Natural, rational life is the basis of all genuine spiritual development

Rudolf Steiner, How to Know Higher Worlds

Consider also:

  1. “Hence in the E.A. degree, we ask, ‘As a Mason, whence come you?’ and the answer, coming from an apprentice (i.e., from the natural man of undeveloped knowledge) is ‘From the West,’ since he supposes that his life has originated in this world.”
  2. “The Ceremony of our first degree, then, is a swift and comprehensive portrayal of the entrance of all men into, first, physical life, and second, into spiritual life; and as we extend congratulations when a child is born into the world, so also we receive with acclamation the candidate for Masonry who, symbolically, is seeking for spiritual re-birth”
  3. “Masonry is a veiled and cryptic expression of the difficult science of spirit life, and the understanding of it calls for special informed guidance on the one hand, and on other a genuine and earnest desire for knowledge and no small capacity for spiritual perception on part of those seeking to be instructed”
  4. “But, in the advanced degree of M.M. the answer is that he comes ‘From the East,’ for by this time the Mason is supposed to have so enlarged his knowledge as to realize that the primal source of life is not in the ‘West,’ not in this world; that existence upon this planet is but a transitory sojourn, spent in search of ‘the genuine secrets,’ the ultimate realities, of life; and that as the spirit of man must return to God who gave it, so he is now returning from this temporary world of ‘substituted secrets’ to the ‘East’ from which he originally came.”
  5. “Projection results when we encounter the divine, accept it as real, but refuse to make it part of ourselves, and instead, see it as a manifestation of another person, place, or thing. This is the belief in a savior without having to do any work on ourselves, or guru worship in some form. However, it also includes the obsession with ‘spiritual technologies’ such as aura meters, ‘energy field enhancers’, crystals, or the mythological idealization of native or indigenous religious forms. Messianic protections either in the form of a returning Christ, a new avatar, or extraterrestrials also fall into this category of pathology which they take the place of psycho-spiritual development instead of supporting it. This form of spiritual laziness is accompanied by feelings of self-doubt, anger, frustration, and low self-esteem, as we do not feel capable of being the qualities idealized and instead see them only as possessed by another, resulting in anger at our own unworthiness. (Yesod/Luna)”