Tempo:
INTERIOR VISION. 69
only one of their names—and that the popular — Rosicrucians) — the groundwork ofall present philosophy. Inits applied side, Rosicrucianism is the very science which is so familiar, and so valuable. But as the Hermetic Beliefs are a great religion, they, of course, have their popular adaptation; and, in consequence, there is a mythology to them. ‘There mnust always be a machinery to every faith, through which it may be known. And the mistake of people is in accepting the childish machinery and the coarsely (but fitly) colored mythology of a religion for the religion itself, and allofit. Hence the Rosicrucians’ supposed doctrine of the invisible children of the various elements; its sylphs or sylphids, its kobolds, krolls, gnomes, kelps, or kelpies, its salamanders and salamandrines, and its ondines; hence all the picturesque but necessary catalogue of paraded items of belief, to constitute it a system that the vulgar might acceptas reconcilable with sense. Itis surprising that brighter intelligences have not perceived all this as only coverings and concealments. It ought to be seen, at once, that it is not possible to display certain things. Mystics are the chiefpriests of every religion. For perhaps there never was a worse-founded supposition than that knowledge was for all people. The minds of some classes of individuals never grow. Men who have arrived at the last of their mental possibilities are as much children to the higher intelligences, and are as unfit for their knowledge (which has, however, the great merit of being sure to Se disbelieved), as the children, knowledge to whom, of higher things than their capacity admits of, we conceal and falsify in nursery talk. All that has, as yet, been disclosed of the beliefs of the Rosicrucians is fable fitted only to the somprehension of those who demanded a mythos as the first necessary of a faith. As more and more of the light is kindled in the mind, so is the disciple introduced into the greater and greater truth. Ashe, himself, becomes fit, so are things fitted to him. And in the mystie sense (and, because it is mystic, the only true sense), when men leave their settled facts and move towards things assumed as unbelievable, they only, by an inverse process, as it were, approach the real facts and* leave their children’s stories and fables. Mystical, fantastical, and transcendental— nay, impossible — as the studies and objects of the Rosicrucians seem in the modern ultra-practical days, it is forgotten that the truths of contemporaneous science are all based on the dreams of the old thinkers. Out of natural philosophy, the occult brethren sought the spirits of natural philosophy. And to this inner heaven —so unlike ordinary life —through purifications, through invocations, through humbling and prayers, through penances to break the terms of body with the world, through fumigations and incensing to raise up another world about them, and to place themselves en rapport with the inhabitants of it, through the suspension of the senses and thereby to the opening of other senses — ito the shutting-out of one state, in order to the passing into another state; to all this the Rosicrucians sought to reach.
‘« By the Philosopher’s ‘ Stone ’ we acknowledge that we mean the magic
only one of their names—and that the popular — Rosicrucians) — the groundwork ofall present philosophy. Inits applied side, Rosicrucianism is the very science which is so familiar, and so valuable. But as the Hermetic Beliefs are a great religion, they, of course, have their popular adaptation; and, in consequence, there is a mythology to them. ‘There mnust always be a machinery to every faith, through which it may be known. And the mistake of people is in accepting the childish machinery and the coarsely (but fitly) colored mythology of a religion for the religion itself, and allofit. Hence the Rosicrucians’ supposed doctrine of the invisible children of the various elements; its sylphs or sylphids, its kobolds, krolls, gnomes, kelps, or kelpies, its salamanders and salamandrines, and its ondines; hence all the picturesque but necessary catalogue of paraded items of belief, to constitute it a system that the vulgar might acceptas reconcilable with sense. Itis surprising that brighter intelligences have not perceived all this as only coverings and concealments. It ought to be seen, at once, that it is not possible to display certain things. Mystics are the chiefpriests of every religion. For perhaps there never was a worse-founded supposition than that knowledge was for all people. The minds of some classes of individuals never grow. Men who have arrived at the last of their mental possibilities are as much children to the higher intelligences, and are as unfit for their knowledge (which has, however, the great merit of being sure to Se disbelieved), as the children, knowledge to whom, of higher things than their capacity admits of, we conceal and falsify in nursery talk. All that has, as yet, been disclosed of the beliefs of the Rosicrucians is fable fitted only to the somprehension of those who demanded a mythos as the first necessary of a faith. As more and more of the light is kindled in the mind, so is the disciple introduced into the greater and greater truth. Ashe, himself, becomes fit, so are things fitted to him. And in the mystie sense (and, because it is mystic, the only true sense), when men leave their settled facts and move towards things assumed as unbelievable, they only, by an inverse process, as it were, approach the real facts and* leave their children’s stories and fables. Mystical, fantastical, and transcendental— nay, impossible — as the studies and objects of the Rosicrucians seem in the modern ultra-practical days, it is forgotten that the truths of contemporaneous science are all based on the dreams of the old thinkers. Out of natural philosophy, the occult brethren sought the spirits of natural philosophy. And to this inner heaven —so unlike ordinary life —through purifications, through invocations, through humbling and prayers, through penances to break the terms of body with the world, through fumigations and incensing to raise up another world about them, and to place themselves en rapport with the inhabitants of it, through the suspension of the senses and thereby to the opening of other senses — ito the shutting-out of one state, in order to the passing into another state; to all this the Rosicrucians sought to reach.
‘« By the Philosopher’s ‘ Stone ’ we acknowledge that we mean the magic
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