• HART, Samuel Hopgood.
In Memoriam to the Rev. G. J. R. Ouseley (Em Memória
do Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley). Escrito em Ilfracombe
(Inglaterra), 1952.
Informações:
Ensaio biográfico sobre o Rev. Gideon Jasper Richard Ouseley, o qual era
um grande admirador do trabalho e dos livros de Anna Kingsford e Edward
Maitland. Esse ensaio encontrava-se em um site, que depois desapareceu, onde
também estava o
Evangelho dos Doze Santos, que é um texto
apresentado ao mundo pelo próprio Rev. Ouseley, o qual afirma ter sido
auxiliado (em sonhos e visões) por Anna Kingsford e outros. Felizmente
guardamos uma cópia desse texto. Nesse ensaio
Samuel H. Hart relata, entre outros pontos interessantes, a seguinte
opinião do Rev. Ouseley:
“Quando lhe falei do
meu interesse pelos ensinamentos de
O Caminho Perfeito, ele
disse que em sua opinião era “a melhor e mais brilhante das revelações
que haviam sido dadas ao mundo”.
“Em carta publicada na
revista Light,
1882, p. 475, ele descreveu
O Caminho
Perfeito como “o mais maravilhoso de todos os livros que
apareceram desde a era cristã”.”
A seguir temos o texto completo,
em inglês:
IN
MEMORIAM TO
THE
REV. G. J. R. OUSELEY
By Mr. Samuel Hopgood Hart
“By
their fruits shall ye know them.”
I first met the Rev. Gideon Jasper
Richard Ouseley in October 1897, having heard of him as a vegetarian, an
opponent to vivisection, and an enthusiastic advocate of the teaching of
the late Dr. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, as set forth in their
Lectures on esoteric Christianity, published under the title of
The Perfect Way, or, the Finding of Christ, in which I too was
interested. Being at the time in Brighton, where he lived, I called upon
him and received a friendly welcome. He confirmed all I had been led to
believe of him, and said he was also an abstainer from alcoholic drink,
and a non-smoker. He considered that “the direct cause of poverty, bad
health and social misery was due to flesh-eating, alcoholic drinking and
tobacco smoking”. Like Anna Kingsford, he saw in the abolition of
flesh-eating “the only effectual means of the world’s redemption,
whether as regards men themselves or the animals”. The true and proper
food for man, he said, was ripe fruits (including nuts), pure oil of
olives, grains and vegetables, which Mother Earth brought forth in
plenty for the sustenance of her children. He was living alone with his
wife, his family having grown up and dispersed. Two cats, however, which
he regarded as part of his family, must not be omitted from the
household. They were his constant companions. He would talk to them, and
they followed him about the house. He said they were his only followers,
all others were against him and his ideas and people looked upon him as
a “crank”. He regarded cats as “the most human of all creatures”. He was
dressed as a cleric, and told me he was a priest of the Catholic
Apostolic Church, though not then in active service. His life was
devoted to the promulgation of the teaching of Anna Kingsford and Edward
Maitland. We had a long talk together, but with some difficulty on
account of his deafness. When I told him of my interest in the teaching
of The Perfect Way, he said, in his opinion it was “the
brightest and best of all revelations that had been given to the World”
(1), but he despaired of the world ever receiving it, because
“the world had always rejected the Truth; had always crucified Christ
and his doctrine, and would it not do so again?” Of this, however, he
was sure; “The Church of the future would be the Church of The
Perfect Way”. No mere ecclesiastical organisation, he said,
would in the long run be able to stand against the eternal principles of
Justice, Humanity and Love to all manifestations of God, whether human
or non human. On parting, he gave me some booklets and pamphlets which
he had written, and expressed a hope to see me again. Thus began a
friendship which I greatly valued, and now remember with affection.
After the publication of The
Gospel of the Holy Twelve, hereinafter referred to, a Notice of
him “contributed by special request of the Editor”, appeared in
Men of the Day, and on this I have relied for information
regarding his early life. It states that he was “born in Lisbon on the
15th October, 1835, the younger son of the late Sir Ralph Ouseley, K.C.B.,
brought over to Ireland on the death of his father, 14th May 1842, by
protestant relatives, educated in Dublin University, in which he
graduated 1858, and then married. Having studied therapeutics, he was
ordained as a clergyman of the Established Church by the Bishop of Down
and Connor, and appointed Curate of Warrenpoint, Co. Down, 1861”. But he
did not long remain in a Church in which he found himself to be in a
false position; and in 1870, “having voluntarily renounced all eating of
flesh, strong drink and tobacco, as inconsistent with the humanity and
the true religion of Christ, as taught by Him and His apostles”, he was
received as a priest of the Catholic Apostolic Church, in which he
remained until 1894, when “finding his long continued and increasing
deafness rendering him unable to execute his ministry, he retired to the
Church of his Baptism, being received by the Prior of the Carmelite
Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Kenington, London”, in which Church
he remained as a layman. Shortly after our meeting, he wrote to me:
“Mind, I am not a Romanist, though a Catholic, Christian”. Before his
reception into the Catholic Church, he fully explained to the Carmelite
Prior his views regarding The Perfect Way teaching, which
on no account would he abandon. The Prior asked to see the book, and
having read it, said he did not find in it anything contrary to the
faith of the Catholic Church. “Why then”, asked Rev. Ouseley, “does not
the Church teach it?” To which the Prior replied, “You are not at
liberty to say it is the teaching of the Catholic Church, but you are
free to believe and hold it as a pious opinion”. It was on such
understanding that, in 1894, he became a member of the Roman Catholic
Church, finding, he said, “all that he sought for within that Church
after a fashion, and in order to propagate his revelation within its
pale”. His desire was to “saturate and transmute the Church’s own
formularies with The Perfect Way doctrine and
humanitarianism”. He would “revise the formularies, so as to express the
teachings in place of concealing them”, but he would “never be the head
of a schism, never”. While he was not a sectarian and hated to be dubbed
as such, he would “work with all true reformers and good men who would
try to bring the people into ways of righteousness and raise them out of
their barbarous habits of flesh eating, strong drinking, and cruelty of
every sort and kind”.
