This is the latest in my series of posts making available the writings of Colonel Charles ‘Griff’ Seymour, one of the most important esotericists of the twentieth century.

March 1936 to September 1937

Foreword

This work aims at inducing a hidden knowledge from the deeper strata of the subconscious minds of certain of its readers rather than giving a definite teaching on the subject of meditation. There are in existence scores of excellent books on meditation by competent teachers. These will be referred to as necessary.

Many who are now once again in incarnation were formerly initiates of the Ancient Mystery religions. The vital symbols of these Mysteries are able, even today, to stimulate the memories of a past that has long been forgotten by most of us. Thus they can summon back to the Temple those who were once ‘Knowers’. These can resume labours that were interrupted by the fire and sword of ignorance and bigotry.

OMMA THEIS EISO PEPLON

Part 1. [Untitled]

In the Wisdom Religion emphasis was laid not so much upon dogma and knowledge as upon a kind of uniqueness of understanding which showed itself in those individuals who had developed certain inner experiences which are made possible by the use of a genuine system of meditation. The search for uniqueness in matters religious is thus described by a modern philosopher and mystic, and apostle of the ‘unique’:

In all respects, ‘being’ is more important than ‘efficiency’: in all respects, depth of life is more valuable than external riches: in all respects, understanding alone and not exterior knowledge leads to real progress as opposed to success. I, personally, never meant to do more than create a symbol for meditation. Those who meditate upon it in the right way will find out for themselves what they can do. This depends on them, not on me. (Keyserling, Creative Understanding, Introduction, p. 24.)

In any genuine system of cult meditation the symbolic images are, for us, always more important than the exoteric religious and philosophical teaching given out by the officials of the Cultus; because, if the system is genuine, each symbol acts as a creative spiritual source of life. The system only works when the symbols become alive and replete with spiritual power, and when the devotee feels within his own personal being the life forces that they represent. In this lies the uniqueness of each meditation system, for every student must learn first of all to ‘turn the eyes within the outer covering of her personality’. The inner kingdoms are within you.

Modern education, as Keyserling points out, ‘imparts knowledge, but it does not inspire personal understanding; it develops efficiency, but it does not create a higher plane of being.’ Meditation should be a sort of personal postgraduate course for the mature. It is a self-education, a learning to use symbols in the right way, for each ‘self’ symbol is unique in the way that it acts. A very common question from beginners is: what system of meditation do you recommend? Naturally one recommends one’s own system. Trying to work two systems at once invariably ends in failure. There are many systems, some good, some not so good, and some extremely dangerous, especially those which are Western adaptations of Eastern methods. Again, systems involving Eastern breathing exercises are best avoided, as it is so easy to disorganize one’s system, and very hard to put it right again.

The sole criterion of any system is, does it or does it not adequately meet your needs? If not, then no matter how good it may be for others, it is not the one for you. Give it up and make a fresh start elsewhere. The methods used must vary with the objectives which you are aiming at. You must ask yourself again and again until you are certain, what is your object in taking up meditation as a system of self-education? After all, most of our experiences and skills still come to us from repeated personal experiments.

Meditation has been defined as a methodical and scientific process for consciously uniting the human and the divine. It is like a school and college education, an integral and natural part of human evolution. But speaking generally, and for novices only, it may be said that meditation is the act of turning the attention upon some subject or object for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of its nature. Now, attention is the faculty of mental concentration which leads to close continued thought or consistently sustained reflection. So before it is possible to meditate efficiently it is necessary to learn to concentrate, not always an easy matter.

It is with the learning of concentration that the weeding-out process begins. It is doubtful if more than a third of students on average complete their first year’s training. Most leave because they do not find the work sufficiently exciting. They are indignant because there are no psychic thrills, because they are expected to work hard, and pass tests instead of decorating the seats of a weekly lecture session. How many would go to church if quarterly examinations on the sermons were compulsory?

The key to concentration is interest, for you have only to develop enough interest to secure attention. If interest does not come naturally then one must learn to develop it by artificial means. Lack of interest is usually due to a poor imagination and a lack of perseverance. But if one has sufficient imagination to see the goal and the way to it clearly, then interest can be quickly developed. Imagination is the royal faculty of the human mind, as perhaps it may be of that all-pervading Divine Mind in which we live, move and have our being.

The easiest way to teach oneself to concentrate is to do one thing at a time, and to think about it carefully while it is being done. Then the concentration exercises which are taught in any Mystery school will become not only easy and interesting, but also exciting.

There is a science of meditation with its own definite laws based on immutable first principles, but it must not be forgotten that it is also an art, and as such, it must be expressed, like music or painting. Also, it demands for success, a long apprenticeship and honest, steady, daily work. Concentration exercises especially demand great care and a high degree of self-observant honesty in their performance. Self-honesty is the first test a novice has to pass.

From the point of view of one who is preparing for work in the temple, there are three main stages in the art of meditation. These are meditation, concentration and contemplation. Contemplation is the art of identifying oneself with the object or subject being meditated upon; it is not, as a rule, for beginners. It is mentioned here because, if the interest is strong, an ordinary meditation is apt to pass unperceived into contemplation, which is a less positive form of mind work. So without noticing it the novice will have identified himself with the subject or object of his meditation. This is often the explanation of the strikingly successful meditations that come unexpectedly to some students in their early lessons, but which fail to repeat themselves in later stages, when eagerly sought. Early enthusiasm and intense interest have temporarily lifted the student beyond his natural limitations.

