An examination of initiation across human history makes the case that the deepest spiritual experiences were once only available through extraordinary means — and that something fundamental shifted, making the interior crossing accessible without risking the body. Simulating inherits that same possibility: a designed initiatory experience, available to anyone, requiring nothing more than stillness and sound.
Esoteric schooling—Mystery Schools—existed already in pre-Christian times and was able to develop students to the point where they could see the higher worlds. But this seeing was accessible only to serious students in the most hidden of the initiation schools, and then only in the course of the actual initiation rituals, when their etheric body was separated from their physical body.
Initiation in this pre-Christian context means an actual “raising” of the human being to allow one to see the higher worlds. In all pre-Christian initiations, the novice had to be put into a kind of sleep. The initiatory sleep is different from ordinary sleep in that in ordinary sleep the etheric body remains connected with the physical body, whereas in initiatory sleep the etheric body was briefly separated from the physical body.
During this time the hierophant had to keep the body alive. The removal of the etheric body made it possible to conduct novices with the rest of their bodies into the higher worlds, and to allow them experiences that could later be registered by the physical brain. Such were the only initiation methods during pre-Christian times. With the advent of Jesus Christ, something entirely new appeared in relation to the process of initiation.
Imagine that you have transformed your entire astral body into Spirit Self. Your Spirit Self would then imprint itself into your etheric body like a seal into sealing wax, and give it its form. In this way your etheric body is transformed into Life Spirit. When this is done, the Life Spirit penetrates the physical body and transforms it into the Spirit Human (the Risen Body).
Only with the appearance of Christ did it become possible for the Life Spirit to directly influence the life body. This means that the experiences attained in the higher worlds could now be incarnated in the human brain without the need for a preliminary separation of the etheric body. The first being whose etheric body was completely penetrated by the Spirit Self and whose physical body was completely penetrated by the Life Spirit was Jesus Christ.
When Jesus Christ came to the Earth, it became possible for those connected with him to undergo the same initiation, without needing to separate the etheric body from the physical body. All initiates in pre-Christian times, however, had experienced out-of-body initiation and had then returned to the physical body, able to give an account that was actually their own direct experience of the spiritual worlds. This was the kind of initiation undergone by Buddha, Moses, and others.
But in Jesus, a being came to Earth who could see the higher worlds while remaining in a physical body. The teachings of Buddha, Moses, and so on are completely independent of the Master's personality. A person is a Buddhist or a “Mosaist” by following the teachings of Buddha or Moses. It doesn't matter whether a person acknowledges Buddha or Moses (as individuals), for these founders were only transmitters for their experiences in the higher worlds.
Christ's teachings on the other hand become “Christianity” only through incarnation in an individual human being, and to be a Christian it is not enough to follow Christian teachings. Only those who feel connected with the historical Christ are truly Christian. Individual tenets of the Christian beliefs have existed before, but this is not the issue. It is rather that the Christian believes in Jesus Christ, that the Christian believes Jesus to represent the perfect human being transformed in the flesh.
In the old days, people used to talk of initiates as “divine humans.” This was because the initiate had risen during the initiation ceremony to the spiritual worlds and “lived” with spiritual or divine beings. The initiate was therefore a “divine human.” Before Jesus Christ, however, it was impossible in fact to see a divine human in the physical body.
We must therefore take literally the passage in John 1: 18: “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has proclaimed him.” Earlier, only those who had themselves ascended could have the experience of God. In Christ however, for the first time, the Godhead became visible on Earth. This was stated in John 1: 14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”. It was also taught in the schools of Dionysius the Areopagite.
Christ existed to show human beings the way; human beings must become his followers, must prepare themselves to imprint what is in the etheric body into the physical body—that is, allow the Christ Principle to develop in them.”