A chant sung over the entranced bodies of the mystai or neophytes who, after passing through the trial of their last initiation, were made Epoptai.

The compound term Theophania (from theos, “God,” and phainesthai, “to appear”) does not simply mean the appearance of God in man but the actual presence of a God in man, a divine incarnation.

Samson and Samuel were Nazars, i.e., consecrated to the service of God. So were Zoroaster (son of Ishta), Azara-Ezra, and Zorobabel (son of Babylon). Nazars were a monastic class of celibates. Apart from Samson and Samuel, Paul and Joseph were also Nazars. Samson was a true Nazarite, i.e., vowed to the service of God. His hair was his strength. His father was Manu. The mother of his counterpart, Samuel, was Anna. An old palm leaf depicts a blind giant of Ceylonian antiquity and fame, with hair reaching to the ground and with outstretched arms embracing the four central pillars of a pagoda, pulling them down onto a crowd of armed enemies. That giant is an antitype of the biblical Samson. Samson was consecrated before his birth to become a Nazarite, i.e., an Adept. His sin with Delilah and the cropping of his long hair shows how well he kept his sacred vow. His allegory is further evidence of the Esotericism of the Bible, as also the character of the “Mystery Gods” of the Jews. Biblical Samson is the Hindu Ganesha; Samuel is the Hebrew Hercules and double of Samson; both are fictitious characters. King David is the Israelitish King Arthur. Samson and Hercules are personifications of neophytes to Initiation, near the end of their trials. They kneel before the hierophant, who cuts off seven locks of their hair representing the golden beams of the sun; and these are replaced by a wreath of sharp ligneous spines, symbolizing the loss. There are two crucifixions, astronomically connected: the crucifixion of the Serpent of Wisdom falling from on high to illumine the hearts and minds of men, and the “crucifixion” of Jesus-Chrēstos, the virtuous man, fabricated by Ecclesiastical Christianity. The neophyte who can overcome the dreadful trials of Initiation (on the cross of his worldly passions) dies in the Chrēstos condition (freed from the clutches of matter) before his second and triumphant birth in Spirit as Christos.

Reincarnation is the serial and periodical rebirth of every individual monad, from pralaya to pralaya. Reincarnation is indissolubly linked with Karma, the Divine Law of Truth and Justice. Astral monad is the shell of the deceased personality, disintegrating together with the corpse. In Hinduism it is known as bhut; in Greek philosophy, as eidolon; in Theosophy, as elementary. That shell is the deceptive image of lingering desires (Kama-loka), the Limbus of the Catholics, the Hades of the Greeks. The evocation of the dead (necromancy) as well as the preservation of corpses is a violation of the laws of nature; it is an outrage on the modesty of death, which hides the works of destruction, as we should hide those of reproduction. Death is exhaled by death. The cemeteries poison the atmosphere of towns and the miasma of corpses blight the children even in the bosoms of their mothers. As spirit and matter run along parallel lines and are readily convertible to each other, so the spiritual evolution goes hand in hand with the physical. The immortal Ego is the root of every new incarnation, the string on which are threaded one after the other the ephemeral “personalities” of man. When the post-mortem period of lethargic stupor is over, and the last ante-mortem desire dissipated, the Spiritual Soul enters in full consciousness the blessed region of Devachan, where all earthly mists have been dispersed, and where the scenes of the past life come clearly before the spiritual sight. Thence one can neither be reborn before its appointed period, nor reappear on earth visibly or invisibly in the interim. Unless the spiritual fruition the Higher Ego merges into, and its aroma absorbed by the reincarnating Ego (Atma-Buddhi), the latter becomes non-existent — for it can only receive spiritual colouring from each lower ego during incarnation. All transient, non-reincarnating principles are left behind soulless and lifeless, firstly as a material residue, and later on as a reflection on the mirror of Astral light. Reincarnation is a cyclic necessity for the Eternal Pilgrim — the Protean differentiation in space and time of the One Absolute Unknowable. Nature never leaves her work unfinished; if baffled at the first attempt, she tries again. No one can progress beyond this world without becoming perfected physically, morally, and spiritually. And as Nature never proceeds backwards in her evolutionary progress, so man cannot regress physically to lower forms of life — but he can retrogress morally, yielding to the seductive influences which converge towards him. Selfishness is the single most important cause of all sin and suffering on earth. Its effects can only be counterbalanced on earth, hence the endless cycles of tears watering the parched soil of pain and sorrow until harmony is restored. Like the revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and rebirth, the moral cause of which is clinging desperately to life on earth — while the instrumental cause is Karma, the law of merit and demerit. The entire bundle of egotism disappears after death, as the costume of the part he played disappears from the actor’s body after he leaves the theatre and goes to bed. Nothing remains of that bundle to go to the next incarnation, except the seed for future Karma. The soul of the wicked will go on wandering about in the earth’s sphere assuming at times the forms of human phantoms, and even those of animals. The ancient profane never seemed sure any more than the modern whether an apparition was that of a relative, or the genius of the locality. Man is a Unity only at his origin and at his end. In-between, spirits and souls, gods and dæmons emanate from the Soul of the Universe. But the rabble is the same in every age: superstitious, self-opinionated, materializing the most spiritual, noble, and idealistic conceptions, and dragging them down to its own low level. The earth conceals the flesh; the shade flits round the tomb. The underworld receives the image; the spirits seeks the stars. Abortion is much worse than foeticide, it is a crime against Nature. Abortion will also shorten the mother’s life on earth only to prolong it with dreary percentage in Kama-loka.

