Master of the Rose

by Michael Taylor

THE SEVEN SERMONS TO THE DEAD

A key element of the Master’s philosophy is expressed in Jung’s work The Seven Sermons to the Dead, produced in three days from an episode of automatic writing in 1916. The key is that this text was not produced solely by the Number 1 personality of Jung, but produced through Jung, and analysis of this text provides key insights into fundamental truths of creation.

MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS

In his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (MDR) Jung put into words his inner life, a stark contrast to normal autobiographies that deal with people’s outer lives. But such was the importance Jung attached to understanding one’s own psyche, he devoted his entire life to understanding his own inner life. There are several passages in MDR, and other works, that deserve analysis. But first, to MDR itself. MDR is not a true autobiography – it is a compilation of writings by Aniela Jaffe and Jung himself. Some are critical even of this collaboration. Richard Noll wrote a book critical of Jung in 1997 entitled The Aryan Christ. Yet even he was in awe of MDR as a tale of the myth that was Jung’s life.

MDR, rightly or wrongly, has become one of the primary spiritual documents of the twentieth century. As the story of Jung’s spiritual rebirth, it has inspired awe and hope in its readers, re-enchanting their worlds. It is a powerful book, and I recall my bewildered reaction to it at age seventeen after the first of what was to become many readings.” [Emphasis added.]

Noll seems to take issue with the way MDR was written.

“The Jung portrayed in MDR is a clairvoyant sage, a miracle worker, a god-man who earns his apotheosis through his encounter with the Dead and with God. His is a morality tale of mystical evolution, as his life becomes the exemplum of his theories, the heroic saga of an “individuated” man who survived a terrifying encounter with extramundane beings (the archetypes) from a transcendent reality (the collective unconscious).”

Yet even this critic effectively summarized Jung's key life event.

THE NUMBER 1 AND NUMBER 2 PERSONALITIES

Jung identified a duality in all people, a duality of personality that is ever present, but which the individual is usually not conscious of. The Number 1 personality is you, the conscious ego, with memory of your actions this lifetime. The Number 1 personality is your face to the world.

The Number 2 Personality, in contrast, is the immortal inner Self – the soul if you will. The Number 2 Personality can make its appearance in dreams and waking fantasies, but most people spend their lives ignoring their inner Self, partly from their belief that it simply does not exist. The Christian will readily say that we all HAVE souls, but it is more accurate to state that we ARE Soul, the Being, whose quality is manifested in the Number 2 Personality.

In the context of Jung’s life, the Number 1 Personality is Carl Jung the psychologist. The Number 2 Personality is Jung’s immortal soul, his inner Self. Jung was driven by the Number 2, which I believe to be the Master of the Rose.

THE UNCONSCIOUS

Jung empirically proved the existence of a personal unconscious in the psyche of individuals – whether they believe it or not. The aim of individuals is to make the contents of the personal and non-personal (collective) unconscious, conscious – in other words to bring light to the darkness in our unconscious, and in so doing integrate the conscious and unconscious contents in a process called Individuation. This is the basis of Jungian Psychology.

Our personal unconscious is the gateway to what Jung referred to as the Land of our Ancestors, of the land of the dead - the collective unconscious.

“The collective unconsciousness is the sediment of all the experience of the universe of all time, and is also the image of the universe that has been in process of formation from untold ages.”   [Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, ‘The Psychology
of Unconscious Processes,’ p. 432]

The collective unconscious contains the memories of everything that has ever been, and everything that has ever been thought, stretching back to the beginning of time. We are all connected to the collective unconscious, and we can all receive images and fantasies, which have their own life, from the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the wellspring of all creativity. Jung puts it another way:

“The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual.” [‘The Structure of the Psyche,’ Collected Works, Volume 8, par. 342.]

Jung is saying that we all carry within us a connection to the common spiritual heritage of mankind.

From 1909 Jung felt an inner urge to confront this infinite inner world and bring into consciousness its contents in a way meaningful for people of the modern age. This experiment Jung called the confrontation with the unconscious, and lasted from 1912 when Jung had his first visions, until the end of World War I. This “exploration” was actually epic in scope and nearly flung Jung into insanity. He used the historical parallel of Odysseus’ journey to the Sojourn of the Dead to describe the journey, for he was truly visiting the land of the past, a land which contains the memories of all time, for all time. The images and emotions that swamped him were initially unfathomable.

