Sketch of the Doctrines and Principal
Teachers of the Eclectic or Alexandrian School
Alexander Wilder

Plotinus (205-270
C. E.) was the first great expositor of the Neo-Platonic system
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A 2012 Editorial
Note:
The following essay on classical theosophy
was first published in Albany, N.Y., U.S.A.,
by Weed, Parsons and Company, Printers, as
part of the small volume “New Platonism and
Alchemy”, by Alexander Wilder. This was in
1869 - some six years before the foundation of the
modern theosophical movement in New York.
New Platonism and
Alchemy was republished
in 1975 by Wizards Bookshelf, Minneapolis, USA,
as part of its “Secret Doctrine Reference Series”.
One of the passages in this extraordinary
text points to the common ancient wisdom
present at the very source and root of Jewish,
Arab, and other cultural traditions. It says:
“Under the noble designation of Wisdom, the
ancient teachers, the sages of India, the magians of
Persia and Babylon, the seers and prophets of Israel,
the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia, and the
philosophers
of Greece and the West, included all knowledge which
they considered as essentially divine; classifying a
part as esoteric and the remainder as exterior.”
Our editorial notes to the text are signed
“(CCA)”. The notes by the author are signed
“(A. Wilder)”. We do not include in the present
edition
words written in the Greek alphabet: their English
language equivalents are part of A. Wilder’s
text.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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The name by which Ammonius Saccas designated himself
and his disciples was that of Philaletheians,
or, lovers of the truth.
They were also
sometimes denominated Analogeticists,
because of their practice of interpreting all sacred legends and narratives,
myths and mysteries, by a rule or principle of analogy and correspondence, so
that events which were related as having occurred in the external world were
regarded as expressing operations and experiences of the human soul.
It has, however,
been usual to speak of them by the designation of Neoplatonists or New Platonists, and, indeed, by this name they are
generally known.
Writers have
generally fixed the time of the development of the Eclectic theosophical system
during the third century of the Christian era. It appears to have had a
beginning much earlier, and, indeed, is traced by Diogenes Laertius to an
Egyptian prophet or priest named Pot-Amun [1],
who flourished in the earlier years of the dynasty of the Ptolemies.
The establishment
of the Macedonian kingdom in Egypt had been followed by the opening of schools
of science and philosophy at the new capitol. Alexandria soon became celebrated
as the metropolis of literature; every faith and sect had representatives
there. There had always been communication between the sages of Bactria [2] and upper India and the
philosophers of the West. The conquests of Alexander, Selencus and the Romans
had increased the acquaintance. The learned men now thronged Alexandria. The
Platonists seem to have been most numerous and to have held their ground the
longest. Under Philadelphus, Judaism was also planted there, and the Hellenic
teachers became rivals of the College of Rabbis of Babylon. The Buddhistic,
Vedantic and Magian systems were expounded along with the philosophies of
Greece. It was not wonderful that thoughtful men supposed that the strife of
words ought to cease, and considered it possible to extract one harmonious
system from the various teachings.
There did result
an approximation of sentiment. Aristobulus, the Jew, declared that the ethics
of Aristotle were derived from the Law of Moses; and Philo, after him,
attempted to interpret the Pentateuch in accordance with the doctrines of
Pythagoras and the Academy. In Josephus, it is said, that, in the book of the
Genesis, Moses wrote philosophically - that is, in the figurative style; and
the Essenes of Carmel were reproduced in the Therapeutea of Egypt, who, in turn,
were declared by Eusebius to be identical with the Christians, though they
actually existed long before the Christian Era. Indeed, in its turn,
Christianity also was taught at Alexandria, and underwent an analogous
metamorphosis. Panteanus, Athenagoras and Clement were thoroughly instructed in
the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the oriental
systems.
Ammonius Saccas,
the great teacher, who would seem to have been raised up for the work of
reconciling the different systems, was a native of Alexandria, and the son of
Christian parents, although associating much with those who adhered to the
established religion of the empire. He was a man of rare learning and
endowments, of blameless life and amiable disposition. His almost superhuman
ken and many excellencies won for him the title of theodidaktos, or God-taught; but he followed the modest example of
Pythagoras, and only assumed the title of philaletheian,
or, lover of the truth.
The first
proposition set forth by Ammonius was that of a primeval system of theosophy, a
system which was essentially alike, at first, in all countries. Sir William
Jones, in his Lecture upon the Persians, propounded this in the following
concise form:
“The primeval
religion of Iran, if we may rely on the authorities adduced by Mohsani Fani,
was that which Newton calls the oldest (and it may justly be called the
noblest) of all religions - a firm belief that ‘One Supreme God made the world
by his power, and continually governed it by his providence: a pious fear, love
and adoration of him, and due reverence for parents and aged persons; a
fraternal affection for the whole human species, and a compassionate tenderness
even for the brute creation’.”
