Crucibles for Transmutation and Ascension, page 3: Sacred Design of the Body Temple
Completing the story of King Solomon before continuing in the theme of this series, it is significant in the historical context that Solomon’s kingdom was a failed opportunity for Paradise to be restored on Earth and Man restored to his original role in Eden as co-creator with God.
As you read this post, keep in mind that another and final opportunity is with us today, and we either rise and seize the day or we fall down into oblivion. The Earth will go on to become the Paradise it was created to be, only without humankind—perhaps for the habitation and true stewardship of Spiritual Man, made in the image and likeness of God decked with majesty and excellence, clothed with a body of light and radiant as a sun—or perhaps more like a Christmas Tree decorated with lights of all the colors of the rainbow.
I wrote a sweet little Christmas song back in my spiritual awakening days that was inspired by the symbol of the Christmas Tree. It’s called “This Angel’s Tree.” This was back when I was more swift and agile on my feet. Have a listen:
And now on to Solomon’s story, from which we may glean what we must cease doing in order to move with the returning cycle of restoration. This excerpt is from my book SACRED ANATOMY, where spirit and flesh dance in the fire of creation. In this excerpt I reference the late biblical historian Grace Van Duzen’s legacy work, THE BOOK OF GRACE, A Cosmic View of the Bible.
Solomon’s kingdom represented the culmination of a failed cycle of resurrection for the Body of Mankind—which began to move, actually, with Seth, one of Adam’s sons, out of whose lineage came Noah and, through Noah’s lineage, Abraham. The cycle was initiated with the sparing of Isaac’s life as he was about to be slain in a sacrificial offering by Abraham, his father, upon a mountain in the land of Moriah. With this action, Abraham brought to an end an ancient pattern of human sacrifice that had long been an integral part of ceremonial worship on earth. The rest of the cycle as recorded in the Old Testament is the story of the rise and fall of the nation of Israel, which had several kings and prophets before it came to an end. Among these was King Solomon.
Solomon’s kingdom was, without exception, of the highest order, first spiritually and, consequently, materially. Eden was in the process of being restored as heaven and earth were being revealed as the inseparable duality they are. As Grace depicts in her book, his close attunement with God resulted in a reflection in the material wealth of his earthly kingdom of the heavenly wealth of the heavenly Kingdom of God. His great wisdom and wealth attracted wisdom and wealth, such as the Queen of Sheba herself (the only female Egyptian Pharaoh of that era) from the south of Solomon’s kingdom, as well as King Hiram of Phoenicia from the north. It was the highest point to which any remnant of human consciousness and civilization had ever risen in the cycles of restoration since the “Fall.” Referencing Immanuel Velikovsky’s book, Ages in Chaos, as her source, Grace speaks of the recognition of Solomon’s greatness by “Queen Sheba” (which turns out to be the name of the queen herself rather than a place):
‘Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia’ is a fitting description of Egypt’s sovereign at that time her kingdom including those countries. Aside from the unique instance of a female ruler, the record of a pharaoh visiting a foreign king and acknowledging the superiority of that one, exhibited by Sheba, is not to be found anywhere.
Solomon’s glory and his kingdom deteriorated, however, as the king himself began to become subjugated to his great wealth and many wives, by means of whom he had acquired his wealth.
According to the story Grace so graphically portrays, Solomon took unto himself wives who were princesses of the surrounding nations, which then became part of his great kingdom. In trying to please everyone in order to be accepted as the ruler of the world at that time, he lost his orientation in the one God and soon began to be ruled by his wealth and his “strange wives.” Instead of lifting them up to worship the one God of Abraham, he allowed them to continue in their sacrifices to their pagan gods, he himself joining with them by building altars to these other gods and worshiping them himself. Thus did his reign as a great spiritual and temporal ruler come to its sad demise, as did Queen Sheba’s, who is believed to have been murdered by Thutmose III, her nephew and successor—who also defaced the beautiful bas-reliefs of her image inside the walls of her temple in his covetous lusting after her fame and fortune.
This story is an important one in that it tells the tale of the zenith of the cycle and pattern of ascent initiated with Abraham that was intended to reunite Mankind with the One God and Creator of this world and of all its kingdoms, to the end that the kingdoms of this world might once again become “the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” As told by Grace in her book, it is as fascinating as it is foreboding. If where we as a people are headed today is a repeat of where we have been in the past, then this story is well worth revisiting by the peoples of every nation as an example of how seeds planted inexorably come to harvest and how the divine design cannot be thwarted.
I do not believe, however, that Solomon’s story is a foreboding tale of our own journey. For we are awakening, none too early, to the victorious nature of our divinely inherited destiny as sons and daughters of God, a tribute we alone cannot claim but must share with all who have gone before us. It is to this I would now like to give deeper consideration. For our temples of flesh are the living structures upon which are based the architectural designs and ceremonial functions of the great temples of old. Let us continue our exploration.
