Economics, Culture, and Eros (chapter excerpt: Return to meaning)

CHAPTER TW0

The Initiation of Moses

(from

The Sacred Quest in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)

n the land of Egypt the Hebrew slaves were forced to build great cities for Pharaoh, always

constrained by their violent and murderous taskmasters, so that their mind, heart and spirit remained dull

and empty, and even the wish to escape was nearly forgotten. Like worker ants, they were allowed to exist

merely in order to labor for Pharaoh. These great cities and buildings, much like our own, bespoke the

narrow worship of the material world and the glorification of human vanity.

This is our life in ‘Re’.

But even after many years of enslavement, the Israelites continued to multiply. Pharaoh worried that if

a war were ever to start between Egypt and her neighbors, the thousands of slaves might side with the

enemy. Therefore, steps had to be taken to reduce the burgeoning population. Also, Pharaoh had been

warned by his astrologers that a child, who would free the Hebrews and devastate Egypt, was about to be

born. So Pharaoh ordered the two Hebrew Midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all the male babies at birth,

but to spare the females: this would stop them from multiplying, but still provide female slaves for the

gratification of Egyptian males.

Shiphrah, according to some stories, was another name for Jochebed, a daughter of Levi. Puah was

her daughter, also called Miriam. The midwives, who loved and feared God, disobeyed Pharaoh’s

command, and when called to the palace to explain themselves they boldly made the excuse that Hebrew

women were more vigorous than Egyptian women, and would always give birth before the midwives

arrived. God blessed the midwives for their courage and devoutness.

But Pharaoh then gave a new command, this time to all of his people. “Every boy that is born you

shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” It is usually assumed that this order referred only to Hebrew

children. But some say that Pharaoh’s astrologers, who had discerned that this so-called ‘redeemer’ would

meet his demise through water, were unable to discern whether he would be a Hebrew or an Egyptian.

Therefore, Pharaoh commanded that all male newborns be thrown into the river.

Jochebed’s husband, Amram, an important leader among the Hebrews, met with his council and

decided it would be best for the men to live apart from the women, rather than to have children born and

then slaughtered by the Egyptians. So he divorced his wife, and the other men followed his example.

But his daughter Miriam reproached him, reminding him that at least Pharaoh’s command only applied

to males, and who could know whether the edict would even be enforceable. Her father’s decision,

however, shut the door to life on all Hebrew children and would definitely be enforced. But it was God’s Will

that the Hebrews ‘be fruitful and multiply’, and who could say what His divine plan might be or how these

events might play out. Amram agreed with the wise words of his daughter, so he went and remarried

Jochebed. Again, the other men followed his example.

Jochebed soon conceived a son, and Miriam had a dream which prophesied that this child would be

the promised redeemer. Child-killers were watching everywhere, but Jochebed was able to bring her son to

birth without being noticed because he was premature and no one was expecting him yet. The Talmud

says that when the boy was born the whole house was illuminated with his radiance – for, psychologically,

he represented the light of spiritual consciousness entering material consciousness.

His mother was able to hide him for three months, until his birth was expected and prying eyes would

be watching. Putting her trust in God, she devised a plan for his survival. She placed him in an ark and

placed it in the Nile to await the will of Providence. Miriam (whose name means ‘bitterness’ – in part

because she could see and empathize with the agony of her people) hid by the river to watch over her

baby brother.

Soon the daughter of Pharaoh came with her maid-servants to bathe in the Nile. She heard the cries

of the child, saw the basket, and retrieved it. She took pity on him and said, “This must be a Hebrew child”,

for she could see that he was circumcised. (Some say she could even perceive the Shechinah who was

always beside him and protecting him). Miriam then appeared and convinced Pharaoh’s daughter to let her

find a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child. She fetched Jochebed. The princess said, “Take this child and

nurse it for me, and I will pay your wages.” So Jochebed took her son and raised him. Later, when he had

grown up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter who made him her son. She named him Moses, which

means “I drew him out of the water”.

Meanwhile, as soon as the basket was in the river Pharaoh’s astrologers discerned through their

magical

arts that the prophesied redeemer was in the waters of the Nile. They still could not figure out

whether he

was a Hebrew or an Egyptian (not realizing that he was both), but this no longer mattered. He

was in the

Nile, they assumed this meant he was destroyed, so they informed Pharaoh and he rescinded

the order

that all male children were to be killed.

And thus Jochebed, whose name means ‘Divine Splendor’, cared for and raised her son for several

years, teaching him to love and fear God, bequeathing to him everything good and useful from Israel, in

order to protect him from the negative influences of the Egyptian palace where he would have to go when

he was twelve years old. But it is also said that Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithiah, whose name means ‘Daughter

of God’, was an initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries and a devotee of God. She would bequeath to Moses

everything that was good and useful from Egypt.

Thus was Moses, the intermediary Soul, who was of both Egypt (Earth) and Israel (Heaven), brought

into life, protected, raised, and prepared for his task of redemption (conscious evolution), by a triad of

Sacred Feminine power. Without the wisdom of his sister Miriam, the child would never have been born at

all. Without the love of his mother, Jochebed, he would never have survived. And but for the piety of his

step-mother, Bithiah, he would never have fulfilled his destiny.

Jochebed, like Socrates, was a midwife: she brought forth the sons and daughters of Israel, which

really means that she helped bring new spiritual attributes of the mind and heart into birth. Pharaoh, ‘the

ruler of Egypt’ (the Ego that rules the material consciousness), realized that too many spiritual ideas would

eventually shatter his hypnotic power, and the soul (represented by the children of Israel, whom God calls

His ‘first-born’) would break free of his dominion and ascend to a higher level of Being. His pride could not

permit this. Within an individual, the decree of Pharaoh means that the material consciousness is

determined to throw any threatening or challenging ideas into the Nile, into death, into oblivion, so that the

rest shall remain asleep, unaware, and enslaved within Eikasia, the level of illusion.

However, out of the oblivion of the Nile (that is, out of Low ‘Do’), God decreed that ‘One’ was to be placed

in a Vessel, saved, and nurtured by the Sacred Feminine. Just as the goddess Demeter had heard the

cries of the Soul (her child, Persephone) echoing from Hades, so now does Princess Bithiah hear the cries

of the infant Moses, her step-son, coming from the Nile. She reaches out her hand, takes him into ‘Re’,

and the initiatory ascent begins.

The Hebrew word for Egypt, ‘Mitzraim’, means narrow, difficult straits. In Scriptural language, to be ‘in

Egypt’ indicates an inner state of limitation, bondage, and affliction. Thus, the children of Israel

(representing you and I) are in ‘Re’, the dark depths of consciousness where shadows are mistaken for

reality, where the soul is hypnotized by images and enslaved by illusions. The first task of the initiate is to

break the ‘spell’ (biblical Egypt was all about magic) and begin to see that what we take to be Reality is

merely composed of ephemeral shadows of puppets on a cave wall.

Tremendous efforts are required to generate enough force to escape this realm of illusion. In Exodus,

these efforts can be seen in the long and difficult labors of Moses, as he prepares himself and the children

of Israel for the departure from Egypt. Moses individually completes an entire journey of Initiation,

providing an example for his people, profoundly shaking their souls and awakening their spirits, and

personally generating the immense force required to break the bonds of the Egyptian spell. Interestingly,

his personal journey comprises a separate inner octave which takes place here, completely within and part

of the general note ‘Re’ of the larger journey of the entire Israelite nation.