It was his aim and
purpose to reconcile all sects and peoples, under his common faith, to induce
them to lay aside their contentions and quarrels, and unite together as one
family, the children of a common mother. A writer in the Edinburgh
Encyclopaedia says:
“He adopted the
doctrines which were received in Egypt concerning the Universe and the Deity,
considered as constituting one great whole; concerning the eternity of the
world, the nature of souls, the empire of Providence, and the government of the
world by demons [3]. He also
established a system of moral discipline which allowed the people in general to
live according to the laws of their country and the dictates of nature; but
required the wise to exalt their minds by contemplation, and to mortify the
body, so that they might be capable of enjoying the presence and assistance of
the demons, and ascending after death to the presence of the Supreme Parent. In
order to reconcile the popular religions, and particularly the Christian, with
this new system, he made the whole history of the heathen gods an allegory,
maintaining that they were only celestial ministers, entitled to an inferior
kind of worship; and he acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an excellent man and
the friend of God, but alleged that it was not his design entirely to abolish
the worship of demons, and that his only intention was to purify the ancient
religion.”
The ecclesiastical
historian, Mosheim, declares that “Ammonius, conceiving that not only the
philosophers of Greece, but also all those of the different barbarous nations,
were perfectly in unison with each other with regard to every essential point,
made it his business so to temper and expound the tenets of all these various
sects, as to make it appear they had all of them originated from one and the
same source, and all tended to one and the same end.”
Again, Mosheim
says that Ammonius taught that “the religion of the multitude went hand in hand
with philosophy, and with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted
and obscured with mere human conceits, superstition and lies: that it ought,
therefore, to be brought back to its original purity by purging it of this
dross and expounding it upon philosophical principles: and that the whole which
Christ had in view was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the
Wisdom of the ancients, - to reduce within bounds the universally prevailing
dominion of superstition - and in part to correct, and in part to exterminate
the various errors that had found their way into the different popular
religions.”
Ammonius declared that
the system of doctrine and moral life denominated Wisdom was taught in the
Books of Thoth, or Hermes Trismegistus, from which records Pythagoras as well
as Plato derived his philosophy. They were regarded by him as being
substantially identical with the teachings of the sages of the remote East. As
the name Thoth means a college or
assembly, it is not altogether improbable that the books were so named as being
the collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of Memphis.
Rabbi Wise has suggested a similar hypothesis in relation to the divine
utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. But the Indian writers assert
that during the reign of King Kansa, the Yadus or sacred tribe left India and
migrated to the west, carrying the four Vedas with them. There was certainly a
great resemblance between the philosophical doctrines and religious customs of
the Egyptians and Eastern Buddhists; but whether the Hermetic books and the
four Vedas were in any sense identical, is not now known.
It is certain,
however, that there was, in every ancient country having claims to
civilization, an esoteric doctrine, a system which was designated Wisdom [4]; and those who were devoted to its prosecution were first
denominated sages, or wise men. Afterward, the epithet of philosophers, or, lovers of wisdom, was adopted. Pythagoras termed
this system a Gnosis or knowledge of things that are. Under the noble
designation of Wisdom, the ancient teachers, the sages of India, the magians of
Persia and Babylon, the seers and prophets of Israel, the hierophants of Egypt
and Arabia, and the philosophers of Greece and the West, included all knowledge
which they considered as essentially divine; classifying a part as esoteric and
the remainder as exterior. The Hebrew Rabbis called the exterior and secular
series the Mercavah, as being the
body or vehicle which contained the higher knowledge. Theology, worship,
vaticination, music, astronomy, the healing art, morals and statesmanship were
all thus comprised.
Thus Ammonius found
his work ready to his hand. His deep spiritual intuition, his extensive
learning, his familiarity with the Christian fathers, Pantaenus, Clement and
Athenagoras, and with the most erudite philosophers of the time, all fitted him
for the labor which he performed so thoroughly. He was successful in drawing to
his views the greatest scholars and public men of the Roman Empire, who had
little taste for wasting time in dialectic pursuits or superstitious
observances. The results of his ministration are perceptible at the present day
in every country of the Christian world; every prominent system of doctrine now
bearing the marks of his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy has had its
votaries among the moderns; and even Judaism, oldest of them all, has taken upon
itself changes which were suggested by the “God-taught” Alexandrian.
Like Orpheus,
Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus himself, Ammonius committed nothing
to writing. Instead, he only inculcated moral truths upon his auditors, while
he communicated his more important doctrines to persons duly instructed and
disciplined, imposing on them the obligations of secrecy, as was done before
him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and in the Mysteries. Except a few treatises
of his disciples, we have only the declarations of his adversaries from which
to ascertain what he actually taught.
This was, however,
no exception to the common rule. The older worship, which was preserved in a
certain degree in the Mysteries, required an oath from the neophytes or catechumens
not to divulge what they had learned. The great Pythagoras divided his
teachings into exoteric and esoteric.
The Essenes of
Judea and Cannel made similar distinctions, dividing their adherents into
neophytes, brethren and the perfect. Pythagoras is said by Iamblichus to have
spent time at Carmel. Jesus himself followed the same custom, declaring to his
disciples that to them it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
whereas to the multitude it was not given, and therefore he spoke in parables
which had a two-fold meaning.
He justified
himself in this by the precept:
“Give not that
which is holy to the dogs,
Neither cast ye
your pearls before swine;
For the swine will
trample the pearls under your feet,
And the dogs will
turn and rend you.” - Matthew, vii
The Magians [5] of the East received instructions
and initiation in the caves and secret lodges of Bactria, and the prophet
Daniel is said to have been installed by Nebuchadnezzar as the Rab Mag, or chief of the learned order.
