Rebirth of the Magus

Zigzag nature of the path of development, which we have discussed more than once, requires particular effort from the magus in periodic “shedding,” a renewal of energy.

For the periodic destructions and the reconstruction of the magus’s entire system to proceed harmoniously, careful control is required.

Therefore, since ancient times such actions have been ritually formalized as cyclical quests — Kolo, dedicated to the principal gods of the Ennead.

Any Kolo is framed by the Myth of Ragnarök — the destruction of the old universe and the birth of the new. We have already discussed the descending part of this ritual. Let us now speak of the ascending.

Having reached the bottom, the depth of disintegration (in the Ritual — the extreme Western point of the Kolo), the mind encounters the forces there that took part in its formation. Usually this meeting manifests as an “encounter with the Ancestors,” and the Ancestors are perceived not as physical forebears but as the very source of that mind’s existence.

It is precisely this encounter with the “inverted reality” that helps to discern which characteristics of the mind are inherent to it and which are accretions — more or less arbitrary additions that do not constitute essential value.

Since the mind in this condition is decentralized and disordered, it is, in fact, in a dream state, and the principle of Water, which rules this quarter, symbolizes the return of the mind to an embryonic, “watery” existence.

However, under the influence of the formative forces operating in the Western region of the Kolo, the mind gradually begins the process of reintegration; “points of crystallization” appear within it, those anchor points of embodiment that shape it, the key features and tasks characteristic of it.

It is the aggregate of these points that forms the “skeleton of personality” manifesting at the nadir of its disintegration. The mind begins to notice its key traits, its “Me” as a basic reality.

And at that moment rebirth occurs — a powerful force permeates the whole being, and, as if drawn together by invisible threads, separate, seemingly disparate elements suddenly coalesce into a new structure — a new, reborn personality.

At first the bright light of the new being is blinding, but in time the mind perceives its new manifestation as a fresh opportunity for development.

The Eastern part of the Kolo, where this rebirth takes place, is associated with Air, and the lightness of a mind that has shed former burdens reflects that element’s mobility.

The joy and freedom felt at this stage allow one to look anew at life and the way.

Often the subjective positive emotions experienced in the Eastern quarter are so intense that the mind “becomes stuck in them,” refusing to leave that state of lightness and failing to complete the Kolo. Herein lies the grave danger of the East, for to remain in that region means to cease development: to remain liberated but still disordered, lacking firm direction. This is precisely why Kolo rituals are usually performed under the guidance of experienced masters who prevent practitioners from getting trapped in the blissful but unproductive joy of the Eastern quarter.

For the mind to acquire the capacity for development, for expansion, it must complete the stage of new crystallization and enter into the “new body.” This occurs in the Northern quarter of the Kolo, which restores the mind’s connections with the energies surrounding it, pushing the mind into a narrower world, whose narrowness compels focused movement and development in a certain direction. However much the mind may long to remain in the lightness of the East, it must return to the world of conditioned existence in order to use that world’s rigidity to learn the steadiness of forward motion, to form a new stable pattern — and then to destroy it again at the next “shedding.”

Only thus — from rebirth to rebirth, from summit to summit — across the abysses — does the development of the mind proceed from lower levels to the state of the Creative Intelligence of the Pleroma.