The Cloud upon tbe Sanctuary.
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By the COUNCILLOR D' ECKARTSHAUSEN.
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TRANSLATED BY MADAME ISABEL DE STEIGER.
LETTER I.
There is no age more remarkable to the quiet observer than our
own. Everywhere there is a fermentation in the minds of men;
everywhere there is a battle between light and darkness, between
exploded thought and living ideas, between powerless wills and living
active force; in short everywhere is there war between animal man and
growing spiritual man.
It is said that we live in an age of light, but it would be truer
to say that we are living in an age of twilight; here and there a
luminous ray pierces through the mists of darkness, but does not light
to full clearness either our reason or our hearts. Men are not of one
mind, scientists dispute, and where there is discord truth is not yet
apprehended.
The most important objects for humanity are still undetermined. No
one is agreed either on the principle of rationality or on the
principle of morality, or on the cause of the will. This proves that
though we are dwelling in an age of light, we do not well uderstand
what emanates from our hearts- and what from our heads. Probably we
should have this information much sooner if we did not imagine that we
have the light of knowledge already in our hands, or if we would cast
a look on our weakness, and recognise that we require a more brilliant
illumination. We live in the times of idolatry of the intellect, we
place a common torchlight upon the altar and we loudly proclaim the
aurora, that now daylight is really about to appear, and that the
world is emerging more and more out of obscurity into the full day of
perfection, through the arts, sciences, cultured taste, and even from
a purer understanding of religion.
Poor mankind! To what standpoint have you raised the happiness of
man? Has there ever been an age which has counted so many victims to
humanity as the present? Has there ever been an age in which
immorality and egotism have been greater or more dominant than in this
one? The tree is known by its fruits. Mad men! With your imaginary
natural reason, from whence have you the light by which you are so
willing to enlighten others? Are not all your ideas borrowed from your
senses which do not give you the reality but merely its phenomena? Is
it not true that in time and space all knowledge is but relative? Is
it not true that all which we call reality is but relative, for
absolute truth is not to be found in the phenomenal world. Thus your
natural reason does not possess its true essence, but only the
appearance of truth and light; and the more this appearance increases
and spreads, the more the essence of light inwardly fades, and
the man confuses himself with this appearance and gropes vainly after
the dazzling phantasmal images he conjures.
The philosophy of our age raises the natural intellect into
independent objectivity, and gives it judicial power, she exempts it
from any superior authority, she makes it voluntary, converting it
into divinity by closing all harmony and communication with God; and
this god Reason, which has no other law but its own, is to govern Man
and make him happy! ...
... Darkness able to spread light!
.. Death capable of giving Life!
... The truth leads man to happiness. Can you give it?
That which you call truth is a form of conception empty of real
matter, the knowledge of which is acquired from without and through
the senses, and the understanding co-ordinates them by observed
synthetic relationship into science or opinion.
You abstract from the Scriptures and Tradition their moral,
theoretical and practical truth; but as individuality is the principle
of your intelligence, and as egotism is the incentive to your will,
you do not see, by your light, the moral law which dominates, or you
repel it with your will. It is to this length that the light of
to-day has penetrated. Individuality under the cloak of false
philosophy is a child of corruption.
Who can pretend that the sun is in full zenith if no bright rays
illuminate the earth, and no warmth vitalises vegetation? If wisdom
does not benefit man, if love does not make him happy, but very little
has been done for him on the whole.
Oh! if only natural man, that is, sensuous man, would only learn
to see that the source of his intelligence and the incentive of his
will are only his individuality, he would then seek interiorly for a
higher source, and he would thereby approach that which alone can give
this true element, because it is wisdom in its essential substance.
Jesus Christ is that Wisdom, Truth and Love. He, as Wisdom, is
the Principle of reason, and the Source of the purest intelligence. As
Love, He is the Principle of morality, the true and pure incentive of
the will.
Love and Wisdom beget the spirit of truth, interior light; this
light illuminates us and makes supernatural things objective to us.
It is inconceivable to what depths of error a man falls when he
abandons simple truths of faith by opposing his own opinions.
