Hortus Conclusus

The Mystery of Golgotha:

Since the most coarse-grained philosophical materialism is dethroned and the natural sciences are no longer regarded as the sole sanctifying sources of knowledge, so many who once believed the heavens could be left to “angels and sparrows” are facing metaphysical problems. Bringing with them from their earlier research a methodology which was effective there, they think they can transfer without further ado this technique, this “method”, to the completely different sphere of the supernatural.

The best thing to be achieved in doing this is the quick realisation that the tool is useless.

Either he then gives up his investigations completely, thinking that in those areas where his tool is unusable nothing real can be brought to the

light of day, or he carries on experimenting and falls pray to the invisible region of the physical world which he regards then as the sought-after “spiritual”. Since it only brings him sparse, dubious results, he sooner or later begins to help matters along by replacing with speculation what reality owes him.

The people in question here are to be taken very seriously. But at the same time there are those types throwing their weight about by subtly employing a scientific veneer in order to propagate barren mysticism.  Their purpose is to attract adherents to their own dear selves or to some braggart who felt insufficiently honoured in his earlier genuine scientific striving.

Now “spiritual knowledge” is brewed in a flash from all that has been gathered from more or less indisputable literary sources. All those for whom doctorates and awards did not suffice academically, slurp from this magic brew. Now they see before them an area where they can proceed free of any academic control, along the celebrated model of the “great teacher”. If the practices, of which he keeps a rich selection for those who come to him, are carried out enthusiastically and without any constraint as prescribed by the master “teacher of the occult”, they can achieve the reputation of a great “insider”. – These “practices” have been snatched with equal dexterity and irresponsibility from the exercises of Ignatius Loyola as from the nastiest tracts written by slapdash occultist cooks from both the orient and occident. –

What is the harm if here and there a “pupil of the occult” ends up in a madhouse; if poor young girls swarm around the “teacher of the occult” and become hysterical; or if all too harmless believers collapse spiritually and physically!

“Knowledge of the occult” will have its victims. The occult master had educated his faithful a long time ago to fall upon the poor lost one as if on his command, and heap upon him all the guilt for his misfortune. For on no account may one dare doubt the infallibility of the “great teacher”; otherwise there might be a risk of losing one’s own lovely position as cardinal to such a new pope. Indeed, the whole pantomime performance could come to an unintended premature end.

So ever more “practices” pour upon “practices”, and the mass psychosis infects like whooping cough; for there are always enough horny, resistant brains capable of enduring all these procedures. Whoever can endure is then for ever armed against any common sense argument, against any serious psychological criticism of what is happening to him;  – he cannot any more will differently from what the “great teacher” wills.  And the teacher modestly wills nothing other than the world at his feet, in which ever way that may be achieved.

But let us for a moment ignore such clowning around, which, after all, has only been able to come about because the times are ripe for it and because our age is sick, miserably sick – with the result that in its need, where ordinary doctors cannot help, it greedily falls upon the pills and potions of quacks.

Rather let us investigate very generally what real value can possibly be attributed to “occultist practices”. For even outside the aforementioned circles there are sufficient people who expect everything imaginable and unimaginable from “occultist practices”. Or else they torture themselves with the most idiotic ceremonies and  gymnastics of the soul because they hope in this way  to outwit the world order and learn “to work magic”, – or at least to become as clever as the serpent in Paradise, who, as is well known, knew how to become “like the gods”. Its credulous pupils have evidently not eaten the famous apple “in the right way” and so the lesson did not quite bring the proper results. –

This is precisely the point about these “practices”: – one must not miss out anything during their execution, otherwise the opposite of what was intended is achieved, with bad results.

This is what they all say, the great “adepts” of magic. Although they cannot move a straw differently to any Tom, Dick and Harry, they know all the rites, ceremonies, formulae and practices which are needed to make all the laws of the world dance in a frivolous whirl to their pipes.

