great work

7/28/2019 Great Work

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The "Great Work"

Nick Sandberg

Introduction

In this piece I'm going to try and relate a little of the spirit and content of what I believe the

so-called "Great Work" of the occultists to be all about. And also look at how this "HolyGrail" of the esoteric traditions may remain relevant to both our day-to-day life and future

as a race.

And in writing I was presented with one major problem. Namely, that none of the bodiesinvolved in the "Great Work" - the various esoteric and "mystery" schools still active in theEast and West - actually write directly about it as it applies to the future of the human race.

Instead, they write about it, in heavily cloaked symbolism, as it applies to the individual.And from this the discernerning student may draw understanding of its significance within

the wider framework.

It should therefore be born in mind that this whole piece is primarily intuitive. And thereader should feel absolutely free to accept or reject it, in whole or in part, as he or she sees

fit. I derived the greater part of my knowledge of the subject matter through studying the

writings of Paul Foster Case, a highly-regarded US esotericist of the first half of the

twentieth century, well connected with major Western groups of the period. All referencesto "occult thought", "esoteric belief" or similar should be regarded as being my

interpretation of his ideas and writings.

The Great Work

"Nature unaided always fails" - occult maxim

The so-called "Great Work" of the occultists is at the heart of all esoteric activities in both

the East and the West. And the "completion" of this "Great Work" is alluded to via a

multiplicity of euphemisms scattered across numerous fields. It is the "Grail" of classicalmythology. It is the "Philosphers Stone" of alchemy. It is the "Wish-fulfilling jewel" of

classical Buddhism. And it is the "reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem" of the Bible,to name but a few.

"Completing the Great Work" is the goal of all serious esoteric endeavour. And there aretwo related but distinct fields in which activities to this end are undertaken.


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Firstly, the microcosm - the human body. Completing the Great Work in the microcosm is

the supreme accomplishment of the individual magical practitioner. Here, having

completed the Great Work means that one is freed from the constant need to die and

reincarnate. He or she in future exists as a "God-realised" immortal soul in a dimensionabove the physical. Great powers of healing are granted to the individual who has

completed the Great Work for the remainder of their earthly existence.

And, secondly, the macrocosm - the world. The completion of the Great Work is here seen

as being the Divine goal of the human species. And, indeed, of the aterial world itself.

Occultists regard the current level of human evolution as being only part-complete, thehuman mind being the area that is still lacking. And that in order to finish the job, it is

believed that great effort will be required. This need for individual effort, and especially the

correct management of resources, (as opposed to just sitting back and letting it happen), is

referred to in an maxim found at the heart of the occult traditions - "Nature unaided always

fails."

In attempting to impart just how important these traditions regard the completion of their

task to be, readers should note that the believed impact of this next phase of humanevolution will not be restricted to our species. But instead apply to the whole of the material

world, the whole of creation. For, to occultists, (and many modern physicists), how the

world isrelates to our average evolved ability to perceive it. Thus, as our mind evolvesbeyond its current level, so will follow all of creation. Things exist in the way they do

because that is the way we perceive them.

And this statement gives allusion to the true meaning of the word "completion", as here

used. Occultists believe that the cycle of the descent of Spirit into matter is completed with

the return of matter to Spirit. And that it is human consciousness that will effect the final

transformation and thus complete the so-called "path of return".

Spirit, matter and consciousness

In order to comprehend the significance of the Great Work and to put its completion into

perspective, it will be necessary to briefly look at some aspects of occult cosmology.

In esoteric traditions, the existence of a "primordial substance" is recognised and referred to

by various names such as "prakriti", or "prima materia". Here we shall call it "primal

matter".

Primal matter is what matter is prior to it being observed. When it is looked at, it takes on

the appearance of what we call "matter".

The occult orders that I have looked at believe that, at the inception of our universe, primal

matter descended from the Divine domain in a spontaneous act of creation, as referred to in

the book of Genesis. And, simultaneously, began to seek its return. In traditional religiousliterature, the domain of the Divine is often referred to as "heaven", and the domain of


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primal matter as "earth". These two are sometimes pictured as being like the earth and sky

in a child's painting. And flowing between the Divine and the primal matter is "Spirit".

When Spirit first strikes the primal matter, after the act of creation, primal matter is so

captivated by the experience that it immediately begins to seek a means by which it can beintensified. And in order for primal matter to experience more intensely this spiritual

presence, it needs to form itself into structures that can focus Spirit upon it.

These structures are living organisms. The act of being conscious, of being aware of ones

surroundings, to the occultist, is the act of focussing Spirit onto primal matter. The primal

matter therefore begins to lust after consciousness. For, the more consciousness there is, themore it experiences its Divine source. Having developed itself into primitive "vessels of

consciousness" such as plants, primal matter then learns to evolve further into animals,

and finally into human form. From this perspective, the human being therefore represents

the best effort thus far that primal matter has come up with to experience its Divine source.

And, as the world only looks the way it does because of our level of consciousness, so the

act of being conscious not only allows primal matter to experience its source, but also

transmutes it back toward its origin. In relation to the Great Work, therefore, humans aresimply highly evolved vessels of consciousness, driven into existence by the underlying

desire of primal matter to know its creator. In esoteric terms, this is the true force behind

the evolutionary process.

The World around us.

