Table of Contents

Creation: Artistic and Spiritual

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Chapter One: Art, science and religion
Chapter Two: The divine sources of inspiration
Chapter Three: The work of the imagination
Chapter Four: Prose and poetry
Chapter Five: The human voice
Chapter Six: Choral singing
Chapter Seven: How to listen to music
Chapter Eight: The magical power of a gesture
Chapter Nine: Beauty
Chapter Ten: Idealization as a means of creation
Chapter Eleven: A living masterpiece
Chapter Twelve: Building the temple
Postscript
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 Chapter One
Art, science and religion
If we want to have a really clear idea of this question of art, we have to
take as our starting point the structure of the human being.
A human being can be defined as a trinity: we have been given a mind
with which to think, a heart with which to feel, and a will with which to act.1
The goal of the mind is science, knowledge; the specific concern of the heart
is religion and ethics, whereas the will is designed for action: it needs to do
something, to build and create. This is why we can say that art concerns the
will. Music, dancing, sculpture, architecture, poetry, painting and so on, are
all means invented by humans to express outwardly, in concrete form, what is
in their heart and mind. Art, therefore, is related both to science and religion.
Science requires light; religion, warmth; art, creative activity.
Unfortunately, human beings have the habit of separating science, art and
religion into three separate compartments. In fact they often see them as
being in opposition to one another. We find frequent instances where religion
has condemned science and art, where science has scorned religion and
considered art to be too trivial to be taken seriously, or where art has set little
store by the opinion that either science or religion may have of it. And yet, in
life and in nature, the three are closely linked: they work together. Initiates
have never separated the three domains. But now that a division has occurred,
religion no longer has a hold on scientists: they reject it out of hand. In point
of fact, of course, if scientists reject religion it is because they do not possess
true science. They are only interested in the physical, material world, not in
the science of the three worlds, which is the only true science, and on which
all religions are based. As for art, it hovers uncertainly between the two: at
times it is at odds with religion and morality, and at other times with science.
In nature, as I have said, religion, science and art are one. It is only in the
minds of human beings that they have become divorced, and as long as this
state of separation persists there can be no true understanding of reality.
Science, religion and art together form a coherent whole which enables us to
explain and understand the whole of creation. The activity of the heart, mind
and will in a human being must never be set one against the other. All three
must move in the same direction, united and inseparable. When the mind
judges that something is good, the heart must contribute all its strength, love
and enthusiasm and the will must seal it by acting upon it. If the intellect
disapproves and condemns what the heart feels, or if the will is torn first one
way and then the other in the attempt to satisfy their conflicting commands, it
will be thrown completely off balance, and the person will disintegrate. The
mind needs science, the heart needs religion and the will needs art, as it needs
to express itself, to create and build. And these three needs are intimately
related, for the thoughts in our mind are felt and loved by the heart and,
eventually, translated into action by the will.
What does life show us? It shows us that we begin by planning things in
our mind; next we feel the desire to see our plans carried out, and finally we
set to work to put that desire into effect. You see: thought, feeling and action.
Thought must always precede action. Of course, people very often do just the
opposite: they act before they have studied a question properly, and the
results are frequently disastrous and cause them untold suffering and remorse.
You might ask, ‘Is it ever permissible to act without thinking?’ Yes, it is, but
only if you are so pure and so highly evolved that every impulse to act comes
as a direct inspiration from God himself. There are a few extremely rare and
exceptional beings who are so intimately identified with the Godhead that if
they paused to reflect before acting they would be allowing a human element
to intervene, and this would disturb the divine energies which have exclusive
control of them. Once they have acted, beings such as this can look at what
they have done and see that it is good, just as God himself saw that what he
had created was good. If you study the story of the six days of creation in the
book of Genesis, you will see that each ‘day’ God spoke a few words that
brought the different elements of the universe into existence, and that at the
end of each day he looked at what he had created and ‘saw that it was good.’
If we want to do as God does, we must be like him – and if we want to be like
him we are going to have to work hard for several billion more years!
Throughout the centuries, science, religion and art have vied for first place
in the different civilizations. For a very long time it was religion that
predominated in the West, hindering the development of art and science.
Then came a period in which religion declined and science gained the upper
hand. And now we can say that the future belongs to the artists. Yes, more
and more we see that people appreciate and applaud art and artists. Heaven
has chosen, at this moment in history, to manifest itself through artists,
musicians, poets, painters and sculptors. What is the reason for this?
There is nothing more necessary to humans than art. It is something that
goes back to the infancy of humankind itself. And in fact, can we not see this
in the way human babies express themselves? They do not bother their head
with philosophy, science or morals; they are ‘artists’: they spend their time
gesticulating, screwing up their face and screaming. Malicious tongues might
say they are crying, but I must object. No, they are singing – or, at least, let’s
say they are exercising their lungs and vocal chords against the day when
they will be fully formed and ready to sing. Then look at how they dance, just
as soon as they can stand on their own two feet, and how they draw and paint,
even before they have learned to read or write. Give them some building
blocks or some sand, and you will see the budding architect at work.
The history of humankind was marked, first of all, by art. Later, religion
assumed first place, and finally, science predominated. But in future, I repeat,
art will be predominant. ‘Why art?’ you may ask. ‘Why not religion or
science?’
For centuries, religion – or rather those who have represented the religions
– have been unworthy of their mission and have neglected their spiritual
goals for other, material goals: authority, prestige, power and money.2 Instead
of instilling true faith into the hearts of men and women, they have taught
them fanaticism; instead of freeing them, they have all too often tried to
subjugate and exploit them. Jesus castigated the scribes and Pharisees,
saying: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you lock people
out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when
others are going in you stop them,’ and his rebuke could be applied with
equal justice to most of the clergy of the world’s religions. This is why more
and more people are abandoning the churches and temples. As for science, all
its energies are spent on such highly specialized research that it has become
the affair of experts only. Even if most people recognize the usefulness of
scientific discoveries, they cannot really understand them or make them their
focus of interest.
Only art has the power, nowadays, to touch men and women profoundly
and awaken them to the true life. This does not mean that no criticism can be
made of the forms art takes today. On the contrary, it would be true to say
that it is very, very far from the ideal of art as the initiates understand it: an
activity in which both true science and true religion are united. And yet, it is
art that will save the world, an art that is conscious and enlightened by the
truths of wisdom and love. In the future, artists will rank first in human
society, for a true artist is priest, philosopher and scientist. Yes, for the
function of an artist is to make visible on the physical plane what the
 Chapter Two
The divine sources of inspiration
Human beings will never improve anything on this earth if they have not
already elevated their thoughts, to contemplate other images, other modes of
existence superior to their own, which they can use as examples and guides.
Jesus said, ‘Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’1 He could not
have expressed such a prayer if he had not already contemplated heaven and
seen that everything there was so perfect, so glorious, that we couldn’t help
but want the earth one day to be like that. But this implies, necessarily, that
humans are capable of rising above the shabby, mediocre, fragmented
realities of this earth in order to contemplate the realities of heaven, and
having contemplated them, of returning to organize and adjust earthly
realities to conform to the models they have seen on high. And this is the
work of initiates: through their meditations and contemplations, they perceive
and tune in to the perfection of the world above, which they then endeavour
to reproduce here on earth. But it is only in initiatic schools that human
beings learn to do this: most people have no idea how to rise to a higher
plane, above and beyond that of the earth, so as to contemplate that higher
world, and this is why they have made such a ghastly mess of this world
below.
The only purpose of meditation and contemplation is to enable humanity
to reach a higher plane of consciousness that will influence and colour their
tastes, judgments and attitudes. The problem is, though, that they have to
know how to meditate, how to contemplate, and what subjects to choose. A
great many people meditate, but they meditate on the most prosaic things:
how to organize their businesses, how to earn more money, how to steal a
kiss from a lovely woman. You ask somebody, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m
meditating.’ But the Lord only knows what they are meditating about. A cat
meditates, too: it meditates on the problem of how to catch a mouse. So, you
see, there are different kinds of meditation. And since, in spite of all their
meditations, human beings are still bogged down in the same failings, the
same vices and lack of refinement, it is obvious that they have not yet
grasped the secret of true meditation.
True meditation is, first and foremost, about raising your mind to a world
far superior to your own little world, losing yourself in wonder and
admiration of it, and then reflecting that wonder in yourself. If you still feel
cold, dingy and uninspired after your meditation, it means that it was a
failure. Meditation should change something in the way you look, in your
smile, your gestures, the way you move. It should give you something new,
something subtler: just one little particle, perhaps, but a particle that vibrates
in harmony with the divine world. This is how you can tell whether you have
meditated well or not.
When you meditate, begin by choosing a very elevated subject on which
to fix your mind. After a few moments you can relax your mental
concentration and simply contemplate and immerse yourself in the beauty
you have conjured up in your mind’s eye. And finally, if you are able, you
can identify with that beauty. The first step, therefore, is concentration,
followed by meditation, and then, once the ground is prepared, comes the
stage of contemplation: you pause to bask, as it were, in the image of
perfection that fills your heart and mind, to drink deeply of its beauty, to
savour it and find happiness in it. And finally, you identify with it – and this
is plenitude.
There! Now you know some very useful methods (they are more than
useful, in fact: they are magnificent), and if you apply them you should be
able to draw great benefits from your meditations. Otherwise you will fritter
your life away, deluding yourself into believing that you have achieved
something worthwhile, whereas in reality you have accomplished nothing.
The great geniuses of the past – painters, sculptors, musicians and poets –
applied these methods, and that is how they were able to bequeath their
masterpieces to humanity.
Before starting work they recollected themselves and meditated and
prayed for heavenly blessings, for only heaven can give us the light that
illuminates the imagination. The result of this approach was that they
received the revelation of true beauty and were enabled to express and
communicate it to others. If humans are capable of producing great works of
art when they are acting under inspiration, it is because all their faculties
work together in harmony with the spiritual light received from above. No
immortal work of art can ever be produced without inspiration from the spirit.
It is striking to see how many ancient poets began their poems with an
invocation to the gods or muses. This was an acknowledgement of the fact
that, before artists begin to create, they must turn to beings of a higher order
and ask them to collaborate in the work. The soul and spirit of humans
possess antennae by means of which they can communicate with the
Almighty. God created humans in his own image and consequently gave
them the power to create great marvels, but this power needs to be cultivated
and cared for, not despised and neglected as is mostly the case today.
Where will you find artists who pray and meditate before beginning work
today? They are all geniuses, you understand. They don’t need any help from
heaven; they don’t need to be inspired. And this is why the element of
eternity, which gave works of art of the past such inestimable value, is absent
from the work of contemporary artists. And not only that, but their works
mainly reflect the infernal, subterranean layers of the subconscious. The
artists who create works of this kind are leading humankind to destruction.
And the same must be said of thinkers and writers who have never meditated
or experienced ecstasy, who have never risen to celestial heights or
contemplated the structure of the universe. They write books that have a
destructive, disintegrating effect on their readers, by filling them with doubt
and revolt and a taste for disorder and anarchy. A great many of the books
published today are written by authors who have never made the effort to
raise themselves to the higher regions of the spirit. Perhaps you will ask,
‘How can you know that?’ The answer is not complicated: I know it simply
by seeing what effect their works produce in people. If a writer fails to
awaken our higher nature, it is a sure sign that he or she has never visited the
heavenly heights.
When you contemplate the masterpieces of those artists who have been
genuinely inspired by heaven, you are in contact with the beings of a higher
order who inspired them, and you begin to sense and experience something of
the artists’ own experience. You are almost forced, whether you like it or not,
to tread the path they trod: they take you by the hand and lead you into the
regions they have explored and contemplated. And this is why art is useful:
this is the educational value of art. Someone who rises to higher spheres
absorbs particles from those regions, which continue to be active and vibrate
within him or her; in fact they vibrate in such a way as to operate all kinds of
transformations in the world. This is the ideal of a true artist, the ideal of an
initiate.
In short, initiates, mystics and artists resemble each other in that they all
have a favourable influence on humankind: artists, through their works of art;
mystics, through their spiritual emotions and virtues, and initiates and the
great Masters (whom I rank above all others because they are in almost direct
contact with heaven), through their capacity to spread light. Artists work to
produce forms that adhere as closely as possible to the ideal of perfect
beauty. Mystics and religious men and women work to improve the psychic
and moral dimension, that is to say, they work on the level of content,
whereas initiates and the great Masters work on the level of meaning, on
ideas and principles. These three categories of beings are united in their
desire ceaselessly to improve and perfect humanity, but they go about it in
different ways in keeping with their different capacities and talents: artists on
the level of form, mystics on the level of content and initiates on the level of
meaning. Artists, mystics and initiates all have different faculties, different
means of expression and different missions. But the reality, the quintessence,
is one and the same; only the expression is different.
These three categories of human being correspond to the three essential
principles within the human being: spirit, soul and body; intellect, heart and
will; thought, feeling and action. All three are essential, but intelligence and
understanding are the priority; ethics, mysticism and a generous, sensitive
heart come second, and action, the work of making the world a better place,
comes third. A whole person is one who is capable of embracing all three
worlds: philosophy, religion (including ethics) and art.
The foremost desire of a true initiate is to work for the accomplishment of
Jesus’ prayer: ‘Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. This prayer
contains the whole of initiatic philosophy, the whole plan of action for a
disciple, a true Christian. It is no good just reciting the words and hoping that
the Lord will send someone else to accomplish it in actuality. No, it is up to
us to do it; it is our job to set to work and make the earth like heaven.
But there is one thing you have to realize, and that is that if you are not
willing to spend enough time, effort and love to raise yourself to the heights
and contemplate and comprehend the realities of heaven, you will never bring
heaven down to earth in any form whatsoever. For these things cannot be
done just anyhow. It is not possible to express beauty without first learning
how to communicate with beauty. And yet there are a great many artists who
think that even though they live shallow, shoddy lives, they are going to
create sublime works of art. No, as long as they do nothing to bring order into
their lives and to purify themselves, they will simply produce objects of
horror: accurate expressions of their own degree of evolution.
Besides, humans are only human; they cannot express divine, eternal
beauty in all its purity. As the pure reality passes through them, through their
heart and mind, it is tainted by elements of their own human nature and
individual temperament. The degree of beauty to which artists can attain,
therefore, and which they can express in their work depends enormously on
what kind of person they are. Beauty is like a beam of light; it can only be
seen in all its brightness if you look at it through a perfectly transparent
medium. If your medium is tinted, dirty or opaque, the light will appear to be
deflected and deformed. This is why it is so important that artists should have
done a great deal of work on themselves before they start to create: they must
become such vibrant and transparent mediums that divine beauty will not be
deformed as it passes through them.2
You have a saying in France: ‘The prettiest girl in the world can only give
what she has.’ Obviously, if you want to give, you must first possess. And
isn’t it even more obvious, that if you want to create, you must possess the
elements of that creation within you? If someone shows you a monstrously
ugly work that they have produced, it means that they have monsters of
ugliness inside them; there is no need to look any further. No one can
produce divine works of art if they are not inhabited by heavenly beings. In
order to produce something greater than ourselves, we have to transcend our
own limitations, journey to higher regions and there gather divine elements,
which may then be communicated to others. This, then, is the secret of divine
art: to transcend oneself in order to give humankind something better.
People are always looking for something better, something new and more
beautiful. This is what they are looking for when they go to theatres and
cinemas, concerts, libraries, exhibitions and museums: something better.
Every human being has this deep instinct within to seek something better, but
the poor things don’t know that instead of looking for it in concert halls,
theatres, music-halls or night-clubs they should rise to the higher levels of the
soul and spirit, where they would find inspiration.
What is inspiration? It is an entity that enters human beings, takes
possession of them and expresses itself through them. It will perhaps help
you to understand this better if you take the case of pianists or violinists who
give frequent concerts. Some evenings their playing is nothing out of the
ordinary, no one is particularly moved by it; nothing emanates or radiates
from them, no special force flows from them to move their audience and
transport them to sublime heights. On other occasions, all at once, something
seems to enter into them, without them realizing it, but that ‘something’ that
has entered them realizes it perfectly. Their touch, their movements and even
the way they hold themselves in relation to their instrument, are all different,
and something inexplicable happens. Then their audience is deeply moved,
and they say, ‘It was simply wonderful: divine, inspired.’
Esoteric science teaches that inspiration is simply a contact, a
communication with a force, an intelligence, an entity belonging to a higher
level of reality, which uses us to achieve something that we could never
achieve on our own. A poet, for instance, may want to compose a poem: they
sit there with a blank piece of paper in front of them and nothing comes.
They feel utterly sterile: no inspiration. And then, all of a sudden, something
seems to enter into them, a light, a current, and they abandon themselves to it.
They do not even have to hunt for words; the words come to them as though
they were being dictated, and they are the first to be astonished by what they
write. Where did it all come from? What entity is capable of finding all those
materials and elements and combining them to create expressive forms of
such beauty?
Left to their own devices, human beings are not capable of creating
superhuman, divine works of genius, but they may be visited and inspired by
very highly evolved entities. This is why we must learn how to attract such
entities. They are waiting all around us, and they are so overjoyed when they
see human beings who have learned to introduce light, order and peace into
their existence that they hurry to enter into them to help them and others
through them.
Cosmic Intelligence has ensured that the human race will continue to
evolve and progress by giving humans the instinct to move constantly
forward, to open up new horizons. Look at the plant and animal kingdoms:
they are still the same after thousands of years, their evolution is very slow,
whereas human beings are capable of advancing very rapidly. The trouble is,
though, that if they are not guided and taught by initiates and Masters, they
are so fascinated by the external, objective, superficial aspect of life that they
fall victim to it and become enslaved. They are always looking for greater
satisfaction outside themselves, always expecting to find greater joy on the
fringes of reality, in human creations. But they will not find it there: to find
what they are looking for they have to look upwards – or down into their own
depths, if you prefer. It is just a different way of expressing the same reality.
