2. Initiation and Mysteries

Ancient sages called the place that a person enters when the secrets of the world are revealed to him a garden of maturity. There is no flower in the garden that does not bear its fruit, no egg that has not matured the life that germinated in it. But the paths that lead to the narrow door through which this garden is closed are described as dark and dangerous. At the same time, it is asserted that the darkness will become brighter than the sun, and that the dangers will be powerless against the forces swelling in the soul of the one to whom a mystic, an “initiate”, points out these paths with a caring hand. As childish notions from a time when people had no idea of the sciences of our day, such ideas are dismissed by the “enlightened” who believe they can distinguish between the delusions of the “groping imagination” and the sober insights of a “scientifically trained” mind. And anyone who still speaks of such ideas today can be sure that they will be met with a condescending or at least a pitying smile by many of their contemporaries.

And despite all this, there are those who, like the ancient sages, speak of the world of the soul and the home of the spirit. They are considered to be people who speak of a world that only their unrestrained imagination conjures up. One may even feel sorry for them, staggering like drunkards in the midst of a world that has achieved so much through sober logic, losing their footing at every turn because they do not adhere to what “actually” exists.

What do these “drunken men” themselves say in response to such objections? When they feel they have reached the level at which they are entitled to speak about themselves, then we hear the following from their mouths: “We understand you, who must be our opponents, perfectly well. We know that many of you are honest people who are unreservedly committed to the service of truth and goodness. But we also know that you cannot understand us as long as you think as you do. We can only talk to you about the things we have to talk about when you have made an effort to learn our language. After this statement of ours, many of you will be done with us, for you will now believe that our incurable arrogance is added to our fantastic enthusiasm. But we also understand you in making such a statement, and we also know that we should not be arrogant, but modest. We have only one thing to say to you in order to induce you to try to understand our ideas. You may believe us when we say that we do not recognize the right of anyone to speak about our knowledge who cannot empathize with what drives you in making your assertions, and who does not thoroughly know the power, the convincing force and the scope of your science. Anyone who does not have the certain knowledge that he can think as soberly and as “scientifically” as the most sober astronomer, botanist or zoologist should only be a learner, not a teacher, in matters of spiritual life and mystical knowledge. But do not misunderstand us: we are only talking about teachers, not learners. Every person can become a student of mysticism, for every person's soul contains the intuitive ability to sense the truth. The mystic should speak in a way that is understandable to the most ignorant. And to those to whom he cannot say a hundredth of the truth according to their level of understanding, he should say a thousandth. Today they recognize the thousandth, and tomorrow they will recognize the hundredth. All should be students. But no one should want to be a teacher who cannot apply the most sober understanding and the strictest scientific discipline on himself. Only those who have been strict scientists beforehand are true teachers of mysticism, and who therefore know how it is to live in science. The true mystic also regards everyone as a dreamer, as a drunkard, who could not at any moment take off the solemn festive garb of mysticism and walk in the weekday suit of the physicist, the chemist, the plant and animal researcher. — Thus speaks the true mystic to his opponents; in all modesty he assures them that he understands their language, and that he would not claim to be a mystic if he were ignorant of their language. But then he may also add that he knows, knows as one knows facts of external life: if his opponents learn his language, they will cease to be his opponents. He knows this, as every man who has studied chemistry knows that under certain conditions water is formed from oxygen and hydrogen.

The fact that Plato did not want to introduce anyone to the higher levels of wisdom who was ignorant of geometry does not mean that he only made learned geometers his students, but that they had to become accustomed to serious, strict and exact research before the secrets of spiritual life were revealed to them. Such a requirement appears in its true light when we consider that in these higher regions the control which corrects the ordinary researcher at every turn ceases. If the plant researcher has false ideas, his senses will soon enlighten him about his error. He is to the mystic what the person walking on a level path is to the mountain climber. The one can fall to the ground; he will kill himself only in exceptional cases; the other is always in danger of doing so. And certainly no one can climb mountains who has not learned to walk. — Because spiritual facts do not correct the ideas in the same way as external facts, strict, reliable thinking is a completely natural prerequisite for the mystical researcher.

If one gives oneself over to such thoughts, one recognizes what those old sages meant when they spoke of the dangers that threaten a person who wants to penetrate the secrets of the world. Those who come to them with untrained thinking will cause confusion in their souls. They become as dangerous as a dynamite bomb in the hands of a child. Therefore, every mystic researcher is faced with the strict demand that the correctness of his thinking, indeed of his entire soul life, be tested first on difficult, thorny tasks before he approaches the actual higher tasks. This is an indication of what the mystic has in mind when he speaks of the first steps of “initiation” into the higher truths.

Countless people who believe themselves to be at the top level of education of our time consider healthy thinking and mysticism to be irreconcilable opposites. They think that a clear scientific education must eradicate all mystical tendencies in a person. And they find it particularly incomprehensible when someone who is familiar with the most important results of modern science has such tendencies. If those who think so are right, then one would have to admit that mysticism has little chance of finding access to the souls of our contemporaries. For no one who has an understanding of the spiritual needs of our time can doubt that the victories that science has achieved and will achieve in the future are fully justified. It must be admitted without reservation that today no one can sin against the spirit of genuine scientific thought with impunity. And yet, anyone with eyes to see must also admit that the number of those who feel unsatisfied with what scientific thinkers have to say about the inescapable questions of the human soul is growing. Almost shyly, such unsatisfied people immerse themselves in the works of the mystics. There they find what their souls thirst for. There they find what their hearts need: real spiritual life-breath. They feel the growth of their souls; they find what man must constantly seek: the breath of the divine. But they are constantly being told again and again that they should learn to think clearly and calmly through the natural sciences, and not be beguiled by dreamers and visionaries. If they then do as they are told, they only learn that their soul is desolate.

