Then in a momentary pause in the argument, the stifled cry of a woman
was heard--the voice of the Mother. The crowd turned impatient,
reproachful glances upon Mary, who had been unable to restrain her
emotion. But the boy, looking sadly but affectionately at his lost
parents, gave her a reassuring glance, which at the same time bade her
remain still until he had finished his discourse. And the parents
obeyed the newly awakened will of their child.

The teaching ended, the boy stepped from his position with the air of
one of the Elders, and rejoined his parents, who passed as rapidly as
possible from the wondering crowd. Then his mother reproached him,
telling him of their distress and wearisome search. The boy listened
calmly and patiently until she had finished. Then he asked, with his
newly acquired air of authority, "Why sought ye me?" And when they
answered him in the customary manner of parents, the boy took on still
a greater air of authority, and in tones that though kindly, were full
of power, he replied, "Knew ye not, that I must be in my Father's
House? I must be about the things of my Father." And the parents,
feeling themselves in the presence of the Mystery that had ever been
about the child, followed Him silently from the Temple grounds.

And here closes the New Testament story of the boy Jesus at the age of
thirteen, which story is not resumed until His appearance at the place
of the preaching of John the Baptist, _over seventeen years later_,
when the boy had reached the age of a man of thirty years. When and
how did he spend those seventeen years? The New Testament is totally
silent on this score. Can anyone who has read the above imagine that
Jesus spent these years as a growing youth and young man, working at
His father's carpenter bench in the village of Nazareth? Would not the
Master, having found his strength and power, have insisted upon
developing the same? Could the Divine Genius once self-recognized be
content to be obscured amid material pursuits? The New Testament is
silent, but the Occult Traditions and Mystic Legends tell us the story
of the missing seventeen years, and these we shall now give to you.

* * * * *

The legends and traditions of the mystic and occult organizations and
brotherhoods tell us that after the occurrence of Jesus and the Elders
in the Temple, and his recovery by his parents, the latter were
approached by members of the secret org