The Journey as an inner itinerary towards initiatory transformation
And a short analysis of the meaning of the Masonic Secret
Index: «The Snake moves its tail» - The Inner Path - The dangers of meditation - The Art of Visualization - Two possible arguments of a non-introduced - [Sound and Color] - [The Symbol] - [The Suggestion]
«The Snake moves its tail»
Let's now go back to the main track of our account.
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The fulfillment of the initiatory transformation is represented in the East by an upright King Cobra with three lesser cobras on each side. The King Cobra at the center represents the complete reawakening of the serpentine Fire and its ascent at the main center of the head; the six lesser cobras are the representation of the 6 chakras or energetic complementary ganglia, entirely revived. It is interesting to notice how the Buddha (B. simply means illuminated) is represented in the meditation position called "Lotus", sitting at the feet of these 7 Nagas (naga means snake, king cobra) which, with their necks expanded (as if they were one big umbrella) guard and protect him from material adversities. The meaning of the allegory is clear. The serpentine Fire, once erected through the whole energetic and nervous system, actively guards (the power of the conscience of the soul) the inner form of the Initiate, even when this falls below the threshold of vigilant conscience.
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The occult meaning of this two-fold "meeting" between ascending energy of the matter (electric) and descending energy of the spirit (the spiritual energy of the Mysteries is in modern terms, atomic energy) is veiled in the symbol that we have already seen, 
, therefore the hexagram is called the (interpretative) key of the Great Work as well as of the personal Work of the Initiate.
The serpentine Fire "reacts" only to certain mental waves (electromagnetic impulses) emanated by the will of the Initiate. These mental waves as well are silent soundsand the Snake responds to them, as the Commentaries say, by "moving its tail".
In allegoric language, the expression «the Snake moves its tail» means that the psychic activity of the Initiate is reawakening into him particular energies, which were latent since the beginning of the material Form. They are situated in the coccyx. The Tradition of the Mysteries describes the energy in the coccyx and that of the magma at the center of our planet as similar ones.
We know several methods for the reawakening of the Snake; each of them can be dangerous or particularly harmful for the man who approaches it without the suitable preparation; we certainly don't mean a theoretical preparation. The secret of safety is to gradually adapt to a bigger and bigger psycho-energetic and physiological tension. We could compare this to the progression and caution of the people who breath-held dive in the depth of the sea.
The inner Path
Let's briefly go through the safest techniques and the necessary caution in using them properly.
Among the various methods, those that belong to the "inner Path" guarantee the highest threshold of safety to the inexperienced. Among them meditation is the best known, at least by name. This method is often accompanied by the concept of transcendence; therefore it becomes "transcendental meditation", on condition that we know exactly what to transcend.
Transcendental meditation and metallic transmutation (alchemic-spiritual term) are synonyms, because they aim at facing and removing the same goals in the same way. As we have already said, these goals can be summed up in the term sub-personalities, roles of identification and all the distorted, relative and illusory elements connected to them. In both methods, absolutely identical, the leading elements are recognition, dis -identification, expansion of conscience and contact with the Soul. From this contact the definition "knowledge by contact" originates, also called Illumination or Gnosis. It is better to remember that the illumination of the mind from the Triad is recognized as a universal order because the individual Soul is an integrating part of the Anima Mundi of the planetary Logos (the Triad is an individual portion of a wider planetary Being, called precisely Anima Mundi).
The use of meditation in inner transformation though, like any other psycho-dynamics, originates from an imperative element, which is the "geometrical perfection" of the model we work with.
This model is normally called thought-form, but if it is expressed in a synthetic key we call it symbol-thought. In order to explain the concept we can mention a clarifying precept: "in the perfect question lies the perfect answer". This shows that in the perfect expression of a question (geometry of the thought, see synergetic mathematics by B. Fuller), its answer is implied without any intermediary elements. Perhaps we can highlight the principle by adding that, in the extremely precise mental construction (highest consciousness) of the goal that we want to reach, lies the awareness (through the work of unconsciousness) of "what to do and how to do it". The better the thought-form or the symbol that expresses its synthesis is built, the clearer what we need to do and how to do it will appear.
Therefore it is necessary to have a precise knowledge, a priori, of what we want to achieve, in qualities and characteristics. In other words, the more we know about the goal we want to reach, the shortest and easiest will be the journey to reach it.
But the Builder always keeps in mind in his "geometries" the unknown of imponderable, generally recognizable in other people's actions and thoughts, in favor or against what he is building.
