THE PASSING OF THE DWELLER

The first great step in the ancient initiations was passing the terrifying monster that dwells on the borderline between the physical and the spiritual worlds. The Children of Light were told that they could “never go forth into distant lands” or “earn the wages of Master Builders” until they faced with courage and resolution the invisible demon that dwelt ever with them and sought to awaken within them the subtle forces of which he was composed. Most people do not meet this fearful figure until at the time of death when the intelligence functions for a brief time on that borderland of life and death, so called, which is its dwelling place. There he crouches—the thing built by the sins of the flesh and the crimes committed in darkness—a specter of unearthly terror, the sum total of perversion, the aggregate of misused force and perverted talents. Have we ever stopped to think that the things we do unwisely will sometime confront us like accusing judges and bar our way to the light which we will some day recognize and seek to serve?

Far back when man first sinned, this creature was born, and cried out from the blood of the first of God’s children that was slain. Hate and fear, jealousy and greed, passion and lust, thoughtlessness and crime—all these have fed it until today man carries with him an all powerful thing reared and nursed by the worst that is in him, a beast like demon ever spurring him on to crime and perversion, ever tempting him, through the medium of habit, to sink back into the mire of degeneracy out of which he is crawling so painfully.

This is the Guardian of the Threshold. We have never seen him, but every day we are fighting him, struggling to free ourselves from the coils of sin which are his manifestations. Every time we master an unworthy trait of character, we are passing the Dweller on our threshold; for we are divided from the world of spirit by our sins, and when we master our own mistakes to doing right where we did wrong before, sin becomes less of an obstacle. Finally we are able to face this creature for the last time, and among the ethers of the higher world struggle with the dragon of karma until we vanquish him and, bathing in his blood, become immortal; for energy is the blood of the Dweller and he is built of the energy we have wasted or misused.

The Dweller differs from the elementals and Nature Spirits in this respect: the latter are a separate creation in themselves, floating about and living in the etheric essences; the Guardian, however, is attached to man and never leaves him. It grows or diminishes with the sins of the individual of whom it forms a part. The Guardian of the Threshold is really the sin body of all creatures who have individual intelligence. Although man is the only intelligent creature that we know, there are many others in Nature. The planet Mars is the sin body of the Solar God and is therefore his threshold Guardian, but the Deity has transmuted this power into the dynamo of the solar system.

Those who would serve their God safely, and join the company of immortals, must first master their own sins. The price of entrance into the Temple is the conquest of our own lower natures, for we cannot serve both God and mammon. To force one part of the nature to develop spiritual powers, while another side of the nature is a servant to vice and material things, is to invite insanity and death. Therefore, before one takes the true path of discipleship, he must have a long talk with himself and see how many of the elements of his lower nature he is allowing to tie him to earth. Then begins the great battle so often symbolized in the religious ceremonials of the ancients, which must result in the death of the lower nature—the Dweller. From the ashes of the flaming conflict, the higher nature rises and becomes one with the spirit of light. This is the mystery of the crucifixion, and the inner meaning behind the third degree of the Masonic rite. On a smaller scale, it is played out in life every day, but at last it must be boldly faced and a decision made.