The wind turns a ship
From its course upon the waters:
The wandering winds of the senses
Cast man’s mind adrift
And turn his better judgment from its course.
When a man can still the senses
I call him illumined.
—sri krishna to arjuna, bhagavad-gita
Religion has a bad rap.
Nowadays it is quite popular to decree oneself “spiritual, but not religious.” This is the rallying cry of many spiritual paths lately, perhaps the by-product of generations of guilt-laden religious institutionalism. Even some mainstream religions have adopted the motto in the hopes of appealing to younger generations.
Unfortunately, this has created a new religious paradigm in which the focus has steered away from spirituality entirely and turned into a new breed of corporatization. This new paradigm has mutated, focused more on individuation than rituals of reverence. Modernization is fine, but why can’t one seek self-liberation and also be devoted to God (however that concept applies to you) at the same time? What we have now is a generation that is leaving God out of the equation of a spiritual life.
Modern spirituality has offered up a puffball abstraction of a God that is all-loving no matter what—exactly what we all hoped for as children—instead of the cruel despot that would condemn us to damnation if we were bad. This abstraction of God is a being who wants you to succeed in your worldly endeavors no matter what, who cares about your sense of self-worth, your sense of self-fulfillment; indeed, the universe is even “conspiring for your happiness.”
The modern human has certainly created a god in their own image, a god always rooting for their cause, a god in which no darkness could ever enter. But it is a false god.
The late mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti once stated, “If we are seeking God merely because we are tired of this world and its miseries, then it is an escape. Then we create God, and therefore it is not God.” 21 The spiritual life is, and always should be, the search for truth, whatever the cost. It should not be, ever, a vehicle for positive reinforcement.
The universe is a vast, empty, dangerous, scary—yet beautiful and awe-inspiring—concept. True awareness is a direct experience, through the senses of the body, of the world around us (which is the true goal of yoga, not aerobic exercise). Ultimately, though, the universe does not care about your bank account and most certainly is not invested in whether or not you feel good about yourself.
The universe—God—will kill you in the blink of an eye, and it will not care. Just as the body will kill off cells that no longer serve their function.
That right there is the ultimate spiritual experience. If you truly live within that experience fully, then you will actually have a great weight lifted off of your shoulders:
You are not the center of the universe!
It may be hard for the ego to swallow, but once one realizes that God does not lose sleep over anyone’s personal struggles, you begin the path of initiation.
Perhaps this is due to the misunderstanding of the images—symbols—inherent in religious texts throughout the centuries. Lux (Latin for light) in most all spiritual paths is the end goal of the spiritual experience. For the mystery schools, the path of attaining lux is even more apparent, and it most especially came to fruition and accuracy during the blossoming of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at the end of the nineteenth century.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn initiated a renaissance of the Mysteries in Europe during the tail end of the industrial revolution, as a sort of Romantic response to the assembly-line modernization of society at that time. Coming into contact with some supposedly ancient Rosicrucian manuscripts, along with their Masonic and theosophical leanings, a collection of aspiring occultists created one of the more succinct and thorough magical systems of initiation, which has survived—in one shape or form—to this day.
In the late twentieth century the author and adept Israel Regardie published a compendium of the teachings, rites, and ceremonies of the order, simply called The Golden Dawn. Regardie discusses the importance of understanding the role of lux in initiation. Certainly, to reach and attain direct contact and communion with the Light of God is the goal, if ever there was one, of spirituality. Light has been likened to the spiritual experience of God in almost every religious context imaginable throughout history.
