The Initiate and the Principles for Ascension – Qualities, Higher Capacities, and Faculties of an Initiate

While the idea of ascension to what we call “higher dimensions†(those of the Heavenly realm) is a term used quite loosely and somewhat frivolously in our new age society, it has been the goal and devoted life path of the Initiate since antiquity. This is the original idea around the priesthood of all Spiritual Sciences before it became corrupted and morally laid to ruins, and ultimately lost to the vulgar and profane. The reason the Magical Sciences reside in what we commonly think of as secrecy and mystery, is largely due to the fact that in their most fundamental form they’re incomprehensible and therefore unattainable to those who are not schooled properly, and even when discovered in what could be considered a comprehensible format, they’re often grossly misinterpreted, robbing them of any actual value, and therefore misused in the most basic sense.

Most Magical Sciences are written in symbolic terms (signs, symbols, pictures, and geometry) that require an in-depth working knowledge of several major scientific systems in order to be interpreted correctly. This provides a kind of fail-safe system for preventing the information from getting into the wrong hands, and customizes the knowledge to the individual discerning it, making it ideal for their growth and intended application. All knowledge of the Spiritual Sciences is a “living creative force†that exists in a primarily potential state, forever morphing and evolving, and like the laws that comprise it, is interpreted in a unique way each time it’s comprehended and utilized by an individual to create within their own life somehow. The only Absolute Truth in Spiritual Sciences is the Universal Laws themselves, which are steadfast and unchanging, and are creative in nature. This means that each time they’re interpreted by an individual they form a unique variation of the same basic idea, and each time they’re utilized and applied as the means of creating in the practical sense, they form a unique variation as a material manifestation.

The other aspect of this Sacred Knowledge that makes it largely unattainable by the profane is that it requires a “vessel†that’s of a well-developed mental, emotional, physical, and moral state. Knowledge, like all things, exists as a frequency that can only be “drawn inâ€, absorbed and synthesized by someone who vibrates at the same frequency. We can only truly “perceive†and therefore grasp and comprehend in everything else what’s of the same nature and pattern as we are in terms of our mental “paradigmâ€. Our paradigm is the energetic structure of our mind (electromagnetic energy field of information as coherent memory) that not only “informs us†and makes up our constitution, but is also the “lens we look through†in order to comprehend the outside world to be of the same nature as we are. In order to act as a recipient of higher knowledge we have to develop ourselves to be of a higher nature also, possessing the same qualities and traits, in order to act as an appropriate and equivalent vehicle for that “type†of consciousness to flow into, rise up in our imagination as our own thoughts, providing us with a template of a potential reality. As we embrace and begin developing that idea it gives us a pattern for creating as a means of self-expression that will evolve and grow our natural way of being.

The path of Initiation is not for the fainthearted or those looking for an easy way out or to somehow use it in terms of the archetype it represents as a way of embellishing their ego and enhancing a glorified self-image. Many think of it as a sort of romantic idea of valor, honor, and adventure into the unknown, which of course it is, yet the true reality of it is that you’re constantly being pushed past your perceived limitations and unconscious programming in every moment of your everyday life. It’s not an exercise program you do for 10 minutes, 3 times a day, and no one watches over you to make sure you do it and stay on task. It requires extreme forms of discipline in every area of your life in order to detach from all material forms of gratification, and create yourself as a neutral vehicle within the material realm that can’t be influence, affected, or altered by it.

We live in a society that’s bred and conditioned to be weak-willed, spoiled to mindless and impulsive addictions that offer the illusion of security and physical comfort as convenient pleasure of some kind that will medicate your problems, hopefully making them bearable, and the constant distraction of passive and meaningless entertainment that keeps us focused on things that don’t matter, where everything has to be delivered to us as “The 7 Easy Steps to . . . â€, where a kind of laundry list is given that sends the message “anyone can do this because it’s not hardâ€. Something that’s hard and requiring effort, self-sacrifice, or loss of some kind is to be avoided at all cost. You can’t “sell†hard, and there’s no money to be made if you can’t sell something to eager consumers who are looking to simply pass time by entertaining theory that allows them to contemplate and pretend while never actually engaging or doing.

