"Locke and Hume say 'Liberty is a power to act as we choose.' But can we choose? Are we the original causes of our choice? And what is the power to which action is subjected? Must it not be subject to some other power, and, therefore, not free, unless it is a self-existent power?"
Enough has been said, perhaps, on this subject to explain the author's position in assuming that both Jesus and Gotama must have been, by necessity of their omniscience, well aware of the truth of Determinism. Yet, having to deal with phenomenal beings, they were constrained to treat them as such, and address them in phenomenal terms, and to lower themselves to the level of those sensations from which the illusive and unconquerable feeling of responsibility arises.
The fact of occult powers having been attributed to Jesus and Gotama makes it necessary to include in this chapter a brief reference to the subject of magic,[M] and to consider in what light we should regard this art in connection with these two characters.
It has been remarked that the opposition to magic has seldom been connected with sceptical doubts as to its reality, and that the distinction drawn between white and black magic was due to the assumption by the priestly class of the sole right to the exercise of magic in their rites, and "hence magicians who were outside the pale of priesthood were called sorcerers, or dealers in black magic." The pages of the Christian Bible are aflame with magic, and, on opening the Old Testament, one seems to stand on the threshold of an unmeasurable cavern, where dreams the Great Magician that inhabiteth Eternity.
No one who has not made of magic, in its several branches, a close study—who has not literally soaked in mysticism (that "powerful solvent of definite dogma")—or who is not gnomic, intuitionally "in the know" without study, can possibly pose as an authoritative interpreter of God's Holy Word.
An authority on the Hermetic Philosophy says that astrology is to be found "throughout the Bible, from the very first chapter of Genesis, when the stars were set for signs and seasons and days and years, on to the Book of Revelation, where the wonder was seen in heaven, the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and all the great astrological problems in that book; and the great truth, the Incarnation itself, announced by the star of the Epiphany.... All the occult methods of divination more or less find their place in the Bible and in the scheme of religion. The divination by Urim and Thummin is a well-known form of clairvoyance which is practised now. Joseph's divining-cup was merely a species of magic mirror, the form of which is well known now, and is used by some clairvoyant seers. The use of music by the prophet Elisha, when the kings of Israel and Judah went out against Moab, is precisely the same as is now used by many Spiritualist mediums and seers, though not with the same effect ordinarily. And so one might go on with all the forms of divination. It can be clearly proved that divination by cards was known and practised in Biblical times by the Biblical prophets; all this showing that during the times of the Old Testament, and with commendation from the prophets, and in use by the prophets, were modes of divination which postulated the truth of the Hermetic science."
It stands to reason that Jesus as God, and Gotama as Buddha, must have been acquainted with all the laws of nature, and, consequently, were in full possession of so-called occult powers. The manifestations of these powers enter more largely and distinctly, as true records, into the life of Jesus than into that of Gotama. The acts of Jesus were one continuous demonstration of occult power, and his disciples were, in a lesser degree, gifted with the same powers.
That which is known as ceremonial magic was not made use of to any extent by Jesus and Gotama as a method or means for the production of these powers. This was not requisite with them, as it is in the case of ordinary individuals, who must have recourse to those aids which have been found by occultists, after long experience, to be the most efficient means of attaining their object.
Clumsier methods have been used with a minimum amount of success; but, if the operator desires to arrive at any degree of perfection in the art, it is just as necessary for him to observe closely the rules laid down by the ceremonialists of magic as it is for a gamekeeper to make use of the accepted symbolism in the training of a retriever—that is, if the object is to accomplish the undertaking with the least trouble and the best results. Jesus and Gotama,[N] on account of their unique position as being en rapport with this power, had no occasion, therefore, to resort to ceremonial magic.
The Indian saint Mozoomdar (whose acquaintance I had the privilege of making in India), in his introductory remarks to The Oriental Christ, a book published by him in 1883, points out how estimates of character vary if viewed from different standpoints, and how, when the singularity of a nature happens to lie in its manysidedness, representations of it may be conflicting, but quite genuine and correct. The whole of the introduction to this work shows such remarkable and original insight into the character of Jesus, as judged from an Oriental point of view, that I cannot forbear to give a few quotations, more especially as they may tend to help forward the purpose of this chapter by demonstrating how the personalities of Jesus and Gotama are interchangeable under certain aspects in respect of their mystic significance.