It
is obvious, to anyone who cares to pay attention, that
present-day occultism is fraught with some unusual controversies
and contradictions that do not, rightly, belong to the realm of
the esoteric mysteries. The condition of the esoteric world,
today, and the struggle for satisfaction that many aspirants
find themselves entangled in during their quest for a reputable
and productive source of tuition, prompted me to scratch out a
few words on the subject … again.
It
should be pointed out, as I begin, here, that I am quite aware
this paper is not likely to be well received by the bulk of
those involved in the realm of popular occultism. This is
largely because it is my intention, herein, to point my finger
largely at that group of esotericists and to make a very clear
my thoughts on the gross misconceptions that this collective has
given birth to, fosters and propagates, to the detriment of the
ancient mystery tradition. It is deeply important, in my
estimation that a clear distinction must be made between the
largely impotent and mediocre sub-culture of pop occultism and
the true and hidden sacred mystery schools
of the western culture. In this way we might, with some hope,
help to reduce the great number of casualties that arise from
exposure to this rip tide of thinly disguised imposture.
Let
us begin, then, by defining the term occultist where it refers
to the subject of this paper. I recognize such a person as being
an individual who is interested in the study and/or practice of
the occult arts and sciences. We might recognize the occult
sciences as including astrology, qabala,
alchemy, magick (black and white),
divination, occult ritual or
ceremonial, astral projection, occult
literature and history and the phenomena of occult
training
itself, for example.
Occultists
might have an interest in any one of these subjects alone or
several together at one time. They may accept some of the
sciences while rejecting others. They may simply have an
academic interest or a practical one, or both. There is no real
pre-requisite that states that an occultist must believe in any
particular spiritual doctrine or work with any particular
practices at all, and that includes having any form of religious
predisposition, or lack thereof.
We
might most productively, for the purpose of this discourse,
divide the types of occultist into four rough but distinct
divisions. By type I specifically refer to degrees of
involvement, commitment or interest in occultism. It is
necessary to make such a distinction, because, unlike
conventional science or art, occultism is perceived as being
either one thing or another depending on the individual's
personal degree of soul ripeness.
Firstly,
we have the non-occultist.
I refer to this type so that a comparison might be made between
the degrees of the next level and those above it. The
non-occultist might, roughly speaking, be one of three kinds.
(1)Those who have no idea what the occult is and therefore care
less, (2) those who have some idea and care less, and (3) those
who believe they know and actively avoid it.
Secondly,
there is the new-age contingent.
We might define a new-ager as an eclectic individual. He has no
bones about taking bits and pieces from many and various
respected or nefarious spiritual or psychological sources,
mixing and matching them according to his whim. He often
believes in some kind of apocalyptic vision, hopes to be saved
from it by some exterior agent and generally respects anyone's
desire to capitalize on this the entire phenomena. He might be
thought of as a lazy occultist, one who thinks that
enlightenment is a commodity that can be delivered in bulk or
piecemeal by some external agent. The key to this attitude is a
desire to work as little for enlightenment as possible. Type
two, the new age aspirant, therefore never manages to do
more than scratch the surface of actual occultism.
We
might add that there is no universally defining doctrine to the
new age movement. Although a new age person will often recognize
a long existing occult tradition, he has no real interest in, or
respect for, such tradition. (This is not really malicious
though, but rather the result of an understanding derived from
the superficiality of his degree of interest.)
We
might also define the new age aspirant as being primarily mystic
in his aspiration. That is, his desire is often to quit the
physical life and its responsibilities as soon as possible in
order to take part in some kind of spiritual utopia where God
walks with the faithful.
Type
two includes, really, any modern (invented in the last 300
years), spiritual movement that is not based directly on the
ancient mystery tradition. Into this category we can include to
a degree many modern religious movements, such as wicca and
spiritualism.
Thirdly,
we have the popular or mainstream occultist.
This creature might firstly be defined as understanding quite
clearly that the new-ager is a lost cause as far as real success
in gaining enlightenment is concerned. That such a person has a
superficial and therefore distorted view of spiritual dynamics.
The
pop-occultist knows a difference exists between the mediocre
vision of the new-ager and the substance described in
main-stream serious occult literature. This realisation is often
described as being both inborn and logical to the third type.
