PART: 10 THE MORNING COMMUNIONS
An explanation of the purpose of each Communion follows:
The Earthly Mother-Saturday Morning
The purpose of this Communion was to establish unity between man’s physical organism and the nutritive forces of the earth.
This was accomplished by contemplating the different food substances and realizing that the body is formed of the elements of the earth, and is nourished with those elements through plant life. This teaches the meaning and importance of the natural foods of the earth supplied by the Earthly Mother in harmony with the laws governing terrestrial life.
Through this, man learns of the paramount role of natural foods in his health and vitality and he becomes conscious of the processes of metabolism within him. He learns, furthermore, how to receive and absorb the powerful energies derived from foods and how to conserve those energies in his body. He thus gradually develops the ability to assimilate perfectly and utilize all the nutritive substances he eats and the energies in them; thus he is able to derive more sustenance from a given amount of food.
This Communion was one of the principal instruments by which the Essenes maintained such remarkable physical health.
The Angel of Earth-Sunday Morning
The Earthly Mother’s Angel of Earth was the power of generation and regeneration. A central idea of the Essenes, similar to that of Zoroaster, was to create more fruitful and abundant life. The purpose of the Communion was to transform the generative powers in life into the regeneration of the human body.
They conceived this power in man to be the same natural force as the generative powers of nature in the top soil, which creates the vegetation of the earth.
This Communion therefore relates to the surface of the earth where things germinate, and to the power of fertility and the glands and organs of generation. It taught the importance of the life-generating powers of the soil and of the regenerative force of sexual energy in the glandular system.
It made man conscious of the life generating forces in and around him, enabling him to be more receptive in absorbing this great power, and mastering, directing and utilizing it.
The Essenes’ extraordinary faculty of self-regeneration was primarily due to their transforming sexual energy through the practice of this Communion.
The Angel of Life-Monday Morning
This Communion was dedicated to the life, health and vitality of the human organism and that of the whole planet and brought about a dynamic unity between them.
It taught man the role of vitality in his well being and made him conscious of all the innumerable activities of the life force in and around him, enabling him to direct it to any part of his body in the intensity required.
It gave the Essenes their astonishing ability to absorb life force especially from trees and forests.
The Angel of Joy-Tuesday Morning
All forms of beauty were joyously contemplated in this Communion in order to make man conscious of the beauties of nature and the joy within himself in every part of his being.
This faculty of absorbing joy from the beauties of nature, sunrises, sunsets, mountains, flowers, colors, aromas and so on was one of the means by which the Essenes attained the inner harmony and serenity which so impressed their contemporaries.
The Angel of the Sun-Wednesday morning
The Essenes meditated on the Sun as a great living force in terrestrial nature, an ever-present source of energy without which there would be no life on earth, in the ocean or in the atmosphere. They meditated on the effect of solar rays which do not stop at the surface of the body but penetrate the organism at the point where the solar plexus is located, bathing the body and the nervous system in the radiation of the Sun. This point is the oldest unity in the human organism.
The purpose of this Communion was to become receptive to the solar energies and establish a perfect unity between the self and the sun and distribute its power throughout the body.
By the Essenes’ use of this method certain abnormal conditions were frequently cured in a way that seemed miraculous to the early historians.
The Angel of Water-Thursday Morning
The Essenes considered the circulation of water in nature to correspond to the circulation of the blood in the body. They knew all organisms as well as their foods consist largely of water, which is also essential to life on earth. The perfection of the organism depends upon the quality of the blood, and in like manner the perfection of the physical environment depends upon the quality of the water available.
In this Communion all forms of water were contemplated, rivers, creeks, rain, the sap in trees and plants and so on, establishing as a living reality the unity between the waters of the body and the waters of the planet, thereby making it possible to direct the blood stream to any part of the body or withdraw it at will.
This power enabled the Essenes to cure many conditions otherwise remedied only by long and arduous treatment. It was one of the reasons the Essenes had such complete self-mastery and an almost unbelievable resistance to pain.
Angel of the Air-Friday Morning
The purpose of this Communion was to make man conscious of the dynamic unity between air and life and that respiration is the link between the organism and the cosmos, that where there is life there is breath, the cessation of one meaning the cessation of the other. Thus the atmosphere in surrounding nature and the air within the body have a stupendous role in health and vitality.
This Communion was accompanied by a certain deep rhythmic breathing enabling the Essenes to absorb specific energies from the atmosphere and establish a correlation of the self and the universe.
These Communions with the Earthly Mother and her Angels were the source from which the Essenes derived their particular way of living, their eating, cold water ablutions, sun bathing, breathing and so on, described by their contemporaries, Josephus, Philo and Pliny, with such astonishment.