The Egyptian Arch-Gnosis
and her call in the eternal Now

Again proclaimed and declared based on the
Tabula Smaragdina and Corpus Hermeticum
of Hermes Trismegistos by

Jan van Rijckenborgh

Fourth volume

2018

Rozekruis Pers – Haarlem – Netherlands

Colofon

Internationale School van het Gouden Rozenkruis

Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Bakenessergracht 11-15 – Haarlem – Nederland

ISBN 9789067326872

© 1991 Rozekruis Pers, Haarlem, Nederland

The Woman of the Apocalypse

The seven headed dragon with the ten horns is brooding on the earth. With its tail it wipes out a third part of the stars in the sky. lts bat-wings are set with eyes: it rules the earth.

The Woman of the Apocalypse is cloaked with the Sun, she is standing on the Moon and the serpent, and she has a garland of twelve stars around her head. She is the Brotherhood, fleeing to the desert with the child, the young Gnosis, the new link in the golden chain of Brotherhoods, to save it from the dragon. Then she offers the child up to the hands of the Father, to the crown, the all-seeing eye, which admits it behind the veils of the All.

The Arch-Father is standing to the right of the Woman. He is the divine creative impulse, who emits power; he keeps the zodiac, in the shape of a ring, in his hand. The serpent, with its tail in its mouth, coils itself twelve times around the ring. The Arch-Father points at the Arch-Mother: he pours his power into her. She receives it, and for that reason her hands resemble a receptacle. She is the one who offers resistance, she is Saturn, time, restriction; that is why she carries an hourglass on her head. Their garments form a curtain, that is drawn back for the Sun, which is the central Christ-principle: No one comes to the Father but by me.’ That is the reason why the child, too, is lifted up from the spheres of the Sun. In the All-Father we also find the symbol of yang and yin, the complete unity, the circle: the Sun sends its rays throughout the All.

The straight path for the gnostic pupil is the rood through the middle arch, the human life-field, via the soul towards the Christ. Then there is also the contact with the All-Father: ’Whoever sees me, has seen the Father.’ To merge fully with the All-Father signifies the end of all materiality.

Preface

The publication of the fourth and final part of The Egyptian Arch Gnosis and its Call in the Eternal Present fills us with profound joy and gratitude.

In keeping with the task of the young Gnostic Brotherhood of the Golden Rosycross, this book explains to seeking mankind the eternal message of redemption in its universal form, so that the one path leading to the fulfilment of mankind’s true destiny may be made visible once again.

In these ’times of the end’, in which all the old certainties are being overturned, countless people are yearning for the one light that always shines in the darkness, but can never be grasped by it.It is for all those seekers that the call ’out of Egypt’, the call of love and wisdom from Him who ’never forsakes the works of his hands’, is being sent out.Those who are seeking Him will hear the call sent out to them by the hermetic wisdom, and they will know what they have to do.

May they heed that call while there is still time! The harvesters of the present are ready: may many soon join the harvest!

JAN VAN RIJCKENBORGH

I

Thirteenth Book:

Hermes Trismegistus to Tat:
Concerning the Universal Spirit

Hermes: The Spirit, O Tat, is of God’s very essence, at least, if one could speak of such a thing as the essence of God: however that may be, it is the Spirit alone that knows itself perfectly.

That is why the Spirit cannot be distinguished from the essence of God; it emanates from that source just as light ernanates from the sun.

This Spirit is The Good in men; hence some men are gods: their human state very closely approximates to the divine state. The Good Demon has accordingly called the gods immortal men, and men mortal gods. In beings devoid of reason the soul is nature. Wherever there is life, there is also a soul. In beings devoid of reason, however, the soul is nothing but life, empty of Spirit. But the Spirit is a benefactor of the Souls of men: it works on them and forms them for the sake of The Good.

In beings devoid of reason, the soul cooperates with each one’s natural disposition; in men, however, it works against this disposition.

Every soul that has entered a body is tormented by pain and lust since, in this dense body, pain and lust course like a blaze into which the soul is plunged and in which it is drowned.

Whenever the Spirit can give guidance to such souls, it causes its light to go out to them and opposes their inclinations. Just as a good physician cauterises or cuts away what is diseased in the body, so the Spirit inflicts suffering on the soul by leading it away from lust, which is the cause of its diseased state.

