Analogue 57

Analogue 57 

Alchemy and Transcendent Humanity

The Eucharistic chalice contains wine and water symbolizing the blood over which thanks is given. The cup, however, is filled with Spirit, which is for the perfecting of humanity. Whoever, therefore, drinks from the cup becomes a completed being.

Likewise, the living water is itself a being in order that we might become clothed with that living body. It is for this reason, then, that whoever goes down into the water stripped naked, emerges out of it clothed with divine Being.

Horses naturally give birth to horses, humans to humans, and God gives birth to God. This is the way that sons and daughters are born from the Lover and Beloved in the Bridal Chamber. Jews did not come into being from Greeks, and Christians came into being not from Jews, but from other anointed ones. It is good, then, to call the offspring who have been chosen by the Sacred Spirit, the “True Humanity” and “Sons and Daughters of The Human One,” born from the seed of the Son of Humanity. This new race bears the name “True Human” in this world, and it is here, in this very place, where they become the sons and daughters of the Bridal Chamber.

SYNOPSIS

• The alchemical mysteries explain how the energies and inner work of the Sacred Temple bring the new humanity to completion. 
• The divine work is the re-creation of a new kind of human being. The agent-of-change in this work is Yeshua through the alchemical mysteries.
• The actions taking place in the inner Temple are highly nuanced and interactive. There appear to be many energies at work. 
• By analogy, think about the human body and how many things are in play for there to be life: multiple organs, energetic systems, nerves, veins, bones, tendons, muscles—all of which are linked together into a whole in order to maintain biological life and health. 
• This analogue begins to outline the mysterious energies that spiritual formation and transformation require and how and where they work in the inner Temple of Being. 
• Wine, water, and the Eucharistic chalice, filled with Spirit, are ingested into the system. 
• Drinking Spirit as a life-blood of energy that has been transformed into wine produces an ecstasy enabling one to become a complete being. 
• Living water (the actual living being of water) can clothe a person with its own aliveness. 
• How should we describe this “live part of ourselves” — clothes that are alive, that think with us that live with us. Is it a “live suit” that we wear? This is a very contemporary even sci-fi form of expression.
• The true, completed human is described in Aramaic as the bar Enash which is in actuality a collectivity of divinized beings, from out of the Bridal Chamber who are on their way to a future destiny. 
• The notion of God giving birth to God is called Theosis—the creation of a divinized humanity. 
• These are born from the seed of the Human One—the Original Human (the Adam Kadmon) springing up from the seed planted in the inner chamber. 
• It is birthed and grows into the True Human, the future form which is made up of all anointed beings who have been baptized, anointed and nourished with Spirit. 
• This is what completes the cycle of Eternal Return. 

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COMMENTARY

Feast in the Bridal Chamber

The place of fecundity at the heart of the cosmos, is imaged by the metaphor of the Bridal Chamber—the holiest place in the Holy Temple of divine Being. This same space is analogically present in every living being whose heart is open to the convergence of energies, human and divine. This generativity that will recreate humankind.

As we move deeper into this text, we are entering this Most Holy Place located within, at our deepest interior core, This is where mysterious energies and actions are at work. The purpose of these energies is to change the very nature of our beings as well as that of all humankind through the alchemical powers of the sacramental elements. In that most sacred place, there is deep communion and reciprocal feeding—the exchange of food around a table of largesse where the divine gives itself away as the gift of eternal life. This ongoing self-donation is made inside this hidden chamber. 

There, a chalice is filled with wine (a reminder of the donation of God made in self-sacrifice). It is offered so that whoever drinks can themselves become a completed being, according to the eternal template of the True Human form. These actions connect the soul to a living reality that spans multiple dimensions—as Above in the heavenly Temple, so below in its earthly analogue, and most personally in the inner spaces of the heart. In that chambered receptacle, exchanges of life-giving energy take place. Divine life is given and received, allowing for a transformation that fashions sons and daughters according to the template of the Human One, the original archetype in its primordial human form. 

Theosis through Reciprocal Feeding

Many themes of sapiential teaching come together in this analogue. Some of the deepest mysteries of the ancient mystical traditions of Judaism are disclosed here. What Daniel saw standing before the Throne of God was the “Living One,” on the right hand,—the True Human who offers itself now to each being who joins the fellowship of this table. Stripped of the old norms and baptized into the new, a different kind of human being emerges clothed with divinity itself. In the Bridal Chamber (the most secret and holy place), God gives birth to God. These words describe what the early tradition of Christian called theosis, or divinization. Human beings are changed into the divine form after the image of God—deified and possessing God-like life, qualities, and characteristics. It was said in the early teachings that God became human in order that humans might become God (Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius). These teachings are not only explicated in this analogue, the underlying energies of transformation are being described concerning what happens in the Bridal Chamber. In this Most Holy Place (which is also analogically the human heart) “communion” (co-union) a mutual sharing between lover and beloved becomes a reciprocal feeding that transforms human nature.

