ecosophia | Entries tagged with john gilbert

With this lesson we reach the end of the material I was given as an initiate of the Modern Order of Essenes. Like all the teachings I received from John Gilbert, these are a little disjointed and visibly incomplete -- John had many gifts but a talent for order and systematization was not among them. Since healing isn't a major focus of my work, I don't have the kind of broad knowledge of the field I was able to put to work filling out John's Golden Dawn system to create the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose.

What this means, O students and initiates of the revived Modern Order of Essenes tradition, is that the growth, development, and flourishing of this material is up to you. With this post, I've finished passing on the instructional material, and as time permits I plan on turning it all into a set of PDFs that can be hosted online and circulated freely. (This may be a while -- I'm currently doing final edits on all but one of my novels as they make the transition to their new publisher!) The material in these posts, and in the PDF version still to come, will keep you busy for a good long time -- but as you work with it, you have the responsibility and the privilege of adding to it, adjusting it, and helping it become the greater system of spiritual healing that it can be.

Also, a reminder: the next Apprentice Attunement will be this Saturday, April 8. Full instructions for preparing for the attunement can be found here. My current plan is to do the attunement working at noon and 6 pm Eastern daylight time. If you cannot be available at one or the other of these times, let me know soonest and we can try to work something out.

I will schedule a Master Healer Attunement in the next few weeks, and another round of Healer and Master attunements in the months ahead. In the meantime, I know some of you are already doing the work to qualify for Master Teacher status, which will enable you to confer the attunements yourself; once you are in the last month of the Gnostic Lessons, let me know and we'll make arrangements for the final initiation and certification.

With that, let's proceed to the instructions. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

On to the next stage of the Master Healer grade! This is the first of two sets of instructional papers that were given to Healers preparing for the Master Healer attunement. This set of papers covers the intellectual, psychological, and spiritual complexes that get in the way of healing on the broadest scale. These may not interfere with physical health, in other words, but they certainly mess with the capacity to live a full and happy life.

As a reminder to all, the Essene teachings can be studied and practiced whether or not you have received an attunement -- though the attunement does make the practices more effective. The next Apprentice attunement, the first step in the process, will take place on Saturday, April 8 -- I'll post detailed directions next week.

With that, let's proceed to the lessons. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

Let's move on to the next set of Master Healer lessons. It will take you more than a week to master these! Standard practice in the order, however, was to give each candidate for the Master Healer grade the entire collection of teachings and let them work through it as time and circumstances permit.

This set of lessons builds on last week's set, and teaches you how to use the Bridge of Love in various ways. If you haven't finished learning how to establish the Bridge of Love, you'll need to continue working with last week's lesson until you get to that point, and then proceed to these.

A reminder: there will be an Apprentice attunement on Saturday, April 8, times to be announced a little later. I will be scheduling a Healer attunement shortly after that, so that everyone who's interested in receiving the full set of attuments can do so as quickly as possible.

Also, remember that if you want to become an Essene Master Teacher, capable of passing on these attunements and teachings to others, you need to complete the Gnostic Lessons. These are discussed in an earlier post in this sequence.

With that said, let's proceed. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

With this installment we launch into the practices and teachings belonging to the third level of the Modern Order of Essenes. As discussed last week, you need to know your way around the Cabalistic Tree of Life to make use of this material; last week's post includes links to a series of instructional papers that will teach you the basics.

In more general news, a number of people have expressed interest in receiving the Apprentice attunement, and I have tentatively set aside time on Saturday, April 8 for this purpose. If you're interested in receiving the attunement, please confirm that you will be available at some point that day; we can settle the time a little closer to the date.

With that said, let's proceed. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

It's time to move on to the Master Healer grade, the third and highest grade of the Modern Order of Essenes. We have a lot of material to cover, so hang on.

Two notes before we proceed. First, I've already heard from several people who want to receive the Apprentice attunement and didn't have the chance to do so the first time I gave it. If you're interested in this, please let me know soonest, and I'll start the process of scheduling a time.

Second, I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating. You do not have to receive any of the Essene attunements to do the practices or the healing work. The attunements help; like other initiations, they speed up the learning process and make it possible for you to hit the ground running -- but if you just start doing the work, within a couple of years of steady pratice you'll be as good at healing as anybody. The healing power of the Divine is everywhere and in all things; never let anybody tell you that you have to go through a ceremony or get some kind of license before you can draw on that power to begin blessing and healing the world.

