly beautiful he
+is! My genius is a male, and his colour is ruby.
+Yours, Caro, is a female, and sapphire. They are
+friends&mdash;they are the same&mdash;not two, but one;
+and for that reason they have associated us
+together, and speak of themselves sometimes as
+<i>I</i>, sometimes as <i>We</i>. It is the Angel of the Earth
+himself that is your genius and mine, Caro. He
+it was who inspired you, who spoke to you. And
+they call me 'Bitterness.' And I see sorrow&mdash;oh,
+what unending sorrow do I behold! Sorrow, always
+sorrow, but never without love. I shall always
+have love. How dim is this sphere!... I am
+entering a brighter region now... Oh, the
+dazzling, dazzling brightness! Hide me, hide me
+from it! I cannot, cannot bear it! It is agony
+supreme to look upon. O God! O God! Thou art
+slaying me with Thy light. It is the Throne itself,
+the Great White Throne of God that I behold! Oh,
+what light! what light! It is like an emerald? a
+sapphire? No; a diamond! In its midst stands
+Deity erect, His right hand raised aloft, and from
+Him pours the light of light. Forth from His
+right hand streams the universe, projected by the
+omnipotent repulsion of His will. Back to His
+left, which is depressed and set backwards, returns
+the universe, drawn by the attraction of His love.
+Repulsion and attraction, will and love, right and
+left, these are the forces, centrifugal and centripetal,
+male and female, whereby God creates and
+redeems. Adonai! O Adonai! Lord God of life,
+made of the substance of light, how beautiful art
+Thou in Thine everlasting youth! with Thy
+glowing golden locks, how adorable! And I had
+thought of God as elderly and venerable! As if<span class="pagenum">[67]</span>
+the Eternal could grow old! And now not as Man
+only do I behold Thee! For now Thou art to me
+as Woman. Lo, Thou art both. One, and Two also.
+And thereby dost Thou produce creation. O God,
+O God! why didst Thou create this stupendous
+existence? Surely, surely, it had been better in
+love to have restrained Thy will. It was by will
+that Thou createdst, by will alone, not by love,
+was it not?&mdash;was it not? I cannot see clearly. A
+cloud has come between.</p>
+
+<p>"I see Thee now as Woman. Maria is next
+beside Thee. Thou art Maria. Maria is God. Oh
+Maria! God as Woman! Thee, thee I adore!
+Maria-Aphrodite! Mother! Mother-God!</p>
+
+<p>"They are returning with me now, I think. But
+I shall never get back. What strange forms! how
+huge they are! All angels and archangels. Human
+in form, yet some with eagles' heads. All the
+planets are inhabited! how innumerable is the
+variety of forms! Oh! universe of existence, how
+stupendous is existence! Oh! take me not near the
+sun; I cannot bear its heat. Already do I feel
+myself burning. Here is Jupiter! It has nine
+moons! Yes; nine. Some are exceedingly small.
+And, oh, how red it is! It has so much iron. And
+what enormous men and women! There is evil
+there, too. For evil is wherever are matter and
+limitation. But the people of Jupiter are far better
+than we on earth. They know much more; they
+are much wiser. There is less evil in their planet.
+Ah! and they have another sense, too. What is it?
+No; I cannot describe it. I cannot tell what it is.
+It differs from any of the others. We have nothing
+like it. I cannot get back yet. I shall never get
+back. I believe I am dead. It is only my body<span class="pagenum">[68]</span>
+you are holding. It has grown cold for want of
+me. Yet I must be approaching; it is growing
+shallower. We are passing out of the depths. Yet
+I can never wholly return&mdash;never&mdash;never!"<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>The account given of the vision of Adonai in
+Lecture IX. of "The Perfect Way," was
+written solely from our joint experiences. It was
+with an interest altogether novel in kind and
+degree that I now turned to the Bible narratives
+of the same vision, and found that in the record
+of its reception by the Elders of Israel, it is stated,
+as if in token of the power of the spiritual battery
+with which Moses had surrounded himself, that
+no less than seventy of his initiates were able to
+receive the vision without magnetic reinforcement
+by the imposition of their master's hands. But, as
+we learnt from our own manifold experiences, it
+does not follow that because there is no imposition
+of visible hands, no extraneous aid is rendered.
+The seeker after God cannot, even if he would,
+accomplish his quest alone; but always are there
+attracted to him those angelic beings whose office
+it is, as ministers of God, to sustain and illuminate
+souls by the imposition of hands invisible
+to the outer senses. In her case such aid was
+palpable. There was no effort on her part. And
+she held converse with those by whom she was
+upborne in her stupendous flight.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[69]</span></p>
+<p>When in due course the time came for us to
+receive the ancient and long-lost Gnosis which
+underlay the sacred religions and scriptures of
+antiquity, the following was given us, and we
+recognised in it the original Scripture from which
+the opening sentences in St John's Gospel are
+drawn.</p>
+
+<p>After defining the Elohim as comprising the two
+original principles of all Being, "the Spirit and
+the Water," or Force and Substance, and bringing
+up the process whereby Deity proceeds into
+manifestation to the point described in Genesis
+in the words, "And the Spirit of God moved upon
+the face of the Waters. And God <i>said</i>,"&mdash;the
+utterance thus continues,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Then from the midst of the Divine Duality, the Only
+Begotten of God came forth:</p>
+
+<p>Adonai, the Word, the Voice invisible.</p>
+
+<p>He was in the beginning, and by Him were all things
+discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Without Him was not anything made which is visible.</p>
+
+<p>For He is the Manifestor, and in Him was the life of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>God the nameless hath not revealed God, but Adonai
+hath revealed God from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>He is the presentation of Elohim, and by Him the Gods
+are made manifest.</p>
+
+<p>He is the third aspect of the Divine Triad:</p>
+
+<p>Co-equal with the Spirit and the heavenly deep.</p>
+
+<p>For except by three in one, the Spirits of the Invisible
+Light could not have been made manifest.</p>
+
+<p>But now is the prism perfect, and the generation of the
+Gods discovered in their order.</p>
+
+<p>Adonai dissolves and resumes; in His two hands are
+the dual powers of all things.</p>
+
+<p>He is of His Father the Spirit, and of His Mother the
+great deep.</p>
+
+<p>Having the potency of both in Himself, and the power
+of things material.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[70]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Yet being Himself invisible, for He is the cause, and not
+the effect.</p>
+
+<p>He is the Manifestor, and not that which is manifest.</p>
+
+<p>That which is manifest is the Divine Substance<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>The reason for the suppression by the translators
+of the Bible of its numerous affirmations of
+the Divine Duality, saving only those of Genesis i.
+26, 27, was in due time disclosed to us; as also
+was the extent of the loss to man through the
+elimination of the feminine principle from his conception
+of Original Being, and the consequent perversion
+of the doctrine of the Trinity, and therein
+of the true nature of Existence, in both its aspects,
+Creation and Redemption.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[71]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE COMMUNICATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>A striking feature for us was the exquisite
+tenderness and poetic delicacy, both in matter and
+manner, which characterised all that we received.
+Nor was there the intrusion of anything to suggest
+feelings such as are described by Daniel when he
+says, "I saw this great vision, and there remained
+no strength in me, neither was there breath left
+in me." And not only was the element of terror
+so completely absent as to make us feel as if we
+had entered on the dispensation of that "perfect
+love which casteth out fear," but there was occasionally
+an element of playfulness, and this on the
+part of our chiefest illuminators, the Gods themselves.
+While their instructions were replete with
+every graceful and delicate adornment such as
+could not but delight the poet and the artist, and
+this without abatement of profundity or solemnity.
+By these things it was intimated to us that the
+religion of the future was indeed to be one of
+sweetness and light, and for the severe and gloomy
+spirit of the Semite would be substituted the
+bright and joyous spirit of the Greek. All this,
+we learnt, was because the new dispensation was
+to be that of the "Woman," and in accord therefore
+with woman's nature and sentiments. It was
+moreover to be introduced by means of the
+Woman's faculty, the Intuition, and this as subsisting
+in <i>a</i> woman.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[72]</span></p>
+
+<p>The following exquisite little apologue, which
+was given us in the early days of our novitiate, is
+an instance in point:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>A blind man once lost himself in a forest. An angel
+took pity on him, and led him into an open place. As he
+went he received his sight. Then he saw the angel, and
+said to him, "Brother, what doest thou here? Suffer me
+to go before thee, for I am thine elder." So the man
+went first, taking the lead. But the angel spread his wings
+and returned to heaven. And darkness fell again upon
+him to whom sight had been given.</p></div>
+
+<p>Here was a parable which, slight as it seemed,
+was truly Biblical for the depth and manifoldness
+of its signification. For while it applied to ourselves
+both separately and jointly, and to our work,
+it was also an eternal verity applicable alike to the
+individual, the collective, and the universal. For
+as the angel was to the man, so is the intuition to
+the intellect, which of itself cannot transcend the
+sense-nature, but remains blind and dark and lost
+in the wilderness of illusion. And as she, my
+colleague, had supplemented me, so were we each
+to supplement in ourselves intellect by intuition,
+in order to become capable of knowledge and
+understanding. It was, moreover, a parable of the
+Fall and of the Redemption, an epitome in short
+of man's spiritual history. And it had been spelt
+out for us by the tilting of a table in one of our
+earliest essays in spiritualism! So carefully
+guarded and daintily taught were we from the
+outset.</p>
+
+<p>The charming allegory of "The Wonderful
+Spectacles" which was given in London on the
+31st January, 1877, to my colleague in sleep, was
+not only an instruction concerning the nature of<span class="pagenum">[73]</span>
+her faculty and its indispensableness as an adjunct
+to mine for the work assigned to us; it was also a
+prophetic intimation of the character of that work,
+and of the nature of the influences controlling it,
+which at the time was altogether unsuspected by
+us. This is the account which she sent to me by
+letter, for we were not then together:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I dreamt that I was walking alone on the sea-shore. The
+day was singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most
+beautiful landscape ever seen; and far off were ranges of
+tall hills, the highest peaks of which were white with
+glistening snow. Along the sands by the sea towards me
+came a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter.
+It was from you. It ran thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have got hold of the rarest and most precious book
+extant. It was written before the world began. The text
+is easy enough to read; but the notes, which are very
+copious and numerous, are in such very minute and
+obscure characters that I cannot make them out. I want
+you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used
+to wear; not the smaller pair&mdash;those he gave to Hans
+Christian Andersen&mdash;but the large pair, and these seem
+to have got mislaid. I think they are Spinoza's make.
+You know he was an optical-glass maker by profession,
+and the best we have ever had. See if you can get them
+for me"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the
+postman hastening away across the sands, and I called
+out to him, "Stop! how am I to send the answer? Won't
+you wait for me?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[74]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter
+bag, "and I shall deliver it immediately."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you have the answer before I have written
+it?" said I. "You are making a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he, "In the city from which I come, the
+replies are all written at the office and sent out with the
+letters themselves. Your reply is in my bag."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from
+his wallet and gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my
+own handwriting, this answer, addressed to you:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The spectacles you want can be bought in London.
+But you will not be able to use them at once, for they have
+not been worn for many years, and they want cleaning
+sadly. This you will not be able to do yourself in London,
+because it is too dark there to see, and because your
+fingers are not small enough to clean them properly.
+Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you."</p>
+
+<p>I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and
+nodded at me; and I saw then to my astonishment that
+he wore a camel's-hair tunic round his waist. I had been
+on the point of addressing him&mdash;I know not why&mdash;as
+<i>Hermes</i>. But I now saw that it was John the Baptist;
+and in my fright at having spoken with so great a saint,
+I awoke.</p></div>
+
+<p>This was the second suggestion of a Greek
+element in our work, the first having been the
+slight allusion to Phoibos Apollo in the illumination
+concerning the Marriage in Cana of Galilee<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>.
+The signification of the connection between
+Hermes and John the Baptist remained unintelligible
+to us until the key to it was given us in a
+revelation of the method of the Bible-writers
+explaining their practice of representing principles
+as persons. We then found that by the
+baptism or purification, physical and mental,
+<span class="pagenum">[75]</span>practised by John, was meant the course of life
+and thought whereby alone man develops the
+faculty of the understanding of spiritual things.
+And Hermes is the Greco-Egyptian name for the
+"second of the Gods," called by Isaiah the Spirit
+of Understanding. Hence the adoption of this
+name by the formulators of the Hermetic, or
+sacred books of Egypt; and the favourite motto
+of the Hermetists:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="tdc">"Est in Mercurio quicquid qu&oelig;runt sapientes,"</p>
+
+<p>All is in the understanding that the wise seek,&mdash;Mercury
+being the Latin equivalent for Hermes.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of Swedenborg and Andersen
+implied their possession of the faculty indispensable
+to our work, that of mystical insight, of
+which they were the most notable recent representatives.</p>
+
+<p>A larger part was played by Hermes in another
+instruction received a few months later<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>. This
+was also given in sleep, the vision taking the form
+of a "Banquet of the Gods" in which the seeress
+received the following exhortation from him, in
+enforcement of the necessity of pure and natural
+habits of life for the perfectionment of the faculties
+requisite for full spiritual perception, when,
+having put into her hands a branch of a fig-tree
+bearing upon it ripe fruit, he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do
+all things, quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm
+and comfort you externally: it is heaven's gift. But do
+not wrest it from its rightful purpose, as did that betrayer
+of your race, to fill the veins of humanity with its contagion,
+and to consume your interior being with its
+<span class="pagenum">[76]</span>breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the image which
+Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen fire,
+and it consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good
+gifts, none is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your
+hot foods and drinks have consumed and dried up the
+magnetic power of your nerves, sealed your senses, and
+cut short your lives. Now, you neither see nor hear; for
+the fire in your organs consumes your senses. Ye are
+all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent you a
+book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall
+be opened."</p>
+
+<p>Then, not recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name,
+Lord." At this he laughed and answered, "I have been
+about you from the beginning. I am the white cloud on
+the noon-day sky." "Do you, then," I asked, "desire the
+whole world to abandon the use of fire in preparing food
+and drink?"</p>
+
+<p>Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show
+you the excellent way. Two places only are vacant at our
+table. We have told you all that can be shown you on
+the level on which you stand. But our perfect gifts, the
+fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your reach now.
+We cannot give them to you until you are purified and
+have come up higher. The conditions are <span class="smcap">God's</span>; the will
+is with you"<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>The allusion to Prometheus, and the fact that
+Hermes had been represented in the Greek tragedy
+of that name as the executor of the vengeance of
+the Gods upon Prometheus, as well also as the
+significance of the fig-branch and the fact of its
+being the symbol of Hermes as the Spirit of Understanding,&mdash;all
+these things were beyond her knowledge
+at the time, some of them indeed having been
+<span class="pagenum">[77]</span>long lost. But all were made clear as our education
+for our work proceeded, and we learnt the
+intention and recognised the necessity of restoring
+the Greek presentment of the Sacred Mysteries in
+explanation of the Hebrew, and in correction of
+the ecclesiastical presentment of Christianity. The
+restoration was to be twofold, of faculty and of
+knowledge, the knowledge to be recovered through
+the faculty by which it was originally obtained.
+Hence the insistance on our adoption of the pure
+regimen of the Seers of all time. Hence, too, the
+presentation to her by Hermes of the fig-branch
+bearing ripe fruit. The parable of the cursing of
+the barren fig-tree was explained to us as denoting
+the loss by the church of the inward understanding,
+the Intuition. In the Seeress it was
+restored; she was the appointed representative of it.
+The "time of the end" was at hand, of the
+approach of which the budding of the fig-tree was
+to be the sign. And here it was not merely budding
+and blossoming, but bearing mature fruit to
+signify that in her the faculty was restored in its
+perfection.</p>
+
+<p>In an instruction subsequently given to me by
+her Genius, he said of her, "I have fashioned a
+perfect instrument," implying that the process of
+her preparation under his tuition had extended
+over numerous lives. And again, "The Gods have
+given to their own a perfect ear."</p>
+
+<p>Being desirous once to test the powers of a
+medium to whom she was totally unknown even by
+name, she asked his controlling spirit about herself
+and her faculty. "You are not a trance-medium
+at all!" the spirit exclaimed in reply. "My
+medium is a trance-medium. You are far beyond<span class="pagenum">[78]</span>
+that. You are a spiritual lens. You are a mirror
+in which the highest spirits&mdash;the Gods&mdash;can reflect
+their faces. You take the light of the whole
+universe and divide it so that it can be understood,
+as it has never been understood yet. Your
+gift is very extraordinary. You are a glass to
+reflect the highest and the greatest to the world."
+This was in 1877, before she was known in connection
+with the spiritual movement of the age.</p>
+
+<p>The description given of himself by Hermes as
+"the white cloud in the noon-day sky," proved to
+be a quotation from an ancient ritual, subsequently
+recovered by her, in which the "Hymn to
+Hermes"<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> opens thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>As a moving light between heaven and earth: as a white
+cloud assuming many shapes;</p>
+
+<p>He descends and rises: he guides and illumines; he
+transmutes himself from small to great, from bright to
+shadowy, from the opaque image to the diaphanous mist.</p>
+
+<p>Star of the East, conducting the Magi; cloud from
+whose midst the holy voice speaketh; by day a pillar of
+vapour, by night a shining flame.</p></div>
+
+<p>All these are symbolic expressions for the Understanding,
+especially in respect of divine things, so
+that Hermes is no individual soul or spirit, but the
+divine spirit Itself operating as the second of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="p79" id="p79"></a>[79]</span>Creative Elohim, and as a function therefore of
+man's own spirit when duly unfolded and purified,
+in token whereof it is said in the recovered hymn<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>
+to the Planet-God Iacchos&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Within thee, O Man, is the Universe; the thrones of
+all the Gods are in thy temple....</p>
+
+<p>And the Spirits which speak unto thee are of thine own
+kingdom.</p></div>
+
+<p>In the hymn of invocation summoning the
+Seeress to her mission in the name of the two first
+of the "Holy Seven," the Spirits of Wisdom and
+Understanding, both of whom were wont to manifest
+themselves to her, Hermes is referred to as
+"the God who knows"; the other being personified
+as Pallas Athena. "In the Celestial," we were
+informed, "all things are Persons."</p>
+
+<div class="poemblock">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Wake, prophet-soul, the time draws near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">'The God who knows' within thee stirs<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And speaks, for His thou art, and Hers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who bears the mystic shield and spear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A touch divine shall thrill thy brain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy soul shall leap to life, and lo!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What she has known, again shall know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What she has seen, shall see again.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ancient past through which she came..."
+
+
+<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>
+<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p>As the Spirit of Understanding, the name of
+Hermes signifies both Rock and Interpreter.
+Hence the significance of the saying of Jesus,
+<span class="pagenum">[80]</span>"Thou art the Rock, and upon this Rock I will
+build My Church," which He addressed not to the
+man Peter, but to the Spirit of Understanding
+whom He discerned as the prompter of Peter's confession
+of faith. By this Jesus implied that the only
+true and infallible church is that which is founded
+on the Understanding, and not on authority
+whether of book, tradition or institution. The
+utterance of Jesus was a citation from the proem
+to the hymn to Hermes<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> recovered by us:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He is as a rock between earth and heaven, and the
+Lord God shall build His Church thereon.</p>
+
+<p>As a city upon a mountain of stone, whose windows look
+forth on either side."</p></div>
+
+<p>As our education proceeded we found indubitably
+that in excluding from its curriculum the
+whole range of the knowledges represented by the
+term "Hermetic," Ecclesiasticism has ignored the
+chief source of information concerning the
+Christian <i>origines.</i> Doing which it has incurred
+the reproach uttered by Jesus against those who
+took away the key of knowledge, neither entering
+in themselves, nor suffering others to enter in. And
+it was to restore this Gnosis, suppressed by the
+priests, that the new revelation was promised, with
+the reception of which we found ourselves charged,
+the prophecies pointing to a restoration both of
+faculty and of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the Fig-branch of Hermes, there is
+another symbol of the intuitional understanding
+which was disclosed to us as having special and
+peculiar relation to the work set us. This symbol
+<span class="pagenum">[81]</span>is Woman herself. She had already, in the instruction
+concerning the marriage in Cana<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>, been
+shown to us as the inspirer and prompter. She was
+now shown to us as the interpreter. The reason
+why the fig-tree was the emblem of the inward
+understanding will be found in the citation
+presently to be given; which is a portion of an
+instruction received in interpretation of the
+prophecy of Daniel, re-enunciated by Jesus, concerning
+the recognition of the "abomination of
+desolation standing in the holy place"<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>, as making
+and marking the time of the end of that generation
+which, for its materialisation of spiritual things,
+was called by Him an "adulterous," meaning an
+idolatrous, generation. It will be seen that in the
+Scripture symbology, as the soul is the feminine
+principle in man's spiritual system, and is called
+therefore the "Woman," the spirit being the masculine
+principle; so in man's mental system the
+intuition as the feminine mode of the mind is
+called the "Woman," and the intellect, as the
+masculine mode, the "Man." The following is the
+citation in question:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Behold the <span class="smcap">Fig-Tree</span>, and learn her parable. When
+the branch thereof shall become tender, and her buds
+appear, know that the day of God is upon you.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore, then, saith the Lord that the budding of the
+Fig-Tree shall foretell the end?</p>
+
+<p>Because the Fig-Tree is the symbol of the Divine
+Woman, as the Vine of the Divine Man.</p>
+
+<p>The Fig is the similitude of the Matrix, containing
+<span class="pagenum">[82]</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>The stems of the Fig-Tree run with milk: her leaves
+are as human hands, like the leaves of her brother the
+Vine.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"There shall meet you a Man bearing a pitcher of
+Water."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It is His Pass-Over; for thereafter the Sun must pass
+into a new Sign.</p>
+
+<p>After the Fish, the Water-Carrier; but the Lamb of God
+remains always in the place of victory, being slain from
+the foundation of the world.</p>
+
+<p>For His place is the place of the Sun's triumph.</p>
+
+<p>After the Vine the Fig; for Adam is first formed, then
+Eve.</p>
+
+<p>And because our Lady is not yet manifest, our Lord is
+crucified.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore came He vainly seeking fruit upon the Fig-Tree,
+"for the time of figs was not yet."</p>
+
+<p>And from that day forth, because of the curse of Eve,
+no man has eaten fruit of the Fig-Tree.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[83]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Wherefore, indeed, said our Lord to our Lady:&mdash;"Woman,
+what is between me and thee? For even <i>my</i>
+hour is not yet come."</p>
+
+<p>Because until the hour of the Man is accomplished and
+fulfilled, the hour of the Woman must be deferred.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But when the hour of our Lord is achieved; hanging on
+His Cross, He gives our Lady to the faithful.</p>
+
+<p>The chalice is drained, the lees are wrung out: then
+says He to His Elect:&mdash;"Behold thy Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>But so long as the grapes remain unplucked, the Vine
+has nought to do with the Fig-Tree, nor Jesus with Mary.</p>
+
+<p>He is first revealed, for He is the Word; afterwards
+shall come the hour of its Interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>And in that day every man shall sit under the <span class="smcap">Vine</span>
+and the <span class="smcap">Fig-Tree</span>; the Dayspring shall arise in the Orient,
+and the Fig-Tree shall bear her fruit.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Look for that Tree which alone of all Trees bears a fruit
+blossoming interiorly, in concealment, and thou shalt discover
+the Fig.</p>
+
+<p>Look for the sufficient meaning of the manifest universe
+and of the written Word, and thou shalt find only their
+mystical sense.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;"even at
+the doors."</p></div>
+
+<p>On handing me the first portion of the instruc<span class="pagenum">[84]</span>tion
+of which the foregoing is the conclusion,
+"Mary"&mdash;to use the name which meanwhile had
+been bestowed on her by our Illuminators in token
+of her office as representative of the Soul and
+Intuition&mdash;confessed to some perplexity. Her
+usual Illuminator for revelations of this order was
+Hermes, whose Hebrew equivalent is Raphael. But
+on this occasion it had been a Hebrew one, Gabriel.
+Her surprise and delight were great on being
+reminded that Gabriel was Daniel's own inspirer
+in respect of the prophecy in question, and that
+he had prophesied his return, saying, "Go thy
+way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed
+till the time of the end.... Thou shalt rest and
+stand in thy lot at the end of the days." The
+explanation given us was that both Daniel's own
+spirit and his illuminating angel had come to her,
+the former serving as the vehicle of the latter. As
+with all our other results similarly obtained, we
+judged it entirely by its own intrinsic merits, and
+not by its alleged derivation. We knew too well
+the propensity of low influences to appropriate to
+themselves great and even divine names, and the
+liability of the recipients to be deceived and to
+make the names the criterion instead of the communication
+itself. But in no instance did it happen
+to us that we had any cause to distrust the
+genuineness either of messenger or of message,
+even when both claimed to be divine.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="p2">The difference between the two interpretations
+or applications given us of the incident at the
+"Marriage in Cana of Galilee," was explained to<span class="pagenum">[85]</span>
+us as an instance of the manifoldness of the sense
+of Scripture. The parables have a separate meaning
+for each of the four planes of existence<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>We wondered much whether there were any
+parallels in history to our work and to the manner
+of it; and especially as to how far an association
+such as ours coincided with the ideas of the
+Hebrews. It was true that they had both prophets
+and prophetesses, but did they work like us in
+supplement and complement of each other? As
+regarded the recovery of knowledge acquired in a
+previous life, Ezra also had ascribed his recovery
+of the long lost Law to intuitional recollection
+occurring under special illumination, saying,
+"The Spirit strengthened my memory." But no
+mention is made of a female coadjutor. Nor does it
+appear that the Vestal Virgins were similarly supplemented,
+except to be thrown into the magnetic
+trance-state. In her zeal for her sex and her corresponding
+distrust of men&mdash;sentiments which
+seemed to be inborn in her&mdash;"Mary" was disposed
+to think that most of the prophesying of old had
+been done by women, but that the credit had been
+appropriated by men. The answer to these questionings
+was of a kind altogether unexpected by
+us, both as regarded its manner and its matter.
+For neither of us had the smallest suspicion that
+the book referred to was capable of the interpretation
+given us of it. This was the book of Esther.
+The incident was as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The occasion was an Easter Sunday<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>, and we
+<span class="pagenum">[86]</span>were at Paris. Electing to remain indoors
+rather than encounter the crowds of holiday
+makers, "Mary" was moved during the afternoon
+to sit for some communication by joint writing.
+But we were no sooner seated than it was written,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Do you, Caro<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>, take a pencil and write, and let her
+look inwards, and we will dictate slowly."</p></div>
+
+<p>"Mary" then became entranced, and delivered
+orally, repeating it slowly, without break or pause,
+after a voice heard interiorly, the following exposition
+of the book of Esther, an exposition entirely
+novel, as I have said, to us, and, we believed, to
+the world. Some divines have called the book a
+romance, but none have discovered that it is a
+prophecy in the form of a parable. Luther, indeed,
+pronounced both it and the Apocalypse to be so
+worthless that their destruction would be no loss.</p>
+
+<p>The most important book in the Bible for you to study
+now, and that most nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of
+the most mystic books in the Old Testament, the book of
+Esther.</p>
+
+<p>This book is a mystic prophecy, written in the form of
+an actual history. If I give you the key, the clue of the
+thread of it, it will be the easiest thing in the world to
+unravel the whole.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[87]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>The great King Assuerus, who had all the world under
+his dominion, and possessed the wealth of all the nations,
+is the genius of the age.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Vasthi, who for her disobedience to the king was
+deposed from her royal seat, is the orthodox Catholic
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>The Jews, scattered among the nations under the
+dominion of the king, are the true Israel of God.</p>
+
+<p>Mardochi the Jew represents the spirit of intuitive
+reason and understanding.</p>
+
+<p>His enemy Aman is the spirit of materialism, taken
+into the favour and protection of the genius of the age,
+and exalted to the highest place in the world's councils
+after the deposition of the orthodox religion.</p>
+
+<p>Now Aman has a wife and ten sons.</p>
+
+<p>Esther&mdash;who, under the care and tuition of Mardochi,
+is brought up pure and virgin&mdash;is that spirit of love and
+sympathetic interpretation which shall redeem the world.</p>
+
+<p>I have told you that it shall be redeemed by a
+"woman."</p>
+
+<p>Now the several philosophical systems by which the
+councillors of the age propose to replace the dethroned
+Church, are one by one submitted to the judgment of the
+age; and Esther, coming last, shall find favour.</p>
+
+<p>Six years shall she be anointed with oil of myrrh, that
+is, with study and training severe and bitter, that she
+may be proficient in intellectual knowledge, as must all
+systems which seek the favour of the age.</p>
+
+<p>And six years with sweet perfumes, that is with the
+gracious loveliness of the imagery and poetry of the faiths
+of the past, that religion may not be lacking in sweetness
+and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>But she shall not seek to put on any of those adornments
+of dogma, or of mere sense, which, by trick of priestcraft,
+former systems have used to gain power or favour
+with the world and the age, and for which they have been
+found wanting.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[88]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Now there come out of the darkness and the storm
+which shall arise upon the earth, two dragons<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>And they fight and tear each other, until there arises a
+star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>I have given you the key. Unlock the meaning of all
+that is written.</p>
+
+<p>I do not tell you if in the history of the past these voices
+had part in the world of men.</p>
+
+<p>If they had, guess now who were Mardochi and Esther.</p>
+
+<p>But I tell you that which shall be in the days about to
+come<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>On consulting the Bible-dictionary, we found
+this relation between Esther and Easter. The feast
+of Purim, which was instituted in token of the
+deliverance wrought through Esther, coincides in
+date with Easter. And it was on Easter day that
+this was given us, by way of enhancing the correspondence
+between the parts assigned to us and
+those of Mordecai and Esther. Later it was shown
+us that the parts assigned to Joseph and Mary
+were, in one aspect, also identical with those of
+Mordecai and Esther. This is the aspect in which
+Joseph represents the mind, and Mary the soul in
+the regenerated human system.</p>
+
+<p>Besides "Hermes," "Mary" received much of
+her illumination from her "Genius," her relations
+with whom far surpassed not only my relations
+with mine, but any that are recorded in history,
+the experiences of Socrates, the chief instance on
+record, being insignificant both in quantity and
+in quality as compared with hers. It is important,
+therefore, to give an account of the nature and
+office of this order of angels, which shall be
+rendered in his own words.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[89]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Every man is a planet, having sun, moon, and stars.
+The Genius of a man is his satellite; God&mdash;the God of the
+man&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The day and night of the microcosm, man, are its
+positive and passive, or protective 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.</p>
+
+<p>Who or what, then, is this moon? It is part of ourselves
+and revolves with us. It is our celestial affinity,&mdash;of
+whose order it is said&mdash;as by Jesus&mdash;"Their angels do
+always behold the face of My Father."</p>
+
+<p>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....</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Genius is the moon to the planet man, reflecting to
+him the Sun, or God, within him. For the Divine Spirit
+<span class="pagenum">[90]</span>which animates and eternises the man, is the God of the
+man, the Sun that enlightens him.... And because
+the Genius reflects, not the planet, but the Sun, not the
+man (as do the astrals), but the God, his light is always
+to be trusted....</p>
+
+<p>The memory of the soul is recovered by a threefold
+operation&mdash;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 showeth where it lieth."...</p>
+
+<p>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 God, and thy minister. But thou must obey him,
+for he hath no voice of his own, but sheweth thee the will
+of the Spirit.</p></div>
+
+<p>We noted that the inspiring angel of the
+Apocalypse had twice similarly spoken when the
+seer was about to worship him;&mdash;"See thou do it
+not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy
+brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the
+sayings of this book: Worship God."</p>
+
+<p>The like positive injunctions were given us also
+against according divine honours to Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>Besides Socrates, there is another notable historical
+"Spiritualist" of whom our experiences
+vividly reminded us. This was Joan of Arc. The
+correspondence between her and "Mary," in gifts,
+experiences, and personal characteristics, was of
+the closest. We had no difficulty in believing her<span class="pagenum">[91]</span>
+history. Each of them, moreover, had a mission of
+deliverance, the one political and national, the
+other spiritual and universal.</p>
+
+<p>Although we had learned to trust our Illuminators
+implicitly long before the receipt of the
+above instruction, we were still without assurance
+as to the source and method of the revelation. Be
+the knowledges received by us as new as they
+might to our external selves, they never failed to
+be familiar as recovered memories, excepting in
+such cases as they were couched in terms of which
+the sense, being mystical, was not at once recognised.
+But such difficulties were soon overcome,
+and the doctrine, when fully apprehended, was
+always to us as necessary and self-evident truth,
+and such as to excite wonder at the potency of the
+glamour which had hitherto withheld it from the
+world's recognition. In every detail, the revelation
+represented for us Common-Sense in its
+loftiest mode. For the agreement it represented
+was not that of all men merely, but that of all
+parts of Man: of mind, soul and spirit, intellect
+and intuition, and these purified and unfolded to
+the utmost, and perfectly equilibrated. Whatever
+the manner of its communication, whether heard
+by the interior ear, seen by the interior eye, flashed
+on the mind as vivid ideas, whether acquired
+waking or sleeping, or in the intermediate state
+of trance-lucidity, or given in writing, it always
+seemed that we knew it before, and did not require
+to be told it, but only to be reminded of it.</p>
+
+<p>The problem specially exercised myself. "Mary"
+had other work than the analysis of our spiritual
+experiences. That was my special function. I
+learnt to see in her a soul of surpassing luminous<span class="pagenum">[92]</span>ness
+and variousness, who had been entrusted to
+my charge expressly in order that by my study of
+her I might recover for the world's benefit the
+long-lost knowledge of the soul's being, nature,
+and history. And so many and various were her
+spiritual states, that she seemed to me to represent
+in turn every stage of the soul's evolution,
+and to be "not one, but all mankind's epitome."</p>
+
+<p>This also used to occur so frequently as to be
+observed by both of us and discussed between us.
+When in the process of my endeavour to find the
+solution of some problem, such as the meaning of
+a parabolic or otherwise obscure passage in Scripture,
+I had exhausted my stock of tentative hypotheses,
+but, through consideration for her other
+and engrossing work, refrained from imparting
+my need to her, she would receive in sleep the
+desired solution, which she wrote down on waking,
+and which invariably proved satisfactory beyond
+my highest imaginings. And besides showing intimate
+acquaintance with the course of my thought,
+it was couched in language which, for simplicity,
+dignity, purity, and lucidity, was without an equal
+in literature; the English being that of the best
+period of our literature, and better than the best
+even of that period. She herself had a remarkable
+mastery of English, but these compositions reduced
+her to despair, causing her to exclaim, "Why
+cannot I write as well when I am awake as I do in
+my sleep!" Of course the explanation lay in the
+limiting influence of the physical organism.</p>
+
+<p>The frequency of this occurrence led me, in the
+absence of authoritative explanation, to try the
+following, as an hypothesis purely tentative. The
+revelations generally came to her when, through<span class="pagenum">[93]</span>
+my inability to find the interpretations which satisfied
+me, my work required them, and they came
+independently of any desire or knowledge on her
+part. Might it not be, then, that it was my own
+spirit who knew them and gave them to her, finding
+her more sensitive to impression than myself?
+The explanation was not one that either pleased
+or satisfied me, one reason being that I took a
+delight in recognising the primacy accorded to her.
+The idea occurred to me one night, and I pondered
+it the next day, but did not divulge it. What
+happened on the evening of that day led me to
+suspect that our Genii had suggested it to me in
+order to make it the occasion of imparting to me
+the knowledge in question, namely, that of the real
+source and method of the revelation.</p>
+
+<p>For the experience to be properly appreciated it
+must be remembered that "Mary" had no knowledge
+of the explanation suggested to me, and
+neither of us had as yet entertained the idea of
+past lives as the key to our present work. The
+question of Reincarnation itself had not come
+before us, and far less the possibility of recovering
+the memory of the things learnt in previous existences,
+much as we had been puzzled to account for
+our experiences in the absence of some such
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>The proposal to sit for a written communication
+came from her, having evidently been
+prompted by our illuminators. The method
+was one which both they and we disliked, and it
+was adopted only when they desired to address
+us both at once. So we sat for writing.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[94]</span></p>
+
+<p>The result confirmed my surmise. We had
+scarcely seated ourselves when the writing began,
+as if we were being waited for. And this is what
+was written:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We are instructed to say several things to-night. We
+are your Genii.</p>
+
+<p>"(To <span class="smcap">Caro</span>.) In the first place, you entirely misconceive
+the process by which the Revelation comes to Mary.
+The method of this revelation is entirely interior. Mary
+is not a Medium; nor is she even a Seer as you understand
+the word. She is a Prophet. By this we mean
+that all she has ever written or will write, is from within,
+and not from without. She knows. She is not told. Hers
+is an old, old spirit. She is older than you are, Caro, older
+by many thousand years. Do not think that spirits other
+than her own are to be credited with the authorship of the
+new Gospel. As a proof of this, and to correct the false
+impression you have on the subject, the holy and inner
+truth, of which she is the depositary, will not in future be
+given to her by the former method. All she writes
+henceforth, she will write consciously. Yes, she must
+finish the new Evangel by conscious effort of brain and
+will."</p></div>
+
+<p>Coming from a source which we had learnt to
+trust implicitly, and according with our own
+highest conceptions, this message was supremely
+satisfactory, and was welcomed accordingly. But
+it was followed forthwith by another which excited
+feelings of a very different character. For, as if
+expressly in order to prevent her from being made
+vain-glorious and uplifted by it, they added&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"(To <span class="smcap">Mary</span>.) It may serve to exhibit the path by
+which you have come, and to suggest the nature of some
+ancient tendencies which may yet tarnish the mirror of a
+soul destined to attain perfection, to learn that you dwelt
+within the body of&mdash;&mdash;."</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[95]</span></p>
+
+<p>Here were given the name and character of a
+certain Roman dame of some seventeen centuries
+ago, one of high station, but of a repute so evil as
+to cause an immense shock to both of us. It does
+not come within the design of this book to disclose
+the particular personalities with whom we had
+been identified in the past<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>. Concerning this one
+it must suffice to state here that, omitting from
+account one whole side of "Mary's" character, we
+both recognised in the other side traits strongly
+resembling those which had been indicated. And
+she subsequently recovered distinct recollections
+of scenes in the life in question which served to
+assure her on the point. Our discussions on the
+matter tended to conclusions of which fuller knowledge
+brought the verification. It was not one of
+those lives in virtue of which she was directly
+qualified for her present work; but it was one of
+those lives of which the sin and the suffering may
+well be conceived of as indispensable elements in
+the education of a soul called to a lofty work and
+destiny in the future, in accordance with the principle
+which finds expression in the sayings, "The
+greater the sinner the greater the saint," and
+"<i>Pecca Fortiter.</i>" This also we discerned clearly,
+that, supposing it to be indeed a truth that man is
+"made perfect through suffering," the experiences
+in the course of which the suffering is undergone
+must imply sin as well as pain and sorrow; since
+otherwise there would be a whole region of his
+nature, namely the moral, in which he would
+<span class="pagenum">[96]</span>remain unvitalised. The lesson of which is that
+a man is alive only so far as he has lived. There
+was yet another reflection that was prompted by
+the occasion in question, and one which crowned
+and glorified the rest. This was the assurance
+implied that none need despair. If the soul which
+had dwelt in the body of the person named, could
+nevertheless become within measureable time what
+"Mary" was now, and be "destined to attain
+perfection," there is hope for all, and the doctrine
+of Reincarnation is indeed a gospel of salvation.
+And herein we discerned a lesson hitherto unsuspected
+so far as we were aware, in the parable of
+the Prodigal Son. It is not the "elder brother"
+who stays at home that can best appreciate the
+divine order; but the prodigal who has gone forth
+into the world of experience to acquire knowledge
+for himself at first hand. They who have been the
+most fully satiated with the husks of materiality,
+can&mdash;when their time arrives for coming to their
+true selves&mdash;best estimate the fare provided in the
+"Father's House." "He loveth most to whom
+most has been forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>While sitting alone one day and pondering these
+things, and particularly the difficulty which people
+often find in correcting in themselves even the
+faults which they deplore, this pregnant sentence
+was spoken audibly to my inner hearing by a voice
+which I recognised as that of my Genius:&mdash;"Tendencies
+encouraged for ages cannot be cured
+in a single lifetime, but may require ages."</p>
+
+<p>This further reflection also was suggested to me:
+that souls of exceptional strength are reincarnated
+in bodies of exceptionally strong passional natures,
+expressly in order to obtain the discipline which<span class="pagenum">[97]</span>
+comes of the effort to subdue them. All of which
+reflections tended to exhibit the rashness of judging
+outward judgment in respect of others. In
+order to judge righteous judgment it is necessary
+to know the strength of their temptations, and of
+their efforts to resist them. And these can be known
+only to God. The attainment of perfection, and
+therein of salvation by conquest and not by flight,&mdash;this
+is the principle of reincarnation. It is the
+<i>condition</i> of Regeneration, which is <i>from out of</i>
+the body.</p>
+
+<p>In due time we were able to recognise the whole
+plan of our work as so ordered as to make the work
+itself a demonstration of the doctrine of reincarnation.
+When once this doctrine had become a
+practical question for us, it assumed a prominent
+place both in our teachings and in our experiences.
+One instruction given us was no less striking in
+itself than in the circumstances of its communication.
+The messenger was one with whom we had
+never anticipated coming into relations, for,
+besides not courting intercourse with the souls of
+the departed, we had not paid to the writings of
+the person concerned the heed that would entitle
+us to count him among our cordial sympathisers;
+and still less as among our possible visitants. This
+was the famous Swedish Seer, Emmanuel Swedenborg.
+In the course of what we afterwards found
+to be a strikingly characteristic communication
+from him, he informed us that owing to the difficulty
+our angels had in approaching us just then,
+through the condition of the spiritual atmosphere,
+they had charged him with a message to us, in
+which "Mary's" Genius had spoken to him of her as
+"A soul of vast experience, who under his tuition<span class="pagenum">[98]</span>
+had so painfully acquired the evangel of which she
+was the depositary"; adding that he, her Genius,
+"had been promised help to recover for her, in this
+incarnation, the memory of all that was in the
+past"; and&mdash;which was the point of the message&mdash;that
+it was to be put forward, not as we were then
+contemplating putting it forward, but "as fragmentary
+specimens of such recollection occurring
+to one now a woman, but formerly an initiate, who
+is beginning to recover this power."</p>
+
+<p>It will be interesting to remark on this experience,
+that to this day the followers of Swedenborg
+set their faces against the doctrine of
+reincarnation, expressly on the ground that their
+master denied it in his lifetime. Whether Swedenborg
+really denied it is uncertain. There is grave
+cause to doubt whether his writings on the subject
+have been rightly understood or fairly represented.
+It has been maintained with much show
+of reason that Swedenborg denied only the reincarnation
+of the astral soul, not of the true soul; in
+which case he would be right. Having once
+obtained access to us, his visits were for a time
+frequent, the manner of them being various. For
+he came to us jointly and separately, in waking
+and in sleeping&mdash;the latter to "Mary" only&mdash;and
+audibly and visibly&mdash;the latter also to "Mary"
+only. He alluded to a recent incarnation of mine,
+of which I have since had full and independent
+proof. And he recognised our work as not only a
+confirmation and continuation of his own, but also
+as a correction. For, as he gave us to understand,
+he had been too much under the influence of the
+current orthodoxy to be able to transmit the revelation
+given to him in its proper purity, and unbiased<span class="pagenum">[99]</span>
+by his own preconceptions. The doctrine in respect
+of which he was chiefly desirous of being set right
+was that of the Incarnation, the orthodox presentment
+of which he now saw to be wrong, by reason
+of its deification of Jesus. In referring to the perversion
+of the truth by the formulators of the
+Christian orthodoxy, he said to us, with much
+emphasis, "Do not be too kind to the Christians."</p>
+
+<p>This allusion to an experience which belongs to
+the category of "spiritualism" rather than to that
+of our special work, may with advantage be followed
+by some account of our other experiences of
+the same order, partly for the sake of testifying to
+the genuineness of the experiences relied on by
+spiritualists, and partly in order to show the distinction
+between the two orders of experience, as
+discerned by persons whose familiarity with both
+qualified them to institute comparison between
+them. For, having once become sensitised in the
+inner and higher regions of the consciousness, we
+had become sensitised also in the intermediate
+regions, and were able therefore to hold palpable
+converse with the denizens of these also. And the
+converse thus held was of the most satisfactory
+character, on the ground both of the certainty of
+its reality and its intrinsic nature. Father, mother,
+wife, brothers, sundry dear friends, and others
+interested in our work, all came to me, and some
+of them to my colleague, and this several times,
+and in a manner impossible to be distrusted. For
+my mother more than once spoke to me aloud in
+her own unmistakeable voice, and in tones that
+anyone might have heard, as I sat alone in my
+study. My wife came repeatedly to both of us,
+jointly and separately, audibly, visibly, and<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p100" id="p100"></a>100]</span>
+tangibly; giving us timely warnings of dangers
+unsuspected by us but proving to be real. And one
+of my brothers cleared up a mystery which had
+hung over his death. No mere attenuated wraiths
+or soulless phantoms were they who thus visited
+us from "beyond the veil," they were strong, distinct,
+intelligent individualities, veritable souls,
+palpitating with vitality, and eager to render loving
+service. But they came spontaneously and
+unevoked, for we never sought to compel their
+presence. Our quest was purely and simply for
+truth, not for persons. But we considered that,
+when these also came, as they did come, to ourselves
+directly and without intervention of any
+third party, to refuse to receive them on the
+ground that they had put off their bodies, would
+be equivalent to repulsing our friends in the flesh
+on the ground that they had put off their overcoats.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit in which alone such intercourse is
+permissible will be seen by the following citations
+from the instructions received by us. Terms from
+the Hebrew, Greek, and Oriental Scriptures were
+used indifferently by our illuminators. The word
+<i>Ruach</i> in the following&mdash;which is Hebrew for
+Spirit&mdash;is here used in a kabalistic sense to denote
+the astral soul or ghost, as distinguished from the
+divine soul, the <i>Psyche</i> or <i>Neshamah</i>, and from the
+<i>Nephesh</i> or mere phantom. The following is from
+an instruction given to "Mary" in sleep, in direct
+solution of certain perplexities.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Thou knowest that in the end, when Nirvâna is
+attained, the soul shall gather up all that it hath left
+within the astral of holy memories and worthy experience,
+and to this end the Ruach rises in the astral sphere, by
+the gradual decay and loss of its more material affinities,
+<span class="pagenum">[101]</span>until these have so disintegrated and perished that its substance
+is thereby lightened and purified. But continual
+commerce and intercourse with earth add, as it were,
+fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these alive, and
+hindering its recall to its spiritual ego. Thus, therefore,
+the spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption
+into the divine, and union therewith. For the Ruach shall
+not all die, if there be in it anything worthy of recall. The
+astral sphere is its purging chamber. For Saturn, who is
+Time, is the trier of all things; he devoureth all the dross;
+only that escapeth which in its nature is ethereal and
+destined to reign. And this death of the Ruach is gradual
+and natural. It is a process of elimination and disintegration,
+often&mdash;as men measure time&mdash;extending over
+many decades, or even centuries. And those Ruachs
+which appertain to wicked and evil persons, having strong
+wills inclined earthwards,&mdash;these persist longest and
+manifest most frequently and vividly, because they <i>rise
+not</i>, but, being destined to perish utterly, are not withdrawn
+from immediate contact with the earth. They are
+all dross; there is in them no redeemable element. But
+the Ruach of the righteous complaineth if thou disturb
+his evolution. 'Why callest thou me? disturb me not.
+The memories of my earth-life are chains about my neck;
+the desire of the past detaineth me. Suffer me to rise
+towards my rest, and hinder me not with evocations. But
+let thy love go after me and encompass me; so shalt thou
+rise with me through sphere after sphere.'</p>
+
+<p>"For the good man upon earth can love nothing less
+than the divine. Wherefore that which he loveth in his
+friend is the divine, that is, the true and radiant self. And
+if he love it as differentiated from God, it is only on
+account of its separate tincture. For in the perfect light
+there are innumerable tinctures. And according to its
+celestial affinity, one soul loveth this or that splendour
+more than the rest. And when the righteous friend of the
+good man dieth, the love of the living man goeth after
+the true soul of the dead; and the strength and divinity
+<span class="pagenum">[102]</span>of this love helpeth the purgation of the astral soul, the
+psychic ghost. It is to this astral soul, which ever
+remaineth near the living friend, an indication of the way
+it must also go,&mdash;a light shining upon the upward path
+that leads from the astral to the celestial and everlasting.
+For love, being divine, is <i>towards</i> the divine. 'Love
+exalteth, love purifieth, love uplifteth.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>And this also, which was similarly obtained,
+represents a further restoration of the original,
+pure, undistorted and unmutilated doctrine of
+Christianity concerning the communion of souls.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>So weepest thou and lamentest, because the Soul thou
+lovest is taken from thy sight.</p>
+
+<p>And life seemeth to thee a bitter thing: yea, thou
+cursest the destiny of all living creatures.</p>
+
+<p>And thou deemest thy love of no avail, and thy tears as
+idle drops.</p>
+
+<p>Behold, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are
+prayers.</p>
+
+<p>And if thou have lived purely, thy fervent desire shall
+be counted grace to the soul of thy dead.</p>
+
+<p>For the burning and continual prayer of the just
+availeth much.</p>
+
+<p>Yea, thy love shall enfold the soul which thou lovest:
+it shall be unto him a wedding garment and a vesture of
+blessing.</p>
+
+<p>The baptism of thy sorrow shall baptize thy dead, and he
+shall rise because of it.</p>
+
+<p>Thy prayers shall lift him up, and thy tears shall
+encompass his steps: thy love shall be to him a light
+shining upon the upward way.</p>
+
+<p>And the angels of God shall say unto him, "O happy
+Soul, that art so well-beloved; that art made so strong
+with all these tears and sighs.</p>
+
+<p>"Praise the Father of Spirits therefor: for this great
+love shall save thee many incarnations.</p>
+<span class="pagenum">[103]</span>
+<p>"Thou art advanced thereby; thou art drawn aloft and
+carried upward by cords of grace."</p>
+
+<p>For in such wise do souls profit one another and have
+communion, and receive and give blessing, the departed
+of the living, and the living of the departed.</p>
+
+<p>And so much the more as the heart within them is clean,
+and the way of their intention is innocent in the sight of
+God....</p>
+
+<p>Count not as lost thy suffering on behalf of other souls;
+for every cry is a prayer, and all prayer is power.</p>
+
+<p>That thou willest to do is done; thine intention is united
+to the Will of Divine Love.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is lost of that which thou layest out for God
+and for thy brother.</p>
+
+<p>And it is love alone who redeemeth, and love hath
+nothing of her own<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>But precious as is the communion of souls when
+thus conditioned, it was not to them that we looked
+for light and guidance in our work. Nor, indeed,
+to any persons at all in the sense in which the term
+is ordinarily used. We looked steadfastly and
+directly to the Highest, confidently leaving to the
+Highest the appointment both of the Messenger
+and of the Message, but never failing to submit
+both manner and matter to the keenest scrutiny of
+faculties which we had striven to the utmost to
+attune to divine things. We were, moreover,
+emphatically warned from the outset against
+allowing any intrusion into our work of the
+influences accessible to the ordinary sensitive, the
+two planes being absolutely distinct. Herein lay
+<span class="pagenum">[104]</span>the significance of the saying of "Mary's" Genius,
+that he had been "promised help to enable her to
+recover in this incarnation the memory of all that
+is in the past." The Genii themselves, although
+of the celestial, belong to its circumferential and
+lowest sphere. They touch the astral, but do not
+enter it. The help spoken of was to come from
+the innermost and highest spheres. And the charge
+was accordingly given us, "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."</p>
+
+<p>The manner in which we received the first full
+and particular account respecting the method of
+revelation, was as follows. I was pondering to
+myself with much intentness the nature and source
+of inspiration, and desiring a test whereby to distinguish
+between true and false inspiration. But I
+refrained for various reasons from consulting my
+colleague, at least until I should have exhausted
+my own resources. And she was still without any
+intimation of my need when she received the
+instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying
+of which the following is a portion. It was
+received in sleep, and the date was shortly before
+we were told that her knowledges were due to
+experiences undergone in previous lives<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>. When
+I had read it she said, referring to the first verse,
+<span class="pagenum">[105]</span>"But I did not ask." In reply to which I told her
+that I had asked. It was addressed equally to
+both of us, as making together one system.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I heard last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me,
+and saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and
+the means whereby God revealeth the Truth.</p>
+
+<p>Know that there is no enlightenment from without:
+the secret of things is revealed from within.</p>
+
+<p>From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the
+Spirit within beareth witness.</p>
+
+<p>Think not that I tell you that which you know not: for
+except you know it, it cannot be given to you.</p>
+
+<p>To him that hath it is given, and he hath the more
+abundantly.</p>
+
+<p>None is a prophet save he who knoweth: the instructor
+of the people is a man of many lives.</p>
+
+<p>Inborn knowledge and the perception of things, these
+are the sources of revelation: the Soul of the man
+instructeth him, having already learned by experience.</p>
+
+<p>Intuition is inborn experience; that which the soul
+knoweth of old and of former years.</p>
+
+<p>And Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a
+man perceiveth heavenly secrets.</p>
+
+<p>Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing
+unto him the things of God.</p>
+
+<p>Do not think that I tell you anything you know not;
+all cometh from within: the Spirit that informeth is the
+Spirit of God in the prophet.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Inspiration may indeed be mediumship, but it is conscious;
+and the knowledge of the prophet instructeth him.</p>
+
+<p>Even though he speak in an ecstasy, he uttereth
+nothing that he knoweth not."</p></div>
+
+<p>Then followed this apostrophe to the Prophet:<span class="pagenum">[106]</span>&mdash;</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Thou who art a prophet hast had many lives: yea,
+thou hast taught many nations, and hast stood before
+kings.</p>
+
+<p>And God hath instructed thee in the years that are past,
+and in the former times of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>By prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seeking,
+hast thou attained that thou knowest.</p>
+
+<p>There is no knowledge but by labour: there is no
+intuition but by experience.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen thee on the hills of the East: I have followed
+thy steps in the wilderness: I have seen thee adore
+at sunrise: I have marked thy night watches in the caves
+of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Thou hast attained with patience, O prophet! God
+hath revealed the truth to thee from within."</p></div>
+
+<p>Thus, for the first time known to history, was given
+a definition of the nature and method of inspiration
+and prophecy, at once luminous, reasonable, and
+inexpugnable, to the full and final solution of this
+stupendous problem; and comporting with and
+explaining, as it did, all our own experiences, we
+felt that we could bear unreserved testimony to its
+truth. But, vast as was the addition thus made to
+the New Gospel of Interpretation, it did not
+exhaust the treasures revealed and communicated
+on that wondrous night; for it was followed immediately
+by a prophecy of the meaning of the new
+dispensation on which the world is entering, and
+of which our work is the introduction. At once
+Biblical in diction and character, it reached in
+loftiness the highest level of Biblical prophecy
+and inspiration, demonstrating the same world
+celestial and divine as the source of both. For
+which reason, and the crushing blow administered
+by it to the superstitions which have made of
+Christianity a by-word and a reproach by their<span class="pagenum">[107]</span>
+gross materialisations of mysteries purely spiritual,
+it is reproduced in full here. The heading is of our
+own devising:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Soul, mystically
+called the Day of the Woman.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And now I show you a mystery and a new thing, which
+is part of the mystery of the fourth day of creation.</p>
+
+<p>The word which shall come to save the world, shall be
+uttered by a woman.</p>
+
+<p>A woman shall conceive, and shall bring forth the
+tidings of salvation.</p>
+
+<p>For the reign of Adam is at its last hour; and God shall
+crown all things by the creation of Eve.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto the man hath been alone, and hath had
+dominion over the earth.</p>
+
+<p>But when the woman shall be created, God shall give
+unto her the kingdom; and she shall be first in rule and
+highest in dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Yea, the last shall be first, and the elder shall serve the
+younger.</p>
+
+<p>So that women shall no more lament for their womanhood;
+but men shall rather say, "O that we had been born
+women!"</p>
+
+<p>For the strong shall be put down from their seat, and
+the meek shall be exalted to their place.</p>
+
+<p>The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing
+away: the Gospel of Interpretation cometh.</p>
+
+<p>There shall nothing new be told; but that which is
+ancient shall be interpreted.</p>
+
+<p>So that man the manifesto shall resign his office: and
+woman the interpreter shall give light to the world.</p>
+
+<p>Hers is the fourth office: she revealeth that which the
+Lord hath manifested.</p>
+
+<p>Hers is the light of the heavens, and the brightest of
+the planets of the holy seven.</p>
+
+<p>She is the fourth dimension; the eyes which enlighten;
+the power which draweth inward to God.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[108]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And her kingdom cometh; the day of the exaltation
+of woman.</p>
+
+<p>And her reign shall be greater than the reign of the
+man: for Adam shall be put down from his place; and she
+shall have dominion for ever.</p>
+
+<p>And she who is alone shall bring forth more children
+to God, then she who hath an husband.</p>
+
+<p>There shall no more be a reproach against women: but
+against men shall be the reproach.</p>
+
+<p>For the woman is the crown of man, and the final manifestation
+of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall
+be revealed.</p>
+
+<p>But the creation of woman is not yet complete: but it
+shall be complete in the time which is at hand.</p>
+
+<p>All things are thine, O Mother of God: all things are
+thine, O Thou who risest from the sea; and Thou shalt
+have dominion over all the worlds<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[109]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE ANTAGONISATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>Even had we been disposed, which happily we were
+not, to exalt ourselves on the strength of the
+loftiness of our mission, the constant proofs
+afforded us of the paucity of our knowledge in
+comparison with what remained to be known,
+would have effectually restrained us. But as it
+was, we were from the first penetrated by the conviction
+that only in so far as we succeeded in
+subordinating the individual to the universal, the
+personal to the divine, could the work be successfully
+accomplished. The man must make
+himself nothing that the God may be all. This
+was the burden of the injunctions enforced on us
+throughout; the failures of others through self-exaltation
+being adduced in illustration. For, as
+we were plainly given to understand, "many are
+called but few are chosen"; the weak point in
+their system, the "Judas" by whom they are
+betrayed and fail, being generally vanity. They
+are as instruments which mistake themselves for
+the mind and hand which wield them.</p>
+
+<p>Humility and Love, the violet and the red,
+these are the two extremes of the prism which comprise
+between them all the Seven Spirits of God.
+Blended, they make the royal purple; but the hue
+of that purple depends on the spiritual states of
+the individuals themselves whose tinctures they
+are. They were, we were told, the tinctures of our
+own souls as indicated by the colours of our<span class="pagenum">[110]</span>
+respective <i>auras</i>. "Mary's" was the "blood-red
+ray of the innermost sphere," the sphere of the
+"first of the Gods," wherein "love and wisdom are
+one." "For the Hebrews Uriel, for the Greeks
+Phoibos, the Bright One of God." Mine was the
+violet of the outermost sphere, that of the "last of
+the Gods," the "Spirit of the Fear of the Lord,"
+and therein of Reverence and Humility; for the
+Greeks Saturn, and for the Hebrews Satan, the
+"Angel unfallen of the outermost sphere." Only
+when man is built up of all the Gods, and bears
+upon him the seal of each God, having climbed
+the ladder of his regeneration from circumference
+to centre, from "Saturn" to the "Sun," is the
+"week" of his new and spiritual creation accomplished.
+Similarly the co-operation of all these
+divine potencies was indispensable to our work.
+And we were emphatically warned of the dangers
+both to it and to ourselves, that would come of the
+lack of the divine presence in respect of any of
+them. Hence the necessity of maintaining the
+necessary conditions in ourselves, and the caution
+addressed to us by "Hermes," in view of the
+liability of mortals to appropriate to themselves
+the importance appertaining to their mission when
+this transcends the ordinary. To this end, in the
+following Exhortation, he disclosed to us the
+heights yet to be ascended, saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>He whose adversaries fight with weapons of steel, must
+himself be armed in like manner, if he would not be ignominiously
+slain or save himself by flight.</p>
+
+<p>And not only so, but forasmuch as his adversaries may
+be many, while he is only one; it is even necessary that
+the steel he carries be of purer temper and of more subtle
+point and contrivance than theirs.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[111]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I, Hermes, would arm you with such, that bearing a
+blade with a double edge, ye may be able to withstand
+in the evil hour.</p>
+
+<p>For it is written that the tree of life is guarded by a
+sword which turneth every way.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I would have you armed both with a perfect
+philosophy and with the power of the divine life.</p>
+
+<p>And first the knowledge; that you and they who hear
+you may know the reason of the faith which is in you.</p>
+
+<p>But knowledge cannot prevail alone, and ye are not yet
+perfected.</p>
+
+<p>When the fulness of the time shall come, I will add
+unto you the power of the divine life.</p>
+
+<p>It is the life of contemplation, of fasting, of obedience,
+and of resistance.</p>
+
+<p>And afterwards the chrism, the power, and the glory.
+But these are not yet.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile remain together and perfect your philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Boast not, and be not lifted up; for all things are
+God's, and ye are in God, and God in you.</p>
+
+<p>But when the word shall come to you, be ready to obey.</p>
+
+<p>There is but one way to power, and it is the way of
+obedience.</p>
+
+<p>Call no man your master or king upon the earth, lest
+ye forsake the spirit for the form and become idolaters.</p>
+
+<p>He who is indeed spiritual, and transformed into the
+divine image, desires a spiritual king.</p>
+
+<p>Purify your bodies, and eat no dead thing that has
+looked with living eyes upon the light of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>For the eye is the symbol of brotherhood among you.
+Sight is the mystical sense.</p>
+
+<p>Let no man take the life of his brother to feed withal
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>But slay only such as are evil; in the name of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>They are miserably deceived who expect eternal life,
+and restrain not their hands from blood and death.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[112]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>They are miserably deceived who look for wives from on
+high, and have not yet attained their manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Despise not the gift of knowledge; and make not
+spiritual eunuchs of yourselves.</p>
+
+<p>For Adam was first formed, then Eve.</p>
+
+<p>Ye are twain, the man with the woman, and she with
+him, neither man nor woman, but one creature.</p>
+
+<p>And the kingdom of God is within you<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>The knowledge of the "Seven Spirits" whereby
+Deity operates in the universe, has been completely
+dropped out of sight by the Christian world. It is
+necessary, therefore, if only in vindication of the
+importance attached to them by our illuminators,
+to recite the instruction received by us concerning
+them, which is as follows. It is a chapter from the
+recovered Gnosis<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods comprehended,
+as the seven spirits of the prism, contained in
+the Invisible Light.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<p><span class="pagenum">[113]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>By the Word of Elohim were the Seven Elohim manifest:
+even the Seven Spirits of God in the order of their
+precedence:</p>
+
+<p>The Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding,
+the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of
+Knowledge, the Spirit of Righteousness, and the Spirit of
+Divine Awfulness.</p>
+
+<p>All these are coequal and coeternal.</p>
+
+<p>Each has the nature of the whole in itself: and each is a
+perfect entity.</p>
+
+<p>And the brightness of their manifestation shineth forth
+from the midst of each, as wheel within wheel, encircling
+the White Throne of the Invisible Trinity in Unity.</p>
+
+<p>These are the Divine fires which burn before the
+presence of God: which proceed from the Spirit, and are
+one with the Spirit.</p>
+
+<p>He is divided, yet not diminished: He is All, and He is
+One.</p>
+
+<p>For the Spirit of God is a flame of fire which the Word
+of God divideth into many: yet the original flame is not
+decreased, nor the power thereof nor the brightness
+thereof lessened.</p>
+
+<p>Thou mayest light many lamps from the flame of one;
+yet thou dost in nothing diminish that first flame.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Spirit of God is expressed by the Word of God,
+which is Adonai.</p>
+
+<p>For without the Word the Will could have had no utterance.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Divine Will divided the Spirit of God, and the
+seven fires went forth from the bosom of God and became
+seven spiritual entities.</p>
+
+<p>They went forth into the Divine Substance, which is the
+substance of all that is."</p></div>
+
+<p>As already stated, Hermes is the Greek name
+for the Second of the creative Elohim above
+enumerated. Hence his special relation to the New
+Gospel of Interpretation, the appeal of which is to
+the Understanding.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[114]</span></p>
+
+<p>Being shown one day in vision the path we had
+to traverse for the accomplishment of our work,
+"Mary" exclaimed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"What a dreadfully difficult thing it is to steer one's
+way amidst such numbers of influences! I see a fine,
+bright-shining thread. It is our own path, and it is a
+pathway of light. But, oh! so narrow, so narrow, and all
+around are spirits trying to lure us from it. Here is
+Hermes, shining like a silver light. My Genius says that
+the way to get the utmost vitality on the spiritual plane
+is to abandon the plane of the body, and keep it quite low,
+by not indulging it. The time for bodily indulgence is
+passed with us. Abstinence, we have been told, and
+watchfulness and fasting are needful. And the time for
+the first of these has come. Nothing is gained without
+labour or won without suffering. Fasting and Watching
+and Abstinence, these are Beads and Rosary. It is a hard
+way and a long way, and it makes one wishful to turn
+back. We are not to be misled by the story, so much
+dwelt on to you by the Astrals, of Moses and Aaron<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>.
