Chapter VIII…

Chapter VIII

In the long corridor through which Fleta had led Hilary to Father Ivan’s room there was another door, which was fastened in a very different manner. It was held in its place by iron clamps which would puzzle the beholder, for they fastened on the outside as though they secured the door of a prison instead of being any protection for the inhabitant of the room beyond. It was inside this door that Fleta was now lying down to rest for the night. Had Hilary known this what agony would have torn him! He would have felt that he must break those bars and release the prisoner within them, however supernatural the strength might be which would be needed. He was spared the sharp pain of knowing this, however, and he was not likely to learn it, for a strange sentinel patrolled the long corridor with even step—Father Ivan himself. Without any pause he went steadily to and fro.

It was about midnight that Father Ivan went into his room and glanced at a clock on the chimney-piece; not quite midnight, but very nearly. Hilary was lying awake in his room, tossing to and fro on a very luxurious and tempting bed, which gave him, however, no hope of rest. He had wandered round and round the house a dozen times, only to find himself bewildered by its strange shape, and the shrubberies which grew up close to the walls, and disheartened by the solid barricading of those windows which it was easy to approach. And yet at last he found a window wide open, and a room brightly lit; a lamp stood on the table and showed the pleasant room, well-furnished, and with a bed in it, dressed in fine linen and soft laces such as perhaps only members of an ascetic order know how to offer to their guests. Hilary stood a moment on the threshold, and then suddenly recognised it as his own room. It gave him an odd feeling, this, as if he had been watched and arranged for; treated like a prisoner. Well, it was useless to evade that dark fact—a prisoner he was. Recognising defeat for the moment, Hilary determined to accept it as gracefully as might be. He entered, closed his window and the strong shutters which folded over it, and then quickly laid himself down with intent to sleep. But sleep would not come, and he found all his thoughts and all his interest centred on Father Ivan. He tried to prevent this but could not; he chased Fleta’s image in vain—he could scarcely remember her beautiful face! What was its shape and colour? He tortured himself in trying to recall the face he loved so dearly. But always Father Ivan’s figure was before his eyes; and suddenly it struck him that this vision was almost real, for he saw Ivan raise his hand in a commanding gesture which seemed to be directed towards himself. A moment later and he fell fast asleep, like a tired child. At this moment Ivan was standing in his own room, looking for an instant at the clock. He stood, perhaps, a little longer than was needed in order to see the time; and a frown came on his fine clear forehead which drew the arched eyebrows together. Then he turned quickly, left his room, and closed its door behind him. He went to the door which was so strongly barred, and noiselessly loosened its fastenings, which swung heavily yet quite softly away from it. He opened the door and went in.

In a sort of curtained recess was a low divan, which quite filled it, rising hardly a foot from the ground. This was covered with great rugs made of bear and wolf skin. Fleta lay stretched upon them, wrapped in a long cloak of some thick white material, which was bordered all round with white fur, and, indeed, lined with it, too. And yet when Ivan stooped and touched her hand it was cold as ice.

“Come,” he said; and turning, went slowly away from her. Fleta rose and followed him. Her eyes were half-closed, and had something of the appearance of a sleep-walker’s, and yet not altogether, for though they appeared dim and unseeing yet there was purpose, and consciousness, and resolution in them. No one who had not seen Fleta before in this state could have recognised those eyes, so set and strange were they. Ivan approached a large curtained archway, and drawing the curtain aside he motioned to Fleta to pass through. As she did so he touched one of her hands, as it hung at her side. Immediately she raised it, and throwing the cloak aside showed that she held a white silk mask. Her dress beneath the cloak was of white silk. Slowly she raised the mask to her face and was about to put it on when a change of state came so suddenly upon her that it was like a tropical tornado. She opened her starry eyes wide and vivid light flashed from them; she flung the mask away upon the floor and clasped her hands violently together, while her whole frame shook with emotion.

“Why must I mask myself?” she exclaimed. “You have not told me why.”

“I have,” said Ivan, very quietly. “No woman has ever entered there till now.”

“What then?” cried Fleta, fiercely. “There is no shame in being a woman! Have I not assailed that door in vain in a different character? Now, a woman, I demand entrance. Master, I will not disguise myself.”

“Be it so,” said Ivan, “yet take the mask with you lest your mood should change again. You were willing, you remember, but a while since.”

Fleta stood motionless regarding the mask as it lay on the floor. Then she lifted her head suddenly and looked Ivan straight in the eyes.

“I will cast my sex from me, and mask my womanhood without any such help as that.”

Immediately that she had spoken Ivan walked on. They were in a long corridor, lit, and with the walls faintly coloured in pale pink on which shone some silver stars. Yet, bright though it was, this corridor seemed strangely solemn. Why was it so? Fleta looked from side to side, and could not discover. There was something new to her which she did not understand. Though she had been instructed in so many of the mysteries, and so much of the knowledge of the order, she had never entered this corridor, nor indeed had she before known of its existence. They slowly neared the end of it where was a high door made of oak, and seemingly very solidly fastened; but Father Ivan opened it easily enough.

“My God!” cried Fleta instantly, in a low voice of deep amazement. “Where am I? What country am I in? Father, was that corridor a magic place? This is no longer my own country! How far have you carried me in this short time?”

“A long way my daughter; come, do not delay.”

A vast plain, prairie-like, stretched before them, encircled on the right by the narrowing end of a huge arm of mountains which disappeared upon the far horizon. Upon the plain was one spot, was one place, where a livid flame-like light burned, and could be seen, though the whole scene was bathed in strong moonlight. Ivan commenced to rapidly take his way down a steep path which lay before them. And then Fleta became aware that they were themselves upon a height and had to descend into the plain. She did not look back; all her thoughts were centred on that vivid light which she now saw came from the windows of a great building. Then she suddenly saw that a number of persons were in the plain; although it was so large yet there were enough people to look like a crowd, which was gathering together from different directions. All were approaching the building.

“Father,” she said to Ivan, who was leading the way rapidly. “Will they go in?”

“Into the Temple? Those on the plain? Indeed no. They are outside worshippers; that crowd is in the world and of it, and yet has courage to come here often when there is no light, and the icy winds blow keen across the plain.”

“And they never enter. Why, my master, they can have no strength.”

Ivan glanced back for an instant, a curious look in his eyes.

“It is not always strength that is needed,” he said in a low voice. Fleta did not seem to hear him; her eyes were fixed on the temple windows. Suddenly she stopped and cried out:

“Is this a dream?”

“You are not asleep,” said Ivan with a smile.

“Asleep! no,” she answered, and went on her way with increased rapidity.

Very soon they stood on the plain and advanced with great speed towards the temple. Fleta was naturally hardy; but now it seemed to her that the very idea of fatigue was absurd. She could scale mountains in order to reach that light. And yet what was it in it that drew her so? None but herself could have told. But Fleta’s heart beat passionately with longing at the sight of it. Ivan turned on her a glance of compassion.

“Keep quiet,” he said.

He was answered with a look and tone of fervour.

“Yes: if it is in human power,” she replied.

The great crowds were slowly gathering towards the temple and formed themselves into masses of silent and scarcely moving figures. Fleta was now among them and though so absorbed by the idea of the goal before her, she was attracted by the strange appearance of these people. They were of all ages and nationalities, but more than two-thirds of them were men; they one and all had the appearance of sleep-walkers, seeming perfectly unconscious of the scene in which they moved and of their object in reaching it. Their whole nature was turned inwards; so it appeared to Fleta. Why then had they come to this strange place, so difficult of access, if when come they could neither see nor hear? Fleta considered these things rapidly in her mind and would again have asked an explanation of Father Ivan but that while her steps slackened a little, his had hastened. He had already reached the door of the temple—when Fleta reached it he was not there. Of course he had entered, and Fleta, without fear or hesitation, put her hand on the great bar which held the door and lifted it. It was not difficult to lift; it seemed to yield to her touch, and swung back smoothly. With a slight push the great door opened a little before her—not wide; only as far as she had pushed it. Ah! there was the light! There, in her eyes! It was like life and joy to Fleta. She turned her eyes up to gaze on it, and stood an instant with her hands clasped, in ecstacy.

