(Anna Kingsford, The Perfect Way, Extracts from Lecture 8, 1882) 7. Although Redemption, as a whole, is one, the
process is manifold, and consists in a series of acts, spiritual and
mental. Of this series, the part wherein the individual finally surrenders his
own exterior will, with all its exclusively material desires and
affections, is designated the Passion. And the particular act whereby this surrender is consummated and
demonstrated is called the Crucifixion. This crucifixion means a complete, unreserving surrender, – to
the death, if need be, – without opposition, even in desire, on the part
of the natural man. Without these steps is no atonement. The man cannot become
one with the Spirit within him, until by his “Passion” and “Crucifixion,”
he has utterly vanquished the “Old Adam” of his former self. Through the
atonement made by means of this self-sacrifice he becomes as one
without sin, being no more liable to sin; and is qualified to enter, as
his own high-priest, into the holy of holies of his own innermost. For
thus he has become of those who, being pure in heart alone can face
God.
8. The “Passion” and “Crucifixion” have their immediate sequel in the
Death
and Burial of the Self thus renounced. And these are
followed by the Resurrection and Ascension of the true immortal
Man and new spiritual Adam, who by his Resurrection proves himself to be –
like the Christ – “virgin-born,” – in that he is the offspring, not of the
soul and her traffic with Matter and Sense, but of the soul
become “immaculate,” and of her spouse, the Spirit. The Ascension with
which the Drama terminates, is that of the whole Man, now regenerate, to
his own celestial kingdom within himself, where – made one with the Spirit
– he takes his seat for ever “at the right hand of the Father.”
9.
Although the Resurrection of the man regenerate has a twofold relation, in that
it sometimes affects the body, the resurrection is not of the body in any
sense ordinarily supposed, nor is the body in any way the object of the
process. The Man, it is true, has risen from the dead. But it is from the condition
of deadness in regard to things spiritual, and from among those who, being
in that condition, are said to be “dead in trespasses and sins.” In these
two respects, namely, as regards his own past self and the
world generally, he has “risen from the dead”; and “death,” of this kind,
“has no more dominion over him.” And even if he has redeemed also his body
and made of it a risen body, this by
no means implies the resuscitation of an actual corpse. In this sense
there has been for him no death, and in this sense there is for him no
resurrection. It was through misapprehension of the true doctrine, and the
consequent expectation of the resurrection of the dead body, that the
practice – originally symbolical and special – of embalming the corpse as
a mummy, became common, and that interment was substituted for the
classic and far more wholesome practice of cremation. In both cases, the
object was the delusive one of facilitating a resuscitation at once
impossible and undesirable, seeing that if reincarnation be needful,
a soul can always obtain for itself a new body.
10. That which
constitutes the Great Work, is, not the resuscitation of the dead body, but the redemption of
Spirit from Matter. Until man commits what, mystically, is called idolatry, he
has no need of such redemption. So long as he prefers the inner to the
outer, and consequently polarizes towards God, the will of his soul is as the Divine Will, and she
has, in virtue thereof, power over his body, as God has over the universe.
Committing idolatry, by reason of perverse will to the outer, – looking back,
and down, that is, and preferring the form to the substance, the
appearance to the reality, the phenomenon to the idea, the “city of the
Plain” to the “mount of the Lord,” – she loses this power, and becomes, as
already said, a “pillar of Salt,” fixed and material. Thus does Man become
“naked,” for he has brought his soul to degradation and shame and profaned
the temple of the Spirit. He has eaten of the “Forbidden Fruit” of Sense;
“Paradise” is his no longer; and only by
“Redemption” can he regain it. (Lecture 8 Part 1, 7-10)
Part 2 - 11. IN order to obtain an adequate conception of the vastness of the
interval between the condition of man “fallen” and man “redeemed,” it will
be necessary to speak yet more particularly of the Man perfected and
having power. Thus contrasted the heights and depths of humanity will appear in
their true extent. It is but a sketch, comparatively slight, which can
here be given of what they must endure, who, for love of God, desire God,
and who, by love of God, finally attain to and become God; and
who, becoming God without ceasing to be man, become God-Man, – God
manifest in the flesh, – at once God and Man. The course to this end is
one and the same for all, whenever, wherever, and by whomsoever followed.
