The festival of the death and resurrection of the divine human, or "Son of God", has been traced back to the earliest civilization. In all such early civilizations the Spring Equinox was looked upon as the most important feast time of the year, although with increasing knowledge the barren seasons of late fall and winter also came to be appreciated for the leisure they provided in which to invite the soul in meditation. Thus in the long winter days of the far north, in the almost perpetual twilight, the bards sang the Mystery songs which perpetuated the lore of the ancient gods: but the Rites also persisted until Christian times, bound up with man's very life as they were, and of these the Rites of Spring were especially sacred.
The name of the resurrected god varied from clime to clime, but the god was the same. In Egypt the festival honored the resurrection of Osiris, in Babylon Adonis, in Sumeria Tammuz. The Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis in Greece were celebrated in March by a torch light procession symbolizing the return of light after the darkness of winter.
Even as late as the second century A.D. in Rome, the death and resurrection of Attis were dramatically enacted in the month of March near the Vernal Equinox. The 24th day of the month was the Day of Lamentation. The following day was one of rejoicing for the resurrected god.
In Thrace, the home of the Dionysian cult, the festival of the death and resurrection was also held at the Spring Equinox, when the returning god was espoused to a new bride, symbolic of the union of earth and heaven for a renewal of life.
But if these Spring Rites engaged the attention of the multitude, the Neophyte in the Mysteries saw behind and beyond the Rites to the spiritual truths which they illustrated. To him the Rites signified not merely the renewal of the year and its physical cycle of production but also the resurrection of the immortal soul at the death of the body, as well as the symbolical death of the lower personality in the initiatory birth of the Higher Self, Spiritual Man, also called Primal Man or Archetypal Man — the Augoeides — as a Son of God. An ancient Vedic ritual proclaims: "Yonder is the Sun and Truth is his fire."
Every Neophyte must some time pass through the Tomb Ceremonial in order to become the Disciple of the Illumined Way. He must learn to roll away the stone of personal and sense limitations and come forth in the light of his own resurrection morn, to br. greeted by hosts of Angels singing that sweetest of all Easter anthems, "He is not here, for he is risen from the dead."
Having thus left the Tomb, and standing forth arrayed in the glory of his own risen or Christed consciousness, the Neophyte — who has become the Disciple — finds himself in attunement with the tremendous vivifying forces which are released upon the world at the time of the Spring Festival, and he, like his Master, the Christ, goes forth to perform wondrous works of healing. Then in the Name of the Christ he chants: "Come forth and be thou made holy, as I am whole."
In the Rites of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ are hid the related Mysteries of the polarities of nature, the divine Masculine and the divine Feminine as cosmic principles which under lie all creation. Akhemically, this Mystery is referred to in the phrase "the blending of Fire and Water", in which the mystic sees an allusion to the passing of the Vernal Sun through the watery Pisces into the fiery Aries, sign of the Resurrection and of the Spring Equinox, during March and April. In the annual solar allegory, be it observed, the Sun's passage is direct from the sign Pisces, to Aries, and then to Taurus. This is not to be confused with the constellations through which the Vernal Equinox seems to precede, or retreat, in reverse order, through the ages or aeons, so that if Aries was the constellation of the Vernal Equinox during one age. then Pisces was the constellation of the age which followed. The Vernal Equinox at the present time is found at about the ninth degree of the constellation Pisces; but in the annual cycle this point is called, arbitrarily, 0 degrees of the sign Aries.
While the Sun in its annual cycle is in the psychic, watery sign Pisces, all nature is working through and with the great femi nine principle of Godhead. This is the time of the bursting of seed and of bud, and the running of sap in the trees. Blessed are the eyes that have opened to perceive the workings of the various ministers of God's invisible kingdom in this holy season; for it is a period when the spiritual vision reveals a ladder of life which, holding the hosts of fairyland on its lowest rungs, lifts into the highest heaven with ranks of Angels, at successive ascending levels, melting away into the light of infinity.
As the sun passes into Aries, the magic blending of Fire and Water is accomplished. The living waters of Pisces are flooded with a new radiance, the new fire of Aries flames up; and this resurrected life flooding the ethers is the "magic green fire" spoken of in the ancient Gaelic legends.
In the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff, Solomon typifies the feminine, watery, form-building Pisces, Hiram the martial, energizing Aries. When the new Temple was complete it was infused throughout with the radiant life of the Master Builder, Hiram, or Aries. This blending of Fire and Water results in the Master's Word which, being spoken, calls nature to renewed life as it also calls the "dead" from the tomb. Without the discovery of this "Lost" Word, no man can ever know the resurrection into eternal life wliich is revealed by Initiation. To achieve that Word, nature herself must invoke the polarities, Masculine and Feminine, Fire and Water, Sun and Moon.
The Easter Festival, dramatizing Christ's work and Resurrec tion, is determined from astronomical data, as handed down in occult tradition. The Sun must not only pass the celestial equator northward, as it does on or about the 21st of March, but the Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox must also be passed; the Sunday following is Easter, the Day of Resurrection.
