Hermetic Initiation

III
By
Parush

© 2002 Heredom Trust

version 1.02 - 090103

Property of the Heredom Trust

 Hermetic Initiation © Heredom Trust 2002-03 Page 15

Part Five
“The Cycle of Life”

There are three basic stages in the history of the human consciousness, to be aware of. The
first stage of these is Qabalistically referred to as being before the fall of humanity. In this
stage of our evolution we existed only in the supernal triad of the Tree of Life1. This is the
condition that Genesis depicts as the Garden of Eden. Humanity at this level of existence
lived in a state of total equilibrium, with its full power at its disposal. But since this child-like
condition did not involve possession of knowledge gained from experience humanity had no
understanding of its potential.

The second stage is the one we now live in, and we might call that After the Fall. The
purpose for ‘falling’ was to gain experience so that we might understand the full nature of our
condition and abilities. It is believed that the main mechanism of this learning process is the
machinery of reincarnation. The idea is that over many lifetimes we would experience every
facet of our being and that something, if not every detail, of these experiences was recorded
and remembered by our personal awareness. The important peculiarity of the incarnatory
experience is that we live it in a world that encourages an erroneous view of the nature of
reality. So that part of our progress through the cycle of incarnation is not only to express
every potential facet of our being but also to gradually attain an accurate understanding of the
true nature of our reality.

The third stage of our life cycle kicks in when, after many, many, incarnations enough
experience has been accumulated to enable us to see enough of the truth about our nature and
the nature of our reality that our view of existence is altered at a very fundamental level. Even
though, when this first happens, we have only had a wee peek at the truth, that small exposure
is enough, at a certain point, to change us forever. From that point on our real spiritual
journey begins, and not before, as the primary result of that peek at the truth is that in every
subsequent incarnation we find ourselves searching with increasing passion for our spiritual
heritage.

It may take many lifetimes from that first peek at the truth about reality until we reach the
point where true, conscious, and deliberate initiation is one of the events included in a
particular lifetime, though. But once such a real, conscious, deliberate, initiation is attained it
would, I suspect, only require a few more lives to complete the process of attaining awareness
of the totality of our being (enlightenment.) Then finally, one particular life arrives when
everything comes together neatly and some key impact on us propels us into the next stage of
human evolution, the possession of complete equilibrium and full knowledge of the totality of
ourselves.

The Mechanism of Living

Indoctrination into the Worldview
(The first important concept about incarnation)

Now we come to the real crux of the matter. The previous concepts, while hopefully not to
hard to understand, or to accept, are the foundation upon which the following concepts must
rest. I have in the past, I suppose, expended more energy on trying to describe the ideas which
follow in the most readily digestible format, than anything else. I have done this in order to

1
The Supernal Triad: Kether, Chokmah and Binah, the three Sephiroth of the Tree of Life above the
abyss, which represent, in man, his immortal self.
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maximize, without undermining the degree of understanding required, the amount of the
following information a student can absorb, in order to make the practical application of these
ideas as safe and productive as I can. Nevertheless, after ten years of scratching around trying
to improve upon previous descriptions of the following ideas, I have found that most students
have the hardest time trying to absorb these concepts and build a complete working image of
them in their mind. So I point out that there cannot be too much contemplation or discussion
of what follows.

We are each born into life with no functioning conscious awareness (Ruach). Although we
have a physical body, the focus of our life is almost 100% in the unconscious world
(Nephesch). We do have enough conscious function, though, to act as a seed for conscious
growth and to, at least, record exterior activities. What we definitely do not have is the ability
to rationalise, to think about what we experience. We simply experience … and this is one of
the aspects of the unconscious … it absorbs experience-information like a sponge. The
important thing about this absorption of experience-information is that since we have no
conscious-rational (judgemental) faculty functioning, the information we absorb is not
analysed rationally.

What this means is that a baby is living in a highly suggestible state. A baby is like a very
good hypnotic subject sitting on the stage at a stage-hypnosis show. To a greater degree
everything the baby is told he accepts as true. He does this, again, because he has no ability to
judge input. So the baby, who arrives in our world with no hard and fast concept of the
structure or functions of this world, is taught, by his immediate family (primarily), to build a
picture2 of the world. The family fulfil, unwittingly, for the baby, the same role as the stage
hypnotist fulfils for his hypnotised subject. The family play the role of the critical factor, the
ability to judge the world, for the baby who does not yet own this faculty himself.

In totally unconscious and deeply fundamental ways the immediate family of the baby teach
the baby to build a psychological model of our world right down to the shape, size and texture
of every object we recognise as existing in our environment. This also includes a picture of
how things became the way they are (a view of past history), as well as where they are
heading (a view of the future.) With each day that goes by in the baby’s life he records more
and more information about the world until he can see and feel and learn to interact with the
objects and obstacles that he discovers here. Once language is introduced into the picture the
process moves from learning to interact with the hardware of this world to learning concepts
about this world. This, esoterically speaking, is the most dangerous time for a developing
individual. From the time it learns to understand language effectively, with no developed
bullshit detector, it absorbs other people’s opinions and attitudes with no more resistance than
a child with no immune system has to catching the flu.

This is the first of the most important concepts you need to grasp in order to understand how
you became what you are today. The immediate implications of this concept shouldn’t be hard

2
A picture or hologram of the world. It is a graphical display that appears to have extension in space,
and even in time, while being in fact a localised structure of information. Each one of us is very
familiar with this body of information, because it is the synthesis of all of this information that gives
rise to the idea of the world that we have. In other words, this world hologram is the world with which
each person is familiar. If you are in a room, your image of the rest of the building outside the door of
this room is part of the world hologram. The world is faithfully modelled in your world hologram,
providing you with a spatial awareness of the location of places and things in the world. Whenever you
imagine a place elsewhere in the world, you are examining some aspect of your world hologram.

