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| Simplified Scientific Christianity |
The final consummation of the Quest leads to the Sublime Secret of the Royal Prince of the Thirty-second Degree. This secret is polarity, the underlying theme of all the Degrees beginning with that of Apprentice. Albert Pike makes it clear in his Morals and Dogma by means of a Hermetic symbol which he uses to illustrate this Degree. An androgynous figure — the dual male-female principle of the Christ man — shows a woman holding in her out-stretched hand a Square and a man holding in his hand a Compass. Across the double figure is a scroll bearing the one word 'Rebis' which means a new thing. It is equality between the positive and negative forces within the human body-temple, and between man and woman, that will usher in the New Age.
A double eagle is also a symbol of this attainment, a figure that has always been an emblem of secret power. It was so used at least two thousand years before the building of Solomon's Temple, and was first introduced to the Masonic Lodge in 1758. The double-headed eagle of Kadosh (the Thirtieth, Thirty-first and Thirty-second Degrees) is partly white and partly black, and in its claws it holds a naked sword. A sword is representative of Truth in mystic symbology. White and black are emblematic of positive and negative, masculine and feminine forces.
Frequent references have been made in this Mystic Masonry series to the two columns that have adorned the entrance to all Temples wherein occult truths of the Mysteries have been promulgated. These two columns have various meanings. They represent the two paths of human attainment: the occult, or way of the intellect; and of love, the way of the mystic. The perfect blending of these two are the consummation of the Great Quest as typified by the double-headed eagle.
In the masonic allegory the occult path is represented by King Hiram of Tyre while the mystic way is symbolized by King Solomon of Jerusalem. The work of their blending is portrayed by Hiram Abiff, the Master Workman who must remain a "widow's son" until the union is effected.
Ancient alchemists taught these same truths, man's body being the laboratory wherein the work is accomplished. The elements they used were designated as fixed (masculine) and volatile (feminine). By means of a perfect blending the two base metals (man's lower nature) were transmuted into pure gold (his higher nature). The alchemist's stone (soul body) fashioned by a mystic is clear like a diamond. It becomes luminous through faith, repentance, conversion, and being born anew. There is a profound occult truth in the words of a Christian hymn which says that sins which are scarlet shall be made white as snow. The stone (soul body) fashioned by an occultist is ruby-red. This attainment comes by way of works combined with purification and the regeneration of one's animalistic nature. Through the processes of spiritual alchemy the red passions of an aspirant's lower nature are transformed into the pure and passionless ruby soul. Such transmutation commences within the spinalcanal, his alchemical laboratory.
When the blending between the white diamond (mystic) and the red ruby (occultist) has been completed, the soul-body of the new androgyne individual will be a beautiful and delicate rose-pink. At this stage man will have generated within himself the aqua vita, the water of life, which will maintain life in his etheric body and make possible the overcoming of death. Through this he will be able to prolong physical life indefinitely by recreating his physical body at will.
Such is the power of the Adepts. It is an attainment that enables them to partake of the Tree of Life, the fruit forbidden to humanity after its Fall into generation lest the resulting degeneration should immortalize his imperfect condition. Not until after the Great Work of regeneration and of harmonizing the opposites to a state of equilibrium does the gate open upon the restored edenic garden (the new Jerusalem) where grows the immortal Tree of Life.
The dual creative force of the spinal spirit fire is both masculine and feminine in its potencies. These manifest the powers of will (occult) and love (mystic), respectively. This spinal fire will be lifted upward through the double spinal cord, which will be the development of the New Age androgyne body. On reaching the cerebrum the ascending fire will evolve within its twin hermispheres a vehicle suitable for the expression of spirit. Then it will be sent forth and objectified by the spoken creative word. At this stage of man's unfoldment the Lost Word of Masonry will be recovered.
Such is the "Sublime Secret" of how Adepts form a new body, and someday all humanity will attain to the same standard of perfection as that of spiritual hermaphrodites. Then man will no longer be "a little lower than the angels," who create by a similar method. In fact, he will be higher than they are because he will also possess intellect with its power to reason, a faculty the Angels lack.
Such should be the attainment of the Royal Prince, the Sublime Secret, in Thirty-second Degree Masonry.
Three major steps in the development of the divine androgyne are set forth scientifically by Max Heindel, a true esoteric Mason and Christian mystic, as follows: The threefold personality, man's lower triad, is composed of "base metal" so must first be dissolved. The dissolution process is also threefold. First, the composite vehicle is treated with Mercury, which results in the emergence of the Intellectual Soul that sees the way of attainment. Many come to this place on the Path only to linger in mere intellectual speculation on life's mysteries. Second, is a Martian Sulphur bath, after which the Emotional Soul becomes operative. It inspires devotional impulses to strive actively for the attainment of those higher goals envisioned by the Intellectual Soul. Few there are who reach this second stage. The third comes under lunar guidance. Salt is the ingredient in earth now bestowed upon the aspirant, and the outcome is an awakening of his Consciou Soul. The three-fold body composed of base metals is thus transmuted into its higher counterpart, the threefold soul composed of the pure gold of spirit, and he enters into conscious rapport with the heavenly world.
Albert Pike, in his lecture to the Twenty-eighth Degree, the Prince Adept or knight of the Sun, states the following in relation to alchemical processes as given above: "When the Masters in Alchemy say that it needs but little effort and expense to accomplish the works of Science, when they speak of a Great and Single furnace, which all can use, which is within the reach of all the world, and which men possess without knowing it, they allude to the philosophical and moral Alchemy. In fact, a strong and determined will can, in a little while, attain complete independence; and we all possess that chemical instrument, the great and single athenor or furnace, which serves to separate the subtle from the gross, and the fixed from the volatile. This instrument, complete as the world, and accurate as the mathematics themselves, is designated by the Sages under the emblem of the Pentagram or Star with five points, the absolute sign of human intelligence. The end and perfection of the Great Work is expressed in alchemy by a triangle surmounted by a cross: and the letter Tau, the last of the Sacred alphabet, has the same meaning."
Pike concludes with his message to Initiates of the Thirty-second Degree: "As in each Triangle of Perfection, one is three and three are one, so man is one, though of a double nature; and he attains the purposes of his being only when the two natures that are in him are in just equilibrium; and his life is a success only when it too is a harmony, and beautiful, like the great Harmonies of God and the Universe.
"Such.. .is the True Word of a Master Mason; such the true Royal secret, which makes possible, and shall at length make real, the Holy Empire of true Masonic Brotherhood."
And in the words of the eminent Masonic authority, Milton Pettinger, Masons who so proudly wear their double-headed eagle jewel little realize that they are thereby proclaiming to the world that they have made the union with their spiritual bride, and that they are no longer improperly influenced by the opposite sex.
Man is destined to see within himself his own spiritual bride. When he does he will become master of the physical universe — the Sun, Moon and stars — and can sing with truth the song of the Most Excellent Master:
— Corinne Heline
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Contemporary Mystic Christianity |
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