THIS is the Wine of Dionysos, that intoxicates mankind; the Elixir which the Alchemists are brewing. We are not instinctively intelligent in our acts, but are creatures of habit. Our conscious personality dwells in the organ of memory, the cerebrum. In order to arrive at a consciousness which shall be that of the cerebellum, and perceive the true identities of things, we must free ourselves from habit. We must lift ourselves above the fixed necessity of laws external and guide ourselves by the light that we ourselves generate by our own inmost activity. The progress of the human race depends on the evolution of new faculties. The prophet knows where the race is going and is able to interpret the signs which reveal naissant faculties; then he sets himself to work to guide and direct their unfoldment. The group of psychic organs now in office are all limited by the categories of the external world; the sensibilities are restricted by time and space; the reason is bound by the laws of thought, such as the law of identity, of contradiction, of excluded middle; the conscience is restrained by the rules of the narrow personal sphere, albeit these rules are the fruit of ages of experience. The function of the new faculty is most precisely stated at this point by saying that its business is to achieve transcendance; by its aid mankind shall surpass everything hitherto accomplished and reach the goal of all dreams. The condition which needs changing is that the faculties now in charge of man's career interfere with each other; so that each may work properly toward its own goal each must become independent of all the others. For example, as things are now the illative mood is corrupted by factors due to the necessity that the materials of thinking must be present under some shape and form in consciousness; i.e. reasoning must be conducted by the aid of symbols. In the future, symbols will be found not only unnecessary but a handicap to pure thought, a hindrance to the approach of brilliant intellectual illumination. Hitherto it has been possible to arrive at conclusions only by manipulation of apparent objective realities, such as words and signs. In the future these will be discarded and an engine constructed capable of penetrating to the heart and core of each idea in the mind, and the whole process of illation shall be carried on without the faintest semblance of word or other symbol making its appearance. Ideas will then be given an independence which hitherto would have been a dangerous procedure, owing to their confused and fettered connections with the feelings and impulses. The work to be accomplished is the development of the Will as a conscious faculty, its operation clearly, distinctly and adequately presented in human consciousness. The function of the Will is contra-categorical, it is itself the creator of categories, and transcends them; it denies extension in every category. Man has arrived at a grade where he is to be trusted with real power of Will, and thoughts will be given an independence which heretofore would have been dangerous. Every illation instead of being designed to serve the purpose of something already in the content of experience shall work with something in view which has never entered into experience.
Human faculties or powers are not all equally strong in an individual and at different eras of racial evolution one of the faculties is the strongest and dominates the others. Recognition of this domination is reflected by the nature of the religion which governs the education or initiation of man during any particular epoch. During one cycle the human race will be especially under the influence of that faculty which is being developed during that period; this faculty will be anthropomorphised and worshipped as "God" and its nature will govern conduct and serve as the supreme criterion and test for measuring the value of all thoughts, feelings, and acts. For example, during one period, the Grecian, the sensibilities, the feelings, the taste of man was being developed and the criterion of value was an aesthetic one. The supreme "god" was Beauty, dynamic. During another period the reason, the judgment, the logical powers of the intellect were especially favoured in their growth, the criterion was illative and the supreme "god" Truth, dynamic. During another time the moral and ethical powers achieved expression and everything was made a matter of conscience and principle, the criterion was ethical, pragmatic, humanitarian; the supreme "god" was Goodness, personified.
During all these periods there have been philosophers and Initiates of varying ranks who saw clearly that the "god" of the Times was but one phase of the Supreme Being. During all times there have been schools who recognized all deific traits and attributes, and who taught that they should all be equilibrated, harmonized, co-ordinated. But each school had its doctrine and teachings tinged and more or less corrupted by the spirit of the times, so that instead of a perfect co-ordination and correlation it taught a subordination of the rest of the faculties to the one belonging to the "god" of the Time. So that even the adepts in their conception of the supreme God were influenced by their own predominant faculty and consequently could not discover and express a primary idea of sufficient scope to genuinely represent the idea of Mastery over the faculties. During the last epoch the Conscience of man has reached its maturity and if it be suffered to continue growing, the Will of which it is an off-shoot can no longer succeed inn preserving and propagating the race. The result would be that mankind as a whole would degenerate into something resembling a brute rather than a human being. To prevent this, at the end of one cycle and the beginning of another a new word is given out by the Masters which is to govern the new aeon and develop the new faculty by the inherent force which it awakens, nourishes and stimulates.
During the latter part of the last period a preconception of this new word has been felt and shadowed forth in the confusion of Conscience with Will; philosophers have termed the will the moral faculty. So during this last period the moral faculty has directed the volitions but it is not their natural king or ruler. Also one school of initiation, perceiving the approach of the abnormal development of the Conscience has taught that the counterposite faculty, the Taste, which it signified by the term Intuition, should be enthroned in the place of Conscience. The result of this teaching was beneficial due to the fact that its practice must be an effort in the line of greatest resistance. In fact the terms in which his law was expressed show that this Prophet has an extraordinary development of the aesthetic faculty and a weak Conscience. This is as it should be; others who follow him as his disciples, must be similarly constituted.
To understand the words of the Masters one must have a sincere longing for Freedom. One must escape the sway of habit by breaking up the connections between the senses, disassociating the feelings from thoughts and from volitions, so that the powers which reside in each one of the faculties shall operate independently and each being shall come to full self-consciousness of its own. Mankind will then perceive that consciousness is an affair of the cosmos and will administer the Cosmic Sacrament as an enlightened High-priest of Reality.