While “long continued and
increasing deafness” was the ostensible reason given in the above
mentioned Notice for his retirement from the official position he held
in the Catholic Apostolic Church, he was, in fact, “suspended” on
account of his views, “Cast out of Church, with loss of clerical
stipend”, as he put it. They called his views “anti-Christian”. But
nevertheless he ceased not to describe himself as “a priest of the
Catholic Apostolic Church”, which he said, “I still am, and which will
apply equally to the earthly Catholic Church”. (2)
Some thirteen years before his “suspension”, he founded The Order of
At-one-ment and United Templars Society, having for its Motto: “One God,
one Religion, various names, various forms”. The name of the Order was
to be understood noting the popular and erroneous sense of causing the
innocent to suffer for in the place of the guilty, but in its true,
literal and radical sense of reconciliation of opposing ideas, things,
persons or systems; an at-one-ing the human with the Divine, and Man
with God, by the Spirit of Christ within the Soul. The Order never had
many members, and has long ceased to exist.
Apart from The Gospel of the
Holy Twelve and many leaflets and pamphlets on various subjects,
the principal books or booklets written by him, were:
The Original Book of Genesis
(Second Edition, 1900).
Palingenesia: or The Earth’s New Birth
(1884). A book given in symbol, and not to be taken literally.
New Light on Old Truths
(1888). A manual of Doctrine for the use of the Clergy, with an Address
to the Laity (of all denominations).
The Unity, Duality and Trinity. Setting forth
the Feminine Aspect of the Trinity. (3)
A Basket of Fragments.
The Apocalypse of St. John.
The Church of the Future.
(1896). One Holy, Divine Human, Catholic and Apostolic: Fundamentals of
Religion, etc., for the union of all Churches.
But the chief of all his writings
was, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, which teaches
Christian Pantheism: “By involution and evolution shall the salvation of
all the world be accomplished; by the descent of Spirit into matter, and
the Ascent of matter into Spirit, through the ages”. It was first
published by installments in the columns of The Lindsey &
Lincolnshire Star. These were concluded in the early part of
1900, and at the close of the following year, the First Edition was
published, and further Editions followed. In 1903 a “revised and
enlarged” Edition appears to have been published, and in 1904 a “New and
Complete Edition” was published, the last during Rev. Ouseley’s
lifetime. (4)
This Gospel Rev.
Ouseley referred to variously as “The Gospel of the Hebrews”,
“The Nazarene Gospel”, “The Gospel of the Nazarites”, “The
Essene Gospel”, “The Gospel of the Twelve”, “The Gospel of
the Holy Twelve” (as in title), “The Gospel of the Perfect
Life” (as in sub-title): “The Original and Complete Gospel
of the Holy Christ”, and by other descriptions. It was received
by him under inspiration: “In dreams and visions of the night”, and in
“Communications”. It was a translation of an original Aramaic document
purporting to be a reconstruction and revision of the Gospel narrative.
Some portions of it were included in Palingenesia, wherein they
were described as “Fragments from the Gospel of the Perfect Life”,
which had been presented to him (Rev. Ouseley) (5), “in dreams
and visions of the night”, when “a lectern seemed to appear before him
with certain manuscripts thereon, and as it revolved he read the papers
then presented to him. In the morning he noted what he had read, whether
it came to his memory all at once or gradually, but generally within the
day. The fact that in the morning he experienced heaviness, etc., in the
eyes, exactly as if he had been reading all night, seemed to him a proof
that some abnormal action was in progress”. One thing is unquestionable,
he could not unaided by some Power higher than and above that of
his normal intellect, have written this Gospel, and that such
Power was of a Divine nature, is manifest from its contents. At the end
of the Gospel are these words: “Glory be to God by Whose power
and help it has been written”.
Soon after our meeting, he wrote
to me that he had “no talents others than what I could see in those
little booklets” which he had given to me; and that with increasing
deafness and diminution of eyesight he regarded himself as “practically
a dead man”; but, he added, “all he could do he would do”. I mention
this for the purpose of drawing attention to what at the time when he
was writing this Gospel, he regarded as the limit of his
“talents”; and the composition of his Preface thereto does not compare
favourably with “those little booklets” above referred to. He said he
received the translation of the Gospel from the Spirit, that is,
by inspiration. It must not on this account be assumed that the original
of which this Gospel is claimed to be a translation or any
supplementary matter that may have been added thereto, is of greater
historical value than are the four Gospels, none of which is historical
in the sense commonly supposed, the object of all being to portray “the
divine drama of the Spiritual history of man” that is, of the Soul. But
it has this advantage over the others in that it escaped the hands of
“correctors” and “corrupters” from which they suffered. Some years ago,
the headmaster of a well-known school told me that for the benefit of
his pupils he had attempted to write a life of Jesus, relying for his
material on the contents of the four Gospels, but he gave up the idea on
account of the impossibility of writing from a life of Jesus that would
be of any historical value.
When, later, he came into touch
with the teaching of The Perfect Way, he perceived that
the object of the writers of the Gospels was not to record history (as
usually understood) but by means of allegories and parables, which often
took the form of history, to veil and so preserve vital teachings that
otherwise would, or might be lost. Thus, while the inclusion of
historical events in the Gospels is not denied, the writers thereof none
the less wrote not as historians but as teachers of Christian Mysteries,
and history, if and so far as any might be introduced therein, was
adapted or fitted to teach the intended Mystery. This was no pia
fraus (in a bad sense), because the teaching, and the teaching
alone was the object and intent of the writers to which fact the Gospels
themselves bear witness. “The flesh (or letter) profiteth nothing”. The
words that I have spoken unto you are Spirit, and are Life”. The
conversations recorded in the Gospels were manifestly introduced “in
order to illustrate and enforce particular doctrines”. It cannot be too
widely known that in the Scriptures, spiritual processes which are
applicable to all, are described and hidden under the guise of
historical events which need a spiritual key to unlock their meaning.
