Western European stream·The Great Initiates·Hermes: The Mysteries of Egypt

Source context

Theme

Hermetic initiation and the esoteric foundations of Egyptian mystery-wisdom

Soul-faculty

Sentient Soul

Steiner

not engaged in the GA corpus

Cross-tradition

• Hermeticism / Corpus HermeticumThe Hermetic literature presents Thoth-Hermes as the revealer of cosmic laws governing soul, nature, and divinity — a structural parallel to Schuré's depiction of Hermes as the initiator who encodes universal principles into Egyptian temple-science.
• Egyptian religion / Osirian mysteriesThe Osirian death-and-resurrection cycle, as preserved in the Pyramid Texts and later Book of the Dead, provides the ritual substrate within which Schuré frames the Hermetic mysteries of judgment, transformation, and cosmic order.
• Neoplatonism / IamblichusIamblichus in De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum describes Egyptian theurgy as operating through hierarchical divine principles — a cross-tradition congruence with Schuré's account of Hermes systematising cosmic hierarchies for initiatory transmission.

Hermes: The Mysteries of Egypt

The Mysteries of Egypt O blind soul, arm yourself with the torch of the Mysteries and in terrestrial night you will discover your luminous reflection, your heavenly soul. Follow this divine guide, letting him be your Genius.

For he holds the key to your past and future lives.

-- Call to the Initiates, from The Book of the Dead

Listen to your inner selves and look into the infinity of space and time. There reverberate the song of the stars, the voice of the numbers and the harmony of the spheres.

Each sun is a thought of God, each planet a mode of that thought. In order that you may know divine thought, O souls, you painfully descend along the paths of the seven planets and their seven heavens

and ascend once again.

What do the stars do? What do the numbers say? What do the spheres revolve? O souls that are lost and saved, they relate, they sing, they revolve -- your destinies!

-- Fragment from Hermes

14The Sphinx
In comparison with Babylon, mournful metropolis of despotism, in the ancient world Egypt was a veritable citadel of sacred knowledge, a school for its most illustrious prophets, a shelter and a laboratory for the noblest traditions of humanity. Thanks to great excavations and remarkable research activities, the ancient Egyptians are better known to us today than any of the civilizations which preceded Greece, for Egypt reveals to us its history, written on pages of stone. Its monuments are being excavated, its hieroglyphs are being deciphered, but the deepest arcanum of its history is yet to be fathomed. This arcanum is the esoteric teaching of its priests. This teaching, scientifically cultivated in the temples, prudently veiled in its Mysteries, reveals to us simultaneously the soul of Egypt, the secret of its politics and its preponderant role in the history of the universe. Our historians speak of Pharaohs in the same manner as of the despots of Nineveh and Babylon. For them, Egypt is an absolute and conquering monarchy like Assyria, differing from the latter only in that it lasted several thousand years longer. Do they realize that in Assyria royalty crushed the priesthood in order to make of it a tool, whereas in Egypt the priesthood disciplined royalty and never abdicated even in the worst times, standing up to kings, driving out despots and always governing the nation -- and this with an intellectual superiority, a profound and hidden wisdom which no teaching body has ever equalled in any country or in any age? I can hardly believe that they do, for rather than draw innumerable conclusions from this essential fact, our historians have hardly seen it and do not seem to attach any importance to it. However, one must be an archeologist or linguist to understand that the implacable hatred between Assyria and Egypt comes from the fact that these two peoples represented two opposite principles in the world, and that the Egyptian people owed their long survival to a religious and scientific framework stronger than all revolutions. From the Aryan epoch, throughout the troubled era which followed Vedic times to the Persian conquest and the Alexandrian age, (that is, over a period of more than five thousand years) Egypt was the stronghold of pure and exalted teachings, whose totality constitutes the science of principles, and which can be called the esoteric orthodoxy of antiquity. It was possible for fifty dynasties to succeed one another, for the Nile to deposit its alluvium over entire cities, for the Phoenician invasion to flood the country and be repelled; -- in the midst of history's ebb and flow, beneath the seeming idolatry of its external polytheism, Egypt preserved the ancient foundations of esoteric theology and its priestly organization. It stood firm against the centuries like the pyramid of Gizeh, half-sunk beneath the sands, but intact. Thanks to this immobility of the sphinx, keeping its secret, to this resistance in granite, Egypt became the axis around which the religious thought of humanity revolved in its passage from Asia to Europe. Judea, Greece and Etruria were so many spirits of life which formed different civilizations. But from whom did they draw their basic ideas, if not the living storehouse of ancient Egypt? Moses and Orpheus created two opposite and remarkable religions, one with its rigid monotheism, the other with its dazzling polytheism. But in what mold was their genius formed? Where did one of them find the power, energy, boldness to recast a half-savage people like brass in a furnace, and where did the other find the magic to make gods speak to the soul of its fascinated barbarians like a well-tuned lyre? In the temples of Osiris, in ancient Thebes, which the initiates called the city of the sun or the solar ark because it contained the synthesis of divine science and all the secrets of initiation. Every year at the summer solstice when the floods of rain fall in Abyssinia, the Nile changes color and takes on that tint of blood, about which the Bible speaks. The Nile swells until the autumnal equinox conceals the outline of its banks. But standing upon their granite plateaus beneath the blinding sun, temples carved in the heart of the rock, necropoles, pylons and pyramids reflect the majesty of their ruins in the Nile, now transformed into a sea. Thus the Egyptian priesthood passed through the centuries accompanied by its organization and symbols, secrets which for a long time were impenetrable to science. In these temples, these crypts, these pyramids developed the famous teaching of the Word of Light, of the universal Word which Moses enclosed in his golden ark and of which Christ was to be the living torch. Truth is unchangeable in itself, it alone outlives everything, but it changes its habitations, its forms and its manifestations. "The light of Osiris" which once lighted the depths of nature and the heavenly vault for the initiates is extinguished forever in the abandoned crypts. Hermes' saying to Asclepios was fulfilled: "O Egypt! Egypt! -- In future generations there will remain only incredible tales about you, and nothing will be left but words carved in stone." Nevertheless, it is a ray from that mysterious sun of the sanctuaries which we would like to bring to life once again by following the secret path of ancient Egyptian initiation, insofar as the esoteric institution itself and the fleeting reflection of the ages will allow. But before entering the temple let us glance at the great phases through which Egypt passed before the age of the Hyksos. Almost as old as the framework of our continent, the earliest Egyptian civilization dates back to the ancient red race.~" The colossal sphinx of Gizeh near the great pyramid, is its handiwork. From the time when the Delta (later formed by the alluvium of the Nile) did not yet exist, the huge symbolic animal lay upon its granite hill, before the chain of the Lybian Mountains, looking at the sea, dashing against its feet where today the sands of the desert are spread. The sphinx, that first creation of Egypt, became the latter's principal symbol, its distinctive mark. The oldest human priesthood carved it, a picture of calm and of the awe-inspiring majesty of nature. A man's head emerges from a bull's body with lion's paws, and folds its eagle wings at its sides. It is terrestrial Isis, a portrayal of the living unity of nature's kingdoms, for the ancient priesthoods knew and taught that in the great order of evolution, human nature emerges from animal nature. In this composite of bull, lion, eagle and man are also contained the four animals of Ezekiel's vision, representing the four constituent elements of the microcosm and macrocosm: water, earth, air and fire, the foundations of esoteric science. This is why, in subsequent centuries when the initiates saw the sacred animal lying on the steps of the temples or in the recesses of crypts, they felt this mystery come to life within them and they silently folded the wings of their spirits over inner truth. For before Oedipus, they knew that the answer to the riddle of the sphinx is Man, the microcosm, the divine agent who includes within himself all the elements and forces of nature. The red race therefore, has left no other trace of itself than the sphinx of Gizeh, irrecusable proof that in its own way it had posed and solved the great problem. Notes for this chapter:

21In an inscription of the Fourth Dynasty, the Sphinx is spoken of as a monument whose origin
was lost in the darkness of time and which had been found by chance during the reign of this prince, buried in the sand of the desert, under which it was forgotten for long generations. And the Fourth Dynasty carries us back four thousand years before Christ. Let one calculate the antiquity of the Sphinx from this!

15Hermes
The black race which succeeded the southern red race in dominion over the world, made Upper Egypt its main sanctuary. The name Hermes-Toth, that mysterious first initiator of Egypt into the sacred doctrine, doubtless refers to an initial, peaceful mixture of the white race and the black race in the regions of Ethiopia and Upper Egypt, long before the Aryan period. Hermes is a generic name like Manu and Buddha. It designates man, a caste and a god at the same time. As a man, Hermes is the first and great initiator of Egypt; as a caste, Hermes is the priesthood, the depositary of esoteric traditions; as a god, Hermes is the planet Mercury, including in its sphere a category of spirits and divine initiators; in brief, Hermes presides in the supraterrestrial region of celestial initiation. In the spiritual economy of the world all these things are bound together by secret affinities as by an invisible thread. The name Hermes is a talisman which sums them up, a magic sound which calls them forth. Hence its prestige. The Greeks, disciples of the Egyptians, called him Hermes Trismegistus, or three times great, because he was considered king, legislator and priest. He typifies a period when priesthood, magistracy and royalty were united in a single governing body. Manetho's Egyptian chronology calls this period the reign of the gods. At that time there was neither papyrus nor phonetic writing, but sacred ideography already existed; the science of the priesthood was inscribed in hieroglyphs on the columns and walls of the crypts. Considerably improved, it later passed into the temple libraries. The Egyptians attributed to Hermes forty-two books dealing with esoteric science. The Greek book known by the name Hermes Trismegistus, indeed includes altered but infinitely valuable fragments of ancient theogony which is like the fiat lux from which Moses and Orpheus received their first enlightenment. The doctrine of the fire-principle and of the word- light contained in the Vision of Hermes will remain the climax and center of Egyptian initiation. We shall attempt to rediscover this vision of the masters, this mystic rose which blooms only in the darkness of the sanctuary and in the arcana of the great religions. Certain of Hermes' words, stamped with ancient wisdom, are well adapted to prepare us for this. "None of our thoughts," said he to his disciple, Asklepius, "can conceive of God, nor can any language define Him. The incorporeal, invisible and formless cannot be comprehended by our senses. What is eternal cannot be measured with the short measure of time; God therefore is ineffable. God indeed can transmit to a few elect the ability to rise above natural things in order to perceive some radiation of His supreme perfection, but these elect find no words to translate into everyday language the non-material vision which has made them tremble. They can explain to humanity the secondary causes of the creations which take place before their eyes as images of universal life, but the First Cause remains hidden, and we shall not succeed in understanding it except by experiencing death." Thus spoke Hermes about the unknown God on the threshold of the crypts. The disciples who entered with him into their depths learned to know Him as a living being." The book speaks of his death as of the departure of a god. "Hermes saw the totality of things, and having seen he understood, and having understood he had the power to manifest and to reveal. What he thought, he wrote; what he wrote, he hid in great measure, keeping wisely silent and speaking at the same time so that all the world to come might seek these things. And thus, having commanded the gods, his brothers, to act like participants in a funeral procession, he ascended to the stars." If it is absolutely necessary, one can isolate the political history of peoples, but one cannot isolate their religious history. The religions of Assyria, Egypt, Judea and Greece are understood only when one grasps their point of connection with the ancient Indo-Aryan religion. Considered separately, they are but so many puzzles and pantomimes. Viewed together and from above, they represent a superb evolution, where all the elements control and explain each other. In short, the history of a religion will always be limited, superstitious and false; nothing is true except the total religious history of all mankind. At this level one no longer feels anything but the currents which encircle the globe. The Egyptian people, of all humanity the most independent and isolated from external influences, could not escape this universal law. Five thousand years before our time, the light of Rama, kindled in Iran, shone upon Egypt and became the law of Ammon-Ra, the solar god of Thebes. This establishment enabled him to brave many revolutions. Menes was the first king of justice, the first Pharaoh to carry out this law. He was careful not to take from Egypt her former theology, which was his also. He simply confirmed and expanded it by adding to it a new social organization. The priests were given the task of instruction as a first council; judges were assigned to another; government to both; royalty was conceived of as their task, and subject to their control; the relative independence of the nomes of provinces was the foundation of society. This can be called the government of the initiates. As a keystone it had a synthesis of sciences known under the name of Osiris (O-Sir-Is), intellectual lord. The great pyramid was its symbol, as was the mathematical gnomon. The Pharaoh who received his initiation-name from the temple, who exercised sacerdotal and royal art on the throne, was therefore a far different person from the Assyrian despot whose arbitrary power rested upon crime and blood. Pharaoh was the crowned initiate, or at least the pupil and instrument of the initiates. For centuries the Pharaohs were to defend the law of the Ram, which then represented the rights of justice and international arbitration, against then despotic Asia and anarchic Europe. Around the year 2,000 B.C. Egypt underwent the most dreadful crisis a people can experience: that of foreign invasion and partial conquest. The Phoenician invasion was itself the result of the great religious schism in Asia which had aroused the masses to insurrection. Led by shepherd-kings called Hyksos, this invasion rolled its flood over the Delta and Middle Egypt. The schismatic kings brought with them a corrupt civilization, Ionian indolence, the luxury of Asia, the customs of the harem and crude idolatry. The life of Egypt was threatened, its culture and its universal mission were endangered. But Egypt possessed a spirit of life, that is, an organized body of initiates, depositaries of the ancient knowledge of Hermes and Ammon-Ra. And what did that spirit do? It withdrew to the heart of its sanctuaries, it gathered itself together, the better to resist the enemy. The priesthood outwardly bowed before the invasion and recognized the usurpers who brought the law of the Bull and the cult of Apis. But, hidden in the temples like a sacred depositary, the two councils kept their science and traditions, the ancient pure religion, and with it the hope of a restoration of the former dynasty. It is at this period that the priests propagated among the people the legend of Isis and Osiris, of the dismemberment of the latter and his subsequent resurrection through his son Horus, who would find his scattered limbs, carried away by the Nile. The imagination of the people was stimulated by the pomp of public ceremonies. Their love for the old religion was maintained by acting out the misfortunes of the goddess, her lamentation over the loss of her celestial husband and the hope she placed in her son Horus, the divine mediator. But at the same time the initiates deemed it necessary to place esoteric truth beyond attack by covering it with a threefold veil. The spreading of the popular cult of Isis and Osiris corresponds with the inner scientific organization of the greater and lesser Mysteries. Moral tests were invented, the oath of silence was required, and the penalty of death strictly inflicted upon the initiates who divulged the least detail of the Mysteries. Thanks to this strict organization, Egyptian initiation became not only the haven of esoteric doctrine, but also the crucible of the revival of Egypt and the school for future religions. While the crowned usurpers ruled in Memphis, Thebes was slowly preparing the regeneration of the people. From his temple, from his solar ark, came the savior of Egypt, Amos, who routed the Hyksos after nine centuries of domination, restoring Egyptian science and the male religion of Osiris to their rightful place. Thus the Mysteries saved the soul of Egypt under foreign tyranny, for the good of mankind. For such was then the strength of their discipline, the power of their initiation, that they contained Egypt's best moral force and highest spiritual achievements. Ancient initiation rested upon a concept of man, both healthier and nobler than ours. We have dissociated the training of the body, soul and spirit. Our physical and natural sciences, progressive in themselves, set aside the principle of the soul and its diffusion in the universe; our religion does not satisfy the needs of the spirit; our medicine wishes to know neither soul nor spirit. Modern man seeks pleasure without happiness, happiness without knowledge and knowledge without wisdom. The ancients did not allow one to separate these things. In every domain they took into account man's threefold nature. Initiation was a gradual training of every human being toward the lofty heights of the spirit, from which one can survey life. "In order to attain mastery," said the sages of that age, "man needs a total remolding of his physical, moral and spiritual being. But this remolding is only possible through the simultaneous exercise of the will, intuition and reason. Through the complete cooperation of these three, man can develop his faculties to an incalculable degree. The soul has senses which are asleep; initiation awakens them. Through profound study and constant application, man can put himself in conscious touch with the hidden forces in the universe. Through a great effort he can attain direct spiritual perception, can open to his vision paths of the after-life and can make himself capable of advancing along these paths. Only then can he say he has conquered fate and here on earth has acquired his divine freedom. Only then can the initiate become an initiator, prophet and theurgist, that is, a seer and creator of souls. For only one who controls himself can control others; only one who is free can set free." The ancient initiates thought in this manner. The greatest among them lived and acted accordingly. Therefore initiation was something very different from an empty dream and far more than a simple scientific precept; it was the creation of a soul through itself, its development to a higher level and its efflorescence in the divine world. Let us place ourselves in the age of the Rameses during the time of Moses and Orpheus, around the year 1300 B.C., and attempt to reach the heart of Egyptian initiation. The sculptured monuments, Hermes' books and the Jewish and Greek tradition enable us to call the progressive stages of initiation to life again and to form an idea of the highest revelation of Egyptian spiritual development. Notes for this chapter:

22"Scientific esoteric theology," says Mr. Maspero, "is monotheistic since the period of the Ancient
Empire. The affirmation of the fundamental unity of the Divine Being is expressed in formal terms and with great force in the texts which date back to this period. God is the Unique One, Who exists in essence, the only One Who lives in substance, the Sole Generator in heaven and on earth Who is not engendered. Father, Mother and Son at the same time, He engenders, gives birth and exists perpetually; and those three persons, far from dividing the unity of the divine nature, contribute to its infinite perfection. His attributes are immensity, eternity, independence, all-powerful will and boundless kindness. "He creates his own members, who are gods,' say the old texts. Each of these secondary gods, considered identical with the One God, can form a new type from whom other inferior types emanate in turn and by the same process." -- Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient.

16Isis — Initiation -- The Trials
In the time of the Rameses, Egyptian civilization was shining in the fullness of its glory. The Pharaohs of the twentieth dynasty, pupils and sword-bearers of the sanctuaries, bore the battle against Babylon like real heros. The Egyptian archers harassed the Lybians, Bodons and Numdis to the center of Africa. A fleet of four hundred sailboats pursued the league of the schismatics to the mouth of the Indus. Better to withstand the attack of Assyria and its allies, the Rameses had laid out strategic routes as far as Lebanon, and had built a system of forts between Mageddo and Karkemish. Endless caravans moved through the desert from Radasieh to Elephantine. Architectual activity continued without a break and occupied workers from three continents. The nypostyle room of Karnak, each pillar of which reaches the height of the Vendome Column, was repaired; the Temple of Abydos was adorned with sculptural wonders, and the Valley of the Kings with grandiose monuments. Building went on at Bubast, Luksor and Speos Ibsambul. At Thebes a victory pylon commemorated the taking of Kadesh. At Memphis the Rameseum arose, surrounded by a forest of obelisk statues and gigantic monoliths. In the midst of this feverish activity, this glittering life, more than one foreigner seeking the Mysteries, coming from the distant shores of Asia Minor, the Mountains of Thracia, landed in Egypt, attracted by the reputation of its temples. When he arrived in Memphis, he was struck with amazement. Monuments, spectacles, public festivals, all gave him the impression of wealth and grandeur. After the ceremony of royal consecration, which took place in the secrecy of the sanctuary, he would see the Pharaoh leave the temple before the crowd and climb upon his shield carried by twelve flag-bearing officers of his staff. Before him twelve young Levites carried the royal insignia on gold-braided cushions: the ruler's sceptre with a ram's head, the sword, bow and collection of arms. Behind him came the royal household and the priestly schools, followed by the initiates in the major and minor Mysteries. The pontiffs wore the white tiara and their chests glowed with the fire of symbolic jewels. The dignitaries of the crown wore decorations of the Lamb, Ram, Lion, Lily and Bee, suspended from massive chains, intricately worked. The guilds brought up the rear of the procession with their emblems and flying banners. At night magnificently decorated boats carried the royal orchestras over artificial lakes. On the boats dancers and musicians were outlined in hieratic poses. But this overwhelming pomp was not what the traveler was seeking. A desire to penetrate the secret of things, a thirst for knowledge, is what brought him from so far away. He had been told that magi and hierophants, in possession of divine science, lived in the sanctuaries of Egypt. He too wanted to fathom the secret of the gods. He had heard a priest of his country speak of The Book of the Dead, of its mysterious scroll which was placed beneath mummies' heads like a viaticum, and which related in symbolic form the voyage of the soul after death, according to the priests of Ammon-Ra. With avid curiosity and a certain inner fear mixed with doubt, he had followed this long voyage of the soul into the after-life, witnessing expiation in a burning region, the purification of its sidereal covering, its encounter with the evil pilot seated in a boat with his head turned aside, and with the good pilot who looks forward. He observed the soul's appearance before the forty-two terrestrial judges, its justification by Toth and finally its entry and transfiguration in the light of Osiris. We can imagine the power of this book, as well as the total revolution that Egyptian initiation sometimes effected upon human minds, from this passage of The Book of the Dead: "This chapter was found at Hermopolis in blue writing on an alabaster stone, at the feet of the god Toth (Hermes) in the time of King Menkara, by Prince Hastatif, when he was on a trip to inspect the temples. He carried the stone into the royal temple. O great secret! He no longer saw, he no longer heard, when he read that pure and holy chapter; he no longer went near any woman and no longer ate meat or fish." But what truth was there in this disturbing account, in these hieratic pictures, behind which glistened the terrible mysteries of after-life? "Isis and Osiris know," he was told. But who were these gods about whom one spoke only with one's finger upon one's lips? It was to learn this that the stranger knocked at the door of the great temple of Thebes, or of Memphis. Servants led him beneath the portico of an inner court, whose great pillars seemed like gigantic lotus supporting the solar ark, the Temple of Osiris, with their strength and purity. The hierophant approached the new arrival. The majesty of his countenance, the tranquillity of his face, the mystery of his dark, impenetrable eyes, filled with an inner light, were already enough to disquiet the postulant. That gaze pierced like an awl. The stranger felt that he was facing a man from whom it would be impossible to hide anything. The priest of Osiris questioned the newcomer about the city of his birth, his family and the temple which had instructed him. If in this brief but penetrating examination he was considered unworthy of the Mysteries, a silent but irrevocable gesture pointed to the door. But if the hierophant found in the aspirant the sincere desire for truth, he asked him to follow him. They passed through porticos and inner courts, then through a corridor carved in the rock, open to the sky and bordered with stelae and sphinxes, until they reached a small temple which served as an entrance to the underground crypts. The door was disguised by a life-sized statue of Isis. The goddess, seated in an attitude of meditation and contemplation, held a closed book in her lap. Her face was veiled. Beneath the statue one could read, "No mortal has lifted my veil." "This is the door to the hidden sanctuary," said the hierophant. "Look at these two columns. The red one represents the ascension of the spirit into the light of Osiris. The black one signifies its captivity in matter, and this fall can continue into annihilation. Whoever approaches our science and teaching risks his life. Madness or death is what the weak or the wicked find; the strong and the good alone find life and immortality. Many reckless ones have entered this door, and have not come out alive. It is an abyss which leads only the fearless to the daylight once again. Therefore, consider carefully what you are about to do, the dangers you will face, and if your courage is not equal to every ordeal, give up the quest. For once this door is closed behind you, you will no longer be able to turn back." If the stranger persisted in his wish, the hierophant would lead him into the outer court and commend him to the temple servants, with whom he was required to spend a week, obliged to perform the most menial tasks, listening to the hymns and performing ablutions. He had to observe the strictest silence. When the evening of the ordeals arrived, two neocoros, or assistants, led the candidate for the mysteries to the door of the secret sanctuary. They entered a dark corridor without any visible exit. On the two sides of this dismal room, in the torchlight, the stranger saw a row of statues with men's bodies and animals' heads, -- lions, bulls, birds of prey, and serpents -- which seemed to watch his progress while they mocked him. At the end of this sinister passage, which was crossed in complete silence, a mummy and a human skeleton stood opposite each other. And with a silent gesture, the two neocoros showed the novice a hole in the wall in front of him. It was the entrance to a corridor so low that it could be entered only by crawling on hands and knees. "You can still turn back," said one of the assistants. "The door of the sanctuary is not yet closed. If you do not turn back now, you must continue on your way and cannot return." "I shall go forward," said the novice, summoning all his courage. He was then given a little lighted lamp. The neocoros turned around and closed the door of the sanctuary with a loud bang. The novice could no longer hesitate; he had to enter the corridor. Hardly had he eased through by crawling on his knees when he heard a voice at the end of the tunnel, saying, "Fools who covet knowledge and power perish here!" Because of a strange