Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XX – O Caminho Perfeito Seguinte: XXII – Atividades Variadas
(p. 22)
CHAPTER XXI
NUMEROUS EXPERIENCES
OUR lectures happily concluded, we sought a brief term of recreation before
entering on the arduous task of their final revision for publication. Meanwhile
another notable sign of the times occurred to mark the year 1881. This was the
publication of the Revised Version of the English Bible. The fact of a new
translation was welcomed by us, if only as constituting a blow to the idolatrous
veneration in which the letter of the old translation was held, a striking
example of which we recognised in the ground of the opposition to the proposed
revision raised by the excellent Lord Shaftesbury – that it would deprive many
pious persons of some of their favourite texts. By which it would appear that
men’s blunders were more worthy of conservation than the inspirations of the
Holy Ghost, to which he implicitly ascribed the Bible. The manner in which the
work was accomplished would have been in the highest degree disappointing to us
had we anticipated any other result than was actually attained. For we knew as
did no others that the time was the winter solstice of the human soul, and
spiritual perception was at its lowest ebb; so that, be the learning expended on
it what it might, there would be no insight to guide it. The very first verse of
Genesis
more than confirmed our gloomiest anticipations. In the Authorised Version, the
Hebrew word wrongly rendered “heaven” in the first chapter was rightly rendered
“heavens” in the second chapter. In the Revised Version both were wrongly
rendered “heaven”.
This error in Hebrew as well as in doctrine was for us, with Chapters VII-X of
the
Greater Mysteries in our hands, proof positive that the translators had
not begun to understand the system of thought which underlies the Bible, and of
which the Christ is the personal demonstration. And it was not without
(p. 23)
a sense of elation that we reflected that the
real and vital translation of the Bible, its translation from the Letter to the
Spirit, had been withheld from the magnates of the dominant orthodoxy, backed by
the national purse, to be committed to such inconspicuous and poverty-stricken
instruments as ourselves. There was an irony about it which argued a keen sense
of humour in the divine disposers of events.
We separated for our holiday, my colleague going to her mother at St. Leonards,
and I to a married niece in Warwickshire for whom I had great regard and
affection, but whom I had not seen for many years. But it is on account of an
experience which grew out of the visit that I make reference to her here. Her
father, my eldest brother, a man of great and varied talent, had studied
medicine at
My niece, who was in no kind or degree a “spiritualist,” took advantage of my
recognition of the reality of the spiritualistic phenomena to tell me that she
could not help thinking that her father was about her at times, in consequence
of her reception of sudden suggestions which she could only ascribe to him; one
of which was of such a nature as to lead her to inquire of her husband whether
there was any question as to the cause of her father’s death. As he had not
heard of any, he replied accordingly. Nevertheless the suspicion recurred, and
during my visit she put the same question to me, after telling me what I have
just related about her seeming consciousness of her father’s
(p. 24)
presence; whereupon I told her of my doubts and
the reason for them.
Our respective visits ended. Mary and I returned to
“I don’t understand the meaning of what I have to say, by there is a spirit here
who tells me to say to this gentleman that he was a physician, and that he came
to his end through poison administered by himself. But it was not intentional;
he did not take it for that purpose. He was experimenting with some chemicals,
and what he tasted killed him. I am told to say also that W.M. is with him”.
The manner of this message struck me quite as much as the matter. My brother’s
cautiousness and secretiveness, especially
(p. 25)
in his latter years, had amounted almost to
eccentricity; and the way in which, on this occasion, the personality of the
speaker and his relationship to me were concealed amounted of itself to a strong
corroborative proof of his identity. The initials “W.M.,” moreover, were those
of our brother William, also a student of medicine, who was his favourite
brother, and had predeceased him by some twenty years.
On discussing together the particulars of this experience, we found ourselves
compelled to the conclusion that it was indeed my eldest brother who, desiring
to clear up the mystery of his end, had come to his daughter, my niece, then
passed into my sphere, and following me home, had prompted Mary with the wish to
visit the clairvoyant, whom he then instructed accordingly.
This incident finished, the clairvoyant addressed us jointly, saying: –
“I see something very curious about this lady and gentleman which I am bid to
describe. Just at the end of a high range of buildings in some foreign-looking
city there is a magnificent fountain, over which stands a monument or statue
representing the Archangel Michael transfixing a dragon. This monument, I am
told, represents their work. For the angel means Spiritualism, and the dragon
Materialism, and they are charged with a mission of which the object is to
destroy Materialism in religion by restoring Spirituality. And I see this
gentleman resting beside the fountain, and Joan of Arc, in the likeness of this
lady, standing by and keeping guard over him”.
It had so happened, but no one in the world knew it save ourselves, that,
recognising while in Paris the significance of the splendid fountain and
monument of Michael and the Dragon in the Boulevard St. Michel, we had thought
that a drawing of it would make an admirable frontispiece for one of our
projected books, and had searched the photograph-shops of Paris for a good
representation, which we had accordingly purchased, and was then in our
possession. (1) The allusion to Joan of Arc as acting as guardian to us was
similarly in accordance with our experience as has already been stated.
Mary was so struck by these experiences, that we paid a private visit to the
seer, partly to test him further, and partly to obtain
(p. 26)
information that might be of practical value. It
must be remembered that our very names were unknown to him, and we gave him no
clue to what was in our minds, nor said anything that could have suggested his
utterances. On entering the lucid state he said, among other things, first
addressing me: –
“I see a spirit always going before you, bearing a cross, a simple plain cross,
as your guide and symbol. You have about you an old Greek spirit well versed in
all kinds of mythologic knowledge; and he holds up a
round talisman in silver which he says is your emblem”.