We are conditioned to the idea of “easy solutions†to what amounts to a global crisis in consciousness when the reality is . . . it’ll be the hardest thing you ever do, and it will push you past every fear and limitation neatly secured and held in place by your comfort zone that you currently protect, defend and preserve passionately with the very nature of your thoughts, perceptions, and emotional tendencies. It’ll cause you to live your life on the edge of a precipice that resembles a bottomless pit, where you’re frantically clinging to security while being overwhelmed with a terrifying feeling you have no words to describe, taken back and somewhat stricken by an awkward and somewhat unexpected experience where you encounter parts of yourselves previously unknown that can overwhelm and consume you in the most ordinary moments of your everyday life. It changes your orientation from an outward focus and awareness to an inward one. Your awareness of the true nature of things takes on a heightened and pronounced sense that leads you into deeper worlds that previously existed only as a vague impression and alluring mystery that was unknown and unrealized. A magical world that once you tune into it and begin engaging by becoming one with it, like a lover, its intimacy magnetic and alluring, draws you forever into it with a sense of fascination, wonder and awe. You enter into a kind of magical current that flows along in an effortless manner where you lose all sense of yourself as being apart from it.

Once enthralled in the deep sense of inner-connectedness and intimate love, enveloped by an all-pervading sense of peace and inner calm, a kind of contentment pervades us and we vow complete and utter devotion to it. We form a bond that becomes our very source and substance, the inner-well that we draw on to nourish our soul and carry us through the most trying of moments. We are never again alone, never forsaken or abandoned; we form a partnership with a higher part of ourselves in order to redeem ourselves of the consequences we drawn upon us by incorrect perceptions, distorted thinking, bad decisions, and destructive deeds born out of ignorance, so we can clean up our mess and eventually go home. All of life is an arduous journey back to our origins as divine beings that are of a compassionate and loving nature, no longer vested in immoral illusions of worldly events and dramatic delusions being played out in a blind and uninhibited manner by those infected with the insanity of lust, greed, and power.  A realization of our true nature, detaching from the false illusion of our material identity, and resuming our place in the grand scheme of things as spiritual leaders of a universal sovereignty, which through mastery of the elements, work only in every situation for the benefit of all involved, pure and untainted by a personal agenda designed to meet a material need.

Understanding, Honoring, and Properly Utilizing the Power of Words

The first and most pervasive idea that needs to be fully embodied through a deep sense of realization as to its actual importance is the power of the spoken word. Words are spoken both inwardly as our very thoughts, and outwardly as our speech and acts as a form of invocation that stimulates and plants the seed of the thought in other people’s minds so that the reality they naturally invoke in the imagination become a form of joint creation. The saying “I think therefore I am†may be more accurately stated as “As I think I become the reality of my thoughtsâ€. We self-create by way of our own thinking by calling forth (forming a perception of) the reality of our thoughts that we then use to create an experience of ourselves in relationship to our own creation. The “word†is creative because it calls forth in the imagination the image, form, and reality as the meaning of the word. The reality we form in our mind’s eye becomes the perceptual lens as a filtering system we “look through†in order the reshape the outer reality to mean the same thing as a correlation to the inner reality.

All actions of what we call “spirit†is creative in nature, and creates through will as speaking the words that shape the internal image of the form inherent in the words that becomes the template as a lens for producing the material equivalent as a perception of it. Because of this feature, words, spoken first inwardly, then outwardly are a form of self-fulfilling prophecy. What we talk about and profess as being the nature of our reality, meaning our experience of things, is exercising our creative power to produce the experience of our thoughts in whatever set of circumstances and conditions we find ourselves in by the story we tell ourselves and others about them. Intelligence, in its most primary state, is revelation and prophecy. “Being†is the principle, speech is its means, and the expression, development, and perfection of Being is the end result. To speak and imagine is to literally create as a willful act. The secret of the “will†lies in the imagination.

