Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxvi : NO. XXVI CONCERNING THE PERFECTIONMENT OF THE CHRIST 1 JUST after I had been speaking of the mistake made by Christians in regarding Jesus. as a ready-made perfection, I received a momentary vision confirming what I had been saying. For it represented to me the gradual perfectionment of the Christ...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Iv. Concerning : NO. IV CONCERNING REVELATION 1 ALL true and worthy illuminations are "reveilations", or re-veilings. Mark the meaning of this word. There can be no true or worthy illumination which destroys distances and exposes the details of things. Look at this landscape. Behold how its mountains and forests...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxix : NO. XXXIX CONCERNING THE "FOUR ATMOSPHERES" 1 THE earthly mind ("anima bruta") is that part of man which contains his material memory, abilities, affections, cares, acquirements, and the images bred of his associations in each particular incarnation. This mind is shed with the body and shade...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xx. Concerning : NO. XX CONCERNING THE GREAT PYRAMID, AND THE INITIATIONS THEREIN 1 SEE the Great Pyramid, and can tell you all about it. My genius informs me that the number of the pyramids in Egypt corresponds to the number of the mysteries of the Gods. No one has yet rightly found out the purpose of the gre...
Preface To The First Edition : PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION IN the preface to "Dreams and Dream-Stories" Mrs Kingsford speaks of the "priceless insights and illuminations," acquired by means of dreams which had elucidated for her many difficulties and enigmas of life, and even of religion, by throwing on them a light which...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Ii. Concerning : p. 4 NO. II PART I CONCERNING INSPIRATION AND PROPHESYING 1 I HEARD last night in my sleep a voice speaking to me, and saying-- 1. You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means whereby God revealeth the Truth. 2. Know that there is no enlightenment from without: the secret of things...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxvii : NO. XXXVII CONCERNING THE ON OF THE CHRIST 1 THE Christs are above all things "media", and the various descriptions they gave of their office--such as "I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the door," and the like--referred not to themselves at all, but to the Spirit who spoke through them...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Vii. Concerning : NO. VII CONCERNING THE FALL 1 THE friend with whom I was staying having asked me to obtain for her, if possible, while in her house a precise and practical instruction on this subject, I found myself surrounded in my sleep by a group of spirits, who conversed together upon it evidently for my...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxiii : NO. XXIII CONCERNING REGENERATION 1 THE difference between the "Son of God" and the mere prophet is that the former is born regenerate, and is therefore said to be "born of a virgin." 2 But regeneration is a union of the soul and spirit, and is not a process in which the body bears a part...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries : NO. V CONCERNING THE "GREAT WORK," THE REDEMPTION, AND THE SHARE OF CHRIST JESUS THEREIN 1 "FOR this cause is Christ manifest, that he may destroy the works of the devil." 2. In this text of the holy writings is contained the explanation of the mission of the Christ, and the nature of the Gre...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Vi. Concerning : NO. VI CONCERNING THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 2 THE opening chapters of Genesis have, in some of their applications, a reference to the Mysteries. The following are some of their manifold meanings. In the first chapter (and beginning of the second) is related the creation of human nature in its two...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxv : NO. XXXV CONCERNING THE HOLY FAMILY 1 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...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xi. Concerning : NO. XI CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE TIME OF THE END 1 AS there was a return of the spirit, or angel, of Elias in the person of John the Baptist before the advent of Jesus, so there will be a return of the angel of Daniel, before the next manifestation of the Christ. Daniel's angel is he who...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xviii : NO. XVIII CONCERNING THE GREEK MYSTERIES 1 IN the celebration of the mysteries of Phoibos Apollo, it was forbidden to eat anything upon which terrestrial fire had passed. Wherefore all the food of his votaries was sun-baked, and his chief sacrifice consisted in fruits from high trees ripened by...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Ix. Concerning : NO. IX CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE BOOK OF ESTHER 2 THE most important book in the Bible for you to study now, and that most nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of the most mystic books in the Old Testament, the book of Esther. This book is a mystic prophecy, written in the form of an actual...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxii : NO. XXXII CONCERNING THE GOSPELS: THEIR ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION 3 I AM looking at the inside of the Serapeum at Alexandria. The temple is connected with a library which, as I see it, is still there, neither dispersed nor burnt, but filled with manuscripts,--mostly rolls upon sticks. I see a council...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxviii : NO. XXXVIII CONCERNING THE DOCTRINE OF GRACE 4 ONE of the most dangerous mysteries to place in the hands of the vulgar is that of the doctrine of grace. When once union has been accomplished between the human and the divine wills, there is grace. And the man under grace cannot sin mortally...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xlvi : NO. XLVI CONCERNING CONSCIOUSNESS AND MEMORY IN RELATION TO PERSONALITY 1 CONSCIOUSNESS is not so much a thing as a condition. Now, if thou wouldst have a clear conception of that condition by means of analogy, take as an illustration the image of an incandescent globe,--a ball of fire, fluid...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxvii : NO. XXVII CONCERNING CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM 3 THE crucifixion of Jesus was an actual fact, but it had also a spiritual signification; and it is to this spiritual meaning, and not to the physical fact, that the whole of the mystical writings of the Christians refer. The fundamental truth embodied...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xlviii : NO. XLVIII CONCERNING THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 1 PART I THE two terms of the history of creation or evolution are formulated by the Catholic Church in two precious and all-important dogmas. These are--first, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and, secondly, the Assumpti...