The feet of the disciples were not washed by Jesus until his garment had
been laid aside or removed. Rev. Ouseley found in The Perfect Way
Lectures and other writings of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland the
key required for the purpose of such removal (6). In an Apologia
written by Anna Kingsford shortly before her death, she said:
“Enlightened by Inner Light (the Divine Spirit within), I perceived the
fallacy and idolatry of popular Christianity, and from that hour in
which I received the Spiritual Christ into my heart, I resolved to know
him no more after the flesh. The old historical controversies over the
facts and dates and phenomena of the Old and New Testaments ceased to
torment and perplex me. I perceived that my soul had nothing to do with
events occurring on the physical planes, because these could not, by
their nature, be cognates to spiritual needs” (7). “Heavenly
wisdom”, said Thomas A. Kempis, treads under foot all things below”, and
he testifies to “a hidden manna in the doctrine of Christ”.
In his Preface thereto, Rev.
Ouseley claims that The Gospel of the Holy Twelve as
received by him was a translation of “one of the most ancient and
complete of early Christian fragments”, written in Aramaic, and “used in
the first Christian Church in Jerusalem”, and that this was “the
original Gospel from which the four were more or less copied, with
numerous variations and important omissions”. The translation, he says,
was communicated to him “in numerous fragments at different times, by
Emmanuel Swedenborg, Anna Kingsford, Edward Maitland, and a priest of a
former century giving his name as Placidus, of the Franciscan Order,
afterwards a Carmelite”, who were the translators thereof (8). He
also refers to certain “spiritual manifestations” which he says
accompanied the transcription.
Letters written by him to me
confirm the above. In one of them he speaks of Placidus as “sitting
occasionally by his bedside and discussing many questions”. In another
he says that “it (the Gospel) has simply poured through me all
along, and I feel the guidance of the Spirit”. In another that Anna
Kingsford and Edward Maitland had “revealed to him personally, some
restorations of the sacred writings”, adding “I say this without one
iota of hesitation, for she appeared to me in vision most distinct (and
so did he), and gave me a paper to read which I took in my hand and
read: Publish it to the world, the means will come, I never had a
clearer vision, so distinct and vivid that I actually went looking for
the paper she gave me, and here, now, have come the means for this
installment at any rate (in The Lindsey and Lincolnshire
Star), and I hope the Editor will publish yet more. Whoever
likes can now reprint from the Star in book form” (9).
In another that “It (the translation) was given in the main by Edward
Maitland and Anna Kingsford, and Swedenborg in part, and a priest named
Placidus (Franciscan), and from communications: and I wish to state this
simply; and that it was not given in séance rooms, but in dreams and
visions of the night”. In another: “That Swedenborg, and Maitland, and
Anna Kingsford, and also a monk Placidus O.S.F., all combined to give it
to me, and at this most critical period, is as true as that your name is
Hart, or I am myself”; and in another he spoke of “the friends at whose
dictation he wrote it (the Gospel)”, of whom, he said, “I
am certain as of my own existence and more so, for I do not sometimes
know who I am or who I was. I know I was a friend of Jesus”. (10)
Rev. Ouseley maintained that
Divine Truth is revealed only from within. “Seek from within”, he said,
“Seek nought from without. Within is the true light. Without is
bewilderment and darkness. All knowledge comes from within. Nothing from
without”. He could not understand why the Spiritualists of his time,
many of whom were ready to accept as true anything that came through
mediums, disregarded or ignored the revelation that had come to him from
within. Inspired thoughts would come to him when he was out walking,
“breathing the fresh morning air”. “I go out”, he said, “and inspiration
comes. I carry a note book with me”.
In 1898 he lost his wife, and in
the following year married again. His second wife survived him, having
done all she could to help him in his declining years. By nature he was
active, and his mind was clear, but in 1903, he wrote: “None on earth so
depressed, shut in and stamped out as I am. I am cast out of the Church
for being for the very Gospel that would save them, and the reformers of
any kind cast me out equally for bringing them the gift from above”.
“All my life from ten years of age, I have received nothing but losses
and crossing of my will one way or another, and now I am a dying man. I
feel very ill. The utter solitude. I have now to grope in the dark after
things, deaf and nearly blind as I am. I long to go on and on, but
everything is against me everything, everything, I am weary of life,
Eternal solitude, and worn out body and soul... My eyes compel me to
give up now. Good night. God bless you”. Another cause of depression was
the pain, misery and distress he endured on account of the wrongs done
to his “suffering brethren” the Animals. Deaf though he was on the outer
plane, he was not spiritually deaf, nor was he spiritually blind. He
heard the cries of the Animals. He said, “Every night I lie awake most
unhappy. I know not a moment goes by but hundreds of my fellow
creatures, cats, rabbits, dogs and others are brutally done to death by
devils in human form. All life is One. I am conscious of the sufferings,
the sufferings of the earth, ever conscious, but especially at night,
and I cannot rest; and the message to mend or mitigate all this is
rejected by men blind and deaf to it. They see not nor understand. It is
hell to me, the lowest depth of hell. I know no such thing as sleep”.
