An Essay on

© 2008 by Academic Services International, Los Lunas, NM, USA

.

Definitions - Continued

A Black Brother (or Sister) is a magician of very high rank who sells out to his or her ego for the purpose of gaining power or wealth, or in order to preserve his or her sense of separate individuality. Black Brothers can join forces, in which case they become members of The Black Lodge.

 

A Lodge is an Order, association, network, tribe, circle, or other similar designation that denotes a group of like-minded individual practitioners and their students.

Of course, a Lodge can also refer to a Temple or a building, or even a tent in the desert.

Other terms include cult and sect, and are used by ministers and newspaper reporters with great glee. Cult derives from "cull," the process wherein ill-sized or defective oranges or little chickens are separated from the bulk product that is intended for the marketplace. Sect is short for "section" - a mere part or piece of the whole. Both terms carry a negative connotation in the minds of the general public.

 

The Black Lodge is a formal association composed of Black Brothers and Sisters who have banded together for the mutual satisfaction of their desires for personal benefit and their pursuit of power. The Black Lodge very often manifests in the Political and Financial arenas.

 

The White Lodge is a formal association of White Magicians who have banded together for the mutual satisfaction of their goal of evolutionary advancement for all of humanity (and even the lesser kingdoms in nature). The White Lodge is usually hidden (occulted) from view.

The Great White Lodge is the overshadowing parent of our Planetary Hierarchy or White Brotherhood, and is said to be located in the Sirius Star System.

 

The White Brotherhood is a much misunderstood, and often falsely claimed, title that (in its true sense) is the externalized, planetary manifestation of the White Lodge. There are two major expressions now viable on planet Earth:

The Transhimalayan White Brotherhood has its roots in the Orient (particularly Tibet) and has been promoted in the western world by a series of messengers who interestingly have a surname that begins with the letter "B" - Blavatsky, Besant and Bailey, plus many others whose name does not begin with a "B."

The Great White Brotherhood has its roots in the middle-east (particularly Ancient Aegypt) and has been promoted by a series of messengers who have various surnames, including Saint Germaine, Rosencreutz, Mathers, Therion and many others.

 

The Seven Secret Chiefs compose the membership of the archetypal council that influence the planetary hierarchy of our planet. They simultaneously stand in direct correlation to cosmic principles, spiritual beings, classical prophets, and incarnated humans who are (even now) overshadowed by the basic nature of these overlords. They are known as the Mahatmas, the Masters of the Temple and the Magi of the White Brotherhood, the seven Ray Lords, and the seven Chohans. They govern the ongoing, evolutionary advancement of mankind.

 

Appearances can be deceiving. Throughout the history of metaphysics, we encounter claims of people being visited by entities who suddenly materialize, deliver a message or instructions, and then disappear. Sometimes the appearance is subtle (non-visual) and sometimes the appearance is a full-blown physical manifestation.

Frater Perdurabo was visited by Aiwass, whom he did not see, but whom he sensed, and he even received a mental impression of his "physical" appearance.

Alice Bailey was visited, in full physical manifestation, by the Masters Kuthumi (Koot Hoomi), Morya, and Djwhal Khul - these same Masters were variously said to have met physically with Madame Blavatsky on her journey to Tibet, and later Morya met with the Madame in England. The list goes on and on.

The question is: Are these entities actual living, physical men, or etheric human beings, or are they astral entities, or are they thoughtforms created by (now-deceased) human beings, or are they manifestations sent by the recipient's "higher self," or are they merely a convenient hallucination, or are they the results of a disordered psyche?

I have no final answer. I have no direct experience with human entities physically manifesting to visit me, although I did see Sai Baba once, and I have certainly felt the presence of Djwhal Khul. However, I do have direct experience of physically seeing elementals (I once saw an elf in the forest), and of seeing Devas (angelic beings) who deliver visions and information.

I do have direct experience of communicating with "Masters" and Devas in an etheric-physical sense, wherein their outline is sensed or actually seen, or wherein their presence is felt (sometimes in an almost overwhelming manner) as they deliver their message through "channeling" or other "psychic" communication. I do have experience with seeing and/or feeling the presence of "demons," either through direct evocation or as an unevoked manifestation outside the magical circle during a ceremony.

