(24) The soul of the deceased is supposed to be in the chamber, and to worship the rising and the setting sun

(41) And now after that the Stars and Elements (as is mentioned before) have got their Region and the House to dwell in, then begins the mighty Strife in great Anxiety about the King of the Life. For the Chamber of the Building (or Fabrick] stands in very great Anguish, and [here] we must consider the Original of the Essence of all Essences, the eternal Birth and the Root of all Things; as that there is in the House of the Anguish, first one only Essence [or Being,] and that Essence is the Mixing of all P Essences, and it has first a Will to generate the Light, and that Will is attractive, [astringent or sour.] Or Hell, A Dwelling for the Senses and Thoughts,

(16) The three degrees of the ancient Mysteries were, with few exceptions, given in chambers which represented the three great centers of the human and Universal bodies. If possible, the temple itself was constructed in the form of the human body. The candidate entered between the feet and received the highest degree in the point corresponding to the brain. Thus the first degree was the material mystery and its symbol was the generative system; it raised the candidate through the various degrees of concrete thought. The second degree was given in the chamber corresponding to the heart, but represented the middle power which was the mental link. Here the candidate was initiated into the mysteries of abstract thought and lifted as high as the mind was capable of penetrating. He then passed into the third chamber, which, analogous to the brain, occupied the highest position in the temple but, analogous to the heart, was of the greatest dignity. In the brain chamber the heart mystery was given. Here the initiate for the first time truly comprehended the meaning of those immortal words: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." As there are seven hearts in the brain so there are seven brains in the heart, but this is a matter of superphysics of which little can be said at the present time.

(11) The Plane of Elemental Consciousness, like all the great Planes of Consciousness, contains seven sub-planes, and each of these seven minor planes, and so on until the multiplication has been made seven times. The sub-plane we have just briefly considered is but one of the seven, and the remaining six are equally important. In these unmentioned subplanes there are manifestations utterly unknown to modern science and to the uninformed person, but of which the occult masters have made a careful and thorough study.

(45) In the King's Chamber was enacted the drama of the "second death." Here the candidate, after being crucified upon the cross of the solstices and the equinoxes, was buried in the great coffer. There is a profound mystery to the atmosphere and temperature of the King's Chamber: it is of a peculiar deathlike cold which cuts to the marrow of the bone. This room was a doorway between the material world and the transcendental spheres of Nature. While his body lay in the coffer, the soul of the neophyte soared as a human-headed hawk through the celestial realms, there to discover first hand the eternity of Life, Light, and Truth, as well as the illusion of Death, Darkness, and Sin. Thus in one sense the Great Pyramid may be likened to a gate through which the ancient priests permitted a few to pass toward the attainment of individual completion. It is also to be noted incidentally that if the coffer in the King's Chamber be struck, the sound emitted has no counterpart in any known musical scale. This tonal value may have formed part of that combination of circumstances which rendered the King's Chamber an ideal setting for the conferment of the highest degree of the Mysteries.

(9) When the desire for silence comes, not a single thought arises; he who is looking inward suddenly forgets that he looks. At this time, body and heart must be left completely free. All entanglements disappear without trace. Then I no longer know at what place the house of my spirit and my crucible are. If a man wants to make certain of his body, he cannot get at it. This condition is the penetration of Heaven into Earth, the time when all wonders return to their roots.

(15) While all the Mysteries recognized the heart as the center of spiritual consciousness, they often purposely ignored this concept and used the heart in its exoteric sense as the symbol of the emotional nature, In this arrangement the generative center represented the physical body, the heart the emotional body, and the brain the mental body. The brain represented the superior sphere, but after the initiates had passed through the lower degrees they were instructed that the brain was the proxy of the spiritual flame dwelling in the innermost recesses of the heart. The student of esotericism discovers ere long that the ancients often resorted to various blinds to conceal the true interpretations of their Mysteries. The substitution of the brain for the heart was one of these blinds.

