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The University of Toronto

BY

^ftip^Sj^vS^'V *??,#■ .■■'^- ;-'^;ii- 7 - ■• V... r ■■' ':■ "■!:

THE STORY

OF

ANNA KINGSFORD AND
EDWARD MAITLAND

AND OF

THE NEW GOSPEL OF
INTERPRETATION.

THE STORY

OF

ANNA KINGSFORD AND
EDWARD MAITLAND

AND OF

THE NEW GOSPEL OF
INTERPRETATION

BY

EDWARD MAITLAND.

EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.

"The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing- away;
The Gospel of Interpretation cometh."

"There shall nothing new be told; but that which is ancient
shall be interpreted."

"Now is the Gospel of Interpretation come, and the kingdom i
of the Mother of GoA.'—CJV.S., Part I. No. ii. (part 2) 10. 11. ^\^
and Part IT. No. xiii. .?i. f\

THIRD AND ENLARGED EDITION. .. \) X \ \

PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND S^XPRNpE. ^

THE RU

John M. Watkins,
publisbcr an^ JBooftscIlcr,

21, CECIL COURT,

Charing^Cross Loudon, W.C.

STREET.

ist Edition - - - Christmas, i8gj
2nd ,, - - - ,, i8g4.

3^'d ,, - - - ,, igos.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS.

This book is designed (1) in satisfaction of the
widely-expressed desire for a more particular
account than has yet been rendered concerning
the genesis of the writings claiming to constitute
a " New Gospel of Interpretation " ; and (2) in
fulfilment of the duty incumbent on me as the
survivor of the two recipients of such Gospel to
spare no means which may minister to its recog-
nition and acceptance by the world, for whose
benefit it has been vouchsafed.

Although largely biographical in character, this
book is not a history of individuals, but of a Work,
and involves only such personal references as are
necessary to such history. It is not, however, a
full or a final account that is contained in it,
vSuch an account can be given only in the form of
the regular biography which is in course of pre-
paration. This book is an instalment only of that
biography, being put forth in advance of it, partly,
as said above, to meet a present need, and partly,
to prevent a total loss of the record in the event of
my failure to complete it — a contingency of which,
in view of the magnitude of the task and my
advanced age, I am bound to take account.

E. M.

PREFACE

TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Since the publication in 1893 of this book which,
as stated in Chapter VII., was " intended but as
an epitome and instalment " of a far larger book
then in course of preparation, the full and final
account of the " New Gospel of Interpretation "
has been given to the world. In 189G Edward Mait-
land published his magnum opus, " The Life of
Anna Kingsford," in two large volumes of 420
pages, " illustrated with portraits, views, and fac-
similes." This is, and will always be, the
biography par excellence of Anna Kingsford and
Edward Maitland, and it is absolutely indispen-
sable for those who would know all that there is
to be known of them and their w^ork and of the
" New Gospel of Interpretation." As that book,
however, on account of its great length, must
always be a costly book, and therefore beyond the
means of many who would like to have some
reliable information concerning Anna Kingsford
and Edward Maitland and their work, and as there
are many who, on account of their time for reading
being limited or their inclination to read being
little, require information within the compass of
a small book or go without it altogether, there will,
notwithstanding the publication of the " Life of
Anna Kingsford," be a demand for this shorter
" Story," which is so' admirably suited to meet the

via. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

needs or requirements of these classes of persons ;
for, be it noted, the publication of " The Life of
Anna Kingsford " has not in any way depreciated
the value of this book in this sense that, having
been written by one of the two recipients of the
" New Gospel of Interpretation," it is a first
authority second to none for the statements therein
contained.

The change in the title of the book from " The
Story of the New Gospel of Interpretation " to the
present title calls for some explanation and justi-
fication, because the former title was an excellent
one in many respects, and the book has become
known to many by that title. The " Gospel of
Interpretation " is the name or description which
was given by its Divine Inspirers, the Hierarchy
of the Spheres Celestial, to the work of which this
book tells the story, in token of its relation to the
previous " Gospel of Manifestation." The former
title implied, as the Author pointed out in his
preface, that that which this book propounded was
" not really a new Gospel, but one of Interpreta-
tion only " ; and this is not really new, but, as the
Author has also pointed out, " so old as to have
become forgotten and lost, being the purely
spiritual sense, as discerned from the purely
spiritual standpoint originally intended and
insisted on by Scripture itself as its true sense and
standpoint, and those which alone render Scripture
intelligible "^^\ But notwithstanding this, and
notwithstanding that on the front page it was
expressly stated that " There shall nothing new
be told; but that which is ancient shall be inter-

l')E.M. Letter in "Light" of 29th August, 1891.

TREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. IX.

preted," the former title failed to convey to tlie
minds of some the meaning that it was intended
to convey, and it gave no indication of the
biographical nature of the work. Many who other-
wise would have read the book refrained from doing
so because they thought that a new Gospel,
inconsistent with and perhaps opposed to if
not intended to supersede the old Gospel, was pro-
pounded. It is necessary, therefore, for me to
state, if possible more explicitly than it was stated
in the previous editions of this book, that this is
not an attempt to create a new Gospel differing
from that of Jesus Christ^^). Anna Kingsford's
and Edward Maitland's mission and aim was
to interpret the Christ, not to rival or supersede
Him. The " New Gospel " is, first and foremost,
interpretative, and is destructive only in the sense
of reconstructive. "It tells nothing new; it
simply restores and reinforces the old, even the
Gnosis, which, as the doctrine of the Church un-
f alien, is that also of the Church fallen, though the
latter has lost the key to its interpretation "(^l Nor
is the teaching represented by this book opposed to
the existence of an objective Church. Anna Kings-
ford and Edward Maitland fully recognised the
necessity of such an organisation for the formula-
tion, propagation, and exposition of religion. Their
opposition was " only to the recognition by the
Church of the objective, historical, and material-
istic aspect of religion, to the exclusion of that which

(^'See further as to this, an article by A.K. and E.M. in
"Light" of 23rd September, 1882, reprinted in Life A.K.
Vol. II. p. 77.

(')E.M. Letter in "Light" of 22nd July, 1893.

X. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

really constitutes religion, namely, its subjective,
spiritual, and substantial aspect, wherein alone it
appeals to the mind and soul, and is efficacious
for redemption." The aim of the New Gospel
" is defined exactly," said Edward Maitland, " in
the following citation from St. Dionysius the
Areopagite ' not to destroy, but to construct ; or,
rather, to destroy by construction; to conquer
error by the full presentment of truth.' As will
be obvious, such a design does not necessarily
involve the destruction of anything that exists
whether of symbol or ritual, or ecclesiastical
organisation, but only their regeneration by means
of their translation into their spiritual and divinely
intended sense. And it is precisely because that
sense has been lost — as declared in Scripture it
had long been, and would yet long be, lost — that
a new * Gospel of Interpretation ' has been vouch-
safed in fulfilment of the promises in Scripture to
that effect ; and this from the source of the original
Divine revelation, namely, the Church Celestial,
and by the method which always was that of such
revelation, namely, the intuition operating under

special illumination Even the priest,

though hitherto deservedly regarded as the ' enemy
of man,' will not be destroyed under the new
regime whose inauguration we are witnessing. For
in becoming interpreter as well as administrator,
he will be prophet as well as priest, and speak out
the things of God and the soul instead of conceal-
ing them under a veil. So will the ' veil be taken
away,' and Cain, the priest, instead of killing
Abel, the prophet, as hitherto, will unite with him,
becoming prophet and priest in one. And instead
of any longer corrupting the ' woman ' Intuition,

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. xi.

and suppressing the ' man ' Intellect, he will
purify and exalt her, and enable her to fulfil her
proper function as ' the Mother of God ' in man,
and will recognise the intellect, when duly con-
joined with her, as the heir of all things. Thus,
becoming interpreter as well as administrator,
prophet as well as priest, and recognising inter-
pretation as the corollary of the understanding, the
prophet-priest of the regeneration will give to men
freely of the waters of life, that only true bread
of Heaven, which is the food of the understanding,
instead of the indigestible ' stones ' and poisonous
' serpents ' of doctrines, the profession of which,
by divorcing assent from conviction, involves that
moral and intellectual suicide, to induce others to
join him in committing which Cardinal Newman
wrote his ' Grammar of Assent.' True it is ' faith
that saves,' but the faith that is without under-
standing is not faith, but credulity "(^>. It is for
the above-mentioned reasons that the title of this
book has been changed. The title must be sub-
servient to the book, and it is hoped that, the
change having been made, there will not be any
further misunderstanding— even on the part of
those who are most superficial — as to the nature
and object of " The Story of the New Gospel of
Interpretation."

Edward Maitland did not long survive the com-
pletion of the great task that he undertook when he
set himself to write a full account of his life and
that of his colleague. He retained his full mental
vigour until the publication of " The Life of Anna
Kingsf ord " ; but after that he rapidly declined,

(*)E.M. Letter in " Light " of 17th December, 1892.

Xll. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

and on the 2nd October, 1897, at the close of his
seventy-third year, a little over nine years after the
death of Anna Kingsford^^^ he passed away peace-
fully at " The Warders" at Tonbridge, the home (at
that time) of his friends Colonel and Mrs. Currie,
with whom, and under whose loving care, he spent
the last few months of his life — a life concerning
which, as also that of Anna Kingsford, I will not
say anything here, for this book will testify.
Blessed are the souls whom the just commemorate
before God,

Many who read these pages will not rest until
they know more of those great prophets the story
of whose lives is here told, and of the Divine
Gnosis that it was their high mission to proclaim.
I have indicated whence they can obtain this
information. This " Story," interesting as it is
and much as there is in it, is little more than an
indication of some of ths facts that are f vilh^ stated
and dealt with in " The Life of Anna Kingsford,"
and there is much of importance that (as it could
not possibly receive proper treatment in a book of
this size) was passed over here to be related in the
larger biography. I have not thought it expedient
to alter the character of or to add much to this
book, but I have enlarged it by incorporating
therein, from " The Life of Anna Kingsford,"
some additional matter which is of interest, and
which should add to the value of the book. The
most important additions are the account of Anna
Kingsford's vision of " The Doomed Train," on
p.p. 43-47 ; the account of Anna Kingford's vision

('>A.K. died on the 22nd February, 1888

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XUl.

of Adoiiai, on pp. 64-68; the " Exhortation oi llermes
to his Neophytes," on pp. 110-112; the verses "Con-
cerning the Passage of the Soul,'' on pp. 169-170; and
the illumination of Anna Kingsford concerning the
"Work of Power,"on pp. 180-181. I have also amplified
the text in some places when, on comparing it with
corresponding passages in " The Life of Anna
Kingsford," I found that I could do so with advan-
tage. These amplifications are not otherwise noted.
Finally, I have added some notes where I thought
that further explanation was desirable or would
prove acceptable.

SAML. HOPGOOD HART.

Croydon, December, 1905.

INTRODUCTION.

There are certain introductory remarks which, in
view of the prevailing tendency to reject prior to
examination whatever conflicts with strongly
cherished preconceptions — as anything purporting
to be a " new Gospel " is undoubtedly calculated
to do— may be made with advantage. Those
remarks are as follows : —

(1) As its title implies^^), that which is pro-
pounded is not really a new Gospel, but one of
Interpretation only, which is precisely what is
admitted by all serious and thoughtful persons to
be the supreme need of the times. It was said, for
instance, by the late Matthew Arnold, " At the
present moment there are two things about the
Christian religion which must be obvious to every
percipient person : one, that men cannot do without
it ; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is."

(2) As also its title implies(*^>, nothing new is told
in it, but that only which is old is interpreted;
and the appeal on its behalf is not to authority,

(')The original title of this book was "The Story of the New
Gospel of Interpretation." See preface to the present edition.
S.H.H.

XVI. INTRODTTCTIOX.

wkether of Book, Tradition, or Institution, but to
the Understanding- — a quality which accords not
only with the spirit of the times, but also — as
shewn herein — Avith that of religion itself, properly
so called.

(3) Scripture manifestly comprises two con-
flicting systems of doctrine and practice, having
for their representatives respectively the priest and
the prophet, one only of which systems, and this
the system reprobated in Scripture itself, has
hitherto obtained recognition from Christendom.
It is the purpose of the New Gospel of Interpre-
tation to expound the system represented by the
prophet and approved in Scripture, with a view to
replacing the other.

(4) For those who attach value to the prophecies
contained in the Bible, so far from there being an
a priori improbability against the delivery of a
new revelation in interpretation, confirmation, or
completion of the former revelation, and in correc-
tion of the false presentment of it, the probability
ought to be all in favour of such an event. This
is because Scripture abounds in predictions of a
restoration both of faculty and of knowledge, as
to take place at the present time and under the
existing conditions of Church and World ; and
this of such kind as shall constitute a second and
spiritual manifestation of the Christ in rectifica-
tion of the perversion of the import of His first
and personal manifestation, and in arrest of the
great Apostacy, not only from the true faith of
Christ but from religion itself, of which that
perversion has been the cause.

(5) So far from the idea of a new revelation
which shall have for its end the disclosure, as the

INTRODUCTION. XVU.

true sense of Scripture and Dogma, of a sense
differing so widely from that hitherto accepted as
to be virtually destructive of it, — so far from this
idea being universally repugnant to orthodox
ecclesiastics, it has found warm recognition from
one of the foremost of modern churchmen. This
is the late Cardinal Newman.

Said Dr K'evrman in his Apologia pro vita sua,
speaking of his earlier days, " The broad philo-
sophy of Clement and Origen carried me away ; the
philosophy, not the theological doctrine. . . Some
portions of their teaching, magnificent in them-
selves, came like music to my inward ear, as if the
response to ideas, which, with little external to
encourage them, I had cherished so long. These
were based on the mystical or sacramental prin-
ciple, and spoke of the various Economies or Dis-
pensations of the Eternal. I understood these
passages to mean that the exterior world, physical
and historical, was but the manifestation to our
senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was
a parable : Scripture was an allegory : . . . . The
process of change had been slow ; it had been done
not rashly, but by rule and measure, ' at sundry
times and in divers manners,' first one disclosure
and then another, till the whole evangelical doc-
trine was Brought into full manifestation. And
thus room was made for the anticipation of further
and deeper disclosures of truths still under the veil
of the letter, and in their season to be revealed.
The visible world still remains without its divine
interpretation : Holy Church in her sacraments
and her hierarchical appointments, will remain,
even to the end of the world, after all but a symbol
of those heavenly facts which fill eternity. Her

XVlll. INTRODUCTION.

mysteries are but the expressions, in human
language, of truths to which the human mind is
unequal "(^^.

Dr Newman is credited also with the remark,
made on visiting Rome for his investiture, that he
saw no hope for religion save in a new revelation.

These are utterances the value of which is in no
way diminished by the fact that their utterer failed
to bring his own life into accordance with them.
He could write, indeed, the hymn " Lead, kindly
light " ; but when the " kindly light " was vouch-
safed him of those suggestions of a system of
thought concealed within the Christian Symbology,
" magnificent in themselves " and making " music
to his inward ear," which he found in the patristic
writings ; instead of following that lead, and
striving to exhume the treasures of divine truth
thus buried and hidden from sight, for the salva-
tion of a world perishing for want of them, — he
turned his back upon it, and — entering the Church
of Rome — wrote his " Grammar of Assent," calling
upon others to follow him in committing the
suicide, intellectual and moral, of renouncing the
understanding and divorcing profession from
conviction.

This was a catastrophe the explanation of which
is not far to seek. Dr Newman had in him the
elements which go to make both priest and prophet.
But the former proved the stronger; and the Cain,
the priest in him, suppressed the Abel, the prophet
in him. Thus was he a type of the Church as
hitherto she has been. But, happily, not as hence-

(''Apologia pro vita sua, by J. H. Newman. New edition of
1893, pp. 26,27.

INTRODLCTION. XIX

forth she will be. For " now is the Gospel of Inter-
pretation come, and the kingdom of the Mother
of God," even the " Woman," Intuition, — the
mind's feminine mode, wherein it represents the
perceptions and recollections of the Soul — who is
ever " Mother of God " in man, and whose sons
the prophets ever are, the greatest of them being
called emphatically, for the fulness and purity of
his intuition, the " Son of the Woman " and she
a " virgin."

E.M.

FRONTISPIECES.
I. — Portrait of Dr. Anna Kingsford.

Born, Sc/>. i6th, 1846 ; Died, Feb. 22nd, 1688.

II. — ,, Edward Maitl.-vnd (B.A., Cantab).

Born, Oct. sjth, 1824; Died, Oct, and, iSg^.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

i'Ar,E

Preface to the First and Second Editions v.
Preface to the Third Edition - - vii.-xiii.

Introduction xiv.-xviii.

Table of Contents - - . _ xx.-xxii.
Abbreviations xxiii.

Chapter I.
the vocation.

The Instiuments — Their early lives — Their consciousness of a special
mission, and intimations of a call — Their training in respect of
circumstance, character, and faculty, until brought together
for their Joint work. ....... \ _gg

Chapter II.
the initiation.

A baptism of the Spirit — " At last I have found a man through whom
I can speak ! " — Intimation of the nature and aim of their work —
The Doomed train, "No one on the engine 1" — Instantaneous
transfer of inspiration — "Woman, ivhat have I to do with
thee?" — The recovery of a Gospel scene, and its import — "The
woman taken in adultery " — Vision of Adonai — Source of the
opening sentences in St. John's Gospel — Chapter from the re-
covered Gnosis — The Generation of the Word. - - 37-70

Chapter III.

THE COMMUNICATION.

he perfect love that casts out fear," In the presence of celestial visit-
ants— A parable of the Intuition — " The Wonderful Spectacles "
—The Greek element in the work — Hermes and John the Baptist
— The " heresy of Prometheus " — The Fig-tree, a symbol of the
inward understanding ; the time come for it to bear fruit — The
Sceress's faculty — Her relations with Hermes — " Thou art the
Rock ' addressed to Hermes — The parable of the Fig-tree — The
Mjslic Woman of Holy Writ — ^" Go thy way, Daniel ....

CONTENTS. xxi.

Chapter III. (contimied).

Thou shall rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days "—The
prophecy of the book of Esther— The Angel Genius, his account
of himself and his oflice— Divine revelation the supreme common
sense— The source and method of the New Revelation— Its chief
recipient " not a medium or a seer, but a prophet "—An instruc-
tion and a caution concerning the survival of tendencies encou-
raged in past ilives— Communion with souls of the departed—
The conditions of such intercourse— An instruction concerning
Inspiration and Prophesying— The prophecy of" the kingdom of
the Mother of God." 71-108

Chapter IV.

THE ANTAGONISATION.

" Ye are not yet perfected "—Our respective .4 //rax— An exhortation-
The Seven Spirits of God, their co-operation necessary for a per-
fect work— " You belong to us now, to do our work and not your
own "—Enforced silence—" The Powers of the Air ; ' their mode
of attack— A strange visitant and his communication— A strained
situation— Visions of guidance— The "refractory team," and
the "Two Stars"— The promised land reached only through
the wilderness— "The Word a \\'urd of mystery, and they who
guard it Seven"— "One Neophyte could not save himself"—
A Horoscope— A descent into hell— Counsels of Perfection— A
" Merry Christmas"— A timely arrival— Neoplatonic recognition
of Hermes— The one Truth, never without a witness in the world
—The key of knowledge restored— Problems solved— The mystic
" Woman " of Holy Writ. 109-141

Chapter V.

THE RECAPITULATION.

The key to the mystery of the Bible; the "Veil of Moses" withdrawn
—The secret laid bare of the world's sacrificial system, and the
feud between priest and prophet— The Memory of the Soul— The
Standpoint of the Bible- All that Is true is Spiritual— The reve-
lation of "that wicked one"— The seals broken and the books
opened— The New Gospel of Interpretation— Sacerdotalism the
"Jerusalem which killed the prophets" —The suppressed doc-
trines—Reincarnation the corollary and condition of Regeneration
and implicit in the Bible—" Ye -must be born again of Virgin
Mary and Holy Ghost " —The doctrines of the Trinity and Divine

CONTENTS. xxii.

Chapter V. {continued).

PAGE
Incarnation as now interpreted, necessary and self-evident truths

— Evolution the manifestation of a divine inherenc}' ; accom-
plished only by the realisation of Divinity — The process of
refifeneration, and therein of salvation, interior to the individual
— Adam and Christ the initial and final stages in the spiritual
evolution ot every man — The "Christ within" of St Paul — The
Credo an epitome of the spiritual history of the Sons of God. 142-162

Chapter VI.

THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

Spontaneity of the Seeress's faculty — Specific illuminations, in illus-
tration, chiefly, of the process of Regeneration ; concerning (i)
Holy Writ ; (2) Redemption ; (3) Sin and death ; (4) The Twelve
Gates of Regeneration ; (5) The Passage of the Soul ; (6) The
Mystic Exodus ; (7) The Spiritual Phoibos and the order ot the
Christs ; (8) The Previous Lives of Jesus, and Reincarnation ;
(q) The Work of Power ; the land and tongue of the New
Revelation, why ours. - - . . . 163-183

Chapter VII.

THE promulgation AND RECOGNITION.

Accordance of all the dates with those prophesied — Other coincidences
— Why our work has remained so long unknown to the generality
— Notable recognitions, by representative Kabalists, Mystics,
Occultists and Divines, Catholic, Anglican, and others— Spiritu-
alism, Theosophy, and the New Gospel of Interpretation as
fellow-agents in the unfoldment of the world's spiritual conscious-
ness, and the unsealing of the world's Bibles, prophesied to take
place at this epoch — *' Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," the Hebrew
equivalents for Brahma, Isis, and lacchos, to denote the mysteries
of India, Egypt, and Greece, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body,
and therein the Gnosis of which the Christ is the fulfilment and
personal demonstration, and the restoration of which was pro-
phesied by Jesus as to mean the Regeneration of the Church and
the establishment of the divine kingdom on earth — Mjsticism and
Occultism, the distinction between them, and the necessity of
both physical and spiritual science to a perfect system of thought
and rule of life — Conclusion. ----- 184-204

ABBREVIATIONS.

A.K., for Anna Kingsford.

B.O.A.I., for "The Bible's Own Account of Itself," by
E.M.; second edition, 1905.

C.W.S., for "Clothed With The Sun," being the book
of the Illuminations of A.K. ; edited by
E.M., 1889.

D. and D.-S., for " Dreams and Dream-Stones," by A.K.,

edited by E.M.; second edition, 1888.

E.C.U., for "The Esoteric Christian Union," founded
by E.M. in 1891.

E. and I., for " England and Islam ; or, The Counsel of

Caiaphas," by E.M., 1877.

E.M., for Edward Maitland.

Life A.K., for "The Life of Anna Kingsford," by E.M.,
1896.

P.W., for " The Perfect Way ; or, The Finding of Christ,"
by A.K. and E.M.; third edition, revised,
1890.

Statement, E.C.U., for "The New Gospel of Interpre-
tation ; being an Abstract of the Doctrine
and Statement of the Objects of the
Esoteric Christian Union," by E.M.;
revised and enlarged edition, 1892.

BIRMINGHAM :

THE RUSKIN PRESS, RUSKIN HOUSE,

STAFFORD STREET.

1905.

uTUri

OL

1 1 wn 0/0 p^Vcy

THE
STORY OF ANNA KINGSFORD AND
EDWARD MAITLAND

AND

OF THE NEW GOSPEL OF
INTERPRETATION.

CHAPTER I.

THE VOCATION.

My colleague in the work, the history of which I
am about to render some account, was the late
Anna Kingsford, nee Bonus, M.D. of the
University of Paris.

There was a link between her husband's family
and mine, but we were not personally acquainted
until, in the summer of 1873, she was led by read-
ing one of my books^^^ to open a correspondence

(*'The book was " By and By : An Historical Romance of the
Future," its object being to show a state of society in which the
intuition is supreme, and individuals follow their own ideals.
It represents a step in E.M.'s unfoldment, but not his final
conclusions. In 1873 A.K., having read a review of this book
in the Ezamiver (which also contained a notice of one of her
tales), communicated with E.M. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 27.)

2 THE VOCATION.

with me, which disclosed so striking a community
between us of ideas, aims, and methods, that I
accepted an invitation to visit her at her husband's
rectory at Pontesbury, Salop, in Shropshire, for
the sake of a fuller discussion of them. This visit,
which lasted nearly a fortnight, took plaee in
February, 1874(9>.

The account I received of her history was in this
wise. Born at Stratford, in Essex, on the IGth
September, 1846, long after the last of her many
brothers and sisters, and endowed with the most
fragile of constitutions and liabilities the most
distressing of bodily weakness and suffering, and
differing widely, moreover, in temperament from
all with whom she was associated, her young life
had enjoyed but a scanty share of human sym-
pathy, and was largely one of solitude and medita-
tion, and such as to foster the highly artistic,
idealistic, and mystic tendencies with which she
was born. Singularly energetic of will, and
conscious of powers both transcending in degree
and differing in kind from any that she recog-
nised in others, she assiduously exercised her
faculties in many and various directions in the
hope of discovering the special direction in which
her mission lay. For, from her earliest childhood
she had been conscious of a mission, for the accom-
plishment of which she had expressly come into

(')This was not the first time that E.M. met A.K. He had
met her once before, in January, 1874, in a picture gallery in
London. " It was but for a short time, and during a single
afternoon " ; but it was " sufficient to convince " him of " the
unusual character of the personality " with which he had come
into contact. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 32.)

THE VOCATION. 3

the earth-life. And she claimed even to have dis-
tinct recollection of having been strongly dis-
suaded from coming, on account of the terrible
suffering which awaited her in the event of her
assuming a body of flesh. Indeed, so little con-
scious was she of the reality of her human
parentage that she was wont to look upon herself
as a suppositious child of fairy origin ; and on her
first visit to the pantomime, when the fairies made
their appearance on the stage, she declared that
they were her proper people, and cried and
struggled to get to them with such vehemence that
it was necessary to remove her from the theatre.
Among her amusements, her chief delight was in
the ample gardens around her homes at Stratford
and Blackheath, where she would hold familiar
converse with the flowers, putting into their
petals tiny notes for her lost relatives, the fairies,
who in return would visit her in her dreams and
assure her of their continued affection, and counsel
her to have patience and courage.

The chief occupation of her girlhood was the
writing of poems and tales^^^^ which were tinged
with an exquisite mysticism, and showed a ripeness
of soul and maturity of feeling and knowledge
wholly unaccountable for by her years, her
experiences, or her physical heredity. At school
she always obtained the first prizes for composition,
and her faculty of improvisation was the delight
of her companions ; the subjects of these her earlier
romances being lovely princesses, gallant knights,

('"'Her "very first published production" was a poem in a
religious magazine, when she was " but nine years old." (Life
A.K. Vol. I. p. 29.)

4 THE VOCATION.

castles, dragons, and the like, when — as may readily
be supposed — her tall and slender frame, long
golden hair, delicacy of complexion, deep-set
hazel eyes, beauty of feature, the brow and the
mouth being especially notable, the brightness of
her looks, vivacity of her manner, her musical
voice, and the easy eloquence of her diction, — all
combined to make her an ideal heroine for her
own romances. She could hardly, however, be
said to be a persona grata with her pastors and
masters. For while her independence of character
and strength of will were apt to bring her into
conflict with rules and regulations of which she
failed to recognise the need, her thirst for know-
ledge, especially on religious subjects, prompted
her to the proposition of questions which were
highly embarrassing to her teachers ; and nothing
that they could say succeeded in convincing her
that her duty lay in believing what she was told,
and not in understanding it. She very early learnt
to resent the disabilities of her sex, and to insist
that they were not real but artificial, the result of
masculine selfishness and injustice. This hatred of
injustice and its correlative cruelty, especially
towards animals, attained in her the force and
dignity of a passion, her sensitiveness on this score
making the chief mental misery of her life.

Of one gift possessed by her she early learnt to
repress the manifestation. This was the faculty
for seeing apparitions and divining the characters
and fortunes of people. For she was a born seer.
But the inability of her elders to comprehend the
faculty, and their consequent ascription of it to
pathological causes, were wont to lead to references
to the family doctor with results so eminently

THE VOCATION. 5

disagreeable and even injurious to her, as soon to
suggest the wisdom of keeping silence respecting
her experences.

Her first published compositions were written
at the age of thirteen^i), the editors who accepted
her contributions to their magazines being under
the impression that they came from a grown-up
person and not from the mere child that she was.
They cost her, she assured me, little labour,
especially the poems, but seemed to come to her
ready-made, and to flow through her sponta-
neously. And whatever the country in which their
scene lay, the local colouring and descriptions were
always faithful and vivid, as if the places and their
inhabitants were familiar and even actually
visible to her.

It was not, however, to any encouragement of
her peculiar gifts that such excellency as she
exhibited was due. Eather were they severely
repressed, especially in respect of drawing, sing-
ing and music, lest she should be tempted to
follow them as a profession ; a fear which had been
excited by the suggestions of her masters that she
would be certain of success in any of those lines.

Her innate consciousness of a mission seemed to
her to indicate her as destined for some redemp-
tive work, not only for others, but also for herself.
Eor, while the instincts of the Champion and the
Saviour were potent in her, she was dimly con-
scious of its possessing also an expiatory element,

<')" Beatrice : A Tale of the Early Christians," was written
by A.K. in 1859, for the Churchman's Comjyanion, "but the
publisher thought it worthy to make a separate volume, and
offered to bring it out in that form, and to give her a present
for it," which offer was accepted. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 4.)

6 THE VOCATION.

in virtue of which, her own salvation would largely
depend upon her endeavours to save others. She
had as yet no theorj^ whereby to explain this or any
other of the problems she was to herself. All that
she knew was that she possessed, or rather was
possessed of, these feelings and impulses. It was
easy to see by her account of herself that she was
as one driven of the Spirit long before the Spirit
definitely revealed itself to her. The two dejjart-
ments of humanity which she felt especially
impelled to succour and save w^ere her oAvn sex
and the animals. For she would recognise no hard
and fast line between masculine and feminine,
human and animal, or even between animal and
plant. In her eyes everything that lived was
humanity, only in different stages of its unfold-
ment. Even the flowers were persons for her.

As she approached womanhood she found herself
looking forward to marriage far less for its own
sake than as a means of emancipation from restric-
tions on her choice of a career. Her father died
while she was yet wanting two or three years of
her majority, leaving her mistress of an income
ample for a single woman. And when at length
she became engaged to Algernon Godfrey Kings-
ford, a cousin to whom she had some time been
attached, it was on the understanding that she
should remain unfettered in this respect. He held
at the time a post in the Civil Service ; but soon
after their marriage, which took place on the last
day of 1867, determined to read for holy orders.
This gave her an opportunity for making herself
acquainted with Anglican theology, of which—
thirsting for knowledge of all kinds — she eagerly
availed herself, accompanying him in all hia

THE VOCATION. 7

studies, and greatly facilitating them by her
admirable scholarly methods. This proved to be
the first great step in her religious and intellectual
training for her destined mission.

One of the occupations of her early married life
was the editing of a lady's magazine, which she
purchased with a view of making it an instrument
for the dissemination of her ideas especially in
regard to her sex. And she accordingly took an
active part in the movement then recently origin-
ated for the enfranchisement of women, achieving
an extraordinary success as a public speaker. But,
becoming convinced that their cause would be best
advanced by the practical demonstration of their
litness for the promotion they sought, and also
feeling her own need for the discipline of a severe
intellectual training to balance the emotional side
of her nature, she soon withdrew from active par-
ticipation in the movement. She moreover recog-
nised as a grave mistake the disposition evinced
by her fellow-workers to suppress their womanli-
ness in favour of a factitious masculinity, under
the impression that they would thereby exalt their
sex; her idea being, that their true policy lay in
magnifying rather than in depreciating their
womanhood. Meanwhile she had given birth to a
daughter, her only child.

Her magazine was given up after a couple of
years, the results failing to justify the expenditure
of time, labour and money, requisite for its con-
tinuance. Not that it lacked adequate support;
but the principles on which she insisted on con-
ducting it proved to be incompatible with
commercial success. She resolutely refused all
advertisements of articles, whether of food or of

8 THE VOCATION.

clotliing, of wliieli slie disapproved; and she had
adopted the pythagorean regimen and discarded as
unhygienic sundry articles of attire ordinarily
deemed indispensable by her sex. It was in her
magazine that she first struck the note which
proved the initiation of the holy warfare since
waged against the horrors of the physiological
laboratory, a warfare in which she bore a foremost
part and developed the malady of which she died.

In 1870, a long and severe illness, which com-
pelled her return to her mother's house at Hastings
to be nursed, led to her entry upon another phase
in her inner life, and a further stage in the process
of her education for her mission. She had early
recoiled from the faith in which she had been
reared. This was Protestantism in its most unlovely
form, cold, harsh, narrow, dogmatic. Her closer
acquaintance with it as a clergyman's wife had
done nothing to mitigate her judgment of it.
Explaining nothing and lacking fervour and
poetry, it left head and heart alike unsatisfied.
Her residence as an invalid at Hastings brought
her into intimacy with some devout Catholics, the
effect of which was to intensify the repugnance
already set up. She attended the Catholic services,
and visited the sisters in the convent, reading their
books of devotion and even making an extended
study of Catholic doctrine, for she would do
nothing by halves. She found what satisfied her
heart and artistic tastes. But the chief deter-
mining cause of the change upon which she at
length resolved, was her reception hj night of
sundry visitations, purporting to be of angelic
nature, and enjoining on her, for the sake of the
mission to which she was called — the knowledge of

THE VOCATION. g

which, she was told, would in due time be revealed
to her — that she join the Roman communion.
Well aware that the confession of such experiences,
whether to her relations or to a minister of her own
Church, would elicit only a smile of pity or con-
tempt, with a recommendation to seek medical
advice, and involve other contingencies equally
distasteful, she resolved to see how the same con-
fession would be treated by a Catholic priest.
The result of the essay was that she was listened
to with respect and sympathy, and informed that
the Church fully recognised such visitations as
coming within the divine order, and as being a
token of high spiritual favour and grace ; and while
it refrained from pronouncing positively on them,
considered that they ought not to be lightly dis-
regarded. She was soon afterwards received into
the Eoman Church, being baptised on September
14, 1870. On June 9, 1872, she was confirmed by
Archbishop Manning, who admonished her to
utilise her attractions in making converts. And
on each occasion she received additional names,
in virtue of which she now bore the names of all
the five women who were by the Cross and at the
Sepulchre.

Xone the less, however, did she retain her inde-
pendence of mind and conduct. She accepted no
direction, and professed no tenet that she did not
understand. And it was soon made clear to her
that the Spirit, of whom she was being impelled,
did not intend her to regard her adoption of
Catholicism as more than a step in her education
for the work required of her. For the following
year saw her bent on seeking a medical degree,
under the impression that such a step was in some

lO THE VOCATION.

way related to the mission of which she had
received such and so many mysterious intimations.
And she had scarcely commenced her study of
medicine when this impression was reinforced by
the following incident, the scene of which was her
home in Shropshire, in the parish of which her
husband had then recently become incumbent,
and where I first visited them.

This was the receipt of a letter from a lady who
was a stranger to her, written from a distant part
of the country, and saying that she, the writer,
had read with profound interest and admiration a
story(2) of '^ly^ Kingsford which, after appearing
in her magazine, had been published as a book, and
that after reading it she had received from the
Holy Spirit a message for her which was to be
delivered in person. After some hesitation as to
what reply to make, Mrs Kingsford — whose
account I am following exactly — agreed to receive
her; an appointment was made, and the stranger
duly presented herself. She was tall, erect, dis-
tinguished looking, with hair of iron-grey and
strangely brilliant eyes, and was perfectly calm
and collected of demeanour. The message was to
the effect that Mrs Kingsford was to remain in
retirement for five years, continuing the studies
and mode of life on which she had entered, what-
ever they might be — for that the messenger did not
know — and to suffer nothing and no one to draw
her aside from them. That when these probationary

'^)The story was " In my Lady's Chamber," and purported
to be a " speculative romance touching a few questions of the
day." It was afterwards pubHshed separately as by " Colossa."
(Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 21, 22.)

THE VOCATION. H

five years were past, the Holy Spirit would bring
her forth from her seclusion, and a great work
would be given her to do. All this was uttered
with a rapt and inspired expression, as though she
had been a Sibyl pronouncing an oracle. After
delivering her message, the messenger kissed ner
on both cheeks and departed, first asking only
whether she thought her mad ; a question to which
for a moment Mrs Kingsford found it somewhat
difficult to make reply. But only for a moment.
For then there rushed on her the conviction that
it was all genuine and true, and was but a fresh
unfoldment of the mystery of her life and destiny,
and in full accordance with her own foreshadow-
ings from the beginning.

Some four years later, at a time when Mrs
Kingsford was in great straits for want of a suit-
able home in London in which to carry on her
studies, the same lady was similarly commissioned
on her behalf, while totally ignorant both of her
whereabouts and her need, and with results entirely
satisfactory. On which occasion I had the privi-
lege of making her acquaintance, and the satis-
faction of finding her not merely perfectly sane,
but a person entitled to the highest consideration,
noted for her pious devotion to works of benefi-
cence involving complete self-abnegation; and in
short a veritable " Mother in Israel."

The event above related occurred in the spring
of 1873, the summer of which year saw Mrs Kings-
ford impelled to do what led to the most crucial of
the events upon which her destined mission hinged,
namely, to write to me the letter which led to my
visit to her home. In the autumn of the same year
she passed her matriculation examination at thp

12 THE VOCATION.

Apothecaries' Hall with success so great as to fill
her with high hopes of a triumphant passage
through the course of her student-life. But imme-
diately afterwards her hopes were dashed, for the
English medical authorities saw fit to close their
schools to women, and the way to her anticipated
career was shut against her.

Such was the position when, in February, 1874,
I visited the Shropshire rectory, and such in brief
the history which was gradually unfolded to me as
my evident sympathy and appreciation gained the
confidence of the still young couple, whose senior
I vv^as by some twenty years. Both husband and
wife were at their wits' end, the situation being
aggravated by a circumstance which was first
brought to my knowledge on my suggestion of the
postponement of her design until such time as the
medical authorities should come to their right
minds and re-open their schools to women. The
circumstance in question Avas her terrible liability
on the ground of ill-health, and especially of
asthma, to which she was a martyr, life in the
country being impossible to her for the greater
part of the year, when it was only in some large
city that she was able to breathe. With the schools
closed against her in England, her thoughts turned
towards France, the University of Paris being open
to women. But for obvious reasons her husband,
who could not absent himself from his duties to
accomjDany her, would not consent to her going
thither unless under suitable protection. For him-
self he had but one wish, that she should follow her
bent and fashion her life as seemed best to her;
for he recognised her as entitled by her endoAv-
ments and aspirations, as well as by the terms of

THE VOCATION. 1 3

their engagement, to full liberty of action, while
the conditions of her health claimed all considera-
tion from him. If, indeed, the Gods had destined
her for a mission requiring freedom of action com-
bined with the shelter and support of a husband's
name, it seemed to me that in him they had created
a man expressly for the office. For some time,
however, the difficulty seemed insuperable, and
one that would yield to no amount of deliberation,
even with the best will of all concerned.