+They both were failures, who entered not into the land of
+Canaan. We must be patient and trust. We have to be
+cultivated on both planes, the intellectual and the
+spiritual, and not on the physical, for this draws from and
+saps the others."</p></div>
+
+<p>So far as I was concerned, there was yet another
+rule that was made absolute: this was the rule of
+Poverty. Desiring at one time to mitigate the
+rigour of my enforced economies by working with
+a commercial intent, and to that end endeavouring
+to finish a tale some time before commenced, I
+found myself baffled by a complete withdrawal of
+power. I was well aware that no romance I could
+<span class="pagenum">[115]</span>devise would compare with the romance I was
+living, and that any incidents I could invent
+would be tame before those of my actual life; but
+it was not this that withheld me. It was made
+clear to me that there was now only one direction
+and one plane in which I was accessible to ideas
+and in which therefore I could work, and this a
+direction and plane altogether incompatible with
+mundane ends. But I had not fully reconciled
+myself to the loss of my earning power, or resolved
+to refrain from further efforts in that behalf, when
+I received the following experience.</p>
+
+<p>I had gone to bed, but not to sleep, for thinking
+over the matter, when I became aware of the
+presence of a group of spiritual influences, one of
+whom, speaking for them all, said to me, in tones
+audible only to the inner hearing, but distinct,
+measured and authoritative&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We whom you know as the Gods&mdash;Zeus, Phoibos,
+Hermes, and the rest&mdash;are actual celestial personalities,
+who are appointed to represent to mortals the principles
+and potencies called the Seven Spirits of God. We have
+chosen you for our instrument, and have tried you and
+proved you and instructed you; and you belong to us to
+do our work and not your own, save in so far as you make
+it your own. Only in such measure as you do this will you
+have any success. For you can do nothing without us
+now: and it is useless for you to attempt to do anything
+without our help."</p></div>
+
+<p>By this and manifold other experiences, we had
+practical demonstration of the existence of a celestial
+hierarchy consisting of souls perfected and
+divinised, divided into orders corresponding to the
+"Seven Spirits of God," and having for their
+function the illumination of those souls of men<span class="pagenum">[116]</span>
+still on earth who are accessible by them; and to
+whom they manifest themselves in the forms recognised
+in the mysteries in which such persons have
+formerly been initiated.</p>
+
+<p>We had also manifold proofs of their power to
+arrest utterance before persons unfit to be
+entrusted with the mysteries. The first instance
+occurred to myself, and was in this wise. I was
+reading some passages in illustration of our work
+to an old clerical friend who came to see me in
+Paris, when I inadvertently turned to a part of the
+book which we had been charged to keep secret.
+But before I had read a line, the air round me
+became so dense with invisible presences that I
+was unable to see, and my heart was clutched, as
+if by an invisible hand, and lifted up towards my
+throat with such force as almost to choke me;
+while, at the same instant, an overwhelming sense
+of my fault was impressed on my mind, causing
+me for some hours to feel as one utterly God-forsaken
+and cast off.</p>
+
+<p>Not thinking that "Mary" was liable to err in
+the same way, or caring to tell her of my trespass,
+I kept silence respecting this experience. But a
+few weeks later it was repeated for her. She was
+speaking of our work to a spiritualist friend with
+whom we were spending the evening, and, in her
+eagerness, got upon topics which I recognised as
+forbidden. But before I had time to remind her,
+she suddenly stopped short and rose from her seat,
+gasping and dazed, and insisted on returning home
+forthwith, to our hostess's great amazement and
+disappointment. Divining what had occurred, I
+refrained from questioning her until we were outside
+and alone, when in reply to me she described<span class="pagenum">[117]</span>
+exactly what had happened to me, using the words,
+"I did not want to be choked!" There were other
+occasions on which I was cut short under like circumstances,
+by having all that I meant to say
+suddenly and completely obliterated from my
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>Being desirous to know more of the adverse
+influences against which we had been warned, and
+from which we suffered, "Mary" consulted her
+illuminator respecting their origin and nature,
+when the following colloquy ensued:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"They are," he said, "the powers which affect and
+influence Sensitives. They do not control, for they have
+no force.... They are Reflects. They have no real
+entity in themselves. They resemble mists which arise
+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 <i>of</i> the
+body."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they, then," I asked, "come from within the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"All things," he replied "come from within. A man's
+foes are they of his own household."</p>
+
+<p>"And how," I asked, "may we discern the Astrals from
+the higher spirits?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you of one sign;&mdash;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 signs. Is
+there anything strong? they will make it weak. Is there
+anything wise? they will make it foolish. Is there any<span class="pagenum">[118]</span>thing
+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
+vituperation 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I, then, in danger from them?" I asked. "Am
+I, too, a Sensitive?" And he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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 is 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&mdash;the oil&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum">[119]</span>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 an 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 an one, think you, be vain-glorious
+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."</p></div>
+
+<p>So far from our being sufficiently advanced to
+escape molestation from the sources thus indicated,
+there were times when we suffered much from their
+incursions, even to the hindrance, for the time
+being, of the work on which our whole hearts were
+set. Knowing that everything depended on our
+unanimity, they sought to make division between
+us, and what they lacked in force was more than
+made up for by subtlety<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>. Despite all our vigilance,
+they would insinuate themselves like barbed
+and poisoned arrows between the joints of our
+armour, there to rankle and envenom, so insidious
+were their suggestions. They did not flatter, but
+<span class="pagenum">[120]</span>attacked us. So that it was a satisfaction to be
+assured that they attack those only who are worth
+attacking. The very nature of our work was such
+as to invite attack from them, being what they
+were.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, no experience was withheld that
+would serve to qualify us for what proved to be an
+essential part of our work, the "discerning of
+spirits" in the sense, not merely of perceiving
+them, but of distinguishing their nature and
+character. And always was the lesson given in a
+form which combined with its other features that
+of total unexpectedness. Especially important was
+it for us to be able to distinguish between the
+spirits <i>of</i> the astral, against which we were warned,
+and spirits <i>in</i> the astral, namely, souls which had
+not yet accomplished their emancipation, but were
+in course of doing so. But while as regarded the
+former we were left to fight the battle for ourselves,
+as regarded the latter there was a control
+exercised, and none were permitted to approach us
+save such as had a message of service which would
+minister to the solution of a present problem. Of
+this the following experience was an instance. It
+helped us to a yet fuller comprehension, both of
+the reasons which had dictated our association,
+and of the liabilities to be guarded against.</p>
+
+<p>It was evening<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>, and we were occupied in our
+respective tasks, and so entirely engrossed by them
+as to be disposed to resent any interruption, when
+"Mary" bent across the table, and speaking in a
+low tone, said to me, "There is a spirit in the room
+who wants to speak to us. Shall I let him?" I
+<span class="pagenum">[121]</span>assented on the condition that he had something
+to tell us really worth hearing. She then became
+entranced, being magnetised by his presence; and
+after telling me that he spoke with a strong
+American accent and professed to be a "meta-physical
+doctor"&mdash;meaning, she supposed, a doctor
+in metaphysics&mdash;repeated the following after him;
+for I could neither see nor hear him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"You two have been put together for a work which you
+could not do separately. I have been shown a chart of
+your past histories, containing your characters and your
+past incarnations. She is of a highly active, wilful disposition,
+and represents the centrifugal force. You, Caro,
+are her opposite, and, being contemplative and concentrated,
+represent the centripetal force. Without her
+expansive energy you would become altogether indrawn
+and inactive in deed; and without your restraining
+influence she would go forth and become dissipated in
+expansiveness. So extraordinary is her outward tendency
+that nothing but such an organism as she now has could
+repress it and keep it within bounds. It is for the work
+she has to do that she has been placed in a body of weakness
+and suffering. She is the man&mdash;and you the woman&mdash;element
+in your joint system. I can see only her female
+incarnations, but she has been a man much oftener than a
+woman; while you have generally been a woman, and
+would be one now but for the work you have to do. Even
+as a woman she has always been much more man than
+woman, for her wilfulness and recklessness have led her
+into enterprises of incredible daring. Nothing restrained
+her when her will prompted her. She would wreck any
+work to follow that, and only by combination with your
+centripetal tendency can she do the present work. As a
+man she has been initiated, once, a long time ago, in
+Thebes, afterwards in India. The things she has done in
+her past lives! Well, <i>I</i> do not say they were wrong, for I
+<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p122" id="p122"></a>122]</span>do not hold the existence of moral evil. All things are
+allowed for good ends; but this is a difficult truth to
+express."</p></div>
+
+<p>Here she spoke in her own person, having under
+his magnetism recovered her own vision and recollection,
+saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"O Caro! I can see your past. You have been&mdash;no,
+it is all wiped out. I cannot see it now. I am not allowed
+to see it. Why is this? I see my own past. I see India:&mdash;a
+magnificent glittering white marble temple, and
+elephants. How tame they are! They are all out, and
+feeding in a field or enclosure. And there are such a
+number of splendid red flowers, they are cactuses, and all
+prickly. The trees have all their foliage on the top, and
+such long stems. They are palms. The soil is of a white
+dust. And the sky is so clear and blue! But the heat is
+terrible. I see you again. Your colour is blue, inclining
+to indigo, owing to your want of expansiveness. But I
+cannot see your past, except that you are mostly a woman.
+And now I am by the Nile,&mdash;such a fine broad river!"</p></div>
+
+<p>Here she returned to her normal consciousness,
+our visitor having taken his departure.</p>
+
+<p>Subsequently, in March, 1881, under the
+influence of a higher illuminative power, she found
+herself as one of a group of initiates making
+solemn procession through the aisles of a vast
+Egyptian temple, and chanting in chorus the
+rituals which compose the marvellous "Hymn to
+the Planet-God, Iacchos"<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a>. For, long as it is, she
+<span class="pagenum">[123]</span>was able to reproduce it afterwards. It was thus,
+by her recovery of the memory of knowledges
+acquired in past existences, that the divine
+originals were recovered from which the Bible-writers
+largely derived at once their doctrine and
+their diction. This is not to say that these were
+mere borrowers and unilluminate. It is to say only
+that they recognised the divinity of a prior revelation,
+and regarded it as a common heritage. The
+truth is one.</p>
+
+<p>Among the uses of the painful experience we
+were now undergoing<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> was this one. It put me
+on a track of thought of high value in enabling
+me to determine our respective positions in regard
+to our work. It was clearly the endeavour of the
+astral influences by which we were being assailed&mdash;the
+"haters of the mysteries" as our Genii called
+them<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a>&mdash;to break down our work by destroying
+that perfect harmony between us which was the
+first condition of it. And all my endeavours failing
+to discover in myself the weak point which
+rendered us accessible to them, carefully as I
+sought there for it, I was forced to look for it in
+her, and was disposed to ascribe it to the survival
+from the far past of some defect of the affectional
+nature. For, as we were now learning, man has
+a dual heredity, that of his physical parentage
+and that of his spiritual selfhood. From the former
+<span class="pagenum">[124]</span>of which he derives his outward characteristics;
+and from the latter his inward character. The
+experience just recited served to confirm the surmise,
+but it did something else besides. It
+suggested to me the following explanation of the
+situation as growing out of the exigencies of our
+work. That work had for its purpose the accomplishment
+of the prophesied downfall of the
+"world's sacrificial system." It meant war to the
+knife against all the orthodoxies at once, religious,
+social, scientific. It meant a death-"wrestle, not
+against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
+against powers, against the rulers of the
+darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
+in high places." It meant, in short, the
+destruction foretold by the prophets of "that great
+city," the world's materialistic system in Church,
+State, and Society, wherein the "Lord," the
+divinity in man, is ever systematically crucified,
+and its replacement by the "Holy City" or system
+which comes down from the heaven of a perfect
+ideal.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, I asked myself, was the foremost
+moral need for the instruments of such a work?
+Surely it was Courage. But courage subsists under
+two modes. There is the courage which manifests
+itself in action and aggression, and there is the
+courage which manifests itself in endurance and
+resistance. The former is its masculine mode, the
+latter its feminine mode. The former connotes
+Will, the latter connotes Love. And these were
+the parts assigned respectively to us in our joint
+system. Will and Love united had made the
+world; disunited, they had ruined the world;
+reunited, they would redeem the world. As He and<span class="pagenum">[125]</span>
+She, King and Queen, positive and negative, centrifugal
+and centripetal, they are the dual powers
+of all things, the constituent principles at once of
+God and of Man. The whole Universe is Humanity,
+for it is the manifestation of God, and they are
+the divine man and woman of all being; in their
+conjunction omnipotent for good, in their disjunction
+omnipotent for evil. And whereas it is the
+function of Will to inflict, it is the function of
+Love to bear. It is not, then, to the lack of these
+qualities that our troubles are due, but to the
+defect of them, the defect of our respective
+qualities.</p>
+
+<p>The tension of feeling induced by the situation
+had for me reached a pitch at which I had cause
+for serious apprehension lest my organism prove
+unequal to the strain. For, resolute though I
+myself was to endure to the end, come what might,
+the effort involved had so greatly affected my
+organic system as nearly to double the number of
+the heart's pulsations, to the imminent risk of a
+rupture fatal to life or reason. Such was the
+emergency when, longing for light and aid, I
+received at night<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> the following experience, which
+I reproduce as recorded at the time:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It seemed to me that I was sole spectator in some
+circus or hippodrome. And in the arena were some horses,
+seven in number, harnessed to a common centre, but all
+facing in different directions like the spokes of a wheel,
+and pulling frantically, so that the vehicle to which they
+were attached remained stationary between them, through
+their counterbalancing each other; while at the same time
+<span class="pagenum">[126]</span>it seemed as if it must presently be dragged asunder into
+pieces. On looking at it more closely, the vehicle seemed
+to become a person who was attempting to drive the
+horses, but was unable to get them into a line; and,
+strange to say, the driver was one and identical both with
+the horses and the vehicle, so that it was a living person
+who was in danger of being torn asunder by creatures who
+were in reality himself. While wondering what this
+meant, some one addressed me and said that if I would do
+any good, I must help to control and direct the animals
+which were thus pulling their owner asunder. And that the
+only way to do this was by so disposing myself that I
+should be at one and the same time in the centre with the
+driver, to help him to curb and direct his steeds, and outside
+at their heads in order to compel their submission.
+And not only must I be indifferent to their ramping and
+chafing, I must even suffer myself to be struck and
+wounded and trampled upon to any extent without
+flinching; for only when I was so unconscious of self as to
+be indifferent as to what might happen to me, would they
+cease to have power against me. And the reason why I
+must be also in the centre was that only there could I
+effectually co-operate with the driver to enable him to do
+his part in directing what in reality were the forces, as yet
+unbroken in, of his own system, into the road it was necessary
+for us both to follow. We were destined to be fellow-travellers,
+and our journey was to be made together and
+with that team. It could not be made by one of us without
+the other, and the failure to effect a complete conjunction
+and co-operation would bring certain ruin to the hopes of
+both of us and of all who looked to us. The owner of the
+horses, I was assured, could not of himself control them,
+and I could only enable him to do so by an absolute surrender
+of myself.</p></div>
+
+<p>Applying this vision to the situation, the moral
+was obvious so far as I was concerned, and I
+wondered whether "Mary" would receive any<span class="pagenum">[127]</span>thing
+equally suggestive for herself. In the
+morning, after remaining unusually late in her
+room, she silently handed me the following account
+of an experience which had similarly and simultaneously
+been received by her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I was shown two stars near each other, both of them
+shining with a clear bright light, only that of one the light
+had a purple tinge, and of the other a blood colour; and a
+great Angel stood beside me and bade me look at them
+attentively. I did so, and saw that the stars were not
+round, but seemed to have a piece cut out of the globe of
+each of them. And I said to the Angel, 'The stars are not
+perfect; but instead of being round, they are uneven.' He
+told me to look again; and I did so, and saw that each
+globe was really perfect, but that in each a small
+portion remained dark so as to present the appearance of
+having a piece out; and I noticed that these dark portions
+of the two stars were turned towards each other. Upon
+this I looked to the Angel for the explanation.</p>
+
+<p>And the Angel said to me, 'These stars derive their
+light not only from the sun but from each other. If there
+be darkness in one of them, the corresponding face of the
+other will likewise be darkened; and how shall either
+reflect perfectly the image of the sun if it be dark to its
+companion star? For how shall it respond to that which
+is above all, if it respond not to that which is nearest?'</p>
+
+<p>And I said, 'Lord, if the darkness in one of these stars
+be caused by the darkness in its fellow, which of them was
+first darkened?'</p>
+
+<p>Then he answered me and said, 'These stars are of
+different tinctures; one is of the sapphire, the other of the
+sardonyx. Of the first the atmosphere is cool and equable;
+of the other it is burning and irregular. The spirit of the
+first is as God towards man; the spirit of the second is as
+the soul towards God. The first loves; the second aspires.
+And the office of the spirit which loves is outwards; while
+the office of the spirit which aspires is upwards. The light
+<span class="pagenum">[128]</span>of the first, which is blue, enfolds, and contains, and
+embraces, and sustains. The light of the second, which is
+red, is as a flame which scorches, and burns, and troubles,
+and seeks God only, and his duty is not to the outward,
+for it is not given to him to love. God, whom he seeks,
+<i>is</i> love; and therefore is he drawn upward to God only.
+But the spirit of his fellow descends. She indraws, and
+blesses, and confers; and hers is the office which redeems.
+Wherefore if she fail in her love, her failure is greater
+than his who hath no love; and to be perfect she must
+forgive until the seventy times seven, and be great in
+humility. For the violet, which is the colour of humility,
+is of the blue. And if she seek her own, or yield not in
+outward things, her nature is not perfected, and her light
+is darkened. Let Love, therefore, think not of herself, for
+she hath no self, but all that she hath is towards others,
+and only in giving and forgiving is she rich. If, on the
+contrary, she make a self withinwards, her light is withdrawn
+and troubled, and she is not perfect, and if she
+demand of another that which he hath not, then she
+seeketh her own, and her light is darkened. And if she
+be darkened towards him, he also will darken towards her,
+in respect, that is, of enlightenment. And thus her failure
+of love will break the communion with the Divine, which
+is through him. He cannot darken outwardly first; for
+love is not of him. If he darken of himself, it must be
+within towards God. But that which he receives of God,
+he gives not forth himself. But he burns centrally and
+enlightens his fellow, and she gives it forth according to
+her office. And if she darken in any way outwardly, she
+cannot receive enlightenment, but darkens the burning
+star likewise, and so hinders their inter-communion.'</p></div>
+
+<p>Having thus spoken, the Angel looked upon me and
+said, 'Ye are the two stars, and to one is given the office
+of the Prophet, and to the other the office of the Redeemer.
+But to be Prophet and Redeemer in one, this is the glory
+of the Christ.'"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[129]</span></p>
+
+<p>Here again was an intimation that on one plane
+at least of our respective systems she was of masculine
+and I of feminine potency, with functions
+to correspond. That these functions were capable
+of being described in the terms employed was, we
+felt, no reason for arrogating high places to ourselves.
+Rather did we consider that everything is
+according to its degree; and that, as for persons,
+if the Gods were to wait until they found perfect
+instruments, or at least perfect persons for their
+instruments, they would never begin. And this
+also, that if the world were in a condition to produce
+such persons, it would have no need of
+redemption. Had not even Jesus Himself been
+"crucified through weakness"?</p>
+
+<p>In view of the intensity of the distress undergone
+in this connection, I found myself recalling
+the remark of Plato, "Many begin the mysteries,
+but few complete them." My only wonder was
+that any should survive the ordeals, if they
+approached ours in severity. Meanwhile it was
+said to us by way of encouragement, "Be sure
+there is trouble in store. No man ever got to the
+Promised Land without first going through the
+wilderness."</p>
+
+<p>The instruction to "Mary" had not only justified
+my surmise, it also met and corrected her in
+respect of the chief cause of our trouble. This was
+her disposition, at astral instigation, to withhold
+from me the products of her illuminations, and
+even to refrain from writing them down<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a>, on the
+specious pretext that they were meant for her own
+<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p130" id="p130"></a>130]</span>exclusive benefit, and were too sacred to be given to
+the world, or even to me; and she had failed to discern
+the source and motive of these suggestions.
+So effectually had what were really spirits of darkness
+disguised themselves as angels of light.</p>
+
+<p>The importance attached to the occult significance
+of our "tinctures" received illustration in
+this wise. Permission had been given us to make
+an exception to the rule of secrecy imposed with
+regard to certain of the Scriptures received by us,
+in favour of a friend<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> who took so warm an interest
+in our work as to be eager to render it material aid
+in the future should occasion arise. It was her
+mission, she declared, to do so. But when the day
+appointed for the reading came, "Mary" was so
+ill that her going seemed to be impossible, and
+the question accordingly arose as to whether I
+might go alone and read them without her. We
+had no sooner begun to consider the point than she
+became entranced, and was shown a large open
+volume, the book of the Greater Mysteries to which
+our Scriptures belonged, surrounded by an Iris
+composed of all the colours of the rainbow. She
+was then shown the following lines, which I wrote
+down as she repeated them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The one in Red guards his privileges, and claims to be
+present whatever is read.</p>
+
+<p>For the air is filled with the haters of the Mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore for your sake the chain must be complete;</p>
+
+<p>And the Light must be refracted round you seven times.</p>
+
+<p>He who is Red stands within the holy circle.</p>
+
+<p>And the Violet guards the outermost.</p>
+<span class="pagenum">[131]</span>
+<p>For the Word is a Word of Mystery, and they who guard
+it are Seven.</p>
+
+<p>Beware that nothing you hear be told unless the circle
+be perfect.</p>
+
+<p>And this charge we lay upon you until the work be
+accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Fire and sword and war are against you; you walk in
+the midst of commotion.</p>
+
+<p>And your life is in peril every hour until the words be
+completed."</p></div>
+
+<p>Up to the latest moment of the interval before
+the appointment it seemed impossible for her to go.
+She then suddenly recovered as by miracle, and
+was able to attend the reading.</p>
+
+<p>The liabilities of our position subsequently<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>
+received this further illustration. "Mary" was
+introduced in sleep, by her Genius, into an apartment
+in the spiritual world which purported to be
+the laboratory of William Lilly, the famous
+astrologer who had foretold the great plague and
+fire of London in 1666, in order to have her
+horoscope told by him, he still pursuing his
+favourite studies. On quitting him she caught
+sight of a pile of books, one of which contained the
+Gnosis we were in course of recovering. The following
+colloquy then ensued:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You also have these Scriptures!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said he, "but I keep them for myself
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"And why so," she asked, "since, if you have
+them, they are for the learning of others likewise?
+Will you not rather communicate these saving
+truths to thirsty souls?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[132]</span></p>
+<p>"I will communicate them," said he, fixing his
+eyes on her intently, "when I can find Seven Men
+who for forty days have tasted no flesh, whose
+hands have shed no blood, and whose tongues have
+tasted of none."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you find not Seven?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, mayhap, I shall find Five."</p>
+
+<p>"And if not Five?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, maybe, I shall meet with Three."</p>
+
+<p>"But even this may be hard to find, and if you
+should not meet with Three, what then will you
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"One Neophyte would not be able to protect
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>In communicating to her the results of his calculations,
+he had said that owing to the propensities
+indulged in certain of her former lives, she
+had made for herself a destiny which ensured
+suffering and failure, except when living in a
+similar manner; doing which she would have a
+life of unbounded success. "But," he continued,
+"your horoscope has nothing for you but misfortune
+so long as you persist in a virtuous course
+of life, and, indeed, it is now too late to adopt
+another. I speak herein according to your Fortune,
+not in regard to your Inner life. With that I have
+no concern. I tell you what is forecast for you on
+the material and actual planisphere of your
+Nativity.... I see nothing but misfortune before
+you. Yea, if you persist in virtue, it is not unlikely
+that you may be stript of all your worldly goods,
+and of all you possess, and this evil fortune will
+follow your nearest associates."</p>
+
+<p>To her enquiry, "Can I never overcome this
+evil prognostic?" he replied that she could do so<span class="pagenum">[133]</span>
+only by outliving the time appointed for her
+natural life in the career indicated, and added this
+advice, "Steel yourself; learn to suffer; become
+a Stoic; care not. If Misfortune be yours, make it
+your Fortune. Let Poverty become to you Riches.
+Let Loss be Gain. Let Sickness be Health. Let
+Pain be Pleasure. Let Evil Report be Good Report.
+Yea, let Death be Life. Fortune is in the Imagination.
+If you believe you have all things, they are
+truly yours." He concluded with an explanation
+reconciling destiny with free will, and vindicating
+the divine justice, in a manner which removed all
+our difficulties on those points, and, as we later
+came to learn, was entirely in accordance with
+the Hindu doctrine of "Karma," of which at this
+time we had never heard<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>There was no exaggeration in the terms of the
+warning of danger. We were constantly made
+aware of the presence of the malignant entities
+above described focusing their influences on us to
+prevent the accomplishment of our work, and
+requiring the utmost vigilance on our part, as well
+also as on the part of our illuminators, to thwart
+their purpose. And we had good reason to believe
+that our difficulties and dangers were enhanced
+through "Mary's" attendances at the schools and
+hospitals, owing to the evil nature of the influences
+there dominant under a regimen grossly materialistic,
+and her liability to be fastened upon and
+accompanied home by them. The outer walls of
+her spiritual system&mdash;it was explained to us&mdash;were
+not yet completed, owing to the vastness of
+<span class="pagenum">[134]</span>the circuit of her selfhood; and hence her accessibility
+to the incursion of noxious influences from
+without. The treatment of the patients by men
+trained in the physiological laboratory, and bent
+upon turning the hospital ward also into a laboratory
+with the patients themselves for the victims of
+cruel and wanton experimentation, would send her
+home boiling with indignation and wrath, to the
+destruction of the serenity and self-control
+requisite for our spiritual work.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear to us that no experience was to be
+wanting to exhibit the contrast between the world's
+actual and the world's possible. The overthrow of
+"the world's sacrificial system" meant salvation
+for man and beast. The condition of all really
+redemptive work is a "descent into hell." The
+following instruction to us is a typical one:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Teach the doctrine of the Universal Soul and the
+Immortality of all creatures. Knowledge of this is what
+the world most needs, and this is the keynote of your joint
+mission. On this you must build; it is the key-stone of
+the arch. The perfect life is not attainable for man alone.
+The whole world must be redeemed under the new gospel
+you are to teach."</p></div>
+
+<p>The following "Counsel of Perfection" which
+was received<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> by "Mary," is an exquisite expression
+of the same theme:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in
+it seven persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and
+each of them had before him a scroll, some having books
+also; and all were greyheaded and bent with age save one,
+<span class="pagenum">[135]</span>and this was a youth of about twenty, without hair on his
+face. One of the aged men, who had his finger on a place
+in a book open before him, said:</p>
+
+<p>"This spirit, who is of our order, writes in this book,&mdash;'Be
+ye perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is
+perfect.' How shall we understand this word 'perfection'?"
+And another of the old men, looking up,
+answered, "It must mean Wisdom, for wisdom is the sum
+of perfection." And another old man said, "That cannot
+be; for no creature can be wise as God is wise. Where is
+he among us who could attain to such a state? That which
+is part only, cannot comprehend the whole. To bid a
+creature to be wise as God is wise would be mockery."</p>
+
+<p>Then a fourth old man said:&mdash;"It must be Truth that
+is intended; for truth only is perfection." But he who sat
+next the last speaker answered, "Truth also is partial;
+for where is he among us who shall be able to see as God
+sees?"</p>
+
+<p>And the sixth said, "It must surely be Justice; for this
+is the whole of righteousness." And the old man who had
+spoken first, answered him:&mdash;"Not so; for justice comprehends
+vengeance, and it is written that vengeance is
+the Lord's alone."</p>
+
+<p>Then the young man stood up with an open book in his
+hand and said:&mdash;"I have here another record of one who
+likewise heard these words. Let us see whether his
+rendering of them can help us to the knowledge we seek."
+And he found a place in the book and read aloud:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful."</p>
+
+<p>And all of them closed their books and fixed their eyes
+upon me.</p></div>
+
+<p>That it was possible at all for her to study
+medicine in a school in which vivisection was an all
+prevailing practice, was only because she set her
+face resolutely against it, by refusing to attend
+any place or occasion where or on which it took
+place, and relying for her own education chiefly on<span class="pagenum">[136]</span>
+private tuition. It was an essential part of her
+plan to prove that such experimentation was not
+necessary for a degree. And this she effectually
+demonstrated by accomplishing her student-course
+with rare expedition and distinction, despite her
+many and severe illnesses and her frequent change
+of professors. For one after another resigned the
+office on account of her refusal to allow them to
+experiment on live animals at her lessons. Not
+until she had secured her diploma did she enter a
+physiological laboratory. And then only in order
+to qualify herself by personal experience to
+denounce the practice. For herself it was not
+necessary, she declared, to see a murder or a robbery
+committed to know that it is a crime.</p>
+
+<p>The following incident shows how adverse the
+conditions of modern life were to our spiritual
+work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Being in London one Christmas evening<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>, and
+speaking to me under illumination, "Mary" suddenly
+broke off and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do not ask me such deep questions just now,
+for I cannot see clearly, and it hurts me to look.
+The atmosphere is thick with the blood shed for the
+season's festivities. The Astral Belt is everywhere
+dense with blood. My Genius says that if we were
+in some country where the conditions of life are
+purer, we could live in constant communication with
+the spiritual world. For the earth here whirls round
+as in a cloud of blood like red fire. He says distinctly
+and emphatically that the salvation of the
+world is impossible while people nourish themselves
+on blood. The whole globe is like one vast
+<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p137" id="p137"></a>137]</span>charnel-house. The magnetism is intercepted. The
+blood strengthens the bonds between the Astrals
+and the Earth.... This time, which ought to be
+the best for spiritual communion, is the worst, on
+account of the horrid mode of living. Pray wake
+me up: I cannot bear looking; for I see the blood
+and hear the cries of the poor slaughtered
+creatures." Here her distress was so extreme that
+she wept bitterly, and some days passed before she
+fully recovered her composure.</p>
+
+<p>Our first acquaintance with any literature
+kindred to our special work took place toward the
+close of our sojourn in Paris<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>. It was due to the
+arrival of the friend in whose favour the exception
+had been made in respect of the reading of our
+Mysteries, and who was the possessor of an excellent
+library, which she placed at our disposal, of
+precisely the books it had now become necessary
+for us to read. This was Marie, Countess of Caithness
+and Duchesse de Pomár, who had for many
+years been a spiritualist of zeal so ardent that&mdash;as
+I now came to learn&mdash;she had been wont to make
+my conversion to that faith a matter of special
+prayer, long before I had been able to contemplate
+such an event as within the range of
+probability. Of wide culture, open mind, and
+large sympathies, she had an enthusiastic and
+intelligent appreciation of our work, and her
+arrival on the scene proved so timely as to point
+to superior direction. We were now able to begin
+to make acquaintance with many of the seers,
+mystics, and occultists of past ages, from the
+<span class="pagenum">[138]</span>Neoplatonists, Hermetists, Rosicrucians, and other
+orders of initiates, to B&oelig;hme, Swedenborg and
+"Eliphas Levi," and to see what the various
+spiritualistic schools of the present day had to say
+for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The following recognition of Hermes by one of
+the greatest of the Neoplatonists, Proclus, who
+lived in the fifth century of our era, was especially
+gratifying to us as proving the continuity of our
+experiences with those of past ages. Proclus, it
+must be remembered, was so eminent for his
+wisdom and powers as to be regarded by his contemporaries
+with a veneration approaching to
+adoration. Says Proclus, "Hermes, as the messenger
+of God, reveals to us His paternal Will,
+and&mdash;developing in us the Intuition&mdash;imparts to
+us knowledge. The knowledge which descends into
+the soul from above, excels any that can be
+attained by the mere exercise of the intellect.
+Intuition is the operation of the soul. The knowledge
+received through it from above, descending
+into the soul, fills it with the perception of the
+interior causes of things. The Gods announce it by
+their presence, and by illumination, and enable
+us to discern the universal order." Here was
+exactly the doctrine received by us, and the
+manner of it, only that the Intuition was further
+disclosed to us as due to interior recollection, as
+declared by Plato, as well as to perception.</p>
+
+<p>The results of the investigations thus begun,
+and afterwards continued in the library of the
+British Museum, proved satisfactory and gratifying
+beyond all that we could have anticipated. For
+while it was made clear to us that there had never
+been a time when there were not some in the world<span class="pagenum">[139]</span>
+who had the witness to the truth in themselves,
+and this one and the same truth, it was also made
+clear that whereas others had received it in limitation,
+and beheld it as "through a glass darkly,"
+we were receiving it in plenitude and "face to
+face," to the realisation of the high anticipations
+of the sages, saints, seers, prophets, redeemers, and
+Christs of all time; and this, too, at the period,
+in the manner, and under the conditions declared
+by them as to mark and make the "time of the
+end."</p>
+
+<p>For in the illuminations vouchsafed to us the
+key had been restored which unlocked the meaning
+of the symbols in which the doctrines of all the
+churches, pre-Christian as well as Christian, had
+been at once concealed and revealed, to the elucidation
+of all the problems which have so sorely
+perplexed the world, and the verification, by actual
+experience, of the truth contained in them. No
+longer now was there for us any doubt as to the
+meaning of allegories such as the Fall, the Deluge,
+the Exodus, and others were now shown us to be;
+or of prophecies such as those of the crushing of the
+serpent's head by the Woman and her seed; the
+return of Astræa with her progeny of divine sons;
+the fall from heaven of Lucifer and Satan; the
+Return of the Gods; the reign of Michael, "that
+great prince who standeth for the children of God's
+people"; the breaking of the seals, and opening of
+the books; the recognition of the abomination of
+desolation standing in the holy place; the budding
+of the fig-tree, and the end of that "adulterous
+generation"; the revelation of "that wicked one,
+the mystery of iniquity and son of perdition,
+whom the Lord, at His coming in the clouds of<span class="pagenum">[140]</span>
+heaven with power and great glory, shall consume
+with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy with the
+brightness of His coming"; the two Witnesses,
+their resurrection from the dead, and their ascent
+into heaven; the drying up of the great river
+Euphrates, and the coming of the kings of the
+East by the way thus prepared; the binding of
+Satan, and the acceptable year of the Lord to
+follow; the exaltation to heaven, and clothing with
+the sun, of the mystic "Woman" of the
+Apocalypse; the advent of the angel flying in mid-heaven,
+having an eternal gospel to proclaim unto
+every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people;
+the coming of many from the East, and the West,
+and the North, and the South, to sit down with
+Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of
+heaven; and the battle of Armageddon, and the
+end of the world. To all these, and other sacred
+enigmas of like nature, the key had been given
+us. And they one and all proved to be prophecies
+of one and the same event, the restoration of the
+faculty of inward understanding, and of the divine
+knowledges which only through it are possible.
+And whereas this was the faculty, the corruption
+and loss of which had made the Fall, which was
+that of the original Church, so was it the faculty,
+the purification and restoration of which was to
+reverse the Fall, accomplishing the Redemption.
+For by it man will regain his mental balance, in
+virtue of which he was "made upright," and
+become again sound, whole, and sane, and be by
+<i>condition</i> that which he has been divinely declared
+from the first to be by <i>constitution</i>,&mdash;an instrument
+of understanding, competent for the comprehension
+of all truth. For only thus is he really<span class="pagenum">[141]</span>
+man, and made in the divine image; seeing that
+he is not really man, but infant only, until he
+attains his spiritual majority and is able to understand.
+And that which thus makes him man on
+the plane mental and spiritual, is that which makes
+him man on the plane physical. It is his recognition
+and appropriation of the "Woman" of that
+plane, the mystic "Woman" of Holy Writ, the
+mind's feminine mode, the Intuition. It is of her
+first identification by us, as the key to the whole
+mystery of the Bible, that the manner will now be
+recounted.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[142]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE RECAPITULATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>The first compendious statement of the doctrine
+which it was intended to restore, was given to us
+at Paris in the summer of 1878, in the form of an
+exposition of the principles of Biblical interpretation,
+under the following circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>We had been following our respective tasks<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> for
+several months without any open or special illumination,
+and I had written enough to make a
+considerable volume in exposition of the principles
+which appeared to me to be those on which,
+in order to be a book of the soul, the Bible ought
+to be constructed, and by which, therefore, it
+must be interpreted. It was not intended for publication,
+but as an exercise for myself, being purely
+tentative; though I was conscious of being aided
+by the occasional suggestion of ideas which served
+as points of light and guidance. Meanwhile, I was
+entirely without help from books; for, besides
+being desirous of evolving the whole from my own
+consciousness, as in the case of the demonstration
+of any mathematical problem, I was not aware of
+any books which would help me; the little I knew
+of Swedenborg at this time&mdash;who was the only
+writer known to me as a worker in a similar direc<span class="pagenum">[143]</span>tion&mdash;having
+failed to make much impression on
+me. I could accept his general principles, but not
+his particular applications of them. I felt also
+that the sources of the knowledges vouchsafed to
+us, far transcended those to which Swedenborg had
+access. And I accounted for the length of the
+interval which had elapsed without any larger
+measure of light being vouchsafed, by supposing
+that it was intended for me to exhaust my own
+resources first.</p>
+
+<p>The time had come when these were exhausted,
+and I was reduced to the conviction that if the
+work was to be carried any further, assistance
+must be rendered, whether for confirmation, for
+correction, or for extension. And on retiring to
+rest one night<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a>, painfully oppressed by the sense
+of my own lack, and the prolonged absence of the
+needed light, I stood at the open window, and
+in presence of a sky resplendent with stars
+mentally addressed to those whom we were wont to
+speak of as the Gods, and of whose presence I
+seemed to be dimly conscious, a strong expression
+of my need, declaring my utter inability to advance
+another step unassisted. Having done which I
+went to bed, but in a mood the reverse of sanguine;
+so many were the months for which they had been
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the following day, "Mary"&mdash;who
+knew nothing either of my need or of my
+adjuration of the preceding night, and could not
+of herself have helped me&mdash;found herself under an
+access of exaltation of faculty which she described
+as resembling what might be produced by a
+<span class="pagenum">[144]</span>draught of spiritual champagne. For she felt
+herself at her very best, having all her knowledge at
+her finger-ends. The expression recurred to my
+mind some time afterwards on our receiving an
+explanation of the "New Wine of Dionysos" in
+the ancient mysteries. In this state she went down
+to the schools, where an examination in her subjects
+was being held, in order to see how the candidates
+comported themselves, and to compare them
+with herself; for it was an oral examination. From
+this she returned home in high delight, declaring
+that she could have answered every question asked,
+and far better than any of the students had done.
+I hoped that her state might be an indication of
+the renewal of her illuminations. But the events
+of the evening put all thoughts in this direction
+entirely out of my mind. For, as if poisoned by
+the atmosphere of the schools, she was seized with
+an attack of sickness so intense and prolonged as
+seriously to endanger her life through the
+exhaustion induced. And it was a late hour&mdash;past
+midnight&mdash;before she could be left alone.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless she was up betimes in the morning,
+and on our meeting handed me a paper which she
+had written in pencil on waking, saying it was
+something she had read in her sleep, and asking
+if it was anything that I wanted, as she had written
+it down so rapidly that she scarcely observed what
+it was about, and she had not had time to read it
+over and think about it. Having read it, I found
+that it met my every difficulty, and shed on the
+Bible a light which rendered it luminous from
+beginning to end, disclosing it as pervaded by a
+system of thought which, when once seen, was as
+obvious as it had previously been unsuspected.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[145]</span></p>
+
+<p>And while it confirmed me in respect of principles
+and method, it corrected both of us in respect of
+sundry particulars. It even referred directly to
+one of my tentative hypotheses, at once negativing
+it and giving another altogether satisfactory. This
+was my supposition of Adam and Eve as possibly
+denoting spirit and matter. The following is the
+writing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to
+have a mystic consideration. But the fault of most writers
+lieth in this,&mdash;that they distinguish not between the books
+of Moses the prophet, and those books which are of an
+historical nature. And this is the more surprising because
+not a few of such critics have rightly discerned the esoteric
+character, if not indeed the true interpretation, of the story
+of Eden; yet have they not applied to the remainder of the
+allegory the same method which they found to fit the
+beginning; but so soon as they are over the earlier stanzas
+of the poem, they would have the rest of it to be of another
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, then, pretty well established and accepted of
+most authors, that the legend of Adam and Eve, and of
+the miraculous tree and the fruit which was the occasion
+of death, is, like the story of Eros and Psyche, and so many
+others of all religions, a parable with a hidden, that is,
+with a mystic meaning. But so also is the legend which
+follows concerning the sons of these mystical parents, the
+story of Cain and Abel his brother, the story of the
+Flood, of the Ark, of the saving of the clean and unclean
+beasts, of the rainbow, of the twelve sons of Jacob, and,
+not stopping there, of the whole relation concerning the
+flight out of Egypt. For it is not to be supposed that the
+two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of Adam, were
+real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed that the
+apple which caused the doom of mankind, was a real
+apple. It ought to be known, indeed, for the right
+understanding of the mystical books, that in their esoteric
+<span class="pagenum">[146]</span>sense they deal, not with material things, but with
+spiritual realities; and that as Adam is not a man, nor
+Eve a woman, nor the tree a plant in its true signification,
+so also are not the beasts named in the same books real
+beasts, but that the mystic intention of them is implied.
+When, therefore, it is written that Abel took of the firstlings
+of his flock to offer unto the Lord, it is signified that
+he offered that which a lamb implies, and which is the
+holiest and highest of spiritual gifts. Nor is Abel himself
+a real person, but the type and spiritual presentation of
+the race of the prophets; of whom, also, Moses was a member,
+together with the Patriarchs. Were the prophets,
+then, shedders of blood? God forbid; they dwelt not with
+things material, but with spiritual significations. Their
+lambs without spot, their white doves, their goats, their
+rams, and other sacred creatures, are so many signs and
+symbols of the various graces and gifts which a mystic
+people should offer to Heaven. Without such sacrifices is
+no remission of sin. But when the mystic sense was lost,
+then carnage followed, the prophets ceased out of the land,
+and the priests bore rule over the people. Then, when
+again the voice of the prophets arose, they were constrained
+to speak plainly, and declared in a tongue foreign
+to their method, that the sacrifices of God are not the
+flesh of bulls or the blood of goats, but holy vows and
+sacred thanksgivings, their mystical counterparts. As
+God is a spirit, so also are His sacrifices spiritual. What
+folly, what ignorance, to offer material flesh and drink
+to pure power and essential being! Surely in vain have
+the prophets spoken, and in vain have the Christs been
+manifested!</p>
+
+<p>"Why will you have Adam to be spirit, and Eve matter,
+since the mystic books deal only with spiritual entities?
+The tempter himself even is not matter, but that which
+gives matter the precedence. Adam is, rather, intellectual
+force: he is of earth. Eve is the moral conscience: she is
+the mother of the living. Intellect, then, is the male, and
+Intuition the female principle. And the sons of Intuition,
+<span class="pagenum">[147]</span>herself fallen, shall at last recover Truth, and redeem all
+things. By her fault, indeed, is the moral conscience of
+humanity made subject to the intellectual force, and
+thereby all manner of evil and confusion abounds, since
+her desire is unto him, and he rules over her until now.
+But the end foretold by the seer is not far off. Then shall
+the Woman be exalted, clothed with the Sun, and carried
+to the throne of God. And her sons shall make war with
+the dragon, and have victory over him. Intuition, therefore,
+pure and a virgin, shall be the mother and
+redemptress of her fallen sons, whom she bore under
+bondage to her husband the intellectual force."</p></div>
+
+<p>This marvellously luminous exposition, she then
+told me, had been read by her in a book she had
+found in a library which she had visited in sleep,
+the owner of which was a courtly old gentleman
+in the costume of the last century. The leaves of
+the book were of silver and reflected her back to
+herself as she read. I took this as symbolising the
+Intuition. The event proved that her host was no
+other than Swedenborg, and that&mdash;as her Genius
+informed us&mdash;she had been enabled, "under the
+magnetism of Swedenborg's presence, to recover a
+memory of no small value," thus confirming my
+surmise about its intuitional character. The event
+proved also that it was Swedenborg's doctrine,
+but without his limitations. We ardently desired
+a continuation of it, and on the next night but
+one, she received the following addition to it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Moses, therefore, knowing the mysteries of the
+religion of the Egyptians, and having learned of their
+occultists the value and signification of all sacred birds and
+beasts, delivered like mysteries to his own people. But
+certain of the sacred animals of Egypt he retained not in
+honour, for motives which were equally of mystic origin.
+<span class="pagenum">[148]</span>And he taught his initiated the spirit of the heavenly
+hieroglyphs, and bade them, when they made festival
+before God, to carry with them in procession, with music
+and with dancing, such of the sacred animals as were, by
+their interior significance, related to the occasion. Now,
+of these beasts, he chiefly selected males of the first year,
+without spot or blemish, to signify that it is beyond all
+things needful that man should dedicate to the Lord his
+intellect and his reason, and this from the beginning, and
+without the least reserve. And that he was very wise in
+teaching this, is evident from the history of the world in
+all ages, and particularly in these last days. For what
+is it that has led men to renounce the realities of the
+spirit, and to propagate false theories and corrupt
+sciences, denying all things save the appearance which
+can be apprehended by the outer senses, and making
+themselves one with the dust of the ground? It is their
+intellect which, being unsanctified, has led them astray;
+it is the force of the mind in them, which, being corrupt,
+is the cause of their own ruin, and of that of their disciples.
+As, then, the intellect is apt to be the great traitor against
+heaven, so also is it the force by which men, following
+their pure intuition, may also grasp and apprehend the
+truth. For which reason it is written that the Christs are
+subject to their mothers. Not that by any means the
+intellect is to be dishonoured; for it is the heir of all
+things, if only it be truly begotten and be no bastard.</p>
+
+<p>"And besides all these symbols, Moses taught the
+people to have beyond all things an abhorrence of idolatry.
+What, then, is idolatry, and what are false gods?</p>
+
+<p>"To make an idol is to materialise spiritual mysteries.
+The priests, then, were idolaters, who coming after Moses,
+and committing to writing those things which he by word
+of mouth had delivered unto Israel, replaced the true
+things signified, by their material symbols, and shed
+innocent blood on the pure altars of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>"They also are idolaters who understand the things of
+sense where the things of the spirit are alone implied, and
+<span class="pagenum">[149]</span>who conceal the true features of the Gods with material
+and spurious presentations. Idolatry is materialism, the
+common and original sin of men, which replaces spirit by
+appearance, substance by illusion, and leads both the
+moral and intellectual being into error, so that they substitute
+the nether for the upper, and the depth for the
+height. It is that false fruit which attracts the outer
+senses, the bait of the serpent in the beginning of the
+world. Until the mystic man and woman had eaten of
+this fruit, they knew only the things of the spirit, and
+found them suffice. But after their fall, they began to
+apprehend matter also, and gave it the preference, making
+themselves idolaters. And their sin, and the taint begotten
+of that false fruit, have corrupted the blood of the
+whole race of men, from which corruption the sons of God
+would have redeemed them."</p></div>
+
+<p>She had received this, also in sleep, as one of a
+class of neophytes seated in an ancient amphitheatre
+of white stone, and listening to a lecture
+delivered by a man in priestly garb, of which they
+took notes the while. She complained that her
+notes had disappeared on waking, thus preventing
+her from rendering what she had heard as perfectly
+as she could have wished; for she had
+trusted to her notes for it.</p>
+
+<p>The more we pondered these communications,
+the higher was our appreciation of them. We felt
+that the "veil of Moses" was at length "taken
+away" as promised, and we had been enabled to
+tap a reservoir of boundless wisdom and knowledge.
+For we found in them the longed-for solution
+of the purpose and nature of the Bible and
+Christianity, and the key to man's spiritual
+history. The method of the Bible-writers, the
+meaning of idolatry, the secret of the Cain and
+Abel feud between priest and prophet, as the<span class="pagenum">[150]</span>
+ministers respectively of the sense-nature and of
+the intuition, and the process whereby the religion
+of Jesus had become distorted into the orthodoxy
+which has usurped His name;&mdash;all these things
+were now clear to us as the demonstration of a
+proposition in geometry, the witness of which was
+in our own minds. And we, too, we rejoiced to think,
+were of the school of the prophets, in that with all
+the force of our minds we had "exalted the
+Woman," Intuition, and refused to make the word
+of God of none effect by priestly traditions.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least marvellous element in the case
+was the faculty whereby the seeress had been able
+to reproduce, after waking, with such evident
+faithfulness the things seen and heard at so great
+length in sleep. In reply to my questionings she
+said that the words seemed to show themselves to
+her again as she wrote<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Discoursing with her Genius on this subject of
+memory, she received the following, which is
+valuable also for its recognition of the mystical
+import of the Bible narratives, and confirmation
+of St Paul when he says in reference to certain
+narratives in Genesis, "These things are an
+allegory."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Concerning memory; why should there any more be a
+difficulty in respect of it? Reflect on this saying,&mdash;'Man
+sees as he knows.' To thee the deeps are more visible than
+the surfaces of things; but to men generally the surfaces
+only are visible. The material can perceive only the
+<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p151" id="p151"></a>151]</span>material, the astral the astral, and the spiritual the
+spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a question
+of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but
+slight, and thine organic memory is feeble and
+treacherous. It is hard for thee to perceive the surfaces
+of things and to remember their aspect. But thy spiritual
+perception is the stronger for this weakness, and the
+profound is that which thou seest the most readily. It
+is hard for thee to understand and to retain the memory
+of material facts; but their meaning thou knowest
+instantly and by intuition, which is the memory of the
+soul. For the soul takes no pains to remember; she
+knows divinely. Is it not said that the immaculate
+woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow and
+travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto
+'Adam'"<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>The following sentences sum up the conclusions
+to which, by degrees, we were led. The first two
+paragraphs are from an exposition concerning the
+dogma of the Immaculate Conception which we
+considered as one of the most sublime and momentous
+of all her illuminations<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>"All that is true is spiritual.... No dogma
+is real that is not spiritual. If it be true, and yet
+seem to you to have a material signification, know
+that you have not solved it. It is a mystery; seek
+its interpretation. That which is true is for
+Spirit alone.</p>
+
+<p>"For matter shall cease and all that is of it,
+but the Word of the Lord shall remain for ever.
+<span class="pagenum">[152]</span>And how shall it remain except it be purely
+spiritual; since, when matter ceases, it would then
+be no longer comprehensible?"</p>
+
+<p>"For, though matter is eternally the mode
+whereby spirit manifests itself, matter is not itself
+eternal."</p>
+
+<p>"The church has all the truth, but the priests
+have materialised it, making religion idolatry, and
+themselves and their people idolaters."</p>
+
+<p>"In their real and divinely intended sense, its
+doctrines are eternal verities, founded in the
+nature of Being. As ecclesiastically propounded,
+they are blasphemous absurdities."</p>
+
+<p>"All the mistakes made about the Bible arise
+out of the mystic books being referred to times,
+places, and persons material, instead of being
+regarded as containing only eternal verities about
+things spiritual."</p>
+
+<p>"The Bible was written by intuitionalists, for
+intuitionalists, and from the intuitionalist standpoint.
+It has been interpreted by externalists, for
+externalists, and from the externalist standpoint.
+The most occult and mystical of books, it has been
+expounded by persons without occult knowledge
+or mystical insight"<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Thus gradually but surely we learnt that Ecclesiastical
+education has rigidly excluded from its
+curriculum all those branches of study which
+could throw light on the real nature of existence,
+<span class="pagenum">[153]</span>and consists in learning what other men have said
+who, themselves, did not know, but were mere
+hearsay scholars lacking the witness in themselves.</p>
+
+<p>We marvelled much as to how the priesthoods
+will comport themselves when compelled to recognise
+the fact that a New Gospel of Interpretation
+has actually been vouchsafed from the world celestial
+in correction of their perversion and mutilation
+of the former Gospel of Manifestation, and suppression
+of the true doctrine of salvation. Will
+Cain and Caiaphas still have the dominion, and
+ecclesiasticism be as ready to crucify the Christ on
+His second coming as it was on His first? And if
+not, how will it find courage to face the world with
+the humiliating confession that all through the
+long ages of its history, while arrogantly claiming
+to be the faithful and infallible minister of the
+Gospel of Christ, it has persistently withheld that
+gospel, and, losing the key to its meaning, has
+substituted for the wholesome "bread" of divine
+truth, the "stones" of innutritious because unintelligible
+dogmas; and for the "fish" of the
+living waters, the "serpents" of the letter which
+kills? and that when men have rightly suspected
+that Christianity has failed, not because it is false,
+but because it has been falsified, and have sought
+to their own inner light for the truth of which
+ecclesiasticism had defrauded them, it dealt out
+to them pitiless anathema and persecution, making
+the earth a scene of torture and slaughter in assertion
+of the right of the priesthoods to teach wrong?</p>
+
+<p>That the work committed to us implied nothing
+less than the fulfilment of the prophecies of which
+the promise of the Second Coming of Christ was
+the culmination, while intimated to us from the<span class="pagenum">[154]</span>
+outset, was gradually unfolded into full assurance,
+and we were enabled to see that the very terms in
+which it was couched implied a spiritual advent,
+and one which should disclose the perfect system
+at once of science, philosophy, morality, and
+religion, of which Christ is both the foundation
+and the consummation. For the "clouds of
+heaven" in which it was to take place, were no
+other than the heaven of the kingdom within man
+of his restored spiritual consciousness. "That
+wicked one," "the son of perdition," and "mystery
+of iniquity" then to be revealed and destroyed,
+was no other than the inspiring evil spirit of an
+ecclesiasticism which had received indeed its
+doctrines from above, but their interpretation and
+application from below. And the "Spirit of His
+mouth," and the "Brightness of His Coming"
+were no other than a new Word of God, in the form
+of a New Gospel of Interpretation, so potent in its
+logic and so luminous in its exposition as to indicate
+the Logos Himself as its source, and the
+"Woman" Intuition, "clothed with the Sun" of
+full illumination, as its revealer.</p>
+
+<p>We saw, too, that with this "Woman" thus
+rehabilitated, God's "Two Witnesses,"&mdash;who have
+so long lain dead in the streets of "that great city"
+wherein the Lord, the divinity in man, is ever
+systematically crucified; the city of the world's
+system as fashioned and controlled by an ecclesiasticism
+shrouded in the threefold veil of
+Blood, Idolatry, and the Curse of Eve,&mdash;will rise
+and stand on their feet, and ascend to the heaven
+of their proper supremacy, <i>vice</i> Lucifer deposed and
+fallen. And in them Lucifer himself will regain
+his lost estate, vindicating his title to be called the<span class="pagenum">[155]</span>
+Light-bearer, the bright and morning star, the
+herald and bringer-in of the perfect day of the
+Lord God. For, as the Intellect, he is the heir of
+all things, if only he be begotten of the Spirit, and
+be no bastard engendered of the Sense-Nature.</p>
+
+<p>For&mdash;as we had come to learn&mdash;God's Two Witnesses
+in man are ever the Intellect and the
+Intuition, when duly unfolded and united in a
+pure spirit. Under such conditions the Shiloh
+comes, and mounted on them man rides triumphant
+as king into the holy city of his own regenerate
+nature. But divorced from her, the Intuition,
+and&mdash;leagued with the Sense-Nature&mdash;knowing
+matter only and the body, the Intellect becomes
+"prince of devils" in man, the maker of men into
+fiends, and of the earth into a hell. Wherefore his
+fall from the heaven of his power, on the advent
+of that whole Humanity, of whom it is said, "the
+Man is not without the Woman, nor the Woman
+without the Man, in the Lord," the humanity of
+intellect and intuition combined, has ever been
+exultingly hailed in anticipation by all true seers
+and prophets.</p>
+
+<p>The chief points of the doctrine, the prospect
+of the restoration of which has thus been the sustaining
+hope of the percipient faithful in all ages,
+may be summarised as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the
+purpose of the Bible to affirm, and of the Christ to
+demonstrate, and in which reason entirely concurs,
+is no other than that of the divine potentialities
+of man, belonging to him in virtue of the
+nature of his constituent principles, the force and
+the substance of existence. These are the duality
+of the "heavens" which God is said to "create,"<span class="pagenum">[156]</span>
+meaning to put forth from Himself, "in the beginning,"
+and of the mutual interaction of which all
+things are the product, varying according to the
+plane of operation, alike for creation and redemption,
+generation and regeneration. And that which
+Jesus really affirmed in the memorable but little
+understood words, "Ye <i>must</i> be born again, or
+from above, of Water and the Spirit," was both the
+possibility and the necessity to all men of realising
+the potential divinity belonging to them in virtue
+of the divinity of their constituent principles. And
+in affirming this He affirmed both the necessity
+and the possibility to every man of being born
+exactly as He Himself, as typical man regenerate,
+is said to have been born, of Virgin Mary and
+Holy Ghost, and also His own identity in kind
+with all other men. And He affirmed, moreover,
+the utter falsity of that priest-constructed system,
+which, ignoring Regeneration, insists on Substitution,
+as the means of salvation. For "Virgin
+Mary," and "Holy Ghost," are but the mystical
+synonyms with "Water and the Spirit," the substance
+and force, or soul and spirit, of which, man
+is constituted, in their divine because pure condition,
+the product of which in man is the new
+regenerate selfhood called, as by St Paul, the
+"Christ within." Begotten in man as matrix, of
+the pure Spirit and Substance which are God, this
+new selfhood is son at once of God and of man;
+and in him God and man are "reconciled" or
+"at-oned." And that man is said to be saved by
+his blood, is because the "blood of God" is pure
+spirit, and it is the pure spirit in the man that
+saves him; and that he is called the only-begotten<span class="pagenum">[157]</span>
+Son of God, is not because God begets no other of
+his kind, but because God, as God, begets directly
+none of any other kind.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, as we came to learn, and to recognise
+as having learned it in our own long-past
+lives, is the doctrine which Jesus came to teach
+and to demonstrate in His own person. Matter is
+spirit, being spiritual substance, projected by
+force of the divine Will into conditions and limitations,
+and made exteriorly cognisable. And being
+spirit it can revert to the condition of spirit. In
+virtue of the divinity of his constituent principles,
+man has within himself the seed of his own
+regeneration, and the power to effectuate it. He
+has in him, this is to say, the potentiality of
+divinity realisable at will. And the secret and
+method of the achievement, which is no other than
+the secret and method of Christ, is inward purification
+and unfoldment, the unfoldment of the
+capacities, mental, moral, and spiritual, of his
+nature, of which inward purification is the first
+and essential condition. Thus is the Finding of
+Christ the realisation of the Ideal, and Christ is
+for every man the summit of his own evolution.</p>
+
+<p>Stated in terms of modern science, but correcting
+its aberrations, the doctrine of Christ is in
+this wise. Evolution is the manifestation of
+inherency. Owing to the divinity of the constituent
+principles of existence, its Force and its Substance,
+both of which are God, the inherency of existence
+is divine. Wherefore, as the manifestation of a
+divine inherency, evolution is accomplished only
+by the attainment of divinity; and the cause of
+evolution is the tendency of substance to revert
+from its secondary and "created" condition of<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p158" id="p158"></a>158]</span>
+matter, to its original and divine condition of pure
+spirit. Wherefore evolution is definable as the
+process of the individuation of Deity in and
+through Humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the genesis of the Christ in man. And he
+is called <i>a</i> Christ who, having accomplished this
+process in himself, returns into the earth-life when
+he has no need to do so for his own sake, out of
+pure love to redeem, by showing to others their
+own equal divine potentialities and the method of
+the realisation thereof.</p>
+
+<p>This method consists in love, love of perfection,
+which is God, for its own sake, and love for others.
+The process is entirely interior to the individual.
+It consists in the sacrifice of the lower nature to
+the higher in himself, and of himself for others
+in love. That which directly saves the man is not
+the love of another for the man, but the love which
+he has in himself. All that can be done by another
+is to kindle this love in him.</p>
+
+<p>The philosophy of this doctrine of salvation by
+love was formulated for us as follows:&mdash;"It is
+love which is the centripetal power of the universe;
+it is by love that all creation returns into the
+bosom of God. The force which projected all
+things is will, and will is the centrifugal power of
+the universe. Will alone could not overcome the
+evil which results from the limitations of matter;
+but it shall be overcome in the end by sympathy,
+which is the knowledge of God in others,&mdash;the
+recognition of the omnipresent Self. This is love.<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p159" id="p159"></a>159]</span>
+And it is with the children of the spirit, the servants
+of love, that the dragon of matter makes
+war"<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>In making the means of salvation extraneous to
+the individual, Sacerdotalism has defrauded man
+of his Saviour, making the first and personal
+coming of Christ of none effect. Hence the necessity
+for the second and spiritual coming represented
+by the New Gospel of Interpretation as was
+foretold:&mdash;the coming which was to be in the
+clouds of the heaven of man's restored understanding;
+the Hermes within.</p>
+
+<p>But the process of regeneration is a prolonged
+one, extending over many earth-lives; and so also
+is the prior process of evolution, whereby man
+reaches the stage at which he is amenable to
+regeneration. Wherefore regeneration has for its
+corollary reincarnation. To tell man that he "must
+be born again" spiritually, and deny him the
+requisite opportunities of experience, which must
+be acquired while in the body&mdash;seeing that
+regeneration is <i>from out of the body</i>&mdash;would be to
+mock him.</p>
+
+<p>This doctrine of a multiplicity of earth-lives is
+implicit and sometimes explicit in the Bible. The
+notion that the Hebrews had no belief in a future
+state because of the failure of commentators to
+discover it in their Scriptures, is altogether futile.
+The permanence of the Ego was a matter of course
+with them, saving only the Sadducees. And the
+Bible contemplates the persistence of the individual
+soul through all the manifold stages of its
+<span class="pagenum">[160]</span>evolution, from the "Adam" stage to the "Christ"
+stage, saying, as by St Paul, "As in Adam all
+die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." But the
+Christ insisted on by him was not He Who is "after
+the flesh," not the man Jesus, who was but the
+vehicle of the Christ, but the Christ within both
+Jesus and all other regenerate men. For, as a
+highly illuminated follower of the Gnosis, St Paul
+was one who "after the way which" his orthodox
+accusers "called heresy, worshipped the God of his
+fathers, believing all things which are according
+to the law, and are written in the prophets."
+Rejecting the doctrine of regeneration, and with
+it that of reincarnation, in favour of substitution,
+the orthodoxy which claims to be Christianity has
+practically rejected both the doctrine of St Paul
+and that of Jesus as declared to Nicodemus. And,
+as St Paul implies, the "mystery of iniquity" was
+working even already in his days to annul the
+gospel of Christ by substituting Jesus as the object
+of worship, and His physical blood-shedding as the
+means of salvation. And Christendom, yielding to
+sacerdotal dictation, has to this day accepted a
+doctrine which at once dishonours God and robs
+men of their equal divine potentialities with Jesus,
+thus preferring Barabbas. Professing to rest its
+faith on the Bible, it has accepted the presentation
+of religion which the Bible persistently condemns,
+that of the priests, and rejected that on which the
+Bible emphatically insists, that of the prophets.
+That St Paul employed sacerdotal modes of expression
+was in order to spiritualise them. He was a
+mystic of mystics.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the dogmas of the Church contain
+the truth, but this is not as the Church has pro<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p161" id="p161"></a>161]</span>pounded
+them. And&mdash;to cite two crucial instances&mdash;so
+far from the Church's supreme dogmas, the
+Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of
+the Blessed Virgin, having any personal or physical
+reference, they are prophecies of the method
+of redemption for every individual soul. For, as
+the New Gospel of Interpretation explicitly
+declares, restoring the Gnosis persistently rejected
+by the builders of the orthodoxies,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Immaculate Conception is none other than
+the prophecy of the means whereby the universe shall at
+last be redeemed. Maria&mdash;the sea of limitless space&mdash;Maria
+the Virgin, born herself immaculate and without
+spot, of the womb of the ages, shall in the fulness of time
+bring forth the perfect man, who shall redeem the race.
