"32nd Degree - Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret (Master of the Royal Secret)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Albert)

MORALS and DOGMA by Albert Pike

XXXII. SUBLIME PRINCE OF THE ROYAL SECRET
[Master of Royal Secret]

The Occult Science of the Ancient Magi was concealed under the shadows of the Ancient Mysteries. It was imperfectly revealed or rather disfigured by the Gnostics. It is guessed at under the obscurities that cover the pretended crimes of the Templars and it is found enveloped in enigmas that seem impenetrable, in the Rites of the Highest Masonry.

Magism was the Science of Abraham and Orpheus, of Confucius and Zoroaster. It was the dogmas of this Science that were engraven on the tables of stone by Hanoch and Trismegistus. Moses purified and re-veiled them, for that is the meaning of the word reveal. He covered them with a new veil, when he made of the Holy Kabalah the exclusive heritage of the people of Israel and the inviolable Secret of its priests. The Mysteries of Thebes and Eleusis preserved among the nations some symbols of it, already altered and the mysterious key whereof was lost among the instruments of an ever-growing superstition. Jerusalem, the murderess of her prophets and so often prostituted to the false gods of the Syrians and Babylonians, had at length in its turn lost the Holy Word, when a Prophet announced to the Magi by the consecrated Star of Initiation, came to rend asunder the worn veil of the old Temple, in order to give the Church a new tissue of legends and symbols, that still and ever conceals from the Profane and ever preserves to the Elect the same truths.

It was the remembrance of this scientific and religious Absolute, of this doctrine that is summed up in a word, of this Word, in fine, alternately lost and found again, that was transmitted to the Elect of all the Ancient Initiations. It was this same remembrance, preserved, or perhaps profaned in the celebrated Order of the Templars, that became for all the secret associations, of the Rose-Croix, of the Illuminati and of the Hermetic Freemasons, the reason of their strange
rites, of their signs more or less conventional and above all, of their mutual devotedness and of their power.

The Gnostics caused the Gnosis to be proscribed by the Christians, and the official Sanctuary was closed against the high initiation. Thus the Hierarchy of Knowledge was compromitted by the violences of usurping ignorance and the disorders of the Sanctuary are reproduced in the State; for always, willingly or unwillingly, the King is sustained by the Priest and it is from the eternal Sanctuary of the Divine instruction that the Powers of the Earth, to insure themselves durability, must receive their consecration and their force.

The Hermetic Science of the early Christian ages, cultivated also by Geber, Alfarabius and others of the Arabs, studied by the Chiefs of the Templars and embodied in certain symbols of the higher Degrees of Freemasonry, may be accurately defined as the Kabalah in active realization or the Magic of Works. It has three analogous Degrees, religious, philosophical and
physical realization.

Its religious realization is the durable foundation of the true Empire and the true Priesthood that rule in the realm of human intellect. Its philosophical realization is the establishment of absolute Doctrine, known in all times as the "Holy Doctrine" and of which PLUTARCH, in the Treatise "de Iside et Osiride," speaks at large but mysteriously and of a Hierarchical instruction to secure the uninterrupted succession of Adepts among the Initiates. Its physical realization is the discovery and application, in the Microcosm, or Little World of the creative law that incessantly peoples the great Universe.

Measure a corner of the Creation and multiply that space in proportional progression and the entire Infinite will multiply its circles filled with universes, which will pass in proportional segments between the ideal and elongating branches of your Compass. Now suppose that from any point whatever of the Infinite above you a hand holds another Compass or a Square, the lines of the Celestial triangle will necessarily meet those of the Compass of Science, to
form the Mysterious Star of Solomon.

All hypotheses scientifically probable are the last gleams of the twilight of knowledge, or its last
shadows. Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted. Beyond the human Reason is the Divine Reason, to our feebleness the great Absurdity, the Infinite Absurd, which confounds us and which we believe. For the Master, the Compass of Faith is above the Square of Reason; but both rest upon the Holy Scriptures and combine to form the Blazing Star of Truth.

All eyes do not see alike. Even the visible creation is not, for all who look upon it, of one form and one color. Our brain is a book printed within and without, and the two writings are, with all men, more or less confused.

The primary tradition of the single revelation has been preserved under the name of the "Kabalah," by the Priesthood of Israel. The Kabalistic doctrine, which was also the dogma of the Magi and of Hermes, is contained in the Sepher Yetsairah, the Sohar and the Talmud. According to that doctrine, the Absolute is the Being, in which The Word Is, the Word that is the utterance and expression of being and life.

Magic is that which it is; it is by itself, like the mathematics; for it is the exact and absolute science of Nature and its laws.

Magic is the science of the Ancient Magi and the Christian religion, which has imposed silence on the lying oracles, and put an end to the prestiges of the false Gods, itself reveres those Magi who came from the East, guided by a Star, to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle.

Tradition also gives these Magi the title of "Kings" because initiation into Magism constitutes a genuine royalty and because the grand art of the Magi is styled by all the Adepts, "The Royal Art" or the Holy Realm or Empire, Sanctum Regnum.

The Star which guided them is that same Blazing Star, the image whereof we find in all initiations. To the Alchemists it is the sign of the Quintessence; to the Magists, the Grand Arcanum; to the Kabalists, the Sacred Pentagram. The study of this Pentagram could not
but lead the Magi to the knowledge of the New Name which was about to raise itself above all names and cause all creatures capable of adoration to bend the knee.

Magic unites in one and the same science, whatsoever Philosophy can possess that is most certain and Religion of the Infallible and the Eternal. It perfectly and incontestably reconciles these two terms that at first blush seem so opposed to each other; faith and reason, science and creed, authority and liberty.

It supplies the human mind with an instrument of philosophical and religious certainty, exact as the mathematics, and accounting for the infallibility of the mathematics themselves.

Thus there is an Absolute, in the matters of the Intelligence and of Faith. The Supreme Reason has not left the gleams of the human understanding to vacillate at hazard. There is an incontestable verity, there is an infallible method of knowing this verity and by the knowledge of it, those who accept it as a rule may give their will a sovereign power that will make them the
masters of all inferior things and of all errant spirits; that is to say, will make them the Arbiters
and Kings of the World.

Science has its nights and its dawns, because it gives the intellectual world a life which has its regulated movements and its progressive phases. It is with Truths, as with the luminous rays: nothing of what is concealed is lost; but also, nothing of what is discovered is absolutely new. God has been pleased to give to Science, which is the reflection of His Glory, the Seal of His Eternity.

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge. The Priests of Egypt knew, better than we do, the laws of movement and of life. They knew how to temper or intensify action by reaction and readily foresaw the realization of these effects, the causes of which they had determined. The Columns of Seth, Enoch, Solomon and Hercules have symbolized in the Magian traditions this universal law of the Equilibrium; and the Science of the Equilibrium
or balancing of Forces had led the Initiates to that of the universal gravitation around the centres of Life, Heat and Light.