One of the most universally recognized formulations in modern human history is the phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” stated as a principle by the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Indeed, we all have at least a vague awareness that these three elements are good, if not essential, for fulfillment of our life on this planet. Also, most of us, especially those in authority, adhere to our own perceived privilege, under a variety of circumstances, to deny these elements to one or more of our fellow human beings. Of course such denial also has limits, as expressed, for instance, in the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Which brings us to the question: What, really, is freedom?

While we wrestle with that question, we may recall the saying of Jesus, “The truth shall make you free.” (John 8:23)

What then, is truth? And how does that truth function in life to work its wonders and produce the stated freedom?

As readers of Three Sages are aware, for the past year we have been publishing selections of Bô Yin Râ’s spiritual writings, along with background and commentary. See additional selections of recent articles HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Bô Yin Râ was the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken (1876-1943), born in Aschaffenburg, Germany, educated as a landscape painter, by spiritual pedigree a Luminary of Primordial Light, and, through his writings, the creator of perhaps the most important compendium of original spiritual writings in modern Western history. His master work is the 32-volume Hortus Conclusus (“The Enclosed Garden”), which he completed in 1936, having relocated from Germany to Lugano, Switzerland in the early 1920s.

While most of the material carried by Three Sages by and about Bô Yin Râ has pertained to the spiritual destiny of the human individual, his book “The Specter of Freedom” focuses on the life of society as a whole. It’s a relatively long work, one that is being carried here in twelve installments. Within this book, Bô Yin Râ, explains two different perspectives on “freedom.” One path is that of freedom as a “specter”—a “ghost” or “illusion” that people follow, believing it will lead them to happiness while instead it deceives them into falling into a pit of despair and, ultimately, destruction. The other path is real freedom that comes only when the price for it has been paid.

But what is that price? What are the practices and conditions that must be followed to create something truly worth having? One of the conditions clearly is to study the teachings of spiritual masters who know what they are talking about. In our experience, Bô Yin Râ stands in the forefront of those individuals. Another is certainly Jesus, whose advice includes, for instance, the time-honored practices spelled out in the Beatitudes, advice that is as relevant today as when they were uttered: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” etc.

The group of people involved in presenting material by Bô Yin Râ here on Three Sages have provided these definitions of “The Specter of Freedom”:

1. The idea that we should be “allowed” to do just about anything we desire (as long as we don’t get caught?).

2. That enticing notion we conjure up thinking how being free from various earthly restrictions will allow us to fulfill our dreams but which ultimately disappoints because we did not take into account spiritual law and our spiritual inheritance.

3. In Polish, “Specter of Freedom” is “Upior Wolnosci,” which is a great translation as it would mean a “negative, lingering ghostly presence/entity.”

4. What can “freedom” possibly mean for a person who has not achieved complete control of thoughts, speech, and actions?

Today’s chapter on “The Craze for Catchwords” discloses the staggering abuse of “freedom” whereby “freedom of speech” confers license on the immense amount of destruction resulting from people indiscriminately hurling catchwords at each other.

1. Mirage

2. Necessity

3. Communality

4. Authority

5. The Urge to Associate

6. The Failed Economy

7. Competition

8. The Craze for Catchwords

9. Self-Realization

10. Religion

11. Science

12. Consciousness of Reality

There is little that has caused as much harm in human communal life as the ‘catchword’: – this monstrosity which is the birth of lazy thinking and the will to persuade!

It takes victim upon victim in all areas of life and experience during this earthly existence!

Above all, every catchword stops those in its bondage from achieving independence of thought.

Every lazy thinker allows himself to be caught if only the right lasso of a catchword is thrown over one’s neck, and once caught in the noose, erstwhile freedom is quickly forgotten…

It quickly turns all resistance into quite perverse submissiveness, and eventually it becomes true lust to always follow wherever the leash pulls until reaching a pen prepared by the matadors of the catchword for their catch. –

It is rarely possible to escape such a pen, and rarely is even the desire to flee awakened among those confined there.

Most feel wonderfully ‘secured’ since they lost their independence of thought a long time ago.

They also represent perpetual danger to those who are still outside the pen, like tamed elephants which are used to trap other elephants still at large…

A catchword can seem to include many things which have nothing to do with the meaning of the word, – and what is ‘catching’ about it, to which one yields, being internally struck, is for the most part merely being taken in through lazy thinking. –

Though it is beyond doubt that thought can become a person’s bitterest enemy, one has great need of it as a weapon wherever words try to disarm one’s defenses.

The catchword is nothing other than a word which seeks to render one defenseless by paralyzing sensible thought!

It can only conquer where resistance dares not oppose its ‘catching force’!

But if one can encounter it with an alert mind, and use the weapon of consistent thinking as a defense, the catchword is quickly deprived of its power and like a whimsical changeling it collapses in on itself…

The effect it seeks turns out to be an empty delusion, – and the real threat was simply a willingness to pursue that delusion…

It is not possible to number all those who are compelled to follow loyally this delusion in its many different forms because they neglected to defend themselves when a catchword tried to take them unawares! –

Men and women, wise and ignorant, old and young, fools and the highly intelligent are to be found in this endless procession of those fooled by the delusion of the catchword, and the procession is continually added to by a new influx because very few dare think freely when the right catchword assaults them skillfully…

The danger to all human life, caused by this willingness to follow when a catchword invades, cannot be overestimated!

Very often it is impossible to repair the harm done to those large and small associations which the human community has created!