He realizes there is a depth of tradition behind serious occult
literature and he feels some kind of kinship with, and possibly
respect for, that ancient tradition. We are talking, therefore,
about an individual who, although he may start as a type two
aspirant, gravitates toward type three status naturally
because of some inherent internal condition. We have already
described this condition as a degree of soul maturity, usually,
we might add, brought on by some degree of serious involvement
in spiritual discipline in other incarnations.
The
least measure of involvement in occult activity for a mainstream
(pop) occultist might be an avid collection and study of
relatively serious occult literature. Although this might be the
least requirement to be categorized as a pop-occultist we should
point out that at the end of the day this activity describes the
sum total of the greatest proportion of mainstream occultists
… including many of those who claim to be in the next
category.
One
step up from the mere collection and study of serious esoteric
literature comes the act of seeking out and being involved in occult
tuition relationships. Nevertheless the occultist belonging
to the popular mainstream often carries with him some of the
terrible habits of the new-age man. He can be seriously eclectic
or alternatively will jump continually from one training system
to another trying out bits of each as he goes. In this instance
he obviously lacks commitment, and this often because he also
lacks an ability to discern between productive training
situations and mere facade style groups. This condition is often
coupled with a feeling that one might be missing out on some
secret or special situation in some other group or school which
might be of help, or which might boost personal status in some
way. The 'grass must be greener' syndrome that betrays a lack of
depth in understanding the real nature of attainment of occult
goals.
The
pop-occultist often does not own the ability for novel creative
thought and will often suffer a frustration in having to trust
in the directions, doctrines and philosophies of one or any
number of well-known (but not necessarily respectable) occult
theorists or theories. In this way it might be noticed that such
an individual has not yet managed to separate himself from the
herd. While believing that involvement in occultism separates
him from the common herd (which to some small degree it does) if
we scratch beneath the surface we find that in fact he is a
dedicated follower of esoteric fashion and is often motivated by
some form of common psychological irritation rather than pure
intention and productive goals.
Such
individuals will be noticed to enthusiastically place rather
limited conditions on what they believe good occult training to
be, totally unaware that the search for enlightenment already
possesses its own necessary requirements that if not met, will
only allow for failure.
Although
a good number of mainstream occultists will eagerly join occult
groups seeking social interaction (primarily) or tuition
there are also a large number that insist that going it alone is
the only way. This approach is often born of one of two
conditions. The first arises from insecurity, a fear of becoming
involved with others, of the kind of intimacy that real tuition
requires, or of subjecting oneself to a more learned authority
for a necessary period of the journey. The second arises from
having had a bad experience with some individual, group or
system of philosophy or training. It will often be heard, as
argument for the lone path, reasons why being involved with at
lest one other searcher, a teacher
perhaps, is not good, rather than any positive reason why being
alone is more productive. We must point out here though that
these situations are very much understandable considering the
condition of the popular esoteric environment.
At
the top end of the mainstream or popular class we have
individuals who have committed themselves to respected
mainstream schools. Sometimes they join a single school or
sometimes two or three together for long periods of their lives.
The most common factor uniting this group of individuals at this
end of the third type scale is that after many years of
commitment and study they have made very little progress. We
find, too, that they have a number of interesting rationales for
this (lets admit it) disappointing direction to their esoteric
career. But in the end it is usually only one of two factors
that are responsible for this outcome. Either the school they
committed to is impotent (for whatever reason), or they
themselves have never got the point and made the requisite
effort in the right areas (usually because of a lack of soul
ripeness).
It
is important to consider for a moment what these mainstream
schools are like, that cater for type three personalities. The
schools themselves are in fact not unlike the type three
individuals. They are quite public usually, but not necessarily.
They focus greatly on the written word as a central authority
while often proclaiming that experience is the important factor
in gaining success. Their tutors and authorities usually are
completely or near completely incapable of demonstrating or
passing on constructively the concepts that they teach from
their literature. In fact often the self-proclaimed adepts
within these schools will focus obsessively and argue over
unimportant details in secret teachings in order to
(often unconsciously) take their students focus away from the
general lack of skill in practical techniques within the college
body as a whole.
There
is also, interestingly enough, while claiming to be a western
tradition school, often a real lack of traditional western
methods and terminology in the key philosophies and methods of
the school, but instead, in their place, we find techniques and
terms corrupted or directly plagiarized from the eastern
tradition. Such a situation betrays the low degree of initiation
the founders of these schools suffered from at the time they
created their systems.