However, it remains a truth deeply engraved in every human heart that nature is a great teacher. Who could not sympathize with Goethe when he says that he always likes to retreat from the aberrations and disharmonies of human beings to the eternal necessities of nature? And who could read without wholehearted agreement the words with which the great poet describes the feelings that came over him as he contemplated in solitude the iron laws by which nature forms mountains: “Sitting on a high, bare summit and looking out over a wide expanse, I can say to myself: Here you rest directly on a foundation that reaches to the deepest places of the earth ... At this moment, when the inner attractive and moving forces of the earth seem to act directly upon me, when the influences of heaven hover around me, I am inspired to higher contemplations of nature ... So lonely, I say to myself, looking down from this completely bare summit ... so lonely is the mood of the person who wants to open his soul only to the oldest, first, deepest feelings of truth. There he can say to himself: here on the oldest eternal altar, built directly on the depths of creation, I offer a sacrifice to the essence of all beings.”

It is only natural that such an attitude, with which one stands reverently before the great teacher Nature, should also be transferred to the science that speaks of her.

There must be no contradiction between the feelings that flow through the soul when it approaches the “oldest, first, deepest truths” about spiritual life and those that enter it when the eye rests on the eternal building activity of nature.

Does the mystic have no understanding of such harmony between nature and the most sacred feelings of the human soul?

But above the altar where the true mystic offers his sacrifices, there has always stood, for as long as human research can trace, the highest law written in flames: “Nature is the great guide to the divine; and man's conscious search for the sources of truth should follow the traces of her sleeping will.”

If the mystics follow this supreme law, there should be no contradiction between their paths and those of the natural scientists. Such a contradiction should be least apparent in an age that owes so unspeakably much to natural science.

In order to see clearly in this regard, we must ask: in what ways can there be agreement between natural science and mysticism? And in what ways might there be disagreement? — The agreement can only be sought in the fact that the ideas that one has about the nature of man are not foreign to those that one has of the other beings of nature. That one sees this kind of regularity in the workings of nature and in the life of man. A contrast would then exist if one wanted to see a being of a completely different kind in man than in the other creatures of nature. For those who want to see a contradiction in this way, it was shocking when, more than four decades ago, the great researcher Huxley, in the spirit of the newer natural sciences, summarized the similarity of the anatomical structure of humans with that of higher animals in the words: “We can take any system of organs we like, and a comparison of them with those of the apes will lead us to the same conclusion: that the anatomical differences which separate man from the gorilla and the chimpanzee are not so great as those which separate the gorilla from the lower apes.” Such a sentence can only have a shocking effect if it is brought into a false relationship with the nature of man. Certainly, the thought can be attached to it: how close man is to the animal! This close relationship is not a cause for concern for the mystic. For him, the other thought immediately arises: how can the organs that exist in animals serve higher purposes when they are transformed into human ones? He knows that the sleeping will of nature makes human out of animal perception by developing the animal organs in a different form. He follows the sure tracks of nature and continues her deeds. For him, the work of nature is not finished with what she has given him. He becomes a faithful student of nature by enhancing her work. She has brought him to human thinking and feeling. He does not accept thinking and feeling as something rigid and immovable, but makes them capable of higher activities. Through his will, what happens in external nature without it also happens. His eyes prove that eyes are capable of more than they perform in apes. Eyes can thus be transformed. The soul capacities of the developed mystic are related to those of the undeveloped human being in the same way that human eyes are related to the eyes of an ape. It is understandable that those who are not mystics understand the soul nature of the mystic as little as an animal can understand the thinking of a human being. And just as a non-thinking creature would be able to understand a new world if it could develop the ability to think, so the mystic, after developing his higher abilities, looks into another world. He is “initiated” into this world. He who does not become a mystic denies nature. He does not continue what her slumbering will has accomplished without him. In so doing, he places himself in opposition to nature. For nature is constantly transforming its forms. It creates eternally new things out of the old. He who believes in this transformation, in this development, in the sense of modern natural science, and yet does not want to change himself, recognizes nature, but in his own life he places himself in contradiction with it. One should not merely recognize development; one should live it. Thus, one should not limit our life abilities by pointing exclusively to our kinship with other beings. Those who become true students of nature through mystical education will understand the higher development of man.

Many will say about these hints of mysticism and “initiation”: “What good is it to talk about abilities that are unknown to us? Give us these abilities, and we will believe you.” No one can give another person something that they reject. And it is usually harsh rejection that our mystics experience. At present, they can do little else than tell their mystical insights to those who are willing to listen. At first glance, this seems like telling someone about America who demands that we enable them to visit it. But it only seems that way. Spiritual things are different from physical things. Long before a person is able to see the truth in bright light, they can sense it and take it into their feelings. And this feeling is itself a force that can lead them further. It is a necessary step. Those who follow the mystic's presentation with devotion are already walking the path forward to higher truths. Only the initiate fully understands the initiate. But love for the truth also makes the uninitiated receptive to the words of the mystic. And through such receptivity, they work to develop their mystical abilities. The first thing is to have a sense of the possibility of higher knowledge. Then one no longer carelessly passes by those who speak of it.

It has already been said in this essay that there are also personalities today who are striving for the renewal of mystical life. In a further essay, two phenomena in this area will be discussed. Annie Besant's book “Esoteric Christianity, or the Lesser Mysteries” (which has just been published in German translation by Mathilde Scholl. Leipzig 1903, Griebens Verlag.) And from the work of the ingenious French thinker and poet Edouard Schuré: “The Great initiates” (“Les Grands Inities”). Both books shed light on the nature of the so-called christening or initiation. Annie Besant shows how Christianity should be understood as the work of such initiation. Edouard Schuré paints pictures of the greatest leaders of humanity on the basis of his conviction that the great creeds and world views that they have given to humanity contain eternal truths that can only be found in them and must be extracted from them. Both writings are only justified on the basis of mysticism. They have emerged from the spiritual current of our time that is destined to raise humanity from a purely external culture to the heights of spiritual insight. A time will come when “scientific thinking” will no longer be able to oppose this current. Then science will recognize that it itself must be mystical. For it will realize that one does not understand the spirit by denying it, and that one does not rebel against the laws of nature by seeking the spiritual ones. Mystics will no longer be called obscurantists, for it will be known that only for their opponents is the field dark of which they speak.

