The Cloud upon the Sanctuary.
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BY THE COUNCILLOR D' ECKARTSHAUSEN.
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TRANSLATED BY MADAME ISABEL DE STEIGER.
LETTER III.
The absolute truth lying in the centre of Mystery is like the sun,
it blinds ordinary sight and man sees only the shadow. The eagle
alone can gaze at the dazzling light, likewise only the prepared soul
can bear its lustre. Nevertheless the great Something which is
the inmost of the Holy Mysteries has never been hidden from the
piercing gaze of him who can bear the light.
God and nature have no mysteries for their children. They are
caused by the weakness of our nature, unable to support light, because
it is not yet organised to bear the chaste light of unveiled truth.
This weakness is the Cloud that covers the Sanctuary; this is the
curtain which veils the Holy of Holies.
But in order that man may recover the veiled light, strength and
dignity, Divinity bends to the weakness of its creatures, and writes
the truth that is interior and eternal mystery on the outside of
things, so that man can transport himself through this to their
spirit.
These letters are the ceremonies or the rituals of religion, which
lead man to the interior life of union with God.
Mystic hieroglyphs are these letters also; they are sketches and
designs holding interior and holy truth.
Religion and the Mysteries go hand in hand to lead our brethren to
truth, both have for object the reversing and renewing of our natures,
both have for the end the re-building of a temple inhabited by Wisdom
and Love, or God with man.
But religion and the Mysteries would be useless phenomena if
Divinity had not also accorded means to attain these great ends.
But these means are only in the innermost of the sanctuary. The
Mysteries are required to build a temple to Religion, and religion is
required to unite Man with God.
Such is the greatness of religion, and such the exalted dignity of
the Mysteries from all time.
It would be unjust to you, beloved brothers, that we should think
that you have never regarded the Holy Mysteries in this
real aspect, the one which shows them as the only means able to
preserve in purity and integrity the doctrine of the important truths
concerning God, nature, and man. This doctrine was couched in holy
symbolic language, and the truths which it contained having been
gradually translated among the outer circle into the ordinary
languages of man, became in con-sequence more obscure and
unintelligible.
The Mysteries, as you know, beloved brothers, promise things which
are and which will remain always the heritage of but a small number of
men; these are the mysteries which can neither be bought nor sold
publicly, and can only be acquired by a heart which has attained to
wisdom and love.
He in whom this holy flame has been awakened lives in true
happiness, content with everything and in everything free. He sees the
cause of human corruption and knows that it is inevitable. He hates no
criminal, he pities him, and seeks to raise him who has fallen, and to
restore the wanderer, because he feels notwithstanding all the
corruption, in the whole there is no taint.
He sees with a clear eye the underlying truth in the foundation of
all religion, he knows the sources of superstition and of incredulity,
as being caused by modifications of truth which have not
attained perfect equilibrium.
We are assured, my esteemed brothers, that you consider the true
Mystic from this aspect, and that you will not attribute to his
royal art, that which the energy of some isolated individuals have
made of this art.
It is, therefore, with these views, which accord exactly with
ours, that you will compare religion, and the mysteries of the holy
schools of Wisdom, to loving sisters who have watched over the good of
mankind since the necessity of their birth.
Religion divides itself into exterior and interior religion,
exterior signifying ceremony; and interior, worship in spirit and in
truth; the outer schools possessing the letter and the symbol, the
inner ones, the spirit and meaning- but the outer schools were united
to the inner ones by ceremonies, as also the outer schools of the
mysteries were linked with the inner one by means of symbol.
Thus religion can never be merely ceremony, but hidden and
holy mysteries penetrate through symbol into the outer worship to
prepare men properly for the worship of God in spirit and in truth.
Very soon the night of symbol will disappear, the light will bring
forth the day and the mysteries no longer veiled will show themselves
in the splendour of full truth.
The vestibule of nature, the temple of reason and the sanctuary of
Revelation, will form but one Temple. Thus the great edifice will be
completed, the edifice which consists in the re-union of man, nature,
and God.
