“Now you know all the consequences of initiation. And I’m asking you again one last time, do you have the courage to go through with initiation?’
With perfect self-assurance, I answer, ‘Yes!’
A tall, dignified man then enters the room. I know him. He is a priest of the highest degree, a high priest too, Ptahhotep’s representative. He steps over towards us. Then Ptahhotep motions to me to get into the sarcophagus and lie down in it. I do as he commands. As I lie in the sarcophagus, Ptahhotep casts a last glance at me, full of infinite love, and then the two priests lift the stone cover and lay it over me. In pitch darkness I lie there enclosed in the stone coffin. As usual, I watch what happens.
Nothing happens. I lie in the stone coffin and peer into the darkness. Darkness? It’s not really darkness, for in the middle of my field of vision I observe a greenish phosphorescent light. Around it points of light seem to flash up and then disappear. I watch these points of light and try to guess where they come from and where they are going. Suddenly I notice that the points of light, when they appear aren’t as close together as they were. On the contrary, right in the middle, where the greenish phosphorescent light was before, there’s an empty space that none of the points of light approaches. They leave more and more space around this spot which, because of the complete absence of light in it, is a pitch black hole through which I peer into nothingness … Then I notice two points of light that appear in this total, dead darkness. Slowly they come closer and stare at me like two eyes. I don’t see the eyes; they have neither light nor colour, and yet I’m obliged to see them. I know that two eyes are staring at me. These two eyes do not belong to a body. They are centres of force of streams of energy which take effect invisibly. These dim, black energies attack the points of light. The points of light are sucked up by this force, destroyed. A contour appears, creating a boundary around this empty, dark hole that radiates this invisible force. Before my horrified eyes, there gradually appears a face, the eerie features of a monster, a silhouette that is only recognizable because where it is there is absolute nothingness—a negative image. I know, I just know this disembodied monster is Evil itself. I know it. I’ve seen its horrible grimaces occasionally glowering through human faces as the expression of those faces. Now the cause of that expression, the being itself, without a human face, without a body, is here! Or was it always present and I just didn’t notice it …? This bodiless face resembles the head of a goat. The silhouette clearly shows the form of horns over a long, pinched face that ends with a little goatee. Or perhaps, are all these shapes only radiations of invisible forces? The being’s eyes, set so close together, have a terrifying effect, like bottomless maelstroms that irresistibly pull everything down, down, down to complete annihilation. Through these two baleful eyes, the monster now radiates all his fearful powers upon me and into me. These awful eyes bore into me, and through me, through my entire being, swallowing me irresistibly into themselves as if I were being sucked into a gigantic maelstrom. Absolute panic seizes my heart. I feel myself turning limp and lifeless out of sheer terror. Coming closer and closer, his horrible eyes get more and more penetrating. I can feel how this satanic being—is it Satan himself?—is forcing me into his power. The monster spreads out over me, swallows me, and in a moment I feel I am no longer myself. I am It! I feel its horrible features in my face, its immaterial body in my body, its devilish streams of current flowing like blood in my veins. This hellish, fiendish sensation turns my whole being cold and stiff. My body curls up in horrible cramps. And deep within me IT talks to me, without words, through the power which produces words, through the meaning of words:
‘ – Now I’ve got you! Now you’re in my power! Now you see you haven’t been able to crowd me out of your consciousness. In spite of your efforts to do so, you belong to me anyway now! You and I are one. There’s nothing to separate us anymore. I am the “I” in you, and you are the “I” in me. You are subject to my law of cooling, contraction and solidification. Do you feel how your body is curling up, how you’re drawing your knees up all the way to your chest? They’re crossed now and your feet are pressed close to your body, as close as if the soles of your feet were joined to your body. Your arms are crossed in front of your breast. Your hands are curled up into fists pressed against your body as tightly as if they were joined to it. Now your head is dropping down on to your chest, pushing itself close between your fists—closer—still closer! Just as if you were in your mother’s womb! That’s right, and now you’ve shrunk and shrivelled into just one piece. You’re getting colder and harder