It is during this period Jung made his most insightful discoveries, as he wrote in MDR:

“All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies and dreams which began in 1912, almost fifty years ago. Everything that I accomplished in later life was already contained in them, although at first only in the form of emotions and images.” [MDR: p 217]

PHILEMON

The most important archetype Jung encountered in his exploration of his unconscious was a symbol of Jung’s inner Self. It appeared to Jung in a dream, as an old man with the horns of a bull and the wings of a kingfisher. The old man held in his hands a bunch of 4 keys, one held ready to open a lock. Initially Jung did not understand the dream, so he began to paint it. As he was painting he spotted a Kingfisher dead on the lakeshore. He was amazed because Kingfishers are rare where Jung lived, and for 50 years thereafter he has never found another dead kingfisher. This is a classic example of inner meaning finding expression in the physical world, and was experienced by Jung many times throughout his life. Jung named the old man Philemon, and had many conversations with him. He stated that Philemon was his “spirit guide” who came to Jung to assist him on his spiritual evolution.

From a psychological perspective Jung was talking to a personality split from himself, and Jung was suffering from delusions. But Jung saw the experiences as utterly real and without any trace of mental illness. The experiences were so powerful they frequently threatened to overwhelm his sanity. Jung writes in MDR:

“Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru.” [MDR, p 183]

Jung claimed Philemon was an entity outside his conscious control, in other words outside the control of his Number 1 Personality. It had a life of its own, and spoke of things that Jung did not consciously know about. It is probable Philemon was another less advanced “Master” spirit sent to assist the Master R in the next stage of his spiritual evolution. Which “Master” he was, is entirely open to conjecture. After this period of Jung’s life, Jung came to regard Philemon as an archetype of the inner self – in this case, his inner self. This does not mean however, that Philemon was the Master R, merely an eternal symbol of all our inner selves.

Others have been down the path Jung took in the confrontation with the unconscious, but most were destroyed by the unfathomable images that welled up from the deep, or went insane. The ones who survived became the great prophets, seers and artists of our history. Nietzsche was one who went down the path, and eventually succumbed to insanity. Jung specifically wrote in MDR he did not want to go the same way as Nietzsche, and gave an idea of the immense difficulties he faced.

“I stood helpless before an alien world: everything in it seemed difficult and incomprehensible. I was living in a constant state of tension; often I felt as if gigantic blocks of stone were tumbling down upon me. One thunderstorm followed another. My enduring these storms was a question of brute strength. Others have been shattered by them - Nietzsche and Holderlin, and many others. But there was a demonic strength in me, and from the beginning there was no doubt in my mind that I must find the meaning of what I was experiencing in these fantasies…” [MDR, p 201.]

Nietzsche’s short poem Sils Maria touches on the inner duality we all possess, yet without which we would be mere physical shells.

"Here I sat, waiting - not for anything -
Beyond Good and Evil, fancying
Now light, now shadows, all a game,
All lake, all noon, all time without all aim.
Then, suddenly, friends, one turned into two -
And Zarathustra walked in view."

Zarathustra was Nietzsche’s Philemon.

In 1916, during his confrontation with the unconscious, Jung was overtaken by the urge to put on paper what he was experiencing. Over a three day period Jung was overtaken by an episode of automatic writing and produced what was known as Septem Sermones ad Mortuos or The Seven Sermons to the Dead.

Jung attributed the text to the spirit of Basilides, who lived around 130 AD in Alexandria, Egypt and led a Gnostic Christian Sect. His followers were known as the Basilideans. Who exactly “wrote” the Seven Sermons is not clear. Jung clearly stated the text was dictated to him by Basilides, but the source is evidently Philemon. As Jung states in MDR (pp 214-215):

“Very gradually the outlines of an inner change began making their appearance within me.   In 1916 I felt an urge to give shape to something.
I was compelled from within, as it were, to formulate and express what might have been said by Philemon.
This is how the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos with its peculiar language came into being.”

The text is remarkable because of its spiritual insight – some have described it as Jung’s most important writing. The Seven Sermons to the Dead has also been labelled “a core text in depth psychology” – in other words vitally important for the development of Jungian psychology.