Sacred Design of the Body Temple
Our body temples, built in the silence of the womb, have a specific and purposeful design. For example, there is the “encampment” of all the body tissues, organs and systems where the activities of cellular life go on continually and the affairs of nourishment and elimination are carried out. Then there is the “outer court” of the brain and nervous system, where communication and mental activities are conducted in a contained and highly organized system. Part of the function in the outer court of the human temple relates to planning and preparation of foods for consumption—and, as we shall see, for sacrificial ceremony. The primary activity in the outer court relates to the conscious living of life according to the laws that govern life in the universe with a mind that is naturally designed to revere and protect life’s sacred essences and keep sacred things sacred.
These two physical and mental aspects comprise the body temple. Its spiritual aspects, the Holy Place and the Holy of Hollies, comprise the tabernacle and are rightly hidden from view. Jesus is recorded to have proclaimed in his day that “the tabernacle of God is with men.” The tabernacle of that time represented the dwelling place of God. As we shall explore later, the point of entry for the indwelling Spirit of God in our physical temple is established in a safe and sacred place, protected and hidden by a series of veil-like membranes in the center of the brain, corresponding to the tent and veils of the tabernacle of old.
The Holy Place is our heart, or feeling realm, and is of a spiritual nature. Here is where the things of spirit are sown as seed, conceived and nurtured, then given first-form before they take on thought form in the mind and physical form in the material world of creation. The heart, then, is a receptacle for spiritual essences as they emerge from out of the core of being. It is also an altar where the ascending essences of the material world come to be blessed and offered upward.
At the very center of the temple is the Holy of Hollies wherein the Spirit of God dwells with each one. One could think of it as a portal that opens up into the heavenly realms of light. Like the Holy Place, it is a spiritual or vibrational space in the heart of hearts. It is known unmistakably during ecstatic moments of holy communion with the Beloved.
While the Holy Place of the heart is where the gifts of God are received into this world, the outer court is where the process of administering and stewarding such gifts of the spirit rightly takes place. Great care is needed here at the mental level of the outer court to protect the Holy Place and to keep the things of God pure and unadulterated by coarser vibrational substance. The mind’s role is that of a guardian watching over the Holy Place of the heart to keep anything from defiling its delicate, creative atmosphere wherein the seeds of life germinate, open and begin to grow.
That which is sown and conceived in the Holy Place is in the form of blessing and spiritual nourishment for the body temple. Those blessings are then bestowed upon the cells in the body in the form of life energy and renewal so that through them the blessings of radiant love in action might be extended further out into the world of creation, the natural world, which is our domain. Thus is the Creator’s dominion extended to all forms in the world of creation through Man.
Ceremony of Ascension
As Grace Van Duzen has described, the entrance to Solomon’s temple was by way of a series of terraces. Those who entered the temple did so in stages, ascending by way of these terraced steps, singing psalms as they approached the temple. In our body temples too, as well as in the larger cathedral of the Natural World, both spiritually and physically there are patterns whereby substance may ascend before the throne of God in these temples of flesh and earth, with ceremony and sanctification. The tradition of offering a prayer of blessing and thanksgiving before meals may be seen as part of this ceremony, preparing these food substances to enter the living temple. Thus do we give the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms voice as they join in worship before the throne of God on earth. As priests and priestesses we bless them and receive their copious gifts. In our body temples, there is rightly a temple service of worship in progress. I will call it the “Ceremony of Ascension.” This service may be seen in the chemical processes at work continually in the body transforming and transmuting the foods we consume into breathing flesh and releasing their gifts of energy into the muscles and systems. It is a sacred ceremony. The derivation of the word ceremony itself is rooted in the word sacred.
The ceremony begins in the Natural World, where the elements seek their appointed paths upward in worship of the Creator. Seeds of previous harvests are soaked and split open by germinating acids that coat them for this specific purpose. Rays of sunlight warm the good, brown and moist earth accelerating the growth of sprouting seedlings, their tender white and green stems reaching upward to greet His Majesty in the Sun, while their roots reach deep down into the soil to welcome awaiting elements in the fertile womb of Her Majesty and Goddess Gaia. Minerals of various densities deep within the belly of the Earth Mother find their way upward through the vegetable kingdom. They are then broken apart (chelated) into pieces small enough to pass through the tiny veins of the plants growing in the humus soil above the layers of clay and rocks. Here they will be rearranged in preparation for use in flesh temples. Organic acids in the soil help with this process, as roots of plants go deep to draw nutrients and water upward in this ancient ritual of ascent.
This sacred process continues in our body temples. All of the body’s physiology is used in the Ceremony of Ascension and is therefore sacred. The ceremony is life itself, an eternal, sacred dance of atomic particles winding their way back Home, to ascend with their gifts through the body’s digestive system and to be renewed and sanctified in the presence of their Creator. Sacred vessels are used in this Ceremony of Ascension.
We will explore these vessels in the next post of this series. Until then,
Be love. Be loved.
Anthony
tpal70@gmail.com
Healing Tones 