Rosicrucian Writings Online

The
THOUGHT OF THE MONTH
 
REAL MYSTICISM
 
By THE IMPERATOR
[H. Spencer Lewis]
 
[From The Rosicrucian Digest December 1933]
 
 
IT IS NOT my intention to speak at this time of the many significant things that may come to the mind during the coming holiday season, but there is one outstanding thought which occurs to me and which may be of interest to our members and friends. The coming of Christmas Day brings keenly to our minds the fact that it is the anniversary celebration of the birth of a great leader of men and along with this thought comes the intriguing picture of His mission in life and the great work which He accomplished.
 
It is commonly believed even by those most devout Christians that Jesus selected from among His many followers only twelve who were to become His Disciples and that to these twelve and to all who would listen and understand, He revealed all of His marvelous teachings and all of the wonderful revelations which God inspired in His heart and mind. And it is generally believed that these Disciples and those who succeeded them went forth to all parts of the world to reveal to mankind all of the teachings of Jesus and that the Christian church is still devoted to a complete and unrestricted presentation of everything that Jesus thought and revealed to His followers.
 
This is a serious mistake and the time is not far distant when the real facts in this regard will be made known. For some long period I have been gathering evidence from ancient records and from very reliable sources regarding the private and secret work carried on by Jesus as a necessary phase of His Divine mission. I feel tempted to put these facts into a book some day as we have contemplated for a long time and I may do so if I find there is sufficient interest on this subject.
 
The facts discovered up to the present time plainly indicate that while Jesus did select twelve Disciples to be His special representatives in a worldly sense these twelve were selected from a larger group of specially initiated and specially concealed students of a secret school which He conducted in Palestine. The twelve thus selected for outer contact and for worldly recognition were representative of the twelve classifications of mankind and of the twelve channels of activity necessary to establish the outer worldly section of His great system of Divine revelation and Divine power. The real inner secret body of students, however, was 120 in number and included women as well as men and even His own mother.
 
This group of ten times twelve was carefully protected from the scrutiny of the public and shielded from discovery by the Roman and Jewish authorities. The group was organized as a secret school on the same lines and principles as were the other ancient secret schools which Jesus had contacted in His early studies during His youth. In fact, there were other secret organizations in existence in Palestine during the time of His great work and He knew the great fundamental fact that not all of mankind was prepared for the great truths nor to be trusted with the mighty secrets which He was Divinely authorized to reveal. Jesus did not have to exclude any from His school on the basis of personal preference but merely had to select those who selected themselves by their own sincerity and their own desire and their own conscientiousness.
 
This secret group met in a secret place sometimes in Jerusalem and sometimes outside of its walls and that secret place had a very definite name and a very definite symbolical arrangement. There were certain signs by which the members of this large group knew each other and recognized each other and certain passwords and phrases which they used for gaining admission into their secret meetings and even a secret way for entering the buildings where the private meeting place was concealed. Only one at a time would enter and then under observation and guardianship so that the spies and others who were trying to find the place would not observe the coming together of these 120 men and women. These facts are all revealed in certain pages of the authorized versions of the Christian Bible and have probably been read and misunderstood by millions of students and Christian exponents. It is only when they are read in connection with other facts and carefully analyzed that the secret school conducted by Jesus is revealed.
 
In this school the great "mysteries" of the Christian doctrines were taught. There is constant reference in the Christian Bible to the mysteries which Jesus revealed to his Disciples and there are many references to the fact that these mysteries constituted the real foundation of pure Christianity. The Disciples and missionaries who went out into the world after Jesus had closed His great work were careful to preserve the secrecy of these mysteries and to reveal them only to certain groups in different sections where true churches were established and authorized. The first united seer of Christian authority known later as the great Roman Church followed out the ancient system established by Jesus and had an outer circle of worshippers and an inner circle of worshippers and students of the secret mysteries. As time passed on, however, the inner circle became more and more exclusive and the outer circle became the real congregation of the church. Today the outer congregation represents practically all there is of the Christian institution and the mysteries and secrets are preserved and concealed by a few who preserve them for the exclusive understanding of the Hierarchy of the Christian church. This is not what Jesus intended and it is a restriction of the great work that could be accomplished through an understanding of the Christian principles.
 
In recent years many high and learned theologians representing the various Protestant denominations have stated in their annual conclaves of Christian leaders that the success of the Christian church today will depend upon how rapidly and how completely it reverts to the ancient system and takes out of its musty archives and moldy crypts the hidden, concealed, and very important mystery teachings that should have been revealed through all of the past centuries.
 
A study of the rituals used by the early Christian secret schools and an analysis of the mystery teachings given privately by Jesus to His worthy students make fascinating reading and very instructive guidance even in these modern times. The Rosicrucian Order as descendants from the Essenes, who were a part of the Christian secret school, are probably the only conservators and disseminators of most of these Christian secrets aided by the secret activities of one or two allied organizations such as the Knights of the Temple in Europe and the "brethren in white clothing" belonging to the ancient Memphis and Mizraim Rites.
 
Undoubtedly, many clergymen of various denominations and the average devout Christian will challenge the statements I have made herewith and will protest against the idea that Jesus did not reveal everything He knew and understood to the public and that the Christian church today does not contain in its expounding of the Bible and in its other special doctrines all of the true teachings of Jesus the Christ. It is not my intention to take issues with these good people but some day when the facts are revealed it will be their privilege--and their obligation--to refute the statements if they can and to prove that the foregoing contentions are not true.
 
In the meantime, every great student of mysticism of any school or system continues to pay reverential homage to Jesus as the Divine Son and Divine Messenger of God, bringing to man the newest revelations from the consciousness of the Creator of all created things. Jesus did not intend to establish a sectarian church but to point out The Way that leads to the true Kingdom of Heaven. That a church of a limited sectarian nature was later established Deifying Him to a degree almost equal to if not often more potent than God is not a thing that should be credited to the activities of Jesus during His lifetime, for he insisted upon many occasions that he should not even be called great and that none was great but God. That His teachings should be limited to those who were worthy and who could comprehend was no reflection upon the personal attitude of Jesus but a reflection of the attitude of the public in His time and at the present time.
 
There are great powers and great possibilities contained in the secret teachings revealed by Jesus and those who know these things plainly understand why the Christian church in the early centuries of the Christian era deliberately concealed these secret teachings and why they are lost today to the great majority of Christian worshippers.
 
As the ages pass, however, the Divinity and the marvelous wisdom of Jesus becomes more and more recognized and glorified even though millions realize that His teachings have not been completely revealed. His marvelous abilities through the unique power and authority He possessed are made sublimely admirable by His compassion, humbleness, universal love, and gentleness. He was not only the Light of the World but the leader in man's greatest cycle of evolution and unfoldment, and there will be no need of a second coming of the Christ nor the sending of another Light Among Men until the majority of human beings in this world have reached a degree of comprehension of the truths which Jesus gave to us and we have mastered these and lifted ourselves upward to a point where we are ready for any higher revelation. Mankind is today so far away from that point and so far behind in that degree of evolution that it would seem that the next coming of a messenger from God will be millions of years hence. Man is still at the very threshold of the chamber of mysteries revealed to us by Jesus and still an ignorant, wilful, sinful child in the scheme of spiritual unfoldment. But with all of our ignorance and sinfulness and because of our childlike nature we can still see the glory and greatness of His mission and His messages and because of this we unite in celebrating the anniversary of His birth and in paying homage to the spirit of universal love which He revealed to man but which man fails to practice to the same extent that he admires it and hopes for it.
   
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