Within
the third type group we might classify the last section,
as described just above, as novice initiates. A good proportion
of type three occultists, those in the mainstream,
consider, or will consider, themselves as initiates proper and
as serious, committed, hardcore occultists. They sometimes muse
on the possibility that there may be greater souls than theirs
upon the earth with greater success and knowledge. Usually,
though, they consider this to be a more rare situation than it
actually is, or, possibly one that may have once been true but
is now likely non-existent. It is amusing that this belief is
sometimes justified by the acclamation that … “as I have
been moving in many serious esoteric circles for many years and
have never met any of these legendary advanced initiates I
seriously doubt their existence.” But the truth is that this
is not really the case. And we will soon present an argument as
to why this is so. Nevertheless in the supposed absence of any
greater individuals we see many mainstream occultists claiming
degrees of success and rank obviously far in excess to their
actual attainment.
Only
the eldest and life long committed students of mainstream
esoteric schools might be considered novice initiates, simply
because they have been exposed to the realm for such an extended
period of time, and because their intentions are often, at
least, honest if not wholly productive in the last estimation.
Next
we have the fourth
type of occultist, the initiate proper.
While one does not have to search too hard at all to find
himself a mainstream occultist, as they are everywhere thick on
the ground, the fourth type is not so easy to find. He
will likely move within mainstream circles, have friends within
and join groups of popular appeal, but he is obviously, when
examined closer, not himself belonging to that genre. He is
characterized by certain definite distinctions that may move
quite un-noticed by the mainstream crowd. Fore mostly he is a
creative and novel thinker. He is innovative. He will stand out
in his personal group of esoteric friends as having a very
simplistic yet difficult-to-grasp approach to and philosophy
concerning esoteric science. He is marked by the undeniable fact
that he has a knack of explaining in almost flawless detail the
esoteric laws comprising the canon of ancient mystery teaching.
At the same time he obviously gets results and can easily
help others to get results of a quite definite and often extreme
nature. In short, there is an obvious depth and intensity to him
that we do not commonly find in aspirants of the previous two
types. He is what Gurdjieff calls ... the cunning man.
While
often being attached to some mainstream school, or other, type
four aspirants have, after their initial introduction to the
realm of esotericism, no need for such affiliations other than
for cosmetic reasons. They conceive of the path, its actual
requirements, their place on the ladder of ascent and the means
to rise higher with such ease that mainstream occultism is of
little use at all to their journey.
What
the mainstream aspirant does not understand about type four
is that he is the only occultist making the kind of progress
that occult training was originally designed to effect. That type
four, the initiate proper, understands the superficial
nature of the mainstream, it's tenuous connection with real
esoteric science, and the terrible distraction the entire pop
occult culture is to the seriously advancing student. No matter
what other character traits the type four possesses as an
occultist or as an individual, he has one outstanding feature
that entitles him alone to the distinction of initiate proper.
He is not merely a scholar of things esoteric (and may not be a
scholar at all in such matters), nor is he a mere
practitioner-by-rote of the practical art. But, instead, he gets
results quickly and often in the extreme. And because he
understands the nature of the paths actual requirements, also of
his own techniques and their results, he knows without doubt
that at the end of the day it is results which matter and which
define the players from the pretenders and spectators. He knows,
from experience, that the seemingly extravagant and legendary
claims of the masters of yore were in fact … the claims of
those who knew from the stand point of mastery. Demonstrably
powerful men with a grasp on the actual nature of reality far
beyond that of the modern mainstream occultist.
Having
now defined the four general types of occult aspirant we may
begin to consider the actual subject of this paper, the status
quo of the realm of esoteric training in the western
tradition. The condition of the modern occult movement and
its schools arises from the existence of these various types,
which define, maintain and advertise the various methods of
tuition available to the aspirant at mainstream level.
The
subject of this discourse is primarily the difference between
the condition and activities of the mainstream in occultism and
the fourth type, the initiate proper. Therefore we can
now dispense with any further consideration of the non-occultist
and the new-ager, as having so little to do with serious
occultism that it is not worth considering … unless it is that
often novice aspirants which belong to type three and four
categories often begin their journey as type one or two
seekers.
