Meaning of the Letters I.N.R.I. by Max Heindel

Meaning of the Letters I.N.R.I. by Max Heindel

What is the meaning of the Letters I.N.R.I. Sometimes placed over the Cross?  

ANSWER: We are told in the gospel story that Pilate placed a sign reading, "Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorem," and His Cross, and this is translated in the authorized version to mean "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." But the four initials, I.N.R.I., placed upon the Cross represent the names of the four elements in Hebrew: Iam, water; Nour, fire; Ruach, spirit or vital air; and Iabeshah, earth. This is the occult key to the mystery of crucifixion, for it symbolizes in the first place the Salt, Sulphur, Mercury, and Azoth which were used by the ancient alchemists to make the Philosopher's Stone, the universal solvent, the elixir-vitae. 

The two "I's" (IAM and IABESHAH) represent the salient lunar element water, (a) in fluidic state holding salt in solution, and (b) in the coagulated extract of this water, "the salt of the earth." In other words, the finer fluidic vehicles of man and his dense body. N, (NOUR) in Hebrew stands for fire and the combustible elements, chief among which are SULPHUR and phosphorus, so necessary to oxidation and without which warm blood would be an impossibility. The Ego could not then function in the body, nor could thought find a material expression. R (RUACH) is the Hebrew equivalent for the Spirit, Azoth, functioning in the mercurial mind. Thus the four letters, I.N.R.I., placed over the Cross of Christ according to the gospel story represent composite man, the Thinker, at the point of his spiritual development when he is getting ready for liberation from the cross of his dense vehicle. 

Proceeding further along the same line of elucidation we may note that I.N.R.I. is the symbol of the crucified candidate for the following additional reasons:

IAM is the Hebrew word signifying water, the fluidic lunar element, which forms the principal part of the human body (about 87 per cent), and this word is also the symbol of the finer fluidic vehicles of desire and emotion. 

NOUR, the Hebrew word signifying fire, is a symbolic representation of the heatproducing red blood laden with martial iron, fire, and energy, which the occultist sees coursing as gas through the veins and arteries of the human body, infusing it with energy and ambition, and without which there could be neither material nor spiritual progress. It also represents the sulphur and phosphorus necessary for the material manifestation of thought as already mentioned. 

RUACH, the Hebrew word for Spirit, or vital air, is an excellent symbol of the Ego clothed in the mercurial mind which makes man MAN, and enables him to control and direct his bodily vehicles and activities in a rational manner.

IABESHAH is the Hebrew word for earth, representing the solid fleshy part which makes up the cruciform earthy body, crystallized within the finer vehicles at birth and severed from them in the ordinary course of things at death, or in the extraordinary course of things at death, or in the extraordinary event that we learn to die the mystic death and ascend to the glories of higher spheres for a time. 

This stage of the Christian Mystic's spiritual development therefore involves a reversal of the creative force from its ordinary downward course through the tripartite spinal cord where the three segments are ruled by the Moon, Mars, and Mercury, respectively, and where the ray of Neptune then lights the REGENERATIVE SPINAL SPIRIT-FIRE which, mounting upward, sets the pituitary body and the pineal gland into vibration. This, opening up the spiritual sight and striking the frontal sinus, starts the crown of thorns throbbing with pain as the bond with the physical body is burned by the sacred spirit-fire which wakes this center from its age long sleep to a throbbing, pulsating life, sweeping onward to the other centers in the five-pointed stigmatic star. They are also vitalized and the whole vehicle becomes aglow with a golden glory. Then with a final wrench the great vortex of the desire body located in the liver is liberated, and the martial energy contained in that vehicle propels upward and sidereal vehicle (so-called because the stigmata in the head, hands, and feet are located in the same relative position to one another as the points in the five-pointed star), which ascends through the skull (Golgotha), while the CRUCIFIED CHRISTIAN utters his triumphant cry, "Consummatum est" (it has been accomplished), and soars into the subtler spheres to seek Jesus whose life he has imitated with such success and from whom he is henceforth inseparable. Jesus is his Teacher and his guide to the Kingdom of Christ where all shall be united in one body to learn and to practice the RELIGION OF THE FATHER to whom the Kingdom will eventually revert that He may be All in All.