The Path of the Monk

Baas The Path of the Monk The monk's path, like the warrior’s, is | based on a dualistic vision of ’ tion of our sins. It is a in this: while the warrior’s the cosmos. The essential difference lies lf. Of course this does “enemy is without, the monk’s lies within himse Khomeini) from seeing not prevent an ascetic (like the Ayatollah than it prevents a warrior Satan incarnate in his fellow men, any more from being a master of , (like T. E. Lawrence or the ideal Mithraist) mes, and most people's self-denial. All these ‘paths’ are extre one of them. aspirations lic along more than , ty of spirit and matter, Fundamental to the monk’s attitude is a duali as a gulf between soul and which is manifested in the human being 3 become. soul has becor ul the sspiriort so body. It is the ascetic’s Nview thatt the n body, and that it is entangled in the material world, or in the huma Pythagoreans, of religion to free it. For the Orphics and enc < on earth is forced upon us as expia our exist in the physical body: no terrible thing for one’s soul to be im prisoned les of the great Indian wonder new-born babies cry. When the discip his birthday, the master sage, Ramana Maharshi, wanted to celebrate ? Ê n one’s entry into this said: ‘On o ne’s birthday one should mour world’ (Collected Works, p. 137). n-Platonic-Hermetic For all the philosophers of the Pythagorea rse is a hierarchy of tradition, the situation is the same. The unive lowest is our tangible different sta tes of being, of which the very earth, water, air and and the things made ofits four elements: prison of flesh and world e beneath the Moon, is fire. Everyt hing in this region, the spher and death. Beyond, in imperfect and subject to pain, suffering, decay find progressively purer the ethereal spheres of the planets, we would of the gods where states, and above the fixed stars is the realm of view. The higher or perfection r eigns — at least’ from our point and knows it as its home; Rational Soul in man belongs to that realm intractable clay of our but here on earth it is stifled, sunk in the e it, and he does this by physical frame. The ascetic’s task is to releas er, the wearing away, by one means or anoth blood.

with food and drink, and in clothing them with cosmetics and Profane people mistakenly love their bodies, ignorant of the divine spark that lies captive therein. They delight in pampering their bodies raiment. They take pride in that of which they ought to be most ashamed. Thus the monk thinks as he watches worldly folk. He, on the other hand, has made a commitment to release himself from these vanities. His road is asceticism, and it differs little whether he be an Egyptian priest (see illustration, p. 16), a Christian nun or monk, a Jewish Essene or a member of the Pythagorean brotherhood. Ascesis consists in the relinquishing of one pleasure in the hope of gaining a greater one. The weight-watcher renounces certain foods for the greater delight of being slim. The vegetarian does so for the higher ideal of humanitarianism. And the monk fasts for the joy of release from bondage to the stomach’s demands — and, no doubt, for the pleasant ‘high’ that prolonged abstinence brings. Fasting strengthens the will and purifies the body. Like all asceticisms, it may be taken to extremes. The medieval Cathars of Montaillou, when they felt death approaching, would sometimes start the endura, the fast unto death, refusing all nourishment. To maintain such a vow to the end was a highly respected achievement, and deemed a great benefit to the soul. In the more sophisticated environment of the ancient Essenes, a similar practice was usual among the very old who no longer desired life. After bidding farewell to the community they would go alone into a deserted place where there was water, carrying with them a bunch of grapes. Each day they would eat a few grapes, and when those were gone they would drink only water, spending their time in spiritual exercises until a peaceful death supervened. What a contrast to the struggles of modern medicine to keep us alive at any price! The Essenes and the Pythagoreans were supposed to be vegetarians, though in the case of the latter it is doubtful that all schools followed the master’s example. Apart from the obvious motive of foods. Purification, however, could incur dietary rules of a quite compassion towards one’s fellow creatures, vegetarianism has also the purpose of purifying the body from the contaminations of flesh different sort. The Neoplatonic Emperor Julian was not a vegetarian, but he refrained from root vegetables because they bring into the body a downward tendency [Rudolf Steiner would have said the opposite]; from apples for they are too holy; from the pomegranate because it belongs to the Underworld; from dates because they are too solar; from fish because they are not usually sacrificed to the gods, and anyway come from too deep down; and from pigs because they PR mentee ncn cel Pa nd are coarse, earthly, vile creatures, only offered to