Eugenius Philalethes, Anima Magia Abscondida
Nicholas Roerich, The Hunt
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The Allegory of a Mountain
“There is a Mountain situated in the midst of the earth or center of the world, which is both small and great. It is soft, also above measure hard and stony. It is far off and near at hand, but by the providence of God invisible. In it are hidden the most ample treasures, which the world is not able to value. This mountain—by envy of the devil, who always opposes the glory of God and the happiness of man—is compassed about with very cruel beasts and ravening birds—which make the way thither both difficult and dangerous. And therefore until now—because the time is not yet come—the way thither could not be sought after nor found out. But now at last the way is to be found by those that are worthy—but nonetheless by every man's self-labor and endeavors.
To this Mountain you shall go in a certain night—when it comes—most long and most dark, and see that you prepare yourselves by prayer. Insist upon the way that leads to the Mountain, but ask not of any man where the way lies. Only follow your Guide, who will offer himself to you and will meet you in the way. But you are not to know him. This Guide will bring you to the Mountain at midnight, when all things are silent and dark. It is necessary that you arm yourselves with a resolute, heroic courage, lest you fear those things that will happen, and so fall back. You need no sword nor any other bodily weapons; only call upon God sincerely and heartily.
When you have discovered the Mountain the first miracle that will appear is this: A most vehement and very great wind that will shake the Mountain and shatter the rocks to pieces. You will be encountered also by lions and dragons and other terrible beasts; but fear not any of these things. Be resolute and take heed that you turn not back, for your Guide—who brought you thither—will not suffer any evil to befall you. As for the treasure, it is not yet found, but it is very near.
After this wind will come an earthquake that will overthrow those things which the wind has left, and will make all flat. But be sure that you do not fall off. The earthquake being past, there will follow a fire that will consume the earthly rubbish and disclose the treasure. But as yet you cannot see it.
After these things and near the daybreak there will be a great calm, and you will see the Day-star arise, the dawn will appear, and you will perceive a great treasure. The most important thing in it and the most perfect is a certain exalted Tincture, with which the world—if it served God and were worthy of such gifts—might be touched and turned into most pure gold.
This Tincture being used as your Guide shall teach you will make you young when you are old, and you will perceive no disease in any part of your bodies. By means of this Tincture also you will find pearls of an excellence which cannot be imagined. But do not you arrogate anything to yourselves because of your present power, but be contented with what your Guide shall communicate to you. Praise God perpetually for this His gift, and have a special care that you do not use it for worldly pride, but employ it in such works as are contrary to the world. Use it rightly and enjoy it as if you had it not. Live a temperate life and beware of all sin. Otherwise your Guide will forsake you and you will be deprived of this happiness. For know of a truth: whosoever abuses this Tincture and does not live exemplarly, purely and devoutly before men, will lose this benefit and scarcely any hope will be left of recovering it afterward.”
— Eugenius Philalethes, Lumen de Lumine
Eugenius Philalethes, Anima Magia Abscondita
“So do therefore, my soul and my body: rise up now and follow your higher soul. Let us go up into that high mountain before us from the pinnacle of which I will show you that place where two ways meet, of which Pythagoras spoke in cloud and darkness. Our eyes are opened; now shines the Sun of Holiness and Justice, guided by which we cannot turn aside from the way of truth. Let thine eyes look first upon the right path, lest they behold vanity before wisdom is perceived. See you not that shining and impregnable tower? Therein is Philosophical Love, a fountain from which flow living waters, and he who drinks thereof shall thirst no more after vanity. From that most pleasant and delectable place goes a plain path to one more delightful still, wherein Wisdom draws the yoke. Out of her fountain flow waters far more blessed than the first, for if our enemies drink thereof it is necessary to make peace with them.
Most of those who attain here direct their course still further, but not all attain the end. It is such a place which mortals may scarcely reach unless they are raised by the Divine Will to the state of immortality; and then, or ever they enter, they must put off the world, the hindering vesture of fallen life. In those who attain hereto there is no longer any fear of death; on the contrary they welcome it daily with more willingness, judging that whatsoever is agreeable in the natural order is worthy of their acceptance. Whosoever advances beyond these three regions passes from the sight of men.
If so be that it be granted us to see the second and the third, let us seek to go further. Behold, beyond the first and crystalline arch, a second arch of silver, beyond which there is a third of adamant. But the fourth comes not within our vision till the third lies behind us. This is the golden realm of abiding happiness, void of care, filled with perpetual joy.”
