Neue Lotusblüten 3, no. 7-8 (July-August 1910), 192-209

[Heilige Berge und Naturgeister] 

Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[*]

 

THE “HOLY CROSS MOUNTAIN”

Occult and mystical literature often speaks of mysterious mountains, said to be the abodes of high spirits, but not always marked on the map. write e.g. For example, the ancient Greeks ascribed “Olympus” as the residence of their gods, the representatives of the spiritual forces ruling in nature, and only a few will probably have understood this as a visible mountain called “Olympus.” Likewise, the mountain “Meru” of the Indians has a mystical meaning and the learned orientalists have looked for it in vain in India or Persia. The “Secret Doctrine” says about it: “The celestial pole with the polar star in the sky is Meru or the seat of Brahma, the throne of Jupiter etc.” (Vol. II, p. 829) and “Meru” means the region of Ātmā or the realm of the Immaculate Soul and Spirituality” (Vol. II, p. 421).

          But besides these ideal, unseen heights, there are actually visible mountain tops, upon which undoubtedly a very different spirit prevailed than down in the valleys, and it is not without reason that most nations have mostly moved their places of pilgrimage to mountains, and perhaps to hard-to-reach places. “On the mountains there is freedom.” One only realizes the full value of freedom of any kind when it is achieved through one’s own exertion.

          That’s not all, the air up there is richer in oxygen and ozone, less carbonated and dust-free; even the materialistic-minded “mountain fan” gets a feeling of the sublimity and greatness of the spirit in nature when climbing a mountain range, a lonely rock cone or a glacier striving for the sky. This is a religious sentiment to which no small number of human sacrifices are offered annually. Not only does the lake roar “and wants its victim”; the spirit of the mountain also lures the bold and plunges into the abyss those who do not approach it with proper reverence.

          There is a certain analogy between the spiritual and the material. As a noble man, a spiritual greatness, rises high above the mean, so the unapproachable peaks of the Himalayas, the Cordilleras, the Alps, high above the depths in which people live with their passions, strive towards heaven. Airships may well fly even higher; but they are like the dreamers and enthusiasts who indulge in the realm of fantasy and have no firm ground under their feet.

          It is beautiful at the ideal heights of humanity, but also lonely. It’s beautiful on the mountain tops, because it’s lonely there. There, where the summit rises above the clouds, there may be no bush, no flower, no blade of grass to be found; there, storms rush around his bare head, but above him the sunlight shines all the more pure and at night the stars shine all the more brightly. When the mist lies in the valleys in the morning, while the heights are already glowing in the light of the approaching sun, and the liquid gold sinks lower and lower until it finally penetrates even the deepest valleys; who doesn’t have the feeling that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, is descending to earth? Who does not see in all this a symbol of what is taking place in the spiritual life of mankind? Here, too, the light of knowledge comes from above and sinks down into the depths later.

          The spirit rules everywhere. Everything is life, everything is spirit. “Ghosts” are personifications of spiritual powers. Every thing is basically the product of an original spiritual force; each attracts and emanates certain spiritual forces corresponding to its nature. That is why every thing has a certain psychic influence on its surroundings and there are some places that are more than others a gathering place for invisible forces. Certain places of pilgrimage, such as Lourdes, are considered to be such; but certain “holy mountains” have also become famous through their mystical magic or the circle of legends that have woven around them. For the scientific researcher who is still stuck in the swamp of materialism, such “legends” naturally have no meaning. What he cannot pull down, dissect and destroy has no essence for him. He who is spiritless himself sees only the spiritless form in everything; but the right seer sees creative life behind the veil of Māyā. He knows that the visible form is only the material covering for the etheric body and that even the hardest rock has its “astral” quality and can serve as a dwelling place for beings belonging to another kingdom of nature, for whom coarse matter is no more a hindrance to their movement, any more than air is for us. What we see in a “Montblanc” or “Pilatus” is not the inner essence of such an appearance. “Translucent” and “impenetrable,” “visible” and “invisible” are relative terms. To us, the interior of an underground cave is dark; for a being who could only perceive spiritual rays it might be daylight there; just as the light of “X-rays” also penetrates opaque bodies.

