Gethsemane is the archetype of inner struggle, the dark night of the soul, the healing of human nature, the moment of emptying, of surrendering personal will and filling oneself with divine will.
We learn from Scripture that the Lord Jesus Christ had a favourite place of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, located east of Jerusalem, not far from the Temple, on the banks of the Kidron River, also known by its biblical name, the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Starting in Jerusalem, the river flows through the Judean Desert, bypasses the Lavra of Saint Sava, and empties into the Dead Sea. According to Christian tradition, the Last Judgement will take place in the Kidron Valley, right in the Gethsemane area. This tradition is linked to the name Jehoshaphat, derived from Yahweh-Shafot, meaning “God judges” (Joel 3:2).
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled, and said unto them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
The Garden of Gethsemane is essentially the archetype of the inner struggle between the two wills (thelemai) in Christ; it is the dark night of the soul, but also of the healing of human nature “from within”. It is the moment of emptying, of surrendering one’s personal will and being filled with the divine will, the transition from oneself to God, freely and consciously. In all contemplative traditions, from hermits to Eckhartians, Gethsemane is seen as a universal inner experience, inevitable for anyone who seriously walks the path of union with God.
My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me, but not as I will, but as You will (Matthew 26:39).
Jesus fought the greatest battle of his earthly life in the Garden of Gethsemane that night. Although his soul was at the height of suffering and fear, he showed true faith, and from this faith sprang the courage to drink his cup to the dregs. The “cup” that He had to endure is considered in patristic theology to be the burden of the sin of the world, and in a profound interpretation, it shows the assumption of the suffering of the whole human nature. Christ drinks what needs to be healed, that is, fear, death, existential pain, isolation, absurdity, shame, and sin that destroys nature. Christ drinks “the cup of humanity” to transform it “from within” and thus show the way to salvation.
But the “Cup” is also the Father’s will seen as “the way of salvation”; in a subtle sense, this is the divine plan of love, not just suffering itself. It is not a “punishment” that comes from the Father, for that would contradict divine love, but it is His will to heal the world through the example of the Son’s entry into human nature. In the sense of Palamite [1] theology, the cup can be understood as: the work of salvation that the Son, as a human being, freely embraces. And in a mystical sense, the “cup” is your own Gethsemane.
For all mystics (from Cassian to John of the Cross) the “cup” is the inevitable moment when the soul that longs for divine light must empty itself of its own preferences and attachments, accept that life does not turn out the way everyone wants it to, and involves situations that require renunciation, sacrifice and transformation, obstacles that force you to undergo a real spiritual transformation.
The Garden of Gethsemane, in psychological-mystical terms, is the moment of crisis when individual consciousness is brought to breaking point, in total contact with fear, suffering, and body-mind resistance. In modern terms, it is the moment when the ego foresees its own annihilation and puts up its last resistance. If Gethsemane is the archetype of the supreme crisis of consciousness, then it does not belong only to sacred history, but is reactivated in every person who reaches the limit of their own identity.
Therefore, Gethsemane is as alive today as it was in biblical times, only it takes other forms, and being more internal, the modern person carries his drama in the heart. Despite appearances, faith does exist today, but not in the form of classic religious heroism. It may be more fragile, but sometimes more authentic, because it bears all its vulnerability without the armour of dogma, which was once a shield. The only problem is that modern humanity wants transformation without loss, enlightenment without uprooting, and meaning without the cross. Gethsemane says exactly the opposite: there is no passage without sacrifice.
Gethsemane – the inner threshold of today’s seeker
The Garden of Gethsemane can be read today as an archetype of the inner crisis through which every person on the threshold of transformation must go. Beyond the biblical context, it describes the critical moment when individual consciousness directly confronts fear, helplessness, and the ego’s resistance. It is not just a scene of submission, but of a profound tension between personal will and the call to overcome it.
For the contemporary seeker, Gethsemane no longer appears as an external divine command, but as an internal pressure towards truth. It is no longer about ritual sacrifices, but about an ontological sacrifice: renouncing constructed identities, the self-image that offers security but not authenticity. This call often manifests itself through existential crises—exhaustion, loss of meaning, inner collapse—that modern persons frequently interpret as dysfunctions rather than initiatory thresholds.
Here, the heart becomes the central space of decision, not as the seat of emotion, but as the place of lived truth, where rational justifications no longer work. In this space, the inner dialogue takes place: between the psychological person, who fears, and the depths of consciousness, which knows. The prayer in Gethsemane can be understood as this living tension, not between two entities, but between two levels of the same reality.
Today’s seeker faces a specific difficulty: the tendency to hide in sophisticated spiritual or psychological discourses. They talk about acceptance, balance, self-love, but avoid contact with real loss, with emptiness, with the symbolic death of the ego. But the heart cannot be fooled. It “knows” when the truth is being avoided.
Descending into the night of the soul does not involve dramatisation, but radical presence. It means remaining where there are no answers, where identity cracks, where control disappears. This is where true transformation begins. Not by force, but by consent. Not by blind obedience, but by lucidity.
Paradoxically, the suffering of modern humanity is not necessarily greater than in the past, but it is more symbolically isolated. The lack of a spiritual framework means that pain is no longer recognised as a gateway, but as an error. This is where anxiety and confusion arise. And yet, Gethsemane continues to manifest itself: in the form of a loss, a crisis, a question that will not be silenced.
For today’s seeker, the true sacrifice is not an external one, but the renunciation of the illusion of control. The true cross is not carried on the shoulders, but in the heart—where one dares to remain, even when he has neither certainties nor guarantees.
