of a candidate for the Baptism of Light. What form this
rite really took it is impossible to say, but that it had outward signs
of some kind is extremely probable. We have an old Gnostic ritual
preserved in the compilation generally known as the "Acts of John."
Perhaps this may give us some idea of the sort of ceremony that was
worked. I fancy there was an Eucharistic side, and that the Baptism of
Light was connected with the mystic crucifixion alluded to so often in
the notes. Possibly in the midst of the sacred dance, at the breaking
of the Bread, there was a certain laying on of hands by an adept
Master, one who had himself attained to the autoptic vision, and then
the candidate was left alone to immerse himself in the Dark Ray of the
Divine Mind.

I think also that the original MS. was based upon the work of one
Master, whose name, like that of the order to which he belonged, is
lost in the night of time, but that it also contains amplifications and
additions by at least one later hand. It will thus represent the mind
of a grade of teaching, and possibly contains material dating back to
the period of the Therapeutae that Philo knew. In other words, the
community may have been an old one before it was Christianised. In any
case, it remains the record of a stupendous spiritual adventure, the
attempt to produce a race of Divinised men, that is not without the
splendour of tragedy, for at some time, like the Holy Cup of Legend,
the presence of Masterhood departed, and the external house fell into
ruin and its place knew it no more. Perhaps, in the desire to
propagate, it admitted unworthy candidates; perhaps it turned to the
by-ways of magic in an attempt to arrest the external course of nature
and to defy necessity; perhaps there came a day when none could
understand the inner meaning of the high and far-shining mysteries, and
so amidst party strife the building word was lost. Many a man, no
doubt, who called himself a "Gnostic" was but a sorry rogue; many
another was but a student of the letter, not of the life; many another
was but a spiritual swashbuckler, pompous in his demeanour and cryptic
in his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered
along the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a
formula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into
Heaven. But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant
idleness and of corruption, the _a rebours_