42 



THE REV. J. J. B. COLES, ON THEOSOPHY. 



Theosophical writers themselves, and with the prophecy of 

 Eevelations xiii and xvii before us, we know what sin and ruin 

 will be the outcome of this revival of the teaching as to Karma 

 and Eeincarnation and the deification of man. Theosophical 

 teaching on these lines will prepare the way for the great 

 apostasy headed up in that monster of multiple personality, the 

 Man of Sin. 



Initiation and the Mysteries. 



"In the Mysteries of Egypt, the Mithraic Mysteries of the 

 Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries, the Eleusinian 

 Mysteries of the Greeks, the Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia, 

 and Chaldea, the initiate was taught things relating to post 

 mo7'tem existence. And initiation was also supposed to establish 

 a relationship of the soul with the 'divine Nature.' 



" The culminating point of the Mysteries was reached when the 

 initiate became a god, whether by union with a divine Being 

 outside himself, or by the realisation of the divine Self within 

 him. This was termed ecstasy and was a condition which the 

 Indian Yogi would term high Samadhi, the gross body being 

 entranced and the freed soul effecting its own union with the 

 Great One. 



" Much instruction was given in the Mysteries by the unseen 

 hierarchies and Pythagoras, the great teacher who was initiated 

 in India, and w^ho gave ' the knowledge of things that are ' to 

 his pledged disciples, is said to have possessed such a knowledge 

 of music that he could use it for the controlling of men's wildest 

 passions, and the illuminating of their minds. 



" Of this, instances are given by Jamblicus in his Life of 

 Pythagoras. It seems probable that the title of Theodidaktos, 

 given to Ammonius Saccas, the Master of Plotinus, referred less 

 to the sublimity of his teachings than to this divine instruction 

 received by him in the Mysteries. 



" The. close identity between the methods and aims pursued in 

 these various Mysteries and those of Yoga in India is patent to 

 the most superficial observer. 



" It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the nations of 

 antiquity drew from India ; all alike drew from one source, the 

 Grand Lodge of Central Asia, which sent out its Initiates to 

 every land. 



" There was much inter-communication between the Initiates 

 of all nations, and there was a common language and a common 

 ' symbolism.' " 



