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I THAT AM THAT I THAT AM THAT I THAT MAAT IS ISISISIS IS MAAT I AM AT MAAT ALWAYS AT MAAT AM I
THERE IS NO ATTEMPT MADE TO DESCRIBE THE CREATIVE PROCESS REALISTICALLY THE ACCOUNT IS SYMBOLIC AND SHOWS GOD CREATING THE WORLD BY MEANS OF LANGUAGE AS THOUGH WRITING A BOOK BUT LANGUAGE ENTIRELY TRANSFORMED THE MESSAGE OF CREATION IS CLEAR EACH LETTER OF THE ALPHABET IS GIVEN A NUMERICAL VALUE BY COMBINING THE LETTERS WITH THE SACRED NUMBERS REARRANGING THEM IN ENDLESS CONFIGURATIONS THE MYSTIC WEANED THE MIND AWAY FROM THE NORMAL CONNOTATIONS OF WORDS
....
THE LIGHT IS RISING NOW RISING IS THE LIGHT
STRIKE A LIGHT LUCIFER MEETS ITS MATCH
OSIRIS SO IRIS IS
ENTERS THE NETERS
THE ELEMENTS OF EGYPTIAN WISDOM Naomi Ozaniec 1994 THE SACRED SCRIPT - THE MEDU NETERS Page 80 / The logical mind begins to reel / Page 81 / Language as evocation is immensely powerful. Word play is not finished; Neith can also be written by spelling the 't' with the sign for land, ta, in combination with the sign for water, 'n'. This particular hieroglyph represents ruffled water. By spelling the same name in a different way, we are presented with a different set of ideas. Here is Neith as 'the primeval water which gave birth to the land,' a theologically familiar concept. Once again a brief word encapsulates both divine name and divine function. Hieroglyphic omitted Schwaller de Lubicz reminds us repeatedly that we do need to look for a convoluted symbolism. The Medu Neters were chosen in such a way as to really signify all the qualities and functions implicit in the image. We are of course removed from the direct observation of vulture and ibis, crocodile and falcon, It is hard for us to understand the subtleties of movement, habit or life cycle which prompted a recognition deep in the Egyptian mind. It is well known that the humble dung beetle was raised to a sacred status from its simple egg-laying habit. The young emerged from the ball of dung as new life unbegotten. It is less well known that the scarab resembles the human skull, its two wing cases being reminiscent of the two halves of the human skull. The ability to find the cosmic In the mundane through a correspondence is the hallmark of a mind sensitized through symbolic training. Any contemporary Qabalist recognizes this function for what it is, the inner workings of an esoteric system. These brief examples serve to illustrate the workings of both the Egyptian mind and the Egyptian tradition. Each letter had its own secret; all sacred alphabets are constructed in this way. Moreover a sacred language always serves a double purpose, a written double entendre. To the uninitiated there is no secret to hide. The language functions perfectly well at a purely practical level. To the initiated there exists another level of inner meaning as opposed to the apparent meaning. The inner meaning requires no elaborate subterfuge. It is there all the time, open and blatant. 'It / Page 82 / is hidden from view only because it represents a higher non-cerebral consciousness which simply evades the logical mind. The Egyptians preserved this double function with astonishing brilliance and clarity over an immensely long period of time. Hebrew still functions as a sacred alphabet.. Each of its letters signifies ideas, numbers and cosmic principles.. A word becomes a code for an abstraction, a metaphysical concept, an esoteric teaching. An outsider cannot penetrate into the labyrinthine maze of meanings without becoming lost in ideas and distracted by elusive possibilities. A guide is always required in such matters - scribal training took place through an apprenticeship system. It is a mistake to think that we might uncover how the scribes viewed individual hieroglyphs by simply applying any meaning that springs to our mind. It is Clear that individual signs and arrangements carried a precise range of corresponding symbols. Schwaller de Lubicz acts as our guide into the intricacies of an individual hieroglyph in the book Her-Bak. The letter r is written in the lenticular shape of a half open mouth. Now look. for the ideas, qualities and functions this sign represents. First, its nature. The mouth, ra, is the upper opening of the body, an entrance that communicates by two channels with the lungs and stomach; that is why this hieroglyph is also the generic word for an entrance, ra. The mouth opens and shuts to eat, breathe and speak, as the eye, ar.t, opens and shuts to receive or refuse light. The mouth's function is dual, passive and active, it receives air and food, emits breath and voice. The eye's function is dual, likewise 'the reception of light and expression of organic and emotional response. The mouth's shape changes by the separation of the lips for the performance of its function. Opening, it widens or narrows like the shadow thrown on a disc by another disc which gradually eclipses it. In the partially occulted disc, the lentil or dark mouth is the complement of the crescent still visible. This gradual change of shape produces portions of different size that represents parts of the occulted disc. The characteristic has given the name ra to parts of a whole such as numerical fractions, chapters and so forth. Page 83 These profound thoughts revolve around a single letter majestic insights might we discover if only someone would serve as our guide through all the hieroglyphic combinations! Here is a way of thinking quite unlike our own, a mind set removed from our utilitarian use of language. This totally symbolic thinking produced completely practical applications, as we see through Egypt's many lasting achievements there is no grounds whatsoever for thinking that this symbolic system produced woolly mindedness. On the contrary it gave rise to a mind that was both extensive and focused, deep and creative, traditonal yet original.
ESOTERIC = 4 = ESOTERIC ESOTERIC I SECRET O ESOTERIC ESOTERIC = 4 = ESOTERIC
ESOTERIC 6 SECRET 9 ESOTERIC ESOTERIC 9 SECRET 6 ESOTERIC
ESOTERIC ISISIS ESOTERIC O SECRET I 6 SECRET 9 ESOTERIC ISIS ESOTERIC
SEE RE C THAT C RE SEE
ESOTERIC = 4 = ESOTERIC MATTER MIND SPIRIT GODS SPIRIT MIND MATTER EXOTERIC = 9 9 = EXOTERIC E MOTION ISISIS NOITOM E I THAT AM THAT TIME EMIT
I ME EGO CONSCIENCE THE CYCLE OF THE CIRCLE OF THE CIRCLE OF THE CYCLE
CIRCLE = 5 O 5 = ELCRIC CIRCLE ET ELECTRIC ET CIRCLE ELECTRIC CIRCLE ELECTRIC CIRCLE ELECTRIC CIRCLE ET CIRCLE ELECTRIC CIRCLE ELECTRIC CIRCLE ELECTRIC CIRCLE ET ELECTRIC ET CIRCLE CIRCLE = 5 O 5 = ELCRIC
POP WOW O WOW POP WOW O WOW POP WOW O WOW POP
....
ANGEL AND ANGLE AND ANGLE AND ANGEL
ANGEL AND ANGLE AND ANGLE AND ANGEL
THE ENGLISH ANGEL Peter Burton & Harland Walshaw 2000 Page 5 Angles & Angels The Venerable Bede tells the story of the slave boys from Northumbria in the Forum at Rome. St Gregory, struck by their fair hair and blue eyes, asks their nationality. When told that they are Angles, he replies, with one of those rare puns that work in two languages, 'Non Angli, sed angeli.' Not Angles, but angels.
"NON ANGLI SED ANGELI" NOT ANGLES BUT ANGELS
SUNDAY + MONDAY + TUESDAY + WEDNESDAY + THURSDAY + FRIDAY + SATURDAY = +639 198 36 9 9 9 36 198 639 = SATURDAY + FRIDAY + THURSDAY + WEDNESDAY + TUESDAY + MONDAY + SUNDAY
BLACK B LACK OF LIGHT B BLACK
TWILIGHT TWO IN ONE LIGHT ONE IN TWO TWILIGHT
EARTH HEART THERA TERAH EARTH HEART R HEAT HEAT R HEART EARTH
ANUBIS A GOD DOG IS
ANUBIS A NUMBER IS
ANUBIS A NUMBER ISOIS NUMBER ANUBIS
ATUM 1234 ATUM 1234 ATUM MUTA 4321 ATUM 1234 ATUM
THRICE-GREATEST HERMES Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis G. R. S. Mead 1906 THE VIRGIN OF THE WORLD Page 149 (All notes omitted) KNEPH - KAMEPHIS But who was Kamephis in the theology of the Egyptians? According to Reitzenstein, Kamephis or Kmephis, that is Kmeph, is equated by Egyptologists with Kneph, who, according to Plutarch,l (note omitted) was worshipped in the Thebaid as the ingenerable and immortal God. Kneph, however, as Sethe has shown,2 is one of the aliases of Ammon, who is the" bull [or husband] of his mother," the "creator who has created himself." Kneph is, moreover, the Good Daimon, as Philo of Byblus says.3 "If he open his eyes, he filleth all with light in his primaeval 4 land; and if he close them all is dark." 5
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3: I. Excerpts by Stobæus: Commentary - 12:48pm
Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 3, by G.R.S. Mead, [1906], at sacred-texts.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENTARY ARGUMENT 1. The “Virgin of the World” is a sacred sermon of initiation into the Hermes-lore, the first initiation, in which the tradition of the wisdom is handed on by the hierophant to the neophyte, by word of mouth. The instructor, or revealer, is the representative of Isis-Sophia, and speaks in her name, pouring forth for her beloved son, the new-born Horus, the first draught of p. 135 immortality, which is to purge away the poison of the mortal cup of forgetfulness and ignorance, and so raise him from the “dead.” This pouring-forth explains that the divine economy is perfect order, mystery transcending mystery,—each state of being, and each being, a mystery to those below that state. This order no mortal intellect can ever grasp; nay, in the far-off ages, when as yet there were no men, but only Gods, those essences that know no death, the first creation of the World-creator,—even these Gods, these mysteries to us, were in amazement at the glories of the greater mysteries which decked the Heaven with their unveiled transcendent beauty. Even these Gods did not know God as yet. 2. The Gods were immortal, but unknowing; they were intoxicated with Heaven’s beauty, amazed, nay awestruck, at the splendour of the mysteries of Heaven. Then came there forth another outpouring of the Father over all; He poured the Splendour of His Mind into their hearts and they began to know. 1 With this representation is blended a mythical historical tradition which suggests that all this was brought about for an “earth” on which our humanity had not as yet appeared, in far-off distant days when apparently our earth was not as now, ages ago, the purest Golden Age when there were Gods, not men. In that race of Gods, those of them in whom the ray was no low-burning spark, but a divine flame, were the instructors in the heavenly wisdom. 3. Of these was Hermes, a race or “being” rather p. 136 than an individual; these “Sons of Fire” left the record of their wisdom engraved on “stone” in symbol, in charge of others of the same race but less knowing than themselves; and so they ascended to Heaven. 4. Those that succeeded them had not the flame so bright within their hearts; they were of the same race, but younger souls—the Tat-race. Hermes could not hand on the direct knowledge to them, the “perfect sight” (θεωρία), and so recorded the wisdom in symbol and myth. Still later the Asclepius-race joined themselves to the Tat-souls. All this, however, took place many many ages ago, long even before the days of the men-gods Osiris and Isis; for the real wisdom of Hermes was so ancient that even Isis herself had had to search out the hidden records, and that too by means of the inner sight, when she herself had won the power to see, and the True Sun had risen for her mind. 5. But the strain of reconstructing the history of this far-distant past, as he conceived it to have been, is too much for the writer. He knows he is dealing with “myths,” with what Plutarch would have called the “doings of the daimones;” he knows that in reality these primæval “Books” of Hermes have no longer any physical existence, if indeed they ever had any; he knows that no matter what legends are told, or whatever the general priesthood may believe about ancient physical inscriptions of the primæval Hermes,—all this has passed away, and that the real wisdom of Hermes is engraved on the tablets of the æther, and not hidden in the shrines of earth. The “Books” are engraved in the “sacred symbols of the cosmic elements,” and hidden away hard by the “secrets of Osiris”—the mysteries of creative fire, the light that speaks in the heart. The true Books of p. 137 [paragraph continues] Hermes are hidden away in their own zones, the pure elements of the unseen world—the celestial Egypt. 6. This wisdom was held in safe keeping for the “souls” of men; it was a soul-gnosis, not a physical knowledge. Hereupon the writer begins the recital of his tradition 1 of the creation of the “souls” of men in their unfallen state, all of which is derived from the “Books of Hermes.” The soul-creation runs as follows: The Watchers 2 approach the Creator. The hour has struck for a new Cosmic Dawn, for a new Day. The time has come for Cosmos to awake after the Night. 3 The Creative Mind of the universe turns His attention, His thought, to a new phase of things, a new world-period. 7. God smiled, and His laughter thrilled through space, 4 and with His Word, called forth into the light the new dawn from out the primæval darkness of the new world-space. His first creation, transcendental or intelligible Nature, stood before Him, in all the marvel of her new beauty, the primal plērōma, or potential fullness, of the new universe or system, the ideal cosmos of our world, for there were many others,—the Gods who marvelled at the mystery. Straightway this Nature fell from one into three, herself and Toil and their fairest child Invention, to p. 138 whom God gave the gift of being, themselves producing ideal form alone. The first creation, then, was the bringing forth of potencies and types and ideas, to whom God gave the gift of being; it was as yet the world “above,” the primæval Heaven, in ultimate perfection, thus constituting the unchanging boundaries of the new universe that was to be. These things-that-are were filled with “mysteries,” not “breaths” or “lives,” for these were not as yet. 8. The next stage is the breathing of the spiritual (not the physical) breath of lives into the fairest blend of the primal elements that condition the world-area. This blend or soul-substance is called psychōsis. The primal elements were not our mixed earth, water, fire, and air, but “knowing fire” (perhaps “fire in itself,” as Hermes elsewhere calls it, or intelligible fire, perchance the “flower of fire” of the so-called “Chaldæan Oracles” 1) and unknowing air, if we may judge from the phrase (7): “Let heaven be filled with all things full, and air and æther [? = fire] too!” It is Heaven or the ideal world that is so filled; even earth-water was not yet manifested, much less earth and water. It seems, then, that these souls (souls corresponding above with the subsequent man-stage below) were a blend of the three: spirit, knowing fire, and unknowing air,—triads, yet a unity called psychōsis. 