Toward Ecosophy

Preliminaries and Preparations

This ritual is the final step in your initiation into the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose.  It marks the completion of your formal training in the Fellowship and your acceptance of certain commitments and responsibilities as a custodian of the tradition. Be sure to read the text of the ritual carefully before deciding whether or not to perform it. If you decide to proceed, certain preliminaries are necessary, and certain preparations need to be made.

The preliminaries are straightforward. Before you perform the ceremony, you should have completed all the work of the preceding degrees in full. It is wise to go back over the rituals and instructional papers you have already studied, and be sure you have done the work to your own satisfaction.

Autumn Equinox Ceremony

This ritual should be performed within 48 hours at most of the moment of the equinox, which you can find online or in any almanac.  It is around September 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. The ceremony is performed as follows.

Set up the altar with all four candles on it, place a chair in the west facing the altar, and open the temple in the grade of Seeker with the opening ceremony.

The next four lessons of the Teacher Grade will include, among other things, instructions for solo practice of the four seasonal ceremonies of the Fellowship, the two equinox and two solstice ceremonies.

Spring Equinox Ceremony

This ritual should be performed within 48 hours at most of the moment of the equinox, which you can find online or in any almanac.  It is around March 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. The ceremony is performed as follows.

Practical Requirements for a Temple

It is possible to establish and operate a temple of the Fellowship with four members who have achieved the requisite grades—one Sojourner, one Server, one Student, and one Teacher—and a reasonably spacious living room that can be borrowed for meetings four times a year. Such a temple can perform the rituals for the solstices and equinoxes. In order to perform the initiation rituals, it is necessary to have at least five members who have at least achieved the grade to be conferred—to confer the Teacher grade, for example, all five officers must be of that grade or above—and one more who is qualified to receive it.

I have also completed the process of assembling the full collection of FHR material into four PDF volumes, which will be published shortly under a Creative Commons free-use license -- that is to say, they'll be free for the downloading. Anyone who is interested in hosting the material on a website will not merely be free to do so, but will have my enthusiastic cooperation. I want to make sure that anybody anywhere who wants to work with this material can do so -- not least because it looks as though we're heading into hard economic times, and not everyone will be able to afford books. 

Here's the next installment of the FHR work, continuing with the element of Fire. Next week it's on to the Teacher grade initiation. 

Ritual for Working with the Element of Fire

To prepare for the following ritual, place a chair in the south or stand to the north of a chair in your room.  Make a list of questions you want to ask about the Elemental World of Fire.  Face the east and trace the red triangle symbol for Fire in front of you as you would in creating a Sphere of Protection.

Invoke the Fire Element according to your usual method.  Expand that red Fire symbol to be as large as a door.  Stand there and ask for permission to enter the World of Fire for instruction about the Element of Fire and the Elemental World of Fire.  Wait for permission.  It may take a minute, just relax, breathe deeply and listen.  Soon you’ll hear or feel the message to enter.

The making and consecration of the Wand of Fire is one of the requirements for advancement to the next grade in the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose, the 5° grade of Teacher. Since it may take you some time to make or buy a suitable Wand, this paper is issued now so that it can be studied early on in your Seeker work.

The Fire Wand

The Wand is best made of wood, and it should not be made of metal or have any metal in or on it.  It may be painted or otherwise decorated.  It may be any convenient size.  What you choose for your own personal Wand is strictly a matter of personal taste.  After all, it is your Wand.

Working with the Element of Water

The Element of Water represents the astral or emotional reality as we know it.  Every emotion we feel is a part of this emotional reality.  Our feelings are the Element of Water and they occur in our own personal World of Water. Water is our emotions and everything having to do with our emotions.

We repeat what we said about the Earth Element and relate it to Water.  If you desire to review the Seeker grade papers on working with Earth, now is a good time to do so.

We call Water our emotional reality but mystics of all ages and common sense tells us it’s really not “real” at all.  It’s all an illusion but we’re living in this illusion and our senses tell us this illusion is real.  For us, at this stage of our spiritual evolution, it is real.  Knowing that the physical reality is an illusion and living in that illusion is called the human condition of the spiritually awakening person.

The Element of Water represents our emotions, our ability to feel and express our inner feelings. The problem is that society teaches us to stuff your emotions rather than express them. Stuffed emotions create emotional complexes and emotional complexes stunt our spiritual growth.  We need to break up these stuffed emotional complexes and learn how to express our inner feelings. We do this through a process of psychotherapy, counseling or spiritual alchemy. We do not have any resources for psychotherapy. You will need to find your own.

