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 IV.
As infinity in numbers loses itself in the unit, and as the
innumerable rays of a circle are united in one single centre only, it
is likewise with the Mysteries; their hieroglyphics and infinite
number of emblems have the object of exemplifying but one single
truth. He who knows this has found the key to understand everything
all at once.
There is but one God, but one truth, and one way which leads to
this grand Truth. There is but one means of finding it.
He who has found this way possesses everything in its possession
all wisdom in one book alone, all strength in one force, every beauty
in one single object, all riches in one treasure only, every happiness
in one perfect felicity. And the sum of all these perfections is Jesus
Christ, who was crucified and who lived again. Now, this great truth,
expressed thus, is, it is true, only an object of faith, but it can
become also one of experimental knowledge, as soon as we are
instructed how Jesus Christ can be or become all this.
This great mystery was always an object of instruction in the
Secret School of the invisible and interior Church; this great
knowledge was understood in the earliest days of Christianity under
the name of Disciplina Arcana. From this secret school are
derived all the rites and ceremonies I extant in the Outer Church. But
the spirit of these grand and simple verities was withdrawn into the
Interior, and in our day it is entirely lost as to the exterior.
It has been prophecied long ago, dear brothers, that all which is
hidden shall be revealed in these latter days; but it has also been
predicted that many false prophets will arise, and the faithful are
warned not to believe every spirit, but to prove them if they really
come from God, I. John iv., 5. The apostle himself explains how this
truth is ascertained. He says, "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God,
every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh
is of God, and every spirit which confesseth not is not of God." That
is to say, the spirit who separates in Him the Divine and human is
not from God.
We confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and hence the
spirit of truth speaks by us. But the mystery that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is of wide extent and great depth, and in it
is contained the knowledge of the divine-human, and it is this
knowledge that we are choosing today as object for our instruction.
As we are not speaking to neophytes in matters of faith, it will
be much easier for you, dear brothers, to receive the sublime truths
which we will present to you, as without doubt you have already chosen
as object for your holy meditation various preparatory subjects.
Religion considered scientifically is the doctrine of the re-union
of man separated from God to man re-united to God. Hence its sole
object is to unite every human being to God, through which union alone
can humanity attain its highest felicity both temporally and
spiritually.
This doctrine, therefore, of re-union is of the most sublime
importance, and being a doctrine it necessarily must have a method by
which it leads and teaches us. The first is the knowledge of the
correct means of re-union, and secondly the teaching, after the
knowledge of the correct means, how these means should be suitably
coordinated to the end.
This grand concept of re-union, on which all religious doctrine is
concentrated, could never have been known to man without
revelation. It has always been altogether outside the sphere of
scientific knowledge, but this very ignorance of man has made
revelation absolutely necessary to us, otherwise we could, unassisted,
never have found the means of rising out of this state of ignorance.
Revelation entails the necessity of faith in revelation, because
he who has no experience or knowledge whatsoever of a thing must
necessarily believe that he wishes to know and have experience. If
faith fails, there is no desire for revelation, and the mind of man
closes by itself, its own door and road for discovering the methods
revealed by Revelation only. As action and re-action follow each other
in nature, so also inevitably revelation and faith act and re-act. One
cannot exist without the other, and the more faith a man has the more
will revelation be made to him of matters which lie in obscurity. It
is true, and very true, that all the veiled truths of religions, even
those heavily veiled ones, the most difficult ones to us, will one day
be revealed and justified before a tribunal of the most rigid Justice;
but the weakness of men, the lack of penetration in perceiving the
relation and correspondence between physical and spiritual nature,
requires that the highest truths should only be imparted gradually.
The holy obscurity of the mysteries is thus on account of our
weakness, because our eyes are enabled only gradually to bear their
full and dazzling light. In every grade at which the believer in
Revelation arrives, he obtains clearer light, and this progressive
illumination continues the more convincing, because every truth of
faith so acquired becomes more and more vitalised, passing finally
into conviction.
Hence faith is founded on our weakness, and also on the full light
of revelation which will, in its communication with us, direct us
according to our capabilities to the gradual understanding of things,
so that in due order the cognisance of the most elevated truths will
be ours.
Those objects which are quite unknown to human sense are
necessarily belonging to the domain of faith.
Man can only adore and be silent, but if he wishes to demonstrate
matters which cannot be manifested objectively, he necessarily falls
into error.
Man should adore and be silent, therefore, until such time arrives
when these objects in the domain of faith become clearer, and,
therefore, more easily recognised. Everything proves itself by itself
as soon as we have acquired the interior experience of the
truths revealed through faith, so soon as we are led by faith to
vision, that is to say, to full cognisance.