9. They were moreover all essentially equal, but differed according to some fixed law of numbering; they were also apparently definite in number, one soul perchance for every star, as with Plato, according to the law of similarity of less and greater, of within and without. 10. These souls, then, were “sacred (or typical) men,” p. 139 a creation prior to that of the “sacred animals”; their habitat was in Upper Nature, the “all-fairest station of the æther”—the celestial cosmos. 11. They were appointed to certain stations and to the task of keeping the “wheel revolving,”—that is, as we shall see, they were to fashion forms for birth and death, and so provide means of transmission for the life-currents ever circulating in the great sphere. This was their appointed task, the law imposed on them, as obedient children of the Great King, their sire. So long as they kept their appointed stations they were to live for ever in surroundings of bliss and beauty, in full contemplation of the glories of the greater universe, throned amid the stars. But if they disobeyed the law, bonds and punishment await them. 12. We next come to a further creation of souls—a subject somewhat difficult to follow. These souls are of an inferior grade to the preceding, for they are composed of the primal water and earth, of “water in itself” and “earth in itself” we must suppose, and not of the compound elements we now call by these names. These are the souls of certain “sacred animals” or lives, which bear the same relationship to the souls which “keep the wheel revolving” as animals do to man on earth. They are, however, not shaped like the animals on earth, nor possess even typical animal forms, but bear the forms of men, though they are not men. 13. Still was the divine “water-earth” substance unexhausted, and so the residue was handed over to “those souls that had gone in advance and had been summoned to the land of Gods,”—that is to say, those stations near the Gods, in highest æther, of which mention has just been made. These souls are, of course, the man-souls proper. Out of this residue these Builders were to fashion p. 140 animals, after the models the Creator gave them,—certain types of life, below the “man” type proper, ranged in due order corresponding to the “motions of the souls.” That is to say, there were various classes of Builders according to the types of animals which were to be copied. The Builders were to fashion the forms, the Creator was to breathe into them the life. 14. Thus these Builders fashioned the etheric doubles of birds, quadrupeds, fish and reptiles, and not their physical bodies, for as yet the earth was not solid. 15. And so the Builder-souls accomplished their task, and fashioned the primæval copies of the celestial types of animals. Proud of their work, they grew restive at the restraints placed upon them by the law of their stations, and overstepped the limits decreed by the Creator. 1 Whereupon the punishment is pronounced, and the Creator resolves to make the human frame, therein to imprison the disobedient souls. And here we learn incidentally that all of this p. 141 psychogenesis which has gone before was the direct teaching of Hermes to the writer; of no physical Hermes, however, but of that Hermes whose “Books” are hidden in the zones (5), of the Hermes whom the writer, as he would have us believe, came to know face to face only after his inner vision was opened, and he had gazed with all-seeing eyes “upon the mysteries of that new dawn” (4). 16. For the new and mysterious fabrication of the man-form, all the seven obedient Gods, to whom the man-souls are kin (17), are summoned by the chief of them, Hermes himself, the beloved son and messenger of the Supreme, “soul of My Soul, and holy mind of My own Mind.” 1 17. All of the seven promise to bestow the best they have on man. 18. The plasm out of which the man-form is to be modelled is the residue of the mixture out of which the Builders had already made the animal doubles. But the Builder of the man-frames was Hermes himself, who mixed the plasm with still more water. 19. Here the writer inserts a further piece of information concerning the source of his tradition. It is no longer as before what Hermes himself reveals to him in vision, but what the writer was told at a certain initiation called the “Black Rite.” This rite was presided over by Kamēphis, who is called the “earliest of all,” or perhaps more correctly the “most primæval of [us] all.” Kamēphis is thus conceived as the representative of a more ancient wisdom than that of Isis, and yet even he but hands on the tradition of Hermes. 2 20. The souls are “enfleshed,” and utter loud complaints. Apparently not all at first can speak articulately; most of them can only groan, or scream, p. 142 or hiss. The leading class of souls can, however, so far dominate the plasm as to speak articulately, and so one of their number utters a desperate appeal to Heaven. 21. They have now lost their celestial state, and Heaven is shut away from them; no longer can they see “without the light.” They are shut down into a “heart’s small compass”; the Sun of their being has become a light-spark only, hidden in the heart. This is, of course, the logos, the inmost reality in man. 22. The souls pray for some amelioration of their unhappy lot, and the conditions of the moral law are expounded to them. They who do rightly shall, on their body’s dissolution, reascend to Heaven and be at rest; they who do ill, shall work out their redemption under the law of metempsychosis, or change from body to body, from prison to prison. 23. Details of this metempsychosis are then given with special reference to the incarnations of the “more righteous,” who shall be kings, philosophers and prophets. Such souls apparently, for it is not expressly so stated, shall, in passing round the wheel of rebirth, when out of incarnation in a human body, have some sort of life with the souls of the leading types of animals, which are given as eagles, lions, dragons, and dolphins. Or, if we are unjustified in this speculation, such souls shall in their animal parts have intimate relation with the noblest types of animal essence (24). 25. There now comes upon the scene the mighty Intellect of the Earth, a veritable Erdgeist, in the form of Mōmus, who speaking out of affection for him (28), urges Hermes to increase ills and trials upon the souls of men, so that they shall not dare too much (25-27). And thereon Hermes sets in motion the instrument or engine of unerring fate and mechanical retribution (28, 29). p. 143 29. Now all these things took place at the dawn of earth-life, when all as yet was inert, as far as our now solid earth is concerned. We must then suppose that as yet our present phase of existence on earth had not yet been manifested; that all was as yet in a far subtler or more primitive state of existence, when earth was still all “a-tremble,” and had not yet hardened to its present state of solidity;—that is to say, that the man-plasm was in an etheric state (30). 31. The earth gradually hardens. Into the now more solid earth, the Creator and His obedient sons, the Gods who had not made revolt, poured forth the blessings of nature. This is described by the beautiful symbol of the hands of blessing, figured in Egypt as the sun-rays, each terminating in a hand for giving light and life. 1 The imprisoned souls, the kinsmen of the Gods obedient, continue their revolt; they are the leaders of mankind, of a mankind far weaker than themselves, a humanity, apparently evolved normally from the nature of things and as yet in its childhood. Instead of teaching them the lessons of love and wisdom, the Disobedient Ones use them for evil purposes, for war and conflict, for oppression and savagery. 32. Things go from bad to worse; the earth is befouled with the horrors of savage man, until in despair the pure elements complain to God. They pray that He will send a holy emanation of Himself to set things right (32-34). 35. Hereupon God sends forth the mystery of a new birth, a divine descent, or emanation, an avatāra, as the Aryan Hindu tradition would call it, a dual manifestation. 2 And so Osiris and Isis are born to help the p. 144 world, to recall men from savagery, and restore the moral order (35-37). It was they who were taught directly by Hermes (37) in all law and science and wisdom. Their mission meets with success, and the “world” is filled with a knowledge of the Path of Return. But before their ascension into Heaven they have a petition to make to the Father, that not only earth but also the surrounding spaces up to Heaven itself may be filled with a knowledge of the truth. Thus then they proceed to hymn the Sire and Monarch of all in a praise-giving which, unfortunately, Stobæus did not think fit to copy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The original text of the “Virgin of the World” treatise is obviously broken only by the omission of the Hymn of Osiris and Isis, and Excerpt ii. follows otherwise immediately on Excerpt i. The subject is the birth of royal souls, taken up from the instruction given in K. K., 23, 24 above. 39. There are four chief spaces: (i) Invisible Heaven, inhabited by the Gods, with the Invisible Sun as lord of all; (ii) Æther, inhabited by the Stars, of which for us the Sun is leader; (iii) Air, in which dwell non-incarnate souls, ruled by the Moon, as watcher o’er the paths of genesis; (iv) Earth, inhabited by men and animals, and over men the immediate ruler is the Divine King of the time. 40. The king-soul is the last of the Gods but the first of men 1; he is, however, on earth a demigod only, for his true divinity is obscured. His soul, or ka, comes from a soul-plane superior to that of the rest of mankind. The ascending souls of normally evolving humanity are thought of, apparently, as describing ever widening p. 145 circles in their wheelings in and out of incarnation, rising, as they increase in virtue and knowledge, at the zenith of their ascent in the intermediate state, before they turn to descend again into rebirth, ever nearer to the limits of the sensible world and, the frontiers of Heaven. 41. But there is also another class of descending royal souls, who have only slightly transgressed, and therefore descend only as far as this grade of humanity. 42. For the royal or ruling soul is not only a warrior monarch; his sovereignty may be also shown in arts of peace. He may be a righteous judge, a musician or poet, a truth-lover or philosopher. The activities of these souls are not determined, as is the case with souls of lower grades,—that is, those souls which have fallen deeper into material existence,—by what Basilides would have called the “appendages” of the animal nature; they are determined by a fairer taxis, an escort of angels and daimones, who accompany them into birth. 43. The description of their manner of birth, however, is, unfortunately, lost to us, owing either to the hesitation of Stobæus to make it public, or to its being cut out by some subsequent copyist. 44. We are next told that sex is no essential characteristic of the soul. It is an “accident” of the body, but this body is not the physical, but the “aery” body, which air, however, is not a simple element, but already differentiated into four sub-elements. 1 45. Moreover the sight, or intelligence, of the soul also depends upon the purity of certain envelopes, which p. 146 are called “airs,”—“airs” apparently more subtle even than the aery body (45). 1 46. Next follows a naïve reason for the excellence of Egypt and the wisdom of the Egyptians (46-48). Here the writer seems to be no longer dependent directly on the Trismegistic tradition, but is inserting and expanding popular notions. 49. The remaining sections of the Excerpt are taken up with speculations as to the cause of delirium (49, 50), and Stobæus brings his extract to a conclusion apparently without allowing the writer to complete his exposition. SOURCES? The discussion as to the meaning of the title, which has so far been invariably translated “The Virgin of the World,” will come more appropriately later on. How much of the original treatise has been handed on to us by Stobæus we have no external means of deciding. Our two Extracts, however, plainly stand in immediate connection with each other, and the original text is broken only by the unfortunate omission of the Hymn of Osiris and Isis. The first Extract, moreover, is plainly not the beginning of the treatise, since it opens with words referring to what has gone before; while the second Extract ends in a very unsatisfactory manner in the middle of a subject. What we have, however, gives us some very interesting indications of how the writer regarded his sources,—whether written or oral, whether physical or psychic. He of course would have us take his treatise as a literary unity; and indeed the subject is so worked up that it is very difficult to discover what the literary p. 147 sources that lay before the writer may have been, for the story runs on straight enough in the same thought-mould and literary form, in spite of the insertion of somewhat contradictory statements concerning the sources of information. When, however, Reitzenstein (p. 136) expressly states that the creation-story shows indubitable traces of two older forms, and that this is not a matter of surprise, as we find two (or more precisely four) different introductions,—we are not able entirely to follow him. It is true that these introductory statements are apparently at variance, but on further consideration they appear to be not really self-contradictory. THE DIRECT VOICE AND THE BOOKS OF HERMES The main representation is that the teacher of Isis is Hermes, who saw the world-creation, that is, the creation of our earth-system, and the soul-making, with his own spiritual sight (2). Isis has obtained her knowledge in two ways: either from the sacred Books of Hermes (4, 5); or by the direct spiritual voice of the Master (15). The intention here is plainly to claim the authority of direct revelation, for even the Books are not physical. They have disappeared, if indeed they ever were physical, and can only be recovered from the tablets of unseen nature, by ascending to the zones (5) where they are hidden; and these zones are plainly the same as the soul-spaces mentioned in S. I. H., 8. At the same time there is mention of another tradition, which, though in later details purporting to be historic and physical, in its beginnings is involved in purely mythological and psychic considerations. When the first and most ancient Hermes ascended to Heaven, he left his Books in the charge of the Gods, his kinsmen, p. 148 in the zones, and not on earth (3). On earth there succeeded to this wisdom a younger race, beloved of Hermes, and personified as his son Tat. These were souls as yet too young to understand the true science face to face. They were apparently regarded as the Tat (Thoth) priesthood of our humanity, who were subsequently joined by wisdom-lovers of another line of tradition, the Imuth (Asclepius) brotherhood, who had their doctrine originally from Ptah. 1 This seems to hint at some ancient union of two traditions or schools of mystic science, perhaps from the Memphitic and Thebaic priesthoods respectively. 