4.
The Sabian Procedures

The essence of occult procedure is an ordered experience with all the higher potentialities of human nature. In the Sabian Assembly the rituals and meditative practices employed to this end are little different from ceremonies and functions found commonly in everyday life, but the method of discipline or illumination of the mind is wholly esoteric. The work in consciousness and the individual aspirant's faithfulness to the rhythm and substance of his dedication are the strength of the project, but the study of the materials is the foundation of any achievement whether this happens to be a personal contribution or a collective advancement. Attention already has been given to the nature of arcane instruction, and now consideration must turn to the group rehearsals that in a sense create and preserve the Eternal Wisdom. The approach to reality in any such rehearsal has the sanction of untold centuries, and indeed has been illustrated in the riverside discussions of the young Memphite priests of the oral tradition now first brought to written account. And since 1947 there has been the new-found contemporary evidence of the practice in the Qumran community near the Dead Sea some two millenniums ago, in connection with the Hebrew Torah. The details can be deduced with every logical certainty from the manual of discipline discovered in the nearby caves, as well as from the parallel Zadokite Document turning up at Old Cairo in 1896-7 but not then appreciated in its import.

It was the practice of these presumably Essene monastics to divide their members into three shifts, for a study of the law twenty-four hours around the clock every day of the year including the Sabbath. The Qumran brotherhood was an interesting fruitage of the Hasidic movement that had its most objective survival in the Pharisees, but that probably developed its greater inner power and enduring influence in the more secret or esoteric groups such as the one now brought to prominence through the Dead Sea Scrolls. By study of the law was meant not an intellectual acquisition of its content, but rather a repeated experience of its significance through what in modern times would be termed an open discussion. It was a continual exchange of views and insights as those taking part grew in comprehension, and so gave the ideas their transcendental character by sharing them under these special circumstances. In quite literal fact each of these ancient seekers was becoming a conscious participant in the Eternal Wisdom, as the goal of initiation is expressed in the Sabian neophyte pledge. Thus it can be understood why the new member of the monastic company, according to their manual of discipline, was required to contribute not only his worldly means but also his wisdom. He was expected to dedicate his capacity to share his spiritual realizations. The sharing from Sabian perspective can be seen not only facilitating a personal immortality but also helping maintain the invisible fellowship through which the great Lodge had come into existence.

Since the rehearsal of this sort is never primarily of the words or the particularity of statement in which the ancient record is to be found preserved in any given age or culture, but rather always is a matter of a higher experience continually revivified through a fresh and individual adventure into its potentialities for each participant in the process, the Sabian project cannot be said to be intellectual in any over-all sense. There ever will be those among the aspirants who will choose to perfect themselves in areas the world would consider erudite, but this is merely one of many options available for the particular temperament. The rehearsal is of the reality that survives time and space in the form of ideas, and so is of the mind truly enough, but it need not be of the least complexity for that seeker who does not have the opportunity or perhaps the desire to develop the exacting skills of erudition. His service should be as great, and his rewards are merely different. In any immortal perspective there can be neither a more nor a less. And what possibly could be a basis of comparison among seekers in any dimension of eternal orientation?

The Sabian Lessons

It has been explained that the Sabian materials are cabalistic in the ordering of content, in the use of words and in the structure of each sentence and paragraph. They are not to be approached primarily as a source of information but rather as a basis for the particular type of experience needed for participation in the Eternal Wisdom. As a means for providing the necessary spread of this in a time-and-space reality, nearly all the lessons have been prepared in the guise of commentary on the best known and most available contributions of philosophy and religion to man's understanding in the Western world where the Sabian project has its present and convenient roots. There are some strictly occult expositions, as in the astrological presentation and the refinement of the magic squares of idea. Much attention is given to the universal symbolism to be found in such nontechnical and nonspiritual literature as the household tales of the Grimm brothers, to which reference has been made. Each lesson runs to about twelve hundred words. The titles of the various series, with the letter imprimatur and starting dates of issue and reissue, are listed in the appendix.

All active members of the Sabian Assembly receive two basic lessons each week. One is on the Bible, and the other is on philosophy for the first half of the Sabian year and on some phase of symbolism or less technical material for the other half. There are enough lessons in each of these principal categories to constitute a cycle of somewhat less and of somewhat more than twenty years respectively, and no beginning or end is involved in either case. The continuous issue in regular order brings different considerations together in each repetition of the cycles. The convergence of these particular expositions, as well as of accompanying other materials either in parallel relationship or else prepared in the contemporary context, is responsible for a screen of prophecy that is indispensable to the aspirant in his legate discipline. At that time the whole schematism becomes truly esoteric. It creates a white magic for the cultivation and sustainment of a higher dimension or a prophetic potentiality of mind.

A third weekly lesson is provided for the aspirants who at their option select astrology as an added area of investigation, and the materials of this category are sent out in an order suitable for each of them individually. There are weekly letters from the founding Chancellor to the regular students, that is, members of the Assembly of all classifications collectively, and they are known familiarly as the Blue Letters since thus far in the Sabian project they have been reproduced on paper of that color. They too are in a cycle of approximately twenty years. Reports on current world affairs from a prophetic perspective, and currently known as the white letters, are issued every other week. They are for the legates primarily, but are shared with everyone. Special messages for the acolytes and the regular monitors, that is, those who do assigned work in consciousness for the Assembly, are sent out monthly on yellow paper. There are special agencies for the exchange through the mail of current experience and information, such as the Fortnightly Field Notes distributed to all regular students. There are also the tape recordings of conferences or discussions available together with the typescripts made from them and supplied to students upon request.

The acolyte lessons are arranged for fortnightly attention over the five-year period. For the first acolyte year the Arcane Sacraments seek to lead the aspirant into the way by which he may orient himself to his own experience in the terms of his own highest potential. In a second year the orientation suggested to him through the Racial Cycles is in terms of the rhythms of human history, to the end that he may begin to establish his own immortal succession in a significance that will remain ever worth while to himself and his fellows. The Divine Mantras in his third year offer him a discipline in the corresponding spatial orientation, or point him to an enduring social competence through a control of meanings by a proper use of language and so give him a start in mastering the occult semantics. For the fourth year the Sabian Tarot presents a technique for the immediate evaluation of experience in any particular convergence of potentialities and consequences, that is, for the recognition of laya centers and the realization of what may be needed at any special moment for their development and maintenance. Pythagorean Number in a fifth year sustains an initial appreciation of the initiate's capacity to bring all relationships to pattern according to his own choosing rather than leaving this to capricious circumstances he is unable or unwilling to bring under conscious direction.

There are no special legate lessons. The aspirant of that grade is expected to bring major attention back again to the regular issues with at least some grasp of the screen of prophecy they establish, and so with some sense of the prophetic potentials of his own consciousness. If he wishes he may have, for supplementary weekly consideration, the twelve series that deal in order with the magic squares of idea or the Sabian Absolutes, Occult Dichotomy, Magic Squares, Corner Patterns, Cabalistic Depth, Dimensional Reality, Patterns of Circumstance, Patterns of Function, Patterns of Activity, Patterns of Experience, Geometrical Symbolism and Dimensional Symbolism. These expositions of pure cabalistic concepts have a special continuity, and so should be taken in regular sequence. They are issued in normal course to students of the astrology discipline, following the twelve sets dealing with the stellar art in its usual terms. It is presumed that by then the cabala, as here developed out of Ibn Gabirol, will reveal the larger implication of the horoscopic principles and hence in a way constitute a transcendental astrology quite independent of the planets and heavenly mechanisms.

It is most important that the Sabian method of study be understood by the neophyte from the very beginning. First of all he must remember that, through the whole of his immortal ongoing, any point of origin is within himself. Hence source for him can never be identified in a physical or even divine locus conceived as lying outside his own ultimate self-pointing. The Sabian lessons and materials to which he now has turned to instrument his inspiration will with but few exceptions come endlessly in cycle, and he starts his work with them as they happen to be in issue at the time of his affiliation with the group. There is nothing more unusual in this than in the fact that a baby is born into human history in its current course, but the apparent accident of particular moment for an aspirant's entry into Sabian consciousness will become increasingly significant as he persists on this particular path under the Solar Mysteries. What is required of him at the start is an attitude of mind, amounting to an open receptivity to every potential of his own experience. He is to accept no authority as established by anything other than the fact of his own dependence on it, that is, he is to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. This means a respect for parents as long as he remains in the home of his childhood, and a full acceptance of the social rights of the community in which he finds it convenient or necessary to function. But in general and above all else he is to learn to become the sole author or sponsor of his own responsibility.

The initial step for him is to cultivate the flame of his own inspiration or creative comprehension. To that end he is asked never to try to remember the content of Sabian lessons or other materials for the reason it might seem to be a duty or a privilege to do so, but rather to enter into them quite at random and as far as possible at the stirring of a rapport deep enough within himself to suggest at least a measure of initiative seated in his own laya center. Under the discipline as a neophyte he should give some attention to the various books and papers at least once a week, whether these be the current issues or anything coming into his life then or previously as a direct or indirect result of his self-dedication through the Assembly, and this if possible should be at a regular time and under some consistency of circumstances. However, he must realize that to strain to meet the ritualistic ideal is to develop the very sort of crystallization he may be seeking to escape. Meanwhile, and in a simple way of putting the matter that has grown up in Sabian practice, he is asked to window-shop in the materials primarily or at least to pursue no point except as a particular interest is quickened. And then and by the same token he is to continue the pursuit only as this interest remains alive, or seems to justify the attention he is giving it. Indeed, if he is successful each week in finding a single challenging idea he has more than met the minimum requirement of his obligation. He may go as far as he likes, of course, and in whatever manner he chooses. But the activating impetus in all he does, in connection with his progress on the Solar path, must spring from the very real depths of himself.

The Nature of Sabian Authority

Since anything is to be said to be what it does, in the terms of an Aristotelian axiom employed continually in the Sabian project, any authority is to be seen as constituted out of the exercise of itself. It is in this sense that Jesus, in the New Testament account of his life, is reported as speaking with authority. In the exposition of the principles built on the Ibn Gabirol magic squares, and made fundamental in Sabian understanding, authority is identified most characteristically by the pleasure it gives to obedience. In complementation with the ultimate necessity that man must mind his own business and thus serve his fellows only as he is successful in making (1) their concerns his own and (2) his outreaching an expression of their potentials as well as his own, authority becomes a phenomenon of that multiformity of interweaving divisions of labor through which the conscious individual becomes a social or in essence a spiritual creature.