In all time have there been men illuminated of God who had this
interior knowledge of the things of faith demonstrated objectively
either in full or partly, according as the truths of faith passed into
their understanding or their hearts. The first kind of vision was
called divine illumination. The second was entitled divine
inspiration.
The inner sensorium was opened in many to divine and
transcendental vision, called ecstacy because this inner sensorium was
so enlarged that it entirely dominated the outer physical senses.
But this kind of man is always inexplicable, and he must remain
such always to the man of mere sense who has no organs receptive to the
transcendental and supernatural, "the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him and he
cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged," I. Cor; xi.,
14, i.e., because his spiritual senses are not open to tbe
transcendental world, so that he can have no more objective cognisance
of such world than a blind man has of colour; thus the natural man has
lost these interior senses, or rather, the capacity for their
development is neglected almost to atrophy.
Thus mere physical man is, in general, spiritually blind, one of
the further consequences of the Fall. Man then is doubly miserable; he
not only has his eyes blindfolded to the sight of high truths, but his
heart also languishes a prisoner in the bonds of flesh and blood,
which confine him to animal and sensuous pleasures to the hurt of more
elevated and genuine ones. Therefore, are we slaves to concupiscence,
to the domination of tyrannical passions, and, therefore, do we drag
ourselves as paralysed sufferers supported on crutches; the one crutch
being the weak one of mere human reason, and the other, sentiment- the
one daily giving us appearance instead of reality, the other making us
constantly choose evil, imagining it to be good. This is, therefore,
our unhappy condition.
Men can only be happy when the bandage which intercepts the true
light falls from their eyes, and when the fetters of slavery are
loosened from their hearts. The blind must see, the lame must walk,
before happiness can be understood. But the great and all-powerful law
to which the felicity or happiness of man is indissolubly attached is
the one following- "Man, let reason rule over your passions!"
For ages has man striven to teach and to preach, with, however,
the result, after so many centuries, of but the blind always leading
the blind; for in all the foolishness of misery into which we have
fallen, we do not yet see that man wants more than man to raise us
from this condition.
Prejudices and errors, crimes and vices, only change from century
to century; they are never extirpated from humanity; reason without
illumination flickers faintly in every age, in the heavy air of
spiritual darkness; the heart, exhausted with passions, is also the
same century after century.
There is but One who can heal these evils, but One who is able to
open our inner eyes, but One who can free usfrom the bdnds of
sensuality.
This One is Jesus Christ, the Saviour of Man, the
Saviour because He wishes to obliterate from us all the
consequences which follow as result from the blindness of our natural
reason, or the errors arising from the passions of ungoverned hearts.
Very few men, beloved brothers, have a true and exact conception
of the greatness of the idea meant by the Redemption of Man;
many suppose that Jesus Christ the Lord has only redeemed or re-bought
us by His Blood from damnation, otherwise the eternal
separation of man from God; but they do not believe that He could
also deliver all those who are bound in Him and confide in Him, from
all the miseries of this earth plane!
Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the World ; He is the deliverer
from all human wretchedness, and He has redeemed us from death and
sin; how could He be all that, if the world must languish perpetually
in the shades of ignorance and in the bonds of passions? It has been
already very clearly predicted in the Prophets that the time of the
Redemption of His people, the first Sabbath of time, will come.
Long ago ought we to have acknowledged this most consolatory promise;
but the want of the true knowledge of God, of man, and of
nature has been the real hindrance which has always obstructed our
sight of the great Mysteries of the faith.
You must know, my brothers, that there is a dual nature, one pure,
spiritual, immortal, and indestructible, the other impure, material,
mortal, and destructible. The pure nature was before the impure. This
latter originated solely through the disharmony and disproportion of
substances which form destructible nature. Hence nothing is perinanent
until all disproportions and dissonances are eradicated, so that all
remains in harmony.
The incorrect conception regarding spirit and matter is one of the
principal causes which prevent many verities of faith from shining in
their true lustre.
Spirit is a substance, an essence, an absolute reality.
Hence its properties are indestructibility, uniformity, penetration,
indivisibility, and continuity. Matter is not a substance, it is
an aggregate. Hence it is destructible, divisible, and subject
to change.
The metaphysical world is one really existing, perfectly
pure and indestructible, whose Centre we call Jesus Christ, and whose
inhabitants are known by the names of Angels and Spirits.
