The Phoenix. An illustrated review of occultism and philosophy

Openings? which historiographers fear to include in their prosaic records of a people? Yet in spite of a definite and almost untiring effort to obliterate from the memory of the world everything pertaining to the mystery of magic or the super-sciences, the ghosts of the ancient thaumaturgists wonder-workers or miracle-workers cling tenaciously to the substance of our imaginations. They are obsessed by these elder spirits. They refuse to be forgotten; they demand their due for their very works' sake, and in spite of ourselves we not only remember them but also the broad measure of their accomplishments. We shudder even in the smugness of our materiality when we realize that our present civilization rests upon the broad shoulders of demigods and heroes half divine, even as the substance of our history is established upon the ephemerality of myth and legend. And so we stand together in all the splendor of our various discomfitures, miserably educated, distressingly cultured, oblivious to all that is essential to right living, and painfully ignorant of those vital essentials which only philosophic insight can reveal. Each of us is a twentieth-century Faust the legendary scholar who traded his soul for worldly knowledge and power. Goethe's hero speaks for each of us in the immortal lines, "And here I stand with all my lore, a fool no wiser than before." original: "Und hier steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor, und bin so klug als wie zuvor!" This quote from Goethe's play expresses the limits of academic learning without spiritual insight.

Why must we continually reject those sublime truths proffered to us out of the past? Why do we turn our backs with scorn upon those splendid doctrines of other ages, declaring only the present to be real and the past but idle superstition? When Plato the Greek philosopher and founder of the Academy affirms the inner mysteries of life, what modern upstart in his shallowness dares to refute him? When Cicero the Roman statesman and philosopher bears witness to the efficacy of the Mysteries, who of this generation is qualified to say him nay? When the superlative intellects of all ages have united in a common adoration of the secret doctrine, revering above all other men those initiated into its mysteries, how can we in the vanity of our own conceits ridicule our superiors and then go on living worse than the men we scoff at?

It is fitting that we should honor those whose illumined intellection has brought wisdom out of the obscurity of the first ages and preserved the unbroken chain of philosophic tradition through all the vicissitudes of changing time. Nor should we honor them by words alone, but rather by so living and serving the great truths of life that the sacrifices of the first philosophers should not be in vain. There is but one appropriate propitiation, one acceptable offering, and that is right use. These seers and sages of antiquity established the institutions in which the mysteries of philosophy were revealed. They demonstrated to mankind the true way of all permanent achievement; they led the neophytes newly initiated students or candidates for the mysteries to the gateway of that intellectual sphere where Truth dwells in the midst of the wise. After sojourning with humanity for their allotted span, these ministers of the Sovereign Good closely drew their robes of gold about them and passed into the inner sanctuary, that adytum the innermost sacred chamber of a temple of the Everlasting House from which none cometh out again. They not only taught, but because they were adepts highly advanced spiritual masters, they lived their doctrines; and their lives as well as their words reveal the fullness of their understanding.

The dying Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, the Enlightened One declared to his disciples that he left behind him three jewels and that through contemplation of them all men might achieve to the su-

preme blessedness. These heavenly gems, radiant with an indwelling splendor, were the life of the Buddha, the word of the Buddha, and the order of the Buddha. While these jewels continue upon the earth, the monk in his saffron robe shall not be left without hope of achievement. The Buddha has entered his Nirvana the state of liberation from suffering and the cycle of rebirth, the Christ has departed to His Father, Zarathustra the ancient Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism has returned to his flame. They have all gone, each to his own end as determined by his works, but their accomplishments endure. They were wise in the truest sense of that word; they were builders of a divine house, architects of a lasting civilization, artisans skilled beyond all other men. Time may pass away, history be swallowed up in eternity, nations crumble, the world itself vanish into the flame from whence it came. But if there be anything that will endure the conflagration which marks the boundary of duration, it is understanding. If any man have a hope, understanding is the substance of that hope. If there be immortality, understanding renders its achievement possible. Perfection of understanding is ultimate perfection. Understanding is eternal, incapable of destruction or change. Therefore, these masters of understanding will never cease to be, but as nine and forty Flames In esoteric tradition, the forty-nine fires represent the various levels of consciousness or divine energy. will gather as a blazing aureole about the Sovereign Fire which burns forever.