This nothingness or fullness we name the Pleroma.”

The merging of the soul with the Pleroma seems to be the ultimate goal of Gnostic Christianity. In contrast, it is not the goal of Jungian psychology, or of the Master.
His goal was the attainment of individuation within the Oneness of God. It appears then, to be two paths a soul can follow: the merging with Oneness, or the attainment
of individuation within the Oneness of God.

Jung/Philemon continues:
“If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our own nature, away from creatura. We fall into indistinctiveness, which is the other quality of the pleroma.
We fall into the pleroma itself and cease to be creatures.

We are given over to dissolution in nothingness. This is the death of the creature. Therefore we die in such measure as we do not distinguish. Hence the natural
striving of the creature goeth towards distinctiveness, fighteth against primeval, perilous sameness.

This is called the PRINCIPIUM INDIVIDUATIONIS.
[Individuation]

This principle is the essence of the creature. From this you can see why indistinctiveness and non-distinction are a great danger for the creature.”

This excerpt is stating why Individuation is the same as the survival instinct on a spiritual level. The Master has described the path to the obliteration of the individual soul (the merging with the pleroma) – the word the Master used to describe it to me is simply - oblivion.

What does the Seven Sermons have to say about God?
“In the night the dead stood along the wall and cried:
We would have knowledge of god.
Where is god? Is god dead?
God is not dead.
Now, as ever, he liveth. God is creatura, for he is something definite, and therefore distinct from the pleroma.
God is quality of the pleroma, and everything I said of creatura also is true concerning him. He is distinguished, however, from created beings through this, that he is more indefinite and indeterminable than they. He is less distinct than created beings, since the ground of his being is effective fullness. Only in so far as he is definite and distinct is he creatura, and in like measure is he the manifestation of the effective fullness of the pleroma.”

So the Master is saying that God is NOT the pleroma, not an indefinable nothingness/fullness, but exhibits qualities of the pleroma nevertheless. God is however less definable than other spiritual Beings, and thus much closer to the pleroma than we are.

You cannot have light without darkness, and vice versa. Modern masculine-based Christianity and its suppression of its dark feminine quality is the best example of hobbling a powerful truth by ignoring the essential qualities of the archetypal opposites. Suppress the dark side of Christianity, instead of embracing it, and evil flares into life in unexpected and horrifying ways in the conscious life of humanity. The integration of light and darkness (the conscious and unconscious) is an essential alchemical act for spiritual growth.

The God of light obviously symbolises generation (or creation), while the Devil symbolises destruction. Effectiveness can also be defined as Cause over the Universe, the ability to create effects on elements of the Universe. All Beings have, to varying degrees, Cause over their environment. It makes sense that God and the Devil are Beings who have taken the act of Effectiveness to a level far beyond other Beings. And being ultimately Effective over the Universe is “a god above god”, and evidently the ultimate reward for reaching the highest level of Individuation.

The Seven Sermons define not just the Earthly conception of God, but a God above the Christian God. Jung/Philemon names these Gods, and relates their qualities.

“This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name ABRAXAS. It is more indefinite still than god and devil. That god may be distinguished from it, we name god HELIOS or sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective; hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth itself.

The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. It is the effective itself, nor any particular effect, but effect in general.” [Emphasis added]

So Abraxas stands above the Christian God of the highest good, Helios. And while the quality of our known God Helios is the finest good, the quality of Abraxas is EFFECT, the creation of Effect in the Universe. This reinforces the view that ultimate effectiveness is the ultimate goal. And that ultimate effectiveness, or cause over the Universe, is above, or senior to considerations of light and darkness, or good and evil. For good and evil are tools to reach the attainment of ultimate effectiveness, or Cause over the universe.

No wonder Jung/Philemon wrote in the Seven Sermons: “The dead now raised a great tumult, for they were Christians.” It is almost impossible for the Christian world to posit a God above the Christian God of light and good, one with a completely different quality to it.

What sprang from Abraxas? ALL LIFE.

“Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead came near and cried: Speak further unto us concerning the supreme god.

Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest, because man perceiveth it not. From the sun he draweth the summum bonum; from the devil the infimum malum: but from Abraxas LIFE, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.”

