Voor mensen die de uitzending van onze samenwerking met NPO2 televisie gemist hebben: hier kun je de opname voor het programma Iedereen Verlicht nogmaals bekijken.
For everyone who wants to see our cooperation with the Dutch National Television (NPO2), here is the video. It will be translated to English soon.
In esoteric circles people love to share their knowledge with their peers. Not everyone understands the dynamics of the spiritual principle they are lecturing about. In this way some strange esoteric myths developed over the years. One of these myths is about the necessity of grounding.
It happened years ago, but I remember it vividly; I visited a healer who told me that I was not properly grounded. How he noticed this? I had cold feet and that was because I did not absorb earth-energy properly. That was the cause of my issues. I was flabbergasted and immediately knew that I had been given a complete silly advice.
Do people sometimes tell you that you are not properly grounded? Or did you tell this to someone else? What is being grounded, and what isn’t?
Being grounded means that you are able to translate the fruits of your rich spiritual life into your daily life: into your work, your family, and it reflects the choices that you make.
When you are properly grounded, you ask yourself questions like:
Being properly grounded means that you not only reach for Heaven, but that you are also rooted in the Earth, and you are actively contributing on making Earth a little bit more like heaven.
Magnum OpusWestern Esoterism is not only focused upon Heaven above, but also actively working at the realization of the Heaven inside and the Heaven on Earth.
Spirituality is not an excuse for escapism. It is a system where you can develop yourself esoterically, psychologically and materially, in a way that contributes to making this world a better place. This is called the Magnum Opus, the Great Work. Because you transform yourself by the spiritual process, you transform your life and spiritual forces will materialize through your work. That is grounding!
In LVX
Ina Custers van Bergen
Magical Order Temple of Starlight
Do you want to do the Great Work, and better yourself and the world, than the Solo Magical Training might be something for you.
The famous Paracelsus thought that epilepsy could be cured magically by grinding the horn of a unicorn in a mortar. That is quackery, isn’t it?
For a very long time, important magical books of great scientists gathered dust in the libraries of the World. The magical grimoires from the Middle Ages until the Renaissance lie mostly undiscovered and undervalued in the cellars of our museums. The presumption is that this material is not worthwhile being translated and studied.
The difficulty of these books is that in order to understand them one needs to train different areas of the brain. In our time, the rational side of the brain is trained continuously, the creative part is often neglected. Among the specific skills of the creative brain are all the arts, but also prayer, meditation and ritual. In ancient times these skills were considered to be crucial to understand the reality, to generate healing and receive insight and inspiration about the Divine Nature of the world surrounding us.
These processes were investigated and described by ancient scientists; to understand the books of the Mediaeval Alchemists, Magicians and Astrologers and to benefit from the results of that training, one needs to follow their methods. They searched for the Divine Principle and Pattern of Creation in each and every appearance. Only by following the same methods we will understand the magical connection Paracelsus discovered between epilepsy and a lightning strike, and why he wrote that the cure of this disease was to grind the horn of a unicorn in a mortar.
Everything present in the greater World is not more and not less, also present in the human body. Similar kinds of wood, stone, herbs etc. that are present in the outer world are also present in the human, only not in the same appearance as in the elements…
Whoever is capable of recognizing the appearances in the human body – thus: this is the sapphire in the human, the Mercury, the Cypress, the Flos Cheiri etc – he has studied the book of the human body and seen through it.
Paracelsus
Fortunately the Magical Grimoires are gradually being taken seriously again the last couple of years. But to extract the pearls from the material, it is necessary to push aside the rational mind for a minute, and to train the spiritual side of the brain; to make a shift in consciousness to an ensouled world, and then you will experience that magic is no superstition, but really works!
The nature of reality is not material but spiritual. Matter is crystallized consciousness. The Spiritual Vision on reality learns us: God is comatose in stones, asleep in plants, dreams in animals and is awake in humans.
In LVX
Ina Custers van Bergen
If you are interested in developing these meditation techniques then read more about our Solo Magical Training.
As you know when you follow me on Facebook, I am currently working on a tarot deck.
This is a long term project which will develop gradually. During the process of the making, I will publish images of the cards and audio files with related meditations. If you want to listen to the meditations and follow the creation of the Tarot Deck, follow me at the @Western Mystery School group on Facebook and subscribe to my newsletter.
In LVX
Ina Custers-van Bergen
The temple community consists of trainees and initiates of different degrees.
Initiates serve as models for every member of the group to create awareness of ideal archetypes. The functions – not the people themselves – serve as transpersonal models for development of every member. These projections are part of the initiation process, called the “Illumination of the Interior Stars”, which I describe in my book “The Mystery of the Sea”.
Initiating trainees indiscriminately leads to ego-inflation and chaos because the people who hold the grades need to be able to carry the load of the archetype and must be able to teach by example.