In any system of magical training which is based upon the Ancient Mysteries there are two main objectives which should eventually be reached. The first is personal and psychological, the second is cosmic and should be impersonal. The first pertains to the Lesser Mysteries of ancient Egypt and Chaldea, and the second to the Greater Mysteries.

Over the doorway of many of the ancient temples was written Gnothi Se Auton or, Nosce Te Ipsum, Know Thyself. This psychological process is sometimes called ‘the unveiling of the self’, sometimes ‘the knowledge and conversation of one’s holy guardian angel’, or higher self. This is the first great goal. Its essential symbols are to be found on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, and in the Pythagorean Tetractys, important symbols for the trained mind.

The second objective, higher up on the path, is the unveiling of the Goddess Net of Sais. She who is the parent of all things, the mistress of the elements, the primordial offspring of time, and first among the celestials. Sometimes called Diana Dictynnia (Diana of the Net), Queen Isis herself. She is the world self, and the unveiling of this world self pertains to the Greater Mysteries of the ancients.

Isis of Sais is held among initiates to have said, ‘I am all that is and is yet to come, and no man hath lifted my veil.’ Of Athene it was carved upon her statue, ‘No mortal hath ever lifted my cloak.’ Yet, this same Great Goddess says to those who serve her, ‘Omma theis eiso peplon’, ‘Look within the coverings’.

The Great Temple of Thoth, the Lord of Khemmennu (Hermopolis), one of the great centres of Egyptian priestly learning, was called Het Abtit, ‘The House of the Net’ or Veil. Thoth was the Master of Divine Wisdom, the Lord of Meditation. He was also the teacher of Isis, the Moon-Goddess of Wisdom and Nature Magic, she who is veiled on earth, but who unveils for those who have been ‘commanded’ at each full moon.

The net in the Temple of Thoth, the peplum, the veil, web, robe, mantle of the Goddess, are Mystery symbols which have many grades of meaning. There are deeps beyond deeps to be explored until the pole of supreme immanence as contrasted with the pole of supreme transcendence is reached. From the point of view of the novice these terms stand for the veil of the universe, the many-coloured veil of the Temple of Nature.

The scholar and teacher G. R. S. Mead tells us that the famous veil or robe of Isis was the spiritual nature of man himself. No mortal man has raised that veil, for to raise it man has to transcend the limits of individuality, to break the bonds of death, and so become conscious of immortality. To raise the veil is to see Nature as she is, and not as she appears to be.

The symbol of Isis is the Ankh and it symbolizes the forces of life contained within the form of matter. Behind the individualized life form that is man there is the Great Sea of Life. Isis is the star that rises from the Twilight Sea, the star that itself is the symbol of the divine spark in man. The Egyptians called it Sothis, we call it Sirius. When that star is unveiled and brightly burning within the human soul, then conscious touch with the Isis of Nature becomes fully possible.

One of the objects of meditation is the gaining of such a conscious touch with the Great Sea Mother, as opposed to the ordinary subconscious contact. This contact results in an integral consciousness of personal immortality (not the immortality of the personality as a form). This is the initiation of Isis, of the divine form emerging from the sea as described by Apuleius in Book 11 of his Metamorphoses. This is the second unveiling of the Mysteries. There is yet a third unveiling, that of the Great Silence in the Mysteries of Chaldea, for the Great Silence and the Great Sea are the Divine Syzygy.

If the novice has understood the Foreword, he should now begin to see why so many ancient symbols and references to ancient myths have been given long before the elementary technique of the art of meditation has been set forth. The explanation is simple. The new recruit does not understand and so does not realize the pitfalls and difficulties that lie before him. Neither does he understand that man learns through the exciting of his curiosity, and the stimulating of his interest. Interest is the starting handle of the mind’s apparatus.

Seated in your most comfortable armchair with your back straight, and the body well and firmly fixed, spend ten minutes each day brooding upon any one of the symbols given to you. Do not lounge either physically or mentally. Read, and re-read each paragraph until the meaning becomes part of your own mental make-up. Gently and interestedly brood day after day over these symbols and word pictures without any strenuous effort or feeling of strain. After each meditation make a note of the ideas and feelings, especially the latter, that these symbols call up from your subconscious mind. This should be done as soon as possible after the meditation for the record to be accurate.

Stop the moment you are tired or lose interest. When you have finished your meditation, imagine its contents to be rolled up like a parcel and dropped through a trap door into your subconscious mind. Picture it being digested there until the next day when it will be handed to you neatly sorted out and ready for your further examination. Symbols dropped thus into the subconsious will incubate and realization will hatch out from the depths of the unconscious as surely as a chicken, given the proper conditions, will hatch from an egg.

This may seem a childishly simple method. As a matter of experience it may prove to be less simple than it appears to be. As a method, it works best with much honest practice. Try it and see what the mental ‘Brownies’ of your subconscious mind can do for you if only you will trust them and visualize carefully what it is that you want them to do.

This is the first and to my mind the most interesting stage of learning the art of concentration, i.e. the art of picturing clearly and appositely; for it will suggest to you subtle ways of working up an interest in any subject that you may have to consider.

Concentration when the interest is aroused is easy, for it is automatic. Concentration without interest is slow and inefficient, so learn to arouse interest at will.

Omar Khayyam complained: ‘There was a door to which I found no Key.’ Had he only realized it, the key was already in his possession. For the key to that door is interest, just concentrated interest.

Part 2. The Tools of the Mind

In the centre of the Temple is the Hall of the Altar, with entrances opening East and West. Beyond it lies the great Hall of the temple entitled the Hall of the Child in his Cradle. From here access is obtained to the secret and concealed Shrine entered once a year by the high priest, on the night of mid-summer.