acoustical phenomenon, this sentence was repeated seven times by echoes at various points. Nevertheless, he had to move forward; the corridor became wider, but inclined downward more sharply. At last the daring traveller found himself before a shaft which led into a hole. An iron ladder disappeared into the latter; the novice took a chance. As he hung upon the lowest rung of the ladder, his frightened gaze looked downward into a terrifying abyss. His poor naphtha lamp which he gripped convulsively in his trembling hand, cast its dim light into endless darkness. What should he do? Above him, -- impossible return; below, -- a drop into the blackness of awful night. In his distress he noticed a crevice on his right. Stretching forward with one hand on the ladder, and his lamp held out with the other, he saw steps. A staircase! Safety! He climbed upward, escaping the abyss. The staircase cut through the rock in the form of a spiral. Finally, the aspirant found himself in front of a bronze grating leading into a great hall, supported by huge caryatids. On the wall could be seen two rows of symbolic frescoes. There were eleven groups on each side, softly lighted by the crystal lamps which the beautiful caryatids bore in their hands. A Magus called a pastophor, a guardian of sacred symbols, opened the grating for the novice and welcomed him with a kind smile. He congratulated him upon having successfully passed the first test. Then, leading him across the hall, he explained the sacred paintings. Under each of these paintings was a letter and a number. The twenty-two symbols represented the twenty-two first Mysteries and constituted the alphabet of secret science, that is, the absolute principles, the universal keys which, employed by the will, become the source of all wisdom and power. These principles were fixed in the memory by their correspondence with the letters of the sacred language and with the numbers associated with these letters. Each letter and each number expressed in this language a ternary law, having its repercussion in the divine world, the intellectual world, and the physical world. Just as the finger touching the string of a lyre causes a note of the scale to resound and all its harmonics to vibrate, so the spirit which contemplates all the virtualities of a number, the voice which utters a letter with the knowledge of its meaning, evokes a power which echoes in the three worlds. Thus the letter A which corresponds to number /, expresses in the divine world, Absolute Being from which all beings emanate; in the intellectual world, the unity, origin, and synthesis of numbers; in the physical world, Man, the head of related beings, who, through expansion of his faculties, rises into the concentric spheres of infinity. The arcanum was represented among the Egyptians by a Magus in a white robe, a scepter in his hand and wearing a gold crown. The white robe meant purity, the scepter, authority and the gold crown, universal light. The novice was far from understanding everything he heard that was strange and new, but great perspectives opened before him at the words of the pastophor before the beautiful paintings, which looked at him with the impassive gravity of the gods. Behind each of them he glimpsed a series of thoughts, and pictures suddenly were called forth. He surmised for the first time the interior of the world through the mysterious chain of causes. Thus, from letter to letter, from number to number, the teacher explained to the pupil the meaning of the arcana, and led him past Jsis Urania to the Chariot of Osiris, past the Thunderstruck Tower to the Flaming Star, and finally to the Crown of the Magi. "Mark well," said the pastophor, "what this crown means: all will which is joined to God in order to manifest truth and to effect justice after this life, enters into participation with divine power over beings and things, attaining the everlasting reward of liberated spirits." While listening to the teacher's words, the neophyte experienced a mixture of surprise, fear and rapture. These were the first lights of the sanctuary, and the truth seen in part, appeared to him to be the light of a divine recollection. But the trials were not over. When he finished speaking, the pastophor opened a door leading to another long, narrow corridor, at the end of which glowed a red-hot furnace. "Why that is death!" exclaimed the novice, looking at his guide fearfully. "My son," said the pastophor, "death frightens only weak minds. I once crossed this fire like a bed of roses." And the gate of the hall of secrets closed behind the postulant. Upon approaching the fiery furnace, he saw it reduced to an optical illusion created by a light interlacing of resinous wood placed over iron lattice work in quincunxes. A path through the middle allowed him to pass by quickly. The trial by water followed the trial by fire. The aspirant was forced to go through a stagnant black pool, lighted by naphtha flames which flashed up behind him in the room of fire. After this, two assistants led him, still trembling, into a dim grotto where a soft couch could be dimly seen, lighted by the mysterious flickering of a bronze lamp hanging from the vault. He was dried, his body was bathed in exquisite essences, he was dressed in fine linen and was left alone after being told, "Rest and wait for the hierophant." Weak with fatigue, the novice stretched himself upon the sumptuous bed. After his varied emotions this moment of calm seemed sweet. The sacred paintings he had seen, all those strange faces, the sphinx, the caryatids, again passed before his eyes. But why did one of the paintings keep coming back to him like an hallucination? Again and again he saw arcanum X represented by a wheel suspended on its axis between two columns. On one side sits Hermanubis, genius of good, -- handsome as a young Ephebe; on the other, Typhon, genius of evil, falls head downward into the abyss. Between the two, on top of the wheel, sits a sphinx holding a sword in its paw. The tones of lascivious music which seemed to come from outside the grotto, caused this picture to fade. The sounds were light and undefinable, of a sad, penetrating languor. A metallic tinkling reached his ear, mixed with vibrations of the harp and the sounds of a flute, along with panting sighs like a torrid breathing. Wrapped in a dream of fire, the stranger closed his eyes. Upon reopening them, he saw an overwhelming vision of life and infernal seduction a few steps away from his bed. A Nubian woman, clothed in transparent dark-red gauze, a necklace of amulettes at her neck, similar to the priestesses of Mylitta, was standing there embracing him with her glance, holding a cup crowned with roses in her left hand. She was of the type whose intense, strong sensuality embodies all the powers of the female animal: high, prominent cheekbones, nostrils dilated, full lips like a delicious ripe fruit. Her dark eyes shone in the dusk. The novice had leapt to his feet in astonishment, not knowing whether he should tremble or rejoice, instinctively crossing his hands on his chest. But the slave moved toward him, slowly lowering her eyes. In a low voice she murmured, "Are you afraid of me, noble stranger? I bring you the reward of conquerors, the forgetfulness of troubles, the cup of happiness." The novice hesitated; then, as though overcome with lassitude, the Nubian woman sank upon the bed, enveloping the stranger in a pleading look as in a humid flame. Woe to him if he did not defy her, if he bent over that mouth, if he became drunk with the heavy perfumes arising from these bronzed shoulders! Once he had touched that hand and had placed his lips upon that cup, he was lost. He turned upon his bed, entwined in a burning grasp . . . But after the wild satisfying of his desire, the liquid he had drunk plunged him into a deep sleep. When he awoke, he found himself alone and in anguish. The lamp cast a ghost-like light upon his disordered bed. A man was standing before him; it was the hierophant. He said to him: "You were victorious in the first trials. You triumphed over death, fire and water, but you have not learned to conquer yourself. You who seek the heights of the mind and knowledge succumbed to the first temptation of the senses and fell into the abyss of matter. One who is a slave to the senses lives in darkness. You preferred darkness to light; therefore remain in darkness. I warned you of the dangers to which you were exposing yourself. You saved your life, but you have lost your freedom. You are to remain a slave of the temple, under penalty of death." If, on the other hand, the aspirant had overturned the cup and repelled the temptress, twelve neocoros armed with torches would have come to lead him triumphantly into the sanctuary of Isis where Magi, ranked in a semi-circle and dressed in white, awaited him in a plenary assembly. In the depths of the temple he would see the colossal statue of Isis in cast metal, splendidly lighted, a gold rose at her breast, and wearing a crown of seven rays. She held her son Horus in her arms. The goddess and the hierophant clothed in velvet, would receive the newcomer, and under the most awesome oaths, make him pledge silence and submission. Then he greeted him in the name of the entire assembly as a brother and future initiate. Before the august teachers, the disciple of Isis thought himself in the presence of the gods. Grown beyond himself, he entered for the first time into the sphere of truth.