Whatever wonders humans have succeeded in creating, they are no more than
a pale, distant reflection of the divine world.
Even the very greatest artists are limited in their means of expression; they
can never transcribe exactly what they see, hear or feel in their moments of
 Chapter Three
The work of the imagination
Everybody dreams, wishes and imagines, and since everybody imagines,
everybody thinks that they know what the imagination is. But they are
mistaken. The imagination, such as the initiates conceive it, can be described
as a kind of screen that lies at the frontier between the visible and the
invisible worlds, and on this screen are projected images and entities not
normally within our field of consciousness. Certain very highly evolved
human beings know how to use this faculty. Their imagination receives and
records a great many impressions, which they then attempt to express or
describe and realize. When they do this, their contemporaries may not
understand what those realizations correspond to, but later they see that they
reflect a perception of realities that already existed but had not previously
manifested on the physical plane. If we know how to model and govern our
own thoughts and feelings, we become capable of purifying our psyche to
such an extent that our imagination becomes transparent and crystal-clear,
and we begin to ‘see’ the things of the subtle worlds. At this level,
imagination and vision are one.1
But the aspect I wish to talk about today is that of the formative power of
the imagination. The imagination is like a pregnant woman: as soon as she
receives the living seed she sets to work to fashion and bring into the world a
child whose character and physical and psychological nature correspond to
the nature of that seed. Like a woman, the imagination moulds and nurtures
the elements it receives; its power is formative rather than creative. Thought
creates and the imagination forms. This is just one more instance of the way
in which the two principles, masculine and feminine, can be seen at work: the
masculine principle, represented by thought, acting on the feminine principle,
represented by the imagination.
Thought is represented by the sun and imagination by the moon, symbol
of all that is changeable and unstable. If the imagination is allowed to roam at
large, if it is not harnessed to some useful task by an intelligent will, it soon
becomes no better than a prostitute. For this reason disciples must not allow
their ‘wife,’ their imagination, to dally in places of disrepute, for she will
bring monsters home in her womb. They must give her clear-cut, luminous
ideas and images so that she can work at moulding and shaping them into
concrete form. This is how a disciple becomes a magus. A magus is someone
who is able to impregnate their imagination, their faithful and devoted
spouse, with an idea or desire which they themselves have created and
prepared at length and in detail, secure in the knowledge that she will carry it
out for them.2
It is time that human beings became aware of the faculties the Creator has
placed in them so as to cultivate and exploit them to the full, instead of
neglecting them and allowing them to run wild, for one day they will be
turned against them. Hospitals and asylums are full of people who have never
learned to control their imaginations, and among them are a great many so-
called artists who thought that artistic creativity consisted in allowing a free
rein to their imagination. No, indeed; you have to control your imagination.
Sometimes you can feel that you are inhabited by a beneficial influence,
and at these times your imagination forms splendid images. But at other
times, if you are not very vigilant, if you are not always fully conscious,
entities of darkness can insinuate their pernicious seed into you, and then
your imagination gives birth to deformed, diseased ‘children.’ You may well
be unaware of it, but this is something that happens quite frequently. Some of
you will perhaps say, ‘But I haven’t got any children.’ Others will say, ‘I
have two or three children and they’re all perfectly normal.’ Well, if they
only knew it, they have hundreds of sick, deformed, half-witted children
clinging to them in the form of inner turmoil, psychoses and obsessions,
which play havoc with their lives. What can you expect? We reap what we
sow.
The power of the imagination is tremendous, and if you so rarely get any
sensational results with it, it is because you have not persevered faithfully in
the good work you started: you have been undermining your own work with
your contradictory behaviour. Suppose, for instance, that you have been
trying to make your physical features more harmonious: if you do not learn,
first of all, to master your inner impulses and the chaotic desires that continue
to occupy your imagination, they will continue to deform your features. The
concrete realization of your most divine dreams demands a lot of conscious,
intelligent, organized work. And if you don’t see any results in this
incarnation, don’t be discouraged: you will see them in the next. Perhaps you
will ask, ‘Why can’t I get results in this incarnation?’ The answer is that in
your previous incarnation, you gave your ‘wife’ some specific tasks which
she carried out to the letter, and the result is what you are today. And now, if
you want to change that, you will need time: a lot of time. If, in the past, you
had had an instructor and the will to work, you would have seen much better
results today. Anyway, make up your mind here and now to do the work that
must be done, otherwise in your next incarnation you will still be weak, ugly,
ill and impoverished.
Your imagination works with the raw materials you give it – your thoughts
and feelings –, and if those thoughts and feelings are neither pure nor rational
nor harmonious, is there any wonder if you now find yourself physically and
psychologically impaired? Whose fault is that? Was it not you who formed
your own body? Perhaps you will object that it was not you but your parents,
and of course this does seem to be the case, because there always has to be a
culprit on the physical plane. But the truth is that the real culprit is you
yourself. I have often heard people say, ‘Nobody asked me if I wanted to be
born. My father was a drunkard, my mother was a prostitute; they spent their
time quarrelling and fighting and they thrashed me mercilessly. They never
gave me enough to eat or enough clothes to wear; I had no money to buy
books for school. Is there any wonder that I don’t amount to much now? It’s
all my parents’ fault.’ And, of course, everyone will agree: ‘It’s not their
fault, poor things. If only they’d had a good family background, etc., etc.’
Yes, but why did they incarnate in a family like that? Was it mere chance?
No, it was not. The science in the name of which I am speaking tells us that
absolute justice and intelligence do exist, and that they are responsible for the
conditions in which each human being reincarnates – the family, the country
and the point in time – and that this decision corresponds exactly to what
each person deserves. I assure you, I have studied all this and can vouch for
it.3
But even if we cannot change what we are to any great extent here and
now, that is no reason to be discouraged and perpetually miserable. God has
given human beings the capacity to correct their mistakes and change
themselves. Even if you have great difficulty at the moment in actually
achieving what you want to achieve, keep working at it with your
imagination, and don’t try to put a time limit on it: in the long run it will all
come about. For our imagination has the power to attract elements that
correspond to the thoughts and feelings with which we nourish it. Wherever
those elements may be, at the bottom of the ocean or high in the heavens, it
knows how to find them and store them up, and one fine day we will be
surprised and delighted to find that our ideas have been given shape and
material substance. Yes, the imagination is so powerful it can shape even our
physical bodies.
The imagination, like a woman, works in accordance with the great laws
of creation, but this does not mean that we can leave it to its own resources: it
needs to be controlled and guided. Young people who are ignorant of human
nature (and it is no use counting on their schools to enlighten them) have no
idea how dangerous it is to let their imagination run riot, for it is perfectly
capable of turning into a confirmed harlot. Even educators allow the young to
remain in a hazy, dreamy state of mind. In fact they encourage them to do so:
‘They live in a dream world; they’re poets, let them dream.’ Yes, but do they
know what the world of dreams is like? Do they know what true poetry is?
Nature has endowed men and women with considerable powers which must
be used for good, and if young people allow their imagination to become a
prey to every passing feeling or desire, they will end up being invaded and
completely dominated by very negative forces.
So you must study this tremendous question of the imagination and know
that if you let it wander without restraint or guidance, you will fall a victim to
evil influences; they will take control of you and leave you completely off-
balance and defenceless. Initiates do not allow their ‘wife’ to flirt with all and
sundry. They are permanently in control, and they have a care to fertilize her
divinely so that she may give birth to wonderful, beautiful children: light,
kindness, justice and truth.
Unfortunately, most people use their imagination to satisfy their basest
desires: seduce someone, injure an enemy, get rid of a competitor: they do all
this in their imagination. And perhaps one day their dreams will come true,
but what good will that do, even for them? Why not use your imagination to
resuscitate, build up your own strength and capacities and achieve something
divine for the whole of humanity? Why not imagine that all over the world,
men and women become good, intelligent, honest and beautiful and that joy
and plenty reign everywhere? If you work for years, picturing only bright,
positive things in your imagination, they will end up coming true, and if
hundreds and thousands of people worked in the same direction they would
come true even sooner. But it is difficult to get human beings to unite for this
purpose. There are always some who destroy what others build. In these
conditions nothing good can be accomplished; even the best ideas are bound
to be stillborn. This is why we must all unite and work together.
I told you just now that the imagination is related to the moon. When the
moon is waxing, our imagination tends to run along much more positive lines
than when the moon is on the wane. During the waning of the moon, our
mind is more vulnerable to the impressions of negative images, and those
who have not already trained themselves and worked in the psychic
dimension put up no resistance and allow themselves to be invaded. If you
watch your own reactions you will see that this is so.
Lead your imagination into heavenly places and let it contemplate those
worlds of beauty, so that it may then reflect them. The imagination is a
messenger: you can send it far, far away, to register and bring back to you the
splendours of heaven itself. Many painters, poets and musicians have found
inspiration in this manner. Instead of looking for it in low, unwholesome
company, as most artists are in the habit of doing today, they travelled
mentally to the sublime regions above where they captured visions and
impressions, which they then attempted to translate into paintings, poetry and
music.
The imagination can be compared to the sounding balloons meteorologists
send up to record and send back to earth information about atmospheric
conditions and prevailing winds and currents. But, as I say, we can best
compare the imagination to a woman, a woman who has the power to bring
into the world exactly the child you ask her for, and this is where the vital
role of the will becomes evident. You only have to say, ‘I want a child with
eyes and hair of such and such a colour, with a body like this and a voice like
that...’ and your imagination will give it to you.
I have no doubt that my way of presenting things astonishes you. You
would not hear non-academic explanations like mine in a university. But
most people understand and remember simple, concrete explanations full of
imagery, and I want to be understood by as many people as possible.
Now that you know these great magic truths of esoteric science, you must
review your life and turn a spotlight on your present shortcomings. Are you
lacking talent where science or the arts are concerned? Have you never
developed the qualities of the heart? Have you never tried to be kind,
generous and magnanimous? Are you a weakling, an ‘ugly duckling,’ with
neither physical beauty nor strength? Do you lack stamina and good health?
Even if all that is true, it does not matter; don’t be discouraged. As long as
you are still alive, you can give your imagination the seeds of all the qualities
and virtues you need, and in your next incarnation you will see results. In
fact, even in this one, you will find that something in you changes.
No desire, whether good or bad, remains unfulfilled. As soon as you
 Chapter Four
Prose and poetry
Poetry often seems to be a world of nebulous, incoherent images, which
may be very beautiful but which have nothing in common with the language
of nature. Those responsible for this false conception of poetry are the poets
themselves, who haunt the lower astral planes and fall prey to the seductions
of the entities that make their homes there. This is why the masses, who have
no criteria by which to judge and who, anyway, tend to live in a confused,
misty state of consciousness, are enchanted by their poetry and sink down
after them into those regions. I assure you, I have seen how people
understand poetry.
All too often, also, the first thing poets do is to pour out all their most
negative feelings, all their sorrow, disappointment and despair into their
poetry. Why do they have to feed the public on their pain and revolt? It is like
giving them excrement to eat. And people are so stupid they accept it all: it
even seems as if they felt the need to feast day and night on refuse and offal.
Oh, I know that what I am saying is so foreign to your way of seeing things
that it is not easy for you to understand. But you will gradually acquire more
adequate criteria by which to judge art, and then you will no longer admire
certain works or types of art that can only bring on an attack of colic,
migraine or eczema on the spiritual level! Too much of what passes for art
today is simply the projection of a very inferior, foolish mentality.
What is true poetry, then? True poetry is the divine Word, in which all the
elements are marvellously interlinked by secret bonds of correspondence.1
True poetry awakens in us memories of our heavenly homeland. It sets the
most highly spiritual chords of our being vibrating; it provides the impetus to
create the new life. And this is why, if a poem gives you only a few vague
flutters of sensation and fails to arouse any deeper emotional response, you
can be sure that it is not true poetry.
When I was very young, I was full of enthusiasm for poetry. In fact I
composed mystical verses and tales into which I wove many spiritual truths,
visions and prophecies. But I stopped writing poetry as soon as I realized that
it was debilitating. I found that it made me hypersensitive and vulnerable and
tied me to the astral, lunar regions. So I abandoned those regions and went to
look for true poetry in the sun. And now, if you feel that there is poetry in
some of the explanations I give you, it is because I have transposed that
poetry into the areas of science and philosophy. True poetry is to be found in
nature, for in nature everything is both beautiful and scientific. Nowadays we
are in the habit of divorcing science from poetry, but in nature they are one.
Poetry must be based on a higher learning, a divine understanding; if it is
not, it is worthless and can even do harm. This is why Plato, who possessed
true initiatic science, said that there was no room for poets in his ‘ideal city’
(because poetry, as it is commonly understood, is a world of illusion and
falsehood, a dim reflection of true poetry), whereas philosophers and
scientists were welcome.
Personally, I love poetry; in fact I rank it higher than music, painting,
sculpture and so on. Poetry is the divine Word, the logos. And the logos is
music, colour, form and perfume all at the same time. Of course, music is a
very powerful medium; the effect it produces on the listener is direct and
immediate. But the language of music is not as clear and instructive as the
language of poetry. The clarity of the logos comes from the use of words, for
words enable us not only to see forms, colours and dimensions but also to
hear a melody, a rhythm and an intonation. And above all they enable us to
perceive meaning.
Music arouses feelings and stimulates the will, but it does not give any
clear indication of direction. You can listen to music your whole life long and
still be as ignorant in the end as you were in the beginning. Whereas if you
listen to poetry, not only are your feelings aroused but also, thanks to the
words used, you can reflect on its meaning and find direction in it. And
besides, there is music in it too, as well as colour, form and architecture. All
the arts are contained in poetry. Many people feel that music is the art form
that surpasses all the others, and if you take into account only the power and
intensity of its action, this is perfectly true: music seizes and captivates; it
takes us prisoner, as it were. Whereas when we listen to poetry our
understanding also has to come into play, so that, although it does also
captivate us, it requires more mental activity.
The fact is that true poetry is not confined to the field of literature; it is
part of life. The true poets are the ones who are capable of living the poetry
expressed in their verses, who are capable of living, thinking, feeling and
acting poetically. It is all too easy to compose poetry while continuing to live
a very unpoetic life. Many poets are incapable of writing anything without
the stimulus of alcohol, tobacco and endless love affairs. Apparently they
need all these different experiences and the sensations they get from them in
order to prevent the source of inspiration from running dry. But their source
ran dry a long time ago! And now they are sick and vulnerable, totally
lacking in will-power, exposed to every passing breeze, perpetually in the
grip of passions and torments, slaves to their own excesses, and they end their
lives in insanity or in the gutter.
I have known a great many poets in my life and have had ample
opportunity to study them at close quarters. I do not deny that they are often
very gifted and very sensitive; some of them have real genius. But they have
not developed their inner strengths: they have no will-power, no balance, and
they think that in order to be creative they have to plunge into the depths of
the underworld. What a brilliant idea! Of course, if you don’t live to the full,
if your life is not rich in experiences, you cannot create: that is true. But why
go and look for your materials down below, in the subconscious and the
sordid substrata of life? You will, of course, find material there, but it will not
be the best kind. Why not look for experiences in other areas and become
acquainted, for instance, with heaven, purity and divine love?
I am all for experiences, but they must be celestial, not infernal
experiences. All the great geniuses of the past had celestial experiences with
the result that they were capable of creating masterpieces, whereas the
majority of artists today delight in immersing themselves in filth. And once
they are thoroughly steeped in it, they write about it, on the pretext that they
must depict human nature ‘as it really is.’ But they don’t know human nature;
all they know is the inferior, infernal part of humans, and this is what they
serve up to the public. In the future, poets will once again sing of purity and
intelligence, of the beauty of God and of the universe. They will nourish
people with the dew from heaven and divine ambrosia, and the world will
live in true poetry.
For now, when we observe the lives of even the most highly cultivated and
most learned human beings, we often see that they are totally unpoetic: they
are cold and wooden; there is no warmth, no spark of fire in them. This is
what I call ‘prose.’ Why is humankind turning more and more to prose?
Poetry has become something that only concerns the poets who write it. From
time to time, of course, people will read a few lines of poetry, but their lives
are not poetic. And this is why I say that the new art, the art of the future, will
consist in learning to live every minute of the day and night poetically, by
which I mean, being vibrantly alive, warm and expressive. Only when you
are like that will others begin to love you. Human beings just don’t
understand: their one desire is to be loved, but who wants to love a block of
ice? They are cold, lifeless and unresponsive: prosaic, in fact. They have no
idea how to live the kind of poetic life that would endear them to others.
When I greet you in the morning and look at all your faces, I can see that
some of you live in poetry: they are glowing with love and light, they give
something, whereas the others look cold and congealed; they have not
learned the new art of giving and radiating. How can anyone teach them this?
Even when they have an example before their eyes they remain frozen in
their prose: stiff, unreceptive, hostile and thoroughly disagreeable. If they
were intelligent they would understand that this attitude can never be to their
advantage, that it is time to adopt another attitude, to begin to live in poetry,
for poetry is life, true life.
Evolution is an ascent toward the Godhead. And this being so, why cannot
people understand that if they are always dingy and lack-lustre, frozen and
congealed, it means that they are going in the opposite direction, they are
sliding back toward the mineral kingdom, becoming stones? When people
adopt this attitude they are unaware that life will use its sledge-hammers to
break up this stone and use it to build something new. That is the inevitable
fate of stone, and the only way to avoid the danger is to come alive again. If
you want to go back to being a stone no one is going to stop you, but you will
be broken. On the other hand, if you become alive and vibrant, firstly you
will have a much better chance of avoiding being broken, and secondly, you
will be in a position to help others, even those who are far away, just as the
sun helps all creatures by sending its rays of light and life into space.
Make a practice of sharing something of your own light and warmth every
day. Believe me, it is an excellent exercise, and it will help you to go beyond
yourself a little, to free yourself from a terribly stagnant, prosaic situation.