          We who are spirits imprisoned in material bodies know only a small part of the world around us. Occult philosophy teaches that there is a multitude of beings in the universe of whose existence we are ignorant, and whose nature we do not know, and that what we actually know compares to what we do not yet know about a grain of sand is related to a sandy desert on the seashore.

          It is easy to understand that the air on the highest mountain peaks is not only physically but also morally cleaner than in the big cities polluted by the emanations of human passions, and that is why it is probably better there for staying or for higher phenomena beings, devas, yogis, and the like. In the Bible we read that the God of the Jews came to Moses on Mount Sinai; that the transfigured figures of Moses and Elijah appeared on a mountain. The summit of the sacred Mount Koilos [Mount Kailash] is considered by the Tibetans to be the seat of the Mahādeva, i.e., of the highest world spirit and Sabhapatie Swami [Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī] claims to have seen his appearance there. He was also visited there by the Rishis.[1] Gaurisankar, the highest mountain on earth (8840 m), is not called “the radiant one” for nothing.[2] The loftiest heights are inhabited by certain spirits, and the valleys by others. The dwellings of the gnomes and earth spirits are within the mountains. The element of earth is to them what air is to us. Every thing and also every rock has its astral region and what appears to us as hard rock and is impenetrable for our material bodies is no obstacle for astral beings. Man is a miniature world and in his composition a picture of the great nature. In him too we find that his highest power, his intelligence, has the head, the highest point of his organism, for its seat, while his “earth spirits,” i.e., his instincts and passions, which arose from the material and are bound to it, dwell in his blood. Thus, by observing what is happening in our own soul life, we can get an idea of ​​what is happening in the soul life of the great nature, and on the other hand, the study of the occult phenomena in nature can make some things clear to us about what is going on in our own inner being. Like joins like. The divine in man elevates man to God, the goblin in man attracts goblins. But in relation to our knowledge of the nature spirits we are not exclusively dependent on what we experience by reasoning in the field of analogy; because it also happens that the mountain spirits become externally visible as physical phenomena, and there is hardly any mountainous country in which there is no talk of intercourse with such “spirits” among the inhabitants. These spirits are known both in the Scottish highlands and in the Caucasus, in the Alps and in the Cordilleras, and cannot be got rid of by any modern school wisdom or imaginary “enlightenment.” They are not empty figments of the imagination, but material beings, even if the stuff of which their forms are made belongs to a different plane of existence.

          Theophrastus Paracelsus says: “What one sees externally is in the light of nature. Above this light there is another light in man, through which one recognizes spiritual things. One is given to the body, the other to the soul. There are two kinds of flesh (I. Corinth. XV, 40). The earth spirits do not need doors or holes, they can penetrate all walls and rocks, and yet they also have flesh and bones and are different from the spirit; for the spirit has neither bone nor leg. They bear children, eat, drink, talk and walk like us, but in terms of the speed of their movement they are like ghosts. They are spiritually higher than animals, but lower than humans. They have arts and sciences, work, make their clothes, live and die like us; but have nothing immortal in them. As man is closest to God, so are they closest to man. We cannot see them with our eyes, but we can as in a dream.

          “The mass of which man is made is an extract from all creatures in heaven and earth, the soul from all things, all creatures, elements, stars, drawn together by the spirit. It is therefore the “quintessence” of all things. Man is made in God’s image; but all the qualities of the world have remained in him, and man has them in himself. His body is from the earth and therefore earthly, his soul from the stars, his spirit from God.

          “But of the nature spirits, each species has its own element from which it is formed. They have no fellowship with each other while man enjoys all four elements. For the earth spirits the earth is what the air is for us; the air spirits are closest to man. The nymphs have their earth on the ground, the water is their chaos and the sky above; so they too are in the midst of two spheres. The chaos of the gnomes is the earth, its soil the water, the sky the sphere. The ground of the salamanders is the earth, the sky is their air, their chaos is fire. The forest spirits are human-like and breed like them. The element in which the nature spirits live is transparent to them, and their sun and moon shine through it. The undines have human form; the Sylvestres are larger, stronger, and rougher. The gnomes are about two to six spans long and harmless; the salamanders long and thin. The gnomes and also the undines have their language; the forest spirits indicate what they want only by gestures; the salamanders can talk but don’t. They are sometimes possessed by demons and then commit misdeeds.”