With that in mind, let's proceed. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

This Saturday I will be providing attunements for the Healer Grade of the Modern Order of Essenes. What we need to settle at this point is what time or times I will be doing my side of the ceremony. I've already fielded one request for a noon attunement, and that's certainly an option -- but that's about the earliest I'll be available for this. I can do one or two other sessions later in the day, with midnight the latest that will work for me. (All these times are Eastern Standard Time, btw.)

So my question to those of you who have been doing the Essene work is this -- what's a good time for you? It'll require around thirty minutes of your time.

Update: the time has been settled. There will be two sessions, one at 12:00 noon Eastern time, one at 6:00 pm Eastern time, both on March 4th -- yes, that means tomorrow. See you there!

The instructions for the attunement are as follows: ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

The first round of attunements for the Healer grade, the second grade in the MOE, are scheduled for Saturday, March 4. After that I'll begin posting the material for the Master grade. In the meantime, I'm putting up this open post so that people who have questions about the Essene material already posted have a place to do it. I've got a couple of very busy weeks coming up, so it's anyone's guess how regularly I'll be able to put through comments, much less respond to them! Still, I'll get to those tasks as circumstances permit.

In the meantime, I'd encourage everyone who's interested in the Essene work to keep practicing the Blessing Walk, the Healing Breath, the two forms of reflexology, and the work with the healing centers in the hands. Given the state of the medical industry these days, getting skilled at a method of spiritual healing that requires no resources other than your own body, mind, and spirit seems rather sensible to me just now...

Current Mood: nostalgic

I'm delighted to announce that two books by my late teacher John Gilbert, The Doors of Tarot and The Tree of Spirit, are in press and available for preorder. John himself was never willing to see his writings go through the publishing process, but with the help and encouragement of his widow, I assembled and edited these two volumes from his writings for a couple of defunct websites.

Here's the blurb for The Doors of Tarot:

"An accessible and practical introduction to Tarot divination.

"John Gilbert was an extraordinary tarot diviner and teacher, and this book draws on his knowledge and expertise to provide a clear and comprehensive outline of how to accurately and easily understand and read the cards.

"Beginning with an introduction on how tarot cards work, their symbology and divinatory meanings, this is the perfect starting point for anyone looking to understand these fascinating cards and glean a deeper understanding of the world.

"Gilbert also provides a selection of different tarot spreads, a discussion of tarot and astrology, as well as key tips on developing your intuition."

I would add to this that John specialized in a skill you'll rarely encounter in today's tarot circles: he was an expert at doing one-card readings. A client would ask him a question, he'd draw one card, and give them a clear, concise, and accurate answer. I've never known anyone who did that as well as he did, but some of his students came close, and he spends much of this book explaining just how to do it.

Interested? You can preorder here in the United States and here anywhere else in the world.

Here's the blurb for The Tree of Spirit:

"A fascinating exploration of the symbolic foundations of the Western magical tradition.

"Using the Cabalistic Tree of Life and the tarot deck, this book takes the foundations of Western esoteric tradition as a basis and goes onward into the deep places of magical spirituality.

"Written by the influential American tarot teacher and occultist John Gilbert, it is enriched by insights drawn from modern Gnosticism, spiritual alchemy, neopagan nature worship, and ceremonial magic.

"This book offers a wise and practical path to awakening for the modern student of the mysteries."

Here I'll add that this gives a great deal of additional information on the version of the Tree of Life John used, which is also the version central to the initiations and practices of the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose, which I posted here last year and which seems to be finding a good-sized audience among students of the Western mystery tradition. Both these books make good supplementary reading for the FHR coursework, as well as being good solid guides to their respective corners of occult tradition.

Interested? You can preorder here in the United States and here anywhere else in the world.

Current Mood: delighted

Here's the last of the three lessons I received for the Healer grade; it contains two papers, one on hand reflexology, one on the next series of steps in the Healing Breath Meditation. Back in the day, students who had received this material and begun to practice it, and were regularly practicing the teachings of the Candidate and Apprentice grades, were considered qualified to receive the next attunement, the Healer attunement:

IMPORTANT!