Authority under the Solar Mysteries always flows into channels and personalities where its exercise is a maximum convenience to those concerned. This is the essence of democracy, at least in theory. Through the whole of man's history the recognition of the elders as the council of final resort in all dispute has been a simple acceptance of the fact that an individual learns to epitomize fruits of the experience of his fellows in his own character, and so with maturity to reveal the developing wisdom through the universality of understanding he is able to share more and more with others. Equity or chancery law is the legal recognition of the two-way nature of right and privilege at root, and such a pioneer in the modern science of jurisprudence as John Austin found he had to stress the importance of enforceability in legislation if it was to be effective at all. The use of compulsion under a dictatorship is high dramatization of the ultimate weakness of a rule when a popular sanction for its edicts is lacking. In consequence the mode of approach to man's welfare through acts or decisions imposed on him for his own good is identified in the occult tradition as Lunar, and seen as of transitory value if not almost immediately destructive in its results.

In order that they may be framed properly in the Solar vision, all activities in connection with the Sabian project must be autonomous. They are given every liberty of modification and nonconformity to demonstrate that there is no authority imposed from above but rather only that which rises out of present and entirely individual participation in the Eternal Wisdom. Group leadership is by a convenience of initiative and endowment, or of all that follows in train as in teaching and administrative experience or prestige and skills that can be adapted effectively from other activities and opportunities. It does not remain fixed but continues as by an acclamation that is implicit if not explicit. Thus the continuance of the author as Chancellor rests on no more than the general recognition of his role, and of his effectiveness in its performance. As far as possible all details of operation in the group are worked out through the discussion of other or prior experiences with higher reality, to the end that the procedure thus given form may in turn become part of a continuing great tradition.

Authority of a secular or religious nature can be of very real value to the person achieving administrative or pedagogical responsibility under the Solar Mysteries, but it is by no means a necessity. Thus ordination by some established religious body or graduation from advanced study along scientific or intellectual lines in some commonly recognized institution, or both, certainly will facilitate the Sabian contribution of the seeker who has the temperament as well as the time and the means for this collateral accomplishment. Any desire for achievement of this sort is encouraged, and any actual effort is helped in all ways possible.

There is a species of symbolical ordination or hieratic succession in the arcane tradition, but while actual enough it is more a dramatization of the continuity of effort toward some transcendental goal for the welfare of the race than a description of any fact meaningful in itself. Some major historical service in the preservation of the esoteric insights as a living organism of realization may require that the given worker in each incarnation make a new contribution, as in the production of what it is convenient to identify as an occult master thesis. A heightened facility for accomplishing this may involve the re-creation of former and well-tested loyalties, or in a sense a preservation of a succession in a particular authority through a laying on of hands by an initiate server about to decease. In the usual case, as encountered or experienced by the average aspirant, the establishment of a chain of conscious continuities is a less exceptional and more ritualistic strengthening of the ageless heritage. There is a covert reference to this in connection with the fifth step of the opening evocation in the healing ceremony. Specific details of this sort of course are not any part or parcel of the Sabian project, unless they happen to provide a consideration proper to the legate level. It is merely important to realize that the chancellorship of the Sabian Assembly is not determined in any way by considerations restricted to a particular student. Under the Solar Mysteries the office cannot exist in the line of personal successorship characteristic of a Lunar dispensation.

The Study Group

The usual plan for a study group is a weekly meeting at a regular time and place. It may be closed or open to the public, and in the former case visitors should be permitted but with a definite rule covering the frequency or nature of visiting by prospective members. The sessions may be directed by one or more of the students in regular pattern, and any sort of rotation in various roles may be arranged by common agreement. Every effort should be made to encourage questions and to further discussion, to the end that each student in attendance has a maximum chance for actual sharing or creative participation in the rehearsal of whatever enduring insights may prove pertinent for the moment. In general all classwork should be based on Sabian materials, but of equal value to the invisible fellowship is the interchange of ideas when Sabian principles and methods are employed through other subject matter in the approach to a broader or deeper comprehension of the self and of the world in which it functions. There is no need to hold to a given topic during any particular session, or to attempt to round out any consideration unless the additional attention to it seems promising. None of those present should ever be permitted to monopolize the time, or to pursue any line of exposition that fails to quicken and hold the interest of the others, but by the same token each of them should have his right to his say in turn.

A Sabian class is opened normally with the Intonation of the Sacred Vowels and closed with the Benediction of the Elements. An alternative dismissal, appropriate when the emphasis at a given session has been more on the heart than the head side of realization, is the Admonition to the Senses. If in the use of the Intonation of the Sacred Vowels it is desired to provide a more obvious stress of the seven-and-five symbolism of major and minor vowels, distinguished by the four-line stanzas and two-line couplets, half the latter may be omitted according to taste. If the meeting is open to the public, and a collection is taken, the Blessing of the Offering should be employed in the manner suggested for the chapel service. If convenient, study groups should be held on Monday when the approach to the materials is mainly a matter of mind, and on Wednesday when it holds more to the devotional pattern. When the Sabian healing ritual is used at the beginning of the study group the usual invocation for the start of any classwork is omitted. And by the same token, if the healing ceremony is added at the end of a study period, there is no need for the customary class dismissal.

Some Details of Ritual

Any substitution or rearrangement of ritualistic detail is the privilege of each local group, but the invisible fellowship is strengthened when the Sabian forms are employed for activities concerned primarily with materials and procedures of the Sabian vision. All its rituals were developed at the specific request of the sponsors constituting the invisible council, to the end that the project as far as possible might have a creative originality of its own making. In this fashion its experimental or laboratory nature is preserved, and its laya center is protected from unsuspected orientation to alien potentiality. On the other side of the coin, however, the Sabian Assembly invites a free and unlimited use of its ritualistic forms by all who may care to employ them. The flow of their inspiration and revivifying power is to be outward and in broad dedication to the occult tradition at large.

Music may be used as an integral part of any Sabian activity, either with actual performers or by means of recordings. The type employed should be determined by its general acceptability to those who are asked to listen, and its place in the program at any particular meeting should be left to individual initiative and group taste. Refreshments may be served at any point in any gathering of Sabian aspirants as well as in the acolyte study where they are required, and they may be of any nature suited to the taste and temperament of those participating. When there is such a breaking of bread it may be preceded by the Grace to the Elements of the private devotions.

Neither the use of subdued lights nor the burning of incense at Sabian meetings is encouraged in a modern generation that generally is oversensitized to psychological impressions, unless in some particular case the group of students happens to be thoroughly familiar with spiritualistic phenomena or drilled in proper safeguards for heightened self-integration under psychic conditions. Smoking is not permitted during any ritual or at healing and restricted sessions where the objection would be the same as to incense.

By contrast the burning of candles, as made a necessary or recommended part of some ceremonies, may be helpful at other classes and meetings whenever it can be done with aesthetic results and without affront to participants of marked anti-Catholic inclination. The lighting of them should be formal, immediately following the opening invocation, and all so lighted should be extinguished normally in the course of the closing dismissal. If food is served after a meeting they may be permitted to burn until the first of those who have broken bread is ready to leave, and extinguished then during a moment of silent appreciation of the fellowship.

Rituals may be read, but when possible they should be memorized and recited. During any of them those present when not standing should sit erect without knees crossed or fingers contracted. In outdoor ceremonies there is an advantage of bare feet on the ground, and bodily surface relatively free for contact with the air and sun, since such added and primitive rapport with nature facilitates the dimensional outspread of a civilized man handicapped to some extent by his cultural inhibitions. Care must be used to avoid procedures that might outrage the sensibilities of any given community, but in general and otherwise the aspirant serves his own spiritual progress through every physical or bodily satisfaction of a healthy sort. Sports and competitive exercise of muscular skills on the one hand, and the fullest possible participation in the creative arts on the other, can be a particularly valuable adjunct to self-fulfillment under the Solar Mysteries.

While the lily-and-snake symbol may be employed for imprint on Sabian materials, and adapted for decorative purposes, no strictly Sabian altar, sculpture, picture, painting, inscription or anything even remotely ecclesiastical in suggestiveness is to be permitted. Every effort is to be made to avoid diversion of attention from the Sabian group as essentially a project-in-action and not in or of itself intended to become a separate tradition within the general arcane framework. In its vision it is anything but an organized establishment for the promulgation of ideas codified for once and all. As a further help in discouraging crystallization the members of the Assembly should avoid the use of the word Sabian as a noun, that is and for example, the reference should be to a Sabian aspirant and never to a Sabian.

The Healing Regimen

Under the Solar Mysteries any sort of spiritual assistance in a case of difficulty must be requested by the person in need before it can be given. An exception is provided by children or incompetents for whom others are responsible, and thus are endowed with the right to make the appeal, and by instances of ties so close that concern for a loved one is in no true respect a coercion. In Sabian procedures the healing functions are given their focus through the written requests presented in the prescribed form of a healing slip. This may be any piece of paper or other material on which it is possible to write, and that will burn or disintegrate in water when the time comes to dispose of it. In size it should approximate an ordinary business or calling card. On it should be put the date, a statement of the need in as simple and unspecific a form or with as much detail as may be wished by the person submitting it, and his usual or accustomed signature. Ink should be used, and this should be of the type containing iron or what commonly is found in the blue-black sort available everywhere. The minute metal content is important as an effective substitute for the blood demanded in ancient and medieval times. The slips should not be addressed to any power or agency divine or human, either in fact or mind, but should be permitted to speak in uncompromising impersonality for the inner and necessarily impartial core of a personal and eternal ongoing. Each slip should deal with a single problem or deficiency, but as many may be written and presented as are necessary to cover every detail of the help asked.

Healing slips are to be placed near the bed every night, and with morning are to be destroyed by fire or water. If there is no adequate privacy for the open display of the slips during the night they may be placed where they will be protected from the casual eye. The student in the inner Sabian work will use his private shrine at all times, both for his own slips and those of others, and this special repository may be in the form of a small Christian or Buddhist altar if the seeker is Catholic in his tastes.

An additional healing slip should be written weekly and if possible brought or sent to a Sabian healing meeting. Alternatively it may be sent to the Administrator, Esoteric Secretary or to any Sabian worker who conducts the healing ritual privately in connection with his work in consciousness. When practical all slips put in the mail should be timed to reach their destination on Tuesday, and unless convenience dictates otherwise all healing meetings should be held on that day.

Anyone requesting healing, in addition to writing his daily and weekly slips, is asked to devote a moment to special meditation on his need at least once during each waking hour when the meditative effort will not interfere with everyday activity and responsibility. He will be able to facilitate the healing process very appreciably through this repetitive centering of his thoughts and aspiration at the laya center of the more genuine self-realization.

A Sabian aspirant on the healing list may have recourse in addition to a practitioner of mental or divine healing, and he may resort to any sort of physical or psychological therapy to which he may be drawn. Prayer according to religious belief, or the use of affirmations in supplement to the healing requests, is entirely proper. To ask for healing from many sources is no more objectionable than consulting several specialists in many various areas of life. However, it is apt to be altogether fatal to results to ask for help in even one channel of divine orientation that is not approached with full faith and deep respect.

Any person who wishes may employ the regimen of healing slips entirely by himself, and in this connection perform the healing ritual in his own behalf. By the same token he may invite any others to participate in healing effort for their benefit as well as his own by asking them for the proper slips, and by inviting them to join him in the ritual, entirely as he chooses.

