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THE MYSTERY LANGUAGE
ent sense. The word "mystery" is a very good example of the way in which an actual can disappear in a fictitious origin. It is customary to treat this word as a derivative from the Greek muo, "to keep silence." A better derivation than this, however, is traceable. In the Hebrew the root s't'r means "to veil," "to conceal." From this root is formed m's't'r, "a lurking place," and m's't'r'e, a thing done in secret:" when examined from this point of view, it seems difficult to believe that the Hebrew was not the original source of the word.
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The origin of the word being thus reasonably accounted for, the way in which the idea intended to be conveyed under the term "mystery" has been changed and completely subverted in its passage deserves through time careful attention. When kosmologically used it applies to the working of the internal or veiled essences, which act in secret or mysteriously. In consequence of this and with reference to the veiled essences which underly its operations manifested nature-which is the veil behind which the internal essences work-was said not to exist per se, or of itself and on its Own account. Hence it came to be regarded, by those who sought to look behind the veil, as illusory in or through the workings to the worker, and of itself. From this it it was but a step to hold that nature is an illusion. This step was unfortunately traversed; and then its traversers, viewing nature under
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