Understanding the Process of Initiation

From a presentation given to the Russian students by Therese Emmanuel Grey


What is golden age psychology? Psyche in Greek means soul, and the study of psychology is the study of the soul’s particular evolution in time and space. When we talk about golden age psychology, we are talking about a new understanding of psychology for the time to come, and which is being anchored now. Golden age psychology is the study and nurturing of the process of the soul becoming one with God. In the ancient mystery schools, when an initiate entered the temple, the words inscribed on the portal through which he entered were, “Man know thyself.” When the initiate had graduated, he left the temple through another door over which were inscribed the words, “Man, know thyself as God.” The process that the initiate went through between both doors is the process that is studied and assisted by the Golden Age Psychology. How do we become the fullness of oneness with God in an effectual, practical way? What are the steps, the opportunities and the pitfalls along the way? How do we shepherd the soul and assist the personality into making correct free will choices that lead to a permanent crystallization in God? This is the journey we are about.

In the word “initiation,” you find the word, “niche.” Initiations are sets of circumstances that allow us to move up in consciousness niche by niche. Through the process of initiation, we can put on more and more of our divinity if we successfully pass our tests. Initiations are not easy. The mystic, Charles Leadbeater, wrote that when he contacted the Solar Logoi, the Solar Logoi confessed that even at that level, there is groaning and travail in order to pass initiations. In a sense, a part of God experiences “growing pains” in the process of becoming more of God, in anchoring more of the geometry of divinity. We can fail our initiations and sometimes, these same initiations must be given to us over several lifetimes. The entire result of the fall of man and of the fall of the angels came about because Lucifer was not willing to pass his initiation. He lagged and in so doing, became the first laggard. His refusal to face the creative tension that is present in every engendered evil in the matter universe.

The initiation that is coming to many in this age is the initiation of moving from children of God to Sons and Daughters of God. In the process of achieving this new level of initiation, these new Sons and Daughters of God must become accustomed to carry more of the burdens of the world, to balance more karma, and are expected to come up higher with a new level of difficulty. It becomes harder and harder to pass our initiations if we do not have a basic understanding of our psychology which is our soul. That is why in the 1990s, the masters gave a number of dictations urging people to study their psychology. The science of giving decrees and mantras is also vital to the process of spiritual acceleration. This gets you to the point where you are ready to take on your psychology and then helps you to clear up what you find. And so we find that the path of psychology and the path of spirituality are like two legs upon which we must stand, walk and run with on our course back to Father-Mother God.

We are a soul and we are a personality. We are intended to become one with our Christ self and Mighty I AM Presence. Each new life, we have a new personality. The personalities that we have had, lifetime after lifetime, are like beads that we string on a necklace. The soul is the string. When the necklace is complete, we lay it as an offering on the altar of our Father-Mother God as a love offering, and in the process we become immortal.

The personality is the agency of free will for the soul. The personality creates karma for the soul that is both good and bad, and it is influenced by past soul momentums. This karma determines the conditions of incarnation for the next personality that the soul will experience, the next role she will play in the grand theater of life. We come in with certain karmic factors to learn from, that become our initiation. As we contemplate this process, we must remember there is no injustice in the universe and that we are in the best possible condition that our karma allows us to be in. We must also not lose sight of the fact that before coming once again into this world with a new baby body, we chose, as our karma dictated, our preset life circumstance as well as our parents and our specific life course. This decision was made together with spiritual beings who helped us, a karmic board of spiritual overseers who help us develop the most meaningful aspect of our divine plan, lifetime after lifetime.

This deliberation becomes a blueprint or matrix that we hold in our etheric body, which is our superconscious self. The etheric body is the only body we keep between incarnations and the vehicle through which we go the retreats at night. It is our memory body and holds the memory of all of our incarnations. The other three bodies, our mental, emotional and physical bodies, are recreated anew for each new lifetime, based on the etheric blueprint and karmic matrix that is held within the etheric body. Therefore our karmically based etheric pattern determines what kind of emotional propensity we have, as well as our mental habit patterns, and as well as our physical strengths and weaknesses that come through our genetics. Nothing is by chance. We must remember we are energetic beings first and that it is our karmic energy patterns that precipitate who we are and what we will become in the physical plane. As Jesus said, “Every hair of your head is numbered.”

We cannot experience true healing unless we have healing of the cause and core behind the condition, which is transmutation and healing at the level of the etheric blueprint first. This is what Mother was focusing on when she was making prayers and invocations for healing through the emerald matrix. Healing begins at the level of the spirit, which is the etheric, and what Jesus meant when he said, “Be thou made whole!” And that is why we use the violet flame.

There are many tools and understandings that relate to the golden age psychology, and today, I would like to impart to you the concept of the relationship triangle.

Between birth and three years of age, we believe that our parents are God. The relationship we observe between them and the way that each parent relates to our child self sets a blueprint at the subconscious level of how we will interpret relationships and relate to others for the rest of our lives, unless we do something about it. The child functions from the subconscious, and at the subconscious level, even when we are grown ups, we project the role and vibration of our mom, dad or child self to everyone whom we meet. We are usually not aware of this, as it is something we do automatically and subconsciously.

And so we become our mom, dad or child self to everyone whom we meet and in turn, they fulfill the role of mom, dad or child self for us emotionally, based on who the person or circumstances the person reminds us of most. When we start observing this and paying attention to it, we can consciously take back these three roles or positions and transmute the karmic pattern behind the condition. Then we become able to relate to others and have them relate back to you in a way that is authentic. We can see people face to face, as Paul said, and not through a glass darkly of projections and counter projections based on the karmic condition we experienced in childhood. We stop automatically pegging people as, “This person reminds me of so and so, therefore I must behave with them in this way to have a sense of security and control.”

We have to be able to relate to people at the level of the Christ and not be limited because of preconceived notions and unresolved patterns at the level of the subconscious—the “gut reaction” that says I like or I don’t like that person and I already know what relating to them is going to be about. Often times our subconscious can give us a very accurate reading from a human standpoint but it is a self limiting matrix and we are talking about relating beyond the human, moving from a horizontal relationship to a vertical relationship where we interface through the Christ in each other, heart to heart, and not through our belly buttons. We trust no man at the level of the subconscious and yet we trust the Christ who can come through and work with each man. As Saint Patrick said, Christ in the sight of each eye that shall seek me, in each ear that shall hear me, in each mouth that shall speak me. Christ not the less in each heart I address.”

It is very important to become masterful about how we relate to others because relationships are how we pass our initiations and balance our karma. If we are not able to get along with specific people while we are here on earth, we will have to learn to get along with them in the etheric retreats between embodiments. There is no escaping the initiation of loving our so-called “enemies,” who are self-styled and mirror back to us what we have unresolved in our own beings.

As we learn to master our relationship triangle, we are also learning to balance out our threefold flame, the presence of divine love, wisdom and power anchored in the heart. Our early experience of love, wisdom and power with our parents influence how we will perceive the nature of love, wisdom and power. As we sublimate this experience and subconscious position of human love, human wisdom and human power into Christ love, Christ wisdom and Christ power, we become more and more of our Christ self and balance our threefold flame.