Modern Order of Essenes Course: Master – Intro and Unit 21

A very heartfelt welcome to the Master grade of this Modern Order of Essenes course – I’m very happy to have you on board for this grade!

First, a quick reminder:

The Healer attunement for the course will take place on Sunday, January 11th, 2026 – or, in other words, as I publish this unit: today. 😉 You can find all the relevant information here.

And now, without further ado, let’s move straight on to the Master grade:

Introduction to the MOE Master Grade

Just like the Healer grade had a slightly different “vibe” than the Apprentice grade, the Master material comes across, again, as somewhat different.

The defining component of the Master grade is a new healing technique, the so-called “Bridge of Love”. It is based on the Cabalistic Tree of Life, and consequently, some study of the Tree of Life is part of this grade.

There is also a small amount of other theoretical material for study, in the same style as in the Healer grade, although much less of it.

In addition, the Master grade contains yet another massage technique (the ears this time… 😉 ), and a curious hodgepodge of other advanced techniques.

The instructions on some of these other advanced techniques aren’t very well fleshed out, to put it mildly. It’s fairly clear from this and some other indications in the material that the MOE has been extensively tinkered with, supposedly by John Gilbert, but maybe also by some of his predecessors.

In any case, we’ll deal with these techniques when we get there – but I wanted you to be aware that the Master grade might feel a bit less “finished” than the others, and will leave more room for personal exploration later, once you will have mastered the basics.

As for the course structure, we are simply going to continue as before: A new unit will go live every other Sunday.

(If you’d like to be notified about upcoming MOE-related posts, you can sign up to the mailing list below each post, or here on this page. Make sure to check the “Modern Order of Essenes” option!)

The units will be structured just like before, too, with one exception: There won’t be a “Further Resources” section anymore, since there aren’t any designated further resources to link to in the Master grade.

Since these sections would thus only contain a link back to the respective previous post’s comment section and a referral to the comment sections on JMG’s original posts, I’ve decided to dispense with them – by now, you should know how to access both of these things yourself… 😉

Apart from the actual techniques of the Master level, during your work on this grade and beyond you are supposed (and encouraged!) to continue to practice what you’ve learned so far, in particular the Blessing Walk, Healing Hands, meditation (more on that in a second), foot and hand reflexology, and muscle testing.

The first five practices should ideally be done daily, but we all know how life is. Just do your best, and you’ll be fine.

Muscle testing should be used as often as possible. The more you do it, the more experience you’ll gain.

As in the Healer grade, the theoretical content of the Master grade lends itself very well to discursive meditation, but doing two different kinds of meditation is probably too much for most people.

So, again, it is up to you whether you want to continue with the Healing Breath meditation during the time you work on the Master grade, or whether you want to do discursive meditation instead, and potentially apply it to the contents of this grade.

Other forms of meditation are, of course, also possible – if you should have a well established medtation practice with any other method and want to continue with it, then by all means do so.

If you don’t meditate on them, the theoretical texts of the Master grade should still be studied closely, contemplated, and reflected upon.

As before, though, you are not required to take them as gospel! Instead, grapple and spar with them until you come up with your own insights, ideas and point of view.

(That’s not to say you aren’t allowed to agree with them, though! Of course you are – but only once you’ve poked and prodded at them from all sides…)

Just as for the Healer grade, I’ve also structured the Master grade in a slow pace. I hope this will give all of you enough time to study the material, potentially meditate on it, and to let it sink in (and to practice regularly, of course).

As before, though, if you feel you need more than two weeks for any given unit, for whatever reasons, then take the time you need!

The Master grade material comprises twelve units, i.e. Units 21 – 32 of the course, and will thus run well into June (2026).

Per my current plan, the last unit (Unit 32) of this grade will go live on Sunday 14th of June, 2026. This will leave us one more Sunday in June to discuss the details of the upcoming Master attunement.

The Master attunement(s) themselves will then probably happen in July or August, although we might postpone them to September if this is more convenient with the summer season, or if people need a bit more time to catch up. We’ll figure out the details as we get closer, and I’m sure we will again find ways to accommodate everybody! 🙂

I think that’s all there is to say about the Master grade before we start. As one last preliminary, though, we need to clarify two terms:

MOE Master vs. MOE Master Teacher

An MOE Master is somebody who has successfully mastered the material of the MOE Master grade – i.e. the upcoming material. To “master” it means to study it, to contemplate on it, to practice it, and to apply the techniques.