And people will no longer mock at “initiation” any more than they mock at the demand that anyone who wants to research the life of the smallest organisms must first learn how to use a microscope. Research requires the fulfillment of certain preconditions. For the aspiring mystic, these conditions are not those of external technique, but rather the cultivation of a certain direction of the life of the soul. Through this cultivation, the sense is opened for truths that do not speak of the transitory, but rather of that of which – in Goethe's words – the transitory is “only a simile”. — In the womb of human existence, higher abilities rest, as the fruit rests in the womb of the flower. — And therefore no being should have the presumption to say that there is something exhaustive, finished in its world. If a person has such presumption, he is like the worm that considers the world of his senses to be the circumference of existence.

A “garden of maturity” is the name given to the place where the secrets of the world are revealed. In order to approach this place, a person must have the will to mature. “You must shed the eggshells of your everyday existence and awaken the inner life hidden within you if you want to enter the ‘Garden of Maturity’ through the ‘narrow gate’.”

Like many great personalities, Goethe did not express many of the deepest insights of his mind in broad, circumstantial speech, but in short, often enigmatic hints. Such a hint is contained in his saying: “In the works of man, as in those of nature, the intentions are actually especially worthy of attention.” This sentence is recognized in its full depth when it is applied to the most significant phenomena of human spiritual life. For just as we only gain meaning and understanding for the actions of an individual person when we recognize his intentions, so it is with the history of the whole human race. But what a gulf there is between the observation of actions that are openly apparent and the recognition of intentions that lie hidden in the soul! One man may be a dwarf in insight and understanding compared to another: his actions will be observable. One must have some knowledge of his mentality and spiritual level if one wants to see through his intentions. If you do not, the source of his actions remains a mystery, a riddle, the key to which is missing. It is no different with the great deeds of human intellectual history. These deeds themselves lie open to the eyes of the historian: the intentions lie in mysterious depths. Those who want to have the key to understanding must penetrate these depths. Now, however, the intention of an action will lie all the deeper, the more significant, the more comprehensive the action is. The intention for an action of everyday life is not difficult to understand. Of course, it cannot be the same with actions whose horizon spans centuries.

Those who consider such things will get an idea of what mysteries are. For in these mysteries there rests nothing else but the intentions for the great, world-embracing deeds of the development of humanity. And those who recognize these intentions and thus themselves can give their actions the weight to work into centuries: these are the initiated.

Those who see world history as a mere collection of coincidences can deny the existence of mysteries and initiates. They cannot be helped until they approach the facts of history with a loving gaze. Then, little by little, meaning and context will dawn on them; and they will see these historical facts as no less intentional than they would see an acting person as an automaton. In his research, he then reaches the point where the initiates guide the progress of humanity according to the insights that are shrouded in the darkness of the mysteries.

The religious documents of all times speak of such mysteries. And to them are led those who do not stop at the external life of the founders of religion and the historical facts of the spread of their teachings, but who try to rise to the intentions of these founders. It should not be surprising that these intentions are shrouded in mysterious darkness, that they have been communicated only to the chosen ones, within the schools of wisdom, which are precisely the mysteries. For it makes sense to communicate to a person only that which he can understand; or, in other words, to communicate it to him only when he has acquired the conditions for understanding. In order to accomplish meaningful deeds, one must possess great wisdom; and in order to acquire great wisdom, one must undergo a long and difficult period of preparation. This is the case with the mysteries.

Through the various religions and philosophies, the spiritual development of humanity is progressing. Those who work towards this development set the spiritual forces of humanity in motion. They must know the laws upon which this movement depends, just as one must know the laws of chemistry in order to mix substances in a purposeful way. The mysteries teach the high laws of spiritual life, the chemistry of the soul. One must try to gain insight into the nature of these laws if one wants to recognize, even only by intuition, the motives that underlie the deeds of the great teachers of humanity.

