Secret societies

“I have gone through the papers you sent me.
         The historic part of the papers seems to be true. The founder must surely have been acquainted with the Kaballah and with some mystics of Asia Minor. The original appears to have been written in Latin with adjuncts of Hebrew words (probably taken from the Kaballah). But the Osiris-Isis part looks to me like a more recent addition which came in something like 50 or 60 years ago.
         The whole thing is from its origin a very well-made, a very strong and elaborate mental formation, powerfully designed to catch hold of certain vital elements and forces (both outside and inside the individuals) to rule and use them and through the vital to exercise a partial power over the physical.
         Formations of this kind are numerous; they translate upon earth into secret societies. I have met many of the kind, more or less ancient, more or less powerfully organised, but all of a similar type. They are not, in their nature, spiritual. If there is any spirituality in them, it comes not from the formation itself but from the presence, in the society, of one or several personalities with a spiritual character and achievement.”

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See also

• Mental formation