The Seven Pillars of Ancient Wisdom

by D. Douglas Baker

There are seven postulates of Ancient Wisdom that are basic to progress in the study of the occult in any sort of depth. Further, these postulates must be lived if the life of the student is to take the Path of Spiritual unfoldment with any real prospect of success.

(i) Hylozism, the proposition that all things, organic or inorganic, are filled with life from the tiniest atom to the greatest galaxy.

(ii) Each and all of these live within the body of a greater being.

(iii) Each is made in the image of "God", i.e. in the image of the one "in whom it lives and moves and has its being."

(iv) There is a continuim which links all living things together so that the smallest cell does not pulsate without its effects being felt in the furthest reaches of the solar system.

(v) Our solar system has a sepentary nature: it is constructed out of energies which resonate to seven qualities.

(vi) The solidity and tangibleness of the material world about us is an illusion. It is part of maya.(1) All is energy manifesting as Fire and Form. Energy and matter are interchangeable.

(vii) There is no death, only change of state. Birth and rebirth are endless until karma is satisified and then reincarnation ceases.

These postulates have been listed in such a way that comprehension of the first leads to better understanding of those which follow. Equally so, through progressive identification with them in daily living there comes corresponding heightened spiritual awareness and revelation.

(1) Maya: Illusion; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and the perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy that alone which is changeless and eternal is called reality; all that which is subject to change through decay and differentiation and which has therefore a begiinning and an end is regarded as maya -- illusion.

...from The Jewel in the Lotus, Volume One of the Seven Pillars of Ancient Wisdom, by D. Douglas Baker. First Edition, Douglas Baker, High Road, Essendon, Herts., England (no date):