For perfection is one, and all seekers after it must follow the same road. The
reward and the means towards it, are also one. For “the Gift of God is
eternal Life.” And it is by means of God, – the Divine Spirit working within
him, to build him up in the Divine Image, – he, meanwhile co-operating
with the Spirit, – that man achieves Divinity. In the familiar, but rarely
understood terms, “Philosopher’s Stone,” “Elixir of Life,” “universal
Medicine,” “Holy Grail,” and the like, is implied this supreme object of
all quest. For these are but terms to denote pure Spirit, and its
essential correlative, a Will absolutely firm and inaccessible alike to
weakness from within and assault from without. Without measure of this Spirit
is no understanding – and therefore no interpretation – of the Sacred
Mysteries of existence. Spiritual themselves, they can be comprehended
only by those who have, nay, rather, who are Spirit; for God is Spirit, and they who worship
God must worship in the Spirit. 12. The attainment in himself of a pure
and Divine Spirit, is, therefore the first object and last achievement of
him who seeks to realize the loftiest ideal of which humanity is capable. He
who does this, is not an “Adept” merely. The “Adept” covets power in order
to save himself only; and knowledge is him thing apart from love. Love
saves others as well as oneself. And it is love that distinguishes
the Christ; – a truth implied, among other ways, in the name and character
assigned in mystic legends, to the favourite disciple of the Christs. To Krishna, his Arjun; to Buddha, his Ananda; to Jesus,
his John; – all terms identical in meaning, and
denoting the feminine and tender moiety of the Divine Nature.
He therefore, and he alone who possesses this spirit in quality and
quantity without measure, has, and is, “Christ.” He is God’s anointed,
suffused and brimming with the Spirit, and having in virtue thereof
the power of the “Dissolvent” and of “Transmutation,” in respect of the
whole man. Herein lay the grand secret of that philosophy which made
“Hermes” to be accounted the “trainer of the Christs.” Known as
the Kabalistic philosophy, it was a philosophy – or rather a science –
based upon the recognition in Nature of an universal Substance, which man
can find and “effect,” and in virtue of which he contains within
himself the seed of his own regeneration, a seed of which – duly cultured
– the fruit is God, because the seed itself also is God. Wherefore the
“Hermetic science” is the science of God.
13. “Christ,” then, is,
primarily, not a person, but a process, a doctrine, a system of life and
thought, by the observance of which man becomes purified from Matter, and
transmuted into Spirit. And he is a Christ who, in virtue of his observance of this process to its utmost extent
while yet in the body, constitutes a full manifestation of the qualities
of Spirit. Thus manifested, he is said to “destroy the works of the
devil,” for he destroys that which gives pre-eminence to Matter, and so
re-establishes the kingdom of
Spirit, that is, of
God.
14. This, the interior part of the process of the Christ is the
essential part. Whether first or last, the spiritual being must be
perfected. Without this interior perfection, nothing that is done in the body,
or exterior man only is of any avail, save, in so far as it may minister
to the essential end. The body is but an instrument, existing for the use
and sake of the soul and not for itself. And it is for the soul, and not
for itself, that it must be perfected. Being but an instrument, the body
cannot be an end. That which makes the body an end, ends with the body and
the end of the body is corruption. Whatever is given to the body is taken
from the Spirit. From this it will be seen what is the true value of Asceticism.
Divested of its rational and spiritual motive, self-denial is worthless.
Rather is it worse than worthless; it is materialistic and idolatrous;
and, being in this aspect a churlish refusal of God’s good gifts it impugns
the bounteousness of the Divine nature. The aim of all endeavor should be
to bring the body into subjection to, and harmony with, the spirit, by
refining and subliming it, and so heightening its powers as to make
it sensitive and responsive to all the motions of the Spirit. This it can be
only when, deriving its sustenance from substances the purest and most
highly solarized, such as the vegetable kingdom alone affords, it suffers
all its molecules to become polarized in one and the same direction, and this
the direction of the central Will of the system, the “Lord God of Hosts”
of the Microcosmic Man – Whose mystic name is Adonai.
16. It is in his
office and character as Christ, and not in his own human individuality, that
the Man Regenerate proclaims himself “the way, the truth, and the life,”
“the door,” and the like. For, in being, as has been said, the connecting
link between the creature and God, the Christ truly represents the door
or gate through which all ascending souls must pass to union with the
Divine; and save through which “no man cometh unto the Father.” It is not,
therefore, in virtue of an extraneous, obsessing spirit that the Christ
can be termed a “Medium,” but in virtue of the spirit itself of the man, become
Divine by means of that inward purification by the life or “blood” of God,
which is the secret of the Christs, and “doubled” by union with the parent
Spirit of all, – the “Father” of all spirits. This Spirit it is Whom the
typical Regenerate Man of the Gospels is represented as calling the
“Father.” It is the Unmanifest God, of Whom the Christ is the full
manifestation.
17. Hence he disavows for himself the authorship of his
utterances, and says, “The words which I speak unto you I speak not of
myself. The Father which dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” The Christ
is, thus, a clear glass through which the divine glory shines. As it is
written of Jesus, “And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth.” Now, this “Only Begotten” is not mortal man at all, but He Who from
all eternity has been in the bosom of the Father, namely, the Word or Logos, the Speaker, the Maker, the Manifestor, He Whose
mystic name, as already said, is Adonai, and of whom Christ is the counterpart.
