The Four Great Initiations - Ellen Conroy.pdf

THE FOUR GREAT INITIATIONS hy

ELLEN CONROY, M.A. AUTIIOR Ol' "THE SYMBOLISM OF COLOUR "

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

LEON DABO

RIDER & CO., Paternoster House Paternoster Row, London, E.C. 4

AN EXPLANATION OF THE FRONTISPIECE (Reproduced by kind permission of George Bell & Sons)

THis figure of the Trinity surrounded by the four Gospellers is to be found in a Book of Hours printed in Paris in A.D. r524 by Simon Vostre. Such three-headed representations of the Trinity were common in the Middle Ages, but were forbidden by Urban VIII in r628. The picture shows that the Early Church understood something of Astrology since the four Gospellers are por· trayed under the emblems of the four fixed signs of:Aquarius the angel or man ascribed to Matthew. Leo the lion ascribed to Mark. Taurus the bull ascribed to Luke. Scorpio the scorpion or eagle ascribed to John. The four fixed signs are indicative of the four great initiations :Scorpio is Water. Aquarius is Air. Leo is Fire. Taurus is Earth.

DEDICATED TO

MY FRIENDS AT UNION CENTER ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP NEW YORK CITY FOR WHOM MOST OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK WAS PREPARED AND THROUGH WHOSE LOVING AND GRACIOUS CO-OPERATION IT WAS GIVEN IN LECTURE FORM

" The study of the Bible is the study of the emancipation of man."-T. TROWARD.

" As all things owe their existence to the will of the ONLY ONE, so all things owe their origin to ONLY ONE THING, the most hidden, by the arrangement of the ONLY GOD. The father of that ONLY ONE THING is the Sun; its mother is the Moon ; the wind carries it in its wings; but its nurse is a spiritual earth." The Emerald Tablet of Hermes.

CONTENTS PAGit

FOREWORD llY LEON DABO

9

FOREWORD llY THE AUTHOR

13

INITIATION BY WATER

1. t'JlAl''l:!.R

I. Il.

Ill.

BAPTISM

19

THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF TEMPTATION

31

THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

.p

THE

MYSTICAL

II. IV.

UNDERSTANDING

OF

INITIATION BY AIR

THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PLUCK~ JNG OF CORN ON THE SAllBATH DAY

V.

THE :MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE SERMON

81

ON THE MOUNT

Ill. VI.

INITIATION BY FIRE

THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRANSFIGURATION

IV. VII.

67

95

INITIATION BY EARTH

THE MYSTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE CRUCI· FIXION AND ASCENSION

117

APPENDIX

137

BIBLIOGRAPHY

139

7

FOREWORD BY LEON DABO 0 Lord, teach me to know Thee, and to know myself.

Sr.

T

AUGUSTINE.

HE ungodly strife among creeds with their inveterate traditional prejudices, and the consequent mental and sentimental confusion is a serious obstacle for mankind to overcome. Though historical creeds possess a large volume of more or less sublime religious aspirations, the absence of the Voice of God in their fundamental doctrines makes it impossible for them to substantiate the spiritual honour of the Soul, to establish religious harmony among themselves, and to lead mankind to that godly mutuality which is the desire of every righteous heart. It is the absolute demand of our conscience that we know God and our soul in order to understand clearly our relations to Him. Ignorance of God arises from unwillingness and neglect of the understanding of things divine, and is in itself sinful, a fact which has never been sufficiently impressed on the human conscience. For the ignorance of God follows the ignorance of our soul, and this ignorance causes confusion and sinfulness. No vital question can be solved without 9

ro

FOREWORD BY LEON DABO

religion, because religion is the sole answer to all intimate and important questions of life. Natural existence is external and transient. Spiritual existence is supernatural, because it has a higher dignity through personal co-operation with the Will of God, and personal responsibility. The Divine attributes constitute the holiest prototype of holy life, and the eternal ground of the living faith in God, and of profoundest devotion and gratitude to Him and all things divine. Our wills, our minds and our hearts are made for the exclusive purpose of participating in, of co-operating with and of affirming the Life of God, and of affirming our own souls in His eternal Life. There is no greater purpose of life than this divine purpose. No minor purpose is sufficient to fill the life of a spiritual being. And any other purpose is absurd, mad and disastrous. Immortality is the desire of every soul, but the fullness of immortality is attained in the heaven of Divine eternity. It is this subconscious attraction of heaven which causes the desire for immortal life. God's plan of creation is holy, full of truth and sacrifice and accordingly the whole creation is predetermined to holiness, to truth and to sacrifice. It has no other aim. Truth is the shining might of God, through which God is seen in His real Divinity, absolutely transcending the whole being, regardless of its magnitude. We are overwhelmed by the grandeur of Divine creation of which we see only an infinitesimal fragment. This overwhelming fragment of creation is