In harmony with all those who have sought to open their spiritual eyes to such insights, Annie Besant, the soul of the Theosophical movement, speaks of a “hidden side of religions” in her book “Esoteric Christianity, or the Lesser Mysteries”. She guides us with great insight into the discussion of the mystical secrets of Christianity – its so-called esoteric content – by asking: “What is the purpose of religions?” And she says about it: “They are given to the world by people who are wiser than the masses of the people to whom they are given, and they have the purpose of accelerating human development. In order to do this effectively, they must reach individuals and influence them. Now, not all people are at the same level of development, but one could represent development as an inclined plane, with people standing at all points. The most highly developed stand far above the least developed in both intelligence and character; the ability to understand as well as to act changes at every level. Therefore it is useless to give everyone the same teaching; what helps the intellectual person would be completely incomprehensible to the less intelligent, while what transports the saint into ecstasy would leave the criminal completely untouched. ... Religion must be graded just as development is, otherwise it will fail to achieve its purpose.” How the teacher of religion speaks to people at different stages of development depends on the spiritual and emotional needs of those to whom he is speaking. To be able to do this, he must himself carry the kernel of wisdom through which he is to work in his soul; and the way in which he carries this kernel must be such that it enables him to speak to every man in his own way of understanding. Therefore, anyone who looks at the speeches of religious teachers from the outside recognizes only the one, the _ external side of their wisdom. Edouard Schuré forcefully points out this fact in his book on the “Great Initiates”. In it, he presents the great teachers of wisdom: Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato and Jesus in the manner of an intuitive researcher, a noble thinker and a personality inspired by deep religious feeling. He describes his point of view in the introduction: “All great religions have an outer and an inner history; one is obvious, the other hidden. Through the outer history, the dogmas and myths are revealed to me, as they are publicly proclaimed in temples and schools, as they are presented in the cults and in popular superstition. The inner history reveals to me the profound science, the mysterious wisdom and the hidden laws of the deeds of the great initiates, prophets and reformers who created, supported and spread these religions. The first, the outer history, can be learned everywhere; it is not a little obscure, contradictory and confused. The second, which I would like to call the esoteric history or the wisdom of the mysteries, is very difficult to develop from the first. For it rests in the depths of the temples, in the secret societies, and its most harrowing dramas unfold exclusively in the souls of the great prophets, who have entrusted neither documents nor disciples with their most sublime experiences and their ideas that elevate them to the divine. One must solve their riddles. But what one finds then appears to be full of light, organic, in harmony with itself. One could also call it the eternal and universal religion. It presents itself as the inner side of things, as the inner side of human consciousness in contrast to the merely historical outer side. This is where we find the creative germ of religion and philosophy, which meet at the other end of the ellipse in undivided science. It is the point that corresponds to the supersensible truths. This is where we find the cause, the origin and the goal of the marvelous work of the centuries, the guidance of the world in its earthly messengers.»

These “earthly messengers” work in the spiritual pharmacy, in the spiritual laboratory of humanity. What enables them to do such work are the imperishable laws of spiritual chemistry, and what they accomplish as spiritual-chemical processes: these are the great intellectual and moral deeds of world history. But what flows from their mouths are only parables, only images of the higher wisdom dwelling in the depths of their souls, adapted to the understanding of those who lend them an ear. This wisdom can only be revealed to those who fulfill the conditions that guarantee the understanding and proper use of higher wisdom. These, however, then feel in the initiation into the mysteries the direct contact with the spiritual sources, with the father and mother powers of existence. Listen to what one who was imbued with such feelings said. Clement of Alexandria, the Christian writer of the second and third centuries A.D., who was a mystic, that is, a student of the mysteries, before his baptism, praises these mysteries with the words: “O truly holy mysteries! O pure light! A torch is carried before me when I look at heaven and God; I become holy when I receive the consecration. The mysteries, however, are revealed to me by the primordial spirit and sealed by the illumination of the initiate; initiated into the faith, he presents me to the All-One, so that I may be preserved in the bosom of eternity. These are the initiation ceremonies of my mysteries! If you wish, you too can be initiated, and you will join the spiritual forces of existence in a dance around the uncreated, immortal, all-one world spirit, and the language that is inspired by the cosmos will sing the praises of this All-One."

One understands Annie Besant's description of the mysteries when one considers that the initiates had to speak of them in the way that Klemens does in the above words. “The Mysteries of Egypt” – as A. Besant explains on page 15 of ‘Esoteric Christianity’ – ”were the glory of that ancient country, and the noblest sons of Greece, such as Plato, went to Sais and Thebes to be initiated into the mysteries by the Egyptian teachers of wisdom. The Mithraic mysteries of the Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic mysteries, and the later Eleusinian semi-mysteries of the Greeks, the mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia, and Chaldea, are, at least by name, generally known. Even in the extremely weakened form of the Eleusinian mysteries, their value is highly praised by the most distinguished men of Greece, such as Pindar, Sophocles, Isocrates, Plutarch and Plato.» — The point of mystery wisdom is not to expand knowledge, but to explain unknown things: it is about elevating the whole human being, so that it is imbued with the sacred mood that is capable of grasping the sources and seeds of the cosmos. The mystic not only recognizes higher things; his own being merges with these higher things. He must be prepared so that he can properly receive the sources of all life that flow into him. — Especially in our time, when only the grossly scientific is recognized as knowledge, it is difficult to believe that mood is important in the highest things. The realization is thus made an intimate affair of the human soul. For the mystic it is such. Tell someone the solution to all the world's riddles. The mystic will find that it will sound like empty words in his ears if his soul has not been raised to a higher level by prior conditions; that it will leave his feelings untouched if they are not attuned to perceive the reception of wisdom as a consecration. Only those who see through this know the spiritual atmosphere from which the words of a mystic, such as Plotinus', are spoken: “Often, when I awaken from the slumber of corporeality, come to myself, turn away from the outside world and enter into myself, I see a wondrous beauty; then I am certain that I have become aware of my better part. I am active in true life, united with the divine, and in it I gain the strength to place myself beyond the world. When I then descend from the contemplation of the highest to the ordinary formation of thoughts after this rest in the spiritual world, I ask myself how it came about that my soul became entangled in the everyday, since its home is where I have just been.” — Whoever knows what degree of purification of emotional and intellectual life is necessary to feel this way also knows the reasons why mystical, sacred knowledge cannot be a subject of everyday life, nor of ordinary instruction and the records of external history; why it is locked away in the souls of divine messengers and must only — as Schuré says — be the subject of initiation into intimate brotherhoods. But even if this immediate grasp of truth remains a matter of the most intimate teaching, the blessings of wisdom are bestowed upon all people. Just as the fruits of electric railway operation benefit the entire population, but the laws governing the operation of this system are known only to electricians, so it is with the effect, the fruits, and the wisdom of the mysteries. And just as the blessings of technical knowledge are evident in external cultural institutions, so too are those of mystical wisdom evident in the spiritual life of humanity: in its myths, beliefs, and religious ideas, in its world of legends and fairy tales, but also in its moral and legal concepts, and finally in its artistic creations, its sciences, and its philosophies. The mystic points to the roots of these aspects of life in the deepest knowledge of humanity, and he is clear that they can only find their true explanation there. Clement of Alexandria says that “a person can have faith without possessing learning,” but at the same time he emphasizes that “it is impossible for a person without knowledge to understand the things that are explained in faith” (compare Annie Besant: “Esoteric Christianity,” page 59). Every mystic knows this true relationship between faith and knowledge and knows that a contradiction between the two is impossible. But he can also only accept mysticism on the basis of true science. Clement also speaks of this: "Some who believe themselves to be gifted by nature do not want to come into contact with either philosophy or logic; indeed, they do not even want to study natural science. They demand only faith ... I therefore call truly learned those who relate everything to the truth, so that they can glean everything useful from geometry, music, grammar, and philosophy ... How necessary it is for those who wish to share in the power of the world spirit to treat intellectual matters in a philosophical manner ... The mystic makes use of the branches of knowledge as preparatory auxiliary studies.“ (Annie Besant: ”Esoteric Christianity," page 59f.)— Anyone who has taken a look at this deep harmony between faith and knowledge must repeatedly point to a characteristic feature of our modern culture that has created a rift between the two. Schur& points to this gap in the very first sentences of his book. "The greatest evil of our time is that science and religion appear to be two hostile and incompatible forces. It is all the more dangerous because it comes from the heights of education and slowly but surely seeps into all minds, like a poison that is inhaled with the air. And every intellectual evil becomes, with the passage of time, an evil of the soul and, furthermore, a social evil. As long as Christianity was able to naively develop the Christian faith in the midst of a still semi-barbaric, medieval Europe, it was the greatest moral power: it shaped the modern soul. As long as experimental science, publicly restored in the sixteenth century, claimed for itself the rights of reason and unlimited freedom, it was the greatest intellectual power; it renewed the face of the world, freed man from centuries-old shackles, and gave his spirit an indestructible foundation. — But since the Church became incapable of defending its original dogmas against the claims of science, it shut itself up as if in a house without windows, opposing reason with its faith as an absolute and indisputable law; and since science became intoxicated with its successes in the physical world, the psychic and intellectual worlds became increasingly foreign to it; it has closed itself off from the higher realms through its methods and has become materialistic in its principles. Since then, however, philosophy has also been moving aimlessly back and forth between the two: it has renounced its own rights in order to fall into doubt about supernatural things, and rifts have opened up both in the soul of human society and in that of the individual." (Schuré, “Les Grands Initiés,” page VIIf.)

