Collected Works (Vol. I)

224 TANNHAUSER will cause the irreparable catastrophe which is the one element of drama which we may still (in the work of a modern dramatist) await with any degree of confidence. I trust that I may be forgiven for adopting the idea that Tannhiduser was one of those mysterious Germans whose reputed existence so perturbed the Middle Ages; in short, a Rosicrucian.! Some people may be surprised that a Member of that illustrious but unhappy fraternity should take cognizance of what my friend Bhikku Ananda Maitriya calls ‘‘ hog- nosed Egyptian deities,”’ still more that he should show reverence to symbols like the B. V. M. and the Holy Grail. But_ the most learned and profound students of the Mysteries of the Rosy Cross assure me that it was the special excellence of these mystics that they declined to be bound down by any particular system in their sublime search for the Eternal and the Real. Under these circumstances I have not scrupled to subvert anything that appeared to me to need subverting in the interests, always identical, of beauty and of truth. Anachronism may be found piled upon anachronism, and symbolism mixed with symbolism. In one direction I have restrained myself. Nowhere does Tannhiuser refer to the Vedas and Shastras? or to the Dhamma® of that blameless hypochondriac, Gotama Buddha. I take all the blame for so important an omission, not without a shrewd suspicion that the commination will take the form of ‘For this relief much thanks !” The particular object that I have in view in speaking both in Hebrew and Egypto- Christian symbolism is that by this means I may familiarise my readers with the one thing of any importance that life, travel, and study have taught me, to wit: the Origin of Religions. I take it that there have always, or nearly always, been on the earth those whom Councillor von Eckartshdusen,* the SvAmi Vivekananda® and their like, call 1 See their original documents, fairly enough translated in ‘‘ Real History of the Rosicru- cians,” by A. If. Waite. 2 Hindu sacred books. 3 The law. 4 Author of the ‘‘Cloud upon the Sanctuary,” a profound mystical treatise. 5 A well-known Indian mystic, ‘ Raja Yoga.” author of ‘Coreat spiritual giants” (can there be any etymological link between ‘‘yogi 71 and ‘“opre”?) and that such persons, themselves perceiving Truth, have tried to ‘¢ diminish the message to the dog”? for the benefit of less exalted minds, and hidden that Truth (which, unveiled, would but blind men with its glory) in a mass of symbols often perverted or grotesque, yet to the proper man transparent; a ‘‘bait of falsehood to catch the carp of truth.” Now, regarded in this light, all religions, qua religions, are equally contemptible. The Hindu Gnanis ® say ‘That which can be thought is not true.’ As machineries for the exercise of spiritual and intellectual powers innate or developed, certain sets of symbols may be more or less convenient to a special trend of mind, reason, or imagination; no more: I deny to any one religion the possession of any essential truth which is not also formulated (though in a different language) in every other. To this rule Buddhism appears a solitary exception. Whether it is truly so I have hardly yet decided: the answer depends upon certain recondite mathe- matical considerations, to discuss which would be foreign to the scope of my present pur- pose, but which I hope to advance in a subsequent volume.‘ If you do not accept my conclusion that all religions are the expression of truth under different aspects, facets of the same intoler- able gem, you are forced back on the con- clusions of those unpleasing persons the Phallicists. But should you travel to the East, and tell a Lingam-worshipping Sivite that his is a phallic worship he will not be pleased with you. Compare on this point Arnold, ‘‘ India Revisited,” 1886, p. 112. So much for the symbolology of this, I fear, much-mangled drama. Drama indeed is an altogether misleading term 5 monodrama is perhaps better. It is really a series of in- trospective studies; not necessarily a series in time, but in psychology, and that rather the morbid psychology of the Adept than the gross mentality of the ordinary man. It may help some of my readers if I say that my Tannhiuser is nearly identical in 1 * Yogi” is ‘‘one who seeks union,’ 2.é. with the Supreme, 2 Browning, ‘Mr. Sludge the Medium.” 3 Philosophers. 4 Berashith, g.v. iufra, vol. il.