Had we been sanguine of a favourable reception of our book by the press at large—which we were not—our disappointment would have been great. But we were by no means prepared either for the gross misrepresentation and even vulgar ribaldry with which it was treated by the few organs in the literary press which noticed it at all, or for the complete neglect of it by that portion of the press which especially concerns itself with religious exegesis. In no instance was any attempt made to exhibit its plan, purpose, and real nature, or any recognition accorded to its luminous solutions of the profound problems dealt with. The very claim to have experiential knowledge of things spiritual was accounted an offence; and it seemed as if the word had gone forth to adopt towards it an attitude which should effectually restrain the public from making its acquaintance, even though it met absolutely the need recognised on all hands as the world's supreme need, and vindicated its claim thereto by the presentation of teachings avowedly of divine derivation and demonstrating their divinity by their intrinsic character to all who are in the smallest degree spiritually percipient. To this day that attitude has never been abandoned or relaxed; and notwithstanding the assiduous endeavours made to counteract its influence, the whole mass of our people, saving only a few select circles, have yet to learn that the longed-for New Gospel of Interpretation has actually been vouchsafed, having been for years in their midst waiting but to be recognised of them,—a "light shining in darkness and the darkness comprehending it not"[83].
In compliance with the injunctions of our illuminators, we had withheld our names from our first edition, in order to secure for it a judgment unbiased by any personal element. But though we ourselves thus escaped the opprobrium attaching to our book, "Mary" was at first inclined to repent of having exposed her pearls to such profanation; and was only reassured by the suggestion that it showed how desperate was the need for precisely the change our work was designed to accomplish, and how exactly was fulfilled the prophecy which foretold the wrath of the dragon and his angels at the advent of the "Woman" Intuition, their destined destroyer, and the consequent shortness of their own time. We knew of course better than to regard such criticism as being in any sense a measure of our work. For us it was, like criticism in general, a measure not of the thing criticised but of the critics themselves. And these, in our case, but truly represented the condition of the age, and knew not what they were doing.
Such is the reason why so many will hear for the first time from this book that a New Gospel of Interpretation has been received. To turn to the other and compensating side. With those who were specially qualified to judge, it was far otherwise. And among the most notable of the recognitions received from this quarter was the weighty utterance which appears in the preface to the second and succeeding editions, coming from that veteran student of the "Divine Science," the friend, disciple, and literary heir of the renowned Kabalist and magian, the late Abbé Constant ("Eliphas Levi"), namely, Baron Spedalieri of Marseilles, who though then an entire stranger to us, wrote to us as follows—for I think it may with advantage be reproduced here:—
"As with the corresponding Scriptures of the past, the appeal on behalf of your book is, really, to miracles, but with the difference that in your case they are intellectual ones, and incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation. And they have the further distinction of doing no violence to common sense by infringing the possibilities of Nature; while they are in complete accord with all mystical traditions, and especially with the great Mother of these, the Kabala. That miracles such as I am describing are to be found in The Perfect Way, in kind and number unexampled, they who are the best qualified to judge will be the most ready to affirm.
"And here, apropos of these renowned Scriptures, permit me to offer you some remarks on the Kabala as we have it. It is my opinion—
"(1) That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such as it was on its original emergence from the sanctuaries.
"(2) That when Guillaume Postel—of excellent memory—and his brother Hermetists of the later middle age—the Abbot Trithemius and others—predicted that these sacred books of the Hebrews should become known and understood at the end of the era, and specified the present time for that event, they did not mean that such knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new illumination, which should eliminate from them all that has been ignorantly or wilfully introduced, and should re-unite that great tradition with its source by restoring it in all its purity.
"(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has been manifested in The Perfect Way. For in this book we find all that there is of truth in the Kabala, supplemented by new intuitions, such as present a body of doctrine at once complete, homogeneous, logical and inexpungnable.
"Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored to its original purity, the prophecies of Postel and his fellow-Hermetists are accomplished; and I consider that from henceforth the study of the Kabala will be but an object of curiosity and erudition, like that of Hebrew antiquities.
"Humanity has always and everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: Whence come we? What are we? Whither go we? Now, these questions at length find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory, in The Perfect Way"[84].