Ina Custers
While the World sleeps I float through the streets at night
Throwing billions of sparks around me
Bejewel the blackened sky
sew them as diamonds on my black mantle.
Thus I create that Mystical Space to give the Inner Self a Universe to fill:
with expectations, ripenings and potential.
For I am the Keeper of the darkened Gateways
of deeper and truer Understanding
As the Mother of Sleep, of Dreams and Death,
I separate Time and create the Immortal Hour
that Magical Space of Mythical Atonement.
(Ina Custers – The Body of Osiris)
How do you experience your life?
As a wasteland, a barren place where nothing can flourish?
A place of constant trauma where you roll every day into the next drama?
Then come with me on a journey; I invite you to visit the Deep.
The Deep… a place that is not a place.
A force that reacts on our behaviour, desires and dreams
The Deep organizes the world around us.
creates events based on blockages, suppressed emotions and fears.
on wishes, dreams and ideals.
A world in which unknown forces cause the nexts events to happen,
A world loaded with … Magic
When you know how that hidden creative force works, you can master its rules.
Then the Deep will illuminate the wasteland around you,
reveal it’s enchanting beauty
and unlock its hidden mysteries.
(Ina Custers – The Enchanted Land)
Flying away from the world I meet twilight’s dream;
The White Lady leads me to the forest fen
Illuminates my face and reflects me in Moonlight.
Where does she come from and where does she lead me?
She is neither human, nor night itself,
woven from ancestral memories and veils of fog.
She floats in misty fields, causes whisperings in nightly stillness:
“Remember me from long ago, I awaken you for lucid dreams
and open the Gates to the Otherworldly Magical Nights.”
(Ina Custers – The Body of Osiris)
I am the Everlight, the Eye of Timeless Space,
Constant and immortal, white and bright.
No shade has force to bind down my might.
I reclaim my Throne, and poor down a golden beam
Create the Shining Stairway seen by Jacob in his dream.
Set foot on that path of light, I open it in your heart,
I cause the frozen to evaporate,
the buried truth and cracked values.
I bring out your inner glow,
Emerge as I ascend!
(Ina Custers – The Body of Osiris)
When the world is still In the darkness,
I lay on my dewy bed
My rosy cheeks glister with early morning dew.
I feel the blood-dimmed tide is loosed
and the ceremony of innocence begins:
The darkness drops and birth blood fills the sky.
I feel It is moving slowly now,
passing the gate in between my thighs.
a chorus of morning leaves sets in
and all nature starts to sing.
I catch It, wrap It carefully in my multicolored robes
Then, with a radiating gaze
It ascends the Golden Stairway
(Ina Custers-van Bergen – The Body of Osiris)
I am the Priest of Harpocrates and the Servant of Silence
I open the Realm of the Sun at Midnight!
I call upon the Blue Lotus of Eternity
as the wordless speaker in the Land of Stars
(Ina Custers-van Bergen – The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony, drawing from the Temple of High Magic)
This morning I had a lucid dream. A very familiar voice was talking to me: it was the voice of the Inner Plane Teacher that I work with most often. He took me to a very special place and started a very serious conversation with me…
You have to understand that the teachings of the Magical Order Temple of Starlight are deeply rooted in the Western Mystery Tradition. They are based on the teachings of the adepts that went the journey before me. They are based on the teachings of the teachers who went before me and the school I was trained in. But ten years ago, yes almost exactly ten years ago now, I was called by Him who is the Contact of the magical tradition; there was important work that needed to be brought through.
The Teachings that he communicated through me come from what we call the ‘Inner Planes’. They come from a Field of Wisdom that one can learn gradually to tap into. These Wisdom Fields exist for all professions. They are the planes where Mozart listened to his new compositions and where Einstein received his relativity theory.
Over the years the Teachings came through like the creation of a series of Art Nouveau paintings. First the visions came, together with auditory teachings in deep meditations. They were followed by studies like sketches in notebooks, translated into rituals and retreats. I often felt I was the canvas being prepared. Like a painting, series of single Teachings developed after a lot of sketches and studies.
