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Lecture by Father Paul Blighton (undated)
Tape 813

Thank you, now we’re all set. You know that gets in your eyes for a few minutes; it really gets dark. (adjusting something) There we are.

This lesson tonight is really going to be a lecture on the ways of man in this solar system, and a little bit of the understanding of initiation. To begin with, let’s first evaluate the ways of God, and His action with man. God draws us to Him in three different ways, more or less: first by being His creatures, second by His voice — which is really the voice of the Word and authority used in creation, the voice in the soul which you oft times call consciousness, conscience, when an eternal Truth mysteriously suggests itself to you.

You say, “Well, I thought of it. This is something that came to me.” This is a reality, this is true, but it comes out of your Self from the eternal Mind, the Mind of the Father. What triggers that might be most anything that might trigger this. It could be — what triggers it could be good, it could be something which is not good — but many things are triggered through evil acts, even, which are good. That is, not the evil act is good, but it brings out something good in the individual. It is not necessity to have an evil act to bring out something good, but sometimes this happens.

When the eternal Truth mysteriously suggests itself, as happens frequently, and very often this happens during morning sleep, in that period in which you are, you would call just about to awaken but you really aren’t awake yet. You’re not too conscious of things around you, you’re not too cognizant whether you are awake or asleep, but you’re kind of betwixt and between, you might say.

And third, without resistance or means, when the will is quite subdued. By this we mean that when you go into meditation voluntarily, for instance, and you have taken instructions or you are doing it because you have been instructed to do it. You are doing it because you are a brother in the order, for instance, or you might be a Chinese person, as far as that’s concerned, as far as these laws are concerned, and you might be working with a Buddhist monk or a Buddhist teacher. It wouldn’t make any difference to the laws and the ways of God, as long as you were seeking and in need of this, whatever it might be — this idea, this rule, this law; it would work just the same.

Because God’s laws and rules and the Truth are not made just for Christians, as they call themselves; they’re made for all people regardless of what the faith, what the approach, what the school is. They’re made for that, because they are made for His living creation, and He created all of us, whether a Chinese, Japanese, or white or black, that doesn’t make any difference. So therefore His laws and His regulations, His ways and His methods are for all people.

This is why, in this order, we say we go through the center, through the center path to God and to attainment. We follow neither the occult school nor the mystic school, but a combination of both of these, a straight path through the center. We use that which is applicable to the day, and the thing which we are trying to attain or the initiation which we are trying to attain.

This is why we have so many friends, because we are not bound to a cult of any kind, unless sometime in maybe another three or four hundred years, they might put a brand on us, even. It might be Christians, I don’t know. That would be all right, because maybe we will. Maybe this body will become down through the centuries one that holds — and we hope it does — holds to the Christian approach. The Christ people, because that’s what Christians really should be, Christ people. Holders, teachers, missionaries of the Christ, because this is what our Master was too, only he went a little further than probably we’ll be able to go. Yet he said, “Of these things which I do, so can — shall ye do also, and even greater than these.” But this will give you a more true concept of why some things happen that are strange, in a sense, from the standpoint of the great mass mind out there. But they’re really not unusual.

“Without resistance when the will is quite subdued.” In other words, when you have said, “Well, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to now sit down here and give myself over to the Mind of God and to His will, and therefore I can receive what I need to know, and what I don’t know, the answers to the questions, I don’t.

What is given through these means; as one called it, “a tasteless way” — and this is a very good term, I felt, because it doesn’t have any particular savor to it. It has no dogma, no religious flavor, it has none of these things. It is just the way of creation. It is the way in which things really exist and what you particularly need.

Of course, we have to go back then to the laws of physics and chemistry which says, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” This is what really happens. When you are in need of something, if you can get your own will out of the way and your own stubbornness out of the way, and stop thinking, well, somebody else will give you a few thoughts that are very potent and fit right into the picture. You see, it’s quite simple. There’s no mysterious — nothing mysterious about it at all. But let us remember that, because it is the foundation of understanding initiation. In spite of the fragments that we pick up and certain things which we, of course, don’t particularly like because they strike home, they ring a bell, as we might say; they strike home to our particular weakness.

And of course, the Creator’s mind isn’t particularly averse to doing this, because when the Truth does strike, it usually stings a little bit. Because if you’re in need of it, why, you don’t always want to really hear what you need to know. Because very often we ask for things and hope — we ask for things on this end and hope to God we don’t hear on the other end, you know. That’s for sure. Because it isn’t what we ask for always that’s what we really need, and even what we ask for we really don’t want; because we know that if we get it, we’re going to have to do something that we don’t want to do, you see. And this is true, in many cases.