So Abraxas is the cradle of all Beings, and the mother of God and the Devil.

It is truly staggering to suggest that beyond the Master – and beyond even his power at the time, lies a trinity where the Sun-God of Goodness, and the God of Darkness (the Devil) have a power above their own – Abraxas, one that has been forgotten by mankind.

The Gnostic Basilideans in the 2nd Century AD worshipped Abraxas as the Supreme Being. They believed Jesus emanated from, and was an emissary of Abraxas. If this is true, The Master may also be an emissary of Abraxas. The name contains mysteries because the numerical sum of the numbers in the Greek alphabet is 365, the number of days in the year. It was believed Abraxas commanded 365 gods, each possessing a virtue – a virtue for each day of the year.

Some mythologists identify Abraxas among the Egyptian gods, while Christians identify – and naturally vilify - him as a demon. The mystical word abracadabra is derived from his name. He is depicted with a lion’s head surrounded by rays during Gnostic ceremonies. Images of Abraxas were used as recently as the 13th Century by the Knights Templar, before the Church relegated Abraxas to the lowly position of a demon.

ENTER FRANCIS BACON

Jung identifies a three stage development in the human perception of God. The first stage is where God appears as one Supreme Being. The second stage is the perception of a benevolent sun-God (also known as Apollo, which Francis Bacon was known as in his lifetime) and the Devil. They are separated to the point where the Devil is finally banished by God. The final stage is the integration of the Sun-God and the Devil, and coming to consciousness of the purveyor of the highest God Abraxas and its quality – ultimate effectiveness.

The Seven Sermons, as quoted above, state that Abraxas is also known by another name – Pan. The word Pan means “All or “Universal”, a name aptly suited to the Creator of all. The centre of Pan’s worship is traditionally the land of Arcadia – where path to perfection takes place. The brotherhood of souls who, knowingly or unknowingly put into operation the plan for the uplifting of human consciousness, used to be known as the Brotherhood of Pan. Bacon pointed this out in his own writings. From Bacon’s time this brotherhood has been known as the Brotherhood of the Rose Cross, or Rosicrucians.

That Francis Bacon knew the ultimate quality of Abraxas/Pan is demonstrated in Novum Organum:
“Human knowledge and power coincide, because ignorance of the cause hinders the production of the effect. For Nature is not conquered save by obedience : and what in contemplation stands as a cause, the same in operation stands as a rule.” [Novum Organum, I. Aph. 3]

In other words, understanding of the causes of effects, brings one closer to ultimate understanding – symbolized by Abraxas. It is Abraxas who CAUSED the creation of the universe and all its qualities and principles (the first, greatest effect, an act of ultimate effectiveness). Understanding of ALL the causes of all effects of everything that has ever happened, is the ultimate goal of proper science, science that includes all realms both spiritual and temporal. This is also the goal of the Master in all his incarnations, including that of Francis Bacon.

THE ATTAINMENT OF THE ONE

Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious also demonstrated other points. First, before the confrontation with the unconscious Jung only had glimpses of the insights of his Number 2 Personality, the immortal Master of the Rose. These glimpses were in the form of dreams and waking fantasies, although they were numerous in number. After the period of the confrontation with the unconscious, Jung had the benefit of greater communication and integration with his inner Number 2, and continued this inner dialogue throughout the rest of his life.

The second point is that if Jung’s experiences are a guide for the rest of us, they are also a guide for how the Master communicated with the ego-consciousnesses of his past incarnations – St Germain, Francis Bacon and others. We are aware that Bacon claimed he was divinely inspired at a young age to lay out his Great Instauration of all Arts and Sciences. One could easily imagine his visitations from beyond being similar to Philemon’s appearances to Jung. And if there is disparity between Jung’s apparent “lack” of insight before 1912 compared to his period of greatest output and insight (1918-1961), it is only because the communication between the Master and the ego-consciousness of Jung did not start in earnest for Jung until he reached middle age – it was in fact Jung’s mid-life crisis.

