Alchemists Crucible

In bewildering arrays of splendor, singing the melody of creation through flying, creeping, and walking garbs of thy beingness.

Teach us, we pray, to know in ever greater measure that it is thou who sees through our eyes, hears through our ears, speaks through our lips. Teach us to know that whatever we touch this is holy ground let us together recite the pattern on the trestle board you may sit this is truth about the self all the power that ever was or will be is here now I am a center of expression for the primal will to good which eternally creates and sustains the universe.

Through me, its unfailing wisdom takes form in thought and word.

Filled with understanding of its perfect law, I am guided moment by moment along the path of liberation. From the exhaustless riches of its limitless substance, I draw all things needful, both spiritual and material. I recognize the manifestation of the undeviating justice in all the circumstances of my life. In all things great and small, I see the beauty of the divine expression.

Living from that will, supported by its unfailing wisdom and understanding, mine is the victorious life. I look forward with confidence to the perfect realization of the eternal splendor of the limitless light. In thought and word and deed I rest my life from day to day upon the sure foundation of eternal being. The kingdom of spirit is embodied in my flesh.

I will read from the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 3.

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born anew, He cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit marvel not that I said unto thee ye must be born anew the wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is everyone that is born of the spirit Nicodemus answered and said unto him how can these things be Jesus answered and said unto him art thou a teacher of Israel and knowest not these things verily verily I say unto thee we speak that we do know and testify that we have seen and ye receive not our witness.

If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?

And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, and he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil for everyone that doeth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved and he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Our title for the sermon this morning is Qabalah, the Alchemist's Crucible.

And if it may seem at the moment that this title does not seem to have much to do with what we just read to you from the Gospel of St. John, we hope you will see it more clearly in a very few moments. Because as perhaps you all know by now in as much as the Bible was written by the prophets who were trained in the mystical teachings of Israel that is in Qabalah the understanding of what was being said by the various prophets must include a knowledge of Qabalah and that which we just read to you has been so misinterpreted. Indeed, there has been so much horror, so much bloodshed due to ignorance, to illiteracy in the spiritual sense, shall we say, that it seemed that this would be a very important reading in order to help us understand truly what alchemy consists of in terms of Qabalah, and also to understand just what is meant by being born again, by what is meant in terms of God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

It sounds very beautiful, but we have heard many human beings criticize a religious thinking or a spiritual aspect of life which would make a god sacrifice a son. At least this is the way it has been interpreted and it has brought profound questionings which it should if one were going to take this literally so we're going to first of all explain as we do often because we need to we need to remember and remember and remember we fall into this lethal forgetfulness so often so we need to remind you that in Qabalah the Son of God is generic humanity on the tree of life it is expressed by that central yellow sefiroth called beauty it is assigned to Adam and Adam means generic humanity. Therefore, whenever Jesus said the Son of God, or when he said the Son of Man, indeed, he deliberately used the term Son of Man in order to show that the Son of God and the Son of Man are synonymous. And so when we read God so loved the world that he He gave his only begotten son.

Always remember, we are the only begotten son.

We are generic humanity.

We are the child of God, and that's why we also gave you this lovely little tarot key, which you will see on the other side of the altar.

Children of the Son, the Son of God, the Son of Man. And we will show how they are interrelated and just what is meant, perhaps, by the statement, Qabalah is the alchemist's crucible, as we use it in the title of today's talk.

Therefore, if we are the son of God, if we are the son of man, and God so loved the world that he gave, say, us, of what is the world? Is it something other? Well, remember, again, in tarot, the last tarot key, number 21, is called the world.

And if you will remember, there's a dancing figure, which is often thought of as the dance of life.

So we might say, God so loved, and it is also incidentally assigned to cosmic consciousness, So you might say, God so loved his own cosmic consciousness, God so loved his own dance of livingness, of beingness, that he gave an offshoot of himself, or an aspect of himself, or a part of himself, so that whoso believeth on him, now believeth on him means, basically, if you interpret it through Qabalah, that whoever attains to the state of consciousness of knowing who and what he is in terms of being the son of God, the son of man, that is, whoever attains the evolutionary level of knowing what he's talking about when he says I, he would not perish but have everlasting life, which, of course, we all realize by now that it is a state of consciousness.