Here, in the Brotherhood, you will learn to live constantly in a poetic state of
mind. Surely you know how delightful it is to meet a poet, someone in whom
you can sense that everything is vibrantly alive and radiant with light? When
I meet people like that I am quite incapable of concealing the joy it gives me.
My whole being expands, and I feel like throwing my arms around them and
hugging them. A human face that radiates signals of light is very contagious.
Unfortunately, all those harmful elements that thrive in men and women have
paralysed them. Even when they try, they are incapable of showing an open,
smiling countenance; they remain aloof and unsmiling. Their facial muscles
refuse to cooperate, they are totally wooden and expressionless, and when
they do attempt a smile they only manage a twisted grimace. When I see
people who find it difficult to smile at people and look at them with love, I
realize that the poor things have spent their whole life stagnating in the lower
regions of their will, heart and mind, and that they have never had the joy of
being visited by an element of the soul or the spirit. When the soul and spirit
burst onto the scene they change everything: nothing is more beautiful than
the manifestations of the soul and spirit, nothing lovelier than their radiance,
their emanations.
People are taught only one thing in the world: to take, always to take. But
here you are going to have to learn to give, which means looking at others
with love, smiling, squeezing a few little particles from your heart to give to
others. If you do this you will feel something expanding inside you; you will
be amazed at how happy you feel. Human beings are always afraid of losing
something, of being deprived. They don’t understand that this fearful,
grudging attitude is the very thing that impoverishes them. If you want to be
rich you have to give.
When you take you become poorer; when you give you become richer.
This is very true, because giving triggers unsuspected forces stagnating in the
depths of your being. As soon as you want to share them they begin to
circulate and flow more and more abundantly and you are astonished to feel
so enriched. You will say to yourself, ‘But what’s happening? I can’t explain
it. I have given and given and yet I am richer now than I was before.’ Well,
that is how it is: that is the new life. In the old way of life you take and take,
and the more you take the more you feel miserable and repellent. Try to
understand what I am saying; it is very simple. This is a new point of view, a
new and absolutely true philosophy, which you can test and prove for
yourselves. In fact you have already proved the truth of it to yourselves time
and time again, for you have all done something kind for someone and felt
happy about it. On the other hand, when you have wounded someone and
been unkind, you have felt miserable for the rest of the day. True, some
people are proud of themselves when they have been rude to someone, but
that is not the case for the disciples in an initiatic school.
But let’s get back to poetry. You will certainly find that my definition of
poetry and prose are unlike any other you have ever heard. Yes, poetry is all
that is alive, vibrant, mobile, all that is changeable and elusive. Feeling
temperaments have an affinity for poetry, whereas intellectual temperaments
are more attracted by prose. This is because when the intellect wants to work
and express itself it has to pin down and immobilize whatever it is studying.
Why do you suppose that materialistic science has neglected the study of
what is alive and concentrated on what is dead? It is because the spiritual and
divine worlds are alive with vibrations of such intensity that they are beyond
the reach of scientific investigation. Scientists, therefore, are obliged to
restrict their observations to the purely material, and this is why I say they are
prosaic. If human beings are unhappy it is often because they attach more
importance to the physical, material dimension – money, houses, land etc. –,
and all that contains little in the way of life. It is time now to pay far more
attention to all that is alive and vibrant. In this way you will enter the poetic
reality of the divine world.2
Look at a baby boy: he never stops moving, in other words he lives in the
world of poetry. Later, when he is a young man, adults will tell him, ‘Listen,
you mustn’t be so idealistic. Why on earth did you have to fall in love with a
girl from a working-class family? Don’t be an idiot! You know very well that
So-and-so would marry you like a shot, and her father’s a banker; you have to
think of your career. Think of your future.’ Yes, young people are carefully
coached in the ways of prose: how to look out for ‘number one,’ how to
calculate all the advantages of any situation. And the result is that the poor
young idealist eventually gives in and becomes just like everybody else:
immobile, expressionless and prosaic, whereas before he was expressive,
vibrant and alive: he was a poet. So that is what it is to be a poet: to be
always in motion. There you have a philosophical explanation of a
phenomenon you can witness with your own eyes every day.
Human beings are not in the habit of attaching much importance to
occupations which could restore them to life. Look, for instance, at the
question of prayer, meditation and contemplation, all those activities that can
make people’s existence so extraordinarily poetic and release inner forces
capable of neutralizing the poison of any negative conditions they may suffer
from: they are all neglected; people prefer prose. Look around you and you
will see for yourselves that this is true for nine tenths of humanity. Haven’t
we had enough of all these prosaic people? For my part I want to have
nothing to do with them. Being with people like that is like being in a freezer:
they are so cold you have to wrap yourself in fur coats. The day will come
when the most grotesque and laughable thing in the world will be the sight of
an ignorant person who thinks that their frigid, haughty attitude marks them
out as being a cut above everyone else. Actually though, prehistoric animals
like that will not exist any longer, or if they do they will all be in a zoo. Yes,
there will be special zoos for extinct species like that.
So, from now on, think about introducing poetry into your life. I say
‘poetry’, but I could just as well say ‘the spiritual life’ as opposed to the
purely material life. In fact, whatever terms you use, it all boils down to the
two notions: spirit and matter. In itself, of course, there is nothing wrong with
prose; there is nothing intrinsically bad about it. We all use prose when we
write, and it can say a great deal, perhaps more even than poetry. But in
poetry there is that intangible, indefinable element that uplifts and enchants.
Prose speaks to the intellect: it enables you to understand ideas and notions,
to describe, classify and explain, and all that is admirable. We must not
discard all prose for it is indispensable, and there are a great many prosaic
things in life which we simply have to do. I don’t need to enumerate them for
you. But we must not restrict ourselves to those things; if we do, they will
deaden our sensibilities and numb us, and that is a form of impoverishment.
So we have to find and treasure that poetic element that puts us in touch with
heaven.
Young people love poetry and music, for music always goes hand in hand
with poetry. They are two expressions of the same region of the soul and
spirit. Where there is music you will always find poetry too. And the fact that
the young have this taste for poetry is a sign that they are capable of rising to
much subtler regions. It is true, of course, that the songs, music and poetry
they like are far from the best, but the mere fact that they do have a taste for
poetry and music is a good sign. The only thing is that they need to be guided
and instructed; they need to know that modern poetry and music – like all the
art forms today, actually – are so dreadfully prosaic, because the divine
elements that make for true music, poetry and art have gone out of them.
Only our higher nature can furnish the elements we need if we are to
expand our consciousness to infinite horizons. And we must not forget that it
is tremendously profitable for us to possess those elements: it is even better
for our health, far better. If you rob human beings of all the poetry in their
life, what is left to them? A purely vegetable life: they will eat and sleep and
work, of course, but they will lack that intense inner vibration that stimulates
and gives them their capacity for wonderment. Little by little, in fact, you
would see that even their physical functions would slow down, and toxic
wastes, which should normally be eliminated, would begin to accumulate and
form deposits in their system. So, if only for the sake of our health, this kind
become like little children’.
 Chapter Five
The human voice
When I first arrived in Paris in 1937, I often went to concerts, the opera or
plays, and I used to take advantage of these occasions to analyse the effect of
different types of human voice on myself and the other people in the
audience, and as I possessed the criteria for this analysis, I found it to be a
very enriching experience. It is very interesting to know which centres in our
organism are set in motion in response to certain sounds. This is an area of
science that has remained virtually unexplored, and musicians, conductors,
sound engineers, teachers and doctors would do well to apply themselves to a
serious study of it, for there is a wealth of information waiting to be
discovered here.
When we read the Bible story of how Joshua and his people threw down
the walls of Jericho with the sound of their trumpets, or the myth of Orpheus,
who used his lyre to charm not only human beings but also wild animals,
rocks, stormy seas and even Cerberus, the watch-dog of Hades, it is clear
that, from earliest antiquity, initiates have known that sounds can have a
magical influence not only on living beings but also on matter.
When I was at a concert or at the opera I used to close my eyes so that I
could more easily study the effect the singers’ voices had on my different
centres and the way the vibrations communicated themselves and aroused
this or that faculty.
Some voices are gentle and inspire peace; others excite violence. Some are
so crystal-clear that the listeners are bathed in a flood of purity and light,
whereas others cast a cloud of darkness over them or arouse their sensuality.
Some voices encourage reason, others madness. Some incite one to love,
others to hatred. Some stimulate action, while others paralyse... and so on.
The examples are endless and it would take hours to enumerate them, but to
put it all in a nutshell let me say that there are three main categories of human
voice: those that act on the will, stimulating or numbing it; those that
enlighten or cloud the mind, and those that arouse elevated feelings or, on the
contrary, kindle vulgar passions.
In the past, musicians have been more interested in instruments than in the
human voice: the voice is a domain that has been left largely unexplored.
They have a tendency to think that the voice is less expressive than an
instrument, but this is quite untrue. In fact the history of vocal music contains
a great many singers of such immense talent that legends have grown up
around them: singers such as Caruso, Chaliapine, Adelina Patti or Melba.
There is a story that, one day, when Adelina Patti was on tour, she went to
cash a cheque at the bank, but she had forgotten to take any identification
with her and the cashier refused to give her her money, so Patti began to sing.
Her singing was so beautiful, so sublime that, of course, everyone instantly
recognized her and she got her money. So you see what power a human voice
can have: it can open doors, even the doors of a safe.
If the human voice has not yet revealed its true wealth or manifested the
full range of its powers, it is because singers are not careful enough about the
way they live. Unlike other, external musical instruments, the vocal cords are
not independent of their owners. All that people experience in their life,
therefore, including all the thoughts and feelings that go through their mind
and heart, have repercussions on the voice. If singers indulge in certain faults
or failings, however marvellous their technique, these faults and failings will
transpire in the quality of their voice.
Singers who are truly interested in cultivating their voice and want to be
sure to keep it in good condition for a long time must not only take great care
of their health; they must also keep a close watch on their emotions. Even the
slightest emotion, whether it is anxiety or fear, doubt, anger, joy or hope, will
be reflected in the voice. Why do you suppose that, when you are in the grip
of violent anger or fear, you are incapable of producing a sound? Whereas,
when you are in love you feel moved to sing aloud. It is love that has the
power to create a beautiful voice. So, if you want to sing beautifully you will
have to fall in love with someone or something, and my advice to you is to
fall in love with something: it makes everything much simpler. Fall in love
with something tremendously elevated that will never cause you any
problems and always be an inspiration to you.
When singers live a pure, well-balanced, harmonious life and maintain
close contact with nature, their voice becomes stronger and increases in
volume, flexibility and agility. It becomes sweeter and subtler and more
obedient to their will so that they have greater control over it and can give
truer expression to every shade of feeling. Instead of using it to flatter their
own vanity or achieve the satisfaction of their passions and their appetite for
pleasure and financial gain, they must use it to soar upwards towards a high
ideal. In doing so they forge bonds of friendship with the perfect beings of
the spiritual world, who then help them and guide them along their path and
provide them with more and more possibilities for working and improving
their voice. To be sure, this is not an easy path, but the sacrifices it demands
are well worth it.
There are altogether too many singers, both male and female, who use
their voice to communicate inharmonious and unhealthy vibrations to their
audience, and in doing so they thrust them back toward a state of chaos,
perversity and passion. Where are those who use their voice to inspire in their
audience the desire to abandon their dingy, mediocre life and start a new kind
of life, dedicated to beauty and light?
What we need today are singers who are also magicians, singers capable
of using their voices to shake people out of their lethargy. But only those who
have worked for years and years to increase the breadth, intensity and purity
of their aura are capable of having such an effect on the human soul. Yes, it is
the singer’s aura that creates the conditions needed for his or her singing to
have a magical effect on an audience.
When heaven gives anyone a lovely voice, it is giving them something of
great value that will enable them to perform miracles. The trouble is that they
don’t know how to use it, and above all, they are not sufficiently convinced
of its worth. Singers are often spoilt children who do not realize what a
treasure they have received and, especially, who have never thought about
how they should use it. They must have a high ideal and work to achieve it.
The ideal for artists must be to lead people back to the fountainhead. If they
do this their name will be inscribed in the book of life: it will go down on
record that they have saved many souls from tribulation and death. And they
need have no fears for their own soul: if they save other souls, someone else
will come and save theirs. When people scatter joy all around them, others
come to give them even more joy.
When artists of this calibre have to answer critics or members of their
audience who want to know how they acquired such a magnificent voice,
what training they had, what special discipline they had to take on, and so on,
instead of expounding all kinds of futile theories or talking exclusively about
their careers, they will answer in such a way as to enlighten other people and
reinforce their desire to change. They will explain that the human soul is a
daughter of God and that if they want to know it in all its glory they have to
live a godly life. Artists can never have any really profound influence on the
souls of their audience if they themselves have not already worked to develop
the gifts and talents received from their Creator. We cannot move others if we
 Chapter Six
Choral singing
Four-part choral singing is an act of great significance.
In the first place it is a symbol of what we have to do to attune ourselves
and harmonize with each other. The blending of voices over our heads is, at
the same time, a blending of our souls and spirits.
Secondly, choral singing is an expression of our desire to embrace the
universe, to be attuned to and in harmony with the whole. This is why, before
you begin to sing, you should turn your attention inwards for a moment to
still any agitation and put aside the concerns of everyday life, so as to be in
harmony with all creatures in the cosmos and able to sing in unison with
them.
And finally, the practice of singing in four parts is already a reflection, an
expression, on the physical plane, of the effort we have to make every day,
several times a day, in fact, to bring our spirit, soul, mind and heart into a
harmonious unity.
You could say that the four voices – bass, tenor, contralto and soprano –
correspond to the four strings of a violin, for the violin is also a symbol of the
human being. The G string represents the heart, the D the mind, the A the
soul and the E the spirit. The violin itself represents the physical body, and
the bow represents the will, which plays on the four principles – heart, mind,
soul and spirit.
The harmonious blending of the four voices, or the play on the four
strings, is a reminder to us that the four principles – heart, mind, soul and
spirit – must vibrate harmoniously within us. Why do you suppose that
violinists have to keep tuning their violin? Isn’t it to teach us that we cannot
make any genuine inner progress if all the parts of our being are not
harmoniously tuned? It is more important than anything else, therefore, to
look into ourselves and be sure, before we do anything, that the ‘strings of
our violin’ are correctly tuned.
It is very important to sing. Of course, you can listen to records at home,
as most people do. There are not many people in France who actually sing; it
seems that they don’t even feel the need to do so. And yet there is a
tremendous difference between singing and listening to someone else
singing. The difference is exactly the same as between eating and watching
someone else eat. If you are content to watch others eat, they will get fat and
strong and you will wilt away. When they have finished their meal they will
be full of energy and ready to work, whereas you will barely be able to move
your little finger. Yes, it is as different as that. Those who sing put
themselves in contact with the world of music, whereas those who never sing
become inwardly weaker and weaker from lack of nourishment. Music, and
particularly singing, are a form of nourishment that enables us to work on the
spiritual level. You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn that while you are
singing you are, at the same time, doing some serious work, but it is so, on
condition, of course, that you do not consider singing simply as a pastime but
as an activity that affects every aspect of your being.
If you study the sephirotic Tree of Life, you will see that music is an
attribute of the sephirah Chokmah where the cherubim reign. The cherubim
are pure music, and they dwell, therefore, in perfect harmony. Chokmah is
the region of the Logos, by whom all things were created, and the Logos is
pure music, the harmonious sounds that fashioned the universe. For sound
models matter and gives it form, and it was in this way that, through the
Logos, God fashioned the formless, primeval matter, which Genesis terms the
thohu wa-bhohu. God breathed his Word over that cosmic dust and forms
appeared. Under the influence of the Logos, the cherubim received a divine
vibration, which was communicated from them to all creatures below the
level of Chokmah, all the way down to Earth.1
The cherubim do nothing but sing together in harmony, and when human
beings also try to sing in harmony they create a bond between themselves and
the angelic order of the cherubim, the order of music and heavenly harmony.
When you sing, therefore, whether you know it or not, you are establishing
contact with the cherubim, and, in this way, the harmony of sounds works its
effects on you. It causes the material particles of your body to vibrate in such
a way that its physical forms will one day be a reflection of perfect beauty
and harmony.
You can understand, therefore, that singing gives us the conditions most
conducive to purifying and beautifying our physical bodies. And one day
your soul will begin to put out antennae capable of receiving cosmic energies
from the region of Chokmah: you will feel yourselves inspired, you will hear
the music of the spheres, you will sing with the choirs of angels, and wisdom
will make its dwelling within you. Yes, for music is an expression of
wisdom: the Hebrew word Chokmah means wisdom. Chokmah lies outside
the range of our octave; it stretches beyond our solar system to embrace the
zodiac. And as the zodiac symbolizes immensity, the cosmos, the infinite,
this is why music transports us to such heights that we melt into that
immensity.
You really must try to understand all this and not be content to enjoy only
the pleasurable sensations singing brings, for the beneficial effects of music
reach far beyond sensation to the most sublime regions. If you really
understand the question fully, I am confident that you will devote much more
time to singing together, because you will begin to feel tangible results from
it. You are perpetually engaged in activities which may seem to be of the first
importance, but which are incapable of making you happier, nobler, healthier
or more luminous. The best they can do is to give you more material comforts
and an easier life, but that contributes nothing to your transformation.
Whereas when you sing together with real conviction, you are striving to
attune yourselves to another, higher order of things and this transforms you
and furthers your evolution.
And you know, you can do this even when you are by yourself: if you feel
lonely, unhappy or troubled in any way, pick out a song you would like to
sing, put yourself in mental contact with the region of the cherubim, and
picture yourself singing with all the brothers and sisters throughout the world,
and you will experience an influx of strength and inspiration. When you have
been singing, even if you did not do so with the idea of obtaining any special
results, you will find that life seems more beautiful, other creatures seem
more agreeable and your will has a new firmness to it: so why not do this
consciously?
