The secret teachers of the western world

503 Pages·2015·3.38 MB·English

by  Lachman

ALSO BY GARY LACHMAN
Revolutionaries of the Soul: Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers, and Occultists Aleister Crowley:
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Responsibly in an Unfinished World Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality The Quest for
Hermes Trismegistus: From Ancient Egypt to the Modern World Swedenborg: An Introduction to His Life
and Ideas
Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung’s Life and Teachings The Dedalus Book of Literary
Suicides: Dead Letters Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen Rudolf
Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work The Dedalus Book of the Occult: The Garden of Hermetic
Dreams (ed.) A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult
In Search of P. D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff A Secret History of Consciousness
Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius Two Essays on Colin
Wilson
AS GARY VALENTINE:
New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation with Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Others, 1974–1981

JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lachman, Gary, 1955– The secret teachers of the western world / by Gary
Lachman.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-69813722-6
1. Occultism—History. 2. Occultists. I. Title.
BF1411.L235 2015
130—dc23
2015021615
Cover design by Tom McKeveny
Version_1
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS
Also by Gary Lachman
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
INTRODUCTION
REJECTED KNOWLEDGE
Esotericism as “rejected knowledge” • Why is it rejected? • Iain McGilchrist and The Master and
His Emissary • Our Other Self • Dual Realities • Differences between the right and left brain •
Who’s the Boss? • “Opposition is true friendship” • Left-Brain Aggression • Leonard Shlain and
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess • Esotericism and the Right Brain • Structures of Consciousness •
Jean Gebser and The Ever-Present Origin • The Mental-Rational Structure and the Left Brain •
Hermetic Renaissance • Anti-Hermes • Marin Mersenne • Integration • Consciousness Wars •
Bringing It All Together • Integrating opposites • The law of three • A Double-Truth Universe • Our
Secret Teachers
CHAPTER ONE
AN ANCIENT WISDOM
Aurea Catena • The Golden Chain of adepts • The Corpus Hermeticum • The prisca theologia •
What is esotericism? • Gnosis • The perennial philosophy • Esoteric schools • The Old World •
Owen Barfield and the evolution of consciousness • Participation • Rudolf Steiner and “picture
thinking” • How Old Is the Sphinx? • René Schwaller de Lubicz • Ancient astronomers • The
Intelligence of the Heart • Egyptian consciousness • Symbolique • Henri Bergson’s Brain • Aldous
Huxley’s mind • A Successful Adaptation • Limiting consciousness • Intuition • The Nineveh
Number • The Bird’s-Eye View • Calculating prodigies • How Old Is Man? • Neanderthal Man • Two
Realities • Cities of Dreams • The Seven Sisters • Direct Perception • What Happened? • A shift
toward the left • A Necessary Loss • The change from old consciousness to new
CHAPTER TWO
OUT OF THE MYSTERIES
Karl Jaspers and the axial age • An “axis of history” • A global shift in consciousness • Question
Time • Birth of the western world • The rise of the thinker and the end of myth • Philosophical
wonder • Lost in the Stars • Thales and the pre-Socratics • The search for the arche • Order in the
Flux • A Harmonious Man • Pythagoras of Samos • A beautiful cosmos • The music of the spheres •
A Short Life of Pythagoras • It’s All in the Numbers • Quality, not quantity • Harmonizing
opposites • Giving form to matter • A Philosophical Life • The Pythagorean Brotherhood • Orpheus
and the Mysteries • Demeter and Persephone • A psychedelic kykeon? • Purifying the Soul •
Dionysus • Reason and myth • The Permanent Needs of Human Nature • Francis Cornford and
From Religion to Philosophy • The mythic roots of thought • Plato • Plato’s Academy • The
Immortal Soul • Socrates • The Forms • Esotericism as Platonism? • The myth of the cave • A
Portable Tomb • Practice dying • Jeremy Naydler • Platonic Shamans
CHAPTER THREE
THE SECRET GNOSIS
Aristotle vs. Plato • A left-brain philosophy? • Aristotle and the church • Biology, not geometry •
The first systematic thinker • The Lyceum • The Peripatetics • Differences from Plato’s Academy •
Is it Logical? • Let A=A • The law of noncontradiction and the excluded middle • “Either/or” vs.