It would seem from Josephus, Philo and Moses Maimonides, that the Hebrews were
also possessors of secret doctrines. It [is]
[6] asserted in Josephus that Moses
wrote philosophically or esoterically in the book of Genesis, and Philo
attempts to give their interior meaning. Maimonides declares as follows:
“Whoever shall
find out the true sense of the book of Genesis ought to take care not to
divulge it. This is a maxim which all our sages repeat to us, and above all,
respecting the work of the six days. If a person should discover the true
meaning of it by himself, or by the aid of another, then he ought to be silent;
or, if he speaks of it, he ought to speak of it but obscurely, and in an
enigmatical manner, as I do myself, leaving the rest to be guessed by those who
can understand me.”
Abraham, whose
name has a Brahmin sound to it, is said to have migrated from Ur, a college or
commune of the Casdeans or Magians; and Josephus declares that he taught mathematics. In the Pythagorean
vocabulary, mathematics mean esoteric knowledge. Moses, the M’usa, [7] or great sage of the Israelites, it is said, was instructed in
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, thus becoming a priest of their religion, and
an initiate or adept in their secret learning. Paul declares the story of
Abraham and his two sons to be an allegory pre-figuring the Judaical and
Christian systems. Clement, who had been initiated into the Eleusinian
mysteries, is said to have declared that the doctrines there taught contained
in them the end of all instruction, and had been taken from Moses and the
prophets.
With a general
similarity in the character of the ancient religious and philosophical views,
the course would seem to have been indicated for Ammonius to pursue.
Countenanced by Clement and Athenagoras in the church, and by learned men of
the Synagogue, the Academy and the Grove, he fulfilled his labor by teaching a
common doctrine for all. He had but to propound his instructions “according to
the ancient pillars of Hermes, which Plato and Pythagoras knew before, and from
them constituted their philosophy”. Finding the same sentiments in the prologue
of the gospel according to John, he very properly supposed that the purpose of
Jesus was to restore the great doctrine of Wisdom in its primitive integrity. The
narratives of the Bible and the stories of the gods, he considered to be
allegories illustrative of the truth, or else fables to be rejected.
The peculiarity of
the Philaletheians, their division into neophytes, initiates and masters, was
copied from the Mysteries and philosophical systems. It is recorded that
Ammonius obligated his disciples by oath not to divulge his higher doctrines,
except to those who had been thoroughly instructed and exercised. How far this
condition was proper is easily perceived when we contemplate the peculiar
mystical, profound character of such of the doctrines as have escaped from the
crypt.
The Eclectic
system was characterized by three distinct features, namely: Its theory of the
Godhead, its doctrine of the human soul, and its theurgy. Modern writers have
commented upon the peculiar views of the New Platonists upon these subjects,
seldom representing them correctly, even if this was desired or intended.
Besides, the immense difference in the nature of ancient and modern learning
has unfitted, to a great degree, students of the later centuries for
apprehending properly the predominating elements of the Philaletheian
theosophy. The enthusiasm which now-a-days is often considered as piety, would
hardly be competent to explore or have anything in common with the enthusiasm
of the old mystic philosophers.
The anterior idea
of the New Platonists was that of a single Supreme Essence. This is the Diu, or
“Lord of Heaven”, of the Aryan nations, identical with the Iao of the Chaldeans and Hebrews, the Iabe of the Samaritans, the Tiu or Tuisco of the Northmen, the Duw of the Britons, the Zeus of the
Thracians, and Jupiter of the Romans. He was the Being, the Facit, one and supreme. From him all
other beings proceeded by emanation.
The moderns appear to have substituted for this theory of evolution. Perhaps a wiser sage will combine the two hypotheses.
These deity-names often seem to have been invented with little or no reference
to etymological signification, but principally because of some mystical meaning
attached to the numerical signification of the specific letters employed in
their orthography.
All the old
philosophies contained the doctrine that theoi,
gods or disposers, angels, demons, and other spiritual agencies, emanated from
the Supreme being. Ammonius accepted the doctrine of the Books of Hermes, that
from the Divine All proceeded the Divine Wisdom or Amun; that from Wisdom
proceeded the Demiurge or Creator; and from the Creator, the subordinate
spiritual beings; the world and its peoples being the last. The first is
contained in the second, the first and second in the third, and so on through
the entire series. [8]
The worship of
these subordinate beings constituted the idolatry
charged upon the ancients, an imputation not deserved by the philosophers who
recognized but one Supreme Being, and professed to understand the hyponia or under-meaning, by which
angels, demons and heroes were to be regarded. Epicurus said, “The gods exist,
but they are not what the common multitude supposes them to be. He is not an
infidel or atheist who denies the existence of the gods whom the multitude worship,
but he is such who fastens on these gods the opinions of the multitude.”
Aristotle
declares: “The divine essence pervades the whole world of nature; what are
styled the gods are only the first
principles. The myths and stories were devised to make the religious systems
intelligible and attractive to the people, who otherwise would not give them
any regard or veneration”. Thus the stories of Jupiter, the siege of Troy, the
wanderings of Ulysses, the adventures of Hercules, were but tales and fables, which
had a deep under-meaning. “All men yearn after the gods”, says Homer. All the
old worships indicate the existence of a single theosophy anterior to them. “The
key that is to open one must open all; otherwise it cannot be the right key.”
