Amazon eBay: possessMUCH IS SAID in certain classes of the Western World about Initiation. This in the minds of most people seems usually to be associated with the occultism taught in the religions of the far East; something that is peculiar to the devotees of Buddhism, Hinduism, and kindred systems of faith, and which in nowise appertains to the religion of the Western World, particularly to the Christian religion. We have shown in the preceding series on “Symbols of Ancient and Modern Initiation”† that this idea is entirely gratuitous, and that the ancient Tabernacle in the Wilderness pictures in its symbolism the path of progression from childlike ignorance to superhuman knowledge. As the Vedas brought light to the devotees who worshiped in faith and fervor on the banks of the Ganges in the sunny South, so the Eddas were a guiding star to the sons of the rugged Northland, who sought the Light of life in ancient Iceland where the sturdy Vikings steered their ships in frozen seas. “Arjuna,” who fights the noble fight in the “Mahabharata,” or “Great War,” constantly being waged between the higher and the lower self, differs in nowise from the hero of the northern soul myth, “Siegfried,” which means, “He who through victory gains peace.” Both are representative of the candidate undergoing Initiation. And though their experiences in this great adventure vary in certain respects called for by the temperamental differences of the northern and southern peoples, and provided for in the respective schools to which they are referred for soul growth, the main features are identical, and the end, which is enlightenment, is the same. Aspiring souls have walked to the Light in the brilliantly illuminated Persian temples where the sun god in his blazing chariot was the symbol of Light, as well as under the mystic magnificence of the iridescence shed abroad by the aurora borealis of the frozen North. That the true Light of the deepest esoteric Occult Knowledge in Raphael’s Paintings SPIRITUAL SCIENCE AND ART Oil on panel, Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1483-1520, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden The Sistine Madonna Also known as the Madonna of St. Sixtus, the Virgin and Child are shown with St. Barbara and the former Pope Sixtus, later canonized. Planet Art † The first segment of this article’s text is excerpted from Max Heindel’s Ancient and Modern Initiation, pp. 63-66 knowledge has always been present in all ages, even the darkest of the so-called dark, store. In the original there is a peculiar tint of golden haze behind the Madonna and Child, which, though exceedingly crude to one gifted with spiritual sight, is nevertheless as close an imitation of the basic color of the first-heaven world as it is possible to make with the pigments of earth. Close inspection of this background [detailed above] will reveal the fact that it is composed of a multitude of what we are used to call “angel” heads and wings. [“In the lower regions of the Desire World the whole body of each being may be seen, but in the highest regions only the head seems to remain. Raphael, who like many other people in the Middle Ages, was gifted with a so-called second sight, pictured that condition for us in his Sistine Madonna, now in the Dresden Art Gallery, where the Madonna and the Christ-child are represented as floating in a golden atmosphere and surrounded by a host of genie-heads: conditions which the occult investigator knows to be in harmony with the facts.”—The Rosicrucian Mysteries, p. 54] This again is as literal a pictorial representation of facts concerning the inhabitants of that world as could be given, for during the process of purgation which takes place in the lower regions of the Desire World the lower parts of the body are actually disintegrated so that only the head, containing the intelligence of the man, remains when he enters the first heaven, a fact which has puzzled many who have happened to see the souls there.

Tue Feb 9 04:48:10 2010