— Sapiens, Brother R.C., quoted in Anima Magia Abscondita by Eugenius Philalethes
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Hans Georg Leiendecker, The Bridge is Built (2002)
Sapiens, Brother R.C., quoted in Anima Magia Abscondita by Eugenius Philalethes
“O miserable race of men, which are not superior to stones, yea, so much the more inferior because to the one and not the other is given knowledge of their acts. Be ye transmuted—she cries—be ye transmuted from dead stones into living philosophical stones. I am the true Medicine, rectifying and transmuting that which is no longer into that which it was before corruption entered, and into something better by far, and that which is no longer into that which it ought to be. Lo, I am at the door of your conscience, knocking night and day, and ye will not open unto me. Yet I wait mildly; I do not depart in anger; I suffer your affronts patiently, hoping thereby to lead you where I seek to bring. Come again, and come again often, ye who seek wisdom: buy without money and without price, not with gold or silver, nor yet by your own labours, that which is offered freely.
O sonorous voice, O voice sweet and gracious to the ears of sages. O fount of inexhaustible riches to those thirsting after truth and justice. O consolation to those who are desolate. What seek ye further, ye anxious mortals? Why torment your minds with innumerable anxieties, ye miserable ones? Prithee, what madness blinds you, when within and not without you is all that you seek outside instead of within you? Such is the peculiar vice of the vulgar, that despising their own, they desire ever what is foreign, nor yet altogether unreasonably, for of ourselves we have nothing that is good, or if indeed we possess any, it is received from Him Who alone is eternal good. On the contrary, our disobedience hath appropriated that which is evil within us from an evil principle without, and beyond this evil thus possessed within him man has nothing of his own; for whatsoever is good in his nature belongs to the Lord of goodness.
At the same time that is counted to him as his own which he receives from the Good Principle. Albeit dimly, that Life which is the light of men shineth in the darkness within us, a Life which is not of us but of Him Who hath it from everlasting. He hath planted it in us, that in His Light, Who dwelleth in Light inaccessible, we may behold the Light. Herein we surpass the rest of His creatures; thus are we fashioned in His likeness, Who hath given us a beam of His own inherent Light. Truth must not therefore be sought in our natural self, but in the likeness of God within us.”
— Sapiens, Brother R.C., quoted in Anima Magia Abscondita by Eugenius Philalethes
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Gaspar de Crayer, A Personification of Truth
Eugenius Philalethes, Anima Magia Abscondita
“The state of true being is that from which nothing is absent; to which nothing is added and nothing still less can harm. All needful is that with which no one can dispense. Truth is therefore the highest excellence and an impregnable fortress, having few friends and beset by innumerable enemies, though invisible in these days to almost the whole worlds, but an invincible security to those who possess it. In this citadel is contained that true and indubitable Stone and Treasure of Philosophers, which uneaten by moths and unpierced by thieves remaineth to eternity—though all things else dissolve—set up for the ruin of many and the salvation of some. This is the matter which for the crowd is vile, exceedingly contemptible and odious, yet not hateful but loveable and precious to the wise, beyond gems and tried gold.
A lover itself of all, to all well nigh an enemy, to be found everywhere, yet discovered scarcely by any, though it cries through the streets to all: Come to me, all ye who seek, and I will lead you in the true path. This is that only thing proclaimed by the true philosophers, that which overcometh all and is itself overcome by nothing, searching heart and body, penetrating whatsoever is stony and stiff, consolidating that which is weak and establishing resistance in the hard. It confronts us all, though we see it not, crying and proclaiming with uplifted voice: I am the way of truth; see that you walk therein, for there is no other path unto life: yet we will not hearken unto her. She giveth forth an odour of sweetness, and yet we perceive it not. Daily and freely at her feasts she offers to us herself in sweetness, but we will not taste and see. Softly she draws us towards salvation and still we reject her yoke. For we are become even as stones, having eyes and not seeing, ears and hearing not, nostrils refusing to smell, a tongue that will not speak, a mouth which does not taste, feet which refuse to walk and hands that work at nothing.”
— Sapiens, Brother R.C., quoted in Anima Magia Abscondita by Eugenius Philalethes
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Felix Fossey, Allegory of Truth and Beauty
Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
“If [the soul] were once out of the body she could act all that she imagined. ‘On a moment,’ saith Agrippa—‘whatsoever she desires, that shall follow.’ In this state she can ‘act upon the moods of the macrocosm,’ make general commotions on the two spheres of air and water, and alter the complexions of times. … She hath then an absolute power in miraculous and more than natural transmutations. She can in an instant transfer her own vessel from one place to another. She can—by an union with universal force—infuse and communicate her thoughts to the absent, be the distance never so great.