Yet, according to Regardie and the Golden Dawn, when we speak of light in the Great Work, it is not the physical rays of luminescence we may typically conceive of. It is not literal. It is also not always benevolent. It is a metaphor for an experience … the experience of the fruition of the Great Work itself:
As we know, the experience of the rising of the Light in both vision and waking state is common to mystics of every age and of every people. It must be an experience of the greatest significance of the treading of the Path because its appearance seems always and everywhere an unconditional psychic thing. It is an experience which defies definition, as well in its elementary flashes as in its most advanced transports. No code of thought, philosophy or religion, no logical process can bind it or limit it or express it. But, it always represents, spiritually, a marked attainment, a liberation from the turmoil of life and from psychic complications and, as Dr. C.G. Jung has expressed the matter, it “thereby frees the inner personality from emotional and imaginary entanglements, creating thus a unity of being which is universally felt as a release.” It is the attainment of spiritual puberty, marking a significant stage in growth.22
This shows that the function of initiation, in seeking light, is shepherding oneself into a process of labor. It is an alchemical endeavor, just as the ancient alchemists were initiates themselves. Turning the lead within oneself into gold—chrysopoeia—is the prime goal. The whole aim of magic, alchemy, and mysticism is to purify one’s soul through illumination of the divine light, which is in fact an inner light. This is initiation.
One cannot receive the light, cannot receive initiation, just by wanting it. Desire alone is not sufficient. One must condition oneself accordingly so that the light of spiritual illumination may be received, for the light will not fill a container that is impure.
This sounds dangerously close to puritanism, which admittedly scares most people away from a truly religious life. Run if you must, but truth remains adamant …
Initiation is a state of mind. It comes as a result of discipline, rather than circumstance. Spiritual illumination can only be exemplified though embodying its principles in a concrete, physical form.
In The Mystical Christ, Manly P. Hall expresses a great deal about the task of the initiate to live a religious life. Indeed, the knowledge acquired within the Great Work inspires one toward a standard behavior: “Where mysticism motivates conduct, it flows through ourselves into collective society. We live outwardly, but from within ourselves. It becomes our moral duty to bear witness through conduct to the majesty of conviction. To fail in this is to break faith with something we know to be beautiful and necessary.” 23
Enacting a proper code of conduct to groom one’s character is absolutely essential to readying oneself for the illumination of initiation. This is where the lineage of Dion Fortune came into play for me, personally. One of Fortune’s most notable works is a sort of instruction manual on how to prepare oneself for the path of initiation, called The Training & Work of an Initiate. In it, Fortune describes that in the Western Mystery Tradition, it is mandatory for an initiate to cultivate their character for contact with the light, the higher realms of being, of what she calls the “Masters.” It should not be our base desires which drive our life, but Will. This Will is a will not of our own but of the Divine.
Fortune clarifies exactly what character type is needed in order to properly set out toward the role of initiation. In this, one can see that mysticism truly is a way of life. Some of the attributes that need to be developed by a candidate of the Great Work are as follows:
• Simplicity of Life: The world is complex enough; avoiding drama helps eliminate unnecessary dross, which will need to be wiped clean anyway if one desires initiation.
• Serenity in Demeanor: To be unperturbed amid catastrophe results in the desired control of emotion necessary to calm the waters of the soul. A disturbed pond cannot accurately reflect the stars of the heavens upon its surface.
• Quiet: Fortune has stated that “the Great Initiator comes in the silence to the higher consciousness.” 24 It is rarely through excitable states that the true illumination of light shines.
• Cleanliness: Cleanliness is next to godliness. This is true in so many respects. The body is your one and only true temple. It is okay to have our vices, but regular self-care is paramount as an initiate. The light requires a physically strong and stable receptacle into which it can flow.
• Avoid Attention: If gratification from others is what one desires, initiation cannot be achieved. True initiation is about the deepest of relationships with the self. Again we see another reason why the mystery schools were kept secret … as more eyes and ears seek to pick apart a spiritual experience, the light dissolves under the pressure of surveillance.
• Skilled with the Hands: All the great alchemists, magicians, and mystics were masters over one or more crafts, whether it be painting, woodworking, composing, and so on. Part of initiation, we shall see, is making Manifest that which is Unmanifest, the process of creation. Replicating that process on a physical level is a requirement of the Great Work.
• Intellectually Adept: It is recommended that the first things one learns before committing to the path are algebra and geometry, and from there, a healthy study of all the sciences, history, psychology, philosophy, and so on. The mind must be sharp and full of knowledge. That way, when one encounters an image or a situation upon the Path, one will be equipped to deal with it accordingly.
