by Mark Booth
Our consciousness, then, is different from our parents’ consciousness and it is also probably very different from our grandparents’ consciousness. Project this rate of change back into history and it becomes easy to see how only a few generations ago everyday waking consciousness might have been like the form of consciousness we experience in dreams. It also raises the question:
How will our consciousness change in the near future?
In the mind-before-matter view, mind created the physical universe precisely with the aim of nurturing human consciousness and helping it to evolve.
So what does it say about how our consciousness will change?
ACCORDING TO ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY, Jesus Christ lived on earth in the middle of the history of the cosmos. His life represents the great turning point in history. Everything after it mirrors what happened beforehand. So we are experiencing the great events of pre-Christian times in reverse order and our future development will take us through earlier stages in reverse order.
For example, in AD 2000 our lives mirror the life of Abraham in 2000 BC, walking among the idolatrous skyscrapers of Uruk.
Today’s skyscrapers may be taken as representing fundamentalism. On the one hand there are right-wing Christians whom we should bracket with the cruder forms of Islam. Both want to repress human individual free will and intelligence, to lure us into an unenlightening ecstasy. This is the influence of Lucifer.
On the other hand there is the militant scientific materialism that wants to snuff out the human spirit. Machines are making us machine-like. This is the influence of Satan, who wants to go further and squeeze out our spirit altogether and make us mere matter.
And just as Lucifer incarnated so too Satan will incarnate. He will do so as a writer. His aim will be to destroy spirituality by ‘explaining it away’. He will have the ability to create supernatural events, but then know how to give them a reductively scientific explanation.
At first he will appear to be a great benefactor on humankind, a genius. To begin with he himself may not realize he is the Anti-Christ, believing he acts only out of love for humanity. He will do away with much dangerous superstition and work to unite the religions of the world. However, there will come a moment of pride when he realizes he is achieving some things that Jesus Christ was, apparently, unable to achieve. He will then become aware of his identity and his mission.
How to recognize Satan? Or any false prophet? Or any false, purportedly spiritual teaching? False teaching usually has little or no moral dimension, the benefits of reawakening the chakras, for example, being recommended merely in terms of selfish ‘personal growth’. True spiritual teaching puts love of others and love of humanity at its heart — intelligent love, freely given.
Beware, too, of teaching that doesn’t invite questioning, or tolerate mockery. It is telling you, in effect, that God wants you to be stupid.
THIS BOOK HAS ACCUMULATED EVIDENCE to show that throughout history highly intelligent people have immersed themselves in esoteric philosophy.
They have used secret techniques to work themselves into altered states in which they can access an abnormally high level of intelligence.
The evidence shows that the groups involved in these societies were concerned to help forge new, more highly intelligent forms of consciousness.
Esoteric thinking has had a great, determining influence on human development that these days is almost wholly overlooked.
ACCORDING TO THIS WAY OF THINKING, humans once had unhindered access to the spirit worlds. Then this access became obscured and dimmed as matter hardened. Now the barrier between ourselves and the spirit worlds is becoming thinner again. The material world is fraying and becoming threadbare.
We may begin to become more aware of the patterns suggested by ‘coincidences’ and the synchronicities we experience. We may begin to see in these the outline of deeper laws.
We may become less quick to presume that our intuitions, our brilliant ideas are our own — and more open to the suggestion that they might be otherwordly promptings.
As well as becoming aware that we may be prompted by disembodied intelligence, we may realize, too, that we are connected with one another more directly through thinking than we are through speech and physical observation. We may develop a heightened sense that our interaction with other people is a far more mysterious process than we routinely suppose.
In the future we may also learn to look at relationships in terms of reincarnation. We may come to appreciate that relationships in previous incarnations may account for ‘subconscious’ feelings of liking and disliking which rise up when we meet strangers.
NATURALLY ALL THIS SEEMS MAD FROM a commonsensical point of view. There is no room anywhere in a scientific-materialist universe for these sorts of musings.
But the scientific-materialist view has its limitations, as I’ve tried to suggest.
When it comes to contemplating such far-flung events as the beginning of the universe, it is inevitable that huge amounts of speculation are mapped on to the smallest conceivable specks of evidence. Leading physicists’, cosmologists’ and philosophers’ speculations on infinite interlocking dimensions, parallel universes and ‘soap bubble universes’ involve just as much imagination as Aquinas’s speculations about angels on a pinhead.
The point is that when it comes to the biggest questions, people are again not necessarily choosing according to the balance of the probabilities, which may be almost too small to measure. The world is like the ‘perspected’ picture that can equally well be seen as a witch or a pretty young girl. People often choose one world-view in preference to another because somewhere in the depths of their being that is what they want to believe.
If we can learn to become conscious of this predisposition, we can make a decision which is — to that extent — free, because it is a decision based on knowledge. The part of us, somewhere in our depths, that wants to believe in a mechanical-materialist universe may on reflection not be the part of ourselves we want to determine our fate.
