“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
Rev 3:1-6
With the church of Sardis our spiral brings us to the abdominal centre. In the Western occult tradition this is also called the Leyden or Leydig gland.
The function of the abdominal centre is to transform the etheric energies into physical energies. In Chinese philosophy this is the energy centre known as the Dan Tien.
There is a problem with this powerful energy centre: it is no longer producing life.
Jesus famously said, “To him who has, more will be given; to him who has not, what he has will be taken away.” The more we work to cleanse the astral and etheric energies that run through us, the more energy is given to us. The etheric also contains our memories. Not just from this life, but from all our previous incarnations. If we have committed negative and destructive actions in the past, if we have lied, or acted against others in hate and violence, then our etheric body, which should be the body of light, becomes darkened.
The etheric should be the source of life. It should be renewed every day by reconnecting with the spiritual worlds. Jesus also said, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Instead of renewing, we are severing our connection with Spirit. The etheric centre gradually dies because it is not being replenished. Our astral becomes filled with the unbalanced dark energies from past lives because we are not actively purifying and cleansing it through reflection and devotion.
We need to “Wake up!” This means that we need to be aware of the energies we allow to enter in. Are these forces life creating, or are they life destroying?
There are still those who have remembered their connection to Spirit. They “walk with Christ”, that is, they have seen him in the etheric.
When we embrace this connection, then gradually our etheric becomes purified. We deal with our destructive memories so they no longer cause dysfunction. We repay our karma in consciousness.
The purification of the etheric must occur with the cleansing of the astral. Through constant self-observation we stop reacting from the emotional levels. The astral self becomes a servant of the Real Self. The cleansed astral and purified etheric create the “body of light.” We are clothed in “white garments,” and our name is in the “book of life,” because we have chosen to walk the Path of Pentecost, the transforming path of Christ.
The image
The angel of Sardis holds the book of life in one hand, and a white cloth like a long stole descends from his left shoulder.
As Rev Mario puts it, this is the centre of imagination, or of imaging. With it we create the future. But we can only image purely when we have purified the etheric centre.
Today, paint yourself a picture of your future. Not in terms of possessions and property, but in terms of who you would like to become. Carry this picture inside you today, and feel the slow, subtle, transformation of inner energies. The more purely we paint the future, the greater the energy given to us.
The Leidig gland is the gland of imagination, that is, imagination with purpose and creative intent. By imagination I do not mean merely thinking of self and self-motivation. Perhaps I should call it “imaging” rather than “imagination,” like the artist can see the picture already on the canvas before it is painted, that’s called imaging. So the person whose Leidig is operating is an imaging person. That person also lives in the future, for that person can see the images of the future already painted, as it were, upon the canvas of eternity.
Rev Mario Schoenmaker, Personal Teachings, November, 1983