Initiation and the books of wisdom

Using the language of ancient Egypt, Franz Bardon refers to 22 tarot cards of the major arcana as representing the 22 books or pillars of wisdom.

The first book is initiation, the second evocation and communion with spiritual beings, the third is the language of creation ('in the beginning was the word'). In the occult novel Frabato is described how the adept that lived in the Personality known as Franz Bardon, a teacher in the ancient Mysteries over the millenia, would have received the mission to disclose the first four, and only the front cover of the fifth.

The three first books have been published as

Initiation into Hermetics (IIH)
Practice of Magical Evocation (PME)
Key to True Kabbalah (KTK) - see Language of creation

The fourth book called 'The Golden Book of Wisdom' was long believed to be totally lost. However as a result of extensive research, Lukas Louzecky published a copy (with fragments based on recovered texts from the period 1953-58) in 2021.

The fifth book was supposed to be on Alchemy.

Aspects

the term arcana, and its relationship to the terms Adytum, Ark of the Covenant, and Tarot - see Discussion Note 1 below
See also: More sources on the topic of initiation

Illustrations

Lecture coverage and references

Practice of Magical Evocation (PME) - second book by Franz Bardon, second tarot card on Ceremonial magic

1923-12-21-GA323

talks about the evocation of the kabiri in the Samothracian Mysteries, excerpt see: Mystery School tradition#1923-12-21-GA323

The same is also stated in 1922-12-04-GA218: a picture of the godhead appeared in the sacrificial smoke.

1924-08-18-GA243

talks about the use of the emanations of Man, see also Spectrum of elements and ethers, and the following extract fits into a description of these seven

the above fitting into a lecture on the seven emanations:

Movements emanating from men (mediumistic power)

Skin emanations of the fluid element (materialization)

Skin emanations of the air element (manifestation of the phantom)

Warmth emanation.

Light emanation.

Emanation of chemical forces (black magic).

Life emanation (Michael: Sun, Gabriel: Moon, Raphael: Mercury)

and how these can be as part of one's development, with reference to old magical grimoires (limited extract here)

.. Fourthly, these beings are receptive to warmth emanations. All these things in so far as they exist on Earth have special significance for these Moon beings. Man is judged by the configuration of his movements in writing and by the particular nature of his emanations.
The next emanation is the ever-present light emanation. In every individual, not only the aura, but also the physical and etheric bodies radiate light. Under ordinary conditions these radiations are so dim as to be invisible, but their existence has recently been demonstrated by Moriz Benedikt in a specially constructed dark room. He showed that the physical body is surrounded by a subtle aura of red, yellow and blue light emanations which vary at different places round the body. Moriz Benedikt tells us how he demonstrated the coloured aura. He showed the left side of the body under normal conditions of light and the other side under conditions that revealed the aura. Everything depends upon establishing the proper experimental conditions.
...
natural science has recently developed a technique which can demonstrate in a dark room certain light radiations and warmth emanations. In this respect the experiments of Moriz Benedikt are most illuminating.
But it has always been the case, and it is still true today, that only those can utilize effectively warmth and light emanations who undertake the preliminary steps which not only involve manipulating the physical world through black magic, but also include the production of hallucinogenic effects by means of special incense-burning and aromas, and the preparation of specific concoctions [editor: a mixture of various ingredients or elements], and so forth.

This is the origin of all those magical practices which are fully described in the old books of magic. The purpose of these magical ceremonies is to evoke the forces inherent in the light and warmth emanations of man.

On Arcana

Thomas Taylor on 'On the Mysteries' by Lamblichus (165-180 CE)

For the highest order of intelligibles is denominated by Orpheus the adytum, as we are informed by Proclus in Timaeus.
By the arcanum in the adytum, therefore, is meant the deity who subsists at the extremity of the intelligible order [i.e. Phanes]; and of whom it is said in the Chaldean Oracles, ‘that he remains in the paternal profundity, and in the adytum, near to the god-nourished silence.’ ...
And all things remain perfect and entire, because the arcana in the adytum are never disclosed. Hence, in those particulars in which the whole of things possesses its safety, I mean in arcana being always preserved occult, and in the ineffable essence of the Gods, never receiving a contrary condition; in these, terrestrial daemons cannot endure.