Our century tries to decide by its (brain) intelligence, wherein
lies the principle or ground of reason and morality, or the ground of
the will; if the scientists were mindful, they would see that these
things are better answered in the heart of the simplest man, than
through their most brilliant casuistry. The practical Christian finds
this incentive to the will, the principle of all morality, really and
objectively in his heart; and this incentive is expressed in the
following formula:- "LoveGod with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as
thyself."
The love of God and his neighbour is the motive for the
Christian's will, and the essence of love itself is Jesus Christ in
us.
It is in this way the principle of reason is wisdom in us; and the
essence of wisdom, wisdom in its substance, is again Jesus Christ, the
light of the world. Thus we find in Him the principle of reason and of
morality. I
All that I am now saying is not hyperphysical extravagance; it is
reality, absolute truth, that everyone can prove for himself by
experience, as soon as he receives in himself the principle of all
reason and morality- Jesus Christ, being wisdom1 and love in
essence.
But the eye of the man of sensuous perception only is firmly
closed to the fundamental basis of all that is true and to all that is
transcendental.
The intelligence which many would fain raise to legislative
authority is only that of the senses, whose light differs from that of
transcendental reason, as does the phosphorescent glimmer of decayed
wood from the glories of sunshine.
Absolute truth does not exist for sensuous man; it exists only for
interior and spiritual man who possesses a suitable sensorium; or, to
speak more correctly, who possesses an interior sense to receive the
absolute truth of the transcendental world, a spiritual faculty which
cognises spiritual objects as objectively and naturally as the
exterior senses perceive external phenomena.
This interior faculty of the man spiritual; this sensorium for the
metaphysical world is unfortunately not known to those who cognise
only outside of it- for it is a mystery of the kingdom of God.
The current incredulity towards everything which is not cognised
objectively by our senses is the explanation for the misconception of
truths which are, of all, most important to man.
But how can this be otherwise? In in order to see one must have
eyes, to hear, one must have ears. Every apparent object requires its
appropriate senses. So it is that transcendental objects require
their sensorium- and this said sensorium is closed in most men. Hence
men judge the metaphysical world through the intelligence of their
senses, even as the blind imagine colours and the deaf judge tones-
without suitable senses.
There is an objective and substantial ground of reason, an
objective and substantial motive for the will. These two together
form the new principle of life, and morality is there
essentially inherent. This pure substance of reason and will,
re-united in us the divine and the human, is Jesus Christ, the light
of the world, who must enter into direct relationship with us, to be
really recognised.
This real kriowledge is actual faith, in which everything takes
place in spirit and in truth.
Thus one ought to have a sensorium fitted for this communication,
an organised spiritual sensorium, a spiritual and interior faculty
able to receive this light; but it is closed to most men by their
senses.
This interior organ is the intuitive sense of the transcendental
world, and until this intuitive sense is effective in us we can have
no certainty of more lofty truths.
This organism is naturally inactive since the Fall, which degraded
man to the world of physical senses alone. The gross matter which
envelops this interior sensorium is a film which veils the internal
eye, and therefore prevents the exterior eye from seeing into
spiritual realms. This same matter muffles our internal hearing, so
that we are deaf to the sounds of the metaphysical world; it so
paralyses our spiritual speech that we can scarcely stammer words of
sacred import, words we fully pronouneed once, and by virtue of
which we held authority over the elements and the external world.
The opening of this spiritual sensorium is the mystery of the New
Man- the mystery of Regeneration, and of the vital union between God
and man- it is the noblest object of religion on earth, that religion
whose sublime goal is none other than to unite men with God in Spirit
and in Truth.
We can therefore easily see by this how it is that religion tends
always towards the subjection of the senses. It does so because it
desires to make the spiritual man dominant, in order that the
spiritual or truly rational man may govern the man of sense.
Philosophy feels this truth, only its error consists in not
apprehending the true source of reason, and because she would replace
it by individuality by sensuous reason.
As man has internally a spiritual organ and a sensorium to receive
the true principle of divine wisdom, or a true motive for the will or
divine love, he has also exteriorly a physical and material sensorium
to receive the appearance of light and truth. As external
nature can have no absolute truth, but only phenomenally relative,
therefore, human reason cannot cognise pure truth, it can but
apprehend through the appearance of phenomena, which excites the lust
of the eye, and in this as a source of action consists the corruption
of sensuous man and the degredation of nature.
This exterior sensorium in man is composed of frail matter,
whereas the internal sensorium is organsed fundamentally from
incorruptible, transcendental, and metaphysical substance.
