Mystic discourse 23

In the ceremony of reception into the Mystic Degree, the Master said to each of you, “I appoint and ordain thee Guardian Knight of the Most Holy Sepulcher of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” You were then symbolically standing on the threshold of life. Before you were the Pillars, symbolically representing those forces in life whose challenges it would be your duty to equilibrate. You were, therefore, at that time commissioned an agent of Omneity and accepted into the ranks of the Order of Moral Chivalry.

By such means, you were impressed with the fact that you were commissioned to a life of activity in a world of seeming contradiction and confusion. As the agent of Omneity, certain principles and facts are yours and with them you must work in the world and bring out of its seeming chaos your own individual pattern of harmony. Omneity directs each individual according to the law of his own being and, having found that law, he must follow it.

Mystic teaching makes plain the goal and explains thoroughly the conditions to be met in the course of daily living. The time necessary for such a goal to be individually accomplished is not for any school to say. That depends entirely upon the individual and
the effort he makes to put into practice what he has been taught.

Alchemically considered, this means that the candidate represents the body (salt) upon which the forces of soul (sulphur) and spirit (mercury) must work a transmutation. Or, in Kabbalistic terms, it presents the candidate with six days of activity in which he must earn his right to the seventh, the day of Sabbath, or rest. However one may choose to consider the symbolism displayed in this initiation, there is no denying the necessity of personally experiencing the impact of the forces in life which we term good and evil. The candidate’s aspirations call into play in his life various forces of opposition and discouragement or help and advancement. Only the militant and courageous can hope to gain the state of reward. It is an unrelenting struggle that calls forth all the strength and perseverance one possesses. Accepting the challenge and stoutly opposing the powers of darkness and selfishness, one attains the New Birth.

This process implies profound changes in both the inner life and the worldly circumstances of the Man of Desire. Such an experience has been called the mystic death; that is, death to the old world which one has known, with its negative phases, habits, and patterns of thought and action, and the acceptance of new attitudes of mind and heart which elevate and transfigure the personality of man. We cannot go forward esoterically and retain everything of the old life. Growth implies assimilation of new ideas and ideals and the reaching of a higher plane of thought and activity. There is nothing in this process of hasty and shallow conversion or temporary enthusiasm. Like all true, lasting growth, the process of regeneration is slow and gradual, with its periods of suffering, disappointment, frustration, and discouragement.

Nevertheless, in your sincere endeavors to equilibrate the opposing forces represented by our Pillars, there will gradually come a sensing of the divine principle at work, a peaceful expansion of the inner self, a sense of physical and spiritual well-being. There will come, too, the realization of the dying out of lesser attractions that before have held sway in the personality, and there will be a newer conception of health, happiness, and material progress. Perspectives will continually enlarge, and one will be able to meet the problems of living with the assurance of one who knows. In such a way, the well-being and progress of the collectivity will be furthered and the Man of Desire will find himself fulfilling his mission as an agent of Omneity.

As our European Master said in his spiritual charge, referred to in the first discourse of the Mystic Degree, “The reintegration of each cannot be finally accomplished apart from the reintegration of the collectivity of men.” The one inevitably follows upon the other.

The transfiguration of all depends upon the transfiguration of the one. Thus, as the Man of Desire progresses in his work of equilibrating the Pillars, he finds his consciousness
continually unfolding and his inner self awakening and asserting itself with increasing power. Subtle changes bring like effects in the habits, outlook, and activity of the outward man. He continues to shoulder his normal responsibilities, meeting them always with a greater sense of exactness. He finds certain errors which were part of his earlier life no longer tolerable. A definite change comes in his tastes and desires. Old associations loosen their hold, and he finds new contacts a source of joy and spiritual reflection.

A growing sense of detachment, a feeling of aloneness, does not surprise him. He knows this to be but the consequence of his venturing forth upon the great sea of mystical experience. It is the testing of his strength, showing him his life and present affections as they really are and as they will be. Perhaps this has been nowhere better stated or with more clarity than by Emanuel Swedenborg, who was, you may recall, the teacher of our Venerated Master, Pasquales. In his book, Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg wrote,

“There are those who believe that it is difficult to live the life which leads to heaven, which is called the spiritual life, because they have heard that one must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually. They take this to mean that they must cast away worldly things, which are especially riches and honors; that they must go continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. But those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a melancholy light, unreceptive of heavenly joy. To receive the life of heaven, a man must, by all means, live in the world and engage in its duties and affairs and by a moral and civil life receive the spiritual life.