You do not realize what a tremendous variety of means and materials you
have at your disposal, so you don’t make use of them, and this is the worst
possible thing: to possess such riches and still feel wretched because you are
not even aware that you possess them. So, if you devote more time to singing,
and if each one of you without exception learns to sing in harmony, the
results will be extraordinary. Singing is an invaluable instrument to work
with, firstly on yourselves, and secondly on the world around you, for the
harmony that is in you reflects on your surroundings, and sooner or later the
whole world will experience its influence. Isn’t this a wonderful way of
working for the good of humanity?
All that we do in life is magic, but this is a fact that is widely ignored and
misunderstood because people are afraid of the word ‘magic’. They think it is
something to be avoided, and as they don’t study it or even recognize its
existence, they have very mistaken notions about it. And yet all works of art
– painting, sculpture and dance – and even the beauty of created things are
magic. ‘Magic’ simply means influence, the effect or influence that one thing
has on another. If, therefore, something exerts a beneficial influence on its
surroundings, if it spreads peace, light and harmony, we say it is white magic,
divine magic. If on the other hand, something has a disquieting influence and
brings darkness and disorder in its train, we say it is black, diabolical magic.
It is important that you understand this and that you think, feel and act more
and more constructively, positively and harmoniously. In this way you will
become white magicians.2
When you come together to sing, therefore, you wield tremendous magical
power for good, but you must never forget that all power is based on unity
and harmony. Remember that you must form a family. Leave aside all
consideration of your different characters and tendencies, all the differences
in your degree of evolution, social background or profession. Forget about all
that, for none of it really matters; none of it makes much difference in the
spiritual life. Strengthen the conviction in your heart that you all belong to
the Universal White Brotherhood, and that you, as members of this
Brotherhood, are singing together in order to awaken consciences throughout
the world; if you do this, then indeed you will be truly powerful.
Believe me, it is your unity that is the source of your power. Even if you
don’t like each other, therefore, even if you have had differences of opinion,
none of that matters; get together to sing and you will work miracles. Perhaps
you are thinking, ‘Ah, if I see So-and-so, I’ll wring their neck!’ That’s fine,
but first of all go and sing, and we’ll see about the rest later. Start by singing,
and it could be that once you have sung you will no longer be so set on
wringing anyone’s neck. You may not understand how you have become so
tolerant all of a sudden, but it is because the singing has already changed you
just a little and made you just a little gentler. So, whether you love or hate
each other, whether you agree or disagree, it makes no difference: what
matters is to achieve unity.
Do you imagine that soldiers who go to war together all get on well with
each other simply because they are in the same regiment? Before being in the
army they might well have been neighbours who detested one another, but
once they are united in common cause against an enemy, it is amazing what
they are capable of doing together. They support and help each other and
even save each other’s lives. And then, when the war is over, they probably
 Chapter Seven
How to listen to music
Everything in nature sings and vibrates; all creatures emit vibrations,
which are diffused around them in the form of musical waves. This is why it
is true to say that everything in nature is music. There is music in a rushing
stream, in the murmur of a spring, in the patter of raindrops, in the roar of a
cataract and the ceaseless ebb and flow of the waves of the ocean. There is
music in the voice of the wind, in the rustling of leaves and the twittering of
birds. And the music of nature constantly arouses and stimulates in human
beings the feeling for music, kindling in them the desire to express
themselves through the medium of a musical instrument or through song.
When people feel the need to communicate their feelings and emotions, it is
to music that they turn most spontaneously; when they want to express their
deepest religious feelings they turn to music; all their joys and sorrows, their
love and every profound experience is expressed in music.
Music is the breathing of the soul and consciousness. It is through music
that the soul manifests itself in the world. When the higher consciousness in
humans is awakened, when they develop their capacity to perceive the subtler
realities, they will begin to hear the great and glorious symphony that
reverberates throughout space from one end of the universe to the other, and
they will understand the deepest meaning of life.
Music awakens in our soul memories of the heavenly home from which
we came and a yearning for that lost paradise. It is one of the most powerful
mediums, far more powerful than painting or dance because it is so
immediate, so instantaneous. In a flash we remember that we have come from
heaven and must one day return to heaven. There are, of course, certain kinds
of music which, on the contrary, arouse the desire to remain on earth as long
as possible, but that is not the true function that music was intended to fill.
Everybody listens to music, but in an initiatic school you learn to listen to
music with a specific purpose in mind: to awaken your spiritual chakras, to
take flight into space and raise yourself to greater, nobler heights, to purify
yourself and even to solve certain problems. When we listen to a piece of
music we must, first of all, know what it represents, whether it is a force for
good or for ill, and what it conveys to us: is it like the wind or like thunder?
Is it like a cataract or a waterfall tumbling down the mountainside? Is it like
electricity? Or heat? Whatever the energy it emits you must learn to use it. If
it conveys the wind to you, you can imagine that you are on a ship in full sail.
If it conveys electricity, you can use it to set your spiritual ‘appliances’ in
motion, and so on. Music is a force. Each sound, each vibration triggers a
movement in space and releases certain forces in us.
If we listen to music every day after meals, it is because I want you to
learn to use it creatively to accomplish something substantial in the way of
spiritual work by projecting sublime ideas and imaginative pictures which
will, one day, become concrete reality. Music can help you – especially
mystical, deeply religious music which takes you out of yourself and
transports you to great heights.
Many intensely spiritual people have scorned the help that music could
have given them in their work, and they were wrong to do so. Music can be
an extremely powerful means by which to awaken dormant cells, to achieve a
higher degree of nobility and to transform and perfect oneself: we should not
ignore it.
Let others think and live as they please, but you who are seeking to
advance in the spiritual life must learn to make use of everything that God
has given you. A disciple is someone who is determined to use their time and
energy and all the materials that nature and the Lord have given them in order
to achieve or earn something more. They are like the servant in the Gospels
who had received a few talents from his master before he left for a long
journey, and who invested them so that they would earn more rather than
burying them away where they would be unproductive. Disciples are
intelligent, sensible servants; they use everything that heaven has put at their
disposal to accomplish a divine task. That is to say, they learn how to put all
things to good use, whether it’s air, water or food, whether it’s their thoughts
and feelings or their own body, their eyes and their ears or all the
innumerable things that exist in nature. They learn how to get everything
working for them, and they become more prosperous, day by day, while
others waste their time frittering away their energies and impoverishing
themselves for want of effective methods and the right notions of how to
work.
So, while you are listening to music, work with it: use it to form all the
things you wish for in your mind. You want so many things and yet you do
nothing to get them. Music gives you very favourable conditions, for it
creates an atmosphere highly conducive to mental activity: like a strong
wind, it fills your sails and drives your ship before it toward a new world, a
divine world. Music is a powerful aid in making things come true.
Obviously, if you wish to create a bond with the divine world, you cannot
do so by listening to just any kind of music. Unfortunately, the music of
today is becoming more and more discordant and cacophonous: in fact it can
hardly be called music, it is just a din. When I visited the World Fair in
Osaka, Japan, I went to a concert of contemporary music. What a shattering
experience: it was enough to drive you mad or make you sick. And as I
listened, I realized that that kind of music destroys human beings, because it
saps and destroys the nervous system. It makes you wonder if it has not been
created by lunatics who want to drive the whole of humanity insane.
Humanity is already a little mad thanks to all the negative work other people
have done, and musicians will finish the good work!
Very few musicians have studied the true science of psychology, so very
few are aware that sounds, words and, in fact, every kind of vibration has an
effect on people. It is a question of physical laws. I have already spoken
about the experiments of the well-known physicist, Chladni. In one of these
he spread powder on a sheet of metal which was then caused to vibrate by
means of a violin bow. The vibratory waves create lines of force, which
attract the vibrating particles (which we could call living points) and cause
them to move towards those that are not vibrating (the dead points), thus
creating geometrical figures. I have tried this experiment myself, and I came
to the conclusion that this is exactly what happens in human beings.
The sounds we hear produce geometrical figures within us. Even if we
cannot see them, the effect of sound, the vibratory energy of the waves it
creates, causes myriads of minute particles in us to arrange themselves into
geometrical figures. This is why, when you listen to the cacophony that
passes for music today, the pre-existent structure and harmony within you,
the order that was established by the Creator, is disturbed and eventually
shattered.
But just look at the young: this is the kind of thing they enjoy, music that
stirs them up and makes them gesticulate and wiggle their bodies in a frenzy
of excitement. The other music, the music of great composers like Mozart,
Beethoven and Haydn – that’s only for old fogies, apparently. Well, the
trouble is that young people haven’t understood the first thing about it: they
don’t know that the music they are so fond of arouses only the most
superficial and insane impulses in them, and that some of it, in fact, has an
extremely adverse effect on their behaviour and their sensibilities. They have
never stopped to find out what this effect might be or where it is leading
them. They don’t want to know about that; all they want is music that speaks
to them, that pleases them here and now: they are not the least bit interested
in knowing what the results will be in the future, or what mad things they will
do simply because of an irrational state of mind induced by that music.1
Now, I am not saying that you should never listen to anything but mystical
music: masses, oratorios and requiems. Not at all! I often put on some folk
music for you, especially Tyrolean music. It does you good to hear those
young people singing and whistling and stamping their feet as they dance.
Besides, from the very earliest times, sages who knew and understood
human nature and its needs, instituted holidays so that people could relax and
enjoy themselves with music, dancing and plays. Even the Church Fathers
introduced feast-days along the same lines as those of ancient Egypt and
Greece. They would never have started such traditions if they had not known
that this kind of relaxation corresponded to a fundamental need of human
nature. There is something missing in people who are always serious and
solemn, who never relax. They should listen to some Tyrolean music: it is so
youthful and gay and spring-like. They are just nice young people, singing
and dancing and enjoying the glories of nature all around them: the sun, the
mountains, the sky and the flowers. And their joy communicates itself: they
make you feel as they do, that life is beautiful. Tyrolean songs give voice to
the desire to be always youthful and happy and in love with nature, and they
can communicate their energies to us and help us to do some really good
work.
Music, therefore, is a powerful aid in achieving concrete results. This is
why, when you are listening to music, instead of letting your mind wander
aimlessly, you should fix it firmly on what you most need in order to further
your evolution. If you need health, imagine yourself to be the picture of
health; imagine that whatever you are doing – walking, talking or eating –
you can feel health radiating from you and communicating itself to all those
you meet. If you need intelligence and light for the mind; if you are always
‘putting your foot in it’ and making blunders, use music to help you imagine
that you are learning and understanding, that light and wisdom are flooding
into you, that you are even spreading them around and communicating them
to others. Whatever it is you want to acquire: beauty, strength, will-power or
perseverance, in whatever area you feel a lack, apply this method, and one
day, thanks to the influence of music, you will find that you have transformed
 Chapter Eight
The magical power of a gesture
I

Humans, as you know, possess not only a physical body but several other
subtler bodies, and it is by means of these invisible bodies that they establish
contact with a host of invisible forces, intelligences and entities in the
universe.1 These forces and intelligences often use our gestures, movements
and facial expressions as mediums through which to express themselves, and
conversely, we can use gestures and physical postures as a means of
communication with invisible forces and entities.
This question of our physical gestures, therefore, is vast and complex, and
today I shall do no more than draw your attention to the immense importance
of the motions and gestures we make every day, often quite unconsciously.
We can divide our gestures into two main categories: harmonious and
inharmonious. You will sometimes hear people say, ‘It’s strange, but every
time I find myself in the presence of So-and-so I feel ill at ease.’ This feeling
is often caused by that person’s gestures; there may be other reasons, of
course, but there is an endless variety of gestures and motions that make
other people uncomfortable. It is important to learn to control your gestures;
otherwise you will lose any authority you may have and even make yourself
ridiculous.
A gesture must correspond to an inner frame of mind. If you make
harmonious gestures without having the corresponding feelings, they will not
be totally ineffective, for all gestures have magic power, but they will not
produce substantial results. The great initiates and Masters are magi, white
magicians, and this means that they know how to invoke the divine world and
give it expression through their gestures, whereas black magicians use their
gestures to exercise their evil powers.
Magic is the science of gestures, and this is why disciples must be
conscious of every movement and take care not to make useless or negative
gestures as they are talking, walking or going about their business, for serious
spiritual consequences follow on every gesture. Every gesture is a force
which is active in the different worlds; every gesture corresponds to certain
currents, colours and vibrations and has repercussions on innumerable
creatures in space. Each of our gestures opens or closes certain doors in
nature and forms a bond linking us to a beneficial or to an evil power. If we
want to make progress on the path of love, wisdom and truth, we must study
our gestures and see whether they express these three virtues or not. The
gymnastics that we do every day, for instance, are a form of white magic.
They restore harmony between ourselves and the beneficial forces of nature
and open spiritual channels in us, making way for a communication and
exchange of forces from within and without, which has very beneficial effects
on our health.2
It is important to study our gestures; some of them are extremely potent
and are capable of putting us into direct contact with the forces and entities of
nature. But it is dangerous to know the magical powers of gestures if you are
not prepared to use them for good. If you learn about such things too soon in
the belief that you are capable of applying them without having purified
yourself beforehand, you must be prepared to encounter great difficulties and
even to be the victim of accidents. This is why I shall give you quite brief
explanations to begin with and mention only some of the simplest gestures by
way of example.
To begin with I must say something about the gestures we make with our
hands. The practice of punctuating speech with gestures is very widespread. I
am constantly horrified to see how people make ceaseless confused motions
with their hands: nervously fingering an object, plucking at their hair or
twisting a button on their clothes. When people do this, it is impossible to pay
attention to what they are saying, and a few minutes of conversation leaves
one feeling utterly exhausted. You must educate your hands and learn how to
use them to calm your nerves. There are a lot of exercises you can do for this
purpose: let me mention just a few of them.
For instance: stroke the back of the left hand very gently, barely touching
it with the palm of the right hand. Or again: with the tips of the first three
fingers of the right hand, stroke each of the fingers of your left hand in turn,
beginning with the thumb.
Here is another: open your right hand, concentrate on the centre of the
palm and then gradually, slowly and consciously, close your fingers,
concentrating all your efforts on this movement, until you have completely
closed your fist. Pause for a moment, concentrating all your strength in your
fist, and then slowly relax your fingers and open your hand. This exercise
should be done with great attention and gentleness. Once is enough; you will
not become any stronger for doing it twenty times, but do it correctly every
day.
The hands represent the will. You have to educate your hands and learn
that each finger is an antenna which receives and transmits different kinds of
currents and waves. Initiates know how to work with their hands and use
them to capture the forces which abound in space and which enable them to
heal and purify and to prepare themselves for their work.
During the course of the day, our hands accumulate a lot of impurities, and
if we want them to do the work of sensitive antennae as perfectly as possible,
we must wash them frequently. However, physical water is incapable of
really cleansing our hands, so it is a good practice to imagine that you are
pouring a shower of spiritual water, a shower of light and pure colour, over
your hands. Wash and bathe your hands in this spiritual water for as long as
possible at frequent intervals during the day.
Don’t count on difficult or spectacular exercises. Understand once and for
all that the secret of power lies in small, apparently insignificant gestures.
Begin at the beginning, with the first basic exercises, and do them regularly,
with perseverance, not just every now and then or without bothering to ensure
that you have the right conditions: if you do that, of course they will have no
effect.
Until you know what gestures to make with your hands, refrain from
making any at all. When you are talking and explaining something, do so
without gesticulating. Some people feel that without gestures their words
would lose all their force and explain nothing, but this is false. It is
increasingly obvious to those who have anything to do with films or the
theatre that the audience can be deeply impressed even though an actor uses
very few hand or body movements. When motion pictures first began, actors
used wildly extravagant gestures, but nowadays the best actors try not to
gesture, and the public is more impressed by a simple, restrained style. The
most sensitive, intelligent and highly evolved people do not appreciate acting
in the style of light comedy, with its unrestrained hand and body movements.
They feel the need of a language from within, a language which does not
need grandiloquent or melodramatic gestures, which uses nothing more than
the subtle play of the facial muscles and the expressions of the eyes. Try to
gesture less, therefore, for every gesture represents a loss of energy,
especially if it is clumsy or confused. When you make wild, nervous gestures,
they leave you feeling exhausted and demagnetized, whereas a few
harmonious gestures magnetize you and restore balance and energy.
 The gesture of shaking hands has a prominent role to play in everyday
communications. In Europe, it is the custom to shake hands every time you
meet someone or leave them – sometimes several times a day. But it is very
rare to find someone who knows how to shake hands properly, so let me
explain a few things about this. Some people offer you just half a hand, or a
limp, dead hand, and instead of feeling any pleasure from the contact, you are
left with the disagreeable impression of being drained and tired. Others, on
the contrary, grip your hand with such vigour that you feel like crying out in
pain – which is not much better.
When you shake hands, do so with love and sincerity; if you cannot do
this, you would do better not to shake hands at all, for you will only be
demagnetized and will demagnetize the other person too. And I must add that
you should shake hands only once, not two or three times in a row. Why not?
Because when you do it for the first time it is a mutual exchange – both of
you give the other something –, but when you repeat it you take back what
you had given. The first handshake is an exchange of subtle elements; the
second is an exchange of denser, more material elements.
It is possible to read people’s character from the way they shake hands, for
our hands have their language and they reveal everything about us. If you pay
attention to what you are doing when you shake hands with someone, you
can learn and understand a great deal about them. According to whether their
hand is hot or cold, hard or soft, damp or dry, large or small, plump or bony,
it will give you different indications. You can even learn how to talk to
someone and how best to deal with him or her. Perhaps you are thinking that
a handshake is not much to go on when it comes to learning about a person’s
character, but you are mistaken. If their hand is soft and flabby, you can tell
that they are lazy; they always have innumerable schemes in mind, but as
they lack the willpower to carry them out they never achieve anything; they
are weak and wait for others to achieve things for them. A firm hand shows
that its owner is someone who likes work, order and difficult tasks; he or she
is someone you can rely on. Indications such as these will help you to apply
the method most appropriate to each case. Yet other indications can be seen
in other characteristics: for instance, a hand can be alive, radiant and
expressive or it can be inert, lifeless and expressionless. You are, perhaps,
surprised that I say a hand can be alive or dead, and yet it is possible for
hands to express even subtler shades of difference.