I took this to represent the moon, and thereby the intuition.
“I should say that you are receiving curious and special revelations concerning
religious matters, and especially concerning the reincarnation of spirits,
showing how they come back to operate again in the world. I do not understand
it, but I am told that I am to correct the belief which spiritualists have that
all the spirits who come to them are real, genuine spirits, whereas only some of
them are real, the others being ‘reflections’ – I think is meant.”
Then, addressing Mary, he said: –
“A sister of yours is here, who died young, with pure flaxen or golden hair –
such a beautiful angel. She lives a part of her earth life in and with you,
getting her experiences through you.”
This description exactly fitted a sister who had died several years before Mary
was born, and whom their mother – who was no believer in spiritualism, and had
never heard of reincarnation – used to say was so like Mary in appearance and
characteristics as to make her think that she had come back as Mary.
He then said to her: –
“Have you anything to do with Catholicism? Because I see a luminous cross with
you, and before it a form, covered with a rich embroidered mantle, bends in
adoration. I think it must be an attendant spirit on you, who performs this
worship at intervals. But you will not stay in
“I see two links welded, golden links, so blended that it is impossible to
distinguish one from the other. They mean you two. And there is a great work
indeed which will be accomplished by you two jointly. Your visions are given you
by guardian spirits who show you the things you are to know and do. You are the
oracle for an innumerable host of spirits who have been silent for ages, but now
intend those things to be known. Joan of Arc is
(p. 27)
one of your guides. She has an enormous
following of spirits. A person has been to me who fancies herself a
reincarnation of Joan, but I told her she was mistaken. You have a marvellous
work to accomplish, and you can’t help doing it.
“You were not always a Catholic. I see you as a proselyte. You are destined by a
vast band of spirits to carry out a work which you cannot help doing. You will
have many difficulties, especially about December next, but will overcome them
all, and rise to a position so high you could not have attained it alone and of
yourself. Your difficulties will be through people trying to hinder your work.
It must be kept as secret as may be till complete. When complete and safely
launched all will be easy. Your husband, whom I see, is also under guidance in
the interests of your work. Meanwhile you will have to watch and be careful.
“Where you not much troubled at the end of last year and beginning of this by
people spreading scandalous tales? Yes! I see it all. The stout lady who took so
much trouble to injure you has had her trouble for nothing – no, not for
nothing; it will return upon herself. I only wonder she has not lost some of her
corpulency by the exertions she made to injure you! Oh, what a figure
hers is! I cannot help laughing when I see it. Her conduct has worried you
dreadfully; but it will turn to your advantage, and prove the worst day’s work
she has ever done for herself. Do not take any action in the matter. Keep as you
are, do as you are doing, and I see no possibility of any evil overcoming you.”
Not only was this personal description of Miss Cobbe absolutely correct, but –
as we only learnt some time after this sitting – she had actively busied herself
as described in writing letters and making calls in order to instil insinuations
with the object of making Mary’s position in
For the rest of the year our work was incessant. The revision, first of the
text, and next of the proofs, of The Perfect Way was a task of
infinite toil to both of us. We were determined that the printer’s part of the
works should be as perfect as our own, and it was as if there was a no less
resolute endeavour on the other side to baffle us, so persistent were the
compositors in making fresh mistakes when in the act of correcting previous
ones. Never, probably, was there a book which required so many revises. It
seemed to us that a “printer’s devil” of exceptional malignance had been charged
to baffle and spoil our work. I was a costly book to publish. And it seemed as
if the Gods had foreseen the possibility of its exceeding our means when they
charged our good friend in
(p. 28)
her mission in respect of the English edition,
Lady Caithness subsequently brought out a French edition at her own cost. It was
not, however, without great hesitation and reluctance that we acceded to her
proposition in respect of the English edition, so strong was our preference for
doing it ourselves. But it was difficult to decline an offer pressed upon us
with the assurance of its maker’s conviction that she had been divinely charged
with the duty, and should consider our refusal of it as implying our sense of
her unworthiness to be thus associated in our work.
It proved impossible to get the book actually published within the year 1881.
But we were assured that the time of its appearance fell within the period
prophetically assigned for the event which would constitute the “end of the
world”. Meanwhile Mary, too, prepared and published an English edition of her “Thése du
Doctorat”, under the title of The
Perfect Way in Diet, our idea being to issue a series of volumes, to be
called “The Perfect Way Series”. But we were unable to carry it out, through the
great pressure of other work and Mary’s frequent disablement by illness. The Perfect Way in Diet soon found
recognition far and wide as a standard text-book, and was reproduced in various
languages.
It was the occasion to Mary of a triumph unique of its kind, we believed, up to
that time, and one that I had especial cause to rejoice at; for, having been
lampooned in the Saturday Review, she wrote so vigorous a remonstrance to the
editor that, fearing an action for damages on account of the apparent impugnment
of her professional status, he made an apology so ample as to approach the
abject. Meanwhile, though no longer attached to any of the anti-vivisection
societies, we suffered no amount of other work to interfere with our efforts in
this cause.
One of the difficulties in the way of our completing The Perfect Way in time to
appear in that year was due to our constant reception of fresh points of light,
which required to be added in. We were all the time conscious of close
supervision, one striking example of which was the following: –
It had occurred to me that the Apocalyptic prophecy of the drying up of the
(p. 29)
to that of the uplifting of the waters of the
I told her of the circumstance, and then went to my club to consult the
necessary books, first directing her to write to a relative who was a professor
of Greek. The result was to prove the correctness both of the received version
and of the Greek spirit, my mistake having consisted in confounding two words
which were so nearly alike as to be almost identical.
