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Published Article Index
My Meetings With Ronald
Heaver
This expanded article on Ronald Heaver
was first published in Avalon Magazine, Glastonbury, Britain,
Spring 2006. An earlier (shorter) version was first published
on this website in 2005, and this appears as a preface to
the Inner Temple Traditions InnerConvocation meditations which
can be found at http://www.rjstewart.org/inner-temples-5a.html.
All material is copyright © R J Stewart 2005
Opening Note: Some of this story and associated
teachings have been shared with students at workshops and
classes from 1989 to the present year, while many of the spiritual
themes are found in my books and recordings. This is the first
magazine article to be published on my meetings with Ronald
Heaver.
The meetings described in this article happened
in the mid to late 1970’s. By this time, many of the
outward activities of Ronald Heaver’s life, as described
in the excellent article by Paul Fletcher (Avalon, issue 30,
Summer 2005) had gradually faded, and Heaver was making ready
for his conscious death, which he knew would occur on the
10th of February 1980, his 80th birthday.
Before recounting my meetings with Ronald
Heaver, I would like to share some brief insights regarding
the teaching methods and general consciousness of the older
generation of mentors in Britain. I am referring to those
who, like Ronald Heaver, had come through both the 1st and/or
2nd World Wars. Few of them are left now. Many people today
do not understand how different their methods were from those
familiar to us in the last 20 years of spiritual, pagan, and
New Age revival. There is, as a result, romanticizing, even
fantasizing, about some of the founders of our spiritual and
magical revival, and especially that powerful branch that
relates so strongly to Glastonbury and the Sacred Mysteries.
Later in this article I describe some of
the remarkable un-teaching methods that I experienced from
sitting with Ronald Heaver…in some ways he taught nothing,
in other ways he taught everything, all at once, like a massive
instantaneous download, that had to be decrypted and digested.
Some of the inner spiritual material I received from him is
still unfolding in me today, thirty years later. Indeed, I
now understand that Ronald Heaver, and the spiritual lineage
that he embodied, set certain tasks for me that I am still
fulfilling. Some of this work appears in my books, often in
unlikely guise. It was Ronald Heaver, for example, that planted
the seeds that led my writing of The UnderWorld Initiation
in the late 1970’s. But most significantly, it was he
who brought me into the work that later on became my Inner
Temple Traditions InnerConvocation classes and groups, which
are now found in many parts of the USA, Canada, Britain, and
Europe.
The spiritual teaching methods
of the wartime generation
Some of the methods of that older wartime
generation of spiritual mentors may seem strange to us, but
were essential to them in their day. This background, both
individual and cultural, is helpful to our understanding of
Ronald Heaver’s life and work, as he was of that generation,
though in many ways he rose above it, despite a most difficult
and dramatic life.
Firstly, many of these older generation teachers,
mentors, and mystics of the British inner tradition, be they
known or unknown, would teach different, even contradictory
things, to different students. Therefore, students learning
individually from one teacher, would each receive variations
or even contradictions of the core teachings. This method
was widespread, and was not as frivolous as we might think.
Another method, which was well known, though supposedly secret,
was to give an initiation or a confirmation of spiritual power,
then tell the recipient that only he or she had received it.
Years later, the recipients (plural) would find others who
had had the same experience! There are typically certainly
key secret phrases and dramatic unique subtle sensations,
so no one (but no one) can fake receiving such spiritual empowerments.
There was also an emphasis on strict authority,
which sits uncomfortably with us today. However, when we think
of the genuine masters, mentors, and teachers, associated
with Glastonbury and the British Mysteries, from occultists
and mystics such Dion Fortune through to luminaries such as
Tudor Pole and Ronald Heaver, their authority was deep and
clean. They all had an undeniable presence. By comparison,
anyone who demands or enforces respect (before they dole out
“teachings”) is not worthy of it, and has no true
authority.
