In every Mystery School there are three general classes: Neophytes, Disciples and Initiates. Other classifications may be made within these three groups, but these are the three basic divisions. The Neophyte is a "new plant" that has already groped its way into the spiritual sunlight but still has far to go before it will reach its flowering. The Disciple is the same plant after it has reached a more mature growth and is, so to speak, putting forth buds which need only the warmth of the Sun to unfold them into blossoms. The Initiate is the mature plant, one in whom love and intelligence have flowered as supernormal powers. He has become a Tree of Life. But even among Initiates there are many stages of spiritual attainment. Not all are on the same level, for there are nine Degrees of Initiation leading to Adeptship, the conquest of death, and after this four Greater Initiations culminating in complete liberation.
The work done by each individual through and with the Cosmic Christ at the four Sacred Seasons depends upon his degree of unfold ment. These pages are written primarily for the two classes which comprise the majority in most Mystery Schools, the two lower groups of Neophytes and Disciples. There is no sharp line of demarcation between these two groups. For each the Festivals have a special significance, but there is a substratum of universal truth common to both. Thus it cannot be said that the mysteries known to the Disciple displace those known to the Neophyte. It is only that the Disciple sees deeper into the abyss of truth as he ascends higher. The Disciple does not leave behind him the lessons he learned as a Neophyte, for they are contained in his later experiences as the bud is contained in the blossom.
Therefore, in each of these sections, we first take up the Neophyte's part in the sacred Festivals, and then the Disciple's part; but it is to be understood that both parts are necessary to an un derstanding of the whole.
The Neophyte understands, as does the Disciple, that the Au tumn Equinox is the Crucifixion of the Sun Spirit, and he does not confuse this with the orthodox festival of the Vernal Equinox which commemorates the historical Crucifixion of the incarnate Christ Je sus. As he holds within himself a living picture of the Spiritual Sun in its relationship to earth and earth's humanity, he comes to a vivid realization of the oneness of all life, expressed aptly in the popular slogan "one world or none". He not only perceives intel lectually the interdependence of life on the planet, but he feels it intensely as a personal experience deep within his soul-conscious ness, and he endeavors to live in accordance therewith.
From the time of the Autumn Equinox until the Spring Equinox the glorious Sun Spirit is closely bound to earth, sacrificing His solar freedom that we may have life. Although to many sensitive souls this sacrifice floods the earth with sadness. a melancholy they attribute to purely physical causes, it is a source of deep inward joy to one who knows its ultimate fulfillment.
Many poets have responded more or less consciously to these occult truths and have penned lovely tributes both to the glory and to the brooding sadness of autumn. Longfellow wrote that autumn is the time when the air is filled with "a dreamy and a magical light," when the great Sun looks down "with the eye of love through the golden vapors around him."
Another poet sings:
And in her poem entitled Indian Summer, Lucy Larcom, a poet but little read by the present generation, has given voice to some thing of autumn's true spiritual glory in the beautiful lines:
Now the leaves begin to droop and fall, slowly and softly, like great crimson and golden teardrops, as a poet has also said; and the music sounded forth by the celestial Hierarchies is attuned to minor chords, set to the rhythms of the Cross and the Way of Calvary. The song is muted and the fragrant air is full of a tender luminosity as of unshed tears.
For four days during this holy interval of the Autumn Equinox the earth is lifted closer to heaven - or heaven stoops closer to earth; spiritually it is the same thing. Men are brought into com munion with Angels, and it is easier for the Neophyte to enter the straight and narrow path which, followed unwaveringly to the end, leads to the light of the Star in the Christ birth of the glad Christmas season. Here the power of Libra holds the balance between flesh and spirit, demanding that the aspirant forsake the lower illusory man and align himself with the higher and true Man who alone has in his keeping the peace which passeth understanding.
Astrologically the Autumn Equinox occurs when the Sun nters Libra, sign of the Scales. As the symbolism of the sign reveals, this is a time of weighing, of measuring, of determining values; it is a time for decision. The choice confronting the soul is represented by the signs to the right and left of Libra. To the right is Virgo the Virgin, representative of the feminine principle in man; that is, soul attributes of love, hope, faith and so on. To the left is Scorpio, the Scorpion, representative of the way of the flesh that carries him toward destruction and death unless the forces of the lower nature, the separative personality, have been transmuted into spiritual powers, an accomplishment represented by the second pictorial em blem of Scorpio, the Eagle. Virgo stands for generation in its primordial aspect as a spiritual function which leads to regeneration. Scorpio stands for generation in its fall, which may lead to degeneration.
Michael, ambassador from the Sun, the cosmic home of the Christ, stands to the right with the Virgin, whereas on the left stand the powers that would cut man off from his true spiritual destiny and keep him bound prisoner to this earth. Here is zodi acally represented the conflict going on in the life of humanity as a whole and in that of each individual member of it; a battle having its inception in the "war in heaven" and continuing as war on earth, to be ended only through cosmic judgement.
