Esoteric Christianity and mental therapeutics

Front matter

m»

MENTAL THEEAPEUTICS.

BY

Chapter I

THE RECEPTIVE SIDE OF HUMAN NATURE AND THE TRUE METHOD OF ACQUIRING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.

The human mind is dual. There is an active, intellectual department of our being, and a passive and receptive nature, and the union of the two constitute the mind. The one is masculine ; the other, feminine. This bipartite division extends down through the three discrete degrees of the mind, and even into the body. The function of the oue is to act ; of the other, to receive and to react. When we turn the receptive and passive intellect towards the realm of light, the " intelligible world," the light of truth will flow in according to our degree of receptivity. In this way, the Hermetic philosophers of all ages and countries claimed to be able to learn all that is known or ever was known ; for it all exists in the world of ideas and in the universal Christ, and the Christ within us is in vital communication with it. This turning the receptive side of our mental nature towards the world of light is, in reality, the highest and most effectual form of prayer. The passive soul, with voiceless longing and in tranquil waiting, stands in silence as flowers turn toward the sun to receive its vivifying light and heat. A desire of spiritual knowledge for the sake of some beneficent use constitutes an affinitive attraction for it as certainly as a fading flower attracts the dew of heaven. The mother side of the soul, or the feminine element in man and woman, which is a finite limitation of a universal, formless, receptive principle, is the receptacle and continent of all ideas, and from the world of ideas knowledge may flow into it. Thus we acquire knowledge by absorption, as a dry substance in contact with water will imbibe that element and become saturated with it.

Of the universal mother principle, which was one of the most occult doctrines of the Hermetists of all ages, Plato, in the Timceus, speaks as ' ' that nature which is the general receptacle of all bodies. For it never departs from its own proper power, but perpetually receives all things ; and never contracts any form in any respect similar to any one of the intromitted forms. It lies indeed in subjection to the forming power of every nature, being agitated and figured through the supernally intromitted forms, and through these it exhibits a different appearance at different times. Bat the forms which enter and depart from this receptacle are the imitations of perpetually true beings, and are figured by them in a manner wonderful and difficult to describe, as we shall afterwards relate. At present, however, it is necessaiy to consider three sorts of things : one, that which is generated ; another, that in which it is generated ; and the third, that from which, the generated nature derives its similitude. But it is proper to assimilate (or compare) that which receives to a mother ; that from whence it receives, to a father ; and the nature situated between these, to an offspring."

This receptive nature and absorptive principle is in eveiy one of us. But in receiving knowledge into itself, it must be prepared, or, as Plato says, " it is necessary that the receptacle which is destined to receive all possible forms (or ideas) should itself be destitute of every form (that is, made, as it were, a vacuum). Just as those who are about to prepare sweet-smelling unguents, so dispose a certain humid matter, as the subject of the ensuing odor, that it may possess no peculiar smell of its own ; and as those who wish to impress certain figures in a soft and yielding substance (as a wax tablet) are careful that it may not appear impressed with any previous figure, but render it as much as possible exquisitely smooth. In the same manner, it is necessary that the subject which is so often destined to receive in a beautiful manner, through the whole of itself, resemblances of eternal beings (or ideas) should be naturally destitute of all that which it receives." It then becomes a formless universal recipient. (Works of Plato, translated by Thomas Taylor, pp. 487, 488.)

Such is the recipient capacity of the soul. The person who has thus learned to imbibe knowledge from its inexhaustible fountain and repository is no longer like the man who has to carry his empty bucket to fill it from his neighbor's well, but has in himself a well of the living water of truth springing up into everlasting life. He has given up the vain and restless search abroad for what he can only find within. He has learned that heaven opens inward. Spiritual truth does not come to us from without ; but from the infinite inner depths of our own being which are in communication with the universal Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col. ii : 3.)

There is one-half of our dual nature, the feminine moiety in man and woman, that is, in its absorptive capacity, a boundless and passive receptivity, which, when turned towards the ever-present realm of pure intellectual light, receives it into itself ; and the union gives birth in us to ideas which are flowers from the garden of God made up of celestial light and dew.