But the great disease of the soul is its denial of God, with the resulting erroneous thinking which gives rise to all evils and certainly nothing good.That is why the Spirit, by combating this disease, imparts The Good to the soul once more, just as the physician restores health to the body.

But human souls that do not allow themselves to be guided by the Spirit find themselves in the same condition as the souls of animals devoid of reason. The soul cooperates with them and gives free rein to their desires, towards which they are drawn by the intensity of the lust they are chasing in their reasonless state. As irrational beings they ceaselessly surrender themselves without any restraint to their passions and desires, and their sins will never satisfy them as the irrational activities of passions and desires constitute a boundless evil.

Over these souls God has placed the law as castigator, so that they might become aware of their wickedness.

Tat: In view of all this, O Father, it appears to me that what you told me before concerning fate is entirely discredited. If someone is predestined to commit adultery, or sacrilege or some other crime, will he then be punished although he has done the deed in the coercive grip of fate?

Hermes: Everything, my son, is the work of fate, without which nothing can happen with regard to things corporeal, be it good or evil. It is equally through fate that he whose deeds have been beautiful and good will experience the result of that action; therefore, everybody acts, in order to gain experience through the variety of his actions.

But let us now no longer speak about sin and fate, for those we have dealt with before. We are now talking about the Soul and its faculties, and how it works differently in men and in beings devoid of reason. In the latter it cannot work beneficially, but in men it extinguishes the passions and desires. Among men one should distinguish between those who possess the Soul and those who have no link with the Soul. All men are subject to fate, to birth and change, for these are the beginning and the end of fate.

Thus all men experience the decrees of destiny, but those who follow Reason, those who, as we have said, are guided by the Soul, do not experience them as the others do. Since they have freed themselves from evil, they do not experience the decisions as something evil.

Tat: What then do you want to say, Father: is the adulterer not bad? Is the murderer not bad? Nor all the others?

Hermes: My son, a man who is guided by Reason will nevertheless know the suffering connected with adultery and murder, fust like an adulterer and a murderer, even though he does not practice adultery and does not commit murder.It is impossible to escape from change, just as it is impossible to escape from birth, but he who possesses the Soul can free himself from evil.

Therefore, my son, I have at all times listened to the words of the Good Demon.¹ If he had made them available in writing, he would have rendered a great service to the human race. He alone, my son, has spoken truly divine words, since he, as the first-born of God, recognises all things. Thus 1 once heard him say that all created things are one, and in particular the corporeal beings endowed with intellect; that we live out of potential power, through active power and through the essence of eternity. That is why the Spirit, just like the Soul thereof, is good.

Consequently, the things of the Spirit are undivided and the Spirit, which rules over all things and is the Soul of God, is capable of doing whatever it wills. Consider these things and relate what I said just now to the question you asked me earlier about fate and the Soul. If you now put aside all contention over words you will find, my son, that the Spirit, the Soul of God, truly has dominion over everything: over fate, over the law and over everything else, and that nothing is impossible for it. It is able to exalt the human soul above fate, but equally to subject it to fate if it has fallen into error. Behold the sublime words spoken by the Good Demon.

Tat: These are divine, true and enlightening words, Father. But may I ask you to explain the following as well? You said that, in beings devoid of reason, the soul acts in keeping with their disposition and inclinations. Now I suppose that passion, (pathos) is the inclination of beings devoid of reason. If the soul cooperates with the inclinations, and the latter are passions, is then the soul also a passion, since it is affected by pathos?

Hermes:Very good, my son. Your question is discerning, and it is fair that I should answer it. Everything incorporeal in a body is subject to pathos (passion, suffering) and, strictly speaking, is itself passion (pathos). Whatever gives rise to movement is incorporeal. Whatever is moved, is a body. The incorporeal is also moved, and that by the Soul, and this movement, too, is passion (pathos). So both that which causes movement and that which is moved are subject to suffering (pathos); the one because it imposes movement, the other because it is subjected to the impulse of motion. If however, the Soul disengages itself from the body, it also frees itself from suffering (pathos, passion). It may be better to say, my son, that nothing is without pathos (suffering), but that everything is subject to it. Pathos (suffering) is not the same as the experience of pathos. The former is active, the latter passive. Bodies, too, are active of themselves. They are either motionless or being moved. In both cases there is pathos.