Meanwhile her self-revelations continued, being
evidently prompted, at least as much by the
desire to obtain some explanation of herself
for herself, to whom she was, she avowed,
a complete puzzle, as by the desire to elicit
answering confidences from me. And they
became with each disclosure more and more
striking, until I could hardly resist the conviction
that she was possessed of some faculty in virtue
of which she was able to have direct perception of
conclusions to which I had won my way by dint
of long and arduous thinking, and in some
instances in advance of me. She had read my
mental history between the lines of my books,
and was fully prepared to learn that I too had a
consciousness, analogous to her own, of a mission
in life perhaps also analogous to her own.

This, I was able to assure her, was indeed the
case, and that all my books had been written in
the idea of finding my way to it by dint of free,
unfettered thinking. For, brought up in the
strictest of evangelical sects, I had even as a lad
begun to be revolted by the creed in Avhich I was
roared, and had very early come to regard its
tenets, especially of total depravity and vicarious

14 THE VOCATION.

atonement, as a libel nothing short of blasphemous
against both God and man, and to feel that no
greater boon could be bestowed on the world than
its emancipation from the bondage of a belief so
degrading and so destructive of any lofty ideal.
I had felt strongly that only in such measure as'
I might be the means of its abolition would my life
be a success and a satisfaction to myself. It even
seemed to me that my own credit was involved
in the matter ; and that in disproving such beliefs
I should be vindicating my own character. For
if God were evil, as those doctrines made Him, I
could by no possibility be good, since I must have
my derivation from llim. And I knew that, how-
ever weak and unwise I might be, I was not evil.

Then, too, my life, like hers, had been one of
much isolation and meditation. I had felt myself
a stranger even with my closest intimates. For
I was always conscious of a difference which
separated me from them, and of a side to which
they could not have access, I had graduated at
Cambridge with the design of taking orders ; but
only to find that I could not do so conscientiously,
and to feel that to commit myself to any conditions
incompatible with absolute freedom of thought
and expression would be a treachery against both
myself and my kind ; — for it was for no merely per-
sonal end that I wanted to discover the truth. I
longed to get away from all my surroundings in
order, first, to think myself out of all that I had
been taught, and so to make my mind as a clean
sheet whereon to receive true impressions and at
first hand; and, next, to think myself into a con-
dition and to a level wherein I could see all things
— myself, nature, and God — face to face, with

THE VOCATION. 1 5

vision undimmed and undistorted by beliefs which,
being inherited only and traditional, instead of
the result of conviction honestly arrived at, were
factitious and unreal ; no living outcome of my
own growth and observation, but a veritable strait-
waistcoat, stifling life and restraining develop-
ment. And so it had come that — as related in my
first novel, " The Pilgrim and the Shrine "(3),
which was essentially autobiographical — I had
eagerly fallen in with a proposal to join an expe-
dition to the then newly-discovered placers of
California, an enterprise which, besides promising
to gratify the love for adventure, physical as well
as mental, which was strong in me, would post-
pone if not solve the difficulty of my position. It
possessed, moreover, the high recommendation of
taking me to the world of the fresh, unsophisti-
cated West, instead of to that East which had
been made almost hateful to me by its association
with the tenets by which existence had been
poisoned for me.

So, setting my face towards the sunset, I became
one of the band of " Forty-niners " in California,
and remained abroad in the continents and isles of
the Pacific, from America passing to Australia,
until the intended year of my absence had grown
into nearly ten years, and I had experienced well-
nigh every vicissitude and extreme which might
serve to heighten the consciousness, toughen the
fibre, and try the soul of man. But throughout all,
the idea of a mission remained with me, gathering
force and consistency, until it was made clear to

(')The first edition of " The Pilgrim and the Shrine " was pub-
lished in 1867.

1 6 THE VOCATION.

me tliat not destruction merely, but construction,
not the exposure of error but the demonstration
of truth, was comprised in it. For I saw that it
was possible to reduce religion to a series of first
principles, necessary truths and self-evident pro-
positions, and that only in such measure as it was
thus reduced and discerned, was it really true and
really believed; — in short, that faith and know-
ledge are identical. To accept a religion on the
ground that one had been born in it, and apart
from its appeal to the mind and moral conscience,
and thus to make it dependent upon the accident
of birth and parentage, was to resemble the African
savage who for the same reason worships Mumbo
Jumbo. How, moreover,— I asked myself — could
a religion which was not in accord with first
principles, represent a God, Who, to be God, must
Himself be the first of, and must comprise all
principles; must account logically for all the facts
of consciousness, be it imfolded as far as it may?
Granting that, as the poet says, " an honest man's
the noblest work of God," it was for me no less true
that " an honest God's the noblest work of man."
And it was precisely such a being that I longed to
elaborate out of, or discover in, my own conscious-
ness, confident that the achievement meant the
solution of all problems, the rectification of all
difiiculties, the satisfaction of all aspirations, intel-
lectual, moral, and spiritual. Following such
trains of thought, I arrived at the assurance that
I had within my own consciousness both the
truth itself and the verification of the truth, and
that it remained only to find these.

Returning to England in 1857, and, after an
interval, devoting myself to literature, all that I

THE VOCATION. 1 7

wrote, whether essay or fiction, represented the
endeavour by probing the consciousness to the
utmost in every direction to discover a central,
radiant, and indefeasible point from which all
things could be deduced, and on which, as a pivot
they must depend and revolve. I read largely,
and went much among people, always in search
of aid in my quest; but only with the result of
finding that neither from books nor from persons
could I even begin to get what I sought, but only
from thought.

Meanwhile everything seemed ordered with a
view to the end ultimately attained. For, so far
from having left behind me for ever the vicissi-
tudes, and struggles, and trials, and ordeals, in
which the wildernesses of the western and southern
worlds had been so fruitful, I was found of them
in the old world to which I had returned ; and this
in number, kind, and degree, such as to make it
appear as if what I had borne before had been
inflicted expressly for the purpose of enabling me
to bear what was put upon me now. And it was
only when I had learnt by experience that the very
capacity for thought is enhanced by feeling no
less than by thinking, that the " ministry of pain "
found its explanation. For the feeling required of
me proved to be that of the inner, not merely of
the outer man, of the soul, not merely of the body ;
and the faculty, to be the intuition, and not merely
the intellect. Hence I was made to learn by expe-
rience, long before the fact was formulated for me
in words, that only " by the bruising of the outer,
the inner is set free," and " man is alive only so far
as he has felt."

Everything seemed contrived expressly in order

1 8 THE VOCATION.

to force me in this inward direction. Even in my
literary work, nothing of the " trade " element
was permitted to intrude. I could not write
except when writing to or from my own centre.
Faculty itself was shut off, if turned to any other
purpose. Everything I wrote must minister to and
represent a step in my own unfoldment.

I can confidently affirm that the only books
which really helped me were, with scarcely an
exception, those which I wrote myself. Of the
exceptions the chief was Emerson. His essays had
been my vade mecum in all my world-wide wander-
ings. And there were three sentences of his which, to
use his own phrase, " found " me as no others had
done. They were these : " The talent is the call " ;
"I the imperfect adore my own perfect"; and,
" Beware when God lets loose a thinker on the
earth." Like Emerson himself, I had yet to learn
that man's own perfect is God, and self-culture is
God-culture, provided the self be the inmost self.
The two other books which most helped me were
Bailey's " Festus," and Carlyle's "Hero-Worship."
And I owed something to Tucker's " Light of
Nature." By which it will be seen that my affinity
was always for the prophets rather than the priests
of literature ; for the intuitionalists rather than
the externalists.

Gradually two leading ideas took definite form
in my mind, which, however, proved to be but two
aspects or applications of one and the same idea.
And that idea proved to be the keynote of all that
I was seeking after. For it finally solved the
problems of existence, of religion, of the Bible,
of Being itself. Hence the necessity of this refer-
ence to it.

THE VOCATION. 1 9

This idea was that of a duality subsisting
in every unity, such as I had nowhere read or
heard of. I was, of course, aware that the theolo-
gical doctrine of the Trinity involved a Duality.
But not of a kind to find a response in my mind.
And being unable to assimilate it as it stood, I
ignored it; putting it aside until it should present
itself to me in an aspect in which it was intelli-
gible. I felt, however vaguely, that the Duality
I sought was in the Bible, though it had been
missed by the official expositors of that book. And
the conviction that it was in some way connected
with my life-work was so strong that I constructed
for the covers of my two first books a monogram
symbolical of Genesis i. 27. And I looked to the
unfoldment of what I felt to be the secret sig-nifi-
cance of that utterance for the explication of all
the mysteries the solution of which engrossed me.
The thought did not seem to originate in any of
my experiences, but rather to be part of my
original stock of innate ideas, supposing that there
are such ideas, and to derive confirmation and
explanation from my experiences.

Those experiences were in this wise. It had been
my privilege to have the friendship of several
women of a type so noble that to know them was
at once an education and a religion ; women whose
perfection of character had served more than any-
thing else to make me believe in God, when all
other grounds had failed. I could in no wise
account for them on the hypothesis of a fortuitous
concourse of unintelligent atoms. And not only
did I find that the higher the type the more richly
they were endowed with precisely the faculty of
which I myself was conscious as distinguishing

20 THE VOCATION.

me from my fellows; I found also that I was
unable to recognise any woman as of a high type as
woman save in so far as she was possessed of it. I
had failed to find any who possessed the knowledge
I craved, and who were thereby able to help ma in
my thought. They helped me nevertheless, but it
was by being what they were, rather than by
knowing and doing, be they admirable as they
might in these respects. I recognised in them
that which supplemented and complemented
my mental self in such wise as to suggest
unbounded possibilities of results to accrue
from the intimate association of two minds thus
attuned to each other, and duly unfolded by
thought and study. It needed, it seemed to me,
but the reverberation and intensification of
thought, induced by the apposition of two minds
thus related, for the production of the divine child
Truth in the very highest spheres of thought. So
that the results would by no means be restricted to
the mere sum of the associated capacities of the
two minds themselves. And in view of such high
possibilities I found myself appropriating and
applying the ejaciilation which Virgil puts into the
mouth of Anna when urging the union of her
sister Dido with ^neas —

" Qu8e siu'gere regna
Conjugio tali !"
and I felt with Tennyson that

" Tliey two together well might move the world."
So boundless seemed to me the kingdoms of Truth,
Goodness, and Beauty which would spring from
such conjunction.

It goes without saying that such relationship
was contemplated by me only as the accompani-

THE VOCATION. 21

ment of a liappy re-marriage. [For I had married
in Australia only to be widowered after a year's
wedlock.] But such a prospect was so long with-
held as to make me dubious of its realisation^"*).
Nevertheless, some inner voice was ever saying :
'* Wait ; wait. Everything comes to him who waits,
provided only he do so in faith and patience,
looking to the highest." But that I did wait, and
accordingly kept myself free for what ultimately
was assigned to me, was due far less to the expecta-
tion of finding that for which I waited, than to
the vivid consciousness which I had of the bitter-
ness that Avould come of finding it, only to be
withheld from it through a previous disposal of
myself in some other and incompatible quarter.
This was an impression which served largely to
keep my life as free as I desired my thought to be.
But that the as yet undisclosed arbiters of my des-
tiny deemed it insufficient as a deterrent, appeared
from their reinforcement of it in a manner which
effectually debarred me from marriage save on the
condition, impossible to me, of a mercenary
alliance. This was a reversal of fortune through a
succession of losses so serious as to be the cause of
reducing my means to the minimum compatible
with existence at all in my own station, which soon
afterwards happened. That there were yet further
reasons for this imposition on me of the rule of
poverty, arising out of the nature of the work
required of me, was in due time made manifest,
and also what those reasons were. They need not
be specified here, excepting only this one. It made

C'E.M. did not marry again. He had one child, Charles
Bradley Maitland, and he died on the 16th February, 1901.

22 THE VOCATION.

impossible the ascription to my destined colleague
of mercenary motives for her association with me.
In this I came to recognise a delicate providence
for which I felt I could not be too thankful. In
the meantime, even while smarting severely from
this dispensation, and others yet more bitter which
were heaped on me for no apparent cause or fault
of my own that I could discern, the thought that
most of all served to sustain me under what I felt
Avould have utterly broken down in heart or head,
or in both of these organs, any other person what-
ever of whom I had knowledge, — that thought
was the surmise or suspicion that all these things,
hard to bear as they were, and undeserved as they
seemed, might prove to be blessings in disguise, in
ministering to the realisation of the controlling
ambition of my life by educating me for it; and
that according to the manner in which I bore them
might be the result.

There is yet one more personal disclosure essen-
tial to this part of my relation. It concerns my
own mental standpoint at the time at which my
narrative has arrived. Bent as I was on pene-
trating the secret of things at first hand, and by
means of a thought absolutely free, I was never
for a moment disposed to turn, as my so-called
free-thinking contemporaries one and all had
turned, a scornful back upon whatever related to or
savoured of the current religion. Scripture and
dogma were not for me necessarily either false or
inscrutable because their official exponents had
presented them in an aspect which outraged my
reason and revolted my conscience. I felt bound
— if only in justice to them and myself — at least
to find out what they did mean before finally dis-

THE VOCATION. 2^

carding them. And in this act of justice I was
strangely sustained by a sense of the possibility
that the truth, if any, contained in them, was no
other than that of which I was in search. This is
to say, that in all my investigations I kept before
me the idea that, if I could discern the actual
nature of existence and the intended sense of the
Bible and Christianity, independently of each
other, they might prove on comparison to be iden-
tical ; in which case the latter would really
represent a true revelation. Meanwhile, I found
myself constrained to believe, as an axiomatic
proposition, that the higher and nobler the con-
ception I framed in my imagination of the nature
of existence, and the more in accordance with my
ideas of what, to be perfect, the constitution of the
universe ought to be, the nearer I should come to
the actual truth.

Similarly with religion. For a religion to be true,
it must, I felt absolutely assured, be ideally per-
fect after the most perfect ideal that we can frame.
This is to say, that not only must it be in itself
such as to satisfy both head and heart, mind and
moral conscience, spirit and soul ; it must also be
perfectly simple, obviously reasonable, coherent,
self-evident, founded in the nature of things,
incapable — when once comprehended — of being
conceived of as otherwise, absolutely equitable,
eternally true, and recognisable as being all these,
invariable in operation, independent of all acci-
dents of time, place, persons and events, and
comparable to the demonstration of a mathematical
problem in that it needs no testimony or authority
beyond those of the mind ; and requiring for its
efi&cacious observance, nothing that is extraneous

24 THE VOCATION.

or inaccessible to the subject-individual, but within
his ability to recognise and fulfil, provided only
that he so will. It must also be such as to enable
him by the observance of it to turn his existence
to the highest possible account imaginable by him,
be his imagination as developed as it may : and
all this as independently of any being other than
himself, as if he were the sole personal entity in
the universe, and were himself the universe. That
is to say, the means of a man's perfectionment
must inhere in his own system, and he must be
competent of himself effectually to apply them.
It is further necessary, because equitable, that he
be allowed sufficient time and opportunity for the
discovery, understanding and application of such
means.

Such are the terms and conditions of an ideally
perfect religion, as I conceived of them. It is a
definition which excludes well-nigh, if not quite,
all the characteristics ordinarily regarded as apper-
taining to religion, and notably to that of
Christendom. For in excluding everything
extraneous to the actual subject-individual, and
requiring religion to be self-evident and neces-
sarily true, it excludes as superfluous and irrele-
vant, history, tradition, authority, revelation, as
ordinarily conceived of, ecclesiastical ordinance,
priestly ministration, mediatorial function, vica-
rious satisfaction, and even the operation of Deity
as subsisting without and apart from the man, all
of which are essential elements in the accepted
conception of religion. Nevertheless, profound as
was my distrust of the faithfulness of the orthodox
presentation, I could not reconcile myself to a
renunciation of the originals on which that pre-

THE VOCATION. 25

seutation was founded, until I liad satisfied myself
that I had fathomed their intended and real
meaning.

I had, moreover, very early conceived a per-
sonal affection for Jesus as a man, so strong as to
serve as a deterrent both from abandoning the
faith founded on Him, and from accepting it as it
is as worthy of Him.

Such was my standpoint, intellectual and reli-
gious, at the period in question. The time came
when it found full justification; our results being
such as to verify it in everyone of its manifold
aspects. And not this only. The doctrine which
had so mysteriously evolved itself out of iny con-
sciousness to attain by slow degrees the position
of a controlling influence in my life, the doctrine,
namely of a Duality subsisting in the Original
Unity of Underived Being, and as inhering there-
fore in every unit of derived being, this doctrine
proved to be the key to the mysteries both of
Creation and of Redemption, as propounded in the
Bible and manifested in the Christ; the key also
to the nature of man, disclosing the facts both of
his possession of divine potentialities as his birth-
right, and his endowment with the faculty whereby
to discern and to realise them. And while it proved
constructive in respect of Divine Truth, it proved
destructive in respect of the falsification of that
truth which had passed for orthodoxy, by dis-
closing the source, the motive, the method and the
agents of that falsification.

But these things were still in the future. At
the time with which we are now concerned, I had
commenced a book to represent the standpoint just
described, " The Keys of the Creeds." The first

26 THE VOCATION.

and initial draft of that book was written under
the sympathetic eye of one of the order of noble
women to which reference has been made, and
owed much to the enhancement of faculty derived
by me from such conjunction of minds. The second
and final draft was written under like relation-
ship with another member of the selfsame order,
even she who proved to be my destined collaborator
in the work of which this book recounts the story.
It was published in 1875. It is necessary only to
say further of the book thus produced, that not-
withstanding certain defects of expression, due
chiefly to an insufficient acquaintance with the
terminology of metaphysics, it proved an invalu-
able help to very many, as was amply shown by
the letters of grateful appreciation received from
them by me. The keynote was that which after-
wards found expression in the utterance, —

" There is no enlightenment from without : the
secret of things is revealed from within.

" From without cometh no Divine Revelation :
but the Spirit within beareth witness "(^\

For the lesson it contained was the lesson that
the phenomenal world cannot disclose its own
secret. To find this, man must seek in that sub-
stantial world which lies within himself, since all
that is real is within the man. From which it
followed that if there is no within, or if that within
be inaccessible, either there is no reality, or man
has no organon of knowledge, and is by constitu-
tion agnostic. Meanwhile, the very fact of my

(')See p. 100

THE VOCATION. 27

possessiou of an ideal exempt from the limitations
of the apparent, constituted for me a strong pre-
sumption in favour of the reality of the ideal.

The moment of contact between my destined
colleague and myself, was as critical for one as for
the other, only that in my case the crisis was
intellectual. I could see to the end of the argu-
ment I was then elaborating; and that it landed
me close to the dividing barrier between the two
worlds of sense and spirit, supposing the latter to
have any being^^). But I neither saw beyond, nor
knew how to ascertain whether or not there is a
beyond. We were discussing the question of there
being an inner sense in Scripture, such as my book
suggested ; and whether, supposing it to have such
a sense, it required for its discernment any faculty
more recondite than a subtle imagination; and if
it did, is there such a faculty? and what is its
nature ? By which it will be seen that I was still
in ignorance of the nature of the faculty I found in
myself and recognised as especially subsisting in
women, and which, for me, really made the
woman.

The reply rendered by her to these questionings
constituted the proof positive that I had at length
discovered the mind which my own had so long
craved as its sorely needed complement. In response
to them she gave me a manuscript in her own
writing, asking me to read it and tell her frankly
what I thought of it. Having read and re-read it, I

(^)E.M. says that "The Keys of the Creeds" brought his
thought up to the extreme limits of a thought merely intel-
lectual, to transcend which it would be necessary to penetrate
the barrier between the worlds of sense and of spirit. (Life
A.K. Vol. I. p. 54.)

28 THE VOCATION.

enquired how and where she had got it. She replied
by asking what I thought of it. I answered, " If
there is such a thing as divine revelation, I know
of nothing that comes nearer to my ideal of what
it ought to be. It is exactly what the world is
perishing for want of — a reasonable faith." She
then told me that it had come to her in her sleep,
but whence or how she did not know; nor could
she say whether she had seen it or heard it, but
only that it came suddenly into her mind, without
her having ever heard or thought of such teaching
before. It was an exposition of the Story of the
Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a signifi-
cance purely spiritual, wholly reasonable, and of
universal application, physical persons, things,
and events described in it disappearing in favour
of principles, processes, and states appertaining to
the soul ; no mere local history, therefore, but an
eternal verity. The experience, she went on to
tell me, was far from exceptional ; she had
received many things which had greatly struck
and pleased her in the same way, and sometimes
while in the waking state in a sort of day-dream.
It was subsequently incorporated into our book,
" The Perfect Way."

Her account of her faculty, of which she related
several instances, produced a profound impression
on me. It differed altogether from any that
I had heard of as claimed by the votaries of
" Spiritualism," a creed to which neither of us
had assented ; such little experience as we* had of
it having failed to convince us of the genuineness
of its phenomena; though she, on her part, con-
fessed to having been somewhat at a loss to account
for some things she had seen. But though not

THE VOCATION. 29

spiritualists, we were not materialists. Bather
were we idealists, who had yet to learn and, as the
event proved, were destined shortly to learn, that
the Ideal is the Real, and is Spiritual.

The event also proved that in order to learn it
and to know it positively by experience, there
were two conditions to be fulfilled, on both of
which she had already entered, but I had yet to
enter. One of these conditions was physical, the
other was emotional. The former consisted in the
renunciation of flesh-food in favour of a diet
derived from the vegetable kingdom. The latter
condition consisted in the kindling of our enthu-
siasm for the ideal into a flame of such ardour and
intensity as to make it the dominant passion of
our lives, and one in which all others would be
swallowed up. It was to be an enthusiasm at once
for Humanity, for Perfection, for God.

Had we been in any degree instructed in spiritual
or occult science, we should have known that the
renunciation of flesh-food, though in itself a
physical act, has ever been recognised by
initiates as the prime essential in the unfoldment
of the spiritual faculties ; since only when man is
purely nourished can he attain clearness and ful-
ness of spiritual perception. As it was, neither of
us had ever heard of occult science, or of the
necessity of such a regimen to the perfectionment
of faculty. She had adopted it on grounds physio-
logical, chemical, hygienic, jesthetic, and moral;
not on grounds mental or spiritual. I now under-
took to adopt it partly on the same grounds which
had influenced her, and partly with a view to
enhance and consolidate the sympathy subsisting

30 THE VOCATION.

between us. The mental and spiritual advantages
of the regimen made themselves known to us by
experience.

The other condition found its fulfilment through
the knowledge I derived from her of the methods
of the physiologists. That savages, sorcerers,
brigands, religious fanatics, and corrupt priest-
hoods had always been wont to make torture their
gain or their pastime, I was well aware, and
believed that evolution would sweep them and
their practices away in its course. But the dis-
covery now first made to me that identical bar-
barities are systematically perpetrated by the
leaders of modern science on the pretext of
benefiting humanity, in an age which claims to
represent the summit of such evolution as has yet
been accomplished ; and that after all its boasts,
the best that science can do for the world is to
convert it into a hell and its population into fiends,
by the deliberate renunciation of the distinctive
sentiments of humanity, — this was a discovery
which filled me with unspeakable horror and
amazement, at once raising to a white heat the
enthusiasm of love for the ideal already kindled
within me, and adding to it a like enthusiasm of
detestation for its opposite. From which it came
that I found myself under the impulsion simul-
taneously of two mighty influences, the one
attracting, the other repelling, but both operating
in the same direction. For while by the
former I was drawn upwards by the beauty of
an ideal indefinitely enhanced by its contrast with
the foul actual below, by the latter I was impelled
upwards by the hideousness of that actual. The
sight of the moral abyss disclosed to me in Yivi-

THE VOCATION, 3 1

section, as I perused volume after volume of the
annals of the practice written by the perpetrators
themselves, and now first made accessible to me,
effectually purged out of my system any particle
of dilettanteism that might have still lurked in it,
compelling me to regard as of the utmost urgency
all and more than all that I had hitherto contem-
plated doing deliberately.

This was the construction of a system of thought

which by force of its appeal to both those two

indispensable constituents of humanity, the head

and the heart, shall compel acceptance from all

persons really human, and in presence of which the

whole system of which Vivisection was the typical

outcome and symbol should vanish from off the

earth. This system was Materialism, of which only

now did I discern the full significance. The

systematic organisation of wholesale, protracted,

uncompensatable torture, for ends purely selfish,

was— I saw with absolute distinctness — not an

accidental and avoidable outcome of Materialism,

but its logical and inevitable outcome. And it was

to the eradication of Materialism that, from that

moment, I dedicated myself. It was a rescue work

for both man and beast, seeing that humanity

itself was menaced with extinction. For the

materialist, of course, that which makes the man

is the form. For me it was the character, and it

was this, the character of mankind present and to

come, that was at stake. For man demonised is

no longer man. In the overthrow of Materialism,

I saw absolutely, was salvation alone to be found,

whether for man or beast. The consideration that

only as an abstainer from flesh-food I could with

entire consistency contend against vivisection, was

32 THE VOCATION.

a potent factor in determining my change of diet.
Trne, the distinction between death and torture
was a broad one. But the statistics I now for the
first time perused, of the slaughter-house and the
cattle-traffic, showed beyond question, that torture,
and this prolonged and severe, is involved in the
use of animals for food as well as for science. And
over and above this was the instinctive perception
of the probability that neither would they who had
them killed, whether for food, for sport, or for
clothing, be allowed the privilege of rescuing them
from the hands of the physiologist ; nor would the
animals be allowed to accept their deliverance at
the hands of those who thus used them. They who
would save others, we felt, must first make sacrifice
in themselves. And in the presence of the joy of
working to effect such salvation, sacrifice would
cease to be sacrifice.

This, too, we noted, and with no small satis-
faction— that to make the rescue of the animals
an immediate and urgent motive, was in no way
to abandon the original motive of hatred to the
tenet of vicarious atonement. For we recognised
vivisection itself as but the extension to the
domain of science, of the very principle by which
we had been inexpressibly revolted in the domain
of religion ; ■ — the principle of seeking one's own
salvation by the sacrifice of another, and that the
innocent. And so we learnt that " New Scientist
is but Old Priest writ differently," — to vary
Milton's expression ; and that in both domains the
tenet had its root in Materialism. When the time
came for our mission to be more particularly
defined, our satisfaction was unbounded on
receiving the charge, " We mean you to lay bare

THE VOCATION. 33

the secrets of tlie world's sacrificial system." It
expressed with absolute conciseness and exacti-
tude all that we had in our minds, far better than
we could have expressed it.

The importance of this question of vivisection
in vitalising us for the work before us, will be
seen by the following fact. The time came when
we knew that the work committed to us was that
revelation anew of the Christ which was to con-
stitute His Second Advent, inasmuch as it was the
interpretation of the truth of which He was the
manifestation. It was to be a spiritual coming;
in the " clouds of heaven," the heaven of the
" kingdom within " of man's restored understand-
ing. And, as at His first advent so at His second,
He was to have His birth among the animals.

And so it verily was. For — as I have elsewhere
8tated(6) — " Their terrible wrongs, culminating at
the hands of their scientific tormentors, were the
last drops which filled to overflowing with anguish,
indignation and wrath, hearts already brimming
with the sense of the world's degradation and
misery, wringing from them the cry which rent
the heavens for His descent, and in direct and
immediate response to which He came.

" For the New Gospel of Interpretation was
vouchsafed in express recognition of the deter-
mined endeavour, by means of a thought abso-
lutely fearless and free, to scale the topmost
heights, fathom the lowest depths, and penetrate
to the inmost recesses of Consciousness, in search
of the solution of the problem of Existence, under
the assured conviction that, when found, it would

<«)Statement E.C.U. p. 80.

34 THE VOCATION.

prove to be one that would make above all things
Vivisection impossible, if only by demonstrating
the constitution of things to be such that, terrible
as is the lot of the victims of the practice here,
they are not without compensation hereafter, while
the lot of their tormentors will be unspeakably
worse than even that of their victims here. And
so it proved, with absolute certainty to be the
case, to the full vindication at the same time of
the Divine Justice and the Divine Love ; " no expe-
rience being withheld which would qualify us to
bear positive testimony thereto. For, although at
the outset we were, as I have said, in no wise
believers in the possibility of such experiences,
the time came, and came quickly, when the veil
was withdrawn, and the secrets of the Beyond were
disclosed to us in plenitude, in its every sphere,
from the abyss of hell to the heights of heaven.
And we learnt that this had become possible
through the passionate energy with which, in our
search for the highest truth, for the highest ends,
and in purest love to redeem, we had directed our
thought inwards and upwards, living at the same
time the life requisite to qualify us for such per-
ceptions. Thus did we obtain practical realisation
of the promise that they who do the divine will, by
living the divine life, shall know of the divine
doctrine. Our whole mental attitude had been one
of prayer in its essential sense ; which is not that
of saying prayers, but as it came to be defined for
us — " the intense direction of the will and desire
towards the Highest; an unchanging intent to
know nothing but the Highest." Because " to
think inwardly, to pray intensely, and to imagine
centrally, is to hold converse with God." And we

THE VOCATION. 35

had done this without knowing it was prayer, or
calling it by that name. For, knowing only the
conventional conception of prayer, we had recoiled
from it as from other conventional conceptions of
things religious.

Now, however, we found that we had done
instinctively and spontaneously precisely what was
necessary to bring us into relations at once with our
spiritual selves and with the world of those who
consist only of the spiritual self. For, by thus
becoming vitalised and sensitive in that part of
man's system which endures and passes on, we had
come into open conditions with the world of those
who have thus endured and passed on, and are no
longer of the terrestrial, but of the celestial, having
surmounted all lower and intermediate planes. All
this came to us without anticipation on our part,
or any conscious seeking for it; but yet without
causing dismay or surprise when it came. For it
came so gradually as to seem to be but the natural
and orderly result of the unfoldment of our own
spiritual consciousness, and excited only feelings
of joy and thankfulness at finding our method and
aspirations crowned with so high a success. Thus
was it made absolutely clear to us that, so far from
divine revelation involving miracle, or requiring
for its instruments persons other in kind than the
ordinary, it is a prerogative of man, belonging to
him as man ; and requiring for its reception only
that he be fully man, alive and sensitive in his own
innermost and highest, in his centre as in his
circumference. Thus living on the quick and
finding no others who did so, it seemed to us as if
we alone were the quick, and all others were dead.

We noted yet another way in which we supple-

36 THE VOCATION.

mented and complemented each other. It was in
this wise. As I was bent on the construction of a
system of thought which should be at once a
science, a philosophy, a morality, and a religion,
and recognisable by the understanding as indu-
bitably true; she was bent on the construction of
a rule of life equally obvious and binding, and
recognisable by the sentiments as alone according
with them, its basis being that sense of perfect
justice wTiich springs from perfect sympathy.

By which it will be seen that while it was her
aim to establish a perfect practice, which might or
might not consist with a perfect doctrine, i!^ was
my aim to establish a perfect doctrine which would
inevitably issue in a perfect practice, by at once
defining it and supplying an all-compelling motive
for its observance.

These, as we at once recognised, were the two
indispensable halves of one perfect whole. But we
had yet to learn the nature and source of the com-
pelling motive for its enforcement.

The deficiency was made good by the discovery
of the fact of man's permanence as an individual.
The revelation of this truth was the demonstration
to us of the inanity — not to use a stronger term —
of the system called " Positivism." In ignoring
the soul, that system lacks the motive and repu-
diates the source of the sentiments on which it
insists, and to the experiences of which those senti-
ments are due.

CHAPTER 11.

THE INITIATION.

My visit to the rectory resulted in an intimacy
which made me to such extent a member of the
family as to remove all obstacles to the collabora-
tion required of us. It was soon made evident
that not only our association, but her design of
seeking a medical education was for both of us an
indispensable element in our preparation for our
now recognised joint-mission. In its general
aspect that mission had for its purpose the over-
throw of Materialism, and in order to qualify us
for it, it was deemed necessary that we undergo a
training in the most materialistic of the world's
schools. This was the University of Paris. She
alone was to seek a diploma. For me it was enough
that I accompany her in her studies, and that we
submit the teachings received by her to rigid
analysis by our combined faculties. Doing this,
we found ourselves competent to declare positively
the falsity of the materialistic system on the
strength both of logical processes and of practical
demonstration, by means of the experiences of
which we found ourselves the recipients. For
although we had never heard of such things as
" psychic faculties," — the very phrase was not yet
invented— we found ourselves possessed of them
in such measure that no longer did the veil which
divides the world sensible from the world spiritual

38 THE INITIATION.

constitute au impassable barrier, but both were
open to view, and the latter was as real and acces-
sible as the former.

It was about the middle of 187G that this remark-
able accession of faculty began to manifest itself
in plenitude, I being the lirst to experience it,
notwithstanding my previous total lack of any
faculty of the kind, or of belief in the possibility
of my having it. But the purification which my
physical system had undergone by means of my
new dietary regimen, and the constant and intense
direction of my thought inwards and upwards, the
forcible concentration of my mind upon the essen-
tial and substantial ideas of things, and this under
impulsion of an enthusiasm kindled to a white
heat — an enthusiasm, as already said, both of
aspiration and of repulsion — and the enhancement
of faculty through sympathetic association, —
these had so attenuated the veil that it no longer
impeded my vision of spiritual realities. And I
found myself — without seeking for or expecting it
— spiritually sensitive in respect of sight, hearing,
and touch, and in open, palpable relations with a
world which I had no difficulty in recognising as of
celestial nature ; so far did it transcend everything
of which I had heard or read in the annals of the
contemporary spiritualism ; so entirely did it
accord with my conceptions of the divine.

That I refrain from employing the terms " super-
natural " and " superhuman," is because they
assume the knowledge of the limits of the natural
and the human, and arbitrarily exclude from those
categories regions of being which may really
belong to them. The celestial and the divine are
not necessarily either superhuman or supernatural ;

THE IJViTIATlON. 39

they may be but the higher human and the
higher natural. If they are at all, they are
according to natural order, and it is natural for
them to be.

Nevertheless, vast as was the interval it repre-
sented between my past and present states, it came
so naturally and easily as to be clearly the result,
not of any abnormal or accidental cataclysm
involving a breach of continuity, but of a perfectly
orderly unfoldment every step of which was dis-
tinctly traceable. For though the process was akin
to that of the attainment of sight by one previously
blind, and the final issue was sudden, the issue had
been led up to in such wise as to render it legiti-
mate and normal. For its earliest indication^") was
an opening of the mind in such wise that subjects
hitherto beyond my grasp, and problems deemed
insoluble, became comprehensible and clear; while
whole vistas of thought perfectly continuous and
coherent, would disclose themselves to my view,
stretching far away towards their source in the
very principles of things, so that I found myself
intellectually the master of questions which pre-
viously had baflSied me.

The experience I am about to relate was not only
remarkable in itself, it was remarkable also as
striking what proved to be the keynote of all our
subsequent work, the doctrine, namely, of the
substantial identity of God and man. It had sud-
denly flashed on my mind as a necessary and self-
evident truth, the contrary of which was absurd ;
and I had seated myself at my writing-table to
give it expression for a book I had lately com-

i')In 1875. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 73.)

40 THE INITIATION.

menced^^>. I was alone and locked in my room in
my chambers off Pall Mall, Mrs Kingsford being
at the time in Paris, accompanied by her husband.
It was past midnight, and all without was quiet;
there was not a sound to break my abstraction.
This was so profound that I had written some four
pages without drawing breath, the matter seeming
to flow not merely from but through me without
conscious mental effort of my own. I saw so clearly
that there was no need to think. In the course of
the writing I became distinctly aware of a presence
as of someone bending over me from behind, and
actively engaged in blending with and reinforcing
my mind. Being unwilling to risk an interruption
to the flow of my thought, I resisted the impulse
to look up and ascertain who or what it was. Of
alarm at so unlooked-for a presence I had not a
particle. Be it whom it might, the accord between us
was as perfect as if it had been merely a projection
of my own higher self. I had never heard of
higher selves in those days, or of the possibility of
such a phenomenon ; but the idea of such an
explanation occurred to me then and there. But
this solution of the problem of my visitant's per-
sonality was presently dissipated by the event.

The passage I had been writing concluded with
these words : —

" The perfect man of any race is no other than the
perfect expression in the flesh of all the essential charac-
teristics of the soul of that race. Escaping the limitations
of the individual man, such an one represents the soul of
his people. Escaping the Ihnitations of the individual

f^lThe book was " England and Islam : or The Counsel of
Caiaphas," which was published in 1877.

THE INITIATION. 4 1

people, he represents the soul of all peoples, or Humanity.
Escaping the limitations of Humanity, but still preserving
its essential characteristics, he represents the soul of the
system of which the earth is but an individual member.
And finally, after climbing many a further step of the
infinite ladder of existence, and escaping the limitations
of all systems whatever, he represents — nay, finds that he
is — the sold of the universe, even God Himself, once
' manifested in the flesh,' and now ' perfected through
suffering,' ' purified, sanctified, redeemed, justified, glori-
fied,' ' crowned with honour and glory,' and ' seated for
ever at the right hand of the Father,' ' one with God,' even
God Himself."

At this moment — my mind being so wholly pre-
occupied with the utterance and all that Fsaw it
involved, as to make me oblivious of all else — the
presence I had felt bending over me darted itself
into me just below the cerebral bulb at the back of
my neck, the sensation being that of a slight tap,
as of a finger-touch ; and then in a voice full, rich,
firm, measured, and so strong that it resounded
through the room, exclaimed, in a tone indicative
of high satisfaction, " At last I have found a man
through whom I can speak !"

So powerful was the intonation that the tympana
of my ears vibrated to the sound, palpably bulging
outwards, showing that they had been struck on
the inner side, and that the presence had actually
projected itself into my larynx and spoken from
within me, but without using my organs of speech.
I was conscious of being in radiant health at the
time, and was unable to detect any symptom of
being otherwise. My thought, too, and observa-
tion were perfectly coherent and continuous, and I
could discern no smallest pretext for distrust of the

42 THE INITIATION.

reality of the experience. And my delight and
satisfaction, which were unbounded, found expres-
sion in the single utterance, " Then the ancients
were right, and the Gods are!" so resistless was
the conviction that only by a divinised being could
the wisdom and power be manifested of the
presence of which I was conscious. The words,
" At last I have found a man " were incompatible
with the theory of its being an objectivation of my
own particular ego, and, moreover, they indicated
the speaker as one high in authority over the race.

