With the Adepts
by Franz Hartmann
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Excerpt:
Before me was a valley surrounded by mountains of evidently inaccessible height, and this valley nature and art seemed to have combined to endow with an almost superterrestrial beauty. Like a vast ocean bay it opened before my sight, closing in the distance with a kind of natural amphitheatre. It was covered with short grass and planted with maple trees, and on all sides there were forests and groves, small lakes and lovely creeks. Immediately in front of me, but still at a considerable distance, rose the vault of a sublime mountain peak high into the blue ether of space, presenting a cavity with overhanging rocks, looking like the hollow space under a gigantic wave, which had been petrified by some magic spell. The sides of the mountain sank sheer towards a lower declivity, and then again rose abruptly to an imposing height.
In the presence of so much sublimity I became dumfounded. My companion seemed to comprehend my feeling; for he, too, stood still and laughed, as if he were pleased to see how full of admiration I was. The stillness which surrounded us would have been complete if it had not been for the noise of a cataract, at a distance, to the left, falling over a steep precipice and appearing like a string of fluid silver backed by the dark gray rock. The monotonous rush of that fall in contradistinction to the surrounding stillness seemed to me like the rush of the river of time in the realm of eternity; another world than the one to which I had been accustomed seemed to have descended upon me; the air seemed more pure, the light more ethereal, the grass more green than on the other side of the tunnel; here seemed to be the valley of peace, the paradise of happiness and content.
Looking towards the high peak in the distance, I noticed what seemed to be a palace, a fortress, or a monastery of some kind, and as I came nearer, I saw it was a massive building of stone. Its high walls rose above the tops of the surrounding trees, and a dome, as if of a temple, crowned the top of the building. Its exterior appearance indicated the solidity of the walls. It was built in rectangular form, but its architecture was not of a regular style; it presented many projecting windows, turrets, balconies and verandas.
On the other side of the valley nature was not less sublime and inspiring. Gray giant cliffs, standing out prominently against the steel-blue background of the sky, rose up to an extraordinary height. Below the highest peaks long strips of white clouds had settled around the mountain, and seemed to separate the top of the latter from its main body. The part below the cloud was partly covered by the shadow and partly illuminated by a pale ghostly light, producing a glamour. There, where the masses of clouds rested against the bulk of the mountain, it seemed to me that I was looking into a world of destruction. It was as if the entrails of the mountain had been torn up, and the uniformity of the desolate jumble of rocks was only interrupted by a few remnants of snow situated in the caverns and on the crags of the mountain.
As we advanced we came into a broad avenue leading to the building, and I beheld a man of noble and imposing appearance approaching. He was clad in a yellow robe, his head covered with black flowing hair, and he walked with an elastic step. When the cretin saw this man he hurried towards him, prostrated himself before him, and suddenly vanished, like an image of a dream.
I was struck with astonishment by this extraordinary occurrence, but I had no time to reflect, for the stranger approached me and bid me welcome. He appeared to be a man of about thirty-five years of age, of tall and commanding stature; and his mild and benevolent look, full of spiritual energy, seemed to penetrate my whole being and to read my innermost thoughts. "Surely," I thought, "this man is an Adept!"
"Yes," answered the stranger, as if he had been reading my thought, "you have fallen into the hands of the Adepts, of whom you have thought so much and whose acquaintance you often desired to make, and I will introduce you into our temple and make you acquainted with some of our Brothers of the Golden and Rosy Cross."
