Hortus Conclusus

Worlds:

– Endless is the inner space of this ‘sphere’ in which we hover, although it sets its ‘frontiers’ in those myriads of suns and worlds which it  irradiates! –

Endless occurrence is here encompassed, and all eternities would seem to you as a short day, if you ever sought to fathom all the wonders of this eternal occurrence! –

Perhaps you know that once in ancient times there have been ‘seers’ on earth who, all too sure in their limited views, presumed to try to calculate those periods of time in which a universe comes into being and dissolves once more into an ‘uncreated state’?

Truly they were not aware of the folly of their thinking and had no idea that there had been wiser men before them whose words they could no longer understand, so that they were perforce like that child of whom it is said that he wanted to ladle the ocean into a small ditch! – –

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Eternal in the ultimate sense: without beginning and without end is the ‘world-day’ those men tried to calculate – eternal at the same time is that  ‘world-night’! –

Eternal EMANATION of this sun of the primeval fire which bore you as a blazing star, eternally sets itself outermost frontiers of its influence in all the world systems which surround us here sphere like, as the furthermost, cloudy white mist of light.

Eternally new world systems come into being there within the hermetically closed ring of what has come into being, and world systems with innumerable suns and their hosts of planets are eternally absorbed in endless ‘space’. – – 

No calculation of the human brain can represent the time during which only one of these world systems may come into being or pass away!

Never has spiritual revelation debased itself to such an extent to want to reveal to human spirits on earth what is eternally incomprehensible to them. –

Everything that has ever reached man from the spirit of eternity has wisely matched his powers of comprehension and was pregnant with effecting even in the benighted realm of earthly man. –

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Does it seem strange to you that the innermost things in original being are disclosed to you, whereas the external remains incomprehensible?

But consider yourself, and do not forget that you are here in your original homeland from which aeons ago you forced yourself away, even though you were aware that outside you were only to testify of yourself in effects and not in your primeval own essence! – –

Your own greatness once caused you to  fall! – – – –

Even today you could once more succumb to the fall and thereby delay again by aeons your lasting return to the light. Even those souls which made the same oath which rests upon my shoulders as a freely chosen burden are already liable to this new fall into darkness, if they cannot get the better of their own greatness. –

Therefore you have received my guidance, lest you be misguided…

Here within the innermost alone will your ‘realm’ come into being for you so that renewed you can have effect in the world outside!

Here you will then have effect from the same power from which all external things come forth, yet in the outside world you would only find derived powers which are there too powerful for you because there you cannot reveal yourself in the power of your light. – – –

Everything in the immeasurable ‘space’ has awareness only of its own power and expression of strength at the place reserved for it; it can develop at no other place in its fullness…

Even the First Light is only powerful in itself, even though the whole unending universe flows from it! –

The further away from this one, all-begetting sun of the original fire, the more the powers flowing from it lose similarity with their being, until finally, they form themselves at the outermost reaches into counter-being. – – –

Only here in the interior of this immeasurable sphere are we still within true ‘divine’ being!

As soon as we submerge ourselves into those world systems in order to reach the earthly orb there, we are, judged from outside, removed from this ‘divine’ life, and we can only keep it for ourselves in our innermost being…

Even as the outside is permeated with divine spiritual power, yet: there it is not in its power, and only those awakened in their innermost being can still find it in themselves. – –

If nevertheless external nature has already appeared to you on earth as full of ‘divine wonders’, consider also that  the outermost comes from the innermost, and, despite all counter-being  still shows the outermost traces of its provenance from the First Light!

Outside, however, there in the outer world, your hands will be tied, for there the powers of counter-being are at their place and are thus already in their might. – –

You must always reach this exalted region of light from your very innermost being if you want to master those counter powers, even if only in small matters, there in the outside; yet you can never completely subjugate them.

Fakirs and power-hungry magicians have tried a different way by making certain forms of those powers of counter-being serve them through lengthy efforts, yet none has yet been found on earth who was not to be miserably destroyed in the end along with all his arts. –

Divine magicians of all ages have always only worked from here, from the powers of divine being which surround us here, and if legend has turned them into ‘miracle workers’, it has failed to recognise the real ‘miracles’ they performed. For the human eye does not see these genuine ‘miracles’, and their effects which it really sees will never reveal the true causes.

Here can be found the signs which everyone who is to become familiar with the divine magic must be able to use; but never will these signs be found by those who in their hunger for power seek the reputation of a miracle worker. –

Here at this holy place you shall learn to feel what these signs would say to you.

Here you must truly be at home, if your homeland is to entrust to you its treasures!