1790 - Karl von Eckartshausen: 'The Cloud upon the Sanctuary'

The wisdom of the ancient temple alliance was preserved by priests and by prophets.
To the priests was confided the external,—the letter of the symbol, hieroglyphics. The prophets had the charge of the inner truth, and their occupation was to continually recall the priest to the spirit in the letter, when inclined to lose it.
The science of the priests was that of the knowledge of exterior symbol. That of the prophets was experimental possession of the truth of the symbols. In the interior the spirit lived.
There was, therefore, in the ancient alliance a school of prophets and of priests, the one occupying itself with the spirit in the emblem, the other with the emblem itself. The priests had the external possession of the Ark, of the shewbread, of the candlesticks, of the manna, of Aaron’s rod, and the prophets were in interior possession of the inner spiritual truth which was represented exteriorly by the symbols just mentioned

Helena Blavatsky - Isis Unveiled

There is a regular science of the soul. . . . This science, by penetrating the arcana of nature far deeper than our modern philosophy ever dreamed possible, teaches us how to force the invisible to become visible; the existence of elementary spirits; the nature and magical properties of the astral light; the power of living men to bring themselves into communication with the former through the latter”

see also 'reading the book of nature', eg Book of Ten Pages in the ancient Mysteries.

Helena Blavatsky - The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II

see also this page (open in new tab and search Ark on web page)

described the innermost shrine as:

The Sanctum Sanctorum of the Ancients, i.e., that recess on the Western side of the Temple which was enclosed on three sides by blank walls and had its only aperture or door hung over with a curtain - also called the Adytum was common to all ancient nations. . . . They regarded it - in its esoteric meaning - as the symbol of resurrection, cosmic, solar (or diurnal), and human. In Theosophy, therefore, the Holy of Holies represents the womb of nature, the female generative principle found in the mystery religions of Egypt, Babylon, India, Kabbalism, Masonry, etc. . . . The esoteric meaning of this arrangement typified cosmic, planetary and human resurrection or regeneration

1905-05-29-GA093

We must therefore picture — quite in the sense of this legend — that up to the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth, there were two tendencies: the one, that built the earthly temple, that had its impact on the doings of men, so that at a later time the Divine Word that had come to earth through the Christ Jesus, could be received. A dwelling had to be prepared for the appearance of the Divine Word on earth. Next, the Divine itself should for a while develop itself upwards over the course of time as a kind of parallel tendency to the second current. Hence a distinction is made between the sons of men, the descendants of Cain, who were to prepare the worldly aspect, and the sons Abel/Seth, who cultivated the divine aspect, until the two streams could be united with each other, Christ Jesus united these two streams. The Temple had first to be built outwardly, therefore, until, in the shape of Christ Jesus, He should arrive Who was able to raise it up again in three days. On the one hand, then, we have the current of the Sons of Cain, and on the other that of the Abel/Seth line, both of which are preparing the development of mankind, so that the Son of God can then unite the two sides, and make the two streams into one. This finds expression in the holy legend in a profound way.
Seth himself is the one who planted the scion that he had taken for Adam from the Tree of Life, and raised a tree with three trunks. What is the meaning of this triple stemmed tree? Nothing else at all than the trinity, Atma, Buddhi and Manas, the threefold higher nature of man which will be implanted in his lower principles. But within man this is veiled at first. Through his three bodies — physical, etheric and astral — man is at first like an outer covering for the real divine trinity, Atma, Buddhi and Manas. You must imagine, therefore, that the trinity of physical, etheric and astral body are like an outer representation of the higher forces of Atma, Buddhi and Manas. And just as the artist fashions outer forms or expresses a certain idea in colours, so these three coverings also express a work of art. If you conceive these higher principles as the idea of a work of art, you will have come half way to grasping how the life of these three bodies is made up.
Now man is indeed living in his physical, etheric and astral sheaths, together with his ‘I’, through which he will so transform his threefold nature that the three higher principles find their appropriate dwelling place and feel at home here on earth. That had to be provided for by the Old Covenant. Through the arts of the race of Cain, it had to bring Sons of Men into the world, and through these Sons of Men were to be produced all the outward things that would serve the physical, etheric and astral bodies. What outward things were these?
The things which serve the physical body are firstly all that is contrived by technology to satisfy the physical body and provide for its comfort. Then, what we have in the way of the social and political institutions which [regulate] men's living together, what relates to nourishment and reproduction [of the race], all serve the development of the etheric body. And working upon the astral body we have the sphere of moral codes and ethics, bringing the instincts and emotions under control, which regulate and raise up the astral nature to a higher stage.

Thus, during the Old Covenant, the Sons of Cain were building the three-tiered Temple. In all this, since it is made up of our outer institutions — in which you can includeour dwellings and tools, the social and political organs, the system of morals — is the building of the Sons of Cain, that serves the lower members of man's nature.