2 What, however, is clear is that the writer professes to set forth a higher and more direct teaching than either the received tradition of the Isiac mystery-cult or of the Tat-Asclepius school. This he does in the person of Isis as the face to face disciple of the most ancient Hermes, 3 thus showing us that in the Hermes-circles of the Theoretics, or those who had the direct sight, though the Isis mystery-teaching was considered a tradition of the wisdom, it was nevertheless held to be entirely subordinate to the illumination of the direct sight. p. 149 KAMEPHIS AND THE DARK MYSTERY In apparent contradiction to all this we have the following statement: “Now give good heed, son Horus, for thou art being told the mystic spectacle which Kamēphis, our forefather, was privileged to hear from Hermes, the record-writer of all deeds, and I from Kamēphis when he did honour me with the Black [Rite] that gives perfection” (19). 1 Here Reitzenstein (p. 137) professes to discover the conflation of two absolutely distinct traditions of (i) Kamephis, a later god and pupil of Hermes, and (ii) Kamephis, an older god and teacher of Isis; but in this I cannot follow him. It all depends on the meaning assigned to the words παρὰ τοῦ πάντων προγενεστέρου, which Reitzenstein regards as signifying “the most ancient of all [gods],” but which I translate as “the most ancient of [us] all.” I take it to mean simply that, according to the general Isis-tradition, the founder of its mysteries was stated to be Kamephis, but that the Isis-Hermes circles claimed that this Kamephis, though truly the most ancient figure in the Isis tradition proper, was nevertheless in his turn the pupil of the still more ancient Hermes. The grade of Kamephis was presumably represented in the mystery-cult by the arch-hierophant who presided at the degree called the “Dark Mystery” or “Black Rite.” It was a rite performed only for those p. 150 who were judged worthy of it (ἐτίμησεν) after long probation in lower degrees, something of a far more sacred character, apparently, than the instruction in the mysteries enacted in the light. I would suggest, therefore, that we have here a reference to the most esoteric institution of the Isiac tradition, the more precise nature of which we will consider later on; it is enough for the moment to connect it with certain objects or shows that were apparently made to appear in the dark. As Clement of Alexandria says in his famous commonplace book, called the Stromateis 1: “It is not without reason that in the mysteries of the Greeks, lustrations hold the first place, analogous to ablutions among the Barbarians [that is, non-Greeks]. After these come the lesser mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and of preliminary preparation for what is to follow; and then the great mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but only to contemplate and comprehend nature [herself] and the things [which are mystically shown to the initiated].” 2
p. 151 KNEPH-KAMEPHIS But who was Kamēphis in the theology of the Egyptians? According to Reitzenstein, Kamephis or Kmephis, that is Kmeph, is equated by Egyptologists with Kneph, who, according to Plutarch, 1 was worshipped in the Thebaid as the ingenerable and immortal God. Kneph, however, as Sethe has shown, 2 is one of the aliases of Ammon, who is the “bull [or husband] of his mother,” the “creator who has created himself.” Kneph is, moreover, the Good Daimon, as Philo of Byblus says. 3 He is the Sun-god and Heaven-god Ammon. “If he open his eyes, he filleth all with light in his primæval 4 land; and if he close them all is dark.” 5 Here we have Kneph-Ammon as the giver of light in darkness, and the opener of the eyes. Moreover, Porphyry 6 tells us that the Egyptians regarded Kneph as the demiurge or creator, and represented him in the form of a man, with skin of a blue-black tint, girt with a girdle, and holding
p. 152 a sceptre, and wearing a crown of regal wings. This symbolism, says Porphyry, signified that he was the representative of the Logos or Reason, difficult to discover, hidden, 1 not manifest 2; it is he who gives light and also life 3; he is the King. The winged crown upon his head, he adds, signifies that he moves or energizes intellectually. Kamephis, then, stands in the Isis-tradition for the representative of Agathodaimon, the Logos-creator. He is, however, a later holder of this office, and has had it handed on to him by Hermes, or at any rate he is instructed in the Logos-wisdom by Hermes. HERMES I. AND HERMES II. In this connection it is instructive to refer to the account which Syncellus 4 tells us he took from the statement of Manetho. Manetho, says Syncellus, states in his Books, that he based his replies concerning the dynasties of Egypt to King Ptolemy on the monuments. “[These monuments], he [Manetho] tells us, were engraved in the sacred language, and in the characters of the sacred writing, by Thoth the First Hermes; after the Flood they were translated from the sacred language into the then common tongue, but [still written] in hieroglyphic characters, and stored away in books, by the Good Daimon’s son, the Second Hermes, the father of Tat, in the inner shrines of the temples of Egypt.”
p. 153 Here we have a tradition, going back as far as Manetho, which I have shown, in Chapter V. of the “Prolegomena” on “Manetho, High Priest of Egypt,” cannot be so lightly disposed of as has been previously supposed,—dealing expressly with the Books of Hermes. This tradition, it is true, differs from the account given in our Sermon (3-5), where the writer says nothing expressly of a flood, but evidently wishes us to believe that the most ancient records of Hermes were magically hidden in the zones of the unseen world, and that the flood, if there was one, was a flood or lapse of time that had utterly removed these records from the earth. For him they no longer existed physically. Manetho’s account deals with another view of the matter. His tradition appears to be as follows. The oldest records were on stone monuments which had survived some great flood in Egypt. These records belonged to the period of the First Hermes, the Good Daimon par excellence, the priesthood, therefore, of the earliest antediluvian Egyptian civilization. After the flood they were translated from the most archaic language into ancient Egyptian, and preserved in book-form by the Second Hermes, the priesthood, presumably, of the most ancient civilization after the flood, who were in time succeeded by the Tat priesthood. That this tradition is elsewhere contradicted by the Isis-tradition proper, which in a somewhat similar genealogy places Isis at the very beginning prior even to Hermes I., 1 need not detain us, since each tradition would naturally claim the priority of those whom it regarded as its own special founders, and we are for the moment concerned only with the claims of the Hermes-school. p. 154 The main point of interest is that there was a tradition which explained the past on the hypothesis of periods of culture succeeding one another,—the oldest being supposed to have been the wisest and highest; the most archaic hieroglyphic language, which perhaps the priests of Manetho’s day could no longer fully understand, 1 was supposed to have been the tongue of the civilization before the Flood of Hermes I. It may even be that the remains of this tongue were preserved only in the magical invocations, as a thing most sacred, the “language of the gods.” The point of view, however, of the circle to which our writer belonged, was that the records of this most ancient civilization were no longer to be read even in the oldest inscriptions; they could only be recovered by spiritual sight. Into close relation with this, we must, I think, bring the statement made in § 37, that Osiris and Isis, though they themselves had learned all the secrets of the records of Hermes, nevertheless kept part of them secret, and engraved on stone only such as were adapted for the intelligence of “mortal men.” The Kamephis of the Isis-tradition, then, apparently stands for Kneph as Agathodaimon, that is for Hermes, but not for our Hermes I., 2 for he has no physical
p. 155 contact with the Isis-tradition, but for Hermes II., who was taught by Hermes I. THE BLACK RITE But what is the precise meaning of the “black rite” at which Kamephis presides? I have already suggested the environment in which the general meaning may be sought, though I have not been able to produce any objective evidence of a precise nature. Reitzenstein (pp. 139 ff.), however, thinks he has discovered that evidence. His view is as follows: The key to the meaning, according to him, is to be found in the following line from a Magic Papyrus 1: “I invoke thee, Lady Isis, with whom the Good Daimon doth unite, 2 He who is Lord ἐν τῷ τελείῳ μέλανι.” Reitzenstein thinks that the Good Daimon here stands for Chnum, and works out (p. 140) a learned hypothesis that the “black” refers to a certain territory of black earth, between Syene and Takompso, the Dedocaschœnus, especially famed for its pottery, which was originally in the possession of the Isis priesthood, but was subsequently transferred to the priesthood of Chnum by King Dośer. Reitzenstein would thus, presumably, translate the latter half of the sentence as “the Good Daimon who is Lord in the perfect black [country],” and so make it refer to Chnum, though indeed he seems himself to feel the inadequacy of this explanation to cover the word “perfect” (p. 144). But this seems to me to take all the dignified meaning out of both our text and that of the Magic Papyrus, and to introduce
p. 156 local geographical considerations which are plainly out of keeping with the context. It is far more natural to make the Agathodaimon of the Papyrus refer to Osiris; for indeed it is one of his most frequent designations. Moreover, it is precisely Osiris who is pre-eminently connected with the so-called “under world,” the unseen world, the “mysterious dark.” He is lord there, while Isis remains on earth; it is he who would most fitly give instructions on such matters, and indeed one of the ancient mystery-sayings was precisely, “Osiris is a dark God.” 1 “He who is Lord in the perfecting black,” might thus mean that Osiris, the masculine potency 2 of the soul, purified and perfected the man on the mysterious dark side of things, and completed the work which Isis, the feminine potency of the soul, had begun on him. That, in the highest mystery-circles, this was some stage of union of the man with the higher part of himself, may be deduced from the interesting citations made by Reitzenstein (pp. 142-144) from the later Alchemical Hermes-literature; it clearly refers to the mystic “sacred marriage,” 3 the intimate union of the soul with the logos, or divine ray. Much could be written on this subject, but it will be sufficient to append two passages of more than ordinary interest. The Jewish over-writer of the Naassene Document contends that the chief mystery of the Gnosis was but the consummation of the instruction given in the various mystery-institutions of the nations. The
p. 157 [paragraph continues] Lesser Mysteries, he tells us, commenting on the text of the Pagan commentator, pertained to “fleshly generation,” whereas the Greater dealt with the new birth, or second birth, with regeneration, and not with genesis. And speaking of a certain mystery, he says: “For this is the Gate of Heaven, and this is the House of God, where the Good God 1 dwells alone, into which [House] no impure [man] shall come; but it is kept under watch for the spiritual alone; where when they come they must cast away their garments, and all become bridegrooms obtaining their true manhood through the Virginal Spirit. For such a man is the Virgin big with child, conceiving and bearing a Son, not psychic, not fleshly, but a blessed Æon of Æons.” 2 In the marvellous mystery-ritual of the new-found fragments of The Acts of John, lately discovered in a fourteenth century MS. in Vienna, disguised in hymn form, and hiding an almost inexhaustible mine of very early tradition, the “sacred marriage” is plainly suggested as one of the keys to part of the ritual. Compare, for instance, with the “casting away of their garments,” in the above-quoted passage of the Naassene writer, the following: “[The Disciple.] I would flee. [The Master.] I would [have thee] stay. [The Assistants.] Amen! [The Disciple.] I would be robed. [The Master.] And I would robe [thee]. [The Assistants.] Amen! [The Disciple.] I would be at-oned.
