Meditation is a cornerstone of all mystery traditions and all spiritual and esoteric traditions. It is at the heart of all of the ancient mystery schools. The question is “what is a mystery school?” and of course, what is the big mystery?
Aside from some nifty technology that various cultures come up with from time to time, the ancient Celts, and the ancient Chinese for instance, understood that everything is electrical in nature and is alive. That includes the planet as well.
In China the science of using the living currents of the Earth is known as Feng Shui. In the West it was known as the science of the dragon lines. The term Pendragon, which we associate with Arthurian tradition, refers to a master of the dragon currents. This science had to do with man’s manipulation of those currents, much as we would do today in our manipulation of the human currents via acupuncture. In manipulating the equivalent of these currents upon the globe, the standing stones were used as needles in the earth to manipulate and change those currents, to empower and make sacred the land.
So yes, there was a lot of nifty technology that was part of the mystery tradition. But technology is not the real mystery. Any medieval alchemist worth their salt knew that the great work was really the transformation of the alchemist himself. This was true alchemy.
Meditation is called the footpath of the gods because meditation is the technique whereby you cease becoming a victim of evolutionary tides and you take up your own spiritual growth and development. One of my students said years ago, that “in the sands of time it is better to leave footprints than butt prints.”
Now meditation is like the word “dance” it could mean a lot of different things. Most of what you see out in the market today which called meditation is not true meditation. It is the beginnings of meditation.
We can look at the organization of meditation in three stages;
- The Mysteries of the Outer Court
- The Mysteries of the Hallway or Passageway
- The Mysteries of the Inner Court.
The mysteries of the Outer Court consist of bodies of techniques that are 
sequential.
The first body of techniques consists of Relaxation Techniques.
Most of what you see that is called Meditation is really relaxation techniques. Relaxation does wonderful things for you. It lowers blood pressure, it reduces the effects of stress and it simply calms one’s being. It puts you in an alpha brain wave state which is a much more intuitive and much more creative state than the normal waking and function. Most people slip into alpha as they drift off to sleep. Some examples of relaxation would be Transcendental Meditation and, back in the 60’s & 70’s, Benson’s Relaxation Response. The trouble with alpha techniques is that after about 3 years of using one; you need to go on to something more substantial. If you stay with an alpha technique passed that point, you can get really spacey. You begin to loose your ability to wield your will. Perhaps you have known people in your life who are examples of this very condition. A person can become less effective and definitive within their world. Relaxation techniques are wonderful for many things, but eventually, one must pass beyond them, for they center upon and affect the physical body.
The next body of techniques consists of Visualization Techniques.
Visualization is being used by everybody for everything. It is being used by athletes who want to get the edge on the game. It is being used by people for health practices. But it doesn’t really matter whether you’re imagining yourself as a body builder, visualizing to make certain muscles larger, or visualizing great spiritual energies coming from parts of your body…the practice is still Visualization.
If Relaxation has its primary effect on the physical body, Visualization has its primary affect on the emotional nature. The emotional nature is what empowers Visualization. What is so interesting about Visualization is not so much about what it does, because there’s enough data out there to know it’s effective. But what is truly interesting is about how and why it works.
The brain doesn’t care what is real out there. If you can make a picture in your head of a rabid dog that is a real enough picture; you can trigger your own adrenaline rush, your own fight or flight mechanism. The brain doesn’t care. The brain will work on information that you give it.
I was reading a book on “neuro-science” some years back and there was this wonderful quote: “The Brain is always asking questions of the universe, but it only listens to the answers it has receptors for.” Isn’t that interesting?
Meditation is a way of getting something different into the brain; something different than the messages that the day-to-day brain normally handles, i.e.; physical responses, emotional responses, and some thought. Let it be said however, that most of what people think of as thought, is their opinions about their emotions. Very few people, aside from philosophers and mathematicians perhaps, know what true thought is; thought that is free of emotion.
Visualization affects primarily the emotional nature. It empowers it. You can use the power of visualization for all kinds of purposes, not necessarily spiritual. You see these practices abound within the market place today. It is what the name implies, basically, internal picture making. This too, you must move beyond, for these techniques deal primarily with the emotions.
Next, there is a group of techniques that are called Concentration Techniques.
Now these are not very popular. It’s really nice to visualize. You can put yourself on a beach or in a very spiritual setting and you can talk to your animal guides and they will tell you what to do with your life and all that kind of stuff. Concentration is hard work. It is boring and it is completely humiliating! You find out very quickly, how not in control of your instrument you really are.
