Bruce Harman, Water of Life
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The Teachings of the Adepts, part III
“They are not to be confounded with speculative philosophy, that reasons from the known to that which it cannot know, trying by the flickering light of logic to grope its way into the darkness, and to feel the objects which it cannot see. These doctrines were taught by the children of light who possessed the power to see. Such men were the great religious reformers of all ages, from Confucius and Zoroaster down to Jacob Boehme and Eckartshausen, and their teachings have been verified by every one whose purity of mind and whose power of intellect have enabled him to see and to understand the things of the spirit.
Some of their doctrines refer to morals and ethics, others are of a purely scientific character; but both aspects of their teachings are intimately connected together, because beauty cannot be separated from truth. They both form the two pages of a leaf in the book of universal Nature, whose understanding confers upon the reader not merely opinions but knowledge, and renders him not only learned but illuminated with wisdom.
Among those who have taught the moral aspect of the secret doctrine there are none greater than Buddha, Plato, and Jesus of Nazareth; of those who have taught its scientific aspect there have been none more profound than Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, and Paracelsus. They obtained their knowledge not merely from following the prescribed methods of learning, or by accepting the opinions of the ‘recognised authorities’ of their times, but they studied Nature by her own light, and they became lights themselves, whose rays illuminate the world of mind.”
— Franz Hartmann, The Life of Paracelsus
