{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/great-initiates/05-pythagoras-the-mysteries-of-delphi.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "great-initiates",
    "name": "The Great Initiates"
  },
  "parents": [],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 6,
    "slug": "05-pythagoras-the-mysteries-of-delphi",
    "title": "Pythagoras: The Mysteries of Delphi",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 35245,
    "text": "## Pythagoras: The Mysteries of Delphi\n\n\nThe Mysteries of Delphi\n\nKnow yourself -- and you will know the universe and the gods.\n-- Inscription in the Temple of Delphi.\n\nSleep, dream and ecstasy are the three doors opening upon the Beyond, whence come to us the\nscience of the soul and the art of divination.\n\nEvolution is the law of Life.\n\nNumber is the law of the Universe.\n\nUnity is the law of God.\n\n30. Greece in the Sixth Century\n\nThe soul of Orpheus had crossed the stormy sky of nascent Greece like a divine meteor. Once he had\ndisappeared, darkness covered it once again. After a series of revolutions the tyrants of Thrace\nburned his books, overturned his temples, drove out his disciples. The Greek kings and many cities,\nmore jealous of their frenetic licence than loving that justice which flows from pure doctrines,\nimitated them. They wished to erase his memory, to destroy his last remains, and this was so well\ndone that a few centuries after his death, a part of Greece doubted that he had ever existed. In vain\nthe initiates preserved his tradition for more than a thousand years; in vain Pythagoras and Plato\nspoke of him as of a divine man; the sophists and rhetoricians saw in him nothing more than a\nlegend concerning the origin of music. Even today students firmly deny the existence of Orpheus.\nThey base themselves on the fact that neither Homer nor Hesiod mentions him. But the silence of\nthese poets is amply explained by the censorship the local governments had placed upon the memory\nof the great initiator. The disciples of Orpheus missed no opportunity to rally all powers under the\nsupreme authority of the temple of Delphi, and did not cease to repeat that it was necessary to submit\nthe differences arising between the various states of Greece to the Council of the Amphictions. This\nannoyed the demagogues as well as the tyrants. Homer, who probably received his initiation in the\nsanctuary of Tyre, and whose mythology is the poetic translation of the theology of Sankoniaton, --\nHomer the Ionian may very well not have known the Dorian Orpheus, whose tradition was held all\nthe more secret since it was more persecuted. As for Hesiod, born near the Parnassus, he should have\nknown Orpheus' name and teaching through the sanctuary of Delphi, but his initiators imposed\nsilence upon him, and with good reason.\n\nNevertheless, Orpheus lived in his work, he lived in his disciples and even in those who denied him.\nWhat is this work? Where must one find this life-soul? Is it in the fierce military oligarchy of Sparta\nwhere knowledge was scorned, ignorance built up into a system and brutality required as a\ncomplement of courage? Is it in those stern wars of Messenia in which one sees the Spartans pursue\na neighboring people to the point of extermination and those Romans of Greece preface the Tarpeian\nrock and blood-stained laurels of the Capitol by thrusting brave Aristomenes, the defender of his\ncountry, over a precipice? Is it in the turbulent democracy of Athens, ever ready to drink of tyranny?\nIs it in the Praetorian Guard of Pisitratus, or in the dagger of Harmodius and Aristogiton, hidden in a\nmyrtle branch? Is it in the numerous cities of Hellas, of Greater Greece and Asia Minor, of which\nAthens and Sparta are contrasting types? Is it in all these democracies and tyrannies -- envious,\njealous, forever ready to tear each other asunder? -- No. The soul of Greece is not there. It is in her\ntemples, in her Mysteries and in their initiates. It is in the sanctuary of Jupiter at Olympus, of Juno at\nArgos, of Ceres at Eleusis; it reigns over Athens with Minerva, it shines at Delphi with Apollo, who\ndominates and penetrates all the temples with his light. This is the center of Hellenic life, the head\nand heart of Greece. It is here that the poets who interpret sublime truths to the people in living\nimages, and the wise men who propagate them in subtle dialectic, will receive instruction. The spirit\nof Orpheus moves everywhere the heart of immortal Greece throbs. We shall find it in the contests\nof poetry and athletics, in the games of Delphi and Olympus, important institutions which the\nsuccessors of the Master invented in order to reconcile and unite the twelve Greek tribes. We are\nvery near it in the Council of the Amphictions, that assembly of initiates, the supreme arbitration\ncourt which met at Delphi, manifesting great power of justice and concord, in which Greece found\nher unity in hours of bravery and abnegation.~\n\nBut this Greece of Orpheus, her spirit a pure doctrine guarded in the temples, her soul, a plastic\nreligion, her body, a high court of justice located at Delphi, -- this Greece began to be threatened in\nabout the seventh century. The commands of Delphi were no longer respected; sacred lands were\ntrespassed upon. This was because the race of great inspired ones had disappeared. The spiritual and\nmoral level had lowered. The priests sold themselves to political power; even the Mysteries began to\nbe corrupted from this time. The general aspect of Greece had changed. The ancient priestly and\nagricultural royalty was followed here by tyranny pure and simple, there by military aristocracy,\n\nelsewhere by anarchical democracy. The temples had become powerless to warn men of impending\ndissolution. They needed a new helper. A popularization of esoteric teaching had become necessary.\nIn order that the thought of Orpheus could live and expand in all its brilliance, it was necessary that\nthe wisdom of the temples should pass into the ranks of the laity. Therefore, hidden under various\ndisguises it slipped into the heads of civil legislators, into the schools of poets, beneath the porticos\nof philosophers. In their teaching the latter felt the same requirement that Orpheus had recognized in\nregard to religion -- that of two doctrines: one public, the other secret. These doctrines expounded\nthe same truth in a different degree and under different forms commensurate with the development\nof the pupils. This evolution gave Greece its three great centuries of artistic creation and intellectual\nsplendor. It allowed Orphic thought, Greece's first impetus and ideal synthesis, to concentrate all its\nlight and to radiate it over the entire world. This took place before Greece's political edifice,\nundermined by internal dissensions, shook beneath the attacks of Macedonia and finally crumbled\nunder the iron hand of Rome.\n\nThe evolution of which we speak had many co-workers. It gave birth to physicists like Thales,\nlegislators like Solon, poets like Pindar, heroes like Epaminondas; but as an official leader it had an\ninitiate of the first order, a sovereign intelligence, creative and disciplined. Pythagoras is the master\nof secular Greece, as Orpheus is the master of sacerdotal Greece. Pythagoras interprets and continues\nthe religious thought of his predecessor, applying it to the new age. But his interpretation is a\ncreation. For he coordinates the Orphic inspirations into a complete system; he furnishes its\nscientific proof in his teaching, its moral proof in his institute of education, embracing them in the\nPythagorean order, which outlives him.\n\nAlthough he appears in the broad daylight of history, Pythagoras has remained an almost legendary\nfigure. The main reason for this is the dreadful persecution he experienced in Sicily, and which cost\nthe lives of so many Pythagoreans. Some perished, crushed under the debris of their school which\nhad been set afire, others died of starvation in a temple. The memory and teaching of the Master was\nperpetuated only by those survivors who were able to flee into Greece. At great pains and expense\nPlato obtained through Archytas one of Master's manuscripts. Pythagoras, by the way, never wrote\nhis esoteric doctrine except in secret signs and in symbolic form. His real work, like that of all\nreformers, was effected through his oral teaching. But the essence of his system consists in the\nGolden Verses of Lysis, in the commentary of Hierocles, in fragments by Philolaus and Archytas, as\nwell as in Plato's Timaeus which contains Pythagoras' cosmogony. Finally, the writers of antiquity\nare filled with the spirit of the philosopher of Croton. They have an endless store of anecdotes which\ndepict his wisdom, charm and miraculous power over men. The Neoplatonists of Alexandria, the\nGnostics and even the early Church Fathers quote him as an authority. These are valuable\ntestimonies, in which eternally vibrates the powerful wave of enthusiasm that the great personality of\nPythagoras knew how to communicate to Greece, and whose last effects are still felt eight centuries\nafter his death.\n\nFrom a higher point of view, when opened with the keys of comparative esoterism, his doctrine\npresents a magnificent composite, a solid whole, whose parts are bound by a fundamental concept.\nIn it we find a rational reproduction of the esoteric doctrine of India and Egypt, to which he gave\nclarity and Hellenic simplicity, adding a more forceful feeling and a more exact idea of human\nfreedom.\n\nAt the same time and in various parts of the globe, great reformers were making similar doctrines\nmore generally known. In China, Lao-Tse departed from the esoterism of Fo-Hi; the last Buddha,\nSakya-Moni, was preaching on the banks of the Ganges; in Italy, the Etruscan priesthood sent an\ninitiate to Rome. This initiate was King Numa, who, armed with the Sibylline Books, sought to\nrestrain the threatening ambition of the Roman Senate by wise institutions. And it is not by chance\nthat these reformers appear at the same time among such different peoples. Their various missions\nare united in a common goal. They prove that at certain times a single spiritual current mysteriously\n\npasses through all mankind. Where does it come from? -- From that divine world which is beyond\nour sight, but whose seers and prophets are its ambassadors and witnesses.\n\nPythagoras travelled over the entire ancient world before giving his teachings to Greece. He saw\nAfrica and Asia, Memphis and Babylon, their politics and their initiation. His tempestuous life\nresembles a boat launched in the midst of a storm; with sails unfurled he pursues his goal without\ndeviating from his path, the picture of calmness and strength in the midst of unleashed elements. His\ndoctrine gives the sensation of a cool night following the stifling heat of a torrid day. It reminds one\nof the beauty of the firmament, which bit by bit displays its scintillating archipelagos and its ethereal\nharmonies above the head of the seer.\n\nLet us try to remove Pythagoras' life and work from both the obscurities of legend and the prejudices\nof the schools.\n\nNotes for this chapter:\n\n53. The Amphictyonic Oath of the allied peoples gives an idea of the grandeur and social strength of\nthis institution: \"We swear never to overthrow the Amphictionic cities, never to turn aside from the\nthings necessary to their needs, whether during peace or war. If any power dares trouble them, we\nwill move against it and we will destroy its cities. Should the impious steal the offerings from the\ntemple of Apollo, we swear that we shall use our feet, arms, voices, all our strength, against them\nand their accomplices!\"\n\n31. Years of Travel: Samos, Memphis, Babylonia\n\nAt the beginning of the sixth century B.C. Samos was one of the most flourishing islands of Ionia.\nIts port faced the purple mountains of Asia Minor, from which came all wealth and culture. Behind a\nbroad bay, the city spread itself along the green shore and arose like an amphitheater against the\nmountainside, at the foot of a promontory crowned with the temple of Neptune. The columns of a\nmagnificent palace overlooked it. There the tyrant Polycrates reigned. Having deprived Samos of its\nfreedoms, he had given it the radiance of the arts and an Asiatic splendor. Courtesans of Lesbos,\nsummoned to Samos by him, invited young men of the city to their festivals where they taught them\nthe most refined voluptuousness, accompanied by music, dancing and feasting. Called by Polycrates,\nAnacreon was brought to Samos in a trireme with velvet sails and golden masts. And, a silver cup in\nhis hand, before this high court of pleasure the poet had his caressing odes played, perfuming the\nhearers like a shower of roses.\n\nThe good fortune of Polycrates had become proverbial in all Greece. His friend, the Pharaoh Amasis\nwarned him several times to fear such continuous happiness, and above all not to boast about it.\nPolycrates answered the Egyptian monarch's warning by throwing his ring into the sea. \"I make this\nsacrifice to the gods,\" he said. The next day a fisherman brought back to the tyrant the precious ring\nwhich he had found in the belly of a fish. When the Pharaoh heard this, he said that he was breaking\nhis friendship with Polycrates because such brazen luck would draw upon him the vengeance of the\ngods. In any case, Polycrates met a tragic end. One of his satraps lured him into a neighboring\nprovince, caused him to be tortured to death and ordered his body fastened to a cross on Mount\nMycale. Hence, one day as the blood-red sun set in the west, the Samians could see the body of their\ntyrant crucified on a promontory facing the island where he had ruled in glory and pleasure.\n\nBut let us return to the beginning of Polycrates' reign. On a clear night, a young man was sitting in a\ngrove not far from the temple of Juno, whose Dorian facade was bathed in full moonlight, revealing\nits mystical majesty. For a long time a scroll of papyrus containing one of Homer's songs laid on the\nground at his feet. His meditation, begun at dusk, continued into the silence of the night. The sun had\nset long ago, but its flaming disk still floated before the gaze of the young dreamer. His thought was\nwandering far from the visible world.\n\nPythagoras was the son of a rich ring merchant of Samos, and of a woman named Parthenis. The\nPythoness of Delphi, consulted during a trip by the newly-married couple, had promised them \"a son\nwho will be useful to all men for all time,\" and the oracle had sent the husband and wife to Sidon in\nPhoenicia so that the promised son might be conceived, formed and brought into the world far from\nthe disturbing influences of his homeland. Even before his birth the wondrous child had been\nfervently dedicated by his parents to the light of Apollo in the moonlight of love. The child was\nborn. When he was one year old, in harmony with the counsel given in advance by the priests of\nDelphi, his mother brought him to the temple of Adonai in a valley of Lebanon. There the high priest\nhad blessed him, and the family returned to Samos. Parthenis' child was very beautiful, gentle, even-\ntempered and filled with justice. Intellectual passion alone shone in his eyes, giving a secret power to\nhis deeds. Far from restraining him, his parents had encouraged his early desire for wisdom. He had\nbeen able to confer freely with the priests of Samos and with the scholars who were beginning to\nestablish schools in Ionia, where they taught the principles of physics. At eighteen he had studied the\nlessons of Hermodamas of Samos, at twenty, those of Pherecydus at Syros; he had even conferred\nwith Thales and Anaximander at Miletus. These masters had opened new horizons to him, but none\nhad satisfied him. Among their contradictory teachings he inwardly sought the link, the synthesis,\nthe unity of the Great Whole. Now Parthenis' son had reached one of those crises where the mind,\nexcited by the contradictions in things, concentrates all its faculties in a supreme effort to see\nthrough to the goal, to find the road which leads to the sunlight of truth, to the center of life.\n\nOn this warm, beautiful night, Parthenis' son looked at the earth, the temple and the starry sky.\nDemeter, the earth-mother, was there beneath and around him; her nature he wished to fathom. He\nbreathed her powerful emanations, he felt the invincible attraction which bound him as a thinking\natom to her breast, like an inseparable part of herself. These wise men whom he had consulted had\ntold him, \"Everything comes from her. Nothingness does not come from nothingness. The soul\ncomes from water, or fire, or both. Subtle emanation of the elements, it escapes, only to return.\nResign yourself to its fatal law. Your only merit will be to know it and to submit to it.\"\n\nThen he looked at the firmament and the letters of fire which the constellations form in the\nunfathomable depths of space. These letters had to have a meaning. For if the infinitely small, the\nmovement of atoms, has its reason for being, would not the infinitely great, the outspread stars,\nwhose grouping represents the body of the universe, also have significance? Indeed, each of these\nworlds has its own law, and all move together according to number, and in supreme harmony! But\nwho will decipher the alphabet of the stars? The priests of Juno had said to him, \"The world of the\nstars is the heaven of the gods, which was before earth. Your soul comes from there. Pray to the gods\nthat your soul may ascend there once again.\"\n\nThis meditation was interrupted by a voluptuous song which came from a garden on the banks of the\nImbrasus. The lascivious voices of the Lesbians languidly mixed with the sounds of the zither;\nyoung men responded with Bacchic airs. Suddenly these voices were drowned by piercing, mournful\ncries coming from the port. These were the rebels whom Polycrates had ordered into a ship, to be\nsold as slaves in Asia. They were driven with lashes tipped with nails so that they could be tightly\ncrowded into the rowers' galley. Their cries and blasphemies faded into the night. Everything\nbecame silent once again.\n\nThe young man felt a painful tremor surge up in him, but he repressed it and concentrated his\nthoughts. The problem was before him, more poignant and sharp than ever. Earth said, Fate! The sky\nsaid, Providence! And mankind, poised between the two, responded, Folly, Grief, Slavery! But deep\nwithin himself the future initiate heard an invincible voice which answered the chains of earth and\nthe glory of heaven with the cry, Freedom! Who then was right -- the sages, the priests, the madmen,\nthe unhappy, or himself? All these voices spoke the truth; each was triumphant in its own sphere, but\nnot one revealed to him his reason for being. The three worlds existed, eternal as the heart of\nDemeter, as the light of the stars and as the human heart. But only one who could find their\nagreement and the law of their balance would be a true sage; he alone would possess divine\nknowledge and would be able to help men. In the synthesis of the three worlds was to be found the\nsecret of the cosmos!\n\nUpon pronouncing this word which he had just discovered, Pythagoras stood up. His fascinated gaze\nfixed itself upon the Dorian facade of the temple. The severe building seemed transfigured beneath\nthe chaste rays of Diana. He thought he saw the ideal image of the world and the solution he was\nseeking. For the base, columns, architrave and triangular pediment suddenly represented for him the\nthreefold nature of man and universe, of microcosm and macrocosm, crowned with divine unity,\nwhich is itself a trinity. Cosmos, dominated and penetrated by God, formed\n\nThe holy Tetrad, vast and pure symbol,\nOrigin of Nature and model of the gods.\n\nYes, it was there, hidden in those geometric lines, -- the key to the universe, the science of numbers,\nthe ternary law which rules the constitution of beings, that of the septenary which controls their\nevolution. And in a tremendous vision Pythagoras saw the worlds move according to the rhythm and\nharmony of the sacred numbers. He saw the equilibrium of earth and heaven, whose balance human\nfreedom holds; he observed the three worlds, the natural, human and divine, supporting each other,\ndetermining one another and playing the universal drama through a double movement -- a rising and\na falling. He divined the spheres of the invisible world enveloping the visible and giving it life\nunceasingly; he finally perceived the purification and liberation of man from this earth by a threefold\ninitiation. He saw all this, and his life and work in an instantaneous and clear illumination, with that\nirrefutable certainty of spirit which feels itself in the presence of truth. It was seen as if in a flash of\nlightning. Now it was a question of proving through reason what his pure intelligence had grasped in\nthe Absolute; in order to do this a lifetime and a herculean effort were needed.\n\nBut where could he find the knowledge necessary to bring such an effort to a happy conclusion?\nNeither the songs of Homer, the sages of Iona nor the temples of Greece sufficed.\n\nThe spirit of Pythagoras which suddenly had found wings, began to look into his past, his birth\nhidden beneath veils of mystery, and into the love of his mother. A memory of his childhood came to\nhim clearly. He recalled that when he was one year old his mother had carried him into a valley of\nLebanon, to the temple of Adonai. He saw himself a child again, his arms around Parthenis' neck, in\nthe midst of tremendous mountains and enormous forests, where a river descended in a great\nwaterfall. His mother was standing on a terrace shaded by tall cedars. Before her a majestic priest\nwith a white beard smiled at mother and child while uttering serious words the child did not\nunderstand. Later his mother often reminded him of these strange words of the hierophant of Adonai:\n\"O woman of Iona, your son will be great in knowledge, but remember that if the Greeks still\npossess the wisdom of the gods, the science of God is to be found only in Egypt.\" These words came\nback to him along with the memory of his mother's smile, the handsome face of the old man and the\ndistant roar of the waterfall, dominated by the voice of the priest in a setting as beautiful as the\ndream of another life. For the first time he guessed the meaning of the oracle. Indeed he had heard\nmen speak of the prodigious knowledge of the Egyptian priests and their awe-inspiring Mysteries,\nbut he thought he could do without them. Now he realized that he needed this wisdom of God in\n\norder to penetrate to the very heart of nature, and that he would find it only in the temples of Egypt.\nAnd it was gentle Parthenis with her mother-instinct, who had prepared him for this work, had\ncarried him as an offering to the supreme God!\n\nFrom that moment his decision was made to go to Egypt, there to have himself initiated.\n\nPolycrates boasted that he was the patron of philosophers as well as of poets. He promptly gave\nPythagoras a letter of recommendation to Pharaoh Amasis, who in turn presented him to the priests\nof Memphis. The latter received him unwillingly, and only after he had overcome many difficulties.\nThe Egyptian sages distrusted the Greeks, for they considered them superficial and undependable.\nTherefore they did everything to discourage this young man from Samos. But with an unshakable\npatience and courage the novice submitted himself to the delays and the oral tests that were imposed\nupon him. He knew in advance that he would achieve knowledge only by a complete domination of\nhis entire being. His initiation lasted twenty-two years under the pontificate of the high priest,\nSonchis. In the section on Hermes we have experienced the tests, the temptations, the terrors and\necstasies of the initiate of Isis, including the seeming cataleptic death of the adept and his\nresurrection into the Light of Osiris. Pythagoras went through all these stages, which allowed him to\nrealize, not as empty theory but as something he had experienced, the doctrine of the Word-Light or\nthe Universal Word, and the evolution of mankind through seven planetary cycles. At each step of\nthis ascent the tests became more and more difficult. A hundred times one risked one's life,\nespecially if one wished to reach the manipulation of spiritual forces, the dangerous practice of\nmagic and theurgy.\n\nLike all great men, Pythagoras had faith in his star. Nothing that could lead to knowledge rebuffed\nhim, and fear of death did not stop him, because he saw the life beyond. When the Egyptian priests\nhad recognized in him an extraordinary strength of soul and that impersonal desire for wisdom\nwhich is the rarest thing in the world, they revealed to him the treasures of their experience. Now he\nwas able to delve deeply into sacred mathematics, the science of numbers, or the universal\nprinciples, which he made the center of his system and formulated in a new way. The severity of\nEgyptian temple discipline taught him the tremendous power of the human will when wisely\nexercised and guided, and its infinite applications to the body as well as to the soul. \"The science of\nnumbers and the art of the will are the two keys of magic,\" said the priests of Memphis. \"They open\nall the doors of the universe.\" It was in Egypt, therefore, that Pythagoras acquired this divine insight\nwhich allows one to see the spheres of life and of the sciences in a concentric order, to understand\nthe involution of the mind in matter through universal creation, and its evolution, or its reascent to\nunity through this individual creation, which is called the development of consciousness.