Concentration is a main pivot point in both Western and Eastern tradition. In the West they often used geometric figures for the subjects of their concentration. All those Pythagorean theorems you studied in High School are Western Mandalas. They had a great deal of meaning in the Greek Mystery Schools, because they described various Divine Relationships.
In the East candidates would normally choose a natural object; for instance, a rock or a flower.
Concentration is training for the mind, that is, the lower concrete mind or intellect.
Here is the way that it works. You choose an object, such as a rock or a flower, and you make a picture of it, holding the picture in the area of your forehead. (Yes, this includes visualization.) This is the area of the frontal lobes, where thinking and reasoning take place. It is also an energy center, called in the East, the Ajna Center. This is the place of the observer.
You make a picture of your chosen object and simply hold it just in front of the forehead; not thinking about it; not talking to yourself. You are not musing on the great cosmic significance of rocks or what the flower is going to be used for later, just hold the picture. You will be able to do it for about 3 seconds and then you will internally say to yourself “I’m doing it well.” You’ve just blown it because you’ve talked to yourself.
To hold something silently for any length of time… we don’t know how to do that. We talk to ourselves twenty-four hours a day. You probably keep yourself up at night redecorating the living room or doing that project for tomorrow. We don’t know how to internally shut-up.
Real meditation requires that we be quiet. It requires that we develop some skill in holding our mind focused upon one target, one objective, without being pulled in another direction, or off our chosen track. It is a training in the Will, and it is a training in how to become internally quiet, yet remaining mentally awake, alert, and attentive. As long as we are talking to ourselves we can’t listen. So concentration, although humbling, is absolutely necessary in the progression toward real meditation.
In the mysteries of the Outer Court, we have these three steps which lead up to the temple.
- The training that involves the physical body: Relaxation Techniques.
- The training that involves the emotions: Visualization Techniques.
- The training that involves the concrete mind or the intellect: Concentration Techniques.This brings us to the mysteries of the Hallway or Passageway; the movement from the Outer Court or Periphery to the mysteries of the Inner Court where the real alchemy happens.Now the passageway is kind of interesting. Most passageways are. They’re like birth canals and they are also somewhat uncomfortable. They are often dark; you often get squished while moving through them and in that process of getting squished things speed up. If you have a river that is sort of lazily moving along, and you start to dam each side, the opening becomes narrower. What happens to the water? It moves faster; so at this point of the narrowing Hallway, one’s life speeds up, your life begins to move more rapidly than the lives of the people around you.You can go back to your High School Reunion. You notice that the people are the same, going through the same life patterns of behavior they had when they were 17. In contrast, you seemed to have lived three life times since then.To your friends and family who can’t see what’s going on with you internally, you look like a flake because you’re cycling through life forms quite rapidly; mate relationships, job relationships, etc. You are moving through them quickly. This is a natural part of the path. When things are in motion, new patterns are most easily introduced. It is a necessary and predictable instability.What happens in the Passageway? In the Passageway you consolidate all the work that has gone before. You integrate your personality.
The great mythological symbol for this period of growth and mastery of the personality is the character Arjuna, or the Gnostic symbol of Abraxsis, the warrior within the chariot pulled by three horses. At first, the three horses are all going in different directions. You’ve got to get them going in the same direction to go anywhere. So this is the time to integrate them, the physical self, the emotional self, and the mental self, into one responsive unit. Then you can direct the integrated personality toward a specific spiritual evolutionary goal.The techniques of the Hallway or Passageway involve integration; they involve the building of the Ajna Center and the integration of the three aspects of the personality into one responsive unit. But that’s not all of it.
The word personality comes from the Greek word “Persona” which means “mask”. This is the persona is the face the soul shows to the world. In most traditions, in the mysteries of the outer court, the persona is seen as the prisoner of the soul. The bodies are bad, get rid of them; go to Nirvana as quickly as possible without passing go!
However, what begins as the prison of the soul becomes the grail chalice of the soul; it becomes the trusted servant of the soul, it becomes the partner of the soul. You move from personality integration towards something called the “divine marriage” that is talked about in Rosicrucianism and many, many, other world systems. Thus we begin to approach what real meditation is all about, that is, the opening up of communication between that part of you that is above and free of the form, and the personality.