Untitled : Anna Kingsford was an extraordinary 19th Century woman. She was one of the first women in Britain to become a medical doctor, edited a feminist newspaper, and served as president of the Theosophical Society. She knew Helena P. Blatavsky, Eliphas Levi, and many other primary figures in Occult...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 12 : NO. XII ZETA, OR THE SECOND OF THE GODS PART I Proem AND the Spirit of Wisdom gave counsel, whose is the angel of the innermost sphere, the brightest of the sons of heaven. 2. Lord Adonai, who createst, remember the souls beneath Thine altar. 1 3. And put a firmament between them and Thee...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xli. Concerning : NO. XLI CONCERNING THE TRUE EGO 1 [This illumination followed upon a meditation on the following passage from G. H. Lewes: "The evolution of organisms, like the evolution of crystals, or of islands and continents, is determined, first, by laws inherent in the substance evolved; secondly, by...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxvi : NO. XXXVI CONCERNING THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OR AVATR 2 METEMPSYCHOSIS means, in its chief aspect, not transmigration which is of souls, but the vivification or illumination of a soul already incarnate by the spirit of a preceding "angel." Thus, the soul of Jesus was overshadowed by the angel of Moses...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 16 : NO. VIII BETA, OR ADONAI, THE MANIFESTOR 2 THEN from the midst of the Divine Duality, the Only Begotten of God came forth: 2. Adonai, the Word, the Voice invisible. 3. He was in the beginning, and by Him were all things discovered. p. 143 4. Without Him was not anything made which is visible. 5...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 08 : XVI THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD AND THEIR CORRESPONDENCES "Elohim or Archangels" Signification. Gods. Office. 1. Uriel =Fire of God. Phoibos Apollo. Angel of the Sun. 2. Raphael =Physician of God. Hermes. Angel of Mercury. 3. Anael =Sweet Song of God. Aphrodite, Angel of Venus. 4. Salamiel =Acquired...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. I. Concerning : NO. I CONCERNING THE THREE VEILS BETWEEN MAN AND GOD 1 A GOLDEN chalice, like those used in Catholic rites, but having three linings, was given to me in my sleep by an Angel. These linings, he told me, signified the three degrees of the heavens,--purity of life, purity of heart, and purity...
