The Ark – Three Lectures – MBM, 1935

The Ark

MBM Lecture I (from series of three)

October 22, 1935)

Ark means an enclosure. Chest.

Noah, tenth in line from Adam.

Universal Flood stories. Also ark stories. Flood of Deucalion (Greek) and his wife Pyrrha. Helped Prometheus, who gave the directions for the building of the ark. Also stories of Flood in America and the British Isles. Among the Druids (something about) the power of the boat drawn out of the waters (by) the power of Hu, the Sun-god. The period of time differs. The purpose visible in the assembly (use) of number (principle of number); and it is one of the ways of testing the content of the old story.

In the Gilgamesh Sage, the reference to six days.

In the Sumerian, preceding the Babylonian Gilgamesh story, and the

Greek and the Hebraic, the ark is described as like a cube.

In the Hindu: Manu and the fish. The fish tells Manu how to build an ark.

The history of a Flood (there is plenty of scientific evidence that there actually was a great flood, or series of floods and tidal waves in the pre-historic period, cir. 15,000-10,000 B.C. GB.) was used to tell an allegory. As a novelist uses an episode he sees. Scripture is a mixture of fact, myths and fancy. The scholar and the mystic must point the way.

There are jewels which are the actual content of the great Scriptures of all races.

The Books of Moses. Probably not written by Moses, but in the spirit of Moses. Some say they were written by the Seventy in Jerusalem. In Ptolemaic times, another idea. Another: that Esdras wrote it during the captivity in Babylonia. Whoever did, impressed it with a rich content.

The whole Book of Genesis is an allegory. The story of Noah’s Ark a particular jewel. The great story of Genesis would mark the pattern of the involution of man in earth — the stages of the soul coming into the earthly evolution. It reveals some of the stages through which we have passed. It shows us the signs of those stages, so that we can recover something of what occurred.

There are three different dials to the allegory: 1) the outer; 2) the hieratical; 3) the Cosmic. There are profound differences in the story told in these three different degrees of uncoding.

Adam is man in earth, broadly speaking; Cain, the earthly and material mind; Abel, the higher self. In the earthly evolution you forget the higher. That is why Abel is killed. You have killed Abel over and over again. Cain is your material life. But what Cain accomplishes is not acceptable to Deity. The God in you cannot accept what you do for the earthly man when you crush the interest in higher things in yourself.

Seth is the continuation of Abel. Noah, a descendant of Seth. Symbolizes certain stages in man at the end of an octave which are ready for continuance. On the factual level, probably there was the rescue of a remnant from the early cataclysms.

Reference to the “Circles of Humanity” in Ouspensky’s book New Model of the Universe. Preparation for a new life. Noah’s Ark suggests that what is saved from the Flood is the “inner circle” of humanity. Means of saving, the School.

Another form of the allegory refers to individual man. The Flood is death to the lower man. He himself can build within himself the Ark and assemble in it specimens of everything valuable in him. These specimens will not perish but will survive the death. An inward process.

Earth, water and heaven: the great stage setting; the major elements. In all the great races, Earth: an element, that is, a factor, relates to substances, matter. From the individual side, earth is your earthly state, physical and material needs; your body. In opposition to earth is heaven — a force or God-force, a reality, condition, dynamic. In direct opposition to earth. Your spirit, for example. The spiritual nature behind the worlds. It is God, the power of???????????.

Water, an intermediary. Has in keeping the plant’s growing. The higher octaves: truths; eternal truths as against local truths. Brings refreshment to the souls, to the eternal life, as the water to the plant and to your body.

Great jamming (?) of the three elements. The conflict between earth and heaven, and the mediator (?) Jesus speaks of the “water from Heaven.” Evil (of) mankind to be wiped out by water, by truth. To be released to a higher state, unsatisfactorily translated as heaven.