“both/and” • Beyond logic • Philosophy in Difficult Times • Cynics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and
Stoics • The search for ataraxia • Return of the Mysteries • Right-brain religion? • Isis and Cybele •
The taurobolium • Last stand of paganism • The cult of Mithras • Military mysteries • Soothsayers
and Wonderworkers • The Sibyls • The Juliani and the Chaldean Oracles • Apollonius of Tyana •
“The Lamia” • Jesus Christ, the Secret Teacher • Similarities between Apollonius and Jesus • A
pagan Christ • The Jesus Mysteries • Was Jesus a mushroom? • A Secret Christianity? • Morton
Smith and the secret Gospel • The Gospel of Thomas • Thunder, Perfect Mind • The Gnostics •
Early Christian critics • A False World • The demiurge and the left brain • Emanations and archons
• A cosmic prison: Heidegger and Gurdjieff • Hylics, psychics, and pneumatics • Conspiracy
theories and the “hermeneutics of suspicion” • Gnostics at Work • Mani, Valentinus, Basilides of
Alexandria, Carpocrates, Simon Magus and Sophia • Antinomianism • Marcion • The Roots of
Gnosticism • Merkabah mysticism • The Essenes and the retreat to the desert • Zoroastrianism •
“Platonism run wild”
CHAPTER FOUR
FROM THE ONE TO THE ONE
Alexander the Great and the founding of Alexandria • Aristotle’s’ student • No worlds left to
conquer • Rise of the Ptolemies • A City of Sects and Gospels • Death of Cleopatra • The religious
mysteries of Egypt • Fusion of Greek and Egyptian religious ideas • Syncretism • Serapis • The
spiritual marketplace • The library of Alexandria • Amr ibn al’Aas: burn the books to heat the baths
• Episteme and gnosis • The Other Gnostics • Clement of Alexandria • The Need for Symbols •
Philo of Alexandria • The Great Chain of Being • Origen • A eunuch for God • A posthumous
heretic • Against Celsus • A Gnostic Trinity • Apocatastasis • Thrice Greatest Hermes • Who were
the Hermetists? • When Thoth met Hermes • The Book of Thoth • The Asclepius • Bad days for
Egypt • The Creation According to Hermes • G. R. S. Mead and the doubting mind • Nous • A
creature of two worlds • The Journey Through the Planets • A pre-Christian Christianity • The
ladder of consciousness • Cosmic Consciousness • “If you do not make yourself equal to God you
cannot understand him” • Hermetic participation • Drawing Down the Gods • Theurgy • Plotinus
and the Man He Was Looking For • Disdain for the body • No pictures, please • Ammonius Saccas •
A transcendent deity • Henosis • The Last Days of Plotinus • From the One to the One • Intellect
and Anima mundi • The sympathy of all things • After Plotinus • Porphyry • Iamblichus • Proclus
CHAPTER FIVE
GREAT PAN IS DEAD
Theophilus and the destruction of the temples • The assassination of Hypatia • The end of paganism
• An esoteric exodus • Dionysius the Areopagite • Proclus and Christianity • Emanations and
angelic hierarchies • A philosophy of light • Stained-glass windows • The via negativa and the via
positiva • Symbols and the right brain • Mysticism or esotericism? • Gnosis and imagination • Dark
Ages • Christianity and the fall of Rome • Monte Cassino • The rise of the monasteries • Esoteric
schools? • Seeds for the future • The “Great Memory” • Facing East • The rise of Islam • Alchemy
in Arabia • Jabir ibn Hayyan • The Sufis • Unity of being • Baghdad’s House of Wisdom • Pagans
and the Prophet • Hermetic Harran • Thabit ibn Qurra • Suhrawardi, Martyr and Illuminist • The
need for both heart and mind • Oriental Theosophy • An esoteric metaphysics of Light • The death
of Suhrawardi • The Imaginal World • Henry Corbin and “spiritual hermeneutics” • Imagination as
an organ of knowledge • Mental travelers • The Inner Voyage • The country of nowhere • The
stranger • Beyond the cosmic mountain • True Imagination • Trees of Life • Kabbalah • The Sefer
