Hermetic Traditions

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things are made new. It is not that there are new doctrines, but there is
another quality of life; thereby the old symbolism has been so
interpenetrated that the things which are without have become the
things which are within, till each seems either in the power of the
grace and in the torrent of the life. It is then that we cease to go out
through the door by which we went in, because other doors are open,
and the call of many voices, bidding us no longer depart hence, says
rather: Let us enter the sanctuary, even the inmost shrine.
I desire, therefore, to make it plain that the Secret Church Mystic
which exists and has always existed within the Church Militant of
Christendom does not differ in anything from the essential teaching of
doctrine- I mean Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; that it
can say with its heart what it says also with its lips; that again there is
no change or shadow of vicissi-tude; but in some very high sense the
ground of the essentials has been removed. The symbolum remains ; it
has not taken on another meaning; hut it has unfolded itself like the
flower from within. Christian Theosophy in the West can recite its
Credo in unum Deum by clause and by clause, including in unam
sanctum catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam, and if there is an
arriere pensee it is not of heresy or Jesuitry. Above all, and I say this
the more expressly because there are still among us- that is to say, in
those circles generally- certain grave miscon-ceptions, and it is
necessary to affirm that the path of the mystic does not pass through
the heresies.
And now with respect to the secret schools which have handed down
to us at this day some part or aspects of the secret tradition belonging
to Christian times, I must leave out of consideration, because there are
limits to papers of this kind, the great witness of Kabalism which
although it is a product of the Christian period is scarcely of it, and
although therein the quest and its term do not assuredly differ from
that of the truth which is in Christ, there are perhaps other reasons
than those of brevity for setting it apart here. Alchemy may not have
originated much further East than Alexandria, or, alternatively, it may
have travelled from China when the port of Byzantium was opened to
the commerce of the world. In either case, its first development, in the
forms with which we are acquainted, is connected with the name of
Byzantium, and the earliest alchemists of whom we have any remains
in literature constitute a class by themselves under the name of
Byzantine alchemists. The records of their processes went into Syria
and Arabia, where they assumed a new mode, which bore, however,
all necessary evidence of its origin. In this form it does not appear to
have had a specific influence upon the corpus doctrinale. The records
were also taken West, like many other mysteries of varying
importance, and when they began to assume a place in western history
this was chiefly in France, Germany and England. In other words,
there arose the cycle of Latin alchemy, passing at a later date, by the
way of translation, into the vernaculars of the respective countries,
until finally, but much later, we have original documents in English,
French and German. It follows, but has not so far been noticed, that
the entire literature is a pro-duct of Christian times and has
Christianity as its motive, whether subconsciously or otherwise. This
statement applies to the Latin Geber and the tracts which are ascribed
to Morien and Rhasis. The exception which proves the rule is the
Kabalistic Aesh Mezareph, which we know only by fragments
included in the great collection of Rosenroth. I suppose that there is
no labyrinth which it is quite so difficult to thread as that of the
Theatrum Chemicum. It is beset on every side with pitfalls, and its
clues, though not destroyed actually, have been buried beneath the
ground. Expositors of the subject have gone astray over the general
purpose of the art, because some have believed it to be: (a) the
transmutation of metals, and that only, while others have interpreted it
as (b) a veiled method of delineating the secrets of the soul on its way
through the world within, and besides this nothing. Many text-books
of physical alchemy would seem to have been re-edited in this exotic
interest. The true philosophers of each school are believed to have
taught the same thing, with due allowance for the generic difference
of their term, and seeing that they use the same language it would
seem that, given a criterion of distinction in respect of the term, this
should make the body of cryptogram comparatively easy to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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