          One of the mountains best known as the home of the gnomes is the “Untersberg” near Salzburg, about which there are a great many legends and some of the farmers living in its area could, if they wanted to, learn a lot of interesting things about the activities of the gnomes, namely about things that he does not know from hearsay, but has experienced himself [3]; Things that the masses are not yet mature enough to understand. Who would not expose himself to ridicule and laughter when he wanted to tell that someone had been physically inside the Untersberg and what he had seen there; and yet such things happen quite naturally; for man too has his “astral body” for which rocks and walls are no obstacle, and when he temporarily leaves his physical body and walks in his astral body in the world of the astral, his astral body is for him the real body, of his physical body he knows nothing; just as the outer world also disappears from man in dreams, and the dream world is the only real one for him. Even today, the Untersberg still stands there in its imposing size and forms a whole mountain range, especially when viewed from the south, consisting of numerous heights and rock faces which are separated from each other by deep gorges. Even now it often rolls like thunder within him, as if the whole mountain were hollow; Even today, lights float around on rock walls that cannot be climbed, or the lonely wanderer encounters a dwarf on the path who disappears through a rock. Even now, at certain times, processions of gnomes are seen, and in the still night the windows of lonely chapels are seen lit with ghostly lights, while music and singing sound within; but the traffic between the people and the residents of the Untersberg is no longer the same as it was back then, when idyllic solitude and naturalness still reigned there, and the smoke from locomotives and factory chimneys mixed with the haze of the breweries had not yet reached the sky. The gnomes do not like to be bothered by curious tourists in their realm, and many a cheeky climber, found in a chasm with his limbs shattered, may have fallen victim to their retribution. But not only the “Untersberg” has its legends and sagas, wonderful things could also be reported about many other mountains in Tyrol, for which the uninitiated cannot find much understanding.

          One of the most interesting of the mysterious mountains of America is the “Mountain of the Holy Cross” or “Holy Cross Mountain” (5000 m), situated in the southern part of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, of which we give a picture. (See beginning of this article.) A hundred miles away, its sunlit cross gleams toward us as we drive across the plains of Kansas and Colorado. It is formed by a cross-shaped canyon filled with perpetual ice and snow, cutting through a steep, bare rock face. There (or at the time of my stay there 1878-1882) “civilization” had not yet penetrated into those wild valleys, and seers and initiates were telling the most wonderful things about the properties of this mysterious mountain, so that it appears so as if it were not only inhabited by spirits of a lesser kind, but was the seat or meeting-place of “brothers of the white lodge” or Adepts on those unapproachable heights, which no mortal man has yet set foot on, human beings in luminous robes are nevertheless to be seen. Something similar is also told of the ice regions of the peaks of the Himalayas.

          The contemplation of the Pique de Orizaba in Mexico (approx. 6000 m) also makes a highly uplifting spiritual impression. When it is still deep darkness in the valley early in the morning and the foot of the mountain and the surrounding forests are still shrouded in fog, the summit is already glowing in the splendor of the rising sun and the large ice fields reflect the rays, so that the observer seems as if a new planet had suddenly formed overnight, very close to the earth. Such a sight is no less elevating to religious feeling than the voice of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, or the ringing of the great bell of a Catholic cathedral. The higher one thinks oneself, the closer one feels to the highest world spirit. Why shouldn’t higher, transfigured beings also dwell on these heights? Everything is spirit, but we do not recognize it.

          The same can be said of the sacred mountain Fusi-no-jama in Japan (3748 m), whose snow-capped peak greets the traveler on the sea from afar and which is a place of longing and refuge for thousands of believers. Everything around it breathes grandeur, calm. On the other hand, consider the eruption of a volcano, e.g., the sea-roaring Oijama, when black clouds, pierced by fiery lightning, rise like demons from the crater, and from the mysterious depths rocks and glowing stones are hurled fatally. Anyone who cannot see the titans and fire spirits in their workshop with a clear-seeing eye can perhaps feel their presence. For “science,” however, such sensations do not exist. It cannot understand sensations and does not know that behind the effect of physical natural forces there is an inner, “superphysical,” astral cause, although not “supernatural.”