1. The Origin of the Mysteries. The last incarnation of one of seven “Lords of the Flame” was Baladeva, Krishna’s brother. Hercules is none other than Baladeva in Greek dress. In the Golden Age, Esoteric Knowledge was common property. Initiation arose later on from the necessity to limit the number of those who knew. The Initiate’s maxim was “All for the people and with the people.” The old Initiates were real philosophers, priests, and healers. They commemorated the secrets of their Mysteries in hieroglyphics. Only those, whose purity allowed them to look at the great Isis unveiled, were admitted to the secrets of Nature and Man. But what Gods and Angels had revealed, Moses reveiled and hid from the sight of the world. 2. The Trial of the Sun-Initiate. Vishvakarman (Hierophant or Logos Demiourgos) cut off seven locks of the neophyte’s long hair (Second Sun’s rays) and replaced them with a crown of brambles — thus making him Vikartana, “shorn of his rays.” The neophyte who can overcome the dreadful trials of Initiation (on the cross of his worldly passions) dies in the Chrestos condition (freed from the clutches of matter) before his second and triumphant birth in Spirit as Christos. The Masonic rite of Initiation is based upon the construction of the Temple of Solomon, a narrative modelled upon Egyptian and still earlier symbolisms. Yet, there never was an Occult Society, however open and sincere, that has not felt the hand of the Jesuit trying to pull it down by every secret means. The Jesuits infected mankind with passivity, ignorance, and superstition in order to impose their Universal Despotism unopposed. 3. The Mystery of the “Sun of Initiation.” In the days of Aristotle, few were the true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. Solus-Sol-Sun is “The One” and the Greek name for Helios, the Most High. But there is a great difference between our Sun and its prototype, the Central Spiritual Sun. 4. The Objects of the Mysteries. Whether lesser or greater, Mysteries have always been graded. Theophany is the appearance of God to man; Theopathy, man’s assimilation of his divine nature; Theopneusty, inspiration or rather the power to hear the Voice of God. The last two are experienced when the neophyte passes through the crucifixion of flesh or matter. The Grecian Mysteries were identical with the Initiations of Buddhist and Hindu Adepts. In India, the candidate of the third degree of Initiation has two Gurus. But whether Eastern or Western, the Initiate dares all and keeps silent. Masonic Initiation was modelled on that of the Lesser Mysteries and remains an authority upon the three fundamental degrees. The triple duty of a Mason is to study whence he comes, what he is, and whither he goes. 5. Traces of the Mysteries. The Round Towers in Ireland and Asia were connected with the Vishvakarman and Vikartana rites. In later ages, the Initiates of the Left Path and the anthropomorphists turned them into phallic monuments. The key to the mystery of Initiation (and to the real Christ, not the blasphemous caricature of the Churches) lies on the difference between the terms Chrestos and Christos. There were two Messiahs, Chrest and Christ. Jesus was an Initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries, where the rite of the suffering Chrestos on his trial, and second birth as Christos (by regeneration), were enacted. It was on the seventh day, the third of his ultimate trial, that the Eastern neophyte arose as a regenerated man and returned to earth as triumphant conqueror of death, a Hierophant. Initiates are said to have “crushed the serpent’s head,” i.e., conquered their sensual nature. The Egyptian Initiates held the Rose as symbol of Nature, the mother and nourisher of man, represented as a virgin woman. The Brothers of the Rosy Cross, as a symbol of sexual procreation. The old Indian Mysteries of Initiation were brought to Greece by Orpheus, nine millennia before Homer and Hesiod. 6. The Last of the Mysteries in Europe. Alesia, Arles, and Bibractis, the last bastions of the Ancient Mysteries in Europe, are no more. Occult Wisdom is now replaced by absolute theocracy that displays its crowned priests to the ignorant masses. Whatever else Cheops might have done, he has not built the pyramid bearing his name. Neither Solomon his temple, nor Noah his arc, for that matter. The strict silence of the Initiates and the total loss of all written memorials of secret knowledge may explain why so little is known of the Ancient Mysteries. Yet, there is spiritual Alchemy and physical transmutation: their cradle is to be sought in the most distant times. 7. The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries. The Neo-Platonic School of Ammonius Saccas became the successor of the Eleusinian Mysteries and herald of the Eastern Secret Teachings — unveiling the long and laborious descent and re-ascent of the Divine Monad or Soul. Each of us have to pass through the “Valley of Thorns” before he emerges into the plains of divine light and rest. The Eclectic doctrines are strongly reflected in the Epistles of Paul and John the Evangelist. For it is not Judaism and Christianity that remodelled the ancient Pagan Wisdom, but rather the latter that put its heathen curb on the new “faith” and was further influenced by the Eclectic Theosophical system, the direct emanation of the Wisdom-Religion. Ammonius, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, were prominent Theosophists though they never claimed the title. All that is grand and noble in Christian theology comes from Neo-Platonism. Ammonius was a true Philaletheian, one of us. His Eclectic Theosophical School, a precursor and prototype of the modern Theosophical Movement, was made of the crumbs permitted to be gathered from the antediluvian lore. Woe to those who mock Divine Knowledge and betray her secrets. But those who are pure in thought and deed, and have trust and confidence in their immortal spirit, have nothing to fear.