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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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DIONYSUS, OR BACCHUS
A symbol of the Higher Self evolving in all the
lower nature and born in the soul. The "vine" with which the symbol
is connected is the same as the "tree of Life," which signifies the
spiritual life which ramifies through all things. "Wine," the "blood
of the grape," symbolizes the spiritual truth and life which
intoxicates the lower nature and renders it powerless.
"Zeus, in order to save his child (Dionysus), changed him into a
ram, and carried him to the nymphs of Mount Nysa, who brought him up
in a cave, and were afterwards rewarded by Zeus, by being placed as
Hyades among the stars." - Smith's Class. Dict.
The Supreme, in order to effect the purpose of manifestation, set
his Demanation (Dionysus) under laws of limitation (the ram or "lamb
" sacrifice), so that it should be developed in the lower nature of
the soul (cave) by the buddhic qualities (nymphs) which were
afterwards united to the mental qualities (stars).
"Bacchus, or the mundane intellect, is the monad, or proximately
exempt producing cause.' Bacchus is said to be the spiritual part of
the mundane soul.' ” - G. R. S. MEAD, Orpheus, p. 182.
"The Platonists called Dionysus 'Our Master,' for the mind in us is
Dionysiacal and the image of Dionysus." - Ibid., p. 183.
This may be taken as meaning that Christ, our Master, is our
indwelling ruler, for our mind is spiritualised and possesses the
Divine image-Wisdom and Love.
"Dionysus, while a youth, was particularly captivated with beholding
his image in a mirror; during his admiration of which he was
miserably torn to pieces by the Titans; who not content with this
cruelty, first boiled his members in water, and after roasted them
by fire." - TAYLOR, Eleusinian Mysteries, p. 126.
The Higher Self having attained perfection through involution as the
Archetypal Man, he, as it were, perceived his lower self to be like
himself, which perfection occasioned, through the great forces of
existence (the Titans), his death out of the lower state, and the
cutting up of his astromental body of qualities as material for the
new state now arising. The desire-mental qualities were infused in
the soul's new astral (water) nature, in order that they should
afterwards be purified (roasted) and raised by buddhi (fire).
"The legend (of Dionysus and the Titans) can be interpreted from the
macrocosmic and microcosmic stand-points. From the former we see the
symbolical drama of the World-soul being differentiated into
individual souls; from the latter the mystical spectacle of the
individual soul divided into many personalities, in the long series
of rebirths or palingenesis through which it threads its path on
earth. As Macrobius says: By Father Liber [Dionysus] the Orphics
seem to understand the Hylic Mind, which is born from the Impartible
[Mind] and is separated into individual minds [or personalities].
And 80 in their sacred rites [Dionysus] is represented to have been
torn into seperate members, and the pieces buried [in matter], and
then again he is resurrected intact.' (Somn. I. xii. 67)." - G. R.
S. MEAD, Orphæus, p. 184.
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