The mystery of Gethsemane in the thinking of Jan van Rijckenborgh
Within the Lectorium Rosicrucianum and especially in the teachings of Jan van Rijckenborgh, the episode in Gethsemane is not read historically or theologically, but purely symbolically-alchemically. Gethsemane is interpreted as an inner process in the microcosm, an inevitable crisis threshold in the ascent to the “New Man”, when the lower nature (the ego, the dialectical personality) is confronted with the “Light in the spark of the spirit atom of the microcosm”, Gethsemane being the moment of maximum tension between the two natures, experienced within the soul. In this school, man is seen as having both an ephemeral, dialectical personality – the microcosm (the eternal energy sphere) – and the Seed of the Spirit / Original Atom (the latent divine Self – “Spirit Spark”). In this context, Gethsemane is the moment when the old nature (the ego) perceives the approach of its death, because the light of the original atom has awakened. It is the alchemical night, the beginning of transmutation, where a new soul is created, and the voluntary acceptance of the death of the old Self is the point of entry into the life of the new soul.
In alchemy, the transformation has three main phases: Nigredo – decay, darkening, dissolution; Albedo – whitening, purification; Rubedo – redness, reunion, resurrection. Gethsemane is the perfect correspondence of Nigredo, “The Dark Night of Matter”. This is the phase in which the old Self disintegrates, the light of consciousness is absorbed into its own abyss, and matter (in the case of man, the psyche) enters the stage of putrefaction. All security is suspended, “the anguish of separation” appears, exactly what Jesus experiences in Gethsemane: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.” Gethsemane is the moment when the “false gold” of the Self melts away.
The apostles fall asleep, and the three lower forces of the microcosm collapse. In van Rijckenborgh’s hermeneutics, “the three apostles who fall asleep” symbolise the three principles of personality: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral/emotional body. Their falling asleep means that the old triad of dialectical nature can no longer sustain the impulse of the New Soul. It is the beginning of the “separation of water from fire” in the microcosmic laboratory.
The “cup” (of suffering) is the symbol of the alchemical vessel. In alchemy, everything takes place in a hermetic vessel called an athanor, and in the Hermetic interpretation, the inner athanor is the vessel in which the death of the ego occurs; it is the container of the ontological trial, it is the vessel in which matter will be transmuted into light. Gethsemane is the moment when the true alchemical process begins. It is the inevitability of the death of the old nature, which van Rijckenborgh says will ultimately belong to every genuine aspirant, being the moment of crisis when the light of the new soul becomes active in the blood. The old personality understands that it can no longer continue to dominate the microcosm. It is the end of the egocentric cycle, the death of the old astral forces, the dissolution of the “I” that has ruled the microcosm for thousands of years. Here comes the agony where the old nature fears annihilation. “Not my will, but Thy will” is the personality’s consent to be sacrificed. “Thy will” is the impulse of the New Soul (the reactivated Original Atom).
In alchemy, this tension of wills is the principle of Solve: “Not as I will, but as You will.” Here appears the dissolution (solve) of the individual will, respectively, the alchemical phase in which the personal will is liquefied, the psychic substance is “dismantled,” and the structure of identity falls apart. In alchemy, without Solve there is no Coagula, and Gethsemane is absolute Solve.
The fall into “sweat of blood” can be interpreted as primary coagulation, a very concrete alchemical symbol. In esoteric language, blood is sulphur (the active principle, fire), sweat is mercury (the passive principle, fluid, lunar), and their mixture is the union of opposites. This is the beginning of Rubedo, though the intensity is still in crisis. In alchemy, the union of sulphur with mercury forms the rough stone, which is purified in Albedo and resurrected in Rubedo. In Gethsemane, the “raw material” of the resurrection is formed.
The Biblical text says: “Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.” In alchemical language, this means that after nigredo comes Albedo, the phase of gentle illumination. The angel symbolises spiritus albus – white light, the philosopher’s silver, the moment of grace that penetrates matter, the first rays of light appear, matter begins to be purified, clarity and tranquillity appear, Gethsemane begins in black (nigredo) but ends in white (Albedo).
The prayer in Gethsemane, as an inner alchemical process, is interpreted as a resonance between the “Spirit Spark” and personality, an inner dialogue through which the new impulse of the “awakened rose” makes the personality aware, understand that it is no longer the centre, and thus consent appears, the acceptance of “diminishment” within the natural soul. The “possibility” of becoming is born, that state of consciousness called by van Rijckenborgh “The New Man,” “the new, golden soul” prepared to receive the pure spirit in its fullness, Theosis. This state is also called “obedience to Gnosis,” “reordering of the microcosm,” or “the moment of the astral cross.”
For van Rijckenborgh, Jesus Christ is the archetypal model of the process of transfiguration, and Gethsemane is the inevitable inner event of every candidate for the blossoming of the rose in the heart. The moment is not “emotional” but alchemical, namely, the alchemy of the heart, the blood, and the consciousness. Gethsemane is the moment when the old personality sees its end and chooses to submit to the inner divine impulse. It is the abandonment of one’s own will which allows the new soul to be born, to be created in place of the natural soul.
This transfiguring process, akin to a complete rebirth, is not easy to undergo, as the seeker of divinity is often alone and despairing; in practice, he builds his path alone, even though schools and masters provide landmarks. This path is travelled in solitude and, like Jesus in Gethsemane, there are moments of terrible nights, loneliness and suffering. The Saviour himself showed through his life how difficult the Golgotha of self-fulfilment is, how difficult it is to be freed from this sea of confusion and worldly suffering. It is, in fact, the most painful and most sacred moment of spiritual alchemy, and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is an ever-living example that Jesus left to humanity as the secret of transformation in the heart of those who ardently desire liberation.
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[1] Palamite theology, formulated by Gregory Palamas (14th century), introduces the distinction between the divine essence (ousia), considered inaccessible, and the uncreated energies, through which God is present and active in the world. This distinction allows for the affirmation of real participation in God without identification with His essence.