Nothing more passed on that occasion ; but a
vivid impression was left with me that my visitant
belonged to the order of spirits called " Plane-
taries." But as I had then no knowledge of such
beings, I put aside the question of his identity for
the solution which I trusted would come of further
enlightenment. This came in due time, with the
result of confirming the impression given me at the
time. The explanation, however, does not come
within the scope of this present writing. Some
time afterwards, when searching at the library of
the British Museum in the writings of the old
occultists for experiences analogous to our own,
I came upon one account which described the
entrance into the man of an overshadowing spirit
exactly as it had occurred to me, so far as it con-
cerned the nape of the neck as the point of entry
and the slightness of the sensation. The only
further reference to the incident necessary here is
as follows.

A little later Mrs Kiugsford had returned to
England, being compelled to quit Paris by a severe
illness which she had contracted immediately on
her arrival there ; and was pursuing her studies in

THE INITIATION. 43

Loudon, making lier home with a relative in
Chelsea. The event proved that she had been sent
back by the supervisors of our work expressly in
order to be within reach of me. Indeed, an inti-
mation had been given me before she had gone
that she would not be allowed to stay abroad, as
our near contiguity was indispensable, and I had
accordingly viewed her departure with consider-
able disquietude, circumstances rendering it
impossible for me to leave home just then. Prior
to coming back she had obtained from the Minister
of Education the exceptional privilege of a permit
allowing her attendance at a London hospital to
count in her Paris course.

The first experience received by her in relation
to our work, after her return to London, was the
terrific vision of " The Doomed Train "(^).

On bringing it to me on the morning of its occur-
rence, she exclaimed as she entered the room, " Oh,
I have had such a terrific dream ! It has quite
shattered me. And I have brought it for you to
try and find its meaning, if it has one. I wrote it
down the moment I was able." Her appearance
fully confirmed her statement. It alarmed me.
This is the account: —

" I was visited, last night, by a dream of so
strange and vivid a kind that I feel impelled to
communicate it to you, not only to relieve my own
mind of the oppression which the recollection of it

'"'This vision occurred in London in November, 1876. It was
merely referred to in the previous editions of this book, but I
have inserted it here in full from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I.
pp. 115-117. It is also given in "England and Islam," pp.
438-442. S.H.H.

44 THE INITIATION.

causes me, but also to give you an opportunity of
finding the meaning, which I am still far too much
shaken and terrified to seek for myself.

" It seemed to me that you and I were two of a
vast company of men and women, upon all of
whom, with the exception of myself — for I was
there voluntarily — sentence of death had been
passed. I was sensible of the knowledge — how
obtained I know not— that this terrible doom had
been pronounced by the official agents of some new
reign of terror. Certain I was that none of the
party had really been guilty of any crime deserving
of death; but that the penalty had been incurred
through their connection with some regime,
political, social, or religious, which was doomed to
utter destruction. It became known among us
that the sentence was about to be carried out on a
colossal scale; but we remained in absolute
ignorance as to the place and method of the
intended execution. Thus far my dream gave me
no intimation of the scene which next burst on
me, — a scene w^hich strained to their utmost
tension every sense of sight, hearing, and touch in
a manner unprecedented in any dream I have pre-
viously had.

" It was night, dark and starless, and I found
myself, together with the whole company of
doomed men and women who knew that they were
soon to die, but not how or where, in a railway
train hurrying through the darkness to some
unknown destination. I sat in a carriage quite at
the rear end of the train, in a corner seat, and was
leaning out of the open window, peering into the
darkness, when, suddenly, a voice, which seemed
to speak out of the air, said to me in a low, distinct,

THE INITIATION. 45

intense tone, the mere recollection of which makes
me shudder, — ' The sentence is being carried out
even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the
train is a frightful precipice of monstrous height,
and at its base beats a fathomless sea. The railway-
ends only with the abyss. Over that will the train
hurl itself into annihilation. THERE IS NO ONE
ON THE ENGINE!'

" At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and
looked round at the faces of the persons in the
carriage with me. No one of them had spoken, or
had heard those awful words. The lamplight from
the dome of the carriage flickered on the forms
about me. I looked from one to the other, but
saw no sign of alarm given by any of them. Then
again the voice out of the air spoke to me, — ' There
is but one way to be saved. You must leap out of
the train !'

" In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage-door
and stepped out on the footboard. The train was
going at a terrific pace, swaying to and fro as with
the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind of
its passage beat my hair about my face and tore at
my garments.

" Until this moment I had not thought of you,
or even seemed conscious of your presence in the
train. Holding tightly on to the rail by the
carriage-door, I began to creep along the footboard
towards the engine, hoping to find a chance of
dropping safely down on the line. Hamd-over-hand
I passed along in this way from one carriage to
another ; and as I did so I saw by the light within
each carriage that the passengers had no idea of
the fate upon which they were being hurried. At

46 THE INITIATION.

length, in one of the compartments, I saw you.

* Come out!' I cried; 'come out! Save yourself!
In another minute we shall be dashed to pieces !'

" You rose instantly, wrenched open the door,
and stood beside me outside on the footboard. The
rapidity at which we were going was now more
fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled
onwards. The wind shrieked as we were carried
through it. ' Leap down !' I cried to you. ' Save
yourself ! It is certain death to stay here. Before
us is an abyss ; and there is no one on the engine !'

" At this you turned your face full upon me
with a look of intense earnestness, and said, ' No,
we will not leap down ; we will stop the train.'

" With these words you left me, and crept along
the footboard towards the front of the train. Full
of half-angry anxiety at what seemed to me a
Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages
we passed I saw my mother and eldest brother,
unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached the
last carriage, and saw by the lurid light of the
furnace that the voice had spoken truly, and that
there was no one on the engine.

" You continued to move onwards. ' Impossible !
Impossible !' I cried ; ' it cannot be done. Oh,
pray, come away!'

" Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said,

* You are right. It cannot be done in that way ;
but we can save the train. Help me to get these
irons asunder.'

" The engine was connected with the train by
two great iron hooks and staples. By a tremendous
effort, in making which I almost lost my balance,
we unhooked the irons and detached the train;
when, with a mighty leap as of some mad super-

THE INITIATION. 47

natural monster, the engine sped on its way alone,
shooting back as it went a great flaming trail of
sparks, and was lost in the darkness. We stood
together on the footboard, watching in silence the
gradual slackening of the speed. When at length
the train had come to a standstill, we cried to the
passengers, ' Saved ! Saved !' And then, amid the
confusion of opening the doors and descending and
eager talking, my dream ended, leaving me shat-
tered and palpitating with the horror of it."

This vision was intended to show us the destruc-
tion, moral, intellectual, and spiritual, towards
which the world was tending by following mate-
rialistic modes of thought, and the part we were to
bear in arresting its progress towards the fatal
precipice, at all hazards to ourselves. The startling
announcement made to her by the invisible voice
when the crowded train was rushing at full speed
to its doom, "There is no one on the engine!"
exactly represented the philosophy which, denying
mind in the universe, recognises only blind force.

I had determined to include an account of this
vision in the book on which I was then engaged,
" England and Islam." And I was alone in my
rooms, reading the proofs of it, my mind being
occupied solely with the letterpress, until I came to
the remark ascribed to me in the vision, as made
in reply to her entreaty that I would jump out
with her to save ourselves, " No, we will not leap
down, we will stop the train." At this moment
the voice which shortly before^^'') had said to me,
" At last I have found a man through whom I can
speak !" addressed me again, saying in a pleased

(10)

P- 4>.

48 THE INITIATION.

and encouraging tone, as if the speaker had been
following me in my reading, and desired to remove
any doubts I might have of the reality of our
mission, — " Yes ! Yes ! I have trusted all to you !"
This time he spoke from without me, but
apparently quite close by. And among the impres-
sions which at the same instant were flashed into
my mind, was the impression, amounting to a
conviction, that whatever might be the part
assigned to others in the work of the new illu-
mination in progress and the restoration thereby
to the world of one true doctrine of existence, the
exposition of its innermost and highest sphere, the
head corner-stone of the pyramid of the system
which is to make the humanity of the future, had
been committed to us alone. And now, writing
nearly twenty years later, I can truly say that
this conviction has never for a moment been
weakened, but on the contrary has gathered con-
firmation and strength with every successive
accession of experience and knowledge, and while
cognisant of and fully appreciating all that has
taken place in the unfoldment of the world's
thought during the interval.

Ever since that memorable winter of 1876-7, the
conviction, shared equally by my colleague, has
been with me that the controlling spirit of the
Ilebrew prophets was that also of our work, the
purpose of which was the accomplishment of their
prophecies, by the promotion of the world's
spiritual consciousness to a level surpassing any
yet attained by it, to the regeneration of the
church and the establishment of the kingdom of
God with power. Having which conviction, there
was for us but one object in life:— to fulfil at

THE INITIATIOX. 49

whatever cost to ourselves the conditions necessary
to make us fitting instruments for the perfect
accomplishment of a work which we recognised as
the loftiest that could be committed to mortals.

My colleague's enforced return to London was
promptly signalised by an experience which served
not only yet further to demonstrate the reality and
nature of our mission, and of her primacy in our
work, but to disclose its essentially Christian
character, which hitherto had been an open
question for us. For that upon which we ourselves
were bent was the discovery of the nature of exist-
ence at first hand, and independently of any
existing system whatever. It was truth and truth
alone that we sought, and to this end we had
laboured to make ourselves as those of whom it is
said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." For in
divesting ourselves of all prepossessions and
prejudices, we had made ourselves as " little
children." We were neither believers nor dis-
believers, but pure sceptics in that best sense of
the term in which it denotes the unbiased seeker
after God and truth. This is to say, we were, and
we gloried in being, absolutely free thinkers, a term
which, in its true acceptation, we regarded as
man's noblest title. This is the sense in which it
denotes a thought able to exercise itself in all
directions open to thought, outwards and down-
wards to matter and negation, and inwards and
upwards to spirit and reality. And our work
proved in the event to be the supreme triumph
of Free Thought.

The experience in question was as follows. It
was night and I was alone and locked in my
chambers, and was writing at full speed, lest it

50 THE INITIATION.

should escape me, an exposition of tlie place and
office of woman under the coming regeneration.
And I was conscious of an exaltation of faculty
such as might conceivably be the result of an
enhancement of my own mind by jxmction with
another and superior mind. I was even conscious,
though in a far less degree than before, of an
invisible presence. But I was too much engrossed
with my idea to pay heed to persons, be they whom
they might, human or divine, as well as anxious
to take advantage of such assistance. I had clearly
and vividly in my mind all that I desired to say for
several pages on. Then, suddenly and completely,
like the stoppage of a stream in its flow tlirough a
tube by the quick turning of a tap, the current of
my thought ceased, leaving my mind an utter
blank as to what I had meant to say, and totally
unable to recall the least idea of it. So palpable
was its withdrawal, that it seemed to me as if it
must still be hovering somewhere near me, and I
looked up and impatiently exclaimed aloud to it,
"Where are youF" At length, after ransacking
my mind in vain, I turned to other work, for I was
perfectly fresh, and the desertion had been in no
way due to exhaustion, physical or mental. On
taking note of the time of the disappearance, I
found it was 11.30 precisely.

The next morning failed to bring my thought
back to me as I had hoped it would do ; but it
brought instead, an unusually early visit from
Mrs. Kingsford, who was — as I have said — staying
in Chelsea. " Such a curious thing happened to
me la"st night," she began, on entering the room,
" and I want to tell you of it and see if you can
explain it. I had finished my day's work, but

THE INITIATION. 5 1

though it was late I was not inclined to rest, for
I was wakeful with a sense of irritation at the
thought of what you are doing, and at my exclu-
sion from any share in it. And I was feeling
envious of your sex for the superior advantages
you have over ours of doing great and useful work.
As I sat by the fire thinking this, I suddenly found
myself impelled to take a pencil and paper, and
to write. I did so, and wrote with extreme rapidity,
in a half-dreamy state, without any clear idea of
what I was writing, but supposing it to be some-
thing expressive of my discontent. I had soon
covered a page and a half of a large sheet with
writing different from my own, and it was quite
unlike what was in my mind, as you will see."

On perusing the paper I found that it was a
continuation of my missing thought, taken up at
the point where it had left me, but translated to a
higher plane, the expression also being similarly
elevated in accordance both with the theme and the
writer, having the exquisiteness so characteristic
of her genius. To my enquiry as to the hour of
the occurrence, she at once replied, '' Half-past
eleven exactly ; for I was so struck by it that I
took particular notice of the time."
What I had written was as follows : —
" Tliose of us who, being men, refuse to accord to women
the same freedom of evolution for their consciousness
which we claim for ourselves, do so in consequence of a
total misconception of the nature and functions both of
Humanity and of Existence at large. Tlie notion that
men and women can by any possibility do each other's
work, is utterly absurd. Whom God hath distinguished,
none can confound. To do the same thing is not to do
the same work ; inasmuch as the spirit is more than the
fact, and the spirit of man and of woman is different.

52 THE INITIATION.

Wliile for the j3roduction of perfect results it is neceflsary
that they work hannoniously together, it is necessary also
tliat they fulfil separate functions in regard to that
work "''>.

This was the point at which my thought had
failed me, to be taken up by her at the same instant
two miles away., without her knowing even that I
contemplated treating that particular theme, as I
had purposely reserved it until I should have com-
pleted the expression, hoping to give her a pleasant
surprise ; for it was one very near to her heart.
This is her continuation of it. It will be seen that,
besides complementing my thought, it responded
remedially to her own mood : —

" In a true mission of redemption, in the proclamation
of a gospel to save, it is the man who must preach ; it is
the man who must stand forward among the people; it
is the man who, if need be, must die. But he is not alone.
If his be the glory of the full noontide, his day has been
ualiered in by a goddess. Aurora has preceded Phoibos
Apollo ; Mary has been before Christ. For, mark that He
shall do His first and greatest work at her suggestion. To
her shall ever belong the glory of the inauguration ; of
her shall the gospel be born ; from her lips shall the
Christ take the bidding forHis first miracle ; from her shall
His earliest inspiration be drawn. The people are athirst
for the living wine, which shall be better, sweeter, purer,
stronger, than any they have yet tasted. The festival
lags, the joy slackens, for need of it. Tlie Christ is in their
midst, but He opens not His lips; His heart is sealed. His
hour is not yet, come. Mark that the first inspiration
falls on the woman by His side, on Mary the Mother of
God ; she saith unto Him, * They have no wine.' She has
spoken, the impulse is given to Divinity. His soul awakens,

<')E. and I. p. 299.

THE INITIATION. 53

His pulse quickens, He utters the word that works the
miracle. Hail, Mary, full of grace ; Christ is thy gift to
the world ! Without thee He could not have been ; but for
thine impulse He could have worked no mighty work.
This shall be the history of all time; it shall be the sign
of the Christ. Mary shall feel; Christ shall speak. Hers
the gloiy of setting His heart in action ; hers the thrill of
emotion to which His power shall respond. But for her
He shall be powerless ; but for her He shall be dumb ; but
for her He shall have no strength to smite, no hand to
help. It is the seed of the woman who shall bruise the
serpent's head. The Christ, the true prophet, is her child,
her gift to the world. ' Woman, behold thy Son !' "

Such Avas the first intimation and the manner
thereof, given iis of the truth subsequently revealed
in plenitude, — the presence in Scripture of a
mystical sense concealed within the apparent
sense, as a kernel in its shell, which, and not the
literal gense, is the intended sense^-^ As was later
shown us in regard to the story of the cursing of
the fig-tree, that of the marriage in Cana was a
parable having a spiritual import; and the
character of Jesvis was cleared from the reproaches
based on the literal sense. Striving for fuller
unfoldment and enlightenment, we were at length
enabled to discern the tremendous mistake which
orthodoxy has made ; the mistake of confounding,
first, Jesus with Christ, and, next. Mar}' the
mother of Jesus, with the Virgin Mary, the mother

<^>It is probable that E.M. intended this statement to apply
only to the N.T., or to the Gospels, because, before February,
1874, when he first visited A.K. at her house (p. 2), she had
received in sleep " an exposition of the Story of the Fall,
exhibiting it as a parable having a significance purely spiritual "
and E.M. certainly regarded the Biblical Story of the Fall as
"Scripture." S.H.H.

54 THE INITIATIOIN.

of Christ, and the conversion thereby of a perfect
philosophj^ into a gross idolatry. Meanwhile, the
experience was a further demonstration to us of
the reality and accessibility not merely of the
world spiritual, but of the world celestial also, and
of the high source of the commission under which
we had become associated together. It was also an
indication that as concerned ourselves our work
appertained to the spiritual, rather than to the
social plane. Such application of it would follow
in due time. No other hj^pothesis that we could
devise would account for the facts. Nor could we
imagine any source other thau the Church invisible
for an interpretation so noble of the Scriptures of
the Church visible.

Not that the hypothesis of an extraneous source
accounted for all our experiences. For besides
receiving knowledge from such influences, there
were instances in which we actually saw and
seemed to remember scenes, events, and persons,
long since vanished from earth, and felt at the time
that it needed only that the period of lucidity be
sufficiently prolonged to enable us to recover from
personal recollection the whole history concerned.

I was somewhat surprised by finding the first
experiences of this nature, as well as certain others
of an equally high and rare order, occurring to me
rather than to my colleague, of the superiority of
Avliose faculty and of whose primacy in our work
I had no manner of doubt. The explanation at
length vouchsafed was in this wise. It was in order
to qualify me for recognising by my own expe-
riences the reality and value of hers Avhen they
should come. Not otherwise should I know enough
to be able to believe. It proved, moreover, to be

THE INITIATION. 55

part of the plan ordained to withdraw from me,
m a great measure, the faculty requisite for them,
when I had become familiar with them. The
reason for according her such preference over and
above the superiority of her gifts will presently
appear. It was another and an exquisite illustra-
tion of the depth and tenderness of the mj^stical
element underlying Christianity as divinely con-
ceived and intended.

The partial withdrawal from me of faculty just
alluded to took place early in 1877, but not until I
had undergone a thorough experiential training in
its varied" manifestations. Among these were two
which call for relation here, by reason of their
serving to show that nothing was withheld which
might minister to the completeness of the work
set us. The first was as follows : —

Being seated at my writing-table, and meditat-
ing on the gospel narrative, with a strange sense of
being separated by only a narrow interval from a
full knowledge of all that it implied, I found myself
impelled to seek the precise idea intended to be
conveyed by the story of the woman taken in
adultery. No account that I had read of it had
satisfied me, least of all that which was proposed
in the " Ecce Homo " of Professor Seeley, a book
then recent and enjoying a repute w^hich filled me
with a strong feeling of personal resentment. For
his account, especially of the feelings excited in
Jesus by the sight of the accused woman, revolted
me by its inscription to Him of a sense of impro-
priety at once monkish and conventional, and of a
limitation of charity altogether incompatible with

56 THE INITIATION.

the abounding sympathy which was the essence
of His nature. It made Him that most odious of
characters, a fvude.

As I meditated, and in foHowing my idea I
passed into a state which, though highly interior,
was not sufficiently interior for my purpose — for
I w^anted, so to speak, to see my idea— a voice
audible only to the inner hearing, yet quite dis-
tinct, said to me, " You have it withm you. Seek
for it." Thus encouraged, I made a further effort
at concentration, when — to my utter surprise, for
I had no expectation or conception of such a thing
— the whole scene of the incident appeared pal-
pably before me, like a living picture in a camera
obscura, so natural, minute and distinct as to leave
nothing to be desired, and, at the same time,
utterly unlike any pictorial representation I had
ever seen of it. Close before me, on my right
hand, stood the Temple, with Jesus seated on a
stone ledge in the porch, while ranged before Him
was a crowd of persons in the costumes of the
country and the time; each costume shoAving the
grade or calling of its wearer. Standing together
in a group in front of Him were the disciples, and
immediately beside them were the accusers, who
were readily recognisable by their ample robes and
sanctimonious demeanour ; and quite close to Him,
between Him and them, stood the accused woman.
As I approached the scene, moving meteor-like
through the air. He was in the act of lifting
]limself up from stooping to write on the ground,
and I had a perfect view of His face. He was of
middle age, but, to my sur])rise, the type was that
of a ]\[urillo, rather than a Hatt'aelle, and the lower
portion of the face Avas covered with a short, dark

THE INITIATION. 57

beard. The expression was woru and anxious, and
somewhat weary. The skin was rough as from
exposure to the weather. The eyes were deep-set and
lustrous, and remarkable for the tenderness of
their gaze. One of the apostles, whom I at once
recognised by his comparative j^outhfulness as
John, though his back was towards me as I
approached, was in the act of bending forwards to
read the words just traced in the dust on the pave-
ment; and, as if drawn to him by some potent
attraction, I at once passed unhesitatingly into
him as he bent forward, and tried to read the
words through his eyes. Their exact purport
escaped me; but the impression I obtained was
that they were unimportant in themselves, having
been written merely to enable Jesus to collect and
calm Himself. For He was filled with a mighty
indignation, which was directed, not against the
accused woman, but against the by-standing repre-
sentatives of the conventional orthodoxies, the
chief priests and Pharisees, her sanctimonious and
hypocritical accusers, — those moral vivisectors
through whose pitilessness the shrinking woman
stood there exposed to the public gaze, while her
fault was so brutally blurted out in her j)resence
for all to hear; for her attitude showed her ready
to sink with shame into the ground, and afraid to
look either her accusers or her Judge in the face.
He, her Judge, also has heard it, and knows that
they who utter it are themselves a thousand-fold
greater sinners than she, inasmuch as that which
she has yielded through exigency either of passion
or of compassion, has with them been a cold-blooded
habit engendered of ingrained impurity.

In contrast with them she stands out in His eyes

58 THE INITIATION.

an augel of innocence; and an overwlielming
indignation takes possession of Jlim, so that lie
will not at once trust Himself to speak. His
impulse is to drive them forth with blows and
reproaches from His presence, as once already He
has driven the barterers from the Temple. And
so, to keep His wrath from exploding, He stoops
down and scribbles on the ground, — no matter
what, anything to keep Himself within bounds.
In the exercise His spirit calms. Indignation, He
reflects, is too noble a thing to be expended upon
insensates such as they, and exhortation would be
vain. He will try sarcasm. So He raises himself
up, and looks at them, very quietly, and even
assentingly. Yes, they are quite right; the law
must be vindicated, and so flagrant a sin severely
punished. But, of course, onlj'^ the guiltless is
entitled to inflict punishment on the guilty.
Therefore He says, " He of you who is blameless in
respect of this sin, let him first cast a stone at her."
And having said this, He stoops down again to
write, this time to hide His smiles at their con-
fusion, the sight of which would but have incensed
and hardened them. What! no rush for ammuni-
tion wherewith to pound to death this only too
human specimen of humanity^-^^ ! What can be the

'''The expression of which the above is an adaptation, had
recently been applied by Mr Gladstone to the Turkish power.
For the period was the eve of the Turco-Russian War ; and Mr
Gladstone had found vent for his strong sacerdotal proclivities
by siding fiercely against the priest-hating and prophet-
venerating Turks, and demanding their expulsion from Europe,
very much on the plea that " it was good for Europe that one
nation die for the rest." It was in recognition of the part thus
played by him that I took for the sub-title of my book (" England
and Islam ") " The Counsel of Caiaphas." The. book — which
was written under a high degree of illumination — contained an

THE INITIATION. 59

meaning of the general move among these self-
appointed censors of morals? " They which heard
Him, being convicted of their own consciences,
went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even
unto the last." No wonder they crucified Him
when they got their chance. And no wonder that
most of the ancient authorities omit all mention of
the incident. Even of His immediate biographers
only he records it who is styled " the Beloved," and
whose name, office, and character indicate him as
the representative especially of the love-principle
in humanity.

Such were the impressions made on me by this
vision while it lasted, and written down at the
time. And so strong in me was the feeling that
I could similarly recall the whole history of Jesus,
that I mentally addressed to the presences which
I felt, though I could not see, around me an
inquiry whether I should then and there begin the
attempt. The reply, similarly given, was a decided
negative so far as that present time was concerned,
but accompanied by an intimation that our future
work would comprise something of the kind; a
prediction which was duly fulfilled.

I found myself perplexed beyond measure to
comprehend the modus operandi of this experience.

earnest appeal to Mr Gladstone, which, if heeded, would have
saved the country from its subsequent humiliations. Among
other things I was clearly shown that the policy which sought
to detach England from the East, was of infernal instigation,
being intended to thwart the rapprochement between
Christianity and Buddhism from which the new humanity was
to spring. But the circumstances of the book's production — it
was poured through me at great speed and printed off as it
came — precluded due revision and elimination of redundant
matter ; and for these and other reasons, I have suffered it to
go out of print. E.M.

6o THE INITIATION.

No explanation was forthcoming, whether from
my own mind or from my illuminators, until long
afterwards; and when it came it was in reference
immediately to similar experiences received by my
colleague, some of which likewise involved corre-
sponding personal recollections coinciding with
but surpassing mine. In the meantime the teach-
ing given us comprised the doctrine of reincarna-
tion, stated so positively, systematically, and
scientifically that, when taken in conjunction with
our experiences, we found that it, and it alone,
ait'orded a satisfactory explanation of them. And
then it was shown us that the method of the new
Gospel of Interpretation, of which we were the
ap})ointed recipients, was so ordered as to be itself
a demonstration of the truth of that doctrine, and
that among the lives we had lived, which qualified
us for our mission, were those in which we had
been in association with Jesus and with each
other^*\ Concerning this doctrine, the motive for
its suppression, and the fatal consequences thereof
to the religion of Christ, it will be time to speak
when describing the results attained by us. It is
with our initial exj^eriences — those which consti-
tuted our initiation — that the present concern lies.
There is one supreme experience in the spiritual
life, known to mystics as " the vision of Adonai,"
or God as the Lord, The reception of this vision by

(')There is another fact, referred to in " The Life of A. K.,"
that must be taken into consideration in connection with expe-
riences of this nature, that is, " the survival for an indefinite
period of the images of events occurrinj^ on the earth, in the
astral light, or memory of the planet, called the anima mundi,
which images can be evoked and beheld." (Life A.K. Vol. I.
p. 125.) S.H.H.

THE INITIATION. 6 1

US was, we were assured, a conclusive proof that
nothing would be withheld that was necessary to
our full equipment for a complete work. Although
described several times in the Bible as an actual
occurrence, it had failed to find any response in our
own consciousness, more than if it had no existence.
^STor had it ever been the subject of intelligent com-
ment by any Bible-expositors known to us. Rather
did it seem to have been entirely passed over as a
matter wholly apart from human cognition. Hence,
when it was vouchsafed to us, it was entirely with-
out anticipation of its occurrence or previous
knowledge even of its possibility.

It was received first by myself, the manner of it
being as follows. I had observed that when I was
following an idea inwards in search of its primary
meaning, and to that end concentrated my mind
upon a point lying within and beyond the apparent
concept, I saw a whole vista of related ideas
stretching far away as if towards their source, in
what I could only suppose to be the Divine Mind ;
and I seemed at the same time to reach a more
interior region of my own consciousness; so that,
supposing man's system to consist of a series of
concentric spheres, each fresh effort to focus my
mind upon a more recondite aspect of the idea
under analysis was accompanied and marked by a
corresponding advance of the perceptive point of
the mind itself towards my own central sphere and
radiant point. And I was prompted to try to ascer-
tain the extent to which it was possible thus to
concentrate myself interiorly, and what would be
the effect of reaching the mind's ultimate focus. I
was absolutely without knowledge or expectation
when I yielded to the impulse to make the attempt.

62 THE INITIATION.

I simply experimented on a faculty of which. I
found myself newly possessed, with the view of
discovering the range of its capacity, being seated
at my writing-table the while in order to record
the results as they came, and resolved to retain my
hold on my outer and circumferential conscious-
ness no matter how far towards my inner and
central consciousness I might go. For I knew not
whether I should be able to regain the former if I
once quitted my hold of it, or to recollect the facts
of the experience. At length I achieved my object,
though only by a strong effort, the tension occa-
sioned by the endeavour to keep both extremes
of the consciousness in view at once being very
great.

Once well started on ni}^ quest, I found myself
traversing a succession of spheres or belts of a
medium, the tenuity and luminance of which
increased at every stage of my progress ; tlie
impression produced being that of mounting
a vast ladder stretching from the circum-
ference towards the centre of a system, which
was at once my own system, the solar system,
and the universal system, the three systems
being at once diverse and identical. My progress
in this ascent was clearly dependent upon my
ability to concentrate the rays of my consciousness
into a focus. For, while to relax the effort was to
recede outwards, to intensify it was to advance
inwards. The process was like that of travelling
by will power from the orbit of Saturn to the Sun
— taking Saturn as representing the seventh and
outermost sphere of the spiritual kosmos, and the
Sun its central and radiant point — with the interme-
diate orbits for stepping-stones and stages, I trying

THE INITIATION. 63

the while to keep both extremes in view. Presently,
by a supreme, and what I felt must be a final,
effort — for the tension was becoming too much for
me, unless I let go my hold of the outer — I suc-
ceeded in polarising the whole of the convergent
rays of my consciousness into the desired fociis.
And at the same instant, as if through the sudden
ignition of the rays thus fused into a unity, I
found myself confronted with a glory of unspeak-
able whiteness and brightness, and of a lustre so
intense as well-nigh to beat me back. At the same
instant, too, there came to me, as by a sudden
recollection, the sense of being already familiar
with the phenomenon, as also with its whole
import, as if in virtvie of having experienced it in
some former and forgotten state of being. I knew
it to be the " Great White Throne " of the seer of
the Apocalypse. But though feeling that I had no
need to explore further, I resolved to make assur-
ance doubly sure by piercing, if I could, the almost
blinding lustre, and seeing what it enshrined.
With a great effort I succeeded, and the glance
revealed to me that which I had felt must be there.
This was the dual form of the Son, the Word, the
Logos, the Adonai, the " Sitter on the Throne,"
the first formulation of Divinity, the immanifest
made manifest, the unformulate formulate, the
unindividuate individuate, God as the Lord,
proving b}^ His Duality that God is Substance as
well as Force, Love as well as Will, feminine as
well as masculine, Mother as well as Father.

Overjoyed at having this supreme problem solved
in accordance with my highest aspirations, my one
thought was to return and proclaim the glad news.
But I had no sooner set mvself to write down the

64 THE TNTTIATTON.

tilings thus seen and remembered, than I found
mj^self constrained to maintain regarding them the
strictest silence, and this even as regarded my
fellow-worker ; and all that I was permitted to say
at that time was, that under a sudden burst of illu-
mination I had become absolutely aware of the
truth of the doctrine of the Duality in Unity of
Deity to which that in Humanity corresponds,
both alike being twain in one. On seeking the
reason for the reticence thus imposed on me, I
learned that the stage in our work had not yet come
when it could be given to the world, either with
safety to myself or with advantage to others ; and
it was necessary that my colleague receive no inti-
mation in advance of any experiences which were
to be given to her — of which this experience was
one — in order that her mind might be wholly free
from bias or expectation. Only so would our testi-
mony have its due value as that of two independent
witnesses.

In the following summer the same vision was
vouchsafed to her in a measure and with a fulness
far transcending mine^^\

On the occasion she had been forewarned of
something of unusual solemnity as about to occur,
and prompted to make certain ceremonial prepara-
tions obviously calculated to impress the imagina-
tion. The access came upon her while standing by
the open window, gazing at the moon, then close
upon the full. The first effect of the afflahis was
to cause her to kneel and pray in a rapt attitude,

<^>This "Vision of Adonai " by A.K. was merely referred to
in the previous editions of this book. I have extracted the
following account of the most interesting part of it from " The
Life of A.K." (Vol. I. pp. 193 196.) S.H.H.

THE INITIATION. 65

with her arms extended towards the sky. It
appeared afterwards, that under an access of
spiritual exaltation, she had yielded to a sudden
and uncontrollable impulse to pray that she might
be taken to the stars, and shown all the glory of
the universe. Presently she rose, and after
gazing upwards in ecstasy for a few moments,
lowered her eyes, and, clasping her arms around
her head as if to shut out the view, uttered in
tones of wonder, mingled with moans and cries
of anguish, the following tokens of the intolerable
splendour of the vision she had unwittingly
invited : —

" Oh, I see masses, masses of stars ! It
makes me giddy to look at them. 0 my God, what
masses ! Millions and millions ! WHEELS of
planets ! O my God, my God, why didst Thou
create? It was by Will, all Will, that Thou didst
it. Oh ! what might, what might of Will ! Oh,
what gulfs ! what gulfs ! Millions and millions
of miles broad and deep ! Hold me ! hold me up !
I shall sink — I shall sink into the gulfs. I am sick
and giddy, as on a billowy sea. I am on a sea, an
ocean — the ocean of infinite space. Oh, what
depths ! what depths ! I sink — I fail ! I cannot,
cannot bear it I"

" I shall never come back. I have left my body
for ever. I am dying ; I believe I am dead. Impos-
sible to return from such a distance ! Oh, what
colossal forms ! They are the angels of the planets.
Every planet has its angel standing erect above it.
And what beauty ! — what marvellous beauty ! I see
Eaphael. I see the Angel of the Earth. He has six
wings. He is a God— the God of our planet. I see
my genius, who called himself A.Z. ; but his name

66 THE INITIATION.

is Salathiel. Oh, how surpassingly beautiful he
is ! My genius is a male, and his colour is ruby.
Yours, Caro, is a female, and sapphire. They are
friends — they are the same — not two, but one;
and for that reason they have associated us
together, and speak of themselves sometimes as
/, sometimes as We. It is the Angel of the Earth
himself that is your genius and mine, Caro. lie
it was who inspired you, who spoke to you. And
they call me ' Bitterness.' And I see sorrow — oh,
what unending sorrow do I behold I Sorrow, always
sorrow, but never without love. I shall always
have love. How dim is this sphere !....! am

entering a brighter region now Oh, the

dazzling, dazzling brightness ! Hide me, hide me
from it ! I cannot, cannot bear it ! It is agony
supreme to look upou. () God! 0 God I Thou art
slaying me with Thy light. It is the Throne itself,
the Great White Throne of God that I beliold ! Oh,
what light! what light! It is like an emerald;-' a
sapphire ? No ; a diamond ! In its midst stands
Jieity erect. His right hand raised aloft, and from
llim pours the light of light. Forth from His
right hand streams the universe, projected by the
omnipotent repulsion of His will. Back to His
left, which is depressed and set backwards, returns
the universe, drawn by the attraction of His love.
Hepulsion and attraction, will and love, right and
left, these are the forces, centrifugal and centri-
petal, male and female, whereby God creates and
redeems. Adonai ! 0 Adonai ! Lord God of life,
made of the substance of light, how beautiful art
Thou in Thine everlasting youth ! with Thy
glowing golden locks, how adorable ! And I had
thought of God as elderly and venerable ! As if

THE IKITIATION. 67

tlie Eternal could grow old ! And now not as Man
only do I behold Thee ! For now Thou art to me
as Woman. Lo, Thou art both. One, and Two also.
And thereby dost Thou produce creation. 0 God,

0 God ! why didst Thou create this stupendous
existence ? Surely, surely, it had been better in
love to have restrained Thy will. It was by will
that Thou createdst, by will alone, not by love,
was it not ? — was it not ? I cannot see clearly. A
cloud has come between.

" I see Thee noAv as Woman. Maria is next
beside Thee. Thou art Maria. Maria is God. Oh
Maria ! God as Woman ! Thee, thee I adore !
Maria-Aphrodite ! Mother ! Mother-God !

" They are returning with me now, I think. But

1 shall never get back. What strange forms ! how
huge they are ! All angels and archangels. Human
in form, yet some with eagles' heads. All the
planets are inhabited ! how innumerable is the
variety of forms ! Oh ! universe of existence, how
stupendous is existence I Oh ! take me not near the
sun; I cannot bear its heat. Already do I feel
myself burning. Here is Jupiter ! It has nine
moons ! Yes ; nine. Some are exceedingly small.
And, oh, how red it is ! It has so much iron. And
what enormous men and women ! There is evil
there, too. For evil is wherever are matter and
limitation. But the people of Jupiter are far better
than we on earth. They know much more; they
are much wiser. There is less evil in their planet.
Ah ! and they have another sense, too. What is it ?
No ; I cannot describe it. I cannot tell what it is.
It differs from any of the others. We have nothing
like it. I cannot get back yet. I shall never get
back. I believe I am dead. It is only my body

68 THE INITIATION.

you are holding. It has grown cold for want of
me. Yet I must be approaching; it is growing
shallower. We are passing out of the depths. Yet
I can never wholly return — never — never I"^^)

The account given of the vision of Adonai in
Lecture IX. of " The Perfect Way," was
Avritten solely from our joint experiences. It was
with an interest altogether novel in kind and
degree that I now turned to the Bible narratives
of the same vision, and found that in the record
of its reception by the Elders of Israel, it is stated,
as if in token of the power of the spiritual battery
with which Moses had surrounded himself, that
no less than seventy of his initiates were able to
receive the vision without magnetic reinforcement
by the imposition of their master's hands. But, as
we learnt from our own manifold experiences, it
does not follow that because there is no imposition
of visible hands, no extraneous aid is rendered.
The seeker after God cannot, even if be would,
accomplish his quest alone ; but always are there
attracted to him those angelic beings whose office
it is, as ministers of God, to sustain and illu-
minate souls by the imposition of hands invisible
to the outer senses. In her case such aid was
palpable. There was no effort on her part. And
she held converse with those by whom she was
upborne in her stupendous flight.

When in due course the time came for us to
receive the ancient and long-lost Gnosis which
underlay the sacred religions and scriptures of

^''Speaking of this vision, E.M. says : — " Her apprehension
was not without justification ; for her body was completely
torpid, and several hours passed before consciousness was fully
restored to it." (C.W.S. p. 283.)

THE IMTIATION. 69

antiquity, the following was given us, and we
recognised in it the. original Scripture from which
the opening sentences in St John's Gospel are
drawn.

After defining the Elohini as comprising the two
original principles of all Being, " the Spirit and
the Water," or Force and Substance, and bring-
ing up the process whereby Deity proceeds into
manifestation to the point described in Genesis
in the words, " And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the Waters. And God said" — the
utterance thus continues, —

Then from the midst of the Divine Duality, the Only
Begotten of God came forth :

Adonai, the Word, the Voice invisible.

He was in the beginning, and by Him were all things
discovered.

Without Him was not anything made which is visible.

For He is the Manifestor, and in Him was the life of the
world.

God the nameless hath not revealed God, but Adonai
hath revealed God from the beginning.

He is the presentation of Elohhn, and by Him the Gods
are made manifest.

He is the third aspect of the Divine Triad :

Co-equal with tlie Spirit and the heavenly deep.

For except by three in one, the Spirits of the Invisible
Light could not have been made manifest.

But now is the prism perfect, and the generation of the
Gods discovered in their order.

Adonai dissolves and resumes; in His two hands are
the dual powers of all things.

He is of His Father the Spirit, and of His Mother the
great deep.

Having the potency of both in Himself, and the power
of things material.

70 THE INITIATION.

Yet being Himself invisible, for He is the cause, and not
the effect.

He is the Manifestor, and not that which is manifest.
Tliat which is manifest is the Divine Substance*''.