All true education is a spiritual development. Spiritual knowledge is imparted, not by verbal discourse merely, but by the silent influence of mind upon mind. It is a principle that has always been recognized in the world, that one mind, by the influence of its silent sphere, can lift another mind to a higher intellectual level. This is a truth taught by Plato. Sokrates, in his dialogue with Theages (a w r ord which signifies Divine Guidance), tells this story of Aristides, in illustration of the silent communication of knowledge from one mind to another. "I will tell you, Sokrates," says Aristides, " a thing incredible, but nevertheless true. I made a great proficiency when I associated with you, even if I w r as only in the same house, though not in the same room ; but more so when I was in the same room ; and much more when I looked at you. But I made by far the greatest proficiency when I sat near }^ou and touched you."

This has always been a method of instruction piactised by the Hindu adepts in teaching the neophyte the principles of their occult philosophy. The chela, or scholar, is subjected to the psychological influence of the guru, or teacher, who aims to impart to him knowledge through the Universal Mind. The disciple waits upon the master in a spirit of emptiness, and the intellectual sphere of the teacher's mind fills the vacuum. This is a method of education and of acquiring spiritual knowledge entirely unrecognized in our Western systems of instruction, but has long been known in the Orient, and was practised hy Jesus, and belongs to Christianity. The influence of the still living personality of Jesus, when we come into sympathetic (or psychometric) relations with him, is called the Paraclete, or spirit of truth, which was promised, to teach us all things and guide us into all truth. Jesus teaches more in this way than he ever did by verbal discourse. Jesus came into the world that we might have life, and have it in abundance. As some one htis said: "The Scriptures teach, and it is woven into the entire structure of the New Testament, that when Jesus Christ came, there was, through and by him, such a giving of life to souls as made all previous giving seem naught." He lays down his life for men ; in other words, he imparts his life, intellectual and moral, to us. He, as an incarnation of the universal Christ, came to be a quickening or vivifying spirit, in a degree that no one else ever was ; not as being the only one who is an example of the blending of the life of God with the life of man, but as depositing his own life in his disciples, and that life icas his life as he icas after the resurrection and ascension. The religion of Jesus Christ stands apart from all other religions, and has as its characteristic and distino'uishins; feature that he can and does lodge himself, and incorporate and repeat himself, in his true disciples ; so that they no longer live a mere natural life, but a supernatural life, a life so little their own that Paul could affirm in truth: "I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but the Christ liveth in me." (Gal. ii : 20.)

Through Jesus we come into communication with the Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The best schooling we can get in the principles of esoteric Christianity is an hour's communion every day with Jesus. We may in this way not only imbibe the light of the higher world, but its life also. Through Jesus, as a mediating personage, we may come into a living communication with the universal and only saving principle, which his name signifies and represents. Just as if we were in the foul, poisonous air of a dungeon, and a tube should be let down, communicating with the upper and purer air — the air of immensity. Through this we can breathe the breath of life, the pure ail of the boundless heavens. So in Jesus we have a communication with the Christ realm, and with the only saving, healing principle.

1G ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY

But Jesus is not a mere external and historic person, but an everywhere present saving principle, which, as being universal, or a one thing which is in all things, is in us. It is, in fact, the principle or faculty of Intuition, the passive and feminine intellect; and the development of this is the first step towards the attainment of spiritual life and knowledge. It is not good for the man in us to be alone. The rational intellect by itself is insufficient. Hence, God is represented as saying, I will make him a help, or a governing or ruling principle (as the word may mean) meet for him, or, as more literally rendered, that answers to him.

Intuition is the birth or evolution of the woman in man, that which is highest, and comes next to God. Its development in man is symbolized by the dove coming upon him. Of Jesus it is said, at the time of his entrance upon his Messianic work, at the age of thirty years (a mystic number) , that the heavens were opened unto him, and lie saw the Spirit of God descending and coming upon him in the form or quality of a dove, the Hermetic representative of the receptive feminine intellect, the Intuition. (Matt, iii : 1G, 17.) It is man's highest guide to truth either in earth or heaven. It is the only faculty in man through which divine revelation comes, or ever has come. By means of it we gain access to an interior and permanent region of knowledge, where are stored up all the truths which were ever known or can be known, — the universal Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. By Swedenborg it was improperly called perception. By it we attain to righteousness or a divine rectitude of thought and certitude of truth. For it is the ineffable Word, the voice of God in man. The expression in the Old Testament, —

" I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High,"

and which Jesus approves in its application to the spirit of

AMD MENTAL THERAPEUTICS. 17

man, has a peculiar significance in this connection. It has ever been a doctrine of the esoteric philosophy and religion of all ages and nations, that each immortal spirit is a direct emanation from the "Unknown God," a personal limitation of the Universal Spirit, who is the father of all spirits, as the ocean is of all the drops that compose it. ( Each individual spirit is not God, but a god, and is possessed of all the attributes of its parent source, among which are omniscience and omnipotence. The spirit of man from its inseparable connection with God is possessed of a godlike wisdom, and has deific powers. As Paul has said, when his words are correctly rendered (as John Locke long ago showed) , '-Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness which has been manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and received up in glory." (1 Tim. iii : 1G.)