It would be easy enough to compile an enormous library from writings on “magic”, inasmuch as they have been preserved from olden days and added to in modern times. But show me just a single one among the enthusiastic admirers of these writings, who would have, genuinely and withstanding all criticism, achieved any of those results promised to the novice with mysterious ponderousness had he followed precisely the instructions which, according to its authors, are required to attain them. –

All those in part very intelligent minds who let their brains be scrambled by such reading matter and achieved nothing thereby, have just not done it “right”. –

But there was One who said: “If ye had faith like a grain of mustard seed ye shall say unto this mountain: remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing will be impossible unto you.”

And in another place a saying with the same meaning is reported of him: “If ye had faith like a grain of mustard seed ye would say to this mulberry tree: be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”

He too had pupils, and they asked him: “Increase our faith!”

And here we are finally at the core of genuine magic, the practical wisdom of the spirit!

Here too there are “practices”, but they are essentially different and would lead everyone who puts his trust in them to tangible results. Only these are not “occultist” practices, however mysterious their realm remains. Whoever puts them into practice needs neither ceremony, nor ritual, needs no formulae for invocation nor adventurous citations; and yet he works through the “magic of the word” through which he reaches the “First Word” in whose “name” he accomplishes everything. –

But this “name” is not a word from any language that only has to be uttered in an esoteric way, but rather that sublime power which the Master of the Gospels calls “faith”. The mysterious “pronunciation” of the “name” is the art of all arts: – the art of making this “name” live in oneself. –

All “practices” of this true magic have the sole aim of learning to make faith live in oneself and have no desire to teach “occult arts”. They do not wish to produce “clairvoyants” or fakirs.

However, genuine spiritual practices are also sometimes easier, sometimes somewhat harder to accomplish than those we must call “occultist” practices. They require, not unlike the latter, hours of “concentration” but are aimed at the complete man, all his daily activity, all he does and does not do, – they want to see a “new” man arise from the material which hitherto has served the
representation of the “old”, and the process of transformation must not leave behind any
residue.

Everything that has hitherto served the effects of life must now give itself up, in order to live from “faith”. –

The word “faith” is misunderstood if one supposes that the transformation called for here, which makes it possible for man to live in “faith”, is a “change of mind” and refers in the ordinary sense to “belief” or “disbelief” regarding certain accounts from “holy” books, – or that it is dependent on rejection or acceptance of assertions made by religious teachers! –

If he who “believes” is “blessed”, truly this is not because he holds some metaphysical teaching to be right, but because he has acquired the art to use the power of which we are speaking, because he lives from “faith”, from the power of the “name”, which is the word, which is “with God” and is “God”.

One “believes” in the right manner because one has “faith”; just as one lives because one has life.

Before you there is a turnip in a field. I hypnotise you and force you through my suggestion to “believe” (not meant here in the everyday sense) you are not capable of lifting up the turnip, and you will try in vain to even loosen it from the soil. –

I free you from the tie of hypnosis, and you lift the turnip with ease; indeed, you will laugh at everyone who doubts your capability to do this, for now you no longer believe (in the everyday sense), only in the correctness of the sentence: “I can lift a turnip from the field”, – you believed in this sentence in the sense of holding it to be true even under hypnosis, despite my contrary suggestion, otherwise you would not have attempted to try it. – But now you “believe” really, that is, you feel in yourself the power to lift up the turnip, and this power through which you can indeed lift up a turnip at any time, is nothing other than the “faith” required by the Master of the Gospels. Nevertheless, it should be directed at somewhat more important things than this poor turnip, almost persecuted to death in the image! –

This “faith” is not certainty won through experience that one can do something, but the power through which one can indeed do it!

There is an indescribably fine irony in the punning saying which the Master of Nazareth directed at doubting Thomas: “Thomas, because thou hast seen thou hast believed” (found the report to be correct), “blessed are they who have not seen” (have not certainty through experience), “and yet have believed.”

It is a wonderful pun by the master on the word “believe”, whereas he uses it firstly in the everyday sense but in the end he alludes to the doctrine he had been proclaiming for years. –

Whether the saying is “historical” or not, it shows more than many others the superiority of the Master’s way of teaching, how he could stimulate the intelligence of his disciples even with puns and irony.

