The OTG; Magic, Alchemy, the Auric Egg and the test in the Grail Castle

Dame Donna Owen (2-1-08)

My favorite writer in the Magic "genre" is W.E. Butler who wrote "The Magician, his Training and Work". If you are not familiar with this book, I will quote a small section for you, "…For the practical work of magic, the idea which we must keep ever before us is that we are all like the Lady of Shallot in Tennyson's poem, we are all engaged in viewing in a mirror the universe in which we live, and a mirror, moreover, which is constantly changing. This mirror is our own personal unconscious or "subconscious mind" and was known to the older occultists as the "Sphere of Sensation." In modern terms is the "auric egg" or psychic atmosphere which surrounds everyone. That sphere of sensation is the glass in which all things are mirrored and the first tasks of the apprentice-magician are designed to give him control over this magic mirror. he may not, except indirectly, work upon the outer world, but he can directly alter and remold his own subjective world, that he finds it shaping itself in accordance with his new point of view, since these deeper aspects of himself are part of the corresponding depths of the collective unconscious of the race, and of the universal consciousness.

"This process is for us, in the Order of the Grail, a kind of "Alchemy of the Soul", similar to masonry in that the perfection of humanity begins with us, with our own "self-freemasonry". The differences between operative magic and the ritual work we do in our OTG Conventions is that our rituals are benign, harmless, and oriented first to changing ourselves and through self-knowledge and personal growth, working to help others do likewise. We do not assume that we know best or that we have the right to attempt to directly influence matters in the world towards our perceived "best" result, we trust in the divine to show us our own way to the truth. Martinism has been called "the Way of the heart", but in the OTG we are striving to become Grail Knights and Dames, which is also a way of the heart…a divine theurgy.

Here is an excerpt from "The Ninth Century and The Holy Grail" by W.J. Stein. Chapter 5. In this Chapter of the book Stein (with the help of Steiner) is analyzing the difference between the Parsifal of Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival", the latter being a sort of Astrological story "written in the stars" is how he sees it, and it makes some interesting points regarding the 2 times Parzival enters the Grail Castle, and why the first time he fails in his Quest. "…. Now the poet describes what the inhabitants of the Grail Castle suffer, and he describes this suffering from a macrocosmic aspect. He describes it expressly in relation to the constellations of the stars. It is true this mystery is not revealed until Parzival comes to the castle of the Grail for the second time. The first time it remains hidden, because what is lacking in Parzival is he cannot read "star writing" he does not find the words which are inscribed on the Grail sword , he only looks at what is revealed to him in imagination, he does not rise to the level of Inspiration which would allow him to read and understand the signs and symbols of the "picture" writing.

What the Human being sees when he enters the Grail Castle is himself. The question is for him when his whole being confronts him and asks, "Brother, what ails (is wrong with) thee?" No one else can answer this question - only he can do it- for the answer to this question is, "I myself have caused all the suffering that I see here…" Parzival must learn that Amfortas suffers because he, Parzival, has not recognized himself to be the cause of his suffering. Whoever sees the imagination of the Grail and thinks he sees anything other than the slaying of what is noblest through his own imperfection, cannot redeem the suffering Grail King. The question is what brings redemption. But here we anticipate the second visit of Parzival to the Grail Castle, for between the first and second visits lies a long path of inner development. The human soul must find the way to imaginative vision, and must nevertheless lose it again, for not until it reveals itself to him for the second time does he see it aright. One can study this in the mystics, for example, Jacob Boehme, he too had to lose all his visions, as Rudolf Steiner told us, before he was able, after straying for a long while, to experience them anew, now filled with inspiration. Inspiration, the reading of the picture script , depends upon a kind of conscious, voluntary, forgetting. Only in the soul which has been emptied of imaginations does the language of the stars resound, and then are seen anew imaginations which form the spiritual starry heavens, the macrocosmic aspect of the Grail Castle."

Your friend in the Quest,

Dame Donna

friend

What is grace? It is the inspiration from on high: it is love; it is liberty. Grace is the spirit of law. This discovery of the spirit of law belongs to Saint Paul; and what he calls "grace" from a heavenly point of view, we, from an earthly point, call "rigtheousness."
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

It is no great thing to be humble when you are brought low; but to be humble when you are praised is a great and rare attainment.
Saint Bernard (1090 - 1153)