Dwellings of the Philosophers

“I do not remember if I spoke to him first”, says the great Initiate, “or if he was the one who questioned me; but I have a very fresh memory, as if I were still hearing hem, of how he talked to me for three long hours in a language which I know I had never heard and which bears no relationship with any language of this world, but which I understand more quickly and more intelligibly than that of my wet nurse.

He explained to me, when I inquired about such a marvelous thing, that in sciences there was a truth, beyond which we always found ourselves away from simplicity, and that the more an idiom strayed from this truth the more it went below our conception and became more difficult to understand.

Similarly”, he continued, “in music this truth is never encountered without our soul, immediately elevated, blindly going for it. We don’t see it but we sense that Nature sees it; without being able to understand how it absorbs us, it cannot but delight us, although we cannot know where it is.

And it is the same thing with languages. Whoever encounters this truth of letters, of words, and of continuity can never, while expressing himself, fall below conception: his speech is always equal to his thoughts; and because you do not have knowledge of this perfect language, you do not know what to say, not knowing the order or the words which could express what you imagine”.

I told him that the first man of our world indubitably used this language, since each name that he imposed on each thing declared its essence. He interrupted me and continued: “This language is not simply necessary to express everything that the mind conceives, but without it we cannot be understood by all. Since this idiom is the instinct or the voice of
Nature, it must be understandable by everything that lives in the midst of Nature.

This is why, if you knew it, you could communicate and disclose all your thoughts to animals, and animals to you all of theirs, because it is the very language of Nature by which
she makes herself understood by all animals. Therefore be no longer surprised by the ease with which you understand the meaning of a language which your ears have never heard.

When I speak, your soul encounters, with each one of my words, the Truth that is gropingly looking for; and although its reason does not understand it, it has within it a nature which cannot but understand it”.

However, this secret, universal, indefinite language, in spite of the importance and the truth of its expression, is in reality of Greek origin and genius, as our author teaches us in
his History of the Birds. He has some very old oak trees speak— an allusion to the language which the Druids used in this manner:

“Think of the oak trees which we feel you are looking at: it is we who are speaking to you, and if you are astonished that we speak the language used in the world whence you come, know that our first fathers are natives of it. They lived in Epire, in the forest of Dodona, where their natural goodness moved them to give oracles to the afflicted people who consulted them. For this purpose, they had learned the Greek language, the most universal then in existence, so as to be understood”

Fulcanelli, Dwellings of the Philosophers

Group Soul of Hibernia

The racial soul of Hibernia has very ancient roots that include a slumbering magical knowledge and contacts with primeval forces beyond those that effect the mainland of Britain and the continent of Europe…[a] unique blend of cultural currents from immense antiquity, allied to the Graeco-Celtic stream, is what produced the great power of the Druids in Ireland…The contribution of the earlier Atlantean cultures was of an extremely well focused power of the imagination, which, in short, amounted to a magical power.

This immensely strong, deliberately magically built, group soul of the remote past, mingled with the concrete mind contacts of ancient Greece, and the allied aesthetic ability, has produced an Irish group soul that is stronger than most others in the world apart perhaps from the Jewish – which also derives from immense antiquity in another way. The Celtic druidism of Ireland reached its peak long before that of the rest of Britain and Gaul, and it was originally from Ireland that the British and Gallic druids drew their teaching and wisdom.

The great problems which later beset Ireland over the centuries derive from a combination of these early great strengths. Because of the diversity of the contending currents within a group soul, there has ever been a tendency to internal dissension, exacerbated by the other races and religious authorities that have tried to interfere. This flared to a crisis at the time of the restimulation of the group soul of the British Isles that brought about the reformulation of the Arthurian legends in the twelfth century.

The conflict of contending forces has also operated, and still operates, upon the religious level. Through the missionary genius of St Patrick, the Irish Christian church formed a nucleus of Celtic Christianity that inspired and informed the West independently of Rome through the Dark Ages, just as in former times the Irish Druids had been a centre of religious and cultural influence.

Although a Christianized form of Druidism lingered on, and indeed, like the Hermetic tradition, formed a link between pagan and Christian spirituality, this role of leadership was not without its cost. Had the new wine been introduced more slowly, as occurred in the rest of Europe, much conflict and suffering might have been avoided. Many of the highly magically trained Irish druids migrated to Wales, France and Brittany whence we have a rich vein of ancient tradition, much of it manifesting as the Arthurian legends.

The time may not be long before the racial soul of Ireland enters a new phase, manages to synthesize its deep conflicting roots and to work more freely with other nations of the west. The whole trend of Ireland in the past has been to esoteric teaching and knowledge, and a renewal of this, as pioneered by Yeats and Lady Gregory, may have more importance than political and commercial initiatives. It is a little premature to summarily dismiss this resurgence as a literary fad of ‘the Celtic twilight’.

Gareth Knight, The Secret Tradition in Arthurian Legend