In sleep the animal spirit leaves the vegetable and mineral parts of the body behind. In death, on the other hand, the vegetable part, which orders the basic life functions, leaves with the animal spirit.
The vegetable part of human nature has many functions, including storing memory. As the vegetable part detaches from the material body, both begin to disintegrate. This disintegration of the vegetable part causes the spirit to experience a review of the life just completed.
The vegetable part dissipates and detaches itself from the animal spirit in a matter of days. Then the spirit passes into the sub-lunar sphere. There it is attacked by demons who tear from it all impure, corrupt and bestial desires, all evil impulses of will. This region, where the spirit has to endure this painful process of purification for a period lasting approximately a third of the time spent on earth, is called Purgatory in Christian tradition. It is the same place as the Underworld of the Egyptians and Greeks. It is the Kamaloca (literally ‘region of desire’) of the Hindus.
Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century German mystic, said ‘If you fight your death, you’ll feel the demons tearing away at your life, but if you have the right attitude to death, you will be able to see that the devils are really angels setting your spirit free.’ An initiate has the right attitude to death. He sees behind appearances and knows that demons in their proper place perform an invaluable role in what we might call the ‘ecology’ of the spirit world. Unless the spirit is purged in this way, it cannot ascend through the higher spheres and hear their music. Following its prodigal journey on earth, the spirit cannot be reunited with the Father until it has been purified.
It is important to continue to bear in mind that the knowledge gained in initiation is not dry or abstract, but existential. The initiate has an out-of-body experience which is shattering.
From the lunar sphere the disembodied spirit flies upwards to the realm of Mercury, from there to Venus and then on to the sun. Then the spirit experiences, as the Greek orator Aristides put it, ‘a lightness which nobody who has not been initiated could either describe or understand’. It is important to continue to bear in mind that this teaching was common to Mystery schools of all cultures in the ancient world and has been perpetuated in the modern world by the secret societies. From the Egyptian Book of the Dead, through the Christian Cabala of the Pistis Sophia through Dante’s Commedia, forward to modern works such as Le Petit Prince by the twentieth-century French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the secret doctrine is maintained, sometimes in books only initiates may read — and sometimes hidden in plain view.
In the ancient texts the initiate is told the secret names of the spirits who guard the entrance to every sphere and the sometimes secret handshakes and other signs and formulae needed to negotiate entry. In the Pistis Sophia these spheres are envisaged as made of crystal and the entrance keepers of these spheres as archons or demons.
In all the ancient religions, the being who guides the human spirit through the underworld and helps negotiate the way past the guardian demons is the god of the planet Mercury.
But the initiates of the Mystery schools kept a secret. Halfway on the journey through the spheres, there is a swap. The task of guiding the human spirit upwards is taken over by a great being whose identity may perhaps be a surprise. In the latter part of the spirit’s ascent through the heavenly spheres the guide who lights the way is Lucifer.
In the spiritual ecology of the cosmos Lucifer is a necessary evil, both in this life — because without Lucifer humans could feel no desire — and in the afterlife. Without Lucifer the spirit would be plunged into total darkness and fail to understand the ascent. The second-century Roman writer Apuleius wrote that in the process of initiation the spirit confronts the gods of heaven in all their unveiled splendour — and with all their ambiguities removed.
The spirit ascends through the spheres of Jupiter and Saturn, passes through the sphere of the constellations and is finally reunited with the great Cosmic Mind. It has been a painful, confusing and tiring journey. Plutarch writes: ‘But finally a wondrous light shines to greet us, beautiful meadows full of singing and dancing, the solemnity of sacred realms and holy appearances.’
Then the spirit must begin again the descent through the spheres, preparatory to the next incarnation. As it descends each sphere grants the spirit a gift which it will need when re-entering the material plane.
The following account has been compiled from fragments of ancient tablets, dating perhaps as far back as the third millennium BC, excavated in Iraq in the late nineteenth century:
The first gate he passed her out of, and he restored to her the covering cloak of her body.
The second gate he passed her out of and he restored to her the bracelets of her hands and feet.
The third gate he passed her out of, and he restored to her the binding girdle of her waist.
The fourth gate he passed her out of and he restored to her the ornaments of her breast.
The fifth gate he passed her out of and he restored to her the necklace of her neck.
The sixth gate he passed her out of and he restored to her the earrings of her ears.
The seventh gate he passed her out of and he restored to her the great crown of her head.
Even today every child is reminded of these gifts in the fairy story Sleeping Beauty. The human spirit still responds strongly and warmly to this story, experiencing it as true in a deep sense.
But in order to understand the esoteric content of Sleeping Beauty it is necessary to think in an upside down sort of way. The story relates that at the party to celebrate her birth, six fairies give the Princess gifts to help her have a happy and fulfilled life. The seventh fairy, who represents Saturn or Satan, the spirit of materialism, curses the child with death, which is commuted to a long period of sleep. These seven fairies are, of course, the seven gods of the planetary spheres.
What is upside down and the other way round about this story is that by the deathly, dreamless sleep which is the curse of the evil fairy is meant life on earth. In other words, because of the intervention by Satan, humans gradually lose any consciousness, and eventually any memory, of their time among the heavenly hierarchies: ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.’ In this story, then, the party at the beginning of the narrative must be understood as taking place in the spirit world, and it is only when Beauty falls asleep that she is alive on the material plane. When she awakes, she dies!
In fact we have already seen a similar paradox in the story of Osiris, most of which takes place in the spirit world. When Osiris is nailed in the coffin that fits him like skin, it is his skin. He is only dead to Isis when he is alive on the material plane.
THESE STORIES SHOW HOW BOTH THIS life and the afterlife are ruled by the planets and stars. They should alert us to another very important dimension in initiatic teachings. Initiation prepares the candidate for meetings with the guardians of the different spheres both on the way up and on the way down. If these teachings are imprinted well enough on the individual spirit, this will ultimately prepare the spirit for conscious participation with the higher spiritual beings in preparing for a new incarnation. The key word here is ‘conscious’.