Drawing 3: Neophyte on Trial Dying in the Chrest Condition

Philaletheians UK · Buddhas and Initiates Series · 1 page

The third Drawing, and the first of the two that form a pair. Its subject is the neophyte on trial, dying in what the tradition calls the Chrest or Chrestos condition — the state reached on the cross of his own worldly passions, when he is freed from the clutches of matter but has not yet been reborn in spirit.

The caption places it precisely in the sequence: shortly before his second birth as Christ triumphant. That timing is the whole point of having two plates rather than one, since the distinction between Chrestos and Christos — the suffering candidate and the risen initiate — is the hinge of this entire section, and the two Drawings show the same figure on either side of it. Drawing 4 completes the pair. Both were presented in April 2017 as part of the Integrative Theosophical Studies series, and both are offered as a PDF for printing and a JPG for screen.

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