It
might be acceptable to state that the focus of the activities
and interests of the mainstream (popular occultism) and the fourth
type, together, is the occult school system. The greater
proportion of occultists in these two groups either belong to,
desire to belong to, or value reading literature produced by
initiates of esoteric fraternities. So that we might understand
exactly what we mean by the term occult school system let us
explain. There are two education systems in the world today
(generally speaking). The conventional exoteric state recognized
education system comprising elementary school, high school,
colleges, polytechs, technical institutes and universities, etc.
We are all familiar with this structure and dynamics of the
particular state recognized education systems in our respective
countries. Outside of this form of education, somewhat behind
the scenes, and not recognized, but known of by, the state is
another form of education which we might call occult, or
esoteric, school system. This system is not, as a collective, as
organized and authoritative (socially or individually) as the
conventional state governed system, but it is older, and much
more diverse. It is also not governed over by a single
determining temporal authority.
The
esoteric or occult school system is comprised of a great variety
of philosophies, belief systems, teaching methods and school
structures types. Tuition situations
range from private one-on-one type relationships, through small
informal discussion groups with lecturers to well organized
colleges with a well defined hierarchy and grade system, for
example. These kinds of institutions often go by such titles as
society, fraternity (brotherhood), college, temple or order.
There are also a number of different traditions that use these
titles, and often with different intentions. There is, for
example, the hermetic tradition, witchcraft, rosicrucianism,
mysticism, gnosticism, masonic, thelemic, etc, etc.
For
persons not familiar with this entire situation it is easiest,
we suggest, to simply consider this esoteric education system as
being similar to the state governed conventional type, but with
different structure (sometimes), tuition methods and different
aims. Whereas conventional education is designed to teach the
individual to survive in the outer life and become a productive
member of society, esoteric education has the intention of
teaching the individual to survive on the inner levels and
become a productive member of the esoteric community. Whereas
the conventional education system is relatively young, the
esoteric education system is thousands of years old. Generally
speaking it has been using the same methods with the same goals
in mind for over 6000 years. Only the outer forms, the types of
institutions and their names, have changed in all that time.
Now,
before we continue, it is important to point out here that the
scenario that is described, from here on out, concerns the
western tradition and specifically its hermetic aspect. Although
much of what we present here is just as applicable to eastern
mysticism and other traditions, the overall condition of occult
education being very much the same world wide.
Up
until relatively recently, in the west, and I mean till about
300 years ago, the corpus of esoteric collegia, almost entirely,
existed and prospered in total secrecy. This was the case almost
solely because it was the practice of the authorities on the
Christian church to repress, with excessive force, any spiritual
beliefs other than those adhering strictly to the rigid
doctrines of the catholic Christian church. Nevertheless it was
within the Christian monastic tradition that the western occult
tradition first entered Europe and developed into that flavour
we know recognize as distinctly Anglo-Hermetic.
The
original Christian hierarchy and its various institutions were modeled,
to a degree, upon the structures used by the older religions and
esoteric schools which had flourished in the near and middle
east since time immemorial. Therefore the monastic tradition,
within Christianity, was a very welcome receptacle for the
occult systems that were imported from the near and middle east
during the early Christian era. The pious monks of that age who
hungered for deeper knowledge of the mysteries of existence
eagerly grafted on to their monastic tradition, but in secret,
all that they could learn or inherit from their brethren in the
east. In some cases this meant small fragments of the ancient
mysteries. In other times and places it meant the wholesale
import of almost complete esoteric schools from their Coptic and
Islamic influenced homes in Arabia and Egypt to the hallowed
cloisters of isolated monastic communities in all parts of
Christendom.
Repressed
by the attitude of the Church of which they were technically a
part, these occult arts were preserved, assiduously practiced
and taught in hiding within secret brotherhoods or small
insignificant confraternities for 100's of years. Exactly what
went on behind their closed doors during those dark ages we do
not know. But we do have some idea about what these early adepts
of the western tradition were interested in, what they studied
and how far they developed their skill and understanding. Their
two primary interests were what we now refer to as medieval
magic and laboratory alchemy. Both heavily mixed up with
exoteric and esoteric Christianity.
When
we read back now, through the literature left to us from the
classic ages of the early development of the western mystery
tradition, three things stand out very clearly to the learned
and unbiased observer. These early adepts were both very pious
about their occultism and they were very skilled in the
practical execution of both magic and alchemy. Also, at least
within the records they have left us, we see that their
understanding of the underlying detailed technical theory of
both magic and alchemy was, in most cases, largely lacking.