thechthonic gods vd (Orations v, 175-7). The idea of contaminationalso extends to the company of other humans, Any sensitive personwho does not habitually livein a large modern city knaws what psychic contamination is, and feelsit when in such a hive of humanity. The Desert Fathers put not only the temptations of the city but all human contact behind them as they went off to face themselves and their God. Their physical courage in a wilderness full of dangers was only exceeded by the mental and emotional stamina with which they encountered what they knew as demonic forces- no matter that we might call them projections from the darker realms of the psyche. St Anthony emerged from his ordeal ‘as one initiated into sacred Mysteries’, with knowledge of the unseen world and power over it (Athanasius, Vita S. Antonii 14). Such men (Elegy 33). Traditional Catholicism continued in this practice with did not need the formal initiations of the Mystery cults: they had passed the same gates on their own. Many of the cults made use of mild asceticism for the benefit of those who were content to live, for the most part, a worldly life. had to abstain from meat, wine and sexualintercourse for the Lucius ten days preceding his initiation into the Mysteries of Osiris (Metamorphoses xi, 28), and Propertius complains that his Cynthia is observing a similar period of chastity in preparation for the rites of Isis (I: 7, 9) that ‘it is better to marry than to burn’ — better still not to need the regular fasts throughout the Church’s year, and restrictions on the timing and nature of sexual activity, while the making of retreats is a universal religious observance, giving the advantages of a temporary monasticism. aboveall that distinguishesthe monk’s lifefromthat of © Itis chastity lay people. Ifhe considers birth a tragedy, then the logical response is causing the fall of other human souls into bodies. Some later avoid ‘to Gnostics renounced reproduction altogether, as did the American Shakers in the nineteenth century — and quickly became extinct. But there is another, personal side to chastity. The power to reproduce one’s kind is a marvellous and magical power, and it can be harnessed to other ends. Sexual energy, as the Indian yogis know, is one manifestation of that greater creative energy which can bring about a spiritual birth in higher worlds if it is not used up for pleasure and reproduction in this world. It is this knowledge, generalized and wrongly applied, that has given many un-ascetic religious people their sheepish attitude towards sex. St Paul tells the Corinthians to marry. The sublimated urges of fanatical monks have been spent in

tyranny of their fellows as often as they have lifted them above earthly desires. The belief that sex is a hindrance to spiritual achievement, taken naively, led in ancient times to the grotesque extreme of voluntary castratioThe n. enlightened Christian Father Origen tried this in his reincarnations of these fanatics, who after their castration would youth in the hope of escaping from his desires, and lived to see that it was not the way: indeed, it is specifically forbidden to Christians. Not so to the followers of Cybele and Attis, whose eunuch priests, the Galli, were the most notorious practitioners ofthis parody of continence (see illustration). Perhaps today’s ‘transexuals’ are Je er nn adopt feminine costume and extravagant adornments. The Emperor Domitian in the first century AD made castration a capital crime, but did not succeed in preventing the practice any more than Hadrian, who tried to prohibit circumcision: a symbolic substitute used by ancient Egyptians and Arabs as well as Jews. The Emperor Elagabalus, keen to embrace every cult, is said to have circumcised himself and refrained from eating pork; he further planned to honour the Great Mother by having himself castrated, but either did not live long enough, or changed his mind when he decided to violate a Vestal Virgin. Some of his followers went to the uttermost extreme of renunciation in hurling their most beautiful children to the wild beasts in his temple. It is sometimes difficult, in the world of ascetics, to distinguish sober purification from wilful self-punishment. Juvenal mocks the women devotees of Isis who stand in the icy Tiber or crawl on bleeding knees to her temple (Satire 6, 522-6). Herodotus, at the Isis festival in Busiris, witnessed myriads of people in orgiastic flagellation (History ii, 61). The Gallus in the plate holds a fierce-looking whip in his left hand. The theme of mortification of the flesh runs throughout Christian monasticism: from St Jerome in the desert, beating his ’ breast with astone, through Savonarola’s hair-shirt, to the little scourges issued to modern nuns. And were not the tortures of the Inquisition a forced asceticism, a monstrous perversion of the theme v À ‘Gallus’, Eunuch Priest of the Great Mother. Relief from the Appian Way, mid-second century an. Rome, Capitoline Museum. that the body must suffer if the soul is to go free?

