The Idyll of the White Lotus

Mabel Collins · Black versus White Magic Series · 71 pages

The longest piece of narrative in the section: Mabel Collins's novel of 1884, told by a boy taken into the priesthood of an ancient Egyptian temple and set down as the record of what he found there. The priests have long since abandoned the wisdom they still profess, and use the shrine for power over the people; the boy's gift of vision makes him useful to them, and dangerous. Two books, twenty-one chapters, and a plot that moves.

It is an allegory throughout, and the edition is arranged so that the allegory can be followed. The preface and prologue come first, then the novel, and at the end T. Subba Row's commentary on the inner meaning of the trials and the triumph of the neophyte — which the compiler's note advises reading first. That is sound advice for a student and bad advice for a reader coming to it as a story, so choose according to why you are opening it. Written under the same conditions as Light on the Path, it is the most accessible statement of the doctrine of the three teachers that Collins ever produced.

Read the full text (PDF, 1.2 MB, 71 pages)