Beta: Maybe I should explain how I looked at the petals for a long time. I associated the first three petals with the first initiation, at the end of the second tier with the second initiation, and at the end of the third tier with the third initiation. … The first initiation she says enormous numbers of people are going to be taking the first initiation ... sometime in the next hundred thousand years.
Alpha: Well a million maybe. … But you see, You can’t have the first initiation before the fifth petal is open because …
Beta: No, no, no ...that is not true. That is just when the ego takes interest … And that is at the probationary stage, somewhere between first, second, or third initiation. It is in there somewhere in the first initiation, the personality has made soul contact, at the end of the first initiation. The second initiation the soul and personality are at war.
Alpha: Well, even in the first initiation there is a burning ground; before each initiation there is a burning ground which indicates the type of war between the initiating entity and that which is initiated.
Beta: But the second is very much the war between the personality and the soul values.
Alpha: I can see petal number six associated somewhat with the second initiation. But I absolutely cannot see the first initiation at the end of the knowledge petals. Because, don’t forget, he is just stepping out of the Hall of Ignorance into the Hall of Learning. And already the Hall of Wisdom is involved with initiation proper.
Beta: This would be RG’s initiation number 1.5, would be the path of probation ... between the first and second initiation … So that would make a great deal of sense [for] all these people who have the fourth and fifth petal awakened, none of which are enumerated in all these first groups of lotuses. That is their goal. They may have taken the first initiation, but none have actually unfolded three petals ... except ...
Alpha: None of them have unfolded three petals? To me it just doesn’t add up. Because the thing missing here is personality integration, from a psychological point of view, the stage of selfish personality integration and Leonian stage of selfish personality demonstration. That is the missing phase and that has to come in – in petals four and five – to me. … In other words you need those first five signs [Aries through Leo] in order to get a person to the stage of selfish personality demonstration where the balance can tip. And to me you just can’t get that unless you consider four and five in terms of integrating the personality and expressing it, which I don’t think happens before petals four and five.
Beta: Yeah petal four. You have the person passing out of the Hall of Ignorance …
Alpha: … into the Hall of Learning?
Beta: Yeah. Exactly. That is soul contact.
Alpha: Which is different. And hold on, no, not yet.
Beta: Oh. yes. Definitely. Absolutely.
Alpha: Well. You see. What we have here for initiation is Wisdom. Remember we just read the other day: “He enters into the spiritual kingdom at the first initiation” and this is connected with the last three petals.
Beta: Yeah. That is the third initiation. That is not the first initiation. … He can’t enter the fifth or spiritual kingdom at the first initiation.
Alpha: Well, we have a difference of opinion.
Gamma: Can you take the first initiation without the soul knowing it?
Alpha: No.
Beta: Yeah. That is the point. First initiation. People are blind.
Alpha: They are, but the soul knows it ... Everyone knows it (except they don’t remember it).
Gamma: I read someplace a long time ago and I didn’t understand, but at the first initiation the soul was not even aware of it, in some cases.
Beta: In most cases.
Alpha: What about the ‘downward glancing soul’ of the fifth petal. That is a very important statement. But you don’t have initiation until you get a downward glancing soul.
Beta: It is one thing to make soul contact with the first initiation, it is another to have dynamic interaction with the soul ....which would be the downward looking soul in the second initiation. These are initiations of the threshold ...they hardly matter. The first initiation is totally insignificant. It means nothing. It is purely planetary. It is just some way to distinguish … or cut off the lotuses of passion and desire from the inner groups.
Alpha: There is a reorientation, a major reorientation that takes place … it is the first cosmic initiation, the third degree.
Delta: Let me say something about that, the last sentence in page 540, b. 1, the last sentence we just read: “by a realisation of his essential duality he begins to comprehend causes.”
So if a person is predominately even numbered rays (2, 4, 6) there might be a mystical apprehension of causes which we would associate normally with the first initiation. The first mystically realises there is a God (whatever word you want to use). But, on the odd numbered rays, let us say, intellectual, that person might approach realising ‘ah-ha’; there is always thesis, antithesis and synthesis, there is always that third point and by using a different approach are nonetheless aware that something greater is going on than what is happening at random on the physical plane. So in that sense they have taken the first initiation, but since they are on odd numbered rays they wouldn’t be as likely or as conscious to use a religion term.
Beta: Oh. Absolutely. In the first initiation. A person is unconscious for scores and scores of lives between the first and second initiation. And they have made soul contact. That doesn’t mean by any means that the soul has taken control on the ...
Alpha: Not control ... But there has to be a function ...
Beta: ... there is (inaudible) dynamic interaction until the second initiation ...
Alpha: You said dynamic interaction. Dynamic interaction maybe you get at the point, cause second initiation will mean that there is a whole program that can be consummated rapidly if, as he says in Initiations, Human and Solar, you can take all three in one life, second, third and fourth. That is dynamic interaction. But there has to be interaction. You know.
Beta: Well that is the late second.
Alpha: Well I tell you, let’s look up the Hall of Ignorance, Hall of Learning and Hall of Wisdom. If we can establish what goes on in the Hall of Learning, we can throw a little light on this.