The Master grade can (but doesn’t have to) be completed with a Master attunement.

Either way, once you have mastered the material of this grade, you will be a Modern Order of Essenes Master, and you will have experienced, studied and practiced all there is to the Modern Order of Essenes. The only things left to do at this stage, then, will be continuous practice – and to reap the benefits… 🙂

(And to just make things more interesting and keep you on your toes, the MOE Master is sometimes also called “MOE Master Healer” in the materials… 😉 )

An MOE Master Teacher, in contrast, is somebody who is qualified and authorized to teach the MOE to others, and to pass on MOE attunements to others.

In order to become a Master Teacher (which I sincerely hope some of you will consider!), you will need to meet the following requirements:

• be a Modern Order of Essenes Master
• continue practicing the Modern Order of Essenes and its methods
• have received all three attunements (Apprentice, Healer, and Master)
• have worked through the Gnostic Lessons, including the Commitment ceremonies
• pass a small written “examination” to prove you have actually done the work

The first three requirements are pretty straightforward, I hope. 😉

The Gnostic Lessons were, originally, part of the tradition of the Universal Gnostic Church (UGC). They have been intended to provide a solid course of spiritual development to the laypersons of the church, and also to prepare the people who want to receive ordination as Priest or consecration as Bishop in the UGC with a set of preparatory practices.

They consists of six lessons, with each lesson comprising a variety of techniques and material. Unlike this MOE course, the Gnostic Lessons are self-study, i.e. you will need to work your way through them independently.

This will take you at least six months. It can be done in parallel to the MOE Master grade, or afterwards – the choice is yours.

The Gnostic Lessons are reprinted in the MOE Master pdf, starting from page 41. If you might at all be interested in becoming a Master Teacher, and thus being able to teach others about the MOE and to confer attunements, I’d encourage you to read through them to get an idea of the work which would be involved, and whether this is something you might want to do.

One last practical note: The Gnostic Lessons are part of several of John Michael Greer’s teachings. If you should already have worked through them in any other context, this counts, too – having done the work amounts to having done the work, after all… 😉

The “examination” at the end is not about the content of the MOE, i.e. you will not need to learn the material by heart, or anything like this! I will simply ask you a few questions about your practice and experiences with both the MOE and the Gnostic Lessons, which you need to answer. If you have done the work, these will be easy to answer, and it will also be easy to see from your answers that you have done the work. 😉

One thing you might want to start now if you consider becoming a Master Teacher, thus, is keeping a practice journal. In it, you should note your experiences with MOE practices as well as with the Gnostic Lessons, and with the respective ceremonies/attunements.

You will not need to show this journal to anybody (including not to me!), but having made notes of your experiences and practices will make it easier for you to later answer the examination questions.

Finally, while I sincerely hope some of you will join me and several others in the ranks of MOE Master Teachers, of course it’s also perfectly fine to not go down this route – being an MOE Master (or Healer, or Apprentice), and practicing regularly, will also have its healing effects on you and on the world…

This is it in terms of preliminaries – let’s get to work, then, shall we? 🙂

Unit 21

Coursework

1. To Practice – Blessing Walk, Healing Hands, Foot and Hand Reflexology, Muscle Testing

   Continue with the practices you’ve learned in the Candidate, Apprentice and Healer grades, ideally daily.

2. To Study – The Tree of Life, Part One – Awareness

   Study Part 1 of John Gilbert’s “The Tree of Life”, and/or use it as basis for your discursive meditation. As always, you are not supposed to blindly believe this text as gospel, but instead to study it thoroughly, contemplate it, and to come up with your own ideas and thoughts about it.

   Note that the lessons on the Tree of Life are not included in the MOE pdf files, i.e. you will have to read them online, or print out/reformat the online version from JMG’s Dreamwidth site for your personal use:

   Online Version

3. To Practice – Essene Healing Breath: Phase 4

   Practice Phase 4 of the Healing Breath meditation (unless you practice another form of meditation, e.g. discursive meditation which you could use to meditate on the theoretical study texts of the Healer grade).

   The online version contains some short anecdotal comments by JMG on this phase of the Healing Breath which the pdf version doesn’t:

   Online Version (section “Essene Healing Breath Meditation” towards the bottom)
   PDF Version (page 22; note that Phase 4 of the Healing Breath is covered in the Apprentice pdf and not in the Master pdf!)