The other tendency worked alongside, presided over by the Sons of God, their pupils and followers. From this stream come the servants of the divine world order, the attendants of the Ark of the Covenant. In them we find something which, as a separate current, runs parallel to [that of] those who serve the external world. They occupied a special position. Only after Solomon's Temple had been erected was the Ark of the Covenant to be placed inside it; that is to say, everything else had to be made subservient to the Ark of the Covenant, to be arranged around it. Everything which was formerly of a worldly nature was to become an external expression, an outer covering, for what the Ark of the Covenant meant for mankind. The meaning of the Temple of Solomon will best be understood by whoever visualises it as something which expresses outwardly in its physiognomy what the Ark of the Covenant should be, in its soul nature.

What has given life to man's outward three bodies, has been taken by the Sons of God from the Tree of Life. That is symbolically expressed in that building wood later used for Christ's Cross. It was first given to the Sons of God. What did they do with it? What is the deeper meaning of the wood of the Cross? In this holy legend about the wood of the Cross lies a very deep meaning.
For what in general is the task of the human being in his earthly evolution? He has to raise the present three bodies with which he is endowed to a higher stage. Thus, he must raise his physical body to a higher realm and likewise his etheric and astral bodies. This development is incumbent upon humanity. That is the real sense of it: to transform our three bodies into the three higher members of the whole divine plan of creation.
There is another kingdom above that which man has immediately and physically around him. But to which kingdom does man in his physical nature belong? At the present stage of his evolution, he belongs with his physical nature to the mineral kingdom. Physical, chemical and mineral laws hold sway over man's physical body. Yet even as far as his spiritual nature is concerned, he belongs to the mineral kingdom, since he understands through his intellect only what is mineral, Life, as such, he is only gradually learning to comprehend. Precisely for this reason, official science disowns life, being still at that stage of development in which it can only grasp the dead, the mineral. It is in the process of learning to understand this in very intricate detail. Hence it understands the human body only in so far as it is a dead, mineral thing. It treats the human body basically as something dead with which one works, as if with a substance in a chemical laboratory. Other substances are introduced into [the body], in the same way that substances are poured into a retort. Even when the doctor, who nowadays is brought up entirely on mineral science, sets about working on the human body, it is as though the latter were only an artificial product.
Hence we are dealing with man's body at the stage of the mineral kingdom in two ways: man has acquired reality in the mineral kingdom through having a physical body, and with his intellect is only able to grasp facts relating to the mineral kingdom. This is a necessary transitional stage for man. However, when man no longer relies only on the intellect but also upon intuition and spiritual powers, we will then be aware we are moving into a future in which our dead mineral body will work towards becoming one that is alive. And our science must lead the way, must prepare for what has to happen with the bodily essence in the future. In the near future, it must itself develop into something which has life in itself,recognise the life inherent in the earth for what it is. For in a deeper sense it is true, it is the thoughts of man that prepare the future. As an old Indian aphorism rightly says: What you think today, that you will be tomorrow.
The very being of the world springs out of living thought; not from dead matter. What outward matter is, is a consequence of living thought, just as ice is a consequence of water; the material world is, as it were, frozen thoughts. We must dissolve it back again into its higher elements, because we grasp life in thought. If we are able to lead the mineral up into life, if we transform [it into] the thoughts of the whole of human nature, then we will have succeeded, our science will have become a science of the living and not of dead matter. We shall raise thereby the lowest principle [of man] — at first in our understanding, and later also in reality — into the next sphere. And thus we shall raise each member of man's nature — the etheric and the astral included — one stage higher.
What man formerly used to be, we call, in theosophical terminology, the (three) elementary Kingdoms . These preceded the Mineral Kingdom in which we live today; that is, the Kingdom to which our science restricts itself, and in which our physical body lives. The three Elementary Kingdoms are bygone stages [of evolution]. The three Higher Kingdoms — the Plant Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom and the Human Kingdom — which will develop themselves out of the Mineral Kingdom, are as yet only at a rudimentary stage.
The lowest principle in man, [the physical body,] must indeed still pass through these three kingdoms, just as it is at present passing through the Mineral Kingdom. Just as today man lives in the Mineral Kingdom with his physical nature, so in the future he will live in the Plant Kingdom, and then rise to still higher Kingdoms. Today with our physical nature we are in a transitional stage between the Mineral and Plant Kingdoms, with our etheric nature in transition from the Plant Kingdom to the Animal Kingdom, and with our astral nature in transition from the Animal Kingdom to the Human Kingdom. And finally, we extend beyond the three Kingdoms into the Divine Kingdom, with that part which we have in the Sphere of Wisdom, where we extend in our own nature beyond the astral.
Thus man is engaged in an ascent. But this is not brought about by any outer contrivance or construction, but by the living self which is awakened in us; which does not use mere outward building stones, but works in a creative and growing way. This force of life must enter into evolution and must first take hold of man's innermost being; his religious life must be gripped by living forces.
Therefore what the Sons of Cain did for the lower members of man's nature during the Old Covenant was a kind of preparation, and what the prophets, the guardians of the Ark of the Covenant, did was like a prophetic forecast of the future.
The Divine should now descend into the Ark of the Covenant, into the soul, so that it may itself dwell in the Temple as Holy of Holies.
...
At the beginning of our human incarnations on earth we were endowed with the force of life. That is symbolically expressed in the legend, where Adam's son, Seth, took the scion from the Tree of Life; this was then further cultivated by the Sons of God, [which expressed] that threefold human nature, which had to be ennobled.