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‘IN PRICIPIO ERAT VERBUM…’  – In the beginning was the Word – a sacred book says to you, and many seekers have already tortured their poor brains with the useless question why the ‘Word’ is given such importance here – why the wise man describes the origin of all becoming as the ‘Word’? –

Yet this teaching was once made known in this form out of the most profound ‘in-sight’.

The eternally lasting emanation of the sun of the original fire of eternal love expresses itself in eternal will to become, becomes itself a rhythmically concentrated motion, becomes the First Word which utters from itself all becoming, ordered according to inherent measure and to inherent number!

The word belonging to human language is but the remotest echo of this ‘Word’, which is ‘with God’ and is God from eternity to eternity! –

The wise man speaks of a ‘beginning’ which ever was and ever will be!

This ‘beginning’ appears before your spiritual eye, and the ‘word’ reveals itself to you in rhythm and colour, in form and sound as the first expression of the eternal will to create.

Tarry feelingly, and seek in yourself, in your innermost, to experience the deepest being of this First Word from which everything became that has ever become, and from which everything will become that can ever become! – – –

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As  ‘LUX IN TENEBRIS…’, – as light in the darkness, this First Word utters itself into the immeasurable depths of ‘space’ – creating from itself, the first original form and in the shudder of its own self-realisation it already here constructs for itself its altar of worship …

Ever pregnant and begetting creation stands like a chorus of priests full of awe around this altar, crystallised into the first creation of being, still rigidly bound, and yet already a mute prayer…

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And yet here it is not possible to linger in what has become; immediately you see how eternal propagation pours forth from the original form of the abundance of forms, how continually new formation fashions itself, surges and entwines itself in each other until the jewel, increasingly bright from the abundance of forms is raised, and sets itself all form in which the ‘word’ recognises itself within the world spoken by it. – –

And as it now blazes victoriously in the midst of its formation, the jubilant chorus of the first creation rises through all the spiritual spheres at the same time.

‘TE DEUM LAUDAMUS…’ – We praise you God – resounds the hymn of form through the first created world of the spirit, and all the heavens are filled with sublime devotion…

Here the ‘word’ in its creation has become ‘I’, and all spiritual form recognises in it the ground of its existence in jubilant rapture. –

The realm of the pure spirit has come into being in order to revolve in its forms eternally within itself.

The First Word has itself effect in its innermost fulfilment!

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Yet its creative will to become has not yet reached the end of its effect in this circle of light. –

This realm of innermost fulfilment has also remained pregnant with creation and continues propagating in eternal immeasurable ‘space’, – propagates itself its frontiers and creates the counter-effect of eternal ‘space’, of eternal time. –

What is one in the innermost realm of the spirit – is here divided in two, and before your spiritual eye you see, as it were, a cosmic workshop come into being where the unborn power of the spirit constructs in form the preconditions for each world system enclosing us like distant mist in this light–filled sphere: – here comes into existence through creative fashioning SPACE AND TIME of the outer world structures! – –

No longer identical to eternal ‘space’ and yet holding its laws within it…

No longer the ‘space’ of the spirit which encompasses time within itself, this newly created space will construct time only from itself. –

Whilst you penetrate eternal ‘space’ yourself here, as you are penetrated by it, this time-begetting space will set you frontiers everywhere! –

Whilst your spiritual eye can see here in this eternal ‘space’ in such a way as though it were itself an immeasurable sphere containing everything and seeing at the same time from all sides, you will there only be able to see from inside outwards and be only ever capable of perceiving from one point. –

*

Now begins only the second creation, – like the echo of the ‘Word’ which gave birth to the first one from itself!

Like an immeasurable sea, the waves of outermost darkness spread – yet: “the spirit of God moves over the waters” and its radiantly shimmering light full of power and effective force lowers in eternal ORIGINAL PROPAGATION the will to become into the sea of darkness.

Magical primeval signs become forms of outer worlds, and soon the darkness will dissolve before your spiritual eye.

You see SEEDS OF WORLDS come into being in a vaulted dome of effective powers.

Ever renewed they burst into being, whilst the sea of darkness transforms itself into a radiant cloud.

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Already you see from these seeds BECOMING WORLDS coming into being! Primeval and mighty forming powers carry out their work, and cosmic light moves like clouds of mist through the created space. –

Soon its becoming will be completed.

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What you will now see is the BIRTH OF THE COSMOS, the departure of propagated outer worlds from the domain of creative cosmic powers…

In the eternal world night, in endless distance from the sun of the original fire of eternal love which gave birth to you as a star, structures of cosmic orbs have come into being in countless numbers – the outermost frontier which the effect of the First Word sets for itself – forming those shining mists of worlds encompassing us here in an endlessly expanding vault from all sides, above and below.