Shortly after this, I was pondering the passage in question, in search of its
mystical import, having before me the explanation given us of the meaning of the
Euphrates as one of the four rivers of
But this was not the whole of the correspondence. On my
(p. 30)
asking her whether she knew that she was
referred to in the Book of Revelation
by name and function, she laughed and said yes, she had known it for some time,
but had not mentioned it, because she wanted to see whether I should find it out
for myself. But her maiden name, she added, was referred to in the Bible as well
as her married name. For the time which follows the reception of the truth
brought by the “kings of the East” is called elsewhere the “acceptable year of
the Lord”, the Latin for which is Annus bonus, which allowing for change of
gender, is identical with her maiden name, Annie, or Anna Bonus. She
subsequently identified the “kings,” or principles, in question with the Right
Aspiration, Right Perception, and Right Judgment of the Buddhists, which I
further recognised as representing the functions, respectively, of the three
intelligent principles in man, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind.
We discovered yet another coincidence in this relation. While reading one of Dr. Kenealy’s curious volumes on things occult, Mary came upon a
drawing of an antique medallion, representing a king fording a river on
horseback, and a statement by Dr. Kenealy that this
represented the “twelfth messenger,” who was to complete the series of cyclical
illuminations now nearly due, and that the initials of his name would be A.K.
And so strong, we afterwards learnt, was the impression on Dr. Kenealy’s mind that, if not himself, one of his family was
the destined messenger in question, that he gave several of his children
Christian names beginnings with A.
The instruction, “Concerning the
Hereafter” (Clothed with the Sun, Part I, No.
XL), was received by Mary in sleep shortly after the conclusion of the lectures,
and was given in satisfaction of our need for a solution of some difficulties by
which we were perplexed. These were difficulties arising out of sundry
experiences, our own and those of others, which seemed to imply, on the part of
visitants from the other world, alternations or fluctuations of condition,
intellectual and moral, such as to render it impossible to regard the various
states as belonging to one and the same personality, as they obviously did.
The instruction in question furnished a perfect solution of our problems, and
moreover, corrected what we had discerned to be erroneous in the teaching of the
authority relied on by such of the spiritualists as recognised reincarnation at
all, namely,
(p. 31)
Allan Kardec,
respecting that doctrine, by showing that he failed to distinguish between the
astral phantom and the true soul. As this was a failure common to all mere
spiritualists, we were greatly struck by finding from one of our Theosophical
friends that what we had thus received accorded exactly with the teaching sent
them from India, an agreement which disposed us to pay careful heed to other
developments from that quarter.
But what was especially gratifying to us in respect of this instruction was the
following: – Having occasion to consult the Kabala, of which our knowledge thus
far was of the slenderest, being derived from interior recollections, or from
books about the Kabala, rather than from itself, we repaired to the library of
the British Museum for the purpose, where, while turning over the leaves of
Rosenroth’s Kabballah Denudata,
we came upon some chapters which showed us that what Mary had thus received in
sleep was a perfect abstract of kabalistic doctrine,
even to the repetition of Latin sentences and Hebrew words, all of which she had
rendered with perfect accuracy. We saw in this a further confirmation of the
conclusion we had long since formed, that the revelation made to us was
identical in source, method, and kind with that which had been delivered to the
inspired of old, and of which the Bible is the chief surviving depository, being
described by the Rabbins of the Kabala as given by God
to Adam in Paradise, and to Moses on Sinai, expressions which denoted the state
of Illumination. It was some time after this that Mary, on accepting an
invitation to meet the noted kabalistic scholar, Dr.
Ginsburgh, was led to express certain convictions, whereat he exclaimed,
in great surprise, ”Why, that is pure Kabala! How did you come by it?” But not
being a believer in the divinity of the Kabala, or in the reality of the
corresponding illuminative experiences, he could not be persuaded that she was
speaking seriously when she declared that she dreamt it. When The Perfect Way reached the hands of
another and yet more notable master of kabalistic
lore – more notable because understanding it and knowing enough to be able to
believe – Baron Giuseppe Spedalieri of Marseilles, “the friend, disciple, and
literary heir” of Eliphas Levi, he at once wrote to us declaring that our book
represented the doctrine of the Kabala restored to its original purity which
belonged to it while in the sanctuaries prior to its corruption by the
Rabbins;
(p. 32)
and that the illumination under which we had
written it perfectly fulfilled the prophecies of the
Hermetists
of the later middle age announcing such an illumination as to occur exactly at
the epoch in which it had occurred to us. (1) And we subsequently received like
testimony from other kabalistisc scholars.
Coming in my reading upon a notice of one of the most famous
Hermetists
of the middle age, Pico di
Mirandola, I was struck by finding him extolled as a marvel of intuitive
perception, on the ground that he had at once recognised the divinity of the
Kabala. For my own feeling had been exactly the same the moment I came in
contact with kabalistic doctrine. It was like a memory recovered, so
instantaneously did I recognise it.
