Supreme law is equilibrium; and whereby, if science can but learn how to
control it, it will be possible to change the order of the Seasons, to
produce in night the phenomena of day, to send a thought in an instant
round the world, to heal or slay at a distance, to give our words
universal success, and make them reverberate everywhere.
This agent, partially revealed by the blind guesses of the disciples of
Mesmer, is precisely what the Adepts of the middle ages called the
elementary matter of the great work. The Gnostics held that it composed
the igneous body of the Holy Spirit; and it was adored in the secret
rites of the Sabbat or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of
Baphomet or the hermaphroditic goat of Mendes.
There is a Life-Principle of the world, a universal agent, wherein are
two natures and a double current, of love and wrath. This ambient fluid
penetrates everything. It is a ray detached from the glory of the Sun,
and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the central attraction. It
is the body of the Holy Spirit, the universal Agent, the Serpent
devouring his own tail. With this electro-magnetic ether, this vital and
luminous caloric, the ancients and the alchemists were familiar. Of this
agent, that phase of modern ignorance termed physical science talks
incoherently, knowing naught of it save its effects; and theology might
apply to it all its pretended definitions of spirit. Quiescent, it is
appreciable by no human sense; disturbed or in movement, none can
explain its mode of action; and to term it a "fluid," and speak of its
"currents," is but to veil a profound ignorance under a cloud of words.
Force attracts force, life attracts life, health attracts health. It is
a law of nature.
If two children live together, and still more if they sleep together,
and one is feeble and the other strong, the strong will absorb the
feeble, and the latter will perish.
In schools, some pupils absorb the intellect of the others, and in every
circle of men some one individual is soon found, who possesses himself
of the wills of the others.
Enthralments by currents is very common; and one is carried away by the
crowd, in morals as in physics. The human will has an almost absolute
power in determining one's acts; and every external demonstration of a
will has an influence on external things.
Tissot ascribed most maladies to disorders of the will, or the perverse
influences of the wills of others. We become subject to the wills of
others by the analogies of our inclinations, and still more by those of
our defects. To caress the weaknesses of an individual, is to possess
ourself of him, and make of him an instrument in the order of the same
errors or depravations. But when two natures, analogical in defects, are
subordinated one to the other, there is effected a kind of substitution
of the stronger instead of the weaker, and a genuine imprisonment of one
mind by the other. Often the weaker struggles, and would fain revolt;
and then falls lower than ever in servitude.
We each have some dominant defect, by which the enemy can grasp us. In
some it is vanity, in others indolence, in most egotism. Let a cunning
and evil spirit possess himself of this, and you are lost. Then you
become, not foolish, nor an idiot, but positively a lunatic, the slave
of an impulse from without. You have an instinctive horror for
everything that could restore you to reason, and will not even listen to
representations that contravene your insanity.
Miracles are the natural effects of exceptional causes.
The immediate action of the human will on bodies, or at least this
action exercised without visible means, constitutes a miracle in the
physical order.
The influence exercised on wills or intellects, suddenly or within a
given time, and capable of taking captive the thoughts, changing the
firmest resolutions, paralyzing the most violent passions, constitutes a
miracle in the moral order.
The common error in relation to miracles is, to regard them as effects
without causes; as contradictions of nature; as sudden fictions of the
Divine imagination; and men do not reflect that a single miracle of
this sort would break the universal harmony and re-plunge the Universe
into Chaos.
There are miracles impossible to God Himself: absurd miracles are so. If
God could be absurd for a single instant, neither He nor the Universe
would exist an instant afterward. To expect of the Divine Free-Will an
effect whose cause is unacknowledged or does not exist, is what is
termed tempting God. It is to precipitate one's self into the void.
God acts by His works: in Heaven, by angels; on earth, by men.
In the heaven of human conceptions, it is humanity that creates God; and
men think that God has made them in His image, because they make Him in
theirs.
The domain of man is all corporeal nature, visible on earth; and if he
does not rule the planets or the stars, he can at least calculate their
movement, measure their distances, and identify his will with their
influence: he can modify the atmosphere, act to a certain point on the
seasons, cure and afflict with sickness other men, preserve life and
cause death.