A perfect knowledge of man, of nature, and of God will be the
lights which will enable the leaders of humanity to bring back from
every side their wandering brothers, those who are led by the
prejudices of reason, by the turbulence of passions, to the ways of
peace and knowledge.
We are approaching the period of light, and the reign of wisdom
and love, that of God who is the source of light; Brothers of light,
there is but one religion whose simple truth spreads in all religions
like branches, returning through multiplicity into the unity of the
tree.
Sons of truth, there is but one order, but one Brotherhood, but
one association of men thinking alike in the one object of acquiring
the light. From this centre misunderstanding has caused innumerable
Orders, but all will return from the multiplicity of opinions, to the
only truth and to the true Order, the association of those who are
able to receive the light, the Community of the Elect.
With this measure all religions and all orders of man must be
measured. Multiplicity is in the ceremony of the exterior truth only
in the interior. The right of these brotherhoods is in the variety of
explanation of the symbols caused by the lapse of time, needs of the
day, and other circumstances. The true Community of Light can
be only one.
The exterior symbol is only the sheath which holds the inner; it
may change and multiply, but it can never weaken the truth of the
interior; moreover, it was necessary; we ought to seek it and try to
decipher it to discover the meaning of the spiritual interior.
All errors, divisions, all mis-understandings in Religion and in
secret societies only concern the letter. What rests behind it remains
always pure and holy.
Soon the time for those who seek the light will be accomplished,
for the day comes when the old will be united to the new, the outer to
the inner, the high with the low, the heart with the brain, man with
God, and this epoch is destined forpresent age. Do not ask, beloved
brothers, ... why the present age? ...
Everything has its time for beings subject to time and space. It
is in such wise according to the unvarying law of the Wisdom of God,
who has co-ordinated all in harmony and perfection.
The elect should first labour to acquire both wisdom and love, in
order to earn the gift of power, which unchangeable Divinity gives
only to those who know and those who love.
Morning follows night, and the sun rises, and all moves on to full
mid-day, where all shadows disappear in his vertical splendour. Thus,
the letter of truth must exist; then comes the practical explanation,
then the truth itself; only truth can comprehend truth; then
alone can the spirit of truth appear which sets the seals closing the
light. He who now can receive the truth will understand. It is to you,
much loved brothers, you who labour to reach truth, you who have so
faithfully preserved the hieroglyphics of the holy mysteries in your
temple, it is to you that the first ray of truth will be directed;
this ray will pierce through the cloud of mystery, and will announce
the full day and the treasure which it brings.
Do not ask who those are who write to you; look at the
spirit not the letter, the thing, not at persons.
Neither pride, nor self seeking, neither does any unworthy motive,
exist in our retreats; we know the object and the destination of man,
and the light which lights us works in all our actions.
We are especially called to write to you, dear brothers of light;
and that which gives power to our commission is the truth which we
possess, and which we pass on to you on the least sign, and according
to the measure of the capacity of each.
Light is apt for communication, where there is reception and
capacity, but it constrains no one, and waits its reception
tranquilly.
Our desire, our aim, our office is to revivify the dead letter,
and to spiritualise the symbols, turn the passive into the active,
death into life; but this we cannot do by ourselves, but
through the spirit of light of Him who is Wisdom and the Light of the
world.
Until the present time the Inner Sanctuary has been separated from
the Temple, and the Temple beset with those who belong only to the
precincts; but the time is coming when the Innermost will be reunited
with the Temple, in order that those who are in the Temple can
influence those who are in the outer courts, so that the outer pass in.
In our sanctuary all the hidden mysteries are preserved intact,
they have never been profaned.
This sanctuary is invisible, as is a force which is only known
through its action.
By this short description, my dear brothers, you can tell who we
are, and it will be superfluous to assure you that we do not belong to
those restless natures who seek to build in this common life an ideal
after their own fantastic imaginations. Neither do we belong to those
who wish to play a great part in the world, and who promise miracles
that they themselves do not understand. We do not represent either
that class of minds, who, resenting the condition of certain things,
have no object but the desire of dominating others, and who love
adventure and exaggeration.