Neither is there anything under the sun but she may know it, and—remaining only in one place—she can acquaint herself with the actions of all places whatsoever. I omit to speak of her magnet, wherewith she can attract all things—as well spiritual as natural. Finally, ‘there is no work in the whole course of Nature, however arduous, however excellent, however supernatural it may be, that the human soul, when it has attained the source of its divinity—which the Magi term the soul standing and not falling—cannot accomplish by its own power and apart from any external help.’ But who is he—amidst so many thousand philosophisers—that knows her nature substantially and the genuine, specifical use thereof? …
We should therefore pray continually that God would open our eyes, whereby we might see to employ that talent which He hath bestowed upon us but lies buried now in the ground and doth not fructify at all. He it is to Whom we must be united by ‘an essential contact’. And then we shall know all things ‘shown forth openly by clear vision in the Divine Light.’ This influx from Him is the true, proper efficient of our regeneration, that sperma of St John, the seed of God which remains in us.”
— Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
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Brigid Marlin, Annunciation (1984) — detail
Tuco Amalfi, Ascension (1987)
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The Re-ascent of Soul, part I
“You see now—if you be not men of a most dense head—how man fell, and by consequence you may guess by what means he is to rise. He must be united to the Divine Light, from whence by disobedience he was separated. A flash or tincture of this must come or he can no more discount things spiritually than he can distinguish colours naturally without the light of the sun. This light descends and is united to him by the same means as his soul was at first. I speak not here of the symbolical, exterior descent from the prototypical planets to the created spheres and thence into ‘the night of the body’; but I speak of that most secret and silent lapse of the spirit ‘through the degrees of natural forms’; and this is a mystery not easily apprehended.
It is a Kabalistic maxim that ‘no spiritual being descending here below can operate without a garment.’ Consider well of it with yourselves and take heed you wander not in the circumference. The soul of man, while she is in the body, is like a candle shut up in a dark lantern, or a fire that is almost stifled for want of air. Spirits—say the Platonics—when they are ‘in their own country’ are like the inhabitants of green fields who live perpetually amongst flowers, in a spicy, odorous air; but here below, ‘in the circle of generation,’ they mourn because of darkness and solitude, like people locked up in a pest-house. ‘Here do they fear, desire and grieve,’ etc. This it makes the soul subject to so many passions, to such a Proteus of humours. Now she flourishes, now she withers—now a smile, now a tear; and when she hath played out her stock, then comes a repetition of the same fancies, till at last she cries out with Seneca: ‘How long this self-same round?’
This is occasioned by her vast and infinite capacity, which is satisfied with nothing but God, from Whom at first she descended. It is miraculous to consider how she struggles with her chains when man is in extremity, how she falsifies with fortune, what pomp, what pleasure, what a paradise doth she propose to herself. She spans kingdoms in a thought and enjoys all that inwardly which she misseth outwardly. In her are patterns and notions of all things in the world. If she but fancies herself in the midst of the sea, presently she is there and hearst he rushing of the billows. She makes an invisible voyage from one place to another and presents to herself things absent as if they were present. The dead live to her: there is no grave can hide them from her thoughts. Now she is here in dirt and mire, and in a trice above the moon.
Far over storms she soars, hears rushing clouds Beneath her feet, and the blind thunders spurns.”
— Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
“Next to this sensual nature of man is the angelical or rational spirit. This spirit adheres sometimes to the mens, or superior portion of the soul, and then it is filled with the Divine Light. But more commonly it descends into the ethereal, inferior portion which St Paul calls the natural man, where it is altered by the celestial influences and diversely distracted with the irregular affections and passions of the sensual nature.
Lastly, above the rational spirit is the Mens or hidden intelligence, commonly called the illuminated intellect, and of Moses the breath of lives. This is that spirit which God Himself breathed into man and by which man is united again to God. Now, as the Divine Light, flowing into the Mens, did assimilate and convert the inferior portions of the soul to God, so—on the contrary—the Tree of Knowledge did obscure and darken the superior portions but awaked and stirred up the animal, sinful nature. The sum of all is this: man, as long as he continued in his union to God, knew the good only—that is, the things that were of God. But as soon as he stretched forth his hand and did eat of the forbidden fruit—that is, the middle soul or spirit of the greater world—presently upon his disobedience and transgression of the commandment, his union to the Divine Nature was dissolved; and his spirit being united to the spirit of the world he knew the evil only, that is, the things that were of the world. True it is he knew the good and the evil, but the evil in a far greater measure than the good.