Someone brushed lightly by, and, passing her, went straight in. That reminded her that she, too, desired to go straight in. She nerved herself for the supreme effort. For she was learned enough to know that only the initiate in her faith could enter that door; and she had not, in any outward form, passed the initiation. But she believed she had passed it in her soul; she had tested her emotions on every side and found the world was nothing to her; she had flung her mask away believing her woman’s shape and face to be the merest outward appearance, which would be unseen at the great moment. And now it hardly seemed as if she were a woman—she stood transfigured by the nobility of her aspirations—and some who stood on the step outside remained there awestruck by her majestic beauty. By a supreme effort she resolved to face all—and to conquer all. She boldly entered the door and went up the white marble steps within it. A great hall was before her, flooded with the clear, soft light she loved; an innumerable number of objects presented themselves to her amazed eyes, but she did not pause to look at them—she guessed that the walls were jewelled from their sparkling—she guessed that the floor was covered with flowers, which lay on a polished silver surface, from the gleaming and the colour—and who were these, the figures in silver dresses with a jewel like an eye that saw, clasped at the neck? A number came towards her. She would not allow herself to feel too exultant—she tried to steady herself—and yet joy came wildly into her heart, for she felt that she was already one of this august company. But their faces, as they gathered nearer, were all strange and unfamiliar. She looked from one to another.

“Where is Ivan?” she murmured.

Suddenly all was changed. The white figures grew in numbers till there seemed thousands—with outstretched hands they pushed Fleta down the steps—down, down, down, resist how she might. She did more! She fought, she battled, she cried aloud, first for justice, then for pity. But there was no relenting, no softening in these superhuman faces. Fleta fled at last from their overpowering numbers and inexorable cruelty, and then there came a great cry of voices, all uttering the same words;

“You love him! Go!”

Fleta fell, stunned and broken, at the foot of the outer step, and the great door closed behind her. But she was not unconscious for more than a few minutes. She opened her eyes and looked at the starry sky. Then she felt suddenly that she could not endure even that light and that the stars were reading her soul. She rose and hurried away, blindly following in any path that her feet found. It did not take her to any familiar place. She found herself in a dark wood. The moss was soft and fragrant and violets scented it. She lay down upon it, drawing her white cloak round her and hiding her eyes from the light.

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Chapter IX

It seemed to her that for long ages she was alone. Her mind achieved great strides of thought which at another time would have appeared impossible to her. She saw before her clearly her own folly, her own mistake. Yesterday she would not have credited it—yesterday it would have been unmeaning to her. But now she understood it, and understood too how heavy and terrible was her punishment; for it was already upon her. She lay helpless, her eyes shut, her whole body nerveless. Her punishment was here. She had lost all hope, all faith.

A gentle touch on her hand roused her consciousness, but she was too indifferent to open her eyes. It mattered little to her what or who was near her. The battle of her soul was now the only real thing in life to her.

A voice that seemed strangely familiar fell on her ears; yet last time she had heard it it was loud, fierce, arrogant; now it was tender and soft, and full of an overwhelming wonder and pity.

“You, Princess Fleta, here? My God! what can have happened? Surely she is not dead? No! What is it, then?”

Fleta slowly opened her eyes. It was Hilary who knelt beside her; she was lying on the dewy grass, and Hilary knelt there, the morning sun shining on his head and lighting up his beautiful boy’s face. And Fleta as she lay and looked dully at him felt herself to be immeasurably older than he was; to be possessed of knowledge and experience which seemed immense by his ignorance. And yet she lay here, nerveless, hopeless.

“What is it?” again asked Hilary, growing momently more distressed.

“Do you want to know?” she said gently, and yet with an accent of pity that was almost contempt in her tone. “You would not understand.”

“Oh, tell me!” said Hilary. “I love you—let me serve you!”

She hardly seemed to hear his words, but his voice of entreaty made her go on speaking in answer:

“I have tried,” she said, “and failed.”

“Tried what?” exclaimed Hilary, “and how failed? Oh, my Princess, I believe these devils of priests have given you some fever—you do not know what you are saying!”

“I know very well,” replied Fleta; “I am in no fever. I am all but dead—that is no strange thing, for I am stricken.” Hilary looked at her as she lay, and saw that her words were true. How strange a figure she looked, lying there so immovably, as if crushed or dead, upon the dewy grass; wrapped in her white robes. And her face was white with a terrible whiteness; the great eyes looked out from the white face with a sad, smileless gaze; and would those pale drawn lips never smile again? Was the radiant, brilliant Fleta changed for ever into this paralysed white creature? Hilary knew that even if it was so he loved her more passionately and devotedly than before. His soul yearned towards her.

“Tell me, explain to me, what has done this?” he cried out, growing almost incoherent in his passionate distress. “I demand to know by my love for you. What have you tried to do in this awful past night?”

Fleta opened her eyes, the lids of which had drooped heavily, and looked straight into his as she answered:

“I have tried for the Mark of the White Brotherhood. I have tried to pass the first initiation of the Great Order. I did not dream I could fail, for I have passed through many initiations which men regard with fear. But I have failed.”

“I cannot believe,” said Hilary, “that you could fail in anything. You are—dreaming—you are feverish. Let me lift you, let me carry you into the house.”

“Yes, I have failed,” answered Fleta dully; “failed, because I had not measured the strength of my humanity. It is in me—in me still! I am the same as any other woman in this land. I, who thought myself supreme—I, who thought myself capable of great deeds! Ah, Hilary, the first simple lesson is yet unlearned. I have failed because I loved—because I love like any other fond and foolish woman! And yet no spark of any part of love but devotion is in my soul. That is too gross. Is it possible to purge even that away? Yes, those of the White Brotherhood have done it. I will do it even if it take me a thousand years, a dozen lifetimes!”

She had raised herself from the ground as she spoke, for a new fierce passion had taken the place of the dull despair in her manner; she had raised herself to her feet, and then unable to stand had fallen on to her knees. Hilary listened yet hardly heard; only some of her words hurried into his mind. He bent down till his face touched her white cloak where it lay on the grass, and kissed it a dozen times.

“You have failed because of love? Oh, my Princess, then it is not failure! Men live for love, men die for love! It is the golden power of life. Oh, my Princess, let me take you from this terrible place—come back with me to the world where men and women know love to be the one great joy for which all else is well lost. Fleta, while I doubted that you loved me I was as wax; but now that I know you do, and with a love so great that it has power to check the career of your soul, now I am strong, I am able to do all that a strong man can do. Come, let me raise you and take you away from here to a place of peace and delight!”

He had risen to his feet and stood before her, looking magnificent in the morning sunshine. He was slight of build, yet that slightness was really indicative of strength; when Hilary Estanol had been effeminate it was because he had not cared to be anything else. He stood grandly now, his hands stretched towards her; a man, lofty, transformed by the power of love. Fleta looking at him saw in his brilliant eyes the gleam of the conquering savage. She rose suddenly and confronted him.

“You are mistaken,” she said abruptly. “It is not you that I love.”

Then, as suddenly as Fleta had moved and spoken, the man before her vanished, with his nobility, and left the savage only, unvarnished, unhumanised.

“My God,” gasped Hilary, almost breathless from the sudden blow, “then it is that accursed priest?”

“Yes,” answered Fleta, her eyes on his, her voice dull, her whole form like that of a statue, so emotionless did she seem, “it is that accursed priest.”

She moved away from him and looked about her. The spot was familiar. She was in the woodland about the monastery. She could find her way home now without difficulty. And yet how weak she was, and how hard it was to take each footstep! After moving a few paces she stood still and tried to rouse herself, tried to use her powerful will.

“Where are my servants?” she said in a low voice. “Where are those who do my bidding?”

She closed her eyes, and standing there in the sunlight, used all her power to call the forces into action which she had learned to control. For she was a sufficiently learned magician to be the mistress of some of the secrets of Nature. But now it seemed she was helpless—her old powers were gone. A low, bitter cry of anguish escaped from her lips as she realised this awful fact. Hilary, terrified by the strange sound of her voice, hastily approached her and looked into her face. Those dark eyes, once so full of power, were now full of an agony such as one sees in the eyes of a hunted and dying creature. Yet Fleta did not faint or fail, or cling to the strong man who stood by her side. After a moment she spoke, with a faint yet steady voice.

“Do you know the way to the gate?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Hilary; who indeed had but recently explored the whole demesne.

“Take my hand,” she said, “and lead me there.”

She used her natural power of royal command now; feeble though she was, she was the princess. Hilary did not dream of disobeying her. He took the cold and lifeless hand she extended to him, and led her as quickly as was possible over the grass, through the trees and flowering shrubs, to the gateway. As they neared it she spoke:

“You are to go back to the city,” she said. “Do not ask why—you must go; yet I will tell you this—it is for your own safety. I have lost my power—I can no longer protect you, and there are both angels and devils in this place. I have lost all! all! And I have no right to risk your sanity as well as my own. You must go.”

“And leave you here?” said Hilary, bewildered.

“I am safe,” she answered proudly. “No power in heaven or earth can hurt me now, for I have cast my all on one stake. Know this, Hilary, before we part; I shall never yield or surrender. I shall cast out that love that kills me from my heart—I shall enter the White Brotherhood. And, Hilary, you too will enter it. But, oh! not yet! Bitter lessons have you yet to learn! Good-bye, my brother.”

