The Cosmic Sabbath

Genesis gives an account of the history of the world’s gradual attainment of independence and inwardness, which culminates in the birth of freedom; and, further, it portrays the misuse of freedom and the consequences thereof.

In fact, what is the essence of the account of the creation according to Genesis? It is essentially nothing other than a description as to how the world in the first instance received its own existence alongside God, then its own movement (‘water’), then its own life (‘plants’), then its own soul life (‘animals’) and lastly – in man, as the ‘image and likeness of God’ – its own self consciousness, ie, freedom.

And what is the seventh day of creation – the cosmic sabbath, God’s day of rest? Is it not the level of freedom attained where God ‘rests’ from his deeds, ie, where he manifests his freedom attained where God ‘rests’ from his deeds, ie, where he manifests his freedom in relation to the world, while the world, the beings of the world, experience themselves as being left to their own freedom, ie, to experience their freedom?

The seventh day of creation is the day of freedom. The blessing of the seventh day is the divine act of creating the highest value of existence, the foundation of all morality: freedom. Here created being attains the highest level of inwardness: freedom. The seventh day of creation is the ‘day’ of the meaning of the world. Here the created world becomes something moral; here the world enters into a free relationship with God and God enters into a free relationship with the world.

However, since it is only in love that freedom is perfect, one may therefore also say that the seventh day is the day of the founding and sealing of the relationship of love between the creator and all created beings. Thus love is the foundation , the meaning, and the purpose of the world.

Valentin Tomberg, The Seven Miracles of John’s Gospel

Group Souls

Reincarnation: An immense and subtle subject. Very few of those now here are in full incarnation; that is to say, the Ego sends down a different ray from itself, one at a time, for the gaining of discipline and experience. It is for this reason that memories of past lives on earth are so very difficult to recover. Ultimately, the Ego absorbs all its rays, and then when the individual’s evolution on this planet is nearing completion sends down into incarnation its completed soul as a single entity.

At least thirty per cent, probably more, of those now on earth are not yet even individualised, being still parts of a group soul. There is no fixed standard by which the umber of incarnations can be gauged, and this number varies in different cases, largely in accordance with the state of each Ego’s development before the present twenty five thousand year round of evolution began.

One who has started seriously on the path of selfless service can call down from the Ego whichever particular rays are needed for the work in hand.

Most people hate the idea that the complete Entity does not incarnate until many separate sections have experienced a series of earthly lives. Those who in a material sense feel complete are the more likely to cut themselves off from communion with their Mother soul. Yet many have the urge to seek out and follow a ‘teacher’, one who is, like themselves, in incarnation. I think it is in Matthew (ch 23) that Jesus roundly exhorts his followers to ‘call no man your father upon the earth….neither be ye called masters’ (or teacher, in some modern versions of the NT). And is all this hunting of the Guru more reprehensible than the flitting from medium to medium, intent on the same quest?

‘Seek and ye shall find’ should be interpreted almost exclusively as a seeking within, that is, a strengthening of the link between one’s incarnated self and one’s whole self; through which a direct road is opened between man and his Creator.

Wellesley Tudor Pole, Letters to Rosamond Lehmann

Immortality is restored

Adam and Eve are not just two people. They are a metaphor for the primordial Vessel whose existence preceded creation. Just as all the colours of the spectrum exist within a single beam of sunlight, the Vessel encompassed all matter, space, time and consciousness. And all the souls of humankind were also present in the Vessel.

The Vessel shattered because of a contradiction in its nature. It had been created only to receive, but, in being filled with the Creator’s Light, it had also received and taken on a degree of the Creator’s own nature: the desire to share. All of our existence now is predicated on the goal of transforming this duality into a single desire, the desire to receive for the sake of sharing, in order to be able to finally reconnect with the Creator and receive the fullness of His Light.