Thought as spoken words, when shaped in the imagination, casts and projects the image or reality as the meaning of the words into the “astral light†of the material plane of substance. This is the “substance†as “light essence†that the mind organizes into forms in the imagination. Any form that’s organized repetitively in a systematic way due to strong emotions being associated with it (astral plane is governed by the forces of emotion), forms into a permanent archetype as a memory that attracts, absorbs, and emanates and electromagnetic field as the “etheric body†of the form. The etheric body is comprised of a phantom-like liquid light that forms a hologram of the image and has a “self-organizing mechanism†inherent in it that attracts the elements of its fulfillment (can be used to structure it) from the immediate environment, organizing them into a greater reality of the same meaning and likeness that will generate more of the same “feelings and emotions†that produced it. This is the self-perpetuating aspect of vibration that’s infinite.

All outer reality is produced by the same pattern as the internal one being played out on a greater scale and level of complexity that serves to generate experiences of the same meaning and nature. It’s the meaning inherent in all of our experiences that’s the “creative component†as a common denominator. All “meaning†is the “personal aspect†of experience as our creative ability in (re)shaping the outer world. Every event that multiple people partake in, will have a different meaning for each one, and will shape how they each “experience†the event as a result. Meaning creates on 3 levels simultaneously and forms the basis as the theme for all of our stories. The meaning we give something, means something about the way other people are, the way the world is in general, and about us in relationship with it (and the creator of it). Whatever we form in our imagination as a cohesive part of our ongoing story and “type†of reality we act to naturally give rise to through our mental model, we cast into the astral light, and literally “request†as a form of prayer (imagined thought), which provides the “attraction factor†for magnetizing us to more of the same type of realities that will give us more of the same type of feelings.

Once we gain a deep realization and firm understanding of the truth and power of our own thoughts and what we outwardly speak, we have the tools and means to begin taking full responsibility for our life and self-creation by becoming aware of our own internal dialogue and the story we’re always in the process of telling ourselves about things that create our experience of them. This has historically been achieved through extended periods of silence where you resisted the urge to speak habitually in a thoughtless and meaningless manner, and self-reflected instead on your own unconscious motives and tendencies. The majority of our thoughts and behaviors run in an automatic fashion and are produced in a completely unconscious manner making us thoughtless and reckless creators within our own life. They’re unconscious, not in the sense that we don’t know what we’re saying or doing, but in the sense that we have no idea of what we’re actually doing in terms of “creating by way of our thoughtsâ€. We mistakenly believe that our thoughts are describing our experience and what has happened to us in our life in an objective and factual manner, when in reality, they are the very means for how we’re producing those experiences through our perception and interpretation of them to form our story about them.

So one of the first principles that we have to master, is the ability to control and determine our own thoughts. We have to learn how to honor the power of words and begin thinking and speaking in a mindful and deliberate manner. We can learn to utilize the creative ability of thoughts that are imagined vividly coupled with intense emotions that make them very compelling, as the means of producing the reality of those thoughts. Through a form of intentional thinking and reasoning, we can create our experiences of reality as an interpretation that provides us with the memories that we use to shape ourselves in an intentional manner. By self-reflecting on our habitual thoughts we can become aware of what exists and has life within us as unconscious aspects of ourselves, and through the awareness and realization it brings, we can resolve them so they’re no longer active and creative in us.

Instinct – Passion and Prejudice

The lower plane of the material world consists of Astral Light which is a magnetic fluid that we experience as emotions and passions of various sorts, which are very compelling and grip us with a form of intensity that makes them hard to resist. This is the plane of “instinct†that governs the entire natural world through emotional reactions that produce impulsive and automatic behaviors without a thought-process being involved or required. Man, being both animal (body) and Divine (higher mind), is affected and deeply influenced by emotions, while simultaneously having the ability to think and perceive in a reasonable and rational manner. By utilizing the higher capacities of our mind we can willfully create in an intentional manner by taking hold of and directing our own thoughts and behavior.

Emotion, which is the language and motivating force of the material plane, is necessary in order to produce action of some sort. Thought as an idea in its potential (unformed) state, propagates from the higher plane of pure energy as invisible forces into the upper regions of the lower plane, casting its image into the light, impregnating it with the seed necessary to produce the “form of the idea†as an etheric shell that spirit as life-force can then inhabit in order to bring it to life. This life-force energy is the active force of the material plane experienced as sensation, arousal, and stimulation that produces emotional states of some sort that compel us into action as natural behaviors inherent in the emotions themselves. Whatever the emotion causes us to feel and imagine inwardly, whether pleasure or pain, expresses as the reality of the emotion by controlling our thoughts, and produces the outward correspondence of our imagined thoughts and serves to “give us†more of the same feeling.

