Jacob Boehme on Spiritual Regeneration

But since thou desirest me to tell thee how to forsake thy own perverse creaturely Will so that the Creatures in thee might die, and how yet thou mightest live along with them in the World, I must assure thee that there is but one Way to do it, which is narrow and straight, and will be very hard and irksome to thee at the Beginning, but afterwards thou wilt walk in it cheerfully.

Thou must seriously consider, that in the Course of this worldly Life thou walkest in the Anger of God and in the Foundation of Hell; and that this is not thy true Native Country; but that a True Christian should, and must live in Christ, and in his Walking truly follow him; and that he cannot be a True Christian, unless the Spirit and Power of Christ so live in him, that he becometh wholly Subject to it. Now seeing the Kingdom of Christ is not of this World, but in Heaven, therefore thou must always be in a continual Ascension towards Heaven, if thou wilt follow Christ; though thy Body must dwell among the Creatures and use them.

The narrow Way to which perpetual Ascension into Heaven and Imitation of Christ is this: thou must despair of all thy own Power and Strength, for in and by thy own Power thou canst not reach the Gates of God; and firmly purpose and resolve wholly to give thyself up to the Mercy of God, and to sink down with thy whole Mind and Reason into the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ, always desiring to persevere in the same, and to die from all thy Creatures therein. Also thou must resolve to watch and guard thy Mind, Thoughts and Inclinations that they admit no Evil into them, neither must thou suffer thyself to be held fast by temporal Honour or Profit. 

Thou must resolve likewise to put away from thee all Unrighteousness, and whatsoever else may hinder the Freedom of thy Motion and Progress. Thy Will must be wholly pure, and fixed in a firm Resolution never to return to its old Idols any more, but that thou wilt leave them the very Instant they are known to thee, and separate thy Mind from them, and enter into the sincere Way of Truth and Righteousness, according to the plain and full Doctrine of Christ. And as thou dost thus purpose to forsake the Enemies of thine own inward Nature, so also must thou forgive all thy outward Enemies, and resolve to meet them with thy Love; so that there may be left no Creature, Person, or Thing at all able to take hold of thy Will and captivate it; but that it may be sincere, and purged from all Creatures.

Nay further; if it should be required, thou must be willing and ready to forsake all thy temporal Honour and Profit for Christ's sake, and regard nothing that is Earthly so as to set thy Heart and Affections upon it; but esteem thyself in whatsoever State, Degree, and Condition thou art, as to worldly Rank or Riches, to be but a Servant of God and of thy Fellow-Christians; or as a Steward in the Office wherein thy Lord hath placed thee. All Arrogance and Self-Exaltation must be humbled, brought low, and so annihilated that nothing of thine own or of any other Creature may stay in thy Will to bring thy Thoughts or Imagination to be set upon it.

Thou must also firmly impress it on thy Mind, that thou shalt certainly partake of the promised Grace in the Merit of Jesus Christ, viz. of his outflowing Love, which indeed is already in thee, and which will deliver thee from thy Creatures, and enlighten thy Will, and kindle it with the Flame of Love, whereby thou shalt have Victory over the Devil. Not as if thou couldst will or do anything in thine own Strength, but only enter into the Suffering and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and take them to thyself, and with them assault and break in Pieces the Kingdom of the Devil in thee, and mortify thy Creatures. Thou must resolve to enter into this Way this very Hour, and never to depart from it, but willingly to submit thyself to God in all thy Endeavours and Doings, that he may do with thee what he pleaseth.

When thy Will is thus prepared and resolved, it hath then broken through its own Creatures, and is sincere in the Presence of God, and clothed with the merits of Jesus Christ. It may then freely go to the Father with the Prodigal Son, and fall down in his Presence and pour forth its Prayers; and putting forth all its Strength in this Divine Work, confess its Sins and Disobedience; and how far it hath departed from God. This must be done not with bare Words, but with all its Strength, which indeed amounteth only to a strong Purpose and Resolution; for the Soul of itself hath no Strength or Power to effect any good Work.

Now when thou art thus ready, and that thy Heavenly Father shall see thy coming and returning to him in such Repentance and Humility, he will inwardly speak to thee, and say in thee, Behold this is my Son which I had lost; he was dead and is alive again. And he will come and meet thee in thy Mind with the Grace and Love of Jesus Christ, and embrace thee with the Beams of his Love, and kiss thee with his Spirit and Strength; and then thou shalt receive Grace to pour out thy Confession before him, and to pray powerfully. This indeed is the right Place where thou must wrestle in the Light of his Countenance. And if thou standest resolutely here, and shrinkest not back, thou shalt see or feel great Wonders. For thou shalt find Christ in thee assaulting Hell, and crushing thy Beasts in Pieces, and that a great Tumult and Misery will arise in thee; also thy secret undiscovered Sins will then first awake, and labour to separate thee from God, and to keep thee back. 

Thus shalt thou truly find and feel how Death and Life fight one against the other, and shalt understand by what passeth within thyself, what Heaven and Hell are. At which Time be not moved, but stand firm and shrink not; for at length all thy Creatures will grow faint, weak, and ready to die; and then thy Will shall wax stronger, and be able to subdue and keep down the evil Inclinations. So shall thy Will and Mind ascend into Heaven every day, and thy Creatures gradually die away. Thou wilt get a Mind wholly new, and begin to be a new Creature, and getting rid of the Bestial deformity, recover the Divine Image. Thus shalt thou be delivered from thy present Anguish, and return to thy Original Rest. 

(Jacob Boehme, The Way to Christ (1623) Book 4, Part 3, The Way from Darkness to True Illumination)

The Esoteric Meaning of the Crucifixion 2

Of Anna Kingsford's writings, Blavatsky stated: 'The first and most important was The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of Christianity. It sweeps away many of the difficulties that thoughtful readers of the Bible must contend with in their endeavours to either understand or accept literally the story of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Gospels.' She brings to an interestingly eclectic mix of Christian mysticism, Greek Hermetism, Christian Alchemy and Kaballah a wider appreciation of comparative religion, especially Hindu and Buddhist notions of karma and reincarnation along with modern theosophical notions of spiritual evolution. Although firmly rooted in a traditional Christian mysticism, she embraces more open notions of perennialism and evolution.

29. Christ Jesus, then, is no other than the hidden and true man of the Spirit, the Perfect Humanity, the Express Image of the Divine Glory. And it is possible to man, by the renunciation – which mystically is the crucifixion – of his outer and lower self, to rise wholly into his inner and higher self, and, becoming suffused or anointed of the Spirit, to “put on Christ,” propitiate God, and redeem the earthly and material. 
30. And that which they who, in the outer manifestation, are emphatically called Christs – whether of Palestine, of India, of Egypt or of Persia, – have done for man, is but to teach him what man is able to be in himself by bearing, each for himself, that Cross of renunciation which they have borne. And inasmuch as these have ministered to the salvation of the world thereby, they are truly said to be saviors of souls, whose doctrine and love and example have redeemed men from death and made them heirs of eternal life. The Wisdom they attained, they kept not secret, but freely gave as they had freely received. And that which thus they gave was their own life, and they gave it knowing that the children of darkness would turn on them and rend them because of the gift. But, with the Christs, Wisdom and Love are one, and the testament of Life is written in the blood of the testator. Herein is the difference between the Christ and the mere adept in knowledge.

The Christ gives and dies in giving, because Love constrains him and no fear withholds; the adept is prudent, and keeps his treasure for himself alone. And as the At-on-ment accomplished in and by the Christs, is the result of the unreserved adoption of the Divine Life, and of the unreserved giving of the Love mystically called the Blood of Christ, those who adopt that Life according to their teaching, and who aspire to be one with God, are truly said to be saved by the Precious Blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. For the Lamb of God is the spiritual Sun in Aries, the spring-tide glory of ascending Light, the symbol of the Pure Heart and the Righteous Life, by which humanity is redeemed. And this Lamb is without spot, white as snow, because white is the sign of Affirmation and of the “Yes;” as black is of Negation and of the devil. It is Iesous Chrestos, the Perfect Yes of God who is symbolized by this white Lamb, and who, like his sign in heaven, was lifted up on the Cross of Manifestation from the foundation of the world. 

31. In the holy Mysteries, dealing with the process of that second and new creation, which – constituting a return from Matter to Spirit – is mystically called Redemption, – every term employed refers to some process or thing subsisting or occurring within the individual himself. For, as man is a Microcosm, and comprises within all that is without, the processes of Creation by Evolution, and of Redemption by Involution, occur in the Man as in the Universe, and thereby in the Personal as in the General, in the One as in the Many. With the current orthodox symbolism of man’s spiritual history, the Initiate, or true Spiritualist, has no quarrel. That from which he seeks to be saved is truly the Devil, who through the sin of the Adam has power over him; that whereby he is saved is the precious blood of the Christ, the Only-begotten, whose mother is the immaculate ever-virgin Maria. And that to which, by means of this divine oblation, he attains is the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal Life. But, with the current orthodox interpretation of these terms, the Initiate is altogether at variance.
For he knows that all these processes and names refer to Ideas, which are actual and positive, not to physical transcripts, which are reflective and relative only. He knows that it is within his own microcosmic system he must look for the true Adam, for the real Tempter, and for the whole process of the Fall, the Exile, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. And any mode of interpretation which implies other than this, is not celestial but terrene, and due to that intrusion of earthy elements into things divine, that conversion of the inner into the outer, that “Fixing of the Volatile” or materialization of the Spiritual, which constitutes idolatry. 

32. For, such of us as know and live the inner life, are saved, not by any Cross on Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, not by any physical blood-shedding, not by any vicarious passion of tears and scourge and spear; but by the Christ-Jesus, the God with us, the Immanuel of the heart, born, working mighty works, and offering oblation in our own lives, redeeming us from the world, and making us sons of God and heirs of everlasting life. 
33. But, if we are thus saved by the love of Christ, it is by love also that we manifest Christ to others. If we have received freely, we also give freely, shining in the midst of night, that is, in the darkness of the world. For so long as this darkness prevails over the earth, Love hangs on his cross; because the darkness is the working of a will at variance with the Divine Will, doing continual violence to the Law of Love.
34. The wrongs of others wound the Son of God, and the stripes of others fall on his flesh. He is smitten with the pains of all creatures, and his heart is pierced with their wounds. There is no offence done and he suffers not, nor any wrong and he is not hurt thereby. For his heart is in the breast of every creature, and his blood in the veins of all flesh. For to know perfectly is to love perfectly, and so to love is to be partaker in the pain of the beloved. And inasmuch as a man loves and succors and saves even the least of God’s creatures, he ministers unto the Lord. Christ is the perfect Lover, bearing the sorrows of all the poor and oppressed. And the sin and injustice and ignorance of the World are the nails in his hands, and in his feet. O Passion of Love, that givest thyself freely, even unto death! For no man can do Love’s perfect work unless Love thrust him through and through. But, if he love perfectly, he shall be able to redeem; for strong Love is a Net which shall draw all souls unto him. Because unto Love is given all power, both in heaven and on earth; Seeing that the will of him who loves perfectly is one with the Will of God: And unto God and Love, all things are possible. 

IV

35. We come now to the last and innermost of the fourfold Mysteries of the Cross; the Oblation of God in and for the Macrocosmic Universe. The fundamental truth embodied in this aspect of the holy symbol, is the doctrine of Pantheism; God, and God only, in and through All. The celestial Olympus – Mount of Oracles – is ever creating; God never ceases giving of the Divine Self alike for Creation and for Redemption. God is in all things, whether personal or impersonal, and in God they live and move and have being. And that stage of purification through which the Cosmos is now passing, is God’s Crucifixion; the process of  Transmutation and Redemption of Spirit from Matter, of Being from Existence, of Substance from Phenomenon, which is to culminate in the final At-one-nient of the ultimate Sabbath of Rest awaiting God’s redeemed universe at the end of the Kalpa. In the Man Crucified, we have, therefore, the type and symbol of the continual Crucifixion of God manifest in the flesh, God suffering in the creature, the Invisible made Visible, the Volatile Fixed, the Divine Incarnate, which manifestation, suffering, and crucifixion are the causes of purification and therefore of Redemption.

Thus, in the spiritual Sense, the six days of creation are always Passion Week, in that they represent the process of painful experience, travail, and passing through, whereby the Spirit accomplishes the redemption of the Body; or the return of Matter into Substance. Hence in the sacred writings, God, in the person of Divine Humanity, is represented as showing the Five Mystical Wounds of the Passion to the Angels, and saying: – “These are the Wounds of My Crucifixion, wherewith I am wounded in the House of My Friends.” For, so long as pain and sorrow and sin endure, God is wounded continually in the persons of all creatures, small and great; and the temple of their body is the House wherein the Divine Guest suffers. 
36. For the Bread which is broken and divided for the children of the Kingdom is the Divine Substance, which with the Wine of the Spirit, constitute the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Communion of the Divine and the Terrene, the Oblation of Deity in Creation. 

37. May this holy Body and Blood, Substance and Spirit, Divine Mother and Father, inseparable Duality in Unity, given for all creatures, broken and shed, and making oblation for the world, be everywhere known, adored, and venerated. May we, by means of that Blood, which is the Love of God and the Spirit of Life, be redeemed, indrawn, and transmuted into that Body which is Pure Substance, immaculate and ever virgin, express Image of the Person of God! That we hunger no more, neither thirst any more; and that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. That being made one through the At-one-ment of Christ, who only hath Immortality and inhabiteth Light inaccessible; We also beholding the glory of God with open face; may be transformed into the same Image, from glory to glory by the power of the Spirit. Light inaccessible; We also beholding the glory of God with open face; may be transformed into the same Image, from glory to glory by the power of the Spirit. (Anna Kingsford, The Perfect Way, Lecture 4, Part III, 20)

 

Part 1

Reincarnation and Christianity

In the penultimate year of his life, William Q. Judge was preoccupied with the question of reincarnation and Christianity, penning two articles on the topic. He explored the notion of reincarnation in the Kabbalah and the case of Origen. He was a pioneer on this question, and in his various writings on the topic, presented most of the basic arguments and biblical quotations that are used today.

 

All this is to be had in mind in reading Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee"; or in Romans ix, v, 11, 13, after telling that Jacob and Esau being not yet born, "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated"; or the ideas of the people that "Elias was yet to first come"; or that some of the prophets were there in Jesus or John; or when Jesus asked the disciples "Whom do men think that I am?" There cannot be the slightest doubt, then, that among the Jews for ages and down to the time of Jesus the ideas above outlined prevailed universally. Let us now come to the New Testament.

 

St. Matthew relates in the eleventh chapter the talk of Jesus on the subject of John, who is declared by him to be the greatest of all, ending in the 14th verse, thus:

And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come.

 

Here he took the doctrine for granted, and the "if" referred not to any possible doubts on that, but simply as to whether they would accept his designation of John as Elias. In the 17th chapter he once more takes up the subject thus:

10. And his disciples asked him saying, Why, then, say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them; Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elias is come already, and they knew him not but have done to him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

 

The statement is repeated in Mark, chapter ix, v. 13, omitting the name of John. It is nowhere denied. It is not among any of the cases in which the different Gospels contradict each other; it is in no way doubtful. It is not only a reference to the doctrine of reincarnation, but is also a clear enunciation of it. It goes much further than the case of the man who was born blind, when Jesus heard the doctrine referred to, but did not deny it nor condemn it in any way, merely saying that the cause in that case was not for sin formerly committed, but for some extraordinary purpose, such as the case of the supposed dead man when he said that the man was not dead but was to be used to show his power over disease. In the latter one he perceived there was one so far gone to death that no ordinary person could cure him, and in the blind man's case the incident was like it. If he thought the doctrine pernicious, as it must be if untrue, he would have condemned it at the first coming up, but not only did he fail to do so, he distinctly himself brought it up in the case of John, and again when asking what were the popular notions as to himself under the prevailing doctrines as above shown. Matthew xvi, v. 13, will do as an example, as the different writers do not disagree, thus:

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, Whom do men say that I am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias or one of the prophets.

 

This was a deliberate bringing-up of the old doctrine, to which the disciples replied, as all Jews would, without any dispute of the matter of reincarnation; and the reply of Jesus was not a confutation of the notion, but a distinguishing of himself from the common lot of sages and prophets by showing himself to be an incarnation of God and not a reincarnation of any saint or sage. He did not bring it up to dispute and condemn as he would and did do in other matters; but to the very contrary he evidently referred to it so as to use it for showing himself as an incarnate God. And following his example the disciples never disputed on that; they were all aware of it; St. Paul must have held it when speaking of Esau and Jacob; St. John could have meant nothing but that in Revelations, chap. iii, v. 12.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out.

 

ReincarnationIn Judaism And The Bible

The Path, February, 1894

 

The issue of Lucifer for February has valuable contributions under "Notes and Queries" on this subject, and from that I extract something. Beausobre[1] says:

It is a very ancient and general belief that souls are pure and heavenly substances which exist before their bodies and come down from heaven to clothe and animate them. . . . I only quote it to show that his nation (Jews) believed for a long time back in the pre-existence of souls. . . . All the most learned Greek fathers held this opinion, and a considerable portion of the Latin fathers followed them herein. . . . It has been held by several Christian philosophers. It was received into the Church until the fourth century without being obnoxious to the charge of heresy.

 

Franck's Kabbala is referred to in these answers as saying that Origen taught transmigration as a necessary doctrine for the explaining of the vicissitudes of life and the inequalities of birth. But the next quotation throws doubt again into the question, closing, however, thus:

When the soul comes into the world it leaves the body which had been necessary to it in the mothers womb, it leaves, I repeat, the body which covered it, and puts on another body fit for the life we lead on earth. . . . But as we do not believe in metempsychosis, nor that the soul can ever be debased so as to enter into the bodies of brute animals...

 

There are several ways of looking at this. It may be charged that some one interpolated the italicized words; or that Origen was referring to transmigrating back to animals; or, lastly, that he and his learned friends had a theory about incarnation and reincarnation not clearly given. My opinion is that he wrote as above simply as to retrograde rebirth, and that he held the very identical doctrine as to reincarnation found in Isis Unveiled and which caused it to be charged that H.P.B. did not know or teach reincarnation in 1877. Of course I cannot produce a quotation.

 

But how could such a voluminous writer and deep thinker as Origen hold to the doctrines of unity with God, of the final restoration of all souls to pristine purity, and of pre-existence, without also having a reincarnation doctrine? There are many indications and statements that there was an esoteric teaching on these subjects, just as it is evident that Jesus had his private teaching for the select disciples. For that reason Origen might teach pre-existence but hold back the other. He says, according to Franck, that the question was not of metempsychosis according to Plato, "but of an entirely different theory which is of a far more elevated nature." It might have been this.

 

The soul, considered as spirit and not animal soul, is pure, of the essence of God, and desirous of immortality through a person; the person may fail and not be united to the soul; another and another person is selected; each one, if a failure in respect to union with the Self, passes into the sum of experience; but finally a personal birth is found wherein all former experiences are united and union gained. From thenceforward there is no more falling back, for immortality through a person has been attained. Prior to this great event the soul existed, and hence the doctrine of pre-existence. For all of the personal births the soul was the God, the Higher Self of each, the luminous one, the Augoeides; existing thus from all time, it might be the cause of rebirths but not itself be reincarnated, as it merely overshadowed each birth without being wholly in the flesh. Such a doctrine, extremely mystical and providing for each a personal God with a great possibility held out through reunion, could well be called by Origen "a different theory" from metempsychosis and "of more elevated character."

When once more the modern Christian Church admits that its founders believed in pre-existence and that Jesus did not condemn reincarnation, a long step will have been taken toward uprooting many intolerant and illogical doctrines now held.

 

ChristianFathers On Reincarnation

The Path, May, 1894

 

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[1] Isaac de Beausobre (8 March 1659 – 5 June 1738) was a French Protestant churchman, now best known for his two-volume history of Manichaeism, Histoire Critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme .

The Esoteric Meaning of the Crucifixion

Of Anna Kingsford's writings, Blavatsky stated: 'The first and most important was The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of Christianity. It sweeps away many of the difficulties that thoughtful readers of the Bible must contend with in their endeavours to either understand or accept literally the story of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Gospels.' She brings to an interestingly eclectic mix of Christian mysticism, Greek Hermetism, Christian Alchemy and Kaballah a wider appreciation of comparative religion, especially Hindu and Buddhist notions of karma and reincarnation along with modern theosophical notions of spiritual evolution. Although firmly rooted in a traditional Christian mysticism, she embraces more open notions of perennialism and evolution.

 

THIS brings us to speak of what the Atonement is, and of the sense in which we are to understand it, in its fourfold interpretation. First, let us remind the reader, the Cross and the Crucified are symbols which come down to us from prehistoric ages, and are to be found depicted on the ruined monuments, temples, and sarcophagi of all nations, – Coptic, Ethiopian, Hindu, Mexican, Tartar. In the rites of all these peoples, and especially in the ceremonials of initiation field in the Lodges of their Mysteries, the Cross had a prominent place. It was traced on the forehead of the neophyte with water or oil, as now in Catholic Baptism and Confirmation; it was broidered on the sacred vestments, and carried in the hand of the officiating hierophant, as may be seen in all the Egyptian religious tablets. And this symbolism has been adopted by and incorporated into the Christian theosophy, not, however, through a tradition merely imitative, but because the Crucifixion is an essential element in the career of the Christ. For, as says the Master, expounding the secret of Messiahship, “Ought not the Christ to suffer these things, and so to enter into his glory?” Yes, for this Cross of Christ – the spiritual Phoebus, – is made by the sun’s equinoctial passage across the line of the Ecliptic, – a passage which points on the one hand to the descent into Hades; and on the other to the ascent into the kingdom of Zeus the Father. It is the Tree of Life; the Mystery of the Dual Nature, male and female; the Symbol of Humanity perfected, and of the Apotheosis of Suffering. It is traced by “our Lord the Sun” on the plane of the heavens; it is represented by the magnetic and diamagnetic forces of the earth; it is seen in the ice-crystal and in the snow-flake; the human form itself is modeled upon its pattern; and all nature bears throughout her manifold spheres the impress of this sign, at once the prophecy and the instrument of her redemption. 

21. Fourfold in meaning, having four points, and making four angles, dividing the circle into four equal parts, the cross portrays the perfect union, balance, equality, and at-one-ment on all four planes, and in all four worlds – phenomenal, intellectual, psychic, and celestial – of the Man and the Woman, the Spirit and the Bride. It is supremely, transcendently, and excellently, the symbol of the Divine Marriage; that is, the Sign of the Son of Man IN HEAVEN. For the Divine Marriage is consummated only when the Regenerate Man enters the Kingdom of the Celestial, which is within. When the Without is as the Within, and the Twain are as One in Christ Jesus. 

22. Being thus the key of all the worlds, from the outer to the inner, the Cross presents, as it were, four wards or significations; and according to these, the mystery of the Crucifixion bears relation: First, to the natural and actual sense, and typifies the Crucifixion of the Man of God by the world. Secondly, to the intellectual and philosophical sense; and typifies the Crucifixion in man of the lower nature. Thirdly, to the personal and sacrificial sense, and symbolizes the Passion and Oblation of the Redeemer.  Fourthly, to the celestial and creative sense, and represents the Oblation of God for the Universe. 

