SEARCHING WITHIN

A Nine Week Course

WEEK 1

An Introduction to the Course

By Beelzebub

An Introduction to the Course

If you search within you will find things that are now unimaginable, things that are
terrible and things that are amazing.

This course will give you the information to effectively start your search, but it is only
a starting point, there is much more than I can give in a single course, particularly one
of this duration, but it outlines the fundamental starting points to begin a search that is
limitless in its depth.

The drive to search within and the desire for inner change are things that really have
to come from within a person. Yet life sometimes has always of bringing about that
compelling need to change. I felt the need to change and searched very hard to find
out how I could do it, the search, the reasons for the search I could never quite put
into words; I wanted peace, a spiritual peace and wanted to experience mystical states
and to be free from all the different and miserable states that I normally felt. When I
came across something that actually worked I applied myself to it wholeheartedly,
was as though something very valuable had been given to me, which it had been.

It's unfortunate that more people don't want this search, this teaching has the potential
to change the whole world, yet hardly anybody wants it and that's a tragedy.

So much suffering could be avoided.

It's not actually possible to put into words what it feels to have real peace, to have the
five senses transformed by the being, by the spiritual parts within. The silence and
peace of being in the moment immersed in divine perfume, the mind clear, settled,
silent, stable, here and awake in immense bliss and peace.

1
Unfortunate though it is, most people are not interested in inner change, they prefer a
mundane life, or like to stick to their spiritual beliefs and their illusions.

But without self-knowledge people will never know their own overall situation in life,
they will remain unaware of their fate and of their own true identity.

It is unfortunately normal behaviour to ridicule and condemn what one does not
know. But the situation is too serious to live in darkness and ignorance.

The knowledge and understanding of oneself and life can be revealed to those who
search diligently within themselves using the techniques explained on these courses.

This Course

This course in self-knowledge is one of a series of courses that directs the sincere
seeker towards the path to liberation and radical inner transformation. This particular
course aims to give abroad basis for the fundamentals of self-knowledge. It is
however, just an outline, just a starting point, from here if you want to learn more you
can take up the further courses which give more advanced esoteric information.

Esoteric refers to things that are hidden within, such as the answers to the big
questions of life: Why are we here? What’s our true purpose in life? And where do we
come from? Discovering the answers to questions like this is essentially done through
self-knowledge and the work along the esoteric path. This course is a starting point
for a vast exploration and transformation, in it we will explore the world of thoughts,
emotions, feelings and consciousness, the fundamental aspects that make up each
person and how to begin to change.

Within each human being is the capacity for change, the capacity for transformation
into a completely different being psychologically, into a spiritual being. The overall
teachings that we have here in all the courses explain about the transformation from
human being into a spiritual being, this course just explains about the basics of
psychology and outlines what to do to begin to change and to discover what is within.
By the end of it you should have achieved the ability to observe your inner world of
thoughts, emotions and awareness and understand the basics of your own psychology.
I would recommend going on to further courses if you really want a lot of self-
knowledge and you want to transform yourself.

The Method of Study

This first topic is an overview, in the topics that follow, I will be giving specific
exercises that you can try through the course of your daily life, they are simple to do,
yet are very effective.

The learning in this course is not so much intellectual, to really get the most out of it
you learn from doing the various exercises that we have, these enable you to observe
yourself and to see exactly what is going on inside you. With the techniques you will
be able to explore deep into yourself to acquire knowledge about yourself and to make

2
profound and fundamental changes. Also, because the basic structure within the
individual is essentially the same as that of everyone else, you will see not only what
makes up your own psychology, but also the psychology of all the people in the
world, then you will also begin to deeply understand others and can help them to
change too.

Modern conventional psychology is very limited in its understanding of the human

psyche, because it generally studies from the point of view of looking at external
behaviour, i.e. what others say and do. It also has no knowledge of the
esoteric/spiritual side of the human being and is therefore very incomplete. We
esotericists acquire self-knowledge by studying ourselves within, by looking at the
inner world of thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc and seeing how consciousness works.
It is a methodical empirical study, but it is directed within rather than outside.

To give an example, to know about anger, you have to feel it, it’s something that
happens inside you and makes you think, say and do certain things, studying it
thoroughly inside yourself you can see precisely how it works. If you had to rely upon
an outward study you would not directly experience the thing (anger) you were
studying, you would only see its outcome in someone else, but that is far from the
‘experience’ of anger. This type of study uses observation rather than the intellect to
understand, it is in observation that true intelligence functions, when you see
something you directly experience and comprehend it.