Know Thyself, commanded the Sun god. The techniques taught in ancient times in the Mystery schools and in modern times by groups like the Rosicrucians are intended to help us become aware of the rhythm of our breaths, our hearts, our sexual rhythms, the rhythm of waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep. If we can consciously attune our own individual rhythms to the rhythms of the cosmos measured by Jakim and Boaz, it is suggested we may eventually join our individual evolutions with the evolution of the cosmos. This would be to find meaning in life in meaning’s highest sense.
Esoteric philosophy calls for a rediscovery of the spiritual hierarchies ranged above us, and, intimately connected with that, a discovery of the divine capabilities ranged within us. This was the secret preserved and nurtured by geniuses as diverse as Plato, St Paul, Leonardo, Shakespeare and Newton:
1. If you can think so deeply that you can rediscover the spiritual roots of thought, if you can recognize thoughts as living, spiritual beings…
2. If you can develop a strong enough sense of your own individuality that you can become aware of your interaction with the Thought-Beings that weave in and out of yourself, yet not be overwhelmed by this reality…
3. If you can recreate the ancient sense of wonder and use this sense of wonder to help awaken the willpower that lies sleeping in your deep, dark recesses…
4. If the fire of love for your fellow human beings rises from your heart and causes you to weep tears of compassion…
… then you have been working on the Four Elements. You have begun the process of their transformation.
This is the mysterious fourfold ‘work’ also alluded to by St Paul in I Corinthians 13: ‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part but then shall I know even as I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love…’
Intuition is transformed intellect that perceives the spiritual beings as real. Paul calls this faith.
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sp; Allegory by Leonardo da Vinci. As an initiate of the secret philosophy Leonardo understood the spiritual exercises involving work on the Four Elements to which St Paul alludes. The creature on the left is not a wolf, as the catalogue of the Queen’s collection states, but a bull.
Wonder is transformed feeling, feeling that has become aware of the spiritual workings of the cosmos but is not overwhelmed by them. Paul calls this hope.
Conscience is transformed will, when by the exercise of thought and imagination, faith and hope, we have begun to transform that part of ourselves, including the willpower that lives beneath the threshold of consciousness. Paul calls this charity or love.
By applying faith to hope, and by applying faith and hope to love, a human being may then be transformed into an angel.
So the Scorpion is transformed into an Eagle. The Eagle works with the Bull and the Bull grows wings. The winged Bull works on the Lion so that it grows wings in its turn.
And the end of this fourfold process is that the winged Lion works on the Man so that he is transformed into an Angel. This is a great mystery taught in the Mystery centres of the ancient world, which became the great mystery of esoteric Christianity.
The Four Elements play a crucial role in the formation of the physical universe, and to work on them as they weave in and out of us is to transform not just ourselves but the whole universe, even to its outer limits. If an individual cries tears of compassion, his animal nature is to some extent transformed, but so, too, are the Cherubim that occupy and interweave throughout the whole cosmos. Changes in human physiology become seeds of the transfiguration of the entire material universe.
The Cabalist Isaac Luria wrote that, eventually, there will be no single atom that has not been worked on by man.
IN THE EARLY CHAPTERS OF THIS HISTORY we saw how the world and humanity were created in the following order: first the mineral part, second the vegetable, third the animal, and last, as the crown of creation, the distinctly human element. Constituent parts were nurtured one after the other, each providing the conditions for the succeeding stage to develop. As the latter stages of history progress, these parts will be transformed in reverse order: human, animal, vegetable and, lastly, mineral. At the end of time even the very atoms of our material natures will be transformed like the physical body of Jesus Christ in the Transfiguration.
We have seen that according to the secret history humanity is only briefly dipped into matter, that the hardening of the earth and of our skulls has enabled us to evolve a proper sense of self, and so the potential to think, will and love freely. But before this brief sojourn among physical objects, our experience was of ideas. The objects of our Imagination, which we conceived of as coming from spirits, angels and gods, were real to us. For the greater part of human history, even long after matter had been formed, what we saw in the mind’s eye was still more real to us than material objects. The lesson of modern history is that matter is being transformed, dispersed, so that in the not too distant future we will re-enter the realm of Imagination.
The Opening of the Fifth Seal by El Greco. This revivifying of the chakras is what is meant in Revelation by the ‘opening of the seals’.
When will this happen? What will happen after the incarnation of Satan? In Chapter 4 we saw that in the mind-before-matter understanding, history is divided into seven ‘days’. Saturday was the rule of Saturn, Sunday was the age when the earth was united with the sun, Monday was the age before the moon departed. Tuesday was the age that started with the locking into place of the fixed, material world in 11,145 BC. The death of Jesus Christ marked the halfway point in Tuesday and the Great Week. What will happen in the rest of the week?
In AD 3574 we will enter the age called Philadelphia in Revelation. If the great evolutionary impulses of previous eras have come from India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Northern Europe, the next impulse will come from Eastern Europe and Russia. Freemasonic-influenced governments in America and Britain have been keen to involve themselves in this area of the world for this reason. Already it is possible to see extremes emanating from this area, both extremes of spirituality and extremes of evil, such as the Russian ‘mafia’.