This can happen in only one way. The shards of the shattered Vessel – you and I – must choose to make it happen. We must choose of our own free will to transform ourselves into ‘beings of sharing,’ as the kabbalists say, first on an individual level, and ultimately as a collective transformation of all humankind. Not even God can do this for us. Transformation is the supreme expression and the only expression of free will. It is the choice we make in every thought, feeling and action. Adam and Eve faced this choice in the Garden. They chose wrongly, but, their intentions were good.

The allure of evil makes that choice more difficult, and therefore more worthy. Evil, in its way, therefore serves the Creator. Indeed, by understanding this we can free ourselves from its temptations. A parable in the Zohar dramtises this teaching: A king forbade his son to consort with harlots, but the he hired a harlot to test the strength of his son’s character. The son was tempted – until he realised that the harlot was acting in the service of his father. She then lost all power over him.

The serpent in the Garden (acting in the service of our Father) is essential to our final transformation, but he certainly doesn’t make it any easier! At the time of his fateful encounter with Adam and Eve at the Tree of Knowledge, their state of being was fundamentally different from what ours is now. They embodied the pure energy of desire, and Kabbalah teaches that desire is inherently a positive force.

While the conventional view of our first ancestors portrays them as transgressors, the kabbalists point out that their motivation was to serve God. The serpent understood this also. In fact, he used their positive intentions to manipulate them for his own ends. He fostered the transformation of their pure, undifferentiated desire into desire to receive for themselves alone.

And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You are not going to die, but God knows that as soon as you eat of [the tree] your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad’. (Genesis 3:4)

Because Adam and Eve were not fully constituted to receive the Light – because the Vessel had not yet earned an unmediated connection – they were overwhelmed by the moment in the same way that a weak electrical circuit will flash brightly and then burn out at the sudden infusion of a powerful current. The kabbalists literalise this principle through a startling addition to the narrative:

Adam and Even took a second bite!

In the interval, a fundamental transformation had taken place, but not the positive one that had been envisoned. Rather, their desire had lost its sharing intention and had become self-serving. They were farther than ever away from unity with the nature of God, and this is exactly what the serpent had intended. It is essential to understand, however, that the impasse is also an opportunity. By traversing it, we can truly prepare the Vessel. We can earn the Light. We can receive it and take fulfillment in it. Most important, we can share it.

We have spoken of Adam and Eve as a couple, but until that second bite of the fruit they were not separate at the spiritual level. This detachment took place at the same instant that the divide widened between the Vessel and the Light. Where there had been unity and equilibrium, there was no dissimilarity and fragmentation. Where there had been eternal existence in Paradise, there was now mortal life in the physical world.

After the Fall, immortality consciousness was gone, replaced by a consciousness – a knowledge – of death and evil that instantly expressed itself in the physical dimension of life. But despite all this, the plain fact of immortality remained untouched, but in the same way that the signal that carries a TV programme remains in the air even after the set has been turned off.

With the Fall of Adam, the bad news is that we stopped receiving the programme. But we also began the process of repairing the receiving mechanism and getting it tuned in again. This correction, this tikkun, is our task for however many years it requires and however many lifetimes. When an individual human being truly completes this process, immortality is restored.

The Essential Zohar, Rav P. S. Berg

Message for the Coming Time

May I endeavour to explain the origin and working of what I have referred to as the Blended Ray.

Spiritual and metaphysical realities can only be interpreted symbolically, and sometimes allegorically. Do not try, therefore, to materialise in your minds these conceptions to the point where they lose all power to uplift or enlighten.

This Blended Ray has been brought into being by the joint efforts of Great Masters adn Initiates gathered together as a Hierarchy, under Divine Guidance, for this very purpose. For nearly half a century now it has been possible, standing afar off from a very modest stance, to watch the activities of this important gathering.

They are engaged in harmonising all that is best in the wisdom teaching that has already been given to the world in the past through the Masters and Prophets who have descended into our human midst.

This Radiation is now approaching the fringes of human consciousness, and already many among us are beginning to feel its inspiring, revitalising and cleansing influence.