\n\nPythagoras had achieved the summit of Egyptian priesthood and perhaps dreamed of returning to\nGreece, but war came and spilled over into the Nile basin, bringing all its calamities, drawing the\ninitiate of Osiris into a new whirlwind. For a long time the despots of Asia had been plotting the\ndestruction of Egypt. Their attacks which had been repeated for centuries, had failed in face of the\nwisdom of the Egyptian institutions, before the power of the priesthood and the strength of the\nPharaohs. But the ancient kingdom, shelter of the wisdom of Hermes, could not last forever. The son\nof the conqueror of Babylon, Cambyses; pounced upon Egypt with his vast armies, starving like a\ncloud of locusts, and put an end to the rule of the Pharaohs. In the eyes of the sages this was a\ncatastrophe for the whole world. Until then, Egypt had shielded Europe against Asia. Its protective\ninfluence extended throughout the Mediterranean area by means of the temples of Phoenicia, Greece\nand Etruria with which the Egyptian priests were in constant contact. Once this contact was\ndestroyed, the Bull would disappear, head lowered, on the shores of Hellas.\n\nPythagoras saw Cambyses invade Egypt. He observed the Persian despot, heir of the crowned\n\nscoundrels of Nineveh and Babylon, sack the temples of Memphis and Thebes and destroy that of\nAmmon. He saw the Pharaoh Psammetichus led before Cambyses, bound in chains, placed on a\n\nmound, around which were assembled the priests, the leading families and the king's court. He saw\nthe daughter of the Pharaoh clothed in rags, followed by all her ladies-in-waiting, similarly\ndishonored, as well as the royal prince and two thousand young men paraded with bits in their\nmouths and halters on their necks, later to be beheaded. The Pharaoh Psammetichus scarcely could\nrestrain his sobs at this terrible scene, while the infamous Cambyses, seated on his throne, enjoyed\nthe grief of his fallen rival. For Pythagoras this was a cruel but instructive lesson in science. What a\npicture of unleashed animal nature in man, culminating in the monster of despotism who treads\neverything underfoot and by his ugly apotheosis imposes upon humanity the reign of the most\nimplacable destiny!\n\nCambyses had Pythagoras transported to Babylon along with a part of the Egyptian priesthood, and\nimprisoned him there. This colossal city which Aristotle compares to a country surrounded with\nwalls, offered a vast field of observation. Ancient Babel, the great prostitute of the Hebrew prophets,\nafter the Persian conquest was more than ever a pandemonium of peoples, languages, cults and\nreligions in the midst of which Asiatic despotism raised its lofty tower. According to Persian\ntraditions, its foundation dated back to the legendary Semiramis. It is she, they said, who built its\nmonstrous enclosure, some fifty miles in circumference, the Imgum-Bel, its walls where two chariots\nran abreast, its terraces, rising one above the other, its mighty palaces with polychrome reliefs, its\ntemples supported by stone elephants and overhung with multi-colored dragons. There the series of\ndespots who had conquered Chaldea, Assyria, Persia, a part of Tartary, Judea, Syria and Asia Minor,\nhad followed one another. There Nebuchadnezzar, the assassin of Magi, had the Jewish people led\ninto captivity. The latter continued to practice their cult in a corner of the vast city, four times larger\nthan London. The Jews even had provided the king a powerful minister, the prophet Daniel.\n\nWith Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar, the walls of old Babel finally crumbled under the\navenging blows of Cyrus, and for several centuries Babylon passed under Persian domination. As a\nresult of this series of events, at the time Pythagoras came there, representatives of three different\nreligions rubbed elbows with each other in the high priesthood of Babylon: the ancient Chaldean\npriests, survivors of the Persian Magi and the elite of the Jewish captivity. The proof that these\nvarious priesthoods agreed among themselves in esoteric matters is seen in the role of Daniel who,\nwhile constantly affirming the God of Moses, remained prime minister under Nebuchadnezzar,\nBelshazzar and Cyrus.\n\nPythagoras had to broaden his horizon still further by studying these doctrines, religions and cults,\nwhose synthesis a few initiates still preserved. In Babylon he was able to increase his knowledge of\nthe Magi, heirs of Zoroaster. If the Egyptian priests alone possessed the universal keys of the holy\nsciences, the Persian Magi had the reputation of having advanced furthest in the practice of certain\narts. They attributed to themselves the manipulation of hidden powers of nature which are called\npantomorphic fire and astral light. In their temples, it is said, darkness was created in broad daylight,\nlamps lighted of themselves, one saw the gods shining and heard the thunder roll. The Magi called\nthat bodiless fire, that generating agent of electricity which they knew how to condense or disperse\nat will, the celestial lion. The electric currents of the atmosphere, magnetism of earth which they\nclaimed they could aim at men like arrows, they named serpents. They also had made a special study\nof the suggestive, magnetic and creative power of human speech. They employed formulas,\nborrowed from the oldest languages of earth, for the evocation of spirits. The following is the\npsychic reason they themselves gave for this: \"Do not change any of the barbaric names of\nevocation, for they are the pantheistic names of God; they are magnetized by the adorations of\nmultitudes and their power is ineffable.\" These evocations, practiced in the midst of purifications\nand prayers were, properly speaking, what was later called black magic.\n\nIn Babylon, therefore, Pythagoras penetrated the Mysteries of ancient magic. At the same time, in\n\nthis den of despotism he saw a great spectacle: above the debris of crumbling religions of the Orient,\nabove their decimated and degenerated priesthood, a group of initiates, courageous, united, defend\n\ntheir science, their faith and, as much as they can, justice. Standing before despots as did Daniel in\nthe lion's den, always near being devoured, they charmed and subdued the wild beast of absolute\nforce through their spiritual power, disputing every inch of ground with him.\n\nAfter his Egyptian and Chaldean initiation, the child of Samos knew much more about physics than\nhis teachers, far more than any Greek, priest or layman, of his time. He knew the eternal principles\nof the universe and their applications. Nature had opened her depths to him; the crude veils of matter\nwere torn from his eyes to show him the wonderful spheres of nature and of spiritualized mankind.\nIn the temple of Nith-Isis at Memphis, in that of Bel at Babylon, he had learned many secrets of the\nhistory of religions, of the history of continents and races. He had been able to compare the\nadvantages and disadvantages of Jewish monotheism, of Greek polytheism, Hindu trinitarianism and\nPersian dualism. He knew that all these religions were rays of the one truth, filtered by different\ndegrees of intelligence and intended for various social conditions. He held the key, that is, the\nsynthesis of all these doctrines of esoteric science. His gaze, embracing the past and looking into the\nfuture, had to judge the present with extraordinary clarity. His experience showed him mankind\nthreatened by the greatest calamities, by the ignorance of priests, the materialism of scientists and\nthe lack of discipline of democracies. In the midst of universal deterioration he saw Asiatic\ndespotism increase, and from this black cloud a terrible tempest was about to break over defenseless\nEurope.\n\nTherefore he realized that it was time to return to Greece, in order to accomplish his mission there. It\nwas there that he was to begin his work.\n\nPythagoras had been confined in Babylon for twelve years. In order to leave, a release from the king\nof the Persians was necessary. A fellow-Greek, Democedes, the king's physician, interceded in his\nfavor and obtained the philosopher's freedom. Therefore Pythagoras returned to Samos after thirty-\nfour years of absence. He found his country crushed under a satrap of the great king. Schools and\ntemples were closed; poets and scientists had fled like a flock of sparrows before the Persian\nCaesarism. At least he had the consolation of being present at the death of his first teacher,\nHermodamas, and of finding his mother, Parthenis, who alone had not doubted his return. Everyone\nelse had thought that the adventurous son of the jeweler of Samos was dead, but never had she\ndoubted the oracle of Apollo. She realized that beneath his white Egyptian priest's robe, her son was\npreparing for a high mission. She knew that from the temple of Nith-Isis emerged the beneficent\nMaster, the luminous prophet of whom she had dreamed in the sacred grove of Delphi, and whom\nthe hierophant of Adonai had promised her beneath the cedars of Lebanon.\n\nNow a small ship was carrying this mother and her son on the blue waves of the Cyclades into a new\nexile. With all their possessions they were fleeing from oppressed and lost Samos. They had set sail\nfor Greece. But it was neither Olympic crowns nor the poet's laurels which tempted the son of\nParthenes. His work was more mysterious and greater: to awaken the sleeping soul of the gods in the\nsanctuaries, to give back power and prestige to the temple of Apollo and finally, to establish\nsomewhere a school of knowledge and life from which would come, not politicians and sophists, but\ninitiated men and women, true mothers and pure heroes!\n\n32. The Temple of Delphi, Apollonian Science,\nTheory of Divination, The Pythoness Theoclea\n\nFrom the plain of Phocis one traversed the smiling meadows which border the banks of Plistios, to\ndescend between high mountains into a winding valley. At each step the way became narrower and\nthe country more impressive and more desolate. One finally reached a circle of rugged mountains\ntopped with sharp peaks, a veritable vortex for electricity, overhung with frequent storms. Suddenly\nat the end of the dark gorge, the city of Delphi appeared like an eagle's nest on a rock, surrounded\nwith precipices and overhung by the two crests of Parnassus. From afar one saw gleaming bronze\n\nVictories, brass horses, innumerable gold statues placed along the sacred way, arranged like a guard\nof heroes and gods around the Dorian temple of Phoebus Apollo.\n\nThis was the holiest place in Greece. There Pythia prophesied, there the Amphictions met, there all\nthe Greeks had erected chapels around the sanctuary enclosing treasures and offerings. There\nprocessions of men, women and children coming from afar, ascended the sacred way to greet the god\nof light. From time immemorial religion had dedicated Delphi to the veneration of peoples. Its\ncentral location in Hellas, its rock, sheltered from surprise attacks and easily defended, had helped.\nThe god was made to strike the imagination; a uniqueness gave him his prestige. In a cavern behind\nthe temple a fissure opened, from which came cold vapors which induced, it was said, inspiration\nand ecstasy. Plutarch relates that in very ancient times a shepherd, having sat down at the edge of the\ncrevice, began to prophesy. At first he was thought insane, but when his predictions came true,\npeople paid attention to the phenomenon. Priests took possession of the place and dedicated it to the\ngod. From this came the institution of Pythia, whom they had sit over the fissure upon a tripod. The\nvapors rising from the abyss gave her convulsions, strange attacks and provoked in her that second\nsight which is experienced by unusual somnambulists. Aeschylus, whose statements carry weight,\nfor he was son of a priest of Eleusis and himself an initiate, tells us in the Ewmenides through the\nmouth of Pythia that Delphi first had been dedicated to Earth, then to Themis (Justice), then to\nPhoebe (mediatory Moon) and finally to Apollo, the solar god. Each of these names represents long\nperiods in the symbolism of the temples and embraces centuries. But the fame of Delphi dates from\nApollo. Jupiter, said the poets, desiring to know the center of the earth, caused two eagles to fly\nsimultaneously from the east and the west; they met at Delphi. Where does this prestige come from,\n-- this universal and uncontested authority, which made Apollo the Greek god par excellence?\n\nHistory teaches us nothing about this important point. Question the orators, poets, philosophers; they\ngive only superficial explanations. The real answer to this question remained the secret of the\ntemple. Let us try to fathom it.\n\nAccording to Orphic thought, Dionysus and Apollo were two different revelations of the same\ndivinity. Dionysus represented esoteric truth, the heart and interior of things -- accessible to the\ninitiates alone. He held the mysteries of life, of past and future incarnations, of the relationships\nbetween soul and body, the heaven and earth. Apollo personified the same truth applied to terrestrial\nlife and the social order. Inspirer of poetry, medicine, and law, he represented science through\ndivination, beauty through art, the peace of peoples through justice and the harmony of soul and\nbody through purification. In a word, for the initiate, Dionysus meant nothing less than the evolving\ndivine spirit in the universe, and Apollo his manifestation to earthly man. The priests caused the\npeople to understand this by means of a legend. They told them that in Orpheus' time, Bacchus and\nApollo had fought for the tripod of Delphi. Bacchus had willingly yielded it to his brother and had\nwithdrawn to one of the summits of Parnassus where Thebian women celebrated his Mysteries. In\nreality, the two great sons of Jupiter divided the world empire. One reigned over the mysterious\nBeyond, the other, over the living.\n\nTherefore we find in Apollo the Solar Word, the Universal Word, the Great Mediator, the Vishnu of\nthe Hindus, the Mithras of the Persians, the Horus of the Egyptians. But in the Greek legend of\nApollo, the old ideas of Asiatic esoterism were adorned with a plastic beauty, an incisive splendor,\nwhich caused them to penetrate more deeply into human consciousness like the arrows of a god.\n\"White winged serpents, shot from his golden bow,\" Aeschylus called them.\n\nApollo bursts forth out of the deep night at Delos; all the goddesses greet his birth. He walks, he\nseizes his bow and lyre, his arrows whirr through the air, his quiver rattles on his shoulder. The sea\nthrobs, and all the island shines in a flood of flame and gold. He is the epiphany of divine light, who\nby his august presence creates order, splendor and harmony of which poetry is the marvelous echo.\nThe god goes to Delphi and with his arrows pierces a monstrous serpent which had been laying\n\nwaste the country. By this deed he makes the land safe and establishes the temple. Picture the victory\nof this divine light over darkness and evil! In the ancient religions the serpent symbolized both the\nfateful circle of life and the evil resulting from the latter. Nevertheless, from this endangered and\nvanquished life comes knowledge. Apollo, destroyer of the serpent, is the symbol of the initiate who\npierces nature with science, subdues it to his will and, breaking the cycle of flesh, ascends in\nsplendor of spirit while the broken fragments of human animality writhe in the dust. This is why\nApollo is the master of expiations, of purifications of soul and body. Sprinkled with the blood of the\nmonster, he expiated, purified himself in an exile of eight years, under the bitter laurels of the valley\nof Tempe. Apollo, teacher of men, likes to sojourn among them; he enjoys himself in their cities\namong male youth, in the contests of poetry and the palestra, but he lives there only temporarily. In\nautumn he returns to his homeland, to the country of the Hyperboreans. The latter are the mysterious\npeople of luminous, transparent souls who live in an eternal aurora of perfect happiness. His true\npriests and beloved priestesses are there. He lives with them in an intimate, deep community and\nwhen he wishes to make a royal gift to men, from the land of the Hyperboreans he sends one of\nthose great, luminous souls, causing it to incarnate upon earth in order to teach and delight mortals.\n\nApollo returns to Delphi every spring when peans and hymns are sung. He arrives, visible only to\nthe initiates, in his Hyperborean brightness, drawn in a chariot by melodious swans. He returns to\nlive in the sanctuary where Pythia transmits his oracles, where the wise men and poets listen. Then\nthe nightingales sing, the Fountain of Castalia bubbles with silver wavelets, the living echoes of a\nblinding light and celestial music penetrate the heart of men and women, even moving through the\nveins of nature.\n\nIn this legend of the Hyperboreans the esoteric essence of the myth of Apollo sheds its brilliant rays.\nThe country of the Hyperboreans is the after-life, the empyrean of victorious souls whose astral\nauroras lighten the multicolored regions. Apollo himself personifies immaterial and intelligible light,\nof which the sun is but the physical reflection, and whence flows all truth. The wondrous swans\nwhich draw him are the poets, the divine genii, messengers of his great solar soul, leaving in their\nwake tremors of light and melody. Hyperborean Apollo therefore personifies the descent from\nheaven to earth, the incarnation of spiritual beauty in flesh and blood, the afflux of transcendent truth\nthrough inspiration and divination.\n\nBut now we must lift the golden veil from the legends and penetrate into the temple itself. How was\ndivination practiced? Here we touch upon the arcana of Apollonian science and the mysteries of\nDelphi.\n\nIn antiquity a strong tie united divination with the solar cults. The cult of the sun is the golden key to\nall Mysteries referred to as \"magic.\"\n\nFrom the beginning of civilization the worship of Aryan man was directed to the sun as the source of\nlight, warmth and life. But when the thought of the wise men rose from phenomenon to cause, they\nperceived behind this sensitive fire and visible light a non-material fire and an intelligible light. They\nidentified the first with the male principle, with creative spirit, the intellectual essence of the\nuniverse, and the second with its female principle, its formative soul, its plastic substance. This\nintuition traces back to an unknown time. The concept of which I speak is mixed with the oldest\nmythologies. It flows in the Vedic hymns under the form of Agni, the universal fire, which\npenetrates everything. It unfolds in the religion of Zoroaster, of which the cult of Mithras represents\nthe esoteric part. Mithras is the male fire and Mitra the female light. Zoroaster formally says that by\nmeans of the Living Word the Eternal created celestial Light, seed of Ormuzd, principle of material\nlight and material fire. For the initiate of Mithras, the sun is but a crude reflection of this Light. In\nhis hidden grotto, the vault of which is painted with stars, he invokes the Sun of mercy, the Fire of\nLove, Conqueror of evil, Reconcilor of Ormuzd and Ahriman, Purifier and Mediator who inhabits\nthe soul of the holy prophets. In the crypts of Egypt the initiates look for this same Sun under the\n\nname Osiris. When Hermes asks to view the origin of things, first he feels plunged into the ethereal\nwaves of a delightful Light where all living forms move. Then, thrust into the darkness of dense\nmatter, he hears a voice and recognizes the Voice of Light. At the same time a fire bursts forth from\nthe depths; immediately, order and light result from chaos. In the Book of the Dead of the Egyptians,\nsouls painfully sail toward this light in Isis' boat. Moses completely adopted this doctrine in Genesis:\n\"Elohim said, Let there be light, and there was light.\" But the creation of this light precedes that of\nthe sun and stars. This means that in the order of the elements and of cosmogony, intelligible Light\nprecedes material light. The Greeks who cast the most abstract ideas into human form and\ndramatized them, expressed this same teaching in the myth of the Hyperborean Apollo.\n\nAs in the great temples of Egypt, the divination practised at Delphi was composed of an art and a\nscience. The art consisted in penetrating the past and future through clairvoyance or prophetic\necstasy; its science consisted in calculating the future according to the laws of universal evolution.\nArt and science controlled each other. It is known that clairvoyance and prophecy were practised at\nDelphi through the intermediary of young and old women called the Pythia or Pythonesses, and who\nplayed the passive role of somnambulists. The priests interpreted, translated and arranged their often\nconfusing oracles according to their own points of view. Modern historians have seen in the\ninstitution of Delphi merely the exploitation of superstition by intelligent charlatanism. But in\naddition to the assent by all philosophical antiquity to the divining science at Delphi, several oracles\nreported by Herodotus, such as those concerning Croesus and the Battle of Salamis, speak in its\nfavor. Doubtless this art had its inception, its flowering and its decadence. Charlatanism and\ncorruption eventually became mixed with it -- witness King Cleomenes who bribed the high\npriestess of Delphi in order to deprive Demaratus of his throne. Plutarch wrote a treatise inquiring\ninto the reason for the extinction of the oracles, and this degeneracy was regarded by all the ancient\nworld as a great misfortune. During the preceding era, divination was cultivated with a religious\nsincerity and a scientific thoroughness which raised it to the height of a true priesthood. Above the\nentrance to the temple one read the inscription, \"Know thyself,\" as well as, \"Let no one without clean\nhands come near.\" These words warned everyone that earthly passions, lies and hypocrisies were not\nto pass over the threshold of the sanctuary, and that within its portals, divine truth reigned with\nfearful solemnity.\n\nPythagoras came to Delphi only after having visited all the temples of Greece. He had spoken with\nEpimonides in the sanctuary of Jupiter Idaean; he had attended the Olympic Games; he had been\npresent at the Mysteries of Eleusis, where the hierophant had given up his place to him. Everywhere\nhe had been received as a teacher. He was awaited at Delphi. There the divining art had declined,\nand Pythagoras wished to restore it to its former profundity, strength and prestige. Therefore he\ncame to Delphi less to consult Apollo than to enlighten his interpreters, rekindle their enthusiasm\nand awaken their energies. His deeds for them would act in turn upon the soul of Greece and prepare\nit for its future.\n\nFortunately in the temple he found a marvelous instrument which a providential plan seemed to have\nreserved for him.\n\nYoung Theoclea belonged to the school of priestesses of Apollo. She came from one of those\nfamilies in which the priestly dignity is hereditary. The great impressions of the sanctuary, the\nceremonies of the cult, the paeans, the festivals of Pythian and Hyperborean Apollo had nourished\nher in childhood. One can imagine her as one of those young girls who have an inborn and\ninstinctive aversion for the things which attract others. They do not like Ceres at all, and fear Venus,\nfor the heavy terrestrial atmosphere disturbs them and physical love, dimly seen, seems to them a\nrape of the soul, a pollution of their undefiled, virginal being. On the other hand, they are strangely\nsensitive to mysterious currents, to astral influences. When the moon shone in the dark groves of the\nFountain of Castalia, Theoclea saw white forms gliding there. In broad daylight she heard voices.\nWhen she exposed herself to the rays of the rising sun, their vibration plunged her into a kind of\n\necstasy in which she heard invisible choirs. Nevertheless, she was completely insensitive to\nsuperstitions and to the popular idolatries of the cult. Statues meant nothing to her, and she had a\nhorror of animal sacrifices. She did not speak to anyone of the appearances which disturbed her\nsleep. She felt instinctively that the priests of Apollo did not possess the supreme Light which she\nneeded. On the other hand, they hoped to be able to convince her to become a Pythoness, but she felt\nherself drawn by a higher world, whose key she did not possess. Who were these gods who seized\nher with inspirations and tremors? She wished to know them before surrendering herself to them. For\ngreat souls need to see clearly, even in giving themselves to divine powers.\n\nWith what deep anticipation, with what mysterious foreboding must Theoclea's soul have been\nstirred when she saw Pythagoras for the first time, when she heard his eloquent voice resound within\nthe Apollonian sanctuary! She felt the presence of the initiator for whom she was waiting; she\nrecognized her teacher. She wanted to know; through him she would know, and this inner world, this\nworld which she bore within her, -- he would make it speak! For his part, the certainty and\npenetration of his gaze must have recognized in her the living, vibrant soul he was seeking, the one\nwho would become the interpreter of his thought in the temple, who would infuse the latter with a\nnew spirit. From the first glances they exchanged, from the first word spoken, an invisible chain\nbound the sage of Samos to the young priestess who listened to him silently, drinking in his words\nwith her large, attentive eyes. Someone has said that the poet and the lyre knew each other by the\nprofound vibration which came about when they were in each other's presence. In this manner\nPythagoras and Theoclea recognized each other.\n\nAt sunrise Pythagoras had long conversations with the priests of Apollo, ordained saints and\nprophets. He asked that the young priestess be admitted in order that he might initiate her into his\nsecret teaching and prepare her for her task. Therefore she was allowed to attend the lessons which\nthe master gave every day in the sanctuary. At this time Pythagoras was in the prime of life. He wore\na white robe folded in Egyptian style; a band of velvet was wrapped around his broad forehead.\nWhen he spoke, his slow, serious eyes rested upon his hearer, enveloping him with a warm light.