The Eclectics or
Philaletheians accepted substantially these doctrines, the principal difference
being in names. They taught, like all the old sages, that all beings and things
proceeded from the Supreme Deity in series, or discrete degrees of emanation.
There are four orders of existence, says Iamblichus - gods, demons, heroes and
souls. This theosophy would explain the declaration of Paul, that “all things
came out from God”, and that assertion of Jesus, that “the Kingdom of God is
within”. It was not an attempt to oppose Christianity, or resuscitate paganism,
as Lloyd, Mosheim, Kingsley and others assert; but to extract from all their
most valuable treasures, and, not resting there, to make new investigations. Of
course there was no avatar.
Plotinus, a native
of Lycopolis, in Egypt, was the first great expositor of the Neo-Platonic
system. In the year 233, being then twenty-eight years of age, he began the
study of Plato and Aristotle at Alexandria, and shortly afterward fell in with
the celebrated work of Philostratus, the “Life of Apollonius of Tyana”,
together with the writings of Plutarch and Apuleius. While in the midst of such
studies, he became acquainted with Ammonius Saccas. The lessons of that great
teacher found in him a worthy disciple. What Plato was to Socrates, and the
apostle John to the head of the Christian faith, Plotinus became to the
God-taught Ammonius. To Plotinus, Origenes and Longinus we are indebted for
what is known of the Philaletheian system. They were duly instructed, initiated
and intrusted with the interior doctrines. Of Origenes little has been
preserved. Longinus traveled for many years, and finally took up his abode at Palmyra.
For some time he was the counselor of the celebrated Queen Zenobia. After the
conquest of that city, she sought to propitiate the Emperor Aurelian by laying
the blame of her action upon Longinus, who was accordingly put to death.
The Jew Malek,
commonly known as the distinguished author Porphyry, was a disciple of
Plotinus, and collected the works of his master. He also wrote several
treatises, giving an allegorical interpretation to parts of the writings of
Homer. Iamblichus also wrote a work upon the doctrines taught in the Mysteries,
and likewise a biography of Pythagoras. The latter so closely resembles the
life of Jesus that it may be taken for a travesty. Diogenes Laertius and
Plutarch relate the history of Plato according to a similar style.
Plotinus, when
thirty-nine years old, accompanied the army of the Roman Emperor, Gordian, to
the East, for the purpose of being instructed directly by the sages of Bactria
and India. But the Emperor was killed on the way, and the philosopher narrowly
escaped with his life. He returned home and afterward removed to Rome, where he
instituted a school for instruction in philosophy by conversations. It was
frequented by men and women of all ages and ranks. The emperor and empress held
him in high esteem, and his disciples venerated him almost as a superior being.
One of them, the Senator Rogentianus, emancipated his slaves and resigned his
dignities that he might devote himself to the cultivation of wisdom. So high
was the reputation of Plotinus, that he was continually chosen as a guardian
for orphan children, and intrusted with the care of large estates. He lived at
Rome twenty-eight years, making not a single enemy among those whom he had
served.
He taught that the
gnosis, or knowledge, has three degrees - opinion, science and illumination. “The
means of instrument of the first is sense, or perception; of the second,
dialectics; of the third, intuition. To the last reason is subordinate; it is
absolute knowledge, founded on the identification of the mind with the object
known.”
The system, it
must be acknowledged, provided for the highest spiritual development. Plutarch
says, “The end of the Egyptian rites and mysteries was the knowledge of the One
God, who is the Lord of all things, and to be discerned only of the soul. Their
theosophy had two meanings - the one holy and symbolical, and the other popular
and literal. The figures of animals which abounded in their temples, and which
they were supposed to worship, were only so many hieroglyphics to represent the
divine qualities.” These mysteries, it will be remarked, are said to have
constituted the basis of the Eclectic system.
The human soul
being regarded as the offspring or emanation of the Deity, the whole scope of
the Philalethean system was directed to the development and perfecting of its
divine faculties. Plotinus taught that there was in the soul a returning
impulse, love, which attracted it inward toward its origin and center, the
Eternal Good. While the person who does not understand how the soul contains
the Beautiful within itself will seek by laborious effort to realize beauty
without, the wise man recognizes it within himself, develops the idea by
withdrawal into himself, concentrating his attention, and so floating upward
toward the divine fountain, the stream of which flows within him. The Infinite
is not known through the reason, which distinguishes and defines, but by a
faculty superior to reason, by entering upon a state in which the individual,
so to speak, ceases to be his finite self, in which state divine essence is
communicated to him. This is ecstasy,
which Plotinus defines to be the liberation of the mind from its finite
consciousness, becoming one and identified with the Infinite. This sublime
condition is not of permanent duration, but is enjoyed at intervals, and its
attainment is facilitated and repeated by abstinence, which tends to purify and
elevate the mind. The agencies to accomplish it are as follows: Love of beauty
in the poet, devotion to science in the philosopher, love and prayer in the
devout.
