By Suryc Nayr


Dweller on the Threshold: Part 1

July 13, 2016

The nature of this topic only allows for a brief description.

It is too esoteric for the printed page and there are only a couple of books that hint at this topic in an esoteric sense. It has to do with the ‘Dweller on the Threshold’. This is an occult term to describe the totality of negative personality characteristics that have accumulated over many, many past lives that becomes the overall restricting obstacle to entering the Path of Initiation. Terms such as ‘shadow, kama-rupa, namdog, kleasa, or the nether personality’ are some other names of this element within the occult constitution of man. The soul when it is advanced enough causes an inner separation between the Essence (soul in-incarnation), Personality, and the DOTH (Dweller on the Threshold). This separation occurs gradually, in most cases, but as the Essence starts to awaken the DOTH becomes a separate existence situated on the astral plane. In the book Zanoni by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Glyndon, the young aspirant, undergoes the initial tests of the threshold of an ancient occult order that Mejnour, his teacher belongs to in this book, but fails and is cast out of the school. Unfortunately Glyndon had gone too far and awakened the ‘fiend’, as its call in the book, the DOTH. When Glyndon is more in his Essence he sees this ‘thing’, it is separate from him but tied to his aura. This story has some major clues about the DOTH. Mejnour in the book is a no nonsense teacher, very 5th Ray, like a pure scientist without any emotional attachment to his students. He knows the occult laws and if you break these unwritten occult rules he instantly ends the teacher student relationship and you’re out of the school. The Essence must learn to see and feel itself as separate from the personality and this negative force of the DOTH. The DOTH appears to have a life of its own until the Essence using the personality can control it and then in time eliminate it. Zanoni, in the book, teaches Glyndon that when you face this dreaded fiend, looking at it eye to eye, it will shrinks and loses it power. You can’t do this unless you have achieved a level of separation and soul strength and awakening.

In the poem, Green Leaves, Words from the Master , the DOTH is that ‘heavy iron bar that clasps and holds the golden gate’ which the neophyte must lift. The type of DOTH an aspirant to the Path of Initiation may experience is dependent on one’s actions in the distant past. If an individual has practised black magic in the ancient times then those entities that were drawn to him in that dark past will still be there and make up the substance aspect of the DOTH. The aspirant will have to deal with them, transform their substance before the Essence, the true inner disciple, can go further. This point is explained very well in the book, The Wheel of Rebirth by H.K. Chalonner. In the chapter on England, Charles re-awakens his occult past and realizes that his cancer is the result of an ancient elemental that must now be dissolved before he can make further progress. In the classic occult volume, Light on the Path by Mabel Collins, describes the DOTH as, ‘…it is a plant that lives and increases throughout the ages. It flowers when the man has accumulated unto himself innumerable existences. He who will enter upon the path of power must tear this thing out of his heart’. (pg.4)

The Dweller on the Threshold only becomes active as the Dweller when you enter the Path of Initiation. Prior to entering the deeper esoteric work, the Dweller is blended with the personality.


Aspirants who have questions or wish to discuss various esoteric subjects such as those on this website may like to join: The Northern School of Esoteric Wisdom’s Facebook page.


Follow Us

Make a Donation