History of the Magic of Love reviving the Dead

The spiritual history of Christianity is the history of successive resurrections of that which is valuable from the past, worthy of eternity. It is the history of the magic of love reviving the dead. It was thus that Platonism became resuscitated and will go on living for ever – thanks to the vivifying breath of he who is the resurrection and the life (“Ego sum resurrectio et vita” – John xi, 25). It is thus that Aristotelianism will participate in eternal life. And it is thus that Hermeticism, also, will live until the end of the world and, perhaps, beyond the end of the world.

Moses and the prophets will live on for ever, for they have acquired their place in the eternal constellation of the Word of resurrection and life. The magical poetry and songs of Orpheus will be resuscitated and will live for all eternity as colour and sound of the Word of resurrection and life. The magic of Zarathustra’s mages will be revived and will live as the eternal human endeavour of aspiration towards light and life. The truths revealed by Krishna will join the retinue of the ‘recalled to eternal life’. The ancient cosmic revelations of the Rishis will live again and will awaken in humanity anew a sense for the marvels of the ‘blue, white and gilded….’

All these souls of mankind’s spiritual history will be resuscitated, ie, will be called to join the work of the Word that became flesh, that died and rose again from the dead – so that the truth of the promise – “I have come so that nothing should be lost but that all should have eternal life” (John, vi, 38 – 40) – will be accomplished.

Meditations on the Tarot, Letter VIII, Justice

Armour of God

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand…..

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:10-18

The Mysteries

He feels anew the faith of all on earth,
The power of salvation streaming thence;
But as he looks, he feels his very soul
Pervaded by a new and unknown sense:
Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?
It is entwined by blooming clusters dense,
Profusely spreading just as though they could
Endow with softness e’en the rigid wood.

While light and silv’ry clouds, around it soaring,
Seem heavenward with cross and roses flowing,
And from the midst like living waters streaming
A threefold ray from out one core is glowing;
But not a word surrounds the holy token,
The meaning of the symbol clearly showing.
And while the dusk is gath’ring grey and greyer,
He stands and ponders and is lost in prayer.

At last he knocks. The myriad stars above him
Look down with shining eyes as they appear.
The portal opes, and he is bidden welcome
By brethren wont to comfort and to cheer.
So he relates how far by hill and valley
The will of higher Beings led him here.
They stand amazed, for well they see their guest
Was sent to them by heavenly behest.

They crowd around him, and their inmost being
They feel by a mysterious power stirred,
Their breath they hold to listen, for he rouses
An echo in their hearts with ev’ry word.
Like deepest lore, yet uttered by a child,
The wisdom flowing from his lips is heard:
He seems so innocent, like crystal clear,
As though descended from another sphere.

The Mysteries, Goethe

Immanence of Christ in human consciousness

The manifestation of Christ’s resurrection in the human soul was the Pentecost. That event is the primal phenomenon of the sixth cultural epoch, which the Apocalypse calls the ‘church of Philadelphia’.

The community of Pentecost was no longer a circle surrounding Jesus Christ, but now a circle from which Christ revealed himself to the outer world. The language he used to reveal himself was such that people of all nationalities were able to understand.

The two main characteristics of the philadelphian spiritual culture are the immanence of Christ in human consciousness and the cosmopolitan community that arises from that consciousness. In this sense, the sixth cultural epoch can be called the epoch of Pentecost.

This name acquires even more meaning because the consciousness that leads to the culture of that time must stand the test of ‘keeping the word’ and ‘not denying the name of Christ’ (3:8); that is, much be concerned with the word of Christ and with a relationship to his being as these become realities in the Pentecost.

What was given then as a ‘dispensation of grace’, however, must now be earned or submitted to before the cultural epoch of the spirit self can be realised. We must study the path that leads from the consciousness soul to the spirit self (manas) in order to understand the meaning of ‘keeping my word’ and ‘not denying my name’.

