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THE WHOLENESS OF NATURE: God and the Name
Originally Published in Anubis London, England January 1903 (pages 277-282)
IN the comprehension of Name may be said to lie the secrets of magic, for to know truly the inner name, is to understand the formula of a God; the key which will unlock the door of His Temple, that is to say, of His Powers.
In the God-name (whose esoteric sense should be known of the priest) were hidden the potencies of that particular Nature-Force over which the Deity in question presided; each letter of His name corresponding to some especial sound, form, and colour sympathetic to His nature: the synthesis of these again being His actual vibration as He manifests in the material universe.
To understand the secret workings of nature, and through them to develop still further to the knowledge of Divinity, we must remount to the old wisdom-religions, especially to those of Egypt and India, as being perhaps the most complete that remain of a more ancient and a greater knowledge. Such a severance as now exists between religion, science, and art, would not have been admitted by the ancient priests: the word, Wisdom, itself expressing equally the three.
These priest-initiates recognized that nothing in nature is sudden, and that all effects have their causes, the cause being more subtle than its effect. Arguing then from analogy, both upward and downward, they were able to reach most subtle planes of thought and of being. The result of these investigations, combined with methods for the acquirement of the conditions of mind necessary for the comprehension of these states, may be said to be the synthesis of the knowledge contained in the Great Schools of Initiation.
In answer to those who reproach us with being Pantheists, it must be obvious to any student of the ancient cults, that they were expressions of a Monotheism ultimating into a Polytheism. The expression Monotheism is almost a misnomer; it is rather the harmony of a plurality, hardly conceivable on this plane, than a simple unity.
In the Egyptian and Hindoo faiths, there is always the Eternal, the Incomprehensible, the Non-manifested God; but which from Its very nature is incapable of definition or comprehension. It is the state which those who explained abstract thought by number, for example the Pythagoreans and Kabalists, described as not only existing behind the number one, but behind Zero itself, which is further back than one, Zero symbolizing Potential Existence.
Ever acknowledging therefore this great Unknown Deity, the Egyptian directed his prayers more especially to the Gods of the manifested Universe, this manifested universe being headed by a Unity in Trinity, multiplying and materializing, sending forth emanations of Itself; each emanation reigning in and over some particular Nature-Force. These Nature-Forces, or rather the Intelligences governing them, are what are known to us as the Pantheistic Gods. The ancients believed that the harmony of the God-head is well conveyed to man’s mind by the ever-recurring phenomena of nature; such as the Sun's yearly course, the phases of the Moon, the circling whirl of the planets, and the manifestations of the material elements as we know them.
Following the theory that man was built on the Divine plan, the Initiate was taught to understand nature’s laws, and to vibrate in unison with them; that by such means he might regain those lost powers which he possessed of old, before he, as man, fell from his high estate.
“Man,” says Poiret, “could originally by gestures and words, by the exertion of imagination and will, command the whole physical world. Thus, as we can now move our members as we will, because secret force flows from us into them, so could man through secret spiritual influence operate on the physical world,” for, says Poiret, “the one is just as conceivable as the other.”
Notwithstanding the apparent materialistic tendencies of our epoch, I believe that we have rarely (as a mass) been nearer such high ideals as now. Though there are perhaps fewer very great men, the middle average is higher; and surely the modern rapid development of woman would tend to shew forth the coming of a better equilibrium. As a factor in the planet’s history, should not woman’s progress be if anything more important than that of man, seeing that she, as mother of the race, may be said to be its chief progenitor!
Doubtless many mistakes have been and will be made in this transitionary state of woman, but mistakes are inseparable from the act of progress, and in endeavouring to attain a mark it is difficult to avoid either going beyond, or falling short of it.
The development of the brain-power of mankind has perhaps never been so strong, as the great scientific inventions of to-day are proving. Yet most of us instinctively feel that something is lacking, and that unless man can presently unite to his science some ideal quality which will shew him how and where to direct the Titanic forces he has evoked, the experience of Frankenstein may be his, and that they may turn on him and rend him.
So much also is now known about the physical body, that by the ordinary laws of logic, one wonders why disease continues to exist; yet it does, and must continue to do so, unless some other factor than the purely physical is brought into its action: because that power which governs the nerve force belongs to a plane which escapes the otherwise excellent methods of analysis known to the modern physician.
Considering the state of mental dissatisfaction under which most of us labour, it would seem that the desire of a plane beyond is not extinct; for the ideal must exist. Men’s minds are now well prepared for new ideals. It is rather that such ideals are unformed, than nonexistent.
The error would appear then to lie, not in the weakness of the separate parts, but in their severance. To restore our lost strength, we must regain the link that binds our being, and endeavour to attune the body to the mind, the mind to the soul; and these again to the universe.
What law then administers that link?
That there is a scientific correspondence between sound, form, colour and perfume is beginning to be somewhat generally acknowledged as something more than the fantastic dream of the Mystic. The Art of to-day is shewing tendencies in this direction; musicians and painters are becoming especially sensitive to the analogy between sound and colour. Among others, the great composer, Wagner, is well known to have worn different colours according to the nature of the subject he was treating. It is easy to perceive what possibilities lie hid in this theory of correspondences.
