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Concerning the Sybolism of Self -Sacrifice,
& Crucifixion contained in the 5 = 6° Grade
By G. H. Frater D.D.C.F.
This lecture was delivered on Good Friday, March 3 ist, 1893, to the Adepti in
College Assembled.’
Dealing first of all with the diagrams in the First Order and proceeding
upwards, it will be noticed that in the lowest Grade in the Outer (o°=o°) there
are no diagrams properly so called, but that on the two Pillars is depicted the
symbolism of the passage of the Soul from the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead; this
being as it were a synthetical aspect to be developed and explained with the
advance of the candidate through the various stages.
After the first Grade comes the 1° = 10°, where we find the first form of the
Sephiroth in the Tree of Life;—this is the representation of the Flaming Sword
descending, but it is not until the 2° =9° comes that we begin to find the
actual symbolism of self sacrifice.
The 2°=9° Altar Diagram, then, represents the Serpent of Wisdom twined through
the Paths. In the 4° =7° Grade, however, you are shown the same Serpent, its
representation being that of the Serpent Nechushtan. This was the Serpent of
Brass that Moses made in the Wilderness, and which was turned around the central
Pillar of Mildness,—having three cross bars upon it,—representing a species of
triple cross.
Dealing now with the Altar Diagram of the 3°=8° Grade, it will be seen that Adam
is the Tiphereth part: wherein he is extended. That is to say that the form of
the man is projected from there.
The figure of Eve stands in Malkuth in the form of the Supporter.
The first ideal form of the Man is in Adam Kadmon—behind the Kether form and, as
it were, the prototype of the Tiphereth form. This Tiphereth answers to the
letter Vau of the Holy Name, as representing the Prince. The letter Vau also
represents the number Six and Adam was created on the Sixth Day, for Tiphereth
is the symbol of the Creation. Furthermore, the Hexagram consists of the two
forms Fire and Water;—i.e. the ideal Fire and the ideal Water; the Spirit and
the Water of Creation,—the spiritual Ether and the Ethereal Fire (the Fire of
the Holy Spirit). Thus, in the Creation the Man is extended from Tiphereth i.e.
the moment Adam is created, that is the beginning of the reflection of the lower
Triad, and, finally, of Malkuth. Eve is the synthesis of Creation and represents
the Mother of Life, as the name ChaVaH is. The 3°=8° diagram thus represents the
establishment of life, i.e., created life, and the Good and Evil is represented
in Malkuth, and it is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because it is the
balance point between Good and Evil: for in the material body we are placed to
give the victory to which we will. Hence the significance of the words of the
Serpent, ‘Ye shall be as Gods, knowing Good and Evil’. But the knowledge of Evil
brought with it the descent into the Qlipoth, and although Malkuth is directly
involved in the ‘fall’, the Sephiroth immediately above cannot be said to have
actually entered into the knowledge of Evil. Therefore in the allegorical
account of the Creation in Genesis, it is said that Man is checked from putting
forth his hand to take of the Tree of Life, so as not to involve the higher
Sephiroth in the ‘Fall’, which, (he being unbalanced in himself) would only have
precipitated disaster.
In the 4° = 7° diagram we find represented the fall and the consequent rise of
the dragon, which in the 3° = 80 Grade is represented coiled beneath Malkuth in
the Kingdom of the Shells; but it only raises its head to the Sephiroth by right
of the Crowns of the Kings of Edom.
These latter represent the Worlds of unbalanced force, before the Creation is
established. They furthermore symbolize the places of the Sephiroth which are
hollowed and before the light fills the cavities (The Light which comes down and
fills the cavities is to be found allegorically set forth in the story of the
usurpation of the younger brother in the story of Esau and Jacob). ‘Before all
things were the Waters, and the Darkness, and the Gates of the land of Night’.
Note also the War of the Titans who rise and fight against Jupiter.
The Edomite Kings, therefore, are not altogether evil, but they are partly
connected with Evil. They are the forces of restriction.
The result, therefore, on a higher plane, in the Tree, is that the Great Serpent
rises to Daath, and if the Four Worlds be placed upon the Tree itself, it will
be observed that the cutting off by the Serpent is between Yetzirah and Briah.
Thus Evil cannot arise into the World of Briah, or indeed transcend the limits
of Yetzirah. But if we seek for the correspondence of Evil in the Worlds of
Briah and Atziluth, it will be found to consist in a lesser form of Good—a
limiting, restricting and binding force without which you cannot have form on
the higher planes. It is only in the Worlds of Yetzirah and Assiah that the
analogue of this principle becomes absolutely Evil.
This idea was expressed by the Gnostics when they said that the Achamoth2
attempted to comprehend the Pleroma, and could not understand it, and from the
grief of her were formed the demons and the evil spirits.