Plotinus professes
to have realized this sublime ecstasy six times; and Porphyry declares that
Apollonius of Tyana was four times thus united to the Deity in his interior
life, and he himself once when over sixty years old. [9]
The efflux from
the Divine Being was imparted to the human spirit in unreserved abundance,
accomplishing for the soul a union with the divine, and enabling it while in
the body to be partaker of the life which is not of the body. Thus, says
Iamblichus, the soul, in contemplating blessed spectacles, acquires another
life, operates according to another energy, and is thus rightly considered as
no longer ranking in the common order of mankind. Frequently, likewise,
abandoning her own life, she exchanges it for the most felicitous energy of
celestial beings. By supplicating, we are led to the object of supplication; we
acquire its similitude from this intimacy, and gradually attain divine
perfection. Being thus adapted to participate in the divine nature, we possess
God himself.
This is a
transcript from the very words of Plato:
“Prayer is the
ardent turning of the soul toward God; not to ask any particular good, but for
good itself - for the Universal supreme Good. We often mistake what is
pernicious and dangerous for what is useful and desirable. Therefore remain
silent in the presence of the divine ones, till they remove the clouds from thy
eyes, and enable thee to see by the light which issues from themselves, not
what appears as good to thee, but what is really good.”
Plotinus also
taught that every person has the interior sense or faculty denominated intuitio, or spiritual instinct, which
is developed by proper cultivation, and enables to perceive and apprehend
actual and absolute fact more perfectly than can be done through the mere
exercising of the reasoning powers and outward sensibility. It is a projecting
of the consciousness from the subjective into the objective, so that what
pertains to the selfhood of the person - what is in the mind and heart - is made
to appear as constituting the things which may be seen around him. In this way,
dreams are constituted; we see and converse with persons around us, and observe
objects and events - all of them being but the creation of our own mind, or the
reflection from our mind into a medium analogous to a surrounding mirror. Persons
have detected themselves, while awake, seemingly in earnest conversation with
an invisible being, but presently perceived that it was only a talking with
themselves or a process of ratiocination, which was really subjective, while it
seemed to be objective.
“There is a
faculty of the human mind”, says Iamblichus, “which is superior to all which is
born or begotten. Through it we are enabled to attain union with the superior
intelligences, of being transported beyond the scenes and arrangements of this
world, and of partaking the higher life and peculiar powers of the heavenly
ones. By this faculty we are made free from the domination of Fate, and are
made, so to speak, the arbiters of our own destinies. For, when the more
excellent parts of us become filled with energy, and the soul is elevated to
natures loftier than itself, it becomes separated from those conditions which
keep it under the dominion of the present every-day life of the world,
exchanges the present for another life, and abandons the conventional habits
belonging to the external order of things, to give and mingle itself with the
order which pertains to the higher life.”
We begin with
instinct; the end is omniscience. It is as a direct beholding; what Schelling
denominates a realization of the identity of subject and object in the
individual, which blends him with that identity of subject and object called
Deity; so that, transported out of himself, so to speak, he thinks divine
thoughts, views all things from their highest point of view, and, to use an
expression of Emerson, “becomes recipient of the soul of the world.” Plato
himself expressed the idea more concisely. “The light and spirit of the Deity
are as wings to the soul, raising it into communion with himself and above the
earth, with which the mind of man is prone to bemire itself”. “To be like God
is to be holy, just and wise. This is the end for which man was born, and
should be his aim in the pursuit of knowledge.”
The power of vaticination,
popularly denominated “second sight”, appears to have been possessed by these
men. Apollonius asserts his own possession of the faculty as follows:
“I can see the
present and the future in a clear mirror. The sage need not wait for the vapors
of the earth and the corruption of the air to foresee plagues and fevers; he
must know them later than God, but earlier than the people. The theoi or gods see the future; common
men, the present; sages, that which is about to take place. My peculiar
abstemious mode of life produces such an acuteness of the senses, or creates
some other faculty, so that the greatest and most remarkable things may be
performed.”
This is what may
be termed spiritual photography. The
soul is the camera in which facts and events, future, past, and present, are
alike fixed; and the mind becomes conscious of them. Beyond our everyday world
of limits, all is as one day or state - the past and future comprised in the
present. Probably this is the “great day”, the “last day”, the “day of the Lord”,
of the Bible writers - the day into which everyone passes by death or exstasis. Then the soul is freed from
the constraint of the body, and its nobler part is united to higher nature and
becomes partaker in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the higher beings.
The disciples of
Plotinus ascribed to him miraculous power. They affirmed that he could read the
secret thoughts of men; when Porphyry was contemplating suicide he perceived it
without having received any outward intimation. A robbery was committed in the
house and he called the domestics together and pointed out the guilty one. He
did not discountenance the popular religious worship; but when one of his
friends asked him to attend at the public services, he answered: “It is for
them to come to me.”
When Jesus
declared that the son of man is lord of the Sabbath, he uttered the very idea
which Plotinus repeated in demanding that the sacrifices should come to him.