“That it is not so difficult to live the life of heaven, as some believe, may be seen from this: When a matter presents itself to a man which he knows to be dishonest and unjust, but to which he inclines, it is only necessary for him to think that it ought not to be done because it is opposed to divine precepts. If a man accustoms himself to think so, and from so doing establishes a habit of so thinking, he is gradually conjoined to heaven. So far as he is conjoined to heaven, the higher regions of his mind are open; and so far as these are open, he sees whatever is dishonest and unjust; and so far as he sees these evils, they can be dispersed—for no evil can be dispersed until it is seen.”

When the added powers of the New Birth begin to make themselves felt in the personality of the Man of Desire, he considers more and more seriously the manner of his mystical participation in the world. He becomes a world server and alone decides the way in which his dedicated service will be given. He heeds the call to build a new world, a transfigured society of spiritually renewed individuals. And he bends every effort toward that end and proceeds in his own way, according to the guidance of Omneity, ameliorating the lot of men and showing them the way to a higher life. Indeed, this is the only way in which he can justify his acceptance into the ranks of the Order of Moral Chivalry and fulfill the requirements of his commission as a Guardian Knight of the Most Holy Sepulcher and an agent of Omneity.

Summary

• By his initiation into the Mystic Degree, the Man of Desire is commissioned as an agent of Omneity.
• In the phraseology of the alchemical philosophers, he presents his body (salt) in order that his soul (sulphur) and spirit (mercury) may work upon it a process of transmutation.
• The process called transmutation by the alchemists and salvation by the religionists, Martinists call regeneration.
• Regeneration is a gradual process of daily growth toward an accepted ideal. Saint-Martin wrote, “The transfiguration of man’s environment must proceed side by side with the transfiguration of man.” This, our European Master in his spiritual charge tells us, means that the reintegration of each cannot be finally accomplished apart from the reintegration of the collectivity of man.

Reference

A Brief History of the Martinist Order.

Mystic discourse 16

No theme is more common to every aspect of man’s activity than that of life—unless it be its counterpart, death. It has been dealt with realistically, philosophically, poetically. It has been made the underlying lesson of mystical teaching since earliest times. Birth, death, resurrection were the pivots of man’s first religious experience.

It is but natural, then, to expect that an opposition so fundamental as that of life and death should be common to the experience of all and that it should be represented by the pillars of opposition. Common as the theme is to all systems of mystic instruction, it is rarely set forth in its right relationship in Omneity’s pattern. It is often sentimentalized and distorted out of an undue deference to everyday viewpoints. In Martinism, however, life and death are presented as two facets, or aspects, fundamental to the expression of Omneity. One without the other would make impossible the rhythmic ebb and flow of the great dual law. In fact, it would negate it entirely.

It is true that we have been taught that life is good and death is evil; that one is to be sought after and the other avoided; that the coming of life is an occasion for joy and the coming of death a time of sorrow. It is also true that we have thought of birth as a beginning and of death as an end. All of these viewpoints, however, have arisen out of imperfect knowledge and fear—a knowledge that sees nothing of plan or order in the Life- Death process and a fear that nothing exists or can exist unless tangible to the material senses. So, we foolishly rejoice over one manifestation of Omneity’s pattern and, equally foolish, we weep over another; yet the same benevolence and wisdom show themselves in both.

Life and death, as evidences of the outbreathing into material form and of the inbreathing out of material form, are the positive and negative appearances of the same divine force.

With this pair of opposites, more than with any other, the Man of Desire finds it hardest to deal, for the attachments are greater and the demands made upon his confidence in Omneity are sharper and more insistent.

One can only seek to comprehend the complete operation of the law in order to free himself from sentimentality and yet retain his sympathy for the ignorant rejoicing and suffering of the profane.

Most Men of Desire are familiar with the Christian parable wherein the Master Jesus restored the widow’s son to life. Not so many are acquainted with the equally thoughtful parable to be found in Buddhist writings. In many ways, Martinists will acknowledge in it a teaching more profound and generally helpful than that usually obtained from orthodox
Christian instruction.