(G.R.S. Mead, Thrice Greatest Hermes, Vol. I, p. 74)

For meditation the ancients had drawn up a very clear and easy schema which in its broad outlines is common to almost all Mediterranean Mystery systems. Plato used a form of it some 500 years before Christ, Proclus used it nearly 1,000 years later.

It is not advisable for novices to try to fit this ancient schema into modern systems of psychology, because until practical experience has been gained in its use, this is not easy. Also a mixing of terms that have contradictory meanings, and an ignoring of what one system considers to be fundamental principles, can only lead to confusion. In addition, meditation, as understood by the ancients, had as its field of action the planes of worlds more subtle than our own and invisible to us. Now, modern psychologists, and most modern philosophers and religious teachers, are rationalists in their outlook on life, and rationalism denies the validity of these ancient concepts of unseen worlds where the gods, greater and lesser, have their field of action.

Later the student can profitably compare both the ancient and modern concepts with regard to the nature of reality. At present he is advised to study carefully and use the following schema which has served the mystics and initiates of Europe for several thousand years.

For the purposes of meditation the ancients classified all knowledge and experience, objective and subjective, under the general headings of the divine, the cosmic and the human. These are explained below.

The Divine Unity was considered to have three methods of functioning, which were called mone, proodos and epistrophe, i.e. the abiding, the proceeding and the returning; or the static, the dynamic and the rhythmic; Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

The cosmos was seen as a duality and symbolized by pairs of opposites: the spiritual and the corporeal; the natural and the supernatural; the intelligible and the sensible; the noumenal and the phenomenal; the eternal and the transient.

Man was looked on as a trinity consisting of body, soul and spirit. The spirit was symbolized as the indwelling spark of divine fire; the incarnations of a man were thought of as being strung like pearls upon the thread of his spirit. The instrument for the manifestation of the unmanifested spirit was the soul of man. The soul, with its many faculties, was considered to be the principle that makes of man an independent self-conscious unit. It is man’s normal consciousness, and it is this principle that manifests as a trinity of mind, heart and will. As will be shown later, it can only be described by a series of paradoxes; its real nature is disputed and its very existence often denied by many. The propositions of Proclus with regard to the soul will be discussed later by way of an exercise in meditation.

The body was looked upon as the instrument by means of which the soul of man gains experience in this physical world and realizes its potentialities.

The mind, according to Platonic tradition, had five faculties for knowing: aithesis, eikasia, pistis, dianoia and noesis. These are dealt with under their respective headings below.

Aithesis

This faculty has its source in the nervous system of the physical senses. These are almost passive in their function, which is that of receiving vibrations from the external world. The nervous system is the medium through which all knowledge of the outside world enters the mind. It is the mind, not the senses, that turns vibrations into colour.

You will now see the reason for the bodily temperance which is so strongly insisted upon in all systems of meditation. If the nervous system is out of order, the knowledge that enters from the outside world will be defective. It is best therefore not to eat, drink or sleep too much if you want to get results from meditation. Above all see that bodily intake is balanced by an adequate bodily output. Take as your motto ‘A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body’ if you wish to climb the steep slopes of the Hill of Vision.

Eikasia

In Greek this meant image, likeness or conjecture. It comes from the Greek verb eikadzo, to represent by a likeness, to infer from comparison, to conjecture or guess. Eikasia to the philosophers of that time meant the active aspect of the functioning of the senses. It was looked on as an irrational faculty that men held in common with animals, and concerned entirely with the apparent nature of things. It takes effects for granted and does not possess the capacity to estimate the cause of the effect. Today we call it instinct. For example to act upon instinct is looked on as acting without first using reason. When a gun is levelled at you, you do not stop to reason, instinctively you jump for cover.

Pistis

This third faculty by which man ‘knows’ is usually translated as belief or trust in others. It comes from the verb peidomai, meaning to be won over, or persuaded to believe in a thing or a person. As its derivations show, pistis is a belief which is not based on reason as a process, but adopted from the opinions of others. Often such belief is grounded upon the testimony of the instincts and senses, and not upon reason. For example the old belief that the sun revolved around the earth was based upon the evidence of the senses, and not upon reason. Today this is called the ‘estimative faculty’. This faculty can know that a thing is, but cannot explain why. One often meets with people who are very sure of certain facts but cannot tell you why they are so sure, but they are often right. When highly developed this faculty can lead to worldly success, but it cannot usually apprehend things of a very abstract nature. It is a lower form of dianoia, or pure reasoning, and often mistaken for it.

The ancients considered these three faculties to be the instruments of the personality as such, developing as the result of concrete experience. The two that follow find their highest expression in the individuality as the unit of evolution.

Dianoia

This is Plato’s fourth knowing faculty of the soul; it means thought, intellect or the sense of meaning of a thing. Its verb is dianoemai, to think over. The Latin equivalent is meditari, and its adjective, dianoetikos, had the special meaning of intellectual. In meditation it was thought to be the key faculty for knowing. All these words have quite a different meaning to pistis, which implies a trust in others. Dianoia conveys the idea of knowledge arrived at through understanding the meaning of a thing. Pistis knows that a thing is. Dianoia understands why it is. This faculty is the result of the highest form of self-education. It is superior to all the lower faculties and is sometimes referred to as pure reason. It is not only able to comprehend concrete things, but also abstract ideas and principles. It is the faculty most used by the philosopher, the metaphysician and the theologian in their search for truth, beauty and harmony. When raised to its highest degree it imperceptibly merges into, and becomes, noesis.

