(Anna Kingsford, The
Perfect Way, Extracts from Lecture 8, The Redemption, 1882)
Of her writings, Blavatsky
stated: 'The first and most important was The
Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of
Christianity. It sweeps away many of the difficulties that thoughtful readers
of the Bible must contend with in their endeavours to either understand or
accept literally the story of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Gospels.'
(8.1.6) Introduction
As already stated, this Fall does not
consist in the original investment of the soul with a material body. Such
investment – or incarnation –
is an integral and indispensable element in the process of the individualization
of soul substance, and of its education into humanity. And until
perfected, or nearly so, the body is necessary to the soul in turn as
nursery, school, house of correction, and chamber of ordeal. It is true that
redemption involves deliverance from the need of the body. But redemption
itself is from the power of the body;
and it is from its fall under the power of the body that the soul requires
redemption. For it is this fall which, by involving the alienation of the
individual from God, renders necessary a reconciliation or
at-one-ment. And inasmuch as this can be effected only through the total
renunciation of the exterior or bodily will, and the unreserved acceptance
in its place of the interior or divine will, this at-one-ment constitutes
the essential element of that Redemption which forms the subject of the
present discourse.
(8.4.34) Six stages
of initiation - Baptism, Temptation, Passion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension
the “six crowns” of the
Man Regenerate, that is, the six acts or stages of initiation,
of which three appertain to the lesser and three to the greater Mysteries.
These “crowns,” therefore, are Baptism, Temptation, Passion, Burial,
Resurrection, and Ascension. Of all these the ultimate object is that
full and complete Redemption which, by its realization of the
soul’s supreme felicity, is termed the “Marriage of the Son of God.”
A (8.1.7) The Passion
and Crucifixion
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.
B (8.1.8) Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension
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.”
C (8.1.9) Resurrection
not of the body, but of deadness to things spiritual
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
D (8.1.10) The Great Work is redemption of Spirit from
Matter
That which constitutes the Great
Work, is, not the resuscitation of the dead body, but the
redemption of Spirit from Matter.
E (8.2.11) The Path of Perfection
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.
F (8.2.12) The
attainment in himself of a pure and Divine Spirit is the first object and
last achievement
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. 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.
G (8.2.13) “Christ,” is primarily, not a person, but a
process
“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.
H (8.2.14) Interior
perfection is the focus, the body is but an instrument
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. 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.
I (8.2.15) Perfection of Spirit is to assimilate and
make it one with the universal Spirit
For, so far from suffering
his own vivifying spirit to step aside in order that another may enter, the
Christ is one who so develops, purifies, and in every way perfects his
spirit, as to assimilate and make it one with the universal Spirit, the
God of the Macrocosm, so that the God without and the God within may
freely combine and mingle, making the universal the individual, the individual
the universal.
J (8.2.16) Becoming Divine by means of inward
purification by the life or “blood” of God,
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.
K (8.2.17) The Christ is, thus, a clear glass
through which the divine glory shines
“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
L (8.2.18) The sacrifices are those of his own lower
nature to his own higher, and of himself for others.
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.
M (8.2.19) Twelve Labors symbolized in those of Heracles, and in the signs of the Zodiac; passed within the Twelve
Gates of Holy
City
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.
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. 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.
O (8.2.21) To gain power over Death, there must be
self-denial and governance.
To gain power over Death,
there must be self-denial and governance. Such is the “Excellent Way,” though it be the Via
Dolorosa. He only can follow it who accounts the Resurrection worth the
Passion, the Kingdom worth the Obedience, the Power worth the Suffering.
And he, and he only, does not hesitate, whose time has come.
P (8.2.22) The final victory over the body with its
three (true) senses.
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.