p. 158 [The Master.] And I would at-one. [The Assistants.] Amen!” 1 BLACK LAND. But to return to the “mysterious black.” Plutarch tells us: “Moreover, they [the Egyptians] call Egypt, inasmuch as its soil is particularly black, as though it were the black of the eye, Chemia, and compare it with the heart,” 2—for, he adds, it is hot and moist, and set in the southern part of the inhabitable world, in the same way as the heart in the left side of a man. 3 Egypt, the “sacred land” par excellence, was called Chemia or Chem (Ḥem), Black-land, because of the nature of its dark loamy soil; it was, moreover, in symbolic phraseology the black of the eye, that is, the pupil of the earth-eye, the stars and planets being regarded as the eyes of the gods. 4 Egypt, then, was the eye and heart of the Earth; the Heavenly Nile poured its light-flood of wisdom through this dark of the eye, or made the land throb like a heart with the celestial life-currents. Nor is the above quotation an unsupported statement of Plutarch’s, for in an ancient text from Edfu, 5 we read: “Egypt (lit. the Black), which is so called after the eye of Osiris, for it is his pupil.” Ammon-Kneph, too, as we have seen, is black, or blue-black, signifying his hidden and mysterious
p. 159 character; and in the above-quoted passage he is called “he who holds himself hidden in his eye,” or “he who veils himself in his pupil.” This pupil, then, concludes Reitzenstein (p. 145), is the “mysterious black.” Is this, then, the origin of this peculiar phrase? If so, it would be connected with seeing, the spiritual sight, the true Epopteia. THE PUPIL OF THE WORLD’S EYE But Isis, also, is the black earth, and, therefore, the pupil of the eye of Osiris, and, therefore, also of the Chnum or Ammon identified with Osiris at Syene. Isis, therefore, herself is the “Pupil of the World’s Eye”—the κόρη κόσμου. 1 Reitzenstein would, therefore, have it that the original type of our treatise looks back to a tradition which makes the mystery-goddess Isis the disciple and spouse of the mysterious Chnum or Ammon, or Kneph or Kamephis, as Agathodaimon; and, therefore, presumably, that the making of this Kamephis the disciple in his turn of Hermes is a later development of the tradition, when the Hermes-communities gained ascendancy in certain circles of the Isis-tradition. This is very probable; but dare we, with Reitzenstein, cast aside the “traditional” translation of κόρη κόσμου, as “Virgin of the World,” and prefix to our treatise as title the new version, “The Pupil of the Eye of the World”? It certainly sounds strange as a title to unaccustomed ears, and differs widely from any other titles of the Hermetic sermons known to us. But what does the “Virgin of the World” mean in connection with our treatise? Isis as the Virgin Mother is a p. 160 familiar idea to students of Egyptology 1; she is κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν, the “World-Virgin.” THE SON OF THE VIRGIN And here it will be of interest to turn to a curious statement of Epiphanius 2; it is missing in all editions of this Father prior to that of Dindorf (Leipzig, 1859), which was based on the very early (tenth century) Codex Marcianus 125, all previous editions being printed from a severely censured and bowdlerized fourteenth century MS. Epiphanius is stating that the true birthday of the Christ is the Feast of Epiphany, “at a distance of thirteen days from the increase of the light [i.e. December 25]; for it needs must have been that this should be a figure of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and of His twelve disciples, who make up the thirteen days of the increase of the Light.” The Feast of the Epiphany was a great day in Egypt, connected with the “Birth of the Æon,”—a phase of the “Birth of Horus.” For Epiphanius thus continues: “How many other things in the past and present support and bear witness to this proposition, I mean the birth of Christ! Indeed, the leaders of the idol-cults, 3 filled with wiles to deceive the idol-worshippers who believe in them, in many places keep highest festival on this same night of Epiphany [= the Manifestation to Light], so that they whose hopes are in error may not seek the truth. For instance, at
p. 161 [paragraph continues] Alexandria, in the Koreion, 1 as it is called—an immense temple, that is to say the Precinct of the Virgin—after they have kept all-night vigil with songs and music, chanting to their idol, when the vigil is over, at cock-crow, they descend with lights into an underground crypt, and carry up a wooden image lying naked on a litter, with the seal of a cross made in gold on its forehead, and on either hand two similar seals, and on either knee two others, all five seals being similarly made in gold. And they carry round the image itself, circumambulating seven times the innermost temple, to the accompaniment of pipes, tabors and hymns, and with merry-making they carry it down again underground. And if they are asked the meaning of this mystery, they answer: ‘To-day at this hour the Maiden (Korē), that is, the Virgin, gave birth to the Æon.’” He further adds that at Petra, in Arabia, where, among other places, this mystery was also performed, the Son of the Virgin is called by a name meaning the “Alone-begotten of the Lord.” 2 Here, then, at Alexandria, in every probability the very environment of our treatise, we have a famous mystery-rite, solemnized in the Temple of the Virgin, who gives birth to a Son, the Æon. This, we shall not be rash in assuming, signifies not only the birth of the new year, but also still more profound mysteries, when we remember the words of the Naassene Document quoted above: “For such a man is the Virgin, big with child, conceiving and bearing a Son,—not psychic, not fleshly [nor, we may add, temporal], but
p. 162 a blessed Æon of Æons”—that is, an Eternity of Eternities, an immortal God. We should also notice the crowing of the cock, which plays so important a part in the crucifixion-story in the Gospels, 1 and above all things the stigmata on the image, the symbols of a cosmic and human mystery. THE MYSTERY OF THE BIRTH OF HORUS In our own treatise the mysterious Birth of Horus is also referred to (35, 36) as follows. Isis has handed on the tradition of the Coming of Osiris, the Divine emanation, the descent of the efflux of the Supreme, and Horus asks: “How was it, mother, then, that Earth received God’s efflux?”—where Earth may well refer to the “Dark Earth,” a synonym of Isis herself. And Isis answers: “I may not tell the story of [this] birth; for it is not permitted to describe the origin of this descent, O Horus, [son] of mighty power, lest afterward the way of birth of the immortal Gods should be known unto men.” Here I think we have a clear reference to the mysterious “Birth of Horus,” the birth of the gods,—that is to say, of how a man becomes a god, becomes the most royal of all souls, gains the kingdom, or lordship over himself. This mystery was not yet to be revealed to the neophyte—Horus—and yet this Birth is suggested to Tat by Hermes—C. H., xiii. (xiv.) 2—when he says: “Wisdom that understands in silence [such is the matter and the womb from out which Man is born] and the True Good the Seed.” The womb is the mysterious Silence, the matter is p. 163 [paragraph continues] Wisdom, Isis herself, the seed is the Good, the Agathodaimon, Osiris. But in our treatise Horus has not yet reached to this high state; Isis, as the introductory words tell us, is pouring forth for him “the first draught of immortality” only, “which souls have custom to receive from gods”; he is being raised to the understanding of a daimon, but not as yet to that of a god. All of this, moreover, seems to have been part and parcel of the Isis mystery-tradition proper, for as Diodorus (i. 25), following Hecatæus, informs us, it was Isis who “discovered the philtre of immortality, by means of which, when her son Horus, who had been plotted against by the Titans, and found dead (νεκρόν) beneath the water, not only raised him to life (ἀναστῆσαι) by giving him life (ψυχήν), but also made him sharer in immortality.” Here we have evidence to show that in the mystery-myth Horus was regarded as the human soul, and that there were two interpretations of the mystery. It referred not only to the “rising from the dead” in another body, or return to life in another enfleshment, but also to a still higher mystery, whereby the consciousness of immortality was restored to the memory of the soul. The soul had been cast by the Titans, or the opposing powers of the subtle universe, into the deep waters of the Great Sea, the Ocean of Generation, or Celestial Nile, for as the mysterious informant of Cleombrotus told him, 1 these stories of Titans concerned daimons or souls proper, not bodies. 2
p. 164 From this death in the sea of matter, Isis, the Mother Soul, brings Horus repeatedly back to life, and finally bestows on him the knowledge of immortality, and so raises him from the “dead.” 1 This birth of the “true man” within, the logos, was and is for man the chief of all mysteries. In the Chapter on “The Popular Theurgic Hermes-Cult,” we have already, in elucidation of the sacramental formula, “Thou art I and I am thou,” quoted the agraphon from the Gospel of Eve concerning the Great Man and the Little Man or Dwarf, and lovers of the Aupaniṣhad literature of Hindu-Aryan theosophy need hardly be p. 165 reminded of “the ‘man,’ of the size of a thumb,” within, in the ether of the heart. 1 “ISHON” But what is of more immediate interest is that the same idea is to some extent found in the Old Covenant documents, especially in the Prophetical and Wisdom literature, which latter was strongly influenced by Hellenistic ideas. Ishon, which literally means “little man” or “dwarf,” 2 is in A.V. generally translated “apple of the eye.” 3 Thus we read in a purely literal sense, referring to weeping: “Let not the apple of thine eye cease” (Lam. ii. 18). It was, however, a common persuasion, that the intelligence or soul itself, not merely the reflection of the image of another person, resided in the eye, and was made manifest chiefly by the eye. Thus the “apple of the eye” was used as a synonym for a man’s most precious possession, the treasure-house as it were of the light of a man.
