Not all the songs of the Bible are equally esoteric in content. Those which were composed primarily as initiatory songs are more deeply occult than those which are chants of praise and adoration, though the latter pertain to a higher state of consciousness. The liturgical hymns are more particularly the hymns of Initiation, for these are part of the Temple service, and share the mysteries of that ritual where the hidden meaning of the services in Tabernacle and Temple were revealed.
The esoteric meaning of Israelitish history we have also discussed. Some of the Psalms epitomize the entire history of Israel, such as the 105th Psalm, which is introduced with the lines, "Oh give thanks unto Jehovah, call upon his name; make known among the peoples his doings. . . . Talk ye of all his marvelous works." This is, therefore, a didactic song, meant for instruction, and its esoteric meaning is precisely that which we have already learned concerning the events celebrated in the song, namely, The seed of Abraham, "the strength, and the face," the covenant with Israel, the oath to Isaac, Canaan the inheritance, the story of Joseph, the coming up out of Egypt, leadership of Moses and Aaron, the ten plagues, the Fire and Cloud which guided them, water from the rock and manna in the wilderness and their final conquest.
The 106th Psalm follows in much the same vein, beginning with Egypt and discussing the lessons to be learned from the Exodus, but further describes excesses and idolatries which sprang up after the conquest of Canaan: "Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood." "And the land was polluted with blood." Consequent upon all this, Jehovah's wrath was kindled and he allowed them to be carried away into Exile, and Jerusalem to be destroyed with its Temple. "Nevertheless he regarded their distress, when he heard their cry," and the Psalm closes on a note of faith in ultimate salvation.
We mention these two didactic Psalms, but the student will find others. The neophyte learns from them the loving Power of God to protect and heal and bless, as demonstrated in Israel.
It must be borne in mind that the rabbinical editors of late centuries arbitrarily rewrote and cast out of the Scriptures much that was truly occult, and which had come down directly from Moses and even from the Patriarchs. This body of knowledge, rejected by the orthodox canon, is not lost; some fragments of it are to be discovered among the apocryphal and pseudo-epigraphical books, but in the Archetypal World all these books remain shining in the Light of Wisdom and are destined to be recovered by seers who make themselves worthy. On the physical side, archeology has an even more important function to perform in the recovery of lost teachings than it has played in the past, important as that has been.
"The Wisdom of the Egyptians" will one day be recovered and be given an honored place, and so also will the Chaldean Mysteries, for Hebrew prophets were high Initiates in the Chaldean and Egyptian schools. In the Exilic Period, the wave of reform which swept over Persia engulfed Palestine also, because the Hebrew leaders in Exile at Babylon came under the Zoroastrian influence, and carried it back with them to Palestine. There then transpired a conflict between old and new religious ideas; there was even an official change of language from Hebrew to Aramaic. All of these vicissitudes may be traced in the Psalms, and we know that they follow the changing course of a Mystery School, and the work of Archangels and Angels with human beings.
There is also the fact to be considered that the modern version of occult truths is not in exact identity with that of ancient Initiates, because, man's mental outlook has changed in the course of evolution; nevertheless, in fundamentals the work is still the same, because the primordial Ideal, or archetype, is eternal and immutable, and it is only the shadow cast in the worlds of illusion which undergoes the process we call evolution.
Thus it not infrequently happens that although we use terms which were unknown to the ancients, even by translation, yet, because we are attuned to one and the same archetypal Idea, there is a harmony and a correspondence, and our experiences may be so similar that even several thousand years of evolution cannot prevent us from recognizing phenomena which are a matter of first-hand experience.
