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"These portals," says the Book of the Golden Precepts, "lead the aspirant across the waters on the other shore. Each Portal hath a golden key that openeth its gate; these keys are:
1. The key of Charity and Love immortal.
2. The key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances cause and effect and leaves no further room for Karmic action.
3. Patience sweet, that naught can ruffle.
4. Indifference to pleasure and pain, illusion conquered, Truth alone perceived.
5. Dauntless energy that fights its way to supernal Truth out of the mire of lies terrestrial.
6. The Golden Gate which once opened leads toward the realms of the Eternal and its ceaseless contemplation.
7. The key which makes of man a god, creating of him a Bodhisattva.
Since the founding of initiatory Schools in ancient Lemuria after the link of mind was bestowed upon the pioneers of the human race. (the masses did not receive the mental link until the Atlantean Epoch), there have been two great classes or divisions in the Schools, corresponding, after a fashion, let us say, to preparatory school and college; or to college and post-graduate degrees.
What we call these Schools matters little; but following the Greek custom, esotericists generally designate the lower school the Lesser Mysteries and the higher, the Greater Mysteries. There are nine Degrees or grades in the Lesser Mysteries, called Initiations — or, if the metaphysical terms are preferred, expansions of consciousness — and four in the Greater Mysteries. There are seven schools which teach or confer the nine Lesser Mysteries, and five which teach or confer the four Greater Mysteries. These schools are not physical but etheric structures such as the New Jerusalem. described by St. John; and they are not to be confused with mere secret societies. Truly, they all have an outlet on the material plane; if they had not, they would not reach our material-minded humanity and so would have no pupils to instruct in their Mysteries! These Mystery Schools, with their exoteric representatives, change from age to age in order to meet the requirements of the people among whom their work is to be done.
All of these Mystery Orders are "formed on cosmic lines"; thus the thirteen Initiations correspond to the twelve constellations and their spiritual head of the zodiac; also their planetary rulers, some of which remain to be discovered. It is interesting to speculate that in the Greek Zodiac the Pleiades were considered to be a thirteenth constellation until a late date. The great Christian type of the Mystery School is that of the Christ with His twelve Apostles. The Rosicrucian Order is also composed of twelve Brothers and an esoteric thirteenth, the revered Founder, symbolically designated Christian Rose Cross after the work he came to do for the world.
The seven Schools of the Lesser Mysteries and the five Schools of the Greater Mysteries are grouped under a central Intelligence, called (again in the Greek fashion) the Liberator-a title anciently conferred upon Dionysus, but in Christian times related to the Risen Christ (or to the thirteenth Hierophant in a Mystery School). The mystic thirteenth is always the head of an Order; and the twelve heads are in turn grouped about that thirteenth whom Christians call the Christ, although He is known by other names in other lands and among other peoples.
In addition to the sacred numbers twelve and thirteen, we observe the recurrence of seven and five, corresponding to the five planets, Sun, and Moon of the Ptolemaic system. In some Schools the Initiations are arranged differently, so that the illuminative process is covered in seven Degrees instead of nine; but the work done is the same in substance. The generally accepted Temple aspirant is a novice of one of the Lesser Mystery Schools, and of very early Degrees of that School. Few have advanced in spiritual work beyond the first seven of the Temple Rites. The remaining two Degrees (in the ninefold system) rise above the realms of this mortal plane, giving companionship with celestial hosts past discerning or describing by mere mortality.
From all of which is readily understood why the number seven is sacred to occultists. It has been said that 49 whoever passes over these seven steps and degrees comes to such a marvelous place where he sees much mystery and attains the transmutation of all natural things." The seven Schools of the Lesser Mysteries, also the seven Degrees of the sevenfold system, relate biblically to the mystic ladder which Jacob saw in his vision. The whole of the initiatory scheme is symbolized in the winding stairway of Solomon's Temple which led to the inner chamber where a successful candidate was given the "wages of a master."
The five Schools which teach the four Greater Mysteries are almost wholly unknown, even to the esoteric world. Rarely does any soul pass their sacred portals. The Hierophants through whom this sublime work is administered are the fewest and highest of Earth's Initiates, and their pupils are also few.
As a human being possesses an aura which surrounds and interpenetrates his physical body, so also is the Earth planet clothed about with subtle matter. The physical sphere is familiar ground to everyone, but not so the spheres that lie above it. These include the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, and the higher spiritual. In the nine Lesser Mysteries of the Rose Cross (or seven Mysteries of certain other Schools), the candidate ascends successfully through these envelopes of the Earth planet by expansion of consciousness. He also recapitulates, in full consciousness, the entire evolution of the Earth and its humanity, both spiritually and physically. This recapitulation has the effect of awakening in him all the dormant faculties and powers which the race possessed in past Epochs, so making available to him the sum total of the race experience. What this means is seen in the marvelous instincts of animals and plants, instincts which man has lost since he acquired reason but which in an Initiate become a consciously usable addition to intellect. Besides his humanity he possesses a superinstinct, an inexhaustible vitality by which his body renews itself just as certain plants grow new parts to replace old ones. Thus his body becomes as indestructible as a diamond or ruby, for he has full control of the chemical forces also. All of this goes into the making of an Adept, an Initiate who has completed all of the nine Lesser Mysteries and the first of the Greater, thereby entering "the heart of the Earth" and meeting the Liberator face to face.
However, an Adept is so rare upon Earth that a layman is not at all, likely to meet one on the physical plane. The layman's interest is therefore centered almost wholly in the lower five of the nine lesser Mysteries. Few laymen take more than one Initiation in any one lifetime. When any candidate passes several Initiations in one incarnation, we may be sure these are chiefly recapitulations of work done in many previous lifetimes.