The physical world is that of phenomena, and it possesses no
absolute truth, all that we call truth here is but relative, the
shadow and phenomena only of truth.
Our reason here borrows all its ideas from the senses, hence they
are lifeless and dead. We draw everything from extenal objectivity,
and our reason is like an ape who imitates what nature shows him
outwardly. Thus the light of the senses is the principle of our
earthly reason, sensuality the motive for our will, tending therefore
to animal wants and their satisfaction. It is true, however, that we
feel higher motives imperative, but up to the present we do not know
either where to seek or where to find.
In this world everything is corruptible; it is useless to seek
here for a pure principle of reason and morality or motive for
the Will. This must be sought for in a more exalted world- there,
where all is pure and indestructible, where there reigns a Being all
wisdom and all love. Thus the world neither can nor will become happy
until this Real Being can be received by humanity in full and become
its All in All.
Man, dear brothers, is composed of indestructible and metaphysical
substance, as well as of material and destructible substance, but in
such a manner that the indestructible and eternal is, as it were,
imprisoned in the destructible matter.
Thus two contradictory natures are comprehended in the same man.
The destructible substance enchains us to the sensible, the other
seeks to deliver us from these chains, and to raise us to the
spiritual. Hence the incessant combat between good and evil.
The fundamental cause of human corruption is to be found in the
corruptible matter from which man is formed. For this gross matter
oppresses the action of the transcendental and spiritual principle,
and is the true cause, hence, of the blindness of our understanding,
and the errors of our inclinations.
The fragility of a china vessel depends upon the clay from which
it is formed. The most beautiful form that clay of any sort is able to
receive must always remain fragile because the matter of which it is
formed is also fragile. Thus do men remain likewise frail
notwithstanding all our external culture.
When we examine the causes of the obstacles keeping the natural
man in such deep abasement, they are found in the grossness of the
matter in which the spiritual part is, as it were, buried and bound.
The inflexibility of fibres, the immovability of temperaments,
that would wish to obey the refined stimulation of the spirit, are, as
it were, the material chains which bind them, preventing in us the
action of the sublime functions of which the spirit is capable.
The nerves and fluidity of the brain can only yield us rough and
obscure notions derived from phenomena, and not from truth and the
things themselves; and as we cannot, by the strength of our thinking
powers alone, have sufficient balance to oppose representations strong
enough to counteract the violence of external sensation, the result is
that we are governed by our sensations, and the voice of reason which
speaks softly internally is deafened by the tumultuous noise of the
elements which keep our mechanism going.
It is true that reason strains to raise itself above this uproar,
and wishes to decide the combat, seeking to restore order by the light
and force of its judgment. But its action is only like the rays of the
sun constantly hidden by clouds.
The grossness of all the matter in which material man consists,
and the tissue of the whole edifice of his nature, is the cause of that
disinclination which holds the soul in continual imperfection.
The heaviness of our thinking power in general is consequent upon
dependance upon gross and unyielding matter, this same matter forming
the true bonds of the flesh, and is the true source of all error and
vice. Reason, which should be an absolute legislator, is continually
slave to sensuality, which raises itself as regent and, governing the
reason that is drooping in chains, follows its own desires.
This truth has been felt for long, and it has always been taught
that reason should be sole legislator. It should govern the will and
never be governed itself.
Great and small feel this truth; but no sooner is it desired to
put it in execution than the animal will vanquishes reason, and then
the reason subjugates the animal will; thus in every man the victory
and defeat are alternate, hence this power and counter-power are the
cause of this perpetual oscillation between good and evil, or the true
and the false.
If man wishes to be led to the true in such manner that we can
only act after the laws of reason, and from the purified will, it is
absolutely necessary to constitute the pure reason sovereign in man.
But how can this be done when the matter out of which many men is
formed is more or less brutal, divisible and corruptible, hence
misery, illness, poverty, death, want, prejudices, errors, and vices,
the necessary consequence of the limitation of the immortal spirit in
the bonds of brute and corruptible matter. Sensuality is bound to rule
if reason be fettered.
Yes, friends and brothers, such is the general fate of man, and as
this state of things is propagated from man to man, it may in all
justice be called the hereditary corruption of man.
We observe, in general, that the powers of reason act upon the
heart, but in relation only to the specific constitution of the matter
of which man is made. Thus it is extremely remarkable when we think
that the sun vivifies this animal matter according to the measure of
the distance from this terrestial body, that it makes it suitable to
the functions of animal economy, but at one degree more or less raised
from spiritual influence. Diversity of nations, their properties with
regard to climate, the variety of character, passions, manners,
prejudices and customs, even their virtues and their vices, depend
entirely upon the specific constitution of the matter from which they
are formed, and in which the imprisoned spirit operates accordingly.