The dangers of meditation
Therefore meditation is an elementary practice of inner clarification which, if applied with the right model/s and in the right proportion, lacks contraindications and dangers. Therefore it is valid at any psychic level of apprenticeship. But before going to its natural development, it is better to place our attention on the danger of personal distortions, which exist in this method as well.
To underestimate the genuineness of the ideal model/s, not to conscientiously study every possible verification on the validity of the chosen thought-form, before turning it into a symbol-thought on which to work, could, in the case of a mistake, not only be a deviation from the goal but a proper psychological poisoning. In an allegory it is said that "thought is the food of the mind" but meditation that transforms inside is "the food of the Soul".
The problem arises from the dimensions of what has been undertaken and from the energy involved in it, in the quantity and not in the quality of what is used, that generally involves a less experienced part of adepts.
Gluttony could by a symbol-word suitable to literally code this problem.
Too much concentration, too much thought on a unique form, symbol or concept, leads who doesn't know what it is to ‘be above his own physical mind', to become mono-tone, viz. always the same, limited and repetitive and after all boring as well as annoyingly conceited. But its excess leads to obsessive ideas, to the loss of the real dimensions of the factors involved, to the unbalance of relations between inner and outer realities, between goal and means, to the loss of cognition of the right times of achievement, up to reaching the threshold of incommunicability, of depression and melancholy that often lead to misogyny.
If these things occur, they don't occur all together, the decline is gradual and often reversible in reasonable terms. But it is better if the researcher doesn't lose, in order to re-transmit it back again, the ‘dramatic' sense of the problem, where incommunicability and frustration are two supporting pillars and they cannot make the adept tolerant and generous as it is necessary.
The Art of Visualization
Meditation has its natural prosecution in concentration, in impersonal observation (non emotional) and in focalization.
Being able to observe and see in depth (intelligere) doesn't have anything to do with the activity of looking that belongs to the Profane. This ability (technical quality) helps the understanding and knowledge that are the agents of any kind of transmutation. In the instance of mystics and devotionals, it is fair to remember that observation takes a different inner direction and becomescontemplation of the model (thought-form) that in their case is divinity, but in the most generic and humanized sense of the word.
By elevating the quality of his own esoteric experience, the adept can overcome focalization (the ability to reach a fair mental focus of every concept is already a form of illumination) and reach theArt of Visualization (see techniques in "the Art of Memory" by Giordano Bruno) and from the point of view of pure operative technique, the Art of Visualization is the boundary between the abilities of the adept and of the Initiate.
The thought in its two-dimensional exposition is an extensible concept through a sinusoidal form that involves a starting point (point of lowest ascending tension) an apex (point of highest tension), a conclusion (point of lowest descending tension) and a dissolution (either it is decisive or not). It all occurs on what is called the horizontal plane of the mind. Visualization works with the method of three-dimensional exposition, through the use of symbol-thought, so called because it is one and synthetic.
The three-dimensional vision of a thought-form is achieved by summing three dynamic elements: dynamic penetration (action) of thought, contemporariness of links of one's own memory-archive and systematic projection of conclusions, in more and more complex synthetic forms (see the meaning of synthesis). Visualization also allows the perception of the inner space of every observed form and this reveals their inner sound . This is the predominant note and color present in every form, in every thought-form and in the mind of every man, even if he is not aware of this thought-note-color. At this point it is necessary to bring examples and we will take two into consideration.
The first is of a geometrical kind, whilst in the second we will explain how we widely use virtual sceneries in order to develop the field of experiences in visualization.
The first exercises required from a person who is specializing are the use of geometrical forms on the two-dimensional plane. We will consider the simplest ones, the Triangle and the Square.
The student is taught how to create a geometrical form in the mind and to keep it clear and steady for longer and longer periods for the inner observation called the eye of the mind. This first exercise strengthens the mind and expands the ability for focalization. Using a traditional term, they light the inner eye, the eye of the mind. This is not yet what we call the third eye; the latter is not a technique, but the reviving of an ethereal center linked to the magnetic activity (electric interaction) which emanates from the pineal gland and from the pituitary body. Sight, like any other physical sense, finds its counterpart at any energetic level and the first is the ethereal order, followed by the astral order and so on, going up in energetic quality and speed. In the sense of sight, this principle finds its apex in the monadic vision also called in mystic terms, spiritual vision. The symbolic representation of this vision is recognizable in every Masonic Temple, in the symbol of the eye inscribed in the perfection of the equilateral triangle of the Monad.