Also he was worried about the future of The Gospel of the Holy
Twelve. What would become of it after his death? His great fear
was that it might then be under the control of those who would suppress
it, or (as he put it) “lock up from the world that which had been given
to him for the enlightenment of the world”; and even more he feared the
hand of the “corrector”, for correction would mean sowing “tares” among
“the good seed” to which he likened the text of the Gospel that
had been given to him to sow in the world “The contradiction of
sinners”. What had happened in the past might happen again, and would
happen should this Gospel be under the control of
materialists, in whose hands “correction” would be “corruption”. He
believed that the true riches of the Gospel had been
committed to his trust. Such fears led him in 1904 to transfer to a
friend his copyright therein, with a request “not to let it get into the
hands of ritualists, whether Roman or Anglican”. He held that the
Festival of the Holy Innocents had not received from the Church its due
unfoldment, for “Herod” (the symbol of materialism) “put to death the
innocents because Jesus was born among them, seeking thus to extinguish
him”, and all who accepted and embraced the teaching of this Gospel
would be “Innocents”.
In 1905, he wrote: “I am nearly
finished, and my destiny awaits me. They are ready to receive me”. “Day
is dark”. “There is not a verse of David describing his grief and tears
that does not exactly describe me”. A later letter the last received
from him says: “I have been driven nearly mad by this continual
isolation. I am unchanged as ever. With abiding love to both (11)
and assurance of my affection, Yours very sincerely, G. J. Ouseley”. On
the 9th December, 1906, he passed away in his seventy-second year. A
Notice of him appeared in Light (5th and 12th January,
1907). And now may he rest in peace with the knowledge that his life of
self sacrifice for Truth and Humanity a life without ambition for any
worldly, honour or desire for any worldly gain was not lived in vain,
for, Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell, There God is dwelling too”.
At its close, he told me, “It was
his misfortune to have been born with great ideas, and inability to
carry them out as he would wish, whilst he had done his best and spent
his all, absolutely his all, on the work”. He mounted the upward path on
adversities, frustrations and disappointments. Such were his steps on
the ladder of God which reaches from earth to heaven. Whilst he sowed in
tears, he swerved not from adherence to the Truth revealed to him from
within. For such as he, life cannot end in failure. It can end only in
“The Triumph song of Heaven”.
“In their mouths a victorious
psalm, In their hands a robe and a palm.”
Rev. Ouselev’s philosophy of life
was (in his own words) as follows: “As the Sun cometh from the East and
shineth even unto the West, arising out of darkness and setting in
darkness again, so also is man. When he cometh from the darkness it is
that he hath shone before, when he, goeth into darkness it is that he
may shine again where ye see not. So man hath before, even as he liveth
now, and he goeth to his rest for a time and cometh into life again. So
through many lives and experiences he is made perfect, and when he is
perfect he is made a pillar in the temple of God, and he goeth in and
out no more. He dieth no more, seeing that death hath no more dominion
over them who are perfect. Again and again is man born into this and
other worlds, till his soul is purified from all evil and made perfect
in all good. Marvel not then that I said, ye must be born again of water
and of fire (and what these signify ye know). They who have done evil go
into corrective chastisement for an age, and they who have done good go
into happiness for an age, and when perfect they go into life eternal.
God is just, and to everyone is given that which they have deserved. As
they sow they shall also reap, and each goeth into his own place which
he hath prepared for himself and for which he is fit, till his time is
come and another place is given to him for further amendment. And they
only who persist in wickedness to the end shall die, they shall go out
as a candle and be extinguished as a flame”. (From Rev. Ouseley’s
“Suggestions”, referred to in footnote 2).
Like all Sacred Scriptures,
“The Gospel of the Holy Twelve” is mystical, and for right
understanding it must be so interpreted. Its value lies in the teaching
which in the garment is veiled. Rev. Ouseley described it as “The
True Story of the Perfect Life”. To understand the
teaching, the garment must he lifted or removed. Then, in the words of
the Talmud, “Falsehood passes away, but truth remains”. In all sacred
mysteries, parables are used as garments for Truth that is hidden in its
very expression. In one of the “Sayings of Jesus” as recorded in the
Oxyrhynchus Papyri we are told: “That which is hidden from
thee shall be revealed to thee. For there is nothing hidden which shall
not be made manifest, nor buried which shall not be raised”. To those
who hid “the key of knowledge” Jesus said: “Ye entered not in yourselves
and to them that were entering in ye opened not”. Ultimately, “Truth
itself is unutterable save by God to God”. As stated in The Gospel
of the Holy Twelve: “Truth one and absolute is in God alone. To
men is Truth revealed, according to their capacity to understand and
receive”. “Look”, said Anna Kingsford, “for the sufficient meaning of
the manifest Universe and of the written Word, and thou shalt find only
their Mystical sense”. Says Thomas A. Kempis: “To some” (the
literalists) “I speak things common. To others in great light I reveal
mysteries”, “My words are Spirit and Life and are not to be estimated by
the sense of Man”. “They (the prophets) deliver the letter but Thou
explainest the meaning of the things sealed. They cry with words,
but Thou givest understanding to the hearer”. At the close of
The Gospel of the Holy Twelve we read: “For them that believe
regarding the Spirit rather than the letter which killeth, the things
herein related are true as Spiritual Verities, for others they are as an
idle tale”. It was not without profound meaning that Jesus said: “Raise
the stone” of the indwelling Self (to the level of Spirit), “and there
thou shalt find Me”, “Cleave the wood” of the lower and outer
consciousness, “and there am I (12). The “Son of God in man” must
be lifted up for the right understanding of Holy Scripture. Jesus said
unto “the sick of the palsy” and there are many such, “Arise, and take
up thy couch”.
