What is Mystical Death (Revisited)?

Introduction

In Gnosis we know death to take three forms. They are: death of the physical body, the second death and mystical death. Even though this article is about mystical death we are going to digress a little in the following paragraphs and take a brief look at what death is.

Birth and Death

In Gnosis we see death and birth as twins, as two factors or principles that are intimately linked. In fact we can’t have one without the other, they work together, one leads to the other and the presence of one calls the presence of the other. If there is a death somewhere there will be a birth and if there is a birth somewhere, there will be death. For us to have been born we’ve had to have died at some time and to be born is to one day be taken by death.

Please note that we prefer to use the term birth instead of life because we say in Gnosis that death and birth are two opposite phenomena that exist on the one stream of life. We have one life with many existences or bodies. We say that life is something divine, that is rather like a stream of consciousness that never leaves us and can not be lost.

This truth tells us something very profound about death, that death exists to give something the opportunity to be born in a new state and birth exists for something to have the opportunity to better itself, before having death take it and transform it into something new according to the merits it has acquired while being alive.

As master Samael says death is everyone’s crown, that is death, according to all the merits and values one acquires during life gives one the prize in the next life. So death gives one the reward or the crown made from one’s own efforts.

Birth and death are really processes of transformation, birth transforms as does death. Master Samael says for the sapling to be born the seed must die. So whenever there is change in a person something died in the person and something new was born. So birth and death mean change. They are both something dynamic.

About Mystical Death

Now applying what we have learnt in the previous paragraphs we can say that mystical death is a process of change, Gnosis says that it is a process where factors internal to us, factors that are essentially part of our psychology die in us, only for new values and qualities to be born in our interior. We could otherwise describe mystical death as the gradual dissolution of the defects we carry within, to give rise to the virtues and qualities of the essence that the various defects were hiding.

Mystical death has the adjective: mystical, because it is a death that is not physically tangible, as it refers to our interior and can also only really happen due to a mystical factor that dwells within us, namely the Divine Mother. Another reason why mystical death has the adjective mystical, is because it also allows us to approach the divine Being (that which is truly mystical) dwelling within us, so that each time we progress in the process of mystical death we renew inner life and produce a life that is more and more the Being.

To rephrase, this kind of death (mystical death) occurs within us by virtue of an inner mystical part (Divine Mother) and its process, not its results though, is invisible to others, hence the word mystical. As physical death takes one to life, so mystical death takes us to a new life as well, and that is the life of the Being.

In summary then, mystical death exists to give ourselves a life with our inner divine Being, by dissolving the factors that separate, distance and negate the Being in us. These factors are the many psychological aggregates or “I’s” or egos that we carry within.