I

23. First in order, from without inwards, the Crucifixion of the Man of God implies that persistent attitude of scorn, distrust, and menace with which the Ideal and Substantial is always met by the worldly and superficial, and to the malignant expression of which ill-will the Idealist is always exposed. We have noted that Isaias, rebuking the materialists for their impure and cruel rites, addresses them as “rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah.” So likewise, the Seer of the Apocalypse speaks of the two divine Witnesses as slain “in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also the Lord was crucified.” This city, then, is the world, the materializing, the idolatrous, the blind, the sensual, the unreal; the house of bondage, out of which the sons of God are called. And the world being all these, is cruel as hell, and will always crucify the Christ and the Christ-Idea. For the world, which walks in a vain shadow, can have no part in the kingdom of heaven; the man who seeks the Within and the Beyond is to it a dotard, a fool, an impostor, a blasphemer, or a madman, and according to the sense of its verdict, it ridicules, maligns, despoils, punishes, or sequesters him. And thus every great and merciful deed, every noble life, every grand and holy name, is stamped with the hall-mark of the Cross. Scorn and contumely and the cries of an angry crowd surround that altar on which the Son of God makes oblation of himself; and cross after cross strews the long Via Dolorosa of the narrow path that leadeth unto Life. For indeed the world is blind, and every redemption must be purchased by blood. 

II

24. Yes, by blood and tears and suffering, and that not of the body only; for the Son of God, to attain that Sonship, must have first crucified in himself the old Adam of the earth. This is the second meaning of the Cross; it sets forth that interior process of pain which precedes regeneration; that combat with and victory over the tempter, through which all the Christs alike have passed; the throes of travail which usher in the New-Born. And the crucified, regenerate Man, having made At-on-ment throughout his own fourfold nature, and with the Father through Christ, bears about in himself the “marks” of the Lord, – the five wounds of the five senses overcome, the “stigmata” of the saints. This crucifixion is the death of the body; the rending of the veil of the flesh; the uniting of the human will with the Divine Will; or, as it is sometimes called, the Reconciliation – which is but another word for the At-one-ment. It is the consummation of the prayer, “Let Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven;” let Thy will, O Father, be accomplished throughout the terrene and astral, even as it is in the inmost adytum, that in all the microcosmic system no other will be found than the Divine. 

25. This, also, is the secret of transmutation, – the changing of the water into wine, of Matter into Spirit, of man into God. For this blood of Christ and of the Covenant – this wine within the holy Chalice, of which all must drink who nevermore would thirst – is the Divine Life, the vital, immortal principle, having neither beginning nor end, the perfect, pure, and incorruptible Spirit, cleansing and making white the vesture of the soul as no earthly purge can whiten; the gift of God through Christ, and the heritage of the elect. To live the Divine Life is to be partaker in the blood of Christ and to drink of Christ’s cup. It is to know the love of Christ which “passeth understanding,” the love which is Life, or God, and whose characteristic symbol is the blood-red ray of the solar prism. By this mystical blood we are saved, – this blood, which is no other than the secret of the Christs, whereby man is transmuted from the material to the spiritual plane, the secret of inward purification by means of Love. For this “blood,” which, throughout the sacred writings is spoken of as the essential principle of the “Life,” is the spiritual Blood of the spiritual Life, – Life in its highest, intensest, and most excellent sense, – not the mere physical life understood by materialists, – but the very substantial Being, the inward Deity in man. And it is by means of this Blood of Christ only – that is by means of Divine Love only – that we can “come to the Father,” and inherit the kingdom of heaven. For, when it is said that “the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin,” it is signified that sin is impossible to him who is perfect in Love. 

III

26. But the Christ is not only the type of the sinless Man, the hierarch of the mysteries; he is also the Redeemer. Now, therefore, we come to speak of the Vicarious and Redemptive office of the Divine Man, of his Passion, Sacrifice, and Oblation for others. There is a true and there is a false rendening of this Mystery of Redemption which is the central mystery of the Divine Life, the gold of the target, the heart of Jesus, the bond of all grace, the very core and focus and crown of Love. This third aspect of the Cross is in itself two-fold, because Wisdom and Love, though one in essence are twain in application, since Love cannot give without receiving, nor receive without giving. We have, therefore, in this double mystery both the oblation and lifting-up of the Christ in Man, and the Passion and Sacrifice for others of the Man in whom Christ is manifest. For even as Christ is one in us are we one with Christ, because as Christ loves and gives himself for us, we also, who are in Christ, give ourselves for others. 

27. But the notion that man requires, and can be redeemed only by a personal Saviour in the flesh, extraneous to himself, is an idolatrous travesty of the truth. For that whereby a man is “saved” is his own re-birth and At-one-ment in a sense transcending the phenomenal. And this process is altogether interior to the man, and incapable of being performed from without or by another; a process requiring to be enacted anew in each individual, and impossible of fulfillment by proxy in the person of another. True, the new spiritual Man thus born of Water and the Spirit, or of the Pure Heart and the Divine Life; the Man making oblation on the cross, overcoming Death and ascending to Heaven is named Christ-Jesus, the Only Begotten, the Virgin-born, coming forth from God to seek and to save the lost; but this is no other than the description of the man himself after transmutation into the Divine Image. It is the picture of the regenerate man, made “alive in Christ,” and “like unto him.” For the Christos or Anointed, the Chrestos or Best, are but titles signifying Man Perfect; and the name of Jesus, at which every knee must bow, is the ancient and ever Divine Name of all the Sons of God – Iesous or Yesha, he who shall save, and Issa the Illuminated, or Initiate of Isis. For this name Isis, originally Ish-Ish, was Egyptian for Light-Light; that is, light doubled, the known and the knowing made one, and reflecting each other. It is the expression of the apostolic utterance, “Face to face, knowing as we are known, transformed into the image of His glory.” Similarly our affirmatives is and yes; for in both Issue and lesous “all the promises of God are Yes,” because God is the supreme Affirmative and Positive of the universe, enlightening every soul with truth and life and power. God is the Sun of the soul, whereof the physical sun is the hieroglyph, as the physical man is of the true eternal spiritual Man. 

28. The light is positive, absolute, the sign of Being and of the everlasting “Yes;” and “the children of the Light” are they who have the gnosis and eternal Life thereby. But the negation of God is “Nay,” the Night, the Destroyer and the devil. The name therefore of Antichrist is Denial, or Unbelief, the spirit of Materialism and of Death. And the children of darkness are they who have quenched in themselves the divine Love, and “know not whither they go, because darkness hath blinded their eyes.” Hence the Serpent of the Dust is spoken of as “the Father of Lies,” that is, of negation; for the word “lie” means nothing else than “denial.” “No denial is of the truth,” says St. John, “for this is Antichrist, even he that denieth. Every spirit which annulleth Jesus (or the divine Yes) is not of God. By this we know the spirit of Truth, and the spirit of Error.” 
(Anna Kingsford, The Perfect Way, Lecture 4, Part III, 20)

Part Two 

 

The Esoteric Meaning of the Crucifixion

The spiritual, mystical and esoteric symbolism of the Cross and the Crucifixion

The Symbolic, Mystical, Esoteric Meaning of the Resurrection, Part 1/2

The Spiritual Mystical, Esoteric Meaning of the Resurrection

 

Astrology: Spring Equinox - Wednesday, March 20 2019

It (Re) Begins...
We have a powerful Spring Equinox chart, with a full moon in Libra, the first equinox full moon since 2000, and is a powerful supermoon. This moon/sun opposition indicates emotional relationships. With a sun/Chiron conjunction, we have a challenging, intense, powerful Moon-Sun-Jupiter T-Square. This is quite a fiery aspect, with problems of excessive emotion, indulgence, impulsiveness, ambition, and optimism. Although generally upbeat and well-intentioned, there can be moodiness and conflict, with strong opinions and emotions.

Lost in Space: Mercury, Moon, Jupiter T-Square
Mercury conjunct Neptune in Pisces are slightly out of conjunction distance with the Sun, so we have a second T-Square with the Moon and Jupiter, very close to the first one, making Pisces, a highly charged sign. One can experience unrealistic, impractical, trivial, disorganized thinking here, with strong emotions clouding one's judgment; although a stimulated imagination can make for some enhanced creativity. Mercury's retrograde position (until the end of March) can add to the confusion. This aspect contains a Jupiter/Neptune square, one of the major aspects of 2019, an aspect marked by exaggeration, confusion, deception, religious delusions, and impractical behavior.

Down to Earth: Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter Kite
With the moon still in the spotlight, forming a Grand Trine with Mars in down-to-earth Taurus and a burgeoning Saturn/Pluto conjunction. Furthermore, this also forms a Kite aspect over the previous T-Square, which serves to balance its difficult nature. This Grand Trine brings confident, upbeat emotional stability, realistic, proactive/common sense, strong tools to deal with a conflictual, confused atmosphere.

The Minor Grand Trine, with Mars-Mercury/Neptune and Saturn/Pluto (which requires more effort to actualize, compared to the relatively effortless Grand Trine) brings an energetic analytical intellect, and a well-informed, resourceful carefulness. The Mercury-Moon opposition brings emotional, cloudy and over-zealous tensions, (also addictive behavior)  but the surrounding aspects are very well-equipped to handle it. The challenge with a kite is that one can be so well-equipped and resilient to brush of certain conflicts with a quick fix , that there is little motivation to deal with the problem in a fundamental way; or else there can be a strong blind spot with certain issues. In this case, there could be situations where delusional attitudes are tend to be rationalized or justified with great cleverness

However, the easy aspects provide some exceptional tools to see through the delusions and fantasies and develop practical, realistic solutions, although this can be difficult. This aspect contains a Saturn-Neptune sextile, another major aspect for 2019., which helps bring greater realism to the Jupiter square Neptune fuzziness. The Mars-Pluto trine  (strong motivation and energy for change) and  the Mercury-Saturn trine (mental discipline) are exact on this day.

Venus on Fire
Venus in Aquarius (sociable, independent, excentric) has two tight aspects that go exact the following day. Venus square Mars denotes tension with romantic relationships and the opposite sex. Venus sextile Jupiter brings good social skills with a supportive, encouraging attitude.

A Jupiter-Uranus trine is still seven degrees out of orb, but should soon form a strong earth aspect, energizing Uranus in Taurus and become an important aspect later in the year.

Summary
With Chiron back in Aries and Uranus back in Taurus, this chart takes us back to the Spring of 2018, where a significant new celestial configuration began, breaking us away from the long-standing revolutionary Uranus-Pluto square. Chiron in Aries should bring a desire for more assertiveness and establishing a solid sense of identity. Uranus in Taurus can bring a hippy 'back to the land' concern for the environment', exploring new environment-saving technologies, a concern for natural health, and also further progress with computer-based financial systems.  

This new situation was delayed due to some major planetary retrograde action which ended in the previous quarter, which was marked with dealing with unresolved issues and challenges from previous phases. Examples are the Trump legal challenges, England's Brexit problems, and Syria's Isis problems. The more recent  Venezuelan conflict, with the US/Europe backed  liberal capitalism faction (Jupiter in Sagittarius) opposed to the Russia/Turkey/China conservative socialist faction (Saturn in Capricorn) being a typical example of the current situation.

The rest of the year promises to be a more proactive and productive period, marking the end of a significant phase, which I would describe as dealing with how to integrate the results of the revolutionary upheavals practically into the current socio-political structures. The 2016-2019 period can be seen as a transitional stabilization period, prior to the oncoming new 20-year Jupiter/Saturn cycle, prefigured by a Saturn-Pluto conjunction in January 2020 followed by further Jupiter-Saturn and Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions.

