As said, it is not necessary that any one particular language should be used. They may be in Samskrit, or in any one of the languages of the world, in which men of knowledge have put them together.
This is the reason why, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Latin language is always used in important acts of worship. It is not used as a dead language here, a tongue "not understanded of the people," but as a living force in the invisible worlds. It is not used to hide knowledge from the people, but in order that certain vibrations may be set up in the invisible worlds which cannot be set up in the ordinary languages of Europe, unless a great Occultist should compose in them the necessary successions of sounds. To translate a mantra is to change it from a "Word of Power" into an ordinary sentence; the sounds being changed, other sound-forms are created.
Some of the arrangements of Latin words, with the music wedded to them in Christian worship, cause the most marked effects in the supra-physical worlds, and any one who is at all sensitive
will be conscious of peculiar effects caused by the chanting of some of the most sacred sentences, especially in the Mass. Vibratory effects may be felt by any one who will sit quiet and receptive as some of these sentences are uttered by priest or choristers. And at the same time effects are caused in the higher worlds directly affecting the subtle bodies of the worshippers in the way above described, and also appealing to the Intelligences in those worlds with a meaning as definite as the words addressed by one person to another on the physical plane, whether as prayer or, in some cases, as command. The sounds, causing active flashing forms, rise through the worlds, affecting the consciousness of the Intelligences residing in them, and bringing some of them to render the definite services required by those who are taking part in the church office.
Such mantras form an essential part of every Sacrament.
The next essential part of the Sacrament, in its outward and visible form, are certain gestures. These are called
Signs, or Seals, or Sigils—the three words meaning the same thing in a Sacrament. Each sign has its own particular meaning, and marks the direction imposed on the invisible forces with which the celebrant is dealing, whether those forces be his own or poured through him. In any case, they are needed to bring about the desired result, and they are an essential portion of the sacramental rite. Such a sign is called a "Sign of Power," as the mantra is a "Word of Power."
It is interesting to read in occult works of the past references to these facts, true then as now, true now as then. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead is described the post-mortem journey of the Soul, and we read how he is stopped and challenged at various stages of that journey. He is stopped and challenged by the Guardians of the Gate of each successive world, and the Soul cannot pass through the Gate and go on his way unless he knows two things: he must pronounce a word, the Word of Power: he must make a sign, the Sign of Power. When that Word is spoken, when that Sign is given, the bars
of the Gate fall down, and the Guardians stand aside to let the Soul pass through. A similar account is given in the great mystic Christian Gospel, the Pistis Sophia, before mentioned.[332] Here the passage through the worlds is not of a Soul set free from the body by death, but of one who has voluntarily left it in the course of Initiation. There are great Powers, the Powers of Nature, that bar his way, and till the Initiate gives the Word and the Sign, they will not allow him to pass through the portals of their realms. This double knowledge, then, was necessary—to speak the Word of Power, to make the Sign of Power. Without these progress was blocked, and without these a Sacrament is no Sacrament.