If you are prepared to receive the Healer attunement at this point, you need to post something here, so that we can schedule a day and time. I'm well aware that we all have busy lives, and my life just now is even busier than usual! So I will not simply be setting a time and date and doing a "come one, come all" attunement; I need to hear from potential candidates.( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

Here's the second installment of theory for students of Essene healing. This doesn't read like John Gilbert's writing style, so it's very likely that this is a piece that comes more or less intact from Rhodonn Starrus aka Rev. Matthew Shaw, the founder of the MOE.

As with last week's paper, this material should be read repeatedly, thought through, and frequently reviewed. You will find that it explains much of what Essenes do in their healing work.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

This is the first of three papers assigned to the Healer grade, the second stage in your journey through the Modern Order of Essenes. Your main task in the Healer grade is to work with the energies of the attunement you have already received, by continuing the practice of meditation, the Blessing Walk, and Essene palm healing, while also continuing to develop your practices of foot reflexology and muscle testing. At this stage, however, students learn more about the theory of healing, and also take up the practice of hand reflexology.

The material below on the theory of healing should be read repeatedly, thought through, and frequently reviewed. You will find that it explains much of what Essenes do in their healing work.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

Here are the instructions for the first attunement, which I will be conferring via distance working on Saturday, January 14, at noon, 6 pm, and midnight Eastern time. If you are planning to receive the attunement, please review the instructions below several times and follow them precisely. Remember also that you need to have learned and practiced all the preceding material, and empowered your healing hands in the way already taught every day for at least the seven days prior to the attunement.

If you're just joining us now, you'll want to go back to the beginning of this sequence of posts and work through the whole series of posts. There will be other opportunities for attunement later on, so you haven't missed out. My plan is to get at least a few people initiated as Essene master teachers before the year is out, so that there'll be plenty of opportunities to learn and receive attunement in the future.

Got it? Here we go. ( Read more... )

This is the last of the five instructional papers for the Apprentice grade of the Essenes, covering muscle testing, aka applied kinesiology. This is a subtle and flexible method of divination that's gotten quite a bit of attention in alternative health care circles. It's not required that you practice it, but you should experiment with it as part of your training in the MOE tradition.

Please note: next week I will be giving instructions for receiving the first, Apprentice level of Essene attunement, which will be done (as it often was in John Gilbert's time) as a distance attunement. If you want to receive this, you'll need to block out around an hour of time on Saturday, January 14. I will be doing my end of the attunement at noon, 6 pm, and midnight Eastern time. You will need to be prepared to receive it at one of these times, corrected for your own time zone. You only have to set aside one of the times just listed.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

This week's helping from the banquet of the Modern Order of Essenes is a simple but effective method of self-healing using foot massage. This was part of the Apprentice curriculum; the equivalent practice of hand reflexology is covered in the Healer grade. Give it a try and see what results you get.

Essene Foot Reflexology

Foot reflexology as an art and science has been around for centuries. Healers in ancient Egypt, India, China, and Japan practiced reflexology on hands and feet, and the latter three countries all still have a rich tradition of specialized point massage of hands and feet for healing purposes. The modern Western art of reflexology, however, originated in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, when Dr. William Fitzgerald discovered a set of ten zones running lengthwise along the outside of the human body, ending in the ten toes; branches of these zones also pass down the arms to end in the ten fingers.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

Essenes logo The following outline, which was included in the papers I received during my training, is a useful and detailed description of the Healing Hands technique and should be kept handy while practicing the technique until you have the details by heart. I have appended to it a short paper on the next phase of the Essene Healing Breath meditation.

The diagrams I have included here are from the old MOE website. They are not quite accurate -- the tails on the Earth and Air signs should be longer -- but this was back in the day when getting decent computer graphics wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Keep in mind that the line on the Earth sign should go several inches up the wrist and the one on the Air sign should go most of the way to the ends of your fingers.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

This is the most important paper of the Apprentice grade, the one that explains the basics of Essene energy healing. If you intend to receive attunement, this set of practices should be done daily from now on.

(Those readers who have worked with the Greater Mysteries degrees of the Dolmen Arch will recognize some similarities between this material and the work they have learned. The two methods of healing are not identical but they're closely related and can be combined. Experimentation will show how to do this.)( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

If you have studied and practiced the materials already presented in this sequence, you've fulfilled the requirements for advancement to the Apprentice Grade of the MOE. The following paper by John Gilbert was the first instruction that new Apprentices received.

