How is it that a farmer in a field with no occult training can be fully enlightened, yet a senior member of a Temple, even after many years and many Grades, may still have a long way to go?
When building, it is always sage advice to get the best craftsmen available – the house will not stand let alone endure without the aid of a master builder. This holds true when wanting the best environment in which to succeed on the path of return, a journey from the complex realm of duality into the simple truth of UNITY.
From the Order’s perspective, the equivalent of a master builder is a Hierophant/Chief Adept who has been received fully into the Mysteries, surrounded by a competent and complete team of Temple Officers, in a permanent Temple of the right dimensions, with all of the necessary furnishings and regalia perfectly constructed and presented, such as Whare Ra had. However, this was, and is, no guaranteed recipe for success.
Why does the Order have Grades? Surely a 9=2 is more enlightened than a Neophyte? Taking the master builder analogy a little further, think of a builder driving a nail (the Hebrew letter Vau, the link between Nature and Godhood) home with their hammer. Each blow is likened to a Grade. For some, it takes a good 7 or 8 blows to drive the nail home. For still others, even after all the blows of the hammer at the disposal of the Order and the nail still has not been driven home. A good example of this is John von Dadelszen, 9=2, and one of the last Chiefs of Whare Ra. According to Frank Salt, while John had been a loyal, long standing member, and a very competent organiser and administrator, he had failed to find the true purpose of the Order. He had failed to enter the Sanctum Sanctorum.
On the other hand, Reginald Gardiner, also according to Frank, had fully found the purpose of the Order’s system of training – he was quite likely the shining light of Whare Ra, even more so than the Felkins. He already had formed a deeply spiritual group of companions around him when fate brought him into contact with Father Fitzgerald (8=3), and eventually provided such a rich opportunity that Felkin could not resist immigrating permanently to New Zealand, making the S.T. Temple No. 49 the mother Temple of the Order in his Constitution of the S.M. in 1916. Could it be that Gardiner’s nail had already been driven home?
When driving a nail home, it also depends what you are driving it into. Is it balsa wood, or made of some nearly impenetrable hardwood? Using the analogy further, this wood represents the nascent level of consciousness of the Soul within the Candidate. Is the Soul we are born with about to wake up, or is it in a deep slumber, or even a coma? While we might like to think that we can improve ourselves and become great Adepts, in reality we only have little say in how awake our Soul is – we are made of the timber we are born with. We must work with what we have been served up by Nature – the luck of the lottery that Nature has been playing out through evolution since God first breathed on the face of the Waters.
“Except ADONAI builds the house, their labour is but lost who build it”.
All we can do is work diligently at the course of study that the Order provides us; carefully and diligently adhere to our sacred obligations; strive towards our own Grade advancements and aspire to be “more than human” with humility, and in Silence.
Even then, it may not be our turn to enter the Sanctum Sanctorum and no amount of reading or erudition will change that.
Fraternally,
Kasmillos
Edit: the photo is of Whare Ra, the home and mother Temple of the S.M. from 1916. I took this photo circa 1988.
