The Esoteric Principle Behind Initiation

Our title for today is the hidden principles behind initiation.

Now, all of us who've been in occultism for various periods of time have heard of this word initiation, initiation and I'm sure that most of us if not perhaps even all of us have read many books novels and so on giving some of the most beautiful and perhaps even what has seemed at times fanciful stories in relation to initiation perhaps many of you have even read that little novel which which I remember I read when I was very, very young, a brother of the third degree, and indeed this brother of the third degree, apparently in this novel, went through some of the most astonishing experiences which were termed initiations. But the whole subject is really beclouded, and it is particularly beclouded in occultism and amongst those who feel they know a great deal about, shall we say in quotes, initiation. So we felt it would be wise to clarify what some of these hidden principles behind initiation truly mean, what they imply, and therefore how we can better avail ourselves of these bits of knowledge and pass through whatever it is we mean by initiations.

We hope we will all understand it a little more clearly in just a little while, more effectively at any rate than we have done in the past.

Now, we could have also put up the tarot key called the magician as an added aid in explaining what we have to say today, but I'm sure all of you are familiar with this tarot key so if we mention it you may think of it and it will be just as good we hope now to initiate of course means to begin we initiate any project we begin a project and we might say that cosmically speaking the original initiation or shall we say beginning of course you remember we read to you from the bible in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and indeed the word was God so the beginning if we think of it in cosmic terms if there is a beginning which is another question again but there seem to be beginnings in relative terms in the beginning apparently the cosmic consciousness or at least in this particular beginning shall we say the cosmic consciousness decided and please forgive us if we sound presumptuous in telling you what the cosmic consciousness would decide but we have to use terminology in some way or other and at least what we are attempting to give you is what we have received the cosmic consciousness then apparently decided to begin a new project. Now it's true there are many of us who think the cosmic consciousness has been doing a rather poor job of it and if the cosmic consciousness would have taken us into a little private consultation we could have advised it as to how to do a little little better because of course we are all aware of the fact that there are many things that occur in life which seem very much the reverse of whatever our ideas are of good love harmony and so on but occultism does have an answer for this and perhaps after tonight we'll have a little extra tinge of insight but it takes more than just what we might say today to understand that fully so the cosmic consciousness deciding to shall we say or apparently deciding to initiate some new project according to the basic esoteric ideas if we will you will look on this tree of life and and look at the top sefiroth, the one that's white and named Kether.

In Qabalah, this is called the beginning of the whirlings, and cosmically speaking, on the physical plane, physical phenomena certainly indicates that everything seems to begin with whirlings, or at least the physical universe is sustained through a whirling process, because the nebulas whirl around their own nucleus the Sun's are parts of the nebulas which whirl within a specific framework the planetary systems we have planets which whirl about the Sun we when we have moons the moons whirl about the planets in our own vehicles and and indeed anything which we choose to call physical.

It is, all of this is made up of whirlings.

Our bodies are made up of atoms.

Atoms have a nucleus with electrons whirling about them.

Everything is whirling motion.

And in a sense, we might say there is nothing except whirling motion.

Now what this whirling motion is, is this is the next question of course the esoteric teachings tell us this whirling motion is the vibrational aspect of cosmic consciousness or would you like to say the word vibration what is it we give experiences a certain term and so in Qabalah when the term word is used the idea is vibration because speech after all what is it when we hear something a sound it is the impact upon our sensory apparatus of of a vibration that's what sound is therefore word is another way of trying to give the idea of vibration and the word of god could be said to be the vibration of thought which is after all the soundless sound and we do have to attribute to the cosmic consciousness the idea of thought or consciousness because just looking out into nothing but the physical universe to see the amazing organization of all the myriad forms indicates there has to be somebody or something to have formed it one might just as much say that a typewriter has formed itself as well as to try to say that the physical aspects of the universe came into being by itself or themselves whichever way we like to put it whether it's a singular or plural in occultism we know it's one and indivisible that's what the beginning of the whirlings are called now then we notice when we study phenomena that initiating or beginning anything indicates compression now what is compression here again it's always good to come to our personal experiences and we'll understand better because as above so below the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us and incidentally it dwells now and forever as I hope we will all see so the idea of beginning something or initiating something whether cosmically or in the most minute sense immediately implies compression which means what limitation for an example if we want to read a book what do we do our attention is compressed instantly and we limit our attention to the book if we want to see a play the same thing takes place if we decide to do anything like add and subtract this of course requires extra attention or compression of consciousness and to some of us in most unpleasant ways if we are not very mathematically inclined and so it goes the artist compresses the attention in order to bring about the image or the form whether it be a poem a picture a piece of music all creation involves compression which means it involves limitation therefore consciousness in order to apply itself to a self-conscious project immediately requires a limitation of its consciousness so on the cosmic scale again if we will consider that that the cosmic consciousness apparently takes parts of its consciousness and compresses or limits this or the myriad aspects of its consciousness.