Beta: You have to ask yourself, first of all, if you are talking about a dynamic structure, the personality integrating from below. And when they have integrated to a certain point ....then the soul can project its ray down into the personality and attach itself. And that is all the first initiation means; it has been contacted. The person may have a contact in their life, and then ten years later they may have another contact with their soul, and it may unfold for a month or two but that ...
Alpha: Well, it means more than that. It means more than that because it tells you what you can expect of a person who has taken the first initiation. A dynamic, constant orientation towards the spiritual life. These are just about his words. Let’s read it, and look this cannot be ...
Delta: That is not a fully adequate definition because someone could take the first initiation on the left hand path. They could say, ah-ha thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Whoever controls the spigot for that triangle controls the whole situation. That has nothing to do with the two polarities. This is how I can take control.
Alpha: No. Well Look, the first initiation, the first and second degree initiates, even on the Black Lodge they have hopes of high things. They have hopes of a better and greater life. But, they don’t realise their inherent selfishness until they are really faced with the rejection of the solar angel.
Beta: ... You said that a person in the Black Lodge has taken the first initiation, and has a spiritual life?
Alpha: Yes. Because the novice petals of the soul, a certain amount of soul, is available to that individual. Look. This cannot be decided by assertion. It can only be decided by really careful examination of all of these cites. … When you take the first initiation, he tells you that you have this tremendous orientation to tread this path at any cost. … That is emotional, not mental polarisation. I agree ...
Beta: Yeah. Well I agree he is talking about the person who’s fully taken the first initiation and is starting the second, because the devotional aspect is coming in ...
Delta: Well what about the rays? The first initiation for the even number of rays is going to have a much different temperament than the first initiation for the odd number of rays. …
Epsilon: What, but soul rays do not matter, because you have no contact with soul anyhow.
Delta: There was a good point brought up by Epsilon. Let’s repeat that. Well, which rays then, soul rays or personality rays, because at this stage the soul is not overshadowing its vehicle, or how would you phrase that?
Epsilon: There is no contact really between personality and soul, so the soul ray doesn’t matter at this point.
Delta: So the first initiation is more the personality ray.
Beta: Right.
Alpha: Pardon me?
Delta: Epsilon is saying that at the first initiation we look more at the personality ray of the person.
Epsilon: ... before first initiation ...
Beta: And DK says the mental ray is the first one that shows itself. Even before the personality ray.
Alpha: Well, it certainly does. And the mental ray should begin to show itself in the third petal. Third petal people should have a mental ray. But they have to integrate the personality first. See we are skipping over an important psychological phase, the phase of selfish personality integration. It cannot happen at the third petal. It is just mind ...
(many voices)
Beta: Ahamkara principle at the second.
Gamma: The successful personality has to have three, seven or eleven lives in order to be anchored.
Alpha: There are many lives of strictly personality effort. But, numerologically it makes sense, one, two, three, four. The number four is the number of the personality. Then the fourth petal is corresponding to that. You need to integrate everything and Cancer is the sign of personality integration. The fusion of all factors under the same roof. This is still lunar life. That is why the fifth petal is the first solar petal. The first solar petal. And the whole process of initiation is the solarization of man, no matter how tenuous it may be. No matter how tenuous it may be in the initiation of the threshold, even the monadic energy whose home is within the sun is involved in the first and second initiation.
Beta: That is why it takes place in the middle of the second … this solar influence. Because it is a battle between soul and personality.
Alpha: I agree that the process of initiation takes place in the middle of the second petal.
Delta: Let’s move on cause I think you have made a spectrum of points.
Beta: I was just trying to ... (inaudible) ... the first three knowledge petals, as you pass through knowledge, love and sacrifice. You have one cycle passing three aspects on the lowest plane. You can integrate the personality on that level. Once you get into the group of love petals you do develop soul, in terms of ahamkara and the self principle, and you can become deliberately selfish. But, that takes a number of lifetimes. And then, the problem is that you can’t have a war between personality values and soul value unless you have a developed personality, and that takes place in the second initiation through all the love petals.
Alpha: Wait. You can have a war between soul and personality as tremendous struggles can occur before the first initiation, he says that. A huge battle that takes place before that time with much destruction of form.
Beta: Oh course. Physical battle. The more physical correspondences.
Alpha: In other words it is the battle between the number four and five, the elemental kingdom – the sun and the moon fight it off in four and five.
Beta: Well that is all physical.
Epsilon: But he speaks also of a battle at the astral level, he doesn’t imply the soul at all but at the emotional level, a sense of good and bad. There is a battle there. So it is another ...
Beta: That is probably more heard instinct. The humans as herds of animals.
Alpha: There is a battle before every initiation, he says so; a burning ground, and he describes the battles. So it is all a contention between the solar and lunar principle and this stuff is open to interpretation. There is no way we can decide it by saying ‘thus it is’. Each one of us can say ‘thus it is’, and we have our reasons.
Delta: That is what I am saying....
Epsilon: There is no battleground between two kind of different lunar lords.
