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THERE were two subjects, on which I was desiring light, the explanation of which came to me in curious manner. They were (1) The real signification of the gospel account of the parentage and childhood of Jesus, which we have seen reason to regard as mystical and unliteral; and (2) The faculty of divination by means of the crystal or cup. I had just awoke, and was on the point of drinking my usual cup of coffee, when I was astonished by seeing in the liquid some words, while at the same instant there was flashed upon my mind a full view and explanation of the meaning of the Holy Family; and this is what I received.
"This is 2 the divining cup of Joseph, who represented the spiritual Egypt of Israel's infancy. Egypt was the spiritual father of Jesus, his spiritual mother, Mary, being Israel's pure intuition of God, and "virgin daughter of Sion." 3 Being of Jewish birth, Jesus went into Egypt to be initiated in the sacred mysteries of the country from which, through Moses, the Israelites originally obtained their religion. Of that religion and those mysteries, Jesus, as a Christ, was the product. For their object was the production of a man so perfected through the development of his mind and spirit, as to realise the divine idea of humanity. As a full initiate and adept, a hierarch or "master" of the mysteries, Jesus returned to Judæa to fulfil his mission, receiving at the hands of John--a prophet of the Essenes, who were followers of the same mysteries--his baptism of the Spirit.
Joseph, therefore, represents Egypt--not, however, as denoting the body, 4 but the mind--and is an old man because Egypt was the senior of Israel, and also because, in the evolution of man, the mind precedes the soul in manifestation. And in having him for his foster-father, Jesus is set forth as adopting the wisdom and
elder religion of Egypt, to incorporate them with the Jewish. Joseph, moreover, in being elderly and a widower, 1 represents Egypt in respect of its past youth and lost prime. That he is not shown as the true spouse of Mary, or real father of her son, is because, though the mind may aid these by its knowledge and wisdom, the true spouse of the soul is the Divine Spirit, who is thus the true father of the man regenerate.
89:1 Paris, October 27, 1878.
89:2 Meaning, of course, answers to; the effect of a bright surface, as that of a crystal, disc, or fluid, being so to magnetise the sensitive as to render objective any images or ideas previously subjective whether in his own or in another's magnetic atmosphere, or in that of the planet, this last being the anima mundi. See note at end of No. XXXII. E. M.
89:3 In this aspect Mary is the soul collective instead of individual only. E. M.
89:4 See Part II, No. XIII, Hymn to the Planet-God (6).
90:1 According to Christian tradition. E. M.