Preface To The Second Edition : PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION "Unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness"."--Ps. cxii, 4. IN his Preface to the First Edition of this book, Edward Maitland has dealt so fully and so ably with the subjects of the source and method of these Illuminations, and the nature and import...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xlii : NO. XLII CONCERNING GOD 1 BUT why should we be at the pains to seek further than the phenomenal? Why this incessant craving to prove ourselves immortal, and to argue a God into the universe? The answer is manifold, because the appeal is to nature, to reason, and to principle. First, evoluti...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxv. Concerning : NO. XXV CONCERNING THE CHRIST AND THE LOGOS 3 NOW, Christ Jesus--the perfected spiritual, not physical, man--is the culmination of the human stream which flows upwards into the bosom of God. Man, arising by evolution from the lowest, finds his highest development, as man, in the Christ. Having...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xliii : NO. XLIII CONCERNING PSYCHE, OR THE SUPERIOR HUMAN SOUL 2 IT is truly said that God is the primordial mind, and that the kosmic universe and its manifestations are the ideas of that mind. Mind in itself is passive; it is organ, not function. Idea is active; it is function. As soon, therefore...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 04 : NO. II THE "LORD'S PRAYER" being a prayer of the Elect for interior Perfectionment OUR Father-Mother who art in the upper and the within: Hallowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done, in the body as in the spirit: Give us every day the communion of the mystical bread: And perfect us...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xiii : NO. XIII CONCERNING PERSEPHONE, OR THE SOUL'S DESCENT INTO MATTER 2 I SEE God under two modes, one static or passive, the other dynamic or active. As the former, God is original Life, Will, Power. As the latter, God is the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit and the Substance of God are one. At first there...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Viii : NO. VIII CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE DELUGE 1 WHEN reading this morning the work of Eliphas Levi on "Magic," I came upon the following sentence:--"In the Zohar, one of the chief books of the holy Kabbala, it is written, 'The Magic Serpent, son of the Sun, was about to devour the World, when...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 10 : NO. XIV THETA, OR (MYSTICALLY) THE FOURTH OF THE GODS[L] PART I The Hymn of Aphrodite 1 (1) I AM the dawn, daughter of heaven and of the deep: the sea-mist covers my beauty with a veil of tremulous light. 2. I am Aphrodite, the sister of Phoibos, opener of heaven's gates, the beginning of wisdom...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxii : NO. XXII CONCERNING THE "WORK OF POWER" 2 YOU have asked me if the Work of Power is a difficult one, and if it is open to all. It is open to all potentially and eventually, but not actually and in the present. In order to regain power and the resurrection, a man must be a Hierarch; that is to say...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 14 : NO. X DELTA, OR THE MYSTERY OF GENERATION 1 BY the word of Elohim were the seven Elohim. manifest: 2. Even the seven Spirits of God, in the order of their precedence: 3. The Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Knowledge...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 02 : NO. IV CONCERNING SIN AND DEATH 2 AS is the outer so is the inner: He that worketh is One. 2. As the small is, so is the great: there is one law. 3. Nothing is small and nothing is great in the Divine Economy. 4. If thou wouldst understand the method of the world's p. 136 corrupti...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xvii : NO. XVII CONCERNING THE GODS 1 A TRUE Idea is the reflect of a true Substance. It is because religious ideas are true ideas that they are common to all ages and peoples; the differences being of expression merely, and due to the variation of density and character of the magnetic atmosphere through...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Iii. Concerning : NO. III CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 1 I STAND upon the seashore. The moon overhead is at the full. A soft and warm breath, like that of the summer wind, blows in my face. The aroma of it is salt with the breath of the sea. O Sea! O Moon! from you I shall gather what I seek...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xii. Concerning : NO. XII CONCERNING THE SOUL: ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND POTENTIALITIES 2 THE Soul, in its first beginning, is not something added to the body, but is generated in the body by the polarisation of the astral elements. Once generated, it enters and passes through many bodies, until finally perfected...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xlvii : NO. XLVII CONCERNING THE SUBSTANTIAL EGO AS THE TRUE SUBJECT 1 PART I IT hath been said, "All life is a burning," and thou sayest, "Let the cells of the brain be likened to these burning logs, and their ash to waste tissue, and the flame to consciousness. Then is consciousness nothing more th...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxx. Concerning : NO. XXX CONCERNING PAUL AND THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS 2 IN a vision which was given to me last night, it was represented to me that the common view of Paul's character and position with regard to the primitive Church is a totally false one; and the persons who made the communication which I am...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 18 : p. 141 NO. VI CONCERNING ORIGINAL BEING; OR, "BEFORE THE BEGINNING" 1 BEFORE the beginning of things, before the generation of the heavens, the great and invisible God alone subsisted. 2. Even the God whose name is unspeakable, upon Whom no eye hath ever looked, whose nature no mind create c...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 06 : p. 131 PART THE SECOND THE BOOK OF THE MYSTERIES OF GOD ANCIENTLY CALLED THE GREATER MYSTERIES AS CONTAINING KNOWLEDGES WHICH FOR THEIR INTERIORNESS WERE RESERVED FOR INITIATES OF HIGH GRADE p. 132 p. 133
