The Mysteries had their weak points and their defects, as every institution welded with the human element must necessarily have. Yet Voltaire has characterised their benefits in a few words:
In the chaos of popular superstitions there existed an institution which has ever prevented man from falling into absolute brutality: it was that of the Mysteries.
Verily, as Ragon puts it of Masonry;
Its temple has Time for duration, the Universe for space.... “Let us divide that we may rule,” have said the crafty; “Let us unite to resist,” have said the first Masons.[490]
Or rather, the Initiates whom the Masons have never ceased to claim as their primitive and direct Masters. The first and fundamental principle of moral strength and power is association and solidarity of thought and purpose. “The Sons of Will and Yoga” united in the beginning to resist the terrible and ever-growing iniquities of the left-hand Adepts, the Atlanteans. This led to the foundation of still more Secret Schools, temples of learning, and of Mysteries inaccessible to all except after the most terrible trials and probations.
Anything that might be said of the earliest Adepts and their divine Masters would be regarded as fiction. It is necessary, therefore, if we would know something of the primitive Initiates to judge of the tree by its fruits; to examine the bearing and the work of their successors in the Fifth Race as reflected in the works of the classic writers and the great Philosophers. How were Initiation and the Initiates regarded during some 2,000 years by the Greek and Roman writers? Cicero informs his readers in very clear terms. He says:
An Initiate must practise all the virtues in his power: justice, fidelity, liberality, modesty, temperance; these virtues cause men to forget the talents that he may lack.[491]
Ragon says:
When the Egyptian priests said: “All for the people, nothing through the people,” they were right: in an ignorant nation truth must be revealed only to [pg 263]trustworthy persons.... We have seen in our days, “all through the people, nothing for the people,” a false and dangerous system. The real axiom ought to be: “All for the people and with the people.”[492]
But in order to achieve this reform the masses have to pass through a dual transformation: (a) to become divorced from every element of exoteric superstition and priestcraft, and (b) to become educated men, free from every danger of being enslaved whether by a man or an idea.