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Bible Self-Study Supplement

The Glories of Initiation Revealed

   As Elihu ceases speaking, a strange and marvelous thing happens to Job. This indicates to us that the mind has become sufficiently spiritualized to rise into cosmic consciousness, as represented by the Whirlwind — the vortex of spiritual power in which our universe whirls unresting upon an incomprehensible axis. At last Job receives his answer, for a Voice comes out of the Whirlwind to reveal the glories of Initiation.

   Wordsworth once wrote:

   In the Book of Job we learn how it is possible to achieve union with God through meditation upon the mysteries of the revealed universe. The most esoteric work of the entire Book is therefore contained in the thirty-eighth to forty-second chapters. On the surface, these chapters appear to be a philosophical discourse having little to do with the man, Job; but they are really an esoteric discourse on the profoundest secrets of life and Initiation.

   "As above, so below": the Cosmic Whirlwind has its microcosmic correspondence in the human aura, which has numerous vortices of brilliant light, shining jewel-wise. When these vortices have been fully awakened, the interior vision is achieved, and not vision alone, but all other faculties of the soul, the ego itself being able to function consciously apart from the body without death intervening. It is not until this awakening has occurred that the wonders and mysteries of nature may be even faintly understood.

   We have noted step by step in preceding chapters how gradual has been the development which finally enabled Job to pass into the exalted state of consciousness figuratively described as communing with God and hearing His voice in the Whirlwind. One writer refers to Job up to this point as the man "before the Process", and henceforward the man "after the Process", which is splendidly illustrative of the deeper meanings of the story. In the remaining chapters one seems to be treading upon holy ground.

   Here in the final chapters, once again the Akashic Records unroll, and to Job's Initiate consciousness is revealed the inner workings of the spiritual universe which manifest outwardly as the glories of Heaven and Earth. So-called natural phenomena he sees to be the outer fringe of a great invisible network of spiritual Hierarchies working behind the visible universe. He comes to comprehend the mystery of snow and rain, of frost and cloud, as manifestations of divine Wisdom. He marks the course of thunder and of lightning, the sweep of the storm and the gentle showers which cause the buds to appear in the Spring and the herbs to come forth. The veil parts at last between the known and the unknown, and Job stands before the greatest of all mysteries — that of death itself.

   With this chapter (Job: 38th chapter) begins the first direct inflow of first-hand Initiate knowledge. "When the pupil is ready the Teacher appears," declares a familiar occult maxim. But the appearance of the Teacher is not a signal for passive acceptance on the part of the pupil. The Teacher is the emissary of Saturn, on the Initiate level, and demands a reckoning from the disciple:

   Then during the remainder of this famous chapter and also the thirty-ninth, fortieth and forty-first, the Lord propounds questions to Job, which it is incumbent upon him to answer. In the biblical narrative, Job's answer is not recorded, on the premise that he, a mortal, cannot answer God's questioning, but at last learns the lesson of true humility and thus comes into a new understanding.

   If humility alone were the answer to Job's problem, there would be no need to include this book in the Bible; but it means far more than this.

   Under the guidance of the Teacher, who tests his disciple in many and subtle ways, the Initiate passes step by step into the interior of the Earth — not, of course, in the physical body. All of this takes place outside the body, in the soul consciousness. He also rises from one to another of the "Heavens", which in Chaldean and Persian star lore, and in the Hebrew as well, typified states of consciousness (to use a modern term). Each of the Heavens was distinct from every other, and in the highest the Messiah stood before the Throne of Light.

   In the language of modem occultists we express all this by saying that the Initiate investigates the hidden side of nature, learning to observe and collaborate with the spiritual Intelligences which guide our universe, and with the nature spirits, yea, the smallest of them, minute sparks of life-light as they are, which live in our own sphere. He studies the work of all God's agencies from the smallest of these nature spirits to the greatest of the celestial Hierarchies. In his material blindness man has called these wonder-workings the operations of the laws of nature. It is only as life's glorious panorama unfolds before the Initiate that he begins to understand what the "laws of nature" essentially and truly are. He then rises in ecstasy with Job to sing of how "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." No longer do Earth-dulled ears prevent his catching the music of the chanting spheres.

   Now he can work with nature's forces. He understands the Spirit of the Sea, and the sprites or undines which work through and control the watery elements. Perhaps no one has given a more beautiful and mystic description of the Angel of the Sea than Ruskin in his Modern Painters: "We habitually think of the rain cloud as dark and grey, not knowing that we owe to it perhaps the fairest though not the most dazzling of the hues of heaven. No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various and inimitable, for these are the robes of love worn by the Angel of the Sea. To these the name is chiefly given, the 'spreading of the clouds' from their extent, their gentleness, their fullness of rain."

   These questions are not propounded merely to silence Job, if we interpret them in terms of Initiation, but as definite problems which he is to investigate by means of his developed spiritual-mental powers. Such Initiates "see with the mind," and their illumined thought penetrates the bastions of dark ignorance.

