The Four Great Initiations - Ellen Conroy McCaffery
The Four Great Initiations - Ellen Conroy McCaffery
The Four Great Initiations - Ellen Conroy McCaffery
GREAT INITIATIONS
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WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
LEON DABO
THis figure of the Trinity surrounded by the four Gospellers is to be found in a Book of Hours printed in Paris
in A.D. r524 by Simon Vostre. Such three-headed
representations of the Trinity were common in the
Middle Ages, but were forbidden by Urban VIII in r628.
The picture shows that the Early Church understood
something of Astrology since the four Gospellers are por
trayed under the emblems of the four fixed signs of:Aquarius the angel or man ascribed to Matthew.
Leo the lion ascribed to Mark.
Taurus the bull ascribed to Luke.
Scorpio the scorpion or eagle ascribed to John.
The four fixed signs are indicative of the four great
initiations :Scorpio is Water.
Aquarius is Air.
Leo is Fire.
Taurus is Earth.
DEDICATED
TO
CONTENTS
PAGit
13
INITIATION BY WATER
1.
t'JlAl''l:!.R
I.
Il.
Ill.
BAPTISM
19
31
.p
THE
MYSTICAL
II.
IV.
UNDERSTANDING
OF
INITIATION BY AIR
V.
81
ON THE MOUNT
Ill.
VI.
INITIATION BY FIRE
IV.
VII.
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95
INITIATION BY EARTH
117
APPENDIX
137
BIBLIOGRAPHY
139
Sr.
AUGUSTINE.
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Dec. 6, 1928.
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CHAPTER I
THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF BAPTISM
I returned
From the most holy wave, regenerate,
E'en as new plants renew'd with foliage new,
Pure and made apt for mounting to the stars.
DANTE, Purgatorio.
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emotional nature
( >~np!etely. In other words,
obedient to higher laws that he may
l1.t:> to
Jll'Ver be unjust because he is angry. He has to learn
o curb his lower appetites and he has to learn prudence.
then, is the meaning of Baptism by Water. If
11c have not learned these things we still need the
Baptism by John.
Note the promises that are given to the candidates
John.
This means that if we
are lacking in any necessary quality, the gift of
God supplies it. Thus we have to get rid of the
feeling of lack at Baptism. We are to know that
God supplies everything, whether physical, mental
or spiritual.
If there is any2. Every hill shall be brought low.
thing in our nature that is distinctly wrong, it
will be removed. Our pet sins are taken away
from us.
3 The crooked shall be made straight. All the things
that turn us aside from what is our duty will be
straightened out. We shall be able to walk with
courage in the path into which we seem to be led.
4 The rough ways shall be made smooth. Our greatest
of difficulties shall be taken away. We shall be
perfect in every
I.
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lien cc he has not attained his mark, for Truth and the
~pirit are one and the same thing. In this sense of not
h;tving the Spirit he has sinned. The Church should
carefully keep before its members this great distinction
between wickedness and sin. Much trouble is avoided
when we define terms. Perhaps Isaiah's statement
that we all have gone astray is easier for most people.
The following free verse poem brings out the main
essentials of the idea :
MISSING THE MARK
" All we like sheep have gone astray"
Is easier for most of us to say
Than that we all have sinned.
Yet, sin is no other than missing the mark
And falling short of attaining the thing
That was to be attained,And thus we all have sinned !
We all have failed in our high ideals,
And thus we all have sinned!
We all have failed to attain
And maintain the health
That the Spirit life would give,
And thus we all have sinned!
We all have failed adequately to meet
The strain and stress of the problems of life,
And thus we all have sinned I
And when we humbly confess that we have sinned,That we have missed our mark,
'Tis not the cringing cry of the weak,
But a calm and reasoned statement
That having not attained our end
In one matter and by one way,
We shall stride out again upon the Path
Leaning more firmly on the Spirit power
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30
CHAPTER II
THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF TEMPTATION
ABDUL BAHA,
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Or again
0 I there is life that breathes not. Powers there are
That touch each other to the quick in modes
Which the gross world, no sense bath to perceive,
No soul to dream of.