Noesis

This fifth and last faculty is generally translated as intuition. Psellus calls it the Intelligible or Divine Soul. In the Platonic schools this was a word that denoted a mode of being, power or perception that transcended intellectual comprehension in the way that dianoia transcended pistis.

The Platonists considered intuition to be wholly distinct from and superior to rationalization. For them it meant direct understanding of universal and abstract ideas, and this as an activity of the soul is very rare.

The novice is unlikely to be called upon to develop his noetic abilities as yet. However, if he wishes to understand his instruments and not work blindly to some rule of thumb process, he must be able to distinguish between the respective functions pertaining to those faculties used in meditation. If he cannot do this he is likely to be deceived as to the nature of what is coming through.

In every meditation the student must clearly recall the difference between the knower, the subject to be known and the process of knowing. The description of these five faculties, i.e. the senses, instincts, estimative faculty, pure reason and intuition, is intended to analyse this process, and correlate the results obtained. In a normal person they are thoroughly reliable, although man often errs in his use of them.

—–

Now to practical work, meditation as an art. The first things you need to develop and use in meditation are the senses (passive) and the instincts (active). These two in function form a pair, or syzygy, and you cannot separate them in practical work.

The Mysteries taught the first step of meditation as being ‘to see God made manifest in Nature’. If you do not like the word God change it to whatever means the same thing to you. In nearly all the great religions there is the idea of the indwelling spirit of the divine being seen in the visible universe. ‘In Him/Her we live, move and have our being,’ taught the Greek pagan Aratus, and St Paul quoted him deliberately. See also Romans 1:20. Yet another great thinker, Xenophon, wrote ‘The Supreme God holds Himself invisible and it is only in his works that we are capable of admiring Him,’ and this long before Christianity.

The early stages of meditation should be stages of development where the seeker learns to see and realize more than was formerly the case. He seats himself in the ‘Hall of the Child in his Cradle’ and like a child opens wondering eyes. With the opening of the inner eyes, this familiar world expands its ‘becoming’ to him, and he also expands and is able to grasp more of the deeper being behind our everyday world.

As an exercise in meditation, think over the sentences given above and extract the inner significance of these ideas. Find out more phrases, and there are plenty, that express the same ideas. Soak yourself in the cosmic ideas of Being, Life and Intelligence substanding all the Becoming that lies before you when you look through the window onto the world at large. Picture yourself as bathing in the warm sea of cosmic life and realize the rhythm of the cosmic light that vibrates as Mone, Proodos and Epistrophe. Above all feel yourself to be one with the ancient initiates who knew these things.

Now estimate the value of all this to your own being, life and intelligence. Picture your own consciousness as an integral part of the wider consciousness of nature and place yourself deliberately in rapport with Mother Nature. See yourself standing in the Temple of Hidden Wisdom, wait and watch. Consider this quotation from The Gospel of Eve:

I stood upon a high mountain, and saw a giant and a dwarf, I heard as it were a voice of thunder and drew nigh to hear. He spake unto me and said, ‘I am thou and thou art I and wheresoever thou mayest be, I am there. In all am I scattered, and whencesoever thou willest, thou gatherest me, and in gathering me, thou gatherest Thyself.’

The mountain is a symbol for deep meditation. The Greater Self is seen by the Lesser Self, and the Gnosis of Nature. The Great Mother and the Great Father of all worlds are within reach. (See Thrice Greatest Hermes, Vol. II, p. 2.)

Build this picture with care, filling in the details, and see what it can teach you. Its meaning is far from obvious and there are at least three planes of being upon which the student can exercise his knowing faculties in order to grasp the inner meanings. In the temple of the Hidden Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus there are the Halls of the Altar and the Child in His Cradle, and beyond them is the sealed and secret shrine where you should see yourself.

Part 3. The Universal Soul and the Soul of Man

I sent my soul through the Invisible,

some letter of that after life to spell:

And after many days my soul returned

and said, ‘Behold, myself am Heaven and Hell’.

(Omar Khayyam)

One of the first things the neophyte has to realize is that he himself, and no other, is responsible for what he is. Reference is not made to environment. The point being stressed is that we are entirely responsible for the nature of our reactions to the circumstances of life. What we are today is the result of the way that we have managed, or mismanaged, our thinking in the past. What we will be in the future will be the result of our present method of thinking, and this holds good not just for this incarnation, but also for those in the future.

Man is his own saviour. No one else can save him, for the method of salvation is right thought followed by right action, and right thought is the result of right reaction to the circumstances of life; all this should be the result of knowledge. Sin is the result only of ignorance.

Today we are living in a new age, the age of the man who is freeing himself from the fetters of superstition, a free man who carries his own burden. In the past Piscean age when the average man was savage and uneducated, and unused to depending upon his own reason, it was better for mankind as a whole to be in leading strings and dependent for religious welfare upon those who made a profession of shepherding the untrained flock. It was to the State’s advantage to exercise close control over religion, the government being, as it was, based largely upon vested interests, for a strong religious tie binds the tribe or nation together and so prevents splitting or divergent social interests. It gives peace to the many even if this be done at the expense of the few who are born before their time, pioneers for the future. That era, however, is nearly past. In the age opening before us the cry is raised by the younger generation, ‘From authority lead us to experience; we will not be driven to God, nor even to No-God.’

