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Annie Besant. Esoteric Christianity - The Search for the True Knowledge
Esoteric Christianity - The Search for the True Knowledge
Table of Contents
FOREWORD
Chapter I. THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS
Chapter II. THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY
(a) The Testimony of the Scriptures
Chapter III. THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY(concluded)
(b) The Testimony of the Church
Chapter IV. THE HISTORICAL CHRIST
THE HISTORICAL CHRIST, OR JESUS THE HEALER AND TEACHER
Chapter V. THE MYTHIC CHRIST
Chapter VI. THE MYSTIC CHRIST
Chapter VII. THE ATONEMENT
Chapter VIII. RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
Chapter IX. THE TRINITY
Chapter X. PRAYER.[294]
Chapter XI. THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
Chapter XII. SACRAMENTS
Chapter XIII. SACRAMENTS (continued)
Chapter XIV. REVELATION
AFTERWORD
INDEX
FOOTNOTES:
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Annie Besant
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From Iamblichus, the great theurgist of the third and fourth centuries A.D., much may be learned as to the object of the Mysteries. Theurgy was magic, "the last part of the sacerdotal science,"[11] and was practised in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings. The theory on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus stated: There is One, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the solitude of His own unity. From That arises the Supreme God, the Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all things, the Root, the God of Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into Light.[12] From Him springs the Intelligible World, or ideal universe, the Universal Mind, the Nous and the incorporeal or intelligible Gods belong to this. From this the World-Soul, to which belong the "divine intellectual forms which are present with the visible bodies of the Gods."[13] Then come various hierarchies of superhuman beings, Archangels, Archons (Rulers) or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, &c. Man is a being of a lower order, allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing them; this knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with God.[14] In the Mysteries these doctrines are expounded, "the progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the entire domination of the One,"[15] and, further, these different Beings were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they are yet in body, to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their eternal and intelligible principle."[16] For "the soul having a twofold life, one being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all body,"[17] it is most necessary to learn to separate it from the body, that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its intellectual and divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and the truths of the intelligible world.[18] "The presence of the Gods, indeed, imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of intellect, and, in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It exhibits that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those of the body."[19] When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a liberation from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy entirely more excellent, and participates of divine love and an immense joy."[20] By this we gain a divine life, and are rendered in reality divine.[21]
The culminating point of the Mysteries was when the Initiate became a God, whether by union with a divine Being outside himself, or by the realisation of the divine Self within him. This was termed ecstasy, and was a state of what the Indian Yogî would term high Samâdhi, the gross body being entranced and the freed soul effecting its own union with the Great One. This "ecstasy is not a faculty properly so called, it is a state of the soul, which transforms it in such a way that it then perceives what was previously hidden from it. The state will not be permanent until our union with God is irrevocable; here, in earth life, ecstasy is but a flash. … Man can cease to become man, and become God; but man cannot be God and man at the same time."[22] Plotinus states that he had reached this state "but three times as yet."
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