One of the first acts of Jesus
after his resurrection was to “open the Scriptures” to two of his
disciples, Cleophas and another whom he joined on their way from
Jerusalem to Emmaus. These disciples he found “reasoning together” about
the things which had then lately come to pass; and forthwith “he
expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning
Himself”, and he blamed them for their “folly” and for their “slowness
of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken” (13). Their
very reasoning together implies a limitation of consciousness to the
outer and lower mental planes, wherein are seen but “the shadows of the
tomb”. Thus were their Spiritual eyes “holden”. Their “heart” was
“slow”, a slowness which indicated lack of spiritual understanding. It
was on this ground that the “reasoning together” of the two disciples
was blamed as “folly”. But “while he talked with them by the way, and
while he opened to them the Scriptures”, a change came over them, “their
hearts did burn within them”, and their Spiritual eyes were opened. They
awoke and knew him. He was known of them in the “breaking of the Bread”
of Divine Truth which is the food of the soul.
And on the opening of their
Spiritual eyes, he whom therefore they had known outwardly, “Vanished
from their sight”, and they were enabled to testify, “The Lord is risen
indeed”!
“Most of the mistakes of the
materialists”, said Anna Kingsford, “arise from understanding localities
and things material, when they should understand conditions and
principles”. The letter of Scripture is but the shadow of Divine Truth.
The Shadow which, as Tennyson said, “sits and waits for me in the
waste”.
“The Shadow cloaked from
head to foot, Who keeps the keys of all the creeds”.
“Those”, said Buddha, “who mistake
the shadow for the substance and the substance for the shadows, never
arrive at Reality, but follow false aims. Those who know the substance
as the substance and the shadow as the shadow, arrive at Reality, and
follow right aims.” (Dhammapada).
Why are certain teachings hidden
beneath the letter? Why, it may be asked, did Jesus, like the other
great Masters, teach the multitude in parables? The answer is, the
Mysteries cannot be taught by the blood guilty, nor may they, except as
“dark sayings”, be given to those of the multitude who live like
carnivorous animals. On this, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve
is explicit: “They who partake of benefits which are gotten by wronging
God’s creatures, cannot be righteous”, nor can they “whose hands are
stained with blood, or whose mouths are defiled with flesh”, touch holy
things or teach the mysteries of the kingdom, nor are they fit to
receive the higher mysteries, “For this people’s heart is waxed gross”
(14).
The age in which Rev. Ouseley
lived was “no age of “faith”. It was materialistic and anti-Christian.
Wickedness was legalized. There was materialism in science and
materialism in religion. Rev. Ouseley “dared not give up the revelation
made to him”, and he feared that the teaching for which he stood and for
the promulgation of which he had devoted his life would, after his
death, be suppressed. People lost in pleasure, would not buy mystical
writings. He had no faith in democracy or in democratic government. He
was not a worshipper of God Demos. Vox populi was not for him
Vox Dei. “Democracy”, he said, “is rotten”, “Reformers ignore
religion”, “Religion is repellant to everyone in these days”. Referring
to members of humanitarian societies having objects with which he was in
sympathy, he said, “I am the only one among all these reforms who stand
for God and Religion. All the rest will have their ideas without God”.
“Not all I have said, nor twice as much, I am convinced, will ever
awaken the consciousness of a people deadened by materialism”.
But Rev. Ouseley was not alone in
condemning Atheistic Socialism: for in his Potentiae Signorum
it is declared by the writer that no nation can vote itself out of the
Jurisdiction of the Spirit of God, even by the biggest of mandates,
without voting itself also out of the Jurisdiction of His protection and
Grace. There is a greater Godhead than that of the people. Equality must
be sought by building upward.
Theology was “scientific
religion”. Rev. Ouseley understood the inner truths taught by founders
of great religions. He knew, as said Buddha, that “All the Buddhas teach
the same truth”. He brought with him from the long ages of the past,
knowledge which he had gained in former incarnations. He said,
“I find cropping up through my
present existence tendencies and reminiscences: (a) A tendency to use
fire, the sun, etc., as symbols of Deity. (b) Occasional reminiscences
of Egyptian worship, and a strong partiality to cats. (c) A tendency to
Indian philosophy and Buddhistic ideas, which come not as a new thing,
but as something I have known before. (d) A tendency to certain Jewish
practices, abhorrence of swine flesh and other “unclean” animals, and
all the more since I came to renounce flesh eating altogether. (e) A
tendency to use Christian Catholic ceremonial and symbols, which to me
are symbols of an older faith, and still more Catholic. He believed
that: (a) In one of his past incarnations he was a Magian priest, and
adored God by fire. (b) In the next he was a priestess of Isis, engaged
in Egyptian rites. (c) In the next he was a Buddhist monk. (d) In the
next he was a Jewish high priest. (e) And in his last, a Catholic Bishop
in Spain. It was reminiscences such as these that account for his
“strong leaning towards Catholicity in religion, and in particular, his
“strong tendencies and unaccountable sympathies with Judaism on the one
hand, and Buddhism on the other”, which he saw “united in one Catholic
Religion”, and he looked forward to the time when “the ethical teaching
of Buddha and Jesus will be universally understood and followed”. The
rites and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, the Greek Church, and the
Church of which he was then a priest, were for him “symbols enshrining
eternal truths; Truths which the Church by falling from the Spirit which
giveth Life to the fleshly letter which killeth, had ceased to reveal”.
Rites and ceremonies in themselves were nothing apart from their
signification. That which is true, is true without authority; and that
which is false, authority cannot make true. In The Gospel of the Holy
Twelve we read: “God who is pure Spirit and pervades all, does not
regard the forms and rites, but the hearts that offer them”, “Beneath
all external religions and rites, there is but one religion underlying
all, even the religion of the Spirit of Truth”. As a Christian, he used
Christian terminology. The Perfect Way lectures demonstrate
Christianity to be “a symbolic synthesis of the fundamental truths
contained in all religions”. The great religions of the world are as
tongues of God all speaking the same language. Thus was it on the day of
Pentecost, when “the Law of Christ” was preached unto the multitude,
“each man hearing the word in his own tongue wherein he was born”.