Alpha: Yes there is. They battle within the realm of character and that is called the law of cleavage. The battle between the emotion and the mind. In other words, the problems of cleavage result, for most human beings simply because the emotions want to do one thing and your mind tells you you should do something else. And that is right within the realm of personality.
Epsilon: But the person is not yet integrated.
Alpha: Sure, the battle is within the realm of character alone. And once the personality is integrated, he says there is a tremendous battle just between the rays within the individual. And I can show you a citation on that.
Beta: Those are the lunar, what pitris, angels, or lords?
Alpha: Yes, they are battling among themselves. The lunar lords are battling among themselves. But that is not the solar battle. The solar battle come between the life of Christ and the life of the moon.
Beta: Well where does that take place? That takes place all in the knowledge petals, to a great extent.
Alpha: Not as I think.
Beta: Then it goes into external phase in love petals ... where it finally has to give up at the beginning of development of the knowledge petals.
Alpha: Terminal phase is in the sacrifice petals. …
Delta: We fully have elucidated the argument on both sides to this. We should move on.
Alpha: Yeah. You will decide what you want to use, basically, in your system.
Delta: Yeah. But I feel both of you have fully elucidated your positions and lets move on to the next petal.
Alpha: We are both fully lucid.
Delta: It is not fair. … [must have been laughter at that?] So now we are on the ...
Gamma: We are at this perfect point to open the petals …
(end of side 11a)
Alpha: OK. We are continuing ... Look have you a triangle for the fourth petal? … basically you have to look at your triangles here and you say man controlled from the mental plane. You have to decide whether this is simply intellectual man or this is a fully integrated personality. And you have to look at number four and say ... man partially controlled by the ego, advanced man .... the heart, the throat and the four lesser head centres ... whether that is the integrated personality. Because spiritual man, from the first to the third initiation (at least that is what I take) looks like from one to three as far as that goes, and spiritual man to the fifth is three to five.
Delta: I think this would be the base of spine, heart and throat.
Gamma: I think we have to have the throat for this.
Delta: So this would be the third triangle ... [Esoteric Astrology, page 88]
Alpha: So the throat centre is somewhat correlated with the third petal at the later stages, and the fourth petal because there is a lot of the third ray coming in there. That fourth petal. And the cause and effect business, you know. He says he is learning all about cause and effect and the reasons for things.
Beta: So you have the first initiation here at the Vulcan Pluto ... at the number three? … Yes, base of the spine, heart and throat. That is where I would put it too.
Alpha: Well I didn’t say that I was. I wouldn’t put the first initiation until the ...
Delta: ... “man partially controlled by the ego ...” [Esoteric Astrology, page 88, #4)
Alpha: ... even then ... just towards the later stages.
Beta: But ... “the man partially controlled by the ego” ... that is obviously second initiation. … Because fully controlled by the ego is third.
Alpha: No, wait a second. The man even at the first initiation is going to be ‘partially’, otherwise he wouldn’t even be oriented towards the ego, and having a dual life. Remember we are told that ...
Beta: Well, the whole point of the dual life is the second initiation.
Alpha: No, there is a dual life even after the first initiation that is pulling in two directions.
Delta: There is extreme duality after the first initiation.
Beta: No, but the basic dual ... duality is really experienced in the second because the polar opposites that is all astral. It is all second initiation stuff. Interesting.
Alpha: Well. We have a difference of opinion. ... the trouble, you know people struggle immensely before being ‘born again’. And they even struggle after being born again, between their old temptations and their new orientations. Look, Virgo, I could pull out these references from (I have compilations) on the astrology and initiations (... OK, you all can too). And the point about it is that early Leo means the dominant personality. That is first. In other words, you give to the power of the dominant personality, but ‘later’, Leo gives you the relationship of Leo and Libra at the fist initiation, which means the solar life begins to express somewhat and you have to make the decision between lunar and solar lives. At the same time, Virgo comes in and he says, interestingly, it introduces duality. And that is at the birth. Virgo is the birth and Virgo is also the second initiation. That occurs in both places.
The point that I am trying to make is that the minute the regime of the soul steps in, even though it is primitive at first and lasts a whole long time between the first and the second, duality happens. Intense suffering, however, in the sense of aggravated duality it does occur between the second and third initiation. And that is when there is a tremendous kind of chaffing between the two.
Beta: Yeah but it is all centred around the second … Duality above and below.
Delta: How do we bring in Uranus and the sacral centre as associated with the first initiation?
Alpha: Well you have to make a new triangle: sacral centre, throat and heart. And that is important.
Delta: So that is not listed here, at all.
Alpha: No.
Beta: ... just implied ...
Delta: So for sacral, throat and heart ...
Alpha: Sacral, throat and heart, around the time of the fifth petal, you are going to have those issues. At the first initiation the heart centre and the throat centre are stimulated. At the second initiation the heart centre and the throat centre are stimulated. Both.
Beta: The sacral, throat and heart ... that is so much more early. That is more primitive than the fifth petal. Infinitely more primitive.
