Klaas-Jan BAKKER - AMORC

During the Anglo-Boer War he kept a copy of Whitman’s Leaves of
Grass with him, given to him by his future wife, Issy Krige.
as well as the writings of Goethe, would not
have had such an impact on Smuts if he had not
experienced a similar cosmic enlightenment. He
writes to Mary Clark:
“Whether you can enter into the Great Mystery
depends on certain attitudes, certain inner
affinities, which alone can draw you in spirit into
the great Kinship of the Spirit, the inner mystic
Union of Holism.
“On that I say nothing in my book Holism and
Evolution. Perhaps (if I am wise) I shall never
say anything at all in writing. But I know this
communion from inner experience. And I know
that millions through the ages have seen and
followed the unseen Inner Light.”
In another letter he writes:
“Evil becomes an ingredient in the final good which
we attain on the higher synthesis or integration of
life. Holism seems to imply this deeper spiritual
view of the universe. Evil is not extrinsic to it but,
in some way difficult to comprehend, natural to it
and a constituent element in it. The great lesson of
experience is to absorb, transmute and sublimate
evil and make it an element to enrich, rather than a
dominant factor to dominate life.”
Also:
“Human nature in its peak moments passes beyond
good and evil, and becomes almost godlike in spite
of the breach of the moral law. I suppose that is why
the ancients looked upon madness as divine.”
Spirit of the Mountain
As with the great mystics, mountain summits
also had a special significance for Smuts. In May
1923 he spoke about “The Spirit of the Mountain”
during a commemoration service on the top of
his beloved Table Mountain 1 : Regarded as one
of the great speeches of history, he described the
spiritual influence of the mountain:
“The Mountain is not merely something externally
sublime. It has a great historic and spiritual meaning
for us. It stands for us as the ladder of life. Nay,
more, it is the great ladder of the soul, and in a
curious way the source of religion. From it came the
Law; from it came the Gospel in the Sermon on the
Mount. We may truly say that the highest religion
is the Religion of the Mountain.”
He then explains the meaning of this religion:
“The Religion of the Mountain is in reality the
religion of joy, of the release of the soul from the
things that weigh it down and fill it with a sense
of weariness, sorrow and defeat. The religion of joy
realises the freedom of the soul, the soul’s kinship
to the great creative spirit and its dominance over
all the things of sense.”
The letters contained the very private
thoughts of Smuts, at the time only known to his
Quaker friend. It was only after her death that
the veil was lifted a little to give us a glimpse of
the soul behind his worldly achievements. But
even today, the seeker that receptively walks up
the hill on his farm will look down at the grass at
his feet and then be drawn up in the light of the
eternal heaven above him.
Bibliography
The quotes from the letters to Mary Clark Gillett are from Piet
Beukes, The Religious Smuts, Human & Rousseau 1994.
ISBN: 0-7981-3189-6
The quote from "The Spirit of the Mountain" is taken from
Greater South Africa. Plans for a better world. Truth
Legion, November 1940.
Endnote
1. See The "Spirit of the Mountain" in the Rosicrucian Beacon,
September 2007 edition.
The Rosicrucian Beacon -- December 2007