Sections: General Index
Present Section: Index
Work Index
Previous: II - Concerning Inspiration and
Prophesying
Next: IV - Concerning
Revelation
Nº. III
CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (1)
I STAND upon the seashore. The moon overhead is at the
full. A soft and warm breath, like that of the summer wind, blows in my face.
The aroma of it is salt with the breath of the sea. O Sea! O Moon! From you I
shall gather what I seek! You shall recount to me the story of the Immaculate
Conception of Maria, whose symbols ye are!
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.
Yet has there been one who
comprehended, and who interpreted aright the parable of the Immaculate
Conception; and he found it through US, by the light of his own intense love,
for he was the disciple of love, and his name is still – the Beloved; – John,
the Seer of the Apocalypse. For he, in the vision of the woman clothed with the
sun, set forth the true significance of the Immaculate Conception.
For 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, (1) 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. His Mother is spirit, his Father is spirit, yet he is himself
incarnate; and how then shall he overcome evil, and restore matter to the
condition of spirit? By force of love. It is love which
is the centripetal power of the universe; it is by love that all creation
returns to 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.
Now, whether or not the world be strong enough to bear this yet, we know not. This is not
the first time we have revealed these things to men. An ancient heresy, cursed
by the Church, arose out of a true inspiration; for the disciples are ever
weaker than the master, and they have not his spiritual discernment. I speak of
the Gnostics. To the Master of the Gnostics we revealed the truth of the
Immaculate Conception. We told him that Immanuel should be the God-Man who,
transcending the limitations of matter, should efface the evil of
materialisation by the
force of love, and should see and hear and speak and
feel as though he were pure spirit, and had annihilated the boundaries of
matter. This, then, he taught; but they who heard his teaching, applying his
words only to the individual Jesus, affirmed that Jesus had had no material
body, but that he was an emanation of a spiritual nature; an Æon who, without substance or true being in the flesh, had
borne a phantom part in the world of men. Beware lest in like manner ye also are
misled. It is so hard for men to be spiritual. It is as hard for us to declare
ourselves without mystery. The Church knows not the source of its dogmas. We
marvel also at the blindness of the hearers, who indeed hear, but who have not
eyes to see. We speak in vain, – ye discern not spiritual things. Ye are so
materialised that ye perceive only the material. The Spirit comes and goes; ye
hear the sound of its voice: but ye cannot tell whither it goeth nor whence it cometh.
All that is true is spiritual. No dogma of the Church is true that seems to bear
a physical meaning. 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? I tell you again, and of a truth, – 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.
Footnotes
(7:1) This “supreme product of the soul’s
perception of its own nature and destiny,” which proved to be “a re-delivery,
(accompanied by the interpretation) of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
Maria,” was received, and written down under trance, at Paris in the night of
July 25, 1877, the seeress
being transported in spirit to the seaside, but maintaining with the body a
connection sufficient to enable her to write. The changes of person from
singular to plural are due to the overshadowing influence speaking at one time
as a unity, and at another as a plurality – “the US denoting the Hierarchy of
the Church invisible and celestial” (see Life
of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 194-197). S.H.H.
(8:1) The ages,
of which the personification is Anna: “Anna is the rolling year, the Time, of
which is born Maria the soul, the Mother of God” (see No. XLII, “Concerning God”).
“The soul born of Time (Anna)” (see No. XLVIII (1),
“Concerning the Christian Mysteries”). S.H.H.
Sections: General Index
Present Section: Index
Work Index
Previous: II - Concerning Inspiration and
Prophesying
Next: IV - Concerning
Revelation