nether-world. I had intercourse with the dead, _i.e._, with those who
have already become part of the chain of the eternal cosmic order.
After my sojourn in the nether-world, I arose from the dead. I
overcame death, but now I have become different. I have nothing more
to do with perishable nature. It has in me become saturated with the
Logos. I now belong to those who live eternally, and who will sit at
the right hand of Osiris. I myself shall be a true Osiris, part of the
eternal cosmic order, and judgment of life and death will be placed in
my hands." The candidate for initiation had to submit to the
experience which made such a confession possible to him. Thus this was
an experience of the highest kind.

Let us now imagine that a non-initiate hears of such experiences. He
cannot know what has really taken place in the initiate's soul. In
his eyes, the initiate died physically, lay in the grave, and rose
again. What is a spiritual reality at a higher stage of existence
appears when expressed in the form of sense-reality as an event which
breaks through the order of nature. It is a "miracle." So far
initiation was a miracle. One who really wished to understand it must
have awakened within him powers to enable him to stand on a higher
plane of existence. He must have approached these higher experiences
through a course of life specially adapted for the purpose. In
whatever way these prepared experiences were enacted in individual
cases, they are always found to be of quite a definite type. And so an
initiate's life is a typical one. It may be described independently of
the single personality. Or rather, an individual could only be
described as being on the way to the divine if he had passed through
these definite typical experiences.

Such a personality was Buddha, living in the midst of his disciples.
As such an one did Jesus appear to his community. Nowadays we know of
the parallelism that exists between the biographies of Buddha and of
Jesus. Rudolf Seydel has convincingly proved this parallelism in his
book, _Buddha und Christus_. (Compare also the excellent essay by Dr.
Huebbe-Schleiden, "Jesus ein Buddhist.") We have only to follow out the
two lives in detail in order to see that all objections to the
parallelism are futile.

The birth of Buddha is announced by a white elephant, which descends
from heaven and declares to the queen, Maya, that she will bring forth
a divine man, who "will attune all beings to lo