+He is not one man, but ten thousand times ten thousand,
+the Son of Man, who shall overcome the limitations of
+matter, and the evil which is the result of the materialisation
+of spirit<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>By the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the
+Blessed Virgin Mary we are secretly enlightened concerning
+the generation of the soul, who is begotten in the
+womb of matter, and yet from the first instant of her
+being is pure and incorrupt.... As the Immaculate
+Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the
+Assumption their crown.</p>
+
+<p>For the entire object and end of kosmic evolution is
+precisely this triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the
+mystery presented by this dogma, we behold the consummation
+of the whole scheme of creation&mdash;the perpetuation
+and glorification of the individual human ego. The grave&mdash;the
+material and astral consciousness, cannot retain the
+immaculate Mother of God. She rises into the heavens;
+she assumes divinity.... From end to end the mystery
+<span class="pagenum">[162]</span>of the soul's evolution&mdash;the history, that is, of humanity
+and of the kosmic drama&mdash;is contained and enacted in the
+cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The acts and the
+glories of Mary are the one supreme subject of the holy
+mysteries<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>"Allegory of stupendous significance!" exclaimed the
+seeress's illuminator when imparting to her the mystery
+of the Immaculate Conception. "Allegory of stupendous
+significance! with which the Church of God has so long
+been familiar, but which yet never penetrated its understanding,
+like the holy fire which enveloped the sacred
+Bush, but which nevertheless the Bush withstood and
+resisted<a name="FNanchor_72_72A" id="FNanchor_72_72A"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>."</p></div>
+
+<p>That such failure has been the rule and not the
+exception is the plea for the New Gospel of Interpretation.
+For lack of comprehension of its own
+symbols the Church has fallen into the disastrous
+errors of mistaking the man Jesus for the Christ
+within every man, and Mary the mother of Jesus
+for Virgin Mary the mother of that Christ, committing
+in both instances idolatry by preferring
+the form to the substance, persons to principles,
+and blinding men to the essential truth implied.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[163]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE EXEMPLIFICATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>This chapter will be devoted to some examples of
+the recovered Gnosis, bearing chiefly upon the
+supreme doctrine of Regeneration. As with all
+else received by the Seeress, they are the product
+of intuitional memory regained under divine illumination
+occurring mostly in sleep. And here I
+will take occasion to state explicitly and positively,
+that the states, whether of sleep or of trance, in
+which her faculty was exercised, were all natural
+and spontaneous, being induced by the Spirit
+itself; and that in no case were artificial means
+employed by either of us, whether drugs, mesmerism,
+hypnotism, crystal-gazing, or any other of
+the devices ordinarily used to induce abnormal
+states of consciousness or promote enhancement of
+faculty. Our work was to be a real work, done not
+only by us but in us, and we had from the first a
+profound instinctive distrust of results obtained by
+such artificial stimulation.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was any change even of a word ever made
+in the teachings received. They came one and
+all in the finished perfection in which they are put
+forth, coming down as the holy city from the
+heaven of the upper and the within, and incapable
+of improvement. The following are the examples
+proposed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(1) Concerning Holy Writ.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[164]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>All Scriptures which are the true Word of God, have a
+dual interpretation, the intellectual and the intuitional,
+the apparent and the hidden.</p>
+
+<p>For nothing can come forth from God save that which
+is fruitful.</p>
+
+<p>As is the nature of God, so is the Word of God's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>The letter alone is barren; the spirit and the letter give
+life.</p>
+
+<p>But that Scripture is the more excellent, which is
+exceeding fruitful and brings forth abundant signification.</p>
+
+<p>For God is able to say many things in one, as the perfect
+ovary contains many seeds in its chalice.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore there are in the Scriptures of God's Word
+certain writings which, as richly yielding trees, bear more
+abundantly than others in the self-same holy garden.</p>
+
+<p>And one of the most excellent is the history of the
+generation of the heavens and the earth.</p>
+
+<p>For therein is contained in order a genealogy, which
+has four heads, as a stream divided into four branches, a
+word exceeding rich.</p>
+
+<p>And the first of these generations is that of the Gods.</p>
+
+<p>The second is that of the kingdom of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>The third is that of the visible world.</p>
+
+<p>And the fourth is that of the Church of Christ.</p></div>
+
+<p>(2) Concerning the Mystery of Redemption.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>All things in heaven and in earth are of God, both the
+invisible and the visible.</p>
+
+<p>Such as is the invisible, is the visible also, for there
+is no boundary line betwixt spirit and matter.</p>
+
+<p>Matter is spirit made exteriorly cognisable by the force
+of the Divine Word.</p>
+
+<p>And when God shall resume all things by love, the
+material shall be resolved into the spiritual, and there
+shall be a new heaven and a new earth.</p>
+
+<p>Not that matter shall be destroyed, for it came forth
+from God, and is of God indestructible and eternal.</p>
+
+<p>But it shall be indrawn and resolved into its true self.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[165]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>It shall put off corruption, and remain incorruptible.</p>
+
+<p>It shall put off mortality, and remain immortal.</p>
+
+<p>So that nothing be lost of the Divine substance.</p>
+
+<p>It was material entity: it shall be spiritual entity.</p>
+
+<p>For there is nothing which can go out from the presence
+of God.</p>
+
+<p>This is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: that
+is, the transfiguration of the body.</p>
+
+<p>For the body, which is matter, is but the manifestation
+of spirit: and the Word of God shall transmute it into its
+inner being.</p>
+
+<p>The will of God is the alchemic crucible: and the dross
+which is cast therein is matter.</p>
+
+<p>And the dross shall become pure gold, seven times
+refined; even perfect spirit.</p>
+
+<p>It shall leave behind it nothing: but shall be transformed
+into the Divine image.</p>
+
+<p>For it is not a new substance: but its alchemic polarity
+is changed, and it is converted.</p>
+
+<p>But except it were gold in its true nature, it could not
+be resumed into the aspect of gold.</p>
+
+<p>And except matter were spirit, it could not revert to
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>To make gold, the alchemist must have gold.</p>
+
+<p>But he knows that to be gold which others take to be
+dross.</p>
+
+<p>Cast thyself into the will of God, and thou shalt
+become as God.</p>
+
+<p>For thou art God, if thy will be the Divine Will.</p>
+
+<p>This is the great secret: it is the mystery of Redemption.</p></div>
+
+<p>(3) Concerning Sin and Death.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>As is the outer so is the inner: He that worketh is One.</p>
+
+<p>As the small is, so is the great: there is one law.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is small and nothing is great in the Divine
+Economy.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[166]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>If thou wouldst understand the method of the world's
+corruption, and the condition to which sin hath reduced
+the work of God,</p>
+
+<p>Meditate upon the aspect of a corpse; and consider the
+method of the putrefaction of its tissues and humours.</p>
+
+<p>For the secret of death is the same, whether of the outer
+or of the inner.</p>
+
+<p>The body dieth when the central will of its system no
+longer bindeth in obedience the elements of its substance.</p>
+
+<p>Every cell is a living entity, whether of vegetable or of
+animal potency.</p>
+
+<p>In the healthy body every cell is polarised in subjection
+to the central will, the Adonai of the physical system.</p>
+
+<p>Health, therefore, is order, obedience, and government.</p>
+
+<p>But wherever disease is, there is disunion, rebellion,
+and insubordination.</p>
+
+<p>And the deeper the seat of the confusion, the more dangerous
+the malady, and the harder to quell it.</p>
+
+<p>That which is superficial may be more easily healed;
+or, if need be, the disorderly elements may be rooted out,
+and the body shall be whole and at unity again.</p>
+
+<p>But if the disobedient molecules corrupt each other
+continually, and the perversity spread, and the rebellious
+tracts multiply their elements; the whole body shall fall
+into dissolution, which is death.</p>
+
+<p>For the central will that should dominate all the
+kingdom of the body, is no longer obeyed; and every
+element is become its own ruler, and hath a divergent
+will of its own.</p>
+
+<p>So that the poles of the cells incline in divers directions;
+and the binding power which is the life of the body, is
+dissolved and destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>And when dissolution is complete, then follow corruption
+and putrefaction.</p>
+
+<p>Now, that which is true of the physical, is true likewise
+of its prototype.</p>
+
+<p>The whole world is full of revolt; and every element
+hath a will divergent from God.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[167]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Whereas there ought to be but one will, attracting and
+ruling the whole man.</p>
+
+<p>But there is no longer Brotherhood among you; nor
+order, nor mutual sustenance.</p>
+
+<p>Every cell is its own arbiter; and every member is
+become a sect.</p>
+
+<p>Ye are not bound one to another: ye have confounded
+your offices, and abandoned your functions.</p>
+
+<p>Ye have reversed the direction of your magnetic currents:
+ye are fallen into confusion, and have given place
+to the spirit of misrule.</p>
+
+<p>Your wills are many and diverse; and every one of
+you is an anarchy.</p>
+
+<p>A house that is divided against itself, falleth.</p>
+
+<p>O wretched man; who shall deliver you from this body of Death?</p></div>
+
+<p>(4) Concerning the Twelve Gates of Regeneration.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Now, the Kingdom of God is within us; that is, it is
+interior, invisible, mystic, spiritual.</p>
+
+<p>There is a power by means of which the Outer may be
+absorbed into the Inner.</p>
+
+<p>There is a power by means of which Matter may be
+ingested into its original Substance.</p>
+
+<p>He who possesses this power is Christ, and He has the
+devil under foot.</p>
+
+<p>For He reduces chaos to order, and indraws the external
+to the centre.</p>
+
+<p>He has learnt that Matter is illusion, and that Spirit
+alone is real.</p>
+
+<p>He has found His own Central Point; and all power is
+given unto Him in heaven and on earth.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Central Point is the number Thirteen: it is the
+number of the Marriage of the Son of God.</p>
+
+<p>And all the members of the microcosm are bidden to
+the banquet of the marriage.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[168]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>But if there chance to be even one among them which
+has not on a wedding garment,</p>
+
+<p>Such a one is a Traitor, and the microcosm is found
+divided against itself.</p>
+
+<p>And that it may be wholly regenerate, it is necessary
+that Judas be cast out.</p>
+
+<p>Now the members of the microcosm are Twelve: of the
+Senses three, of the Mind three, of the Heart three, and of
+the Conscience three.</p>
+
+<p>For of the Body there are four elements; and the sign
+of the four is Sense, in the which are three Gates,</p>
+
+<p>The gate of the Eye, the gate of the Ear, and the gate
+of the Touch<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Renounce vanity, and be poor: renounce praise, and be
+humble: renounce luxury, and be chaste.</p>
+
+<p>Offer unto God a pure oblation: let the fire of the altar
+search thee, and prove thy fortitude.</p>
+
+<p>Cleanse thy sight, thine hands, and thy feet: carry the
+censer of thy worship into the courts of the Lord; and let
+thy vows be unto the Most High.</p>
+
+<p>And for the magnetic man<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> there are four elements:
+and the covering of the four is mind, in the which are
+three gates;</p>
+
+<p>The gate of desire, the gate of labour, and the gate of
+illumination.</p>
+
+<p>Renounce the world, and aspire heavenward: labour not
+for the meat which perishes, but ask of God thy daily
+bread: beware of wandering doctrines, and let the Word
+of the Lord be thy light.</p>
+
+<p>Also of the soul there are four elements: and the seat
+of the four is the heart, whereof likewise there are three
+gates;</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[169]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>The gate of obedience, the gate of prayer, and the gate
+of discernment.</p>
+
+<p>Renounce thine own will, and let the law of God only
+be within thee: renounce doubt: pray always and faint
+not: be pure of heart also, and thou shalt see God.</p>
+
+<p>And within the soul is the Spirit: and the Spirit is One,
+yet has it likewise three elements.</p>
+
+<p>And these are the gates of the oracle of God, which is
+the ark of the covenant;</p>
+
+<p>The rod, the host<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a>, and the law:</p>
+
+<p>The force which solves, and transmutes, and divines:
+the bread of heaven which is the substance of all things
+and the food of angels; the table of the law, which is the
+will of God, written with the finger of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>If these three be within thy spirit, then shall the Spirit
+of God be within thee.</p>
+
+<p>And the glory shall be upon the propitiatory, in the
+holy place of thy prayer.</p>
+
+<p>These are the twelve gates of regeneration: through
+which if a man enter he shall have right to the tree of life.</p>
+
+<p>For the number of that Tree is Thirteen.</p>
+
+<p>It may happen to a man to have three, to another five,
+to another seven, to another ten.</p>
+
+<p>But until a man have twelve, he is not master over the
+last enemy.</p></div>
+
+<p>(5) Concerning the Passage of the Soul<a name="FNanchor_77_77A" id="FNanchor_77_77A"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Evoi, Father Iacchos, Lord God of Egypt: initiate thy
+servants in the halls of thy Temple;</p>
+
+<p>Upon whose walls are the forms of every creature: of
+every beast of the earth, and of every fowl of the air;</p>
+
+<p>The lynx, and the lion, and the bull: the ibis and the
+serpent: the scorpion and every flying thing.</p>
+
+<p>And the columns thereof are human shapes; having
+the heads of eagles and the hoofs of the ox.</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[170]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>All these are of thy kingdom: they are the chambers of
+ordeal, and the houses of the initiation of the soul.</p>
+
+<p>For the soul passeth from form to form; and the mansions
+of her pilgrimage are manifold.</p>
+
+<p>Thou callest her from the deep, and from the secret
+places of the earth; from the dust of the ground, and from
+the herb of the field.</p>
+
+<p>Thou coverest her nakedness with an apron of fig-leaves;
+thou clothest her with the skins of beasts.</p>
+
+<p>Thou art from of old, O soul of man; yea, thou art from
+the everlasting.</p>
+
+<p>Thou puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture
+dost thou fold them up.</p>
+
+<p>They perish, but thou remainest: the wind rendeth
+and scattereth them; and the place of them shall no
+more be known.</p>
+
+<p>For the wind is the Spirit of God in man, which bloweth
+where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
+canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it shall go.</p>
+
+<p>Even so is the spirit of man, which cometh from afar off
+and tarrieth not, but passeth away to a place thou knowest
+not.</p></div>
+
+<p>(6) Concerning the Mystic Exodus<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of the Sphinx; who linkest the
+lowest to the highest; the loins of the wild beast to the
+head and breast of the woman.</p>
+
+<p>Thou holdest the chalice of divination: all the forms
+of nature are reflected therein.</p>
+
+<p>Thou turnest man to destruction: then thou sayest,
+Come again, ye children of my hand.</p>
+
+<p>Yea, blessed and holy art thou, O Master of Earth:
+Lord of the cross and the tree of salvation.</p>
+
+<p>Vine of God, whose blood redeemeth; bread of heaven,
+broken on the altar of death.</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[171]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>There is corn in Egypt; go thou down into her, O my
+soul, with joy.</p>
+
+<p>For in the kingdom of the Body, thou shalt eat the
+bread of thine initiation.</p>
+
+<p>But beware lest thou become subject to the flesh, and
+a bond-slave in the land of thy sojourn.</p>
+
+<p>Serve not the idols of Egypt; and let not the senses
+be thy taskmasters.</p>
+
+<p>For they will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will
+bitterly oppress the Israel of God.</p>
+
+<p>An evil time shall come upon thee; and the Lord shall
+smite Egypt with plagues for thy sake.</p>
+
+<p>Thy body shall be broken on the wheel of God; thy
+flesh shall see trouble and the worm.</p>
+
+<p>Thy house shall be smitten with grievous plagues;
+blood, and pestilence, and great darkness; fire shall
+devour thy goods; and thou shalt be a prey to the locust
+and creeping thing.</p>
+
+<p>Thy glory shall be brought down to the dust; hail and
+storm shall smite thine harvest; yea, thy beloved and
+thy first-born shall the hand of the Lord destroy;</p>
+
+<p>Until the body let the soul go free; that she may serve
+the Lord God.</p>
+
+<p>Arise in the night, O soul, and fly, lest thou be consumed
+in Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>The angel of the understanding shall know thee for his
+elect, if thou offer unto God a reasonable faith.</p>
+
+<p>Savour thy reason with learning, with labour, and with
+obedience.</p>
+
+<p>Let the rod of thy desire be in thy right hand: put the
+sandals of Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>Then shalt thou pass through the waters of cleansing,
+which is the first death in the body.</p>
+
+<p>The waters shall be a wall unto thee on thy right hand
+and on thy left.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[<a name="p172" id="p172"></a>172]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee; for he
+is thy cloud of darkness by day, and thy pillar of fire by
+night.</p>
+
+<p>All the horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof;
+her princes, her counsellors, and her mighty men:</p>
+
+<p>These shall pursue thee, O soul, that fliest; and shall
+seek to bring thee back into bondage.</p>
+
+<p>Fly for thy life; fear not the deep; stretch out thy rod
+over the sea; and lift thy desire unto God.</p>
+
+<p>Thou hast learnt wisdom in Egypt; thou has spoiled the
+Egyptians; thou hast carried away their fine gold and
+their precious things.</p>
+
+<p>Thou hast enriched thyself in the body; but the body
+shall not hold thee; neither shall the waters of the deep
+swallow thee up.</p>
+
+<p>Thou shalt wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration;
+the blood of atonement shall redeem thee to God.</p>
+
+<p>This is thy chrism and anointing, O soul; this is the
+first death; thou art the Israel of the Lord,</p>
+
+<p>Who hath redeemed thee from the dominion of the
+body; and hath called thee from the grave, and from the
+house of bondage,</p>
+
+<p>Unto the way of the cross, and to the path in the midst
+of the wilderness;</p>
+
+<p>Where are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and
+the burning sand.</p>
+
+<p>For the feet of the saint are set in the way of the desert.</p>
+
+<p>But be thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then
+shall thy raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax
+old upon thee.</p>
+
+<p>And thy desire shall heal thy diseases; it shall bring
+streams for thee out of the stony rock; it shall lead thee
+to Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>Evoi, Father Iacchos, Jehovah-Nissi<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>; Lord of the
+garden and of the vineyard;</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[173]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Initiator and lawgiver; God of the cloud and of the
+mount.</p>
+
+<p>Evoi, Father Iacchos; out of Egypt has thou called
+thy Son.</p></div>
+
+<p>To vindicate the suppressed mysteries of the pre-Christian
+churches by disclosing them as the true
+<i>origines</i> of Christianity, and to replace the false
+doctrine of the exclusive divinity of one man by
+the true doctrine of the potential divinity of all
+men,&mdash;these are among the foremost objects of
+the New Gospel of Interpretation. And it is
+especially in order to reinforce the last named,
+that it has restored the following hymn in celebration
+of the supreme results of regeneration,
+which formed part of the ritual of the greater
+mysteries of the Greeks. It is addressed to the
+first of the Holy Seven, the Spirit of Wisdom, as
+represented by his "angel," the angel of the sun,
+even "that light which Adonai created on the first
+day," "whose name is, in the Hebrew, Uriel, and
+in the Greek, Phoibos, the Bright One of God."
+Breathing both the Spirit and the letter of the
+Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, the hymns,
+of which this is one, indicate unmistakeably the
+identity in source and substance of the Hebrew
+and the Christian with the other sacred mysteries
+of antiquity, and the derivation of the later
+<span class="pagenum">[174]</span>through the earlier from their common source in
+the world celestial when once again they have been
+restored. And they supply also the motive which
+led the Christians to destroy the second Alexandrian
+library, showing that motive to have been
+the desire to conceal, first, the derivation of the
+Christian presentment from its predecessors, and
+next, the perversion of their doctrine in the
+interests of an unscrupulous sacerdocy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Taken in connection with its fellow-hymns,
+similarly recovered, to others of the "Holy Seven,"
+the hymn to Phoibos throws a flood of light on the
+creative week of Genesis, showing it to be no mere
+proem to Scripture, or concerned with the world
+physical merely, but an integral portion of Scripture,
+being an epitome of eternal verities ever in
+process, and appertaining both to Creation and to
+Redemption. The Hymn to Her who is mystically
+the fourth, but really the third of the Gods,
+the "Spirit of Counsel" of Isaiah, is especially
+notable for its solution of the problem of the
+inversion of the order of the third and fourth days
+of creation. These hymns, moreover, show indubitably
+that the order of the solar system was no
+secret to the hierophants of the sacred mysteries
+of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>(7) Hymn to Phoibos, the First of the Gods.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Strong art thou and adorable, Phoibos Apollo, who
+bearest life and healing on thy wings, who crownest the
+year with thy bounty, and givest the spirit of thy divinity
+to the fruits and precious things of all the worlds.</p>
+
+<p>Where were the bread of the initiation of the Sons of
+God, except thou bring the corn to ear; or the wine of
+their mystical chalice, except thou bless the vintage?</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[175]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Many are the angels who serve in the courts of the
+spheres of heaven: but thou, Master of Light and of Life,
+art followed by the Christs of God.</p>
+
+<p>And thy sign is the sign of the Son of Man in heaven,
+and of the Just made perfect;</p>
+
+<p>Whose path is as a shining light, shining more and
+more unto the innermost glory of the day of the Lord
+God.</p>
+
+<p>Thy banner is blood-red, and thy symbol is a milk-white
+lamb, and thy crown is of pure gold.</p>
+
+<p>They who reign with thee are the Hierophants of the
+celestial mysteries; for their will is the will of God, and
+they know as they are known.</p>
+
+<p>These are the sons of the innermost sphere; the
+Saviours of men, the Anointed of God.</p>
+
+<p>And their name is Christ Jesus, in the day of their
+initiation.</p>
+
+<p>And before them every knee shall bow, of things in
+heaven and of things on earth.</p>
+
+<p>They are come out of great tribulation, and are set
+down for ever at the right hand of God.</p>
+
+<p>And the Lamb, which is in the midst of the seven
+spheres, shall give them to drink of the river of living
+water.</p>
+
+<p>And they shall eat of the tree of life, which is in the
+centre of the garden of the kingdom of God.</p>
+
+<p>These are thine, O Mighty Master of Light; and this is
+the dominion which the Word of God appointed thee in
+the beginning:</p>
+
+<p>In the day when God created the light of all the worlds,
+and divided the light from the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>And God called the light Phoibos, and the darkness God
+called Python.</p>
+
+<p>Now the darkness was before the light, as the night
+forerunneth the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>These are the evening and the morning of the first cycle
+of the Mysteries.</p></div><p><span class="pagenum">[176]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And the glory of that cycle is as the glory of seven
+days; and they who dwell therein are seven times refined;</p>
+
+<p>Who have purged the garment of the flesh in the living
+waters;</p>
+
+<p>And have transmuted both body and soul into spirit,
+and are become pure virgins.</p>
+
+<p>For they were constrained by love to abandon the outer
+elements, and to seek the innermost which is undivided,
+even the Wisdom of God.</p>
+
+<p>And wisdom and love are one.</p></div>
+
+<p>In view of the restoration of the Gods to
+recognition by the New Gospel of Interpretation,
+it must be explained that the doctrines of Monotheism
+and Polytheism are not necessarily incompatible.
+This has already been shown in
+Chapter IV., in the utterance commencing&mdash;"In
+the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods comprehended,
+as the seven spirits of the prism contained
+in the Invisible Light." For as light is one
+though its rays are seven and each ray is light,
+so is God one though His spirits are seven and
+each spirit is God.</p>
+
+<p>And yet further. The deities recognised under
+various names or by various peoples are not necessarily
+different Gods, but may be either the same
+God or different modes or aspects of the same God.
+Notably is this the case with the Gods of the
+Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Christians. For
+while by the term Elohim is denoted the two principles,
+masculine and feminine, of Force and
+Substance, which constitute Original Being, by
+Jehovah or Yahveh, Adonai and Shaddai, is
+denoted the resultant of the interaction of these
+two principles as Father and Mother, who is called
+therefore their word, expression, and Son. By the<span class="pagenum">[177]</span>
+Holy Ghost is denoted the same two principles in
+activity, having procession from the "Father-Mother"
+through the "Son," to be the constituent
+principles of creation, being Deity dynamic as
+distinguished from Deity static. By the Seven
+Spirits of God&mdash;as by the seven great Gods of the
+Greeks,&mdash;are denoted the seven potencies into
+which Deity differentiates on emerging as Holy
+Ghost from the prism constituted of Father,
+Mother, and Son, which are to each other as the
+force, substance, and phenomenon of which every
+manifest entity consists. For "Every entity that
+is manifest, is manifest by the evolution of its
+trinity." And by Christ is denoted the ultimate
+issue of such procession of Deity into manifestation,
+namely, divinity individuated by means of
+its passage through matter, and elaborated by co-operation
+of the Seven Spirits of God, into a
+perfected <i>spiritual</i> Ego, who is at once God and
+man, and subsists under two modes&mdash;the microcosmic
+or individual, and the macrocosmic or
+universal, and who is always in process of increase,
+because, in manifestation, "the Father is greater
+than the Son;" and "the manifest never exhausts
+the unmanifest."</p>
+
+<p>Now the process of the Christ is by regeneration,
+and of this, as has been said, reincarnation
+is the condition. The New Gospel of Interpretation
+contains an utterance of Jesus on
+this subject which will fitly conclude this series
+of examples. It was recovered by "Mary"
+under illumination early in 1880, and consequently
+when we had not fully come to realise
+the actuality of the doctrine and the possibility of
+the recovery of the memories of past lives. Hence<span class="pagenum">[178]</span>
+she sought from her illuminators confirmation of
+the genuineness of the experience, when she was
+distinctly and positively assured that the incident
+had actually occurred, and that she had borne part
+in it, though no record of it survives. Such is the
+extrinsic testimony on which it rests. We found
+the intrinsic no less satisfactory, whether as regards
+the substance or the form.</p>
+
+<p>(8) Concerning the previous lines of Jesus, and
+Reincarnation.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This morning between sleeping and waking I saw
+myself, together with many other persons, walking with
+Jesus in the fields round about Jerusalem, and while He
+was speaking to us, a man approached, who looked very
+earnestly upon Him. And Jesus turned to us and said,
+"This man whom you see approaching is a seer. He can
+behold the past lives of a man by looking into his face."
+Then, the man being come up to us, Jesus took him by the
+hand and said, "What readest thou?" And the man
+answered, "I see Thy past, Lord Jesus, and the ways by
+which Thou hast come." And Jesus said to him, "Say
+on." So the man told Jesus that he could see Him in the
+past for many long ages back. But of all that he named,
+I remember but one incarnation, or, perhaps, one only
+struck me, and that was <i>Isaac</i>. And as the man went on
+speaking, and enumerating the incarnations he saw, Jesus
+waved His right hand twice or thrice before his eyes, and
+said, "It is enough," as though He wished him not to
+reveal further. Then I stepped forward from the rest
+and said, "Lord, if, as thou hast taught us, the woman
+is the highest form of humanity, and the last to be
+assumed, how comes it that Thou, the Christ, art still in
+the lower form of man? Why comest Thou not to lead the
+perfect life, and to save the world as woman? For surely
+Thou has attained to womanhood." And Jesus answered,
+"I have attained to womanhood, as thou sayest; and
+<span class="pagenum">[179]</span>already have I taken the form of woman. But there are
+three conditions under which the soul returns to the man's
+form; and they are these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"1st. When the work which the Spirit proposes to
+accomplish is of a nature unsuitable to the female form.</p>
+
+<p>"2nd. When the Spirit has failed to acquire, in the
+degree necessary to perfection, certain special attributes
+of the male character.</p>
+
+<p>"3rd. When the Spirit has transgressed, and gone back
+in the path of perfection, by degrading the womanhood
+it had attained.</p>
+
+<p>"In the first of these cases the return to the male form
+is outward and superficial only. This is my case. I am
+a woman in all save the body. But had My body been a
+woman's, I could not have led the life necessary to the
+work I have to perform. I could not have trod the rough
+ways of the earth, nor have gone about from city to city
+preaching, nor have fasted on the mountains, nor have
+fulfilled My mission of poverty and labour. Therefore
+am I&mdash;a woman&mdash;clothed in a man's body that I may be
+enabled to do the work set before Me.</p>
+
+<p>"The second case is that of a soul who, having been a
+woman perhaps many times, has acquired more aptly and
+readily the higher qualities of womanhood than the lower
+qualities of manhood. Such a soul is lacking in energy,
+in resoluteness, in that particular attribute of the Spirit
+which the prophet ascribes to the Lord when he says,
+'The Lord is a Man of war.' Therefore the soul is put
+back into a man's form to acquire the qualities yet lacking.</p>
+
+<p>"The third case is that of the backslider, who, having
+nearly attained perfection,&mdash;perhaps even touched it,&mdash;degrades
+and soils his white robe, and is put back into
+the lower form again. These are the common cases; for
+there are few women who are worthy to be women"<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>.</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[180]</span></p>
+<p>(9) Concerning the "Work of Power."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>You have asked me if the Work of Power is a difficult
+one, and if it is open to all.</p>
+
+<p>It is open to all potentially and eventually, but not
+actually and in the present. In order to regain power and
+the resurrection, a man must be a Hierarch; that is to say,
+he must have attained the <i>magical</i> age of thirty-three.
+This age is attained by having accomplished the Twelve
+Labours, passed the Twelve Gates, overcome the Five
+Senses, and obtained dominion over the Four Spirits of the
+elements. He must have been born Immaculate, baptised
+with Water and Fire, tempted in the Wilderness, crucified
+and buried. He must have borne Five Wounds on the
+Cross, and he must have answered the riddle of the Sphinx.
+When this is accomplished he is free of matter, and will
+never again have a phenomenal body.</p>
+
+<p>Who shall attain to this perfection? The Man who is
+without fear and without concupiscence; who has courage
+to be absolutely poor and absolutely chaste. When it is all
+one to you whether you have gold or whether you have
+none, whether you have a house and lands or whether
+you have them not, whether you have worldly reputation
+or whether you are an outcast,&mdash;then you are voluntarily
+poor. It is not necessary to have nothing, but it is necessary
+to care for nothing. When it is all one to you
+whether you have a wife or husband, or whether you are
+celibate, then you are free from concupiscence. It is not
+necessary to be a virgin; it is necessary to set no value
+on the flesh. There is nothing so difficult to attain as this
+equilibrium. Who is he who can part with his goods
+without regret? Who is he who is never consumed by the
+desires of the flesh? But when you have ceased both to
+wish to retain and to burn, then you have the remedy in
+your own hands, and the remedy is a hard and a sharp one,
+and a terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, be not afraid. Deny
+the five senses, and above all the taste and the touch. The
+power is within you if you will to attain it. The Two Seats
+<span class="pagenum">[181]</span>are vacant at the Celestial Table, if you will put on Christ.
+Eat no dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. Make
+living elements of all the elements of your body. Mortify
+the members of earth. Take your food full of life, and let
+not the touch of death pass upon it. You understand me,
+but you shrink. Remember that without self-immolation,
+there is no power over death. Deny the touch. Seek no
+bodily pleasure in sexual communion; let desire be
+magnetic and soulic. If you indulge the body, you perpetuate
+the body, and the end of the body is corruption.
+You understand me again, but you shrink. Remember
+that without self-denial and restraint there is no power
+over death. Deny the taste first, and it will become easier
+to deny the touch. For to be a virgin is the crown of
+discipline. I have shown you the excellent way, and it is
+the <i>Via Dolorosa</i>. Judge whether the resurrection be
+worth the passion; whether the kingdom be worth the
+obedience; whether the power be worth the suffering.
+When the time of your calling comes, you will no longer
+hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>When a man has attained power over his body, the
+process of ordeal is no longer necessary. The Initiate is
+under a vow; the Hierarch is free. Jesus, therefore, came
+eating and drinking; for all things were lawful to Him.
+He had undergone, and had freed His will. For the object
+of the trial and the vow is polarisation. When the fixed
+is volatilised, the Magian is free. But before Christ was
+Christ He was subject; and His initiation lasted thirty
+years. All things are lawful to the Hierarch; for he knows
+the nature and value of all<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>.</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum">[182]</span></p>
+<p>This chapter may appropriately terminate with a
+few remarks in reply to the inevitable question,
+why our country and language were selected as the
+place and tongue of the new revelation in preference
+to all others.</p>
+
+<p>It is, as we were enabled to see, because the
+British people are recognised in the celestial world,
+as possessing that peculiar quality of soul which,
+in spite of their many and grievous limitations,
+has made them to be the foremost witness among
+the nations to God and the Conscience, in such wise
+as to constitute them the counterpart of Israel in
+the modern world. Others besides ourselves have
+recognised this characteristic. Said Milton, speaking
+of a crisis which, momentous as it was, pales
+in presence of that which now is, seeing that
+Religion itself as Religion was not menaced then
+as in our time&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now once again, by all concurrence of signs,
+and by the general instinct of devout and holy
+men, as they daily and solemnly express their
+thoughts, God is beginning to devise some new and
+great period in His Church, even to the reforming
+of Reformation itself. What does He then, but
+address Himself to His servants, and&mdash;as His
+manner is&mdash;first to His Englishmen."</p>
+
+<p>To which we may add in reference to the present,
+"And having by the hands of His Intellectualists,
+beaten down the false interpretation of His holy
+Word, accomplishing the work of destruction, is
+about by the hands of His Intuitionalists, to establish
+the true interpretation, accomplishing the
+work of re-construction."</p>
+
+<p>Nor are there wanting specific historical facts
+pointing in the same direction. To Britain it was
+given by a timely act of revolt against a domination
+at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the<span class="pagenum">[183]</span>
+letter of Scripture from suppression and virtual
+extinction at the hands of an order bent only on
+exalting itself at whatever cost to truth and
+humanity. Meanwhile, for three centuries and a
+half&mdash;period suggestive of the mystical "time,
+times, and half a time,"&mdash;Britain has faithfully
+and lovingly, albeit unintelligently and mistakenly,
+guarded and cherished the letter thus rescued, even
+to the erecting of it into a fetish. And it may well
+be that she has now, for her guerdon, been further
+commissioned to be the recipient and minister of
+its interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, as Mistress of the Sea, the especial
+symbol of the Soul, she has a prescriptive claim
+to be the vehicle of the latest and crowning message
+to earth, of which the Soul herself is at once the
+source, the subject, and the object.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are the universality of her language and the
+grandeur of her literature elements to be left out
+of consideration. All things point to her language
+as destined to become, practically, the language of
+the world; and hence its peculiar fitness to be the
+vehicle of that "eternal gospel" which it is
+declared should, at the end of the age, be proclaimed
+"unto them that dwell on the earth,
+even unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and
+people."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6"><p><span class="pagenum">[184]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.</p>
+
+
+<p>As will readily be imagined, the interest was
+intense with which we watched the progress of our
+work, in order to see whether the crucial event of
+its promulgation would coincide with the date
+prophesied for the turning point between the outgoing
+and the incoming dispensations. The predictions
+covered a period of six years, namely from
+1876 to 1881 inclusive. In this period was to be
+laid the foundation of a universal kingdom of
+justice and knowledge, which should constitute the
+reign of Michael, and spring from a new illumination,
+one feature of which was to be the
+"return of the Gods" in 1876. It was in the
+autumn of this year that they first came to us, and
+the intimation was given us that the reign
+of Michael was then actually commencing;
+we having no knowledge either of the meaning or
+of the fact of such predictions. For, while the
+Bible references to Michael were altogether unintelligible
+to us, we had not learnt to refer the
+event to any assignable period. The fulfilment of
+this prediction disposed us to attach value to those
+which pointed to the year 1881 as that in which
+our work&mdash;supposing our estimate of its significance
+to be correct&mdash;ought to see the light. For
+our illuminators observed silence respecting times
+and seasons, contenting themselves with bringing
+under our notice the books containing the pre<span class="pagenum">[<a name="p185" id="p185"></a>185]</span>dictions,
+the application being left to our own
+perspicacity. We were powerless to influence
+events, even had we desired to do so. We could
+but work steadily on, as we did, "without haste,
+without rest," until my colleague had finished her
+university course and obtained her diploma. This
+she accomplished in the summer of 1880, soon
+after which we returned to England; and in the
+summer of 1881 we delivered in London, to a
+private audience, the lectures which constituted
+the first promulgation of our work. These were
+published in the following winter under the title
+of "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ,"
+our excellent friend at Paris faithfully fulfilling
+the mission she had accepted in relation to us and
+our work<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a>. Thus were fulfilled exactly all the
+predictions respecting the dates, the character, and
+the manner of our work.</p>
+
+<p>There were many other coincidences of a kind
+so remarkable as to make us feel that to ascribe
+them to accident would require a larger measure
+of credulity than to ascribe them to design. Among
+the most striking were those which concerned
+"Mary's" names, and which were in this wise.</p>
+
+<p>When first the significance of the Apocalyptic
+utterance concerning the river Euphrates and the
+kings of the East was flashed on my mind, I asked
+her if she knew that she was mentioned, even to
+her very name, in the book of Revelation. To
+which she replied, smiling, that she had known it
+for some time, but which of her names did I mean?
+I said that I meant her married surname, which
+<span class="pagenum">[186]</span>fitted exactly a way made for kings across a river,
+by the drying up of its waters, namely a <i>king's
+ford</i>; the "Kings of the East," meaning those
+principles in man whereby he has knowledge of
+divine things&mdash;the East being the mystical expression
+for the place of the dawn of spiritual light,
+such as that of which she was the revealer. While
+the Euphrates means, in the Apocalypse as in
+Genesis, the highest principle in the fourfold
+kosmos of man, the Spirit or Will<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a>. Only when
+this principle in man is "dried up," or sublimated
+by being made one with the divine Will, is man
+accessible to the divine knowledges brought by the
+"Kings of the East." As the channel by which
+these knowledges were being restored to the world,
+she was the <i>kings' ford</i> implied. She then told me,
+what I had not yet observed, that her baptismal
+and maiden names were equally appropriate, as
+the Latin for the "acceptable year of the Lord,"
+or <i>good time</i>, announced as to follow the restoration
+of the knowledges brought by the Kings of the
+East, is&mdash;allowing for difference of gender&mdash;<i>Annus
+Bonus</i>. The coincidence of names did not end
+here, for we shortly afterwards, in the course of our
+researches, came upon an old prophecy declaring
+that the initials of the "Messenger" of the new
+Avâtar, due at this time, would be A. K.!</p>
+
+<p>She further identified the "Kings of the East"
+as functions of the three principles in man, the
+Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind; being respectively,
+right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right
+<span class="pagenum">[187]</span>perception, which is of the Soul; and right judgment,
+which is of the Mind; the combination of
+which is the necessary and sufficient condition of
+divine knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Had we been sanguine of a favourable reception
+of our book by the press at large&mdash;which we were
+not&mdash;our disappointment would have been great.
+But we were by no means prepared either for the
+gross misrepresentation and even vulgar ribaldry
+with which it was treated by the few organs in the
+literary press which noticed it at all, or for the
+complete neglect of it by that portion of the press
+which especially concerns itself with religious
+exegesis. In no instance was any attempt made to
+exhibit its plan, purpose, and real nature, or any
+recognition accorded to its luminous solutions of
+the profound problems dealt with. The very claim
+to have experiential knowledge of things spiritual
+was accounted an offence; and it seemed as if the
+word had gone forth to adopt towards it an attitude
+which should effectually restrain the public from
+making its acquaintance, even though it met absolutely
+the need recognised on all hands as the
+world's supreme need, and vindicated its claim
+thereto by the presentation of teachings avowedly
+of divine derivation and demonstrating their
+divinity by their intrinsic character to all who are
+in the smallest degree spiritually percipient. To
+this day that attitude has never been abandoned or
+relaxed; and notwithstanding the assiduous
+endeavours made to counteract its influence, the
+whole mass of our people, saving only a few select
+circles, have yet to learn that the longed-for New
+Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed,
+having been for years in their midst waiting<span class="pagenum">[188]</span>
+but to be recognised of them,&mdash;a "light shining in
+darkness and the darkness comprehending it
+not"<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>In compliance with the injunctions of our illuminators,
+we had withheld our names from our
+first edition, in order to secure for it a judgment
+unbiased by any personal element. But though
+we ourselves thus escaped the opprobrium attaching
+to our book, "Mary" was at first inclined to
+repent of having exposed her pearls to such
+profanation; and was only reassured by the suggestion
+that it showed how desperate was the need
+for precisely the change our work was designed
+to accomplish, and how exactly was fulfilled the
+prophecy which foretold the wrath of the dragon
+and his angels at the advent of the "Woman"
+Intuition, their destined destroyer, and the consequent
+shortness of their own time. We knew of
+course better than to regard such criticism as being
+in any sense a measure of our work. For us it was,
+like criticism in general, a measure not of the thing
+criticised but of the critics themselves. And these,
+in our case, but truly represented the condition of
+the age, and knew not what they were doing.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the reason why so many will hear for the
+first time from this book that a New Gospel of
+Interpretation has been received. To turn to the
+other and compensating side. With those who were
+specially qualified to judge, it was far otherwise.
+And among the most notable of the recognitions
+received from this quarter was the weighty utterance
+which appears in the preface to the second
+<span class="pagenum">[189]</span>and succeeding editions, coming from that veteran
+student of the "Divine Science," the friend, disciple,
+and literary heir of the renowned Kabalist
+and magian, the late Abbé Constant ("Eliphas
+Levi"), namely, Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles,
+who though then an entire stranger to us, wrote to
+us as follows&mdash;for I think it may with advantage
+be reproduced here:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the
+appeal on behalf of your book is, really, to miracles, but
+with the difference that in your case they are intellectual
+ones, and incapable of simulation, being miracles of
+interpretation. And they have the further distinction of
+doing no violence to common sense by infringing the possibilities
+of Nature; while they are in complete accord
+with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great
+Mother of these, the Kabala. That miracles such as I am
+describing are to be found in <i>The Perfect Way</i>, in kind
+and number unexampled, they who are the best qualified
+to judge will be the most ready to affirm.</p>
+
+<p>"And here, <i>apropos</i> of these renowned Scriptures, permit
+me to offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we
+have it. It is my opinion&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"(1) That this tradition is far from being genuine,
+and such as it was on its original emergence from the
+sanctuaries.</p>
+
+<p>"(2) That when Guillaume Postel&mdash;of excellent
+memory&mdash;and his brother Hermetists of the later middle
+age&mdash;the Abbot Trithemius and others&mdash;predicted that
+these sacred books of the Hebrews should become known
+and understood at the end of the era, and specified the
+present time for that event, they did not mean that such
+knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of
+these particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its
+base a new illumination, which should eliminate from
+<span class="pagenum">[190]</span>them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced,
+and should re-unite that great tradition with its source by
+restoring it in all its purity.</p>
+
+<p>"(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished,
+and has been manifested in <i>The Perfect Way</i>. For in
+this book we find all that there is of truth in the Kabala,
+supplemented by new intuitions, such as present a body
+of doctrine at once complete, homogeneous, logical and
+inexpungnable.</p>
+
+<p>"Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered
+or restored to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel
+and his fellow-Hermetists are accomplished; and I consider
+that from henceforth the study of the Kabala will be
+but an object of curiosity and erudition, like that of
+Hebrew antiquities.</p>
+
+<p>"Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself
+these three supreme questions: Whence come we? What
+are we? Whither go we? Now, these questions at length
+find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory, in
+<i>The Perfect Way</i>"<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>He subsequently wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly
+believe they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures
+of the past, these writings will assuredly hold the
+foremost place among them"<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>For those who are unacquainted with the Kabala,
+its origin, nature, and intent, it will be well to
+state that it represents the transcendental and
+esoteric doctrine of the Hebrews, as handed down
+from the remotest times. In recognition of its
+divine origin, the Rabbins describe it as having
+been communicated by God, first, to "Adam in
+<span class="pagenum">[191]</span>Paradise," and, next, to "Moses on Sinai." By
+which expressions they implied that its doctrine
+was due to the highest possible illumination.</p>
+
+<p>It was also in recognition of this element in our
+book that Mr. MacGregor Mathers dedicated his
+learned work, "The Kabala Unveiled," to us,
+saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have much pleasure in dedicating this work to the
+authors of <i>The Perfect Way</i>, as they have in that excellent
+and wonderful book touched so much on the doctrines
+of the Kabala, and laid such value on its teachings.
+<i>The Perfect Way</i> is one of the most deeply occult works
+that has been written for centuries."</p></div>
+
+<p>As the foregoing testimonies represent the
+<i>consensus</i> of the Kabalists, Hermetists, and other
+great ancient schools of spiritual science in the
+West, so the following represents the <i>consensus</i> of
+the corresponding schools of the East. As will be
+seen, it involves a coincidence so notable as to
+point to a source transcending the human and
+terrestrial, as that of the great spiritual revival
+which our age is witnessing. That coincidence is
+in this wise:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Within two years of the commencement of our
+collaboration in the work which proved to be that
+of the restoration of the <i>Gnosis</i> of the West&mdash;the
+divine doctrine of which, as we had come to learn,
+Christ was the personal demonstration, and the
+religion called after Him ought to have been the
+expression; a collaboration was commenced which
+had for its end the like exposition in regard to the
+religious systems of the East. This is the collaboration,
+also of a woman and a man, which had
+its issue in the Theosophical Society. The two<span class="pagenum">[192]</span>
+pairs of collaborators worked simultaneously
+through the succeeding years in entire ignorance
+of each other and their work, until the commencement
+of the publication of our results in 1881, at
+which time the Theosophical Society was still so
+far from having completed the system of its doctrine,
+that neither of its two now fundamental tenets
+had yet been recognised by it, the tenets, namely,
+of Reincarnation and Karma&mdash;its chief text-book,
+the "Isis Unveiled" of its foundress, not containing
+them. We, on the contrary, had both of these
+doctrines, having derived them, as already stated
+herein, directly from celestial sources and wholly
+independently of human authority and tradition,
+of spiritualism, and of our own prepossessions.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear, both by this fact and by the
+avowals of the parties concerned, that up to this
+time the chiefs of the Theosophical Society had
+been unable to obtain from those whom they
+claimed as their masters more than a very meagre
+instalment of their doctrine. But after the arrival
+of our book in India this state of things was
+changed. It was then declared on behalf of the
+"masters" that we had obtained, from original and
+independent sources, a system of doctrine substantially
+identical with that of which they had for
+ages been, as they supposed, in exclusive possession,
+but had never been permitted to divulge, as
+it had always been reserved for initiates. The
+revelation of it through us, we were further
+informed, had "forced the hands of the masters,"
+by showing them that the time had come when
+secrecy was no longer possible, and compelling<span class="pagenum">[193]</span>
+them, if only in vindication of their own claims,
+to relax their rule of silence in regard to their
+mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>The coincidence between their doctrine and ours
+comprised sundry particulars the most recondite,
+including&mdash;besides the two great tenets already
+named&mdash;the multiplicity of principles in the
+human system, and their separation and respective
+conditions after death,&mdash;a subject lying outside
+the cognisance of "Spiritualism." Among other
+points of agreement was that of their recognition
+of the great antiquity of the soul of "Mary,"
+whom they pronounced to be "the greatest natural
+mystic of the present day, and countless ages ahead
+of the great majority of mankind, the foremost of
+whom&mdash;the most civilised&mdash;belong to the last race
+of the fourth round, while she belongs to the first
+race of the fifth round."</p>
+
+<p>In presence of these and other proofs of the
+possession by the Eastern occultists, of knowledges
+which we had obtained directly at first hand from
+celestial sources, we could not but pay respectful
+heed to the claims of the representatives of the
+Theosophical Society, and welcome any token
+which might indicate it as a destined fellow-agent
+in the great spiritual revival of the age. So might
+it constitute, with "Spiritualism" and the work
+represented by us, a threefold power for accomplishing
+the promotion predicted for this era, of
+the consciousness of the race to a level which should
+transcend any yet reached by it as a race. With
+Spiritualism to represent the phenomenal and personal,
+Theosophy the philosophical and occult,
+and our own work the mystical and divine, every
+region of man's higher nature would find its due<span class="pagenum">[194]</span>
+recognition and unfoldment. Meanwhile, the
+organ of the Society in India thus expressed itself
+respecting "The Perfect Way":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"A grand book, keen of insight and eloquent in exposition;
+an upheaval of true spirituality.... We regard
+its authors as having produced one of the most&mdash;perhaps
+the most&mdash;important and spirit-stirring of appeals to the
+highest instincts of mankind which modern European
+literature has evolved"<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a>.</p></div>
+
+<p>We had a yet further warrant, derived from
+Scripture itself, for looking to the Theosophical
+Society as possibly a divinely appointed factor in
+the spiritual evolution of the time. The unsealing
+of the World's Bibles was upon us, and not of that
+of Christendom only. And we saw in the following
+saying of Jesus an obvious allusion to the present
+epoch, "In those days many shall come from the
+East, and the West, and the North, and the South,
+and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
+Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Not that the
+terms East, West, North, and South, denoted for
+us the quarters of the physical globe. We had
+learnt to understand them in their mystical sense,
+wherein they denote the various human temperaments,
+the intuitional, the traditional, the intellectual,
+and the emotional, all of which would find
+satisfaction in the doctrine then to be recovered.
+It was in the terms Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
+that the significance of the utterance lay for us;
+these being in one aspect the Hebrew equivalents
+for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, and denoting the
+mysteries respectively of India, Egypt, and Greece,
+of the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein
+<span class="pagenum">[195]</span>of the whole Man. For these mysteries together
+comprised the perfect doctrine of Existence, called
+also in Scripture the "Word of God," the "Law
+and the Prophets," and the "<i>Theou Sophia</i>,"
+"Wisdom of God," and "hidden Wisdom," of
+which the Christ, as the typical Man regenerate,
+is the fulfilment and personal demonstration. This
+is to say, they constituted that Gnosis, or Knowledge,
+with the taking away and withholdment
+of the key of which Jesus so bitterly reproached,
+in the Ecclesiasticism of His time, that of all time,
+and, therefore, that knowledge to the restoration
+of which, in our day, through the faculty by means
+of which it was originally obtained and can alone
+be discerned, the prophecies one and all pointed,
+as to mark and to make the "time of the end" of
+the "adulterous," because idolatrous, "generation,"
+hitherto in possession in the Church, and
+to introduce the "kingdom of God with power."</p>
+
+<p>Having warrant so high for anticipating the
+restoration at this time of the faculties and knowledges
+represented by the various movements in
+question, and knowing also, if only by the
+example of ourselves, that the divinity of a mission
+is not invalidated by the limitations, real or supposed,
+of its instruments, but that these must be
+educated by experience, and in such sense "perfected
+through suffering" to be fitted for their
+appointed tasks;&mdash;we had no doubt as to the
+attitude it was our duty to maintain towards all
+candidates for a share in that which we recognised
+as the greatest of all the endeavours yet
+made by the human soul to regain her long-lost
+rightful dominion over the minds and hearts of<span class="pagenum">[196]</span>
+men, leaving it to time to determine that which
+was of divine appointment, and that which was
+not.</p>
+
+<p>It will have been observed that I have used the
+terms "mystical" and "occult" in such wise as
+to imply a distinction between them. It is
+important to the purpose of this book to define
+and emphasise that distinction. The instructions
+received by us from our illuminators were explicit
+and positive on this point.</p>
+
+<p>This is because they refer to two different
+domains of man's system. Occultism deals with
+transcendental physics, and is of the intellectual,
+belonging to science. Mysticism deals with
+transcendental metaphysics, and is of the spiritual,
+belonging to religion. Occultism, therefore, has
+for its domain the region which, lying between
+the body and the soul, is interior to the body but
+exterior to the soul; while Mysticism has for its
+domain the region which, comprising the soul and
+the spirit, is interior to the soul, and belongs to
+the divine. Of course, the terms themselves, which
+are respectively the Latin and the Greek for the
+same thing, and mean hidden from the outer
+senses and also from non-initiates, do not imply
+such distinction, but they have come by usage to
+be thus referable.</p>
+
+<p>The following citations are from the teachings
+received by us in this connection. They account
+for the scientific part of the training imposed on
+us.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The science of the Mysteries can be understood only
+by one who has studied the physical sciences, because it is
+the climax and crown of all these, and must be learned
+last and not first. Unless thou understand the physical
+<span class="pagenum">[197]</span>sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctrine of
+<i>Vehicles</i>, which is the basic doctrine of occult science. 'If
+thou understood not earthly things, how shall I make thee
+understand heavenly things?' Wherefore, get knowledge,
+and be greedy of knowledge, ever more and more. It is
+idle for thee to seek the inner chamber, until thou hast
+passed through the outer. This, also, is another reason
+why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To
+the unlearned no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy
+is the royal science<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a>; if thou would reach the king's
+presence chamber, there is no way save through the outer
+rooms and galleries of the palace<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>"The adept or occultist is, at best, a religious scientist;
+he is not a 'saint.' If occultism were all, and held the
+key of heaven, there would be no need of 'Christ.' But
+occultism, although it holds the 'power,' holds neither
+the 'kingdom' nor the 'glory,' for these are of Christ.
+The adept knows not the kingdom of heaven, and 'the
+least in this kingdom are greater than he.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Desire <i>first</i> the kingdom of God and God's righteousness;
+and all these things shall be added unto you.' As
+Jesus said of Prometheus<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>, 'Take no thought for to-morrow.
+Behold the lilies of the field and the birds of
+the air, and trust God as these,' For the saint has faith;
+the adept has knowledge. If the adepts in occultism or
+in physical science could suffice to man, I would have
+committed no message to you. But the two are not in
+<span class="pagenum">[198]</span>opposition. All things are yours, even the kingdom and
+the power, but the glory is to God. Do not be ignorant of
+their teaching, for I would have you know all. Take,
+therefore, every means to know. This knowledge is of
+man, and cometh from the mind. Go, therefore, to man
+to learn it. 'If you will be perfect, learn also of these.'
+'Yet the wisdom which is from above, is above all.' For
+one man may begin from within, that is, with wisdom,
+and wisdom is one with love. Blessed is the man who
+chooseth wisdom, for she leaveneth all things. And
+another man may begin from without, and that which is
+without is power. To such there shall be a thorn in the
+flesh<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>. For it is hard in such case to attain to the within.
+But if a man be first wise inwardly, he shall the more
+easily have this also added unto him. For he is born again
+and is free. Whereas at a great price must the adept buy
+freedom. Nevertheless, I bid you seek;&mdash;and in this
+also you shall find. But I have shown you a more excellent
+way than theirs. Yet both Ishmael and Isaac are sons of
+one father, and of all her children is Wisdom justified.
+So neither are they wrong, nor are you led astray. The
+goal is the same; but their way is harder than yours.
+They take the kingdom by violence, if they take it, and
+by much toil and agony of the flesh. But from the time
+of Christ within you, the kingdom is open to the sons of
+God. Receive what you can receive; I would have you
+know all things. And if you have served seven years for
+wisdom, count it not loss to serve seven years for power
+also. For if Rachel bear the best beloved, Leah hath
+many sons, and is exceeding fruitful. But her eye is not
+single; she looketh two ways, and seeketh not that which
+is above only. But to you Rachel is given first, and perchance
+her beauty may suffice. I say not, let it suffice;
+it is better to know all things, for if you know not all, how
+can you judge all? For as a man heareth, so must he
+judge. Will you therefore be regenerate in the without,
+<span class="pagenum">[199]</span>as well as in the within? For they are renewed in the
+body, but you in the soul. It is well to be baptised into
+John's baptism, if a man receive also the Holy Ghost.
+But some know not so much as that there is any Holy
+Ghost. Yet Jesus also, being Himself regenerate in the
+spirit, sought unto the Baptism of John, for thus it became
+Him to fulfil Himself in all things. And having fulfilled,
+behold, the 'Dove' descended on Him. If then you will
+be perfect, seek both that which is within and that which
+is without; and the circle of being, which is the 'wheel of
+life,' shall be complete in you."</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The Scriptural allusions in this teaching, which
+was received by "Mary" under illumination
+occurring in sleep, proved to be on the lines of the
+Kabala.</p>
+
+<p>There were sundry other tokens of recognition
+which are entitled to reproduction here, as showing
+to how wide a range of educated and intelligent
+opinion within the pale of Christianity our
+work appeals. Their value is due to their representing
+a class of minds which, while possessed of
+the ordinary ecclesiastical training, are not
+restricted to the knowledge thereby acquired. For,
+seeing that such training means little, if anything,
+more than the mechanical learning of what other
+men have said who, themselves, had no real knowledge,
+the opinions, expressed on the strength of
+it, are neither educated nor intelligent, but
+adoptive only and perfunctory, and represent
+learning without insight. And as such precisely
+are the opinions which constitute ecclesiastical
+orthodoxy, the judgment of the representatives of
+that orthodoxy on our work possesses no more real
+value than did that of Caiaphas and his coadjutors<span class="pagenum">[200]</span>
+on Jesus and His work<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>. Denouncing Him as a
+blasphemer, they were themselves blasphemers.
+And inasmuch as they were types of the votaries
+of ecclesiastical orthodoxy of all time, it is obvious
+that the only new revelation&mdash;if any&mdash;which would
+find acceptance at their hands, would be one that
+confirmed and reinforced their errors, instead of
+exposing and correcting them. Proceeding, as was
+declared by Jesus, from their "father, the devil,"
+a priest-constructed system ever prefers Barabbas
+to Christ;&mdash;prefers, that is, a system which
+defrauds&mdash;hence the force of the term "robber"
+as applied to Barabbas&mdash;man of the divine potentialities
+which Christ came to reveal to him by
+demonstrating them in His own person, together
+with the manner of their realisation.</p>
+
+<p>Not that all who bear the title of Ecclesiastics
+come under this condemnation. In every age of
+the Church there have been those who, while holding
+office in it, have not consented to the "Scarlet
+Woman" of Sacerdotalism. And never was there
+a time when the proportion of these was larger,
+<span class="pagenum">[201]</span>or when their sense of the need of a New Gospel
+of Interpretation was more keen and urgent than
+now: so intolerable to multitudes of the clergy of
+all sections of the Church has become the
+antagonism recognised by them as subsisting
+between the traditional and official presentation of
+religion and their own clear perceptions of goodness
+and truth<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The testimonies which remain to be added are
+valuable as coming from men who, while possessed
+of ecclesiastical training, have been taught
+also of the Spirit, and, adding to tradition
+intuition, and to learning insight, have in themselves
+the witness to that which they utter.</p>
+
+<p>A distinguished French ecclesiastic, the Abbé
+Roca, writing in <i>L'Aurore</i>, says of our books&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"These books seem to me to be the chosen organs of
+the Divine Feminine" (<i>i.e.</i> the interpretative) "Principle,
+in view of the new revelation of Revelation."</p></div>
+
+<p>By which it will be seen that he shared Cardinal
+Newman's expectation referred to in the introduction;
+and accepted as realised the forecast of
+Joseph de Maistre when he said "Religion and
+Science, in virtue of their natural affinity, will
+meet in the brain of some man of genius&mdash;perhaps
+of more than one&mdash;and the world will get
+what it needs and cries for, <i>not a new religion, but
+the revelation of Revelation</i>." As the event shows,
+for "the brain of some man," he should have said
+"the mind and soul of a woman."</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Dr. John Pulsford, author of "The
+Supremacy of Man," "Quiet Hours," "Morgenrothe,"<span class="pagenum">[202]</span>
+and other works distinguished for the
+depth of their piety and insight, thus wrote to me
+on the publication of "Clothed with the Sun"&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I cannot tell you with what thankfulness and pleasure
+I have read <i>Clothed with the Sun</i>. It is impossible for
+a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt that these teachings
+were received from <i>within</i> the astral veil. They are
+full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy
+Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own
+religion, they would find in these priceless records our
+Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly illustrated
+and confirmed. The regret is that so few, comparatively,
+who read the book, will be aware of the tithe of its pearls.
+But that such communications are possible, and are permitted
+to be given to the world, is a sign, and a most
+promising sign of our age.</p>
+
+<p>"It is no little joy to me to feel that I am so much
+more in sympathy with God's daughter, the Seeress, than
+I supposed. The testimony is so clearly above, and distinct
+from, aught that is derived from the occult powers
+of the universe, rather than from the Supreme Spirit and
+Father-Mother of our Spirits."</p></div>
+
+<p>Another notable student of spiritual science, a
+Priest, writing in <i>Light</i> of 21st October, 1882,
+after describing <i>The Perfect Way</i> as "that most
+wonderful of all books which has appeared since
+the beginning of the Christian Era," said:&mdash;"It
+is a book that no student can be without if he will
+know <i>the truth</i> on these matters. It furnishes us
+with a master-key to the phenomena which so
+perplex the minds of enquirers, and gives a system,
+the like of which has not been seen for eighteen
+centuries." The late Rev. John Manners, a man
+venerable of years and mature of spirit, and
+deeply versed in the sciences of both worlds,<span class="pagenum">[203]</span>
+declared of these illuminations, "the Great I Am
+speaks in every line of them. Only the Logos
+Himself could be their source." Lady Caithness,
+already referred to, upon receiving a copy of <i>The
+Perfect Way</i>, wrote: "I have got another Bible,
+the <i>most complete</i> Revelation, <i>certainly</i>, that has
+yet been given to man on this planet"<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a>. And
+a Parsee scholar, a native of India, wrote: "<i>The
+Perfect Way</i> has made me a much nobler man&mdash;a
+man of tranquility and calmness, due to the knowledge
+of the philosophy of Being imbibed by me
+from it, and for which my mind was fortunately
+prepared"<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As stated in the preface, this present book is
+intended but as an epitome and instalment of the
+far larger book in course of preparation. For, as
+with the old Gospel of Manifestation, so with the
+New Gospel of Interpretation, the excusable hyperbole
+is no less appropriate to it,&mdash;"I suppose that
+even the world itself could not contain the books
+which might be written."</p>
+
+<p>For the human soul is a theme as inexhaustible
+as it is paramount. And, as never in the world's
+history have the need and the desire for the knowledge
+of it been so urgent as they now are, so never
+in the world's history has there been a revelation
+of it comparable with that which has been vouchsafed
+in our day, and is contained in the narrative,
+the completion of which, and this alone, will
+<span class="pagenum">[204]</span>enable me to "depart in peace," having no apprehension
+of after disquietude on the score of having
+left unaccomplished a portion so important of the
+task committed to me.</p>
+
+
+<p class="tdc"><big><span class="smcap">The End.</span></big></p>
+<div class="p6" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 267px;">
+<img src="images/230.png" width="267" height="159" alt="" title="" />
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="p6" />
+<h2><a name="SCRIPTURES_OF_THE_FUTURE" id="SCRIPTURES_OF_THE_FUTURE"></a>"SCRIPTURES OF THE FUTURE."</h2>
+
+
+<p>Books rapidly coming into use in the Roman, Greek and Anglican
+communions as the text-books which represent the prophesied
+restoration of the Ancient Esoteric doctrine which, by interpreting
+the mysteries of religion, should reconcile faith and reason, religion
+and science, and accomplish the downfall of that sacerdotal system,
+which&mdash;"making the word of God of none effect by its traditions"&mdash;has
+hitherto usurped the name and perverted the truth of
+Christianity. Their standpoint is that Christian doctrines,
+when rightly understood, are necessary and self-evident truths,
+recognisable as founded in and representing the actual nature of
+existence, incapable of being conceived of as otherwise, and constituting
+a system of thought at once scientific, philosophic and
+religious, absolutely inexpugnable, and satisfactory to man's highest
+aspirations, intellectual, moral and spiritual.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><b>The Perfect Way;</b> or The Finding of Christ. By Anna Kingsford
+and Edward Maitland. Third English Edition, Price 6s. net.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><b>The Life of Anna Kingsford</b>; by Edward Maitland. A new
+edition in preparation.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><b>The New Gospel of Interpretation;</b> being an Abstract of the
+doctrine and Statement of the objects of The Esoteric Christian
+Union, founded by Edward Maitland, Nov., 1891.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><b>The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and
+of The New Gospel of Interpretation</b>; by Edward Maitland.
+Third and enlarged Edition, 228 pp., edited by Samuel Hopgood
+Hart, Cloth Gilt, Back and Side; Price 3s. 6d. net; Post Free
+3s. 10d. The Ruskin Press, Stafford Street, Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p class="indent"><b>The Bible's Own Account of Itself</b>; by Edward Maitland.
+Second Edition, edited by Saml. Hopgood Hart, complete, with
+Appendix. Crown 8vo. 96 pp., Stiff Paper Covers, Price 6d.;
+Post Free 7d,; or in Cloth Covers, Gilt, 1s. 6d. net; Post Free
+1s. 8d. The Ruskin Press, Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p class="tdc">All the above Works may be obtained from<br />
+
+<b><i>THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM.</i></b><br />
+
+(<i>Postages in addition to the above Prices.</i>)</p>
+<hr />
+<p class="noi"><b><i>Some Testimonies of notable profiolents in religious science.</i></b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe
+they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures of the
+past, these writings will assuredly hold the foremost place among
+them.... They present a body of doctrine at once complete,
+homogeneous, logical and inexpugnable, in which the three supreme
+questions, Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? at length
+find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Baron
+Spedalieri</span> (<i>The Kabalist</i>).</p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible for a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt
+that these teachings were received from within the astral veil.
