Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. II (the Corpus Hermeticum) — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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3. All men have in them "reason" (the ray of the Eeason or Logos), but as yet few have " Mind." This " mind " is the true Son of Mind, it is the real man, the perfect man, self-conscious of his Self. This true Self-consciousness is the prize set up for souls to win : the crown of humanity, the Christ-state (or, at any rate, the super-man or true man state).
The Christ-Baptism is the plunging of the whole nature into the Mind-filled Cup, — the Pleroma of the Divine Being whose Body and Mind are one, — for is not the Cup the Body of God, " consecrated unto Himself alone" (§ 1), the Universal Body of all things ?
THE HOLY GRAIL
It would be fascinating to speculate on what connection this Cup of Initiation may have had with the Mystic Eucharist, and the Original of the later Grailtradition, which a great master of music and song has in our days made to live again in undying melody, and so restored it to its more universal significance. How Wagner sensed the marvel of the wondrous Vision with a poet's intuition may be seen from his own words :
" To the enraptured gaze of one longing for celestial love, the clear blue atmosphere of heaven seems at first to condense itself into a wonderful, scarcely perceptible, but dazzlingly beautiful Vision. Then with gradually increasing precision the wonder-working angelic host is delineated in infinitely delicate outlines, as, conveying the holy vessel in its midst, it insensibly descends from the blazing heights of heaven. As the vision grows more and more distinct, . . . the heart throbs with the pain of ecstasy ; . . . and when at last the Grail shows itself in the marvel of undraped reality, . . . the beholder's brain reels — he falls down in a state of adoring annihilation. . . . With chaste rejoicing the angelic host then returns to the heavenly height, fading away into the nothingness whence it first emanated."
But for the Seers of the Gnosis there was a more intimate realization, for they were bidden to cast aside all hesitation and fearlessly to plunge themselves into the very Cup Itself, the Ocean of Divine Love and Wisdom.
This was the Proclamation or Preaching
or Good Tidings, of the Herald of God to men, to those who had the Living Faith they could "ascend to Him who had sent down the Cup," God's Greatest Gift.
By such a Baptism as this, not by a symbolic sprinkling with water, is it that man is to be redeemed. This is the consummation of man's earthly pilgrimage, the realization of the " Gnosis of the Mind, Vision of things Divine ; God- knowledge is it ; for the Cup is God's."
THE " HATING OF THE BODY "
6. In § 6 we have given us a discipline of the mystic way, the " hating of the body," which is by no means to be taken literally.
A misunderstanding of this discipline led many of the mystics of the time (and, for a matter of that, has led most of the mystics of all time) to the false belief that the body (or matter generally) was the source of evil. Hence we have all the mortifications and chastisements of the flesh which the monkish spirit introduced into Christendom, and which persist in some quarters even to our own day. Against this the Common Sense of Christianity as a general religion, basing itself on the general utterances of the Christ, has ever protested.
Our mystic philosopher, in urging his disciples to hate the body, apparently does so because they are in the first stages of awakening, and so far have not got the " Mi ad " active in them.
In taking the first steps there must be developed a consciousness of the strong antithesis of good and evil, of love and hate, in order that the will of the disciple may be strengthened towards the good and weakened towards the bad.
When, however, his will is balanced between the two, when he as easily wills good as evil, then, and not till then, is he prepared to learn the further great lesson: that real wisdom consists in balance, in the Middle Way ; that nothing is evil in itself — the Body is as honourable in its own sphere, as absolutely necessary and indispensable, as is the Mind in its.