\nThe very air about him seemed to become lighter and completely filled with intelligence.\n\nThe conversations between the sage of Samos and the highest representatives of Greek religion were\nof the utmost importance. It was not only a question of divination and inspiration, but of the future of\nGreece and the destiny of the entire world. The knowledge, titles and powers he had acquired in the\ntemples of Memphis and Babylon gave him the highest authority. To those who inspired Hellas he\nhad the right to speak as a superior and guide. He did this with the eloquence of his genius, with the\nenthusiasm of his mission. To enlighten them, he began by telling of his youth, his battles and his\nEgyptian initiation. He spoke to them of Egypt, the mother of Greece, old as the world,\nunchangeable as a mummy covered with hieroglyphs in the depths of its pyramids, but possessing in\nits tomb the secret of peoples, of languages and of religions. Before their eyes he unfolded the\nMysteries of the great earthly and heavenly Isis, mother of gods and men; and, passing them through\nhis trials, he plunged with them into the Light of Osiris. Next he enabled them to experience the\nBabylon of the Chaldean Magi, their secret sciences, and those deep massive temples where they\nevoked the living fire in which demons and gods move.\n\nListening to Pythagoras, Theoclea experienced surprising sensations. All that he said engraved itself\nin her mind in characters of fire. These things seemed both wonderful and familiar to her. While\nlearning it was as though she actually was remembering. The words of the master enabled her to turn\nthe pages of the universe like a book. She no longer saw the gods in their human likenesses, but in\ntheir actual natures, as they formed objects and spirits. With the gods she penetrated, ascended and\ndescended through space. Sometimes she had the illusion of no longer feeling the limits of her body,\nand of being dispersed into infinity. Thus, little by little her imagination entered the invisible world,\nand the former impressions of it which she found in her own soul told her that this world was real,\n\nwas the only reality, and that the outer world was only semblance. She felt that soon her inner eyes\nwould open, and that she would see the spiritual world directly.\n\nFrom these heights the master suddenly led her back to earth by describing the misfortunes of Egypt.\nAfter speaking of the greatness of Egyptian wisdom, he told of its drowning beneath the waves of\nthe Persian invasion. He painted the horrors of Cambyses, the pillaged temples, the sacred books\ndestroyed in a holocaust, the priests of Osiris murdered or exiled, the monster of Persian despotism\nassembling under his iron hand all the old Asiatic barbarism, the wandering half-savage races of\ncentral Asia and the borders of India, now waiting only for the opportunity to fall upon Europe.\nIndeed, this gathering cyclone would break over Greece as surely as lightning must come from a\ncloud which gathers itself in the sky. Was divided Greece prepared to resist this terrible onslaught?\nThe master was certain that it was not. Peoples do not escape their destinies, and if they do not watch\nunceasingly, the gods will even hasten the day of reckoning. Had not Egypt, wise nation of Hermes,\ncrumbled after six thousand years of prosperity? Alas! Greece, beautiful Iona, would pass away even\nmore quickly! A time will come when the solar god will abandon this temple, foreigners will\noverturn its stones and shepherds will lead their herds to graze upon the site of ruined Delphi. . .\n\nAt these sinister prophecies, the face of Theoclea was transformed with terror. She sank to the\nground, and, embracing a column with her arms, her eyes staring, sunk in thought, she resembled the\ngenius of Grief weeping over the sepulchre of Greece.\n\n\"But,\" continued Pythagoras, \"these are secrets which must be buried in the depths of the temples.\nThe initiate attracts death or repels it at will. By forming a magic chain of wills, the initiates can also\nprolong the life of peoples. It is for you to postpone the fatal hour. It is for you to cause Greece to\nshine; it is your task to cause the Word of Apollo to radiate in her. Peoples reflect what their gods\ndo, but the gods reveal themselves only to those who call upon them. Who is Apollo? He is the\nWord of the One God Who is eternally manifest in the world. Truth is the Soul of God, His Body\nand His Light. The sages, seers, prophets alone see this; men see only its shadow. The glorified\nspirits whom we call heroes and demi-gods inhabit this Light by legions, in infinite spheres. This is\nthe true glory of Apollo, Sun of the initiates; without its rays nothing great is accomplished upon\nearth. As the magnet attracts iron, so by our thoughts, our prayers, our actions, we attract divine\ninspiration. It is for you to transmit to Greece the Word of Apollo, and Greece will shine with an\nimmortal light!\"\n\nThrough words like this Pythagoras succeeded in giving the priests of Delphi an awareness of their\nmission. Theoclea absorbed them with a silent, intense passion. Under the thought and will of the\nmaster she became transformed. Standing in the midst of the astonished elders, she undid her black\nhair, shaking it out as though she felt a fire running through it. Already her eyes, opened wide,\ntransfigured, seemed to contemplate the solar and planetary Genii in their luminous orbits, with their\npowerful radiations.\n\nOne day she fell into a deep, clear sleep. The five prophets surrounded her, but she remained\ninsensible to their voices as well as to their touch. Pythagoras approached her and said, \"Arise, and\n\ngo where my thought sends you! For now you are a Pythoness!\"\n\nAt the voice of the teacher, a tremor ran through her whole body and lifted her in a long vibration.\nHer physical eyes were closed; she was seeing with the inner eye.\n\n\"Where are you?\" asked Pythagoras.\n\"I am climbing . . . I continue climbing.\"\n\n\"And now?\"\n\n\"I am bathing in the Light of Orpheus .\n\"What do you see in the future?\"\n\n\"Great wars ... mighty men... victories .. . Apollo returns to inhabit his sanctuary, and I shall be\nhis voice! But you, his messenger, Alas! Alas! You are about to leave me . . . and you will carry his\nLight into Italy!\"\n\nWith eyes closed the seeress spoke for a long time in her musical, pulsing, rhythmic voice; then,\nsuddenly with a sob, she fell as though dead.\n\nThus Pythagoras poured his pure teachings into Theoclea's heart and tuned her like a lyre for the\nbreath of the gods. Once exalted to this height of inspiration, she became a torch for him, by which\nhe could fathom his own destiny, penetrate the possible future and move into the shoreless reaches\nof the Invisible. This living counter-proof of the truths he taught filled the priests with admiration,\nawakened their enthusiasm and revived their faith. The temple now had an inspired Pythoness, as\nwell as priests initiated in divine wisdom and art. Again Delphi could become a center of life and\nactivity.\n\nPythagoras remained there for a whole year. Only after instructing the priests in all the secrets of his\nteaching, and preparing Theoclea for her ministry did he depart for Greater Greece.\n\n33. The Order and the Teaching\n(Part 1 — Notes for this chapter at the end of Part 3)\n\nThe city of Croton was located on the Gulf of Tarentum, near the Lacinian promontory, facing the\nopen sea. Like Sybaris, it was one of the most flourishing cities of southern Italy. It was renowned\nfor its Dorian constitution, its athletes, victors in the Olympic Games and its doctors, rivals of the\nAsclepiad. The Sybarites owed their fame to their luxury and indolence. The Crotons perhaps would\nhave been forgotten despite their virtues had they not had the privilege of providing a shelter for the\ngreat Pythagorean school of esoteric philosophy, which can be considered the mother of the Platonic\nSchool and the ancestor of all idealist schools. However noble the descendants may have been, the\nancestor far surpassed them. The Platonic School stemmed from an incomplete initiation; the Stoic\nSchool lost the true tradition. The other systems of ancient and modern philosophy are more or less\nfortunate speculations, while the doctrine of Pythagoras was based on an experimental science and\nwas accompanied by a complete organization of life.\n\nLike the ruins of the ancient city, today the secrets of the Order as well as the teacher's thought are\nburied deeply underground. Nevertheless, let us try to call them to life once again. For us this will be\nopportunity to penetrate into the heart of esoteric teaching, the arcanum of religions and\nphilosophies, and to lift a corner of Isis' veil in the light of Greek genius.\n\nFor several reasons Pythagoras chose this Dorian colony as the center of his activity. His aim was\nnot only to teach esoteric doctrine to a circle of chosen disciples, but also to apply these principles to\nthe education of youth and to the life of the state. This plan required the establishment of an institute\nfor the initiation of the laity, with the underlying design of slowly transforming the political\norganization of the cities in the image of Pythagoras' philosophical and religious ideas. It is certain\nthat none of the republics of Hellas or of Peloponnesus would have tolerated this innovation. The\nphilosopher would have been accused of conspiring against the state. The Greek cities of the Gulf of\nTarentum, less influenced by demagogues, were more liberal. Pythagoras was not disappointed in his\n\nhope of finding a favorable reception for his reforms in the senate of Croton. In addition, his aims\nextended beyond Greece. Envisioning the evolution of ideas, he foresaw the fall of Hellenism and\ndreamed of planting the principles of a scientific religion in the human mind. By establishing his\nschool on the Gulf of Tarentum, he spread his esoteric ideas into Italy, and in his doctrine he\npreserved the purified essence of Oriental wisdom for the peoples of the Occident.\n\nUpon his arrival in Croton, which then inclined toward the pleasure-filled life of neighboring\nSybaris, Pythagoras brought about a veritable revolution. Porphyry and lamblicus depict his first\nactivities there as those of a magician rather than of a philosopher. He assembled the young men at\nthe temple of Apollo, and by his eloquence succeeded in wresting them from debauchery. He called\nthe women to the temple of Juno, and persuaded them to bring their golden robes and their\nornaments to that place as trophies of their victory over vanity and luxury. He enveloped the\nausterity of his teaching in mercy; from his wisdom shone a heart-warming flame. The beauty of his\nface, the nobility of his person, the charm of his manner and his voice won the people. The women\ncompared him to Jupiter; the young men to the Hyperborean Apollo. He captivated the crowd, who\nwere astonished that at his words they fell in love with virtue and truth.\n\nThe senate of Croton or \"Council of One Thousand\" became concerned about his growing influence.\nThey summoned Pythagoras before them to give an account of his conduct and of the means he used\nto master people's minds. This was an opportunity for him to explain his ideas on education, and\nshow that, far from threatening the Dorian constitution of Croton, his teaching would only strengthen\nit. When he had won over the wealthiest citizens and the majority of the senate to his project, he\nproposed to them the creation of an institute for him and for his students. This brotherhood of lay\ninitiates would lead a communal life in a specially constructed building, but without separating\nthemselves from civil life. Those among them who already were qualified as teachers could instruct\nin physics as well as the psychic and religious sciences. As for the young men, they would be\nadmitted to the classes of the institute at various levels of initiation according to their intelligence\nand their willingness, subject to the control of the leader of the Order. But first they had to submit\nthemselves to the rules of communal life and to pass the entire day in the institute under the\nsupervision of their teachers. Those who wished to enter the Order formally would give up their\nwealth to a curator, with the privilege of taking it back whenever they wished. There would be a\nsection for women in the institute, with parallel initiation, but differentiated and adapted to the duties\nof their sex.\n\nThis project was adopted with enthusiasm by the senate of Croton, and after a few years a building,\nsurrounded with broad porticoes and beautiful gardens, appeared on the outskirts of the city. The\nCrotons called it the Temple of the Muses, and in reality, at the center of these buildings, near the\nmodest habitation of the master, was a temple dedicated to these divinities.\n\nThus the Pythagorean institute was born. It became a school of education, an academy of sciences,\nas well as a small model city under the direction of a great initiate. Through theory and practice,\nthrough science and art united, the Pythagoreans slowly attained that science of sciences, that magic\nharmony of soul and mind with the universe, which they considered the arcanum of philosophy and\nreligion. The Pythagorean school has a supreme interest for us because it was the most remarkable\nattempt at lay initiation. Anticipated synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity, it grafted the fruit of\nscience onto the tree of life; it knew that inner living attainment of truth which deep faith alone can\ngive. It was an ephemeral attainment, but nevertheless was of major importance.\n\nIn order to obtain some impression of it, let us enter the Pythagorean institute with the novice,\nfollowing his initiation step by step.\n\nTHE TEST\n\nThe white home of the initiate brothers stood on a hill among cypress and olive trees. From below,\npassing along the coast, one saw its porticoes, gardens and gymnasium. The Temple of the Muses,\nwith its circular colonnade was larger than the two wings of the building. From the terrace of the\nouter gardens one overlooked the city with its Prythaneum, its harbor, its great assembly square. In\nthe distance, the gulf extended itself between the sharp coasts like an agate cup, and with its blue line\nthe Ionian Sea marked the limit of the horizon. Sometimes women clothed in various colors could be\nseen leaving the left wing of the building, passing down the long avenue of cypresses toward the sea.\nThey were going to perform their rites in the temple of Ceres. Often from the right wing, men in\nwhite robes could be seen ascending to the temple of Apollo. And it was not the least attraction for\nthe seeking mind of youth to think that the school of the initiates was placed under the protection of\nthose two divinities. Indeed, the great goddess, Ceres, embraced the deep Mysteries of Woman and\nEarth, and Apollo, the solar god, revealed those of Man and Heaven.\n\nTherefore this little city of the elect shone outside and above the populous city of Croton. Its tranquil\nserenity appealed to the noble instincts of youth; nothing that went on inside its doors was seen, and\nit was known that it was not easy to gain admission to its activities. A simple green hedge served as\nthe only barrier to the gardens of Pythagoras' institute, and the entrance door remained open all day\nlong. But a statue of Hermes was placed there, and on its pedestal could be read: Eskato Babeloi, Go\nBack, Profane Ones! Everyone obeyed this commandment of the Mysteries.\n\nPythagoras was extremely strict when it came to admitting novices, saying, \"Every wood is not fit\nfor fashioning a Mercury.\" The young men who wished to enter the Order had to undergo a period of\nprobation. Presented by their parents or one of the teachers, they were allowed first to enter the\nPythagorean gymnasium where the novices entered into games suited to their age. At first glance the\nyoung man observed that this gymnasium did not resemble those in the city. Here were no violent\nshouts, no noisy groups, neither ridiculous bragging nor vain display of strength by athletes in\nembryo, challenging one another and showing their muscles. Here were groups of affable,\ndistinguished young men walking two by two beneath the porticoes or playing in the arena. With\nkindness and simplicity the newcomer was invited to share in their conversation as if he was one of\nthem; there was no eyeing him with a suspicious look or greeting him with a malignant smile. In the\narena they practiced running, as well as throwing javelin and discus. They also carried out make-\nbelieve combats in the form of Dorian dances, but Pythagoras had strictly forbidden physical\ncombats in his institute, saying that these were superfluous and even dangerous, in that they tended\nto develop pride and hatred along with strength and agility. He believed that men destined to practice\nthe virtues of friendship should not begin by attacking one another and rolling in the sand like wild\nbeasts, that a real hero knows how to fight courageously, but without anger, and that hatred makes a\nman inferior to any adversary. The newcomer heard these sayings of the teacher repeated by the\nnovices, who were very proud to be able to communicate their precocious wisdom to him. At the\nsame time they asked him to express his own opinions and to contradict theirs freely. Emboldened\nby these advances, the naive candidate soon showed his true nature. Happy at being listened to and\nadmired, he made speeches and boasted as much as he liked. During this time the teachers observed\nhim closely without once reprimanding him. Unknown to him, Pythagoras came in order to study his\ngestures and his words. Pythagoras gave particular attention to the bearing and laughter of the young\nmen. Laughter, he said, reveals the character in an infallible manner, and no dissimulation can\nbeautify the laugh of a wicked man. In addition, he had made such a profound study of human\nphysiognomy that in the latter he could discern the depths of the soul.\n\nThrough these detailed observations, the master obtained a precise idea of his future disciples. At the\nend of a few months the decisive tests came. These were imitations of Egyptian initiation, but were\nvery much milder and had been adapted to the Greek nature, whose sensitivity could not have\nsurvived the mortal terrors of the crypts of Memphis and Thebes. The Pythagorean aspirant was\n\nmade to spend the night on the outskirts of the city in a cavern where it was said there were monsters\nand phantoms. Those who did not have the strength to bear the dread experiences of loneliness and\nnight, who refused to enter or fled before morning, were considered too weak for initiation and were\nsent away.\n\nThe moral test was more serious. Suddenly, without preparation, one fine morning the hopeful\ndisciple was locked in a dismal, bare cell. He was handed a slate and was coldly ordered to find the\nmeaning of one of the Pythagorean symbols, for example, \"What is the meaning of a triangle\ninscribed in a circle?\" or, \"Why is the dodecahedron, enclosed in a sphere, the number of the\nuniverse?\" He spent twelve hours alone in his cell with his slate and his problem, with a pitcher of\nwater and dry bread for food. Afterward he was led into a room before the assembled novices. On\nthis occasion they had orders mercilessly to ridicule the miserable one who, cross and starved,\nappeared before them like a guilty man. \"There,\" they said, \"is the new philosopher! How inspired\nhis countenance looks! He is about to tell us his meditations! Do not conceal from us what you have\ndiscovered! You shall go through all the symbols; another month of this, and you will become a\ngreat sage!\"\n\nMeanwhile the master was observing the attitude and countenance of the young man very\nattentively. Irritated by his fast, overwhelmed by the sarcastic tauntings, humiliated at his inability to\nsolve an incomprehensible enigma, he had to make a great effort to control himself. Some would cry\nout in rage; others answered with cynical words; others, beside themselves, broke their slates in fury,\npouring curses upon the school, the master, and his students. Pythagoras then appeared and calmly\nsaid that, having so poorly withstood the test of vanity, the aspirant was requested not to return to a\nschool about which he held such a bad opinion, where the elementary virtues had to be friendship\nand respect for the teachers. Ashamed, the rejected candidate went away, sometimes becoming a\ndreadful enemy of the Order, like the celebrated Cylon who later stirred up the people against the\nPythagoreans and brought about the destruction of the Order itself. On the other hand, those who\nbore the attacks with calmness, who answered the provocations with accurate and spiritual\nreflections, declaring that they were ready to begin the test again a hundred times over in order to\nobtain a bit of wisdom, were solemnly admitted to the novitiate, amid the enthusiastic\ncongratulations of their new fellow students.\n\nTHE FIRST STEP — PREPARATION\nThe Novitiate and the Pythagorean Life\n\nOnly then did the novitiate, called preparation (paraskeis), begin. It lasted at least two years, and\ncould extend to five. During their instruction, the novices or listeners (akousikoi), were placed under\na rule of absolute silence. They had no right to make any objection to their instructors, or to discuss\ntheir teachings. They had to receive the latter with respect, then to meditate upon them at length\nwithin themselves. In order to impress this rule upon the mind of the new listener, he was shown a\nstatue of a woman covered with a long veil, her finger placed upon her lips. She was the Muse of\nSilence.\n\nPythagoras did not believe that a youth was capable of understanding the beginning and end of\nthings. He thought that to exercise him in dialectic and reasoning before he had been given the\nmeaning of truth, made an empty and a pretentious sophist. Above all he wished to develop in his\npupils the archetypal, higher faculty of man -- Intuition. And for this reason he did not teach\nmysterious or difficult things. He proceeded from natural feelings and the first duties of man at his\nentry into life, and showed their relationship with universal laws. Since he first inculcated in the\nyoung men a love for their parents, he enlarged this sentiment by assimilating the idea of father to\n\nthat of God, the Great Creator of the universe. \"Nothing is more venerable,\" he said, \"than the\nquality of the father. Homer called Jupiter the ruler of the gods, but to show all his greatness, he\ncalled him the Father of gods and men.\" He compared the mother to generous and beneficent nature.\nAs celestial Cybele produces the stars and Demeter produces the fruits and flowers of the fields, so\nthe mother nourishes the child with all joy. Therefore in his father and mother the son should honor\nthe representatives, the earthly representations of these great divinities. He further showed that the\nlove one has for one's country comes from the love one felt for one's mother in childhood. Parents\nare given to us, not by chance, as man generally believes, but by an antecedent and higher order\ncalled Fortune or Necessity. It is necessary to honor them, but one ought to choose one's friend. The\nnovices were urged to group themselves in twos according to their affinities. The youngest was to\nseek in the eldest the virtues he himself pursued, and the two companions should inspire each other\nto the better life. \"The friend is another self; one must honor him like a god,\" said the master. If the\nPythagorean rule imposed upon the novice listener absolute submission with regard to his teachers, it\nleft him complete freedom in the joy of friendship; it even made friendship the stimulus to all\nvirtues, the poetry of life, the pathway to the ideal.\n\nIndividual strength thus was awakened, morality became living and poetic, the rule accepted with\nlove ceased to be a restriction and became the very affirmation of individualism. Pythagoras wished\nobedience to be an assent. In addition, moral training paved the way for philosophical teaching. For\nthe relationships that were established between social duties and the harmonies of the cosmos caused\none to feel the law of correspondences and universal concordances. In this law lies the principle of\nthe Mysteries, of esoteric teaching and of all philosophy. The mind of the pupil thus became\naccustomed to finding the mark of an invisible order upon visible reality. General maxims, concise\nformulations opened vistas upon the higher world. Morning and evening The Golden Verses\nsounded in the student's ear, accompanied by the accent of the lyre:\n\nRender dedicated worship to the immortal gods;\nKeep, then, your faith.\n\nIn analyzing this maxim, it was shown that the gods, seemingly different, were basically the same\namong all peoples since they corresponded to the same spiritually animate forces active throughout\nthe universe. The sage therefore could honor the gods of his own country, at the same time making\nof their essence an idea different from that of the common man. Tolerance for all cults, oneness of\nall peoples, unity of religions in esoteric science -- these new ideas were vaguely outlined in the\nnovice's mind like grandiose divinities dimly seen in the splendor of the setting sun. And the Golden\nLyre continued its grave teachings:\n\nRevere the memory\nOf heroes who are benefactors, of spirits which are demigods!\n\nBehind these lines the novice saw as through a veil the divine Psyche, the human soul, shining. The\nheavenly road glistened like a stream of light. For in the worship of heroes and demigods the initiate\nviewed the doctrine of the future life and the mystery of universal evolution. This great secret was\nnot revealed to the novice, but he was being prepared to understand it by hearing about a hierarchy\nof beings called heroes and demigods who are superior to mankind, and who are its guides and\nprotectors. It was added that since they were intercessors between man and the divine, through them\nman could succeed by degrees in coming close to the spiritual by practising heroic virtues. \"But how\ncan one communicate with these invisible Genii?