We have the idea, remember, these things are always just analogies and never exactly what they are when you experience them directly. But you have at least a good representation of how self-consciousness is formed by God.

In other words, our ability to be conscious in a limited field would immediately indicate that the cosmic consciousness has compressed a part of itself, self each one of us being a part of that cosmic consciousness has compressed a part of itself in order to initiate or to begin a specific project now again in esoteric teachings it is taught that the actual project in mind is to develop self-conscious awareness of its own own processes in order to have more centers of self-conscious cooperation with its own beingness or knowledge for instance again when we compress our attention in order to read a book the result of that compression after we have read that book is that we have more experience more knowledge the knowledge of that book is ours therefore the result of compressing our attention brings us expansion of consciousness do you see this now that is the principle of evolution limitation brings expansion because in limiting attention we are able to examine and experience the minute, and therefore our consciousness grows outward in a sort of circular motion, the whirling motion, remember, and becomes more.

So in a way we might say that God grows or begets from his own substance ever-expanding aspects of self-experience through the principle of limitation and compression of his consciousness or let's say parts because certainly there is something about the cosmic consciousness beyond anything that limited aspects can ever know and those of us who have enough spiritual humility certainly will recognize that nevertheless there seems to be much that we can directly know and therefore through knowing expand into capacity for ever more knowing and self-experience this is a very abstract sort of thing to speak about and yet it's rather important for true occult aspirants to understand because then it helps us to understand the next point more fully how to accept it and indeed utilize it in positive ways now then let's take the idea of initiation down to just human experience now that we have examined it at least in part in its cosmic sense at least the theory that is behind it consider then that the compression of God's consciousness has finally brought about self-conscious centers which happen to be by whatever names you call yourselves at the moment now our present present limitations and our present compressions actually are involved with our vehicles.

We have more than a physical vehicle, remember. We have a physical vehicle, we have an emotional vehicle, we have a mental vehicle, we have a subconscious astral type of vehicle, and we have a spiritual vehicle and so on so we have more than one vehicle and each vehicle is a compression this is something that we need to understand because it is the idea of a limited area of consciousness and experience incidentally which gives us our eternal individuality and were it not so we would lose our individuality in other words if some parts of our vehicles were not eternal or permanent there would be nothing to hold the self-conscious aspect of God's self-experience so we have these different grades of vehicles and And this tree of life actually shows them. And indeed, we cannot go into an explanation of each one of them. We could only do this if we gave an entire series on initiation and what each of these sefiroth indicate.

And indeed, we do that usually in some of our Thursday night class series.