If therefore we seek to institute an analogy between the Microcosm it will be
seen that Nepheseh refers to Malkuth and Assiah: Ruach will refer to Yetzirah,
which is the World of formation, therefore the formative principle operating in
Ruach gives form to all ideas, and is that which weighs, balances and works in
things. Ruach can also have an evil side.
Neschamah = the higher aspirations of the Soul, which aspire to the ideal. There
can be no positively evil side to Neschamah:— there will only be a higher or
lower aspiration.
If the Ruach overpowers the Neschamah; if the Neschamah seeks the lower good,
both will be ruined. The following of a false idea cannot be said to be exactly
evil, but is a lower Good than it should be.
2 The Gnostics called this Achamoth, but probably this was a corruption of
Chokmutha. (Original Note.)
Neschamah will answer to the World of Briah : — so also will Chiah, which is
allotted to Chokmah; but you cannot touch the Yechidah part of you with your
Ruach,—you must use the consciousness of the Neschamah. This Yechidah will,
together with Chiah, be the ‘Higher Genius’, though this again will not be the
highest self. For in and behind Kether will reside a part of the being, which it
is impossible to understand, and which one can only aim at: this is the highest
Soul, and answering to the highest part of Yechidah, cannot be touched by
Neschamah. There must be a mode of transferring the synthesis of the
consciousness making up the Man,—to this upper Sephirah. The Fall, which cut
away the higher from the lower Sephiroth in Daath, was also our descent into
this life, as it were, from that Upper and Higher Soul. Therefore our object is
to get into contact with that again, which is only to be done through the
Neschamah, which is the Divine Mother of the Soul,—our Aima.
When the Candidate enters the Vault and kneels down at the second point, he does
so at the centre of the Altar above the symbolic form of the Adept, who is the
synthesis of the sides of the Vault, whence he has come forth and occupies a
central position between the Kether and the World of the Shades,— being there
protected by the rising glory of the Golden Cross and the Rose. Then this Prayer
is said: ‘Unto Thee Sole Wise, Sole Mighty and Sole Eternal One, be Praise and
Glory for Ever’. Now it must be the Macroprosopus, the Amen, who is addressed
here,
—the Lord of Kether who has permitted this aspirant who now kneeleth before Him
to penetrate thus far into the Sanctuary of His Mysteries (which is in the
centre of the Universe). Not unto us, but unto His Name be the Glory. (which is
the name JHVH with the addition of the letter Shin) ‘Let the influence of Thy
Divine Ones descend upon his head,’ (These Divine Ones are Angelic forces, and
the higher Self is in the nature of the Angelic Forces, as the Highest Self is
in that of the Divine One) ‘and teach him the value of Self sacrifice, so that
he shrink not in the hour of trial, but that thus his name may be written on
high’ (that is that the divine NAME formulated in him may be brought up, as it
were, to the heights) ‘and may stand in the presences of the Holy One’ (which
genius will be a mighty Angelic power and in form far different from the petty
personages we are here) ‘in that hour when the Son of Man is worked before the
Lord of Spirits and his name in the Presence of the Ancient of Days’.
This will be the synthetical form of the Son of Man, the BEN ADAM, who is the
synthesis of the Ruach of the Universe: in :ther words, the allusion is to the
Great God of the World of Yetzirah or the Microprosopus, the Son of the first
Adam when he is invoked before the Lord of Spirits, which can but be in Kether;
and his name in the presence of the Ancient of Days. ‘He who is ancient before
the Gods, ancient before time, ancient before the formation of the Worlds, He
the ETERNAL AMEN— or even He who is before AMEN and whom the plumes of Amen’s
head-dress only touch’.
Now the foregoing partly represents the mode in which the initiate becomes the
Adept: —the Ruach directed in accordance with the promptings of the Neschamah
keeps the Nephesch from being the ground of the Evil forces, and the Neschamah
brings it, the Ruach, into contact with the Chiah i.e. the genius which stands
in the presence of the Holy One = the Yechidah = the Divine Self, which stands,
as it were, before the Synthetical God of all things. That is the only real way
to become the Greatest Adept, and is directly dependent on your life and your
actions in life.
And upon the lid of the Pastos this process is symbolically resumed: there we
see the suffering Man, pitiful and just, before whose justice and purity the
heads of the dragon fall back, but on the upper half there is depicted a
tremendous and a flaming God, the fully initiated Man,—the Adept who has
attained his Supreme Initiation.
It will be noticed that in the 4° = 7° Diagram the heads of the Dragon have
seized the Sephiroth but, as before remarked, on the lid of the Pastos they are
falling back from the figure on the Cross: they are dispossessed only by the
sacrifice of the lower Self.
Recall to your mind that passage in one of the Eddas ‘I hung on the Tree three
days and three nights, wounded with a spear, myself a sacrifice offered to my
(highest) Self,—Odin unto Odin’.