The first is the cause of our depravity and our mortality, the
second the cause of our incorruptiblity and of our immortality.
In the regions of material and corruptible nature mortality hides
immortality, therefore all our trouble results from corruptible mortal
matter. In order that man should be released from this distress, it
is necessary that the immortal and incorruptible principle, which
dwells within, should expand and absorb the corruptible principle, so
that the envelope of the senses should be opened, and man appear in
his pristine purity.
This natural envelope is a truly corruptible substance found in
our blood, forming the fleshly bonds binding our immortal spirits
under the servitude of the mortal flesh.
This envelope can be rent more or less in every man, and this
places him in greater spiritual liberty, and makes him more cognisant
of the transcendental world.
There are three different degrees in the opening of our spiritual
sensorium.
The first degree reaches to the moral plane only, the
transcendental world energises through us in but by interior action,
called inspiration.
The second and higher degree opens this sensorium to the reception
of the spiritual and the intellectual, and the metaphysical world
works in us by interior illumination.
The third degree, which is the highest and most seldom attained,
opens the whole inner man. It breaks the crust which fills our
spiritual eyes and ears; it reveals the kingdom of spirit, and enables
us to see objectively, metaphysical, and transcendental sights; hence
all visions are explained fundamentally.
Thus we have an internal sense of objectivity as well as
externally. Only the objects and the senses are different. Exteriorly
animal and sensual motives act in us and corruptible sensuous matter
energises. Interiorly it is metaphysical and indivisible substance
which gains admittance within, and the incorruptible and immortal
essence of our Spirit receives its influence. Nevertheless, generally
things pass much in the same way interiorly as they do externally. The
law is everywhere the same. Hence, as the spirit or our internal man
has quite other senses, and quite another objective sight from the
rational man; one need not be surprised that it (the spirit) should
remain an enigma for the scientists of our age, for those who have no
objective sense of the transcendental and spiritual world. Hence they
measure the supenatural by the measurement of the senses. However, we
owe a debt of gratitude towards the philosopher Kant for his view of
the truths we have promulgated.
Kant has shown incontestably that the natural reason can know
absolutely nothing of what is supernatural, and that it can never
understand analytically or synthetically, neither can it prove the
possibility of the reality of Love, Spirit, or of the Deity.
This is a great truth, lofty and beneficial for our epoch, though
it is true that St. Paul has already enunciated it (I Cor., i., 2-24).
But the pagan philosophy of Christian scientists has been able to
overlook it up to Kant. The virtue of this tuith is double. First it
puts insurmountable limits to the sentiment, to the fanaticism and to
the extravagance of carnal reason. Then it shows by dazzling contrast
the necessity and divinity of Revelation. It proves that our human
reason, in its state of unfoldment, has no other objective
source for the supernatural than revelation, the only source of
instruction in Divine things or of the spiritual world, the soul and
its immortality; hence it follows that without revelation it is
absolutely impossible to suppose or conjecture anything regarding
these matters.
We are, therefore, indebted to Kant for proving philosophically
now-a-days, what long ago was taught in a more advanced and illummated
school, that without revelation no knowledge of God, neither any
doctrine touching the soul could be at all possible.
It is therefore clear that a universal Revelation must serve as a
fundamental basis to all mundane religion.
Hence, following Kant, it is clear that the transmundane knowledge
is wholly inaccessible to natural reason, and that God inhabits a
world of light, into which no speculation of the unfolded reason can
penetrate. Thus the rational man, or man of human reason, has no
sense of transcendental reality, and therefore it was necessary that
it should be revealed to him, for which faith is required,
because the means are given to him by faith whereby his inner
sensorium unfolds, and through which he can apprehend the reality of
truths otherwise incapable of being understood by the natural man.
It is quite true that with new senses we can acquire sense of
further reality. This reality exists already, but is not khown to us,
because we lack the organ by which to cognise it. One must not lay
the fault to the percept, but on the receptive organ.
With, however, the development of the new organ we have a new
perception, a sense of new reality. Without it the spiritual world
cannot exist for us, because the organ rendering it objective to us is
not developed.