Christian sects and denominations
today differ about doctrines which, for the most part, they do not
understand. The Gospel of the Holy Twelve was written for
people of all religions, as also for those of no particular religion. It
declares that “God hath raised up witnesses to the Truth in every nation
and every age, that all might know the will of the Eternal, and do it,
and after that, enter into the Kingdom to be rulers and workers with the
Eternal” (15). “In the midst of you there is One whom ye know
not: He baptizeth with the Fire of the Holy One”.
It is important to bear in mind
that while the souls of the Righteous become vehicles of Divine
manifestation, all inspired writings are coloured by the character or
mentality of the instrument or medium through whom they come. They are
not to be regarded as infallible in every word. Inspiration of the
Spirit does not necessarily imply infallibility of utterance, because no
man is wholly without error. In The Gospel of the Holy Twelve
we read that even among the prophets after they were anointed by the
Holy Spirit, there has been found “the word of error”: “Utterance of
sin” and “unrighteousness” (16). Rev. Ouseley insisted that: “For
a divine message its own truth is the best evidence of genuine
inspiration”; which is “the inbreathing of the Divine through the
spiritual organism planted in man for that purpose”. Inspiration has its
birth in God. “To men Truth is revealed according to their capacity to
understand and receive it”. Rev. Ouseley was the instrument chosen for
the reception and editing of The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, and
it is not surprising to find therein teaching harmonizing with his own
mentality. The truth of the teaching therein is best evidence of his
fitness to be the instrument for its reception and promulgation. He
regarded The Gospel of the Holy Twelve as the true basis
for the teaching of The Perfect Way, and when told by an objector
thereto that it was “likely to popularize the teaching of that book”,
his reply was; “This shews me I am on the right track”. Thus, we find
great stress laid upon the doctrine of the Divine Duality (17).
He could not understand why God should be worshipped as a masculine God
on1y, all “Father” and no “Mother”, when He is “Our Father Mother”. He
said, “Men must see and acknowledge the Divine in woman, and worship God
as the Divine Mother as well as Father”. It is unfortunate that there is
not in our language a pronoun to express such duality. The doctrine of
the Trinity implies a Duality in the Unity. In the Unity there abides
Original Life of Celestial Force (“God the Father”), and Original Being
of Celestial Substance (“God the Mother”); and this Spiritual Duality
becomes manifest as “God the Holy Ghost”, by procession through their
Word, Logos, or Son “The only Begotten Son of God”, who, as such,
becomes the Third Person of the Celestial Trinity. The Life and
Substance of the Eternal One are given and shed through “the Son”, for
the creation, sustenance and redemption of the Universe. The Creation
and Salvation of the World is thus achieved “By the Descent of Spirit
into Matter, and the Ascent of Matter into Spirit through the ages”, and
such is the teaching of The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, as all
great religions: “The Lamb of God” is “slain from the foundation of the
World” (18). We also find in this Gospel a command of
Jesus that we “Love one another and all the creatures of God, God being
in all creatures. Children are to be “brought up in the ways of
righteousness, neither eating flesh, nor drinking strong drink; nor
hurting the creatures which God hath given into the hands of man to
protect”. That Jesus came into the world to put an end to bloody
sacrifices and flesh eating is explicit: “For this end have I come into
the world, that I may put away all blood offerings and the eating of the
flesh of the beasts and the birds that are slain by men”, “I am come to
end the sacrifices and feasts of blood”. One of the questions put to
Jesus at his trial before Caiaphas, and intended to bring about his
condemnation was, “Dost thou abolish the sacrifices of the law, and the
eating of flesh?” Many instances are given of the kindness of Jesus to
animals and of his opposition to all forms of cruelty and injustice. In
the parable of the Prodigal Son, no “fatted calf” is said to have been
slain to welcome the son on his return home (19). Also the
doctrine of Reincarnation is definitely taught by Jesus as the means
whereby man is “made perfect through suffering”, “Changes of life for
the perfecting of souls”. Having thus become “purified through many
births and experiences”, man shall die no more, neither shall he be born
anymore, for death hath no more dominion over him. In this teaching
there is no “scapegoat” Christianity: no forgiveness or remission of sin
by “vicarious atonement”: “For sins against the law of God there can be
no remission save by repentance and amendment”.
Many instances could be given to
shew the harmony that existed between the teaching to be found in The
Gospel of the Holy Twelve and the mentality of its recipient. Rev.
Ouseley raised certain objections to “the Scriptures as they are”, from
which The Gospel of the Holy Twelve is free. While he never
swerved from the teaching of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, he
objected to some of the parables to be found in the Canonical Gospels
being used or employed by them in illustration thereof. He pointed out
that some of such parables, if taken literally, teach wrong”. While he
held the teaching of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland to be “the truth
in substance”, he wished it were based “on sounder foundations than the
Scriptures as they are” (20). He put the case thus: “I lay it
down as an absolute canon or rule that no narrative or parable or other
writing which, taken literally, inculcates falsehood or cruelty or
injustice or oppression, can possibly have been given by the Spirit of
God or Good, or can be safely made to serve as a basis for the higher
Spiritual Truth by any mode of interpretation, being untrue in itself
(whether on the physical or moral plane) and out of harmony with the
undoubted teachings of the Spirit of Truth”. As an example, he referred
to “the legend of Cain and Abel”, which, taken literally, “inculcates
the immorality of sacrificing innocent life to propitiate an angry
Deity”. Another example is to be found in the parable of the Prodigal
Son and the killing of “the fatted calf”, above referred to. It must not
from this be assumed that Rev. Ouseley disregarded “the Scriptures as
they are”, for, in one of his booklets, “A Nation Regenerated” having
expressed his opinion as above, he said: “The Scriptures contain the
Word of God, but often interpolated and transposed by the error of man,
whether by accident or design. Shall we cast away the gold or despise it
for the sake of the dross mingled with it? Doing this we should be
fools, not wise”.