Who has told these stories? The “inner circle” of all times has known the fact of the endurance of life – has known the purpose of the human evolution and has sought, through stories, universally told, to intrigue and draw the intelligence of men to the realization that there are other processes beside the growth of a physical body and the adaptation of man to his job and his family and only his works living after him.

This conscious story set into motion by leaders of various great races, to intrigue men to thinking again about themselves.

A process of transformation in the self.

The Ark

MBM Lecture II in series of three

October 29, 1935

How to recognize Wisdom-tradition in the text. (Sorry, don’t have this part, but knowledge of the main branches of the universal language of symbolism is one source of help. GB.)

It is Eve which makes the garment of flesh grow, act. Adam, the souls that come into flesh.

Cain, Abel and Seth, offspring of the physical flesh and desire. Cain, those desires that are related to earth and grow in earth; Abel, those related to higher desires, and do not grow so readily in earth. And the battle between the two. For the time being, the lower man dominates. Abel returns shortly, as Seth, the next stage of the higher man.

All the figures up to Noah are stages. Immediately we hear that Noah is the tenth (in the line from Adam) – we know there is an octave of progression. There are many octaves. This is the first ten. The “father” of Noah a stage between Adam and the Noah stage. He has a son whose name is Rest. Whenever there is a point between one octave and another, like the leading tone in a scale, there is a point of rest for the ear. Rest equals, is name for, Noah.

Progression; that is permanent. The line from Cain is developing all along, and is serving the Noah stock. But in due time it will be pinched off. This is preliminary to the purpose of the Flood.

Noah is given instructions to build an ark. It is to be of gopher wood. Probably sycamore or acacia. These are sacred woods; carry a symbolical value. These woods are known as goodness and truth: the learning which the soul has grown at that time. They are sacred because secret and sacred have the same root. You don’t share what is sacred to you and not understood by others.

Genesis VI. Pitch: to make water-tight. The right word means at-one–ment – -exactly the same word. A separation and a continuation. For making the right relationship between man and Deity. He who does not understand the boundaries of his own being can never at-one with the Larger. Because he has not first understood differences. Mark boundaries, and make relationships on the basis of that.

300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. Cubit, an ancient unit of measurement, based on the axis of the earth, known to ancient peoples. A sacred unit. (Cf. the Pyramid inch. GB) And the proportion is as six to one.

Three stories high. Three-fold mans physical, emotional and mental life; the immediate of body, soul and spirit, the great span, of which the physical emotional and mental are the immediate, or local, span.

“His day shall be 120 years.” Octave of the twelve, or pattern of man’s becoming. These twelve must be made. That is the length of his life during which the wise voice struggles with Cain. After the twelve octaves are completed he will no longer strive with more, for he will have accomplished and be on top of the twelve octaves.

VI, 16: The window. Finished in a cubit; a cubit, the point of perfection. Not unrelated to the other allegorical task of squaring the circle. A square opening; a light hole towards the upper regions.

At the end of a first cycle of ten every soul goes through a testing, and gathers up the powers of goodness and truth — which are an actual substance on other planes — and builds of it a boat. In which the seed of the next octave is Rested (Noah.), for a transitional period. Therefore that ark is a vesture on other planes than the material, in which the seeds of the individual soul life are held, temporarily, in a state of quietude.

There are definite requirements spoken of at these stages.

Three-ness. Six days of labor. Three stories high. And now the light hole upward. Which means that throughout this period of withdrawal a relationship must be maintained, unvaryingly, towards the Cosmic regions, Deity, Divine laws, influences that come from above. An essential factor to making the transition is the enveloping warmth. On higher planes that is the enveloping light.

The door on the side is the relationship possible to outer worlds. In higher stages of the soul’s evolution it is necessary to know that these things must be done.

Flood The Flood is the devastating descent of the truth of eternal verities, of Cosmic Worlds, of eternal things, and laws and living, which descend on a soul when it has reached the number ten stage, destroying all those things which are to be destroyed. So the water from above is the violence, the drastic behavior, of great realization. The story of Paul (on road to Damascus.) His experience was radical. It blinded him for three days. He was withdrawn for several years. Then it, and the plus of all he had digested, was the soul’s transformation – realizations into its stuffs.