Alpha: Well, a lot would depend on the interpretation of the following: “The ego takes no active interest in the development until the second petal in the second series is beginning to open.” [Cosmic Fire, page 543]
Beta: Yeah but ‘development’ … obviously the ego has been invoked. The ego can’t come in and work with the life until it is fully invoked at the first initiation. ... it has been around a long time.
Delta: To me the fist initiation might be a peak experience that changes the person’s life forever. The soul has touched the personality.
Beta: Right. That is what it is.
Delta: The personality realises this is happening, but maybe can’t maintain any contact, nor is the soul interested at this point because the person is still so out of control.
Alpha: Yeah, but, the whole point is the first initiation does give a new orientation (if I can find the quotation you would see how much he says it is an orientation).
Delta: Well, so we still haven’t reached a consensus, or maybe we won’t, on which triangles and chakras are associated with which of these petals in general. Because, earlier we thought perhaps that the fourth petal would be associated with this major triangle (base of the spine, heart, throat). But perhaps we need a sacral, heart, throat stage somewhere ...
Alpha: Well, those centres are involved. There is a tremendous transference from the sacral to the throat at the first initiation, that represents physical control. And the heart is definitely touched, so sacral, heart and throat are involved with that.
Delta: So when we say the throat we can say throat/sacral, because there is an interaction between the two. In other words this triangle #3, base of the spine, heart, throat. So if we are going to associate this as bordering on the first initiation, or almost encompassing the first initiation, after the throat perhaps we could put a plexus-sacral. Would that be an acceptable thought? … To clarify, often the sacral is associated with the throat, so I am proposing that for this third triangle, after it says base of the spine, heart, throat, after throat, put in parenthesis ‘sacral’.
Beta: I see, the sacral-heart is more primitive than the relationship of sacral-throat. But it is involved ... the sacral-heart relationship I think is implicit in this triangle here.
Epsilon: Because he never mentioned the sacral in these triangles.
Delta: The reason I’m bringing sacral in is cause it is associated with the first initiation.
Gamma: You know there is one problem here is that one about the plexus. The plexus has two points, you know, and at one place he says that the higher solar plexus is by the throat and the lower solar plexus is by the sacral centre. This heart places the two points of the solar plexus.
Epsilon: Um-hmm. It is what allows the transference from sacral to throat.
Gamma: Yeah. And you know (in this meditation) I think this is what is happening. It is not something which happens or it should happen also within the solar plexus.
Epsilon: He mentions the solar plexus to heart and head, but he doesn’t mention throat, why not?
Alpha: Yeah. The throat is mentioned in the first initiation because it is a new form of creativity. It represents the beginning of control of the physical vehicle and the sacral centre is definitely controlled. It is not the only reference, but is (Rays and Initiations, page page 665):
“The Birth Initiation lies behind in the experience of many, and this is factually proved by the lives of those who are consciously and willingly oriented towards the light, who see a wider world than that of their own selfish interests, who are sensitive to the Christ life and to the spiritual consciousness in their fellowmen and who see an horizon and vistas of contact unperceived by the average man they realise a possible spiritual achievement, unknown and undesired by those whose lives are conditioned entirely by either the emotions or the lower concrete mind.”
So they have moved beyond that.
Beta: Entirely. That means they have some type of perspective.
Alpha: “At this stage of unfoldment they have a sense of conscious dualism, knowing the fact of the existence of that "something other" than the phenomenal, emotional and mental self.”
Beta: It has just begun to erupt in their minds.
Alpha: Well, you see that is the point in dualism, caused by the interface of the solar and lunar life. They are partially, touched by the solar life and they are still lunar individuals. A factor, too, comes in about the ajna centre and how the ajna centre controls the integrated personality, right? Even the selfishly integrated personality. So the question is, initiates of the first degree must they be integrated personalities, so to what extent integrated? This is very important. Then, we have to see to what extent the ajna is involved.
Beta: Well, she says explicitly in scores of places that you have to have personality integration before the first degree.
Alpha: Well but, think of it, this means the ajna is involved, and here we are moving up, up, up the scale.
Beta: Oh yeah. That is just the lower ajna; certainly not a controlling centre.
Alpha: Well, no, but ajna is not even mentioned. This is a mistake in citation, isn’t it? We talked about alta major. What I am trying to say is a lot of these earlier things don’t even mention the ajna. And the ajna is pivotal in creating personality integration. Sure, lower ajna, but ajna, you know. … So, there is some confusion there about whether an integrated personality is an initiate of the third degree. This is very interesting. And yet, he says that it is needed to have personality integration before you can take the first initiation. Some places he says that an initiate of the first degree is primarily mystical, and not mentally polarised, but you can’t have an integrated personality unless you are mentally polarised. So you see the problems in this area. And a lot of it probably depends upon ray types and certain other types of karma.
Delta: Maybe degree … too, to someone starving in Africa if you have $20,000 you are rich; to someone making $20,000 a year in a big city in the United States, it’s nothing, you need a million dollars to be rich.
Beta: The integrated personality certainly has to be maintained up to the third degree because it is used as an instrument by the soul.