As regards Anna Kingsford and
Edward Maitland, their mission was not to revise parables, but to
interpret them. The purpose of their collaboration proved to be “the
restoration of the esoteric Philosophy or Theosophy of the West, and the
interpretation thereby of the Christian and kindred religions”. They
were told: “the time had come for the unsealing of the world’s Bibles,
and their own appointed mission was that of unsealing the Bibles of the
West”, Bibles which in their esoteric sense, deal not with Material
Things, but with Spiritual Realities, such parts thereof as are
Mystical, requiring a Mystic consideration. Theirs was to be “a Gospel
of interpretation”. Nothing new would be told. That which was ancient,
would be interpreted. Christ Jesus was to be “lifted up”. The perfection
or otherwise of the form in which Divine Truth had been expressed, was
not their concern; and no one in our time has been better qualified than
were they to interpret “the Scriptures as they are”. That The
Gospel of the Holy Twelve will be a help to a right
Understanding of the Scriptures is my belief, ever bearing in mind the
well known adage: “He who would eat the kernel must crack the shell”.
For the writer of this Gospel as will be noticed the prediction
by Jesus therein was fulfilled. He said to his disciples: “They shall
put you out of the Synagogues because they have not known the
All-Parent, nor me”. And if it be asked who are his disciples, the
answer is given thus: “By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples if ye have love one to another, and shew mercy and love to all
creatures of God”.
Let us bear in mind the following
words recorded in “the New Sayings of Jesus” (in The Oxyrhynchus
Papyri: “Jesus saith, Let not him who seeks ... cease until he
finds, and when he finds he shall be astonished; astonished he shall
reach the Kingdom, and having reached the Kingdom he shall rest”.
SAMUEL
HOPGOOD HART
The Round House,
Ilfracombe, Devon, England
February 22, 1952
NOTES
(1) In a letter to Light (1882, p. 475)
he described The Perfect Way as “the most wonderful of all
books which have appeared since the Christian era”.
(2) For Rev. Ouseley, the Christian Church
comprised “the elect of humanity in the Unity of the Body of the
Christ”, “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: the Witness to all
Truth, and the Receiver and Giver of the same: Begotten of the Spirit
and Fire of God: Nourished by the waters, seeds and fruits of earth: Who
knitteth together the elect in one mystical communion, and atoneth
humanity with God”. Thus, while the sheep of God are not all of one
fold, there is but one flock and one Shepherd, and the Spirit of
Christ within us will open the door for all. “The elect” are
“one family in God”. There is One God in all. It was with such knowledge
that Jesus spoke of “My Parent and your Parent”, “My God and your God”.
The mystery of Christ Jesus must be repeated in man.
Under the heading “Drama of the Latter Days”, Rev. Ouseley
wrote “A Suggestion” which was published in The Theosophist
of March, 1884, the Editor of that paper considered it “too good
to be lost”. Therein he referred to different Churches, Denominations,
Sects and Associations, of which are rebuked by Messiah, “who
personifies the Spirit of Truth”, for their errors, while others are
denounced for their gross darkness and evil teaching. On the
other hand, Philosophers and all seekers after Truth are instructed
that “All truth is in God alone, and God is Truth”: and that “By the
things which are visible and created, they may come to know the
invisible thing’s of God, the uncreated and eternal” and these are
admonished to “Abstain from flesh eating, from drunkenness, from
bloodshed, and from all cruelty to any living creature, This do, and ye
shall be taught of God”. Of the Churches rebuked for errors, only a few
of the Church of Rome repent, and by their Pope, who is forsaken by the
rest, confess to Messiah: “We sat on the ancient foundations, but we
revealed not the ancient truths; we have the keys of heaven, but we
opened not the gate ourselves nor suffered others who desired, to enter.
To us was given Light, but we concealed it in a dark place, and those
who cried for more light we persecuted and counted as heretics, and
caused many to be put to death in our blindness. And even now, O,
Master, we had well nigh again rejected Thee, but by the mercy of the
Eternal we heard the holy and true doctrines which once Thou gavest
under parables, even the doctrines of ancient times given anew, the new
wine of Thy Kingdom; and at length our eyes being opened and our ears
being unstopped, we have returned to Thee”.
(3) In “The Credo of the Elect” we declare our
belief in “One God the Father and Mother Almighty; of whose substance
are the generations of Heaven and of Earth”: and in The Gospel of
the Holy Twelve we are many times reminded of the Feminine as
well as the Masculine aspect of Deity, both which are manifest in the
character of every perfect man. In the Scriptures it is declared that
“man is not without the woman”, and that “woman is not without the man”
in the Lord-that is when “Christ Jesus Son of God, our Lord,
who is conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of Mary”, is
manifest in us. He, who is spiritual, is transformed into the
Divine image. Anna Kingsford (under illumination) said: “Ye are twain,
the man with the woman, and she with him, neither man nor woman but one
creature”. The intellect (man) and the intuition (woman) are united in
God. Intuition is purely Spiritual, and has nothing to do with
experience gained through the bodily senses. “Every monad of Divine
Substance has the potency of twain, as God is twain in one”.
(4) In 1923, an Edition, with Introduction and
Notes by the late Rev. E. F. Undy, a priest of the Liberal Catholic
Church, was published. No further Edition has since been published. Mr.
Undy was the author of “The Original
Christianity in the The Gospel of the Holy Twelve”.
(5) In his Preface to Palingenesia,
Rev. Ouseley referred to himself as “The seeress”, and the book is
stated to have been written “By Theosopho, a minister of the Holies, and
Ellora, a Seeress of the Sanctuary”, manifestly pseudonyms adopted by
Rev. Ouseley (regarding himself a duality) for anonymity.