The absolute in reason and will is the greatest power which it is given
to men to attain; and it is by means of this power that what the
multitude admires under the name of miracles, are effected.
POWER is the wise use of the will, which makes Fatality itself serve to
accomplish the purposes of Sages.
Omnipotence is the most absolute Liberty; and absolute Liberty cannot
exist without a perfect equilibrium; and the columns JACHIN and BOAZ are
also the unlimited POWER and SPLENDOR OF PERFECTION of the Deity, the
seventh and eighth SEPHIROTH of the Kabalah, from whose equilibrium
result the eternal permanence and Stability of His plans and works, and
of that perfect Success and undivided, unlimited Dominion, which are the
ninth and tenth SEPHIROTH, and of which the Temple of Solomon, in its
stately symmetry, erected without the sound of any tool of metal being
heard, is to us a symbol. "For Thine," says the Most Perfect of Prayers,
"is the DOMINION, the POWER, and the GLORY, during all the ages! Amen!"
The ABSOLUTE is the very _necessity_ of BEING, the immutable law of
Reason and of Truth. It is THAT WHICH IS. BUT THAT WHICH IS is in some
sort before HE WHO IS. God Himself is not without a _reason of
existence_. He does not exist _accidentally_. He could not _not_ have
been. His Existence, then, is _necessitated_ is _necessary_. He _can_
exist only in virtue of a Supreme and inevitable REASON. That REASON,
then, is THE ABSOLUTE; for it is in IT we must believe, if we would that
our faith should have a reasonable and solid basis. It has been said in
our times, that God is a Hypothesis; but Absolute Reason is not one: it
is essential to Existence.
Saint Thomas said, "_A thing is not just because God wills it_, BUT GOD
WILLS IT BECAUSE IT IS JUST." If he had deduced all the consequences of
this fine thought, he would have discovered the true Philosopher's
Stone; the magical elixir, to convert all the trials of the world into
golden mercies. Precisely as it is a necessity for God to BE, so it is a
necessity for Him to be just, loving, and merciful. He cannot be unjust,
cruel, merciless. He cannot repeal the law of right and wrong, of merit
and demerit; for the moral laws are as absolute as the physical laws.
There are impossible things, As it is impossible to make two and two be
five and not four; as it is impossible to make a thing be and not be at
the same time; so it is impossible for the Deity to make crime a merit,
and love and gratitude crimes. So, too, it was impossible to make Man
perfect, with his bodily senses and appetites, as it was to make his
nerves susceptible of pleasure and not also of pain.
Therefore, according to the idea of Saint Thomas, the moral laws are the
_enactments_ of the Divine WILL, only because they are the _decisions_
of the Absolute WISDOM and REASON, and the _Revelations_ of the Divine
NATURE. In this alone consists the _right_ of Deity to enact them; and
thus only do we attain the certainty in Faith that the Universe is one
Harmony.
To believe in the Reason of God, and in the God of Reason, is to make
Atheism impossible. It is the Idolaters who have made the Atheists.
Analogy gives the Sage all the forces of Nature. It is the key of the
Grand Arcanum, the root of the Tree of Life, the science of Good and
Evil.
The Absolute, is REASON. Reason IS, by means of Itself. It IS BECAUSE IT
IS, and not because we suppose it. IT IS, where nothing _exists_; but
nothing could possibly exist without IT. Reason is Necessity, Law, the
Rule of all Liberty, and the direction of every Initiative. If God IS,
HE IS by Reason. The conception of an Absolute Deity, outside of, or
independent of, Reason, is the IDOL of Black Magic, the PHANTOM of the
Dæmon.
The Supreme Intelligence is necessarily _rational_. God, in philosophy,
can be no more than a Hypothesis; but a Hypothesis imposed by good sense
on Human Reason. To personify the Absolute Reason, is to determine the
Divine Ideal.
NECESSITY, LIBERTY, and REASON! Behold the great and Supreme Triangle of
the Kabalists!
FATALITY, WILL, and POWER! Such is the magical ternary which, in human
things, corresponds with the Divine Triangle.
FATALITY is the inevitable linking together, in succession, of effects
and causes, in a given order.