The fact has been noted in this series that in embryological recapitulation, the fourth month brings a decisive change in fetal development; esoterically, we say that at this time certain inner-world contacts are dissolved. The Ego concentrates definitely earthward and is intent upon building the physical vehicle in which it is to be embodied.
In Initiation, the Fourth Degree is an equally definite step heavenward; certain physical contacts are severed, and the inner-world relationship becomes more intimate. Henceforward for the disciple GOD IS ALL AND ALL IS GOD. Though he remains in the exterior world where flesh and blood abide, he is no longer of it.
The fourth plane of Earth's aura is the mental plane; it is the "intelligence" of the planet or, in metaphysical terms, it is the intelligence of God expressing itself relative to the Earth.
The mental world is the link between spirit and matter. Immediately below the mental plane is the world of desire; above it is the higher mental, or abstract mind, the plane of universal ideas. In this is the world (consciousness) of the germinal idea, without which manifestation could not take place because it is the seedground of cosmos. Hence it marks a crucial point not only in involution down into matter for the race, but in evolution up into spirit for the Initiate. We may note in passing that involution into form has been a mass process throughout; Initiation, however, is an individual process. The Initiate stands alone.
At the fourth Initiation the Ego makes its decision as to whether it will proceed on the White or the Black Path. The strong, fully conscious Ego will not make the wrong decision.
The Fifth Degree, if attained, leads to sainthood. In this majestic Rite the Ego, having chosen unalterably to unite with spirit, is brought face to face with its own true self. In the ecstasy of this high moment the disciple comes to comprehend the true meaning of those words inscribed above the entrance of Grecian Temples: "Man know Thyself."
In the Sixth and Seventh Degrees, the personality is perfected as a channel through which the divine self may pour its powers in creative work; every word and deed is inspired by a wisdom which is ageless. The Initiate bears the aroma of timelessness, for he knows himself to be a part of that which is without beginning and without ending. Thus the personal self is absorbed by the higher, spiritual self and the disciple stands at the threshold of godhood. In the two final Degrees he enters upon the work which makes him a god indeed. The Rosicrucian says that the victorious candidate of the Seventh Rite has blended the Red and White Roses which bloom in his Rose Garden. The Rosarium of medieval alchemists was simply the laboratory (state of consciousness) of the aspirant who was seeking divine consummation.
Upon his head he wears a crown of sparkling jewels set in living gold. The kingly crown of an earthly ruler has its origin in the spiritual crown of ancient Initiate Priest-Kings after the order of Melchizedek. The Pope's triple tiara is another symbolic representation of this spiritually visible crown of the Initiate who has risen through the three planes which lie under the higher mental.
Such also are the king and queen described in the alchemical marriage of C. R. C.
The Grand Master of Rosicrucianism, Christian Rose Cross, designated simply as C. R. C., gave for the edification of all true disciples the formula by which the Magnum Opus, or Great Work, may be accomplished. This he did under the veil of allegory which he terms The Marriage of the King and Queen. (Astrologically, the king is the sign Leo and the queen is Cancer, or Sun and Moon respectively.)
We shall have no difficulty tracing in this mysterious document the main outline of the work of Initiation as we have briefly discussed it heretofore. The mystic wedding garment of the. soul is described in the words, "the fair and glorious Lady whose garments were all of sky color and curiously bespangled with golden stars." This refers to the heavens as the symbol of the Queen, even as sacred art represents Mary in azure robes sprinkled with golden stars in her role of Queen of Heaven. So also was the Goddess Isis represented, and the earlier sky-goddess whose worship was incorporated with hers. He adds that this Lady "mounted upward with the swiftness of an eagle," and the entire bill throbbed for a quarter of an hour afterward with the music of her passing. It was thus she appeared to tender him the invitation to the mystic nuptials.
These symbolic events, C. R. C. tells us, covered a period of seven days — which obviously correspond to seven Degrees. Of these seven, the First, Second, Third, and Fourth are the novitiate Degrees of Preparation. The Fifth and Sixth are Degrees of Illumination. The Seventh is the culmination of the Great Work, the Degree of Attainment.
In the Degrees of Preparation the disciple learns to "live the life." C.R.C., after receiving the summons to the mystic wedding, "examines himself" relative to the problems covered by these lower grades: "my bodily behavior and outward conversation. My brotherly love toward my neighbor. The affection that was bent only to pomp and worldly pride and not to the good of mankind, moreover the flesh sometimes manifested itself. Am I duly purged and cleansed? Am I always contriving how by this art I may in a short time abundantly increase my profit and advantage, rear up stately palaces, make myself an everlasting name in the world, and other carnal designs?"
Observe that practically every temptation which appears on the Way of Attainment is enumerated here.
The physical plane is represented as a deep and dark dungeon "wherein without one glimpse of light . . . all render the afflictions of each other the more grievous. Those being prepared for Initiation "received a little light"; after this light had been projected for a time, ail ancient man and matron (who typify Wisdom) commanded that a "cord be let down for seven times into the dungeon and draw up whomsoever could hang upon it."
Significant is the statement, "Divers because their chains were too heavy and their hands too tender could not keep their hold upon the cord, and many were pulled off by another who could not get himself at it. But they of all who most moved my compassion were those whose weight was so heavy that they tore their very hands from their bodies and yet could not get up." St. Paul instructed his followers to lay aside every weight and to gird themselves as men set to run a race. C. R. C. recounts how, as the cord descended for the sixth time, he was privileged to ascend "uppermost above all the rest."
After passing through the preliminary qualifications of the sixth Rite, each candidate was "given a piece of gold for remembrance" (additional luster of the soul body). Christ Jesus took gold from the flsh's mouth for His Disciples, and for a like reason.