(6) In a recently published book, The
Drama of the Soul, by S. B. Best, the spiritual key of “Mystical
interpretation of the Gospels” has been used with good effect to explain
“The Inner Initiations of the Master Jesus”. Much light regarding the
interpretation of the Scriptures will also be found in The Logia
or Sayings of the Master, by the late Rev. Todd Ferrier, the
founder of The Order of the Cross, and in other of his writings. He
resigned his position as Pastor of a Congregational Chapel at
Macclesfield to gain freedom to teach the Christianity of The
Perfect Way.
(7) Life of A. K. (Third Edition), Vol.
II, p. 328.
(8) Rev. Undy (see note 4, ante)
without questioning the mode of reception by Rev. Ouseley of The
Gospel, questions whether the four persons named as the
communicators thereof to him were the translators thereof into English,
because of their ignorance of the Aramaic language. Such reasoning may,
I think, be fallacious. In the case of Anna Kingsford and Edward
Maitland although neither of them as such knew Aramaic they both claimed
to have been living at the time of and knew Jesus, in which case they
both in that life must have known Aramaic. As regards the
other two communicators, I do not see reason for doubting the accuracy
of Rev. Ouseley’s statement.
(9) In the Star, the contributions (by
I.O.M.A.) are described as “Reminiscences of the Master, by a Disciple”,
“Being fragments selected from The Gospel of the Perfect
Life by one of the Twelve”.
(10) During Rev. Ouseley’s lifetime, I
regarded this as a confidential communication the sincerity of which
could not be doubted any more than could its possibility be questioned
by anyone who believes in reincarnation. He told me that he well
remembered Jerusalem although he was never there in this incarnation.
Later on, reference is made to some of his former incarnations and of
his tendency in this incarnation “to certain Jewish practices”.
(11) The reference includes my wife.
(12) From one of the “Logia” or “Sayings of
Jesus” (The Oxyrhynchus Papyri): also recorded in
The Gospel Of The Holy Twelve. It was to this mystical
“Wood”, “Gloomy Wood”, that Dante referred in the opening lines of his
Inferno. (See
Cary’s translation).
(13) The prophets were not always right. The
“folly” of the disciples was that they believed “all that the prophets
had spoken”. Had they listened to the dictates of their hearts rather
than to the reasoning of their minds, their Spiritual eyes would
not have been “holden”. In another of “The Sayings of Jesus” (in the
Oxyrhychus Papyri), Jesus said, “My soul grieveth over the
sons of men, because they are blind in their heart and see not”, and in
the Canonical Gospel it is stated that Jesus warned his followers to
“beware of False Prophets which come sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are
raving wolves”. They would be known “by their fruits”.
(14) In 1937 there was published a Gospel
entitled The Gospel of Peace of Jesus Christ by the disciple
John, edited by Edmond Szekely, and “translated directly
from the Aramaic tongue, spoken by Jesus and his beloved disciple John”,
the translation having been made by Edmond Szekely and Purcell Weaver.
In his Foreword the Editor says: “The content of this book is only a
fragment of the complete manuscripts which exist in Aramaic in the
library of the Vatican, and in ancient Slav in the Royal Library of the
Hapssburgs”, such Aramaic and ancient Slav texts having been compared by
the Editor, This fragment deals for the most part with “the healing
works of Jesus” many of which were affected by methods now known as
nature cures. It is therein recorded that Jesus said: “He who kills,
kills himself; and whoso eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats of the
body of death. For in his blood every drop of their blood turns to
poison, and their death will become his death”. The command against
killing is insisted on throughout, and the eating of all dead food is
condemned.
(15) See note 2.
(16) See note 13.
(17) See note 3.
(18) The meaning of this is that God “of whose
substance are the generations of Heaven and of Earth”, by His act of
self-immolation in Creation becomes “crucified, dead and buried”. The
seal of the sepulcher is broken in Man Regenerate. In The Perfect
Way we read: “Deity descends into conditions and distributes of
Itself to be the Life and Substance of the universe, alike for its
creation, its sustentation and its redemption”, The blood of the Lamb of
God is Love, and Love is, “the blood of God” that redeems, redemption
being of Spirit from Matter which is the grave of Spirit. The process of
redemption is completed in Man in the character of Christ
Jesus, wherein Man becomes regenerate and a “Son of God” as well as “Son
of Man”. The manhood is taken into the Godhead.
It is described in the
Gospel story of the life of Jesus which as therein related is the
typical life of Man Regenerate, Regeneration, which is
new birth on higher planes of consciousness, must be preceded by inward
purification of Soul. The soul must become “Virgin” before the birth
therein of Christ Jesus can take place, “Christ Jesus the Son of God,
our Lord, is conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary”
or purified soul purified through the involved Divine life or love
element which riseth up from within, and Man, so regenerated,
“Riseth again from the dead” and “Ascendeth into Heaven, and sitteth at
the right hand of God”. Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee
except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God”.
(19) The Scriptures, which were written in the
vernacular, are not always to be understood literally and this apart
from any mythical interpretation which may have been in the mind of the
writer; and the reference in this parable to the “fatted calf”, is a
case in point. The expression is to be understood in a figurative or
metaphorical sense, and not literally. Dr. Harnish, in his book
Jehoshua Nazir says: the Essenes who were all non flesh eaters,
for “all flesh foods and animal fats were by them considered an
abomination in the sight of God” (p. 187), had “a common fund” which in
case of necessity could be drawn upon; otherwise any needed supply of
food could be obtained from the larder of the community, which was known
as “the fatted calf”, upon which demands were made, and to empty which
was figuratively described as “killing the fatted calf” (p. 185). The
expression therefore meant neither more nor less than emptying the
larder.
(20) The teaching of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland was not
based on any Scriptures. They disclaimed authority whether of book,
person or institution, however sacred, exalted or venerable, as the
basis or foundation for their teaching. Their appeal was to the
Spiritual understanding within man: “The Spirit within you is Divine, it
is God”.
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