Yetzira • Moses de León and the Sefer ha-Zohar • Christian Kabbalah • The Middle Pillar • The
Return of Nature and the Rise of the Gothic • John Scotus Eriugena • The Aesthetic Abbot • Suger •
Let there be light • The Mystery of the Cathedrals • Gothic joy • Fulcanelli • The green language • A
pagan gothic? • The Black Virgin • The troubadours • “All troubadours were Cathars”
CHAPTER SIX
SPIRITUAL LOVE IN THE WESTERN WORLD
The Massacre at Montségur: the last stand of Medieval Gnosticism • The Albigensian Crusade •
Katharos, “purified” • A link to Orpheus? • Who Were the Cathars? • A baptism by fire • The
Bogomils • A Gnostic revival? • Perfects and Believers • Les bonshommes, “the good men” • A
Languedoc civilization • “One of the most extraordinary spiritual confluences in history” • The sack
of Béziers • The Inquisition • A Cathar Gnosis? • The consolamentum • Baraka and spiritual energy
• Soul Love • Troubadours and medieval tantra • Esoteric Eros • The Mystery of the Grail •
Sapientia, Lady Intelligence • Dante and Beatrice • Poe, Novalis, and the Divine Woman • The
Fedeli d’Amore • Guido Cavalcanti and the dolce stil nuovo • Courtly love • The cor gentile, “noble
heart” and “the intellect of love” • The Templar Connection • The Sufi Connection • Ibn ‘Arabi’s
“Beatrice experience” • Symbolique • “The Faithful of Love” • Dante’s Inner Voyage • The inner
journey of the poet • Initiatory trials • The beatific vision • The inner guide • The outskirts of
Hūrqalyā • Dante’s Cosmic Consciousness • Ouspensky on mystical experience • Dante and
Goldilocks • The way of art • Meister Eckhart and the Via Negativa • The Brethren of the Free
Spirit • A direct route to God • Dante and Eckhart • A Faithful Heretic • “God and I are one” • The
Cloud of Unknowing • Gelassenheit
CHAPTER SEVEN
AN ESOTERIC RENAISSANCE
Petrarch and Mount Ventoux • The discovery of nature • Dr. Johnson in Scotland • A strange new
world • Sehnsucht and Romanticism • A Change in Perspective • Jean Gebser and the rise of the
“space age” • Medieval tapestry • Separation from Origin • In the world but not of it • Room to
Move • Medieval humility • Rise of the human • The deficient mode of the mental-rational structure
of consciousness • Dazed and confused • A Byzantine Plato • Gemistos Plethon • A second Plato •
Keeping the Turk at bay • Council of Ferrara-Florence • Nicolas of Cusa • Plato, Aristotle, and the
prisca theologia • Zoroaster and the Chaldean Oracles • Plethon’s mystery school • The Return of
Hermes Trismegistus • Cosimo de’ Medici and a new Platonic Academy • A Melancholy Platonist •
Marsilio Ficino • Doctor of Souls • Hermetic Therapy • Medicine from the stars • Talismans and
correspondences • The Magic of Art • The via positiva • Bringing statues to life • Botticelli’s
Primavera • Return of the Magi • Pico della Mirandola and Oration on the Dignity of Man • Hubris
or a new self-confidence? • Trials of the Magician • The art of memory • Giordano Bruno • Infinite
worlds • Magical Memories • The End of Magic • The Cathedral of Siena • A Hermetic pope •
Agostino Steuco and the philosophia perennis • Magic, math, and book burning • The Protestant
Reformation and the via negativa • Indulgences • Catholic magic • Human or Superhuman? • The
scrutiny of Isaac Casaubon • A Hermetic fraud • The fall of Hermes Trismegistus • Hermes goes
underground
CHAPTER EIGHT
ESOTERIC UNDERWORLD
The Rosicrucians • A historical synchronicity • The invisible Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross • The
story of Christian Rosenkreutz • A universal reformation • Frederik V vs. the Habsburgs • The
defeat at White Mountain • Secret Societies • The Pope of Rome: Antichrist • An esoteric
counterculture • Rise of the secret teachers • Pansophia • A synthesis of science and the occult •
“Epignosis” • Fanatics of science and religion • Comenius, “father of modern education” A