Going back to our student, he will be pushed to color the background (mental) where his own visualization works and the perimeter of the required form.
We will not highlight it because it is implicit, but the overcoming of each new psychic tension corresponds to an exponential increase of one's own mental power. At the end of the progression between how the initiate was and how he becomes, there will be the same difference as between a 15 Watts and a 200 Watts bulb.
After different backgrounds and different colors of the geometric perimeter occurs rotation on the axis and oblique reversals of the object. Before proceeding to the next difficulty, the image will have to be clear and steady to the sight and sustainable from the desired length of time. Later, we will go from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional image, the triangle and the square will develop in the Pyramid and in the Cube. We then put in place the same previous routines, backgrounds and perimeters, changing their color, going to rotations, even oblique ones, and to reversals. Here the true three-dimensional stage starts, visualizing the intersections that develop in the relations among the planes of the internal space of these two forms (like in all forms, even human).
This is the science called of Harmonics, which we have widely discussed in the article Sonorous Images (see article). Now we can only say that from Pythagoras, with the Monochord, up to the Kaiser, the fundamental principle of the physiology of the sound can be expressed in these terms: in every sonorous form there is an access on metaphysics. In musical terms this principle is expressed as follows: in the concrete manifestation of a note, for example DO (C, Note of the Translator), between the two octaves there is an "interval" and this is the access to the metaphysical, multidimensional and unchangeable identity of the sonorous space. For man this is the concept of infinite and eternal.
The formula of the concept is presented in these terms: Do1, interval, Do2 or, more simply, DO: octave-interval-octave.
Two possible arguments of a non-introduced
Before proceeding, we would like to mention what a profane might respond at this point. Substantially we can find two arguments for a non-introduced; the first one is sophisticated, the second is coarse. First he would say that the representation produced by the mental will is still a level (two-dimensional) image of a three-dimensional reality, because he thinks about the analogy with a blackboard.
To this argument we will respond that it is true that the observer cannot penetrate the blackboard, but the visualizer will be able to access the internal space of the image, placing his observation point in every desired position and obtaining the vision of every internal plane of the space contained in the observed form. The "universal" concept that we can draw from this counter-argument is that despite the exterior differences (in form), the characteristics of the internal space in the mathematical relations of Number that can be reduced to Sound and the latter to Color * and vice versa (one as a consequence of the other), are the same in every form, included the human one. The mathematical relations of Number-Sound-Color of the internal relations of every form (the energetic geometry of matter) demonstrate the meaning of the "occult Sound" of the matter-energy.
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* Sound and Color are at the basis of every initiatory Mystery. We can see their presence, not much understood and even less used, in the meanings of the symbols and ritual paraments. Sound and Color, like any other energy, have two "faces" (properties): one occult and esoteric and one manifested and exoteric. They show themselves as destroying and obsessive qualities and at the opposite as aggregating and therapeutic qualities. As usual, though, the esoteric interpretation offers us a paradoxical version, so to speak (since the physical mind is mirror-like to the metaphysical one, reality is presented to the former as opposed and reversed. We will see later on the meaning of «mental Diamagnetism»).
Indeed, from the metaphysical point of view, what destroys frees and what aggregates imprisons. Let's think about the physical vehicle, for example; once it is dissolved, the energy of the Triad is freed from the "Sepulcher" where it is imprisoned or, in hermetic terms, descends from the cross of the elements (symbolized by four nails) to which it is fixed. Since we cannot study certain meanings any further, we will consider Color the most significant characteristic.
In ancient times the therapeutic qualities of sound and color were well known. Nowadays we use them in medical therapies, psychiatry, psychotherapy and in the advanced stages of zoology and greenhouse agriculture. It is undeniable, therefore, that this "science" has concrete values in man's life.
The only characteristic that we take into consideration in this note is that using color means being able to draw from an inexhaustible "tank" of psychic energy. If it is true that by induction, working with color from the outside has therapeutic and energizing effects, the results will become ten times bigger if the visualizer works on the partial or total saturation of his own inner elements, especially because this will be the result of an act of dynamic will and not of a passive quiescence with the external method.
We have already said that each color is the manifestation of a sound; therefore each color contains a sound. By working with colors, then, we also use indirectly the occult sounds of energy.