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Now your inner eye will open itself up to that occurrence which fulfils itself on one of these worlds now living its own life!

Remember that I told you how there is nothing that ever occurred in any form, nor can occur, that is not visible in this light realm of innermost becoming, in primeval causal visions! –

You will here follow the paths which fallen spiritual man, – ‘fallen’ since he turned away from his original homeland to experience himself in the outer regions of its frontiers of creation – must wander in these outer worlds, so that he might one day escape the folly of his will’s course and be able to will his return to the light of his eternal homeland. –

*

At first he finds in these worlds only a rigid narrow LABYRINTH with magnificent colours, continually promising him an exit into new light, only to deceive him again. –

Exhausted he finally stops; for he must see that his spiritual form can gain no freedom here.

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Now he is filled with the NEED FOR MANIFESTATION , and he who was once free above all concepts, now joins the procession of millions of beings which long for their outer manifestation of form in these worlds.

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Finally having become a form of the outside world through the animal, he thinks he sees a new sign of his correct choice, yet he only falls prey to the frightening horror-filled region of the ASTRAL LIGHT surrounding each of these outer worlds. –

Finally having become a form of the outside world through the animal, he thinks he sees a new sign of his correct choice, yet he only falls prey to the frightening horror-filled region of the ASTRAL LIGHT surrounding each of these outer worlds. –

This light is deceptive, but its powers do not let go of those who have once entered its region, and groping his way from one deception to another, he finally falls into guilt, and then mocks in wild folly all light. – –

The animal now takes full possession of his spirituality to prepare for him his SODOM in unrestrained orgies, dreamt up from his bestialised spirituality…

*

Now his last hope seems to have abandoned him, and in awful darkness he wanders through an INFERNO, a hell he has created for himself – tormented by terrors which pursue his act of madness like furies.

Any escape no longer seems possible. –

He must taste all the precipitations of horror until despair leads him to remember his former greatness and he recalls that he is of divine origin. –

Only now does he feel for the first time that longing desire to return which one day will lead him upwards again to his homeland which still seems to him to have vanished for him in endless distances.

The first step of his turn around is made with diffidence and fear…

A trembling sense of possible salvation fills his new longing.

*

After almost endless, harassing searching he perceives at last within all the darkness a light he recognises as the light of his homeland.

With his strength doubled he directs his steps groping in the dark towards this light.

At last he comes closer to it.

He now catches sight of a hidden sanctuary in the midst of his inferno.

He would already like to believe himself saved, but dreadful eyes look upon him with their spectral gaze – frightening guards keep menacing watch here…

He needs the last of his strength not to be overcome here by fatal fear.

On countless occasions he tries to approach the high steps so that he might cross the threshold.

Again and again his fear of the guardians holds him back.

But finally his perseverance rewards him.

From the heights of the gloom a voice comes to him and fills him with new strength.

He suddenly feels himself as if held by his hands, and with a brave look he stares into the eyes of the threatening monsters and with the victory of a hero crosses the threshold.

Now he is in the interior of the sanctuary of mysteries, and at once he feels as though the ‘animal’ has slipped away from him. –

He feels himself once more as spiritual being, and from the deepest ardour of his feeling pour from his lips the words: ‘DE PROFUNDIS’  from the depths, O Lord, redeem my soul!

In devotion he bows before the image of God he sees in the depths of the illuminated room.

His prayer appears to him here to be the first redemption from unbearable torment…

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Yet when he finally lifts up his eyes he is aware of a new radiant brightness behind the divine image and feels that he is being led by an invisible hand to enter this bright space.

Unsure, he dares take every step.

Here too he must walk through menacing occurrence, but fear has now left him.

Finally the last veils are rent in twain in front of him as the thunder rages, and before him he sees shining brightly the jewel of REVELATION…

A long lost memory comes back to him, and he feels himself transported back to that spiritual place where once he too heard his jubilant voice in a ‘Te Deum’ of  spiritual choirs…

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Drunk with inner joy he walks towards the jewel which is transformed before his eyes into a sun before which the last veils, conquered by the light, part.

Only now does he receive complete ILLUMINATION, and his whole being shines forth in spiritually pure light. –

 Thus made perfect as the purest blaze of light, he now beholds the path he has travelled and from depths of the primeval ground he sees the forms of fashioning powers at work building for creation a high temple space where the veils of the holy of holiest slowly open before his eyes and show him an even more valuable jewel in a far more radiant form than the one which brought him the revelation of the divine image.