Annie Besant points out this peculiarity of the newer spiritual culture no less strongly. “It is clear to anyone who has studied the last forty years of the past century that a large number of thinking and moral people have turned their backs on the Church because the teachings they received offended their intelligence and outraged their feelings. It is in vain that it is claimed that the widespread agnosticism of this age is due to the lack of morality, or to the conscious lack of logic of reason. Anyone who carefully examines the phenomena mentioned will admit that people of keen intellect have been driven out of Christianity.” (“Esoteric Christianity”, page 27.) Annie Besant answers the question of what is to be done in this direction from the standpoint that the root of Christianity also lies in a hidden wisdom, and that faith must struggle back to this root in order to survive. If Christianity is to “live on, it must regain the knowledge it has lost...; it must again appear as an authoritative teacher of spiritual truths, with that authority which alone is worth anything, the authority of knowledge... Then the hidden Christianity will descend again into the Adytum, behind the veil that protects the “Holy of Holies”, into which only the initiate may enter.“ (”Esoteric Christianity”, page 29.)

How the “great initiates” and, in particular, Christianity lead through the “narrow gate” into the “garden of maturity” is described by Annie Besant and Édouard Schuré in the books mentioned above.

Through the sense of sight, humans perceive nature in a hundred shades of light and color. It is the rays of sunlight that are reflected by objects, causing their light and shadow effects. Although the perception of sunlight in this way is a daily habit of the eye, the eye cannot look with impunity into the source of light, into the sun itself; it is blinded by the direct rays of the sun. What corresponds in its effects to the everyday function of the eye becomes a cause of pain when it itself affects the sense of sight as a cause. Those who know how to apply this image in the right way to the spiritual life of human beings understand why those who “know” speak of the dangers of initiation into the mysteries. These dangers are very real; but the words of those who speak of them must not be understood literally in the sense in which we speak of dangers in ordinary life. -— Human intellect and reason are just as unaccustomed to seeing the sources of truth in the whole world as the eye is to looking directly at the sun. Just as the eye perceives the effects of light as corresponding to itself, so intellect and reason perceive the effects of eternal wisdom in the phenomena of nature and in the course of human history. And just as the eye becomes powerless in the face of the source of light, so does human understanding in the face of the original sources of wisdom. This understanding fails at first. One need only compare what happens to human beings with the fact that the eye is blinded by the sun. Because man is accustomed to seeing in nature and spiritual life only the reflection of truth, not truth itself, he is powerless when it confronts him. Accustomed to grasping only the crude reality that surrounds him every day, he perceives the revelations of higher wisdom as illusion, as the product of unreal fantasy. They cannot tell him anything. They are airy constructs to him, blurring when he tries to grasp them. For he wants to grasp them in the same way he is accustomed to grasping the things of ordinary reality. This reality draws him to itself with a thousand bonds. He knows what it can promise him; he has learned to appreciate it a thousand times over. Those who see here in the right light understand what religious legends mean when they speak of the tempter who promises all the glories of this world to those who want to enter the path of higher enlightenment. If the power to resist this tempter is not awakened in them, then they will inevitably fall prey to him. And this hints at something of what is meant by the dangers of the “threshold” that must be crossed if the “path” of wisdom is to be entered. No one can enter this path who wants to use their spiritual eye, their mind, and their reason only as they are used in everyday life. As a transformed being, as one whose spiritual eye has been strengthened, man must cross the threshold. And in our present age it is difficult to strengthen the eye in this way. For our science has trained this eye to see only what is tangible. In order to make its conquests in the realm of the external forces of nature, this science had to dull the eye to the spiritual powers of existence. This should not be misunderstood as a reproach. Anyone who wants to understand the mechanism of a clock certainly does not need to explore the thoughts of the clock's inventor: they can stick to what they have learned in physics. They can understand the clock from its mechanism alone. But no one can understand how the forces and things that interact in the clock are originally joined together unless they seek the spirit that joined them and investigate the reasons why they are joined. The natural scientist can only understand nature correctly if he first seeks the forces of its action within nature itself. If he claims that they have assembled themselves, he is like someone who thinks that the clock made itself. Superstition is not to seek the spirit behind things, but to blindly transfer it into the things themselves. The superstitious person is not like someone who seeks the inventor of the clock, but like someone who suspects that there is a spirit in the clock itself that moves the hands forward. Only if one misunderstands those who seek the spirit in the existence of the world can one lump them together with those who are rightly accused of superstition and who are today just as rightly regarded as troublemakers because they endanger the blessings that our scientific culture has created. (Those who see impartially will know who is meant in both directions.)