There is one great way to the obtaining of religious experience which all may take, and that is the inner way, the way that is to be found in the Inner Chamber concerning which Jesus spoke. The Mysteries taught: man, know thyself, the kingdoms of the world are within you, look within the outer covering. Most of the great teachers have proclaimed this way, among them Plato, Lao-tzu, Buddha, Jesus and Emerson.

If the saying, ‘Look within’, be analysed it will be discovered that as a process, it is far from easy. At first it seems so obvious that boredom sets in. Then begins the real struggle, which is to re-arouse and maintain interest. This can only be done by practical experiments. But if carried out faithfully and with reasonable intelligence they should have the desired effect of arousing and maintaining the interest.

For example when the mind has been trained to hold itself steady to a particular line of thought, the student will discover that he, the thinker, is where he thinks he is. That is to say, if you have a trained mind well-filled with the appropriate knowledge, you can, for a while, live in the scenes of long ago. It is this fact that makes the training system of the Jesuits such a potent one; for this system enables one to ‘conquer oneself and to order one’s life without being influenced by the vagaries of others’, a valuable achievement for anyone who desires to replace authority with personal experience.

Again, ‘the mind touches that which it thinks about constantly and with sympathy’. Experiment with these two aphorisms. Sit comfortably in your armchair, and take any scene in history that you know well and can picture clearly. Commence to build it up item by item in your mind. In doing this you are building a representation, that is to say an image of the past is being built within your own consciousness. Remember, it is a personal representation of your own thought; you and you alone are its creator. It exists solely within your mind. If you have built it clearly and without any mind wandering, you, the thinker, are for the time being able to live within your creation.

In making this statement it is presumed that you are not one of those who identify the human thinker with the physical body. If you are, then the above statement will appear totally absurd to you.

There is a third aphorism that no one can prove to you by means of argument, logical or otherwise, which you can prove to yourself only by much practice, repeated experiments with the same subject, and a careful analysis of the results obtained: ‘There subsists an Absolute and Universal Mind which contains within itself all other minds both human and non-human. This Mind, of which the human mind is a faint reflection, is endowed with Memory.’

You cannot prove that this mind is in being any more than you can prove the existence of that medium through which wireless works. But in meditations you can get practical results if you will work and experiment as if it were true.

In visualizing historical subjects there comes into play the theory that the mind touches that which it thinks about clearly and with sympathy. If you have built your representation consistently, until it is clear and accurate, if you have, as Loyola taught, put yourself thoroughly into your picture, and can act a part in it with full sympathy and strong emotion, then you will find that your meditation is no longer working within the limits of your imagination. Instead you will touch the memory of that event that is held within the universal mind and the scene will unfold like a cinema film, independent of your control, and not solely the result of your imagination.

You have to go through this experience personally in order to fully understand and realize it. It is impossible to describe it in terms that would make it comprehensible to those who have not been through the same experience. Those who have will recognize it at once, for it carries its own standard of validity. One knows that it is real. Such scenes have a life of their own, and appear to the watcher as intensely real. There is a curious sense of power about them, tenseness and emotion. But it is the personal factor that makes it feel so valid, grounded in one’s being. Once felt, there is no doubt of its intrinsic reality in one’s mind. When it is over, a haunting memory of what has been seen and felt remains for days. The drabness of ordinary life is very hard when one returns from such an expedition into the Memory of Nature. One has indeed ‘looked within the covering’.

—–

In the previous pages a few hints as to methods, and a great many word pictures taken from the Ancient Mysteries have been given. These word pictures are a familiar part of our national system of education, and thus, though foreign, they have become part of the group mind of the English race. Nevertheless there still survives, buried deep in the subconscious of Britain as a whole, this other, non-Christian yet true native strain of mystical experience which can be evoked by those who know something of the ancient technique of our Celtic ancestors, and of the methods of the Orphic and other Mysteries.

Below is given a sample of what a carefully directed group meditation carried out by neophytes can do. It is the record of a student who took part in a Candlemas ritual, the modern name of an ancient festival of Faunus, of him who is Hades, Lord of the Underworld where is Elysium. Hades is the Zeus of the Netherworld, the ruler of the Astral Plane, and he has nothing whatever to do with the Christian idea of the Principle of Evil, i.e. Satan. There is more truth in the conjecture of Baronius that Pope Gelasius changed the pagan festival of the Lupercalia in February into the Purification of the Blessed Virgin than many ardent Christians would care to admit. Also it must not be forgotten that many of these ancient festivals were based upon the changes in the magnetic tides of the Inner Planes, and that is why throughout the known pagan world of the past, and of the present, the same type of festival, no matter what the name may be, was and is held about the same date.

When the work on the T… began I did not feel oppressed by the power, or heavy. Instead I was keenly excited; but this excitement was without any of the hindering effects on the physical which I used to experience. Formerly, every rush of power threatened to knock me down as if with heart strain. I felt as if I must try to ascend the T… and I started almost at a run, but not up to its shoulder. I chose the spiral path. At the first turn it became a great cloud path round a glass mountain with precipitous sides. The top had four great peaks, whether towers or crags I could not distinguish. Later they took on Archangelic shapes. Through and under the glass mountain I saw a different landscape, the cities of a lower world. All the time the sensations which seemed to me to be almost ecstatic, persisted. I felt tireless and alive, tingling with a life that remains with me, even though I have lost some of the details of the experience.

