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THE THEOSOPHIST,

VOL. XIX. NO. 1, OCTOBER 1897.

THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.

[Family motto of the Maharajahs of Benares.]

INITIATION.

LTHOUGH the word "Initiation" occurs with some frequency in Theosophical writings, the word "Initiates" is perhaps even more common. The one implies the other, for an Initiate is a person who has undergone an Initiation, and an Initiation requires the existence of a person to undergo it. Possibly more is said of Initiates because the names of some are certainly known,-Plato, Pythagoras, Apollonius of Tyana, St. Paul, and others, and the fact of their being such gives validity to their teachings. And yet not much stress was laid upon the subject of Initiation until the spread of Theosophical literature brought the word again into prominence. Previously it had been rather a matter of curious learning, interesting from its well-preserved secrecy and its potent influence on the life of ancient Greece, but having no importance outside the range of classical study, and altogether defunct as an actual practice, quite as much so as the Public Games or the sacrifices to Jupiter. But now that the continued existence of a School of Occultism and a succession of Sages has not only been demonstrated but has become to some extent popularized, Initiation is recognized as still a fact, by no means a mere memory or tradition. Theosophical writings have set forth some of the conditions to it, Madame Blavatsky was long a patent illustration of it, some names of recent and of living Initiates are familiar to students of Theosophy. Thus it acquires actuality in the present, has interest and significance, excites inquiry as to its nature and terms. When we are informed that a well-known Chela received Initiation and thus passed palpably into the ranks of the Brotherhood, we regard him as having undergone a distinct experience which translated him to a certainly higher plane of knowledge and power. He becomes almost a different person, so real a thing as Initiation having taken place.

Of course our conception of an Initiation is necessarily framed upon those Initiations which exist in our own day and are maintained by the two great Brotherhoods-the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows. Whether we have passed through any of these or not, there are certain

elements which are obviously necessitated by the conditions of the case. There must be, on the part of the Lodge, a conferring upon the candidate of information not previously possessed by him, and, on the part of the candidate, the giving a pledge that such information shall be treated as sacredly confidential. Here we have inevitably a bestowal of secret knowledge and a promise to preserve its secrecy. But there has never been any concealment of the fact that this interchange occurs at a definite time, at a certain place, and through a formal ceremony; so that there is further the certainty that Initiations are not casual, fragmentary, or without conscious participation by both sides, but are prepared for, precisely executed, and through an explicit ritual, Moreover, as entrance into an Order means that a person becomes thereby a member of that Order, the effect of Initiation is evidently to change the candidate's whole relation to the Order: from having been an outsider knocking at the gate, he becomes through that function an insider and an integral part of the body. His position to the outer world is also reversed, for he has been removed from it and now faces it from within the enclosure. Further, the existence of a ceremony necessitates officers to perform it, and the conferring of information necessitates that the information conferred shall be precisely the same to all Initiates of that degree, as otherwise the Initiation would vary in its effects.

Thus Initiation into any organized body such as the Masonic or Odd Fellows implies that at a certain date and locality, through an established ceremonial administered by authorized officials, a candidate pledges himself to specific obligations, notably secrecy, and the Lodge in its turn imparts to him specific information, he then becoming an integral portion of the body, vested with privileges and responsible in duties as such.

When we think of Initiation into the Occult Brotherhood, we naturally infer an analogous transaction. The familiar word suggests all this in its new application. Then, too, such was certainly the fact in the Mysteries of antiquity. They are well known to have been held at fixed dates and spots, admission was through a formal rite which was carefully maintained, the knowledge imparted was considered as of peculiar value and the obligation to preserve it secret as of transcendent sacredness, and the changed status of the Initiate was amply recognised. All these particulars recur to us when Initiation is spoken of in connection with the Adept Hierarchy. And to some extent the facts are probably parallel. In the marginal memoranda precipitated by a Master on a letter received by Col. Olcott through the mail, Damodar's Initiation in Tibet is spoken of as having been the more exhausting to him because of his weak state of health and certain Karmic elements, which must of course mean that he underwent some process of formal entry not merely mental but external,-in other words, a ceremony. And there are some other facts known to Theosophists which involve the idea of a definite act of Initiation at a set time.

But we should probably mistake if we pushed this conception very far, if we supposed it invariable, accompanied with much ceremonial, a matter to any great extent of physical act, It is most unlikely that a Brotherhood of which the essence is spiritual development should signalize the reception of new members by much use of bodily forms. The tests of fitness have doubtless been already applied, presumably through the trials of principle arising in life, so that what is left is only a formal recognition that these have been successfully undergone, a distinct avowal that the candidate is duly and truly prepared, worthy and well qualified, coupled with a distinct reception of him into the Degree. In high Degrees, at stages where the progressing man, already a Master, has passed beyond the inhabitation of a carnal body such as ours and dwells in more ethereal vesture, any marked ritual would seem inappropriate if not impossible; but in the earliest of all it may very well be that some physical preparation, some significant rites, may have place as illustrating lessons or impressing solemnity. As there are understood to be many grades of Mastership, this might seem fitting in the preliminary ones. The transition from the without to the within must be more momentous than can be any subsequent promotion on the same line.