At a Sabian healing meeting the slips should be placed in a bowl or other receptacle suitable for the procedure to be followed, or they may be laid out in a place where their privacy is protected. They may be placed before a Christian or Buddhist altar if no prejudices are quickened on the part of participants in the service. All details in connection with the slips should be completed before the start of the ritual, and just before the dismissal they may be burned ceremoniously. If not destroyed by fire during the meeting they should be torn in fine pieces and soaked to illegibility in water immediately afterwards.

Where healing meetings are held regularly it helps the focus of therapeutic consciousness if a glass jar of unrefined petroleum is kept on the premises. Its contents should remain undisturbed and unused for any objective purpose, but it may be moved about in any way and as often as convenient. When oil so employed is no longer needed or desired in connection with the healing regimen it should be burned or soaked into the ground.

Healing slips should never be read by anybody receiving them or participating in the ritual, and they should never be sealed in a special envelope. Because of possible confusion with them, as thus protected in their privacy, no Sabian communication should ever be placed on very small pieces of paper.

A person is said to be on the healing list when his request is sent to the Administrator, Esoteric Secretary or to any member of the Assembly conducting one or another healing function for the group in connection with healing quadrangles. In such a case an initial statement of the need must be made, together with regular reports on progress or lack of progress, in addition to sending the healing slips. This information is needed for the quadrangle meditation, and it is supplied to the quadrangles in conjunction with a first name. If possible, however, it is given to workers who do not know the individual for whom the spiritual assistance is requested. The procedure is quite apart from bringing or sending healing slips to the healing meetings. When any aspirant acting as an individual does work in consciousness for others he may or may not require a statement of the need, entirely as he wishes.

A participation in the healing meeting without writing slips, but with an inward or unspoken affirmation of the need during the period of silence in the ritual, is not only acceptable but often is fully as effective. It is helpful to supplement the slips with this inner statement of desired ends during the meditative quiet of any Sabian gathering, or whenever it is convenient to spend a few moments of meditation in an edifice open for prayer or quiet communion with God.

The thank offerings of those who request spiritual healing are monetary when the services of an individual healer are asked, or when the appeal to the Sabian Assembly is in connection with specific personal problems. In the case of the Assembly these contributions are handled precisely as other gifts, whether received through a collection at some meeting or sent to the Chancellor or other proper person, and are applied to the furtherance of its general vision. However, when an aspirant asks healing as a detail of his discipline, as when he seeks amelioration of individual financial situation in order to be able to offer at least the minimum costs to the project of carrying him on the roll, the thank offering is psychological or an intangible of which money cannot possibly be a token.

The Healing Ritual

The healing ritual begins with the Evocation on the Steps. When conducted by an individual privately his repetition of the refrain after each evocative stanza should be through a silent mouthing of the words as a way for strengthening the presence of the invisible workers he needs for his purposes.

Next in order is the Prefatory Acknowledgment, followed by a silence of approximately five minutes for the inward affirmation of healing needs. During the silence a sole celebrant of the ritual may hold his hands with palms downward a little above the healing slips, if he has chosen to lay them out rather than placing them in a container, and he may remain seated if he wishes.

The Consummatory Acknowledgment closes the healing silence, followed in turn by the Consecration to the Indwelling Spirit and Meditation on the Healing Gifts, and then finally by the Healing Dismissal. A sole celebrant may find it suitable to use the Prayer of Parting Adoration, prepared for private devotions, rather than the normal closing.

During Holy Week each year the Sabian healing ritual is directed to the quickening of the global consciousness, and attention to individual matters of other than great emergency is suspended completely. Aspirants able to develop stronger therapeutic consciousness in an Eastern orientation may take the time of the Wesak festival for their annual sabbatical week in connection with their personal healing effort. This usually is at the full moon in May when the Theravada or Southern Buddhists commemorate Gautama's birth, enlightenment and passing. In general, however, the seeker should anchor both his initiatory effort and his spiritual service to his fellows in the laya center of the culture of which he finds himself a part.

The Steps in Solar Rehearsal

The biblical book of Matthew in its relationship to the other New Testament materials has a general place of pre-eminence very similar to that of Isaiah in the Hebrew scriptures, and the fact is reflected in the primary importance given this Gospel in the Sabian analyses of Christian insights. Thus the studies in Matthew's account of the life and teachings of Jesus constituted the first Bible lessons in the project, and their issue began less than three months before the inauguration of the Sabian pledges or the formal introduction of a Solar initiation in the framework of the group activity.

The special place of Matthew in the history of the Christian church has been due in largest measure to its completeness, both in a literary and a theological sense. The organization of the contents is a superb example of creative craftsmanship, and as a whole it is remarkable for the extent to which it not only rounds out exposition with definite and practical explanation but also emphasizes the details of spiritual instruction most needed by the seeking soul of any age and culture. Indeed, the book has been a source of unending awe to scholars from the days of the church fathers down through the rise of higher criticism and on into contemporary times with their increasingly unbiased approach to all sacred writings. The Sermon on the Mount as found in Matthew is virtually the magna carta of discipleship under a Solar dispensation that has been inaugurated in the name of the Christ, or dramatized in the mission of the Nazarene, and within the present generation it has been possible to see the direct outflowing of the inner power of this unmatched compendium of spiritual insights in the satyagraha or soul force developed and employed by Mahatma Gandhi under its particular inspiration.

Matthew is the cabalistic gospel, and the consequent use of numerical schemes by its unknown compiler has been noticed by the nonoccult commentator from the earliest days of Christianity. The general pattern of the materials can be described most simply as an alternation of sections of narrative with interlarded discourses. Using a twelvefold division there are on the one side the accounts of (1) the beginnings, (3) the great works in dramatization of the ministry, (5) the failure of the people to catch its import, (7) the enlargement of the vision to what then becomes the real creation of Christianity, (9) the journey to Jerusalem, (11) the final events with the crucifixion and (12) the resurrection, and on the other side (2) the Sermon on the Mount, (4) the discussion of discipleship, (6) the interpretation of the Kingdom of Heaven to the masses, (8) the pastoral instructions to the disciples and (10) the eschatological passages or analysis of the end of the age for the disciples' benefit. If number two of these sections of the text, or the immortal sermon, is the handbook of Christian discipleship, then number seven is the heart of Solar initiation as it is epitomized in the series of steps that Jesus took in his definite revelation of messianic stature. The ordeals these steps represent are made quite explicit and so can be seen to be in close parallel with the spiritual experience of the average aspirant of the present day.

Initiation in an occult or spiritual sense can be defined most simply as an expansion of consciousness. The meditative and healing procedures as consciousness-expanding agencies are most effectively a rehearsal of the higher experience essential to any genuine illumination, and in consequence the heightened experience of Jesus in advancing his mission at the crucial point of the particular incarnation can be made an effective basis for the opening and in many respects the most important part of the Sabian therapeutic ceremony. The evocation is of an external realization that in very true fashion is beyond the individual aspirant except as he continues to rehearse its potentials in advance, over and over again with every quickening insight of what might be involved for him when he actually achieves a conscious immortality. He must learn that he never stands in any one fixed place, as on one step or another, but always is making his way onward and upward. The expanded comprehension takes form behind him quite literally, for his sustainment, and the broadening anticipations reveal their formless promise ahead of him as encouragement in his unceasing effort to consummate them.

The refrain of the Evocation on the Steps is a summary of the whole of Matthew in its cabalistic depths. First there is this new law that will bind men as tightly as the old dispensation from Sinai, but with a binding that is of the inner aspiration and that is realized through a tireless outreaching for the wonders of the invisible fellowship. Then there is the spiritual rebirth or the inescapable molding of character through an unceasing quest for perfection, and this uncompromising self-regeneration in ultimate actuality becomes the immortal continuance. So much for the dedication within, or the way of the heart.

Then there is the mind, or the way of reason. And truly there are no threats to the seeking spirit half as serious as the twisted or half-formed ideas that seduce man in his very soul, and thereupon hold him not to the highest potentials he believes he is envisioning but instead to the self-sufficiency through which all ultimate growth is checked aborning. Hence Jesus in these chapters warns against the aimless persuasions of the word-quibblers on the one side, and on the other the shallow utopian notions of the professional busybodies all set to remake the world in the image of their own vanity. And finally there is the danger in the impatience of the mental or reasoning capacity that may betray man in the most shameless fashion of all. As superficially the conditioned creature, his growing inclination will be to cease effort in the face of the exacting requirements of any vision worthy of real pursuit, and to embrace instead the lesser values and easier rewards that cater to his weakness and give him his joy in witless dissipations.

The keynote of Matthew is in the Hebrew name Immanuel applied to Jesus from Isaiah, or God-is-with-us in English. The refrain at the opening of the Sabian healing service sings this most precious of all realizations, or the fact of the presence. The song is of the true laya center of self as eternally established and strengthened. The seeker, for the actuality of his anchorage in all-being at core, may well indeed demand that on the literal side he be (1) bound to the immortal insight through his outreaching and (2) recreated in its image ever and ever more effectively through his search, and on the imaginative side that he be (3) held above all frivolous or empty concepts and (4) protected against even a most transient falling away from the highest activating vision.

The first step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when he fed the five thousand or more people who had followed him on foot out into the badlands. The incident is recorded in Matthew, 14: 13-21. The never-ending controversy over what miraculous elements may be involved is of no importance in any larger significance of the event. This was the point in spiritual history when the older conception of a prophetic oversight of specially chosen vessels, or of those who would live the eternal promise and thereby demonstrate it to the masses, was subordinated finally and irrevocably to the idea that the individual of and by himself could now be brought into a personal relationship with God. Man at last is to be treated as an adult, since the race can be said to have passed through its childhood. The dispensation of manna is succeeded by the dispensation of the Host. The process, however, must have its conscious recapitulation in the life of every seeker quickened to his opportunities and thereupon readied for his conscious immortality.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the Eucharist or sacrament of the token. In an alternative charting of Solar unfoldment (cf. Occult Philosophy, pp. 296 ff) the ceremonial giving of thanks enables the morsel to serve as the meal, and builds the consciousness of the full supply as this in its turn has every outer and literal manifestation in testimony to the laya center established and strengthened at the depths of the new selfhood. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations in the body the necessary first refinement of an eternal ongoing is through the eyes, or man's priceless gift of creative or spiritual visualization.