There is no doubt a few authors knew a great deal about how and
why these things worked. But overall it was not the how and why
that interested them as much as getting results did. This is not
to say, though, that occult literature from this early period
lacks descriptions of theory, not at all. But such descriptions
are often confused, erroneous and conflicting - overall.
As
the secret life of the western mystery tradition evolved
eventually aspects of it came to the light of the public world.
The event of the printing press helped this process greatly. By
the dawn of the 1700's we see a great deal of occult subject
matter openly published for the ready consumption of the
literate section of the public. Much of the source material we
have available to us now on both the subject of medieval magic
and alchemy stems from the 15th and 16th centuries in fact. It
is important, though, to consider the nature of such
publications and the quality of information published in them if
we are to understand how they have influenced modern western
occultism.
It
is generally understood and accepted that in the ages when the
occult arts were being taught in secret that students
apprenticed to groups or individuals were first inducted into
training they took oaths of secrecy. For very good reason, and
not simply to avoid retribution from the church, the masters of
the western tradition insisted on keeping the deeper serious
knowledge and practices concealed from the public eye. Those who
had developed their skills to the extreme end of the spectrum
through the study of occultism and who had attained certain
extreme degrees of enlightenment had decided and thereafter
insisted that the only way to safely and productively pass on
this knowledge was under a veil of secrecy behind closed doors.
And I repeat, although this veil had exoteric practical
benefits, such as keeping students off the gallows and out of
the torture chamber, its primary purpose was esoteric. For we
know today, as well as they did in the early years of the
monastic tradition, that even in the ancient cultures of Egypt
and Mesopotamia, were occultism would have been quite easy
accepted socially, the high initiates of the ancient colleges
still insisted on secrecy.
Now,
taking it for granted that some smaller portion of practitioners
of occult knowledge obtained their education without having to
take any oath of secrecy, the great volume of esoteric
literature which was produced from these early times would lead
us to surmise that much of it was revealed by persons who had to
break their oath of silence in order to expose such knowledge.
This being likely we have to ask ourselves how reliable the
greater portion of this information must then be? If not a
complete fabrication, is the particular work, or even the bulk
of this type of literature accurate or complete? How much of it
is deliberately deceptive or misleading and how deeply does the
deception or inaccuracy flow?
Whatever
the case may be there is no doubt that the esoteric systems
which are most popular today, the mainstream of occult lore,
knowledge and practice, are based on various degrees of the
acceptability of validity of the overall picture and specific
instruction presented in the medieval and post medieval written
materials.
What
we are told about the intentions, methods and philosophies of
the occult arts, and the nature of the western tradition, today,
largely stems from a certain few modern individuals
interpretations of the meaning of literature that was produced
at a time when the once very secret tradition was first being
exposed through questionable sources with questionable
intentions or by well meaning persons or groups in a format
designed to promote confusion (the liberal use of metaphor,
analogy and cypher.)
This
is a very important claim. Basically, what I am saying here is
that many, many mainstream, popular, occult schools or systems
(that might also be taught one-on-one or informally) are not the
product of an informed education obtained from the core of a
tradition orally and through practical demonstration by
experienced experts to properly prepared students, but indeed
are simply fabricated by modern entrepreneurs based on surviving
literature, of a questionable nature, almost entirely.
In
order to carry off a non-traditional (non-esoteric) approach to
establishing schools and methodology, certain conditions must be
encouraged by the inventors of these modern systems. Firstly,
they must either outright lie about their apostolic succession
(if you like), by trying to convince new students that their
training is validated by some traditional process, sign or
technique. Or they must provide some kind of convincing argument
against the assumed validity of proper (real secret tradition)
training methods. Or both. In many modern esoteric colleges this
matter has been dealt with by perpetuating the concept that a
school or group is considered valid as long as it has a charter
from some other school, group or individual that is generally
considered regular, legal or proper. This preposterous situation
has developed out of freemasonry where that institution, for
good reason, established the concept of the authority of a
charter or warrant as a means of proving 'regular' (legit)
lodges. Therefore, today, a situation has arisen whereby we are
encouraged to believe, by those individuals who delight in
establishing or inventing new schools or systems of training,
that the possession of a charter is proof that the system they
possess, or the tutors teaching their system, will produce
viable results.