This is not a one-way communication. It begins on unseen levels. That overshadowing part of you seeks union with its extension in time and space. The persona registers that subtle touch of the overshadowing. It begins to respond and the persona starts seeking; what they see in the world isn’t enough, there’s got to be more and they start looking for it. They go through a period of spiritual smorgasbording, trying everything out until they find the thing that works for them. But this seeking is in response to the call from the Overshadowing Spiritual Soul.
When they begin to find real techniques, these techniques begin to bridge the gap between the overshadowing part of you and the indwelling part of you. The divine marriage results in the mergence of the two. This is when the mysteries of the inner court become possible. This is when real meditation work is undertaken.
Real meditation work involves three main categories.
1. Meditation for Communion
This is an upward movement of energy that the Hindu’s would call Vajra. This is 
movement from Matter towards Spirit. This kind of meditation is meditating for communion with that which is above and beyond us, the Divine. It is meditation for sanctuary; it is seeking that spiritual source that is at the heart of all of us, and from that, you can draw sanctuary, nurturing, and sustenance. We begin to be watered not by our lower roots only but by our upper roots; the inverted tree in the Norse traditions.
2. Meditation for Wisdom and Learning
If the first part has to do with communion and sanctuary, the second has to do with 
wisdom and learning. Via this type of meditation you are now in touch with something greater than yourself; “the Raincloud of Knowable Things.” You get to download new stuff! Until that point, you are just moving around thoughts which are already here. You’re just accessing what is already in the circulation of humanity’s mind and recombining it perhaps, in fascinating ways but it is not new stuff.
In the learning part of meditation, you bring in that which is abstract; that which is not yet precipitated into humanity’s conscious mind, but is overshadowing, held within the higher or spiritual mind. Via meditation, you can consciously access that new area of thought, and give it a fresh, new interpretation. Jesus warned us about trying to put new wine into old bottles. You create new forms for this new abstraction and via creative direction, set it actively within humanity’s collective mind, where it can be accessed and used by others. Rather than going through a translation of a translation, of a translation, you are accessing the source, and giving it a form which is relevant to the present time and space.
3. Meditation for Service
In the second category; Meditation for Learning, you learn new things and you can access new abilities and new information, not for yourself alone. At this stage you realize, not just in theory but in experience, that you are part of something greater, the One and the Many, the oneness and unity of the Divine, complete with Individuality. It’s a fractal setup. It’s a holographic setup.
In the final phase meditation for service, you learn those meditation techniques that allow you to be the Agent of Divine Intervention. These techniques can be used for healing, for adjusting negative situations within the world. You learn to apply them first to your personal life. Mastering this, your service now moves outward into humanity for the sake of humanity.
Thus, we have a three-directional movement of meditation:
- Meditation for Communion, the Vajra, the upward focus.
- Meditation for Wisdom and Learning, the Chitrini, the downward focus.
- Meditation for Service, the outward focus, that active connectedness and oneness that makes what you experience in consciousness, an outer actuality.
Understand that this activity of consciousness is not just up in lofty realms of thought. Part of the Mystery Tradition was also the teaching about how stuff works here within our daily lives.
There is an electrical network that underlies all manifestation. This is the body of God and has been called the Etheric Network, the Matrix, and “the Force.” In the human being there are many names for this, the Light body and the Etheric body to name but a few.
The organs of this body or network of light have been called chakras in the East. Chakra means “fiery wheel,” and in the East they were depicted often as Lotus Blossoms unfolding at different times with varying numbers of petals. In the Western systems, they were shown as mythological animals. You can go back and read world mythology with a whole new perspective if you understand the symbolic language.
All ancient temples were models of what goes on inside human beings. We unconsciously reproduce our own patterns outward into our creations and our environment. In Egyptian temples, for example, the altar and the Holy of Holies were always related to structures and activities within the head.
In western mythology the chakras,
seven major ones, are depicted as mythological animals.
- The Root Center, at the base of the tail, is depicted as a dragon or serpent. The
dragon is often shown curled around the roots of trees and guarding treasure. They are usually nasty little creatures until they have been raised and are given wings, then they become the Chinese dragons of Wisdom. - The Sacral Center, at the sacrum, is depicted as a Centaur, half animal, half human being. This is the animal body that we share in nature. The centaur must evolve from the out of control, rowdy, impulsive creature, into the healer and teacher, exemplified by Chiron, the mentor to initiates like Jason and Hercules.
- The Solar Plexus Center is depicted by all water symbols. Water is an age-old symbol of the emotions. Thus we have mermaids, water bogeys, water monsters like the Kraken, and female spirits of rivers waiting to draw men to their depths and deaths. We must master this element so that we “walk on top of the water.”
