Esoterism & Symbol Quotes

“There is a sacred science, and for thousands of years countless inquisitive people have sought in vain to penetrate its “secrets.” It is as if they attempted to dig a hole in the sea with an ax. The tool must be of the same nature as the objective to be worked upon. Spirit is found only with spirit, and esoterism is the spiritual aspect of the world, inaccessible to cerebral intelligence. Those who profess to reveal the esoterism of such teachings are charlatans.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“sages leave speculation to the idle, and contemplate Nature.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“we were appealing to another power in us which comes from our innate consciousness, the source of the sense of harmony. If it is effective, this power will be the reason for genius, for creative thought, creative in the sense that it works ahead of the known, the classified. Isn’t it this consciousness of a new way, dictated to today’s decadent world, which impels artists to destroy the idols of yesterday in order to attempt irrational expressions? They seek a concordance of the elements of “sensations,” ignoring the rational combinations which only satisfy the inertia of acquired habit. Atmospheres, images, and forms are created to evoke a feeling, an emotion, to provoke a vital reaction. Art is the herald of the mentality of a period, the harbinger of its innermost tendency.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“One must know how to disregard the vehicle of the idea in order to consider its motivation alone.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism & Symbol

“Obviously, therefore, we must be able to transcribe what is in us into our mental and objective consciousness, by establishing a relationship between the life in us and observation of that life in Nature. This we find supremely well expressed by the ancient Egyptians. It is a knowledge of magic, pure and sane, which can lead rapidly toward the spiritual goal of our lives, owing to the fact that we can evoke, by means of the sympathy of analogues in our surroundings, the consciousness of the heart latent in us.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“When we can no longer divide, we are beyond Nature and approach the causal Cause, the abstract Cause. This is why the whole of metaphysics, all creation, is situated between the numbers One and Two.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“When we want to express our knowledge, we must be able to translate or reduce it to concrete terms, accessible to our senses and rational through the cerebral function. “Sympathetic’’ experience always remains uncertain and open to discussion as long as it is not “objectified” experience.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“The entire cerebral mechanism can be reproduced mechanically. So much the better, as this will show the most obtuse of us where the error lies. But when we want to go beyond academic know-how—that sclerosis of the spirit—to fertile thought, the cerebral mechanism is no longer adequate.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“Fundamentally, consciousness has two aspects: one is the result of comparisons, the other of identification. Both aspects need to be inscribed: one is an organic or cerebral inscription, the other is vital or functional.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol

“Isn’t it this consciousness of a new way, dictated to today’s decadent world, which impels artists to destroy the idols of yesterday in order to attempt irrational expressions? They seek a concordance of the elements of “sensations,” ignoring the rational combinations which only satisfy the inertia of acquired habit. Atmospheres, images, and forms are created to evoke a feeling, an emotion, to provoke a vital reaction. Art is the herald of the mentality of a period, the harbinger of its innermost tendency. Intelligence-of-the-heart, which establishes the relationship between innate consciousness and observation of fact, is identification.”
― R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Esoterism and Symbol