\" \"Where does the soul come from?\" \"Where is it\ngoing, and why this dark mystery of death?\" The novice did not dare formulate these questions, but\nthey were divined from his expressions. And in reply his teachers would show him fighters on earth,\nstatues in the temple, and glorified souls in the sky, \"in the fiery citadel of the gods,\" which Hercules\nhad reached.\n\nIn the heart of the ancient Mysteries, all the gods were re-established in the One Supreme God. This\nrevelation, together with all its consequences, became the key to the cosmos. For this reason it was\nreserved entirely to initiation proper. The novice knew nothing about this. He was allowed to see this\ntruth only in part through what was called the power of Magic and Number. For numbers, the master\ntaught, contain the secret of things, and God is universal harmony. The seven sacred modes built on\nthe seven notes of the heptachord correspond to the seven colors of light, to the seven planets and to\nthe seven forms of existence, which are reproduced in all the spheres of material and spiritual life,\nfrom the least to the greatest. The melodies of these modes, wisely instilled, should bring the soul\ninto harmony, making it capable of vibrating exactly with the breath of truth.\n\nTo this purification of the soul necessarily corresponded that of the body, which was obtained by\nhygiene and the strict discipline of habits. To conquer one's passions was the first duty of initiation.\nOne who has not made an harmonious entity of his own being, cannot reflect divine harmony.\nNevertheless, the ideal of the Pythagorean life had nothing of the ascetic element, since marriage\nwas considered sacred. But chastity was recommended to the novices and moderation to the initiates\nas a source of power and perfection. \"Do not yield to pleasure except when you agree to be untrue to\nyourself,\" said the master. He added that pleasure does not exist by itself, and compared it to \"the\nsong of the Sirens who, when they are approached, vanish and in their place cause broken bones and\nbloody flesh on a reef devoured by the waves, while real joy is similar to the concert of the Muses,\nwhich leaves a celestial harmony in the soul.\" Pythagoras believed in the virtues of the female\ninitiate but he greatly mistrusted the uninitiated woman. To a disciple who asked him when he would\nbe allowed to approach a woman, he answered ironically, \"When you become tired of your\ncomposure.\"\n\nThe Pythagorean day was arranged in the following manner. As soon as the burning sun arose out of\nthe blue waves of the Ionian Sea, gilding the columns of the temple of the Muses above the home of\nthe initiates, the young Pythagoreans sang a hymn to Apollo while executing a Dorian dance of a\nmasculine and sacred nature. After the required ablutions, they walked to the temple in silence. Each\nawakening is a resurrection which has its flower of innocence. The soul should wrap itself in\nmeditation at the beginning of the day, and remain pure for the morning lesson. In the sacred groves\nthey gathered around the master or his interpreters and the lesson was conducted in the cool shade of\nthe tall trees or in the shadow of the porticoes. At noon a prayer was said to the heroes and\nbenevolent Genii. Esoteric tradition assumed that good spirits prefer to approach the earth with the\nsolar radiation, while evil spirits haunt the shadows and pervade the atmosphere when night comes.\nThe frugal noonday meal generally consisted of bread, honey and olives. The afternoon was\ndedicated to gymnastic exercises, followed by study, meditation and work on the lesson of the\nmorning. After sunset, prayer was said in a group and they sang a hymn to the cosmogonic gods, to\ncelestial Jupiter, to Minerva Providence and to Diana, protectress of the dead. During this time,\nstyrax, balm or incense was burning on the altar in the open air, and the hymn, blended with the\nperfume, sweetly ascended in the dusk as the first stars pierced the pale blue sky. The day ended\nwith the evening meal, after which the youngest gave a reading, analyzed by the eldest.\n\nThus flowed the Pythagorean day, limpid as a stream, clear as a cloudless morning. The year was\nregulated according to the great astronomical festivals. For example, the return of Hyperborean\nApollo and the celebration of the Mysteries of Ceres brought together novices and initiates, men and\nwomen of all degrees. The young girls were seen playing ivory lyres; married women in peplos of\ndeep-red and saffron, performed in antiphonal choirs, accompanied by songs with the harmonious\nmovements of the strophe and antistrophe which tragedy later imitated. In the midst of these great\nfestivals where divinity seemed present in the grace of forms and movements, in the incisive melody\nof the choirs, the novice experienced something like a foretaste of esoteric powers, the omnipotent\nlaws of the universe and the deep, transparent heavens. Marriage and funeral rites had a more\nintimate but no less solemn character. One unusual ceremony made a special appeal to the\nimagination. When a novice voluntarily left the institute to resume ordinary life, or when a disciple\n\nhad betrayed a secret of the teaching, which happened but once, the initiates erected a tomb in the\nconsecrated enclosure, as if he were dead. The master would say, \"He is more dead than the dead,\nsince he has returned to evil life; his body walks among men, but his soul is dead; let us mourn for\nit.\" And this tomb, erected to a living being, tortured him like his own phantom, like a sinister omen.\n\nTHE SECOND STEP — PURIFICATION\nThe Numbers — Theogony\n\nIt was a beautiful day, \"a golden day,\" as the elders said, when Pythagoras received the novice in his\nhome, solemnly accepting him as one of his disciples. Now the novices entered into intimate and\ndirect relationship with the master; they were invited into the inner court of his home, reserved for\nhis faithful students. From this fact we derive the name esoterics, those of the inside, opposed to\nexoterics, those of the outside. Real initiation began at this stage.\n\nThis revelation consisted of a complete and rational explanation of esoteric doctrine from its\nbeginnings, continued with the mysterious science of numbers, to the final consequences of\nuniversal evolution, and dealt with the destinies and supreme goals of the divine Psyche, of the\nhuman soul. This science of numbers was known under various names in the temples of Egypt and\nAsia. Since it provided the key to all doctrine it was carefully concealed from the uninitiated. The\nnumbers, letters and geometric figures, or the human representations which served as signs for this\nalgebra of the secret world were understood only by the initiate. The latter revealed their meaning to\nthe adepts only after they had taken the oath of silence. Pythagoras formulated this science in his\nbook called Hieros Logos, The Sacred Word. This work has not come down to us, but the later\nwritings by the Pythagoreans, by Philolaus of Archytas, and by Hierocles, the Dialogues of Plato,\nthe treatises of Aristotle, as well as those of Porphyrus and Iamblicus, have made the principles\nknown. If they have remained a closed book for modern philosophers, it is because their meaning\nand depth cannot be understood except by comparison with the esoteric doctrines of the Orient.\n\nPythagoras called his disciples mathematicians because his higher teaching began with the study of\nnumbers. But his sacred mathematics or science of principles was both transcendent and more alive\nthan the secular mathematics known to our modern scientists and philosophers. Number was not\nconsidered an abstract quantity but an intrinsic and living virtue of the supreme One, of God, the\nSource of universal harmony. The science of numbers was that of the living forces of divine faculties\nin action in the world and in man, in macrocosm and microcosm ... By penetrating these, by\ndistinguishing and explaining their workings, Pythagoras made nothing less than a theogony or a\nrational theology.\n\nA real theology should provide the principles for all the sciences. It will be the science of God only\nif it manifests the unity and link between the sciences of nature. It deserves its name only on\ncondition that it constitutes the organ and synthesis of all the others. And this is exactly the role that\nthe science of the Sacred Word played in the Egyptian temples, later formulated and made more\nexact by Pythagoras under the name of the science of numbers. It claimed to provide the key of\nbeing, science and life. The adept, guided by the master, had to begin by contemplating the\nprinciples in his own intellect, before following their manifold applications in the vast cycles of\nevolution.\n\nA modern poet felt this truth when he made Faust descend to the Mothers in order to restore life to\nHelena's phantom. Faust seizes the magic key, earth crumbles beneath his feet, dizziness\noverwhelms him and he plunges into the emptiness of space. Finally he arrives at the realm of the\nMothers who guard the archetypal forms of the Great All. These Mothers are Pythagoras' numbers,\n\nthe divine forces in the world. The poet has rendered for us the awe of his own thought at this plunge\ninto the Abyss of the Unfathomable. For the ancient initiate, in whom the direct view of Intelligence\nslowly awakened like a new sense, this inner revelation seemed rather to be an ascent into the great\nincandescent sun of truth where, in the fullness of Light he viewed beings and forms projected into\nthe whirlwind of lives by a great outpouring.\n\nHe did not reach in a single day that inner possession of truth in which man sees universal life as\nreality by means of the concentration of his faculties. Years of exercise and that accord of\nintelligence, so difficult to attain, were necessary. Before using the Creative Word -- and how few\nsucceed -- it is necessary to spell the Sacred Word, letter by letter, syllable by syllable.\n\nPythagoras was in the habit of teaching in the Temple of the Muses. At Pythagoras' request, and\naccording to his designs, the magistrates of Croton had had the temple built very near his home, in\nan enclosed garden. Only the disciples of the second degree entered it with the master. In the interior\nof this circular temple could be seen the nine Muses, carved in marble. Standing in the center,\ncovered with a veil, Hestia watched, solemn and mysterious. With her left hand she protected the\nflame of the hearth; with her right she pointed to Heaven. Among the Greeks as well as the Romans,\nHestia or Vesta is the guardian of the divine element present in everything. Conscious of the sacred\nfire, she had her altar in the temple of Delphi, in the Prytaneum of Athens, as well as in the humblest\nhome. In Pythagoras' sanctuary she symbolized the divine, central science of Theogony. Surrounding\nher statue the esoteric Muses in the circular temple, in addition to their traditional and mythological\nnames, bore the names of the esoteric sciences and sacred arts of which they had custody. Urania\npresided over astronomy and astrology; Polymnia, the science of souls in the other life and the art of\ndivination; Melpomene with her tragic mask, the science of life and death, of transformations and of\nrebirths. Together these three higher Muses constituted cosmogony or celestial physics. Calliope,\nClio, and Euterpe presided over the science of man, or psychology, with its corresponding arts,\nmedicine, magic, ethics. The last group, Terpsichore, Erato, and Thalia, embraced earthly physics,\nthe science of the elements, stones, plants, and animals.\n\nThus from the very start the organism of the sciences, imitating the organism of the universe,\nappeared to the disciple in the living circle of the Muses, lighted by the divine flame.\n\nHaving led his disciples into this little sanctuary, Pythagoras opened the book of the Word and began\nhis esoteric teaching.\n\n\"These Muses,\" he said, \"are only the earthly prototypes of divine powers whose incorporeal,\nsublime beauty you are about to view within yourselves. Just as they look at the Fire of Hestia from\nwhich they emanate and which gives them movement, rhythm, and melody, so you must plunge into\nthe central Fire of the Universe, into divine Spirit, in order to spread out with it in its visible\nmanifestations.\" Then, with a powerful, sure hand, Pythagoras lifted his disciples from the world of\nforms and realities; he erased time and space, causing them to descend with him into the Great\nMonad, into the essence of the Uncreated Being.\n\nPythagoras called this the first One, composed of harmony, the Male Fire which passes through\neverything, the Spirit which moves by itself, the Indivisible, great non-manifest, whose creative\nthought the ephemeral worlds make manifest, the Unique, the Eternal, the Unchangeable hidden\nunder the many things which pass away and change. \"Essence conceals itself from man,\" said\nPhilolaus, the Pythagorean. \"Man knows only the things of this world, where the finite is combined\nwith the infinite. And how can he know them? Because between him and things is a harmony, a\nrelationship, a common principle, and this principle is given to them by the One who gives them\ndimension and intelligibility, along with their essence. He is the common measure between object\nand subject, the reason for things by which the soul shares in the final cause of the One.\" But how\ncan one approach Imperceptible Being? Has anyone ever seen the Master of Time, the Soul of the\n\nSuns, the Source of Intelligence? No, and it is only in becoming one with Him that one fathoms His\nEssence. He is like an invisible fire placed at the center of the universe, whose living flame moves in\nall worlds and impels all.\" He added that the work of initiation was to get closer to the great Being\nby resembling Him, by making oneself as perfect as possible, by mastering things through\nintelligence, by thus becoming active like Him, and not passive like them. \"Your being is yours; is\nyour soul not a microcosm, a little universe? -- But it is filled with storms and discords. Therefore, it\nis a question of effecting unity in harmony. Then, -- only then -- will God descend into your\nconsciousness; then will you share His power; then will you make of your will the stone of the\nhearth, the altar of Hestia, the throne of Jupiter!\"\n\nGod, indivisible Substance, therefore, has as a number the Unity which contains Infinity; as a name,\nthat of Father, Creator, or Eternal Masculine; as a sign, the Living Fire, the symbol of the Spirit, the\nessence of Everything. This is the first principle.\n\nBut divine faculties are similar to the mystic lotus which the Egyptian initiate, lying in his sepulchre,\nsees emerging from the blackness of night. At first it is only a brilliant dot, then it opens like a\nflower, the incandescent center spreading out like a rose of light with a thousand petals.\n\nPythagoras said that the Great Monad acts as a creative Dyad. From the moment God is manifest, He\nis double; indivisible Essence, divisible Substance, masculine, active, animating and passive\nfeminine principles. Therefore the Dyad represented the union of the Eternal Masculine and Eternal\nFeminine in God, the two basic, corresponding divine faculties. Orpheus poetically expressed this\nidea in the line,\n\nJupiter is the divine Husband and the divine Wife.\n\nAll polytheisms, by representing divinity sometimes in the masculine, sometimes in the feminine\nform, have been aware of this idea intuitively.\n\nThis eternal Nature, this great Wife of God, is not only earthly nature but heavenly nature, invisible\nto our eyes of flesh, the Soul of the world, the Primordial Light, -- in turn Maia, Isis, or Cybele who,\nfirst vibrating under the divine impulse, contains the essences of all souls, the spiritual archetypes of\nall beings. Demeter is next, the living earth and all earths, along with the bodies they enclose, into\nwhich souls are incarnated. Then she is Woman, companion of Man. In humanity, Woman\nrepresents nature; and the perfect image of God is not Man alone, but Man and Woman. Hence their\ninvincible, charming, fateful attraction; hence the intoxication of love, into which the dream of\ninfinite creation plays, as well as the vague feeling that the Eternal Masculine and the Eternal\nFeminine enjoy a perfect union in the Heart of God. \"Honor, therefore, be to Woman, on earth and in\nHeaven,\" said Pythagoras, in harmony with all the ancient initiates. \"She makes us understand that\ngreat Woman, nature. Let her be Her sanctified image and help us to return by degrees to the great\nSoul of the World who gives birth, preserves and renews, -- to the divine Cybele who bears the\npeople of souls in her cloak of light!\"\n\nThe Monad represents the essence of God, the Dyad, His generative and reproductive faculty. The\nlatter generates the world; it is the visible unfolding of God in space and time. But the real world is\nthreefold. Man is composed of three elements, distinct yet blended into one another: body, soul and\nspirit. The universe likewise is divided into three concentric spheres: the natural world, the human\nworld and the divine world. The Triad or the threefold law, therefore, is the essential law of things\nand the actual key to life. For this law is found at all stages of the ladder of life, from the constitution\nof the organic cell through the physiological constitution of the animal body, the functioning of the\nblood system and the cerebro-spinal system, to the hyperphysical constitution of man, universe and\nGod. Thus, as if by enchantment it opens the internal structure of the universe to the astonished\nmind; it reveals the infinite correspondences of macrocosm and microcosm. It acts like a light which\n\nwould pass into things in order to make them transparent, and to illuminate the small and large\nworlds like so many magic lanterns.\n\nLet us understand this law by means of the basic correspondence of man and universe.\n\nPythagoras stated that the mind of man receives its immortal, invisible and entirely active nature\nfrom God. For the mind moves of its own accord. He called the body its mortal, divisible, passive\npart. He thought that what we call soul is closely linked with the mind, but that it is formed of a third\nintermediate element which comes from the cosmic fluid. Therefore the soul resembles an etheric\nbody which the mind weaves and constructs. Without this etheric body the material body could not\nbe moved, and would be only an inert, lifeless mass. The soul has a form similar to that of the\nbody, to which it gives life and which it outlives after dissolution or death. Then, according to a\nmetaphor employed by Pythagoras and Plato, it becomes a subtle chariot which carries the spirit\ntoward the divine spheres or lets it fall back into the dark regions of matter, depending upon whether\nit is more or less good or evil. And the constitution and evolution of man are repeated in widening\ncircles, involving every scale of being and all spheres. Just as the human psyche struggles against the\nspirit which attracts it and the body which holds it, so humanity evolves between the natural and\nanimal worlds where it is held by earthly roots, and the divine world of pure spirits, its celestial\nsource, toward which it strives to raise itself. And what occurs in mankind takes place on all earths\nand in all solar systems in ever-varying proportions, in ever new modes. Extend the circle to infinity\nand, if you can, embrace the limitless worlds with a single concept. What do you find? -- Creative\nthought, astral fluid and worlds in evolution: mind, soul and body of Divinity. Lifting veil after veil,\nand tapping the qualities of that Divinity itself, you will discover the Triad and Dyad enveloping\neach other in the dark depths of the Monad like an efflorescence of stars in the abysses of infinity.\n\nFrom this brief sketch one perceives the major importance Pythagoras attached to the threefold law.\nIt can be said that it forms the cornerstone of esoteric science. All the great religious initiators were\naware of it; all spiritual leaders felt it. An oracle of Zoroaster said,\n\nThe number Three reigns everywhere in the Universe,\nAnd the Monad is its beginning.\n\nThe great accomplishment of Pythagoras is that he formulated the threefold law with the clarity of\nGreek genius. He made it the center of his theogony and the foundation of the sciences. Already\nconcealed in Plato' exoteric writings, but completely misunderstood by later philosophers, this\nconcept has been fathomed in modern times by only a few rare initiates of the esoteric sciences.\"\nToday one can begin to recognize what a broad, solid base the law of universal threefoldness\nafforded the classification of the sciences, the building of a cosmogony and a psychology.\n\nJust as the universal threefold law is centered in the unity of God, or in the Monad, so human\nthreefoldness is centered in the consciousness of self and in the will, which gathers all the faculties\nof body, soul and spirit into a living unity. Human and divine threefoldness, summed up in the\nMonad, constitutes the sacred Tetrad. But man realizes his own unity only in a relative manner. For\nhis will, which acts on all his being, nevertheless cannot act simultaneously and thoroughly in its\nthree organs, that is, in the instinct, in the soul and in the intellect. The universe and God Himself\nappear to him only one after the other, and are reflected by these three mirrors: 1. Viewed through\nthe instinct and the kaleidoscope of the senses, God is multiple and infinite like His manifestations.\nHence polytheism, where the number of gods is not limited. 2. Seen through the rational soul, God is\ntwo-fold, that is, mind and matter. Hence the dualism of Zoroaster, of the Manicheans, and of\nseveral other religions. 3. Seen through pure intellect He is threefold, that is, spirit, soul and body in\nall the manifestations of the universe. Hence the trinitarian cults of India (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva) and\nthe Trinity itself of Christianity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). 4. Conceived through the will which\nsums up the whole, God is One, and we have the hermetic monotheism of Moses in all its firmness.\n\nHere there is no further personification, no further incarnation; we leave the visible universe and\nreturn to the Absolute. Alone the Eternal rules over the world, the latter reduced to dust. The\ndiversity of religions therefore stems from the fact that man realizes Divinity only through his own\nbeing, which is relative and finite, while at every instant God realizes the unity of the three worlds in\nthe harmony of the universe.\n\nIn itself, this last application would prove the somewhat magic virtue of the Tetragram in the order\nof ideas. Not only would one discover the principles of the sciences, the law of beings and their\nmanner of evolution, but also the reason for the various religions and for their higher unity. It was\ntruly the universal key. Thus one understands the enthusiasm with which Lysis speaks of it in The\nGolden Verses, and one realizes why the Pythagoreans swore by this great symbol:\n\nI swear by the One Who engraved in our hearts\nThe sacred Tetrad, mighty and pure Symbol,\nSource of nature, archetype of the gods.\n\nPythagoras pursued the teaching of Numbers still further. In each of them he defined a principle, a\nlaw, an active force of the universe. But he said that the basic principles are contained in the first\nfour numbers, since in adding or multiplying them one finds all the others. So the infinite variety of\nbeings who make up the universe is produced through the combinations of the three primordial\nforces: matter, soul and spirit under the creative impetus of divine unity which combines and\ndifferentiates them, concentrates and breaks them up. Along with the principal teachers of esoteric\nscience, Pythagoras attached great importance to the number seven and the number ten. Seven, the\ncompound of three and four, means the union of man and divinity. It is the number of the adepts, of\nthe great initiates, and since it expresses complete fulfillment in everything through seven stages, it\nrepresents the law of evolution. The number ten, formed by the addition of the first four and which\nalso contains the preceding one, is the perfect number par excellence, since it represents all the\nprinciples of Divinity evolved and united in a new unity.\n\nUpon completing the teaching of his theogony, Pythagoras showed his disciples the nine Muses,\npersonifying the sciences grouped three by three, presiding at the triple ternary evolved in nine\nworlds, and with Hestia forming divine Science, Guardian of the Archetypal Fire -- the Sacred\nDecade.\n\n33b. The Order and the Teaching\n\n(Part 2 — Notes for this chapter at the end of Part 3)\n\nTHE THIRD STAGE — PERFECTION\nCosmogony and Psychology -- Evolution of the Soul\n\nThe disciple had received the principles of science from the master. This first initiation caused the\nthick scales of matter which had covered the eyes of his mind, to fall. Tearing away the shining veil\nof mythology, it had snatched him from the visible world and had cast him into limitless spaces,\nplunging him into the Sun of Intelligence, from which Truth radiates over the three worlds. But the\nscience of numbers was only the preamble to the great initiation. Armed with these principles, it was\nnow a question of descending from the heights of the Absolute into the depths of nature, there to\ngrasp divine thought in the formation of things, and in the evolution of the soul through the worlds.