Each was then "sent about his own business" (the business of the Father) ; but "With this annexed intimation, that we to the glory of God should benefit our neighbors and reserve in silence what we have been entrusted with. "
C. R. C. was still troubled about his infirmities, the "sacred wounds" upon his hands and feet. These "wounds" mark the separation of the soul body from the dense physical body. The fifth of the sacred wounds, the one in the side, is formed by the thrust of the Sacred Spear at the time of Initiation, while the Crown of Thorns creates another. St. Paul also declared, "I bear in my body the marks of Christ Jesus. "
At this stage of Illumination C. R. C. received from the Spirit of Wisdom these words: "My son, let not this defect afflict thee! Even in this world and in the state of thy imperfections, to come into so high a light! . . . Keep these wounds for my sake." It is in the Sixth Degree that the personality is kept in almost continuous contact with the god within, the higher nature.
Further preparations are now detailed by C.R.C. "I girded my loins with blood-red ribbon and in my hat I placed four red roses." Here the reference is to the purification and transmutation of the blood and the principal desire center of the body, the liver. The four principal spiritual centers are now active also, and the spiritual Fire Force has ascended the serpentine path to the heart, throat, and head, giving him power over the spirits of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. These are the four basic occult elements of the phenomenal world; learning to "work" them constitutes the initiatory disciplines of the nine Lesser Mysteries. Each Ego is centered primarily in one or another, but must learn the secrets in them all. The four converge in the Seventh Degree. The four Greater Mysteries deal wholly with the spiritual or superphysical aspects of these four elements.
Seeking the right path, C.R.C. is led to it by a white dove, which lie pursues. The dove is a symbol of purity and peace: "Only the pure in heart shall see God." Later, it is often the "Virgin" within himself who guides him to the light. He declares, "I never would have found the way but that She afforded me some light."
Every candidate ultimately arrives at the same destination as C.R.C., the "royal beautiful Portal situated upon a high hill." Identical porters (tylers in Masonry) guard the three entrances (physical, desire, and mental) with their demand for "a token" (visible results of a life lived worthily).
It is the beautiful Virgin who greets the wedding guests and supervises weighing of each one upon golden scales, preparatory to serving the marriage supper. (Astrologically, she is Virgo, or Astrea, Goddess of Justice among the Greeks, who holds the scale of the gods, Libra, in her hands).
C.R.C. "outweighed all the weights." When three men (the threefold lower nature) hung upon the opposite beam, they could not prevail against him. It was then that the Virgin graciously requested the gift of his roses — meaning that the four higher spiritual centers had become the means of perfect rapport between his higher and lower natures; i.e., complete transmutation of his lower self. The delights of spirit outweigh all the allurements of the senses.
On parting from C.R.C., the Virgin spoke these words: "Thou hast received more than the others, therefore (give) a larger return." In other words, "unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required."
The chosen wedding guests were presented by the Virgin to the royal bridal couple as those who had come at "peril of body and life." C.R.C. bears witness that the raiment of the bridal pair was invested with such a wonderful shining that he could hardly bear to look upon them.
Certain sacred ceremonies were then performed in the House of the Sun, after which the guests drank together the Draught of Silence as black coffins were brought in to the accompaniment of the following chant: "This is the death by which many shall be made alive." Initiation always includes the Rite of Death, wherein the personal and the finite are laid away as the glories of the illimitable arid the infinite are assured. Each Degree reenacts (recapitulates) these symbolic verities on ever-ascending levels of life, light, and love.
The alchemical processes of the Marriage Rites are omitted here because they are given at length in the section on Alchemical Processes.
At the final Degree on the seventh day, the new Knights of the Golden Stone were pledged to observe the following laws: "To abominate all uncleanness. That they should be ready to assist all worthy persons who had need of them. That the honor conferred upon them should not be applied to works of worldly pride and ambition. That they should ascribe their exalted Order only to God and to His handmaid, Nature."
They were then installed in the culminating Seventh Degree as Knights who "possessed power over ignorance, poverty, and sickness and were able to handle them at their pleasure. "
The third chapter of John's Gospel contains one of the most profound teachings given to the world in connection with new birth through regeneration. Paracelsus phrases it epigrammatically thus: "We dissolve the living body with Apollo's Fire, so that what was before a stone may become spirit. From the innermost parts of this we extract Gold."
Physiologically interpreted, the life of the Christ details the lifting of the "liquid gold" by means of the awakened Spirit Fire from its slumbering place in the sacral plexus. Gold is soluble in mercury, and it is the mercurial principle which is most important in this alchemical work, the Fire in the sacral center supplying the heat by which the gold is retrieved from the mercury. In certain mining operations where gold is found in minute quantities, mercury is used to "pick up" the gold in the dross. The gold-bearing mercury is then heated, which causes the mercury to evaporate and leave the gold free. Familiar to all are the expansive properties of mercury in thermometers, where heat causes the metal to rise in a tube marked off to indicate temperatures. A phase of the alchemical allegory thus becomes clear, that mercury "picks up" the gold in the dross; then as the "mercury" rises from the action of the spinal Spirit Fire, the pure "gold" is deposited (precipitated) in the various centers or receptacles, particularly in those of the bead. The sacred Fire that burns beneath the crucible is the Christ Love Power in man, which asserts that, "And I, if I be lifted up ... will draw all men unto me." Or according to Paul, he that ascends is the same as he that descends.
The pure and holy teaching of regeneration is centered in this alchemical process. Heaven and Earth meet in the alchemist's laboratory. Said Hermes: "Separate the subtile from the gross. Draw the internal fire from the lowest depth of Saturn (sacral plexus) and lift it to the house of Aries (head). Let Mercury (reason) be the interval and your signal the Doves of Diana (Venus or Love). "
While the pure gold is being extracted, with the aid of mercury (intelligence, meditation) from gross matter, the sacred Fire must be continually fed until it, too, rises upward to the head, where it vivifies the spiritual centers latent there. Man himself is thus the work and the laboratory." All the earth contains not so great a mystery and excellence as man reformed by God into His image and likeness."
