The purpose of this thread is to try and explain the Antique and even Masonic understanding of Ascension.
Today, the typical understanding of Ascension is you can fly. You get "raised up" and can see things from a higher perspective.
That's not altogether untrue, but it's a narrow view of a much wider concept -- a concept that even our forefathers had difficulty conveying without symbolism and graphics.
So, here's the idea...
Say you want something to pound stuff with. You've been using your fist and some rocks, but I'll be darned if it doesn't hurt after a dozen or so bashes, so you think "there has to be a better way!" like in a Billy Mays infomercial.
Then, one day, you stumble upon a corpse of a deer or some other large game. You grab ahold of its femur, and lo and behold it's a pretty good bashy stick with that knob on the end.
2001 A Space Odyssey - Dun dun!
Skill Unlocked: Leverage
Problem is, it's still too light...
But the concept is there. A handle with a knob on the end.
You'll call it, the Hammer. Capitalized, because the actual hammer has yet to have been made. There is but one in all the Universe, and it's currently residing in your little monkey brain.
So now comes the lofty goal, of taking rock and stick and combining them to form something greater than the sum of its parts. You find a stick with a crotch, take the rock and smash it in the Y gap with another rock, and there you have it, an instance of a hammer!
Skill Unlocked: Crafting
Skill Unlocked: Invention
Problem is, the rock keeps slipping out. It's not like the femur, the bone, you had before. So you need some way to keep the two together. You got options, but you figure the best is to take some vines and wrap it around the rock so it stops slipping out.
Skill Unlocked: Lashings
Skill Unlocked: Tying Knots
Skill Unlocked: Innovation
You now have a serviceable hammer. That Hammer you saw in your mind's eye now exists. The First Hammer, with which you are pleased...
But the story does not end there.
The Hammer's story is not yet finished. Now that you have a hammer, dreams of other hammers come into your mind. You realize new potentials, new opportunities which were not available to you before the advent of the poundy stick you now possess.
Another design for a Hammer pops into your mind.
The Son of Hammer. A birth of a new hammer, only made possible by a hammer made before it -- for it.
The Hammer of Hammers. The Pounder of Pounders. The Basher of Bashers.
You see where I'm going with this yet?
It will not be the first Hammer, but the First AMONG Hammers.
But, how to do it?
Time passes, and many iterations come and go, but eventually you see the proper material. Metal. Stones crack. Metal bends. Metal is heavy like stone.
Metal melts...
Metal will work. But metal is birthed through heat. Through the flames and through pain and suffering.
You dedicate time and efforts to building the Kiln, which turns wood into black wood. Charcoal. This black wood burns hotter. It melts metal.
You plop the green rocks you found, the seed of metals, into the furnace and heat it up with the black wood. It melts, and you catch it in a rock with a hole in it. You pick up that rock with sticks and pour the metal into a mold, the casting, an empty cavity begging for seed to fill it. A womb which will birth your new-born son.
The child cools down. The Hammer Head crowns from the mold and birth is given to an infant. But it is without handle. A hole in the head resides for the handle, but the head must come for the handle to fit it. So you get to work, taking up flint, and grind away at the branch to form a stake, a wooden beam, with which to pierce the side of the hammer and raise it upon.
Skill Unlocked: Carpentry
Then, when the time has come, you drive the handle into the hammer's head, and bash a wedge in the other side to bind it into place. To do this, you use the last tap of the original stone and stick hammer you've been using all along up until now. It's purpose is served -- to help give birth to this new Creation.
The Hammer of Hammers is done.
The Universe revels at the Mind's Eye given birth to a new Creation, which fulfills the Creator's goals. With which the Creator is "well pleased."
This Hammer, born through fire and flames; through carvings and piercings of spades and spears; through pain and suffering; is now here in its most prescient form. All other hammers seek to model themselves after this template. All other hammers now resemble this authentic, genuine article -- not as imitations but as children of the original design which formed in the Mind of the Creator.
This Hammer, the Primordial Hammer, is the Messiah. The Rule by which we measure; by which all other hammers are compared. Which resided in the mind of the Creator at the start of time. The true birth was the moment that monkey picked up a femur and the idea grew in his mind. The conception occurred then.
Bringing it Home
In the times of Genesis, this all was well understood. In the New Testament, Jesus proves to us his Nature.
God breathed into the earth to form Adam. This process occurred exactly like a metal casting. The earth was the mold which God filled with his essence. Unfortunately, Adam came out of the mold and did not serve his master as a perfect casting.
Jesus fulfilled the original plan. He was the perfect casting. God realized that the earth was the problem, that the mold was the flaw in the design, and so he created a new Vessel, a new Womb. A Virgin Womb. A Womb designed to be the Womb of Wombs. How else might the Son of Man come into fruition if not through Man? A clean an untouched Womb, within which he poured his Spirit as one would pour metal for a new Hammer.
Upon a beam, a tree, did we hang Jesus. He is the Hammer of Hammers to which I speak.
The Process of going from hammer to hammer; to use one hammer to make THE Hammer is called Ascension. This is the antique understanding of that term. It's a movement up steps. When you have made one tool, you may now use that tool to make its better. Upwards and onwards; invention and innovation; until you reach the top of the Mountain and hear the words spoken from beyond the clouds:
17 And lo, a voice came from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. - Matthew 3:17
This is the Truth of Scripture. This is the Prophecy foretold.
This is the essence of the Primordial Man. Proof that God had in his mind the outline of his Son well before time began ticking along.
Ascension is the act of using what came before to make tomorrow. Ascension is living in the present moment. Ascension is the act of climbing that lofty hill of invention and innovation to arrive at that Immortal soul which rests in your mind. To conceive, to aspire, and to achieve.
True Ascension can only come from those who recognize Perfection is Christ. That God gave us proof that Perfection can and is, but more importantly sought. You will never acquire that Perfection which you hold so high up on a pedestal until you realize what God's definition of Perfection is.
Perfection is that with which you are "well pleased."
You will not achieve Perfection through Obsession; only Aspiration.
In other words, perfection is that which does the job for which it is intended with no fault. A few nicks and scratches here and there does not prevent you from fulfilling that destiny. Temptation and suffering will not prevent God from using you as a tool to build the walls of Heaven's Mansion.
God's Son is a Carpenter, and he knows that every tool gets dull, and every tool gets rusty. He is the one to clean us of our sins, to hone our edge, and to prepare us for the day he uses us to fulfill his will here on earth and beyond.
Rest assured, he did not create you out of whimsy. Every tool in the Workshop of God has its purpose, and it will come for you as sure as the sun rises and sets. It is up to you to be as receptive to his file and brush as you can be; to be prepared for him to come like a thief in the night; for when he asks for you to do Great Works, he expects you to not fight him or grow spiteful as he carves metal off your edge and buffs the dead wood from your handle. It may seem painful, and you will suffer, but the end result is a Perfect you with which he may be "well pleased."
Amen