“If you come to the books written after the time of Jesus, you will find that those multitudes of believers who hear the parables are, as it were, ‘without,’ and worthy only of exoteric doctrines, while the disciples learn in private the explanation of the parables. For, privately, to His own disciples did Jesus open up all things, esteeming above the multitudes those who desired to know His wisdom. And He promises to those who believe on Him to send them wise men and scribes.”

In another work, Origen states that: 

“The Scriptures have a meaning, not only such as is apparent at first sight, but also another, which escapes the notice of most men.  For such is written in the forms of certain Mysteries, and the image of divine things.  Respecting which there is one opinion throughout the whole Church, that the whole law is indeed spiritual; but that the spiritual meaning which the law conveys is not known to all, but to those only on whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is bestowed in the word of wisdom and knowledge.” (De Principiis.)

We could fill page after page with live quotations from the writings of the Early Christian Fathers, and their successors, showing the existence of the Inner Teachings.  But we must rest content with those which we have given you, which are clear and to the point, and which come from undoubted authority.

The departure of the Church from these Inner Teachings was a great calamity, from which the Church is still suffering.  As that well-known occultist, Eliphias Levi, has said: 

“A great misfortune befell Christianity.  The betrayal of the Mysteries by the false Gnostics—­for the Gnostics, that is, those who know, were the Initiates of primitive Christianity—­caused the Gnosis to be rejected, and alienated the Church from the supreme truths of the Kabbala, which contains all the secrets of transcendental theology....  Let the most absolute science, let the highest reason become once more the patrimony of the leaders of the people; let the sarcerdotal art and the royal art take the double sceptre of antique initiations and the social world will once more issue from its chaos.  Burn the holy images no longer; demolish the temples no more; temples and images are necessary for men; but drive the hirelings from the house of prayer; let the blind be no longer leaders of the blind; reconstruct the hierarchy of intelligence and holiness, and recognize only those who know as the teachers of those who believe.” (The Mysteries of Magic, Waite translation.)

And now, you ask, what were taught in these Christian Mysteries—­what is the Inner Teaching—­what the Secret Doctrine?  Simply this, good students—­the Occult Philosophy and Mystic Lore which has been taught to the Elect in all times and ages, and which is embodied in our several series of lessons on THE YOGI PHILOSOPHY AND ORIENTAL OCCULTISM, plus the special teaching regarding the nature, mission, and sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, as we have tried to explain in the present series of lessons.  The Truth is the same no matter under what name it is taught, or who teaches it.  Strip it of the personal coloring of the teacher and it is seen to be the same—­THE TRUTH.