Yazan:
G. H. Frater N.O.M. (W.W. Westcott)
The circle of Members
of the Adeptus Grade of the Order R.R. et A.C. is a fraternity of students of
the Hermetic Sciences and of the Hermetic Art.
The chain which
unites us in the acceptance of the doctrines and wisdom contained in the
Rituals of our Order. The same assertion is true of the Order of the G.D.,
that preliminary course of instruction through which all must have passed. The
common ground of brotherhood is the sincere acceptance of the Hermetic ancient
philosophy, as expressed in the Ritual, and Pictorial and Symbolic
representations which have been tendered to us at each stage of our progress.
The G.D. teaching has
reference mainly to Religion and to Philosophy; but it is of course obvious
that our Rituals are but outlines and landmarks in the world of thought.
The vacant spaces
each member fills for himself or leaves blank.
A little
consideration will assure us that these vacant spaces are filled by individual
members in very different manners. ~very shade of unorthodoxy is represented
among us; and some of us are almost orthodox, yet we are all sensible of a
mighty tie which binds us together: this is our Ritual Wisdom.
Whence these rituals
come, through whom they come, and even who are our present Temple Chiefs are
all matters of secondary interest. The personal element of rule is but a
question of the arrangements of time, place and finance, and there is no
claim of authority by any beyond the accepted Ritual. You who are here today
to listen to this lecture (or you who read it hereafter), have come to this
Hall only to seek from my words further suggestions of thought on Occult
teachings, you are well aware that I represent myself alone, in what I say,
and that you are each perfectly free to take what seemeth good unto you and to
reject the refuse. In my honour to the Order in which I bear a part, I have
always made the clearest distinction between the Ancient Ritual and our modern
comments, and this distinction you must always bear in mind, for it must not
be considered that the doctrines of any single elder or ruler are necessarily
all true to the Hermetic faith. All individuals go astray even if some go
farther than others. The Order here then has no Pope nor Popess and our Bible
at every stage is imperfect; we are fellow students, still crying for the
Light; and every lecture given here is but the expression of personal opinion,
from some one who has far longer than most trod the path of Hermetic
progress, and the proportion of doctrine or fact which you accept must be
estimated by yourselves, for yourselves—it is a duty you owe to yourselves to
work out your own transmutation—to change the powers of physical sensuous life
into the refined spiritual faculties of Adeptship, in truth as well as in
name. As senior Adept among you, just now, my duties are to keep you to the
doctrines of our Rituals, as far as they go,—to leave you quite free where
they do not lead, but to stimulate your efforts in the search for the
Philosophic Gold by occasional short essays of my own, which although quite
without authority, will suggest subjects and lines of thought which those who
have gone before you have found fruitful of high ideals.
I am about to take,
today, a leaf from the clerics and say something on two texts, from the Hebrew
Bible; and so you are all free to think as you please about the subject.
My opinion is that a
part is historical, and a part of the history is allegorical and that while it
was intended as a text book for the populace, yet there are in it many
references to an esoteric creed held by the priests of the Nation.
It seems to me that
the Divine Names of the Hebrew Volume especially hide and yet reveal a glimpse
of the secrets of Divine power, majesty and governance. Occult Science has in
every age seen mighty mysteries in the name Jehovah. Now the two texts I am
about to refer to, alike, allude to the great name ‘Elohim’.
The first text is
found in Exodus XXXII, Verse I, and was as I will remember, used as a text by
my G. H. Fra. D.D.C.F. in a lecture he gave ten years ago to the Hermetic
Society of my dear Friend Anna Kingsford—it is the words of the Israelites to
Aaron, when Moses had gone up to seek God.
‘Make us Elohim which
shall go before us’, or, let us make Gods to help us, to form our ideals. The
other text is in Genesis I, z6, Veamar Elohim Nosher Adam Be Azelinunu Re
demuthun. ‘And the Elohim said let us make man’—’in our image and after
our likeness’. Note the contrast, and alternation of expression. The men cried
let us make gods—The Gods said let us make men—We are here seeking gods,
or divine ideals;—and we are making men; for men make themselves and they make
their own gods—The Poet sings—
The Ethiop gods have
Ethiop eyes
Thick lips, and
woolly hair;
The gods of Greece
were like the Greeks
As keen, as cold, as
Fair
A modern philosopher
has written ‘The Gods may have made man, but men have made their own Gods, and
a pretty mess they have made of it’. Let us be careful what gods we make for
ourselves, and on what pedestals we place them.
The great Jehovah may have made man in the Garden
of Eden, it matters not to me; but I know I make myself, and I know you are
hourly making yourselves—the child is father to the man indeed, quite as
surely as that the man is father of the child—a mighty mystery. Now Moses had
gone up into the holy mountain to seek divine help :
—
this Sinai was the Mountain of God—the Mountain of the Caverns, the Mountain
of Abiegnus, the mystic Mountain of Initiation—that is of divine instruction.
Even so do we seek inspiration in the mystic Mountain, passing through the
wilderness of Horeb, that period life which is at first a desert to us,
as we cast aside worldly joys, and seek to pass through the Caverns—our Vault,
to union with the spiritual powers above us, which send a ray of light to
illumine our minds and to fire our hearts, the spiritual centre, with an
enthusiasm for the higher life of greater self sacrifice, more self-control—by
which means alone can man reach up to the Divine and become one with the All
self—the great OneAll.
Our V.H.
