Mystery Initiation Schools
By Ron Amos
Copyright © 2001 Ron Amos
There exist philosophical schools of several types. The four most common are Mystical Religion, Mystery Initiation, Ceremonial Magic, and Illuminati.
These schools propagate themselves through mainly two ways. First is discipling, which works somewhat like multi-level marketing. The teacher teaches, and then he teaches to teach; he does this through precept and example. The second means of propagation is via initiation through special teaching and ceremonies, the means of Myth and Rituals that are designed to awaken in the student the intellectual and moral qualities which that school is designed to propagate.
1. Mystical Religion: This type of school has an example available in the world today in the form of Mormonism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This is a two-tiered religion, the first tier being the ordinary church where you go to meetings on a regular basis and learn the basics of the religion via precept and example. The second tier is that of the Temple, where one may go only on condition of being an honest and productive member of the ordinary church. You may approach this second level only upon the recommendation of your local leader, the Bishop. It is in this second level of the religion, The Temple, that one experiences special rituals and ceremonies that use symbolic means to communicate the higher order abstractions to the initiate in such a way that he can learn to utilize these abstractions even if he cannot understand them conceptually. This is such that he can operate on a higher intellectual and spiritual plain without having to undergo the severe lifelong training required to understand this level of abstraction explicitly. Through the initiation ceremonies and rituals he learns to understand these higher order abstractions implicitly.
2. Mystery Initiation: these are the schools of which Free Masonry is the best-known example. These schools teach the Mysteries of Abstract Thought through special initiation by way of degrees. You memorize the degree lessons by listening to the words as they are given to you by the initiator and then by repeating them back until you and he are assured that you have learned them. Once you have learned the verbal message you then qualify for initiation by way of ceremonies that are designed to demonstrate the verbal message you had previously memorized. This is a highly effective means of learning. Once you have learned a particular concept in this way you do not forget it. However because the lessons are given via ritual and memorization, the learning may be only implicit. As you demonstrate a higher degree of explicit knowledge you are gradually elevated into the neophyte position ready to prepare for the next degree of abstraction that is taught within the Order.
3. Ceremonial Magic: This school is known best through The Order of The Golden Dawn and its many offshoots. These schools are designed to teach you the methods necessary to integrate the intellectual understanding of how things work via exercises that focus the attention. These exercises are Ceremonial in Nature and can be very intricate. As one learns to focus the attention one gains power to control the emotional states which are aroused by way of participation in the Ceremonies.
4. Illuminati Schools: Neo-Tech, the work of Neo-Tech Publishing Company and its subsidiaries are the best-known version of the Illuminati Schools. It teaches people how to discover and integrate ever-higher levels of abstraction using business as a metaphor for how things work. As one learns to utilize the business training materials one accelerates one's learning processes, which when combined with the philosophical and religious material in the various Neo-Tech publications, propels one into a new kind of consciousness.
All four kinds of schools are designed to initiate the student into a new way of understanding the Universe within which we live and enable the initiate to live at a higher level of philosophical abstraction, thus increasing the quality of his life. This increase in the quality of life when participated in by enough people will lead into what the Christian Schools call Zion and what the Illuminati Schools call The Civilization of The Universe.
Ron Amos
March 19th, 2001