Low ‘Do’

We have already seen that out of the oblivion of the Nile River, low ‘Do’ of this inner octave, God

chooses Moses as the ‘One’ to be drawn out of nothingness by the Shechinah so that the journey may

begin.

‘Re’ - The Teachings of Jethro

After moving into the palace as Princess Bithiah’s son, Moses was raised with all the trappings of

Egyptian royalty and power. He learned everything, he was given everything, and he thoroughly

experienced and enjoyed everything, that this Egyptian level of Being had to offer. Legends say that

Bithiah even convinced Pharaoh to make Moses first in line for succession to the throne.

But this, of course, was not to be his destiny, and everything changed one day when Moses “went out

to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors.”

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew,

one of his kinsmen. He turned this way and that and, seeing no

one about,

he struck down the Egyptian

and hid him in the sand.(Exod.2.12)

On this day, Moses looked within himself and saw the reality of Egypt beating down Israel, which really

means that he ‘saw’ his own inverted soul: his lower material nature, represented by the Egyptian, was

wrongly in charge, and his higher emotional nature, represented by the Israelite, was completely under its

dominion. Moses, representing the Mind which had been passive until this moment, now began to awaken.

No longer passive, having left the soporific ‘palace’ behind, he actively struck down his lower nature and

placed it ‘below’, where it belongs, under the sand. His journey of ascension had begun.

The obligatory reaction immediately followed. The next day he went out again, and because one

controlling lower force had been destroyed, he found some Israelites fighting amongst themselves.

Unconscious forces within him were now at war with each other, for he had eliminated one taskmaster but

did not yet have the inner development or the inner control to know how to replace it. These Israelites were

not impressed with Moses at all, and when he asked them, “Why do you strike your fellow?” one of them

replied, “Who made you the chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

So the story of what Moses had done was not a secret, and Pharaoh, the absolute ruler of the

material consciousness, soon heard of the matter and ordered Moses killed. A threat to our ego’s power

will always be met with a demand for the destruction of the rebel. Moses was not yet prepared, he was not

yet strong enough, to confront the awesome power of his inner Pharaoh, so like Jacob before him he fled

the scene to fight another day.

And also like Jacob before him, he went to the same place. He went to the well, the source of spiritual

wisdom. This time, the well was in the land of Midian, a name which has to do with ‘striving’ and

‘governance’, for this was where Moses would make the required efforts to prepare himself for battle with

Pharaoh, and to become the true ruler of the ‘children of Israel’: i.e., his own Soul.

The next part of the story is familiar:

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters.

They came to draw water, and filled the troughs

o water their father’s flock;

but shepherds came and drove them off.

Moses rose to their defense,

and he watered their flock. (Exod.2.16-17)

Soon Moses found himself staying in the home of the priest, whose name was Jethro, and some time

thereafter Moses married one of Jethro’s daughters, Zipporah, and they had two sons.

The Bible then tells us that Moses became a shepherd of Jethro’s flocks, but it does not tell us very

much else about what happened in Midian, except that Moses remained there “a long time”. But from the

Oral tradition we learn that Jethro was Moses’ spiritual teacher, and he remained and studied with him for

forty years.

Jethro, whose name means ‘overflowing with excellence’, had once been one of Pharaoh’s top

advisors. He had also served as a priest for the local inhabitants of Midian, but he had realized the

emptiness of worshipping little statues and had abandoned his sorcery and his idols. He was now a

devoted servant of the One God.

Jethro’s teachings were far from easy. In the beginning of his apprenticeship the legends tell us

allegorically that Moses was thrown into a pit. Only seven years later, when Jethro returned to the pit and

found that he had survived (Zipporah had been sneaking him food, for the Feminine always protected

him), was he accepted as a full-fledged student. Thus Jethro put Moses through extreme hardships to

strengthen him and test his mettle, in order to see whether he was worthy. When he passed these trials

and emerged from the pit (a Baptismal symbol of ‘Re’), Jethro gave Zipporah to be his wife and accepted

Moses into the family (which really means that he accepted him into his spiritual school).

Jethro then made him a shepherd of the flocks. Like Jacob before him and David after him, his role as

a shepherd symbolizes the training ground for the great work ahead. God saw to it that each of these men

was first tried as a shepherd of flocks, and only when they had proved themselves did they become

shepherds of people. In preparation for his coming mission, Moses spent many years roaming the desert

with his flocks, learning everything about the land, and treating his panicky wards with the kindness and

patience of Abraham, as well as the strictness and discipline of Isaac. During his forty years with Jethro not

a single sheep was lost, and the herds multiplied greatly. All of this means that Moses made strenuous

efforts in the school of Jethro, and he learned his lessons well. All three parts of his soul were harmonized.

‘Mi’ – The Burning Bush

After forty years had passed, the Pharaoh who wanted Moses murdered had died. “The Israelites

were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God.”

So the efforts of Moses had already altered the psychological landscape: the old Pharaoh had been

replaced, and the children of Israel were beginning to awaken, to remember, to have a wish. God had

been silent for all these years because the Israelites did not ask for anything. It was necessary to God’s

plan that the realm of ‘Re’ be fully experienced, but at last a limit to their suffering had been reached and

the soul enslaved in the body began to cry out for help. “God heard their moaning, and God remembered

His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

At just this time, it is said that a lamb ran away from the flock under the care of Moses. Moses chased

after it, and it stopped by a stream and began to drink. Moses had thought the kid ran away to be

mischievous, but now he realized that the little animal was thirsty, it was acting this way because it was in

need. He let it drink, and then carried it back to the flock in his arms. God was watching, and He noted to

Himself, ‘He is merciful in tending the sheep, the flocks of Jethro. He will be merciful in tending My flock, the

children of Israel.’

It was time. Moses was driving the flock into the wilderness and they came to Mt. Horeb, the mountain

of God, which is also called Mt. Sinai.

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush.

He gazed, and there was a bush all

aflame,

yet the bush was not consumed. (Exod.3.2)

God called to him from the bush, crying “Moses! Moses!”, and he responded, “Hineni.” God then told

him that his destiny was to free the soul, the children of Israel, from the dominion of Pharaoh, the ego, and

to lead them back to God, the Promised Land.

But the whole direction and force of Creation is away from God, toward hell, illusion, and nothingness.

(We

will see this pressure often, when the children of Israel complain, rebel, and start to drift back to

Egypt.)

The enormous inner strength required to fight this flow is connected with the sacrament of

Confirmation –

a ‘firming’ and strengthening, creating a power and stamina of the mind that is beyond the

capacity of the

physical body alone. This requires a baptism with fire, which is why Moses’ apprenticeship

ends with his

experience of the Burning Bush when the angel of God descends to Earth in flames and

anoints him,

burning away any remaining ignorance of his mind, strengthening his resolve, and clearing his

vision. In

‘Re’, the Body was purified and prepared. Now, in ‘Mi’, the Mind is being purified and prepared.

God began by telling Moses that He had marked well the suffering of His people in Egypt, and had come

down to rescue them and bring them to a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey. “Come, therefore,

I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt.”

Moses did not jump at this opportunity. He began raising a series of five objections to the assignment,

for his mind was not yet fully confirmed. But the fire continued to burn, and step-by-step Moses would be

made ready. “Who am I”, he asked, “that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?”