In fact, this is one of the very bitter things about the human race, and especially about the Caucasian race, because the Caucasian race is very, very prone to self-aggrandizement; where you might take the Chinese people are very much — in their race they have this simplicity and a sort of humility. Now, there’s some of that humility may be aggrandizement in another form, but it is very simple, and they seek to be humble. This is a natural thing of the Asiatic — its very culture teaches this. It’s very impolite not to be humble, and try to show graciousness for even your presence. That is, I’m speaking about a normal polite society of the young man. This is a part of their racial foundation, because it came out of the very fact that their foundation of their country, of the Chinese people, was founded on religious teaching and belief to begin with, and then gradually and slowly turned over into the political which it now is — the war-lords, of course.

And this is why we have this particular way and it manifests not only in the Chinese, but it manifests in the colored race and the various races of the earth. There are specific things which are the foundation of those races, and this manifests certain problems with them, or certain, should I say, weaknesses. And this is why you see different Teachers for different races, that have different rituals and different manifestations, physical manifestations, that are used in their temples, that are used in their worship, that are used in these services; because this helps to bring out something which they need to develop within the race itself, of this particular people.

So we can say from this that all faiths, all religions, have a purpose with the race of man, to develop them, to bring them into a greater understanding. And those who seek the initiation can find it. Those who do not seek it, it will not be given to them, except in this way, in the way of cosmic evolution. Those who seek get it quicker and those who do not seek it, maybe from lack of knowing that it exists even, will go from life to life, several lives, in order to gain a simple point or a simple accomplishment.

And that is the difference between that way of life, of initiation, and this particular method which has been given to us recently and which carries the same old, same foundation, same law, same regulation, but it is a much more rapid way in which we can gain greater fruits in our own lives and in our own way of life here, and be able to help other people much more quickly than we have recently.

The kingdom of heaven is oft times spoken of as a, in the Testament, and we look at it as some very nice little thing that is spoken about as sort of an immaterial, improbable, impossible sort of a situation that we — it’s very pretty, it’s a very fantastic province, it’s a something-or-other that is given to us in the Testament to sort of salve over our harsh feelings and our rugged way of life and the things that we experience.

But there is a kingdom. There is an inner kingdom, and this is what helps to bring Him to us. And this is what the Master is speaking about: he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within.” This is the seat of the Spirit, it’s called and was called in ancient times. But of course this, in the modern Christian parlance of the churches, came a little too close to revealing the fact that there are things that they didn’t understand and that they didn’t teach, so they didn’t want these questions, and they have sort of discarded that little explanation, and tossed that out the window, and left this as one of the “mysteries,” you see. When you have a mystery, of course, that can’t be understood, why then, of course, you don’t have to explain it because nobody can understand it. You’ve got to wait to die to find out what it’s all about — whether you’re going to be et up by an alligator or if you’re just going to be et up by the worms, or what.

And this is not the way, this is not God’s way at all. Yes? Question?

Q: I didn’t say anything.

A: I know, but I read it. Do you have a question you want asked? All right.

We go through all manner of exercises in the Christian work which, of course, they only give in those strange schools of the occult and mystic schools, but in the church has left these things out. There are a few things which have been left to the Christian churches, and I’m very happy to say they haven’t forgotten them all, but they have used certain things that are useful in helping to raise the experience of individuals.

One, of course, is music. Music is a very elevating thing and will increase the vibration of the individual and raise it up. If you get enough of it, it’s bound to take its effect and really bring the person to a higher consciousness. There’s no question about that.

The other thing that has been used and is not a thing which is too sound, unless it is put on a sounder basis than what is generally used, and that is evangelism, and the altar call. And it has done some good, in the way of some people. Even though it is put on an emotional basis, it has done some good, because it has brought about a condition through which the people have given themselves and really mean it. Now, we know there are some strange manifestations that have taken place, but just the same there are a number of people, and I’ve seen many of them, that have gained through evangelism and the Pentecostal work.

Of course, the dogma that was put with this practice, that’s another thing; and of course, I can’t — I’m not saying anything against it, I’m just saying that has no part in this which I’m speaking of. Because the altar call does have a functional thing and will work in bringing a person to a greater height of reality. But the trouble is, the people that are using it, very often, do not know or do not understand it.

