In Search of the Miraculous

only in this form are they able to accept it; only in this form are they able to digest and assimilate it. Truth undefiled would be, for them, indigestible food.

"Besides, a grain of truth in an unaltered form is sometimes found in pseudoesoteric movements, in church religions, in occult and theosophical schools. It may be preserved in their writings, their rituals, their traditions, their conceptions of the

hierarchy, their dogmas, and their rules.

"Esoteric schools, that is, not pseudo-esoteric schools, which perhaps exist in some countries of the East, are difficult to find because they exist there in the guise of

ordinary monasteries and temples. Tibetan monasteries are usually built in the form of

four concentric circles or four concentric courts divided by high walls. Indian temples,

especially those in Southern India, are built on the same plan but in the form of

squares, one contained within the other. Worshipers usually have access to the first

outer court, and sometimes, as an exception, persons of another religion and

Europeans; access to the second court is for people of a certain caste only or for those

having special permission; access to the third court is only for persons belonging to

the temple; and access to the fourth is only for Brahmins and priests. Organizations of

this kind which, with minor variations, are everywhere in existence, enable esoteric

schools to exist without being recognized. Out of dozens of monasteries one is a

school. But how is it to be recognized? If you get inside it you will only be inside the

first court; to the second court only pupils have access. But this you do not know, you

are told they belong to a special caste. As regards the third and fourth courts you

cannot even know anything about them. And you can, in fact, observe the same order

in all temples and until you are told you cannot distinguish an esoteric temple or

monastery from an ordinary one.

"The idea of initiation, which reaches us through pseudo-esoteric systems, is also

transmitted to us in a completely wrong form. The legends concerning the outward

rites of initiation have been created out of the scraps of information we possess in

regard to the ancient Mysteries. The Mysteries represented a special kind of way in

which, side by side with a difficult and prolonged period of study, theatrical

representations of a special kind were given which depicted in allegorical forms the

whole path of the evolution of man and the world.

"Transitions from one level of being to another were marked by ceremonies of

presentation of a special kind, that is, initiation. But a change of being cannot be

brought about by any rites. Rites can only mark an accomplished transition. And it is

only in pseudo-esoteric systems in which there is nothing else except these rites, that

they begin to attribute to the rites an independent meaning. It is supposed that a rite, in being transformed into a sacrament, transmits or communicates certain forces

to the initiate. This again relates to the psychology of an imitation way. There is not,

nor can there be, any outward initiation. In reality only self-initiation, selfpresentation exist. Systems and schools can indicate methods and ways, but no system or school whatever can do for a man the work that he must do himself. Inner growth,

a change of being, depend entirely upon the work which a man must do on himself."

Chapter Sixteen

BY THIS time, that is, by November, 1916, the position of affairs in Russia had

begun to assume a very gloomy aspect. Up to this time we, at any rate most of us, had

by some miracle kept clear of "events." Now "events" were drawing nearer to us, that is to say, they were drawing nearer to each one of us personally, and we could no

longer fail to notice them.

It in no way enters into my task either to describe or to analyze what was taking

place. At the same time it was such an exceptional period that I cannot altogether

avoid all mention of what was going on around us, otherwise I should have to admit

that I had been both blind and deaf. Besides, nothing could have given such material

for the study of the "mechanicalness" of events, that is, of the entire and complete absence of any element of will, as the observation of events at this period. Some

things appeared or might have appeared to be dependent on somebody's will, but even

this was illusion and in reality it had never been so clear that everything happens, that no one does anything.

In the first place it was clear to everyone who was able and who wanted to see it

that the war was coming to an end and that it was coming to an end by itself through

some deep inner weariness and from the realization, though dull and obscure yet

firmly rooted, of the senselessness of all this horror. No one believed now in words of

any kind. No attempts of any kind to galvanize the war were able to lead to anything.

At the same time it was impossible to stop anything and all talk about the necessity of