THE TEMPLE OF DELPHI--THE SCIENCE OF
APOLLO--THEORY OF DIVINATION--THE
PYTHONESS THEOCLEA
From the plain of Phocis the traveller mounts the smiling meadows
bordering the banks of the Pleistus to plunge into a winding valley
shut in between lofty mountains. At every step the way becomes narrower
and the country more sublime and deserted. Finally a circle of rugged
mountains, crowned with wild-looking peaks, a veritable storehouse of
electricity, over which storms often raged, is reached. Suddenly, far
up the sombre gorge appears the town of Delphi, like an eagle’s nest,
on a rock surrounded by precipices and dominated by the two peaks of
Parnassus. From the distance the bronze Victories are seen sparkling
in the light, as well as the brazen horses, the innumerable statues of
gold, marshalled along the sacred path and arranged like a guard of
heroes and gods round the Doric temple of Phœbus Apollo.
This was the most sacred spot in Greece. Here, the Pythoness
prophesied and the Amphictyons assembled; here, the different Hellenic
peoples had built round the sanctuary chapels containing treasured
offerings. Here, processions of men, women, and children, coming
from afar, mounted the sacred path to greet the God of Light. From
time immemorial religion had consecrated Delphi to the veneration of
the people. Its central situation in Hellas, its rock sheltered from
profane hands and easy to defend, had contributed to this result.
The place was calculated to strike the imagination, for a singular
quality gave it great prestige. In a cavern behind the temple was a
cleft in the rock from which issued a cold, vapoury mist, inducing, it
was said, a state of inspiration and ecstasy. Plutarch relates that
in by-gone times a shepherd, when seated by the side of this cleft,
began to prophesy. At first he was looked upon as mad, but when his
predictions became realized, people began to investigate. The priests
took possession of the spot and consecrated it to the divinity. Hence
the institution of the Pythoness, who was seated above the cleft on a
tripod. The vapours exhaling from the abyss occasioned convulsions and
strange crises, provoking in her that _second sight_ noticed in certain
somnambulists. Eschylus, whose affirmation is not without weight, for
he was the son of a priest of Eleusis, and an initiate himself, tells
us in his _Eumenides_, by the mouth of the Pythoness, that Delphi
had first been consecrated to the Earth, then to Themis (Justice),
afterwards to Phœbe (the interceding moon), and finally to Apollo, the
solar god. In temple symbolism each of these names represents long
periods, and embraces centuries of time. The fame of Delphi, however,
dates from Apollo. Jupiter, according to the poets, wishing to find
the centre of the earth, started two eagles in their flight from east
and west, and they met at Delphi. Whence comes this prestige, this
world-wide and unchallenged authority which constituted Apollo as the
god of Greece _par excellence_, and now makes the glory of his name
inexplicable to us?
History is dumb on this important point. Question orators, poets, and
philosophers, they will only give you superficial explanations. The
real answer to this question remained the secret of the temple. Let us
try to fathom it.
In Orphic thought, Dionysos and Apollo were two different revelations
of the same divinity. Dionysos represented esoteric truth, the
foundation and interior of things, open to initiates alone. He held the
mysteries of life, past and future existences, the relations between
soul and body, heaven and earth. Apollo personified the same truth
applied to life on earth and social order. The inspirer of poetry,
medicine, and laws, he was science by divination, beauty by art,
peace among nations by justice, and harmony between soul and body by
purification. In a word, to the initiate Dionysos signified nothing
less than the divine spirit in evolution in the universe; and Apollo,
the manifestation thereof to mankind on earth. The people had been made
to understand this by a legend. The priests had told them that, in the
time of Orpheus, Bacchus and Apollo had vied with one another for the
tripod of Delphi. Bacchus had willingly given it up to his brother, and
withdrawn to one of the peaks of Parnassus, where the Theban women were
wont to celebrate his mysteries. In reality the two sons of Jupiter
divided between themselves the empire of the world. The one reigned
over the mysterious Beyond, the other over the World of the Living.