The discovery in an old book on Occultism of some directions for making a magic
mirror made Mary curious at the same time to test both the directions given and
her own power of seeing in it. We accordingly had one made. It was of copper,
lined with tin, concave, and about four inches in diameter. After spending some
time in trying it – it was in the evening of November 6 – she laid it aside,
uncertain whether her failure to see in it was due to her own lack of the
faculty, or to the defective workmanship of the mirror, its concavity being so
imperfect as to prevent the rays from properly converging to a focus. A little
later in the evening, while resting on the sofa in the back drawing-room, she
found herself lucid, and called to me, as I was sitting in the other room, to
come and write down the extraordinary things which were being shown to her. The
subject proved to be one of stupendous importance, but to which we had never
given a thought; nor had either of us any acquaintance whatever with the history
of the period concerned. For it was a description of the composition of the
Gospels from manuscripts contained in the Serapeum at Alexandria, and of the subsequent destruction of
that library by the Christians in order to conceal their real origin, when the
noise and tumult were so great that she begged to be recalled to her outer
consciousness, declaring that she could not bear it. On consulting the history
of the time, we found that, so far as history goes, all the details seen by her,
names, dates, and the rest – although entirely strange to us – were perfectly
accurate. And the
(p. 33)
account see by her of the origin of the Gospels
and the destruction of the Serapeum has since been
pronounced by special students of the subject to be the only consistent and
adequate explanation ever given. It is Nº. XXXII in Part I of
Clothed with the Sun.
For the satisfaction of those who may care to know our respective parts in The
Perfect Way, I give the following table, using the Second Edition for
the purpose: – Lecture I, pars. 1-6 are mine; 7-13, hers; 14-18, mine; 19-21,
hers; 22-24, mine; 26-29, hers; 30-32, mine; 43-51, hers; 52-53, mine; 54, hers,
but taken down by me as spoken by her under illumination; 55, mine; 56 hers;
making 25 pars. to be mine, and 29 hers, in
Lectures II, and III, were written by me mainly from illuminations received by
her. Lecture IV is hers entirely, my part in it being little more than that of
literary revision. Lecture V was written by me almost entirely from revelations
received by her, my own independent contributions to it being pars. 27-29 and
45-47. Lecture VI is hers, with the exception of pars. 28, 29, which are mine.
Lecture VII, is mine, with the exception of the italicised portion of par. 3,
which is adapted from an illumination of hers, as also is the whole of Part II.
Lecture VIII was written by me chiefly from illuminations of hers. Lecture IX is
mine, with the exception of portions of pars. 20-23, which were written by us
jointly; and 44-46, 53 and 54, which are compiled from revelations to her. The
Appendices are all as received by her under illumination occurring chiefly
in sleep, the inspiration being both plenary and verbal, with the exception of
Nº. X [“Concerning the One Life”] which was intellectually elaborated. (2) All the italicised parts of the book were verbal revelations
to her.
(p. 34)
This table holds good for the Third Edition, with the exception of pars. 27-41
in Lecture VIII, the greater part of which is fresh matter, written by myself to
replace the same quantity in the former editions, in accordance with wishes
expressed and suggestions made by Mary shortly before her death. The chief
reason for the withdrawal of Lecture V in the First Edition, in favour of that
which now occupies its place, was our conviction of the superior importance of
the subject of the latter, and the impossibility of including both owing to the
book being stereotyped. A secondary reason was Mary’s reluctance to retain an
illustration such as that of the “Wandering Cell”, while physiologists were
still undecided about the reality of the phenomenon, lest the book be exposed to
hostile criticism in consequence of their doubts. (1)
Our good friend in Paris, Lady Caithness, made use of the above table, of which
I sent her a duplicate, to mark in her copy all Mary’s parts with a red pencil
line and mine with a blue one – these being our “tinctures” – and the composite
passages with both. The cover, which was designed by Mary, had in the centre a
figure of the “woman clothed with the sun”, to denote the soul and her full
illumination by the spirit; at the corners the symbols of the four evangelists
and elemental divinities, which signify the four divisions of existence, both
within man and without him; and round the borders the texts, “The path of the
just is as the shining light, that shineth more and
more unto the perfect day!” and “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!” Mary was very proud of this design. The
First Edition was bound in the nearest colour to purple that was to be had,
namely, a “peacock-blue”, in order – while including the Seven Spirits of God –
to combine our own colours, the red and the blue. And the design on the back
cover was the symbol of the double triangle, interlaced, which denotes the
interlinking of the worlds unmanifest and manifest;
and a monogram composed of the letters A, E, and M, being the initials of our
Christian names and that of Lady Caithness, which was added to our own in token
of her part in the enterprise. And the latter signified her recognition of the
book as marking the
(p. 35)
introduction of the new dispensation which was
to witness the establishment of the “kingdom of the Mother of God” by adopting Anno Dominae,
the year of our Lady, in the place of Anno Domini, the year of our Lord, and dating the new era
from that time.
There were yet other events, besides those already enumerated, which seemed to
us appropriate as symbols to mark the year as the introduction of a new era.
These were (1) the introduction of lighting by electricity, in which we
recognised a parallel to the vast enhancement of spiritual light through the new
interpretation; (2) the accordance to women of equal political rights with men
in the Isle of MAN, which was for
us a curiously apt illustration of our doctrine of the necessity of the woman to
man’s completeness in all planes alike of their manifold nature; (3) the
founding of the spiritualist paper, Light, in which we foresaw
a medium for the promulgation of our teachings; and (4) the founding in India of
that other organ of occult lore, the Theosophist.
The following curious experience, which I extract from my Diary, belongs to the
record of this year: –
December
5 [1881]. – In common with the generality of people, we have been much exercised
about the murder of Mr. Gould by Lefroy on the
Brighton Railway, and especially by the persistence of the latter in ascribing
the deed to a third person, who, he says, was in the carriage, but who
disappeared unaccountable after the murder. And we were disposed to look for
some occult explanation.
