Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Work Index Previous: 44 - On Enquiring why the Term “Father” Only Is Applied to God, when, as Being both the Force and the Substance of Existence, God Is Necessarily Mother as well as Father
THE ESOTERIC CHRISTIAN UNION
FOUNDED NOVEMBER 1891.
President-Founder – EDWARD MAITLAND, B.A.
Hon. Sec. & Treasurer – ETHEL FORSYTH
37, Chelsea Gardens, S.W.
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ORGANISATION.
THE ESOTERIC CHRISTIAN UNION shall consist of all persons who, being in sympathy with the aims and methods, intimate their desire to belong to it, and to assist in promoting its objects, whether or not they be contributors to its funds. For, while pecuniary aid is invited as indispensable to any large scale of operations and a corresponding measure of success, it is NOT required as a condition of membership. Nor will membership be regarded as committing individuals to any particular tenet or view, but only to a general approbation of the Society’s principles. Nor, again, will it be required of members that their names appear in the Society’s published lists, this being left optional.
A printed form of membership will be supplied to applicants, which, when filled up, will be submitted to the President-Founder in Council.
The Council shall consist of members appointed by the President-Founder, upon whom, or any number of whom, he may call to assist him with their advice, the responsibility of the action taken resting with him.
METHODS.
The scheme of the Society’s methods, to be carried out according to the means placed at its disposal, comprises –
(1) The circulation of a statement setting forth its origin, objects, basis, method, and scope, the derivation of, and authority for its teaching, and an abstract of its doctrine (as contained in its chief text-books).
(2) The recommendation of the books deemed the best exponents of such teaching, and their presentation, loan, or sale at reduced prices, to free public libraries, private circles or readers or individuals, as may be advisable.
(3) The holding of meetings public and private, for exposition; the publication of new, and republication of old books distinguished for their soundness of doctrine and lucidity of statement; the establishment of periodicals, and the encouragement and aid of branch or corresponding societies at home and abroad, irrespective of race, nation, or creed; and whatever else may serve to realise the endeavour of the Society to constitute itself a highly vitalised centre of spiritual energy from which to radiate effectually of such vital truths as are essential to true religion and morality.
All Communications respecting Membership, etc., to be addressed to the Hon. Secretary,
Miss ETHEL FORSYTH,
37 Chelsea Gardens, S.W.,
to whom all Cheques and Postal Orders may be made payable, crossed “London and County Bank, South Kensington Branch.”
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Books Recognised by the Society as
Appertaining to the New Gospel of Interpretation.
• The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of Christ. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Hamilton, Adams & Co., London, 1882. Second edition, revised and enlarged: Field and Tuer, London, 1887; and also, Esoteric Publishing Company, Boston, 1988. 3rd edition: 1890. Fifth edition, edited, with additions and a long preface, by Samuel Hopgood Hart: John M. Watkins, London, 1923. 405 pp.
[The following resumed presentation of the book’s contents was added by the organizer of the Anna Kingsford Site, as is the case with the other resumed presentations in this section:]
A book setting forth the “intellectual concepts” which underlie Christianity, but which its official exponents cannot or may not disclose, and demonstrating Christianity to be a symbolic synthesis of the fundamental truths contained in all religions.
Contents:
Prefaces – Introductory Lecture – The Soul; and the Substance of Existence – The Various Orders of Spirits; and How to Discern Them – The Atonement – The Nature and Constitution of the Ego – The Fall (Nº 1) – The Fall (Nº 2) – The Redemption – God as the Lord; or, the Divine Image – Appendices – Index.
• Clothed with the Sun: Being the Illuminations of Anna (Bonus) Kingsford. Anna Kingsford. Edited by Edward Maitland. First edition: John M. Watkins, London, 1889. Second edition: The Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1906. Third Edition: edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart, 1937. Sun Books (reprint), Santa Fe, 1993. 210 pp.