WILL is the faculty that directs the forces of the Intellect, so as to
reconcile the liberty of persons with the necessity of things.
The argument from these premises must be made by yourself. Each one of
us does that. "Seek," say the Holy Writings, "and ye shall find." Yet
discussion is not forbidden; and without doubt the subject will be fully
treated of in your hearing hereafter. Affirmation, negation,
discussion,--it is by these the truth is attained.
To explore the great Mysteries of the Universe and seek to solve its
manifold enigmas, is the chief use of Thought, and constitutes the
principal distinction between Man and the animals. Accordingly, in all
ages the Intellect has labored to understand and explain to itself the
Nature of the Supreme Deity.
That one Reason and one Will created and governed the Universe was too
evident not to be at once admitted by the _philosophers_ of all ages. It
was the ancient _religions_ that sought to multiply gods. The _Nature_
of the One Deity, and the mode in which the Universe had its beginning,
are questions that have always been the racks in which the human
intellect has been tortured: and it is chiefly with these that the
Kabalists have dealt.
It is true that, in one sense, we can have no actual knowledge of the
Absolute Itself, the _very_ Deity. Our means of obtaining what is
commonly termed _actual_ knowledge, are our senses only. If to _see_ and
_feel_ be _knowledge_, we have none of our own Soul, of electricity, of
magnetism. We see and feel and taste an acid or an alkali, and know
something of the _qualities_ of each; but it is only when we use them in
combination with other substances, and learn their _effects_, that we
really begin to know their _nature_. It is the combination and
experiments of Chemistry that give us a knowledge of the nature and
powers of most animal and vegetable substances. As these are cognizable
by inspection by our senses, we may partially know them by that alone:
but the Soul, either of ourself or of another, being beyond that
cognizance, can only be known by the acts and words which are its
effects. Magnetism and electricity, when at rest, are equally beyond the
jurisdiction of the senses; and when they are in action, we see, feel,
hear, taste, and smell only their effects. We do not know what they
_are_, but only what they _do_. We can know the attributes of Deity only
through His manifestations. To ask anything more, is to ask, not
_knowledge_, but something else, for which we have no name. God is a
Power; and we know nothing of any Power _itself_, but only its effects,
results, and action, and what Reason teaches us by analogy.
In these later days, in laboring to escape from all _material_ ideas in
regard to Deity, we have so refined away our notions of GOD, as to have
no idea of Him at all. In struggling to regard Him as a pure immaterial
Spirit, we have made the word _Spirit_ synonymous with _nothing_, and
can only say that He is a _Somewhat_, with certain attributes, such as
Power, Wisdom, and Intelligence. To compare Him to LIGHT, would now be
deemed not only unphilosophical, but the equivalent of Atheism; and we
find it necessary to excuse and pity the ancients for their inadequate
and gross ideas of Deity, expressed in considering Him as the
Light-Principle, the invisible essence or substance from which visible
Light flows.
Yet our own holy writings continually speak of Him as Light; and
therefore the Tsabeans and the Kabala may well be pardoned for doing the
same; especially since they did not regard Him as the _visible_ Light
known to us, but as the Primordial Ether-Ocean from which light flows.
Before the creation, did the Deity dwell alone in the Darkness, or in
the Light? Did the Light co-exist with Him, or was it created, after an
eternity of darkness? and if it co-existed, was it an effluence from
Him, filling all space as He also filled it, He and the Light at the
same time filling the same place and every place?
MILTON says, expressing the Hebraic doctrine:
Hail, Holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born,
Or of th' Eternal, co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed, _since God is Light_.
And never but in unapproached Light
Dwelt from Eternity; dwelt then in Thee,
_Bright effluence of bright Essence uncreate_.
"The LIGHT," says the Book _Omschim_, or Introduction to the Kabala,
"Supremest of all things, and most Lofty, and Limitless, and styled
INFINITE, can be attained unto by no cogitation or speculation; and its
VERY SELF is evidently withdrawn and removed beyond all intellection. It
WAS, before all things whatever, produced, created, formed, and made by
Emanation; and in it was neither Time, Head, or Beginning; since it
always existed, and remains forever, without commencement or end."