+They are full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy
+Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own religion, they
+would find in these priceless records our Lord Christ and His vital
+process abundantly illustrated and confirmed. That such
+communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the
+world, in a sign, and a most promising sign, of our age."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Rev. Dr.
+John Pulsford</span>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="p6">
+<h2>THE
+BIBLE'S OWN ACCOUNT OF ITSELF.</h2></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">By EDWARD MAITLAND (<i>B.A., Cantab</i>)</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Author of "The Keys of the Creeds," "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation," "The Life of Anna Kingsford," etc.; and Joint Writer
+with Dr. Anna Kingsford of "The Perfect Way," etc.</p></div>
+
+<p class="tdc">EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.</p>
+
+<p class="tdc"><b>Second Edition, (Complete) with Appendix, PRICE SIXPENCE.</b></p>
+
+<p class="tdc">Or in Cloth Covers, gilt, One Shilling and Sixpence.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise
+upon the earth, two dragons. And they fight and tear each other, until
+there arises a star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther."&mdash;The
+Vision of Mordecai, as interpreted in "Clothed with the Sun," I., IX.</p></div>
+
+<p class="tdc"><span class="smcap">Birmingham</span>: The Ruskin Press, Stafford St., and all Booksellers.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p class="tdc">SOME PRESS OPINIONS<br />
+
+OF<br />
+
+<i>The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland<br />
+and of<br />
+The New Gospel of Interpretation.</i></p>
+<hr />
+<p><i>Literary World</i>&mdash;"A strangely interesting book&mdash;very curious&mdash;few
+who have any sympathy with mental phenomena of the 'occult'
+kind will fail to read it with sustained interest."</p>
+
+<p><i>Light</i>&mdash;"A psychic history of umblemished veracity and
+astounding facts&mdash;supremely interesting&mdash;'full of beauty and perfect
+simplicity of purpose'&mdash;and showing that the 'fig-tree of the
+inward understanding is no longer barren, but has budded and
+blossomed and borne fruit.'"</p>
+
+<p><i>Church Bells, 27th April, 1894</i>&mdash;"Mr. Maitland has
+written a fascinating book."</p>
+
+<p><i>The Gentleman's Journal, March, 1894</i>&mdash;"Nothing Mr.
+Maitland writes would I like to miss&mdash;I never study his searching
+and striking pages without profit."</p>
+
+<p><i>Agnostic Journal</i>&mdash;"A fascinating volume&mdash;the history of a
+work calculated to effect a fundamental revolution in religion&mdash;told
+in language which leaves nothing to be desired."</p>
+
+<p><i>The Illustrated Church News, 31st March, 1894</i>&mdash;"This
+work is to Christians of real interest; for it enables them to
+study Gnosticism alive and vigorous in the nineteenth century."</p>
+
+<p><i>Brighouse Gazette</i>&mdash;"One of those really great books associated
+with the names of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland."</p>
+
+<p><i>The Unknown World</i>&mdash;"There is no man now known to be
+living in England who has had such an abundant transcendental
+experience."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<h2><a name="RELIGION_AND_MENTAL_PHENOMENA" id="RELIGION_AND_MENTAL_PHENOMENA"></a>RELIGION AND MENTAL PHENOMENA.</h2>
+
+<p class="tdc"><i>From the "Christian Union."</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Whatever may be said in favour or disfavour of Mr.
+Edward Maitland's "Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation,"
+it is one of the most remarkable and
+most fascinating books on mental-visional perceptions
+of Divine Revelation that has appeared at any time.
+It is a book that carries the reader away from the
+materialistic to the mystical and spiritual. The author
+claims to bring to the old revelation a new interpretation,
+or more correctly, to restore the original and
+spiritual interpretation which has been lost through
+literalism. According to the narrative, the two persons
+concerned were for some years in reception of revelations
+which convinced them that they had been enabled
+"to tap a boundless reservoir of wisdom and knowledge"
+before the method and source were declared
+to them.... At length it was made clear to them
+that the knowledges they had acquired were due to
+intuitional recollection occuring under Divine illumination.
+"Inborn knowledge and the perception of
+things&mdash;these are the sources of Revelation. The
+soul of the man instructeth him, having already learned
+by experience. Intuition is inborn experience, that
+which the soul knoweth of old and of former lives."
+The ordinary mind will doubtless be ready to pronounce
+it to be strange mental phenomena, and nothing more.
+But surely mental phenomena of an extraordinary
+character must have an extraordinary use and purpose.
+And so few persons know enough of the psyhic powers
+latent in man, to be able to believe in the reality of
+these manifestations.... The nature of the results
+is such as to negative all materialistic explanations.
+For the knowledges recovered are real, solving problems
+in the profoundest domains of theology, hitherto given
+up as mysteries hopeless of solution. And they are
+being thus recognised far and wide by the profoundest
+students of spiritual science.... Judge the story
+of the New Gospel of Interpretation in what light we
+may, it has in it all the evidences of a marvellous work
+in its mental and spiritual conception, exposition,
+interpretation, illustration, and Divine communication.
+It stands out conspicuously as a fuller development of
+Biblical truth, such as Cardinal Newman must have
+anticipated when he said that he saw no hope for
+religion, save in a new Revelation.</p></div></div>
+<div class="p4">
+<p class="tdc">THE RUSKIN PRESS.<br />
+
+STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM,<br />
+
+PRINTERS.</p><div class="p6"></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> E.M. Letter in "Light" of 29th August, 1891.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See further as to this, an article by A.K. and E.M. in
+"Light" of 23rd September, 1882, reprinted in Life A.K.
+Vol. II. p. 77.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> E.M. Letter in "Light" of 22nd July, 1893.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> E.M. Letter in "Light" of 17th December, 1892.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A.K. died on the 22nd February, 1888</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The original title of this book was "The Story of the New
+Gospel of Interpretation." See preface to the present edition.
+S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Apologia pro vitâ suâ, by J. H. Newman. New edition of
+1893, pp. 26, 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The book was "By and By: An Historical Romance of the
+Future," its object being to show a state of society in which the
+intuition is supreme, and individuals follow their own ideals.
+It represents a step in E.M.'s unfoldment, but not his final
+conclusions. In 1873 A.K., having read a review of this book
+in the <i>Examiner</i> (which also contained a notice of one of her
+tales), communicated with E.M. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 27.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This was not the first time that E.M. met A.K. He had
+met her once before, in January, 1874, in a picture gallery in
+London. "It was but for a short time, and during a single
+afternoon"; but it was "sufficient to convince" him of "the
+unusual character of the personality" with which he had come
+into contact. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 32.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Her "very first published production" was a poem in a
+religious magazine, when she was "but nine years old." (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 29.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "Beatrice: A Tale of the Early Christians," was written
+by A.K. in 1859, for the <i>Churchman's Companion</i>, "but the
+publisher thought it worthy to make a separate volume, and
+offered to bring it out in that form, and to give her a present
+for it," which offer was accepted. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 4.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The Story was "In my Lady's Chamber," and purported
+to be a "speculative romance touching a few questions of the
+day." It was afterwards published separately as by "Colossa."
+(Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 21, 22.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The first edition of "The Pilgrim and the Shrine" was
+published in 1867.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> E.M. did not marry again. He had one child, Charles
+Bradley Maitland, and he died on the 16th February, 1901.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See p. <a href="#p100">100</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> E.M. says that "The Keys of the Creeds" brought his
+thought up to the extreme limits of a thought merely intellectual,
+to transcend which it would be necessary to penetrate
+the barrier between the worlds of sense and of spirit. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 54.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Statement E.C.U. p. 80.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> In 1875. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 73.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The book was "England and Islam: or The Counsel of
+Caiaphas," which was published in 1877.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> This vision occurred in London in November, 1876. It was
+merely referred to in the previous editions of this book, but I
+have inserted it here in full from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I.
+pp. 115-117. It is also given in "England and Islam," pp.
+438-442. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> p. <a href="#p41">41</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> E. and I. p. 299.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It is probable that E.M. intended this statement to apply
+only to the N.T., or to the Gospels, because, before February,
+1874, when he first visited A.K. at her house (p. <a href="#This_visit">2</a>), she had
+received in sleep "an exposition of the Story of the Fall,
+exhibiting it as a parable having a significance purely spiritual"
+and E.M. certainty regarded the Biblical Story of the Fall as
+"Scripture." S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The expression of which the above is an adaptation, had
+recently been applied by Mr Gladstone to the Turkish power.
+For the period was the eve of the Turco-Russian War; and Mr
+Gladstone had found vent for his strong sacerdotal proclivities
+by siding fiercely against the priest-hating and prophet-venerating
+Turks, and demanding their expulsion from Europe,
+very much on the plea that "it was good for Europe that one
+nation die for the rest." It was in recognition of the part thus
+played by him that I took for the sub-title of my book ("England
+and Islam") "The Counsel of Caiaphas." The book&mdash;which
+was written under a high degree of illumination&mdash;contained an
+earnest appeal to Mr Gladstone, which, if heeded, would have
+saved the country from its subsequent humiliations. Among
+other things I was clearly shown that the policy which sought
+to detach England from the East, was of infernal instigation,
+being intended to thwart the rapprochement between
+Christianity and Buddhism from which the new humanity was
+to spring. But the circumstances of the book's production&mdash;it
+was poured through me at great speed and printed off as it
+came&mdash;precluded due revision and elimination of redundant
+matter; and for these and other reasons, I have suffered it to
+go out of print. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> There is another fact, referred to in "The Life of A.K.,"
+that must be taken into consideration in connection with experiences
+of this nature, that is, "the survival for an indefinite
+period of the images of events occurring on the earth, in the
+astral light, or memory of the planet, called the anima mundi,
+which images can be evoked and beheld." (Life A.K. Vol I.
+p. 125.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> This "Vision of Adonai" by A.K. was merely referred to
+in the previous editions of this book. I have extracted the
+following account of the most interesting part of it from "The
+Life of A.K." (Vol. I. pp. 193-196.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Speaking of this vision, E.M. says:&mdash;"Her apprehension
+was not without justification; for her body was completely
+torpid, and several hours passed before consciousness was fully
+restored to it." (C.W.S. p. 283.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> This is one of the illuminations that were received by
+A.K., during the latter part of 1878, "directly from the hierarchy
+of the Church Invisible and Celestial." Speaking of these
+illuminations, which "dealt with the profoundest subjects of
+cognition," E.M. says that he and A.K. found in them "a
+synthesis and an analysis combined of the sacred mysteries of
+all the great religions of antiquity, and the true <i>origines</i> of
+Christianity as originally and divinely intended, together with
+the secret and method of its corruption and perversion into that
+which now bears its name"; and they "were at no loss to recognise
+in them the destined Scriptures of the future, so long
+promised and at length vouchsafed in interpretation of the
+Scriptures of the past." (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 293, 294.)
+S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> A.K. knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was unaware
+that he was an optician. Subsequent experience made it clear
+that the spectacles in question were intended to represent her
+own remarkable faculty of intuitional and interpretative perception.
+(See Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 150-1.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Page <a href="#p52">52</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The 22nd September, 1877.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The book referred to was a treatise entitled "Fruit and
+Bread," which had been sent to her anonymously the previous
+day. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> The "Hymn to Hermes" was received by A.K. in 1878,
+"under illumination occurring in sleep." She remembered it
+so perfectly that on waking she wrote it without hesitation or
+error. Representing knowledges long lost, by no amount of
+mere scholarship could it have been reproduced. It is given at
+length in the P.W. pp. 357-358, and in "The Life of A.K."
+Vol. I. p. 287. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> As to the recovery by A.K. of the Hymn to the Planet-God,
+see p. 122-3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> These dream-verses are from "Through the Ages," a poem
+received by A.K., "in sleep," in 1880. In this poem, "some
+of her earliest incarnations" are referred to. (D. and D-S. p. 77.)
+S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> See p. <a href="#p122">122</a> note.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> See pp. <a href="#p51">51</a>-52-53 ante.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> That is, in the place of God and the Soul.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The four planes being, from without inwards, those of the
+body, mind, soul, and spirit. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The 28th March, 1880. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The name by which I was thus addressed had been given me
+by our illuminators as an initiation name, as that of "Mary"
+to her. It denoted love as the dominant note of our work, and
+was an equivalent for "John the Beloved," who&mdash;we were
+given to understand&mdash;is one of the two controlling "angels" of
+the new illumination&mdash;Daniel being the other&mdash;in accordance
+with the intimations given by Jesus, one to His disciples and the
+other to the Seer of the Apocalypse himself, that John should
+tarry within reach of the earth-plane to bear part in the event
+which was to constitute the second advent of Christ. These
+names had a further correspondence in the Greek parable of
+Eros and Psyche, which denotes love as the vivifying principle
+of the soul. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Materialism and Superstition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> The name Esther denotes a star or fountain of light, a
+dawn or rising.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> The spelling of the names is that of the Douay Version,
+the Protestants having relegated the second part of the book of
+Esther, in which the latter part of this narrative occurs, to the
+Apocrypha. As also that of Ezra above cited. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> These are disclosed in "The Life of A.K." The personality
+referred to on this occasion was "Faustine, the Roman," the
+Empress of Marcus Aurelius. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 353-354.)
+S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> The "Hymn of Aphrodite," including the "Discourse of
+the Communion of Souls, and of the Uses of Love between
+Creature and Creature; being part of the Golden Book of
+Venus," from which latter the above is taken, is given in full in
+the P.W. pp. 350-356.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying was
+received by A.K. in Paris on the 7th February, 1880. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> P.W. pp. 311-314. Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 344-345.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> The occasion of the receipt by A.K. and E.M. of the above
+was one of peculiar interest. It was given in reference to a
+visit from the late Laurence Oliphant, an account of which
+will be found in "The Life of A.K." It will suffice to say here
+that, having heard of their work, Oliphant came to them
+as an emissary from his chief in America, Thomas Lake Harris,
+to summon them to place themselves and all that they were and
+had, at his disposal as the king and Christ of the new dispensation.
+The above instruction was given to them in direct reference
+to this incident. It was followed by others fully exposing
+the delusive source and nature of the doctrine and practice of
+Laurence Oliphant and Thomas Lake Harris. The above
+Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes is now given in full
+in this book for the first time. It is taken from "The Life of
+A.K." Vol. I. pp. 282-283. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> See note p. <a href="#p7">7</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The above reference is to an experience of mine which
+does not call for relation here. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Says E.M. in "The Life of A.K."&mdash;"The subtlety with
+which my most sensitive places were searched out, and the mercilessness
+with which they were probed by the influences which
+had now obtained access to us, seemed to me to belong altogether
+to the infernal." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 318.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> The date was 27th March, 1880. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> The Hymn to the Planet-God has been referred to on
+p. <a href="#p79">79</a>. It is given in full in the P.W. pp. 341-349: a portion of it
+concerning the passage of the Soul, and concerning the Mystic
+Exodus, are given on pp. 169-173 post. The method of the
+recovery by A. K. of this most important Hymn "was such as
+to constitute it a proof positive of the great doctrine set forth
+in it, the doctrine of Reincarnation; for it was as one of a
+band of initiates, making solemn procession through the aisles
+of a vast Egyptian temple, chanting it in chorus, that 'Mary,'
+being asleep, recollected it." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 456.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> That is, the "strained conditions" under which their
+association was then maintained and their work carried on. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> See p. <a href="#p130">130</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> On the night of the 23rd June, 1880. This vision was
+received by E.M. as he pondered and while he was awake. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. pp. 376-377.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Some of A.K.'s illuminations have thus been lost to the
+world. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Lady Caithness. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 329.) See pp. <a href="#p137">137</a>
+and <a href="#p185">185</a> post. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> On the 13th-14th January, 1881. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 435.)
+S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> A full account of this interview with William Lily is given
+in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 435-441.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> On the 9th April, 1877, in London. (Life A.K. Vol. I.
+p. 172.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Christmas Day, 1880. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 430.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> The time referred to was September, 1878. (Life A.K.
+Vol. I. pp. 285-385.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> A.K. was preparing for her second Doctorat, and E.M. was
+elaborating out of his own consciousness "a key to the interpretation
+especially of the initial chapters of Genesis." (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 264.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> On the 4th June, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 265.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> E.M. says:&mdash;"Her notes, of course, disappeared with her
+dream, and she had to reproduce it from memory. But this
+was abnormally enhanced, for she said that the words presented
+themselves again to her as she wrote, and stood out
+luminously to view." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 269.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> That is the outer sense and lower reason.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> The illumination in question was received by A.K. in Paris
+on the night of the 25th July, 1877, and was written down under
+trance. Further portions are given on pp. <a href="#p158">158</a>, <a href="#p159">159</a>, <a href="#p161">161</a>. It is
+given in full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 202-203.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> See further on this most important subject "The Bible's
+Own Account of Itself," by E.M., the only complete edition of
+which is published by "The Ruskin Press," Ruskin House,
+Stafford Street, Birmingham. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate
+Conception, referred to on p. <a href="#p151">151</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate
+Conception, referred to on p. <a href="#p151">151</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> From the exposition concerning the Christian Mysteries
+given in full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 99-100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Taste and smell being modes of touch. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> <i>I.e.</i>, the astral and mental part of man, which is
+accounted a person or system in itself. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> The Sacramental bread called by the Hebrews "showbread."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> See note on p. <a href="#p122">122</a>, ante.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> The names Nyssa, Nysa, Nysas, and Nissi are identical with
+each other, and also with Sinai, Sion, and those of other sacred
+mounts. For they all are names for the Mount of Regeneration,
+the mount or "holy hill" of the Lord, within the man,
+to be on which is to be in the Spirit. The river Hiddekel has
+the like import. It is the river of the soul, herself fluidic and
+called Maria (waters), which, as the receptacle of the divine
+nucleus, winds about and encompasses the Spirit. Thus Daniel
+is said to be "on Hiddekel" when under divine illumination.
+("The Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 459.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> A.K. was distinctly and positively assured that the incident
+then shown to her was one that actually occurred, and that she
+had borne part of it though no record of it survives. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> This instruction is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I,
+pp. 424-425.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> The French edition, subsequently issued at Paris, is also
+due to her zeal and generosity. See p <a href="#p137">137</a>, ante.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> For the meaning of the "Four Rivers of Eden" see P. W.,
+vi. par. 6. See note on p. <a href="#p172">172</a>, ante as to meaning of river
+Hiddekel.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> This indictment is as true to-day as it was twelve years
+ago, when the above passage was written. S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Cited from the preface to the second and succeeding editions
+of "The P. W."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Cited from "The Life of A. K." Vol. II. p. 155.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> The Theosophist, May, 1882.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> The term Theosophy is here used in its Pauline and ancient
+sense of the science of the realisation of man's potential divinity;&mdash;the
+process, that is, of the Christ.&mdash;1 Cor. ii. 7. E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> From an address given on the 17th July, 1883, by A.K. to
+the Theosophical Society, a full report of which is given in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 124-128.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> A term which signifies forethought. The remonstrance is
+against undue anxiety and alarm on the soul's behalf while in
+the path of duty, as implying distrust of the divine sufficiency.
+E.M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Meaning that in such case the flesh itself is the
+impediment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> In a letter on "The Church and the Bible," in the
+"Agnostic Journal" of 5th January, 1895, E.M. says:&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Among the fallacies to be discarded is the fallacy which
+consists in believing that the Church, so vehemently denounced
+in its own sacred books for its manifold, grievous, and fatal
+perversions of the truth contained in those books, and so
+ignorant as to be unaware either of the source or of the meaning
+of its own dogmas, must understand its doctrines better than I
+understand them, whose high privilege it is to have been one
+of the two recipients of the New Gospel of Interpretation,
+which has been vouchsafed expressly to correct those perversions,
+and who not only have that gospel by heart, but who know
+absolutely by my own soul's experience&mdash;as also did my colleague&mdash;the
+truth of every word of it." (A long extract from
+this letter, including the above, is printed in the appendix to
+B.O.A.I. p. 83.) S.H.H.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> See also E.M.'s remarks to the same effect in the "Statement
+E.C.U." pp. 10-11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> See Life A.K. Vol. II. pp. 52-53.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> See Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 241.</p></div>
+</div>
+<div class="p6" />
+<div class="transnote">
+
+<p class="tdc">Transcribers notes:<br /><br />
+
+Maintained original spelling and punctuation.<br />
+<br />
+Silently corrected obvious typesetting errors.<br /></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
+Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation, by Edward Maitland
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
+Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation, by Edward Maitland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation
+
+Author: Edward Maitland
+
+Editor: Samuel Hopgood Hart
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2012 [EBook #38590]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA KINGSFORD, EDWARD MAITLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ron Stephens and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    THE STORY
+
+    OF
+
+    ANNA KINGSFORD AND
+    EDWARD MAITLAND
+
+    AND OF
+
+    THE NEW GOSPEL OF
+    INTERPRETATION
+
+    BY
+
+    EDWARD MAITLAND.
+    EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
+
+
+    "The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing away;
+    The Gospel of Interpretation cometh."
+
+    "There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient
+    shall be interpreted."
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom
+    of the Mother of God."--_C.W.S._, Part I. No. ii. (part 2) 10. 11.
+    and Part II. No. xiii. 31.
+
+    THIRD AND ENLARGED EDITION.
+
+    PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE.
+
+    BIRMINGHAM:
+    THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFORD STREET.
+    1905.
+
+
+
+
+    _1st Edition ... Christmas, 1893._
+    _2nd Edition ... Christmas, 1894._
+    _3rd Edition ... Christmas, 1905._
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS.
+
+
+This book is designed (1) in satisfaction of the widely-expressed desire
+for a more particular account than has yet been rendered concerning the
+genesis of the writings claiming to constitute a "New Gospel of
+Interpretation"; and (2) in fulfilment of the duty incumbent on me as
+the survivor of the two recipients of such Gospel to spare no means
+which may minister to its recognition and acceptance by the world, for
+whose benefit it has been vouchsafed.
+
+Although largely biographical in character, this book is not a history
+of individuals, but of a Work, and involves only such personal
+references as are necessary to such history. It is not, however, a full
+or a final account that is contained in it. Such an account can be given
+only in the form of the regular biography which is in course of
+preparation. This book is an instalment only of that biography, being
+put forth in advance of it, partly, as said above, to meet a present
+need, and partly, to prevent a total loss of the record in the event of
+my failure to complete it--a contingency of which, in view of the
+magnitude of the task and my advanced age, I am bound to take account.
+
+    E.M.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO THE THIRD EDITION.
+
+
+Since the publication in 1893 of this book which, as stated in Chapter
+VII., was "intended but as an epitome and instalment" of a far larger
+book then in course of preparation, the full and final account of the
+"New Gospel of Interpretation" has been given to the world. In 1896
+Edward Maitland published his _magnum opus_, "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," in two large volumes of 420 pages, "illustrated with
+portraits, views, and facsimiles." This is, and will always be, the
+biography _par excellence_ of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and it
+is absolutely indispensable for those who would know all that there is
+to be known of them and their work and of the "New Gospel of
+Interpretation." As that book, however, on account of its great length,
+must always be a costly book, and therefore beyond the means of many who
+would like to have some reliable information concerning Anna Kingsford
+and Edward Maitland and their work, and as there are many who, on
+account of their time for reading being limited or their inclination to
+read being little, require information within the compass of a small
+book or go without it altogether, there will, notwithstanding the
+publication of the "Life of Anna Kingsford," be a demand for this
+shorter "Story," which is so admirably suited to meet the needs or
+requirements of these classes of persons; for, be it noted, the
+publication of "The Life of Anna Kingsford" has not in any way
+depreciated the value of this book in this sense that, having been
+written by one of the two recipients of the "New Gospel of
+Interpretation," it is a first authority second to none for the
+statements therein contained.
+
+The change in the title of the book from "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation" to the present title calls for some explanation and
+justification, because the former title was an excellent one in many
+respects, and the book has become known to many by that title. The
+"Gospel of Interpretation" is the name or description which was given by
+its Divine Inspirers, the Hierarchy of the Spheres Celestial, to the
+work of which this book tells the story, in token of its relation to the
+previous "Gospel of Manifestation." The former title implied, as the
+Author pointed out in his preface, that that which this book propounded
+was "not really a new Gospel, but one of Interpretation only"; and this
+is not really new, but, as the Author has also pointed out, "so old as
+to have become forgotten and lost, being the purely spiritual sense, as
+discerned from the purely spiritual standpoint originally intended and
+insisted on by Scripture itself as its true sense and standpoint, and
+those which alone render Scripture intelligible"[1]. But notwithstanding
+this, and notwithstanding that on the front page it was expressly stated
+that "There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient shall
+be interpreted," the former title failed to convey to the minds of some
+the meaning that it was intended to convey, and it gave no indication of
+the biographical nature of the work. Many who otherwise would have read
+the book refrained from doing so because they thought that a new Gospel,
+inconsistent with and perhaps opposed to if not intended to supersede
+the old Gospel, was propounded. It is necessary, therefore, for me to
+state, if possible more explicitly than it was stated in the previous
+editions of this book, that this is not an attempt to create a new
+Gospel differing from that of Jesus Christ[2]. Anna Kingsford's and
+Edward Maitland's mission and aim was to interpret the Christ, not to
+rival or supersede Him. The "New Gospel" is, first and foremost,
+_interpretative_, and is destructive only in the sense of
+reconstructive. "It tells nothing new; it simply restores and reinforces
+the old, even the Gnosis, which, as the doctrine of the Church unfallen,
+is that also of the Church fallen, though the latter has lost the key to
+its interpretation"[3]. Nor is the teaching represented by this book
+opposed to the existence of an objective Church. Anna Kingsford and
+Edward Maitland fully recognised the necessity of such an organisation
+for the formulation, propagation, and exposition of religion. Their
+opposition was "only to the recognition by the Church of the objective,
+historical, and materialistic aspect of religion, _to the exclusion_ of
+that which really constitutes religion, namely, its subjective,
+spiritual, and substantial aspect, wherein alone it appeals to the mind
+and soul, and is efficacious for redemption." The aim of the New Gospel
+"is defined exactly," said Edward Maitland, "in the following citation
+from St. Dionysius the Areopagite 'not to destroy, but to construct; or,
+rather, to destroy by construction; to conquer error by the full
+presentment of truth.' As will be obvious, such a design does not
+necessarily involve the destruction of anything that exists whether of
+symbol or ritual, or ecclesiastical organisation, but only their
+regeneration by means of their translation into their spiritual and
+divinely intended sense. And it is precisely because that sense has been
+lost--as declared in Scripture it had long been, and would yet long be,
+lost--that a new 'Gospel of Interpretation' has been vouchsafed in
+fulfilment of the promises in Scripture to that effect; and this from
+the source of the original Divine revelation, namely, the Church
+Celestial, and by the method which always was that of such revelation,
+namely, the intuition operating under special illumination.... Even the
+priest, though hitherto deservedly regarded as the 'enemy of man,' will
+not be destroyed under the new _regime_ whose inauguration we are
+witnessing. For in becoming interpreter as well as administrator, he
+will be prophet as well as priest, and speak out the things of God and
+the soul instead of concealing them under a veil. So will the 'veil be
+taken away,' and Cain, the priest, instead of killing Abel, the prophet,
+as hitherto, will unite with him, becoming prophet and priest in one.
+And instead of any longer corrupting the 'woman' Intuition, and
+suppressing the 'man' Intellect, he will purify and exalt her, and
+enable her to fulfil her proper function as 'the Mother of God' in man,
+and will recognise the intellect, when duly conjoined with her, as the
+heir of all things. Thus, becoming interpreter as well as administrator,
+prophet as well as priest, and recognising interpretation as the
+corollary of the understanding, the prophet-priest of the regeneration
+will give to men freely of the waters of life, that only true bread of
+Heaven, which is the food of the understanding, instead of the
+indigestible 'stones' and poisonous 'serpents' of doctrines, the
+profession of which, by divorcing assent from conviction, involves that
+moral and intellectual suicide, to induce others to join him in
+committing which Cardinal Newman wrote his 'Grammar of Assent,' True it
+is 'faith that saves,' but the faith that is without understanding is
+not faith, but credulity"[4]. It is for the above-mentioned reasons that
+the title of this book has been changed. The title must be subservient
+to the book, and it is hoped that, the change having been made, there
+will not be any further misunderstanding--even on the part of those who
+are most superficial--as to the nature and object of "The Story of the
+New Gospel of Interpretation."
+
+Edward Maitland did not long survive the completion of the great task
+that he undertook when he set himself to write a full account of his
+life and that of his colleague. He retained his full mental vigour until
+the publication of "The Life of Anna Kingsford"; but after that he
+rapidly declined, and on the 2nd October, 1897, at the close of his
+seventy-third year, a little over nine years after the death of Anna
+Kingsford[5], he passed away peacefully at "The Warders" at Tonbridge,
+the home (at that time) of his friends Colonel and Mrs. Currie, with
+whom, and under whose loving care, he spent the last few months of his
+life--a life concerning which, as also that of Anna Kingsford, I will
+not say anything here, for this book will testify. Blessed are the souls
+whom the just commemorate before God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many who read these pages will not rest until they know more of those
+great prophets the story of whose lives is here told, and of the Divine
+Gnosis that it was their high mission to proclaim. I have indicated
+whence they can obtain this information. This "Story," interesting as it
+is and much as there is in it, is little more than an indication of some
+of the facts that are fully stated and dealt with in "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," and there is much of importance that (as it could not
+possibly receive proper treatment in a book of this size) was passed
+over here to be related in the larger biography. I have not thought it
+expedient to alter the character of or to add much to this book, but I
+have enlarged it by incorporating therein, from "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," some additional matter which is of interest, and which
+should add to the value of the book. The most important additions are
+the account of Anna Kingsford's vision of "The Doomed Train," on p.p.
+43-47; the account of Anna Kingsford's vision of Adonai, on pp. 64-68;
+the "Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes," on pp. 110-112; the verses
+"Concerning the Passage of the Soul," on pp. 169-170; and the
+illumination of Anna Kingsford concerning the "Work of Power," on
+pp. 180-181. I have also amplified the text in some places when, on
+comparing it with corresponding passages in "The Life of Anna
+Kingsford," I found that I could do so with advantage. These
+amplifications are not otherwise noted. Finally, I have added some notes
+where I thought that further explanation was desirable or would prove
+acceptable.
+
+    SAML. HOPGOOD HART.
+
+    Croydon, December, 1905.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 29th August, 1891.
+
+[2] See further as to this, an article by A.K. and E.M. in "Light" of
+23rd September, 1882, reprinted in Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 77.
+
+[3] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 22nd July, 1893.
+
+[4] E.M. Letter in "Light" of 17th December, 1892.
+
+[5] A.K. died on the 22nd February, 1888
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+There are certain introductory remarks which, in view of the prevailing
+tendency to reject prior to examination whatever conflicts with strongly
+cherished preconceptions--as anything purporting to be a "new Gospel" is
+undoubtedly calculated to do--may be made with advantage. Those remarks
+are as follows:--
+
+(1) As its title implies[6], that which is propounded is not really a
+new Gospel, but one of Interpretation only, which is precisely what is
+admitted by all serious and thoughtful persons to be the supreme need of
+the times. It was said, for instance, by the late Matthew Arnold, "At
+the present moment there are two things about the Christian religion
+which must be obvious to every percipient person: one, that men cannot
+do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is."
+
+(2) As also its title implies[6] nothing new is told in it, but that
+only which is old is interpreted; and the appeal on its behalf is not to
+authority, whether of Book, Tradition, or Institution, but to the
+Understanding--a quality which accords not only with the spirit of the
+times, but also--as shewn herein--with that of religion itself, properly
+so called.
+
+(3) Scripture manifestly comprises two conflicting systems of doctrine
+and practice, having for their representatives respectively the priest
+and the prophet, one only of which systems, and this the system
+reprobated in Scripture itself, has hitherto obtained recognition from
+Christendom. It is the purpose of the New Gospel of Interpretation to
+expound the system represented by the prophet and approved in Scripture,
+with a view to replacing the other.
+
+(4) For those who attach value to the prophecies contained in the Bible,
+so far from there being an _a priori_ improbability against the delivery
+of a new revelation in interpretation, confirmation, or completion of
+the former revelation, and in correction of the false presentment of it,
+the probability ought to be all in favour of such an event. This is
+because Scripture abounds in predictions of a restoration both of
+faculty and of knowledge, as to take place at the present time and under
+the existing conditions of Church and World; and this of such kind as
+shall constitute a second and spiritual manifestation of the Christ in
+rectification of the perversion of the import of His first and personal
+manifestation, and in arrest of the great Apostacy, not only from the
+true faith of Christ but from religion itself, of which that perversion
+has been the cause.
+
+(5) So far from the idea of a new revelation which shall have for its
+end the disclosure, as the true sense of Scripture and Dogma, of a
+sense differing so widely from that hitherto accepted as to be virtually
+destructive of it,--so far from this idea being universally repugnant to
+orthodox ecclesiastics, it has found warm recognition from one of the
+foremost of modern churchmen. This is the late Cardinal Newman.
+
+Said Dr Newman in his _Apologia pro vita sua_, speaking of his earlier
+days, "The broad philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away; the
+philosophy, not the theological doctrine.... Some portions of their
+teaching, magnificent in themselves, came like music to my inward ear,
+as if the response to ideas, which, with little external to encourage
+them, I had cherished so long. These were based on the mystical or
+sacramental principle, and spoke of the various Economies or
+Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these passages to mean that
+the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation
+to our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable:
+Scripture was an allegory:.... The process of change had been slow; it
+had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure, 'at sundry times and
+in divers manners,' first one disclosure and then another, till the
+whole evangelical doctrine was brought into full manifestation. And thus
+room was made for the anticipation of further and deeper disclosures of
+truths still under the veil of the letter, and in their season to be
+revealed. The visible world still remains without its divine
+interpretation: Holy Church in her sacraments and her hierarchical
+appointments, will remain, even to the end of the world, after all but a
+symbol of those heavenly facts which fill eternity. Her mysteries are
+but the expressions, in human language, of truths to which the human
+mind is unequal"[7].
+
+Dr Newman is credited also with the remark, made on visiting Rome for
+his investiture, that he saw no hope for religion save in a new
+revelation.
+
+These are utterances the value of which is in no way diminished by the
+fact that their utterer failed to bring his own life into accordance
+with them. He could write, indeed, the hymn "Lead, kindly light"; but
+when the "kindly light" was vouchsafed him of those suggestions of a
+system of thought concealed within the Christian Symbology, "magnificent
+in themselves" and making "music to his inward ear," which he found in
+the patristic writings; instead of following that lead, and striving to
+exhume the treasures of divine truth thus buried and hidden from sight,
+for the salvation of a world perishing for want of them,--he turned his
+back upon it, and--entering the Church of Rome--wrote his "Grammar of
+Assent," calling upon others to follow him in committing the suicide,
+intellectual and moral, of renouncing the understanding and divorcing
+profession from conviction.
+
+This was a catastrophe the explanation of which is not far to seek. Dr
+Newman had in him the elements which go to make both priest and prophet.
+But the former proved the stronger; and the Cain, the priest in him,
+suppressed the Abel, the prophet in him. Thus was he a type of the
+Church as hitherto she has been. But, happily, not as henceforth she
+will be. For "now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom
+of the Mother of God," even the "Woman," Intuition,--the mind's feminine
+mode, wherein it represents the perceptions and recollections of the
+Soul--who is ever "Mother of God" in man, and whose sons the prophets
+ever are, the greatest of them being called emphatically, for the
+fulness and purity of his intuition, the "Son of the Woman" and she a
+"virgin."
+
+    E.M.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] The original title of this book was "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation." See preface to the present edition. S.H.H.
+
+[7] Apologia pro vita sua, by J. H. Newman. New edition of 1893, pp. 26,
+27.
+
+
+
+
+FRONTISPIECES.
+
+
+     I.--PORTRAIT OF DR. ANNA KINGSFORD.
+    _Born, Sep. 16th, 1846; Died, Feb. 22nd, 1888._
+
+    II.--PORTRAIT OF EDWARD MAITLAND (_B.A., Cantab_).
+    _Born, Oct. 27th, 1824; Died, Oct, 2nd, 1897._
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+    PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS                          v.
+
+    PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION                              vii.-xiii.
+
+    INTRODUCTION                                                xv.-xix.
+
+    TABLE OF CONTENTS                                          xx.-xxii.
+
+    ABBREVIATIONS                                                 xxiii.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.
+
+    THE VOCATION.
+
+    The Instruments--Their early lives--Their consciousness of a special
+      mission, and intimations of a call--Their training in respect of
+      circumstance, character, and faculty, until brought together
+      for their Joint work.                                         1-36
+
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+
+    THE INITIATION.
+
+    A baptism of the Spirit--"At last I have found a man through whom
+      I can speak!"--Intimation of the nature and aim of their work--The
+      Doomed train, "No one on the engine!"--Instantaneous
+      transfer of inspiration--"Woman, what have I to do with
+      thee?"--The recovery of a Gospel scene, and its import--"The
+      woman taken in adultery"--Vision of Adonai--Source of the
+      opening sentences in St. John's Gospel--Chapter from the recovered
+      Gnosis--The Generation of the Word.                          37-70
+
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+
+    THE COMMUNICATION.
+
+    The perfect love that casts out fear." In the presence of celestial
+      visitants--A parable of the Intuition--"The Wonderful
+      Spectacles"--The Greek element in the work--Hermes and John the
+      Baptist--The "heresy of Prometheus"--The Fig-tree, a symbol of the
+      inward understanding; the time come for it to bear fruit--The
+      Seeress's faculty--Her relations with Hermes--"Thou art the
+      Rock" addressed to Hermes--The parable of the Fig-tree--The
+      Mystic Woman of Holy Writ--"Go thy way, Daniel....
+      Thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days"--The
+      prophecy of the book of Esther--The Angel Genius, his account
+      of himself and his office--Divine revelation the supreme common
+      sense--The source and method of the New Revelation--Its chief
+      recipient "not a medium or a seer, but a prophet"--An instruction
+      and a caution concerning the survival of tendencies encouraged
+      in past lives--Communion with souls of the departed--The
+      conditions of such intercourse--An instruction concerning
+      Inspiration and Prophesying--The prophecy of "the kingdom of
+      the Mother of God."                                         71-108
+
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+
+    THE ANTAGONISATION.
+
+    "Ye are not yet perfected"--Our respective _Auras_--An
+      exhortation--The Seven Spirits of God, their co-operation
+      necessary for a perfect work--"You belong to us now, to do our
+      work and not your own"--Enforced silence--"The Powers of the Air;"
+      their mode of attack--A strange visitant and his communication--A
+      strained situation--Visions of guidance--The "refractory team,"
+      and the "Two Stars"--The promised land reached only through
+      the wilderness--"The Word a Word of mystery, and they who
+      guard it Seven"--"One Neophyte could not save himself"--A
+      Horoscope--A descent into hell--Counsels of Perfection--A
+      "Merry Christmas"--A timely arrival--Neoplatonic recognition
+      of Hermes--The one Truth, never without a witness in the
+      world--The key of knowledge restored--Problems solved--The mystic
+      "Woman" of Holy Writ.                                      109-141
+
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+
+    THE RECAPITULATION.
+
+    The key to the mystery of the Bible; the "Veil of Moses"
+      withdrawn--The secret laid bare of the world's sacrificial system,
+      and the feud between priest and prophet--The Memory of the
+      Soul--The Standpoint of the Bible--All that is true is
+      Spiritual--The revelation of "that wicked one"--The seals broken
+      and the books opened--The New Gospel of
+      Interpretation--Sacerdotalism the "Jerusalem which killed the
+      prophets"--The suppressed doctrines--Reincarnation the corollary
+      and condition of Regeneration and implicit in the
+      Bible--"Ye _must_ be born again of Virgin Mary and Holy
+      Ghost"--The doctrines of the Trinity and Divine Incarnation as now
+      interpreted, necessary and self-evident truths--Evolution the
+      manifestation of a divine inherency; accomplished only by the
+      realisation of Divinity--The process of regeneration, and therein
+      of salvation, interior to the individual--Adam and Christ the
+      initial and final stages in the spiritual evolution of every
+      man--The "Christ within" of St Paul--The _Credo_ an epitome of the
+      spiritual history of the Sons of God.                      142-162
+
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+
+    THE EXEMPLIFICATION.
+
+    Spontaneity of the Seeress's faculty--Specific illuminations, in
+      illustration, chiefly, of the process of Regeneration; concerning
+      (1) Holy Writ; (2) Redemption; (3) Sin and death; (4) The Twelve
+      Gates of Regeneration; (5) The Passage of the Soul; (6) The
+      Mystic Exodus; (7) The Spiritual Phoibos and the order of the
+      Christs; (8) The Previous Lives of Jesus, and Reincarnation;
+      (9) The Work of Power; the land and tongue of the New
+      Revelation, why ours.                                      163-183
+
+
+    CHAPTER VII.
+
+    THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.
+
+    Accordance of all the dates with those prophesied--Other
+      coincidences--Why our work has remained so long unknown to the
+      generality--Notable recognitions, by representative Kabalists,
+      Mystics, Occultists and Divines, Catholic, Anglican, and
+      others--Spiritualism, Theosophy, and the New Gospel of
+      Interpretation as fellow-agents in the unfoldment of the world's
+      spiritual consciousness, and the unsealing of the world's Bibles,
+      prophesied to take place at this epoch--"Abraham, Isaac, and
+      Jacob," the Hebrew equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, to
+      denote the mysteries of India, Egypt, and Greece, the Spirit, the
+      Soul, and the Body, and therein the Gnosis of which the Christ is
+      the fulfilment and personal demonstration, and the restoration of
+      which was prophesied by Jesus as to mean the Regeneration of the
+      Church and the establishment of the divine kingdom on
+      earth--Mysticism and Occultism, the distinction between them, and
+      the necessity of both physical and spiritual science to a perfect
+      system of thought and rule of life--Conclusion.            184-204
+
+
+
+
+ABBREVIATIONS.
+
+
+     A.K., for Anna Kingsford.
+
+     B.O.A.I., for "The Bible's Own Account of Itself," by E.M.; second
+     edition, 1905.
+
+     C.W.S., for "Clothed With The Sun," being the book of the
+     Illuminations of A.K.; edited by E.M., 1889.
+
+     D. and D.-S., for "Dreams and Dream-Stones," by A.K., edited by
+     E.M.; second edition, 1888.
+
+     E.C.U., for "The Esoteric Christian Union," founded by E.M. in
+     1891.
+
+     E. and I., for "England and Islam; or, The Counsel of Caiaphas," by
+     E.M., 1877.
+
+     E.M., for Edward Maitland.
+
+     Life A.K., for "The Life of Anna Kingsford," by E.M., 1896.
+
+     P.W., for "The Perfect Way; or, The Finding of Christ," by A.K. and
+     E.M.; third edition, revised, 1890.
+
+     Statement, E.C.U., for "The New Gospel of Interpretation; being an
+     Abstract of the Doctrine and Statement of the Objects of the
+     Esoteric Christian Union," by E.M.; revised and enlarged edition,
+     1892.
+
+
+
+
+    BIRMINGHAM:
+    THE RUSKIN PRESS, RUSKIN HOUSE,
+    STAFFORD STREET.
+    1905.
+
+[Illustration: Edward Maitland]
+
+[Illustration: Anna Kingsford]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+STORY OF ANNA KINGSFORD AND
+
+EDWARD MAITLAND
+
+AND
+
+OF THE NEW GOSPEL OF
+
+INTERPRETATION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE VOCATION.
+
+
+My colleague in the work, the history of which I am about to render some
+account, was the late Anna Kingsford, _nee_ Bonus, M.D. of the
+University of Paris.
+
+There was a link between her husband's family and mine, but we were not
+personally acquainted until, in the summer of 1873, she was led by
+reading one of my books[8] to open a correspondence with me, which
+disclosed so striking a community between us of ideas, aims, and
+methods, that I accepted an invitation to visit her at her husband's
+rectory at Pontesbury, Salop, in Shropshire, for the sake of a fuller
+discussion of them. This visit which lasted nearly a fortnight, took
+place in February, 1874[9].
+
+The account I received of her history was in this wise. Born at
+Stratford, in Essex, on the 16th September, 1846, long after the last of
+her many brothers and sisters, and endowed with the most fragile of
+constitutions and liabilities the most distressing of bodily weakness
+and suffering, and differing widely, moreover, in temperament from all
+with whom she was associated, her young life had enjoyed but a scanty
+share of human sympathy, and was largely one of solitude and meditation,
+and such as to foster the highly artistic, idealistic, and mystic
+tendencies with which she was born. Singularly energetic of will, and
+conscious of powers both transcending in degree and differing in kind
+from any that she recognised in others, she assiduously exercised her
+faculties in many and various directions in the hope of discovering the
+special direction in which her mission lay. For, from her earliest
+childhood she had been conscious of a mission, for the accomplishment of
+which she had expressly come into the earth-life. And she claimed even
+to have distinct recollection of having been strongly dissuaded from
+coming, on account of the terrible suffering which awaited her in the
+event of her assuming a body of flesh. Indeed, so little conscious was
+she of the reality of her human parentage that she was wont to look upon
+herself as a suppositious child of fairy origin; and on her first visit
+to the pantomime, when the fairies made their appearance on the stage,
+she declared that they were her proper people, and cried and struggled
+to get to them with such vehemence that it was necessary to remove her
+from the theatre. Among her amusements, her chief delight was in the
+ample gardens around her homes at Stratford and Blackheath, where she
+would hold familiar converse with the flowers, putting into their petals
+tiny notes for her lost relatives, the fairies, who in return would
+visit her in her dreams and assure her of their continued affection, and
+counsel her to have patience and courage.
+
+The chief occupation of her girlhood was the writing of poems and
+tales[10] which were tinged with an exquisite mysticism, and showed a
+ripeness of soul and maturity of feeling and knowledge wholly
+unaccountable for by her years, her experiences, or her physical
+heredity. At school she always obtained the first prizes for
+composition, and her faculty of improvisation was the delight of her
+companions; the subjects of these her earlier romances being lovely
+princesses, gallant knights, castles, dragons, and the like, when--as
+may readily be supposed--her tall and slender frame, long golden hair,
+delicacy of complexion, deep-set hazel eyes, beauty of feature, the brow
+and the mouth being especially notable, the brightness of her looks,
+vivacity of her manner, her musical voice, and the easy eloquence of her
+diction,--all combined to make her an ideal heroine for her own
+romances. She could hardly, however, be said to be a _persona grata_
+with her pastors and masters. For while her independence of character
+and strength of will were apt to bring her into conflict with rules and
+regulations of which she failed to recognise the need, her thirst for
+knowledge, especially on religious subjects, prompted her to the
+proposition of questions which were highly embarrassing to her teachers;
+and nothing that they could say succeeded in convincing her that her
+duty lay in believing what she was told, and not in understanding it.
+She very early learnt to resent the disabilities of her sex, and to
+insist that they were not real but artificial, the result of masculine
+selfishness and injustice. This hatred of injustice and its correlative
+cruelty, especially towards animals, attained in her the force and
+dignity of a passion, her sensitiveness on this score making the chief
+mental misery of her life.
+
+Of one gift possessed by her she early learnt to repress the
+manifestation. This was the faculty for seeing apparitions and divining
+the characters and fortunes of people. For she was a born seer. But the
+inability of her elders to comprehend the faculty, and their consequent
+ascription of it to pathological causes, were wont to lead to references
+to the family doctor with results so eminently disagreeable and even
+injurious to her, as soon to suggest the wisdom of keeping silence
+respecting her experiences.
+
+Her first published compositions were written at the age of
+thirteen[11], the editors who accepted her contributions to their
+magazines being under the impression that they came from a grown-up
+person and not from the mere child that she was. They cost her, she
+assured me, little labour, especially the poems, but seemed to come to
+her ready-made, and to flow through her spontaneously. And whatever the
+country in which their scene lay, the local colouring and descriptions
+were always faithful and vivid, as if the places and their inhabitants
+were familiar and even actually visible to her.
+
+It was not, however, to any encouragement of her peculiar gifts that
+such excellency as she exhibited was due. Rather were they severely
+repressed, especially in respect of drawing, singing and music, lest she
+should be tempted to follow them as a profession; a fear which had been
+excited by the suggestions of her masters that she would be certain of
+success in any of those lines.
+
+Her innate consciousness of a mission seemed to her to indicate her as
+destined for some redemptive work, not only for others, but also for
+herself. For, while the instincts of the Champion and the Saviour were
+potent in her, she was dimly conscious of its possessing also an
+expiatory element, in virtue of which her own salvation would largely
+depend upon her endeavours to save others. She had as yet no theory
+whereby to explain this or any other of the problems she was to herself.
+All that she knew was that she possessed, or rather was possessed of,
+these feelings and impulses. It was easy to see by her account of
+herself that she was as one driven of the Spirit long before the Spirit
+definitely revealed itself to her. The two departments of humanity which
+she felt especially impelled to succour and save were her own sex and
+the animals. For she would recognise no hard and fast line between
+masculine and feminine, human and animal, or even between animal and
+plant. In her eyes everything that lived was humanity, only in different
+stages of its unfoldment. Even the flowers were persons for her.
+
+As she approached womanhood she found herself looking forward to
+marriage far less for its own sake than as a means of emancipation from
+restrictions on her choice of a career. Her father died while she was
+yet wanting two or three years of her majority, leaving her mistress of
+an income ample for a single woman. And when at length she became
+engaged to Algernon Godfrey Kingsford, a cousin to whom she had some
+time been attached, it was on the understanding that she should remain
+unfettered in this respect. He held at the time a post in the Civil
+Service; but soon after their marriage, which took place on the last day
+of 1867, determined to read for holy orders. This gave her an
+opportunity for making herself acquainted with Anglican theology, of
+which--thirsting for knowledge of all kinds--she eagerly availed
+herself, accompanying him in all his studies, and greatly facilitating
+them by her admirable scholarly methods. This proved to be the first
+great step in her religious and intellectual training for her destined
+mission.
+
+One of the occupations of her early married life was the editing of a
+lady's magazine, which she purchased with a view of making it an
+instrument for the dissemination of her ideas especially in regard to
+her sex. And she accordingly took an active part in the movement then
+recently originated for the enfranchisement of women, achieving an
+extraordinary success as a public speaker. But, becoming convinced that
+their cause would be best advanced by the practical demonstration of
+their fitness for the promotion they sought, and also feeling her own
+need for the discipline of a severe intellectual training to balance the
+emotional side of her nature, she soon withdrew from active
+participation in the movement. She moreover recognised as a grave
+mistake the disposition evinced by her fellow-workers to suppress their
+womanliness in favour of a factitious masculinity, under the impression
+that they would thereby exalt their sex; her idea being, that their true
+policy lay in magnifying rather than in depreciating their womanhood.
+Meanwhile she had given birth to a daughter, her only child.
+
+Her magazine was given up after a couple of years, the results failing
+to justify the expenditure of time, labour and money, requisite for its
+continuance. Not that it lacked adequate support; but the principles on
+which she insisted on conducting it proved to be incompatible with
+commercial success. She resolutely refused all advertisements of
+articles, whether of food or of clothing, of which she disapproved; and
+she had adopted the pythagorean regimen and discarded as unhygienic
+sundry articles of attire ordinarily deemed indispensable by her sex. It
+was in her magazine that she first struck the note which proved the
+initiation of the holy warfare since waged against the horrors of the
+physiological laboratory, a warfare in which she bore a foremost part
+and developed the malady of which she died.
+
+In 1870, a long and severe illness, which compelled her return to her
+mother's house at Hastings to be nursed, led to her entry upon another
+phase in her inner life, and a further stage in the process of her
+education for her mission. She had early recoiled from the faith in
+which she had been reared. This was Protestantism in its most unlovely
+form, cold, harsh, narrow, dogmatic. Her closer acquaintance with it as
+a clergyman's wife had done nothing to mitigate her judgment of it.
+Explaining nothing and lacking fervour and poetry, it left head and
+heart alike unsatisfied. Her residence as an invalid at Hastings brought
+her into intimacy with some devout Catholics, the effect of which was to
+intensify the repugnance already set up. She attended the Catholic
+services, and visited the sisters in the convent, reading their books of
+devotion and even making an extended study of Catholic doctrine, for she
+would do nothing by halves. She found what satisfied her heart and
+artistic tastes. But the chief determining cause of the change upon
+which she at length resolved, was her reception by night of sundry
+visitations, purporting to be of angelic nature, and enjoining on her,
+for the sake of the mission to which she was called--the knowledge of
+which, she was told, would in due time be revealed to her--that she join
+the Roman communion. Well aware that the confession of such experiences,
+whether to her relations or to a minister of her own Church, would
+elicit only a smile of pity or contempt, with a recommendation to seek
+medical advice, and involve other contingencies equally distasteful, she
+resolved to see how the same confession would be treated by a Catholic
+priest. The result of the essay was that she was listened to with
+respect and sympathy, and informed that the Church fully recognised such
+visitations as coming within the divine order, and as being a token of
+high spiritual favour and grace; and while it refrained from pronouncing
+positively on them, considered that they ought not to be lightly
+disregarded. She was soon afterwards received into the Roman Church,
+being baptised on September 14, 1870. On June 9, 1872, she was confirmed
+by Archbishop Manning, who admonished her to utilise her attractions in
+making converts. And on each occasion she received additional names, in
+virtue of which she now bore the names of all the five women who were by
+the Cross and at the Sepulchre.
+
+None the less, however, did she retain her independence of mind and
+conduct. She accepted no direction, and professed no tenet that she did
+not understand. And it was soon made clear to her that the Spirit, of
+whom she was being impelled, did not intend her to regard her adoption
+of Catholicism as more than a step in her education for the work
+required of her. For the following year saw her bent on seeking a
+medical degree, under the impression that such a step was in some way
+related to the mission of which she had received such and so many
+mysterious intimations. And she had scarcely commenced her study of
+medicine when this impression was reinforced by the following incident,
+the scene of which was her home in Shropshire, in the parish of which
+her husband had then recently become incumbent, and where I first
+visited them.
+
+This was the receipt of a letter from a lady who was a stranger to her,
+written from a distant part of the country, and saying that she, the
+writer, had read with profound interest and admiration a story[12] of
+Mrs Kingsford which, after appearing in her magazine, had been published
+as a book, and that after reading it she had received from the Holy
+Spirit a message for her which was to be delivered in person. After some
+hesitation as to what reply to make, Mrs Kingsford--whose account I am
+following exactly--agreed to receive her; an appointment was made, and
+the stranger duly presented herself. She was tall, erect, distinguished
+looking, with hair of iron-grey and strangely brilliant eyes, and was
+perfectly calm and collected of demeanour. The message was to the effect
+that Mrs Kingsford was to remain in retirement for five years,
+continuing the studies and mode of life on which she had entered,
+whatever they might be--for that the messenger did not know--and to
+suffer nothing and no one to draw her aside from them. That when these
+probationary five years were past, the Holy Spirit would bring her
+forth from her seclusion, and a great work would be given her to do. All
+this was uttered with a rapt and inspired expression, as though she had
+been a Sibyl pronouncing an oracle. After delivering her message, the
+messenger kissed her on both cheeks and departed, first asking only
+whether she thought her mad; a question to which for a moment Mrs
+Kingsford found it somewhat difficult to make reply. But only for a
+moment. For then there rushed on her the conviction that it was all
+genuine and true, and was but a fresh unfoldment of the mystery of her
+life and destiny, and in full accordance with her own foreshadowings
+from the beginning.
+
+Some four years later, at a time when Mrs Kingsford was in great straits
+for want of a suitable home in London in which to carry on her studies,
+the same lady was similarly commissioned on her behalf, while totally
+ignorant both of her whereabouts and her need, and with results entirely
+satisfactory. On which occasion I had the privilege of making her
+acquaintance, and the satisfaction of finding her not merely perfectly
+sane, but a person entitled to the highest consideration, noted for her
+pious devotion to works of beneficence involving complete
+self-abnegation; and in short a veritable "Mother in Israel."
+
+The event above related occurred in the spring of 1873, the summer of
+which year saw Mrs Kingsford impelled to do what led to the most crucial
+of the events upon which her destined mission hinged, namely, to write
+to me the letter which led to my visit to her home. In the autumn of the
+same year she passed her matriculation examination at the Apothecaries'
+Hall with success so great as to fill her with high hopes of a
+triumphant passage through the course of her student-life. But
+immediately afterwards her hopes were dashed, for the English medical
+authorities saw fit to close their schools to women, and the way to her
+anticipated career was shut against her.
+
+Such was the position when, in February, 1874, I visited the Shropshire
+rectory, and such in brief the history which was gradually unfolded to
+me as my evident sympathy and appreciation gained the confidence of the
+still young couple, whose senior I was by some twenty years. Both
+husband and wife were at their wits' end, the situation being aggravated
+by a circumstance which was first brought to my knowledge on my
+suggestion of the postponement of her design until such time as the
+medical authorities should come to their right minds and re-open their
+schools to women. The circumstance in question was her terrible
+liability on the ground of ill-health, and especially of asthma, to
+which she was a martyr, life in the country being impossible to her for
+the greater part of the year, when it was only in some large city that
+she was able to breathe. With the schools closed against her in England,
+her thoughts turned towards France, the University of Paris being open
+to women. But for obvious reasons her husband, who could not absent
+himself from his duties to accompany her, would not consent to her going
+thither unless under suitable protection. For himself he had but one
+wish, that she should follow her bent and fashion her life as seemed
+best to her; for he recognised her as entitled by her endowments and
+aspirations, as well as by the terms of their engagement, to full
+liberty of action, while the conditions of her health claimed all
+consideration from him. If, indeed, the Gods had destined her for a
+mission requiring freedom of action combined with the shelter and
+support of a husband's name, it seemed to me that in him they had
+created a man expressly for the office. For some time, however, the
+difficulty seemed insuperable, and one that would yield to no amount of
+deliberation, even with the best will of all concerned.
+
+Meanwhile her self-revelations continued, being evidently prompted, at
+least as much by the desire to obtain some explanation of herself for
+herself, to whom she was, she avowed, a complete puzzle, as by the
+desire to elicit answering confidences from me. And they became with
+each disclosure more and more striking, until I could hardly resist the
+conviction that she was possessed of some faculty in virtue of which she
+was able to have direct perception of conclusions to which I had won my
+way by dint of long and arduous thinking, and in some instances in
+advance of me. She had read my mental history between the lines of my
+books, and was fully prepared to learn that I too had a consciousness,
+analogous to her own, of a mission in life perhaps also analogous to her
+own.
+
+This, I was able to assure her, was indeed the case, and that all my
+books had been written in the idea of finding my way to it by dint of
+free, unfettered thinking. For, brought up in the strictest of
+evangelical sects, I had even as a lad begun to be revolted by the creed
+in which I was reared, and had very early come to regard its tenets,
+especially of total depravity and vicarious atonement, as a libel
+nothing short of blasphemous against both God and man, and to feel that
+no greater boon could be bestowed on the world than its emancipation
+from the bondage of a belief so degrading and so destructive of any
+lofty ideal. I had felt strongly that only in such measure as I might be
+the means of its abolition would my life be a success and a satisfaction
+to myself. It even seemed to me that my own credit was involved in the
+matter; and that in disproving such beliefs I should be vindicating my
+own character. For if God were evil, as those doctrines made Him, I
+could by no possibility be good, since I must have my derivation from
+Him. And I knew that, however weak and unwise I might be, I was not
+evil.
+
+Then, too, my life, like hers, had been one of much isolation and
+meditation. I had felt myself a stranger even with my closest intimates.
+For I was always conscious of a difference which separated me from them,
+and of a side to which they could not have access. I had graduated at
+Cambridge with the design of taking orders; but only to find that I
+could not do so conscientiously, and to feel that to commit myself to
+any conditions incompatible with absolute freedom of thought and
+expression would be a treachery against both myself and my kind;--for it
+was for no merely personal end that I wanted to discover the truth. I
+longed to get away from all my surroundings in order, first, to think
+myself out of all that I had been taught, and so to make my mind as a
+clean sheet whereon to receive true impressions and at first hand; and,
+next, to think myself into a condition and to a level wherein I could
+see all things--myself, nature, and God--face to face, with vision
+undimmed and undistorted by beliefs which, being inherited only and
+traditional, instead of the result of conviction honestly arrived at,
+were factitious and unreal; no living outcome of my own growth and
+observation, but a veritable straitwaistcoat, stifling life and
+restraining development. And so it had come that--as related in my first
+novel, "The Pilgrim and the Shrine"[13], which was essentially
+autobiographical--I had eagerly fallen in with a proposal to join an
+expedition to the then newly-discovered placers of California, an
+enterprise which, besides promising to gratify the love for adventure,
+physical as well as mental, which was strong in me, would postpone if
+not solve the difficulty of my position. It possessed, moreover, the
+high recommendation of taking me to the world of the fresh,
+unsophisticated West, instead of to that East which had been made almost
+hateful to me by its association with the tenets by which existence had
+been poisoned for me.
+
+So, setting my face towards the sunset, I became one of the band of
+"Forty-niners" in California, and remained abroad in the continents and
+isles of the Pacific, from America passing to Australia, until the
+intended year of my absence had grown into nearly ten years, and I had
+experienced well-nigh every vicissitude and extreme which might serve to
+heighten the consciousness, toughen the fibre, and try the soul of man.
+But throughout all, the idea of a mission remained with me, gathering
+force and consistency, until it was made clear to me that not
+destruction merely, but construction, not the exposure of error but the
+demonstration of truth, was comprised in it. For I saw that it was
+possible to reduce religion to a series of first principles, necessary
+truths and self-evident propositions, and that only in such measure as
+it was thus reduced and discerned, was it really true and really
+believed;--in short, that faith and knowledge are identical. To accept a
+religion on the ground that one had been born in it, and apart from its
+appeal to the mind and moral conscience, and thus to make it dependent
+upon the accident of birth and parentage, was to resemble the African
+savage who for the same reason worships Mumbo Jumbo. How, moreover,--I
+asked myself--could a religion which was not in accord with first
+principles, represent a God, Who, to be God, must Himself be the first
+of, and must comprise all principles; must account logically for all the
+facts of consciousness, be it unfolded as far as it may? Granting that,
+as the poet says, "an honest man's the noblest work of God," it was for
+me no less true that "an honest God's the noblest work of man." And it
+was precisely such a being that I longed to elaborate out of, or
+discover in, my own consciousness, confident that the achievement meant
+the solution of all problems, the rectification of all difficulties, the
+satisfaction of all aspirations, intellectual, moral, and spiritual.
+Following such trains of thought, I arrived at the assurance that I had
+within my own consciousness both the truth itself and the verification
+of the truth, and that it remained only to find these.
+
+Returning to England in 1857, and, after an interval, devoting myself to
+literature, all that I wrote, whether essay or fiction, represented the
+endeavour by probing the consciousness to the utmost in every direction
+to discover a central, radiant, and indefeasible point from which all
+things could be deduced, and on which, as a pivot they must depend and
+revolve. I read largely, and went much among people, always in search of
+aid in my quest; but only with the result of finding that neither from
+books nor from persons could I even begin to get what I sought, but only
+from thought.
+
+Meanwhile everything seemed ordered with a view to the end ultimately
+attained. For, so far from having left behind me for ever the
+vicissitudes, and struggles, and trials, and ordeals, in which the
+wildernesses of the western and southern worlds had been so fruitful, I
+was found of them in the old world to which I had returned; and this in
+number, kind, and degree, such as to make it appear as if what I had
+borne before had been inflicted expressly for the purpose of enabling me
+to bear what was put upon me now. And it was only when I had learnt by
+experience that the very capacity for thought is enhanced by feeling no
+less than by thinking, that the "ministry of pain" found its
+explanation. For the feeling required of me proved to be that of the
+inner, not merely of the outer man, of the soul, not merely of the body;
+and the faculty, to be the intuition, and not merely the intellect.
+Hence I was made to learn by experience, long before the fact was
+formulated for me in words, that only "by the bruising of the outer, the
+inner is set free," and "man is alive only so far as he has felt."
+
+Everything seemed contrived expressly in order to force me in this
+inward direction. Even in my literary work, nothing of the "trade"
+element was permitted to intrude. I could not write except when writing
+to or from my own centre. Faculty itself was shut off, if turned to any
+other purpose. Everything I wrote must minister to and represent a step
+in my own unfoldment.
+
+I can confidently affirm that the only books which really helped me
+were, with scarcely an exception, those which I wrote myself. Of the
+exceptions the chief was Emerson. His essays had been my _vade mecum_ in
+all my world-wide wanderings. And there were three sentences of his
+which, to use his own phrase, "found" me as no others had done. They
+were these: "The talent is the call"; "I the imperfect adore my own
+perfect"; and, "Beware when God lets loose a thinker on the earth." Like
+Emerson himself, I had yet to learn that man's own perfect is God, and
+self-culture is God-culture, provided the self be the inmost self. The
+two other books which most helped me were Bailey's "Festus," and
+Carlyle's "Hero-Worship." And I owed something to Tucker's "Light of
+Nature." By which it will be seen that my affinity was always for the
+prophets rather than the priests of literature; for the intuitionalists
+rather than the externalists.