17Osiris -- Death and Resurrection
Nevertheless he was admitted only to the threshold. Long years of study and apprenticeship began. Before rising to Isis Uranus, he had to know terrestrial Isis, had to learn the physical sciences. His time was divided between meditations in his cell, the study of hieroglyphics in the halls and courts of the temple, as large as a city, and in lessons from his teachers. He learned the science of minerals and plants, the history of man and peoples, medicine, architecture and sacred music. In this long apprenticeship he had not only to know, but to become. He had to acquire strength through renunciation. The ancient wise men believed that man possesses truth only if it becomes a part of his innermost being, a spontaneous deed of his soul. But in this intense work of assimilation, the pupil was left to himself. His teachers did not help him in anything, and often he was amazed at their coldness and their indifference. He was carefully supervised, he was subjected to inflexible rules, absolute obedience was required of him, but nothing was revealed to him beyond certain limits. His uncertainties and his questions were answered by "Wait and work." Then, sudden revolts, bitter regrets and horrible suspicions surged up in him. Had he become the slave of bold impostors or black magicians who were subjugating his will to an infamous purpose? Truth was fleeing, the gods were abandoning him, he was alone, a prisoner of the temple. Truth appeared to him in the form of a sphinx. The sphinx said to him, "I am Doubt!" And the winged beast, with its head of an impassive woman and its lion's paw, carried him away to tear him apart in the burning desert sand. But hours of calm and divine forbearance followed these nightmares. Then he understood the symbolic meaning of the trials he had gone through upon entering the temple. For, alas! The dark well into which he had almost fallen was less dark than the abyss of unfathomable truth; the fire he had passed through was less to be feared than the passions which still burned his flesh; the black, freezing water into which he had to plunge was less cold than the doubt into which his mind sank and became engulfed in his evil moments. In one of the halls of the temple, arranged in two rows, were those same sacred paintings which had been explained to him in the crypt during the night of ordeals, and which represented the twenty-two arcana. These arcana, which could be partly seen at the threshold of esoteric science, were the very pillars of theology, but it was necessary to have gone through the entire initiation in order to understand them. Since then none of the leaders had spoken to him of them again. He was allowed only to walk in this room and meditate upon the signs. He spent long, solitary hours there. Through these figures, pure as light, serious as Eternity, invisible and impalpable truth slowly entered the heart of the neophyte. In the silent society of these quiet, nameless divinities, each of which seemed to preside over a sphere of life, he began to feel something new: First, a descent into the depths of his being, then a sort of detachment from the world, which made him soar above things. Sometimes he asked one of the Magi, "One day will I be allowed to smell the rose of Isis, to see the light of Osiris?" He was told, "That does not depend upon us; truth is not given. Either one finds it in oneself, or one does not find it. We cannot make an adept of you; you must become one yourself. The lotus grows under the river a long time before it blossoms. Do not rush the blossoming of the divine flower! If it is to come, it will appear in its own time. Work and pray!" And the disciple returned to his studies and to his meditation with a quiet joy. He enjoyed the strict, sweet charm of the solitude where a breath of the Being of Beings passes. Thus the months and years flowed by. He felt a slow transformation, a complete metamorphosis taking place within him. The passions which had attacked his youth moved away from him like ghosts, and the thoughts which now encircled him were kind, like immortal friends. What he experienced now was the swallowing up of his earthly self and the birth of another, purer, more ethereal self. In this mood he would fall prostrate before the steps of the closed sanctuary. Then there was no longer any revolt, no desire of any kind, no regret in him. There was only a perfect surrender of his soul to the gods, a complete oblation to truth. "O Isis," he would say in his prayer, "since my soul is but a teardrop from your eyes, may it fall as dew upon other souls, and in dying may I feel their perfume arise to you! Here am I, ready for the sacrifice!" After one of these silent prayers, the disciple in a semi-ecstasy saw the hierophant standing near him like a vision from the sun, enclosed in the warm colors of sunset. The master seemed to read all the disciple's thoughts, to penetrate the entire drama of his inner life. "My son," he said, "the time is approaching when truth will be revealed to you, for already you have had a foretaste of it in going down into your innermost depths, and there finding the life divine. You are to enter the great, ineffable communion of the initiates, for you are worthy of it by the purity of your heart, by your love of truth and your power of self-denial. But no one crosses Osiris' threshold except by way of death and resurrection. We shall accompany you into the crypt. Be not afraid, for you are already one of our brothers!" At dusk the priests of Osiris, bearing torches, accompanied the new adept into the lower crypt, supported by four pillars, placed upon sphinxes. In a corner was an open marble sarcophagus." "No man," said the hierophant, "escapes death, and every living soul is destined to resurrection. The adept goes through the tomb alive, that afterward he may enter into the light of Osiris. Lie down, therefore, in this coffin and wait for the light! Tonight you will go through the door of Fear and you will reach the threshold of Mastery." The initiate lay down in the open sarcophagus. The hierophant extended his hand over him in blessing and the procession of initiates left the cave in silence. A little lamp placed on the ground flickeringly lights the four sphinxes which support the thick columns of the crypt. A choir of deep voices is heard, low and muffled. Where does it come from? It is the funeral chant! He is breathing his last; the lamp casts a final light, then is extinguished entirely. The adept is alone in the darkness. The coldness of the tomb falls upon him, freezing all his limbs. Gradually he experiences the painful sensation of death and falls into a lethargy. His life passes before him in successive scenes like something unreal and his earthly consciousness becomes more and more vague and diffuse. But as he feels his body disintegrate, the ethereal part, the fluid of his being, is disengaged. He enters into an ecstasy ... What is that shining, far distant point which appears imperceptible against the black background of the shadows? It is coming closer, it is growing larger, it is becoming a five-pointed star, whose rays include all the colors of the rainbow, and which shoots into the darkness discharges of magnetic light. Now there is a sun which attracts it into the brightness of its incandescent center. Is it the magic of the masters which produces this vision? Is it the invisible which becomes visible? Is it a foreboding of celestial truth, the flaming star of hope and immortality? It is disappearing, and in its place a flower blooms in the night, a flower not of matter, but sensitive and endowed with soul! It opens before him like a white rose; it spreads its petals, he sees its living leaves tremble and its shining calyx blush. -- Is this the flower of Isis, the Mystical Rose of Wisdom which enclosed Love in its heart? But now it is evaporating, like a cloud of perfume. Then the ecstatic one feels flooded with a warm, caressing breeze. Having assumed strange forms, the cloud condenses and becomes a human figure, the figure of a woman, the Isis of the hidden sanctuary, but younger, smiling and radiant. A transparent veil is wrapped around her and her body shines through it. In her hand she holds a scroll of papyrus. She softly approaches, leans over the initiate lying in his tomb, and says, "I am your invisible sister; I am your divine soul, and this is the book of your life. Its written pages contain your past lives, its blank pages, your future lives. One day I shall unroll all before you. You know me now. Call, and I shall come!" As she speaks, a ray of tenderness streams from her eyes. . . . O presence of my angelic counterpart, ineffable promise of the divine, wondrous fusion in the impalpable Beyond! ... But everything bursts; the vision fades. With a horrible rending, the adept feels himself hurled into his body as into a corpse. He returns to a state of conscious lethargy; bands of iron fetter his limbs; a terrible weight presses upon his brain; he awakens . . . Standing before him is the hierophant, accompanied by the Magi. They surround him, make him drink a cordial, and he arises. "You are resurrected!" exclaims the prophet. "Come and celebrate with us the agape of the initiates, and tell us of your journey in the light of Osiris. For henceforth you are one of us." Let us accompany the hierophant and the new initiate to the observatory of the temple, in the warm splendor of an Egyptian night. It is there that the head of the temple gave the recent adept the great revelation, by relating to him The Vision of Hermes. This vision was not written on any papyrus. It was indicated in symbolic signs on the stelae of the secret crypt, known to the one prophet. From pontiff to pontiff, the explanation was orally transmitted. "Listen carefully," said the hierophant. "This vision includes the eternal history of the world and of all things." Notes for this chapter:

23For a long time archeologists have seen in the sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh the
tomb of King Sesostus, on the testimony of Herodotus, who was not an initiate, and to whom the Egyptian priests hardly confided anything except trifles and folk tales. The kings of Egypt, however, had their tombs elsewhere. The strange inner structure of the Pyramid proves that it was to be used for initiation ceremonies and secret practices of the priests of Osiris. The Well of Truth which we described, the ascending staircase and the room of the arcana are found there. The room called the King's Chamber, which contains the sarcophagus, was the one where the adept was led on the eve of his great initiation. These same arrangements were reproduced in the great temples of central and upper Egypt.

18The Vision of Hermes
One day Hermes fell asleep after having reflected upon the origin of things." A heavy torpor took hold of his body, but as the latter became numb, his spirit ascended into space. Then it seemed to him that an immense being, without definite form, called him by name. "Who are you?" asked Hermes, startled. "I am Osiris, Sovereign Intelligence, and I can unveil everything. What do you wish?" "To look at the source of beings, O divine Osiris, to know God!" "You will be satisfied." Immediately Hermes was flooded with a blissful light. Upon its diaphanous waves the captivating forms of all beings passed. But suddenly the terrifying shadows of sinuous shapes descended upon him. Hermes was plunged into a humid chaos filled with smoke and a dismal moaning. Then a voice arose from the abyss. It was the cry of light. Suddenly a faint fire burst forth from the humid depths and reached the ethereal heights. Hermes arose with it, and found himself once again in space. In the abyss the chaos became ordered; the choirs of the stars stretched out over his head, and the voice of the light filled infinity. "Did you understand what you saw?" Osiris asked Hermes in his dream, suspended between earth and heaven. "No," replied Hermes. "Well then, you will know. You have just seen what is for all time. The light you first saw is divine intelligence, which contains everything, including the archetypes of all beings. The gloom into which you were plunged is the material world where men of earth live. But the fire which you saw flame forth from the depths, is the Divine Word. God is the Father, the Word is the Son, their union is Life." "What wondrous sense has opened within me?" asked Hermes. "I no longer see with the eyes of the body, but with those of the spirit. How is this?" "Child of dust," said Osiris, "it is because the Word is within you! What in you hears, sees, acts, -- is the Word itself, the sacred fire, the Creative Word." "Since that is so," said Hermes, "let me see the life of the worlds, the way of souls, whence man comes and whither he returns." "Let it be as you desire." Hermes again became heavier than a stone and fell through space like an aerolite. Finally he saw himself at the top of a mountain. It was night; earth was dark and bare; his limbs seemed heavy as iron. "Lift up your eyes and behold!" said Osiris' voice. Then Hermes saw an amazing sight. Infinite space and the starry heaven enveloped him in seven luminous spheres. In a single glance Hermes saw the seven heavens above him like seven transparent, concentric globes, whose sidereal center he occupied. The last had the Milky Way as an enclosure. In each sphere a planet with a Genius of different form, sign and light revolved. While the awestruck Hermes viewed their scattered efflorescence and their majestic movements, the voice said to him: "Look, listen, and understand. You see the seven spheres of all life. Through them the fall of souls takes place, and also their ascension. The seven Genii are the seven rays of Word-Light. Each of them governs a sphere of the Spirit, a sphere of the life of souls. The one nearest you is the Genius of the Moon with disquieting smile and wearing a silver sickle. He presides at births and deaths. He disengages souls from bodies and draws them into his ray. -- Over him, pale Mercury shows descending or ascending souls the way with his staff, which contains knowledge. -- Higher still, bright Venus holds the mirror of Love where souls alternately forget and recognize each other. Above her the Genius of the Sun raises the triumphal torch of Everlasting Beauty. -- Yet higher, Mars brandishes the sword of Justice. -- Sitting on his throne over the azure sphere, Jupiter holds the scepter of supreme power, which is Divine Intelligence. -- At the boundary of the world, under the signs of the zodiac, Saturn bears the globe of Universal Wisdom."" "I see," exclaimed Hermes, "the seven regions which make up the visible and invisible world. I see the seven rays of the Word-Light, of the only God, Who penetrates and governs them by these rays. But, O my Master, how is the journey of man made through all these worlds?" "Do you see," asked Osiris, "glowing seeds fall from the regions of the Milky Way in the seventh sphere? They are the seeds of souls. They live like light-vapors in the region of Saturn, happy, without care, not knowing their happiness. But in falling from sphere to sphere they are clothed in ever heavier coverings. In each incarnation they acquire a new corporeal sense, in conformity with the environment in which they are living. Their vital energy increases, but as they enter denser sheaths they lose the memory of their heavenly origin. Thus is effected the descent of the souls which come from the divine ether. More and more captivated by matter, more and more intoxicated by life, like a shower of fire they rush with trembling voluptuousness through regions of pain, love and death, into their earthly prison, where you yourself are moaning, held by the charged center of the earth, where divine life seems to you a vain dream." "Can souls die?" asked Hermes. "Yes," answered the voice of Osiris. "Many perish in the fatal descent. The soul is the daughter of heaven and its journey is a test. If in its wild love of matter it loses the memory of its origin, the divine spark which was in it and which would have become brighter than a star, returns to the ethereal region, a lifeless atom, and the soul disintegrates in the whirlpool of crude elements." At these words of Osiris, Hermes trembled, for a roaring storm enveloped him in a black cloud. The seven spheres disappeared beneath thick vapors. He saw human specters uttering strange cries, carried away and torn to pieces by phantoms of monsters and animals, amidst groans and endless blasphemies. "This," said Osiris, "is the fate of irremediably base and wicked souls. Their torture ends only with their destruction, which is the loss of all consciousness. But see, the vapors disperse, the seven spheres reappear beneath the firmament! Look this way! Do you see that host of souls trying to climb back into the lunar region? Some are pushed down to earth like flocks of birds in the blast of the storm. With a great stirring of wings others reach the higher sphere which draws them into its revolving. Once they have arrived they recover the vision of divine things. But now they are not content with reflecting the latter in a dream of powerless bliss. They become infused with the lucidity of conscience lighted by grief and with the strength of will acquired in battle. They become luminous, for they possess the divine in themselves and reflect it in their acts. Therefore, strengthen your soul, O Hermes, and quiet your clouded mind by watching these distant flights of souls mount to the seven spheres and scatter like hosts of sparks! For you too can follow them; it is sufficient to will it, in order to lift oneself. See how they gather into divine choirs, each under its chosen Genius! The most beautiful live in the solar region, while the most powerful rise as far as Saturn. Some even rise to the Father, themselves becoming powers among Powers. For there where everything ends, everything eternally begins, and the seven spheres intone in unison, Wisdom! Love! Justice! Beauty! Splendor! Knowledge! Immortality!' " "That," said the hierophant, "is what ancient Hermes saw, and what his successors handed down to us. The words of the wise man are like the seven notes of the lyre which contain all music, together with the numbers and laws of the universe. Hermes' vision resembles the starry sky whose endless depths are strewn with constellations. For the child, it is only a vault with golden nails; for the wise man, it is infinite space where worlds revolve with their rhythms and wondrous cadences. This vision contains the eternal numbers, evocative signs and magic keys. The more you learn to consider and understand it, the more you will see its boundaries widen, for the same organic law governs all the worlds." And the prophet of the temple expounded the sacred text. He explained that the doctrine of Word- Light represents divinity