FOREWORD BY LEON DABO

11

the consequence of only a little motion of the almighty creativeness of God, the fullness of which is beyond our human vision. The fact that we have the consciousness of holiness, truth and love, and the fact that this trinity of holy life is the basic form of all righteous and harmonious relations, proves overwhelmingly our direct relation to the dominating Will of God. The supreme science is the science of the light of God, the absolute science of truth. But it takes a sincerely truth-loving character to realize this tremendous fact. Divine light, like all gifts of God, is sacrificial, and he who wishes to attain divine light must first attain sacrificial sentiments, sacrificial motives and a sacrificial heart. Truth, being in itself holy, cannot enter an unclean spiritual vessel like the average soul. Truth shines above and around the soul, but it will not make its habitation in the soul until man wipes out all selfish passion which, of his free will, he has elected as the idols of his love. Truth is the eternal voice of the might and splendour of holiness, and he who does not fully realize this holy fact knows very little of the might of truth and can have no due adoration and esteem for truth. Hence he abuses truth, as he abuses all other gifts of God, for the mere vanity and lust of mundane life. There will be no light of God in humanity until we learn to love His holiest light and resolve to live accordingly. It is with us now more than at any

12

FOREWORD BY LEON DABO

former time in the history of humanity. Never before has the conscience of man been moved so deeply as it is to-day, and this fact is the most significant sign of our times. Ellen Conroy helps us to realize this light. She is endowed with learning, with love and humility; she brings to us a rare understanding of the heart hunger of the race, which is seeking for light, more light. L. D. Christmas, New York, 1928.

FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR CCULT students are always asking what is Initiation. Some have very crude notions concerning it, largely gathered from reading imaginative novels. They think that at some time of their lives they will meet a mysterious person who will take them to a strange place and there put them through various physical and mental distress. One may meet extraordinary people along the Path, but this is not necessary. As a matter of fact it requires a certain quality within oneself to recognize such beings, for as James Russell Lowell says: "God's messengers look like shabby fellows to the rest of the world." Ordinary people, that is, the majority of people recognize only a big personality, which is a hindrance rather than a help along the Path. They do not recognize genius, or those whose knowledge is linked with the creative powers of life, until such persons have by chance (if there is such a thing as chance) become successful. This is why a budding genius like Edison has to sell newspapers, or a Galileo or a Columbus is merely a laughing-stock to the '' wise " men who are his contemporaries. But even if we do recognize these great beings, they will not take us through physical fires and waters and suchlike experiences, but their lives will touch

O

13

14

FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

ours in such a way as to bring to the surface all the latent good or evil. We are blessed if it should be the good. In the case of the Scribes and Pharisees, it was a major tragedy when they met the Man of Nazareth. As a matter of fact, Initiation is always taken care of in the ordinary routine of life and represents the contacting of a spiritual power that can deal effec~ tively and constructively with all the circumstances and factors of existence, and this is infinitely more difficult than walking through strange fires and waters. It was largely with this idea of showing that Initiation was a normal process and not an abnormal one that I decided to write this book. How many initiations are there, asks the student? The answer varies,-sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes seven, sometimes nine, sometimes ten and twelve, sometimes more, but in any case the number is one that represents an important phase of astrological division. One cannot understand any of the old religions without realizing that Astrology is woven into their very substance, yet what divinity college includes a course in Esoteric Astrology? In this book I have taken the four quaternaries of Water, Air, Fire and Earth as being the four main initiations, and at some future date hope to publish my conclusions on the twelve signs of the Zodiac as representing more detailed phases of Initiation. And what is the purpose of Initiation? It is the realization of the Christ. The student may or not believe in the historicity of Jesus, but every occult

FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

15

11l11 to Jll'Ver be unjust because he is angry. He has to learn o curb his lower appetites and he has to learn prudence. then, is the meaning of Baptism by Water. If 11c have not learned these things we still need the Baptism by John. Note the promises that are given to the candidates John. This means that if we are lacking in any necessary quality, the gift of God supplies it. Thus we have to get rid of the feeling of lack at Baptism. We are to know that God supplies everything, whether physical, mental or spiritual. If there is any2. Every hill shall be brought low. thing in our nature that is distinctly wrong, it will be removed. Our pet sins are taken away from us. 3· The crooked shall be made straight. All the things that turn us aside from what is our duty will be straightened out. We shall be able to walk with courage in the path into which we seem to be led. 4· The rough ways shall be made smooth. Our greatest of difficulties shall be taken away. We shall be perfect in every I.

