Lubet of the Divine Liberty

And this was the death; for the soul’s fire proceeding from the Father’s property turned itself away from the Son’s property, in which alone the divine life consists. Thus the property of the soul remained naked only with its will in the outward Sulphur, and the inward disappeared, and continued steadfast in the eternal unchangeableness, as in an eternal nothing, wherein there was no more any effecting [or working efficacy to bring to pass].

Thus man with his outward body lived barely and merely to the time; the precious gold of the heavenly corporality, which tinctured the outward body, was disappeared, and so the outward body stood barely and alone in the life of nature’s desire, in the soul’s fiery property; understand in the form and property of Mars, in the wrath of God, which is the wrath in Sulphur, the property of God’s anger and the dark world: But seeing the outward body was created out of the time, therefore the time, the constellation with the four elements, presently obtained the dominion in him; and the divine property, the desire of the Deity (which ruled and tinctured time, so that there was a holy life in the creature out of the time), was vanished; its own peculiar love in the divine desire was turned to water, and it became blind and dead in the will and desire of God; and the soul must help itself with the sun’s light.

But seeing that time has beginning and end, and the will with the desire has given up itself to the temporal leader, therefore the dominion of time destroys its own contrived spirit, and so the body also dies and passes away; and this is that which God said to Adam, that “he should not eat of the tree, or plant, of the knowledge of good and evil,” of both properties, lest he died; as it also came to pass, he died in the Sulphur; the Sul in the kingdom of God, the lubet of the divine liberty, out of which the light of God shines, and in which the divine love, the love-fire burns [disappeared and withdrew from him].

Now there was no remedy for him, unless God’s desire entered again into his dead Sulphur, that is, into his Sul, which was dead, into the dead [or mortified] essentiality, and again enkindled it with the love-fire; which came to pass in Christ: And there the heavenly body, wherein God’s light shines, did again arise. But if this must be effected, then the love-desire must again enter into the desire of the enkindled anger, and quench and overcome the anger with the love; the divine water must enter again into the soul’s burning fire, and quench the wrathful death in the astringent fiat, in the desire to nature, that the love-desire, which desires God, might be again enkindled in the soul.

Jacob Boehem, The Signature of All Things

The Fairy Ship Sails Upstream

It is not the purpose of this book to trace the subsequent history of Christianity, especially the later history of Christianity; which involves controversies of which I hope to write more fully elsewhere. It is devoted only to the suggestion that Christianity, appearing amid heathen humanity, had all the character of a unique thing and even of a supernatural thing. It was not like any of the other things; and the more we study it the less it looks like any of them

I have said that Asia and the ancient world had an air of being too old to die. Christendom has had the very opposite fate. Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave. It is so true that three or four times at least in the history of Christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of Christianity; and almost every man in his heart expected its end.

The Church in the West was not in a world where things were too old to die; but in one in which they were always young enough to get killed

At least five times, with the Arian and the Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died. How complete was the collapse and how strange the reversal, we cars only see in detail in the case nearest to our own time.

A thousand things have been said about the Oxford Movement and the parallel French Catholic revival; but few have made us feel the simplest fact about it; that it was a surprise. It was a puzzle as well as a surprise; because it seemed to most people like a river turning backwards from the sea and trying to climb back into the mountains.

In short, the whole world being divided about whether the stream was going slower or faster, became conscious of something vague but vast that was going against the stream. Both in fact and figure there is something deeply disturbing about this, and that for an essential reason. A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. A dead dog can be lifted on the leaping water with all the swiftness of a leaping hound; but only a live dog can swim backwards. A paper boat can ride the rising deluge with all the airy arrogance of a fairy ship; but if the fairy ship sails upstream it is really rowed by the fairies.

G K Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, The Five Deaths of the Faith

Walking on Water

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea rose because a strong wind was blowing.

When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened, but he said to them: It is I; do not be afraid. (John vi, 16-20).

And Peter answered him: Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water. He said: Come! So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out: Lord, save me! Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying: O man of little faith, why did you doubt? (Matthew xiv, 28-31).

Jesus Christ walking on water reveals still another mystery than that of the sun of the spiritual world, the centre of celestial gravitation. For not only did he stand on the water – which would suffice to reveal and demonstrate this truth – but he also walked on the water, ie, he moved in a quite definite direction in the horizontal sense. He walked towards the boat where his disciples rowed.

There, in his walking towards the boat, it is already contained in germ – essentially revealing it – his whole work, temporal and eternal, ie, his sacrifice, his resurrection, and all that is implied in his promise: “Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the world: (Matthew xxviii, 20).

The boat with his disciples is, therefore, and will be until the end of the world, the aim of the I am walking on the water. His enstasy, his profound centreing in himself, does not distance him from the navigation of the agitated sea of history and evolution, and does not make him disappear into the other sea – the calm sea of nirvana – but rather, on the contrary, it entails that he walks, until the end of the world, after the boat with this disciples.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XII, The Hanged Man

The Christ Impulse

What was given in the different religious creeds has been gathered into one whole by Christian Rosenkreutz and the council of the twelve. This means that everything that the separate religions had to give and all that their followers strove and longed for will be found in the Christ Impulse Development during the next three thousand years will consist in this: the establishing and furthering of an understanding of the Christ Impulse.

From the twentieth century onwards all the religons will be reconciled in the mystery of rosicrucianism. And in the course of the next three thousand years this will become possible because it will no longer be necessary to teach from documents, for through the beholding of Christ human beings will learn to understand the experience Paul had on the way to Damascus. Mankind itself will pass through the experience of Paul.