\n\nEsoteric cosmogony and psychology were very close to the greatest mysteries of life, as well as to\nthe jealously guarded secrets of the esoteric arts and sciences. Pythagoras preferred to give these\nlessons at night, free from the profane light of day, on the terraces of the Temple of Ceres,\naccompanied by the gentle murmuring of the Ionian Sea with its melodious rhythm, beneath the\ndistant phosphorescences of the starry cosmos; or in the crypts of the sanctuary where Egyptian\nnaphtha lamps cast a steady, gentle, clear light. The women initiates attended these nocturnal\ngatherings. Sometimes priests or priestesses from Delphi or Eleusis came to confirm the teachings of\nthe master either by relating their experiences, or through the clear speech of clairvoyant sleep.\n\nMaterial and spiritual evolution of the world are two opposite but parallel and concordant\nmovements upon the entire scale of being. One is explained only by the other, and together they\nexplain the world. Material evolution represents the manifestation of God in matter through the\nactivity of the soul of the world. Spiritual evolution represents the development of consciousness in\nthe individual monads and their efforts to rejoin, across the cycle of lives, the divine spirit from\nwhich they emanate. To see the universe from the physical point of view or the spiritual point of\nview is not to consider a different object; it is to look at the world from two opposite viewpoints.\nFrom the terrestrial point of view the rational explanation of the world must begin with material\nevolution, since it is from this aspect that it appears to us. However, by causing us to see the work of\nuniversal Mind in matter and by pursuing the development of individual monads, this rational\nexplanation leads to the spiritual point of view, causing us to pass from the outside to the inside of\nthings.\n\nIn this way Pythagoras explained the universe as a living being, animated by a great Soul, and\npermeated with a great Intelligence. The second part of his teaching therefore began with\nCosmogony.\n\nIf one relies upon the divisions of heaven which we find in the esoteric fragments of the\nPythagoreans, this astronomy would be similar to the astronomy of Ptolomy -- a motionless earth\nwith the sun, the planets and the entire firmament revolving around it. But the very nature of this\nastronomy indicates that it is entirely symbolic. At the center of his universe Pythagoras places Fire,\nof which the sun is but a reflection. And in all the esoterism of the East, Fire is the sign of Spirit, of\ndivine universal Consciousness. Therefore, what our philosophers generally accept as the physics of\nPythagoras and Plato is nothing but a figurative description of their secret philosophy, luminous for\nthe initiates, but all the more impenetrable for the common man, since it was made to pass for\nexplanations of simple physical phenomena. Let us therefore regard it as a sort of cosmography of\nthe life of souls, nothing more nor less. The sublunar region designates the sphere where earthly\nattraction is exerted, and is called The Circle of Generations. By this the initiates meant that for us\nthe earth is the region of corporeal life. All the activities which accompany the incarnation and\nexcarnation of souls take place there. The sphere of the six planets and of the sun corresponds to\nascending categories of spirits. Olympus, conceived as a revolving sphere, is called The Heaven of\nFixed Things because it is assimilated within the sphere of perfect souls. This apparently naive\nastronomy, therefore, conceals a concept of the spiritual universe.\n\nBut everything leads us to believe that the ancient initiates, and particularly Pythagoras, had much\nmore accurate ideas of the physical universe than is generally conceived. Aristotle says positively\nthat the Pythagoreans believed in the movement of the earth around the sun. Copernicus affirms that\nthe idea of rotation of the earth upon its axis came to him while reading in Cicero that a certain\nHycetas of Syracuse had spoken of the daily movement of the earth. To his disciples of the third\ndegree, Pythagoras taught the dual movement of the earth. Without the exact calculations of modern\nscience, nevertheless he knew, as did the priests of Memphis, that planets coming from the sun\nrevolve around it; that the stars are so many solar systems governed by the same laws as ours, and\nthat each has its appointed place in the vast universe. He also recognized that each solar world forms\na little universe, having its correspondence in the spiritual world and its own heaven. But these ideas\n\nwould have upset the popular mythology of the ancients, and the masses would have labeled them as\nsacrilege. Therefore they were never entrusted to profane writing, but were taught only under the\nseal of the deepest secrecy.\"\n\nPythagoras said that the visible universe, the sky with all its stars, is but a passing form of the world-\nsoul, of the great Maia, who concentrates scattered matter out of infinite spaces, then dissolves and\nscatters it in an imponderable, cosmic fluid. Each solar vortex possesses a part of this universal soul,\nwhich evolves for millions of centuries with a special force of impulsion and dimension. As for the\npowers, kingdoms, species and living souls which will appear successively in the stars of this little\nworld, they come from God, they descend from the Father, that is, they emanate from an\nunchangeable and higher spiritual order as well as from a former material evolution, from an extinct\nsolar system. Some of these invisible powers which are entirely immortal, direct the formation of\nthis world. Others await its unfolding in cosmic sleep or in divine dream in order that they may\nreturn to visible generations according to eternal law. Nevertheless, the solar soul and its central fire\nwhich the Great Monad activates directly, cultivates matter to a condition of fusion. The planets are\nthe daughters of the sun. Each of them, fashioned by forces of attraction and rotation inherent in\nmatter, is endowed with a semi-conscious soul coming from the solar soul, and has its distinct\ncharacter, its particular role in evolution. Since each planet is a varied expression of the thought of\nGod and since it plays a special role in the planetary chain, the ancient wise men identified the\nnames of the planets with those of the great gods which represent the divine Faculties in action in the\nuniverse.\n\nThe four elements, of which the stars and all beings are formed, are progressive states of matter. The\nfirst, denser and cruder than all the others, is the most refractory to spirit; the last, being most\nrefined, shows a great affinity for spirit. Earth represents the solid state, water, the liquid state, air,\nthe gaseous state, fire, the imponderable state. The fifth element, or the etheric, represents a state of\nmatter so subtle and alive that it is no longer atomic, and is endowed with the property of universal\npenetration. It is the fundamental cosmic fluid, the astral light or the world-soul.\n\nPythagoras then spoke to his disciples about Egypt and Asia. He knew that earth in fusion was\noriginally surrounded by a gaseous atmosphere which, liquefied by its subsequent cooling, had\nformed the seas. According to tradition, he summed up this idea metaphorically by saying that the\nseas were produced by the tears of Saturn, the cosmic age.\n\nBut now appear the kingdoms, invisible seeds, floating in the ethereal aura of earth. They swirl in its\ngaseous robe, then are attracted into the depths of the seas and the first emerging continents. The\nplant and animal worlds, still combined, appear at almost the same time. Esoteric doctrine accepts\nthe transformation of animal species, not only according to the secondary law of selection but also\naccording to the primary law of percussion of the earth by celestial powers, and of all living beings\nby intelligible principles and invisible forces. When a new species appears on the globe, it is because\na group of souls of a higher type becomes incarnated at a given time in the descendants of the older\nspecies, in order to cause it to ascend by remolding and transforming it. Thus esoteric doctrine\nexplains the appearance of man upon the earth. From the point of view of earthly evolution, man is\nthe crown of all anterior species. But this point of view no more explains his entrance upon the scene\nthan it explains the appearance of the first algae or the first crustaceans on the bottom of the seas. All\nsuccessive creations presuppose, as does each birth, the percussion of earth by the invisible powers\nwhich create life. The creation of man presupposes the previous reign of a celestial mankind which\npresides at the blossoming of earthly mankind.\n\nPythagoras, enlightened by the temples of Egypt, had precise ideas on the great revolutions of the\nglobe. Indian and Egyptian teaching spoke of the existence of the ancient austral continent, called\nAtlantis by the Greeks, which had produced the red race and a powerful civilization. It attributed the\nalternating emergence and submersion of continents to the oscillation of the poles, stating that\n\nmankind had passed through six floods. Each interdiluvian cycle brings about the dominance of a\ngreat human race. In the midst of partial eclipses of civilization and human faculties, a general\nupward movement takes place.\n\nTherefore, humanity is constituted and races are launched upon their careers through the cataclysms\nof the globe. On these continents which emerge from the seas, only to disappear again, in the midst\nof peoples who pass away, and civilizations which crumble, -- what is the great, poignant,\neverlasting mystery? This is the great inner problem of everyone. It is the problem of the soul, which\ndiscovers within itself an abyss of darkness and light, which views itself with a mixture of rapture\nand fear, saying, \"I am not of this world, for it does not suffice to explain myself to me. I do not\ncome from earth, and I am going elsewhere. -- But where?\" This is the mystery of Psyche, which\nincludes all others.\n\nThe cosmogony of the visible world, Pythagoras said, leads us to the history of earth, and the latter\nbrings us to the mystery of the human soul. With this we approach the sanctuary of sanctuaries, the\narcanum of arcana. Once its consciousness is awakened, in its own eyes the soul becomes the most\nastonishing of spectacles. But even this consciousness is but the lighted surface of man's being;\nbeneath it lie obscure and unfathomable abysses. In their unknown depths, the divine Psyche views\nwith fascination all the lives and all worlds: past, present, and future, which Eternity unites.\n\n\"Know yourself, and you will know the universe of the gods.\" -- This is the secret of the initiate-\nsages. But in order to pass through this narrow door into the vastness of the invisible universe, let us\nawaken in us the direct life of the purified soul, and let us arm ourselves with the torch of\nIntelligence, with the science of principles and sacred numbers.\n\nPythagoras thus passed from physical to spiritual cosmogony. After the evolution of the earth, he\ndescribed the evolution of the soul through the worlds. Outside initiation, this doctrine is known as\nthe transmigration of souls. No part of esoteric doctrine has been more falsely represented than this.\nHence ancient and modern literature know about it only under naive disguises. Whether his prudence\nor his oaths prevented him from saying all he knew, Plato, who of all the philosophers contributed\nmost to making it popular, gave only fantastic and sometimes extravagant sketches of it. Few people\ntoday doubt that for the initiates it must have had a scientific aspect, in order to open infinite\nperspectives and to give the soul divine consolation. The doctrine of the ascending life of the soul\nthrough the series of existences is the common characteristic of esoteric traditions and the crown of\nspiritual knowledge. In addition, it is of major importance for us, since the man of today, rejects\nequally the abstract, vague immortality of philosophy and the childish heaven of elementary religion.\nNevertheless, the dryness and emptiness of materialism shocks him. Unconsciously he strives for the\nconsciousness of an organic immortality, which responds both to the requirements of his reason and\nto the needs of his soul. One understands, moreover, why the initiates of the ancient religions,\nknowing these truths, nevertheless kept them so secret. They are of such nature as would startle\nunprepared minds. They are closely linked to the profound mysteries of spiritual generation and of\ngeneration in the flesh, upon which the destinies of future mankind depend.\n\nThis important hour of esoteric teaching, therefore, was awaited with a kind of awe. Through\nPythagoras' speech, as through a solemn chant, heavy matter seemed to lose its weight, the things of\nearth became transparent, visible to the mind. Golden and blue spheres, traced with luminous\nessences, unfolded their orbits into Infinity.\n\nThen the male and female disciples, grouped around the master in a subterranean part of the Temple\n\nof Ceres, called the Crypt of Proserpine, listened with sacred rapture to The Celestial History of\nPsyche.\n\nWhat is the human soul? It is a part of the great Soul of the world, a spark of the divine spirit, an\nimmortal monad. But if its possible future opens the unfathomable splendors of divine\nconsciousness, its mysterious unfolding traces back to the origins of organized matter. In order to\nbecome what it is in modern humanity, it was necessary for it to traverse all the kingdoms of nature,\nevery gradation of beings, gradually becoming developed through a series of innumerable\nexistences. The mind which cultivates the worlds and condenses cosmic matter into enormous\nmasses, is manifest in the successive kingdoms of nature in a varied intensity and an ever greater\nconcentration. A blind and indistinct force in the mineral, individualized in the plant, polarized in the\nsensitivity and instinct of animals, -- it tends toward the conscious monad in this slow unfolding,\nwhile the simple monad is visible in the lowest animal. The animate and spiritual element exist,\ntherefore, in every kingdom, although only in an infinitesimal degree in the lower kingdoms. Souls\nwhich existed in the germ state in the lower kingdoms sojourn there without leaving them for long\nperiods of time, and it is only after great cosmic revolutions that they pass to higher kingdoms by\nchanging planets. All they can accomplish during the period of life on a given planet is to ascend a\nfew stages. Where does the monad begin? This is the same as asking when a cloud was formed, or\nwhen a sun shone for the first time. What constitutes the essence of any human being had to evolve\nduring millions of years across a chain of planets and lower kingdoms, all the while preserving\nthroughout these existences an individual principle, which follows it everywhere. This vague but\nindestructible individuality constitutes the divine seal of the monad in which God wishes to manifest\nHimself through consciousness.\n\nThe higher one ascends through the series of organisms, the more the monad develops the latent\nprinciples which are in it. The polarized force becomes sensitive; sensitivity becomes instinct,\ninstinct becomes intelligence. And as the flickering flame of consciousness is lighted, this soul\nbecomes more independent of the body, more capable of leading a free existence. The fluid, non-\npolarized soul of minerals and vegetables is linked to the elements of the earth. The soul of animals,\nstrongly attracted by earth fire, sojourns there a certain time when it has left its cadaver, then returns\nto the surface of the globe to be reincarnated in its species without being able to leave the lower\nlayers of air. These latter are inhabited by elementals or animal souls, which have their role in\natmospheric life and a great hidden influence on man. The human soul alone comes from heaven and\nreturns there after death. But at what era of its long cosmic existence did the elemental soul become\na human soul? Through what incandescent crucible, what ethereal flame did it pass in order to\naccomplish this? Transformation was not possible in an interplanetary period except through the\nmeeting of human souls already fully formed, which had developed their spiritual principle in\nelemental souls and had imprinted their divine prototype, like a fiery seal upon plastic substance.\n\nBut how many journeys, how many incarnations and how many planetary cycles are yet to be\ncrossed in order for the human soul, thus formed, to become man as we know him? According to the\nesoteric traditions of India and Egypt, the individuals who comprise modern humanity probably\nbegan their human life on other planets, where matter is less dense than on ours. The body of man\nwas then almost vaporous, his incarnations, light and gentle. His faculties of direct spiritual\nperception must have been very powerful and very subtle in this first human phase; reason and\nintelligence, on the other hand, were in the embryonic state. In this semi-corporeal, semi-spiritual\nstate, man saw spirits; all was splendor and charm to his eyes, music to his ears. He even heard the\nharmony of the spheres. He did not think nor reflect; he scarcely wished. He caused himself to live\nby drinking in sounds, forms and light. Like a dream he floated from life to death, from death to life.\nThis is what the Orphics called The Heaven of Saturn. According to Hermes' teaching, it was only as\nman incarnated on denser and denser planets that he became material. By becoming incarnated in\ndense matter, mankind lost its spiritual sense, but through man's ever greater struggle with the\nexternal world, he developed his reason, intelligence and will. Earth is the last stage of this descent\ninto matter which Moses calls the expulsion from Paradise, and Orpheus describes as the fall into the\nsublunar circle. From here man can painfully reascend the circles in a series of new existences and\nregain his spiritual senses by the free exercise of his intellect and his will. Then only, say the\n\ndisciples of Hermes and Orpheus, does man acquire consciousness and come to possess the divine\nthrough his deeds. Then only does man become the Son of God. And those who have borne this\nname on earth, before appearing among us, had to descend the dread spiral and ascend it once again.\n\nWhat then is humble Psyche like at her origin? -- A passing breath, a floating seed, a bird which\nemigrates from life to life, beaten by the winds. And nevertheless, from shipwreck to shipwreck,\nacross millions of years, the soul has become the daughter of God, and no longer recognizes any\nother home than Heaven! This is why Greek poetry, with rich, profound, luminous symbolism,\ncompared the soul to a winged insect, now a worm, now a heavenly butterfly. How many times was\nit a chrysalis, how many times a butterfly? It will never know, but it feels that it always has wings!\n\nSuch was the past of the human soul. This explains its present condition and allows us partly to see\nits future.\n\nWhat is the divine Psyche's situation in earthly life? If one but thinks about it, one cannot imagine\none stranger or more tragic. From the moment it painfully awakens in the dense atmosphere of earth,\nthe soul is entwined in the folds of the body. It does not see, breathe or think except by means of the\nbody, yet it is not the body. As it develops, it feels a flickering light forming within itself, something\ninvisible and incorporeal which it calls its spirit, its consciousness. Indeed, man has the inborn\nfeeling of his threefold nature, since he distinguishes, even though instinctively, between his body\nand his soul, between his soul and his spirit. But the captive, tormented soul struggles with its two\ncompanions as in the grip of a serpent of a thousand coils on the one hand, and an invisible genius\nwho calls to the soul, but whose presence is only felt by the beating of its wings and fleeting lights,\non the other. Sometimes the body absorbs the soul to such a degree that the latter lives only by\nsensations and passions; it grovels in bloody orgies of madness, or in the thick vapor of fleshly\npleasures until it is frightened because of the great silence of its invisible companion. Sometimes,\nattracted by the latter, the soul loses itself in such lofty thoughts that it forgets the existence of the\nbody until the latter reminds it of its presence by a tyrannical demand. Nevertheless, an inner voice\ntells the soul that the link between it and its invisible companion is insoluble, while death will break\nthe soul's attachment to the body. But, tossed back and forth between the two in its everlasting\nstruggle, the soul vainly seeks for happiness and truth. In vain does the soul seek itself in its passing\nsensations, in its fleeting thoughts, in the world which changes like a mirage; Finding nothing\npermanent, tormented, blown like a leaf in the wind, it doubts itself as well as the divine world\nwhich reveals itself to the soul through the latter's sorrow and inability to reach it. Human ignorance\nis inscribed in the contradictions of so-called wise men, and human sorrow is written in the\nunquenchable longing of the human glance. Finally; whatever the extent of his knowledge, birth and\ndeath enclose man between two fateful boundaries. They are two doors of darkness, beyond which\nhe sees nothing. The flame of his life lights up as he enters by the one, and flickers out as he leaves\nby the other. Is it the same with the soul? If not, what becomes of it?\n\nThe answers that the philosophers have given to this profound question are very varied. The reply of\nthe initiates of all ages is fundamentally identical. It is in harmony with the universal sentiment and\ninner spirit of all religions. However, the latter have expressed this truth only in superstitious or\nsymbolic forms. Esoteric doctrine opens much broader perspectives, and its affirmations are in\naccord with the laws of universal evolution. Instructed by tradition and by numerous experiences of\nthe psychic life, the initiates have said to man, What moves in you, what you call your soul, is an\netheric double of the body which encloses within itself an immortal spirit. The spirit creates and\nweaves its spiritual body by its own activity. Pythagoras calls the spirit the subtile chariot of the soul\nbecause it is destined to carry the soul from earth after death. This spiritual body is the organ of the\nspirit, its sensitive covering and its volitive instrument. It aids in the animation of the body, which\nwould remain motionless without it. In the apparitions of the dying or the dead, this double becomes\nvisible. But this always presupposes a special inner state on the part of the seer. The subtlety, the\npower and the perfection of the spiritual body vary according to the quality of the spirit it encloses,\n\nand between the substance of souls woven in the astral light but impregnated with imponderable\nfluids of earth and heaven, there are more numerous nuances, greater differences, than between all\nterrestrial bodies and all states of ponderable matter. This astral body, though much subtler and more\nperfect than the earthly body, is not immortal like the monad it contains. It changes, it becomes pure\naccording to the atmospheres it passes through. The spirit molds and perpetually transforms it in its\nimage, but never abandons it. And if spirit slowly discards it, it is while it is being clothed with yet\nmore etheric substances. This Pythagoras taught, but he did not conceive the abstract spiritual entity,\nthe formless monad. Spirit in action in the heights of the heavens as well as on the earth, must have\nan instrument; this instrument is the living soul, bestial or sublime, dark or radiant, but having a\nhuman form -- the image of God.\n\nWhat happens at death? At the beginning of the death agony, the soul generally senses its imminent\nseparation from the body. It again sees all its earthly existence in brief tableaux in rapid succession\nand startling clarity. But when the exhausted life ceases, the soul becomes troubled and loses\nconsciousness entirely. If it is a holy or pure soul, its spiritual senses are already awakened by the\ngradual separation from matter. Before dying, in one manner or another, even if only by a looking\ninto its own state, it has the feeling of the presence of another world. At the silent urgings, the distant\ncalls, the dim rays of the Invisible, earth already has lost its solidity, and when the soul finally\nescapes the cold body, joyful because of its deliverance, it feels itself lifted in a great light toward\nthe spiritual family to which it belongs.\n\nBut it is not thus with the ordinary man whose life has been divided between material instincts and\nhigher aspirations. He awakens in a semi-consciousness, as in the torpor of a nightmare. He no\nlonger has arms to stretch or voice to speak with, but he remembers, he suffers, he exists in a limbo\nof darkness and fear. The only thing he perceives is the presence of his body, from which he is\ndetached, but for which he still feels a very strong attraction. For it is through the body that he lived,\nand now what is he? He seeks for himself with fright in the frozen fibers of his brain, in the\ncongealed blood of his veins, and no longer finds himself. Is he dead? Is he alive? He would like to\nsee, to cling to something, but he does not see; he grasps nothing. Darkness encloses him; around\nhim, in him, everything is chaos. He sees but one thing, and that thing attracts him and horrifies him.\n... It is the sinister phosphorescence of his own cast-off skin; and the nightmare begins again. ...\n\nThis state can last for months or years. Its length depends upon the strength of the material instincts\nof the soul. But, good or bad, infernal or heavenly, slowly this soul will become aware of itself and\nits new condition. Once free from its body, it will escape into the abysses of the earthly atmosphere,\nwhose magnetic streams carry it here and there, and whose wandering forms, more or less similar to\nitself, the soul begins to perceive like fleeting lights in a thick fog. Then on the part of the still heavy\nsoul begins a severe struggle to ascend into the higher layers of air, to free itself from earthly\nattraction, to reach the region which is suited to it and which friendly guides alone can reveal in the\nsky of our planetary system. But before hearing and seeing them, the soul often requires a long\nperiod of time. This phase of the life of the soul has been given various names in different religions\nand mythologies. Moses calls it Horeb; Orpheus, Erebus; Christianity, Purgatory, or \"the valley of\nthe shadow of death.