Contents:
Part I: Concerning the Three Veils between Man and God – Inspiration and Prophesying – The Kingdom of the Soul – The Prophecy of the Immaculate Conception – Revelation – The Interpretation of the Mystical Scriptures – the Mosaic Cosmogony – The Fall – The Prophecy of the Deluge – The Prophecy of the Book of Esther – The Prophecy of the Vision of Nebuchadnezzar – The Prophecy of the Time of the End – The Soul: Its Origin, Nature, and Potentialities – Persephone, or the Soul’s Descent into Matter – The Genius or Daimon – The “Powers of the Air” – The Devil and Devils – The Gods – The Greek Mysteries – The Origin of Evil, and the Tree as the Type of Creation – The Great Pyramid, and the Initiations Therein – The “Man of Power” – The “Work of Power” – The Man Regenerate – The Christ and the Logos – Christian Pantheism – The “Blood of Christ” – “Vicarious Atonement” – Paul and the Disciples of Jesus – The Gospels: their Origin and Composition – The Actual Jesus – The Previous Lives of Jesus – The Holy Family – The Metempsychosis or Avatar – The Eon of the Christ – The Doctrine of Grace – The Hereafter – The True Ego – God – The Poet, as Type of the Heavenly Personality – Consciousness and Memory – the Christian Mysteries – Dying – The One Life – etc.
Part II: The Book of the Mysteries of God.
Part III: The Divine Image; or, the Vision of Adonai.
• Intima Sacra.
A Manual of Esoteric Devotion. Compiled by E.M. Forsyth. David Stott,
Contents:
Compiler’s Introduction
–
• The Bible’s Own Account of Itself. Edward Maitland. 1st Edition: Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1891. 2nd Edition, complete with Appendix: Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1905. 83 pp. Third Edition: John M. Watkins, London, 1913.
Contents:
The failure of Orthodoxy and Agnosticism to
interpret the Bible. –
The sources of information whereby to determine this question. – The
doctrine of the Bible in neither that of Orthodoxy nor of Materialism, but of
Pantheism, in that it involves the divinity of inherency. – The necessary
unity, duality, and trinity of Original, and therein of all, Being. The
mystical “woman,” of the Bible: the Soul, her recognition and
appreciation to constitute the “Woman’s Age.” – The
passage of Original Being from the static to the dynamic state, in which it is designated “Holy Spirit.” – The
narrative of the Creation, the Flood, and the Nativity. – The divinity of
inherency, evolution, immortality, regeneration, and re-incarnation, as
indispensable to divine incarnation. – The “Divine Marriage.”
– The initial and final stages of man’s spiritual evolution,
represented by “Adam” and “Christ,” “Eve”
and “Mary.” – Unscriptural and blasphemous nature of the
Orthodox presentations. – How to “put on Christ.” – The
Higher Alchemy and the true Resurrection. – The Soul’s Intuition,
the interpreter deliverer, represented in the Bible as a woman, and symbolised
also by the “ass.” – “Christ”
macrocosmic as well as microcosmic. – The Finding of Christ the
completion of the Intuition and realisation of the Ideal. – Jesus, why
selected to be the new exemplar. – The mystic exodus from the mystic
• The “New Gospel of Interpretation”: Being an Abstract of the Doctrine and a Statement of the Origin, Object, Basis, Method and Scope of the Esoteric Christian Union. Edward Maitland. Published under auspice of the Esoteric Christian Union, whose President-Founder was Edward Maitland. London, Lamley & Co., 1892. 93 pp.
