This Golden Dawn paper came from Percy
Wilkinson's collection. Percy was a long serving member of Whare Ra
joining in the 1950s and formally leaving only after it closed. It is not clear who wrote this paper
and it seems to owe much to Geoffrey Hodson who was an English
Theosophist. Before he died at age 94 he had written more than 40 books dealing with topics such as
meditation, the spiritual life, health and disease, and clairvoyance.
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| Crowley demonstrates the technique for rolling your own while deep in a Meditative state. |
THE CYCLE OF MEDITATION
(With acknowlegement to
the writings of Geoffrey Hodson)
PURPOSE: The purpose of
meditation is to effect a unity between the lower mind and the
higher spiritual nature of the Self. A necessary preliminary is the
control of the body, emotions and thought. This in turn demands
control of the actions, desires and speech.
- PREPARATION: Relax the body and harmonise the emotions. Alert the mind and charge it with will. Establish a centre of awareness in the Higher Self.
- DISSOCIATION: Mentally affirm: “I am not the physical body, I am the spiritual self. I am not the emotions, I am my spiritual self. I am not the mind, I am my spiritual self.”
- MEDITATION: Assert: “I am the Divine Self. Immortal. Eternal Radiant with spiritual light. I am that self of Light; that self am I. The self in me, the Atma, is one with the self in all the Paramatma. I am that self in all. That Self am I. The Atma and the Paramatma are One. I am that. That I am.
- PERIOD OF MEDITATION: Five minutes at first, then lengthen gradually to 15 or 30 minutes. Best times are sunrise, mid-day and sunset. Cease meditating if any signs of a headache are felt.
- CLOSING PHASE: Bring the centre of awareness:(a) Into the formal mind, illumined and responsive to the intuition.(b) Into the emotions radiated by the Spiritual Light.(c) Into the body, empowered by the Spiritual Will, inwardly, vitalised and self-recollected throughout the day, remembering the Divine Presence within the heart, the inner ruler, immortal, seated in the hearts of all beings.
7. CONCLUSION: Now relax the mind and
permit the uplifting effect of he meditation to extend into all other
activities of the day.
Notes you can see the Theosophical influence in this paper. Indeed when I was given this paper I was told to replace the words Atma with the "Higher Self" or the "son" and Paramatma with the Absolute or One Thing. It is possible to say "I and the Father are One" just as easily as it is to say "The Atma and the Paramatma are One."
However this shows how sometimes Theosophical teachings and Indian systems found their way into Whare Ra.
I like this meditation a lot. Very positive and direct. I am not a massive fan of Theosophy, but it did produce some inspired people. Living to 94 and writing 40 books on spirituality and health is impressive. At that age, whatever he was doing to promote physical health, it was clearly very effective for him at least!
ReplyDeleteNice.
ReplyDeleteI love Theosophy. Not as a path choice, as many see this, because it is not even close to that; it is a study of path choices. I love to see modern folks criticizing the new age type stuff, and I understand as I felt that way for years. If it was candles and ommm; it was not for me. Theosophy changed that, because the truth of the situation resulted in the new age. Another words, the study of paths and path choices leads to common denominators and obvious conclusions; the new age is the result of these conclusions.
Thanks for this post, Nick. Geoffrey Hodson is revered in the TS and Liberal Catholic Church here in Perth, almost as much as much as Leadbeater himself. That he 'confirmed' much of Leadbeater's clairvoyance using his own may have a little to do with it :) There is an excellent website devoted to him by Bill Keidan, ex of Perth and no occult slouch himself: http://www.geoffreyhodson.com/
ReplyDeleteThanks :)