\" The Greek initiates identified it with the cone of shadow which extends to the\nmoon, and which earth forever trails behind it, for this reason calling it \"the gulf of Hecate.\"\nAccording to the Orphics and Pythagoreans, in this dark vortex whirl souls which through desperate\nefforts seek to reach the circle of the moon, while the violence of the winds beats them back to earth\nby the thousands. Homer and Virgil compare them to whirling leaves, to flocks of birds\noverwhelmed by the tempest.\n\nThe moon played an important role in ancient esoterism. On the moon' surface, turned toward the\nheavens, the soul was supposed to purify its astral body before continuing its celestial ascension. It\nwas alleged that heroes and geniuses sojourned a while on its surface turned toward earth in order to\nbecome clothed in a body appropriate for our world before reincarnating in it. In some degree the\n\nancients attributed to the moon the power of magnetizing the soul for terrestrial incarnation or\ndemagnetizing it in preparation for heaven. Generally speaking, these assertions, to which the\ninitiates attached both a real and a symbolic meaning, meant that the soul must pass through an\nintermediate state of purification and rid itself of the impurities of earth before continuing its\njourney.\n\nBut how is one to depict the arrival of the pure soul in its own world? Earth has disappeared like a\ndream. A new sleep, a delightful swoon surrounds it like a caress. It sees only its winged guide\ncarrying it with the swiftness of light into the widths of space. What is to be said of its awakening in\nthe valleys of an ethereal star, without elemental atmosphere, where everything, mountains, flowers,\nvegetation, is of an exquisite, sensitive, expressive nature? Above all, what is to be said of these\nluminous forms, men and women, which surround it like a sacred procession, to initiate it into the\nholy mystery of its new life? Are these gods and goddesses? No, they are souls like itself; and the\nwonder is that their intimate thought is expressed upon their faces, and that tenderness, love, desire\nor fear shine through these diaphanous bodies in a spectrum of shining colors. Here, bodies and faces\nno longer are masks of the soul, but the transparent soul appears in its true form and shines in the full\nlight of its pure truth.\n\nPsyche has found her divine home. For the secret light in which she is bathing, which emanates from\nherself and which returns to her in the smile of beloved men and women, -- this light of happiness is\nthe World-Soul. The soul feels the presence of God! Now there are no more obstacles. Now the soul\nwill love, will know, will live without any limit other than its own wings.\n\nO strange and marvelous happiness! The soul feels joined to all its companions by profound\naffinities. For in the life of the beyond, those who do not like each other flee one another, and only\nthose who understand each other remain together. The soul will celebrate the divine Mysteries with\nthem in the most beautiful temples, in a more perfect communion. There will be living and ever new\npoems, of which each soul will be a strophe and in which each one will relive his life in that of the\nothers. Then, ecstatic, the soul will throw itself into the light from above at the call of the envoys, of\nthe winged spirits, of those who are called gods because they have escaped the cycle of rebirths. Led\nby these sublime intelligences, the soul will attempt to spell the great poem of the Hidden Word, to\nunderstand what it can grasp of the symphony of the universe.\n\nThe soul will receive the hierarchical teachings of the circles of divine Love; it will strive to behold\nthe Essences which the animating spirits spread through the worlds; it will contemplate the glorified\nspirits, the living rays of the God of Gods; and it will not be able to bear their blinding splendor,\nwhich makes the suns appear pale like dim lamps. And when the soul returns, awed by these\ndazzling journeys, for it trembles at these immensities, it will hear from afar the call of beloved\nvoices and will fall back upon the golden strands of its star, beneath the pink veil of a gentle sleep,\nfilled with white forms, perfumes and melodies.\n\nSuch is the celestial life of the soul which we, dulled by earth, scarcely perceive, but which the\ninitiates divine, the seers live and the law of analogies and universal concordances makes clear. Our\ncrude pictures, our imperfect languages try vainly to translate it, but each living soul feels its essence\nin its own secret depths. If, in our present state we find it impossible to achieve this, the philosophy\nof the unseen formulates its psychic conditions for us. The idea of ethereal stars, invisible to us, but\nforming a part of our solar system and serving as a place of sojourn for happy souls, is often spoken\nof in the Mysteries and in esoteric tradition. Pythagoras calls it a counterpart of earth, the antichthon\nlighted by the central Fire, that is, by divine Light. At the end of his Phaedo, Plato describes this\nspiritual earth at length, although in a disguised manner. He says that it is as light as air and is\nsurrounded by an ethereal atmosphere.\n\nIn the other life, therefore, the soul preserves all its individuality. It retains only the noble memories\nof its earthly existence and drops the others in that forgetfulness which the poets call Lethe. Freed\nfrom its impurities, the human soul feels its consciousness returning. It has passed from the outside\nof the universe to the inside; with a deep sigh, Cybele-Maia, the world-Soul, has taken it into her\nbreast once again. There Psyche will complete her dream, that dream interrupted at every moment\nand unceasingly begun again on earth. She will complete it in proportion to her earthly effort and her\nacquired light, but she will enlarge it a hundredfold. Dashed hopes will flower again in the dawn of\nher divine life; the dark sunsets of earth will flame forth into shining days. Yes, if man lived but a\nsingle hour of ecstasy or abnegation, that single note, taken from the dissonant scale of his earthly\nlife, will be repeated in his other life in wondrous progressions, in aeolian harmonies. The fleeting\nhappiness the charms of music provide, the ecstasies of love, or the raptures of charity are but the\nseparate notes of a symphony which we shall then hear.\n\nDoes this mean that the after-life will be only a long dream, a great illusion? What is more real than\nwhat the soul feels within it and what it sees fulfilled by its divine communion with other souls? As\nconsistent and transcendent idealists, the initiates have always thought that the only real and durable\nthings of earth are the manifestations of spiritual Beauty, Love and Truth. Since the other life can\nhave no other goal than this Truth, Beauty and Love for those who have made it the aim of their life,\nthey are certain that heaven will be more real than earth.\n\nThe celestial life of the soul can last hundreds of thousands of years, according to its rank and its\nimpelling force. But it is the privilege of only the more perfect, the more sublime, those who have\ngone beyond the circle of generations to prolong it indefinitely. The former have reached not only\ntemporary rest, but immoral activity in truth; they have created their wings. They are inviolable, for\nthey are light; they govern the worlds, for they see beyond. As for the others, they are led by an\ninflexible law to be born again in order to undergo a new trial and to elevate themselves to a higher\ndegree or to fall still lower if they fail.\n\nLike earthly life, spiritual life has its beginning, its climax and its decline. When this life is\nexhausted, the soul feels overcome with heaviness, faintness and melancholy. An invincible force\nagain draws it to the struggle and sufferings of earth. This desire is mixed with terrible\napprehensions and a tremendous grief at leaving the divine life. But the time has come; the law must\nbe fulfilled. The heaviness increases, a darkening takes place within it. It sees its luminous\ncompanions only through a veil, and this veil, growing ever thicker, causes the soul to sense the\nimminent separation. It hears their sad farewells; the tears of the happy loved ones permeate it like a\ncelestial dew and will leave in its heart the burning thirst for a forgotten happiness. Then, with\nsolemn vows it promises to remember: in the world of darkness to remember light, in the world of\nfalsehood to remember truth, in the world of hate to remember love. Only at this price can the soul\ngain the return and the immortal crown. Now it awakens in a heavy atmosphere. Ethereal star,\ndiaphanous souls, oceans of light, -- all have disappeared. Again the soul is on earth, in the vale of\nbirth and death. Nevertheless, it has not yet lost its celestial memory, and its winged guide, still\nvisible to its eyes, points out the Woman who will be its mother. The latter carries within her the\nseed of a child. But this seed will live only if the spirit comes to animate it. Then, during nine\nmonths is accomplished the most impenetrable mystery of earthly life, that of incarnation and\nmaternity.\n\nThe mysterious fusion takes place slowly, systematically, organ by organ, fiber by fiber. As the soul\nis plunged into this warm cave which makes a confused sound and which enlarges, as it feels itself\ntaken into the organism, the consciousness of divine life fades and dies away. For between the soul\nand the light from above are interspersed waves of blood, tissues of flesh, which bind it and fill it\nwith darkness. Already this distant light is no more than a dying flicker. Finally, dreadful pain\ncompresses it, pressing it into a vice, a bloody convulsion tears it from the maternal soul and fixes it\nwithin a throbbing body. -- The child is born, a pitiful earthly image, and he cries with fright. But\n\nthe memory of heaven has returned to the secret depths of the unconscious. It will live again only by\nscience or by pain, by love or by death!\n\nThe law of incarnation and excarnation emphasizes the real meaning of life and death. It constitutes\nthe main link in the evolution of the soul, allowing us to follow the latter backward and forward to\nthe depths of nature and of divinity. For this law reveals to us the rhythm and measure, the reason\nand purpose of immortality. Taking the latter out of the abstract or the fantastic, it makes it alive and\nlogical by showing the correspondences between life and death. Earthly birth is a death from the\nspiritual point of view, and death is a heavenly birth. The alternation between the two lives is\nnecessary for the development of the soul, and each of the two is both the result and explanation of\nthe other. Whoever has fathomed these truths has arrived at the very heart of the Mysteries, at the\ncenter of initiation.\n\nBut, you will say, what is there to prove to us the continuity of the soul, of the monad and of the\nspiritual entity throughout all these existences, since it successively loses memory? And what, we\nreply, proves to you the identity of your self while you are awake and asleep? You awaken each\nmorning from a strange state as inexplicable as death, you revive from this nothingness, only to fall\nback into it again in the evening. Was it nothingness? No, for you have dreamed, and for you your\ndreams have been as real as the reality of waking. A change of the physiological conditions of the\nbrain has modified the relationships of soul and body and has altered your psychic viewpoint. You\nwere the same individual, but you found yourself in another environment and you were leading\nanother existence. With hypnotized persons, somnambulists and clairvoyants, sleep acquires new\nfaculties which to us seem miraculous but are the natural faculties of the soul when it is detached\nfrom the body. Once awakened, these clairvoyants no longer remember what they saw, said and did\nduring their sleep. However, in one of their sleeps, they recall perfectly what happened in the\npreceding sleep and sometimes foretell with mathematical exactness what will happen in the next\none. Therefore they have two consciousnesses, two distinctly alternating lives, but each has its\nrational continuity and revolves around the same individual.\n\nIt is therefore in a very deep sense that the ancient initiate poets called sleep the brother of death. For\na veil of forgetfulness separates sleeping from waking as it does birth from death. As our earthly life\nis divided into two alternating parts, so in the immensity of its cosmic evolution the soul alternates\nbetween incarnation and spiritual life, between earth and heaven. This alternate passage from one\nplane of the universe to another is no less necessary to the development of the soul than are the\nalternations of waking and sleeping to the corporeal life of man. We need the waves of Lethe as we\npass from one existence to another. In the present, a salutary veil hides past and the future from us.\nBut the forgetfulness is not complete, and light penetrates through the veil. Innate ideas in\nthemselves prove an anterior existence. But there is more; we are born with a world of vague\nrecollections, mysterious impulses and divine feelings. Among children born of gentle, calm parents\nare sometimes observed eruptions of wild passions which atavism does not suffice to explain, and\nwhich come from a preceding existence. Sometimes in the most humble life is to be found\nunexplained, sublime faithfulness to an emotion, an ideal. Do these not come from the promises and\nvows of celestial life? For the hidden memory which the soul has preserved is stronger than all\nearthly reasoning. Depending upon whether the soul becomes attached to this memory or abandons\nit, does it conquer or succumb. Real faith is that speechless fidelity of the soul to itself. Therefore\none perceives that Pythagoras considered corporeal life to be a necessary extension of the will and\ncelestial life to be a spiritual growth and fulfillment.\n\nLives follow but do not resemble one another, yet with merciless logic they form a sequence. If each\nof them has its own law and its special destiny, their succession is governed by a general law which\ncan be called the repercussion of lives. * According to this law, the deeds of one life have their fatal\nrepercussion in the following life. Not only will man be born again with the instincts and faculties he\ndeveloped in his preceding incarnation, but the nature of his existence itself will be determined in a\n\nlarge measure by the good or evil use he made of his freedom in the preceding life. \"There is no\nword or action which does not have its echo in Eternity,\" says a proverb. According to esoteric\ndoctrine this proverb is literally applicable from one life to another.\n\nFor Pythagoras, the apparent injustices of destiny, the deformities, miseries, strokes of fate, --\nmisfortunes of all kinds -- have their explanation in the fact that each existence is the reward or\npunishment of the one preceding. A criminal life engenders a life of expiation; an imperfect life, a\nlife of trials. A good life leads to a task; a higher life, to a creative mission. Retribution, which is\napplied with seeming imperfection from the point of view of a single life, is therefore applied with\nadmirable perfection and minute justice in the sequence of lives. In this sequence there can be\nprogression toward spirituality and intelligence as well as regression toward bestiality and gross\nmaterialism. As the soul climbs, by degrees it acquires a greater share in the choice of\nreincarnations. The inferior soul is subject to the latter; the average soul chooses among those\noffered to it; the superior soul, who imposes a mission upon itself, chooses reincarnation through\nself-sacrifice. The higher the soul, the more it preserves in its incarnations the clear and unbroken\nconsciousness of the spiritual life which reigns beyond our earthly horizon, surrounding it like a\nsphere of light and sending its rays into our darkness. Tradition even has it that the initiator of the\nfirst order, the divine prophets of humanity, remembered their preceding earthly lives. According to\nlegend, Gautama Buddha, Sakya-Muni, had found in his ecstasies the thread of his past existences,\nand of Pythagoras it is said that he claimed he owed the remembrance of some of his former lives to\na special favor of the gods.\n\nWe have said that in the series of repeated earth lives the soul can regress or advance, depending\nupon whether it surrenders itself to its lower or to its divine nature. In all lives there are struggles to\nbear, choices to make, decisions to be formed, the consequences of which cannot be determined. But\non the ascending path of good, extending through a long series of incarnations, there must be a\nlifetime, a year, a day, perhaps an hour when the soul, arriving at a full awareness of good and evil,\nwith a final, supreme effort can lift itself to a height from which it will not have to descend again,\nand where the way to the heights begins. Likewise, on the descending road of evil, there is a point\nwhere the soul can still turn back. But once this point is passed, the hardening is definitive. From\nincarnation to incarnation it will roll at last to the bottom of darkness. It will lose its humanity. Man\nwill become demon, an animal demon, and his indestructible monad will be forced to begin again the\npainful, dreadful evolution through a long series of ascending kingdoms and innumerable existences.\nThis is the real Hell, in harmony with the law of spiritual evolution, and is this not as terrible and\neven more logical than that of exoteric religions?\n\nThe soul therefore can climb or descend in the course of its series of incarnations. As for earthly\nmankind, its journey takes place according to the law of an ascending progression, which is a part of\nthe divine order. This truth, which perhaps we may believe to be a recent discovery, actually was\nknown and taught in the ancient Mysteries. \"Animals are relatives of man, and man is the relative of\nthe gods,\" said Pythagoras. He developed philosophically what the symbols of Eleusis also taught:\nthe progression of ascending kingdoms, the striving from the vegetable world to the animal world,\nfrom the animal world to the human world, and in humanity the succession of more and more perfect\nraces. This progression is not accomplished in a uniform manner, but in regular and increasing\ncycles, enclosed one within the other. Each people has its childhood, its maturity, its decline. It is the\nsame with races as a whole: the red race, the black race, the white race who in turn have reigned on\nthe globe. The white race, still in the fullness of youth, has not yet reached its maturity. At its height\nit will develop a perfected race out of itself through the reestablishment of initiation and through\nspiritual selection in marriages. Thus races follow one another; thus mankind progresses.\n\nThe ancient initiates went much farther in their forecasts than do modern men. They said that a time\n\nwould come when the great mass of individuals who compose contemporary humanity would pass to\nanother planet in order to begin a new cycle. In the series of cycles which constitute the planetary\n\nchain, all mankind will develop those intellectual, spiritual, transcendent principles which the great\ninitiates cultivated in themselves, and thus humanity will come to a more general efflorescence.\nNeedless to say, such a development embraces not only thousands, but millions of years, and it will\nbring about such changes in the condition of mankind that we cannot even imagine them. In an\nattempt to characterize them, Plato said that in that future age, the gods really will inhabit the\ntemples of men. It is logical to conclude that in the planetary chain, that is, in the successive\nevolutions of humanity on other planets, mankind's incarnations become of an ever more ethereal\nnature, which will bring them unconsciously closer to the purely spiritual state, that eighth sphere\nwhich is beyond the circle of generations and by which the ancient initiates indicated the divine\nstate.\n\nWhat then is the final goal of man and mankind, according to esoteric doctrine? After so many lives,\ndeaths, rebirths, intervals and reawakenings, what is the end of Psyche's labors? The initiates say that\nthe goal will have been attained when the soul will have decisively conquered matter; when,\ndeveloping all its spiritual faculties, the soul will have found within itself the principle and goal of\nall. Then, since incarnation will be no longer necessary, the soul will enter the divine state through a\ncomplete union with divine intelligence. For Pythagoras, the apotheosis of man was not submersion\ninto unconsciousness but creative activity in supreme consciousness. The soul, having become pure\nspirit, does not lose its individuality; it terminates it, since it rejoins its archetype in God. It\nremembers all its anterior existences, which seem to it like so many stepping-stones, necessary in\norder to reach the stage where it embraces and penetrates the universe. In this state, man is no longer\nman, as Pythagoras said; he is a demigod. For in all his being he reflects the ineffable Light whose\nimmensity is God. For Pythagoras, knowledge is power; loving means creating; existing means\nradiating truth and beauty.\n\nIs this boundary definitive? Spiritual Eternity has other measures than solar time; it has its own\nstages, norms and cycles, and these are entirely beyond human conception. But the law of\nprogressive analogies in the ascending kingdoms of nature allows us to affirm that once spirit has\nreached this sublime state it can no longer regress. Therefore, even if the visible worlds change and\npass away, the invisible world, which is its own reason for being, is immortal.\n\nWith these luminous perspectives Pythagoras concluded the story of the divine Psyche. The last\nword had died away on the lips of the sage, but the meaning of the incommunicable Truth remained\nsuspended in the motionless air of the crypt. Each listener thought he had finished the dream of lives\nand was awakening in great peace, borne upon the sweet ocean of the one, endless life. The naphtha\nlamps softly lighted the statue of Persephone, standing there in the form of the Celestial Reaper,\ncausing her symbolic story to come to life in the sacred frescoes of the sanctuary. At times a\npriestess, entering into a state of ecstasy at the harmonious voice of Pythagoras, seemed in her\nattitude and in her shining face to incarnate the ineffable beauty of her vision. And the disciples,\nseized with a religious ecstasy, looked on in silence. But soon, with a calm and certain gesture, the\nmaster brought the \"inspired\" prophetess back to earth. Slowly her features relaxed, she slumped into\nthe arms of her companions and fell into a deep lethargy from which she awakened troubled, sad and\nexhausted from her journey.\n\nThen they went out from the crypt and entered into the gardens of Ceres, into the freshness of dawn,\nwhich began to turn the sea white at the margin of the starry sky.\n\n33c. The Order and the Teaching\n\nFOURTH STAGE — EPIPHANY\nThe Adept -- The Woman Initiate -- Love and Marriage\n\nWith Pythagoras we have reached the summit of ancient initiation. From this summit, earth appears\nin deep shadow like a dying star. From above, sidereal perspectives open and like a marvelous unity\nthe Epiphany of the Universe unfolds.°? But the purpose of the teaching was not to absorb man in\ncontemplation or ecstasy. The master had walked with his disciples in the measureless regions of the\ncosmos; he had plunged with them into the depths of the Invisible. From this awesome journey the\ntrue initiates were to return to earth better, stronger and more suited for the tests of life than before.\n\nThe initiation of the intelligence was to be followed by that of the will, the most difficult of all. For\nnow it was for the disciple to cause truth to descend into the depths of his being, to apply it in his\ndaily life. To attain this, according to Pythagoras it was necessary to bring together three perfections:\nto realize truth in the intellect, virtue in the soul and purity in the body. A wise hygiene and\ntemperate continence was to preserve corporeal purity. This was required not as an end, but as a\nmeans. All bodily excess leaves a trace, a stain, as it were, in the astral body, the living organism of\nthe soul, and also in the spirit. For the astral body contributes to all the deeds of the physical body, in\nfact, it effects them since without it the material body is an inert mass. It is necessary, therefore, for\nthe body to be pure in order that the soul also may be pure. Therefore, in the constant light of\nintelligence the soul must acquire courage, abnegation, devotion and faith -- in short, virtue, and\nmake of the latter a second nature which substitutes for the first. Finally, it is necessary for the\nintellect to attain the wisdom to distinguish good and evil in everything, and to see God in the\nsmallest of beings as well as in the totality of worlds.\n\nAt this height man becomes an \"adept,\" and if he is able to summon sufficient energy, he enters into\npossession of new faculties and powers. The inner senses of the soul open and will radiate into the\nouter faculties. His bodily forces, penetrated by the effluvia of his astral nature, electrified by his\nwill, acquire a seemingly miraculous power. In certain instances he is able to heal the sick by the\nlaying on of hands, or by his presence alone. Often he reads the thoughts of men at a single glance.