And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

   And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

   And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre.

   And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great.

   And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in along white garment; and they were affrighted.

   And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted; Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified; he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

   And afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.

   And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
— Mark 16:1-6, 14, 15

   Much esoteric information is concealed in this brief account of the Resurrection — information significant to every spiritual aspirant who follows the Path exemplified by Christ Jesus.

   Rolling the stone away from the sepulchre (inner realms) signifies a complete overcoming of the lower side of the nature — the complete self-mastery which is the goal of everyone on the Path of Initiation. This complete self control can be accomplished only by a resurrection of the divine spiritual powers within man. Herein lies the crux of the message concealed in the account of the Resurrection.

   The empty tomb, which has puzzled many students of the Bible, may be clearly explained in the light of occult truth. We remember that there were times during the ministry when Christ Jesus "went apart" from His disciples, and it was during such times that His body was cared for by the Essenes. The vibratory rate of the atoms of the body of the man Jesus, as highly evolved as he was, had become so supercharged under the influence of the Christ Spirit that as soon as the cohesive Love Principle was removed from the body there came a quick disintegration. Max Heindel explains it thus:

   "This is in perfect harmony with natural laws known to us by their operation in the physical world. Electric currents of low potential burn and kill, while a voltage of many times the strength passes through the body without harmful effect. Light which has a tremendous vibratory rate is pleasant and beneficial to the body, but when focused through a lens, the vibratory rate is lowered and we have fire which destroys. Likewise, when Christ, the great Sun Spirit, came into the dense body of Jesus, the vibratory rate being lowered by the resistance of the dense matter, must burn up the body, as in cremation. The force was the same, the results identical, save that, as it was true, invisible fire which burned up the body of Jesus, there were no ashes. In this connection it is well to remember that fire sleeps invisibly in everything. We do not see it in the plant or the animal, nor in the stone. Yet it is there, visible to the inner vision and capable of manifesting at any time when it takes a garment of flame from physical substance."
— Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine, June, 1977, page 266