in the static state, in its perfect equilibrium. He pointed out its threefold nature, which at the same time is intelligence, strength and matter; spirit, soul and body; light, word and life. Essence, manifestation and substance are three terms which reciprocally imply one another. Their union constitutes the divine and intellectual principle par excellence, the laws of ternary unity which dominate creation from the highest to the lowest. Having thus led his disciple to the ideal Center of the universe, to the generating Principle of being, the master expanded him over time and space and showed him a multitude of efflorescences. For the second part of the vision represents divinity in the dynamic state, that is, in active evolution. In other words, it involves the visible and invisible universe, the living heaven, the seven spheres attached to the seven planets, which symbolize seven principles, seven different conditions of matter and spirit, seven varied worlds which each man and each generation must pass through in their evolution amidst a solar system. The seven Genii, or the seven cosmogonic gods signified the seven higher, directing spirits of all the spheres, themselves arisen from an ineluctable evolution. Each great god, therefore, was for an ancient initiate the symbol and patron of legions of spirits which reproduced his type in a thousand variants and which in their sphere could exert an influence upon man and earthly things. The seven Genii of Hermes' vision are the seven Devas of India, the seven Amshapands of Persia, the seven mighty Angels of Chaldea, the seven Sephiroth"® of the Kabbala, and the seven Archangels of the Christian Apocalypse. And the great septenary which enfolds the universe not only vibrates in the seven colors of the rainbow and in the seven tones of the musical scale, but it is also evident in the being of man, who is threefold in essence but seven-fold in his evolution." "Thus," said the hierophant in conclusion, "you have come to the threshold of the great arcanum. Divine life appeared to you in the form of phantoms of reality. Hermes acquainted you with the invisible heaven, the light of Osiris, the hidden God of the universe, who breathes in millions of souls, animates the wandering globes and vitalizes bodies in labor. Now it is up to you to move forward, choosing your path in order to climb to pure Spirit. For you belong henceforth to the resurrected living. Remember that there are two principal keys to knowledge. This is the first: The outside is like the inside of things; the small is like the large; there is but a single law, and he who works is One. Nothing is small, nothing is large in the divine economy.' This is the second: Men are mortal gods, and gods are immortal men.' -- Happy is the one who understands these words, for he possesses the key to everything. Remember that the law of mystery conceals the great truth. Total knowledge can be revealed only to our brothers who have gone through the same tests as we. It is necessary to mete out truth according to individual capacities; one must veil it for the weak, whom it would drive mad, and hide it from the wicked, who can grasp only bits with which they make weapons of destruction. Seal it in your heart and let it speak in your works. Knowledge will be your strength; faith, your sword; silence, your impenetrable armor." The revelations of the prophet of Ammon Ra, which opened to the new initiate such broad horizons in himself and the universe, doubtless produced a deep impression when they were spoken atop the observatory of a temple of Thebes, in the clear calm of an Egyptian night. The pylons, the rooftops and white terraces of the temples lay sleeping far below among the dark masses of the nopal and tamarind trees. In the distance, monoliths, colossal statues of the gods, were sitting like incorruptible judges on their silent lake. Three pyramids, geometric figures of the tetragram and the sacred septenary, were fading on the horizon, their triangles scarcely seen in the delicate, grey mist. The vast firmament was filled with stars. With what new eyes he looked at these stars, pictured for him as future abodes! When at last the golden boat of the moon emerged from the dark mirror of the Nile, which disappeared on the horizon like a long bluish serpent, the neophyte thought he saw the boat of Isis which sails upon the river of souls, carrying them to the sun of Osiris. He remembered The Book of the Dead, and the meaning of all these symbols now became clear to him. After what he had seen and learned, he could well believe that he was in the twilight kingdom of Amenti, the mysterious place of pause between terrestrial and celestial life, where the dead, at first sightless and speechless, little by little find again both vision and voice. He too was going to make the great journey, the journey through infinite worlds and existences. Hermes had absolved him and deemed him worthy. He had told him the solution of the great riddle: "A single soul, the great soul of Everything, in dividing itself gave birth to all the souls which struggle mightily in the universe." Armed with this great secret he climbed into Isis' boat. It set sail. Lifted into the ethereal spaces, it floated into interstellar regions. Already the broad rays of a tremendous dawn spread themselves over the blue sails of the celestial horizon. Already the choir of glorious spirits, of the Akhimu-Seku who have reached eternal rest, were singing, "Arise, Ra Hermakuti! Sun of Spirits! Those who are in your boat are in exaltation! They utter exclamations in the boat of millions of years! The great, divine cycle is overflowing with joy in giving glory to the sacred boat. Rejoicings take place in the mysterious chapel. O Arise, Ammon Ra Hermakuti! -- Sun which creates itself!" And the initiate responded with the proud words, "I have reached the land of truth and justification. I am resurrected like a living god. I share the glory of the choir of the gods who inhabit the heaven, for I am one of them!" Such proud thoughts and such bold aspirations well might haunt the soul of the adept in the night following the mystical ceremony of resurrection. The next day on the avenues of the temple in glaring daylight, the night seemed to him no more than a dream, but what an unforgettable dream, -- that first trip into the impalpable and invisible! Again he read the inscription of the statue of Isis, "No mortal has lifted my veil." But a corner of the veil had been raised, nevertheless, but only to drop immediately, and he had awakened in the land of the tombs. Ah, how far he was from the envisioned goal! For the journey is a long one, in the boat of millions of years! But at least he had partly seen the final goal. Even though his vision of the other world may have been only a dream and a childish picture of his imagination, still clouded by the mist of earth, nevertheless could he doubt that other consciousness he had felt unfold in him, that mysterious counterpart, that celestial self which had appeared to him in its astral beauty like a living form, and which had spoken to him in his sleep? Was it a soul-sister, was it his Genius, or was it only a reflection of his inner spirit and a foretaste of his future being? Marvel and Mystery! One thing was certain: it was a reality, and if this soul was but his, it was real. What would he not do to find it again! He would live millions of years before he would forget that divine hour when he had seen his other, his pure and radiant self! The initiation was completed. The adept was a consecrated priest of Osiris. If he was an Egyptian he remained connected with the temple; if a foreigner, sometimes he was allowed to return to his homeland, there to establish a cult or to fulfill a mission. But before leaving he solemnly swore to maintain absolute silence about the secrets of the temple. Never was he to betray to anyone what he had seen or heard, nor to reveal the teaching of Osiris except under the triple veil of mythological symbols or Mysteries. If he broke this pledge, violent death would overtake him sooner or later, however far away he was. But silence had become the shield of his strength. After his return to Ionia, to his restless city, observing the impact of raging passions among this multitude of men who lived like madmen, without knowing themselves, often he recalled Egypt, the pyramids, the Temple of Ammon Ra. Then the dream of the crypt would return to him, and as, back there, the lotus floats upon the waves of the Nile, so always this shining vision arose above the mire and troubled river of this life. At designated times he heard the voice of the shining vision, and it was the voice of heavenly light, awakening in his being an intimate harmony as it said to him, "The soul is a veiled light. When it is neglected, it becomes dark and is extinguished. But when the consecrated oil of love is poured upon it, it shines forth as an immortal lamp!" Notes for this chapter:

24The Vision of Hermes is found at the beginning of the Books of Hermes Trismegistus under the
name Poimandres. Ancient Egyptian tradition has come to us only in a slightly altered Alexandrian form. I have tried to reconstruct this major fragment of Hermetic teaching in the setting of the higher initiation and the esoteric synthesis it represents.

25These gods had other names in the Egyptian language, but in all mythologies the seven
cosmogonic gods correspond in their meaning and attributes. They have their common root in ancient esoteric tradition. Since Western tradition has adopted the Latin names, we use them for greater clarity.

26There are Ten Sephiroth in the Kabbala. The first three represent the divine Trinity, the seven
others, the evolution of the universe.

27These are the Egyptian terms for this septenary constitution of man, as found in the Kabbala:
Chat, material body, Anch, vital force, Ka, the ethereal counterpart or astral body, Hati, animal soul, Bai, rational soul, Cheybi, spiritual soul, Ku, the divine Spirit. One will find the development of these fundamental ideas of esoteric doctrine in the sections on Orpheus and on Pythagoras.

28In Egyptian doctrine, man was considered as having consciousness in this life only of the animal
soul and rational soul, called hati and bai. The higher part of his being, the spiritual soul and divine Spirit, Cheybi and Ku, exist in him in the state of unconscious seed and develop after this life when he himself becomes an Osiris.

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