18. To
attain to the perfection of the Christ, – to polarize, that is, the Divine
Spirit without measure, and to become a “Man of Power” and a Medium for
the Highest, – though open potentially to all, – is, actually and in the
present, open, if to any, but to few. And these are, necessarily, they only
who, having passed through many transmigrations and advanced far on their
way towards maturity, have sedulously turned their lives to the best
account by means of the steadfast development of all the higher faculties
and qualities of man; and who, while not declining the experiences of the
body, have made the spirit, and not the body, their object and aim.
Aspiring to the redemption in himself of each plane of man’s
fourfold nature, the candidate for Christhood submits himself to discipline
and training the most severe, at one physical, intellectual, moral, and
spiritual, and rejects as valueless or pernicious whatever would fail
to minister to his one end, deeming no task too onerous, no sacrifice too
painful, so that he be spiritually advanced thereby. And how varied soever
the means, there is one rule to which he remains constant throughout, the
rule, namely, of love. The Christ he seeks is the pathway to God; and to fail,
in the least degree in respect of love, would be to put himself back in his
journey. The sacrifices, therefore, in the incense of which his soul
ascends, are those of his own lower nature to his own higher, and of himself
for others. And life itself, it seems to him, would be too dearly bought,
if purchased at the expense of another, however little or mean, – unless,
indeed, of a kind irremediably noxious, whose extinction would benefit the
world. For, – be it remembered, – though always Saviour, the Christ is
sometimes also Purifier, as were all his types, the Heroes, – or Men
Regenerate, – of classic story. Enacting, thus, when necessary the
executioner’s part, he slays for no self-gratification, but “in the name of the
Lord.”
19. They who have trod this path of old have been many, and their
deeds have formed the theme of mystical legends innumerable. Epitomizing
these, we find that the chief qualifications are as follows: – In order to
gain “Power and the Resurrection,” a man must, first of all, be a Hierarch. This is to say, he must have attained the magical age of thirty-three years, having been, in the mystic
sense of the terms, immaculately conceived, and born of a king’s daughter;
baptized with water and with fire; tempted in the wilderness, crucified
and buried, having borne five wounds on the cross. He must, moreover, have answered
the riddle of the Sphinx. To attain the requisite age, he must have
accomplished the Twelve Labors symbolized in those of Heracles, and in the
signs of the Zodiac; passed within the Twelve Gates of Holy City of his
own regenerate nature; overcome the five Senses; and obtained dominion over
the Four Elements. Achieving all that is implied in these terms, “his
warfare is accomplished,” he is free of Matter, and will never again have
a phenomenal body.
20. He who shall attain to this perfection must be one
who is without fear and without desire, save towards God; who has courage
to be absolutely poor and absolutely chaste; to whom it is all one
whether he have money or whether he have none, whether he have house and
lands or whether he be homeless, whether he have worldly reputation or
whether he be an outcast. Thus is he voluntarily poor, and of the spirit
of those of whom it is said that they inherit the kingdom of heaven. It is not
necessary that he has nothing; it is necessary only that he care for
nothing. Against attacks and influences of whatever kind, and coming from
whatever quarter without his own soul’s kingdom, he must impregnably steel
himself. If misfortune be his, he must make it his fortune; if poverty, he
must make it his riches; if loss, his gain; if sickness, his health; if
pain, his pleasure. Evil report must be to him good report; and he must be able
to rejoice when all men speak ill of him. Even death itself he must
account as life. Only when he has attained this equilibrium is he “Free.”
Meanwhile he makes Abstinence, Prayer, Meditation, Watchfulness and
Self-restraint to be the decades of his Rosary. And knowing that nothing is
gained without toil, or won without suffering, he acts ever on the
principle that to labor is to pray, to ask is to receive, to knock is
to have the door open, and so strives accordingly.
22. The last of the “Twelve Labors of
Heracles “ is the conquest of the three-headed dog, Cerberus. For by this
is denoted the final victory over the body with its three (true) senses. When
this is accomplished, the process of ordeal is no longer necessary. The
Initiate is under a vow. The Hierarch is free. He has undergone all his
ordeals, and has freed his will. For the object of the Trial and the Vow is
Polarization. When the Fixed is Volatilized, the Magian is Free. Before
this, he is “subject.”
23. The man who seeks to be a Hierarch must not
dwell in cities. He may begin his initiation in a city, but he cannot
complete it there. For he must not breathe dead and burnt air, – air, that is,
the vitality of which is quenched. He must be a wanderer, a dweller in the
plain and the garden and the mountains. He must commune with the starry
heavens, and maintain direct contact with the great electric currents of living
air and with the unpaved grass and earth of the planet, going barefoot and
oft bathing his feet. It is in unfrequented places, in lands such as are
mystically called the “East,” where the abominations of “Babylon” are unknown, and where the magnetic
chain between earth and heaven is strong, that the man who seeks Power,
and who would achieve the “Great Work,” must accomplish his initiation. (8,
2, 11-23)
Part 2
