The compound term Theophania (from theos, “God,” and phainesthai, “to appear”) does not simply mean the appearance of God in man but the actual presence of a God in man, a divine incarnation.

Dogmatic theology has no foundation in any part of the United States Declaration of Independence. All reference to religion and Christianity, or God’s commands, are left out. If any Adepts have influenced Washington, or brought about the great American Revolution, it was the Brothers of the Rosie Cross and not the Indian or Tibetan Initiates. The inferences drawn from W.Q. Judge’s article “The Adepts in America in 1776” are too far-fetched by our imaginative correspondent. We can, however, confidently affirm that the French Revolution was greatly influenced by the Count de St. Germain.

Tsong-kha-pa, the founder of the Gelug-pa Order of Tibetan Buddhism, was an incarnation of Amita-Buddha Himself. He was not, as is alleged by Parsi scholars, an incarnation of one of the celestial Dhyanis, or the five heavenly Buddhas, said to have been created by Shakyamuni after he had risen to Nirvana. He was an incarnation of Amita-Buddha Himself. Tsong-kha-pa gave the signs, whereby the presence of one of the twenty-five Bodhisattvas, or of the Celestial Buddhas in a human body, might be recognized. He also strictly forbade necromancy. This led to a split amongst the Lamas, and the malcontents allied themselves with the aboriginal Böns against the reformed Lamaism. It is curious to note the great importance given by European Orientalists to the Dalai Lamas of Lhasa, and their utter ignorance as to the Tda-shu (Teshu) Lamas, while it is the latter who began the hierarchical series of Buddha-incarnations, for they are the de facto “popes” in Tibet. The works of the Orientalists are full of the direct landmarks of Arhats, possessed of thaumaturgic powers — but these are spoken of with unconcealed scorn. If, after the beginning of persecution against Buddhism, the Arhats were no more heard of in India, it was because, their vows prohibiting retaliation, they had to leave the country and seek solitude and security in China, Tibet, Japan, and elsewhere. It was a historical rehearsal of the dramas that were enacted centuries later in Christendom. Whosoever among those Initiates of the Supreme Degree revealed to a profane a single one of the Truths, even the smallest of the secrets entrusted to him, had to die; and he who received the confidence, was also put to death. Yet this secrecy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening, since the Initiates of India and Tibet alone could thoroughly dissipate the thick mists hanging over the history of Occultism, and force its claims to be recognized. Among the commandments of Tsong-kha-pa there is one that enjoins the Arhats to make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the “white barbarians,” every century, at a certain period of the cycle. Up to the present day none of these attempts has been very successful. Failure has followed failure.

A chant sung over the entranced bodies of the mystai or neophytes who, after passing through the trial of their last initiation, were made Epoptai.

According to Paracelsus, Archaeus is the Inner Man. The magnetic nature of Archaeus attracts or repels other sympathetic or antipathetic forces belonging to the same plane. The number of diseases of unknown aetiology is far greater than those brought about mechanical causes, and for such diseases our physicians know no cure because, not knowing the causes, they cannot remove them. Medicine is much more an art than a science, and the best medico does the least harm. Mumia is the vehicle of Archaeus and the Elixir of Life. The remedy of all diseases or injuries that may affect the visible form dwell within the invisible body, because the latter is the seat of the power that infuses life into the former, without which the former would be dead and decaying. Mumia acts from one living being directly upon another. Cures performed by its power are effective and safe. But such cures are not understood by the vulgar because they are the results of the action of invisible entities, and what is invisible cannot be comprehended by the ignorant. Sympathetic cure is the transplantation of a disease from a human to an animal or plant that is healthy and strong. Conversely, a disease cured in one person will appear in another; and love between two persons of the opposite sex may thus be created, and magnetic links be established between persons living at distant places, because there is only one Universal Principle of Life, and by its power all beings are sympathetically connected.

