II. Inner Earth and Volcanic Eruptions

Any of you who have heard the lectures on John's gospel[^2] will remember that there are seven stages of Christian initiation. They are 1) the washing of the feet, 2) the scourging, 3) the crown of thorns, 4) carrying the cross, 5) the mystic death, 6) entombment and 7) resurrection. Something truly remarkable emerges for each of these initiation stages in relation to the scientific investigation of the earth. At each of these initiation stages a further, deeper layer of our earth becomes transparent. Someone who has reached the first stage of initiation can thus penetrate the first layer of the earth. Someone who has reached the second stage penetrates a second layer which looks very different. Someone who has borne the crown of thorns sees a third layer. Then comes the stage of bearing the cross, when the fourth layer becomes visible. The fifth stage, mystic death, opens up a further layer. There follows the sixth stage, that of entombment. The seventh layer corresponds to the resurrection. You thus have seven consecutive layers. Beyond these seven layers, which are the seven levels the human being reaches in going through these seven stages of initiation, lie two more layers of the planet earth, an eighth and a ninth. The inner earth thus consists of nine layers. I have made them all more or less the same width in the drawing (Fig. 1), though in reality they vary in thickness. The thickness of the layers will be of less interest to us, however.