The Cloud upon the Sanctuary [part 2]

By the Councillor d' Eckartshausen
Translated (with notes) By Madame Isabel De Steiger

Published in six parts in the periodical "The Unknown World", 1895.

Part 1 Letters 1&2

Part 2 Letters 3&4

Part 3 Letters 5&6

 

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 misunderstandings 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 for present 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, O 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 fullness 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 efficacious 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 of 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 recent modern philosophy is
wisely once more directing earnest attention.

ISABEL DE STEIGER.

Scanned from "The Unknown World", Vol. II. - No. 2, March 15, 1895.

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 the
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 us from the bonds 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 pertinent
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 external 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
dependence 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 indestructible; 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 voluntarily 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 the 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 of 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.

 

Part 1 Letters 1&2

Part 2 Letters 3&4

Part 3 Letters 5&6