I came across some interesting stuff in The Hidden Church that may shed light on the "M" question. First, three paragraphs from "Book X, lll The Catholic Secret of the Literature." Waite rambles, but I've included all three paragraphs to give context. I also translated the Latin phrases as best I could, some may not 100%. The main points I wanted to share are in bold. While not discounting the roles of Christian, Kabalistic, and Masonic Graal literature, Waite points to Alchemy as the purest expression of the Secret Tradition:
"But if there were custodians of a Secret Tradition at any time during the Christian centuries there arises the inevitable question: Who were these mysterious Wardens and also where were they? Can we learn anything about them? What was this strange power or influence working within the Church? Well, in the first place, it was not a power at all in any acting, governing, or intervening sense. When I speak about the region of a higher consciousness behind the manifest mind of the Catholic Church, it is equivalent to saying that in the uttermost degrees of sanctity, the
consensus omnium sanctor um (agreement of all the saints) does by a certain participation become the
sensus Spiritus Sancti (opinion of the Holy Spirit?). It is, again, as if within the Church Militant there had been always a little body which had pursued a peculiar path and had travelled a great distance, making no obvious sign. We are faced, however, by the apparent problem of two schools which seem to bear testimony in conflict, and there is the witnes s to both in the Graal literature. The first is that of spiritual alchemy, which knows not the voice of faltering concerning the
terra viventium (natural world) and the
Bona Domini (Supreme Deity) therein. Its correspondence in the Graal literature is the grace and secret knowledge behind the Eucharist, when the sensible veils of bread and wine and the ultra-sensible veils of thaumaturgic transubstantiation have utterly dissolved, and God is revealed in Christ. The second is the testimony of Kabalism and Masonry to the glory departed from the Sanctuary, and hereof the Graal correspondence is the dispartition of the Hallows, the removal of the Sacred Vessel and the voiding of the Holy House. Looking, it will be said, on either side; on the experiment of alchemy, than which nothing seems lost more obviously at this late day; on the Quest of the Graal, over which the chivalry of Logres--except for twelve knights--broke and went to pieces utterly; on the theosophy of Israel, all dead and all forgotten; on the sad confession--
ab origine symboli (beginning with the first symbols)--of loss and dereliction in Masonry; how is there any choice to be taken between either school? If "green's forsaken and yellow's forsworn," in virtue of what melancholy persuasion can we exercise a preference among them? Surely beneath the title of this book there should be written the word
Ichabod, 'the glory has departed.' On the contrary I have written:
Vel sanctum invenit, vel sanctum tacit (It either finds him holy or makes him holy), for the implicits of the Graal literature are the shadowed secrets of a Holy School, or rather their inexpress formulation. I confess that in either school it may seem difficult on the surface to suppose another construction than that of a treasure which there was but a treasure which is now withdrawn. And, as if to accentuate the position, I have said on my own part that the official sanctuary has closed down on its higher consciousness. But in so recording I have testified in the same terms that everything remains. The house is not less mine because I have locked its doors on the outer side; the ancestral heirlooms are still in my keeping, though I have not opened the secret chambers for so many moons or years that I have forgotten the fact of the keys still hanging, with many others, from my girdle. The Church, in like manner, is still the House of Souls; the Castle behind which there is the Earthly Paradise and Eden; the Temple with a Sanctuary on the other side of which there is the Ark of the New Covenant--the Hidden Altar of Repose, wherein is the Sacred Vessel. It is obvious therefore that no other House of God is possible in this age, and that if I or another were to institute a Church of the Holy Graal, dedicated to the Quest of the Sacred Vessel, and in hope of the grace thereof, I should have my pains for my recompense and I should communicate nothing therein. Our part is therefore one of watching and prayer until such time as the Church herself unfolds from within and all the doors are opened.
In harmony herewith, the characteristic of the Graal literature is its great ostensible orthodoxy, and t hat which is ostensible I regard also as implied and involved within. Here and there we discern a dubious hint which might signify a subdued hostility towards Rome; but its sacraments are still the sacraments; its doctrines are true doctrines, and its practices are the code of spiritual life. The metrical romance of De Borron is a Catholic poem, and if the
Early Merlin and the
Didot Perceval are scarcely religious works, there is no tincture of dissent from either institution or dogma; there are only the Secret Words and what is signified therein. The
Book of the Holy Graal is a religious romance, and its one questionable element is the meaning of the Super-Apostolical Succession. The zeal of the Graal has eaten up the later
Merlin in both the texts thereof. The
Longer Prose Perceval is the Church of chivalry spiritualised. The
Romance of Lancelot is the ideal spirit in the exile of a morganatic marriage, but still remembering Zion. The
Quest of Galahad is of him who came forth from Jerusalem and returned thereto; he was born in the place of the Great Mystery, but it was necessary that he should be put outside the gates thereof and should win his way back; he is the only seeker who belonged to the House from his beginning.
There is another point which is not of less importance, and I hope that this also will be seen to follow with clearness from what has been said previously. The rumours and implicits of the Graal literature being in no sense the voice of any Christian conclave speaking on its own authority from the hidden places; and Kabalism--though it bears the same testimony--being a confession of insufficiency on the part of a cognate but non-Christian school, and therefore only an accessory deponent; it should be understood further that the voice of Masonry is also not the authoritative voice of such a conclave; it is the testimony of those who knew, who derived their symbolism from the old mysteries of spiritual rebirth, and, for the rest, on their own warrants made an experiment on the mind of their age.
The one voice which we can and must recognise as the most approximate echo or replica of the Unknown Voice is that of alchemy--which only adored and exemplified in respect of Church doctrine. It is understood that I do not put forward the literature of spiritual alchemy as the
corpus doctrinale (body of doctrine) of those who in Christian times were the Wardens of the Secret Tradition. Masonry, Kabalism, the root-matter of a few Graal books are all in their special manner and under their particular reserves the independent channels of the doctrine.
Deeply imbedded in the higher side of the Hermetic works I believe that we get nearest to the Secret Tradition."
That said, some passages toward the end of "Book lX, lll The Latin Literature of Alchemy and the Hermetic Secret in the Light of the Eucharistic Mystery" are of interest (especially the first one):
"The alchemical maxim which might be inscribed on the gate of the
palais espiriteus (?) or any Castle of the Graal should be--
'Est in Mercurio quicquid quærunt sapientes' (What wise men seek in Mercury is found).
The Eucharistic maxim which might be written over the laboratory of the alchemist, in addition to
Laborare est orare (Work is to pray), is--
'Et antiquum documentum novo cedat ritui; Præstet fides supplementum sensuum defectui' (And let the old practice give way to the new rite; Let faith provide a supplement for the failure of the senses).
The maxim which might be written over the temples of the official churches is
'Corporis Mysterium'--that the mystery of the body might lead them more fully into the higher mystery of the soul.
And in fine the maxim which might and would be inscribed over the one Temple of the truly Catholic Religion when the faiths of this western world have been united in the higher consciousness--that is assuredly
'Mysterium Fidei'--the mystery which endures for ever and for ever passes into experience."
Given Waite's position concerning Alchemy, might "M" stand for Mercurio?
