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

And if we say that this Wisdom. has come down to us in Greek tradition, we should ever remember that this Graecising or philosophising has to do with the form and not with the substance. For whence did Thales and Pythagoras and Plato draw the inspiration for their philosophy or love of wisdom; was it not from Egypt ? At anyrate so say the Greeks themselves without a single dissentient voice. And can we think that the Greeks, who were always so proud of their own achievements and boasted their own genius so loudly, would have given the palm of wisdom to Egypt had they not been compelled by overwhelming evidence to do so ? But this does not mean that we are to deprive Hellas of her just laurels. Hellas was the mother of philosophy in the sense of systematic thinking and the development of the analytic reason This is her great virtue and honour ; independent research, and the piercing analysis of the intellect and the beauty of clear thinking in excellent expression, were her gifts to the Western world. It was she beyond the other nations that created for herself a subtler vehicle of thought for the manifestation of the powers of mental analysis. That, however, is not necessarily in itself wisdom, but the perfecting of an instrument whereby wisdom, if it be attained by other means, may be the more clearly expressed for those in whom the analytic faculties are being developed.

Wisdom transcends this mode of mind ; for ratiocination is not ecstasis, the practical intelligence is not the contemplative mind. Nor is mind, using it as contrasted with the other faculties and energies and powers in man, the only or even the highest thing in man. This Secret of the Sphinx Egypt had possessed for millennia ; so that her priests could say to Solon : "You Greeks are all children" — for the intellect in Greece was young, though destined to grow into a giant; whereas the hoary Gnosis of the heart of man was prior to the aeons, and will continue when the aeons shall cease.

That Gnosis of Man still awaits decipherment in Egypt ; it is hidden in her glyphs and symbols and holy signs. But that Gnosis will never yield its secret to those who persist in interpreting these symbols of the Language of the Gods into their lower forms, forms intended for children and not for men. And indeed our Trismegistic sermons, if they should teach us nothing else, can at least assure us of this, for their writers were still ear to mouth with the Living Voice of that once Great Church of Wisdom. Our Poemandrists knew what the mystery-tradition inculcated ; they knew, for they had been within the holy shrines.

At anyrate for my part I prefer to believe their view of the matter, than to listen to the contemptuous patronage of modern conceit bred of complete ignorance of the manifold natures and powers and energies in man.

OF INITIATION

Indeed the whole of this theosophy of Egypt, as indeed of the theosophy of all climes and times, was intended to lead a man up the stairway of perf ectioning, to the portals of the first true natural initiation, whereby he becomes superman, or, as Hermes would say, at last and in truth "man" and not a "procession of Fate." Beyond that stage are many others too sublime for us in any way to understand ; and it is just because of their sublimity that we do not understand and so we " interpret " things of the height into the lowest notions and opinions of the most limited things of sense. For beyond the superman stage comes the Christ, and then — but who shall speak of that which transcends even perfected master-hood ?

And by initiation, in this sense, we do not mean probationary forms of drama and of instruction, "of things said and done," but a natural thing and process, all that which the Christ of Christendom has laboured to inculcate with so much wisdom even in the blurred record that has come down to us. To this initiation a man may come without a physical guide or the help of any tradition of formal ceremony. Nevertheless, he would indeed be foolish who should say that the greater mystery-institutions which have been established by wise teachers and the Providence of God, have been or are of no effect.