Contents:
Distinction between the Esoterical and Ecclesiastical – The Indictment of Ecclesiasticism – The Bible insists on the Esoteric sense – The Bible throughout denounces Ecclesiasticism – The Bible contains clay and dross as well as gold – The Apocalypse a prospective history of the Church – “The Beast” and his “number” – The “Woman” by whose fall comes man’s fall, and by whose restoration man’s redemption, not a woman, but the Soul as represented by the Intuition – The Fall, which is that of the original Church of Christ, brought about by Ecclesiasticism acting under Satanic control – “The order of Melchizedek” – Why essential doctrines were suppressed in favour of salvation by Substitution – The Esoteric and true doctrine of Divine Incarnation – “The mystery of Redemption” – Christ is the fulfilment of the divine-natural order, the realisation in every man of his own divine potentialities – Anti-Christ, and the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost – Definitions of these sins – Man the individuated expression of principles subsisting in God – By its denial of the Divine Duality and suppression of the Understanding in favour of authority as the criterion of truth, Ecclesiasticism has blasphemed, and has accordingly systematically perverted all the doctrines of religion – The guilt of the rejection and crucifixion of Christ, rests not upon the Jews, against whom Ecclesiasticism has directed it, but upon Ecclesiasticism itself – The world’s present state; signifying the total extinction of the “Woman,” Intuition, and therein of the moral and spiritual consciousness – The manifestation anew of the Christ, whereby that influence of Ecclesiasticism is to be destroyed – The Bible forecasts of this event are manifold – The “Man bearing a pitcher of water” – The Zodiac, the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx and the Obelisk – “Jachin and Boaz;” “Pillars of Hercules” – The occurrence in the present age of a restoration of faculty and knowledge corresponding to that predicted in the Bible, as exemplified in the writings called the New Gospel of Interpretation – This gospel is not new itself, but new only by reason of its having been suppressed, forgotten, and lost – Its identity in spirit, derivation, kind and method with all previous divine revelations – The Church of the Regeneration, its characteristics. “Roma” reversed; “Peter;” “Mystery;” “the dry bones live;” “the vessels of the house of the Lord” restored, and the temple rebuilt – The message of the New Interpretation to the Ecclesiasticisms, especially that of Science – The condition of the priesthoods of the future – The present disintegration of society preparatory to re-integration on the basis of the New Interpretation – The Lord rules. “Solve, Coagula, Fige” – The “Bow in the clouds” – Conclusion: For those who know the spiritual nature and history of the World, so far from there being any antecedent improbability in the event herein declared, it was a moral certainty; that which it means being man’s completion in his proper divine image, by his promotion to his spiritual manhood, and the regeneration of Church and World. The Esoteric Christian Union: Organisation and Methods. Scriptures of the Future. Books Recognised by the Society as Appertaining to the New Gospel of Interpretation.
• “A Message to Earth”. Published anonymously. [Compiler’s note: It is very likely that this work was edited by Edward Maitland.] Published in conjunction with the writings recognized by the Esoteric Christian Union as appertaining to the “New Gospel of Interpretation.” London (Lamley & Co., 1 & 3 Exhibition Road, S.W.), 1892. 93 pp.
Contents:
Aspiration – Faith –
God’s Kingdom – Love – Individuality – Prayer – Doubt – Communion of Souls – Jesus the man – The Holy Spirit – Personality – The
Earth’s Coming Redemption – The God in Man – Love, the
Redeemer – The Meaning of the Age – Evolution the Individuation of
God – The Mission of the Christ – The Work of Science – The
Work of Christ – Individual Evolution, Reincarnation the Means,
Regeneration the Result – Love Manifested in Action – Love
Manifested in Action (2) – Love in Life – Christ the Demonstration of the Power of
Love – The Interpretation of Christ, the Second Coming of Christ –
Courage Born of Faith and Love – Christ the Everlasting Type –
Materialism and Unbelief Due to Lack of Faculty – Jesus the Vehicle,
Christ the Spiritual Content – The Sin Against the Holy Ghost – Purpose
of the Gospel Statement – Intuition the Recognition of Man’s
Indwelling Divinity – The Ministry of Angels – Christ the Joyous
– Christ Jesus, His Second and Spiritual Advent – Prayer (2) – The True Consciousness –
The Disposal of these Writings – Relativity of Man’s Conception of
Truth – The Ministry of Suffering – Love the Solvent – Closing
Admonitions – Concerning Devotion to the Personal Jesus – On
Expressing the Desire Similarly to Hold Spiritual Intercourse – On
Enquiring why the Term “Father” Only Is Applied to God, when, as
Being both the Force and the Substance of Existence, God is Necessarily Mother
as well as Father –
The Esoteric Christian Union
Also, containing teaching identical in source and character with the foregoing, but mixed with some writings of a lighter order:
• Dreams and Dream-Stories. Anna Kingsford. Edited by Edward Maitland. George Redway, London, 1888. 281 pp.