Man's capacity for culture is modified to this constitution, likewise
his science, which can only affect people as far as there is matter
present, susceptible to such modification, and in this modification
consists the capacity for culture suitable to such people, which
suitability depends partly on climate, partly on descent.
Generally, we find in each zone man much the same everywhere, weak
and sensual, wise just in so far as his physical matter allows reason
to triumph over the sensuous or foolish if the sensuous obtains
mastery over the more or less fettered spirit. In this lies the evil
and the good specially belonging to each nation, as well as to each
isolated individual. We find in the world at large the same
corruption inherent in the matter from which man is made, only under
various forms and modifications.
From the lowest animal condition of savage nature man rises to the
idea of the social state, primarily through his wants and desires,
strength and cunning; qualities especially animal, inherently his
as the animal develops thence gradually into other forms.
The modifications of these fundamental animal tendencies are
endless; and the highest degree to which human culture, as acquired by
the world, has attained, up to the present has not carried things
further than the putting of a finer polish on the substance of his
animal instincts. This means to say we are raised from the rank of the
brute to that of the refined animal.
But this period was necessary, because on its accomplishment
begins a new era, when the animal instincts being fully developed,
there commences the stage of evolution of the more elevated desires
towards light and reason.
Jesus Christ has written in our hearts in exceedingly beautiful
words this great truth, that man must seek in his common clay for the
cause of all his sorrows. When He said, "The best man, he who strives
the most to arrive at truth, sins seven times a day,"[1] He wished to
say by this; in the man of the finest organisation, the seven powers
of the spirit are still closed, therefore the seven sensuous actions
surmount them daily after their respective fashions.
Thus the best man is exposed to error and passions; the best man
is weak and sinful; the best man is not a free man, and, therefore,
exempt from pain and trouble; the best man is subject to sickness and
death, and why? Because all these are the natural inevitable
consequences incidental to the qualities of the corrupt matter of
which he is formed.
Therefore, there could be no hope of higher happiness for humanity
so long as this corruptible and material forms the principal
substantial part of his being.
The impossibility of mankind to transport itself, of itself, to
true perfection, is a despairing thought, but, at the same time, one
full of consolation, because, in consequence of this radical
impossibility, and because of it, a more exalted and perfect being
than man permitted himself to be clothed in this mortal and
destructible envelope in order to make the mortal immortal, and
the destructible indestrtictible; and in this object is to be sought
the true reason for the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the actual substantial Word by which
all is made, and which existed from the beginning, Jesus Christ, the
Wisdom of God working in everything, was as the centre of Paradise of
the world and of light. He was the only real organism by which alone
Divine strength could be communicated, and this organism is of
immortal and pure nature, that indestructible substance which gives
new life and raises all things to happiness and perfection. This pure
incorruptible substance is the pure element in which spiritual
man lived.
From this perfect element, which God only can inhabit, and the
substance out of which the first man was formed, from it was the first
man separated by the Fall. By the partaking of the Tree of Good and
Evil, of the mixture, the good and incorruptible principle with the
bad and corruptible one, he was self-poisoned, so that his immortal
essence retreated interiorly, and the mortal, pressing forward,
clothed him externally. Thus, then, disappeared immortality,
happiness, and life, and mortality and death were the results of this
change.
Many men cannot understand the idea of the Tree of Good and Evil;
this tree was, however, the product of moveable but central matter,
but in which destructibility had somewhat the superiority over the
indestructible. The premature use of this fruit was that which
poisoned Adam, robbing him of his immortality and enveloping him in
this material and mortal clay, and thenceforward he fell a prey to the
Elements which originally he governed. This unhappy event was,
however, the reason why Immortal Wisdom, the pure metaphysical
element, clothed itself with a mortal body and voluntanly sacrificed
himself; so that the Interior Powers could penetrate into the centre
of the destruction, and could then ferment gradually, changing the
mortal to the immortal.
Thus, when it came about quite naturally that immortal man became
subject to mortality through tbe enjoyment of mortal matter, it also
happened quite naturally that mortal man could only recover his former
dignity through the enjoyment of Immortal Matter.
All passes naturally and simply under God's Reign, but in order to
understand this simplicity it is requisite to have pure ideas of God,
of nature, and of man. And if the sublimest Truths of faith are still,
for us, wrapped in impenetrable obscurity, the reason for this is
because we have up to the present dissolved the connection between
God, nature, and man.