- The Heart Center is depicted as a lion, not because the lion is the strongest or smartest of creatures, but because it is the “king of beasts,’ because of its radiant, golden mane. It is the symbol of the sun and our sun is the heart chakra of our solar system. Here is where the child of God is born, and the Spiritual Path begun.
- The Throat Center is depicted by the bull. This is the winged bull of Babylon and ancient Egypt. The bull symbolizes creativity issued via the spoken word. Even in Catholicism great papal issues are called Papal Bulls. Even in the negative, we talk about bullshit from the throat center, the garbage from the throat center. This creative power must be turned from purely selfish ends to the service of the Spirit. This is the meaning of the sacrificed bull of Mithras.
- The Ajna Center is located in front of the forehead, and is depicted by several different symbols.
- The Pegasus, the white purified animal nature given wings, symbolizing higher creativity and inspiration.
- The Gnostic symbol of the Rooster, first bird to see light to recognize and herald the light of day. Take a look at the skull with its two bones on either side of the face. These are called the sphenoid bones. They look like wings. Right between the wings is situated a little cup of bone called the “sella tersica” or the Turkish saddle. Into this little cup of bone sits the pituitary gland, which is the master controller of the body. A lot of ritual chanting has to do with pituitary massage by stimulating the bones of the face in front of the sphenoid bone. Also, just in front of the sphenoid bone, you have a little crest of bone called the “christa galli” which means Cox Comb. There you have your Gnostic rooster out pictured in the physiology of the head itself.
- The Head Center, located just above the physical head. This is the halo around the head of saints, or the bump on top of Buddha’s head. This center is depicted in the west as a Unicorn. This is where the adult Son of God is born, and takes up service to humanity.
In meditation training, certain chakras are activated in an order that is particular to individuals and different in Eastern and Western systems. Ultimately, we know that any transformation, any alchemy that happens within a human being, begins on subtle levels and works its way from the levels of spirit to the mind. Here, thoughts are lifted in frequency and are reflected into the emotions. At the emotional level, we exchange the negativity for positivity, refashioning the emotions into expressions of the Soul rather than the separative personality. Finally, what began as thought is out-pictured into the physical body itself.
The evolution which meditation produces is not just the evolution of consciousness; it is also the evolution of the form. This was understood as one of the central mysteries of the mystery schools, and the curriculum included training in how to make that happen for ones self.
You become not the victim of evolution but the perpetrator of evolution as you take up your own spiritual growth and development. Spiritual Alchemy is the transfiguration of ones self, mentally, emotionally, and physically, as well as an expansion of consciousness.
To give you a brief idea of the physiological effects,
let us look for a moment at the anatomy of the brain.
We know in the brain there are spaces. These spaces are called ventricles. There are two 
large ventricles in either hemisphere, and these spaces or ventricles, are where the cerebral spinal fluid is produced. The cerebral spinal fluid is produced largely in these ventricles. Once produced, the fluid flows into a narrow third ventricle in the center of the head. Here it undergoes a small rest before proceeding further. This little narrow third ventricle has been called the Cave. This is Plato’s cave. In some systems, it is called the straight and narrow way, the room of the last supper, the room at the top of the 33 step stairway of freemasons, and the 33 vertebrae of the spinal column. This is where the alchemy on a physical level takes place. It must be begun on higher levels; the physical expression is but the lowest manifestation of the activity.
This cerebral spinal fluid is produced about every 28 days. It begins its journey down the spinal column, turns around at the end of the spinal passageway, and it moves back up the spinal ventricle or space to be re-absorbed in the web-like spaces of the brain called the arachnid spaces.
This circulation is in harmony with the rhythm of the earth. There is a 28-day cycle of the breath of the earth which has been calculated by dowsers studying the standing stones of Northern Europe. For two weeks, energy flows from the Earth upward through a standing stone into the atmosphere. There is a brief pause, and then the energy flows downward from the atmosphere through the stone back into the earth. This is where the British term a “fortnight” comes from. It relates to the natural breath and breathing of the earth. The circulation of the cerebro-spinal fluid echoes this natural breathing of the earth, and puts man in harmony with that breath.
The cerebral spinal fluid, once produced within the large ventricles within each hemisphere, pools in the center, or third ventricle, before it then moves down a narrow little tube to the fourth ventricle. Here the fluid waters the back part of the brain which is called “the arbor vitae” or the Tree of Life, before moving down the spine on its monthly rounds. This internal activity happens all the time, without our conscious awareness.
