In Search of the Miraculous

acquiring anything new. To be able to understand speech when it becomes symbolical

it is essential to have learned before and to know already how to listen. Any attempt to

understand literally, where speech deals with objective knowledge and with the union

of diversity and unity, is doomed to failure beforehand and leads in most cases to

further delusions.

"It is necessary to dwell upon this because the intellectualism of contemporary

education imbues people with a propensity and a tendency to look for logical

definitions and for logical arguments against everything they hear and, without

noticing it, people unconsciously fetter themselves with their desire, as it were, for

exactitude in those spheres where exact definitions, by their very nature, imply

inexactitude in meaning.

"Therefore, because of the tendency referred to in our thinking, it often happens that exact knowledge concerning details, communicated to a man before he has acquired

an understanding of the essential nature of a thing, makes it difficult for him to

understand this essential nature. This does not mean that exact definitions do not exist

on the way of true knowledge, on the contrary, only there do they exist; but they differ

very greatly from what we usually think them to be. And if anyone supposes that he

can go along the way of self-knowledge guided by an exact

knowledge of all details, and if he expects to have such knowledge without first having

given himself the trouble to assimilate the indications he has received concerning his

own work, then he should first of all understand that he will not attain knowledge until

he makes the necessary efforts and that only of himself and only by his own efforts can

he attain what he seeks. No one can ever give him what he did not possess before;

no one can do for him the work he should do for himself. All that another can do for

him is to give him the impetus to work and from this point of view symbolism,

properly perceived, plays the part of an impetus of this kind for our knowledge.

"We have spoken earlier of the law of octaves, of the fact that every process, no

matter upon what scale it takes place, is completely determined in its gradual

development by the law of the structure of the seven-tone scale. In connection with

this it has been pointed out that every note, every tone, if taken on another scale is

again a whole octave. The 'intervals' between mi and fa and between si and do which

cannot be filled by the intensity of the energy of the process in operation, and which

require an outside 'shock,' outside help so to speak, connect by this very fact one

process with other processes. From this it follows that the law of octaves connects all

processes of the universe and, to one who knows the scales of the passage and the

laws of the structure of the octave, it presents the possibility of an exact cognition of everything and every phenomenon in its essential nature and of all its interrelations

with phenomena and things connected with it.

"For uniting into one whole all knowledge connected with the law of the structure of the octave there is a certain symbol which takes the form of a circle divided into nine

parts with lines connecting the nine points on the circumference in a certain order.

"Before passing on to the study of the symbol itself it is essential to understand

certain aspects of the teaching which makes use of this symbol, as well as the relation

of this teaching to other systems which make use of symbolical methods for the

transmission of knowledge.

"In order to understand the interrelation of these teachings it must always be

remembered that the ways which lead to the cognition of unity approach it like the

radii of a circle moving towards the center; the closer they come to the center, the

closer they approach one another.

"As a result of this the theoretical statements which form the basis of one line can sometimes be explained from the point of view of statements of another line and vice

versa. For this reason it is sometimes possible to form a certain intermediate line

between two adjacent lines. But in the absence of a complete knowledge and

understanding of the fundamental lines, such intermediate ways may easily lead to a

mixing of lines, to confusion and error.

"Of the principal lines, more or less known, four can be named:

1) The Hebraic

2) The Egyptian

3) The Persian

4) The Hindu

"Moreover of the last we know only its philosophy, and of the first three, parts of

their theory.

"In addition to these there are two lines known in Europe, namely theosophy and so-called Western occultism, which have resulted from a mixture of the fundamental lines. Both lines bear in themselves grains of truth, but neither of them possesses full

knowledge and therefore attempts to bring them to practical realization give only

negative results.

"The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self-supporting and

independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the present time.