THE YOGA OF THE WEST

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1. Very few students of occultism know anything at all about the fountain-head
whence their tradition springs. Many of them do not even know there is a
Western Tradition. Scholarship is baffled by the intentional blinds and defences
with which initiates both ancient and modern have wrapped themselves about,
and concludes that the few fragments of a literature which have come down to us
are medieval forgeries. They would be greatly surprised if they knew that these
fragments, supplemented by manuscripts that have never been allowed to pass
out of the hands of initiates, and completed by an oral tradition, are handed down
in schools of initiation to this day, and are used as the bases of the practical work
of the Yoga of the West.
2. The adepts of those races whose evolutionary destiny is to conquer the physical
plane have evolved a Yoga technique of their own which is adapted to their
special problems and peculiar needs. This technique is based upon the well-
known but little understood Qabalah, the Wisdom of Israel.
3. It may be asked why it is that the Western nations should go to the Hebrew
culture for their mystical tradition? The answer to this question will be readily
understood by those who are acquainted with the esoteric theory concerning
races and sub-races. Everything must have a source. Cultures do not spring out of
nothing. The seed-bearers of each new phase of culture must of necessity arise
within the preceding culture. No one can deny that Judaism was the matrix of the
European spiritual culture when they recall the fact that Jesus and Paul were both
Jews. No race except the Jewish race could possibly have served as the stock upon
which the new dispensation was to be grafted because no other race was
monotheistic. Pantheism and polytheism had had their day and a new and more
spiritual culture was due. The Christian races owe their religion to the Jewish
culture as surely as the Buddhist races of the East owe theirs to the Hindu culture.
4. The mysticism of Israel supplies the foundation of modern Western occultism.
It forms the theoretical basis upon which all ceremonial is developed. Its famous
glyph, the Tree of Life, is the best meditation symbol we possess because it is
the most comprehensive.
5. It is not my intention to write a historical study of the sources of the
Qabalah, but rather to show the uses that are made of it by modern students
of the Mysteries. For although the roots of our system are in tradition, there is
no reason why we should be hidebound by tradition. A technique that is being
actually practised is a growing thing, for the experience of each worker
enriches it and becomes part of the common heritage.
6. It is not necessarily incumbent upon us to do certain things or hold certain
ideas because the Rabbis who lived before Christ had certain views. The world
has moved on since those days and we are under a new dispensation but what
was true in principle then will be true in principle now, and of value to us. The
modern Qabalist is the heir of the ancient Qabalist, but he must reinterpret
doctrine and reformulate method in the light of the present dispensation if
the heritage he has received is to be of any practical value to him.
7. I do not claim that the modern Qabalistic teachings as I have learnt them
are identical with those of the pre-Christian Rabbis, but I claim that they are
the legitimate descendants thereof and the natural development therefrom.
8. The nearer the source the purer the stream. In order to discover first
principles we must go to the fountain-head. But a river receives many
tributaries in the course of its flow, and these need not necessarily be
polluted. If we want to discover whether they are pure or not, we compare
them with the pristine stream, and if they pass this test they may well be
permitted to mingle with the main body of waters and swell their strength. So
it is with a tradition: that which is not antagonistic will be assimilated. We
must always test the purity of a tradition by reference to first principles, but
we shall equally judge of the vitality of a tradition by its power to assimilate. It
is only a dead faith which remains uninfluenced by contemporary thought.
9. The original stream of Hebraic mysticism has received many tributaries.
We see its rise among the nomad star-worshippers of Chaldea, where
Abraham in his tent among his flocks hears the voice of
God. But Abraham has a shadowy background in which vast forms move half-
seen. The mysterious figure of a great priest-king, “born without father,
without mother, without descent; having neither beginning of days nor end of
life,” administers to him the first Eucharistic feast of bread and wine after the
battle with the Kings in the valley, the sinister Kings of Edom, “who ruled ere
there was a king in Israel, whose kingdoms are unbalanced force.”
10. Generation by generation we trace the intercourse of the princes of Israel
with the priest-kings of Egypt. Abraham and Jacob went thither; Joseph and
Moses were intimately associated with the court of the royal adepts. When we
read of Solomon sending to Hiram, King of Tyre, for men materials to aid in
the building of the Temple we know that the famous Tyrian Mysteries must
have profoundly influenced the Hebrew esotericism. When we read of Daniel
being educated in the palaces of Babylon we know that the wisdom of the
Magi must have been accessible to Hebrew illuminati.
11. This ancient mystical tradition of the Hebrews possessed three literatures:
the Books of the Law and the Prophets, which are known to us as the Old
Testament; the Talmud, or collection of learned commentaries thereon; and
the Qabalah, or mystical interpretation thereof. Of these three the ancient
Rabbis say that the first is the body of the tradition, the second its rational
soul, and the third its immortal spirit. Ignorant men may with profit read the
first; learned men study the second; but the wise meditate upon the third. It is
a strange thing that Christian exegesis has never sought the keys to the Old T
estament in the Qabalah.
12. In Our Lord’s day there were three schools of religious thought in
Palestine: the Pharisees and the Sadducees, of whom we read so frequently in
the Gospels; and the Essenes, who are never referred to. Esoteric tradition
avers that the boy Jesus ben Joseph, when His calibre was recognised by the
learned doctors of the Law who heard Him speak in the Temple at the age of
twelve, was sent by them to the Essenian community near the Dead Sea to be
trained in the mystical tradition of Israel, and that He remained there until
He came to John to be baptised in the Jordan before commencing His
mission at the age of thirty. Be that as it may, the closing clause of the Lord’s
Prayer is pure Qabalism.