In seeking for spiritual knowledge we are to look only within. "Man's true good," as Henry James remarks, "never comes from without him, but only from the depths of Divinity within him." The true orc/anon or method of acquiring transcendental truth, is that mode of the mind's action termed the intuition. Following this supreme light of the spirit, and turning the mind inward upon itself towards its divine centre, man comes into such relations with his own immortal Self, the animd divina, as to be able to receive from that source the knowledges of things that belong to the realm of pure intelligence, and of truths which the higher soul was supposed by Plato to have acquired before her incarnation or descent into matter. By giving this prominence to the intuition, we would not imply any disparagement of the rational intellect, for it is only through this latter that the truths of the intuition can be reproduced and expressed in language. The intellect must be developed and cultivated to the utmost, not as the instrument of discovering, o but of communicating truth. Perfecting and combining these two departments of our being, the rational intellect and the spirit, which is the union of the masculine and feminine in man, he attains to the highest knowledge which it is possible for the human mind in this world to reach ; for man thus knows God, and to know God is to have and to be God, and " the gift of God is eternal life." {The Virgin of the World, of Hermes Trismegistus, p. 15.)

In the progress of our spiritual development we may reach a point where we need no external teacher, u for the anointing that you have received abideth in you, and you have no need that any man teach you, for the anointing (or overshadowing of the spirit) teacheth you concerning all things, for it is the spirit of truth itself." (1 John ii : 27.) The Universal Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are sons of God, and if sons, then heirs ; heirs of God and jointheirs with the Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Rom. viii : 1G, 17.) The spirit of man searches out all things ; yea, the deep things of God. It is the spring of all inspiration and revelation. (1 Cor. ii:9-lG.) As our individual spirit has a voice, so lias the Universal Spirit, in whom we are included. Let us turn the inward ear towards the "speaking silence" to receive the soundless word, " the deep and calm revealing." If with a sincere desire to know the truth, and live the truth, and use it for the good of mankind, and not from a mere idle curiosity or for the sake of gain, we are found listening at the door of the temple of wisdom and the " halls of learning," the door will be unlocked and thrown open to us, and we may enter in and read the records of the hidden wisdom, which God appointed before the ages for our glorification. It is only in the deep silence of the soul that God speaks. Silence is the bosom of the Infinite Life, and contains the indelible record of all the truth that ever entered the mind of man.

" Silence is the heart of all tilings; sound the fluttering of its pulse, Which the fever and the spasm of the universe convulse. Every sound that breaks the silence only makes it more profound, Like a crash of deafening thunder in the sweet, blue stillness

drowned ; Let thy soul walk softly in thee, as a saint in heaven unshod, For to be alone with silence, is to be alone with God."

(Beyond the Sunrise, p. 80.)

j It is not in the noise and bustle of the city with its tainted moral atmosphere, nor in the marts of trade with their sphere of falsehood and selfishness, that spiritual truth is best learned ; but rather in the solitude of mountain summits and the deep stillness of primeval forests, where we are alone with nature and with God. The prophets and sages of all nations have known and taught this. To gain the truth, they turned the receptive side of their dual nature towards the world of pure intelligence, and placed a listening ear close to the lips of the living, speaking silence to receive the inner word. Instruction from others may prepare the way for this, but can never be a substitute for it. All the deepest experiences of the human mind tend to silence. There are desires that cannot be uttered (or worded). (Rom. viii : 26.) There is an ecstasy of love that seals the lips ; a rapt devotional frame that is dumb ; an inward craving for truth, and gravitation of the soul toward it, that can find no words to express it, but turns die soul toward God like the flower toward the sun. Says that little gem of a book. Light on the Path, "In time you will need no teacher. For as the individual has voice, so lias that in which the individual exists. Life itself has speech and is never silent. And its utterance is not, as you who are deaf may suppose, a cry : it is a song. Learn from it that you are a part of the harmony ; learn from it to obey the laws of the harmony." "When the outward senses are conquered and their reign broken, and the inner senses are opened, as will be the case in time, we can wrest from all the objects of nature their hidden secrets.\ The world becomes a book on which is written the history of man.

