We call Raphael the Angel of the Holy Grail.
Each of the four great Archangels who guard the Sacred Seasons becomes in turn, under the Planetary Christ, guardian of the spiritual evolution of the human race. During the life and min istry of Christ Jesus, and also during the founding of the early Christian church, Raphael watched over the earth, and he presided over the new Christian Mysteries which were then rapidly sup planting the Mysteries of the old dispensation.
The Grail, or Cup of the Lord's Supper, was then, and still remains, the most sacred symbol of the Christian Initiation, and the poetic legends of the Middle Ages were written under Raphael's inspiration. The Archangel Raphael is, in point of fact, none other than the "god" Mercury, or Hermes, of the pre-Christian world, Raphael being the Christian's name for Mercury; and in modern occult parlance he is said to be the Ambassador to earth from Mercury. Hermes or Mercury, was the god of healing to the Greco-Romans, and it was Mercury's symbol, the Caduceus, which the priest hood of Aesculapius chose for the emblem of their work, a work which was both physical and spiritual. Aesculapius was the son of Apollo, and one of the miracles attributed to him was the raising of the dead.
The Caduceus, or staff of Mercury, is a staff entwined by two serpents, one white, the other black. To the ancient this was the symbol of Initiation, representing as it does the two paths of in volution and evolution, with the straight and narrow Way of Initia tion rising between them. The black and white serpents also typify consciousness during sleeping and waking hours respectively. How to bridge the hours of sleep with waking consciousness and therefore with memory was one of the important teachings of the ancient Mysteries, and many references to it are found in the New Testament. It is also well known that the "Sons of Aesculapius" went to and fro through the earth "like gliding stars" in their ministry of healing, and many of their patients were healed in the Temple sleep.
With the coming of Christianity, Raphael changed the Staff of Mercury for the Grail Cup, and the serpents were replaced by the dove - another most sacred symbol of Christian Initiation. The Host, or "manna" which the Book of Esdras calls "Angel's Bread" and which came down from heaven, is always associated with the Holy Cup.
The work of Raphael in Hebrew legend almost invariably relates to healing; as, for example, in the Book of Tobit, where the Archangel instructs Tobias, the son of Tobit, in the methods of healing his father's blindness and also the demoniac possession of the girl who is to be his bride. There is a lovely legend to the effect that each eventide Raphael gathers up all prayers for healing which have arisen from mankind during the day and carries them up into heaven, where as he presents them before the throne of God they are transformed into fragrant blossoms, which are then borne down i:o earth by his serving Angels to bring solace and comfort wherever there is pain and sorrow.
In certain pictures representative of the celestial Hosts, the inspired artists have sometimes shown not only the conventional wings which seem to sprout from the back, in the region of the shoulder blades, but small wings seeming to spring from the region of the throat. This represents the angelic consciousness typified in the Archangel Raphael. In human Initiates who, under his care, have transmuted or raised the life force into the Grail Cup of heart and head, light radiates from the throat when the WORD is spoken, and this light has the semblance of wings. Materialized almost beyond recognition by minds which have taken the poetic language of the ancients too literally, yet the wings at the throat still suggest to the instructed the real nature of the angelic powers.
Eastertide dramatizes the secrets of life. In the temples of the New Age these secrets will be uncovered once more, and the Easter message of the continuity of life will be demonstrated en masse in world-wide resurrection and ascension, in the initiatory sense, and a new race, instructed by Raphael, will come to understand fully Christ's glorious promise that man shall never die. As we have ex plained earlier, this does not mean that man will live forever in the same physical body. It does mean that when the outer sheath is laid aside the spirit will pass from this plane to the next in un interrupted consciousness, and again it will pass from that plane back to this one in rebirth, also in uninterrupted consciousness. Eventually, when the race bodies have become so pure and ethereal as to require no renewal, having the seed of immortality in them selves, the labor of Raphael will have been accomplished, and man kind will ascend into new Mysteries.
Among the early Christians it was agreed that St. John — the initiatory name of Lazarus — had already achieved this geat victory. It was upon the Saturday night preceding Palm Sunday that St. John, the Beloved Disciple, celebrated the Rite of the first Christed Initiation, in which he entered into the full revelation, or under standing, of the Sun Mystery. He saw the high and glorious destiny of the archangelic Christ as the Prince of the Archangels, and be held the work which He was to do for earth and its inhabitants. John was the first fruits of the Christ Labor. He alone of the Twelve came forth from the tomb at the word of the Christ before the Crucifixion and Resurrection. The others achieved that goal afterward.
Wednesday of Holy Week saw the betrayal and self-destruction of Judas. In the life of the Disciple this event symbolizes the elimination of the grosser desires and the clearing of the Way which leads to the mount of liberation.
Good Friday represents the final steps on the initiatory Path, during which the Disciple carries his cross as Christ carried His, up the slopes of his own Calvary — not without assistance from the compassionate ones, as Simon assisted the Christ — to the Cross and to the hanging upon it, where he speaks the words of Christ; not, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" but, "Now hast thou glorified me!."
In the Church ceremonials modeled upon the Christ Drama, the Saturday night before Easter Sunday was one of the special times for baptizing. Baptism to these early celebrants meant much more than a physical rite; it was an illumination, in the spirit of the old formula that the Neophyte must bathe in the Name of God. The word Baptism was used to signify a "bringing to sight" — for that is what illumination does; it brings to sight the mysteries of the inner planes of nature, dissolving the veil that hangs between the living and the dead and between man's lower and higher self; dissolving also the veils of separateness that keep human beings away from one another in disunity, and thus restoring to them the untrammelled vision of the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. Such an awareness of universal love and light is requisite to participa tion in the Rite of the Easter Dawn.
The Easter Ceremonial is the most exalted given to earth in the present stage of human evolution. It is largely an angelic ceremonial, as host of Angels and Archangels take part in the Christ Drama, and it is eminently fitting, therefore, that by mankind Easter is celebrated with music and flowers, these being the fairest of the gifts which Angels have bestowed upon us.
It is the Christ Himself who demonstrates for the Disciple the full meaning and purpose of the initiatory work, which is the conquest over death, the complete triumph of Spirit over matter. As the Christ, appearing in the etherealized body of the Resurrection, gave the message of immortality to mankind, so today He appears annually in an etheric likeness of that body, which is also a likeness of the body of the new race some day to inhabit this planet and of which we shall all be part. Such is the beautiful symbolism of the empty tomb wherefrom the stone of the old consciousness has been rolled away, the ultimate attainment of human evolution upon earth.
Such also is the meaning of the initiatory term, "to become a Christed man." The most beautiful promise before the eyes of men today is that empty tomb, beside which the Angel stands, declaring, "He is not here, for He is risen."
— Corinne Heline
