Advanced students of the Perennial Tradition prepare themselves to receive this High Initiation with deep appreciation by thoughtfully assimilating each word of the essay, meditating reflectively on deeper meanings, and using each image to assist them in gaining a more profound understanding. In the paragraph below each word is taken literally. "Everything depends upon the way in which you receive what is offered you."

     "A divinity may approach you: it is either everything or nothing. Nothing, if you meet it in the frame of mind with which you confront everyday matters; everything, if you are prepared and attuned to the meeting. What the divinity is in itself is a matter that does not affect you; the important point for you is whether it leaves you as it found you or makes a different person of you. But this depends entirely on yourself. What is brought to you depends upon the reception you prepare for it. You must have been prepared by the education and development of the most intimate forces of your personality so that what the divine is able to evoke may be kindled and released in you. Everything depends upon the way in which you receive what is offered you."

Rudolf Steiner, Christianity As Mystical Fact, 1947

     The High Initiation places the initiate precisely into that state of Higher Consciousness induced by the Mystery Traditions of Egypt and Greece and incorporated into Perennialist Hermeticism and Esotericism. ³

"Although this process of initiation [into the Higher Mysteries] bore all the outward semblance of expert hypnotism, it was something that went far beyond the entrancement methods of our modern experimenters, who tap the subconscious mind of man but who cannot make their subjects conscious of still profounder planes of existence."

"Moreover, to confuse such a sublime experience with the mental handiwork of the modem hypnotist would be a grave error. The latter plunges his subject into a strange condition which neither fully understands, whereas the hierophant of the Mysteries was in the possession of a secret traditional knowledge which enabled him to exercise his power as one fully armed with complete understanding. The hypnotist taps the subconscious mentality of his entranced subject down to a certain level, without himself sharing the change of condition, whereas the hierophant watched and controlled every such change by his own percipient powers. Above all, the hypnotist is only able to elucidate from his subject such matters as concern our material world and life, or to perform abnormal feats with the material body. The hierophant went deeper, and could lead the mind of the candidate step by step through an experience involving the spiritual worlds--a feat beyond the power of any modern hypnotist to achieve."

"There existed an exalted and final degree of initiation where the souls of men were not merely freed temporarily from their bodies in a condition of simulated death, in order to prove the truth of survival, after the great change, but where they were actually carried up to the loftiest spheres of being, to the realm of the Creator Himself. In this marvellous experience the finite mind of man was drawn into contact with the infinite mind of his superior divinity. He was able for a brief while to enter into silent, spell-bound communion with the Father of All [and other Higher Beings], and this fleeting contact of incomparable ecstasy was enough to change his entire attitude towards life. He had partaken of the holiest food that exists in life. He had discovered the ineffable ray of Deity which was his true innermost self, and of which the soul-body which survives death was merely the intangible vesture. He was, in verity and fact, born again in the highest sense.

"Such an experience came with an entrancement which, although outwardly similar, was inwardly completely different from the hypnotic entrancements of the earlier degrees of initiation. No hypnotic power could ever confer it, no magical ceremony could ever evoke it. Only the supreme hierophants, themselves at one with their divinities, their wills bent with his, could by their astonishing divine force arouse the candidate to consciousness of his superior nature. This was the noblest and most impressive revelation then possible to Egyptian man, and still possible, albeit through other ways, to modern man."
Paul Brunton, A Search in Secret Egypt, 1936




  As in Brunton's depiction of the Mystery Initiation, so the High Perennialist Initiation involves the Perennialist teacher placing himself in a Higher State of Consciousness as he imparts to and activates a Higher State of Consciousness within the student-initiate. The teacher mystically "accompanies" the initiate into a Higher Life peopled with Higher Beings and Higher Activities.

  Advanced students of the Perennial Tradition prepare for the High Initiation experience by expressing and meditating on these Theurgic Enunciations as often as time allows.

Theurgic Enunciations:

• Thank you, Lord God
  
  Meditate on all elements (persons, events, objects, events) that you feel grateful for.
  
  
• I surrender my life and being to you, Lord God.
  
  Meditate on the Divine receiving your surrendered life and being and using it as He deems best.
  
  
• I am one with you, Father of All.
  
  Meditate on merging and becoming one with the essence of the Divine.