In modern "Physiology of sound", the old knowledge that initiatory Tradition expressed in ancient times in its symbols and allegories, is re-offered in a scientific key (mechanistic). Let's go back for a moment to the note DO used previously. It expressed the color Blue, therefore the octave sound DO1 will be indigo and DO2 azure. There are seven colors: Blue, Indigo, Green, Yellow, Orange , Red and Purple and their chromatic decomposition represents the lower octaves, whilst their additional compositions the greater octaves. Here the development of the "esoteric" topic would start, but we cannot deal with it in this short space.
The Seven colors manifest the seven dominating notes and if we consider them in the initiatory view of Freemasonry, then we will link them to initiatory ascent, to the progression on seven levels where the accesses are called seven Thresholds of Initiation (of conscience) symbolized by seven steps that lead to the "Worshipfulness" and the seven Liberal Arts which, at the top,from the Sound (the Music in the lesser Mysteries) lead the Initiate to the perception of the Starry Vault (Astronomy in the initiatory view and not limited to the only material aspect) where the highest part of the Great Work is carried out.
In order not to confuse ideas, we will only mention that in the Greater Mysteries we have 12 levels, Thresholds and Planets. It is the Platonic Dodecahedron. But remaining on the "perceivable" rather than metaphysical numeric scale, let's continue our study of the seven. The Seven perceivable sacred Planets find their correspondence in the seven energetic Centers of occult (energetic) physiology of Man. They are seven, as many as the "knots" of the Caduceus of Hermes, which has at its top two wings, symbol of the freedom (from the darkness of matter) of the Man who has achieved his personal Work in the complete vivification of Himself, the complete Initiate, the Regenerated Man (initiatory Rebirth or second birth).
The Seven Thresholds of initiatory progression can only be accessed by "enunciating" the seven Pass Words. Abandoning for a moment the formal interpretation (exoteric and simplified) of the symbolic Catechism, we can easily connect, by analogy, the seven Sounds of the Seven Centers of the physiology of the Initiate to the Seven Thresholds of the Initiation and the latter to the Act of Will of Him who is able to express them. In other words, the inner vivification of Man corresponds to evolution and growth, symbolically called Illumination and Rebirth. This evolution can't have but an energetic matrix, therefore the sounds manifested in this inner and energetic evolution, dominated and controlled by the will of the Initiate, are the same symbolically (legendarily) reminded to the young adepts as Pass Words and that only Initiation allows to know.
Because of lack of space, this part of the explanation is quite incomplete as well; therefore for the moment you must take it as a simple indication or direction for research and study.
In conclusion, let's go back to a more "pedestrian" and immediate use of Color.
We have recognized how Color is (also) an immense tank of qualified emotional energy; popular tradition keeps the memory of this truth transmitted to those (who cannot see colors) from the exoteric Teaching of the initiatory Order.
I see black is – melancholy, pessimism, impotence, renunciation – dry; I see red is – manifested anger, outward aggression, destroying eagerness, exploded violence – hot; I am green is (associated to bile) – repressed anger, inward aggression, impotent eagerness, imploded violence – humid; I am pale is (associated to deadly pale) – fear, emotional inaction, immobility, uncertainty – cold. These are only some examples of color associated to the negative pole of emotions. But in the instance of an initiate to the Art of Visualization, he can use these qualified and perfect "tanks" to "Artfully" create an energetic grafting from the multiform and varied use as much as his ability allow him. Therefore he is able to obtain grafting (the Bridges of hermeticists) between his own emotional, relative and often chaotic elements and the dominating Colors, which he will use to build an inner geometric perfection, emphasizing, reducing or correcting with this energetic "material" all the modules that he will consider appropriate, necessary and desirable. Temporarily (the contingent need to face a temporary situation) or permanently (the will to improve or dissolve permanently one's own quality by consciously acting on it up to modifying it and reach the desired form and quality). These are only some of the advantages obtained by the initiate who wants to learn the esoteric use of Color (of Sound and Numbers connected to them).
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The second argument opposed to the use of these techniques can be synthesized in these terms: it is a suggestion. Well, this argument can be refuted in terms of psychoanalysis.
Every thought, need and desire of man originates from a suggestion.