Thomas Vaughn, the famous Rosicrucian alchemist, writes: "The great secret Fire is the center of all things visible and invisible. It lives in water, air, and earth, and in minerals, herbs, and beasts, in men, stars, and angels — and originally in God Himself." This Fire is in fact that which Moses saw in the Burning Bush, and which still burns in all the kingdoms of Nature.
Every open-minded student of alchemy comes to the conclusion that Christ Jesus is the true Philosopher's Stone; and if the alchemist seeks to "make" that Stone, it means only that he is creating within himself "this mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus, " as Paul instructed; for only as we repeat in our lives the way which Christ demonstrated for us can we come to Illumination and, ultimately, to Liberation. Through that mind (Mercury) which was in Christ Jesus, the transmutation of matter into spirit is brought about, and this is the meaning of new birth through regeneration as Rosicrucians comprehend it.
Each organ in the body corresponds to some soul power or mental faculty, and the awakening and lifting of the Christ Fire (the Brazen Serpent) impinges upon the nerve centers ruling these organs and effects their transmutation; and through them that of the entire body organism. The steps in the life of Christ Jesus may be correlated to these alchemical stages.
The birth of the Master Jesus took place in a manger located in a stable under an inn where, the Bible expressly states, there was no room for his parents. The manger where beasts feed has reference to the desire body, the forces of which have for so long gone to feed the selfish desires of humankind, lusts of one kind or another. This lowly place must first be cleansed and illumined by the Christ Fire. It has most aptly been termed "the Alchemist's kitchen."
The Rite of Dedication follows shortly after the birth. Alchemically, the Christ Fire, newly sprung to life in the "kitchen," ascends to the second great nerve plexus and radiates its golden stream of light through the nerves. The spleen is also vivified. This experience is accompanied by ability to retain consciousness unbroken from the night to the day, from sleep to waking. As a consequence of its conscious astral journeying, the aspirant's threefold body is dedicated upon the shrine of spirit.
The spinal cord, which has been called by modern mystics the laboratory of the alchemist, plays a most vital part in the process of regeneration. It connects the generative organs in the lower part of the body with the head, locale of the regenerative organs. The spinal cord extends from the coccyx to the upper border of the atlas just below the cerebellum, passing through the medulla and opening into the fourth ventricle of the brain. The portion of the cord below the second lumbar vertebrae tapers to a point, the fibrum terminale. Recent microscopic investigations have shown that this fibrum terminale, formerly thought to be merely a fibrous cord, is filled with highly sensitive grey nerve matter.
The minute canal that runs through the center of the cord is the channel for the ascent oqf the spinal spirit Fire, or Kundalini, termed symbolically the Great Mother in man. This is the Great Mother who commanded that the cord be lowered seven times so that all who were imprisoned in the dark abyss might have an opportunity to ascend into the upper light, as recounted in the mystic marriage of C.R.C. It has been said that so long as Kundalini sleeps, man's interest is focused in the outer objective world, but as soon as She is awakened his consciousness reaches out toward the ecstasy of the subjective Realities. The Fire, when in ascent, glows along the spinal cord like a chain of shimmering light. (Here is the origin of the rosary for those who can understand it).
With the Nativity comes the beginning of the awakening of Kundalini, and the first faint glow of the light within the sacral center; at the Dedication, the light has already begun to rise in the spinal canal.
The flight of Mary and Joseph with the Child Jesus into Egypt was necessitated by Herod's persecution of the innocents. The persecution and flight symbolize the recrudescence of dormant failings. To quote H. P. Blavatsky: "As soon as one pledges himself a probationer, certain occult effects ensue. The first is throwing outward of everything latent in the nature, faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent. If a man is vain or sensual or ambitious, whether by avatism or by karmic heirloom, all those vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before until he kills all such tendencies in himself."
All negative tendencies of the desire body act as deterrents upon the ascending spinal Spirit Fire, and so hold the aspirant for a longer time within the material darkness of Egypt.
Later, as the creative force is still further augmented by spiritual living, the Christ Child within it waxes in stature and in wisdom. When the creative Fire touches upon the powerful Sun center of the sympathetic nervous system, the solar plexus, the doors of the psychic realms begin to open. The neophyte speaks a new language of joy and delight as visions of inner worlds are revealed to him. The illumined Christ Child begins to teach in the brain Temple, bewildering and confusing the material reason which for so long has been focused in outer or concrete knowing.
In the Hermetic Baptismal Rite the centers of the two great nervous systems, the sympathetic (Water, feminine) and the cerebro-spinal (Fire, masculine), are more definitely linked together by certain psychic energies. This union of Fire and Water in the baptism (not Water alone) is shown in the secret legend about balls of fire which floated on the waters of the Jordan at the time of Jesus' baptism.
Infant humanity was negatively clairvoyant; that is, it possessed the power of extended vision but not under control of its will. This vision was in the nature of the dream-life of children — he waking dream of an imaginative child, which is often so astonishingly vivid and realistic. At that early time the pineal and pituitary glands in the head were connected with the involuntary or sympathetic system, and the psychic vortices (centers) spun counterclockwise, following negatively the motion of the Earth's axis — from right to left within the aura.
The next work of evolving man was formation of the cerebro-spinal system and brain. The modern aspirant is learning to awaken and develop psychic centers belonging to this system and to rotate them clockwise — from left to right within his own aura.
There are many of these centers awaiting vivification. For this reason the spinal cord has been called the "relaxed string whose pitch must be raised by the exaltation of the element of Fire."
In the Rite of the Baptism positive centers of the body are awakened; the bridge between the Pineal and the Pituitary is formed; the bird of spirit is freed from its prison cage of the body; the conscious Invisible Helper is born. The Dove of the baptism represents completion of this phase of the Great Work.