The incorporeal is forever being urged to action, and is therefore subject to suffering. So do not let yourself be misled by words: active power and pathos (suffering) are one and the same. But there is nothing against using the purest, most favourable name for it.

Tat: Your explanation has been very clear, Father.

Hermes: Furthermore, my son, consider that, on the human being alone among all mortals, God has bestowed two gifts: the Soul and the Word, which are equivalent to immortality. If man uses these gifts in the right way, he will differ in nothing from the immortals.Even more than this: he will free himself from the body and be guided by these two to the choir of the gods and the blessed ones.

Tat: Do other living beings not use the Word, Father?

Hermes: They only have at their disposal a sound, a voice. The Word, speech, differs very much from the voice. All human beings have words in common, while every other living being has a voice, or sound, entirely of its own.

Tat: Yet the language of men differs for every nation?

Hermes: Indeed, languages differ, my son, yet mankind is a unity. And words too are a unity. If they are translated from one language into another, it turns out to be the same both in Egypt and in Persia and Greece. It seems to me, my son, that you do not yet comprehend the marvel and the tremendous significance of the Word. The blessed God, the Good Demon, said that the Soul is in the body, the Spirit in the Soul, the Word in the Spirit, and that accordingly God is the Father of all of them. So the Word is the image and the Soul of God, the idea is the image of the Soul, the body is the image of the idea.

So the most subtle part of matter is the air (ether), the most subtle part of the air is the Soul, the most subtle part of the Soul is the Spirit, and the most subtle part of the Spirit is God.

God encompasses and permeates everything, the Spirit encompasses the Soul, the Soul encompasses the air (ether), the air encompasses matter.

Fate, providence and nature are instruments of the cosmic order and the order of matter. All things that are equipped with a soul are beings, and their state of being is identical. However, each one of the bodies from which the All is composed is multiple in nature: the identity of the composite bodies is preserved in imperishability, changing from one form into the other.

Moreover, all composite bodies have a unique number, since without a number neither a combination nor a dissolution could be achieved. It is the units which generate the number that makes them multiple, and that absorb again the composite parts when the number dissolves, whereas matter remains singular.

Well then, this whole world, this great godhead which is the image of Him who is even greater, and with whom it is one and with whom it maintains the Father’s order and will, is the fullness of life. There is nothing in it that is without life, neither in its generality or in any part of it, in the entire course of return throughout the aeons, proclaimed by the Father. There has never been, and nor will there ever be anything in the world that is dead.

It is the will of the Father that the world should live as long as it maintains its cohesion; that is why the world must needs be God.

How then would it be possible, my son, for a thing such as death to be within God, in Him who is the image of the All, in Him who is the fullness of life? For death is decay, and decay is destruction. How then could one think that any part of what is imperishable could pass into decay, or that any part of God could be destroyed?

Tat: But Father, do living beings not die, even if they are in the world and part of it?

Hermes: Do not put it like that, my son, for such an expression of what is taking place will mislead you. Living beings do not die, but their composite bodies are dissolved. This dissolution is not death, but the annulment of a complexity.This disso-lution is not meant to be destruction, but a new becoming, renewal.For what is the active life-force? Is it not movement? And what is motionless in the world? Nothing, my son!

Tat: But do you not consider the Earth to be motionless, Father?

Hermes: No, my son, it is unique in being both full of motion and permanent. Would it not be absurd to assume the one who sustains the All, the one who gives birth to everything and makes it grow, to be motionless? For without motion nothing could come to birth. It is rather absurd to ask, as you do, whether a fourth part of the world might be inactive, for an immobile body means nothing else than inactivity.

Know then, my son, that everything that exists in the world is, without any exception, being moved, whether it be in order to decrease or in order to increase. And what is in motion is also alive, and it is a holy law that nothing which is alive remains equal to itself, that is, unchanged.Broadly speaking the world is unchanging, but all its creations change, although without perishing or being annihilated. It is only words, and names, that confuse and disturb people.

Life does not consist of birth, but of consciousness; and change does not mean death, but forgetting.

In this regard everything is immortal: matter, life, breath, the soul, the spirit, the intellect, instinct, everything of which every living being is composed.

In this sense every living being is immortal, but most of all the human being, who is able to receive God and be one with Him. It is only with this living being that the Godhead communicates: during the night by dreams and during daytime by signs. ln manifold ways it foretells the future: by birds, by entrails, the clouds and the oak, so that it is given to man to know past, present and future.