So what purpose did all this secrecy, bifurcation
of teachings, and authority, serve? We might think that it
came from the secretive mentality of 19th century occultism,
developed in a repressed culture, and (of course) from the
overall concern about religious persecution that has haunted
mystics, pagans, and magicians throughout the Christian era.
But there is more to it than this, and I propose, without
going into detailed historical proof in this short article,
that the same methods had been in use for many centuries,
long predating the Christian era. We know, for example, that
the Ancient Mysteries of the pagan classical world kept their
lines of authority secret, and that initiates remained anonymous.
This is but one fragment of the historical foundation of the
secrecy that permeated 19th and early 20th century occultism
and magic. One day someone will write a book on it, but it
will not be me.
There are other reasons why such methods
arose, and deeper enlightenment on such secrecy was given
to me by W G Gray, another mentor of that same generation,
who appears again later in this article. He taught that the
inner traditions used a cell system for continuity…whereby
only a small number of people knew one another directly, usually
no more than 4 or 5, no matter how large the overall lineage
or stream might be. And no one knew everyone. This method,
he affirmed, had been widely used in the secret magical groups
and orders in Europe and Russia. This, he said, was to ensure
survival. But there is more to this cell system than an underground
continuity, for it has resonance with the planetary life itself.
Esoteric transmission modeled
on the world of nature
Nowadays we might see these methods of transmission
not so much as political, but as something akin to organic
growth… a consciousness, a spiritual flower or tree,
if you wish, that extends many roots and branches, and then
puts forth many seeds. The seeds do not know of one another,
when the wind blows them, but they all partake, genetically
of the same tree. In this case, the genetics are spiritual,
rather than biological. Even if the original plant dies or
is cut down, it continues through its offspring. This same
protean growth through multiple strands, extends through all
planetary life, down to the cellular level. This significant
connection advises us that the older generation teachers were
concerned more with long-term continuity, than with short
term authority, organization, grades, or hierarchies; such
petty things were, and still are, for the juveniles.
I have no doubt that the influence of Ronald
Heaver has been protean and organic in this manner, and that
is precisely why there is no organization or outer hierarchy
associated with him. Nor should there ever be, for that would
be a grave backward step. Such an organization would be the
opposite of all his deep intentions. Furthermore, his life
was clearly a dramatic and inevitable movement away from organization
and groups in his early years and middle life, towards a deeper
spiritual mediation (mediation, not meditation) in his mature
and most powerful years. This gradual separation from organized
groups is described in detail by Paul Fletcher in his biographical
article (Avalon, issue 30, Summer 2005).
Finally, we need to remind ourselves that
such mentors and exemplars as Ronald Heaver, Tudor Pole, George
Trevelyan, and many more, had been through either one or two
terrible wars, which had left indelible marks upon their individual
psyches, often upon their bodies (as was the case with Ronald
Heaver), and on the entire generations of which they were
a part. We can only truly understand the exterior of their
lives, personalities, and teachings in that context. The inner
aspects, of course, are timeless.
Meeting Ronald Heaver in the 1970’s.
In the mid-1970’s there were many utopian
schemes surfacing in Britain, with people wishing to buy properties
and turn them into spiritual centres, influenced by the success
of the Findhorn community in Scotland.
I was invited to join one such quest in 1974,
proposed by New Age motivator Michael Riddell, who started
a number of inspirational projects at that time. A group,
mainly from Bath, began to look at properties that were for
sale. These included a Victorian castle owned by the Wills
(cigarette) family, St Catherine’s Court outside Bath,
now owned by actress Jane Seymour and her husband, and several
others. This questing would make a fine spiritual allegory
and anecdote in itself, but we cannot explore it here!
As a result of my minor involvement in this
project, I had some pivotal and powerful meetings with Ronald
Heaver at Castle House in Keinton Mandeville, near Glastonbury.
My visits were witnessed by various friends and associates,
including artist and musician Marko Galley, Rollo Maughling,
and, of course, Michael Riddell. I later compared some of
my experiences with others who had visited Heaver during the
same period of the 1970’s, including philosopher and
author David Spangler, and Dorothy Maclean, one of the original
founders of Findhorn, both being my friends and for a while,
near neighbours.
The avowed intention of those visits to Keinton
Mandeville was for the group to buy the Castle pub, a large
property with gardens, that was conveniently close to Castle
House, where Ronald Heaver had lived for some years. But for
me, something entirely different came about.
Description of Ronald Heaver in
the 1970’s
Ronald Heaver was an invalid, who had been
stricken, as I was told, with paralysis many years before.
Injuries to the spine and neck, by the way, form an important
aspect of the inner teachings of the Grail Mystery, though
most people shy away from this. Heaver’s spinal injuries,
as I was told, were first incurred as a pilot, defending Britain,
then later re-occurred progressively in resonance with forces
of change that brought Britain into the modern age. Like the
Sacred Kings, he bore the burden for the people.
As a result he was a massive figure, who
had been bed-ridden for some years when I met him. Prior to
his becoming an invalid he had been a vigorous international
traveler, an ace pilot, and had some remarkable spiritual
experiences in several countries. He was on the fringe of
the British “upper classes”, though not extremely
wealthy or privileged. Heaver was of that generation of spiritual
masters (now seemingly all departed from this world) who had
a powerful sense of social grace and honourable class superiority,
having been born in 1900 into a culture that we can barely
imagine today.
In another historical world, of the past,
he would have been a king or a high priest, and, indeed, he
was both Priest and King, in the spiritual world of the present.
He naturally commanded respect, and he expected his visitors
to have both education and good manners. He was not patient
with blunders or ignorance, though I must add that he was
never short-tempered with me, despite his long years of severe
physical disability and associated pain. Such vagaries of
the emotions seemed unnecessary to him…”unnecessary”
was a word which he used often. He once exorcised someone
by simply saying “You can stop all that, now”.
And the possession stopped.
My first visit and a surprising
greeting!
On my first visit, in 1974, at age 25, I
was nervous as I entered Ronald Heaver’s bedroom where
he held audience, meeting from his bed with many people who
visited, usually one at a time. I do not remember talking
about the property scheme, which was the original intention.
As I sat down, he looked at me, looked deep into me, looked
right through me, for I was transparent to him, and suddenly
starting talking about the Order of Melchizadek, as if it
was a conversation that we had been sharing for years, old
master to young neophyte. He had an uncanny ability to see
into people and say something to awaken them. His first words
to me were not “hello young man” or “pleased
to meet you” but “Now, about this Order of Melchizadek,
you cannot join unless you are already a member, for it exists
out of time yet reaches into time into this world… and
you must reach out in return… when you reach your hand
upwards, another hand will grip yours and pull you up…”
In the 1980’s I incorporated the spiritual
process, the inner power, of this startling introductory statement
from Ronald Heaver, into my empowered visions of The King
in the Tree, which are taught to all my Inner Temples InnerConvocation
groups. When Ronald Heaver said these words to me, he was
not merely talking, but opening out the power itself, and
sensing, probing, how I responded to it. Of course, I did
not understand this so clearly at that time, but I could feel
the spiritual resonance in the room as he spoke, and, being
young and immature, I found such authority and focus somewhat
disconcerting. It reminded me, amusingly now (but uncomfortably
then!), of being in front of the headmaster at school, but
in some higher spiritual octave.
So after a brief and baffling audience, in
which Heaver talked about the Order of Melchizadek as if I
had always known about it, and simply needed to be reminded,
pulled up straight, stood to attention, discouraged from shilly-shallying,
and strictly focused on the job in hand, I was dismissed,
politely but firmly. Nothing else was discussed at this time.
I went home with my mind reeling, and my soul vibrant.
