Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

In treating of the "Keligion of the Mind/' of the Gnosis of Thrice-greatest Hermes, I have endeavoured to enter into it as I conceive the Disciples of that Way entered into it, with love and reverence. I would do the same with any other of the Great Keligions of Humanity (and have done so in some cases), if I desired fervently, all prejudices and predilections apart, I will not say, to understand it — for what mortal mind can grasp the Divine Revelation in any of its Great Forms? — but to share, however imperfectly, in its illumination. Now, this attitude of mind and love of God and man is strongly deprecated by those who fear to stand accused of lack of loyalty to their own particular form of that Great Form of Faith which God has given for their guidance. The one object of their enquiries into other Great Forms of Faith is to " prove " that their own small form of the Great Form to which they give allegiance, is the end of all ends, and the highest of all heights, and that the other countless forms are of the Enemy of their God. My God, or rather God, for He is the Father of all, has no enemies ; He has many sons, all brethren, and loves them equally even though they refuse to believe Him. There is but one Religion, its Great Forms are many, the forms of these Forms are innumerable, as many as are the individual minds and hearts of men, and the many hearts and minds of individual man.

And here I would set forth my present all-insufficient notion of the Great Form of .Religion known as Christianity, for there will doubtless be some who read these volumes who will accuse me of I know not what attitude other than that of their own to that Faith.

My faith in the Master of Christendom is unbounded ; I dare not limit it or qualify it — for that Master is for me the Mind of all master-hood, Premandres Himself. For how can any small mind of man dare to limit the Illimitable, the Mystery of all mysteries, that enfolded Jesus the Christ, and Gautama the Buddha, and Zoroaster the Mage, and Lao-tze the Sage, and Orpheus the Bard, and Pythagoras the Philosopher, and Hermes the Gnostic, and all and every Master and Master of masters ? Do I detract from the transcendency of Jesus the Christ, when I mention His Brethren, all Sons of God ? I do not, for the Sons of God are not separate and apart, set over one against the other ; they are all one Sonship of the Father, and these apparent differences must be left to those who think themselves wise enough to judge between them — instructed enough to know the within of the matter as well as the without, which in no case has come down to us in any but the most fragmentary and erroneous tradition. I do not know ; I dare not judge those who are Judges of the quick and dead. And so I leave this audacity to those who would forget the logos of their Saviour : "Judge not."

If, nevertheless, I am still judged as a " calumniator " by some, it is but natural injustice and quite understandable. There is, however, no real Injustice in the universe, and he who would be Justified and rise again with Osiris, must balance mortal seeming justice and injustice to reach the true equilibrium, and so be free of mortal opinion, and stand in the Hall of Truth. It is to the bar of this Judgment Hall that all men in the last resort appeal, whether they be born Christian or Mahommedan, Brahman or Jew, Buddhist or Taoist, Zoroastrian or Pagan — or whether they be born to a manner of faith that is none of these, or to an ideal of faith that includes them all.