After that, Moses cut his rod from this wood of life. This rod of Moses is nothing else than the external law. But what is external law?
External law is present when someone who has to erect An external building has a plan — that is, a systematic scheme on paper — so that the outward building stones can be shaped and fitted together according to the plan. Thus, the law underlying the plan of a state is external law. Mankind is under Moses' rod. And anyone who follows a moral code out of fear or in hope of reward, is only following the external law. Moreover, whoever looks at science only in an external way, is only following external law; for what else can there [then] be in it but external laws! All the laws we are acquainted with in science are such external laws; through them, however, we will never find that way through to higher human nature, but will only follow the law of the Old Covenant, which is the Rod of Moses. However, this external law should be a model for the inner law. Man must learn inwardly to follow law. This inner law must become for man the impulse of life; out of the inner law he must learn to follow external law. One does not make the inner law reality by concocting a plan; instead one has to build the Temple out of inner impulse, so that the soul streams forth in the work of joining the stones together. He who lives in the inner law is not the one who merely follows the laws of the state, but he to whom they are the impulse of his life, because his soul is immersed in them. And it is not he who follows a moral code out of fear or because of reward who is a moral person, but he who follows it because he loves it.
As long as mankind was not ripe for following the law inwardly, as long as man was under a yoke, and the Rod of Moses was present, in the law, so long would the law lie in the Ark of the Covenant; until the Pauline principle, the principle of grace came to man, giving him the possibility of becoming free from the law. The profundity of the Pauline doctrine lies in its making a distinction between law and grace. When law becomes inflamed with love, when love has united with the law, that then is grace. That is how the Pauline distinction between law and grace is to be understood.
Now we can follow the legend of the Cross still further. The wood was used as a bridge between two riverbanks. because it did not suit as a pillar in Solomon's Temple. This was a preparation. The Ark of the Covenant was in the Temple, but the Word-become-Flesh was not yet there. The wood of the Cross was laid as a bridge across a stream; only the Queen of Sheba recognised the worth of the wood for the temple, which should live in the consciousness of the soul of all humanity. Now the same wood was used for the construction of the Cross on which the Redeemer hung. He who unites the two earlier currents [of evolution], who allows the worldly and the spiritual to flow into each other, the Christ, is Himself joined to the living Cross. That is how He can carry the wood of the Cross as something [external] which He carries on His back. He is Himself united with the wood of the bridge, and can therefore take the dead wood upon Himself.
Man is today drawn into higher nature. Formerly he lived in lower nature. In the Christian sense he now lives in higher nature, and the Cross — the lower nature — he carries forward as something alien, through his inner living forces. Religion now becomes the living force in the world, now the life in external nature ceases, the Cross becomes entirely wood. The outer body [of man] now becomes a vehicle for the inner living force. There the great mystery consummates itself: the Cross is taken on [man's] back.
Our great poet Goethe presented the idea of the bridge in a beautiful and significant way in his ‘Fairy Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,’ where he has a bridge being built, by the snake laying itself across the river as a living bridge. All the more advanced initiates use this same symbol for one and the same thing.
Thus we have become acquainted with the deep inner meaning of the holy legend of the Cross. We have seen how the revolution was prepared for, which Christianity brought about, and which must fulfil itself more and more as time goes on by Christianising the world. We have seen how the Cross, inasmuch as it is the image of the three external bodies, dies; how it is only able to form an external union between the three lower and the three higher Kingdoms, between the two banks divided by the stream — the wood of the Cross could not become a pillar in Solomon's Temple — until man recognises it as his own particular symbol. Only then, when he sacrifices himself, makes his own body into the Temple, and becomes able to carry the Cross, will the merging of the two streams be made possible.
That is why the Christian churches have the symbol of the Cross in their foundations; thereby expressing the secretion of the living Cross in the outward edifice of the Temple. However, these two streams, the living divine stream on the one hand, and the worldly mineral stream on the other, have become united in the Redeemer hanging on the Cross, where the higher principles are in the Redeemer Himself, and the lower ones in the Cross. And henceforth this connection must now become organic and living, as the Apostle Paul expressed particularly deeply. Without [a knowledge of] what has been discussed today, the writings of the Apostle Paul cannot be understood. It was clear to him that the Old Covenant, which creates an antithesis between man and the law, must come to an end. Only when man unites himself with the law, takes it upon his back, carries it, will there no longer be any contradiction between man's inner nature and the external law. Then that which Christianity seeks to achieve, is achieved.
‘With the law sin came into the world.’
That is a profound saying of Paul's. When is there sin in the world? Only when there is a law which can be broken. But when the law becomes so united with human nature that man only does good, then there can be no [more] sin. Man only contradicts the law of the Cross as long as it does not live within him, but is something external. Therefore Paid sees the Christ on the Cross as the conquest of law and the conquest of sin. To hang on the Cross means to be subjected to the law — and that is a curse.
Sin and the law belong together in the Old Covenant, the law and love belong together in the New Covenant. It is a negative law which is involved in the Old Covenant; but the law of the New Covenant is a living positive law. He who united the Old Covenant with His own life is the One who has overcome it. He has at the same time sanctified it.
That is what is meant by those words of Paul which are to be found in the Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter 3:11–13.:

‘But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, is evident, for the just shall live by faith and the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.’

Discussion

Note 1 - Adytum, Arcana, and Ark of the Covenant

Introduction

In human culture since the 15th century, terms such as arcana and adytum are used, but these terms originate in the ancient Mysteries of previous cultural ages many millenia ago. Similarly the term Ark of the Covenant is a term that appears in the Bible in the Old and New Testament (Book of Exodus, Book of Hebrews).

Similar as other esoteric terms such as the Holy Grail (re Schema FMC00.118A on that topic page), the term is symbolic and multi-dimensional (for an explanation, see Schema FMC00.532 on Cosmic fractal), meaning it has multiple layers of meanings:

[1] - the internal wisdom that was sacred, occult and protected in the ancient Mysteries - it is the experiential side of iniation science. This was represented by adepts or initiates, the prophets in ancient Mysteries.
- [1.1] hence, the term arcana refers to the spirit and contents of the Books of wisdom, also symbolized by eg the Tarot. Franz Bardon uses this term in his three reference books on initiation science, referring to the ancient Egyptian Mysteries.
- In the Temple Legend this is also called the 'New Covenant' .. in the ancient Mysteries the work of the prophets (as guardians of the Ark of the Covenant) was like a forecast of the future to come for the whole of humanity. "The divine will descend into the Ark of the Covenant, into the soul, so that it may itself dwell in the Temple as Holy of Holies."
- [1.2] therefore in broader meaning, the term is also used as a symbol of the spiritual and divine within each individual human being (see also Man's higher triad) an allegory for the hidden sacred nature of the soul obscured by the physical material. It is the path of wisdom and initiation that refines and transforms the lower to the higher bodily principles.
[2] - in contrast, there is also the external face of this wisdom in the exoteric world of human culture - as represented by priests and rituals
- In the Temple Legend is spoken of the 'OId Covenant', the building of the three-tiered temple or Temple of Solomon by the Sons of Cain: the organization and building in the outer physical world, so all this can serve the three lower members of Man's bodily principles. This was and is the first preparatory step for the great Work, as this inner work that will transform humanity happens from the inside out, hence therefore mankind first needs to pass through life in the outer world and development of the human I. Hence the outer world work becomes a vessel and carrier for the above
[3] - as part of the latter [2], the term also refers to a physical object as a symbol of the first [1]. It is especially this external physical object that is part of contemporary culture, see eg references on wikipedia page.

.

For source descriptions and details on the above, see 1905-05-29-GA093 and Karl von Eckartshausen under references above (higher on this page).

Meaning of the terms

The adytum means inner shrine or holy-of-holies, from 'aduein' meaning 'not to be entered'. The adytum was said to contain the arcana (and/or Ark of the Covenant). Arcana (plural form of arcanum) comes from the root 'arcus' and 'arcere' (to ward off; shut up, keep), they contain and preserve the shielded esoteric wisdom (in contrast to worldly knowledge). From this then comes the term Ark of the Convenant, as a container of secret wisdom between God and humanity that also wards off the profane.

In contemporary english language, the term 'covenant' may have broad meaning,

not just pact or agreement but also:

alliance, union, bond,league
treaty, convention, concord
arrangement, convention, contract