When the outer senses are subdued, and made subservient to the perceptions of the celestial man or mind, we may ask for the lessons of wisdom which the "inhabitants of Zion," the spirits of just men made perfect, or the spiritually enlightened of this world and the world above have to impart to us. For the truly regenerate man is in hailing nearness to the celestial realms, and in sympathetic and receptive rapport with all enlightened mind in the world. But above all, let us turn the mind inward toward the secret place of the Most High, or the Divine Inmost, to receive the secret of the Lord which is given to them that reverentially adore him. (Ps. xxv:14.) The highest truths of religion and philosophy are received only by an inward revelation ; in other words, by intuition. The lesser mysteries may be communicated by instruction, which is only the interpretation of sacred symbols. The greater mysteries, or spiritual truths, can be received only by the "still small voice" within, which is the "Word of the Lord," the manifestation of the Logos, that came to the prophets, and still comes to men. The secret doctrines of the Jews, which are essentially the same as the "hidden wisdom" of the Hindus, the Egyptians, and the Chaldeans, were called the Kabala, which means reception, because they are truths received by an inward revelation, or unveiling, as the word means, of what is already in the inmost degree of the mind. It is an apocalypse, or uncovering, of the hidden treasures of man's inmost being. The Masora and the Talmud are only traditional instruction handed down from generation to generation ; in other words, it is only public opinion, an uncertain and unsafe guide, and which, when crystallized into a permanent form, is called the law. The higher wisdom which comes only from the Christ within is called grace. In our search, for the hidden wisdom let us study the case of Elijah at Horeb, who represents to us the method of acquiring spiritual truth practised by the greater Hebrew prophets. When the great wind rent the mountain and broke the rocks in pieces before Elijah, he could not see God in the wind, nor in the earthquake which followed the wind, nor in the fire that followed the earthquake. These were only effects of the divine presence in nature. But after the fire tihere came a "still small voice"; and when the prophet heard that, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went to the mouth of the cave, and in " a speechless awe that dares not move," stood before the Lord to receive in silence the inner word. (1 Kings xix : 11-13.) It is only in this "sound of gentle stillness" that the Most High (or Divine Inmost) utters his voice in the soundless and ineffable Word, the inward Logos, the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

" So to the calmly gathered thought The innermost of truth is taught."

A true faith stands before Jehovah — who is represented on earth by Jesus — in the deep silence of an adoring love. and holds out its empty hand to receive the life and light he is more than willing to give. From within outward, and from the higher region of our mental nature to the lower, expresses the law and order of spiritual development.

" Why idly seek from outward things The answer inward silence brings?

Why stretch beyond our proper sphere And age for that which lies so near ?

Why climb the far-off hills with pain A nearer view of heaven to gain? "

e

Chapter II. Trust As A Saving Or Healing Power

It is said by Jesus, that " the Son (or the individual spirit and soul of man) can of himself do nothing, except what he seeth the Father doing." (John v:19, 20.) The universal Christ principle, the first emanation from the "Unknown " is the supreme saving and healing power. It is the manifested God. In his (or its) relation to the Supreme Divine Essence, he is the first begotten and only begotten Son. In his relation to us and to all below him, he is the Father, for all manifested life is in him, and goes forth from him. Its characteristic property is an irrepressible tendency to impart itself, and like heat and light which symbolize" it in the world of nature, to radiate itself. In curing others, we can only execute the function of mediators between this universal principle and the diseased and unhappy ones to whom we minister. Through us, as a channel of communication, it may come into them. We can do nothing better than this to heal the souls and bodies of men. An undeviating and trustful conformity to the operation of this principle in the world of nature and mind is the highest law of health. The individual and creaturely will must be surrendered to and be merged in the universal will. For the will is the principle of conjunction, and that by which we come into oneness with the Father. Two persons who will in opposite directions i are not and cannot be one. Willing in the same direction, they become, as it were, one life in two personalities.

On the subject of trust, the Christian Hindu, Mozoomdar, very truly says: "Trust, as a facult} 7 of the soul, passes almost without recognition. Yet, in spiritual life, it is a cardinal, vital power. It is not a mere feeling. Though its relation to all warmth of sentiment be very deep, it is a positive organ of strength." {Oriental Christ, p. 141.) Blessed is the man who has risen from the life of sense, through the life of faith, to the life of trust. Trust is the opposite of fear, which is the fertile root of most diseases.