But, I must leave the decision as to the reality of manifested beings up to each individual. Something is certainly happening. Let not the magician give credence to anything that does not lie within his own experience.

 

The Planetary Hierarchy denotes the ascending ranks of initiates and Masters who govern the spiritual development of our planet Earth. This is another designation for the White Brotherhood.

 

An Adept is, in common terms, one who is "skilled." In magical terms, an Adept is an accomplished being of high (expanded) consciousness. But there is a principle here that must be remembered, for it is critical to our understanding and our efforts:

An Adept is not an Adept unless he or she is operating in his or her Light Body. For example, Mr. Jones is a practicing magician. When he performs his Magic, he gets in touch with his Higher Self and his consciousness is expanded beyond mere personal considerations. But when he is working in the marketplace, Mr. Jones is subject to the same rules that govern all the rest of humanity.

There are some advanced beings who remain constantly in rapport with their higher nature, and thus they can be considered to be an Adept at all times. We usually call them "Masters."

 

The Solar Angel is perhaps the most important entity in the pantheon of Magic. He (or she, as the case may) has been called the Holy Guardian Angel (in Christian, Thelemic, and general modern usage), the Augoeides (Greek for "shining image"), the Genius, the Superior Man (I Ching), the Soul Body, and many other terms.

This being is not actually the Soul, but is a devic (angelic) entity that keeps the Soul intact throughout the aeons. It is said to "protect and guide." It protects by maintaining the integrity of the Soul on the causal plane of consciousness. It guides by delivering information to the magician when he or she is able to contact it - It can therefore be called The Voice of the Soul.

The central rite in White Magic is to attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel or to Invoke the Solar Angel. This can be accomplished in several ways. The "central rite" term is used because it comes after the glamorous rituals of the beginner, yet before the attainment of wisdom and understanding.

 

The Magical Memory - Where do we come from before we are born? Where do we go when we die? These questions are not to be answered by the reasoning mind, but rather by direct experience. A continuity of consciousness through the process called reincarnation is the generally accepted theory throughout much of the world, but this exists primarily as a belief system and is rarely based on direct experience.

The obvious question is, "Why can I not remember my previous lives?" The esoteric tradition tells us that this memory is stored at the Soul (Causal) level, and to remember those previous lives you must contact this higher level of your own consciousness. Sometimes seers will offer to read your past lives for you, but such readings are often worse than useless, for if they contain false information (and they usually do!), an illusionary thoughtform can be created which will cause endless havoc. This is something each individual must do for themselves.

All of your physical, emotional, mental, and social imprinting and programming is lost with the death of your brain. That which remains is the subject of our search into the Magical Memory.

Some people do not accept the concept of previous existences and will explain past life "memories" as the tapping into the genetic archives inherited from our parents. There is no need to discount this view, especially in view of the fact that those previous experiences are going to be recapitulated (re-experienced) in this lifetime. Tradition tells us that the entire course of our previous lifetimes is rebuilt and re-experienced at an extremely rapid rate beginning with the union of egg and sperm, and continuing forward through the animal-like stages of prenatal development to birth. The initial experiences of life are re-creations that continue the major events which shaped our consciousness in prior lives.

We all look forward to that specific day when our consciousness realizes that the pre-determined experiences have all been acted out and we are truly now moving forward into new territory.

Whether stated in metaphysical terminology such as "previous lives," or expressed through the psychological concepts of "imprinting" and "conditioning," the Magical Memory still remains a source of information relating to unexplained behavior patterns, and we maintain that it must be apprehended by direct experience.

The objective in searching the Magical Memory is not to remember that one was Cleopatra, Joan d'Arc, Osiris, or Attila the Hun, or even to remember that life as a wretched cripple, or the one where death came with the plague at age twelve. The objective is to retrieve information that explains yourself to yourself in the here-and-now.

The overall record of everyone's career, including the rise and fall of civilizations, is found in the Akashic Records.

.

.

.