Shortly after the murder, Mary saw herself in vision standing on the platform by
the carriage in which it took place, and on Mr. Gould attempting to enter it,
pulling him back, saying there was a tiger in the farther corner. He, however,
declared that it was only a man, and insisted on getting in.
This morning the paper contained an account of Lefroy,
who is to be executed to-morrow, saying that he now claims to have acted under
some influence which he was unable to withstand – meaning, apparently, some
spirit other than himself, who had quitted the carriage, and who was the real
murderer. I was in the middle of the account when Mary came down, and, though
knowing nothing of what was in the paper, declared, as she entered the room,
that she had been up all night in the carriage with Lefroy,
and had witnessed the whole scene of the murder; and that during the struggle,
which was long and terrible, she had observed Lefroy
sitting quietly in the corner of the carriage looking on, and on her
expostulating with him for not interfering to prevent the murder, he said, “I
see it, but I cannot help it. It is I myself who am doing it. Look! Don’t you
see that it is my own very self?” And then,
(p. 36)
looking, she found that he spoke truth, and that
it was to his double that she was speaking, while the man himself was committing
the murder.
One explanation was, that what Mary had been thus shown was the imprint of the
murder-scene in the astral light, and what she had taken for the double of Lefroy was his astral body of the previous incarnation which
had overshadowed him and impelled him to the deed, he having been a murderer in
that life also, and, instead of mending, had cultivated the tendencies which
rendered him accessible to the evil influence of his own past self. So that he
was, spiritually, of the grade of a tiger. As a matter of fact – if
Lefroy’s own confession is to be trusted – he had not entered the
carriage first, but had waited to mark down a likely victim, and seeing Mr.
Gould alone in the carriage, had then got in. It was quite possible, however,
for the apparition of Lefroy
to precede his real entrance. And it is possible, also, that the experience was
given to her as an instruction to be pondered over, without strict regard to the
facts of the case.
This impression received confirmation from a subsequent experience in the same
connection, to be recorded in its place.
In the summer of this year she began to keep a Diary for her own private
thoughts, in which she had made the following entries under the dates specified:
–
August,
15, 1881. – I am going to begin my Diary to-day, because this day is one of
sorrowful memory to me – the first anniversary of the death of my dear little
friend Rufus. And it is also the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. There is
an association between these two ideas, for is not Maria the same as Venus, and
is not Venus our Lady of Love? And is it not from her Golden Book that I got my
assurance of the continuance of the life of all creatures, and of the uses of
Love towards them? Love’s rising heralds the rising of Justice; our Lady the
Enlightener climbs Heaven in advance of the Balance. Sure it is that Love and
Justice are one, and the equal rights of all creatures before the Lord God of
Spirits are revealed and assured to us by Her who is the Mistress of the Fourth
Day. For what are these words – Justice and Rights? How should be known the
meaning of either but for Love? And Love is the Woman of Heaven, Maria,
Astraea, Venus, Aphrodite, by whatever name she is known and dear to us.
Yes, dear Goddess, that sign of Thee in Heaven is my comfort, for I know no sign
could be there if the Reality did not invisibly exist. How idle is it to refer
us to all this wonderful text-book of the Zodiac, and to expect us to believe
that the mere Letter is all there is of it! “Thy word, O Lord, for ever is
written in Heaven.” Yea, but the writing is not the word. This holy Lamb, this
Lion, this Virgin, this Balance, this Cup-Bearer – they are but so many
hieroglyphs of True Persons, whose signatures, so to peak, they are. Can
Astronomy satisfy Love? Can the soul be content with symbols? That I love, that
I have a soul – nay, that I am a Soul, these are evidences to me
that Heaven too loves, that the Universe is spiritual. History is the
(p. 37)
Body, Science is the Mind, the Soul is that
inner and central Cause which answers to Religion. No one but a fool or a
lunatic could suppose that all the wise and illuminated men of all ages and
lands combined and agreed to represent these various figures in the Starry
Sphere according to one universal chart out of pure fantasy! And if such an
assumption be difficult on the face of it, how much more is it difficult – nay,
impossible – to the man who has experience of life, and who knows how perfectly
these figures correspond to the Intuition of the heart and mind! I need no
history, for my part, to convince me of the truth of the Parables of the Zodiac,
and of their eternal application to the experience of humanity.
August
22 [1881]. – I have just finished Cahagnet’s
books on Magnetism, and chiefly that relating his experiences with his Lucide. I suspect that the images he evoked through her,
and which doubtless were faithful representations of the persons asked for, were
every one seen in the Astral, not in the Heavenly Sphere. I think this because
all these Larvae were of one mind, and answered certain questions all in one
way, to wit: – Q. Is there any hell, any punishment
for evil-doers in the next world? A. None; we are all in the same
place, and all equally happy. Q. Shall you ever return to earth and
become incarnate again? A. Never. We only live once on earth. Q. But the embryo of fifteen days old, for instance – has it a
spirit, and does it never take another body, if at that age it should perish? A. It has a spirit, and if it should perish even at the age you
mention it will never again return to earth. Q. What do you do in
heaven? A. We continue to do that which we liked doing best on earth.
And many other things I find in that book, all of which are reasonable enough if
we think of them as conditions and acts of the material mind, but which – if the
ancients be in the right of it are not true of the Soul or celestial mind.
Here meditation passed into illumination, thought into perception and full
knowledge; and she wrote the chapter,
“Concerning the Four Atmospheres,” which stands as I, XXXIX, in
Clothed with the Sun, but is there [in the First Edition] wrongly stated
to have been received in sleep.