You can tell how long a friendship with somebody is going to last, for
instance, simply from the impression you get from shaking his or her hand,
for you will be able to get on well with people whose hands fit comfortably
with yours: in this case you can be sure that your friendship will be sincere
and lasting. When, on the contrary, your hands don’t fit there can never be
any true friendship between you, and you would avoid a great deal of distress
if you realized, in advance, that you are not built to get on well together.
We must get to know all our gestures, and correct those that are neither
useful nor harmonious. You will perhaps say that you cannot see yourself
from the outside and that your friends will never enlighten you about
something like that. That is true: it is more likely to be our enemies who
render us that kind of service, but unfortunately we don’t take advantage of
them. Only those who are really wise know how to appreciate how useful
their enemies can be.
In point of fact, though, no one else can ever tell you in detail what
gestures you should make; you have to find them for yourself. Some imitate
the gestures of another, a well-known actor or statesman, for instance, even
though they are often devoid of any spiritual sense – or even any common
sense for that matter. Any gesture that is not the expression of a clear, well-
defined thought, a loving feeling and a noble, just will, is devoid of sense.
You will never spontaneously adopt the proper attitude unless you are moved
by love, wisdom and truth. Each feeling and each thought has its own
particular expression, and they can only be translated into harmonious
gestures if they flow from the soul and the spirit. Before all else, therefore,
open your heart to divine love and draw nearer to the sacred fire so as to
become warmer and more vital; open your mind to the rays of the spiritual
sun so as to find illumination and enlightenment in the light of God himself,
and finally, bind your will to the will of the supreme Being, and from this
close contact you will draw the energies you need to work creatively.
In fact I shall go further than that: each of our motions and gestures
represents a sound in the invisible world, and without realizing what they are
doing, humans sometimes make a dreadful uproar. With their abrupt,
turbulent, incoherent gestures they unleash invisible whirlwinds which
destroy everything in their path. With a harmonious gesture, on the contrary,
they create sounds as musical as the murmur of water bubbling from a hidden
spring, the song of birds in the forest or the whispering of the breeze among
the leaves; they perfume the air around them with the fragrance of flowers.
There are movements which restore peace, which confer as much strength as
the sunrise on a fine spring morning, when the air is pure and filled with life-
giving prana. Every movement of the angels in space is music such as
humans have never dreamed of.
I shall say nothing about all those hysterical gesticulations that pass for
dance and singing these days. Let me say, simply, that you must realize that
every gesture is like a pebble thrown into the ocean of energies: it creates
waves that inevitably end up coming back to where they started from. So if,
at some point, you experience a painful backlash, you need not be too
surprised: it is simply the consequence of a brutal gesture made in the past,
which has now come back to strike you. Each gesture releases a very subtle
force, which throws certain switches in nature, and it is up to you to know in
advance what the result will be. This is why the science of gestures is so
important. Our gestures have the power to lock or unlock the doors of our
own prisons.
When the new teaching is recognized and established, educators will
understand the tremendous importance of this question and study it for
themselves. Personally, in my capacity as a teacher, I have already studied
the question a great deal, and I have seen many things in schools and families
that are very dangerous from an educational point of view. I have seen
children whose nervous system has been seriously disturbed simply because
their mothers did not know what gestures to use in washing, feeding or
caressing them. A human being is like a highly complex machine with a great
many different switches on it: turning on one of the switches will produce a
certain result, and a different switch will produce a different result. You have
to know how to touch the hands and feet and the body of your child if you
want to educate or heal it.
But I repeat: even the best gestures are devoid of power if they are not
sincere. It is quite useless to adopt a charming attitude if it does not
correspond to anything on a deeper level. Before you manifest anything on
the outside you must be sure to have the corresponding thoughts and feelings
inside.
It is true that even though people may want to hide from others, their
gestures always reveal something of their true nature and even of their past
life. Just one example: if you see someone who is always rubbing their
fingers as they talk, as though they were counting money, it is because he or
she has been a cashier – or perhaps a usurer. A few days ago a man came to
see me: nothing about him betrayed anything about his present profession or
his past life, and then suddenly, as we were talking, he closed his eyes and
joined his hands in a gesture that immediately told me he had been a priest.
And it was true. We sometimes have some tiny gesture that reveals the paths
we have taken in life. So, don’t delude yourself into thinking that you can
completely dissimulate what you have done or are doing. If you have been an
aristocrat, a tyrant or a secret agent, spying on everything and everyone, don’t
imagine you can conceal the fact. Whatever you do, even the way you place
your feet as you walk (if the toe or heel touches the ground first, for
instance), reveals something of your true nature. For those who understand
these signs, it is as clear as day.
Suppose a woman wants to attract the attention or esteem of an initiate:
she will go to see him and behave with the greatest possible sweetness and
humility, without realizing that her manoeuvre will never work because the
initiate sees her for what she is. Certain of her body movements reveal that
she has spent years pandering to her lowest passions and a desire to arouse
sexual love in others – whom she then abandoned to their pain and torment.
And if her object in going to see him was to satisfy her vanity by getting him
to fall in love with her, she would be due a bitter disappointment, for true
initiates are completely immune to such blandishments; they can only be
touched by purity, simplicity, sincerity and kindness.
Countless men and women deliberately learn how to arouse sexual desire
in others by means of certain facial or bodily movements. It never occurs to
them that the attraction will be short-lived and is bound to leave a residue of
ashes and bitterness in their soul. Unfortunately, very few human beings
know how to awaken others to the higher life of intelligence, beauty and
constant regeneration, by touching the sublime being hidden in the depths of
each human soul.
Body and facial movements constitute a clear, eloquent, vivid language for
anyone who knows how to read them. They are like a letter that we are
constantly writing for the benefit of the visible and invisible worlds. They are
secret signs that put us in touch with the rational or irrational entities of
nature. They are expressions of our mind and our heart, and by means of
them we have the power to create or destroy our future.
The difference between a white magician and a black magician is that the
gestures and motions of a black magician destroy the peace of men and
women’s hearts, confuse their thoughts and drive their spirit far from the
fountainhead of life. The gestures of a white magician, on the other hand, are
full of purity, harmony, serenity and gentleness. They are beautiful and
sincere and they bring us life, illuminate our mind and release us from the
chains that bind us to our lower nature. In the future there will be a school in
which human beings will learn how to renew themselves and be reborn
physically and morally, thanks to movements accompanied by music. Our
Paneurhythmy is one such method. [The music and movements of the
Paneurhythmy dances were created by the Master Peter Deunov.]
I am fully aware that these few words about our gestures are a long way
from having exhausted this vast and important subject. But I have spoken
about it because I want you to think about it for yourselves. The main thing to
remember is that every gesture is the expression of forces that come from
very far away. All initiates consider gestures as letters and signs by means of
which they can read and interpret events and phenomena of the invisible
world. Such phenomena take place in realms that cannot be perceived by our
physical eyes, and after making their way through innumerable regions they
materialize in the physical world in the form of movements and gestures.
And now, may your souls blossom in the new life. May all your gestures
be harmonious, and may your spirits become servants of the divine cause for
the good of all humankind.

II

Our hands are like antennae, with the power to attract and absorb energies
from the cosmic ocean in which we bathe, and if we so rarely absorb these
energies it is because our consciousness is occupied with other things or is
simply asleep. Of course, we do receive energies from the cosmos whether
we are conscious of the fact or not, but only physical, material energies no
different from those received by all other creatures, animals or plants. For,
like plants, we have roots, and to the extent to which our roots are plunged
into the soil we receive energies. But roots cannot receive celestial energies;
only leaves and flowers can receive this kind of energy. The area below the
solar plexus and diaphragm (the stomach, intestines and sexual organs)
corresponds to the roots, and the head (including the mouth, ears, nose and
eyes) corresponds to the flowers and receives much subtler energies.
But let’s talk about the hands, which are the supreme instruments of
magic. A magus is one who has learned to use his or her hands to receive and
transmit energies, to channel them in whatever direction they are needed and
to amplify or attenuate them. Here, at the Bonfin, we greet each other several
times a day with a gesture of the hand. You have no idea how significant and
efficacious this gesture is – but only for those who are conscious of what they
are doing. For others it is simply a convention. Of course, it also depends on
how you are when you make this gesture: if you are tired and discouraged,
you will communicate this and cause others to feel tired and discouraged too.
But if you are feeling on top of the world and ready to move heaven and
earth, you will communicate this energy to others.
When initiates first open their door in the morning, they raise their hand to
greet the forces of nature: the trees, the sky, the sun, and so on. They salute
the new day and the whole of creation. Perhaps you are wondering what good
that does them: it does them a great deal of good, for in this way a bond is
formed between themselves and the source of life. Yes, for nature answers
them, you see. How often I have gone out into my garden in the morning to
greet the angels of the four elements – the angels of earth, water, air and fire
– and even the gnomes and sylphs, undines and salamanders. And I can see
that this delights them, for they dance and sing for joy. And to the trees and
the rocks and the wind, too, I send greetings. Try it for yourselves, and you
will see that something within you seems to find its balance and become
more harmonious: many areas that are still obscure and hard to understand
will become clearer and brighter simply because you have decided to salute
living nature and all its creatures.3
True disciples of the divine school know how to send greetings to the
luminous beings of both the visible and invisible worlds; every day they greet
them and receive their greetings in return, and thanks to this practice they can
actually feel strength and light increasing within them.
As for the gesture of greeting that you address to other human beings, I
repeat, it can convey extremely precious elements if you do it consciously,
putting a lot of love into your expression as well as into your hand, and if you
project that love for the benefit of the whole world. This gesture of greeting
should be a true communion: potent, harmonious and vibrant with life.
Every single creature needs love; this is the only divine right that the
Creator has given us: to love and be loved. The problem is knowing how to
love in such a way as to avoid misunderstandings and pain. But we must
love. And it is by our efforts to make our love more perfect that we draw on
that great love that fills the universe. What makes you think that you have to
hold a man or woman in your arms in order to love them? When you go for a
walk with someone, when you talk to them or look at them, when you greet
them – all that is love, and it is the subtlest, most spiritual, most etheric kind
of love. You have all experienced this, haven’t you? And you know how
happy and full of light you felt. Then why don’t you try to amplify it and
make it last longer?
You must get rid of the idea that human beings were not meant for the
most sublime forms of love. Do you think that angels and archangels don’t
love? Indeed they do! In fact their love is far more powerful, vast and intense
than ours, and yet they have no need to behave like animals to manifest it. If
you really want to manifest your love in a more perfect form, begin by
learning to greet others consciously with an expression and a gesture of the
hand overflowing with light and love. And when you are at home or out for a
walk in the woods, what is to prevent you from raising your hand and telling
all the invisible creatures of the universe of your love? Some of those
creatures are simply extraordinary; they are far more powerful and more
beautiful than human beings, and when you greet them they hear you and
approach, whether you see them or not. Their delight is to be with you and
give you a share in their wealth.
When you give, you receive. As soon as you give something, someone
else gives you something in exchange, for there is a constant circulation
throughout nature. It is said that nature abhors a vacuum, and that is true:
when a vacuum is created it is filled up at once. As soon as you empty your
reservoir by pouring out your store of love and good wishes on every
creature, heaven immediately fills it up again with its blessings.
You do not know how powerful the hand can be. When the Hebrews went
into battle, Moses raised his hands and the enemy was defeated: the forces
flowing from his hands gave strength and courage to the soldiers. And when
the battle lasted a long time and his arms tired, others came and held them up
for him. If the hands can be used for war, therefore, why shouldn’t we also
use them to create love and harmony? If you see people fighting, raise your
hand and they will throw down their arms and embrace. They will not feel
like fighting any more when they receive the beneficial vibrations you are
sending them.
If you learn how to raise your hand in order to capture forces and relay
them to others, forces that cleanse, heal, restore balance and give life, you
will become a white magus. When you salute someone with your raised hand
you project rays, forces – the five forces of five different colours. You may
 Chapter Nine
Beauty
If there were no cosmic principle at work in the universe, if the supreme
mother1 were not ever-present, working to preserve the harmony of forms,
human beings would have become repulsively ugly. Considering the way
they live, in a constant state of chaos, passion and conflict, how could they
not have lost all their beauty?
One sometimes meets truly handsome men and women, but when you see
the waywardness and licentiousness of their thoughts and desires, you cannot
help feeling that if absolute justice existed, they would be absolutely hideous
to look at. This discrepancy between their inner and outer being is due to the
fact that the inner life changes much more rapidly than external forms. The
discrepancy, therefore, is between the past and the present. From one day to
the next human beings can completely change their philosophy and their
whole outlook on life, whereas their physical appearance will only change
very gradually, for it is made of materials far more durable than the subtle
matter of thought.
Picture someone, for instance, whose physical appearance is repugnant but
who has embraced a divine philosophy: very gradually this philosophy seeps
into their whole being and animates the matter of their physical body until,
one fine day, that body becomes the exact replica of their inner life, the life of
their soul and spirit, radiantly beautiful, truly divine. And the opposite can be
true, too: a very beautiful person may lead a terribly degrading life, but their
physical appearance will not change overnight. One day, however, it will
change, and then it will reflect their inner degradation. It is difficult to judge
by appearances, therefore. You can often be misled because of relying on the
visible form, which is still an expression of the past. It is only a question of
time, though: sooner or later the outer form ends by reflecting the inner life.
This means that every human being has an inner face which is not the
same as the one we can all see every day. This inner face is the face of the
soul. Its features are not so clear-cut and unalterable as those of the physical
face, in fact they are constantly changing because the inner face is intimately
affected and fashioned by our psychic life, by our every thought and feeling.
At one moment it may be luminous, harmonious and subtly expressive; at
others it may be sullen, deformed or completely blank. It is this inner
countenance that we must model, sculpt, paint and illuminate tirelessly every
day, until it imbues and shapes our physical face.
The face you have today was once the face of your soul. It is the net result
of all the virtues and vices you have cultivated in the past, and even if you
don’t like it, there is not much you can do to change it now. So, instead of
bothering about your physical face, you would do much better to take care of
that other face, which is the original, the inner model, which has determined
the form of your physical face. If you work consciously to improve the
original, it is quite possible that your family and friends may not notice any
great change, but the angels will, and they will bless your efforts. The
physical face begins by resisting any attempt to modify it, but after a while its
resistance gives way before the pressure of that other face, for the face of the
soul is very powerful and it imposes its own features on the physical face.
Even now, from time to time, you can catch a glimpse of its beauty: when the
soul radiates such light, kindness and nobility that its radiance expresses itself
through the physical face, then we see, for one fleeting instant, the spiritual
face, the face on high. Keep working at it patiently, and one day your two
faces will blend into one.
But whatever a person’s physical appearance may be, there is one aspect
that cannot lie and that accurately reveals their deepest nature, and that is
their fluidic emanations. If you are capable of perceiving these, whether they
are good-looking or not, you will not be misled. People’s emanations are an
exact expression of their inner state, and if these are dull, discordant and
unwholesome it is because they reflect their dull, discordant and
unwholesome thoughts and feelings. We cannot really see a person’s soul,
but we can perceive their emanations. And if someone really and truly
emanates purity and light, you can be one hundred per cent sure that their
soul is beautiful. Sometimes, in fact, a person’s emanations are so powerful
that, for all their subtleness, they become visible. There are people, for
instance, who are physically ugly and deformed and then, for an instant, they
undergo a metamorphosis. This is because, for that brief moment, their
emanations have changed their form. There are three things to be taken into
account, therefore: the form, the emanations that break through that form
without always corresponding to it, and the spirit that produces these
emanations. As it is impossible to know the spirit, and as forms are deceptive,
the only sure way of knowing the truth about people is through their
emanations.
Behind the form, therefore, there is something else that we can know: the
expression, the emanations of the inner being, the life that flows in the
person. And if we could go beyond this again and glimpse this person’s spirit,
which dwells in heaven, we would see even greater beauty. But this beauty
cannot even express itself through his or her emanations: it is so subtle that
the physical body is incapable of manifesting it.
Actually, beauty, true beauty, cannot be explained at all. It is life, a life
which streams forth, which emanates. Suppose, for example, you have a
diamond; when the sun’s rays fall on it you are dazzled by the brilliance of
the colours before your eyes. Well, this is an image of true beauty: it can be
compared to the light of the sun. And to the extent to which someone
emanates beauty such as this, so that person comes close to true beauty. True
beauty is not in forms; true beauty has no form. It exists on high, in a realm in
which there are only currents, forces and radiances. When you succeed in
contemplating it, you are seized by such ravishment that you almost wish for
death. True beauty cannot really be found in the bodies or on the faces of
men and women; it is in the world above. It is only from time to time, when a
man or woman is in such close accord with the divine world that some of its
radiance shines through them, that their faces can hint at that beauty.
Bear this always in mind: beauty is not in the form but in the radiance, the
emanations. This is why you must not try to pounce on it to capture and
devour it: it is not a form that can be seized. You must use beauty only to
contemplate and marvel at; you must let its presence seep into you. If human
beings use beauty to lure each other into the abyss, it is not the fault of
beauty; it means that they themselves are not sufficiently pure; they kindle a
fire within, and then, because of all their impurities, it starts to smoke. Beauty
should not cause the downfall of human beings; on the contrary it should lead
them to God, elevate them to heaven itself. I realize, of course, that this is a
point of view that is so totally unknown that it may even seem grotesque.
Most people behave as though beauty were something to be pawed,
possessed, soiled and torn to shreds – like children who tear out the pages of
a book once they have looked at the pictures.