Plotinus,
Iamblichus and Apollonius of Tyana, are said to have possessed miraculous
powers of prediction and healing. The former art had been cultivated by the
Essenes and B’no Nabim among the Hebrews, as well as at the pagan oracles. “I
am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet”, said Amos, when accused of predicting
untoward things, “but the Lord called me”. Apollonius is declared, by his
biographer, Philostratus, to have healed the sick and raised the dead, and
others of those days were reported to have done extraordinary cures. “That
which especially distinguished the fraternity”, said a German writer, “was
their marvelous knowledge of all the resources of medical art. They wrought not
by charms, but by simples.” Perhaps often their skill in healing won them the
reputation of performing miracles.
It is more than
probable, however, that they employed the agency so commonly known as animal
magnetism. It was usual to exercise it by gently placing the hand on or near
the diseased part, stroking it gently and uttering a chant or incantation. It
has become fashionable to declaim about these practices as charlatanism, but
they appear to have existed in all ages and among different peoples. Demons and
diseases were supposed anciently to be overcome by sacred chanting.
It is apparent
that these mystics were proficient in the art of medicine, and familiar with
herbal science; but their discoveries were lost through the destruction of the
Alexandrian library. Perhaps, but for this, there would have been an Eclectic
school of medicine in the world, the offspring of the knowledge of these “wise
men from the East”. [10] Instead of
it, however, they left an alchemy, or mystical philosophy, which subsequent
inquirers, construing too literally, lost sight of the allegorical meaning,
and, prosecuting the matter further, brought into existence the science of
chemistry.
Iamblichus
transcended the other Eclectics, and added to their theosophy the doctrine of a
theurgy. He taught that the individual must be elevated to association with
spiritual and celestial beings, the possession of their knowledge and will, and
the ability to control as a god inferior natures. He appears to have been
thoroughly familiar with the phenomena of the mesmeric trance and clairvoyance,
and describes them with great exactness. He taught that the idea of God was
imprinted in the soul, not by reason or ratiocination, but by a spiritual
conception which is eternal and contemporary with the soul. The different
orders of spiritual beings are mediators between God and man. Their prescience
extends over everything and fills everything capable of it. They also give
intimations during the waking hours, and impart to the soul the power of a
wider perception of things, the gift of healing, the faculty of discovering
arts and new truths. There are different degrees of this inspiration; sometimes
it is possessed in the highest, sometimes in an intermediate, and sometimes
only in the lowest degree.
Prayer, abstinence
- in some instances amounting to asceticism - and contemplation are among the
means of discipline required for the theurgist. Iamblichus discourses on prayer
with all the earnestness of a Christian divine. The supernaturalism, however
repugnant to the popular idea, is no more than is set forth in the Bible, and
was also peculiar to the Jewish Essenes, who are said by Pliny to have been
established on the shores of the Dead Sea per seculorum millia, for thousands
of ages. The legitimate effect was not to develop the practice of thaumaturgy,
sorcery, necromancy, and fortune-telling, but the higher faculties and sentiments.
Bulwer, who appears to have been a thorough student of Neo-Platonism and
kindred topics, practically depicts its operation and influence:
“At last from this
dimness, upon some eyes, the light broke; but think not that to those over whom
the Origin of Evil held a sway, that dawning was vouchsafed. It could be given
then, as now, only to the purest ecstasies of imagination and intellect,
undistracted by the cares of a vulgar life, the appetites of the common clay.
Far from descending to the assistance of a fiend, theirs was but the august
ambition to approach nearer to the Fount of Good; the more they emancipated
themselves from this Limbo of the planets, the more they were penetrated by the
splendor and beneficence of God. And if they sought, and at last discovered,
how to the eye of the spirit all the subtler modifications of being and of
matter might be made apparent; if they discovered how, for the wings of the
spirit, all space might be annihilated; and while the body stood heavy and
solid here, the freed Idea might wander from star to star: if such discoveries
became in truth their own, the sublimest luxury of their knowledge was but this
- to wonder, to venerate, and adore!”
Proclus was the
last great teacher of the Eclectic school. His writings are, if possible, more
thorough and elaborate than those of his predecessors. He refines upon the
theurgy of Iamblichus, and as that writer extols prayer as a means of spiritual
attainment, he extols faith. According to
Proclus, the doctrines of Orpheus were the origin of the systems afterward
promulgated. He says: “What Orpheus delivered in hidden allegories, Pythagoras
learned when he was initiated into the Orphic mysteries; and Plato next
received a perfect knowledge of them from Orphic and Pythagorean writings.”
He also repeats
the words of Aristotle:
“There are many
inferior theoi but only one Mover.
All that is concerning the human shape and attributes of these deities is mere
fiction, invented to instruct the common people and secure their obedience to
wholesome laws. But the First Principle is neither fire, nor earth, nor water,
nor anything that is the object of sense. A spiritual substance is the cause of
the Universe, and the source of all order, all beauty, all the motions and all
the forms which are so much admired in it. All must be led up to this one
primitive substance, which governs in subordination to the First. This is the
general doctrine of the ancients, which has, happily, escaped the wreck of
truth amid the rocks of popular errors and poetic fables.”
“After death, the
soul continueth in the aerial body till it is entirely purified from all angry
and voluptuous passions; then doth it put off, by a second dying, the aerial
body as it did the earthly one. Wherefore, the ancients say that there is
celestial body always joined with the soul, which is immortal, luminous and
starlike.”
