After having received the Lord's communication of the Law, Moses reascends the heights to perform an act of worship. He climbs the mount in company with three and seventy companions who represent faculties that have been sharpened in the high service he has just performed. Moses is the Ego, the pure spirit. The Ego is capable of reaching an elevation not possible to any one of its projected threefold aspects (Aaron, Nadab and Abiliu) or the sevenfold constitution (seventy elders) it has provided for itself to function in on the lower planes of manifestation.
The altar built by Moses was constructed with twelve pillars. It followed the cosmic pattern of twelve constellations describing a circle around a central Sun — channels through which an equal number of celestial Hierarchies work with cosmos, our planetary system and man. It is an outer reflection of Deity and His twelvefold attributes. This pattern has been followed in temple structures throughout the ages by those who have had insight into the cosmic plan. The Druids incorporated the symbolism in Stonehenge, that impressive monument in England which continues to testify to the existence of the Mystery Teachings in historically undated time. Occult history also testifies to uninterrupted and consistent use of the same symbolism in shrines of ancient Lemuria and Atlantis.
Each of the twelve signs of the Zodiac radiates a specialized power. By practice of white magic the initiated priesthood of early days was able to magnetize each of the twelve pillars with rays from one of the twelve sins. They then became sacred columns of the holy temples they adorned in a very literal sense, and served as magnetized channels for conveying forces of service, in healing and as an aid to quickening processes leading to spiritual illumination.
The Old Covenant, like the New, was sealed with blood. The ceremonial observed by Moses foreshadowed the rite on Golgotha when a new stream of spiritual force poured into Earth and became operative in human evolution.
The mystery connected with the blood belongs to one of the deepest phases of occultism. Not until the Initiation of Earth, most difficult of all Initiations, has been passed call the full significance of sacrificial blood be comprehended. Among pioneering leaders who took part in these early ceremonials were Egos who performed a like task in the inauguration of the Christian Dispensation, and who were in a physical body when the cleansing blood flowed on Calvary. This point is discussed at length in the pages on Leviticus.
On heights of consciousness Moses and the elect beheld the "God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness." What they looked upon was the operation of divine law in that third heaven that Paul speaks of having entered, where he looked upon the secrets of nature that it was not permissible for him to speak about publicly. It is the region of abstract thought, the realm of pure ideas in the likeness of which all forms are featured on all planes of manifested nature. The sapphire stone is symbolical of wisdom belonging to this sphere, which is "true blue." Error, that is inseparable from the limitations the spirit must accept on lower levels of form is absent from that high level. Truth is present as the very heaven in clearness. This experience was an added revelation belonging to Initiation by Air.
The statement is made that the nobles also "saw God and did eat and drink." They were imbibing celestial instructions in preparation for greater work and higher degrees. They were not yet qualified to enter into the immediate presence of the Race Spirit, as were Moses and Joshua. So they were requested to tarry where they were while Moses and his minister "went up into the mount" where they were enshrouded by a cloud for six days. On the seventh day the Lord "called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights." (Exodus 24:17,18)
Joshua was the most advanced of Moses' followers. He had qualified himself to receive more of the inner work relating to Air Initiation, and to enter into a better understanding of the racial mission assigned to Moses. But he was not yet able to follow his leader to the summit of union with divine will, by virtue of which the latter became the liberator of his people and the foremost director of forces that shaped a new dispensation and ushered in the Age of Aries.
For the Kabbalistic period of forty days and forty nights Moses remained in the Glory Light. Poised between the balanced forces of Fire (day) and Water (night), elements in his nature that he had mastered, he now reached the stage where not only his passions (Fire) and emotions (Water) were stilled, but even his mind (Air) was under full control. In that state he was able to look upon the flawless archetypes designed by the celestial Hierarchies for ultimate projection into forms upon the earth plane. One of the patterns he looked upon — the likeness of which he transmitted to his people for their reproduction — was the design for a sanctuary wherein the Lord God could come and dwell with His own. The first step toward its manifestation on the physical plane had been taken. In the mind of Moses there was born a human thought form of the plan for the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.
— Corinne Heline
