Esoterism and Symbol by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz

Esoterism And Symbol initiates the reader into the tone, structure, and mentality of ancient Egpyt, the wellspring of all Western theology and science.

Schwaller de Lubicz makes the distinction between two kinds of human intelligence, one cerebral, the other innate. The symbol is a conventional representation of cerebral intelligence. The hieroglyph on the other hand, is a direct, non-conventional form of writing with the unique ability to transcribe the innate "intelligence-of-the-heart". This intelligence is independent of the senses and belongs to the vast totality called life. To the ancient Egyptians it is the intelligence-of-the-heart which allows man to move toward the divine.

All esoteric teaching is addressed to this intelligence. "Spirit is found only with spirit", and esoterism is the spiritual aspect of the world, inaccessible to cerebral intelligence. It can be neither written nor spoken, nor consequently betrayed. It has nothing in common with deliberate concealment of truth. However, the preparation needed to grasp it is not a matter of learned knowledge, but of intuitive capacity.

Esoterism and Symbol explores the "process of becoming" as it relates to consciousness and is revealed in all of nature; the relationship of "apparent life" and the life behind the appearances; the kinship between man and the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms; the mystery of the formation of substance into matter; myth, Kabbalah, and the stages of awareness leading to "Cosmic Consciousness".

De Lubicz shows us that esoterism is not a "particular meaning hidden in a text" but a "fusion" between the vital state of the reader and the vital state of the author. This fusion evokes the intelligence of the heart, our guide to the path of self-knowledge.

CONTENTS:
1 Esoterism has no common measure with deliberate concealment of truth.
2 There is in man a cerebral intelligence and also an innate intelligence.
3 Cerebral intelligence depends upon the the recording of observed facts.
4 Intelligence-of-the-heart is purely a function of experienced innate consciousness.
5 Fundamentally, consciousness has two aspects: one is the result of comparisons, the other of identification.
6 Everything that lives, moves.
7 Appearance is the dualization of a single principle and defines nature, or living spirit.
8 Becoming, or formation of substance into matter, is the mystery of reflection.
9 When classifying becoming into kingdoms, genesis is time, matter or formed substance is space.
10 There are two possible functions of logic, one cerebral or mechanical, the other vital.
11 The definition of anything whatsoever in the natural or physical universe is innate consciousness.
12 The disaggregation of any being can affect its quantity through analysis or mechanical logic.
13 Innate consciousness is inscribed in matter and is subject to all its transformations.
14 The faculty of hearing instinct and translating it in the brain is intuition.
15 Rational universe and metaphysical universe do not exist as essentially different entities.
16 Everything in the universe represents one of the possibilities immanent in the Source or Word.
17 The symbol is a conventional representation. The hieroglyph is direct, nonconventional writing.
18 The Kabbalah, as revelation of the esoteric meaning of the Testament of Moses, has given rise to a very false notion of' esoterism.
19 Esoterism is not a particular meaning hidden in a text, but a state of fusion.

R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961) was one of the most important philosophers, mathematicians, and Egyptologists of the 20th century. His elucidation of the temple at Luxor and his presentation of the Egyptian understanding of a special quality of innate consciousness form a bridge that links the sacred science of the Ancients to its rediscovery in our own time.