When we give a series on the master pattern or the tree of life, we do bring in that aspect, sometimes quite fully, sometimes it's only in part, but we do try to help our members understand these principles in these different ways. Nevertheless, in a talk like this, we can only indicate rather than give any details that are involved. So this tree of life actually represents all the different vehicles which we have. And also, when we learn to know it and utilize it properly, it also indicates that though the physical vehicle is not permanent all the other vehicles incidentally are and it is because we have this eternal aspect in our being when we learn to know it with our hearts we stop being afraid of what is involved in initiations which incidentally all of us go through whether we know it or not the physical vehicle is that which gives us our sensory experience of the world the kind of vehicle we have with its eyes nose its fingertips smells tastes gives each and every one of us that unique way of experiencing a certain rate of vibration just like the idea of reading a book each one of us actually reads a very unique and special book which no one else and no other center in the universe can read because no one sees life or experiences life in the same way and this experience that we have in the physical vehicle through the physical vehicle we should say which is after all a limitation of consciousness we're limited to what the sensory apparatus brings us incidentally it's one reason that we should think very highly of our physical vehicles and we should all realize in occultism particularly that to love revere give honor to and protect this vehicle is one of the important jobs in aspiration that which God hath wrought is very holy and beautiful and we need to learn to feel and see our vehicle as such recognizing what a precious treasure this is to God in as much as nothing else in the universe can give God the same reading of the same story those of us who are bookworms perhaps might understand what a delight it is to have such fabulously fascinating stories going on all the time of course some of them are ludicrous we grant at least we have periods of it and we have periods of the villains but what story would be interesting without a villain to overcome wasn't jesus taken to the mountaintop to be tempted it would be very boring if we didn't have problems when we learn to embrace them we'll go through initiations without even realizing that we've been tested but that remains to be spoken about more fully so in the personal life then all the experiences that we receive through the vehicle on the physical plane these are registered and incidentally the physical plane on this tree of life is represented by the bottom Sephirah malkuth this is the physical plane and it is indicated both cosmically and microcosmically it is true both on the cosmic scale and on the physical scale which we might call our own physical vehicles this physical vehicle on the bottom, Malkuth, is in a process of change at all times of course as incidentally is everything. Whirling motion is whirling motion and nothing remains static and indeed our problems come about because we hang on to so many preconceived ideas and notions and the act of trying to hang on is what gives us most of our problems because we fight the motion, we fight the growth, we fight the change we're afraid of what's going to happen because we're insecure we do not know that we are eternal beings from never never really having begun never really ending not in our essence the only thing that ever began with us was the self-conscious evolution which in itself instantly makes it an eternal thing because once cosmic consciousness makes parts of itself self-self-conscious it's on the way and nothing is going to stop it from evolving it can fight it can scream it can pound it can cuss it can do anything it's in god's whirling stream and it must evolve it must grow it must go through initiations just by the act of having become a self-conscious center of God. Knowing this, we can then consider the next point. If you'll notice on the tree of life, the violet Sephirah, this one is called yesid, and it's assigned to the subconscious processes, also the astral processes, because after all, though few people realize it, what we call subconsciousness actually is related to our astral vehicle. And although there are some schools of thought who say that the astral vehicle will also be destroyed or must die sometime and that the emotional vehicle and the intellectual vehicle must be dissolved at some time and then all that's left is the ego vehicle or that which is assigned to Tiphareth the yellow circle in the middle western occult esoteric teachings tell us this is not so that the personal vehicle for god is eternal and although it is true that the physical vehicle keeps dying and changing I mean don't forget which of us or who could say that there's a single atom in the body today that we had a year ago science tells us otherwise in eight to ten months there isn't one atom in our body that's the same did you know that this is definite scientific knowledge our bodies may look the same to us we may think it's the same body but not one atom is the same it's in continuous swirling motion we throw out atoms all the time we take in atoms all the time each other's incidentally and that which exists from God knows where from beyond the stars atoms are whirling in every direction and they whirl out of us and we take in others this is scientific knowledge and and certainly was known by esoteric occultism down through the ages.

Indeed, this is why we can do things to change our physical vehicles. It is because as we learn to hold to certain types of thinking and feeling, the type of atoms which we attract, start the processes and chemical processes in our vehicles, which are more in harmony with the self-conscious evolution of God's primal idea.