On this course you will get the basic tools to carry out this study, the tools for the real
transformation are given in the esoteric course, but you need to get the basics right to
move on to those.

You will get the most out of it by intensively practicing the exercises given
throughout your daily life, by studying yourself you can get all the answers to your
questions, if you pursue it all the way through the courses what you will discover
within is beyond your wildest dreams, all you need are the tools to do it.

The Three Ways of Being

There is an enormous capacity within each person that is mostly unused; life and
people make demands upon us for which we need to respond, it is part of everyday
living. It often the case that a given response could have been done better, to respond
well to life requires intelligence and it is an important thing for living a happy and
harmonious life. However, intelligence is seldom abundant within any person and,
whatever capacity for intelligence exists can always be improved. Acquiring an
increasing intelligence requires an understanding and an application of the
fundamentals of esoteric psychology, which is what we will investigate on this course.

There are basically three kinds of ways of responding to the situations of life:

1. With emotions, reactions, instincts and impulses.

These are the lowest way of being, actions that are the outcomes of this are the most
subconscious, here the reactions are animal based and usually bring about problems.

3
2. Through reason, using the intellect.
This can bring more order and fairness, but it is full of prejudices, calculations and is
limited by the past. It is still mostly governed by self-interested states (egos) and
calculated planning can give rise to great evil.

3. With awareness.
By being aware we unlock the true intelligence of the consciousness. This is the
highest way of responding to the world. We can immediately comprehend things, free
from emotions, negativity and the calculations of the mind.

On this course we will look at the structure of the human psyche and learn how to
awaken the intelligence to live life to its maximum potential.

Peace

People look for peace, but in spite of material wealth and prestige they lack it in a real
and profound sense, even though some may say that they have it at some time.
Although there are moments of peace to a greater or lesser degree in most people’s
lives at some time, it is always passing and replaced by lower feelings. True lasting
peace is acquired by learning how inner states work and eliminating those that bring
misery while acquiring and using what is needed to bring peace. When we are free of
the inner states that give unhappiness (even just for a moment at a time) and we have
developed the consciousness sufficiently, we can find happiness and peace. I will
explain how precisely to eliminate the states that give rise to misery (the egos) in
another course, you will learn what they are and how to see them in this one.

Peace in life is often fleeting and usually confused with an absorption into a particular
task or a feeling of elation or pleasure or external quietness, but it is none of these.

Ultimately no human being has true lasting super-peace unless they have their divine
being within, since hardly any have and ever have in history; almost no human being
has experienced true spiritual peace because the vital parts needed are absent. I will
explain how to acquire these spiritual parts again in a future course.

What is pressing for many people however is to remove the causes of unhappiness
and you can begin to do this quite quickly, as soon as you get enough information on
the course.

There is enough spiritual matter within an ordinary person to feel some spiritual
peace, this serves as the basis for the individuals spiritual development and is as a
guiding light along the way that is surrounded by darkness. If this were not the case
there would simply not be the inclination or direction to advance spiritually. This
basic spiritual matter is the consciousness or Essence. On this and on the Journey to
Enlightenment course I will show how to use and develop it.

The world would be a different place if humanity did this, wars would disappear,
people would care for each other, poverty would be eliminated, vast technological
leaps would be made for the good of all. Unfortunately though people are driven by

4
the first two ways of being and most have not enough or no desire to change. We
therefore see the results in this sad world.

Suffering

The result of the human population living in this way is a world full of wars, conflict,
starvation, poverty, the destruction of the environment and widespread inequality. Six
billion people live together on the planet, so ma ny are without food, without adequate
shelter, etc, one billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water.
Every three seconds a child under five dies: a child who would still be alive had the
world taken even the same basic responsibility for everyone as is taken for those born
in the more developed countries today.
There is an enormous financial wealth generated in the world today, yet half the world
still exists on less than $2 a day. Waste builds up and pollutes the planet; in the
process we are changing the world's climate.
The richest 350 people roughly own more between them than the countries containing
45 per cent of the world’s people earn in a whole year.
The world could deliver the basic needs of all its inhabitants within a matter of a few
years if only there was the collective will. Every child could be put in school by
spending less than one per cent of what the world spends every year on weapons.
The gap between rich and poor has never been so large in the entire world's history
and the need for radical change has never been so great.
The causes of all this are within each human being, people are driven by animal egos,
by the first two ways of being, if people were not in such a poor state internally this
awful situation would not occur externally. Therefore inner change is vital. But one
cannot change the whole of humanity; each individual can only change themselves
and then show others how to change. Without inner transformation the same rotten
things keep repeating both within the life of the individual and with the collective
actions of humanity.