Contents:
Part I: Dreams – The Doomed Train – The Wonderful Spectacles – The Counsel of Perfection – The City of Blood – The Bird and the Cat – The Treasure in the Lighted House – The Forest Cathedral – The Enchanted Woman – The Banquet of the Gods – The Difficult Path – A Lion in the Way – A Dream of Disembodiment – The Perfect Way with Animals – The Laboratory Underground – The Old Young Man – The Metempsychosis – The Three Kings – The Armed Goddess – The Game of Cards – The Panic-struck Pack-horse – The Haunted Inn – An Eastern Apologue – A Haunted House Indeed – The Square in the Hand – Dream Verses.
Part II: Dream-Stories – A Village of Seers – Steepside; a Ghost Story – Beyond the Sunset – A Turn of Luck – Noémi – The Little Old Man’s Story – The Nightshade – St. George the Chevalier.
[Note from the organizer of the Anna Kingsford Site: To the above set of books, we could surely add a few others, published after this pamphlet came to light – for they were reconized by the Esoteric Christian Union (founded by Edward Maitland) as appertaining to the New Gospel of Interpretation – which are:]
• The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the New Gospel of Interpretation. Edward Maitland. 1st Edition, 1893. 2nd Edition, 1894. 3rd Edition, edited by Samuel H. Hart. Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1905. 204 pp.
Contents:
Prefaces – Introduction – The Vocation – The Initiation – The Communication – The Anatomization – The Recapitulation – The Exemplification – The Promulgation and Recognition.
• The Life of Anna Kingsford: Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Edward Maitland. Two volumes. George Redway, London, 1896. 3rd Edition, edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1913. Vol. I, 442 pp.; Vol. II, 466 pp.
Contents:
Volume I: Prefaces – Early Life – Our First Acquaintance – Some Account of Myself – Mutual Recognition – To End of 1875 – Student Life – Spiritual Unfoldments – The Celestial Opened – A Cloud of Witnesses – Persecuted of Apollyon – The Baffled Sorcerer – Manifold Experiences – The First and Last of the Gods – Warnings and Instructions – Floods of Light – Close of Student Course – Among the Astrals – Conversations with the Genii – Continuous Illuminations.
Volume II: The Perfect Way – Numerous Experiences – Varied Activities – A Tour Abroad – Winter at Paris – The Theosophical Society – A Time of Controversy – Meditations on the Mysteries – The Hermetic Society – Letters and Illuminations – Some Former Incarnations – De Multis Rebus – A Flight for Life – A Melancholy Tour – A Home to Die In – The Withdrawal – Priest versus Prophet – Post Mortem – Index.
• Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1912. 227 pp.
Contents:
Biographical Preface.
By Anna Kingsford: Social considerations – Letters on Pure Diet – A Lecture on Food – The Best Food for Man – The Physiology of Vegetarianism – Historical Aspect of Food Reform – Some Aspects of the Vegetarian Question – Addresses to Vegetarians – Evolution and Flesh-eating.
By Edward Maitland: Extracts from England and Islam – Vegetarianism in Its Higher Aspects – Vivisection and Vegetarianism – The Higher Aspects of Vegetarianism – Evolution and Free-thought – The Highest Aspect of Vegetarianism – Vegetarianism; the Common Sense of It – Man’s Best Food – Vegetarianism and Antiquity – Vegetarianism and the Bible – Index.
Also – containing teaching identical in source and nature with the foregoing, but mixed with some writings of a lighter order: –
• The Credo of Christendom: and other Addresses and Essays on Esoteric Christianity. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1916. 256 pp.
Contents:
Biographical Preface (by Samuel Hopgood Hart) – Lectures: The Credo of Christendom – The Hermetic Fragment Koré Kosmou, the Virgin of the World – The Method of the Mystics – Karma – Bible Hermeneutics – “Violationism,” or Sorcery in Science – The Systematisation and Application of Psychic Truth – Essays and Letters: – The Constitution of Man – Concerning Re-Incarnation – The Doctrine of “Shells” – Extraneous Spirits and Obsession – The Historic “Jesus” – Fate, Heredity, and Re-Incarnation – The Mystic Kings of the East – Christian Mysticism – Animals and their Souls – The Trinity. Illustrations: “Via Crucis” – The Lower Triangle – The Upper Triangle.
Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Work Index Previous: 44 - On Enquiring why the Term “Father” Only Is Applied to God, when, as Being both the Force and the Substance of Existence, God Is Necessarily Mother as well as Father