The second step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when he walked on the water in the night and in that manner rejoined the disciples he had sent ahead of him by boat. The incident is recorded in Matthew, 14: 22-33. Again the miraculous implications are beside the real point. It may be presumed that the multitudes responded to their experience of strangely gratifying satiety with an effort to preserve it in the literalized stagnations they were accustomed to confuse with reality. Thus they might well think to make the man of Galilee an earthly king, along the lines of their Messianic expectations and with little realization that they would only bind themselves anew to the older dispensation of a Moses and of manna. It is this obtuseness of the masses that demonstrates how little they may be touched to higher realization collectively or without an example life into which an individual aspiration could be brought to some initial focus. A mystical self-discovery encouraged by the saviour or the myth figure is needed to break the thralldom of bondage to an unquickened flesh, and in consequence it might be expected that these events of the still hours would be astral or of an invisible fellowship that often may be touched at the threshold of the dream state. Peter was quick to realize that this was something in which he should participate, but he was unable to frame it in anything but accustomed orientations and so he came to grief.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the sacrament of matrimony, or of the invisible fellowship. Nonoccultly it is a certification of the integrity of flesh as the life-sustaining and self-reproducing functioning of the organism, or a dramatization of its power of continuing in its own genius in terms of all the lower or higher vehicles of a conscious personality, and in the esoteric tradition it solemnizes the alchemical marriage or the stabilization of the transcendental capacities. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations of the body the necessary second refinement of an eternal ongoing is through the smell that is ever able to detect the real subtleties of existence, and that not only has long been a synonym for shrewdness and sagacity but that was employed in the Old Testament to describe the high sensitiveness of the godhead itself.

The third step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when he confounded the traditionalists who sought to trip him up on the matter of obedience to spiritual law. The incident is recorded in Matthew, 15: 1-20. In the cycle of Solar realization it had been demonstrated that the approach to men's hearts through a satisfaction of their appetites is fundamentally an attempt to purchase their allegiance and hence a proof of the ineffectiveness of an overliteralized social gospel. By the same token the display of inner wonders to those unable to assimilate them into a genuinely personal reality had been seen to do no more than unseat all inherent self-confidence and so prove the futility of the ill-advised miraclemongering characterizing so many of the holiness groups in age after age. Now the Galilean had faced the question whether a departure from the rigid boundaries of the sacerdotal law in which these people had long rested secure would not be as profitless a procedure. Yet he must have realized that men and women after all have to make their own decisions, and stand on their own feet as spiritual adults, if the great line of prophecy is to have fulfillment in any larger dimension. The call at the moment had been to examine the inner stirrings and the wholly personal insights from which any true illumination would have to spring. Obedience might need a new reference, but that still would have to be self-centered at the end.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the healing sacrament of unction, or the restructuring of all reality at the core of itself and thus its ultimate orientation through the continual re-establishment of its own eternal rhythm. The anointing of the self in the dedication of its potentials and its aspirations is no more than the thoroughness of rehearsal, or breadth of ritualistic symbolism, needed for any transcendental sustainment of an ever-broadening experience. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations of the body the necessary third refinement of an eternal ongoing is through the taste, and this is less a simple recognition of flavor or the like and more a discrimination in the approach to life on any or all levels. Articulate speech provides the principal measure of a man, once he begins to share his ultimate resources with his kind. The fellowship then is above the level of mutual appetites, or of licking tongues of either literal or figurative nature. The individual begins to become himself as the speaking and so thinking or reasoning animal, and to reveal what self-adequacy he may have developed.

The fourth step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when he retired to gentile territory to think through the problems met at the three preceding steps, and there encountered the woman who challenged him to a broader perspective as she sought healing for her daughter. The incident is recorded in Matthew, 15:21-28. If the law through which the Hebrew people had been sustained through long centuries was no longer to be held in the form of its effectiveness, through a reasonably literal adherence to its provisions, what then could be used to frame the broadening insights that the Nazarene would bring for a larger dimension of realization? Is anything ever fulfilled by breaking it down? It had become evident that if the goal was to be sought through an attempted purification of society at large, or by an effort to quicken an individual's inner and highly occult powers before he was ready for illumination, the average man was hardly placed on his own feet in terms of any spiritual adultship. After all was there any answer in the concept of a new law, and an educational program to establish it? Necessarily projected more or less in the pattern of the old, would it not in time slip back into the old? As the prophet from Galilee reflected on these things the Syrian woman made her appeal, and responded wittily to his reminder that his mission was to his own people and that an outlander could hardly speak for the higher potentials that in her case had sprung from another if similar culture. Then it was that he gained the vital insight. An increase of transcendental dimensions must be marked by an equivalent increase on practical levels. His message must have a setting in a universality that would have real meaning to all people everywhere.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the sacrament of confirmation, or of initiation itself at root. The progress in understanding of each aspirant must have its own continuing seal of approval from those with whom he rehearses it. For the building to the goal it is ever vital that he enlist the participation of all who are able to grasp the meaning of his effort at each successive stage of quickening, and the old must always become the new by an experienced transition. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations of the body the necessary fourth refinement of an eternal ongoing is through the ears, or the particular concentration of attention at the core of any genuine self-continuity. The seeker believes as he hears inwardly. And through the music of the spheres he achieves an ultimate ordering in the rhythms of the Eternal Wisdom.

The fifth step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when he fed some four thousand seekers who were with him in the hills and had been without food for three days. The incident is recorded in Matthew, 15: 29-39. Most biblical scholars hold to the theory that one original occasion led to the three versions of a miraculous feeding — taking John, 6: 1-14, as a third — but in the cabalistic Matthew the role of the repeated account is important as representing the necessary psychological echo or conforming to the age-old doctrine that all deeper teachings must be presented twice. The variations in the numbers of people, loaves, fishes and baskets is of detailed esoteric significance and shows the second event to be of the more generalized order. The supplying of the need is more definitely in orientation to the inner man, instead of his outer appetites.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the sacrament of ordination rather than Eucharist. It is the dedication of the individual to the task of exalting the understanding or realization of others, and of giving thanks for them in ceremonial fashion as he makes himself the myth figure or the incarnation of their hopes and expectations in one fashion or another. After passing the focal point in this rehearsal under the Solar Mysteries the aspirant must turn from the concern over himself as the individual with a private potentiality, and begin to see himself the eternal Servant precisely as the Nazarene has done before him. He learns that it is with the hands that man blesses as well as serves. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations of the body the necessary fifth refinement of an eternal ongoing is through touch or the actual and creative immediateness of a true spiritual ministry. The worker in the great vision assimilates himself continually to his fellows, and in doing so establishes himself in some one or another division of spiritual labor under the Solar Mysteries.

The sixth step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when he confounded the legalists a second time and then rebuked his disciples for failing to distinguish between the superficial reality of everyday life and the true bread of the spirit. The parallel is with the rebuke for lack of faith when Peter attempted to walk on the water, and the incident is recorded in Matthew, 16: 1-12. The orthodox critics of the Galilean's ministry made their attack in the first instance on the ground that the disciples did not pay proper attention to the ceremonial ablutions, and now or in the spiritual echo they had sought to trap him with their guileless request for a sign from heaven. After exhibiting their shallowness again in the context of their own choosing, he proceeded to give them the sign of Jonah. The naïve and unquestionably fictional prophet who had no liking for his assignment to Ninevah had discovered the simple truth that he and God could never get very far away from each other, and that he moreover could never be himself very adequately except as he was God-manifest-within-himself. In other words he had to become in his own person the idealized Emmanuel that the man of Nazareth was born to be, and that all men indeed may become once they are willing to enter fully into the Christian salvation. The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees to be avoided was the infectious rationalization that refers all responsibility in experience to exterior and alien factors.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the sacrament of baptism rather than unction, and so the turn from healing as merely the reordering of things-as-they-are to the complete rebirth from new source and new realization. Selfhood is quickened and requickened into its immortal potentiality here and now. As seeking souls baptize and are baptized continually in their invisible fellowship, or in a transcendence of time and space, they create the frame of Eternal Wisdom in which the new hope of the race has more than adequate foundation. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations of the body the necessary sixth refinement of an eternal ongoing is through the mind, or what Aristotle identified as the common sense and what ultimately is the fullness of an individual's intuitive powers. The aspirant through reflection or his continual rehearsing of his insights is able to understand and so consummate his own true destiny in a dimension far larger than mere selfhood.

The seventh step in Solar rehearsal was dramatized by Jesus when in response to the mysterious identification given him by Peter he declared the key to illumination to be the immortal binding which is made the basis of the refrain for the Evocation on the Steps. The spiritual echo is of the primary emphasis placed on what comes out of a man's mouth rather than what is put in it, and the incident is recorded in Matthew, 16: 13-20. What comes to a head here is profoundly esoteric. Superficially Peter merely repeated what from the narratives would seem to be a common acceptance. It is obvious that more is implied than the acknowledgment of the messiahship when the Nazarene turned to his irrepressible disciple and addressed him as the son of Jonah. Occultists often make the interchange a mutual recognition of prior incarnations, or of Jesus revealed as David somewhat obliquely through the form of address and Peter revealed as the bumbling prophet sent to the Assyrian capital. The discussion as a whole would certainly seem to be in terms of reincarnation, and there is no reason to suppose the doctrine of personality rebirth was unfamiliar to any even half-literate Palestinian. However, the reference more probably was to Jonah as a sign, and to Peter's realization that what the Nazarene might be said to be after all was what he was busy in being. The question that was being asked around, as to who he was, would then be added to the foolishness already characterized as the leaven of the contemporary emptiness of thinking. The affirmation can then be seen to be to the effect that the chance for initiation or personal immortality was being brought to all.

Here by the cabalistic correspondences of the arcane tradition is the sacrament of penance, or the full of self-responsibility brought back in ageless repetition to the laya center of selfhood or to the continual restructuring of each individual's personal ministry to his fellows. In separation from God the seeker is lost to his destiny, and for his enduring fellowship with those of like mind with himself he must return to the first step and in the eternal Eucharist make a new start on the way. In the occult allocation of the sense specializations of the body the necessary seventh refinement of an eternal ongoing is through man's reason, or what in modern days might be identified more specifically as his universalizing capacity. In the biblical psychology it is the thinking said to be seated in the heart. His inclination to be this and that, or thus and so, is the true determinant of his being. Let this ego or will of his be exalted, and he is incarnate in every vision of the race. Thereupon he becomes a custodian of healing power for every individual hope of his fellows.

In actual experience of course the steps are taken more or less concurrently, and with every variety of succession or overlapping in view of the temperamental needs of each aspirant. The ordering through the life of an avatar, or in the schematism of a Bible or a textbook, is necessary for understanding and reflection only. The approach may be made with possible advantage from more than one point of view. Thus Occult Philosophy makes use of the somewhat different strand of the occult tradition, in dealing with the sacraments, but in no respects offers either contradiction or negation of insights.

The Chapel Service

Devotional services in connection with Sabian activities are usually conducted by established religious groups in some one or another phase of co-operation with Sabian objectives. The chapel service is for an occasion when group devotions of purely Sabian alignment are desired. Normally it begins with the healing ritual for a first fifteen minutes, with or without use of healing slips as circumstances dictate. The Healing Dismissal is omitted and instead the Sabian Doxology is sung, if musical accompaniment or adequate song leadership is available. Otherwise it is recited, or it can be omitted. Next in order is a devotional address or an inspirational program. If a collection is taken the Blessing of the Offering is pronounced with those present asked to hold their gifts in their hands during the blessing. The Sabian affirmations for the current two-week period are then recited in unison. The services are closed with the Sabian Benediction.

