Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Present Work: Index Previous: IV - The Prophecies of the Bible, the Great Pyramid, and the Zodiac Next: Vl - The New Era
(p. 40)
PART V
PROPHETIC CONDITIONS OF THE END
POTENT as are the proofs from history and astronomy that the true key to the prophetic dates has at length been found, the proof from the conditions assigned as those under which the anticipated catastrophe would occur, is no less conclusive. And if, as is actually the fact, it is only in virtue of the knowledges newly recovered that it is possible to speak with any degree of positiveness on the point, so far from this circumstance weakening our case, it really serves to strengthen it by showing that we are now, in virtue of such restoration, actually living under conditions altogether new in respect of the knowledge of things spiritual. In the absence of a key, such as is now provided, to the mystical terms in which the prophecies are couched, it would be vain to pronounce upon the fulfilment of the prophecies. Not comprehending the nature of the event predicted, it is impossible to determine upon the fulfilment of the prediction.
(p. 41)
Hence the failure of all previous attempts at interpretation. The very terms in which the prophecies are couched, were misunderstood, as well also as were both the method and nature of revelation. Hence it is necessary, before proceeding to show the application of the prophecies, to give some explanation of the method followed in them.
In regard alike to sacred prophecy and sacred doctrine, or dogma, it has always been the wont to wrap them in language which, in being symbolical, conceals rather than reveals their true meaning. In its mystical and non-historical method, the Bible, as already said, is like the records of the land which it took its rise, hieroglyphic, describing things spiritual in terms derived from things physical. It is thus a series of parables which have reference, not to objects or persons, though using the names of these, but to principles and processes purely spiritual, just as in the hieroglyphic writings of the Egyptians, which, consisting of animals and other material objects, referred not to these themselves, but to certain things they were chosen to denote.
The rule to be observed then, in the interpretation of the mystical Scriptures – and a very large proportion, even of those which are usually accounted historical, is purely mystical –
(p. 42)
the rule is, that all that is true in them is spiritual, and that no interpretation is correct which seems to bear a physical meaning. If it seem to us to have a material signification, we have not yet understood it. That in it which is true is for spirit alone. This is because Religion, with which alone such Scriptures have concern, is addressed, not to the bodily sense, or reason, but to the soul; and bears relation, not to physical phenomena, or to historical facts, but to spiritual realities. And to regard them otherwise, by according to the letter or form the respect due exclusively to the spiritual reality, and thus to materialise what is spiritual, is to commit idolatry. (1)
Following this rule, we find that in speaking of the World and its end, the Bible means in no sense the physical planet, but the system or order of things established by man upon principles the reverse of Divine, and incapable, therefore, of endurance, since it contains within itself the seed of its own destruction. Saturn, who is Time, is thus represented as devouring his own children, namely, all those things which, being born only of Time, have in them no Divine element of perpetuity. Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic,
(p. 43)
speaks of the existing order of things in terms similar to those of the Bible, calling it “that great city, the World.” And that of which the end, or at least the death-blow, was announced for this juncture, is the system hitherto prevailing, alike in the Church and in the world, which is based upon the preference for form over substance, appearance over reality, body over soul, matter over spirit, the symbol over the signification – a preference, the indulgence of which has materialised the race to the almost total obscuration of its spiritual perceptions.
Precisely the same illumination by which the prophets of old were enabled to foretell both the fact and the time of such a declension and materialisation of the race, enabled them with equal confidence to foretell also, the fact and period of the race’s restoration. The human spirit, being essentially Divine, would, they knew, refuse to acquiesce in what would be tantamount to its own extinction, and would make effectual protest against it.
This protest, they knew also, could be rendered only by means of a new manifestation of itself by that Spirit, – a manifestation which would compel on the part of mankind such recognition as would ultimately raise its spiritual consciousness to a level exceeding that ever before attained, save by the most advanced of its individual members.