Also, my son, pay attention to the fact that each of the other living beings exists solely in one part of the world: aquatic animals in water, terrestrial animals on the land, winged animals in the air. The human being, however, relates with all the elements: with the earth, with water, with the air and with fire, and even with heaven; he comes into contact with it and perceives it with increasing knowledge and insight.

God encompasses everything and permeates everything, for He is both the active and the passive power of the All. That is why it is not difficult at all to understand God.

When during your refiections you wish to apprehend God, then behold the world’s order, and the beauty of this order.Behold the necessity of all that you thus perceive, and of providence, which rules over past and present. See how matter is entirely filled with life, and how the movement of this majestic Godhead works with all the good and beautiful ones: with gods, demons and men.

Tat: But those are activities of power, Father!

Hermes: If they are only activities of power, my son, by whom then are they wrought? By another Godhead? Do you not see that life and immortality, blood, fate, providence, nature, the Soul and the Spirit are aspects of God, just as heaven and water and the earth and air are part of the world, and that the permanence of all this is called The Good? So there is nothing, either today or in the past, in which God is not present.

Tat: Is God in matter then, Father?

Hermes: Should matter exist outside of God, my son, what place would you then choose for it? And what else could it be, as long as it had not been brought to activity, but a confused mass? And if it had to be brought to action, by whom then? We have said that active powers are the creations of God.So from whom do all living beings receive life? To whom do the immortal ones owe their immortality? Who brings about the change in what is changeable?

Whether you speak of matter, or of the body, or of the essence of things, know that these are also activities of God’ s power: the activity of power in matter constitutes substance; the activity of power in bodies constitutes corporeality, and the activities of power in the essence determines the essential being. All this is God, the All.

In the All there is nothing that is not God. That is why God cannot be defined by conception of size, place, quality, form or time: for God is the All, and as such He is in everything and encompasses everything. Worship these words, my son, and revere them: there is only one religion, one way to serve and worship God, namely by not being evil.

II

The Heart and the Soul-State

The thirteenth book of Hermes Trismegistus is devoted to the mystery of the Spirit-Soul, a subject it explores very deeply. We have often mentioned this subject in earlier discussions of the hermetic philosophy, but now we need to look at it in more detail.

Whenever we think or speak about a person’s soul-state and his emotions, our attention is involuntarily drawn to the heart, to the disposition of the heart. The human heart is a wonderful organ.It is sevenfold in nature, just like the head and the solar plexus. The seven cerebral cavities can be compared with a seven-branched candelabrum, and similar comparisons can be made with respect to the heart and the solar plexus.

The seven-branched candelabrum of the heart has a central function in the life-system; it is an essential factor in the candidate’s total consciousness. All the fluids of consciousness are transferred, via the medulla, from the head sanctuary to the heart, where they are collected. Meanwhile, the candelabrum of the solar plexus, situated below the stomach between the liver and the spleen, also sends all kinds of forces upwards to the heart, for the liver and spleen are responsible for transmitting to the heart sanctuary all the entity’s astral and etheric conditions.

The three candelabra of the head, heart and solar plexus work together, and the central position is occupied by the candelabrum of the heart, which is fed from the head sanctuary and the pelvic sanctuary. From the head sanctuary it receives the consciousness-fluids, and from the pelvic sanctuary all the astral and etheric influences present in the microcosm that have played an important role in the past of the human being concerned. In addition, at least in many cases, the heart receives direct radiations from the central heart of the microcosm, the domain of the rose.

So the position occupied by the heart in the human system is really very central. Many influences, impulses and radiations come together in the heart, where they are blended and transmuted to form one fundamental soul-state. This, in turn, also has a radiative capacity.

In this way, the soul-state penetrates the blood, the nerve-fluid and the serpent-fire; it rises into the head sanctuary and occupies all the organs present there. The quality, the nature of the soul-state is thus the result of the human nuclear reactor, the heart, and it determines the state of one’s life, the direction of one’s life.So the human being has no choice but to follow the disposition of the heart. Once the soul-state and hence the radiation of the heart sanctuary have become a fact, the human being is bound to follow the influences and tendencies of that soul-state.

Therefore, all your abilities, all your intellectual or other accomplishments are dependent on and subject to your soul-state, its quality and scope.