+
+Gradually two leading ideas took definite form in my mind, which,
+however, proved to be but two aspects or applications of one and the
+same idea. And that idea proved to be the keynote of all that I was
+seeking after. For it finally solved the problems of existence, of
+religion, of the Bible, of Being itself. Hence the necessity of this
+reference to it.
+
+This idea was that of a duality subsisting in every unity, such as I had
+nowhere read or heard of. I was, of course, aware that the theological
+doctrine of the Trinity involved a Duality. But not of a kind to find a
+response in my mind. And being unable to assimilate it as it stood, I
+ignored it; putting it aside until it should present itself to me in an
+aspect in which it was intelligible. I felt, however vaguely, that the
+Duality I sought was in the Bible, though it had been missed by the
+official expositors of that book. And the conviction that it was in some
+way connected with my life-work was so strong that I constructed for the
+covers of my two first books a monogram symbolical of Genesis i. 27. And
+I looked to the unfoldment of what I felt to be the secret significance
+of that utterance for the explication of all the mysteries the solution
+of which engrossed me. The thought did not seem to originate in any of
+my experiences, but rather to be part of my original stock of innate
+ideas, supposing that there are such ideas, and to derive confirmation
+and explanation from my experiences.
+
+Those experiences were in this wise. It had been my privilege to have
+the friendship of several women of a type so noble that to know them was
+at once an education and a religion; women whose perfection of character
+had served more than anything else to make me believe in God, when all
+other grounds had failed. I could in no wise account for them on the
+hypothesis of a fortuitous concourse of unintelligent atoms. And not
+only did I find that the higher the type the more richly they were
+endowed with precisely the faculty of which I myself was conscious as
+distinguishing me from my fellows; I found also that I was unable to
+recognise any woman as of a high type as woman save in so far as she was
+possessed of it. I had failed to find any who possessed the knowledge I
+craved, and who were thereby able to help me in my thought. They helped
+me nevertheless, but it was by _being_ what they were, rather than by
+_knowing_ and _doing_, be they admirable as they might in these
+respects. I recognised in them that which supplemented and complemented
+my mental self in such wise as to suggest unbounded possibilities of
+results to accrue from the intimate association of two minds thus
+attuned to each other, and duly unfolded by thought and study. It
+needed, it seemed to me, but the reverberation and intensification of
+thought, induced by the apposition of two minds thus related, for the
+production of the divine child Truth in the very highest spheres of
+thought. So that the results would by no means be restricted to the mere
+sum of the associated capacities of the two minds themselves. And in
+view of such high possibilities I found myself appropriating and
+applying the ejaculation which Virgil puts into the mouth of Anna when
+urging the union of her sister Dido with AEneas--
+
+                  "Quae surgere regna
+    Conjugio tali!"
+
+and I felt with Tennyson that
+
+    "They two together well might move the world."
+
+So boundless seemed to me the kingdoms of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
+which would spring from such conjunction.
+
+It goes without saying that such relationship was contemplated by me
+only as the accompaniment of a happy re-marriage. [For I had married in
+Australia only to be widowered after a year's wedlock.] But such a
+prospect was so long withheld as to make me dubious of its
+realisation[14]. Nevertheless, some inner voice was ever saying: "Wait;
+wait. Everything comes to him who waits, provided only he do so in faith
+and patience, looking to the highest." But that I did wait, and
+accordingly kept myself free for what ultimately was assigned to me, was
+due far less to the expectation of finding that for which I waited, than
+to the vivid consciousness which I had of the bitterness that would come
+of finding it, only to be withheld from it through a previous disposal
+of myself in some other and incompatible quarter. This was an impression
+which served largely to keep my life as free as I desired my thought to
+be. But that the as yet undisclosed arbiters of my destiny deemed it
+insufficient as a deterrent, appeared from their reinforcement of it in
+a manner which effectually debarred me from marriage save on the
+condition, impossible to me, of a mercenary alliance. This was a
+reversal of fortune through a succession of losses so serious as to be
+the cause of reducing my means to the minimum compatible with existence
+at all in my own station, which soon afterwards happened. That there
+were yet further reasons for this imposition on me of the rule of
+poverty, arising out of the nature of the work required of me, was in
+due time made manifest, and also what those reasons were. They need not
+be specified here, excepting only this one. It made impossible the
+ascription to my destined colleague of mercenary motives for her
+association with me. In this I came to recognise a delicate providence
+for which I felt I could not be too thankful. In the meantime, even
+while smarting severely from this dispensation, and others yet more
+bitter which were heaped on me for no apparent cause or fault of my own
+that I could discern, the thought that most of all served to sustain me
+under what I felt would have utterly broken down in heart or head, or in
+both of these organs, any other person whatever of whom I had
+knowledge,--that thought was the surmise or suspicion that all these
+things, hard to bear as they were, and undeserved as they seemed, might
+prove to be blessings in disguise, in ministering to the realisation of
+the controlling ambition of my life by educating me for it; and that
+according to the manner in which I bore them might be the result.
+
+There is yet one more personal disclosure essential to this part of my
+relation. It concerns my own mental standpoint at the time at which my
+narrative has arrived. Bent as I was on penetrating the secret of things
+at first hand, and by means of a thought absolutely free, I was never
+for a moment disposed to turn, as my so-called free-thinking
+contemporaries one and all had turned, a scornful back upon whatever
+related to or savoured of the current religion. Scripture and dogma were
+not for me necessarily either false or inscrutable because their
+official exponents had presented them in an aspect which outraged my
+reason and revolted my conscience. I felt bound--if only in justice to
+them and myself--at least to find out what they did mean before finally
+discarding them. And in this act of justice I was strangely sustained
+by a sense of the possibility that the truth, if any, contained in them,
+was no other than that of which I was in search. This is to say, that in
+all my investigations I kept before me the idea that, if I could discern
+the actual nature of existence and the intended sense of the Bible and
+Christianity, independently of each other, they might prove on
+comparison to be identical; in which case the latter would really
+represent a true revelation. Meanwhile, I found myself constrained to
+believe, as an axiomatic proposition, that the higher and nobler the
+conception I framed in my imagination of the nature of existence, and
+the more in accordance with my ideas of what, to be perfect, the
+constitution of the universe ought to be, the nearer I should come to
+the actual truth.
+
+Similarly with religion. For a religion to be true, it must, I felt
+absolutely assured, be ideally perfect after the most perfect ideal that
+we can frame. This is to say, that not only must it be in itself such as
+to satisfy both head and heart, mind and moral conscience, spirit and
+soul; it must also be perfectly simple, obviously reasonable, coherent,
+self-evident, founded in the nature of things, incapable--when once
+comprehended--of being conceived of as otherwise, absolutely equitable,
+eternally true, and recognisable as being all these, invariable in
+operation, independent of all accidents of time, place, persons and
+events, and comparable to the demonstration of a mathematical problem in
+that it needs no testimony or authority beyond those of the mind; and
+requiring for its efficacious observance, nothing that is extraneous or
+inaccessible to the subject-individual, but within his ability to
+recognise and fulfil, provided only that he so will. It must also be
+such as to enable him by the observance of it to turn his existence to
+the highest possible account imaginable by him, be his imagination as
+developed as it may: and all this as independently of any being other
+than himself, as if he were the sole personal entity in the universe,
+and were himself the universe. That is to say, the means of a man's
+perfectionment must inhere in his own system, and he must be competent
+of himself effectually to apply them. It is further necessary, because
+equitable, that he be allowed sufficient time and opportunity for the
+discovery, understanding and application of such means.
+
+Such are the terms and conditions of an ideally perfect religion, as I
+conceived of them. It is a definition which excludes well-nigh, if not
+quite, all the characteristics ordinarily regarded as appertaining to
+religion, and notably to that of Christendom. For in excluding
+everything extraneous to the actual subject-individual, and requiring
+religion to be self-evident and necessarily true, it excludes as
+superfluous and irrelevant, history, tradition, authority, revelation,
+as ordinarily conceived of, ecclesiastical ordinance, priestly
+ministration, mediatorial function, vicarious satisfaction, and even the
+operation of Deity as subsisting without and apart from the man, all of
+which are essential elements in the accepted conception of religion.
+Nevertheless, profound as was my distrust of the faithfulness of the
+orthodox presentation, I could not reconcile myself to a renunciation of
+the originals on which that presentation was founded, until I had
+satisfied myself that I had fathomed their intended and real meaning.
+
+I had, moreover, very early conceived a personal affection for Jesus as
+a man, so strong as to serve as a deterrent both from abandoning the
+faith founded on Him, and from accepting it as it is as worthy of Him.
+
+Such was my standpoint, intellectual and religious, at the period in
+question. The time came when it found full justification; our results
+being such as to verify it in everyone of its manifold aspects. And not
+this only. The doctrine which had so mysteriously evolved itself out of
+my consciousness to attain by slow degrees the position of a controlling
+influence in my life, the doctrine, namely of a Duality subsisting in
+the Original Unity of Underived Being, and as inhering therefore in
+every unit of derived being, this doctrine proved to be the key to the
+mysteries both of Creation and of Redemption, as propounded in the Bible
+and manifested in the Christ; the key also to the nature of man,
+disclosing the facts both of his possession of divine potentialities as
+his birthright, and his endowment with the faculty whereby to discern
+and to realise them. And while it proved constructive in respect of
+Divine Truth, it proved destructive in respect of the falsification of
+that truth which had passed for orthodoxy, by disclosing the source, the
+motive, the method and the agents of that falsification.
+
+But these things were still in the future. At the time with which we are
+now concerned, I had commenced a book to represent the standpoint just
+described, "The Keys of the Creeds." The first and initial draft of
+that book was written under the sympathetic eye of one of the order of
+noble women to which reference has been made, and owed much to the
+enhancement of faculty derived by me from such conjunction of minds. The
+second and final draft was written under like relationship with another
+member of the self-same order, even she who proved to be my destined
+collaborator in the work of which this book recounts the story. It was
+published in 1875. It is necessary only to say further of the book thus
+produced, that notwithstanding certain defects of expression, due
+chiefly to an insufficient acquaintance with the terminology of
+metaphysics, it proved an invaluable help to very many, as was amply
+shown by the letters of grateful appreciation received from them by me.
+The keynote was that which afterwards found expression in the
+utterance,--
+
+"There is no enlightenment from without: the secret of things is
+revealed from within.
+
+"From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within beareth
+witness"[15].
+
+For the lesson it contained was the lesson that the phenomenal world
+cannot disclose its own secret. To find this, man must seek in that
+substantial world which lies within himself, since all that is real is
+within the man. From which it followed that if there is no within, or if
+that within be inaccessible, either there is no reality, or man has no
+organon of knowledge, and is by constitution agnostic. Meanwhile, the
+very fact of my possession of an ideal exempt from the limitations of
+the apparent, constituted for me a strong presumption in favour of the
+reality of the ideal.
+
+The moment of contact between my destined colleague and myself, was as
+critical for one as for the other, only that in my case the crisis was
+intellectual. I could see to the end of the argument I was then
+elaborating; and that it landed me close to the dividing barrier between
+the two worlds of sense and spirit, supposing the latter to have any
+being[16]. But I neither saw beyond, nor knew how to ascertain whether
+or not there is a beyond. We were discussing the question of there being
+an inner sense in Scripture, such as my book suggested; and whether,
+supposing it to have such a sense, it required for its discernment any
+faculty more recondite than a subtle imagination; and if it did, is
+there such a faculty? and what is its nature? By which it will be seen
+that I was still in ignorance of the nature of the faculty I found in
+myself and recognised as especially subsisting in women, and which, for
+me, really made the woman.
+
+The reply rendered by her to these questionings constituted the proof
+positive that I had at length discovered the mind which my own had so
+long craved as its sorely needed complement. In response to them she
+gave me a manuscript in her own writing, asking me to read it and tell
+her frankly what I thought of it. Having read and re-read it, I
+enquired how and where she had got it. She replied by asking what I
+thought of it. I answered, "If there is such a thing as divine
+revelation, I know of nothing that comes nearer to my ideal of what it
+ought to be. It is exactly what the world is perishing for want of--a
+reasonable faith." She then told me that it had come to her in her
+sleep, but whence or how she did not know; nor could she say whether she
+had seen it or heard it, but only that it came suddenly into her mind,
+without her having ever heard or thought of such teaching before. It was
+an exposition of the Story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable
+having a significance purely spiritual, wholly reasonable, and of
+universal application, physical persons, things, and events described in
+it disappearing in favour of principles, processes, and states
+appertaining to the soul; no mere local history, therefore, but an
+eternal verity. The experience, she went on to tell me, was far from
+exceptional; she had received many things which had greatly struck and
+pleased her in the same way, and sometimes while in the waking state in
+a sort of day-dream. It was subsequently incorporated into our book,
+"The Perfect Way."
+
+Her account of her faculty, of which she related several instances,
+produced a profound impression on me. It differed altogether from any
+that I had heard of as claimed by the votaries of "Spiritualism," a
+creed to which neither of us had assented; such little experience as we
+had of it having failed to convince us of the genuineness of its
+phenomena; though she, on her part, confessed to having been somewhat at
+a loss to account for some things she had seen. But though not
+spiritualists, we were not materialists. Rather were we idealists, who
+had yet to learn and, as the event proved, were destined shortly to
+learn, that the Ideal _is_ the Real, and is Spiritual.
+
+The event also proved that in order to learn it and to know it
+positively by experience, there were two conditions to be fulfilled, on
+both of which she had already entered, but I had yet to enter. One of
+these conditions was physical, the other was emotional. The former
+consisted in the renunciation of flesh-food in favour of a diet derived
+from the vegetable kingdom. The latter condition consisted in the
+kindling of our enthusiasm for the ideal into a flame of such ardour and
+intensity as to make it the dominant passion of our lives, and one in
+which all others would be swallowed up. It was to be an enthusiasm at
+once for Humanity, for Perfection, for God.
+
+Had we been in any degree instructed in spiritual or occult science, we
+should have known that the renunciation of flesh-food, though in itself
+a physical act, has ever been recognised by initiates as the prime
+essential in the unfoldment of the spiritual faculties; since only when
+man is purely nourished can he attain clearness and fulness of spiritual
+perception. As it was, neither of us had ever heard of occult science,
+or of the necessity of such a regimen to the perfectionment of faculty.
+She had adopted it on grounds physiological, chemical, hygienic,
+aesthetic, and moral; not on grounds mental or spiritual. I now undertook
+to adopt it partly on the same grounds which had influenced her, and
+partly with a view to enhance and consolidate the sympathy subsisting
+between us. The mental and spiritual advantages of the regimen made
+themselves known to us by experience.
+
+The other condition found its fulfilment through the knowledge I derived
+from her of the methods of the physiologists. That savages, sorcerers,
+brigands, religious fanatics, and corrupt priesthoods had always been
+wont to make torture their gain or their pastime, I was well aware, and
+believed that evolution would sweep them and their practices away in its
+course. But the discovery now first made to me that identical
+barbarities are systematically perpetrated by the leaders of modern
+science on the pretext of benefiting humanity, in an age which claims to
+represent the summit of such evolution as has yet been accomplished; and
+that after all its boasts, the best that science can do for the world is
+to convert it into a hell and its population into fiends, by the
+deliberate renunciation of the distinctive sentiments of humanity,--this
+was a discovery which filled me with unspeakable horror and amazement,
+at once raising to a white heat the enthusiasm of love for the ideal
+already kindled within me, and adding to it a like enthusiasm of
+detestation for its opposite. From which it came that I found myself
+under the impulsion simultaneously of two mighty influences, the one
+attracting, the other repelling, but both operating in the same
+direction. For while by the former I was drawn upwards by the beauty of
+an ideal indefinitely enhanced by its contrast with the foul actual
+below, by the latter I was impelled upwards by the hideousness of that
+actual. The sight of the moral abyss disclosed to me in Vivisection, as
+I perused volume after volume of the annals of the practice written by
+the perpetrators themselves, and now first made accessible to me,
+effectually purged out of my system any particle of dilettanteism that
+might have still lurked in it, compelling me to regard as of the utmost
+urgency all and more than all that I had hitherto contemplated doing
+deliberately.
+
+This was the construction of a system of thought which by force of its
+appeal to both those two indispensable constituents of humanity, the
+head and the heart, shall compel acceptance from all persons really
+human, and in presence of which the whole system of which Vivisection
+was the typical outcome and symbol should vanish from off the earth.
+This system was Materialism of which only now did I discern the full
+significance. The systematic organisation of wholesale, protracted,
+uncompensatable torture, for ends purely selfish, was--I saw with
+absolute distinctness--not an accidental and avoidable outcome of
+Materialism, but its logical and inevitable outcome. And it was to the
+eradication of Materialism that, from that moment, I dedicated myself.
+It was a rescue work for both man and beast, seeing that humanity itself
+was menaced with extinction. For the materialist, of course, that which
+makes the man is the form. For me it was the character, and it was this,
+the character of mankind present and to come, that was at stake. For man
+demonised is no longer man. In the overthrow of Materialism, I saw
+absolutely, was salvation alone to be found, whether for man or beast.
+The consideration that only as an abstainer from flesh-food I could with
+entire consistency contend against vivisection, was a potent factor in
+determining my change of diet. True, the distinction between death and
+torture was a broad one. But the statistics I now for the first time
+perused, of the slaughter-house and the cattle-traffic, showed beyond
+question, that torture, and this prolonged and severe, is involved in
+the use of animals for food as well as for science. And over and above
+this was the instinctive perception of the probability that neither
+would they who had them killed, whether for food, for sport, or for
+clothing, be allowed the privilege of rescuing them from the hands of
+the physiologist; nor would the animals be allowed to accept their
+deliverance at the hands of those who thus used them. They who would
+save others, we felt, must first make sacrifice in themselves. And in
+the presence of the joy of working to effect such salvation, sacrifice
+would cease to be sacrifice.
+
+This, too, we noted, and with no small satisfaction--that to make the
+rescue of the animals an immediate and urgent motive, was in no way to
+abandon the original motive of hatred to the tenet of vicarious
+atonement. For we recognised vivisection itself as but the extension to
+the domain of science, of the very principle by which we had been
+inexpressibly revolted in the domain of religion;--the principle of
+seeking one's own salvation by the sacrifice of another, and that the
+innocent. And so we learnt that "New Scientist is but Old Priest writ
+differently,"--to vary Milton's expression; and that in both domains the
+tenet had its root in Materialism. When the time came for our mission to
+be more particularly defined, our satisfaction was unbounded on
+receiving the charge, "We mean you to lay bare the secrets of the
+world's sacrificial system." It expressed with absolute conciseness and
+exactitude all that we had in our minds, far better than we could have
+expressed it.
+
+The importance of this question of vivisection in vitalising us for the
+work before us, will be seen by the following fact. The time came when
+we knew that the work committed to us was that revelation anew of the
+Christ which was to constitute His Second Advent, inasmuch as it was the
+interpretation of the truth of which He was the manifestation. It was to
+be a spiritual coming; in the "clouds of heaven," the heaven of the
+"kingdom within" of man's restored understanding. And, as at His first
+advent so at His second, He was to have His birth among the animals.
+
+And so it verily was. For--as I have elsewhere stated[17]--"Their
+terrible wrongs, culminating at the hands of their scientific
+tormentors, were the last drops which filled to overflowing with
+anguish, indignation and wrath, hearts already brimming with the sense
+of the world's degradation and misery, wringing from them the cry which
+rent the heavens for His descent, and in direct and immediate response
+to which He came.
+
+"For the New Gospel of Interpretation was vouchsafed in express
+recognition of the determined endeavour, by means of a thought
+absolutely fearless and free, to scale the topmost heights, fathom the
+lowest depths, and penetrate to the inmost recesses of Consciousness, in
+search of the solution of the problem of Existence, under the assured
+conviction that, when found, it would prove to be one that would make
+above all things Vivisection impossible, if only by demonstrating the
+constitution of things to be such that, terrible as is the lot of the
+victims of the practice here, they are not without compensation
+hereafter, while the lot of their tormentors will be unspeakably worse
+than even that of their victims here. And so it proved, with absolute
+certainty to be the case, to the full vindication at the same time of
+the Divine Justice and the Divine Love;" no experience being withheld
+which would qualify us to bear positive testimony thereto. For, although
+at the outset we were, as I have said, in no wise believers in the
+possibility of such experiences, the time came, and came quickly, when
+the veil was withdrawn, and the secrets of the Beyond were disclosed to
+us in plenitude, in its every sphere, from the abyss of hell to the
+heights of heaven. And we learnt that this had become possible through
+the passionate energy with which, in our search for the highest truth,
+for the highest ends, and in purest love to redeem, we had directed our
+thought inwards and upwards, living at the same time the life requisite
+to qualify us for such perceptions. Thus did we obtain practical
+realisation of the promise that they who do the divine will, by living
+the divine life, shall know of the divine doctrine. Our whole mental
+attitude had been one of prayer in its essential sense; which is not
+that of _saying_ prayers, but as it came to be defined for us--"the
+intense direction of the will and desire towards the Highest; an
+unchanging intent to know nothing but the Highest." Because "to think
+inwardly, to pray intensely, and to imagine centrally, is to hold
+converse with God." And we had done this without knowing it was prayer,
+or calling it by that name. For, knowing only the conventional
+conception of prayer, we had recoiled from it as from other conventional
+conceptions of things religious.
+
+Now, however, we found that we had done instinctively and spontaneously
+precisely what was necessary to bring us into relations at once with our
+spiritual selves and with the world of those who consist only of the
+spiritual self. For, by thus becoming vitalised and sensitive in that
+part of man's system which endures and passes on, we had come into open
+conditions with the world of those who have thus endured and passed on,
+and are no longer of the terrestrial, but of the celestial, having
+surmounted all lower and intermediate planes. All this came to us
+without anticipation on our part, or any conscious seeking for it; but
+yet without causing dismay or surprise when it came. For it came so
+gradually as to seem to be but the natural and orderly result of the
+unfoldment of our own spiritual consciousness, and excited only feelings
+of joy and thankfulness at finding our method and aspirations crowned
+with so high a success. Thus was it made absolutely clear to us that, so
+far from divine revelation involving miracle, or requiring for its
+instruments persons other in kind than the ordinary, it is a prerogative
+of man, belonging to him as man; and requiring for its reception only
+that he be fully man, alive and sensitive in his own innermost and
+highest, in his centre as in his circumference. Thus living on the quick
+and finding no others who did so, it seemed to us as if we alone were
+the quick, and all others were dead.
+
+We noted yet another way in which we supplemented and complemented each
+other. It was in this wise. As I was bent on the construction of a
+system of thought which should be at once a science, a philosophy, a
+morality, and a religion, and recognisable by the understanding as
+indubitably true; she was bent on the construction of a rule of life
+equally obvious and binding, and recognisable by the sentiments as alone
+according with them, its basis being that sense of perfect justice which
+springs from perfect sympathy.
+
+By which it will be seen that while it was her aim to establish a
+perfect practice, which might or might not consist with a perfect
+doctrine, it was my aim to establish a perfect doctrine which would
+inevitably issue in a perfect practice, by at once defining it and
+supplying an all-compelling motive for its observance.
+
+These, as we at once recognised, were the two indispensable halves of
+one perfect whole. But we had yet to learn the nature and source of the
+compelling motive for its enforcement.
+
+The deficiency was made good by the discovery of the fact of man's
+permanence as an individual. The revelation of this truth was the
+demonstration to us of the inanity--not to use a stronger term--of the
+system called "Positivism." In ignoring the soul, that system lacks the
+motive and repudiates the source of the sentiments on which it insists,
+and to the experiences of which those sentiments are due.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] The book was "By and By: An Historical Romance of the Future," its
+object being to show a state of society in which the intuition is
+supreme, and individuals follow their own ideals. It represents a step
+in E.M.'s unfoldment, but not his final conclusions. In 1873 A.K.,
+having read a review of this book in the _Examiner_ (which also
+contained a notice of one of her tales), communicated with E.M. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 27.)
+
+[9] This was not the first time that E.M. met A.K. He had met her once
+before, in January, 1874, in a picture gallery in London. "It was but
+for a short time, and during a single afternoon"; but it was "sufficient
+to convince" him of "the unusual character of the personality" with
+which he had come into contact. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 32.)
+
+[10] Her "very first published production" was a poem in a religious
+magazine, when she was "but nine years old." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 29.)
+
+[11] "Beatrice: A Tale of the Early Christians," was written by A.K. in
+1859, for the _Churchman's Companion_, "but the publisher thought it
+worthy to make a separate volume, and offered to bring it out in that
+form, and to give her a present for it," which offer was accepted. (Life
+A.K. Vol. I. p. 4.)
+
+[12] The Story was "In my Lady's Chamber," and purported to be a
+"speculative romance touching a few questions of the day." It was
+afterwards published separately as by "Colossa." (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+21, 22.)
+
+[13] The first edition of "The Pilgrim and the Shrine" was published in
+1867.
+
+[14] E.M. did not marry again. He had one child, Charles Bradley
+Maitland, and he died on the 16th February, 1901.
+
+[15] See p. 100
+
+[16] E.M. says that "The Keys of the Creeds" brought his thought up to
+the extreme limits of a thought merely intellectual, to transcend which
+it would be necessary to penetrate the barrier between the worlds of
+sense and of spirit. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 54.)
+
+[17] Statement E.C.U. p. 80.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE INITIATION.
+
+
+My visit to the rectory resulted in an intimacy which made me to such
+extent a member of the family as to remove all obstacles to the
+collaboration required of us. It was soon made evident that not only our
+association, but her design of seeking a medical education was for both
+of us an indispensable element in our preparation for our now recognised
+joint-mission. In its general aspect that mission had for its purpose
+the overthrow of Materialism, and in order to qualify us for it, it was
+deemed necessary that we undergo a training in the most materialistic of
+the world's schools. This was the University of Paris. She alone was to
+seek a diploma. For me it was enough that I accompany her in her
+studies, and that we submit the teachings received by her to rigid
+analysis by our combined faculties. Doing this, we found ourselves
+competent to declare positively the falsity of the materialistic system
+on the strength both of logical processes and of practical
+demonstration, by means of the experiences of which we found ourselves
+the recipients. For although we had never heard of such things as
+"psychic faculties,"--the very phrase was not yet invented--we found
+ourselves possessed of them in such measure that no longer did the veil
+which divides the world sensible from the world spiritual constitute an
+impassable barrier, but both were open to view, and the latter was as
+real and accessible as the former.
+
+It was about the middle of 1876 that this remarkable accession of
+faculty began to manifest itself in plenitude, I being the first to
+experience it, notwithstanding my previous total lack of any faculty of
+the kind, or of belief in the possibility of my having it. But the
+purification which my physical system had undergone by means of my new
+dietary regimen, and the constant and intense direction of my thought
+inwards and upwards, the forcible concentration of my mind upon the
+essential and substantial ideas of things, and this under impulsion of
+an enthusiasm kindled to a white heat--an enthusiasm, as already said,
+both of aspiration and of repulsion--and the enhancement of faculty
+through sympathetic association,--these had so attenuated the veil that
+it no longer impeded my vision of spiritual realities. And I found
+myself--without seeking for or expecting it--spiritually sensitive in
+respect of sight, hearing, and touch, and in open, palpable relations
+with a world which I had no difficulty in recognising as of celestial
+nature; so far did it transcend everything of which I had heard or read
+in the annals of the contemporary spiritualism; so entirely did it
+accord with my conceptions of the divine.
+
+That I refrain from employing the terms "supernatural" and "superhuman,"
+is because they assume the knowledge of the limits of the natural and
+the human, and arbitrarily exclude from those categories regions of
+being which may really belong to them. The celestial and the divine are
+not necessarily either superhuman or supernatural; they may be but the
+higher human and the higher natural. If they are at all, they are
+according to natural order, and it is natural for them to be.
+
+Nevertheless, vast as was the interval it represented between my past
+and present states, it came so naturally and easily as to be clearly the
+result, not of any abnormal or accidental cataclysm involving a breach
+of continuity, but of a perfectly orderly unfoldment every step of which
+was distinctly traceable. For though the process was akin to that of the
+attainment of sight by one previously blind, and the final issue was
+sudden, the issue had been led up to in such wise as to render it
+legitimate and normal. For its earliest indication[18] was an opening of
+the mind in such wise that subjects hitherto beyond my grasp, and
+problems deemed insoluble, became comprehensible and clear; while whole
+vistas of thought perfectly continuous and coherent, would disclose
+themselves to my view, stretching far away towards their source in the
+very principles of things, so that I found myself intellectually the
+master of questions which previously had baffled me.
+
+The experience I am about to relate was not only remarkable in itself,
+it was remarkable also as striking what proved to be the keynote of all
+our subsequent work, the doctrine, namely, of the _substantial_ identity
+of God and man. It had suddenly flashed on my mind as a necessary and
+self-evident truth, the contrary of which was absurd; and I had seated
+myself at my writing-table to give it expression for a book I had lately
+commenced[19]. I was alone and locked in my room in my chambers off
+Pall Mall, Mrs Kingsford being at the time in Paris, accompanied by her
+husband. It was past midnight, and all without was quiet; there was not
+a sound to break my abstraction. This was so profound that I had written
+some four pages without drawing breath, the matter seeming to flow not
+merely from but through me without conscious mental effort of my own. I
+_saw_ so clearly that there was no need to _think_. In the course of the
+writing I became distinctly aware of a presence as of someone bending
+over me from behind, and actively engaged in blending with and
+reinforcing my mind. Being unwilling to risk an interruption to the flow
+of my thought, I resisted the impulse to look up and ascertain who or
+what it was. Of alarm at so unlooked-for a presence I had not a
+particle. Be it whom it might, the accord between us was as perfect as
+if it had been merely a projection of my own higher self. I had never
+heard of higher selves in those days, or of the possibility of such a
+phenomenon; but the idea of such an explanation occurred to me then and
+there. But this solution of the problem of my visitant's personality was
+presently dissipated by the event.
+
+The passage I had been writing concluded with these words:--
+
+     "The perfect man of any race is no other than the perfect
+     expression in the flesh of all the essential characteristics of the
+     soul of that race. Escaping the limitations of the individual man,
+     such an one represents the soul of his people. Escaping the
+     limitations of the individual people, he represents the soul of
+     all peoples, or Humanity. Escaping the limitations of Humanity, but
+     still preserving its essential characteristics, he represents the
+     soul of the system of which the earth is but an individual member.
+     And finally, after climbing many a further step of the infinite
+     ladder of existence, and escaping the limitations of all systems
+     whatever, he represents--nay, finds that he is--the soul of the
+     universe, even God Himself, once 'manifested in the flesh,' and now
+     'perfected through suffering,' 'purified, sanctified, redeemed,
+     justified, glorified,' 'crowned with honour and glory,' and 'seated
+     for ever at the right hand of the Father,' 'one with God,' even God
+     Himself."
+
+At this moment--my mind being so wholly preoccupied with the utterance
+and all that I saw it involved, as to make me oblivious of all else--the
+presence I had felt bending over me darted itself into me just below the
+cerebral bulb at the back of my neck, the sensation being that of a
+slight tap, as of a finger-touch; and then in a voice full, rich, firm,
+measured, and so strong that it resounded through the room, exclaimed,
+in a tone indicative of high satisfaction, "At last I have found a man
+through whom I can speak!"
+
+So powerful was the intonation that the tympana of my ears vibrated to
+the sound, palpably bulging outwards, showing that they had been struck
+on the inner side, and that the presence had actually projected itself
+into my larynx and spoken from within me, but without using my organs of
+speech, I was conscious of being in radiant health at the time, and was
+unable to detect any symptom of being otherwise. My thought, too, and
+observation were perfectly coherent and continuous, and I could discern
+no smallest pretext for distrust of the reality of the experience. And
+my delight and satisfaction, which were unbounded, found expression in
+the single utterance, "Then the ancients were right, and the Gods ARE!"
+so resistless was the conviction that only by a divinised being could
+the wisdom and power be manifested of the presence of which I was
+conscious. The words, "At last I have found a man" were incompatible
+with the theory of its being an objectivation of my own particular ego,
+and, moreover, they indicated the speaker as one high in authority over
+the race.
+
+Nothing more passed on that occasion; but a vivid impression was left
+with me that my visitant belonged to the order of spirits called
+"Planetaries." But as I had then no knowledge of such beings, I put
+aside the question of his identity for the solution which I trusted
+would come of further enlightenment. This came in due time, with the
+result of confirming the impression given me at the time. The
+explanation, however, does not come within the scope of this present
+writing. Some time afterwards, when searching at the library of the
+British Museum in the writings of the old occultists for experiences
+analogous to our own, I came upon one account which described the
+entrance into the man of an overshadowing spirit exactly as it had
+occurred to me, so far as it concerned the nape of the neck as the point
+of entry and the slightness of the sensation. The only further reference
+to the incident necessary here is as follows.
+
+A little later Mrs Kingsford had returned to England, being compelled to
+quit Paris by a severe illness which she had contracted immediately on
+her arrival there; and was pursuing her studies in London, making her
+home with a relative in Chelsea. The event proved that she had been sent
+back by the supervisors of our work expressly in order to be within
+reach of me. Indeed, an intimation had been given me before she had gone
+that she would not be allowed to stay abroad, as our near contiguity was
+indispensable, and I had accordingly viewed her departure with
+considerable disquietude, circumstances rendering it impossible for me
+to leave home just then. Prior to coming back she had obtained from the
+Minister of Education the exceptional privilege of a permit allowing her
+attendance at a London hospital to count in her Paris course.
+
+The first experience received by her in relation to our work, after her
+return to London, was the terrific vision of "The Doomed Train"[20].
+
+On bringing it to me on the morning of its occurrence, she exclaimed as
+she entered the room, "Oh, I have had such a terrific dream! It has
+quite shattered me. And I have brought it for you to try and find its
+meaning, if it has one. I wrote it down the moment I was able." Her
+appearance fully confirmed her statement. It alarmed me. This is the
+account:--
+
+"I was visited, last night, by a dream of so strange and vivid a kind
+that I feel impelled to communicate it to you, not only to relieve my
+own mind of the oppression which the recollection of it causes me, but
+also to give you an opportunity of finding the meaning, which I am still
+far too much shaken and terrified to seek for myself.
+
+"It seemed to me that you and I were two of a vast company of men and
+women, upon all of whom, with the exception of myself--for I was there
+voluntarily--sentence of death had been passed. I was sensible of the
+knowledge--how obtained I know not--that this terrible doom had been
+pronounced by the official agents of some new reign of terror. Certain I
+was that none of the party had really been guilty of any crime deserving
+of death; but that the penalty had been incurred through their
+connection with some regime, political, social, or religious, which was
+doomed to utter destruction. It became known among us that the sentence
+was about to be carried out on a colossal scale; but we remained in
+absolute ignorance as to the place and method of the intended execution.
+Thus far my dream gave me no intimation of the scene which next burst on
+me,--a scene which strained to their utmost tension every sense of
+sight, hearing, and touch in a manner unprecedented in any dream I have
+previously had.
+
+"It was night, dark and starless, and I found myself, together with the
+whole company of doomed men and women who knew that they were soon to
+die, but not how or where, in a railway train hurrying through the
+darkness to some unknown destination. I sat in a carriage quite at the
+rear end of the train, in a corner seat, and was leaning out of the open
+window, peering into the darkness, when, suddenly, a voice, which seemed
+to speak out of the air, said to me in a low, distinct, intense tone,
+the mere recollection of which makes me shudder,--'The sentence is being
+carried out even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the train is a
+frightful precipice of monstrous height, and at its base beats a
+fathomless sea. The railway ends only with the abyss. Over that will the
+train hurl itself into annihilation. THERE IS NO ONE ON THE ENGINE!'
+
+"At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and looked round at the faces
+of the persons in the carriage with me. No one of them had spoken, or
+had heard those awful words. The lamplight from the dome of the carriage
+flickered on the forms about me. I looked from one to the other, but saw
+no sign of alarm given by any of them. Then again the voice out of the
+air spoke to me,--'There is but one way to be saved. You must leap out
+of the train!'
+
+"In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage-door and stepped out on the
+footboard. The train was going at a terrific pace, swaying to and fro as
+with the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind of its passage beat
+my hair about my face and tore at my garments.
+
+"Until this moment I had not thought of you, or even seemed conscious of
+your presence in the train. Holding tightly on to the rail by the
+carriage-door, I began to creep along the footboard towards the engine,
+hoping to find a chance of dropping safely down on the line.
+Hand-over-hand I passed along in this way from one carriage to another;
+and as I did so I saw by the light within each carriage that the
+passengers had no idea of the fate upon which they were being hurried.
+At length, in one of the compartments, I saw _you_. 'Come out!' I
+cried; 'come out! Save yourself! In another minute we shall be dashed to
+pieces!'
+
+"You rose instantly, wrenched open the door, and stood beside me outside
+on the footboard. The rapidity at which we were going was now more
+fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled onwards. The wind
+shrieked as we were carried through it. 'Leap down!' I cried to you.
+'Save yourself! It is certain death to stay here. Before us is an abyss;
+and there is no one on the engine!'
+
+"At this you turned your face full upon me with a look of intense
+earnestness, and said, 'No, we will not leap down; we will stop the
+train.'
+
+"With these words you left me, and crept along the footboard towards the
+front of the train. Full of half-angry anxiety at what seemed to me a
+Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages we passed I saw my
+mother and eldest brother, unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached
+the last carriage, and saw by the lurid light of the furnace that the
+voice had spoken truly, and that there was no one on the engine.
+
+"You continued to move onwards. 'Impossible! Impossible!' I cried; 'it
+cannot be done. Oh, pray, come away!'
+
+"Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said, 'You are right. It cannot
+be done in that way; but we can save the train. Help me to get these
+irons asunder.'
+
+"The engine was connected with the train by two great iron hooks and
+staples. By a tremendous effort, in making which I almost lost my
+balance, we unhooked the irons and detached the train; when, with a
+mighty leap as of some mad supernatural monster, the engine sped on its
+way alone, shooting back as it went a great flaming trail of sparks, and
+was lost in the darkness. We stood together on the footboard, watching
+in silence the gradual slackening of the speed. When at length the train
+had come to a standstill, we cried to the passengers, 'Saved! Saved!'
+And then, amid the confusion of opening the doors and descending and
+eager talking, my dream ended, leaving me shattered and palpitating with
+the horror of it."
+
+This vision was intended to show us the destruction, moral,
+intellectual, and spiritual, towards which the world was tending by
+following materialistic modes of thought, and the part we were to bear
+in arresting its progress towards the fatal precipice, at all hazards to
+ourselves. The startling announcement made to her by the invisible voice
+when the crowded train was rushing at full speed to its doom, "There is
+no one on the engine!" exactly represented the philosophy which, denying
+mind in the universe, recognises only blind force.
+
+I had determined to include an account of this vision in the book on
+which I was then engaged, "England and Islam." And I was alone in my
+rooms, reading the proofs of it, my mind being occupied solely with the
+letterpress, until I came to the remark ascribed to me in the vision, as
+made in reply to her entreaty that I would jump out with her to save
+ourselves, "No, we will not leap down, we will stop the train." At this
+moment the voice which shortly before[21] had said to me, "At last I
+have found a man through whom I can speak!" addressed me again, saying
+in a pleased and encouraging tone, as if the speaker had been following
+me in my reading, and desired to remove any doubts I might have of the
+reality of our mission,--"Yes! Yes! I have trusted all to you!" This
+time he spoke from without me, but apparently quite close by. And among
+the impressions which at the same instant were flashed into my mind, was
+the impression, amounting to a conviction, that whatever might be the
+part assigned to others in the work of the new illumination in progress
+and the restoration thereby to the world of one true doctrine of
+existence, the exposition of its innermost and highest sphere, the head
+corner-stone of the pyramid of the system which is to make the humanity
+of the future, had been committed to us alone. And now, writing nearly
+twenty years later, I can truly say that this conviction has never for a
+moment been weakened, but on the contrary has gathered confirmation and
+strength with every successive accession of experience and knowledge,
+and while cognisant of and fully appreciating all that has taken place
+in the unfoldment of the world's thought during the interval.
+
+Ever since that memorable winter of 1876-7, the conviction, shared
+equally by my colleague, has been with me that the controlling spirit of
+the Hebrew prophets was that also of our work, the purpose of which was
+the accomplishment of their prophecies, by the promotion of the world's
+spiritual consciousness to a level surpassing any yet attained by it, to
+the regeneration of the church and the establishment of the kingdom of
+God with power. Having which conviction, there was for us but one object
+in life:--to fulfil at whatever cost to ourselves the conditions
+necessary to make us fitting instruments for the perfect accomplishment
+of a work which we recognised as the loftiest that could be committed to
+mortals.
+
+My colleague's enforced return to London was promptly signalised by an
+experience which served not only yet further to demonstrate the reality
+and nature of our mission, and of her primacy in our work, but to
+disclose its essentially Christian character, which hitherto had been an
+open question for us. For that upon which we ourselves were bent was the
+discovery of the nature of existence at first hand, and independently of
+any existing system whatever. It was truth and truth alone that we
+sought, and to this end we had laboured to make ourselves as those of
+whom it is said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." For in divesting
+ourselves of all prepossessions and prejudices, we had made ourselves as
+"little children." We were neither believers nor disbelievers, but pure
+sceptics in that best sense of the term in which it denotes the unbiased
+seeker after God and truth. This is to say, we were, and we gloried in
+being, absolutely free thinkers, a term which, in its true acceptation,
+we regarded as man's noblest title. This is the sense in which it
+denotes a thought able to exercise itself in all directions open to
+thought, outwards and downwards to matter and negation, and inwards and
+upwards to spirit and reality. And our work proved in the event to be
+the supreme triumph of Free Thought.
+
+The experience in question was as follows. It was night and I was alone
+and locked in my chambers, and was writing at full speed, lest it
+should escape me, an exposition of the place and office of woman under
+the coming regeneration. And I was conscious of an exaltation of faculty
+such as might conceivably be the result of an enhancement of my own mind
+by junction with another and superior mind. I was even conscious, though
+in a far less degree than before, of an invisible presence. But I was
+too much engrossed with my idea to pay heed to persons, be they whom
+they might, human or divine, as well as anxious to take advantage of
+such assistance. I had clearly and vividly in my mind all that I desired
+to say for several pages on. Then, suddenly and completely, like the
+stoppage of a stream in its flow through a tube by the quick turning of
+a tap, the current of my thought ceased, leaving my mind an utter blank
+as to what I had meant to say, and totally unable to recall the least
+idea of it. So palpable was its withdrawal, that it seemed to me as if
+it must still be hovering somewhere near me, and I looked up and
+impatiently exclaimed aloud to it, "Where are you?" At length, after
+ransacking my mind in vain, I turned to other work, for I was perfectly
+fresh, and the desertion had been in no way due to exhaustion, physical
+or mental. On taking note of the time of the disappearance, I found it
+was 11.30 precisely.
+
+The next morning failed to bring my thought back to me as I had hoped it
+would do; but it brought instead, an unusually early visit from Mrs.
+Kingsford, who was--as I have said--staying in Chelsea. "Such a curious
+thing happened to me last night," she began, on entering the room, "and
+I want to tell you of it and see if you can explain it. I had finished
+my day's work, but though it was late I was not inclined to rest, for I
+was wakeful with a sense of irritation at the thought of what you are
+doing, and at my exclusion from any share in it. And I was feeling
+envious of your sex for the superior advantages you have over ours of
+doing great and useful work. As I sat by the fire thinking this, I
+suddenly found myself impelled to take a pencil and paper, and to write.
+I did so, and wrote with extreme rapidity, in a half-dreamy state,
+without any clear idea of what I was writing, but supposing it to be
+something expressive of my discontent. I had soon covered a page and a
+half of a large sheet with writing different from my own, and it was
+quite unlike what was in my mind, as you will see."
+
+On perusing the paper I found that it was a continuation of my missing
+thought, taken up at the point where it had left me, but translated to a
+higher plane, the expression also being similarly elevated in accordance
+both with the theme and the writer, having the exquisiteness so
+characteristic of her genius. To my enquiry as to the hour of the
+occurrence, she at once replied, "Half-past eleven exactly; for I was so
+struck by it that I took particular notice of the time."
+
+What I had written was as follows:--
+
+     "Those of us who, being men, refuse to accord to women the same
+     freedom of evolution for their consciousness which we claim for
+     ourselves, do so in consequence of a total misconception of the
+     nature and functions both of Humanity and of Existence at large.
+     The notion that men and women can by any possibility do each
+     other's work, is utterly absurd. Whom God hath distinguished, none
+     can confound. To do the same thing is not to do the same work;
+     inasmuch as the spirit is more than the fact, and the spirit of man
+     and of woman is different. While for the production of perfect
+     results it is necessary that they work harmoniously together, it is
+     necessary also that they fulfil separate functions in regard to
+     that work"[22].
+
+This was the point at which my thought had failed me, to be taken up by
+her at the same instant two miles away, without her knowing even that I
+contemplated treating that particular theme, as I had purposely reserved
+it until I should have completed the expression, hoping to give her a
+pleasant surprise; for it was one very near to her heart. This is her
+continuation of it. It will be seen that, besides complementing my
+thought, it responded remedially to her own mood:--
+
+     "In a true mission of redemption, in the proclamation of a gospel
+     to save, it is the man who must preach; it is the man who must
+     stand forward among the people; it is the man who, if need be, must
+     die. But he is not alone. If his be the glory of the full noontide,
+     his day has been ushered in by a goddess. Aurora has preceded
+     Phoibos Apollo; Mary has been before Christ. For, mark that He
+     shall do His first and greatest work at her suggestion. To her
+     shall ever belong the glory of the inauguration; of her shall the
+     gospel be born; from her lips shall the Christ take the bidding for
+     His first miracle; from her shall His earliest inspiration be
+     drawn. The people are athirst for the living wine, which shall be
+     better, sweeter, purer, stronger, than any they have yet tasted.
+     The festival lags, the joy slackens, for need of it. The Christ is
+     in their midst, but He opens not His lips; His heart is sealed, His
+     hour is not yet come. Mark that the first inspiration falls on the
+     woman by His side, on Mary the Mother of God; she saith unto Him,
+     'They have no wine.' She has spoken, the impulse is given to
+     Divinity. His soul awakens, His pulse quickens, He utters the word
+     that works the miracle. Hail, Mary, full of grace; Christ is thy
+     gift to the world! Without thee He could not have been; but for
+     thine impulse He could have worked no mighty work. This shall be
+     the history of all time; it shall be the sign of the Christ. Mary
+     shall feel; Christ shall speak. Hers the glory of setting His heart
+     in action; hers the thrill of emotion to which His power shall
+     respond. But for her He shall be powerless; but for her He shall be
+     dumb; but for her He shall have no strength to smite, no hand to
+     help. It is the seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's
+     head. The Christ, the true prophet, is her child, her gift to the
+     world. 'Woman, behold thy Son!'"
+
+Such was the first intimation and the manner thereof, given us of the
+truth subsequently revealed in plenitude,--the presence in Scripture of
+a mystical sense concealed within the apparent sense, as a kernel in its
+shell, which, and not the literal sense, is the intended sense[23]. As
+was later shown us in regard to the story of the cursing of the
+fig-tree, that of the marriage in Cana was a parable having a spiritual
+import; and the character of Jesus was cleared from the reproaches based
+on the literal sense. Striving for fuller unfoldment and enlightenment,
+we were at length enabled to discern the tremendous mistake which
+orthodoxy has made; the mistake of confounding, first, Jesus with
+Christ, and, next, Mary the mother of Jesus, with the Virgin Mary, the
+mother of Christ, and the conversion thereby of a perfect philosophy
+into a gross idolatry. Meanwhile, the experience was a further
+demonstration to us of the reality and accessibility not merely of the
+world spiritual, but of the world celestial also, and of the high source
+of the commission under which we had become associated together. It was
+also an indication that as concerned ourselves our work appertained to
+the spiritual, rather than to the social plane. Such application of it
+would follow in due time. No other hypothesis that we could devise would
+account for the facts. Nor could we imagine any source other than the
+Church invisible for an interpretation so noble of the Scriptures of the
+Church visible.
+
+Not that the hypothesis of an extraneous source accounted for all our
+experiences. For besides receiving knowledge from such influences, there
+were instances in which we actually saw and seemed to remember scenes,
+events, and persons, long since vanished from earth, and felt at the
+time that it needed only that the period of lucidity be sufficiently
+prolonged to enable us to recover from personal recollection the whole
+history concerned.
+
+I was somewhat surprised by finding the first experiences of this
+nature, as well as certain others of an equally high and rare order,
+occurring to me rather than to my colleague, of the superiority of whose
+faculty and of whose primacy in our work I had no manner of doubt. The
+explanation at length vouchsafed was in this wise. It was in order to
+qualify me for recognising by my own experiences the reality and value
+of hers when they should come. Not otherwise should I know enough to be
+able to believe. It proved, moreover, to be part of the plan ordained
+to withdraw from me, in a great measure, the faculty requisite for them,
+when I had become familiar with them. The reason for according her such
+preference over and above the superiority of her gifts will presently
+appear. It was another and an exquisite illustration of the depth and
+tenderness of the mystical element underlying Christianity as divinely
+conceived and intended.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The partial withdrawal from me of faculty just alluded to took place
+early in 1877, but not until I had undergone a thorough experiential
+training in its varied manifestations. Among these were two which call
+for relation here, by reason of their serving to show that nothing was
+withheld which might minister to the completeness of the work set us.
+The first was as follows:--
+
+Being seated at my writing-table, and meditating on the gospel
+narrative, with a strange sense of being separated by only a narrow
+interval from a full knowledge of all that it implied, I found myself
+impelled to seek the precise idea intended to be conveyed by the story
+of the woman taken in adultery. No account that I had read of it had
+satisfied me, least of all that which was proposed in the "Ecce Homo" of
+Professor Seeley, a book then recent and enjoying a repute which filled
+me with a strong feeling of personal resentment. For his account,
+especially of the feelings excited in Jesus by the sight of the accused
+woman, revolted me by its inscription to Him of a sense of impropriety
+at once monkish and conventional, and of a limitation of charity
+altogether incompatible with the abounding sympathy which was the
+essence of His nature. It made Him that most odious of characters, a
+_prude_.
+
+As I meditated, and in following my idea I passed into a state which,
+though highly interior, was not sufficiently interior for my
+purpose--for I wanted, so to speak, to _see_ my idea--a voice audible
+only to the inner hearing, yet quite distinct, said to me, "You have it
+within you. Seek for it." Thus encouraged, I made a further effort at
+concentration, when--to my utter surprise, for I had no expectation or
+conception of such a thing--the whole scene of the incident appeared
+palpably before me, like a living picture in a _camera obscura_, so
+natural, minute and distinct as to leave nothing to be desired, and, at
+the same time, utterly unlike any pictorial representation I had ever
+seen of it. Close before me, on my right hand, stood the Temple, with
+Jesus seated on a stone ledge in the porch, while ranged before Him was
+a crowd of persons in the costumes of the country and the time; each
+costume showing the grade or calling of its wearer. Standing together in
+a group in front of Him were the disciples, and immediately beside them
+were the accusers, who were readily recognisable by their ample robes
+and sanctimonious demeanour; and quite close to Him, between Him and
+them, stood the accused woman. As I approached the scene, moving
+meteor-like through the air, He was in the act of lifting Himself up
+from stooping to write on the ground, and I had a perfect view of His
+face. He was of middle age, but, to my surprise, the type was that of a
+Murillo, rather than a Raffaelle, and the lower portion of the face was
+covered with a short, dark beard. The expression was worn and anxious,
+and somewhat weary. The skin was rough as from exposure to the weather.
+The eyes were deep-set and lustrous, and remarkable for the tenderness
+of their gaze. One of the apostles, whom I at once recognised by his
+comparative youthfulness as John, though his back was towards me as I
+approached, was in the act of bending forwards to read the words just
+traced in the dust on the pavement; and, as if drawn to him by some
+potent attraction, I at once passed unhesitatingly into him as he bent
+forward, and tried to read the words through his eyes. Their exact
+purport escaped me; but the impression I obtained was that they were
+unimportant in themselves, having been written merely to enable Jesus to
+collect and calm Himself. For He was filled with a mighty indignation,
+which was directed, not against the accused woman, but against the
+by-standing representatives of the conventional orthodoxies, the chief
+priests and Pharisees, her sanctimonious and hypocritical
+accusers,--those moral vivisectors through whose pitilessness the
+shrinking woman stood there exposed to the public gaze, while her fault
+was so brutally blurted out in her presence for all to hear; for her
+attitude showed her ready to sink with shame into the ground, and afraid
+to look either her accusers or her Judge in the face. He, her Judge,
+also has heard it, and knows that they who utter it are themselves a
+thousand-fold greater sinners than she, inasmuch as that which she has
+yielded through exigency either of passion or of compassion, has with
+them been a cold-blooded habit engendered of ingrained impurity.
+
+In contrast with them she stands out in His eyes an angel of innocence;
+and an overwhelming indignation takes possession of Him, so that He will
+not at once trust Himself to speak. His impulse is to drive them forth
+with blows and reproaches from His presence, as once already He has
+driven the barterers from the Temple. And so, to keep His wrath from
+exploding, He stoops down and scribbles on the ground,--no matter what,
+anything to keep Himself within bounds. In the exercise His spirit
+calms. Indignation, He reflects, is too noble a thing to be expended
+upon insensates such as they, and exhortation would be vain. He will try
+sarcasm. So He raises himself up, and looks at them, very quietly, and
+even assentingly. Yes, they are quite right; the law must be vindicated,
+and so flagrant a sin severely punished. But, of course, only the
+guiltless is entitled to inflict punishment on the guilty. Therefore He
+says, "He of you who is blameless in respect of this sin, let him first
+cast a stone at her." And having said this, He stoops down again to
+write, this time to hide His smiles at their confusion, the sight of
+which would but have incensed and hardened them. What! no rush for
+ammunition wherewith to pound to death this only too human specimen of
+humanity[24]! What can be the meaning of the general move among these
+self-appointed censors of morals? "They which heard Him, being convicted
+of their own consciences, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest
+even unto the last." No wonder they crucified Him when they got their
+chance. And no wonder that most of the ancient authorities omit all
+mention of the incident. Even of His immediate biographers only he
+records it who is styled "the Beloved," and whose name, office, and
+character indicate him as the representative especially of the
+love-principle in humanity.
+
+Such were the impressions made on me by this vision while it lasted, and
+written down at the time. And so strong in me was the feeling that I
+could similarly recall the whole history of Jesus, that I mentally
+addressed to the presences which I felt, though I could not see, around
+me an inquiry whether I should then and there begin the attempt. The
+reply, similarly given, was a decided negative so far as that present
+time was concerned, but accompanied by an intimation that our future
+work would comprise something of the kind; a prediction which was duly
+fulfilled.
+
+I found myself perplexed beyond measure to comprehend the _modus
+operandi_ of this experience. No explanation was forthcoming, whether
+from my own mind or from my illuminators, until long afterwards; and
+when it came it was in reference immediately to similar experiences
+received by my colleague, some of which likewise involved corresponding
+personal recollections coinciding with but surpassing mine. In the
+meantime the teaching given us comprised the doctrine of reincarnation,
+stated so positively, systematically, and scientifically that, when
+taken in conjunction with our experiences, we found that it, and it
+alone, afforded a satisfactory explanation of them. And then it was
+shown us that the method of the new Gospel of Interpretation, of which
+we were the appointed recipients, was so ordered as to be itself a
+demonstration of the truth of that doctrine, and that among the lives we
+had lived, which qualified us for our mission, were those in which we
+had been in association with Jesus and with each other[25]. Concerning
+this doctrine, the motive for its suppression, and the fatal
+consequences thereof to the religion of Christ, it will be time to speak
+when describing the results attained by us. It is with our initial
+experiences--those which constituted our initiation--that the present
+concern lies.
+
+There is one supreme experience in the spiritual life, known to mystics
+as "the vision of Adonai," or God as the Lord. The reception of this
+vision by us was, we were assured, a conclusive proof that nothing would
+be withheld that was necessary to our full equipment for a complete
+work. Although described several times in the Bible as an actual
+occurrence, it had failed to find any response in our own consciousness,
+more than if it had no existence. Nor had it ever been the subject of
+intelligent comment by any Bible-expositors known to us. Rather did it
+seem to have been entirely passed over as a matter wholly apart from
+human cognition. Hence, when it was vouchsafed to us, it was entirely
+without anticipation of its occurrence or previous knowledge even of its
+possibility.
+
+It was received first by myself, the manner of it being as follows. I
+had observed that when I was following an idea inwards in search of its
+primary meaning, and to that end concentrated my mind upon a point lying
+within and beyond the apparent concept, I saw a whole vista of related
+ideas stretching far away as if towards their source, in what I could
+only suppose to be the Divine Mind; and I seemed at the same time to
+reach a more interior region of my own consciousness; so that, supposing
+man's system to consist of a series of concentric spheres, each fresh
+effort to focus my mind upon a more recondite aspect of the idea under
+analysis was accompanied and marked by a corresponding advance of the
+perceptive point of the mind itself towards my own central sphere and
+radiant point. And I was prompted to try to ascertain the extent to
+which it was possible thus to concentrate myself interiorly, and what
+would be the effect of reaching the mind's ultimate focus. I was
+absolutely without knowledge or expectation when I yielded to the
+impulse to make the attempt. I simply experimented on a faculty of
+which I found myself newly possessed, with the view of discovering the
+range of its capacity, being seated at my writing-table the while in
+order to record the results as they came, and resolved to retain my hold
+on my outer and circumferential consciousness no matter how far towards
+my inner and central consciousness I might go. For I knew not whether I
+should be able to regain the former if I once quitted my hold of it, or
+to recollect the facts of the experience. At length I achieved my
+object, though only by a strong effort, the tension occasioned by the
+endeavour to keep both extremes of the consciousness in view at once
+being very great.
+
+Once well started on my quest, I found myself traversing a succession of
+spheres or belts of a medium, the tenuity and luminance of which
+increased at every stage of my progress; the impression produced being
+that of mounting a vast ladder stretching from the circumference towards
+the centre of a system, which was at once my own system, the solar
+system, and the universal system, the three systems being at once
+diverse and identical. My progress in this ascent was clearly dependent
+upon my ability to concentrate the rays of my consciousness into a
+focus. For, while to relax the effort was to recede outwards, to
+intensify it was to advance inwards. The process was like that of
+travelling by will power from the orbit of Saturn to the Sun--taking
+Saturn as representing the seventh and outermost sphere of the spiritual
+kosmos, and the Sun its central and radiant point--with the intermediate
+orbits for stepping-stones and stages, I trying the while to keep both
+extremes in view. Presently, by a supreme, and what I felt must be a
+final, effort--for the tension was becoming too much for me, unless I
+let go my hold of the outer--I succeeded in polarising the whole of the
+convergent rays of my consciousness into the desired focus. And at the
+same instant, as if through the sudden ignition of the rays thus fused
+into a unity, I found myself confronted with a glory of unspeakable
+whiteness and brightness, and of a lustre so intense as well-nigh to
+beat me back. At the same instant, too, there came to me, as by a sudden
+recollection, the sense of being already familiar with the phenomenon,
+as also with its whole import, as if in virtue of having experienced it
+in some former and forgotten state of being. I knew it to be the "Great
+White Throne" of the seer of the Apocalypse. But though feeling that I
+had no need to explore further, I resolved to make assurance doubly sure
+by piercing, if I could, the almost blinding lustre, and seeing what it
+enshrined. With a great effort I succeeded, and the glance revealed to
+me that which I had felt must be there. This was the dual form of the
+Son, the Word, the Logos, the Adonai, the "Sitter on the Throne," the
+first formulation of Divinity, the unmanifest made manifest, the
+unformulate formulate, the unindividuate individuate, God as the Lord,
+proving by His Duality that God is Substance as well as Force, Love as
+well as Will, feminine as well as masculine, Mother as well as Father.
+
+Overjoyed at having this supreme problem solved in accordance with my
+highest aspirations, my one thought was to return and proclaim the glad
+news. But I had no sooner set myself to write down the things thus seen
+and remembered, than I found myself constrained to maintain regarding
+them the strictest silence, and this even as regarded my fellow-worker;
+and all that I was permitted to say at that time was, that under a
+sudden burst of illumination I had become absolutely aware of the truth
+of the doctrine of the Duality in Unity of Deity to which that in
+Humanity corresponds, both alike being twain in one. On seeking the
+reason for the reticence thus imposed on me, I learned that the stage in
+our work had not yet come when it could be given to the world, either
+with safety to myself or with advantage to others; and it was necessary
+that my colleague receive no intimation in advance of any experiences
+which were to be given to her--of which this experience was one--in
+order that her mind might be wholly free from bias or expectation. Only
+so would our testimony have its due value as that of two independent
+witnesses.
+
+In the following summer the same vision was vouchsafed to her in a
+measure and with a fulness far transcending mine[26].
+
+On the occasion she had been forewarned of something of unusual
+solemnity as about to occur, and prompted to make certain ceremonial
+preparations obviously calculated to impress the imagination. The access
+came upon her while standing by the open window, gazing at the moon,
+then close upon the full. The first effect of the _afflatus_ was to
+cause her to kneel and pray in a rapt attitude, with her arms extended
+towards the sky. It appeared afterwards, that under an access of
+spiritual exaltation, she had yielded to a sudden and uncontrollable
+impulse to pray that she might be taken to the stars, and shown all the
+glory of the universe. Presently she rose, and after gazing upwards in
+ecstasy for a few moments, lowered her eyes, and, clasping her arms
+around her head as if to shut out the view, uttered in tones of wonder,
+mingled with moans and cries of anguish, the following tokens of the
+intolerable splendour of the vision she had unwittingly invited:--
+
+"Oh, I see masses, masses of stars! It makes me giddy to look at them. O
+my God, what masses! Millions and millions! WHEELS of planets! O my God,
+my God, why didst Thou create? It was by Will, all Will, that Thou didst
+it. Oh! what might, what might of Will! Oh, what gulfs! what gulfs!
+Millions and millions of miles broad and deep! Hold me! hold me up! I
+shall sink--I shall sink into the gulfs. I am sick and giddy, as on a
+billowy sea. I am on a sea, an ocean--the ocean of infinite space. Oh,
+what depths! what depths! I sink--I fail! I cannot, cannot bear it!"
+
+"I shall never come back. I have left my body for ever. I am dying; I
+believe I am dead. Impossible to return from such a distance! Oh, what
+colossal forms! They are the angels of the planets. Every planet has its
+angel standing erect above it. And what beauty!--what marvellous beauty!
+I see Raphael. I see the Angel of the Earth. He has six wings. He is a
+God--the God of our planet. I see my genius, who called himself A.Z.;
+but his name is Salathiel. Oh, how surpassingly beautiful he is! My
+genius is a male, and his colour is ruby. Yours, Caro, is a female, and
+sapphire. They are friends--they are the same--not two, but one; and for
+that reason they have associated us together, and speak of themselves
+sometimes as _I_, sometimes as _We_. It is the Angel of the Earth
+himself that is your genius and mine, Caro. He it was who inspired you,
+who spoke to you. And they call me 'Bitterness.' And I see sorrow--oh,
+what unending sorrow do I behold! Sorrow, always sorrow, but never
+without love. I shall always have love. How dim is this sphere!... I am
+entering a brighter region now... Oh, the dazzling, dazzling brightness!
+Hide me, hide me from it! I cannot, cannot bear it! It is agony supreme
+to look upon. O God! O God! Thou art slaying me with Thy light. It is
+the Throne itself, the Great White Throne of God that I behold! Oh, what
+light! what light! It is like an emerald? a sapphire? No; a diamond! In
+its midst stands Deity erect, His right hand raised aloft, and from Him
+pours the light of light. Forth from His right hand streams the
+universe, projected by the omnipotent repulsion of His will. Back to His
+left, which is depressed and set backwards, returns the universe, drawn
+by the attraction of His love. Repulsion and attraction, will and love,
+right and left, these are the forces, centrifugal and centripetal, male
+and female, whereby God creates and redeems. Adonai! O Adonai! Lord God
+of life, made of the substance of light, how beautiful art Thou in Thine
+everlasting youth! with Thy glowing golden locks, how adorable! And I
+had thought of God as elderly and venerable! As if the Eternal could
+grow old! And now not as Man only do I behold Thee! For now Thou art to
+me as Woman. Lo, Thou art both. One, and Two also. And thereby dost Thou
+produce creation. O God, O God! why didst Thou create this stupendous
+existence? Surely, surely, it had been better in love to have restrained
+Thy will. It was by will that Thou createdst, by will alone, not by
+love, was it not?--was it not? I cannot see clearly. A cloud has come
+between.