It’s not enough to have sympathy alone and to agree with these things, action needs to
be taken to change. Words about love and the so called ‘loving feelings’ or ‘kind
thoughts’ are not enough and are not really love. Love is expressed in actions and
what is required is the radical inner change of the individual.

The Subconscious

The cause of all this misery and suffering is the animal nature within people, the egos,
which comprise the subconscious. The drives and impulses of the egos override the
feelings of caring or consideration of others, as people selfishly go out to get whatever
they can from the situations of life. The feelings of caring for others arise from the
consciousness and sometimes come through even when someone is immersed in the
subconscious by the emanations known as the conscience.

On this course you will learn how to see what is within clearly and precisely so that
you are able to change it. Thereby changing your actions, your life and your whole

5
interaction with others. It’s possible to change from the animalistic ways of being to
spiritual ones with the techniques given on this course.

The most common states felt by most people are low ones. Because they are so much
a part of the psyche, people have them and don’t even realise it.

There is a continual search for pleasure, for entertainment, which is an escape from
internal misery, a simple moving away from pain and towards pleasure response. As a
person moves away from pain and into pleasure, the mechanism continues and pain
reasserts itself.

What makes it worse is that the whole human psyche is poisoned by underlying
negative energies, which the person has no knowledge about. It is only possible to
know the existence of these energies when one is free of them with this psychological
work and with a technique called Alchemy, which I will explain about on the Journey
to Enlightenment course.

Within the psyche are the elements that can either keep the psyche in the darkness of
the subconsciousness, asleep, numb to the true reality of life, or can awaken it to the
true nature of things.

Life is experienced through inner states, through emotions, feelings, thoughts,

pleasure, pain, suffering, hatred etc. This is the normal way to be, but it is the result of
evolution from the animal kingdom. If you look you will see that in a more complex
animal there are the same basic reactions and instincts that humans have, but we have
them on a more complex level and we have developed the intellect. This intellect
enables us to question our existence, but it can also lead to very complex behaviour
and a greater capacity for evil than the animals. Fortunately there is a spiritual
component; consciousness, which there is the choice of developing.

Most people do not develop the spiritual part, which is the consciousness, but it is in
this that all the potential for future inner growth and development lies. Normally there
is just a small percentage of consciousness as life is conducted mainly through the
first two ways of being. This is unfortunate, because that state is not really living.

Change

When we change inside and develop consciousness our whole way of being, of acting
changes for the better. We cannot change others in order to improve the world since
every individual must decide to change from their own point of view, but we can
change ourselves and become an example and source of help for others.

To change we must be aware of what it is that we wish to change, that means

observing it thoroughly and precisely. For example, if we want to reduce and get rid
of a certain fear, we firstly need to observe it clearly in its many aspects in the many
different situations of life in which it manifests.

Something that is not seen is never truly understood and something not truly
understood cannot fundamentally be changed.

6
Without this kind of self-knowledge inner change can only be superficial, without a
complete understanding and elimination, hidden desires return from the subconscious,
even though the person thinks that they have been removed.

Therefore, there is a need to study, to look closely into the psyche to see precisely
how everything works and to apply the correct techniques to enable lasting and
profound transformation.

The life of each person is controlled by what is within, actions occur because of what
is within. If what is within is a confusion, a bundle of inner states that appear out of
nowhere, a mix-up of pleasure, pain, compulsive desires, negativity, etc, then the
actions will be the result of all that. Just because this is the normal way of being for
almost all people doesn’t mean that it has to be that way.

Beelzebub

 Copyright Mark Pritchard 2001 - 13 th September 2003 www.mysticweb.org

The contents of this course nor this topic may not be altered in any way. This topic is supplied to you under copyright laws and
may not be forwarded or reproduced or displayed on a website without the consent of the author. If you would like to share this
course with someone on the Internet please advise them of the website www.mysticweb.org and ask them to join the course. You
may print a limited numbers of hard copies of this topic to distribute to third parties, provided that they are given free of charge
and impartially and are not used to promote any kind of classes, courses, books, workshops or groups be they mystical or of any
kind that is not associated with or part of this website and provided that the third parties are made aware of the series of lectures
and the website. This course cannot be used for profit in any way. Anyone abusing these terms will be pursued to the full extent
of the law.