An effective way to use the affirmations is to repeat each one three times in unison with a different emphasis for each repetition. Thus, if the affirmation is "I rely on the healing power of God within me," it may be first, "I rely on the healing power of God within me," then, "I rely on the healing power of God within me," and finally, "I rely on the healing power of God within me." When varying emphases are employed the places of stress will have to be announced just before the repetition of each affirmation, or some other indication provided in advance for those participating in the ritual. Or the leader may make the statement each time as he desires to emphasize it, with all then repeating it together.

The Ceremonies of Dedication

The Sabian chapel service is used when there is occasion for a Ceremony of Dedication. This then takes the place of the address or inspirational program, in whole or in part. When there is a talk in connection with these ceremonies it should be in the nature of a testimony or eulogy on the one hand, or of exhortation and encouragement on the other, and its position in the order of service should be immediately before the dedicatory ritual itself. The celebrant, questioner and all individual respondents should be selected in advance by any process the given group finds convenient or pleasing. In general all present remain seated except when directed to rise in the course of the ritual, but those who speak should stand while making response or asking questions. All four ceremonies begin with the same opening statements and related queries, but each continues according to the proper part for the particular dedication.

In the rare case where it seems imperative to have more than one type of dedication at the same gathering the dismissal at the end of one is omitted and the celebrant continues with the altered question, "And to what additional spiritual task are we asked now to bring our consciousness?" Every effort should be made to avoid this contingency.

If at all possible and convenient the dedication of a life should be at the bank of a stream of running water, or in easy view of one. When this is not practical the symbolism may be preserved by appointing someone to bring pure water forward, or to pour it from one container into another, as reference is made to water as the most liquid of the elements. If desired the celebrant may use some of the water from the stream or any significant source to make a gesture of baptism during the moment when all in unison affirm the dedication out of the eternal ocean of potentiality.

If at all possible and convenient the dedication of a departure should be (1) at the side of the grave, (2) in the presence of the ashes of the deceased or (3) at some place where he has labored and expended himself. The celebrant should have a bowl or small container of earth for use in symbolizing the inert matter into which the physical substance of the departed one is to be committed. He should let this pass through his fingers while all present are making their acknowledgments in unison of the integrity of nature. While the dedication is made he may dust a little of the earth on his forehead, and thus symbolize the creative memory sealed eternally in the invisible fellowship through which the dead and the living are still to be linked.

If at all possible and convenient the dedication of a partnership should take place in surroundings of particularly sentimental association for the participants, or under circumstances of unusual spiritual significance for those who take part in the ceremony. A fire in an outdoor setting or an open grate, or a mass of candles otherwise, should be provided as a background for the ritual. As acknowledgments are made to the radiant energy of the cosmic fire the celebrant or someone appointed for the purpose should light candles left unlit to this point. As the dedication is given in unison, out of the endless fructification of all reality, the celebrant should light and present a special taper to each of those dedicated in this fashion. Each of them in turn, as he makes his individual affirmation, should blowout and then relight the taper of his partner or partners. Thereupon both or all shall hold their lights until they are told to resume their seats at the end of the dedication, at which time they shall extinguish them as best they can in a single and simultaneous breath. In this ceremony the partners shall decide in advance in what order they shall speak in accepting the dedication.

If at all possible and convenient the dedication of a project should be under circumstances that dramatize the significance of the particular vision in some exceptional fashion. If it is a house or other building or any sort of premises for which dedication is asked, the place for the ceremony is indicated of necessity. This also is the case if it is a shrine or religious edifice of any nature, a place for regular meetings, a center for such specific activities as a library or school, a dormitory or workshop of any kind, or the quarters for any type of business or manufacturing enterprise or for any sort of social service or community activity. The pattern is much the same in dedicating a series of meetings or conferences, or even a single gathering of unusual importance. For an intangible entity such as an association or a corporation, or an excursion or a mission, the representation is either through officers or individuals particularly involved or by papers of authority as a legal charter and the like. The eternal breath is best represented objectively by a dance or music, and those present may be requested to stand during the dramatization of its presence. Meditation and any form of religious devotions will serve if shaped for the given occasion to a point of sufficiently dramatic impact. During the statement of dedication in unison the celebrant should raise his hands in benediction, and seek to direct the inflowing blessing to give it a symbolical effectiveness.

The order in which participants speak up in rededication at the ceremonies should be arranged by the celebrant beforehand. It may be very helpful if other subordinate details are worked out in advance, in accordance with good taste and the inspiration of the moment, and indeed and at all times the goal in the performance of the Sabian rituals is the greatest possible degree of encouragement for individual creativity and the consequent manifestation of an eternal sustainment.

The Dismissal at Dedication may serve as the formal closing for the whole service when the taking of an offering and the recitation of the affirmations are omitted.

The Full Moon Meeting

The Full Moon Meeting was the first of the Sabian ritualistic ceremonies to take a definite pattern, apart from the earlier use of the liturgical forms for opening and closing the class sessions, and as such it has been the core of the ordered initiatory procedures under Sabian auspices. It is fundamentally the rehearsal of a seeker's progress upward to each facet of his illumination, and his consequent return downward for service to his fellows. It has been and remains of prime importance in any quickening and requickening of individual morale at the laya center of conscious selfhood.

The time for the assembly normally is the last half hour from 10: 15 to 10:45 p.m., as shown by the common agreement of the local clocks, that can run its course before the precise moment the moon is full at the place of meeting. A tabulation of the days and dates of these special half-hour periods for each United States time zone is supplied the students once a year, and the continuity of the celebrations from the beginning is shown by the number of the session. Also shown is the corresponding lesson to be taken from the Message of the Hierarch, and this determines the proper Statements of Realization and Thanks to be selected. It is the option of any particular Sabian group to establish a continuity of its own, and thus to designate its sessions from their beginning and to use the 1st lesson at that time and so on as long as the chain of observances remains unbroken. It is permissible to begin in this independent fashion, and to start all over again whenever desired, at any convenient lunar month. In special emergencies the meeting may be held according to the time of some adjacent or even distant time zone, provided only this does not place the meeting in a different calendar day.

The ceremony may be conducted by two, three, five or seven aspirants, without reference to the additional number who may be in actual attendance. When seven are used, different questioners interrogate the legate, acolyte and neophyte spokesmen in turn. When five, the questioner is the same person throughout. When three, the legate, acolyte and neophyte parts are combined. When two, the celebrant adds the questioning to his normal role.

Members of the Assembly unable to attend a regular ceremony may go through the ritual by themselves at the proper time. This enables them to share in the general consciousness and so gain its upliftment, but the performance under these circumstances does not create the situation necessary for attendance in fulfillment of the acolyte obligation. Any name signed at this time can only be for the symbolical contribution to the individual sensitiveness. When the ritual is used in this manner the celebrant and questioner parts should be spoken aloud and the legate, acolyte and neophyte statements made voicelessly or by whisper.

Candles should be used if at all possible, and they should be lighted immediately before or during the Invocation to the Living Flame. The privilege of lighting should be rotated through those participating in the ritual more or less regularly in person. At the close of the ceremony, or immediately after the Chaldean Dismissal and before anybody has had a chance to move, the celebrant should extinguish the candles.

Attendance at the Full Moon ceremony is restricted to (1) regular Sabian students, (2) members of their families and their house guests, (3) representatives of the civil authorities or well-established religious or educational bodies desiring to investigate Sabian activities and (4) people present at a prior Sabian meeting in the same quarters on the same evening. In the last instance the formal closing of the preceding meeting is omitted. An opportunity should be given for those who have been in attendance to leave if they wish, and some explanation of the ritual should be given to those who choose to remain. By house guest is meant any individual who has broken bread with a Sabian aspirant in the aspirant's home during the calendar day in which the ceremony is performed.

The signing of the names should be at a table where each aspirant may sit in turn as he does so, and always in a signature book used specially for this purpose. As far as possible those present should stand in a semicircle for this part of the ritual, and the order of signing should be counterclockwise through the arc. In all other circumstances the celebrant should arrange the order of signing in advance. Each one signing should come forward in his proper turn, and then go back to his place. Not until then should the next in order make any move. All present should sign, including any nonmembers of the Assembly. The celebrant should repeat each name aloud as it is written in the book, and add an audible thank-you. Those who bear proxies made out to them should sign the additional names after their own, repeating each aloud as they do so and then delivering the proxy forms to the celebrant. He should continue to add his thank-you after each proxy signature. If there are proxies made out to him he may designate some aspirant to come forward to sign first and to remain standing at his side until all others have come forward. Thereupon the celebrant should take his place at the table to sign the names of those designating him as proxy, either as he reads the names aloud himself on signing or as they are read aloud for him by the aspirant he has designated to do so. He should repeat each name aloud as he signs, and in all cases add his audible thank-you. When every name has been signed he should write his own in the book as witness and thus as himself present.

The proxies and signature books shall be sent to the Esoteric Secretary or person appointed by the Esoteric Secretary whenever they are requested for examination, or they may be handled in whatever other convenient way is prescribed from time to time. Proxy forms should be simple, to the effect that the aspirant appoints the Celebrant of a Full Moon meeting as his proxy to sign him in as present for a given date. They must be dated and signed in ink when mailed by postal service or the date and signature typed at the end of the proxy when sent by electronic means, but no person may be designated a proxy by telephone. After the ceremony the proxies should be filed as any other correspondence, and thus kept available for reference in the case of any confusion.

At the close of the meeting each aspirant, as far as possible in decent conformity to the social amenities or in meeting any of the necessities of physical existence, should go home and to bed without conversation or special activity such as might dissipate the consciousness gained at the core of self.

The astrological symbolism of the ceremony requires no consideration of appreciably technical sort. The annual passage of the sun through the zodiac has been taken from ancient times as an allegory both of man's spiritual progress in general and of any individual initiation in particular. The successive ordeals in the earth life of an avatar, as charted through the zodiacal signs, are known collectively as the solar myth and taken to dramatize an inevitable recapitulation of the history of the race in the lives of each of its great initiate leaders. The very considerable uniformity of events in the careers of the messiahs from age to age becomes a pattern for the spiritual outreaching of the seeker, and thus can provide an essential underlay of significance in the ritual. Astrology in even its everyday horoscopy reflects the great myth through its doctrine of the heavenly man, or the schematism pictured in the old time drugstore almanac with the signs of the zodiac distributed to the organic parts or divisions of labor in the human body. This anatomical correlation gives a language for the ceremonial rehearsal of the Solar ordeals.

The cycle of Aries-Cancer is the symbolical head-to-stomach arc in the cosmic organism, or the succession of (1) aspiration or the desire to be alive, (2) expenditure and replenishment, (3) taking and outgiving of the psychological vitality and (4) the personal rehearsal of existence. Here lies the conscious control of all experience as the work of initiation on the legate level. It is the recognition of fullness in the realm of self, and a concomitant repudiation of everything in life from which no welcoming response can be gained or with which no creative reciprocity can be quickened.

