The Cloud upon the Sanctuary — Karl von Eckartshausen

We have been moralizing in varied words for centuries, but the world remains pretty much the same. A doctor would do but little good in talking only of his remedies, it is necessary for him actually to prescribe his medicines; he has, however, first to see the real state of the sick person.

The condition of humanity—the moral sickness of man—is a true case of poisoning, consequent upon the eating of the fruit of the tree in which corruptible matter had the superiority.

The first effect of this poison resulted thus: the incorruptible principle, the body of life as opposed to the body of sin or death, whose expansion caused the perfection of Adam, concentrated itself inwardly, and the external part was abandoned to the government of the elements. Hence a mortal matter gradually covered the immortal essence, and the loss of this central light was the cause subsequently of all man's sufferings.

Communication with the world of light was interrupted, the interior eye which had the power of seeing truth objectively was closed, and the physical eye opened to the plane of changing phenomena.

Man lost all true happiness, and in this unhappy condition he would have for ever lost all means of restoration to health were it not that the love and mercy of God, who had no other object in creation but the greatest happiness for its creatures, immediately afforded to fallen man a means of recovery. In this means, he, with all posterity, had the right to trust, in order that while still in his state of banishment, he might support his misfortune with humility and resignation, and, moreover, find in his pilgrimage the great consolation, that every corruptible thing in man could be restored perfectly through the love of a Saviour.

Despair would have been the fate of man without such revelation.

Man, before the Fall, was the living Temple of Divinity, and at the time when this Temple was destroyed, the plan to rebuild the Temple was already projected by the Wisdom of God; and at this period begin the Holy Mysteries of every religion, which are all and each in themselves, after a thousand varying modes, according to time and circumstances, and method of conception of different nations, but symbols repeated and modified of one solitary truth, and this unique truth is—regeneration, or the re-union of man with God.

Before the Fall man was wise, he was united to Wisdom; after the Fall he was no longer one with Her, hence a true science through express Revelation became absolutely necessary.

The Revelation was the following:—

The condition of immortality consists in immortality permeating the mortal. Immortal substance is divine substance, and is no other than the magnificence of the Almighty throughout nature, the substance of the world and spirits, the infinity, in short, of God in whom all things move and have their being.

It is an immutable law, no creature can be truly happy when separated from the source of all happiness. This source, this in whom, is the magnificence of God Himself.

Through the partaking of destructible nourishment, man himself became destructible and material; matter, therefore, as it were places itself between God and man, that is to say, man is not directly penetrated and permeated by divinity, and, in consequence, he is thenceforth subject to, and falls under the dominion of, the laws regulating matter.

The divine in man, imprisoned by the bonds of this matter, is his immortal part, the part that should be at liberty, in order that its development should once again rule the mortal. Then once more does man regain his original greatness.

But a means for his cure, and a method to externalize what is now hidden and concealed within, is requisite. Fallen and unwise man of himself can neither know nor grasp this expedient; he cannot even recognise it, because he has lost pure knowledge and the light of true wisdom; he cannot take hold of it, because this remedy is infolded in interior nature, and he has neither the strength or power to unlock this hidden force.

Hence Revelation to learn this means, and strength to acquire this power, are necessary to man.

This necessity for the salvation of man was the cause of the determination of Wisdom, or the Son of God, to give Himself to be known by man, being the pure substance out of which all has been made. In this pure substance all power is reserved to vivify all dead substance, and to purify all that is impure.