With, however, its unfoldment, the curtain is all at once raised,
the impenetrable veil is torn away, the cloud before the Sanctuary
lifts, a new world suddenly exists for us, scales fall from the eyes,
and we are at once transported from the phenomenal world to the
regions of truth.
God alone is substance, absolute truth; He alone is He who
is, and we are what He has made us. For Him, all exists in Unity, for
us, al1 exists in multiplicity.
A great many men have no more idea of the development of the inner
sensorium than they have of the true and objective life of the spirit,
which they neither perceive nor foresee in any manner. Hence it is
impossible to them to know that one can comprehend the spiritual and
transcendental, and that one can be raised to the supernatural, even
to vision.
The great and true work of building the Temple consists solely in
destroying the miserable Adamic hut and in erecting a divine temple;
this means, in other words, to develop in us the interior sensorium,
or the organ to receive God. After this process, the metaphysical and
incorruptible principle rules over the terrestial, and man begins to
live, not any longer in the principle of selflove, but in the Spirit
and in the Truth, of which he is the Temple.
The moral law then evolves into love for one's neighbour in deed
and in truth, whereas for the natural man it is but a simple attitude
of thought; and the spiritual man, regenerated in spirit, sees all in
its essence, of which the natural man has only the forms void of
thought, mere empty sounds, symbols and letters, which are all dead
images without interior spirit. The lofty aim of religion is the
intimate union of man with God; and this union is possible in this
world; but it only can be by the opening of our inner sensorium, which
enables our hearts to become receptive to God.
Therein are mysteries that our philosophy does not dream of, the
key to which is not to be found in scholastic science.
Meanwhile, a more advanced school has always existed to whom this
deposition of all science has been confided, and this school was the
community illuminated interiorly by the Saviour, the society of the
Elect, which has continued from the first day of creation to the
present time; its members, it is true, are scattered all over the
world, but they have always been united in the spirit and in one
truth; they have had but one intelligence and one source of truth, but
one doctor and one master; but in whom resides substantially the whole
plentitude of God, and who alone initiates them into the high
mysteries of Nature and the Spiritual World.
This community of light has been called from all time the
invisible celestial Church, or the most ancient of all communities, of
which we will speak more fully in our next letter.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
I am afraid that some readers who are interested in "Mysticism,"
or rather are desirous of entering into its study, may be deterred
from doing so by reading these letters of the excellent Mystic,
Eckartshausen. For the reason that his doctrine, Regeneration, has
been so much misunderstood owing to the over-familianty with the
ordinary signification of that deeply important word, that modern
Religion mostly given us. Nevertheless, no reader can fail to see that
Eckartshausen has a very real and vital reason for all he says.
His language is extraordinarily simple, so much so that many may
consider that he hides deeper matter purposely.
This is not quite the case; in all Catholic and central truth
there are various meanings, not opposing ones, but each
opening, as it were, according to the grade of the student's own
spiritual understanding.
Indeed, it is very frequently urged against mystic and alchemic
writings that they purposely and selfishly veil the truth. No doubt in
many cases it has been purposely done, for very sincerely good reasons
that real enquiry would amply endorse; but it is by no means a true
bill against "Mystic" writings that the language is deliberately
symbolic, allegoric, or in a sort of cipher-code, as it were, in which
one word is mischievously meant for another and so forth. I have
heard all alchemiic works described, indeed once thought so myself, as
a farrago of pure bosh. But we know, as most people now-a-days who
pretend to any philosophy at all, that there are other planes of
nature besides the physical, and that mystic and alchemical writings
are not generally dealing with physical or mental matters and
nomenclature. They refer to higher planes of nature- and if a student
is able to enter into higher planes I understand that the terms and
expressions all take simple and rightful place. But all that a
student can do in his first study in these matters is to try and
discern somewhat where the planes change and where the writer means
literally on the higher plane or parabolically on the physical or on
what plane is the literalness? But most alchemic writing is
hyperphysical. Origen says "to the literal minded (or carnal) we
teach the Gospel in the historic or literal way, but to the
proficients, fired with the love of Divine Wisdom, we impart the
Logos." Also we must remember that these writers were Spiritual
giants; men who had gone through the vital process of Regeneration,
and who wrote to others in like condition, not to the carnal minded or
literal man, who have their spiritual "sensorium," as Eckhartshausen
calls it, still sealed.
