PREFACE.
THE
work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat
intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their
science. It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth
wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular
prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to aid the student
to detect the vital principles which underlie the philosophical
systems of old.
The book is written in all sincerity. It is meant to do even
justice, and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice.
But it shows neither mercy for enthroned error, nor reverence for
usurped authority. It demands for a spoliated past, that credit for
its achievements which has been too long withheld. It calls for a
restitution of borrowed robes, and the vindication of calumniated
but glorious reputations. Toward no form of worship, no religious
faith, no scientific hypothesis has its criticism been directed in
any other spirit. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the
mere ephemera of the world's day.
TRUTH,
high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme.
We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity
of the human mind, nor in "miracle," whether divine or diabolical,
if such imply a transgression of the laws of nature instituted from
all eternity. Nevertheless, we accept the saying of the gifted
author of Festus, that the human heart has not yet fully
uttered itself, and that we have never attained or even understood
the extent of its powers. Is it too much to believe that man should
be developing new sensibilities and a closer relation with nature?
The logic of evolution must teach as much, if carried to its
legitimate conclusions. If, somewhere, in the line of ascent from
vegetable or ascidian to the noblest man a soul was evolved, gifted
with intellectual qualities, it cannot be unreasonable to infer and
believe that a faculty of perception is also growing in man,
enabling him to descry facts and truths even beyond our ordinary
ken. Yet we do not hesitate to accept the assertion of Biffé, that
"the essential is forever the same. Whether we cut away the marble
inward that hides the statue in the
block, or pile stone upon stone outward till the temple is
completed, our NEW result is only an old idea. The latest
of all the eternities
will find its destined other half-soul in the earliest." When,
years ago, we first travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its
deserted sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions
oppressed our thoughts: Where, WHO, WHAT
is
GOD?
Who
ever saw the
IMMORTAL
SPIRIT
of man, so as to be able to assure
himself of man's immortality?
It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems
that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such
mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly
designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instructions we
lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with
religion, the existence of God and immortality of man's spirit may
be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first time we
received the assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no
other faith than an absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence
of man's own immortal self. We were taught that this omnipotence
comes from the kinship of man's spirit with the Universal Soul —
God! The latter, they said, can never be demonstrated but by the
former. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water
proves a source from which it must have come. Tell one who had never
seen water, that there is an ocean of water, and he must accept it
on faith or reject it altogether. But let one drop fall upon his
hand, and he then has the fact from which all the rest may be
inferred. After that he could by degrees understand that a boundless
and fathomless ocean of water existed. Blind faith would no longer
be necessary; he would have supplanted it with KNOWLEDGE. When one
sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the
forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit, the
reflective mind is overwhelmed with the conviction that if one man's
spiritual Ego can do this much, the capabilities of the
FATHER
SPIRIT
must be relatively as much vaster as the whole ocean surpasses the
single drop in volume and potency. Ex nihilo nihil fit;
prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers — you have proved
God! In our studies, mysteries were shown to be no mysteries. Names
and places that to the Western mind have only a significance derived
from Eastern fable, were shown to be realities. Reverently we
stepped in spirit within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil
of "the one that is and was and shall be" at Saïs; to look through
the rent curtain of the Sanctum Sanctorum at Jerusalem; and even to
interrogate within the crypts which once existed beneath the sacred
edifice, the mysterious Bath-Kol. The Filia Vocis —
the daughter of the divine voice —
responded from the mercy-seat within the veil, [1] and science,
theology, every human hypothesis and conception born of imperfect
knowledge, lost forever their authoritative character in our sight.
The one-living God had spoken through his oracle—man, and we were
satisfied. Such knowledge is priceless; and it has been hidden only
from those who overlooked it, derided it, or denied its existence.
From such as these we apprehend criticism, censure, and perhaps
hostility, although the obstacles in our way neither spring from the
validity of proof, the authenticated facts of history, nor the lack
of common sense among the public whom we address. The drift of
modern thought is palpably in the direction of liberalism in
religion as well as science. Each day brings the reactionists nearer
to the point where they must surrender the despotic authority over
the public conscience, which they have so long enjoyed and
exercised. When the Pope can go to the extreme of fulminating
anathemas against all who maintain the liberty of the Press and of
speech, or who insist that in the conflict of laws, civil and
ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail, or that any method of
instruction solely secular, may be approved; [2] and Mr.
Tyndall, as the mouth-piece of nineteenth century science, says, ".
. . the impregnable position of science may be stated in a few
words: we claim, and we shall wrest from theology, the entire domain
of cosmological theory" [3]—the end is not difficult to
foresee.
Centuries of subjection have not quite congealed the life-blood
of men into crystals around the nucleus of blind faith; and the
nineteenth is witnessing the struggles of the giant as he shakes off
the Liliputian cordage and rises to his feet. Even the Protestant
communion of England and America, now engaged in the revision of the
text of its Oracles, will be compelled to show the origin
and merits of the text itself. The day of domineering over men with
dogmas has reached its gloaming.
Our work, then, is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic
philosophy, the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only
possible key to the Absolute in science and theology. To show that
we do not at all conceal from ourselves the gravity of our
undertaking, we may say in advance that it would not be strange if
the following classes should array themselves against us:
The Christians, who will see
that we question the evidences of the genuineness of their faith.
The Scientists, who will find their pretensions placed in the
same bundle with those of the Roman Catholic Church for
infallibility, and, in certain particulars, the sages and
philosophers of the ancient world classed higher than they.
Pseudo-Scientists will, of course, denounce us furiously.
Broad Churchmen and Freethinkers will find that we do not
accept what they do, but demand the recognition of the whole truth.
Men of letters and various
authorities,
who hide their real belief in
deference to popular prejudices.
The mercenaries and parasites of the Press, who prostitute its
more than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession, will find it
easy to mock at things too wonderful for them to understand; for to
them the price of a paragraph is more than the value of sincerity.
From many will come honest criticism; from many — cant. But we look
to the future.
The contest now going on between the party of public conscience
and the party of reaction, has already developed a healthier tone of
thought. It will hardly fail to result ultimately in the overthrow
of error and the triumph of Truth. We repeat again — we are
laboring for the brighter morrow.
And yet, when we consider the bitter opposition that we are
called upon to face, who is better entitled than we upon entering
the arena to write upon our shield the hail of the Roman gladiator
to Cæsar:
MORITURUS
TE
SALUTÂT!
New
York, September,
1877.
_______________
Notes:
1.
Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times
past for a testimony from heaven, "was indeed performed by magic
art" (vol. ii., p. 128). This latter term is used as a supercilious
expression, just because it was and is still misunderstood. It is
the object of this work to correct the erroneous opinions concerning
"magic art."
2.
Encyclical of
1864.
3.
"Fragments of
Science."