Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 97 – Harry Wakes Up (HP Chapter 17)
When Harry opened his eyes for the third time, Dumbledore smiled down at him. “Good afternoon, Harry.” Three days mirrors the three days that Christ’s physical body spent in the tomb, but the Apostle Paul and others also spoke of conversion experiences that placed them in darkness for three days. The three days remind us that we live and react in total darkness for several lifetimes until we enter the Strait and Narrow Path that will take us home.
It took a moment for Harry to realize where he was and what had happened. “Sir! The Stone!” Upon completely awakening in the physical world, the Stone was Harry’s first concern, but he still perceived it as a physical object.
Dumbledore assured Harry that Quirrell didn’t have the Stone. “You’re a little behind the times,” he said. Harry had been asleep for three days. He was now in a hospital bed. Next to him was a table piled with candy. The candy represented the pleasures of the world. “Tokens from your friends and admirers.”
A token is a symbol that’s used to help the mind remember something. Neville’s Remembrall is a Token. It symbolizes something, but Neville can’t remember what that is. He can’t remember what he is supposed to be doing, or why he is here. Harry’s friends and admirers have sent him a mountain of candy as a token. Candy pleases the senses. It provides pleasure of taste, which is one of the pleasures that many conditioned men seek after daily, but Dumbledore also tells us that the Weasley twins tried to send Harry a toilet seat.
While that might appear to be a practical joke, the inference is that seeking after the ideal of constant daily pleasure is something we need to dispose of. Not everything in our lives is supposed to be pleasant. Our ultimate purpose for being here isn’t to seek pleasure and avoid all forms of pain and discomfort. Harry’s experience in the dungeon was disturbing and frightful, but it was something he needed to do. Discovering our inner world and those who people it is an essential experience if we wish to find the Stone, but in order to find it, we need to flush many aspects of ourselves down the toilet.
Dumbledore explained that what happened in the dungeon between Harry and Quirrell was a secret. This mirrors the secretive element associated with the experience of Endowment. When inner schools of Initiation went underground, it was to protect their existence in much the same way as the Wizarding World works to keep their existence secret. In ages past, those caught teaching The Way home were physically destroyed. The initial covenants of secrecy were about keeping the teachings and knowledge safe from those who felt threatened by it. It was about making sure that the knowledge didn’t disappear from the earth and become extinct.
Today, that is no longer the case. In many areas of the world, we are free to pass on the knowledge to whomever we choose because the work isn’t something that we do openly. The only people who feel threatened by this are those who seek power and control over their followers. While individuals or specific churches might attack or excommunicate those who attempt to reveal The Way to their members, Alchemical and Mystery School Teachings are no longer likely to be completely exterminated. The world is far more tolerant of individual beliefs than it used to be because it’s far more effective to brand those who believe in and practice such things as crazy or apostate then it is to make someone a martyr.
Initiation is given in symbols and parallels. It isn’t open knowledge that one can simply give to another person. Endowment is something you have to experience for yourself because it’s about your self. In the physical example that Jo gives us, Ron was able to go as far as the Chess Game, Hermione was able to go as far as Snape’s Riddle, but only Harry was able to go through the Black Flames and face his true enemy: his self. This Key of Knowledge comes as we experiment with the ideas we’ve been presented with in Book 1, and discover their Truth and value for ourselves.
Inner changes result when we begin to understand that everyone is conditioned in exactly the same way. Understanding conditioning results in compassion for our fellowman. Compassion brings a new attitude, and a new attitude results in different behavior. It isn’t something that we do deliberately. It isn’t something that someone can tell us, so no one can reveal the secrets of Alchemy even if they wanted to.
Jo showed us that at the end of Book 3 when Harry attempted to share his experience with Hermione. Although he tried his best to describe what it felt like to use the Patronus Charm to chase away the Dementors, how he knew he could do that, and how he came to realize that he and his father were One, Hermione didn’t understand. The secrets (a new state of being or consciousness that we experience) can’t be described in a literal way. They can only be delivered symbolically or in terms of relationships. Likewise, they can only be received by those who work with the ideas themselves and then find them to be of value.
However, the physical Christ cautions his disciples to use Wisdom when imparting bits of Truth to others because when one is caught in the ropes of imprisonment and is not yet ready to remove those ropes, their conditioning will cause them to stomp on the Truth. Plus, they will often react mechanically to what it means, and turn around and verbally or physically harm you. Most people cannot comprehend a world other than the one they see. They take everything (including what happens during an Initiation ceremony) literally.
One needs to be able to see past the portrayals of literal death and literal consequences to find such Endowment valuable and useful because the Ego and controlling Not-I’s are going to do everything in their power to stay alive and in control. They will do everything in their power to put your Real Self back to sleep if he tries to wake up and start observing and reporting them. They will even try to kill him, if necessary.
However, Dumbledore also revealed to Harry that because the events in the dungeon were a secret, “naturally, the whole school knows.” Until you Know through your own experience that conditioning is real, that observation of our inner self works to deactivate what no longer has value, that the Spirit that is in all things and throughout all things does the work for us, it’s simply a possibility.
The whole school doesn’t really know because no one can teach you the Truth. Truth is something you must learn on your own through observation, experimentation, and a healed awareness. We can see that in the way that the students and teachers interact with each other through their own mechanical programming. But that’s why Dumbledore uses the word, “naturally.” It’s through natural experience that we come to know the Truth of all things