(16) Seeing then that Man is so very earthly, therefore he has none but earthly Knowledge, except he be regenerated in the Gate of the Deep. He always supposes that the Soul (at the Deceasing of the Body) goes only out at the Mouth; and he understands nothing concerning its odeep Essences above the Elements. When he sees a blue Vapor go forth out of the Mouth of a dying Man (which makes a strong Smell all over the Chamber) then he supposes that is the Soul.

(13) The student of Psychic Phenomena is aware of the wonderful phenomena classified under the head of Telepathy; Thought Transference; Mental Influence; Suggestion; Hypnotism, etc. Many have sought for an explanation of these varied phases of phenomena under the theories of the various "dual mind" teachers. And in a measure they are right, for there is clearly a manifestation of two distinct phases of mental activity. But if such students will consider these "dual minds" in the light of the Hermetic Teachings regarding Vibrations and Mental Gender, they will see that the long sought for key is at hand.

(3) When men are set free from the womb the primordial spirit dwells in the square inch (between the eyes), but the conscious spirit dwells below in the heart. This lower leshly heart has the shape of a large peach: it is covered by the wings of the lungs, supported by the liver, and served by the bowels. This heart is dependent on the outside world. If a man does not eat for one day even, it feels extremely uncomfortable. If it hears something terri ying it throbs; if it hears something enraging it stops; if it is faced with death it becomes sad; if it sees something beautiful it is dazzled. But the Heavenly Heart in the head, when would it have been in the least moved? Dost thou ask: Can the Heavenly Heart not be moved? Then I answer: How could the true thought in the square inch be moved? If it really moves, it is not well. For when ordinary men die, then it moves, but that is not good. It is best indeed if the Light has. already forti ied itself in a spirit-body and its life-force gradually penetrated the instincts and movements. But that is a secret which has not been revealed for thousands of years.

(35) The consideration of this Plane of Consciousness must be closed here, for reasons which the advanced occultist will at once realize, and which the less advanced student must be told are adequate. Many, not prepared for the full Light must be protected from spiritual and mental blindness by being exposed to rays before they have become accustomed to the lesser lights of the Truth. Rest assured, however, O student, that when your eyes are ready to gaze upon the Sacred Flame, it will no longer be hidden from you.

(13) It is one of the most promising doctrines of certain schools of occult philosophy that the power of expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them dead on the spot, must be attained. Naturally the art requires practice, but like other arts, when once acquired there is no mystery or difficulty about it. And it is worth practice. It may indeed fairly be said that life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when, instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct and dispatch and employ where we list, life becomes a thing so vast and grand compared with what it was before, that its former condition may well appear almost antenatal. If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which is nine-tenths at least of the torments of life), but it gives to him a concentrated power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him before. The two things are correlative to each other.

(69) Therefore we must consider, that the Noise in the Tincture of Man is [of a] higher [Nature] than [that] in the Beasts; for Man searches and distinguishes all Things which give a Sound, and knows from whence it comes, and how it exists, which the Beasts cannot do, but stare at it, and knows not what it is; whereby it may be understood, that the Original of Man, is out of the Eternal, because he can distinguish all Things that in the Out-Birth came out of the Eternal. And hence it is, that the Body (seeing all Things out of the eternal Nothing are caused to be Something which is comprehensible [or palpable,] and yet there, that Nothing is not a mere Nothing, but is a Source) after the Corrupting shall stand in the eternal Figure, and not in the Spirit, because it is not out of the eternal Spirit; for otherwise, if it were out of the [eternal] Spirit, then it should also search out the Beginning of every Thing, as [well as] Man, who in his Sound receives and distinguishes all Things.

(30) In constructing their temples of initiation, the early priests frequently demonstrated their superior knowledge of the principles underlying the phenomena known as vibration. A considerable part of the Mystery rituals consisted of invocations and intonements, for which purpose special sound chambers were constructed. A word whispered in one of these apartments was so intensified that the reverberations made the entire building sway and be filled with a deafening roar. The very wood and stone used in the erection of these sacred buildings eventually became so thoroughly permeated with the sound vibrations of the religious ceremonies that when struck they would reproduce the same tones thus repeatedly impressed into their substances by the rituals.