Alpha: And it is an ajna initiation. The third degree is fifth ray, ajna, Capricorn, brow, the whole business. That is real fusion, real integration. All we can do is collect all the citations, it would take some time to thrash this thing through and reach consensus.
Beta: But when you read that citation in Rays and Initiations, it just sounds like a really well-disposed Christian person.
Alpha: Well, he certainly moved beyond respecting the concrete mind alone, such as the advanced types on petal number three did. See, we have these primary lotuses that come in with a mental bias, they are intellectual but not spiritual in any respect.
Beta: Exactly, that is the integrated personality before taking initiation. You can have scores of lives of integrated personality before taking the first degree. We see that in the world all the time.
Alpha: OK. And I am working on the numerological basis ...
Delta: I think the ajna chakra has to come into play with this fourth petal.
Alpha: Now, does he mean ajna or alta, in one book it is alta, in the other book it is ajna.
Gamma: I think it is ajna. Alta counts only at the fifth initiation …
Alpha: He says the alta should come in at the fifth degree. And not before. … The mystic is not the fifth degree by any means.
Epsilon: He says alta, but man partially controlled by the ego, advanced man, heart, throat, head (four lesser centres) synthesised by ajna or alta? [Ajna—Esoteric Astrology, page 88; and Alta—Cosmic Fire, page 170.]
Gamma: I think this is ajna because it is still trying to synthesis the personality into ego.
Beta: Right.
Alpha: Well, if it is ajna, it is saying an interesting thing here. Because it is finally saying that the person is able to be an integrated personality, but is not an initiate of the third degree, because it is ajna definitely before the third degree, because the next one is about spiritual man to the third initiation. [Triangle #5, Esoteric Astrology, page 88]. Now we must consider very carefully what the word spiritual man means.
Delta: OK. [let’s not] get a 100% locked in to only this paradigm, I was proposing it as six basic triangles, but all I am just trying to say is I think the fourth petal will involve the ajna petal because the person is integrated.
Alpha: I tend to agree with that.
Gamma: Ajna, Mercury, integration, all this, you know. Ray four.
Alpha: Well, look, numerologically the number four correlates with the personality. There is a basis for numerological analysis here. It is the fourth elemental and it means the tetrahedron; it means finally getting the lower points together.
Beta: Right. You can’t pass out of the Hall of Ignorance and pass into the Hall of Learning unless you have made contact with the soul.
Alpha: Now that is why I wanted to consult where the Hall of Learning, Wisdom, and Ignorance is discussed. Initiation Human and Solar, page page 10 and 11. OK … Do we need to discuss the hall of ignorance “He is entering on the fifth and final stage …” blah, blah, blah. No.
“It might be of benefit to us also if we studied first the difference or the connection between Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom. Though in ordinary parlance they are frequently interchanged, as used technically they are dissimilar.
You see, he doesn’t discuss the Hall of Ignorance right here.
“Knowledge is the product of the Hall of Learning. It might be termed the sumtotal of human discovery and experience, that which can be recognised by the five senses, and be correlated, diagnosed, and defined by the use of the human intellect. It is that about which we feel mental certitude, or that which we can ascertain by the use of experiment.”
“It is the compendium of the arts and sciences. It concerns all that deals with the building and developing of the form side of things. Therefore it concerns the material side of evolution, matter in the solar systems, in the planet, in the three worlds of human evolution, and in the bodies of men.
Gamma: Also, in Cosmic Fire, page 849. ten small lines here .....
“Within the Hall of Learning intellect rules and seeks to guide. Desire of a higher kind, the fruit of manas and its use, supplants the lower kamic urge. Man weighs and balances, and in the twilight Halls of Intellection seeks for the fruit of knowledge. He finds it but to realise that knowledge is not all; he dies upon the open field of knowledge, hearing a cry beat on his dying ears: "Know that the knower greater is than knowledge; the One who seeks is greater than the sought.”
Beta: That means there has to be some type of mental polarisation.
Gamma: That is above kama-manasic.
Beta: It seems like it is above all those lotuses. Literally lotuses, right?
Alpha: Well, its above the first three petals too, to me. Although I think it involves the third petal. The third petal for instance we would talk about intellection, and according to what he said here about knowledge, human discovery, recognition of five senses. It seems strange to me in a way that he says in the fourth petal that he passes out of the Hall of Ignorance into the Hall of Learning. Because, there is a lot about how he described it in Initiation Human and Solar, which makes petal number three look like Hall of Learning stuff. But, anyway, how long does the Hall of Learning go on. Maybe we can define that in terms of Hall of Wisdom, which, by the way will be different in one book than another.
Beta: Well, if the Hall of Learning is down on the Knowledge petals, then the first initiation is even lower.
Gamma: Can we say each tier is a hall?
Alpha: No I am not satisfied with saying that yet. OK. Because it’s tempting to want to just regularise things, like regularising the rounds and the chains and the rest of it. But we have to think it through in such a way to see how it actually works. Here, Wisdom, page 11:
“Wisdom is the product of the Hall of Wisdom. It has to do with the development of the life within the form, with the progress of the spirit through those ever-changing vehicles, and with the expansions of consciousness that succeed each other from life to life. It deals with the life side of evolution.”