p. 166 And so we read: “He [Yahweh] kept him [Israel] as the apple of his eye” (Ps. xvii. 8)—where ishon is in the Hebrew further glossed as the “daughter of the eye”; and again: “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: . . . He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye” (Zech. ii. 8). The “apple of the eye” (ishon) was, then, something of great value, something very precious, and, therefore, we read in the Wisdom-literature that the punishment of the man who curses his father and mother is that “his lamp shall be put out in obscure (ishon) darkness” (Prov. xx. 20)—that is, that he shall thus extinguish the lamp of his intelligence, or perhaps spiritual nature, “in the apple of his eye there will be darkness”; and this connects with a passage in the Psalms which shows traces of the same Wisdom-teaching. “In the hidden part 1 [of man] thou shalt make me to know wisdom” (Ps. li. 6). But the most striking passages are to be found in that pre-eminently Wisdom-chapter in the Proverbs-collection, where the true Israelite is warned to remain faithful to the Law (Torah), and to have no commerce with the “strange woman,” the “harlot”—that is, the “false doctrines” of the Gentiles. 2 “Keep my law as the apple of thine eye” (Prov. vii. 2), says the writer, speaking in the name of Yahweh, for he has seen the young and foolish being led astray by the “strange woman.” “He went the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening; in the black (ishon) and dark night” (Prov. vii. 9). That is to say,
p. 167 his lamp was put out; there was dark night in his eye, in that little man of his, which should be his true light-spark understanding the wisdom of Yahweh. Here, I think, we have additional evidence, that the idea, that the pupil of the eye was the seat of the spiritual intelligence in man, was widespread in Hellenistic circles. 1 But even so, can we translate κόρη κόσμου as the “Apple of the World-Eye”? It is true that Isis is the instrument or organ of conveying the hidden wisdom to Horus, and that it is eventually Hermes or the Logos who is the true light itself, which shines through her, the pupil of Egypt’s eye, 2 out of that mysterious darkness, in which she found herself, when she received illumination at the hands of Kamephis; but is this sufficient justification for rejecting the traditional translation of the title, and adopting a new version? On the whole I am inclined to think, that though the new rendering may at first sight appear somewhat strained, nevertheless in proportion as we become more familiarized with the idea and remember the thought-environment of the time, we may venture so to translate it. Isis, then, is the “Apple or Pupil of the Eye of Osiris.” On earth the “mysterious black” is Egypt
p. 168 herself, the wisdom-land. Isis is the mysterious wisdom of Egypt, but in our treatise she is even more than this, for she is that wisdom but now truly illumined by the direct sight, the new dawn of the Trismegistic discipline of which she speaks (4). To a Greek, however, the word κόρη would combine and not distinguish the two meanings of the title over which we have been labouring; but even as logos meant both “word” and “reason,” so korē would mean both “virgin” and “pupil of the eye”; but as it is impossible to translate it in English by one word, we have followed the traditional rendering. THE SIXTY SOUL-REGIONS We now turn to a few of the most important points which require more detailed treatment than the space of a footnote can accommodate. There are, of course, many other points that could be elaborated, but if that were done, the present work would run into volumes. The number of degrees into which the soul-stuff (psychōsis) is divided, is given as three, and as sixty (10). If this statement stood by itself we should have been somewhat considerably puzzled to have known what to make of it, even when we remembered the mystic statement that 60 is par excellence the number of the soul, and that he who can unriddle the enigma will know its nature. Fortunately, however, if we turn to S. I. H., 6 (Ex. xxvii.), we find that according to this tradition the soul-regions also were divided into 60 spaces, presumably corresponding to the types of souls. They were in 4 main divisions and 60 special spaces, with no overlapping (7). These spaces were also called zones, firmaments or layers. We are further told (6) that the lowest division, that p. 169 is the one nearest to the earth, consists of 4 spaces; the second, of 8; the third, of 16; and the fourth, of 32. And still further (7), that there were besides the 4 main divisions 12 intervallic ones. This introduces an element of uncertainty, for, as far as I am aware, we have no objective information which can enable us to determine how the intervallic divisions were located in the mind of the writer; speculation is rash, but a scheme has suggested itself to me, and I append it with all reservation. First of all we have 4 main divisions or planes, separated from one another by 3 determinations of some sort, for the whole ordering pertains to the Air proper, and perhaps the 4 states of Air were regarded as earthy, watery, aery, and fiery Air. The 3 determinations may perhaps have been regarded as corresponding to the three main grades or florescences of the soul-stuff, which were apparently of a superior substance. Each division of the 4 may further have been regarded as divided off by three intervallic determinations; so that we should have 3 such intervals in the lowest division, subdividing it into 4 spaces of 1 space each; 3 in the second, subdividing it into 4 spaces of 2 spaces each; 3 in the third, subdividing it into 4 spaces of 4 spaces each; and 3 in the fourth, subdividing it into 4 spaces of 8 spaces each. The sum of these intervals would thus be 12. PLUTARCH’S YOGIN In this connection, however, I cannot refrain from appending a pleasant story told by Plutarch. 1 p. 170 The speaker is Cleombrotus, a Lacedæmonian gentleman and man of means, who was a great traveller, and a greedy collector of information of all sorts to form the basis of a philosophical religion. He had spent much time in Egypt, and had also been a voyage beyond the Red Sea. On his travels Cleombrotus had heard of a philosopher-recluse, who lived in complete retirement, except once a year when he was seen by “the folk round the Red Sea”; then it was that a certain divine inspiration came upon him, and he came forth and “prophesied” to the nobles and royal scribes who used to flock to hear him. With great difficulty, and only after the expenditure of much money, Cleombrotus discovered the hermitage of this recluse, and was granted a courteous reception. Our old philosopher was the handsomest man Cleombrotus had ever met, deeply versed in the knowledge of plants, and a great linguist. With Cleombrotus, however, he spoke Doric, and almost in verse, and “as he spake perfume filled the place from the sweetness of his breath.” His knowledge of the various mystery-cults was profound, and his intimate acquaintance with the unseen world remarkable; he explained many things to Cleombrotus, and especially the nature of the daimones, and the important part they played as factors in any satisfactory interpretation of ancient mythology, seeing that most of the great myths referred to the doings of the daimones and not of mortals. Cleombrotus, however, has told his story merely as an introduction to the quotation of a scrap of information let fall by the old philosopher concerning the plurality of worlds 1; thus, then, he continues: p. 171 “THE PLAIN OF TRUTH” “He told me that the number of worlds was neither infinite, nor one, nor five, but that there were 183 of them, arranged in the figure of a triangle of which each side contained 60, and of the remaining 3 one set at each angle. And those on the sides touch each other, revolving steadily as in a choral dance. And the area of the triangle is the Common Hearth of all, and is called the ‘Plain of Truth,’ 1 in which the logoi and ideas and paradigms of all things which have been, and which shall be, lie immovable; and the Æon [or Eternity] being round them [sc. the ideas], time flows down upon the worlds like a stream. And the sight and contemplation (θέαν) of these things is possible for the souls of men only once in ten thousand years, should they have lived a virtuous life. And the highest of our initiations here below is only the dream of that true vision and initiation 2; and the discourses [sc. delivered in the mystic rites] have been carefully devised to awaken the memory of the sublime things above, or else are to no purpose.” p. 172 This statement I am inclined to regard as one of the most distinct pronouncements on the nature of the higher mysteries which has been preserved to us from antiquity, and the locus classicus and point of departure for any really fruitful discussion of the true nature of the philosophic mysteries, and yet I have never seen it referred to in this connection. Our old philosopher was well acquainted with the Egyptian mystery-tradition, for Cleombrotus obtained information from him concerning the esoteric significance of Typhon and Osiris, and what I have quoted above falls naturally into place in the scheme of ideas of the tradition preserved in the treatise which we are discussing. 1 It, indeed, pertains to a higher side of the matter, for it purports to be the highest theoria of all, and possible for the souls even of the most righteous only at long periods of time. Of course the representation is symbolical. The triangle is no triangle; it is the “plain of truth,” the “hearth of the universe.” The triangle, then, pertained to the plane of Fire proper and not Air. Still, the ordering of the “worlds” is similar to that of our soul spaces. The triangle is shut off from the manifested world by the Æon; it is out of space and time proper. Time flows down from it. The worlds proper are 3 worlds or cosmoi, each divided into 60 subordinate cosmoi, in choral dance, or orderly harmonious movement of one to the other. Our soul-spaces, then, may have been regarded as some reflection of these supernal conditions. One is almost tempted to turn the plane triangle p. 173 into a solid figure, a tetrahedron, 1 and imagine the idea of a world or wheel, at each of the four angles, and to speculate on the Wheels of Ezekiel, the prototype of the Mercabah or Heavenly Chariot of Kabalism, the Throne of Truth of the Supreme, but I will not try the patience of my readers any further, for doubtless most of them will have cried already: Hold, enough! THE BOUNDARIES OF THE NUMBERS WHICH PREEXIST IN THE SOUL Perhaps, however, it would be as well, before dismissing the subject, to consider very briefly what Plato, following Pythagoras, 2 has to say concerning the “boundaries” of all numbers which pre-exist in the soul. These soul-numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 27 (the combination of the two Pythagorean series 1, 2, 4, 8 and 1, 3, 9, 27), or 1, 2, 3, 2², 2³, 3², 3³. Of these numbers 1, 2, 3 are apportioned to the World-Soul itself, in its intellectual or spiritual aspect, and signify its abiding in (1), its proceeding from (2), and its returning to itself (3); this with regard to primary natures. But in addition, intermediate subtle natures or souls are “providentially” ordered in their evolution and involution, by the World-Soul; they proceed according to the power of the fourth term (4 or 2²), “which possesses generative powers,” and return according to that of the fifth (9 or 3²), “which reduces them to one.” Finally also solid or gross natures are also “providentially” ordered in their procession according to 8 (2³), and in their conversion according to 27 (3³). 3
p. 174 From all of which we get the following scheme of circular progression and conversion of the soul, the various main stages through which it passes:
With this compare the “Chaldæan Oracle” (ap. Psellus, 19): “Do not soil the spirit, nor turn the plane into the solid”—μὴ πνεῦμα μολύνῃς μῦτε βαθύνῃς τὸ ἐπίπεδον (ed. Cory, Or. clii., p. 270); where the four stages correspond to the point, line, plane, and solid. It is also to be remembered that since x0 = 1, 20 = 1 and 30 = l. That these are the boundary numbers of the soul, according to Pythagoreo-Platonic tradition, is of interest, but how this can in any way be made to agree with the ordering of the soul-spaces in our treatise is a puzzle. That by adding these numbers together (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 8 + 9 + 27) we get 54, and by farther adding the numbers of the World-Soul proper (1 + 2 + 3) we get 6, and so total out the whole sum of the phases to 60, savours somewhat of “fudging,” as we used to call it at school. It is by no means convincing, for we are here combining particulars with universals as though they were of equal dignity; still the ancients frequently resort to such combinations. That, however, there is something more than learned trifling in these numbers of Plato may be seen by the brilliant study of Adam on the “nuptial number” of Plato, 1 which was based upon the properties of the p. 175 [paragraph continues] “Pythagorean triangle,” a right-angled triangle to the containing sides of which the values of 3 and 4 were given, the value of its hypothenuse being consequently 5; and 3 × 4 × 5 = 60. The numbers 3, 4, 5, together with the series 1, 2, 4, 8, and 1, 3, 9, 27, were the numerical sequences which supplied those “canons of proportion” with which the Pythagoreans and Platonists chiefly busied themselves. Still, as far as I can see, this does not throw any clear light on the ordering of the soul spaces as given in our treatise, and we are therefore tempted to connect it with the tradition of the mysterious 60’s of Cleombrotus. But what that choral dance was which ordered the subordinate cosmoi into 60’s, and whether they proceeded by stages which might correspond to 3’s and 4’s and 5’s, we have, as far as I am aware, no data on which to base an argument. It may, however, have been connected with Babylonian ideas; the 3 may have been regarded as “falling into” 4, so making 12, and this stage in its turn have been regarded as “falling into” 5, and so making 60. THE MYSTERIOUS CYLINDER It is to be noticed, however, that before the souls revolted, the Demiurge “appointed for them limits and reservations 1 in the height of Upper Nature, that they might keep the cylinder a-whirl in proper order and economy” (11). They were, then, confined to certain orderings and spaces. But what is the mysterious “cylinder” which they were to keep revolving? So far I have come across nothing that throws any p. 176 direct light on the subject. However, Proclus 1 says that Porphyry stated that among the Egyptians the letter χ, surrounded by a circle, symbolized the mundane soul. It is curious that Porphyry should have referred this idea to the Egyptians, when he must have known that Plato, to whom Porphyry looked as the corypheus of all philosophy, had treated of the significance of the symbol X (in Greek χ) in perhaps the most discussed passage of the Timæus (36B). 2 This letter symbolized the mutual relation of the axes and equators of the sphere of the “same” (the “fixed stars”) and the sphere of the “other” (the “seven planetary spheres”). Porphyry, however, may have believed that Plato, or Pythagoras, got the idea in the first place from Egypt—the common persuasion of his school. This enigma of Plato is described as follows by Jowett in his Introduction to the Timæus 3: “The universe revolves round a centre once in twenty-four hours, but the orbits of the fixed stars take a different direction from that of the planets. The outer and the inner sphere cross one another and meet again at a point opposite to that of their first contact; the first moving in a circle from left to right along the side of a parallelogram which is supposed to be inscribed in it, the second also moving in a circle along the diagonal of the same parallelogram from right to left 4; or, in
p. 177 other words, the first describing the path of the equator, the second, the path of the ecliptic.” We should thus, just as the Egyptians, according to Porphyry, symbolized it, represent the conception by the figure of a circle with two diameters suggesting respectively the equator and the ecliptic. But what is the rectangular figure to which Jowett refers, but which he does not further describe? The circles are spheres; and, therefore, the rectangular figure must be a solid figure inscribed in the sphere “of the same.” If we now set the circle revolving parallel to the longer sides of the figure, this “parallelogram” will trace out a cylinder, while the seven spheres of the “other,” the “souls” of the “planets,” moving parallel to one of the diagonals of our figure, and in an opposite direction to the sphere of the “same,” will, by their mutual difference of rates of motion, cause their “bodies” (the souls surrounding the bodies) to trace out spiral orbits. All this in itself, I confess, seems very far-fetched, and I should have thrown my notes on the subject into the waste-paper basket, but for the following consideration: Basil of Cæsarea, in his Hexæmeron, or Homilies on p. 178 the Six Days of Creation, declared it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave in the middle like a fan.” 1 The cylinder-idea, then, was a favourite theory with regard to the earth-shape in the time of Basil, that is the fourth century. This cylinder-idea, however, I am inclined to think was very ancient. In the domain of Greek speculation we first meet with it in what little is known of the system of Anaximander of Miletus, the successor of Thales. Anaximander is reported to have believed that “the earth is a heavenly body, controlled by no other power, and keeping its position because it is the same distance from all things; the form of it is curved, cylindrical, like a stone column; it has two faces; one of these is the ground beneath our feet, and the other is opposite to it.” 2 And again: “That the earth is a cylinder in form, and that its depth is one-third of its breadth.” 3 Now I have never been able to persuade myself that the earliest philosophers of Greece “invented” the ideas ascribed to them. They stood on the borderland of mythology and mysticism, and, in every probability, took their ideas from ancient traditions.
p. 179 [paragraph continues] Anaximander himself was in every probability indirectly, for all we know even directly, influenced by Egyptian and Chaldæan notions; indeed, who can any longer doubt in the light of the Cnossus excavations?” 1 Anaximander is thus said to have regarded the earth-cylinder as fixed, whereas in our treatise the cylinder is not the earth and is not fixed; it is, on the contrary, a celestial cylinder and in constant motion. Can it, then, possibly be that this cylinder notion was associated with some Babylonian idea, and had its source in that country par excellence of cylinders? In Babylonia, moreover, the cylinder-shape was frequently used for seals, fashioned like a small roller, so that the characters or symbols engraved on them could be impressed on soft substance, such as wax. Further, the Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations were, as we know, closely associated, and pre-eminently so in the matter of sigils and seals. In the Coptic-Gnostic works, translated from Greek originals, and indubitably mainly of Egyptian origin, the idea of “characters,” “seals,” and “sigils,” as types impressed on matter, is a commonplace. Can our cylinder, then, have some connection with the circle of animal types, or types of life, of which so much is said in our treatise? The souls of the supernal man class would then have had the task of keeping this cylinder in motion, so that thereby the various types were continually impressed on the plasms in the sphere of generation, or ever-becoming—the wheel of genesis? This may be so, for in P. S. A., 19, we read: “The air, moreover, is the engine, or machine, through which p. 180 all things are made . . . mortal from mortal things and things like these.” So also in K. K., 28, Hermes says: “And I will skillfully devise an instrument, mysterious, possessed of power of sight that cannot err . . . an instrument that binds together all that’s done.” Here again we have the same idea, all connected with the notion of Fate or Heimarmene; the instrument of Hermes is the Kārmic Wheel, by which cause and effect are linked together, and that too with a moral purpose. 1 Finally, in connection with our cylinder, we may compare the Âryan Hindu myth of the “Churning of the Ocean,” in the Viṣhṇu Purāṇa. The churning-staff or Pillar was the heaven-mountain, round which was coiled the cosmic serpent, to serve as rope for twirling it. The rope was held at either end by the Devas and Asuras, or gods and dæmons. There is also a mystic symbol in India which probably connects with a similar range of ideas. It is two superimposed triangles (⧖), with their apices touching, and round the centre a serpent is twined,—a somewhat curious resemblance to our X and cylinder-idea. And so much for this puzzling symbol. THE EAGLE, LION, DRAGON AND DOLPHIN We now pass to the four leading types of animals, connected with souls of the highest rank—namely, the eagle, lion, dragon, and dolphin (24, 25)—which it may be of interest to compare with the symbolism of some of the degrees of the Mithriac Mysteries. 2
p. 181 [paragraph continues] In one of the preliminary degrees of the rite, we are informed, some of the mystæ imitated the voices of birds, others the roaring of lions. 1 All of this was interpreted by the initiates as having reference to transmigration or metempsychosis. Thus Porphyry 2 tells us that in the Mysteries of Mithras they called the mystæ by the names of different animals, so symbolizing man’s common lower nature with that of the irrational animals. Thus, for instance, they called some of the men “lions,” and some of the women “lionesses,” some were called “ravens,” while the “fathers,” the highest grade, were called “hawks” and “eagles.” The “ravens” were the lowest grade; those of the “lion” grade were apparently previously invested with the disguises and masks of a series of animal forms before they received the lion shape. Porphyry tells us, further, that Pallas, who had, prior to Porphyry’s day, written an excellent treatise on the Mithriaca, now unfortunately lost, asserts that all this was vulgarly believed to refer to the zodiac, but that in truth it symbolized a mystery of the human soul, which is invested with animal natures of various kinds, 3
p. 182 according to the tradition of the Magi. Thus they call the sun (and therefore those corresponding to this nature) a bull, a lion, a dragon, and a hawk. It is further to be remembered that Appuleius, 1 in describing the robe with which he was invested after his initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, tells us that he was enthroned as the sun, robed in twelve sacramental stoles or garments; these garments were of linen with beautiful paintings upon them, so that from every side “you might see that I was remarkable by the animals which were painted round my vestment in various colours.” This dress, he says, was called the “Olympic Stole.” MOMUS Finally, it may perhaps be of service to make the reader a little better acquainted with Momus. Among the Greeks Momus was the personification of the spirit of fault-finding. Hesiod, in his Theogony (214), places him among the second generation of the children of Night, together with the Fates. From the Cypria 2 of Stasimus, 3 we learn that, when Zeus, in answer to Earth’s prayer to relieve her of her overpopulation of impious mankind, 4 first sent the Theban War, and on this proving insufficient, bethought him of annihilating the human race by thunderbolts (fire) and floods (water), Momus advises the Father of gods and men to marry the goddess Thetis to a mortal, so that a beautiful daughter (Aphrodite-Helen) might be born to
p. 183 them, and so mankind, Greeks and Barbarians, on her account be involved in internecine strife—namely, the Trojan War. Further, the Scholiast on Il., i. 5, avers that it was Momus whom Homer meant to represent by the “will” or “counsel” of Zeus. Sophocles, moreover, wrote a Satyric drama called “Momus,” 1 and so also Achæus. 2 Both Plato 3 and Aristotle 4 refer to Momus. Callimachus, the chief librarian of the Alexandrian Library, from 260-240 B.C., in his Ætia, 5 pilloried his critic and former pupil Apollonius Rhodius as Momus. Momus, moreover, was a favourite figure with the Sophists and Rhetoricians, especially of the second century A.D. In Æl. Aristides, 6 Momus, as he could find no fault with Aphrodite herself, found fault with her shoe. 7 Lucian makes Aphrodite vow to oppose Momus tooth and nail, 8 and makes Momus find fault with even the greatest works of the gods, such as the house of Athene, the bull of Zeus, and the men of Hephæstus,—the last because the god-smith had not put windows in their breasts so that their hearts might be seen. 9 And, interestingly enough in connection with our treatise, Lucian, in one of his witty sketches, 10 makes