The real Saviours of Mankind all descend to the Nether World, the Kingdom of Darkness, of temptation, lust, and selfishness. And, after having overcome the Chrest condition or the tyranny of separateness, their astral or worldly ego is enlightened by Lucifer, the Glorified Divine Ego (Buddhi-Manas), who is the real Christ in every man. Pythagoras, Buddha, Apollonius, were Initiates of the same Secret School. The Sun is the external manifestation of the Seventh Principle of our Planetary System while the Moon is its Fourth Principle. Shining in the borrowed robes of her Master, she is saturated with and reflects every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly material body, our earth. Jesus as “Son of God” and “Saviour of Mankind,” was not unique in the world’s annals. The “infallible” Churches made up history as they went along, building up the Apostolic Church on a jumble of contradictions. See how the Fathers have falsified Jesus’ last words and made him a victim of his own success. “My God, my Sun, thou hast poured thy radiance upon me!” concluded the thanksgiving prayer of the Initiate, “the Son and the Glorified Elect of the Sun.” The Baptism in the Jordan is the Rite of Initiation and the final purification, when Christos and Sophia (Divine Intelligence–Wisdom) enter the Initiate by transference from Guru to Chela, leave the physical body upon death of the latter, and re-enter the Nirmanakaya, the Astral Ego of the new Adept. The “baptism” or Initiation of Jesus stands for the “descent” of the Higher Self or Soul (Atma-Buddhi) on Manas, the Higher Ego. And the union of Christos with Chrestos establishes a conscious communication of the Universal Individuality with the transcendent personality (Theophania) — the Adept. Jesus was crucified by his own Church, not by Scripture. The key to the hitherto unfathomable mystery of Jesus is hidden in the paronomasia of Chrestos and Christos. He who will not ponder over and master the great difference between the meaning of the two Greek words (Chrestos and Christos), must remain blind for ever to the true esoteric meaning of the Gospels; that is to say, to the living Spirit entombed in the sterile dead-letter of the texts, the very Dead Sea fruit of lip-Christianity. Jesus was Chrestos, a virtuous man in his trial of life and candidate to initiation. Not yet Christos, as he had not passed the third degree of initiation to become Epoptes. Chrestos, the neophyte, is admitted into the Christos condition at the end of his last incarnation when Manas is fully merged with Buddhi. His real temple is the awakened soul in the sanctuary of the heart. The real Christ is the Serpent or Dragon of Wisdom falling from on high into the hearts and minds of men. Christos is a Ray of Logos: Passive Wisdom in Heaven and Self-Active, Conscious Wisdom on Earth. Though the two are one, the permanent can never merge with the impermanent. It is only when the impermanent begins loving the permanent sufficiently to give up its ephemeral self and being, that a spiritual union of the “Heavenly man” with the “Virgin of the World” is accomplished and a new Saviour of Humanity is born here on earth but “without sin.” Alas, few are they who are fit to join that Holy Brotherhood where each, in order to gain admittance, must be at one with the Christ within him. Deity in Man is symbolised by Tau, a double glyph. Tau is formed from the figure Seven and the Greek letter Gamma, symbols of divine and earthly life, respectively. In its terrestrial attachment, Tau is the Sun shorn of his beams. In Greek Mythology, Tau is the iron lathe of Procrustes, the Attican Vishvakarman. Christos is Prometheus, a personification of the Great Logoic Sacrifice. On sending out its personal ray, Christos or Higher Manas becomes “crucified between two thieves”: the lower, impure tendencies that after death dissipate in Kama-Loka, and the higher aspirations that survive death and reascend the cyclic arc. Vishvakarman, the creator and “carpenter” of gods and men, crucifies Vikartana on a lathe and, cutting off the eighth part of his rays, deprives his head of its effulgence and creates round it a dark aureole. Christos is the “Man-God” of Plato, who crucifies himself for an eternity in the darkness of matter for the redemption of the Spirit of Light from the Kingdom of Darkness. As Deity and Man are One, so Christ is the God in Space and Man’s Saviour on Earth. Christos is the eternal, real Individuality or Universal Altruism, whereas Jesus-Chrestos is the ephemeral, false individuality or Egotism. Man is Deity on Earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, on, through, and in which he is ever crucifying and putting to death Christ, the Divine Logos, who is his benefactor and true friend. Chrest is a Ray made manifest from that Centre of Life which is hidden from the eyes of Humanity for and in Eternity. That Centre is the real Christ, crucified as a body of flesh and bones. The great mystery is at last unravelled: Christos, incarnating in Chrestos, becomes for certain purposes a willing candidate for a long series of tortures, mental and physical. Chrestos is the mortal man who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, is reborn Immortal and leaves the animal-man behind him tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis. Then, his Higher Soul becomes as free as a butterfly.