Proclus elaborated
the entire theosophy and theurgy of his predecessors into a complete system.
Like the Rabbis and Gnostics, he cherished a perfect reverence for the Abraxas, the venerable name, or Word;
and he believed with Iamblichus in the attaining of a divine power, which
overcoming the mundane life, rendered
the individual an organ of the Deity, speaking a wisdom which he did not
comprehend, and becoming the utterance of a superior will. He even supposed
that there might be mystic pass-words that would carry a person from one order
of spiritual beings to another, higher and higher, till he arrived at the
absolute divine. Faith, he inculcated, would make one the possessor of this
talisman.
The Eclectics
flourished for several centuries, and comprised within their ranks the ablest
and most learned men of their time. Their doctrines were adopted by pagans and
Christians in Asia and Europe, and for a season everything seemed favorable for
a general fusion of religious belief. The Emperors Alexander Severus and Julian
embraced them. Their predominating influence upon religious ideas excited the
jealousy of the Christians of Alexandria. Hypatia, the celebrated lecturer, the
teacher of the bishop Synesius, and daughter of Theon, was set upon by a mob,
headed by an ecclesiastic, dragged to a church and brutally murdered. The
school was removed to Athens, and finally closed by the Emperor Justinian. Its
professors withdrew to Persia, where they made many disciples.
The influences of
these great teachers existed through all the subsequent centuries. At different
periods of the mediaeval age, arose remarkable men, who propounded one or other
of the cardinal Hermetic doctrines. The Mystics and Quietists, Sufis and
theosophers of every grade draw liberally on the treasure which the
Philaletheian Neo-Platonists had filled so liberally. Emanuel Swedenborg and
Jacob Boehmen do not seem to have been exceptions; and Madame Guyon would have
made a glorious counterpart of Iamblichus. Hardly a religious creed exists in
the Christian world which has not thus been enriched; and literature has thence
derived its choicest embellishment.
As ought to be
expected of persons holding so refined a system of doctrines, their characters
corresponded with it most beautifully. Plotinus was everywhere honored for his
probity, Apollonius for his almost preternatural purity of manners, Ammonius
for his amiableness, Iamblichus for his piety, and Proclus for his serene
temper. Their moral code is well depicted in this language of M. Matter, in his
Treatise on Gnosticism:
“The morality
which the Gnosis prescribed for man answered perfectly to his condition. To
supply the body with what it needs, and to restrict it in everything
superfluous; to nourish the spirit with whatever can enlighten it, strengthen
it, and render it like God, of whom it is the image; to make it one with God,
of whom it is an emanation - this is that morality. It is that of Platonism, and
it is that of Christianity.”
Whatever the
apparent demerits of the Philaletheian doctrines, there must be general
approval of the great underlying ideas of Human Brotherhood and perfectibility.
Their proper aim was the complete establishment of the rule of peace on earth,
instead of that dominion of the sword which had served in former ages, and
which was destined, in subsequent centuries, to array millions of human beings
in mortal warfare against each other, and depopulate countries and districts in
the name of religion.
NOTES:
[1] Pot-Amun; this name is Coptic,
and signifies one consecrated to Amun, the god or genius of wisdom. (A. Wilder)
[2] Bactria; ancient term for the geographical region
which was part of the Eastern periphery of the Iranian world, and which is now
part of Afghanistan. (CCA)
[3] Demons; the original meaning of the word is “spirits”.
The term was later distorted by Christian priests as a weapon in their
persecution against ancient wisdom. (CCA)
[4] The writings extant in olden times often personified
Wisdom as an emanation and associate of the Creator. Thus we have the Hindu
Buddha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of Greece; also
the female divinities, Neitha, Metis, Athena, and the Gnostic potency Achomoth
or Sophia. The Samaritan Pentateuch denominated the book of Genesis, Akamauth, or Wisdom, and two remnants of
old treatises, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Hesus, relate to the
same matter. The book of Mashalim - the Discourses or Proverbs of Solomon, thus
personifies wisdom as the auxiliary of the Creator:
“Jehovah possessed me, the beginning of his way,
The first of his emanations from the time
I proceeded from antiquity, the beginning -
The earliest times of the earth
When there were no deeps I was born -
Even when there were no sources of water.
When he prepared the heavens I was there,
When he described a circle on the face of the deep,
There I was with him, Amun,
And was his delight day by day.” (A. Wilder)
[5] The word magh,
signifies a wise or learned man. The Magians were the learned and sacerdotal
class among the ancient Persians, corresponding to the Brahmans of Hindostan,
the Chaldaeans of Babylonia, the Levites of Palestine and the Priests of Egypt.
Learning was regarded by the illiterate as endowing its possessors with
extraordinary powers; and so, in process of time, magic, or the learning of the magians, was regarded as pertaining
to wicked and demoniacal agencies. Yet the prophet Daniel, and, if tradition
speaks truly, King Solomon, were proficient in their lore; and several of their
number repaired to Bethlehem to adore Jesus. (A. Wilder)
[6] The word “is” is not in the Wilder’s edition of the
text. (CCA)
[7] In the Sanscrit language, the name of Moses would
seem to be derived from the words Maha,
great, wusa, a sage or great man. It
would be pronounced Musa. (A. Wilder)
[8] Akin to this is the doctrine
of the Jewish Kabala, which was taught by the Pharsi or Pharisees, who probably
borrowed it, as their sectarian designation would seem to indicate, from the
magians of Persia. It is substantially embodied in the following synopsis.