My second visit, and reactions
from W G Gray
On a later visit, Ronald Heaver (we called
him Mr Heaver, of course, and never Ronald) candidly and quite
casually revealed that his interest in the “spiritual
centre” project was solely to provide ongoing support
for his lady companion, Polly, as he knew that she would outlive
him by some years. He regarded the project itself as unimportant,
or, at least, as something that we would have to do ourselves,
with minimal involvement from him. At this time I was not
aware of his early attempts to buy the Chalice Well property
in Glastonbury, but in retrospect, I can see that he had let
go of founding a spiritual center, and was focusing only on
deep inner spiritual mediation. Please note, dear reader,
this is spiritual Mediation, not meditation. At the time of
my first meetings, he only had six years to live, and he knew
this. By this phase of his life, he was mediating direct spiritual
power, in a way that required few words and little outer form.
Several years after Heaver’s death,
Gareth Knight and I met Polly, Ronald Heaver’s companion,
at a gathering in Glastonbury Town Hall. She talked to us
briefly about her recent hip surgery, her continued life after
Heaver’s death, and about a dispute over his writings
and papers. I never saw her again after that day.
One of my other teachers in the early 1970’s
was William G Gray, an eccentric and somewhat controversial
figure, author, Qabalist, and ritual magician. His books were,
and still are, influential in the development of new Hermetic
Qabalah, ritual magic, and ancestral magic at ancient sites.
One of Gray’s books, The Rollright Ritual,
published in the early 1970’s was far ahead of its time,
and influenced many wiccans and pagans. But it was in another
context altogether that I discovered that W G Gray had also
met with Ronald Heaver. This context was, of course, the Order
of Melchizadek.
W G Gray had received teachings and initiation
into the inner Order in the 1920’s from his own mentor,
in a sacromagical lineage that traced back through France
into Russia in the 18th and 19th century and earlier. In the
early 1970’s I, in turn, received this initiation from
W G Gray.
Ronald Heaver was the only person that I
ever heard Bill Gray speak of with deep respect. Bill was
known to be offensive and scathing about many people, often
for the slightest of reasons, or for no reason at all other
than sheer cussedness, but never toward Ronald Heaver. Bill
Gray was afraid of no one, and would not hesitate to be confrontational
on matters that made me, a liberal 20-something year old,
cringe with political correctness. It was, after all, the
style of those older generation war-time occultists, who had
all been military types. Today most people find this attitude
offensive and questionable (just as I did, back then). But
it did not detract from their spiritual power, insights, and
commitment.
On several occasions Bill called Ronald Heaver
“one of the Old Ones” and referred to him as a
“Senior Officer”…seemingly in the army sense,
but really in terms of the Inner Order. Gray was surprised
that I visited Heaver; he saw it as a spiritual encounter
that confirmed something …though he was often secretive
when it came to such matters, like all the older generation
occultists. Bill and his wife Roberta, Bobby, (who was an
astrologer in the days when all calculations were done by
hand, not on computer), had visited the sanctuary at Castle
House some years before. They said that, for them, “that
tiny room felt like a vast Cathedral”.
My third visit and an initiatory
experience
On my third visit, I entered the audience
room, and, without any social chit-chat, Ronald Heaver immediately
told me to go out of another door on the opposite side of
the room, and on into the Sanctuary to meditate. This was
a small building in the garden, very plain, with an eternal
light burning over an otherwise empty altar . He gave me no
clue what to do, or what to expect. I was told to stay for
at least 15 minutes in complete silence, then report back
to him. This was not an invitation, it was an order.
The method of teaching that Ronald Heaver
used was not verbal or textual training, such as we often
expect today, but directly transmitted experience with no
preliminaries that might get in the way. This is an ancient
method of spiritual teaching. You are induced into the experience
first, then you are tested on your experience by the master,
and only then, if you are up to it, will you be “taught”
anything in the way of details. The teaching is merely a verbal
confirmation and expansion of your direct experience. Little
or nothing is written down. As a result of Heaver’s
powerful influence, I have tried to follow this method in
my workshops, which contain material that is not found in
my published work, and which cannot be communicated in print
alone.