* * * * *

Introductory Apprentice Lecture

You’ve already learned the Essene Blessing Walk and the Essene Healing Breath. (If you haven’t, please stop here, go back to the previous papers, and do that right now.) Once you know and use these two important techniques, please take the time to understand the Essene healing philosophy and the Essene healing paradigm. This is our understanding of how the Universe works to help people heal themselves.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

This week's installment of the Essene material covers the first phase of learning the Healing Breath meditation. The Healing Breath and the Blessing Walk were the two most basic practices of the Modern Order of Essenes, and they were taught to anyone and everyone who was interested, whether or not they were members of the Order. Both of them take plenty of time to learn fully, but give immediate benefits even at the most basic phases of the work.

Please note that you don't have to complete the process of learning either of these practices to advance to the next set of practices, those belonging to the Apprentice degree. The Essene tradition is one in which you're constantly learning; there is never a point where you can say, "Okay, I've learned everything there is to learn from this practice." ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

Another week, another set of Essene teachings! If you're just starting out, please read the introductory essay here.

This week's paper introduces the first of the basic Essene spiritual practices, the Blessing Walk. It will take you around six months of daily practice to pass through all the stages of learning the Blessing Walk. You do not have to complete all the stages to go on to the next degree of the MOE – just make a start and see where it takes you.

Next week’s paper introduces the second basic Essene spiritual practice, the Healing Breath meditation. The Blessing Walk and the Healing Breath may be learned together.

Essene Blessing Walk

The Essene Blessing Walk is a marvelous healing tool. We heal ourselves as we continue to practice this technique, and we send healing energy to others they can use to heal themselves.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

Having caught my breath after posting the material for the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose, it's time to go on and start posting material from the next of the traditions I received from John Gilbert: The Modern Order of Essenes.

Three notes before we start:

1) The original Essenes (pronounced ESS-scenes) were a Jewish sect active around the time of Jesus of Nazareth. We know a certain amount about them, first from Greek and Romen authors who commented about them, and second from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which came from the library of one of their communities and were stashed away in a cave for safety during one of the wars between the Romans and the Jews. That nobody ever came back for them has certain grim implications we don't have to get into here. Other Essene communities may have survived longer but there's no evidence that any of them lasted beyond the fall of the ancient world. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

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The Modern Order of Essenes: Advanced Lessons 2
The Modern Order of Essenes: Advanced Lessons 1
The Modern Order of Essenes: Master Healer Grade Lessons 2
The Modern Order of Essenes: Master Healer Grade Lessons 1
The Modern Order of Essenes: Overview of the Master Healer Grade
The Modern Order of Essenes: The Healer Attunement
The Modern Order of Essenes: Open Post
Two Books by John Gilbert
The Modern Order of Essenes: Healer Lesson 3
The Modern Order of Essenes: Healer Lesson 2
The Modern Order of Essenes: Healer Lesson 1
Essene Apprentice Attunement
The Modern Order of Essenes: Muscle Testing
The Modern Order of Essenes: Foot Reflexology
The Modern Order of Essenes: Essene Healing 2
The Modern Order of Essenes: Essene Healing 1
The Modern Order of Essenes: Introduction to the Apprentice Grade
The Modern Order of Essenes: The Healing Breath Meditation, Phase 1
The Modern Order of Essenes: The Blessing Walk
The Modern Order of Essenes: Intro

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Toward Ecosophy

Entries tagged with john gilbert

The Modern Order of Essenes: Advanced Lessons 2

The Modern Order of Essenes: Advanced Lessons 1

The Modern Order of Essenes: Master Healer Grade Lessons 2

The Modern Order of Essenes: Master Healer Grade Lessons 1

The Modern Order of Essenes: Overview of the Master Healer Grade

The Modern Order of Essenes: The Healer Attunement

The Modern Order of Essenes: Open Post

Two Books by John Gilbert

The Modern Order of Essenes: Healer Lesson 3

The Modern Order of Essenes: Healer Lesson 2

The Modern Order of Essenes: Healer Lesson 1

Essene Apprentice Attunement

The Modern Order of Essenes: Muscle Testing

The Modern Order of Essenes: Foot Reflexology

Essene Foot Reflexology

The Modern Order of Essenes: Essene Healing 2

The Modern Order of Essenes: Essene Healing 1

The Modern Order of Essenes: Introduction to the Apprentice Grade

The Modern Order of Essenes: The Healing Breath Meditation, Phase 1

The Modern Order of Essenes: The Blessing Walk

The Modern Order of Essenes: Intro

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