Perishing, really, is only an aspect of ignorance. There's no such thing in truth.

But there does have to be this changing face of livingness, this motion of life, because if everything was static wouldn't we be bored? Wouldn't God be bored? I mean if we wanted any excuse or if we wanted to excuse God for this mess that we seem to have and it does seem like a mess in life in the world, all we need think about is just think how terrible, how boring, the ennui, the utter awfulness. No matter how beautiful it might be, a sunrise or a sunset or a creature or a motion. Suppose that's all there was. We just stuck in that one thing. That's a real nothingness. You can't enjoy it. You must have a changing motion. This is evolution, and this is what brings the, shall we say, great adventure, truly the great adventure. The adventure of livingness involves the whole motion of from less awareness to more awareness due to the experiences of consciousness, which brings consciousness, finally, to becoming that whoso believeth on him.

But remember the interpretation of believeth isn't exactly what it sounds like. A human being who believes is indeed a sorry mess.

As you know in our work we almost plead with you to believe nothing.

If you believe a thing you are already static, you have stopped your motion.

You have no drive to know it.

It isn't believe is a wrong interpretation of the idea that was given originally it really means he who experiences and therefore knows by direct experience and when you know something by direct experience no one's going to talk you out of it nor are you going to have to put up your guards you know how annoyed we become with people whenever they like things that we don't or vice versa if we hate onions and they love onions we feel affronted don't we and if we're Democrats and they're Republicans or if we're Republicans and they're Democrats we know they're morons or either with they're either stupid or they're evil it depends on how broad-minded we think we are whether we decide they are evil or stupid So believing is not a very good thing because it makes us defensive. We have to defend our beliefs because way deep down we don't really know.

But when we know, we know because we have directly experienced like we know the taste of the fruit when we have eaten it. And if we just believe, the fruit tastes thus and thus and thus and thus we're really saying nothing at all aren't we it's a lot of noise with the mouth when we try to describe the taste of anything because we believe it tastes in a certain way we haven't eaten of the fruit and we like to bring in the eating of the fruit when we consider how often eve has been blamed for all the the unhappiness in the world because she permitted herself to be tempted by the serpent and ate of the fruit and then tempted Adam, good old generic humanity, to go in for a little experience. You see this, of course, someday we will give a course on our Thursday night series on a a true interpretation of the allegory of creation Kabbalistically, it might help all of us to not only understand our culture a little more clearly, but how to live the entire Qabalistic life more fully. And we also might find ourselves quite charmed with the true interpretation interpretation of what was being said now then let's consider if we are now all agreed and you see I'm in a fine position here I can just say we are all agreed no one can argue with me on a sunday morning sermon thursday evening sometimes a little different. So we will assume now that we are all agreed that the true interpretation of this reading, the son of God, the son of man, this happens to be ourselves. If you will notice, we always bring it to us, even just saying generic humanity is not enough, because we have a strange way of thinking of generic humanity or human beings as being everything except me. And we are the center of our universe always. If we are a part of it, always think of it in terms of I. Otherwise you'll never experience it in terms of I. It'll always be something other. And we're here together to try to become ever more living radiant centers of the true living I. And to attain the state states of consciousness of that I. So remember I and me. This is in terms of generic humanity.

Of course, we know that in practically all schools of philosophy, we are told, stop thinking so much about I and me. This is selfish and so on. Well, you know, there's such a thing as enlightened selfishness, and we highly recommend it. Most human beings who seem to to be unselfish, are merely trying to prove to themselves and everybody else how wonderful they are, and they're not attaining true consciousness at all. They're playing a role. It might be a very sweet role, and it might be better than trying to hit other people over the head. We will grant that, but still as occultists we want to do more than that, don't we? More than to just be negative goodie goodies, you might say, rather than positive centers of a true expression. So what is it being a positive center, a true expression? What is it being the son of man, the son of God? Well first of all we do have to start training ourselves to think of ourselves as children of the Most High in one sense the only begotten son now remember begotten this is not something other those of us who are mothers and fathers know that our that our children were begotten they didn't just come out of the air in any way whatsoever. And if we are not parents, at least we have, every one of us have been children of our physical parents, or we wouldn't be here.

