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Esoteric Discussion

What is Esoteric? It is internal knowledge that is only accessible through initiation and belongs to a group. It is truly hidden. For instance I have to sign a non disclosureagreement before having access to the material.

What is Exoteric? External knowledge what the public knows or information that thegroup wants exposed to the profane, the cowans and the vulgar. This is the groupsMarketing Department.

And there is a Misoteric (a word I am making up) lying between the inner and theexternal knowledge which is something that should only be for the initiate but usuallygets out to the public. Information that may be that is already on the internet. The methodof transmission is not the original mode but was acquired through deception, through theselling of secrets, selling of books or the reason for hiding the information was lost. Thismay contain misinformation that is used to expose the betrayer of trust. Information is

every ware and accessible to all but tie it with the context then you enter the world of secrets. It is not my intention to expose secrets but to talk around the subject in a generalsense.

The Etymology of the word says it is of Greek origin ἐσωτερικός meaning internal aseso- ἔσω means inner the -teric component is the suffix –nal. The word was first used in1701 History of Philosophy by Thomas Stanley and became popularized by Eliphas Leviin the 1850s

A leading thinker on Western Esotericism is Antoine Faivre (1934 - ). He held a chair inthe École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne1, University Professor of Germanic

Studies at the University of Haute-Normandie, director of the Cahiers del Hermétismeand of Bibliothèque de l'hermétisme, and is with Wouter Hanegraaff and RolandEdighoffer, the editor of the journal Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism2,Leiden: Brill, since 2001. He was a founding member of the European Society for theStudy of Western Esotericism3. So we will consider his thoughts on the subject.

In his book Access to Western Esotericism4 he defines 4 modes of thought for all esoterictraditions “Currents” and 2 that they may contain.1. Correspondences2. Living Nature3. Imaginations and Mediations4. Experience of transmutation5. The praxis of Concordance6. Transmission

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Examples of esoteric traditions are the Qabalah, Alchemy and Rosicrusionism.

1. A form of thought that shows Correspondence is in the Qabalah and Alchemy. Theysatisify Antoine Faivre’s forms of thought in that they follow the correspondences rule.The Sephiroth (Hebrew: תוֹריפִ ְ) in the tree of life corresponds to the worlds and with theס

souls of man.Action World Assiah ( ה י ָּשִׂ  ),ֲע ות כלמ Animal Soul Nefesh שפנFormative World Yetzirah (הרָ ִצי י ְ) Spirit Ruach חורCreative World Beri'ah ((האָ ִרי ְּב ה נ י ב Human Soul Neshamah ה מ ָ ָׁש ְנWorld of Emanations Atziluth ( ות ּליצִ )ֲא ה מ כ ח Alive Chayah ה י ָחָAdam Kadmon ( ון ֹמדְקַ םדָאָ( ר ת כ Unity with God Yechidah ד י ח י

The Emerald Tablet states: As Above so it is below5 this is a reference to the thought of Correspondence

2. The tradition promotes that God, Man and the Universe (Nature) are connected andone affect the other. All life is connected to movement and if it has movement it exists.This is connected to molecular or atomic vibration and carries on with the movement of ideas in the human mind, to the thought of god that created the universe. If you know Nature you understand yourself and god through his creation. In Elective astrology youwould pick favorable times to start an event like go to work in the morning wheneveryone is there. We choose the morning because it is favorable to the light connectingus with the movements of the solar system. In the esoteric modes of thought we studysubtle movements such as the penumbra of the moon which is the sliver of darkness after a full moon. In this way we get the whole picture, eliminating the occult aspects of our life and it that way we can state that the supernatural does not exist6 

3. An example of using the imagination and mediation can be found in guided meditationand using the vivid imagery in Ezekiel 1:1 or in the Sefir Zohar. The use of Jacob ladder as a image of the path to heaven and a descent to earth satisfies the use of the imaginationand the mediation between earth and heaven. Mediation suggests that one needs a priestly or Episcopal hierarchy between god and man through emanations or angelicentities. Ideas of the Forms in platonic thinking show the cosmogony between the creator and the created. In the tradition participants meditate on the thing itself, such as first principles, rather than the image that point to it. Outside the tradition without the proper initiation and taken out of context the images used would be viewed as a form of idolatrynot knowing the concepts that they represent. The regular guidance of a responsiblemediator is indispensible as the novitiate grasps the images and the concepts theyrepresent as he could fall into a trap if using a self study approach or by being guided bya mad-man. Traps include being isolated from the tradition, self delusional and confused,or being controlled by a cult leader.

4. An Example of Experience of Transmutation is the chemical process of changing basemetals (Lead) into Gold correspond to the transformative process of changing ordinarymen into individuated souls as Carl Jung would describe.

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Blackening Confronting the shadow, undesirable qualities in PsycheWhitening finding the essence of the PsycheReddening Individuation becoming the higher self and a mentor  

5. That the tradition may subscribe to a Primordial Tradition or a Hidden Churchcontained in all religions and traditions. Like the ones subscribed by Arthur EdwardWaite supported in The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail with the subtitle of Its Legendsand Symbolism Considered in Their Affinity with Certain Mysteries of Initiation andOther Traces of a Secret Tradition in Christian Times and René Guénon (1886 – 1951)supported in the posthumous work Fundamentals symbols of Sacred Science.

6. An example of transmission is to keep track of the pedigree and the method used totransmit the initiation that can be traced in an apostolic succession

Because of the vastness of the subject this paper cannot include all of the modes of 

esoteric thought. Even thought the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and in Canada meetsin Toronto (Toronto College No. 20 SRIA, Ontario College No. 87 SRIA and McLeodMoore College SRIC) it is still not enough considering all of the administrative issues of conferring grades. In this light a group has been created to discuss this subject everySaturday night at the Café Mirage located on William kitchen Boulevard ScarboroughOntario 7:00 PM family is welcome the major intersection is 401 and Kennedy. We have been meeting every Saturday for the past two years. The average attendance is 6 and 32have attended.

Presented by the Senior Warden Bro. Timothy Edwards, KRBE at the Raymond C.Purslow Council No. 170 AMD September 10, 2011

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1 http://www.ephe.sorbonne.fr/annuaire-de-la-recherche/afaivre.html 2 http://www.brill.nl/aries 3 http://www.esswe.org/#members/41/index.html 4 http://books.google.ca/books/about/Access_to_Western_esotericism.html?id=HXk9lnPx0_MC  pp 3 -19 on themethodology and the thoughts on p 105 http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm has many versions6 Encausse thought that nothing was “super-natural”. He created a reviewcalled  L'Initiation, which had for its motto this curious sentence: “TheSupernatural does not exist”. Nevertheless, Encausse was sure that magic was areality, not a fiction, and that science was showing why and how it was possibleto move things at a distance,http://www.glhom.org.uk/library/dachez.pdf