Anyone who enters the “threshold” to higher insight must, if he is to succeed in his progress, be endowed with the power that leads to the perception of the real where the ordinary mind and everyday reason perceive fantasy and illusion. For it is the permanent and eternal that appears to the eye attuned to the transitory and temporal as illusion and fantasy. Therefore, nothing can help a person when he is led to the sources of eternal wisdom with his ordinary mind. That is why the first step in initiation in the mysteries is not the imparting of new knowledge, but the complete transformation of the human powers of cognition. With subtle insight, Édouard Schuré characterizes in his book “The Great Initiates” the path of those striving for “knowledge” through the mysteries: “Initiation was a gradual introduction of the human being towards the dizzying heights of the spirit, from which life is dominated.” And further on, we are told: “To achieve mastery, the ancient sages said, man needs a complete transformation of his physical, moral and intellectual being. This transformation is only possible through the simultaneous exercise of will, intuition and reason. Through their complete harmony, man can expand his abilities to incalculable limits. The soul has dormant senses. Initiation awakens them. Through deep study and constant diligence, man can come into conscious relationship with the secret forces of the universe. Through an amazing effort, he can reach immediate spiritual perfection, can open the paths to it and make himself capable of directing himself there. Only then can he say that he has conquered fate and that he has conquered his divine freedom from there. Only the initiate can become an initiator, prophet and theurgist, that is, a seer and creator of souls. For only he who shows himself the way can show it to others: only he who is free can liberate.“ (”The Great Initiates”, page 124.)

This is how we must understand the task of the mysteries, insofar as their first stage is concerned. It was not just a matter of a new science, but of creating new powers of the soul. Man had to become another person, a '"transformed being, before he was led into the spiritual sun, to the source of wisdom.

Those whose powers are not steeled when they cross the threshold will not feel the reality of the eternal, spiritual powers that confront them. Instead of connecting with a higher world, he falls back into the lower one. This danger is faced by anyone who seeks the sources of wisdom. If a person succumbs here, then he has temporarily killed the seed of eternity within himself. This seed was previously dormant within him. But even as a dormant seed, it was that which ennobled and transfigured the transitory, lower nature. Naively and unconsciously, man lived with his inclination towards higher spirituality. The unsuccessful attempt at initiation has killed the slumbering inclination. Nothing remains for man but the urge to live in the transitory, to live in the realm of this world alone. Because he has felt the divine-spiritual as an illusion, he worships the sensual-material. Thus, at the “threshold”, man can lose his most valuable part, his immortal part. This is the danger, which is analogous to the blinding of the eye in the above picture.

It is clear that those who were responsible for the initiation in the mysteries, out of a sense of responsibility, made the highest demands on the disciples. For these demands had to have the effect of steeling the spiritual forces in the sense described. Schuré describes the sequence of initiation as it was practiced in the school of Pythagoras (582-507 BC). This description is inspired by a genius for art and mystical depth. — With reference to this description, we will speak of these stages here. Only those were admitted to initiation who, by the nature of their intellectual, moral and spiritual being, offered the certainty of success. For these, the time of preparation then began. They became listeners for several years. In our time, when everyone believes that they are entitled to a critical, discerning judgment if they have learned something, or even – perhaps even more – if they have learned nothing, it is not easy to give a sympathetic idea of this long audience. This listener was required to maintain absolute silence. The silence was not meant to be external. It was a silence of judgment. One had to absorb completely without prejudice, without spoiling this impartiality by premature examination. The wise knew, and the listeners had confidence. They were not allowed to examine for the time being. For the knowledge that they received was to make them ready for examination. How can someone really learn if he wants to immediately examine what he is learning? With this view of silent learning, the Pythagoreans have honored a principle that alone can lead up the steps of knowledge. Those who have traveled the path of knowledge know this. They can only feel pity for those who block their path to knowledge by premature judgment and criticism. Our time is completely filled with this immature critical spirit. One need only look around at what is being said by our speakers and what is being written by our writers. If only a little Pythagorean spirit could be found in our time, much more than nine-tenths of what is spoken would remain unsaid, and just as much of what is printed would remain unprinted. Anyone who has made a few observations or formed a few concepts today believes that he is entitled to pass judgment on the most essential things. But such a right is only given to those who have understood how to withhold their judgment for years and to listen impartially to what the wise men of mankind have said. Examine everything and keep the best is a deceptive principle in the soul of those who are not mature enough to examine. Our judgment is nothing, absolutely nothing, before the truth, as long as we have not had it examined by the truth itself. Instead of saying: I will examine everything and keep the best, many should say: I will let the truth examine me; and if I am good enough for it, then it may keep me. He who has not practiced for years in the way of clinging, of living in, of unreserved devotion to the judgment of the wise leaders of mankind, his judgment is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

This is certainly an unsympathetic principle in our age of “enlightenment”, public criticism and the journalist spirit. But the Pythagorean listeners lived according to it.