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxiv : NO. XXIV CONCERNING THE MAN REGENERATE 2 YOU have been told that Jesus and those like him came back voluntarily and were born under conditions different from the ordinary, in that they had accomplished some degrees of their regeneration. These degrees are twelve in all, and constitute twelve...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. L. Concerning : NO. L CONCERNING THE ONE LIFE: BEING A RECAPITULATION 1 (I) THE spirit absorbed in man or in the planet does not exhaust Deity. Nor does the soul evolved upward through matter exhaust substance. There remain, then, ever in the fourth dimension--the principium--above the manifest, unmanifest God...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 15 : NO. IX GAMMA, OR THE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION ALL things are formed of the Divine Substance, which is the Divine idea. 2. Therefore all things are one, as God is one. 3. And every monad of the Divine Substance hath in itself the potency of twain, as God is twain in one. 4. And every monad which is...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xiv. Concerning : p. 36 NO. XIV CONCERNING THE GENIUS OR DAIMON 1 PART I EVERY human spirit-soul has attached to him a genius or daimon, as with Socrates; a ministering spirit, as with the apostles; or an angel, as with Jesus. All these are but different names for the same thing. My genius says that he does not...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xlix : NO. XLIX CONCERNING DYING 1 WHEN a man or an animal dies a violent death, it is not an immediate separation that takes place between body and soul. There are many principles to be considered, each, as it were, incased in an outer, like a nest of Chinese boxes, or the spiral of a cone. And the lower...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 11 : NO. XIII ETA, OR (MYSTICALLY) THE THIRD OF THE GODS[L] PART I Proem THE mystery of thine orbit, O Earth, and the secret of the work of the third day; 2. Which the wise of old knew not, for the Lord God withheld them. 3. The light is as wisdom, the water as understanding, and the dry earth...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 07 : NO. XVII THE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOMS OF THE SEVEN SPHERES 1 p. 174 The Holy Catholic Church, Or, kingdom of heaven within, man; = Hermes, or Peter, the Spirit of Understanding, and rock whereon the true Church is built, the guardian and interpreter of the holy mysteries. The Communion of Saints...
Appendix. Appendix : APPENDIX NOTES A-Y NOTE A, pages 30, 34, 134, 173, 174 THE long-standing controversy respecting the meaning of Nirvna has been resolved for us in favour of both the interpretations assigned to it. This is to say that, while it means extinction, the extinction implied is of two different kinds...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 03 : p. 135 NO. III. CONCERNING HOLY WRIT 1 ALL Scriptures which are the true Word of God, have a dual interpretation, the intellectual and the intuitional, the apparent and the hidden. 2. For nothing can come forth from God save that which is fruitful.. 3. As is the nature of God, so is the Word...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. X. Concerning : NO. X CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE VISION OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR 2 THE King Nebuchadnezzar is mystically identical with king Assuerus, in that each alike denotes the spirit of the latter age, that, namely, of mere Intellectualism, as distinguished from and opposed to Intuitionalism. And both...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xvi. Concerning : NO. XVI CONCERNING THE DEVIL AND DEVILS 1 BEING unable to reconcile the statement that there is no personal Devil, but that what is called the Devil is simply the negation of God, with the evidences of the possession of individuals by devils or evil spirits, I received in my sleep this explanati...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 09 : NO. XV LAMBDA, OR THE LAST OF THE GODS[U]; BEING THE SECRET OF SATAN 1 AND on the seventh day there went forth from the presence of God a mighty angel, full of wrath and consuming, and God gave unto him the dominion of the outermost sphere. 2. Eternity brought forth time; the boundless gave birth...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 17 : NO. VII ALPHA, OR "IN THE BEGINNING" 1 IN the beginning, the potentialities of all things were in Elohim. 2. And Elohim. was twain, the Spirit and the Water,--that is, the heavenly deep. 3. Now the spirit of Elohim is original life, and the heavenly waters are space and dimension. 4. He is the line...
Part The Third. Concerning The Divine Image : p. 175 PART THE THIRD CONCERNING THE DIVINE IMAGE OR THE VISION OF ADONAI p. 176 p. 177 CONCERNING THE DIVINE IMAGE, OR THE VISION OF ADONAI 1 [Owing at once to the sanctity and the unpronounceability of the "Tetragrammaton", or word of four letters which in the Hebrew constitutes the name Jehovah...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xix. Concerning : NO. XIX CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF EVIL, AND THE TREE AS THE TYPE OF CREATION PART I 2 SPEAK of the Tree and of its meaning. Of this the Hinds understand more than you, for they represent their gods with many arms. This is because they recognise the fact that the type of all existence is a Tree...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxi. Concerning : NO. XXI CONCERNING THE "MAN OF POWER" 3 I HAVE said that everything is fourfold, and as is the planet, so also is the man. The perfect man has a fourfold outer body,--gaseous, mineral, vegetable, and animal: a fourfold sideral body,--magnetic, odic, sympathetic, elemental: a p. 58 fourfold soul...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 13 : NO. XI EPSILON, OR THE FIRST OF THE GODS 2[E] Proem MANY are the thrones which the Holy Spirit of Elohim hath vivified. 2. They are centres of systems, bonds of graces, trees of life, suns of many worlds. 3. And the colour of them is the colour of the ruby and of the fire; and their name is...
