Machell's Painting: The Four Golden Steps

Reginald Willoughby Machell · Higher Ethics and Devotion Series · 5 pages

Reginald Willoughby Machell's painting The Path, first published in The Path in 1895 and reproduced in Blavatsky Collected Writings XII opposite page 354. Five pages: the painting itself, three epigraphs, and the artist's own description of what he had painted. Machell lived 1854–1927.

The three lines at the head state the doctrine the picture illustrates — that Arhats recognise no deity apart from man, that the path to Arhatship must be trodden to be known, and that it is much easier for the poor and the single-hearted. Machell then describes his own composition. The Path is the way by which the human soul must pass in its evolution to full spiritual self-consciousness, and the supreme condition is suggested by the great figure whose head, in the upper triangle, is lost in the glory of the Sun above, and whose feet stand in the lower triangle in the waters of Space — spirit and matter respectively. The figure's wings fill the middle region, representing the pulsation of cosmic life, and within an octagon are displayed the planes of consciousness through which humanity must rise. At the top is a winged Isis, the Mother or Oversoul, whose wings veil the face of the Supreme from those below; a dimly seen circle of celestial figures hails the triumph of a new initiate who has reached the heart of the Supreme, and who then looks back with compassion on those still wandering below and turns to go down again to help them. Beneath him is a red ring of guardians who strike down whoever lacks the password, symbolised by a white flame.

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