So remember the entire significance of begotten. We are begotten children of God. All right now, How can we think of that? Of course, we are so tied up and identified with this physical aspect of our being that we seem to forget that it is our consciousness that built this body. This body is not I although it is a very wonderful temple for the living I to express the living I nevertheless it is not I it is not the begotten Son of God and perhaps as we realize this we'll have a little more reverence for this amazing miracle which expresses the begotten Son of God Anyway, I'd like to also say the begotten daughter of God, even though son means generic humanity, there's a tendency to divorce the true meanings occasionally when we think of the genders incorrectly. That's another course we'll have to give someday. Help us understand the true meaning of male-female, the whole gender, because you know Qabalah has been said to reveal the whole secret mystery of gender. Only most human beings are too narrow to be able to receive the true teaching. They're so tied up with what has been taught by narrow cultures, by literal interpretations like those who literally interpret what we have just read. And you know the things that have occurred as a result of this, the the inquisitions, the fanatical, fervent declarations of because I love you so much, I'm going to burn you and torture you so that you will be saved because you must believe on him.

And when we wonder why so many of the esoteric teachings have been kept esoteric, all we have to do is look to the inquisition and to remember it isn't over really. We just aren't quite so crude about it in some cultures. But we still deliberately persecute and attempt injury in other ways, mentally and emotionally, where other human beings do not accept our exact and literal interpretation. And that's why we need to become as wise as serpents, those of us who wish to follow the true path of becoming consciously what we are really unconsciously so the child of God this is what we are let's again understand just one little point before we try to bring some practical application to its usage.

You remember it says in the Bible that God created Adam out of the dust of the ground.

And of course this has been used by the poor, narrow, unhappy, limited minds as an interpretation of how little we are.

All right, well, we do have to at this point then explain to you what the Qabalistic meaning truly happens to be and show you how modern science is exactly in accord with it.

You look at the sun in this tarot key. This is one of the many reasons we chose this tarot key as part of our symbolic portrayal of today's talk.

The sun is known scientifically to be the radiations of a central livingness. This is scientifically. They may not give it the name of consciousness, but they still will tell us that everything that lives is living off the sun, and that it is some usage of the sun's energies which brings about this livingness.

The atmosphere is a result of the activity of the sun's energies and its interaction with this planet. The planet itself is a receptacle for the energies of the sun and the rest of the cosmos. Everything that grows, everything that grows is a usage of the sun. In other words, an alchemical process is continuously going on which uses the energies of the sun.

Alchemy, then, really, it's a specific and specialized use of energy.

Many people may think it is something other, but this is its simplest definition.

So, all human beings, as well as all living creatures, the little crawling things under the earth, the crawling creatures over the earth, the running and flying creatures, the walking, climbing creatures, all of these are various grouped expressions. Their expressions, their developments, usages, alchemical usages, or alchemical creations, from the energies of the sun. Now then, the sun itself, here is a curious thing. This Tarot key is called the sun.

And in Qabalah, this particular Hebrew letter, which is assigned incidentally to the head, indicating consciousness. This particular Hebrew letter is called the collecting intelligence.

And so this whole tarot key with its symbolism is indicating what is called the collective intelligence. Now remember in Qabalah when they say the collecting intelligence, the this intelligence, the that intelligence, actually it means the function of consciousness. Consciousness, the function of consciousness.

So the sun is assigned to the idea of the collecting aspect.

Therefore, what is collecting? It is receiving.