+
+"I see Thee now as Woman. Maria is next beside Thee. Thou art Maria.
+Maria is God. Oh Maria! God as Woman! Thee, thee I adore!
+Maria-Aphrodite! Mother! Mother-God!
+
+"They are returning with me now, I think. But I shall never get back.
+What strange forms! how huge they are! All angels and archangels. Human
+in form, yet some with eagles' heads. All the planets are inhabited! how
+innumerable is the variety of forms! Oh! universe of existence, how
+stupendous is existence! Oh! take me not near the sun; I cannot bear its
+heat. Already do I feel myself burning. Here is Jupiter! It has nine
+moons! Yes; nine. Some are exceedingly small. And, oh, how red it is! It
+has so much iron. And what enormous men and women! There is evil there,
+too. For evil is wherever are matter and limitation. But the people of
+Jupiter are far better than we on earth. They know much more; they are
+much wiser. There is less evil in their planet. Ah! and they have
+another sense, too. What is it? No; I cannot describe it. I cannot tell
+what it is. It differs from any of the others. We have nothing like it.
+I cannot get back yet. I shall never get back. I believe I am dead. It
+is only my body you are holding. It has grown cold for want of me. Yet
+I must be approaching; it is growing shallower. We are passing out of
+the depths. Yet I can never wholly return--never--never!"[27]
+
+The account given of the vision of Adonai in Lecture IX. of "The Perfect
+Way," was written solely from our joint experiences. It was with an
+interest altogether novel in kind and degree that I now turned to the
+Bible narratives of the same vision, and found that in the record of its
+reception by the Elders of Israel, it is stated, as if in token of the
+power of the spiritual battery with which Moses had surrounded himself,
+that no less than seventy of his initiates were able to receive the
+vision without magnetic reinforcement by the imposition of their
+master's hands. But, as we learnt from our own manifold experiences, it
+does not follow that because there is no imposition of visible hands, no
+extraneous aid is rendered. The seeker after God cannot, even if he
+would, accomplish his quest alone; but always are there attracted to him
+those angelic beings whose office it is, as ministers of God, to sustain
+and illuminate souls by the imposition of hands invisible to the outer
+senses. In her case such aid was palpable. There was no effort on her
+part. And she held converse with those by whom she was upborne in her
+stupendous flight.
+
+When in due course the time came for us to receive the ancient and
+long-lost Gnosis which underlay the sacred religions and scriptures of
+antiquity, the following was given us, and we recognised in it the
+original Scripture from which the opening sentences in St John's Gospel
+are drawn.
+
+After defining the Elohim as comprising the two original principles of
+all Being, "the Spirit and the Water," or Force and Substance, and
+bringing up the process whereby Deity proceeds into manifestation to the
+point described in Genesis in the words, "And the Spirit of God moved
+upon the face of the Waters. And God _said_,"--the utterance thus
+continues,--
+
+     Then from the midst of the Divine Duality, the Only Begotten of God
+     came forth:
+
+     Adonai, the Word, the Voice invisible.
+
+     He was in the beginning, and by Him were all things discovered.
+
+     Without Him was not anything made which is visible.
+
+     For He is the Manifestor, and in Him was the life of the world.
+
+     God the nameless hath not revealed God, but Adonai hath revealed
+     God from the beginning.
+
+     He is the presentation of Elohim, and by Him the Gods are made
+     manifest.
+
+     He is the third aspect of the Divine Triad:
+
+     Co-equal with the Spirit and the heavenly deep.
+
+     For except by three in one, the Spirits of the Invisible Light
+     could not have been made manifest.
+
+     But now is the prism perfect, and the generation of the Gods
+     discovered in their order.
+
+     Adonai dissolves and resumes; in His two hands are the dual powers
+     of all things.
+
+     He is of His Father the Spirit, and of His Mother the great deep.
+
+     Having the potency of both in Himself, and the power of things
+     material.
+
+     Yet being Himself invisible, for He is the cause, and not the
+     effect.
+
+     He is the Manifestor, and not that which is manifest.
+
+     That which is manifest is the Divine Substance[28].
+
+The reason for the suppression by the translators of the Bible of its
+numerous affirmations of the Divine Duality, saving only those of
+Genesis i. 26, 27, was in due time disclosed to us; as also was the
+extent of the loss to man through the elimination of the feminine
+principle from his conception of Original Being, and the consequent
+perversion of the doctrine of the Trinity, and therein of the true
+nature of Existence, in both its aspects, Creation and Redemption.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] In 1875. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 73.)
+
+[19] The book was "England and Islam: or The Counsel of Caiaphas," which
+was published in 1877.
+
+[20] This vision occurred in London in November, 1876. It was merely
+referred to in the previous editions of this book, but I have inserted
+it here in full from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 115-117. It is also
+given in "England and Islam," pp. 438-442. S.H.H.
+
+[21] p. 41.
+
+[22] E. and I. p. 299.
+
+[23] It is probable that E.M. intended this statement to apply only to
+the N.T., or to the Gospels, because, before February, 1874, when he
+first visited A.K. at her house (p. 2), she had received in sleep "an
+exposition of the Story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a
+significance purely spiritual" and E.M. certainty regarded the Biblical
+Story of the Fall as "Scripture." S.H.H.
+
+[24] The expression of which the above is an adaptation, had recently
+been applied by Mr Gladstone to the Turkish power. For the period was
+the eve of the Turco-Russian War; and Mr Gladstone had found vent for
+his strong sacerdotal proclivities by siding fiercely against the
+priest-hating and prophet-venerating Turks, and demanding their
+expulsion from Europe, very much on the plea that "it was good for
+Europe that one nation die for the rest." It was in recognition of the
+part thus played by him that I took for the sub-title of my book
+("England and Islam") "The Counsel of Caiaphas." The book--which was
+written under a high degree of illumination--contained an earnest appeal
+to Mr Gladstone, which, if heeded, would have saved the country from its
+subsequent humiliations. Among other things I was clearly shown that the
+policy which sought to detach England from the East, was of infernal
+instigation, being intended to thwart the rapprochement between
+Christianity and Buddhism from which the new humanity was to spring. But
+the circumstances of the book's production--it was poured through me at
+great speed and printed off as it came--precluded due revision and
+elimination of redundant matter; and for these and other reasons, I have
+suffered it to go out of print. E.M.
+
+[25] There is another fact, referred to in "The Life of A.K.," that must
+be taken into consideration in connection with experiences of this
+nature, that is, "the survival for an indefinite period of the images of
+events occurring on the earth, in the astral light, or memory of the
+planet, called the anima mundi, which images can be evoked and beheld."
+(Life A.K. Vol I. p. 125.) S.H.H.
+
+[26] This "Vision of Adonai" by A.K. was merely referred to in the
+previous editions of this book. I have extracted the following account
+of the most interesting part of it from "The Life of A.K." (Vol. I. pp.
+193-196.) S.H.H.
+
+[27] Speaking of this vision, E.M. says:--"Her apprehension was not
+without justification; for her body was completely torpid, and several
+hours passed before consciousness was fully restored to it." (C.W.S. p.
+283.)
+
+[28] This is one of the illuminations that were received by A.K., during
+the latter part of 1878, "directly from the hierarchy of the Church
+Invisible and Celestial." Speaking of these illuminations, which "dealt
+with the profoundest subjects of cognition," E.M. says that he and A.K.
+found in them "a synthesis and an analysis combined of the sacred
+mysteries of all the great religions of antiquity, and the true
+_origines_ of Christianity as originally and divinely intended, together
+with the secret and method of its corruption and perversion into that
+which now bears its name"; and they "were at no loss to recognise in
+them the destined Scriptures of the future, so long promised and at
+length vouchsafed in interpretation of the Scriptures of the past."
+(Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 293, 294.) S.H.H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE COMMUNICATION.
+
+
+A striking feature for us was the exquisite tenderness and poetic
+delicacy, both in matter and manner, which characterised all that we
+received. Nor was there the intrusion of anything to suggest feelings
+such as are described by Daniel when he says, "I saw this great vision,
+and there remained no strength in me, neither was there breath left in
+me." And not only was the element of terror so completely absent as to
+make us feel as if we had entered on the dispensation of that "perfect
+love which casteth out fear," but there was occasionally an element of
+playfulness, and this on the part of our chiefest illuminators, the Gods
+themselves. While their instructions were replete with every graceful
+and delicate adornment such as could not but delight the poet and the
+artist, and this without abatement of profundity or solemnity. By these
+things it was intimated to us that the religion of the future was indeed
+to be one of sweetness and light, and for the severe and gloomy spirit
+of the Semite would be substituted the bright and joyous spirit of the
+Greek. All this, we learnt, was because the new dispensation was to be
+that of the "Woman," and in accord therefore with woman's nature and
+sentiments. It was moreover to be introduced by means of the Woman's
+faculty, the Intuition, and this as subsisting in _a_ woman.
+
+The following exquisite little apologue, which was given us in the early
+days of our novitiate, is an instance in point:--
+
+     A blind man once lost himself in a forest. An angel took pity on
+     him, and led him into an open place. As he went he received his
+     sight. Then he saw the angel, and said to him, "Brother, what doest
+     thou here? Suffer me to go before thee, for I am thine elder." So
+     the man went first, taking the lead. But the angel spread his wings
+     and returned to heaven. And darkness fell again upon him to whom
+     sight had been given.
+
+Here was a parable which, slight as it seemed, was truly Biblical for
+the depth and manifoldness of its signification. For while it applied to
+ourselves both separately and jointly, and to our work, it was also an
+eternal verity applicable alike to the individual, the collective, and
+the universal. For as the angel was to the man, so is the intuition to
+the intellect, which of itself cannot transcend the sense-nature, but
+remains blind and dark and lost in the wilderness of illusion. And as
+she, my colleague, had supplemented me, so were we each to supplement in
+ourselves intellect by intuition, in order to become capable of
+knowledge and understanding. It was, moreover, a parable of the Fall and
+of the Redemption, an epitome in short of man's spiritual history. And
+it had been spelt out for us by the tilting of a table in one of our
+earliest essays in spiritualism! So carefully guarded and daintily
+taught were we from the outset.
+
+The charming allegory of "The Wonderful Spectacles" which was given in
+London on the 31st January, 1877, to my colleague in sleep, was not only
+an instruction concerning the nature of her faculty and its
+indispensableness as an adjunct to mine for the work assigned to us; it
+was also a prophetic intimation of the character of that work, and of
+the nature of the influences controlling it, which at the time was
+altogether unsuspected by us. This is the account which she sent to me
+by letter, for we were not then together:--
+
+     I dreamt that I was walking alone on the sea-shore. The day was
+     singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape
+     ever seen; and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks
+     of which were white with glistening snow. Along the sands by the
+     sea towards me came a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a
+     letter. It was from you. It ran thus:--
+
+     "I have got hold of the rarest and most precious book extant. It
+     was written before the world began. The text is easy enough to
+     read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are in
+     such very minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them
+     out. I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used
+     to wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian
+     Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid. I
+     think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-glass
+     maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you can
+     get them for me"[29].
+
+     When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman
+     hastening away across the sands, and I called out to him, "Stop!
+     how am I to send the answer? Won't you wait for me?"
+
+     He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.
+
+     "I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter bag, "and I
+     shall deliver it immediately."
+
+     "How can you have the answer before I have written it?" said I.
+     "You are making a mistake."
+
+     "No," said he, "In the city from which I come, the replies are all
+     written at the office and sent out with the letters themselves.
+     Your reply is in my bag."
+
+     "Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from his wallet and
+     gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my own handwriting, this
+     answer, addressed to you:--
+
+     "The spectacles you want can be bought in London. But you will not
+     be able to use them at once, for they have not been worn for many
+     years, and they want cleaning sadly. This you will not be able to
+     do yourself in London, because it is too dark there to see, and
+     because your fingers are not small enough to clean them properly.
+     Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you."
+
+     I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and nodded at me;
+     and I saw then to my astonishment that he wore a camel's-hair tunic
+     round his waist. I had been on the point of addressing him--I know
+     not why--as _Hermes_. But I now saw that it was John the Baptist;
+     and in my fright at having spoken with so great a saint, I awoke.
+
+This was the second suggestion of a Greek element in our work, the first
+having been the slight allusion to Phoibos Apollo in the illumination
+concerning the Marriage in Cana of Galilee[30]. The signification of the
+connection between Hermes and John the Baptist remained unintelligible
+to us until the key to it was given us in a revelation of the method of
+the Bible-writers explaining their practice of representing principles
+as persons. We then found that by the baptism or purification, physical
+and mental, practised by John, was meant the course of life and thought
+whereby alone man develops the faculty of the understanding of spiritual
+things. And Hermes is the Greco-Egyptian name for the "second of the
+Gods," called by Isaiah the Spirit of Understanding. Hence the adoption
+of this name by the formulators of the Hermetic, or sacred books of
+Egypt; and the favourite motto of the Hermetists:--
+
+     "Est in Mercurio quicquid quoerunt sapientes,"
+
+All is in the understanding that the wise seek,--Mercury being the Latin
+equivalent for Hermes.
+
+The mention of Swedenborg and Andersen implied their possession of the
+faculty indispensable to our work, that of mystical insight, of which
+they were the most notable recent representatives.
+
+A larger part was played by Hermes in another instruction received a few
+months later[31]. This was also given in sleep, the vision taking the
+form of a "Banquet of the Gods" in which the seeress received the
+following exhortation from him, in enforcement of the necessity of pure
+and natural habits of life for the perfectionment of the faculties
+requisite for full spiritual perception, when, having put into her hands
+a branch of a fig-tree bearing upon it ripe fruit, he said:--
+
+     "If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do all things,
+     quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm and comfort you
+     externally: it is heaven's gift. But do not wrest it from its
+     rightful purpose, as did that betrayer of your race, to fill the
+     veins of humanity with its contagion, and to consume your interior
+     being with its breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the
+     image which Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen fire, and
+     it consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good gifts, none
+     is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your hot foods and
+     drinks have consumed and dried up the magnetic power of your
+     nerves, sealed your senses, and cut short your lives. Now, you
+     neither see nor hear; for the fire in your organs consumes your
+     senses. Ye are all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent
+     you a book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall be
+     opened."
+
+     Then, not recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name, Lord." At
+     this he laughed and answered, "I have been about you from the
+     beginning. I am the white cloud on the noon-day sky." "Do you,
+     then," I asked, "desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire
+     in preparing food and drink?"
+
+     Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show you the
+     excellent way. Two places only are vacant at our table. We have
+     told you all that can be shown you on the level on which you stand.
+     But our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond
+     your reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified
+     and have come up higher. The conditions are GOD'S; the will is with
+     you"[32].
+
+The allusion to Prometheus, and the fact that Hermes had been
+represented in the Greek tragedy of that name as the executor of the
+vengeance of the Gods upon Prometheus, as well also as the significance
+of the fig-branch and the fact of its being the symbol of Hermes as the
+Spirit of Understanding,--all these things were beyond her knowledge at
+the time, some of them indeed having been long lost. But all were made
+clear as our education for our work proceeded, and we learnt the
+intention and recognised the necessity of restoring the Greek
+presentment of the Sacred Mysteries in explanation of the Hebrew, and in
+correction of the ecclesiastical presentment of Christianity. The
+restoration was to be twofold, of faculty and of knowledge, the
+knowledge to be recovered through the faculty by which it was originally
+obtained. Hence the insistance on our adoption of the pure regimen of
+the Seers of all time. Hence, too, the presentation to her by Hermes of
+the fig-branch bearing ripe fruit. The parable of the cursing of the
+barren fig-tree was explained to us as denoting the loss by the church
+of the inward understanding, the Intuition. In the Seeress it was
+restored; she was the appointed representative of it. The "time of the
+end" was at hand, of the approach of which the budding of the fig-tree
+was to be the sign. And here it was not merely budding and blossoming,
+but bearing mature fruit to signify that in her the faculty was restored
+in its perfection.
+
+In an instruction subsequently given to me by her Genius, he said of
+her, "I have fashioned a perfect instrument," implying that the process
+of her preparation under his tuition had extended over numerous lives.
+And again, "The Gods have given to their own a perfect ear."
+
+Being desirous once to test the powers of a medium to whom she was
+totally unknown even by name, she asked his controlling spirit about
+herself and her faculty. "You are not a trance-medium at all!" the
+spirit exclaimed in reply. "My medium is a trance-medium. You are far
+beyond that. You are a spiritual lens. You are a mirror in which the
+highest spirits--the Gods--can reflect their faces. You take the light
+of the whole universe and divide it so that it can be understood, as it
+has never been understood yet. Your gift is very extraordinary. You are
+a glass to reflect the highest and the greatest to the world." This was
+in 1877, before she was known in connection with the spiritual movement
+of the age.
+
+The description given of himself by Hermes as "the white cloud in the
+noon-day sky," proved to be a quotation from an ancient ritual,
+subsequently recovered by her, in which the "Hymn to Hermes"[33] opens
+thus:--
+
+     As a moving light between heaven and earth: as a white cloud
+     assuming many shapes;
+
+     He descends and rises: he guides and illumines; he transmutes
+     himself from small to great, from bright to shadowy, from the
+     opaque image to the diaphanous mist.
+
+     Star of the East, conducting the Magi; cloud from whose midst the
+     holy voice speaketh; by day a pillar of vapour, by night a shining
+     flame.
+
+All these are symbolic expressions for the Understanding, especially in
+respect of divine things, so that Hermes is no individual soul or
+spirit, but the divine spirit Itself operating as the second of the
+Creative Elohim, and as a function therefore of man's own spirit when
+duly unfolded and purified, in token whereof it is said in the recovered
+hymn[34] to the Planet-God Iacchos--
+
+     Within thee, O Man, is the Universe; the thrones of all the Gods
+     are in thy temple....
+
+     And the Spirits which speak unto thee are of thine own kingdom.
+
+In the hymn of invocation summoning the Seeress to her mission in the
+name of the two first of the "Holy Seven," the Spirits of Wisdom and
+Understanding, both of whom were wont to manifest themselves to her,
+Hermes is referred to as "the God who knows"; the other being
+personified as Pallas Athena. "In the Celestial," we were informed, "all
+things are Persons."
+
+    "Wake, prophet-soul, the time draws near,
+      'The God who knows' within thee stirs
+      And speaks, for His thou art, and Hers
+    Who bears the mystic shield and spear.
+
+    A touch divine shall thrill thy brain,
+      Thy soul shall leap to life, and lo!
+      What she has known, again shall know,
+    What she has seen, shall see again.
+
+    The ancient past through which she came...."[35]
+
+As the Spirit of Understanding, the name of Hermes signifies both Rock
+and Interpreter. Hence the significance of the saying of Jesus, "Thou
+art the Rock, and upon this Rock I will build My Church," which He
+addressed not to the man Peter, but to the Spirit of Understanding whom
+He discerned as the prompter of Peter's confession of faith. By this
+Jesus implied that the only true and infallible church is that which is
+founded on the Understanding, and not on authority whether of book,
+tradition or institution. The utterance of Jesus was a citation from the
+proem to the hymn to Hermes[36] recovered by us:--
+
+     "He is as a rock between earth and heaven, and the Lord God shall
+     build His Church thereon.
+
+     As a city upon a mountain of stone, whose windows look forth on
+     either side."
+
+As our education proceeded we found indubitably that in excluding from
+its curriculum the whole range of the knowledges represented by the term
+"Hermetic," Ecclesiasticism has ignored the chief source of information
+concerning the Christian _origines_. Doing which it has incurred the
+reproach uttered by Jesus against those who took away the key of
+knowledge, neither entering in themselves, nor suffering others to enter
+in. And it was to restore this Gnosis, suppressed by the priests, that
+the new revelation was promised, with the reception of which we found
+ourselves charged, the prophecies pointing to a restoration both of
+faculty and of knowledge.
+
+Besides the Fig-branch of Hermes, there is another symbol of the
+intuitional understanding which was disclosed to us as having special
+and peculiar relation to the work set us. This symbol is Woman herself.
+She had already, in the instruction concerning the marriage in Cana[37],
+been shown to us as the inspirer and prompter. She was now shown to us
+as the interpreter. The reason why the fig-tree was the emblem of the
+inward understanding will be found in the citation presently to be
+given; which is a portion of an instruction received in interpretation
+of the prophecy of Daniel, re-enunciated by Jesus, concerning the
+recognition of the "abomination of desolation standing in the holy
+place"[38], as making and marking the time of the end of that generation
+which, for its materialisation of spiritual things, was called by Him an
+"adulterous," meaning an idolatrous, generation. It will be seen that in
+the Scripture symbology, as the soul is the feminine principle in man's
+spiritual system, and is called therefore the "Woman," the spirit being
+the masculine principle; so in man's mental system the intuition as the
+feminine mode of the mind is called the "Woman," and the intellect, as
+the masculine mode, the "Man." The following is the citation in
+question:--
+
+     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.
+
+     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 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."
+
+On handing me the first portion of the instruction of which the
+foregoing is the conclusion, "Mary"--to use the name which meanwhile had
+been bestowed on her by our Illuminators in token of her office as
+representative of the Soul and Intuition--confessed to some perplexity.
+Her usual Illuminator for revelations of this order was Hermes, whose
+Hebrew equivalent is Raphael. But on this occasion it had been a Hebrew
+one, Gabriel. Her surprise and delight were great on being reminded that
+Gabriel was Daniel's own inspirer in respect of the prophecy in
+question, and that he had prophesied his return, saying, "Go thy way,
+Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the
+end.... Thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."
+The explanation given us was that both Daniel's own spirit and his
+illuminating angel had come to her, the former serving as the vehicle of
+the latter. As with all our other results similarly obtained, we judged
+it entirely by its own intrinsic merits, and not by its alleged
+derivation. We knew too well the propensity of low influences to
+appropriate to themselves great and even divine names, and the liability
+of the recipients to be deceived and to make the names the criterion
+instead of the communication itself. But in no instance did it happen to
+us that we had any cause to distrust the genuineness either of messenger
+or of message, even when both claimed to be divine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The difference between the two interpretations or applications given us
+of the incident at the "Marriage in Cana of Galilee," was explained to
+us as an instance of the manifoldness of the sense of Scripture. The
+parables have a separate meaning for each of the four planes of
+existence[39].
+
+We wondered much whether there were any parallels in history to our work
+and to the manner of it; and especially as to how far an association
+such as ours coincided with the ideas of the Hebrews. It was true that
+they had both prophets and prophetesses, but did they work like us in
+supplement and complement of each other? As regarded the recovery of
+knowledge acquired in a previous life, Ezra also had ascribed his
+recovery of the long lost Law to intuitional recollection occurring
+under special illumination, saying, "The Spirit strengthened my memory."
+But no mention is made of a female coadjutor. Nor does it appear that
+the Vestal Virgins were similarly supplemented, except to be thrown into
+the magnetic trance-state. In her zeal for her sex and her corresponding
+distrust of men--sentiments which seemed to be inborn in her--"Mary" was
+disposed to think that most of the prophesying of old had been done by
+women, but that the credit had been appropriated by men. The answer to
+these questionings was of a kind altogether unexpected by us, both as
+regarded its manner and its matter. For neither of us had the smallest
+suspicion that the book referred to was capable of the interpretation
+given us of it. This was the book of Esther. The incident was as
+follows:--
+
+The occasion was an Easter Sunday[40], and we were at Paris. Electing
+to remain indoors rather than encounter the crowds of holiday makers,
+"Mary" was moved during the afternoon to sit for some communication by
+joint writing. But we were no sooner seated than it was written,--
+
+     "Do you, Caro[41], take a pencil and write, and let her look
+     inwards, and we will dictate slowly."
+
+"Mary" then became entranced, and delivered orally, repeating it slowly,
+without break or pause, after a voice heard interiorly, the following
+exposition of the book of Esther, an exposition entirely novel, as I
+have said, to us, and, we believed, to the world. Some divines have
+called the book a romance, but none have discovered that it is a
+prophecy in the form of a parable. Luther, indeed, pronounced both it
+and the Apocalypse to be so worthless that their destruction would be no
+loss.
+
+The most important book in the Bible for you to study now, and that most
+nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of the most mystic books in the Old
+Testament, the book of Esther.
+
+This book is a mystic prophecy, written in the form of an actual
+history. If I give you the key, the clue of the thread of it, it will be
+the easiest thing in the world to unravel the whole.
+
+     The great King Assuerus, who had all the world under his dominion,
+     and possessed the wealth of all the nations, is the genius of the
+     age.
+
+     Queen Vasthi, who for her disobedience to the king was deposed from
+     her royal seat, is the orthodox Catholic Church.
+
+     The Jews, scattered among the nations under the dominion of the
+     king, are the true Israel of God.
+
+     Mardochi the Jew represents the spirit of intuitive reason and
+     understanding.
+
+     His enemy Aman is the spirit of materialism, taken into the favour
+     and protection of the genius of the age, and exalted to the highest
+     place in the world's councils after the deposition of the orthodox
+     religion.
+
+     Now Aman has a wife and ten sons.
+
+     Esther--who, under the care and tuition of Mardochi, is brought up
+     pure and virgin--is that spirit of love and sympathetic
+     interpretation which shall redeem the world.
+
+     I have told you that it shall be redeemed by a "woman."
+
+     Now the several philosophical systems by which the councillors of
+     the age propose to replace the dethroned Church, are one by one
+     submitted to the judgment of the age; and Esther, coming last,
+     shall find favour.
+
+     Six years shall she be anointed with oil of myrrh, that is, with
+     study and training severe and bitter, that she may be proficient in
+     intellectual knowledge, as must all systems which seek the favour
+     of the age.
+
+     And six years with sweet perfumes, that is with the gracious
+     loveliness of the imagery and poetry of the faiths of the past,
+     that religion may not be lacking in sweetness and beauty.
+
+     But she shall not seek to put on any of those adornments of dogma,
+     or of mere sense, which, by trick of priestcraft, former systems
+     have used to gain power or favour with the world and the age, and
+     for which they have been found wanting.
+
+     Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise
+     upon the earth, two dragons[42].
+
+     And they fight and tear each other, until there arises a star, a
+     fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther[43].
+
+     I have given you the key. Unlock the meaning of all that is
+     written.
+
+     I do not tell you if in the history of the past these voices had
+     part in the world of men.
+
+     If they had, guess now who were Mardochi and Esther.
+
+     But I tell you that which shall be in the days about to come[44].
+
+On consulting the Bible-dictionary, we found this relation between
+Esther and Easter. The feast of Purim, which was instituted in token of
+the deliverance wrought through Esther, coincides in date with Easter.
+And it was on Easter day that this was given us, by way of enhancing the
+correspondence between the parts assigned to us and those of Mordecai
+and Esther. Later it was shown us that the parts assigned to Joseph and
+Mary were, in one aspect, also identical with those of Mordecai and
+Esther. This is the aspect in which Joseph represents the mind, and Mary
+the soul in the regenerated human system.
+
+Besides "Hermes," "Mary" received much of her illumination from her
+"Genius," her relations with whom far surpassed not only my relations
+with mine, but any that are recorded in history, the experiences of
+Socrates, the chief instance on record, being insignificant both in
+quantity and in quality as compared with hers. It is important,
+therefore, to give an account of the nature and office of this order of
+angels, which shall be rendered in his own words.
+
+     Every man is a planet, having sun, moon, and stars. The Genius of a
+     man is his satellite; 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 protective 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 it
+     is said--as by Jesus--"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....
+
+     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 because the Genius 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 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 showeth where it lieth."...
+
+     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 God, and thy minister. But thou
+     must obey him, for he hath no voice of his own, but sheweth thee
+     the will of the Spirit.
+
+We noted that the inspiring angel of the Apocalypse had twice similarly
+spoken when the seer was about to worship him;--"See thou do it not; for
+I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them
+which keep the sayings of this book: Worship God."
+
+The like positive injunctions were given us also against according
+divine honours to Jesus.
+
+Besides Socrates, there is another notable historical "Spiritualist" of
+whom our experiences vividly reminded us. This was Joan of Arc. The
+correspondence between her and "Mary," in gifts, experiences, and
+personal characteristics, was of the closest. We had no difficulty in
+believing her history. Each of them, moreover, had a mission of
+deliverance, the one political and national, the other spiritual and
+universal.
+
+Although we had learned to trust our Illuminators implicitly long before
+the receipt of the above instruction, we were still without assurance as
+to the source and method of the revelation. Be the knowledges received
+by us as new as they might to our external selves, they never failed to
+be familiar as recovered memories, excepting in such cases as they were
+couched in terms of which the sense, being mystical, was not at once
+recognised. But such difficulties were soon overcome, and the doctrine,
+when fully apprehended, was always to us as necessary and self-evident
+truth, and such as to excite wonder at the potency of the glamour which
+had hitherto withheld it from the world's recognition. In every detail,
+the revelation represented for us Common-Sense in its loftiest mode. For
+the agreement it represented was not that of all men merely, but that of
+all parts of Man: of mind, soul and spirit, intellect and intuition, and
+these purified and unfolded to the utmost, and perfectly equilibrated.
+Whatever the manner of its communication, whether heard by the interior
+ear, seen by the interior eye, flashed on the mind as vivid ideas,
+whether acquired waking or sleeping, or in the intermediate state of
+trance-lucidity, or given in writing, it always seemed that we knew it
+before, and did not require to be told it, but only to be reminded of
+it.
+
+The problem specially exercised myself. "Mary" had other work than the
+analysis of our spiritual experiences. That was my special function. I
+learnt to see in her a soul of surpassing luminousness and variousness,
+who had been entrusted to my charge expressly in order that by my study
+of her I might recover for the world's benefit the long-lost knowledge
+of the soul's being, nature, and history. And so many and various were
+her spiritual states, that she seemed to me to represent in turn every
+stage of the soul's evolution, and to be "not one, but all mankind's
+epitome."
+
+This also used to occur so frequently as to be observed by both of us
+and discussed between us. When in the process of my endeavour to find
+the solution of some problem, such as the meaning of a parabolic or
+otherwise obscure passage in Scripture, I had exhausted my stock of
+tentative hypotheses, but, through consideration for her other and
+engrossing work, refrained from imparting my need to her, she would
+receive in sleep the desired solution, which she wrote down on waking,
+and which invariably proved satisfactory beyond my highest imaginings.
+And besides showing intimate acquaintance with the course of my thought,
+it was couched in language which, for simplicity, dignity, purity, and
+lucidity, was without an equal in literature; the English being that of
+the best period of our literature, and better than the best even of that
+period. She herself had a remarkable mastery of English, but these
+compositions reduced her to despair, causing her to exclaim, "Why cannot
+I write as well when I am awake as I do in my sleep!" Of course the
+explanation lay in the limiting influence of the physical organism.
+
+The frequency of this occurrence led me, in the absence of authoritative
+explanation, to try the following, as an hypothesis purely tentative.
+The revelations generally came to her when, through my inability to
+find the interpretations which satisfied me, my work required them, and
+they came independently of any desire or knowledge on her part. Might it
+not be, then, that it was my own spirit who knew them and gave them to
+her, finding her more sensitive to impression than myself? The
+explanation was not one that either pleased or satisfied me, one reason
+being that I took a delight in recognising the primacy accorded to her.
+The idea occurred to me one night, and I pondered it the next day, but
+did not divulge it. What happened on the evening of that day led me to
+suspect that our Genii had suggested it to me in order to make it the
+occasion of imparting to me the knowledge in question, namely, that of
+the real source and method of the revelation.
+
+For the experience to be properly appreciated it must be remembered that
+"Mary" had no knowledge of the explanation suggested to me, and neither
+of us had as yet entertained the idea of past lives as the key to our
+present work. The question of Reincarnation itself had not come before
+us, and far less the possibility of recovering the memory of the things
+learnt in previous existences, much as we had been puzzled to account
+for our experiences in the absence of some such explanation.
+
+The proposal to sit for a written communication came from her, having
+evidently been prompted by our illuminators. The method was one which
+both they and we disliked, and it was adopted only when they desired to
+address us both at once. So we sat for writing.
+
+The result confirmed my surmise. We had scarcely seated ourselves when
+the writing began, as if we were being waited for. And this is what was
+written:--
+
+     "We are instructed to say several things to-night. We are your
+     Genii.
+
+     "(To CARO.) In the first place, you entirely misconceive the
+     process by which the Revelation comes to Mary. The method of this
+     revelation is entirely interior. Mary is not a Medium; nor is she
+     even a Seer as you understand the word. She is a Prophet. By this
+     we mean that all she has ever written or will write, is from
+     within, and not from without. She knows. She is not told. Hers is
+     an old, old spirit. She is older than you are, Caro, older by many
+     thousand years. Do not think that spirits other than her own are to
+     be credited with the authorship of the new Gospel. As a proof of
+     this, and to correct the false impression you have on the subject,
+     the holy and inner truth, of which she is the depositary, will not
+     in future be given to her by the former method. All she writes
+     henceforth, she will write consciously. Yes, she must finish the
+     new Evangel by conscious effort of brain and will."
+
+Coming from a source which we had learnt to trust implicitly, and
+according with our own highest conceptions, this message was supremely
+satisfactory, and was welcomed accordingly. But it was followed
+forthwith by another which excited feelings of a very different
+character. For, as if expressly in order to prevent her from being made
+vain-glorious and uplifted by it, they added--
+
+     "(To MARY.) It may serve to exhibit the path by which you have
+     come, and to suggest the nature of some ancient tendencies which
+     may yet tarnish the mirror of a soul destined to attain perfection,
+     to learn that you dwelt within the body of ----."
+
+Here were given the name and character of a certain Roman dame of some
+seventeen centuries ago, one of high station, but of a repute so evil as
+to cause an immense shock to both of us. It does not come within the
+design of this book to disclose the particular personalities with whom
+we had been identified in the past[45]. Concerning this one it must
+suffice to state here that, omitting from account one whole side of
+"Mary's" character, we both recognised in the other side traits strongly
+resembling those which had been indicated. And she subsequently
+recovered distinct recollections of scenes in the life in question which
+served to assure her on the point. Our discussions on the matter tended
+to conclusions of which fuller knowledge brought the verification. It
+was not one of those lives in virtue of which she was directly qualified
+for her present work; but it was one of those lives of which the sin and
+the suffering may well be conceived of as indispensable elements in the
+education of a soul called to a lofty work and destiny in the future, in
+accordance with the principle which finds expression in the sayings,
+"The greater the sinner the greater the saint," and "_Pecca Fortiter_."
+This also we discerned clearly, that, supposing it to be indeed a truth
+that man is "made perfect through suffering," the experiences in the
+course of which the suffering is undergone must imply sin as well as
+pain and sorrow; since otherwise there would be a whole region of his
+nature, namely the moral, in which he would remain unvitalised. The
+lesson of which is that a man is alive only so far as he has lived.
+There was yet another reflection that was prompted by the occasion in
+question, and one which crowned and glorified the rest. This was the
+assurance implied that none need despair. If the soul which had dwelt in
+the body of the person named, could nevertheless become within
+measureable time what "Mary" was now, and be "destined to attain
+perfection," there is hope for all, and the doctrine of Reincarnation is
+indeed a gospel of salvation. And herein we discerned a lesson hitherto
+unsuspected so far as we were aware, in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
+It is not the "elder brother" who stays at home that can best appreciate
+the divine order; but the prodigal who has gone forth into the world of
+experience to acquire knowledge for himself at first hand. They who have
+been the most fully satiated with the husks of materiality, can--when
+their time arrives for coming to their true selves--best estimate the
+fare provided in the "Father's House." "He loveth most to whom most has
+been forgiven.
+
+While sitting alone one day and pondering these things, and particularly
+the difficulty which people often find in correcting in themselves even
+the faults which they deplore, this pregnant sentence was spoken audibly
+to my inner hearing by a voice which I recognised as that of my
+Genius:--"Tendencies encouraged for ages cannot be cured in a single
+lifetime, but may require ages."
+
+This further reflection also was suggested to me: that souls of
+exceptional strength are reincarnated in bodies of exceptionally strong
+passional natures, expressly in order to obtain the discipline which
+comes of the effort to subdue them. All of which reflections tended to
+exhibit the rashness of judging outward judgment in respect of others.
+In order to judge righteous judgment it is necessary to know the
+strength of their temptations, and of their efforts to resist them. And
+these can be known only to God. The attainment of perfection, and
+therein of salvation by conquest and not by flight,--this is the
+principle of reincarnation. It is the _condition_ of Regeneration, which
+is _from out of_ the body.
+
+In due time we were able to recognise the whole plan of our work as so
+ordered as to make the work itself a demonstration of the doctrine of
+reincarnation. When once this doctrine had become a practical question
+for us, it assumed a prominent place both in our teachings and in our
+experiences. One instruction given us was no less striking in itself
+than in the circumstances of its communication. The messenger was one
+with whom we had never anticipated coming into relations, for, besides
+not courting intercourse with the souls of the departed, we had not paid
+to the writings of the person concerned the heed that would entitle us
+to count him among our cordial sympathisers; and still less as among our
+possible visitants. This was the famous Swedish Seer, Emmanuel
+Swedenborg. In the course of what we afterwards found to be a strikingly
+characteristic communication from him, he informed us that owing to the
+difficulty our angels had in approaching us just then, through the
+condition of the spiritual atmosphere, they had charged him with a
+message to us, in which "Mary's" Genius had spoken to him of her as "A
+soul of vast experience, who under his tuition had so painfully
+acquired the evangel of which she was the depositary"; adding that he,
+her Genius, "had been promised help to recover for her, in this
+incarnation, the memory of all that was in the past"; and--which was the
+point of the message--that it was to be put forward, not as we were then
+contemplating putting it forward, but "as fragmentary specimens of such
+recollection occurring to one now a woman, but formerly an initiate, who
+is beginning to recover this power."
+
+It will be interesting to remark on this experience, that to this day
+the followers of Swedenborg set their faces against the doctrine of
+reincarnation, expressly on the ground that their master denied it in
+his lifetime. Whether Swedenborg really denied it is uncertain. There is
+grave cause to doubt whether his writings on the subject have been
+rightly understood or fairly represented. It has been maintained with
+much show of reason that Swedenborg denied only the reincarnation of the
+astral soul, not of the true soul; in which case he would be right.
+Having once obtained access to us, his visits were for a time frequent,
+the manner of them being various. For he came to us jointly and
+separately, in waking and in sleeping--the latter to "Mary" only--and
+audibly and visibly--the latter also to "Mary" only. He alluded to a
+recent incarnation of mine, of which I have since had full and
+independent proof. And he recognised our work as not only a confirmation
+and continuation of his own, but also as a correction. For, as he gave
+us to understand, he had been too much under the influence of the
+current orthodoxy to be able to transmit the revelation given to him in
+its proper purity, and unbiased by his own preconceptions. The doctrine
+in respect of which he was chiefly desirous of being set right was that
+of the Incarnation, the orthodox presentment of which he now saw to be
+wrong, by reason of its deification of Jesus. In referring to the
+perversion of the truth by the formulators of the Christian orthodoxy,
+he said to us, with much emphasis, "Do not be too kind to the
+Christians."
+
+This allusion to an experience which belongs to the category of
+"spiritualism" rather than to that of our special work, may with
+advantage be followed by some account of our other experiences of the
+same order, partly for the sake of testifying to the genuineness of the
+experiences relied on by spiritualists, and partly in order to show the
+distinction between the two orders of experience, as discerned by
+persons whose familiarity with both qualified them to institute
+comparison between them. For, having once become sensitised in the inner
+and higher regions of the consciousness, we had become sensitised also
+in the intermediate regions, and were able therefore to hold palpable
+converse with the denizens of these also. And the converse thus held was
+of the most satisfactory character, on the ground both of the certainty
+of its reality and its intrinsic nature. Father, mother, wife, brothers,
+sundry dear friends, and others interested in our work, all came to me,
+and some of them to my colleague, and this several times, and in a
+manner impossible to be distrusted. For my mother more than once spoke
+to me aloud in her own unmistakeable voice, and in tones that anyone
+might have heard, as I sat alone in my study. My wife came repeatedly to
+both of us, jointly and separately, audibly, visibly, and tangibly;
+giving us timely warnings of dangers unsuspected by us but proving to be
+real. And one of my brothers cleared up a mystery which had hung over
+his death. No mere attenuated wraiths or soulless phantoms were they who
+thus visited us from "beyond the veil," they were strong, distinct,
+intelligent individualities, veritable souls, palpitating with vitality,
+and eager to render loving service. But they came spontaneously and
+unevoked, for we never sought to compel their presence. Our quest was
+purely and simply for truth, not for persons. But we considered that,
+when these also came, as they did come, to ourselves directly and
+without intervention of any third party, to refuse to receive them on
+the ground that they had put off their bodies, would be equivalent to
+repulsing our friends in the flesh on the ground that they had put off
+their overcoats.
+
+The spirit in which alone such intercourse is permissible will be seen
+by the following citations from the instructions received by us. Terms
+from the Hebrew, Greek, and Oriental Scriptures were used indifferently
+by our illuminators. The word _Ruach_ in the following--which is Hebrew
+for Spirit--is here used in a kabalistic sense to denote the astral soul
+or ghost, as distinguished from the divine soul, the _Psyche_ or
+_Neshamah_, and from the _Nephesh_ or mere phantom. The following is
+from an instruction given to "Mary" in sleep, in direct solution of
+certain perplexities.
+
+     "Thou knowest that in the end, when Nirvana is attained, the soul
+     shall gather up all that it hath left within the astral of holy
+     memories and worthy experience, and to this end the Ruach rises in
+     the astral sphere, by the gradual decay and loss of its more
+     material affinities, until these have so disintegrated and
+     perished that its substance is thereby lightened and purified. But
+     continual commerce and intercourse with earth add, as it were,
+     fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these alive, and
+     hindering its recall to its spiritual ego. Thus, therefore, the
+     spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption into the
+     divine, and union therewith. For the Ruach shall not all die, if
+     there be in it anything worthy of recall. The astral sphere is its
+     purging chamber. For Saturn, who is Time, is the trier of all
+     things; he devoureth all the dross; only that escapeth which in its
+     nature is ethereal and destined to reign. And this death of the
+     Ruach is gradual and natural. It is a process of elimination and
+     disintegration, often--as men measure time--extending over many
+     decades, or even centuries. And those Ruachs which appertain to
+     wicked and evil persons, having strong wills inclined
+     earthwards,--these persist longest and manifest most frequently and
+     vividly, because they _rise not_, but, being destined to perish
+     utterly, are not withdrawn from immediate contact with the earth.
+     They are all dross; there is in them no redeemable element. But the
+     Ruach of the righteous complaineth if thou disturb his evolution.
+     'Why callest thou me? disturb me not. The memories of my earth-life
+     are chains about my neck; the desire of the past detaineth me.
+     Suffer me to rise towards my rest, and hinder me not with
+     evocations. But let thy love go after me and encompass me; so shalt
+     thou rise with me through sphere after sphere.'
+
+     "For the good man upon earth can love nothing less than the divine.
+     Wherefore that which he loveth in his friend is the divine, that
+     is, the true and radiant self. And if he love it as differentiated
+     from God, it is only on account of its separate tincture. For in
+     the perfect light there are innumerable tinctures. And according to
+     its celestial affinity, one soul loveth this or that splendour more
+     than the rest. And when the righteous friend of the good man dieth,
+     the love of the living man goeth after the true soul of the dead;
+     and the strength and divinity of this love helpeth the purgation
+     of the astral soul, the psychic ghost. It is to this astral soul,
+     which ever remaineth near the living friend, an indication of the
+     way it must also go,--a light shining upon the upward path that
+     leads from the astral to the celestial and everlasting. For love,
+     being divine, is _towards_ the divine. 'Love exalteth, love
+     purifieth, love uplifteth.'"
+
+And this also, which was similarly obtained, represents a further
+restoration of the original, pure, undistorted and unmutilated doctrine
+of Christianity concerning the communion of souls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     So weepest thou and lamentest, because the Soul thou lovest is
+     taken from thy sight.
+
+     And life seemeth to thee a bitter thing: yea, thou cursest the
+     destiny of all living creatures.
+
+     And thou deemest thy love of no avail, and thy tears as idle drops.
+
+     Behold, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are prayers.
+
+     And if thou have lived purely, thy fervent desire shall be counted
+     grace to the soul of thy dead.
+
+     For the burning and continual prayer of the just availeth much.
+
+     Yea, thy love shall enfold the soul which thou lovest: it shall be
+     unto him a wedding garment and a vesture of blessing.
+
+     The baptism of thy sorrow shall baptize thy dead, and he shall rise
+     because of it.
+
+     Thy prayers shall lift him up, and thy tears shall encompass his
+     steps: thy love shall be to him a light shining upon the upward
+     way.
+
+     And the angels of God shall say unto him, "O happy Soul, that art
+     so well-beloved; that art made so strong with all these tears and
+     sighs.
+
+     "Praise the Father of Spirits therefor: for this great love shall
+     save thee many incarnations.
+
+     "Thou art advanced thereby; thou art drawn aloft and carried upward
+     by cords of grace."
+
+     For in such wise do souls profit one another and have communion,
+     and receive and give blessing, the departed of the living, and the
+     living of the departed.
+
+     And so much the more as the heart within them is clean, and the way
+     of their intention is innocent in the sight of God....
+
+     Count not as lost thy suffering on behalf of other souls; for every
+     cry is a prayer, and all prayer is power.
+
+     That thou willest to do is done; thine intention is united to the
+     Will of Divine Love.
+
+     Nothing is lost of that which thou layest out for God and for thy
+     brother.
+
+     And it is love alone who redeemeth, and love hath nothing of her
+     own[46].
+
+But precious as is the communion of souls when thus conditioned, it was
+not to them that we looked for light and guidance in our work. Nor,
+indeed, to any persons at all in the sense in which the term is
+ordinarily used. We looked steadfastly and directly to the Highest,
+confidently leaving to the Highest the appointment both of the Messenger
+and of the Message, but never failing to submit both manner and matter
+to the keenest scrutiny of faculties which we had striven to the utmost
+to attune to divine things. We were, moreover, emphatically warned from
+the outset against allowing any intrusion into our work of the
+influences accessible to the ordinary sensitive, the two planes being
+absolutely distinct. Herein lay the significance of the saying of
+"Mary's" Genius, that he had been "promised help to enable her to
+recover in this incarnation the memory of all that is in the past." The
+Genii themselves, although of the celestial, belong to its
+circumferential and lowest sphere. They touch the astral, but do not
+enter it. The help spoken of was to come from the innermost and highest
+spheres. And the charge was accordingly given us, "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."
+
+The manner in which we received the first full and particular account
+respecting the method of revelation, was as follows. I was pondering to
+myself with much intentness the nature and source of inspiration, and
+desiring a test whereby to distinguish between true and false
+inspiration. But I refrained for various reasons from consulting my
+colleague, at least until I should have exhausted my own resources. And
+she was still without any intimation of my need when she received the
+instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying of which the
+following is a portion. It was received in sleep, and the date was
+shortly before we were told that her knowledges were due to experiences
+undergone in previous lives[47]. When I had read it she said, referring
+to the first verse, "But I did not ask." In reply to which I told her
+that I had asked. It was addressed equally to both of us, as making
+together one system.
+
+     "I heard last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me, and
+     saying--
+
+     "You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means
+     whereby God revealeth the Truth.
+
+     "Know that there is no enlightenment from without: the secret of
+     things is revealed from within.
+
+     "From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within
+     beareth witness.
+
+     "Think not that I tell you that which you know not: for except you
+     know it, it cannot be given to you.
+
+     "To him that hath it is given, and he hath the more abundantly.
+
+     "None is a prophet save he who knoweth: the instructor of the
+     people is a man of many lives.
+
+     "Inborn knowledge and the perception of things, these are the
+     sources of revelation: the Soul of the man instructeth him, having
+     already learned by experience.
+
+     "Intuition is inborn experience; that which the soul knoweth of old
+     and of former years.
+
+     "And Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a man perceiveth
+     heavenly secrets.
+
+     "Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him
+     the things of God.
+
+     "Do not think that I tell you anything you know not; all cometh
+     from within: the Spirit that informeth is the Spirit of God in the
+     prophet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Inspiration may indeed be mediumship, but it is conscious; and the
+     knowledge of the prophet instructeth him.
+
+     "Even though he speak in an ecstasy, he uttereth nothing that he
+     knoweth not."
+
+Then followed this apostrophe to the Prophet:--
+
+     "Thou who art a prophet hast had many lives: yea, thou hast taught
+     many nations, and hast stood before kings.
+
+     And God hath instructed thee in the years that are past, and in the
+     former times of the earth.
+
+     By prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seeking, hast thou
+     attained that thou knowest.
+
+     There is no knowledge but by labour: there is no intuition but by
+     experience.
+
+     I have seen thee on the hills of the East: I have followed thy
+     steps in the wilderness: I have seen thee adore at sunrise: I have
+     marked thy night watches in the caves of the mountains.
+
+     Thou hast attained with patience, O prophet! God hath revealed the
+     truth to thee from within."
+
+     Thus, for the first time known to history, was given a definition
+     of the nature and method of inspiration and prophecy, at once
+     luminous, reasonable, and inexpugnable, to the full and final
+     solution of this stupendous problem; and comporting with and
+     explaining, as it did, all our own experiences, we felt that we
+     could bear unreserved testimony to its truth. But, vast as was the
+     addition thus made to the New Gospel of Interpretation, it did not
+     exhaust the treasures revealed and communicated on that wondrous
+     night; for it was followed immediately by a prophecy of the meaning
+     of the new dispensation on which the world is entering, and of
+     which our work is the introduction. At once Biblical in diction and
+     character, it reached in loftiness the highest level of Biblical
+     prophecy and inspiration, demonstrating the same world celestial
+     and divine as the source of both. For which reason, and the
+     crushing blow administered by it to the superstitions which have
+     made of Christianity a by-word and a reproach by their gross
+     materialisations of mysteries purely spiritual, it is reproduced in
+     full here. The heading is of our own devising:--
+
+A Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Soul, mystically called the Day of the
+Woman.
+
+     "And now I show you a mystery and a new thing, which is part of the
+     mystery of the fourth day of creation.
+
+     The word which shall come to save the world, shall be uttered by a
+     woman.
+
+     A woman shall conceive, and shall bring forth the tidings of
+     salvation.
+
+     For the reign of Adam is at its last hour; and God shall crown all
+     things by the creation of Eve.
+
+     Hitherto the man hath been alone, and hath had dominion over the
+     earth.
+
+     But when the woman shall be created, God shall give unto her the
+     kingdom; and she shall be first in rule and highest in dignity.
+
+     Yea, the last shall be first, and the elder shall serve the
+     younger.
+
+     So that women shall no more lament for their womanhood; but men
+     shall rather say, "O that we had been born women!"
+
+     For the strong shall be put down from their seat, and the meek
+     shall be exalted to their place.
+
+     The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing away: the
+     Gospel of Interpretation cometh.
+
+     There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient shall be
+     interpreted.
+
+     So that man the manifesto shall resign his office: and woman the
+     interpreter shall give light to the world.
+
+     Hers is the fourth office: she revealeth that which the Lord hath
+     manifested.
+
+     Hers is the light of the heavens, and the brightest of the planets
+     of the holy seven.
+
+     She is the fourth dimension; the eyes which enlighten; the power
+     which draweth inward to God.
+
+     And her kingdom cometh; the day of the exaltation of woman.
+
+     And her reign shall be greater than the reign of the man: for Adam
+     shall be put down from his place; and she shall have dominion for
+     ever.
+
+     And she who is alone shall bring forth more children to God, then
+     she who hath an husband.
+
+     There shall no more be a reproach against women: but against men
+     shall be the reproach.
+
+     For the woman is the crown of man, and the final manifestation of
+     humanity.
+
+     She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall be
+     revealed.
+
+     But the creation of woman is not yet complete: but it shall be
+     complete in the time which is at hand.
+
+     All things are thine, O Mother of God: all things are thine, O Thou
+     who risest from the sea; and Thou shalt have dominion over all the
+     worlds[48].
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] A.K. knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was unaware that he
+was an optician. Subsequent experience made it clear that the spectacles
+in question were intended to represent her own remarkable faculty of
+intuitional and interpretative perception. (See Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+150-1.) S.H.H.
+
+[30] Page 525
+
+[31] The 22nd September, 1877.
+
+[32] The book referred to was a treatise entitled "Fruit and Bread,"
+which had been sent to her anonymously the previous day. E.M.
+
+[33] The "Hymn to Hermes" was received by A.K. in 1878, "under
+illumination occurring in sleep." She remembered it so perfectly that on
+waking she wrote it without hesitation or error. Representing knowledges
+long lost, by no amount of mere scholarship could it have been
+reproduced. It is given at length in the P.W. pp. 357-358, and in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 287. S.H.H.
+
+[34] As to the recovery by A.K. of the Hymn to the Planet-God, see p.
+122-3.
+
+[35] These dream-verses are from "Through the Ages," a poem received by
+A.K., "in sleep," in 1880. In this poem, "some of her earliest
+incarnations" are referred to. (D. and D-S. p. 77.) S.H.H.
+
+[36] See p. 122 note.
+
+[37] See pp. 51-52-53 ante.
+
+[38] That is, in the place of God and the Soul.
+
+[39] The four planes being, from without inwards, those of the body,
+mind, soul, and spirit. S.H.H.
+
+[40] The 28th March, 1880. S.H.H.
+
+[41] The name by which I was thus addressed had been given me by our
+illuminators as an initiation name, as that of "Mary" to her. It denoted
+love as the dominant note of our work, and was an equivalent for "John
+the Beloved," who--we were given to understand--is one of the two
+controlling "angels" of the new illumination--Daniel being the other--in
+accordance with the intimations given by Jesus, one to His disciples and
+the other to the Seer of the Apocalypse himself, that John should tarry
+within reach of the earth-plane to bear part in the event which was to
+constitute the second advent of Christ. These names had a further
+correspondence in the Greek parable of Eros and Psyche, which denotes
+love as the vivifying principle of the soul. E.M.
+
+[42] Materialism and Superstition.
+
+[43] The name Esther denotes a star or fountain of light, a dawn or
+rising.
+
+[44] The spelling of the names is that of the Douay Version, the
+Protestants having relegated the second part of the book of Esther, in
+which the latter part of this narrative occurs, to the Apocrypha. As
+also that of Ezra above cited. E.M.
+
+[45] These are disclosed in "The Life of A.K." The personality referred
+to on this occasion was "Faustine, the Roman," the Empress of Marcus
+Aurelius. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 353-354.) S.H.H.
+
+[46] The "Hymn of Aphrodite," including the "Discourse of the Communion
+of Souls, and of the Uses of Love between Creature and Creature; being
+part of the Golden Book of Venus," from which latter the above is taken,
+is given in full in the P.W. pp. 350-356.
+
+[47] The instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying was received
+by A.K. in Paris on the 7th February, 1880. S.H.H.
+
+[48] P.W. pp. 311-314. Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 344-345.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ANTAGONISATION.
+
+
+Even had we been disposed, which happily we were not, to exalt ourselves
+on the strength of the loftiness of our mission, the constant proofs
+afforded us of the paucity of our knowledge in comparison with what
+remained to be known, would have effectually restrained us. But as it
+was, we were from the first penetrated by the conviction that only in so
+far as we succeeded in subordinating the individual to the universal,
+the personal to the divine, could the work be successfully accomplished.
+The man must make himself nothing that the God may be all. This was the
+burden of the injunctions enforced on us throughout; the failures of
+others through self-exaltation being adduced in illustration. For, as we
+were plainly given to understand, "many are called but few are chosen";
+the weak point in their system, the "Judas" by whom they are betrayed
+and fail, being generally vanity. They are as instruments which mistake
+themselves for the mind and hand which wield them.
+
+Humility and Love, the violet and the red, these are the two extremes of
+the prism which comprise between them all the Seven Spirits of God.
+Blended, they make the royal purple; but the hue of that purple depends
+on the spiritual states of the individuals themselves whose tinctures
+they are. They were, we were told, the tinctures of our own souls as
+indicated by the colours of our respective _auras_. "Mary's" was the
+"blood-red ray of the innermost sphere," the sphere of the "first of the
+Gods," wherein "love and wisdom are one." "For the Hebrews Uriel, for
+the Greeks Phoibos, the Bright One of God." Mine was the violet of the
+outermost sphere, that of the "last of the Gods," the "Spirit of the
+Fear of the Lord," and therein of Reverence and Humility; for the Greeks
+Saturn, and for the Hebrews Satan, the "Angel unfallen of the outermost
+sphere." Only when man is built up of all the Gods, and bears upon him
+the seal of each God, having climbed the ladder of his regeneration from
+circumference to centre, from "Saturn" to the "Sun," is the "week" of
+his new and spiritual creation accomplished. Similarly the co-operation
+of all these divine potencies was indispensable to our work. And we were
+emphatically warned of the dangers both to it and to ourselves, that
+would come of the lack of the divine presence in respect of any of them.
+Hence the necessity of maintaining the necessary conditions in
+ourselves, and the caution addressed to us by "Hermes," in view of the
+liability of mortals to appropriate to themselves the importance
+appertaining to their mission when this transcends the ordinary. To this
+end, in the following Exhortation, he disclosed to us the heights yet to
+be ascended, saying--
+
+     He whose adversaries fight with weapons of steel, must himself be
+     armed in like manner, if he would not be ignominiously slain or
+     save himself by flight.
+
+     And not only so, but forasmuch as his adversaries may be many,
+     while he is only one; it is even necessary that the steel he
+     carries be of purer temper and of more subtle point and contrivance
+     than theirs.
+
+     I, Hermes, would arm you with such, that bearing a blade with a
+     double edge, ye may be able to withstand in the evil hour.
+
+     For it is written that the tree of life is guarded by a sword which
+     turneth every way.
+
+     Therefore I would have you armed both with a perfect philosophy and
+     with the power of the divine life.
+
+     And first the knowledge; that you and they who hear you may know
+     the reason of the faith which is in you.
+
+     But knowledge cannot prevail alone, and ye are not yet perfected.
+
+     When the fulness of the time shall come, I will add unto you the
+     power of the divine life.
+
+     It is the life of contemplation, of fasting, of obedience, and of
+     resistance.
+
+     And afterwards the chrism, the power, and the glory. But these are
+     not yet.
+
+     Meanwhile remain together and perfect your philosophy.
+
+     Boast not, and be not lifted up; for all things are God's, and ye
+     are in God, and God in you.
+
+     But when the word shall come to you, be ready to obey.
+
+     There is but one way to power, and it is the way of obedience.
+
+     Call no man your master or king upon the earth, lest ye forsake the
+     spirit for the form and become idolaters.
+
+     He who is indeed spiritual, and transformed into the divine image,
+     desires a spiritual king.
+
+     Purify your bodies, and eat no dead thing that has looked with
+     living eyes upon the light of Heaven.
+
+     For the eye is the symbol of brotherhood among you. Sight is the
+     mystical sense.
+
+     Let no man take the life of his brother to feed withal his own.
+
+     But slay only such as are evil; in the name of the Lord.
+
+     They are miserably deceived who expect eternal life, and restrain
+     not their hands from blood and death.
+
+     They are miserably deceived who look for wives from on high, and
+     have not yet attained their manhood.
+
+     Despise not the gift of knowledge; and make not spiritual eunuchs
+     of yourselves.
+
+     For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
+
+     Ye are twain, the man with the woman, and she with him, neither man
+     nor woman, but one creature.
+
+     And the kingdom of God is within you[49].
+
+The knowledge of the "Seven Spirits" whereby Deity operates in the
+universe, has been completely dropped out of sight by the Christian
+world. It is necessary, therefore, if only in vindication of the
+importance attached to them by our illuminators, to recite the
+instruction received by us concerning them, which is as follows. It is a
+chapter from the recovered Gnosis[50]:--
+
+     "In the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods comprehended, as the
+     seven spirits of the prism, contained in the Invisible Light.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     By the Word of Elohim were the Seven Elohim manifest: even the
+     Seven Spirits of God in the order of their precedence:
+
+     The Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of
+     Counsel, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit
+     of Righteousness, and the Spirit of Divine Awfulness.
+
+     All these are coequal and coeternal.
+
+     Each has the nature of the whole in itself: and each is a perfect
+     entity.
+
+     And the brightness of their manifestation shineth forth from the
+     midst of each, as wheel within wheel, encircling the White Throne
+     of the Invisible Trinity in Unity.
+
+     These are the Divine fires which burn before the presence of God:
+     which proceed from the Spirit, and are one with the Spirit.
+
+     He is divided, yet not diminished: He is All, and He is One.
+
+     For the Spirit of God is a flame of fire which the Word of God
+     divideth into many: yet the original flame is not decreased, nor
+     the power thereof nor the brightness thereof lessened.
+
+     Thou mayest light many lamps from the flame of one; yet thou dost
+     in nothing diminish that first flame.
+
+     Now the Spirit of God is expressed by the Word of God, which is
+     Adonai.
+
+     For without the Word the Will could have had no utterance.
+
+     Thus the Divine Will divided the Spirit of God, and the seven fires
+     went forth from the bosom of God and became seven spiritual
+     entities.
+
+     They went forth into the Divine Substance, which is the substance
+     of all that is."
+
+As already stated, Hermes is the Greek name for the Second of the
+creative Elohim above enumerated. Hence his special relation to the New
+Gospel of Interpretation, the appeal of which is to the Understanding.
+
+Being shown one day in vision the path we had to traverse for the
+accomplishment of our work, "Mary" exclaimed:--
+
+     "What a dreadfully difficult thing it is to steer one's way amidst
+     such numbers of influences! I see a fine, bright-shining thread. It
+     is our own path, and it is a pathway of light. But, oh! so narrow,
+     so narrow, and all around are spirits trying to lure us from it.
+     Here is Hermes, shining like a silver light. My Genius says that
+     the way to get the utmost vitality on the spiritual plane is to
+     abandon the plane of the body, and keep it quite low, by not
+     indulging it. The time for bodily indulgence is passed with us.
+     Abstinence, we have been told, and watchfulness and fasting are
+     needful. And the time for the first of these has come. Nothing is
+     gained without labour or won without suffering. Fasting and
+     Watching and Abstinence, these are Beads and Rosary. It is a hard
+     way and a long way, and it makes one wishful to turn back. We are
+     not to be misled by the story, so much dwelt on to you by the
+     Astrals, of Moses and Aaron[51]. They both were failures, who
+     entered not into the land of Canaan. We must be patient and trust.
+     We have to be cultivated on both planes, the intellectual and the
+     spiritual, and not on the physical, for this draws from and saps
+     the others."
+
+So far as I was concerned, there was yet another rule that was made
+absolute: this was the rule of Poverty. Desiring at one time to mitigate
+the rigour of my enforced economies by working with a commercial intent,
+and to that end endeavouring to finish a tale some time before
+commenced, I found myself baffled by a complete withdrawal of power. I
+was well aware that no romance I could devise would compare with the
+romance I was living, and that any incidents I could invent would be
+tame before those of my actual life; but it was not this that withheld
+me. It was made clear to me that there was now only one direction and
+one plane in which I was accessible to ideas and in which therefore I
+could work, and this a direction and plane altogether incompatible with
+mundane ends. But I had not fully reconciled myself to the loss of my
+earning power, or resolved to refrain from further efforts in that
+behalf, when I received the following experience.
+
+I had gone to bed, but not to sleep, for thinking over the matter, when
+I became aware of the presence of a group of spiritual influences, one
+of whom, speaking for them all, said to me, in tones audible only to the
+inner hearing, but distinct, measured and authoritative--
+
+     "We whom you know as the Gods--Zeus, Phoibos, Hermes, and the
+     rest--are actual celestial personalities, who are appointed to
+     represent to mortals the principles and potencies called the Seven
+     Spirits of God. We have chosen you for our instrument, and have
+     tried you and proved you and instructed you; and you belong to us
+     to do our work and not your own, save in so far as you make it your
+     own. Only in such measure as you do this will you have any success.
+     For you can do nothing without us now: and it is useless for you to
+     attempt to do anything without our help."
+
+By this and manifold other experiences, we had practical demonstration
+of the existence of a celestial hierarchy consisting of souls perfected
+and divinised, divided into orders corresponding to the "Seven Spirits
+of God," and having for their function the illumination of those souls
+of men still on earth who are accessible by them; and to whom they
+manifest themselves in the forms recognised in the mysteries in which
+such persons have formerly been initiated.