We are, therefore, grateful when a Spiritual giant like
Eckhartshausen writes as he does in simpler fashion, one more suitable
to the plane of intellectuality on which we usually are. He tells us
literally that man has fallen from his high estate, as we have all
been taught in "common" Christianity, and he proceeds to point out the
Spiritual rationale whereby man may attain his former Greatness. In
doing so, he explains in a most suggestive manner the real value of
the rites and ceremonies of Catholic Christendom, the Church as he
teaches being the outer manifestation of that Inner Society (the
nameless one), that Society of the Elect which has always existed, and
must still exist, for the protection of mankind. If this Sacred
Circle, this Celestial Church, did not subsist, our earthly sinful
Churches could not exist. That they do is a proof of its holy
Guardianship- Eckhartshausen's letters on the subject explanatory of
this position, are most instructive. There are doubtless a few elect
souls who are so richly laden with the ten talents they have earned in
preceding lives, that they can, so to say, take the Kingdom of Heaven
with violence and obtain their Regeneration and Immortality early in
this life, without possibly belonging to any Society, whether Church
organisation or otherwise, but to most people this is impossible; and
we then, as humbler students, do well to lay heed to the great
importance of Christian rites and ceremonies- especially that of the
Sacred Supper. This is, of course, not new teaching to instructed
Catholics, but I would respectfully suggest that Eckhartshausen
does lead the understanding to higher ground and higher
possibilites, as a permitted Initiate, than Church teaching generally
can do, because Catholic Doctrine does not, cannot fully
explain. It is her function only to enunciate ex cathedra as
the legitimately authorised channel of communication; but certain
writers, Initiates and Regenerate men, have special offices, of
instructors and explainers. Therefore those peeple who have not the
gift of Faith to receive enunciated Doctrine, have indeed much to be
thankful for in that there are such writers who are permitted
to explain the reason why of doctrine and dogma. To minds,
then, who are not gifted with Faith, or who have not attained to it,
the writings of the mystics are priceless, as no doubt through them
the student who only commenced the quest through mere but honest
curiosity and desire, if, however, he continue sincere and earnest,
can without doubt rise not only to the region of faith, but in
addition with a clear understanding, and he then is in a still better
condition for further advancement. Mad is that person who with the
grace and gift of Faith to commence with has left his talent
untouched!
"The Cloud upon the Sanctuary" is written in six letters, and they
show the meaning of Revelation, the means whereby man can receive it;
the supreme importance of man's Regeneration and the means whereby he
can attain to it. And I may here say that a Regenerated Man in Mystic
phraseology is equivalent to "Mahatma," or may be more; in modern
theosophic terms, it means a Master, and until man attains to this
rank he is not able to fully recognise the Master, so must
always remain until that time outside the Temple, not yet fit to enter
within the sacred precincts and be hailed as a true Builder by the
Master Builder Himself. Regeneration is moreover the only means by
which he gains freedom from Karma, and is thenceforth freed from the
Circle of Necessity or Re-birth. There is one other matter to note,
both in reading sacred writ and mystic writers, that if we find one
meaning pretty clear throughout we may conclude we have one
key, but that is all, and because we understand this side of the truth
is just the reason that we have not all the truth. If we keep
this well in our minds it will be a useful preventive against
spiritual pride, for it will keep us always respectful to out
brothers' and sisters' versions of the matter. Nevertheless there is
something so real, so solid, so concrete in the presentment of Mystic
Truth that if that foundation be firmly realised it is remarkable how
much more easily the building is raised than we could imagine while
wandering in the phantasmal regions of astral Revelations- that realm
of Chaos out of and from which man has been lifted, by being created
Rational Man, but towards which he too easily returns on a retrograde
course. We must also note that Eckhartshausen lived and wrote at the
period of the French Revolution; at an era very similar to our own in
all but its sad consummation. "Magic" was the fashion, and quite as
much was known then on these matters as is known now. There were
spiritual circles, occult societies, brotherhoods, and a great
searching into the "hidden things of the Spirit."
We have St. Martin's valuable authority at that period for
thinking very highly of Eckhartshausen as a man who worked and thought
centrally, and whose writings commanded his highest respect.
ISABEL DE STEIGER.
Scanned from "The Unknown World", No. 6 - Vol. I, Jan. 15, 1895, and
corrected by hand.