When I returned to the room, he questioned
me about what I had sensed, felt, seen, and learned during
my time alone in the Sanctuary. He was strict in this, and
brooked no nonsense, fantasy, or uncertainty. I replied that
I had a surprising vision of the Virgin holding a sheaf of
wheat: he said, with little interest, as if I had stated something
so obvious that it was hardly worth pursuing, “yes,
yes, but what else?” I replied that next, after the
vision of the Virgin, I had a feeling of radiant spiritual
power of the Archangel Michael, but somehow attuned in a special
way that I did not understand. Once again, this was taken
for granted, as if it was widely known to all and rather obvious…he
said, “Oh yes, yes, that is because we are on the Michael
line that runs through the centre of the Earth and leads to
Jerusalem…what else?” Unable to process this statement
(though I understood it later) I said that towards the close
of my meditation, I had found myself, for a brief moment,
in a chamber or chapel of utter stillness and silence with
many powerful, but dimly perceived presences watching me intently.
This spirit chapel had become at one with the physical sanctuary
in which I sat, and so I was in both places at once. “Aha!”
he replied, for this was what Ronald Heaver had been waiting
for, and he proceeded to tell me more about the Order of Melchizadek
and the spiritual Elders who keep Convocation in the chapel
or inner sanctuary. This teaching has stayed with me through
my life, and has been influential in my own work, writing,
and public and private teaching.
This was the first time that I had been obliged
to both reveal and assess some of my spiritual senses in the
presence of a highly evolved master. With W G Gray, teaching
was conducted through rambling, often evasive, conversations,
and through bombardment with long intense rituals and ceremonies
that were unquestionably powerful, but bordered on tedious.
Heaver did none of this. As I mentioned above, I was in my
mid-20s, and my debriefing, by Ronald Heaver, of 15 minutes
in the Sanctuary was an astonishing experience, which, in
maybe no more than half an hour changed my life, and enabled
me to trust and explore my spiritual senses further. I am
still exploring them to this day.
The classic esoteric spiritual tradition
that he described to me on after my visit to the Sanctuary
at Castle House, has many variants worldwide, and became,
in my own presentations of a perennial truth, the Chapel of
the Elders, or the Sanctuary before the Void. I have taught
this in many classes and experiential workshops, from 1988
to the present day. It forms an important part of my Inner
Temple Traditions InnerConvocation series. You can find a
guideline text for this Visionary Form at www.rjstewart.org.
Having rather swiftly and surgically confirmed
my spiritual sensitivities, Ronald Heaver then suddenly jumped
track (as it seemed, but maybe not) and told me the remarkable
story about a talisman that he had buried in Jerusalem, and
how someone had dug it up some years later, acting on mysterious
inner inspiration, and brought it back to him in England.
This is a famous story among British esotericists, and is
part of the 20th century Glastonbury mythos. At that time
I did not know what to make of it. Heaver seemed to be expecting
some particular response or reaction from me, or perhaps he
may have assumed that I would know the story already. In this
I disappointed him, so he suddenly changed subject, talking
next about duty and my allocated path in life. Certain duties
were made very clear to me, at that time.
Nowadays I have better understanding of this
true legend of the “traveling talisman”, for it
was a dramatic re-enactment, in real life, through the mysterious
movement to and fro of both humans and talisman, of that same
link between Jerusalem and England that was described in the
18th century by William Blake, in his poem Jerusalem. The
verses were set to music by Parry, and are now famous, probably
for the wrong reasons, as a “patriotic hymn” which
is certainly very far from Blake’s intention. If you
practice Qabalah, as Ronald Heaver certainly did, these verses
are replete with multiple levels of meaning and spiritual
inspiration.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
This same mysterious theme was also described
in a much earlier text, by the medieval poet Robert de Boron,
in his story concerning Joseph of Arimathea and the two Vessels
of Blood and Water (Seed) that were brought to Glastonbury.