The sentinel who guarded the gate now approached them in his walk; Fleta moved quickly towards him. After a few words had passed between them he blew a shrill, fine whistle. Then he approached Hilary.

“Come,” he said, “I will show you the way for some distance and will then obtain you a horse and a guide to the city.”

Hilary did not hesitate in obeying Fleta’s commands; he knew he must go. But he turned to look once more into her mysterious face. She was no longer there. He bowed his head, and silently followed the monk through the gate into the outer freedom of the forest.

Fleta meantime crept back to the house through the shelter of the trees. Her figure looked like that of an aged woman, for she was bowed almost double and her limbs trembled as she moved. She did not go to the centre door of the house, but approached a window which opened to the ground and now stood wide. It was the window of Fleta’s own room; she hurried towards it with feeble, uncertain steps. “Rest! Rest! I must rest!” she kept murmuring to herself. But on the very threshold she stumbled and fell. Someone came immediately to her and tried to raise her. It was Father Ivan. Fleta disengaged herself, tremblingly yet resolutely. She rose with difficulty to her feet and gazed very earnestly into his face.

“And you knew why I should fail?” she said.

“Yes,” he answered, “I knew. You are not strong enough to stand alone amid the spirit of humanity. I knew you clung to me. Well have you suffered from it. I know that very soon you will stand alone.”

“Of what use would that mask have been?” demanded Fleta, pursuing her own thoughts.

“None. If you had obeyed me and worn it you would have been of so craven a spirit you could never have reached the temple, never have seen the White Brotherhood. You have done these things, which are more than any other woman has accomplished.”

“I will do yet more,” said Fleta. “I will be one of them.”

“Be it so,” answered Ivan. “To do so you must suffer as no woman has yet had strength to suffer. The humanity in you must be crushed out as we crush a viper beneath our feet.”

“It shall be. I may die, but I will not pause. Good-bye, my master. As I am a queen in the world of men and women, so you are king in the world of soul, and to you I have done homage; that homage they call love. It is so, perhaps. I am blind yet, and know not. But no more may you be my king. I am alone, and all knowledge I gain I must now gain myself.”

Ivan bowed his head as if in obedience to an unanswerable decree, and in a moment had walked away among the trees. Fleta watched him stonily till he was out of sight, then dragged herself within the window to fall helplessly upon the ground, shaken by sobs and strong shudders of despair.

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Chapter X

It was late in the day before Fleta again came out of her room. She seemed to have recovered her natural manner and appearance; and yet there was a change in her which anyone who knew her well must see. She had not been into the general rooms, or greeted the other guests; nor did she do so now. Her face was full of resolution, but she was calm, at all events externally. Without going near the guest rooms or the great entrance hall, she made her way round the house to where a very small door stood almost hidden in an angle of the wall. It was such a door as might lead to the cellars of a house, and when Hilary had explored the night before he had scarcely noticed it. But it was exceedingly solid and well fastened. Fleta gave a peculiar knock upon it with a fan which she carried in her hand. It was immediately opened, and Father Amyot appeared.

“Do you want me?” he asked.

“Yes; I want you to go on an errand for me.”

“Where am I to go?”

“I do not know; probably you will know. I must speak to one of the White Brotherhood.”

Amyot’s face clouded and he looked doubtfully at her.

“What is there you can ask that Ivan cannot answer?”

“Does it matter to you?” said Fleta imperiously. “You are my messenger, that is all.”

“You cannot command me as before,” said Father Amyot.

“What! do you know that I have failed? Does all the world know it?”

“The world?” echoed Amyot, contemptuously. “No; but all the Brotherhood does, and all its servants do. No one has told me, but I know it.”

“Of course,” said Fleta to herself. “I am foolish.” She turned away and walked up and down on the grass, apparently buried in deep thought. Presently she raised her head suddenly, and quickly moved towards Amyot, who still stood motionless in the dim shadow of the little doorway. She fixed her eyes on him; they were blazing with an intense fire. Her whole attitude was one of command.

“Go,” she said.

Father Amyot stood but for a moment; and then he came out slowly from the doorway, shutting it behind him.

“You have picked up a lost treasure,” he said. “You have found your will again. I obey. Have you told me all your command?”

“Yes. I must speak to one of the White Brothers. What more can I say? I do not know one from another. Only be quick!”

Instantly Amyot strode away over the grass and disappeared. Fleta moved slowly away, thinking so deeply that she did not know any one was near her till a hand was put gently on her arm. She looked up, and saw before her the young king, Otto.

“Have you been ill,” he asked, looking closely into her face.

“No,” she answered. “I have only been living fast—a century of experience in a single night! Shall I talk to you about it, my friend?”

“I think not,” answered Otto, who now was walking quietly by her side. “I may not readily understand you. I am anxious above all to advance slowly and grasp each truth as it comes to me. I have been talking a long time to-day to Father Ivan; and I feel that I cannot yet understand the doctrines of the order except as interpreted through religion.”

“Through religion?” said Fleta. “But that is a mere externality.”

“True, and intellectually I see that. But I am not strong enough to stand without any external form to cling to. The precepts of religion, the duty of each towards humanity, the principle of sacrifice one for another, these things I can understand. Beyond that I cannot yet go. Are you disappointed with me?”

“No, indeed,” answered Fleta. “Why should I be.”

Otto gave a slight sigh as of relief. “I feared you might be,” he answered; “but I preferred to be honest. I am ready, Fleta, to be a member of the order, a devout member of the external Brotherhood. How far does that place me from you who claim a place among the wise ones of the inner Brotherhood.”

Fleta looked at him very seriously and gravely.

“I claim it,” she said; “but is it mine? Yet I will win it, Otto; even at the uttermost price, I will make it mine.”

“And at what cost?” said Otto. “What is that uttermost price?”

“I think,” she said slowly, “I already feel what it is. I must learn to live in the plain as contentedly as on the mountain tops. I have hungered to leave my place in the world, to go to those haunts where only a few great ones of the earth dwell, and from them learn the secret of how to finally escape from the life of earth altogether. That has been my dream, Otto, put into simple words; the old dream of the Rosicrucian and those hungerers after the occult who have always haunted the world like ghosts, unsatisfied, homeless. Because I am a strong-willed creature, because I have learned how to use my will, because I have been taught a few tricks of magic I fancied myself fitted to be one of the White Brotherhood. Well, it is not so. I have failed. I shall be your queen, Otto.”

The young king turned on her a sudden look full of mingled emotions. “Is that to be, Fleta? Then may I be worthy of your companionship.”

Fleta had spoken bitterly, though not ungently. Otto’s reply had been in a strange tone, that had exultation, reverence, gladness, in it; but not any of the passion which is called love. A coquette would have been provoked by a manner so entirely that of friendship.

“Otto,” said Fleta, after a moment’s pause, during which they had walked on side by side. “I am going to test your generosity. Will you leave me now?”

“My generosity?” exclaimed Otto. “How is it possible for you to address me in that way?” Without any further word of explanation he turned on his heel and walked quickly away. Fleta understood his meaning very well; she smiled softly as she looked for a moment after him. Then, as he vanished, her whole face changed, her whole expression of attitude, too. For a little while she stood quite still, seemingly wrapt in thought. Then steadily and swiftly she began to move across the grass and afterwards to thread her way through the trees. Having once commenced to move, she seemed to have no hesitation as to the direction in which she was going. And, indeed, if you had been able to ask her how she knew what path to take, she would have answered that it was very easy to know. For she was guided by a direct call from Amyot, as plainly heard as any human voice, though audible only to her inner hearing. To Fleta, the consciousness of the double life—the spiritual and the natural—was a matter of constant experience, and, therefore, there was no need for the darkness of midnight to enable her to hear a voice from what ordinary men and women call the unseen world. To Fleta it was no more unseen than unheard. She saw at once, conquering time and space, the spot where she would find Father Amyot at the end of her rapid walk; and more, the state she would find him in. The sun streamed in its full power and splendour straight on the strange figure of the monk, lying rigidly upon the grass. Fleta stood beside him and looked down on his face, upturned to the sky. For a little while she did nothing, but stood there with a frown upon her forehead and her dark eyes full of fierce and changing feeling. Amyot was in one of his profound trances, when, though not dead, yet he was as one dead.

“Already my difficulties crowd around me,” exclaimed Fleta aloud. “What folly shall I unknowingly commit next? My poor servant—dare I even try to restore you—or will Nature be a safer friend?”

Full of doubt and hesitation, she turned slowly away and began to pace up and down the grass beside the figure of the priest. Presently she became aware that she was not alone—some one was near her. She started and turned quickly. Ivan stood but a pace from her, and his eyes were fixed very earnestly upon her.