Now, I’m speaking about all of these things from the standpoint of initiation. This all has to do with either conscious striving of initiation, or unconscious moving in evolution of man in initiation, one or the other. One or the other will happen; regardless of what you do or what you strive to do, it will happen anyway. It may take six lifetimes for you to know that you shouldn’t steal bananas, but you will learn it eventually, and it will take six lifetimes. Now you might learn that in five minutes if you seek to know yourself.

Well, some of the things though, truthfully, that people spend many years to learn which are right in front of their eyes are just about that simple. And because they are so simple and right in front of their eyes, they therefore don’t know their existence and don’t understand them. Because it is the simple things that are truly the great mysteries. It is the simple things that have been in front of your eyes since the day of your birth that are the mysteries. These are the things that can’t be explained, because in order to explain them they have to get into the teachings of those old fellows who taught the mysteries long ago, and have taught them for thousands of years. And it leads man into self-confidence, self-reality, and thus it gets away from doctrine and dogmatism, you see.

Now this doesn’t mean that the churches shouldn’t be here. It does mean. And every time I see where a priest or a minister leaves a church, I am very sorry. I am very much disturbed because we need them badly. You don’t, for instance, you wouldn’t hire, if you had a business, you wouldn’t hire a man and just because he didn’t know some little facet of your business, say, “Well, you’re no good; I can’t use you.” Because no business, usually unless you’ve worked in a like business before, and even then, it is never exactly the same. In fact, you can very seldom ever hire a person to fulfill a job in a company without teaching him something about your end of the business.

Well, it’s the same with the priests and teachers, the priests and the old fellows of the teaching. All of the priests are needed people, even though they haven’t had a chance to learn all of the things of the profession. So therefore, they need to be taken care of and watched, taught, prepared so they can fulfill the rest of those things which they have not been taught. Because they’re Catholic, because they’re Protestant, because they’re Mohammedan, because they’re any kind of religion doesn’t mean that they’re not serviceable to God. It means that what we are trying to do is to give to them and prove to them, through our living, and give to them through our teaching, the rest of those things which will make them serviceable to all mankind everywhere, the same as we approach it. That isn’t just our approach; that was the approach of the Master Jesus, and that’s why that approach is there. He did not teach just to those that believed that he was all right. He didn’t teach just to those that accepted him and believed that he was teaching the truth. He taught to all men; it didn’t make any difference what the church was. He went into the Jewish church and he taught there. They didn’t believe him, but he taught there just the same. He taught in many places.

I said to one of the brothers the other day, he spoke about someone who just didn’t believe that was here, and I said to him, “Any person can teach somebody the truth of creation and the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the way in which it will benefit us, and teach us how to use the powers and forces of creation, if they believe you. But the marks of the true teacher and true priest are the ones that can go and teach that person that doesn’t believe, and prove it through his own life and through his own work and effort, and love for that person. That’s the marks of the priest and the teacher. No problem to do the other job, you see. That is the school, and the marks of the school of initiation.

Because when you are about to be taken into initiation, if you were in a lodge — and there are such things as initiation in lodges, but on a material level. They always have some spiritual principle back of them, that’s for sure, but they prepare you with the words to say. They teach you to repeat them, and they place certain people in certain ways and in certain patterns and certain functions within the lodge hall. And then you are brought in and you go through this little play or act. And it all has a spiritual meaning to it, a basic creative meaning and teaching. And then by this, regardless of the materialistic attitude of the individuals in their private life, but they do learn something. They can’t very well help but learn something, because they have followed a pattern and a group of words, and assumed this — and there is a law of assumption, you remember — and a certain amount of it will have its effects, very definitely. This is, in a materialistic way and, shall I say, the lower order of things, is initiation.

Because the cosmic has a habit of, once you have come into this earth and declared what you are going to learn, of seeing that you get there. And the Brothers will see that that’s done. It may be to put somebody in your path that will oppose you. It may be to marry a woman that will make you wash the dishes every night, and it may be that you will have six babies that are squalling constantly. But I assure you that the physical people and the physical things not only which work to build obstructions that are hurdles that you have to go over, but other things that will help you to go over those hurdles, if you will to do it. And this is the way with initiation, in the life sense.