The Christ Fire in the baptism ascends to the heart center. In the words of the Ancient Wisdom, "This attainment and our material nature comes near to non-material essences."
The early Church called the Degree of Baptism "The Rite of Bringing to Sight"-namely the development of clairvoyance. It was directly connected with the heart center. A statement of Paracelsus is signiflcant in this relation: "The heart is man and the heart is an entire star out of which he is built up. If, therefore, a man is perfect in his heart nothing in the whole light of nature can be hidden from him."
The high Rite of the Baptism is necessarily followed by the temptation in the wilderness, for with the acquisition of supernormal powers comes the opportunity of using them for personal aggrandizement, for executing revenge upon enemies, and so forth. When a neophyte is in a wilderness of doubt or possible despair, and is suffering because of many lacks, the Prince of this world appears to tempt him according to his necessities. Such temptations are threefold, pertaining to the physical, emotional, and mental levels. At this point many seekers turn back, to walk with Christ,no more.
Physiologically, 'the three temptations correlate to the three power centers of the Spinal Fire: (1) The sacral plexus, home of the creative Fire, is ruled by Sagittarius. The first temptation is the suggestion to misuse this divine Fire for personal necessities on the sense plane. (2) The heart center is under Leo. The second temptation is the desire to misuse the magnetic life impulses. (3) The third or head center is under Aries; its corresponding temptation is personal ambition and misuse of awakening spiritual powers to dominate others.
There are certain minute nerves in the center near the end of the spine which, as the Fire is drawn upward, become vitalized to act as channels for the spiritual (not material) rays of the Sun. Biblically, this is signified in the knot of small cords with which Christ Jesus is portrayed as driving the money lenders from the Temple saying, "This is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves."
Immediately following a victory over temptation in the wilderness comes the transfiguration. Fra Angelico portrays the transfigured Christ as standing upon a transparent rock, apparently suggesting that the light of His shining has rendered the rock transparent. This concept is especially interesting to a spiritual alchemist. In the Rite of the Transfiguration, the Hermetic or Royal Arch reaches the climax of its perfective work. The human body temple becomes a Philosopher's Stone, for the inner Christ Fire so illumines the body that its wondrous shining can be hid no longer, but rays out as a resplendent light that even mortal senses cannot fail to see.
Again, there is a correlative activity in the spinal cord, that laboratory of the alchemist. The cord is divisible into three parts, ruled by Mars, Mercury, and the Moon. The Spirit Fire is ruled by Neptune; as it ascends toward the head it vivifies the various sections of the cord. We have previously shown how the two currents, masculine and feminine, ascending through the cord, meet in the heart at the time of baptism. In the transfiguration they complete a circuit and are united in the head. There the "white gluten" of the Eagle and the "red blood" of the Lion are blended in the glorious and priceless gold into which all base metals have been transformed. The Fire now touches the throat center, the link between the mind and the personality, and a flower blooms there. This flower confers the art of healing and the power of speaking the creative Word.
One who is thus transfigured may continue to serve in the world but, definitely, he is not of the world. The Fire continues to sweep upward in greater and greater volume, revealing successive worlds or planes in which mighty Angels have their being. Compelled by this new consciousness to live contrary to the accepted code of the material minded, he is frequently at variance with his people and his time. He may be persecuted by enemies and abandoned by loved ones who, like the Disciples of the Master, are asleep to eternal values.
Thus he enters Gethsemane, the Garden of Sorrow, to suffer alone. The divine agony of the Christ lay in the fact that, as a glorious Archangel, He found the slow vibrations of a mortal body cramping and painful. The ordinary individual's Rite of Gethsemane consists of suffering incident to lifting his vibrations to the level of the spiritual planes. At each stage many disciples fall by the wayside. Especially is this true of Gethsemane, where the last vestige of the personal life must be laid aside. Here we meet the Dweller on the Threshold and, if we can, vanquish him. "Not my will, but thine (Good), be done" is the keynote of this achievement, for the Dweller is formed around a core of self-will which has attracted evil into the Ego's experience life after life. The Dweller cannot be vanquished unless self-will is first vanquished.
After His agony in the Garden, the Christ was placed upon a raised platform, and a purple mantle cast about him. This platform typifies the head where the creative Fire passes into the sixth center, the pituitary gland. The purple mantle is the auric radiance of this spiritual flower-center in the head. Its light has been compared to the "loveliness of Mary in a sea of nectar." (Mari is bitterness.) Purple is the color of victory through pain. The Bible notes that this was about the sixth hour, the time for the passing over. Here Christ Jesus received the Crown of Thorns, typifying the functioning of the cranial nerves as transmitters of spiritual impulses.
In Hebrew crucifixion means to augment a thousand-fold; and Golgotha means the place of the skull. The Great Work which began in the manger of low desire where the beasts fed is now being completed on the Mountain. As the seventh Rose or Lotus blossoms in the head, a bridge of glorious light crosses the third ventricle to connect the pineal and pituitary glands — typified in the union of the Sun and Moon-which is the consummation of the great alchemical marriage. The light of the seventh center has been compared with that of the Sun wedded to the Moon in a glory that never yet lay upon land or sea.
The keywords of the Crucifixion Rite are: "My God, how thou hast glorified me. " The last two Initiations, the Resurrection and Ascension, belong largely to the activities of the superhuman planes of spiritual consciousness.
True spiritual alchemists have all declared that the Philosopher's Stone is perfected man; and it has been rightly added by one understanding the mysteries of transmutation that the work of the alchemist is "one of contemplation and not a work of the hands." Or, as the Hermetic sages put it, "O man, know thyself; for within thee are hidden treasures."
The Great Work of alchemy has always been the transmutation of base metals into gold. In this process gold represents spirit; salt, the physical body; the all-important mercury is the mind; luna or silver, the emotional nature; and Saturn, the working of karmic or retributive Law by spirit. To understand this better, be it added that man in a state of humility must especially be associated with lead, the soft dark metal of Saturn.