In the Buddhist story, a young mother, Kisagotami, lost an infant son. She went from door to door with the dead infant in her arms, asking for medicine to restore it. At last, she came to the one called the Buddha, the Enlightened One.
“Do you know of medicine good for my boy?” she asked.
“I know of some,” said the teacher. “Bring me a handful of mustard seed.”
“I shall bring it,” said the mother.
“But,” continued the teacher, “let it be taken from a house wherein no husband, father, son, or slave has died.”
The young woman went quickly in search of the mustard seed, still carrying her dead child. Everywhere, people offered her the seed; but when she asked whether any father, son, husband, or slave had died there, all were astounded. “What is that you are asking?” they asked. “The living are the few; the dead are the many.” In every house, she found someone had died. One said, “My parents are dead”; another said, “I have lost a son”; and a third said, “My servant is dead.” No single house had escaped. Thus, Kisagotami learned that “the law of death is” and that “among all living creatures, there is no permanence.”

Watching the lights in the houses and reflecting that they burned now but were later extinguished, Kisagotami heard in her heart the words of the Buddha: All living beings resemble the flame of the lamps. One moment, they are lighted; the next, they are extinguished. Only those who have arrived at Nirvana are at rest.

If, as we are told, the wise man sees no occasion for grief at the hour of death because through it one comes again to his original estate, it is equally certain that he sees in birth but a temporary season of instruction and testing under the guidance of Omneity. The perplexities of one’s birth lead one in maturity to question the meaning and purpose of life. Such questioning prompts a serious consideration of death. We are reminded in the Associate Degree that in the ordinary state of health the three vital parts of man—the ame, the plastic envelope, and the physical body—are closely joined. The illustration used was that of a balloon and its basket being joined by a connecting link or hook. The balloon itself represented the ame; the basket, the material body; and the connecting hook, the plastic envelope. It might be said that no sooner are the three joined by birth than the vicissitudes of human experience bear down upon them to shake them apart. One clings to life because it is the means of furthering the growth of the soul personality. Because its prospects seem too final, one makes every effort to postpone death. Yet both life and death are a part of Omneity’s rhythm, and the value of one must not be set higher than that of the other.

Summary

• The theme of Life-Death is common to everyone’s experience.
• Birth has been considered a time of rejoicing and death a time of sorrow because man’s limited view has prevented his acceptance of them as aspects of the same law.
• The Buddhist parable of Kisagotami and her dead child sets forth the fact that life and death are inseparable.
• The Master may allow a brief discussion of the contrasting viewpoints contained in the Buddhist parable and the Christian one of the Master Jesus’ restoration to life of the widow’s son (Luke 7:11-15).

Reference

A Brief History of the Martinist Order.

Mystic discourse 10

It is possible to summarize the “Treatise On The Reintegration of Beings” of our Venerated Master, Martinez Pasquales, by saying that it concerns the Fall of Man and the way of his reconciliation. In neither of these two departments can it be said to be a complete statement; but it holds a real value, nevertheless, for it points the way back to essential truths at a time when man’s need for spiritual grounding is especially great.

Coupled with the rites and practices devised by Martinez, it fulfilled the requirements and opened a way whereby Men of Desire could work toward reintegration harmoniously in company with each other. However little the profane world may wish to honour Martinez Pasquales as a spiritual teacher and pioneer, Martinists are proud to acknowledge him as a Venerated Master, just as did those who came under his personal instruction. He exacted no blind adherence and arrogated to himself no unwarranted sagacity. He taught as it was given him to teach, following the Light as he saw it. We can better his instruction only by penetrating further into the source of Light and by entering more completely into the way he opened up.

A few of his precepts on Reintegration were:

“In the End, all will come back to the Beginning.”

“The universal Creation will be reintegrated in its principle of emanation.”

“Matter in general will eclipse itself completely at the End of Time, disappearing entirely from the presence of men, as a painting disappears from the imagination of a painter.”

“The same divine faculty that has produced everything will recall everything to itself; and just as all kinds of form have manifested, so will they dissipate and reintegrate in the first center of emanation.”

These thoughts of our Venerated Master might be called the instruction, or doctrine, of final things, usually spoken of as eschatology. Let us, then, conclude our present review of his instruction with a consideration of both the reintegration of man and the nature of the physical world at the end of time.