The reason for the suppression by the trans-
lators of the Bible of its numerous affirmations of
the Divine Duality, saving only those of Genesis i.
2(3, 27, was in clue time disclosed to us; as also
was the extent of the loss to man through the
elimination of the feminine principle from his con-
ception of Original Being, and the consequent per-
version of the doctrine of the Trinity, and therein
of the true nature of Existence, in both its aspects.
Creation and Redemption.

('>This is one of the ilhiminations that were received by
A.K., during the latter part of 1878, "directly from the hier-
archy of the Church Invisible and Celestial." Speaking of these
illuminations, which " dealt with the profoundest subjects of
cognition," E.M. says that he and A.K. found in them "a
synthesis and an analysis combined of the sacred mysteries of
all the great religions of antiquity, and the true nrigines of
Christianity as originally and divinely intended, together with
the secret and method of its corruption and perversion into that
which now bears its name " ; and they " were at no loss to recog-
nise in them the destined Scriptures of the future, so long
promised and at length vouchsafed in interpretation of the
Scriptures of the past." (Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 293, 294.)
S.H.H.

CHAPTER III.

THE COMMUNICATION.

A STRIKING feature for us was the exquisite
tenderness and poetic delicacy, both in matter and
manner, wkich characterised all that we received.
Nor was there the intrusion of anything to suggest
feelings such as are described by Daniel when he
says, " I saw this great vision, and there remained
no strength in me, neither was there breath left
in me." And not only was the element of terror
so completely absent as to make us feel as if we
had entered on the dispensation of that " perfect
love which casteth out fear," but there was occa-
sionally an element of playfulness, and this on the
part of our chiefest illuminators, the Gods them-
selves. While their instructions were replete with
every graceful and delicate adornment such as
could not but delight the poet and the artist, and
this without abatement of profundity or solemnity.
By these things it was intimated to us that the
religion of the future was indeed to be one of
sweetness and light, and for the severe and gloomy
spirit of the Semite Avould be substituted the
bright and joyous spirit of the Greek. All this,
we learnt, was because the new dispensation was
to be that of the " Woman," and in accord there-
fore with woman's nature and sentiments. It was
moreover to be introduced by means of the
Woman's faculty, the Intuition, and this as sub-
sisting in a woman.

72 THE COMMUNICATION.

The f olluwing exquisite little apologue, whicli
was giveu us in the early days of our novitiate, is
an instance in point : —

A blind man once lost liiuiself in a forest. An angel
took pity on him, and led him into an open place. As he
went he received his sight. Tlien he saw the angel, and
said to him, "Brother, what doest thou here? Suffer me
to go before thee, for I am thine elder." So the man
went first, taking the lead. But the angel spread his wings
and ru turned to heaven. And darkness fell again upon
him to whom sight had been given.

Here was a parable which, slight as it seemed,
was truly Biblical for the depth and manifoldness
of its signification. For while it applied to our-
selves both separately and jointly, and to our work,
it Avas also an eternal verity applicable alike to the
individual, the collective, and the universal. For
as the angel was to the man, so is the intuition to
the intellect, which of itself cannot transcend the
sense-nature, but remains blind and dark and lost
in the wilderness of illusion. And as she, my
colleague, had supplemented me, so were we each
to supplement in ourselves intellect by intuition,
in order to become capable of knowledge and
understanding. It was, moreover, a parable of the
Fall and of the lledemption, an epitome in short
of man's spiritual history. And it had been spelt
out for us by the tilting^ of a table in one of our
earliest essays in spiritualism! 80 carefully
guarded and daintily taught were we from the
outset.

The charming allegory of " The Wonderful
Spectacles " which was given in London on the
31st January, 1877, to my colleague in sleep, was
not only an instruction concerning the nature of

THE COMMUNICATION. 73

her faculty and its indispensableuess as an adjunct
to mine for the work assigned to us ; it was also a
prophetic intimation of the character of that work,
and of the nature of the influences controlling it,
which at the time was altogether unsuspected by
us. This is the account which she sent to me by
letter, for we were not then together : —

I dreamt that I was walking alone on tlie sea-shore. The
day was singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most
beautiful landscape ever seen ; and far off were ranges of
tall hills, the highest peaks of which were white with
glistening snow. Along the sands by the sea towards me
came a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter.
It was from you. It ran thus : —

" I have got hold of the rarest and most precious book
extant. It was written before the world began. The text
is easy enough to read; but the notes, which are very
copious and numerous, are in such very minute and
obscure characters that I cannot make them out. I want
you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used
to wear; not the smaller pair — those he gave to Hans
Christian Andersen — but the large pair, and these seem
to have got mislaid. I think they are Spinoza's make.
You know he was an optical-glass maker by profession,
and the best we have ever had. See if you can get them
for me ""'.

When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the
postman hastening away across the sands, and I called
out to him, " Stop ! how am I to send the answer 1 Won't
you wait for me?"

He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.

<*)A.K. knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was unaware
that he was an optician. Siihseqnent experience made it clear
that the spectacles in question were intended to represent her
own remarkahle faculty of intuitional and interpretative per-
ception. (See Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 150-1.) S.H.H.

74 THE COMMUNICATION.

" I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter-
bag, " and I shall deliver it immediately."

" How can you have the answer before I have written
it?" said I. " You are making a mistake."

" No," said he, " In the city from which I come, the
replies are all written at the office and sent out with the
letters themselves. Your reply is in my bag."

" Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from
his wallet and gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my
own handwriting, this answer, addressed to you : —

" The spectacles you want can be bought in London.
But you will not be able to use them at once, for they have
not been worn for many years, and they want cleaning
sadly. This you will not be able to do yourself in London,
because it is too dark there to see, and because your
fingers are not small enough to clean them properly.
Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you."

I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and
nodded at me ; and I saw then to my astonishment that
he wore a camel's-hair tunic round his waist. I had been
on the point of addressing him — I know not why — as
Hermes. But I now saw that it was John the Baptist;
and in my fright at having spoken with so great a samt,
I awoke.

This was the second suggestion of a Greek
element in our work, the first having been the
slight allusion to Phoibos Apollo in the illumina-
tion concerning the Marriage in Cana of Galilee^^^
The signification of the connection between
Hermes and John the Baptist remained unintel-
ligible to us until the key to it was given us in a
revelation of the method of the Bible-writers
explaining their practice of representing prin-
ciples as persons. We then found that by the
baptism or purification, physical and mental,

("'Page 52.^

THE COMMUNICATION. 75

practised by John, was meant the course of life
and thought whereby alone man develops the
faculty of the understanding of spiritual things.
And Hermes is the Greco-Egyptian name for the
" second of the Gods," called by Isaiah the Spirit
of Understanding. Hence the adoption of this
name by the formulators of the Hermetic, or
sacred books of Egypt; and the favourite motto
of the Hermetists : —

'' Est in Mercuric quicquid quoerunt sapientes,"

All is in the understanding that the wise seek, —
Mercury being the Latin equivalent for Hermes.

The mention of Swedenborg and Andersen
implied their possession of the faculty indis-
pensable to our work, that of mystical insight, of
which they were the most notable recent repre-
sentatives.

A larger part was played by Hermes in another
instruction received a few months later^^^^ This
was also given in sleep, the vision taking the form
of a " Banquet of the Gods " in which the seeress
received the following exhortation from him, in
enforcement of the necessity of pure and natural
habits of life for the perfectionmeut of the facul-
ties requisite for full spiritual perception, when,
having put into her hands a branch of a fig-tree
bearing upon it ripe fruit, he said : —

" If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do
all things, quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm
and comfort you externally: it is heaven's gift. But do
not wrest it from its rightful purpose, as did that betrayer
of your race, to fill the veins of humanity with its con-
tagion, and to consume your interior being with its

<'°)The 22nd September., 1877.

76 THE COMMUNICATION.

breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the image which
Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen tire,
and it consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good
gifts, none is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your
hot foods and drinksi have consumed and dried up the
magnetic power of your nei-ves, sealed your senses, and
cut short your lives. Now, you neither see nor hear; for
the lire in your organs consumes your senses. Ye are
all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent you a
book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall
be opened."

Tlien, not recognising him, I said, " Tell me your name,
Lord." At this he laughed and answered, " I have been
about you from the beginning. I am the white cloud on
the noon-day sky." " Do you, then," I asked, " desii'e the
whole world to abandon the use of fire in preparing food
and drink?"

Instead of ansAvering my question, he said, " We show
you the excellent way. Two places only are vacant at our
table. We have told you all that can be shown you on
the level on which you stand. But our perfect gifts, the
fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your reach now.
We cannot give them to you until you are purified and
have come up higher. The conditions are God's ; the will
is with you "''>.

The allusion to Prometheus, and the fact that
Hermes had been represented in the Greek tragedy
of that name as the executor of the vengeance of
the Gods upon Prometheus, as avcII also as the
significance of the fig-branch and the fact of its
being the symbol of Hermes as the Spirit of Under-
standing,— all these things were beyond her know-
ledge at the time, some of them indeed having been

''>Tlie book referred to was a treatise entitled "Fruit and
Bread," which had been sent to her anonymously the previous
day. E.M.

THE COMMUNICATION. 77

long lost. But all were made clear as our educa-
tion for our work proceeded, and we learnt the
intention and recognised the necessity of restoring
the Greek presentment of the Sacred* Mysteries in
explanation of the Hebrew, and in correction of
the ecclesiastical presentment of Christianity. The
restoration was to be twofold, of faculty and of
knowledge, the knowledge to be recovered through
the faculty by which it was originally obtained.
Hence the insistance on our adoption of the pure
regimen of the Seers of all time. Hence, too, the
presentation to her by Hermes of the fig-branch
bearing ripe fruit. The parable of the cursing of
the barren fig-tree was explained to us as denoting
the loss by the church of the inward under-
standing, the Intuition. In the Seeress it was
restored ; she was the appointed representative of it.
The " time of the end " was at hand, of the
approach of which the budding of the fig-tree was
to be the sign. And here it was not merely budding
and blossoming, but bearing mature fruit to
signify that in her the faculty was restored in its
perfection.

In an instruction subsequently given to me by
her Genius, he said of her, " I have fashioned a
perfect instrument," implying that the process of
her preparation under his tuition had extended
over numerous lives. And again, " The Gods have
given to their own a perfect ear."

Being desirous once to test the powers of a
medium to whom she was totally unknown even by
name, she asked his controlling spirit about herself
and her faculty. " You are not a trance-medium
at all ;" the spirit exclaimed in reply. " My
medium is a trance-medium. You are far beyond

78 THE COMMUXICATION.

that. You are a spiritual lens. You are a mirror
in which the highest spirits — the Gods— can reflect
their faces. You take the light of the whole
universe and divide it so that it can be under-
stood, as it has never been understood yet. Your
gift is very extraordinary. You are a glass to
reflect the highest and the greatest to the world."
This was in 1877, before she was known in con-
nection with the spiritual movement of the age.

The description given of himself by Hermes as
" the white cloud in the noon-day sky," proved to
be a quotation from an ancient ritual, subse-
quently recovered by her, in which the " Hymn to
Hermes "(2) opens thus : —

As a moving liglit between heaven and earth : as a white
cloud assuming many shapes;

He descends and rises : he guides and illumines ; he
transmutes himself from small to gi'eat, from bright to
shadowy, from the opaque image to the diaphanous mist.

Star of the East, conducting the Magi ; cloud from
whose midst the holy voice speaketh ; by day a pillar of
vapour, by night a shining flame.

All these are symbolic expressions for the Under-
standing, especially in respect of divine things, so
that Hermes is no individual soul or spirit, but the
divine spirit Itself operating as the second of the

'-'The " Hymn to Hermes " was received by A.K. in 1878,
" under illumination occurring in sleep." She remembered it
so perfectly that on waking she wrote it without hesitation or
error. Eepresenting knowledges long lost, by no amount of
mere scholarship could it have been reproduced. It is given at
length in the P.W. pp. 357-358, and in "The Life of A,K."
Vol. I. p. 287. S.H.H.

THE COMMUNICATION. 79

Creative Eloliim, and as a function therefore of
man's own spirit when duly unfokled and purified,
in token whereof it is said in the recovered hymn^-'^^
to the Planet-God lacchos —

Within thee, 0 Man, is the Universe; the thrones of
all the Gods are in thy temple

And the Spirits which speak unto thee are of thine own
kingdom.

In the hymn of invocation summoning the
Seeress to her mission in the name of the two first
of the " Holy Seven," the Spirits of Wisdom and
Understanding, both of whom were wont to mani-
fest themselves to her, Hermes is referred to as
'* the God who knows " ; the other being personified
as Pallas Athena. " In the Celestial," we were
informed, " all things are Persons."

" Wake, prophet-soul, the time draws near,
' The God who knows' within thee stirs
And speaks, for His thou ait, and Hers

Who bears the mystic shield and spear.

A touch divine shall thrill thy brain,
Thy soul shall leap to life, and lo !
Wliat she has know^i, again shall know.

What she has seen, shall see again.

The ancient past through which slie came . . "'*'

As the Spirit of Understanding, the name of
Hermes signifies both Rock and Interpreter.
Hence the significance of the saying of Jesus,

'''As to the recovery by A.K. of the Hymn to the Planet-
God, see p. 122-3.

l')These dream-verses are from " Through the Ages," a poem
received by A.K., "in sleep," in 1880. In this poem, "some
of her earliest incarnations " are rpferred to. (D. and D S. n. 77 )
S.H.H. ^ '

So THE COMMUNICATION.

" Tliou art the Eock, and upon this Rock I will
build My Church," which He addressed not to the
man Peter, but to the Spirit of Understanding
whom He discerned as the prompter of Peter's con-
fession of faith. By this Jesus implied that the only
true and infallible church is that which is founded
on the [Inderstanding", and not on authority
whether of book, tradition or institution. The
utterance of .lesus was a citation from the proem
to the hymn to Hermes^^) recovered by ua : —

" He is as a rock between earth and heaven, and the
Lord God shall build His Church thereon.

As a city upon a mountain of stone, whose windows look
forth on either side."

As our education proceeded we found indubit-
ably that in excluding from its curriculum the
whole range of the knowledges represented b}^ the
term " Hermetic," Ecclesiasticism has ignored the
chief source of information concerning the
Christian origines. Doing which it has incurred
the reproach uttered by Jesus against those who
took away the key of knowledge, neither entering
in themselves, nor suffering others to enter in. And
it was to restore this Gnosis, suppressed by the
priests, that the new revelation was promised, with
the reception of which we found ourselves charged,
the prophecies pointing to a restoration both of
faculty and of knowledge.

Besides the Fig-branch of Hermes, there is
another symbol of the intuitional understanding
which was disclosed to us as having special and
peculiar relation to the work set us. This symbol

(^'See p. 132 note.

THE COMMUNICATION. 8 1

is "VVomau herself. She had already, in the instruc-
tion conoeruing the marriage in Cana^^\ been
shown to us as the inspirer and prompter. She was
now shown to us as the interpreter. The reason
why the fig-tree was the emblem of the inward
understanding will be found in the citation
presently to be given; which is a portion of an
instruction received in interpretation of the
prophecy of Daniel, re-enunciated by Jesus, con-
cerning the recognition of the " abomination of
desolation standing in the holy place "("\ as making
and marking the time of the end of that generation
which, for its materialisation of spiritual things,
was called by Him an " adulterous," meaning an
idolatrous, generation. It will be seen that in the
Scripture symbology, as the soul is the feminine
principle in man's spiritual system, and is called
therefore the " Woman," the spirit being the mas-
culine principle; so in man's mental system the
intuition as the feminine mode of the mind is
called the " Woman," and the intellect, as the
masculine mode, the " Man." The following is the
citation in question: —

Behold the Fig-Trbb, and learn her parable. When
the branch thereof shall become tender, and her buds
appear, know that the day of God is upon you."

\Vherefore, then, saith the Lord that the budding of the
Fig-Tree shall foretell the endl

Because the Fig-Tree is the symbol of the Divine
Woman, as the Vine of the Divine Man.

The Fig is the similitude of the Matrix, containing

(')See pp. 51-52-53 ante.
''That is, in the place of God and the Soul.

82 THE COMMUNICATION.

inward buds, bearing blossoms on its placenta, and bring-
ing forth fruit in darkness. It is the Cup of Life, and its
flesh is the seed-ground of new births.

The stems of the Fig-Tree run with milk : her leaves
are as human hands, like the leaves of her brother the
Vine.

And when the Fig-Tree shall bear figs, then shall be
the Second Advent, the new sign of the Man bearing
Water, and the manifestation of the Virgin-Mother
crowned.

For when the Lord would enter the holy city, to cele-
brate His Last Supper with His disciples. He sent before
Him the Fisherman Peter to meet the Man of the Coming
Sign.

" Tliere shall meet you a Man bearing a pitcher of
Water."

Because, as the Lord was first manifest at a wine-feast
in the morning, so must He consummate His work at a
wine-feast in the evening.

It is His Pass-Over; for thereafter the Sun nmst pass
into a new Sign.

After the Fish, the Water-Can'ier ; but the Lamb of God
remains always in the place of victory, being slain from
the foundation of the world.

For His place is the place of the Sun's triumph.

After the Vine the Fig; for Adam is first formed, then
Eve.

And because our Lady is not yet manifest, our Lord is
crucified.

Tliei-efore came He vainly seeking fruit upon the Fig-
Tree, " for the time of figs was not yet."

And from that day forth, because of the curse of Eve,
no man has eaten fruit of the Fig-Tree.

For the inward understanding has withered away, there
is no discernment any more in men. They have crucified
the Lord because of their ignorance, not knowing what
they did.

THE COMMUNICATION. S3

Wherefore, indeed, said our Lord to our Lady : —
" Woman, what is betAveeii nie and thee? For even my
hour is not yet come."

Because until the hour of the Man is accomplished and
fulfilled, the hour of the Woman must be deferred.

Jesus is the Vine; Mary is the Fig-Tree. And the
vintage must be completed and the wine trodden out, or
ever the harvest of the Figs be gathered.

But when the hour of our Lord is achieved ; hanging on
His Cross, He gives our Lady to the faithful.

Tlie chalice is drained, the lees are wrung out : then
says He to His Elect :— " Behold thy Mother !"

But so long as the grapes remain unplucked, the Vine
has nought to do with the Fig-Tree, nor Jesus with Mary.

He is first revealed, for He is the Word; aftenvards
shall come the hour of its Interpretation.

And in that day every man shall sit under the Vine
and the Fig-Trbe ; the Dayspring shall arise in the Orient,
and the Fig-Tree shall bear her fruit.

For, from the Ijeginning, the Fig-leaf covered the shame
of Incarnation, because the riddle of existence can be
expounded only by him who has the Woman's secret. It
is the riddle of the Sphinx.

Look for that Tree which alone of all Trees bears a fruit
blossoming interiorly, in concealment, and thou shalt dis-
cover the Fig.

Look for the sufficient meaning of the manifest universe
and of the written Word, and thou shalt find only their
mystical sense.

Cover the nakedness of Matter and of Nature with the
P'ig-leaf, and thou hast hidden all their shame. For the
Fig is the Interpreter.

So when the hour of Interpretation comes, and the Fig-
Tree puts forth her buds, know that the time of the End
and the dawning of the new Day are at hand, — '' even at
the doors."

On liauding me the first portion of the instriic-

84 THE COMMUNICATION.

tioii of whicli the foregoing is the couclusiou,
" Mary " — to use the name which meanwhile had
been bestowed on her by our Illuminators in token
of her office as representative of the Soul and
Intuition — confessed to some perplexity. Her
usual Illuminator for revelations of this order was
Hermes, whose Hebrew equivalent is Raphael. But
on this occasion it had been a Hebrew one, Gabriel.
Her surprise and delight were great on being
reminded that Gabriel was Daniel's own inspirer
in respect of the prophecy in question, and that
he had prophesied his return, saying, " Go thy
way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed
till the time of the end. . . . Thou shalt rest and
stand in thy lot at the end of the days." The
explanation given us was that both Daniel's own
spirit and his illuminating angel had come to her,
the former serving as the vehicle of the latter. As
with all our other results similarly obtained, we
judged it entirely by its own intrinsic merits, and
not by its alleged derivation. We knew too well
the propensity of low influences to appropriate to
themselves great and even divine names, and the
liability of the recipients to be deceived and to
make the names the criterion instead of the com-
munication itself. But in no instance did it hap-
pen to us that we had any cause to distrust the
genuineness either of messenger or of message,
even when both claimed to be divine.

The difference between the two interpretations
or applications given us of the incident at the
" Marriage in Cana of Galilee," was explained to

THE COMMUNICATION. 8^

US as an instance of the manifoldness of the sense
of Scripture. The parables have a separate mean-
ing for each of the four planes of existence^^\

We wondered much whether there were any
parallels in history to our work and to the manner
of it; and especially as to how far an association
such as ours coincided with the ideas of the
Hebrews. It was true that they had both prophets
and prophetesses, but did they work like us in
supplement and complement of each other? As
regarded the recovery of knowledge acquired in a
previous life, Ezra also had ascribed his recovery
of the long lost Law to intuitional recollection
occurring under special illumination, saying,
" The Spirit strengthened my memory." But no
mention is made of a female coadjutor. Nor does it
appear that the Vestal Virgins were similarly sup-
plemented, except to be thrown into the magnetic
trance-state. In her zeal for her sex and her corre-
sponding distrust of men — sentiments which
seemed to be inborn in her — " Mary " was disposed
to think that most of the prophesying of old had
been done by women, but that the credit had been
appropriated by men. The answer to these ques-
tionings was of a kind altogether unexpected by
us, both as regarded its manner and its matter.
For neither of us had the smallest suspicion that
the book referred to was capable of the interpre-
tation given us of it. This was the book of Esther.
The incident was as follows : —

The occasion was an Easter Sunday(^), and we

<*)The four planes being, from without inwards, those of the
body, mind, soul, and spirit. S.H.H.

("iThe 28th March, 1880. S.H.H.

86 THE COMMUNICATION.

were at Paris. Electing to remain indoors
rather than encounter the crowds of holiday
makers, " Mary " was moved during the afternoon
to sit for some communication by joint writing.
But we were no sooner seated than it was written, —

" Do you, Care*'', take a pencil and write, and let her
look inwards, and we will dictate slowly."

" Mary " then became entranced, and delivered
orally, repeating it slowly, without break or pause,
after a voice heard interiorly, the following expo-
sition of the book of Esther, an exposition entirely
novel, as I have said, to us, and, we believed, to
the world. Some divines have called the book a
romance, but none have discovered that it is a
prophecy in the form of a parable. Luther, indeed,
pronounced both it and the Apocalypse to be so
worthless that their destruction would be no loss.

The most important book in the Bible for you to study
now, and that most nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of
tlie most mystic books in the Old Testament, the book of
Esther.

This book is a mystic prophecy, written in the form of
an actual history. If I give you the key, the clue of the
thread of it, it will be the easiest thing in the world to
unravel the whole,

l')The name by which I was thus addressed had been given me
by our illuminators as an initiation name, as that of " Mary "
to her. It denoted love as the dominant note of our work, and
was an equivalent for " John the Beloved," who — we were
given to understand — is one of the two controlling " angels " of
the new illumination — Daniel being the other — in accordance
with the intimations given by Jesus, one to His disciples and the
other to the Seer of the Apocalypse himself, that John should
tarry within reach of the earth-plane to bear part in the event
which was to constitute the second advent of Christ. These
names had a further correspondence in the Greek parable of
Eros and Psyche, which denotes love as the vivifying principle
of the soul. * E.M.

THE COMMUNICATION. 87

Tlie great King Assuerus, who had all the world under
his dominion, and possessed the wealth of all the nations,
is the genius of the age.

Queen Vasthi, who for her disobedience to the king was
deposed from her royal seat, is the orthodox Catholic
Church.

The Jews, scattered among the nations under the
dominion of the king, are the true Israel of God.

Mardochi the Jew represents the spirit of intuitive
reason and understanding.

His enemy Aman is tlie spirit of materialism, taken
into the favour and protection of the genius of the age,
and exalted to the highest place in the world's councils
after tlie deposition of the orthodox religion.

Now Aman has a wife and ten sons.

Esther — who, under the care and tuition of Mardochi,
is brought up pure and virgin — is that spirit of love and
sympathetic interpretation which shall redeem the world.

I have told you that it shall be redeemed by a
" woman."

Now the several philosophical systems by which the
councillors of the age propose to replace the dethroned
Church, are one by one submitted to the judgment of the
age ; and Esther, coming last, shall find favour.

Six years shall she be anointed with oil of myrrh, that
ia, with study and training severe and bitter, that she
may be proficient in intellectual knowledge, as must all
systems which seek the favour of the age.

And six years with sweet perfumes, that is with the
gracious loveliness of the imagery and poetry of the faiths
of the past, that religion may not be lacking in sweetness
and beauty.

But she shall not seek to put on any of those adorn-
ments of dogma, or of mere sense, which, by trick of priest-
craft, foiTiier systems have used to gain power or favour
with the world and the age, and for which they have been
found wanting.

88 THE COMMUNICATION.

Now there come out of the darkness and the storm
which shall arise upon the earth, two dragons''"'.

And they fight and tear each other, until there arises a
star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther'"'.

I have given you the key. Unlock the meaning of all
that is written.

I do not tell you if in the history of the past these voices
had part in the world of men.

If they had, guess now who were Mardochi and Esther.

But I tell you that which shall be in the days about to
come'^'.

On consulting the Bible-dictionary, we found
this relation between Esther and Easter. The feast
of Purim, which was instituted in token of the
deliverance wrought through Esther, coincides in
date with Easter. And it was on Easter day that
this was given us, by way of enhancing the corre-
spondence between the parts assigned to us and
those of Mordecai and Esther. Later it was shown
us that the parts assigned to Joseph and Mary
were, in one aspect, also identical with those of
Mordecai and Esther. This is the aspect in which
Joseph represents the mind, and Mary the soul in
the regenerated human system.

Besides " Hermes," " Mary " received much of
her illumination from her " Genius," her relations
with whom far surpassed not only my relations
with mine, but any that are recorded in history,
the experiences of Socrates, the chief instance on

('"'Materialism and Superstition.

(')The name Esther denotes a star or fountain of light, a
dawn or rising.

l-)The spelling of the names is that of the Douay Version,
the Protestants having relegated the second part of the book of
Esther, in which the latter part of this narrative occurs, to the
Apocrypha. As also that of Ezra above cited. E.M.

THE COMMUNICATION. 89

record, being insignificant both in quantity and
in quality as compared with hers. It is important,
therefore, to give an account of the nature and
office of this order of angels, which shall be
rendered in his own words.

Every man is a planet, having sun, moon, and stars.
The Genius of a man is his satellite ; God — the God of the
man — is his sun, and the moon of this planet is Isis, its
initiator or Genius. The Genius is made to minister to
the man, and to give him light. But the light he gives ia
from God, and not of liimself. He is not a planet but a
moon, and his function is to light up the dark places of
his planet.

The day and night of the microcosm, man, are its
positive and passive, or pix)jective and i*eflective states.
In the projective state we seek actively outwai'ds; we
aspire and will forcibly ; we hold active communion with
the God without. In the reflective state we look inwards;
we commune with our own heart; we indraw and concen-
trate ourselves secretly and interiorly. During this con-
dition the " Moon " enlightens our hidden chamber with
her torch, and shows us ourselves in our interior recess.

Wlio or what, then, is this moon ? It is part of our-
selves and revolves with us. It is our celestial affinity, —
of whose order it is said — as by Jesus — " Tlieir angels do
always behold the face of My Father."

Eveiy human soul has a celestial affinity, which is part
of his system and a type of his spiritual nature. This
angelic counterpart is the bond of union between the man
and God ; and it is in virtue of his spiritual nature that
this angel is attached to him

It is in virtue of man's being a planet that he has a
moon. If he were not fourfold, as is the planet, he could
not have one. Rudimentary men are not fourfold, they
have not the Spirit.

The Genius is the moon to the planet man, reflecting to
him the Sun, or God, within him. For the Divine Spirit

go

THE COMMUNICATION.

•which animates and eternises the man, is the God of the
man, the Sun that enlightens him. . . . And because
the Genius reflects, not the planet, but the Sun, not the
man (as do the astrals), but the God, his light is always
to be trusted

Thet memory of the soul is recovered by a threefold
operation — that of the Soul herself, of the Moon, and of
the Sun. Tlie Genius is not an informing spirit. He can
tell nothing to the soul. All that she receives is already
-within herself. But in the darkness of the night, it would
remain there undiscovered, but for the torch of the angel
who enlightens. " Yea," says the angel Genius to his client,
'• I illuminate thee, but I instruct thee not. I warn thee,
but I fight not. I attend, but I lead not. Thy treasure ia
within thyself. My light showeth where it lieth." . . .

The voice of the Genius is the voice of God ; for God
speaks through him as a man through the horn of a
trumpet. Tliou mayest not adore him, for he is the instru-
ment of God, and thy minister. But thou must obey him,
for he hath no voice of his own, but sheweth thee the will
of the Spirit.

We noted that the inspiring angel of the
Apocalypse had twice similarly spoken when the
seer was about to worship him ; — " See thou do it
not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy
brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the
sayings of this book : Worship God." ^

The like positive injunctions w-ere given us also
against according divine honours to Jesus.

Besides Socrates, there is another notable his-
torical '' Spiritualist " of whom our experiences
vividly reminded us. This was Joan of Arc. The
correspondence between her and " Mary," in gifts,
experiences, and personal characteristics, was of
the closest. We had no difficulty in believing her

THE COMMUNICATION. 9 1

history. Each of them, moreover, had a mission of
deliverance, the one political and national, the
other spiritual and universal.

Although we had learned to trust our Illu-
minators implicitly long before the receipt of the
above instruction, we were still without assurance
as to the source and method of the revelation. Be
the knowledges received by us as new as they
might to our external selves, they never failed to
be familiar as recovered memories, excepting in
such cases as they were couched in terms of which
the sense, being mystical, was not at once recog-
nised. But such difficulties were soon overcome,
and the doctrine, when fully apprehended, was
always to us as necessary and self-evident truth,
and such as to excite v/onder at the potency of the
glamour which had hitherto withheld it from the
world's recognition. In every detail, the revela-
tion represented for us Common-Sense in its
loftiest mode. For the agreement it represented
was not that of all men merely, but that of all
parts of Man : of mind, soul and spirit, intellect
and intuition, and these purified and unfolded to
the utmost, and perfectly equilibrated. Whatever
the manner of its communication, whether heard
by the interior ear, seen by the interior eye, flashed
on the mind as vivid ideas, whether acquired
waking or sleeping, or in the intermediate state
of trance-lucidity, or given in writing, it always
seemed that we knew it before, and did not require
to be told it, but only to be reminded of it.

The problem specially exercised myself. "Mary"
had other Avork than the analysis of our spiritual
experiences. That was my special function. I
learnt to see in her a soul of surpassing luminous-

92 THE COMMUNICATION.

ness and variousness, who had been entrusted to
my charge expressly in order that by my study of
her I might recover for the world's benefit the
long-lost knowledge of the soul's being, nature,
and history. And so many and various were her
spiritual states, that she seemed to me to repre-
sent in turn every stage of the soul's evolution,
and to be " not one, but all mankind's epitome."

This also used to occur so frequently as to be
observed by both of us and discussed between us.
When in the process of my endeavour to find the
solution of some problem, such as the meaning of
a parabolic or otherwise obscure passage in Scrip-
ture, I had exhausted my stock of tentative hypo-
theses, but, through consideration for her other
and engrossing work, refrained from imparting
my need to her, she would receive in sleep the
desired solution, which she wrote down on waking,
and which invariably proved satisfactory beyond
my highest imaginings. And besides showing inti-
mate acquaintance with the course of my thought,
it was couched in language which, for simplicity,
dignity, purity, and lucidity, was without an equal
in literature; the English being that of the best
period of our literature, and better than the best
even of that period. She herself had a remarkable
mastery of English, but these compositions reduced
her to" despair, causing her to exclaim, " Why
cannot I write as well when I am awake as I do in
my sleep !" Of course the explanation lay in the
limiting influence of the physical organism.

The frequency of this occurrence led me, in the
absence of authoritative explanation, to try the
following, as an hypothesis purely tentative. The
revelations generally came to her when, through

THE COMMUNICATION, 93

my inability to find the intepretations which satis-
fied me, my work required them, and they came
independently of any desire or knowledge on her
part. Might it not be, then, that it was my own
spirit who knew them and gave them to her, find-
ing her more sensitive to impression than myself r'
The explanation was not one that either pleased
or satisfied me, one reason being that I took a
delight in recognising the primacy accorded to her.
The idea occurred to me one night, and I pondered
it the next day, but did not divulge it. What
happened on the evening of that day led me to
suspect that our Genii had suggested it to me in
order to make it the occasion of imparting to me
the knowledge in question, namely, that of the real
source and method of the revelation.

For the experience to be properly appreciated it
must be remembered that " Mary " had no know-
ledge of the explanation suggested to me, and
neither of us had as yet entertained the idea of
past lives as the key to our present work. The
question of Ileincarnation itself had not come
before us, and far less the possibility of recovering
the memory of the things learnt in previous exist-
ences, much as we had been puzzled to account for
our experiences in the absence of some such
explanation.

The proposal to sit for a written communi-
cation came from her, having evidently been
prompted by our illuminators. The method
was one which both they and we disliked, and it
Avas adopted only when they desired to address
us both at once. So we sat for writing.

94 THE COMMUNICATION.

The result confirmed my surmise. We had
scarcely seated ourselves when the -wiitiug began,
as if we were being waited for. And this is what
was written : —

" We are instructed to say several tliing.s to-night. We
are your Genii.

" (To Caro.) In the first place, you entirely miscon-
ceive the process by which the Kevelation comes to Mary.
The method of this revelation is entix-ely interior. Maiy
is not a Medium ; nor is she even a Seer as you under-
stand the word. She is a Prophet. By this we mean
that all she has ever wi'itten or will write, is i'z'om within,
and not from without. She knows. She is not told. Hers
is an old, old spirit. She is older than you are, Caro, older
by many thousand years. Do not think that spirits other
than her own are to be credited with the authorship of the
new Gospel. As a i)roof of this, and to correct the false
impression you have on the subject, the holy and inner
truth, of which she is the depositary, will not in future be
given to her by the former method. All she writes
henceforth, she v.ill write consciously. Yes, she must
finish the new Evangel by conscious effort of brain and
will."

Coming from a source which we had learnt to
trust implicitly, and according with our own
highest conceptions, this message was supremely
satisfactory, and was welcomed accordingly. But
it was followed forthwith by another which excited
feelings of a very dilferent character. For, as if
expressly in order to prevent her from being made
vain-glorious and uplifted by it, they added—

" (To Mart.) It may serve to exhibit the path by
which you have come, and to suggest the nature of some
ancient tendencies which may yet tarnish the mirror of a
soul destined to attain perfection, to leani that you dwelt
within the body of ."

THE COMMUNICATION. 95

Here were given the name and character of a
certain Koman dame of some seventeen centuries
ago, one of high station, but of a repute so evil as
to cause an immense shock to both of us. It does
not come within the design of this book to disclose
the particular personalities with whom we had
been identified in the past^^^. Concerning this one
it must suffice to state here that, omitting from
account one whole side of " Mary's " character, we
both recognised in the other side traits strongly
resembling those which had been indicated. And
she subsequently recovered distinct recollections
of scenes in the life in question which served to
assure her on the point. Our discussions on the
matter tended to conclusions of which fuller know-
ledge brought the verification. It was not one of
those lives in virtue of which she was directly
qualified for her present work; but it was one of
those lives of which the sin and the suffering may
well be conceived of as indispensable elements in
the education of a soul called to a lofty work and
destiny in the future, in accordance with the prin-
ciple which finds expression in the sayings, " The
greater the sinner the greater the saint," and
" Pecca Fortiter." This also we discerned clearly,
that, supposing it to be indeed a truth that man is
" made perfect through suffering," the experiences
in the course of which the suffering is undergone
must imply sin as well as pain and sorrow ; since
otherwise there would be a whole region of his
nature, namely the moral, in which he would

(''These are disclosed in "The Life of A.K." The personality
referred to on this occasion was " Faiistino, the Roman," the
Empress of Marcus Aurelius. (Life A.K. Vol. L pp. 853-354.)
S.H.H.

96 THE COMMUNICATION.

remain unvitalised. The lesson of which is that
a man is alive only so far as he has liA^ed. There
was yet another reflection that was prompted by
the occasion in question, and one which crowned
and glorified the rest. This was the assurance
implied that none need despair. If the soul which
had dwelt in the body of the person named, could
nevertheless become within measureable time what
" Mary " was now, and be " destined to attain
perfection," there is hope for all, and the doctrine
of Reincarnation is indeed a gospel of salvation.
And herein we discerned a lesson hitherto unsus-
pected so far as we were aware, in the parable of
the Prodigal Son. It is not the " elder brother "
who stays at home that can best appreciate the
divine order; but the prodigal who has gone forth
into the world of experience to acquire knowledge
for himself at first hand. They who have been the
most fully satiated with the husks of materiality,
can — when their time arrives for coming to their
true selves — best estimate the fare provided in the
" Father's House." " He loveth most to whom
most has been forgiven.

While sitting alone one day and pondering these
things, and particularly the difficulty which people
often find in correcting in themselves even the
faults which they deplore, this pregnant sentence
was spoken audibly to my inner hearing by a voice
which I recognised as that of my Genius : —
" Tendencies encouraged for ages cannot be cured
in a single lifetime, but may require ages."

This further reflection also was suggested to me :
that souls of exceptional strength are reincarnated
in bodies of exceptionally strong passional natures,
expressly in order to obtain the discipline which

THE COMMUNICATIOiT. 97

comes of the effort to subdue them. All of which
reflections tended to exhibit the rashness of judg-
ing outward judgment in respect of others. In
order to judge righteous judgment it is necessary
to know the strength of their temptations, and of
their efforts to resist them. And these can be known
only to God. The attainment of perfection, and
therein of salvation by conquest and not by flight,
— this is the principle of reincarnation. It is the
condition of llegeneration, which is from out of
the body.

