Organization

The 18th Key symbolizes the fourth stage of spiritual unfoldment. After one has realized that the condition of bondage to appearances (Key 15) is but an illusion; when by the flash of spiritual illumination false structures of our wrong thinking and wrong acting were demolished (Key 16), then came a period of quietness, as one that comes after storm, when new relations become revealed to us through meditation (Key 17). After that begins the process of organization.

As here used, organization does not mean the association of human beings into groups or societies. It refers rather to the organization of the various parts of a single human body into a higher type of organism than that which is spontaneously provided by the general averages of ordinary evolution.

The practical application of the principles of Ageless Wisdom is aimed at a change in the human organism. Creatures in the evolutionary scale below man are incapable of any great degree of self-modification. Animals and plants brought under the influence of man may be considerably modified in a relatively short period of time, but show a tendency to revert to type when the cultural influence is removed.

The 'Great Art' of practical occultism is concerned with the production of a higher, finer, more sensitive and responsive type of human being. This is not affected by eugenic measures. It is not by selection and breeding, but by the direct action of man’s will and imagination upon his own vehicle of flesh and blood, that the transformation is affected.

This transformation is the outcome of the working together of universal forces, and not merely the result of personal efforts. Yet the culmination of this work requires the introduction of the personal factor. No man accomplishes the Great Work until he himself sees the principles and laws that must be applied.

This accomplishment is possible by the exercise of imagination. It is by imagination that we make our desires and aspirations clear and definite. These mental images are the patterns which we pass into the sub-consciousness, which is the body builder and the controller of function.

If our patterns are clear and definite, and we keep them intact, sub-consciousness builds a body to correspond to them. This does not mean that we can sit still, and do nothing but hold mental images, and thus produce any great change in our bodies. It does mean that when our images are vivid, they not only provide us with patterns for bodily transformation, but also impel us into courses of action which help to bring about such changes.

For example, a boy cherishes the image of being a concert pianist. This image dominates his action, so that he goes willingly through the practice that would be mere drudgery to others. The practice affects the muscular structure of his hands, arms, and legs. It brings many subtle changes in the centers of sight and hearing. It affects many other groups of nerve and muscle cells. Ultimately he becomes what he imaged, BECAUSE HE HAS BUILT

FOR HIMSELF, BY ACTION CORRESPONDING TO IMAGINATION, THE SPECIALLY CONDITIONED BODY OF A CONCERT PIANIST.

The same principle holds true in every other instance. A prize fighter is dominated by his imagery, and so is a poet. Everything that human beings achieve is accomplished through some kind of bodily activity, and each type of activity is made possible through the development of corresponding type of physical structure. This is as true of the prophet and the seer as it is of anybody else. Whatever your object in life may be, you will achieve it when you have built a physical vehicle which can transform The Life Power into particular kinds of action corresponding to your mental imagery.

The number 18 expresses the potency of the number 8, working through 1. Thus it represents the Law of Suggestion represented by Key 8, as being applied through the directive activity of Attention represented by Key 1.

In lesson 5 of this course I have hinted that subconsciousness is the body-builder, and that it is always amenable to suggestion. Throughout these lessons, too, I have repeatedly emphasized the thought that it is by conscious self-direction that all the practical work of occultism is accomplished.

In reference to the organization of a finer and more responsive physical vehicle, this self-direction is the application of a principle long ago enunciated by Lamarck, who wrote:

'The production of a new organ in an animal body results from the supervention of a new want continuing itself felt, and a new movement which this want gives birth to and encourages... Effort may be in a measure unconscious or instinctive, but must be in large measure conscious, being made with a mental purpose to produce some desirable result.'

The Hebrew letter Qoph (pronounced as Kof) means 'back of the Head.' It alludes to the fact that some of the most important organs of the human body are in the hinder part of the skull. This part of the head houses the posterior lobes of the cerebrum and cerebellum. The posterior lobes of the cerebrum contain the sight-center, so that it is literally true that our real eyes are at the back of our heads.

Just below the posterior lobe of the cerebrum is a knot of nervous tissue called the medulla oblongata, which unites the brain to the spinal cord and its branches, and is thus the connecting link between the higher centers of sensation, thought, and action in the head and the subordinate centers in the body. The medulla itself is indeed a knot, presenting many intricate problems to anatomists and psychologists, some of which are probably unlikely to be solved at all by those who depend upon ordinary methods of observation.

Faulty as the ordinary methods of studying the nervous system must be, because the tissues examined under the microscope are taken from dead bodies, it has been found that the medulla governs respiration, that it regulates the movement of the heart, that it contains the principal center which controls the circulation of blood throughout the body. Besides these, it has other functions of basic importance in the maintenance of the body. Thus this knot of nerve cells at the back of the head is really what keeps us alive, for its functions are carried on without interruption even while we are asleep.

Sleep, therefore, is assigned to the letter Qoph, because what consciousness remains active in personality during sleep has its most important centers in the back of the head.

Sleep is the period of rest and recuperation, during which the waste caused by the day’s operations is eliminated, and new materials are woven into the bodily structure. American Indians reckon time by “sleeps”, and so for that matter, do we, for we think of a year as twelve months, or moons, so that our fundamental time-measurement has to do with night.

During sleep, moreover, the plans and thoughts we have been concerned with during the day are ripened and brought to maturity. Thus it is proverbial that night brings counsel. Many a problem has been solved subconsciously during the night. Our mental processes continue at subconscious levels, even while the cells of the upper brain are resting.