We must not forget that the purpose of what we call the Great Work of our Order is the spiritualization of humanity, individually and collectively, and the re-establishment of the divinity of mankind. Our thoughts continually find their centre in Omneity and our concern is that man’s return to It may be speedily accomplished. Throughout time, mysticism has expressed man’s unquenchable desire for identification with Omneity. That desire is being realized through our Martinist activity, for here we are learning through personal experience to know the power, reality, and love of the Divine. It must be clear that when we speak of the end of time and final things, we mean that time when the whole of humanity will have been perfected, when all will have found their way back to the throne of Omneity. Such a process cannot be thought of as being possible of accomplishment in time as it is ordinarily conceived. No date can be marked on a calendar as the day when the law of reintegration will have been worked out. We know only that certain results must be achieved in order that such a state can be reached. Omneity created the world in which space and time exist for a purpose, a part of that purpose being that humanity should have an environment where certain lessons might be learned and a type of punishment and spiritual privation suffered.

Through the long process of the evolution of selfhood, of the soul personality, mankind is learning these lessons and is drawing ever nearer to its First Spiritual Principle. Because such lessons cannot be learned in one lifetime and because universal justice and equity must be manifest, men are reborn into successive earthly lives, preserving the identity of their spiritual beings so the wisdom of one life may be added to the experiences of preceding ones. Ultimately, through this process of learning and experiencing, all humanity will have attained mastership over the conditions and environment of this Earth, this material dwelling place. When this has been accomplished/ the purpose cf the material world will have been served. We can readily and logically conceive that at a future time the Creator will indraw to Himself the creation which He manifested eons ago.

“In the End,” as Pasquales says, “all will come back to the Beginning.” It is not given to man to know the ways of Omneity. They are inscrutable to him. However much he questions, he finds himself without the complete answers, “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8) Man ceases, then, to importune Omneity and turns to consider what he can comprehend— the fact that even the first perverse spiritual beings were not forever removed from Omneity’s loving care even though separated from It by their own willfulness. Adam, the MAN-GOD, could not by his wrong action put himself entirely out of reach of his Creator. With every attempt to usurp the prerogatives of Omneity’s law, man found that law reaching out to find him so that he might know even in exile that the way of his return was at hand whenever he was ready to follow it.

Spiritual instruments were ever at hand, sent by Omneity to comfort man in his distress and to aid him whenever he besought them to. These Agents of Light have been in every land among all peoples and have been known by many names. They are the Repairers and Restorers of mankind. These beings, who represent Omneity and work to bring man back to his first estate, have been called saviours by the world. In the Christian tradition, the reconciliation of man is promised through Jesus the Christ, who has been called the Son of God.

In truth, these spiritual Beings are not personalities in any historical sense. Rather, they are principles, or powers, which manifest to the world as men. In each of us, there exists the same potentiality. When we have accomplished our return to the centre of Omneity, the same Light will shine through us.

In our oratories and Conventicles, we invoke the name Ieschouah (Ye-hesh-shoe-wha) as the Repairer, the Restorer, or Reconciler. By doing so, we have in mind no historical personage but rather the transcendent principle of Light to which we have given a name.

This name, coupled with the following steps, will see us far along the path of reintegration. These steps are a daily discipline of the bodily being so that the higher purposes and needs of the soul personality may be kept in view. A regular meditation for this purpose should be held so that the consciousness of Omneity may at all times be present in us.

A Suggested Weekly Application
At least once during the coming week devote the time in your Oratory to the following
special practice of attunement: When you have attained a calm and quiet frame of mind, read a few passages from the Gospel of St. John in the New Testament. Then put the book aside, close your eyes, and let your mind dwell on the nature, beauty, and power which characterize the Being, whom we have called the Repairer, Restorer, Reconciler. Invoke that power in your own behalf by softly pronouncing the name Ieschouah eight times. Afterward, remain absolutely quiet in order that you may sense completely your impressions. Such exercises of attunement cannot fail to bring rich spiritual results.