Working for many years, testing and dismissing, the final forms started to take shape. The various teachings turned out to be different aspects of one big diamond with many facets that needed to be brought through and understood in their associations, correlations and their multi-layered nature. All the Inner Plane work needed to be tested by me and a group of very devoted and trained Adepts; we have been working on that for many years…
Then last night I received this dream. He called me to follow him to that place on the Inner Planes where the Book of Wisdom is always opened at the right page. We went through the entire teaching model, flipped through the pages of all the stages of development and then He said:
“The time has come to explain more about the work we have been doing, to a wider audience”. I was really flabbergasted; for the last 20 years he has emphasized to keep the teachings of the Magical Order Temple of Starlight Under the Rose. Now He asks me to start lifting tips from the Veil! So that is where I am right now… in my mind and heart I am looking a bit confused in all directions. Feeling strongly that I need to test these unknown waters …
In LVX
Ina Custers van Bergen
In esoteric circles there exist strong cultural blockages … that make spiritual people powerless. To what extend are these ideas helpful? Or are they blocking us? A common idea that I hear very often in spiritual circles is;
You are not allowed to use spiritual energy for yourself or to achieve mundane goals. Spiritual forces are meant to be used pure and unselfishly for the wellbeing of others. Otherwise you abuse your forces and go downhill into black magic …
Continue reading “The taboo on practical magic”There are written reports of magicians who met Inner Plane Contacts ‘in the flesh’. Other magicians dismiss the idea and regard it to be fraud;
‘What Fortune appears to have ruled out completely was the idea of physical secret chiefs? Anything on earth that was special was an initiate and she did not appear to mention any physical secret chiefs meeting her in parks.’ Nick Farrell
Who needs to meet an Inner Plane Contact in the park when there is so much communication and signs following? Who would believe Dion Fortune, Ernest Butler or me, when I would state that the amount of contact can become so dense that the Inner Plane Master becomes almost touchable?
I remember very clearly an intensive conversation going on while I was about to visit the market in Rotterdam, and because He became so real that I got so distracted that I was unable to pay enough attention to the traffic. ‘Now you need to postpone the rest of your teaching until we are home, because otherwise I will get run over.’
“After all these ages of dealing with humanity, I am still not used to your physical time bound environment. I will be back soon” …. and He disappeared immediately to continue his conversation exactly where we stopped it several nights later in a lucid dream.
In LVX
Ina Custers-van Bergen
P.s. When you want to develop your psychism and learn to work with the Inner Plane Contacts then maybe the Solo Magical Training is of interest for you.
Quote from: Nick Farrell, The democratic secret chief: Dion Fortune’s view
The training modules of the Magical Order Temple of Starlight prepare you for initiation. During that training you will develop your psychism. As Dion Fortune and Ernest Butler emphasize; there is ‘wild’ psychism and trained psychism. Ernest Butler states ‘Fantasy is the ass that carries the arch’. The challenge is to find out exactly where fantasy ends and the Inner Plane Contacts start a genuine communication with you.
This is because the training of an initiate starts with bringing up subconscious mind stuff and healing suppressed parts of the Self. But it develops into sometimes very abstract cosmic teaching. People have to learn to tune into that vibe. Discriminating and fine-tuning to the energy is an essential part of the training.
We train through specialized forms of meditation, special training modules and rituals where the connection with the Contacts is trained and where students learn to open themselves as channels.
This always is very tangible in a working temple. The overshadowing becomes visible for everyone who has developed a little bit of psychism. When the Contacts come through, the magical energy becomes very strong and people report similar physical reactions.
Not every magician feels comfortable to work with the Inner Plane Contacts;
‘Israel Regardie said that after his 5=6 initiation he was summoned to hear one of the orders Secret Chiefs provide him with a personal message. He thought it was rubbish pouring from the unconscious minds of the channellers. He also had similar feelings about Crowley’s Books of the Law, which were obtained using a similar approach. That prejudice affected several strains of the Order which reject channelled messages completely.’ Nick Farrell
This is caused by injudicious application of the techniques by partially trained people. This is a really pity, because in this way the baby is thrown away with the bathwater. Although psychism is developed from the subconscious mind, it needs to be filtered, cleaned and healed to become a razor sharp piece of magical technology.
The subconscious mind is the starting point, and of course in the beginning a lot of personal suppressed mind stuff appears in the teachings. But when the initiate applies the maxim ‘Know thyself’ in specially designed meditations, the different parts of his personal mind stuff start to communicate as entities as well, and personal issues start to heal.
Then even deeper areas of the psyche are contacted, the areas where a person communicates on the subconscious level with the living world around him. It is where the personal boundaries are crossed where the communication with external entities begins.
In LVX
Ina Custers-van Bergen
PS. When you want to develop your psychism and learn to work with the Inner Plane Contacts then maybe the Solo Magical Training is of interest for you.
Quote from: Nick Farrell, The democratic secret chief: Dion Fortune’s view
Some schools call them the Secret Chiefs, others call the Masters, in the Western Mystery Tradition we work with the ‘Inner Plane Contacts’. What are they, and why do we work with them?