A few nights ago I was told in my sleep that the Earth once generated life
spontaneously, but that she has long since ceased bearing, and like a mother
past the period of gestation, contents herself with rearing and nourishing her
children. I do not know how this may be, but of one thing I feel pretty sure: it
is, that the typical germ of all life is Thought, and that every living germ is,
in its ultimate substance, Thought; and that, therefore, we men, animals,
plants, minerals, gases, vapours, are mere agglomerate bundles of so many
thoughts, varying according to our kind.
The microscope, indeed, has taught us that all bodies are kingdoms built up of a
number, more or less great, of tiny individualities, organised, and having all
the properties of life. What, then, causes the ego, which is the resultant of
all these personalities, to be but One? And why, for instance, when many
thousands of my cellular
(p. 38)
subjects suffer in any particular region of my
body, should their collective pains affect me with the sensation that I am
suffering? Is it not because of the application of that law of sympathy which
runs through all the universe, and which makes me identical with all those
personalities magnetically connected with my consciousness? To bind
is to progress, to develop, to rise, to increase, to eternise. It is Religion.
To
unbind
is to dissolve, to retrograde, to dissipate. It is Irreligion. It is to “Janus Pater” or “Peter Jonas” that
the power of binding and unbinding is committed, because the Father of the
Church is no other than Saturn himself, the guardian of the outermost, and Lord
of the Seventh Day. It is said that to bind and to loose is equivalent to
Salvation and Damnation; for to bind is to knead together and to unite; to loose
is to scatter and disperse. This binding-power, therefore, is the attribute and
prerogative of Time, and what she binds together in matter is bound in spirit
also. That which is the means of this binding is the law of Gravitation, which
is no other than sympathy, magnetic attraction, affinity. As the body corporate
feels and acts and reasons as One, so also is it with the Universe, which is
welded together on the same plan, and the sum of whose thought is God. And as
the germ of molecular matter is thought, so, therefore, is Mind the originator
and not the product of Matter. Gravitation, or sympathy, which holds together in
one the myriad corpuscles of my body, and merges all their several consciences
in one consciousness, making one vision suffice for the whole kingdom, is the
same also in the universe, in the which one Sun suffices to illumine the whole
system. For the Sun is the eye of the Macrocosm, filling its whole body with
light; and all bodies made after the image of God, or the Macrocosm, are
similarly illuminated. Not to have an eye is to be rudimentary, an undeveloped,
not a complete person; to be such as would be the planetary system without a
sun. To have an eye is to claim brotherhood with the Highest, to have culminated
in Personality, and to be a complete individual. When the body corporate thus
welded in one, and thus collectively illuminated, makes but a single ego of its
many corpuscles it dwells in love, and is eternal by the power of love, or of
Religion, which is the same word. But if it fall from love and become
irreligious, then it will divide and dissipate and lose its sight, falling into
the outer darkness that is beyond the domain of Saturn the Binder. He who loves
all works by love, and cannot do the works of Darkness or of Hate – that is, of
Cruelty – on any account. If any man think that the works of darkness can be a
means to bring him to light, that man is not under the power of love. For the
works of love are love, and the joy of one is the joy of all.
August
29 [1881]. – It has occurred to me to write a paper taking a new view of
vivisection and its practitioners. I will contrast the physician of the day with
the physician as he ought to be, defined thus by Ennemoser
(History
of Magic, vol. I, p. 322): – “He must be a priest-physician. Through his
own health, especially of the soul, he is truly capable, as soon as he himself
is pure and learned, to help the sick. But first he must make whole the inner
man, the soul; for without inward peace no bodily cure can be radical. It is,
therefore, absolutely necessary for a true physician to be a priest.”
(p. 39)
And this, indeed, was the idea of the primitive
Church, whose priests were all put through a course of instruction in the
healing art; and from the earliest times the two professions of priest and
physician have been united. The curate was the man who cured not only souls, but
bodies likewise. He practiced, in fact, the true Magic, “white magic”, the art
of magnetic healing. But side by side with this true priestly magic, there has
always been the unholy art of the wizard, the art of “black magic,” that of the
man who sought to produce miraculous effects by evil means. To know, to heal, to
work marvels by true magic, it is necessary to live purely, to abstain from
indulgence of the flesh, and to do the deeds of love. All this did not suit the
man of the world, who desired to attain the same results, but without the
self-sacrifice. He had recourse then to devils, and wrung from them by evil
means miraculous powers. To satisfy and to propitiate them, he offered living
oblations in secret places, and sacrificed to them the most innocent victims he
could procure, putting them to hideous deaths in order to obtain the knowledge
or power he sought. The same part is played by the vivisector to-day. He is in
fact a practitioner of black magic; he obtains his knowledge by means of the
exact counterparts of the bloody devil-sacrifices of the wizards, and, like
them, he damns himself in the process. His knowledge may, indeed, be real, but
he cannot ask the blessing of Heaven upon it. We fancy (vain fancy!) that in the
nineteenth century no one practices magic, and that we have expurged the very
word from our dictionaries. Yet, in what shall we say the practices of the
secret devil-worshippers of medieval times differed from those which now go on
in the underground laboratories of the medical school at
It used to be deemed a damnable sin to practice such black arts as these. But
now their professors hold their Sabbat in public, and
their enunciations are reported in the journals of the day. It is held
superstition to believe that in former ages wizards were able by secret tortures
and unheard-of atrocities to wrest knowledge from Nature; but now the self-same
crimes are openly and universally practiced, and men everywhere trust their
efficacy. What is needed is the revival of the true magic of the Pure Life,
which heals without blood and gives health without vicarious disease. It is
black magic which, in order to cure a patient, first transfers his complaint to
an innocent victim. He who accepts health at such a cost shall but save it to
lose it.