(p. 44)
It was on the strength of no mere surmise of opinion that they thus uttered themselves. The prophet does not guess or infer. Nor even when in trance, and cut off from the consciousness of his outer self, does he speak mechanically and as an automaton; but his inner man knows and sees as necessary truth that which he says, – knows and sees, that is, by direct perception and recollection of his own soul, under the Divine impulsion and illumination of the Spirit. And in proportion as his soul is pure and his love is strong, he comes into union with the World-Soul, and makes its knowledges his own. Such is Intuition. The philosophy, wholly materialistic, of the day, when it has proved to its own satisfaction that there is no avenue to the mind but by the senses, and no knowledge but by experience, rejoices to think that it has thereby for ever got rid of the soul and the intuition. But, as is the wont with that philosophy, even where its facts are true, its conclusions are apt to be false. And they are so in this instance. For the soul itself also has its own senses, and learns by experience; and intuition is the experience of the soul, and inborn with the man, to be given forth to him as his deserts may entitle him and his needs require. And the prophet is one in whom the soul is enabled to recover and communicate of its perceptions
(p. 45)
and recollections, and who is divinely impelled to utter them forth for the world’s instruction. (1)
Besides the method, it is necessary to explain also the terminology, of prophecy, at least so far as concerns the Biblical or Hermetic school, with which alone we are now occupied. Regarding Humanity as the manifestation of one and the self-same Divine spirit, and seeing, therefore, in the universe nothing but Humanity, distributed over various planes and subsisting under various modes of differentiation and degrees of elaboration; and, moreover, discerning everywhere the presence of a dualism corresponding to that of the sexes; – this school employed the term man to denote the centrifugal, masculine, intellectual, and force element generally, whether of body, mind, or spirit; and the term woman to denote the centripetal, intuitional, feminine, and love element. And they taught also that only by the equilibrium and harmonious co-operation of these two principles or modes of its original unity, could any system duly complete its trinity, and either attain its manifestation or preserve its stability.
On applying to the Scriptures the light of this explanation,
(p. 46)
the obscurity in which they have been previously enshrouded for us becomes dispelled, and we find ourselves, like Isaac at Lahai-roi, “resting beside the well of clear vision.” For then the meaning and unity of the mystical Scriptures, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, become manifest, and we are able to see plainly that which they are designed to set forth, to be no other than the history of the Soul, at once individual, collective, and cosmic; and this, under the designation of the woman, or feminine element of existence, in process of her manifestation in Humanity. Recognising this irrefutable fact, we perceive that what the Bible, in common with all ancient mysticism, terms the Fall, and ascribes to a woman – so far from implying blame to that sex, or to any member of it – does not refer at all to a person, but means simply the descent of Soul, generally or individually, into matter, her loss thereby of her intuition of Spirit – her proper lord – and her consequent subjection to the bodily elements; and that what is termed the Redemption, is the Soul’s purification from matter, her recovery of her intuition of Spirit, and her production, finally, of a humanity “made perfect through suffering,” and become divine through its ascent with her, to her original condition of purity.
For, as by following a centrifugal direction, the Soul tends
(p. 47)
outwards and downwards to matter, so by following a centripetal direction, which alone, properly, is hers, the Soul tends inwards and upwards until she finds and learns to know God who is the immediate life and substance of the Soul. And, as by following a centrifugal direction the man tends outwards and downwards to negation and the void; so by following a centripetal direction the man tends inwards and upwards until he finds and learns to know his Soul, who is his life and substance, and, through her, God, the central and true Self of his system. Attaining to such perception, he recognises as occurring within himself, and independently of all others, the entire process of Creation, Fall, and Redemption, precisely as symbolised under manifold parables in all Bibles. And thus he comes to know positively through his own experience that the Salvation which the churches, sunk in materialism, represent as coming from without, as due to physical means, and as being of “free grace,” really occurs within, and is at once altogether independent of exterior or historical events, and dependent upon his own voluntary co-operation with the Spirit within him, which is ever striving, as the Apostle says, “with groans which cannot be uttered,” to enable him to “work out his own salvation.”
