The Heroic Enthusiasts

(From the Preface, by L. Williams) The subject of "The Heroic Enthusiasts", written by Giordano Bruno in 1585, is the struggles of the Soul in its upward progress towards purification and freedom; the author makes use of lower things to picture and suggest the higher. The aim of the Heroic Enthusiast is to get at the Truth and to see the Light, and he considers that all the trials and sufferings of this life, are the cords which draw the soul upwards, and the spur which quickens the mind and purifies the will.The blindness of the soul may signify the descent into the material body, and "visit the various kingdoms" may be an allusion to the soul passing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms before it arrives at man.It is interesting to note that in the first part of "The Heroic Enthusiasts", Bruno makes a distinct allusion to the power of steam, and in the second part, one might almost think, that in using the number nine in connexion with the blind men, he intended a reference to electricity, for we read in "The Secret Doctrine," by H.P. Blavatsky:"There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night; it is the first light in creation; and the first light of the primordial Elo-him—the A-dam,—male and female, or, (scientifically) Electricity and Life. Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the alphabet and the ninth door of the fifty portals or gateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries of being.... Od is the pure life-giving Light or magnetic fluid."