Within this immense Spiritual Outpouring there is enshrined a quality of Deity never before made available to humanity in this Round of evolution, and for which we have no name. It is a wonderful gift from our Creator sent to provide us with spiritual ammunition at this grave moment in human history. In itself it is the preparer of the way for One, or for Those who are destined, under Divine Grace, to lead us into the light of a new age and a new dispensation.

Put in the simplest terms, this Ray or Spiritual Outpouring represents the child of the union between cosmic and primeval Divine wisdom, and the equally potent power of eternal and all-embracing love.

Wellesley Tudor Pole, Message for the Coming Time

Raise the Sparks

‘In the sun occurs a fission,
As Apollo’s heart is splintered,
So his endless shards of vision
Fall on Earth with light’s precision.

Raise the sparks, the golden letters
Formed into a code. The hidden
Aleph first, then Bet unfettered,
Shin, the flame and silent Ayin.

Yod He Vau He – now is coming –
Tet, Resh, Gimel, mem, Nun, Tsadeh,
Lamed, Samech, Khaf, Chet, Zayin
Feh, Peh, Dalet, Tav of Heaven.

Three within – the crown, creator –
Twelve then fixed upon the Seven.
Twenty-two from mother, nature;
Ten in mind divines eleven.

The Silver Cord and the Golden Bowl

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it

Ecclesiastes 12.1 – 6 (KJV)

The Throne

Benediction came my way, through its namesake, clerkish, fey.

When he left, I deemed to stay, my only instinct thus: to pray.

Still, the way of my devotion seemed bizarre and though I wandered

Not enough to halt its progress, in an abstract sense I wondered.

Thus commenced the styled performance; first I seemed to turn the world,

Once, from twice an odd direction. All defied surreal reflection.

While my single was transformed, three dimensions were vitally born.

These are my essential minutes; let the words be undiminished.

The scene inside my room was vivid – spirits came but none were livid,

Just my friends, the literal men. Named I them with joy intense.

All the while a throne, my chair, leant askew with someone there.

This the Lord, I knew him well, prone was struck and to him fell.

There I lay in meditation, ‘fore aroused by violent voices

From beyond my supplication. Much bemused I stood, responsive.

Looking out, I strained to hear: “Jump outside to test!”, they jeered.

In my state of heightened reason, this request bore contemplation.

Would to jump bring death through treason, or new life through dedication?

As my mind, suggested, wandered, one leg in and one leg out,

Luck would bring a voice to sunder faith in me and death to doubt.

“Have no fear of tempting strangers, they are but the baleful rest.

Stay inside!” Advised the angel. Once retrieved, the stars I blessed.

Then I felt a force compelling me to stop and face the throne

In a manner thus: Reclining on one side, the right hand zone.

In the posture – just, enlightened – then began the Revelation.

There before my eyes the Saviour, Holy Spirit, Earth’s Creator.

Picture this, the blazing scene: A crown was formed, a three-pronged beam.

For the whole the three incorporates played a part, defining orders.

As the truth came home decoded, safe was I in living quarters.

The Agent of Growth

What is essential in order that spiritual truth is not forgotten, and that it lives? Hope, true creativity and tradition are the essential factors. The corroborating testimony of the three ever-present witnesses – spirit, blood and water – is necessary.

True testimony through the spirit, through blood, and through water will never fall into forgetfulness. One can kill spiritual truth, but it will resurrect.

Now, the unity of hope, creativity and tradition is the agent of growth. It is the concerted action of spirit, blood and water. It is therefore indestructible; its action is irreversible; and its movement is irresistible. And it is the agent of growth which is, in the last analysis, the subject of the Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus.

“And all things were made by meditation of the One, so all things arose from this one thing by a single act of adaptation,” says the Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina, 3). Which amounts to saying: as the One is the creator of the essence of all things, thus there is a unique agent which adapts the existence of all things to their essence – the principle of adaptation of that which is born to its created prototype.