There is a higher form of initiation in the lower heaven world, or the world beyond, and this takes place also. Now these aren’t fantasies. And let’s get this home: you’re living in a world of reality. There is no such thing as an unreal world, so let’s get that cleaned out of our mind. There’s only one difference between heaven and this place, and that is that it is not as dense and it does not have the imperfection to it that this does down here. And it follows the laws of creation and it’s just as real, it’s just as fundamental, it’s just as materialistic as this is down here, when you speak from that standpoint. It is just as solid when you’re there, as this is down here. Life is continuous. We have spoken, the Master has spoken about continuous life, life eternal. He was not just “flapping his gums”, as they say here on this earth. And that’s just about the size of what you people sometimes take it for, and it isn’t true. This is a realistic place, where there is realistic living in another form, and I want that truly understood.

You weren’t …?…

(visitor?) No, sir, I got a neck that’s giving me a lot of trouble.

A: Why don’t you get it fixed? Why didn’t you come and ask for some help?

Q: Well, I’ve had a broken … when I was about fifteen years old, and I’ve had trouble with it ever since.

A: Well, that — have it fixed.

Q: Anyway, it puts tension sometimes when I sit down and remain quiet for a long period, especially after eating and having a full day. Well, it … drops a little.

A: … because many times people have these ailments or acquire a condition that has an ailment that serves as a hurdle for them to get over, because there are things within them that doesn’t want to hear what is said about certain things. They may not be conscious of it always, they may not be, but they exist.

I know that I’ve seen many students that when I talked in a certain vein about certain things, that particular thing, they’d always get drowsy; and when they’d, anything else, be totally wide awake. And they’re really sincere seekers. They weren’t conscious of it until I broke it by working with them personally; that’s the truth.

You’d be surprised what that inner man, that ego and the will, how they gain control of the physical side of an individual. And that’s what initiation is for; and one of the things that happens in initiation is control of some of these things. These are the objectives that you are trying to gain. And the initiation, when it happens, is to open the door so that you can manifest and gain this particular thing as you climb what is referred to in the Testament as Jacob’s ladder. Just as a, one of the degrees of initiation is to learn the direction of the will-power in one of the initiations, to understand it and learn its use, and then to get over that hurdle by actually doing it willfully yourself, by your own determination, not affected by other things around you, you see; I mean circumstances, all these things, you see. This is all part of what you might call the life-stream of initiation to the average individual.

Then we go to those people who, like the Masons, try to learn the purpose of the Masonic order, to learn the uses of the law and the Word, both in the material world and to manifest this and to help other people learn these things, to help man to help himself. That’s one of the great slogans of their order. Which is very fine, because if you don’t help man to help himself, he isn’t going to get anything out of it. We’ve seen that in today’s world, that actually giving money to people for charity in emergency is all right occasionally. But when you’re put on the poor list or whatever they call it, this is no good. Because that will not help him not to be poor. You’ve got to teach him. It’s ignorance that makes a man poor, nothing else. You see what I’m driving at? This is part of initiation. You have will, or you will be at some time at a place where you will have to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps, so to speak, to raise yourself up. And this is part of it, you see.

Q: Next time I get sleepy, Father, I’ll stretch.

A: All right. O.K. Now —

To the Christian church-goer — now this isn’t saying anything against them. I’m just saying what they miss. To the Christian churchgoer, the mystic, the occultist and so forth, these strange people, this is something up here in the “gobbeldy-goop” or the magician’s way, and so forth, this is an unreal sort of thing that is only for those that wish to take command of other peoples’ will and use them. Oh, I’ve been accused of this, many times. You see, I know.

But this is not so. It is part of cosmic initiation; it is part of the cosmic plan. And it’s far older than the Christian church, or any church, as far as that’s concerned. And people were worshipping Christ long before Jesus got here. That doesn’t say we shouldn’t look to the Master, no. That says that what he was teaching had been a proven reality for thousands of years before him. But he brought to us, in the physical manifestation and in the seeable way the proof that these laws and these forces were controlled by these laws through his ministry of the three years, and through his work in Jerusalem, and his crucifixion on Golgotha, and his resurrection and his ascension.

This is the path of Jesus Christ. And this is what we celebrate this Thursday, I think it is, yes, this Thursday, his ascension. Now this ascension is a reality. This is not something which is just for the family of “gods”, to put it in the Greek way. This is not for the one exception, this is not something to prove his superiority, as I heard one man say: “Oh, he was just showing what he could do.” But he gave to us the Word, and he said he did, and it has worked. I’m pretty sure that you’ve seen it work, that we could do these things also. This had been taught for thousands of years too. And this public demonstration of Jesus Christ of the initiations was a physical manifestation of their workability, of their reality in the cosmic, that these men whom they had looked down upon, and sometimes were afraid of, were not men to be afraid of but were men to cherish and to look to for help. They are a material manifestation of cosmic initiation, and everybody goes through it. Don’t make any difference whether you’re black, blue, green or yellow; it’s all the same thing. It is the way that Jesus was talking about, The Way: capital T, capital W. It is what he was talking about. It is a realistic real Path, an existing path in which he manifested himself.