The ancients as well as moderns knew that it was possible for the soul to go forth from the body at night on errands of mercy and in quest of knowledge. The Orient teems with legends illustrative of this truth, and although the orthodox canon of the West has fewer examples, the apocryphal and kabbalistic literature abounds with them. Our Scriptures do not include the two apocryphal books of Enoch, called the Slavonic and Ethiopic Books of Enoch, according to the place of their discovery, namely, Russia and Abyssinia. Yet the boy Jesus must have been familiar with them, and he remembered them in his manhood, for they are quoted in his speeches recorded in the New Testament, and the ante-Nicene Church accepted them. The New Testament, therefore, stands as evidence for the authority of Enoch, showing that Jesus did not reject him as the later Church, both Hebrew and Christian, has done for no better reason than their own inability to comprehend the Mysteries.
Like the Psalms, the Book of the Mysteries of Enoch is in fact a book of verse; it is an esoteric poem, brilliantly imagined and beautifully expressed. A portion of it is quoted in Chapter VIII of The Hexateuch. We read how Enoch was taken out of the body by an Angel (Hierophant in the Mysteries), ascended through seven heavens and beheld the Beloved, the Queen of the Ocean of Light, and the Messenger who should descend to Earth as the Messiah or Christos. He relates that the Messenger "passed away and ascended. Then the spirits of the firmament and the elemental circles saw Him pass ... saying: How hath He descended and we saw Him not? And how hath He passed and we discovered not the splendor with which the Lord clothed Him?" After his final Initiation, Enoch returns to the Earth, instructs an assembly of the people, gives into the care of his son Methuselah the books he has written, and then he is translated into Spirit.
This is given as an illustration of the ancient Hebrew belief that the soul of the livhig could leave the body and ascend into the heavens, without suffering death. It is upon this principle that the work of the Invisible Helper is based. Released from the body, usually during the hours of sleep, the illumined one walks over and under the waters and through fire, passes through all obstructions, to perform errands of mercy and love; comforting the sorrowing and dying, and healing the sick through spiritual ministrations. In the New Testament we read that when St. Peter had escaped from prison and went to a friend's house, the woman who opened the door wondered if it was indeed Peter or his "Angel" who stood there.
The "Temple sleep" among ancient nations also had reference to the work performed in the Temples by ministrants working in the soul world while the patient slept in a room provided for that purpose. Walter Pater in Marius, the Epicurean gives a charming picture of a Temple of Aesculapius in Italy and of a little boy's visit there for the purpose of healing.
The Greeks specialized almost entirely in spiritual healing, and were celebrated throughout the Roman Empire for their occult knowledge. The Hebrew names of the angelic Hierarchies may have been known to the Greeks and Romans before the Christian era. Raphael was the Archangel of Healing. The Western Wisdom Teaching ascribes his rulership to Gemini and Virgo, and the planet Mercury; but some schools of kabbalistic thought ascribe Raphael to the Sun, and Michael to Mercury. Michael is sometimes also ascribed to Mars, and it was he who announced to the Virgin Mary her approaching death.
Mercury is the planet ruling the intelligence, and no one who does not appreciate the true potency of the Mind in the universe can ever be an Invisible Helper. The Mercurial Serpent of Quicksilver is the healing power in the living universe. The myth of the Caduceus reveals the method of healing by spiritual power. The poet tells us that Apollo gave a staff to Hermes in return for Hermes' gift of the lyre, the staff having the power to establish peace among warring elements. Immediately thereafter, Hermes beheld two serpents in mortal combat. He thrust the staff between them, and at once they coiled themselves about it in loving concord. It is only as the neophyte finds the Caduceus within that he, too, is able to bring peace to a troubled world, and the solution of its difficulties when his own inner conflict has been resolved.
Psalm 80, called "the Tune of the Hind at Dawn", and Psalm 22, "the Tune of the Dove of the Far-off Isles" both bear a secret reference to the wandering soul of the invisible ministrant. So also Psalm 107 calls to mind the work of the Invisible Helper:
We have already learned of Theophrastus' comments on the Night Watches at the exoteric Temple; but the song is equally applicable to the night-long waking consciousness of the Invisible Helper, whose "soul is redeemed."
— Corinne Heline