Mastery of the universal magnetic sympathy that exists between men, animals, plants, and minerals, selects and directs powers by sympathy; and expels unwanted ones by antipathy. As love of physical beauty grows to an appreciation of divine beauty, so the old priests, realising the mutual alliance and sympathy that underpins all kingdoms of life, and investigating the kinship between the manifested world and the occult powers that govern it, they fathomed out the relationship between Concealed Potentiality and Infinite Potencies at every level. Inspired by the presence of a Divine Virtue within, the lower classes sing the praises of the pinnacle of their respective order; some intellectually, others rationally; some in a natural manner, others physically. Every order of being proceeds gradually, in a beautiful descent, from the highest to the lowest. Stones and plants honour the sun and, in turn, they receive the bounty of divine love according to their ruling divinities. Magic is based on the affinities between organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four kingdoms, and the invisible powers of the universe. Thus, inferior ranks of the same order invariably venerate their superiors. That is why the cock is very much feared and revered by the lion. Insights to phenomena allowed the old priests to understand the power of noumena, and to control the hidden forces of nature. By combining various odours into one, they demonstrated the unity of Divine Essence. For, while division weakens each part, unity restores the idea of their exemplar. A humble herb or a self-unconscious stone is often enough to bring into being divine works. The master key of Divine Magic or Practical Theurgy is the Neo-Platonic term Theophania, when the Over-Soul (Atma-Buddhi) of a virtuous man incarnates for purposes of revelation. Then, the Word is made flesh in actuality, not as a figure of speech. A temporary divine incarnation is termed trance; if life-long, samadhi, when the mystic may at times quit his body. Personal god versus Absoluteness is the most troublesome of all doctrines. Once the self-delusion of anthropomorphism is understood and overcome, every mortal will realise that he is but a reflection of his immortal counterpart. The sole aim of Practical Occultism or Theurgy is the conscious reunion of the part with the All. Many are those who are eager to study Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the Science itself. What Simon termed Magic, we now call Theosophia, i.e., Divine Wisdom, Power, and Knowledge. Its source and basis lies in the holy union of Spirit and Thought (Nous and Epinoia), whether on the purely divine or the terrestrial plane. That union is Helena, the “marriage” of Atma-Buddhi (Nous) with Lower Manas (male-female, in this sphere only), through which Spirit and Thought become one here on earth and are endowed with divine faculties and powers. Theoretical Occultism is harmless but Practical Magic is perilous. The numerals of the Kabbalah are especially dangerous. Unity, physical and metaphysical, is the real basis of Occult Sciences. While the Aryans applied their Science of Correspondences to veil the most spiritual and sublime truths of nature, the Jews used their acumen to conceal the single most divine mystery of evolution, i.e., that of birth and generation, before deifying the generative organs. Only Pythagoras’ cosmological theory of numerals can reconcile Matter and Spirit, and cause each to demonstrate the truth about the other mathematically. Let us then allow the world cling to its gods, to whatever plane or realm they may belong. The true Occultist would be guilty of high treason to mankind, were he to break forever the old deities before he could replace them with the whole and unadulterated truth. And this he cannot do as yet. The Esotericism of Egypt was that of the whole world during the long ages of the Third Race for it was imparted by Divine Instructors, the primeval Seven “Sons of Light.”