"To this day, the noble descendants of the Adepts soldiered on, grasping blindly for the Light, trying to recapture the lost power of their past, trying to keep the darkness at bay. They were the priest and priestesses of the churches, temples, and shrines of all the religions on earth. Time had erased the memories...detached them from their past. They no longer knew the Source from which their potent wisdom had once flowed. When they were asked about the divine mysteries of their forebears, the new custodians of faith vociferously disowned them, condemning them as heresy.
Echos of the ancient Art still resonated in every corner of the globe, from the mystical Kabbalists of Judaism to the esoteric Sufis of Islam"
(TLS 359 -60).
"Nowhere was the church's mystical past more evident than at her epicenter. In Vatican City, at the heart of St. Peter's Square, stood the great Egyptian obelisk. Carved thriteen hundred years before Jesus took his first breath~ this numinous monolith had no relevance there, no link to modern Christianity. And yet there it was. At the core of Christ's church. A stone beacon, screaming to be heard. A reminder to those few sages who remembered where it all began. The church, born of the womb of the Ancient Mysteries, still bore her rites and symbols"
(TLS 360).
"One symbol above all.
Adoring her alters, vestments, spires, and Scriptures was the singular image of Christianity~ that of a precious sacrificed human being. Christianity~ more than any other faith, understood the transormative power of sacrifice"
(TLS 360).