The Divine Being is the All, the Source of all
existence, the Infinite; and He cannot be known. The universe reveals Him, and
subsists by Him. At the beginning, His effulgence went forth everywhere.
Eventually He retired within Himself, and so formed around Him a vacant space.
Into this He transmitted His first emanation, a Ray, containing in it the
generative and conceptive power, and hence the name IE, or Jah. This, in its
turn, produced the tikkun, the
pattern or idea of form; and in this emanation, which also contained the male
and female, or generative and conceptive potencies, were the three primitive
forces of Light, Spirit and Life. This Tikkun is united to the Ray, or first
emanation, and pervaded by it; and by that union is also in perpetual
communication with the infinite source. It is the pattern, the primitive man
the Adam Kadmon, the macrocosm of
Pythagoras and other philosophers. From it proceeded the Sephiroth - ten emanations, which are not individual existences,
but qualities, and names as follows: the Crown, Wisdom, Magnificence, Prudence,
Severity, Beauty, Conquest, Glory, Foundation, Dominion. From the ten Sephiroth
in turn emanated the four worlds, each proceeding out of the one immediately
above it, and the lower one enveloping its superior. These worlds become less
pure as they descend in the scale, the lowest in all being the material world.
But there is nothing purely material; all subsist through God; the Ray, His
first emanation, penetrating through all creations, being the life of life;
therefore all is divine. The first world, Aziluth,
is peopled by the purest emanations; the second, Beriah, by a lower order, the servants of the former; the third, Jezirah, by the cherubim and seraphim,
the Elohim and B’ni Elohim. The fourth world, Asiah, is inhabited by the Klipputh, of whom Belial is chief. The
human soul derives its elements from the four worlds: spiritual life,
intellect, the passions, and corporeal appetites. A conflict having arisen
between the inhabitants of the fourth world, Asiah, and the higher emanations,
evil and disorder have thereby come to exist. Mankind having sinned in their
first parent, from whose soul every human soul is an emanation, they are exiled
into material bodies to expiate that sin and become proficient in goodness.
They will continue to be born in new bodies, one after another, till they
become sufficiently pure to enter a higher form of existence. This was called
the anastasis, or continued
existence; also, changes of the soul.
In the epistles of Paul we find these doctrines
inculcated more or less among the churches. Hence such passages as these: “Ye
were dead in errors and sins; ye walked according to the aeon of this world, according to the archom that has the domination of the air”. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against the dominations, against potencies, against the lords of darkness, and
against the mischievousness of spirits in the empyrean regions.” But Paul was
evidently hostile to the effort to blend his gospel with the gnostic ideas of
the Hebrew-Egyptian school, as seems to have been attempted at Ephesus; and
accordingly wrote to Timothy, his favorite disciple. “Keep safe the precious
charge intrusted to thee; and reject the new doctrines and the antagonistic
principles of the gnosis falsely so-called, of which some have made profession and
gone astray from the faith.” (A. Wilder)
[9] Kingsley, in the 25th chapter
of “Hypatia”, and Bulwer in the 4th book of “Zanoni”, treat of this same
psychological or hypnotic condition. (A.
Wilder)
[10] A French writer cited in the Journal of Psychological Medicine,
imputed to the New Platonists the use of charms and thaumaturgical arts, in the
treatment of the sick. But Plotinus, in his treatise against the Gnostics,
entirely acquits his associates of this accusation. He says:
“They (the Gnostics) likewise pretend that they can
expel disease. If they propose to accomplish this by temperance and an orderly
mode of life, they speak rightly, and like philosophers. But now, when they
assert that diseases are demons, and that they are able to expel these by
words, and proclaim that they have this power, they may, perhaps, appear to be
more worthy of reverence to the multitude, who admire the powers of magicians;
but they will not induce intelligent persons to believe that diseases have not
their causes from excessive labors, or satiety, or insufficient nourishment, or
putrefaction, and, in short, from mutations which have either an external or an
internal origin. This, however, is manifest from the manner of the cure of
diseases. For disease is deduced downward so as to pass away externally through
a flux of the bowels, or the operation of medicine. Disease is also cured by
letting off blood and fasting.”
“Perhaps, however, they will say that the demon is
then hungry, and the medicine causes him to waste away; but that sometimes is
suddenly obtained through the demon departing, or remaining within the body.
But, if this is effected while the demon still remains within, why, while he is
within, is the person no longer diseased? And, if he departs, what is the cause
of his departure? For what did he suffer? Is it because he was nourished by the
disease? The disease, then, was something different from the demon.”
“In the next place, if the demon enters without any
cause, why is not the body always diseased? But, if he enters when the cause of
the disease is present, why is the demon necessary in order to the body
becoming diseased? The cause is sufficient to produce the fever. The idea is
ridiculous, that as soon as the cause of the disease exists, the demon should
immediately be present, as if subsisting in conjunction with the cause.” (A. Wilder)
000
In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
000