The Need For Astral Purification

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We hope that we have now made clear how necessary it is to gain knowledge and control of one's astral body (see The Neglected Astral Body).

Soul-quality and pupilship are the primary necessities for the fulfilment of this so important task. There must be new soul-quality, derived from the Rose of the Heart and active in the blood and nerve-fluid; an absolutely serious pupilship demonstrated in a life of actual deeds.

New soul-quality will also manifest itself in mental hygiene, in a new purified thought-life. You gain access to your astral body and can set it into motion by means of your thought-life. Every thought has an immediate astral effect, entirely in accordance with the thought's nature, quality, content and strength. So the nature of your mentality is of the greatest importance for the quality and maintenance of your entire personality. However, after the initial step of thought-hygiene, the next most important thing is the psychological and physical organization of your astral body. The pupil must know what he can and may do in that respect, for through the astral body ethers are released, and it is ethers that construct and maintain the material body.

As Rose-power and Rose-fragrance, new soul-quality makes the pupil's material body receptive to very sublime impressions, to astral influences far above the level of nature. These influences find it increasingly difficult to gain entrance to the system because of the ever finer, higher vibrations of the astral body. Serious pupilship ensures the candidate a harmonious link with the Living Body of the Spiritual School. Then, through the power of the Living Body, one can easily rise above harmful effects which the candidate, in his weakness, would ordinarily find difficult to withstand.

So it is important for those who are striving for true life-renewal in the sense of The Alchemical Wedding to realize clearly that besides a properly oriented material way of life, the conscious maintenance of pure astral behavior is also a necessity. If such practical, astral behavior fails to come, or is only partial, the Alchemical Wedding cannot be celebrated. Then the pupil will come to a standstill on his Path and will be unable to progress one millimeter further. It will be like the toiling of the Pistis Sophia, who struggles to achieve some result in her pupilship but is continually over-powered by the might of the aeons, by the countless variety of counter-influences active in the astral body, which victimize the entire fourfold* personality.

* man's mental, astral. etheric and physical vehicles

The Alchemical Wedding for which the candidate strives necessitates the realization of a threefold link: the reborn soul, the fourfold personality and the Spirit need to be combined into an absolute unity within the microcosmic field.

We have already discussed an important part of the preparation to restore this unification between the Spirit, Soul and Body and in the part of The Alchemical Wedding already explained the candidate has given proof of this preparation: the soul-birth has taken place in him; he has gained sufficient sensitivity to understand and react positively to the call to New Life emanating from the universal Gnosis; consequently he is ready to make sacrifices for the sake of the Liberating Path; he wants to seek the temple of initiation; and he has withstood the test of the seven weights.

From "The Ten Stories - Esoteric Amalysis of the Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosycross, Vol 1 - Jan van Rijckenborgh

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