Hortus Conclusus

The Book On Man:

As long as men on this earth live together in any kind of community there will always be individuals who are not satisfied with the kind of communal life binding them to others; nevertheless, men will never find a perfect form of government. –

Always the advantage held by one will be a disadvantage to another; it is always the case that very few willingly give up the advantages they hold even if they recognise it brings disadvantage to others.

It is not possible for an ‘ideal state’ to come into existence on this earth which would freely unite all men in love, for this earth was once deprived of God by man himself when, afraid of his own might, he lost his dominion over it. – – –

However much joy on earth for all men may be proclaimed in all sorts of theories, reality will mock unconcernedly all these theories. –

In every ‘republic’ there will be ‘kings’ and ‘princes’; no ‘despot’ will ever be able to prevent there being spheres in his realm where his might and arbitrariness are impotent. – – –

Never will a law spring forth from the ‘council of all men’ which could surpass those wise and sublime laws once passed by the great ‘kings’ of the world.

There will only ever be a few individuals to whom nature has given the talent and power to bring order to disorder and to lead those who without leadership fail to bring prosperity to themselves and to  others. – –

Even rarer are those who from birth nature has endowed with the right to be in control – – to be in control of everything incapable of, or unwilling to practise self-control.

In all realms of the cosmos whether disclosed to the physical or to the spiritual senses, rules the system of ‘hierarchy’, of higher and lower ranking, and the number of effective powers diminishes the further their might and influence reach. – – –

The communal life of men on earth is also subject to this law; any arbitrary will seeking with good intentions to create ‘equality’ is inherently destined to fail from the beginning, – it travels the path of abundant disappointments which nature always keeps open for all human wisdom failing to recognise its law, or if recognising it, ignoring it. –

Every kind of human communal life on earth is built upon hierarchy and rank, according to nature’s law. If this is not consciously sought, nature will itself build it according to its own rules and without regard to the number of victims demanded by its iron law…

There is no avoidance, no alternative route to the goal, where general cosmic law commands. –

A man does not become a ‘king’ by being born in a royal palace, and all the wisdom of a philosopher who would like to see the people happy under his leadership will not make a ‘statesman’ of him.

The mystical force really creating ‘kings’ may be preserved within a dynasty for centuries. It must be extinguished as soon as the impulses which once founded the ‘royal’ character within it have exhausted themselves in deed and life. Nothing on earth can then replace what has become extinct by another authority, and thus protect an empty ‘kingship’…

However, not every ‘king’ who has lost his land has thereby ceased wearing the royal ermine. – – The opposite also applies; many a royal throne was toppled by an enemy of the ‘royal’ might who in all certainty was not aware that he was himself a ‘king’ who had not yet found his realm. – – –

One can forgive belief in ‘evolution’ as far as the structure of society is concerned, for human eyes tend too readily to regard their immediate environment as the ‘world’. In the same way man struggles to consider the times he can survey as ‘eternal seconds’. – –

The few on this earth capable of perceiving more widely in space and time must recognise, despite all apparent contradiction, that everything man on earth regards as ‘evolution’ with respect to ‘polity’ is plain vanity and illusion; in thousands of years’ time, mankind will still bleed itself to death in the same struggles for dominance as are waged today or were waged thousands of years ago when civilisations fell leaving no evidence as yet uncovered by archaeologists…

At times ‘the people’ will succumb to the illusion that it can be the ‘ruler’ and rule itself – as the  ‘ruler’ – –. At other times kings lacking any trace of true ‘kingship’ and its mystical power will seek to secure by force of arms the throne to which they have no claim. Again and again, fortunes will change until the last remaining men on earth, unless spiritual insight prevents it, will slay each other, since the last animal was slaughtered long ago, and the last plant perished in sand and ice. – For this earth must freeze, and the eternal ‘redemption’ of earthly man will then witness a new world cycle. – – –

Woe upon the ‘last men’, for then the myth of Cain and Abel will be repeated a thousand times over, unless earthly man realises in time that every ‘you’ is an ‘I’ seeking to find himself in him. – –

Each among the few for whom the spirit and the spirit’s transmission illuminated brightly expanses of time and space, is at one with me in expressing the wish: – may just one of those hoping to achieve lasting happiness today or in days to come on earth, be able to see those things we few, almost overwhelmed by compassion, must teach to see clearly! – –