In due time we were able to recognise the whole
plan of our work as so ordered as to make the work
itself a demonstration of the doctrine of reincarna-
tion. When once this doctrine had become a
practical question for us, it assumed a prominent
place both in our teachings and in our experiences.
One instruction given iis was no less striking in
itself than in the circumstances of its communica-
tion. The messenger was one with whom we had
never anticipated coming into relations, for,
besides not courting intercourse with the souls of
the departed, we had not paid to the writings of
the person concerned the heed that would entitle
us to count him among our cordial sympathisers;
and still less as among our possible visitants. This
was the famous Swedish Seer, Emmanuel Sweden-
borg. In the course of what we afterwards found
to be a strikingly characteristic communication
from him, he informed us that owing to the diffi-
culty our angels had in approaching us just then,
through the condition of the spiritual atmosphere,
they had charged him with a message to us, in
which " Mary's" Genius had spoken to him of her as
" A soul of vast experience, who under his tuition

98 THE COMMUNICATION.

had so painfully acquired the evangel of which she
was the depositary " ; adding that he, her Genius,
" had been promised help to recover for her, in this
incarnation, the memory of all that was in the
past " ; and — which was the point of the message —
that it was to be put forward, not as we were then
contemplating putting it forward, but " as frag-
mentary specimens of such recollection occurring
to one now a woman, but formerly an initiate, who
is beginning to recover this power,"

It will be interesting to remark on this expe-
rience, that to this day the followers of Sweden-
borg set their faces against the doctrine of
reincarnation, expressly on the ground that their
master denied it in his lifetime. Whether Sweden-
borg really denied it is uncertain. There is grave
cause to doubt whether his writings on the subject
have been rightly understood or fairly repre-
sented. It has been maintained with much show
of reason that Swedenborg denied only the reincar-
nation of the astral soul, not of the true soul; in
which case he would be right. Having once
obtained access to us, his visits were for a time
frequent, the manner of them being various. For
he came to us jointly and separately, in waking
and in sleeping— the latter to " Mary " only — and
audibly and visibly — the latter also to " Mary "
only. He alluded to a recent incarnation of mine,
of which I have since had full and independent
proof. And he recognised our work as not only a
confirmation and continuation of his own, but also
as a correction. For, as he gave us to understand,
he had been too much under the influence of the
current orthodoxy to be able to transmit the revela-
tion given to him in its proper purity, and unbiased

THE COMMUNICATION. 99

by his own preconceptions. The doctrine in respect
of which he was chiefly desirous of being set right
was that of the Incarnation, the orthodox present-
ment of which he now saw to be wrong, by reason
of its deification of Jesus, In referring to the per-
version of the truth by the formulators of the
Christian orthodoxy, he said to us, with much
emphasis, " Do not be too kind to the Christians."'

This allusion to an experience which belongs to
the category of " spiritualism " rather than to that
of our special work, may with advantage be fol-
lowed by some account of our other experiences of
the same order, partly for the sake of testifying to
the genuineness of the experiences relied on by
spiritualists, and partly in order to show the dis-
tinction between the two orders of experience, as
discerned by persons whose familiarity with both
qualified them to institute comparison between
them. For, having once become sensitised in the
inner and higher regions of the consciousness, we
had become sensitised also in the intermediate
regions, and were able therefore to hold palpable
converse with the denizens of these also. And the
converse thus held was of the most satisfactory
character, on the ground both of the certainty of
its reality and its intrinsic nature. Father, mother,
wife, brothers, sundry dear friends, and others
interested in our work, all came to me, and some
of them to my colleague, and this several times,
and in a manner impossible to be distrusted. For
my mother more than once spoke to me aloud in
her own unmistakeable voice, and in tones that
anyone might have heard, as I sat alone in my
study. My wife came repeatedly to both of us,
jointly and separately, audibly, visibly, and

lOO THE COMMUNICATION.

tangibly; giving us timely warnings of dangers
unsuspected by us but proving to be real. And one
of my brothers cleared up a mystery which had
hung over his death. No mere attenuated wraiths
or soulless phantoms were they who thus visited
us from " beyond the veil," they were strong, dis-
tinct, intelligent individualities, veritable souls,
palpitating with vitality, and eager to render loving
service. But they came spontaneously and
unevoked, for we never sought to compel their
presence. Our quest was purely and simply for
truth, not for persons. But we considered that,
when these also came, as they did come, to our-
selves directly and without intervention of any
third party, to refuse to receive them on the
ground tliat they had put off their bodies, would
be equivalent to repulsing our friends in the flesh
on the ground that they had put off their overcoats.
The spirit in which alone such intercourse is
permissible will be seen by the following citations
from the instructions received by us. Terms from
the Hebrew, Greek, and Oriental Scriptures were
used indifferently by our illuminators. The word
Ruach in the following—which is Hebrew for
Spirit — is here used in a kabalistic sense to denote
the astral soul or ghost, as distinguished from the
divine soul, the Psyche or Neshamah, and from the
NepJiesh or mere phantom. The following is from
an instruction given to " Mary " in sleep, in direct
solution of certain perplexities.

" Thou knowest that in the end, when Nirvana is
attained, the soul shall gather up all that it hath left
within the astral of holy memories and worthy experience,
and to this end the Ruach rises in the astral sphere, by
the gradual decay and loss of its more material aflBnities,

THE COMMUNICATION. lOl

until these have so disintegrated and perished that its sub-
stance is thereby lightened and purified. But continual
commerce and intercourse with earth add, as it were,
fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these alive, and
hindering its recall to its spiritual ego. Thus, therefore,
the spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption
into the divine, and union therewith. For the Ruach shall
not all die, if there be in it anything worthy of recall. Tlie
astral sphere is its purging chamber. For Saturn, who is
Time, is the trier of all things ; he devoureth all the dross ;
only that escapeth which in its nature is ethereal and
destined to reign. And this death of the Ruach is gradual
and natural. It is a process of eUmination and disinte-
gration, often — as men measure time — extending over
many decades, or even centuries. And those Ruachs
which appertain to wicked and evil persons, having strong
wills inclined earthwards, — these persist longest and
manifest most frequently and vividly, because they rise
not, but, being destined to perish utterly, are not with-
drawn from innnediate contact with the earth. They are
all dross; there is in them no redeemable element. But
the Ruach of the righteous complaineth if thou disturb
his evolution. ' Why callest thou me ? disturb me not.
The memories of my earth-life are chains about my neck ;
the desire of the past detaineth me. Suffer me to rise
towards my rest, and hinder me not with evocations. But
let thy love go after me and encompass me ; so shalt thou
rise with me through sphere after sphere.'

"For the good man upon earth can love nothing less
than the divine. Wherefore that which he loveth in his
friend is the divine, that is, the true and radiant self. And
if he love it as differentiated from God, it is only on
account of its separate tincture. For in the perfect light
there are innumerable tinctures. And according to its
celestial affinity, one soul loveth this or that splendour
more than the rest. And when the righteous friend of the
good man dieth, the love of the living man goeth after
the true soul of the dead ; and the strength and divinity

I02 THE COMMUNICATIOM .

of this love lielpeth the purgation of the astral soul, the
psychic ghost. It is to this astral soul, which ever
reraaineth near the living friend, an indication of the way
it must also go, — a light shining upon the upward path
that leads from the astral to the celestial and everlasting.
For love, being divine, is towards the divine. * Love
esalteth, love purifieth, love uplifteth.' "

And this also, which was similarly obtained,
represents a further restoration of the original,
pure, undistorted and unmutilated doctrine of
Christianity concerning the communion of souls.

*****

So weepest thou and lamentest, because the Soul thou
lovest is taken from thy sight.

And life seemeth to thee a bitter thing: yea, thou
cursest the destiny of all living creatures.

And thou deemest thy love of no avail, and thy tears as
idle drops.

Behold, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are
prayers.

And if thou have lived purely, thy fervent desire shall
be counted grace to the soul of thy dead.

For the burning and continual prayer of the just
availeth much.

Yea, thy love shall enfold the soul which thou lovest:
it shall be unto him a wedding garment and a vesture of
blessing.

The baptism of thy sorrow shall baptize thy dead, and he
shall rise because of it.

Thy prayers shall lift him up, and thy tears shall
encompass his steps: thy love shall be to him a light
shining upon the upward way.

And the angels of God shall say unto him, " 0 happy
Soul, that art so well-beloved; that art made so strong
with all these tears and sighs.

" Praise the Father of Spirits therefor : for this great
love shall save thee many incarnations.

THE COMMUNICATION. I03

'' Tliou art advanced thereby; thou art drawn aloft and
can-ied upward by cords of grace."

For in such wise do souls profit one another and have
communion, and receive and give blessing, the departed
of the living, and the living of the departed.

And so much the more as the heart within them is clean,
and the way of their intention is innocent in the sight of
God. . . .

Count not as lost thy suffering on behalf of other souls ;
for cveiy cry is a prayer, and all prayer is power.

That thou wiliest to do is done ; thine intention is united
to tlie Will of Divine Love.

Nothing is lost of that which thou layest out for God
and for thy brother.

And it is love alone who redeemeth, and love hath
nothing of her own'**.

But precious as is the communion of souls when
thus conditioned, it was not to them that we looked
for light and guidance in our work. Nor, indeed,
to any persons at all in the sense in which, the term
is ordinarily used. We looked steadfastly and
directly to the Highest, confidently leaving to the
Highest the appointment both of the Messenger
and of the Message, but never failing to submit
both manner and matter to the keenest scrutiny of
faculties which we had striven to the utmost to
attune to divine things. We were, moreover,
emphatically warned from the outset against
allowing any intrusion into our work of the
influences accessible to the ordinary sensitive, the
two planes being absolutely distinct. Herein lay

(*)The " Hymn of Aphrodite," including the " Discourse of
the Communion of Souls, and of the Uses of Love between
Creature and Creature ; being part of the Golden Book of
Venus," from which latter the above is taken, is given in full in
the P.W. pp. 350-356.

I04 THE COMMUNICATION,

the significance of the saying of " Mary's " Genius,
that he had been " promised help to enable her to
recover in this incarnation the memory of all that
is in the past." The Genii themselves, although
of the celestial, belong to its circumferential and
lowest sphere. They touch the astral, but do not
enter it. The help spoken of was to come from
the innermost and highest spheres. And the charge
was accordingly given us, " Do not, then, seek
after ' controls.' Keep your temple for the Lord
God of Hosts ; and turn out of it the money-
changers, the dove-sellers, and the dealers in
curious arts, yea, with a scourge of cords if need
be."

The manner in which we received the first full
and particular account respecting the method of
revelation, was as folloAvs. I was pondering to
myself with much intentness the nature and source
of inspiration, and desiring a test whereby to dis-
tinguish between true and false inspiration. But I
refrained for various reasons from consulting my
colleague, at least until I should have exhausted
my OAvn resources. And she was still without any
intimation of my need when she received the
instruction concerning inspiration and prophesy-
ing of which the following is a portion. It was
received in sleep, and the date was shortly before
we were told that her knowledges were due to
experiences undergone in previous lives^^\ When
I had read it she said, referring to the first verse,

'')The instruction concerning inspiration and prophesying was
received by A.K. in Paris on the 7th February, 1880. S.H.H.

THE COMMUNICATION. I05

" But I did not ask." In reply to whicli I told her
that I had asked. It was addressed equally to
both of us, as making together one system.

" I heard last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me,
and saying —

" You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and
the means whereby God revealeth the Truth.

Know that there is no enlightenment from without:
the secret of things is revealed from within.

From without conaetli no Divine Revelation: but the
Spirit within beareth witness.

Think not that I tell you that which you know not : for
except you know it, it cannot be given to you.

To hiui that iiath it is given, and he hath the more
abundantly.

None is a prophet save he who knoweth : the instructor
of the people is a man of many lives.

Inborn knowledge and the perception of things, these
are the sources of revelation : the Soul of the man
instrueteth him, having already learned by experience.

Intuition is inborn experience ; that which the soul
knoweth of old and of former years.

And Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a
man perceiveth heavenly secrets.

Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, show-
ing unto him the things of God.

Do not think that I tell you anything you know not ;
all conieth from within : the Spirit that infonneth is the
Spirit of God in the prophet.

• •••••

Inspiration may indeed be mediun)ship, but it is con-
scious ; and the knowledge of the prophet instrueteth him.

Even though he speak in an ecstasy, he uttereth
nothin": that he knoweth not."

'o

Then followed this apostrophe to the Prophet : — ■

lo6 THE COMMUNICATION.

" TJlou who art a prophet hast had mauy lives : yea,
thou hast taught many nations, and hast stood before
king8.

And God hath instructed thee in the years that are past,
and in the former times of the earth.

By prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seek-
ing, hast thou attained that thou knowest.

There is no knowledge but by labour: there is no
intuition but by experience.

I have seen thee on the hills of the East : I have fol-
lowed thy steps in the wilderness : I have seen thee adore
at sunrise : I have marked thy night watches in the caves
of the mountains.

Thou hast attained with patience, 0 prophet! God
hath revealed the truth to thee from within."

Thus, for the first timekuown to history, was given
a definition of the nature and method of inspiration
and prophecy, at once luminous, reasonable, and
inexpugnable, to the full and final solution of this
stupendous problem; and comporting with and
explaining, as it did, all o\ir own experiences, we
felt that we could bear unreserved testimony to its
truth. But, vast as was the addition thus made to
the New Gospel of Interpretation, it did not
exhaust the treasures revealed and communicated
on that wondrous night ; for it was followed imme-
diately by a prophecy of the meaning of the new
dispensation on which the world is entering, and
of which our work is the introduction. At once
Biblical in diction and character, it reached in
loftiness the highest level of Biblical prophecy
and inspiration, demonstrating the same world
celestial and divine as the source of both. For
which reason, and the crushing blow administered
by it to the superstitions which have made of
Christianity a by-word and a rejjroach by their

THE COMMUNICATION. I07

gross materialisations of mysteries purely spiritual,
it is reproduced in full here. The heading is of our
own devising : —
A Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Soul, mysti-
cally called the Day of the Woman.

" And now I show you a mysteiy and a new thing, which
is part of the mysteiy of the fourth day of creation.

Tlie word wliich shall come to save the world, shall be
uttered by a woman.

A woman shall conceive, and shall bring forth the
tidings of salvation.

For the reign of Adam is at its last hour j and God shall
crown all things by the creation of Eve.

Hitherto the man hath been alone, and hath had
dominion over the earth.

But when the woman shall be created, God shall give
unto her the kingdom ; and she shall be first in rule and
highest in dignity.

Yea, the last shall be first, and the elder shall serve the
younger.

So that vv'onien shall no more lament for their woman-
hood; but men shall rather say, " 0 that we had been born
women !"

For the strong shall be put down from their seat, and
the meek shall be exalted to their place.

The days of the Covenant of Manifestation are passing
away: the Gospel of Interpretation cometh.

There shall nothing new be told; but that which is
ancient shall be interpi'eted.

So that man the manifestor shall resign his office : and
woman the interpreter shall give light to the world.

Hers is the fourth office: she revealeth that which the
Lord hath manifested.

Hers is the light of the heavens, and the brightest of
the planets of the holy seveu.

She is the fourth dimension; tlie eyes which enlighten;
the power which draweth inward to God.

Io8 THE COMMUNICATION.

And lier kingdom cometli; the! day of the exaltation
of woman.

And her reign shall be greater than the reign of the
man : for Adam shall be put down from his place ; and she
shall have dominion for ever.

And she who is alone shall bring forth more children
to God, than she who hath an husband.

There shall no more be a reproach against women : but
against men shall be the reproach.

For the woman is the crown of man, and the final mani-
festation of humanity.

She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall
be revealed.

But the creation of woman is not yet complete : but it
shall be complete in the time which is at hand.

All things are thine, 0 Mother of God : all things are
thine, O Thou who risest from the sea; and Tliou shalt
have dominion over all the worlds*''.

(')F.W. pp. 311-314. Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 344-345.

CHAPTEE IV.

THE ANTAGONISATION,

Even had we been disposed, which happily we were
not, to exalt ourselves on the strength of the
loftiness of our mission, the constant proofs
afforded us of the paucity of our knowledge in
comparison with what remained to be known,
would have effectually restrained us. But as it
was, we were from the first penetrated by the con-
viction that only in so far as we succeeded in
subordinating the individual to the universal, the
jaersonal to the divine, could the work be suc-
cessfully accomplished. The man must make
himself nothing that the God may be all. This
was the burden of the injunctions enforced on us
throughout; the failures of others through self-
exaltation being adduced in illustration. For, as
we were plainly given to understand, " many are
called but few are chosen " ; the weak point in
their system, the " Judas " by whom they are
betrayed and fail, being generally vanity. They
are as instruments which mistake themselves for
the mind and hand which wield them.

Humility and Love, the violet and the red,
these are the two extremes of the prism which com-
prise between them all the Seven Spirits of God.
Blended, they make the royal purple ; but the hue
of that purple depends on the spiritual stales of
the individuals themselves whose tinctures they
are. They were, we were told, the tinctures of our
own souls as indicated by the colours of our

Ho THE ANTAGONISATION.

respective auras. " Mary's " was the " blood-red
ray of the innermost sphere," the sphere of the
" iirst of the Gods," wherein " love and wisdom are
one." " For the Hebrews Uriel, for the Greeks
Phoibos, the Bright One of God." Mine was the
violet of the outermost sphere, that of the " last of
the Gods," the " Spirit of the Fear of the Lord,"
and therein of Reverence and Humility; for the
Greeks Saturn, and for the Hebrews Satan, the
" Angel unfallen of the outermost sphere." Only
when man is built up of all the Gods, and bears
upon him the seal of each God, having climbed
the ladder of his regeneration from circumference
to centre, from *' Saturn " to the " Sun," is the
" week " of his new and spiritual creation accom-
plished. Similarly the co-operation of all these
divine potencies was indispensable to our work.
And we were emphatically warned of the dangers
both to it and to ourselves, that would come of the
lack of the divine presence in respect of any of
them. Hence the necessity of maintaining the
necessary conditions in ourselves, and the caution
addressed to us by " Hermes," in view of the
liability of mortals to appropriate to themselves
the importance appertaining to their mission when
this transcends the ordinary. To this end, in the
following Exhortation, he disclosed to us the
heights yet to be ascended, saying —

He whose adversaries fight with weapons of steel, must
himself be armed in like manner, if he would not be igno-
miniously slain or save himself by flight.

And not only so, but forasmuch as his adversaries may
be many, while he is only one; it is even necessary that
the steel he carries be of purer temper and of more subtle
point and contrivance than theirs.

THE ANTAGONISATTON. I I I

I, Hermes, would arm you with such, that bearing a
blade with a double edge, ye may be able to withstand
in the evil hour.

For it is written that the tree of life is guarded by a
sword which tumeth every way.

Therefore I would have you armed both with a perfect
philosophy and with the power of the divine life.

And first the knowledge; that you and they who hear
you may know the reason of the faith which is in you.

But knowledge cannot prevail alone, and ye are not yet
perfected.

When the fulness of the time shall come, I will add
unto you the power of the divine life.

It is the life of contemplation, of fasting, of obedience,
and of resistance.

And afterwards the chrism, the power, and the glory.
But these are not yet.

Meanwhile remain together and perfect your philo-
sophy.

Boast not, and be not lifted up; for all things are
God's, and ye are in God, and God in you.

But when the word sliall come to you, be ready to obey.

There is but one way to power, and it is the way of
obedience.

Call no man your master or king upon the earth, lest
ye forsake the spirit for the form and become idolaters.

He who is indeed spiritual, and transformed into the
divine image, desires a spiritual king.

Pln-ify your bodies, and eat no dead thing that has
looked with living eyes upon the light of Heaven.

For the eye is the symbol of brotherhood among you.
Sight is the mystical sense.

Let no man take the life of his brother to feed withal
his own.

But slay only such as are evil ; in the name of the Lord.

Tliey are miserably deceived who expect eternal life,
and restrain not their hands from blood and death.

112 THE ANTAGONISATION.

They are miserably deceived who look for wives from on
high, and have not yet attained their manhood.

Despise not the gift of knowledge ; and make not
spiritual eunuchs of yourselves.

For Adam was first formed, tlien Eve.

Ye are twain, the man with the woman, and she with
him, neither man nor woman, but one creature.

And the kingdom of God is within you'''.

The knowledge of the " Seven Spirits " whereby
Deity operates in the universe, has been completely
dropped out of sight by the Christian world. It is
necessary, therefore, if only in vindication of the
importance attached to them by our illuminators,
to recite the instruction received by us concerning
them, which is as follows. It is a chapter from the
recovered Gnosis^^^ : —

" In the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods com-
prehended, as the seven spirits of the prism, contained in

the Invisible Light.

■X- * * * *

By the Word of Elohim were the Seven Elohim mani-

(")The occasion of the receipt by A.K. and E.M. of the above
was one of peculiar interest. It was given in reference to a
visit from the late Laurence Oliphant, an account of which
will be found in " The Life of A.K." It will suffice to say here
that, having heard of their work, Oliphant came to them
as an emissary from his chief in America, Thomas Lake Harris,
to summon them to place themselves and all that they were and
had, at his disposal as the king and Christ of the new dispensa-
tion. The above instruction was given to them in direct refer-
ence to this incident. It was followed by others fully exposing
the delusive source and nature of the doctrine and practice of
Laurence Oliphant and Thomas Lake Harris. The above
Exhortation of Hermes to his Neophytes is now given in full
in this book for the first time. It is taken from " The Life of
A.K." Vol. I. pp. 282-283. S.H.H.

(''See note p. To

THE ANTAGONISATION, II3

fest : even the Seven Spiz-^its of God in the oi'der of their
precedence :

The Spirit of Wisdom, the Spu-it of Undei-standing,
the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of
Knowledge, the Spirit of Righteousness, and the Spirit of
Divine Awfulness.

All these are coequal and coeternal. '

Each has the nature of the whole in itself : and each is a
perfect entity.

And the brightness of their manifestation shineth forth
from the midst of each, as wheel within wheel, encircling
the White Throne of the Invisible Trinity in Unity.

These are the Divine fires which bum before the
presence of God : which proceed from the Spirit, and are
one with the Spii'it.

He is divided, yet not diminished : He is All, and He is
One.

For the Spirit of God is a flame of fire which the Word
of God divideth into many : yet the original flame is not
decreased, nor the power thereof nor the brightness
thereof lessened.

Tliou mayest light many lamps from the flame of one;
yet thou dost in nothing diminish that first flame.

Now the Spirit of God is expressed by the Word of God,
which ia Adonai.

For without the Word the Will could have had no utter-
ance.

Tlius the Divine Will divided the Spirit of God, and the
seven fires went forth from the bosom of God and became
seven spiritual entities.

They went forth into the Divine Substance, which is the
substance of all that is."

As already stated, Hermes is the Greek name
for the Second of the creative Elohim above
enumerated. Hence his special relation to the New
Gospel of Interpretation, the appeal of which is to
the Understanding.

114 THE ANTAGONISATION.

Being shown one day in vision the path we had
to traverse for the accomplishment of our work,
" Mary " exclaimed : —

" What a dreadfully difficult thing it is to steer one's
way amidst such numbers of influences ! I see a fine,
bright^shining thread. It is our own path, and it is a
pathway of light. But, oh 1 so narrow, so narrow, and all
around are spirits trying to lure us from it. Here is
Hennes, shining like a silver light. My Genius says that
the way to get the utmost vitality on the spiritual plane
is to abandon the plane of the body, and keep it quite low,
by not indulging it. The time for bodily indulgence is
passed with us. Abstinence, we have been told, and
watchfulness and fasting are needful. And the time for
the first of these has come. Nothing is gained without
labour or won without suffering. Fasting and Watching
and Abstinence, these are Beads and Rosary. It is a hard
way and a long way, and it makes one wishful to turn
back. We are not to be misled by the story, so much
dwelt on to you by the Astrals, of Moses and Aaron'"'.
They both were failures, who entered not into the land of
Canaan. We must be patient and trust. We have to be
cultivated on both planes, the intellectual and the
spiritual, and not on the physical, for this draws from and
saps the others."

So far as I was concerned, there was yet another
rule that was made absolute : this was the rule of
Poverty. Desiring at one time to mitigate the
rigour of my enforced economies by working with
a commercial intent, and to that end endeavouring
to finish a tale some time before commenced, I
found myself baffled by a complete withdrawal of
power. I was well aware that no romance I could

'''The above reference is toan experience of mine which does not
call for relation here. E.M.

THE ANTAGONISATION. II5

devise would compare with the romance I was
living, and that any incidents I could invent
would be tame before those of my actual life ; but
it was not this that withheld me. It was made
clear to me that there was now only one direction
and one plane in which I was accessible to ideas
and in which therefore I could work, and this a
direction and plane altogether incomj^atible with
mundane ends. But I had not fully reconciled
myself to the loss of my earning power, or resolved
to refrain from further efforts in that behalf, when
I received the following experience.

I had gone to bed, but not to sleep, for thinking
over the matter, when I became aware of the
presence of a group of spiritual influences, one of
whom, speaking for them all, said to me, in tones
audible only to the inner hearing, but distinct,
measured and authoritative —

" We whom you know as the Gods — Zeus, Phoibos,
Hermes, and the rest— are actual celestial personalities,
who are appointed to represent to mortals tl»e principles
and potencies called the Seven Spirits of God. We have
chosen you for our instrument, and have tried you and
proved you and instructed you ; and you belong to us to
do our work and not your own, save in so far as you make
it your own. Only in such measure as you do this will you
have any success. For you can do nothing -without us
now : and it is useless for you to attempt to do anything
without our help."

By this and manifold other experiences, we had
practical demonstration of the existence of a celes-
tial hierarchy consisting of souls perfected and
divinised, divided into orders corresponding to the
" Seven Spirits of God," and having for their
function the illumination of those souls of men

Il6 THE ANTAGONISATION.

still on earth who are accessible by them; and to
whom they manifest themselves in the forms recog-
nised in the mysteries in which such persons have
formerly been initiated.

We had also, manifold proofs of their power to
arrest utterance before persons unfit to be
entrusted with the mysteries. The first instance
occurred to myself, and was in this wise. I was
reading some passages in illustration of our work
to an old clerical friend who came to see me in
Paris, when I inadvertently turned to a part of the
book which we had been charged to keep secret.
But before I had read a line, the air round me
became so dense with invisible presences that I
was unable to see, and my heart was clutched, as
if by an invisible hand, and lifted up towards my
throat with such force as almost to choke me ;
while, at the same instant, an overwhelming sense
of my fault was impressed on my mind, causing
me for some hours to feel as one utterly God-
forsaken and cast off.

Not thinking that " Mary " was liable to err in
the same way, or caring to tell her of my trespass,
I kept silence respecting this experience. But a
few weeks later it was repeated for her. She was
speaking of our work to a spiritualist friend with
whom we were spending the evening, and, in her
eagerness, got upon topics which I recognised as
forbidden. But before I had time to remind her,
she suddenly stopped short and rose from her seat,
gasping and dazed, and insisted on returning home
forthwith, to our hostess's great amazement and
disappointment. Divining what had occurred, I
refrained from questioning her until we were out-
side and alone, when in reply to me she described

THE ANTAGONISATION. I17

exactly what had happened to me, using the words,
" I did not want to be choked !" There were other
occasions on which I was cut short under like cir-
cumstances, by having all that I meant to say
suddenly and completely obliterated from my
mind.

Being desirous to know more of the adverse
influences against which we had been warned, and
from which we suli'ered, " Mary " consulted her
illuminator respecting their origin and nature,
when the following colloquy ensued : —

" They are," he said, " the powers which affect and
influence Sensitives. They do not control, for they have
no force. . . . They are Eeflects. They have no real
entity in themselves. They resemble mists which arise
from the damp earth of low-lying lands, and Avhich the
heat of the sun dispei-ses. Again, they are like vapours in
high altitudes, upon which, if a man's shadow falls, he
beholds himself as a giant. For these spirits invariably
flatter and magnify a man to himself. And this is a sign
w'hereby you may know them. They tell one that he is
a king ; another, that he is a Christ ; another, that he is the
Avisest of mortals, and the like. For, being bom of the
fluids of the body, they are unspiritual and live of the
body."

" Do they, then," I asked, '" come from within the manf

" All things," he replied " come from within. A man's
foes are they of his own houscliold."

" And how," I asked, " may we discern the Astrals from
the higher spirits?"

" I have told you of one sign ; — they are flattering
spirits. Now I will tell you of another. They always
depreciate Woman. Knd they do this because their dead-
liest foe is the Intuition. And these, too, are signs. Is
there anything strong 1 they \d\\ make it weak. Is there
anj'ihing wdse? they will make it foolish. Is there any-

Il8 THE ANTAGONISATION.

thing sublime? they will distort and travesty it. And
this they do because they are exhalations of matter, and
ha,ve no spiritual nature. Hence they pursue and perse-
cute the Woman continually, sending alter her a flood of
vitujDeration like a torrent to sweep her away. But it
shall be in vain. For God shall carry her to His tlu'one,
and she shall tread on the necks of them.

'' Therefore the High Gods will give through a woman
the Interpretation which alone can save the world. A
woman shall open the gates of the Kingdom to mankind,
because Intuition only can redeem. Between the Woman
and the Astrals there is always enmity ; for they seek to
destroy her and her office, and to put themselves in her
place. They are the delusive shapes who tempted the
saints of old with exceeding beauty and wiles of love, and
great show of affection and flattery. Oh ! beware of them
when they flatter, for they spread a net for thy soul."

"Am I, then, in danger from them?" I asked. "Am
I, too, a Sensitive?" And he said, —

" No, you are a Poet. And in that is your strength and
your salvation. Poets are the children of the Sun, and the
Sun illumines them. No poet can be vain or self-exalted ;
for he knows that he speaks only the words of God. ' I
sing,' he says, ' because I must.' Learn a truth which is
known only to the sons of God. The Spirit within you is
divine. It is God. When you prophesy and when you
sing, it is the Spirit within you which gives you utterance.
It is the ' New Wine of Dionysos.' By this Spirit your
body is enlightened, as is a lamp by the flame within it.
Now, the flame is not the oil, for the oil may be there
without the light. Yet the flame cannot be there without
the oil. Your body, then, is the lamp-case into which the
oil is poured. And this — the oil — is your soul, a fine and
combustible fluid. And the flame is the Divine Spii'it,
which is not born of the oil, but is conveyed to it by the
hand of God. You may quench this Spirit utterly, and
thenceforward you will have no immortality; but when
the lamji-case breaks, the oil will be spilt on the earth, and

THE ANTAGONISATION. 1 IQ

a few fumes will for a time arise from it, and then it will
expend itself and leave at last no trace. Some oils are
finer and more spontaneous than others. The finest is that
of the soul of the poet. And in such a medium the flame
of God's Spirit bums more clearly and powerfully and
brightly, so that sometimes mortal eyes can hardly endure
its brightness. Of such an one the soul is filled with holy
raptures. He sees as no other man sees, and the atmo-
sphex-e about him is enkindled. His soul becomes trans-
muted into flame; and when the lamp of his body is
shattered, his flame mounts and soars, and is united to
the Divine Fire. Can such an one, think you, be vain-
glorious or self-exalted, and lifted up 1 Oh no ; he is one
with God, and knows t-liat without God he is nothing. I
tell no man that he is a reincarnation of Moses, of Elias, or
of Christ. But I tell him that he may have the Spirit of
these if, like them, he be humble and self-abased, and
obedient to the Divine Word."

So far from our being sufficiently advanced to
escape molestation from the sources thus indicated,
there were times when we suii'ered much from their
incursions, even to the hindrance, for the time
being, of the work on which our whole hearts were
set. Knowing that everything depended on our
unanimity, they sought to make division between
us, and what they lacked in force was more than
made up for by subtlety^^^). Despite all our vigi-
lance, they would insinuate themselves like barbed
and poisoned arrows between the joints of our
armour, there to rankle and envenom, so insidious
were their suggestions. They did not flatter, but

("')Says E.M. in "The Life of A.K."— "The subtlety with
which my most sensitive places were searched out, and the mer-
cilessness with which they were probed by the influences which
had now obtained access to us, seemed to me to belong alto-
gether to the infernal." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 318.) S.H.H.

I20 THE ANTAGONISATION.

attacked us. So that it was a satisfaction to be
assured that they attack those only who are worth
attacking. The very nature of our work was such
as to invite attack from them, being what they
were.

Meanwhile, no experience was withheld that
would serve to qualify us for what proved to be an
essential part of our work, the " discerning of
spirits " in the sense, not merely of perceiving
them, but of distinguishing their nature and
character. And ahvays was the lesson given in a
form which combined with its other features that
of total unexpectedness. Especially important was
it for us to be able to distinguish between the
sjDirits of the astral, against which we were warned,
and spirits in the astral, namely, souls which had
not yet accomplished their emancipation, but were
in course of doing so. But while as regarded the
former we were left to fight the battle for our-
selves, as regarded the latter there was a control
exercised, and none were permitted to approach ua
save such as had a message of service which would
minister to the solution of a present problem. Of
this the following experience was an instance. It
helped us to a yet fuller comprehension, both of
the reasons which had dictated our association,
and of the liabilities to be guarded against.

It was evening^i\, and Ave were occupied in our
resjiective tasks, and so entirely engrossed by them
as to be disposed to resent any interruption, Avhen
" Mary " bent across the table, and speaking in a
low tone, said to me, " There is a spirit in the room
who wants to speak to us. Shall I let him ?" I

(•)The date was 27th March, 1880. S.H.H.

THE ANTAGONISATION. 121

assented on the condition that he had something
to tell us really worth hearing. She then became
entranced, being magnetised by his presence; and
after telling me that he spoke with a strong
American accent and professed to be a " meta-
physical doctor " — meaning, she supposed, a doctor
in metaphysics — repeated the following after him ;
for I could neither see nor hear him : —

" You two have been put together for a work which you
could not do separately. I have been shown a chart of
your past histories, containing your characters and your
past incarnations. She is of a higlily active, wilful dis-
position, and represents the centrifugal force. You, Caro,
are her opposite, and, being contemplative a.nd concen-
trated, represent the centripet^al force. Without her
expansive energy you would become altogether indrawn
and inactive in deed; and without your restraining
influence she would go forth and become dissipated in
expansiveness. So extraordinary is her outward tendency
that nothing but such an organism as she now has could
repress it and keep it within bounds. It is for the wox'k
she has to do that she has been placed in a body of weak-
ness and suffering. She is the man- and you the woman-
element in your joint system. I can see only her female
incarnations, but ghe has been a man much oftener than a
woman ; while you have generally been a vroman, and
would be one now but for the work you have to do. Even
as a woman she has always been much more man than
woman, for her wilfulness and recklessness have led her
into enterprises of incredible daring. Nothing restrained
her when her will prompted her. She would wreck any
work to follow that, and only by combination with your
centripetal tendency can she do the present work. As a
man she has been initiated, once, a long time ago, in
Thebes, afterM'ards in India. The things she has done in
her past lives ! Well, / do not say they were wrong, for I

122 THE ANTAGONISATION.

do not hold the existence of moral evil. All things are
allowed for good ends; but this is a difficult truth to
express."

Here she spoke in her own person, having under
his magnetism recovered her own vision and recol-
lection, saying —

" 0 Caro ! I can see your past. You have been — no,
it is all wiped out. I cannot see it now. I am not allowed
to see it. \¥liy is this? I see my own past. I see India : —
a magnificent glittering white marble temple, and
elephants. How tame they are ! They are all out, and
feeding in a field or enclosure. And there are such a
number of splendid red flowers, they are cactuses, and all
prickly. The trees have all their foliage on the top, and
such long stems. They are palms. The soil is of a white
dust. And the sky is so clear and blue ! but the heat is
terrible. I see you again. Your coloiir is blue, inclining
to indigo, owing to your want of expansiveness. But I
cannot see your past, except that you are mostly a woman.
And now I am by the Nile, — such a fine broad river 1"

Here she returned to her normal consciousness,
our visitor having taken his departure.

Subsequently, in March, 1881, under the
influence of a higher illuminative power, she found
herself as one of a group of initiates making
solemn procession through the aisles of a vast
Egyptian temple, and chanting in chorus the
rituals which compose the marvellous " Hymn to
the Planet-God, lacchos "(2). For, long as it is, she

'-'The Hymn to the Planet-God has been referred to on
p. 79. It is given in full in the P.W. pp. 3il-349 : a portion of it
concerning the passage of the Soul, and concerning the Mystic
Exodus, are given on pp. 169-17,1 post. The method of the
recovery by A.K. of this most important Hynm "was such as
to constitute it a proof positive of the great doctrine set forth
in it, the doctrine of Reincarnation ; for it was as one of a

THE ANTAGONISATION. I 23

was able to reproduce it afterwards. It was thus,
by her recovery of the memory of knowledges
acquired in past existences, that the divine
originals were recovered from which the Bible-
writers largely derived at once their doctrine and
their diction. This is not to say that these were
mere borrowers and unilluminate. It is to say only
that they recognised the divinity of a prior revela-
tion, and regarded it as a common heritage. The
truth is one.

Among the uses of the painful experience we
were now undergoing^^^ was this one. It put me
on a track of thought of high value in enabling
me to determine our respective positions in regard
to our Avork. It was clearly the endeavour of the
astral influences by which we were being assailed
— the '' haters of the mysteries " as our Genii called
them^*) — to break down our work by destroying
that perfect harmony between us which was the
first condition of it. And all my endeavours failing
to discover in myself the weak point which
rendered us accessible to them, carefully as I
sought there for it, I was forced to look for it in
her, and was disposed to ascribe it to the survival
from the far past of some defect of the affectional
nature. For, as we were now learning, man has
a dual heredity, that of his physical parentage
and that of his spiritual selfhood. From the former

band of initiates, making solemn procession through the aisles
of a vast Egyptian temple, chanting it in chorus, that ' Mary,'
being asleep, recollected it." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 456.) S.H.H.

(''That is, the " strained conditions " under which their asso-
ciation was then maintained and their work carried on. (Life
A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.

(■■'See p. 130 .

124 I^E ANTAGONISATJON.

of which he derives his outward characteristics;
aud from the latter his inward character. The
experience just recited served to confirm the sur-
mise, but it did something else besides. It
suggested to me the following explanation of the
situation as growing out of the exigencies oi our
work. That work had for its purpose the accom-
plishment of the prophesied downfall of the
" world's sacrificial system." It meant war to the
knife against all the orthodoxies at once, religious,
social, scientific. It meant a death-" wrestle, not
against flesh and blood, but against princi-
palities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked-
ness in high places." It meant, in short, the
destruction foretold by the prophets of " that great
city," the world's materialistic system in Church,
State, and Society, wherein the " Lord," the
divinity in man, is ever systematically crucified,
and its replacement by the " Holy City " or system
which comes down from the heaven of a perfect
ideal.

What, then, I asked myself, was the foremost
moral need for the instruments of such a work?
Surely it was Courage. But courage subsists under
two modes. There is the courage which manifests
itself in action and aggression, and there is the
courage vrhicli manifests itself in endurance and
resistance. The former is its masculine mode, the
latter its feminine mode. The former connotes
Will, tlie latter connotes Love. And these were
the parts assigned respectively to us in our joint
system. Will and Love united had made the
world; disunited, they had ruined the world;
reunited, they would redeem the world. As He and

THE ANTAGONISATIOiSr. 1 25

She, King and Queen, positive and negative, cen-
trifugal and centripetal, they are the dual powers
of all things, the constituent principles at once of
God and of Man. The whole Universe is Humanity,
for it is the manifestation of God, and they are
the divine man and woman of all being; in their
conjunction omnipotent for good, in their dis-
junction omnipotent for evil. And whereas it is the
function of Will to inflict, it is the function of
Love to bear. It is not, then, to the lack of these
qualities that our troubles are due, but to the
defect of them, the defect of our respective
qualities.