So that we find in Apollo the solar Logos, the universal Word, the
mighty Mediator, the Vishnu of the Hindus, the Mithras of the Persians,
and the Horus of the Egyptians. The old ideas of Asiatic esoterism,
however, took on, in the legend of Apollo, a plastic beauty, and an
incisive splendour which made them penetrate the more deeply into human
consciousness, like the shafts of the God. “White-winged serpents
springing forth from his golden bow,” says Eschylus.
Apollo springs forth from the mighty night at Delos; all the goddesses
greet his birth; he walks and takes up his bow and lyre, his locks
stream in the air and his quiver rattles on his shoulder; the sea
quivers, and the whole island shines with his glory scattered abroad
in floods of golden flame. This is the epiphany of divine light, which
by its august presence creates order, splendour, and harmony, of which
poetry is the marvellous echo. The god goes to Delphi and pierces with
his arrows a monstrous serpent which was ravaging and laying waste the
land, he purifies the country and establishes the temple; the image of
the victory of this divine light over darkness and evil. In ancient
religions, the serpent symbolized at once the fatal circle of life and
the evil resulting therefrom. And yet, from this life once understood
and overcome, springs forth knowledge. Apollo, slayer of the serpent,
is the symbol of the initiate who pierces nature by science, tames it
by his will, and breaking the Karmic circle of the flesh mounts aloft
in spiritual splendour, whilst the broken fragments of human animality
lie writhing in the sand. For this reason Apollo is the master of
expiation, of the purification of soul and body. Bespattered with the
monster’s blood, he performed expiation, purified himself during an
eight years’ exile beneath the bitter, health-giving laurels of the
vale of Tempe.--Apollo, trainer of men, likes to take up his abode in
their midst, he is pleased to be in towns with the youths and young
men, at contests of poetry and the palaestra, though he remains only
for a time. In autumn he returns to his own land, the home of the
Hyperboreans. This is the mysterious people of luminous and transparent
souls who dwell in the eternal dawn of perfect felicity. Here are his
true priests, his beloved priestesses. He lives with them in strong,
intimate communion, and when he wishes to make mankind a royal gift, he
brings back from the country of the Hyperboreans one of those mighty,
radiant souls who is born on earth to teach and delight mortals. He
himself returns to Delphi every spring, when poems and hymns are sung
in his honour. Visible to none but initiates he comes in dazzling
Hyperborean glory, in a chariot drawn by sweetly-singing swans. Again
he takes up his abode in the sanctuary, where the Pythoness speaks
forth his oracles, and sages and poets listen. Then is heard the song
of nightingales, the fountain of Castalia scatters silver spray on
every hand, dazzling light and celestial music penetrate the heart of
man and reach the very veins of nature.
In this legend of the Hyperboreans may be found much light thrown on
the esoteric basis of the Apollo myth. The land of the Hyperboreans is
the Beyond, the empyrean of victorious souls, whose astral dawns light
up its many-coloured zones. Apollo himself personifies the immaterial
and intelligible light of which the sun is merely the physical image,
and from which flows down all truth. The wonderful swans which bring
him are poets and divine geniuses, messengers of his mighty solar soul,
leaving behind them flashes of light and strains of glorious music.
Hyperborean Apollo, accordingly, personifies the descent of heaven on
to earth, the incarnation of spiritual beauty in flesh and blood, the
inflow of transcendent truth by inspiration and divination.
It is now the moment to raise the golden veil of legend and enter the
temple itself. How was divination practised therein? Here we touch upon
the secrets of Apollonian science and of the mysteries of Delphi.
In antiquity, a strong tie united divination to the solar cults, and
here we have the golden key to all the so-called magic mysteries.
