The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation Part 4

Co-equal with the Spirit and the heavenly deep.

For except by three in one, the Spirits of the Invisible Light could not have been made manifest.

But now is the prism perfect, and the generation of the G.o.ds discovered in their order.

Adonai dissolves and resumes; in His two hands are the dual powers of all things.

He is of His Father the Spirit, and of His Mother the great deep.

Having the potency of both in Himself, and the power of things material.

Yet being Himself invisible, for He is the cause, and not the effect.

He is the Manifestor, and not that which is manifest.

That which is manifest is the Divine Substance[28].

The reason for the suppression by the translators of the Bible of its numerous affirmations of the Divine Duality, saving only those of Genesis i. 26, 27, was in due time disclosed to us; as also was the extent of the loss to man through the elimination of the feminine principle from his conception of Original Being, and the consequent perversion of the doctrine of the Trinity, and therein of the true nature of Existence, in both its aspects, Creation and Redemption.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] In 1875. (Life A.K. Vol. I. p. 73.)

[19] The book was "England and Islam: or The Counsel of Caiaphas," which was published in 1877.

[20] This vision occurred in London in November, 1876. It was merely referred to in the previous editions of this book, but I have inserted it here in full from "The Life of A.K." Vol. I. pp. 115-117. It is also given in "England and Islam," pp. 438-442. S.H.H.

[21] p. 41.

[22] E. and I. p. 299.

[23] It is probable that E.M. intended this statement to apply only to the N.T., or to the Gospels, because, before February, 1874, when he first visited A.K. at her house (p. 2), she had received in sleep "an exposition of the Story of the Fall, exhibiting it as a parable having a significance purely spiritual" and E.M. certainty regarded the Biblical Story of the Fall as "Scripture." S.H.H.

[24] The expression of which the above is an adaptation, had recently been applied by Mr Gladstone to the Turkish power. For the period was the eve of the Turco-Russian War; and Mr Gladstone had found vent for his strong sacerdotal proclivities by siding fiercely against the priest-hating and prophet-venerating Turks, and demanding their expulsion from Europe, very much on the plea that "it was good for Europe that one nation die for the rest." It was in recognition of the part thus played by him that I took for the sub-t.i.tle of my book ("England and Islam") "The Counsel of Caiaphas." The book--which was written under a high degree of illumination--contained an earnest appeal to Mr Gladstone, which, if heeded, would have saved the country from its subsequent humiliations. Among other things I was clearly shown that the policy which sought to detach England from the East, was of infernal instigation, being intended to thwart the rapprochement between Christianity and Buddhism from which the new humanity was to spring. But the circ.u.mstances of the book's production--it was poured through me at great speed and printed off as it came--precluded due revision and elimination of redundant matter; and for these and other reasons, I have suffered it to go out of print. E.M.

[25] There is another fact, referred to in "The Life of A.K.," that must be taken into consideration in connection with experiences of this nature, that is, "the survival for an indefinite period of the images of events occurring on the earth, in the astral light, or memory of the planet, called the anima mundi, which images can be evoked and beheld."

(Life A.K. Vol I. p. 125.) S.H.H.

[26] This "Vision of Adonai" by A.K. was merely referred to in the previous editions of this book. I have extracted the following account of the most interesting part of it from "The Life of A.K." (Vol. I. pp.

193-196.) S.H.H.

[27] Speaking of this vision, E.M. says:--"Her apprehension was not without justification; for her body was completely torpid, and several hours pa.s.sed before consciousness was fully restored to it." (C.W.S. p.

283.)

[28] This is one of the illuminations that were received by A.K., during the latter part of 1878, "directly from the hierarchy of the Church Invisible and Celestial." Speaking of these illuminations, which "dealt with the profoundest subjects of cognition," E.M. says that he and A.K.

found in them "a synthesis and an a.n.a.lysis combined of the sacred mysteries of all the great religions of antiquity, and the true _origines_ of Christianity as originally and divinely intended, together with the secret and method of its corruption and perversion into that which now bears its name"; and they "were at no loss to recognise in them the destined Scriptures of the future, so long promised and at length vouchsafed in interpretation of the Scriptures of the past."

(Life A.K. Vol. I. pp. 293, 294.) S.H.H.

CHAPTER III.

THE COMMUNICATION.