And the Flood destroys all that which is not to live.

When the Ark is built, – when its body is built, in which, for a time, the earthly consciousness is indrawn, there goes not only that which Noah symbolizes as the masculine point, the will to walk rightly, but also Noah’s wife. A high stage of Eve. In the early stage Adam is earth and Eve the emotional, desire world. Little by little it shifts. And now, at the Noah stage, it is the mind that is masculine – the determination to live after certain fashions; and Noah’s wife is the desires and states that support that determination.

Three sons and their wives. These are not men. Shem represents will, – offspring of the first determination, called Noah. You know how one determination leads to another. Ham(stands for) action. Japheth; Knowledge, leading to Wisdom; also its female counterpart.

These are the three men, becoming trunks that will be the sources of the Noah stock. The Noah stock is the soul at a certain stage of its evolution. At the Adam stage it starts also with its cooperator, Eve. In a Pattern there is purpose, drive and content. Therefore these figures. At the Noah stage it is all to be clipped off, except certain leading steps. Now we start again with the three main trunks: Shem, Ham, Japheth — three powers that have come to a certain stage of development.

“Of every living thing of flesh two of every sort, male and female; to keep them alive with thee.” Thus did the wise soul at the Noah stage, according to the voice of Wisdom.

Ch. VII tells the story over again. An over-writing. With additional symbolism. Though the numbers disagree the content does not.

Seven of the clean animals. The number seven has to do with the agencies from above that operate on man. But emphasizes the seven-ness of men. Man must cultivate the seven “gifts”. Those “clean animals” are the seven.

Who are animals? Noah is, quite patently, the higher man, the soul, – those things that belong to the noumenal world. But Noah is only one octave. So we understand why the animal nature must be kept. So that it can reproduce and grow further in the next octave. But the power, and the means of reproducing that power into action, that is male and female. Of seven types. Just as it (?) has a two.

Clean animals: groomed and disciplined; that have learned lessons in the physical and emotional; the animal in you which you need to sustain life that has become unpassional but is still animal. There is nothing wrong with it. The thing to do is to clean the animals.

Unclean animals: Why only two? The powers that we have won are disciplined. They don’t spawn, don’t grow wild. We need all the power we can corral of those. Two for for one of the “seven gifts of the gods.” But of those that are unclean, that grow rapidly – anger, cunning, hate – the undisciplined powers of body and emotion.

Cattle: emphasized often in the old Scripture. Cattle are a type of animal nature that is docile to man and yields good to man; hence a symbol of those qualities of your animal nature which you need to support you; which are docile to your mind and which contribute to your welfare.

Fowl: those things of the lower world which begin to rise into mind. Barnyard fowl: those desires or thoughts which are material and close at hand and dig in the dirt; and eat up seeds that could sprout; and do not fly very high or far. Yet, birds all the way up the line to the hawk and eagle of yearning (?) which is essential (?) mind, and lives in the heights of the air as the eagle. All birds symbolize aspirations that are becoming mentalized.

But also creeping things (to be taken into the ark.) Cunning. A reminder (?) still of needs is cunning. It is wonderful when we have gone far enough and can put cunning aside; and instead of cunning have understanding. In the business world. . . . .But slowly the mass rises up to a conception of a time when it is no longer necessary. At the Noah stage these “creeping things” must go into the ark.

The ark is closed. A period of seven days before the waters fall. Pause before the crisis comes. The hush before a storm. The stage of the soul that Noah and all the creatures are within????? And then the flood begins.

Noah is 600 years old when the flood begins. Mystically, yes. The second month and the 17th day.

Forty days and forty nights. No mention of nights with the seven days. A complete cycle of four times ten that spells the waters of truth, of realization of eternal verities, pouring down on the earth, water, fire, air in Noah.