Rosicrucian diaspora • The Labyrinth of the World • The great Fludd • Alchemy • Robert of Chester
and the Arabic craze • Roger Bacon, Doctor Mirabilis • Summa Alchemica • Thomas Aquinas and
the Aurora Consurgens • Marie-Louise von Franz • A “creative illness” • Sophia and the
Philosopher’s Stone • Jungian alchemy • Active imagination • Puffers and Masters • Nicolas Flamel
• The hunt for the philosopher’s stone • Jean Baptiste van Helmont • Helvetius • Alexander Seton •
The tragic case of James Price • The Hermes of the North • Paracelsus • The first modern medical
theorist • Monasteries and mines • Studies with Trithemius • Paracelsus’s travels • “Decay is the
midwife of great things” • Alchemical Changes • Transformations • The quest and the mystic
marriage • Alchemical “self-made men” • Imaginal Medicine • A healthy correspondence • “Direct
knowledge” • Jeremy Narby and ayahuasca • The Inner Firmament • Imagination and the
Philosopher’s Stone • Mary Anne South and the Mysteries • A Suggestive Inquiry • The Mystic
Cobbler • Jacob Boehme • Boehme’s pewter dish • Learning more in one quarter of an hour • The
Signature of Things • A Christian theosopher • War of the worlds • A dramatic universe
CHAPTER NINE
THIS IS THE MODERN WORLD
An alchemical boom • The end of Pansophia • Hyperphysical cartography • Michael Maier •
Courting James I • Atalanta Fugiens • The Thirty Years’ War • An Invisible Church • Johann
Valetin Andreae and the City of Christ • A serious joke • The Intelligencer • Samuel Hartlib • A
College of Light • The English Civil War • Comenius tries again • The Invisible College • Natural
philosophy • The Royal Society • The rise of Baconian science • We must put nature on the rack •
An end to “universal wisdom” • “Let Newton Be!” • John Maynard Keynes • Genius at Work • “Of
the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper that I ever knew” • Prisms, calculus, and an apple
• The Principia • Alchemical Newton • Newton predicts! • Solomon’s Temple • Newton and the
philosopher’s stone • Newton’s Breakdown • An uncreative illness? • The Mason’s Word • Elias
Ashmole, Rosicrucian collector • Rosicrucian Freemasons • Thomas De Quiney • The Roots of
Freemasonry • Masonic conspiracies • The Cathedral Builders • “Freestone” masons • Operators
and Speculators • Deism and the Divine Architect • Continental Freemasonry and Hidden Superiors
• Baron von Hund and Strict Observance • A Scandinavian Da Vinci • Emanuel Swedenborg • The
Guild of the Curious • A talent for engineering • Soul Searching • Discoveries in astronomy and
neuroscience • Count Zinzendorf, the Moravians, and Rabbi Falk • Spiritual sex • On the Way to
Heaven • Hypnagogia • Swedenborg’s “creative illness” • Swedenborg’s journeys to the spirit
worlds • Correspondences • Baudelaire and Symbolism
CHAPTER TEN
THE ROMANTIC CENTURY
Esoteric revolution • A plenitude of prophets • Popular occultism • Court de Gébelin and the occult
Tarot • Liberty, Equality, and Mesmerism • Franz Anton Mesmer • Hypnosis and the left brain •
Animal magnetism and the sympathy of all things • Success in Paris, then downfall • Radical Spirits
• Societies of Harmony • Esoteric currents around the French Revolution • Les crisiacs • The
Unknown Philosopher • Louis Claude de Saint-Martin • The Unknown Agent • Repairing the fallen
world • The regeneration of man • The spirit of Romanticism • Blake and Coleridge • Opening the
inner worlds • Primary imagination • Polarity • Thomas Taylor • The English Platonist • Goethe •
The last universal man • Goethean science • Active Seeing • The Urpflanze • When inner meets
outer • Novalis • The blue flower • “All philosophy is homesickness” • The Friends in the Night •
Spiritual pollen • Naturphilosophie • Nature alive, not a machine • A symbolic nature • The Night