This is the agent of growth or the principle of evolution. It is engendered by the spontaneous light of hope (the sun) reflected in the movement of the lower waters (the moon), which produces the general impulse or ‘push’ (the wind), which bears primordial hope towards its realisation in the material domain (the earth), which donates it with its constructive elements (ie, nourishes or ‘nurses’ it). Thus, the Emerald Table continues:

The father thereof is the sun, the mother the moon; the wind carried it in its womb; the earth is the nurse thereof. (Tabula Smaragdina, 4)

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XVII, The Star

The Pendulum Swings

The pendulum has swung back again—or at any rate is about to start its swing. In speaking of ‘the unity of the world and all things in it’, we must, however, avoid the error of oriental monism which denies the dual existence of Creator and created. According to this view the universe and all the inner worlds therein have been self-created, or at best emanated from a central source.

This means that God is in everything, in the holiest of holies and in the dust on the sandals of the worshipper at the temple gate. As a child of an acquaintance put it with devastating childlike logic. ‘When I stamp on the ground am I stamping on God?’ To this the monist would rush to reply ‘Yes’, but the theist would say ‘No’. The monist would go on to say that as God is also in the child’s foot, sock and shoe, God was stamping on God. The theist would go on to say that although God is not in everything He is omniscient as far as the creation is concerned and is therefore aware of the child stamping and in empathy with both the child and the ground.

All this is not academic, theological or philosophical hair splitting, for the consequences of believing one thing or the other are profound. If we are going to build a philosophical or theological edifice we need to be very certain of the rock upon which it is founded. To believe that all things unfurl of their own accord from nothing is to assume that man is capable of expanding his consciousness until he comes eventually as God, comprehending all — and that animals expand their consciousness to become humans, plants likewise to become animals, even minerals to become plants.

This is a theory that is, in fact, held by many students of the occult, based on the monist philosophical assumptions of the East It has its superficial attraction as a logical sounding kind of arrangement. It takes in the ideas of human progress and general life evolution that were newly formulated and current in the nineteenth century, and it is hardly surprising that these ideas in occult form were first promulgated in the West in the late nineteenth century by the efforts of the newly formed Theosophical Society.

What Madame Blavatsky, its founder, did really was to take nineteenth-century materialist evolutionary theory as formulated by Darwin and stand it on its head as a spiritual evolutionary theory, in much the same way that
Marx had inverted the spiritual dialectic of Hegel to form the dialectical materialism of Marxism. Both Marxism and Theosophy have a great spurious appeal as seeming to answer many questions by this agile topsy-turveydom. Unfortunately both are wrong — though this does not alter the fact that Marxism as a political philosophy came to dominate a third of the world and Theosophical monism dominates much of modern occult thought.

It is not our task to try to judge why certain particular nineteenth-century philosophical ideas should retain such a hold into modern times, though in the case of oriental monism and occultism its influence spread because a whole generation of occult students sat at the feet of Madame Blavatsky and imbibed her principles even if they later rejected some of the superstructure of her philosophy. They later taught others and so the basic assumptions spread — with various modifications to and arguments about the superstructure, but with the entire theological foundations taken for granted and accepted unchallenged.

The whole Western occult tradition, which had followed an underground course for centuries, burst out into the open, only to be thoroughly mixed, swamped and diluted with Eastern ideas deriving from Hinduism and Buddhism. The true occult heritage of the West stems, however, along with the religion of the West, from Christian and Judaic tradition — or rather from revealed as opposed to natural religion.

Gareth Knight, Experience of the Inner Worlds, The Sphere of Light

Kore Kosmou

Thou must be informed of the words of Hermes when he laid down his books.

“O sacred books,” he said, “of the Immortals, ye in whose pages my hand has recorded the remedies by which incorruptibility is conferred, remain for ever beyond the reach of destruction and of decay, invisible and concealed from all who frequent these regions, until the day shall come in which the ancient heaven shall bring forth instruments worthy of you, whom the Creator shall call souls.”

Having pronounced upon his books this invocation, he wrapped them in their coverings, returned into the sphere which belonged to him, and all remained hidden for a sufficient space.

Kore Kosmou, Hermes Trismegistus