Summary

• The purpose of what we call the Great Work of our Order is the spiritualization of humanity, individually and collectively, and the re- establishment of the divinity of mankind.
• Mysticism has ever been the expression of man’s unquenchable desire for identification with Omneity. In our Martinist activity, we are learning through personal experience the power, reality, and love of the Divine.
• It is not given to man to know the ways of Omneity. They are inscrutable to him. However, spiritual instruments, Agents of Light, or saviors, are ever at hand to help him.
• Martinists invoke by the name Ieschouah (Ye-hesh-shoe-wha) the transcendent principle of Light, which men have ever personalized and to which the names Repairer, Restorer, Reconciler have been given.

Associate discourse 9

In the preceding discourse, we were given certain teachings of the Martinist Order concerning free will. It was this high faculty which caused man’s descent from his first estate. Being then higher than the angels, he existed in a veritable paradise of delight, was endowed with many faculties, and was a potent Being. He ruled such intermediary agents of creation as Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. He was high in the current of emanations of Omneity. Intermediary agents of creation were known to the ancient Egyptians, Kabbalists, Gnostics, and early Christians. A Hierarchy of such terrestrial and heavenly Beings has been said to exist from the very highest spiritual plane to the lowest state of matter. In general, man has lost the possibility of ruling or even communicating with these great spiritual Beings of the ultra-mundane sphere. However, by turning his spiritual eyes upward in preparation for his return to his original home, he will greatly revive within himself his power over and communication with such Beings.

Contrary to the general belief, man did not come into this world as a result of weakness. Rather, his coming was a self-assertive step, the result of strength. Man came into this world to fulfil the purpose of evolution, not only to increase his strength through growth but also to assist in raising the status of all material things. No origin of spiritual life surpasses that of man, for there is no older Being in nature. The origin of man is God, but the origin of the human race on the earth is man’s coming down into matter. Naturally, man has lost and sacrificed much. This we can readily see, for the corporeal life of man is in most cases a privation and a struggle.

During periods of aspiration, man recalls faintly his higher estate. This longing, or yearning, this indefinite remembrance of a fuller, more ideal existence, un-consciously drives him ever onward in the search for happiness. Man now lives in the darkness and comprehends it not. His real element of life is light. The corporeal, physical body is subject to a most humiliating end; but man possesses an immaterial body that is glorious and perfect, through which he may enjoy all the rights of immortality. Where else could there be an estate or condition which possesses all of the perfections, the opposite of which man now endures, if not in the infinite knowledge and presence of Omneity? Man’s limitations are due to nothing more than his separation from Omneity, or the Supreme Principle of Good, which is the true light and only support of all creation.

The formation of matter by the condensation of finer spiritual forms into the dense physical state can be illustrated by a pyramid, whose apex represents the unitary sense of all and whose base represents the earthly stage of final condensation. This pyramid illustrates the ancient theory of emanation of matter from the unitary source of all. Man regards himself as no longer the same Being he was at one time. He knows his limitations and his responsibilities, and he is striving to know his destiny. This destiny is that, as a result of his struggles in the material world, man may through his own efforts regain his early and original status and also rise to a higher state than he has heretofore enjoyed. The realization of his destiny, as well as the search for his many incomparable faculties, has caused him to be busy since first arriving upon this earth.

His ascent back to the realm of Omneity necessitates that he approach the various emanations from below. Therefore, he must develop certain powers in this ascent that are different from those of his descent. In threading his way back to his original state through the “Forest of Errors”, mankind is given many helps and aids, the proportion and degree depending on his own work and effort. As he strives to understand the Absolute and to bring about a reintegration within himself, so will he be assisted by Beings on this earth as well as by invisible ones.

Martinists hold that man is made up of three principles:

• the ame (pronounced as though spelled “ahm”)
• the fluid envelope, and
• the corporeal body.

The word ame is used because its meaning in French cannot be easily approximated by any English word. It may be said to represent the spiritual properties of man, or the principle of life. In reality, it is the component part of man which is immortal.

The plastic middle or fluid envelope serves as a connecting link between the ame and the corruptible, or physical, body. It also gives rise to those activities of man which we attribute to the emotions. Mystics of all ages have been aware that there is another general division of man’s body, which possesses a vital and responsive quality. You may call this intermediary body the fluid envelope, or the astral body, as you wish. It is sufficiently spiritual in make-up to be influenced by spirit, yet it is physical enough in nature to influence the physical body.