This is by no means the only saying of this type; many sayings to the same effect caused, over time, frenzied dogmatic controversies…

So what is the relationship between the power  he proclaims, which for good reasons and despite all the possibility of error he terms “faith” and that which “occultist” practices wish to bring to light?

To begin with it is important to realise that there are, depending on the sphere of life of the universal being to which they belong, two totally different types of powers imperceptible to the earthly senses.

Both are – each in its sphere – “the only real” at the basis of all appearance; both are in their sphere on a lower level than what they communicate.

When I say that these powers in their sphere lie at the basis of all “phenomenal worlds” (physical and spiritual), I want this to be understood in the same way as if I were to say that colours lie at the base of every painting, irrespective of what it represents, that the matter of colour is the “only real” part of it, although what is represented by the colour gives us knowledge of a much more significant reality, – which can only be made known to me by the matter of colour. –

Thus, we become conscious of the total physical universe only because the occult powers of physical nature lie at the base of it – behind all the forms of the “the only real” – ; because we ourselves, as part of this nature, as far as the body is concerned, are one of these physical occult powers, and in our apparent “coarse material” body possess the instrument of the finer, fluid bodily powers which most see already as the soul, but which also other animals have in common with us, albeit with greatly varying intensity.– –

Just as the whole physical universe presents itself only as the effect of physical occult powers, so too the spiritual worlds only present themselves as the effect of real spiritual occult powers, and these once more are – seen for themselves – nothing other than: the realm of the flowing soul which lies between the physical world appearance and the spiritual phenomenal world.

Just as we only perceive in the physical world and can only be “conscious” of it because we are ourselves one of its physical occult powers and carry within our bodies the finer fluid powers of this world, so too we can only perceive the spiritual, – we can only become conscious in the spirit, – because we are ourselves at the same time also one of the spiritual occult powers and we carry within us a spiritual-occult or soul-organism without which the spiritual worlds, whose “substance” these soul-powers are, could never be perceived by us, without which we could never become conscious in the spirit. 

If one carries out what is actually understood as “occultist practices” – to which belong everything the Indians call “Hata-Yoga” and much else besides that has been cultivated from ancient times by us in the West – one is merely using the finer, fluid powers of the body, merely working on the occult powers of the physical world and according to the immutable laws of the physical universe one becomes a servant and prisoner to the essences which exert their influence in the invisible sphere of physical nature. One falls inevitably into “possession” – one has, as the popular saying has it – “signed up one’s soul” to the devil, – for the actual soul, the occult spiritual organism is damaged to the same extent as the finer fluid powers of the body are surrendered to these essences which are beyond good and evil, without responsibility and morality. –

A dwindling occurs, a gradual breaking away of all real spiritual powers, which were to form the individual, eternal soul-organism, and as whose servants alone the finer fluid powers of the body should have been effective.

One can indeed attain extraordinary capabilities by Hâta-Yoga or similar “practices”, in which a certain breathing training plays a large part along with fasting, sexual abstinence, a vegetarian diet and such like,  but – one can never approach the worlds of the spirit in this way. Indeed, one shuts the gates which lead to the realm of the essential spirit, and no power on earth can ever reopen them during this earthly life.

At least it is fortunate that these “practices” are not as easy as the sorcerer’s apprentices believe, and that the most effective methods of this type – though known to many Easterners – are almost unknown in the western part of the Earth.

Many striving for “occult powers” are thereby playing a dangerous game. Fortunately they do it, despite all exertions, “incorrectly”. Those who pass on such “practices” have also only “heard something of that effect” whilst the most essential aspects remained hidden from them, for the benefit of mankind. –

But even in any chance success which may happen occasionally, the unfortunate practitioner of such “practices” has achieved nothing other than producing some occultist tricks (mostly only to the detriment of his fellow men!) with the help of beings which would horrify him if he could see them as they are. Possible as well is that he has been subjected to the maddest of illusions effected by these beings.

It is a sort of active “spiritism”, if one wants to call the mediumistic activity of “spiritists” passive “spiritism”.