These Vessels were said to be the daughter and son of Jesus,
by Mary Magdalene. I received the inner teaching, regarding
the two Vessels, from W G Gray , and within his generation
of British mystics and occultists it was regarded as one of
the Sacred Mysteries that merged paganism and esoteric Christianity
through the holy location of Glastonbury. Nowadays it is bandied
about as some kind of idle sensationalist fiction. Of course
there is much more to it than the obvious aspects, for it
is not merely a legendary history, as it contains a practical
method of spiritual transformation, that has be entered into,
rather than merely read about. So while such modern popular
fiction is somewhat offensive to members of the esoteric traditions,
it is ultimately harmless and laughable.
Ronald Heaver’s remarkable and mysterious
moving talisman was, in essence, this same story, this same
power, at work in the 20th century, as it was all about the
link between Britain and the Holy Land, the British soul and
the Christ power. It took me many years to realize that the
Heaver/Talisman story was part of an enduring spiritual continuum,
and not merely an account of a one-off remarkable set of events.
Ronald Heaver, Dion Fortune, and
ritual magic
At one point in our conversation, I asked
him if he had known Dion Fortune, who had lived in Glastonbury
and was buried in the town churchyard, and he laughed. “Oh
yes, she was involved in ritual magic you know…totally
unnecessary”. I was pretty certain, at that time, that
ritual magic was, indeed, necessary, but it was difficult
to disagree with Ronald Heaver, as he knew intuitively what
was passing through your mind, was always several steps and
jumps ahead of you, and every statement that he made was a
spiritual teaching of some sort, that pulled you up, and made
you think on a new level. Ten minutes with Heaver was like
ten hours of intense concentration or challenging physical
exercise…except it was spiritual. Of course ritual magic
is, indeed, no longer necessary once you have worked your
way through its disciplines and arts, and emerged on the other
side with a highly developed consciousness! That is what he
was saying to me, back then in 1974, though I did not understand
him at the time. It was certainly not necessary for Ronald
Heaver, who transformed all by being present, rather than
by doing anything. This is the difference between direct spiritual
mediation, and all the many techniques practiced today. Heaver
was a direct mediator, not a technician of spiritual methods.
A theory of telluric energy networks
in the Earth.
On my last visit of the mid-1970’s,
though not my ultimate meeting, as there was one more, he
outlined in some detail a revolutionary esoteric theory of
how ley lines (ever popular) were not straight lines along
the surface of the land as is popularly taught, but that they
pass down through the centre of the planet, then are deflected
or reflected at various angles to link geomantic or telluric
power sites that were thousands of miles apart on the surface.
He likened this to the angular relationships in an astrological
natal chart (the square, trine, sextile, and so forth). He
told me that certain mountains in Tibet, in the Holy Land,
and South America, had powerful angular relationships through
the centre of the Earth, to one another, and , of course,
to Glastonbury Tor.
Looking back on this, I think that he sensed
that I was soon to be working with UnderWorld spiritual forces
that radiate from the planetary heart, and his remarkable
intuition had led him to talk to me about this network of
connections. In 2005 I took part in a private ritual with
a Peruvian shaman, in which a traditional Peruvian teaching
about linking mountains together, exactly mirrored what I
had learned from Ronald Heaver back in the 1970’s, albeit
with a different cultural ambience. This reminded me of the
strong emphasis that Heaver placed upon sacred mountains in
South America, and their future role for the coming era of
world transformation. In the past, he said, Tibet, but in
the future, South America. This shift of power was clear,
if you knew where the power-lines went as they passed through
the center of the Earth.
Initiation and transmission handed
on by Ronald Heaver
Not long before he died, Heaver transferred
the inner power of the priesthood to me, in a simple direct
transmission, without ritual (of course!). This was, essentially,
a Melchizadek initiation, similar to one I had received from
W G Gray in a ritual lodge context (witnessed by Norman Gibbs)
a few years before, but with certain significant differences
of inner contact and subtle power. It added something clear
and catalyzing to the power that I had received from Gray,
and this combined transmission is what I work with in the
Consecration ceremonies, from time to time within my own groups.