And it is because we hang so steadfastly to the pattern of what we think a body is that it stays exactly that way as it gathers new atoms. It just keeps reforming in the world of the image we hold. That is why it's so vital that we keep changing our image so that we can change our vehicles and therefore as we change our vehicles that is spiritualize our vehicles what occurs is that we become capable of experiencing in and through our vehicles the vaster elements of consciousness which have often been called illumination it has to be done in and through a physical vehicle and And it is through what we call initiations that this process of spiritualization, sensitizing of the physical vehicle takes place. And it doesn't matter how old we are. We've heard many people say, well, it's too late, I'm such and such an age and whatnot. It's ridiculous. No matter what age we are, we're throwing out the same amount of atoms and taking them in.

And if we learn to hold to certain thoughts and feelings, and our work of course teaches us how to do this the vehicle changes and with it the capacity for experiencing the vaster more glorious elements that are involved in cosmic consciousness and the insight into what we choose to call reality instead of being fooled by the world of appearance which is a beautiful world really except we shouldn't be taken in by it like we shouldn't be taken in by a book we read a novel after all it's a novel why get caught in a trap this is what we do with the physical universe we think of it as a fixed thing we get caught in a trap we think of our bodies as a fixed thing we think of other people's minds and hearts as being fixed things and we are in a world all right the kind of world that makes us dizzy because we are out on the periphery instead of being in the center where we can see the true principles that exist now then having taken up those particular elements let's consider the mystery schools which work with the principles of initiation you see in true mystery school training systems the cosmic principles are known and understood and through ritual and ceremonial they are participated in in this way dr. Case mentions somewhere in some of his writings that in occultism we have what you might call a forcing process just like a hot house that protects certain plants in order to make these plants grow more rapidly if you put specific plants out into their natural environment they will grow in accordance with this natural environment but those who have studied biology those who have studied horticulture those who have studied life and its processes have done a great deal of experimenting in the laboratories and they have discovered you can take certain seeds you can take certain plants put them within a specific field that is a limited field remember Remember what we said about limitation?

And apply certain conditions, heat, light, and so on, and you can force the growth. You can, in other words, develop flowers from a plant months before it would have bloomed in the outer environment. This we all know from our reading.

Now then, in occultism, the same principle is utilized. There comes a time in every aspect of God which has become self-conscious, that is, there comes a time in the lives of personalities like ourselves where the natural processes have taken them as far as they're going to go.

When that occurs, these individuals find themselves interested in the forcing process to varying degrees and then what occurs after they have passed a few tests and trials and indeed those who are the most fortunate do not even know they've been under testing and trying and incidentally the tests and the trials are the real initiations this is what's not understood the tests and trials of life of life itself not of the mystery schools this is a shocking thing to say perhaps coming from one who is the head of what we certainly know to be a true center of mystery school training nevertheless we'll explain to you what we mean never for one moment my beloved sisters sisters and brothers, believe anybody or any person or any group or any organization, which tells you that only if you go through this process that I give you, only that way are you going to make the grade.

Do not believe it.

But it is true, and here we come with the other idea, it is true that with certain mystery school training centers, we do have conditions where we can grow more rapidly, attain illumination more intensively, and develop a joyous life more fully, that is, we can cut down the time period it considerably nevertheless there are many human beings who walk this planet who belong to the esoteric aspect of mystery school training systems that that which we call the inner school who do not even consciously know that they belong in other words because in a specific incarnation their requirement is to contribute to life and to God in certain other ways than in specific occult develop than in specific occult developments these individuals may have already in previous incarnations may have already passed certain tests and trials certain true initiations be active members on the inner or hidden side of life and yet walk the earth perhaps even seeming to be agnostics you'll never find them materialists though never will they be materialistic those who belong to the true inner school recognize each other instantly even when they do not consciously know that they belong something happens in terms of recognition and in the emotional nature which cannot be described but it is known by those who meet and know nevertheless the mystery school training system does exist, does hasten evolution, does help to eliminate many meanderings. We know how to utilize this training properly and the principle really is quite simple. Where any group of people gather together with a mutual aspiration and where in that group you already have at least one who has achieved a conscious intensive contact with what we call the inner school that serves as a transmission of energy for the rest of the aspirants to intensify their own growth their own evolution and therefore bring about initiations in their lives in their outer lives which are symbolized by the workings of the ritualistic and ceremonial aspects of the mystery school training so that for instance in a true system of training this lowest sephirah you see there called Malkuth where one has the great privilege and it is a privilege, my dears to be initiated into this with a group who have already been working and aspiring therefore having become intensified to greater or lesser degree according to their own capacity, of course what occurs is that the energies that are involved with that sefirah and incidentally this also involves archangels angels principalities you see the universe is full of miraculous things that we do not see physically but those who have developed super sensory apparatus are aware of these forces which we've given such names as angels and archangels and we think that you all remember how we told you we do not believe in shall we say fairies we know they exist well angels are similar incidentally the category is not different they're just different names different cultures give to different principles and energies and types of consciousness so in Malkuth there is has has been a specific type of ritual and ceremonial which has been developed and the whole idea is to bring about an impact upon subconscious and other vehicles so that the motion of that type of consciousness will start whirling more rapidly and thereby bring about experiences which will will expand its consciousness more fully.