If the reality is pleasurable and therefore desirable, it has a seductive quality that’s very luring and enticing, and causes us to think and imagine pleasurable experiences as the means of acquiring it. If the reality is painful, it invokes a deep sense of fear and defensiveness, which is equally gripping and serves to control the imagination to form the reality it implies as the experience of it. All emotional reactions whether good or bad in terms of why we’re reacting, are passionate in nature and act to control us in the most basic sense of governing and determining our thoughts and what we lend our will to through the mere act of entertaining them. To be “passionless†is equivalent to being emotionless, in the sense of not being controlled by emotional states or the emotions constantly being projected at us by others as a means of using their will to gain control of ours. When we’re expressing passions of some form, we’re literally being controlled by the emotional state of that passion. Whenever we “react†to something, we’re being influenced and controlled by it. That’s what a reaction is. We can only exercise “control over†what doesn’t “control usâ€.

If we’re constantly being controlled by emotional states of some sort, then we have no ability to maintain control over ourselves, and we are NOT an appropriate vessel for higher powers to operate through in a neutral and unbiased manner. Emotions distort and corrupt our thinking forming the basis of our perception of reality as a delusion of our own making, rather than as the perception of truth unmoved by animal instinct. When we reside largely in a reactive state produced by our emotions, we act without conscious and willful (deliberate) thought, and lend our will instead to whatever it is we’re reacting to. Any time we’re reacting we’re being controlled by the will of another or by an idea. All emotions are connected to our instinctual states and produce the illusion of the emotion as an imagined reality that’s used in place of the actual reality that acts to invoke automatic behavior in a knee-jerk and impulsive fashion.

As an Initiate, we can’t be enslaved by passions, worldly prejudices, and our own opinions. An Adept is a person who is fully self-created and achieved by active use of the will and the deeds that issue forth from will as the manifestation of will. Through this practice we employ our God-given ability to self-create by masterful use of our own mind to govern and direct the subconscious mind of the body which is always living out of memory of various sorts activated by the emotions associated with the memories that provide it with programs for producing automatic perceptions and behaviors that don’t require thought, active choice, or will to create in an intentional manner. We have to employ our higher creative capacities in order to become “God-like†and able to truly create within the material world rather than acting mindlessly to be created by it.

The Four Indispensable Conditions of the Magi

The main goal of the soul within the material world is to transcend it through willful acts of self-creation that ultimately master the Elements governing it. The soul is formed out of memory acquired through its own creative ability to manifest realities as a means of acquiring experiences of itself by way of its own creation. The Elements of the material plane, as we have already discussed, are primarily known as the natural forces that produce sensation, feelings, and emotions as an inner stimulus that causes the material reality inherent in that feeling as a seeded thought to rise up in the imagination where its shaped by astral light as a ghost-like substance into the reality of the feeling sensation that expresses it while simultaneously giving us more of the same feelings. The power of the Elemental world is to create experiences that become the basis for the souls “memoryâ€, which shapes it in terms of its constitution, character, and identity, determining its evolution to higher or lower forms of expression.

We can only master the material world through an in-depth knowledge of the natural forces that govern and operate within it, a sense of fearlessness produced through the knowledge obtained, the ability to willfully direct it using our own mind, and the faith as a form of patience necessary to allow the time necessary for manifestation. What’s referred to as the “devil†or the “evil forces†of the material plane is the magnetic fluid that influences us through passions, emotions, and desire of some form. All of which are an attempt to “lead us into temptation†by surrendering our will with the promise of worldly delights and sensuous pleasures and allow ourselves to be shaped and determined by instinctual forces of the animal kingdom. Whatever we become like in thought, feelings, and behaviors, we bond our soul to in terms of the equivalent frequency, level and quality of consciousness, and morality. If we allow ourselves to be driven and controlled by instinctual passions and tendencies, then we equate ourselves with animals and become “animal-like†in nature. We forfeit our ability to decide what we allow into us to take hold and rise up in us as our reality, and we become determined by primal forces that feed off of our will while condemning our soul to a mortal life.