Sor.-S.S.D.D. has in an earlier Roll pointed out this passing through the
desert, and that volume of beautiful thoughts, the Voice of the Silence alludes to the same period of trial, which must precede success in the
attainment of the Higher Life—Light on the Path too, well portrays the
period of transition, when by the energy of enthusiasm the inspired pupil
casts aside wordly ambition and the joys of life, the pride of the eye, the
lust of the flesh, and stands seeking the foothold of the first step of the
mystical ladder, whose ascent can fill the heart with such sublime aspirations
that the way is no longer steep, nor the path dreary, and when the dawning Sun
of Tiphereth, shedding a ray of splendour upon the Path, encourages the
toiler to the consummation devoutly to be desired. I have said that we make
our own gods, and this is a great secret truth. Moses made his God, and
impressed his ideal upon the people he led—Mohomet formulated his own idea of
God, and of post mortem union with God, and of a Heaven where men are visitors
to a vast Supernal Harem. Jesus taught his idea of his Father, and his
suggestions have tinctured the God ideal of millions; but the mere adherence
of the millions to any doctrine is but slender evidence of its truth, for as
Carlyle has said, the majority of men are fools—Man does not alone formulate
a Deity, but designs also a contrast to our notion of Supernal greatness,
knowledge and power. So does Genesis, for there we find Jehovah thwarted by
the Serpent; we find in the book of Job that the Supreme One was lead into
folly or ingratitude or worse, by Satan who came before him among the ‘Sons
of God’ and by dint of applying to Job every earthly suffering, sought to
degrade him before his Master. We find the Evangelists describing a Satan only
second’ to Jesus, who had power to promise, and, we must suppose, to confer
upon Jesus, either Lordship of the World or a divine supremacy over matter,
—if he would’ but
tender a nominal submission.
We find the mediaeval
European priest formulating the grotesque horned and tailed human demon, and
lastly we are instructed concerning the Qabalistic enumeration of the Evil and
Averse Sephiroth. Are not these all human ideals, and if we were but
philosophic at heart, should we not confess that these notions are but futile
attempts to express the unknown and unknowable? No man can go beyond his own
powers, and if we do but formulate as divine our own highest ideal not much
harm may be done, so long as we grant equal powers of formulation to our
brothers.
But in respect to
Evil Beings, let us forbear, and beware of speculating or designing forces
contrasted to our high ideals; for the mind has a creative force we but little
know of, or understand, and in our ignorance we may create in our own auras
evil personalities in spaces that might have remained vacant.
Never risk the
creation of Evil forces, let us avoid and repel all the evil promptings that
attack us with firmness, courage and decision—but avoid arrogance and
impertinence, for even the so-called evil forces, the contrasted powers have
functions to perform, and even the evil forces may help forward the good, as
is so beautifully alluded to in our Adeptus Ritual. Suffice it to say, that
every man has a dual nature, or every man has dual forces—Yetza ha Ra—Yetzer
ha Job—attendant upon him; or as the Theosophist prefers to put the matter,
man has a higher and a lower manas, and the destiny of any individual is
within limits under his own control.
The general result of
this present life may be upward or downward, for Man has Free Will, within
limits, and very expansible limits too. God, or the Divine Powers, did’ indeed
design and constitute the plan of Man’s constitution, origin and destiny, and
it is but of slight moment, whether in philosophy we view Man as a Ternary, a
Septenary or as a Decad, but it is of vital importance to remember that with
Free Will comes personal responsibility, and that every thought and act; that
we are daily and hourly making the future history of ourselves, and piling up
destiny whose realisation cannot be baulked by divine interposition nor
changed by a maudlin sentimental repentance, nor by the surreptitious
substituted sufferings of others. The type of man may indeed be viewed as
emanating from the Elohim of Life, from the High Septenary of Powers, and his
constitution may be in elementary form allotted to the Sun as the Giver of
Vital Fire,—to the Moon for the Astral Mould of Form, to the Earth for the
Material body: the Planets and Stars may influence man’s form, stature and
tendencies, but the destiny of the Thinker will depend upon the Thoughts. This
is all true of man as a type of Creation,—Man as an Individual hourly makes
himself—One life makes another. There may be a final Heaven, a final rest, a
re-absorption into Deity, but this is not yet. The ladder of progression from
earth to heaven must be climbed, before the foot can attain the summit. Some
egos may go up rapidly, some may pass slowly, self exertion is the measure of
success.
Let us then make Man—make
the Divine Man out of the Human Man. Let us create the Hermetic ideal man from
the material sensual man. It is our bounden duty to rend the Veil ‘Paroketh’
and to let our human intellect attain to the perception of the Holy of Holies
which shines within us from above. For now we see us in a Glass darkly, but
with the Veil rended, we shall see God face to face.
How have the
Alchemists of old, when passing from the physical, drawn the picture of the
Souls transmutation or translation to eternity from time,—how have they also
figured this Soul Growth and Development.
They wrote in beautiful allegory :
—
The
Heart of man is as the Sun, the reception organ for the
Divine Ray of spiritual intuition descending unto Man.
The
Brain of Man is as the Moon,—the source of human intellect.
The Body of Man is the Earthy vehicle.
Let the sun
impregnate the Moon, or let Spiritual Fire prompt the human intellect—and let
the result fructify in the womb of a purified Body, and you will develop the
Son of the Sun, the Quintessence, the Stone of the Wise, True Wisdom and
Perfect Happiness.
[Articles][Home]