See, all he does is life and form. Actually he allies life and consciousness a bit.
“Since it deals with the essence of things and not with the things themselves, it is the intuitive apprehension of truth apart from the reasoning faculty, and the innate perception that can distinguish between the false and the true, Between the real and the unreal. It is more than that, for it is also the growing capacity of the Thinker to enter increasingly into the mind of the Logos, to realise the true inwardness of the great pageant of the universe, to vision the objective, and to harmonise more and more with the higher measure. For our present purpose (which is to study somewhat the Path of Holiness and its various stages) it may be described as the realisation of the "Kingdom of God within," and the apprehension of the "Kingdom of God without" in the solar system. Perhaps it might be expressed as the gradual blending of the paths of the mystic and the occultist,--the rearing of the temple of wisdom upon the foundation of knowledge.”
So its spirit and knowledge; spirit and matter, basically.
Beta: Nothing definitive yet.
Delta: Here it says, Cosmic Fire, page 850: “Within the Hall of Wisdom the Spirit rules; the One within the lesser ones assumes supreme control.”
Gamma: “Death is not known within these halls, for its two great gates are passed.” Does he mean here the two first initiations?
Alpha: Perhaps. And also he says Capricorn, the conqueror of death. So that is the third initiation, so maybe that is what is does mean.
Gamma: So it means that probably at least loosely we can equate those halls with tiers of petals, and initiations.
Beta: It creates an inner space.
Alpha: Well it seems to me there is no wisdom unless there is sacrifice. So, the sacrifice tier, the will tier, their can’t be wisdom unless there is real mental polarisation. I don’t think you get real mental polarisation until the seventh petal starts to open. You may get a pretty good use of the mind going on in the second tier, but you don’t get the person living in relation to the solar life. So what we are deciding is that maybe the halls of ignorance, learning and wisdom are loosely, with some overlap around the transition points, correlated with the first three tiers.
Gamma: I suspect that it might give credence to what you say, be the end of the passage between ignorance and learning, might be the first initiation.
Alpha: No. Well, I don’t think so. Because look what he says about the first initiation, about learning. When you are going from ignorance to learning you are just going into human discovery ... five senses ... matter. You know he is saying it concerns all that deal with the building, development of the form side in terms of the material side of evolution ...
Beta: Well, let’s read it from Cosmic Fire ... because that is interesting.
Gamma: And if I read here, on 850:
“Within the Hall of Learning intellect rules and seeks to guide. Desire of a higher kind, the fruit of manas and its use, supplants the lower kamic urge. Man weighs and balances, and in the twilight Halls of Intellection seeks for the fruit of knowledge.”
Alpha: In the twilight halls of intellection that doesn’t sound very luminous does it? You know actually I think you can solve this through a compromise, somehow, half way through ...
Gamma: But, you know he finds ‘it’, but to realise that knowledge is not all ...
Beta: The key is in the Hall of Ignorance, the previous page 849. It is when he describes it this can tie in with the 540 petal sites, I think:
"Within the Hall of Ignorance kama-manas rules. The man, weighed down by much misplaced desire, seeks for the object of his heart's attention within the murky halls of densest maya. He finds it there but dies ere garnering all the longed-for fruit The serpent stings him, and the joy desired recedes from out his grasp. All seeking thus the selfish fruits of karma must each despise each other; hence strife and greed, ill-will and hatred, death and retribution, karmic invocation and the thunderbolt of vengeance characterise this Hall.”
But it is basically ... It does sound like the knowledge.....
Delta: Yeah! It is the knowledge petals! ... thunderbolts of vengeance!
Alpha: It sounds like once he begins to think, at the end of the knowledge ,petals he can begin to make a transition out of this ignorance. I think that there is no hard and fast here. I think there are just blurred transition points and half way through the Hall of Learning (this is my impression) something else begins to come in which makes knowledge, or learning, appear a bit pale, a new subjective life begins to come in, and I think that’s that juncture point …
Gamma: Why is he going into the Hall of Learning? He must have been touched by something which triggers in him the desire of learning.
Alpha: Well yeah, he has a spring board of the third petal, he is dissatisfied with the lower selfish materialistic life, and so he enters, experiments, uses science you know, he enters all these things (like is says in Initiation Human and Solar).
Beta: Yeah, as Delta says his life becomes dialectical. Dialectical experience is just begun with the fourth petal, it becomes interactive. He could just go through the motions and experiment with the third petal ...
Alpha: Although he does become what the Tibetan calls an intellectual, whatever an intellectual is.
Beta: Rank intellectual.
Alpha: Well, the word ‘rank’ is yours.
Beta: I think it is descriptive.
Delta: Shall we go on to the fifth petal?
Alpha: You mean the petal of the battlefield?
Delta: The petal of love ....
Gamma: This famous battle, Arjuna, or is it?
Alpha: Uh, well how an advanced an initiate was Arjuna? That is kind of second initiation stuff isn’t it? Or, its more than that; he saw the form of God.