It will furthermore be noticed that this way of looking at the matter at once
makes a reconciliation between the account in the Gospel of the Christ as a
calm, peaceful and pitiful Man, and the representation in the Apocalypse of a
tremendous and flaming God. A glance at the top half of the Pastos shows the
descent as a flaming sword which casts out the evil,—the whole surrounding being
white with brilliance. ‘And He had in His right hand Seven Stars ... and the
Seven Stars represent the (Arch) Angels of the Seven Churches’, or abodes in
Assiah, at His feet...
The Life of Nations is like the Life of men;—they are born, become intellectual,
direct that intellect to black ends,—and, perish. But every now and then at the
end of certain periods, there are greater crises in the World’s history than at
other periods, and at such times it becomes necessary that Sons of God should be
incarnated to lead on the new era of the Universe. I do not affirm that Christ
was necessarily a man who obtained Adeptship in that incarnation, but rather one
who had obtained Adeptship and come down to be incarnated again to lead up the
new era. It was, however, necessary in the crucifixion of so great a Soul,—so
that the form might actually suffer,—that everything except the Nephesch should
be withdrawn which would be the reason of the Cry of the Nephesch, ‘My God, My
God, Why hast thou forsaken me?’ For the Nephesch which was temporarily
abandoned in this case was the cloak of that incarnation. In other words, the
only mortal part about the Man, or the God, and then only after incurring that
physical death, as it were, could the other divine parts suddenly come down and
make it the resurrected or glorified body, which, according to the description,
had after the Resurrection, the apparent solidity of the ordinary body, and the
faculties of the Spirit body. Because if you can once get the great force of the
Highest to send its ray clean down through the Neschamah into the mind, and
thence, into your physical body, the Nephesch would be so transformed as to
render you almost like a God walking on this Earth.
The Ruach, then, has to undergo a certain check and suffering in order to attain
its Apotheosis—which is the work of our Adept.
In the fully Initiated Adept the Nephesch is so withdrawn into the Ruach that
even the lowest parts of these two principles cease to become allied to the body
and are drawn into the first six Sephiroth. This is again brought out in the
Obligation, where you say, ‘I pledge myself to hereby give myself to the Great
Work, which is so to exalt my lower nature that I may at length become more than
human and thus gradually raise and unite myself to my higher and divine genius’.
If it is a very great thing to unite yourself to the genius, how much more so
must it be to unite yourself to the God that is behind it!
Looking at the Pastos, it will be seen that it represents a kind of triple cube,
the whole of which is placed between light and darkness. The lid is half light
and half darkness, the upper end is the symbol of light, and the lower, the
symbol of darkness,— while the sides have the colours placed between the Light
and the Darkness. At the head is placed a Golden Greek Cross, representing the
Spirit and’ the Elements, and a Rose of 7 times 7 petals, and there are four
rays which go out from it. But at the foot,—that which the feet rest on as if
they were exalted by it,— is the Cross exalted on a pedestal of Three Steps,
viz, the Obligation Cross. This latter is also to an extent represented on the
top in the crucified figure, and symbolises the voluntary sacrifice of the lower
Will, which is incidental to allying the intellect with the higher aspirations
and to the establishment of your consciousness therein : — thus if the ordinary
consciousness were centred in the Ruach you could touch the Neschamah, while if
it was in the latter you could touch the Genius.
Now this transference of consciousness from Ruach to Neschamah is one object of
the ceremonial of the 5°=6° Ritual:— it is a thing which will be more readily
understood when the Grade of Adept Adeptus Minor is reached. It is especially
intended to effect the change of the consciousness into the Neschamah and there
are three places where is can take place. The first is when the Aspirant is on
the Cross, because he is so exactly fulfilling the Symbol of the abnegation of
the lower Self and the union with the Higher Self: — and also there is the
invocation of \the Angel H.V.A.
The second place is when he touches the Rose on the representative of C,R. in
the Vault, when he has taken on himself the symbols of suffering and self
sacrifice, and says that his victory is in the Cross of the Rose.
The third place is when he enters the Vault in the Third point and kneels down
and the Chief Adept says ‘I am the Reconciler with the Ineffable: I am the
dweller of the Invisible: let the White Brilliance of the divine Spirit
descend.’
In these three cases a possible exchange of the consciousness from the Ruach
into the Neschamah is initiated, so that whether he understands it, or not, the
Aspirant actually approaches his own Genius.
(There are some cases where the Genius may have attained a height and fallen : —
that is when, having touched the Ruach in one incarnation, it has been so
wrought upon by the sufferings of the lower part that it has for the moment
consented to slacken the tension of their union.
Now if the Genius part, instead of identifying itself with the God part,
identifies itself too much with the Neschamah, a fall of the Genius takes place:
which is not altogether evil, but may entail a certain evil effect.)
