The Effect of the Application of the Rod 

• A. Upon the Initiate's bodies:The effect is four-fold and lasting, but varies according to the initiation taken. The actions of the Rod is most carefully and scientifically regulated, and at each succeeding initiation the voltage is increased, and the activity of the resulting fire and its heat intensified. By the application of the Rod the initiate finds:-
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  1. That the activity of each individual atom in the various bodies in increased, resulting in a greater degree of nervous energy and an elasticity and resistance which will serve him in good stead in the strenuous life of service ahead.
  2.That matter of an undesirable type in his bodies is shaken loose, and the atomic wall somewhat destroyed, making the atoms radioactive-if it might be so expressed-and therefore more easily eliminated.
  3. The fires of the body are stimulated, and the total energy of the threefold lower man is co-ordinated, so that there is less waste of energy and a greater coherence and uniformity in action.
  4. The aligning of the various bodies in connection with the causal, or egoic body is aided, and thus continuity of consciousness and receptivity to the behests of the Ego, become possible.

The initiate will find, when he returns from the ceremony, and takes up his work in the world, that the stimulation received will bring about in his bodies  a period of great activivty, and also of strife. This strife, persisted into the point of victory, will result in his taking out of his body undesirable matter, and building in new and better material; he will find that his powers for service are enormously increased, and his nervous energy intensified, so that he can draw upon reserves of force in service hitherto unsuspected.

He will find, also, that the response of the physical brain to the voice of the higer Self, and it receptivity to the higher and subtler impressions, is greatly furthered. Eventually, through the work accomplished, he will succeed in eliminating all matter of subatomic character, and will then build bodies of substance of the highest subplane on each plane: he will become aware that all his energies can be consciously and constructively controlled, that he knows the real meaning of continuity of consciousness, and can function simultaneously on the three planes with full inner realisation.

B. Upon the causal or egoic body
It is only possible to touch very briefly upon the effect of the application of the Rod to the causal body of the initiate. The subject is immense, and will be more fully dealt with in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. There are just two ways in which some idea of the fundamental truth will be conveyed to the mind of the student, which we might now consider.

First, the student should bear in mind the interesting significance of the fact that he, on the physical plane, is a functioning personality, with known and realised characteristics, and yet withal, that he is a subjective Life, who uses that personality as a medium of expression, and who through the agency of the physical, emotional, and mental bodies which comprise the threefold lower man-makes his contacts with the physical plane and thus develops.

The same general idea of development must now be extended to the higher Self, the Ego on its own plane. This Ego is a great solar angel, who is the medium of expression for the Monad of pure spirit, just as the personality for the Ego on the lower level. From the point of view of man in the three worlds, this Ego, or Solar Lord, is eternal: he persists throughout the entire cycle of incarnations, just as the personality persists during the tiny physical life cycle. Nevertheless, this period of existenceis the only relatively permanent, and the day dawns when the life which expresses itself through the medium of Ego, the Thinker, the Solar Lord or Manasadeva, seeks to loose itself from even this limitation, and to return to the source from which it originally emanated.

The life then, which manifested as a solar angel, and which, through inherent energy, held together through long ages the form egoic, withdraws itself gradually, and the form slowly dissipates: the lesser lives of which it has been constituted, return to the general fount of deva substance, plus the increased consciousness  and activity which is theirs through the experience of being built into a form, and utilised by a still higher aspect of existence.

Similarly, in the case of the personality, when the life egoic withdraws, the threefold lower self dissipates: the little lives which form the body of what has been called the lunar self (in contradistinction to the solar self, bein but its reflection) are absorbed into the general reservoir of deva substance of a lower vibration to that which composed the body egoic. Similarly, also, their evolution has been furthered through having been built into a form for the use of the Higher Self. Through the application of the Rod of Initiation, the work of seperating the spiritual self from the higher self is furthered, and the imprisoned life gradually escapes, whilst the causal body is slowly absorbed or dissipated.

This has led to the expression, sometimes used in occult books, of "the cracking of the causal body" at each initiation, and to the idea of the inner central fire gradually breaking through and destroying the confining walls, and also of the destruction of the Temple of Solomon through the withdrawal of the Shekinah. All these phrases are symbolic wordings, and are attempts to convey to the mind of man fundamental truth from different angels.

By the time the truth initiation has been reached, the work of destruction is accomplished, the solar angel returns to his own place, having performed his function, and the solar lives seek their point of emanation. The life within the form mounts up then in triumph to the bosom of its "Father in Heaven,"just as the life within the physical body at the moment of death seeks its source, the Ego, and this likewise in four stages:-

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  1. By the withdrawal from the dense physical body.
  2. By the withdrawal from the etheric body.
  3.By a later vacating of the astral body.
  4.A final leaving of the mental body
  

Reference: Initiation Human And Solar: Alice A. Bailey