\nSometimes in the waking state he sees events which are taking place afar off. From a distance,\nthrough the concentration of thought and will, he acts upon persons who are attached to him by\nbonds of personal sympathy, causing his image to appear to them as though his astral body could be\ntransported outside his physical body. Finally, the adept feels himself surrounded and protected by\ninvisible, higher, luminous Beings who lend him their strength and help him in his mission.\n\nRare are the adepts; rarer still are those who attain this power. Greece knew but three: Orpheus, at\nthe dawn of Hellenism; Pythagoras, at its height; Apollonius of Tyana, in its decline. Orpheus was\nthe great inspired one, the great initiator of Greek religion; Pythagoras, the organizer of esoteric\nscience and the philosophy of the Schools; Apollonius, the Stoic moralist and the popular magician\nof the period of decadence. But in all three the divine fire shines; their spirits are aflame for the well-\nbeing of souls, their undaunted energy is clothed with gentleness and serenity. But one must not\ncome too close to those great, calm countenances. One feels the furnace of ardent but eternally\ncontrolled will burning underneath.\n\nPythagoras represents an adept of the first rank who is most accessible to the modern mind. But he\nhimself could not, nor did he pretend to make perfect adepts of his disciples. A great age always has\na great inspirer at its inception. His disciples and their pupils form the magnetic chain which spreads\nhis thought through the world. At the fourth stage of initiation Pythagoras therefore contented\n\nhimself with teaching his faithful ones the application of his doctrines in life. For \"Epiphany,\" seen\nfrom a higher viewpoint, provided a collection of deep and regenerating attitudes toward earthly\nthings.\n\nThe origin of good and evil remains an incomprehensible mystery for one who has not taken into\naccount the origin and end of things. A morality which does not consider the supreme destinies of\nman will be only utilitarian and very imperfect. Moreover, real human freedom does not exist for\nthose who are slaves of their passions, and it rightfully does not exist for those who do not believe in\nthe soul or in God, those for whom life is a lightning bolt between two vacuums. The first live in\nbondage to the soul, chained by passions; the second, in bondage to the intellect limited to the\nphysical world. This is not true for the religious man, for the true philosopher, and certainly not for\nthe initiate, who recognized truth in the threefoldness of his being.\n\nIn order to understand the origin of good and evil, the initiate looks at the three worlds with the eye\nof the spirit. He sees the dark world of matter and animality where ineluctable Destiny reigns. He\nsees the luminous world of the Spirit, which for us is the invisible world, the great hierarchy of freed\nsouls where divine law reigns. These freed souls are Providence in action. Between the two he sees\nmankind rooted in the natural world on the one hand and touching the summits of the divine world\non the other. The genius of humanity is Freedom, for from the moment man perceives truth and\nerror, he is free to choose between them. He is at liberty to unite with Providence in fulfilling truth,\nor to fall under the law of Fate by following falsehood. Evil causes man to descend toward the\nfatality of matter; Good causes him to climb toward the divine law of Spirit. Man's real destiny is\nforever to climb higher by his own effort. But in order to do this, he must also be free to descend\nagain.\n\nThe scope of freedom widens to the infinitely great as one ascends; it shrinks to the infinitely small\nas one descends. The higher one climbs, the freer one becomes; the more one enters into the light,\nthe more one acquires strength for good. The more one descends, the more one becomes a slave,\nbecause each fall into evil weakens one's understanding of truth and one's capacity for doing good.\nTherefore, destiny reigns over the past, Freedom, over the future, and Providence, over both.\nProvidence rules over the ever-existing present, which can be called Eternity.\n\nFrom the combined action of Destiny, Freedom and Providence come innumerable destinies, hells\nand paradises of souls. Evil, being a lack of accord with divine law, is not the work of God but of\nman. It has only a relative, illusory, temporal existence. Good, since it is in accord with divine law,\nhas a real, eternal existence. The priests of Delphi and Eleusis, as well as the philosopher-initiates\nnever wished to reveal these profound ideas to the people, for the latter would have understood them\nonly imperfectly and would have abused them. In the Mysteries this doctrine was symbolically\nrepresented by the dismemberment of Dionysus, thus hiding what were called \"the sufferings of\nGod\" beneath an impenetrable veil for the uninitiated.\n\nAnother major factor in social and political relationships is the inequality of human conditions. The\nspectacle of evil and pain is something frightening in itself. In addition, the distribution of these two,\napparently arbitrary and unjust, is the source of all hatreds, revolts and denials. Here again as in the\nproblem of the origin of good and evil, esoteric wisdom brings into our earthly darkness its\nsovereign light of peace and hope. As a matter of fact, the diversity of souls, conditions and destinies\ncannot be justified except by the plurality of existences, and by the teaching of reincarnation. If a\nman is born for the first time into this life, how can one explain the numberless evils which seem to\nfall upon him? How can one believe that there is eternal justice, when some men are born into a\ncondition which brings misery and humiliation while others are born into good fortune and live\nhappily? However, if it is true that we have lived previous lives, that we shall live still others after\ndeath, that over all these existences rules the law of recurrence and repercussion, then the differences\nof soul, of condition and of destiny are but the effects of former lives and represent the manifold\n\napplications of this law. Differences in human conditions stem from an unwise use of freedom in\npreceding lives, while differences in human intelligence arise from the fact that men go through\nearth existences in highly varying stages of evolution, extending all the way from the primitive\nconditions of backward peoples to the angelic states of saints and even to the divine royalty of\ngenius.\n\nIn reality, earth resembles a boat, and all of us who inhabit it are travelers who come from far\ncountries and are scattered to all points of the horizon. The teaching of reincarnation gives a reason\nfor existence in line with justice and eternal logic. It explains the cause of the most frightening evil\nas well as the most desirable happiness. All physical and moral suffering, all happiness and\nunhappiness, will appear in their manifold aspects as the natural and wise fruits of the instincts and\nactions, the mistakes and virtues of a long past. For in its hidden depths the soul preserves all that it\naccumulates in its various earth lives. Lysis expresses this truth under a veil in his Golden Verses:\n\nYou will see that the evils which devour men\nAre the fruit of their choice; and that these unhappy ones\nSeek far from them the good whose source they bear.\n\nFar from weakening the sentiment of fraternity and human solidarity, the teaching of reincarnation\ncan but reinforce it. We owe help, sympathy and charity to all, for all of us are of the same human\nrace, though at various stages of development. All suffering is sacred, for pain is the crucible of\nsouls. All sympathy is divine, for it makes us feel the invisible chain which links all worlds. The\nvirtue of grief is the reason of genius. Indeed, sages and saints, prophets and divine creators shine\nwith a more supernal beauty for those who know that they too have come out of universal evolution.\nHow many lives, how many victories were required for this power which amazes us? From what\nheavens already traversed does this inborn light of genius come? We do not know. But these lives\nhave been, and these heavens exist. Therefore the conscience of nations is not mistaken, the prophets\ndid not lie when they called men the sons of God, the ambassadors of the Most High. For their\nmission is willed by eternal Truth; invisible legions protect them, and in them speaks the living\nWord!\n\nAmong men is a diversity which comes from the primitive essence of individuals. Another, as has\nbeen said, arises from the degree of spiritual evolution which men have attained. From the latter\npoint of view one recognizes that men can be grouped in four categories, comprising all subdivisions\nand variations:\n\nIst. For the great majority of men, the will acts mainly in the body. Therefore they can be called\ninstinctive persons. Their activity is not only physical, but also includes the exercise and\ndevelopment of their intelligence in this world. Hence they have a genius for commerce and\nindustry.\n\n2nd. At the second stage of human development the will and consciousness reside in the soul, that is,\nin sensitivity reacted upon by intelligence, which constitutes understanding. These are the spirited or\npassionate persons. By temperament they are adapted to be soldiers, artists or poets. The great\nmajority of men of letters and scientists are of this type, for they live in relative ideas, modified by\npassions or bound by a limited horizon without having risen to the pure idea or universality.\n\n3rd. In a third class of much rarer men the will has acquired the habit of acting principally in the\npure intellect. It works to free intelligence from the tyranny of passions and limitations. This gives\nall their concepts the character of universality. These are the intellectuals. These men are the hero-\nmartyrs, the poets of the first rank and above all, the true philosophers and sages, who, according to\nPythagoras and Plato, should govern humanity. In these men passion is not extinct, for without\npassion nothing is done. Passion constitutes the fire and electricity of the moral world. However,\n\namong these men the passions have become the servants of intelligence, while in the second\ncategory, the intelligence is frequently the servant of the passions.\n\n4th. The highest human ideal is realized by the fourth group of men. To the majestic control of soul\nand instincts by intelligence, they have added dominion over all their being. Through the mastery\nand control of all their faculties they exercise the great mastery. They have brought about a unity in\nthe human threefoldness. Thanks to this marvelous concentration of all the powers of life, their will\nacquires an almost unlimited strength, an all-pervading, creative magic. These men have had various\nnames in history. They are the archetypal men, the adepts, the great initiates, the sublime geniuses\nwho transform humanity. They are extremely rare in history; Providence dispenses them upon earth\nat long intervals of time, like stars in the sky.\n\nIt is evident that this last category of human beings is beyond rule or classification. But a\nconstitution of human society which does not take into account the first three categories, which does\nnot provide each of them with its normal life and the necessary means of developing, is merely\nexternal and is not organic. It is evident that in a primitive age, which probably dates from Vedic\ntimes, the Brahmans of India established the division of society into castes on the threefold principle.\nBut with time this highly just and fruitful division changed into priestly and aristocratic privilege.\nThe principle of vocation and initiation gave way to that of heredity. The closed castes ended by\nbecoming petrified, and the irremediable decadence of India followed.\n\nUnder the reigns of all the Pharaohs, Egypt preserved the threefold constitution with its open and\nmobile castes. The principle of initiation applied to the priesthood, and that of examination to all\ncivil and military functionaries; this arrangement continued for five to six thousand years without\nchanging its form. As for Greece, its volatile temperament caused it to pass rapidly from aristocracy\nto democracy, from democracy to tyranny. It revolved in this vicious circle like a sick person who\ngoes from fever to lethargy, only to return to fever. Perhaps it needed this stimulus in order to\nproduce its unique work: the translation of the profound but obscure wisdom of the Orient into a\nclear, universal language, the creation of the Beautiful through art, and the establishment of exoteric,\nrational science following secret, intuitional initiation. Greece also owed her religious organization\nand her highest inspirations to this principle of initiation. Socially and politically speaking, it can be\nsaid that she always lived in the provisional and in the excessive. In his capacity as an adept, from\nthe heights of initiation, Pythagoras understood the eternal principles which rule society, and\npursued the plan of a great reform according to these truths. We shall see how he and his school\nwere shipwrecked in the storms of democracy.\n\nFrom the pure summits of his teaching the life of worlds unfolds in harmony with the rhythms of\neternity. What a splendid Epiphany! But in the magic rays of the unveiled firmament, earth,\nhumanity and life also reveal their hidden depths to us. One must find the infinitely great in the\ninfinitely small in order to feel the presence of God. This is what the disciples of Pythagoras\nexperienced when, as the crown of his teaching, their master showed them how eternal truth is\nmanifest in the union of man and woman in marriage. They were about to find in the very heart of\nlife the beauty of the sacred numbers which they had heard and viewed in Infinity, and God would\nshine forth for them out of the great mysteries of the sexes and of love.\n\nAntiquity understood a major truth which the succeeding ages have all too greatly misunderstood. In\norder to fulfill her functions of wife and mother, woman needs instruction, a special initiation. Hence\npurely feminine initiation, that is, one entirely reserved for women, existed in India in Vedic times,\nand the woman was the priestess at the domestic altar. In Egypt this initiation dates back to the\nMysteries of Isis. Orpheus organized it in Greece. Until the extermination of paganism it flourished\nin the Dionysian Mysteries as well as in the temples of Juno, Diana, Minerva and Ceres. It consisted\nin symbolic rites, ceremonies, nocturnal festivals and in special teaching given by the older\npriestesses or by the high priest, and dealt with the most intimate things of conjugal life. Advice and\n\nrules concerning the relationship between the sexes as well as information on times of the year and\nof each month favorable to successful conception were given. The greatest importance was placed\nupon physical and moral hygiene of the woman during pregnancy so that the sacred work, the\ncreation of the child, might be accomplished according to divine laws. In brief, the science of\nconjugal life and the art of maternity were taught. The latter extended far beyond the birth of the\nchild.\n\nUntil seven years of age, the children remained in the gyneceum, which the husband did not enter,\nunder the exclusive care of the mother. The wisdom of antiquity considered the child to be a delicate\nplant which needs the arm of maternal environment in order not to become stunted. It was believed\nthat the father would deform the child. Therefore in order to cause it to unfold properly the kisses\nand caresses of the mother were considered necessary. The powerful, enveloping love of woman is\nneeded to defend the soul, frightened by the attacks of external life. Because in full consciousness\nshe fulfilled these lofty functions considered divine by antiquity, woman was really the priestess of\nthe family, the guardian of the sacred fire of life, the Vesta of the hearth. Feminine initiation\ntherefore can be considered the true cause of the beauty of the race, of the power of generation, the\ncontinuance of families in ancient Greece and Rome.\n\nBy establishing a section for women in his institute, Pythagoras only refined and intensified what\nhad existed before him. Through him, along with the rites and precepts, the woman initiates received\nthe supreme principles of their function. Thus he gave to those who were worthy the consciousness\nof their role. He revealed to them the transfiguration of love in perfect marriage, in other words, the\ninterpenetration of two souls at the very center of life and truth. In his power, man is the\nrepresentative of principle and of creative mind. Woman personifies nature in its plastic force, in its\nmarvelous earthly and divine achievements. Therefore, when these two beings succeed in entering\ninto one another completely, into body, soul and spirit, they will form by themselves a miniature of\nthe universe.\n\nBut in order to believe in God, woman needs to see Him living in man. For this reason, man must be\ninitiated. Man alone, through his profound knowledge of life and his creative will, can fertilize the\nfeminine soul, thus transforming it through the divine ideal. And the beloved woman transmits this\nideal to him, multiplied in her vibrant thoughts, in her subtle sensations, in her profound insights.\nShe transmits to him his image, transfigured by enthusiasm, because she becomes his ideal. For she\nbrings this about through the power of love in her own soul. Through her his ideal becomes alive\nand visible; it becomes flesh and blood. Man creates through desire and will; woman physically and\nspiritually generates through love.\n\nIn her role as lover, wife, mother, or inspired one, woman is no less great, and is even more divine\nthan man. For to love is to forget. Woman, forgetting herself, lost in her love, is always sublime. In\nthis forgetfulness she finds her celestial rebirth, her crown of life, the immortal radiation of her\nbeing.\n\nLove has reigned as master in literature for two centuries. This is not the purely sensual love which\nlights up at the beauty of the body, as with the ancient poets; neither is it the tasteless cult of an\nabstract, conventional ideal, as in the Middle Ages. No, this is love both sensual and psychic which,\nreleased in full freedom and in complete individual fantasy, gives itself unbounded expression.\n\nFrequently the two sexes make war on one another, even in love. This takes the form of a revolt of\nwoman against the egotism and brutality of man, the disdain of man for woman's infidelity. Vanity,\nexpressing itself in cries of flesh, and powerless rage of the victims of pleasure, makes them slaves\nof debauchery. Here, profound passions and attractions become all the more powerful when they are\nbettered by the worldly conventions of social institutions. Hence those loves, filled with tempest,\n\nmoral collapse and tragic catastrophe, around which the modern novel and drama revolve almost\nexclusively.\n\nWeary, finding God neither in science nor in religion, man seeks Him desperately in woman. And he\ndoes well, but it is only through the initiation into the great truths that he will find God in her, and\nshe will find God in him. Between these souls who know neither each other nor themselves, who\nsometimes leave one another with curses, there is a deep thirst to penetrate one another and to find in\nthis fusion impossible happiness. In spite of the aberrations and outbursts which result, this desperate\nsearch is necessary; it comes from a divine unconsciousness. It will be a vital point in the rebuilding\nof the future. For when man and woman have found each other through deep love and initiation,\ntheir union will be a radiating and creative power par excellence.\n\nPsychic love, the love-passion of the soul, has entered literature comparatively recently, and through\nit, universal consciousness. But it has its origin in ancient initiation. If Greek literature scarcely lets\nthe existence of psychic love be suspected, this is due to the fact that it was a profound secret of the\nMysteries. Nevertheless, religious and philosophical tradition has preserved the trace of the initiate\nwoman. Behind official poetry and philosophy a few female forms appear, half-veiled but luminous.\nWe already know the Pythoness Theoclea who inspired Pythagoras; later will come the priestess\nCorinne, the often successful rival of Pindar, himself the most initiated of the Greek lyricists; finally,\nthe mysterious Diotime appears in Plato's Banquet to give the supreme revelation of love.\n\nBeside these exceptional roles, the Greek woman exercised her function as a veritable priestess in\nthe home and in the gyneceum. Those heroes, artists and poets whose songs, works in marble and\nsublime deeds we admire, were rightly her own creation. It was she who conceived them in the\nmystery of love, who molded them in her womb with the desire for beauty, who caused them to\nunfold by nestling them under her maternal wings. In addition, for a man and a woman who are truly\ninitiated, the creation of the child has an infinitely more beautiful meaning, a greater import than\notherwise. When father and mother know that the soul of the child exists before its earthly birth,\nconception becomes a sacred act, the call of a soul to incarnation. Between the incarnated soul and\nthe mother is almost always a great degree of similarity. As evil, perverse women attract demonic\nspirits, tender mothers attract divine spirits.\n\nIs this invisible soul which one awaits and which will come and go so mysteriously and so certainly,\nnot a thing divine? Its birth, its imprisonment in flesh, will be a painful thing, for between it and the\nheaven it has left behind, a crude veil is interposed. If it ceases to remember, it will suffer no less!\nAnd sacred and divine is the task of the mother, who must create for it a new home, must make its\nprison livable, its trial easier to bear.\n\nThus, the teaching of Pythagoras which had begun in the depths of the Absolute with the divine\nTrinity, ended in the very center of life with the human trinity. In the father, mother and child, the\ninitiate now knew how to recognize Spirit, Soul and Heart of the living Universe. For him this last\ninitiation constituted the foundation of a social work conceived in all the sublimity and beauty of the\nideal, -- a creation to which each initiate was to bring a building-stone.\n\nNotes for this chapter:\n\n54. In transcendent mathematics, it is demonstrated algebraically that Zero multiplied by Infinity is\nequal to One. Zero, in the order of absolute ideas, means indeterminate Being. The Infinite, the\nEternal in the language of the temples, was indicated by a circle or by a serpent biting its tail, which\nmeant the Infinite moving itself. And, from the moment Infinity becomes determined, it produces all\nthe numbers it contains in its great unity and which it governs in perfect harmony.\n\nThis is the transcendent meaning of the first problem of the Pythagorean theogony, the reason which\nbrings it about that the great Monad contains all the small ones, and that all numbers originate from\nthe great Unity in movement.\n\n55. This doctrine is identical with that of the initiate St. Paul, who speaks of the spiritual body. (See\nRudolf Steiner: The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul -- Ed.)\n\n56. One must place Fabre d'Olivet (Golden Verses of Pythagoras) in the first rank of these. This\nliving concept of the forces of the universe permeating it from top to bottom has nothing to do with\nthe empty speculations of the pure metaphysicians, for example, thesis, antithesis and synthesis of\nHegel, which are simply intellectual exercises.\n\n57. Certain strange definitions in the form of metaphors which have been transmitted to us and\nwhich come from the secret teaching of the master, allow one to surmise the grandiose concept that\nPythagoras had of the Cosmos. Speaking of the constellations, he called the Great and Little Dipper:\nthe hands of Rea-Kybele. Now, Rea-Kybele esoterically means astral light returning, the divine wife\nof the universal fire, or creative spirit which, in concentrating in the solar systems, attracts the non-\nmaterial essences of beings, grasps them, and causes them to enter the cycle of lives. He also called\nthe planets the Dogs of Proserpine. This unusual expression has no meaning other than an esoteric\none. Prosperpine, the goddess of souls, was present at their incarnation into matter. Pythagoras\ntherefore called the planets Dogs of Proserpine because they keep the incarnated souls as the\nmythological Cerberus guards souls in hell.\n\n58. The law is called Karma by the Brahmans and Buddhists. (See Rudolf Steiner: The\nManifestations of Karma, 1910. -- Ed.)\n\n59. The Epiphany or vision from above; the autopsy, or direct view; the theophany, or manifestation\nof God, are so many correlative ideas and expressions which indicate the state of perfection in which\nthe initiate, having joined his soul to God, contemplates complete Truth.\n\n60. We shall cite two famous absolutely authentic events of this kind. The first took place in\nAntiquity, and the hero is the famous philosopher-magician, Apollonius of Tyana.