In the longer term I hope to be able to articulate and describe such a map of inner work which can be used to find our way easily through the experiences gained in meditation on hermetic emblems. This stage of moving the emblem from the etheric to the astral realm within us can give rise to dramatic and exciting experiences, and perhaps the biggest danger here is that we cannot readily digest these experiences, and that they rattle around inside our souls making making us feel quite uncomfortable. Such imaginative experiences are inevitable in this kind of inner work, indeed this stage involves the development of just this inner ability of being able to inwardly digest polarised astral energy thrown out by the archetypal symbols. If we persevere then eventually we will come to gain this inner ability, and can then become more inwardly free of the emotional currents generated by the archetypes living within us, which are stimulated by resonances from such emblems. We are then free to move to a final stage of inner work with an emblem in which we encounter the spiritual being that resides there.
Esoteric exercises are in essence merely vehicles for incarnating spiritual being.
They are devised to have definite forms which reflect in outer physical symbol, etheric and astral substance, a spiritual principle which has a core or essence we can describe as having an immanence of 'being'. The emblems we are heirs to in the hermetic tradition were devised by people experienced and adept in a wisdom of the spiritual ground of consciousness. Each emblem sequence has had woven into its symbolic web a reflection of some spiritual essence, and it is only when we are able to touch upon this level that we can truly say we have encountered the being of an emblem. Hermetic emblems thus bear within them seeds of being that can tinge and transform our innermost essence. When we are able to absorb them in our lower vehicles through such meditative work, like drops of quintessence they subtly transmute our souls and make us glow with inner spiritual life.