When you studied the Earth Element as a Seeker, you learned that Acceptance is the key.  Now as a Sojourner you learn that Forgiveness is the key. You cannot rid yourself of your emotional complexes, your emotional garbage, until you learn to accept and forgive yourself.

Let’s examine emotional complexes to see how this works. Our emotional complexes are stuffed emotions that we do not express in the moment.  Those emotions include: anger, anxiety, apathy, blame, comparisons.  depression, dislike, fear, grief, guilt, hatred, irritation, rage, sadness, self-recrimination, shame, sorrow and all the others feelings we experience.

We have a feeling and we stuff it. Later we have a similar feeling and stuff it. Those two stuffed feelings come together and start a complex, a family of similar feelings it you will. As you stuff other similar feelings, they join this group until you have a major emotional complex.  You see the world through this emotional complex and your judge the world and everything in the world by it. You thinking has become thwarted by your own emotional complexes.

More than that, these emotional complexes don’t just go away. They become emotional issues that need to be addressed. You address them by bringing them to the surface, acknowledging their existence, accepting them as they are, forgiving yourself for doing this to yourself and resolving each emotional issue one by one. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. You resolve these emotional issues through journaling, psychotherapy, counseling or spiritual alchemy.

More on Creating Astral Forms

Review everything you learned as a Seeker about creating astral forms. If you do nothing more than master the techniques taught there, you’ll be able to create the astral forms you want to create.

You can only create that which you can imagine. First you must imaginee that you can create what you want to create. Imagine that you can and believe that you can. That's the first step. Those who imagine they can and believe that they can will accomplish whatever they imagine. This is the power of imagination.

The problem is that unless we believe we can, we can't. If we believe we can, we can. The secret power behind imagination is our belief in ourselves. Have you ever noticed that some people create wonderful things in their life, things few of us believe they deserve? Have you ever wondered how they did that? Do you think they were just plain lucky? The answer is they imagined they could do exactly what they did and they believed they could do it.

First imagine and believe that you can create what you want to create. Then sit down and imagine what you want to create. Write it down. Write down the details. Imagine that you can create this. Let the power of your subconscious mind make it happen just like you imagine. Believe that you can do this and it will happen. It just takes effort, imagination and belief.

Once you start to imagine whatever it is you want to create, the next step is to see what you're creating in your mind's eye. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and relax. Imagine that you see the astral form you created or are creating. Believe you are doing this and you will.

Later, as you become proficient at imagining the astral form you're creating, you'll have an inner knowing that's exactly what you're doing. At that moment, you no longer need to imagine that you're creating the astral form you want to create, you'll know you are creating it. That's visualization.

The problem is that what you see in the astral looks exactly as you imagined it. So your mind will tell you that you're just imagining it. That's when some people tell others they can't visualize anything. In fact, most of the time when people tell us they can't visualize anything, they aren't telling the truth. They actually are visualizing something but they think it's all in their imagination.

Continue to read through the Seeker materials on creating astral forms. Continue to imagine and believe you can create what you want to create. Then do it. Imagine the form you are creating. In time you will know that you are. Imagine that you can visualize what you are creating. Imagine it and believe it and in time you will know you are doing it. When you get that inner knowing that you are visualizing, reject any thought that says this is all in your imagination. We start with our imagination but the end result is visualization.

*  *  *  *  *

Here concludes John Gilbert’s paper on how to develop your intuition.

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Some people contact their Intuitive Mind and receive a flow of information about life and things. Theideas just keep coming. It's as though somebody turned on the faucet and left the water running.

At least this is what happens in the beginning. The more you don't do anything about the knowledge you're gaining, the slower the ideas come until they just stop. It's as though somebody tuned off the faucet. Wha tyou don't use, you lose. 

That's a fact of life. If you don't use your muscles, they atrophy and lose strength. If you don't use your mind, it atrophies and you lose cognition. If you don't use your intuition, it stops talking.

Some people want their intuitive mind to be quiet so they can attain a state of Zen. So, they don't do anything about their intuitive insights while they're meditating. Other people want to encourage intuitive insights. So they write them down and do something about them. All of them.There's a third group of people who want to do both: to meditate for spiritual enlightenment and to receive intuitive insights. This is the more difficult path because you need to train your Intuitive Mind to know when you want to do what.