Has Art ever been greater, than when it built the Temples of Egypt, of India, and of Greece; when it was the veritable and conscious language between the Visible and Invisible Worlds.
Some very interesting experiments on this science of analogy have been made of late by the psychico-scientific school in France. The experiences of Colonel de Rochas are well known. He found that on the hypnotic subject, the notes of the musical scale acted on various parts of the body, one note exciting action on the feet, another on the trunk, and so forth. Monsieur Bouvier, of Lyons, in his experiments has employed especially flowers and herbs, the former, from their brilliant colouring and wonderful perfume, seeming well adapted for evocation; some calling forth ecstatic visions, while others appear to produce sensuous ones merely. The tests as far as possible having been such as to preclude the possibility of thought-transference between the hypnotist and his medium; it has been found in various cases, that the same flower produced the same note, and the same order of ideas, varied slightly according to the general conditions and the personal idiosyncrasy of the subject. The result of the tentatives made with herbs (medicaments and poisons) on the hypnotic subject tend to shew that their action on the body can not be wholly a mechanical one, but that they also act on the nerve fluid, or rather according to the conception of the occult student, on that body which is immediately behind the physical one.
Some mystics are of opinion that in magical rites, actual sound vibration pierces, if anything further through matter, into the sidereal world, than the other vibrations. If so, music should be the greatest of the Divine Arts. The music of the spheres is spoken of by the ancient writers. By the power of the Voice, the Gods created. Orpheus, great among Initiates, is he not the greatest of musicians; and did not the ancient Hebrews say that the true pronunciation of the name Jehovah would cause the Heaven and the Earth to shake? The Kabalist knows that this is a name all-potent in physical creation. It is the four-lettered name of the four elements of which material nature is composed.
The sublime name Eh-yeh, signifying I am, implies the name of the God of breath, and the Kabalist said that “every living creature in the act of drawing and expelling the breath pronounced the Name of the Lord of Life, and that when it ceased to do so it died,” for it will be found that it represents the natural vowel-sounds made by the ordinary in-breathing and out-breathing, in the act of respiration, according to Hebrew pronunciation. The Hindoo word “ Hansa” is somewhat similar, but more nasal in nature.
The three Hebrew letters attributed to the elements, Shin, Mem, and Aleph, actually imitate the sound accompanying the elements of fire, water, and air in their most crude expression. The Shin makes hissing sound of fire, Mem, the murmur of water, Aleph the whirl of air. (These must be carefully pronounced in their correct Hebrew pronunciation, the equivalent sound produced by the English letters hardly giving the right impression.)
'There are many notable examples in the Old and New Testaments of the importance of the Name. Sarai and Abram had to modify their names before they could have a child. This implies that these two personages or two races, as the case may be, had to change their states or influences; the formula given them being one that would bring about a greater harmony between the two, as well as a special vitalizing influence. All the great root-names in Biblical history can be read by esoteric means, with much new light thrown on the origin of the early races.
Christian, in his system of “Magic,” treats at length on divination by the name. It is a well known idea, and one capable of proof, that so-called luck may be modified by change of name; and seeing the force attributed to the power of sound and its correspondences, there would appear to be nothing astonishing in this theory. Noting the apparently chance manner in which the name given to us unknowing, yet influences us, and that in this way our lives are linked with a certain vibration; it is possible to conceive that a carefully selected name from the occult point of view, i.e.—in harmony with the nature of the child would be of considerable support to the natus.
Regarding the breath:—It is a well-known fact to the occult student that the breath is different in strength at different periodical times of the day and night, and that a knowledge of this system should enable him to regulate health as well as other matters; and that when King Solomon said, “There is a time for all things,” he meant more than is generally exoterically understood. For again the student of occultism knows that it is far easier to perform certain things at certain times of the day than at others. The whole twenty-four hours are, so to speak, mapped out, with the indications of the element dominant during certain spaces of time, by the understanding of which, actions can be allotted harmonious to the period in question. For example, the moment of sunrise has ever been dedicated to prayer and contemplation; naturally on account of the rise of the Sun, but also because that period opens with the reign of the spiritual ether (known to the Hindoos as the Akasa).
That the moon is all-potent in physical matters very especially, is acknowledged by all astrologers, and this again is capable of proof. Growth is easy and rapid during the increase of the moon, that period being of a beneficent nature (except when she is under the beams of the sun), but restrictive in nature during the latter half, whether benefic or otherwise depending on the object in question. For example, a scientific friend of mine finds, after several repeated series, that seeds sown with the new moon produce long and thin plants; with the full, short and strong ones. It can be understood by the law of analogy how this force may be carried into other planes. The same may be said of the Sun’s action as regards the seasons.
This belief in the attunement of man to nature, which implies his own spiritual development, in no way, suggests the abnegation of the will-power, whose strength is of primary importance. To most of us, life is so full of obstacle, that we need fear no disusage of the will element. For while endeavouring to harmonize ourselves to nature’s laws, there will always arise that which is the antithesis to the laws of the Gods, that is to say, Disorder, symbolized by the Forces of Evil, who are ever ready to tempt and to destroy. Surely the will has a better use when combating them, than when opposing the harmony of nature.
This, then, shall be our aim. That we
will so endeavour to know the Gods by Their works, that in
knowing Them we may begin to comprehend a part of the Name. |