Every valley shall be filled.

The last great promise at mystical Baptism is that '' all flesh shall see the salvation of God." The name Jesus means" Salvation," so that this is a promise that

26

THE FOUR GREAT INITIATIONS

the physical body shall learn to recognize that it is kept healthy and beautiful and in perfect balance only by accepting the Spirit of God as its master, and that it is built into a spiritual temple only in so far as it recog· nizes that the builder is Christ. It is only when the body is full of lust that the separate parts do not obey the bidding of the Spirit. They therefore lose their wholeness and get diseased. (Read Deut. 28.) John was indeed preaching" the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins," that is, he was teaching the cleansing process of repentance. Repentance is not a grieving over sins, but a definite decision to do the right thing. The word "sin" in the New Testament is " Harmatia," which has the root meaning of "missing the mark." This is very important as so many people nowadays resent the fact that the Church calls them sinners. They say that they have not committed murder nor adultery. They have not stolen, neither have they borne false witness against their neighbours. In fact they will tell you that they have kept the whole of the Ten Commandments. Yet in the Bible sense they may have sinned. They have missed the mark. They have not pressed forward to the mark which is Jesus the Christ. (Phil. 3, I4: "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.") The spiritual life of these people has not developed into a real power. Their moral nature only is living. Every man makes ideals for himself. Every man is a seeker after Truth, but he knows, unless he is very bigoted, that he has not obtained the whole truth.

INITIATION BY WATER

27

lien cc he has not attained his mark, for Truth and the ~pirit are one and the same thing. In this sense of not h;tving the Spirit he has sinned. The Church should carefully keep before its members this great distinction between wickedness and sin. Much trouble is avoided when we define terms. Perhaps Isaiah's statement that we all have gone astray is easier for most people. The following free verse poem brings out the main essentials of the idea : MISSING THE MARK " All we like sheep have gone astray" Is easier for most of us to say Than that we all have sinned. Yet, sin is no other than missing the mark And falling short of attaining the thing That was to be attained,And thus we all have sinned ! We all have failed in our high ideals, And thus we all have sinned! We all have failed to attain And maintain the health That the Spirit life would give, And thus we all have sinned! We all have failed adequately to meet The strain and stress of the problems of life, And thus we all have sinned I And when we humbly confess that we have sinned,That we have missed our mark, 'Tis not the cringing cry of the weak, But a calm and reasoned statement That having not attained our end In one matter and by one way, We shall stride out again upon the Path Leaning more firmly on the Spirit power

28

THE FOUR GREAT INITIATIONS That never goes astray, Until the trumpet angel voices ask, " \\110 is this that cometh up Out of the wilderness Leanh1g upon her Beloved ? " And as we learn from day to day To lean more weightily on this Spirit power, In time we shall be free from sin, Which is just another way of saying That we have learned to ourselves in tune With the Infinite Power and Energy, The Infinite Harmony of God To whom all are possible, And through whose aid all things are sweet !

We are told that John addressed the multitude, that he spoke to the various representative classes of people of the day, the intellectual, the artizan, the traders and the soldiers, using appropriate words to each. Now we must understand that in the East, these 1 four great classes of people are symbolic of the fourfold essence of man, spirit, soul, mind and body. Thus we see that there is much hidden in John's message of occult teaching. The Scribes and Pharisees are condemned because they do not bring forth spiritual gifts, that is, there is sin or condemnation to each one of us who does not develop the spiritual side of our natures. The working classes, called the "people," are told to cultivate the virtue of giving and sympathy, and the physical man is on the right path only when he does this. The traders, called the "publicans," are told "to exact no more than is appointed," that is, the soul must learn to discriminate and cultivate onlv what 1

See Appendix, p. 137.

INITIATION BY WATER

29

the higher mind recognizes as just and right. The soldiers, who represent the mind, are told, "Do no 'iolence to any man, neither accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages." This means that the mind must cultivate prudence and learn that it has to be content with the powers and abilities with which it has been endowed. It does not mean that the mind has to be idle. Science teaches that the inteli