Side of Nature • The dark side of the mind • The Seeress of Prevorst • Return of the ancient wisdom
• Catherine Crowe • Here Come the Spirits • Emerson and Poe • Spiritualism • The Fox sisters • The
French Connection • Allan Kardec • The Professor of Transcendental Magic • Eliphas Levi and the
occult revival of the nineteenth century • Astral light and the Book of Thoth • The Incomparable
HPB • Madame Blavatsky and the rise of Theosophy • On the road to the unknown • Ancient
Wisdom, Modern World • Unveiling Isis • India and Downfall • Secret Doctrines • Blavatsky’s
death
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOWARD THE NEW AGE
Fin-de-siècle occultism • Pessimism and optimism at the start of a new century • R. M. Bucke and
“cosmic consciousness” • The “positive fin-de-siècle” • The Spawn of HPB • The influence of
Theosophy • Kandinsky and Mondrian • Thought Forms • World Parliament of Religions •
Mountains of Truth • Monte Verità and the roots of the “counterculture” • Eranos • Psychic
Societies • The Society for Psychical Research • F. W. H. Myers and Human Personality and Its
Survival of Bodily Death • William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience • Golden
Dawns • The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn • MacGregor Mathers • Fräulein Sprengel and
the cipher manuscript • Aleister Crowley • The Old New Age • A. R. Orage, a “desperado of
genius” • The New Age • Theosophists and socialists • Superman consciousness • Annie Besant •
From secularist to mystic • C. W. Leadbeater and Krishnamurti’s Aura • Talking with the Masters •
Occult Chemistry • Home Rule • Indian independence • Ouspensky’s Fourth Dimension • A “time-
haunted man” • Tertium Organum • Seeking God at the Stray Dog Café • Dr. Steiner, I Presume? •
Geometry and visions • From Active Seeing to Supersensible Perception • Goethe • Steiner and
Theosophy • Cosmic evolution • The End of Old Europe • World War I • The golden age of modern
esotericism • Meeting a Remarkable Man • Mr. Gurdjieff • Mechanical man • Remember Your Self
• Gurdjieff and Heidegger • Food for the Moon • Seekers of Truth • A Miraculous Escape • The
Madness of C. G. Jung • Descent into the Unconscious • Jung the Gnostic • Schools of Wisdom •
Count Keyserling • The Threefold Commonwealth • The Abbey of Thelema • The Institute for the
Harmonious Development of Man • Reconstructing Europe • The end of the system • A new
morning ahead?
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NEXT STEP BEYOND
Flying saucers • A hunger for something more • Jung and the mandalas from outer space • Aion and
the age of Aquarius • Magical Mornings and Mushrooms • The Morning of the Magicians • The
occult revival of the 1960s • Albert Hofmann and LSD • Timothy Leary and the new mysteries •
John Lennon turns off his mind • The Return of the Beast • Crowley and the Beatles • Pop
esotericism • The New New Age • Dark side of the Aquarian Age • Domesticated occultism • The
New Humanism • Maslow • Human potential at Esalen • “Forced spontaneity” • Transpersonal
Psychology • Roberto Assagioli • Alice Bailey • Spiritual Summer Schools • Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn
and Casa Gabriella • Psychosynthesis • Aquarian Conspiracies • Marilyn Ferguson and The Aquarian
Conspiracy • The Brain/Mind Bulletin • H. G. Wells and The Open Conspiracy • Channels, Crystals,
and Other Accessories • Here comes the New Age • Shirley MacLaine is out on a limb • Spiritual
consumerism • The Lindisfarne Association • On the Way to 2012 • The Harmonic Convergence •
My Part in All This • Esoteric Internet • Too much of a good thing? • “The secrets once imparted
only to initiates are there on the bookshelves” • Meditations on the Tarot • Valentin Tomberg, a
modern esotericist • Gebser’s Breakdown • The last days of the mental-rational structure of