The cycle of Leo-Scorpio is the symbolical heart-to-genitals arc in the cosmic organism, or the successive necessities for (1) the poise of simple aliveneess or a basic health of body, (2) the poise of social co-operation or a fundamental gift for the assimilation of reality to self in an everyday prosperity, (3) the poise of a more definitely personal or self-distilled relationship with others as made manifest in a resourcefulness of temperament or a root happiness and (4) the poise of a genuinely rational administration of self and its powers or the continual creation and refinement of a foundation understanding. Here lies the conscious control of personality as the work of initiation on the acolyte level. The occult discipline strengthens a cleansing of consciousness at the laya center of responsible selfhood, and a consequent elimination of all useless accretions in the outer being. Spiritual healing is facilitated by a consistent and rigorous repudiation of any or every element of experience from which all possible potentiality of sharable worth has been extracted.

The cycle of Sagittarius-Pisces in the symbolical thighs-to-feet arc in the cosmic organism, or the successive emphases of (1) incarnate flesh as the basis of the personal fellowship through which all higher realization must be sustained, (2) the bony structure in the body as the basis for any moral stability in either individual or social aggregate, (3) the blood circulation or the flow of consciousness as the basic instrumentation of all group fellowship or practical social integrity and (4) the lymphatic or self-policing capacity of the human organism as the basic organization of all conscious effort to achieve a perfection of the self and its world and thereby pave the way for aspiration at the threshold of any next dimension of seeking. The correlation of thighs to flesh, of knees to bone, of ankles to blood and of the feet to the lymphatics represents astrological technicalities that hardly would be obvious to the layman. Through these curious correspondences, however, lies the continual enhancement of experience in its essentially naïve potentiality as the work of initiation on the neophyte level. The arcane discipline furthers an elimination from the aspirant's everyday realization of all the stultifying inhibitions and senseless prejudices that have been allowed to clutter his thoughts and to confuse his instinctive reactions, and strengthens a concomitant and increasing rejection of every potentiality of experience from which nothing of enduring worth will ever be gained.

In the first of the three periods of silence the aspirant should attempt an inventory of his spiritual progress on the path, and to observe through his inward examination where he may have failed to meet the fullest challenge of the responsibilities he has accepted on achieving his present level in the discipline. In the second period of silence the inward self-inventory should be directed to his cooperation with the healing ministry of the invisible fellowship, and with the work of the great Lodge in helping sustain the steady rhythm through which the race itself has an underlying and continual rehearsal of its experience. In the third period of silence he should seek to recommit himself to the fullness of his aspiration through any meditative means that may help him envision it, and thus re-enthrone it as an enduring reality in his own ongoing.

The thanks to which the aspirant gives expression, after his statements of realization for the current lunar month, are addressed to the living flame of divine aspiration as this must be quickened in the spiritual depths of every true seeker of the Solar path.

The Message of the Hierarch

The Old Testament book of Isaiah has always had a marked pre-eminence among Hebrews and Christians alike, and with the discovery of the Dead Sea manuscripts in 1947 it has been curious to note that the monastic community at Qumran apparently held the Isaiah scrolls in particular veneration. The new evidence direct from two millenniums ago suggests that the text was much more settled in form than that of any other of the prophetic collections, and the fact that this section of the biblical writings came to be so central in the development of the Sabian project is rather striking indication of the integrity and self-rectifying power of the arcane tradition as it comes to a modern fruition in the Assembly.

Isaiah like nearly all Old Testament books is of composite authorship. The prophetic contribution of the man who gave his name to the whole, and who carried on his ministry in Jerusalem through the latter half of the eighth century B.C., not only is restricted to chapters 1-39 but in all probability comprises a relatively small part of that first of the main sections of the book. Biblical scholarship did not come to recognize and demonstrate the multiple nature of the compilation until the eighteenth century A.D., and it was more than a century later before chapters 56-66 came to be identified by many authorities as a third work perhaps as largely complete in itself as the two preceding. Neither conventional nor occult knowledge of the Bible has reached any degree of ready and adequate answers for the innumerable questions arising from the text in the form of its present survival. It is possible however, and with real certainty, to chart the great scenes of prophecy with which the whole sixty-six chapters are concerned. First was the era of Assyrian supremacy and the narrow escape of the Southern Kingdom in the days of the original Isaiah. The second offers a change of scene to Babylon at the time of the forty golden years of Nebuchadnezzar. This was the period 604-561 B.C. and four-odd decades exceptionally important in the esoteric tradition. The third locale is back in Jerusalem when Ezra and Nehemiah were faced with the many problems consequent on the return of a considerable number of the exiles about the beginning of the fourth century B.C. It is with the Deutero-Isaiah of chapters 40-55 and the sixth century B.C. that the Sabian project is most vitally concerned.

In 1892 the hypothesis of the Servant Songs was advanced, and a vast literature has developed around the controversy and the almost insuperable problems involved. Ultimately as many as ten of these songs have been recognized by various scholars, but a consensus of opinion that squares rather interestingly with occult knowledge of the matter identifies a total of four, namely, 42: 1-4, 49: 1-6, 50:4-9 and 52:13-53:12. Parenthetically it should be remembered that the biblical divisions of chapter and verse do not always make particularly good sense. They are arbitrary and relatively recent, with not too much agreement on the facts of their establishment. The modern chapter divisions may be the work of Lanfranc in the eleventh century or of Stephen Langton at the beginning of the thirteenth. The Old Testament verse divisions are probably the contribution of Rabbi Nathan in the fifteenth century, and apparently the New Testament verses were given their present form by Robert Stephens in 1551. Any occult significance of the numbers of chapter and verse in consequence is apt to be rather fortuitous.

Bible scholars who accept the Servant Songs as actually of separate composition from Deutero-Isaiah proper consider them interpolations or a later insertion, and this theory raises many difficulties through the quality and aptness of the verses as mere additions. The arcane tradition sees the connection more happily through reversing the order of relationship. Marie Corelli has fictionized the original drama of the insight in her Ardath, but any verification of the events by normal historical methods is impossible. It need only be reported that according to occult knowledge the songs were the work of an unknown poet and reputedly precocious youth who inspired a more mature and equally unknown but highly dedicated scholar to the writing of Deutero-Isaiah, and to the consequent preservation of the poetic gems by embedding them in the wonderful vision of Israel's messianic hopes.

Out of the limitation of Babylonian prosperity and the materialistic version of the good life, seen as in reality the worst of all captivities of the soul, came what has proved to be one of the greatest voices of all time to speak up for the truer destiny of man and to reveal the essential nature of an avatar. The anonymous writer and a sort of reallife prototype of Corelli's Alwyn, leaning on the parallel and unexampled insights of an almost contemporary Jeremiah, lifted up the promise of the new covenant conceived by the man of Anathoth and proceeded to set the stage for Jesus and for a fresh and outer ramification of the Eternal Wisdom in the Western World. His work is hailed by James Muilenburg in the most recent and ambitious of biblical commentaries, the Interpreter's Bible, as the noblest literary monument bequeathed from Semite antiquity and as such to be ranked not only with Job for epic stature but with the writings of Paul and Augustine for perceptiveness and imaginative insight.

It is significant in the unfoldment of the Sabian vision that Richard G. Moulton's new edition of the Modern Reader's Bible, published in 1907 at the very moment when the author of this manual was making the contact with source materials and languages of which he gives account in the foreword of his George Sylvester Morris, should place dramatic emphasis on Deutero-Isaiah. The identification of these sixteen chapters as the Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed made an indelible impression on at least one creative mind reaching out slowly to grasp and use its powers. It was thirteen years later, or on December 26, 1920, when David James Burrell, at one time interested in Theosophy and a brilliant expounder of the Scriptures at the Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City, preached a sermon on Deutero-Isaiah's 44th chapter and in so doing and without knowledge of the fact provided sudden added breadth and depth of inreaching and its tie back to Babylon and the Sumerian culture. The author then was thirty-two, preparing to begin his work as executive secretary for a world's convention of young people and thereby about to precipitate events leading in turn to the first mobilization of Sabian group potentiality. That took place in the Judson Tower at the foot of the same Fifth Avenue, an even two years afterwards.

The adaptation of the 44th chapter for occult purposes came in California in another two years, when the author was asked to prepare material of an esoteric sort for the inner students at the headquarters of one of the established occult societies. It was then that the mode of adaptation, soon to key the formation of the Sabian rituals, was invented in the course of a long solitary session in the most available equivalent of the Judson Tower. In still another two years the sudden need for a strictly Sabian Full Moon ceremony was met by the initial employment, for liturgical purposes, of this highly arcane interpretation of man and his propensity to idol worship. From that evening forward it has been an integral part of the substance or the life of what for long was the one Sabian observance of consistently ceremonial nature. The fuller exposition and explanation follow now after many years (since 1946) of unbroken continuity in its use.

The term recension is given an expanded and in a sense an inversion of meaning in Sabian usage. Thus what is implied is not any literal recovery of a better or truer meaning, or any degree of return to an initial expression of concepts that have been twisted from their first import, but rather a development of the ideas in their suggestiveness or enduring allusion in order that an original stimulation or power of insight may be recreated for use by a later and different culture and psychological set of mind. The technique has been perfected to facilitate a measure of standing on the shoulders of giants. What is to be seen literally is a paraphrase of a given text, with no effort at verbal translation but instead a free interpretation or what might be seen as a cradling of new realization in the convenient form of the old.

The composition of the so-called Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed has been recognized almost universally as the work of a single inspired mind, although suffering some emendations and a little editing, and it can be broken up into identifiable segments such as then can be seen fitted into the more or less haphazard mosaic required by the spirit of oriental poetry. Chapter 44 presents an introductory five verses at the beginning and a summarizing four more at the end, and in substance and respectively these framing conceptions are part of a preceding presentation of redemption by grace starting in the 43d chapter and of a vision of the anointing of Cyrus that runs into the 45th. Out of this rather exceptional fortuitousness of chapter division the recension gains its outer or fourfold frame of two parts starting and two parts closing every individual's lunar cycle of experience. In the structure of the poem as thus delimited, and as the Bible scholars almost invariably outline it, there is a section concerning Yahweh's glorification of himself in Israel consisting of verses 6-8 and 21-3, and this provides the occultist with a convenient inner and also fourfold frame or two parts adjacent both to the beginning and the ending. The recension does not follow the scheme quite literally, however, since verse 5 is paraphrased for the inner rather than the outer frame. Then there is the core of the chapter, in the satire on the idol maker that rightly is regarded as among the finest examples of irony in all literature, and this provides a dramatization for the five ordeals.

