To obtain a better understanding of what constitutes Initiation and what the prerequisites are, let
the student first fix firmly in his mind the fact that humanity as a whole is slowly progressing upo
n the path of evolution, and thus very slowly, almost imperceptibly, attaining higher and higher sta
tes of consciousness. The path of evolution is a spiral when we regard it from the physical side onl
y, but a lemniscate when viewed in both its physical and spiritual phases. (See the diagram of chemi
cal caduceus in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, page 410.) In the lemniscate, or figure 8, there a
re two circles which converge to a central point, which circles may be taken to symbolize the immort
al spirit, the evolving ego. One of the circles signifies its life in the physical world from birth
to death. During this span of time it sows a seed by every act and should reap in return a certain a
mount of experience. But as we may sow seed in the field and lose return on that which falls on ston
y ground, among thorns, et cetera, so also may the seed of opportunity be wasted because of neglect
to15 till the soil and the life will then be barren of fruit. Conversely, as diligence and care in c
ultivation increase the productive power of garden seed enormously, so earnest application to the bu
siness of life—improvement of opportunities to learn life’s lessons and extract from our environment
the experience it holds—brings added opportunities; and at the end of the life-day the ego finds it
self at the door of death laden with the richest fruits of life.
The objective work of physical exi
stence over, the race run, and the day of action spent, the ego enters upon the subjective work of a
ssimilation accomplished during its sojourn in the invisible worlds, which it traverses during the p
eriod from death to birth, symbolized by the other ring of the lemniscate. As the method of accompli
shing this assimilation has been most minutely described in various parts of our literature, it is n
eedless to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that at the time when an ego arrives at the central poi
nt in the lemniscate, which divides the physical from the psychic worlds and which we call the gate
of birth or death according to whether the ego is entering or leaving the realm where we, ourselves,
happen to be at the time, it has with it an aggregate of faculties or talents acquired in all its p
revious lives, which it may then put to usury or bury during the coming life-day as it sees fit; but
upon the use it makes of what it has, depends the amount of soul growth it makes.