until you become a little oval piece of stone! A piece of stone—rigid, hard and dead! But you still have your consciousness and know that you’re dead, that you’ve solidified into this piece of stone, that you are this piece of stone; you’re walled up in it—dead for endless time … for timeless eternity … ‘Look around and see the mountains reaching up to the sky. Do you see all these rocks and stones and boulders? Don’t just look at them, look into them. Look into their being. Can you see that all these stones are petrified but conscious beings like yourself, exposed to burning sunshine, raging storms and splitting frost? … Every creature, every animal, every human being walks on you and all these other stones. Spring torrents drag you into wild waters, and you rub and scour each other in these whirling rapids … endless time … timeless eternity …’ Horrified, I experience everything the evil one says. This is hell indeed. Alive and conscious, yet locked up and immovable, grown into this tomb, with no possibility of giving so much as a sign of life … to be a heavy, dead stone! …
– To be? No! I am not that! I am only imprisoned, entombed in this stone, but I am not the stone. My self is not matter! I am the dimensionless self, a spirit beyond any concept of time and space! And with the inner strength of the spirit, just as I learned to speak with it in my telepathic exercises, without body, without mouth, speaking in spirit, I soundlessly scream at the monster: ‘No! I am not you, and you are not “I”! We are forever separated in our beings, for you are death, and “I” am life! We can never be identical with each other! You with your law of contraction and solidification, you’re the negative, the reflected image—the caricature—of the eternal source of all life, of divinity resting within itself! You’re not a horrible phantom. You’re not a monster. You’re not “the evil one”. You have no independent existence. The divine self created you and goes on eternally creating you whenever it clothes itself in a material envelope, in a body. You are the inner being of matter, you are the law that maintains matter; so you have power over my body, because you had to construct it on the command of my self when I was born into this material world and became a person. But you have no power over me, over my creative self; for you’re nothing else but the law of matter come to life through my spirit. Not I am you, but I am that I am and you are also what I am! Your essence is contraction, and on the spiritual plane, in consciousness, contraction manifests itself as fear. And you must disappear, because I don’t fear!
The effect of my unspoken, soundless words is terrifying! It gets pitch dark around me, and the mountains cave in with a deafening thunderous roar. Rocks and boulders fall, the earth opens, complete chaos rages about me … only I stand firmly on my feet in this cataclysm … As things become quiet again and I slowly return to my senses, I realize I’ve just had a horrible dream. How good It is to awaken from such a nightmare …
My first sensation is one of extraordinary hunger and thirst, but I don’t want to waste time with eating and drinking, for my goal is God. I want to get on as fast as possible. I look about me. I am in a spacious room illuminated by soft reddish light. Pleasant, well-mannered people offer me tempting delicacies in beautiful dishes and heavenly drinks in magnificent golden vessels. They try to persuade me to eat and drink with them. I smile. The pleasures of the palate were never a temptation for me. Why should I permit myself to be delayed by hunger and thirst on my path to God? I thank them for their friendly invitation and go on. Singularly enough I no longer have any sensation of hunger or thirst, but I still can’t quite make out where I am and what’s going on around me. It is apparent, however, that everyone around me is in constant, chaotic motion. Another one of my first impressions of this place is the strange smell in the air … the smell of overheated human bodies … not exactly unpleasant, but nevertheless repugnant to me. Little by little my eyes grow accustomed to the subdued light. I am in some kind of an underground cave where great numbers of men and women are lounging about pell-mell on sofas or rocking and careening about, holding each other in tight embraces, dancing together and making extremely odd movements. I watch them with growing amazement. Are they drunk? Or mentally deranged? To be sure I have seen animals during mating season when nature is creating a new generation. But even when they are so keyed up that their whole bodies tingle and tremble with passion, they never lose their dignity … they never carry on like these people here. And the priestesses, too, who serve in the temple of love, fulfil their duties with a noble attitude of spiritual dedication because they know in doing so they are laying an offering upon the altar of divine love. How can people fall so low that they debase the supremely divine act of love and make it an end in itself? After all, these are respected, reputable people—made in the image and likeness of God!