Now, and then from that, notice, before we go on to another point, notice the path that leads up from Malkuth in the middle there, the one with the dancer called the world.

You see that? Now, that particular tarot key is assigned to the planet Saturn.

And Saturn in astrology is called called that which limits.

You can again see the idea of limitation as being the principle God uses to expand and evolve its centers. So this dancer, this dance of life, called the world, and assigned also, incidentally, to cosmic consciousness, actually is the principle of limitation in relation to Saturn. And I ask you all to remember that Jesus said lift up thy cross and follow me the old method of drawing this Hebrew letter was a cross the letter that's assigned to that particular principle which we call Saturn, the cross and when you remember that Jesus was a Qabalist trained in the Qabalist mystery school systems which we represent you can see that there are more meanings behind this than the world realizes or understands and you notice also that the beginning of the journey is really going on on the path of return malkuth going up through that first path in the center back towards where it began apparently lift up thy cross and follow me and the whole idea behind it remember what we read to you the word was made flesh the Bible and dwelt amongst us this too is a complete qabalistic piece of writing which we haven't got time to analyze for you kabbalistically though perhaps we'll do it sometime if you want us to nevertheless the idea of utilizing mystery school systems in order to intensify or hasten our evolution is involved with utilizing also these ancient rituals and ceremonials because they have been given to us incidentally we are told by the angels and those of us who have worked with it know how potent they are and what they do is awaken they awaken in us awarenesses on these various levels and planes to which we have not been paying attention as though we had been asleep where where we've sort of meandered around absentmindedly, for instance, an example can be, we could walk along the street and the sky can be gloriously blue, and a tree outlined against this beautiful sky, and a flock of birds flying across, but we absentmindedly may be brooding about somebody we hate, or someone who doesn't appreciate us, or all the problems we have, and we miss reality we're not there we're not anywhere really except in a bunch of unhappy whirlings which will bring their unhappy results unhappily we cannot escape that but these initiations or shall we say these rituals and ceremonials awaken the consciousness to more intensive awareness and experience here and now.

Unfortunately, many escapists flock to occultism as they flock to anything that will help them escape.

