The bringing forth of the secrets of the Mysteries

Were we to describe the initiation of the Essenes from this point of view, we should have to say that after passing through the forty-two stages, the Essene would arrive at a more intimate knowledge of his true inner being, his own ego-nature, and of everything that made him capable of spiritual perception through the external organs acquired by inheritance; he would be led beyond the forty-two stages to that divinely spiritual Being who, as Jahve or Jehovah, had brought about the formation of the special organ first possessed by Abraham, as I have already explained. In spirit he would recognize in this organ what was essential to the age in which he lived; he would look back to the composition of his inner being and see it as the product of Divinity; in this form of initiation his attention was, therefore, not[^1] directed to knowledge concerning man's own inner nature.