We can also assure you that we belong to no other sect or
association than the one true and great one of those who are able to
receive the light. We are not also of those who think it their right
to mould all after their own model, the arrogance to seek to re-model
all other societies; we assure you faithfully that we know
exactly the innermost of religion and of the Holy Mysteries;
and that we possess with absolute certainty, all that has been
surmised to be in the Adytum, and that this said possession gives us
the strength to justify our commission, and to impart to the dead
letter and hieroglyphic everywhere both spirit and life. The treasures
in our sanctuary are many; we understand the spirit and meaning of all
symbols and all ceremony which have existed since the day of Creation
to the present time, as well as the most interior truths of all the
Holy Books, with the laws and customs of primitive people.
We possess a light by which we are anointed, and by means of which
we read the hidden and secret things of nature.
We possess a fire which feeds us, and which gives us the strength
to act upon everything in nature. We possess a key to open the
gate of mystery, and a key to shut nature's laboratory. We
know of the existence of a bond which will unite us to the Upper
Worlds, and reveal to us their sights and their sounds. All the
marvels of nature are subordinate to our will by its being
united with Divinity.
We have mastered the science which draws directly from nature,
whence there is no error, but truth and light only.
In our School we are instructed in all things because our Master
is the Light itself and its essence. The plenitude of our scholarship
is the knowledge of this tie between the divine and spiritual worlds
and of the spiritual world with the elementary, and of the elementary
world with the material world.
By these knowledges we are in condition to co-ordinate the spirits
of nature and the heart of man.
Our science is the inheritance promised to the Elect; otherwise,
those who are duly prepared for receiving the light, and the practice
of our science is in the completion of the Divine union with the child
of man.
We could often tell you, beloved brothers, of marvels relating to
the hidden things in the treasury of the Sanctuary, which would amaze
and astonish you; we could speak to you about ideas concerning which
the profoundest philosophy is as removed as the earth from the sun,
but to which we are near being one with the light of the innermost.
But our object is not to excite your curiosity, but to raise your
desires to seek the light at its source, where your search for wisdom
will be rewarded and your longing for love satisfied, for wisdom and
love dwell in our retreats. The stimulus of their reality and of their
truth is our magical power.
We assure you that our treasures, though of infinite value, are
concealed in so simple a manner that they entirely baffle the
researches of opinionated science, and also though these treasures
would bring to carnal minds both madness and sorrow, nevertheless,
they are, and they ever remain to us the treasures of the highest
wisdom.
My best blessing upon you, 0 my brothers, if you understand these
great truths. The recovery of the triple word and of its power
will be your reward.
Your happiness will be in having the strength to help to re-unite
man with man, and with nature and with God, which is the real work of
every workman who has not rejected the Corner Stone.
Now we have fulfilled our trust and we have announced the approach
of full day, and the joining of the inner Sanctuary with the Temple;
we leave the rest to your own free will.
We know well, to our bitter grief, that even as the Saviour was
not understood in his personality, but was ridiculed and condemned in
his humility, likewise also His spirit which will appear in glory will
also be rejected and despised by many. Nevertheless the coming of His
Spirit should be announced in the Temples in order that these words
should be fulfilled.
"I have knocked at your doors and you have not opened them to me;
I have called and you have not listened to my voice; I have invited
you to the wedding, but you were busy with other things."
May Peace and the light of the Spirit be with you!
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
It appears to me that it is most necessary to bear in mind, while
reading the above, that as a rule all mystic writing is, so to speak,
synthetic. This seems a contradiction somewhat to the continual
repetition of very similar words and ideas. It is, however, synthetic
in this respect, that though apparently diffuse, it is in reality
condensed to the utmost.
There can be no manner of doubt that the author of the letters is
addressing readers and hearers who are already much advanced in
philosophy. It is well now and then, to use words in their true
meaning, and say that his hearers and readers must have been true
lovers of wisdom in the best sense, or he could not have addressed
them as he does. Because, as I think I ventured to suggest in the
notes to the first letter, Regeneration to the mystic does not mean
the degenerate interpretation of modern theology.