He was not dressed as a priest, but wore a simple hunting dress, such as an ordinary sportsman or the king incognito might wear. Simple it was, and made of coarse materials; but its easy make showed a magnificent figure which the monkish robes had disguised. His face had on it a deep and almost pathetic seriousness; and yet it was so handsome, so nobly cut, and made so brilliant by the deep blue eyes, which were bluer than their wont now, even in the full blaze of the sun—that in fact as a man merely, here stood one who might make any woman’s heart, queen or no queen, beat fiercely with admiration. Fleta had never seen him like this before; to her he had always been the master, the adept in mysterious knowledge, the recluse who hid his love of solitude under a monkish veil. This was Ivan! Young, superb, a man who must be loved. Fleta stood still and silent, answering the gaze of those questioning, serious blue eyes, with the purposeful, rebellious look which was just now burning in her own. The two stood facing each other for some moments, without speaking—without, as it seemed, desiring to speak. But in these moments of silence a measuring of strength was made. Fleta spoke first.

“Why have you come?” she demanded. “I did not desire your presence.”

“You have questions to ask which I alone can answer.”

“You are the one person who cannot answer them, for I cannot ask them of you.”

“It is of me that you must ask them,” was all Ivan’s reply. Then he added: “It is of me you have to learn these answers. Learn them by experience if you like, and blindly. If you care to speak, you shall be answered in words. This will spare you some pain, and save you years of wasted time. Are you too proud?”

There was a pause. Then Fleta replied deliberately:

“Yes, I am too proud.”

Ivan bowed his head and turned away. He stooped over Father Amyot, and taking a flask from his pocket, rubbed some liquid on the monk’s white and rigid lips.

“I forbid you,” said Ivan, “to use your power over Amyot again.”

“You forbid me?” repeated Fleta in a tone of profound amazement. Evidently this tone was entirely new to her.

“Yes, and you dare not disobey me. If you do, you will suffer instantly.”

Fleta looked the amazement which was evidently beyond her power to express in words. Ivan’s manner was cold, almost harsh. Never had he addressed her without gentleness before. Hastily she recovered herself, and without pausing to address to him any other word she turned away and went quickly through the trees and back to the house. Otto was standing at one of the windows; she went straight to him.

“I wish to go back to the city at once,” she said, “will you order my horses?”

“May I come with you?”

“No, but you may follow me to-morrow if you like.”

(To be continued.)

SPECULATION.

Man’s reasoning faith can outlive and can ride O’er countless speculations. Navies float On changeful waves, and for this ark-like boat Winds from all quarters, every swelling tide Will serve. By all the virgin spheres that glide Like timid guests across sky-floor we note Where lies the pole-star. Those who only quote Their compass, fail, and antique charts must slide To error, in this shifting sand of thought And new-found science, where sweet isles of palm And olive sink, that were as land-marks sought, While others rise from Ocean’s fertile bed. No storm, nor heat, nor cold I fear; my dread Is lest the ship should meet a death-like calm.

REVOLUTION.

Ah! wondrous happy rounding universe Where suns and moons alike as tears e’er mould Themselves to beauteous circles! He that rolled The planets, curved their paths; though seas immerse Both shattered ship and shell, naught shall escape Th’ inevitable wheel that must restore The seeming lost. The potent buried lore Of saint and sage revives to melt and shape Our thoughts to comeliness, and souls that leave Earth’s shores float back as craft that cruising sails; Each blessed gift that hourly from us flies, God will rain down albeit in other guise;— And e’en the very dew-drop noon exhales May find again the self-same rose at eve.

MARY W. GALE.

TWILIGHT VISIONS.

“At evening time there shall be light.” —ZECH. xiv., 7.

The day’s work done, I cast my pen aside And rose, with aching eye and troubled brain, Thinking how oft my fellow workers here Have suffered in the flesh for labours wrought In love to all mankind; and how the world Cares nought for words which teach not of itself; For to the world, itself is all in all, And nought outside it can the world conceive As real and true. And yet this earth must cease To be for ever to each mortal, when The Spirit casts off earth, and, in new life Will feel and know the world to be the vale Of deathly shadows compass’d round about With ignorance and error, sin and crime, With yearnings, longings, miseries, and griefs, And all that makes the “Breath of Lives” to seem As Angels wrestling with the powers of hell.

* * * *

A gentle Spirit with the twilight came And rested on my soul; then hope with peace, Long since to me as strangers, touched my heart, And, sitting at the organ, soft and sweet There streamed a flow of harmony, tho’ I Scarce seemed to touch the keys, yet simple hymns Called forth a train of Spirits bright and young, Amongst them saw I all that I had known And loved in days when life seem’d sweet to me. I was a child again, and saw myself As such—no aching eye—no troubled brain Had that young being who in faith and hope Sang songs of holiness, of peace and truth— There, resting on his Mother’s breast, with arms Clasped round her neck, with loving eyes that watched The loving face, whereon a parent’s smile Was ever present in the days now past, Now buried in the dust with former things.

* * * *

In saddened notes swelled forth “Thy will be done!” And then appeared a radiant spirit form Of one who, as a babe, was called away, From out this world of wretchedness and sin. An infant—which scarce breathed upon the earth Ere God, in His great mercy, took her home To dwell with Him, and she, an Angel bless’d, Now looks in pity on her parents here, A weeping witness of the vacant lives Which in the world their souls are forced to pass As, hung’ring for the love of One in heaven They stagger on from day to day in doubt— In misery, which none but they can know.

* * * *

Some cursed bonds can ne’er be snapped in twain, Save death or sin alone be brought to bear To shatter human customs hard and vile, And false and horrible as hell itself. For man exists in darkness, bound by laws Which curse and damn his very soul on earth; Mankind will not accept the Master’s words Or listen to His cry within the soul. And so the world in falsehood wanders on And dooms the inner Man of Light again To suffer crucifixion in the flesh; The Trinity—of Wisdom, Love and Truth— The Christ, is absent from this “Christian” World And ignorance with hatred lies and sin Reign rampant in their infidel abode.

* * * *

“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.” O Lord! we suff’ring mortals here on earth Have nought but Thee, Thou Guide of all mankind To lead us in our wand’rings, and to turn Our falt’ring footsteps from the way of death; Thy Angels true are sent to fainting souls, And lovingly their voices soft are heard Peace! troubled hearts, hereafter all shall be Made up in heaven. Know that sufferings Are sent in love that we may minister, To all your needs, and bear you safely home To that good land ordained for all mankind— The kingdom bright—of happiness and love, Whereon your lives shall ever be a rest In one long summer day of light and joy. No mortal e’er can comprehend the peace Of God, which shall be yours, when, from the world Your glorious inner beings stand apart For ever! Soon shall you know all that we Would tell you now—yet hope and struggle on. “At evening time there shall be Light! and then— The Living Light shall lead you home to God, Home to the place which He hath made,—’tis yours For ever! We are sent to tell you this And by the Mighty One we do not lie!

* * * *

“O Glorious Angels of our Loving God! Pray tell us if this land, we fain would know, Contains the dear ones we have loved on earth? For what were heaven e’en to us, if we Could nevermore be all in all to those Who when on earth were all in all to us!” A voice replied—’twas one I oft have heard And learned to love with more than mortal love, “Look up, my own! and see me with thee now For ever on this earth. If then ’tis so, How canst thou think that I shall ever be Apart from thee in heav’n—the land of love Wherein alone life’s consummation finds A fullness in its own eternal self? For God is all—thus He is life and love And love eternal is the power that welds Each atom in the universal chain Of infinite expanse throughout the skies— Which ever shows to godly men on earth The Power of powers that reigneth over all!”

* * * *

Then in the gloom a glorious form appeared, And, standing by my side, it pressed its lips Upon the troubled brow which none could calm On earth, save she who was beside me then. And so an Angel from our loving God Came down to comfort, in the eventide— To show, by light of love, God’s holy truth, Which from the world—in darkness—hath been hid Because the world in darkness will exist, And, living thus, man sins against himself And so against his loving God of Life. The promised Light appeared at evening time, And by its living rays did I perceive— Mankind to wander on in sin and shame; Thus HELL prevails to-day where heaven should be....

WM. C. ELDON SERJEANT.

London, 6th December, 1887.

ESOTERICISM OF THE CHRISTIAN DOGMA.

CREATION AS TAUGHT BY MOSES AND THE MAHATMAS.

BY THE ABBÉ ROCA (Honorary Canon).

[Extracts translated from the “LOTUS” Revue des Hautes Etudes Theosophiques. Journal of “Isis,” the French Branch of The Theosophical Society. December, 1887. Paris, George Carrés, 58, Rue St André des Arts.—VERBAL TRANSLATION.]

I.