Now you, as people who are just learning, after having had some experience in life, have had many little things happen that you couldn’t explain. I know this. Nobody can live this long and not have it happen. Nobody can have lived in life as long as most of you have without having things happen that you couldn’t explain. And you get in the habit of listening, and through the mass mind too and its influence, get in the habit of thinking of a Way as either a process or a method by which somebody does something, or a road that’s made of concrete or something of that sort, like the Appian Way of Greece — or Rome, I mean, because, wait a minute, my mind is not there.

And this is not what he was talking about. What he was talking about was that when you follow the laws and the teaching and the experience, and have made the hurdles, you come to a point where you raise the vibration of your being, your body; and your being takes over and you reach the point where you have learned the use of the forces and powers of nature that he has been talking about in the New Testament. And when you do this, you will approach a state in which, between this world, this concrete thing and the other which you will pass through, into another world. And then you will have done exactly the same thing that he did.

Note, where did the ascension take place?

Q: Where?

A: Yeah, anybody.

Q: In Galilee, wasn’t it? …..

A: Well, he picked — what I’m driving at is one thing. He went to a specific place, didn’t he?

Q: (Timothy’s voice?) Some place in the Holy Land.

A: Yes, I know, but he went to a specific place, and there was where it took place. Well, there was where he knew a place in that particular area that was helpful in accomplishing this.

Q: There were certain centers in the earth where, well…?

A: Well, there are certain magnetic centers in the earth, that’s true. And there are certain other things that take place at certain times. In other words, I won’t set it down as a hard-core thing, but I’d say that certain influences were existent at a certain time, in a certain place, that would lead you way through — would lead you on the way, if you wished to ascend.

Q: (from a sister) Would that be … with the city of San Francisco, in say 1983, might be ripe for that sort of thing for those that are conscious …?

A: 1983, you will have have already experienced some things in San Francisco which will tell you the answer to some of those things.

Q: I just didn’t know what to … city …

A: All right. I’m not prophesying, I’m just saying that according to the rate of evolution and so forth, and so on, this is very probable.

Q: If someone had ascended, does that automatically mean that they never would come back to this earth plane?

A: Oh, no. There are those of us who have reached the point where we are not so selfish, and would be willing to come back to help somebody else.

Q: The teachers do …

A: Well, teachers, priests and so forth.

Q: To lead the way.

A: Yeah. Now there are a number, there are twelve major cosmic initiations and there are thirty two detailed steps of initiation. There are nine major initiations, cosmic initiations that were on the physical level. I am not sure yet, but I think that is going to change. I think that there are one or two which might be now experienced on the physical level that were not being able to be experienced before. Because illumination has come in such strength, according to His Will and His Law and His direction, that it seems to me that the next one up, and the realization has come so easily that I believe you’ll find that sooner or later it will be revealed that there is another step or two which would be held beyond. That is, it would be only given when you had learned to remove yourself from your body and go out, to be led and taken care of by another teacher outside. Now that’s just a, should I say, looks that way. I’m not saying it is — looks that way.

There are thirty two steps that exist, and they are existent in the Masonic order. The thirty-third is another step which is beyond that, and has its meaning. These things all are — here is no corner on the market by anybody, by any means. This is information that is known by every teacher and many, many people, many, many people. But these things are for a purpose, and they work, and they’re very constructive, very creative, and they help many people, and they do go through them regardless. They don’t have to be in an organization to go through them. In an organization they’re pictured to you, the same as Jesus pictured these things to you in his life. And these are pictured even in some of the works that are written.

I think Manly Hall writes some works on this, on the Masonic way; and then there is the order of the Essenes, and there are some Eastern orders which exist today in the world but which you don’t hear very much about. And these have the truth with them, but they are handled as mystic orders, not for the public.

But Jesus said, in the New testament, that the mysteries should be revealed in this day. And while we are not going to tell you how the Masons run their order or how the Essenes run their order, or anything of this sort, we are going to teach the principles, the ideas, as God has laid them down. Yes?