Indeed, God suggested, by yourself you are not enough. But “I will be with you.” Then Moses raised a

second objection: When I tell the Israelites that You have sent me, “and they will ask me ‘What is His

name?’, what shall I say to them?” God responded, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”, usually translated “I Am That I

Am”. This name recalls all the significance in the portrayal of divine, perfect, changeless, objective Reality

that Parmenides described when he said, “What is, is”. God is telling Moses, ‘I am That which is – I am

perfect, divine, everlasting Being’. He then continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me

to you’”.

This shall be My name forever,

This My appellation for all eternity. (Exod.13.15)

God then tells Moses to go to the elders of Israel (higher parts of the soul) and tell them all that has

transpired: “They will listen to you”. Then Moses and the elders are all to go to Pharaoh and demand that

he allow the Israelites “to go a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God.”

But God knows Pharaoh will not listen, until he is convinced by God’s awesome power. “So I will stretch out

My hand and smite Egypt with various wonders which I will work upon them; after that he shall let you go.”

And when they leave, the children of Israel shall ‘borrow’ gold and silver and clothing from the Egyptians –

and thus bring everything of value from ‘Re’ with them.

But Moses continued to object. “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me, but say: The

Lord did not appear to you?” God responded that if they did not pay heed to his words, Moses must

convince them with miraculous powers. He then granted Moses the ability to perform three such miracles in

His name: turning his staff into a serpent, instantly creating and instantly healing leprosy, and turning water

from the Nile into blood.

Moses’ mind then raised a fourth objection: “Please, Lord, I have never been a man of words, either

in past times or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” But

the Lord assured him that He would tell him what to say. And then Moses offered his final plea: “Please, O

Lord, make someone else your agent.” But no one else can do this work for us.

However, God does have help for Moses in this task. “There is your brother Aaron the Levite. He, I

know, speaks readily. Even now he is setting out to meet you, and he will be happy to see you.” In

conclusion, God says that He will tell Moses what to say, and Moses will then tell Aaron what to say, “and

he shall speak for you to the people.”

It is said that Moses ‘does not speak well’. This is reminiscent of the earlier observation in Genesis

that Leah had ‘weak eyes’. Leah’s weak eyes meant that she did not see well into the external world, for

she was always looking inward toward divinity. Similarly, Moses does not speak well to other people

because all of his attention is drawn inward and upward: Moses represents that high place within our soul

that speaks only to God. His brother Aaron is the corresponding part of our soul that takes this information

and brings it down a notch: Aaron puts God’s words into a language that the ego can understand*. The

two ‘brothers’ are really one. The coming of Aaron will help to complete Moses’ preparation, for it means

that Moses will fuse with Aaron and become whole, much as Jacob absorbed Esau on his journey.

The confirmation was over and Moses’ apprenticeship had come to an end. Moses went back to

Jethro and asked permission to return to Egypt. Jethro replied, “Go in peace”, and Moses set forth for his

confrontation with the ego.

The Lower Threshold

The journey of Moses from Midian to the ego represents a crossing of the Threshold. (Although

Egypt and the Pharaoh represent lower levels, Moses is crossing into a higher level of himself, in which he

will now confront and ‘conquer’ the ego from which he had fled forty years earlier.)

So Moses took his wife and sons, mounted them on an ass, and went back to the land of Egypt;

and Moses took the rod of God with him. (Exod.4.20)

In ‘Re’, the first step of Initiation was to balance the tripartite soul in just the manner that Socrates

described. Thus, the mind of Moses arose from its passivity and he slew the Egyptian (thus taming his

material consciousness). He then spent a long apprenticeship with his Teacher learning how to fully bring

the elements of his soul into order. But the true ruler of the soul, Nous, was not yet awake, so the power

over the soul remained with Pharaoh, the ego, the usurper.

In ‘Mi’, the second step of Initiation, his Mind was cleared of fears and foolish opinions (opening the

way for Nous to awaken in ‘Fa’). Moses declared ‘Hineni’, and the task was accomplished by means of God’

s instructions at the Burning Bush – while the ‘fire’ burned away the remaining dross of his mind. God then

told him that his task was to ‘return to Egypt’ and replace ‘Pharaoh’ (the ego) as the true ruler of the

children of Israel, i.e., the true ruler of the soul.

Having completed his earthly preparation, Moses was ready to cross the Threshold from ‘Mi’ to the

heavenly level of ‘Fa’, and take on his task.

But the Threshold is a dangerous place to be. The Initiate must gird for battle, for the Ego will not

surrender its power easily. The passage through the Threshold will be a severe test, and Moses is about

to receive the shock of his life.

At a night encampment on the way,

the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him.

So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying,

“You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!”

And when He let him alone, she added,

“A bridegroom of blood

because of the circumcision.”(Exod.4.24-26)

A commentary in the Talmud suggests that it was not God Himself who tried to kill Moses in this

startling story, but two Angels of Punishment and Destruction: Af (Anger) and Hemah (Wrath), who came

disguised as snakes. They took Moses and swallowed his whole body down to his feet, and only gave him

up after Zipporah circumcised her son and touched Moses’ feet with the blood.

Here is the customary interpretation: Moses had circumcised one of his sons, but not the other. This

was because he was honoring an agreement he had made with his uncircumcised father-in-law: Moses

had consented to circumcise one child as an Israelite, but the other would remain an uncircumcised

Egyptian. But now Moses had passed beyond the level of Jethro, and this ‘agreement’ was not acceptable

to the Lord. So before Moses can move onward, he must fulfill his part of the bargain. Otherwise, he has

broken the covenant with God and will die. Zipporah, for whose sake the child had not yet been

circumcised, performed the rite herself lest Moses be destroyed.

Others say that God belatedly wished to punish Moses for the sin of killing the Egyptian, or that God

was angry because Moses was dilly-dallying at an Inn rather than rushing to do God’s Will in Egypt, or that

God was still resentful at all the objections Moses had raised while being informed of his task at the

Burning Bush and was punishing him for his stubbornness.

But none of these moralistic interpretations have a satisfactory ring to them when compared to the

extraordinary bloodiness and eeriness of the story. There has to be more.

When Moses completed his long apprenticeship with Jethro and was confirmed by God’s fire at the

Burning Bush, he was in a high state of perfection and grace. A ‘reaction’ was therefore obligatory, and it

immediately came.

This severe reaction, God’s attempt to kill Moses, means that something in Moses, something in the

Initiate, would have to ‘die’. The Talmud adds that there were snakes involved. And we have seen that

snakes, or serpents, symbolize many things, including ‘rebirth’. Because of its ability to shed its skin, the

serpent is a symbol of rebirth and resurrection: it dives into the earth, eating dust, and signifying death,

but it can also rise to the heavens as a phallic symbol, an emblem of life, potency and enlightenment.

Here, two vicious serpents try to ‘swallow’ Moses, trying thereby to bring him back down to the level of ‘Mi’,

the realm of earth and mortality, preventing him from crossing the Threshold and escaping to the heavenly

level of ‘Fa’.

Crossing the Threshold requires a profound inner change – a death and a rebirth. For example, we

have seen that before traversing this Threshold, the Greek god Bacchus, representing the soul, was killed

by the Titans and then reborn when Zeus retrieved and nurtured his heart. Rebirth is always through the

heart, and always requires the grace of God. Now, before Moses can cross over into ‘Fa’, he too will have

to die and be reborn. So God comes to kill him! The ‘uncircumcised son’ is the Egyptian (earthly) aspect of

Moses. It is Zipporah, the inner Feminine aspect, the Heart, who must act as intermediary, who must

reconcile the lower level of the ‘Egyptian’ with the higher level of the ‘Israelite’ (Moses), thus sealing the

three parts of the soul into a newly reborn being.