Suppose you had been given what is generally thought of as a marvellous education; suppose you had attended the very best schools. That would be something to be grateful for, since it could, for instance, be helpful to you socially. However, if your soul-state had been left far behind in all this education, if from childhood onwards, your soul-state had failed to receive any genuine culture, any culture in a soul-liberating sense, then your marvellous education would become a deadly danger to your fellow human beings, as can easily be demonstrated. If a person’s life is to change in a truly liberating sense, that change must begin with the heart, in the heart.That is why the heart sanctuary is the first one to be subjected to the process of transfiguration.

The importance of the state of the heart is very often mentioned in the holy language of all times. Aperson’ s soul-state can turn him into a murderer, a demoniac, or a hypocrite; it can lead him into immeasurable pain or cast him into the abyss. But: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’, as the Sermon on the Mount jubilates. And it is the pure in heart who are described in the prologue of the thirteenth book of Hermes:

Hermes: The Spirit, o Tat, is of God’s very essence, at least, if one could speak of such a thing as the essence of God: however that may be, it is the Spirit alone that knows itself perfectly. That is why the Spirit cannot be distinguished from the essence of God; it emanates from that source just as light emanates from the sun. This Spirit is The Good in men; hence some men are gods: their human state very closely approximates to the divine state. The Good Demon has accordingly called the gods immortal men, and men mortal gods. In beings devoid of reason the soul is nature. Wherever there is life, there is also a soul. In beings devoid of reason, however, the soul is nothing but life, empty of Spirit. But the Spirit is a benefactor of the Souls of men: it works on them and forms them for the sake of The Good.

Seen superficially, this hermetic conclusion might appear somewhat bewildering, but if we test it against the facts, we will invariably find it confirmed.

When we imagine the three candelabra within us: the seven-branched candelabrum in the head sanctuary, the one in the solar plexus and the one in the heart, and if we experience that the three times seven lights in the heart sanctuary merge together into one soul-state, we should certainly not conclude that this is a fully automatic process from which the soul-state inevitably results. That is not how it is. It is not only the subconscious, the voice of the primordial past, that plays a role in the heart, but also the waking consciousness, the sevenfold light present in the head sanctuary; the consciousness-fluid with which the seven cerebral cavities are filled.

The seven cerebral cavities can be compared with mirrors through which all the forces coming together in the waking consciousness are reflected into the heart. So when we speak of a soul-state that is formed in the heart sanctuary, we must bear in mind that your direct, waking consciousness has an extremely important role to play in this formation. In other words, it is up to you. In your heart you encounter all the influences, all the radiations, all the impulses active in your being in whatever way. They are like so many voices, all speaking to you.In addition, at least if you are a serious pupil of the young Gnosis, the fundamental touch is present in your heart, the voice of the central heart, the voice of the rose.

In this way, with your normal waking consciousness, you meet in your heart, from second to second, all the influences that are coming to you from all sides. And the voice of the rose, too, is speaking within you and can have a decisive, form-giving effect. You can judge everything that comes to you in the light of the rose’ s influence; it can become the influence that determines the norms within your own being, and which has sometimes been called the voice of conscience.

So the heart is a workshop in which you, as a conscious being, can exercise a very important influence and carry out some vital work. And you will need to do that work before all the influences, forces and lights active in you combine to form one, ineradicable soul-state. Once that soul-state has been formed, you will have no choice but to follow it.

Have you ever heard about the conflict of the heart, the struggle of the heart? Of the sorrow and the joy of the heart? Or of the hardening of the heart? The most important battle, the battle for true pupilship, must be fought in the heart. Did you know that the truly liberating alchemical product, the product necessary to bring about the alchemical wedding of Christian Rosycross, must be prepared in the heart?

Throughout all history, there has never been a gnostic Spiritual School that has allowed itself to be misled, for instance, by ordinary social standing. True nobility is always nobility of the heart. That is why it is said in the Bible that God, the Spirit, sees into the heart. So it is of no use to be able to talk ever so nicely, or to be able to pose as if one was our dear Lord himself, for the spirit sees into the heart. This means that the only decisive factor is the soul-state arising from the heart and encompassing the whole being. We are saying this so emphatically because, in fact, many do not yet know the struggle of the heart. They still only think of the heart as an organ of feeling.