Some sparks of grace were left, and though the perfection of innocence was lost upon this Fall from the Divine Light, yet conscience remained still with him—partly to direct, partly to punish. Thus you see that this medial soul or middle spirit is figured by the Tree of Knowledge; but he that knows why the Tree of Life is said to be in the midst of the Garden and to grow out of the ground will more fully understand that which we have spoken. We see, moreover, that the faculties ascribed to the Tree of Knowledge are to be found only in middle nature. First, it is said to be a tree to be desired to make one wise; but it was fleshly, sensual wisdom, the wisdom of this world and not of God. Secondly, it is said to be good for food and pleasant to the eyes. So is the middle nature also, for it is the only medicine to repair the decays of the natural man and to continue our bodies in their primitive strength and integrity.”
— Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
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Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve (1504)
Anima Mundi (1617) — Engraving from Utriusque Cosmi by Robert Fludd
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The Middle Nature, part I
“It will not be amiss to speak something in this place of the nature and constitution of man, to make that more plain which already hath been spoken. As the great world consist of three parts—the elemental, the celestial and the spiritual—above all which God Himself is seated in that infinite, inaccessible light which streams from His own nature, even so man hath in him his earthly, elemental parts, together with the celestial and angelical natures, in the centre of all which moves and shines the Divine Spirit.
The normal, celestial, ethereal part of man is that whereby we do move, see, feel, taste and smell, and have a commerce with all material objects whatsoever. It is the same in us as in beasts, and it is derived from heaven—where it is predominant—to all the inferior earthly creatures. In plain terms it is part of the Soul of the World, commonly called the Medial Soul because the influences of the Divine Nature are conveyed through it to the more material parts of the creature, with which of themselves they have no proportion. By means of this Medial Soul, or the ethereal nature, man is made subject to the influence of stars and is partly disposed of by the celestial harmony. For this middle spirit—middle, I mean, between both extremes and not that which actually unites the whole together—as well that which is in the outward heaven as that which is in man, is of a fruitful, insinuating nature and carried with a strong desire to multiply itself, so that the celestial form stirs up and excites the elemental.
For this spirit is in man, in beasts, in vegetables, in minerals; and in everything it is the mediate cause of composition and multiplication. Neither should any wonder that I affirm this spirit to be in minerals because the operations of it are not discerned there. For shall we conclude therefore that there is no inward agent that actuates and specifies those passive, indefinite principles whereof they are compounded? … Now, this vision is performed by a reflection of the visual radii in their inward, proper cell. For Nature employs her gifts only where she finds a convenience and fit disposition of organs, which being not in minerals we may not expect so clear an expression of the natural powers in them.”
— Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
Johann Wenzel Peter, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Early 1800s)
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The Forbidden Fruit, part III
“Supposing then—as it is most true—that amongst other mystical speeches contained in Scripture this of the Garden of Eden and the Tree in it is one, I shall proceed to the exposition of it in some measure, concealing the particulars notwithstanding. Man in the beginning—I mean the substantial, inward man—both in and after his creation, for some short time, was a pure intellectual essence, free from all fleshly, sensual affections. In this state the anima or sensitive nature did not prevail over the spiritual, as it doth now in us. Fort the superior mental part of man was united to God by an essential contact and the Divine Light—being received in and conveyed to the inferior portions of the soul—did mortify all carnal desires, insomuch that in Adam the sensitive faculties were scarce at all employed, the spiritual prevailing over them in him, as they do over the spiritual now in us.
Hence we read in Scripture that during the state of innocence he did not know that he was naked; but no sooner eats he of the Tree of Knowledge but he saw his nakedness and was ashamed of it—wherefore also he hides himself amongst the trees of the Garden, and when God calls to him he replies: ‘I heard thy voice in the Garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ But God, knowing his former state, answers him with a question: ‘Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the Tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’ Here we see a twofold state of man: his first and best in the spiritual, substantial union of his intellectual parts to God and the mortification of his ethereal, sensitive nature, wherein the fleshly, sinful affections had their residence; his second—or his fall—in the eating of the forbidden fruit, which did cast asleep his intellectual faculties but did stir up and exalt the sensual.
‘For’—said the serpent—‘God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the Tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.’
Thus we see the sensual faculties revived in our first parents and brought from potentiality into activity—as the schoolmen speak—by virtue of this forbidden fruit. Neither did this eating suppress the intellectual powers in Adam only but in all his generations after him; for the influence of this fruit passed, together with his nature, into his posterity. We are all born like Moses with a veil over the face. This is it which hinders the prospect of that intellectual shining light which God hath placed in us; and—to tell you a truth that concerns all mankind—the greatest mystery, both in divinity and philosophy, is how to remove it.”
— Eugenius Philalethes, Anthroposophia Theomagica
