So in the Holy Night, which we call Christmas, it was usual for the Wise Men - those who were beyond the ordinary humanity - to take the ones who were also becoming wise, and therefore entitled to Initiation, into the temples. Certain ceremonies were performed and the candidates were entranced. They could not at that time be given an Initiation in their full waking state, it had to be done in trance. When the spiritual perception was awakened in them, they could look through the Earth - not seeing any detail, but the Earth became transparent, as it were - and they saw the Star at midnight, the spiritual Sun.

Previous to the coming of Christ, the Earth was worked upon from without, as the Group Spirit works upon the animals. Christ came to work from within.

Before that, when neophytes were to be brought in touch with Him, they could see, in that Holy Night, the Star of the Christ, just as the immaculate Virgin was on the Eastern horizon, and the little Sun-child of the coming year was starting towards the Northern hemisphere, to save us from the darkness, hunger and want that could result without Him. Then these Wise Men could see the Star, in the Holy Night, which is the spiritual hope of man as the physical Sun then born is his material savior.

Do not think it shone only at that time; it is easier now than then to see it, for when Christ came He altered the vibrations of the Earth and is changing them all the time since. He ”rent the Temple veil“- He made the Holy of Holies - the place of Initiation - open to ”whosoever will!“. From that time on, there is no more trance needed - no more subjective states in order to go, through Initiation. There is a conscious going forth into the Temple, by everyone who wills to come. And in time that religion that He brought to us will drive away all the sorrows; will dry the tears from all eyes. Where there has been war, there will be peace, and as sure as He came to bring that sword that shall liberate man from the national Spirit and make him an individual that is capable of being a brother to every man, so surely as He came to this work, so surely as the fist part of His prophecy has been fulfilled - so will that other grand and glorious prophecy be fulfilled, that men shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.

We have one more thing to consider, and that is the gifts that these Wise Men brought - the gifts that were to be laid at the feet of the Savior, as we hear of in the old legend. This legend tells us that one brought gold, one brought myrrh, and the third brought frankincense. The gold we always hear spoken of in symbology as the emblem of the Spirit. Later still we hear of the alchemists who tried to transmute base metal into  gold; that is the spiritual way of saying that they wanted to purify this dense body, to refine it and extract the spiritual essence. The next one brings myrrh. Myrrh is the extract of an aromatic plant that grows in Arabia, a very rare plant, very rare indeed. Therefore, it symbolizes the thing that man extracts when he cleanses himself.  When he had cleansed his blood of passion he becomes plantlike, chaste and pure. He became the inverted plant before he became the pure plant, symbolized by the Rosy Cross, symbolized by the Diamond Soul, and so forth, then his body is an aromatic essence.  The third gift was incense. Incense is a physical substance of a very light character, that is often used in religous services; it serves as an embodiment for the ministering unseen influences.