In future personalities we remember from history, the great personalities who helped lead humanity out of the spirit worlds, will be reborn in order to lead us back into the spirit worlds. There will be a new Shakespeare, a new Moses, a new Zarathustra, a new Hercules. Towards the end of the Philadelphian era, Jesus Pandira, the Teacher of the Essenes, will incarnate again as ‘the Fifth Rider who rides a horse called Faithful and True’, referred to in Revelation. In oriental tradition this figure is called the Maitreya Buddha. He will bring great spiritual gifts, opening what St Teresa of Avila called ‘the eyes of the soul’, the chakras.
We will then re-enter the sacred wood described in Chapter 2. We will be aware of the spirits, then angels and gods, alive in everything around us, but we will not be controlled by them any more. We will become aware again of the spiritual beings ranged on either side of us whenever we make a decision.
As good and evil spirits make themselves felt, as everyone communicates more freely with the spirit worlds, organized religion will no longer be needed.
Imagine no religion.
We will regain some of the ability to control animals and plants by the power of our thoughts that Adam enjoyed. We will begin to remember past lives and to foresee the future.
Our waking consciousness will develop so that it bears the same relationship to our present day waking consciousness as today’s waking consciousness bears to our dreaming consciousness. We will realize that, although we have believed ourselves to be awake, we have actually been asleep.
These developments will be hard-won. At the end of the Philadelphian era, there will be a catastrophic world war at the end of which the surface of the earth will become a spiritual wasteland, except for America, where the flame of spirituality will be kept alive. This will be the mirror image of the period of the first Zarathustra.
The period AD 5734-7894 is called Laodicea in Revelation. As matter becomes less dense, so our bodies will respond more and more to spiritual impulses. The goodness in good people will shine out of them, while the faces and bodies of evil people will be moulded by the animal passions that dominate them.
Good people will find it increasingly hard to be happy if they are surrounded by people who are miserable. Eventually no one will be happy until everyone is happy
If the material world is brief, so too is death. In time we will no longer die but sleep very deeply, and then less and less deeply. Death, as St Paul says, will be swallowed up. As we enter another age of metamorphosis, biological generation too will eventually become unnecessary. We will discover the ‘Word that has been lost’ of the Freemasons, which is to say we will be able to create by power of the voice.
In the scheme of the Great Week, we’ll have moved into ‘Thursday’, though, of course, time as we understand it today will no longer exist. Our thoughts will take on a life of their own, working on our behalf but independently of us.
As history approaches its end, the forces of evil will assert themselves once more, as the third being in the trinity of evil, Sorath, the Sun demon opposes God’s intentions. This is the beast with two horns like a lamb’s, described in Revelation. He will lead the forces of evil in the Last Battle.
Eventually, not only will the sun come up differently as St John Chrysostom predicted, but a sun will rise up inside each of us.
ALL OF THIS WILL HAVE BEEN ACCOMPLISHED by the power of thought!
By and large the people who have most changed history have not been the great generals or politicians, but the artists and thinkers. An individual sitting alone in a room and giving birth to an idea can do more to change the course of history than a general who commands thousands on the field of battle or a political leader who commands the loyalty of millions.
This is the romance and excitement of philosophy. In a mind-before-matte
r universe there is more than romance and excitement in all thinking — there is magic too. It is not just what I do or say but what I think that affects my fellow humans and the whole course of history.
PLATO SAID THAT ALL PHILOSOPHY BEGINS with wonder.
Modern science is killing off wonder, by telling us that we know it all. Modern science is killing off philosophy, by encouraging us not to ask the big Why questions. These questions are strictly meaningless, they say. Just get on with it.
Today’s scientists try to insist that theirs is the only way to interpret the basic conditions of human existence. They like to dwell on what they know. In their view, the known is like a vast continent occupying nearly everything there is.
The men and women who have been described making history in this book have preferred to dwell on what they don’t know. In their view, the known is a tiny island floating on a vast and very strange sea.
Let us sow the seeds of doubt. Let us take Francis Bacon’s advice and refrain from rushing to impose a pattern on the world. Let us wait with Keats at our shoulder for a deeper pattern to emerge.
Science is not certain. It is a myth like any other, representing what people in the deepest parts of themselves want to believe.
Rudolf Steiner once said that people who don’t have the courage to be cruel often develop cruel beliefs. To propose that we don’t live in a reciprocal universe is needlessly cruel.
If we accept these cruel views we are allowing the say-so of experts in their own field to take precedence over our own personal experience. We are also denying things that Shakespeare, Cervantes and Dostoyevsky are telling us are true.
The aim of this book, therefore, has been to suggest that if we take a fresh look at the basic conditions of our existence, they may perhaps be seen in a radically new way. In fact, they may be seen in a way that is nearly completely the opposite of what we have been brought up to believe. This is what philosophy does, if it is done well.
