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After describing the division of the Mysteries into lesser and greater, he goes on :—- ““We must again acknowledge the impossibility of determining with precision the notions which the Epopts (the initiates of the greater Mysteries) received ; but that connexion which we have ascertained between the initiations and the true source of all our knowledge sufhces to prove that they not only acquired from them just notions respecting the Divinity—thé relations between man and the Divinity—the primitive dignity of human nature—its fall—the immortality of the soul —the means of its return towards God, and finally another order of things after death, but that traditions were imparted to them, oral and even written, precious remains of the great shipwreck of humanity.”’ He also contends with great force :— “It is not in fact probable that the superior initia- tion was limited to the demonstration of the Unity of God and the immortality of the soul by philosophical arguments. Clement, of Alexandria, expressly says. 362 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUT. when speaking of the great Mysteries, ‘Here ends all instruction ; we behold Nature and things.’ Besides, moral notions were so widely diffused that the Mysteries could not, merely on account of them, lay claim to the magnificent eulogiums bestowed by the most enlight- ened personages of antiquity. For if we suppose that the revelation of those truths had been the only object of the Mysteries, would they not have ceased to exist from the moment when those truths were publicly taught ? Would Pindar, Plato, Cicero, Epictetus have spoken of them with such admiration if the Hierophant had satisfied himself with loudly proclaiming his own opinions, or those of his order, on truths with which they were themselves acquainted ?”’ It is often urged by writers who would disparage the Mysteries that they were sometimes associated with licentious excesses. ‘This objection has especial refer- ence to the Orphic Mysteries, and on this subject Ouvaroff writes : “We have already mentioned that the Mysteries of Bacchus bear a character altogether different from that of the Eleusinian. This opposition strikes us at once, and what conformity could in fact subsist between the savage licentiousness of the Bacchus worship and the severe character and high destination of the worship of Ceres? Yet after a serious examination we find that this opposition consists rather in the exterior than in the spirit of the two worships; nay, it entirely dis- appears when we raise ourselves to the parent idea, the true type of the two institutions. If we do not obstin- ately persuade ourselves that Ceres and Bacchus were THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 363 historical personages—if we consider them as originally two symbols of some power of the universe, we behold them so identified that no other difference exists but in the exterior form, that is in the part depending wholly on men, on local circumstances, and the political destinies of nations. The worship of Ceres and the worship of Bacchus must belong to one principle alone, and this principle is found in the active force of Nature, viewed in the imimense variety of its functions and its attributes.” A dignified treatise on the Mysteries, by W. M. Ramsay, is to be found in the ninth edition of the ‘‘ Encyclopedia Britannica.’’ The author begins, it is true, by speaking with respect of Lobeck’s great work, the ‘“‘ Aglaophamus ”’ (1829), in which that author nedeavours to destroy the theory that the Mysteries “enshrined a primitive revelation of divine truth,” but he recognises the weakness of some of I,obeck’s arguments, and especially points out that additional evidence has been accumulated since his time, ‘‘ making it certain that statements which Lobeck set aside as not referring to the Eleusinian religion do really relate to it.” The article is to be regarded as representing the severely erudite view of the subject brought up to date, and it is in no way inspired with any appreciation of the psychic aspect of the Mysteries. But all the more on that account it may be useful as showing how much serious dignity and grandeur of thought is seen to be associated with them. Mr. Ramsay writes: “The saving and healthy effect of the Eleusinian 364 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Mysteries was believed in not only by the mass of the people but by many of the most thoughtful and educated intellects—Pindar, Sophocles, Socrates, Plutarch, &c. Plato, who finds no language too strong to stigmatise the demoralising effect of the Orphic Mysteries, speaks of the Eleusinian with great respect. . . . He that has been initiated has learned what will ensure his happiness hereafter. . . . According to Sopater, initiation establishes a kinship of the soul with the divine Nature; and Theon Smyrnzus says that the final stage of initiation is the state of bliss and Divine favour which results from it. . . There is over- whelming proof in ancient writers that the effect of the Mysteries was not dependent on any dogmatic instruc- tion. Even the doctrine of a future life, which is always associated in the old writers with the Mysteries, was not-expressly inculcated in them, but left to the spec- tators to gather for themselves froin the spectacle pre- sented to them.” The serious view of the Mysteries suggested by all these quotations brings them into line with what we now call Theosophic teaching, and with the help of that teaching we can fill up all gaps in the explanation. In the ancient world the priests were really qualified to impart religious teaching by reason of being themselves in true psychic relation with fountains of superior wisdom. But the state of evolution of the humanity around them made it impossible for them to proclaim their knowledge to the multitude. The spiritual civilisa- tion of the people at large was not such as would have prepared them to accept and profit by the pure ethical severity of occult wisdom. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 365 In saying that I brush the surface of a problem that might be dealt with more fully, but it is enough for the moinent to indicate the motives for reserve which are easily intelligible as actuating the ancient custodians of spiritual science. By the operation of natural laws that are plainly referred to in many biblical passages not always apprehended correctly, knowledge concerning the possibilities of spiritual progress greatly augments responsibility. A human being who has never been enabled or compelled to realise that he has it in his own power, if he lives a sufficiently ennobled life, to rise in the scale of existence to conditions superior to that of the commonplace human life around him, does not incur great moral responsibility in leading a less noble life. If he does wrong, natural laws will entail suffering upon him, if not in the life in which he sins, then in another; if he does right, he will be rewarded sooner or later with happiness ; and this will happen whether he understands the law or not. But if in any way he acquires spiritual knowledge and appreciates the scope of his opportunities as a human being and the law which renders certain lines of conduct favourable to, and certain other lines antagonistic to, his higher development, then if he follows the lower path while really seeing the higher, it is much worse for him than if he had never seen it. So the wise priests of old—in the days when priests were really wise and studied the mysteries of Nature instead of fantastic rituals—forebore from pouring out their knowledge too recklessly into vessels ill-qualified to contain it. Modern objectors often fail to understand the motive 366 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. of their reticence, unfamiliar with the notion that religion can be a more powerful agency than we find it now. Our churches have forgotten all that religion once represented, except the glittering generalities that may lightly be scattered abroad because they tell so little. Those who believe may be the better, and those who do not, but may still assimilate some morsels of good precept, can hardly be the worse. The Masters of the Mysteries had a different kind of teaching to deal with. They had to put those who were qualified on the path of upward spiritual progress. It is the main purpose of this book to try and explain to what that progress may lead, but at all events if it is merely taken for granted that it may lead to something, then the other- wise unintelligible secrecy of the Mysteries will be seen to have had a comprehensible theory. In Egypt—where most occult students will see reason to believe that the Mysteries meant more than in the Grecian reproduction—their secrets seem to have been even more closely kept. Sir Gardner, who has so patiently elaborated every scrap of evidence that could throw light on the manners and social and religious life of the early Egyptians, is very frank in avowing the great difficulty he experiences in working out any information bearing on the secrets of initiation. He bears his testimony, however, to the earnestness of the current feeling on the subject. | ‘““ The Chief cause of the ascendancy they (the priests) acquired over the minds of the people was the import- ance attached to the Mysteries, to a thorough under- standing of which the priests alone could arrive, and so THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.