It seems more than likely that Ronald Heaver
also transmitted this power, through personal communion, to
others, and I make no claim whatsoever of being his spiritual
heir, or to having any special relationship with him. I am
sure that I was just one (hopefully promising) young initiate
that encountered him at this time. My sense, even now, is
that he was a Priest of priests, more concerned with a vast
overview of the spiritual evolutionary forces, than with training
individuals. The training was through being in his presence,
and you could take it or leave it.
Inner Temple Consecrations and
their validity
It is most important to remember that this
type of transmission, such as I received from both Gray and
Heaver, is handed on by physical interaction and presence…it
cannot be received or communicated unless you are in the presence
of the master, as it is handed on while in the physical human
world...it has long been known that the deep initiations are
enabled by proximity, by touch, not by inner vision alone.
There are also certain teachings and methods that are handed
on, usually in a whisper. Without knowledge of these instructions,
and without a special form of the sacred Touch not widely
known, any claims to be able to initiate or consecrate are
invalid. Of course, many groups and orders offer formal initiations
into grades and membership, and that is an entirely different
matter.
Heaver died in 1980, so anyone claiming initiation
from him must be able to confirm that they met him before
that date. In the 1970’s he held meetings with a number
of people who are now known as spiritual teachers or innovators
in various ways, and his influence was far reaching, despite
his lack of public appearances. Any claims by people who did
not meet him before his death must be highly questionable,
and are likely to be false.
I attribute much of the inspiration for the
deeper Inner Temple Traditions InnerConvocation material,
not so much to W G Gray, but to the initiatory meetings and
transmission that I received from Ronald Heaver back in the
1970’s, at a time when my spiritual path was being revealed
to me by some remarkable teachers.
Zadok, and the death of Ronald
Heaver
For some years Ronald Heaver wrote letters,
essays, and pamphlets under the pen-name Zadok, the priest.
You can find insights into this theme in the Salomonic tradition
of Qabalah. The Hebrew word also implies the term Justified,
and it was Heaver who first put me into contact with the inner
spiritual order of Justified Men that I wrote about in my
early book The UnderWorld Initiation (published 1985),
and which I teach in the Inner Temple Traditions InnerConvocation
work. The concept is an ancient one, found in many spiritual
traditions in various forms, for it describes an actual collective
of advanced spiritual awareness, to which we may attune in
meditation and inner vision. This collective of consciousness
is found both in the UnderWorld and in the OverWorld, where
it is located, metaphysically, in the Chapel of the Elders
or Sanctuary before the Void. I should add that the Order
of Justified Men is not anything exclusively patriarchal:
it is a collective term rather than a gender specific term.
The old usage of “men” for a plural can mean “human”
, and comes from “manu” the hand, rather than
from male gender. The Inner Temples, of course, include both
priestesses and priests, as does the Sanctuary before the
Void
I was not present at Ronald Heaver’s
death, but I was told by Rollo Maughling and several others
that he died in full awareness at the local cottage hospital,
having invited some friends and proteges to be present. His
death was, I was told, peaceful and quiet, and he died on
his 80th birthday.
So that is the story of my meetings with
Ronald Heaver, meetings that exerted a powerful influence
on me, and opened out certain specific inner teachings and
contacts for me.
The spiritual centre? It never happened…but
the idea and the resulting interactions seeded many other
things into the minds and souls of those involved. That seeding
is, of course, the true spiritual centre, the Temple built
without hands.
(R J Stewart will be leading a workshop that
includes selected teachings from Ronald Heaver at Glastonbury
Town Hall, July 14/15/16. Attendance is limited. Contact Nigel
Breen 01736 366 755, nigelbreen@lyonesse.eclipse.co.uk)
This article is strictly Copyright © R J Stewart 2006
and may not be reproduced entire or in part without written
permission.
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