+
+We had also manifold proofs of their power to arrest utterance before
+persons unfit to be entrusted with the mysteries. The first instance
+occurred to myself, and was in this wise. I was reading some passages in
+illustration of our work to an old clerical friend who came to see me in
+Paris, when I inadvertently turned to a part of the book which we had
+been charged to keep secret. But before I had read a line, the air round
+me became so dense with invisible presences that I was unable to see,
+and my heart was clutched, as if by an invisible hand, and lifted up
+towards my throat with such force as almost to choke me; while, at the
+same instant, an overwhelming sense of my fault was impressed on my
+mind, causing me for some hours to feel as one utterly God-forsaken and
+cast off.
+
+Not thinking that "Mary" was liable to err in the same way, or caring to
+tell her of my trespass, I kept silence respecting this experience. But
+a few weeks later it was repeated for her. She was speaking of our work
+to a spiritualist friend with whom we were spending the evening, and, in
+her eagerness, got upon topics which I recognised as forbidden. But
+before I had time to remind her, she suddenly stopped short and rose
+from her seat, gasping and dazed, and insisted on returning home
+forthwith, to our hostess's great amazement and disappointment. Divining
+what had occurred, I refrained from questioning her until we were
+outside and alone, when in reply to me she described exactly what had
+happened to me, using the words, "I did not want to be choked!" There
+were other occasions on which I was cut short under like circumstances,
+by having all that I meant to say suddenly and completely obliterated
+from my mind.
+
+Being desirous to know more of the adverse influences against which we
+had been warned, and from which we suffered, "Mary" consulted her
+illuminator respecting their origin and nature, when the following
+colloquy ensued:--
+
+     "They are," he said, "the powers which affect and influence
+     Sensitives. They do not control, for they have no force.... They
+     are Reflects. They have no real entity in themselves. They resemble
+     mists which arise 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 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 vituperation 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, in danger from them?" I asked. "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 is 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 an 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 an one, think you, be
+     vain-glorious 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."
+
+So far from our being sufficiently advanced to escape molestation from
+the sources thus indicated, there were times when we suffered much from
+their incursions, even to the hindrance, for the time being, of the work
+on which our whole hearts were set. Knowing that everything depended on
+our unanimity, they sought to make division between us, and what they
+lacked in force was more than made up for by subtlety[52]. Despite all
+our vigilance, they would insinuate themselves like barbed and poisoned
+arrows between the joints of our armour, there to rankle and envenom, so
+insidious were their suggestions. They did not flatter, but attacked
+us. So that it was a satisfaction to be assured that they attack those
+only who are worth attacking. The very nature of our work was such as to
+invite attack from them, being what they were.
+
+Meanwhile, no experience was withheld that would serve to qualify us for
+what proved to be an essential part of our work, the "discerning of
+spirits" in the sense, not merely of perceiving them, but of
+distinguishing their nature and character. And always was the lesson
+given in a form which combined with its other features that of total
+unexpectedness. Especially important was it for us to be able to
+distinguish between the spirits _of_ the astral, against which we were
+warned, and spirits _in_ the astral, namely, souls which had not yet
+accomplished their emancipation, but were in course of doing so. But
+while as regarded the former we were left to fight the battle for
+ourselves, as regarded the latter there was a control exercised, and
+none were permitted to approach us save such as had a message of service
+which would minister to the solution of a present problem. Of this the
+following experience was an instance. It helped us to a yet fuller
+comprehension, both of the reasons which had dictated our association,
+and of the liabilities to be guarded against.
+
+It was evening[53], and we were occupied in our respective tasks, and so
+entirely engrossed by them as to be disposed to resent any interruption,
+when "Mary" bent across the table, and speaking in a low tone, said to
+me, "There is a spirit in the room who wants to speak to us. Shall I let
+him?" I assented on the condition that he had something to tell us
+really worth hearing. She then became entranced, being magnetised by his
+presence; and after telling me that he spoke with a strong American
+accent and professed to be a "meta-physical doctor"--meaning, she
+supposed, a doctor in metaphysics--repeated the following after him; for
+I could neither see nor hear him:--
+
+     "You two have been put together for a work which you could not do
+     separately. I have been shown a chart of your past histories,
+     containing your characters and your past incarnations. She is of a
+     highly active, wilful disposition, and represents the centrifugal
+     force. You, Caro, are her opposite, and, being contemplative and
+     concentrated, represent the centripetal force. Without her
+     expansive energy you would become altogether indrawn and inactive
+     in deed; and without your restraining influence she would go forth
+     and become dissipated in expansiveness. So extraordinary is her
+     outward tendency that nothing but such an organism as she now has
+     could repress it and keep it within bounds. It is for the work she
+     has to do that she has been placed in a body of weakness and
+     suffering. She is the man--and you the woman--element in your joint
+     system. I can see only her female incarnations, but she has been a
+     man much oftener than a woman; while you have generally been a
+     woman, and would be one now but for the work you have to do. Even
+     as a woman she has always been much more man than woman, for her
+     wilfulness and recklessness have led her into enterprises of
+     incredible daring. Nothing restrained her when her will prompted
+     her. She would wreck any work to follow that, and only by
+     combination with your centripetal tendency can she do the present
+     work. As a man she has been initiated, once, a long time ago, in
+     Thebes, afterwards in India. The things she has done in her past
+     lives! Well, _I_ do not say they were wrong, for I
+     do not hold the existence of moral evil. All things are allowed for
+     good ends; but this is a difficult truth to express."
+
+Here she spoke in her own person, having under his magnetism recovered
+her own vision and recollection, saying--
+
+     "O Caro! I can see your past. You have been--no, it is all wiped
+     out. I cannot see it now. I am not allowed to see it. Why is this?
+     I see my own past. I see India:--a magnificent glittering white
+     marble temple, and elephants. How tame they are! They are all out,
+     and feeding in a field or enclosure. And there are such a number of
+     splendid red flowers, they are cactuses, and all prickly. The trees
+     have all their foliage on the top, and such long stems. They are
+     palms. The soil is of a white dust. And the sky is so clear and
+     blue! But the heat is terrible. I see you again. Your colour is
+     blue, inclining to indigo, owing to your want of expansiveness. But
+     I cannot see your past, except that you are mostly a woman. And now
+     I am by the Nile,--such a fine broad river!"
+
+Here she returned to her normal consciousness, our visitor having taken
+his departure.
+
+Subsequently, in March, 1881, under the influence of a higher
+illuminative power, she found herself as one of a group of initiates
+making solemn procession through the aisles of a vast Egyptian temple,
+and chanting in chorus the rituals which compose the marvellous "Hymn to
+the Planet-God, Iacchos"[54]. For, long as it is, she was able to
+reproduce it afterwards. It was thus, by her recovery of the memory of
+knowledges acquired in past existences, that the divine originals were
+recovered from which the Bible-writers largely derived at once their
+doctrine and their diction. This is not to say that these were mere
+borrowers and unilluminate. It is to say only that they recognised the
+divinity of a prior revelation, and regarded it as a common heritage.
+The truth is one.
+
+Among the uses of the painful experience we were now undergoing[55] was
+this one. It put me on a track of thought of high value in enabling me
+to determine our respective positions in regard to our work. It was
+clearly the endeavour of the astral influences by which we were being
+assailed--the "haters of the mysteries" as our Genii called them[56]--to
+break down our work by destroying that perfect harmony between us which
+was the first condition of it. And all my endeavours failing to discover
+in myself the weak point which rendered us accessible to them, carefully
+as I sought there for it, I was forced to look for it in her, and was
+disposed to ascribe it to the survival from the far past of some defect
+of the affectional nature. For, as we were now learning, man has a dual
+heredity, that of his physical parentage and that of his spiritual
+selfhood. From the former of which he derives his outward
+characteristics; and from the latter his inward character. The
+experience just recited served to confirm the surmise, but it did
+something else besides. It suggested to me the following explanation of
+the situation as growing out of the exigencies of our work. That work
+had for its purpose the accomplishment of the prophesied downfall of the
+"world's sacrificial system." It meant war to the knife against all the
+orthodoxies at once, religious, social, scientific. It meant a
+death-"wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
+against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
+against spiritual wickedness in high places." It meant, in short, the
+destruction foretold by the prophets of "that great city," the world's
+materialistic system in Church, State, and Society, wherein the "Lord,"
+the divinity in man, is ever systematically crucified, and its
+replacement by the "Holy City" or system which comes down from the
+heaven of a perfect ideal.
+
+What, then, I asked myself, was the foremost moral need for the
+instruments of such a work? Surely it was Courage. But courage subsists
+under two modes. There is the courage which manifests itself in action
+and aggression, and there is the courage which manifests itself in
+endurance and resistance. The former is its masculine mode, the latter
+its feminine mode. The former connotes Will, the latter connotes Love.
+And these were the parts assigned respectively to us in our joint
+system. Will and Love united had made the world; disunited, they had
+ruined the world; reunited, they would redeem the world. As He and She,
+King and Queen, positive and negative, centrifugal and centripetal, they
+are the dual powers of all things, the constituent principles at once of
+God and of Man. The whole Universe is Humanity, for it is the
+manifestation of God, and they are the divine man and woman of all
+being; in their conjunction omnipotent for good, in their disjunction
+omnipotent for evil. And whereas it is the function of Will to inflict,
+it is the function of Love to bear. It is not, then, to the lack of
+these qualities that our troubles are due, but to the defect of them,
+the defect of our respective qualities.
+
+The tension of feeling induced by the situation had for me reached a
+pitch at which I had cause for serious apprehension lest my organism
+prove unequal to the strain. For, resolute though I myself was to endure
+to the end, come what might, the effort involved had so greatly affected
+my organic system as nearly to double the number of the heart's
+pulsations, to the imminent risk of a rupture fatal to life or reason.
+Such was the emergency when, longing for light and aid, I received at
+night[57] the following experience, which I reproduce as recorded at the
+time:--
+
+     It seemed to me that I was sole spectator in some circus or
+     hippodrome. And in the arena were some horses, seven in number,
+     harnessed to a common centre, but all facing in different
+     directions like the spokes of a wheel, and pulling frantically, so
+     that the vehicle to which they were attached remained stationary
+     between them, through their counterbalancing each other; while at
+     the same time it seemed as if it must presently be dragged asunder
+     into pieces. On looking at it more closely, the vehicle seemed to
+     become a person who was attempting to drive the horses, but was
+     unable to get them into a line; and, strange to say, the driver was
+     one and identical both with the horses and the vehicle, so that it
+     was a living person who was in danger of being torn asunder by
+     creatures who were in reality himself. While wondering what this
+     meant, some one addressed me and said that if I would do any good,
+     I must help to control and direct the animals which were thus
+     pulling their owner asunder. And that the only way to do this was
+     by so disposing myself that I should be at one and the same time in
+     the centre with the driver, to help him to curb and direct his
+     steeds, and outside at their heads in order to compel their
+     submission. And not only must I be indifferent to their ramping and
+     chafing, I must even suffer myself to be struck and wounded and
+     trampled upon to any extent without flinching; for only when I was
+     so unconscious of self as to be indifferent as to what might happen
+     to me, would they cease to have power against me. And the reason
+     why I must be also in the centre was that only there could I
+     effectually co-operate with the driver to enable him to do his part
+     in directing what in reality were the forces, as yet unbroken in,
+     of his own system, into the road it was necessary for us both to
+     follow. We were destined to be fellow-travellers, and our journey
+     was to be made together and with that team. It could not be made by
+     one of us without the other, and the failure to effect a complete
+     conjunction and co-operation would bring certain ruin to the hopes
+     of both of us and of all who looked to us. The owner of the horses,
+     I was assured, could not of himself control them, and I could only
+     enable him to do so by an absolute surrender of myself.
+
+Applying this vision to the situation, the moral was obvious so far as I
+was concerned, and I wondered whether "Mary" would receive anything
+equally suggestive for herself. In the morning, after remaining
+unusually late in her room, she silently handed me the following account
+of an experience which had similarly and simultaneously been received by
+her:--
+
+     "I was shown two stars near each other, both of them shining with a
+     clear bright light, only that of one the light had a purple tinge,
+     and of the other a blood colour; and a great Angel stood beside me
+     and bade me look at them attentively. I did so, and saw that the
+     stars were not round, but seemed to have a piece cut out of the
+     globe of each of them. And I said to the Angel, 'The stars are not
+     perfect; but instead of being round, they are uneven.' He told me
+     to look again; and I did so, and saw that each globe was really
+     perfect, but that in each a small portion remained dark so as to
+     present the appearance of having a piece out; and I noticed that
+     these dark portions of the two stars were turned towards each
+     other. Upon this I looked to the Angel for the explanation.
+
+     And the Angel said to me, 'These stars derive their light not only
+     from the sun but from each other. If there be darkness in one of
+     them, the corresponding face of the other will likewise be
+     darkened; and how shall either reflect perfectly the image of the
+     sun if it be dark to its companion star? For how shall it respond
+     to that which is above all, if it respond not to that which is
+     nearest?'
+
+     And I said, 'Lord, if the darkness in one of these stars be caused
+     by the darkness in its fellow, which of them was first darkened?'
+
+     Then he answered me and said, 'These stars are of different
+     tinctures; one is of the sapphire, the other of the sardonyx. Of
+     the first the atmosphere is cool and equable; of the other it is
+     burning and irregular. The spirit of the first is as God towards
+     man; the spirit of the second is as the soul towards God. The first
+     loves; the second aspires. And the office of the spirit which loves
+     is outwards; while the office of the spirit which aspires is
+     upwards. The light of the first, which is blue, enfolds, and
+     contains, and embraces, and sustains. The light of the second,
+     which is red, is as a flame which scorches, and burns, and
+     troubles, and seeks God only, and his duty is not to the outward,
+     for it is not given to him to love. God, whom he seeks, _is_ love;
+     and therefore is he drawn upward to God only. But the spirit of his
+     fellow descends. She indraws, and blesses, and confers; and hers is
+     the office which redeems. Wherefore if she fail in her love, her
+     failure is greater than his who hath no love; and to be perfect she
+     must forgive until the seventy times seven, and be great in
+     humility. For the violet, which is the colour of humility, is of
+     the blue. And if she seek her own, or yield not in outward things,
+     her nature is not perfected, and her light is darkened. Let Love,
+     therefore, think not of herself, for she hath no self, but all that
+     she hath is towards others, and only in giving and forgiving is she
+     rich. If, on the contrary, she make a self withinwards, her light
+     is withdrawn and troubled, and she is not perfect, and if she
+     demand of another that which he hath not, then she seeketh her own,
+     and her light is darkened. And if she be darkened towards him, he
+     also will darken towards her, in respect, that is, of
+     enlightenment. And thus her failure of love will break the
+     communion with the Divine, which is through him. He cannot darken
+     outwardly first; for love is not of him. If he darken of himself,
+     it must be within towards God. But that which he receives of God,
+     he gives not forth himself. But he burns centrally and enlightens
+     his fellow, and she gives it forth according to her office. And if
+     she darken in any way outwardly, she cannot receive enlightenment,
+     but darkens the burning star likewise, and so hinders their
+     inter-communion.'
+
+Having thus spoken, the Angel looked upon me and said, 'Ye are the two
+stars, and to one is given the office of the Prophet, and to the other
+the office of the Redeemer. But to be Prophet and Redeemer in one, this
+is the glory of the Christ.'"
+
+Here again was an intimation that on one plane at least of our
+respective systems she was of masculine and I of feminine potency, with
+functions to correspond. That these functions were capable of being
+described in the terms employed was, we felt, no reason for arrogating
+high places to ourselves. Rather did we consider that everything is
+according to its degree; and that, as for persons, if the Gods were to
+wait until they found perfect instruments, or at least perfect persons
+for their instruments, they would never begin. And this also, that if
+the world were in a condition to produce such persons, it would have no
+need of redemption. Had not even Jesus Himself been "crucified through
+weakness"?
+
+In view of the intensity of the distress undergone in this connection, I
+found myself recalling the remark of Plato, "Many begin the mysteries,
+but few complete them." My only wonder was that any should survive the
+ordeals, if they approached ours in severity. Meanwhile it was said to
+us by way of encouragement, "Be sure there is trouble in store. No man
+ever got to the Promised Land without first going through the
+wilderness."
+
+The instruction to "Mary" had not only justified my surmise, it also met
+and corrected her in respect of the chief cause of our trouble. This was
+her disposition, at astral instigation, to withhold from me the products
+of her illuminations, and even to refrain from writing them down[58], on
+the specious pretext that they were meant for her own exclusive
+benefit, and were too sacred to be given to the world, or even to me;
+and she had failed to discern the source and motive of these
+suggestions. So effectually had what were really spirits of darkness
+disguised themselves as angels of light.
+
+The importance attached to the occult significance of our "tinctures"
+received illustration in this wise. Permission had been given us to make
+an exception to the rule of secrecy imposed with regard to certain of
+the Scriptures received by us, in favour of a friend[59] who took so
+warm an interest in our work as to be eager to render it material aid in
+the future should occasion arise. It was her mission, she declared, to
+do so. But when the day appointed for the reading came, "Mary" was so
+ill that her going seemed to be impossible, and the question accordingly
+arose as to whether I might go alone and read them without her. We had
+no sooner begun to consider the point than she became entranced, and was
+shown a large open volume, the book of the Greater Mysteries to which
+our Scriptures belonged, surrounded by an Iris composed of all the
+colours of the rainbow. She was then shown the following lines, which I
+wrote down as she repeated them:--
+
+     "The one in Red guards his privileges, and claims to be present
+     whatever is read.
+
+     For the air is filled with the haters of the Mysteries.
+
+     Therefore for your sake the chain must be complete;
+
+     And the Light must be refracted round you seven times.
+
+     He who is Red stands within the holy circle.
+
+     And the Violet guards the outermost.
+
+     For the Word is a Word of Mystery, and they who guard it are Seven.
+
+     Beware that nothing you hear be told unless the circle be perfect.
+
+     And this charge we lay upon you until the work be accomplished.
+
+     Fire and sword and war are against you; you walk in the midst of
+     commotion.
+
+     And your life is in peril every hour until the words be completed."
+
+Up to the latest moment of the interval before the appointment it seemed
+impossible for her to go. She then suddenly recovered as by miracle, and
+was able to attend the reading.
+
+The liabilities of our position subsequently[60] received this further
+illustration. "Mary" was introduced in sleep, by her Genius, into an
+apartment in the spiritual world which purported to be the laboratory of
+William Lilly, the famous astrologer who had foretold the great plague
+and fire of London in 1666, in order to have her horoscope told by him,
+he still pursuing his favourite studies. On quitting him she caught
+sight of a pile of books, one of which contained the Gnosis we were in
+course of recovering. The following colloquy then ensued:--
+
+"You also have these Scriptures!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," said he, "but I keep them for myself alone."
+
+"And why so," she asked, "since, if you have them, they are for the
+learning of others likewise? Will you not rather communicate these
+saving truths to thirsty souls?"
+
+"I will communicate them," said he, fixing his eyes on her intently,
+"when I can find Seven Men who for forty days have tasted no flesh,
+whose hands have shed no blood, and whose tongues have tasted of none."
+
+"But if you find not Seven?"
+
+"Then, mayhap, I shall find Five."
+
+"And if not Five?"
+
+"Then, maybe, I shall meet with Three."
+
+"But even this may be hard to find, and if you should not meet with
+Three, what then will you do?"
+
+"One Neophyte would not be able to protect himself."
+
+In communicating to her the results of his calculations, he had said
+that owing to the propensities indulged in certain of her former lives,
+she had made for herself a destiny which ensured suffering and failure,
+except when living in a similar manner; doing which she would have a
+life of unbounded success. "But," he continued, "your horoscope has
+nothing for you but misfortune so long as you persist in a virtuous
+course of life, and, indeed, it is now too late to adopt another. I
+speak herein according to your Fortune, not in regard to your Inner
+life. With that I have no concern. I tell you what is forecast for you
+on the material and actual planisphere of your Nativity.... I see
+nothing but misfortune before you. Yea, if you persist in virtue, it is
+not unlikely that you may be stript of all your worldly goods, and of
+all you possess, and this evil fortune will follow your nearest
+associates."
+
+To her enquiry, "Can I never overcome this evil prognostic?" he replied
+that she could do so only by outliving the time appointed for her
+natural life in the career indicated, and added this advice, "Steel
+yourself; learn to suffer; become a Stoic; care not. If Misfortune be
+yours, make it your Fortune. Let Poverty become to you Riches. Let Loss
+be Gain. Let Sickness be Health. Let Pain be Pleasure. Let Evil Report
+be Good Report. Yea, let Death be Life. Fortune is in the Imagination.
+If you believe you have all things, they are truly yours." He concluded
+with an explanation reconciling destiny with free will, and vindicating
+the divine justice, in a manner which removed all our difficulties on
+those points, and, as we later came to learn, was entirely in accordance
+with the Hindu doctrine of "Karma," of which at this time we had never
+heard[61].
+
+There was no exaggeration in the terms of the warning of danger. We were
+constantly made aware of the presence of the malignant entities above
+described focusing their influences on us to prevent the accomplishment
+of our work, and requiring the utmost vigilance on our part, as well
+also as on the part of our illuminators, to thwart their purpose. And we
+had good reason to believe that our difficulties and dangers were
+enhanced through "Mary's" attendances at the schools and hospitals,
+owing to the evil nature of the influences there dominant under a
+regimen grossly materialistic, and her liability to be fastened upon and
+accompanied home by them. The outer walls of her spiritual system--it
+was explained to us--were not yet completed, owing to the vastness of
+the circuit of her selfhood; and hence her accessibility to the
+incursion of noxious influences from without. The treatment of the
+patients by men trained in the physiological laboratory, and bent upon
+turning the hospital ward also into a laboratory with the patients
+themselves for the victims of cruel and wanton experimentation, would
+send her home boiling with indignation and wrath, to the destruction of
+the serenity and self-control requisite for our spiritual work.
+
+It was clear to us that no experience was to be wanting to exhibit the
+contrast between the world's actual and the world's possible. The
+overthrow of "the world's sacrificial system" meant salvation for man
+and beast. The condition of all really redemptive work is a "descent
+into hell." The following instruction to us is a typical one:--
+
+     "Teach the doctrine of the Universal Soul and the Immortality of
+     all creatures. Knowledge of this is what the world most needs, and
+     this is the keynote of your joint mission. On this you must build;
+     it is the key-stone of the arch. The perfect life is not attainable
+     for man alone. The whole world must be redeemed under the new
+     gospel you are to teach."
+
+The following "Counsel of Perfection" which was received[62] by "Mary,"
+is an exquisite expression of the same theme:--
+
+     I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in it seven
+     persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and each of them had
+     before him a scroll, some having books also; and all were
+     greyheaded and bent with age save one, and this was a youth of
+     about twenty, without hair on his face. One of the aged men, who
+     had his finger on a place in a book open before him, said:
+
+     "This spirit, who is of our order, writes in this book,--'Be ye
+     perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.' How shall
+     we understand this word 'perfection'?" And another of the old men,
+     looking up, answered, "It must mean Wisdom, for wisdom is the sum
+     of perfection." And another old man said, "That cannot be; for no
+     creature can be wise as God is wise. Where is he among us who could
+     attain to such a state? That which is part only, cannot comprehend
+     the whole. To bid a creature to be wise as God is wise would be
+     mockery."
+
+     Then a fourth old man said:--"It must be Truth that is intended;
+     for truth only is perfection." But he who sat next the last speaker
+     answered, "Truth also is partial; for where is he among us who
+     shall be able to see as God sees?"
+
+     And the sixth said, "It must surely be Justice; for this is the
+     whole of righteousness." And the old man who had spoken first,
+     answered him:--"Not so; for justice comprehends vengeance, and it
+     is written that vengeance is the Lord's alone."
+
+     Then the young man stood up with an open book in his hand and
+     said:--"I have here another record of one who likewise heard these
+     words. Let us see whether his rendering of them can help us to the
+     knowledge we seek." And he found a place in the book and read
+     aloud:--
+
+     "Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful."
+
+     And all of them closed their books and fixed their eyes upon me.
+
+That it was possible at all for her to study medicine in a school in
+which vivisection was an all prevailing practice, was only because she
+set her face resolutely against it, by refusing to attend any place or
+occasion where or on which it took place, and relying for her own
+education chiefly on private tuition. It was an essential part of her
+plan to prove that such experimentation was not necessary for a degree.
+And this she effectually demonstrated by accomplishing her
+student-course with rare expedition and distinction, despite her many
+and severe illnesses and her frequent change of professors. For one
+after another resigned the office on account of her refusal to allow
+them to experiment on live animals at her lessons. Not until she had
+secured her diploma did she enter a physiological laboratory. And then
+only in order to qualify herself by personal experience to denounce the
+practice. For herself it was not necessary, she declared, to see a
+murder or a robbery committed to know that it is a crime.
+
+The following incident shows how adverse the conditions of modern life
+were to our spiritual work:--
+
+Being in London one Christmas evening[63], and speaking to me under
+illumination, "Mary" suddenly broke off and said--
+
+"Do not ask me such deep questions just now, for I cannot see clearly,
+and it hurts me to look. The atmosphere is thick with the blood shed for
+the season's festivities. The Astral Belt is everywhere dense with
+blood. My Genius says that if we were in some country where the
+conditions of life are purer, we could live in constant communication
+with the spiritual world. For the earth here whirls round as in a cloud
+of blood like red fire. He says distinctly and emphatically that the
+salvation of the world is impossible while people nourish themselves on
+blood. The whole globe is like one vast charnel-house. The magnetism is
+intercepted. The blood strengthens the bonds between the Astrals and the
+Earth.... This time, which ought to be the best for spiritual communion,
+is the worst, on account of the horrid mode of living. Pray wake me up:
+I cannot bear looking; for I see the blood and hear the cries of the
+poor slaughtered creatures." Here her distress was so extreme that she
+wept bitterly, and some days passed before she fully recovered her
+composure.
+
+Our first acquaintance with any literature kindred to our special work
+took place toward the close of our sojourn in Paris[64]. It was due to
+the arrival of the friend in whose favour the exception had been made in
+respect of the reading of our Mysteries, and who was the possessor of an
+excellent library, which she placed at our disposal, of precisely the
+books it had now become necessary for us to read. This was Marie,
+Countess of Caithness and Duchesse de Pomar, who had for many years been
+a spiritualist of zeal so ardent that--as I now came to learn--she had
+been wont to make my conversion to that faith a matter of special
+prayer, long before I had been able to contemplate such an event as
+within the range of probability. Of wide culture, open mind, and large
+sympathies, she had an enthusiastic and intelligent appreciation of our
+work, and her arrival on the scene proved so timely as to point to
+superior direction. We were now able to begin to make acquaintance with
+many of the seers, mystics, and occultists of past ages, from the
+Neoplatonists, Hermetists, Rosicrucians, and other orders of initiates,
+to Boehme, Swedenborg and "Eliphas Levi," and to see what the various
+spiritualistic schools of the present day had to say for themselves.
+
+The following recognition of Hermes by one of the greatest of the
+Neoplatonists, Proclus, who lived in the fifth century of our era, was
+especially gratifying to us as proving the continuity of our experiences
+with those of past ages. Proclus, it must be remembered, was so eminent
+for his wisdom and powers as to be regarded by his contemporaries with a
+veneration approaching to adoration. Says Proclus, "Hermes, as the
+messenger of God, reveals to us His paternal Will, and--developing in us
+the Intuition--imparts to us knowledge. The knowledge which descends
+into the soul from above, excels any that can be attained by the mere
+exercise of the intellect. Intuition is the operation of the soul. The
+knowledge received through it from above, descending into the soul,
+fills it with the perception of the interior causes of things. The Gods
+announce it by their presence, and by illumination, and enable us to
+discern the universal order." Here was exactly the doctrine received by
+us, and the manner of it, only that the Intuition was further disclosed
+to us as due to interior recollection, as declared by Plato, as well as
+to perception.
+
+The results of the investigations thus begun, and afterwards continued
+in the library of the British Museum, proved satisfactory and gratifying
+beyond all that we could have anticipated. For while it was made clear
+to us that there had never been a time when there were not some in the
+world who had the witness to the truth in themselves, and this one and
+the same truth, it was also made clear that whereas others had received
+it in limitation, and beheld it as "through a glass darkly," we were
+receiving it in plenitude and "face to face," to the realisation of the
+high anticipations of the sages, saints, seers, prophets, redeemers, and
+Christs of all time; and this, too, at the period, in the manner, and
+under the conditions declared by them as to mark and make the "time of
+the end."
+
+For in the illuminations vouchsafed to us the key had been restored
+which unlocked the meaning of the symbols in which the doctrines of all
+the churches, pre-Christian as well as Christian, had been at once
+concealed and revealed, to the elucidation of all the problems which
+have so sorely perplexed the world, and the verification, by actual
+experience, of the truth contained in them. No longer now was there for
+us any doubt as to the meaning of allegories such as the Fall, the
+Deluge, the Exodus, and others were now shown us to be; or of prophecies
+such as those of the crushing of the serpent's head by the Woman and her
+seed; the return of Astraea with her progeny of divine sons; the fall
+from heaven of Lucifer and Satan; the Return of the Gods; the reign of
+Michael, "that great prince who standeth for the children of God's
+people"; the breaking of the seals, and opening of the books; the
+recognition of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place;
+the budding of the fig-tree, and the end of that "adulterous
+generation"; the revelation of "that wicked one, the mystery of iniquity
+and son of perdition, whom the Lord, at His coming in the clouds of
+heaven with power and great glory, shall consume with the spirit of His
+mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His coming"; the two
+Witnesses, their resurrection from the dead, and their ascent into
+heaven; the drying up of the great river Euphrates, and the coming of
+the kings of the East by the way thus prepared; the binding of Satan,
+and the acceptable year of the Lord to follow; the exaltation to heaven,
+and clothing with the sun, of the mystic "Woman" of the Apocalypse; the
+advent of the angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to
+proclaim unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people; the
+coming of many from the East, and the West, and the North, and the
+South, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of
+heaven; and the battle of Armageddon, and the end of the world. To all
+these, and other sacred enigmas of like nature, the key had been given
+us. And they one and all proved to be prophecies of one and the same
+event, the restoration of the faculty of inward understanding, and of
+the divine knowledges which only through it are possible. And whereas
+this was the faculty, the corruption and loss of which had made the
+Fall, which was that of the original Church, so was it the faculty, the
+purification and restoration of which was to reverse the Fall,
+accomplishing the Redemption. For by it man will regain his mental
+balance, in virtue of which he was "made upright," and become again
+sound, whole, and sane, and be by _condition_ that which he has been
+divinely declared from the first to be by _constitution_,--an instrument
+of understanding, competent for the comprehension of all truth. For only
+thus is he really man, and made in the divine image; seeing that he is
+not really man, but infant only, until he attains his spiritual majority
+and is able to understand. And that which thus makes him man on the
+plane mental and spiritual, is that which makes him man on the plane
+physical. It is his recognition and appropriation of the "Woman" of that
+plane, the mystic "Woman" of Holy Writ, the mind's feminine mode, the
+Intuition. It is of her first identification by us, as the key to the
+whole mystery of the Bible, that the manner will now be recounted.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] The occasion of the receipt by A.K. and E.M. of the above was one
+of peculiar interest. It was given in reference to a visit from the late
+Laurence Oliphant, an account of which will be found in "The Life of
+A.K." It will suffice to say here that, having heard of their work,
+Oliphant came to them as an emissary from his chief in America, Thomas
+Lake Harris, to summon them to place themselves and all that they were
+and had, at his disposal as the king and Christ of the new dispensation.
+The above instruction was given to them in direct reference to this
+incident. It was followed by others fully exposing the delusive source
+and nature of the doctrine and practice of Laurence Oliphant and Thomas
+Lake Harris. The above Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes is now
+given in full in this book for the first time. It is taken from "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 282-283. S.H.H.
+
+[50] See note p. 7
+
+[51] The above reference is to an experience of mine which does not call
+for relation here. E.M.
+
+[52] Says E.M. in "The Life of A.K."--"The subtlety with which my most
+sensitive places were searched out, and the mercilessness with which
+they were probed by the influences which had now obtained access to us,
+seemed to me to belong altogether to the infernal." (Life A.K. Vol. I.
+p. 318.) S.H.H.
+
+[53] The date was 27th March, 1880. S.H.H.
+
+[54] The Hymn to the Planet-God has been referred to on p. 79. It is
+given in full in the P.W. pp. 341-349: a portion of it concerning the
+passage of the Soul, and concerning the Mystic Exodus, are given on pp.
+169-173 post. The method of the recovery by A.K. of this most important
+Hymn "was such as to constitute it a proof positive of the great
+doctrine set forth in it, the doctrine of Reincarnation; for it was as
+one of a band of initiates, making solemn procession through the aisles
+of a vast Egyptian temple, chanting it in chorus, that 'Mary,' being
+asleep, recollected it." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 456.) S.H.H.
+
+[55] That is, the "strained conditions" under which their association
+was then maintained and their work carried on. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p.
+374.) S.H.H.
+
+[56] See p. 130.
+
+[57] On the night of the 23rd June, 1880. This vision was received by
+E.M. as he pondered and while he was awake. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+376-377.) S.H.H.
+
+[58] Some of A.K.'s illuminations have thus been lost to the world.
+(Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.
+
+[59] Lady Caithness. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 329.) See pp. 137 and 185
+post. S.H.H.
+
+[60] On the 13th-14th January, 1881. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 435.) S.H.H.
+
+[61] A full account of this interview with William Lily is given in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 435-441.
+
+[62] On the 9th April, 1877, in London. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 172.)
+S.H.H.
+
+[63] Christmas Day, 1880. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 430.)
+
+[64] The time referred to was September, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp.
+285-385.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RECAPITULATION.
+
+
+The first compendious statement of the doctrine which it was intended to
+restore, was given to us at Paris in the summer of 1878, in the form of
+an exposition of the principles of Biblical interpretation, under the
+following circumstances.
+
+We had been following our respective tasks[65] for several months
+without any open or special illumination, and I had written enough to
+make a considerable volume in exposition of the principles which
+appeared to me to be those on which, in order to be a book of the soul,
+the Bible ought to be constructed, and by which, therefore, it must be
+interpreted. It was not intended for publication, but as an exercise for
+myself, being purely tentative; though I was conscious of being aided by
+the occasional suggestion of ideas which served as points of light and
+guidance. Meanwhile, I was entirely without help from books; for,
+besides being desirous of evolving the whole from my own consciousness,
+as in the case of the demonstration of any mathematical problem, I was
+not aware of any books which would help me; the little I knew of
+Swedenborg at this time--who was the only writer known to me as a worker
+in a similar direction--having failed to make much impression on me. I
+could accept his general principles, but not his particular applications
+of them. I felt also that the sources of the knowledges vouchsafed to
+us, far transcended those to which Swedenborg had access. And I
+accounted for the length of the interval which had elapsed without any
+larger measure of light being vouchsafed, by supposing that it was
+intended for me to exhaust my own resources first.
+
+The time had come when these were exhausted, and I was reduced to the
+conviction that if the work was to be carried any further, assistance
+must be rendered, whether for confirmation, for correction, or for
+extension. And on retiring to rest one night[66], painfully oppressed by
+the sense of my own lack, and the prolonged absence of the needed light,
+I stood at the open window, and in presence of a sky resplendent with
+stars mentally addressed to those whom we were wont to speak of as the
+Gods, and of whose presence I seemed to be dimly conscious, a strong
+expression of my need, declaring my utter inability to advance another
+step unassisted. Having done which I went to bed, but in a mood the
+reverse of sanguine; so many were the months for which they had been
+silent.
+
+In the course of the following day, "Mary"--who knew nothing either of
+my need or of my adjuration of the preceding night, and could not of
+herself have helped me--found herself under an access of exaltation of
+faculty which she described as resembling what might be produced by a
+draught of spiritual champagne. For she felt herself at her very best,
+having all her knowledge at her finger-ends. The expression recurred to
+my mind some time afterwards on our receiving an explanation of the "New
+Wine of Dionysos" in the ancient mysteries. In this state she went down
+to the schools, where an examination in her subjects was being held, in
+order to see how the candidates comported themselves, and to compare
+them with herself; for it was an oral examination. From this she
+returned home in high delight, declaring that she could have answered
+every question asked, and far better than any of the students had done.
+I hoped that her state might be an indication of the renewal of her
+illuminations. But the events of the evening put all thoughts in this
+direction entirely out of my mind. For, as if poisoned by the atmosphere
+of the schools, she was seized with an attack of sickness so intense and
+prolonged as seriously to endanger her life through the exhaustion
+induced. And it was a late hour--past midnight--before she could be left
+alone.
+
+Nevertheless she was up betimes in the morning, and on our meeting
+handed me a paper which she had written in pencil on waking, saying it
+was something she had read in her sleep, and asking if it was anything
+that I wanted, as she had written it down so rapidly that she scarcely
+observed what it was about, and she had not had time to read it over and
+think about it. Having read it, I found that it met my every difficulty,
+and shed on the Bible a light which rendered it luminous from beginning
+to end, disclosing it as pervaded by a system of thought which, when
+once seen, was as obvious as it had previously been unsuspected.
+
+And while it confirmed me in respect of principles and method, it
+corrected both of us in respect of sundry particulars. It even referred
+directly to one of my tentative hypotheses, at once negativing it and
+giving another altogether satisfactory. This was my supposition of Adam
+and Eve as possibly denoting spirit and matter. The following is the
+writing:--
+
+     "If, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to have a
+     mystic consideration. But the fault of most writers lieth in
+     this,--that they distinguish not between the books of Moses the
+     prophet, and those books which are of an historical nature. And
+     this is the more surprising because not a few of such critics have
+     rightly discerned the esoteric character, if not indeed the true
+     interpretation, of the story of Eden; yet have they not applied to
+     the remainder of the allegory the same method which they found to
+     fit the beginning; but so soon as they are over the earlier stanzas
+     of the poem, they would have the rest of it to be of another
+     nature.
+
+     "It is, then, pretty well established and accepted of most authors,
+     that the legend of Adam and Eve, and of the miraculous tree and the
+     fruit which was the occasion of death, is, like the story of Eros
+     and Psyche, and so many others of all religions, a parable with a
+     hidden, that is, with a mystic meaning. But so also is the legend
+     which follows concerning the sons of these mystical parents, the
+     story of Cain and Abel his brother, the story of the Flood, of the
+     Ark, of the saving of the clean and unclean beasts, of the rainbow,
+     of the twelve sons of Jacob, and, not stopping there, of the whole
+     relation concerning the flight out of Egypt. For it is not to be
+     supposed that the two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of
+     Adam, were real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed that
+     the apple which caused the doom of mankind, was a real apple. It
+     ought to be known, indeed, for the right understanding of the
+     mystical books, that in their esoteric sense they deal, not with
+     material things, but with spiritual realities; and that as Adam is
+     not a man, nor Eve a woman, nor the tree a plant in its true
+     signification, so also are not the beasts named in the same books
+     real beasts, but that the mystic intention of them is implied.
+     When, therefore, it is written that Abel took of the firstlings of
+     his flock to offer unto the Lord, it is signified that he offered
+     that which a lamb implies, and which is the holiest and highest of
+     spiritual gifts. Nor is Abel himself a real person, but the type
+     and spiritual presentation of the race of the prophets; of whom,
+     also, Moses was a member, together with the Patriarchs. Were the
+     prophets, then, shedders of blood? God forbid; they dwelt not with
+     things material, but with spiritual significations. Their lambs
+     without spot, their white doves, their goats, their rams, and other
+     sacred creatures, are so many signs and symbols of the various
+     graces and gifts which a mystic people should offer to Heaven.
+     Without such sacrifices is no remission of sin. But when the mystic
+     sense was lost, then carnage followed, the prophets ceased out of
+     the land, and the priests bore rule over the people. Then, when
+     again the voice of the prophets arose, they were constrained to
+     speak plainly, and declared in a tongue foreign to their method,
+     that the sacrifices of God are not the flesh of bulls or the blood
+     of goats, but holy vows and sacred thanksgivings, their mystical
+     counterparts. As God is a spirit, so also are His sacrifices
+     spiritual. What folly, what ignorance, to offer material flesh and
+     drink to pure power and essential being! Surely in vain have the
+     prophets spoken, and in vain have the Christs been manifested!
+
+     "Why will you have Adam to be spirit, and Eve matter, since the
+     mystic books deal only with spiritual entities? The tempter himself
+     even is not matter, but that which gives matter the precedence.
+     Adam is, rather, intellectual force: he is of earth. Eve is the
+     moral conscience: she is the mother of the living. Intellect, then,
+     is the male, and Intuition the female principle. And the sons of
+     Intuition, herself fallen, shall at last recover Truth, and redeem
+     all things. By her fault, indeed, is the moral conscience of
+     humanity made subject to the intellectual force, and thereby all
+     manner of evil and confusion abounds, since her desire is unto him,
+     and he rules over her until now. But the end foretold by the seer
+     is not far off. Then shall the Woman be exalted, clothed with the
+     Sun, and carried to the throne of God. And her sons shall make war
+     with the dragon, and have victory over him. Intuition, therefore,
+     pure and a virgin, shall be the mother and redemptress of her
+     fallen sons, whom she bore under bondage to her husband the
+     intellectual force."
+
+This marvellously luminous exposition, she then told me, had been read
+by her in a book she had found in a library which she had visited in
+sleep, the owner of which was a courtly old gentleman in the costume of
+the last century. The leaves of the book were of silver and reflected
+her back to herself as she read. I took this as symbolising the
+Intuition. The event proved that her host was no other than Swedenborg,
+and that--as her Genius informed us--she had been enabled, "under the
+magnetism of Swedenborg's presence, to recover a memory of no small
+value," thus confirming my surmise about its intuitional character. The
+event proved also that it was Swedenborg's doctrine, but without his
+limitations. We ardently desired a continuation of it, and on the next
+night but one, she received the following addition to it:--
+
+     "Moses, therefore, knowing the mysteries of the religion of the
+     Egyptians, and having learned of their occultists the value and
+     signification of all sacred birds and beasts, delivered like
+     mysteries to his own people. But certain of the sacred animals of
+     Egypt he retained not in honour, for motives which were equally of
+     mystic origin.
+
+     And he taught his initiated the spirit of the heavenly hieroglyphs,
+     and bade them, when they made festival before God, to carry with
+     them in procession, with music and with dancing, such of the sacred
+     animals as were, by their interior significance, related to the
+     occasion. Now, of these beasts, he chiefly selected males of the
+     first year, without spot or blemish, to signify that it is beyond
+     all things needful that man should dedicate to the Lord his
+     intellect and his reason, and this from the beginning, and without
+     the least reserve. And that he was very wise in teaching this, is
+     evident from the history of the world in all ages, and particularly
+     in these last days. For what is it that has led men to renounce the
+     realities of the spirit, and to propagate false theories and
+     corrupt sciences, denying all things save the appearance which can
+     be apprehended by the outer senses, and making themselves one with
+     the dust of the ground? It is their intellect which, being
+     unsanctified, has led them astray; it is the force of the mind in
+     them, which, being corrupt, is the cause of their own ruin, and of
+     that of their disciples. As, then, the intellect is apt to be the
+     great traitor against heaven, so also is it the force by which men,
+     following their pure intuition, may also grasp and apprehend the
+     truth. For which reason it is written that the Christs are subject
+     to their mothers. Not that by any means the intellect is to be
+     dishonoured; for it is the heir of all things, if only it be truly
+     begotten and be no bastard.
+
+     "And besides all these symbols, Moses taught the people to have
+     beyond all things an abhorrence of idolatry. What, then, is
+     idolatry, and what are false gods?
+
+     "To make an idol is to materialise spiritual mysteries. The
+     priests, then, were idolaters, who coming after Moses, and
+     committing to writing those things which he by word of mouth had
+     delivered unto Israel, replaced the true things signified, by their
+     material symbols, and shed innocent blood on the pure altars of the
+     Lord.
+
+     "They also are idolaters who understand the things of sense where
+     the things of the spirit are alone implied, and who conceal the
+     true features of the Gods with material and spurious presentations.
+     Idolatry is materialism, the common and original sin of men, which
+     replaces spirit by appearance, substance by illusion, and leads
+     both the moral and intellectual being into error, so that they
+     substitute the nether for the upper, and the depth for the height.
+     It is that false fruit which attracts the outer senses, the bait of
+     the serpent in the beginning of the world. Until the mystic man and
+     woman had eaten of this fruit, they knew only the things of the
+     spirit, and found them suffice. But after their fall, they began to
+     apprehend matter also, and gave it the preference, making
+     themselves idolaters. And their sin, and the taint begotten of that
+     false fruit, have corrupted the blood of the whole race of men,
+     from which corruption the sons of God would have redeemed them."
+
+She had received this, also in sleep, as one of a class of neophytes
+seated in an ancient amphitheatre of white stone, and listening to a
+lecture delivered by a man in priestly garb, of which they took notes
+the while. She complained that her notes had disappeared on waking, thus
+preventing her from rendering what she had heard as perfectly as she
+could have wished; for she had trusted to her notes for it.
+
+The more we pondered these communications, the higher was our
+appreciation of them. We felt that the "veil of Moses" was at length
+"taken away" as promised, and we had been enabled to tap a reservoir of
+boundless wisdom and knowledge. For we found in them the longed-for
+solution of the purpose and nature of the Bible and Christianity, and
+the key to man's spiritual history. The method of the Bible-writers, the
+meaning of idolatry, the secret of the Cain and Abel feud between priest
+and prophet, as the ministers respectively of the sense-nature and of
+the intuition, and the process whereby the religion of Jesus had become
+distorted into the orthodoxy which has usurped His name;--all these
+things were now clear to us as the demonstration of a proposition in
+geometry, the witness of which was in our own minds. And we, too, we
+rejoiced to think, were of the school of the prophets, in that with all
+the force of our minds we had "exalted the Woman," Intuition, and
+refused to make the word of God of none effect by priestly traditions.
+
+Not the least marvellous element in the case was the faculty whereby the
+seeress had been able to reproduce, after waking, with such evident
+faithfulness the things seen and heard at so great length in sleep. In
+reply to my questionings she said that the words seemed to show
+themselves to her again as she wrote[67].
+
+Discoursing with her Genius on this subject of memory, she received the
+following, which is valuable also for its recognition of the mystical
+import of the Bible narratives, and confirmation of St Paul when he says
+in reference to certain narratives in Genesis, "These things are an
+allegory."
+
+     "Concerning memory; why should there any more be a difficulty in
+     respect of it? Reflect on this saying,--'Man sees as he knows.' To
+     thee the deeps are more visible than the surfaces of things; but to
+     men generally the surfaces only are visible. The material can
+     perceive only the material, the astral the astral, and the
+     spiritual the spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a
+     question of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but
+     slight, and thine organic memory is feeble and treacherous. It is
+     hard for thee to perceive the surfaces of things and to remember
+     their aspect. But thy spiritual perception is the stronger for this
+     weakness, and the profound is that which thou seest the most
+     readily. It is hard for thee to understand and to retain the memory
+     of material facts; but their meaning thou knowest instantly and by
+     intuition, which is the memory of the soul. For the soul takes no
+     pains to remember; she knows divinely. Is it not said that the
+     immaculate woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow and
+     travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto
+     'Adam'"[68].
+
+The following sentences sum up the conclusions to which, by degrees, we
+were led. The first two paragraphs are from an exposition concerning the
+dogma of the Immaculate Conception which we considered as one of the
+most sublime and momentous of all her illuminations[69].
+
+"All that is true is spiritual.... No dogma is real that is not
+spiritual. If it be true, and yet seem to you to have a material
+signification, know that you have not solved it. It is a mystery; seek
+its interpretation. That which is true is for Spirit alone.
+
+"For matter shall cease and all that is of it, but the Word of the Lord
+shall remain for ever. And how shall it remain except it be purely
+spiritual; since, when matter ceases, it would then be no longer
+comprehensible?"
+
+"For, though matter is eternally the mode whereby spirit manifests
+itself, matter is not itself eternal."
+
+"The church has all the truth, but the priests have materialised it,
+making religion idolatry, and themselves and their people idolaters."
+
+"In their real and divinely intended sense, its doctrines are eternal
+verities, founded in the nature of Being. As ecclesiastically
+propounded, they are blasphemous absurdities."
+
+"All the mistakes made about the Bible arise out of the mystic books
+being referred to times, places, and persons material, instead of being
+regarded as containing only eternal verities about things spiritual."
+
+"The Bible was written by intuitionalists, for intuitionalists, and from
+the intuitionalist standpoint. It has been interpreted by externalists,
+for externalists, and from the externalist standpoint. The most occult
+and mystical of books, it has been expounded by persons without occult
+knowledge or mystical insight"[70].
+
+Thus gradually but surely we learnt that Ecclesiastical education has
+rigidly excluded from its curriculum all those branches of study which
+could throw light on the real nature of existence, and consists in
+learning what other men have said who, themselves, did not know, but
+were mere hearsay scholars lacking the witness in themselves.
+
+We marvelled much as to how the priesthoods will comport themselves when
+compelled to recognise the fact that a New Gospel of Interpretation has
+actually been vouchsafed from the world celestial in correction of their
+perversion and mutilation of the former Gospel of Manifestation, and
+suppression of the true doctrine of salvation. Will Cain and Caiaphas
+still have the dominion, and ecclesiasticism be as ready to crucify the
+Christ on His second coming as it was on His first? And if not, how will
+it find courage to face the world with the humiliating confession that
+all through the long ages of its history, while arrogantly claiming to
+be the faithful and infallible minister of the Gospel of Christ, it has
+persistently withheld that gospel, and, losing the key to its meaning,
+has substituted for the wholesome "bread" of divine truth, the "stones"
+of innutritious because unintelligible dogmas; and for the "fish" of the
+living waters, the "serpents" of the letter which kills? and that when
+men have rightly suspected that Christianity has failed, not because it
+is false, but because it has been falsified, and have sought to their
+own inner light for the truth of which ecclesiasticism had defrauded
+them, it dealt out to them pitiless anathema and persecution, making the
+earth a scene of torture and slaughter in assertion of the right of the
+priesthoods to teach wrong?
+
+That the work committed to us implied nothing less than the fulfilment
+of the prophecies of which the promise of the Second Coming of Christ
+was the culmination, while intimated to us from the outset, was
+gradually unfolded into full assurance, and we were enabled to see that
+the very terms in which it was couched implied a spiritual advent, and
+one which should disclose the perfect system at once of science,
+philosophy, morality, and religion, of which Christ is both the
+foundation and the consummation. For the "clouds of heaven" in which it
+was to take place, were no other than the heaven of the kingdom within
+man of his restored spiritual consciousness. "That wicked one," "the son
+of perdition," and "mystery of iniquity" then to be revealed and
+destroyed, was no other than the inspiring evil spirit of an
+ecclesiasticism which had received indeed its doctrines from above, but
+their interpretation and application from below. And the "Spirit of His
+mouth," and the "Brightness of His Coming" were no other than a new Word
+of God, in the form of a New Gospel of Interpretation, so potent in its
+logic and so luminous in its exposition as to indicate the Logos Himself
+as its source, and the "Woman" Intuition, "clothed with the Sun" of full
+illumination, as its revealer.
+
+We saw, too, that with this "Woman" thus rehabilitated, God's "Two
+Witnesses,"--who have so long lain dead in the streets of "that great
+city" wherein the Lord, the divinity in man, is ever systematically
+crucified; the city of the world's system as fashioned and controlled by
+an ecclesiasticism shrouded in the threefold veil of Blood, Idolatry,
+and the Curse of Eve,--will rise and stand on their feet, and ascend to
+the heaven of their proper supremacy, _vice_ Lucifer deposed and fallen.
+And in them Lucifer himself will regain his lost estate, vindicating his
+title to be called the Light-bearer, the bright and morning star, the
+herald and bringer-in of the perfect day of the Lord God. For, as the
+Intellect, he is the heir of all things, if only he be begotten of the
+Spirit, and be no bastard engendered of the Sense-Nature.
+
+For--as we had come to learn--God's Two Witnesses in man are ever the
+Intellect and the Intuition, when duly unfolded and united in a pure
+spirit. Under such conditions the Shiloh comes, and mounted on them man
+rides triumphant as king into the holy city of his own regenerate
+nature. But divorced from her, the Intuition, and--leagued with the
+Sense-Nature--knowing matter only and the body, the Intellect becomes
+"prince of devils" in man, the maker of men into fiends, and of the
+earth into a hell. Wherefore his fall from the heaven of his power, on
+the advent of that whole Humanity, of whom it is said, "the Man is not
+without the Woman, nor the Woman without the Man, in the Lord," the
+humanity of intellect and intuition combined, has ever been exultingly
+hailed in anticipation by all true seers and prophets.
+
+The chief points of the doctrine, the prospect of the restoration of
+which has thus been the sustaining hope of the percipient faithful in
+all ages, may be summarised as follows:--
+
+The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the purpose of the Bible
+to affirm, and of the Christ to demonstrate, and in which reason
+entirely concurs, is no other than that of the divine potentialities of
+man, belonging to him in virtue of the nature of his constituent
+principles, the force and the substance of existence. These are the
+duality of the "heavens" which God is said to "create," meaning to put
+forth from Himself, "in the beginning," and of the mutual interaction of
+which all things are the product, varying according to the plane of
+operation, alike for creation and redemption, generation and
+regeneration. And that which Jesus really affirmed in the memorable but
+little understood words, "Ye _must_ be born again, or from above, of
+Water and the Spirit," was both the possibility and the necessity to all
+men of realising the potential divinity belonging to them in virtue of
+the divinity of their constituent principles. And in affirming this He
+affirmed both the necessity and the possibility to every man of being
+born exactly as He Himself, as typical man regenerate, is said to have
+been born, of Virgin Mary and Holy Ghost, and also His own identity in
+kind with all other men. And He affirmed, moreover, the utter falsity of
+that priest-constructed system, which, ignoring Regeneration, insists on
+Substitution, as the means of salvation. For "Virgin Mary," and "Holy
+Ghost," are but the mystical synonyms with "Water and the Spirit," the
+substance and force, or soul and spirit, of which, man is constituted,
+in their divine because pure condition, the product of which in man is
+the new regenerate selfhood called, as by St Paul, the "Christ within."
+Begotten in man as matrix, of the pure Spirit and Substance which are
+God, this new selfhood is son at once of God and of man; and in him God
+and man are "reconciled" or "at-oned." And that man is said to be saved
+by his blood, is because the "blood of God" is pure spirit, and it is
+the pure spirit in the man that saves him; and that he is called the
+only-begotten Son of God, is not because God begets no other of his
+kind, but because God, as God, begets directly none of any other kind.
+
+This, then, as we came to learn, and to recognise as having learned it
+in our own long-past lives, is the doctrine which Jesus came to teach
+and to demonstrate in His own person. Matter is spirit, being spiritual
+substance, projected by force of the divine Will into conditions and
+limitations, and made exteriorly cognisable. And being spirit it can
+revert to the condition of spirit. In virtue of the divinity of his
+constituent principles, man has within himself the seed of his own
+regeneration, and the power to effectuate it. He has in him, this is to
+say, the potentiality of divinity realisable at will. And the secret and
+method of the achievement, which is no other than the secret and method
+of Christ, is inward purification and unfoldment, the unfoldment of the
+capacities, mental, moral, and spiritual, of his nature, of which inward
+purification is the first and essential condition. Thus is the Finding
+of Christ the realisation of the Ideal, and Christ is for every man the
+summit of his own evolution.
+
+Stated in terms of modern science, but correcting its aberrations, the
+doctrine of Christ is in this wise. Evolution is the manifestation of
+inherency. Owing to the divinity of the constituent principles of
+existence, its Force and its Substance, both of which are God, the
+inherency of existence is divine. Wherefore, as the manifestation of a
+divine inherency, evolution is accomplished only by the attainment of
+divinity; and the cause of evolution is the tendency of substance to
+revert from its secondary and "created" condition of matter, to its
+original and divine condition of pure spirit. Wherefore evolution is
+definable as the process of the individuation of Deity in and through
+Humanity.
+
+Such is the genesis of the Christ in man. And he is called _a_ Christ
+who, having accomplished this process in himself, returns into the
+earth-life when he has no need to do so for his own sake, out of pure
+love to redeem, by showing to others their own equal divine
+potentialities and the method of the realisation thereof.
+
+This method consists in love, love of perfection, which is God, for its
+own sake, and love for others. The process is entirely interior to the
+individual. It consists in the sacrifice of the lower nature to the
+higher in himself, and of himself for others in love. That which
+directly saves the man is not the love of another for the man, but the
+love which he has in himself. All that can be done by another is to
+kindle this love in him.
+
+The philosophy of this doctrine of salvation by love was formulated for
+us as follows:--"It is love which is the centripetal power of the
+universe; it is by love that all creation returns into the bosom of God.
+The force which projected all things is will, and will is the
+centrifugal power of the universe. Will alone could not overcome the
+evil which results from the limitations of matter; but it shall be
+overcome in the end by sympathy, which is the knowledge of God in
+others,--the recognition of the omnipresent Self. This is love. And it
+is with the children of the spirit, the servants of love, that the
+dragon of matter makes war"[71].
+
+In making the means of salvation extraneous to the individual,
+Sacerdotalism has defrauded man of his Saviour, making the first and
+personal coming of Christ of none effect. Hence the necessity for the
+second and spiritual coming represented by the New Gospel of
+Interpretation as was foretold:--the coming which was to be in the
+clouds of the heaven of man's restored understanding; the Hermes within.
+
+But the process of regeneration is a prolonged one, extending over many
+earth-lives; and so also is the prior process of evolution, whereby man
+reaches the stage at which he is amenable to regeneration. Wherefore
+regeneration has for its corollary reincarnation. To tell man that he
+"must be born again" spiritually, and deny him the requisite
+opportunities of experience, which must be acquired while in the
+body--seeing that regeneration is _from out of the body_--would be to
+mock him.
+
+This doctrine of a multiplicity of earth-lives is implicit and sometimes
+explicit in the Bible. The notion that the Hebrews had no belief in a
+future state because of the failure of commentators to discover it in
+their Scriptures, is altogether futile. The permanence of the Ego was a
+matter of course with them, saving only the Sadducees. And the Bible
+contemplates the persistence of the individual soul through all the
+manifold stages of its evolution, from the "Adam" stage to the "Christ"
+stage, saying, as by St Paul, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall
+all be made alive." But the Christ insisted on by him was not He Who is
+"after the flesh," not the man Jesus, who was but the vehicle of the
+Christ, but the Christ within both Jesus and all other regenerate men.
+For, as a highly illuminated follower of the Gnosis, St Paul was one who
+"after the way which" his orthodox accusers "called heresy, worshipped
+the God of his fathers, believing all things which are according to the
+law, and are written in the prophets." Rejecting the doctrine of
+regeneration, and with it that of reincarnation, in favour of
+substitution, the orthodoxy which claims to be Christianity has
+practically rejected both the doctrine of St Paul and that of Jesus as
+declared to Nicodemus. And, as St Paul implies, the "mystery of
+iniquity" was working even already in his days to annul the gospel of
+Christ by substituting Jesus as the object of worship, and His physical
+blood-shedding as the means of salvation. And Christendom, yielding to
+sacerdotal dictation, has to this day accepted a doctrine which at once
+dishonours God and robs men of their equal divine potentialities with
+Jesus, thus preferring Barabbas. Professing to rest its faith on the
+Bible, it has accepted the presentation of religion which the Bible
+persistently condemns, that of the priests, and rejected that on which
+the Bible emphatically insists, that of the prophets. That St Paul
+employed sacerdotal modes of expression was in order to spiritualise
+them. He was a mystic of mystics.
+
+Nevertheless the dogmas of the Church contain the truth, but this is not
+as the Church has propounded them. And--to cite two crucial
+instances--so far from the Church's supreme dogmas, the Immaculate
+Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, having any personal
+or physical reference, they are prophecies of the method of redemption
+for every individual soul. For, as the New Gospel of Interpretation
+explicitly declares, restoring the Gnosis persistently rejected by the
+builders of the orthodoxies,
+
+     The Immaculate Conception is none other than the prophecy of the
+     means whereby the universe shall at last be redeemed. Maria--the
+     sea of limitless space--Maria the Virgin, born herself immaculate
+     and without spot, of the womb of the ages, shall in the fulness of
+     time bring forth the perfect man, who shall redeem the race. He is
+     not one man, but ten thousand times ten thousand, the Son of Man,
+     who shall overcome the limitations of matter, and the evil which is
+     the result of the materialisation of spirit[72].
+
+     By the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
+     Mary we are secretly enlightened concerning the generation of the
+     soul, who is begotten in the womb of matter, and yet from the first
+     instant of her being is pure and incorrupt.... As the Immaculate
+     Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the Assumption
+     their crown.
+
+     For the entire object and end of kosmic evolution is precisely this
+     triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the mystery presented by
+     this dogma, we behold the consummation of the whole scheme of
+     creation--the perpetuation and glorification of the individual
+     human ego. The grave--the material and astral consciousness, cannot
+     retain the immaculate Mother of God. She rises into the heavens;
+     she assumes divinity.... From end to end the mystery of the soul's
+     evolution--the history, that is, of humanity and of the kosmic
+     drama--is contained and enacted in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin
+     Mary. The acts and the glories of Mary are the one supreme subject
+     of the holy mysteries[73].
+
+     "Allegory of stupendous significance!" exclaimed the seeress's
+     illuminator when imparting to her the mystery of the Immaculate
+     Conception. "Allegory of stupendous significance! with which the
+     Church of God has so long been familiar, but which yet never
+     penetrated its understanding, like the holy fire which enveloped
+     the sacred Bush, but which nevertheless the Bush withstood and
+     resisted[10].
+
+That such failure has been the rule and not the exception is the plea
+for the New Gospel of Interpretation. For lack of comprehension of its
+own symbols the Church has fallen into the disastrous errors of
+mistaking the man Jesus for the Christ within every man, and Mary the
+mother of Jesus for Virgin Mary the mother of that Christ, committing in
+both instances idolatry by preferring the form to the substance, persons
+to principles, and blinding men to the essential truth implied.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[65] A.K. was preparing for her second Doctorat, and E.M. was
+elaborating out of his own consciousness "a key to the interpretation
+especially of the initial chapters of Genesis." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p.
+264.)
+
+[66] On the 4th June, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 265.)
+
+[67] E.M. says:--"Her notes, of course, disappeared with her dream, and
+she had to reproduce it from memory. But this was abnormally enhanced,
+for she said that the words presented themselves again to her as she
+wrote, and stood out luminously to view." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 269.)
+
+[68] That is the outer sense and lower reason.
+
+[69] The illumination in question was received by A.K. in Paris on the
+night of the 25th July, 1877, and was written down under trance. Further
+portions are given on pp. 158, 159, 161. It is given in full in "The
+Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 202-203.
+
+[70] See further on this most important subject "The Bible's Own Account
+of Itself," by E.M., the only complete edition of which is published by
+"The Ruskin Press," Ruskin House, Stafford Street, Birmingham. S.H.H.
+
+[71] From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate
+Conception, referred to on p. 151.
+
+[72] From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immaculate
+Conception, referred to on p. 151.
+
+[73] From the exposition concerning the Christian Mysteries given in
+full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 99-100.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EXEMPLIFICATION.
+
+
+This chapter will be devoted to some examples of the recovered Gnosis,
+bearing chiefly upon the supreme doctrine of Regeneration. As with all
+else received by the Seeress, they are the product of intuitional memory
+regained under divine illumination occurring mostly in sleep. And here I
+will take occasion to state explicitly and positively, that the states,
+whether of sleep or of trance, in which her faculty was exercised, were
+all natural and spontaneous, being induced by the Spirit itself; and
+that in no case were artificial means employed by either of us, whether
+drugs, mesmerism, hypnotism, crystal-gazing, or any other of the devices
+ordinarily used to induce abnormal states of consciousness or promote
+enhancement of faculty. Our work was to be a real work, done not only by
+us but in us, and we had from the first a profound instinctive distrust
+of results obtained by such artificial stimulation.
+
+Nor was any change even of a word ever made in the teachings received.
+They came one and all in the finished perfection in which they are put
+forth, coming down as the holy city from the heaven of the upper and the
+within, and incapable of improvement. The following are the examples
+proposed:--
+
+(1) Concerning Holy Writ.
+
+     All Scriptures which are the true Word of God, have a dual
+     interpretation, the intellectual and the intuitional, the apparent
+     and the hidden.
+
+     For nothing can come forth from God save that which is fruitful.
+
+     As is the nature of God, so is the Word of God's mouth.
+
+     The letter alone is barren; the spirit and the letter give life.
+
+     But that Scripture is the more excellent, which is exceeding
+     fruitful and brings forth abundant signification.
+
+     For God is able to say many things in one, as the perfect ovary
+     contains many seeds in its chalice.