Invoke by your contemplation the shadows of the Master Builders who have gone before. In your dream behold the marching conquerors passing triumphantly down the royal arches of time. There is the dark-skinned Orpheus the legendary Greek musician and prophet, his face illumined with a radiant ecstasy as he draws from the seven-stringed lyre, symbolic of the harmony of his own being, the measureless harmonies of the spheres. Beside him is the Egyptian Hermes the Thrice-Greatest, a legendary sage associated with the god Thoth, the beloved son of wisdom, bearing in one hand the caduceus the winged staff with two entwined serpents representing balance whose warring serpents have ceased to struggle and holding aloft in the other hand the glistening and gleaming Emerald Table bearing the revelation of the immutable law. In this vision out of the past behold dimly the blue Krishna the divine teacher and avatar in Hindu tradition, the beloved child of the flute and conch shell, who on the battlefield of Kurukshetra the sacred site of the Great War in the Mahabharata leaned from his heavenly chariot and delivered to Arjuna, prince of men, the Bhagavad-Gita the Song of the Lord, a central Hindu scripture. Behind Krishna and leaning on an iron-bound staff, stands the sublime Buddha, with yellow robe and shaven head, lord of humility and the perfect way, Asia's "Light" and the giver of the good law. Behind Gautama stalks grave Pythagoras the Greek philosopher who taught that numbers are the basis of all things, his head bent over and his long beard upon his breast. There also is the Syrian Master, Jesus, His brow serene with the calm of self-mastery but His face saddened by the sins committed in His name. His shade appears for an instant and is gone again. After him come a host of others: Confucius the sage of China who taught social ethics, walks side by side with Lao-tze the founder of Taoism, the mystic of Tao the Way, or the ultimate reality and the Perfect Way. Great thundering Odin the chief god of Norse mythology follows, holding high Gungnir, the spear cut from the branches of the Tree of Life. And high is flung the black banner of Mohammed the prophet and founder of Islam, planted by him in the courtyard of the Caaba the Kaaba, the sacred shrine in Mecca after he had overthrown the 360 idols and reconsecrated Mecca to the living God. Far at the unknown beginning is the half distinguish-

A full-page symbolic illustration titled "THE MYSTERIES OF THE HOLY GRAIL." In the center, a radiant head of Christ appears within a circular halo of light. Below the head is a chalice, the Grail, marked with the IHS monogram. This monogram represents the name of Jesus, often interpreted as the Greek letters Iota-Eta-Sigma. The chalice rests on an altar-like structure draped with a cloth featuring a cross. Two knights in full plate armor kneel on either side of the altar, their swords planted point-down in the ground as if in prayer or vigilance. In the foreground, two dragons or winged serpents are entwined at the base of the altar, representing lower forces or the guardians of the threshold. Two tall, thin banners or spears flank the central vision, extending to the top of the frame. The background is filled with radiating lines of light, suggesting a divine revelation.

rising from the depths of Space, is the strong support of the universe. The altar of the Everlasting One is lifted up in the midst of the world and upon it flickers throughout all duration the flame of His covenant.

If we study the history of vanished races, we will discern the cause of their destruction. When a nation ceases to serve the beautiful, it has already begun to die; when a cause departs from truth, that cause has already failed. When glutted with success and tyrannical with power, like the fabled princes of Atlantis the legendary lost continent first described by Plato, men no longer love the beautiful and serve the good, they are destroyed by the weight of their own iniquity. The old writings tell us that black magic overshadowed Egypt. Perverted and licentious, the priests served the great specters invoked by their incantations. They called up monsters by their spells and fabricated false gods who were but demons in disguise. The heavenly light upon the temple altars grew fainter and fainter, for Truth became less evident as error increased in power. Lust and pride likewise undermined the solidarity of Greece and wild debauchery caused the streets of Rome to run with blood and wine. Being but men, the priests of the temples were infected with the common plague and lost the mystic word of power: the Name Ineffable the unpronounceable or secret name of the Divine which grants authority over nature.

Though an almost infinite diversity of creeds has come into manifestation since the primitive doctrine of the first ages, these creeds have all sought to achieve a single end: the restatement of that primitive revelation which, according to the doctrines of the Cabala the ancient Jewish mystical and esoteric tradition...