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His supreme longing achieves here at last FULFILLMENT.

Yet now he is called back to the outer earth, for now he knows that he can only redeem himself in his earthly form, if he brings the spirit within him to physical expression.

Incarnation of the spirit is the ‘key’, as he now clearly feels, which will permanently loosen his earthly fetters so that he can walk as a free man, as a son of the light over the earthly orb – one who has redeemed himself and is a redeemer of his brother man – a helper amidst those who stood by his side on the way to redemption, although he suspected it not.

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Filled with this great pure will he finds himself almost in the same moment on exalted mountain peaks, – and from the rocky crevices and valleys bundles of light seem to shoot upwards.

Whatever his eyes see shines with a golden blaze, and every ray of light proclaims to him the VICTORY!

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Yet for the victor there is no tarrying if he wants to hold on to the fruits of victory. –

High above where he stands, his gaze now finds a far higher mountain towering, permanently covered with glistening white snow.

The refuge of the eternal on this earth has revealed itself to his spiritual eye…

He senses: – that the distant peak there in pure white before the glowing gold of the sky is ‘HIMAVAT’, the mountain of the only ones on this earth whom the First Light itself consecrated as priestly kings!

There is the primeval image of that temple and its host of servants, there is the permanent reality of which the legend spoke piously to men in forms they could comprehend, as: the ‘holy grail’. – –

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His path now clearly leads him that way.

Truly he sees that there are still many obstacles threatening him, but he knows that he is awaited there, that the guide waits for him there and will lead him through earthly life and, after accomplished time, open the door so that he, as well as you, finds his homeland.

The sticky green rolling masses of dull lethargy he first meets seek to prevent him from continuing, yet a glance towards the distant goal is enough to overcome them!

The rigid cragged barrier of doubt rises up before him sure of victory, so as to paralyse his courage, yet no power on earth can hold him back any longer, and even if he were to bleed from a thousand wounds, he will conquer this last remaining obstacle too!

When after a long and strenuous journey he finally reaches the goal, he will surely give no further thought to the dangers of the path he has journeyed.

As finder of himself he will be received, and the golden wreath of knowledge will be put around his forehead.

He will be clothed in holy white linen so that any stains which sullied him on his journey will not stick.

And so he will be consecrated to the eternal and taught the exalted royal art of embodying through love the power of pure essential spirit in the manner of man on earth. –

What previously was dark animal nature will then be transformed in him, and all his earthly nature will be only a form of expression of the spirit. –

He will be taught that in the eternal spirit only the bold one can continually claim the crown of his spiritual realm, and that only cowardice or fearful folly of the outer world would want to flee the earthly senses to which his own will once surrendered itself…

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Yet – – I am already reaching ahead for a teaching which you, born in the spirit as a star of eternity, shall now receive from me!

Everything you hitherto have seen with your opened inner eye was nothing other than your own course, from the exit of your eternal being to the return which sees you now before me transformed into a star. –

You will henceforth often see pass before you in this innermost spiritual realm of essential vision, at one with me as your guide united with you, the wonders of this realm, and there will always be other visions which the primeval ground of all becoming  reveals to you.

But know that these ‘visions’ only ever show essential influence, that these ‘images’ are true primeval images of all occurrences of which you on earth, in that outermost region of the frontiers of being, only see the reflection. – – –

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We are now returning to the earth which needs your victorious shining.

Let not grief conceal your inner light, – grant pain no place within you when you now leave with me the realm of light, and then, having returned to earth, see the dull spiritual night which surrounds you there!

He who, like you, returns to his earthly existence has no more night to fear, for he carries within himself his light – the light of eternity! –

Let all your concern henceforth be: to illuminate with your own light everything that comes near you, and as a star of the sun of the primeval fire of eternal love to cast light on all who are still in darkness.

Desire nothing more for yourself and you will possess everything you need through the power of your own light! – –

You cannot pour any ray of your light onto other hearts which would not win for you thousands of hearts!

You will not have to exert yourself to shine; – you will only have to make an effort not to darken for others, through external earthly activity, the light of eternity which seeks to radiate out from you! – –

If you will just entrust yourself to your own light, your earthly body will be so illuminated that it can no longer cast a shadow on others who need some of your light in the earthly night! –

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You will always find me if you need me, even if wide seas separate our earthly bodies.

You are not to seek me in my outer earthly apparel, for never could I unite with you in the outer world in the way in which we are united now in the innermost. –

You must go yourself into the innermost depth of your feelings if I am to be perceptible to you again, and only in the innermost will you see this realm of essential light again and again! – –