Thanks to the light which is now reaching us from the far East through the Theosophical organs published in the West, it is easy to foresee that the Catholic teaching is about to undergo a transformation as profound as it will be glorious. All our dogmas will pass from “the letter which killeth” to “the spirit which giveth life,” from the mystic and sacramental to the scientific and rational form, perhaps even to the stage of experimental methods.

The reign of faith, of mystery and of miracle, is nearing its close; this is plain and was, moreover, predicted by Christ himself. Faith vanishes from the brains of men of science, to make way for the clear perception of the essential truths which had to be veiled at the origin of Christianity, under symbols and figures, so as to adapt them, as far as possible, to the needs and weaknesses of the infancy of our faith.

Strange! It is at the very hour when Europe is attaining the age of reason, and when she is visibly entering upon the full possession of her powers, that India prepares to hand on to us those loftier ideas which exactly meet our new wants, as much from the intellectual, as from the moral, religious, social and other standpoints.

One might believe that the “BROTHERS” kept an eye from afar on the movements of Christendom, and that from the summits of their Himalayan watch towers, they had waited expectantly for the hour when they would be able to make us hear them with some chance of being understood....

It is certain that the situation in the West is becoming more and more serious. Everyone knows whence comes the imminence of the catastrophe which threatens us; hitherto men have only evoked the animal needs, they have only awakened and unchained the brute forces of nature, the passional instincts, the savage energies of the lower Kosmos. Christianity does indeed conceal under the profound esotericism of its Parables, those truths, scientific, religious, and social, which this deplorable situation imperiously demands, but sad to say, sad indeed for a priest, hard, hard indeed for Christian ears to hear, all our priesthoods, that of the Roman Catholic Church equally with those of the Orthodox Russian, the Anglican, the Protestant, and the Anglo-American churches, seem struck with blindness and impotence in face of the glorious task which they would have to fulfil in these terrible circumstances. They see nothing; their eyes are plastered and their ears walled up. They do not discover; one is tempted to say, they do not even suspect what ineffable truths are hidden under the dead letter of their teachings.

Say, is it not into that darkness that we are all stumbling, in State and in Church, in politics as in religion! A double calamity forming but one for the peoples, which suffer horribly under it, and for our civilisation which may be shipwrecked on it at any moment. May God deliver us from a war at this moment! It would be a cataclysm in which Europe would break to pieces in blood and fire, as Montesquieu foresaw: “Europe will perish through the soldiers, if not saved in time.” We must escape from this empiricism and this fearful confusion. But who will save us? The Christ, the true Christ, the Christ of esoteric science.[126] And how? Thus: the same key which, under the eyes of the scientific bodies, shall open the secrets of Nature, will open their own intellects to the secrets of true Sociology; the same key which, under the eyes of the priesthoods, shall open the Arcana of the mysteries and the gospel parables, will open their intellects to these same secrets of Sociology. Priests and savants will then develope in the radiance of one and the same light.

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Footnote 126:

“The Christ of esoteric science” is the Christos of Spirit—an impersonal principle entirely distinct from any carnalised Christ or Jesus. Is it this Christos that the learned Canon Roca means?—[ED.]

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And this key—I can assert it, for I have proved it in application to all our dogmas—THIS KEY IS THE SAME WHICH THE MAHATMAS OFFER AND DELIVER TO US AT THIS MOMENT.[127]

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Footnote 127:

The capitals are our own; for these “Mahatmas” are the real Founders and “Masters” of the Theosophical Society.—[ED.]

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There is here an interposition of Providence, before which we should all of us offer up our own thanksgivings. For my part, I am deeply touched by it; I feel I know not what sacred thrill! My gratitude is the more keen since, if I confront the Hindu tradition with the occult theosophic traditions of Judeo-Christianity, from its origin to our own day, through the Holy Kabbala, I can recognise clearly the agreement of the teaching of the “Brothers” with the esoteric teaching of Moses, Jesus, and Saint Paul.

People are sure to say: “You abase the West before the East, Europe before Asia, France before India, Christianity before Buddhism. You are betraying at once your Country and your Church, your quality as a Frenchman, and your character as a Priest.” Pardon me, gentlemen! I abase nothing whatever; I betray nothing at all! A member of Humanity, I work for the happiness of Humanity; a son of France, I work for the glory of France; a Priest of Jesus Christ, I work for the triumph of Jesus Christ. You shall be forced to confess it; suspend, therefore, your anathemas, and listen, if you please!

We are traversing a frightful crisis. For the last hundred years we have been trying to round the Cape of Social Tempests, which I spoke of before; we have been enduring, without intermission, the fires, the lightnings the thunders, and the earthquakes of an unparalleled hurricane, and we feel, clearly enough, that everything is giving way around us; under our feet and over our heads! Neither pontiffs, nor savants, nor politicians, nor statesmen, show themselves capable of snatching us from the abysses towards which we are being, one is tempted to say, driven by a fatality! If, then, I discover, in the distant East, through the darkness of this tempest, the blessed star which alone can guide us, amidst so many shoals, safe and sound to the longed-for haven of safety, am I wanting in patriotism and religion because I announce to my brethren the rising of this beneficent star?...

I know as well as you that it was said to Peter: “I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, that thou mayest open its gates upon earth”; yes, doubtless, but note the tense of this verb: I will give thee: in the future. Has the Christian Pontiff already received them—those magic Keys? Before replying look and see what Rome has made of Christendom; see the lamentable state of Europe; not only engaged in open war with foreign nationalities, but also exhausting herself in fratricidal wars and preparations to consummate her own destruction; behold everywhere Christian against Christian, church against church, priesthood against priesthood, class against class, school against school, and, often in the same family, brother against brother, sons against their father, the father against his sons! What a spectacle! And a Pope presides over it! And while, all around, men prepare for a general slaughter, he, the Pope, thinks only of one thing—of his temporal domain, of his material possessions! Think you that this state of things forms the Kingdom of Heaven, and say you still that the Pontiff of Rome has already received the Keys thereof?

It is written, perchance, in the decrees of Providence, that these mysterious Keys shall be brought to the brethren of the West by the “Brothers” of the East.... Such is, indeed, the expectation of all the nations; the prophetic East sighs for the tenth incarnation of Vishnu, which shall be the crown of all the Avatars which have preceded it, and the Apocalypse, on its side, announces the appearance of the White Horse which is the symbol of the Christ risen, glorious and triumphant before the eyes of all the peoples of the earth.

This is how I, priest of Jesus Christ, betray Jesus Christ, when I acclaim the wisdom of the Mahatmas and their mission in the West!

I have spoken of the opportuneness of the hour chosen by them for coming to our help. I must insist upon this point.

[The Abbé then enforces his argument by references to the position of Modern Science, and concludes:—TR.]

“The phenomena of motion,” by means of which men of science claim to explain everything, explain nothing at all, because the very cause of that motion is unknown to our physicists as they themselves admit. “Consider, say to us the Mahatmas by the mouth of their Adepts, that behind each physical energy is hidden another energy, which itself serves as envelope to a spiritual force which is the living soul of every manifested force.”

And thus Nature offers us an infinite series of forces one within another, serving mutually as sheaths, which, as d’Alembert suspected, produce all sensible phenomena and reach all points of the circumference starting from a central point, which is God....

II.

I can now, after these preliminaries, give an example of the transformation which, thanks to the Mahatmas, will soon take place in the teaching of the Christian Church. I will take particularly the dogma of the Creation, informing my readers that they will find in a book I am preparing, The New Heavens and the New Earth, an analogous work on all the dogmas of the Catholic faith.

Matter exists in states of infinite variety, and, sometimes, even of opposite appearance. The world is constituted in two poles, the North or Spiritual, and the South or Material pole: these two poles correspond perfectly and differ only in form, that is, in appearance.

Regarded from above, as the Easterns regard it, the universal substance presents the aspect of a spiritual or divine emanation; looked at from below, as the Westerns are in the habit of viewing it, it offers, on the contrary, the aspect of a material creation.

One sees at once the difference which must exist between the two intellectualities and, consequently, between the two civilisations of the East and the West. Yet there is no more error in the Genesis of Moses, which is that of the Christian teaching, than there is in the Genesis of the Mahatmas, which is that of the Buddhist doctrine. The one and the other of these Geneses are absolutely founded on one and the same reality. Whether one descends or ascends the scale of being, one only traverses, in the East from above downwards, in the West from below upwards, the same ladder of essences, more or less spiritualised, more or less materialised, according as one approaches to, or recedes from, Pure Spirit, which is God.

It was, therefore, not worth while to fulminate so much on one side or the other, here, against the theory of emanation, there, against the theory of Creation. One always comes back to the principle of Hermes Trismegistus: the universe is dual, though formed of a single substance. The Kabbalists knew it well, and it was taught long ago in the Egyptian sanctuaries, as the occultists have never ceased to repeat it in the temples of India.

