The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation Part 18

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 whether 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 necessary to have nothing, but it is necessary 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 regret? Who 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 are vacant at the Celestial Table, if you will put on Christ. Eat no dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. 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 pa.s.s 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 s.e.xual communion; let desire be magnetic and soulic. If you indulge the body, you perpetuate the body, and the end of the body is corruption. You understand me again, but you 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 resurrection be worth the pa.s.sion; 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.

When 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 vow 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[80].

This chapter may appropriately terminate with a few remarks in reply to the inevitable question, why our country and language were selected as the place and tongue of the new revelation in preference 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 G.o.d and the Conscience, in such wise as to const.i.tute them the counterpart of Israel in the modern world. Others besides ourselves have recognised this characteristic. Said Milton, speaking of a crisis which, momentous as it was, pales in presence of that which now is, seeing that Religion 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, G.o.d is beginning to devise some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He 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, accomplis.h.i.+ng the work of destruction, is about by the hands of His Intuitionalists, to establish the true interpretation, accomplis.h.i.+ng the work of re-construction."

Nor are there wanting specific historical facts pointing in the same direction. To Britain it was given by a timely act of revolt against a domination at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the 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 which 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 proclaimed "unto them that dwell on the earth, even unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people."

FOOTNOTES:

[74] Taste and smell being modes of touch. E.M.

[75] _I.e._, the astral and mental part of man, which is accounted a person or system in itself. E.M.

[76] The Sacramental bread called by the Hebrews "s...o...b..ead."

[77] See note on p. 122, ante.

[78] The names Nyssa, Nysa, Nysas, and Nissi are identical with each other, and also with Sinai, Sion, and those of other sacred mounts. For they all are names for the Mount of Regeneration, 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 encompa.s.ses the Spirit. Thus Daniel is said to be "on Hiddekel" when under divine illumination. ("The Life of A.K." Vol. I. p. 459.)

[79] A.K. was distinctly and positively a.s.sured 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.

[80] This instruction is taken from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I, pp.

424-425.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.

As will readily be imagined, the interest was intense with which 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 outgoing and the incoming dispensations.

The predictions 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 knowledge, which should const.i.tute the reign of Michael, and spring from a new illumination, one feature of which was to be the "return of the G.o.ds" 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 unintelligible to us, we had not learnt to refer the event to any a.s.signable 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 significance 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 predictions, 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 we delivered in London, to a private audience, the lectures which const.i.tuted the first promulgation of our work. These were published in the following winter under the t.i.tle of "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," our excellent friend at Paris faithfully fulfilling the mission she had accepted in relation to us and our work[81]. 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.

When 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 fitted exactly a way made for kings across a river, by the drying up of its waters, namely a _king's ford_; the "Kings of the East," meaning those principles in man whereby he has knowledge of divine things--the East being the mystical expression 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 Will[82]. 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 world, she was the _kings' ford_ implied. She then told me, what I had not yet observed, that her baptismal and maiden names were equally appropriate, as the Latin for the "acceptable year of the Lord," or _good time_, announced as to follow the restoration of the knowledges brought by the Kings of the East, is--allowing for difference of gender--_Annus Bonus_. 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 respectively, right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right perception, which is of the Soul; and right judgment, 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--which 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 which 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 att.i.tude which should effectually restrain the public from making its acquaintance, even though it met absolutely 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 att.i.tude has never been abandoned or relaxed; and notwithstanding the a.s.siduous endeavours made to counteract its influence, the whole ma.s.s of our people, saving only a few select circles, have yet to learn that the longed-for New Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed, having been for years in their midst waiting but to be recognised of them,--a "light s.h.i.+ning in darkness and the darkness comprehending it not"[83].

In compliance with the injunctions of our illuminators, 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 attaching to our book, "Mary" was at first inclined to repent of having exposed her pearls to such profanation; and was only rea.s.sured by the suggestion 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 consequent 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 among the most notable of the recognitions received from this quarter was the weighty utterance which appears in the preface to the second and succeeding editions, coming from that veteran student of the "Divine Science," the friend, disciple, and literary heir of the renowned Kabalist and magian, the late Abbe Constant ("Eliphas Levi"), namely, Baron Spedalieri of Ma.r.s.eilles, 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 of your book is, really, to miracles, but with the difference that in your case they are intellectual ones, and incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation. And they have the further distinction of doing no violence to common sense by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in complete accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great Mother of these, the Kabala. That 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, _apropos_ of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we have it. It is my opinion--

"(1) That 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 sacred 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 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, h.o.m.ogeneous, logical and inexpungnable.

"Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel and his fellow-Hermetists are accomplished; and I consider 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_"[84].

He subsequently wrote:--

"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 writings will a.s.suredly hold the foremost place among them"[85].

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 Rabbins describe it as having been communicated by G.o.d, first, to "Adam in 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 excellent and wonderful book touched so much on the doctrines 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 centuries."

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 ought to have been the expression; a collaboration was commenced which had for its end the like exposition in regard to the religious systems of the East. This is the collaboration, also of a woman and a man, which had its issue in the Theosophical Society. The two pairs of collaborators worked simultaneously through the succeeding years in entire ignorance of each other and their work, until the commencement 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 doctrine, 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 containing them. We, on the contrary, had both of these doctrines, having derived them, as already stated herein, directly from celestial sources and wholly 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 substantially identical with that of which they had for ages been, as they supposed, in exclusive possession, 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 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 was that of their recognition of the great antiquity of the soul of "Mary," whom they p.r.o.nounced 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 const.i.tute, with "Spiritualism" and the work represented by us, a threefold power for accomplis.h.i.+ng 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 personal, Theosophy the philosophical and occult, and our own work the mystical and divine, every region of man's higher nature would find its due 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 exposition; 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"[86].

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 following 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 temperaments, the intuitional, the traditional, the intellectual, 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 Iacchos, and denoting the mysteries respectively of India, Egypt, and Greece, of the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body, and therein of the whole Man. For these mysteries together comprised the perfect doctrine of Existence, called also in Scripture the "Word of G.o.d," the "Law and the Prophets," and the "_Theou Sophia_," "Wisdom of G.o.d," and "hidden Wisdom," of which the Christ, as the typical Man regenerate, is the fulfilment and personal demonstration. This is to say, they const.i.tuted that Gnosis, or Knowledge, 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, "generation," hitherto in possession in the Church, and to introduce the "kingdom of G.o.d with power."