The tension of feeling induced by the situation
had for me reached a pitch at which I had cause
for serious apprehension lest my organism prove
unequal to the strain. For, resolute though I
myself was to endure to the end, come what might,
the effort involved had so greatly affected my
organic system as nearly to double the number of
the heart's pulsations, to the imminent risk of a
rupture fatal to life or reason. Such was the
emergency when, longing for light and aid, I
received at night^^^ the following experience, which
I reproduce as recorded at the time: —

It seemed to me that I was sole spectator in some
circus or hippodrome. And in the arena were some horses,'
seven in number, harnessed to a common centre, but all
facing in different directions like the spokes of a wheel,
and pulling frantically, so that the vehicle to which they
were attached remained stationary between them, through
their counterbalancing each other ; while at the same time

*='0n the night of the 23rd June, 1880. This vision was
received by E.M. as he pondered and while he was awake. (Life
A.K. Vol. I. pp. 376-377.) S.H.H,

126 THE ANTAGONISATION.

it seemed as if it must presently be dragged asunder into
pieces. On looking at it more closely, the vehicle seemed
to become a person who was attempting to drive the
horses, but was unable to get them into a line ; and,
strange to say, the driver was one and identical both with
the horses and the vehicle, so that it was a living person
who was in danger of being torn asunder by creatures who
were in reality himself. While wondering what this
meant, some one addressed me and said that if I would do
any good, I must help to control and direct the animals
which were thus pulling their owner asunder. And that the
only way to do this was by so disposing myself that I
should be at one and the same time in the centre with the
driver, to help him to curb and direct his steeds, and out-
side at their heads in order to compel their submission.
And not only must I be indifferent to their ramping and
chafing, I must even suffer myself to be struck and
woimded and trampled upon to any extent without
flinching; for only when I was so unconscious of self as to
be indifferent as to what might happen to me, would they
cease to have power against me. And the reason why I
must be also in the centre was that only there could I
effectually co-operate with the driver to enable him to do
his part in directing what in reality were the forces, as yet
unbroken in, of his own system, into the road it was neces-
sary for us both to follow. We were destined to be fellow-
travellers, and our journey was to be made together and
with that team. It could not be made by one of us without
the other, and the failure to effect a complete conjunction
and co-operation would bring certain ruin to the hopes of
both of us and of all who looked to us. The owner of the
horses, I was assured, could not of himself control them,
and I could only enable him to do so by an absolute sur-
render of myself.

Applying this vision to the situation, the moral
was obvious so far as I was concerned, and I
wondered whether " Mary " would receive any-

THE ANTAGONISATION. 1 27

thing equally suggestive for herself. In the
morning, after remaining unusually late in her
room, she silently handed me the following account
of an experience which had similarly and simul-
taneously been received by her : —

" I was shown two stars near each other, both of them
shining with a clear bright light, only that of one the light
had a purple tinge, and of the other a blood colour; and a
great Angel stood beside me and bade me look at them
attentively. I did so, and saw that the stars were not
round, but seemed to have a piece cut out of the globe of
each of them. And I said to the Angel, ' The stars are not
perfect ; but instead of being round, they are uneven.' He
told me to look again; and I did so, and saw that each
globe was really perfect, but that in each a small
portion remained dark so as to present the appearance of
having a piece out ; and I noticed that these dark portions
of the two stars were turned towards each other. Upon
this I looked to the Angel for the explanation.

And the Angel said to me, ' These stars derive their
light not only from the sun but from each other. If there
be darkness in one of them, the corresponding face of the
other will likewise be darkened; and how shall either
reflect perfectly the image of the sun if it be dark to its
companion star? For how shall it respond to that which
is above all, if it respond not to that which is nearest?'

And I said, ' Lord, if the darkness in one of these stars
be caused by the darkness in its fellow, which of them was
first darkened?'

Then he answered me and said, 'These stars are of
different tinctures ; one is of the sapphire, the other of the
sardonyx. Of the first the atmosphere is cool and equable ;
of the other it is burning and irregular. The spirit of the
first is as God towards man ; the spirit of the second is as
the soul towards Gk)d. The first loves ; the second aspires.
And the office of the spirit which loves is outwards ; while
the office of the spirit which aspires is upwards. The light

128 THE ANTAGONISATION.

of the first, which is blue, enfolds, and contains, and
embraces, and sustains. The light of the second, which is
red, is as a flame which scorches, and bums, and troubles,
and seeks God only, and his duty is not to the outward,
for it is not given to him to love. God, whom he seeks,
is love; and therefore is he drawn upward to God only.
But the spirit of his fellow descends. She indraws, and
blesses, and confers ; and hers is the oflice which redeems.
Wherefore if she fail in her love, her failui-e is greater
than his who hath no love; and to be perfect she must
forgive until the seventy times seven, and be great in
hmnility. For the violet, which is the colour of humility,
is of the blue. And if she seek her own, or yield not in
outward things, her nature is not perfected, and her light
is darkened. Let Love, therefore, think not of herself, for
she hath no self, but all that she hath is towards others,
and only in giving and forgiving is she rich. If, on the
contrary, she make a self withinwards, her light is with-
di'uwn and troubled, and she is not perfect, and if she
demand of another that which he hatli not, then she
seeketh her own, and her light is darkened. And if she
be darkened towards him, he also will darken towards her,
in respect, that is, of enlightenment. And thus her failure
of love will break the communion with the Divine, which
is through him. He cannot darken outwardly first; for
love is not of him. If he darken of himself, it must be
within towards God. But that which he receives of God,
he gives not forth himself. But he bums centrally and
enlightens his fellow, and she gives it forth according to
her office. And if she darken in any way outwardly, she
cannot receive enlightenment, but darkens the burning
star likewise, and so hinders their inter-communion.'

Having thus spoken, the Angel looked upon me and
said, * Ye are the two stars, and to one is given the office
of the Prophet, and to the other the office of the Redeemer.
But to be Prophet and Redeemer in one, this is the glory
of the Christ.' "

THE ANTAGONISATION. 1 29

Here again was an intimation that on one plane
at least of our respective systems she was of mas-
culine and I of feminine potency, with functions
to correspond. That these functions were capable
of being described in the terms employed was, we
felt, no reason for arrogating high places to our-
selves. Rather did we consider that everything is
according to its degree ; and that, as for persons,
if the Gods were to wait until they found perfect
instruments, or at least perfect persons for their
instruments, they would never begin. And this
also, that if the world were in a condition to pro-
duce such persons, it would have no need of
redemption. Had not even Jesus Himself been
" crucified through weakness " ?

In view of the intensity of the distress under-
gone in this connection, I found myself recalling
the remark of Plato, " Many begin the mysteries,
but few complete them." My only wonder was
that any should survive the ordeals, if they
approached ours in severity. Meanwhile it was
said to us by way of encouragement, " Be sure
there is trouble in store. No man ever got to the
Promised Land without first going through the
wilderness."

The instruction to " Mary " had not only justi-
fied my surmise, it also met and corrected her in
respect of the chief cause of our trouble. This was
her disposition, at astral instigation, to withhold
from me the products of her illuminations, and
even to refrain from writing them down(^\ on the
specious pretext that they were meant for her own

<°)Some of A.K.'s illuminations have thus been lost to the
world. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 374.) S.H.H.

130 THE ANTAGONISATION.

exclusive benefit, and were too sacred to be given to
the world, or even to me ; and she had failed to dis-
cern the source and motive of these suggestions.
So effectually had what were really spirits of dark-
ness disguised themselves as angels of light.

The importance attached to the occult signifi-
cance of our " tinctures " received illustration in
this wise. Permission had been given us to make
an exception to the rule of secrecy imposed with
regard to certain of the Scriptures received by us,
in favour of a friend^^^ who took so warm an interest
in our work as to be eager to render it material aid
in the future should occasion arise. It was her
mission, she declared, to do so. But when the day
appointed for the reading came, " Mary " was so
ill that her going seemed to be impossible, and
the question accordingly arose as to whether I
might go alone and read them without her. We
had no sooner begun to consider the point than she
became entranced, and was shown a large open
volume, the book of the Greater Mysteries to which
our Scriptures belonged, surrounded by an Iris
composed of all the colours of the rainbow. She
was then shown the following lines, which I wrote
down as she repeated them : - -

" The one in Red guards his privileges, and claims to be
present whatever is read.

For the air is filled with the haters of the Mysteries.
Therefore for your sake the chain must be complete ;
And the Light must be refracted round you seven times.
He who is Red stands within the holy circle.
And the Violet guards the outermost.

<')Lady Caithness. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 329.) See pp. 1.^7
and 185 post. S.H.H.

THE ANTAG0NI8ATI0N. 131

For the Word is a Word of Mystery, and they who guard
it are Seven.

Beware that nothing you hear be told unless the circle
be perfect.

And this charge we lay upon you until the work be
accomplished.

Fire and sword and war are against you ; you walk in
the midst of commotion.

And your life is in peril eveiy hour until the words be
completed."

Up to the latest moment of the interval before
the appointment it seemed impossible for her to go.
She then suddenly recovered as by miracle, and
was able to attend the reading.

The liabilities of our position subsequently(^)
received this further illustration. " Mary " was
introduced in sleep, by her Genius, into an apart-
ment in the spiritual world which purported to be
the laboratory of William Lilly, the famous
astrologer who had foretold the great plague and
fire of London in 1666, in order to have her
horoscope told by him, he still pursuing his
favourite studies. On quitting him she caught
sight of a pile of books, one of which contained the
Gnosis we were in course of recovering. The fol-
lowing colloquy then ensued: —

"You also have these Scriptures !" she exclaimed.

" Yes," said he, " but I keep them for myself
alone."

" And why so," she asked, " since, if you have
them, they are for the learning of others likewise?
Will you not rather communicate these saving
truths to thirsty souls?"

oOn the 13th-Ht.h January, 1881. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 435.)
S.H.H.

132 THE ANTAGONISATION.

" I will communicate them," said he, fixing his
eyes on her intently, " when I can find Seven Men
who for forty days have tasted no flesh, whose
hands have shed no blood, and whose tongues have
tasted of none."

" But if you find not Seven ?"

" Then, mayhap, I shall find Five."

"And if not Five?"

" Then, maybe, I shall meet with Three."

" But even this may be hard to find, and if you
should not meet with Three, what then will you
do?"

" One Neophyte would not be able to protect
himself."

In communicating to her the results of his cal-
culations, he had said that owing to the propen-
sities indulged in certain of her former lives, she
had made for herself a destiny which ensured
suffering and failure, except when living in a
similar manner; doing which she would have a
life of unbounded success. " But," he continued,
" your horoscope has nothing for you but mis-
fortune so long as you persist in a virtuous course
of life, and, indeed, it is now too late to adopt
another. I speak herein acording to your Fortune,
not in regard to your Inner life. With that I have
no concern. I tell you what is forecast for you on
the material and actual planisphere of your
Nativity. ... I see nothing but misfortune before
you. Yea, if you persist in virtue, it is not unlikely
that you may be stript of all your worldly goods,
and of all you possess, and this evil fortune will
follow your nearest associates."

To her enquiry, " Can I never overcome this
evil prognostic ?" he replied that she could do so

THE A^TAGONISATION. l;^;^

only by outliving tlie time appointed for her
natural life in the career indicated, and added this
advice, "Steel yourself; learn to suffer; become
a Stoic ; care not. If Misfortune be yours, make it
your Fortune. Let Poverty become to you liiches.
Let Loss be Gain. Let Sickness be Health. Let
Pain be Pleasure. Let Evil lieport be Good Eeport.
Yea, let Death be Life. Fortune is in the Imagina-
tion, If you believe you have all things, they are
truly yours." He concluded with an explanation
reconciling destiny with free will, and vindicating
the divine justice, in a manner which removed all
our difficulties on those points, and, as we later
came to learn, was entirely in accordance with
the Hindu doctrine of " Karma," of which at this
time we had never lieard^^^

There was no exaggeration in the terms of the
warning of danger. We were constantly made
aware of the presence of the malignant entities
above described focusing their influences on us to
prevent the accomplishment of our work, and
requiring the utmost vigilance on our part, as well
also as on the part of our illuminators, to thwart
their purpose. And we had good reason to believe
that our difficulties and dangers were enhanced
through " Mary's " attendances at the schools and
hospitals, owing to the evil nature of the influences
there dominant under a regimen grossly material-
istic, and her liability to be fastened upon and
accompanied home by them. The outer Avails of
her spiritual system— it was explained to us — •
were not yet completed, owing to the vastness of

'"'A full account of this interview with William Lily is given
in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 435-44L

134 THE ANTAGONISATION.

the circuit of her selfhood ; and hence her accessi-
bility to the incursion of noxious influences from
without. The treatment of the patients by men
trained in the physiological laboratory, and bent
upon turning the hospital ward also into a labora-
tory with the patients themselves for the victims of
cruel and wanton experimentation, would send her
h'ome boiling with indignation and wrath, to the
destruction of the serenity and self-control
requisite for our spiritual work.

It was clear to us that no experience was to be
wanting to exhibit the contrast between the world's
actual and the world's possible. The overthrow of
" the world's sacrificial system " meant salvation
for man and beast. The condition of all really
redemptive work is a " descent into hell." The
following instruction to us is a typical one : —

" Teach the doctrine of the Universal Seul and the
Immortality of all creatures. Knowledge of this is what
the world most needs, and this is the keynote of your joint
mission. On this you must build; it is the key-stone (A
the arch. Tlie jDerfect life is not attainable for man alone.
The whole world must be redeemed under the new gospel
you are to teach."

The following " Counsel of Perfection " which
was received(i^> by " Mary," is an exquisite expres-
sion of the same theme : —

I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in
it seven persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and
each of them had before him a scroll, some having books
also ; and all were gi-eyheaded and bent with age save one,

(")0n the 9th April, 1877, in London. (Life A.K. Vol. I.
p. 172.) S.H.H.

THE A.NTAG0NISAT10N . 1 35

and this was a youth of about twenty, without hair on his
face. One of the aged men, who had his finger on a place
in a book open before hun, said :

'" Tliis spu'it, who is of our order, writes in this book, —
* Be ye perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is
perfect.' How shall w^e understand this word ' perfec-
tion ' 1" And another of the old men, looking up,
answered, " It must mean Wisdom, for wisdom is the sum
of perfection." And another old man said, " That cannot
be ; for no creature can be wise as God is wise. Where is
he among us who could attain to such a state 1 That which
is part only, camiot comprehend the whole. To bid a
creature to be wise as God is wise would be mockery."

Then a fourth old man said : — " It must be Truth that
is intended ; for truth only is perfection." But he who sat
next the last speaker answered, " Truth also is partial ;
for where is he among us who shall be able to see as God
sees?"

And the sixth said, " It must surely be Justice ; for this
is the whole of righteousness." And the old man who had
spoken first, answered him: — "Not so; for justice com-
prehends vengeance, and it is written that vengeance is
the Lord's alone."

Tlien the young man stood up with an open book in his
hand and said : — " I have here another record of one who
likewise heard tliese words. Let us see whether his
rendering of them can help us to the knowledge we seek."
And he found a place in the book and read aloud : —

" Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful."

And all of them closed their books and fixed their eyes
upon me.

That it was possible at all for her to study
medicine in a school in which vivisection was an all
prevailing practice, was only because she set her
face resolutely against it, by refusing to attend
any place or occasion where or on which it took
place, and relying for her own education chiefly on

136 THE ANTAGONISATION.

private tuition. It was an essential part of her
plan to prove that such experimentation was not
necessary for a degree. And this she effectually
demonstrated by accomplishing her student-course
with rare expedition and distinction, despite her
many and severe illnesses and her frequent change
of professors. For one after another resigned the
office on account of her refusal to allow them to
experiment on live animals at her lessons. Not
until she had secured her diploma did she enter a
physiological laboratory. And then only in order
to qualify herself by personal experience to
denounce the practice. For herself it was not
necessary, she declared, to see a murder or a rob-
bery committed to know that it is a crime.

The following incident shows how adverse the
conditions of modern life were to our spiritual
work : —

Being in London one Christmas evening^^^ and
speaking to me under illumination, " Mary " sud-
denly broke off and said —

" Do not ask me such deep questions just now,
for I cannot see clearly, and it hurts me to look.
The atmosphere is thick with the blood shed for the
season's festivities. The Astral Belt is everywhere
dense with blood. My Genius says that if we were
in some country where the conditions of life are
purer, we could live in constant communication with
the spiritual world. For the earth here whirls round
as in a cloud of blood like red fire. He says dis-
tinctly and emphatically that the salvation of the
world is impossible while people nourish them-
selves on blood. The whole globe is like one vast

(')Christmas Day, 1880. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 430.)

THE ANTAGONlSATlOiS. 1 37

charnel-house. The magnetism is intercepted. The
blood strengthens the bonds between the Astrals
and the Earth. . . . This time, which ought to be
the best for spiritual communion, is the worst, on
account of the horrid mode of living. Pray wake
me up : I cannot bear looking ; for I see the blood
and hear the cries of the poor slaughtered
creatures." Here her distress was so extreme that
she wept bitterly, and some days passed before she
fully recovered her composure.

Our first acquaintance with any literature
kindred to our special work took place toward the
close of our sojourn in Paris^^), Jt ^as due to the
arrival of the friend in whose favour the exception
had been made in respect of the reading of our
Mysteries, and who was the possessor of an excel-
lent library, which she placed at our disposal, of
precisely the books it had now become necessary
for lis to read. This was Marie, Countess of Caith-
ness and Duchesse de Pomar, who had for many
years been a spiritualist of zeal so ardent that — as
I now came to learn — she had been wont to make
my conversion to that faith a matter of special
prayer, long before I had been able to contem-
plate such an event as within the range of
probability. Of wide culture, open mind, and
large sympathies, she had an enthusiastic and
intelligent appreciation of our work, and her
arrival on the scene proved so timely as to point
to superior direction. We were now able to begin
to make acquaintance with many of the seers,
mystics, and occultists of past ages, from the

'^'The time referred to was September, 1878. (Life A.K.
Vol. I. pp. 285-385.)

138 THE ANTAGONISATION.

Neoplatonists, Hermetists, Rosicrucians, and other
orders of initiates, to Boehme, Swedenborg and
" Eliphas Levi," and to see what the various
spiritualistic schools of the present day had to say
for themselves.

The following recognition of Hermes by one of
the greatest of the Neoplatonists, Proclus, who
lived in the fifth century of our era, was especially
gratifying to us as proving the continuity of our
experiences with those of past ages. Proclus, it
must be remembered, was so eminent for his
wisdom and powers as to be regarded by his con-
temporaries with a veneration approaching to
adoration. Says Proclus, " Hermes, as the mes-
senger of God, reveals to us His paternal Will,
and — developing in us the Intuition — imparts to
us knowledge. The knowledge which descends into
the soul from above, excels any that can be
attained by the mere exercise of the intellect.
Intuition is the operation of the soul. The know-
ledge received through it from above, descending
into the soul, fills it with the perception of the
interior causes of things. The Gods announce it by
their presence, and by illumination, and enable
us to discern the universal order." Here was
exactly the doctrine received by us, and the
manner of it, only that the Intuition was further
disclosed to us as due to interior recollection, as
declared by Plato, as well as to perception.

The results of the investigations thus begun,
and afterwards continued in the library of the
British Museum, proved satisfactory and gratify-
ing beyond all that we could have anticipated. For
while it was made clear to us that there had never
been a time when there were not some in the world

THE ANTAGONISATION. 1 39

who had the witness to the truth in themselves,
and this one and the same truth, it was also made
clear that whereas others had received it in limita-
tion, and beheld it as " through a glass darkly,''
we were receiving it in plenitude and " face to
face," to the realisation of the high anticipations
of the sages, saints, seers, prophets, redeemers, and
Christs of all time; and this, too, at the period,
in the manner, and under the conditions declared
by them as to mark and make the " time of the
end."

For in the illuminations vouchsafed to us the
key had been restored which unlocked the meaning
of the symbols in which the doctrines of all the
churches, pre-Christian as well as Christian, had
been at once concealed and revealed, to the elucida-
tion of all the problems which have so sorely
perplexed the world, and the verification, by actual
experience, of the truth contained in them. No
longer now was there for us any doubt as to the
meaning of allegories such as the Fall, the Deluge,
the Exodus, and others were now shown us to be ;
or of prophecies such as those of the crushing of the
serpent's head by the Woman and her seed; the
return of Astraea with her progeny of divine sons ;
the fall from heaven of Lucifer and Satan; the
Eeturn of the Gods ; the reign of Michael, " that
great prince who staudeth for the children of God's
people" ; the breaking of the seals, and opening of
the books ; the recognition of the abomination of
desolation standing in the holy place ; the budding
of the fig-tree, and the end of that " adulterous
generation " ; the revelation of " that wicked one,
the mystery of iniquity and son of perdition,
whom the Lord, at His coming in the clouds of

140 THE ANTAGONISATION.

heaven with power and great gloiy, shall consume
with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy with the
brightness of His coming " ; the two Witnesses,
their resurrection from the dead, and their ascent
into heaven ; the drying up of the great river
Euphrates, and the coming of the kings of the
East by the way thus prepared; the binding of
Satan, and the acceptable year of the Lord to
follow; the exaltation to heaven, and clothing with
the sun, of the mystic " Woman " of the
Apocalypse ; the advent of the angel flying in mid-
heaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim unto
every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people ;
the coming of many from the East, and the West,
and the North, and the South, to sit down with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of
heaven; and the battle of Armageddon, and the
end of the world. To all these, and other sacred
enigmas of like nature, the key had been given
us. And they one and all proved to be prophecies
of one and the same event, the restoration of the
faculty of inward understanding, and of the divine
knowledges which only through it are possible.
And whereas this was the faculty, the corruption
and loss of which had made the Fall, which was
that of the original Church, so was it the faculty,
the purification and restoration of which was to
reverse the Fall, accomplishing the lledemption.
For by it man will regain his mental balance, in
virtue of which he was " made upright," and
become again sound, whole, and sane, and be by
condition that which he has been divinely declared
from the first to be by constitution, — an instru-
ment of understanding, competent for the com-
prehension of all truth. For only thus is he really

THE ANTAGONISATION. I4I

man, and made in the divine image ; seeing that
he is not really man, but infant only, until he
attains his spiritual majority and is able to under-
stand. And that which thus makes him man on
the plane mental and spiritual, is that which makes
him man on the plane physical. It is his recog-
nition and appropriation of the " Woman " of that
plane, the mystic '* Woman " of Holy Writ, the
mind's feminine mode, the Intuition. It is of her
first identification by us, as the key to the whole
mystery of the Bible, that the manner will now be
recounted.

CHAPTER V.

THE RECAPITULATION.

The first compendious statement of the doctrine
which it was intended to restore, was given to ua
at Paris in the summer of 1878, in the form of an
exposition of the principles of Biblical interpre-
tation, under the following circumstances.

We had been following our respective tasks^^) for
several months without any open or special illu-
mination, and I had written enough to make a
considerable volume in exposition of the prin-
ciples which appeared to me to be those on which,
in order to be a book of the soul, the Bible ought
to be constructed, and by which, therefore, it
must be interpreted. It was not intended for pub-
lication, but as an exercise for myself, being purely
tentative; though I was conscious of being aided
by the occasional suggestion of ideas which served
as points of light and guidance. Meanwhile, I was
entirely without help from books; for, besides
being desirous of evolving the whole from my own
consciousness, as in the case of the demonstration
of any mathematical problem, I was not aware of
any books which would help me ; the little I knew
ef Swedenborg at this time — who was the only
writer known to me as a worker in a similar direc-

<')A.K. was preparing for her second Doctorat, and E.M. was
elaborating out of his own consciousness "a key to the inter-
pretation especially of the initial chapters of Genesis." (Life
A.K. Vol. I. p. 264.)

THE RECAPITULATION. 1 43

tion — having failed to make mucli impression on
me. I could accept his general principles, but not
his particular applications of them. I felt also
that the sources of the knowledges vouchsafed to
US, far transcended those to which Swedenborg had
access. And I accounted for the length of the
interval which had elapsed without any larger
measure of light being vouchsafed, by supposing
that it was intended for me to exhaust my own
resources first.

The time had come when these were exhausted,
and I was reduced to the conviction that if the
work was to be carried any further, assistance
must be rendered, whether for confirmation, for
correction, or for extension. And on retiring to
rest one night^^), painfully oppressed by the sense
of my own lack, and the prolonged absence of the
needed light, I stood at the open window, and
in presence of a sky resplendent with stars
mentally addressed to those whom we were wont tfo
speak of as the Gods, and of whose presence I
seemed to be dimly conscious, a strong expression
of my need, declaring my utter inability to advance
another step unassisted. Having done which I
went to bed, but in a mood the reverse of sanguine ;
80 many were the months for which they had been
silent.

In the course of the following day, " Mary " —
who knew nothing either of my need or of my
adjuration of the preceding night, and could not
of herself have helped me— found herself under an
access of exaltation of faculty which she described
as resembling what might be produced by a

^*)0n the 4th June, 1878. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 265.)

144 T^^^ EECAriTULATION.

draught of spiritual champagne. For she felt
herself at her very best, having all her knowledge at
her finger-ends. The expression recurred to my
mind some time afterwards on our receiving an
explanation of the " New Wine of Dionysos " in
the ancient mysteries. In this state she went down
to the schools, where an examination in her sub-
jects was being held, in order to see how the candi-
dates comported themselves, and to compare them
with herself ; for it was an oral examination. From
this she returned home in high delight, declaring
that she could have answered every question asked,
and far better than any of the students had done.
I hoped that her state might be an indication of
the renewal of her illuminations. But the events
of the evening put all thoughts in this direction
entirely out of my mind. For, as if poisoned by
the atmosphere of the schools, she was seized with
an attack of sickness so intense and prolonged as
seriously to endanger her life through the
exhaustion induced. And it was a late hour —
past midnight — before she could be left alone.

Nevertheless she was up betimes in the morning,
and on our meeting handed me a paper which she
had written in pencil on waking, saying it was
something she had read in her sleep, and asking
if it was anything that I wanted, as she had written
it down so rapidly that she scarcely observed what
it was about, and she had not had time to read it
over and think about it. Having read it, I found
that it met my every difficulty, and shed on the
Bible a light which rendered it luminous from
beginning to end, disclosing it as pervaded by a
system of thought which, when once seen, was as
obvious as it had previously been unsuspected.

THE RECAPITULATION. 1 45

And while it confirmed me in respect of principles
and method, it corrected both of us in respect of
sundry particulars. It even referred directly to
one of my tentative hypotheses, at once negativing
it and giving another altogether satisfactory. This
was my supposition of Adam and Eve as possibly
denoting spirit and matter. The following is the
writing : —

" If, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to
have a mystic consideration. But the fault of most writers
lieth in this, — that they distinguish not between the booka
of Moses the prophet, and tliose books which are of an
historical nature. And this is the more surprising because
not a few of such critics have rightly discerned the esoteric
character, if not indeed the true intei-pretation, of the story
of Eden ; yet have they not applied to the remainder of the
allegory the same method which they found to fit the
beginning; but so soon as they are over the earlier stanzas
of the poem, they would have the rest of it to be of another
nature.

" It is, then, pretty well established and accepted of
most authors, that the legend of Adam and Eve, and of
the miraculous tree and the fruit which was the occasion
of death, is, like the story of Eros and Psyche, and so many
others of all religions, a parable with a hidden, that is,
with a mystic meaning. But so also is the legend which
follows concerning the sons of these mystical parents, the
story of Cain and Abel his brother, the story of the
Flood, of the Ark, of the saving of the clean and unclean
beasts, of the rainbow, of the twelve sons of Jacob, and,
not stopping there, of the whole relation concei-ning the
flight out of Egypt. For it is not to be supposed that the
two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of Adam, were
real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed tliat the
apple which caused the doom of mankind, was a real
apple. It ought to be known, indeed, for the right
understanding of the mystical books, that in their esoteric

146 THE RECAPITULATION.

sense they deal, not with material things, but with
spiritual realities; and that as Adam is not a man, nor
Eve a woman, nor the tree a plant in its true signification,
so also are not the beasts named in the same books real
beasts, but that the mystic intention of them is implied.
When, therefore, it is written that Abel took of the first-
lings of his flock to offer unto the Lord, it is signified that
he offered that which a lamb implies, and which is the
holiest and highest of spiritual gifts. Nor is Abel himself
a real person, but the type and spiritual presentation of
the race of the prophets ; of whom, also, Moses was a mem-
ber, together with the Patriarchs. Were the prophets,
then, shedders of blood 1 God forbid ; they dwelt not with
things material, but with spiritual significations. Their
lambs without spot, their white doves, their goats, their
rams, and other sacred creatures, are so many signs and
symbols of the various graces and gifts which a mystic
people should offer to Heaven. Without such sacrifices is
no remission of sin. But when the mystic sense was lost,
then carnage followed, the prophets ceased out of the land,
and the priests bore rule over the people. Then, when
again the voice of the prophets arose, they were con-
strained to speak plainly, and declared in a tongue foreign
to their method, that the sacrifices of God are not the
flesh of bulls or the blood of goats, but holy vows and
sacred thanksgivings, their mystical counterparts. As
God is a spirit, so also are His sacrifices spiritual. What
folly, what ignorance, to offer material flesh and drink
to pure power and essential being ! Surely in vain have
the prophets spoken, and in vain have the Christs been
manifested !

" Why will you have Adam to be spirit, and Eve matter,
since the mystic books deal only with spiritual entities?
The tempter himself even is not matter, but that which
gives matter the precedence. Adam is, rather, intellectual
force : he is of earth. Eve is the moral conscience : she is
the mother of the living. Intellect, then, is the male, and
Intuition the female principle. And the sons of Intuition,

THE EECAriTULATION. 1 47

herself fallen, shall at last recover Truth^ and redeem all
things. By her fault, indeed, is the moral conscience of
humanity made subject to the intellectual force, and
thereby all manner of evil and confusion abounds, since
her desire is unto him, and he rules over her until now.
But the end foretold by the seer is not far oflf. Then shall
the Woman be exalted, clothed with the Sun, and carried
to the throne of God. And her sons shall make war with
the dragon, and have victory over lam. Intuition, there-
fore, pure and a virgin, shall be the mother and
redemptress of her fallen sons, whom she bore under
bondage to her husband the intellectual force."

This marvellously luminous exposition, she then
told me, had been read by her in a book she had
found in a library which she had visited in sleep,
the owner of which was a courtly old gentleman
in the costume of the last century. The leaves of
the book were of silver and reflected her back to
herself as she read. I took this as symbolising the
Intuition. The event proved that her host was no
other than Swedenborg, and that — as her Genius
informed us — she had been enabled, " under the
magnetism of Swedenborg's presence, to recover a
memory of no small value," thus confirming my
surmise about its intuitional character. The event
proved also that it was Swedenborg's doctrine,
but without his limitations. We ardently desired
a continuation of it, and on the next night but
one, she received the following addition to it : - —

" Moses, therefore, knowing the mysteries of the
religion of the Egyptians, and, having learned of their
occultists the value and signification of all sacred birds and
beasts, delivered like mysteries to his own people. But
certain of the sacred animals of Egypt he retained not in
honour, for motives which were equally of mystic origin.

148 THE RECAPITITLATION.

And lie taught his initiated the spirit of the heavenly
hieroglyphs, and bade them, when they made festival
before God, to cany with them in procession, with music
and with dancing, such of the sacred animals as were, by
their interior significance, related to the occasion. Now,
of these beasts, he chiefly selected males of the first year,
without spot or blemish, to signify that it is beyond all
things needful that man should dedicate to the Lord hia
intellect and his reason, and this from the beginning, and
without the least reserve. And that he was very wise in
teaching this, is evident from the history of the world in
all ages, and particularly in these last days. For what
is it that has led men to renounce the realities of the
spirit, and to propagate false theories and corrupt
sciences, denying all things save the appearancq which
can be apprehended by the outer senses, and making
themselves one with the dust of the ground? It is their
intellect which, being unsanctified, has led them astray;
it is the force of the mind in them, which, being corrupt,
is the cause of their own i-uiu, and of that of their disciples.
As, then, the intellect is apt to be the great traitor against
heaven, so also is it the force by which men, following
their pure intuition, may also grasp and apprehend the
truth. For which reason it is written that the Christs are
subject to their mothers. Not that by any means the
intellect is to be dishonoured ; for it is the heir ot all
things, if only it be truly begotten and be no bastard.

" And besides all these symbols, Moses taught the
people to have beyond all things an abhorrence of idolatry.
Wliat, then, is idolatry, and what are false gods?

" To make an idol is to materialise spiritual mysteries.
The priests, then, were idolaters, who coming after Moses,
and committing to writing those things which he by word
of mouth had delivered unto Israel, replaced the true
things signified, by their material symbols, and shed
innocent blood on the pure altars of the Lord.

" They also are idolaters who understand the things of
sense where the things of the spirit are alone implied, and

THE RECAPITULATION. 1 49

who conceal the true featui^es of the Gods with material
and spurious presentations. Idolatry is materialism, the
common and original sin of men, which replaces spirit by
appearance, substance by illusion, and leads both the
moral and intellectual being into error, so that they sub-
stitute the nether for the upper, and the depth for the
height. It is that false fruit which attracts the outer
senses, the bait of the serpent in the beginning of the
world. Until the mystic man and woman had eaten of
this fruit, they knew only tlie things of the spirit, and
found them suffice. But after their fall, they began to
apprehend matter also, and gave it the preference, making
themselves idolaters. And their sin, and the taint begot-
ten of that false fruit, have con-upted the blood of the
whole race of men, from which corruption the sons of God
would have redeemed them."

She had received this, also in sleep, as one of a
class of neophytes seated in an ancient amphi-
theatre of white stone, and listening to a lecture
delivered by a man in priestly garb, of which they
took notes the while. She complained that her
notes had disappeared on waking, thus preventing
her from rendering what she had heard as per-
fectly as she could have wished; for she had
trusted to her notes for it.

The more we pondered these communications,
the higher was our appreciation of them. We felt
that the " veil of Moses " was at length " taken
away " as promised, and we had been enabled to
tap a reservoir of boundless wisdom and know-
ledge. For we found in them the longed-for solu-
tion of the purpose and nature of the Bible and
Christianity, and the key to man's spiritual
history. The method of the Bible-writers, the
meaning of idolatry, the secret of the Cain and
Abel feud between priest and prophet, as the

150 THE RECAPITULATION,

ministers respectively of the sense-nature and of
the intuition, and the process whereby the religion
of Jesus had become distorted into the orthodoxy
which has usurped His name ; — all these things
were now clear to us as the demonstration of a
proposition in geometry, the witness of which was
in our own minds. And we, too, we rejoiced to think,
were of the school of the prophets, in that with all
the force of our minds we had " exalted the
Woman," Intuition, and refused to make the word
of God of none effect by priestly traditions.

Not the least marvellous element in the case
was the faculty whereby the seeress had been able
to reproduce, after waking, with such evident
faithfulness the things seen and heard at so great
length in sleep. In reply to my questionings she
said that the words seemed to show themselves to
her again as she wrote(^\

Discoursing with her Genius on this subject of
memory, she received the following, which is
valuable also for its recognition of the mystical
import of the Bible narratives, and confirmation
of St Paul when he says in reference to certain
narratives in Genesis, " These things are an
allegory."

" Concerning niemoiy ; why should there any more be a
difficulty in respect of it ? Reflect on this saying, — ' Man
sees as he knows.' To thee the deeps are more visible than
the surfaces of things ; but to men generally the surfaces
only are visible. The material can perceive only the

•')E.M. says :— " Her notes, of course, disappeared with her
dream, and she had to reproduce it from memory. But this
was abnormally enhanced, for she said that the words pre-
sented themselves again to her as she wrote, and stood out
luminously to view." (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 269.)

THE RECAPITULATION. 15I

material, the astral the astral, and the spiritual the
spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a question
of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but
slight, and thine organic memory is feeble and
treacherous. It is hard for thee to perceive the surfaces
of things and to remember their aspect. But thy spiritual
perception is the stronger for this weakness, and the
profound is that which thou seest the most readily. It
is hard for thee to understand and to retain the memoiy
of material facts; but their meaning thou knowest
instantly and by intuition, which is the memory of the
soul. For the soul takes no pains to remember; she
knows divinely. Is it not said that the immaculate
woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow and
travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto
' Adam ' "(^>.

The following sentences sum up the conclusions
to which, by degrees, we were led. The first two
paragraphs are from an exposition concerning the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception which we
considered as one of the most sublime and momen-
tous of all her illuminations^'^

" All that is true is spiritual. . . . No dogma
is real that is not spiritual. If it be true, and yet
seem to you to have a material signification, know
that you have not solved it. It is a mystery ; seek
its interpretation. That which is true is for
Spirit alone.

" For matter shall cease and all that is of it,
but the Word of the Lord shall remain for ever.

'^'That is the outer sense and lower reason.

''*The illumination in question was received by A.K. in Paris
on the night of the 25th July, 1877, and was written down under
trance. Further portions are given on pp. 158, 159. i6i. It is
given m full in "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 202-203.)

152 THE EECAPITULATION.

And how shall it remain except it be purely
spiritual ; since, when matter ceases, it would then
be no longer comprehensible?"

" For, though matter is eternally the mode
whereby spirit manifests itself, matter is not itself
eternal."

" The church has all the truth, but the priests
have materialised it, making religion idolatry, and
themselves and their people idolaters."

" In their real and divinely intended sense, its
doctrines are eternal verities, founded in the
nature of Being. As ecclesiastically propounded,
they are blasphemous absurdities."

" All the mistakes made about the Bible arise
out of the mystic books being referred to times,
places, and persons material, instead of being
regarded as containing only eternal verities about
things spiritual."

" The Bible was written by intuitionalists, for
intuitionalists, and from the intuitionalist stand-
point. It has been interpreted by externalists, for
externalists, and from the externalist standpoint.
The most occult and mystical of books, it has been
expounded by persons without occult knowledge
or mystical insight "(^).

Thus gradually but surely we learnt that Eccle-
siastical education has rigidly excluded from its
curriculum all those branches of study which
could throw light on the real nature of existence,

<''See further on this most important subject " The Bible's
Own Account of Itself," by E.M., the only complete edition of
which is published by " The Ruskin Press," Ruskin House,
Stafford Street, Birmingham. S.H.H.