Beta: It would have to be explained through eighteen forms of yoga …
Delta: I think he’s on the third, the cream of humanity, he knows everything, he has been greatly trained, has had all the greatest teachers, but has somehow gotten to the last step, and he is balking.
Beta: I thought that it might be the fourth because he has to give up everything, in a way.
Alpha: He has to kill his family.
Gamma: So it is the second and the fourth. He has fallen back, but right on the threshold, knocking on the door and suddenly says, ‘I don’t need to do this, I can become a Brahman.’
Delta: There is no need for this.
Beta: The internal world at the phantasmagoria. I am going to go, up into the hills.
Gamma: Is there anyplace where he says when you have to renounce your form, you have to drink this cup [of karma] very fast?
Alpha: Well, this is the fourth degree. You know, Socrates, that is draining the cup of karma. That makes a lot of sense which is why I think Pluto should also be connected with the fourth degree, not just Vulcan. Pisces well, that is another matter.
Delta: So what about Neptune being associated with the fifth petal?
Alpha: In one sense, yes, but not exclusively; don’t forget, it should, above all things be the sun petal. I mean it is the first confirmably solar petal.
Beta: Sometimes it is probably skipped.
Alpha: You think it can be skipped?
Beta: Yeah, with mental types I am sure the middle petal of love is probably skipped. We were thinking about Ayn Rand the other day. While she is probably a much lower level its true, she is a dialectitian. She would certainly have the fourth petals.
Alpha: See the ray depends, so much depends on the ray doesn’t it?
Beta: And she glorified and glamorised sacrifice. But, she had absolutely no love.
Alpha: Let’s read it: “The Petal of Love for the astral plane; unfoldment is brought about through the process of gradually transmuting the love of the subjective nature or of the Self within.”
In other words the subjective nature here is the emotional nature, otherwise it doesn’t make sense ...
Beta: Well, I think by the Self, he means the ego.
Alpha: Yeah. But I mean the word ‘subjective nature’, gradual transmutating …
Beta: This is one of the most difficult paragraphs in this whole section for me. It always has been because, you could read it as the emotional nature, or the Ego transmuting its own egoic nature through substance.
Alpha: Well then, look, selfishness comes still in the next petal. Still, interesting, we can’t go too far in this one. In other words, if there is selfishness in petal number six you have to be sure that some manner of Leonian selfishness is going to show itself in petal number five.
Beta: Yeah.
Alpha: Let me just finish the paragraph, a very important statement:
“ … through the process of gradually transmuting the love of the subjective nature or of the Self within. This has a dual effect and works through on to the physical plane in many lives of turmoil, of endeavour and of failure as a man strives to turn his attention to the love of the Real.”
Gamma: “of the love of the real.”
Alpha: “of the real.” Now, if I am not mistaken, if you count from below and from above and just go in zodiacal order assigning the twelve signs to the twelve petals this would be called the Leo-Scorpio petal, which makes a lot of sense in terms of what goes on here.
Delta: It could be the Sun veiling Neptune.
Alpha: Yes. Of course, one thing we have to remember is that in the early stages many, many years is taken on each petal. And so with the tendency to differentiate all things into seven stages, or how many stages there would be, there has to be units of unfoldment of these petals and sometimes the units of time involved have quite different qualities.
Now, I have always interpreted this in the past, the first part of this could be dominantly selfish and self aggrandising and expressive, love of self, in a certain respect. Or, you’d call a brilliant personality, like da Vinci or what ever, wonderful in every way, but not really connected with the soul. And the second part could be the Sun going into Neptune, which makes the possibility of solar life reality. (Related to the fifth petal.)
Beta: When you said Leo-Scorpio, it reminds me of what Isabel Hickey used to say: she associated that with the middle of the second initiation, the battleground between soul and personality values, those two signs she always associated with that, particularly Scorpio on the ascendant.
Alpha: Well Scorpio is involved in the first three initiations, and I don’t see why not the fourth, but certainly the first three. He tells us it is involved. And Virgo in the first two. So, the number six is so potent with the second initiation, with the number six you are conquering your idealism through spiritual will at that point and you could be a real fanatic. I mean a person of the first initiation who is moving closely into the second could be, even though you are in the Hall of Learning with no real mental polarisation, [you are in] the light of the Venus soul …
Beta: It is true. That would be sort of pure dialectics in the third tier is really, totally dispassionate.
Alpha: Yeah. You have a chance of abstracting, the emotional nature … let’s look at this, the love petals for the astral plane, in a certain sense … what you have is the mystic. I don’t think the occultist comes in until the last tier of petals. You know, and whatever a mystic is, however intelligent they are, they are often controlled by some form of aspiration or emotionalism.
Gamma: The shedding of tears.
Alpha: Yeah, a lot of tears. So Neptune and all that is involved here.
Beta: But still on the second initiation the disciple has to use the Mars—Neptune, the Martian force to accomplish their ideals, that means a lot of people get hurt quite often, and ...
Alpha: ... very much so.
Delta: What chakras would be especially associated with this ... the heart chakra.
Alpha: … this looks pretty good to me.
Delta: Or the heart within the head.