The light of the Vernal Sun must be reflected by a Full Moon before the Day can dawn upon the earth. There is a deep esoteric meaning in this Easter formula. The masses do not as yet respond to the subtle vibrations liberated at the Vernal Equinox proper; only Initiates, those who have found and know how to use the Lost Word. can share in this great Feast. By the masses the cosmic life force must be received, so to speak, by reflection, through the Full Moon, to which they are more closely attuned.
Like his more orthodox brethren, the Neophyte partakes joy fully and reverently of the Easter Mysteries in their outer, dramatic significance; but his real desire is to participate in the Rites of the Cosmic Sunrise, which are as yet not open to the multitudes.
At the time of the Vernal Equinox (or during the enactment of the great solar change), for the space of three days the hours of light are equal to the hours of darkness. Therefore the Christ remains for three days within the earth, from Crucifixion to Resurrection. He arose at sunrise of a new day, and Angels joyously pro claimed the fact to His Disciples. The Disciples of course under stood the true meaning of Christ's work as being not merely the rising from death of one isolated individual, the man of Nazareth, but the descent of the great Sun Being or Archangel. to become the indwelling Planetary Spirit who should make Initiation possible to all through the New Mysteries which He founded.
Here again is milk for the babes and meat for the strong — the sublime story of the Holy Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection, which is at once both history, and sacred drama, and initiatory formu la. The story can be read literally as an historic narrative, with certain reservations, and reverently emulated though afar off; but through the Path of the Solar Mysteries the esoteric Christian approaches the doors of the Temple built without hands, in which he. too, may labor as an Initiate workman, knowing the Word and Its power.
But though esoteric Christianity thus differentiates between Christ and Jesus, it is not to be supposed that the Master Jesus has no part in the Rites of the Spring Equinox. Here, and in the other great astronomical Feasts also, Jesus and his Disciples are actually present and work together for the future enlightenment of mankind. and not for mankind alone but for the entire solar system. The Solar Initiate is never confined to the narrow orbit of the planet earth. but may help other planetary peoples also.
The Christ Hierophant has hidden the Key of Knowledge in His Mysteries, the Key which unlocks the sacred portals, in such wise that the worthy aspirant must always discover it in the right soul moment. To him, then, finding the Key, come the Master's words of triumph which are also his own Password: "It is finished." Then he, too, rolls aside the great stone and steps forth free. to be greeted by angelic chorusing: "He is not here for he is risen."
Everyone is a Christ in the making, and some day will be Easter day for each one of us.
Now in this holy season when all nature feels the upsurge of life; when the birds in their most ecstatic notes call all things to come up higher; when the Angels carol an answering chorus of joy in the Resurrection; now the Neophyte turns his face steadfastly toward the Mystic Sunrise.
Richard Wagner has drawn the music of Tristan and Isolde from the harmony of the earth in springtime. The superb phrases of the Liebestod swirl up and up, ever higher, in golden cadences, until they are lost amid the stars. This is the soul song of true Discipleship, in which the Neophyte may share. At this season the worthy Neophyte who has set his foot upon the shimmering Path which leads to the Temple gates feels those energies that stirred in his heart at Christmastide now rise to the head, which they sur round with luminosity. His auric garden is resplendent with flowers of light, chief of them the starry white lily of Gabriel's planting, which will enable him one day to sound the Creative Fiat.
Let the faithful Neophyte, wracked though he may be with pain and sorrow. take heart and know that he has only to persevere upon this Path which he has chosen; for the promise is sure, and he will one day know the gladness of his own resurrection dawn.
The Mystic Sunrise was commemorated long ago in the Mystery Temples of the ancient world, as we have seen. In those Rites the Neophyte knelt at dawn in the direction of the sunrise, beholding, as his vision grew clearer, the glory of the great Sun Spirit, by what ever name he knew Him, and repeating in profound reverence, "We face the sunrise."
The Sunrise Ceremonial which heralds the Spring Equinox has been universally known and celebrated by every race and civiliza tion. When the aspirant is sufficiently advanced to read in the Akashic Records, he will review these august spectacles and hear once more as in past incarnations their accompaniment of music terrestrial and celestial.
The music which streams through the Spring Equinox is the very life stream of the universe, which makes all things new. In every age the marvellous harmonies of the time are discovered by some master musician who has been raised up by the Spirit of the Age to reinterpret the Spring Song for his day and race.
One of the most awe inspiring of the ancient ceremonials was created by the Egyptians. Massed multitudes watched with bated breath as the Sun appeared above the eastern horizon, blending into gold the smoothly rippling waters of the Nile and illuming the motionless fronds of row upon row of stately palms. As the mighty golden ball rose into full view a majestic paean went up from the multitude, soaring into the heavens where it was caught up in the chant of the celestial Hosts. It is this same celestial music that the master composer Handel, in an exalted state of consciousness, heard with spiritual hearing and brought down to earth for this age in the soul stirring chords of the Hallelujah Chorus.
— Corinne Heline