The most complete point of the actual contact is in the third point, where the
Chief Adept says : — ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life! He that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth
on me shall never die’: i.e. if you can live at will in the Neschamah and touch
the Genius, you will have made a great step towards the divine Elixir, for you
will be worthy to sit with the Gods, and that which you drink of is the real
Elixir, the Elixir of the Spirit of Life.
Then the Second Adept says : — ‘Behold the Image of the Justified One, crucified
on the Cross of the Infernal Rivers of death’, and the Third Adept shows deific
antithesis,—the exaltation into the Divine. Then the Chief Adept says again : —
‘I am the First and the Last’—the Aleph and the Tau and the Yod and Hé final of
the sacred Name,—’I am He that liveth but was dead, and behold I am alive for
evermore, Amen’, that is using the name of the Egyptian Deity AMON, or Amen, who
represents the Ideal God force,—’and I hold the Keys of Death and of Hell’
(Because if you stand on Malkuth and keep your touch with the Gods, you hold the
Keys of that which is below)— But the lower self all this time has an existence,
for it certainly is not quite eliminated : — it is cast forth from the Nephesch,
yet preserving a link with it, it goes down into the Qlipoth, and in this
connection, it is well to observe that what may be really Evil on this Earth
plane, may be even as a God among the Demons.
The words ‘He descended into Hell’, have such a significance. This Third point
then represents the attainment of the Divine : — and the Second Adept proceeds
to say : — ‘He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit says unto the
Assemblies’ (i.e. in Malkuth) and if the Voice of the Divine is found in Malkuth
it must find its echo in the realms beneath.
Then follows the exaltation into Neschamah of the Consciousness of the Chief
Adept, whose Voice seems as if he were symbolically standing with his head in
Atziluth, whence it reverberates through the Worlds, sinking down below Malkuth
unto the dominion of the Shells and he says : — ‘For I know that my Redeemer
liveth’ (the Redeemer is he that brings again) ‘and that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the Earth. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No Man cometh
unto the Father but by me etc.’ This whole passage of the Chief Adept is formed
of a collection of utterances, which are, as it were, the speeches of the Great
Gods, which he can only hear when he is still further exalted into Kether. ‘I am
the Way, the Truth and the Life’, is the reflected Triad. No Man cometh unto the
Father, but by me. Then the Neschamah speaks; down to ‘I have entered into the
Invisible’. Then it is as if the Consciousness went into the Genius, which says
‘I am the Sun in his rising, I have passed through the hour of Cloud and Night’.
Then follows: — ‘I am Amon the concealed one, the opener of the Day,’—like the
Great God in Atziluth—’I am Osiris Onnofris, the Crucified One,’ who is
perfected in the balance and risen above all considerations that come from Maya,
or illusion, and who only seeks the eternal life from above, and then, as if in
a supreme moment ‘I am the Lord of Life, triumphant over death, there is no part
of me that is not of the Gods’. (That is the voice of Kether.) This again is
followed by a synthetical culmination, as if all the divine ones united in the
utterance: ‘I am the Preparer of the Pathway, the Rescuer unto the Light! Out of
the Darkness let the Light arise!’
Then the Aspirant is prompted to say—’Before, I was blind, but now I
see,’—representing again the blindness to the Neschamah Consciousness and the
passage into this.
Whereupon the Chief Adept says : — ‘I am the Reconciler with the Ineffable! I am
the dweller of the Invisible: let the White Brilliance of the Divine Spirit
descend’.
The Aspirant is now told to rise an Adeptus Minor of the Rose of Ruby and the
Cross of Gold, in the sign of Osiris slain,— and then ‘We receive thee as an
Adeptus Minor in that sign of Rectitude and Self Sacrifice.’
The affirmation of the three parts is then proceeded with.— The Chief Adept
says:
‘Be thy Mind opened unto the Higher,’ Second: ‘Be thy heart the centre of
Light’, and Third: ‘Be thy body the Temple of the Rosy Cross’.
The Pass Word is then announced, which is formed from the Mystic Number of the
Grade, 21 ,—this Pass Word, however is the divine Name of Kether : — and it is
used as the Pass Word of this Grade of Tiphereth in order to affirm the
connection between the two.
Then the Chief Adept says that the Key Word is I.N.R.I. The three Adepts
themselves represent Chesed, Geburah and Tiphereth. The Creator, the Destroyer
and the Sacrificed One, ISIS, APOPHIS and OSIRIS = the name lAO. The Symbol, of
Osiris slain is the Cross; v is the sign of the mourning of Isis: the sign of
Typhon and Apophis: x the sign of Osiris risen: = LVX, the Light of the Cross,
or that which symbolises the way into the Divine through Sacrifice. So that the
symbolism in its entirety represents the exaltation of the Initiate into the
Adept.
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