The Path of the Magician The Magi hennen cian’s attitude tothe gulf between body and spirit is to unite not try to erse of which mince them. A believer, like the monk , in a hierarchical univ er E Rar te e our earth is the lowest level, he does TUR abandon n or deny nn the mern — wen mn physical world and body : he uses them . Mindful of the axiom N of Hermes Trismegistus, patron of magical arts: ‘Whatever is above is similarities between all levels of the like to that below: and whatever is below is like to that above’, he respects the correspondences and felt throughout the hier universe. He knows that man is a microcosm, and that even his physical frame is made, in some sense , in God’s image. All the levels of existence mirror one another in struc ture. When the Structures are set in motion, a similar movement.is archy. ~ The most obvious exam ple of this worl d-view is astrology, which assumes that the movements of the planets are reflected in world— events and in the human psyche. A fatal istic believer in astrology resigns himself to an ineluctable destiny, deeming himself no more capable of opposition to the planets than the magnetic needle is able to point away from the North Pole. But the magician, by contrast, exploits the system of correspo ndences, knowing that their tions. Whatever ‘causality’, ifsuch it be, works in both direc is done on earth is mirrored in the heavens: and who can say which is cause, and which effect? Magic is the science of affecting the unseen worlds through Operations conducted on |this one. Thecommonform esoft magic practis ed as a kind of food to ed inthe ancient world was animal sacrifice. Regarded ftom the point of view ofa simple-minded worshithe ppvicti erm’s , life-force is offer the god. (Usually the body would be divi ded between donor and clergy, and eaten: complete incineration was exceptional.) Such a gift incurred an obligation on the god’ s part, or at least encouraged reciprocal favours. As Porphyry categ orizes it, sacrifice can be made for three Purposes; homage, neces sity or gratitude, and none are really disinterested. Regarded esote rically, however, the picture is a little different. Animal sacrifice affects not the true gods, but the sublunary elementals: invisible Spirits who throng the earth’s atmosphere and live on matter of an etheric kind. They may, under his edicts of AD 391, made sacri certain circumstances, render servi ces to men, but they are tricky characters, at best indifferent to huma ns, and not to be relied upon. Hence Christians shunned them, and refused any part in the animal slaughter which attracts them. Cons tantine offered God only flowers and incense, and Theodosius, in to humans. A fice illegal throughout the Empire. Som e contemporary pagan philosophers, notably Porphyry (De Absti nentia ii, 12), also renounced animal killing, thinking that it cannot possibly affect the gods, that its consequences are not favourable special case of sacrifice, and one that belo ngs to another category ioned above. In this ritual of magic, was the faurobolium, already ment bull-slaughter, the vital forces of the bull are poured out with the blood over the devotee. Extraordinar y power was attributed to this act, and those who had undergon e the expe rience were celebrated as ‘eternally reborn’. The taurobolium began as an ordinary bullsacrifice, common in the ancient worl d (cf. Homer’s ‘hecatombs of

Phallic Tintinnabulum. Bronze from Pompeii, c. first century AD. London, British Museum. 24 oxen’), but took on a more religious slant in the second century AD when the bull’s blood was distributed in a kind of communion to the faithful. At the same time the genitals were removed and specially buried: and this connects with the rites of the Great Mother Cybele, recalling and perhaps re-enacting the castration of Attis (see em Chapter X). The full ritual, established c. AD 300, was intended to ee transmute the physical strength of the bull intopsychic energy for the benéfit oftheparticipant or for another assigned by him. Here are two of thefundamental aspects of later magic: the harnessing of the energy ‘inherent in blood, and of sexual ” energy, for defensive, nn offensive or sublimator y purposes. The phallic form of many ancient scene rea charms (see illustration) is similarly a means of bringing the creative and essentially positive power of Nature to aid against the entropic and destructive designs of ‘evil’ forces. The last taurobolium in Rome was celebrated in the late fourth century AD, on the site now occupied by St Peter’s. But ritual bullsacrifice was a regular practice in the more remote areas of Thrace, in northern Greece, well on into the twentieth century. Kakouri (see Bibliography) tells of the nominally Christian body of initiates who, under the patroriage of Saints Helena and Constantine still preside there over fire-walking and phallic fertility dramas. In their bullsacrifice, the unblemished victim had to come of his own free will, and after the slaughter his flesh was partly consumed raw. In a poor society such as existed in Thrace and much of the ancient world, most of the meat ever caten must have been butchered at sacrifices: Homer’s heroes only enjoy it on such occasions. The modern person who reacts with distaste to the idea of animal sacrifice might reflect on the dignity and respect paid to the victim, and to the spiritual intentions surrounding the ceremony, in contrast to the degrading and godless slaughtering practised today. Some pagans defended sacrifice, while recognizing that it cannot possibly affect the eternal gods. Sallust admitted that they gain nothing from it, but that we gain everything (On the Gods 15). Julian