Ascension Class in Serapis Bey's Retreat

This excerpt on Serapis Bey and the initiation of the ascension is from The Path to Your Ascension by Annice Booth, drawn from her lectures given at Summit University and her memories of experiences with the masters in their etheric retreats.

“As the master approaches the platform to give us our next lesson, we look around and see that tonight we are seated in a large amphitheater. Rows and rows of bleachers form a semicircle behind us, or so it seems. They are filled with young souls who have been invited to attend the next few lectures on the initiations of the ascension.

“The Master Serapis begins speaking immediately:

“‘The ascension is an initiation, in fact the final initiation, on the path that leads home to God.

In future classes we will discuss the steps to the ascension, but for now, remember that I have said, ‘You ascend daily. Initiations cannot be taken all at once. They are taken over the spiral of not one lifetime but many lifetimes.'

“We realize that we must have passed many initiations already or we would not be attending this series of lectures at the Ascension Temple.

Nonetheless, we may have failed some initiations and therefore need to take them over again. We may have even refused them when they were first presented to us.

“Serapis Bey is a no nonsense master who gives us all the information we need.”

He continues to instruct us from the Dossier on the Ascension:

“‘You cannot produce the necessary change in consciousness that will fit you for our cosmic band unless there is a willingness on your part to relinquish ties to human foolishness. If you would wait a million years for mastery, go find another. For Serapis is impatient for perfection.

“Men require spunk and a straight spine. There is no question that they have pampered themselves, and that with illusion. Straight talk and straight thought will do much to clear the way; and it will not place any individual outside the citadel of hope, but wholly within it. My motto is, ‘The disciplines of life must be inflexible. Otherwise there can be no discipline.'

“The ascension must be desired and it must be desired ordinately. It must not be desired as a mechanism of escape from responsibility or from worldly duties.

“It must be desired as the culmination of a lifetime of service in the will of God. Men must be willing during their final embodiments upon the planet—the time of their escape from the round of the centuries—to give the very best of service to the light and to help usher in the kingdom.

“The way of escape for every man is the path of the ascension and this is the gift of God to each one, whether men realize it or not.'

“We sit silently as we assimilate Serapis' words and continue to reflect on their implications.”

The Initiation of the Ascension

“Serapis has emphasized that immortality comes at a high price and it demands the allness of men from the smallness of men. Men cannot build out of mortal substance immortal bodies. They cannot build out of mortal feelings divine feelings that enfold the world and create the great Pyramid of Life.

“None of our teachers in school taught us about the path to the ascension, nor did they tell us that it is God's greatest gift to us. And yet I think I must have always had a soul awareness of it, for I always knew that there must be something more to life than our everyday existence.

“Now that I am aware of the gift of the ascension, I am determined to dedicate my life to telling as many people as I can about this great dispensation of grace. In informal talks with students, I have found that most of them feel the same way. Look out world, here we come!

“However, we have millions of ways of explaining our actions when we do not want to pass an initiation. We claim the right to do our own thing by performing good works on this planet and justifying our actions by saying that we are doing this for God.

But we really need God's representatives, the ascended masters and their messenger, the embodied guru, to help us safely and quickly climb the pyramid of the ascension.

El Morya has said that ‘the Path is strewn with the bleached bones of solitary climbers.'

“We may have meandered through many a lifetime, refusing an initiation that came directly from a master, even perhaps without recognizing it. We may have veered off in many directions and become involved in other paths—the psychic world, probes into flying saucers or clairvoyance. Many became do-gooders and justified their existence on this basis.

“All these things are sidetracks for souls who may have chosen to refuse the basic initiations that probably involved the surrender of pride and the surrender of the ego. And so we rationalized our own little path as we became feverishly involved in this or that endeavor.”

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Excerpt from The Path to Your Ascension: Rediscovering Life's Ultimate Purpose, by Annice Booth., based on the teachings of Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet.