The meaning of the word 'Ascension'...

Why is This Transformational Process Called “Ascension”?

Depiction of the Light Body or Merkabah

This is one of a series of short, introductory articles on Ascension.
“Ascension” is the name given to the process that forms the culmination of this age or cycle. I’ve seen descriptions of the end times since the 1870s when the spirit teacher “Imperator” (the prophet Malachi) spoke through Rev. Stainton Moses. (1) Subsequent sources such as the Bulgarian master Beinsa Douno, (2) the British Spiritualist guide Silver Birch, (3) and others have also discussed the New Era that’s coming.

The Company of Light (ascended masters, galactics, and celestials) chose the word  to refer to the shift or transformation that will happen on or before Dec. 21, 2012.

The first time I saw the word “Ascension” used was by Sananda, the exalted spirit who often spoke through Jesus and who now commands the Galactic Federation in the Ascension process.  Sananda addressed a class of lightworkers in 1990 who were destined to be early ascenders and had this to say of it.

“These times are quite extraordinary. There is an incredible amount of growth available. The opportunity to take a quantum leap into higher consciousness is now here for you.” (4)

He went on to describe what Ascension was.

“What is Ascension? It is a great leap of experience on every level of your being. In general you could say that it is a leap from third dimensional reality into a fifth dimensional or higher state of consciousness. … You might say that the fifth dimension or higher, the ascended state, is a state of increased frequency of vibration. It is as if you have a prism and you shine white light through the prism, breaking it into many various colors, various wavelengths of light. You could day that the third dimensional existence as you know it relates to that visible spectrum of light that you can see with your eyes, from the violet through the other colors.

“Ascension is a matter of going beyond this limited spectrum of experience. The nature of the universe does not change so much. The laws of physics do not change so much. But you expand and increase your frequency of vibration and your consciousness to a point where you can see those colors and move into those realms that are now invisible to you.” (5)

The Company of Light chose the word “Ascension” to describe a change of dimensionality. The metaphor casts that change as movement upwards; that is, from a lower to a higher dimension or density.  Spiritual teacher Matthew Ward explained that we don’t really climb from plane to plane as if ascending a mountain.

“Although this movement is into planes of successively lighter energy, not into progressively higher elevations such as climbing a stepladder or a mountain, souls’ growth in conscious awareness and spiritual clarity can be thought of as upward. Thus ascension is the most descriptive term for this advancement.” (6)

SaLuSa of Sirius, a spokesperson for the Galactic Federation, says of Ascension that “you rise up higher”  (7) or “you rise up into the higher dimensions.” (8) Our challenge, he says, is “reaching up for the Light.” (9) Ascension, he says, is “a wonderful process…, one that is intended to lift you up to levels that are more in line with your true selves.” (10)

The ascended masters Maitreya and Buddha are cited as describing Ascension this way as well.

“Know that the great Resurrection Dispensation is now in full effect for the Planet Earth and all upon her. All who choose will rise up with the Earth into the Higher Dimensions.” (11)

The master St. Germain also spoke of our “opportunity to leave duality for good and to fully rise up into the Light.”  (12)

Our current Ascension to the Fifth Dimension is part of an ongoing journey of Ascension that will not stop until we finally merge with the God from whom we came, as SaLuSa tells us: “Ascension … will never cease until you return to the absolute Source.” (13)

Ascension is not something new. Once we transition to the planes on the other side of death, we ascend all the time, although we may not use that particular word to describe our forward movement. We progress from one realm to another which is what the word “Ascension” points to.

Here is Frederic Myers, having ascended from the Fourth to the Fifth Dimension on the spirit side of life, telling us that the process of Ascension is continuous and involves choice.

“Between each plane there is this lapse into apparent oblivion, a stilling of all processes, a great calm. … Here the soul seems to pause. Slowly, however, vision returns, the traveller perceives, imaged upon the glimmering sea of eternity, all his experiences on previous planes; all the past images that make up the story of his life are spread before him. He studies them in the light of his Unifying Principle or spirit. They rouse, according to his nature, his varying desires, intellectual and emotional.

