Theosophical University Press Online Edition
The ancient Mystery-Schools, and the rites of initiation connected with them throughout all past ages, were founded upon the fact that the Universe, that is, its material expression, which of course includes our physical world, is the outer and living emblem or symbol of inner and spiritual verities. Just as the outer universe, the Veil or Body of the inner and invisible worlds and spheres and hierarchies of consciousness, portrays and perfectly delineates the hid because inmost Mysteries of the spiritual side of Nature, just so did the Mystery-Schools attempt to copy this grandiose natural fact and become the outward or exterior emblem or symbol, both in teaching and in rites, of the same divine and spiritual Wisdom which is all-permeant throughout the Universe.
These Mystery-Schools and the teachings therein given were not artificial institutions for the purpose of teaching conventional ethics merely, but were actually foci of spiritual light -- at least all this was invariably the fact in the days before degeneration set in; and as regards the chief of such schools, the Great Brotherhood of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion, no such degeneracy has ever yet come upon it. Thus the ancient initiation-ceremonies or rites symbolized or portrayed actual spiritual facts, and in their higher degrees or stages actually were, and indeed still are, the open portal by which the trained and fully prepared neophyte might enter, at least temporarily, into the Heart of the Universe, into the Light of the World, and bring back with him an unimpaired memory of what the greatest of Adventures had taught him.
In very truth, human destiny and the destiny of the Earth and of all things are not divorced from the rest of the Universe, but are a part of it; and all things and their destiny are written in the stars and in the sun and in the moon and in the planets -- not that these are the fatal law-givers of our universe to which man is in servile subjection: that is not the idea; but that everything in the Universe works in a universal harmony; everything is harmonious, for nothing works unto itself alone and apart from other things -- a situation which would be utterly impossible. Therefore the changing astronomical positions of the planets and of the sun and moon all take place according to the workings of the wheels of the great and intelligently guided cosmic mechanism -- for indeed there are mechanicians, divine beings, behind and within and guiding the mechanical operations; these operations being the automatic responses of nature to the manifold inner urges flowing forth from these divine and spiritual hierarchies of beings as urgent impulses expressing themselves in action.
Therefore it is that everything in the Universe, in the last analysis, is based on the Cosmic Intelligence, so that even certain seasons of the year are more appropriate for initiatory ceremonies than other seasons. Because of this fact, one of the greatest of these initiatory ceremonies took place in the ancient Mystery-Schools at the time of the Winter-Solstice and for two weeks thereafter, more or less, these two weeks culminating fourteen days after the day of the Winter-Solstice in what in later times the new sect of Christians called the Epiphany. According to the reformed calendar of Julius Caesar, and more or less about the beginning of the Christian Era, this festival of the Epiphany fell on the calendar-date -- the date of the Julian man-made calendar -- of January 6th; but in our time, due to the Gregorian reform of the calendar, this mystic festival falls on January 4th, because January 4th today is fourteen days after the Winter-Solstice, which falls on or about December 21-22.
This day, January 4th, because of certain very important events in the neophyte's 'new birth' or initiation, marks one of the greatest ceremonies of the ancient Mysteries, almost the most important event in the life of a chela or disciple striving for mastership. This very important event in his life was the manifestation on this day, through himself, of his own inner god; the inner god for the time being active and present in him, clothing him with solar splendor, so that this, his own inner divinity, shone out through his very face and body, and he became, as the ancient words ran, 'clothed with the sun,' resplendent with the spiritual solar light. According to the teaching of the Ancient Wisdom, the Esoteric Tradition, the composite aggregate or bundle of forces and substances which compose man's constitution has its ultimate source in the invisible or Spiritual Sun. Hence came the expressions 'clothed with the sun' and 'resplendent with solar light.' These are technically true expressions: they are not mere terms of a beautiful and expressive poesie, but significant of actual facts.
This great event in the disciple's or neophyte's life, as said, took place two weeks after the initiant's first mystical birth in this initiatory period, which first or opening stage of the living drama of initiation into the secrets of the inner worlds fell on the day of the Winter-Solstice, when sun and moon and at least two other planets, whose names need not be mentioned here, were in syzygy more or less.
As hinted above in the opening paragraphs of this chapter, it was the attempt in all the Mystery-Schools of all the ancient nations to bring the seasons on earth into harmony with man's spiritual-intellectual career -- i. e., with his inner life and his future destiny; in other words, to establish in the disciple's initiation as a living reality the already existing concordance between the Nature in which we live and move and have our being and the more intimate Nature within us. The Secret Science or Ancient Wisdom of the archaic peoples taught that Man, being an inseparable part as an individual of Universal Nature, is governed by the same laws as is the Universe, and that the forces that pour through him are the same as those that prevail in Universal Nature; hence even in such a matter as chronology, in such matters as the seasons on earth, man is deeply affected by cosmic events.
It was explained by ancient writers in more or less public declaration that man can find out what these cosmic events are; and when they occur man's life and the various events thereof can be attuned to these cosmic episodes, so that human life shall come to be in strict concordance and accordance therewith. The great Seers and Sages of past time, who were the Hierophants and Hierarchs of the ancient Mystery-Schools, did just this; and this concordance of man's life and of his inner being with the inner being of the Nature of which he is a child, formed the basis, the foundations, as well as the subject-matter, of what have been called 'the Mysteries of Antiquity.'
Some of the Mystery-Schools were national functions and were carefully supervised by the State; they were national religious festivals, otherwise national training-schools, in which the reasons and the explanations of Nature's secrets were in part given in dramatic form, in what were called the Less Mysteries. In these minor degrees of initiation many branches of knowledge which now would be called sciences were taught, as then understood. This fact is known from scraps of information that have come down to us which are still found in what remains to us of the literary works of the Greek and Roman writers, and indeed of other peoples of ancient times.
But there were Mysteries greater than these, and about these greater Mysteries nothing was ever openly said. We know only from bare hints and vague allusions that they existed and that they received the homage and reverential awe of the greatest minds of antiquity. These Greater Mysteries were strictly connected with astronomical phenomena, among other things: intimately connected with secret knowledge concerning the Sun, and the Moon, and the Planets; and in connexion with the ceremonies which took place at the time of the Winter-Solstice, the planets in especial, as above stated, were involved in very secret and sacred initiatory rites that then took place. It is on this last fact that reposes the secret meaning, now long forgotten, behind and in the celebrating of the festivals of Christmas and of the Epiphany by the earliest Christians.
The Initiates among the ancients were they who had passed through various courses of both inner and outer purification and trial, which mystic events of the Mysteries were symbolized, for example, by the 'twelve labors of Hercules,' these 'twelve labors' having distinct and pointed reference to the secrets connected with the twelve Signs of the Zodiac. For the same reason they were likewise symbolized by the annual course of the sun during the twelve months. So far as Christianity was concerned, they were symbolized by Jesus the 'Christ-Sun,' according to the wording of the mysticism of primitive or earliest Christianity, and by his twelve disciples who were representatives of the respective forces and powers of the zodiacal circle. The representation of Jesus as the 'Christ-Sun' and of his twelve disciples as representing the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, may be seen even today graven on the building-stones of not a few churches in central and southern European countries, pointing to a distinct connexion in early Christianity with the mystical teachings which have been briefly outlined.
Thus it is that, as elsewhere stated, it is a very truth that the story of Jesus the Syrian Initiate as it is given in the Christian New Testament, in the four Gospels thereof, is a true mystery-tale -- a tale of initiation -- clothed in the guise and imbodied in the framework of a story of the life of a great Sage and Seer. This statement does not mean to imply that no such person as Jesus lived: on the contrary, such a great soul, such a great Initiate or Seer or Sage, who was in fact an Avatara, did live, but at a somewhat earlier time than that which has been accepted since the days of Dionysius Exiguus as the beginning of the Christian Era.
These mystical legends as they have come down to us are not to be accepted verbatim and in their dead-letter sense, for the latter can in no true manner correspond to the actual physical events in the life of this particular Sage. They are, in fact, a setting forth in dramatized symbol and in allegory of certain very important spiritual events which took place in Initiation-chambers or crypts, and thus could apply to the initiation of any chela or neophyte. The actual parables included in this syncretistic Mystery-tale of the Christians also refer very definitely, if briefly and imperfectly, to certain of the fundamental esoteric teachings previously given to the neophytes preparing for their 'Day' and its accompanying trials. As the Initiatory Cycle in the case of individual men simply copied the grand term of Cosmic Existence, therefore likewise do the Gospels of the Christian New Testament in their symbolic allegory and imagery, in addition to being a covered and undisclosed tale of the Initiation-Crypt, set forth the imbodiment of the Cosmic Spirit in the mire of material existence.
It may be interesting, before passing on, to allude to one mystery-fact in illustration of the allegorical and symbolical character of the events described in the New Testament. It is there stated, in the words giving the mystical story of Jesus, that he came riding towards and into Jerusalem on an ass and the foal of an ass; and thereafter came unto him his life-work in the earthly Jerusalem; leading, as the legend sets it forth, to his arrest, his trial before the Roman Proconsul, Pontius Pilate, and to his death.
It is to be noted carefully that in the Oriental Mystical Cycle of the Hither East, or what is now called Asia Minor, the Planet Saturn was frequently mystically called and figurated under the form of an 'ass' -- or rather the ass represented that planet in mystical symbolology. In equivalently characteristic mystical symbolology the 'foal of the ass' was this Earth, because the ancient seers taught that this physical globe Earth was under the direct formative influence of the planet Saturn. This curious fact, and the teaching connected with it, which will indubitably strike the modern Westerner as being both extraordinary and startling, was based upon the ancient teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy concerning the interblending powers and influences of all the celestial bodies forming the solar system, each such body being intimately involved not merely in the life and evolution of every other body, but aiding in the formation or building of every other such body. It is likewise to be remembered in this connexion that the cyclical peregrinations of the Monad after death -- reference to which has been made elsewhere in the present work -- take place strictly according to the law and the established order in the Solar System, and according to the psycho-magnetic pathways, called the Circulations of the Universe, running from one planet to another, and connecting the sun and all his family of planets.
It is likewise to be remembered that the 'earthly Jerusalem,' according to the Jewish mystical symbolology, was this Earth, as the 'heavenly Jerusalem,' according to the Christian symbolology, was the 'City of God' in spiritual spheres and the goal of human attainment. When the reader remembers these facts, which it is taken for granted that he knows, he may begin to have a clearer idea of the highly mystical and esoteric significance of this story.
The Spiritual Soul, the inner Christos, rides into 'Jerusalem' -- material existence on Earth -- on an ass, meaning Saturn, and the foal of an ass, meaning this Earth; and the Monad, the Christ-Spirit, descending into matter thus, is crucified on the cross of matter -- that is to say is betrayed and crucified, following the Platonic imagery of the ancients.(458) The extremely mystical thought imbodied in the above illustration of the allegory and symbolology of the New Testament gives an instance of the highly intricate manner in which parts at least of the Christian Scriptures have been written. Hence, the one thing to be on guard against is to read any single line of these Christian Scriptures as recounting an actual historical physical event. Every main thought or idea in the Christian Scriptures is allegorical and refers directly to the cycle of initiation and to some of the teaching given during the initiation-ceremonies. Now this warning does not mean that there is no pragmatical or historical matter in the pages of the Christian New Testament, for there certainly is. Such things as the names of towns, references to the Roman Imperium, or to geographical districts, and such other matters, are probably more or less correctly related. The warning is directed against taking as 'historical' what is so distinctly allegory and emblematic symbolology.
Jesus lived. Whatever name he may have had, the individual known as Jesus was an actual man, a great Sage. He was, furthermore, what in the Esoteric Philosophy, the Esoteric Tradition, is called an Avatara. It is a matter of extreme doubt whether he was physically crucified after the manner of the Romans in dealing with criminals of ignoble character; nor did he die an ordinary physical death. The truth was that when his work was done, he -- disappeared; and around his personal individuality or individual person, there were collected, there clustered, there were finally gathered together, events in the Initiatory Cycle of the Hither East, which were expressed under the garments or veils of the legends that the Occidental world now has in what it calls the Gospels of the Christian New Testament, with references of a mystical character to the same symbolic and allegorical events in the other writings contained in this so-called Testament of the Christians.(459)
It is curious how few people today are aware of the fact -- indeed the same may be said of specialists and scholars -- that no one knows the exact date when Jesus, later called the 'Christos' among Christians, was born. We know that as early as the third and fourth centuries of the Christian Era the most learned men of the Christian Church knew nothing whatever of the exact date of his physical birth. In fact, in the early days of Christianity, his birth was placed at different times on three different dates. Up to the fifth and even the sixth century, in the Greek Orthodox Church and in the Oriental Church, the nativity of Jesus was commemorated on the 6th of January -- year of birth totally unknown -- which day from the beginning, apparently, was also accepted as the date of his 'Epiphany' or 'manifestation' or 'appearance' to men as Teacher and spiritual Illuminator. At another time his birth was celebrated at the festival of the Spring Equinox, let us say in the third week of March -- on March 21st or 22nd. But from about the fifth century, owing to a number of converging causes, ecclesiastical mostly, it became common custom among the Christians of that period to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December -- year still entirely unknown -- and this custom has survived to our own times.(460)
The Jews have a very early tradition, current among the Rabbis, which appears imbodied in a work known from the time of the Dark Ages in Europe, and called Sepher Toledoth Yeshua`, which tradition runs back to a time preceding the first centuries of the present Christian Era, that Jesus lived in the time of King Alexander Jannaeus (461) who reigned as king of the Jews in the second century preceding the alleged date of the beginning of the Christian Era. This Jewish tradition was well known to the early Christian Fathers, who not infrequently mention, more or less vaguely, the circumstances related by the Jewish writers who preceded themselves in time. Jacob, bishop of Edessa in Mesopotamia, who lived in the sixth century of the Christian Era, is quoted by Dionysius Bar-Salibi as follows:
Nobody knows, really, the day of the birth of the Lord; only this is certain, from what Luke writes, that he was born in the night-time.
Naturally; because in nearly all the ancient initiations, the mystic's 'second birth' took place at night. Luke also says that the 'Epiphany' of Jesus, in other words his 'manifestation to the Gentiles' as the Christians put it, took place when he was just beginning his thirtieth year -- a mystical number, again closely linked by ancient tradition with the rites of initiation as practised in the Mystery-Schools.
The Master Jesus as known in Christian story and legend is in very truth a mystical idealization of the great avataric Sage, and is thus an ideal figure. Yet, as before stated, the great Sage actually lived; he had his disciples and he did the work which he came to do;(462) but after he died, and as the years passed, his disciples wove a web of story and legend about him; and this web, after passing through various modifications or editings finally became imbodied in the Christian New Testament in four somewhat differing versions, to wit, the four books or Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Among the primitive Christians, the event in the life of their great Teacher which probably occupied most of their thoughts and filled their hearts most fully with reverence and awe, was the traditional statement of his transfiguration at initiation, which event they called the Epiphany. Epiphany is a Greek compound formed of epi, 'upon,' and phaino, a Greek root meaning to 'show,' to 'shine,' to 'make to appear,' to 'show forth,' and was commonly used in ancient mystical custom as the word signifying the appearances of deities to their worshipers. In the Mysteries the word was transferred with but slight shifting of idea and significance to mean the showing forth, in and upon the initiant or neophyte and through him, of his own inner god, of the Christos within and above him; otherwise the spiritual splendor or glory, the irradiance passing outwards from within of his own essential divine nature. A similar term, but one having a somewhat different esoteric meaning, was Theophany, which means the actual 'appearance of a god' -- a term likewise taken from the Ancient Greek Mysteries and not uncommon in ancient Greek literature, dealing with divine apparitions or appearances. The Christians used these two words interchangeably, although the meanings are not identical. Epiphany means the appearance of a god through the body of a postulant for initiation when he has successfully passed his trials, and when the inner divinity shines forth through him, as the Christians said 'as the Christ-Sun.' It does not mean exclusively that some deity 'outside' of the neophyte-initiant manifests itself through him, but rather that his own inner god, brought forth into appearance through long months of purification and training, manifested itself in splendor through the physical vehicle or body of the postulant, of the neophyte-initiant. But this appearance, the Epiphany, was usually temporary, whereas the Theophany means something more complete and therefore more permanent. In the latter case, the postulant, the neophyte-initiant, is 'clothed with the sun' or is resplendent even physically with spiritual light, even as the sun is in the sky, and this for a period more or less long. 'Clothed with the sun' was the ancient expression; for his whole body shone with the glory of the supernal light shining forth through him. He was surrounded with a nimbus, a glory. The difference between these twain becomes clear enough upon considering the composite character, grammatically speaking, of these two words. 'Epiphany' means the inner divinity shining upon the successful initiate, and illuminating him, usually for a short period; whereas 'Theophany' means the shining forth in splendor of the man's own inner god -- the man's own inner Higher Self and for a period more or less long.(463)
In Christian iconology and iconography, that is to say, in the mystical and pictorial representations of their 'persons' of divine standing or of sanctity and spiritual dignity, there are frequently found not only one or other of the three Persons of the Christian Trinitarian god-head, but also the persons of Mary and of the saints, surrounded by a luminous cloud; or it may be the head only is surrounded by a halo. The luminous cloud which is sometimes thus represented as surrounding the entire person was called an aureola or aureole, and when the head alone was surrounded by such a luminous appearance it was called a nimbus; when the aureole and the nimbus were contained together in pictorial representation, the union was commonly called a glory. These figurations were symbolic representations of the sanctity or spiritual status of the beings thus figurated; and both the idea and the pictorial representations themselves were taken by the early Christians directly from the usage of the 'Pagans.'
It was customary among the Greeks and Romans at times in their pictorial art to surround the heads of their divinities with such a shining light. The God Mercury is frequently so shown, as well as other divinities. Further, such surroundings of the whole person of great spiritual dignitaries, and either of the whole of the body or a portion thereof, such as the head, are now known to have been a common form of ancient Asiatic art, both in China and in Hindusthan, and from a date which apparently reaches back into immemorial time. These representations were attempts to picturate or to portray in artistic imagery of symbolism one or other of the four mystic infillings of the initiate, briefly described in the preceding paragraph. They were thus exoteric representations of the sublime event which took place in the celebration of the Mysteries.
Vergil in his wonderful poem, the Aeneid, in two or three places, speaks of the Queen of Heaven, the Goddess Juno, as descending clothed with luminous light, and he uses the word nimbus for this; for the word nimbus in Latin meant a 'cloud,' and Vergil's usage of it means likewise a luminous cloud or glory surrounding the entire person of the divinity. Thus, then, the word nimbus, if we go back to the Latin, would seem to be the proper word for this luminous aura, this luminous cloud, which is represented as completely surrounding a human being of great spiritual sanctity or of high spiritual human dignity. For the initiated Greeks and Romans of ancient days were well acquainted with the esoteric significance of the nimbus and they employed the term to signify exoterically what took place behind the veil in the chambers of initiation.
It is rather curious to note that representations of the aura or of the nimbus in Christian usage are of relatively rare occurrence before the fifth century of the Christian Era, after which it became very common; so that in times posterior to the fifth century it is unusual to see a figure of Jesus, or of God the Father, or of the Holy Ghost, or of the Holy Lamb, or of the Holy Dove, or of Mary, or of most of the saints, or of the apostles, without such a nimbus or halo surrounding the head or body or both.
The probable reason for this curious fact was that in the early centuries of Christianity, or, what comes to the same thing, among the primitive Christians, the latter were averse to copying a method of symbolic representation which, although taken directly from the initiation-chambers, became devoted among the Greeks and Romans nearly exclusively to figurate Greek and Roman divinities, or for apotheosized emperors. But after the fifth century, when Christianity began to grow apace with the downfall of the Ancient Wisdom, it was probably thought no longer necessary to guard against confusion with prevalent Pagan ideas; and thus this very beautiful symbol, based as it is on a fact of nature, and representing what happened in the initiation-ceremonies of the highest degrees, lost its mystery-meaning and became symbolic only of spiritual light.
It is indeed a pertinent question which inquires into the significance or the real idea behind this issuing or coming forth of light from the inner man and manifesting through his outward body as an aural clothing of solar splendor. This clothing with glory, this clothing 'with the sun': what is the meaning of it? It may perhaps be described somewhat in the following manner: the constitution of man in its essence is a composite of spiritual and intellectual and other forces, a bundle or sheaf of forces, working as a unity, and these forces are all luminous, potent, penetrating. Ordinarily we humans do not see these forces with our feeble organ of vision; nevertheless these forces are continuously playing through man's constitution, from 'above' 'downwards,' and permeate the entire physical vehicle and pass through it as a continuous stream of energy, producing a luminous cloud around the human body, an aura. Although this aura is usually entirely imperceptible and invisible to normal human vision, nevertheless animals are more, or less, conscious of this streaming of light from the human body. Human 'sensitives,' to adopt a popular and expressive term, see it easily. To the eye of the adept or trained chela, this luminous aura constantly surrounding the human body and streaming forth from it, much as the solar radiance continually streams forth from the sun, is visible at any time, whether the man be awake or asleep; and a single glance of the adept's trained vision enables him, even were there nothing else to go by, to ascertain instantly, not merely the state of health in which the human being thus considered is, but likewise his spiritual, intellectual, psychical, and emotional condition at the time; for all these states or conditions are expressed in the aura, which is extremely sensitive in its functioning to the respective foci or knots of consciousness which are its sources of radiation.
Now when the human being is in a state or condition of intense spiritual or intellectual or psychical or emotional activity, then the aura surrounding the body reflects these different conditions or states of inner activity and, outside of the amazing play of coruscation in color, etc., it may become so active that it becomes visible even to the vision of the ordinary human being. Thus, one just having successfully completed what we may here for purposes of description term the 'solar rite,' is so infilled with the power of the god within, that the outward flow of the aura clothes even the physical body with light which becomes perceptible to ordinary human vision. Hence the ascription to the gods, or to beings of high spiritual dignity, etc., of an aureole or nimbus or glory, surrounding it may be the head, and it may be the entire body.
There is a good deal of 'occultistic' piffle spoken and written about 'auras' in modern mystical and quasi-mystical literature, but all this can be set aside as being probably quite valueless; nevertheless we must not allow ourselves to forget that the human aura is a very real fact, and is the physical as well as psychological basis of the popular expression about a man's or woman's 'atmosphere,' as being sympathetic or the reverse. When we hear some one say: 'his atmosphere is repugnant to me,' if the speaker is actually describing his reaction to another man's presence, the explanation of it is that the aura of such a person, i. e., his psycho-electro-magnetic atmosphere, happens to be repellent to the one who speaks. Contrariwise, certain human auras to certain other people are both extremely sympathetic and are at once felt as being a 'friendly atmosphere.'
Every man is surrounded with such an aura -- an aura which is as individual in characteristics as the man is himself; he is clothed with auric energy, with what may be called etheric or electro-magnetic power, to use terms approaching modern scientific terminology; but it is to be remembered that this human aura is of psycho-physiological origin having a spiritual basis or background or fundamental compound source. These astral-physical effluvia or effluxes, this electro-magnetic field, surrounding the body of every man is perfectly visible and clear to those who have the eyes to see it, and to recognise the marvelous play of shade and color that this ever vibrating and often exquisite picture presents, for the aura changes instantly to correspond with every passing phase of thought or emotion, and its colors flash and scintillate, sparkle and glow, like some unearthly but at times extremely beautiful 'rainbow' or aurora. The most interesting deduction from the foregoing is that man, as even some students of modern science are beginning to suspect, is continuously radio-active after his own manner, and after his own type -- a radio-activity which varies with minute and perfect exactitude according to the changing thoughts and moods of the individual. Modern science is even beginning to opine that not merely radium and its derivatives and other so-called radio-active chemical elements, but practically everything that exists, is more or less radio-active, could we catch and isolate this radio-activity as easily as the grosser and coarser radio-active effluvia of radium and its kindred chemical elements are traced and studied.
This luminous psycho-astral cloud which surrounds every human being, and which possesses a more or less ovoid or egg-shaped form, is sensitive to changes of thought and feeling and emotion in an incredible degree, and assumes different colors corresponding with perfect precision to the parts or organs of the body which may at any time be most active, whether brain or solar plexus or stomach or heart or liver or spleen or what not.
From the above it follows naturally that when a man is under great stress of spiritual activity or inspiration, when his whole inner nature is spiritually and intellectually and therefore psychically aroused, and the currents of energy from his higher nature are running strong, then this aura surrounding the physical body may and usually does make itself apparent to the normal human vision as visible light, and thus becomes a glory surrounding the individual. If one were to observe a man plunged in profound spiritual and intellectual meditation, and had one the gift of the 'inner sight,' his head would be seen to be surrounded with a magnificently luminous cloud shot through with color: with a cloud of golden light, streaked with a flashing play of indigo and deep blue, while the body would be seen as more or less resplendent in the same colors, duly modified by the different effluvia pouring forth each from its own organ, and therefore possessing each its own subordinate color.
Let us turn for a moment now to glance at one of the most striking facts accompanying the successful fulfilment of the 'solar rite.' During the time of this high union of man's self-conscious Ego with his own inner divine and inspiring god, the tremendous power of the divine entity living in the core of the human being, within the human brain-heart or heart-brain, shines forth in the efflux of glory that has already been described, and the initiant for the time being becomes an incarnate human god, a man-god. The lower man, the human ego, is then temporarily united through and by his divine-spiritual nature with its own Cosmic Source, the spiritual essence of the Universe; and this fact, so briefly and inadequately sketched in the preceding lines, is the real meaning of the 'transfiguration,' as it is called in Christian theology, which takes place during initiation.
There have been from immemorial time seven degrees or stages of initiation, corresponding with an equivalent number of different possibilities latent in the average man, but becoming manifest through the proper initiatory training and inner spiritual and intellectual and psychical growth; and the student of the Esoteric Philosophy may assure himself with certainty that in the ancient Mystery-Schools these seven stages of the mystic Path were not only fully known, of course, but actually were the seven 'steps' to be taken in one life or through a series of lives by every neophyte or chela working his way upwards to full and complete adeptship.
The seventh or highest, the final stage, was reached after long purification and training of the inner intermediate or human nature, as well as of the merely physical-astral-vital vehicle, such training lasting, as a matter of fact, in some cases through several lifetimes of spiritual and intellectual striving to reach this sublime goal. When the seventh and highest 'step' was successfully taken, producing the sublime epopteia or 'visioning,' then the inner god of the successful postulant -- which inner god is a Ray of and from the Divine Sun of the solar system -- shone forth at least temporarily through the man of flesh, and he thus being 'at-one' with his own inner divinity, his own Higher Self, his Essential Individuality, even his body was 'clothed with the sun' as the saying ran, clothed with the splendor of the inner spiritual sun itself -- the core of the Man's essential being.
Thus, when the successful pilgrim attains the seventh degree of this initiatory journey, he reaches the consummation of all possible inner evolution attainable on this Earth during this Fourth Round; and being successful because of past good karman in attaining this consummation of his pilgrimage before the end of the Globe-Manvantara, he lives and moves, if he so will, as a god-man on Earth among his fellows. This is the final initiation in the earthly career of every truly great Seer and Sage. These few among men who successfully reach the high stage are the Elder Brothers of the race, our Mediators or Links between the higher principles of the Hierarchy of Light and ourselves, which Mediators the various great religions of the world revere, and in some cases ignorantly worship, as their respective 'Saviors' and 'Redeemers.' This was the case with Jesus the Syrian Initiate and Avatara; and this glorious fact it was which was remembered by his followers after he had disappeared from amongst them; and the event was commemorated, and rightly commemorated, as the Epiphany or the 'manifestation' or 'showing forth' of Jesus the man, clothed with the glory of his own inner Father. It is the highest spiritual 'new birth' of the Ego in a human being, signifying not, as has been commonly supposed, a god from without incarnating in the body of flesh of a mere human being, but the rebirth, the highest spiritual 'new birth' through initiation, of the god in the man himself.(464)
It has been stated elsewhere in the present chapter that Christianity is a syncretistic system built of materials gathered largely from so-called pagan sources and molded around the central and sublime figure of Jesus the Avatara. Now despite the many good and religiously devoted men who lived in the earliest period of primitive Christianity, and who did what they could by way of spiritualizing their religion, and to whom is doubtless due the incorporation into it of so much material from the so-called pagan sources, nevertheless it is an unfortunate fact that the Christians early lost the real inner or esoteric key to their religion -- that is, the real spiritual and mystical and therefore esoteric meanings of it; and with this loss coincidently went the profound mystical philosophy which explained the true significance of the religious symbolism of the Christian faith. This brought loss of comprehension and involved the consequent and often bitter religious and ecclesiastical disputes and quarrelings which in their more violent forms at one time disgraced the Christian name. Loss of comprehension or understanding of the inner meanings of some of the most prominent Christian tenets or beliefs brought about great confusion of ideas. An example of this confusion of ideas is found in the fact that the physical birth of Jesus and his mystical 'new birth' of initiation later celebrated as the 'Epiphany' were confounded into one instead of being cherished as two distinct and separate events in the life of the Christian Master.
As shown elsewhere, the actual birth-date of Jesus the man is totally unknown, not only as regards the year in which the event occurred, but equally so as regards the day of the month on which it happened. From the earliest times the Christians have been in doubt as to the year and day of the birth of their great Teacher, but the 25th of December finally in time became accepted as the day of his physical birth. The 'Epiphany' or the event of his 'appearance to the Gentiles,' which is but an ignorant way of saying his appearance as Christos or as a fully initiated Adept-Avatara, manifesting the glory of the inner god, finally became settled in popular recognition as having taken place on the sixth of January, although the year of this event, just like the year of his physical birth, was unknown from primitive Christian times.
Now the 25th of December was very evidently intended to be the date of the Winter-Solstice, occurring in our times on or about December 21-22, and was from early times in Imperial Rome observed as the day of the new birth of the Sol Invictus or Unconquered Sun, signifying the lowest course of the Solar Orb in the winter time and the beginning of his return on his northern journey. As a matter of fact, there are four seasons in the cycling year, the four turning-points of the Sun, so to speak, which for ages and ages in the past and in different countries of the world have been widely accepted as highly important epochs; and the Mystery-Schools celebrated in their own lofty fashion these four sacred seasons with due rite and ceremonial, and with the proper initiatory events belonging to each respectively.
The ancient Pagan festivals that were held in many lands at the time of the Winter-Solstice have been mistaken by modern scholars to be commemorative merely of the return of the physical sun to the northern hemisphere; but the foregoing paragraphs give a hint at least of the fact that it was the mystic birth of the 'spiritual sun' or divinity in man that they commemorated. Many of the ancient religions, Mithraism, for instance, were based upon a 'worship,' and 'adoration,' not of the physical sun alone, if at all, but upon a profound mystical philosophy dealing with the Divine Sun, of which the outer orb was but the Veil or Body. It is this Divine Sun, the Source of the Universal Spiritual Energy infilling the solar system which expresses its transcendent powers and energies, its supernal intelligence and attributes, through the body of our splendid day-star. This unseen and always invisible Divine Luminary has the same work to do, the same great Cosmic Labor to perform in the solar system, that in man his own transcendent Divine Monad has; and this Divine Monad, individual for each man, is a Ray from the Divine Luminary just spoken of.
Man is in very truth a child of the Universe, an inseparable part thereof, and consequently he has in him everything -- manifest or unmanifest -- that the Universe has, as Proclus, the Greek Neo-Platonic philosopher, says in substance:
The elements which form the composition of our bodies are but a portion of those which form the Universe on the great scale. It would be extremely strange if all that goes to make the lowest of our constitution should exist in the Universe, and what is most excellent and truly divine in us should not equally of necessity be found in the Universe although more largely therein; and that as there is the universal matter of the elements, there should not also be a universal intelligence and soul, even as man has consciousness and intellect as well as material body.
On an inscribed pillar of stone found many years ago in Germany, and now kept in one of the Museums in Berlin, the sun is called the 'First-born,' the 'Son of God,' 'the Word' or Logos -- all these being titles given later by Christians to Jesus called the Christ. The sun in ancient Greece was also frequently called Monogenes, 'the only begotten' or, rather more correctly translated, the 'singly born.'
In the fifth century of the Christian Era, Pope Leo the First is found writing in his Sermo, XX, a statement imbodying what the leaders of the Christian Church then openly averred, to wit: that what made the Christmas festival worthy of veneration was not so much the alleged birth of the boy Jesus on that particular day of the year, but the return, and as it was expressed, the 'new birth' of the Sun. This once more connects the great Initiate Jesus in a mystical manner with the Sun and its 'new birth.'
Furthermore Cyprian and Ambrose, two orthodox theologians who are also saints of the Christian Church, referring to the mystical connexion of Christ with the sun, a connexion which is so well known as having been a widely popular idea diffused in the early centuries of Christianity, speak as follows: Cyprian calls Christ the Sol Verus, or 'true sun';(465) while Ambrose speaks of Christ as Sol Novus Noster, 'Our New Sun.'(466)
Yet from the foregoing it should not be supposed that the early Christians were mere sun-worshipers; nor indeed were the ancient Persians mere sun-worshipers. They knew perfectly well, at least the ancient Persians did, that the physical sun, the day-star which our eyes see, is but the manifestation or vehicle of the inner spiritual and intellectual and other powers which flow forth from within through it and outwards, and thus give life as well as light to the solar system over which the sun presides. They knew likewise that behind the physical sun is the Cosmic Solar Spirit, which worked outwards through the physical sun, even as man's spirit and his intellect and his intuition, his sympathies, his love, his pity, his compassion, his self-forgetfulness, his devotion to others -- all the spiritual and everlastingly lovely qualities which elevate the human soul -- work through him and give light not only unto himself but unto others.
These early Christians used many hymns addressed to the Christ-Sun as we may call it, to the Christos-Spirit, to the Logos or Word as they expressed it later -- all these terms being taken, as words, and in part in usage, from the ancient Greek Mysteries; and both the spirit of the composition of these hymns, and the words in which the ideas were couched, could readily and with perfect ease be construed as hymns to the sun -- which indeed was exactly what they were.
Observe, for example, the following verse from one such hymn:
Verusque Sol, illabere,
Micans nitore perpeti,
Jubarque Sancti Spiritus
Infunde nostris sensibus!(467)
That is to say:
O Thou, REAL Sun, infill us,
Shining with perpetual light!
Splendor of the holy (Cosmic) Spirit
Pervade our minds!
This is an early hymn to the Christ-Sun, used as late as the seventh century of the Christian Era; and therefore it must have been in use for centuries; and was much older in origin to have gained the wide vogue it one time had.
As every scholar knows, there were a number of quasi-religious, quasi-mystical, sects flourishing more or less at about the time of the alleged beginning of the Christian Era, who had pretty much the same body of ideas connected with the Divine Cosmic Sun that the Mithraists and the Christians held. The Manichaeans, who were an association of very mystical and in some points even esoteric thinkers, and who were widely disseminated over the Roman Empire as well as in the Hither East, and who held certain beliefs linking them with the more mystical ideas of primitive Christianity, said that the Divine Sun was the Source of the individual Christos-Spirit in man, which latter is a Ray of that Cosmic Christos. The Christian Fathers Theodoret and Cyril of Jerusalem attest this fact of Manichaean belief; and Pope Leo called the 'Great' in the fifth century, in his Sermon No. LV on the Epiphany, stated that the Manichaeans placed the Christos of men in the luminous substance of the Invisible Sun -- in other words, in its divine, inspiriting energy. Such significant ideas, as is plainly evidenced by the foregoing, were widely spread abroad in the world at the time of the primitive formation of the Christian faith and ecclesiastic system.
Of course, this view of the Divine Sun was not Christian only: it was the very soul of the inner meaning of ancient Greek and Latin and Persian and Mesopotamian and Egyptian and Hindu religions and philosophies: the Divine Spirit within and behind all beings and things, invigorating and inspiring all beings and all things, and of which Spirit the Physical universe is but the outer shell or body or manifestation. Indeed, this sublime idea is as old and as universal as it is possible for us to find anything -- this wonderful conception of the indwelling Cosmic Divinity. One of the verses of one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda (468) is the famous verse called the Savitri or the Gayatri. It is in the original as follows:
Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi:
Dhiyo yo nah pra chodayat!
which in translation runs:
That superexcellent splendor of the Divine Sun we meditate upon:
May it arouse (stimulate) our minds!
This is, of course, the identical thought of inner spiritual inspiration inflowing into the spirit of man from this Cosmic Source. This verse of the Rig-Veda is considered so sacred, as imbodying that very spiritual essence of all the Vedas, that exoteric purists in India refuse even to copy it in writing. Today, the orthodox Hindu will chant it in low tones both at morn and at eve.
Many of the Church-Fathers, among them the fiery Tertullian, and the more moderate but equally dogmatic and ignorant Jerome, tell us that on December 25th (or what is the same thing, on the seventh day before the Kalends of January, according to the old reckoning of the Romans), it was held by many so-called pagans that an incarnation of a Ray from the God-Sun, as the solar divinity was then called, was born in human form in a cave or grotto. In Syria and Phoenicia, this God-Sun, Greek and Roman writers say, was called Adonis, a word evidently having a Semitic root, for Adon in Hebrew means 'Lord.' In Phrygia, the same mystic incarnation of the solar Spirit was called Atys; and in Persia the same human incarnation was called Mithras. This word Mithras is etymologically interesting, because, while it is found in the Avesta, which is one of the collection of books comprising the religion of the ancient Persians, it is likewise well known in the Sanskrit literature of old India under the form Mitra. The original meaning of this word is 'friend, companion.' This solar divinity of the Persians, Mithras, likewise was said to have been born in a cave or grotto; and equally with Adonis, the birthday of Mithras was celebrated on December 25th, immediately following the Winter-Solstice, and evidently intended to be or supposed to be the astronomical date of the Winter-Solstice itself. In the case of Mithras, this festival was commemorated as the 'Birthday of Mithras,' often called the 'Night of Light.' The idea evidently was that this incarnation was that of a Ray of the Logos, or a high spiritual intermediary between the Divine and man; and for that reason, unquestionably, the divinity was called Friend, Mediator, and later Savior, Redeemer.
On December 25th of each year was also celebrated in Italy, and more especially perhaps in Rome, what was there called the 'new birth' of the 'Unconquered Sun,' the Sol Invictus, as may be seen in the Roman calendars that have come down to us.(469)
Historians tell us that the ancient Druids likewise celebrated the night of December 24-25 with bonfires and illuminations in commemoration of the mystical festival-day, kindling their symbolic or emblematic fires on the tops of mountains and hills, and placing beacons of light on the summits of their druidical towers; for with them it was a true mystical festival of Light or Illumination, symbolized by the 'rebirth' of the Sun as manifested in the beginning of his return journey to the northern latitudes. For the turning of the sun anew to his northern course, his bringing anew to the northern regions of the globe greater light and longer days, under which are born the green vegetables, the fruits, and the crops, which nourish men and beasts; but most especially the bringing back of 'light' and new 'life' to the earth and to men: all these facts of Nature were held as symbolic of the cyclic course of the human soul in its journey towards perfection.
The Venerable Bede, an old English chronicler, writing in the seventh century of the Christian Era of the Island of Britain, his native country, tells us that the ancient Anglo-Saxons, whom he shortly calls the Angli, "began the year on December the 25th when we now celebrate the birthday of the Lord."
And the very night which is now so holy to us they called in their own tongue modra necht(470) and their meaning is 'Night of the Mothers,' by reason of the ceremonies, we believe, that they performed in that night-long vigil.
It is obvious that Bede's reference to this midwinter-festival, which the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons called 'Night of Mothers,' and celebrated on December 25th annually, or on a day very close to December 25, i. e., on the Winter-Solstice, was taken from some ancient non-Christian ritual or ceremony, based on the fact of a divine motherhood, which had its human correspondence in a mystical human birth. It goes without saying that if the sun were symbolized or figurated as in birth at a certain season of the year, motherhood was closely involved in the idea back of the ritual -- the motherhood very likely of the Celestial Virgin in giving birth to man's greatest Friend and Illuminator. Some such idea unquestionably must have swayed the minds of the early Christians in fixing upon so definitely a wide-spread pagan festival as the date commemorating the birth of their own human savior, Jesus, from the woman whom they call Mary the Maiden.
In the early Christian Church and in both of its oldest branches today: in the Greek Orthodox and in the Church of Rome: titles of honor and of worship commonly given to the mystical Virgin were and are as follows: 'Our Lady, 'Star of the Sea,' 'Immaculate Virgin,' 'Mother of God,' 'Queen of Heaven,' et cetera. Turning now to the titles of honor and adoration given to the Egyptian Virgin-Mother Isis, virgin-parent of the God-Child Horus the Sun: one finds in this worship of Isis whose religion had spread so widely over the Roman Empire, the following titles given to her: 'Our Lady,' 'Star of the Sea,' 'Rose, Queen of Heaven,' 'Mother of God,' 'Intercessor,' 'Immaculate Virgin,' and other such.
The Greek philosopher and biographer, Plutarch, in his profound little tract, or essay, On Isis and Osiris,'(471) informs us that over the front of the Temple of Isis at Sais in Egypt, there was engraven the following inscription: "Isis am I: all that has been, and is, and will be; and my garment hath no one of mortals ever raised." Proclus, the Neo-Platonic philosopher, adds to this bit of information from Plutarch the further statement that the conclusion of this inscription was the following extremely significant words: "And the fruit which I brought forth became the Sun." The immaculate Virgin-Mother of Space, the Soul-Spirit of Space, brought forth the Logos or 'Word,' the Interpreter of the Light, the intermediary between the Unspeakable, and conscious beings and all things; and this Logos or Intermediary is the Divine Sun. Here then is the germ of the Christian idea -- indeed, more than the mere germ, almost the identic thoughts: the Cosmic Virgin-Mother and the God-child.
It will be seen from the foregoing hints that the 'Immaculate Conception' as a theologic dogma has a meaning which is entirely mystical and refers to no physical historic event whatsoever. It was originally a highly mystical and philosophical teaching, which became in time a theologic dogma and legend; and either the idea of it or the teaching of it, or both, are likewise found in other parts of the world. It is a mystical or symbolic tenet referring to the birth of the Christ in man from the virgin-part of one's being, i.e., from the spiritual or highest portions of man's constitution. It also has a cosmical significance -- the Virgin-Mother of Space giving birth through her Child, the Cosmic Logos, to her multitudes of children of various kinds. There are thus two aspects of this mystical or symbolical doctrine: there is, first, the Cosmical Virgin, and, second, there is the mystical 'virgin-birth' of an initiate. An initiate is one 'reborn,' or, as the saying goes, 'born a second time.' He is not born of course in initiation from a physical father and mother, for his body is born in the usual manner; but in initiation, the 'new man,' the inner man, the Christ-man, is born from himself because of his bringing out or unfolding into active manifestation the divinity within him and overenlightening him; and his 'Virgin-Mother' is that part of himself which is the root of his being, the spiritual soul in its spotless and unstained purity. From the Virgin or Spiritual Soul is born the human Christ or the human Buddha, without admixture of extrinsic elements of any kind, and without other means than the man's own yearnings and strivings to become the god within himself.
The Christian Church has interpreted these very mystical doctrines physically and thus has largely lost the far nobler and really profound symbolic sense; but the same mystical teaching and legend, more or less closely similar, is found in other countries: for instance, in India there is Krishna who was born of a Virgin, and in Egypt, Horus born of the Virgin-Mother Isis.(472)
One branch of the Christians say that 'Twelfth Night,' as the English call it -- in other words the date of the Epiphany, or January 6th -- was instituted by the Church in commemoration of the 'manifestation' of Jesus the infant to the 'Three Magi,' who, according to the pretty legend in the Christian gospels, 'saw his star in the East,' and sought him and found him in the 'manger' at Bethlehem, over which the 'star,' according to the legend, stood at rest.
Now all this is mystically descriptive and is wholly allegorical and symbolical; but the early Christians (perhaps not the immediate disciples of Jesus the Initiate, but the early Christians of a hundred or more years later), when the real facts had been forgotten or their real meaning had been forgotten or lost sight of, and nothing but more or less imperfect memories surrounded the traditions of their Teacher, took these traditions and more or less vague memories which had not yet become incorporated into the gospels of the New Testament, as actual facts, and believed them literally. Pious imagination and yearning hearts embroidered these traditions until it came to be believed that these three Wise Men or these Three Magi were Persians, who had come from Persia in order to worship the new 'Son of God,' whose 'star they had seen'; so that we are told that the star went ahead of them, according to the allegory, and guided them to the manger in the little town of Bethlehem in Judaea, and then paused over the resting-place of the human god-child. It is perfectly obvious to any thoughtful mind that all this descriptive matter is an allegory.
Then, somewhat later in time, these three Magi, these three Wise Men, became transformed into three 'Kings.' No one knows exactly how, but such is what took place in the Western Church; and consequently in the Western Church, which means in Western Europe, the Epiphany is commonly called, and commemorated, as the 'manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Three Kings.'
Now, what is the real meaning of this allegory? Among the ancients the planets were called Kosmokratores, a Greek compound word meaning 'world-rulers' or 'world-builders'; and this conception reposed on the fact that the sun and the moon and the planets were fundamentally instrumental in framing the origin, and greatly affect the destiny, of our earth, which of course in turn would be one of the Kosmokratores to certain other ones of the planets of our solar system -- and this statement is here made because of a genuine Mystery connected with it, to which Mystery allusion only is made because an explanation would be impossible for various reasons.
These Kosmokratores or 'World-Builders' or regnant Powers were therefore sometimes mystically spoken of as 'kings,' and were very frequently conceived of as beings possessing mighty powers, and in extreme symbolic representation as wearing crowns of glory and holding the scepter of dominion. These ideas, diffuse and confused as they were, were more or less current as legends or traditions in the Greek world of the time; and so it is little wonder that ignorant and simple-minded people misunderstood that the symbolic representations of the planets were 'kings' in the sense of actual regal personalities of human shape and form, instead of being, as is the fact, the mighty powers of a spiritual character which are the individualized life-forces of each and of every celestial body or luminary.
Now to these three 'Magi,' according to Western Christian legend, were given names: Melchior, Kaspar, and Balthasar. These three words are interesting in their way. One of the words, Melchior, is obviously Hebrew. It means 'King of Light,' and is the name that doubtless was applied frequently to the planet Venus on account of the refulgent splendor of that celestial body, which planet the Greeks also called Phosphoros, and the Romans, Lucifer: 'Light-Bringer,' 'Light-Bearer,' 'Light-Carrier' -- a title, by the way, which was applied by some early Christian sects to Jesus himself, who was called Lucifer, the Light-Bringer. Such then is the meaning of Melchior, 'the King of Light.'
Kaspar is more difficult to understand, because Semitic words have no exact transliteration into the Roman alphabet, so that when one does try to transliterate them into our alphabet in order to express the original Semitic sound, or even in Greek characters and in the Greek alphabet, it is difficult to do so, because neither the Roman language or alphabet, nor the Greek language or alphabet, nor our own later tongues, or alphabetic characters, possess letters expressing exactly certain sounds that exist in the Semitic tongues; therefore when one does transliterate a word like Kaspar or Balthasar, one is not certain that its meaning will be carried over to some other person who will read it, because despite one's best efforts to transliterate the sound it is obviously an imperfect success. However, Kaspar could be translated as derived from the Hebrew, and as meaning 'like unto a recorder,' or 'a scribe'; and Hermes, Mercury, whom the Egyptians called Tehuti, a name which the Greeks transliterated as Thoth, was in legend the Sacred Recorder, and therefore the Interpreter, just as Hermes was the same among the Greeks. Hence Kaspar perhaps meant or stood for the planet Mercury, otherwise for the god called Hermes among the Greeks, and among the Latins, Mercury. He was the god of learning and of writing, the scribe and the recorder, and the interpreter; all of which equally applies of course to the planet Mercury.
The third name, Balthasar, is still more difficult. One ventures only a guess at the meaning of this word; but one understands perfectly well, nevertheless, what it signifies -- the Moon. The bal of the first part of the proper name is simply a rendering of the Semitic Ba'al, sometimes written Bel; and the meaning of the entire name is to be rendered as 'Lord of Riches,' or perhaps, as 'Lord of Prisoners.'
It is very curious that these three names or titles are mystical ones, and identical names or titles at least in significance are given to the three celestial bodies just named. How came it that these three celestial bodies were chosen from among others in connexion with the mystic ideas of the initiation-ceremonies, which have been studied in other pages?
The Christmas-festival was celebrated -- that is to say, the festival of the Winter-Solstice was celebrated -- in its greatest splendor and with the most telling co-operation of the cosmic influences of these three celestial bodies, when the Sun, Mercury, Venus, the Moon, and our Earth, were in the position which astronomers call syzygy, a Greek compound word which means 'yoked together'; that is to say that these five bodies appear to be more or less in single file, or in other words more or less on or near to a straight line connecting the Earth and the Sun. Such a conjunction of these bodies in astronomy is of course a rare occurrence; and those who are astronomers may calculate for themselves when it will recur and at what time-interval. It certainly does not recur frequently. Thus then, at the time of the Winter-Solstice, the Moon, following the teaching of the mystic knowledge of the Ancient Wisdom, must stand in a straight line connecting the Earth and the Sun, and it must be new. Thus then in order to make the proper compound conjunction of these bodies, the Moon must be at new in direct line with the planet Earth and the planet Venus and the planet Mercury and the Sun. Esoterically, Mercury, Venus, and the Moon in ancient ceremonial rites were represented by three initiators.
With these five celestial bodies of our solar system, including our Earth, in such conjunction, the powerful influences, astronomically speaking, of these celestial bodies were working at greatest advantage in affecting our Earth and all beings and things thereon; and thus, for the same reason, they powerfully affect the postulant for the especial initiation taking place at these rare times.
Now consider carefully: the three 'Magi' or spiritual Magicians or initiating Masters in wisdom were present at the transfiguration of the one whom they had by teaching and training successfully brought to the mystic 'new birth,' the ceremony beginning at the Winter-Solstice and concluding two weeks later when the moon was at full orb. This mystic 'new birth' of initiation was the 'birth' of the inner Christos, and during it the whole being of the initiant was transfigured, and, to use the saying of the Hebrew Bible, 'his face shone like the sun.'
By hint and by allusion, rather than by reasoned development of the theme, it has been attempted in the latter part of this chapter briefly to outline some of the keys of teaching in connexion with the Winter-Solstice festival -- the festival of the rebirth of the astronomical sun on the one hand -- really of the 'Christ-Sun' of our solar system, and the mystical rebirth or 'new birth' of the 'Christ-Sun' within the postulant himself: this expression 'Christ-Sun' being the very title that was given to Jesus the Christos by his original or primitive followers. Such a Man thus transfigured or glorified, became, at least for the time being, a human spiritual sun among his fellows, the 'Logos' or 'Word' or interpreter to them of his inner god; therefore a true law-giver, a spiritual leader, and a Teacher of his fellow-men.
All the foregoing, of course, refers solely to what took place in those late and to a certain extent degenerate Mystery-Schools which flourished in greater or less secrecy in Asia Minor and in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea at about the time of the beginning of the Christian Era. The reader or student must not for a moment imagine that these later Schools were in any wise on the high spiritual and intellectual level reached by the great Mystery-Institutions of a more remote antiquity, and which were the institutional descendants of those glorious times of the very distant past, now forgotten to the memory of man, when the gods themselves mixed more or less familiarly on earth with their human children, and taught them, at first openly and then, as the revolving ages passed, behind the veil or in the arcana of great Seats of Mystic Learning.
Yet the time of such divine communion of human beings with their invisible Progenitors has not yet vanished wholly from the face of our earth, because there still continues in uninterrupted line the Spiritual Succession of the Great Teachers, who are the representatives in our Fifth Root-Race of their own spiritual Predecessors and Ancestors of by-gone time. This truly great and sublime institution of teaching and training and initiation still lives and receives its candidates who are found worthy and well qualified; and if successful, these candidates take their places in the ranks of the Great Brotherhood as guardians of the Ancient Wisdom of the gods.
Some day in the ages of the future this supreme School on our present Earth will have its almost equally great offspring-schools in different parts of the globe, doing the work that their predecessors of the archaic ages did, and in those future times, man will once again confabulate with the invisible Spiritual Powers, and Earth then will see the multitudes of mankind ruled over and taught by Initiate-Hierophants, Initiate-Kings. It will come. So mote it be!
FOOTNOTES:
458. There is a matter of real interest, both philosophical and historical, as well as mystical, connected with the Jewish people in ancient times and that patient, useful, much-enduring, and industrious little beast, the ass. The ass in ancient times in the Hither East occupied a position in its usefulness to man very much like that which it holds today in the Hither East, as a universally used beast of burden and of transportation and as a friend of man. There is some undoubted mystical connexion, of a mythic and mystical and perhaps quasi-religious character, between the Jewish people in the ancient times and their origins and the animal mentioned. Just what this connexion was is exceedingly difficult at the present time to say, because most of the ideas current on the matter at about the time of the beginning of the Christian Era and for some centuries before, have passed out of knowledge, and only a few scattered records still remain in the literatures of the peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Yet these scattered fragments are significant as far as they go.
There would seem to be no doubt that it was once commonly held that the ass occupied some esoteric position or had some esoterical mystical connexion with the ancient Jews and their religious worship. It is significant likewise that the ass was intimately connected with the so-called 'evil' divinity Typhon, sometimes called Set or Seth in Egypt, and this fact is alluded to by Plutarch, the philosopher and biographer, in his highly mystical tract Isis and Osiris, secs. xxx-xxxi, and elsewhere. In these passages Plutarch repeats fragments of some old mystical Egyptian story or legend with which he had become acquainted, doubtless in his philosophical and religious reading as a one-time priest of Apollo. He states in this tract, sec. xxxi, that Typhon or Set, after the course of a long battle of Egyptian legendary story, fled on an ass into Palestine and there brought forth or begat or founded 'Hierosolymus' and 'Judaeus' -- evidently 'Jerusalem' and the 'Jew,' clearly enough an eponym of the Jewish people.
The famous Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his History, Bk. V, ch. iv, that the figure of the ass was consecrated in the sanctuary of the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem. If this statement is a fact (and it seems to be pretty well supported by ancient Roman gossip) and in view of the strong aversion of the ancient Jewish people to images of any kind in a place of worship, it is highly significant and would point to an important religious or religious-mystical meaning. So well known was this extraordinary connexion between the worship of the Jews in its astrological aspect and the ass, and so widely was it gossiped about in ancient times, that the fiery and vindictive Tertullian, the Christian Father, speaks of it several times, as in his Apologeticus, par. 16, and in his Ad Nationes, secs. xi, xiv, and in terms of indignant repudiation, as if indeed he were an apologist for the Jews instead of being a very positive Christian frequently opposed to Jewish thought and theory. He accuses the Roman historian Tacitus of having started this notion in the world.
This last is obviously wrong because, as pointed out above, it is mentioned by a writer before Tacitus, i. e., Plutarch; and furthermore, common gossip in the lands of the Mediterranean peoples bruited the same singular fact about, and it had been so, apparently, for centuries.
When it is remembered that in ancient astrolatry every one of the seven sacred planets of the ancients had its own Astral Spirit, and its own representative animal emblem on Earth, and that the ass was frequently considered as the emblem of the planet Saturn: furthermore remembering that the ass's foal represented the Earth, because the Earth was in ancient mystical astrolatry considered to be the foal of the planet Saturn in conjunction with the lunar influences, we begin to see some light as to the reason or cause why the passage in Matthew describing the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem speaks of him as sitting upon an ass and the foal of an ass. The observations in the text above should be carefully read.
It may finally be pointed out that both the Jews and the early Christians in Rome were frequently connected in popular thought and gossip with the ass and worship of some kind which undoubtedly was made to it as a type-figure by certain sectarians. Some time ago there was discovered a most interesting graffito, or scrawl or scribble, on one of the walls of the Domus Gelotiana, the Palace of the Caesars. This graffito shows a man with the left arm raised in familiar gesture of adoration known in Christian iconography as that of one praying, and before him and above him stands a human figure with arms outstretched, with the head of an ass; underneath this group of type-god and worshiper is scratched or scribbled the following inscription in Greek and in Greek characters: Alexamenos sebete [sebetai] theon -- i. e., 'Alexamenos prays to [his] god.' From the foregoing, and from other scattered fragments of ancient gossip that still remain, it is sufficiently clear that around the time of the beginning of the Christian Era both the Romans and the Greeks in some manner connected the worship of Jehovah, the Astral Spirit of Saturn, with both Jews and Christians, and that this worship itself in some manner included reference to the zoologico-mythic type-figure of the ass.
It is to be remembered that mythologic zoolatry was one of the characteristics of all ancient forms of exoteric religion, although indeed these forms invariably imbodied an esoteric truth of profound spiritual worth.
In passing it might be pointed out likewise that such connecting of the Christian Gospels, which is one of the parts of the present study, with animal or quasi-animal figures is well illustrated by the Christian mystical ascription of the four animals, the Bull, the Lion, the Eagle, and Man or Angel, with the four Canonical Gospels, and this goes back to a very early period in Christian iconography and was popular throughout the Middle Ages and indeed has come down to modern times.
As a tentative aid to the reader or student of the significance of the facts hereinbefore stated in the present footnote, the following suggestive hints may be of worth. Because of the fact stated in several places during the course of the present work, that the entire Christian New Testament story, at least in essentials, is a mystical guise or garment under which certain rites or ceremonies or teachings of the Mysteries as practised in Asia Minor were clothed, and that the figure of Jesus the Avatara was used as the central individual around which this mystery-story was woven, the passage describing the finding of the ass and its foal and the entrance of Jesus, seated thereon, into Jerusalem portrays, quite after the manner of ancient mythoi, the descent of the Christ-spirit into manifestation, and its angelic mission of pity and 'salvation'; the Spirit comes into the scene of its labors riding on the combined influence of Saturn and the Moon and the Earth represented by the ass and its foal, and enters into 'Jerusalem,' the symbol of the multitudinous bustling life of human material existence, and on the way to its 'crucifixion' on the cross of matter -- pretty much as Plato describes the Logoic Spirit crucified on and in the Universe in the form of a cross. The mystical meanings merit close study. (return to text)
459. Much that might otherwise appear inexplicable in regard to the fact that the story of Jesus the Christ as found in the New Testament is but an allegory from the Mystery-Schools, is made clear when it is realized that Christianity is a thoroughly syncretistic system synthesized from various teachings and other matters drawn from different sources, such as Neo-Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Gnosticism, etc., as well as no small amount of so-called 'pagan' material which glided into the picture often in a truly curious manner.
Outside of the Jewish Scriptures and names taken over by early Christianity, it may be stated that it all has been derived from four sources, mainly; it was a religion which grew up during the time of the decay and final downfall of the Roman Empire, when that entire Empire was a veritable melting-pot of religious and philosophical ideas as well as mystical notions and allegories and downright superstitions.
These four main sources are the following: Mithraism, supposedly a worship of the sun and originating in Persia, but really a religious philosophy based upon the Divine, Inner, and Invisible Sun, a vortex so to say of the Divine Spiritual Fire of the Universe, of the Heart of Things. Second, the Egyptian religion, centering its attention around the worship of the goddess Isis, the Divine Mother, the Immaculate Virgin, giving birth to a God-child: a religion which had then spread entirely over the Roman Empire and was very popular at about the time of the beginning of the so-called Christian Era, although the date of the beginning of that Era is a purely arbitrary fixation of a time-period. Nevertheless, the worship of Isis and her Infant and the religious cultus connected with it, had been spreading for several hundred years previous to the beginning of the Christian Era as now accepted; and, after the supposed date of the beginning of the Christian Era, this worship had continued spreading still more widely, exactly as Mithraism was doing. It was from these two sources, i. e., Mithraism and Isisism, that were derived into Christianity the larger part of the liturgical rites and ceremonies -- the ceremonial and ritualistic observances.
Further, the higher and more mystical portions of Christianity, imbodying the better part of such philosophy as the latter contained, were derived from Neo-Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, and in later days the stream flowed especially through the intermediary of the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius called the Areopagite. Thus it was that from these two sources came the larger part of the mystical and theological doctrines which even the earliest Christians held. (return to text)
460. It was Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk who lived in the West in the sixth century of the Christian Era under the Emperors Justin and Justinian, who first began to reckon Christian chronology after the manner which was later universally adopted from his writings. This ambitious calculator did not know when the Master Jesus was born, but he made calculations according to the literary material under his hand -- not much of it, but such as he had -- and he tentatively set the birth of the Christian Master at about 600 years before his own time. Soon after, this purely hypothetical date became accepted as the Year 1 of the Christian Era -- the year of the birth of the great Sage called Jesus.
The Esoteric Records actually state, however, that Jesus lived about one hundred years before the time set by Dionysius Exiguus. These Esoteric Records are based largely on astronomical and genuinely astrological wisdom, for the Wise Ones do not come irregularly, that is to say, fortuitously, or by chance. They come at stated periods, because everything in the Universe moves according to order and law; but for this reason those who know how to calculate need not even consult the celestial bodies. They know that at a certain period after a great soul has appeared among men some other great soul will come in due course of time. (return to text)
461. Born 128-129 B. C. (return to text)
462. Verily so; and if we are to take the witness of the New Testament of the Christians themselves, Jesus the Avatara came only unto the enlightening and saving of the Jews themselves; for as it is stated unequivocally in the Gospel According to Matthew, xv, 24: "But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." If this statement was inspired by the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Christian Trinity, as the orthodox among Christians formerly used positively to state, then how shall we explain that it was precisely by the Jews that he was rejected, and became accepted in the West and in the West alone, and by the peoples unto whom it is stated that he did not come? Is it not evident, if we are to give any weight to this passage from Matthew, that an avataric influence descending into the murk and mire of earthly affairs brings a message for all mankind, and that, precisely as Theosophy has always stated, 'the lost sheep of Israel' do not signify the Jews alone, but the phrase is an expression taken directly from the Hither Asian Mysteries, based on Jewish thought in this instance, that 'Israel' does not mean the Jews alone but the Children of Saturn and the Earth, and that the divine influence comes to aid those of its 'children' who are 'lost' -- i.e., those who have need of a new spiritual and intellectual inspiration?
Is the idea, therefore, not identic with that which is put into the mouth of Krishna, the Hindu Avatara in the Bhagavad-Gita, where he says that he comes from age to age in order to right wrongs, overthrow evil, inspirit the good, and rescue the down-trodden, spiritually speaking?
The point of this footnote is for the reader or student to remember that the Gospels of the Christian religion imbodied a Mystery-Story and therefore can be construed properly only in the light of the archaic Mystery-teaching. (return to text)
463. There were two further degrees of such divine infilling of the successful candidate in the ancient Mysteries and they were respectively, Theopneusty and Theopathy. These two words like the former two accurately describe these sublime events.
The reader who is interested in a somewhat further descriptive analysis of this matter is referred to the author's Fundamentals, etc., pages 242, 361, 386-7. (return to text)
464. The words in the text to which this footnote is appended are true enough and intentionally written, because the description is exact, however sketchy and brief, of the nature of the highest and seventh 'new birth' which the postulant for spiritual unfolding can attain on Earth; yet this foregoing statement is not exclusive of another fact, equally wonderful in its way, but of more infrequent occurrence, and which likewise involves a mystery. This other marvelous and strange event involves the actual imbodying of another 'outside' spiritual Power or Individual in a human being of lofty spiritual and intellectual and psychical development, the 'outside' Power or Individual coalescing for the time being with the high adept selected for this purpose.
There are many things of an inexpressibly beautiful and wonderful nature which simply cannot be described, which are connected with the higher ranges of the esoteric life and the individuals who tread that 'still small Path' which leads to the heart of the Universe. Let it suffice, then, for this statement to stand as written, the reader accepting it or rejecting it as he may choose. (return to text)
465. De Orat. dom., par. 35. (return to text)
466. Sermo, VII, 13. (return to text)
467. Rambach, 118. (return to text)
468. Rig-Veda, iii, 62, 10. (return to text)
469. Mithras was also given this title of 'Unconquered'; and as wrote Justin Martyr (Dialog with Trypho, chap. lxx) -- Mithras was mystically said to have been born in a cave or grotto, as was also Jesus. Justin adds: "He was born on the day on which the Sun was born anew, in the stable of Augeas." (return to text)
470. The phrase should be modra niht; Bede has either misspelled the word niht, or followed a dialectal form. (return to text)
471. Section ix. (return to text)
472. It might be added that whereas the phrase 'Immaculate Conception' is a mystical figure of speech, nevertheless in the far distant future human children will be born from mothers without the co-operation of fathers; but this is an event in the future evolutionary history of the human race which it will take millions of years to bring to pass. But this is 'another story' to tell! (return to text)