The Maitreya Buddha will appear five thousand years after Buddha was enlightened under the bodhi tree, that is, about three thousand years from now. He will be the successor of Gautama Buddha. Among true occultists this is on longer in doubt. Occultists of both the west and the east are in agreement about it. So two things are beyond question:

firstly, that the Christ could appear only once in the physical body; secondly, that He will appear in the twentieth century in etheric form. Great individualities will certainly appear in the twentieth century, like the Bodhisattva, the successor of Gautama Buddha, who will become the Maitreya Buddha in about three thousand years.

But no true occultist will give to any human being physically incarnated in the twentieth century the name of Christ, and no real occultist will expect the Christ in the physical body in the twentieth century. Every genuine occultist would find such a statement erroneous. The Boddhisatva, however, will especially point to the Christ.

Rudolf Steiner, Rosicrucian Christianity

Chaos in the elemental world

When Christ appeared twenty centuries ago, he came for the benefit of humanity. His descent took place vertically in the sphere of human existence. The consciousness of nature, however, is on a horizontal plane. Consequently, the effects of the Mystery of Golgotha are accessible to nature only through human beings.

The world of nature does not experience the being of Christ directly, and, because of this, a certain sense of hopelessness is becoming stronger for nature. We can say that humankind is the destiny of nature; we must bring salvation to the world of nature, because we have the moral connection with the spiritual world. But nature has a dynamic connection with the spiritual world; it must obey the world of spirit.

Nature can experience the warmth that comes from the sun, but not the moral warmth, which can come only from human beings. Unfortunately, this does not happen. Because of this, misfortune occurs again and again in the elemental world.

The Bible mentions the primordial chaos (tohu wa bohu). The Genesis of Modes portrays the earth’s becoming, particularly from the view of the elemental world. At that time, the beings of nature, the animals, were brought before human beings, who gave them names. Through this act, a certain influence proceeded from humankind toward the beings of nature, and this determined their karma; human beings determined nature’s karma.

Chaos is again arriving in the elemental world. It is the duty of humankind to return order into that chaos by using moral powers.

The etheric return of Christ will signal a restoration of hope for nature; it will be a sign of resurrection for nature….Much is taking place, and anyone who is truly paying attention can see this.

Valentin Tomberg, Christ’s return in the etheric

Memory: Realm of the Supernatural

The very least of us is blessed with imagination. One might say ‘I think, therefore I am’, or go a logical step further and say ‘I remember, therefore I am’. All of knowledge is an awakening memory within ourselves, a connection with the infinite One.

We experience this unity through love and light, at the moment when our eyes are first opened to the beauty of Christ and ourselves are lost and yet found in the eternity of that moment.

We start to understand the concept of unity, which has profound implications for our relationships with certain people – our kindred spirits and soul mates – with whom we might thereby share the whole of history, as if we had known each other again and again and again throughout the ages and will be friends forever.

In a sense, we activate eternity and come closer to our creator by uniting our beginning with our end and re-enacting the divine teachings through our myriad selves with the help of our soul friends (and foes!). Through the memories these people reawaken, we may go through the portal and (re)enter the esoteric realms of the supernatural, where so much of the Great Work must be carried out for both self, soul, Heaven and Earth.

On the other hand, the notion that Karma consists purely in one reaping either ‘reward’ or ‘punishment’ for the deeds committed in ‘past lives’ is not one that sits so well with me, as clearly there are also ‘accidents’ of savage nature at play in the overall design.

Might it not also be possible that we somehow (in imitation of Christ) atone for one another’s sins and, equally, have the potential to benefit from their prayers, good deeds and so on of others? We are all interconnected, after all, and if karma is about cause and effect, we bring plenty enough of all that upon one another as well as our singular selves.

Perhaps, indeed, it is the greatest tragedy of mankind that we reap what others have sown. It is also our greatest hope, of course, in the person of Jesus Christ. We must also remember, then, to not give up hope in the natural human belief in the one life, the one self and the one Resurrection when time completes its circle and we are free to step beyond the wheel into the ever-expanding spiral of eternity.

Stoned Immaculately

Holy Krishna, Siddhartha Gautama, Christ the Lord, please don’t let it fall into the wrong hands! Forgive me for so carelessly misplacing it – I beg of you – let me find the book!

After at least another hour spent rearranging the whole of the small but extremely high-quality library, the Master ascertained that Pros Theon definitely was not on the bookcase. The situation had become intolerable.

For God’s sake, give me a sign!

A prayerful sound that was verging on the desperate escaped the Master’s lips, but still no response was forthcoming.

Did I put it in a safe place following the comet’s ominous portent?

This time the direct question yielded an instantaneous and equally direct response from a spirit guide.

No, you’ve lost it, man.

The Master sighed deeply. It had to be this one; why couldn’t Soaring Eagle have dropped by?

Any idea of where it could be?

Maybe it’s in the outer limit.

Yes, maybe it is, but I just need some light to be shed on where PRECISELY it is right now.

We need lights out here in the perimeter as well.

And why would that be? The Master scowled ferociously. As if we didn’t know already!

Because out here in the perimeter there are no stars, out here we are stoned….

Immaculately, yes, well, if that’s all you can say then I’d prefer it if you maybe meditated in silence or something, perhaps had a think about your shadow.

Hey, why don’t you just chill, man, it isn’t me whose lost it!

I can’t ‘just chill’ – as you so eloquently put it – until I’ve found the book. The Master leveled a thunderous glance at the ceiling.

Two more hours of anguished searching ensued, during which all the drawers were pulled inside out (the contents checked thoroughly for the first time in years) and every cupboard and closet, including the drinks cabinet, turned upside down.

Finally, giving up in despair, The Master poured a quadruple Jack Daniels and injected it with a splash of coke, smoked a large pipe full of pure marijuana and headed into the bathroom with a recent edition of Psychic Circular.

That’s the spirit, man, if you relax, it’ll find you.