\n\nThe Second-sight of Apollonius of Tyana. \"While these things (the assassination of the Emperor\nDomitian) were taking place in Rome, Apollonius saw them at Ephesus. Domitian was attacked by\nClement around noontime; the same day at the same hour, Apollonius was making a speech in the\ngardens near the Xystes. Suddenly he lowered his voice a little, as if he had been gripped by a\nsudden fright. He continued his speech, but his language did not have its usual power, as happens\nwith those who speak while thinking of something else. Then he became silent, like those who have\nlost the train of their thought. He cast terrified glances toward the earth, moved three or four steps\nforward, and cried out, Kill the tyrant!' One would have said that he saw, not the reflected image of\nthe event as in a mirror, but the event itself in all its reality. The Ephesians (for all Ephesus went to\nhear Apollonius' speeches) were struck with amazement. Apollonius stopped, like a man who waits\nto see the outcome of an uncertain event. Finally he cried out, Be of good cheer, Ephesians, the\ntyrant was killed today! What am I saying? -- Today? By Minerva! He was killed at the very instant\nI interrupted myself!' The Ephesians thought that Apollonius had lost his mind; they indeed hoped\nthat he had told the truth, nevertheless they feared that some danger would result for him from this\ndiscourse . . . But soon messengers came to announce the good news and gave testimony in favor of\nApollonius' science: for the murder of the tyrant, the day it was consummated, the hour of noon, the\nauthor of the murder whom Apollonius had encouraged, -- all these details were in perfect agreement\nwith those the gods had shown him the day of his speech to the Ephesians.\" -- Life of Apollonius by\nPhilostratus. (See Emil Bock, The Three Years for an account of Apollonius of Tyana -- Ed.)\n\nThe Second-sight of Swedenborg: The second event refers to the greatest seer of modern times. One\ncan have reservations regarding the objective reality of Swedenborg's vision, but one cannot doubt\nhis second-sight, attested to by a host of facts. The vision that Swedenborg had at thirty leagues'\ndistance from the fire of Stockholm created an uproar in the second half of the eighteenth century.\nThe famous German philosopher, Kant had an inquiry made by a friend at Gothenburg in Sweden,\nthe city where the event took place, and this is what he writes about it to one of his friends:\n\n\"The following occurrence appears to me to have the greatest weight of proof, and to place the\nassertion respecting Swedenborg's extraordinary gift beyond all possibility of doubt. In the year\n1759, toward the end of September, on Saturday, at four oclock in the afternoon, Swedenborg\narrived at Gothenburg from England, when Mr. William Castel invited him to his house, together\nwith a party of fifteen persons. About six o'clock, Swedenborg went out and returned to the company\nquite pale and alarmed. He said that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, at the\nSödermalm (Gothenburg is about 50 German miles -- about 500 English -- from Stockholm), and\nthat it was spreading very fast. He was restless and went out often. He said that the house of one of\nhis friends, whom he named, was already in ashes and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock,\nafter he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, Thank God! The fire is extinguished, the third\ndoor from my house.' The news occasioned great commotion throughout the whole city, but\nparticularly amongst the company in which he was. It was announced to the governor the same\nevening. On Sunday morning, Swedenborg was summoned to the governor, who questioned him\nconcerning the disaster. Swedenborg described the fire precisely, how it had begun, in what manner\nit had ceased, and how long it had continued. On the same day the news spread through the city, and\nas the governor had thought it worthy of attention, the consternation was considerably increased,\nbecause many were in trouble on account of their friends and property, which might have been\ninvolved in the disaster. On Monday evening a messenger arrived at Gothenburg, who was\ndispatched by the Board of Trade during the time of the fire. In the letters brought by him, the fire\nwas described precisely in the manner stated by Swedenborg. On Tuesday morning the royal courier\narrived at the governor's with the melancholy intelligence of the fire, of the loss which it had\noccasioned, and of the houses it had damaged and ruined, not in the least differing from that which\nSwedenborg had given at the very time when it happened; for the fire was extinguished at eight\no'clock.\" -- Letter from Immanuel Kant to Charlotte von Knobloch, written at Konigsburg. (Quoted\nin George Trobridge, Emanuel Swedenborg, Life and Teaching, page 197-8. -- Ed.)\n\n61. This idea comes logically from the human and divine ternary, from the trinity of the Microcosm\nand Macrocosm which we have discussed in the preceding chapters. The metaphysical correlative of\nDestiny, Liberty and Providence has been admirably deduced by Fabre d'Olivet in his analysis of\nThe Golden Verses of Pythagoras.\n\n62. This classification of men corresponds to the four stages of Pythagorean initiation, forming the\nbasis of all initiations up to that of the original Free Masons, who possessed a few bits of esoteric\ndoctrine. (See Fabre d'Olivet, The Golden Verses of Pythagoras.)\n\n34. The Family of Pythagoras -- The School and its Destiny\n\nAmong the women who followed the teaching of the master was a young girl of great beauty. Her\nfather, a Croton, was named Brontinos; her own name was Theano. At that time Pythagoras was\nnearly sixty, but great self-mastery of passions and a pure life entirely dedicated to his mission had\npreserved his manly strength. Youthfulness of soul, that immortal flame which the great initiate\ndraws from his spiritual life and which he nourishes with the hidden forces of nature, shone in him.\nThe Greek Magus was not in his decline, but at the summit of his power. Theano was attracted to\nPythagoras by the almost supernatural radiance which emanated from his being. Serious and\n\nreserved, she had sought from the master an explanation concerning those Mysteries which she\nloved without understanding them. But when in the light of truth, in the gentle warmth which slowly\nenveloped her, she felt her soul open within her like a mystical rose of a thousand petals, when she\nfelt that this unfolding came from him and from his speech, she was drawn to the master with a\nboundless rapture and a passionate love.\n\nPythagoras had not sought to attract her. His affection belonged to all his disciples. He was dreaming\nonly of his school, of Greece, of the future of the world. Like many great adepts, he had given up the\nlove of woman in order to devote himself fully to his work. The magic of his will, the spiritual\npossession of so many souls which he had guided and who remained attached to him as to an adored\nfather, the mystical incense of all these unexpressed loves and that exquisite perfume of human\nsympathy which united the Pythagorean brothers, -- for him, all of this took the place of pleasure,\nhappiness and love. But one day when he was alone, meditating on the future of his school in the\ncrypt of Proserpine, he saw coming to him that beautiful and serious virgin to whom he had never\nspoken in private. She knelt before him, and without lifting her head, she begged the master to free\nher from an impossible and unhappy love which was consuming her body and devouring her soul.\nPythagoras asked the name of the one whom she loved. After long hesitation, Theano confessed that\nit was he himself, but at the same time she said that she would submit to his will. Pythagoras said\nnothing. Encouraged by his silence, she lifted her head and looked toward him pleadingly, offering\nhim the essence of her life and the perfume of her soul.\n\nThe sage was disturbed; he knew how to conquer his senses, he had subdued his imagination, but the\nlight of this soul had penetrated him. In this virgin, matured by passion, transfigured by absolute\ndevotion, he had found his life-companion and had glimpsed a more complete fulfillment of his\nwork. Pythagoras raised the young girl to her feet and drew her to him.\n\nIn the master's eyes Theano could read that their destinies were joined forever.\n\nBy his marriage to Theano, Pythagoras placed the seal of fulfillment upon his work. The union, the\nfusion of two lives was complete. One day when the wife of the master was asked how much time is\nnecessary for a woman to become pure after having had relationship with a man, she answered, \"If it\nis with her husband, she is pure immediately; if it is with another, she never is pure.\"\n\nIt is not marriage which sanctifies love; it is love which justifies marriage. Theano entered so\ncompletely into the thought of her husband that after his death she served as the center of the\nPythagorean Order, and a Greek author quotes as an authority her opinion on the doctrine of\nnumbers. She gave Pythagoras two sons, Arimnestus and Telaugus, and one daughter, Damo.\nTelaugus later became the tutor of Empedodes and transmitted to him the secrets of the teaching.\n\nPythagoras' was a model family. His house was called the temple of Ceres, and his court, the temple\nof the Muses. In the family and religious festivals the mother led the chorus of women, and Damo,\nthe chorus of young girls. Damo was worthy of her father and mother in every way. Pythagoras had\nentrusted certain writings to her with the express prohibition against communicating them to anyone\noutside the family. After the dispersal of the Pythagoreans, Damo fell into extreme poverty. She was\noffered a large sum for the valuable manuscript, but faithful to the wish of her father, she always\nrefused to surrender, it.\n\nPythagoras lived in Croton for thirty years. At the end of twenty years this extraordinary man had\nacquired such power that those who called him a demigod did not exaggerate. His influence was\nsomething tremendous; never has any philosopher exercised anything equal to it. It extended not\nonly to the school at Croton and to its branches in the other cities of the Italian coast, but also to the\npolitical life of all those little states. Pythagoras was a reformer in every sense of the word. Croton,\nan Achaean colony, had an aristocratic constitution. The Council of One Thousand, composed of\n\nrepresentatives of great families, exercised the legislative and supervised the executive power.\nPopular assemblies existed, but their activities were restricted. Pythagoras wanted the state to be an\norder and a harmony and liked oligarchic restraint no better than the chaos of demagoguery.\nAccepting the Dorian constitution as it was, he simply tried to introduce a new method of activity\ninto it. His courageous plan was to establish over and above the political authority a scientific power\nhaving a deliberative and consultative voice in vital questions. This scientific power was to be the\nkeystone, the supreme regulator of the state. Over the Council of One Thousand he organized The\nCouncil of Three Hundred, chosen by the first, but recruited from among the initiates alone. Their\nnumber was sufficient for this. Porphyrus relates that two thousand citizens of Croton gave up their\ncustomary life and assembled themselves together to live a communal life along with their wives and\nchildren, after having given over their property to the community. In control of the state Pythagoras\ntherefore wanted a scientific government, less secret, but as highly placed as the Egyptian\npriesthood. What he effected for a moment remained the dream of all the initiates who participated\nin political life. He introduced the principle of initiation and examination into the government of the\nstate and reconciled in this higher synthesis the elective or democratic principle with a government\nformed on the basis of intelligence and virtue. Hence the Council of Three Hundred formed a kind of\npolitical, scientific and religious order, whose recognized leader was Pythagoras. By a solemn and\nawesome vow they pledged him secrecy as absolute as that of the Mysteries. These societies or\nHetaries spread out from Croton, where the parent society was formed, into almost all the cities of\nGreater Greece, where they exercised a great political influence. The Pythagorean Order had as its\ngoal to become the head of the state in all of southern Italy. Branches existed in Tarente, Heraclea,\nMetapontus, Regium, Himere, Catane, Agrigente, Sybaris and, according to Aristoxenus, even\namong the Etruscans. As for the influence of Pythagoras on the government of these great, rich\ncities, one cannot imagine one higher, more liberal, or more peaceful. Everywhere he appeared he\nreestablished order, justice and concord. Summoned before a tyrant of Sicily, by his eloquence alone\nhe persuaded the latter to give up ill-acquired riches and restore rights he had stolen. Cities that were\nin bondage to one another, he set free. So beneficent were Pythagoras' deeds that everywhere he\nwent people said, \"He has not come to teach, but to heal!\"\n\nThe sovereign influence of a great spirit, a great character, that magic of the soul and of the intellect,\nstirs up terrible jealousies and violent hatreds, just because it is invulnerable. Pythagoras' power\nlasted for a quarter of a century. The indefatigable adept had attained the age of ninety when reaction\ncame. The spark came from Sybaris, the rival of Croton. An uprising took place there, and the\naristocratic party was defeated. Five hundred exiles asked the Crotons for asylum, but the Sybarites\ndemanded their extradition. Fearing the anger of an enemy city, the magistrates of Croton were\nabout to give way to their demand when Pythagoras intervened. Upon his entreaties, the Crotons\nrefused to surrender the unfortunate fugitives to their implacable adversaries. At this refusal, Sybaris\ndeclared war on Croton, but the army of the Crotons, lead by the famous athlete Milon, a disciple of\nPythagoras, completely defeated the Sybarites. The fall of Sybaris followed. The city was\nconquered, sacked, utterly destroyed, and was turned into a wilderness. It is impossible to claim that\nPythagoras approved such reprisals, for they were contrary to his principles and those of all initiates.\nBut neither he nor Milon could bridle the uncontrolled passions of a victorious army, aroused by\nancient jealousies and stimulated by an infamous attack.\n\nAll vengeance, whether of individuals or of peoples, brings in return a recoil of the passions thus\nunleashed. The nemesis of the latter was fearful; the consequences fell upon Pythagoras and on his\nentire Order. After the sack of Sybaris, the people demanded the division of lands. Not satisfied with\nthis, the democratic party proposed a change in the constitution which removed the privileges of the\nCouncil of One Thousand and suppressed the Council of Three Hundred, allowing only a single\nauthority and demanding universal suffrage. Naturally the Pythagoreans who were part of the\nCouncil of One Thousand were opposed to a reform contrary to their principles, and one which\nattacked the patient work of the master at its roots. Already the Pythagoreans were the object of that\nblind hatred which mystery and superiority always stimulate in the mob. Their political attitude\n\nbrought the fury of demagoguery upon them, and a personal hatred against the master caused the\nfinal explosion.\n\nA certain Cylon had once presented himself for admission into the school. Pythagoras, who was very\nstrict in admitting disciples, rejected him because of his violent, imperious nature. This rejected\ncandidate became a bitter opponent. When public opinion began to turn against Pythagoras, he\norganized a large body of people in opposition to the Order of the Pythagoreans. Cylon succeeded in\ngathering around him the principal leaders of the people, and began to plot a revolution which was to\nbegin with the expulsion of the Pythagoreans.\n\nBefore a surging mob, Cylon climbs to the rostrum and reads extracts stolen from the secret book of\nPythagoras, titled The Holy Word, Hieros Logos. The teachings are distorted, dishonored. A few\norators try to defend the brothers of silence who respect even animals, but the speakers are received\nwith bursts of laughter. Cylon mounts and remounts the tribunal. He claims that the religious\ncatechism of the Pythagoreans attacks freedom. \"And that is saying little,\" adds the tribune. \"Who is\nthis teacher, this so-called demigod, who is blindly obeyed and who has only one word for the\nbrothers, the master said so!\"? What creates this indissoluble friendship uniting all the members of\nthe Pythagorean hetaries, if not disdain and scorn for the people? Always they have the words of\nHomer on their lips, that the prince must be the shepherd of his people. For them, therefore, the\npeople are but a stupid mob! Yes, the very existence of the Order is a permanent conspiracy against\npopular rights! As long as he is not destroyed, there will be no freedom in Croton!\"\n\nOne of the members of the popular assembly, moved by feelings of loyalty, cried out, \"At least let\nPythagoras and the Pythagoreans come and justify themselves on our rostrum before condemning\nthem!\" But Cylon answered haughtily, \"Havent these Pythagoreans robbed you of the right to judge\nand decide on public affairs? What right have they to be heard here today? Did they ask you before\nthey stripped you of the right to exercise justice? Well then, now it's your turn! Strike without\nhearing!\" A thunder of applause greeted these words, and the mob became more and more excited.\n\nOne evening when the forty leading members of the Order were assembled at Milon's home, the\ntribune led an attack upon them. The house was surrounded. The Pythagoreans, together with the\nmaster, barricaded the doors. The furious crowd set fire to the house, and soon the building was a\nmass of flames. Thirty-eight Pythagoreans, the chief disciples of the master, the flower of the Order,\nalong with Pythagoras himself, perished. Some were destroyed by the fire, others were put to death\n\nby the people. Only Archippus and Lysis escaped destruction.\n\nThus died that great sage, that divine man who had tried to introduce wisdom into the government of\nmen. The murder of Pythagoras was the signal for a general uprising in Croton and all along the Gulf\nof Tarento. The cities of Italy drove out the unfortunate disciples of the master. The Order was\ndispersed but its remnants spread into Sicily and Greece, everywhere sowing the word of the master.\nFor example, Lysis became Epaminondas' teacher.\n\nAfter new revolutions the Pythagoreans were able to return to Italy on the condition that they would\nno longer form a political body. The spirit of brotherhood did not cease to unite them; they\nconsidered themselves members of one and the same family. One of them, poor and sick, was\nreceived by an innkeeper. Before dying, the disciple traced a few mysterious signs on the door of the\nhouse, saying to his host, \"Rest assured, one of my brothers will pay my debt.\" A year later, a\nstranger passing this same inn saw the signs and said to the host, \"I am a Pythagorean; one of my\nbrothers died here; tell me what I owe you for him.\" The Order itself survived for two hundred and\nfifty years. As for the ideas and traditions of the master, these live even today.\n\nThe regenerating influence of Pythagoras on Greece was tremendous. It was exerted mysteriously\nbut surely through the temple where he had worked. We have seen how at Delphi it gave a new\n\npower to divinatory science, strengthened the authority of the priests and formed a model Pythoness\nwith its art. Thanks to this inner reform which awakened enthusiasm in the very heart of the\nsanctuaries and in the soul of the initiates, Delphi became more than ever the moral center of Greece.\nThis was clearly evident during the Median wars. Thirty years had hardly elapsed since Pythagoras'\ndeath when the Asiatic cyclone, foretold by the sage of Samos, burst upon the coast of Greece.\n\nIn this epic struggle of Europe against barbaric Asia, Greece, representative of freedom and\ncivilization, has behind her the science and genius of Apollo. It is he whose patriotic and religious\ninspiration stills the growing rivalry between Sparta and Athens. It is he who inspires the Miltiades\nand Themistocles. At Marathon the enthusiasm is such that the Athenians think they see two shining\nwarriors fighting in their ranks. Some recognize Theseus and Echetos, others Castor and Pollux.\n\nWhen the invasion of Xerxes, ten times more formidable than that of Darius, overflows\nThermopylae and submerges Hellas, from her tripod Pythia indicates salvation to the ambassadors\nfrom Athens and helps Themistocles conquer the ships of Salaminus. The pages of Herodotus\ntremble with her gasping prophecy: \"Abandon the houses and high hills if the city is built in a circle .\n. . the fire and the fearful . . . Mars, mounted on a Syrian chariot, will destroy your towers . . . the\ntemples topple, from their walls drips a cold sweat, from their tops flows black blood. . . . Leave my\nsanctuary! Let a wooden wall be for you an impregnable rampart. .. . Flee! Turn your back on the\nnumberless horsemen! O divine Salaminus! How disastrous you will be for the sons of women!\"\n\nIn Aeschylus' account the battle begins with a cry which resembles a hymn of praise to Apollo:\n\"Soon the day on white chargers, spread its shining light over the world. At that moment an immense\nclamor, modulated like a solemn chant, arises from the ranks of the Greeks. The echoes of the island\nrespond with a thousand deafening voices.\" Need one be surprised that, drunk with the wine of\nvictory at the battle of Mycale, the Greeks, facing conquered Asia, chose as their rallying cry, \"Hebe,\neternal youth?\" Indeed, the breath of Apollo broods over these amazing Median wars. It is a\nreligious enthusiasm which works miracles, carries away the living and the dead, lights up trophies\nand decorates the tomb. All the temples have been burned, but that of Delphi has remained standing.\nThe Persian army has arrived to destroy the sacred city. Everybody trembles. But the solar god says\nthrough the voice of the pontiff, \"I shall defend myself!\"\n\nBy order of the temple, the city is emptied; the inhabitants take refuge in the grottos of Parnassus;\nonly the priests remain on the steps of the sanctuary, with the sacred guard. The Persian army enters\nthe city, now silent as a tomb; only the statues watch the invaders pass. A black cloud gathers at the\nmouth of the gorge; thunder rolls and lightning falls upon the Persians. Two enormous rocks fall\nfrom the summit of Parnassus. Tumbling down, they crush many of the invaders. At the same time\ncries come from the temple of Minerva and flames arise from the earth beneath the tread of the\nenemy. At these wonders, the frightened barbarians draw back; their army flees. Indeed, the god has\ndefended himself!\n\nWould these marvels really have happened, would these victories -- so famous in human history --\nreally have taken place if thirty years earlier Pythagoras had not appeared in the Delphic sanctuary to\nlight the sacred fire once again? It is doubtful.\n\nSomething more should be said about the teacher's influence upon philosophy. Before him there had\nbeen moral philosophers on the one hand, moralists on the other. Pythagoras united morality, science\nand religion in his vast synthesis. This synthesis is nothing other than the esoteric doctrine, whose\nfull light we have tried to discover in the depths of Pythagorean initiation. The philosopher of Croton\nwas not the inventor, but was the enlightened organizer of these primordial truths in the scientific\norder of things. Therefore his system has been chosen as the most favorable background for a\ncomplete outline of the doctrine of the Mysteries.\n\nThose readers who have followed the master with us will have understood that at the heart of this\ndoctrine shines the sun of the one Truth. Its scattered rays are found in philosophies and religions,\nbut their center is here. What is needed to reach this Truth? Observation and reason are not enough.\nAbove all, one must have intuition.\n\nPythagoras was an adept, an initiate of the first rank. He possessed a direct view of the spirit, the key\nof secret sciences and the way to the spiritual world. Therefore he drew from the original source of\nTruth. To these transcendent faculties of the intellectual and spiritualized soul he linked detailed\nobservation of physical nature and the masterly classification of ideas through his keen reason. As a\nresult, none was better equipped to build the edifice of the science of the cosmos.\n\nNotes for this chapter:\n\n63. This is the version of Diogenes of Laérte on Pythagoras' death. According to Dicearcus, quoted\nby Porphyrus, the master probably escaped destruction, along with Archippus and Lysis. But he\ndoubtless wandered from city to city until reaching Metapontus, where he let himself die of hunger\nin the Temple of the Muses. The inhabitants of Metapontus claim, on the other hand, that the sage,\nwelcomed by them, died peacefully in their city. They showed his house, his seat and tomb to\nCicero. It should be noted that a long time after the master's death, the cities which had persecuted\nPythagoras at the time of the change, claim the honor of having sheltered and saved him. The cities\naround the Gulf of Tarentum fought over the philosopher's ashes with the same ferocity that the\ncities of Iona struggled over the honor of having given birth to Homer.\n\n64. In the language of the temples, the term \"son of woman\" designated the lower stage of initiation,\nwoman meaning here, nature. Above these were \"sons of men\" or initiates of Spirit and Soul; \"the\nsons of the gods\" or initiates of cosmogonic science, and \"Sons of God\" or initiates of the supreme\nscience. Pythia calls the Persians \"sons of women,\" designating them thus from the nature of their\nreligion. Taken literally, her words would not have any meaning.\n\n65. \"These are still to be seen in Minerva's garden,\" said Herodotus, VIII, 39. The Gallic invasion\nwhich took place two hundred years later was repelled in a similar manner. There again a storm\ngathers, lightning falls on the Gauls at intervals, the earth trembles under their feet, they see\nsupernatural appearances, and the Temple of Apollo is saved. These facts seem to prove that the\npriests of Delphi possessed the science of cosmic fire, and knew how to manipulate electricity\nthrough secret powers like the Chaldean magi. (See Amedee Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois, 1, 246).",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}