Look at the thousands of lovely women who have been degraded and
destroyed. Their lack of intelligence and enlightenment led to their being
devoured by swine. Unfortunately, the prettiest girls are rarely very
intelligent. And the same is true of men: the best-looking men are not often
intelligent. The face of an intelligent man is usually ill-proportioned and
asymmetric. When the trunk and branches of a tree are twisted and
misshapen, it shows that the tree has had to overcome great difficulties in the
course of its growth, but it had the will to survive in spite of all obstacles, and
its desperate struggles are reflected in the shape of its trunk and branches.
With human beings the same thing happens: the tormented, deformed
features of some of the world’s most remarkable people proves that they have
had to triumph in very difficult circumstances. The regrettable thing is,
though, that they have often developed their intellectual capacities and their
will-power to the detriment of their moral qualities and the qualities of the
heart, and this is why their faces are deformed. Beauty speaks more of moral
than of intellectual qualities. Yes, this is something you don’t know: people
who are very good-looking are not always very intelligent; in fact they are
often ripe for the plucking. And, in fact, this is what happens: they are
plucked and devoured by others, who are not so beautiful but who have
learned to look after themselves.
Beauty has far more affinity with kindness than with intelligence. Perhaps
you will object: ‘Oh, that’s not true! I have known some really gorgeous
women, but they were she-devils.’ Ah, but that is because you cannot see
what is staring you in the face. When you look at women like that, you can
feel that there is something cruel, selfish and treacherous behind the beauty of
their features; that is not the kind of beauty I am talking about. Their whole
attitude, even the way they hold themselves, shows that in their innermost
being they are hideously cold and calculating and bent on getting their own
way, and this can be sensed behind the outward appearance. Beauty has a
certain simplicity to it, something entirely natural and uncontrived, almost
naive; it is not treacherous and calculating, it is not particularly intelligent,
but it is kind-hearted.
It takes a great deal of practice to be able to discern these shades of
difference. They are something very subtle, as I have said, and it is not just a
question of physical features or forms. Certain women are very beautiful, but
you can sense that their astral bodies emanate terrible ambitions and lusts,
which will be the ruin of anyone who loves them. In a previous existence
they worked to cultivate the qualities and virtues which are responsible for
the beauty of their bodies or their faces. In this life they are not working in
the same direction, but the physical body is slow to change, so even though
they are fast sinking into degradation, it still holds out and manifests
something of its past glory. The ‘lady of the manor’ may be riddled with
debts but she still lives in palatial splendour, for the fabric of her mansion is
still in good repair. Her ‘mansion’ is the physical body – the stones with
which our house is built –, and eventually even the stones crumble and rot.
Only those who lead well-ordered, harmonious lives are working, whether
they know it or not, to fashion their body and face in accordance with good.
Now, make up your minds to improve and perfect your attitude and your
behaviour in respect to beauty; to consider it as the language of living nature
and a means by which to draw closer to the Lord.2 If you want to have some
slight idea of what true, luminous, pure beauty is, take a crystal, a prism, and
observe how light passes through it and becomes so beautiful that you could
look at it for hours, enraptured by the colours you see. This is something I
often do. It gives me such joy to contemplate the beauty of light, and I advise
you to do so, too; you will gain a great deal from it. Of course, I know that
some of you will say, ‘I’m not ready for any of that. It’s not for me,’ but this
is faulty reasoning. On the contrary, you should say, ‘Even if I’m not made
for that, even if I’m dreadfully weak, I’ve decided to nourish myself with
beauty.’ As long as you use your present state of destitution as the yardstick
by which to determine what you can or cannot do, obviously you will never
do anything.
True beauty, therefore, is not on the physical plane but elsewhere. True,
the earth is beautiful, with its plants, mountains, lakes and rivers. But I am
bound to say that all the beauty of the earth pales in comparison with the
beauty of the world above. Beauty is the expression of the highest perfection.
It embraces intelligence, light, purity, music, colours and perfumes, and this
is why, for me, beauty is always linked to the Godhead. The Godhead is
beauty and, as I have already said so often, if God were not beautiful, if he
were only wise, all-loving and all-powerful, I would not love him as much as
I do. It is because he is beautiful that I love him and want to be like him.
Many people seek God because he is all-powerful or because he is all-
knowing. I seek him because he is beautiful. I have a weakness for beauty –
which means that I have a weakness for perfection. So much the better: it is a
very good thing to have such weaknesses. The only weakness you will never
be blamed for, in fact the only weakness that is a glory, is a weakness for
beauty: for divine beauty. I tell you frankly, I have seen a great many very
lovely girls and I have also seen some very handsome men, but they have
never really dazzled me, because I have always looked for another kind of
beauty, the beauty that is beyond the world of forms. That is what has always
saved me: my love of beauty. And you, too, will be saved if you have the
same love of beauty.
It is important to seek beauty, but not external beauty: you must seek inner
beauty. If human beings took as much trouble to improve what they look like
on the inside as they take to try and improve their external, physical looks,
they would be living wonders. Unfortunately, the effects of all the care you
give to your outward appearance does not last: you have to start all over
again every day. Whereas, although it may take longer to make inward
improvements, you can be absolutely sure that they will last. Make up your
minds, therefore, to dedicate at least a few moments every day to making
yourself more beautiful. Why not go to a beauty salon? Yes, but there are
different kinds of beauty salons: in the morning, for instance, when you
attend the sunrise, you are in a beauty salon. When you contemplate the
rising sun, you are changing, improving something in your etheric, astral and
mental bodies. The lakes and forests and all the lovely things of nature are
beauty salons. But the best beauty salon of all is the one within you; that is
where you must do this work. Every day you can make certain improvements
and remedy certain inner imperfections by using the colours of the rainbow.
It is not only your face that will benefit from the work you do in your
inner beauty salon, but your body as well. In fact, though, you would do
better not to bother too much about your present physical body; concentrate
rather on building a new body, the body of glory that we read about in
scripture. All initiates work at building this body out of the subtlest, purest,
most divine elements they can find within themselves. Every sublime
moment of poetry, adoration or sacrifice offers them material with which to
build up this body just as they would model a statue. They know that one day
they will have to leave behind their mortal physical body, they cannot take it
with them to the farthest bounds of space, so they concentrate on building
their body of glory. And for this they use all the materials they find at the
height of their meditations and contemplations. All these sublime emotions
serve to form that body, and one day it becomes so radiant and strong that it
is even capable of raising their physical body and transporting it to distant
places.
We must love and desire beauty. But beauty all by itself, beauty that is not
at the service of something higher, can lead to the greatest possible
misfortunes. How many men have committed suicide for the sake of a
beautiful woman, because her beauty aroused the jealousy and envy of others.
Beauty must be at the service of an idea capable of elevating human beings;
 Chapter Ten
Idealization as a means of creation
It is very important that human beings should cultivate thoughts of a
sacred nature for each other, for in this way they help their brothers and
sisters in their evolution and advance their own sanctification.
I know, of course, that this idea is diametrically opposed to the habit so
deeply ingrained in most men and women of seeing only the worst side of
people and events. If you can point out someone else’s faults and failings you
earn a reputation for perspicacity and intelligence. But don’t forget that there
is a law according to which the strengths and weaknesses we recognize in
others are the reflection of our own strengths and weaknesses, and anyone
who is forever criticizing others, therefore, is simply revealing his or her own
shortcomings.
But we can leave that aspect of the question for the time being, for I want
to talk to you about the consequences of the opposite attitude, which is the
one I recommend: that of making the effort to see only the best points in
other people. I know perfectly well that many will say that if you adopt such
a deluded attitude you will be a victim of your own gullibility and will end up
paying very dearly for it. ‘After all,’ they say, ‘human nature is basically evil.
Even religion says so, so why fool yourself?’ Well, to that I reply that you
have not studied the question properly; you have only noticed what is evil in
humans, and it is quite true: it does exist. But humans also have a soul and a
spirit. True, no one can say that it is their soul and spirit that are most often in
evidence, but they are there all the same, so it is always possible for them to
manifest and express themselves if we give them the right conditions.
To make up your mind once and for all that humans are evil is not the way
to prepare the favourable conditions that must be present if their divine nature
is to manifest itself. Don’t think that sages do not see the bad side of people.
They do: they see it perfectly well; in fact they are very sharp-sighted in this
respect, but they do not dwell on it because they know that they can never
help anyone by dwelling only on that person’s weaknesses and vices. In fact,
it only makes them worse.
Sages are keenly aware that men and women are sons and daughters of
God, and they dwell on that truth; it is in the forefront of their mind in
dealing with them. The effect of this attitude is to make their encounters with
others creative, for they encourage the divine side of their nature and find
their own happiness in doing so. Believe me, this is the best way to deal with
other people: try and find out what their qualities, virtues and talents are and
concentrate on them. Sometimes these positive aspects are so well
camouflaged that even the person concerned has never guessed that they are
there. You have to get into the habit of looking into the depths of human
beings instead of seeing only the superficial manifestations, which are often
very misleading.1
It is all too easy to see people’s faults. But to discover certain virtues even
before they have been manifested requires considerable science. Each one of
you possesses divine qualities which are only waiting for the right moment to
become visible, and that is what my work is: to seek out all those hidden
qualities in you that have yet to show themselves. In this way my work
affects both you and myself, and you too must learn to work in this way. So
this is why you must cultivate sacred thoughts for others, for while you are
doing that you will have to stop dwelling on those details of their character
that are not particularly glorious and concentrate on the divine principle in
them. Yes, why not cultivate feelings of sacred love and awe for all that is
divine, immortal and eternal in humans? In this way you will be doing good
work both for yourself and for others. Whereas by concentrating on their
defects you are doing yourself an injury, because you are feeding on filth, and
at the same time, you are preventing them from evolving. Oh, what
ignorance! People think they can help others to improve if they continually
point out their weak points, whereas, in reality, the effect is exactly the
opposite.
Human beings are vicious and cruel and have every conceivable
shortcoming: yes, all that is perfectly true, but it is no reason to spend your
life seeing and talking about nothing but that. You have to keep your eyes
open, I agree, but that is only half of your work. If you are always trying to
belittle people and showing that you have a very poor opinion of them, not
only will they never show you the better side of themselves, which after all,
does exist, but they will also try to hurt you. Whereas if you show people that
you believe in them they will try not to disappoint you. Sometimes, in fact,
you have to pretend to have a high opinion of someone, for this appeals to
their self-respect, they try to do better, and in this way you help them to
improve. Yes, this is the true science of education. It is no use thinking that
you can improve people by constantly nagging them about their
imperfections and treating them as though they were half-witted and
incapable of doing anything right: if you do that they will not even try any
more. Since you already have such a poor opinion of them, why should they
make an effort? And, in the end, they really do become incapable, because
you have been working a kind of magic on them; they are hypnotized,
subjugated and paralysed.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of parents who adopt this attitude because
they think that in this way they will force their children to improve. They
must understand, from now on, that this is the worst possible method. If you
want to get a child to make progress of any kind you must always encourage
it, just as I encourage you. I believe in you and encourage you even when I
know that the reality is none too wonderful, but my attitude helps you to
make progress. You must never have a critical attitude toward people,
because that simply paralyses them, and at the same time they are driven to
find some way of getting their own back later on. It is often far preferable to
keep your opinions to yourself. This does not mean that you have to close
your eyes and not even see that someone is robbing you or preparing to ruin
you. You have to be able to see this, but you must not see only this. You
should say to yourself, ‘The poor wretch is like that now because he hasn’t
had time to develop properly, but if I concentrate on his spirit, on the divine
in him, he will end by changing.’ In any case, this is how a Master works on
his disciples, and it is in this way that he hastens their evolution. And you,
too: dedicate yourselves to this work. It is time that you awoke to the
possibility of undertaking spiritual activities of this kind.2
This is the activity – I can never repeat it too often – to which parents must
devote themselves when their children are still very young: they must review
in their mind all the qualities and virtues hidden in the soul and spirit of their
child. Instead of weeping and wailing about its faults, and boxing its ears or
whipping it in the hope of curing it of its mischief, concentrate on its divine
spark. In this way, thanks to its parents who have nurtured and tended that
spark, the child will grow up to do wonders. When your child is asleep, for
instance, you can sit by its bed, and without waking it, stroke its face and talk
to it about all the lovely qualities you hope to see in it as it grows up. In this
way you can instill very precious elements into its subconscious. Years later,
when these elements resurface in your child’s mind, they will be a shield
against all kinds of errors and dangers.3
It goes without saying that if you don’t like someone because they have
cheated or injured you in some way, you will not find it easy to recognize the
divine in them. On the other hand, if you love someone it is not difficult, no
effort is needed; the problem only arises when it is someone you don’t like.
For such cases you need a method you can apply consciously, secure in the
knowledge that it will give good results. One thing that is very important in
this question is that you must not live exclusively on the level of your
feelings and emotions. You have to use your reason and control yourself and
know that when you dwell constantly on people’s defects you are putting
yourself onto their wavelength, you even attract their faults to yourself, and
in the end you will be even more unjust, dishonest and vicious than they are.
You used to criticize them and now look at you: you are worse than they ever
were. This is what I tell young people: ‘Instead of loving and respecting your
parents, you spend your time criticizing them, but be careful: you may do
worse than that later on. It is still too soon to criticize them: simply show
them that you are kinder, more intelligent and purer than they are; that’s all.
But don’t criticize them, because if you do you will simply awaken and
attract the same faults to yourselves.’
I am well aware that you cannot fully accept what I am saying, at present.
But in the future, everyone will learn to work mentally in this way; when
people think of their family and friends and acquaintances, they will think of
them with light in their mind. No one will take pleasure, any more, in
belittling or sullying others. On the contrary, they will only be happy when
they are concentrating exclusively on the higher, divine nature of others.
Besides, when you talk about other people’s qualities, even if you seem to
exaggerate a little, in point of fact you are not really exaggerating: it just
depends on what part of them you are talking about. Often, when you talk
about people, you are talking not about the real person, but about their
intestines, their sexual organs, their belly or their feet (which may be very
smelly and unwashed). They themselves are a divinity. In holy scripture, it
says that we are all gods. And why shouldn’t those gods manifest
themselves? They are buried somewhere inside us, smothered by layers and
layers of impurities; you may not be able to see them, but they are there! And
these are the gods that we have to bring out into the open.
And now, let’s look at the attitude men and women have towards the
opposite sex. When I was still very young I cultivated the habit of seeing
women as a manifestation of the supreme Mother. I was well aware that most
women did not manifest themselves altogether divinely, but I also saw that by
adopting that attitude, I was the one who stood to gain. I wanted to see
women as beautiful, considerate, loving, faithful and steadfast (which is not
always the case – but never mind), for in doing so it was I who thrived and
blossomed. Everybody will tell me that I am hopelessly naive, that women
are not like that, that none of that is true. I know perfectly well that it is not
true. But thanks to this untruth I discover truth, the truest truth. Because, in
reality, women are like that on the higher level: in their higher nature they are
glorious. And down here? Well, of course, the situation on the lower level is
not so good – and this applies with equal truth to men.
The sad thing is that human beings seem to want to go down to the level of
their cesspools to know each other. No, no! You have to climb up and get to
know others at the highest peak of their being: it is quite different up there.
But nobody wants to listen to what I say or to put this into practice, so they
lose all their inspiration and become hopelessly prosaic. ‘You’ve got to be
realistic,’ they say. ‘It’s idiotic to idealize men and women.’ Yes, that may be
true, but even if it is idiotic it is also very beautiful, whereas their reality is
hideous. And in that reality, without their realizing it, they are destroying
their soul and spirit and laying waste the very roots of their existence.
Some will object that the advice I am giving you is very dangerous: ‘If a
man idealizes his wife, what will happen when he sees – as he must see, one
day – that not a single woman on earth really matches up to what he has
imagined? He is going to be bitterly disappointed.’ Yes, that is true: he will
be disappointed. If he does not know how to set about this work of
idealization, he is bound to be disappointed and dreadfully disillusioned. But
the idealization I am talking about is a work of creative magic and in no way
prevents you from seeing exactly what the person concerned is like.
When I say that I choose to look on women as divinities, that does not
prevent me from knowing perfectly well whether it is true or false; why
should I fool myself? And yet I still do this, because in this way all my
energies are directed upwards. Everything becomes beautiful and expressive,
and every woman I meet becomes a source of blessings, inspiration and new
discoveries for me. I am neither a painter, nor a sculptor, nor a poet nor a
musician, but I live perpetually in a beautiful world of colours, forms and
sounds; I am constantly lost in wonder. And if someone says, ‘What on earth
do you find so wonderful? If only you knew the vices of all those people who
give you so much joy’, I reply that I don’t want to know. If they have vices,
so be it, but their vices are theirs and the joy is mine. In any big city, for
instance, there are all sorts of beautiful things to see, but there are also the
sewers. Why would anyone want to visit the sewers? Confine your visits to
the monuments, climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower – symbolically speaking.
At least you can get a magnificent view from up there.
If some people who once had a tendency to idealize others have found that
it had disastrous results for them, it is because they were not able to stay at
that level; at some point they abandoned it and sank to the level of
realization. If they had not lowered themselves, if they had not attempted to
get a bit too close to the creature they idealized, they would still be happy and
joyful. In the hands of the ignorant, therefore, idealization can be a real
danger and the occasion for a serious fall. But in the hands of an initiate it is
the greatest possible source of blessings.
Idealization is a work of magic; it is the best way to further your
evolution, but, I repeat, this is only the case if you continue on that course
and resist the temptation to get closer, to touch and taste. For then you will be
like the child who takes a watch to pieces to see what is inside and how it
works: the result is that it does not work any more. Unfortunately, this is
what most people do with the Lord’s creatures: they want to see what is
inside – and inside they will find the guts. Why be so keen on seeing that?
You have to idealize women – and men – but you must never, never
abandon that idealization; only in this way will you be completely safe. If
you abandon your stronghold that will be the end of you: you are bound to be
disappointed, your friends will crow over you, saying, ‘I told you so!’ and
you will have to admit that they were right. In point of fact, though, they
were not right: or they were right only because you were weak and ignorant.