"Before the Emanations flowed forth, and created things were created,
the Supreme Light was infinitely extended, and filled the whole WHERE;
so that with reference to Light no vacuum could be affirmed, nor any
unoccupied space; but the ALL was filled with that Light of the
Infinite, thus extended, whereto in every regard was no end, inasmuch as
nothing was, except that extended Light, which, with a certain single
and simple equality, was everywhere like unto itself."
AINSOPH is called _Light_, says the Introduction to the Sohar, because
it is impossible to express it by any other word.
To conceive of God as an actuality, and not as a mere non-substance or
name, which involved non-_existence_, the Kabala, like the Egyptians,
imagined Him to be "a most occult Light," AUR; not our material and
visible Light, but the Substance out of which Light flows, the _fire_,
as relative to its heat and flame. Of this Light or Ether, the Sun was
to the Tsabeans the only manifestation or out-shining, and as such it
was worshipped, and not as the type of dominion and power. God was the
_Phōs Noēton_, the Light cognisable only by the Intellect, the
Light-Principle, the Light-Ether, from which souls emanate, and to which
they return.
Light, Fire, and Flame, with the Phœnicians, were the sons of Kronos.
They are the Trinity in the Chaldæan Oracles, the AOR of the Deity,
manifested in _flame_, that issues out of the invisible _Fire_.
In the first three Persian Amshaspands, Lords of LIGHT, FIRE, and
SPLENDOR, we recognize the AOR, ZOHAR, and ZAYO, _Light, Splendor_, and
_Brightness_, of the Kabalah. The first of these is termed AOR MUPALA,
_Wonderful_ or _Hidden_ Light, unrevealed, undisplayed--which is KETHER,
the first Emanation or _Sephirah_, the _Will_ of Deity: the second is
NESTAR, _Concealed_--which is HAKEMAH, the second _Sephirah_, or the
Intellectual Potence of the Deity: and the third is METANOTSATS,
_coruscating_--which is BINAH, the third _Sephirah_, or the intellectual
_producing_ capacity. In other words, they are THE VERY SUBSTANCE of
light, _in_ the Deity: _Fire_, which is that light, limited and
furnished with attributes, so that it _can_ be revealed, but yet remains
unrevealed, and its _splendor_ or out-shining, or the _light_ that goes
out from the fire.
Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as
you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of
absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many
doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers,
the Alchemists, all the Anti-papal Thinkers of the Middle Ages, and
Emanuel Swedenborg.
The Hansavati Rich, a celebrated Sanscrit Stanza, says: "He is Hansa
(the Sun), dwelling in light; Vasu, the atmosphere dwelling in the
firmament; the invoker of the gods (Agni), dwelling on the altar
(_i.e._, the altar fire); the guest (of the worshipper), dwelling in the
house (the domestic fire); the dweller amongst men (as consciousness);
the dweller in the most excellent orb, (the Sun); the dweller in truth;
the dweller in the sky (the air); born in the waters, in the rays of
light, in the verity (of manifestation), in the Eastern mountains; the
Truth (itself)."
"In the beginning," says a Sanscrit hymn, "arose the Source of golden
light. _He was the only born Lord of all that is_. He established the
earth and the sky. Who is the God to Whom we shall offer our sacrifice?"
"He who gives life, He who gives strength; Whose blessing all the bright
gods desire; _Whose shadow is immortality; Whose shadow is death_; Who
is the God, etc?"
"He through Whom the sky is bright and the earth for us; He through Whom
the Heaven was established, nay, the highest Heaven; He who measured out
the light in the air; Who is the God, etc?"
"He to Whom the Heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up
trembling inwardly; He over Whom the rising sun shines forth; Who is the
God, etc?"
"Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and
lit the fire, thence arose He Who is the only life of the bright gods;
Who is the God, etc?"
The WORD of God, said the Indian philosophy, is the universal and
invisible Light, cognizable by the senses, that emits its blaze in the
Sun, Moon, Planets, and other Stars. Philo calls it the "Universal
Light," which loses a portion of its purity and splendor in descending
from the intellectual to the sensible world, manifesting itself
outwardly from, the Deity; and the Kabalah represents that only so much
of the Infinite Light flowed into the circular void prepared for
creation within the Infinite Light and Wisdom, as could pass by a canal
like a line or thread. The Sephiroth, emanating from the Deity, were the
rays of His splendor.
