visions or intuitions of this kind spontaneously; but they do not possess any real interest unless it can be proved that they are experienced by mystics who are truly and absolutely illiterate. Such, it is maintained, were Jacob Boehme, the cobbler theosophist of Goerlitz, and Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, the old Flemish monk who lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. If their revelations really contain no unconscious reminiscences of what they have read, we find in them so many analogies with the teaching, which later become esoteric, of the great primitive religions, that we should be compelled to believe that at the very roots of humanity, or at its topmost height, this teaching exists, identical, latent, and unchangeable, corresponding with some objective and universal truth. We find, notably, in Ruysbroeck's "Ornament of the Spiritual Espousals," in his "Book of the Supreme Truth,' and his "Book of the Kingdom of Lovers," whole pages which, if we suppress the Christian phraseology, might have been written by an anchorite of the early Brahmanic period or a Neoplatonist of Alexandria. On the other hand, the fundamental idea of Boehme's work is the Neoplatonic conception of an unconscious divinity, or a divine "nothingness," which gradually becomes conscious by objectifying itself and realizing its latent virtualities. But

1

Boehme, as we have seen, was by no means an illiterate. As for Ruysbroeck, although his work is written in the Flemish patois which is still spoken by the peasantry of Brabant and Flanders, we must not forget that before he became a hermit in the forest of Soignes he had been a vicar in Brussels and had lived in the mystical atmosphere created, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by Albert the Great, especially by his contemporaries, Johann Eckhart, whose mystical pantheism is analogous with that of the Alexandrian philosophers, and Jean Tauler, who, according to Surius, the translator and biographer of Ruysbroeck, visited the latter in his solitude at Groenendael. Now, Jean Tauler likewise spoke of the union of the soul with the divine and the creation of God within the soul. It will therefore be evident that it is more than a little risky to assert that his visions were perfectly sponta

neous.

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As for Steiner, in his case the question does not arise. Before he found or thought to find in himself the esoteric truths which he revealed, he was perfectly familiar with all the literature of mysticism, so that his visions were provided merely by the ebb and flow of his conscious or subconscious memory. After all, he scarcely

differs from the orthodox theosophists, except upon one point, which may appear more or less essential; instead of making, not Buddha, but Buddhas-that is, a succession of revealers or intermediaries-the centers of spiritual evolution, he attributes the leading part in this evolution to Christ, synthesizing in Him all the divinity distributed among men, thus making Him the supreme symbol of humanity seeking the God Who slumbers in its soul. This is a defensible opinion if we regard it, as he appears to do, from the allegorical standpoint, but it would be very difficult to maintain it from the historical point of view.

Steiner applied his intuitive methods, which amount to a species of transcendental psychometry, to reconstituting the history of Atlantis and revealing to us what is happening in the sun, the moon, and the other planets. He describes the successive transformations of the entities which will become men, and he does so with such assurance that we ask ourselves, having followed him with interest through preliminaries which denote an extremely wellbalanced, logical, and comprehensive mind, whether he has suddenly gone mad, or if we are dealing with a hoaxer or with a genuine clairvoyant. Doubtfully we remind ourselves that the subconsciousness, which has already surprised us so often, may perhaps have in store

for us yet further surprises which may be as fantastic as those of the Austrian theosophist; and, having learned prudence from experience, we refrain from condemning him without appeal.

When all is taken into account we realize once more, as we lay his works aside, what we realized after reading most of the other mystics; that what he calls "the great drama of the knowledge which the ancients used to perform and to live in their temples," of which the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, as of Osiris and Krishna, is only a symbolic interpretation, should rather be called the great drama of essential and invincible ignorance.

WE

CHAPTER XI

THE METAPSYCHISTS

I

E come now to the occultists of to-day, who are no longer hierophants, adepts, initiates, or seers, but mere investigators applying to the study of abnormal phenomena the methods of experimental science. These phenomena may be noted on every hand by any one who displays a little vigilance. Are they exclusively due to the unknown powers of the subconsciousness, or to invisible entities which are not, are not yet, or are no longer human? Herein resides the great interest, one might say the whole interest, of the problem; but the solution is still uncertain, although the tendency to look for it in another world than ours is becoming more marked; and the conversion to spiritualism of scientists pure and simple, such as Sir Oliver Lodge or, more recently, Professor W. J. Crawford, is not without significance in this respect.

I shall not return in these pages to the spirit messages, the phantasms of the living and the