The world behind the tapestry of sense-perceptions. Ecstasy and
mystical experience. Waking and sleeping. The stream of forgetfulness.
Man's life alternates between Macrocosm and Microcosm. The condition
of expansion over the Macrocosm in ecstasy. Experiences of the mystic
in the inner life.
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The planets and their connection with sleeping and waking life. The
different forces and influences to which the human soul is exposed
during sleep. Dreamless sleep, dream-life, somnambulism. The planetary
system as a cosmic clock. Consciousness-Soul, Mind-Soul, Sentient
Soul.
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The inner path followed by the mystic. Experience of the cycle of the
year. The sentient body as a boundary between inner and outer
experience. It screens from everyday consciousness what would
otherwise produce a burning sense of shame. The Lesser Guardian of the
Threshold. The cycle of Nature. The Northern Mysteries. The sun at
midnight. The ability to see through matter. The Greater Guardian of
the Threshold.
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Faculties of the human soul and their development. The regions beyond
the two frontiers within which manes normal consciousness is enclosed.
Passing the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold through conscious
attention on waking. Experience of the three main forces of the soul
as an incoming stream from the Macrocosm. Feelings of gratitude and
obligation towards the Macrocosm. Cosmic Thinking, cosmic Feeling,
cosmic Will. Cosmic forces must be replenished by the efforts of men
to reach the higher worlds. The outcome of sins of omission. The
mystic vow.
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Egyptian Mysteries of Osiris and Isis. Experiences of the candidates
in the process of Initiation. Preparation of inherited
characteristics. The Upper and the Lower man.
Moving backward in the etheric body to the frontier of the mineral
kingdom. The descent into the physical body. The priest of Hermes as
Guru. The Rosicrucian path. Mystics of the Middle Ages.
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Experiences of Initiation in the Northern Mysteries. Suppression of
the Ego, a necessity. Danger of loss of the Ego in the state of
ecstasy. Methods for strengthening the Ego during Initiation in the
Northern Mysteries. Experiences connected with the seasons of the
year. Helpers in the process of Initiation. Conscious ascent into the
Macrocosm. Passage through the higher worlds: Elementary World, World
of Spirit, World of Reason, World of Archetypal Images. (See note on
different terminology at end of final lecture)
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The four spheres of the higher worlds. The process of union with the
Elementary World, to which the four temperaments belong. Adaptation to
the World of Spirit after balancing the temperaments. At the threshold
of the World of Spirit the objective perception of one's own
imperfection as an image composed of all the Elements. Passing the
Greater Guardian of the Threshold and the vow to acquire
self-knowledge and self-perfection. Intercourse with spiritual Beings
in the World of Reason. Forces for developing clairvoyant
consciousness in the World of Archetypal Images.
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Mirror-images of the Macrocosm in man. Sense-impressions arise by a
portion of the Elementary World being held back. The nervous system as
an inner solar system. Reflection of the formative forces of the three
higher worlds in the nervous system, brain and spinal cord.
Imaginative perception produces the reflecting apparatus for the World
of Archetypal Images in the spiritual organs of perception. The image
of the purified blood and the conquest of the lower nature in the
symbol of the Rose-Cross. The staff of Mercury. The lotus
flowers: higher organs of perception. The Rosicrucian path is
the one best suited to man's present stage of development.
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Spiritual organs of perception and the strengthening powers of sleep.
Formulae and symbols. The thinking of the heart. Three stages
of the faculty of judgment. Preparation for experience of the higher
worlds. The Ego to be viewed from twelve different vantage-points.
Surrender of personal opinions. Experiences in the higher worlds must
be translated into clearly formulated thoughts.
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Transformations of soul-forces and stages in the evolution of physical
organs. Reading in the Akasha Chronicle. Transition from intellectual
thinking to the thinking (or logic) of the heart. Three stages of
development. Transformation of memory into another mode of
soul-activity, not in Time but in Space. The relative ages of heart
and brain. Circulation of the blood: a symbol of the mobility of the
consciousness of the spiritual investigator. Four dimensional space.
Transformations of the heart organ as symbol of the three successive
phases of the evolution of man and of the world. Transformation of the
Microcosm and also of the Macrocosm. Intellectual questions have no
meaning when applied to states before intellect itself existed.
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Man and planetary evolution. Spiritual knowledge and the powers of
response to truth slumbering in the heart. Adaptation to the various
states of the Earth's existence. The physical is born out of the
spiritual. Transformations of organs from earlier into new forms: for
example, the Earth-heart as the outcome of the Old Moon-heart.
Formation of an organ as a germinal organ for the future; for example,
the larynx, through which we are part of a spiritual order into which
we must grow with our own individuality. The spirit was breathed into
us through the larynx. Breathing as used in speech and song must
co-operate in the development of Spirit-Man (Atma). Direct influence
on the breathing process should be practised only when knowledge
becomes prayer.
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