Customer Reviews

The Great Secret (Library of the Mystic Arts)

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The author, Maurice Maeterlinck, is a Nobel laureate inliterature. He set himself the task of wading through all availableliterature on the occult or secret side of religion and spirituality. In "The Hymn to Brahman" of the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of the Hindus, he found a core insight the world was young enough and innocent enough to reveal. This scripture asks in the presence of this sacred and mysterious cosmos in which we live, "Who knows how it could have come about?" (my paraphrase). Then, it boldly asserts that only He who abides in mystery and brought it into being--only HE knows, and "Perhaps even He knows not." (my paraphrase).

The "Great Secret," therefore is that ALL religion is based on guesswork. At its best, it is erected on the pure recognition of the transcendent and SACRED mystery confronting all of us. At its worst, it is based on hearsay, desperate dogmatizing, and yes, even an abundant amount of fraud.

This core revelation is disclosed early in the book. The rest is a history of what arose on that foundation; including, for example, pantheism and the realization that the Mystery (God, if you please) resides in us as much as it does in the heavens.

"The Great Secret, the only secret, is that all things are secret." Maurice Maeterlinck was an intellectual mystic, by which I mean he understood metaphysical concepts, and had no mystical experiences to base his writing on. Therefore his book is a work of reason rather than intuitive comprehension or revelation as is made plain by his praise for the Vedas as the height of philosophical speculation, a form of absolute agnosticism. For Maeterlinck, an initiate would be someone with the capacity to understand and appreciate a secret doctrine rather than someone familiar with the unknown dimensions of the mind and soul. For example, regarding visions, Maeterlinck is concerned that they contain no unconscious reminiscences of what has been read, "Most of the great mystics have had visions or intuitions of this kind spontaneously; but they do not possess any real interest unless it can be proven that they are experienced by mystics who are truly and absolutely illiterate." He must imagine that a vision is a metaphysical insight such as could be gleamed from a book on philosophy rather than an ineffable glimpse of the impersonal self's perspective. His mysticism is intellectual rather than experiential.

Maeterlinck seems most impressed by the realization that the cause of causes is unknowable. The secret doctrine whose revelation sealed forever the lips of the great initiates, the dread cry of occultist tradition, "Osiris is a dark god!" However there is some hint that he explored the unconscious in another book, "This subconscious self, this unfamiliar personality, which I have elsewhere called the Unknown Guest, which lives and acts on its own initiative, apart from the conscious life of the brain..".

The book does quote a metaphysical translation of Genesis by Fabre d'Olivet which is supposedly more accurate and impressive than the superficial and restricted version found in the Bible. He also describes some experiments concerning "odic emanations" which is some forgotten term for emanations or effluvia. However, the book appears most horribly dated concerning Tibetan Buddhism which is described ridiculously, "The convents and sanctuaries were explored; but nothing was found save the relics of the noblest religion ever known to mankind [Vedic doctrine], finally rotting and dwindling into puerile superstitions, mechanical prayer-wheels, and the most deplorable witchcraft."

This book and author were mentioned numerous times by Henry Miller in his writings. As a Henry Miller devotee, I try to seek out and read the books of his life. Some of them even become books of my life. I found The Great Secret to be a pretty interesting book. I have an ongoing interest in human spirituality and religion. There is a great deal of information in this book which must have been startling in 1922 but has less impact in 1999. It did provide me with some data on the earliest origin of the Hindu faith as well as facts on Egyptian mythology and others. I can not really say I buy it all hook, line and sinker but books of this nature do stimulate a lot of serious thought. It is easy to see why the cosmogonical eye of Henry Miller was so impressed. It did rouse a lot of philosophical musing in my mind as I waded through each chapter.