That experience took place in London physically, yet in the Island of the West in reality. Compare this with the old Celtic romance of Connla of the Golden Hair and the Fairy Maiden. Connla meets a lady, very beautiful and dressed in strange attire, he alone can see her, though his companions can hear her speak. On being asked who she is she replies:

‘I have come from the Land of Life [Tir na mbeo], a land where there is neither old age nor death. The inhabitants of earth call us Aes Sidhe, the People of the Shee or Fairy Hills, for we have our dwellings within large pleasant green hills. I have come to take you with me to Moy Mell [The Plain of Pleasure].’ And she sings:

‘A land of youth, a land of rest,

a land from sorrow free,

It lies far off in the Golden West,

on the verge of an azure sea.

A swift canoe of crystal bright,

that never met mortal view,

We shall reach the land ere fall of night,

in that strong and swift canoe.

We shall reach the strand of that sunny land,

from druids and demons free,

The land of rest in the Golden West,

on the verge of the azure sea.’

Part 4. Forbidden Marches

Up from Earth’s centre through the Seventh Gate

I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate,

And many knots unravelled by the road.

But not the knot of human Death and Fate.

And lately, by the tavern door agape,

Came stealing through the dusk an angel shape

Bearing a vessel on his shoulder, and

He bid me taste of it; and ’twas – the Grape. (Omar Khayyam)

There is one thing that the organized world religions as a general rule very much dislike – trespassing in the ‘Forbidden Marches’. Wisely, from their point of view, they forbid all entry into this debatable land under threat of hell, lunacy, loss of reason, etc. Some call such trespassing sorcery, which it is not. Others call it delusion, which it often is. As self-appointed wardens, these professionals do not enter themselves, and try to prevent others from interfering with what they claim to be their own special interests.

There are three roads that lead from the comfortable solid surface of Mother Earth to these Forbidden Marches, and eventually to that which lies beyond them. By the Qabalists these are known as the Road of Elemental Fire, the Path of Saturn, and the Path of the Moon.

To the student of the Western Tradition who has the keys of the ninth and tenth Sephiroth, one meaning of this verse is clear. The maiden comes from Tipareth, where she dwells during each life awaiting every one of us. The strand at the verge of the azure sea leads to the Thirty-Second Path and the swift crystal canoe is prepared within your own soul, for it is the equivalent of the Moon Barque of the Ancient Egyptian Mysteries. To those who are prepared to work and accept discipline, even today it can be truly said:

There are strange delights for mortal men in the Island of the West;

The sun comes down each evening in its lovely vales to rest.

And tho’ far and dim

On the ocean’s rim

It seems to mortal view,

We shall reach its halls

Ere the even falls,

In my strong and swift canoe.

(Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, p. 35)

The rulers that have to be satisfied before such a journey can be completed are: Mercury, the Lord of Wisdom; the Moon crowned with silver and ruler of the Hidden Wisdom; and Venus clad in green, the ever virgin ruler of the great nature forces.

These roads, these destinations, and these rulers exist only in your imagination, and you will find them nowhere else. But be sure that you understand what that most royal faculty of man’s mind, imagination, really is. It is more real than your body, and it will outlast this solid flesh.

If you can see that four-coloured veil which is stretched across the pylon gate, the veil that divides the known from the unknown, the actual from the real, the phenomenal from the noumenal; if you can steal unchallenged past the throne of grey-haired Saturn who, silent as a stone, sits watching, there will meet you in the darkness, silvered by moonlight and angel shape, yourself. But not your everyday self. It will take you to a mountain land of deep gorges and lofty pointed peaks.

On tree-clad hills, in boulder-strewn gorges, and upon bare windswept wastes and steep-sided peaks dwell the Old Gods, the essential Gods. These are the nature gods that the slum-dwelling children of modern man have forgotten, to their infinite loss. Once you have mastered the technique of a Mystery meditation system you will find that this oldest of lands, the ‘Forbidden Marches’, is rising into consciousness. You will then have to decide quickly on your course, for indecision is either self- rejection or loss of control. And that angel shape will not offer to one who hesitates or loses control the vessel that is upon his shoulder, and without the divine one you will not taste of that sacred grape juice which is the real wine of life. For in these ‘Forbidden Marches’ you can taste the fruit of that life-giving vine which thrills and exalts the inner self as not even the best of earthly wine can do. And it will leave no aftermath like earthly wine, unless it be the forbidden wine of sorcery.

The technique of a Mystery meditation system is simple once you have achieved concentration, and understood what it is that you are trying to do. Then there is no fear of your losing the gods. You may neglect them, but you cannot lose them, for there is no part of you that is not of the gods.

The poet Aratus, quoted by Paul, wrote: ‘in him we live, move and have our being.’ If you can realize this in the same way that you realize the need for an overcoat on a cold day, then you have mastered the first great difficulty met with in the practical work of meditation. We are not speaking here of ethical meditation upon good works or good thoughts, but of meditation as a means of enjoying that fullness of life which is offered by the Divine One to those who can partake. And this partaking means to take a share in something with a person or being.

This means that the basic laws that govern thought (in meditation) apply to man and to the gods. You must be consciously aware of this fact, making allowances of course for respective differences in capacity. Man’s mind bears the same relation to the divine mind that a wave bears to the waters of the earth; each drop is a part of the whole. But here the analogy must stop. Man’s mind is individualized and not even the high gods can take away this divine gift of the Great Unmanifest.