According to Judaic tradition, when a boy is first born he is a child of Adam. Only after circumcision

does he become a child of Abraham, and thus a participant in God’s covenant. In other words,

circumcision symbolizes a death and a rebirth – a child of Adam dies and is reborn as an Israelite. The

death of the child of Adam is symbolized by the drops of blood – for blood is Life, and the loss of blood is

Death. Like a serpent shedding its skin, the foreskin is cut away and there is rebirth as a child of Abraham.

In our story, Zipporah circumcises the Egyptian part of Moses so that he can die and be reborn as an

Israelite, symbolizing the inner ascension from an earthly state of consciousness to a heavenly state of

consciousness. Zipporah then touches Moses’ feet (a symbol of going forth) with the bloody foreskin, and

he is ‘reborn’ by being disgorged by the serpents.

All of this occurs in the mysterious divide between Earth and the first level of Heaven, and it involves

blood, serpents, and love. Later, in Deuteronomy, God will speak of the ‘circumcision of the heart’, and we

will see that this symbolism of rebirth refers on a deeper level to the cutting away of the stubborn emotional

shell that covers the divine spirit within us and separates us from God. This is the higher meaning of the

covenant. And it can be found in a careful reading of the passage from Genesis. There are actually two

distinct statements. First, it simply says that every male shall be circumcised, and we know that the word

‘circumcise’ means more than just the literal cutting away of the foreskin of the male genitalia – it also

refers to the opening of the heart. The text then says, in a separate statement, that the circumcision of the

flesh shall be a sign of this covenant. But the covenant itself is more than the ‘sign’.

It is said in the Kabbalah that circumcision is the way to Heaven, which signifies that spiritual death

and rebirth is the way to Heaven. Before leaving Zipporah, we should acknowledge the problem of this

Biblical symbolism: literal physical circumcision only relates to males. One explanation for this is that

females offer a similar blood sacrifice every month, without any need for an act such as circumcision,*

giving them a natural and exquisite comprehension of these things which men can only seek to obtain

through the performance of imitative rituals. A further explanation is that all the scriptural lessons for ‘men’

and all the scriptural lessons for ‘women’ are really directed at the male and female aspects that exist

inside each one of us regardless of gender. Moses and Zipporah represent two poles of the soul within

each of us, and their story takes place within the psyche of both men and women. During the process of

spiritual rebirth, this inner act of sacrifice and the shedding of blood must always be played out.

The symbolism of this story is magnificent in its symmetry. Consider the implications! Upon reaching ‘Mi’,

Moses (the Mind, and therefore a new ‘Adam’) had returned to the level of Being of the Garden of Eden.

Now, again, a Serpent (the Body) tries to draw him down, which would once again invert the soul. This

time, however, his wife Zipporah (the Heart, a new ‘Eve’) realizes the appropriate internal relationship, and

acknowledges that the Mind, not the Body, is the Heart’s true “bridegroom”. Thus it is that on the return

journey to Divinity, Eve (as Zipporah) is the reconciling power that saves the soul from a ‘Fall’!

‘Fa’ – Aaron

As soon as the serpents departed, “The Lord said to Aaron, ‘Go to meet Moses in the wilderness.’ He

went and met him at the mountain of God and he kissed him.” After so many decades apart, there was

great joy in this reunion. Aaron rejoiced that his younger brother had been chosen as the redeemer of

Israel, and Moses rejoiced that Aaron had been divinely appointed as the high priest of Israel. Throughout

the stories we have seen so far, since Cain slew Abel there has been little harmony between brothers.

Now, at last, two brothers unite in love. The union of Moses and Aaron will enable them to lead Israel out of

Egypt.

On the creative descent into materiality, human souls in ‘Fa’ are sent down through the Threshold

into earthly life. When Demeter re-ascended to ‘Fa’, she gathered the people back together and drew

them into herself, raising them once again to the heavenly level. The symbolism meant that the initiate’s

soul, having been scattered into all the diverse and dissimilar beliefs, opinions, appetites and desires of

Pistis, was now drawn back up through the Threshold and refocused in Noesis into one joint aim: the

building of a sacred Temple. In just the same way, Moses now draws Aaron (the Priest), and then the

‘elders of Israel’, through the Threshold into ‘Fa’, the level of Heaven.

Here beyond the limitations of hypnotic imagination (Eikasia), physical sensation (Pistis), and even

Reason (Dianoia), Divine Reality is revealed to an awakened Nous, the Eye of the Soul. Accordingly,

Moses is now able to begin the initiation of his brother:

Moses told Aaron about all the things that the Lord had committed to him and all the signs about which he

had instructed him. (Exod.4.28

)

From this point onward in the story, Moses and Aaron are really one being, and all that Moses does

includes Aaron. ‘

Fa’ symbolizes the union of the divine realm with the material realm, the ‘Sacred

Marriage’, the kiss of

Heaven and Earth. Some say that Psalm 85 refers to the brothers when it says:

Faithfulness and truth meet; justice and well-being kiss.

Truth springs up from the earth;

justice looks down from heaven.

Together, Moses and Aaron then draw up other higher aspects of the soul, the ‘elders of Israel’, and

Aaron (the ‘voice’ of Moses), initiates them in turn:

Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites. Aaron repeated all the words

that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and he performed the signs in the sight of the people,

and the people were convinced.

When they heard that the Lord had taken note of the Israelites and that

He had seen their plight,

they bowed low in homage. (Exod.4.29-31)

‘Sol’ – The Shechinah

The next level is the realm of the Shechinah, the Sun, the Sacred Feminine, the nourishing Mother of

Creation. On the descending octave of Creation, this is the level of generation, abundance, and multiplicity

– the pouring forth of Love. ‘Sol’ is where the Greek myths gave birth to the many Titans, and Genesis

gave birth to the many sons and daughters of Jacob, all of them representing the fruitfulness of spiritual

qualities coming to birth in the realm of Becoming. Now, on the ascent back to God, all this multiplicity –

which has been enriched by the experience of life – must be drawn back in and purified.

To summarize:

• During the apprenticeship with Jethro in ‘Re’, the actions of the Body were brought under control by

an appropriately active Mind, and the three elements of the soul were balanced.

• In ‘Mi’, the thoughts of the Mind were refined in the fire of the Burning Bush.

• The soul then crossed the Lower Threshold and ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ were united in ‘Fa’.

Now, in ‘Sol’, the emotions of the Heart will be gathered together and purified.

When Demeter reached ‘Sol’ in her initiatory journey, great suffering resulted when she withdrew all

nourishment back within herself and symbolically caused a ‘famine’. Here, as Moses and Aaron reach ‘Sol’,

the Hebrew slaves will suffer in a similar way.

Following the initiation of Aaron and the elders, the brothers went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the

Lord, the God of Israel: Let my people go that they may celebrate a festival for Me in the wilderness.” But

Pharaoh was not impressed, for the ego does not know or care about God. “Who is the Lord”, he

insolently demanded, “that I should heed Him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel

go.” They responded that of course he does not know God, but the Lord had manifested Himself to them,

so would Pharaoh please allow the Israelites to go a three days’ journey into the wilderness where they

could sacrifice to their Lord. But Pharaoh merely got angry, and he bellowed to Moses and Aaron, “Get

back to your labors!”