   Here Job is challenged to enter into the mysterious workings of the spirits of the air (sylphs) and the spirits of fire (salamanders). It is the province of the spirits of the air to bind and to loose the winds, and it is the function of the spirits of fire to guard the sleeping flame and the play of its forces when unleashed. As the illumined one ascends to rarer heights he learns about the operations of the Hierarchies of Water, Fire and Air, relative to their respective functions upon the Earth planet.

   Rising from the Earth, the Initiate ascends through the seven Heavens into the sphere of the fixed stars, where he first tastes the fiery bliss of pure Spirit which the stars symbolize to the mortal intelligence:

   Mazzaroth is the name used for the twelve zodiacal signs, which govern the seasons in the sense that as the Sun makes his annual circuit he travels through these twelve constellations. Aries-Taurus-Gemini represent the Spring season; Cancer-Leo-Virgo the Summer season; Libra-Scorpio-Sagittarius the Autumn season; and Capricorn-Aquarius-Pisces the Winter season. At the period when the Book of Job proper was written, the Vernal Equinox was in the constellation Aries, the Summer Solstice in Cancer, the Autumn Equinox in Libra and the Winter Solstice in Capricorn. The laws governing celestial phenomena are referred to as "the ordinances of Heaven," but there are also ordinances which govern the interior heaven of the human soul. It is these interior laws (moral and spiritual) which are of prime importance to the Initiate, for there are stars of the soul as of the Earth.

   Aratos, the famous poet of ancient Greece, in his work entitled The Skies, sings:

   In the starry sphere the Initiate observes the spiritual aspect of the celestial hosts, the homes of innumerable Beings far outshining the glory of the Sun in brightness and splendor.

   Special occult knowledge is shown in Job's reference to the Pleiades and Orion, both of which are connected in a very special manner with the evolution of our own particular planetary scheme. Humanity will one day be conscious of the spiritual currents flowing hither from Orion. From the Pleiades certain obscure forces, unknown to physical science, are passing into the life stream of the four "kingdoms" of life upon Earth — mineral, plant, animal and human. These forces will be substantial factors in the evolution of the New Age consciousness wherein occult truths such as here elucidated will be the foundation of a scientific religion. There is an ancient tradition of a "lost" Pleiad; i.e. there were originally seven, but only six are now visible to the naked eye. The lost Pleiad will be rediscovered as humanity is rapidly being prepared to receive its spiritual vibrations. Harvard Observatory reports speculations as to the possibility that it may become visible once more.

   Through the powers awakened through Initiation, the work of the Group Spirits in charge of the animal evolution is observed by the Initiate. These are variously described. We must remember that the law governing the soul world is a law of correspondence (hence, analogy), and many strange phenomena occur there which in the dense world of matter would seem utterly fantastic, unbelievable. Thus the guiding spirit of each species of bird, beast or fowl has its own characteristic form, but superimposed upon a vaguely human figure. The ancient Egyptians picture these spirits in their symbolic representations of gods, for the Egyptians were animal lovers and saw nothing base in using an animal to symbolize a spiritual principle, particularly when their Initiates were familiar with the surpassing intelligence of these animal group spirits working behind the scenes of the dense material world. Even to mortal eyes, the intelligence displayed in the animal world appears to be almost human, and in many cases, more than human; and this is understandable only when the finite mind is laid by and the light of truth is seen with the free eye of spirit. Beholding the wisdom even of these lesser creatures, the Initiate sings with the poet: "O why should the spirit of man be proud?" and again,

   "No suffering," says Ruskin, "no self-explanation, however honest, however stem, no searching out of the heart by its own bitterness, is enough to convince man of his nothingness before God, but the sight of God's creation will do it."

   Great revelations are never bestowed upon man except as a result of his own labors; they are powers that have been earned by hard and honest mental and spiritual application to the problems of existence. Their purpose is not to increase the sense of self-importance, but to render the Initiate a more efficient helper in the celestial scheme, to make him an open channel for divine aid to flow to his fellowmen. "He who would be greatest among you, let him be the servant of all this is the mystic command of all genuine occult development. It is given again and again in the Bible, that greatest of all textbooks of the illumined life. Job, at last fittingly prepared for his task, hears the call to world service, after first enduring the rebuke of a purified conscience as typified in the Voice in the Whirlwind.

   Interpreted superficially, this passage would seem to mean that in the opinion of the author of the Book of Job, it is, and shall ever be, wholly impossible for man to achieve any power over the forces of evil or over the powers of death; yet, saith the Lord, until you can actually prove your power in this respect, you have no right to say, "My own right hand can save me! Death and evil are the enemies which are to be bound by the hand of the Initiate. Esoterically, we read here a challenge, not merely a rebuke to Job's self-righteousness. The average worshipper will indeed look upon it as a rebuke to any man's presuming upon divine power; but the esotericist accepts it as a challenge to "take heaven by storm," At this point, the serpent fire has risen to the head, and the aura is irradiated with divine light. The power of Saturn is hidden in the kundalini fire.

 — Corinne Heline

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