Now then, cosmically speaking, from the scientific levels, we have been told that with all these marvelous developments in our instruments, we know now that every sun in the heavens collects the energies from space we look out into these distant nebulas and we see what are called cosmic clouds of dust dust, please remember the word dust the scientists call it these cosmic clouds of dust and within these cosmic clouds of dust starts a motion and this motion when it becomes compressed becomes a Sun the compression of the cosmic dust becomes a radiating Sun so if God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground and we see what modern science has discovered and we also realize that the Qabalists knew exactly how these various creative energies were formed and expressed in fact far beyond anything that modern science still knows.

We can see that the concept of dust of the ground definitely means we were formed by the cosmic clouds, in other words, the cosmic energies.

A sun comes into being because of the motion. You remember we were speaking about the evolutionary motion. So a sun is formed because of the whirling motion of the cosmic dust and remember we are children of the sun now then what are we formed of can we be formed of anything different as a matter of fact again modern science is in complete agreement with Qabalah because it tells us that everything that exists from the apparently most physical to the living, breathing beings, everything that exists is made up of these atoms.

That we, therefore, are a group of vibrating atoms, whatever that means. They're really points of energy which if you go back into a greater background consciousness the consciousness of God as a matter of fact the motion of God's consciousness enjoying the dance of life and deciding to share it with aspects of itself more consciously to be get from itself more self-experience this is the true destiny for every one of us though sometimes it seems it's going to take more than eternity for some of us to get there doesn't it eternity doesn't seem quite long enough nevertheless it's not what it seems like on the surface therefore the collecting intelligence the Sun remember it didn't just collect the energies from infinite space to become a Sun and that was finished it's a continuing process again modern science not very long ago has discovered that the Sun continues to absorb these energies from the cosmos and certainly we know that here on this planet the The same principle is in existence.

We absorb the energies of the sun, whether we're doing it directly when we walk in the sun or whether we're doing it when we are in a house.

There's still nothing except the modifications of the energies of the sun. We absorb these energies all the time when we eat. We're absorbing the energies of the sun in a modified manner. Alchemy took place to become, make it a plant and then more alchemy takes place when we eat it and it starts whirling about in our atomic structure which we call our physical body and so on and therefore feeds our livingness which has experiences to expand our consciousness. Consciousness so we too remember are collecting intelligences we are collecting energies from the sun in this sense but and now we are going to come to what we hope will be the practical part of this talk once first we have to cover certain principles so that we can see it is in harmony with a cosmic beingness, a cosmic idea. We absorb at all times, we too are the collecting intelligence, and remember Qabalah means the reception, and a Qabalist is he who receives.

Receives. Now it isn't that anyone does not always receive, but a Qabalist is he who's working unconsciously receiving. We're becoming aware. We are central whirlpools of livingness like the sun, though to each other we look like what our physical body seemed to indicate. But people with clairvoyant vision see another part of the body which is the aura and this is a radiating sort of ovum it's in an oval shape like an egg and they see us then a little other and we see each other and this radiating aura no matter what we think even if we think thoughts that are very ignorant and evil indeed, it's still a motion of an energy that has a certain radiance.

And so we are a radiating group of energies beyond what we appear to each other. And we are, with this, a receptacle, And remember, the collecting intelligence means receptacle. We are a receptacle for energies, which means we receive all kinds of thinkings and feelings that are going on in our universe. As above, so below. This comes from the most profound esoteric teachings as we know. As above, so below. As without, so within. Principles that are true principles on the so-called physical plane are true principles on the so-called spiritual plane and vice versa. So we receive energies if we think of energies as being other than consciousness this is where we fall into a trap our sun in the heavens is a consciousness otherwise how could it beget consciousness because we are begotten of our solar sun we are the children of the sun and so in as much as we have thinking, feeling, living processes. That which begot us would have to be the same.

Don't we inherit from our parents? And why should we limit this idea? This is a bad use of the mind. It is an illogical use of the mind and it is a lack of of reasoning, which would try to lock away a concept, to try to say that we who have consciousness, we who have emotion, that we could have it, and that which begets us has not got it.