The final point is about the nature of the communication between the Master and the Number 1 Personalities of Jung and Bacon. Bacon was compelled by his own Being and possibly other Masters to expand in the intellectual realm, and the result was the plan for the organization of all Arts and Sciences. These activities were real, quantifiable acts required in the physical and intellectual spheres. In the same way, Columbus claimed God showed him the way to the New World, a physical challenge. The blueprints laid down by Columbus, Bacon and other early incarnations of the Master were necessary foundation-stones for pulling western civilisation into the Golden Age. But Jung’s experiences were different. No instructions were laid down to Jung for a blueprint of expansion in the physical or intellectual realms. Instead, Philemon seemed to instruct Jung on the truth and dynamics of the spiritual realm and the hidden realm of the unconscious, and Jung attempted to put into words this essential nature, most notably in the Seven Sermons to the Dead.

Although the essence of Jung’s experiences is unknown to us, I would like to suggest the spiritual aims of the Master. Simply put, the goal of the Master, as well as all Beings, is the attainment of perfection and the restoration of all that we have lost over the eons in terms of awareness of our true nature and causality over the universe. Not even the Master had achieved the ability to be at ultimate Cause over the universe in the 1913-1918 period – otherwise there would have been no need for Philemon’s intervention.

But this goal is not the attainment of Oneness with God, or the Pleroma in Gnostic teachings, for this extinguishes the individual soul. It is the ultimate perfection of the individual soul that is the goal. Jung stated that his goal was individuation, the attainment of individuality within the One. The reward is the attainment of the ability of ultimate effectiveness, or Cause over the Universe. For it is not enough to attain the highest Good. The highest point – the quality embodied by Abraxas of ultimate effectiveness – must be sought. I believe this was the spiritual goal of the Master, and we are compelled to accept that this is our spiritual destiny as well.

"[mandalas] ... are all based on the squaring of a circle. Their basic motif is the premonition of a centre of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy. The energy of the central point is manifested in the almost irresistible compulsion and urge to become what one is, just as every organism is driven to assume the form that is characteristic of its nature, no matter what the circumstances.

This centre is not felt or thought of as the ego but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self -- the paired opposites that make up the total personality. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose archetypes are common to all mankind."

C. G. Jung, Concerning Mandala Symbolism, p73.

Left: A Mandala painted by Jung and produced in The Red Book. He called this painting "Window on Eternity". From Word and Image, p91.

“If the human soul is anything, it must be of unimaginable complexity and diversity, so that it cannot possibly be approached through a mere psychology of instinct.

I can only gaze in wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature.

Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism…

Besides this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without; and just as I reach this world through the medium of the body, so I reach that world through the medium of the psyche.”

C.G. Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis, (Collected Works,
pp. 331)

“....the unconscious has no time. There is no trouble about time in the unconscious. Part of our psyche is not in time and not in space. They are only an illusion, time and space, and so in a certain part of our psyche time does not exist at all.”

C G Jung, Collected Works, vol 18, para. 68.

15 - THE ESSENCE OF THE MASTER:

FIFTEEN KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING

Penetrating the erudite teachings of the Master, separated by centuries and sometimes obscure language, is a difficult task, but I believe the essence of his message can be discerned. The core of the Master's message tells us who we are as spiritual Beings, and our place in Creation. It is a message that is somewhat at odds with many "New Age" principles, but I believe the Master's message is closer to the ageless Truth of our origin as any that has been conceived. In the Keys below, the term Being is defined as the real You, the Self, the core of your awareness; not your body, and not your mind.

Key 1: The Law of Cause and Effect operates at all times, even in the realm of the spirit, or quintessence. Because the creation of the universe was an effect, that effect had to have a cause. If we cannot deduce a cause, that does not mean it does not exist, it just means we do not currently have the ability to deduce it.

Key 2: The only objects in all Creation that can Cause or create effects in the universe, are the creators of effects, ie: you the Being. The Creation (the universe) cannot create, it can only operate according to its innate laws. Therefore, a Being had to be the Creator of the universe.

Key 3: The Being had the original quality of being able to cause effects. The universe had the original quality of being the effect. The law of cause and effect now operates in the universe without our intervention, but the original cause was us.

Key 4: The creation of Effects, or effectiveness, is the defining
quality of the first Being, known as Abraxas. The first Being is
so named because it created the universe, and existed before
that moment of creation.

Jung/Philemon clearly stated this in the Seven Sermons to the Dead.