encouraged it in his pagan revival, along with the reverence of statues of the gods, as conducive to piety, considering the subjective state of the worshipper to be its justification. One should be eager to offer up one’s best to the gods, he said, just as one should delight in seeing their images (Against the Galilaeans 347C; Letters 293C-D). But representations of the gods are not mere reminders: like the relics of saints and heroes, they have as their purpose the drawing down of celestial influences. The magical charm shown here (see illustration) was worn for protection against the Evil Eye, just like the blue glass charms and medals of saints sold around the Mediterranean today. And the Hecate plaque (see illustration, p. 23) served like a modern radionic device to direct invisible influences on to whatever was placed on the little table in the middle — perhaps a lock ofhair, or fingernail, as in witchcraft. The magic used here was probably ‘grey’, if not actually black. To distinguish white magic from black, one must ask whether it is the intentio of the n magical act to elevate the lower towards a higher plane or goal, or else to exploit the higher forces in order to obtain advantages on the lower level. Apuleius started out meddling with the inferior sort, and got into trouble which he describes in his Apology, but then rose to the higher magic of theurgy. A theurgist is a magician who seeks through his knowledge to align earthly things with the divine order, so that “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” But he cannot join two things so far apart: without an intermedia The late antique ry. theurgists did not believe that they were actually contacting, much less commanding, the gods themselves. They knew that they were dealing with the gooddaemons who fill the links in the chain of being between gods and men. These daemons partake of the characteristics of the gods to which they themselves are devoted, and hence serve as channels for the diferent divine forces to descend to earth. They like to be addressed by the names of their archetypal divinities, and they respond only_to absolutely correct procedures. As lamblichus says, to get the slightest detail of incantat an ion or ceremony wrong can invalidate the entire operation. One might as well try to give a concert with one lyrestring broken (De Mysteriis v, 21). Thesame situation is well known today in the form of ‘natural magic’ which we prefer to call experimental science. TheChristian magical rites — the seven sacraments — are essentially acts of theurgy, in which something on the physical plane (bread, oil, a ring, etc.) is manipulated with certain spoken formulae in order to make changes occur on an invisible or ‘subtle’ plane. Clairvoyants say that changes happen there with an ease and a rapidity denied to physical matter. What is affected is primarily the subtle bodies of the Participants, with the object in view being ideally not material gain but perfection. Through the subtly transmuted elements of water, bread and wine, the Christian sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are believed to draw down the forces of Christ into the souls of the participants. This direct contact with the god is something foreign to the magician, but nothing less is attempted by those on the more direct Path of Love.

The Path of Love „ix Isis nursing Horus, - Terracotta from Herculaneum, c. first century AD. Naples, National Museum. Just as the magician sees all the levels of the untverse linked by a chain of correspondences,thepersonofthe Path of Lovesees themjoined” by mutual zal affection. /Accordingto his world-view,Godso>loves the worldthat he or she sends the divine influences down into its very depths, cherishing every creature with a more than motherly love (see illustration). Conversely, man can so love God that he is raised to divine union. The ultimate objectis ‘nothingelse than existingin God. himself’ (St Gregory of Nyssa). Like all humanbeings, the_ devotee startsout on hispath5sundered from his objectofadoration,andhis_ lifelong aspiration is towards closing thegap. In the je end the lover is no longer distinct 1from the beloved, the two are become one, and the differencein levelsis transcended. This is fully as miraculous as the magicaljoining ofheaven and earth: even more so, since the magician has the benefit of a scientific system, while the lover works only with _ the power within his own soul. Heis nothing, Godis everything, as he seeks the absorption of the part into the whole, of the human fragmentinto the One. A Hermetic fragment puts the idea of union very vividly: ‘Come into me, Hermes, as children come into women’s wombs. I know thee, Hermes, and thou knowest me: Iam thou, and thou art I...” (Kenyon, Greek Papyri, I, p. 116). But these are the higher flights of advanced mystics who have no need for an anthropomorphic intermediary between themselves and theDivine. Most devotees address an image of the god, made with ‘hands or the inner eye, and conceive him or her as having at least some human traits: hence the many saviours and heroes describedin these pages. Unlike the gods of Olympus, the Mystery gods have usually _ suffered pain, loss or death, and this gives them compassion for our own sufferings andjoys. Osiris, Orpheus, Hercules, Christ, Dionysus, ‘Attis and Adonis were all slain and resurrected. But of all the gods of the Mystery religions, perhaps the best-loved was Isis — loved for her warm humanity and for incarnating all the best aspects of woman as lover, wife, mother and widow. Apuleius or his fictional character Lucius,on renouncing his debauched past, recognizes the true consummation of eres