No one can question that man receives assistance from his constitution. He is so constructed as to be protected and safeguarded against the dangers that surround him. This protection is in the nature of a corruptible envelope, or corporeal body, which gives him a vehicle for undergoing certain experiences and a channel for his senses to bring him knowledge. Thus, by the promptness and rightness of his reason and the quickness of his senses, man can prevent himself from falling into lamentable errors on his return to his ideal state of existence. His connecting relationship between spirit and nature can be illustrated by drawing two slightly overlapping equilateral triangles. The triangle with its point down represents the spiritual properties of man. The triangle with its point up represents the mundane, or physical, side of man’s nature. Where the points of the two triangles overlap is the fluid envelope, as denoted in the Martinist teachings. Therefore, man retains the ame, the superior possession of which he was fully aware in his early estate even while subjected to a corporeal, sensual body. He is at the same time large and small, mortal and immortal, physical and spiritual; possessed of potential freedom but bound to the physical world as a result of his will. In other words, man is composed primarily of two natures opposed to each other. They meet and are somewhat blended in what we Martinists know as the fluid envelope. By understanding his fundamental construction, man can direct his will constructively toward reintegration and regeneration.

Summary

• At one time, man occupied a glorious and ideal spiritual state.
• The so-called fall was a self-assertive action of man. Through existence in a physical world, man has lost certain of his powers, privileges, and rights.
• Man’s main objective is his search for the spiritual world from which he came and the return to those original rights and privileges which he enjoyed in his first spiritual status.
• Man has been equipped with certain instruments, or bodies, with which he can overcome the world and return to the ideal existence from which he came.
• The spiritual part, or ame, of man is connected with and can function through the physical body by the instrumentation of a third, or middle, body known as the fluid envelope.

Reference

A Brief History of the Martinist Order.

Lectio Divina Meditation

Lectio Divina (pronounced “Lec-tsee-oh Di-vee-nah”) means “Divine Reading” and is an ancient method of Scripture reading practiced by monastics since the beginning of the Church.

It was in the 11th c. that the practice of Lectio Divina became formalised. The method was formalised as:

• lectio (reading): “looking on Holy Scripture with all one’s will and wit”
• meditatio (meditation): “a studious insearching with the mind to know what was before concealed through desiring proper skill”
• oratio (prayer): “a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid what is evil”
• contemplatio (contemplation): “the lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness and savour”

Katallasso – Reconciliation

The Greek verb katallasso basically means to change or exchange. It was often used as a monetary term referring to changing or exchanging money, but in general it referred to exchanging one thing for another. A common use of katallasso was in reference to changing someone from an enemy into a friend, that is, bringing together or reconciling two people or parties that are at odds with each other. This is how katallasso is used all six times in the NT, as is also the case for all four uses of the related noun katallage (meaning reconciliation; see 2Co 5:18-19; Rm 5:11; 11:15). These two words are found only in Paul’s writings. In 1Co 7:11, Paul used katallasso to describe the reconciliation of husband and wife. Paul’s other five uses of the term explain that unbelievers can be reconciled to God through Christ. Because of sin, unbelievers are God’s enemies (Rm 5:10), but they can be reconciled to God through faith in Christ (2Co 5:18-19).

“Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them,and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

What Christ did, God did. Christ’s death mainly affected the world, that is, human sinners rather than evil supernatural beings, for whom no divine provision for reconciliation has been made.

Reference

HCSB Study Bible

Martinez Pasquales’s “Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings”: The Fall

The doctrines of Martinez Pasquales were essentially Kabbalistic and the Kabbalah formed the framework on which he based his rituals and expositions. Pasquales was a man of mystery, saying little about his own teachers or the mystic schools in which he had been instructed. His manuscript, called a “Treatise On the Reintegration of Beings” makes plain, however, that he was fulfilling a mission and that his sources of Light were traditionally correct in spite of his failure to make his theme altogether plain as a system of philosophy.

Since there were several copies of his work in manuscript, all somewhat different in style and phrasing, it is possible that he taught verbally and depended upon his disciples to record his teachings. It is equally possible that he improved his instruction from time to time.
His instruction, appropriately and significantly, began with God, the everlasting Creator of all that is.