It is an extremely useful exercise to get fairly deep into meditation and then to examine the contents of your own mind. Strange as this statement may sound to a bustling, practical, modern citizen, you will find in your own mind only the internal creations of your own thoughts. In it you will find only the images of objects produced by your own consciousness, they are merely representations, an awareness of the present plus memory. The external world produces sensations which are merely the raw material upon which the mind works. It is the mind grasping sensation that first leads to perception, then on to conception. The actual images that your thought creates are not directly the results of an external reality acting upon you, just the result of your mental faculties acting upon your present sensations or upon recollections. You see a red door. Ordinary man says the red is in the paint. The psychologist knows that the colour is not in the paint but in the mind of the beholder. Outside the mind colours are merely differences in the rate of vibration.

Your mental bias will determine your reaction to such sensations or recollections. Take this extreme case. Suppose you meet a spectre in a haunted house, your reaction will be determined by the attitude of your mind towards these peculiar and specialized sensations called ‘ghosts’. As a strong-minded sceptic, you may blame your liver for such untoward sensations. If you are an experienced Spiritualist you may be mildly interested and unawed. As a devout member of certain European sects you might be inclined to blame poor old Diabolus. Note that the minds of these three types do not consciously create their respective representations and their reactions to these sensations. The action of mind in creating perceptions is usually subconscious; yet it is possible to create these representations and these reactions by a conscious process when the mind is trained by means of a certain type of meditation used in the Mysteries. All sensations come to the mind via the senses, but not always the physical senses. The Doctrine of Sensation as understood in the Mystery schools covers much that is unrecognized by academic psychology. Further, it is possible to polarize one’s own sphere of sensation with the sphere of sensation of the world soul. The mind works upon the material brought in by all the senses and much of its action is subconscious for a time at least. So sensation is really feeling and not cognition. There are more worlds than this physical one, which can, and do, act upon our feelings and ultimately upon cognition, that faculty by which the raw material is made over into true knowledge. So it may be said that a man’s personality depends upon the type of his sensations and recollections. It is mind, not manners that maketh man.

In meditation let the neophyte call to mind first of all that in the Mysteries consciousness, human and divine, has grades other than those affected by physical sensations, then let him remember that a specialized system of training will enable him to become conscious of the creative action of his own mind. When thus conscious you can deliberately modify the contents of your consciousness, and by changing the methods of sensation you can also change the planes or levels of consciousness. Remember, in the terminology of the Mysteries a change of consciousness means a change from the physical level to levels far more subtle than this one. We term this ‘rising on the planes’.

We now turn from theory to practical work in the art of meditation. One of the greatest of the ancient teachers was Proclus. He has been described as ‘a systemizer who carried the ideal of one comprehensive philosophy to its utmost limits’. The works of Proclus, especially his Elements of Theology, are a gold-mine for the mystic and those who seek for the practical part of the techniques of meditation as used by the initiates of old. His is a symbol system designed to help the human mind to change levels during meditation. He uses these mystical symbols to explain the time and space of these levels of consciousness other than the physical one. The gods, he maintains, have no existence outside the minds of men. They are fashioned by the mind of man alone.

All Mystery and religious systems that are more than just an expression of herd law, are systems of props whose sole object is to support and steady the human mind as it prepares itself for the final plunge into the Thrice Greatest Darkness, that is, the Ineffable Light. Bearing this in mind let us make use of Proclus and through his propositions seek a point of contact with those entities which the ancient initiates built up by means of their specialized techniques.

For example, meditate by means of visualization of such symbols as are known upon the following nine propositions:

Prop. 1. Every manifold in some way participates [the verb is used transitively] unity. The symbols are: the Deeps of Interstellar Space; the Void; the Plenum.

Prop. 2. All that participates unity is both one, and not one. Symbols are: the Unmanifest; the Cosmos; Man.

Prop. 3. All that becomes one, does so by participation of unity. Symbols: the Immanent; the Transcendent; and the Many.

Prop. 4. All that is unified is other than the one itself. Symbols: Nirvana; Night of the Gods.

Prop. 113. The whole number of the Gods has the Character of Unity. Egyptian Theology is an example.

Prop. 114. Every God is a self-complete henad or unit, and every complete henad is a God. Iamblichus explains this very clearly.

Prop. 115. Every God is above Being, Life and Intelligence. Analyse this in terms of your inner self.

Prop. 116. Every God is participable except the One. Try this as an experiment in metaphysics.

Prop. 117. Every God is a measure of Things existent. Consider the Solar Logos and his sphere of manifestation.

These nine propositions contain keys that will unlock some of the deepest secrets of the Mystery systems. All that is needed is perseverance, concentration and imagination. These qualities when fully developed will lead to Nirvana where you and your ‘angel shape’ are one, a unity that is one and not one. This road to Nirvana (not the Cosmic Nirvana) is a long one with many stages. Each stage is marked by the advent of a new phase of personality in the seeker, a new set of sensations and recollections, and the birth of these new ‘selves’ can be painful.

The ancient initiates built up the personalities they needed by deliberate mental action and detailed daily meditations on set subjects. In the Mysteries this is called Re-generation from above (Anothen) and the term Hoi Anothen means technically ‘The Living’.

But when at least you become Hoi Anothen you will have passed far beyond the grade of temple novice. You have drained the Sacred Vessel, and tasted the Wine of Life, and left the Forbidden Marches far behind you. Like the Gods, you will be, temporarily, beyond consciousness of Good and Evil, that is, beyond this human existence in the sphere of manifested duality.

Part 5. Summary and Retrospect

But when I woke I was murmuring to myself, as if in interpretation…, and I knew there were many at that mystery who would wake up again outcasts of Heaven and the God of this world would obliterate memory so that they would never know they had kept tryst with the Kabiri.