When it comes to understanding ideas, the point is not to spin them into a system of logic, but to root them firmly in the spiritual moral organism of Christ’s cosmic work. In the Apocalypse, such work is called the ‘name of Christ’ and ‘not denying’ his ‘name’ is the soul attitude that accepts as true only ideas indebted not just to logic, but also always to the moral forces.

Not to deny the ‘name’ is moral logic, just as amoral, formal knowledge is itself a denial of the name of Christ, since it excludes the voice of goodness from the realm of knowing.

Valentin Tomberg, Christ and Sophia, Letters to Future Churches

The Secret Hymnody

The Shepherd, Mind of all masterhood, hath not passed on to me more than hath been written down, for full well did he know that I should of myself be able to learn all, and hear what I should wish, and see all things.

He left to me the making of fair things; wherefore the Powers within me. e’en as they are in all, break into song.

Tat: Father, I wish to hear; I long to know these things.

Hermes: Be still, my son; hear the Praise−giving now that keeps [the soul] in tune, Hymn of Re−birth − a hymn I would not have thought fit so readily to tell, had’st thou not reached the end of all. Wherefore this is not taught, but is kept hid in silence.

Thus then, my son, stand in a place uncovered to the sky, facing the southern wind, about the sinking of the setting sun, and make thy worship; so in like manner too when he doth rise, with face to the east wind.

Now, son, be still!

Follows the Secret Hymnody…..

……Tat: By thy good pleasure have I seen this praise−giving being sung, O father; I have set it in my Cosmos too.

Hermes: Say in the Cosmos that thy mind alone can see, my son

Tat: Yea, father, in the Cosmos that the mind alone can see; for I have been made able by thy Hymn, and by thy Praise−giving my mind hath been illumined. But further I myself as well would from my natural mind send praise−giving to God.

Hermes: But not unheedfully, my son.

Tat: Aye. What I behold in mind, that do I say. To thee, thou Parent of my Bringing into Birth, as unto God I, Tat, send reasonable offerings. o God and Father, thou art the Lord, thou art the Mind. Receive from me oblations reasonable as thou would’st wish; for by thy Will all things have been perfected.

Hermes: Send thou oblation, son, acceptable to God, the Sire of all; but add, my son, too, “through the Word” (Logos).

Tat: I give thee, father, thanks for showing me to sing such hymns.

Hermes: Happy am I, my son, that though hast brought the good fruits forth of Truth, products that cannot die. And now that thou hast learnt this lesson from me, make promise to keep silence on thy virtue, and to no soul, my son, make known the handing on to thee the manner of Rebirth, that we may not be thought to be.

The Secret Sermon on the Mountain

Tokens of unchanging truth

Rich in blossoms many tinted, grateful to the ravished eye,  Gay and green and glorious Kanka was like garden of the sky,

Rich in fruit and laden creeper and in beauteous bush and trep.  Flower-bespangled golden Lanka was like gem-bespangled sea!

Rose a palace in the woodlands girt by pillars strong and high.  Snowy-white like fair Kailasa cleaving through the azure sky,

And its steps were ocean coral and its pavement yellow gold . White and gay and heaven-aspiring rose the structure high and bold!

By the rich and royal mansion Hanuman his eyes did rest,  On a woman sad and sorrowing in her sylvan garments drest,

Like the moon obscured and clouded, dim with shadows deep and dark,  Like the smoke-enshrouded red fire, dying with a feeble spark,

Like the tempest-pelted lotus by the wind and torrent shaken,  Like the beauteous star Rohini by a graha overtaken!

Fasts and vigils paled her beauty, tears bedimmed her tender grace,  Anguish dwelt within her bosom, sorrow darkened on her face,

And she lived by Rakshas guarded, as a faint and timid deer,  Severed from her herd and kindred when the prowling wolves are near,

And her raven locks ungathered hung behind in single braid,  And her gentle eye was lightless, and her brow was hid in shade!