Decide how you want to use your intuitive mind. Write it all down in your journal. Then approach your intuitive mind with the expectation it will do exactly what you want it to do. It will. It will do what you instruct it to do. It will answer your questions or it will be quiet as you wish.

6

Several people in the class that originally received these lectures asked questions, but all the questions seemed to center around three themes:

QUESTION - How can I really tell if it's my intuition or my imagination?

ANSWER - Your intuitive mind is unemotional. It's neutral and doesn't judge anything as good or bad. Your intuitive mind is non-assertive. It never gets aggressive or urges you to do something.

Your imaginative mind is emotional. It asserts itself and dominates your thoughts. More than anything, your imaginative mind is excited about what you're thinking. It judges things as good or bad and encourages us accordingly.

As a rule, if your thoughts are calm and peaceful, that could be your intuition. But if your thoughts are exciting and energetic, it can't be your intuitive mind that's speaking. The other thing is you'll always have a peaceful "knowing" when it's your intuitive mind that's speaking.

QUESTION - How do you know your imagination is always the future? Can't you imagine the past?

ANSWER - As a rule, our imagination takes us into our possible futures and our subconscious mind accurately remembers our past. But, yes, we can play tricks on ourselves and imagine falsememories. We can also imagine other possibilities than what actually happened. Mystics would argue these imaginings are possible future events in our lives.

QUESTION - How does intuition manifest in different people?

ANSWER - Good question. Intuition manifests as our sixth sense as clairsentience (knowing) and this is attributed to the Element Spirit. But it can also manifest as a higher vibration of any of our five senses. These five higher senses are:

Clairvoyance (sight) [Fire]

Clairaudience (sound) [Water]

Clairodorance (smelling) [Air]

Clairgustance (taste) [Air]

Clairtangence (touch) [Earth]

The notes inside the [brackets] are my own theories about the dominant element working through theindividual at that time. It seems clairodorance and clairgustance come together most of the time. The others seem to appear separately one at a time.

As human beings we have two higher minds which reside above our intuition. Think of these three minds as a three-layer wedding cake. Our Intuitive Mind forms the base of this cake. The top layer is our Receptive Mind and in between is our Conscience. Above this three-tier cake and surrounding it in all directions forever is the Mind of the Divine. How insignificant our little Receptive Mind seems to be!

But the ancients called this the Mouth of the Divine and the considered it the most precious thing in the Divine's creation. For this is the mouth through which the Divine speaks individually to each of us. All we have to do is become receptive and receive.

What we receive from the Divine we filter through our Conscience. This is our Free Will. This is where we decide what's right or wrong for us. This is where we corrupt the "Word of the Divine" and turn it around for our own purposes. What we send to the Divine we send through this filter and it filters out all the negativity, deceit, deception, untruth and falsehood that's in us. The truth is we can deceive ourselves, and we do it all the time, but our Conscience won't let us deceive our Maker. But that's O.K. because the Divine accepts us for who and what we are just as parents accept their own children. But this is theology and we won't go there.

We can travel through our Intuitive Mind into our Conscience and observe our five lower minds at work. We can see our Corporeal Mind (Unconscious) controlling our body. We can read our history (the akashic record) in our Subconscious Mind. We can follow the threads of countless futures in our Imagination. We can watch our Rational Mind solve the problems of our life. And, we can see the faultless activity of our Intuitive Mind.

We can see all these things and we can also look up and see our Receptive Mind connected to the Universe. We can look up and see the Abyss, the Void, the Mouth of the Divine. (Some say what we're actually seeing is our own third eye.) Here in our Conscience we can change the attitudes that color our concept of right and wrong. We can remove our prejudices and we can learn to love unconditionally. We can be "reborn" as a new person.

We can float up into our Receptive Mind and become "enlightened." We can "know" the Divine. We can watch the Divine Light flowing down through the Mouth of the Divine, nurturing our Mind and Body and flowing out through us back into the Universe. We can learn to control that light. But that's another discussion for another time.

The ultimate answer to the question: "How do we know we're in our Intuitive Mind instead of our Imagination?" is "Go to your Conscience and you'll know." Looking down from above you can see how all of your lower minds are working and what each one is doing. The goal of meditation is enlightenment and that's attained when you reach your Receptive Mind. The Universal Rule governing this is that you will ultimately attain that which you seek. Just keep seeking.

For now, practice meditation, open your intuitive mind and use it. That's the path to spiritual enlightenment and it's the path to communing with the Divine.