Abraham, Sarah and their Mystery School Adventure

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What experiences led Abraham and Sarah to become the matriarch patriarch of a new religion? Led them to beginning  a cultural thread which culminates in a whole new vision of religion?   There were many experiences but the focus today is looking at their possible initiation into the Mysteries. In spiritual systems throughout time and throughout the world, when an initiate has experienced the Great Mysteries, they are initiated in ceremony.   One mark of this experience is to earn a new name.   In this thread, I am are going to look at two definitive cases of new Biblical names, and one speculative one.  The first is Abram (Avram) and Sarai from Ur.

Look at where they travel to in the course of their lives: Egypt

There was a famine in the land, and Abram went
down to Egypt to sojourn there.
Genesis 12:10

As discussed in my previous blog, Egypt had the most ancient and most prominent of all mystery schools. Even through there is no record of it, it would make sense that Abram and Sarai had some contact with the ancient Egyptian mystery schools during their time there.  further evidence that they had an experience of the Great Mystery is that soon after this sojourn, Abram has a personal conversation with divinity or Biblically speaking, forms a covenant with God:

No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham for
I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
Genesis 17:5

Changing a name changes the course of one’s life.

And God said to Abraham, “As for your wife, Sarai,
you shall not call her Sarai, but her name shall be Sarah.”
Genesis 17:15

What is the significance of adding the “ha” sound to Abram’s name and its variation, “ah” to Sarai’s?  The Kabbalah speaks about Abram’s name change; “From under the Throne of Glory, God took the letter ה [pronounced “hey” or “ha”], with which the world was created, and crowned Abram by implanting it in his name, which became Abraham.”[i]

This is the same breath of life, already discussed as the “wind of divinity.” Here is the thread: http://themysticpagan.com/breath-vibration-song-and-creation/

It is surely conceivable that Abram and Sarai went through an initiation process and ceremony. When Abram became Abraham, and Sarai became Sarah, it was the breath of life “with which the world was created” that was incorporated into their core being. The addition of the power syllable made palpable their connection to all of creation through the agency of breath.

After receiving her new name, Sarah learns she will give birth:

she shall be a mother of nations;
kings of people shall be of her
Genesis 17:16

 Abraham and Sarah with their awakened, renewed interconnection to the power of breath, are about to create new life or in a Biblical context, become the matriarch and patriarch of “nations.” As above so below; creation as it occurred in the heavens when god’s breath blew over the waters.  This is reflected in human life. Ha, the seed of creation, is an outward manifestation of their inward spiritual journey.

Next post:  Another Biblical name change.

[i] Munk, Rabbi Michael L, The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet, Mesorah Publications, ltd, 2009; 87. From Yalkut Reuveni, a Kabbalistic work written in 1660.

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