22. Esoteric Christianity: The Gospel of St. John and Ancient Mysteries

Just as the trunk of the tree divides itself into different branches, so did religion, science and art become divided in the Mysteries. The ancient Mysteries which were celebrated in Greece—the Eleusinian—and the Mysteries of the Egyptian Priest-wisdom were called Mysteries of the Spirit. Those who stood high in these Mysteries as teachers and leaders had attained to the spiritual worlds; they associated with Spirits, they had intercourse with Spiritual Beings. Iamblichus shows us how the Gods descended in the Mysteries. Only after moral purification, and only when the intellect had been made clear and lucid, could one obtain admission into these places of wisdom.