In the light of the above we may perhaps understand more clearly the following alchemical instructions: "My child, know that the stone called the Philosopher's Stone comes from Saturn, for Saturn is easily dissolved and congealed, that its Mercury may be more easily extracted from it. Luna may easily be made of Saturn in a short time, and in a little time longer Sol may also be made.
Mercury is referred to as the most difficult of all metals used in the Great Work. Mercury, the elusive and intractable, well describes the mind, the most important and, at the same time, the most difficult to control of all the tools of the Spirit. If and when the control of mercury is accomplished, the remainder of the work "can properly be called mere child's play," according to the Hermetics. Again we go back to the teachings of the great biblical Initiate, St. Paul, who summed up this whole process of the Royal Arch when he said, "Be ye transformed by the renewing (spiritualizing) of your mind."
Purification of the emotional nature, whereby it becomes the living water that Christ admonished His followers to drink, figures as the "living silver of the alchemists." "This is the aqua vitae or water of life, which changes the body into white color." This purified life essence, lifted up and united with the spiritualized currents of the head, is the royal fountain wherein the king and queen (the Sun and Moon) are immersed, and in which they find the new life that raises them from the dead, as described in the Hermetic marriage of C.R.C.
We have traced throughout this series the interplay of the positive and negative (masculine and feminine) currents as they operate in body functioning. A perfectly harmonious relation (equilibrium) between these two forces forms the body of the Initiate, termed symbolically the mystic marriage or the wedding of the Sun and Moon. The result of this divine union is attainment of inner harmony that lifts one above and beyond all limitations of disease, poverty, and even death.
In this alchemical process the gold (spirit) which is God and the base metal which is man are conjoined, and man becomes the "living stone" — the keystone of the arch in Masonic phraseology. This androgyne consciousness is represented by the Hermetic cypher Rebis, meaning the two things. The alchemical Double Mercury bears the same significance.
Albert Pike employs the Rebis cypher to represent the Royal Secret of the Thirty-second Degree of the Scottish Rite, the grand climax of Masonic Initiations. He writes: "For as birth, life, exaltation, suffering in fire, and then death were, as it were, ascribed to the Philosopher's Stone in black and gloomy colors, and finally resurrection and life in red and other beautiful colors, so the terrestrial stone (man's body) may be compared with the celestial stone (the body of Christ)."
The Path of Regeneration or Illumination is founded upon the cosmic pattern of the birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ Jesus. "The making of the Philosopher's Stone is, so to speak, the initiation of Christ."
Spiritual development means the unfolding of divine powers latent within each human being. Man's own three-fold Spirit contains in potentiality all the divine forces which are manifest in the Father-Mother God. The purpose of evolution is that these God-potentialities may be translated into dynamic powers. The reincarnational cycle of every Ego must persist until this work has been accomplished.
The Ego is equipped with certain "tools" with which to work. These are primarily the three bodies, namely, physical, etheric, and desire. Upon these the threefold Spirit operates by means of the mind, refining and beautifying them, setting upon them the stamp of its own unique individuality, and thus "extracting" a certain "essence" from each of them which is indubitably its own. Masonically, this is expressed in the saying that the rough Ashlar has been transmuted into the perfect Cube.
By means of its work upon the threefold body, the Ego extracts the "threefold soul" — which may be simply defined as the ultimate spiritual essence of the Ego's experience in its threefold body. From work in the dense physical body the "conscious soul" is extracted. This means that our work in the material world and in our physical body, is awakening the Creative Will (Divine Spirit) within us. This is our most godlike power. As a result of this work a tiny portion of the actual material substance of the physical body is transmuted into spirit during each lifetime; this we carry with us into the heaven world after death to use as a nucleus for our next physical body. In time the entire body is immortalized. The rule for this work in the body is the Golden Rule, to which an aspirant's every deed must be made to conform.
Simultaneously, the Ego sensitizes its etheric vehicle, "extracting" therefrom the "intellectual soul," which is especially connected with the mystery of the soul body and, in one sense, IS that soul body. This is done by the constant repetition of high spiritual thoughts, and is shown by increased refinement in its daily life. Development of this intellectual soul is shown in highly civilized persons by a keen and cultivated esthetic sense.
The soul body is the apparel of the bridal pair, as described by C.R.C. It is the "seamless robe" of the Master, the "pearl of great price" of Matthew's Gospel, the "ruby" of Solomon, and the Great White Work of the alchemist. It is also the White Rose of the Rosicrucians. Without it new birth through Initiation is impossible of attainment. This is clearly exemplified in the biblical Parable of the Wedding Feast where one not clothed in a wedding garment was cast into darkness and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Work on the physical body correlates with the masculine pole of spirit, Creative Will; work on the etheric, with the feminine Creative Imagination, Love. Work of the third aspect of spirit is with the desire body, and correlates with the masculine and feminine forces in equilibrium.
The work of the Divine Spirit (Creative Will) on the body spiritualizes it; the Life Spirit (Creative Imagination), working in the etheric body, spiritualizes and organizes the etheric senses and opens up contact with fourth dimensional realms. The work of the Human Spirit upon the emotions carries the process further, conferring a power by which the Ego can function in the astral world.
Spiritualization of the mind is both the beginning and the end of the above process. Without some degree of spiritualization of the mind no alchemical work is possible. This, therefore, precedes, but it also follows, for after the three lower vehicles are worked upon and the soul or essence extracted, the mind must be worked upon still further so that the archetypal world can be penetrated and laid open to the experience of the Ego. Then thought-forms are revealed in color and sound (the mental plane being the realm of sound as the astral is the realm of color), and the power of the Word revealed in its full significance. Thus the Initiate possesses a ninefold vehicle for more perfect manifestation of God-given faculties; for the soul is also a kind of body. The formula is: a threefold Spirit, a threefold soul, a threefold body, joined by the link of mind. Wherefore Paul declared, "now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be."