Having described the prophet, and explained his method
(p. 48)
of procedure and system of expression, we come to treat of the prophecy itself with which we are specially concerned. This is manifold, recurring frequently in the Scriptures, both old and new, presented under many forms, but having always the same meaning, and applying equally to the individual, the collective, and the universal. For, in respect of all these three, “there is one Law, and He that worketh is One.” And the end to be attained of all is also one; and is ever that which, in Hermetic language, is termed the Great Work, – the Redemption, that is, of spirit from matter. And it occurs, first, in the individual; next, in the congregation of the Elect, the true Israel, or Church, – a body which consists of all seekers after Perfection; and, finally, in the Universe. And, wherever occurring, it is the catastrophe mystically termed “the conflagration of all things.” For fire is the analogue of Spirit; and all things are finally resolved into Spirit, of which matter itself is but a transient mode.
The typical prophecy of the “end,” – that which resumes and includes all others having the same import – is the prophecy uttered by Daniel, and repeated and reinforced by Jesus. In it the special “sign of the end” is the spectacle of the “abomination of desolation” – or, “that maketh desolate” – “standing in the holy place.” As was to be expected from
(p. 49)
the materialising tendency dominant in the Church no less than in the world, the “holy place” in question has been shorn of its true and spiritual signification and invested with one entirely material, and referred accordingly to the Temple at Jerusalem, – the “abomination” being taken to denote the erection therein of an idolatrous image by the Romans. Now, however apt things spiritual may be to find for themselves a material expression, it is, as just stated, never the material expression which is the real thing intended; and to find this we must seek further. Granted that in this prophecy a temple is intended as the subject and scene of the anticipated desecration, and that the Temple at Jerusalem was, for those immediately addressed, the most sacred of all such edifices, – we have still to seek for the reality of which even that Temple is a perishable type, and from the inherent divinity of which it derives its sanctity. On this point the Scriptures are not silent or even obscure. They tell of “a temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” and they speak of man as a “temple of the living God.” Now, as already said, this last term “God” denoted for all initiates of sacred mysteries not alone the universal Divinity subsisting exteriorly to man, but also that Divine Life within the man whereby, when pure from defilement of matter, the soul is informed and animated. Consisting of
(p. 50)
the Divine Substance, and pervaded by the Divine Spirit, the soul, polarising inwards, becomes, as expressed in the Christian formulas, “mother of God” in the man; since, by means of her, God, the abstract and universally diffused personality, becomes God, a concrete and individualised personality, and, therein, amenable to cognition by the interior sense.
It is, then, the human soul, in which God thus dwells, that is the true temple, “not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” of man’s own celestial part; and the true “holy place” is the place of God in the soul. And to set up therein the “abomination of desolation” is to substitute Matter for the Divine uncreated Essence, and thereby deprive humanity of its spiritual light and life, making existence a waste and void, a very “abomination of desolation.”
Is it necessary to point the application? In this our age – so-called scientific – humanity has, for the first time in the world’s history, become so densely materialised, that, as represented by its foremost recognised intellects, it has deliberately pronounced against the idea both of God and of the soul; and, declaring all things to be but mechanical or chemical, has exalted Matter as the sole Being, one and supreme, and made the limitations of Matter the measure of the potentialities of man. “Science,” a recent leading
(p. 51)
member of this school – arrogating the term to the knowledge of things physical only, as if there were no “exact knowledge” of aught else – was wont to declare with satisfaction, “science has demonstrated for us scientists the non-being of God and the soul; and soon the whole world will have abandoned altogether the notion of either.” Such a condition of mind denotes the complete immergence of the soul in matter, with the total obscuration of the intuition. And upon this basis all teaching has been re-constructed in every school of science in the world, with the avowed purpose of building up the mankind of the future, not in man’s proper Divine image, but in its exact opposite. For it is the image of “that Wicked One” “the Man of Sin,” made in the likeness of the not-God, recognising matter only, and having: therefore no aspirations beyond the body, but realising exactly that system of denial of spirit, and idolatry of matter, which in the Apocalypse is entitled the “Beast,” and represented as the issue of the dragon of the “bottomless pit” of man’s lower nature.