It will soon be demonstrated, I hope, by scientific experiments such as those of Mr. William Crookes, the Academician, that everywhere, throughout all nature, spirit and matter are not two but one, and that they nowhere offer a real division in life. Under every physical force there is a spiritual or a psychic force: in the heart of the minutest atom is hidden a vital soul, the presence of which has been perfectly determined by Claude Bernard in germs imperceptible to the naked eye. “This soul, human, animal, vegetal or mineral, is but a ray lent by the universal soul to every object manifested in the Kosmos.”

“Corporeal man and the sensible universe, says the theosophical doctrine, are but the appearance imparted to them by the cohesion of the interatomic or inter-astral forces which constitute both exteriorly. The visible side of a being is an ever-changing Maya.” The language of St. Paul is in no way different: “The aspect of the world,” he says, “is a passing vision, an image which passes and renews itself continually—transit figura hujus mundi.”

“The real man, or the microcosm—and one can say as much of the macrocosm—is an astral force which reveals itself through this physical appearance, and which, having existed before the birth of this form, does not share its fate at the hour of death: surviving its destruction. The material form cannot subsist without the spiritual force which sustains it; but the latter is independent of the former, for form is created by spirit, and not spirit by form.”

This theory is word for word that of the “Brothers” and the Adepts, at the same time it is that of the Kabbalists and the Christians of the School of Origen, and the Johannine Church.

There could not be a more perfect agreement. Transfer this teaching to the genesis of the Kosmos and you have the secret of the formation of the World; at the same time you discover the profound meaning of the saying of St. Paul: “The invisible things of God are made visible to the eye of man through the visible things of the creation,” a saying so well translated by Joseph de Maistre by the following: “The world is a vast system of invisible things, visibly organised.”

The whole of the Kosmos is like a two-faced medal of which both faces are alike. The materialists know only the lower side, while the occultists see it from both sides at once; from the front and from the back. It is always nature, and the same nature, but natura naturata from below, natura naturans from above; here, intelligent cause; there, brute effect; spiritual above, corporeal below, etherealised at the North, concreted at the South Pole.

The distinction accepted everywhere in the West down to our own day, as essential and radical, between spirit on the one hand and matter on the other, is no longer sustainable. The progress of science, spurred on as it will be by Hindu ideas, will soon force the last followers of this infantile belief to abandon it as ridiculous....

Yes, all, absolutely all in the world is life, but life differently organised and variously manifested through phenomena which vary infinitely from the most spiritualised beings, such as the Angels, as well known to Buddhists as to Christians, though called by other names, down to the most solidified of beings, such as stones and metals. In the bosom of the latter, sleep, in a cataleptic condition, milliards of vital elementary spirits. These latter only await, to thrill into activity, the stroke of the pick or hammer to which they will owe their deliverance and their escape from the limbus, of which the Hindu doctrine speaks as well as the Catholic. Here lies, for these souls of life, the starting point of the Resurrection and of the Ascension, taught equally by both the Eastern and the Western traditions, but not understood among us.

[_The Abbé sketches in eloquent words the development of these “spirits of the elements,” and then continues_:—TR.]

But as they ascend, so the spirits can also descend, for they are always free to transfigure themselves in the divine light, or to bury themselves in the satanic shadow of error and evil. Hence, while time is time, “these ceaseless tears and gnashings of teeth” of which the gospel Parables speak metaphorically, and which will last as long as shall last the elaboration of the social atoms destined for the collective composition of the beatific Nirvana.

Nature is ever placing under our eyes examples of organic transformations, analagous to those I am speaking of, as if to aid us in comprehending our own destiny. But it seems that many men “have eyes in order not to see,” as Jesus said. See how in order to remove these cataracts, science, even in the West, constantly approaching more and more that of the East, is at work producing in its turn phenomena, which corroborate at once the Parables of the Gospels and the teachings of nature. I will not speak of the Salpêtrière and the marvels of hypnotism in the hands of M. Charcot and his numerous disciples throughout the whole world. There are things which strike me even more.

M. Pictet, at Geneva, is creating diamonds with air and light. This should not astonish those who know that our coal mines are nothing but “stored-up sunlight.” With an even more marvellous industry, do not the flowers extract from the atmosphere the luminous substance of which they weave their fine and joyous garments? And “all that is sown in the earth under a material form, does it not rise under a spiritual form,” as St. Paul says?

The glorious entities, which we call celestial spirits, have themselves an organic form. It is defined in the canons of our dogma, whatever the ignorance-mongers of ultramontanism may pretend. God alone has no body, God alone is pure Spirit—and even to speak thus we must consider the Deity apart from the person of Jesus Christ, for in the “Word made flesh” God dwells corporeally, according to the true and beautiful saying of St. Paul.

And it is because God has no body that he is present everywhere in the infinite, under the veils of cosmic light and ether, which serve as his garment and under the electric, magnetic, interatomic, interplanetary, interstellar and sound fluids, which serve him as vehicles....

And it is also because God has no created form that the Kabbala could, without error, call him Non-Being. Hegel probably felt this esoteric truth when he spoke, in his heavy and cumbrous language, of the equivalence of Being and Non-Being.

All visible forms are thus the product, at the same time as they are the garment and the manifestation, of spiritual forces. All sensible order is, in reality, an organic concretion, a sort of living crystallisation of intelligent powers fallen from the state of spirituality into the state of materiality; in other words, fallen from the North to the South pole of nature, in consequence of a catastrophe called by Holy Scripture the Fall from Eden. This cataclysm was the punishment of a frightful crime, of an audacious revolt spoken of in the traditions of all Temples and called in our dogma original sin. The primary priesthood of the Christian church has hitherto lacked the light needed to explain this biological phenomenon, which is an ascertained fact of physiology and sociology, as I hope to prove. Questioned on this point, the priests have always replied: It is a mystery. Now there are no mysteries save for ignorance, and the Christ announced that “every hidden thing should be brought to light, and proclaimed on the house-tops.”

This is why so many new lights, coming from the East and elsewhere, enter scientifically, in our day, into the Christian mind. Glory to the Theosophists, glory to the Adepts, glory to the Kabbalists, glory above all to the Hermetists everywhere, glory to those new missionaries whose coming M. de Maistre foresaw, and whom M. de Saint-Ives d’Alveydre lately hailed as the elect of God, charged by him to establish a communion of knowledge and of love between all the religious centres of the earth!

Priests of the Roman Catholic Church, we shall enter in our turn this wise communion of saints, on the day when we shall consent to read anew our sacred texts, no longer in “the dead letter” of their exotericism, but in the “living spirit” of their esotericism, and in the threefold sense which Christian tradition has always canonically recognised in them.

L’ABBE ROCA (Chanoine).

Chateau de Pallestres, France.

[This is a very optimistic way of putting it, and if realized would be like pouring the elixir of life into the decrepit body of the Latin Church. But what will his Holiness the Pope say to it?—ED.]

THE GREAT QUEST.

CONTINUED from the December (1887) number.

The Religionist, of course, denies that man can become a god or ever realise in himself the attributes of Deity. He may recognise the necessity of re-incarnation for ordinary worldly men, and even for those who are not constant in their detachment and devotion, but he denies the necessity for that series of trials and initiations which must cover, at all events, more than one life-time—probably many. It would appear as if the theory of evolution might be called in, to aid this latter view. If it is acknowledged that we, as individuals, have been for ever whirling on the wheel of conditioned existence; if at the beginning of each manwantara the divine monad which through the beginningless past has inhabited in succession the vegetable, animal, and human forms, takes to itself a house of flesh in exact accordance with previous Karma, it will be seen that (while inhabiting a human body) during no moment in the past eternity have we been nearer the attainment of Nirvana than at any other. If then there is no thinkable connection between evolution and Nirvana, to imagine that evolution, through stages of Adeptship, conducts to Nirvana, is a delusion. “It is purely a question of divine grace”—says the Religionist. If in answer to this view, it is contended that the light of the Logos is bound, eventually, to reach and enlighten every individual, and that the steady progress to perfection through Chelaship and Adeptship would, therefore, be a logical conclusion, it is objected that to assert that the light of the Logos must eventually reach and enlighten all, would involve the ultimate extinction of the objective Universe, which is admitted to be without beginning or end, although it passes through alternate periods of manifestation and non-manifestation. If to escape from this untenable position we postulate fresh emanations of Deity into the lowest organisms at the beginning of each manwantara, to take the place of those who pass away into Nirvana, we are met by other difficulties. Firstly, putting out of consideration the fact that such a supposition is expressly denied by what is acknowledged as revelation, the projection into the evolutionary process of a monad free from all Karma, makes the law of Karma inoperative, for the monad’s first association with Karma remains unexplained; and also it becomes impossible to say what the monad was, and what was the mode of its being prior to the projection into evolution. It must be noted that although the law of Karma does not explain why we are, yet it satisfactorily shows how we are what we are; and this is the raison d’être of the law. But the above theory takes away its occupation. It makes Karma and the monad independent realities, joined together by the creative energy of the Deity, while Karma ought to be regarded as a mode of existence of the monad—which mode ceases to be when another mode, called liberation, takes its place. Secondly, if the monad in attaining liberation only attains to what it was before its association with Karma, à quoi bon the whole process; while, if it is stated that the monad was altogether non-existent before its projection, the Deity becomes responsible for all our sufferings and sins, and we fall into either the Calvinist doctrine of predestination as popularly conceived, or into the still more blasphemous doctrine of the worshippers of Ahriman, besides incurring many logical difficulties. The teaching of our eastern philosophers is that the real interior nature of the monad is the same as the real interior essence of the Godhead, but from beginningless past time it has a transitory nature, considered illusive, and the mode in which this illusion works is known by the name of Karma.