The end of a person who has trodden this path is never a happy one and mostly worse still than the end of most “mediums”.

I have spoken enough of this in other places…

The activation of the magical powers of the spirit, the use of the soul’s powers for true magical work, stands in sharpest contrast to both the method and the results of such practice in the sphere of the occult powers of the physical world.

In Heliodorus we find, in the third book of his “Aethiopica”, also in literary terms, a highly appreciated novel an extract demonstrating highest wisdom:   

“One form of magic is for the mob and always wanders as it were low on the earth; it has to do with ghosts and teems with corpses. The other, however, the true wisdom, towards which we priests and prophets strive from our youth onwards, looks upwards to heaven, has intercourse with the gods and shares in the nature of powerful beings…”

Who would here be in doubt as to what type of magic the exalted Master of Nazareth taught! – –

And the instructions he gives us to reach this true magic lead upwards step by step.

Read the Sermon on the Mount and you will learn those general “first practices” which to him appear completely essential. If you are looking for “practices” for those of you who are advanced, then each of his parables speaks volumes, regardless of the fact that he says quite clearly to his actual disciples:

“Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, to the rest are given only parables.”

In the parables he describes only what is necessary as a “practice”: the focussing of consciousness on the stimuli of the soul’s powers, and the subsequent action which the will owes to these stimuli.

To his own disciples, however, he also showed the working of spiritual laws.

He showed them why what is recommended in the parable must be done.

He also enlightened them to how to drive out “evil spirits”, precisely those intermediate beings of the invisible part of the physical world, when they do harm to the soul.

So he initiates – at times understood, at other times misunderstood by his listeners, – his disciples into many a wise teaching which “can be revealed” to the smallest and innocent, while “remaining concealed” from the puffedup and know-alls. –

Despite this he utters the word: “I would have had much more to say to you, but you can not yet bear it”; he tells those he instructs that for each one who is truly prepared comes “the spirit of truth”, the true divine spark of spirit into the true I of the soul: – the “living God”, –  who teaches them “all truth”, who only takes from “his own” even if he will once speak from another mouth. –

This saying remains rich in mystery in its double significance, because everything the Anointed One himself gave was from the sea of spiritual treasures of the “living God”, whom he carried in himself and with whom he was consciously united, as with those “like him” whom he saw come after him.

“If I were to speak from myself I would be a liar, but I have not spoken of myself, even as the Father has said unto me, so I speak!”

None of those who speaks from truth says what he teaches of himself, and no one is entitled to show the path to unity in the spirit if he does not carry the Father alive within himself: if he does not live fully conscious in unison with his “living God”. –

It is not necessary to repeat here all the instructions which I have given in so many places and in such various ways.

I have been permitted to say much of that which the Master of Nazareth was not yet able to give to his disciples because it would have been “too hard” for them; I was permitted to do this only because all this has long since, though in distorted form, become known generally without being heeded.

I had to give elucidation of these things because the distorted form in which this knowledge reached mankind hithertohas already caused indescribable misfortune; and because an end should finally be put to this misfortune. –

For this reason it is important to spread the understanding that the occult world of physical nature can only be entered without danger by those who are suitable from birth and who have, moreover, been trained by a proper guide to safely master the powers here at work.

Only the Luminaries of the First Light are the guides here, the “masters” of the “White Lodge”, who had to become free masters of the occult powers before the keys to this earthly existence could be handed over to them; keys which alone can open the gate through which leads the way to the realms of the spirit for all people on this  earth. – –

He who has in this way rightfully acquired the ability to act through the powers of the finer fluid body can in given cases also bring benefit through them.

To all others these powers must only bring misfortune.

That which brings benefit to all without exception, is the development of occult spiritual powers, the powers of the soul.

How one learns to use these powers under safe inner guidance, adjusted to everyone who honestly and seriously sets out to practice these powers through deed, is taught in detail by the teachings I described, which draw from no other source than the fountain of eternal wisdom which the exalted Master of Nazareth called the “spirit of truth” and which he knew was eternally inexhaustible: – and beneficial to the most distant generations.

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