Rituals & Mystery Schools

A mystery school could be called “a university of the soul.” To a seeker pursuing mastery, a curriculum that includes rituals, practices, exercises and initiations can reveal mysteries of the inner nature of humanity and its surroundings. Awareness of this inner nature is key to an intimate relationship with divinity. Through self-discipline and devotion, the mystery school student merges with a higher consciousness, even a realization of God. An esoteric school can empower the seeker to recognize their inherent wisdom and self-guidance system. For those aspiring toward greater clarity and personal awareness, a mystery school can be a committed spiritual training.

Wise spiritual leaders through the ages have brought ancient mysteries into contemporary focus for transmission to the upcoming collective. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance secretive artist guilds proliferated, guarding the newly invented techniques of the Enlightened Age. with and saw the birth of the Masonic tradition, the first lodge opening in London in 1717. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization of the late 19th century, was devoted to the study and practice of the occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities. Rosicrucianism, a magical European spiritual/cultural movement of the early 17th century, combines occultism, Hermeticism, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), and Christian Gnosticism. The central feature of Rosicrucianism is the belief that its members possess secret wisdom handed down from ancient times. Modern day consciousness researchers and leaders such as Jean Houston, and Jim Garrison of Wisdom University have resurrected the ancient modality of Mystery Schools as a context for a path toward higher consciousness and ultimate liberation.

The function of a mystery school is anamnesis, a term coined by Socrates, meaning the remembering of our timeless divine nature which we have forgotten. Socrates spoke of the soul as immortal, repeatedly incarnating, maintaining the knowledge of dwelling within the spirit since eternity which is always forgotten during the shock of birth. Rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose members were strictly forbidden to betray its secrets on penalty of death, were said to elicit visions of the afterlife. Socrates, as a member of this secret Mystery School, likely imbibed the Kykeon, a psychedelic inebriant possibly derived from rye ergot or fungus.

Initiates of a Mystery School evolve their era by embracing life’s higher purpose, by reaching Mastery as a positive agent of change and spiritually uplifting the collective. Rituals performed in a Mystery School could be associated with any activity, mundane or glorified, and could be enacted passionately to recall or realize the already awakened God-self.