The
second condition that is encouraged by these mainstream
‘authorities’ in magick and alchemy is that some degree of
intellectual apprehension and the lip-service practice of
esoteric subject matter is all that is required to be considered
adept. Scholarly debate, playing with semantics and obscure and
questionably helpful cyphers, codes and symbolisms have taken
first place above actual results. The by-rote execution of often
complicated rituals willy-nilly or ad-infinitum is considered as
a mark of being experienced in the practical aspects of magick,
rather than just an armchair scholar, with little account given
at all to the importance of the results originally expected from
such work.
The
production of realistic magickal results has now given way to
academia and a simple be seen to be doing religious
observance of ritual. It never seems to enter the minds of those
who are directing the vessel of mainstream western occultism
that magick without reliable and legendary magickal results is
not magick at all. Instead day by day we are encouraged to
accept the most mediocre of results we obtain from the most
extreme practices mainstream occultism has to offer are the gold
at the end of the rainbow. The extreme superhuman attainments
that our adept forefathers in the secret arts insisted we should
expect from the proper application of occult training are now
denied and described as analogies, metaphors and extravagances
by the modern mainstream self proclaimed elite. These elite, who
by their behaviour, insist that we recognize a master of
occultism by the number of titles he bears and the cut of his
magickal robe.
This
situation has been carried, now, in our time, to such an
extreme, where we now have individuals, who see themselves as
occultists riding upon the cutting edge of esoteric technology,
who deny the possibility of enlightenment, reject the existence
of non-physical existence and consider themselves to be the only
God there is. In the cold light of day such statements might
seem ludicrous, but are nevertheless on the increase and taken
very seriously by the new elite. An elite who have a magick
without any magick, who have turned the sacred ancient mysteries
into a new religion for the new millennium. As the old
conventional religions thrash their last death throws before the
eyes of the complacent modern world, they are being replaced,
ever so subtly, by a new cycle of religion, reborn from the
ashes of the old, stolen from the off casts of the hidden
schools of esoteric science, with, in the true tradition of the
old religions, politics and finance as their first concerns.
So
much for pop-occultism. Let us look, now, at what remains of the
true, invisible, colleges that have carried on the ancient
tradition unhindered and almost forgotten behind the scenes.
What is it that they know, that they do, that sets them part
from the mainstream and qualifies this last, fourth way,
as the real bastion of occultism?
The
first pre-requisite for a fourth type school is that it
remains hidden from the outer world. The masters of the ancient
mysteries, as we have said previously, have insisted since the
beginning that their knowledge, activities and training were
preserved and propagated behind a veil of silence. It is taken
for granted that individuals of schools that cater for type
three occultists, the mainstream, will vehemently disagree
with this, they who believe that an esoteric group can only
survive and remain valid as long as it is 'out there' where
aspirants can see it and therefore apply for tuition. Such
beliefs, though, are based on the concept that occult schools
must make use of mundane channels in order to attract students.
The underlying belief here is that magick does not in fact work.
That schools cannot rely on the soul's and the universe's
inherent magickal properties, and good training, to bring out
this esoteric potential, to ensure that ripe students will make
contact with experienced tutors in order to fulfill their
esoteric destinies.
It
is rather obvious, though, even to the casual observer, that
most mainstream schools adhere to this 'public face' attitude
because they are obsessed with a need for quantity of students
rather than quality. For it is logical that any occult group
that maintains a veil of secrecy about its whereabouts and
activities will likely have a very limited number of members. So
we see that the mainstream occultist, when making a choice about
which orders are of most use as candidates for his membership,
he will often consider size to be a defining factor. The bigger
or more popular the group, the better it must be? Again this
attitude stems from an ignorance or misunderstanding of basic
magickal dynamics.
A
schools effectiveness or usefulness is not displayed by
excessive numbers of members. In fact exactly the opposite is
true. The more effective an esoteric school, the more likely it
is to have very few members, whether it is public or hidden.
This might seem, on the surface, to be a contrary statement. But
every advanced occultist knows that the truth is contrary to
popular opinion.
Why
would this be so then? The answer is simple. It has to do with
the truth concerning the nature of the struggle for
enlightenment. At this point in our discussion we must make
clear the fact that a fourth type school, those which
cater for the initiate proper, are established for and are
concerned about one primary aim in their training process. That
aim is in aiding their students in attaining enlightenment. In
attaining a vision of, and life in, the complete self, from
which provides complete knowledge and experience of the nature
of the function and process of life.