The material world that appears to us when we open our eyes may thus be regarded as

fundamentally a product of the reaction between Spirit and two aspects of primal matter -

the human being and its surroundings. The world is thus seen as essentially an interface thatspontaneously arises when Spirit acting through primal matter as human consciousness

interacts with primal matter in a less evolved state.

The process is vaguely analogous to that by which a graphical user interface, such as

Windows 95, arrives on our computer screen when we switch the power on. Spirit is

represented by the electricity, primal matter as human consciousness by the software, andless evolved primal matter by the hardware. The result being the creation of a simulatory

environment that we can manipulate to perform information processing.

Occult thought holds that our world is similar. And that it became manifest by a similarprocedure. Western esoteric orders, for instance, believe that, at the inception of our

universe, a series of elementary processes sequentially unfolded and "locked" together

creating a set of field harmonic intervals that ultimately took the form of a three

dimensional environment into which a higher aspect of the unfolding process, a "soul",could take physical form and interact with other souls and part-evolved aspects of primal

matter, (the environment). And, within this interactive framework, the action of being

aware transmutes the raw primal matter into whatever it is perceived as.


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of Divine awareness.

The World

"Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust" - Isaiah 26:19

The sequence of events of the Great Work in the macrocosm is pretty much the same as

that in the microcosm.

The driving force behind the desire of primal matter to return to its source is Spirit. It is

Spirit, this emanation of the Divine, that drives primal matter to evolve itself into vessels of

consciousness. And it is Spirit, in a particularly concentrated aspect, that manifests itself

within living organisms as the evolutionary energy, kundalini.

And, just as the human body is "bootstrapped" towards the final stage of its evolution once

the individual begins to experience the mystical state of samadhi, so the return of primalmatter to its source was greatly accelerated by the evolution of creatures that had self-consciousness - human beings. Human beings, by the simple act of being aware of their

surroundings, transmute primal matter into whatever form it takes before their eyes. And

once a critical number of people can simultaneously enter the state of samadhi so the wholeof physical creation will spontaneously return to its Divine source.

This is what occultists believe the final destiny of mankind, and the physical universe, is -the return of matter to spirit via the action of evolved consciousness. Once a threshold level

of consciousness is reached, the process spontaneously commences.

Evolution has thus taken place solely with the intent of allowing primal matter to bothknow and return to its source. Our physical evolution has been directed by this

overwhelming desire of primal matter to know its creator since time and space first

unfolded in the spontaneous primal act of creation we know as the Big Bang. We havebodies because bodies are the support system for consciousness. We reproduce and we die

because this is the only means by which the physical body can progressively develop into a

better transmuter of primal matter. And we have no ultimate need for any form of physicalsustenance, (air, food, water, etc), because in the God-realised state all is identified with

divinity.

And now we can begin to look at why the various esoteric and mystery schools involved inthe Great Work are so obsessed with secrecy.

The Fall

The period commonly known as the Fall, in Biblical terms, represents the point in time

when consciousness in humans became sufficiently developed for individuals tocomprehend the concepts of "good" and "evil". Plants and animals have, to the best of our


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knowledge, no comprehension of these concepts because they are insufficiently aware. But

as Man developed from his primate background and continued to evolve so there came a

time when there was sufficient consciousness for people to become aware of moral

concepts and thus commenced the period known as The Fall.

And as we became aware of Good and Evil, so we simultaneously developed the capacityto further the causes of Good or Evil. And herein lay a problem for those ancient adeptindividuals who, aeons ago, were aware of Man's Divine destiny and purpose. How to

guide and direct Man's cultural and physical development without allowing him to become

aware of the immense powers locked up within. Particularly as his average level ofconscious awareness, and thus curiosity, developed over time. Two aspects of this problem

are revealed in a well-known text dealing with the problems of spiritual awakening:

"And this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites to ask him, 'Who art

thou?' And he confessed, and denied not, but confessed, 'I am not the Christ.' And theyasked him, 'What then? Art thou Elijah?' And he saith, 'I am not.' 'Art thou that prophet?'

And he answered, 'No.' Then they said unto him, 'Who art thou? That we may give an

answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?' He said, 'I am the voice of onecrying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord', as said the prophet Isaiah" -

John 1:19-23

One esoteric interpretation of the Gospel of John reveals it to be a description of the correct

unfolding of spiritual awakening in the individual - the microcosm. In the above early

scene, the priests and Levites represent the voices of the ego who, intrigued and disturbedby the new, spiritual presence they find amongst them, begin to question it in order to better

comprehend its nature. The presence states emphatically that it is not the Christ, thus telling

the individual undergoing the opening stages of a spiritual awakening that they should not

identify themselves with the messiah. It then further reveals that it is in fact the voice of theHigher Self, installed in the undeveloped heart, and tells the individual not to divert from

the spiritual path.

These two pieces of information given to the individual undergoing spiritual awakening -

not to believe themselves to be the Messiah and not to be drawn into material concerns -

can of course also be understood with respect to the macrocosm, and the projected mass

unfolding of higher consciousness. And it is this notion, the restriction of our culturaldevelopment over the last 2,100 odd years - the so-called Piscean Era - that I will

endeavour to examine in the next piece in this series.

Nick Sandberg, 2000

Bibliography

The Tarot, Paul Foster Case.

The Book of Tokens, Paul Foster Case

Bible Mystery, Bible Meaning, Thomas Troward


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The Tower of Alchemy, David Goddard.

The Kabbalistic Universe, Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi HOME

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