Having disposed of pre‐Christian Initiates and their Mysteries—though more
has to be said about the latter—a few words must be given to the earliest
post‐Christian Adepts, irrespective of their personal beliefs and
doctrines, or their subsequent places in History, whether sacred or
profane. Our task is to analyse this adeptship with its abnormal
thaumaturgical, or, as now called, psychological powers; to give each of
such Adepts his due, by considering, firstly, what are the historical
records about them that have reached us at this late day, and secondly, to
examine the laws of probability with regard to the said powers.
And at the outset the writer must be allowed a few words in justification
of what has to be said. It would be most unfair to see in these pages any
defiance to, or disrespect for, the Christian religion—least of all, a
desire to wound anyone’s feelings. The Theosophist believes in neither
Divine nor Satanic miracles. At such a distance of time he can only obtain
_primâ facie_ evidence and judge of it by the results claimed. There is
neither Saint nor Sorcerer, Prophet nor Soothsayer for him; only Adepts,
or proficients in the production of feats of a phenomenal character, to be
judged by their words and deeds. The only distinction he is now able to
trace depends on the results achieved—on the evidence whether they were
beneficent or maleficent in their character as affecting those for or
against whom the powers of the Adept were used. With the division so
arbitrarily made between proficients in “miraculous” doings of this or
that Religion by their respective followers and advocates, the Occultist
cannot and _must not_ be concerned. The Christian whose Religion commands
him to regard Peter and Paul as Saints, and divinely inspired and
glorified Apostles, and to view Simon and Apollonius as Wizards and
Necromancers, helped by, and serving the ends of, supposed Evil Powers—is
quite justified in thus doing if he be a sincere orthodox Christian. But
so also is the Occultist justified, if he would serve truth and only
truth, in rejecting such a one‐sided view. The student of Occultism must
belong to no special creed or sect, yet he is bound to show outward
respect to every creed and faith, if he would become an Adept of the Good
Law. He must not be bound by the pre‐judged and sectarian opinions of
anyone, and he has to form his own opinions and to come to his own
conclusions in accordance with the rules of evidence furnished to him by
the Science to which he is devoted. Thus, if the Occultist is, by way of
illustration, a Buddhist, then, while regarding Gautama Buddha as the
grandest of all the Adepts that lived, and the incarnation of unselfish
love, boundless charity, and moral goodness, he will regard in the same
light Jesus—proclaiming Him another such incarnation of every divine
virtue. He will reverence the memory of the great Martyr, even while
refusing to recognise in Him the incarnation on earth of the One Supreme
Deity, and the “Very God of Gods” in Heaven. He will cherish the ideal man
for his personal virtues, not for the claims made on his behalf by
fanatical dreamers of the early ages, or by a shrewd calculating Church
and Theology. He will even believe in most of the “asserted miracles,”
only explaining them in accordance with the rules of his own Science and
by his psychic discernment. Refusing them the term “miracle”—in the
theological sense of an event “contrary to the established laws of
nature”—he will nevertheless view them as a deviation from the laws known
(so far) to Science, quite another thing. Moreover the Occultist will, on
the _primâ facie_ evidence of the _Gospels_—whether proven or not—class
most of such works as beneficent, divine Magic, though he will be
justified in regarding such events as casting out devils into a herd of
swine(194) as allegorical, and as pernicious to true faith in their dead‐
letter sense. This is the view a genuine, impartial Occultist would take.
And in this respect even the fanatical Mussulmans who regard Jesus of
Nazareth as a great Prophet, and show respect to Him, are giving a
wholesome lesson in charity to Christians, who teach and accept that
“religious tolerance is impious and absurd,”(195) and who will never refer
to the prophet of Islam by any other term but that of a “false prophet.”
It is on the principles of Occultism, then, that Peter and Simon, Paul and
Apollonius, will now be examined.
These four Adepts are chosen to appear in these pages with good reason.
They are the first in post‐Christian Adeptship—as recorded in profane and
sacred writings—to strike the key‐note of “miracles,” that is of psychic
and physical phenomena. It is only theological bigotry and intolerance
that could so maliciously and arbitrarily separate the two harmonious
parts into two distinct manifestations of Divine and Satanic Magic, into
“godly” and “ungodly” works.