It is during sleep, again, that our aspirations and efforts are built into organic structure. What we have thought and done during the waking hours goes on influencing the body while we sleep, and this is why it is so advantageous to review each day before falling asleep. The practice enables us to appraise our conduct. We see where we have fallen short, and vigorously determine to do better the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation. We intensify the effect of all our well-doing by this mental repetition of the original actions or thoughts. And then, before composing ourselves for slumber, we once more bring before us, as clearly as we can, the image of that which is our highest and truest desire. By this means we actually build our aspirations into our flesh and blood, impressing our dominant desire upon every cell.

The title, the Moon, is a direct reference to the subconsciousness and its powers of duplications, reproduction, reflection, of the turning back of energy toward its source. In its deeper meaning the Moon symbolizes the “path of return”, the return of a prodigal son to his Father’s house.

An ancient esoteric maxim is plainly concealed in the symbolism of this Key. “First the stone, then the plant, then the animal, then the man.” If you examine the picture closely, you will see stones at the margin of the pool. Just beyond them are the pointed leaves of a water-plant, and the vegetation continues in the field beyond. Climbing onto the path is a low form of animal life, a crustacean, and a little farther along are a dog and a wolf. Then come the towers, human structures, but the path continues beyond them.

The pool below is the same as that of the fourteenth and seventeenth Keys. It is the “great deep” of cosmic mind-stuff out of which emerges the “dry land” of physical manifestation. From it all organic life proceeds.

The crawfish is a crustacean, hard shelled. He represents, in the negative sense, selfishness, crabbedness and obstinacy, but in the good sense he represents persistence, inflexibility of purposes, determination, and tenacity of purpose. It represents also the first stages of unfoldment, wherein the student still thinks of himself as being separated from the rest of nature.

The dog and wolf. They belong to the same fundamental genus, the canine family. But the wild, dangerous wolf, inimical to man, is what is produced by nature without human adaptation and interference. The dog is the result of the modifications affected in the wolf kind by human thought. Men tame dogs, and modify their structure by cross-breeding. Thus here we have in the symbolism a specific reference to the control of body-consciousness and the development of form by human intelligence.

As I have said in my Analysis of Tarot, the dog is a symbol of Art, while the wolf is a symbol of Nature.

The path goes between these two extremes. For it is the way of balance, they way or method which neither goes too far towards artificiality nor makes the mistake of supposing that everything can be left to the ungoverned expression of natural impulses.

It progresses over undulating ground, so that it is a succession of ascents and descents. Our progress is not an unbroken upward climb. We attain one eminence after another, and after reaching every lesser peak we apparently go downhill for a time. But this is only the surface appearance. We cannot be climbing all the time. There is a periodicity, a waxing and waning, a flux and reflux. Assimilation, or taking in, must be balanced by expression, or giving out. Periods of intense effort must be followed by periods of rest.

And since the path rises over rolling ground, as one advances there comes a time when the lowest point of descent is a higher stage than the peak of a previous attainment. The one thing needful is to keep facing toward the goal. So long as we do this, we may be sure that we are progressing, even in those periods when it seems that we cannot study, that we cannot do anything but rest.

The towers have battlements, and form a gateway. The suggestion of the design is that each tower is connected with the wall, and the occult interpretation I have received is that this is the wall of ordinary limits of human sensation and perception. But this is not the final boundary. There is a vast region of experience beyond it, and the way which leads into that region is open for all who will follow it.

The Moon is so drawn that it has sixteen principal and sixteen secondary rays (although in the picture some of the secondary rays near the top of the design are not clearly shown). Thus there are 32 rays, and this number 32 is, first of all, the number of paths on the Tree of Live, consisting of the ten forces that correspond to the numbers from 1 to 10, and the 22 forces that are represented by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and Tarot Keys. Hence the rays of the Noon represent the sum-total of cosmic forces at work in human personality.

Eighteen Yods fall from the Moon onto the path. In the colored cards they are partly red and partly yellow, to intimate the combination of solar energy (yellow) with the vital forces in the blood (red). The intimation is that the powers of subconsciousness descend into the actual physical structure through the blood. The body is actually built from the elements in the blood-stream, and the chemistry of the blood-stream is controlled by subconscious mental activity, represented in this Key by the Moon.

The Way of Attainment is the Way of return. The Beyond is really the source. The height to which the path leads is that whereon the Hermit stands in Key 9.

Ancient teachers have left very clear descriptions of the Way of Attainment. They tell us it is narrow, meaning that concentration is required to follow it. More or less plainly they intimate that this is a mode of life balanced between the conditions of nature and such modifications of those conditions as are possible for art. The beginning of the way is in the realm of the familiar. It leads us, by easy stages, from the Known to the Less-Known, and from the Less-Known to the Unknown. Every Master of Life has followed this path to its goal, which is Self-recognition, or correct perception of the true I AM.

This week try to start the practice of reviewing your day's activities just before going to sleep. If you are in the habit of writing a diary, that is the best possible means of reviewing one's attainments and failures. Our attainments are just the stepping stones to the progress toward self-realization. Our failures are but warnings of what to avoid in the future. What we call 'sin' is nothing but missing the mark. Never muse too much about failures, merely get the determination never to repeat the same errors. There is no excuse for that. Do not worry. Worry is the concentration on the negative side of life. If you can worry well and at length, then you possess the ability to concentrate. But is it worthwhile to concentrate on the negative side? Change the polarity of your thoughts and emotions in your daily life; impress your sub-consciousness before going to sleep with positive images. Persist in this practice and the results will not fail to manifest themselves in all directions.

THE SUN

Orange / D

Figure 23. Outer and inner circles of humanity.

Astrological Chart

Section FIRST