August
31 [1881]. – I think I have at last got the clue to the mythos of Hercules. It must be remembered that these
astronomical myths
(p. 40)
were always at least threefold; i.e.
they related first to solar and cosmic phenomena; next, to physical; and,
lastly, they had an interior meaning applied to the soul. Hercules, then, is the
Sun in his twelve signs, but he is also the magnetic Man (Lodestone), and,
correspondingly, he is the Christ-soul, the son of God. Hercules is connected in
mythos with Castor and Pollux, the
Dioscuri, twin sons of Zeus the lightning God, and with the Dactyls, five
of whom were male and five female. The magnetic stone was called the Herculean
stone, the magnet, the two poles of which are the Dioscuri;
for magnetism and electricity may be comprehended under the image of two
inseparable individuals. And as the north pole of a magnet is discoverable only
by its attraction to the south pole of another magnet – a fact which may be
considered in reference to our globe and to every particle of matter – and as
the one electricity is only discovered by means of its opposite, so here we have
two Brothers who constantly die and return to life together, one dying that the
other may live. These Dioscuri, too, are they not
specially connected with the art of Navigation, and is not Hercules named with
them as joint-inventor and patron of seafaring? Is not Hercules also named the
Astrologer, the Index, the Saviour; and did not the Phoenicians, who were
devoted to navigation, use a divining-cup ascribed to Hercules, by means of
which they were directed in their voyages? And the two pillars of Hercules, what
are they in physical science but the double character of Magnetism and
Electricity? And was not Hercules worshipped at Hyettos
and elsewhere under the figure of the Stone – a ferruginous Batylus? As for the Dactyls, they are the human fingers,
five of which disude positive and five negative
magnetism.
These
Dioscuri, sons of thunder, sons of heaven, are the
James and John of the Christian Zodiac, the Gemini; and their white horses are
the lightning on which they ride. All those who smite, and whose mission it is
to bring down fire from heaven, are termed – as they are – Cabiri, sons of the thunderbolt. All these myths have a
spiritual meaning. Hercules, the lodestone of physical science, is the
Christ-soul of religious science. This stone is the head-stone, the
corner-stone, the white-stone in which is a new name written. It is that stone
of understanding which is the symbol of Hermes, the guardian and conductor of
the Soul, that stone hewn without hands – for indeed it fell heaven, as did the
Batylus – which shall smite in pieces the kingdoms of the world. And
these Dioscuri are the dual powers of the Soul
operating in perfect accord and union. These are the navigators of the
November
13 [1881]. – It happens that at times I am not altogether assured in my mind of
the certainty of immortality for the soul, or even of the perfect goodness of
God. But of one thing am I sure, and that is, that there is not, and cannot be,
any half-way house between Atheism and that doctrine which I have. Either the
universe is constructed after the manner I hold it should be, or it is not to be
believed that it has any reasonable nature at all. Still,
(p. 41)
there are some points which I have not yet
resolved, and they are these: –
1. How comes it about that it should be Nature’s common habit to ripen or to
hatch but one, perhaps, out of thousands of wasted germs?
2. Why are we forced, whether we seek it or not, to destroy life at every step
and at every breath, not being able even to swallow a glass of water without
immolating myriads of tiny creatures? If it be true that “nothing is small and
nothing great in the Divine sight,” why so little care for these many lives?
3. Is it true that predatory beasts are necessary to keep down herbivorous and
other innocent creatures, and that therefore, by destroying the first we destroy
the equilibrium of Nature?
4. Must we indeed snare and kill for our own protection, and for the security of
our crops, such innocent and beautiful creatures as hares, rabbits, moles,
pigeons, and other birds, who do no one any harm, and whose habits are gentle
and lovable?
5. Must we send to the slaughter-yard our aged and infirm horses and other
beasts of burden who have spent their whole lives in our service, and whose very
decrepitude is owing to the toil we have exacted of them? Old men look forward
to a calm decease in the midst of tenderness and love, surrounded by those for
whose benefit they have laboured, and in whose arms they hope to pass away. But
the old and faithful dumb servant, whose neck is worn with the yoke and whose
knees are bent and weak with the long years of painful and constant work, falls
murdered under the blows of the axe in a miserable and foul-smelling den, where
often he is starved and wasted for many days before this horrible and ungrateful
end. Is it right that violent death should be the reward of so great service?
These questions must all be answerable in a satisfactory manner; otherwise I see
no alternative but to drop the thread which, so far, I have unravelled from the
tangled skein, and confess with the Agnostics that one can know nothing. For
either the system is perfect and without flaw of any kind, or it is no system at
all. That is to say that, according to my mind, one must be capable of
explaining with satisfaction all things soever, or one must confess that it is
impossible to explain the least thing.
“
“November 4, 1881.”
“MY DEAR LADY CAITHNESS, – Thank you very much for your welcome and sympathetic letter. I doubt
not that Mr. M––– Keeps you ‘posted up’ in the progress of the Book, which we are doing our utmost to get out as a
Christmas present to the world. You can have no idea what a labour it has been,
and, I may say, still is. For not only has it been exceedingly difficult to
compress into moderate dimensions, and to express clearly in popular language,
the enormous mass of truth we have to put forth, but we have also found it
necessary to elucidate the texts by means of woodcuts, the designing, copying,
and perfecting of which, having been exclusively assigned to me, have occupied a
considerable amount of time. The Triangle, which occupies so large a part in
your symbolic system
(p. 42)
of thought, is now newly exemplified in the
threefold united effort by means of which our Book is to be introduced to the
world. And it seems to be somewhat significant that the trio thus chosen
represents, respectively, three distinct powers, with none of which we could
have dispensed.