The Chaldæan Oracles said: "The intellect of the Generator, stirred to
action, out-spoke, forming within itself, by intellection, universals of
every possible form and fashion, which issued out, flowing forth from
the One Source ... For Deity, impersonated as Dominion, before
fabricating the manifold Universe, posited an intellected and
unchangeable universal, the impression of the form whereof goes forth
through the Universe; and that Universe, formed and fashioned
accordingly, becomes visibly beautified in infinitely varying types and
forms, the Source and fountain whereof is one.... Intellectual
conceptions and forms from the Generative source, succeeding each other,
considered in relation to ever-progressing Time, and intimately
partaking of THE PRIMAL ETHER or FIRE; but yet all these Universals and
Primal Types and Ideas flowed forth from, and are part of, the first
Source of the Generative Power, perfect in itself."
The Chaldeans termed the Supreme Deity ARAOR, Father of Light. From Him
was supposed to flow the light above the world, which illuminates the
heavenly regions. This Light or Fire was considered as the Symbol of the
Divine Essence, extending itself to inferior spiritual natures. Hence
the Chaldean oracles say: "The Father took from Himself, and did not
confine His proper fire within His intellectual potency:" ... "All
things are begotten from one Fire."
The Tsabeans-held that all inferior spiritual beings were emanations
from the Supreme Deity; and therefore Proclus says: "The progression of
the gods is one and continuous, proceeding downward from the
intelligible and latent unities, and terminating in the last partition
of the Divine cause."
It is impossible to speak clearly of the Divinity. Whoever attempts to
express His attributes by the help of abstractions, confines himself to
negatives, and at once loses sight of his ideas, in wandering through a
wilderness of words. To heap Superlatives on Superlatives, and call Him
_best, wisest, greatest_, is but to exaggerate qualities which are found
in man. That there exists one only God, and that He is a Perfect and
Beneficent Being, Reason legitimately teaches us; but of the Divine
_Nature_, of the _Substance_ of the Deity, of the manner of His
Existence, or of the mode of creation of His Universe, the human mind is
inadequate to form any just conception. We can affix no clear ideas to
Omnipotence, Omniscience, Infinity or Eternity; and we have no more
right to attribute intelligence to Him, than any other mental quality of
ourselves, extended indefinitely; or than we have to attribute our
senses to Him, and our bodily organs, as the Hebrew writings do.
We satisfy ourselves with negativing in the Deity everything that
constitutes existence, so far as we are capable of conceiving of
existence. Thus He becomes to us logically nothing, _Non-Ens_. The
Ancients saw no difference between that and Atheism, and sought to
conceive of Him as something real. It is a necessity of Human Nature.
The theological idea, or rather non-idea, of the Deity, is not shared or
appreciated by the unlearned. To them God will always be The Father Who
is in Heaven, a Monarch on His Throne, a Being with human feelings and
human sympathies, angry at their misdeeds, lenient if they repent,
accessible to their supplications. It is the Humanity, far more than the
Divinity, of Christ, that makes the mass of Christians worship Him, far
more than they do the Father.
"The Light of the Substance of The Infinite," is the Kabalistic
expression. Christ was, according to Saint John, "the Light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world"; and "that Light was the
life of men." "The Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness
comprehended it not."
The ancient ideas in respect to Light were perhaps quite as correct as
our own. It does not appear that they ascribed to Light any of the
qualities of matter. But modern Science defines it to be a flood of
particles of _matter_, flowing or shot out from the Sun and Stars, and
moving through space to come to us. On the theories of mechanism and
force, what force of attraction here or repulsion at the Sun or at the
most distant Star could draw or drive these impalpable, weightless,
infinitely minute particles, appreciably by the Sense of Sight alone, so
far through space? What has become of the immense aggregate of particles
that have reached the earth since the creation? Have they increased its
bulk? Why cannot chemistry detect and analyze them? If matter, why can
they travel only in right lines?