But were we not led astray in the first instance? Ought we not to have acquiesced in the first above given definition of the theory of evolution? The premiss was satisfactory enough—the mistake was in allowing the religionist’s deduction as a logical necessity. When the religionist states that there is no thinkable connection between evolution and Nirvana, he merely postulates for the word evolution a more limited scope than that which the Occultist attaches to it, viz., the development of soul as well as that of mere form. He is indeed right in stating that the natural man, while he remains such, will never attain the ultimate goal of Being. True it is, for the Occultist as for the religionist, that, to free himself from the fatal circle of rebirths, he must “burst the shell which holds him in darkness—tear the veil that hides him from the eternal.” The religionist may call this the act of divine grace; but it may be quite as correctly described as the “awakening of the slumbering God within.” But the error of the religionist is surely in mistaking the first glimmer of the divine consciousness for a guarantee of final emancipation, at, say, the next death of the body, instead of merely the first step of a probationary stage in the long vista of work for Humanity on the higher planes of Being!

To provide ourselves with an analogy from the very theory of Evolution which we have been discussing, is it not more logical to imagine that, in the same way in which we see stretched at our feet the infinite gradations of existence, through the lower animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms—between which indeed, thanks to the recent investigations of scientific men—there is no longer recognised to be any distinct line of demarcation—so the heights (necessarily hidden from our view) which still remain to be scaled by us in our upward progress to Divinity, should be similarly filled with the gradations of the unseen hierarchy of Being? And that, as we have evolved during millions of centuries of earth-life through these lower forms up to the position we now occupy, so may we, if we choose, start on a new and better road of progress, apart from the ordinary evolution of Humanity, but in which there must also be innumerable grades?

That there will be progress for Humanity as a whole, in the direction of greater spirituality, there is no doubt, but that progress will be partaken of by continually decreasing numbers. Whether the weeding out takes place at the middle of the “great fifth round,” or whether it be continually taking place during the evolutionary process, a ray of light is here thrown on the statement met with in all the Bibles of Humanity as to the great difficulty of the attainment. “For straight is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it; but wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction, and many there be that go in thereat.” This and parallel passages doubtless refer to the weeding out of those who are unfit to continue the progress, on which the more spiritualized Humanity will then have entered. The most vivid picture of the comparative handful of elect souls, who are fit to achieve the great quest, will be obtained by contemplating the fact already stated, that the objective universe, with its myriads of inhabitants, will never, in the vast abysses of the future, cease to be; and that the great majority of humanity—the millions of millions—will thus for ever whirl on the wheel of birth and death.

But though Nature may give us an almost infinite number of chances to attempt the great quest, it were madness to put by the chance offered now, and allow the old sense-attractions to regain their dominance, for it must be remembered that the barbarism and anarchy which every civilisation must eventually lapse into, are periods of spiritual deadness, and that it is when “the flower of civilisation has blown to its full, and when its petals are but slackly held together,” that the goad within men causes them to lift their eyes to the sunlit mountains, and “to recognise in the bewildering glitter the outlines of the Gates of Gold.”

There are no doubt realms in the Devaloka where the bliss of heaven may be realised by those who aspire to the selfish rewards of personal satisfaction, but these cease to exist with the end of the manwantara, and with the beginning of the next the devotee will again have to endure incarceration in flesh. The eighth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita does indeed state that there is a path to Nirvana through the Devaloka, and amongst the countless possibilities of the Infinite who shall assert that this is not so? but the context surely implies such a detachment and devotion through life as is difficult for us even to contemplate, much less to realize.

However distant, therefore, may appear to us the achievement of the great quest, when we consider how much more closely we are allied to the animal than to the God, it must necessarily seem an infinitely far-off goal, but though we may have to pass through many life-times before we reach it, our most earnest prayer should be, that we may never lose sight of that celestial goal, for surely it is the one thing worthy of achievement!

To many the foregoing may appear as mere speculations, and the firmest faith indeed can scarcely call itself knowledge, but, however necessary the complete knowledge may be, we may at least hope that its partial possession is adequate to the requirements of the occasion. To us whose feet tread, often wearily, towards the path of the great quest, and whose eyes strain blindly through the mists that wrap us round, steady perseverance and omnipotent hope must be the watch-words—perseverance to struggle on, though the fiends of the lower self may make every step a battle, and hope that at any moment the entrance to the path may be found.

As an example of these two qualities, and also because all words that strike a high key are bound to awaken responsive echoes in noble hearts, let us conclude with the following extract from the Ramayana:—

“Thus spoke Rama. Virtue is a service man owes himself, and though there were no heaven nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of life. It is man’s privilege to know the right and follow it. Betray and persecute me brother men! Pour out your rage on me O malignant devils! Smile, or watch my agony in cold disdain ye blissful Gods! Earth, hell, heaven combine your might to crush me—I will still hold fast by this inheritance! My strength is nothing—time can shake and cripple it; my youth is transient—already grief has withered up my days; my heart—alas! it is well-nigh broken now. Anguish may crush it utterly, and life may fail; but even so my soul that has not tripped shall triumph, and dying, give the lie to soulless destiny that dares to boast itself man’s master.”

“PILGRIM.”

WHISPER OF A ROSE.

Behold me! an offspring of Darkness and Light. With soft, tender petals of radiant white, With golden heart mystery, full of perfume That is Soul of my Breath—the Secret of Bloom.

Infinity’s centre is heart of the rose, And th’ breath of Creation its perfume that flows Through ages and eons and time yet untold— But the Soul of the Breath I may not unfold.

MORA.

THE SECLUSION OF THE ADEPT.

[CONTINUATION OF “COMMENTS ON LIGHT ON THE PATH,” BY THE AUTHOR.]

“Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters, it must have lost the power to wound.”

Those who give a merely passing and superficial attention to the subject of occultism—and their name is Legion—constantly inquire why, if adepts in life exist, they do not appear in the world and show their power. That the chief body of these wise ones should be understood to dwell beyond the fastnesses of the Himalayas, appears to be a sufficient proof that they are only figures of straw. Otherwise, why place them so far off?

Unfortunately, Nature has done this and not personal choice or arrangement. There are certain spots on the earth where the advance of “civilisation” is unfelt, and the nineteenth century fever is kept at bay. In these favoured places there is always time, always opportunity, for the realities of life; they are not crowded out by the doings of an inchoate, money-loving, pleasure seeking society. While there are adepts upon the earth, the earth must preserve to them places of seclusion. This is a fact in nature which is only an external expression of a profound fact in super-nature.

The demand of the neophyte remains unheard until the voice in which it is uttered has lost the power to wound. This is because the divine-astral life[128] is a place in which order reigns, just as it does in natural life. There is, of course, always the centre and the circumference as there is in nature. Close to the central heart of life, on any plane, there is knowledge, there order reigns completely; and chaos makes dim and confused the outer margin of the circle. In fact, life in every form bears a more or less strong resemblance to a philosophic school. There are always the devotees of knowledge who forget their own lives in their pursuit of it; there are always the flippant crowd who come and go——Of such, Epictetus said that it was as easy to teach them philosophy as to eat custard with a fork. The same state exists in the super-astral life; and the adept has an even deeper and more profound seclusion there in which to dwell. This place of retreat is so safe, so sheltered, that no sound which has discord in it can reach his ears. Why should this be, will be asked at once, if he is a being of such great powers as those say who believe in his existence? The answer seems very apparent. He serves humanity and identifies himself with the whole world; he is ready to make vicarious sacrifice for it at any moment—by living not by dying for it. Why should he not die for it? Because he is part of the great whole, and one of the most valuable parts of it. Because he lives under laws of order which he does not desire to break. His life is not his own, but that of the forces which work behind him. He is the flower of humanity, the bloom which contains the divine seed. He is, in his own person, a treasure of the universal nature, which is guarded and made safe in order that the fruition shall be perfected. It is only at definite periods of the world’s history that he is allowed to go among the herd of men as their redeemer. But for those who have the power to separate themselves from this herd he is always at hand. And for those who are strong enough to conquer the vices of the personal human nature, as set forth in these four rules, he is consciously at hand, easily recognised, ready to answer.