—and yet they act as if they’ve lost their reason. I recognize some of them as people of rank, statesmen and ladies of the court, but they don’t see me. They have neither eyes nor ears for anything or anyone beside themselves. The outside world has ceased to exist for them. They’re completely enclosed … locked up in their own imagination! They talk with each other too, but it seems as if these men and women have forgotten that speech is a spiritual manifestation of man. They use speech to say the most impossible, completely illogical things. For example, I hear one man, as he dances with his partner in a tight embrace, ask her again and again, ‘Are you mine?’ ‘Yes, darling, all yours!’ the woman answers, and they go on dancing. A little while later the same couple dances past me and I hear the man, with his eyes half closed, asking the woman again—perhaps for the hundredth time— ‘Are you mine?’ ‘Yes, darling, I am,’ the woman answers just as untiringly. What’s the matter with them? Isn’t it enough to ask a question once and get an answer. Why do they have to repeat it a hundred times? And how senseless it is to ask a person such a question! A person belongs only to himself. He is a free being with an inalienable right of self determination. So how does this man come to think he can. possess a woman? It’s scarcely possible to possess a lion. If even these regal animals don’t give up their independence, how can this man get the idea the woman ‘belongs to him’, and why is he asking her a hundred times? Is he mentally ill? And perhaps the woman, who goes on answering his nonsense, too? And perhaps all these other men and women who are behaving in just as impossible a manner? At this juncture a tall, broad-shouldered man steps up to me. Seemingly he can read my thoughts, for he replies to my inner questions: ‘Beautiful lady, don’t you know that this is love?’ ‘Love? I certainly do know love! It is a beautiful, noble sacrament when two living creatures love each other with absolute devotion, but not with mere passionate desire for possession! But in the hearts of these people I see no love! I see only that they’ve lost their senses … that passion, this fever which dulls and deadens those finest, most sensitive nerve centres created for transmitting spiritual revelations, holds them completely in its power. These people should be saved and awakened from their semi-conscious condition! I step up to a very young woman, seize her arm and shout into her ear, ‘Wake up! Don’t let your consciousness be dulled and darkened by passion! You are spirit and not body! Don’t allow your body to debase you! Don’t let yourself be dragged down lower than an animal. Wake up, do you hear? Wake up and get out of here! Save yourself before it’s too late!’ The young woman peers at me as if through a veil—like a sleepwalker. ‘Leave me alone,’ she says, ‘I want to be happy!’ And with that she goes on dancing. Oh how blind! How could she possibly hope to find happiness through a physical embrace without spiritual content? Happiness is something one experiences in consciousness; happiness is in the self. How could she possibly hope to find happiness through mere trifling play of the body? ‘Now just forget your intellect a while,’ says the man, ‘you’re not qualified to judge because you’ve never tried it. Dance with me and you’ll see for yourself.’ So saying, he embraces me and drags me out into the whirling mass of people, acting just as foolishly as all the other people … I dance with him and observe myself with great curiosity … Will I too become as intoxicated, as carried away by the close contact as these poor demented people about me? Hut the only thing I notice is how extremely unpleasant I find the close proximity of this man. His breath is hot, and I find it very revolting for him to be breathing into my face and down my neck. Exhaled air is used up air! Why should I be inhaling air he has already used up? Then too, I find the odour of his body and his perspiration most unpleasant. I want fresh air. I want to get away from this repugnant place. As I try to get away from him, the man suddenly changes. In a trice he turns into a gigantic, fiery flaming spirit. He no longer has a body. He is only a mighty flame, trying to force me into subjection. He surrounds me, trying to force himself into my mouth … into my body. But the power I radiate, the power of my clear and sober consciousness keeps him away. He cannot reach me. He reacts by growing hotter, greater, more eager. He takes on tremendous proportions, spreading throughout the whole room, devouring all these passion-drunk people in his consuming fire. Nobody is left … Nothing more … only a sea of flames, devouring and consuming everything … But I stand untouched, unscathed, and I am that I am!