Once the student had attained the necessary maturity, the “golden day” dawned, when revelations about the essence of nature and the human spirit began. The laws of physical and spiritual existence were gradually revealed to him. Those who try to grasp these laws with their everyday, unrefined intellect will understand nothing of them. Goethe once pointed out what is important here. When he had devoted himself to the study of the plant world in Italy and Sicily and had formed his now much discussed but little understood views on the “primordial plant”, he wrote to Germany that he wanted to make a journey to India, not to discover anything new, but to look at what had been discovered in his own way. It is not a matter of knowing the laws that rational botany has brought to light, but of penetrating into the inner essence of plant life with the help of these laws. One can be a learned professor of botany and understand nothing of this life. Our scholars have some particularly remarkable views on this matter. They either believe that it is impossible to penetrate into the inner nature of things, or they claim that our research has not yet progressed “that far”. They do not suspect that, while they can indeed increase our knowledge in a most beneficial way through this research of the senses and the intellect, a completely different way of thinking is necessary for the exploration of the “inner nature” than they are developing. They want to know nothing about the inventor of the clock, studying it according to the principles of physics. Because they cannot find a little spirit in the clock that drives the hands forward, they either deny the spirit that put the wheels together, or they claim that it is either completely inaccessible to human knowledge or “until now”. Anyone who speaks of the spirit in nature is accused of fantasizing with words alone. Well, it is not his fault that the accusers hear mere words. The Pythagorean disciples were introduced to the spirit of nature in the second stage of their instruction.

Once they had passed this stage, they could be led to the “great” initiation. Now they were ready to absorb the secrets of existence. Their spiritual eye was now sufficiently strengthened for this. They now learned not only the spirit in nature, but also the intentions of this spirit. From this point on, the nature of the mysteries can no longer be discussed in the proper sense, but only figuratively, because our language is completely adapted to the intellect and has no words for the higher form of knowledge that is being considered here. So I ask you to understand the following. Above all, man learned to look beyond his personal life. He learned that this life of his is the repetition of earlier lives on a new plane of existence. He was able to convince himself that that which is rightly called the soul often incarnates and reincarnates, and that he must regard the abilities, experiences and actions of this life of his as the effects of causes lying in his earlier lives. It also became clear to him that the deeds and experiences of his present life would have their effects in a future existence. Since the intention is to speak in detail about the great laws of “reincarnation” and “world lawfulness”, or “reincarnation” and “karma”, in this journal, we will stop here with these hints. These truths could become as convincing to the student of the mysteries as the truth that “two times two is four” is to the ordinary person, because he was ripe for them on the third step. But even on this step one can only have a completely certain judgment of these insights, because only on this step is one able to understand their meaning correctly. Even today, as at all times, these ideas are criticized a great deal. But what is criticized is only the arbitrary thoughts of the critics themselves; and these are quite without importance. - Incidentally, it should be admitted that many supporters of the idea of reincarnation have no better ideas about it than its opponents. Of course, it is not to be claimed here that everyone who defends these teachings today understands them. Among these defenders, too, there are many who are too lazy or too self-confident to learn in silence before they teach.

Even if this was not the case with the Pythagoreans, other mysteries did have a stage of actual mystical initiation following the “great” initiation of revelation. It was the stage in which not only perception and thinking, but all of life expanded beyond the immediate human personality. Here the disciple became not only a sage, but a seer. He now not only perceived the essence of things, but experienced it with them. It is very difficult to give a mental image of what this is all about. The seer does not merely perceive things, but feels in things; he does not think about nature, but steps out of himself and thinks in nature. — The theosophist knows this process and speaks of it as the opening of the astral senses. — The intellectual person passes by the seers; to him they must be fanatics, if not something worse. Those who have a sense for their gifts listen to them with reverent awe, for they feel that it is no longer a human personality speaking through them, but living wisdom itself. They have sacrificed their personal inclinations, sympathies, and opinions so that they could lend their mouths to the eternal Word through which “all things are made.” For where human opinion still speaks, where inclinations and interests come into play, eternal wisdom is silent. And when it reaches the ears of those who have no feeling for it, it appears as personal human speech, even though divine power may always lie within it. But people could learn to hear from the seers themselves, for the seer is silent in his human personality when the voice of truth speaks to him. His judgment is silent, his interests and inclinations lie before him as meaningless to him as the table that stands before him is meaningless; he is wholly devoted to inner hearing.

