Hank Wesselman writes:

There is simply nothing like the direct experience of 'the spirits,' the same archetypal beings we could call 'transpersonal forces,' to awaken us from the consensus slumber of culture at large-an experience that may bring us into the irreversible vortex of personal transformation. So allow me to share a bit of what our most recent travel program in Egypt was all about.

Jill and I led our group of 32 pilgrims in two weeks of spiritual exploration. Most of these worthies had passed through our shamanic training workshops across the years and so they were seasoned visionaries.

The trip itself was extraordinary in everyway, partially because of the flawless flow of the travel experience itself-fabulous meals, wonderful 5 star hotels, easy airport transfers, a Nile River cruise, ancient site explorations, the whole tapestry woven and supported by our Egyptian hosts with Guardian Travel.

And we should also add that the success of this safari was due to what the ancient Egyptians created so long ago to receive us. I say this with deliberation for they constructed those great temples and religious centers to last forever-to be available to each new generation of spiritual seekers in order to bring them into closer connection with the Mystery itself.

In considering the Great Mystery, I should add that it is its nature to remain ever elusive, always hidden, yet always there just out in front of us, inviting us to step up into a more expanded perception of ourselves, the nature of reality, as well as where we fit into it and how.

The Mystery, always and forever, invites us to become more than we were, encouraging us to grow consciously as well as spiritually as we continue on with our long walk across eternity, both personally as well as collectively. That's what this whole life game is really is all about.

All the rest-our careers and our relationships, our families and our friends, our achievements and our challenges, our successes and our failures are simply aspects of the river of experience that carry us inexorably toward the fulfillment of our personal and collective destiny so that we can rediscover that each of us is a holy creator being in the process of becoming a god.

When you are standing on the ancient sites, dedicated to this god or goddess by that king or queen, there is no doubt that these mysterious Egyptian people of the past possessed this awareness. They also possessed a high science that allowed them to build their great temples using their extraordinary knowledge of mathematics and engineering as well as sacred geometry, the golden mean, and the concept of pi that were supposedly invented by the Greeks two thousand years later.

It is one thing to look at finely crafted photographs of the colossal Egyptian sites in coffee table books. It is something quite different to actually stand in the shadows among the massive stone columns, smelling the desert in your nostrils and feeling cool breezes from the Nile on your skin while you stare at the gods themselves, represented as huge sculptures or rendered in relief on the towering temple walls along with their myths and their stories, as well as the histories and the testimonials of those mystics who lived four thousand years ago, revealed in exquisitely carved hieroglyphs for those who can read them.

Nothing like this has ever been created on this scale elsewhere to my knowledge, making Egypt, and what it offers to us, simply mind-boggling. There is no doubt when standing there among the silent stones that the priesthoods and the ruling families of the ancient Egyptians possessed a knowledge of spiritual science, or what some might call it a high metaphysical wisdom tradition, that allowed them to become aware of the transpersonal forces that govern the manifested universe.

This science, for that is what it was, allowed these worthies to connect with these archetypal forces and draw them into relationship, enabling them to do various things, first on behalf of themselves and their religious orders including their kings and their ruling families, as well as on behalf of their communities and the public.

Now in using the word 'govern,' I am not talking about the mythic creator deities of the polytheistic and monotheistic traditions of the world's diverse cultures that were invented by their priesthoods to appeal to (and control) the common peoples of their cultures.

I'm talking about what we could call the "higher organizing intelligences" that exist in the transpersonal realms above (or beyond) what we as embodied immortals conceive of in our mythic belief systems as 'God' or 'the gods' or the 'angels.'

In talking about these 'higher' archetypal forces, I put that word 'higher' in quotes because like it or not, they appear to be organized into a hierarchy that is determined by their own level of evolutionary development in the spiritual schema of the Great Mystery.

The great temples of Egypt were built to honor these forces as well as to honor the kings or queens who built them. But the great secret that can only be learned from the experience of direct revelation is that they were also built to embody these higher archetypes, to house them so to speak, so that when we as embodied immortals stand inside the great courtyards surrounded by those immense monolithic pillars and temple walls, or when we stand in the presence of an ancient red granite altar in the inner sanctum of the 'holy-of-holies,' we are actually in the presence of these high deities themselves.

In those moments, we are actually inside 'them' for they are there, all around us, and for those of us who are visionaries-those who can sense them or perceive them-they may choose to come into relationship depending on our level of readiness.

This is why this trip to Egypt was so amazing. Jill and I watched intrigued as our tour participants responded to these sites and were drawn into connection with these 'organizing intelligences' who exist above and beyond all the myths and sacred texts.

The Egyptians called these beings 'the neters' (the plural of neter should actually be 'neteru'). and from my direct experiences of them, it is my suspicion that these transpersonal forces may very likely have had a hand in the 'human experiment' ever since we reached a certain level of our own evolutionary development on our long journey across time.

If I were to try to define them, I would have to say that I do not perceive them as gods with animal heads and human bodies. This was part of a figurative and symbolic cultural mythos the Egyptian priests created for the common people to be able to see and believe in.

Conversely, I would offer in all humility that I perceive them as the light beyond the form. and in the same breath, the formless beyond the light. These are the beings (or should we call them states of consciousness?) with which authentic initiated mystics have always sought connection.

Formed of 'subtle fire' (energy), my direct experience of them has also revealed to me that they are vastly intelligent. 'They' have been through all that we are going through and have evolved beyond being embodied on the physical plane of existence. And many of them are in service to us as those compassionate forces that are poised to help us in various ways.

In Egypt, we all learned that the spirit worlds are not in some far away remote location. They, and the beings that reside within them, are right here, all around us. The trick lies in learning how to perceive them.

  www.sharedwisdom.com

  www.greatmystery.org/events/egyptSW.html.