The two and two, wherein is the breath of life. In Genesis: “the breath of life breathed into the man formed of the dust of the ground.” Ground: the foundation, the horizontal, on which the evolving life is built. It does not mean earth. It means a condition, and “dust” or elements of that condition, are used to build up the stuff of body for the souls. Body is built first. From that point of view Darwin in the “Descent of Species” is quite correct. They are built before the man, or the soul, inhabits it. When the bodies are ready Jehovah, or Elohim, breathes into this the breath of life.

And now, here in the ark, is the breath of life. The breath of life is in the ark.

The ark is built of that stuff of your experience which has noumenal, or eternal, value. In that, which is stuff, though invisible to you at the moment, – in that stuff, in the noumenal worlds, is the breath of life. That is Platonic, Pythagorean, Gautama, the Upanishads: the breath of life, which is the real life of all things.

In the beginning the soul is related to the physical flesh, but now the ascent is begun, and man comes up to the ark, or to the state of having built an ark, which every soul must do when it comes to the Noah stage, and there is the breath of life. In that octave, to which it has ascended via its evolution, instead of the “breath” coming down, is the breath.

It is also said of Noah that he walked with God. The Noah did. All the while that there is Noah there are all the other folk: the household of selves who were with Noah. Your other selves. The other folk are with you also. All the people, allegedly, who were to be destroyed. The prognosis of your own life. It occurs with each one of us sometime at the Noah stage.

The Ark

MBM Lecture III

November 5, 1935

(end of series)

How to recognize Wisdom-tradition in the text. (Sorry, don’t have this part, but knowledge of the main branches of the universal language of symbolism is one source of help. GB.)

It is Eve which makes the garment of flesh grow, act. Adam, the souls that come into flesh.

Progression; that is permanent. The line from Cain is developing all along, and is serving the Noah stock. But in due time it will be pinched off. This is preliminary to the purpose of the Flood.

There are definite requirements spoken of at these stages.

The door on the side is the relationship possible to outer worlds. In higher stages of the soul’s evolution it is necessary to know that these things must be done.

And the Flood destroys all that which is not to live.

“Of every living thing of flesh two of every sort, male and female; to keep them alive with thee.” Thus did the wise soul at the Noah stage, according to the voice of Wisdom.

Ch. VII tells the story over again. An over-writing. With additional symbolism. Though the numbers disagree the content does not.

Noah is 600 years old when the flood begins. Mystically, yes. The second month and the 17th day.

And now, here in the ark, is the breath of life. The breath of life is in the ark.

The Ark

MBM Lecture III

November 5, 1935

(end of series)

The processes of transformation, which reason cannot comprehend. (Here a reference to the transformations that take place in the cocoon, in the life of the butterfly, an outward shadow of the process as symbolized in the ark. One reason why the butterfly is often used as a symbol for the soul. GB.)

Floods. A new manner of life, washing away the facts and manners of its previous existence. Also an ark.

Noah’s ark built in accordance with larger directions. Seen perhaps at spots (this re the individual.) What is seen is the transformation of substance. And life comes first. No one has yet penetrated into the mystery of the transformation of the life of that little creature (the butterfly.) Earlier physical facts are erased, – permanently. It is for reasons like that that the Book of Genesis tells you nothing of what happens in the Ark — the changes which will make life and form when it emerges something very different from what it was before.

From history: Augustine, Paul, Francis — they have gone through floods. When everything that was the fact of life before is erased. They too have been in a period of insulation, during which these changes go on.

Most people change slowly, if at all. One reason is because they never incubate; never withdraw from the material facts, the so-called necessities of life. Necessities for the physical existence, perhaps, not for any other kind.