And yet I think that the word " Initiation" may have a much wider, certainly a much more practical, meaning than as applied merely to the admission to the rank of Master. The word is from the Latin " initium", a beginning, and is therefore the beginning to any new course, the distinct change to another state. A man comes to a fork of the road. He may continue on or he may shift to the diverging way. If he continues on there is no change. The direction, route, quality of path remain the same. But he selects the other path which turns from that he has followed. It runs to a different point of the compass, conducts through other scenery, gives the traveller a changed air and environment. Perhaps from the valley it has led to the mountain, from the miasmatic plain to the breezy heights. All of that difference follows upon the initial step when the man crossed the opening of the new path. It was an Initiation, a beginning. And so, later on, there comes a fork in that path. Again the choice is made, and again the former way is left for the new. Fresh scenes are in time reached, a still different plateau attained. There has been a second " initium", beginning. Every decision, in fact, by which a course is altered, another route undertaken, is an Initiation, for it begins a deviation, "initiates" a change, is the first step on a way which deserts the preceding and conducts to other regions of surrounding and experience.

This is true of every act in life which opens up a new state or occupation. The boy enters school, the youth is admitted to College, the graduate begins his career in business or a profession, marries, establishes a home. Each act shifts him on a different line, and because the line is different, and because it has a distinct be

ginning, occurring at a recognizable time and place, is a fresh Initiation. Sometimes it is marked by a ceremony, sometimes not. No matter; the essential thing is the change, not the formal indication of it. It may even be that the change itself, momentous as are its outcomes, is not at the time much impressed on the consciousness. In those delightful Essays by a Country Parson, once so famous, now so rarely mentioned, " A, K. H. B." nses an illustration of this point. Speaking of a railway junction in England, he describes how the road runs along through the valley and the plain and continues thus to its end. But at the junction certain trains are switched to a diverging route. A very slight movement of a lever substitutes a different set of rails, the change to them is so slight as to be imperceptible to the traveller, for some time the tracks hardly change their course, there is no curve or sudden turn, but by and by the old track is perceived slanting gently to one side, it disappears in the distance, the plain sinks away, the train mounts the hills, and gradually the whole scenery becomes mountainous. The alteration of an inch or two in the mechanism of the road bed, unnoticed at the time and for some while indistinguishable in its effects, has ultimately transferred the tourist to another altitude and another climate. And so, he says, very slight events often change the course of a life, shift it from lower to higher levels, make it a different thing in its quality and results. At the moment of their occurrence they may make little impression, possibly have required no balancing of impulses or motives, hardly stir the will to any resolve. Conscious action has so little part in them that a later attempt to recall it in memory fails. And yet beneath, hidden below the surface of things, a small divergence has been effected, and the future course swerves to another quarter and the whole biography becomes different in its contents. The Initiation of the new direction to the career has been almost imperceptible to consciousness.

But in attempting to comprehend the philosophy of human action, we must remember that each particular act has behind it a vast background of antecedent history and character. No deed is a spontaneous, disconnected impulse, springing suddenly into being without any roots in previous time. A man does a thing because his disposition prompts him thereto, but this disposition is the product of innumerable thoughts and meditations and acts, all slowly forming a habit which instinctively manifests when any occasion calls it into play. Every man is born with a temperament that he unconsciously moulded for himself in prior incarnations, and this gives the primary direction for his life-course, Sometimes he pleasurably complies with it as easiest and most congenial, and then it gains strength with use, compliance becoming ever more natural and the life-quality being constantly more fixed. Some. times the complications and counter-influences we all encounter tend to check or modify it, and new motives enter as moulding elements. Sometimes a wish for self-improvement causes search into the constituents of character and deliberate detection of weakness or evil, and then,

aided by consciously-invoked help from quarters above, impels to direct effort for correction. Of course the rectification of character is the real work which is the duty and the true purpose of every man in every incarnation, but, equally of course, the perception of this and the glad attempt for it are only in the few, only in those who have either brought over from past lives that evidence of progress or have in this incarnation reached the time when preparatory discipline comes to the point of flowering into conviction. For clear percipience of the aim of existence, united with resolution to fulfil it, is not a sudden, unheralded, causeless exhibition of spirit-force; it is not a phenomenon destitute of any explanation and any previous factors; it is just as much an effect as is intellectual culture or artistic skill. It means a long and slow evolution, through much and varied experience, of spiritual faculty, and the more pronounced its manifestation the more of time and work during which such strength was gathered,

This doctrine of prior acts and character as causative of present ones is our only clue to the interpretation of human conduct. Of course it is the one continually used by all men both in explanation of present deeds and in prophecy of those future. Nobody pretends that the doings of his neighbour are matters purely of chance, mere casual happenings expressive of nothing but momentary accident. They are universally recognized as specimen fruits of the then-bearing crop, which crop presupposes many seasons of sun and rain and gradual growth. They indicate what the interior being is, what it has undergone, to what it has developed. Some measure of consistency pervades them all, for all spring from a common source and exhibit a common nature. When we hear that Smith has committed some impetuous act, or that Jones has relieved another case of distress, or that Brown has undertaken a fresh business investment, we at once regard the fact as illustrating that Smith is hasty, Jones charitable, and Brown enterprising. But each therein manifests a character already formed and which gives him his reputation. The incident would be meaningless except as connected with, setting forth, an internal condition produced through a habit forming during years of like action. And so as to prediction, What men are likely to do in any particular conditions is inferable from their natures; in other words, from the tendency created by action in similar conditions heretofore. Their conduct may be anticipated from their history.

But of course no human life is on absolutely straight lines, running forward from cradle to grave without crisis or alterations. In each there are changes which are not referable solely to surface explanations of age or experience or circumstances. Sometimes a character alters slowly, and quite new phases displace those which were before habitual; sometimes some sudden incident sharply turns to another route, as a sail-boat in a moment shifts its course and takes a different tack. A great grief or a momentous occurrence or a moral upheaval seems instantaneously to transform the being, and his new career so contrasts