The worship of Aryan humanity from the beginning of civilization was
directed towards the sun as the source of light, heat, and life. When,
however, the thought of the sages rose from the phenomenon to the
cause, behind this sensible fire, this visible light, they formed the
concept of an immaterial fire, an intelligible light. They identified
the form with the male principle, the creative spirit or intellectual
essence of the universe, and the latter with its female principle, its
formative soul, its plastic substance. This intuition dates back to
time immemorial. The conception I speak of is connected with the most
ancient mythologies. It circulates in the Vedic hymns under the form
of Agni, the universal fire which penetrates all things. It blossoms
forth in the religion of Zoroaster, the esoteric part of which is
represented by the cult of Mithras. Mithras is the male fire and Mitra
the female light. Zoroaster formally states that the Eternal, by means
of the living Word, created the heavenly light, the seed of Ormuzd,
the principle of material light and material fire. For the initiate of
Mithras the sun is only a rude reflection of this light. In his obscure
grotto, whose vault is painted with stars, he invokes the sun of grace,
the fire of love, conqueror of evil, reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman,
purifier and mediator, who dwells in the soul of the holy prophets. In
the crypts of Egypt, the initiates seek this same sun under the name
of Osiris. When Hermes asks to be allowed to contemplate the origin
of things, at first he feels himself plunged into the ethereal waves
of a delicious light, in which move all living forms. Then, plunging
into the darkness of dense matter, he hears a voice which he recognizes
as _the voice of light_. At the same time fire darts forth from the
depths, immediately all is light and chaos becomes order. In the _Book
of the Dead_ of the Egyptians the souls journey painfully towards that
light in the barque of Isis. Moses fully adopted this doctrine in
Genesis: “Elohim said: Let there be light; and there was light.” Now
the creation of this light precedes that of the sun and stars. This
means that, in the order of principles and cosmogony, intelligible
precedes material light. The Greeks, who moulded into human form and
dramatized the most abstract ideas, expressed the same doctrine in the
myth of Hyperborean Apollo.
Consequently the human mind, by inner contemplation of the universe,
from the point of view of the soul and the intelligence, came to
conceive of an intelligible light, an imponderable element serving as
an intermediary between matter and spirit. It would be easy to show
that natural philosophers of modern times insensibly draw somewhere
near the same conclusion along an opposite path, _i. e._ by searching
for the constitution of matter and seeing the impossibility of
explaining it by itself. Even in the sixteenth century, Paracelsus,
whilst studying the chemical combinations and metamorphoses of bodies,
went so far as to admit of a universal occult agent by means of which
they are brought about. The natural philosophers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, who conceived of the universe as being a dead
machine, believed in the absolute void of celestial space. Yet when
it was discovered that light is not the emission of a radiant matter,
but rather the vibration of an imponderable element, one was obliged
to admit that the whole of space is filled by an infinitely subtile
fluid penetrating all bodies and through which waves of heat and light
are transmitted. Thus a return was made to the Greek ideas of natural
philosophy and theosophy. Newton, who had spent his whole life in
studying the movements of the heavenly bodies, went even farther than
this. He called this ether _sensorium Dei_, or the brain of God, _i.
e._ the organ by which divine thought acts in the infinitely great
as well as in the infinitely small. In emitting this idea, which he
regarded as necessary to explain the simple rotation of the heavenly
bodies, the great natural philosopher had embarked on the open sea of
esoteric philosophy. The very ether Newton’s thought found in space
Paracelsus had discovered at the bottom of his alembics, and had named
it astral light. Now this imponderable fluid, which is everywhere
present, penetrating all things, this subtile but indispensable agent,
this light, invisible to our eyes, but which is at the bottom of all
phosphorescence and scintillation, has been proved to exist by a
German natural philosopher in a series of well-appointed experiments.
Reichenbach had noticed that subjects of very sensitive nerve fibre,
when placed in a perfectly dark room in front of a magnet, saw at its
two ends strong rays of red, yellow, and blue light. Sometimes these
rays vibrated with an undulatory movement. He continued his experiments
with all kinds of bodies, especially with crystals. Luminous emanations
were seen, by sensitive subjects, round all these bodies. Around the
heads of men placed in the dark room they saw white rays; from their
fingers issued small flames. In the first portion of their sleep
somnambulists sometimes see their magnetizer with these same signs.