2. Having Our Being In the Supersensible Realm

  The goal of the High Initiation is to make it possible for the initiate to engage in ongoing communion with Higher Beings in the supersensible realm.

The goal is to be "able to perceive manifestations from the spiritual [supersensible] world which do not find their expression in sounds perceptible to the physical ear. The perception of the 'inner word' awakens. Gradually truths reveal themselves to the student from the spiritual [supersensible] world. He hears speech [communication] uttered [transmitted] to him in a spiritual [supersensible] way. Only to those who, by selfless listening, train themselves to be really receptive from within, in stillness, unmoved by personal opinion or feeling only to such can the higher beings speak of whom spiritual science tells. . .   "All higher truths are attained through such inwardly instilled speech [communication], and what we hear from the lips of a true spiritual teacher has been experienced by him in this manner. . . [It is] important for us to acquaint ourselves with the writings of spiritual science before we can ourselves hear such inwardly instilled speech [communication]. . . "Since these instructions are culled from the living inner word, from the living inwardly instilled speech [communication], they are themselves gifted with spiritual life. They are not mere words; they are living powers. And while you follow the words of one who knows, while you read a book that springs from real inner experience, powers are at work in your soul which make you clairvoyant [able to see things that cannot be perceived by the normal senses]. . .   "Do not expect immediately to see and hear in the world of soul and spirit, for all that you are doing does but contribute to the development [activation] of your higher senses, and you will only be able to hear with soul and spirit when you possess these higher senses. Having persevered for a time in silent inner seclusion, go about your customary daily affairs, imprinting deeply upon your mind this thought: 'Some day, when I have grown [developed] sufficiently, I shall attain that which I am destined to attain,' and make no attempt to attract forcefully any of these higher powers to yourself. . .   "How great is the part played in our life by things we hear and learn, without our consciously realizing the connection! . .   "It is necessary that the student should control and dominate everything that seeks to influence him from outside. He should reach the point of really receiving no impressions beyond those he wishes to receive. This can only be achieved by the development of a powerful inner life; by an effort of the will he only allows such things to impress him to which his attention is directed, and he actually evades all impressions to which he does not voluntarily respond. If he sees something it is because he wills to see it, and if he does not voluntarily take notice of something it is actually non-existent for him. The greater the energy and inner activity devoted to this work, the more extensively will this faculty be attained. The student must avoid all vacuous gazing and mechanical listening. For him only those things exist to which he turns his eye or his ear. He must practice the power of hearing nothing, even in the greatest disturbance, if he does not will to hear; and he must make his eyes unimpressionable to things of which he does not particularly take notice. . . The student's inner life must become a life of attention, and he must learn really to hold at a distance everything to which he should not or does not wish to direct his attention. . .   "A Buddha or the Evangelists did not utter their own revelations but those which flowed into them from the inmost being of all things. . .   "In esoteric training there is question of four attributes which must be acquired on the so-called preparatory path for the attainment of higher knowledge. The first is the faculty of discriminating in thoughts between truth and appearance or mere opinion. The second attribute is the correct estimation of what is inwardly true and real, as against what is merely apparent. The third rests in the practice of the six qualities already mentioned in the preceding pages: thought-control, control of actions, perseverance, tolerance, faith and equanimity. The fourth attribute is the love of inner freedom. . .   "To higher knowledge, the inner world appears as part of the outer world. In a higher world man's inner being confronts him as a reflected image, just as though in the physical world he were surrounded by mirrors and could observe his physical body in that way. . .   "The feelings of an esoterically developed person toward the things of the spiritual world are very different from the feelings of the undeveloped person toward the things of the physical world. The latter feels himself to be at a particular place in the world of sense, and the surrounding objects to be external to him. The spiritually developed person feels himself to be united with, and as though in the interior of, the spiritual objects [enities] he perceives. . .   "He must seek out some place, thoroughly investigate it, and take spiritual possession of it. In this place he must establish his spiritual home and relate everything else to it. . .   "The things and beings of the higher worlds are closely enough related to those of the physical world to enable, with a little good will, some sort of conception of these higher worlds to be formed, even though words suitable for the physical world are used. Only . . . such descriptions of supersensible worlds must, to a large extent, be in the nature of simile, [metaphor,] and symbol. The words of ordinary language are only partially adopted in the course of esoteric training; for the rest, the student learns another symbolical language, as a natural outcome of his ascent to higher worlds. The knowledge of this language is acquired during esoteric training itself. . .   "It seems to the student ever more and more as though the solution of the riddles over which he ponders is whispered to him in tones and words out of a higher world. And he is able to connect with ordinary life whatever comes to him from a higher world. What was formerly only accessible to his thought now becomes actual experience, just as living and substantial as an experience in this physical world can be. The things and beings of this physical world are by no means only what they appear to be for physical perception. They are the expression and effluence of a spiritual world. This spiritual world, hitherto concealed from the student, now resounds for him out of his whole environment. . .   "By concentration [contemplation] and meditation the student works upon his soul and develops within it the soul-organs of perception. While thus applying himself to the task of concentration and meditation his soul grows within his body, just as the embryo child grows in the body of the mother. When the isolated experiences during sleep begin, as described, the moment of birth is approaching for the liberated soul; for she has literally become a new being, developed by the individual within himself, from seed to fruit. The effort required for concentration [contemplation] and meditation must therefore be carefully and accurately maintained, for it contains the laws governing the germination and fruition of the higher human soul-being. The latter must appear at its birth as a harmonious, well-proportioned organism. . .   The initiate is "in a position to carry over his awakened higher soul into waking consciousness as well. The acquisition of this faculty will enable him to perceive the spiritual world in its own character, among and within the experiences of the day; that is, the hidden secrets of his environment will be conveyed to his soul as tones and words [and meanings]. . .   "The unconsciousness of sleep-life is transformed into complete consciousness. . . The student learns--indeed he must learn if he is to retain a firm footing in the physical world and not become a visionary--to connect the higher experiences of sleep with his physical environment. . .   "During sleep no impressions are conveyed to the human soul through the instrumentality of the physical sense-organs. The impressions from the ordinary outer world do not find their way to the soul when in that condition. In certain respects the soul is actually outside the part of the human being--the so-called physical body--which in waking life is the medium for sense perceptions and thought. The soul is then only connected with the finer bodies (the etheric body and the astral body), which are beyond the scope of physical sense observation. But the activity of these finer bodies does not cease during sleep. Just as the physical body is connected and lives with the things and beings of the physical world, affecting them and being affected by them, so, too, does the soul live in a higher world; only, this life of the soul continues also during sleep. The soul is in full activity during sleep, but we can know nothing of this activity so long as we have no spiritual organs of perception through which to observe what is going on around us and see what we ourselves are doing during sleep, as we observe our daily physical environment with our ordinary senses. The preceding chapters have shown that esoteric training consists in the development of such spiritual sense organs. . .   "The soul lives in uninterrupted activity in the higher worlds, even gathering from them the impulse to act upon the physical body. Ordinarily unconscious of his higher life, the esoteric student renders himself conscious of it, and thereby his whole life becomes transformed. As long as the soul remains unseeing in the higher sense it is guided by superior cosmic beings. And just as the life of a person born blind is changed, through a successful operation, from its previous dependence on a guide, so too is the life of a person changed through esoteric training. . .   "What the senses perceive is only part of the [Supersensible Plenum], and it is in the spirit world that the beings dwell who express themselves in the facts of the physical world. Man must become a partaker of the spirit in order to carry its revelations into the physical world. He transforms the earth by implanting in it what he has ascertained in the spiritual world. That is his task. . .   "Now a new era is to begin, in which thy liberated powers must be applied to further work in the world of the senses. Hitherto thou hast sought only thine own release, but now, having thyself become free, thou canst go forth as a liberator of thy fellows. Until today thou hast striven as an individual, but now seek to coordinate thyself with the whole, so that thou mayst bring into the supersensible world not thyself alone, but all things else existing in the world of the senses. . . Ye all did perforce descend into the sense-world to gather powers needed for a higher world. To separate thyself from thy fellows would mean to abuse those very powers which thou couldst not have developed save in their company. . ." Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, 1904