A striking feature for us was the exquisite tenderness and poetic delicacy, both in matter and manner, which characterised all that we received. Nor was there the intrusion of anything to suggest feelings such as are described by Daniel when he says, "I saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me, neither was there breath left in me." And not only was the element of terror so completely absent as to make us feel as if we had entered on the dispensation of that "perfect love which casteth out fear," but there was occasionally an element of playfulness, and this on the part of our chiefest illuminators, the G.o.ds themselves. While their instructions were replete with every graceful and delicate adornment such as could not but delight the poet and the artist, and this without abatement of profundity or solemnity. By these things it was intimated to us that the religion of the future was indeed to be one of sweetness and light, and for the severe and gloomy spirit of the Semite would be subst.i.tuted the bright and joyous spirit of the Greek. All this, we learnt, was because the new dispensation was to be that of the "Woman," and in accord therefore with woman's nature and sentiments. It was moreover to be introduced by means of the Woman's faculty, the Intuition, and this as subsisting in _a_ woman.

The following exquisite little apologue, which was given us in the early days of our novitiate, is an instance in point:--

A blind man once lost himself in a forest. An angel took pity on him, and led him into an open place. As he went he received his sight. Then he saw the angel, and said to him, "Brother, what doest thou here? Suffer me to go before thee, for I am thine elder." So the man went first, taking the lead. But the angel spread his wings and returned to heaven. And darkness fell again upon him to whom sight had been given.

Here was a parable which, slight as it seemed, was truly Biblical for the depth and manifoldness of its signification. For while it applied to ourselves both separately and jointly, and to our work, it was also an eternal verity applicable alike to the individual, the collective, and the universal. For as the angel was to the man, so is the intuition to the intellect, which of itself cannot transcend the sense-nature, but remains blind and dark and lost in the wilderness of illusion. And as she, my colleague, had supplemented me, so were we each to supplement in ourselves intellect by intuition, in order to become capable of knowledge and understanding. It was, moreover, a parable of the Fall and of the Redemption, an epitome in short of man's spiritual history. And it had been spelt out for us by the tilting of a table in one of our earliest essays in spiritualism! So carefully guarded and daintily taught were we from the outset.

The charming allegory of "The Wonderful Spectacles" which was given in London on the 31st January, 1877, to my colleague in sleep, was not only an instruction concerning the nature of her faculty and its indispensableness as an adjunct to mine for the work a.s.signed to us; it was also a prophetic intimation of the character of that work, and of the nature of the influences controlling it, which at the time was altogether unsuspected by us. This is the account which she sent to me by letter, for we were not then together:--

I dreamt that I was walking alone on the sea-sh.o.r.e. The day was singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape ever seen; and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks of which were white with glistening snow. Along the sands by the sea towards me came a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter. It was from you. It ran thus:--

"I have got hold of the rarest and most precious book extant. It was written before the world began. The text is easy enough to read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are in such very minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them out. I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used to wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid. I think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-gla.s.s maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you can get them for me"[29].

When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman hastening away across the sands, and I called out to him, "Stop!

how am I to send the answer? Won't you wait for me?"

He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.

"I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter bag, "and I shall deliver it immediately."

"How can you have the answer before I have written it?" said I.

"You are making a mistake."

"No," said he, "In the city from which I come, the replies are all written at the office and sent out with the letters themselves.

Your reply is in my bag."

"Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from his wallet and gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my own handwriting, this answer, addressed to you:--

"The spectacles you want can be bought in London. But you will not be able to use them at once, for they have not been worn for many years, and they want cleaning sadly. This you will not be able to do yourself in London, because it is too dark there to see, and because your fingers are not small enough to clean them properly.

Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you."

I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and nodded at me; and I saw then to my astonishment that he wore a camel's-hair tunic round his waist. I had been on the point of addressing him--I know not why--as _Hermes_. But I now saw that it was John the Baptist; and in my fright at having spoken with so great a saint, I awoke.

This was the second suggestion of a Greek element in our work, the first having been the slight allusion to Phoibos Apollo in the illumination concerning the Marriage in Cana of Galilee[30]. The signification of the connection between Hermes and John the Baptist remained unintelligible to us until the key to it was given us in a revelation of the method of the Bible-writers explaining their practice of representing principles as persons. We then found that by the baptism or purification, physical and mental, practised by John, was meant the course of life and thought whereby alone man develops the faculty of the understanding of spiritual things. And Hermes is the Greco-Egyptian name for the "second of the G.o.ds," called by Isaiah the Spirit of Understanding. Hence the adoption of this name by the formulators of the Hermetic, or sacred books of Egypt; and the favourite motto of the Hermetists:--

"Est in Mercurio quicquid quoerunt sapientes,"

All is in the understanding that the wise seek,--Mercury being the Latin equivalent for Hermes.

The mention of Swedenborg and Andersen implied their possession of the faculty indispensable to our work, that of mystical insight, of which they were the most notable recent representatives.