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40
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And as he cultivates this power,
\Yhich the orthodox call Faith,
He needs no wealth and he needs no banks :
For he is king of a greater realm
Than the eye can see ;
A realm that stretches beyond this earth.
He has a power that knows the inner springs,
That move the mountains and the seas.
He becometh one with the creative power
That called the world into form.
Thus form to him is no permanent thing ;
It is something that yields to his will,His will that is linked with the Will
That is part of the Trinity.
Then let no man that assays the Path,
Say that he covets the goods,
The armies, the guns and the wealth with which
The powerful and great of the world,
Attempt to retain and increase their power.
For the man of faith and every man,
Except him blinded by pride,
Knows that there never was yet a man who lived
Maintained his kingship for ever
Over the outward form and goods.
The only kingdom where the rule
Is for ever and ever unto the end,
Is the Kingdom of the Within.
4I
CHAPTER Ill
THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT
My strength is as the strength of ten,
TENNYSON.
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so
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it more liable to disease, and he has also injured his
mind and his soul bodies. His work, then, is to rectify
this and work towards getting perfect health and the
right vehicles for a fuller spiritual manifestation. The
priest represents the real ego of the man who is in
charge of all the various parts of his make-up whether
of mind, body or soul.
Healing of the man with palsy.
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CHAPTER IV
THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PLUCKING OF
CORN ON THE SABBATH DAY
No man is born into the world, whose work
Is not born with him; there is always work
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70
that really help the " babe " within to grow and
function are those that are pregnant with life revealing
soul attainment. Thus it often happens that we may
learn more from a person who apparently knows less,
but who is more advanced along the Path. Our souls
instinctively learn to recognize great souls and a few
words of encouragement from them means more than
whole sermons from the former type. In fact the very
presence of such an one is an inspiration in itself.
The word" inspiration" means what is breathed in,
and the breath is the Spirit of God. In other words,
when we are inspired we are linked with the Breath of
God. We attain our "Air Initiation." Man then
becomes a living soul. Inspiration is conditional on
aspiration, and aspiration is one of the higher stages
arising out of meditation.
In the Book of Genesis we arc told that the Spirit
of God breathed upon the face of the waters, that is,
the mind of God worked upon the psychic emotional
nature, and so brought shape, harmony and order out
of what had formerly been nebulous and chaotic.
Since without air we could not have sound, " air
initiation" also includes the understanding of the
power of speech and of music. Christ is called the
Word or, rather, the Logos, which means both Thought
and Word, for Christ represents to the seeker the
Spirit which by thinking is able to call all beautiful
things into being. In the perfection of God all things
move in harmony. This is why the poets and seers of
all nations have attributed the ability to sing or play
some musical instruments to their various gods. Apollo
INITIATION BY AIR
JI
72
Since man, as all mystics know, contains the Godgiven Breath within him, he has to liberate this and
use it as his means of attainment. He has to nourish
it with right thought and right living. The Zoroastrians say the sequence is "Good thought, Good
word, Good deed." Then, as the Spirit of Breath
grows (called the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures), "He
shall teach you all things and call all things to your
remembrance," for the knowledge of the Spirit is not
really something new to man but something that
he has forgotten in his long pilgrimage through
matter.
The ancient Hymn of the Soul or The Quest of the
Pearl Divine is a poem setting forth with marvellous
beauty this great fact. The poem is ascribed to
the Apostle Thomas, called Didymus, which name
allies him with the constellation of the Twins or
Gemini which rules the two principles of mind, one
of which principles believes only in what the senses or
outer world can teach, and one which is allied with
higher things. Thomas was formerly the doubter. He
had to see the risen Christ before he could believe in the
resurrection, but later when he had cast aside his
lower doubting mind, he became the foremost apostle
to the Eastern nations, and it is said that he even
reached China. He expresses this change of mentality
in the following stanza :
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74
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76
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book The Great Mother (p. 231), speaks very wonderfully
of bread as the symbol of both home and civilization, and
as the "principle in which all things stand together."