Key 5: Because every Effect has a Cause, our own creation as Beings had to have a Cause.

Key 6: The Bible states man was created in the Image of God. We were created as images - as duplicates - of the first Being, Abraxas.

Key 7: Because we are duplicates of the Creator (Abraxas), we have the same potential power to create as the Creator of the universe.

Key 8: Therefore, we are the creators, we are NOT the creation, or part of the creation. Being duplicates, we have all the qualities of the creator, and therefore do not have the
qualities of the creation (the universe). We are separate from the creation.

Key 9: Because we as Beings are not part of this universe, we
are not composed of matter, we are not composed of energy,
occupy no space and exist outside of time.

While we are not composed of the stuff of the universe, we still exist - but our true nature remains a mystery. We Beings are immortal and indestructible. We Beings are IN this Universe, but we are not OF this universe. However we Beings are able to postulate and perceive the universe. Jung clearly concluded that the core of our nature - the Self, exists outside of time and space.

Key 10: We as Beings have the same potential as Abraxas
- the potential to create effects in the universe. Therefore we
have the potential to create any effect in the universe that we
wish.

Key 11: Because we have the potential to be CAUSE over the universe, (to be able to create Effects), we are senior to the universe. The universe is junior to us.

We are the source, we are the wellspring of all the positive and negative Effects in the universe, and in our own lives. There is no such thing as fate, or destiny. We make our own future, be it consciously or unconsciously. We are the Masters of our own destiny, whether we are aware of it or not. We are not helpless humans who are the Effect of God's will, or the Effect of random events forced upon us by Nature. We are the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the Cause and the Creation of all. We are the reason for the existence of the universe. The universe was created for us, not the other way around.

This is what Francis Bacon expounded in his writings - that greater understanding of the physical universe - the nature of Causes - was key to harnessing the fruits of the universe. The universe is here for our utility. But Bacon never advocated the exploitation of the universe, rather a respectful tending to, and harvesting of its fruits, or products for the benefit of all.

Key 12: The first Being, Abraxas - the Creator, is primarily an observer. The Creator has a medium for recording all that has ever happened - the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious records everything that has ever been thought, felt or done.

The collective unconscious is also known in some philosophies as the Akashic Records.

Key 13: After we were created we fell from Grace, because we did not understand the effects of our actions. We were created with all the potential to create (and destroy) as the Creator.

We were powerful but exercised our power without responsibility, or awareness of the effects of exercising our power. As a result, we have lost most of our power and awareness. Our primary task is to recover our former power and awareness, for the betterment of both ourselves and all other Beings.

Key 14: We record everything we have ever postulated, thought, felt or done. These memories are stored in our personal unconscious.

Our personal unconscious includes the record of the moment of our Creation, and all events during our countless embodiments, and all events between embodiments. Given where we are currently at in terms of misunderstandings about our true nature and the past, we have to raise ourselves up and start making our past conscious, so we can confront and understand it.

Key 15: The key to attaining greater understanding of our Selves, and our place in existence, is to make the contents of one’s personal unconscious and collective unconscious known, or conscious. When these past images start to be made conscious, they can be confronted, and understood, enabling the Being to reach towards ultimate understanding of one’s Self, the past, and our creation.

This is also the primary goal of Jungian psychology. Jung called this process individuation. Because the personal and collective unconscious is the recording of everything that has ever eventuated, both for one’s Self and for all Beings, the answer to all questions can be found there, the key to understanding is to be found there.

Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious was his own personal journey into his past, and the collective past of us all. He confonted and attempted to understand the personal and collective unconscious, in all its alien wonder. Such a process is difficult, but this is part of our purpose and we must start this process in order to regain ultimate awareness and understanding. The key is that there is hope, a path through all the confusion and betrayals and misunderstandings of the past, a path lit by the Master in his various guises.

The answers to all questions do not lie in the light - they lie in the unfathomable darkness of the unconscious - the Mind of God. One must turn the light on the darkness, and in so doing obliterate the darkness forever.

[Editor's note: Adherents of Theosophy and of Alice Bailey believe that one of the great guides of humanity is known as the Master R. According to this belief, the Master R. has reincarnated as a number of historically-famous individuals including Francis Bacon and the Comte de Saint-Germain].