He then dismissed them, and was driven by anger to go even further. He ordered his taskmasters,

who until this time had been supplying the slaves with the straw they needed to make bricks, to cease

providing the straw. They were to tell the Hebrews, “You must go and get the straw yourselves wherever

you can find it; but there shall be no decrease whatever in your work.” The slaves then scattered

throughout the land, gathering stubble for straw, but they could never collect enough. According to

legends, the Egyptian people would beat the Israelites if they found them picking bits of straw on their land,

and Pharaoh’s taskmasters would bury slaves and their children alive within the buildings to replace any

deficiency of bricks.

Bricks were needed to build the massive cities of Pharaoh, the great symbols of egotism, the material

glorification of human vanity. Fittingly, bricks are made of slime and mud. Straw is needed to bind the mud,

to hold the bricks together so they do not crack while being hardened in the heat of the sun. Without straw,

there is no stability. Speaking symbolically, we can say that the straw nourished the foundational bricks of

Pharaoh’s kingdom, holding his world together, giving ‘Egypt’ its strength, resiliency, and durability. Now

Moses and Aaron have caused Pharaoh to withdraw all of this, and he has ironically rendered his own

realm unstable.

The slaves complained bitterly to Moses that the brothers had merely increased their suffering. But

like the famine in Eleusis, the withdrawal of the straw symbolizes the ingathering of negative emotions that

had been dispersed into the very structure of ‘Egypt’. All of this must be drawn back in and confessed, and

the initiate must bear the pain of self-awareness and remorse, and make any necessary reparations. After

this, and only then, sins can be forgiven (by oneself), and a new and better relationship with God becomes

possible.

God tells Moses to reassure His suffering people, “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and

through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God.” But they

could not believe what Moses said, for their spirits had been “crushed by cruel bondage”. God then

commanded Moses to “tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites depart from his land.” But Moses

objected and said, “The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of

impeded speech!”

All these fears and uncertainties have got to be taken care of immediately, for beyond ‘Sol’ is the

Upper Threshold, and when that door opens, and the Divine Light of Being comes streaming through, the

initiate has to be fully prepared. So Moses must now call upon all his inner strength, all his knowledge, all

his wisdom.

First of all, there is Aaron. The reason the Israelites ‘would not listen’ to him, and part of why Pharaoh

‘would not heed’ him, is that he had apparently forgotten Aaron and must now remember him. It is the

Aaron part of Moses that can communicate with the Israelites and Pharaoh. For this reason, the next

sentence includes the plural:

[T]he Lord spoke to both Moses and Aaron in regard to the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt,

instructing them to deliver the Israelites from the land of Egypt. (Exod.6.13)

He has many other inner resources as well. The level of ‘Sol’ now concludes with a long recitation of

names from the lineage of Moses. These ancestors represent all the many aspects of the soul which the

Initiate must now remember, learn to utilize, and bring into harmony, thereby achieving real stability and

the necessary force to rise above ‘Sol’ and enter the Upper Threshold.

The Upper Threshold

The Upper Threshold is the site of the Logos, the binding and coalescing power between Divine

Intelligence and Life, the bridge through which the Word of God crosses from the immortal realm of Being

into the mortal realm of Becoming.

The door between worlds is usually shut. Only when all aspects of the soul have been brought into

perfect harmony and the initiate has been thoroughly prepared, can the Threshold be safely opened.

Moses has reached this place of inner development, and all the waiting (for God to act in the world and

free the slaves) is finally over. The door opens, the Spirit of God enters into Moses, and He says, “I place

you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. You shall repeat all that I

command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from this land.”

Pharaoh and the Egyptians will not cooperate at first, God foretells, but they will soon be convinced to free

the slaves because of all the wonders the Logos will perform. In the end, He says, they will actually drive

the slaves away.

In fact, Pharaoh will bring this on himself. God assures Moses that Pharaoh will demand to be shown

a ‘miracle’, for the ego always demands ‘proof’ in the most literal sense:

When Pharaoh speaks to you and says,

‘Produce your marvel,’

you shall say to Aaron

‘Take your rod and cast it down before Pharaoh.’

It shall turn into a serpent. (Exod.7.9)

This happened exactly as described. Pharaoh then called for his magicians, and they in turn threw

down their own rods, and these also turned into serpents! “But Aaron’s rod swallowed their rods.”

The inner force that will enable the Initiate to break through the Threshold into ‘La’ is generated by the

transformation of negative emotions into positive emotions. Before Pharaoh’s very eyes, negative forces of

Egypt have been ‘swallowed’ and transformed into the sacred. But despite all this evidence of God’s

superior power, his counselors convince him that it is just a trick and he still refuses to let the Israelites go,

just as God predicted.

This entire story, we recall, is taking place within us. All these people confronting each other in

Pharaoh’s

palace represent different psychological aspects at war within oneself. When Moses speaks to

Pharaoh, it

is you and I speaking to ourselves. When Pharaoh arrogantly demands literal, mundane, proof,

it is you

and I demanding this proof. When Pharaoh’s courtiers smugly belittle the sacred and the

miraculous,

calling it nothing more than second-rate magic, it is you and I who are belittling the sacred and

the

miraculous.

The real psychological battle that must always be fought here in the Upper Threshold is between faith

in God and Divine Wisdom and faith in the material world and human reason, and once again it is the

comprehensive symbol of the Serpent that encompasses both extremes. Of course, it is difficult to

distinguish a ‘good’ serpent from a ‘bad’ one. To the untrained (i.e., uninitiated) eye, they appear identical.

But then Aaron’s serpent, the instrument of true Divinity, ‘swallows’ the Egyptians’ serpents, the

instruments of mere magic.

So Pharaoh has been shown the ‘miracle’ that he demanded. The die has been cast. Now, like all of

us who come to a threshold point in our lives, Pharaoh must choose.

He hesitates…

The rod of Aaron appears the more powerful…

Perhaps he should humbly give way and surrender to the Will of God…

But then a familiar voice assures him that it is all just nonsense. And Pharaoh, our ego, succumbs to

the

temptations of worldly power and vanity, and he ‘hardens his heart’.

He then refused to let the Israelites go, and he dismissed Moses and Aaron, just as God had said that

would.

‘La’ – The Plagues

Having converted the negative inner ‘serpent’ into the positive inner ‘serpent’, Moses is now raised

above the realm of Becoming, beyond the finite power of human Reason, and enters ‘La’, the next level of

his initiatory journey.

La’, the mediating Son, is the level of the Teacher, the Priest, the ‘Steward of the Mysteries’. The

initiate is ‘ordained’ and becomes a conduit between God and humanity. This is the Level of Being in which

the Initiate has renounced the allure of the realm of Becoming once and for all, and there can be no more

room for doubts or objections. And like Plato’s cave-dweller who returns to help his companions after

seeing the light of Reality, Moses’ task is to instruct and enlighten the soul.

The story of the Ten Plagues, which are really ten lessons, now follows.

When the plagues are taken literally, as a history of external events, various troubling questions

arise: If God is all-powerful, why did He not simply take the children of Israel out of Egypt in one swift

stroke? Why did He make them endure so many years of pain? Why did He ‘harden’ Pharaoh’s heart,

making it impossible for the poor king to comply even if he had wished to, and thus making sure that more

suffering would ensue? What sort of cruel and immoral God would violently punish people, over and over

again, for a situation which He Himself had deliberately caused?