If you are strong and enlightened it is you who will be right for all eternity.
Now, I must complete what I have been saying by telling you that you can
do this work of idealization for yourself, too. Once you are fully aware of all
your faults and failings, you can decide to imagine that you have reached
perfection, that you possess every possible quality and virtue. Once again,
this is a magical method which will accelerate your work of self-perfection.
As long as you always envisage yourself only as you are at the moment, you
will mark time on the lower levels of evolution, for that prosaic, mediocre
self-image retards your growth and prevents you from advancing. Whereas if
you form a sublime image of yourself and hold on to it in your mind, it will
influence you by triggering other vibrations, other impulses. You will feel
impelled to attain that image, and in this way you will make progress.
Otherwise you will stagnate and never know reality.
 You will say, ‘But what reality? It is what I am now that is real.’ No, that
is where you are wrong. Your present reality is not real; it is an illusion. The
only true reality is that which is ideal, divine: this is the only reality. All the
rest, all that we think of as reality, is illusion, lies. You can only know reality
if you idealize and divinize every single being, including yourself. This is
what Hindus call jnana yoga. Jnana yoga is simply a process of idealization:
disciples seek to know themselves because they want to find the self as it is
on the highest level, with God himself, and be able to say ‘I am That,’ or as
Jesus put it, ‘The Father and I are one.’ True idealization is finding our
reality as it exists on another level, not down here. When we create this
perfect, ideal portrait of ourselves, when we nurture it and define its contours
more and more distinctly, it in turn sculptures and models and permeates us
until we become a different being, better than we were before.
Once human beings have formed this divine picture of themselves,
wherever they go it has a beneficial influence on other creatures, even on
animals, plants and stones, on the whole of nature in fact, for rays, forces and
vibrations flow from them, bringing order, balance and harmony to all around
them.
How many people long to be loved, and do all in their power to achieve
this! Unfortunately, what they do is usually purely external; it has never
occurred to them that, if they want to endear themselves to others, they have
to change inwardly. They have to modify their vibrations and make them
much gentler, more peaceful and more harmonious, and this is only possible
if we create a divine image of ourselves.
Now, just as there is a danger in idealizing others if you forget that it is an
exercise, equally there is a danger in idealizing yourself if you start deluding
yourself that you have already attained perfection. If you think you are
already perfect, other people will simply find you pretentious and utterly
ridiculous; they won’t be able to stand the sight of you. Your work is to
elaborate and perfect the divine portrait of yourself as you are on high, but
you must not imagine that you are already a divinity here on earth, otherwise
people will be justified in saying, ‘Look at that silly creature. He thinks he’s
God Almighty. What an idiot!’
However great and glorious your inner activity may be, therefore, continue
to behave with complete simplicity in all your dealings with others. Imagine
that you are beautiful, luminous, radiant, that you are doing the will of God
and that you have found yourself as you once were in God’s presence in the
 Chapter Eleven
A living masterpiece
Everything in your life depends on the goal you aim for, on what you want
to achieve; in other words, on your ideal. An ideal is not something inert; on
the contrary, it is alive and active, and it produces definite results within the
person who cherishes it: it cleanses, restores order, sculpts and harmonizes.
All the elements of your life are fashioned, modelled and shaped in
accordance with your ideal. If your ideal is not very exalted or noble, if it is
mundane and material, everything you do, feel and think will bear its imprint,
and you should not be surprised if you feel that something is missing in your
life and you are not happy.
The question is not to know whether your ideal is unrealistic and
inaccessible; that is not what should concern you. The only thing that matters
is that it should be perfect, sublime, truly divine. Neither do you need to
worry about how long it will take you to achieve it; that is not important.1
A high ideal is a real, powerful, living being, capable of nourishing us and
slaking our thirst for all eternity. It is because human beings have been
unable to grasp this truth that they have always deprived themselves of the
best. They choose an easy, readily accessible, material goal, and before long
they find themselves in a void. An ideal has magic powers. It is so intimately
associated with us that we share the beneficial currents and particles it brings
with it from whatever region it comes from. Since it is we who give it form
and keep it constantly in our minds and hearts, we benefit continually from
all that it contains, and this explains why, one fine day, we suddenly become
aware that new conditions are present in our life that have been prepared for
by our ideal. But if we want this to happen, we must be sure to keep our ideal
constantly in mind, to love and nurture it constantly, and, in spite of the
tremendous gulf that separates us from it, cherish it in our heart and soul.
Herein lies the highest wisdom and the greatest of all truths!
From now on you must learn to surpass and transcend yourselves, and
overcome every obstacle for the sake of that ideal, knowing that it is a living
being, which already exists in the divine world, and that because of the bond
between you it will see to it that you triumph over all complications,
misfortunes and adversities. The question is, do you have the faith,
knowledge and determination necessary for the formation of such an ideal?
Those who do not know these great truths have to work with very brittle,
fragile materials in very hazardous conditions. So, naturally, they suffer and
bemoan their hard luck. But whose fault is it? They have never aimed very
high, their only ambition was to acquire some mean, shoddy little
satisfactions, and of course they did not realize that those satisfactions would
not last, because they would be made of cheap materials. As you can see, the
law of affinity, the law of like-to-like, is operative here, too. If you have a
very ordinary ideal, you will necessarily attract the cheapest, most ordinary,
least durable materials. You must climb up to great heights to find the
materials with which to form the organs of your body and brain. Look for
them always higher and higher, in heaven, in the light, in immensity and in
the spiritual depths of your own being. And you will only be capable of doing
this if you choose the most exalted, most sublime ideal.
Most people imagine that their ideal will be fulfilled if they can practise
the profession or activity of their choice. But then why are they always
complaining that there is an emptiness within them, as though something
were lacking? It is not logical. They have already achieved what they set their
sights on. The fact is that they will always feel this lack if they do not adopt a
high ideal, for only a high ideal can fill all the empty places in people; only a
high ideal can slip into every little nook and cranny and bring fulfilment with
it. I am not saying that you should not have a profession or a trade; that you
should not be a scholar or an artist: not at all. What I am saying is that it is
not your profession that will give you immortality, eternity and fulfilment.
You have to work and earn your living, but it would be illusory to confine
yourself to your work in the hope that it will bring you happiness, light,
knowledge, power and absolute fulfilment, because it won’t. That is
impossible, because that is not where God has put these things. He has placed
certain advantages for us in that kind of work, but not the absolute
advantages we need for our soul and spirit. If we are seeking fulfilment we
need something more than our profession.
The best solution, therefore, is this: have everything you need in life, but
don’t let that be your ideal. Your ideal should be so elevated that it is always
beyond your reach. If this is the case, then you are on the right path. You
know that even thousands of years hence you will never be able to achieve
your ideal, but that does not matter. You cherish it, picture it to yourself,
walk hand in hand with it and talk to it; and it is your ideal that enables you
to keep your balance, that fills you with heavenly joy and transforms all evil
into good. And one day your ideal will make a divinity of you.
 The highest wisdom and the greatest secret of magic is to know in advance
that you will never achieve your high ideal, but that by keeping it constantly
present within you, you are achieving it in a way, for you are becoming
constantly purer, brighter and more luminous. Your ideal will always be
impracticable. In fact I might almost say that there is no point in trying to
realize it, since you already benefit every day from all its wealth. In what
way? In all kinds of ways. This may seem absurd, but it is precisely in that
absurdity that you gain a great deal. Anyone who fails to understand this will
never get to the essential core of the question.
Many people would say, ‘That’s all very well, but I know myself. I’m so
ignorant and weak, I’ll never manage it.’ And there you have an example of
how people give in, simply because they haven’t understood. Human beings
have lost faith in their own divine nature. They have forgotten that they are
sons and daughters of God and that buried deep in their heart is a divine
spark, which they must fan into flame through their own hard work. It is high
time that human beings accepted and acquired a deeper understanding of this
philosophy, which teaches that we are all the heirs of our heavenly Father,
and that it is up to us to make use of all his knowledge, love, power and
splendour, which he has put at our disposal.2 That is how we should approach
a high ideal: by modelling ourselves on the Lord instead of on weakness,
sickness and death. We model ourselves on a truly divine ideal, and from its
dwelling place in heaven, that ideal smiles down at us, protects and consoles
us and gives us everything we need. Whatever happens, never let go of this
high ideal.
When divers go down to work on the sea bed, they are connected by
cables and air hoses to a boat on the surface, from which others keep a watch
on them, and if they are in danger they signal to the others, who haul them up
or send someone down to help them. Most people are like divers who are lost
and alone on the sea bed with no one to come to their rescue. They are not
connected to a high ideal; they are isolated and abandoned and exposed to the
greatest possible dangers, whereas those who have a high ideal are free to
dive in and out of the water as they please. They can breathe freely and are
always safe, because their ideal bears them up and protects them and provides
them with as yet unknown particles. They are children of God and they
breathe a purer atmosphere.
You could find other comparisons and say, for instance, that a high ideal is
like a transformer that changes the voltage of an electric current. The fluidic
atmosphere that surrounds us is alive with a dense web of unbelievably
powerful waves and currents, which can provoke psychic or even physical
disorders in certain people. The very best way of protecting ourselves from
these currents is to possess a high ideal, which, like a transformer, reduces
their intensity and makes them bearable. But how many people even consider
it desirable to have a high ideal like this?
You cannot possibly imagine all the wonderful things a high ideal is
capable of accomplishing in you. It is like a sculptor that models and shapes
you, and it is here that we find the very highest level of art: in the painting,
carving and modelling of ourselves, in the writing of the book of the self. I
have a great love of art and artists. Art is a door opening onto heaven itself, a
path leading to the Godhead, but in spite of that I believe that there are higher
levels of art. Artists create beauty, but it is a beauty that remains outside their
own being, for they do not work on their own living matter.
One day I had a visit from a young sculptor who was, quite obviously,
extremely proud of being a sculptor. His whole attitude expressed his
arrogance and he spent his time criticizing everything. So I began to talk to
him: ‘You’re a sculptor?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I see. And you know all the laws of
sculpture?’ ‘I certainly do!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I don’t believe
you do.’ ‘Why not? What makes you say that? I’ve already created a great
many works of art...’ ‘That is possible,’ I said, ‘but when I see your face – I
refrained from saying ‘your ugly mug’ – with your features all distorted, I am
obliged to observe that you know nothing of the laws of true sculpture, for if
you knew them, you would have begun by applying them to yourself. It’s no
good trying to convince me that you’re a sculptor. There’s nothing about you
that shows that you are.’ Naturally, he was very surprised and rather put out,
and he began to be a little less pleased with himself.
Yes, indeed. And a painter who never does anything to make the colours
of his or her own aura more beautiful is no painter. Musicians who never
think of tuning their mind, heart and will know nothing about harmony. It is
important to understand what true art really is. What could be lovelier than to
be an artist in our thoughts and feelings, in our every gesture, word and
glance? Every day we put our works of art on display for the angels, and they
come and see what we are doing. But then why do so many artists destroy
their health and their whole life in their eagerness to swagger about on a stage
and be applauded by a lot of idiots, when there is an audience of angels there
every day, waiting to admire their work?
 Those who use the most beautiful colours and forms, and work
meticulously, with precision and clarity to perfect their own inner portrait,
will never be ones to complain that they are not appreciated or applauded by
human beings. They know, they have the inner conviction, that their real
work is inside them, so they can never doubt or be discouraged. ‘Yes, that
may be,’ you will say, but we can’t see their work.’ That is true for the
moment, I agree, but as I have already said, there are hosts of invisible
creatures in the world who come and contemplate and admire their
exhibition. It is these beings that will be their critics, and if they like the
paintings they will ‘buy’ them, and these people’s reputation will be assured
on high. And if these entities decide to make them famous, one day, on earth
too, nothing is easier for them. But this worldly acclaim must not be their
goal. They must seek to satisfy and delight only the critics of the invisible
world, asking every day for their opinion and advice.
In the future, artists will not be judged on their writings, paintings or
sculpture; people will want to know the man or woman themselves so as to
admire the poetry and music emanating from them and from their life.
Everyone will want to live a life of poetry, and express music in their
gestures, thoughts and feelings. Everyone will want to draw the features of
their own face and sculpt the lines and contours of their own being in God’s
image. Of course, it takes a great deal of time, effort and work to create in
this manner, but the question of time should not deter us. The things that men
and women create outside their own being never truly belong to them. Since
they are external and purely material they are doomed to disappear one day,
and when the artists come back to earth they will have to begin all over again.
Whereas true painters, true sculptors or poets, who work on their own inner
self, will never have to part from what they have created; they will take it
with them when they go and bring it back again when they come back in a
future life. The work we accomplish on ourselves lasts for all eternity.3
I don’t deny that many artists have left immortal masterpieces that
continue to inspire the whole of humankind and contribute to its evolution,
but in the light of Initiatic Science, which has revealed the goal of creation to
me, I know that this is not enough: there are still higher degrees of art. I have
great admiration for cathedrals, symphonies and statues, but the true ideal is
to create all that beauty and splendour within ourselves, to be a living
painting, sculpture or poem, living music or dance. You may think that
nobody else would benefit from masterpieces of that kind, but you are wrong.
 Chapter Twelve
Building the temple
Jesus said, ‘You are temples of the living God.’ Yes, when human beings
strengthen their will, purify their heart and allow light to flood their mind,
when they expand their soul and sanctify their spirit, they become a genuine
temple; even their physical body is a temple, and they are entitled to call on
the Lord to come and dwell in them.1
There are innumerable temples all over the world, and there is a reason for
this. As long as human beings are not sufficiently evolved to understand the
essential truths, religion has to be presented to them in material, tangible
ways. But as soon as they manage to awaken and develop certain spiritual
centres – know in Hindu philosophy as chakras – they attain a heightened
understanding of reality and begin to abandon external forms, because they
find them far less vivid, intense and potent than their own inner experience.2
Of course, thanks to the fervour of all those who built them and have
prayed within their walls for hundreds of years, the churches and temples of
the world are impregnated with an element of the sacred. But even the most
beautiful basilicas, even the most glorious cathedrals cannot compare to a
human body that has been purified and sanctified until it has become a living
temple. It is when people themselves are a temple, and when they pray in that
temple, that the Lord hears them and answers their prayer.
Unfortunately, most human beings do not take care of their temple; they
continually damage and misuse it through all kinds of irrational behaviour.
When they do this their body is no longer a temple; it is a hovel, a filthy
shack reeking with the stench of animals, like the Temple of Jerusalem when
it was filled with the sheep, goats, cattle and fowl which merchants had
brought to sell there. Nobody became indignant about that – they considered
it quite normal – but Jesus made a whip of cords and drove out the
merchants, saying, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but
you have made it a den of thieves.’
So don’t behave like those merchants and turn your temple into a
butcher’s yard, for it will certainly not be the Lord that will come and dwell
in such a place. Instead you will be plagued by swarms of inferior,
undesirable beings, which relish filth and feed on impurities.
But human beings are very ignorant. They don’t know that the vulgar,
animalistic lives they lead disrupt the vibrations of the particles and atoms of
their body, and that the ensuing chaos acts as a magnet for all the impurities
in their vicinity, so that they become like so many rubbish dumps. Then,
naturally, as these impure materials are not radiant, light and subtle, they
begin to ferment and decompose and cause various psychic and physical
ailments. But people still do not understand: they see no connection between
the way they live and their state of health. And yet it is so simple.
As I have often said, we can learn a great deal by watching insects. For
instance, you must often have noticed that if you leave remnants of food
lying about, it is not long before some insects find it. What kind of instinct,
what kind of divining rod do they have, telling them how to find food so
quickly, even at a great distance? And then, if you clean up the remnants, the
insects disappear again.
This law holds true on the psychic plane also. Here, too, there are all kinds
of vermin that can smell impurities3 from afar and come rushing to feed off
them. Everything that exists, on every plane of existence, is nourishment for
some other form of existence. Evil, noxious creatures of darkness need to eat,
and so do the heavenly creatures of light. In fact, as I have explained in one
of my lectures, even God eats. Yes, don’t be so horrified. Humans eat, so
why shouldn’t God? Indeed God does eat, and it is the seraphim that nourish
him with their emanations, that is, with matter that is so pure, refined and
precious that it is difficult for us even to imagine it.4
Bear this in mind, then: as soon as you have any rotten, mouldy elements
lying about inside you, there will always be entities from the invisible world
that will rush to regale themselves on it.
There are so many people around us who are perpetually worried, anxious
and unhappy. This shows that they are incapable of ensuring the presence of
the Lord within them, this presence that would give them light and peace.
And why are they incapable? They should ask themselves that question. The
answer is that they have introduced so many impurities into their bodies and
opened their doors to so many kinds of infernal creatures, that neither God
nor his angels can possibly dwell in them. But it seems that it has never
occurred to them that this is the reason. For, until someone has become
absolutely pure, it is certainly not the Lord himself who will dwell in him or
her: although he sometimes sends one or more representatives, angels or
geniuses. So if you find yourself in the cold and the dark because you have
forgotten to purify your body, you can draw your conclusions and admit that
it is your own fault: ‘It’s true. I’ve done everything I could to get myself into
this mess. I’ve invited entities of darkness into myself, and now heaven has
abandoned me.’ That is the truth, and you have to admit it.
So you must remember to purify yourself every single day, and throw
away any black thoughts and feelings, and replace them by other pure, subtle,
luminous ones. In this way you will be building your own temple, the temple
that we call the body of glory, the body of light or body of Christ.5 I’m sure
you remember the scene in the Gospels in which Jesus went up onto Mount
Thabor, where his disciples saw him transfigured, surrounded by a halo of
blinding light, with Moses and Elijah on either side of him. What the
disciples witnessed was Jesus’ body of glory, which had, as it were, taken
over his physical body and set it ablaze with light. Each one of us has our
body of glory within us in the form of a tiny atom, and we must all nurture
this body and foster its growth by drawing the purest and most luminous
particles from the atmosphere.