Similarly, past and future are also included in the world hologram. Whenever you think about the
world, making a picture of some event in the past, or something that is going to happen tomorrow, you
are utilising this information. Moment by moment this hologram actually creates your outer world by a
special esoteric process.
 Hermetic Initiation © Heredom Trust 2002-03 Page 17

to grasp. People (primarily, your immediate family) who were, as children, indoctrinated
against their will, into a very shabby, inaccurate and totally misunderstood concept of the
world, then indoctrinated you, as a baby, into the same world view. The image you have of
reality, your most basic and fundamental opinions, attitudes and beliefs about the world, are
not your views, opinions, attitudes and beliefs, but they are as inherited as your genes are.
They are the fundamental3 views and attitudes that your Grandparents had, and their
Grandparents before them, back in time so far that the mind boggles at the thought that we
today have inherited a world view that was first established by people we are related to that
lived millions of years ago.

Each new generation adds its own baggage to the growing model of the worldview and forces
that baggage onto its offspring, totally unaware that we only perceive this world because it is
described to us by our early childhood caregivers.

It is important to remember here that we are not simply talking about inheriting political or
religious beliefs, or attitudes about décor, cars or clothing. These are relatively speaking
superficial parts of the world-model. We are taking about inheriting a model of the world
right down to the colours of objects, the physics that support their existence, and beliefs about
what we are, what we are capable of and what our limitations and potentials are as sentient
beings. Things that are so deeply ingrained and fundamental to our perception that if you
pulled one of them out of our pile of beliefs, our entire ability to perceive this world would
crumble as readily as a dream is lost upon waking.

This indoctrination continues until about seven years of age. At seven the storehouse of
information we have collected about the world-model is complete enough that we are capable
of starting to make our own decisions about life. This is the point where the Ruach starts to
assert itself for the purposes of self-interest.

How trauma modifies that Indoctrination

(The second most important concept about incarnation)

Up to this point we have a view where I have described the growth of a ‘normal healthy’
person. Taking into consideration that our inherited worldview includes some misconceptions
about reality that eventually are responsible for killing us, normal and healthy still mean
dysfunctional – but to the least possible degree.

But nobody reaches their seventh year of life so protected from the hardships of the world that
the only problem they have is that their close family indoctrinated them with a misinformed
worldview. We all also have to face trauma of one kind or another that affects our inherited
worldview.

A trauma might be defined as any experience that we come across that is outside of our
conscious mind’s ability to understand, judge or process productively. A minute trauma might
be, for example, the inability to understand an important instruction, because some of the
words or concepts used in its description are unknown to you. An important trauma might be,
for example, coming across water for the first time in your life and being confused about what
it is and how to deal with it. Serious trauma would involve something like finding oneself in a
scary situation that you have no plan for dealing with and a loss of personal security and/or
emotional or physical pain are the result.

3
It is necessary to be aware that I talk here of fundamental or essential ideas about the world. This
takes into consideration that you do over time add your own opinions and beliefs, and the products of
your experience, to your worldview. But just as you inherited your fundamental worldview, you will
pass on that same fundamental view to your children.
 Hermetic Initiation © Heredom Trust 2002-03 Page 18

Experiencing any of these degrees of trauma modifies, and to some degree distorts, our
inherited worldview. The more scary a trauma the more it distorts our inherited worldview. In
many circumstances when we come across a traumatic situation, an automatic mental rescue
device kicks in and attempts to repress the memory of the incident into our unconscious. The
idea is that when this happens the memory will be stored out of the way until some learning
experience we come across later on in life supplies us with and adequate plan or explanation
for dealing with the same traumatic situation should it arise again. These repressed packets of
experience always, though, keep irritating us from within. The irritation, which is partly
unconscious, pushes us to find answers for these problems as we travel through life.

Some traumas or so deeply repressed that even if later in life we find a rational explanation
for them, or devise a good plan for dealing with them, it doesn’t heal the conflict which exists
within us. These are the real problem traumas. The more the trauma fights to surface and be
recognised and understood the more the protection mechanism fights to repress it. Over years
of life this can mean that huge amounts of our limited life force are dedicated towards fighting
the revelation/repression battle. Eventually so much energy is pumped into the battle that it
weakens is to such a degree that it will be the cause of our death. Every one of us suffers from
this problem to some degree … and, generally speaking, this problem is one of the root causes
of death.

Disease and fatal accidents arise directly from a lack of available life force or from the
consequences of unresolved internal conflict.

It is important, also, to understand that this whole trauma issue is the thing that both creates
and maintains our human personality. You are who you are as a person because of the
conflicts that exist between the revelation (Ruach) and the repression (Nephesch) functions in
your mind. It is the traumas you have experienced and the ability to solve, or not solve them,
that build your character. Tension between the contents of the unconscious (Nephesch) and
conscious (Ruach) minds is the cause of personality.

If you were to solve all of your internal battles your (common-incarnate) personality would
then cease to exist. Here is the corner stone of the struggle for enlightenment. You cannot
attain full enlightenment without equilibrating the tension that supports your personality. As
long as this tension, or conflict, exists you are a binary being with a binary worldview that is
incapable of experiencing a unified worldview.