THE EECAPITULATION. 1 53

and consists in learning what other men have said
who, themselves, did not know, but were mere
hearsay scholars lacking the witness in themselves.
We marvelled much as to how the priesthoods
will comport themselves Avhen compelled to recog-
nise the fact that a New Gospel of Interpretation
has actually been vouchsafed from the world celes-
tial in correction of their perversion and mutilation
of the former Gospel of Manifestation, and sup-
pression of the true doctrine of salvation. Will
Cain and Caiaphas still have the dominion, and
ecclesiasticism be as ready to crucify the Christ on
His second coming as it was on His first ? And if
not, hoAv will it find courage to face the world with
the humiliating confession that all through the
long ages of its history, while arrogantly claiming
to be the faithful and infallible minister of the
Gospel of Christ, it has persistently withheld that
gospel, and, losing the key to its meaning, has
substituted for the wholesome " bread " of divine
truth, the " stones " of innutritions because unin-
telligible dogmas ; and for the " fish " of the
living waters, the " serpents " of the letter which
kills P and that when men have rightly suspected
that Christianity has failed, not because it is false,
but because it has been falsified, and have sought
to their own inner light for the truth of which
ecclesiasticism had defrauded them, it dealt out
to them pitiless anathema and persecution, making
the earth a scene of torture and slaughter in asser-
tion of the right of the priesthoods to teach wrong ?
That the work committed to us implied nothing
less than the fulfilment of the prophecies of which
the promise of the Second Coming of Christ was
the culmination, while intimated to us from the

154 '^^^ EECAPITULATION.

outset, was gradually unfolded mto full assurance,
and we were enabled to see that the very terms in
which it was couched implied a spiritual advent,
and one which should disclose the perfect system
at once of science, philosophy, morality, and
religion, of which Christ is both the foundation
and the consummation. For the " clouds of
heaven " in which it was to take place, were no
other than the heaven of the kingdom within man
of his restored spiritual consciousness. " That
wicked one," " the son of perdition," and " mystery
of iniquity " then to be revealed and destroyed,
was no other than the inspiring evil spirit of an
ecclesiasticism which had received indeed its
doctrines from above, but their interpretation and
application from below. And the " Spirit of His
mouth," and the " Brightness of His Coming "
were no other than a new Word of God, in the form
of a New Gospel of Interpretation, so potent in its
logic and so luminous in its exposition as to indi-
cate the Logos Himself as its source, and the
" Woman " Intuition, " clothed with the Sun " of
full illumination, as its revealer.

We saw, too, that with this " Woman " thus
rehabilitated, God's " Two Witnesses," — who have
so long lain dead in the streets of " that great city "
wherein the Lord, the divinity in man, is ever
systematically crucified ; the city of the world's
system as fashioned and controlled by an eccle-
siasticism shrouded in the three-fold veil of
Blood, Idolatry, and the Curse of Eve, — will rise
and stand on their feet, and ascend to the heaven
of their proper supremacy, vice Lucifer deposed and
fallen. And in them Lucifer himself will regain
his lost estate, vindicating his title to be called the

THE RECAPITULATION. 1 55

Light-bearer, the bright and morniug star, the
herald and briuger-in of the perfect day of the
Lord God. For, as the Intellect, he is the heir of
all things, if only he be begotten of the Spirit, and
be no bastard engendered of the Sense-Nature.

For — as we had come to learn — God's Two Wit^
nesses in man are ever the Intellect and the
Intuition, when duly unfolded and united in a
pure spirit. Under such conditions the Shiloh
comes, and mounted on them man rides triumphant
as king into the holy city of his own regenerate
nature. But divorced from her, the Intuition,
and — leagued with the Sense-Nature— knowing
matter only and the body, the Intellect becomes
" prince of devils " in man, the maker of men into
fiends, and of the earth into a hell. Wherefore his
fall from the heaven of his power, on the advent
of that whole Humanit}', of whom it is said, " the
Man is not without the Woman, nor the Woman
without the Man, in the Lord," the humanity of
intellect and intuition combined, has ever been
exultingly hailed in anticipation by all true seers
and prophets.

The chief points of the doctrine, the prospect
of the restoration of which has thus been the sus-
taining hope of the percipient faithful in all ages,
may be summarised as follows : —

The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the
purpose of the Bible to affirm, and of the Christ to
demonstrate, and in which reason entirely con-
curs, is no other than that of the divine poten-
tialities of man, belonging to him in virtue of the
nature of his constituent principles, the force and
the substance of existence. These are the duality
of the *' heavens " which God is said to " create,"

156 THE aECAPITULATION,

meaning to put forth from Himself, " in the begin-
ning," and of the mutual interaction of which all
things are the product, varying according to the
plane of operation, alike for creation and redemp-
tion, generation and regeneration. And that which
Jesus really aflirmed in the memorable but little
understood words, " Ye viust be born again, or
from above, of Water and the Spirit,'" was both the
possibility and the necessity to all men of realising
the potential divinity belonging to them in virtue
of the divinity of their constituent principles. And
in affirming this He affirmed both the necessity
and the possibility to every man of being born
exactly as He Himself, as typical man regenerate,
is said to have been born, of Yirgin Mary and
Holy Ghost, and also His own identity in kind
with all other men. And He affirmed, moreover,
the utter falsity of that priest-constructed system,
which, ignoring Regeneration, insists on Substi-
tution, as the means of salvation. For " Yirgin
Mary," and " Holy Ghost," are but the mystical
synonyms with " Water and the Spirit," the sub-
stance and force, or soul and spirit, of which, man
is constituted, in their divine because pure con-
dition, the product of which in man is the new
regenerate selfhood called, as by St Paul, the
" Christ within." Begotten in man as matrix, of
the pure Spirit and Substance which are God, this
new selfhood is son at once of God and of man ;
and in him God and man are " reconciled " or
" at-oued." And that man is said to be saved by
his blood, is because the " blood of God " is pure
spirit, and it is the pure spirit in the man that
saves him ; and that he is called the only-begotten

THE RECAPITULATION. 157

Son of God, is not because God begets no other of
his kind, but because God, as God, begets directly
none of any other kind.

This, then, as we came to learn, and to recog-
nise as having learned it in our own long-past
lives, is the doctrine which Jesus came to teach
and to demonstrate in His own person. Matter is
spirit, being spiritual substance, projected by
force of the divine Will into conditions and limita-
tions, and made exteriorly cognisable. And being
spirit it can revert to the condition of spirit. In
virtue of the divinity of his constituent principles,
man Kas within himself the seed of his own
regeneration, and the power to effectuate it. He
has in him, this is to say, the potentiality of
divinity realisable at will. And the secret and
method of the achievement, which is no other than
the secret and method of Christ, is inward purifi-
cation and unfoldment, the unfoldment of the
capacities, mental, moral, and spiritual, of his
nature, of which inward purification is the first
and essential condition. Thus is the Finding of
Christ the realisation of the Ideal, and Christ is
for every man the summit of his own evolution.

Stated in terms of modern science, but correct-
ing its aberrations, the doctrine of Christ is in
this wise. Evolution is the manifestation of
inherency. Owing to the divinity of the constituent
principles of existence, its Force and its Substance,
both of which are God, the inherency of existence
is divine. Wherefore, as the manifestation of a
divine inherency, evolution is accomplished onlj
by the attainment of divinity; and the cause of
evolution is the tendency of substance to revert
from its secondary and " created " condition of

158 THE BECAPITULATION.

matter, to its original and divine condition of pure
spirit. Wherefore evolution is definable as the
process of the individuation of Deity in and
through Humanity.

Such is the genesis of the Christ in man. And he
is called a Christ who, having accomplished this
process in himself, returns into the earth-life when
he has no need to do so for his own sake, out of
pure love to redeem, by showing to others their
own equal divine potentialities and the method of
the realisation thereof.

This method consists in love, love of perfection,
which is God, for its own sake, and love for others.
The process is entirely interior to the individual.
It consists in the sacrifice of the lower nature to
the higher in himself, and of himself for others
in love. That which directly saves the man is not
the love of another for the man, but the love which
he has in himself. All that can be done by another
is to kindle this love in him.

The philosophy of this doctrine of salvation by
love was formulated for us as follows : — " It is
love which is the centripetal power of the universe ;
it is bv love that all creation returns into the
bosom of God. The force which projected all
things is will, and will is the centrifugal power of
the universe. Will alone could not overcome the
evil which results from the limitations of matter;
but it shall be overcome in the end by sympathy,
which is the knowledge of God in others, — the
recognition of the omnipresent Self. This is love.

THE EECAPITULATION. 1 59

And it is with the children of the spirit, the ser-
vants of love, that the dragon of matter makes
war "^^\

In making the means of salvation extraneous to
the individual, Sacerdotalism has defrauded man
of his Saviour, making the first and personal
coming of Christ of none effect. Hence the neces-
sity for the second and spiritual coming repre-
sented by the New Gospel of Interpretation as was
foretold : — the coming which was to be in the
clouds of the heaven of man's restored under-
standing; the Hermes within.

But the process of regeneration is a prolonged
one, extending over many earth-lives ; and so also
is the prior process of evolution, whereby man
reaches the stage at which he is amenable to
regeneration. Wherefore regeneration has for its
corollary reincarnation. To tell man that he " must
be born again " spiritually, and deny him the
requisite opportunities of experience, which must
be acquired while in the body— seeing that
regeneration is from out of the body — would be to
mock him.

This doctrine of a multiplicity of earth-lives is
implicit and sometimes explicit in the Bible. The
notion that the Hebrews had no belief in a future
state because of the failure of commentators to
discover it in their Scriptures, is altogether futile.
The permanence of the Ego was a matter of course
with them, saving only the Sadducees. And the
Bible contemplates the persistence of the indi-
vidual soul through all the manifold stages of its

(^)From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immacu-
late Conception, referred to on p. 'S^-

l6o THE RECAPITULATION.

evolution, from the " Adam " stage to the " Christ "
stage, saying, as by St Paul, " As in Adam all
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." But the
Christ insisted on by him was not He Who is " after
the flesh," not the man Jesus, who v/as but the
vehicle of' the Christ, but the Christ within both
Jesus and all other regenerate men. For, as a
highly illuminated follower of the Gnosis, St. Paul
was one who " after the way which " his orthodox
accusers " called heresy, worshipped the God of his
fathers, believing all things which are according
to the law, and are written in the prophets."
Rejecting tlie doctrine of regeneration, and with
it that of reincarnation, in favour of substitution,
the orthodoxy which claims to be Christianity has
practically rejected both the doctrine of St Paul
and that of Jesus as declared to Nicodemus. And,
as St Paul implies, the " mystery of iniquity " was
working even already in his days to annul the
gospel of Christ by substituting Jesus as the object
of worship, and ILis physical blood-shedding as the
means of salvation. And Christendom, yielding to
sacerdotal dictation, has to this day accepted a
doctrine which at once dishonours God and robs
men of their equal divine potentialities with Jesus,
thus preferring Barabbas. Professing to rest its
faith on the Bible, it has accepted the presentation
of religion which the Bible persistently condemns,
that of the priests, and rejected that on which the
Bible emphatically insists, that of the prophets.
That St Paul employed sacerdotal modes of expres-
sion was in order to spiritualise them. He was a
mystic of mystics.

Nevertheless the dogmas of the Church contain
the truth, but this is not as the Church has pro-

THE RECAPITULATION. l6r

pounded them. And— to cite two crucial instances
— so far from the Church's supreme dogmas, the
Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin, having any personal or phy-
sical reference, they are prophecies of the method
of redemption for every individual soul. For, as
the New Gospel of Interpretation explicitly
declares, restoring the Gnosis persistently rejected
by the builders of the orthodoxies,

The Immaculate Conception is none other than
the prophecy of the means whereby the universe shall at
last be redeemed. Maria — the sea of limitless space —
Maria the Virgin, born herself immaculate and without
spot, of the womb of the ages, shall in the fulness of time
bring forth the perfect man, who shall redeem the race.
He is not one man, but ten thousand times ten thousand,
the Son of Man, who shall overcome the limitations of
matter, and the evil which is the result of the materialisa-
tion of spirit''*'.

By the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary we are secretly enlightened con-
cerning the generation of the soul, who is begotten in the
womb of matter, and yet from the first instant of her

being is pure and incorrupt As the Immaculate

Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the
Assumption their crown.

For the entire object and end of kosmic evolution is
precisely this triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the
mystery presented by this dogma, we behold the consum-
mation of the whole scheme of creation — the perpetuation
and glorification of the individual human ego. The grave
— the material and astral consciousness, cannot retain the
immaculate Mother of God. She rises into the heavens;
she assumes divinity. . . . From end to end the mystery

i"')From the exposition concerning the dogma of the Immacu-
late Conception, referred to on p. 151.

1 62 THE RECAPITULATION.

of the soul's evolution — the histoiy, that is, of humanity
and of the kosmic drama — is contained and enacted in the
cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The acts and the
glories of Mary are the one supreme subject of the holy
mysteries*''.

" Allegory of stupendous significance !" exclaimed the
seeress's illuminator when imparting to her the mystery
of the Immaculate Conception. " Allegory of stupendous
significance ! with which the Church of God has so long
been familiar, but which yet never penetrated its under-
standing, like the holy fire which enveloped the sacred
Bush, but which nevertheless the Bush withstood and
resisted'").

That such failure has been the rule and not the
exception is the plea for the New Gospel of Inter-
pretation. For lack of comprehension of its own
symbols the Church has fallen into the disastrous
errors of mistaking the man Jesus for the Christ
within every man, and Mary the mother of Jesus
for Virgin Mary the mother of that Christ, com-
mitting in both instances idolatry by preferring
the form to the substance, persons to principles,
and blinding men to the essential truth implied.

(''From the exposition concerning the Christian Mysteries
given in full in " The Life of A.K." Vol. II. pp. 99-100.

CHAPTER yi.

THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

This chapter will be devoted to some examplea of
the recovered Gnosis, bearing chiefly upon the
supreme doctrine of Regeneration. As with all
else received by the Seeress, they are the product
of intuitional memory regained under divine illu-
mination occurring mostly in sleep. And here I
will take occasion to state explicitly and positively,
that the states, whether of sleep or of trance, in
which her faculty was exercised, were all natural
and spontaneous, being induced by the Spirit
itself; and that in no case were artificial means
employed by either of us, whether drugs, mes-
merism, hypnotism, crystal-gazing, or any other of
the devices ordinarily used to induce abnormal
states of consciousness or promote enhancement of
faculty. Our work was to be a real work, done not
only by us but in us, and we had from the first a
profound instinctive distrust of results obtained by
such artificial stimulation.

Nor was any change even of a word ever made
in the teachings received. They came one and
all in the finished perfection in which they are put
forth, coming down as the holy city from the
heaven of the upper and the within, and incapable
of improvement. The following are the examples
proposed : —

(1) Concerning Holy Writ.

164 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

All Scriptures wliicli are the true Word of God, have a
dual interpretation, the intellectuai and the intuitional,
the apparent and the hidden.

For nothing can come forth from God save that which
is fruitful.

As is the nature of God, so is the Word of God's mouth.

Tlie letter alone is barren ; the spirit and the letter give
life.

But that Scripture is the more excellent, which is
exceeding fruitful and brings forth abundant signification.

For God is able to say many things in one, as the per-
fect ovary contains many seeds in its chalice.

Therefore there are in the Scriptures of God's Word
certain writings which, as richly yielding trees, bear more
abundantly than others in the self-same holy garden.

And one of the most excellent is the history of the
generation of the heavens and the earth.

For therein is contained in order a genealogy, which
has four heads, as a stream divided into four branches, a
word exceeding rich.

And the first of these generations is that of the Gods.

The second is that of the kingdom of heaven.

Tlie third is that of the visible world.

And the fourth is that of the Church of Christ.

(2) Concerning the Mystery of Redemption,

All things in heaven and in earth are of God, both the
invisible and the visible.

Such as is the invisible, is the visible also, for there
is no boundary line betwixt spirit and matter.

Matter is spirit made exteriorly cognisable by the force
of the Divine Word.

And when God shall resume all things by love, the
material shall be resolved into the spiritual, and there
shall be a new heaven and a new earth.

Not that matter shall be destroyed, for it came forth
from God, and is of God indestructible and eternal.

But it shall be indrawn and resolved into its time self.

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. 1 65

It shall put off corruption, and remain iucorrupLible.

It shall put off mortality, and remain immortal.

So that nothing be lost of the Divine substance.

It was material entity : it shall be spiritual entity.

For there is nothing which can go out from the presence
of God.

Tliis is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead : that
is, the transfiguration of the body.

For the body, which is matter, is but the manifestation
of spirit : and the Word of God shall transmute it into its
inner being.

The will of God is the alchemic crucible : and the dross
which is cast therein is matter.

And the dross shall become pure gold, seven times
refined; even perfect spirit.

It shall leave behind it nothing : but shall be trans-
fonned into the Divine image.

For it is not a new substance : but its alchemic polarity
is changed, and it is converted.

But except it were gold in its true nature, it could not
be resumed into the aspect of gold.

And except matter were spirit, it could not revert to
spirit.

To make gold, the alchemist must have gold.

But he knows that to be gold which others take to be
dross.

Cast thyself into the will of God, and thou shalt
become as God.

For thou art God, if thy will be the Divine Will.

Tliis is the great secret : it is the mystery of Redemp-
tion.

(3) Concerniug Sin and Death.

As is the outer so is the inner : He that worketh is One.
As the small is, so is the great : there is one law.
Nothing is small and nothing is great in the Divine
Economy.

1 66 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

If thou wouldst understand the method of the world's
corruption, and the condition to which sin hath reduced
the work of God,

Meditate upon the aspect of a corpse ; and consider the
method of the putrefaction of its tissues and humours.

For the secret of death is the same, whether of the outer
or of the inner.

The body dieth when the central will of its system no
longer bindeth in obedience the elements of its substance.

Every cell is a living entity, whether of vegetable or of
animal potency.

In the healthy body every cell is polarised in subjection
to the central will, the Adonai of the physical system.

Health, therefore, is order, obedience, and government.

But wherever disease is, there is disunion, rebellion,
and insubordination.

And the deeper the seat of the confusion, the more dan-
gerous the malady, and the harder to quell it.

That which is superficial may be more easily healed ;
or, if need be, the disorderly elements may be rooted out,
and the body shall be whole and at unity again.

But if the disobedient molecules corrupt each other
continually, and the perversity spread, and the rebellious
tracts multiply their elements ; the whole body shall fall
into dissolution, which is death.

For the central will that should dominate all the
kingdom of the body, is no longer obeyed; and every
element is become its own ruler, and hath a divergent
will of its own.

So that the poles of the cells incline in divers directions ;
and the binding power which is the life of the body, is
dissolved and destroyed.

And when dissolution is complete, then follow corrup-
tion and putrefaction.

Now, that which is true of the physical, is true likewise
of its prototype.

The whole world is full of revolt; and eveiy element
hath a will divergent from God.

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. 167

Whereas there ought to be but one will, attracting and
ruling the whole man.

But there is no longer Brotherhood among you; nor
order, nor mutual sustenance.

Eveiy cell is its own arbiter; and every member is
become a sect.

Ye are not bound one to another : ye have confounded
your offices, and abandoned your functions.

Ye have reversed the direction of your magnetic cur-
rents : ye are fallen into confusion, and have given place
to the spirit of misrule.

Your wills are many and diverse; and every one of
you is an anarchy.

A house that is divided against itself, falleth.
0 wretched man ; who shall deliver you from this body
of Death 1

(4) Concerniug the Twelve Gates of Regenera-
tion.

Now, the Kingdom of God is within us; that is, it is
interior, invisible, mystic, spu-itual.

There is a power by means of which the Outer may be
absorbed into the Inner.

There is a power by means of which Matter may be
ingested into its original Substance.

He who possesses this power is Christ, and He has the
devil under foot.

For He reduces chaos to order, and indraws the external
to the centre.

He has learnt that Matter is illusion, and that Spirit
alone is real.

He has found His own Central Point; and all power is
given unto Him in heaven and on earth.

Now, the Central Point is the number Tliirteen : it is the
number of the Marriage of the Son of God.

And all the members of the microcosm are bidden to
the banquet of the marriage.

1 68 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

But if there chance to be even one among them which
has not on a wedding garment,

Such a one is a Traitor, and the microcosm is found
divided against itself.

And that it may be wholly regenerate, it is necessary
that Judas be cast out.

Now the members of tlie microcosm are Twelve : of the
Senses three, of the Mind three, of the Heart three, and of
the Conscience three.

For of the Body there are four elements ; and the sign
of the four is Sense, in the which are three Gates,

The gate of the Eye, the gate of the Ear, and the gate
of the Touch<'».

Renounce vanity, and be poor : renounce praise, and be
humble : renounce luxury, and be chaste.

Offer unto God a pure oblation : let the fire of the altar
search thee, and prove thy fortitude.

Cleanse thy sight, thine hands, and thy feet : cany the
censer of thy worship into the courts of the Lord ; and let
thy vows be unto the Most High.

And for the magnetic man''^ there are four elements :
and the covering of the four is mind, in the which are
three gates;

The gate of desire, the gate of labour, and the gate of
illumination.

Renounce the world, and aspire heavenward : labour not
for the meat which perishes, but ask of God thy daily
bread : beware of wandering doctrines, and let the Word
of the Lord be thy light.

Also of the soul there are four elements : and the sea.t
of the four is the heart, whereof likewise there are three
gates ;

<^)Taste and smell being modes of touch. E.M.

'''/.e., the astral and mental part of man, which is accounted
a person or system in itself. E.M.

THE EXEMPLIFICATIOX. 1 69

The gate of obedience, the gate of prayer, and the gate
of discernment.

Renounce thine own will, and let the law of God only
be within thee : renounce doubt : pray always and faint
not : be pure of heart also, and thou shalt see God.

And within the soul is the Spirit : and the Spirit is One,
yet has it likewise three elements.

And these are the gates of tlie oracle of God, which is
the ark of the covenant;

The rod, the host'**, and the law:

The force which solves, and transmutes, and divines:
the bread of heaven which is the substance of all things
and the food of angels ; the table of the law, w-hich is the
will of God, written with the finger of the Lord.

If these three be within thy spirit, then shall the Spii'it
of God be within thee.

And the gloiy shall be upon the propitiatory, in the
holy place of thy prayer.

Tliese are the twelve gates of regeneration: through
which if a man ent«r he shall have right to the tree of life.

For the number of that Tree is Thirteen.

It may happen to a man to have three, to another five,
to another seven, to another ten.

But until a man have twelve, he is not master over the
last enemy.

(5) Concerniug tke Passage of the SouK^l

Evoi, Father lacchos, Lord God of Egypt : initiate thy
servants in the halls of thy Temple ;

Upon whose walls are the forms of every creature : of
every beast of the earth, and of every fowl of the air ;

Tlie lynx, and the lion, and the bull : the ibis and the
serpent : the scorpion and every flying thing.

And the columns thereof are human shapes; having
the heads of eagles and the hoofs of the ox.

(^'The Sacramental bread called by the Hebrews " showbread."

170 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

All these are of thy kingdom : they are the chambers of
ordeal, and the houses of the initiation of the soul.

For the soul passeth from form to form ; and the man-
sions of her pilgrimage are manifold.

Thou callest her from the deep, and from the secret
places of the earth ; from the dust of the ground, and from
the herb of the field.

Thou coverest her nakedness with an apron of fig-
leaves ; thou clothest her with the skins of beasts.

Thou art from of old, 0 soul of man ; yea, thou art from
the everlasting.

Tliou puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture
dost thou fold them up.

They perish, but thou remainest : the wind rendeth
and scattereth them ; and the place of them shall no
more be known.

For the wind is the Spirit of God in man, which bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it shall go.

Even so is the spirit of man, which cometh from afar off
and tarrieth not, but passeth away to a place thou knowest
not.

(6) Concerning the Mystic Exodus^^).

Evoi, lacchos. Lord of the Sphinx; who linkest the
lowest to the highest; the loins of the wild beast to the
head and breast of the woman.

Thou boldest the chalice of divination : all the forms
of nature are reflected therein.

Thou tumest man to destruction : then thou sayest,
Come again, ye children of my hand.

Yea, blessed and holy art thou, 0 Master of Earth :
Lord of the cross and the tree of salvation.

Vine of God, whose blood redeemeth ; bread of heaven,
broken on the altar of death.

^"'See note on p. 122. ante.

THE EXEMPLIFICATIOJS'. 171

There is corn iu Eg;y'pt ; go thou down into her, 0 my
soul, with joy.

For in the kingdom of the Body, thou shalt eat the
bread of thine initiation.

But beware lest thou become subject to the flesh, and
a bond-slave in the land of thy sojourn.

Serve not the idols of Egypt; and let not the senses
be thy taskmasters.

For they will bow thy neck to their yoke; they will
bitterly oppress the Israel of God.

An evil time shall come upon thee ; and the Lord shall
smite Egypt with plagues for thy sake.

Tliy body shall be broken on the wheel of God ; thy
flesh shall see trouble and the worm.

Thy house shall be smitten with grievous plagues;
blood, and pestilence, and great darkness ; fire shall
devour thy goods ; and thou shalt be a prey to the locust
and creeping thing.

Thy glory shall be brought down to the dust; hail and
storm shall smite thine hai-vest; yea, thy beloved and
thy first-born shall the hand of the Lord destroy;

Until the body let the soul go free ; that she may serve
the Lord God.

Arise in the night, 0 soul, and fly, lest thou be con-
sumed in Egypt.

The angel of the imderstanding shall know thee for his
elect, if thou offer unto God a reasonable faith.

Savom- thy reason with learning, with labour, and with
obedience.

Let the rod of thy desire be in thy right hand : put the
sandals of Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with
strength.

Then shalt thou pass through the waters of cleansing,
which is the first death in the body.

The waters shall be a wall unto thee on thy right hand
and on thy left.

172 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

And Hermes the Redeemer shall go before thee ; for he
is thy cloud of darkness by day, and thy pillar of fire by
night.

All the horsemen of Egypt and the chariots thereof;
her princes, her counsellors, and her mighty men :

These shall pursue thee, 0 soul, that fiiest ; and shall
seek to bring thee back into bondage.

Fly for thy life; fear not the deep; stretch out thy rod
over the sea ; and lift thy desire unto God.

Tliou hast learnt wisdom in Egypt ; thou has spoiled the
Egyptians; thou hast caiTied away their fine gold and
their precious things.

Thou hast enriched thyself in the body; but the body
shall not hold thee; neither shall the waters of the deep
swallow thee up.

Tliou shalt wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration ;
the blood of atonement shall redeem thee to God.

This is thy chrism and anointing, 0 soul ; this is the
first death; thou art the Israel of the Lord,

Wlio hath redeemed thee from the dominion of the
body; and hath called thee from the grave, and from the
house of bondage.

Unto the way of the cross, and to the path in the midst
of the wilderness;

Wliere are the adder and the serpent, the mirage and
the burning sand.

For the feet of the saint are set in the way of the desert.

But be thou of good courage, and fail thou not; then
shall thy raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax
old upon thee.

And thy desire shall heal thy diseases; it shall bring
streams for thee out of the stony rock : it shall lead thee
to Paradise.

Evoi, Father lacchos, Jehovah-Nissi'^' ; Lord of the
garden and of the vineyard ;

('')The names Nyssa, Nysa, Nysas, and Nissi are identical with
each other, and also with Sinai, Sion, and those of other sacred

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. 1 73

Initiator and lawgiver ; God of the cloud and of the
mount.

Evoi, Father lacchos; out of Egypt has thou called
thy Son.

To vindicate the suppressed mysteries of the pre-
Christian churches by disclosing them as the true
origines of Christianity, and to replace the false
doctrine of the exclusive divinity of one man by
the true doctrine of the potential divinity of all
men, — these are among the foremost objects of
the New Gospel of Interpretation. And it is
especially in order to reinforce the last named,
that it has restored the following hymn in cele-
bration of the supreme results of regeneration,
which formed part of the ritual of the greater
mysteries of the Greeks. It is addressed to the
first of the Holy Seven, the Spirit of Wisdom, as
represented by his " angel," the angel of the sun,
even " that light which Adonai created on the first
day," " whose name is, in the Hebrew, Uriel, and
in the Greek, Phoibos, the Bright One of God."
Breathing both the Spirit and the letter of the
Bible, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, the hymns,
of which this is one, indicate unmistakeably the
identity in source and substance of the Hebrew
and the Christian with the other sacred mysteries
of antiquity, and the derivation of the later

mounts. For they all are names for the Mount of Regenera-
tion, the mount or "holy hill" of the Lord, within the man,
to be on which is to be in the Spirit. The river Hiddekel has
the like import. It is the river of the soul, herself fluidic and
called Maria (waters), which, as the receptacle of the divine
nucleus, winds about and encompasses the Spirit. Thus Daniel
is said to be " on Hiddekel " when under divine illumination.
(•'The Life of A.K." Vol. L p. 459.)

174 ^^^'^ EXEMrLIFICATION.

through the earlier from their common source in
the world celestial when once again they have been
restored. And they supply also the motive which
led the Christians to destroy the second Alexan-
drian library, showing that motive to have been
the desire to conceal, first, the derivation of the
Christian presentment from its predecessors, and
next, the perversion of their doctrine in the
interests of an unscrupulous sacerdocy.

Taken in connection with its fellow-hymns,
similarly recovered, to others of the " Holy Seven,"
the hymn to Phoibos throws a flood of light on the
creative week of Genesis, showing it to be no mere
proem to Scripture, or concerned with the world
physical merely, but an integral portion of Scrip-
ture, being an epitome of eternal verities ever in
process, and appertaining both to Creation and to
Redemption. The Hymn to Her who is mysti-
cally the fourth, but really the third of the Gods,
the "Spirit of Counsel" of Isaiah, is especially
notable for its solution of the problem of the
inversion of the order of the third and fourth days
of creation. These hymns, moreover, show indu-
bitably that the order of the solar system was no
secret to the hierophants of the sacred mysteries
of antiquity.

(7) Hymn to Phoibos, the First of the Gods.

" Strong art thou and adorable, Phoibos Apollo, who
bearest life and healing on thy wings, who crownest the
year with thy bounty, and givest the spirit of thy divinity
to the fruits and precious things of all the worlds.

Where were the bread of the initiation of the Sons of
God, except thou bring the corn to ear; or the wine of
their mystical chalice, except thou bless the vintage ?

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. 1 75

Many are the angels who serve in tlie courts of the
spheres of heaven : l)ut thou, Master of Light and of Life,
art followed by the Christs of God.

And thy sign is the sign of the Son of Man in heaven,
and of the Just made perfect ;

Whose path is as a shining light, shining more and
more unto the innermost glory of the day of the Lord
God.

Tliy banner is blood-red, and thy symbol is a milk-white
lamb, and thy crown is of pure gold.

They who reign with thee are the Hierophants of the
celestial mysteries; for their will is the will of God, and
they know as they are known.

These are the sons of the innermost sphere; the
Saviours of men, the Anointed of God.

And their name is Christ Jesus, in the, day of their
initiation.

And before them eveiy knee shall bow, of things in
heaven and of things on earth.

Tliey are come out of great tribulation, and are set
down for ever at the right hand of God.

And the Lamb, which is in the midst of the seven
spheres, shall give them to drink of the river of living
water.

And they shall eat of the tree of life, which is in the
centre of the garden of the kingdom of God.

Tliese are thine, 0 Mighty Master of Light ; and this is
the dominion which the Word of God appointed thee in
the beginning :

In the day when God created the light of all the worlds,
and divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Phoibos, and the darkness God
called Python.

Now the darkness was before the light, as the night
forerunneth the dawn.

Tliese are the evening and the morning of the first cycle
of the Mysteriea.

176 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

And the glory of that cycle is as the glory of seven
days ; and they who dwell therein are seven times refined ;

Who have purged the garment of the flesh in the living
waters ;

And have transmuted both body and soul into spirit,
and are become pure virgins.

For they were constrained by love to abandon the outer
elements, and to seek the innennost which is undivided,
even the Wisdom of God.

And wisdom and love are one.

In view of the restoration of the Gods to
recognition by the New Gospel of Interpretation,
it must be explained that the doctrines of Mono-
theism and Polytheism are not necessarily incom-
patible. This has already been shown in
Chapter lY., in the utterance commencing — " In
the bosom of the Eternal were all the Gods com-
prehended, as the seven spirits of the prism con-
tained in the Invisible Light." For as light is one
though its rays are seven and each ray is light,
so is God one though His spirits are seven and
each spirit is God.

And yet further. Tlie deities recognised under
various names or by various peoples are not neces-
sarily diiferent Gods, but may be either the same
God or different modes or aspects of the same God.
Notably is this the case with the Gods of the
Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Christians. For
while by the term Elohim is denoted the two prin-
ciples, masculine and feminine, of Force and
Substance, which constitute Original Being, by
.Jehovah or Yahveh, Adonai and Shaddai, is
denoted the resultant of the interaction of these
two principles as Father and Mother, who is called
therefore their word, expression, and Son. By the

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. 1 77

Holy Ghost is denoted the same two principles in
activity, having procession from the " Father-
Mother " through the " Son," to be the constituent
principles of creation, being Deity djmamic as
distinguished from Deitj^ static. By the Seven
Spirits of God — as by the seven great Gods of the
Greeks, — are denoted the seven potencies into
which Deity diiierentiates on emerging as Holy
Ghost from the prism constituted of Father,
^lother, and Son, which are to each other as the
force, substance, and phenomenon of which every
manifest entity consists. For " Ever}' entity that
is manifest, is manifest by the evolution of its
trinity." And by Christ is denoted the ultimate
issue of such procession of Deity into manifesta-
tion, namely, divinity individuated by means of
its passage through matter, and elaborated by co-
operation of the Seven Spirits of God, into a
perfected spijitiial Ego, who is at once God and
man, and subsists under two modes — the micro-
cosmic or individual, and the macrocosmic or
universal, and who is always in process of increase,
because, in manifestation, " the Father is greater
than the Son ; " and " the manifest never exhausts
the unmanifest."

Now the process of the Christ is by regeneration,
and of this, as has been said, reincarnation
is the condition. The New Gospel of Inter-
pretation contains an utterance of Jesus on
this subject which will fitly conclude this series
of examples. It was recovered by " Mary "
under illumination early in 1880, and conse-
quently when we had not fully come to realise
the actuality of the doctrine and the possibility of
the recovery of the memories of past lives. Hence

178 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

slie sought from lier illuminators confirmation of
the genuineness of the experience, when she was
distinctly and positively assured that the incident
had actually occurred, and that she had borne part
in it, though no record of it survives. Such is the
extrinsic testimony on which it rests. We found
the intrinsic no less satisfactory, whether as regards
the substance or the form.

(8) Concerning the previous lines of Jesus, and
Reincarnation.

This morning between sleeping and waking I saw
myself, together with many other persons, walking with
Jesus in the fields round about Jerusalem, and while He
was speaking to us, a man approached, who looked very
earnestly upon Him. And Jesus turned to us and said,
" This man whom you see approaching is a seer. He can
behold the past lives of a man by looking into his face."
Tlien, the man being come up to us, Jesus took him by the
hand and said, " Wliat readest thou V And the man
answered, " I see Tliy past, Lord Jesus, and the ways by
which Thou hast come." And Jesus said to him, " Say
on." So the man told Jesus that he could see Him in the
past for many long ages back. But of all that he named,
I remember but one incarnation, or, perhaps, one only
struck me, and that was Isaac. And as the man went on
speaking, and enumerating the incarnations he saAv, Jesus
waved His right hand twice or tlirice before his eyes, and
said, " It is enough," as though He wished him not to
reveal further. Then I stepped forward from tlie rest
and said, " Lord, if, as thou hast taught us, the woman
is the highest form of humanity, and the last to be
assmned, how comes it that Thou, the Christ, art still in
the lower fonn of man ? Wliy comest Thou not to lead the
perfect life, and to save the world as woman? For surely
Thou has attained to womanhood." And Jesus answered,
" I have attained to womanhood, as thou sayest ; and

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. I 79

already have I taken the form of -woman. But there are
three conditions under which the soul returns to the man's
form ; and they are these : —

" 1st. When the work which the Spirit pi'oposes to
accomplish is of a nature unsuitable to the female form.

" 2nd. When the Spirit ha,s failed to acquire, in the
degree necessary to perfection, certain special attributes
of the male character.

" 3rd. "Wlien the Spirit has transgressed, and gone back
in the patli of perfection, by degrading the womanhood
it had attained.

" In the first of these cases the return to the male form
is outward and superficial only. This is my case. I am
a woman in all save the body. But had My body been a
woman's, I could not have led the life necessary t<) the
work I have to Derform. I could not have trod the i-ouj^h
ways of the earth, nor have gone about from city to city
preaching, nor have fasted on the mountains, nor have
fulfilled My mission of poverty and labour. Therefore
am I — a woman — clothed in a man's body that I may be
enabled to do the work set before Me.

" The second case is that of a soul who, having been a
woman perhaps many times, has acquired more aptly and
readily the higher qualities of womanhood than the lower
qualities of manhood. Such a soul is lacking in energy,
in resoluteness, in that particular attribute of the Spirit
which the prophet ascribes to the Lord when he says,
' The Lford is a Man of war.' Tlierefore the soul is put
back into a man's fonn to acquire the qualities yet lacking.

" The third case is that of the backslider, who, having
nearly attained perfection, — perhaps even touched it,—
degrades and soils his w^hite robe, and is put back into
the lower form again. These are the common cases; for
there are few women who are worthy to be women "'''.

(')A.K. was distinctly and positively assured that the incident
then shown to her was one that actually occurred, and that she
had borne part of it though no record of it survives. S.H.H.

l8o THE EXEMPLIFICATIO:-',

(9) Concerning the " Work of Power."

You have asked me if the Work of Power is a difficult
one, and if it is open to all.

It is open to all potentially and eventually, but not
actually and in the present. In order to regain power and
the resurrection, a man must be a Hierarch ; that is to say,
he must have attained the magical age of thii-ty-three.
This age is attained by having accomplished the Twelve
Labours, passed the Twelve Gates, overcome the Five
Senses, and obtained dominion over the Four Spirits of the
elements. He must have been bora Immaculate, baptised
with Water and Fire, tempted in the Wilderaess, crucified
and buried. He must have borne Five Wounds on the
Cross, and he must have answered the riddle of the Sphinx.
When this is accomplished he is free of matter, and will
never again have a phenomenal body.

Who shall attain to this perfection? The Man who is
without fear and without concupiscence ; who has courage
to be absolutely poor and absolutely chaste. When it is all
one to you wliether you have gold or whether you have
none, whether you have a house and lands or whether
you have them not, whether you have worldly reputation
or whether you are an outcast, — then you are voluntarily
poor. It is not necessaiy to have nothing, but it is neces-
sary to care for nothing. When it is all one to you
whether you have a wife or husband, or whether you are
celibate, then you are free from concupiscence. It is not
necessary to be a virgin ; it is necessary to set no value
on the flesh. There is nothing so difficult to attain as this
equilibrium. Who is he who can part with his goods
without regi-et? Wlio is he who is never consumed by the
desires of the flesh? But when you have ceased both to
wish to retain and to burn, then you have the remedy in
your own hands, and the remedy is a hard and a sharp one,
and a terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, be not afraid. Deny
the five senses, and above all the taste and the touch. The
power is within you if you will to attain it. The Two Seats

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. l8l

are vacant at the Celeiitial Table, if you will put ou Christ.
Eat no dead thing. Drink no feniieuted di'mk. Make
living elements of all the elements of your body. Mortify
the members of earth. Take your food full of life, and let
not the touch of death pass upon it. You understand me,
but you shrink. Remember that without self-immolation,
there is no power over death. Deny the touch. Seek no
bodily pleasure in sexual communion ; let desire be
magTietic and soulic. If you indulge the body, you per-
petuate the body, and the end of the body is corruption.
You understand me again, but 3'ou shrink. Remember
that without self-denial and restraint there is no power
over death. Deny the taste first, and it will become easier
to deny the touch. For to be a virgin is the crown of
discipline. I have shown you the excellent way, and it is
the Via Dolorosa. Judge whether the resuiTection be
worth the passion; whether the kingdom be worth the
obedience ; whether the power be worth the suffering.
When the time of your calling comes, you will no longer
hesitate.