The royal art hinted at in these letters is well called
royal, as it is neither more nor less than a close imitation, under
the inspiration of God's wisdom, of the Creative power itself, or
rather the re-creation of man back to his original royal stand-point.
What other work can compare to this?
No wonder "theology" in the early ages meant something very
different in sense of fulness to the emptiness of theology as
expounded in modern times. This indeed does hold the original letter,
but the wonders lying behind it wait now for the true priest to
decipher.
This "Royal Art" may be taken as pertaining to the "Christian
Mysteries" which Eckartshausen speaks of with such deep respect and
reverence as being in the Inner Sanctuary. In that Inner Sanctuary,
where we may surmise none but the elect or the re-created could enter!
No wonder the prayers of such men ascended with sweet savour to the
Master, no wonder the work of such men was efficaaous as for
century to century they worked on in order and knowledge towards the
great Consummation, when the end was achieved and the Temple in its
perfection manifested as the "first Fruits," so that all who were
ready saw, and all who were ready heard, for the day of the Gentiles
had arrived.
Eckartshausen is, therefore, addressing the modern descendants in
his day of those elect men- men who, coming after the consummation,
could never achieve again the same work, but who had entered into the
mysteries, and whose duty was to protect and cherish them. And to all
followers, however remote they may have been in his day, and in our
days, from the special elect at the great period of the Church, is the
same work given.
His synthetic language, therefore, is really addressed to minds
already in good possession of a vast quantity Qf knowledge to whom it
was not necessary to do more than point the discourse by short,
direct, condensed description, for it is very clear that except in
inculcating respect to the service of religion, there is very little
that would be directly teaching to an ordinary theological student,
who, we will-suppose, reads his exhortation with no knowledge of
what interior process really meant. Indeed, it would seem to
such rather assumption and assertion, especially the latter part where
Eckhartshausen, speaking in the plural, directly affirms his
transcendental position with no explanation as to the how and the why.
It is clear, therefore, that he is addressing real students of the
mysteries, and that whoever is fortunate enough to be a real student,
to such the language will be sufficiently illuminative. If they were
empty and inflated claims, it is certain that his letters would long
ago have been repudiated as worthless; but we know that the contrary
has been the case, and that no contradictions on his own grounds
have ever been made.
One must notice, also, that in this letter, after speaking chiefly
of the Church in the previous letters, it is the Temple that is
generally referred to. Does it not all point to a conclusion, which I
fancy all students of these matters agree to, that the Church, whether
Eastern or Western, is meant as being the Receptacle for the letter,
the enunciator of the synthesised unchangeable doctrine, and whose
religion lies in symbol and hieroglyph, whereas it is reserved for
another order, that of the Temple or the redeemed men within the
Church to hold the mystery therein concealed, forming the Nameless
Society which is made up from chosen (i.e., capable) men and women,
out of the inner societies which have always existed as circles within
more and more nearly approaching the Sacred Centre. All mystics
exhort students to respect and revere the religion in which they are
born, being, as Eckartshausen so repeatedly points out, the standpoint
from which more interior journey can alone be safely made. The word
mystery is often most annoying to some minds, as is also the continual
holding out of apparently vague and illusive hopes and expectations.
Eckartshausen especially says he does not wish to awaken curiosity; it
is nevertheless clear that he does. To some minds it will remain mere
curiosity, but others will be stimulated to prolonged and patient
search and work. There can be no doubt in such case the road will
open unexpectedly, and work will be pointed out that was not foreseen.
Mystery not only means veiled knowledge, but also what is beyond our
senses, so we call it rightly mystery in opposition to exact science
which we know is within the capability of all industrious students,
whereas mystery opens the possibility of undreamt of knowledge, and
undreamt of happiness, for all the noble souls who we presume have a
right to say so, say it is the Pearl without price. The great
philosophy of the east in its grand and sonorous language says so, and
we in modern times find that such was ever the one idea of the first
philosophers, to which sources our most redent modern philosophy is
wisely once more directing earnest attentlon.
ISABEL DE STEIGER.
Scanned from "The Unknown World", Vol. II. - No. 2, March 15, 1895,
and corrected by hand.