What the Message of the Hierarch presents, as in contrast with the steps of initiatory focus dramatized on the basis of Matthew's text for the purpose of rehearsal in the healing ceremony, is the cyclic ebb and flow in the realization by the self of its own being as at core a ceaseless spiritual experience. It is not the ritual of an accomplishment, but rather of the process of conscious continuousness as this takes place round and round the cycle of the lunar year. There is no possible beginning or ending, and the designations of the lessons as 1st and on through 13th is for convenience in identifying the sequence and no more. In the strictest of occult terms there is here a measure or a charting of the psychic acuity of the seeker, or of his rushing forward and pulling back in sensitiveness on his approach either to a reality higher than anything he yet has known or to a potentiality greater than his own.

The first lesson is the Assurance (verses 1-2) or the regrasping of the cycle after the Eternal Promise and the Fulfillment preceding it have re-established the outer frame with a somewhat impersonal application. The orientation is to be made personal through the second lesson, and in the Outpouring (verses 3-4) the aspirant is encouraged to spill out the wholeness that he will be seeking again after a season in which he has opportunity to mature a little more and so reorder his own distinctive ongoing.

The third lesson is the Dedication (verses 5-6) or the move towards self-establishment in the change of self-orientation from the outer to the inner frame, and in the adoption of a special form of act and reaction to identify the aspirant's seeking among his kind. The fourth lesson is the Witnessing (verses 7-8) or the fulfillment of the responsibility the seeker has assumed. Here is the certification of his self-assignment in this more intimate of the spiritual frames of reference through which he proposes to function.

Thereupon come the five ordeals that as a group alternate in the arbitrary annual cycle of subjective or spiritual experience with the group of eight self-orientations and their consequent acceptance by reality in general. The fifth lesson or first ordeal is the Great Shame (verses 9-11) or the experience of humility as the self periodically and of necessity must discover how far it can fall short of its own expectations of itself. The sixth lesson or second ordeal is the Adoration of Self (verse 12) or the experience of emptiness as the aspirant in due course must discover that a mere exercise of his potentials in their potentiality is hardly the outgiving by which alone the being is able to know its fullness. The seventh lesson or third ordeal is the Surrender to the World (verse 13) or the experience of frustration when the reality of the self is measured by whatever of universal and eternal promise may be brought to its manifestation. The eighth lesson or fourth ordeal is the Great Futility (verses 14-17) or the experience of self-debasement as the things of God are seen through their ridiculous counterfeit in man's audacious pretence to eternal worth. The ninth lesson or fifth ordeal is the Bitter Lesson (verses 18-20) or the experience of disillusionment as the self, with some recapture of its better sense, is able to see itself more clearly and to shudder at the inevitable self-judgment it must face.

The tenth lesson or the Exhortation (verses 21-2) is the desperate outreach again to the security of the inner or intimate frame of self in the general reality of the world, and the ultimate regaining of a basic spiritual aplomb as the inner ear is opened and the seeker experiences the call of self to its true service for its kind. The eleventh lesson or the Indwelling (verse 23) is the purification of self as through the catharsis of its ordeals it finds itself for the moment again at peace in the core of its being, and thereupon is fit to receive the divine incarnation in some one or another phase of eternal realization.

The twelfth lesson or the Fulfillment (verses 24-5) is the achievement of the new power and potential. The thirteenth lesson or the Eternal Promise (verses 26-8) prepares the aspirant once more for his pilgrimage. As he comes to grasp the spiral nature of all genuine evolution of the spirit he is able to bring more and more of himself to the ever-repeating phases of realizations ahead, but as conversely he fails to keep the light strong and bright before him he falls into the more and more meaningless revolution of the cosmic wheel and so does not even know that for him there is no longer any creative distribution of his destiny.

The Quarterly Meeting

The quarterly meetings that have broad correspondence with the summer and winter solstices are sometimes also designated as semiannual meetings, and in normal course they are gatherings at which the public at large is particularly welcome. One is held on the evening of July 3d and when possible in conjunction with a summer conference of Sabian or like-minded aspirants. The other is a watch-night service on December 31st. The two quarterly meetings that have equally general correspondence with the spring and autumn equinoxes are held on Palm Sunday and October 17th. The latter date is used because it is the formal birthday of the Sabian Assembly. The emphasis at these is placed on the fellowship in discipline of the Sabian students primarily, but there should be no restriction of visitors.

Quarterly meetings should be opened with the Challenge of the Hierarch. This has a special spiritual power as the first liturgical form prepared in anticipation of Sabian use. It is a recension of the 82d Psalm, which according to the record in the 10th chapter of John's Gospel was cited by Jesus in his important interpretation of man's nature and of the creative relationship between prophet and God. It remains the basic and eternal challenge to the aspirant under the Solar Mysteries.

At the sessions of solstitial correspondence on July 3d and December 31st the first order of business after the opening is the recognition of the neophytes who have made affiliation with the Sabian Assembly in the preceding six months, or who are present at one of the semiannual gatherings for the first time since signing the neophyte pledge. They should be brought forward or asked to stand at their places, but if there are no new students present some other aspirant should be selected to come forward or stand to represent the newcomer in general for purposes of the ritual. The Welcoming Address is given, and then time is allowed for other pertinent recognitions such as accomplishments in the Sabian project of immediate or local interest. Next is an inspirational program in the form of an exposition of some section of the Message of Ezekiel by a legate or perhaps an aspirant of lesser grade who has been chosen in advance to prepare his talk. The Discourse on Inspiration is presented, and then there should be opportunity for any member of the Assembly present to give testimony to what he has learned of the significance of the Sabian work to the world and to himself, and what in consequence he has been able to develop for himself and share with the world. A general discussion of Sabian activities and their potentiality may be interesting and profitable. A review of the Semiannual Message follows. The meeting is closed with the Prayer to the Fullness of the Year.

The program is similar for the sessions of equinoctial correspondence on Palm Sunday and October 17th. The recognitions, however, are for the students entering the acolyte work at the particular time. No ritualistic identification of these aspirants by person or by name is permitted, as anything of the sort might contribute to an appearance of spiritual distinction among persons. Rather someone shall be selected to represent the new acolytes symbolically and collectively, and to come forward or stand as the Discourse on Achievement is presented. On Palm Sunday a general inspirational address or program should be arranged, with its subject an evaluation of the preceding twelve months of events on the world stage and an interpretation of whatever spiritual trends may have been revealed. On October 17th the inspirational activities should center around a consideration of achievements in the Sabian project during the preceding year, and this should conclude with a spiritual interpretation of the Solar Mysteries vision as it has had particular manifestation in current Sabian effort. If possible this latter feature should be a group presentation worked out in advance by a special quadrangle of acolytes and legates. The inspirational part of the program on Palm Sunday and October 17th should conclude with a ritualistic and impersonal recognition of those entering the legate discipline, on exactly the same pattern as the acolyte recognitions earlier in the meeting. The Discourse on Stewardship is given, and then testimony and discussion follow as at all quarterly meetings. A review of the Quarterly Message follows. Closing again is with the Prayer to the Fullness of the Year.

The Message of Ezekiel

The prophet Ezekiel, as one of the giants of spiritual insight, is as great in importance as he is elusive when it comes to any dependable knowledge about him. His book in the Old Testament canon is in about the worst textual condition of any, and it has been the subject of controversy from the earliest times. Indeed, there are few questions about it that can be answered with any certainty. The throne-chariot vision, the ingestion of wisdom in the form of a scroll and the various repetitive details of the commissioning constitute a first three chapters that probably are of a single authorship and that are the basis of the Sabian recension. Out of all the mystery involved comes the power of this inspired material, and it is of exceptional value as a catalyst for the developing realizations of candidates on the Solar path of initiation.

With the epitomized Master Thesis of Ezekiel, one of the most brilliant of conceptions in all the arcane tradition, the mind may catch itself up in the broad creative sweep of the cosmos itself. In the astrological symbolization is given an expression of the illimitable meshing of all things in common cycles and mutual consummations.

The Calling of Ezekiel that frames the master thesis is the cabalistic self-ordering compacted into this small compass and revealing the achievement of fitness as an expanded perspective made manifest through a self-conscious adequacy of being. The key realization is that whatever is fit must act in the full of the fitness, if it is to continue adequate and creatively aware of itself and of its place in a general context of significance. Thus the candidate takes cognizance of what, in his way of thinking about it, must be a commission and a challenge.

The Commission of Ezekiel is the realization difficult above all realizations. Whatever is true to itself is arrogant to that which would challenge it from without, but yet is ever and infinitely receptive to that which comes from within as an expression of the inner self. In consequence the commission under the Solar Mysteries must be self-bestowed, not so much from the inward awareness of the self that springs to expression prematurely and so is arrogant and only stirs up ugliness from others but from the inwardness that listens first to the voice within and so learns to speak to an inwardness of others that lies behind their own superficial arrogance.

The Ordination of Ezekiel is gained by every seeker who is caught up in the wonders of the cosmic order to which Ezekiel gives testimony in the master thesis and who thereupon adds a new testimonial of his own out of his different and necessarily unique and personal experience. The external form of this testimonial of the aspirant may be another master thesis of sorts, or whatever else might serve to dramatize the ability of a worker under the Lodge to enter the inwardness of others and so call to them with the true effectiveness of the Solar initiate. The aspirant is fit in the ultimate sense when his perspective is universal, or embraces every last facet of individual difference in those about him.

The Ministry of Ezekiel exhibits the gift for speaking with authority. This is the supreme mark of a genuine illumination, and ultimately it must be gained by every aspirant under the Solar Mysteries. It is the individual's mode of expression expanded so that it speaks to each other man and woman only as he has somehow become the total of all of them within himself, and thereafter is able to voice whatever may be the best of each of them in turn.

The Acolyte Meeting

The acolyte sessions are closed to all but acolytes and legates, but as at Full Moon meetings an exception is made for members of the family, house guests and representatives of well-established institutions or any civil authority desiring to investigate Sabian activities and practices. At the beginning the door should be closed temporarily for the Meditation on the Solar Breath, and then opened to admit tardy members. Candles should be lighted after the door is closed again, according to any simple ritual the group chooses for itself, and extinguished immediately after the Acolyte Dismissal in similar fitting fashion. The discussion should center at all times on the acolyte lessons. Sessions preferably should be fortnightly. A breaking of bread together should be a regular feature, and this should be before the candles are extinguished unless it is necessary to move to another room.

The leader of the meeting first presents the Meditation on the Solar Breath in its entirety, or without a break. He then announces, "The meditation on the cosmos, or on all manifestation as a whole," and (1) repeats the first two lines of the first stanza, (2) again repeats the two lines, (3) repeats the third line twice, (4) repeats the fourth and fifth lines, (5) again repeats these two lines, (6) repeats the last line twice. Without any break he announces, "The meditation on the vital principle of being," and proceeds in the same fashion with the second stanza. Similarly he announces, "The meditation on the emotional principle of being," and proceeds in the same fashion with the third stanza. Finally he announces, "The meditation on the intellective or encompassing principle of being," and proceeds in the same fashion with the fourth stanza. He closes the meditation by repeating the last line of each stanza in order, and emphasizes the closing by employing a different tone of voice. In the meditative consciousness the first three lines of each stanza articulate a spiritual outbreathing, and the last three a complementary inbreathing.