Judgement is usually regarded as coming upon man only at death or at the last grand assize, called by orthodox Christians Judgement Day - a misreading of the operation of cosmic law as well as of the biblical text. Judgement is continuous, automatic, in escapable; but it has a special relationship to the celestial phenomena of the Autumn Equinox, which is a time for reaping the karmic fruits of past sowing and a time for sowing spiritual seeds that will come to fruition when the same point is reached in the next annual cycle. Esoterically it is both an end and a beginning, where the head and the tail of the serpent meet. Hence the Feast of the lngathering merges by imperceptible degrees into the Feast of Dedication.
And so at the Autumn Equinox nature's forces are in a state of equilibrium under the influence of Libra, the Scales, and humanity comes to Judgement. Then it is that cosmic conditions bring the contest between the lower and the higher self, between light and darkness, Michael and the Dragon, to its sharpest focus. A zodiacal call comes from the right and from the left. It rests with humanity which way it will go. It is free to choose. The familiar orthodox exhortation that "now is the day of salvation" is not without truth or without urgency as it is understood in the light of the esoteric doctrine.
All nature is a reflection of God, and man is a reflection of nature. A god in the making, the important events of his life have their correspondences in the activities of nature. As the Autumn Equinox is commemorated, all about him is the abundance of harvest time. Fields and storehouses are laden with the bounty produced by the earth in the year now drawing to a close.
This is a recapitulation period in the life of the serious aspirant. He begins to extract the essence of his past year's experience and to transmute it into wisdom, which is soul light, soul life, and soul power, the golden harvest of the spirit.
In the Book of Ruth, one of the best loved books of the Bible, we find the work of the Autumn Equinox beautifully depicted. Ruth signifies the aspirant. She brings her soul sheaves and lays them at the feet of her mystic lover, Boaz. This beautiful story culminates in the marriage of Ruth and Boaz. If the aspirant who makes his dedication at this Equinox remains faithful to the quest, then at some Winter Solstice of the future the Temple gates will surely open for him and he will be united with his divine Lover, the Christ, for all time.
During the months of October, November and December, the golden Christ Light penetrates the physical body of this planet, to reach its center at Christmas time. And so also the aspirant who enters the Path of the Mysteries at the Autumn Equinox turns his gaze away from the outer objective world to center it more and more deeply in the spiritual. He becomes one with the inpouring Christ Light which floods his being as it floods the strata of the earth. Thus he will actually "walk in the Light as He is in the light", until at last he reaches the glorious termination of the Path within the Temple sanctuary.
These truths have always had an exoteric observance in which the masses participated, but very few have known the origin and meaning of the Mystery Festivals. In the Greater Mysteries of Eleusis, celebrated at the Autumn Equinox, Neophytes carried lighted torches in remembrance of the search made by Demeter ( Ceres, goddess of grain) for her daughter Persephone. This was part of the purification ritual preparatory to the sacred occurrence. These Mysteries came to a climax in the revelation of a reaped stalk of corn, symbol of the mystic marriage. Amid the blaze of torches, the fair young god Bacchus was borne along the sacred way to the Temple of Eleusis for the midnight ceremonial. At the Spring Equinox the Lesser Mysteries celebrated the return of Persephone from the darkness of the underworld. In a processional of light and rejoicing. she came through the young corn.
At the Autumn Equinox the aspirant garnered his harvest and brought it to the Temple door for weighing. According to the re# vealing of his cornstalk did the doors of the Temple open for him to enter and take part in the mystic wedding celebrated on that holy night.
In the Egyptian harvest festival the Pharaoh, impersonating the Sun god, Horus, walked in front of a sacred white bull and reaped the first sheaves of barley to insure peace and plenty for his people during the year ahead, Among the Hebrews the autumn observance terminated in the Feast of Tabernacles, when aspirants to the Myster ies dwelt for seven days in specially constructed booths made of woods that had been blessed, woods such as olive, cedar and palm. In Babylon similar booths for meditation and preparation were referred to as sacred marriage houses. Libra is the sign governing marriage.
The highest meaning of Libra is equilibrium, the "harmonizing of contraries" which is the goal of all esoteric teaching and the fundamental work of all Mystery Schools. In this may be discovered the most profound interpretation of Saturn's exaltation in Libra, so well symbolized by the magic square.
Libra, the sign of the scales, refers to the weighing of the soul; that is, holding the balance firm between flesh ( the animal soul) and spirit. As we have shown, without cultivating equipoise no spiritual advancement can be made. Saturn exalted in Libra makes this work possible, for Saturn gives the instinct for law and order so necessary to spiritual unfoldment.
In the autumnal testing, the Neophyte will know on the one hand the stern and powerful urge of Saturn exalted in Libra, who holds the scythe of karmic law, and on the other the enfolding tenderness of Venus, planet of love and ruler of Libra.
Having been weighed in the balance before he was found worthy to enter the Temple of Eternal Light, the Apostle Paul reminds those who come after him that through love only comes the fulfilling and excelling of the law.
— Corinne Heline