Many people will have issues with these requirements, but the school of initiation is not a flight of fancy. It is hard work. The ancient mystery schools were not weekend workshops and afternoon drum circles. To be inducted into a mystery school was a way of life that took dedication and tenacity; candidates were normally well versed in all the sciences, multiple languages, and the arts and were most especially skilled in some form of craft, if not many. Truly, they were Renaissance men and women, true embodiments of the balanced perfection displayed in Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
There is a place for our own spiritual wackiness as well as the logic of reason within our lives. They can coexist. We can have our ideas and reality too. In our efforts to dream big in the cosmic woo-woo, we can allow empirical research to guide our vibes and intuitions to a more practical state of living within the world and thus enact a more realistic effect on changing it for the better.
In Threes
An initiate, according to Dion Fortune, is “one in whom the Higher Self, the Individuality, has coalesced with the personality and actually entered into incarnation in the physical body.” 25 Accordingly, there are three psychological elements at work within the self that are at play during the process of initiation:
• Shadow: Known in Hebrew as Nephesch and also referred to as the “unredeemed,” the shadow is the animal soul of man. This is an aspect of being human that is primal and resides in the subconscious. In alchemical imagery, any human with horns or animal parts is representing the shadow aspect of ourselves. Its motivation is survival.
• Personality: Known in Hebrew as Ruach, the personality is the base human behavior set, reduced to a set of habit complexes. The personality is normally represented by the Moon in alchemical imagery, as it waxes and wanes through innumerable incarnations. It is motivated by desire and fueled by emotion.
• Individuality: Known in Hebrew as Neschamah, the individuality is also called the higher self and is built through the hard work of initiation. Represented as the sun, the individuality shines perpetually in the heavens, whether or not it is actually seen. Its motivation is the Great Work, the Will of God.
Initiation is successful through the victory of uniting the psyche. This happens not through a war of conquering the personality or the shadow, but through a harmonization among all the parts within the human soul. This process is called by many names in the esoteric traditions: the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, the Alchemical Marriage, Individuation, or the Great Work. Most often in our lives, the personality is ruled by the shadow, but the goal is to have the personality most influenced by the individuality. When this happens, the human condition is alleviated from suffering and the real work of creating a better world can begin. Otherwise, the humankind will continue on its dim path toward ignorance and self-destruction.
Across the globe, most shamanic traditions describe a three-realm cosmology that not only portrays the framework of the universe but is also relatable to the three parts of the human psyche. These three realms are commonly ascribed to the distinct regions of the Lowerworld, the Middleworld, and the Upperworld.
The three worlds are where shamanic practitioners travel to do their work, as they are the realms of being that make up the entire soul of man. A concise description of these worlds can be easily related to the three parts of the psyche above. The Peruvian Quechua—the possible descendants of the Inca—have one of the more cogent systems of cosmology, therefore their terminology for the three realms will henceforth be used:
• The Lowerworld: Known in Quechua as the Ukhupacha (OOK-hoo-pah-chah), this is the world below ground, the inner caverns of soul where our most repressed aspects of the psyche are stored. This is the place where the shadow resides, where we go to face those parts of ourselves we rarely wish to see or are unaware of.
• The Middleworld: Known in Quechua as the Kaypacha (KAI-pah-chah), this is the here and now, the physical world, where the personality abides.
• The Upperworld: Known in Quechua as the Hanaqpacha (hah-NAHK-pah-chah). The Hanaqpacha is the transcendent, the world above, and the realm of the highest state of consciousness. This, of course, then is where the individuality shines. Often thought of as celestial or angelic, this place can be thought of on a practical level as aspiration toward one’s better self.
Referencing the work of the famous mythologist Joseph Campbell, shamanic practitioner and author Matthew Magee has correlated the experience of these three realms with the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is the universal story Campbell has recognized in virtually all the myths and spiritual traditions around the world and throughout history. Magee suggests a way of understanding these three worlds: “In the hero’s journey, a person must leave the familiar in order to fulfill a destiny (usually divinely inspired), overcome difficult obstacles, and finally, return to his or her community to share the message learned and to restore or enhance the lives of the people he or she represents. Campbell depicts this universal myth as having three stages: ‘separation—initiation—return.’ Similarly, in the shamanic journey the curandero leaves the realm of the familiar and either ascends to the Hanaq Pacha or descends to the Ukhu Pacha, gains otherwise inaccessible knowledge or power, then returns to the Kay Pacha.” 26
There is a perspective of seeing these other realms as literal, external dimensions or realities. Although that could be taken into consideration, understanding them as the tenets of the psyche mentioned above begets an understanding of the alchemical mechanisms at play in initiation.