Once before, not in dreams but in meditation, there had broken in upon me such a light from the secret places; and I saw through earth as through a transparency to one of those centres of power, ‘fountains out of Hecate’ as they are called in the Chaldaic Oracles, and which are in the being of earth, even as in ourselves there are fiery centres undiscovered by the anatomist, where thought is born or the will leaps up in flame.

(A.E., The Candle of Vision, p. 80)

In this last chapter will be given in place of mystic symbols, three short tales from life in which will be summed up the essence of this system of meditation. I have stressed the fact that the aim of all Mystery training systems, present as well as past, should be the knowing of the self. It was also pointed out that this was a long process, sometimes called the Unveiling of the Self. When you have done this you have opened a road into a realm more fascinating than that of the Arabian Knights.

In The Mystic Rose, by F. Cartwright, there is the following tale.

When I was in the Holy City of Kerbela it seemed to me to be a smelly, dirty, hot, dried up Arab town, remarkable only for the number of its flies and the fanaticism of its inhabitants. But it is extraordinary how the imagination, when properly trained, can transform things and places. For while meditating on the imagery of the Mystic Rose, Kerbela suddenly became, for me, fragrant and green, the garden city of Wisdom.

I learned much from this vision as told by the Sheikh Hadji Ibrahim about the art of meditation, and the use of imagery when forming analogies, that is the description of the things of one plane in terms of another and lower plane. For example there is the suggestion put forward by the Governor’s Barber, one Hadji Mahmud, for a better way of retaining the fidelity of women than the guardianship of eunuchs. [p. 17]

Commenting on the normal Eastern system of guarding women in harems, the barber said that ‘No better system hath been devised for securing the fidelity of their bodies and the infidelity of their minds.’ He then explained his methods by saying, ‘O excellent Governor, make the interior of thy house so pleasant to thy wives that they will not desire to look out of the windows, for when a woman looketh through a window, Satan entereth through the door.’

Let the novice using these articles imagine himself to be the Governor, and by doing his part thoroughly he will find that he like the Governor has also suffered from an ‘infidelity of the imagination’. If he will remember the teaching already given, that the inner self is anima and feminine, he will appreciate the analogy of keeping a lively harem from getting discontented, and keeping one’s thoughts from wandering during the practice of meditation. For in silence the mind looks through the windows of her house, and Satan, in the guise of unwanted thoughts, enters through the door. So follow the advice of the barber and train the imagination in pleasant ways so that it will have no need to look out of the window with eyes filled with desire. Quod superius, sicut quod inferius!

Then do not be a killjoy, but enjoy life and be reasonable. Seek virtue in moderation as did the Greeks, and seek physical well-being as a preliminary to mental and spiritual happiness. Asceticism can become a pathology. As A.E. pointed out, ‘there are fiery centres’ in the soul of the Great Mother and these have their analogue in the soul of man. Experience will soon teach that the unloosing of these centres within man, and their linking to the centres within nature cannot be safely carried out under pathological conditions.

Much can be done by mental preparation just before sleep. For in a deep sleep man returns to rest in the soul of the Great Mother, and She is the source of genius. As a man thinks, so he is, especially when he takes notes on the thoughts that come in the night.

If your life is governed by a fear of hell, you will meet the devil in your imagination, in a hell of your own creating, and you will live in it with the utmost contentment, imagining that you are pleasing God by being uncomfortable and scared. Then, when the beautiful things in life come your way, you will hold up your hands in horror and dive back into your cosy hell.

Without realizing it the ascetic inverts life’s values. Beauty has for him the ugliness of sin, joy displeases his beetle-browed God, love, even in its highest aspect, is for him nothing but lust. For such a man, a sickly body, a maimed mind and a mutilated emotional nature are things of holiness.

Sheikh Ibrahim illustrates this in The Mystic Rose. A disciple came to this Sheikh seeking ‘the Path’, and complaining of his passions. The holy man told him to go for a walk in the city. Here he fell for the wiles of a very unattractive woman and returned weeping to his master. The latter instead of being angry sent him forth again. This time the student got gloriously drunk and again returned to his teacher in the usual state of maudlin repentance. Once again, in a fresh robe, the holy man with a kindly smile sent him into the city. On the way he met a girl, young and beautiful, and she spoke to him thus: ‘Friend, what seekest thou?’ and he replied, ‘Peace.’ Then exclaimed the lovely damsel, ‘I am that peace which thou seekest, in my bosom wilt thou find rest, for I am what thou art not, and in the merging of opposites alone is absolute rest obtained. Gaze into my eyes and see the things thou dost not know, from my lips take the wisdom thou wouldst have, in my embrace know the security for which thou longest. I alone can soothe thee, comfort thee and be thy torch bearer.’

Long the disciple gazed at the vision, then he fled. In a quiet garden he composed himself and later, calm and proud of withstanding such a temptation, he returned and told the teacher. The latter rent his clothes and wept saying, ‘O wretched man, what hast thou done…? Thou hast committed the sin of sins… Go from my presence, I can do nothing more for thee.’ And he drove him away.

In the previous sections, mystic symbols have been given as subjects for meditation. Here you have scenes from life such as anyone might encounter. The story contains a series of teachings. It is a subject for meditation, as is the quotation from A.E.’s Candle of Vision. There is also the barber’s advice to the Governor to be considered. All three tales can teach you much, even when treated as purely mythical, if you will re-present them to the inner eye. Then they will reveal their meanings, for you are no outcast of heaven, and never will be once you fully understand the meaning of that ancient magical phrase: Omma Theis Eiso Peplon.