To ascend to higher planes of consciousness, four conditions have to be created: intelligence that’s illuminated by constant study (expanding and growing our ability to comprehend higher truths); a fearlessness that nothing can check (we’re not controlled by fear); a cast iron will that can’t be broken or negotiated away (determination and perseverance); and a prudence (purity) which nothing can corrupt or intoxicate. In the world of the Magi, this is known as the credo which is stated as: To know, to dare, to will, and to keep silent. These are inscribed in the four symbolic forms of the sphinx traditionally represented by the man, eagle, lion, and the bull, and also by the four Elements of water, air, fire, and earth. Through devoted study of spiritual sciences we acquire knowledge of the three worlds which provide us with the tools and means necessary to transcend it by gaining control over it through the virtue of our mind. It’s always a question of who’s doing the controlling. Are we controlling ourselves, or are we being controlled by another or an outside force?

Self-Knowledge and Realization

Knowing one’s self is the center, foundation, and first step in the application of spiritual knowledge to self-create. True self-knowledge comes through the realization that in every moment of our lives we are the one solely responsible for creating ourselves by way of creating our experiences of the outer world. While we can’t control what happens to us (necessarily) we can absolutely control how we choose to perceive it, what we focus on, what we tell ourselves about it that makes it mean something, and how we behave or respond as a result. As long as we are blown from one shore to another and jerked around like a puppet on a string, always in the midst of an emotional reaction, a delusion that robs us of our dignity by way of insanity, cleaving desperately to the identity we achieve through the thoughts and opinions of others laid down before us to blindly accept as truth, we are changeable, and through the Principle of Supreme Reason, become mortal.

To cleave invariably to reason, making ourselves unchangeable by the material forces and the will of others, we become independent of the forces that make use of our own will to change us, and become self-determined instead. We learn how to suffer with dignity, make self-sacrifices that ultimately serve our higher good, to refrain from all temptation designed to lead astray, and to die to what’s no longer a part of us. These are the secrets which when mastered, place us well beyond the reach of affliction, desires of the flesh, and of the fear of annihilation that comes from buying into a mortal existence. We become the master of mindless brutes as the instinctual forces of nature, not by fighting against them or arguing to justify their existence, but by subduing and taming them, otherwise we become a victim to them and serve as their slave. The material world as we know it has been laid out before us as a battlefield where depression and inertia struggles with justice and freedom in opposition of the active force. We can only reign over what we have first conquered in ourselves. Only those who have conquered and resolved the love of pleasure can truly know the pleasure of love.

To know yourself is to remain centered within your truth in even the most challenging of moments. It’s to be able to stand in opposition of those trying to overcome you by introducing self-doubt in order to gain control of your will. We can always know the true nature of others and the events of our life by what they serve to activate within us in relation and response to them, and call forth as an interaction. To be fearless is to not be affected by the subliminal methods used by others to introduce fear as a means of gaining control of your will. The easiest way to subdue and coerce is through tactics that cause fearful thoughts, or cause us to doubt ourselves in some way. Those who are well-studied and developed through daily practices are able to sense the nature and intention of the motive forces being projected and utilized, and respond to them as they are rather than through the illusion they pose under. To sense the truth through knowledge of the laws governing all of reality, is true power.

To work through self-knowledge is to always be in control of yourself with a clear mind and the knowledge of truth in every situation. It’s to never give up control of yourself to another or external forces of some kind, and to never lend your will to someone else, allowing them to control and determine you. It’s to constantly maintain a sense of sovereignty over yourself.  Self-knowledge and self-creation is the foundation of truth and wisdom and forms the basis out of which everything else comes. As creative and willful beings, we are the sole creators of ourselves and our world. Our mental paradigm forms our perception of the world and what appears “real to usâ€. When we truly know ourselves and always operate out of that self-awareness, we are truly incapable of being influenced and “changed†by the others and the material world, and as a result we step back into our true identity as eternal and immortal beings.

Dr. Linda Gadbois