“He knows then that he must choose either to go forward or backwards. The spirit actually forces the choice.” (14)

And here is T.E. Lawrence actually describing an Ascension on the Astral Plane, dissimilar to ours in that the individual does not keep his lower-dimensional body as we will but sloughs it off. I’m not clear that Ascension for us will exactly follow the contours of Ascension for Dr. G.

“I had heard about this second death and transition to the next sphere…. Now it seems that I may be privileged to watch it happening to another.” (15)

“The end came suddenly. I called on [Dr. G] and was told that he was sleeping. We stood around and watched his still form and the light which waxed and waned there. In a breathtaking second the change came. The light gathered itself together and burnt itself to a keen thought of light so intense and inward that we gasped and turned aside. Then it had gone and only a wraith of our friend remained which shrank away and disappeared as we watched.

“We sat speechless, absorbed in the beauty and meaning of the transition. It was long before anyone broke the silence and then one said: ‘I have heard that some time is needed for a spirit to get used to the new conditions, just as we needed time to adjust when we first came here, so we must not expect our friend to come to us yet. I suggest that when an interval has elapsed we should meet here again and wait and hope for his coming.’ We agreed to do this and went off full of thought to our various occupations. (16)

“Dr. G. has kept his promise to come to us but he appeared when we were least expecting him. Some few of us were sitting quietly talking when his voice suddenly took up the parable and as we looked up, startled, we saw the outlines of a form which speedily filled in and took substance and there he was among us again.

“He brought with him an exalted air and we felt his presence as a spiritual baptism, a stream of pure joy absorbed hungrily by our thirsty beings. Light and happiness glowed up in us too with the pleasure of heightened being. He stayed only a short while … and left us again.” (17)

We are told that we too will feel this exalted air when we are in the presence of exalted beings like the galactics or the ascended masters of Earth.

So Ascension may be a new process to us, but it is an ancient and well-known process to spirits and galactics. It’s simply that we’ve forgotten all the times we’ve ascended in the past. But our memory will return at some point in the near future. And when it does, we’ll see that “Ascension” is one name, and the name that the Company of Light prefers to use, for a process of spiritual evolution which is the mainspring for our progress from God back to God again.

Footnotes

(1) See “Imperator’s ‘New Revelation,” at http://stevebeckow.com/2012-history-4/imperators-new-revelation/ and “Imperator’s ‘New Revelation’” (a dictionary of quotations) at http://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/nmh/imperator1.html
(2)”Beinsa Douno’s ‘New Epoch,” at http://stevebeckow.com/2012-history-4/beinsa-dounos-new-epoch/
(3) “Silver Birch on ‘The New World,’” at http://stevebeckow.com/2012-history-4/silver-birch-on-the-new-world/and “About Silver Birch and His New World,” at http://stevebeckow.com/2012-history-4/silver-birchs-new-world-2/
(4) Sananda in Eric Klein, The Crystal Stair, Livermore: Oughten, 1992; c1990, 13.
(5) Ibid., 14-5
(6) Matthew’s Message, Aug. 13, 2010, at http://www.matthewbooks.com/mattsmessage.htm
(7)  SaLuSa, Apr. 3, 2009, at http://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm
(8) SaLuSa, April 6, 2011.
(9) SaLuSa, Apr. 19, 2010.
(10) SaLuSa, Apr. 19, 2010.
(11) “A Message from Maitreya and Buddha,” April 1, 2009, through Marlene Swetlishoff, at http://www.therainbowscribe.com/
(12)  St. Germain, June 25, 2008, through Mike Quinsey at http://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm
(13) SaLuSa, March 26, 2010.
(14) Frederic W.H. Myers through Geraldine Cummins, medium. The Road to Immortality. Being a description of the after-life purporting to be communicated by the late F. W. H. Myers [Frederic William Henry Myers, 1843-1901]. Located at http://www.trans4mind.com/spiritual/cummins/cummins1.html, n.p.
(15) T.E. Lawrence through Jane Sherwood, medium, Post-Mortem Journal. Communications from T.E. Lawrence. London: Spearman, 1964, 77.
(16) Ibid., 78-9.
(17) Ibid., 83.

 http://stevebeckow.com/ascension/