"All higher dimensions employ direct thought transmission and also use various forms of symbolic intelligence. Only in the third dimension do we have vocal speech and depend upon words to convey meaning. This is the main reason that communication is so difficult in this dimension and deception is so easy. "In higher dimensions, everything radiates its own nature. You know it, by becoming it. You pass over to the standpoint of the other and know it as it knows itself - from the inside-out. Knowing by becoming permits deep and rapid communication. Unlike the third dimension, in the higher dimensions everything is illuminated by an inner light that is a direct expression of its spiritual frequency. There is no reflected light from an external source such as a sun or moon. The inner light is modulated by the entity's individuality, which expresses as a distinctive array of sound and color [and energy]. "Growth in higher awareness is directly proportional to your ability to operate with ease in realms of symbolic intelligence. Symbols contain and transmit meaning and can be used to invoke possibilities from the Void. Symbols are bodies [vibratory fields] for the energies that occupy [and activate] them. "Everything in existence has a spiritual signature, which is a symbol. To invoke the symbol is to summon the creature it represents. This, of course, is the basis for all sacred magic [and theurgy]. Manipulating symbols is manipulating the energies they contain and transmit. Ancient symbols still carry a full charge of energy and can be summoned as allies. "As a worker in the realms of light, you need to understand both universal symbolism and your own personal symbolism. Begin to understand your personal symbolism by studying your day and night dreams. . . Develop a rich vocabulary of symbols. . . "View all of your life events not only as objective facts, but also as subjective symbols of the process of your inner transformation. Everything that happens to you is what it is, and is also symbolic of something greater you should take into consideration." Leland Kaiser, "Self-Transcendence"