We have emphasized more than once that all true spiritual development must have its foundation in the conservation of the life force which ascends from the "sacred" center at the base of the spine. The limitations of poverty, disease, and death have come upon us by reason of our misuse of this force, symbolically expressed in the Bible as partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. New birth through regeneration can occur only as we conserve the life force and lift it to the head, where it becomes what the Bible refers to as the "tree of life"; and the fruits of this tree are the glittering jewel-like centers previously spoken of.
This conserved life force is the Elixir Vitae of the Alchemists, the Water of Life, and it is no other than that Water which Christ spoke of to the Samaritan woman. Ascetics of the orthodox churches have laid great emphasis upon celibacy and chastity as a means of conserving the life essence; but they are only part of the process. For there is but One life force in all the universe, though it branches out in many channels and centers. The first and earliest out-branching of this force is in the nerve center which governs the organs of generation; here, therefore, must be the flrst overcoming. Even as the lily puts out its blossoms and the lowest blossom falls away first, then, successively, the other blossoms on the stalk until the top-most blossom alone remains, so is there a time when the dead and useless blooms must be plucked away.
The force does not rise from one center to another in completely separate stages. The upward rush covers the entire circuit, but the greatest volume reaches only the most active center of the chain. A small part of the lifted force will always reach the topmost branch of the Tree of Life, but the Water of Life must run upward in a powerful current and not in a mere thread before real unfoldment begins.
Thus, in addition to a life of sexual purity, there must be purity of thought, word, and deed. This precious elixir of life is dissipated in many ways, chief among them being the squandering of the essence in sexual indulgences; but much is also wasted in loss of temper, malicious gossip, and frivolous conversation. Some control must be set upon all the wasteful activities of daily life before the serpent Fire can begin to stir. Sensual indulgence must be restrained before the first blossom can emit its ruby fire; the flower center in the throat cannot unfurl so long as the life force is wasted in idle speaking; and so with the other centers wherein this life force is specialized to their own particular functions.
When the Rite of Initiation is passed, this is the power by which the Initiate propels himself from his body when exchanging the body terrestrial for the body celestial. Therefore, unless it has been conserved and transmuted he can never be worthy of a master's wages or be able "to travel in foreign countries." The importance of this work has long been undervalued and neglected by even the most sincere and devoted of spiritual aspirants; yet this stone which the builders reject must become the head of the corner (the new body built through regeneration).
The gradual uprising of the serpent Fire and the Elixir Vitae is not to be thought of as an isolated process; it is accompanied by-indeed, is caused by the spiritualization of the mind, the purification of desires, discipline of memory, and a benevolent but absolute control of the body, all of which must become responsive to the lightest impact of spirit. This achieved, the conflict no longer rages between the Ego and its personality; there are not "two souls housed within my breast," as Faust lamented, but one only, in undivided reign. The desire body is so purified that the Ego is conscious while its dense body sleeps and, in the words of Paracelsus. "the sidereal body soars up to its father and has converse with the stars."
This is what is meant by the occultist's "citizen of two worlds," the "Walker of the Skies." His service continues through the entire twenty-four hours of the day. Every call for help from inner and outer planes finds him ready to respond. Time, space, and substance are no barrier for he has conquered them all. Lifted above the usual human limitations of poverty, disease, and death, he is at last qualified to enter into, and to know, the full and abiding joy of the Master Builder or Master Alchemist.
As Paracelsus has written, "The true alchemist follows the procedure of the Great Architect of the universe in the construction of all that exists in nature. Separates light from darkness, forms his firmament from the separation of the waters which are above from the waters which are below, and performs successfully point by point the entire sequence of the creative act."
As the alchemical work in the body nears completion, the head is crowned with fiery radiance in many colors. The pons of the medulla becomes a veritable Tree of Life in miniature, bearing fruit for the healing of all nations (the atomic content of the entire body). The sparkling stream of white-gold radiance floods the third ventricle, transforming it into the Marriage Chamber as described above, whereupon there "follows the greatest Arcanum," says Paracelsus, " that is the supercelestial marriage of the soul, consummately prepared and washed by the blood of the Lamb with His own purified and shining body. This is the true supercelestial marriage by which life is prolonged to the last and predestined day. This is the marriage of Sol and Luna through the sperm of Mercury."
The Stations of the Cross, fourteen in number (twice seven), also represent the alchemical journey of the soul to God, by which the White Stone is made.
The result of this work is that the body becomes the Living Stone, as was Peter when Christ declared: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." The implication here is that all men are to be this rock, not Peter alone. Paracelsus gives the seven steps which culminate in this Great Work as follows:
1. Calcination. A naked, strong fire exposed to air; the most important and most difficult.
2. Sublimation. Exaltation, elevation.
3. Solution. Separation of the pure from the impure. The spiritual is raised from the corporeal after the process has been repeated many times.
4. Putrefaction. Digestion and circulation. A mystery known to few. A process by which all things are changed from original form into something else, as food in the body becomes both waste and essence. Many good things by putrefaction are made unwholesome. Many evils and poisons are made clean and pure. Putrefaction always brings forth great effort whether the effects be good or ill. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." In other words, death to the old and birth to the new-one of God's greatest and highest miracles in the macrocosm and microcosm or within nature and man.
5. Distillation. Ascension, fixation. Oil and water separate; all that is sharp and bitter becomes as sweet as honey and manna.
6. Coagulation. There are two processes involved herein, one airy and cold, the other fiery and hot. (The blending of the transmuted essence of nerve fluid and blood previously described.)