Q: Is it true that every individual unfoldment is predestined? Or can this be, can this–in other words, is there a certain time and certain date? In other words it’s all been set out? Or can one speed this up, or can one slow down according to conditions or … ?

A: No. Predestination is very much misunderstood. Predestination is only predestined by yourself when you come into incarnation. This you determine, because you’re wise enough to want to do that, and you determine this. Now, this is a general pattern you determine. Then when you get here, through your own initiative, your own giving, your own godliness or desire to follow God or Jesus Christ, or whatever — if you were a yellow man, why, you’d be following Buddha, maybe, or Mohammed, or somebody else. But your desire to follow and to do good, to be right, to do things in accordance with creation, to follow Allah or what-have-you, would be the driving mechanism of your life. In accordance with what you do willfully, full-heartedly, unselfishly in service, and obedient to what you know is right, this is in accordance to whether you accomplish those things or not, you see.

Now when you get here, if you are approached by a teacher and one gives you the chance to go farther, he can help you in speeding up this process, to a certain extent, providing you don’t have a –have set a karmic debt which you have to get rid of first, or something of that sort. But even now, there are people that I’ve seen here have gotten rid of certain karma. Well, this is because they’re –that was the way they chose it and that was what they came back for. And then from there on they can evolve the same as anyone else.

But Jesus said that the mysteries would be revealed, and they are being revealed. Now this don’t mean they were violating any laws of anybody’s organization. This means that we’re just teaching the truth that really exists, you see. Because all these organizations and even the — what is it called? the Red Men? And then there’s another one that’s called the, oh, G. A. — no, that’s Grand Army of the Republic, GAR. (laughter) No, this is …

Q: Druids?

A: Yeah, Druids. The — I can’t think of it — all I can think of is “poor man’s Masonry”, as it’s commonly called by the lay people. Odd Fellows, yes. This follows a more or less Masonic form of teaching. And various other people like this. Oh, there’s a lot of them. Foresters have certain principles that they teach. There’s a whole group of these. And there’s a whole group of mystic orders down the line, and occult orders, that teach great truths, and there’s no question about it. And they’ve helped many people.

But now we’re striking at a point in this order where we’re going directly through the center. And our main objective is to bring them into illumination, so that they can work from there on and gain the greater light and Self, you see.

But by understanding initiation, to a certain extent at least, we get away from the idea of all this “foo-ferah” that has been taught, and realize that when we experience certain things, whether they’re pleasant or whether they aren’t, we are paving the way to attainment. And if we get our minds straightened out, if we get our way straightened out and keep our eye single, we’ll get there, without question. Because this was a guide that he gave us: “If thine eye be single, thy body will be full of light.” Period. Boom. And this is what it is, this is one way of gaining and seeking, attaining the light of illumination. And once you get that, that awakens the senses, that awakens the sight and the other attributes, and these are things which have to do with initiation.

Now that doesn’t mean that if you’ve muffed it some other time you cannot, you cannot gain things here. You can, because Jesus came and he said he brought the atonement to man. He cut off the world karma at that point, and the people in the condition that it was, so that the earth could exist, and we could finish up our cycle of work and attainment here.

So therefore this is the Way that Jesus was talking about, the Way. He didn’t call it anything except that. He didn’t give it an “ism” or doctrine or anything else. That is the Way.

I’ll read you a little recap, in a general practical way, of various initiations and things. (Father Paul skimmed through the text, skipping some words and commenting): There is the second initiation as a study of fire. And then the third, which is the first three, and in the first three there is everything that is told of the mysteries. You learn actually, even though you don’t see it, even though you don’t know it or really are conscious of it. In the first three initiations all the mysteries are really told. Everything exists.

Everything from there on is a replica and application in another field, another approach. In other words, the initiation of four, five and six is first initiation telling one what ceremonies are, and giving a person a little idea of symbolism and that sort of thing. There is more about what initiation really is, so that you’ll understand what you have experienced, to a certain extent and that sort of thing.

Then there is 6, which is a description, or really going back to the old and what you — its application in the physical world, the physical being, and why. In 7, we learned something about the Word and the reality, and the male-female, “Ra-Ma”, as it is sometimes called and was in Egypt, for instance, and what its use is and so forth. And how this male-female, positive-negative exists throughout creation and through all the functional laws of creation, and which God used creating this solar system. They’re existent in all things. In — we come into 7 also — is a form of the basic laws partial of them.

8 is a formation of giving one certain ways of understanding the reality of what the use of the word is, and how it affects all the things in matter, in nature.