Man
is a microcosm, an analogical holographic representation of the
universal. If it is man's purpose to understand the universal
plan in order to align his personal cause with that greater
cause, then he must begin by attempting to know himself. The
individual cannot, hermetic science insists, even begin to
understand the true nature of his own being unless he is allowed
to contemplate himself in his entirety. The problem is, then,
that the average person entering in through the threshold to the
mystery tradition to begin his occult education has both an
imperfect and incomplete knowledge of the conscious worldly part
of himself – and almost no knowledge at all of the half of
himself of which he is unconscious. Here, then, is the
student’s first struggle, to reclaim a vision of his entire
being complete in one unit.
The
inexperienced student has little idea of just what kind of
difficulty this will involve. Besides shying away from a clear
honest vision of his exterior self he will discover that that
half of himself that resides in his unconscious is hidden from
him because he is mortally afraid of it. The average student in
fact has no desire or intention at all of completing his vision
of himself by awakening his unconscious. Once he makes the
decision, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid understanding
the unconscious and to integrate it, he removes himself,
completely, from the intimate company of type four
initiate. He relegates himself, thus-wise, by his actions, to
the realm of popular occultism and it's satisfaction with
possessing an incomplete knowledge and a partial truth,
essentially a lie, about the self.
We
can say, now, most definitely, that the attribute least required
of the initiate crossing the line between type three and type
four is his acceptance of the need to overcome his worst
fears and venture deep into the unconscious. That he has tasted
the pain and the powerful desire to give up the struggle in the
face of the dweller upon the threshold, and he has accepted
these struggles as a natural part of his journey from which he
will not shrink or behave like a coward. It is not enough, in
order to be a type four aspirant, to insist that one will
brave this struggle. Often those who seem to own those character
traits that will allow success with this battle will fall
earliest in an attempt to advance. Therefore it is only trial
and the commitment and unswerving dedication that arises from
self confrontation which marks the passage from type three to type
four.
Of
course, we have heard many a time, by those who are entranced by
the mediocrity of the mainstream (believing it to be potent and
meaningful), that indeed they have braved such struggles and
have survived them. Therefore they feel they can speak with the
authority of a type four initiate about the true nature
of reality. But such persons quickly and most obviously show
none of the personality traits possessed by an individual who
has had a vision of the totality of their being, even for a
moment. Instead their philosophy remains that of the half blind
and their behaviour that of they who remain in fear and
ignorance.
Lastly,
having come this far, let us consider for a moment the motive
behind the need for the schools catering for the needs of the type
four individual to remain hidden. It is a well-known fact,
had by any individual who has braved the descent into the
unconscious in search of completeness, that very quickly, once
one enters this downward sloping path, one looses the ability to
be objective and rational about even the most common place
things. The retrogressive forces in the soul take advantage of
this mild and temporary state of insanity and attempt to drive
the student away from the path of success back into the world of
common things. In 90% of cases they succeed. In about 70% of
these failed cases the reason would easily be because the
student has refused experienced guidance and has attempted to
face the shadow nature alone, unaided and uninformed. Under such
conditions one could do no better than fail early and miserably.
The shadow is a creature of great power and great age. Its knowledge
of our behaviour, in the early stages of the struggle, is vastly
greater than our own. It is a trifle for it to overcome our
strongest desires to succeed with the greatest of ease.
For
this reason our adept forefathers established the mystery
schools. Fraternities founded with the purposes of providing aid
to like-minded brethren in the battle against the darkness.
Hidden Brotherhoods whose purpose was to establish a private and
safe sanctuary wherein the fragile flowering soul can unfold
without the concern of being battered by the harshness of the
mundane world. The entire dynamic of the confrontation with the
unconscious is of such a delicate nature that it is likely that
it will not succeed unless the best conditions are established
and maintained. Of course there are those who will insist that
the scenario we have described here is either unreal,
non-existent or only one of several methods that might be used
to attain to the summit of esoteric human endeavour. To such
persons all I can say is that the ancient masters of esoteric
wisdom, who searched deep and far for knowledge of the nature of
being and the path of reclamation of divinity, never found an
alternate route. If they did, they never wrote about it, created
mythic allegories about it, or any records of such a process
have never survived either physically, orally or astrally.
As
the alchemical sages of the classic period asserted … “there
is only one subject, one path, one vessel and the goal is
one.” That … “nothing can be reborn into a higher life if
first it does not die and putrefy in darkness and in the bowels
of the earth.”
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