For the mind defending from climatic adversities is a suggestion because the suffering part is the body and not the mind (except for induction). If the mind, in order to help the body, creates the project of a refuge, at first this will only be a suggestion as well. But when the mind, thanks to its abilities, will be able to put in place (extroversion of the act of will) from the virtual and speculative reality of a project (the project is the Symbol* of fulfillment) its fulfillment, this will appear as a solid and concrete building that will satisfy the needs arisen on the physical plane (here as well we can grasp the same principles that differentiate the speculative stage from the operative stage in metallic transmutation). If this is true for a need it is also true for a wish, which is a suggestion as well.
If falling in love is followed by physical and concrete conjunction with the object of desire, this unification on the physical plane of the form will be the concrete fulfillment of a suggestion.
We can say that a suggestion ** is as such only in the instance that this first stage (called thought-seed by the Initiate) and the project stage (symbol-speculative) are not followed by the third stage, the achievement. Only when the third stage is missing the suggestion is identified with dream and impracticability.
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* Symbol - According to Psycho-synthesis, the symbol is an image, a representation and a sign of psychic realities; the relation with the represented reality is mainly based on analogy. Its function is energy accumulator, transformer and conductor. The man who reads it literally, who doesn't go beyond the symbol but stops with it, will not reach the truth.
**Suggestion is the proceeding through which a psychic fact is impressed in the unconsciousness, with or without the awareness of conscience, or when it is fulfilled through unconsciousness. It is founded on the following law: every idea or image tends to produce the physical status, the emotional status and the corresponding action. It is effective with therapeutic, educative, self-educative and psychagogic purposes; it can be used as hetero-suggestion and self-suggestion, as harmonious collaboration with unconsciousness; the issue is inspiring energies, creating a magnetic field. Psychagogy has been presented to the scientific world as an internal praxis, a wide and complex action, an art that includes methods for enquiry, domain, use and most of all the harmonious integration of all the elements, in a coherent and organic psycho-synthesis of the personality that draws the ancient name given by Plato. On one hand this name expresses the practical and active character of the discipline and on the other hand it shows how it deals with the integral culture of the whole psyche. In this the concept of psycho-synthesis was essentially already present.
The neuropsychiatrist Franco Granone , in his important work on clinical and experimental hypnosis, mentions the laws by E. Couè , which we quote below; he highlights the important relation between suggestion and imagination in the evolution of human thought.
«1) Suggestion doesn't act on the will but on imagination, which is the dominating element of sub-consciousness, which, on its turn, affects all the functions of our body. By suggesting and acting on imagination, which is often in contrast with the will, we can obtain the known hypnotic effects. The will doesn't come into it; it remains in the background, unless it places itself at the service of imagination.
a) When will and imagination are in conflict, imagination always wins;
b) In the contrast between will and imagination, the strength of the latter is proportional to the square of the will;
c) When the will and imagination agree, the former is not added to the latter but multiplies it;
d) Imagination can be educated.
For Couè unconsciousness corresponds to imagination.
2) Hypnotism must be defined as: "influence of the imagination on the moral being and on the physical being of man". Hypnosis is not based on the will of the hypnotizer, but on the relaxation of the hypnotized, and on the way he elaborates the received suggestions. Suggestion acts only because it can cause self-suggestion; the latter, in order to operate properly, must act in the conscious stage. This term is constantly associated to the first one by Couè. For Couè and his disciples (Baudouin and others) the subject has conscience of ruling his unconsciousness. Basically the suggestion induced by the operator to the subject must be continued by the latter; provided, of course, that he is able to do so.
In actual fact, we must exclude two categories of people: mentally deficient people, who are unable to understand, and those who don't want to understand (sceptical and positivists who prevent themselves from having a global view, preferring a sectarian view where every element or part of it is considered as a separate independent principle; this method is more suitable to the limited ability of the lower mind of the people who are not focused, Note of the Author).
3) Acting on imagination we can heal diseased organs, through a repeated self-suggestion, founded on ideas of wellbeing. The application of the method is based on two fundamental postulates:
a) "We cannot think about two things at the same time";
b) "Each thought that occupies our mind exclusively becomes true for us and tends to transform itself in action".
For Couè the essential disposition of mind of an ill person must be only that the suffering will disappear; this way, it will actually disappear.
In every suggestion, Baudouin states, once that we have thought about the purpose to obtain, sub-consciousness finds the means to obtain it.
In the patient who says: «every day I improve under all aspects», under the influence of this generic self-suggestion, pronouncing the same words with deep conviction twenty times morning and evening, (religious oration [Mantram]), unconsciousness, according to Couè, receives the order and gives it where it is needed, without the conscience knowing it».