Alpha: Not yet. Not yet. Unless, see, the heart in the head is the organ of pure reason.
Gamma: That is why Neptune is not still involved. …
Alpha: I have a bunch of different planets down there for different reasons. However, the Sun is important, Neptune is important, later (mystically transcending you know getting out of your ego). For battle, Mars is important here. What gives you the alternation between, OK, what is the battle all about? Overcoming glamour, overcoming selfishness?
Gamma: It is mainly probably of glamour, with mayavic battle, you know.
Alpha: Yeah. The person is not necessarily trying to conquer illusion here are they?
Gamma: ... Not yet, because they are not that (inaudible) ...
Beta: They have an idea, but they probably intellectualise it.
Alpha: Yeah. You see, this is so interesting, we say they have enough mind, and they don’t have quite enough mind to overcome illusion, yet, look back in petal number three and the mind is being taught how to be operative. There must be so many phases in the development of mind. You know what I mean.
Gamma: I imagine here there are four phases, four subplanes … we don’t realise how different a mind functioning on the first plane, second, third and forth are, how different they can be.
Alpha: Yeah. Well. Isn’t there a battle between third and fourth subplane, because it is a line of cleavage, between solar life and lunar life?
Beta: I would certainly say yes.
Alpha: I think that this could be happening here.
Beta: Well, I don’t think there is a huge … conflict going up and then when you are soul infused there must be a conflict going down back into the mental unit.
Delta: The fourth subplane starts to be, more or less, sensitive to what is above, and sensitive to the soul, and I suppose that many scientists are between the third and the fourth. They are getting into fourth.
Beta: Um-hmm. Definitely.
Alpha: Which is the plane of kama-manas? Is it the fourth or the fifth, or on the astral plane, the fifth and the fourth? …
Epsilon: It involves both mental and astral ...
Alpha: Well he said there is a plane of kama-manas …
Beta: Yeah. Which of the six tabulations?
Delta: How about the second from the bottom of the mental?
Alpha: Because it is desire mind?
Gamma: Yeah. It could be.
Beta: I would probably put it, gosh. But then again the fourth subplane in a way covers kama-manas altogether because of the mental unit. … And the necessity for creating a mental unit. The inherited division from the lunar chain in the previous solar system, of a mental unit with a causal body above it is a way of keeping humans in their place. And that is why we humans remain incredibly unconscious on the causal plane for thousands of lives, and don’t even achieve the mental units status or devachan, for immense amount of time.
Delta: Well, why is this.
Beta: Because it was a way of fixing human evolution at a certain point. Also, it was the karma of the Planetary Logos to be stationed there? … of his holding things in place. Fixing.
Alpha: You mean to create a mental unit was a way of ... the Law of Fixation?
Beta: Yeah … but on the fifth plane actually, in the larger sense …
Alpha: Well ... wait ... there is some value in realising the fourth subplane as the plane of personality integration … the fourth subplane of the mental plane.
Beta: Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
Gamma: There is a domination that occurs there.
Alpha: And see, again the number four in relation to the personality ...
Gamma: And there is also the number four , the middle of the mental plane. So there must be some influx of something above and something below. … So it is not only the integration of the personality but the very beginning of the integration of what comes form above, you know.
Beta: That is why all the chakras would be on that fourth plane ... except the head, heart and throat. The mental chakras on the fourth subplane, because you have to have chakras to modulate the forces coming up and the forces going down.
Delta: So do we think that the petal of love is largely a heart petal?
Alpha: It is a heart petal but, here is the warfare between the white and the black lodge on petal number five because you have the inverted pentagram and the upright pentagram. They’re both aspects of the number five. Remember when he said that Leo is the most material sign? And it a lower crystallisation of ahamkara which is the black magician, because, you know, he is fixated upon himself. In other words, he can’t make it out of third aspect thoughtform. He still stays himself, he doesn’t get into the Neptune phase. See what I mean?
Gamma: Yeah. Very interesting. Because there are some Leo’s type which I have met which are so assertive but so concrete at the same time. And they have a sense of ‘I’ which is very concrete …
Alpha: Yeah. Concrete. And what will melt that down, you see? In one way this is a unifying plane and in another way it is a plane in which duality really kicks in.
Delta: Should we finish up with the petal of sacrifice on the Love Tier? What time are we breaking for lunch.
Alpha: Well we will have to break soon … [It is noon]. Well, look this is very productive. And we may have our temporary little fire fights or difference of opinion but ...
Delta: They are illuminating things.
Alpha: If the sparks fly then there will be some clarification. You will know why a point of view exists. Obviously we are all agreeing that the third initiation is, petal number nine, so, you know we have that as an anchor point. And we all agree that somewhere within the second tier of petals the spiritualisation process really takes hold.
But we are having little other difficulty localising it, different types of opinions, the different reasons. Is this profitable for you, Delta? Is this what ...
Delta: Oh. Yeah. And I think that the points that both of you brought out even thought it maybe wasn’t in agreement, that is fine. It is elucidating the whole argument.
Alpha: Well, probably once it is typed up we will be able to look closer at what we said.
(interruption in taping)