Schools of Wisdom, down the ages, knew the value of withdrawal. It was an activity. You don’t know how active Noah was — the soul at that state. Centers (?) for accelerating evolution. Many churches have retreats. If active, you can produce changes. In the Roman Catholic church Ignatius’ exercises, experiential. Therein is one of the important means of accelerating the evolution of the individual. (A reference to “active introversion as a means to true mysticism”, in the book by Herbert Silberer.)

A mild form, to which churches call, is “entering the silence.” Few know what it means, nor what to do. Silence to the activities of the body, heart and mind as ordinarily engaged. Silence is an early aspect of the mighty old technique of incubation. (elsewhere referred to by MBM as temple sleep. GB)

A modern writer (Silberer GB) said active introversion, or withdrawal, is the beginning of all true mysticism. And mysticism really means the conscious experience with Larger areas. On the contrary, passive introversion is the kind of thing many people practice, or and following their own wishes. The real thing is the ancient incubation at the end of a cycle, as with Noah.

The honeybee and the ant, for example, (illustrations) in nature of the transformations that go on in incubation.

Noah has gone through a strange metamorphosis, like the caterpillar. When he leaves he is not as when he entered in.

The waters prevailed 150 days. 3x5x10, an important number. Five, associated with the five senses, the five virgins, the five porches. Ten is always an octave. So that for the whole five senses there is the washing out of the dominance of these senses.

Mount Ararat, a symbol of the highest aspirations, like Olympus in the Greek — the highest possible realizations, the highest possible consciousness that is achieved at that octave. For the Ark is at once a symbol for a metaphysical body and also for the state that accompanies the upreaching in that body. Then we know that when we leave that state we must come to rest on a high mountain, on the highest of our aspirations. Being in communion with high agencies and landing in the valleys, it would fare hard with you.

How long does the ark rest on that mountain? Three months. A period of stabilizing that which has been transformed in the new conditions must take place. It is only from the stabilizing that we can safely emerge from the cocoon, or ark.

4O days. Noah opens the door after forty days. Earth, water, fire, air: all must be touched. The gamut must be transformed. Reviewing the aspects in himself, that they were all complete.

Raven In some allegories, the dove is sent out first and the raven later. The raven is the bird of earth, who symbolizes the rational self, the practical, the material. Which must again go forth and find ways of relating itself to the lower worlds. The ways and means of carrying on must be considered: the lower mind, material thoughts that adapt and adjust to the physical, outer world. Solid ground is not immediately visible.

Dove Then the dove is sent forth. The dove, a symbol for gentleness, kindliness, tenderness, love; and so has come to be used by these races as a soul symbol. Therefore the raven and the dove are the two aspects of the higher and the lower man, both of which must become active in the new period. The soul is represented by the dove. At first it finds no place, but presently it returns with a green leaf. It would have been fatal if the octave which is to begin after the exodus from the ark, if something was not done that is symbolized by the raven and the dove.

On the emergence from that state you must send out the two aspects of you – that which goes up and that which goes down. You will make serious errors. All things done with orderly sequence when done in the Larger processes. No haste, but speed. You obtain speed only by obeying laws. No haste through disregard, heedlessness.

Leaves from a tree that were “for the healing of nations” (Revelations 22). Leaves are the fresh growth on that which grows from below up. Therefore the signs of life and power. And when we are going out from our period of incubation we must be careful that the condition into which we go is also ready. You don’t go from a Turkish bath to the street. You must cool off. And wash, etc. Leaves: growth which represents the response of the outer are “the healing for nations.”

It is when Noah is 101 years old that he removes the cover from the ark. At first it was 600 years old. He was 500 years old when he begot Shem, Ham and Japheth. The three sons are the three conditions which emerge at that state — 500 years.

It is the first day of the first month of the new year that the covering is removed. That is the new year, the new cycle.

God comes into the picture again, and says: Go forth of the ark. Action is requested by God. When the period of incubation is over begin to act. Ch. VIII, 16 begins with this verse. The door to the active state in earth is now open. And all these beings go forth.