Only the seer shall ascend to the next stage, which the ancients called that of the theurgist, and which in the English language can be indicated by describing it as that in which a “complete reversal of human abilities” takes place. Powers that otherwise only flow into human beings now flow out from them. In certain areas where man is merely a servant, he becomes a ruler whose abilities are “turned around.” And since only the seer is able to judge the scope and mode of action of such powers, man will abuse these powers if he comes into possession of them without having attained the purity of the seer. And this “wisdom without purity” is possible through a certain chain of circumstances that cannot be discussed here. — Schur speaks excellently of higher initiation with reference to the Pythagoreans: "... At the summit, the earth disappeared like a shadow, like a dying star. From there, the heavenly vistas opened up — and the ‘viewpoint of height’, the ‘epiphany’ of the universe, unfolded like a wonderful whole. The purpose of the teaching was not to let people lose themselves in contemplation or ecstasy. The teacher had led his disciples into the unpredictable regions of the cosmos, he had immersed them in the abysses of the invisible. The true initiates had returned to earth from their terrible journey better, stronger, and more steeled for the trials of life ... The initiation of intelligence was followed by that of will, the most difficult of all. For it was a matter of admitting the disciple into the truth, into the depths of life ... At this level, man became an adept and possessed sufficient energy to acquire new powers and abilities. The inner powers of the soul opened up, and the will radiated into others. — Everything that man accomplishes before reaching this stage has its causes in regions that are completely unknown to him. The theurgist's gaze sees into these regions; and he consciously allows what usually slumbers unconsciously in the deepest shafts of the soul to radiate from himself. He stands face to face with the guide who previously guided him invisibly “from behind.” Armed with such thoughts, one should read sentences such as the following from the ancient book of wisdom “Mundakopanishat”: “When the seer sees the golden-colored Creator, the Lord, the Spirit, whose womb is Brahman, then, having cast aside merit and lack of merit, spotless, the sage attains the highest union.”

Schuré focuses his attention on the peaks that are thus reached; and his mystical belief in the luminous power of these peaks gives him the ability to see through some of the clouds of mist that veil the true nature of the great leaders of humanity. This enables him to describe the great initiates: Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus. Step by step, through these leaders, the powers have been radiated into humanity, according to the maturity that the human race had attained in those times. Rama led to the gate of wisdom, Krishna and Hermes gave some the key, Moses, Orpheus, and Pythagoras showed the inner workings, and Jesus, the Christ, represented the sanctuary. It would detract from the unique magic of Schuré's book to retell the explanations, which everyone should immerse themselves in just as they are.

Schuré points out how, through the founder of Christianity, the wisdom powers of the mysteries were poured into the spiritual veins of humanity in a form that the ears of humanity could hear. — And on the paths that Schuré describes, the truth is also to be sought in this area. The power that radiates from the personality of Jesus is a living power in the hearts of all those who allow it to flow within them. Only those who obtain the key to this word through understanding the wisdom of the mysteries can understand the living word that works in this power. And, as far as possible, Annie Besant's “Esoteric Christianity” provides the basis for this. It is a book through which the hidden meaning of the words of the Bible is revealed to the devoted reader.

In our time, such key books are necessary. Humanity was in a different state than it is today when it received the Gospel, the “good news.” Today, the mind is trained in a completely different way than it was nineteen centuries ago. Today, people can only experience the living power of the “revealed word” if they can grasp this power with their judgment. But what is true remains eternally true, even if the way in which people must grasp it changes over time. That today the mind, the power of judgment, asserts its rights is a necessity; those who understand human development know that this must be so. Therefore, today they give to the mind what centuries ago was given to other soul forces. — It is from this, and from no other insight, that the true theosophist should work. Annie Besant's Esoteric Christianity should be understood in this way.

The theosophist knows that Christianity contains the truth. And he also knows that Jesus, in whom Christ was incarnated, is not a leader of the dead, but a leader of the living. He understands the great words of the Master: “I am with you always, even unto the end.” Those who, like Annie Besant, want to explain Christianity turn first to the living leader, not to the historical accounts. What the “living word” still proclaims today to the ear that wants to listen shines through in the Gospel accounts. Yes, he has remained with us to this day, the proclaimer of the word, and he himself can tell us how we are to understand the letter that reports his deeds and words. The “good news” must be understood esoterically, that is, first the living power must be awakened within us that stamps them with the mark of the “holy.” And because the intellect and the power of judgment are the great means of contemporary culture, they must be freed from the bonds of mere sensory perception, of a purely tangible understanding of reality. The intellect of contemporary humanity must immerse itself in the sea that fills it with true piety. For it is not right that the clever mind should destroy only the “illusions” that religious sentiment has woven around things. Only a mind that is blinded and spellbound by the successes it has achieved in the knowledge and mastery of purely material forces of nature can do this. —- The people of the present, and with them our physicists, biologists, and cultural historians, believe themselves to be free in their world of reason, which is directed purely toward the factual. In truth, they live under an all-dominant suggestion. You physicists, biologists, and cultural historians of the present could become free to a certain degree if you were willing to recognize that your mental images about reality, indeed about the substances and forces of the world, about human history and cultural development, are nothing more than mass suggestions. One day the blindfold will fall from your eyes, and then you will learn to what extent truth and not error is what you think about electricity and light, about the development of animals and humans. For, mind you, even theosophists do not regard your assertions as error, but as truth. For your view of nature is also a religious creed to them, and when they say that they want to seek the kernel of truth in all creeds, they do so not only in relation to Buddha, Moses, and Christ, but also in relation to Lamarck, Darwin, and Haeckel. And writings such as those mentioned by Édouard Schuré and Annie Besant are called upon to remove the blinders from your eyes; they are meant to teach you to see through your suggestions. In this respect, what matters in such books is not only what is written in them, but also the hidden forces that guided the authors' pens and that flow into the veins of the readers, so that they are permeated by a new attitude of truthfulness. Readers who experience the right effect from such books are, in a certain sense, initiated intellectually. — Anyone who does not sense the assertion of a miracle behind this sentence, and who is able to see in it something other than a mere phrase, will also understand when these books are presented to him not merely with the intention of ordinary reading, but with something quite different, namely that they are intended to awaken dormant powers within him through the forces with which they are written, even if these powers can initially only be those of the intellectual soul. But for our time, there is no genuine initiation that does not pass through the intellect. — Anyone who today wants to lead to the “higher mysteries” by bypassing the intellect knows nothing of the “signs of the times”; and he can only replace the old suggestions with new ones.

Meditation

He who denies the spirit of the world does not know that he is denying himself. But such a person not only commits an error, he also neglects his first duty: to work out of the spirit himself.