Modern Order of Essenes Course: Master – Unit 27

Welcome back to this seventh unit of the Master grade! If you should be new to all this, and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the start of this MOE course with more information.

In this unit, we wrapt up John Gilbert’s material on the Tree of Life – and you will finally get to build a “real” Bridge of Love. So let’s get started, shall we? 🙂

Coursework

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

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

   If you practice another form of meditation, e.g. discursive meditation (which you could use to meditate on the theoretical study texts of the Master grade 😉 ), you can use it instead of the Essene Healing Breath – the choice is yours.

2. To Study – The Tree of Life, Part Seven – Manifestation: The Four Worlds & Three Pillars

   Study Part 7 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 (only part 7, i.e. the lower half)

3. To Practice – Bridge of Love: Step Five

   Study the instructions for Practice Five of the Bridge of Love. Connect them to the Tree of Life in any way you see fit.

   Practice the the Bridge of Love up to the fifth step daily while you work on this unit. (But as usual, only proceed to this step when you feel ready for it!)

   To note: The pdf file contains a small table with the elemental correspondences which is missing in the online version. There is also a slight, but important difference between the two in the last paragraph (more on this below).

   Online Version (only the section labelled “Practice Five”)
   PDF Version (page 12)

4. To Practice – Ear Reflexology

   Continue to practice Ear Reflexology, ideally daily, as explained in a previous unit.

   Online Version (only the part from “Essene Ear Reflexology” down to “The rest of the outer ear is the outer portion.”. The “Advanced Essene Healing Techniques” belong to later units.)
   PDF Version (pages 26 and 27)

Reflection Question

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

How has your perspective on others changed throughout this course?

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:

• Which role does the element of Air play in your life?
• Which role does the element of Fire play in your life?
• Which role does the element of Water play in your life?
• Which role does the element of Earth play in your life?
• What is the relationship between a bridge and its two endpoints?
• What is the relationship between the two points a bridge connects?
• What are the effects of continued practice?
• What is the role of a Master?
• What are the responsibilities of a Master?
• Where in your life could you build bridges?
• Which points, things, people, … could or should be connected by bridges?

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

Commentary

Bridge of Love Practice

In this unit, you will be forming an actual Bridge of Love for the first time in full. I’m not going to comment much on it, as it should be practiced and experienced for yourself first and foremost.

One word of advice, though:

Start out by building the Bridge to yourself. You can easily imagine this as the energy flowing out of your heart, passing round the earth, and entering you from behind.

Do this first until you can comfortably build the Bridge of Love without fumbling. (And of course, you can also do so later at any time! Sending healing energy to yourself is a very valuable and worthwhile thing.)

Only start out sending to other people (or animals, places, plants, …) once you are comfortable and things work smoothly.

Remember to ask for consent where possible and appropriate, though!

I discussed this at length in earlier units, e.g. with regards to the Healing Hands. You’ll need to figure out your own position on ethics, of couurse, but my stance is to only send healing energy to where it’s invited and welcome. You don’t get to decide if others should be healed – it’s their decision!

Also, make sure not to overtax yourself. These are powerful healing energies, and if you do too much, too often, too soon, you might knock yourself out. You have been warned… 🙂

Essene Master Responsibilities

The online version and the pdf version of Step Five of the Bridge of Love differ in one very important point – and nope, it’s not the table which is only included in the pdf, but the last paragraph! 😉

In fact, I don’t agree with this paragraph of the online version, and am glad it got changed for the pdf.

For starters, I don’t think it’s anybody’s “responsibility to help heal the whole of creation and every creature within it”. Some things (and people) don’t want to be healed, shouldn’t be healed, should be healed but not by you or me, etc etc.

Such notions will also, inevitably, lead quite a few people to presumptuously assume they know best who and what needs healing, in which areas, and how, and are thus not conducive to the healing work within oneself. (This doesn’t hold for everybody, of course, but I’m guessing it’d affect a lot of people.)

Other people (with a considerable overlap to the first group!) will burn themselves out trying to “heal” everybody and everything.

And yet others (again with considerable overlap) will forget that healing the world means, first and foremost, to heal themselves.

There is also the issue of the not-so-subtle psychological pressure at the end (“A real Master will self-evidently take on this mantle, thus if you hesitate, you aren’t a real Master. And besides, you can only continue if you accept this responsibility!”).

I could go into more depth, but I think you get the idea… 😉 In short, I do not stand behind the very last paragraph of Step Five of the Bridge of Love material on dreamwidth! Instead, I recommend you read the last paragraph in the pdf version (even if you usually work with the online material), which I think is much more appropriate, and well worth pondering.

Tree of Life Material

Today’s unit marks the last batch of John Gilbert’s Tree of Life material. In the five remaining Master units, we’re going to focus our theoretical studies on material which is original to the MOE again.

If you should feel drawn to the Tree of Life, you’re certainly welcome to continue studying it on your own, though! One option would be another pass through the lessons we’ve covered up to now. Another option would be some of the other material published by John Michael Greer (and based on John Gilbert’s take of the Tree of Life), e.g. his book “Revisioning the Tree of Life”.

Please note, though, that Revisioning the Tree of Life is a full course of study all on its own, and I don’t recommend you pursue it in parallel to the MOE Master grade. Instead, finish what you have started, and then consider the Tree of Life material as your next course of study!

For the same reason, I suggest you focus first and foremost on the given MOE material in the upcoming lessons, and only do another pass through the Tree of Life lessons when you well and truly have the time to spare. At this stage, the Tree of Life is an accompaniment to your MOE studies and practice, and not the main focus of the course. 🙂

Outlook

In two weeks (on Sunday April 19th, 2026) we will continue with Unit 28.

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