Pure astral light appears only in a condition of lofty ecstasy, but
it is polarized in all bodies, combines with all terrestrial fluids
and plays diverse _rôles_ in electricity, in terrestrial and animal
magnetism.[5] The interest of Reichenbach’s experiments is that
they make precise the limits and transition from physical to astral
vision capable of leading on to spiritual vision. They also enable us
to obtain a faint glimpse of the infinite subtleties of imponderable
matter. Along this path there is nothing to prevent our conceiving it
as so fluid, so subtile and penetrating, that it becomes in some way
homogeneous with spirit, serving the latter as a perfect garment.
We have just seen that modern natural philosophy, in order to explain
the world, has been obliged to recognize an imponderable, universal
agent, that it has even proved its presence, and, in this way, without
knowing it, has fallen in with the notions of ancient theosophies.
Let us now try to define the nature and function of cosmic fluid in
accordance with the philosophy of occultism in all ages. On this main
principle of cosmogony, Zoroaster is in agreement with Heraclitus,
Pythagoras with Saint Paul, the Kabbalists with Paracelsus. Cybele-Maïa
reigns everywhere, the mighty soul of the world, the vibrating and
plastic substance which the breath of the creative spirit uses at its
will. Her oceans of ether serve to cement together all the worlds. She
is the great mediator between the invisible and the visible, between
spirit and matter, between the within and the without of the universe.
Condensed in enormous masses in the atmosphere beneath the action of
the sun, she flashes forth in a thunderbolt. Absorbed by the earth
she circulates in magnetic currents. Subtilized in the nervous system
of the animal she transmits her will to the limbs, her sensations to
the brain. More than that, this subtile fluid forms living organisms
similar to material bodies. It serves as substance to the astral body
of the soul, a garment of light which the spirit is ever weaving
for itself. The fluid becomes transformed, it rarefies or densifies
according to the souls it clothes or the worlds it envelops. Not only
does it embody spirit and spiritualize matter in its living bosom, it
reflects in a perpetual mirage both things and the thoughts and wills
of mankind. The strength and duration of these images is in proportion
to the intensity of the will producing them. And, in truth, there
is no other means of explaining thought suggestion and transmission
at a distance, that principle of magic now-a-days acknowledged and
recognized by science.[6] Thus in the astral light the past of the
worlds trembles in vague images, and the future is there also, with the
living souls inevitably destined to descend into flesh. This is the
meaning of the veil of Isis and the mantle of Cybele, into which all
beings are woven.
It is now seen that the theosophical doctrine of the astral light is
identical with the secret doctrine of the solar Word in the religions
of Greece and the East. It is also seen how closely allied this
doctrine is to that of divination. The astral light is there revealed
as the universal medium of the phenomena of vision and of ecstasy which
it explains. It is at once the vehicle which transmits the movements
of thought, and the living mirror in which the soul contemplates the
images of the material and spiritual world. Once transported into this
element, the spirit of the seer leaves corporeal conditions. For him
the measure of time and space is changed. In some way he participates
in the ubiquity of the universal fluid. For him opaque matter becomes
transparent, and the soul, disengaging itself from the body and rising
in its own light, penetrates, in a state of ecstasy, into the spiritual
world, sees souls clothed in their ethereal bodies and communicates
with them. All the initiates of former times had a clear notion of this
_second sight_, or direct spiritual vision. Witness Eschylus, who puts
into the mouth of the shade of Clytemnestra: “Look at these wounds,
thy spirit can see them; when one is asleep, the spirit possesses a
more piercing vision; in broad daylight, the eyes of mortals see but a
little way.”
Let me add that this theory of clairvoyance and ecstasy is in wonderful
agreement with the numerous experiments, scientifically carried out
by savants and doctors of modern times, on lucid somnambulists and
clairvoyants of every kind.[7] From these contemporary facts I shall
endeavour briefly to characterize the successive psychic conditions
from simple clairvoyance to cataleptic ecstasy.
The state of clairvoyance, as is seen by thousands of well-established
facts, is a psychic one, differing as greatly from sleep as from a
waking condition. The intellectual faculties of the clairvoyant, far
from diminishing, increase in marvellous fashion. His memory is more
correct, his imagination more active, his intelligence more alert. The
main point, in a word, is that we have here developed a new sense,
which is no longer corporeal, but rather belongs to the soul. Not
only are the thoughts of the magnetizer transmitted to him as in the
simple phenomenon of suggestion, which itself is outside the physical
plane, but the clairvoyant even reads the thoughts of those present,
sees through walls, penetrates hundreds of miles into homes where he
has never been, and reads the private life of people he does not know.
His eyes are closed, incapable of seeing anything, but his spirit sees
farther and better than his open eyes and seems to travel about freely
in space.[8] In a word, though clairvoyance may be abnormal from the
bodily point of view, it is a normal and superior state from the point
of view of the spirit. The consciousness has become deeper, the vision
wider. The ego remains the same, but it has passed over to a higher
plane, where the vision, freed from the coarse organs of the body,
embraces and penetrates a vaster horizon.[9] It is to be noted that
certain somnambulists, when submitting to the passes of the magnetizer,
feel themselves flooded with increasingly dazzling light, whilst the
awaking seems to them an unpleasant return to darkness.
Suggestion, thought reading, and distant vision are facts which already
prove the independent existence of the soul, and transport us above the
physical plane of the universe without making us leave it altogether.
Clairvoyance, however, has infinite varieties and a scale of different
states far wider than that of the waking condition. In proportion as
the scale is mounted the phenomena become rarer and more extraordinary.
I will mention only the principal stages. _Retrospection_ is a
vision of past events preserved in the astral light and revived by
the sympathy of the seer. _Divination_, properly so called, is a
problematical vision of things to come either by introspection of the
thoughts of the living which contain future actions in germ, or by
the occult influence of superior spirits which unfold the future in
living images before the soul of the clairvoyant. In both cases they
are projections of thoughts into the astral light. Finally _ecstasy_ is
defined as a vision of the spiritual world, where good or evil spirits
appear to the seer in human form and communicate with him. The soul
seems really to be transported out of the body, which life has almost
left, and which stiffens into a state of catalepsy resembling death.
From what those who have been in a condition of sublime ecstasy tell
us, nothing in the universe can express the beauty and splendour of
these visions, or the sentiment of an ineffable fusion with the divine
essence which they bring back, a very transport of light and music.
The reality of these visions may be doubted. It must, nevertheless, be
added that if the soul, in the average state of clairvoyance, has a
correct perception of distant places and of absent ones, it is logical
to admit that, in its loftiest exaltation, it may have the vision of a
higher and an immaterial reality.
In my opinion, it will be the task of the future to restore to the
transcendent faculties of the human soul their dignity and social
function, by reorganizing them under the control of science and on the
basis of a religion which is truly universal, open to all truths. Then
science, regenerated by real faith and the spirit of love, will, with
open eyes, mount aloft to those spheres in which speculative philosophy
gropes about with bandaged eyes. Yes, science will become clear-sighted
and redeeming in her mission, just in proportion as the consciousness
and love of humanity increase in her. Perhaps it is through “the gate
of sleep and dreams,” as Homer said, that divine Psyche, banished from
our civilized life and weeping in silence beneath her veil, will regain
possession of her altars.
Anyhow, the phenomena of clairvoyance, studied from every aspect by
present-day savants and doctors, throw an altogether new light on
the _rôle_ of divination in antiquity and on a host of apparently
supernatural phenomena, with which the annals of every nation and
people are filled. Of course, a distinction must be made between legend
and history, hallucination and real vision. Still, the experimental
psychology of our times teaches us not to reject, in a body, facts
which fall within human possibility, but rather to investigate them
from the point of view of well-ascertained laws. If clairvoyance is a
faculty of the soul, we may no longer simply consign prophets, oracles,
and sybils to the domain of superstition. Divination has really been
known and practised in temples of old, with fixed principles and a
social and religious end in view. The comparative study of religions
and esoteric traditions shows that these principles were the same
everywhere, although their application may have varied infinitely. What
has discredited the art of divination is that its corruption has given
rise to the worst abuses, and that its glorious manifestations are
possible only in beings of exceptional purity.
Divination, as practised at Delphi, was founded on the principles we
have just set forth, the inner organization of the temple corresponded
thereto. As in the great temples of Egypt, it consisted of an art
and a science. The art consisted in penetrating the far-away past
and future by clairvoyance or prophetic ecstasy; the science, in
calculating the future in accordance with the laws of universal
evolution. Art and science checked one another. All I will say of
this science, called genethlialogy by the ancients, and of which
the astrology of the middle ages is only an imperfectly understood
fragment, is that it took for granted the esoteric encyclopedia as
applied to the future of peoples and individuals. Though very useful
in showing the direction things were taking, it was always of very
doubtful application. Only the very loftiest minds knew how to use it.
Pythagoras had thoroughly mastered it in Egypt, but in Greece it was
practised with a less thorough or clear understanding. On the other
hand, clairvoyance and prophecy had made considerable progress.
It is well known that this art was practised in Delphi through the
agency of women, both young and old. They were called Pythonesses,
and played the passive _rôle_ of clairvoyant somnambulists. Their
oracles, often obscure, were interpreted, translated, and arranged by
the priests in accordance with their own lights. Modern historians have
seen in the institution of Delphi scarcely anything more than the
exploitation of superstition by intelligent charlatans. Besides the
assent, however, given by the whole of philosophic antiquity to the
Delphic science of divination, several oracles related by Herodotus,
such as those regarding Croesus and the battle of Salamis, speak in
its favour. Doubtless their art had its beginning, its condition of
prosperity, and its decay. Charlatanism and corruption exercised
their demoralizing influence in the end, as we see in the case of
king Cleomenes, who bribed the high priestess of Delphi to deprive
Demaratus of his throne. Plutarch wrote a treatise inquiring into the
reasons for the decline and extinction of the oracles; this degeneracy
was felt to be a misfortune throughout all classes of antiquity. At
first, divination was practised with a degree of religious sincerity
and scientific thoroughness which raised it to the height of a
real ministration. On the pediment of the temple could be read the
inscription: “Know thyself,” and another one above the entrance door:
“Let no one enter here with impure hands.” These words explained to
all comers that earthly passions, falsehood and hypocrisy were not to
pass the threshold of the sanctuary, that within, in awe-inspiring
solemnity, reigned divine Truth.
Pythagoras reached Delphi only after having visited all the temples
of Greece. He had stayed with Epimenides in the sanctuary of Idaean
Jupiter; he had been present at the Olympic games, and presided over
the mysteries of Eleusis, where the hierophant had given up his place
to him. Everywhere had he been received as a master, and now he was
expected at Delphi. Here the art of divination was in a languishing
condition, and Pythagoras wished to restore its former prestige and
might. Accordingly he went there not so much to consult Apollo as to
enlighten his interpreters and revive their enthusiasm and energy.
Through them his influence would mould the soul of Greece and prepare a
future for the land.
Fortunately he found in the temple a marvellous instrument reserved for
him, to all appearance, by the hand of Providence.
Young Theoclea belonged to the college of the priestesses of Apollo.
She sprang from one of those families in which the priestly dignity
is hereditary. Her childhood had been fed on the mighty impressions
imparted by the sanctuary, the ceremonies, pæans, and _fêtes_ of
Pythian and Hyperborean Apollo. Evidently she was one of those maidens
born with an instinctive abhorrence for the things which attracted
others. They love not Ceres and fear Venus, for the heavy atmosphere
of earth troubles them, and the vague glimpse they have obtained of
physical love seems to them the rape of the soul, the pollution of
their undefiled, virginal being. On the other hand, they are strangely
sensitive to mysterious currents, to astral influences. When the moon
was shedding her soft beams on the sombre groves near the fountain
of Castalia, Theoclea would see white forms gliding by. She heard
voices in open daylight. On exposing herself to the rays of the rising
sun, their vibration threw her into a kind of ecstasy, during which
she heard the singing of invisible choirs. At the same time she was
quite indifferent to popular superstition and idolatry; a feeling of
horror overcame her at the sacrifices of animals. She spoke to no one
regarding the apparitions which disturbed her sleep, feeling with
clairvoyant instinct that the priests of Apollo were not in possession
of that supreme light she needed. The latter, however, had fixed on
her with the object of persuading her to become Pythoness. She felt
herself attracted by a higher world to which she had not the key. What
were these gods who manifested themselves to her in vibrations which
troubled her being, and to whom she owed her inspiration? This she
would know before giving herself up to them, for great souls need to
see clearly even in abandoning themselves to divine powers.
With what a deep thrill, with how mysterious a presentiment the soul
of Theoclea must have been stirred when she saw Pythagoras for the
first time, and heard his eloquent voice resound among the columns of
the sanctuary of Apollo! She felt the presence of the initiator for
whom she was waiting, she recognized her master. She wished to know;
knowledge would come by him; he would make this inner world speak, this
world she bore within herself!--He, on his side, must have recognized
in her, with sure and penetrating glance, the living, thrilling soul
he was seeking, to become the interpreter of his thoughts in the
temple and instil therein a new spirit. No sooner had their eyes met,
their lips spoken, than an invisible chain bound the sage of Samos to
the young priestess, who listened to him without a word, drinking in
his utterances with eager, attentive eyes. Some one has said that a
profound vibration enables poet and lyre to recognize one another as
they approach. Thus did Pythagoras and Theoclea recognize one another.
At sunrise, Pythagoras had long conversations with the priests of
Apollo, ordained saints and prophets. He requested that the young
priestess should be received by them, so that he might initiate her
into his secret teaching and prepare her for her mission. Accordingly
she was permitted to follow the lessons given daily in the sanctuary by
the master. Pythagoras was now in the prime of life. He wore a white
robe, girdled in Egyptian fashion; a purple band was wrapped round
his majestic brow. When he spoke, his grave, mild eyes were fastened
on his interlocutor, enveloping him in a warm, tender light. The very
atmosphere seemed to become lighter and electric with intelligence.
The conversations of the sage of Samos with the highest representatives
of the Greek religion were of the utmost importance. It was not merely
a question of divination and inspiration, the future of Greece and
the destiny of the whole world were at stake. The knowledge, titles,
and powers he had acquired in the temples of Memphis and Babylon
gave him the greatest authority and influence. To those who inspired
Greece he had the right to speak as a superior and a guide. This he
did with all the eloquence of his genius and the enthusiasm of his
mission. To enlighten their minds, he began by telling them of his
youthful days, his struggles and Egyptian initiation. He spoke to them
of Egypt, the mother of Greece, old as the world itself, immovable as
a mummy, covered with hieroglyphs in the recesses of its pyramids,
though possessing in its tombs the secrets of peoples, languages, and
religions. Before their eyes he unfolded the mysteries of great Isis,
goddess of earth and heaven, mother of gods and men; then, relating
his trials and ordeals, he plunged them, with himself, into the light
of Osiris. Afterwards came the turn of Babylon, of the Chaldaean magi,
their occult sciences, and those deep solid temples where they call
forth the living fire, the abode of demons and gods.
As she listened to Pythagoras, Theoclea passed through wonderful
sensations. All he said was branded in letters of fire in her mind.
These things appeared to her both marvellous and yet well known.
Instead of hearing something new she seemed to be recalling what she
had already learned. The master’s words set her turning over the pages
of the universe like those of a book. No longer did she see the gods in
their human image, but in their essence, forming things and spirits.
With them she flowed in space, rising and falling. At times there came
the illusion that she no longer felt the limits of her body, and was
fading away into infinity. Thus her imagination entered by degrees into
the invisible world, and the former traces she found of it in her own
soul told her that this was the true and only reality; the other was
only apparent. She felt that her inner eyes would soon open and read
the truth.
From these heights the master suddenly brought her back to earth by
relating the misfortunes of Egypt. After developing the greatness of
Egyptian science, he showed how it was dying away under the Persian
invasion. He depicted the horrible atrocities committed by Cambyses,
the pillaged temples, the sacred books committed to the flames, the
priests of Osiris killed or dispersed, the monster of Persian despotism
collecting beneath his iron hand all the old barbaric tribes of Asia,
the half-savage nomad races of India, and the centre of the continent,
awaiting only a favourable opportunity to fall upon Europe. Yes, this
ever-increasing cyclone must burst upon Greece as certainly as the
thunderbolt, collecting in the sky, must flash forth from the cloud.
Was divided Greece prepared to resist this terrible attack? She did not
even suspect it. Nations cannot avoid their destinies, which the gods
precipitate upon them, unless they are ever watchful. Had not Egypt,
that wise nation of Hermes, crumbled to ruin after six thousand years
of prosperity? Greece, alas! and beautiful Ionia will pass away even
sooner! A time will come when the solar god will abandon this temple,
when barbarian tribes will overthrow its very walls, and shepherds lead
their flocks to pasture on the ruins of Delphi.
Before such sinister prophecies the countenance of Theoclea became
transformed, assuming a terrified expression. She sank to the ground,
and, with arms clasped round a column and eyes fixed as though plunged
in thought, she resembled the genius of Grief weeping over the tomb of
Greece.
“Those are secrets,” continued Pythagoras, “which must be buried in the
depths of the temples. The initiate attracts death or repels it at his
pleasure. By forming the magic chain of wills, initiates in this way
prolong the life of nations. It is for you to postpone the fatal hour,
to cause Greece to shine in splendour and beam forth with the word of
Apollo. Nations and peoples are what their gods make them, but the
gods reveal themselves only to such as appeal to them. What is Apollo?
The word of the one God manifesting himself eternally in the world.
Truth is the soul of God, his body is the light. Only seers, sages,
and prophets behold it; men see only its shadow. Legions of glorified
spirits, whom we call heroes and demi-gods, inhabit this light in
spheres beyond number. This is the real body of Apollo, the sun of
initiates, without his rays nothing great is done on earth. As the
magnet attracts iron, so by our thoughts, our prayers, and actions do
we attract divine inspiration. It is for you to hand over to Greece the
word of Apollo, and Greece shall be resplendent with immortal light!”
With such language Pythagoras succeeded in restoring to the priests
of Delphi the consciousness of their mission. Theoclea drank in every
word with silent, concentrated passion. She was visibly becoming
transformed beneath the thought and will of the master as by a slow
incantation. Standing in the midst of the astonished elders, she untied
her raven-black locks and thrust them back from her head as though she
felt flames of fire playing in and about them. Her eyes, transfigured
and wide open, seemed to behold the solar and planetary gods in their
radiant, glowing orbs.
One day she fell into a deep, lucid sleep. The five prophets surrounded
her, but she remained insensible alike to their voice and touch.
Pythagoras drew near and said: “Rise and go where my thought sends
thee. For now thou art the Pythoness!”
On hearing the master’s voice, a long vibrating thrill ran through the
whole of her body and she rose to her feet. Her eyes were closed, but
she saw from within.
“Where art thou?” asked Pythagoras.
“I am ascending----ascending all the time.”
“And now?”
“I am bathing in the light of Orpheus.”
“What seest thou in the future?”
“Great wars----men of might----Apollo returns to dwell in his
sanctuary, and I shall be his voice----! But thou, his messenger, thou
art about to leave me, alas! thou wilt bear the torch of his light into
Italy.”
Long did the seer speak, with closed eyes, in musical, panting,
rhythmic voice; then suddenly, with a sob, she fell to the ground like
one dead.
Thus did Pythagoras pour a pure, undefiled stream of knowledge into
Theoclea’s breast, tuning her like a lyre for divine inspiration. Once
exalted to these heights she became his torch, thanks to which he was
able to sound his own destiny, see into the possible future, and direct
his path along the strandless zones of the invisible. Such a striking
counter-verification of the truths he taught filled the priests with
admiration, aroused their courage and revived their faith. The temple
now possessed an inspired Pythoness, and priests initiated into the
divine sciences and arts; Delphi could once again become a centre of
life and action.
Pythagoras remained there for a whole year. It was only after imparting
to the priests all the secrets of his doctrine, and preparing Theoclea
for his ministry, that he took his departure for Greater Greece.