A black and white line drawing in the style of an early medieval manuscript illustration. It depicts a naked human figure standing to the right of a stylized tree. A serpent with a spotted body and a dragon-like head is coiled around the tree trunk, its head extending towards the figure. The tree has ornate, curving branches with large, stylized leaves and round fruit. Below the image is the caption: "THE TEMPTATION OF EVIL / From Cædmon."

THE TEMPTATION OF EVIL

From Cædmon Cædmon (died c. 680) is the earliest English poet whose name is known; he was an Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at Whitby Abbey and later became a monk and a poet of religious themes.

INTRODUCTION

THE mystic tradition in Christian times is preserved, apart from all questions and traces of formal secret societies original: "Instituted Mysteries", in the literature of Christian Mystical Theology. It is a large and exceedingly scattered body of work; some of its most important texts are not available in any modern language. They stand in serious need of being organized original: "codification" and—if I may be so frank—even of being rewritten for a modern audience.

However, if the entire collection of these works is a study that must be left to the experts, there is no person now living in Europe who does not have close at hand specific, simple, and separate texts—far too many to name—which are sufficient to give a general idea of the scope and goals of the tradition. If I were asked to define this literature briefly and comprehensively as a whole, I would call it "the texts of the way, the truth, and the life" regarding the ultimate mystic goal original: "mystic term".

This literature is not only full but exhaustive regarding "the way"—which is the path of the inner world, mental focus original: "recollection", meditation, contemplation, and the letting go of everything lower in the search for everything higher. Perhaps the most universal original: "catholic" word for this process would be "centralization." The literature is also very detailed regarding the fundamental truth out of which it grows: the truth that a way does exist and that the way is open. This truth is formulated in all simplicity by the Letter to the Hebrews—that God exists and that He rewards original: "recompenses" those who seek Him out. I have cited this testimony on several occasions in this same context, and I do so here and now without apology or any sense of repetition. It can never be redundant to remember how the Divine ways are justified to humanity, specifically when humanity is seeking the Divine. The literature,