The Sabian Pledges

There are three sections in the Sabian neophyte pledge. The initial section is the preamble, and consists of paragraphs A to D as a rehearsal of principles essential to all self-committal under the Solar Mysteries. The first of the principles is the necessity of (a) a supreme desire for illumination, (b) a determination to become the Servant envisioned in Deutero-Isaiah and (c) a realization that the way is a conscious self-ordering within the Eternal Wisdom. The second of these principles is the necessity that any conscious functioning in a reality beyond time and space be sustained by a self-assumed obligation that can symbolize it in the everyday existence to which all lesser aspiration is limited. The third of these principles is the necessity that the cabalistic correspondence of the aspirant's higher self-realization with the normal consciousness of the spiritual group be recognized, and that the immortal consciousness of the individual be furthered by framing his self-assumed obligation in the identity of purpose characteristic of the group. The fourth of these principles is the necessity that the desire for illumination be established as an actual laya center for the aspirant's immortality through the dedication of all efforts of the self to ends in which the vision of the individual and of the group have a common manifestation.

The second section or paragraph 1 of the Sabian neophyte pledge is the actual committal, and it consists of the statement of the self-assumed obligation made in such fashion that it (a) may shape itself gradually as the personal but yet ineffable prior or true laya center for the conscious immortality, (b) never may be other than the effort to be what it is and thus never may be subject to the risk of any judgment of its success or failure in being what it is, and (c) as that which is eternal and universal in every respect of itself may be beyond every possibility of necessary relationship with people, organizations, communities, allegiances, loyalties or anything that can be reduced to definition or identification in a world of physical reality.

The third section or paragraph 2 of the Sabian neophyte pledge is the earnest, or the matter of the superficial tokens through which the initiatory process is rehearsed through the two solar years. In the arcane tradition all the deeper teachings are given twice for the fructifying and gestating emphases respectively by which they are established in the consciousness of the race, and the aspirant has the symbolical two cycles for achieving a measure of awareness in his immortal laya center. The two phases of the earnest are (a) the rhythmic ingathering to self of the Eve or the life as the whole-potentiality epitomized in the Eternal Wisdom and (b) the equally rhythmic outgiving or sharing of self through the contribution up from the substance of the Adam or ground of personal potential. This is an earnest because it is as the aspirant remains steadfast in his desire, thus given an initiatory instrumentation, that his Sabian pledge or obligation can be seen to have become his own in any actuality. Otherwise it has no import, and the fact need be no embarrassment to him and in no way an occasion for disappointment or a stumbling block to good feeling.

The written reports of those who do not attend study groups may be made (1) to the Esoteric Secretary directly or other members of the Esoteric Council, (2) to some member of the Assembly sponsoring the particular neophyte in any formal or informal fashion, (3) to any member of the Assembly willing to supervise the newcomer's adjustment to Sabian materials and procedures. This requirement can also be fulfilled through participation in (1) the Interchange Chapter, (2) an online study group or (3) online forums. In all cases the supervisory role shall be undertaken only at the neophyte's request or with his approval, and should be subject to change whenever he wishes. Except where the seeker and his correspondent for this phase of his discipline agree on some other plan, the weekly reports should be aggregated and submitted monthly. Only aspirants of legate grade should undertake any supervision of the neophyte's correspondence in fulfillment of his pledge. In cases of absence, when students are participating more or less regularly in a study group, the written report should be sent weekly to the leader of the given group. There are three similar sections in the Sabian acolyte pledge. The initial four paragraphs A to D are again the preamble or rehearsal of the principles essential to the establishment of the seeker's tangible obligation on the level of the Servant or in a dimension next above everyday existence in time and space. Here is the proposition of group endeavor rather than individual discipline as the focus of aspiration under the Solar Mysteries. The principles are the necessity for (1) a recognition of a personal expansion of consciousness that can be identified as a measure of stewardship in the manifestation of the Eternal Wisdom, (2) a further recognition that the commissions of this stewardship are ultimately of the two or three working together in the name of the Eternal One or only-begotten principle of being, and not the result of any individual seeking as such, (3) a realization that the consistency and worthiness of everyday action and attitude that has contributed to the expansion of consciousness must now be given a larger dimension through undertaking new duties in connection with the invisible fellowship and (4) a determination to match the spread into space created by group effort with the needed and concomitant self-projection in time resulting from an enlistment of past experience in both present and prior lives, and the accompanying proffer of all future potentialities for service under the Solar Mysteries.

The second section or paragraph 1 of the Sabian acolyte pledge is the actual obligation, and it is a repetition of the neophyte self-dedication with now the (a) inclusion of the whole span of incarnations and (b) exclusion of dependence of any sort on even the intelligences functioning on other planes of reality. The third section or paragraph 2 of the Sabian acolyte pledge is the earnest, or the token obligations to the Sabian Assembly in (a) the continued sharing of personal capacities and means and (b) the ritualistic rehearsals through the work in consciousness in general and the Full Moon ceremonies in particular.

The annual reports required of acolytes are made to the Esoteric Council member assigned as his esoteric sponsor and all correspondence in connection with acolyte or legate discipline is confidential and similarly is with the esoteric sponsor.

There are three sections of like pattern in the Sabian legate pledge. The preamble in paragraphs A to D rehearses the principles essential to the establishment of the aspirant as a worker for the Solar Lodge on the level of the avatar, and the proposition here is the immortal contribution to ultimate ends of the race as not only a matter of group endeavor but also of an actual or collective continuance in organic form of some total body of dedicated souls through a span of history or in an establishment of an unbroken continuity in some phase of the esoteric tradition. For the average aspirant the avataric goal is achieved in what to him may seem an exceedingly insignificant foreshadowing of a Gautama or a Jesus, but it is no less an important contribution to the total vision and in the meanwhile it is essential for the everyday dramatizations that might hope to further the leavening of the world at large. The necessities are (1) a recognition of an earned place of identifiable nature in the racial destiny, (2) a further recognition that this has not been gained except through the personal associations that bridge mere physical incarnation, (3) a realization that the consistencies of action and attitude that have contributed to the enduring and spiritual self-recognition must now gain a very practical authority in the outer and practical world as an insurance against megalomaniacal pretension or self-destructive delusion and (4) a determination to sacrifice all dependence on self-identity by a transfer of conscious existence into a genuine racial embodiment of some experienceable sort.

The second section or paragraph 1 of the Sabian legate pledge is the actual obligation, and it is the dedication to the avataric role of the Servant in some definite particular and the strengthening of this with a surrender of all reliance on an anthropomorphic God or any reality known in any fashion as alien or external to the purity of laya center. The third section or paragraph 2 of the Sabian legate pledge is the earnest, or the continued token obligation to the Sabian Assembly in (a) the sharing of personal capacities and means and (b) the ritualistic rehearsal through the work in consciousness on legate quadrangles and its esoteric reinforcement at the four seasons.

Summary

The Sabian procedures are arranged at all points to provide a private or a group rehearsal of spiritual experiences and insights, to the end that these may become increasingly a part of the aspirant's very being.

The Sabian lessons are designed to provide the greatest possible spread over all areas of experience in order to further a breadth of such rehearsal, and the method of study places the primary emphasis on the stirrings of interest within the aspirant's own consciousness in order to launch him on the way of Solar initiation. He is drilled continually in the fact that his illumination springs from resources lying at the core of his own being. There are weekly issues of lessons on the Bible on the one hand, and on philosophy and symbolism alternately on the other, and in these two series there is neither beginning nor end but rather a continuous rotation of the materials through an approximate twenty-year cycle in each case.

The study of astrology is optional. There are special lessons for the acolyte's orientation to (1) his own instinctive ritualization of his values, (2) the cycles of history, (3) the hidden powers of language, (4) the unrevealed potentialities of anything of immediate concern and (5) the cabalistic patterns behind all reality. There is additional instruction with which Sabian students are supplied in various special cases. Discipline letters and other materials are distributed to the members of the Assembly in regular course.

Authority under the Solar Mysteries flows into channels and personalities where its exercise is a maximum service to all concerned. Sabian procedure demands that individuals and groups mind their own business in every possible respect. Classes and other functions possess complete autonomy. As far as is practical the project maintains no headquarters and avoids unnecessarily centralized administration. It is very careful to avoid constituting itself a church, or a fraternal order or any form of organization in which there could be a hierarchy of superiors. There is a hieratic succession in the arcane tradition, but this has nothing to do with the chancellorship of the Assembly or the leadership in any enterprise seeking to instrument some phase of the vision.

There are recommended programs for all Sabian activities, with ritualistic forms to use in the various connections, and all details of procedure are made available for those inside or outside the Assembly who might find them valuable. The study class is arranged to encourage a full range of discussion in connection with the Sabian materials and to further a genuine rehearsal of spiritual experience.

The healing ministry is of fundamental importance in the Sabian project, and its efforts are centered in the healing meeting and the work in consciousness. Written healing slips are employed in this connection, but while they are encouraged they are not made obligatory. There is a chapel service to meet any demand for purely Sabian devotions.

There are rituals for the dedication of (1) a life, in some parallel with the baptism of the church, (2) a departure, in a measure of correspondence with the graveside rites of the church and fraternal orders, (3) a partnership, with some resemblance to a marriage ceremony but embracing business partners and any other possible relationship of personal intimacy, and (4) a project as special premises or enterprises.

The Full Moon Meeting each lunar month is the heart of the initiatory rituals in Sabian work, and is of special concern for the acolytes. The quarterly meetings on Palm Sunday or Easter eve, July 3rd, October 17th and December 31st are vital to the inner discipline and are of special concern to the legates. The acolyte meeting is classwork with a special ritual.

Important and central events in the life of Jesus, as particularly dramatized in the highly cabalistic Gospel of Matthew, are used to chart the steps of Solar initiation for the ritualistic purposes of the healing meeting. The section of Isaiah stemming from the Babylonian captivity is of high occult significance, and a paraphrase of the 44th chapter is employed to give a ritualistic depth to the Full Moon meeting. At that meeting the cycle of the lunar year is used to rehearse the ebb and flow in the seeker's transcendent or psychic sensitiveness, and the ceremonial charting of his progress through the zodiac permits the concomitant rehearsal of his struggle to fulfill himself through his own individual manifestation of the Solar Myth. The opening chapters of Ezekiel, including the prophet's master thesis, are used in similar paraphrase for the quarterly meetings in July and December as a catalyst in the legate approach to the Eternal Wisdom.

The neophyte, acolyte and legate pledges consist of three sections. The preamble presents the four basic principles operating on the level of obligation in each case. The actual obligation is a committal to progressively greater degrees of spiritual or immortal self-reliance, and the earnest is the token self-dedication in the three outer dimensions of Sabian discipline at the portal to the Solar Mysteries.