Alchemically we know that every major chakra or energy center has for its touchdown point a place within the physical body. The centers or chakras below the head are like little tornadoes which funnel into the back of the spine. Here they affect certain nerve plexus in those same areas.
In the head, the touch down point for the crown chakra is the pineal gland. The active crown chakra produces the halo of saints or the bump on top of Buddha’s head. These symbols indicate that this center is active. When the head or crown center is activated, it causes changes within its physical touchdown point, the pineal gland, and its hormonal output.
The crown chakra must be worked in conjunction with the Ajna Center (your outward connection with matter). The Ajna Center relates to your bodies and the outer world. The touchdown point for the Ajna Center is the pituitary gland, master controller of the body. When these two, the Head or Crown Center and the Ajna Center, are worked in unison, the balance between Spirit and Matter is brought about via these energy centers in the head. As these energy centers are activated in a new relationship, they eventually produce physiological results. These two glands, which live in that narrow little third ventricle or space, release essences or hormones that change the alchemical component of the cerebral spinal fluid.
The animal that symbolizes the head center in western mythology is the Unicorn because it is a Christ figure. The story of the Unicorn is that it lives within a vast forest. In the center of the forest is a stream of poisoned waters. When the Unicorn touched its head to the waters to drink, that stream was purified and was made safe for all of the other animals to drink of that stream. When that cerebral spinal fluid is alchemically changed and it then moves down into the tree of life, it changes and affects the past, for this old or back part of the brain is the reptilian brain of basic survival impulses and functions. Transmutation of the past and liberation from that past, those instinctual impulses, are part of the alchemical process. The old parts of the brain are affected and changed.
That cerebral spinal fluid then moves down the spinal column where all the other chakras focus into and through the spine. As the energy of the other charkas focus through that changed fluid in the spine, their effects are also changed. The waters of the spine have been purified and are safe for all the other “beasts.” As a result, different relationships are produced within the centers in relation to the spine, and thus within the nerve plexus and endocrine glands. The whole system is reoriented physically to the change in consciousness expressed by the newly activated charkas.
And so we see that this Divine Marriage or union of Spirit and Matter is not just philosophical, it is spiritual, philosophical, moral, and physical.
In the Masonic 3rd degree, the candidate undergoes a symbolic near death experience.
In the old days, they actually knocked the candidate into unconsciousness, and probably lost a few. Part of that ritual requires that when the individual is supposedly lying there dead ready to be raised after the three days, the hand of morality cannot raise him, nor can the hand of philosophy. It is only the hand of the Master, the completed alchemist that can produce that raising. The particular grip that they use is called the “grip of the lion’s paw.” The lion is the symbol of the heart center; the Master is the heart center of the lodge.
This information is an example of what has been done in the past. All of that teaching and more is still available. We may not have physical mystery schools, but we have mystery teachers. Today those teachers are like Ronins or Paladins, movable pieces on the chessboard. They move among us and it is easier for them to move than to move great bunches of people. Now we have the Internet which makes it even easier; so all of that past teaching is still available.
What is really exciting is the future of consciousness.
Everyone knows something is happening. We can sense something, some shift, some change and we are all here to be mid-wives to that change. That is why we have chosen to be here now. This change involves not only humanity, as humanity moves from international consciousness into global consciousness (which includes our relationship with other kingdoms in nature). This change includes the life that is beyond this planet. We have been living in this little egg, and we thought that humanity is the hub of the universe. When that egg cracks we are going to find life and intelligence and spirituality everywhere; intelligent life that has been here all along, which we have not yet recognized, and newly discovered life that is beyond us.
Humanity is moving into an amazing new birth but we’re not doing it alone. We think that what’s happening on this planet is just happening on this planet. It’s not. Have you noticed how busy our sun has been lately, the heart chakra of our solar system? Recall the great Masonic prayer, “Light more Light.” We’re getting it. In this point in the 11-year sun cycle, the sun should be quiet. We’re having X-class flares, which are having an effect on the magnetic body of this planet. The warming that we are seeing is not just because of our faux pas. Every planet in our solar system is warming right now. The whole solar system is alive and is ready to take its next step which will involve all life on this planet. For humanity this means becoming conscious in a new way. Not just conscious of our own individuality but, via experience, conscious of that greater life into which we are moving.
As Sherlock Holmes said, “The game’s a foot.”
As one of the participants, I would say to you “Let’s Play.”
