And this makes up the heart of spiritual initiation as well. Spiritual initiation is all about leaving a part of you behind that is no longer serving you, shedding a robe and getting a new robe. So the reason why death and makes its own mystery, its own teaching is because everything really centers around this process of death and rebirth. And so the more that we understand the process of death, the more we understand ourselves and the more that we find, even in a practical sense, the more that we go back and we look at different funerary texts from say Egypt or say from Tibet or things like this.

We go back and look at that. We can also see them as being initiation texts. So you can’t just read it as though you can’t just read ancient funerary texts and different teachings around death as being incantations for the dead or just these mundane things. We have to read all of the work around death as being initiation rites as much as they are about our soul passing and moving into higher spheres. So that’s how we have to enter into this perspective. And when you do dive into the mystery of death and you start reading about it and learning about it, you’ll notice that there’s two sort of wings of how this is typically taught.

The first way that we’ll often see it is the subjective experience of death. So this is when in mystery science it’s described very much as the individual’s personal experience. This is where we get the description of different trials, different sensations and the visions of death and sort of the experience, the inner experience of the soul as they pass through these different realms of the heavens or the underworld. So that’s the personal subjective experience of death. There’s also, and we see this more and more as we move towards kind of the western scientific lens, which is you have the objective experience of death, which is now we begin to see more and more as time passes a draw to understand, okay, well, what is actually objectively going on when someone dies? Getting away from the personal experience, what realm of heaven are they in? Is that associated with a specific cosmic sphere? What is technically happening to the soul? Is there some kind of transfiguration going on? And so we can see that typically within different mystery teachings around death, there is this beautiful subjective process that is there, which is the experience of it, even the experience of initiation, right? But then there’s also the objective discussion around it, which is what is actually happening to the soul upon death.

So the mystery of death can be observed in two ways. The subjective process or the internal experience of the individual as they pass through the gates of death and the objective process of death. Both of these perspectives make up classical mystery teachings and funerary texts. For the adept, dying consciously was key. And the death process was inseparable from elements of the spiritual initiation process, the ability to transition consciously from the material state into a condition of lucid spiritual consciousness or lucidity to the spiritual world was a mark of a spiritual master or Buddha.

Thus, in the deepest recesses of temple cultures, initiates practice the art of dying or really the art of initiation. Of course, within these spiritual circles, death was not seen as the end, but rather a transubstantiation of one’s consciousness. No matter the sect, eastern or western, there was generally some kind of resurrection rite, meaning that the initiate would go through a process where they would go into a deep concentrated trance state or they would become lifeless and surrounded by darkness. Then they would wake up or be reborn. During this time when they are in a kind of deep trance or when they are sleeping, the initiate would face trials, either psychically within themselves or even simulated by members of their order.

The complete darkness surrounding them would work as a mirror of their innermost fears. This would cause the initiate to have to spiritually confront their fears and darkness within their own mind, within their own being. Their own fears would project upon the darkness confronting them. A good example of this is how frightening your normal walking path or even home can become at night, compare it to the day. Suddenly the rooms in your home can become spooky, and it’s not uncommon to even feel frightened in your own bedroom if it gets very dark in your room.

Thus, spending time in darkness has long been a key element of spiritual initiation, as darkness often allows us to project our own fears onto it and confront them. Other schools would refine the trials into specific experiences, and certain elements of the death process were acted out. Here the initiate was often, again, in darkness or blindfolded. Should the initiate get a glimpse of what was occurring around him, he would see individuals in grotesque masks surrounding him. The use of horrifying costumes and masks and kind of scary experiences and trials were meant to simulate the confrontations with one’s own inner demons, the same trials that are mentioned in the various funerary texts of different cultures.

After the trials and being submersed in complete darkness, the initiate would wake up, and with his trials finished, he would find himself often surrounded by the sun’s light, signifying rebirth and the re- amalgamation of his soul into the higher world. They were resurrected or born again in the light of the sun. Through practicing these rites, adepts would not only grow spiritually, but also imbue upon their astral and etheric body the overall pattern of the death process, hopefully allowing them a chance for lucidity when their time did arrive. [tr:trw].