But when taken internally and symbolically as a teaching device, the meaning of the story is much

clearer. We have seen that it is a necessary part of the divine plan for the soul to fully experience the

depths of hell. After their many years of suffering, the children of Israel, who represent our soul, had been

hypnotized by the material world. They had pretty much forgotten God and most of them were content with

their meaningless lives. Up to this point, all attempts by Moses to arouse them from their passive sleep had

only angered them. Similarly, his dealings with the ego had only made matters worse: Pharaoh was more

enamored of Egyptian magic than ever, and clung ever more tightly to his material realm. This is hardly

surprising. We are stubborn creatures who do not want to change. Moses must teach the Israelites and

Egyptians – our soul and our body – about God, and he must do it in a powerful and shocking way that

awakens every corner of our Being, overcoming all our intellectual sluggishness and emotional inertia.

In the first lesson, Moses meets Pharaoh in the morning by the Nile. Aaron held out his rod over the

Nile, and all the waters of Egypt – rivers, streams, and ponds, and even the drinking water in clay jugs

within the Egyptian houses – all turned into blood.

Pharaoh’s magicians were able to do the same thing with their spells, however, so Pharaoh returned

to his palace and paid no heed. But for seven days his people had to dig to find enough water to survive.

Water is the symbol of spiritual truth, and the Egyptians had long revered the Nile River as a god, the

source of Life. Blood, however, which symbolizes life when it is within the body, becomes a symbol of Death

when it flows like a river. The Egyptians had long since turned away from the spirit and were worshipping

the body, the realm of matter and mortality. The Plague of Blood underscores this: to turn away from

divinity and worship the material world is to worship death. Now they must dig for truth.

The second lesson was the miracle of the frogs, which now emerged from their home in the Nile.

Aaron held the rod over the waters, and frogs came up and covered the land. According to legend, they

swarmed everywhere and infested everything: fields and houses, food supplies and ovens, closets,

drinking water, and even bedchambers, causing noise and misery and revulsion everywhere. Pharaoh’s

magicians only worsened the situation by duplicating the feat and causing even more frogs to come out of

the Nile.

So Pharaoh summoned Moses and begged him to plead with the Lord to remove the frogs, saying he

would let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. Fear had touched him. God then did as Moses asked, and

the next day the frogs died in heaps throughout the land, so that everywhere the earth stank.

To the Egyptians, frogs were a sacred symbol of fertility and abundance. The frog-shaped goddess

Heqt (who would later be transformed in Greece into Hecate) was the protective goddess of birthing and

the goddess of the Moon, with its lunar cycles that oversee the menstrual cycle and fertility. Killing a frog

was a sacrilege in Egypt. For the Egyptians to see swarms of frogs wreaking havoc on their crops and

infesting their homes, and then to be forced to gather them up in heaps of dead, stinking, carcasses, was

a huge blow to their pride and self-assuredness, just as the plague of blood, which turned their life-

sustaining water into death and made it stink, was a devastating blow to their view of the material world as

a safe and secure place. Step by step, the stability of Pharaoh’s realm continues to crumble.

But as soon as the plague was ended and the pressure was off, the ego’s pride and stubbornness

returned as it usually does. Pharaoh broke his agreement and would not relent, and this brought on a third

lesson. Aaron took his rod and struck the dust of the earth, “and vermin came upon man and beast; all the

dust of the earth turned to lice throughout the land of Egypt.”

From the water came the pestilence of frogs which spoiled the earth. Now from the earth comes a

pestilence of parasites which spoils the body. The first two plagues were external to the individual, they

were more abstract. But now our private bodies are being directly affected, and the message is hitting

closer to home.

This was the last plague that was mediated by Aaron alone. All three were lessons for the material

realm, the level to which Aaron speaks: blood, earth, body. This was also the first plague which the

magicians of Egypt could not duplicate. God could make human beings out of dust, but Pharaoh’s servants

could not even make lice. They finally acknowledged their inferiority and warned Pharaoh, “This is the

finger of God!” But the ego, which will steadily become more and more isolated, still does not listen.

Now come the plagues that are mediated by Moses, the lessons for the heart. If you do not let My

people go, God has Moses tell Pharaoh, “I will let loose swarms of insects against you and your courtiers

and your people and your houses.” The next day the swarms came.

In Egypt, the scarab, a kind of beetle, was considered the king of insects. The scarab was sacred to

the sun-god, ‘Ra’. (The scarab pushes a dung ball along the ground, just as Ra pushes the sun across the

sky). Ra could appear in several different forms, including Khepera, the ‘rising sun’. Khepera was depicted

as a god with a human body and the head of a scarab. As the ‘rising sun’ he was a symbol of rebirth and

regeneration. Pharaoh and many other Egyptians wore scarab amulets over their hearts, and the coffins of

their dead were adorned with the same symbol.

But now their beloved god of the sun was tormenting them with relentless hordes of his servile insects.

Pharaoh, in desperation, summoned Moses and told him to go ahead and sacrifice to the Lord, but to stay

within the borders of Egypt: the ego feels forced to make some concessions, but the enslaved soul must

not leave his realm. Moses responded that they had to go a three days’ journey into the wilderness (‘three’

means completion), because the animals they would sacrifice were considered sacred and ‘untouchable’

by the Egyptians, and if the Israelites performed their rites in front of Egyptian eyes they would be killed.

(Symbolically, this means that the Soul – ‘the Israelites’ – is prepared to give up its lower emotions, which is

the real meaning of ‘animal sacrifice’. But the Body – ‘the Egyptians’ – insists that these emotions must

remain ‘untouched’, and is ready to kill anyone who tries to give them up.) Pharaoh conceded further, and

told Moses he could go into the wilderness – but ‘not too far’.

In the first three miracles it was never said that the plagues did not affect the Israelites just as much

as they affected the Egyptians, and this makes sense since these lessons are for both the body and the

soul. This time, however, God had told Moses to warn Pharaoh of the coming plague and then to add:

[O]n that day I will set apart the region of Goshen, where My people dwell, so that no swarms of insects

shall be there, that you may know that I the Lord am in the midst of the land. And I will make a distinction

between My people and your people. (Exod.8.18-19)

This new distinction between peoples symbolizes the beginning of the separation and freeing of the

soul from the body. The ego is losing its grip, but it tries to retain control by at least not letting the Israelites

go ‘too far’. Moses accepted this agreement, but as soon as the swarms were gone Pharaoh hardened his

heart yet again and would not let them go at all.

Moses next tells Pharaoh that if he does not keep his agreement, God will strike their livestock with a

severe pestilence. “But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of

the Egyptians, so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.” Thus the separation continues.

The livestock of Israel represent higher emotions. The livestock of Egypt represent lower emotions. The

lower emotions must die away as the soul emerges from its sleep in matter. But the higher emotions are

necessary for spiritual consciousness. These will survive, and after being purified they will rise out of Egypt

within the soul.