“This is she! the peerless princess, Rama’s consort loved and lost,  This is she! the saintly Sita, by a cruel fortune crost,”

Hanuman thus thought and pondered: “On her graceful form I spy,  Gems and gold by sorrowing Rama oft depicted with it sigh,

On her ears the golden pendants and the tiger’s sharpened tooth,  On her arms the jewelled bracelets, tokens of unchanging truth,

On her pallid brow and bosom still the radiant jewels shine,  Rama with a sweet affection did in early days entwine!

Hermit’s garments clothe her person, braided is her raven hair,  Matted bark of trees of forest drape her neck and bosom fair,

And a dower of dazzling beauty still bedecks her peerless face.  Though the shadowing tinge of sorrow darkens all her earlier grace!

This is she! the soft-eyed Sita, wept with unavailing tear,  This is she! the faithful consort, unto Rama ever dear,

Unforgetting and unchanging, truthful still in deed and word,  Sita, in her silent suffering sorrows for her absent lord,

Still for Rama lost but cherished, Sita heaves the choking sigh,  Sita lives for righteous Rama, for her Rama she would die!”

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

Strong enough to reach Elysium

‘So Orion tries the other –
One who killed the dreaded hydra –
Caught the boar of Erymanthes,
Spent a life in solid labour.

‘”Will you see, great Herakles
That we are stronger, still, together,
Strong enough to reach Elysium;
Gods are great, but we are better?

‘“Surely you, from that position –
That which marks the sun’s direction –
Could devise some plan to loosen
Ties which bind us in the heaven?

‘”Maybe you could snare the Cygnus
Or, perchance, the wild Aquila…
Else, pick up the Lyre, and swiftly;
Time does pass, but not too quickly!

‘“Now’s the time to break Olympus,
We’re the ones to end their incest;
This could be the final challenge.
Will you mark my words with interest?”

Doors once closed shall then reopen

‘Let the veils be drawn now, Hermes,
Cloak the truth, you might encrypt it.
Keep the signs but aide the journey
Of the searching soul, the mystic.

‘‘Draw thyself the hieroglyphics –
Found in space, the deep harmonic –
Bind in books our thoughts: Ellipses,
Angles, curves, through time atomic.

‘‘Water bearer, step up lightly.
By your side an angel rises;
Prince of ‘Peace’. The star burns brightly;
One for all is King and rightly.

‘‘Then, at last, shall seals be broken,
Holy words shall be respoken,
Love, in spirit, shall be woken,
Doors once closed shall then reopen.

‘‘No more bound the heart, Prometheus;
Free at last, the fire bringer.
As Pandora stands divested
Of all things but Hope, which lingers.

So Apollo’s wolf shall wander

Through the forests, undercover

Of the moon. Her golden brother

Thus returns, reveals The Lover.

Meditations on the Tarot: The High Priestess

The essence of pure mysticism is creative activity. One becomes a mystic when one dares to elevate oneself – ie, ‘to stand upright’, then even more upright, and ever more upright – beyond all created being as far as the essence of Being, the divine, creative fire.

‘Concentration without effort’ is burning without smoke or crackling fire.

On the part of the human being it is an act of daring to aspire to the supreme Reality, and this act is real and effective only when the soul is serene and the body completely relaxed – without smoke and crackling fire.

The essence of pure Gnosis is reflected mysticism. Gnosis signifies that that which takes place in mysticism has become higher knowledge. That is, gnosis is mysticism which has become conscious of itself. It is mystical experience transformed into higher knowledge.

Now, this transformation of mystical experience into knowledge takes place in stages. The first is the pure reflection or a kind of imaginative repetition of the experience. The second stage is its entrance into memory. The third stage is its assimilation in thought and feeling, in a manner where it becomes a ‘message’ or inner word. The fourth stage, lastly, is reached when it becomes a communicable symbol or ‘writing’, or ‘book’ – ie when it is formulated.

The pure reflection of mystical experience is without image and without word. It is purely movement.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter II, The High Priestess.