You say, ’I feel this or that’. But by then it is already too late, for what you are experiencing is the soul-state.You are only aware of the heart as a fully automatic organ, and you accept the soul-state arising from it. But you cannot do otherwise, can you? And when you experience the results of your soul-state and enter into conflict with them, as you so frequently do, what you are fighting against is your soul-state, which has perhaps brought you a great deal of trouble and sorrow.

But the fight is hopeless. You will never win. You think about it all (in the head sanctuary, not in the heart): ’What ever should I do? And what should I stop doing? How should I act in order to win?’ You fight this battle in the head until you are tired to death. And yet, it is already too late; you need to transfer the conflict to the work-place of the heart, in which the soul-state is being formed from second to second. If you do that and are successful, then you will no longer be helpless in the face of facts and coming events. You yourself can determine your fate, for everything that happens in your life is controlled and driven by your soul-state. So if you succeed in changing your soul-state, you will have taken your fate into your own hands and you yourself will be able to determine the course of events in your life. In this way, you really can reverse your fate.

And that is soul-birth. The birth of the Soul, genuine Soul-regeneration, is not some vague sentiment: ’I feel this and I feel that’. Such vague feelings, that we all experience from time to time, are nothing else than a soul-state one has formed oneself. So we say again: you need to enter into battle in the heart sanc-tuary; you need to drive out all those forces and tensions that could obstruct you on the path, and allow the helping, construc-tive forces to flow in. In this way, you yourself can form your soul-state and bring about the rebirth of the Soul.

The condition of the heart that animates you from second to second is your soul-state. So your soul-state is not a static value that you simply have to accept just like that.No, you can change your soul-state; you can change it fundamentally. So if we hear someone say: ’Yes, that’ s how I am. It’s my nature to be like that’, well, then we know how far things have gone. For if you are really a serious pupil of the Gnosis, you will change, if all is well, from day to day. Your type, your character, will alter.

As a result of your birth, the time comes when a certain soul-process, a certain soul-nature becomes apparent. As the years go by, you discover it. But you do not need to be satisfied with that state. You can change it fundamentally, through self-surrender. This means that, with your whole self, with your consciousness, with the powers of the candelabrum in the head sanctuary, you must descend into the heart sanctuary.

Your soul-state can be altered in all kinds of ways. You can make your soul-state increasingly wicked and destructive. You can also accept it as if it were automatic. Or you can consciously prepare it in such a way that it is capable of receiving the spirit.

Most people simply accept their soul-state as it is. In such cases, the nature, the character, the type is quickly formed as the person grows older and all the metabolic processes are brought into line with it. In this way, a state of crystallisation is reached and such persons are lost as regards any form of change.

Indeed, they may still want to have the Gnosis as well, as a kind of consolation in their lives.There are some people who take that point of view. ’The Gnosis will help you to get through life.’ But that is not the aim of the Gnosis. It wants to liberate you from this state of misery! And that is why you need to descend into the heart sanctuary and there enter into battle with your soul-state.

There is also a group of people whose representatives do not accept the life-state of the masses.Such people seek power, honour and fame: self-exaltation. In the nature of death, all these things are only to be obtained by concentrated self-maintenance, quite possibly over the backs and corpses of others, or by means of all sorts of lies and dirty tricks. The result is always a soul-state that falls far below the average norms. If one listens to people of this group, one often hears them say: ’Yes, I used to pay attention to ethical considerations, but I always suffered for it, so now I have hardened my heart.’ You probably know people like that.

So those who do not simply accept their soul-state and do not want to close and harden their hearts, but begin the struggle of the heart, can change and renew their soul-state and thus the whole course of their lives. They will receive another soul-state in which the life of the rose will be able to unfold completely. And the result will be that the Spirit, God himself, will be able to enter the heart sanctuary. And of them one will be able to say, with Hermes: The Spirit, O Tat, is of God’s very essence.

III

The Alteration of the Soul-State

When one enters the workshop of the heart, consciously yearning to adapt the soul-state to a higher plan, and for that purpose engages in the soul-struggle, one needs to be aware that such a soul-transformation, or soul-rebirth, is indeed possible, structurally and fundamentally. One also needs to understand the direction this development will need to take, and the power in which it will unfold.

The aim is to regenerate the entire microcosmic nature; to reattune it to its essence and original purpose, the unification with God, with the Spirit.So let us first consider what powers are or will become available to the candidate at the beginning of his work.