(6) Thought-earth is the Heavenly Heart of the middle house (intuition). Spirit-fire is used for effecting, thought-earth for substance, and seed-water for the foundation. Ordinary men make their bodies through thoughts. The body is not only the 7 ft. tall outer body. In the body is the anima. The anima, having produced consciousness, adheres to it. Consciousness depends for its origin on the anima. The anima is feminine (yi i), the substance of consciousness. As long as this consciousness is not interrupted, it continues to beget from generation to generation, and the changes of form of the anima and the transformations of substance are unceasing.

(23) But now the holy God would not let this place of his body (understand the space or room of this world) stand in eternal darkness and ignominy, and leave it to the devils for their proper own, but generated a new regimen or dominion of light, and of all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of the Deity; which the devil could neither apprehend, nor lay hold on, nor touch; neither was it useful or profitable to him at all.

(14) The Plane of Mineral Mind comprises the "states or conditions" of the units or entities, or groups and combinations of the same, which animate the forms known to us as "minerals, chemicals, etc." These entities must not be confounded with the molecules, atoms and corpuscles themselves, the latter being merely the material bodies or forms of these entities, just as a man's body is but his material form and not "himself." These entities may be called "souls" in one sense, and are living beings of a low degree of development, life, and mind--just a little more than the units of "living energy" which comprise the higher sub-divisions of the highest Physical Plane. The average mind does not generally attribute the possession of mind, soul, or life, to the mineral kingdom, but all occultists recognize the existence of the same, and modern science is rapidly moving forward to the point-of-view of the Hermetic, in this respect. The molecules, atoms and corpuscles have their "loves and hates"; "likes and dislikes"; "attractions and repulsions". "affinities and non-affinities," etc., and some of the more daring of modern scientific minds have expressed the opinion that the desire and will, emotions and feelings, of the atoms differ only in degree from those of men. We have no time or space to argue this matter here. All occultists know it to be a fact, and others are referred to some of the more recent scientific works for outside corroboration. There are the usual seven sub-divisions to this plane.

(13) (18) But how does the soul enter into body from the aloofness of the Intellectual?

There is the Intellectual-Principle which remains among the intellectual beings, living the purely intellective life; and this, knowing no impulse or appetite, is for ever stationary in that Realm. But immediately following upon it, there is that which has acquired appetite and, by this accruement, has already taken a great step outward; it has the desire of elaborating order on the model of what it has seen in the Intellectual-Principle: pregnant by those Beings, and in pain to the birth, it is eager to make, to create. In this new zest it strains towards the realm of sense: thus, while this primal soul in union with the Soul of the All transcends the sphere administered, it is inevitably turned outward, and has added the universe to its concern: yet in choosing to administer the partial and exiling itself to enter the place in which it finds its appropriate task, it still is not wholly and exclusively held by body: it is still in possession of the unembodied; and the Intellectual-Principle in it remains immune. As a whole it is partly in body, partly outside: it has plunged from among the primals and entered this sphere of tertiaries: the process has been an activity of the Intellectual-Principle, which thus, while itself remaining in its identity, operates throughout the soul to flood the universe with beauty and penetrant order- immortal mind, eternal in its unfailing energy, acting through immortal soul.

(10) On this plane of consciousness are operated many of those forms of "magic" known to all occultists. The occultist moves Matter not by exerting a physical force upon it by means of his mind and will, but, instead, by acting upon the consciousness of the material atoms by the power of his own consciousness! This is no place, of course, to go into detail concerning this phase of occultism, but it has been thought well to indicate here the source and nature of the power underlying occult phenomena of this kind, and the "why and wherefore" of its manifestation.

(44) The technique of the Mysteries was unfolded by the Sage Illuminator, the Master of the Secret House. The power to know his guardian spirit was revealed to the new initiate; the method of disentangling his material body from. his divine vehicle was explained; and to consummate the magnum opus, there was revealed the Divine Name--the secret and unutterable designation of the Supreme Deity, by the very knowledge of which man and his God are made consciously one. With the giving of the Name, the new initiate became himself a pyramid, within the chambers of whose soul numberless other human beings might also receive spiritual enlightenment.