This is a very remarkable phrase-the principle in which
all things stand together-for the shewbrcad of the
Temple meant just this-it was the consolidated food,
garnered, ground and baked, such a food as the ego
makes in the course of the years of his life, or lives as
some believe. The shewbread was set before the Lord
each Sabbath, that is, in the great period of meditation
when the ego sums up its former work and then starts
to think of its future work. So many people in their
meditation have only nebulous ideas to offer on their
Sabbath of meditation, so many have rank ideas, so
many have half-baked ideas, but the great egos are
those who feed humanity from their bread of life.
Their food is an offering in the Temple of the Cosmos.
If we read Lev. 24, 5-9, we shall perhaps understand
more clearly what the shewbread meant.
There were to be twelve cakes.
8o
CHAPTER V
MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE SERMON ON THE
MOUNT
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CHAPTER VI
THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE
TRANSFIGURATION
Paradiso.
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by images through the senses from without. The Soul
feels itself in itself ; but its surroundings only in the
degree that they cause resistance to its vibration. In
the Soul all the vibrations caused by the resistance give
rise to self-consciousness, reflection or thought, that is,
they awaken what we call Mind. We may describe the
Soul as the principle of animation : the Mind as the
principle of Thought-volition.
When I say, 'An idea (or thought) has struck me,'
or ' An idea has occurred to me ' : what do I mean
except that a Flash has occurred in my mind and
brain ? The author of a work on Astrology entitled
Stellar Dust, writes that <Mind originates in the brain
by a combination of " Flash-lights," generated in its
respective subdivisions.' He terms them ' Flash-lights '
he says, ' because they are not constant in their effect
but come and go.' Although he is a materialist, he
stumbled on a truth that Boehme stated centuries ago.
. . . Also the psychologist Professor Flourney supports
Boehme's teaching when in his Spiri#snt and Spiritttalism he writes :
Thought is only a Flash in the middle of a long
night. Yet this Flash is everything." Sir William
Crookes, too, supports Boehme when he suggests that
the active brain may emit Rays (Flashes) of higher
frequency and greater penetrating power than any as
yet known : and that herein we may find the key to
the mysteries of telepathy, and of many spiritoid
phenomena.
Jean-Henri Fabrc writes that when he was struggling
with mathematical problems, he would lie in bed in a
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puts it, should dazzle but does not, because its heat is
mitigated by its light ; thus it is a cool light like that
of a glow-worm.
The body and clothes of J amblichus emitted a golden
light. The head of Proclus emitted a crown of light.
Agnes of Bohemia rose into the air and appeared
surrounded byshining clouds. Venturinus of Gergamus,
Alphonso of Herrera, Dominicus of Vicari, Peter of
Alcantara, and many other animists of the past,
radiated this Light . . . . About some animists it
appears in the form of a Star over the forehead, or a
rainbow. Sometimes it is so strong the body appears
pellucid. Once seen this Light can never be forgotten .
. . . We read in the Mahabharata that the spirits in
Heaven are Self-luminous."
In the Book of Revelation we read that there is no
sun in the New Jerusalem for the Lamb is the Light
thereof, meaning that the perfected soul or ego is
illumined by the Christ Who is self-luminous. For
this reason light and luminosity have ever been
attributed to the great ones of the earth and to the
saints.
FIRE INITIATION
Self-luminous and bright
I glow with golden light.
My garments shine like snow.
The vails that hid Thy Face
Are flung behind with Night
That disappears in Dawn.
Thy burning censer swings within my soul.
Its precious odour steals without,
INITIATION BY FIRE
And gently on the air is borne,
That I and all I meet may know
The fragrant heart of God.
Thy cleansing Fire is in my heart.
It springeth up in shooting
Unto Thy heavenward Light.
