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The Mystery of the Ages

By

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Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.

HERMETIC THEOSOPHY.

PART II .. EGYPTIAN AND CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM.

God and the gods. Soul-worship and Demon-worship. Man ever the same. Polytheism. Misdirected Religion. ~e place of the "Gods" in ancient Theosophy. Necessity for Occult fables. Unity of Mystic Doctrine. Spiritual Democrats and Aristocrat& The struggle between knowledge and ignorance. A war between the occult and the official Church. Continuance of Hierarchic Obscurantism. The most ancient book of Theosophic teachings. The "Book of the Dead." Division of the "Ritual." Gnosticism a revival of Egyptian Theosophy. The Books of Hermes. The " Imperishable " in Egyptian and Hindu Theosophy. Quotations from the ancient Papyri. Osiris, the Spirit of Brahma. The Pantheism of Initiates. The Egyptian Hierarchy. The Smaragdine Tablet. Selections from the Books of Hermes. The Influence of Hermetic Theosophy upon the Genesis of Christianity. Formulation of the Christian Doctrine at Alexandria. Christian and Pagan Gnostics. Gnosis the Sanctuary of Christianity. "Men are not saved by the historical but by the metaphysical." Christ and Horus. Hermes Trismegistus ••