Anna Kingsford on the Divine Feminine

Of Anna Kingsford's writings, Blavatsky stated: 'The first and most important was The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, which gives the esoteric meaning of Christianity. It sweeps away many of the difficulties that thoughtful readers of the Bible must contend with in their endeavours to either understand or accept literally the story of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Gospels.' 

 22. For, ignoring the understanding, and putting asunder that which God has joined together, — Faith and Reason, — they have made something other than Mind the criterion of truth. To this divorce between the elements masculine and feminine of man’s intellectual system, is due the prevailing unbelief. For, converted thereby into superstition, religion has been rendered ridiculous ; and instead of being exhibited as the Supreme Reason, — God has been depicted as the Supreme Unreason. Against religion, as thus presented, mankind has done well to revolt. To have remained subject, had been intellectual suicide. Wherefore the last person entitled to reproach the world for its want of faith is the Priest ; since it is his degradation of the character of God, that has ministered to unbelief. Suppressing the “woman,” who is the intuition, by putting themselves in her place, the priests have suppressed also the man, who is the intellect. And so the whole of humanity is extinguished. Of the influences under which Sacerdotalism has acquired its evil repute, a full account will appear as we proceed. (The Perfect Way, Lecture 1, Part 1, 23)

34. As Living Substance, God is One. As Life and Substance, God is Twain. HE is the Life, and SHE is the Substance. And to speak of HER, is to speak of Woman in her supremest mode. She is not “Nature ;” Nature is the manifestation of the qualities and properties with which, under suffusion of the Life and Spirits of God, Substance is endowed. She is not matter ; but is the potential essence of Matter. She is not Space ; but is the within of space, its fourth and original dimension, that from which all proceed, the containing element of Deity, and of which space is the manifestation. As original Substance, the substance of all others substances, She underlies that whereof all things are made ; and, like life and mind, is interior, mystical, spiritual, and discernible only when manifested in operation. In the Unmanifest, She is the Great Deep, or Ocean, of Infinitude, the Principium or Archë, the heavenly Sophia, or Wisdom, Who encircles and embraces all things ; of Whom are dimension and form and appearance ; Whose veil is the astral fluid, and Who is, Herself, the substance of all souls.

 

35. On the plane of manifestation, as the Soul macrocosmic and microcosmic, She appears as the Daughter, Mother, and Spouse of God. Exhibiting in a perfect Humanity the fullness of the life she has received of God, she is mystically styled the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in token of her Divine Motherhood and heavenly derivation and attributes, is represented as clad in celestial azure, and bearing in Her arms the infant Man, in whom, regenerate and reborn of Her own immaculate substance, the universe is redeemed. In Her subsist inherently all the feminine qualities of the Godhead. 

 

As Venus, the brightest of the mystic Seven who represent the Elohim of God, She corresponds to the third, the spirit of counsel, in that counsel is wisdom, and love and wisdom are one. Thus, in mystical art She is portrayed as Aphrodite the Sea-Queen, and Mary the Star of the Sea, and as the soul from whose pure intuition of God proceeds the perfected man. Correspondingly, in mystical science She appears as Sodium, or Salt, whose ray in the spectrum, as the place of Venus among the planets, is the third, whose light is the brightest, and whose colour is the yellow. Among the metals, copper is dedicated to Venus. For of copper the crystals are the deep sea-blue. And, inasmuch as She, as love, is the enlightener, and as salt the purifier, and the pure in heart see God, so is its sulphate a balm for ailing eyes. As Pallas or Minerva, She is “Our Lady of Victories,” adversary of demons and dragons, wearing the panoply of heaven, and the insignia of wisdom and righteous war. As Isis or Artemis, She is pre-eminently the Initiator, the Virgin clothed in white, standing on the Moon, and ruling the waters.

 

36. Also is She “Mother of Sorrows,” whose bitterness pervades all things below ; and only by her salting with affliction, purification by trial, and purchase of wisdom by dear-bought experience, is the perfection that is of Her attained. Nevertheless She is also “Mother of Joys,” since Her light is gilded by the solar rays ; and of Her pain and travail as the soul in the individual, comes the regeneration of Her children. And She is for them no more a sea of bitterness when once their warfare with evil has been accomplished : for then is She “our Lady, Glory of the Church triumphant.” Thus is the Microcosm.

 

37. In the Macrocosm She is that Beginning or Wisdom wherein God makes the heavens and the earth ; the substantial waters upon whose face He, the Energizing Will, moves at every fresh act of creation, and the ark or womb from which all creatures proceed. And it is through the “gathering together”, or coagulation, of Her “waters” that the “dry land” of the earth or body, which is Matter, appears. For she is that spiritual substance which, polarizing interiorly, is — in the innermost — God ; and coagulating exteriorly, becomes — in the outermost — Matter. And She, again, it is, who as the soul of humanity, regaining full intuition of God, overwhelms the earth with a flood of Her waters, destroying the evil and renewing the good, and bearing unharmed on Her bosom the elect few who have suffered Her to build them up in the true image of God. Thus to these is She “Mother of the Living.”

 

38. And as, on plane physical, man is not Man — but only Boy, rude, forward, and solicitous only to exert and exhibit his strength — until the time comes for him to recognize, appreciate, and appropriate Her as the woman ; so on the plane spiritual, man is not Man — but only Materialist, having all the deficiencies, intellectual and moral, the term implies — until the time comes for him to recognize, appreciate, and appropriate Her as the Soul, and, counting Her as his better half, to renounce his own exclusively centrifugal impulsions, and yield to Her centripetal attractions. Doing this with all his heart, he finds that She makes him, in the highest sense, Man. For, adding to his intellect Her intuition, She endows him with that true manhood, the manhood of Mind. Thus, by Her aid obtaining cognition of substance, and from the phenomenal fact ascending to the essential idea, he weds understanding to knowledge, and attains to certitude of truth, completing thereby the system of his thought.

