Crystal cord

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The flow of light between the Spirit of the living God and your soul is over the crystal cord. It is the thread of light and the thread of contact, not only with God but also with all souls ascended in the white light who comprise the Great White Brotherhood. (The terms silver cord and crystal cord are synonymous, being descriptive of men’s perceptions of the “umbilical cord” of the soul, tied to and fed by the Spirit.)

The silver cord originates in the Godhead in the Great Central Sun. You can visualize it as a ribbon of light descending down infinity to your mighty I AM Presence, passing through your Christ Self to nourish your soul and your four lower bodies. Everyone who is of God has the magnificent “crystal” cord connecting all planes of his being—heart to heart—to the Sun. This is what Saint John saw as the River of Life.[1]

Anchoring in the body

The silver cord enters the four lower bodies through the crown; its pulsations can be seen physically by observing the soft spot on a baby’s head. Once the silver cord stabilizes the breath and the heartbeat at birth, and the threefold flame is rekindled in the secret chamber of the heart and the child begins to “wax strong in spirit,”[2] the soft spot begins to close over. By the time the child is about two years old, it is no longer visible.

While in the womb, the baby lives by the heart flame and crystal cord of the mother. The moment of the cutting of the umbilical cord—when the Holy Spirit has breathed the breath of Life into the form—is the symbolical moment (and sometimes the actual moment, depending on the correct timing of the cutting of the cord) of the descent of the baby’s own silver cord from the beloved I AM Presence. The baby’s first cry or sound is often indicative of its sudden recognition of the burst of flame in the heart, of the sacred breath infilling the lungs, and of the bodily sensations now keenly felt.

Withdrawal of the crystal cord at death

Clairvoyants in the 1800s reported standing over dying people and watching the loosening of the silver cord. Spiritualist mediums observed when attending departing souls at their deathbed that something silvery seemed to disconnect from their body and float up into the air. They described it as a beautiful silver ribbon they could see with their inner sight.[3]

The actual cause of death is the cutting of this silver cord (an act of God), which causes the threefold flame to “go out” in the physical body. And this is the accurate and true meaning of Ecclesiastes 12:6–7, which reads: “... or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern [metaphor for the withdrawal of the silver cord and the simultaneous withdrawal of the threefold flame—i.e., the ‘breaking’ of the heart, the going out of the breath of Life and with it the soul, and the taking up of the light from the chakras—‘wheels’]. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

When the silver cord and threefold flame are withdrawn from the lower vehicles, the physical heart stops beating and the life-force and breath which animated the form return to the heart of the Christ Self and the etheric plane. The soul of light also rises—with the accumulated light of the chakras which have been woven into the wedding garment—to the etheric plane where it abides ‘dressed’ in the etheric sheath until its next incarnation, when the three lower vehicles are remagnetized by the inner blueprint during gestation in the womb.

Reduction of the crystal cord

In past ages, this silver cord was as large in diameter as the tube of light, and the stream of energy from your Presence was just magnificent. Men lived to be eight and nine hundred years old[4] because this vital shower, like a Niagara Falls, was pouring Life and Life’s essence into their physical forms. It kept out imperfection. It kept out disease. It maintained their souls’ contact with God.

Then mankind began to abuse the Law. And so, by divine decree reflected in an edict of the Karmic Board, set forth in order to prevent mankind from misusing greater and greater quantities of God’s energy (because we are all accountable for how much energy we use or misuse), God took away this tremendous shower of energy and reduced the silver cord to its present size.

The Great Divine Director explains this event:

Some of the students are aware that when it became necessary to restrict mankind because of his viciousness and bestiality, the Lords of Karma did cut the allotment of cosmic energy for many lifestreams upon the planet until the stream of Life flowing into the body of man at the top of the head (which had once been the size of the tube of light) became a very narrow cord of silvery light-substance through which a relatively minute portion of energy could flow.

Because there is a relationship between the apportioned size of the lifestream, or silver cord, and the spectrum of consciousness upon which man’s awareness vibrates, the reduction in the actual size of the cord caused a corresponding decrease in the number of years of the allotted life span of mankind as well as a gradual shrinking of the spectrum of consciousness.

You will recall that in the days of Methuselah men did live to be many hundreds of years old. Then the shrinking of the rate of descending energy was reflected in a shrinking of the life span, together with the aforementioned spectrum of consciousness.

In a practical manner, this meant that the vibratory peaks of happiness which could be experienced by man and those of consciousness and of awareness were also diminished. And while, through the power of various spiritual exercises, mankind have been able to expand their consciousness, the physical vessel of man and his brain structure have continually impeded the flow of the vital essences because of the shrinking of the cup of consciousness.[5]

See also

Chart of Your Divine Self


Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lost Teachings on Your Higher Self.

  1. Rev. 22:1.
  2. Luke 1:80; 2:40.
  3. Max Heindel takes up the subject of the loosing of the silver cord at death in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1906; reprint, Pasadena, Calif.: Wood and Jones, 1974), pp. 9–102.
  4. Gen. 5:3–32. This describes the period before the Flood (the sinking of Atlantis).
  5. Mark L. Prophet, The Soulless One: Cloning a Counterfeit Creation, ch. 12; Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 8, no. 14.