It chanteth forth Thy conqu'ring Love,
Thy vitalizing power.
All that was cold, inert and dead in me,
Is caught into new life,
Transformed, transmuted in the surge
Of Thy communicated Grace.
Celestial Light from God's own Self
Shines in my inmost depths,
Illumining my way.
It has become the Way,
The central Sun,
"Whose areat primeval Energy,
in 'VVisdom, Power and Love,
Createth world on world anew.
Self-luminous and
I glow with golden light.
My garments shine like snow.
The vails that hid Thy Face
Are flung behind with
That disappears in Dawn.
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CHAPTER VII
MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE CRUCIFIXION AND
THE ASCENSION
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hidden itself from the substance of the evil and wickedness in and about you. By' Salvation' is meant that
you go out of the ' Curse ' : that your earthly Will will
die on the Cross : that your Heavenly Will be free
to become one with the Divine Will in the Pure
Element.''
Commenting on this passage Dr. Herman Vetterling
says:
"Like Schopenhauer, Dr. Perty follows Boehme, and
says that Pure Matter is the result of magical powers,
and what is called gross matter is a manifestation of it
by the physical powers. The chemist Ostwalcl declares
that matter is nothing else than Energy. We know it
through its manifestations. The Swedish physicist
Arrhenius believes that all that is called matter is only
Power that acts in different ways. He is strongly
opposed to the doctrine that matter is self-productive.
Le Bon says, 'Nothing is created: everything disappears.' He believes in the dematerialization of
matter. 'Matter is not annihilated, because there is
no matter in the sense of substance. Matter is only an
aspect, a passive form of Energy.' From Bochme's
point of view all this is correct. Torpid matter exists
but not dead matter: in some obscure degree, all
matter lives. This also is the teaching of the Indians,
who say that, 'All matter shines with light.' (Radium
illustrates this perfectly.)"
Or again:
" If there is any one subject upon which the majority
of the ancient and modern philosophers are agreed, it
is this, that gross matter is an out-birth or manifestation
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122
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can be done by the Spirit. In our " fire " and " earth
initiations " we accomplish this. The ordeal of the
Passion or the " earth initiation " is simply the suffering involved in this process of getting rid entirely of
self-limitation. It is thus an initiation that interpenetrates all the others. A bird does not learn the
power of its wings without suffering. We have to get
rid of the exterior will and work only with the interior
will which is that of the all-knowing, all-perceiving,
all-able Spirit. We reach what the ordinary person
calls the world of miracles, when all things are possible.
We are redeemed, that is, we are brought back to the
source of our being.
Speaking of Redemption Anna Kingsford says :
"Although the process as a whole is one, the process
is manifold, and consists in a series of acts, spiritual
and mental. Of this series, the part where the individual finally surrenders his own exterior will, with all
its exclusively material desires and affections, is
designated the PASSION. And the particular act
whereby this act is consummated and demonstrated,
is called the CRUCIFIXION.
This Crucifixion means a complete, unreserving
surrender-to the death, if necessary-without opposition, even in desire, on the part of the natural man.
Without these steps is no atonement. The man cannot
become one with the Spirit within him, until by his
'Passion' and' Crucifixion,' he has utterly vanquished
the ' Old Adam ' of his former self. , Through the atone-ment made by means of this sacrifice he becomes
as one without sin, being no more liable to sin ; and is
r28
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130
INITIATION BY EARTH
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s.
It is finished.
What is finished? The work of killing the lower
mind and establishing consciousness in the higher mind
is finished. When Jesus spoke these words it is said
that it was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. This is
an astrological conception of the progress of the soul
from the sixth sign, Virgo, to the ninth, which is that
of Sagittarius. In the former sign form is complete
while in the latter the crucifixion of the lower mind is
completed. This sign is ruled by Jupiter, whose
symbol in itself is that of the crucified personality.
6. This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.
Again the reference is to the higher mind, which is
eternal. The lower mind (the other thief) dies
unregenerate.