Q (8.2.23) The
man who seeks to be a Hierarch must not dwell in cities
The man who seeks to be a
Hierarch must not dwell in cities. 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
R (8.3.27) The
“woman” Intuition, being “begotten” through her by Divine spiritual
operation
Of this perfected man the
foster-father is always that which, spiritually, is called Egypt
– the body or Matter, and, by derivation, the Intellect, or reason of the
merely earthly mind – the mystic name of which is always “Joseph.” And
he is represented as the adoptive father only of the Man Regenerate,
because this last is really the product, not of the mind, but of the soul; not
of “Egypt,” but of “Israel;” not of the “man” Intellect, but
of the “woman” Intuition, being “begotten” through her, not by any
physical process, but by Divine spiritual operation.
S (8.3.28) The Man Regenerate first saves himself,
by becoming regenerate
He who would redeem and save
others, must first be himself redeemed and saved. The Man Regenerate,
therefore, first saves himself, by becoming regenerate. He receives,
accordingly, a name expressive of this function. For, of Jesus one
of the significations is Liberator. And it is the name, not of a
person, but of an Order, the Order of all those who – being
regenerate and attaining perfection – find, and are called, “Christ
Jesus.” (As see Eph. iii. 15.)
T (8.3.29) Miracles, the lesser Mysteries, (Demeter),
and the greater Mysteries, (Aphrodite)
Of the miracles worked by the
Regenerate Man, some are on the physical, some on the spiritual plane;
for, being himself regenerate in all, he is master of the spirits of all the
elements. But while the terms in which the Miracles are described are
uniformly derived from the physical plane, the true value and significance
of these Miracles are spiritual. That, for example, known as the Raising of
Lazarus, is altogether a parable, being constructed on lines rigidly
astronomical, and having an application purely spiritual. To a like
category belongs also the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. For the
“loaves” given to the multitude represent the general doctrine of the
lesser Mysteries, whose “grain” is of the Earth, the kingdom of Demeter,
and of the outer; and the “fishes” – given after the loaves – denote the greater
Mysteries, those of Aphrodite, – fishes symbolizing the element of
the sea-born Queen of Love, and her dominion, the inner kingdom of the
soul.
By the Crucifixion of the
Man Regenerate is denoted no physical or brief exterior act, but
the culmination of a prolonged Passion, and its termination in the
complete surrender of the soul. And this arrival of the “last hour” of the
earthly man, or old Adam, is symbolized by the action of tasting the
very dregs and lees of the cup of suffering, – the soul’s experience, that
is, of the limitations of existence.
V (8.4.38) Symbolism of Cup,
reed, cross, dove, five wounds, two companions
By this cup is represented
the chalice of Existence or Incarnation, wherein is contained that Substantial
Water, or Soul, which by the “marriage” of the will of the man with the
Will of God, becomes the Wine of the holy Sacrament, or Communion with
God. The Reed which supports this Cup is the universal rod or
Staff which so constantly recurs in Hermetic Scriptures, and is at once the
rod of Moses, the wand of the Magician, the sceptre of the King,
the reed of the Angel, the rod of Joseph that flowers, and the
caduceus of Hermes himself.
W (8.4. 39) Symbolism of Vinegar, Fish and Honeycomb
As the last substance tasted
by the Regenerate Man of the Gospels before his death on the cross, is the
“vinegar” of the exhausted Chalice of the Passion, so the first
food partaken by him after his resurrection is “fish,” to which
some add “an honeycomb”. By these is symbolized the commencement
of the new life inaugurated by the greater Mysteries. For the fish,
as already stated, is the symbol of Water, and therein of the Soul,
its Greek name being the monogram of the Christ and the tessera of
redemption. And the honey, uniting sweetness of taste with the
color of gold, and contained in the six-sided cell on “cup” of the comb,
typifying the six acts of the Mysteries, – is the familiar emblem of the
Land of Promise “beyond Jordan,” to which only the Man Risen can attain.
For, as the River of Egypt denotes the Body, and the Euphrates the Spirit, – the redeemed man
being promised the dominion of the whole region contained within these
(Genesis xv, 18.)
