The House of Life

The House of Life is a contemporary Mystery School. It takes its name from an ancient Egyptian institution, the Per Ankh. Today, we seek to embrace the spirit of the Per Ankh and to find a new inspiration in its ethos. During this time of radical transition and fundamental change as the Age of Pisces passes away, old values are falling by the wayside; new values will arise. This is therefore time of great opportunity; the contemporary world has become impoverished by a schismatic philosophy which has long dominated western culture. A perceived division between the things of the spirit and the things of the world has driven a wedge into the heart of being.  We desperately need to embrace a new paradigm of reality and walk in the light of a unifying philosophy. The Egyptian mind embraced a holistic view of life which affirmed both interconnection and sacredness.  We too seek to find inspiration in a vision of a unified sacred life.

The institution of the House of Life played an important if enigmatic part in Egyptian ceremonial and religious life. The more significant temples included a small and often unimposing building known as the House of Life where scribes and priests maintained archives, copied sacred texts and prepared litany through recorded precedent. Spells and formulae, so beloved of the Egyptians were written down here along with ceremonial protocol and the events of the religious calendar. The House of Life was also related to medicine and to magic which were seen as complementary. There is also a great deal about the House of Life which remains unknown and unrecorded. Nevertheless it is generally believed that the House of Life carried the seed of the mystery tradition which produced the fabled sages and initiates of Egypt.

Without attempting to replicate or reproduce the past, impossible goals in any case, it is possible to reinterpret and redefine an idea for our own times. The House of Life represents an institution devoted to the sacred; in the spirit of our time, spiritual physical organizations are being superceded by a community of minds arising from the grass roots. This powerful idea is being made real through the appearance of a global neural network - the Internet. 

The 'house' symbolizes a domestic dwelling, ordinary life, families and shared living; what better image for a spiritual container than daily life itself. The emergent community of minds, a 'house of shared souls'  is manifestly engaged in rediscovering sources of wisdom, acquiring life-affirming skills, developing personal talents, originating new ideas, spreading hope, investigating life's deepest mysteries in order to powerfully change the philosophy of separation for a philosophy of unity, moving from a cerebral head centered intellectualism to a compassionate heart based spirituality. This new spirituality encompasses both the life sciences and the arts from cosmology to nano-technology. You too are invited to  put your shoulder to the wheel and engage with Life through the House of Life.

The Egyptian Miracle, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz