Of course, to speak of this it is necessary to trend on subjects
which at the present are excluded, and very properly so, from discussion in
a Craft Lodge, when they are presented from a religious and doctrinal angle.
I shall not treat them from that standpoint, but rather as a sequence of symbolism
in the form of dramatic mystery, alluding slightly, and from a philosophical
point of view only, to the fact that in certain schools they are regarded as
delineating momentous experiences in the history and life of man's soul. That
new birth which conferred upon the Eleusinian mystae the title of Regenerated
Children of the Moon- so that each one of them was henceforth symbolically
a Son of the Queen of Heaven- born as a man originally and reborn in a divine
manner- has its correspondence on a much higher plane of symbolism with the
Divine Birth in Bethlehem, according to which a child was "born" and
a son "given," who, in hypothesis at least, was the Son of God, but
Son also of Mary- one of whose titles, according to Latin theology, is Queen
of Heaven. The hidden life in Egypt and Nazareth corresponds to the life of
seclusion led by the mystae during their period of probation between the Lesser
and Greater Mysteries. The three years of ministry are in analogy with the
Temple-functions of the mystagogues. But lastly, in Egypt and elsewhere, there
was the mystic experience of the Pastos, in which the initiate died symbolically;
as Jesus died upon the Cross. The Christian "Symbolum" says:- Descendit
ad inferos: that is, "He descended into hell"; and in the entranced
condition of the Pastos, the soul of the Postulant was held or was caused to
wander in certain spiritual realms. But in fine, it is said of Christ:- Tertia
die resurrexit; "the third day he rose again from the dead." So also
the Adept of the Greater Mysteries rose from the Pastos in the imputed glory
of an inward illumination.
THE MYSTICAL FACT
There was a period not so long ago when these analogies were
recognized and applied to place a fabulous construction upon the central doctrines
of Christian religion, just as there was a period when the solar mythology
was adapted in the same direction. We have no call to consider these aberrations
of a partially digested learning; but they had their excuses in their period.
The point on which I would insist is that in the symbolism of the old initiations,
and in the pageant of the Christian mythos, there is held to be the accurate
delineation of a mystical experience, the heads and sections of which correspond
to the notions of mystic birth, life, death and resurrection. It is a particular
formula which is illustrated frequently in the mystic literature of the western
world. Long before symbolical Masonry had emerged above the horizon, several
cryptic texts of alchemy, in my understanding, were bearing witness to this
symbolism and to something real in experience which lay behind it. In more
formal Christian mysticism, it was not until the 16th century and later that
it entered into the fullest expression. Now, that which is formulated as mystic
birth is comparable to a dawn of spiritual consciousness. It is the turning
of the whole life- motive in the divine direction, so that, at a given time-
which is actually the point of turning- the personality stands symbolically
between the East and the North, between the greatest zone of darkness and that
zone which is the source of light, looking towards the light- source and realizing
that the whole nature has to be renewed therein. Mystic life is a quest of
divine knowledge in a world that is within. It is the life led in this light,
progressing and developing therein, as if a Brother should read the Mysteries
of Nature and Science with new eyes cast upon the record, which record is everywhere,
but more especially in his own mind and heart. It is the complete surrender
to the working of the divine, so that an hour comes when proprium meum et tuum
dies in the mystical sense, because it is hidden in God. In this state, by
the testimony of many literatures, there supervenes an experience which is
described in a thousand ways yet remains ineffable. It has been enshrined in
the imperishable books of Plato and Plotinus. It glimmers forth at every turn
and corner of the remote roads and pathways of Eastern philosophies. It is
in little books of unknown authorship, treasured in monasteries and most of
which have not entered into knowledge, except within recent times. THE PLACE
OF DARKNESS The experience is in a place of darkness, where, in other symbolism,
the sun is said to shine at midnight. There is afterwards that further state,
in which the soul of man returns to the normal physical estate, bringing the
knowledge of another world, the quest ended for the time being at least. This
is compared to resurrection, because in the aftermath of his experience the
man is, as it were, a new being. I have found in most mythological legends
that the period between divine death and resurrection was triadic and is spoken
of roughly as three days, though there is an exception is the case of Osiris,
whose dismemberment necessitated a long quest before the most important of
his organs was left finally lost. The three days are usually foreshortened
at both ends; the first is an evening, the second a complete day, while the
third ends at sunrise. I is an allusion to the temporal brevity ascribed in
all literatures to the culminating mystical experience. It is remarkable, in
this connection, that during the mystic death of the Candidate in the Third
Degree, the time of his interned condition is marked by three episodes, which
are so many attempts to raise him, the last only being successful.
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