Hereditary principles, if they are true on the physical plane, are true on the spiritual plane, only they're true in a deeper and in a more glorious sense than most of us realize. Because when we start thinking about ourselves and feeling about ourselves as being offspring of this miraculous, living, indescribable consciousness which we call God, for lack of a better term, if we start thinking of ourselves as that, why we then become more receptive and remember the word receptive is still in terms of the collecting intelligence qabalah means the receptive the receiver the receivers of truth the receivers of consciousness the receivers of aliveness we will therefore start receiving we will therefore start expressing those aspects of our consciousness. We will therefore start growing up to express that part of us which is as godly as, shall we say, God himself. Whatever God himself or God herself or God itself might mean to each and every one of us.

Because it's a growing thing, it cannot be limited. We are the children of the sun begotten of God and the more we think of ourselves that way the less will we be tied to the destructive energies the less will we be tied to the appearances the more will we be able to start regenerating our entire system our entire vehicle and it doesn't matter how old we are it doesn't matter how broken down we are all of these things are meaningless when we can start holding to what we really are then we are like the son the prodigal son who though he went off and performed all kinds of silly deeds the The moment he came to himself, he was welcome to his father's house with all the goodies that go with it.

And I, for one, am in favor of these goodies. Some people have such guilt complexes, or they're so determined that growth must be a tearful or a very joyless process, that the idea of the largesse, the idea of the joyousness, of the laughter, of what we truly inherit when we claim our inheritance, seems to them like blasphemy.

And the truth is, my darlings, they are the blasphemers.

I mean this is the most tragic misinterpretation of principle and what it does incidentally is ensure a miserable life he who holds in consciousness the necessity for being miserable is certainly going to be miserable because consciousness receives it is the receptacle for all the thinkings, feelings that go on in its universe.

And it receives in terms of what it has attuned itself to receive.

That is why it becomes so necessary for us to retune our inner radios, which really means our consciousness. Our emotions to retune this part of our being to that which will bring us the radiant laughter you see these children are happy these children are dancing you know some wonderful sweet aspirants who who were conditioned, as we all are, by the thinkings, feelings of the world, not very long ago, and rather close to this work, felt very disturbed about the idea, for instance, of, at any time, dancing taking place in this temple.

They thought it would not be spiritual. Now, you see, this is what conditioning does.

Yet here we have the children dancing in the fairy ring, and this is the child of God, being the true receiver. This is regeneration. And the 21st Tarot key, which shows us cosmic consciousness, shows this dancing figure, the dance of life. And yet there are some true aspirants still so conditioned who think that dancing would be a desecration of their temple whereas it might be the very reverse might it not that to dance in in the temple might be to truly bring the higher reverence, we are not going to truly receive our joyousness until we're willing to do and be the joyous things. When we have this terrible need to walk about with the very unhappy interpretation of what a holy or spiritual face is like.

Have you ever been in the presence of people or perhaps in the presence of yourself, you know, which has a deep meaning, and become aware of how you have been playing the role of being spiritual by having a slightly raised eyebrow, a sort of benevolent glance, a bare smile not too much of the smile just bare showing that you are looking with benevolent indulgence upon these children who do not have your spiritual both weight and yet endurance have you ever sat in your own presence or in the presence of others with this state and yet could it not be that true spirituality is a spontaneous a joyous dancing well certainly undignified expression of just sheer glory seems to me the Lord of life is not so concerned with man's ideas of dignity.

All we have to do is look out at life. And yet isn't it sad that, for instance, a spiritual teacher, a spiritual leader, must play the role of the aspirant's concept of the dignified spiritual teacher, otherwise everybody would run away and then there'd be no one left to teach and that would be sad too wouldn't it so that we're forced to accept the conditionings that life has given us but at least some of us try to gently coax the aspirant into a truer insight a truer receptivity of the glory, the beauty, the radiance, to receive joy instead of all this nonsense and discord, to be willing to receive song and dance.

And the strange thing really is this.

See, the title...