These processes were introduced earlier in this text, but now we see their true alchemical nature and how the mystical tradition understands the new creation completing the original creation. Deification is the ultimate form of a human, the destiny toward which it has been moving. Humans were meant to become the offspring of God (sons and daughters from out of the Bridal Chamber), born from the divine DNA (the seed of the divine Life which was in the design of the original Adam—Adam Kadmon). 

Stripped of the old form, and baptized into the new, a different human being emerges clothed with divinity itself—permanent and complete. 

Living Clothing

An additional theme is introduced into the analogue which helps to clarify certain earlier aspects of the text about the robing of humanity with a new form of being. Not only is the clothing of future humanity superior to those who wear it (as was stated earlier), the clothing is described here as alive with divine being. The robe is itself is living in its own right long before we ever came into existence or was donned it as garb. 

This gift is given by the Anthropos (the original form of humanity)  to its members who have completed their journey. Interestingly, this same scenario echoes the fourth section of the Hymn of the Pearl where the pilgrim is not only welcomed home again, but dons a living rob of many colored lights, alive and resplendent in an almost unimaginable way. The pilgrim puts this on as a sign of the completion of the journey and the resulting new status of sovereignty.

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. Using archetypes from the first temple, the heavenly temple, and the personages acting within them, this passages describes the ultimate transformation of human beings into deified creatures. Can you see yourself in this form? How might you imagine such a transformation taking place? How might it be different from what you know yourself to be now?
2. If this template of human becoming already exists in the heavens and was present there at the beginning, then its unfolding and completion in time has been the goal of God all along. The secret of its completion in time is the divine consummation experienced in the hidden and secret Bridal Chamber. This suggests the intimacy of another kind of pro-creation (the conception and birthing of humankind in an entirely different way). Can you imagine such a birth process and where you might be in relationship to it at this moment?
3. A very important text on this early teaching is written by Olivier Clement, The Roots of Christian Mysticism. If you have an opportunity, begin to read it in order to discover the rich spiritual heritage and the roots of this tradition within early Christianity. These teachings, which appear prominently later, came out of Yeshua’s own original vision. Take careful notes on this text. 
4. Why do you think the Eucharistic Chalice features so prominently in this analogue? Upon reflection, what do you discover to be its sacramental meanings?

 

NOTES FOR FURTHER STUDY 

AND REFERENCE

1. Many of the previous analogues have made a case for theosis (divinization as deification). Here, in this analogue, the teaching concerns God giving birth to God. It could be said that God gives birth to god-like children, and that these children, born from God, are welcomed into the Trinitarian dance of Ultimate Reality (called perichoresis in early Patristic texts). This relationship is not only one of union, but also one of deep intimacy, energizing the recreation of the cosmos flowing from this dance. Starting from the ancient Hebrew prophets forward, aspects of this vision appear over and over again. The terms used for this visionary recital have been noted previously (see the notes for Analogue 43). These do not need to be repeated here, but at every mention of this idea, new metaphors emerge to describe these realities, for example here, the chalice of communion is singled out as well as the living reality of the robe of water which clothes the new creation. These images and metaphors add texture and understanding to the terms used to illustrate this transformative becoming. It should be said, however, that no single metaphor is sufficient to describe the ultimate Reality of what shall be.  A comprehensive overview of this early teaching is found in Olivier Clement’s The Roots of Christian Mysticism (2013).
2. All creatures naturally procreate and nurture beings “after their own kind.” It is perhaps shocking to think of human beings as God’s “kind” conceived, birthed, and nurtured in a similar way. As we are now, humans might be thought of as being in their infancy. It could be that this text is describing the necessary passage from infancy to maturity as a rite of initiation into humankind’s final form as mature “gods” in their own right. This also describes a necessary evolutionary process to bring the full form of humanity to its completion and the ability to stand in maturity before the Anthropos (the Human One) who is in service to its true sons and daughters. 
3. We might think of the Eucharistic chalice (filled with Sacred Spirit) as having wine’s normal effect upon human consciousness. Metaphorically, it could be understood that not only is it alchemically changing the nature of a human being (making humans god-like in nature), but it is also ecstatically affecting human consciousness. Wine alows humans to step outside of the normal boundaries of consciousness. Through the Spirit, normal human consciousness is expanded, elevated to new levels, and moved into an experience of divine Mind itself. This flooding of human being and consciousness is what it means to journey out of the ordinary into divine Transcendence. This is not just an idea, it is meant to change the very nature of human beings and rearrange their consciousness. Ecstasy and transcendence are linked to transformation. In the Perennial Wisdom teachings of the great sacred traditions, this is also called “mystical consciousness.” 

Notes on the Translation

• The words “perfecting of humanity” could also be translated as “the perfected humanity.”
• The words “completed being” are the completed or perfect human form that has been mentioned throughout the text.
• In the second paragraph, in the first line that speaks about living water as a being, the term used is “body.”
• Lover and Beloved are “bride and groom” in the original.
• The Son of Humanity translates the common phraseology “the Son of Man.”
• The words offspring or race translates the same word genos in Greek.
• Sons and daughters translates the original words “sons” which are understood to be the children of the Anthropos.