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down to the strongest pugilist and the fattest pig, has no encouragement to offer to morality; no
prize to give for any moral virtue. Because it has Societies for the prevention of physical cruelty
to animals, and none with the object of preventing the moral cruelty practiced on human beings.
Because it encourages, legally and tacitly, vice under every form, from the sale of whiskey down
to forced prostitution and theft brought on by starvation wages, Shylock-like exaction, rents and
other comforts of our cultured period. Because, finally, this is the age which, although
proclaimed as one of physical and moral freedom, is in truth the age of the most ferocious moral
and mental slavery, the like of which was never known before. Slavery to State and men has
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STUDIES IN OCCULTISM
66
disappeared only to make room for slavery to things and Self, to one's own vices and idiotic
social customs and ways. Rapid civilization, adapted to the needs of the higher and middle
classes, has doomed by contrast to only greater wretchedness the starving masses. Having
leveled the two former it has made them the more to disregard the substance in favor of form and
appearance, thus forcing modern man into duress vile, a slavish dependence on things inanimate,
to use and to serve which is the first bounded duty of every cultured man.
Where then is the Wisdom of our modern age?
In truth, it requires but a very few lines to show why we bow before ancient Wisdom, while
refusing absolutely to see any in our modern civilization. But to begin with, what does our critic
mean by the word "wisdom"? Though we have never too unreasonably admired Lactantius, yet
we must recognize that even that innocent Church Father, with all his cutting insults anent the
heliocentric system, defined the term very correctly when saying that "the first point of Wisdom
is to discern that which is false, and the second, to know that which is true." And if so what
chance is there for our century of falsification, from the revised Bible texts down to natural
butter, to put forth a claim to "Wisdom"? But before we cross lances on this subject we may do
well, perchance, to define the term ourselves.
Let us premise by saying that Wisdom is, at best, an elastic word -- at any rate as used in
European tongues. That it yields no clear idea of its meaning, unless preceded or followed by
some qualifying adjective. In the Bible, indeed, the Hebrew equivalent Chockmah (in Greek,
Sophia) is applied to the most dissimilar things -- abstract and concrete. Thus we find "Wisdom"
as the characteristic both of divine inspiration and also of terrestrial cunning and craft; as
meaning the Secret Knowledge of the Esoteric Sciences, and also blind faith; the "fear of the
Lord," and Pharaoh's magicians. The noun is indifferently applied to Christ and to sorcery, for
the witch Sedecla is also referred to as the "wise woman of En-Dor." From the earliest Christian
antiquity, beginning with St. James (iii, 13-17), down to the last Calvinist preacher, who sees in
hell and eternal damnation a proof of "the Almighty's wisdom," the term has been used with the
most varied meanings. But St. James teaches two kinds of wisdom; a teaching with which we
fully concur. He draws a strong line of separation between the divine or noetic "Sophia" -- the
Wisdom from above -- and the terrestrial, psychic, and devilish wisdom (iii, 15). For the true
Theosophist there is no wisdom save the former. Would that such an one could declare with
Paul, that he speaks that wisdom exclusively only among them "that are perfect," i.e., those
initiated into its mysteries, or familiar, at least, with the A B C of the sacred sciences. But,
however great was his mistake, however premature his attempt to sow the seeds of the true and
eternal gnosis on unprepared soil, his motives were yet good and his intention unselfish, and
therefore has he been stoned. For had he only attempted to preach some particular fiction of his
own, or done it for gain, who would have ever singled him out or tried to crush him, amid the
hundreds of other false sects, daily "collections" and crazy "societies"? But his case was
different. However cautiously, still he spoke "not the wisdom of this world" but truth or the
"hidden wisdom . . . which none of the Princes of this World know (I Corinth. ii.) least of all the
archons of our modern science. With regard to "psychic" wisdom, however, which James defines
as terrestrial and devilish, it has existed in all ages, from the days of Pythagoras and Plato, when
for one philosophus there were nine sophistae, down to our modern era. To such wisdom our
century is welcome, and indeed fully entitled, to lay a claim. Moreover, it is an attire easy to put
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STUDIES IN OCCULTISM
67
on; there never was a period when crows refused to array themselves in peacock's feathers, if the
opportunity was offered.
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