Jesus loved God and took him as his model, and for this reason a
multitude of heavenly beings and forces assisted him in his task of
transforming matter. His ideal was to be like his heavenly Father; he told us
this himself: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’6 So
he invoked all the divine hierarchies, and while he devoted himself to loving
and contemplating his Father and communing with him, these divine entities
came and sanctified his whole being and replaced the particles of his body
with divine, luminous particles.
It was not Jesus himself who had to replace each individual cell or particle
of his body; no human being is capable of doing that. There are other entities
that know how to modify the structure of matter, and all we need to do is
invite them to come and do their work in us. We do our part by inviting them
and then they do the rest. What do farmers do? They sow the seed. That is
half the work, and the other half is done by the sun and rain and the countless
entities that dwell in the air, the water and the earth and tend and nurture the
seed. The farmers have nothing to do with that part of the work. It is not their
business. Their job is to sow the seed. And an initiate is like a farmer, sowing
the seed, setting certain processes in motion, and then nature and the powers
of the cosmos do the rest.
We all have the duty, the obligation, to sanctify and consecrate our body
as a temple of God, so that only luminous spirits come and dwell in it, so that,
one day, the Holy Spirit itself comes down to dwell in it. When this happens,
we will never lack anything again: we will possess all knowledge and
 Postscript
I should like to conclude this little book with a few observations which are
of prime importance for the future of art and even for the future of
humankind.
When I see what is going on in the world – and since I am living in this
world I can hardly avoid seeing what goes on – it becomes obvious to me that
human beings are in the process of losing something essential. Many signs
point to this: men and women no longer know what to believe or what
direction they should be going in, and in spite of all their culture and science,
in spite of so much progress in every possible area, they are more and more
troubled and unsure of themselves. In my opinion (and since everybody
proclaims his or her opinion, why shouldn’t I tell you mine?), this is because
they have no true philosophical system to refer to.
As each person is free to invent or believe whatever he or she pleases, we
now have an extraordinary variety of weird and wonderful opinions and
theories to choose from, but there is no one system upon which everyone can
rely. Or rather, there are still a few surviving spiritual and moral traditions,
but the majority has ceased to believe in them. Instead they allow themselves
to be influenced by all that is deformed, perverse and obscure. Human beings
no longer adhere to what is sensible, ordered and harmonious. They are fed
up with that; they are clamouring for change and are ready to go to any
lengths to get it.
Unfortunately, this tendency is most apparent in art. Why are painters,
sculptors, musicians, poets and film-makers all so bent on portraying
ugliness, deformity and chaos? All possible sources of inspiration have been
drained dry, apparently, so they have nothing else to do. They are not capable
of emulating artists of the past and looking for inspiration on high, perceiving
and expressing celestial colours, forms and melodies. So they take the
downward path, losing themselves in subterranean passages and plunging
into the murky depths of the subconscious. And here they find prehistoric
animals which have long disappeared from the face of the earth, but which
still survive in the human soul in the form of instincts, impulses and desires,
and poisonous plants whose vapours cloud and embroil the human mind.
Some claim that they are looking for new forms. Well, there is absolutely
no reason why artists should not seek new forms; on the contrary. But why do
they always have to go further and further from the source and look for them
on the lowest levels? They have never benefited from the guidance of
initiates; they have no science and no philosophy. They give themselves up to
their instinct, their creative impulse. Of course, whatever direction you take,
good or bad, light or dark, it is always possible to create. New forms and an
infinite variety of aspects can be found even if you do turn your back on the
source, the spiritual sun. But these forms will only contribute to the
corruption of those who contemplate them. It is admirable to want to be a
creator, but you must face up to the question of the value of what you create,
otherwise you will never create anything but gargoyles. You may have given
birth to something; that’s fine, but what can it do for others? What can it lead
to?
People explain that they feel the need to express themselves, to get
something out of their system. That is not particularly original. Everybody
needs to get something out of their system in one way or another, but is it
really necessary to put it all on exhibition? Forgive me for saying this, but
everybody has to get something out of their system two or three times a day,
but they don’t put it on a platter and offer to let you smell it. When it comes
to art, this is exactly what certain creators do: they put their excrement before
the public and invite them to smell it, even to swallow it. You will probably
say I’m exaggerating. No, it is no exaggeration. When artists receive
instruction in initiatic schools, they will learn to follow the true path of
creation and give us works that will reflect heaven and inspire and uplife
human souls. Whereas, now, how could one possibly find anything uplifting
in such hideousness?
In the past, many artists were adepts of initiatic schools and were taught
how to rise to the higher realms in search of forms, colours and harmonies.
They meditated and contemplated with the aim of finding heavenly
inspiration, and when their works expressed this inspiration, those who gazed
on or listened to them were influenced to follow the same upward path. This
is why these works still influence us today, centuries later.
Nowadays, artists leave their academies armed with bundles of diplomas
but knowing nothing about initiatic laws, so they elaborate all kinds of
theories to explain that their art is the vehicle of a philosophy, an abstruse
idea which is incomprehensible to the man and woman in the street. This is
unacceptable. If you create a work of art, the whole world should be able to
understand what it means. If your work of art is for you alone, then don’t
expose it to public view. What is the point of showing the public something it
cannot possibly understand? Here too, in the field of art, humanity has taken
the wrong turning. It has adopted forms of expression that are meaningless,
and now no one even dares to say that, in most instances, contemporary art is
an aberration. They all genuflect before it and intone a chorus of Amens.
A few years ago, a painter in England put a certain number of abstract
paintings on show which were widely acclaimed by the critics. When his
exhibition was at the height of its success, he revealed that, in fact, those
abstracts had been painted by his cat. He had gone out and left his cat in the
studio one day, and when he got back he found that it had had great fun
getting its paws and tail coated with paint which it had then smeared onto
some canvases and produced these abstract ‘paintings.’ Of course, the critics
were furious. They had made fools of themselves by going into raptures over
paintings produced by a cat. Can you imagine anything more idiotic? If that
is art, then any fool, even a babe in arms, can produce whatever they please
and exhibit it.
And if you need proof, what about this little incident: a man who prided
himself on his collection of contemporary art was showing some friends
round his gallery one day when one of them asked, in all innocence, whether
they had been done by his children. ‘Can you imagine?’ he exclaimed in
indignation. ‘The ignorance and stupidity of some people...’ Well, instead of
getting so indignant about it, perhaps he would have done better to think
about the implications of that question. Would anyone ask such a question
about a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli,
Durer, El Greco, Velasquez, Van Gogh, Delacroix, Renoir, etc.? And there
are a host of other names we could mention: Giotto, Rembrandt, Titian,
Breughel, Poussin, Rubens, Turner, Holbein, Cranach, Fragonard, Boucher,
Manet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, and more besides. No, when you see
paintings by those artists you know at once that they are the work of men of
genius. So when someone asks if a painting has been done by a child, there
must be a valid reason for the question.
The truth is that if you are an artist you must accomplish something that
no one else can accomplish, something so beautiful and edifying that it
propels hearts and souls upward on the path of perfection, toward the Lord.
This is how initiates understand the mission of art: to lead human beings to
heaven, not to hell, discord and disorder. Anyone can present horrors to the
public in the form of music, drawings or films, but to do so is a crime against
humanity, because, in the long run, these so-called works of art influence
mentalities. And if we see so many people becoming unhinged nowadays, it
is because they are imbibing more and more disorder and ugliness from their
environment. Whatever we see and hear influences the nervous system, and
when people see nothing but disorder, disorder necessarily enters into them,
whereas when they contemplate beauty and harmony they become beautiful
and harmonious – it is a law of magic.
The development that has been taking place in the realm of art within the
last few years is contrary to nature, and it goes by the name of ‘abstract’
painting and ‘concrete’ music. Take the case of painting: I am not opposed to
abstractions, but is it really necessary to represent mangled and disjointed
human beings and incoherent landscapes? There is no underlying structure,
lines go in all directions, colours are thrown on at random, nothing is
recognizable for what it is and the whole thing seems to be a return to chaos.
And yet, doesn’t life show us enough examples of how things should be?
Suppose you are preparing to build a house: what are the first things you see?
Untidy heaps of planks, bricks, cement, steel rods, sand and so on. Little by
little, the foundations and then the walls begin to take shape, and one fine
day, all those messy piles of materials have disappeared and you see a pretty
little house, with painted shutters, curtains and flower boxes at every
window. It started in chaos but the finished work is a thing of beauty. Or take
the example of preparing a meal: to begin with, your kitchen table is cluttered
up with all the raw ingredients and none of it looks very appetizing. But when
you finally take the dish out of the oven, beautifully cooked and add a few
finishing touches to it, it has become a work of art! And what about human
beings? To begin with they are no more than a tiny drop of liquid but, little
by little, things take shape and, one fine day, a beautiful baby is born.
This, then, is the natural course of events as we see it in nature: out of
chaos come order, beauty and perfection. But human beings are moving in
exactly the opposite direction today, especially in the area of art. You stand
before a painting and wonder what it is supposed to be: a person? A horse? A
boat? There is no differentiation any more. The intelligence of nature, on the
contrary, works towards increasing differentiation: a single cell splits into
two, and a few months later a human being, with all the rich complexity of its
different organs, appears. Should we now go the other way and end by
regressing to the unicellular? No; this would be to degenerate. And yet
certain artists and art critics who are neither knowledgeable nor enlightened
are doing their best to lead us to this regression, whereas the true goal of art
must be to bring a work to a state of perfection and completion.
 Nature is ceaselessly at work, completing what she has already started.
One day, human beings, animals, flowers, crystals and so on will all be
brought to completion – and in the meantime, the high priests of poetry,
painting and music are trying to lead us back into chaos, with words strung
together without rhyme or reason, in which everyone finds whatever meaning
they want and bizarre noises that pass for music. And in painting and
sculpture, unsymmetrical, deformed bodies with disproportionately long or
broad limbs. And all this is very harmful even from the point of view of the
magic it works on us, for the human beings who read, look at and listen to
these ‘works of art’ are being led backwards, to the darkest and most obscure
eras of earth’s history.
I sometimes turn on the television because I am curious to see what is
going on – and what do I see? As often as not I see a bunch of hairy
individuals shrieking and gesticulating and looking more like animals than
human beings. These, I am told, are musicians, and they are giving a concert.
What a hideous sight, and what an indescribable cacophony! And yet their
audience is enchanted; in transports of delight, young boys and girls are
jumping up and down, wiggling and writhing and applauding wildly. When I
look at all that I cannot help but feel sad. ‘Dear God!’ I think. ‘There’s no
understanding human nature. What has happened in people’s souls to
estrange them so completely from beauty? How can barbarians like that
kindle such enthusiasm?’ I am not so severe or strait-laced as to condemn
exuberant young people who are bursting to express their surplus vitality and
joy. But in scenes like that there is not much joy, and their vitality is
expressed in such uncouth, graceless movements. Wild animals! Yes, I can
see them: the cages are wide open and wild animals are prowling amongst
them to devour any good that still remains in them. And the onlookers are
applauding enthusiastically.
When I see manifestations like this I almost despair of leading human
beings toward anything beautiful and meaningful. There is nothing I can do
but leave them to sink even further until they touch bottom. How can
creatures like that understand the great laws of nature and creation? They
have never done a stroke of work on themselves: they don’t even know that
there is any work to be done. The only thing they are capable of is letting
their own wild beasts out of their cages, that is all, and they call that freedom.
Oh, they are free indeed: free, independent and unbridled.
I have sometimes talked to young people about the modern music they are
so fond of, and I am often amazed at their reflections and their reasoning. It
seems that all the music of previous centuries simply does not exist for them;
the only thing they know are their ‘idols’ as they say. They are so ignorant
that some of them have even asked me to give them a list of the great
musicians they should know. Of course, the list is a long one: Mozart, Haydn,
Handel, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Chopin, Liszt, Purcell, Schubert, Schumann,
Gabrielli, Monteverdi, Lully, Gluck, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Paganini,
Berlioz, Dvorak, Mendelssohn and many, many more. There is no lack of
great musicians.
The important thing is to listen to music that imbues the soul with beauty
and harmony. I can never repeat this often enough: modern popular music is
extremely pernicious. It encourages disorder and a lack of balance in young
people, throws their nervous system into paroxysms and incites them to
violence. Under the influence of this music they become more and more
excitable and aggressive, and we need not be surprised to find increasing
numbers of delinquents throwing bombs and attacking all and sundry. People
will soon be afraid to leave their houses.
Unfortunately, the masses always prefer those who, instead of leading
them towards the highest summits, curry favour by debasing themselves and
pandering to their lowest instincts. Writers, artists, film-makers: they are all
ready and waiting to please the crowd. They may ruin their health and
shorten their lives but that does not matter. They are impelled to do whatever
is necessary to please the crowd because they need the adulation and
applause; it is meat and drink to them. When those who have a mission to
guide and edify the masses seek, instead, to pander to them, it is a sign that a
civilization is nearing its end. Of course, they must please the masses, but not
by giving them all that their lower nature clamours for: spectacles of
debauchery, cruelty and horror. What has become of the era when a whole
population turned out to see the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and
Aristophanes?
Artists are unaware of the role they should be playing in the
transformation of humankind. They don’t know how to use the powers God
has entrusted to them in order to stimulate and kindle people’s souls, so they
simply waste them. They act and sing and paint, but not in order to help
people to evolve; they only think of amusing them and pandering to their
whims and fancies or of earning fame and riches for themselves. And so
many of them have a tendency to portray the crudest, most repugnant aspects
of reality in their work – as though we did not know all that quite well
enough. What people most need in order to blossom and flourish is a fairy-
tale world of beauty, which shows them that it is possible to live in a climate
of wonder, and encourages them to find it for themselves and try to live in it
every day, always. ‘But that’s an unreal world,’ you will say. No, that is
exactly what it is not: that ‘unreality’ is the only absolute reality. It is only in
this reality that we begin to feel we are truly weightless and transfused by
light, that we come alive, while the so-called realism of contemporary artists
spells death; it clips our wings and we are nailed down, incapable of flight.
Instead of elevating and liberating us, their reality, which is no more than the
husks, the dross of true reality, drags us down and destroys us. True, their
works represent one level of reality, but it is a mediocre, shoddy aspect of
reality because it confines itself only to the physical plane. True reality must
be sought on high, on the plane of the soul and spirit.
Some artists do attempt to free themselves from the cruel bonds of matter,
I don’t deny that, but their ignorance of the spiritual laws prevents them from
floating free in the higher spheres. They don’t know how to reach the heights
of their own superconsciousness so as to contemplate and understand the
harmonious pattern of cosmic life and, having contemplated it, to exploit all
the resources of their art in interpreting it. No one can become a great artist if
they do not do an enormous amount of work on themselves and if they do not
learn the laws of the three worlds: the physical, spiritual and divine.
This is why I say that the only true artists are the initiates for, like Hermes
Trismegistus, whose name means ‘the three times greatest,’ they possess this
science of the three worlds in all its fullness: the physical world, which
corresponds to form; the spiritual world, which corresponds to content, and
the divine world, which corresponds to meaning. Most human beings are
almost totally unaware of these truths. For them, the physical world is the
only real world, and they neglect any subtler realities, whereas initiates or a
great Master dwell constantly in the subtle world: they breathe, think, work,
desire and create in constant communication with this subtle world, the world
of true life. Even if we cannot see this life with our eyes, it is real; in fact it is
the very essence of reality. And what better proof of that than a dead body:
when someone dies, all that remains is a lifeless corpse, and that is soon
buried.
A Master, an initiate, is one who, by his intense spiritual work, has so
greatly developed, broadened, deepened, improved and embellished his own
being that he is constantly in communication with the harmonious,
intelligent, perfect creatures of the heavenly realms. This is why he continues
to learn and grow and enrich himself even further, whereas others remain on
the level of animals because they have cut their ties with these sublime
intelligences. A Master is one who knows that at the summit of the hierarchy
there is a divine world peopled by angelic creatures of such splendour and
glory that it is beyond all human imagining. And it is thanks to his close
association with these beings that he sheds nothing but blessings all around
him.
Yes, initiates are the only true artists. All those so-called artists who
follow their own ‘inspiration’ without suspecting where it comes from are
poisoners. Think how inconsequential human beings are: if anyone sold
poisonous or unhealthy food at the market or the grocer’s shop, their
customers would soon call in the police, and the culprits would be punished
by law. But in the intellectual or artistic ‘market’ everybody is free to feed
the public on poisoned food and even excrement.
People accept that there are scientific laws – the laws of physics,
chemistry, electricity and magnetism, for instance – which have to be known
and obeyed. In the field of ethics, too, there are laws which must be obeyed
under pain of being punished or despised and detested by others. Then why
will no one acknowledge the existence of laws when it comes to art,
declaring that everybody is at liberty to create whatever and however they
please? And I say, no, that exactly the same laws, the same standards and the
same essential requirements exist for the realm of art as for the realms of
scientific or moral activity, and those who fail to respect these laws not only
fail to be authentic creators, they are criminals as well.
The capacity to distinguish beauty from ugliness, the useful from the
harmful, the true from the false, belongs only to those who have been
instructed in that great and precious spiritual science without which
humankind must continue to flounder, suffer and destroy itself.
There, in a few words, you have the description of a true artist. The
possibility is before you to meditate your whole life long and to read my
books, so as to learn the most powerful and effective methods with which to
hasten the coming of the kingdom of God on earth and become a benefactor
of humanity. Blessed are those who understand me, and so much the worse
for those who don’t want to understand: they will disappear without trace,
because Cosmic Intelligence will no longer put up with such bizarre
individuals, who refuse to abide by the laws. We must attune and harmonize
ourselves with Cosmic Intelligence by vibrating on the same wavelength and
creating true beauty.
The Bonfin, Fréjus, 14 January, 1986