There is, in the ninth there is an understanding of the will and its use. And then it is the Will of God that we are using, and that is our own will, what it will do for us when properly used and approached, and the power that it exerts upon all things, and our attention, and how our attention to things does bring about a reality and manifestation, and how the will and the Word work together. How the power of the two columns are the entrance of the table — at the temple, I mean. How the will and the ego are the twin forces, twin controls of man’s temple, and what shall go in and what shall not go in; and whether he attains, for instance, yourself, the vows, and whether he really attains them, and what they do for him. These are parts of the initiations in this respect.

Then we go to the ninth initiation and we have the — well, the ninth initiation also gives us parts of what we can, how we can use these same forces and powers and this information; and within our own physical body, our own will-power — how we can use it, and how it will control things within us and around us, and the reality of our presence, you might say, through our presence and following these forms.

There is a tenth which goes a little further and teaches us the, in a sense, what I taught about the atmosphere of our being in “The Golden Force”. It is that thing which shows that we have control of our own life and our own being through the understanding and wisdom and through the taking on of the initiations and assuming these initiations which we experience. I’m using distinctly lay language, of course. I’m not going into any other wording. I’m using lay language and lay ideas. There’s a more complicated approach to this.

We go on up in the next one and we learn an understanding of the psychic, of the world just beyond, so to speak, which is present in our being, the psychic forces and so forth. We learn through various ways. We learn to know what these are, how they have an influence in our life and how these things are used, some by prayer, of course.

And then we learn after this, we learn the attitudes which we attune ourselves to and give ourselves, carve out a place for ourselves, so to speak, in the world ourselves by the use of these forces, and those things which the Master taught, of course.

And the service to man is the next portion of it: 13. And this is the service to man and the way in which we can use what we have learned to serve mankind, and its use. Very interesting, this is the thirteenth part or initiation, or what should we say — level, any one of these and, of course, there were thirteen: the twelve disciples and Jesus. This is, of course, part of the alchemy of what Jesus accomplished, a service to man. And then the fact that there is in our word a divine reality. Man is a divine part.

Then we learn also that within man and his body there are certain divine parts of that body. And this would be, of course, taught in a mystic order where they were distinctly mystics. There they would teach us things about the pituitary and sight, and so forth, in an attempt to break the first grounds, so to speak, toward this, of getting spiritual sight and that sort of thing. In a physical organization you would not find this so much, like the Essenes, the mystics, but you would find it more in a distinctly mystic organization.

Then we learn the ethics in the use of the Law, after that. That is those things which we should do and which are accepted as all right, and not to use it in a way in which we would falsely influence other beings around us, or place any blocks or hurdles in their way that would hamper their progress and what the Masters feel are ethically correct, and so forth, and approaches as Jesus taught many of these things too. Then we learn the fact that after all, even through all the sadness and all the problems that we have created for ourselves, we do have a divine right to enjoy the earth and its goods. This is not being not-Christian, in other words. It is absolutely a Christian reality, it is a Christian right to enjoy the fruits of the earth, to enjoy everything that the bounty of the earth yields. This is not ungodly, it is not unholy at all. No one ever said, Jesus never said, that we could not enjoy these things. It was not being sinful. (end side 3 of tape)

And there are certain, of course, people who try to teach the unholiness of the beauty and the bounty of the earth, but this is not right. Now, you could take upon yourself a vow of poverty, as we do, and that is a purpose. And in the manifestation of this vow of poverty, when you really understand it as I have these vows on tape, they are a means by which – they are not binding or limiting of your enjoyment of the things of the earth actually. They are yielding more of this than if you were not under that vow actually, and of course, you get lots more that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. You then learn the reality of will power and directing it, the way of using the inner powers of man and yourself, and helping other people to learn to know these things.

Now in a mystic order, you would learn to know then intuition and what it really was and how it works, and how you can sense it and use it — in other words, a means by which you can pick up some of the things that come from the Self, and some of the things which come to us that we call spiritual inspiration and other things of this nature, which many of them are intuitive. This especially exists in the female species of man, where intuition is a very strong thing. And this you learn more about.

Then you come into that part, the next part of these initiations, which would be the realities and the details and the training and the teaching of meditation, true meditation and its various forms of function, and the realities of it and what really takes place.

After that, you learn the planes of consciousness, so to speak, both mental and cosmic — psychic and cosmic, and what consciousness and the reality is. These don’t describe the details of how it’s gone about and taught, of course. They’re solely in my key words that I’ve taken out of these things that I think a person could understand.