p. 184 [paragraph continues] Momus one of the persons of the dialogue with Zeus and Hermes. Momus finds fault because Bacchus is reckoned among the gods, and is commanded by Zeus to refrain from making ridicule of Hercules and Asclepius. The popular figure of Momus was that of a feeble old man, 1—a very different representation from the grandiose Intelligence of our treatise, a true Lucifer. Some representations give his one sharp tooth, and others wings. The story runs that Zeus finally banished him from Olympus for his fault-finding. 2 The Onomastica Vaticana 3 connects Momus with Mammon; but this side-issue need not detain us. 4 THE MYSTIC GEOGRAPHY OF SACRED LANDS With regard to the symbolic figure of the Earth of §§ 46-48 of the second K. K. Extract, and the persuasion that Egypt was the heart or centre thereof, we may append two quotations on the subject from widely different standpoints. The first is from Dr Andrew D. White’s recent volumes 5: “Every great people of antiquity, as a rule, regarded its own central city or most holy place as necessarily the centre of the earth. “The Chaldeans held that their ‘holy house of the gods’ was the centre. The Egyptians sketched the world under the form of a human figure, in which Egypt was the heart, and the centre of it Thebes. For the Assyrians, it was Babylon; for the Hindus, it was Mount Meru; for the Greeks, so far as the civilized
p. 185 world was concerned, Olympus or the temple of Delphi; for the modern Mohammedans, it is Mecca and its sacred stone; the Chinese, to this day, speak of their empire as the ‘middle kingdom.’ It was in accordance, then, with a simple tendency of human thought that the Jews believed the centre of the world to be Jerusalem. “The book of Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as in the middle of the earth, and all other parts of the world as set around the holy city. Throughout the ‘ages of faith’ this was very generally accepted as a direct revelation from the Almighty regarding the earth’s form. St Jerome, the greatest authority of the early Church upon the Bible, declared, on the strength of this utterance of the prophet, that Jerusalem could be nowhere but at the earth’s centre; in the ninth century Archbishop Kabanus Maurus reiterated the same argument; in the eleventh century Hugh of St Victor gave to the doctrine another scriptural demonstration; and Pope Urban, in his great sermon at Clermont urging the Franks to the crusade, declared, ‘Jerusalem is the middle point of the earth’; in the thirteenth century an ecclesiastical writer much in vogue, the monk Cæsarius of Heisterbach, declared, ‘As the heart in the midst of the body, so is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our inhabited earth,’—‘so it was that Christ was crucified at the centre of the earth.’ Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a certainty, wedding it to immortal verse; and in the pious book of travels ascribed to Sir John Mandeville, so widely read in the Middle Ages, it is declared that Jerusalem is at the centre of the world, and that a spear standing erect at the Holy Sepulchre casts no shadow at the equinox. “Ezekiel’s statement thus became the standard of orthodoxy to early map-makers. The map of the world at Hereford Cathedral, the maps of Andrea Bianco, p. 186 [paragraph continues] Marino Sanuto, and a multitude of others fixed this view in men’s minds, and doubtless discouraged during many generations any scientific statements tending to unbalance this geographical centre revealed in Scripture.” So much for the righteous indignation of modern physical science; now for cryptology and mysticism. M. W. Blackden, in a recent article on “The Mysteries and the ‘Book of the Dead,’” writes as follows 1: “One other key there is . . . without which it is useless to approach The Book of the Dead with the idea of discussing any of those gems of wisdom for which old Egypt was so famous. . . . The knowledge of its existence is no recent discovery: it is simply that ancient nations such as the Egyptians, Chaldees, and Jews, had a system of symbolic geography. . . . “The Jewish and Egyptian priestly caste endeavoured to map out their lands in accordance with their symbols of spiritual things, so far as the physical features would permit. This symbolism of mountain, city, plain, desert, and river extended from the various parts and furniture of the Lodge, to use Masonic phraseology, up to the spiritual anatomy, as it were, of both macrocosm and microcosm. “Thus in the Jewish Scriptures it is not difficult to distinguish, in the prophetic battles of the nations that were to rage round about Jerusalem, the same symbolism as we have more directly expressed in a little old book called The Siege of Mansoul, the author of which was the John Bunyan of The Pilgrim’s Progress, a man who could well grasp the excellence of geographical symbolism. “I cannot, of course, here enter at length into the geographical symbols of Egypt, it would take too long; but as I have given Jerusalem as a symbol, I may say p. 187 further that Jerusalem as a symbol corresponds to the Egyptian On, or Heliopolis, and so astronomically to the centre of the world and of the universe, and in the microcosm to the spiritual Heart of Man. 1 “But there is one difference between the Hebrew and Egyptian city; for whereas the actual Jerusalem corresponds among the Hebrew prophets to that Jerusalem that now is, and is in bondage with her children, Heliopolis corresponded among the Egyptian priesthood to that city which was to come, the Heavenly City, the New Heart, that should be given to redeemed mankind.” Here then we have a thesis that deserves a volume to itself; and so I leave it to him who has a mind to undertake the labour.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes 137:1 Or rather apocalypse; see § 15: “As Hermes says when he speaks unto me.” 137:2 Cf. the Egregores of The Book of Enoch; see Charles’ Translation (Oxford; 1893), Index, under “Watchers.” 137:3 The new Manvantara following a periodical Pralaya, to use the terms of Indo-Aryan tradition. 137:4 The creation is figured in one Egyptian tradition as the bursting forth of the Creator into seven peals of laughter,—a sevenfold “Ha!” 138:1 Cf. the “florescence” of § 10. 140:1 Cf. the same idea as expressed by Basilides (ap. Hipp., Philos., vii. 27), but in reversed order, when, speaking of the consummation of the world-process, and the final ascension of the “Sonship” with all its experience gained from union with matter, he says of the remaining souls, which have not reached the dignity of the Sonship, that the Great Ignorance shall come upon them for a space. “Thus all the souls of this state of existence, whose nature is to remain immortal in this state of existence alone, remain without knowledge of anything different from or better than this state; nor shall there be any rumour or knowledge of things superior in higher states, in order that the lower souls may not suffer pain by striving after impossible objects, just as though it were fish longing to feed on the mountains with sheep, for such a desire would end in their destruction. All things are indestructible if they remain in their proper condition, but subject to destruction if they desire to overleap and transgress their natural limits” (F. F. F., p. 270). 141:1 Cf. Cyril, C. Jul., i. 35; Frag. xvi. 141:2 Cf. §§ 29 and 37. 143:1 Cf. Hermes-Prayer, iii. 3. 143:2 This is of special interest as showing how the Egyptian tradition, in this pre-eminent above all others, did not limit the manifestation to the male sex alone. 144:1 Cf. C. H., xviii. 8 ff. 145:1 The “spirituous” or “aery” body, or vehicle, is composed of the sub-elements, but in it is a predominance of the sub-element “air,” just as in the physical there is a predominance of “earth.”—Philoponus, Proœm. in Aristot. de Anima; see my Orpheus (London, 1896), “The Subtle Body,” pp. 276-281. Cf. also S. I. H., 15, 20. 146:1 Compare this with the prāṇa’s of Indian theosophy; see C. H., x. (xi.) 13, Comment. 148:1 Cf. Diog. Laert., Proœm., i.: “The Egyptians say that Hephæstus (Ptah) was the son of Neilus (the Nile), and that he was the originator of philosophy, of that philosophy whose leaders are priests and prophets”—that is to say, a mystic philosophy of revelation. 148:2 Thus Suidas (s.v. “Ptah”) says that Ptah was the Hephæstus of the Memphite priesthood, and tells us that there was a proverbial saying current among them: “Ptah hath spoken unto thee.” This reminds us of our text: “As Hermes says when he speaks unto me.” 148:3 The type of Isis as utterer of “sacred sermons,” describing herself as daughter or disciple of Hermes, is old, and goes back demonstrably to Ptolemaic times. R. 136, n. 4; 137, n. 1. 149:1 ὁπότ᾽ ἐμὲ καὶ τῷ τελείῳ μέλανι ἐτίμησεν. This has hitherto been always supposed by the philological mind simply to refer to the mysteries of ink or writing, and that too without any humorous intent, but in all portentous solemnity. We must imagine, then, presumably, that it refers to the schooldays of Isis, when she was first taught the Egyptian equivalents for pothooks and hangers. This absurdity is repeated even by Meineke. 150:1 The more correct title of this work should be “Gnostic Jottings (or Notes) according to the True Philosophy,” as Clement states himself and as has been well remarked by Hort in his Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 87 (London, 1895). 150:2 Op. cit., v. 11. Sopater (Dist. Quæst., p. 123, ed. Walz) speaks of these as “figures” (σχήματα), the same expression which Proclus (In Plat. Rep., p. 380) employs in speaking of the appearances which the Gods assume in their manifestations; Plato (Phædr., p. 250) calls them “blessed apparitions,” or beatific visions” (εὐδαίμονα φάσματα); the author of the Epinomis (p. 986) describes them as “what is most beautiful to see in the world”; these are the “mystic sights” or “wonders” (μυστικὰ θεάματα) of Dion Chrysostom (Orat., xii., p. 387, ed. Reiske); the “holy appearances” (ἅγια φαντάσματα) and “sacred shows” (ἱερὰ δεικνύμενα) of Plutarch (Wyttenbach, Fragm., vi. 1, t. v., p. 722, and De Profect. Virtut. Sent., p. 81, ed. Reiske); the “ineffable apparitions” (ἄρρητα φάσματα) of Aristides (Orat., xix. p. 416, ed. Dindorf); the “divine apparitions” (θεῖα φάσματα) of Himerius (Eclog., xxxii., p. 304, ed. Wernsdorf),—those sublime sights the memory of which was said to accompany the souls of the righteous into the after-life, and when they returned to birth. Cf. Lenormant (F.) on “The Eleusinian Mysteries” in The Contemporary Review (Sept. 1880), p. 416, who, however, thinks that these famous philosophers and writers bankrupted their adjectives merely for the mechanical figures and stage-devices of the lower degrees. See my “Notes on the Eleusinian Mysteries” in The Theosophical Review (April, May, June, 1898), vol. xxii., p. 156. 151:1 De Is. et Os., xxi. 151:2 Berl phil. Wochenschr. (1896), p. 1528; R. 137, n. 3. 151:3 R. 133, n. 2. 151:4 προτογόνῳ—cf. the προγενεστέρου πάντων above. 151:5 Epeius, ap. Eusebius, Præp. Ev., i. 10, p. 41 D. 151:6 Ap. Euseb., Præp., iii. 11, 45, p. 115. 152:1 Cf. the epithet “utterly hidden” found in the “Words (Logoi) of Ammon,” referred to by Justin Martyr, Cohort., xxxviii., and the note thereon in “Fragments from the Fathers.” 152:2 Typified by the dark-coloured body. 152:3 ζωοποιός—typified, presumably, by the girdle (the symbol of the woman) and the staff (the symbol of the man). 152:4 Chron., xl. (ed. Dind., i. 72). 153:1 Varro, De Gente Pop. Rom., ap. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xviii. 3, 8; R. 139, n. 3. 154:1 It is said that with regard to ancient archaic texts which are still extant, modern Egyptology is able to translate them with greater accuracy than the priests of Manetho’s day; but this one may be allowed to question, unless the ancient texts are capable solely of a physical interpretation. 154:2 The Hermes, presumably, who was fabled to be the son of the Nile, not the physical Nile, but the Heaven Ocean, the Great Green, the Soul of Cosmos, and whom, we are told, the Egyptians would never speak of publicly, but, presumably, only within the circles of initiation. This Nile may be in one sense the Flood that hid the Books of Hermes in its depths or zones; but equally so the son of Nile may be the first Hermes after the Flood. 