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 'Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’
The Endura
Like all Gnostic Brotherhoods, the Cathars had several degrees: there were the ‘believers’ – the ‘called’ in the Gospel – and the ‘Perfect Ones’ – the ‘chosen’ in the Gospel. There were, of course, intermediary phases.
The believers listened to the preaching. Myths, tales and symbols developed their understanding of the ‘Good’ and of the ‘Good Will’ towards God and those who serve Him. The Prayer was transmitted to them and as they were conscious of the principle of the ‘two nature orders’, they could orientate their lives towards the pure Christian ideal.
The Perfect Ones practically engaged their lives in a threefold process of the rebirth of the divine Soul. They entered into the practice of the ‘Endura’ which is the surrender of all that links the soul to this world – ambition, desires, instincts; all selfish tendencies of the three sanctuaries of the head, the heart and the pelvis – the complete surrender of the I, the egocentric man, to the Light-Soul born of God.
The Consolamentum
The Consolamentum or Baptism of the Spirit through the laying on of hands – the sign of initiation of the Perfects – marked the definite separation of the two principles in the candidate: Light and Darkness.
The Consolamentum consecrates the union of the purified soul with the Spirit. It frees it from all bounds with the corruptible nature and introduces the candidate into the Cathar Priesthood: the Perfection.
He then entered the Higher Nature, the Life field of the Spirit-Soul. The reality of this link was demonstrated to everyone’s eyes by the quiet courage of the thousands of martyrs facing death, which they had already vanquished within themselves. The aim of the Cathar initiation was: becoming ‘Perfect’.
The Cathar knew two types of Consolamentum:
The Consolamentum of the dying which brought them consolation and rest; it was given to all believers.
The Consolamentum of the ‘departed-alive’, the initiated, the Perfect Ones.
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