The full series of miracles can be seen as yet another example of the law of the octave: in other

words, the

note ‘La’ is subdivided into its own inner octave, with each inner note containing a Plague. (For

clarity, the

‘notes’ of inner octaves are labeled with lower-case letters. For example, ‘La’ is comprised of an

inner

scale that is labeled ‘do’, ‘re’, ‘mi’, etc.) This inner octave began with the serpents in Pharaoh’s

palace,

representing low ‘do’. Turning the waters of truth into the blood of death occurred in ‘re’, the note

humanity’s ‘fall’ from truth to illusion. The frogs emerged from the waters and came out upon the earth in

‘mi’, the note of the Earth. Below the ‘lower threshold’, these first three miracles all relate to the realm of

the Body. That is why the magicians could easily duplicate them, since it only required ‘magic’ – the

manipulation of existing matter.

Then, in the ‘lower threshold’, a transition between worlds takes place, a transition from Matter to Life,

from Body to Soul. Just as Adam’s body was created out of the dust of the earth and given life, so the lice

are created out of the dust of the earth and given life. But the magicians of Pharaoh’s realm cannot create

anything, so they could not duplicate this miracle.

In the middle range of the scale, between the lower and upper thresholds, the notes relate to the

realm of the Soul. It is in ‘fa’ and ‘sol’ that the soul, whose ‘seat’ is in the heart, begins to separate from the

body. The violent lower emotions, as we have seen, are killed off, and the higher sacred emotions are

harmonized and purified.

Now the story has reached the ‘upper threshold’, another transition between worlds, this one between

Soul and Spirit. Everything must be raised through this threshold, for everything has to be lifted up by

Grace and transformed back into Divinity, or left to the oblivion of death. And so, in a grand symbolic

gesture that illustrates the all-encompassing nature of Logos/Eros/Thanatos, God instructs Moses and

Aaron to reach all the way down into the depths of a ‘furnace’, to each take a handful of ashes, for Aaron

to turn his ashes over to Moses, and finally, in the sight of Pharaoh, for Moses to reach his arms to the sky

and toss these ashes up into the heavens. According to legend, these ashes flew all the way to the throne

of God before falling back to Earth.

The ashes then became “a fine dust all over the land of Egypt”, and when the dust came down and

touched the Egyptians and their animals, it caused a breakout of boils.

Before leaving the threshold and ascending into ‘la’, any remaining residue of negativity has to be

eliminated. Boils are nature’s way of taking hidden impurities of the blood and drawing them out through

the skin so they can be done away with. Symbolically, the blood is the soul, so the Plague of Boils

symbolically cleanses any remaining impurities of the soul.

This time, it was too late for Pharaoh to harden his heart: God did it for him.

Next, in ‘la’ of this octave of miracles, we enter the realm of the Spirit, the notes of Being. Since ‘la’ is

the level of the Teacher, God begins with a lecture for Pharaoh. He has Moses tell Pharaoh:

I could have stretched forth My hand and stricken you and your people with pestilence, and you would

have been effaced from the earth. Nevertheless I have spared you for this purpose: in order to show you

My power, and in order that My fame may resound throughout the world. Yet you continue to exalt yourself

over My people,

and do not let them go!

This time tomorrow I will rain down a very heavy hail, such as has

not been in Egypt from the day it was

founded until now.

(Exod.9.15-18)

Then, interestingly, God gives Pharaoh some helpful advice, signifying an opportunity for repentance

and redemption. “Therefore, order your livestock and everything you have in the open brought under

shelter; every man and beast that is found outside, not having been brought indoors, shall perish when the

hail comes down upon them.” By this time, many, but by no means all, of Pharaoh’s people have been

getting the message. “Those among Pharaoh’s courtiers who feared the Lord’s word brought their slaves

and livestock indoors to safety; but those who paid no regard to the word of the Lord” – that is, those who

would not listen to the teachings at the level of ‘la’ – “left their slaves and livestock in the open.”

Moses held out the rod and the great hail came crashing down from the skies above. It was mixed with

thunder and lightning, so that fire streamed down through the air along with the ice, and people and

beasts were smashed with the one and seared with the other. All the vegetation of Egypt was destroyed.

Everything left in the open, everything that had not heeded God’s warning, was blasted by the storm. Only

in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, the hail did not fall.

Egypt is a desert region. Rain does not often fall from the sky. Instead, Egypt is nourished by the Nile

River – water (truth) that comes up from the earth, not down from heaven. (Later on, shortly before the

children of Israel re-enter the Promised Land, Moses will tell them that the land they are about to enter is

not like the land of Egypt from which they came: the land they are about to enter and possess is a land

that “soaks up water from the rains of heaven”.) Now, however, God’s truth does fall from the heavens

upon Egypt, but because Pharaoh would not listen it is a truth from the side of Severity, a truth which is

hard and cold as ice, and mixed with scorching fire.

Pharaoh now is desperate. He calls for Moses and Aaron and pleads for an end to the hail. He

acknowledges that the Lord had mercifully warned him and his people to get everyone and everything

indoors to safety, but they had not listened and many people and animals had perished: “I stand guilty this

time. The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.” He then tells Moses, “I will let you go;

you need stay no longer.” Moses agrees to put an end to the plague, but he also lets Pharaoh know that

he is not a fool: “I know that you and your courtiers do not yet fear God”. Moses knows that it is God’s Will

that Pharaoh’s heart be hardened yet again, that there is still more which must be learned, and that when

the hail ceases to fall Pharaoh will still not let the Israelites go. And so it was.

Immediately, God sent Moses back to Pharaoh to say, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself

before Me? Let my people go that they may worship Me. For if you refuse to let My people go, tomorrow I

will bring locusts on your territory.”

More Egyptians had begun waking up and the rebellion against the ego was growing. Pharaoh’s own

courtiers now pleaded with him, “Let the men go to worship the Lord their God! Are you not yet aware that

Egypt is lost?” So Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and told them to go and worship their God. But then

he hesitated and asked, “Who are the ones to go?” Moses replied, “We will all go, young and old: we will

go with our sons and daughters, our flocks and herds.”

This is now ‘si’, the level of the ‘Father’ to which everything ultimately returns, the level in which

everything is gathered back into the One. Here, any remaining sin must be confessed and pardoned, and

the ‘Last Rites’ are administered before the soul’s final passage beyond.

In the end, everything must return to divinity. But the ego tries to strike a deal: “No!” says Pharaoh.

“You menfolk go and worship the Lord, since that is what you want.” He insists that the women, children,

and animals, must remain behind. In other words, Pharaoh will finally allow the Mind to separate and

depart, but not the entire Soul. But there can be no compromise, there can only be complete surrender.

The only choice we have is which route to take: whether to reunite with the Absolute by ascending into

conscious union with God, or descending into the emptiness of death. Either way – via High ‘Do’ or Low

‘Do’, the Beginning or the End, awake or asleep – we all return to God.

The next day, an east wind brought the locusts. They covered the land in such a thick mass that the

land could no longer be seen. They filled the palace and the houses and the fields, and they devoured the

trees and the grass and every single remnant which the hail had left, so that Pharaoh’s realm was now

completely barren and dry. Everything was returned to the Father, and nothing green was left in all the

land of Egypt. Every bit of his material realm had descended into nothingness. Still, he would not let the

Israelites go. Still, the stubborn and unyielding ego strove to prevent the soul from worshipping the Lord.

So God said to Moses, “Hold out your arm toward the sky that there may be a darkness upon the land

of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” Moses did so, and the darkness descended for three days.

People could not see one another, and the darkness was so heavy that they could not even stand up. But

“the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings.”