Jesus Christ has spoken to His most intimate friends when He was
still on this earth, of the grand mystery ot Regeneration, but all
that He said was obscure to them, they could not then receive it; thus
the development of these great Truths was reserved for latter days,
for it is the greatest and the last Mystery of Religion, in which all
the others retreat as to a Unity.
Regeneration is no other than a dissolution of, and a release from
this impure and corruptible matter, which enchains our immortal
essence, plunging into deathly sleep its obstructed vital force.
Therefore, there must necessarily be a real method to eradicate this
poisonous ferment which breeds so much suffering for us, and thereby
to liberate the obstructed vitality.
There is, however, no other means to find this excepting by
religion, for religion looked at scientifically being the doctrine
which proclaims the re-union with God, it must of necessity show us
how to arrive at this re-union.
Is not Jesus the life giving Intelligence? He gives us the
principal object of the Bible and of all the desires, hopes, and
efforts of the Christians. Have we not received from our Lord and
Master while still He walked with His disciples, the profoundest
solutions of the most hidden truths? Did not our Lord and Master when
He was with them in His glorified Body after His resurrection give
them the highest revelation with regard to His Person, and did He not
lead them still more deeply into central knowledge of truth?
Will He not realise that which He said in His Sacerdotal prayer,
St. John xvii., 22, 23: "And the glory which thou hast given to me I
have given unto them, that they may be one, even as We are one: I in
them, and they in Me, that they may be perfected into one."
As the disciples of the Lord could not comprehend this great
mystery of the new and last alliance, Jesus Christ transmitted it to
the latter days, of the future now arriving, when He said, "And the
glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given unto them, that they may
be one even as We are One," St. John xvii. 22. This alliance is called
the Union of Peace. It is then that the law of God will be engraven in
the heart of our hearts; we shall all know the Lord; and we shall be
His people, and He will be our God.
All is already prepared for this actual possession of God, this
union with God really possible here below; and the holy element, the
efficacious medicine for humanity, is revealed by God's Spirit. The
table of the Lord is ready and everyone is invited; the "true bread of
Angels" is prepared.
The holiness and the greatness of the Mystery which contains
within itself every mystery here obliges us to be silent, and we are
not permitted to speak more than concerning its effects.
The corruptible and destructible is destroyed, and replaced by the
incorruptible and by the indestructible. The inner sensorium opens and
links us on to the spiritual world. We are enlightened by wisdom, led
by truth, and nourished with the torch of love. Unimagined strength
develops in us wherewith to vanquish the world, the flesh and the
devil. Our whole being is renewed and made suitable for the actual
dwelling-place of the Spirit of God. Command over nature, intercourse
with the upper worlds, and the delight of visible intercourse with the
Lord are granted also!
The hoodwink of ignorance falls from our eyes, the bonds of
sensuality break, and we rejoice in the liberty of God's children.
We have told you the chiefest and most important fact, if your
heart having the thirst for truth has laid hold on the pure ideas that
you have gathered from all this, and have received in its entirety the
grandeur and the blessedness of the thing itself as object of desire,
we will tell you further.
May the Glory of the Lord and the renewing of your whole being be
meanwhile the highest of your hopes!
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
It is of course evident that Eckartshausen is addressing two
orders of mind- the reference to the Christian Mysteries implying
this.
It is, therefore, as well to follow his advice and be silent, lest
premature opinions might not only be useless, but misleading. It is
abundantly clear, however, with regard to "Faith," the cultivation of
which he so much urges, that he cannot mean the lower Faith which does
duty so much as the greater gift. I mean the Faith which cannot
discern what is mere current opinion from superstition, a vast
quantity of which pertinaciously clings round all "religions." By
Faith Eckartshausen means (I infer) agreeing to the great primal
doctrines he enunciates as being beyond the solution of reason (but
NOT in consequence to be discarded); for he urges zealously the
necessity of reason. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that
Eckartshausen is advocating the cause, not of a blind superstition, as
many people now imagine this religion of his to be, but of the highly
philosophical, profoundly reasoned, and self-demonstrating system of
Theosophy experimentally understood by the higher minds of more
advanced grade, but to the others still a matter of faith, that is, of
future knowledge, if the proper means for acquiring it are duly
followed.
ISABEL DE STEIGER
[1] I do not know to what text, if any, this refers, but I translate
as I find for the sake of the context.
Scanned from "The Unknown World", Vol. II. - No. 3, April 15, 1895,
and corrected by hand.