The going into the upper mountain is then very often taught, to go into the upper room, as the Master spoke about it in his way — which was a reality, of course. They did go into an upper room in a building and have a conclave together, but also the going in the upper room here is also a teaching which teaches one to be able to move out of their lower being and become totally conscious of their upper being, upper man and the upper part of the body, and to really see and know and understand. “A use and contact of the cosmic mind”, the mind of God and the endeavor to reach that through the lack of aggrandizement, through giving all and coming into that reality.

Then they begin to reach toward visualization, cosmic travel and things of this nature, and how these things come into the law, and under the law and the Holy Trinity. And then you go into attunement exercises with the Cosmic Mind, cosmic attunement or cosmic consciousness, so to speak, and its reality.

The divine Word, as it was spoken in the ancient Aramaic, used in breathing and other things of this nature and which reveals the powers of man on both planes. And then you study something about karma and its reality, and its revelation and why and how it generally works.

After that then you come into matters of soul, matter and self-mastery, self-mastership. Here you learn, or strive to learn, to know and understand and see the reality of soul. And here’s where you’re entering into realization, true cosmic realization. And this is an endeavor; of course, this can be opened, but whether you use it and experience it is up to you, what you do with it afterward, of course, after you’ve had the door opened.

Then there comes the study and the consciousness of — the full consciousness of will and the laws of mastership. God and mastership, self-mastery. And then a later study of the Host, and the contacting of the cosmic masters above. These are a part of the realities of initiation and of the continued use and understanding of assumption, the divine assumption and communication across the void of space.

Then we have the finality of the lower realm of manifestation on earth, and its initiation, where we reach to the three-fold purpose of man, and an introduction and preparation to take on the true realization of self-mastery and to participate and use his full rights and reality.

Now this isn’t — The Master’s teaching, of course, is the mastery teaching; that is, bringing into mastery is not through any of these initiations; but self-mastery is a prerequisite in ours, because it is one of the facets of that name. These are all things which are covered, and it’s quite a wide gamut of reality, that are covered in initiation, in the ninth or ninth part of it, or whatever you want to call it. This is not the ninth degree, I mean this is the ninth cosmic degree: “honor given of highest standing in the realm,” final physical initiation.

Then you enter into illumination beyond this, where all further work and lessons are brought, the bringing of the cosmic forces beyond the cosmic brotherhood, the White Brotherhood. Many of these things, of course, would need a great deal of explanation and a great deal of teaching in order to give you even an understanding of what they were attempting to teach you. But it gives you what I wish to convey to you more than anything else, that the idea and the word of initiation is not some fantastic fou-fou-rah, so to speak. That it is not a fallacy. It is not something that’s some magician waving a wand, by any means.

Let me wind up by giving a little bit here of this:

“Then when God finds the man thus firmly turned toward Him, the godhead bends (in the?) nakedly descends into the depths of the pure waiting soul,” This is a quotation by one of the greats. ” — and transforms the created soul, drawing it up into the uncreated essence so that the spirit becomes one with Him.” This is for the purpose of tempering the individual to the Nameless wanderer that we proclaim here in this order.

To everyone comes the tempter at some time most active and most busy periods. For members of this group realize that during the coming periods after crossing the threshold of the order, the brothers are very likely to have wonderful revelations that will carry them far into the highest development. They will also be very much tempted to begin with. They will not only be tempted to go over the hill, but they will be tempted to do other things, for here they are tested, no question about it. And then this power to tempt all of us, and we seek to wonder and compare ourselves with others. And this is one of our great temptations.

Then comes the greatly — we become greatly awakened, because we find no one else that we can compare ourselves to. And then we feel as if we are some odd specimen that God has never seen before, that God has never realized before and, with this strange and awesome reality, that we are the only one in the whole world that is like that. Then we wonder if there’s still a chance of us ever coming to the place of God-realization, with this strange, peculiar reality within us. It is then that we want to look back, and realize that not only this that is laid down in a cosmic scheme, but every one of those planets that God created out there gives forth a force and power, very real, that influence or –should I say, potentially influence — our life and every cell of our body.

Now, I’m not saying that astrology controls your life, but I’m saying you should become conscious that the power and force of every created body in this solar system is a factual factor in your life, and you must control it! Then when you use the instruments, the powers that God has given you, and the knowledge and the information which is given to you, then you will come to the place where you will be your man’s man, you will be your teacher. You will be on the eternal Way of Jesus Christ.