Pharaoh and the Egyptians have received the final lesson of this inner scale within ‘La’. They

experience a ‘si’ in which there is only darkness, a darkness of ignorance and nothingness. Here, Moses

taught them, the eye sees nothing, the mind and the heart are obscured by gloom, the body remains

motionless. There is only emptiness, meaninglessness, the oblivion of death. This is the choice of paths

that our egos obstinately choose.

For Moses and the Israelites, on the other hand, the darkness meant something else. For the Initiate,

a darkness also descends at this time, but Nous, the light of consciousness, still burns within – “the

Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings.” The darkness which the Initiate experiences here is the ‘dark

night of the soul’, the darkness that comes before a new dawn: a deep inner state of perfect stillness,

humble suffering, and profound silence, just before the final enlightenment.

After the three days, Pharaoh summoned Moses and tried to make another deal. “Go, worship the

Lord! Only your flocks and your herds shall be left behind; even your children may go with you.” Moses, of

course, made very clear that the flocks and herds must go with them as well, “not a hoof shall remain

behind.” In fact, he blatantly told Pharaoh, “You yourself must provide us with sacrifices and burnt offerings

to offer up to the Lord our God.” Again, there can be no compromise, only complete surrender.

But God hardened Pharaoh’s heart yet again, and he would not agree to this. His anger exploded

and he screamed, “Be gone from me! Take care not to see me again; for the moment you look upon my

face you shall die” To this Moses replied, “You have spoken rightly. I shall not see your face again!”

‘Si’ – Darkness and Salvation

Moses has completed his Teachings, though Pharaoh still has not learned very much. The initiation is

nearly complete, and he will no longer need to look into the face of the ego or endure its stubbornness.

Before leaving Pharaoh’s palace for the last time, he gives the ruler of the material consciousness one

final message from God:

Thus says the Lord: Toward midnight

I will go forth among the Egyptians,

and every first-born in the land of Egypt shall die,

from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the first-born of the slave girl

who is behind the millstones;

and all the first-born of the cattle. (Exod.11.4-5)

No harm at all, however, would come to the Israelites. Moses then concluded by saying, “Then all

these courtiers of yours shall come down to me and bow low to me, saying, ‘Depart, you and all the people

who follow you!’ After that I will depart.” And with these final words, flushed with anger, Moses left Pharaoh’

s palace, the ego’s realm, forever.

Moses then called the Israelites together and told them to prepare to leave the land. First, they were

to borrow objects of gold and silver from their Egyptian neighbors: God would instill into the Egyptians the

inclination to give the Israelites all that they asked for. So all the vast ‘riches’, which the efforts and

suffering of Israel (the soul) had bestowed upon Egypt (the body), would now be restored to the soul.

Next, Moses directed the Israelites to prepare a sacrificial banquet for the terrifying night to come.

Each household was to sacrifice an unblemished lamb in its first year. They were to take a handful of

purifying hyssop, dip it in the blood of the sacrifice, and brush the blood down the sides and across the top

of their doors. They were then to go inside the home, and no one was to go outside again until morning.

The lamb was to be roasted, whole, in fire. The family was then to eat it quickly, standing on their feet,

staffs in hand, dressed and ready to go. Along with the sacrificial lamb, the family was to eat bitter herbs

and unleavened bread – bread made in haste that had not had time to rise. No food was to be left over:

anything not eaten was to be immediately burned.

In the middle of the night, God came with the Angel of Death and struck down all the first-born of

Egypt, “from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the

dungeon.” But wherever they saw the blood upon the doorposts, the Lord ‘passed over’ and did not allow

the Destroyer to enter the Israelite homes.

Pharaoh and all his courtiers arose in the night to a great cry, for there was not a single house in

Egypt where there was not someone dead. They came to Moses and Aaron in the night (in the dark,

Moses did not have to endure Pharaoh’s face), bowing and begging, and Pharaoh said, “Up, depart from

among my people, you and the Israelites with you! Go, worship the Lord as you said! Take also your flocks

and herds, as you said, and begone!” Pharaoh and his nobles then gave Moses and the Israelites the gifts

of sheep and oxen which had previously been demanded. The soul now has everything – men, women,

children, and flocks, plus all the riches of Egypt.

In the end, the Egyptian people themselves frantically urged them on, desperate to have them leave,

driving them out of their country just as God had said that they would. Legends say they left their own

dead unburied while hastening to help the Israelites load their wagons, to get them out of their midst as

quickly as possible.

The length of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years;

at the end of the

four hundred and thirtieth year,

to the very day, all the ranks of the Lord

departed from the land of Egypt.

(Exod.12.40-41)

As soon as he had completed his task of teaching, Moses had ascended to the next level of Being.

This note, ‘Si’ represents the level of Unity in the ‘Father’. When the Father initially reflected upon Himself,

the Duality (in potentia) of ‘Spirit’ and ‘Matter’ first separated and entered into existence. During the re-

ascent of the Initiate, this level of spiritual attainment is where all of Duality must now come back and re-

unite with the One.

We have also seen that this level is the home of the quality of Mercy. In the beginning, the first level to

generated from the ‘Father’ (in other words, the First-Born) was the ‘Son’, who represents the

balancing

quality of Severity. Now, in the final step of the Initiate’s reverse sequence of ascent, the “first-

born” must

merge back in and re-unite with the ‘Father’: Severity must merge with Mercy.

So both of these qualities now come together within the soul of Moses (the Initiate). The first-born of

‘Egypt’, those primary aspects of material consciousness that refuse to surrender to the Will of God, are

judged by the ‘Destroyer’, God’s Severity, and enter into unity with God by way of death and destruction.

The complementary quality of God’s Mercy is then shown to the first-born of Israel, the primary aspects of

the soul. The children of Israel, though hardly perfect, are spared by the Angel of Death.

This is precisely what we found at the level of ‘Si’ in the Hymn to Demeter: “Happy are they who have seen

these mysteries: but those who are uninitiate and have no part in them will never share in the joy and

blessings of the gods after death, but will go down into darkness and gloom.”

The holy banquet, a ceremony of remembrance, correlates with the Last Rites, the final preparation

of the soul before its ascent back to God. Each family sacrifices a lamb, signifying the purgation of any

remaining residue of sin or negativity. The entire ceremony is then filled with the symbols of unity,

completeness, and the One: one lamb per one family, in its first year, to be roasted whole, nothing to be

left over.

The children of Israel are told to ‘remain inside’, which means that the soul of Moses remains in a

deep

inner state of prayer and meditation throughout this dark night of the soul. In our day-to-day life,

hypnotized by the external world, our attention is dispersed throughout Pharaoh’s realm and the soul stays

fast asleep. But focused ‘within his house’, the soul of Moses is fully awake, attentive, ‘staff in hand’, and

ready.

Morning comes at last, and he emerges reborn.

High ‘Do’

In high ‘Do’, the completion of the octave and the level of Communion with God, Moses tells the

Israelites that in remembrance of the Lord’s Passover, the sacrifice of the lamb and the feast of

unleavened bread shall be repeated at this same time of year throughout all future generations. To this

day, the Jewish people continue to celebrate the Passover Seder, a banquet with unleavened bread and

wine, as well as bitter herbs to recall the pain of slavery, songs and prayers of thanksgiving, and a retelling

of the story of the Exodus from Egypt so that every generation will remember.

Most importantly, the purpose of the Passover commemoration is to keep reminding us that we are all

“the children of Israel enslaved in the land of Egypt”, for our souls remain entombed in matter and

hypnotized by illusion, and if we do not know that we are asleep we will make no efforts to awaken.