How many persons were in the ark? All the creatures, all the energies, and the states, developed and undeveloped, come forth, into which the soul has been dismembered; and of which the consciousness, Noah, is now the leader. Those that have been well developed in the last octave are there, and also cunning, trickery.

Altar Noah builds an altar. It is the first thing he does. This is the first altar. An altar to the Lord: allegorically building within the self a state of rapport which can be turned to, a state of rapport with Deity. This must be done or you lose rapport with what you gained in incubation. Made substantial, secure, erected by will power and effort in the mystic economy of the self, through which rapport can be set up with the Larger worlds.

The first act on that altar is again the right one, allegorically, to sacrifice some of the animals. You must continue in the direction. In the period of incubation it was intensive transformation. The first act that follows on the altar is that you still are like minded to what you were when you went into the ark. That means that you will, bit by bit, destroy the animal nature.

Now you know why the “odor thereof was sweet in the nostrils of God.” (Noah was) led through temptation, and thereby become strong, and wise, and kindly, and powerful and beneficent. That of course delighted the Leader. The nose is the symbol of that which investigates, senses out. So those heavenly (?) sensitivities of Deity apprehended the determination of the will to continue what it had started.

Jehovah speaks Now Deity speaks. He always does, or His agents, when you do certain things. Not in words. “I will never curse the land again.” (Ch. IX) No marking off (the meaning of curse. GB). The soul is at this stage. Noah has learned what the “ground” means.

Normal rhythms continue.

The laws of cause and effect multiply over a long period of the soul’s life — until we come to a stage when there is no longer any accumulation. But just a gradual elimination. The East calls it karma. When the accumulation of cause and effect on the essential nature of man, called karma, ceases, the normal sequences continue without the congestion, the complexes and network that accumulate in the drive of the laws of cause and effect.

God blesses Noah. (It) means the beneficent forces play down upon the soul. It must be very busy, – multiply. Has nothing to do with having a large family. The more experience you get the more you multiply.

Meat without blood Blood is the life-stream. In the allegory it becomes the symbol of life. Therefore the blood of anything is desire. You may therefore partake of all things provided you don’t become absorbed in the desire of the thing. Don’t be bitten again by the desires for the animal nature — that all the animal desires in you are not again stimulated into activity.

Covenant. The covenant, the climax of a series which began with the window in the ark. The next obvious step, the altar, the rapport with the Larger, the primary thing in the consciousness of awakened man. The thing on which life depends is the relationship with the Larger. (Then) the burnt sacrifice, the blessing, and now the Covenant. The climax. Having sustained into the new octave, the acme of that which was won in incubation. That is difficult. The hero does it. He who has done that has pledged himself to the Larger. And, by the same token, the Larger is pledged to man. “Like is known to like alone.”

Rainbow Requires the sun. Falling water, or mists, in the atmosphere which catch the light. By refraction turn it into the spectrum. Seven colors. The Bridge of Bifrost that goes over to Valhalla. The angels, or maidens of Heaven, take the hero who has died in battle.

Heroes Those who have persisted in victory even to the loss of their physical lives. The bridge over to Valhalla is made up of the sun, illuminated Wisdom, by which alone it is possible to reach the Larger regions. The gifts of the gods that were seeds (Hermetic tradition) which man develops. And as he has developed them then he passes over this bridge. Because for him, the hero, the shining Wisdom, illuminated by the Cosmic powers, the sun, transfigures the Wisdom, the water from above, into the seven; and he passes over.

That is the promise to Noah. He has reached a stage where he can understand this. And so there is thrown upon his mind and spirit the realization that this octave is not the end; that beyond it is the great bridge across to heavens, by which he may find the Larger worlds.

Valhalla, the great Brotherhood, – where the heroes of all mankind are gathered. A foretelling, a prognosis, of some experiences that you are sure to have on your way, this story of Noah. If you have written in you, deeply, this story, of Noah now, it will stand you in good stead when your hour comes. And it will come.