The Treatise says that God is absolute in power and knowledge. God’s understanding surpasses that of any created mortal being; therefore, God is, in a sense, inscrutable and unknowable to us.
Let us think for a moment in terms of the BEGINNING. God, as the Creator, existed before any created thing, before the world of nature —man, or plant, or animal. God’s thought and power encompassed every possibility. God existed without limitation, want, hindrance, or insufficiency. In the divine Immensity, in the bosom of the Creator, existed the potentiality of an infinitude of beings, as well as endless
types of creations. For reasons knowable only to God, God emanated a class, or group, of spiritual beings. These were the first created beings. At the time of their emanation, they received laws of order and purpose appropriate to their natures and a free will. The crime of these first spiritual beings was that they turned their wills against God: They willed to change the order and purpose of their beings and even desired to challenge the powers of the Creator by creating other beings themselves—a thing absolutely forbidden to them. God, noting their crime and misuse of will, punished them by absenting Himself from them and by thrusting them into the prison house of the material world. The material world was emanated at this time for the express purpose of punishing these beings and teaching them humility, obedience, and harmonious cooperation.

Humanity was emanated as a second class, or group, of spiritual beings known as MAN-GODS, who were to be rulers of nature, the material creation, and the first perverse beings.

In the words of Pasquales:
“God would not be the Father and the Master of all things if he had not within himself an inexhaustible source of beings that he emanated at will through his pure desire. It is by this infinite multitude of emanations of spiritual beings without himself that he holds the name of CREATOR. His works form the divine creation—spiritual, temporal, and animal.”

Following his emanation, Adam (collective Man, known in the Kaballah as Adam Kadmon) enjoyed enormous powers and privileges. He had free access to the centre of the universe, to the divine thoughts, and his being was clothed in a spiritual form of glory—not subject to the ravages of time or the limitations of space.

One of the duties of Adam was to rule the first perverse beings and see that their proper and necessary lesson was learned. However, the chief, or prince, of these beings enticed Adam (collective Man), suggesting that he, too, challenge the immutable and absolute power of the Creator. Filled with pride and wilfulness, Adam succumbed to these blandishments and temptations, and attempted spiritual operations beyond his ordained powers. He set his will against the immutable Will and decrees of God, and thus sinned.

As a result of this weakness, this inability to resist temptation, this misuse of his free will, Adam fell. His FALL meant that he no longer dwelt in the centre of divine thoughts, in a body of spiritual form, clothed in glory. He was forced to exchange his glorious form for a material body, subject to the action of time and space. Furthermore, he lost his enormous powers as MAN-GOD of nature and created beings. He had to live in spiritual darkness, privation, pain, sorrow, and misery.

In the view of our Venerated Master, then, there were two Falls: The first, by which the perverse beings found themselves separated from God because of their attempted assumption of His powers of creation; the second, when Adarn, the MAN-GOD, was himself deceived by the perverse beings over whom he was placed as a guard.

The long story of mankind (the Adamic history) has been a ceaseless struggle to overcome the limitations and sufferings imposed by the FALL, to obtain reconciliation with the Creator, to recover the lost status as MAN-GOD, the favoured and intimate one of the Eternal Power. From this sad condition stems the power of the word Reintegration. The hopes and longings of the race are embodied in it. No one can ever find permanent rest and felicity until humanity, the collectivity of mankind, has regained completely the divine favour and obtained oneness, absorption, reintegration with the Creator of All, God.

The Fall of Man, properly conceived and broadly interpreted, is a fact. The traditional history of many peoples refers to a time when men lived in greater spiritual glory and closer attunement with God. This tradition is older than histories, legends of the Flood, and the existence of lost and mighty civilizations. Perhaps, too, our conceptions of sin are derived from faint recollections of our collective “original sin,” that of turning our wills from the will of the Creator, conspiring to ignore His laws, setting our wills against His commands and precepts.

After the Fall, collective man undoubtedly was in a miserable condition. Considering the misery, lust, and greed of a large proportion of humanity after many epochs of supposed evolution, the sense of man’s privation and darkness immediately after the Fall seems real and appalling. It must have been like abruptly leaving an intensely lighted room and plunging into a black and impenetrable abyss that was devoid of light and all other sense perceptions.

