Biblioteca Esoterica Esonet.ORG http://www.esonet.ORG 1
Biblioteca Esoterica Esonet.ORG http://www.esonet.ORG 1
Biblioteca Esoterica Esonet.ORG http://www.esonet.ORG 1
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Rites of Passage - 3<br />
<strong>Biblioteca</strong> <strong>Esoterica</strong> <strong>Esonet</strong>.<strong>ORG</strong><br />
<strong>http</strong>://<strong>www</strong>.<strong>esonet</strong>.<strong>ORG</strong><br />
"The Path" as a rite of passage<br />
The Path is, I believe, most significantly and constructively understood as a long and<br />
arduous rite of passage. The now popularized concept of a series of four or five "great<br />
Initiations," which is derived from Buddhist as well as from Masonic traditions, refers to<br />
crucial moments of this ritual process at which successive levels of Pleroma power and<br />
consciousness are brought to a focus in the individual treading the Path of total and<br />
irrevocable transformation. The whole process is a rite because the factors structuring it<br />
have a universal or rather planetary validity; they refer to the archetype of Man and what<br />
is generically possible to a member of the species homo sapiens. The form of the rite<br />
nevertheless is colored by the culture and religion of the individual undertaking the<br />
transformative process. The form is also affected by the responses that can be expected of<br />
an individual whose sub-conscious motivations have been conditioned since birth (or even<br />
before) by a particular set of early family patterns and religious assumptions which are<br />
extremely difficult, though necessary, to overcome.<br />
The Path of radical transformation implies a vertical relationship between centers of<br />
consciousness and activity at two levels, between the person treading the Path and one (or<br />
more) Pleroma beings. The spiritual power of the planetary level becomes focused<br />
through the "Master" (the Pleroma being), for the purpose of assisting the "disciple,"<br />
insofar as assistance is possible and safe. A more or less definite mode of communication<br />
may be established, normally involving prayer or meditation at the personal level and a<br />
concrete or symbolic, direct or indirect, answer from the Pleroma level. The human being's<br />
tendency to personalize the relationship and personify its spiritual pole is unavoidable in<br />
most instances and in a sense justifiable; yet it can cause the disciple to misinterpret and<br />
give an overly concrete, literal form to the products of a relationship which seems to take a<br />
personal form only because it is interpreted by a disciple still functioning in a very<br />
personal way.<br />
Much depends upon the exact level at which the individual center of the disciple's<br />
being is able normally, or under abnormal pressures, to operate — thus on his or her<br />
quality of will, purity of motives, and capacity of mind to picture the ritual process of<br />
transformation. The resilience and strength of the body are also very important, for a<br />
release of spiritual power would easily shatter a weak or unprepared organism. At the<br />
level of the collective psychism of the disciple's culture responsible for the structure of his<br />
or her mind, it also could arouse forces always ready to oppose any individually<br />
determined and effective ascent toward the Pleroma — the spiritual all-human<br />
community. Such an opposition has been dramatized in "occult" novels and assuredly can<br />
be a powerful factor setting limits to what any individual on the Path can hope to<br />
accomplish in his or her present life span.<br />
However, these limits should be considered manifestations of the individual's karma,<br />
thus of the legacy he or she received at conception from previous cycles of existence, either<br />
recent or long past. In addition to personal karma, collective racial and sociocultural<br />
karma also is involved, for both the individual and collective polarities of human existence<br />
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