“The little woodcut which I have had stamped on this paper has been kindly lent
me by Mrs. Kenealy. It was cut for use by the Doctor, but he died before the
book in which it was to have appeared could be produced. The design is a
reproduction from an old picture; hence the conventional stiffness of the limbs
and drapery. Apart from this (which is perhaps hardly a fault), I find
everything
in the symbolism of the picture, and for that reason have adopted it. The divine
Mother is, of course, the heavenly Arche, or Wisdom,
the primary substance of things manifest, holding in her arms the Life or
Spirit, that is God, the vital Principle, who is to the Soul what the sun is to
the system. And the Seven Doves are the Seven Spirits of God, or Seven
Messengers, the Dove, or Pigeon, being selected as the type of the Carrier
messenger. For the Dove it was which went out of Noë’s Ark and brought him back tidings of
the cessation of the Flood, bearing in her mouth an olive branch, symbol of
Peace and of Wisdom; and the throat of the Dove, encircled by ring resembling
the Rainbow, indicates it as the special emblem of the Sevenfold Spirit, whose
hues are figured as those of the seven rays which make the One Invisible Light.
“As regards the Book, I am anxious only that it should become known. Once known, I am
confident of its success on every plane. But it is no easy thing to reach the
public eye and hand. So far as I have yet seen, ‘J.K.’ (Junius Köhn) approaches more
nearly to our doctrine than any other writer, and his rule of life is similar to
ours. But he is wholly astray in the view he takes of the Crucifixion and of the
Miracles of Christ. The first he regards only as evidence of failure on the part
of the Messiah (!); the second as evidence of mere adepthship;
and he is often, as in the case of the story of the raising of Lazarus, forced –
in order to support his view – to attribute to the Christ something very like
deliberate falsehood. I have been told that ‘J.K.’s’ peculiarities in this respect are in some measure
due to the fact that, being by birth and education a Jew, he has inherited the
Jewish prejudice against the person of Jesus, and however greatly he has
overcome this by dint of his own intuitive reason, he is still affected by
hereditary sentiment to the extent of regarding the Cross as a stumbling-block.
“The interpretation which you suggest of the celebrated ‘666’ is, I think, an
admirable one, and commends itself more to my mind than any I have yet heard.
The three sixes would thus be the ‘number of the Beast,’ in that the date 1881,
would indicate the year which should limit and end his power; the Beast, of
course, being Denial, the Spirit of Unbelief and Materialism. ‘His number is
666’; that is, he shall fulfil that number of years, then his fall shall come.
And it is also, as you say, the number of the Man, for them – in 1881 – the Man
shall begin to succeed the Beast. I regard the prophecy concerning this year as
already fulfilled in the production of our Book, which will, for the first time
in the world’s history, ‘make straight the way of the Lord’, – the Perfect Way.
(p. 43)
“For a long time I have had no visions or direct illumination, but I look on
these as suspended merely in order to permit occupation in the active work
needed for the production of our Book. And I hope when that is safely launched
that I may have time for rest and thought, assisted by the Light which has
already taught us all to discern so much. You must remember also that, unlike
the ordinary ‘Medium,’ I have no power to attract or influence my ‘Voices.’ If
it should seem good to the Gods to show or to tell me anything concerning your
special guardian, of course you shall know at once; but, as a rule, the affairs
of Souls and their Angels are as strictly concealed from other Souls as are the
secrets of penitents by their Directors in the Church. Nor are the
communications made to me often of a particular nature. They
concern rather principles and interior interpretations, doctrine, and so forth.
For these only, or chiefly, hitherto have I found myself clairvoyant or
clairaudient.
“I am glad to know you feel interested in my little treatise to which I ventured
to give the family name of the ‘
“I send you herewith a copy of the last number of the Food Reform Magazine,
thinking you may be interested in my last letter on Pure Diet therein. Also the Réforme Alimentaire of the Paris Society. – Always most
affectionately yours,
ANNA MARY K.”
FOOTNOTES
(25:1) This intention was carried into execution in
the case of my little book published in 1884, How the World Came to an End in
1881, which had for frontispiece a drawing made by Mary from the
photograph. – E.M.
(32:1) See pp. 168-9 post.
(33:1) There are fifty-six paragraphs in Lecture I of
the Second Edition (as also in the Third and Fourth Editions) of The
Perfect Way. Paragraphs 25 and 36 are practically quotations.
Consequently, nine paragraphs are unaccounted for, except that five of them must
have been written by Edward Maitland (to make up the twenty-nine paragraphs). –
S.H.H.
(33:2) The
Appendices
to the first three editions of The Perfect Way have been omitted
from the present (Fourth) Edition, and others have been substituted, all such
omitted Appendices being included in
Clothed with the Sun, which in 1887 (the date of the publication of the
Second Edition of The Perfect Way) was not published. – S.H.H.
(34:1) Paragraphs 27-41 in Lecture VIII of the Second
Edition, and Lecture V of the First Edition are reprinted in the Appendix to the present (Fourth) Edition
of
The Perfect Way. – S.H.H.
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XX – O Caminho Perfeito Seguinte: XXII – Atividades Variadas