Reflection Question

While you do the work of this unit, take some time to reflect on the following question:

What have you gotten out of the Modern Order of Essenes so far?

Meditation Topics

For the Master grade, again, there is a lot of meditation fodder in the study texts. I’m not going to pull these topics out of the study texts for you, though – that’s up to you to chew on for yourself!

But if you should need fodder for your discursive meditations beyond what you have found in this unit’s texts, the following topics should give you something to work with:

• What does it mean to “master” something?
• What distinguishes a master from somebody who isn’t?
• What does it mean to be a Healer?
• What distinguishes a Healer from somebody who isn’t?
• What is the purpose of meditation?
• What are the effects of meditation?
• What is a tree?
• In which ways could you be compared to a tree?
• And in which ways are you very un-tree-like?
• How do trees relate to healing?

And if you have enough ideas on your own and don’t need any from this list, that’s even better!

Commentary

Some General Notes

At this stage of the course, you well know what to do, and you will also have established some working routines for yourself (or, presumably, you wouldn’t have gotten this far in the first place… 😉 ).

Thus there isn’t much left for my to say in general terms, especially I’ve already given an overview of the Master grade in the Intro section above.

The pdf version of the Master material contains an intro/overview section titled “Welcome Essene Healer!” on pages 5 and 6. To be frank, I’m not a big fan of this section.

Statements like “many will come to us for healing and we are obligated to turn none away”, I find misleading, if not outright wrong (I think it is always within your right to not heal somebody/something, just as it is within their right to refuse your healing!).

Also, whether many will come to each of us for healing or not will depend on many circumstances. For some people, practicing the Modern Order of Essenes will be much more about healing themselves than about healing others – and that is fine, too.

(And if you should finish the Master grade and then be disappointed if the masses aren’t making a beeline for your door in order to be healed by you, you should probably re-evaluate your reasons for becoming a Modern Order of Essenes Master in the first place…)

Thus if you want to read this introduction, I’d advise you to take some statements with a grain of salt or two… 😉

The introduction also contains a list of the Master grade content, which you can read or not, as you please (we’ll cover all of it anyway in due time, i.e. you won’t lose out if you skip it – but some people work better if they know the big picture of what is ahead…).

The same list is also available in the online material, for those of you who’d rather read it online.

Tree of Life

As is evident by the fact that they aren’t included into the pdf files, John Gilbert’s Tree of Life lessons are, strictly speaking, not a part of the Modern Order of Essenes material.

Back when he posted the Master material, JMG linked to them to give the people who hadn’t studied the Tree of Life before a convenient way to get an overview of its structure and concepts.

In theory, though, one would be fine practicing the Master grade material without knowing anything about the Tree of Life (as so often in life, theoretical background knowledge can be quite independent from practical application by personal experience… 😉 ).

Also, some people already have a good grasp of the Tree of Life from elsewhere, and wouldn’t really need yet another introduction to it.

However, after some careful consideration, I have decided to make John Gilbert’s lessons a (mandatory) part of this course’s material, for the following reasons:

First, of course, it never hurts to revisit things which have been worthwhile studying before. Thus even if you know the Tree of Life quite well, each new pass through it will give you new insights.

But more importantly, my understanding is that John’s concept of the Tree of Life is somewhat unique in comparison to others – and I think it it well worth getting acquainted with this concept while working on the Master grade, where the Tree of Life will play such an important practical role.

There is also another, more subtle aspect, though: The Modern Order of Essenes is based on a rather specific view of the world and of the Divine, and of divine healing energies. Studying John Gilbert’s Tree of Life essays will explore this perspective from another angle, and will thus broaden and deepen your understanding of the Modern Order of Essenes as a whole.

For this reason, I ask you to do the study exercises for the Tree of Life material, even if you feel you should already know the Tree of Life rather well from elsewhere.

If you should have studied John Gilbert’s specific take on the Tree of Life before (e.g. as part of another of John Michael Greer’s courses), you, too, should study it again while you work on the Master grade. Since you already know its basics, this is your chance to get into it even deeper – and more importantly, to connect it with the rest of the Modern Order of Essenes, and with spiritual healing in general…

Outlook

In two weeks (on Sunday January 25th, 2026) we will continue with Unit 22.

Until then, I’m looking forward to your comments and your feedback, and I hope you enjoy this first unit of the Master grade! 🙂