Andean mysticism suggests that at one time these realms were highly integrated, and are meant to be integrated, and it was humankind’s fall from grace that separated these realms. In fact, it is because these realms are separated that our society remains in its collective malaise of self-destruction and global destruction. The Kaypacha (Middleworld) is just an interface for the Ukhupacha and Hanaqpacha, which both should be realms that exist to serve us for our highest good.
A depiction of this process can be seen in the following images. Even though they are not literally displayed like this, conceptualize a life before the hero’s journey, before initiation into any shamanic or mystery tradition. The three pachas (worlds) exist separately, without interconnection.
Now, imagine if you will the timeline of a person’s life running left to right on this graphic. If we exist in a state of being without integration with these realms, we walk throughout our lives unaware of the shadow, the repressed notions of the psyche hidden deep within the Lowerworld, the Ukhupacha. Poet and activist Robert Bly has written extensively on the shadow, the repressed psyche. He likens this shadow to a bag in which we store these repressed notions of ourselves that we drag around with us. The bag gets heavier and heavier as we get older, because the older we get the more we store away the parts of ourselves we do not want to see, that others don’t want to see, and so on. According to Bly, “when we put a part of ourselves in the bag it regresses. It de-evolves toward barbarism.… Every part of our personality that we do not love will become hostile to us. We could add that it may move to a distant place and begin a revolt against us as well.” 27
If the shadow is left unchecked and not tended to, it explodes unexpectedly into our lives, often leaving a fallout that bleeds over into the Middleworld, the Kaypacha. That manifests in outbursts that can involve hurting ones we love, undesired consequences, depression, and so on. As time goes on, the bag can get bigger, the outbursts more explosive.
This state of being creates a set of behaviors completely out of balance and affects the rest of the realms negatively. Unattended, the shadow can become worse, more out of control, and harder to manage as time continues. Additionally, the personality within the Kaypacha becomes confused and disoriented, and thus contact with the individuality in the Hanaqpacha becomes impossible.
When beginning the Great Work and in shamanic apprenticeship, the first realm one learns to interact with is the Ukhupacha. This is because the work of an initiate is to learn to manage the potencies of the Ukhupacha, to harness what is necessary from the shadow and return what is no longer needed back to the below, to be composted in the regenerative soils of the Ukhupacha so new things can grow. Assuredly, when one works within this realm correctly, life begins to look a little more like this:
So, even though the out-of-control qualities of shadow arising from the Ukhupacha into the Kaypacha have been mitigated, it can be clearly seen that they still interact. Shadow doesn’t go away. However, it can be managed and integrated more harmoniously into the interface of the Kaypacha. But, the integration of the three realms is still out of balance … There needs to be interaction from the Hanaqpacha to achieve this balance.
While working with the Ukhupacha and its many teachings, it often helps to receive guidance from on high. The Hanaqpacha acts as a sort of beacon here in the Kaypacha, a guiding post helping us aspire to be the absolute best we can be. Essentially, we sit here in the Kaypacha, looking to the Hanaqpacha for guidance while working with the Ukhupacha.
This is the formula of living religiously as an initiate, engaging with the Great Work. As we will see, integration of these three realms promotes the most effective practice of shamanic Qabalah.
21. J. Krishnamurti, On God (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992), 43.
22. Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1989), 24–25.
23. Hall, Mystical Christ, 43.
24. Fortune, Training & Work of an Initiate, 49.
25. Fortune, Training & Work of an Initiate, 34.
26. Matthew Magee, Peruvian Shamanism: The Pachakúti Mesa (Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2005), 13.
27. Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988), 21–22.
Part II