Especially tormenting must have been the faint memories of privileges enjoyed in the former high estate—the freedom of manifesting in a spiritual body, unencumbered by the wants and demands of the flesh; the ineffable peace and joy of participating intimately in divine thoughts, of basking, as it were, in the effulgence of God’s love and goodness. All of this, exchanged for a miserable, limiting physical body, which constantly warred against the inclinations of the subtler self within and imposed chains upon the freedom of the soul personality! It is small wonder that the body came to be known as the prison house of this world, the abode of the devil, a demon whose design was to work eternally for man’s destruction and obliteration.

In reconciling the above thoughts with the concept of evolution, it is evident that some progress has been made by collective man since the Fall. Many have evolved, perfected, and released their soul personalities to a considerable extent. Higher types of men and women do exist today. We are evolving upward—forward and onward—to the goal, the only worthwhile and enduring goal, that of reconciliation and reintegration with our First Spiritual Principle.

As has been stressed before, the punishment of man, following the misuse of his will, was the exchange of his glorious, spiritual, non- material form for the physical body which he inhabits during the present period of privation. Note that the anguish of privation, of man’s exile from the Creator, centers about the material body. What is wracked by pain and suffering, enfeebled and twisted by disease, tormented by insensate lusts and passions, anguished by worldly appetites which disconcert the soul personality? Obviously, the body. Therefore, the dominance of the material body over the soul personality must be overcome. A mistaken understanding of this has led many to the path of asceticism, which for us is a false and unprofitable one. In mastering the body, its harmonious functioning and possibilities as a vehicle for good should neither be weakened nor destroyed but rather subjected to the spiritual needs and aspirations of the soul personality within.

The ascent of the Middle Path

The ascent of the famed Middle Path embraces the traditional Eightfold Way of Purity, which Martinism interprets as follows:

• Pure Belief: I rest all my belief upon the One Reality of God. Omneity is the capstone of the symbolic pyramid of the universe: All things, including myself, have their origin and being in Him.

• Pure Will: I seek constantly to identify my will with the Divine that I may undo man’s first error and make certain of my own reintegration.

• Pure Word: I order the words of my mouth that they may be acceptable in Thy presence, O Lord God of all Creation. If it be Thy will, I may one day speak Thy Sacred and Incommunicable Name!

• Pure Behavior: I strive that the actions of my life may conform to the words of my mouth and heart so that charity, mercy, kindness, and forgiveness may abide in my dwelling and may go forth with me into affairs of the day.

• Pure Means of Living: I do not defile my spiritual temple by doubtful morality. Pure and honest in heart, I aspire to treat others as I would have them treat me.

• Pure Application: I apply myself with unceasing zeal to the higher truths of life. I dwell heart and soul upon the sublime tradition of the Ancient Wisdom.

• Pure Memory: Although life comes to me in all its phases, I permit only the loving, constructive, and divine to echo through the vault of memory.

• Pure Meditation: Never a day passes but I pause to contemplate and adore the inimitable perfections of God’s living universe. Meditation upon the love and wisdom of God are ever among the chief joys of my life.

You’re beautiful

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You’re beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who you are
You’re beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful

I see Your face, I see Your face, I see Your face
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

Music

Too little is known even now of the mystical stimulus evoked by chants, mantras, and vowel sounds, and of the effect which such things have on the different parts of the body.
When musicians become mystics or when mystics turn to music to express themselves, the whole moral and ethical tone of their life is elevated. A definite purification takes place within the plastic envelope and man’s reintegration and regeneration are thereby advanced. It is through music that man can be most quickly attuned to the realm of the Archetypes.

The Solfeggio frequencies are from an ancient musical scale used in ancient music, chants and ceremonies. The Solfeggio tones were believed to enable spiritual blessings, healing and transformation when played or sung in harmony.

Each note of the ancient Solfeggio scale has a different tuning from the conventional musical scale, these tones provide a new stimulus to the mind and physical system.

396 Hz – Releasing emotional patterns.

417 Hz – Breaking up crystallized emotional patterns.

528 Hz – Love frequency “DNA integrity and repair”.

639 Hz – Whole brain quadrant interconnectedness. Connecting Relationships.

741 Hz – Intuitive states & non-linear knowing. Awakening Intuition.

852 Hz – Pure love: unconditional love and returning to Spiritual Order.

Numerically, all of these numbers reduce to 3, 6, or 9. (For example, 5+2+8=15 and 1+5=6). This is a part of the “code”.