And if we would seek in the outcome of the system which has now, thank God, culminated to its fall, a symbol and token denotive of its character, we have it in the practice which modern science exalts and modern society permits as a legitimate method of research, – even the churches
(p. 52)
called Christian refraining from any word of condemnation. The torture-chamber of the vivisector marks the lowest depth to which mankind has fallen or can fall. For, in representing the negation alike of head and heart, of intelligence and moral conscience, and of every Divine element in humanity, in short of all that makes man, in any high and true sense, and the exaltation, in their place, of selfishness, cruelty, and cowardice as the rules of life, – it represents the extinction of humanity itself.
The epithet by which Jesus stigmatised the “generation,” or age, whose end he was foretelling, – the epithet “adulterous,” now finds ready explanation. The soul’s allegiance is due, not to matter or the body, but to the spirit; and her submission to the lower element involves an infidelity to her legitimate spouse. Wherefore, the term “adulterous,” as thus used, implies that renunciation of spirit and reality, and worship of form and appearance, which constitute, at once, materialism and idolatry. Wherever this occurs, the recognition of any ideal of perfection is always sacrificed to the gratification of the lower nature. Hence the description in the Apocalypse of the existing system of the world as “that great city where the Lord is crucified.” With the ideal rejected and crucified by priest and ruler, and the “two witnesses” for God – namely, the Intellect and
(p. 53)
the Intuition, when duly perfected and united – “cast out and slain” in its streets; “Barabbas,” or the base and sensual, is preferred. Nevertheless, it is, as we are assured, by the rising again of these witnesses in our time, and their “ascension into heaven,” or reinstatement in man’s mental system, that the “end” is to be accomplished.
The prophecy of Daniel concludes with a charge to “shut up the words and seal the book to the time of the end.” The power to open the book – that is, to interpret its meaning – is in itself, therefore, a token of the arrival of the end in question. The like rule would seem to have been observed in regard to the Great Pyramid and its prophetic import. Built, not for actual use, but for a perpetual sign, was, there is good reason to believe, immediately on its completion, “shut up and sealed,” and this “to the time of the end.” For it is only on the very eve of that end, as we understand it, that its entrance has been found, an examination made, and its signification ascertained.
Not only do the dates and general conditions predicted as those of the end exactly coincide with the fact, but details even of the most marked peculiarity may equally be shown to have received their due fulfilment. The particulars, however, cannot be given now or here. It will suffice to state that the events described as the advent of Michael and
(p. 54)
his angels, announced by Daniel and in the Apocalypse, and re-affirmed by Trithemius for this very period: the Avâtar of the “angels” of Daniel and John themselves; and the “return of the Gods,” including “Astræa,” – all actually occurred at the times appointed, namely, between the years 1876 and 1881; while the results of the illumination vouchsafed during that period in consequence of such advents, were first promulgated in the summer of that year, and were published, in the following winter, in The Perfect Way, that time being the earliest opportunity afforded, and one altogether irrespective of any human contrivance.
NOTES
(42:1) See The Perfect Way, Appendix I, “Concerning the Interpretation of Scripture,” also Lecture I, Part 2.
(45:1) See The Perfect Way, Lecture I, Part 1, 6-19; also Appendix III, Part 1, “Concerning Prophesying,” showing wherein the prophet differs from the “medium.”
Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Present Work: Index Previous: IV - The Prophecies of the Bible, the Great Pyramid, and the Zodiac Next: Vl - The New Era
|
|