"The Christian church, the Christian form of worship, was not invented by the fathers of the church. It was all taken in a ready-made form from Egypt, only not from the Egypt that we know but from one which we do not know. This Egypt was in the same place as the other but it existed much earlier. Only small bits of it survived in historical times, and these bits have been preserved in secret and so well that we do not even know where they have been preserved.
"It will seem strange to many people when I say that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity. Special schools existed in this prehistoric Egypt which were called 'schools of repetition.' In these schools a public repetition was given on definite days, and in some schools perhaps even every day, of the entire course in a condensed form of the sciences that could be learned at these schools. Sometimes this repetition lasted a week or a month. Thanks to these repetitions people who had
passed through this course did not lose their connection with the school and retained in their memory all they had learned. Sometimes they came from very far away simply in order to listen to the repetition and went away feeling their connection with the school. There were special days of the year when the repetitions were particularly complete, when they were carried out with particular solemnity—and these days themselves possessed a symbolical meaning.
"These 'schools of repetition' were taken as a model for Christian churches—the form of worship in Christian churches almost entirely represents the course of repetition of the science dealing with the universe and man. Individual prayers, hymns, responses, all had their own meaning in this repetition as well as holidays and all religious symbols, though their meaning has been forgotten long ago."
Continuing, G. quoted some very interesting examples of the explanations of various parts of orthodox liturgy. Unfortunately no notes were made at the time and I will not undertake to reconstruct them from memory.
The idea was that, beginning with the first words, the liturgy so to speak goes through the process of creation, recording all its stages and transitions. What particularly astonished me in G.'s explanations was the extent to which so much has been preserved in its pure form and how little we understand of all this. His explanations differed very greatly from the usual theological and even from mystical interpretations. And the principal difference was that he did away with a great many allegories. I mean to say that it became obvious from his explanations that we take many things for allegories in which there is no allegory whatever and which ought to be understood much more simply and psychologically. What he said before about the Last Supper serves as a good example of this.
"Every ceremony or rite has a value if it is performed without alteration," he said. "A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. Anyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books."
Indicating what had been preserved up to our time, G. at the same time pointed out what had been lost and forgotten. He spoke of sacred dances which accompanied the "services" in the "temples of repetition" and which were not included in the Christian form of worship. He also spoke of various exercises, and of special postures for different prayers, that is, for different kinds of meditation; about acquiring control over the breathing and of the necessity of being able to tense or relax any group of muscles, or the muscles of the whole body at will; and about many other things having relation, so to speak, to the "technique" of religion.
On one occasion, in connection with the description of exercises in concentration and bringing the attention from one part of the body to another, G. asked:
"When you pronounce the word 'I' aloud, have you noticed where this word sounds in you?"
We did not at once understand what he meant. But we very soon began to notice that when pronouncing the word 'I' some of us definitely felt as if this word sounded in the head, others felt it in the chest, and others over the head—outside the body.
I must mention here that personally I was entirely unable to evoke this sensation in myself and that I have to rely on others.
G. listened to all these remarks and said that there was an exercise connected with this which, according to him, had been preserved up to our time in the monasteries of Mount Athos.
A monk kneels or stands in a certain position and, lifting his arms, which are bent at the elbows, he says—Ego aloud and drawn out while listening at the same time where the word "Ego" sounds.
The purpose of this exercise is to feel "I" every moment a man thinks of himself and to bring "I" from one center to another.
G. many times pointed out the necessity of studying this forgotten "technique" as well as the impossibility of attaining results of any kind on the way of religion without it, excepting purely subjective results.
"You must understand," he said, "that every real religion, that is, one that has been created by learned people for a definite aim, consists of two parts. One part teaches what is to be done. This part becomes common knowledge and in the course of time is distorted and departs from the original. The other part teaches how to do what the first part teaches. This part is preserved in secret in special schools and with its help it is always possible to rectify what has been distorted in the first part or to restore what has been forgotten.
"Without this second part there can be no knowledge of religion or in any case such knowledge would be incomplete and very subjective.
"This secret part exists in Christianity also as well as in other religions and it teaches how to carry out the precepts of Christ and what they really mean."
I must quote here still one more talk with G., once again in connection with cosmoses.
"This is connected with Kant's ideas of phenomena and noumena," I said. "But after all this is the whole point.—The earth as a three-dimensional body is the 'phenomenon,' as a six-dimensional body, the 'noumenon.' "
"Perfectly true," said G., "only add here also the idea of scale. If Kant
had introduced the idea of scale into his arguments many things he wrote would be very valuable. This was the only thing he lacked."
I thought while listening to G. that Kant would have been very surprised at this pronouncement. But the idea of scale was very near to me. And I realized that with this as a starting point it was possible to find very much that is new and unexpected in things which we think we know.
About a year afterwards while developing the ideas of the cosmoses in connection with problems of time I obtained a table of time in different cosmoses of which I will speak later on.
On one occasion when speaking of the orderly connectedness of everything in the universe, G. dwelt on "organic life on earth."
"To ordinary knowledge," he said, "organic life is a kind of accidental appendage violating the integrity of a mechanical system. Ordinary knowledge does not connect it with anything and draws no conclusions from the fact of its existence. But you should already understand that there is nothing accidental or unnecessary in nature and that there can be nothing;
everything has a definite function; everything serves a definite purpose. Thus organic life is an indispensable link in the chain of the worlds which cannot exist without it just as it cannot exist without them. It has been said before that organic life transmits planetary influences of various kinds to the earth and that it serves to feed the moon and to enable it to grow and strengthen. But the earth also is growing; not in the sense of size but in the sense of greater consciousness, greater receptivity. The planetary influences which were sufficient for her at one period of her existence become insufficient, she needs the reception of finer influences. To receive finer influences a finer, more sensitive receptive apparatus is necessary. Organic life, therefore, has to evolve, to adapt itself to the needs of the planets and the earth. Likewise also the moon can be satisfied at one period with the food which is given her by organic life of a certain quality, but afterwards the time comes when she ceases to be satisfied with this food, cannot grow on it, and begins to get hungry. Organic life must be able to satisfy this hunger, otherwise it does not fulfill its function, does not answer its purpose. This means that in order to answer its purpose organic life must evolve and stand on the level of the needs of the planets, the earth, and the moon.