And even in the very smallest of those associations – the bond between two people in marriage – the catchword wreaks its havoc often enough. – –

The smallest fellow brings into the family, by courtesy of one’s school mates, one’s own catchword which one does not yet understand, – children and parents are led astray and turn into fighting parties, each one following a different catchword.

Most disconcerting, however, is the danger which exists when the whole of public life allows itself to be passively led by a catchword! –

The catchword slips through all cracks into every house and prevents watchful defense from being prepared in resistance.

Whole nations can helplessly fall prey to this craze for catchwords, to the triumph of those who did not allow their thoughts to become defiled and spared no effort, no mental strain, to become masters in hurling catchwords…

What use is it then to those badly damaged when eventually they try to rise up against their servitude?!

For too long they had made use of catchwords themselves to lead others by the nose until they found their betters, even more capable of hurling catchwords…

Only the conscious, strictest rejection of the illusory world of catchwords can bring salvation here! – –

Truly, it is about time!

For too long one has pursued the specter of freedom, – for too long one has been captivated by it and sought to delude others with many catchwords to gain a following.

Now one must finally recognize that this craze for catchwords can never lead to true freedom.

One is still so tied to catchword wisdom that one instinctively cannot help, even in order to resist other catchword delusions, falling prey again to catchwords one had once coined for hurling at others…

It is an overconfident sense of superiority which naively thinks that one’s opponent would ‘not notice’ if one countered the opponent’s catchword with one’s own, because one does not know how else the attack could be resisted.

Those who became masters in the fight with catchwords because they sought this mastery – recognize most precisely that they only meet with catchwords less catching than their own…

Thus they are sure of their victory in advance, – unless their opponents finally decide to renounce the weapon they only half master – not wanting to overburden their conscience for the sake of the impact of their catchword. – –

Those wishing to master the catchword must be without conscience; for whoever still has a conscience is incapable of bearing the burden which is the price of becoming victorious only in the battle of catchwords! –

Those who have acknowledged that the catchword can never lead to freedom can only be helped today if they consistently avoid the catchword!

Other weapons must safeguard the effectiveness of their rejection!

Their words must henceforth be properly ‘weighed’, and may only seek to influence through truth!

Yet not every truth is effective in bringing about this rejection, for not every truth can be recognized immediately by the unpracticed eye. –

Only where truth can be immediately felt can it really oppose the madness catchwords seek to spread!

One who has truly finally made up one’s mind to recognize that a wasteland spreads out behind every craze for catchwords, – one who recognizes the raging of the specter of freedom in one of its most dreadful forms, – that one will unceasingly be able to make the same efforts and the same exertions as those who sharpen their catchwords to the keenest acuity, in order to find the proper form of truth. – –

One’s words must not just lead to one’s own intoxication, – must not be a cheap confirmation of one’s own opinion!

One must never forget that one is still speaking to ‘enemies’ who will only become one’s friends through recognition!

One will have to avoid going on the offensive, and may only act defensively – by using means one’s opponent must respect even if remaining an opponent. –

One cannot expect those who feel comfortable in the delusion of catchwords to be immediately won back to reality!

Like a doctor seeking to heal the mentally deranged brain of a lunatic is firstly compelled to adapt to the madness of the patient if one who may still be healed is to return to reality, – so too, everyone who seeks to wrest one’s neighbor’s soul from the madness of catchwords will have to consider that the deluded person must abandon what one still sees as ‘truth’ if one is to return to oneself! – –

Still the poor wretch, trapped by the suggestive power of the catchword, is incapable of freeing oneself from the conceptual chains which bind him tightly!

Still such a one dares not rely on one’s own capacity for recognition!

The catchword holds one tightly in its grip; even if one tries to free oneself, one lacks the courage to follow freedom when it deviates too far from the beloved catchword. – –

You can no longer save the deluded wretch other than by looking upon one’s folly kindly, and only if you show acceptance of such a one will one finally arouse the strength within oneself which will bring the realization that, where one thought one was freely pursuing well-founded knowledge, one has been led a merry dance by a catchword.

This ends Part 8 of 12 — “The Craze for Catchwords”

Part 8 — Bô Yin Râ writes, “There is little that has caused as much harm in human communal life as the ‘catchword’: – this monstrosity which is the birth of lazy thinking and the will to persuade!” Nothing can be more obvious than the immense harm the use and abuse of catchwords causes in the domains of politics, advertising, journalism, broadcasting, education, and personal relationships. Entire nations are in the grip of catchwords. Look at the catchwords people throw at each other in conflict situations, leading to wars, revolutions, crimes against humanity, and the destruction of marriages and other relationships. People who rely on catchwords to persuade or deceive show an incredible arrogance and lack of respect for the freedom and intelligence of humanity.

Part 1 of 12: “Mirage”

Part 2 of 12: “Necessity”

Part 3 of 12: “Communality”

Part 4 of 12: “Authority”

Part 5 of 12: “The Urge to Associate”

Part 6 of 12: “The Failed Economy”

Part 7 of 12: "Competition"

“The Specter of Freedom” is Book 13 of the Hortus Conclusus: the standard-translation© of the Hortus Conclusus (The Enclosed Garden), encompassing the spiritual teachings in thirty-two books by Bô Yin Râ. (Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken 1876-1943.)

All rights, copyrights included, reserved by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014. Posthumus Projects Amsterdam is responsible for this standard-translation©. Posthumus Projects Amsterdam has provided general permission for reprinting and transmission of its publications with attribution. Edited for Three Sages.