‘The ideas of secret chiefs evolved under the British mistress of magic Dion Fortune into something which was more elaborate than had been seen even under Theosophy. Fortune regarded masters or contacts as the most important part of magic but rather than keeping them as the preserve of the chiefs of an order, made them a key part of any student’s training.’ Nick Farrell
Today this is still the case. Historically the Magical Order Temple of Starlight developed from Dion Fortune’s lineage. The training – and especially the [Solo Magical Training] – aims at helping the student developing their own Inner Plane Contacts. This is done systematically and throughout the years that development turned out to follow a similar and predictable pattern in students.
‘Her system of three degrees emphasized the importance of contacts. In the first grade, a student would learn the theory of magic and start to develop the psychic skills necessary to start making contact with their astral master. In the second degree they would start on basic practical magic with the aim of making a deeper spiritual contact with the master. They would then make an “unreserved dedication” to that master who would agree to continue their teaching. At the third degree they would be working with the master to assist in its work.’ Nick Farrell
The first phase of the training develops the psychic skills in order to establish a beginning contact. Over the years this contact deepens and more Inner Plane Beings are introduced by the Master to the students. It is fascinating to observe over the years that the messages of a specific Master come in waves and are similar to different people who are able to pick up the message.
Often the teachings are broadcasted multilayered: beginning students are able to pick up threads of the core teachings whilst more advanced initiates get the more detailed and more complex information. On the highest levels the teachings are abstract. They not only come as verbal information. But all the senses are involved, and often it is easier to note down the Inner Plane Communication in a kind of hieroglyphic drawing than as written text, to some people it can even come mathematically; depending on how your brain is wired.
We have noticed at several occasions that the teachings were coming simultaneously to students on different places in the world, which had no contact about that with each other.
This is the stuff that inspires great thinkers. This is the realm where Mozart heard his heavenly music that he wrote down. This is the place where the new inventions are picked up from cosmic wavelengths, new scientific ideas are born into people’s minds and new threads in human development are initiated. This particular part of the occult teaching that was trained throughout history until the Age of Reason came.
Similar to Dion Fortune’s Inner Light, the Hermetic Order of the Temple of Starlight has also developed a hierarchy of different contacts that are consulted for different types of magical work. We work with historical personalities as well as with Gods and angels.
In LVX
Ina Custers-van Bergen
PS. When you want to develop your psychism and learn to work with the Inner Plane Contacts then maybe the Solo Magical Training is of interest for you.
Quotes from: Nick Farrell, The democratic secret chief: Dion Fortune’s view
Within the Western Mystery Tradition priest offices of all levels are accessible to both men and women. Both sexes work together in lodges as equals. They both hold all offices up to the highest level.
And what is even more interesting: there is not only God, but he has the Goddess for a spouse. I am going to tell you more about her in upcoming articles.
In between the many texts of High Priestesses that survived the ages, there are jewels of poetry. This piece is worthwhile to meditate on, it will reveal your relation towards female priesthood:
Queen of all given powers, unveiled clear light
Unfailing woman wearing brilliance
Cherished in heaven and on earth.
Chosen, sanctified in heaven
You grand in your adornments
Crowned with your beloved goodness.
Rightfully you are High Priestess.
In LVX
Ina Custers van Bergen
PS. Do you want to learn more about the Goddess and her Mysteries? The Solo Magical Training takes you through several ancient traditions and you will learn to know her in your life.
[1] Relief-carved calcite disk of Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Kish
In our society women are still not able to hold the same offices as men. In religious societies the backlog is even greater. Women are excluded from priestly functions in many established religions. Was this always the case?
No, this discrimination dates from about 1200 AD!
And that has been scientifically proven. In his book ‘The Hidden Wisdom of Woman’s Ordination’ Gary Macy proofs that the conditions for the performance of religious offices in the Roman Catholic Church was changed gradually between the twelfth and thirteenth century. At the same time the church registers were cleared from every proof that there had ever been woman holders of their religious offices.
Prior to this decision of church politics the practice of the office of priest at all levels of the hierarchy was normal! When you investigate history further back to antiquity, you find the most beautiful literature wherein female priests describe their relation to Gods and Goddesses. Female priests were called Sibyls[1], Pythonesses, Oracles, Abbesses, High Priestesses etc.
One of my favorite High Priestesses from antiquity was the daughter of a king. Her name was Enheduanna. She was High Priestess and wife of the Moongod Nanna in Ur, 2300 BCE.
‘In the rooms of the priestesses
Those royal shrines of cosmic order
We follow the journey of the Moon.
Moonlight strikes over our land
His Light touches every land’.
‘The King of the Heaven
Has built his house in the Shining Land
He erects his seat on the dais’ [2]
In LVX
Ina Custers van Bergen
PS. Do you want to learn more about the Priesthood in the Western Mystery Tradition? The Solo Magical Training prepares you for this journey.
[1] The Sibylle of Cumae and the God Apollo
[2] Betty De Shong Meador: Inanna, Lady of the Largest Heart
