The centre of consciousness, like a bead on the thread, alternates between the three states as it is impelled by desire or will.
According to practitioners of Western Esotericism, initiation or "illumination" occurs when all of these modes of consciousness are integrated and functioning in equilibrium.
Subconsciousness
Almost all persons dream, and while dreaming they see and hear, touch and taste, without questioning for a moment the reality of these experiences. The dreaming person loses sight of the fact that he is in a bedroom of a particular house, that he has certain relations with others sleeping in the same house. For him, and as long as it lasts, the dream is the one reality.
Now consider this question posed by the philosophers: which is the true dream, the sleeping dream or the waking dream?
The function of the brain could be regarded as the bulbous root of a plant whose branches grow downwards: to affect, and to be affected.The range of our sense-perceptions puts us momentarily in relations with the material world, or rather, with a certain portion of it.
The Western Mystery Tradition suggests that the subtle influences of the Moon upon the human personality correspond to the function and understanding of sub consciousness. In Alchemical writings this concept is represented by a crescent moon.
Self-consciousness
Self consciousness, or sensations which are experienced while fully conscious can be understood as the distinctly human aspect of consciousness; perception of surroundings, experiences and interaction with other humans.
If one imagines the personality as being likened to the solar force, or energy of the Sun, which provides light, heat and illumination in its hours of its rising above the horizon. Imagine this concept as a symbol being represented by a circle with a point in its centre.
Super-consciousness
In some psychological writings the super-consciousness has been absurdly named the "unconscious, denoting an inaccessible or dormant force.
he Western Mystery Tradition's teaching on the aspect of super consciousness is that by raising the powers of the subconscious, or the Moon, above that of self consciousness, or the Sun, resulting in a state of equilibrium. One can therefore bring information through from the "dream state" into conscious awareness.
The heightened perception or super consciousness of the soul can be otherwise termed Initiation, or Illumination; the marriage of the Sun and the Moon, or union of opposites (being the state sought after by Alchemists).
Alchemy is a process whereby each practitioner "works" on aspects of his personality, and consciousness, to turn the leaden weights of such things as desire into the pure gold of wholeness and equilibrium of the self.
Related Reading
Serious students of the mysteries would benefit immensely from working through such titles as Occult Fundamentals and Spiritual Unfoldment and Esoteric Secrets of Meditation and Magic by Paul Foster Case, to gain a deeper understanding of these concepts.
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