Wlien a man has attained power over his body, the
process of ordeal is no longer necessary. The Initiate is
under a vow ; the Hierarch is free. Jesus, therefore, came
eating and drinking; for all things were lawful to Him.
He had undergone, and had freed His will. For the object
of the trial and the vov,' is polarisation. When the fixed
is volatilised, the Magian is free. But before Christ was
Christ He was subject; and His initiation lasted thirty
years. All things are lawful to the Hierarch ; for he knows
the nature and value of all''.

This chapter may appropriately terminate with a
fev/ remarks in reply to the inevitable question,

(')This instruction is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. 1
yp. 421-425.

1 82 THE EXEMPLIFICATION.

why our country and language were selected as tlie
place and tongue of the new revelation in prefer-
ence to all others.

It is, as we were enabled to see, because the
British people are recognised in the celestial world,
as possessing that peculiar quality of soul which,
in spite of their many and grievous limitations,
has made them to be the foremost witness among
the nations to God and the Conscience, in such wise
as to constitute them the counterpart of Israel in
the modern vvorld. Others besides ourselves have
recognised this characteristic. Said Milton, speak-
ing of a crisis which, momentoiis as it was, palea
in presence of that which now is, seeing that
lleligion itself as Religion was not menaced then
as in our time —

" Now once again, by all concurrence of signs,
and by the general instinct of devout and holy
men, as they daily and solemnly express their
thoughts, God is beginning to devise some new and
great period in His Church, even to the reforming
of Reformation itself. What does lie then, but
address Himself to His servants, and— as His
manner is— first to His Englishmen."

To which we may add in reference to the present,
" And having by the hands of His Intellectualists,
beaten down the false interpretation of His holy
Word, accomplishing the work of destruction, is
about by the hands of His Intuitionalists, to estab-
lish the true interpretation, accomplishing the
work of re-construction."

Nor are there wanting specijEic historical facts
pointing in the same direction. To Britain it was
given by a timely act of revolt against a domina-
tion at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the

THE EXEMPLIFICATION. 1 8

v)

letter of Scripture from suppression and virtual
extinction at' the hands of an order bent only on
exalting itself at whatever cost to truth and
humanity. Meanwhile, for three centuries and a
half — period suggestive of the mystical " time,
times, and half a time," — Britain has faithfully
and lovingly, albeit unintelligently and mistakenly,
guarded and cherished the letter thus rescued, even
to the erecting of it into a fetish. And it may well
be that she has now, for her guerdon, been further
commissioned to be the recipient and minister of
its interpretation.

Moreover, as Mistress of the Sea, the especial
symbol of the Soul, she has a prescriptive claim
to be the vehicle of the latest and crowning message
to earth, of w^hich the Soul herself is at once the
source, the subject, and the object.

Nor are the universality of her language and the
grandeur of her literature elements to be left out
of consideration. All things point to her language
as destined to become, practically, the language of
the world ; and hence its peculiar fitness to be the
vehicle of that " eternal gospel " which it is
declared should, at the end of the age, be pro-
claimed " unto them that dwell on the earth,
even unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and
people."

CHAPTER VII.

THE PROMULGATION AND HECOGNITIOK.

As will readily be imagined, the interest was
intense with v/hicli we watched the progress of our
work, in order to see whether the crucial event of
its promulgation would coincide with the date
prophesied for the turning point between the out-
going and the incoming dispensations. The pre-
dictions covered a period of six years, namely from
1876 to 1881 inclusive. In this period was to be
laid the foundation of a universal kingdom of
justice and knovrledge, which should constitute the
reign of Michael, and spring from a new illumina-
tion, one feature of which was to be the
" return of the Gods " in 1876. It was in the
autumn of this year that they first came to us, and
the intimation was given us that the reign
of Michael was then actually commencing;
we having no knowledge either of the meaning or
of the fact of such predictions. For, while the
Bible references to Michael were altogether unin-
telligible to us, we had not learnt to refer the
event to any assignable period. The fulfilment of
this prediction disposed us to attach value to those
which pointed to the year 1881 as that in which
our work — supposing our estimate of its signifi-
cance to be correct — ought to see the light. For
our illuminators observed silence respecting times
and seasons, contenting themselves with bringing
under our notice the books containing the pre-

THE PiiOMULGATIOA" AND RECOGNITION. 1 85

dictions, the application being left to our own
perspicacity. We were powerless to influence
events, even had we desired to do so. We could
but work steadily on, as we did, " without haste,
without rest," until my colleague had finished her
university course and obtained her diploma. This
she accomplished in the summer of 1880, soon
after which we returned to England ; and in the
summer of 1881 vv'e delivered in London, to a
private audience, the lectures which constituted
the first promulgation of our work. These were
published in the following winter under the title
of " The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ,"
our excellent friend at Paris faithfuUj'- fulfilling
the mission she had accepted in relation to us and
our work(s\ Thus were fulfilled exactly all the
predictions respecting the dates, the character, and
the manner of our work.

There were many other coincidences of a kind
so remarkable as to make us feel that to ascribe
them to accident would require a larger measure
of credulity than to ascribe them to design. Among
the most striking were those which concerned
" Mary's " names, and which were in this wise.

W^hen first the significance of the Apocalyptic
utterance concerning the river Euphrates and the
kings of the East was flashed on my mind, I asked
her if she knew that she was mentioned, even to
her very name, in the book of Revelation. To
which she replied, smiling, that she had known it
for some time, but which of her names did I mean?
I said that I meant her married surname, which

(*)The French edition, subsequently issued at Paris, is also due
to her zeal and generosity, bee p 137, ante.

1 86 THE PEOMrLGATIOK AND EECOGMTION.

fitted exactly a way made for kings across a river,
by the drying up of its waters, namely a Icing's
ford; the "Kings of the East," meaning those
principles in man whereby he has knowledge of
divine things — the East being the mystical expres-
sion for the place of the dawn of spiritual light,
such as that of which she was the revealer. While
the Euphrates means, in the Apocalypse as in
Genesis, the highest principle in the fourfold
kosmos of man, the Spirit or WilK^\ Only when
this principle in man is " dried up," or sublimated
by being made one with the divine Will, is man
accessible to the divine knowledges brought by the
" Kings of the East." As the channel by which
these knowledges were being restored to the vforld,
she was the kings' ford implied. She then told me,
what I had not yet observed, that her baptismal
and maiden names Avere equally appropriate, as
the Latin for the " acceptable year of the Lord,"
or good time, announced as to follow the restora-
tion of the knowledges brought by the Kings of the
East, is — allowing for difference of gender — Annus
lionus. The coincidence of names did not end
here, for we shortly afterwards, in the course of our
researches, came upon an old prophecy declaring
that the initials of the " Messenger " of the new
Avatar, due at this time, would be A. K. !

She further identified the " Kings of the East "
as functions of the three principles in man, the
Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind; being respectiveh%
right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right

'''For the meaning of the "Four Rivers of Eden" see P.W.,
vi. par. 6. See note on p. 172. ante as to moaning of river
Hiddekel.

THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION. 1 87

perception, wliicli is of tke Soul; and right judg-
ment, which is of the Mind; the combination of
which is the necessary and sufficient condition of
divine knowledge.

Had we been sanguine of a favourable reception
of our book by the press at large — Avhich we were
not — our disappointment would have been great.
But we were by no means prepared either for the
gross misrepresentation and even vulgar ribaldry
with which it was treated by the few organs in the
literary press Avhich noticed it at all, or for the
complete neglect of it by that portion of the press
which especially concerns itself with religious
exegesis. In no instance was any attempt made to
exhibit its plan, purpose, and real nature, or any
recognition accorded to its luminous solutions of
the profound problems dealt with. The very claim
to have experiential knowledge of things spiritual
was accounted an offence ; and it seemed as if the
word had gone forth to adopt towards it an attitude
which should effectually restrain the public from
making its acquaintance, even though it met abso-
lutely the need recognised on all hands as the
world's supreme need, and vindicated its claim
thereto by the presentation of teachings avowedly
of divine derivation and demonstrating their
divinity by their intrinsic character to all who are
in the smallest degree spiritually percipient. To
this day that attitude has never been abandoned or
relaxed; and notwithstanding the assiduous
endeavours made to counteract its influence, the
whole mass of our people, saving only a few select
circles, have 3^et to learn that the longed-for New
Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouch-
safed, having been for years in their midst waiting

1 88 THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

but to be recognised of tkem, — a " light shining in
darkness and the darkness comprehending it
not "(10).

In compliance with the injunctions of our illu-
minators, we had withheld our names from our
first edition, in order to secure for it a judgment
unbiased by any personal element. But though
we ourselves thus escaped the opprobrium attach-
ing to our book, " Mary " was at first inclined to
repent of having exposed her pearls to such
profanation ; and was only reassured by the sug-
gestion that it showed how desperate was the need
for precisely the change our work was designed
to accomplish, and how exactly was fulfilled the
prophecy which foretold the wrath of the dragon
and his angels at the advent of the " Woman "
Intuition, their destined destroyer, and the con-
sequent shortness of their own time. We knew of
course better than to regard such criticism as being
in any sense a measure of our work. For us it was,
like criticism in general, a measure not of the thing
criticised but of the critics themselves. And these,
in our case, but truly represented the condition of
the age, and knew not what they were doing.

Such is the reason why so many will hear for the
first time from this book that a New Gospel of
Interpretation has been received. To turn to the
other and compensating side. With those who were
specially qualified to judge, it was far otherwise.
And amonq; the most notable of the recognitions
received from this quarter was the weighty utter-
ance which appears in the preface to the second

l"')This indictment is as true to-day as it was twelve years ago,
when the above passage was written. S.H.H.

THE PROMrLGATION AND RECOGNITION, 1 89

and succeeding editions, coming from that veteran
student of the "Divine Science," the friend, dis-
ciple, and literary heir of the renowned Kahalist
and magian, the late Abbe Constant (" Eliphas
Levi "), namely. Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles,
who though then an entire stranger to us, wrote to
us as follows— for I think it may with advantage
be reproduced here : —

'•■ As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the
appeal on behalf 01 your book is, really, to miracles, but
with the difference that in your case they are intellectual
ones, and incapable of shnulation, l>eing miracles of
interpretation. And they have the further distinction of
doing no violence to common sense by infringing the pos-
sibilities of Nature; while they are in complete accord
with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great
Jlothei' of these, the Kabala. Tliat miracles such as I am
describing are to be found in The Perfect Way, in kind
and number unexampled, they who are the best qualified
to judge will be the most ready to affirm.

•' And here, ajjropos of these renowned Scriptures, per-
mit me to offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we
have it. It is my opinion —

"(1) TliRt this tradition is far from being genuine,
and such as it was on its original emergence from the
sanctuaries.

" (2) That when Guillaume Postel — of excellent
memory — and his brother Hermetists of the later middle
age — the Abbot Trithemius and others — predicted that
these saered books of the Hebrews should become known
and understood at the end of the era, and specified the
present time for that event, they did not mean that such
knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of
these particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its
base a new illumination, which should eliminate from

I go THE PROMrLGATIOX AND RECOGNITION.

them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced,
and should re-unite that great tradition with its source by
restoring it in all its purity.

" (3) That this illumination has just been accomplished,
and has been manifested in The Perfect Way. For in
this book we find all that there is of truth in the Kabala,
supplemented by new intuitions, such as present a body
of doctrine at once complete, homogeneous, logical and
inexpungnable.

" Since the whole tradition thus finds itself I'ecovered
or restored to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel
and his fellow-Hennetists are accomplished; and I con-
sider that from henceforth the study of the Kabala will be
but an object of curiosity and erudition, like that of
Hebrew antiquities.

" Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself
these three supreme questions: Whence come we? What
are we? Whither go we? Now, these questions at length
find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory, in
The Perfect Way "*''.

He subsequently wrote : —

" If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly
believe they will be, those which best interpret the Scrip-
tures of the past, these writings will assuredly hold the
foremost place among them '''^'.

For those who are unacquainted with the Kabala,
its origin, nature, and intent, it will be well to
state that it represents the transcendental and
esoteric doctrine of the Hebrews, as handed down
from the remotest times. In recognition of its
divine origin, the Eabbins describe it as having
been communicated by God, first, to " Adam in

(')Cited from the preface to the second and succeeding editions
of "The P.W."

(=)Cited from "The Life of A.K." Vol. II. p. 155.

THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION. I9I

Paradise," and, next, to " Moses on Sinai." By
which expressions they implied that its doctrine
was due to the highest possible illumination.

It was also in recognition of this element in our
book that Mr. MacGregor Mathers dedicated his
learned work, " The Kabala Unveiled," to us,
saying—

" I have much pleasure in dedicating this work to the
authors of The Perfect Way, as they have in that excel-
lent and wonderful book touched so much on the doc-
trines of the Kabala, and laid such value on its teachings.
The Perfect Way is one of the most deeply occult works
that has been written for centui'ies."

As the foregoing testimonies represent the
consensus of the Kabalists, Hermetists, and other
great ancient schools of spiritual science in the
West, so the following represents the consensus of
the corresponding schools of the East. As will be
seen, it involves a coincidence so notable as to
point to a source transcending the human and
terrestrial, as that of the great spiritual revival
which our age is witnessing. That coincidence is
in this wise : —

Within two years of the commencement of our
collaboration in the work which proved to be that
of the restoration of the Gnosis of the West — the
divine doctrine of which, as we had come to learn,
Christ was the personal demonstration, and the
religion called after Him ouj^ht to have been the
expression ; a collaboration was commenced which
had for its end the like exposition in regard to the
religious svstems of the East. This is the col-
laboration, also of a woman and a man, which had
its issue in the Theosophical Society. The two

192 THE rROMULGATTOX AND RECOGNITION.

pairs of collaboratoi^a worked simultaneously
through the succeeding years in entire ignorance
of each other and their work, until the commence-
ment of the publication of our results in 1881, at
which time the Theosophical Society was still so
far from having completed the system of its doc-
trine, that neither of its two now fundamental tenets
had yet been recognised by it, the tenets, namely,
of Reincarnation and Karma— its chief text-book,
the " Isis Unveiled " of its foundress, not contain-
ing them. Vie, on the contrary, had both of these
doctrines, having derived them, as already stated
herein, directly from celestial sources and vrholly
independently of human authority and tradition,
of spiritualism, and of our own prepossessions.

It was clear, both by this fact and by the
avowals of the parties concerned, that up to this
time the chiefs of the Theosophical Society had
been unable to obtain from those whom they
claimed as their masters more than a very meagre
instalment of their doctrine. But after the arrival
of our book in India this state of things was
changed. It was then declared on behalf of the
"^ masters " that we had obtained, from original and
independent sources, a system of doctrine sub-
stantially identical with that of which they had for
ages been, as they supposed, in exclusive posses-
sion, but had never been permitted to divulge, as
it had always been reserved for initiates. The
revelation of it through us, we were further
informed, had " forced the hands of the masters,"
by showing them that the time had come when
secrecy was no longer possible, and compelling

THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION. 193

them, if only in vindication of their own claims,
to relax their rule of silence in regard to their
mysteries.

The coincidence between their doctrine and ours
comprised sundry particulars the most recondite,
including — besides the two great tenets already
named— the multiplicity of principles in the
human system, and their separation and respective
conditions after death, — a subject lying outside
the cognisance of "Spiritualism." Among other
points of agreement w^as that of their recognition
of the great antiquity of the soul of " Mary,"
whom they pronounced to be " the greatest natural
mystic of the present day, and countless ages ahead
of the great majority of mankind, the foremost of
whom — the most civilised — belong to the last race
of the fourth round, while she belongs to the first
race of the fifth round,"

In presence of these and other proofs of the
possession by the Eastern occultists, of knowledges
which we had obtained directly at first hand from
celestial sources, we could not but pay respectful
heed to the claims of the representatives of the
Theosophical Society, and welcome any token
which might indicate it as a destined fellow-agent
in the great spiritual revival of the age. So might
it constitute, with " Spiritualism " and the work
represented by us, a threefold power for accom-
plishing the promotion predicted for this era, of
the consciousness of the race to a level which should
transcend any yet reached by it as a race. With
Spiritualism to represent the phenomenal and per-
sonal, Theosophy the philosophical and occult,
and our own work the mystical and divine, every
region of man's higher nature would find its due

194 T"^^ PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

recognition and unfoldment. Meanwhile, the
organ of the Society in India thus expressed itself
respecting "The Perfect Way": —

" A grand book, keen of insight and eloquent in expo-
sition; an upheaval of true spirituality. . . . We regard
its authors as having produced one of the most — perhaps
the most — important and spirit-stirring of appeals to the
highest instincts of mankind which modern European
literature has evolved "'^'.

We had a yet further warrant, derived from
Scripture itself, for looking to the Theosophical
Society as possibly a divinely appointed factor in
the spiritual evolution of the time. The unsealing
of the World's Bibles was upon us, and not of that
of Christendom only. And we saw in the follov/ing
saying of Jesus an obvious allusion to the present
epoch, " In those days many shall come from the
East, and the West, and the North, and the South,
and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Not that the
terms East, West, North, and South, denoted for
us the quarters of the physical globe. We had
learnt to understand them in their mystical sense,
wherein they denote the various human tempera-
ments, the intuitional, the traditional, the intel-
lectual, and the emotional, all of which would find
satisfaction in the doctrine then to be recovered.
It was in the terms Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
that the significance of the utterance lay for us;
these being in one aspect the Hebrew equivalents
for Brahma, Isis, and lacchos, and denoting the
mysteries respectively of India, Egypt, and Greece,
of the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein

(')The Theosophist, May, 1882.

THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION. 1 95

of tlie whole Man. For these mysteries tog-ether
comprised the perfect doctrine of Existence, called
also in Scripture the " Word of God," the " Law
and the Prophets," and the " Theou Sophia,"
"Wisdom of God," and "hidden Wisdom," of
which the Christ, as the typical Man regenerate,
is the fulfilment and personal demonstration. This
is to say, they constituted that Gnosis, or Know-
ledge, with the taking away and withholdment
of the key of which Jesus so bitterly reproached,
in the Ecclesiasticism of His time, that of all time,
and, therefore, that knowledge to the restoration
of which, in our day, through the faculty by means
of which it was originally obtained and can alone
be discerned, the prophecies one and all pointed,
as to mark and to make the " time of the end " of
the " adulterous," because idolatrous, " genera-
tion," hitherto in possession in the Church, and
to introduce the " kingdom of God with power."

Having warrant so high for anticipating the
restoration at this time of the faculties and know-
ledges represented by the various movements in
question, and knowing also, if only by the
example of ourselves, that the divinity of a mission
is not invalidated by the limitations, real or sup-
posed, of its instruments, but that these must be
educated by experience, and in such sense " per-
fected through suffering " to be fitted for their
appointed tasks; — we had no doubt as to the
attitude it was our duty to maintain towards all
candidates for a share in that which we recog-
nised as the greatest of all the endeavours yet
made by the human soul to regain her long-lost
rightful dominion over the minds and hearts of

196 THE TROMULGATION AND EECOGISITION.

men, leaving it to time to determine tliat wliicli
was of divine appointment, and that wliicli v/aa
not.

It will have been observed that I have used the
terms " mystical " and " occult " in such wise as
to imply a distinction between them. It is
important to the purpose of this book to define
and emphasise that distinction. The instructions
received by us from our illuminators were explicit
and positive on this point.

This is because they refer to two different
domains of man's system. Occultism deals with
transcendental physics, and is of the intellectual,
belonging to science. Mysticism deals with
transcendental metaphysics, and is of the spiritual,
belonging to religion. Occultism, therefore, has
for its domain the region which, lying between
the body and the soul, is interior to the body but
exterior to the soul ; while Mysticism has for its
domain the region which, comprising the soul and
the spirit, is interior to the soul, and belongs to
the divine. Of course, the terms themselves, which
are respectively the Latin and the Greek for the
same thing, and mean hidden from the outer
senses and also from non-initiates, do not imply
such distinction, but they have come by usage to
be thus referable.

The following citations are from the teachings
received by us in this connection. They account
for the scientific part of the training imposed on
us.

" The science of the Mysteries can be understood only
by one who has studied the physical sciences, because it is
the climax and crown of all these, and must be learned
last and not first. Unless thou understand the physical

THE PEOMULGATION AND EECOGNITION. 197

sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctnne of
Vehicles, which is the basic doctrine of occult science. ' If
thou understood not earthly things, how shall I make thee
understand heavenly things?' Wherefore, get knowledge,
and be greedy of knowledge, ever more and more. It is
idle for thee to seek the inner chamber, until thou hast
passed thiough the outer. This, also, is another reason
why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To
the unlearned no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy
is the royal science'''; if thou would reach the king's
presence chamber, there is no way save through the outer
rooms and galleries of the palace'^'.

" The adept or occultist is, at best, a religious scientist ;
he is not a ' saint.' If occultism were all, and held the
key of heaven, there would be no need of ' Christ.' But
occultism, although it holds the ' power,' holds neither
the ' kingdom ' nor the ' glory,' for these are of Christ.
Tlie adept knows not the kingdom of heaven, and ' the
least in this kingdom are greater than he.'

" ' Desire first the kingdom of God and God's righteous-
ness ; and all these things shall be added unto you.' As
Jesus said of Prometheus'"', ' Take no thought for to-
morrow. Behold the lilies of the field and the birds of
the air, and trust God as these.' For the saint has faith ;
the adept has knowledge. If the adepts in occultism or
in physical science could suffice to man, I would have
committed no message to you. But the two are not in

(')The term Theosophy is here used in its Pauline and ancient
sense of the science of the reaHsation of man's potential divinity ;
— the process, that is, of the Christ. — 1 Cor. ii. 7. E.M.

'^'From an address given on the 17th July, 1883, by A.K. to
the Theosophical Society, a full report of which is given in " Tha
Life of A.K.'' Vol. II. pp. 124-128.

''''A term which signifies forethought. The remonstrance is
against undue anxiety and alarm on the soul's behalf while in
the path of duty, as implying distrust of the divine sufficiency.
E.M.

198 THE TEOMULGATIOX A>"D EECOGIsITION.

opposition. All things are yours, even the kingdom and
the power, but the gloiy is to God. Do not be ignorant of
their teaching, for I would have you know all. Take,
therefore, every means to know. This knowledge is of
man, and cometh from the mind. Go, therefore, to man
to learn it. ' If you will be perfect, learn also of these.'
' Yet the wisdom which is from above, is above all.' For
one man may begin from within, that is, with wisdom,
and wisdom is one with love. Blessed is the man who
chooseth wisdom, for she leaveneth all things. And
another man may begin from without, and that which is
without is power. To such there shall be a thorn in the
flesh'"'. For it is hard in such case to attain to the within.
But if a man be first wise inwardly, he shall the more
easily have this also added unto him. For he is bom again
and is free. Whereas at a great price must the adept buy
freedom. Nevertheless, I bid you seek; — and in this
also you shall find. But I have shown you a more excellent
way than theirs. Yet both Ishniael and Isaac are sons of
one father, and of all her children is Wisdom justified.
So neither are they wrong, nor are you led astray. The
goal is the same; but their way is harder than yours.
They take the kingdom by violence, if they take it, and
by much toil and agony of the flesh. But from the time
of Christ within you, the kingdom is open to the sons of
God. Receive what you can receive ; I would have you
know^ all things. And if you have served seven years for
wisdom, count it not loss to serve seven years for power
also. For if Rachel bear the best beloved, Leah hath
many sons, and is exceeding fruitful. But her eye is not
single ; she looketh two waj^s, and seeketh not that which
is above only. But to you Rachel is given first, and per-
chance her beauty may suffice. I say not, let it suffice;
it is better to know all things, for if you know not all, how
can you judge alii For as a man heareth, so must he
judge. Will you therefore be I'egenerate in the without,

(')Meaning that in such case the flesh itself is the impediment.

THE PROMULGATION AND EECOGNITIOX. 1 99

as well as in the within? For they are renewed in the
body, but you in the soul. It is well to be baptised into
John's baptism, if a man receive also the Holy Ghost.
But some know not so much as that there is any Holy
Ghost. Yet Jesus also, being Himself regenerate in the
spirit, sought unto the Baptism of John, for thus it became
Him to fulfil Himself in all things. And having fulfilled,
behold, the ' Dove ' descended on Him. If then you will
be perfect, seek both that which is within and that which
is without ; and the circle of being, wdiich is the ' wheel of
life,' shall be complete in you."

The Scriiitiiral allusious in this teaching, which
was received by " Mary " under illumination
occurring in sleep, proved to be on the lines of the
Kabala.

There were sundry other tokens of recognition
which are entitled to reproduction here, as show-
ing to how wide a range of educated and intel-
ligent opinion within the pale of Christianity our
work appeals. Their value is due to their rejjre-
seuting a class of minds which, w-hile possessed of
the ordinary ecclesiastical training, are not
restricted to the knowledge thereby acquired. For,
seeing that such training means little, if anything,
more than the mechanical learning of what other
men have said who, themselves, had no real knoAV-
ledge, the opinions, expressed on the strength of
it, are neither educated nor intelligent, but
adoptive only and perfunctory, and represent
learning without insight. And as such precisely
are the ojiinions which constitute ecclesiastical
orthodoxy, the judgment of the representatives of
that orthodoxy on our work possesses no more real
value than did that of Caiaphas and his coadjutors

200 THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

on Jesus and His work^^). Denouncing Him as a
blasphemer, they were themselves blasphemers.
And inasmuch as they were types of the votaries
of ecclesiastical orthodoxy of all time, it is obvious
that the only new revelation- — if any — which would
find acceptance at their hands, would be one that
confirmed and reinforced their errors, instead of
exposing and correcting them. Proceeding, as was
declared by Jesus, from their " father, the devil,"
a priest-constructed system ever prefers Barabbas
to Christ; — prefers, that is, a system which
defrauds — hence the force of the term " robber "
as applied to Barabbas — man of the divine poten-
tialities which Christ came to reveal to him by
demonstrating them in His own person, together
with the manner of their realisation.

Not that all who bear the title of Ecclesiastics
come under this condemnation. In every age of
the Church there have been those who, while hold-
ing office in it, have not consented to the " Scarlet
Woman " of Sacerdotalism. And never was there
a time when the proportion of these was larger,

<*)Iii a letter on "The Church and the Bible," in the
"Agnostic Journal" of 5th January, 1895, E.M. says :—

" Among the fallacies to be discarded is the fallacy which
consists in believing that the Church, so vehemently denounced
in its own sacred books for its manifold, grievous, and fatal
perversions of the truth contained in those books, and so
ignorant as to be imaware either of the source or of the meaning
of its own dogmas, must understand its doctrines better than I
understand them, whose high privilege it is to have been one
of the two recipients of the Nev/ Gospel of Interpretation,
which has been vouchsafed expressly to correct those perver-
sions, and who not only have that gospel by heart, but who know
absolutely by my own soul's experience — as also did my col-
league— the truth of every word of it." (A long extract from
this letter, including the above, is printed in the appendix to
B.O.A.I. p. 83.) S.H.H.

THE PEOMULGATION AND SECOGNITION. 20I

or when their sense of the need of a New Gospel
of Interpretation was more keen and urgent than
now : so intolerable to multitudes of the clergy of
all sections of the Church has become the
antagonism recognised bj them as subsisting
between the traditional and official presentation of
religion and their own clear perceptions of good-
ness and truth^^\

The testimonies which remain to be added are
valuable as coming from men who, while pos-
sessed of ecclesiastical training, have been taught
also of the Spirit, and, adding to tradition
intuition, and to learning insight, have in them-
selves the witness to that which they utter.

A distinguished French ecclesiastic, the Abbe
Roca, writing in L'Aurore, says of our books —

"These books seem to me to be the chosen organs of
the Divine Feminine " (i.e. the interpretative) " Principle,
in view of the new revelation of Revelation."

By which it will be seen that he shared Cardinal
Newman's expectation referred to in the intro-
duction; and accepted as realised the forecast of
Joseph de Maistre when he said " Religion and
Science, in virtue of their natural affinity, will
meet in the brain of some man of genius — per-
haps of more than one — and the world will get
what it needs and cries for, 7iot a new religion, out
the revelation of Revelation." As the event shows,
for " the brain of some man,'' he should have said
" the mind and soul of a woman."
^ The Rev. Dr. John Pulsford, author of " The
Supremacy of Man," " Quiet Hours," " Morgen-

C'See also E.M.'s remarks to the same effect in the " State-
ment E.O.U." pp. 10-11.

202 THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

rotlie," and otlier works distinguislied for the
depth of their piety and insight, thus %^Tote to me
on the publication of " Clothed Avith the Sun " —

" I cannot tell you with what thankfulness and pleasure
I have read Clothed with the Sun. It is impossible for
a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt that these teach-
ings were received from ivithin the astral veil. They are
full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy
Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own
religion, they would find in these priceless records our
Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly illustrated
and confinned. The regret is that so few, comparatively,
who read the book, will be aware of the titlie of its pearls.
But that such communications are possible, and are per-
mitted to be given to the world, is a sign, and a most
promising sign of our age.

" It is no little joy to me to feel that I am so much
more in sympathy with God's daughter, the Seeress, than
I supposed. Tlie testimony is so clearly above, and dis-
tinct from, aught that is derived from the occult powers
of the universe, rather than from the Supreme Spirit and
Father-Mother of our Spirits."

Another notable student of spiritual science, a
Priest, writing in Light of 21st October, 1882,
after describing llie rerfect Way as " that most
wonderful of all books which has appeared since
the beginning of the Christian Era," said: — "It
is a book that no student can be without if he will
know tlie truth on these matters. It furnishes us
with a master-key to the phenomena which so
perplex the minds of enquirers, and gives a system,
the like of which has not been seen for eighteen
centuries." The late Eev. John Manners, a man
venerable of years and mature of spirit, and
deeply versed in the sciences of both worlds,

THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION. 2O3

declared of these illuminations, " the Great I Am
speaks in every line of them. Only the Logos
Himself could be their source." Lady Caithness,
already referred to, ujjon receiving a copy of The
Perfect Way, wrote : " I have got another Bible,
the most complete Revelation, certainly, that has
yet been given to man on this planet '"(1°). And
a Parsee scholar, a native of India, wrote : " The
Perfect Way has made me a much nobler man- — a
man of tranquility and calmness, due to the know-
ledge of the philosophy of Being imbibed by me
from it, and for which my mind was fortunately

jjrepared '"(i\

*****

As stated in the preface, this present book is
intended but as an epitome and instalment of the
far larger book in course of preparation. For, as
with the old Gospel of Manifestation, so with the
New Gospel of Interpretation, the excusable hyper-
bole is no less appropriate to it, — " I suppose that
even the world itself could not contain the books
which might be written."

For the human soul is a theme as inexhaustible
as it is paramount. And, as never in the world's
history have the need and the desire for the know-
ledge of it been so urgent as they now are, so never
in the world's history has there been a revelation
of it comparable with that which has been vouch-
safed in our day, and is contained in the narra-
tive, the completion of which, and this alone, will

('")See Life A.K. Vol. II. pp. 52-53.
(''See Life A.K. Vol. II. p. 241.

204 THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

enable me to " depart in peace," having no appre-
hension of after disquietude on the score of having
left unaccomplished a portion bo important of the
task committed to me.

The End.

"SCRIPTURES OF THE FUTURE."

Books rapidly coming into use in the Roman, Greek and Angli-
can communions as the text-books which represent the prophesied
restoration of the Ancient Esoteric doctrine which, by interpreting
the mysteries of religion, should reconcile faith and reason, religion
and science, and accomplish the downfall of that sacerdotal system,
which— "making the word of God of none effect by its traditions"
—has hitherto usurped the name and perverted the truth of
Christianity. Their standpoint is that Christian doctrines,
when rightly understood, are necessary and self-evident truths,
recognisable as founded in and representing the actual nature of
existence, incapable of being conceived of as otherwise, and con-
stituting a system of thought at once scientific, philosophic and
religious, absolutely inexpugnable, and satisfactory to man's highest
aspirations, intellectual, moral and spiritual.

The Perfect Way; or The Finding of Christ. By Anna Kingsford
and Edward Maitland. Third English Edition, Price 63. net.

The Life of Anna Kingsford ; by Edward Maitland. A new
edition in preparation.

The Ne«9 Gospel of interpretation ; being an Abstract of the
doctrine and Statement of the objects of The Esoteric Christian
Union, founded by Edward Maitland, Nov., 1891.

The Story of Anna BCi^gsford and Edward Maitiand, and
of The New Gospei of Interpretation; by Edward Maitland.
Third and enlarged Edition, 228 pp., edited by Samuel Hopgood
Hart, Cloth Gilt, Back and Side; Price 3s. 6d. net; Post Free
3s. lOd. The Ruskin Press, Stafford Street, Birmingham.

The Bible's Own Account of Itself; by Edward Maitland.
Second Edition, edited by Saml. Hopgood Hart, complete, with
Appendix. Crown 8vo. 96 pp., Stiff Paper Covers, Price 6d. ;
Post Free 7d. ; or in Cloth Covers, Gilt, Is. 6d. net ; Post Free
Is. 8d. The Ruskin Press, Birmingham.

All the above Works m,iy be obtained from
THE RUSKIN PRESS, STAFFGRD STREET, BIRMINGHAM.

(Postai^es in addition to the above Pi-ices.)

S&tfto Tesiimor.sGS of notable proflcienia in religious solenae.

" If the Scriptures of the future are to be, as I firmly believe they will be, those which
best interpret the Scriptures of the past, these v.-ritings will assuredly hold the foremost
place among- them. . . . They present a body of doctrine at once complete, homogeneous,
logical and inexpugnable, in which the three supreme questions, Whence come we?
What are we? Whither go we? at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and
consolatory." — Baron Spedalieri (The Kabalist).

" It is impossible for a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt that these teachings were
receiN ed from within the astral veil. They are full of the concentrated and compact
wisdom of the Holy Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own religion, they
would find in these priceless records our Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly
illustrated and confirmed. That such communications are possible, and are permitted to
be given to the world, in a sign, and a most promising sign, of our age." — Rbv. Dr. John

PULSFORD.

THE
BIBLE'S OWN ACCOUNT OF ITSELF.

By EDWARD MAITLAND (B.A., Cantab)

Author of " The Keys of the Creeds," " The Story of the New Gospel of
Interpretation," " The Life of Anna King^sford," etc. ; and Joint Writer
with Dr. Anna Kingsford of " The Perfect Way," etc.

EDITED BY SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
Second Edition, (Cosnplete) with Appendix, PRiCE SIXPENCE.

Or in Cloth Covers, gilt. One Shilling and Sixpence.

" Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise
upon the earth, two dragons. And they fight and tear each other, until
there arises a star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther."— The
Vision of Mordecai, as interpreted in " Clothed with the Sun," I., IX.

Birmingham : The Ruskin Press, Stafford St., and all Bookseller's.

SOME PRESS OPINIONS

OF

The Story of Anna Ktngsford and Edivavd Maitland

and of
The New Gospel of Interpretation.

Literary World — "A strangely interesting book—very eurious—
few who have any sympathy with mental phenomena of the ' occult '
kind will fail to read it with sustained interest."

LigJit — <' A psychic history of umblemished veracity and
astounding facts— supremely interesting— full of beauty and perfect
simplicity of purpose '-and showing that the 'fig-tree of the
inward understanding is no longer barren, but has budded and
blossomed and borne fruit.' "

Church Bells, 2yth April, i8g4 — "Mr. Maitland has
written a fascinating book."

The Gentleman'' s Journal March, i8g4 — " Nothing Mr.
Maitland writes would I like to miss— I never study his searching
and striking pages without profit."

Agnostic Journal — "A fascinating volume— the history of a
work calculated to effect a fundamental revolution in religion— told
in language which leaves nothing to be desired."

The Illustrated Church News, jist Mat-ch, i8g4 — " This
work is to Christians of real interest ; for it enables them to
study Gnosticism alive and vigorous in the nineteenth century."

Brigliouse Gazette — "One of those really great books associ-
ated with the names of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland."

The Unknown World — "There is no man now known to be
living in England who has had such an abundant transcendental
experience."

RELIGION AND MENTAL PHENOMENA.
From the " Christian Union.''

Whatever maybe said in favour or disfavour of Mr.
Edward Maitland's " Story of the New Gospel of Inter-
pretation," it is one of the most remarkable and
most fascinating books on mental-visional perceptions
of Divine Revelation that has appeared at any time.
It is a book that carries the reader away from the
materialistic to the mystical and spiritual. The author
claims to bring to the old revelation a new interpreta-
tion, or more correctly, to restore the original and
spiritual interpretation which has been lost through
literalism. According to the narrative, the two persons
concerned were for some years in reception of revela-
tions which convinced them that they had been enabled
"to tap a boundless reservoir of wisdom and know-
ledge" before the method and source were declared
to them. . . . At length it was made clear to them
that the knowledges they had acquired were due to
intuitional recollection occuring under Divine illumin-
ation. " Inborn knowledge and the perception of
things--these are the sources of Revelation. The
soul of the man instructeth him, having already learned
by experience. Intuition is inborn experience, that
which the soul knoweth of old and of former lives."
The ordinary mind will doubtless be ready to pronounce
it to be strange mental phenomena, and nothing more.
But surely mental phenomena of an extraordinary
character must have an extraordinary use and purpose.
And so few persons know enough of the psyhic powers
latent in man, to be able to believe in the reality of
these manifestations. . . . The nature of the results
is such as to negative all materialistic explanations.
For the knowledges recovered are real, solving problems
in the profoundest domains of theology, hitherto given
up as mysteries hopeless of solution. And they are
being thus recognised far and wide by the profoundest
students of spiritual science. . . . Judge the story
of the New Gospel of Interpretation in what light we
may, it has in it all the evidences of a marvellous work
in its mental and spiritual conception, exposition,
interpretation, illustration, and Divine communication.
It stands out conspicuously as a fuller development of
Biblical truth, such as Cardinal Newman must have
anticipated when he said that he saw no hope for
religion, save in a new Revelation.

THE RUSKIN PRESS,

STAFFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM,

PRINTERS.