Studies in mysticism and certain aspects of the secret tradition / by Arthur Edward Waite.

  • Waite, Arthur Edward, 1857-1942.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Studies in mysticism and certain aspects of the secret tradition / by Arthur Edward Waite. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been on subjects foreign to the implicits of his soul. This is equivalent to saying that the rites, of initiation are certain formulae of consciousness whereby that which is within him subsistently is educed; and as an offset to the common life of conventions this] is in these days as much as can be reason- ably expected from any office of the sanctuaries. It is possible that the postulant will be asked to try one journey more, but this time it will be in the region of first-hand experience, when he will realise how true is that dictum, already quoted from the old alchemists, that it is vain to attempt the practice till the working theory has been laid down. The possession of this he will owe to those things by which he has been so far guided. The path that, in this case, he will be called to follow henceforth, and possibly for ever, is that of the Holy Assembly, which I have named once in this book. It is not a path of grades and degrees by which the candidate is advanced symbolically to the heights. He will not enter any institution to which conventional recommendation is possible' The Assembly neither asks nor receives pledges, nor does it offer warrants or charters. It is perhaps, in so far as any designation is concerned, better spoken of under that title which I have named in another connection: silence in the mouth of the Almighty One. This is not because silence is imposed, but because entrance into the sodality is a certain matter of growth—a continual communication, as I have said, in the higher consciousness. The postulant for admission is such by the fact of his status. If the evidences of the Holy Assembly are so slight in mystic literature, although this is an intellectual difficulty, it must be remembered that we are dealing with a state which is in transcendence by comparison with all states manifested here below, being that, as I conceive it, in which the Subject is withdrawn no longer into secret places but into its own concealment. There is only one word more: Whether the postulant whom I have supposed succeeds or fails, he will learn that high reason warrants everything that has been said here to show that the mystic life leads no one from the life of the Church. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press