 

39. Rejecting, as this age has done, the soul and her intuition, man excludes from the system of his humanity the very idea of the woman, and renounces his proper manhood. An Esau, he sells, and for a mess of pottage, his birthright, the faculty of intellectual comprehension. Cut off by his own act from the intuition of spirit, he takes Matter for Substance ; and sharing the limitations of Matter, loses the capacity for knowledge. Calling the creature thus self-mutilated, Man, the age declares by the unanimous voice of its exponents, that Man has no instrument of knowledge, and can know nothing with certainty, excepting — for it is not consistent even in this — that he can know nothing. Of this the age is quite sure, and accordingly — complacent in its discovery — styles itself Agnostic. And, as if expressly to demonstrate the completeness of its deprivation in respect to all that goes to the making of Man, it has recourse to devices the most nefarious and inhuman on the pretext of thereby obtaining knowledge.

 

40. Whereas, had but the soul received the recognition and honour her due, no pretext had remained for the abominations of a science become wholly materialistic. For, as the substance and framer of all things, she necessarily is competent for the interpretation of all things. All that she requires of man, is that she be duly tended and heeded. No summit then will be too lofty of goodness or truth, for man to reach by her aid. For, recognized in her plenitude she reveals herself in her plenitude ; and her fullness is the fullness of God.

(The Perfect Way, Lecture 2, Part 3, 36-40)

Through the Gates of Gold, Part 5: The Secret of Strength 3b

The triumphant final section concludes this remarkable work with a resounding account of how to lift the heavy iron bar on The Gates of Gold. In a very simple manner, with the characters of the King, the God, and the Animal, the image of the Kingdom or city state as a macrocosmic reflection of the human constitution is a traditional image that can be found in most traditions, for example  the Baghavad Gita, Plato’s Republic, the Christian Mystic John of Ruysbroeck, and even in the modern film, The Lion King, which echoes the ancient Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris.
Consider then whether it is not possible to change the situation. The man himself is king of the country in which this strange spectacle is seen. He allows the beast to usurp the place of the god because for the moment the beast pleases his capricious royal fancy the most. This cannot last always; why let it last any longer? So long as the animal rules there will be the keenest sufferings in consequence of change, of the vibration between pleasure and pain, of the desire for prolonged and pleasant physical life.

When the animal rules the kingdom, the godly power serves to intensify the power for sensual gratification immensely. What is required is a revolutionary action that evicts the animal from power and restores the rightful heir to its throne…
And the god in his capacity of servant adds a thousand-fold to all this, by making physical life so much more filled with keenness of pleasure, — rare, voluptuous, aesthetic pleasure, — and by intensity of pain so passionate that one knows not where it ends and where pleasure commences. So long as the god serves, so long the life of the animal will be enriched and increasingly valuable. But let the king resolve to change the face of his court and forcibly evict the animal from the chair of state, restoring the god to the place of divinity. 

Once the animal is overcome, the pangs of pleasures and pains are no more and a great peace is established. This passage can be compared to Light on the Path:
https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/lightpat/lightpa1.htm#n21
Ah, the profound peace that falls upon the palace! All is indeed changed. No longer is there the fever of personal longings or desires, no longer is there any rebellion or distress, no longer any hunger for pleasure or dread of pain. It is like a great calm descending on a stormy ocean; it is like the soft rain of summer falling on parched ground; it is like the deep pool found amidst the weary, thirsty labyrinths of the unfriendly forest.

Once the animal nature is conquered, then the animal nature can become a source of great strength in service of the divine will. The mysteries of the powers of animal magnetism are hinted at in the passages below and explains the meaning of all the ancient images of the hero conquering the beast or dragon.
But there is much more than this. Not only is man more than an animal because there is the god in him, but he is more than a god because there is the animal in him. 

Once force the animal into his rightful place, that of the inferior, and you find yourself in possession of a great force hitherto unsuspected and unknown. The god as servant adds a thousand-fold to the pleasures of the animal; the animal as servant adds a thousand-fold to the powers of the god. And it is upon the union, the right relation of these two forces in himself, that man stands as a strong king, and is enabled to raise his hand and lift the bar of the Golden Gate. When these forces are unfitly related, then the king is but a crowned voluptuary, without power, and whose dignity does but mock him; for the animals, undivine, at least know peace and are not torn by vice and despair.

That is the whole secret. That is what makes man strong, powerful, able to grasp heaven and earth in his hands. Do not fancy it is easily done. Do not be deluded into the idea that the religious or the virtuous man does it! Not so. They do no more than fix a standard, a routine, a law, by which they hold the animal in check. The god is compelled to serve him in a certain way, and does so, pleasing him with the beliefs and cherished fantasies of the religious, with the lofty sense of personal pride which makes the joy of the virtuous. These special and canonized vices are things too low and base to be possible to the pure animal, whose only inspirer is Nature herself, always fresh as the dawn. The god in man, degraded, is a thing unspeakable in its infamous power of production.

The animal in man, elevated, is a thing unimaginable in its great powers of service and of strength.
You forget, you who let your animal self live on, merely checked and held within certain bounds, that it is a great force, an integral portion of the animal life of the world you live in. With it you can sway men, and influence the very world itself, more or less perceptibly according to your strength. The god, given his right place, will so inspire and guide this extraordinary creature, so educate and develop it, so force it into action and recognition of its kind, that it will make you tremble when you recognize the power that has awakened within you. The animal in yourself will then be a king among the animals of the world.

This is the secret of the old-world magicians, who made Nature serve them and work miracles every day for their convenience. This is the secret of the coming race which Lord Lytton foreshadowed for us.

But this power can only be attained by giving the god the sovereignty. Make your animal ruler over yourself, and he will never rule others. 

EPILOGUE
SECRETED and hidden in the heart of the world and in the heart of man is the light which can illumine all life, the future and the past. Shall we not search for it? Surely some must do so. And then perhaps those will add what is needed to this poor fragment of thought.