And so instead of utilizing these privileges for becoming more aware of the here and now in order to truly expand their consciousness into reality, they utilize it to escape by using this intensification for self-glorification by thinking, ah, I've seen these visions and I've had this and that upper experience in other words, any experience that's away from the physical plane this becomes marvelous and an indication to these people that they're evolving and growing and they're beyond this rabble of these lowly beings. Well, unhappily, these souls will have to keep coming back and back until they learn to glorify the physical. Because remember, the kingdom of spirit is embodied in my flesh. In Western occultism, the whole idea is to bring the spirit into the physical, to see in the here and now the beauty of life in its most expanded form and it is doable many human beings many human beings have this experience and some live in it almost constantly the awareness that the glory of god is shown and expressed and emanated from every physical form that is and this of course makes every problem problem something other than it seems to be when we have this unhappy escapist orientation so there are these paths and these sefiroth which bring stimulation and awakening to these various centers of awareness but the curious thing is most of the people who go through these privileged stimulants are not at all aware of what's happening because unhappily we are so oriented that we're expecting some miraculous supersensory phenomena to occur whereas real growth is not in that but in starting to see the magic and miracle here and now this is the true indication of utilization of the principles and you might ask how come that anyone could get into a mystery school training system who actually would not understand what's happening and use incorrectly these stimulants the answer happens to be everybody needs in time to learn discrimination in as much as life is eternal those who do not take the proper or those who do not utilize these intensification properly will learn and when they come back the next time or the next they will utilize it that way because here is the point once a human being has been initiated into such a center which is truly in tune with the inner school that human being may fall by the wayside may break every obligation may have to go through the most terrible trials but they cannot cannot get away from the obligation to the higher soul to continue and to persist in other words they're on the way even though naturally they cannot make it in this incarnation and how many of us can we suffer from spiritual pride if we think we're going to make the full evolutionary evolutionary growth in this incarnation indeed if we want to we have a problem we're going to have to overcome the important thing is to be pointed towards cooperating with god's intention for self-conscious evolution and to utilize everything that god brings us towards that end and the greatest privilege that can be brought to us is to be connected with a system like we represent this we know we know this from self-experience we know what happens even when it seems other on the surface we know the blessing and the beauty and the glory and the richness that develops in terms of consciousness and after all what other richness is there so we have then a system a forces forcing system that does intensify our evolution though on the surface it might not seem to be doing what we think it should be doing mainly because we do not yet understand what real evolution happens to be and only when we understand it will we be able to more fully take advantage of these privileges that are presented to us now there's one other point we feel we should mention in relation to this subject we haven't even begun to cover a tenth of it of course it's a vast one but at least a few ideas will help this is a very vital thing for us to remember we have periods every one of us just like a bridge once it is built has to be tested and you'll see a sign on it this bridge will carry so many pounds if you put an extra load on it it's going to crack now we all have periods no matter how highly or lowly evolved we are and who who knows, our methods of evaluation are usually wrong because we're using worldly ideas unhappily to give us our evaluation in terms of how evolved is this or that person.

And this is something that occultism teaches us to throw away, at least in time. But we have periods we have them incidentally whether we are self-consciously on the path or not or whether we are still in the mass process of evolution as human beings where we have these tests and trials pressures will come unhappy conditions will exist and those who look upon such people if they see they're having them and say oh my oh my they sure need to do something about their consciousness these have perhaps the worst problem than the ones they are criticizing because every human being be in as much as the growth process is going on in as much as certain mental and emotional developments are going on every human being must have periods where the higher self at least we call it the higher self tests its personality vehicles to see now can it take this pressure how much heat can it take how much of this and how much of that before it goes on to utilize it for the next round of living and if we start seeing our problems as initiations because incidentally these are initiations the things that happen to us outside side and result in changes in our consciousness actually the changes in our consciousness have taken place when we meet the outside in a different way than we would have met such a problem say five years ago ten years ago then we can see we have taken another whirl on the spiral the higher self has given us the testing has seen that we can utilize more forces more responsibilities more livingness and then we go on to a next round of fulfillments and problems for the next initiation and the actual initiations which exist in the mystery school training systems are the symbolic representations of what exists in life itself.

And as we told you before, for the purposes of hastening, it tunes in to cosmic forces, cosmic motion, and helps us to become more aware, more quickly, to live more richly, more beautifully, to become one with the universal spirit and with each other in time. But sooner in time than we would have had we continued meandering around empty minded or absent minded and figuring I'll just go along with the stream it's worth it there are a little more problems to face but there are more joys there are more unhappy experiences might come but there are are more fulfillments it is like Khalil Gibran says about love in his beautiful little book the prophet he who doesn't want to love I don't remember the exact quotation might laugh but not all of his laughter and might weep but not all of his tears in other words intensification is the vital aspect behind initiation which is a testing ground for the next step in evolution and blessed are they who know this and work with it consciously and utilize the gift God gives them in relation to it forgive me I spoke too long again didn't I I was forget