in mystic union with her, and devotes himself x L from Rom _Lond © to her service much as a medieval knight would swear fealty to the. Virgin Mary. In her epiphany to him, she assures him that she is. everything and everywhere: ‘You will worship me even in Hades’ (Metamorphoses xi, 6).All the Mystery gods descended to the underworld, too, to redeem ‘those incarcerated there. The same idea “‘Oecurs inthe Buddhist system, where every world, even Hell, contains a Boddhisattva. Nowherein the universe is love absent from him who truly opens himself toit. oe “Isis was an indulgent mistress, imposing no particular morality beyond the natural inclinations of good men. ‘Love, and do what thou wilt’ might have been her motto, for love will turn all to good. But those on the Path of Love often become acutely aware of the impurity and unworthiness of the human state, and are hence drawn also to the path of purification and ascesis. They then manifest a blend of self-denial and adoration such as was later to become so characteristic of Christian saints. Ifonehadtosingle out one paramount feature that distinguished all the Mystery cults from other religions of their period, it would be that they sought a personal relationship with their gods. Consequently the attitude of their devotees to the gods was one of love rather than of fear or indifferent manipulation. The motive of much primitive religion seems to be to get rid of the gods, and by fair means or foul to prevent them from troubling mankind. For the Mystery religions the motive is quite the contrary: it is to get closer to them, recognizing them as man’s best friends. The Maenads of Dionysus (see illustration) are more than that even: the god is their lover. One of the tasks of Christ was to open this path of direct intimacy with God to

through the barriers of race every person without distinction, cutting rary with him. empo cont and class like many of the cults does not necessarily call for gods the to ion devot h loving 5 The patof sens inte mediaries, but_in_ actual n inter man any external_ceremonies_or huma more of the other paths, practice it is usually combined with one or the ss are used to further the progress of ation al and initi nd ritu CRE is in any way peculiar to Christianity, aspirant. One such means, not on his ilation to thegod holy communion, in which the goal of assim plane. Dionysus was this on him of on ilati assim level is furthered by lically but actually, in the believed to be present, not merely symbo umed. A Persian Mithraic wine and raw flesh which his devotees cons states that ‘he who will s, word ’s text, amazingly reminiscent ofJesus that he will be made so , blood my of not eat of my body and drink shall not know salvation.’ The of communion, too, for initiates of Cybele and Attis had some form ourine: I have drunk from they declared: ‘I have eaten from the tamb — but what they ate or them “the cymbal’ — the instruments sacred to drank we do not know. union is that as a sacred meal it prefigures Another aspect of comm eme ne the celestial banquet which the blessed are thought to me enjoy in heaven, Serapis, Mithras, or other in the eternal presence of Christ, to ries went further banqueting saviours. Some of the Myste of heaven by inducing unworldly states. anticipate the ambience fully than it does Wine probably affected the ancients far more power the sober © water), but even us (they seldom drank it unmixed with festivals (Laws 7758): sian Plato allows intoxication at the Diony xi Abduction of a Leucippid. Stucco decoration, first century Ap. Rome, Porta Maggiore Basilica. sobriety of men’ (Phaedrus ‘Rather the madness of the god than the t be elevated through migh s sense five all 244D). In the Mysteries, to say nothing of drugs, in wine, music, lights, incense and sexuality, and encourage hopes of order to create an unforgettable experience the things and people view, heavenly bliss. According to the Platonic n: we love them reaso same the for that we love on earth are sent us which we came, from ise parad the of souls because they remind our Neoplatonists applied and to which we may eventually return. The fy the love-life of the gods. this doctrine to mythology in order to justi by the Dioscuri (see en The abduction of the Leuccipid wom by the illustration), for example, denotes the seizure of the soul its sole joy is to live in the irresistible forces of divine love, after which house of the Lord for ever. ? their human relations When Christ urged his followers to ‘hate’ (Luke 14, 26), he was likewise before they could become his disciples ly affections to a divine earth their fer demanding that they trans object. Far from inducing hatred, this only serves to make a person for he now more loving in his transactions with mankind, shares in So Christ in his the reciprocal action of the gods’ love for all men. y well say, ‘Love Sermon on the Mount (see illustration) could equall admit that there, ns religio all Nearly 44). 5, your enemies’ (Matthew stage of spiritual a d reache have who se univer the in are beings e to us, some of whom make it ion inconceivabl evolut IT De a ma w one with me and I with him, the same their work to Christ was one; the help lower creatures such as mankind. The s are others. Bodhisattvas of Buddhism and the Avatars of the Hindu d to this and descen may they love divine truly Out of compassion and For such body. human a of n burde e the on tak and other earths of nailing a ixion: beings, physical incarnation is a veritable crucif c esoteri the is This ts. elemen their divinity to the fourfold cross of the | cross. the on death ic symbol his of and us, s love for Christ' ofe meaning e m RAT at ey RWG LAW