7. Tincture. The noblest essence with which bodies either metallic or human are tinged. For the modern aspirant this tincture is the new birth or. spiritual illumination in Christ. Paracelsus, in writing of it, says: " The body touched with Tincture no longer lives in its old form, but like a metal is transmuted into another. Saturn has not in itself its old quality, but the quality of the Tincture itself. No longer do bodies touched with Tincture exist in the former life from which they were transmuted, but far nobler, better and more healthy is the condition than in its native origin. "
Bonaventure describes the Seven Steps of Contemplation, David of Ausbury the Seven Steps of Prayer. Jacob Boehme has many references to the Seven Mystical Steps.
In the Rosarium of Johames Daustenius, the seven steps are enumerated in the following manner. (1) And then the corpus is a cause that the water is retained. (2) The water is a cause of preserving the oil so that fire does not ignite it. (3) The oil is the cause of retaining the Tincture. (4) The Tincture is the cause of the colors appearing. (5) The color is a cause of showing the white. (6) The white is a cause of keeping every volatile thing. (7) From being no longer volatile.
Perhaps the most important work for the student who aspires to attainment of true first hand knowledge is the work of transmutation, the process employed in the cosmos for producing various phases of refinement in all forms of nature. Transmutation applies not only to the realms of thought relative to man but manifests equally throughout the physical body in ways not generally conceived.
In proportion to our comprehension of the forces of transmutation do we really come to appreciate the unending wonders of the human body-temple and lift our voices in unison with the Greek poet as he sings:
The forces of transmutation have both an ascending and a descending are. Man was originally a spiritual being, but he gradually descended into a relatively impermanent phase of material existence. Rudolf Steiner emphasizes this fact in his lecture series on The World of the Senses and the World of Spirit, wherein he states: "Man has undergone a great coarsening in his nature. " He notes further that while man lived in the super-physical state the spiritualized forces of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition formed an important part of his vehicle; However, with the inrush of matter, the spiritual substance of Imagination, which had been furnished him by the Elohim, was crystallized into bones. Inspiration, which bad its seat in rhythm and harmony, was transformed into muscular substance. The forces of Intuition took on the semblance of nerves. "These high gifts of the gods," Dr. Steiner continues, "have all become rigid in matter . . . Matter is thus something with which we are filled but which does not belong to us. It is because we bear this physical matter that we know physical death . . . When the power in the bones (which is material) gains the upper hand, the bones become incapable of life. It is the same with the muscles and nerves. As soon as the matter in the bones, muscles, and nerves gain the upper hand over Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition, and is able to break asunder, in that moment must man lay down his physical body."
Herein is found the secret of the wondrous power of the transmutation. Man is now learning how to use the forces of Imagination (the image-making faculty), Inspiration (the breath of spirit), and Intuition (the voice of spirit). He is learning that these are powerful forces within himself by which matter can be transmuted into spirit, and that when this is accomplished he need not die.
This is the glory message of the incoming New Age whose theme is Transmutation and whose keynote is Immortality. The last enemy to be overcome is death, declared St. Paul. He it was who gave the further admonition that we lay aside the terrestrial body while still resident upon earth, that we be clothed in the body celestial.
In this connection it is significant to note that the celebrated English mystic and poet-painter, William Blake, called Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition other names for God. "Imagination," he wrote, "is the divine body in every man." It would be well if everyone incorporated within his own heart the triumphant soul song of this man, one of Earth's Illumined, for in the following is to be found the true recipe for spiritual rebirth through regeneration. "May we be transported," says Blake, "by way of awakened Imagination, recognition of worldly life as a living death, annihilation of selfhood, and regeneration; so may we be transported into the eternal imagination, in which our soul is at one with God."
Finally, in recapitulation be it noted that a part of man's evolutionary equipment is impermanent and transitory. All factors pertaining to the life of the senses will have disappeared by the end of the Earth Period. Consequently, Egos which have chosen to follow the path of the sense life throughout this great evolutionary Earth cycle, and have thus forfeited opportunities for spiritual progress, will, under karmic law, be compelled to retrace their steps during another cosmic cycle.
There are two paths, one of the senses and one of the spirit. Man possesses free will and so can choose the way he will go. But that choice brings repercussions, not alone for one life but throughout a humanly incalculable span of time. Dr. Steiner says: "We begin to know that good is creative in the World — all, something that always and everywhere belongs to the world that is arising and coming into being. And of the bad we feel how it everywhere shows itself as a process of the outpourings of death and decay. . . . With every wrong thing we do we become a helper of the destroying angel. We ourselves take his scythe and share in the processes of death and decay. Therefore, it is necessary to know what good and evil mean and to recognize them in the world, the one as a creative and the other as a death-dealing principle."
Every activity of man sets its impress upon the psychic envelope of the Earth. This applies to thought, the spoken word, and the physical deed. If these activities are constructive, their emanations are absorbed by, and become a component part of the world soul. If, on the contrary, these activities are negative and destructive, their emanations become dark and sinister currents that remain in the astral realms until the Ego responsible for their creation assumes the task of liquidation.
It is only as we realize the full import of the preceding statement that we begin to understand the real meaning of transmutation and its far-reaching significance in relation to our well-being. We are individually responsible for the reaction upon Earth of our every thought, word, and deed. Biblically, this truth is given in Matthew's Gospels: "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. "
The transmutative power within man centers in the forces previously referred to as Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition. It is by the constructive use of the image-building faculty united with the breath (currents) and the voice (power) of spirit that the miracle of transmutation may be effected, a miracle which clears our karmic sheet and thus immeasurably accelerates our spiritual evolution.
Endowed with these powers, we learn to transform evil into good, hatred into love, darkness into light. Transmutation is the wonder key that opens the door to at-one-ment with that Light which is the Light of the World. By the magic of transmutation we reach the height that is the supreme goal of earthly life: to "walk in the light as he is in the light, (and) have fellowship one with another.
— Corinne Heline
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Contemporary Mystic Christianity |
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