          This claim may seem strange to some. How should there be spiritual causes behind mechanical or chemical forces, motion, light, heat, electricity, etc.? But when we recognize that everything came into being out of the spirit of God, then it is not unscientific to conclude that from the effect of this spiritual elemental power in the physical, many kinds of psychic powers came into being, first on the mental and astral, and finally by the expression of their effects on the physical plane. Basically everything is spirit; everything material has soul and life. The higher the spirit rises, the more it escapes the state of bondage to what we call “matter,” the more free it becomes. “But if,” one hears the question, “everything arose from the spirit, why is the world no longer perfect?” The answer is: “Because the forms are not yet fully permeated with the Spirit, and consequently the Spirit of God is not yet fully manifest in nature. So also the sunlight is bound in a piece of charcoal; but the charcoal is not the light, its light is revealed only when it burns up in the fire.” Spirit is not the form, but the form is nothing without the spirit. If the mind had not formed forms, there would be no creation, no evolution. As the waves of the sea day and night, year after year, pound and shatter a coral reef built by nature, so the spirit of knowledge constantly presses on the hard “rocks” formed by human stupidity, but only slowly does it make its way. Those who understand the language of nature can learn a lot from the mountains. The higher the mountain rises to the sky, the more it represents a symbol of true faith, which does not consist in a comfortable acceptance of theories, but in the power of spiritual knowledge, which everyone must achieve for themselves. Whoever wants to get to the summit must climb the mountain himself, and even if someone else can show him the way, he himself must overcome the difficulties and dangers connected with the ascent. Anyone who remains seated on the way in the inn will not move, despite all his knowledge. But if you courageously step forward and keep an eye on the direction, you will reach your goal in the end, even if you have made a few mistakes.

          We do not want to believe in gnomes and dwarfs who dwell in the bowels of the earth, in impenetrable rocks, and yet we are earthbound spirits ourselves, encased in a hard crust of superstition and prejudice; we ourselves are still dwarfs in knowledge; but each of us is given a lamp, in each of us is hidden a spark of knowledge of truth, which, with proper care, can become a flame, the light of which shows him the way to freedom. This is the same light which shines from the top of the “holy mountain.” Whoever follows it does not walk in darkness.

Notes:

[*] Neue Lotusblüten. Vol. 1. Page 268. {The reader should note what Col. Olcott wrote about Sabhāpatti’s experience upon relating this to Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky: “At the close, the alleged Yoga Sabhāpathy Swami read a rambling complimentary address in which his praises of us were mingled with much self-glorification. He came to our place the next day and favored us with his company from 9:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., by which time he had pretty thoroughly exhausted our patience. Whatever good opinion we may have formed of him before was spoilt by a yarn he told us of his exploits as a Yogī. He had, he said, been taken up at Lake Mānsarovara, Tibet, high into the air and been transported two hundred miles along the high level to Mount Kailās, where he saw Mahadeva! Ingenuous foreigners as H. P. B. and I may have been, we could not digest such a ridiculous falsehood as that. I told him so very plainly. If, I said, he had told us that he had gone anywhere he liked in astral body or clairvoyant vision, we might have believed it possible, but in physical body, from Lake Mānsarovara, in company with two Rishis mentioned in the Mahabharata, and to the non-physical Mount Kailās—thanks, no: he should tell it to somebody else.” From: Olcott, Henry S. (1900). Old Diary Leaves. The History of the Theosophical Society. Second Series, 1878-83 (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1974), 258–259. Nevertheless, Dr. Hartmann published Yoga Sabhāpathy Swami’s English, which Hartmann translated into German and because the is only one copy, in the British Museum, I decided to translated from German to English again.}

[1] {R.H.—The highest mountain is Mount Everest (8,848.86 m) which is the height referred to by Dr. Hartmann (8,840 m). Gaurisankar has a height of 7,134 m. and is the second highest peak but may be the highest peak in the Rolwāling Himal valley, Nepal. Perhaps this is what Dr. Hartmann is referring to. This is hard to establish because the highest mountains above sea level are not the highest mountains above the surrounding terrain. Since the bases of mountain islands are below sea level, Mauna Kea would be the world’s tallest mountain at 13,802 ft above sea level.}

[2] Compare F Hartman. “Among the gnomes in Untersberg.”

[3] Holy Mountains and Nature Spirits. [Heilige Berge und Naturgeister. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 3, no. 7-8 (July-August 1910), 192-209] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl, ©2025}