Then I hear a thunderous voice from out of the flames: ‘You have won … you have passed your test, but watch out! You haven’t won because you’re stronger than I. You can’t be stronger, because I’m the fire of your own self. You just didn’t come alight because your purity and your lack of experience stand between you and me. Your body and its senses are still sleeping. That’s what protected you. But watch out, we’ll meet again … we’ll meet again! …’ And with that everything disappears—fire, room, smoke—everything … and I find myself alone again … ‘We’ll meet again?’ I repeat these last words. ‘I’m not afraid of you! Even if my body had burst into flaming passion, this would not have touched my self. I stand above everything physical …’ But what was that? Didn’t it sound like a scornful laugh? I look around to see where this voice may have come from. So doing, I notice that I’m in a meadow as green as emerald, and a strange form is approaching. It’s the form of a handsome, well-built man, half concealed by a veil of mist. I’d like to see through the mist … I’d like to see the splendid form it hides … I’d like to chase the mist away … but I can’t. But the man interests me and so I ask, ‘Who are you?’ Then the handsome man comes close, and with a voice that makes a deep impression on me he whispers into my ear:
‘ – O my sweet beloved! I’ve been looking for you for a long, long time, for an eternity, ever since we fell out of the Garden of Eden and became separated from each other. At last I’ve found you I Come into my arms! Come, lay your sweet little head upon my breast! Come and let us unite in divine unity, let us merge our beings in heavenly bliss! How wonderful that you haven’t yielded to the animal urge of the body! How glorious that you’ve kept yourself pure and untouched for me! You belong to me and I belong to you. We supplement each other completely! Do you feel the irresistible power of attraction that links us and draws us closer and closer together? Come, let us unite in love, you dearest of creatures, my one and only heavenly bride. I love you!’
I hear his voice, I see his manly stride, I feel a tremendous force radiating from him to me … And yet he’s strange. I don’t know him! How could he be my complementary half? No! One never finds the complementary half outside oneself. Ptahhotep says our complementary half is always behind the manifested form as a mirrored image in the unmanifested state. No! No human being can be my complementary half. And why is this man veiled in a dense mist?
‘ – I don’t know who you are,’ I answer him, ‘but whoever you are, you’re mistaken! You’re not my complementary half. And you’ll have to look elsewhere for yours if you think you’ll find it anywhere in the outside world. No one can find his complementary half anywhere except within himself. In the world around us it’s only possible to find projected pictures similar to one’s true complementary half. But neither you nor I can become complete by virtue of a picture, a projection. Only the divine unity of the self can bring blissful happiness! I’ll find my complementary half within my self!’
‘ – To find your complementary half within your self,’ says the handsome man, ‘would mean that you, in your consciousness, were already identical with the divine self. How do you expect to experience the consequence before the cause. The divine self is the paradisiacal state of unity through which you can only return through becoming one with your complementary half. How do you expect to achieve this without me, without your complementary half? You’re forgetting that you are half of a unit and I am the other half. ‘We are the living reflected images of each other, and we belong together. You carry me about in your subconscious, just as I carry you in mine, and even without wanting to we seek each other with the irresistible attractive force that comes from our belonging together in the paradisiacal state. Throughout ages and ages of time, our fate brings us together again and again until we make each other conscious within ourselves and experience each other completely in body as well as in soul. Only in this divine identity can we really be the total consciousness of the whole—of the higher self! How do you expect to be able to return to paradisiacal unity without me? How do you think you could escape from facing the fact that we also belong to each other on the earthly plane? How do you expect to get the experience you absolutely need, without me?’
But I refuse to allow myself to be influenced. ‘No matter how much you try to convince me, I still don’t want you! As far as I’m concerned it’s enough to know that you’re present in the unconscious part of my self, and I only want to get acquainted with you within myself, but not in the outer world. Get on your way and let me get on mine!’
At these words of mine, the handsome man recedes and begins to evaporate like a morning mist in the sunshine. And from farther and farther away his voice comes back to me – this voice that has made such a deep impression on my heart: ‘I’ll go on looking for you on the earthly plane … looking … looking …’ His voice fades away in the distance, and suddenly all is quiet. But there’s still something I want to know, so I shout after him,
‘ – Why is there such a heavy mist about you, so heavy it keeps me from seeing you face to face?’ From far away in the distance I hear a voice fading out as if it were the echo of my own heart beat:
‘ – The heavy mist is covering your eyes, not me! It’s your lack of experience … that’s what’s protecting you from me. It has helped you resist me. But we’ll meet again.,, meet again …’”
Elisabeth Haich