It is a truth, and a great truth, that there is a divine saving principle, a universally diffused, and consequently ever accessible intelligent and loving Life, that exhibits an endeavor to impart itself and its saving blessedness to everything that breathes. This universal saving principle (or Divine Personage, if we prefer thus to conceive it) lies beyond the apprehension of the senses, and consequently must be perceived and appropriated by faith, and taken up into our individual being by real prayer ; not the noisy supplications that clamorous lips pour forth, but a passive attitude of the mind. It comes to seek and save that which is lost, or to restore to man all that has dropped out of his existence and which is necessary to the realization of the divine idea in him. It is represented and signified by the name of Jesus. It is a principle (and in thought becomes limited in a personality) of pure spiritual intelligence, united to its correlative, pure love, which in conjunction constitute it a living substance and force. If we will assume towards it, or him, an attitude of passive trust, it will save us. But how am I to do this? Suppose I desired and needed to warm myself by the light of the sun, how could I do so? The process is simple. I should expose nryself to the light and heat of the sun and let it warm me. I should make no effort to cause it to shine, but simply hold myself passively exposed to its vivifying rays. This is the only effort of will that is neces- .sary. If there was any obstruction, any opaque substance, between me and the sun, I should remove it. I should take away every screen which could obscure the sun's rays ; and then it would shine upon me and penetrate me with its living warmth, even without my asking or entreating it to do so, but by simply trusting it in silence.

This universal saving principle is the same as the to ayaOoy of Plato, the supreme and eternal Goodness, the Christ of Paul, " a divine human principle " and person. As it is not only good, but goodness itself, it can do to and for us nothing contrary to its nature. We are to trust in it, as an infant reposes on the bosom of the maternal love. An infant's life is bound up in the life of the mother. So our true being is included in this principle represented by the name of Jesus. It has an affinity for all sinful and diseased humanit}'. It not only can be prevailed upon to save us, but it yearns to save. We need only to hold the soul passively open and upward to imbibe its life.

In our efforts to cure others by the mental and spiritual method, we are to identify ourselves with it, and consecrate ourselves to its use, as an organ of communication between it and the patient. Even though we may not speak ourselves the word of life, we can be the silent telephonic wire, through which the vivifying inner word may be spoken to a patient.

This only saving, healing principle in the universe is identical with the sun of the spiritual world, as described by Swedenborg, and which he defines as the proximate emanation from the " invisible God." It is the Kabalistic sun of righteousness (or spiritual truth) which arises in our souls with healing in its wings (or elevating power). (Malachi iv : 2.) Its light is the highest intelligence that can come to men, and its heat is a celestial love ; and the two in conjunction, and set over against each other in the mystic balance, make it pure life, a divinely vivific principle. (See my Divine Law of Cure, pp. 58-GO.)

On the reception of this saving influence by assuming toward it an attitude of passive trust, I said in my Celestial Dawn, published twenty-three years ago. "Let us behold this great truth, this divine arcanum, or heavenly mystery, in an outward symbol addressed to sense. One of the greatest works of ancient Egypt, surpassing even the pyramids, was the Lake of Moeris, an artificial excavation four hundred and fifty miles in circumference, and three hundred feet in depth, and designed to receive the sacred waters of the Nile, to be used in fertilizing the surrounding lands. Between it and the river there was an obstructing barrier of earth, which was opened by a channel cut through it. Then the waters flowed of their own accord, and by a law of their nature, into the lake and filled it to its utmost capacity. Now the Nile — and the same is true of all rivers — mystically represented the Divinity, and was a symbol of an emanative principle and influence, a rema, as it is called in the Scriptures, a flowing forth from the Deity. In the Hindu religious symbolism rivers had the same significance and sacred character. The Lake of Mceris represents the human soul, made to be a recipient of the divine nature and life." So in esoteric Judaism, rivers were sacred symbols. Says the Psalmist, " There is a river (an emanative principle of pure intelligence and life) the streams whereof (or that go forth from it) shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Mosc High." (Psalm xlvi : 4.) And this river, which represents and signifies the outflowing of the divine love and wisdom, is always full of the water of life (Psalm lxv : 9) ; and when every barrier is removed, and we hold the soul passively and unresistingly open to receive, it will flow in and fill the finite spirit with its illuminating and saving influx.