"I dimly feel people all around me . . . as one feels people about one in a darkened room. They are acting on each other chemically-just like chemical action, only it is spiritual. We laugh at the auras but the idea of them is quite real in a way. You go near a fire, and that has an aura of heat; so has ice, of cold. With people it extends just a certain radius around. When people approach within that radius these influences intermingle and at once that chemical action begins. "I seem to become conscious over here . . . more by this permeating than by the physical senses of sight and touch-they seem like mud-turtle senses. This is a new sense; much finer. There is more comprehension about it. Can't you imagine a state in which, instead of looking at things or feeling them, you would--looks like growing into them--growing around them. That's the reason they don't let me see yet. Seeing is an inferior sense; they want me to develop the other first. Don't you see, when we ask them to tell us what it's like over there, why it's so hard to answer? "This idea of growing into, growing around the thing perceived, so that you are for the moment not only aware of, but a part of the essence of that thing, was often insisted on. Apparently it states the process most accurately of all, though many other analogies give glimpses of its attributes. . . Seems to be a direct, unobstructed sort of force that carries intelligence from one to the other. "When you say something to a person . . . is it the words that actually influence him, or is it the current your thought travels on, the force that comes out of you and takes it to him? Some people's words mean so little, and the same words from other people mean so much. That is an example of a diluted form [of Higher Perception and Communication]." Betty White, The Betty Book, 1937

  As you attain the ability to commune with--dialectically interchange with--Higher Beings, you will be guided to the practice of Inspirational Dialectics, attaining the ability to communicate with Higher Beings in such a manner that you receive inspiration from them.




Notes

¹ The High Initiation into Communion With Higher Beings was probably first introduced by Hermes, the essence of which was preserved in perpetuity in the Egyptian temples. It's clear that Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus practiced this Perennialist Ceremony, among many other Perennialist teachers throughout the ages.

² This is delineated as High Initiation because it is above the elementary level of development, at the highest level. "One has to distinguish between an elementary level of development leading to comprehension of an experienced spiritual teacher's statements, following them as it were in thought and feeling and acknowledging them as truth within certain limits, and an advanced level on which one attains the personal experiences in soul and spirit realm." Rudolph Steiner, The Inner Development of Man

³ Our effort to make contact with Higher Beings is directed especially toward those connected with the Perennial Tradition. Our purpose is to discover with them what are our individual purposes and learn how to bring these objectives into manifestation with the assistance of these spiritual beings.
Perennialists and persons associated with the Perennial Tradition: Hermes, Pythagoras, Diotima, Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Paul, Marcion, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Plotinus, Iamblicus, Hypatia, Boethius, Hujwiri, Al-Junayd, Shahabudin Suhrawardi, Ibn el-Arabi, Francis of Assissi, Bernard of Clairvaux, Frederick II, Rumi, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Meister Eckhart, John Colet, William Shakespeare, Jacob Boehme, George Fox, Emmanuel Swedenborg, Helen Keller, William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abraham Lincoln, Mary A. Atwood, Henry David Thoreau, Frank C. Laubach, Paul Brunton, Betty White, Stewart Edward White, Rufus Moseley, Martin Luther King, and Aldous Huxley