Initiation

The sequential purification of mind, body, and spirit by which a seeker centers wholly upon the Creator and opens the gateway to intelligent infinity.

What Ra means

Ra describes initiation as an ordered, not an incidental, process. Mind comes first: before the body can be initiated, the character and personality that constitute the mind's true identity must be discovered. Only then can the body be known in each of its functions — understood and held with detachment rather than driven by habit (3.16). The pyramid's original application was to support this sequence: its lower chamber created sensory deprivation deep enough that the body could, in Ra's phrase, be as dead while another life began (3.16).

The culminating form Ra describes — initiation of the Queen's Chamber — is the abandoning of self to desire for the Creator so completely that instreaming light moves in balance through all energy centers, meeting in indigo and opening the gate to intelligent infinity (57.24). Ra notes that this demands true centering on the Creator, not ritual alone, and that the seeking of the Creator is not limited to formal initiation or adept work — it may be undertaken in the experiential texture of each moment (57.24).

Ra is candid about the limitations and distortions that arose from the pyramid method. The optimal shape for initiation does not exist as an absolute, and the structures Ra helped build were eventually turned away from their intended purpose (60.16, 23.6). For a purified channel the crystalline tool is nearly any structure; what is always critical is the inner discipline of the one working, not the architecture (4.7). The path from outer technique to inner preparation is itself the lesson initiation is meant to convey.

In Ra's words

The pyramid's two functions — and the sequence mind, then body:

To begin, there are two main functions of the pyramid in relation to the initiatory procedures. One has to do with the body. Before the body can be initiated, the mind must be initiated. This is the point at which most adepts of your present cycle find their mind/body/spirit complexes distorted from.

When the character and personality that is the true identity of the mind has been discovered, the body then must be known in each and every way. Thus, the various functions of the body need understanding and control with detachment. The first use of the pyramid, then, is the going down into the pyramid for purposes of deprivation of sensory input so that the body may, in a sense, be dead and another life begin.

3.16.3-9

The pyramid's placement geometry and the point of energy convergence:

As we began the last session question, you have already recorded in your individual memory complex the first use of the shape having to do with the body complex initiation. The initiation of spirit was a more carefully designed type of initiation as regards the time/space ratios about which the entity to be initiated found itself.

If you will picture with me the side of the so-called pyramid shape and mentally imagine this triangle cut into four equal triangles, you will find the intersection of the triangle which is at the first level on each of the four sides forms a diamond in a plane which is horizontal. The middle of this plane is the appropriate place for the intersection of the energies streaming from the infinite dimensions and the mind/body/spirit complex’s various interwoven energy fields.

Thus it was designed that the one to be initiated would, by mind, be able to perceive and then channel this, shall we say, gateway to intelligent infinity. This, then, was the second point of designing this specific shape.

4.2.2-7

The Queen's Chamber initiation — centering, instreaming light, and the gate to intelligent infinity:

However, you are aware of the concept of initiation and realize that it demands the centering of the being upon the seeking of the Creator. We have hoped to balance this understanding by enunciating the Law of One; that is, that all things are One Creator. Thus, seeking the Creator is done not just in meditation and the work of an adept but in the experiential nexus of each moment.

The initiation of [the] Queen’s Chamber has to do with the abandoning of self to such desire to know the Creator in full that the purified instreaming light is drawn, in balanced fashion, through all energy centers, meeting in indigo and opening the gate to intelligent infinity.

57.24.4-7

Ra reconsidering the pyramid model — the best initiation has no fixed optimal shape:

We do not deny that such shapes are efficacious, nor do we withhold the general gist of this efficacy. However, we wish to offer our understanding, limited though it is, that—contrary to our naïve beliefs many thousands of your years ago—the optimum shape for initiation does not exist.

Let us expand upon this point.

60.16.4-6