He surely would, paralysed by terror and with profound shame in his heart, banish his dreams of the future to the deepest shaft of his soul; never would he seek again on this earth the things his spirit showed him, and which he believed, trapped in the illusion of error, could be given shape on this cosmic particle ‘earth’. – –

Nevertheless, the happy dreams of these world improvers are replete with truth, only the happiness they wish for mankind can never be attained on earth; it can never be realised by earthly means; it is never reserved for earthly man in the form of his dreams. – – –

Therefore let us seek a different ‘new mankind’, a mankind which, although living on earth and enjoying this earthly life as much as is possible, has long since stopped being only ‘of this earth’! –

We must lead man to a deeper source of happiness,  to a source which flows more abundantly, if we are to offer brotherly support to those ‘friends of mankind’ who have been deceived by the illusion of earthly happiness. –

We must free them from themselves and their dreams, if we are to make the truth which they vaguely sense and then seek to cast into sterile philosophies into something useful for  mankind. – – –

Although it is not within the bounds of possibility for a truly righteous man to be able to procure righteousness for all, every individual can nevertheless strive for lawfulness and thereby help to counteract the will to commit injustice which even divine powers can never expunge from this earthly existence. – – –

‘The happiness of mankind’ is an individual happiness and can only be attained in the soul of each individual man. –

The ‘new mankind’ which one day may arise on this earth will most certainly no longer expect happiness to come from outside. – It will recognise that the things of this external world are only what we make of them, and that they can only determine us in as much as we allow us to be determined…

The inner world of the individual must become a world of peace and pure happiness; here alone man on earth can encounter true happiness. – – –

How this happiness of the individual is to be found is shown by the teaching unfolding from the pages of these books.

That following their advice can also make life in the external world far happier nobody will deny who once recognised that all life in this external world is but witness to the invisible effect of  powers. – –

Everything which is to bring true happiness in the external life on earth must germinate from within. –

In the external world exists only the realm of the effect of those powers which are anchored within the depths of the soul alone.

Those who seek to improve things here in the external world will only harvest illusory successes; they will only bestow momentary happiness, and the things they achieve are destined soon to collapse since inherent energy necessary to sustain them in the external world is lacking. – –

May this ‘Book on Man’ open the eyes of many who, filled with the best of intentions, still waste their powers today because they hope to attain the ‘happiness of mankind’ in the external world!

May those who keep watch from dawn to dusk looking for salvation and help, finally attain insight!

Only when ‘gazing outwards’ is replaced by ‘looking inwards’ can also external life of mankind become worthy of man. – – –

Only then can some of those ‘dreams of the future’ be realised which with currently popular method run merely the risk of evaporating into mist and fog. – –

‘Mankind of old’ is very adept at forcing the external world to serve it. But since this ‘coercion’ only comes from without, it risks succumbing to those powers which it has unleashed to serve it. –

‘New mankind’ will no longer seek to force from without the things it will learn more effectively to steer from within. – –

In every individual belonging to ‘new mankind’ powers will be revealed overshadowing everything ‘mankind of old’ proudly admired as ‘spiritual achievements’, – unaware that all thinking can never  comprehend the ‘spirit’, which like the power of lightning fills the whole world; never will it become useful to man through thinking, never through external mechanics; it mocks that mockery itself which the ‘spirit’ of many ‘thinkers’ sets against its own reality. – – –

Far removed from all illusions, I know for certain that the true spirit can not reveal itself everywhere from one day to the next. For mankind of old has systematically blocked all the shafts through which man today could find his way to the depths within himself where the sources flow of all becoming.

Yet one day these sources will be opened up again; those who can then draw from them will be able to achieve many things by the power of the true spirit which today are vainly sought with all the brain’s rational power.

Yet even then this earth will not become a ‘heaven’, and untamed powers will continue to keep most men in bondage. – –

‘New mankind’ will be a realm of the chosen and called; some individuals are even now founding this realm within themselves.

It may even be possible for this generation to experience its first traces, – certainly our children’s children will one day know of its powers, as we today know those powers which mankind of old believed it had torn from nature, being cunningly able with external force to make nature serve its aims.

The holy books of ancient times rightly proclaim both a kingdom of the ‘children of light’ and a kingdom of the ‘children of this world’ of the external powers which cannot be eliminated. One who truly knew of these things once said: “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light!” – –

It is to be wished that the ‘children of light’ would become ‘wiser’ in their way, and could break the spell by which they are fettered by the ‘children of this world’!

------------------------------------------------------------------------