Evidently it is a mental condition in some respects more similar to the first than to the second stage. The second stage of human psychologic evolution is an aberration, a divorce, a parenthesis. With its culmination and dismissal the mind passes back into the simple state of union with the Whole. (The state of Ekagrata in the Hindu philosophy: one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And the consciousness of the Whole, and of things past and things to come and things far around—which consciousness had been shut out by the concentration on the local self—begins to return again. This is not to say, of course, that the excursus in the second stage has been a loss and a defect. On the contrary, it means that the Return is a bringing of all that has been gained during the period of exile (all sorts of mental and technical knowledge and skill, emotional developments, finesse and adaptability of mind) BACK into harmony with the Whole. It means ultimately a great gain. The Man, perfected, comes back to a vastly extended harmony. He enters again into a real understanding and confidential relationship with his physical body and with the body of the society in which he dwells—from both of which he has been sadly divorced; and he takes up again the broken thread of the Cosmic Life.
Everyone has noticed the extraordinary consent sometimes observable among the members of an animal community—how a flock of 500 birds (e. g. starlings) will suddenly change its direction of flight—the light on the wings shifting INSTANTANEOUSLY, as if the impulse to veer came to all at the same identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings, deer, gossamer spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever explanation of these facts we favor—whether the possession of swifter and finer means of external communication than we can perceive, or whether a common and inner sensitivity to the genius of the Tribe (the “Spirit of the Hive”) or to the promptings of great Nature around—in any case these facts of animal life appear to throw light on the possibilities of an accord and consent among the members of emaciated humanity, such as we dream of now, and seem to bid us have good hope for the future.
It is here, perhaps, that the ancient worship of the Lingam comes in. The word itself is apparently connected with our word ‘link,’ and has originally the same meaning. (1) It is the link between the generations. Beginning with the worship of the physical Race-life, the course of psychologic evolution has been first to the worship of the Tribe (or of the Totem which represents the tribe); then to the worship of the human-formed God of the tribe—the God who dies and rises again eternally, as the tribe passes on eternal—though its members perpetually perish; then to the conception of an undying Savior, and the realization and distinct experience of some kind of Super-consciousness which does certainly reside, more or less hidden, in the deeps of the mind, and has been waiting through the ages for its disclosure and recognition. Then again to the recognition that in the sacrifices, the Slayer and the Slain are one—the strange and profoundly mystic perception that the God and the Victim are in essence the same—the dedication of ‘Himself to Himself’ (2) and simultaneously with this the interpretation of the Eucharist as meaning, even for the individual, the participation in Eternal Life—the continuing life of the Tribe, or ultimately of Humanity. (3) The Tribal order rises to Humanity; love ascends from the lingam to yogam, from physical union alone to the union with the Whole—which of course includes physical and all other kinds of union. No wonder that the good St. Paul, witnessing that extraordinary whirlpool of beliefs and practices, new and old, there in the first century A.D.—the unabashed adoration of sex side by side with the transcendental devotions of the Vedic sages and the Gnostics—became somewhat confused himself and even a little violent, scolding his disciples (I Cor. x. 21) for their undiscriminating acceptance, as it seemed to him, of things utterly alien and antagonistic. “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and the table of devils.”
(1) See Sanskrit Dictionary.
(2) See Ch. VIII.
(3) There are many indications in literature—in prophetic or poetic form—of this awareness and distinct conviction of an eternal life, reached through love and an inner sense of union with others and with humanity at large; indications which bear the mark of absolute genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See, for instance, Whitman’s poem, “To the Garden the World” (Leaves of Grass, complete edition, p. 79). But an eternal life of the third order; not, thank heaven! an eternity of the meddling and muddling self-conscious Intellect!
Every careful reader has noticed the confusedness of Paul’s mind and arguments. Even taking only those Epistles (Galatians, Romans and Corinthians) which the critics assign to his pen, the thing is observable—and some learned Germans even speak of TWO Pauls. (1) But also the thing is quite natural. There can be little doubt that Paul of Tarsus, a Jew brought up in the strictest sect of the Pharisees, did at some time fall deeply under the influence of Greek thought, and quite possibly became an initiate in the Mysteries. It would be difficult otherwise to account for his constant use of the Mystery-language. Reitzenstein says (p. 59): “The hellenistic religious literature MUST have been read by him; he uses its terms, and is saturated with its thoughts (see Rom. vi. 1-14.” And this conjoined with his Jewish experience gave him creative power. “A great deal in his sentiment and thought may have REMAINED Jewish, but to his Hellenism he was indebted for his love of freedom and his firm belief in his apostleship.” He adopts terms (like [gr sarkikos], [gr yucikos] and [gr pneumatikos]) (2) which were in use among the hellenistic sects of the time; and he writes, as in Romans vi. 4, 5, about being “buried” with Christ or “planted” in the likeness of his death, in words which might well have been used (with change of the name) by a follower of Attis or Osiris after witnessing the corresponding ‘mysteries’; certainly the allusion to these ancient deities would have been understood by every religionist of that day. These few points are sufficient to acentuate{sic} the two elements in Paul, the Jewish and the Greek, and to explain (so far) the seeming confusion in his utterances. Further it is interesting to note—as showing the pagan influences in the N. T. writings—the degree to which the Epistle to Philemon (ascribed to Paul) is FULL—short as it is—of expressions like PRISONER of the Lord, FELLOW SOLDIER, CAPTIVE or BONDMAN, (3) which were so common at the time as to be almost a cant in Mithraism and the allied cults. In I Peter ii. 2 (4), we have the verse “As newborn babes, desire ye the sincere MILK of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” And again we may say that no one in that day could mistake the reference herein contained to old initiation ceremonies and the new birth (as described in Chapter VIII above), for indeed milk was the well-known diet of the novice in the Isis mysteries, as well as (in some savage tribes) of the Medicine-man when practising his calling.
(1) “Die Mysterien-anschauungen, die bei Paulus im Hintergrunde stehen, drangen sich in dem sogenarmten Deuteropaulinismus machtig vor” (Reitzenstein).
(2) Remindful of our Three Stages: the Animal, the Self-conscious, and the Cosmic.
(3) [gr desmios, stratiwths, doulos].