The first of these is reason, the rational doctrine, the rational message of salvation. Of course, if reason is to speak to you, some means of access must first be present. If that is not yet the case, then the words, ’Hearing, they are deaf’, will apply to you. The ability to understand a rational doctrine, a doctrine of the Gnosis, will only be present if there has been sufficient experience of the irrational, and one only gains that experience through suffering and sorrow, by shedding many tears, and by drinking deeply from the cup of bitterness. Only then will it be possible for reason to speak to you, and only then will it be possible to determine whether you yearn for liberation enough to be able to accept and follow reason.

Positive reason always requires a certain activity, an action, a way of life. There are many who do not understand this and only assimilate the tidings of reason with their intellect, believing that reason can be grasped by intellectual assimilation alone. What a mistake! The assimilation of reason also implies the adoption of an appropriate way of life, which may possibly be in total conflict with the existing soul-state. So the pupil who rationally accepts the message received must also accept, immediately, the struggle against any aspects of the soul-state which conflict with that rational message. The future will then reveal whether the rational message imparted will indeed emerge in a demonstrable and liberating way. If it does not, then either the message was a fallacy, or the person concerned has not yet descended into the work-place of the heart. That is why we speak of a rational-moral acceptance of the salvation of the Gnosis. The rational touch is the intellectual aspect, while moral acceptance concerns the adoption of an approach to life in keeping with the rational message.

So one needs to descend into the workshop of the heart in order to test out the rational message in actual practice. Those who make no attempt to bring a gnostic doctrine to reality have only accepted the rational message in a theoretical way. Then the flood-waters of distress will have to rise up to their necks once again, before a genuine, serious effort can be made, because receiving a rational message is not the same as understanding it, for that means applying it. Several draughts from the bitter cup of suffering are usually necessary before such lessons are learned.

People generally protest against suffering, and the world does everything possible to neutralise and alleviate it. But for most people, suffering is the only method of making the nature-born consciousness, which is governed and coloured by a wicked or undeveloped soul-state, realise that something is wrong. For the soul-state overshadows and controls the entire personality, the whole being.

Anyone who has gone through experience – and everyone does that in the nature of death – will begin seeking sooner or later. As soon as the seeking life begins, the person concerned ought to begin, in the heart, the struggle against the soul-state.The moment he does so, all kinds of voices will speak to him, reactions to all the radiations and influences which until that time played a role in the heart-sanctuary and are thus on the same level as the soul-state. Initially, all those voices urge the candidate to try out various social, political, ethical or nature-religious experiments, with which the world is full and which are intended to make him realise the ultimate pointlessness of all efforts on the dialectical level.

And so it will come about, whether after ten years or a thousand years, or even after a sidereal year, that a person becomes mature enough for his life to take a different direction. Then the moment dawns when gnostic reason begins to speak to him to a certain extent. It points in the only direction that can lead to a solution to all problems, the direction of the soul-state, the state of the heart. And into it the nature-bornconsciousness must now descend, as it were. Then one can no longer allow the soul-state and its development to remain an automatic process, but must assail the soul-state with the I-consciousness.

As a nature-bornbeing, you have such a powerful ego, don’ t you? You are so I-central, aren’t you? And you know so precisely what you want! You are very self-aware and, particularly if you are in the Spiritual School, you are likely to have a very strong personality. So, use the I, the ego, to attack your soul-state! You are capable of achieving so much with respect to ordinary things, aren’t you? So why not do so with respect to your pupilship, and use your I-consciousness to assail your own soul-state? Begin that remarkable struggle now, today, and from that moment onwards you will experience the results of it and your entire life will change. We are not saying it will become more tranquil and harmonious. No, it will become quite different. In what way, then? Well, the nature of the suffering, the nature of your sorrows, the nature of your difficulties in life will change. An entirely different cup of suffering will be put to your lips. And then it will no longer be the useless, stupid suffering in the monotonous course of things, but a sorrow caused by the I-consciousness itself, bornof its attack on the heart.

So we are concerned not with an attack on others – and how often you excel in such attacks – but an attack on your own self. And that entails much bitterness which, however, is extremely instructive and purifying. This sorrow may be much more intense, more painful than before but, as we said, it is purifying. And purification brings the pupil to the path of liberation, it conducts him into the liberation-process.