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Footnote 128:

Of course every occultist knows by reading Eliphas Levi and other authors that the “astral” plane is a plane of unequalised forces, and that a state of confusion necessarily prevails. But this does not apply to the “divine astral” plane, which is a plane where wisdom, and therefore order, prevails.

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But this conquering of self implies a destruction of qualities which most men regard as not only indestructible but desirable. The “power to wound” includes much that men value, not only in themselves, but in others. The instinct of self-defence and of self-preservation is part of it; the idea that one has any right or rights, either as citizen, or man, or individual, the pleasant consciousness of self-respect and of virtue. These are hard sayings to many; yet they are true. For these words that I am writing now, and those which I have written on this subject, are not in any sense my own. They are drawn from the traditions of the lodge of the Great Brotherhood, which was once the secret splendour of Egypt. The rules written in its ante-chamber were the same as those now written in the ante-chamber of existing schools. Through all time the wise men have lived apart from the mass. And even when some temporary purpose or object induces one of them to come into the midst of human life, his seclusion and safety is preserved as completely as ever. It is part of his inheritance, part of his position, he has an actual title to it, and can no more put it aside than the Duke of Westminster can say he does not choose to be the Duke of Westminster. In the various great cities of the world an adept lives for a while from time to time, or perhaps only passes through; but all are occasionally aided by the actual power and presence of one of these men. Here in London, as in Paris and St. Petersburgh, there are men high in development. But they are only known as mystics by those who have the power to recognise; the power given by the conquering of self. Otherwise how could they exist, even for an hour, in such a mental and psychic atmosphere as is created by the confusion and disorder of a city? Unless protected and made safe their own growth would be interfered with, their work injured. And the neophyte may meet an adept in the flesh, may live in the same house with him, and yet be unable to recognise him, and unable to make his own voice heard by him. For no nearness in space, no closeness of relations, no daily intimacy, can do away with the inexorable laws which give the adept his seclusion. No voice penetrates to his inner hearing till it has become a divine voice, a voice which gives no utterance to the cries of self. Any lesser appeal would be as useless, as much a waste of energy and power, as for mere children who are learning their alphabet to be taught it by a professor of philology. Until a man has become, in heart and spirit, a disciple, he has no existence for those who are teachers of disciples. And he becomes this by one method only—the surrender of his personal humanity.

For the voice to have lost the power to wound, a man must have reached that point where he sees himself only as one of the vast multitudes that live; one of the sands washed hither and thither by the sea of vibratory existence. It is said that every grain of sand in the ocean bed does, in its turn, get washed up on to the shore and lie for a moment in the sunshine. So with human beings, they are driven hither and thither by a great force, and each, in his turn, finds the sunrays on him. When a man is able to regard his own life as part of a whole like this he will no longer struggle in order to obtain anything for himself. This is the surrender of personal rights. The ordinary man expects, not to take equal fortunes with the rest of the world, but in some points, about which he cares, to fare better than the others. The disciple does not expect this. Therefore, though he be, like Epictetus, a chained slave, he has no word to say about it. He knows that the wheel of life turns ceaselessly. Burne Jones has shown it in his marvellous picture—the wheel turns, and on it are bound the rich and the poor, the great and the small—each has his moment of good fortune when the wheel brings him uppermost—the King rises and falls, the poet is fêted and forgotten, the slave is happy and afterwards discarded. Each in his turn is crushed as the wheel turns on. The disciple knows that this is so, and though it is his duty to make the utmost of the life that is his, he neither complains of it nor is elated by it, nor does he complain against the better fortune of others. All alike, as he well knows, are but learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist and the reformer who endeavour by sheer force to re-arrange circumstances which arise out of the forces of human nature itself. This is but kicking against the pricks; a waste of life and energy.

In realising this a man surrenders his imagined individual rights, of whatever sort. That takes away one keen sting which is common to all ordinary men.

When the disciple has fully recognised that the very thought of individual rights is only the outcome of the venomous quality in himself, that it is the hiss of the snake of self which poisons with its sting his own life and the lives of those about him, then he is ready to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open to all neophytes who are prepared for it. All weapons of defence and offence are given up; all weapons of mind and heart, and brain, and spirit. Never again can another man be regarded as a person who can be criticised or condemned; never again can the neophyte raise his voice in self-defence or excuse. From that ceremony he returns into the world as helpless, as unprotected, as a newborn child. That, indeed, is what he is. He has begun to be born again on to the higher plane of life, that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence the eyes see intelligently and regard the world with a new insight.

I have said, a little way back, that after parting with the sense of individual rights, the disciple must part also with the sense of self-respect and of virtue. This may sound a terrible doctrine, yet all occultists know well that it is not a doctrine, but a fact. He who thinks himself holier than another, he who has any pride in his own exemption from vice or folly, he who believes himself wise, or in any way superior to his fellow men, is incapable of discipleship. A man must become as a little child before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Virtue and wisdom are sublime things; but if they create pride and a consciousness of separateness from the rest of humanity in the mind of a man, then they are only the snakes of self re-appearing in a finer form. At any moment he may put on his grosser shape and sting as fiercely as when he inspired the actions of a murderer who kills for gain or hatred, or a politician who sacrifices the mass for his own or his party’s interests.

In fact, to have lost the power to wound, implies that the snake is not only scotched, but killed. When it is merely stupefied or lulled to sleep it awakes again and the disciple uses his knowledge and his power for his own ends, and is a pupil of the many masters of the black art, for the road to destruction is very broad and easy, and the way can be found blindfold. That it is the way to destruction is evident, for when a man begins to live for self he narrows his horizon steadily till at last the fierce driving inwards leaves him but the space of a pin’s-head to dwell in. We have all seen this phenomenon occur in ordinary life. A man who becomes selfish isolates himself, grows less interesting and less agreeable to others. The sight is an awful one, and people shrink from a very selfish person at last, as from a beast of prey. How much more awful is it when it occurs on the more advanced plane of life, with the added powers of knowledge, and through the greater sweep of successive incarnations!

Therefore I say, pause and think well upon the threshold. For if the demand of the neophyte is made without the complete purification, it will not penetrate the seclusion of the divine adept, but will evoke the terrible forces which attend upon the black side of our human nature.

. . . . . .

“Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.”

The word soul, as used here, means the divine soul, or “starry spirit.”

“To be able to stand is to have confidence;” and to have confidence means that the disciple is sure of himself, that he has surrendered his emotions, his very self, even his humanity; that he is incapable of fear and unconscious of pain; that his whole consciousness is centred in the divine life, which is expressed symbolically by the term “the Masters;” that he has neither eyes, nor ears, nor speech, nor power, save in and for the divine ray on which his highest sense has touched. Then is he fearless, free from suffering, free from anxiety or dismay; his soul stands without shrinking or desire of postponement, in the full blaze of the divine light which penetrates through and through his being. Then he has come into his inheritance and can claim his kinship with the teachers of men; he is upright, he has raised his head, he breathes the same air that they do.

But before it is in any way possible for him to do this, the feet of the soul must be washed in the blood of the heart.

The sacrifice, or surrender of the heart of man, and its emotions, is the first of the rules; it involves the “attaining of an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotion.” This is done by the stoic philosopher; he, too, stands aside and looks equably upon his own sufferings, as well as on those of others.

In the same way that “tears” in the language of occultists expresses the soul of emotion, not its material appearance, so blood expresses, not that blood which is an essential of physical life, but the vital creative principle in man’s nature, which drives him into human life in order to experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow. When he has let the blood flow from the heart he stands before the Masters as a pure spirit which no longer wishes to incarnate for the sake of emotion and experience. Through great cycles of time successive incarnations in gross matter may yet be his lot; but he no longer desires them, the crude wish to live has departed from him. When he takes upon him man’s form in the flesh he does it in the pursuit of a divine object, to accomplish the work of “the Masters,” and for no other end. He looks neither for pleasure nor pain, asks for no heaven, and fears no hell; yet he has entered upon a great inheritance which is not so much a compensation for these things surrendered, as a state which simply blots out the memory of them. He lives now not in the world, but with it; his horizon has extended itself to the width of the whole universe.

Δ

THE WHITE MONK.

By the Author of the “Professor of Alchemy.”

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