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134
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136
APPENDIX1
IN the Laws of Manu we have:
" In order to protect the Universe, He, the most Resplendent One, assigned separate duties and occupations
to those who sprang from His mouth, arms, thighs, and
feet.
To Brahmanas (the higher mind) he assigned teaching
and studying the law.
To Kshatriya (the mental forces) he commanded to
protect the people.
To Vaisya (the astral desire body) he commanded to
bestow gifts, to tend cattle, to trade, to lend money, to
cultivate land.
One occupation alone he commanded the Sudra (the
physical body) to serve meekly the other three."
G.
Seep.
37
10,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS ON MYSTICISM, SYMBOLISM AND ALLIED SUBJECTS
T.
TROWARD
ToDD FERRIER
A. PAGET WILKES
jAMES MoRGAN PRYSE
RUDOLF STEINER
RunoLF STEINER
R. P.A. PouLAIN
EVEL YN UNDERHILL
VAUGHAN
R. M. BucKE
HENRY VrcToR MoRGAN
MADELEY
HERMAN VETTERLING
S. F. DuNLAP
MABEL COLLINS
CLAUDE BRAGDON
D. GINSBURG
MAX HEINDEL
RICHARD INGELESE
GEORGE OLIVER
CHARLES H. V AIL
c.
ARTHUR E.
AITE
ARTHUR E.
AITE
DUDLEY WRIGHT
A. E.
qo
BIBLIOGRAPHY
JAMES ALLEN
WILLIA:M JAMES
HAROLD BEGBIE
WALTER GORN OLD
BJERREGAARD
R. M. JoNES
P. FAIRBURN
BROTHER LAWRENCE
JoHN RuYSBROECK
JoHN TAULER (supposed)
G. s. R. MEAD (Ed.)
JAMES MACBETH BAIN
K. GRAVES
Box (Ed.)
Box and R. H. CHARLES
(Eds.)
R. H. CHARLES (Ed.)
HoNE (Ed.)
J. Ro:MILLIE ALLEN
GODFREY BLOUNT
LOUISA TWINING
C. W. KING
SIDNEY HEATH
R. PAYNE-KNIGHT
F. E. HUL:ME
M. F. HOWARD
Mrs. MuRRA Y AYNSLEY
HAROLD BAYLEY
MACKAY
A. H. WARD
DE QUINCEY
G. OLIVER
Mrs. JAMESON
E. A. GREENE
R. W. DIDRON
As A Man Thinketh
Varieties of Religious Experience
Twice-Born Men
Book of the Simple Way
The Great Mother
Mystical Religion
Typology of Scripture
Practice of the Presence of God
The Perfection of God's Children
Theologia Germanica
Pistis Sophia
Christ of the Healing Hand
Sixteen Crucified Saviours
Odes and Psalms of Solomon
Ascension of Abraham and
Isaiah
Book of Enoch
Apocryphal New Testament
Christian Symbols
Science of Symbols
Christian Symbols and Emblems
Symbols on Antique and Mystic
Gems
Romance of Symbolism
Symbolic Language of Ancient
Art
Christian Symbolism
Study in Symbolism
Symbolism of East and West
Lost Language of Symbolism
Symbolism of Freemasonry
Masonic Symbolism
Rosicrucians and Freemasonry
Twelve Lectures on Signs and
Symbols of Freemasonry
Sacred and Legendary Art
Saints and their Symbols
Christian Iconography
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MALCOLM WHITE
W. WYNN WESTCOTT
!SAUNE PHILPOT
HILDERIC FRIEND
T. lNMAN
A. CHURCHWARD
Lti
I42
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. VALENTIA STRAITON
GREGORY THE GREAT
A. 0SBORNE EAVES
Dr. BABBIT
General PLEASANTON
A. w. RIMINGTON
FINETTA BRUCE
ANNIE BESANT
S. PANCOAST
C. W. LEADBEATER
W. G. HooPER
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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