Traces of a Hidden Tradition In Masonry and Medieval Mysticism

To those who wish to understand the reason of this steady recurrence of mystic tradition in every century, these studies may be of some use. They will serve as literary landmarks to guide the seeker to those distant sources whence flow faint echoes of divine truths--the heritage of the divine human race; truths that bring dim memories to the soul which are its highest impulse, and give the clue that guides it to the inner "science of the soul"--the mystic quest of all the saints, and the hidden truth that all religions have tried to teach, and which only a few in each religion have ever realized.

Mystics, visionaries, dreamers of vain dreams have been the names which the scoffers have always thrown at those who counted the world as nought compared with the treasure of the unseen life, and who devoted their lives to this divine science, and tried to reach an understanding of its laws. And as we trace out the records of the past it will be clearly seen that the Theosophical development is but another link in a wondrous chain of mystic teaching which stretches far back into the night of time. Such a claim must be proved and its pretensions shown to be accurate, but it is only by careful researches in the historical dust-bins of the middle-ages that these data can be disinterred, and the chain of evidence rendered complete. Then it becomes evident that Theosophy is that glorious wisdom-religion which includes in its scope all religions and all philosophies.

And as we piece together the fragments of these historical relics, they waken delicate memories of the divine dreamer Dionysius the Areopagite, hallowed echoes of John Scotus Erigena, and thus we come face to face with the holy secrets of tender mystical souls who sought the true meaning of life. We get strange glimpses of the intense devotion of the scholastic divines, and monks to whom the unseen life was an intense and vital reality.

The thoughts of Averroes and the Arabian mystics emerge--they who brought much of the Eastern truth and who founded the great occult schools of the once glorious Toledo, whence flowed a stream of thought, which formed the very life and soul of the heresies--so-called--of the Middle Ages. Nor may we omit the lore of the Eastern and Syrian monasteries to whom the books of Dionysius had taken the wisdom of Plotinus. Nor can the troubadours be passed by, the singers of mystic songs, and carriers of occult knowledge.

Singers, scholars, saints, and martyrs, a goodly array of men and women, all seeking the soul, and the soul's true world. Looked at from without, such a view appears like a worn mosaic pavement, broken, defaced, with many gaps lacking to make a perfect picture, and yet as we search and piece the apparently broken fragments the design begins to unfold itself, and finally the picture may be traced in perfect outline. For at the back of all these varying streams of thought there may be found one centre whence all diverge, and that great fount was named in ancient India, Brahma-Vidyâ, the Theosophia of the Neo-Platonists.

This ancient Wisdom Religion is the "thread-soul" on which are strung all the various incarnations and encasements of the religious life, adapted to the changing conditions and developments of humanity in its growth from childhood to manhood. Begotten by that spiritual Hierarchy in whose guardianship is the evolution of the human race, brought forth from them, they, the guardians of the mystic tradition, give to those children of men who are strong enough for the burden, a portion of the real teaching of the Divine Science concerning God and man, and the wonderful relationship that exists between the two.

With the passing of time the old orders changed, old forms perished, and the divine Sun that shone on the ever-changing screen of time veiled itself in new hues, and gathered into new groupings the humanity of the Western races, and each century which rolled by evolved a new phase of the ancient mystic tradition. In the olden days men fought for their faiths, for they identified the form with that divine Life which lies at the back of all forms, and the changing of an outward veil shook their belief in the Holy Spirit, which it did but shroud. They feared change and sought to crystallize the Spirit, and this fear of change gave rise to that tenacious hold on outward ceremonies which has wrought so much evil in all the religions of the world.

Religious parties, secret societies, sects of every description, such is the shifting panorama of the religious life of Europe during the last eighteen hundred years, and as we glance back from our present standpoint, it is difficult at times to discern the mystic traditions, so loud is the clamour of contending sects over their formal doctrines, the outward expressions of their inner faith.