Title Page : "CLOTHED WITH THE SUN" BEING THE BOOK OF THE ILLUMINATIONS OF ANNA (BONUS) KINGSFORD EDITED BY EDWARD MAITLAND (B.A. CANTAB.) Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a man perceiveth heavenly secrets. "Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him the things of God."...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxix : NO. XXIX CONCERNING VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 1 I STOOD in my sleep on the balcony of a house. It was night, and so dense and dark and impenetrable that neither earth nor star, nor any object, could be distinguished. Nevertheless, though not knowing where I was, I was conscious of being in or very near...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. V. Concerning : NO. V CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATION OF THE MYSTICAL SCRIPTURES PART I 1 "IF, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to have a Mystic Consideration. But the Fault of most Writers lieth in this,--that they distinguish not between the Books of Moses the Prophet, and those Books which are...
Part The Second. The Book Of The Mysteries. Part 05 : NO. I THE CREDO 1 being a summary of the spiritual history of the Sons of God, and the mysteries of the kingdoms of the Seven Spheres I BELIEVE in one God; the Father and Mother Almighty; of whose substance are the generations of Heaven and of earth: And in Christ Jesus the Son of God, our Lord;...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xliv : NO. XLIV CONCERNING THE POET, AS TYPE OF THE HEAVENLY PERSONALITY [Extract from Diary, Paris, Christmas Day, 1882. 1 "It is strange how I forget! This evening I have re-read several passages and chapters written by my own hand, and conceived in my own mind, of The Perfect Way, and they filled me...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xlv. Concerning : NO. XLV CONCERNING PSYCHE 2 (Continued from No. XLIII) BUT it may make the subject clearer to thee if, leaving such material comparisons, we speak of those things which only may be fitly compared together. Thou knowest already the nature of the planet and the divisions of its Ego into four parts...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxi : NO. XXXI CONCERNING THE MANICHANISM OF PAUL 1 AT this moment I hear a surge of waters. Out of the midst of them a voice seems to speak to me. This is what it says:-- "Many years before Paul wrote there arose a sect called the Manichans. The founder of that sect, like the founder of the Epicureans...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxiv : NO. XXXIV CONCERNING THE PREVIOUS LIVES OF JESUS 1 THIS morning between sleeping and waking I saw myself, together with many other persons, walking with Jesus in the fields round about Jerusalem, and while he was speaking to us, a man approached, who looked very earnestly upon him. And Jesus turned...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxxiii : NO. XXXIII CONCERNING THE ACTUAL JESUS 1 I AM shown the Descent from the Cross. I see Jesus carried by Joseph of Arimathea to his house. The house communicates with a sepulchre; and Jesus is carried to the house where they do something to revive him; for he has swooned rather than died. The clothes...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xv. Concerning : p. 43 NO. XV CONCERNING THE "POWERS OF THE AIR" 1 PART I I SAW last night in my sleep my genius clothed with a red flame and standing in a dark place. He held in his hand a cup, into which he bade me look. I did so, and as I looked a mist gathered in the cup like a cloud; and I saw in the cloud...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xl. Concerning : p. 96 NO. XL CONCERNING THE HEREAFTER 1 WHEN a man parts at death with his material body, that of him which survives is divisible into three parts, the "anima divina", or, as in the Hebrew, Neshamah; the "anima bruta", or Ruach, which is the "persona" of the man; and the shade, or Nephesh, which...
Part The First. Illuminations. No. Xxviii : NO. XXVIII CONCERNING THE "BLOOD OF CHRIST" 2 BEING asleep I saw myself in a large room like a library, for it had in it a great many shelves filled with books; and there were several persons in it to whom I was speaking of the Christs, their origin and mission, and part in the history of mankind...