Sue, Stuart and I came together to form the Silent Eye from a variety of backgrounds. Among them Rosicrucian, Magical, Qabalistic, Hermetic, Gurdjieffian and Druidic. Symbolically, we met at a crossroads where the ancient meets the modern.
I have always regarded myself as, essentially, a modernist, though I have great respect for the past. To me, the purpose of the Silent Eye is to represent what are undoubtedly ancient truths in a modern language, and that is why the use of esoteric psychology is so central to what we try to do.
That concept – of language – is central to the way Mystery Schools have always sprung into existence – and faded away. There is nothing permanent about a real mystery school. Throughout history they have risen at a time when they could do some good, flourished or not, and then faded away as their own language or methods became dated and their message no longer speaks with as much life as it did when they were ‘young’.
My own route to here, through Rosicrucianism, Gurdjieff and now, esoteric psychology, comprises essentially modern threads. Sue and Stuart are both deeply involved with the history of both church and landscape, and we have shared a Qabalistic and magical path together. The form of Rosicrucian teaching in which I worked and served for many years was within AMORC, a modern packaging of concepts whose exoteric origin, at least, dates back to that eponymous period in the 17th Century. My deep and consuming studies of Gurdjieff’s legacy I viewed as being very modern in concept; and the esoteric psychologists of the past fifty years layered their findings onto the worldview created by Gurdjieff, even to the extent of using his enneagram to form a map of the journey of consciousness back towards its loving source.
Although I am the principle author of the Silent Eye’s distance learning programme, it has also been heavily influenced by the time when the three of us came together under the aegis of the Qabalistic and magical world. The use of ritual drama is central to our workshops. Some would call it psycho-drama, but to have touched the loving heart of true magical experience is to cherish and value it – and this informs everything we do, and gives a vital and very loving edge to how we construct the journey of the Companions, both in the workshops and the correspondence course.
Beyond and behind this is that period in history when the world changed – when the western world divided its time into two: the time of Jesus the Christ. Two thousand years ago, something very dramatic happened – the lifetime of a specially prepared adept was used to illustrate the potential of the human, dividing that potential into ordinary life and something called ‘heaven’. Any such teachings are subject to the inevitable trials of history, power and politics, and so, the only way we can get back to the spirit of those times, which were anything but peaceful, is to look, again, at the language.
That language is contained in the Gospels. They contain a single message – that men and women are born into organic life, with much of the animal driving their existence; but, that they contain a seed of something much greater, something that has to be worked on from within, and its growth reflected without, by the individual. Nature does not produce the finished human. It is our cross and our gift that we have to do that ourselves, by individual effort; but effort of a very special nature. All of this is contained in the living metaphor of Jesus’ lifetime and the language used to describe his journey.
Our Glastonbury talk on Thursday 4th December, will examine the legacy of that secret language. We will look at the need for that language to be secret and the way it has to be ‘sown’ into both a human and their lifetime in order for it to flower.
Along the way we will encounter the way in which the original meaning has been changed, for example, how Metanoia, now translated as ‘repentance’, has its roots in a meaning very different – one that signifies a ‘turning around’. We will look at the inner meaning of ‘Water’ and its relationship to ‘Wine”. These are just a few examples of the ground to be covered on that evening.
The talk will be interactive. We will not be using formal presentation techniques, but rather exploring together. We will, for example, begin the evening with the joint consideration of those qualities of ‘heaven’ and how they relate to a modern view of the way home.