+
+     Therefore there are in the Scriptures of God's Word certain
+     writings which, as richly yielding trees, bear more abundantly than
+     others in the self-same holy garden.
+
+     And one of the most excellent is the history of the generation of
+     the heavens and the earth.
+
+     For therein is contained in order a genealogy, which has four
+     heads, as a stream divided into four branches, a word exceeding
+     rich.
+
+     And the first of these generations is that of the Gods.
+
+     The second is that of the kingdom of heaven.
+
+     The third is that of the visible world.
+
+     And the fourth is that of the Church of Christ.
+
+(2) Concerning the Mystery of Redemption.
+
+     All things in heaven and in earth are of God, both the invisible
+     and the visible.
+
+     Such as is the invisible, is the visible also, for there is no
+     boundary line betwixt spirit and matter.
+
+     Matter is spirit made exteriorly cognisable by the force of the
+     Divine Word.
+
+     And when God shall resume all things by love, the material shall be
+     resolved into the spiritual, and there shall be a new heaven and a
+     new earth.
+
+     Not that matter shall be destroyed, for it came forth from God, and
+     is of God indestructible and eternal.
+
+     But it shall be indrawn and resolved into its true self.
+
+     It shall put off corruption, and remain incorruptible.
+
+     It shall put off mortality, and remain immortal.
+
+     So that nothing be lost of the Divine substance.
+
+     It was material entity: it shall be spiritual entity.
+
+     For there is nothing which can go out from the presence of God.
+
+     This is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: that is, the
+     transfiguration of the body.
+
+     For the body, which is matter, is but the manifestation of spirit:
+     and the Word of God shall transmute it into its inner being.
+
+     The will of God is the alchemic crucible: and the dross which is
+     cast therein is matter.
+
+     And the dross shall become pure gold, seven times refined; even
+     perfect spirit.
+
+     It shall leave behind it nothing: but shall be transformed into the
+     Divine image.
+
+     For it is not a new substance: but its alchemic polarity is
+     changed, and it is converted.
+
+     But except it were gold in its true nature, it could not be resumed
+     into the aspect of gold.
+
+     And except matter were spirit, it could not revert to spirit.
+
+     To make gold, the alchemist must have gold.
+
+     But he knows that to be gold which others take to be dross.
+
+     Cast thyself into the will of God, and thou shalt become as God.
+
+     For thou art God, if thy will be the Divine Will.
+
+     This is the great secret: it is the mystery of Redemption.
+
+(3) Concerning Sin and Death.
+
+     As is the outer so is the inner: He that worketh is One.
+
+     As the small is, so is the great: there is one law.
+
+     Nothing is small and nothing is great in the Divine Economy.
+
+     If thou wouldst understand the method of the world's corruption,
+     and the condition to which sin hath reduced the work of God,
+
+     Meditate upon the aspect of a corpse; and consider the method of
+     the putrefaction of its tissues and humours.
+
+     For the secret of death is the same, whether of the outer or of the
+     inner.
+
+     The body dieth when the central will of its system no longer
+     bindeth in obedience the elements of its substance.
+
+     Every cell is a living entity, whether of vegetable or of animal
+     potency.
+
+     In the healthy body every cell is polarised in subjection to the
+     central will, the Adonai of the physical system.
+
+     Health, therefore, is order, obedience, and government.
+
+     But wherever disease is, there is disunion, rebellion, and
+     insubordination.
+
+     And the deeper the seat of the confusion, the more dangerous the
+     malady, and the harder to quell it.
+
+     That which is superficial may be more easily healed; or, if need
+     be, the disorderly elements may be rooted out, and the body shall
+     be whole and at unity again.
+
+     But if the disobedient molecules corrupt each other continually,
+     and the perversity spread, and the rebellious tracts multiply their
+     elements; the whole body shall fall into dissolution, which is
+     death.
+
+     For the central will that should dominate all the kingdom of the
+     body, is no longer obeyed; and every element is become its own
+     ruler, and hath a divergent will of its own.
+
+     So that the poles of the cells incline in divers directions; and
+     the binding power which is the life of the body, is dissolved and
+     destroyed.
+
+     And when dissolution is complete, then follow corruption and
+     putrefaction.
+
+     Now, that which is true of the physical, is true likewise of its
+     prototype.
+
+     The whole world is full of revolt; and every element hath a will
+     divergent from God.
+
+     Whereas there ought to be but one will, attracting and ruling the
+     whole man.
+
+     But there is no longer Brotherhood among you; nor order, nor mutual
+     sustenance.
+
+     Every cell is its own arbiter; and every member is become a sect.
+
+     Ye are not bound one to another: ye have confounded your offices,
+     and abandoned your functions.
+
+     Ye have reversed the direction of your magnetic currents: ye are
+     fallen into confusion, and have given place to the spirit of
+     misrule.
+
+     Your wills are many and diverse; and every one of you is an
+     anarchy.
+
+     A house that is divided against itself, falleth.
+
+     O wretched man; who shall deliver you from this body of Death?
+
+(4) Concerning the Twelve Gates of Regeneration.
+
+     Now, the Kingdom of God is within us; that is, it is interior,
+     invisible, mystic, spiritual.
+
+     There is a power by means of which the Outer may be absorbed into
+     the Inner.
+
+     There is a power by means of which Matter may be ingested into its
+     original Substance.
+
+     He who possesses this power is Christ, and He has the devil under
+     foot.
+
+     For He reduces chaos to order, and indraws the external to the
+     centre.
+
+     He has learnt that Matter is illusion, and that Spirit alone is
+     real.
+
+     He has found His own Central Point; and all power is given unto Him
+     in heaven and on earth.
+
+     Now, the Central Point is the number Thirteen: it is the number of
+     the Marriage of the Son of God.
+
+     And all the members of the microcosm are bidden to the banquet of
+     the marriage.
+
+     But if there chance to be even one among them which has not on a
+     wedding garment,
+
+     Such a one is a Traitor, and the microcosm is found divided against
+     itself.
+
+     And that it may be wholly regenerate, it is necessary that Judas be
+     cast out.
+
+     Now the members of the microcosm are Twelve: of the Senses three,
+     of the Mind three, of the Heart three, and of the Conscience three.
+
+     For of the Body there are four elements; and the sign of the four
+     is Sense, in the which are three Gates,
+
+     The gate of the Eye, the gate of the Ear, and the gate of the
+     Touch[74].
+
+     Renounce vanity, and be poor: renounce praise, and be humble:
+     renounce luxury, and be chaste.
+
+     Offer unto God a pure oblation: let the fire of the altar search
+     thee, and prove thy fortitude.
+
+     Cleanse thy sight, thine hands, and thy feet: carry the censer of
+     thy worship into the courts of the Lord; and let thy vows be unto
+     the Most High.
+
+     And for the magnetic man[75] there are four elements: and the
+     covering of the four is mind, in the which are three gates;
+
+     The gate of desire, the gate of labour, and the gate of
+     illumination.
+
+     Renounce the world, and aspire heavenward: labour not for the meat
+     which perishes, but ask of God thy daily bread: beware of wandering
+     doctrines, and let the Word of the Lord be thy light.
+
+     Also of the soul there are four elements: and the seat of the four
+     is the heart, whereof likewise there are three gates;
+
+     The gate of obedience, the gate of prayer, and the gate of
+     discernment.
+
+     Renounce thine own will, and let the law of God only be within
+     thee: renounce doubt: pray always and faint not: be pure of heart
+     also, and thou shalt see God.
+
+     And within the soul is the Spirit: and the Spirit is One, yet has
+     it likewise three elements.
+
+     And these are the gates of the oracle of God, which is the ark of
+     the covenant;
+
+     The rod, the host[76], and the law:
+
+     The force which solves, and transmutes, and divines: the bread of
+     heaven which is the substance of all things and the food of angels;
+     the table of the law, which is the will of God, written with the
+     finger of the Lord.
+
+     If these three be within thy spirit, then shall the Spirit of God
+     be within thee.
+
+     And the glory shall be upon the propitiatory, in the holy place of
+     thy prayer.
+
+     These are the twelve gates of regeneration: through which if a man
+     enter he shall have right to the tree of life.
+
+     For the number of that Tree is Thirteen.
+
+     It may happen to a man to have three, to another five, to another
+     seven, to another ten.
+
+     But until a man have twelve, he is not master over the last enemy.
+
+(5) Concerning the Passage of the Soul[77].
+
+     Evoi, Father Iacchos, Lord God of Egypt: initiate thy servants in
+     the halls of thy Temple;
+
+     Upon whose walls are the forms of every creature: of every beast of
+     the earth, and of every fowl of the air;
+
+     The lynx, and the lion, and the bull: the ibis and the serpent: the
+     scorpion and every flying thing.
+
+     And the columns thereof are human shapes; having the heads of
+     eagles and the hoofs of the ox.
+
+     All these are of thy kingdom: they are the chambers of ordeal, and
+     the houses of the initiation of the soul.
+
+     For the soul passeth from form to form; and the mansions of her
+     pilgrimage are manifold.
+
+     Thou callest her from the deep, and from the secret places of the
+     earth; from the dust of the ground, and from the herb of the field.
+
+     Thou coverest her nakedness with an apron of fig-leaves; thou
+     clothest her with the skins of beasts.
+
+     Thou art from of old, O soul of man; yea, thou art from the
+     everlasting.
+
+     Thou puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture dost thou
+     fold them up.
+
+     They perish, but thou remainest: the wind rendeth and scattereth
+     them; and the place of them shall no more be known.
+
+     For the wind is the Spirit of God in man, which bloweth where it
+     listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
+     whence it cometh, nor whither it shall go.
+
+     Even so is the spirit of man, which cometh from afar off and
+     tarrieth not, but passeth away to a place thou knowest not.
+
+(6) Concerning the Mystic Exodus[77].
+
+     Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of the Sphinx; who linkest the lowest to the
+     highest; the loins of the wild beast to the head and breast of the
+     woman.
+
+     Thou holdest the chalice of divination: all the forms of nature are
+     reflected therein.
+
+     Thou turnest man to destruction: then thou sayest, Come again, ye
+     children of my hand.
+
+     Yea, blessed and holy art thou, O Master of Earth: Lord of the
+     cross and the tree of salvation.
+
+     Vine of God, whose blood redeemeth; bread of heaven, broken on the
+     altar of death.
+
+     There is corn in Egypt; go thou down into her, O my soul, with joy.
+
+     For in the kingdom of the Body, thou shalt eat the bread of thine
+     initiation.
+
+     But beware lest thou become subject to the flesh, and a bond-slave
+     in the land of thy sojourn.
+
+     Serve not the idols of Egypt; and let not the senses be thy
+     taskmasters.
+
+     For they will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will bitterly
+     oppress the Israel of God.
+
+     An evil time shall come upon thee; and the Lord shall smite Egypt
+     with plagues for thy sake.
+
+     Thy body shall be broken on the wheel of God; thy flesh shall see
+     trouble and the worm.
+
+     Thy house shall be smitten with grievous plagues; blood, and
+     pestilence, and great darkness; fire shall devour thy goods; and
+     thou shalt be a prey to the locust and creeping thing.
+
+     Thy glory shall be brought down to the dust; hail and storm shall
+     smite thine harvest; yea, thy beloved and thy first-born shall the
+     hand of the Lord destroy;
+
+     Until the body let the soul go free; that she may serve the Lord
+     God.
+
+     Arise in the night, O soul, and fly, lest thou be consumed in
+     Egypt.
+
+     The angel of the understanding shall know thee for his elect, if
+     thou offer unto God a reasonable faith.
+
+     Savour thy reason with learning, with labour, and with obedience.
+
+     Let the rod of thy desire be in thy right hand: put the sandals of
+     Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with strength.
+
+     Then shalt thou pass through the waters of cleansing, which is the
+     first death in the body.
+
+     The waters shall be a wall unto thee on thy right hand and on thy
+     left.
+
+     And Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee; for he is thy cloud
+     of darkness by day, and thy pillar of fire by night.
+
+     All the horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof; her princes,
+     her counsellors, and her mighty men:
+
+     These shall pursue thee, O soul, that fliest; and shall seek to
+     bring thee back into bondage.
+
+     Fly for thy life; fear not the deep; stretch out thy rod over the
+     sea; and lift thy desire unto God.
+
+     Thou hast learnt wisdom in Egypt; thou has spoiled the Egyptians;
+     thou hast carried away their fine gold and their precious things.
+
+     Thou hast enriched thyself in the body; but the body shall not hold
+     thee; neither shall the waters of the deep swallow thee up.
+
+     Thou shalt wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration; the blood of
+     atonement shall redeem thee to God.
+
+     This is thy chrism and anointing, O soul; this is the first death;
+     thou art the Israel of the Lord,
+
+     Who hath redeemed thee from the dominion of the body; and hath
+     called thee from the grave, and from the house of bondage,
+
+     Unto the way of the cross, and to the path in the midst of the
+     wilderness;
+
+     Where are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and the burning
+     sand.
+
+     For the feet of the saint are set in the way of the desert.
+
+     But be thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then shall thy
+     raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax old upon thee.
+
+     And thy desire shall heal thy diseases; it shall bring streams for
+     thee out of the stony rock; it shall lead thee to Paradise.
+
+     Evoi, Father Iacchos, Jehovah-Nissi[78]; Lord of the garden and of
+     the vineyard;
+
+     Initiator and lawgiver; God of the cloud and of the mount.
+
+     Evoi, Father Iacchos; out of Egypt has thou called thy Son.
+
+To vindicate the suppressed mysteries of the pre-Christian churches by
+disclosing them as the true _origines_ of Christianity, and to replace
+the false doctrine of the exclusive divinity of one man by the true
+doctrine of the potential divinity of all men,--these are among the
+foremost objects of the New Gospel of Interpretation. And it is
+especially in order to reinforce the last named, that it has restored
+the following hymn in celebration of the supreme results of
+regeneration, which formed part of the ritual of the greater mysteries
+of the Greeks. It is addressed to the first of the Holy Seven, the
+Spirit of Wisdom, as represented by his "angel," the angel of the sun,
+even "that light which Adonai created on the first day," "whose name is,
+in the Hebrew, Uriel, and in the Greek, Phoibos, the Bright One of God."
+Breathing both the Spirit and the letter of the Bible, from Genesis to
+the Apocalypse, the hymns, of which this is one, indicate unmistakeably
+the identity in source and substance of the Hebrew and the Christian
+with the other sacred mysteries of antiquity, and the derivation of the
+later through the earlier from their common source in the world
+celestial when once again they have been restored. And they supply also
+the motive which led the Christians to destroy the second Alexandrian
+library, showing that motive to have been the desire to conceal, first,
+the derivation of the Christian presentment from its predecessors, and
+next, the perversion of their doctrine in the interests of an
+unscrupulous sacerdocy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Taken in connection with its fellow-hymns, similarly recovered, to
+others of the "Holy Seven," the hymn to Phoibos throws a flood of light
+on the creative week of Genesis, showing it to be no mere proem to
+Scripture, or concerned with the world physical merely, but an integral
+portion of Scripture, being an epitome of eternal verities ever in
+process, and appertaining both to Creation and to Redemption. The Hymn
+to Her who is mystically the fourth, but really the third of the Gods,
+the "Spirit of Counsel" of Isaiah, is especially notable for its
+solution of the problem of the inversion of the order of the third and
+fourth days of creation. These hymns, moreover, show indubitably that
+the order of the solar system was no secret to the hierophants of the
+sacred mysteries of antiquity.
+
+(7) Hymn to Phoibos, the First of the Gods.
+
+     "Strong art thou and adorable, Phoibos Apollo, who bearest life and
+     healing on thy wings, who crownest the year with thy bounty, and
+     givest the spirit of thy divinity to the fruits and precious things
+     of all the worlds.
+
+     Where were the bread of the initiation of the Sons of God, except
+     thou bring the corn to ear; or the wine of their mystical chalice,
+     except thou bless the vintage?
+
+     Many are the angels who serve in the courts of the spheres of
+     heaven: but thou, Master of Light and of Life, art followed by the
+     Christs of God.
+
+     And thy sign is the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and of the
+     Just made perfect;
+
+     Whose path is as a shining light, shining more and more unto the
+     innermost glory of the day of the Lord God.
+
+     Thy banner is blood-red, and thy symbol is a milk-white lamb, and
+     thy crown is of pure gold.
+
+     They who reign with thee are the Hierophants of the celestial
+     mysteries; for their will is the will of God, and they know as they
+     are known.
+
+     These are the sons of the innermost sphere; the Saviours of men,
+     the Anointed of God.
+
+     And their name is Christ Jesus, in the day of their initiation.
+
+     And before them every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and of
+     things on earth.
+
+     They are come out of great tribulation, and are set down for ever
+     at the right hand of God.
+
+     And the Lamb, which is in the midst of the seven spheres, shall
+     give them to drink of the river of living water.
+
+     And they shall eat of the tree of life, which is in the centre of
+     the garden of the kingdom of God.
+
+     These are thine, O Mighty Master of Light; and this is the dominion
+     which the Word of God appointed thee in the beginning:
+
+     In the day when God created the light of all the worlds, and
+     divided the light from the darkness.
+
+     And God called the light Phoibos, and the darkness God called
+     Python.
+
+     Now the darkness was before the light, as the night forerunneth the
+     dawn.
+
+     These are the evening and the morning of the first cycle of the
+     Mysteries.
+
+     And the glory of that cycle is as the glory of seven days; and they
+     who dwell therein are seven times refined;
+
+     Who have purged the garment of the flesh in the living waters;
+
+     And have transmuted both body and soul into spirit, and are become
+     pure virgins.
+
+     For they were constrained by love to abandon the outer elements,
+     and to seek the innermost which is undivided, even the Wisdom of
+     God.
+
+     And wisdom and love are one.
+
+In view of the restoration of the Gods to recognition by the New Gospel
+of Interpretation, it must be explained that the doctrines of Monotheism
+and Polytheism are not necessarily incompatible. This has already been
+shown in Chapter IV., in the utterance commencing--"In the bosom of the
+Eternal were all the Gods comprehended, as the seven spirits of the
+prism contained in the Invisible Light." For as light is one though its
+rays are seven and each ray is light, so is God one though His spirits
+are seven and each spirit is God.
+
+And yet further. The deities recognised under various names or by
+various peoples are not necessarily different Gods, but may be either
+the same God or different modes or aspects of the same God. Notably is
+this the case with the Gods of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the
+Christians. For while by the term Elohim is denoted the two principles,
+masculine and feminine, of Force and Substance, which constitute
+Original Being, by Jehovah or Yahveh, Adonai and Shaddai, is denoted the
+resultant of the interaction of these two principles as Father and
+Mother, who is called therefore their word, expression, and Son. By the
+Holy Ghost is denoted the same two principles in activity, having
+procession from the "Father-Mother" through the "Son," to be the
+constituent principles of creation, being Deity dynamic as distinguished
+from Deity static. By the Seven Spirits of God--as by the seven great
+Gods of the Greeks,--are denoted the seven potencies into which Deity
+differentiates on emerging as Holy Ghost from the prism constituted of
+Father, Mother, and Son, which are to each other as the force,
+substance, and phenomenon of which every manifest entity consists. For
+"Every entity that is manifest, is manifest by the evolution of its
+trinity." And by Christ is denoted the ultimate issue of such procession
+of Deity into manifestation, namely, divinity individuated by means of
+its passage through matter, and elaborated by co-operation of the Seven
+Spirits of God, into a perfected _spiritual_ Ego, who is at once God and
+man, and subsists under two modes--the microcosmic or individual, and
+the macrocosmic or universal, and who is always in process of increase,
+because, in manifestation, "the Father is greater than the Son;" and
+"the manifest never exhausts the unmanifest."
+
+Now the process of the Christ is by regeneration, and of this, as has
+been said, reincarnation is the condition. The New Gospel of
+Interpretation contains an utterance of Jesus on this subject which will
+fitly conclude this series of examples. It was recovered by "Mary" under
+illumination early in 1880, and consequently when we had not fully come
+to realise the actuality of the doctrine and the possibility of the
+recovery of the memories of past lives. Hence she sought from her
+illuminators confirmation of the genuineness of the experience, when she
+was distinctly and positively assured that the incident had actually
+occurred, and that she had borne part in it, though no record of it
+survives. Such is the extrinsic testimony on which it rests. We found
+the intrinsic no less satisfactory, whether as regards the substance or
+the form.
+
+(8) Concerning the previous lines of Jesus, and Reincarnation.
+
+     This morning between sleeping and waking I saw myself, together
+     with many other persons, walking with Jesus in the fields round
+     about Jerusalem, and while He was speaking to us, a man approached,
+     who looked very earnestly upon Him. And Jesus turned to us and
+     said, "This man whom you see approaching is a seer. He can behold
+     the past lives of a man by looking into his face." Then, the man
+     being come up to us, Jesus took him by the hand and said, "What
+     readest thou?" And the man answered, "I see Thy past, Lord Jesus,
+     and the ways by which Thou hast come." And Jesus said to him, "Say
+     on." So the man told Jesus that he could see Him in the past for
+     many long ages back. But of all that he named, I remember but one
+     incarnation, or, perhaps, one only struck me, and that was _Isaac_.
+     And as the man went on speaking, and enumerating the incarnations
+     he saw, Jesus waved His right hand twice or thrice before his eyes,
+     and said, "It is enough," as though He wished him not to reveal
+     further. Then I stepped forward from the rest and said, "Lord, if,
+     as thou hast taught us, the woman is the highest form of humanity,
+     and the last to be assumed, how comes it that Thou, the Christ, art
+     still in the lower form of man? Why comest Thou not to lead the
+     perfect life, and to save the world as woman? For surely Thou has
+     attained to womanhood." And Jesus answered, "I have attained to
+     womanhood, as thou sayest; and
+     already have I taken the form of woman. But there are three
+     conditions under which the soul returns to the man's form; and they
+     are these:--
+
+     "1st. When the work which the Spirit proposes to accomplish is of a
+     nature unsuitable to the female form.
+
+     "2nd. When the Spirit has failed to acquire, in the degree
+     necessary to perfection, certain special attributes of the male
+     character.
+
+     "3rd. When the Spirit has transgressed, and gone back in the path
+     of perfection, by degrading the womanhood it had attained.
+
+     "In the first of these cases the return to the male form is outward
+     and superficial only. This is my case. I am a woman in all save the
+     body. But had My body been a woman's, I could not have led the life
+     necessary to the work I have to perform. I could not have trod the
+     rough ways of the earth, nor have gone about from city to city
+     preaching, nor have fasted on the mountains, nor have fulfilled My
+     mission of poverty and labour. Therefore am I--a woman--clothed in
+     a man's body that I may be enabled to do the work set before Me.
+
+     "The second case is that of a soul who, having been a woman perhaps
+     many times, has acquired more aptly and readily the higher
+     qualities of womanhood than the lower qualities of manhood. Such a
+     soul is lacking in energy, in resoluteness, in that particular
+     attribute of the Spirit which the prophet ascribes to the Lord when
+     he says, 'The Lord is a Man of war.' Therefore the soul is put back
+     into a man's form to acquire the qualities yet lacking.
+
+     "The third case is that of the backslider, who, having nearly
+     attained perfection,--perhaps even touched it,--degrades and soils
+     his white robe, and is put back into the lower form again. These
+     are the common cases; for there are few women who are worthy to be
+     women"[79].
+
+(9) Concerning the "Work of Power."
+
+     You have asked me if the Work of Power is a difficult one, and if
+     it is open to all.
+
+     It is open to all potentially and eventually, but not actually and
+     in the present. In order to regain power and the resurrection, a
+     man must be a Hierarch; that is to say, he must have attained the
+     _magical_ age of thirty-three. This age is attained by having
+     accomplished the Twelve Labours, passed the Twelve Gates, overcome
+     the Five Senses, and obtained dominion over the Four Spirits of the
+     elements. He must have been born Immaculate, baptised with Water
+     and Fire, tempted in the Wilderness, crucified and buried. He must
+     have borne Five Wounds on the Cross, and he must have answered the
+     riddle of the Sphinx. When this is accomplished he is free of
+     matter, and will never again have a phenomenal body.
+
+     Who shall attain to this perfection? The Man who is without fear
+     and without concupiscence; who has courage to be absolutely poor
+     and absolutely chaste. When it is all one to you whether you have
+     gold or whether you have none, whether you have a house and lands
+     or whether you have them not, whether you have worldly reputation
+     or whether you are an outcast,--then you are voluntarily poor. It
+     is not necessary to have nothing, but it is necessary to care for
+     nothing. When it is all one to you whether you have a wife or
+     husband, or whether you are celibate, then you are free from
+     concupiscence. It is not necessary to be a virgin; it is necessary
+     to set no value on the flesh. There is nothing so difficult to
+     attain as this equilibrium. Who is he who can part with his goods
+     without regret? Who is he who is never consumed by the desires of
+     the flesh? But when you have ceased both to wish to retain and to
+     burn, then you have the remedy in your own hands, and the remedy is
+     a hard and a sharp one, and a terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, be not
+     afraid. Deny the five senses, and above all the taste and the
+     touch. The power is within you if you will to attain it. The Two
+     Seats
+     are vacant at the Celestial Table, if you will put on Christ. Eat
+     no dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. Make living elements of
+     all the elements of your body. Mortify the members of earth. Take
+     your food full of life, and let not the touch of death pass upon
+     it. You understand me, but you shrink. Remember that without
+     self-immolation, there is no power over death. Deny the touch. Seek
+     no bodily pleasure in sexual communion; let desire be magnetic and
+     soulic. If you indulge the body, you perpetuate the body, and the
+     end of the body is corruption. You understand me again, but you
+     shrink. Remember that without self-denial and restraint there is no
+     power over death. Deny the taste first, and it will become easier
+     to deny the touch. For to be a virgin is the crown of discipline. I
+     have shown you the excellent way, and it is the _Via Dolorosa_.
+     Judge whether the resurrection be worth the passion; whether the
+     kingdom be worth the obedience; whether the power be worth the
+     suffering. When the time of your calling comes, you will no longer
+     hesitate.
+
+     When a man has attained power over his body, the process of ordeal
+     is no longer necessary. The Initiate is under a vow; the Hierarch
+     is free. Jesus, therefore, came eating and drinking; for all things
+     were lawful to Him. He had undergone, and had freed His will. For
+     the object of the trial and the vow is polarisation. When the fixed
+     is volatilised, the Magian is free. But before Christ was Christ He
+     was subject; and His initiation lasted thirty years. All things are
+     lawful to the Hierarch; for he knows the nature and value of
+     all[80].
+
+This chapter may appropriately terminate with a few remarks in reply to
+the inevitable question, why our country and language were selected as
+the place and tongue of the new revelation in preference to all others.
+
+It is, as we were enabled to see, because the British people are
+recognised in the celestial world, as possessing that peculiar quality
+of soul which, in spite of their many and grievous limitations, has made
+them to be the foremost witness among the nations to God and the
+Conscience, in such wise as to constitute them the counterpart of Israel
+in the modern world. Others besides ourselves have recognised this
+characteristic. Said Milton, speaking of a crisis which, momentous as it
+was, pales in presence of that which now is, seeing that Religion itself
+as Religion was not menaced then as in our time--
+
+"Now once again, by all concurrence of signs, and by the general
+instinct of devout and holy men, as they daily and solemnly express
+their thoughts, God is beginning to devise some new and great period in
+His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He
+then, but address Himself to His servants, and--as His manner is--first
+to His Englishmen."
+
+To which we may add in reference to the present, "And having by the
+hands of His Intellectualists, beaten down the false interpretation of
+His holy Word, accomplishing the work of destruction, is about by the
+hands of His Intuitionalists, to establish the true interpretation,
+accomplishing the work of re-construction."
+
+Nor are there wanting specific historical facts pointing in the same
+direction. To Britain it was given by a timely act of revolt against a
+domination at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the letter of
+Scripture from suppression and virtual extinction at the hands of an
+order bent only on exalting itself at whatever cost to truth and
+humanity. Meanwhile, for three centuries and a half--period suggestive
+of the mystical "time, times, and half a time,"--Britain has faithfully
+and lovingly, albeit unintelligently and mistakenly, guarded and
+cherished the letter thus rescued, even to the erecting of it into a
+fetish. And it may well be that she has now, for her guerdon, been
+further commissioned to be the recipient and minister of its
+interpretation.
+
+Moreover, as Mistress of the Sea, the especial symbol of the Soul, she
+has a prescriptive claim to be the vehicle of the latest and crowning
+message to earth, of which the Soul herself is at once the source, the
+subject, and the object.
+
+Nor are the universality of her language and the grandeur of her
+literature elements to be left out of consideration. All things point to
+her language as destined to become, practically, the language of the
+world; and hence its peculiar fitness to be the vehicle of that "eternal
+gospel" which it is declared should, at the end of the age, be
+proclaimed "unto them that dwell on the earth, even unto every nation,
+and tribe, and tongue, and people."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[74] Taste and smell being modes of touch. E.M.
+
+[75] _I.e._, the astral and mental part of man, which is accounted a
+person or system in itself. E.M.
+
+[76] The Sacramental bread called by the Hebrews "showbread."
+
+[77] See note on p. 122, ante.
+
+[78] The names Nyssa, Nysa, Nysas, and Nissi are identical with each
+other, and also with Sinai, Sion, and those of other sacred mounts. For
+they all are names for the Mount of Regeneration, the mount or "holy
+hill" of the Lord, within the man, to be on which is to be in the
+Spirit. The river Hiddekel has the like import. It is the river of the
+soul, herself fluidic and called Maria (waters), which, as the
+receptacle of the divine nucleus, winds about and encompasses the
+Spirit. Thus Daniel is said to be "on Hiddekel" when under divine
+illumination. ("The Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 459.)
+
+[79] A.K. was distinctly and positively assured that the incident then
+shown to her was one that actually occurred, and that she had borne part
+of it though no record of it survives. S.H.H.
+
+[80] This instruction is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I, pp.
+424-425.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.
+
+
+As will readily be imagined, the interest was intense with which we
+watched the progress of our work, in order to see whether the crucial
+event of its promulgation would coincide with the date prophesied for
+the turning point between the outgoing and the incoming dispensations.
+The predictions covered a period of six years, namely from 1876 to 1881
+inclusive. In this period was to be laid the foundation of a universal
+kingdom of justice and knowledge, which should constitute the reign of
+Michael, and spring from a new illumination, one feature of which was to
+be the "return of the Gods" in 1876. It was in the autumn of this year
+that they first came to us, and the intimation was given us that the
+reign of Michael was then actually commencing; we having no knowledge
+either of the meaning or of the fact of such predictions. For, while the
+Bible references to Michael were altogether unintelligible to us, we had
+not learnt to refer the event to any assignable period. The fulfilment
+of this prediction disposed us to attach value to those which pointed to
+the year 1881 as that in which our work--supposing our estimate of its
+significance to be correct--ought to see the light. For our illuminators
+observed silence respecting times and seasons, contenting themselves
+with bringing under our notice the books containing the predictions,
+the application being left to our own perspicacity. We were powerless to
+influence events, even had we desired to do so. We could but work
+steadily on, as we did, "without haste, without rest," until my
+colleague had finished her university course and obtained her diploma.
+This she accomplished in the summer of 1880, soon after which we
+returned to England; and in the summer of 1881 we delivered in London,
+to a private audience, the lectures which constituted the first
+promulgation of our work. These were published in the following winter
+under the title of "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," our
+excellent friend at Paris faithfully fulfilling the mission she had
+accepted in relation to us and our work[81]. Thus were fulfilled exactly
+all the predictions respecting the dates, the character, and the manner
+of our work.
+
+There were many other coincidences of a kind so remarkable as to make us
+feel that to ascribe them to accident would require a larger measure of
+credulity than to ascribe them to design. Among the most striking were
+those which concerned "Mary's" names, and which were in this wise.
+
+When first the significance of the Apocalyptic utterance concerning the
+river Euphrates and the kings of the East was flashed on my mind, I
+asked her if she knew that she was mentioned, even to her very name, in
+the book of Revelation. To which she replied, smiling, that she had
+known it for some time, but which of her names did I mean? I said that I
+meant her married surname, which fitted exactly a way made for kings
+across a river, by the drying up of its waters, namely a _king's ford_;
+the "Kings of the East," meaning those principles in man whereby he has
+knowledge of divine things--the East being the mystical expression for
+the place of the dawn of spiritual light, such as that of which she was
+the revealer. While the Euphrates means, in the Apocalypse as in
+Genesis, the highest principle in the fourfold kosmos of man, the Spirit
+or Will[82]. Only when this principle in man is "dried up," or
+sublimated by being made one with the divine Will, is man accessible to
+the divine knowledges brought by the "Kings of the East." As the channel
+by which these knowledges were being restored to the world, she was the
+_kings' ford_ implied. She then told me, what I had not yet observed,
+that her baptismal and maiden names were equally appropriate, as the
+Latin for the "acceptable year of the Lord," or _good time_, announced
+as to follow the restoration of the knowledges brought by the Kings of
+the East, is--allowing for difference of gender--_Annus Bonus_. The
+coincidence of names did not end here, for we shortly afterwards, in the
+course of our researches, came upon an old prophecy declaring that the
+initials of the "Messenger" of the new Avatar, due at this time, would
+be A.K.!
+
+She further identified the "Kings of the East" as functions of the three
+principles in man, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind; being
+respectively, right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right
+perception, which is of the Soul; and right judgment, which is of the
+Mind; the combination of which is the necessary and sufficient condition
+of divine knowledge.
+
+Had we been sanguine of a favourable reception of our book by the press
+at large--which we were not--our disappointment would have been great.
+But we were by no means prepared either for the gross misrepresentation
+and even vulgar ribaldry with which it was treated by the few organs in
+the literary press which noticed it at all, or for the complete neglect
+of it by that portion of the press which especially concerns itself with
+religious exegesis. In no instance was any attempt made to exhibit its
+plan, purpose, and real nature, or any recognition accorded to its
+luminous solutions of the profound problems dealt with. The very claim
+to have experiential knowledge of things spiritual was accounted an
+offence; and it seemed as if the word had gone forth to adopt towards it
+an attitude which should effectually restrain the public from making its
+acquaintance, even though it met absolutely the need recognised on all
+hands as the world's supreme need, and vindicated its claim thereto by
+the presentation of teachings avowedly of divine derivation and
+demonstrating their divinity by their intrinsic character to all who are
+in the smallest degree spiritually percipient. To this day that attitude
+has never been abandoned or relaxed; and notwithstanding the assiduous
+endeavours made to counteract its influence, the whole mass of our
+people, saving only a few select circles, have yet to learn that the
+longed-for New Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed,
+having been for years in their midst waiting but to be recognised of
+them,--a "light shining in darkness and the darkness comprehending it
+not"[83].
+
+In compliance with the injunctions of our illuminators, we had withheld
+our names from our first edition, in order to secure for it a judgment
+unbiased by any personal element. But though we ourselves thus escaped
+the opprobrium attaching to our book, "Mary" was at first inclined to
+repent of having exposed her pearls to such profanation; and was only
+reassured by the suggestion that it showed how desperate was the need
+for precisely the change our work was designed to accomplish, and how
+exactly was fulfilled the prophecy which foretold the wrath of the
+dragon and his angels at the advent of the "Woman" Intuition, their
+destined destroyer, and the consequent shortness of their own time. We
+knew of course better than to regard such criticism as being in any
+sense a measure of our work. For us it was, like criticism in general, a
+measure not of the thing criticised but of the critics themselves. And
+these, in our case, but truly represented the condition of the age, and
+knew not what they were doing.
+
+Such is the reason why so many will hear for the first time from this
+book that a New Gospel of Interpretation has been received. To turn to
+the other and compensating side. With those who were specially qualified
+to judge, it was far otherwise. And among the most notable of the
+recognitions received from this quarter was the weighty utterance which
+appears in the preface to the second and succeeding editions, coming
+from that veteran student of the "Divine Science," the friend, disciple,
+and literary heir of the renowned Kabalist and magian, the late Abbe
+Constant ("Eliphas Levi"), namely, Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles, who
+though then an entire stranger to us, wrote to us as follows--for I
+think it may with advantage be reproduced here:--
+
+     "As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the appeal on
+     behalf of your book is, really, to miracles, but with the
+     difference that in your case they are intellectual ones, and
+     incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation. And they
+     have the further distinction of doing no violence to common sense
+     by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in
+     complete accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with
+     the great Mother of these, the Kabala. That miracles such as I am
+     describing are to be found in _The Perfect Way_, in kind and number
+     unexampled, they who are the best qualified to judge will be the
+     most ready to affirm.
+
+     "And here, _apropos_ of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to
+     offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we have it. It is my
+     opinion--
+
+     "(1) That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such as it
+     was on its original emergence from the sanctuaries.
+
+     "(2) That when Guillaume Postel--of excellent memory--and his
+     brother Hermetists of the later middle age--the Abbot Trithemius
+     and others--predicted that these sacred books of the Hebrews should
+     become known and understood at the end of the era, and specified
+     the present time for that event, they did not mean that such
+     knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these
+     particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new
+     illumination, which should eliminate from
+     them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced, and
+     should re-unite that great tradition with its source by restoring
+     it in all its purity.
+
+     "(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has
+     been manifested in _The Perfect Way_. For in this book we find all
+     that there is of truth in the Kabala, supplemented by new
+     intuitions, such as present a body of doctrine at once complete,
+     homogeneous, logical and inexpungnable.
+
+     "Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored
+     to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel and his
+     fellow-Hermetists are accomplished; and I consider that from
+     henceforth the study of the Kabala will be but an object of
+     curiosity and erudition, like that of Hebrew antiquities.
+
+     "Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three
+     supreme questions: Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now,
+     these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory,
+     and consolatory, in _The Perfect Way_"[84].
+
+He subsequently wrote:--
+
+     "If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe
+     they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures of the
+     past, these writings will assuredly hold the foremost place among
+     them"[85].
+
+For those who are unacquainted with the Kabala, its origin, nature, and
+intent, it will be well to state that it represents the transcendental
+and esoteric doctrine of the Hebrews, as handed down from the remotest
+times. In recognition of its divine origin, the Rabbins describe it as
+having been communicated by God, first, to "Adam in Paradise," and,
+next, to "Moses on Sinai." By which expressions they implied that its
+doctrine was due to the highest possible illumination.
+
+It was also in recognition of this element in our book that Mr.
+MacGregor Mathers dedicated his learned work, "The Kabala Unveiled," to
+us, saying--
+
+     "I have much pleasure in dedicating this work to the authors of
+     _The Perfect Way_, as they have in that excellent and wonderful
+     book touched so much on the doctrines of the Kabala, and laid such
+     value on its teachings. _The Perfect Way_ is one of the most deeply
+     occult works that has been written for centuries."
+
+As the foregoing testimonies represent the _consensus_ of the Kabalists,
+Hermetists, and other great ancient schools of spiritual science in the
+West, so the following represents the _consensus_ of the corresponding
+schools of the East. As will be seen, it involves a coincidence so
+notable as to point to a source transcending the human and terrestrial,
+as that of the great spiritual revival which our age is witnessing. That
+coincidence is in this wise:--
+
+Within two years of the commencement of our collaboration in the work
+which proved to be that of the restoration of the _Gnosis_ of the
+West--the divine doctrine of which, as we had come to learn, Christ was
+the personal demonstration, and the religion called after Him ought to
+have been the expression; a collaboration was commenced which had for
+its end the like exposition in regard to the religious systems of the
+East. This is the collaboration, also of a woman and a man, which had
+its issue in the Theosophical Society. The two pairs of collaborators
+worked simultaneously through the succeeding years in entire ignorance
+of each other and their work, until the commencement of the publication
+of our results in 1881, at which time the Theosophical Society was still
+so far from having completed the system of its doctrine, that neither of
+its two now fundamental tenets had yet been recognised by it, the
+tenets, namely, of Reincarnation and Karma--its chief text-book, the
+"Isis Unveiled" of its foundress, not containing them. We, on the
+contrary, had both of these doctrines, having derived them, as already
+stated herein, directly from celestial sources and wholly independently
+of human authority and tradition, of spiritualism, and of our own
+prepossessions.
+
+It was clear, both by this fact and by the avowals of the parties
+concerned, that up to this time the chiefs of the Theosophical Society
+had been unable to obtain from those whom they claimed as their masters
+more than a very meagre instalment of their doctrine. But after the
+arrival of our book in India this state of things was changed. It was
+then declared on behalf of the "masters" that we had obtained, from
+original and independent sources, a system of doctrine substantially
+identical with that of which they had for ages been, as they supposed,
+in exclusive possession, but had never been permitted to divulge, as it
+had always been reserved for initiates. The revelation of it through us,
+we were further informed, had "forced the hands of the masters," by
+showing them that the time had come when secrecy was no longer possible,
+and compelling them, if only in vindication of their own claims, to
+relax their rule of silence in regard to their mysteries.
+
+The coincidence between their doctrine and ours comprised sundry
+particulars the most recondite, including--besides the two great tenets
+already named--the multiplicity of principles in the human system, and
+their separation and respective conditions after death,--a subject lying
+outside the cognisance of "Spiritualism." Among other points of
+agreement was that of their recognition of the great antiquity of the
+soul of "Mary," whom they pronounced to be "the greatest natural mystic
+of the present day, and countless ages ahead of the great majority of
+mankind, the foremost of whom--the most civilised--belong to the last
+race of the fourth round, while she belongs to the first race of the
+fifth round."
+
+In presence of these and other proofs of the possession by the Eastern
+occultists, of knowledges which we had obtained directly at first hand
+from celestial sources, we could not but pay respectful heed to the
+claims of the representatives of the Theosophical Society, and welcome
+any token which might indicate it as a destined fellow-agent in the
+great spiritual revival of the age. So might it constitute, with
+"Spiritualism" and the work represented by us, a threefold power for
+accomplishing the promotion predicted for this era, of the consciousness
+of the race to a level which should transcend any yet reached by it as a
+race. With Spiritualism to represent the phenomenal and personal,
+Theosophy the philosophical and occult, and our own work the mystical
+and divine, every region of man's higher nature would find its due
+recognition and unfoldment. Meanwhile, the organ of the Society in India
+thus expressed itself respecting "The Perfect Way":--
+
+     "A grand book, keen of insight and eloquent in exposition; an
+     upheaval of true spirituality.... We regard its authors as having
+     produced one of the most--perhaps the most--important and
+     spirit-stirring of appeals to the highest instincts of mankind
+     which modern European literature has evolved"[86].
+
+We had a yet further warrant, derived from Scripture itself, for looking
+to the Theosophical Society as possibly a divinely appointed factor in
+the spiritual evolution of the time. The unsealing of the World's Bibles
+was upon us, and not of that of Christendom only. And we saw in the
+following saying of Jesus an obvious allusion to the present epoch, "In
+those days many shall come from the East, and the West, and the North,
+and the South, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the
+kingdom of heaven." Not that the terms East, West, North, and South,
+denoted for us the quarters of the physical globe. We had learnt to
+understand them in their mystical sense, wherein they denote the various
+human temperaments, the intuitional, the traditional, the intellectual,
+and the emotional, all of which would find satisfaction in the doctrine
+then to be recovered. It was in the terms Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
+that the significance of the utterance lay for us; these being in one
+aspect the Hebrew equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and Iacchos, and
+denoting the mysteries respectively of India, Egypt, and Greece, of the
+Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein of the whole Man. For these
+mysteries together comprised the perfect doctrine of Existence, called
+also in Scripture the "Word of God," the "Law and the Prophets," and the
+"_Theou Sophia_," "Wisdom of God," and "hidden Wisdom," of which the
+Christ, as the typical Man regenerate, is the fulfilment and personal
+demonstration. This is to say, they constituted that Gnosis, or
+Knowledge, with the taking away and withholdment of the key of which
+Jesus so bitterly reproached, in the Ecclesiasticism of His time, that
+of all time, and, therefore, that knowledge to the restoration of which,
+in our day, through the faculty by means of which it was originally
+obtained and can alone be discerned, the prophecies one and all pointed,
+as to mark and to make the "time of the end" of the "adulterous,"
+because idolatrous, "generation," hitherto in possession in the Church,
+and to introduce the "kingdom of God with power."
+
+Having warrant so high for anticipating the restoration at this time of
+the faculties and knowledges represented by the various movements in
+question, and knowing also, if only by the example of ourselves, that
+the divinity of a mission is not invalidated by the limitations, real or
+supposed, of its instruments, but that these must be educated by
+experience, and in such sense "perfected through suffering" to be fitted
+for their appointed tasks;--we had no doubt as to the attitude it was
+our duty to maintain towards all candidates for a share in that which we
+recognised as the greatest of all the endeavours yet made by the human
+soul to regain her long-lost rightful dominion over the minds and hearts
+of men, leaving it to time to determine that which was of divine
+appointment, and that which was not.
+
+It will have been observed that I have used the terms "mystical" and
+"occult" in such wise as to imply a distinction between them. It is
+important to the purpose of this book to define and emphasise that
+distinction. The instructions received by us from our illuminators were
+explicit and positive on this point.
+
+This is because they refer to two different domains of man's system.
+Occultism deals with transcendental physics, and is of the intellectual,
+belonging to science. Mysticism deals with transcendental metaphysics,
+and is of the spiritual, belonging to religion. Occultism, therefore,
+has for its domain the region which, lying between the body and the
+soul, is interior to the body but exterior to the soul; while Mysticism
+has for its domain the region which, comprising the soul and the spirit,
+is interior to the soul, and belongs to the divine. Of course, the terms
+themselves, which are respectively the Latin and the Greek for the same
+thing, and mean hidden from the outer senses and also from
+non-initiates, do not imply such distinction, but they have come by
+usage to be thus referable.
+
+The following citations are from the teachings received by us in this
+connection. They account for the scientific part of the training imposed
+on us.
+
+     "The science of the Mysteries can be understood only by one who has
+     studied the physical sciences, because it is the climax and crown
+     of all these, and must be learned last and not first. Unless thou
+     understand the physical
+     sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctrine of _Vehicles_,
+     which is the basic doctrine of occult science. 'If thou understood
+     not earthly things, how shall I make thee understand heavenly
+     things?' Wherefore, get knowledge, and be greedy of knowledge, ever
+     more and more. It is idle for thee to seek the inner chamber, until
+     thou hast passed through the outer. This, also, is another reason
+     why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To the
+     unlearned no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy is the royal
+     science[87]; if thou would reach the king's presence chamber, there
+     is no way save through the outer rooms and galleries of the
+     palace[88].
+
+     "The adept or occultist is, at best, a religious scientist; he is
+     not a 'saint.' If occultism were all, and held the key of heaven,
+     there would be no need of 'Christ.' But occultism, although it
+     holds the 'power,' holds neither the 'kingdom' nor the 'glory,' for
+     these are of Christ. The adept knows not the kingdom of heaven, and
+     'the least in this kingdom are greater than he.'
+
+      "'Desire _first_ the kingdom of God and God's righteousness; and
+     all these things shall be added unto you.' As Jesus said of
+     Prometheus[89], 'Take no thought for to-morrow. Behold the lilies
+     of the field and the birds of the air, and trust God as these,' For
+     the saint has faith; the adept has knowledge. If the adepts in
+     occultism or in physical science could suffice to man, I would have
+     committed no message to you. But the two are not in opposition.
+     All things are yours, even the kingdom and the power, but the glory
+     is to God. Do not be ignorant of their teaching, for I would have
+     you know all. Take, therefore, every means to know. This knowledge
+     is of man, and cometh from the mind. Go, therefore, to man to learn
+     it. 'If you will be perfect, learn also of these.' 'Yet the wisdom
+     which is from above, is above all.' For one man may begin from
+     within, that is, with wisdom, and wisdom is one with love. Blessed
+     is the man who chooseth wisdom, for she leaveneth all things. And
+     another man may begin from without, and that which is without is
+     power. To such there shall be a thorn in the flesh[90]. For it is
+     hard in such case to attain to the within. But if a man be first
+     wise inwardly, he shall the more easily have this also added unto
+     him. For he is born again and is free. Whereas at a great price
+     must the adept buy freedom. Nevertheless, I bid you seek;--and in
+     this also you shall find. But I have shown you a more excellent way
+     than theirs. Yet both Ishmael and Isaac are sons of one father, and
+     of all her children is Wisdom justified. So neither are they wrong,
+     nor are you led astray. The goal is the same; but their way is
+     harder than yours. They take the kingdom by violence, if they take
+     it, and by much toil and agony of the flesh. But from the time of
+     Christ within you, the kingdom is open to the sons of God. Receive
+     what you can receive; I would have you know all things. And if you
+     have served seven years for wisdom, count it not loss to serve
+     seven years for power also. For if Rachel bear the best beloved,
+     Leah hath many sons, and is exceeding fruitful. But her eye is not
+     single; she looketh two ways, and seeketh not that which is above
+     only. But to you Rachel is given first, and perchance her beauty
+     may suffice. I say not, let it suffice; it is better to know all
+     things, for if you know not all, how can you judge all? For as a
+     man heareth, so must he judge. Will you therefore be regenerate in
+     the without, as well as in the within? For they are renewed in the
+     body, but you in the soul. It is well to be baptised into John's
+     baptism, if a man receive also the Holy Ghost. But some know not so
+     much as that there is any Holy Ghost. Yet Jesus also, being Himself
+     regenerate in the spirit, sought unto the Baptism of John, for thus
+     it became Him to fulfil Himself in all things. And having
+     fulfilled, behold, the 'Dove' descended on Him. If then you will be
+     perfect, seek both that which is within and that which is without;
+     and the circle of being, which is the 'wheel of life,' shall be
+     complete in you."
+
+The Scriptural allusions in this teaching, which was received by "Mary"
+under illumination occurring in sleep, proved to be on the lines of the
+Kabala.
+
+There were sundry other tokens of recognition which are entitled to
+reproduction here, as showing to how wide a range of educated and
+intelligent opinion within the pale of Christianity our work appeals.
+Their value is due to their representing a class of minds which, while
+possessed of the ordinary ecclesiastical training, are not restricted to
+the knowledge thereby acquired. For, seeing that such training means
+little, if anything, more than the mechanical learning of what other men
+have said who, themselves, had no real knowledge, the opinions,
+expressed on the strength of it, are neither educated nor intelligent,
+but adoptive only and perfunctory, and represent learning without
+insight. And as such precisely are the opinions which constitute
+ecclesiastical orthodoxy, the judgment of the representatives of that
+orthodoxy on our work possesses no more real value than did that of
+Caiaphas and his coadjutors on Jesus and His work[91]. Denouncing Him
+as a blasphemer, they were themselves blasphemers. And inasmuch as they
+were types of the votaries of ecclesiastical orthodoxy of all time, it
+is obvious that the only new revelation--if any--which would find
+acceptance at their hands, would be one that confirmed and reinforced
+their errors, instead of exposing and correcting them. Proceeding, as
+was declared by Jesus, from their "father, the devil," a
+priest-constructed system ever prefers Barabbas to Christ;--prefers,
+that is, a system which defrauds--hence the force of the term "robber"
+as applied to Barabbas--man of the divine potentialities which Christ
+came to reveal to him by demonstrating them in His own person, together
+with the manner of their realisation.
+
+Not that all who bear the title of Ecclesiastics come under this
+condemnation. In every age of the Church there have been those who,
+while holding office in it, have not consented to the "Scarlet Woman" of
+Sacerdotalism. And never was there a time when the proportion of these
+was larger, or when their sense of the need of a New Gospel of
+Interpretation was more keen and urgent than now: so intolerable to
+multitudes of the clergy of all sections of the Church has become the
+antagonism recognised by them as subsisting between the traditional and
+official presentation of religion and their own clear perceptions of
+goodness and truth[92].
+
+The testimonies which remain to be added are valuable as coming from men
+who, while possessed of ecclesiastical training, have been taught also
+of the Spirit, and, adding to tradition intuition, and to learning
+insight, have in themselves the witness to that which they utter.
+
+A distinguished French ecclesiastic, the Abbe Roca, writing in
+_L'Aurore_, says of our books--
+
+     "These books seem to me to be the chosen organs of the Divine
+     Feminine" (_i.e._ the interpretative) "Principle, in view of the
+     new revelation of Revelation."
+
+By which it will be seen that he shared Cardinal Newman's expectation
+referred to in the introduction; and accepted as realised the forecast
+of Joseph de Maistre when he said "Religion and Science, in virtue of
+their natural affinity, will meet in the brain of some man of
+genius--perhaps of more than one--and the world will get what it needs
+and cries for, _not a new religion, but the revelation of Revelation_."
+As the event shows, for "the brain of some man," he should have said
+"the mind and soul of a woman."
+
+The Rev. Dr. John Pulsford, author of "The Supremacy of Man," "Quiet
+Hours," "Morgenrothe," and other works distinguished for the depth of
+their piety and insight, thus wrote to me on the publication of "Clothed
+with the Sun"--
+
+     "I cannot tell you with what thankfulness and pleasure I have read
+     _Clothed with the Sun_. It is impossible for a spiritually
+     intelligent reader to doubt that these teachings were received from
+     _within_ the astral veil. They are full of the concentrated and
+     compact wisdom of the Holy Heavens and of God. If Christians knew
+     their own religion, they would find in these priceless records our
+     Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly illustrated and
+     confirmed. The regret is that so few, comparatively, who read the
+     book, will be aware of the tithe of its pearls. But that such
+     communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the
+     world, is a sign, and a most promising sign of our age.
+
+     "It is no little joy to me to feel that I am so much more in
+     sympathy with God's daughter, the Seeress, than I supposed. The
+     testimony is so clearly above, and distinct from, aught that is
+     derived from the occult powers of the universe, rather than from
+     the Supreme Spirit and Father-Mother of our Spirits."
+
+Another notable student of spiritual science, a Priest, writing in
+_Light_ of 21st October, 1882, after describing _The Perfect Way_ as
+"that most wonderful of all books which has appeared since the beginning
+of the Christian Era," said:--"It is a book that no student can be
+without if he will know _the truth_ on these matters. It furnishes us
+with a master-key to the phenomena which so perplex the minds of
+enquirers, and gives a system, the like of which has not been seen for
+eighteen centuries." The late Rev. John Manners, a man venerable of
+years and mature of spirit, and deeply versed in the sciences of both
+worlds, declared of these illuminations, "the Great I Am speaks in
+every line of them. Only the Logos Himself could be their source." Lady
+Caithness, already referred to, upon receiving a copy of _The Perfect
+Way_, wrote: "I have got another Bible, the _most complete_ Revelation,
+_certainly_, that has yet been given to man on this planet"[93]. And a
+Parsee scholar, a native of India, wrote: "_The Perfect Way_ has made me
+a much nobler man--a man of tranquility and calmness, due to the
+knowledge of the philosophy of Being imbibed by me from it, and for
+which my mind was fortunately prepared"[94].
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As stated in the preface, this present book is intended but as an
+epitome and instalment of the far larger book in course of preparation.
+For, as with the old Gospel of Manifestation, so with the New Gospel of
+Interpretation, the excusable hyperbole is no less appropriate to
+it,--"I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books
+which might be written."
+
+For the human soul is a theme as inexhaustible as it is paramount. And,
+as never in the world's history have the need and the desire for the
+knowledge of it been so urgent as they now are, so never in the world's
+history has there been a revelation of it comparable with that which has
+been vouchsafed in our day, and is contained in the narrative, the
+completion of which, and this alone, will enable me to "depart in
+peace," having no apprehension of after disquietude on the score of
+having left unaccomplished a portion so important of the task committed
+to me.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[81] The French edition, subsequently issued at Paris, is also due to
+her zeal and generosity. See p. 137, ante.
+
+[82] For the meaning of the "Four Rivers of Eden" see P. W., vi. par. 6.
+See note on p. 172, ante as to meaning of river Hiddekel.
+
+[83] This indictment is as true to-day as it was twelve years ago, when
+the above passage was written. S.H.H.
+
+[84] Cited from the preface to the second and succeeding editions of
+"The P. W."
+
+[85] Cited from "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. p. 155.
+
+[86] The Theosophist, May, 1882.
+
+[87] The term Theosophy is here used in its Pauline and ancient sense of
+the science of the realisation of man's potential divinity;--the
+process, that is, of the Christ.--1 Cor. ii. 7. E.M.
+
+[88] From an address given on the 17th July, 1883, by A.K. to the
+Theosophical Society, a full report of which is given in "The Life of
+A.K." Vol. II. pp. 124-128.
+
+[89] A term which signifies forethought. The remonstrance is against
+undue anxiety and alarm on the soul's behalf while in the path of duty,
+as implying distrust of the divine sufficiency. E.M.
+
+[90] Meaning that in such case the flesh itself is the impediment.
+
+[91] In a letter on "The Church and the Bible," in the "Agnostic
+Journal" of 5th January, 1895, E.M. says:--
+
+"Among the fallacies to be discarded is the fallacy which consists in
+believing that the Church, so vehemently denounced in its own sacred
+books for its manifold, grievous, and fatal perversions of the truth
+contained in those books, and so ignorant as to be unaware either of the
+source or of the meaning of its own dogmas, must understand its
+doctrines better than I understand them, whose high privilege it is to
+have been one of the two recipients of the New Gospel of Interpretation,
+which has been vouchsafed expressly to correct those perversions, and
+who not only have that gospel by heart, but who know absolutely by my
+own soul's experience--as also did my colleague--the truth of every word
+of it." (A long extract from this letter, including the above, is
+printed in the appendix to B.O.A.I. p. 83.) S.H.H.
+
+[92] See also E.M.'s remarks to the same effect in the "Statement
+E.C.U." pp. 10-11.
+
+[93] See Life A.K. Vol. II. pp. 52-53.
+
+[94] See Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 241.
+
+
+
+
+"SCRIPTURES OF THE FUTURE."
+
+
+Books rapidly coming into use in the Roman, Greek and Anglican
+communions as the text-books which represent the prophesied restoration
+of the Ancient Esoteric doctrine which, by interpreting the mysteries of
+religion, should reconcile faith and reason, religion and science, and
+accomplish the downfall of that sacerdotal system, which--"making the
+word of God of none effect by its traditions"--has hitherto usurped the
+name and perverted the truth of Christianity. Their standpoint is that
+Christian doctrines, when rightly understood, are necessary and
+self-evident truths, recognisable as founded in and representing the
+actual nature of existence, incapable of being conceived of as
+otherwise, and constituting a system of thought at once scientific,
+philosophic and religious, absolutely inexpugnable, and satisfactory to
+man's highest aspirations, intellectual, moral and spiritual.
+
+=The Perfect Way;= or The Finding of Christ. By Anna Kingsford and
+Edward Maitland. Third English Edition, Price 6s. net.
+
+=The Life of Anna Kingsford=; by Edward Maitland. A new edition in
+preparation.
+
+=The New Gospel of Interpretation;= being an Abstract of the doctrine
+and Statement of the objects of The Esoteric Christian Union, founded by
+Edward Maitland, Nov., 1891.
+
+=The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and of The New Gospel
+of Interpretation=; by Edward Maitland. Third and enlarged Edition, 228
+pp., edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart, Cloth Gilt, Back and Side; Price 3s.
+6d. net; Post Free 3s. 10d. The Ruskin Press, Stafford Street,
+Birmingham.
+
+=The Bible's Own Account of Itself=; by Edward Maitland. Second Edition,
+edited by Saml. Hopgood Hart, complete, with Appendix. Crown 8vo. 96
+pp., Stiff Paper Covers, Price 6d.; Post Free 7d,; or in Cloth Covers,
+Gilt, 1s. 6d. net; Post Free 1s. 8d. The Ruskin Press, Birmingham.
+
+All the above Works may be obtained from
+
+=_THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM._=
+
+(_Postages in addition to the above Prices._)
+
+=_Some Testimonies of notable profiolents in religious science._=
+
+     "If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe
+     they will be, those which best interpret the Scriptures of the
+     past, these writings will assuredly hold the foremost place among
+     them.... They present a body of doctrine at once complete,
+     homogeneous, logical and inexpugnable, in which the three supreme
+     questions, Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? at length
+     find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory."--BARON
+     SPEDALIERI (_The Kabalist_).
+
+     "It is impossible for a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt
+     that these teachings were received from within the astral veil.
+     They are full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy
+     Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own religion, they
+     would find in these priceless records our Lord Christ and His vital
+     process abundantly illustrated and confirmed. That such
+     communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the
+     world, in a sign, and a most promising sign, of our age."--REV. DR.
+     JOHN PULSFORD.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIBLE'S OWN ACCOUNT OF ITSELF.
+
+By EDWARD MAITLAND (_B.A., Cantab_)
+
+
+Author of "The Keys of the Creeds," "The Story of the New Gospel of
+Interpretation," "The Life of Anna Kingsford," etc.; and Joint Writer
+with Dr. Anna Kingsford of "The Perfect Way," etc.
+
+EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
+
+=Second Edition, (Complete) with Appendix, PRICE SIXPENCE.=
+
+Or in Cloth Covers, gilt, One Shilling and Sixpence.
+
+"Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise upon
+the earth, two dragons. And they fight and tear each other, until there
+arises a star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther."--The Vision
+of Mordecai, as interpreted in "Clothed with the Sun," I., IX.
+
+BIRMINGHAM: The Ruskin Press, Stafford St., and all Booksellers.
+
+
+SOME PRESS OPINIONS
+
+OF
+
+_The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of The New Gospel
+of Interpretation._
+
+_Literary World_--"A strangely interesting book--very curious--few who
+have any sympathy with mental phenomena of the 'occult' kind will fail
+to read it with sustained interest."
+
+_Light_--"A psychic history of umblemished veracity and astounding
+facts--supremely interesting--'full of beauty and perfect simplicity of
+purpose'--and showing that the 'fig-tree of the inward understanding is
+no longer barren, but has budded and blossomed and borne fruit.'"
+
+_Church Bells, 27th April, 1894_--"Mr. Maitland has written a
+fascinating book."
+
+_The Gentleman's Journal, March, 1894_--"Nothing Mr. Maitland writes
+would I like to miss--I never study his searching and striking pages
+without profit."
+
+_Agnostic Journal_--"A fascinating volume--the history of a work
+calculated to effect a fundamental revolution in religion--told in
+language which leaves nothing to be desired."
+
+_The Illustrated Church News, 31st March, 1894_--"This work is to
+Christians of real interest; for it enables them to study Gnosticism
+alive and vigorous in the nineteenth century."
+
+_Brighouse Gazette_--"One of those really great books associated with
+the names of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland."
+
+_The Unknown World_--"There is no man now known to be living in England
+who has had such an abundant transcendental experience."
+
+
+
+
+RELIGION AND MENTAL PHENOMENA.
+
+_From the "Christian Union."_
+
+
+Whatever may be said in favour or disfavour of Mr. Edward Maitland's
+"Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation," it is one of the most
+remarkable and most fascinating books on mental-visional perceptions of
+Divine Revelation that has appeared at any time. It is a book that
+carries the reader away from the materialistic to the mystical and
+spiritual. The author claims to bring to the old revelation a new
+interpretation, or more correctly, to restore the original and spiritual
+interpretation which has been lost through literalism. According to the
+narrative, the two persons concerned were for some years in reception of
+revelations which convinced them that they had been enabled "to tap a
+boundless reservoir of wisdom and knowledge" before the method and
+source were declared to them.... At length it was made clear to them
+that the knowledges they had acquired were due to intuitional
+recollection occuring under Divine illumination. "Inborn knowledge and
+the perception of things--these are the sources of Revelation. The soul
+of the man instructeth him, having already learned by experience.
+Intuition is inborn experience, that which the soul knoweth of old and
+of former lives." The ordinary mind will doubtless be ready to pronounce
+it to be strange mental phenomena, and nothing more. But surely mental
+phenomena of an extraordinary character must have an extraordinary use
+and purpose. And so few persons know enough of the psyhic powers latent
+in man, to be able to believe in the reality of these manifestations....
+The nature of the results is such as to negative all materialistic
+explanations. For the knowledges recovered are real, solving problems in
+the profoundest domains of theology, hitherto given up as mysteries
+hopeless of solution. And they are being thus recognised far and wide by
+the profoundest students of spiritual science.... Judge the story of the
+New Gospel of Interpretation in what light we may, it has in it all the
+evidences of a marvellous work in its mental and spiritual conception,
+exposition, interpretation, illustration, and Divine communication. It
+stands out conspicuously as a fuller development of Biblical truth, such
+as Cardinal Newman must have anticipated when he said that he saw no
+hope for religion, save in a new Revelation.
+
+THE RUSKIN PRESS.
+
+STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM,
+
+PRINTERS.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcribers notes:
+
+Maintained original spelling and punctuation.
+
+Silently corrected obvious typesetting errors.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward
+Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation, by Edward Maitland
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA KINGSFORD, EDWARD MAITLAND ***
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