Between the “Resurrection”
and “Ascension” of the Man Regenerate, is an interval which –
in accordance with the mystical system of making all dates which relate to
the soul’s history coincide with the corresponding solar periods – is
termed “Forty Days.” The actual length of the period, however, is dependent
upon individual circumstance For that which occurs at the expiration of this
cycle is not a quittance of the earth in the physical sense ordinarily
supposed, but the complete withdrawal of the man into his own interior and
celestial region. The Spirit attains the Sabbath of perfection only by
attaining Rest or Quiescence; and to this Sabbath – or Nirvana –
the Man Regenerate necessarily attains, sooner or later, after his
“Crucifixion” and “Resurrection;” and the attainment of it constitutes his “Ascension.”
Y (8.4.36) The process
of Redemption is not without its physical results
But although the true
signification of the Gospel narrative of the Ascension is spiritual only,
the process of Redemption is not without its physical results; for
every faculty is enhanced thereby to the degree ordinarily deemed
“miraculous,” rendering the Subject clairvoyant and clairaudient,
enabling him to impart health and recall life by the touch or by the will,
to project himself in visible form through material obstructions, and to
withdraw himself from sight at will. And not only is disease eliminated
from and rendered impossible to his system, but his organism becomes so
highly refined and vitalized that wounds, however severe, heal by first
intention and even instantaneously.
Z (8.4.34) The Divine
Marriage
He is then qualified to
proceed to the greater Mysteries of which the final scene is the “King’s
Chamber.” This, as already said, is placed at the extreme summit of the
passages, and beyond the centre of the Pyramid; and its purpose is to
symbolize that kingdom of heaven which the Initiate attains by what is
called the Divine Marriage, an act which separates him altogether
from his life of the past.
(8.4.40-41) Summary of sevenfold process
1- .
Baptism or Betrothal: It is in Jordan,
therefore, that the Man Regenerate of the Gospels celebrates the first scene of
that supreme act, his spiritual marriage – the Betrothal or initiatory
purification by baptism.
2- Temptation
or Trial: The second scene is the Solemnization, which is celebrated on the “third day,” at the Cana of Galilee already mentioned, in the “banqueting
hall” of the Mysteries. The whole narrative is constructed on
astronomical lines, and in its exterior sense denotes the ripening of the
grape and arrival of the vintage season in the month which follows the
“assumption” of the constellation Virgo. For then the Sun, or emblem of the
Man Regenerate, transmutes the watery element into wine.
3- Passion
or Renunciation: The third and final scene of the “Marriage” belongs to the
greater Mysteries. The “Crucifixion”
is the last stage of the lesser Mysteries, and closes initiation into
them. Immediately on “giving up the ghost,” – or renouncing altogether the
lower life, – the Christ “enters into his kingdom;” and “the veil of the Temple is rent from
the top to the bottom.” The first three acts – the Baptism or Betrothal, the
Temptation or Trial, and the Passion or Renunciation – belong to the
Mysteries of the Rational Humanity as distinguished from those of the
Spiritual Humanity.
4, 5, 6-The last three acts – the Burial, the Resurrection, and the
Ascension – belong to the greater Mysteries of the Soul and Spirit, the
Spirit being the central Lord, King, and Adonai of the system, and the
“Spouse” of the Bride or Soul. The hour
of the “Death” which follows the “Crucifixion” witnesses the
passage of this veil; and the exclamation “Consummatum est” – uttered at this “ninth hour” of “the twelve in which man may
work” in the process of regeneration – signifies that at length the Kingdom is
entered, the King’s Chamber attained, the conflict of the Soul crowned
with victory.
7-The seventh and concluding act of the
whole process follows the accomplishment of the three stages of the greater
Mysteries of the King or Spirit, and is called the “Consummation of the Marriage of the Son of God.” In this act
the “King” and “Queen,” “Spirit and Bride,” and are indissolubly united;
the Man becomes pure Spirit; and the Human is finally taken up into the
Divine.
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