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Martinists, Gnostics, Kabbalists, and a score of orders or fraternities of which we vaguely hear about the period of the French Revolution, began to manifest great activity; periodicals of a mystical tendency not spiritualistic, not neo-theosophical, but Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and theurgic were established, and met with success; books which had grievously weighted the shelves of their publishers for something like a quarter of a century were suddenly in demand, and students of distinction on this side of the channel were attracted towards the new centre.
But, laying aside mathematical formulæ, we may say that because the Infinite is infinite there can be no limit to the extent to which the vital principle of growth may draw upon it, and therefore there is no limit to the expansion of the individual's powers. Because we are what we are, we may become what we will. The Kabbalists tell us of "the lost word," the word of power which mankind has lost.
The Old Testament and the Koran have been so treated by Kabbalists and Sufis. But in Madhva's commentaries we see the opposite and probably rarer method. Pantheistic texts are twisted until they are made to express uncompromising monotheism.
Indeed it may be said that in monotheistic creeds the most thoughtful and devout minds often tend towards Pantheism, as witness the Sufis among Moslims, the Kabbalists among the Jews and many eminent mystics in the Christian Church.
Zoroasterism may or may not have had a past, it is perhaps evident that it had a future. An inscription chiselled in the red granite of Ekbatana describes Ormuzd as creator of heaven and earth. In the Veda the description of Indra is identical. It was applied equally to Jahveh in Judea. But above Jahveh, Kabbalists discerned En Soph. Above Indra metaphysicians discovered Brahma.
He was, so I discovered during the evening, particularly well versed in the mystical writers, in the writings of the Kabbalists and the books of the inspired Northman, Swedenborg. As we sat drinking our coffee at one of the little tables in the spacious courtyard, I revived the motive of a new religion.
And the Kabbalists, from whom the above is taken, also speak of four Rabbis; and these four Rabbis sought the secret path to the divine. The first died; the second lost his reason; the third caused monstrous evils, and only the fourth, Rabbi Akiba, went in and out of the spiritual world in peace.
His mentor allayed his fears, and long continued to instruct him in the mystical science, according to the system his disciple has recorded in his two works. The Kabbalists in general were possessed of the power to cite Elijah, to conjure him up by means of certain formulas. One of them, Rabbi Joseph della Reyna, once called upon Elijah in this way, but it proved his own undoing.
It contained a kind of pantheistic theology closely analogous to those of Porphyry and Iamblichus, as well as processes of magic mingled with astrology. The Kabbalists believe that the sage, who by his astrological knowledge is brought into relation with the celestial powers, can affect nature, alter the course of phenomena, and work miracles.
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