155:1 Wessley, Denkschr. d. k. Akad. (1893), p. 37, l. 500. 155:2 So R., though this is a meaning to which the lexicons give no support; the verb generally meaning “to defer” or “assent to.” 156:1 Compare also the mystery ritual in The Acts of John: “I am thy God, not that of the betrayer” (F. F. F., p. 434). 156:2 As the Gnostic Marcus would have called it. 156:3 On this ἱερός γάμος or γάμος πνευματικός, see Lobeck (C. A.), Aglaophamus (Königsberg, 1829), 608, 649, 651. 157:1 That is, the Agathodaimon. 157:2 That is, the “Birth of Horus.” Hippolytus, Philos., v. 8 (ed. Dunk, and Schneid, pp. 164, 166, ll. 86-94). see “Myth of Man in the Mysteries,” § 28. The last clause is the gloss of the later Christian over-writer. 158:1 The text is to be found in James (M. R.), Apocrypha Anecdota, ii. (Cambridge, 1897), in Texts and Studies; F. F. F., pp. 432, 433. 158:2 De Is. et Os., xxxiii. 158:3 Cf. this with K. K., 47, where Egypt is said to occupy the position of the heart of the earth. 158:4 Cf. K. K., 20: “Ye brilliant stars, eyes of the gods.” 158:5 Cited by Ebers, “Die Körperteile in Altägyptischen,” Abh. d. k. bayr. Akad. (1897), p. 111, where other references are given. 159:1 Compare also the Naassene document, § 8, in the “Myth of Man” chapter of the Prolegomena, where Isis is called “the seven-robed and black-mantled goddess.” 160:1 Cf. “Isis, the Queen of Heaven, whose most ancient and distinctive title was the Virgin Mother.” Marsham Adams (F.), The Book of the Master, or the Egyptian Doctrine of the Light born of the Virgin Mother (London, 1898), p. 63. 160:2 Hær., li. 22. 160:3 And pre-eminently, therefore, for Epiphanius, the Egyptians. 161:1 That is, the Temple of Korē. This can hardly be the Temple of Persephonē, as Dindorf (iii. 729) suggests, but rather the Temple of Isis. 161:2 Cf. D. J. L., pp. 407 ff. 162:1 Though some have conjectured that the “cock” was the popular name for the Temple-watchman who called the hours. 163:1 See below, where the story is given from Plutarch’s Moralia. 163:2 Compare The Book of the Dead, lxxviii. 31, 32; Budge’s Trans. (London, 1901), ii. 255: “I shall come forth . . . into the House of Isis, the divine lady. I shall behold sacred things which are hidden, and I shall be led on to the secret and holy things, even as they have granted unto me to see the birth of the Great God. Horus hath made me to be a spiritual body through his soul, [and I see what is therein].” Compare the last sentence with C. H., i. 7, and xi. (xii.) 6, where the pupil “sees” by means of the soul of his Master. 164:1 This passage, I believe, affords us an objective point of departure for the reconsideration of C. W. Leadbeater’s statement, in his Christian Creed (London, 1898), p, 45, that “Pontius Pilate” is a pseudo-historical gloss for πόντος πιλητός, the “dense sea” of “matter,” into which the soul is plunged. See for a discussion of this hypothesis D. T. L., pp. 423 ff. In connection with this a colleague has supplied me with an exceedingly interesting note from Texts and Studies, iv. 2, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels, p. 177, Frag. 4. The Sahidic text is found in Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, vol. iii., sem. 2, pp. 381-384 (Frammenti Copti, Nota Via), by Ignazio Guidi (1887). The legend runs that the Devil taking “the form of a fisherman,” goes fishing, and is met by Jesus as He was coming down from the Mount with His disciples. The Devil announces that “he who catcheth fish here, he is the Master. It is not a wonder to catch fish in the waters, the wonder is in this desert, to catch fish therein.” They then have a trial of skill, but the MS. unfortunately breaks off before the result is told. It is in this Fragment that the following remarkable sentence occurs: “Now as Pilate was saying these things before the authorities of Tiberius, the king, Herod, could not refrain from setting Pilate at naught, saying, ‘Thou art a Galilæan foreign Egyptian Pontus.’” The literal translation from the Coptic runs: “Thou art a Pontus Galilæan foreign Egyptian.” 165:1 Compare, for instance, Kaṭhopaniṣhad, Sec. ii., Pt. ii., iv. 11, 12: “The Man, of the size of a thumb, resides in the midst, within in the self, of the past and the future the lord; from him a man hath no desire to hide. This verily is That. “The Man, of the size of a thumb, like flame free from smoke, of past and of future the lord, the same is to-day, to-morrow the same will he be. This verily is That.”—Mead and Chaṭṭopādhyāya’s Trans. (London, 1896), i. 68, 69. Here “to-day” and “to-morrow” are said by some to refer to different incarnations; the “Man” (puruṣha) being the potential Self, destined finally to become, or grow into the stature of, the Great Self (Maha-puruṣha). 165:2 See the article, “Theosophic Light on Bible Shadows,” in The Theosophical Review (Nov. 1904), xxxv. 230, 231. 165:3 The minute image of a person reflected in the pupil of the eye of another may to some extent account for the popular belief underlying this identification. 166:1 The same idea which we found above in connection with Ammon. 166:2 To go “a-whoring” after strange gods and strange doctrines was the graphic figure invariably employed by Hebrew orthodoxy; “to commit fornication” not unfrequently echoes the same idea in the New Testament. 167:1 For the latest study on the subject, see Monseur (E.), “L’Âme Pupilline,” Rev. de l’Hist. des Relig. (Jan. and Feb. 1905), who discusses the significance in primitive religion of the reflected image to be seen in the pupil of the eye. This “little man” of the eye was taken to be its soul, and to control all its functions. 167:2 Cf., for the idea in the mind of the ancients, Tim. 45 B: “So much of the fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed into a substance akin to the light of every-day life; and the pure fire which is within us and related thereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure element.” 169:1 De Defectu Oraculorum, xxi., xxii. (42lA-422C), ed. G. N. Bernardakis (Leipzig, 1891), iii. 97-101. See my paper, “Plutarch’s Yogī,” in The Theosophical Review (Dec. 1891), ix. 295-297. 170:1 In this referring to the passage in the Timæus, (55 C D), which runs: “Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the worlds are to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will be of opinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is characteristic of a sadly indefinite and ignorant mind. He, however, who raises the question whether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes up a more reasonable position” (Jowett’s Trans., 3rd ed., iii. 475, 476). 171:1 Cf. S. I. H., 3: “Now as I chance myself to be as though initiate into the nature that transcendeth death, and that my feet have crossed the Plain of Truth”; and K. K., 22: “The Monarch came, and sitting on the Throne of Truth made answer to their prayers.” The locus classicus is, of course, Plato, Phædrus, 248 B. 171:2 Cf. K. K., 37: “’Tis they who, taught by Hermes that the things below have been disposed by God to be in sympathy with things above, established on the earth the sacred rites o’er which the mysteries in heaven preside.” 172:1 Our difficulty, however, is that Plutarch, in the words of one of his characters, rejects the idea of this numbering being in any way Egyptian, and ascribes it to a certain Petron of Himera in Sicily,—thereby suggesting a probable Pythagorean connection. 173:1 See the section, “Some Outlines of Æonology,” F. F. F., pp. 311-335. 173:2 See my Orpheus (London, 1896), pp. 255-262. 173:3 Cf. Taylor (T.), “Introd. to Timæus,” Works of Plato (London, 1804), p. 442. 174:1 Rep., viii. 545C-547A. See Adam (J.), The Nuptial Number of Plato: Its Solution and Significance (London, 1891). 175:1 Which may have been regarded as the prototypes of the soul-spaces. 176:1 Comment. in Plat. Tim., 216C; ed. C. E. C. Schneider (Vratislaviæ, 1847), p. 250. 176:2 A passage which Proclus, op. cit., 213A (ed. Sch., p. 152) further explains by means of the “harmonic canon” or ruler. 176:3 Jowett (B.), Dialogues of Plato (3rd ed., Oxford, 1892), iii. 403. 176:4 Cf. text 36C: “The motion of the same he carried round by the side to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally to the left,”—that is the side of the rectangular figure supposed to be inscribed in the circle of the “same,” and diagonally, across the rectangular figure from corner to corner; and 38D, 39A: “Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time [i.e. the spheres of the sun, moon, and five planets] had attained a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatures, having bodies fastened by vital chains, and learned their appointed task, moving in the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes through, and is governed by the motion of the same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a lesser orbit. . . . The motion of the same made them turn all in a spiral.” With these instruments of “time,” surrounded by the sphere of the same, compare the idea of time flowing down on the worlds, from the Æon, in the story of Cleombrotus. 178:1 So quoted in Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (New York, 1898), i. 92. Dr White, unfortunately, does not give the exact reference. The “fan” is, of course, the winnowing fan, a broad basket into which the corn mixed with chaff was received after threshing, and was then thrown up into the wind, so as to disperse the chaff and leave the grain. 178:2 Alexander of Aphrodisias, Comment. on Aristotle in Meteor., 91r (vol. i., 268 I d); Diels, Doxographi Græci (Berlin, 1879), p. 478. Cf. Aëtius, De Placitis Reliquiæ, iii. 10 (Diels, 579). 178:3 Plutarch, Strom., 2 (Diels, 579). See Fairbanks (A.), The First Philosophers of Greece (London, 1898), pp. 13, 14. 179:1 Delitzsch also, in his Babel und Bibel, states that the great debt of early Greece to Assyria will be made clear in a forthcoming work of German scholarship. 180:1 I have also got a stray reference, “κύλινδρος, Plut., 2, 682 C, Xylander’s pages,” but I have not been able to verify this. 180:2 See Cumont (F.), Textes et Monuments figurés relat. aux Mystères de Mithra (Bruxelles, 1899), i. 315. 181:1 Ps. Augustine, Quæstt. Vet. et Nov. Test. (Migne, P. L., tom, xxxiv. col. 2214 f.). 181:2 De Abstinentia, iv. 16 (ed. Nauck, p. 253). 181:3 Cf. Clement of Alexandria on the Basilidian theory of “appendages,” remembering that the School of Basilides was strongly tinctured with Egyptian ideas. “The Basilidians are accustomed to give the name of appendages (or accretions) to the passions. These essences, they say, have a certain substantial existence, and are attached to the rational soul, owing to a certain turmoil and primitive confusion. On to this nucleus other bastard and alien natures of the essence grow, such as those of the wolf, ape, lion, goat, etc. . . . And not only do human souls thus intimately associate themselves with the impulses and impressions of irrational animals, but they even initiate the movements and beauties of plants, because they likewise bear the characteristics of plants appended to them. Nay, there are also certain characteristics [of minerals] shown by habits, such as the hardness of adamant” (F. F. F., p. 276). 182:1 Metamorphoses, Book xi. 182:2 Which Pindar and Herodotus ascribed to Homer himself. 182:3 See Frag. I. from the Scholion on Hom., Il., i. 5 ff. 182:4 See K. K., 34. 183:1 Frag. 369-374B (ed. Dind.); the context of which some believe to be found in Lucian’s Hermotimus, 20. 183:2 Frag. 29, from the Scholion on Aristophanes, Pax, 357. 183:3 Rep., vi. 487A: “Nor would even Momus find fault with this.” 183:4 De Partt. Animal., iii. 2. 183:5 And also at the end of his Hymn to Apollo, ii. 112; also Epigram. Frag., 70. 183:6 Or., 49; ed. Jebb, p. 497. 183:7 Cf. Julian, Ep. ad Dionys. 183:8 Dial. Deor., xx. 2. 183:9 Hermot., xx.; cf. Nig., xxxii.; Dial. Deor., ix.; Ver. Hist., ii. 3; Bab. Fab., lix.; and Jup. Trag., xxii. 183:10 Deor. Consil, iv. 184:1 Philostratus, Ep. 21. 184:2 For the above and other references, see Trümpel’s art. “Momus,” in Roscher’s Lexicon. 184:3 Lug., 194, 59. 184:4 See Nestle’s art. “Mammon,” in Cheyne’s Encyclopædia Biblica. 184:5 Op. supra cit., i. 98, 99. 186:1 The Theosophical Review (July, 1902), vol. xxx. pp. 406, 407. 187:1 “There is an old map of the world in the British Museum which demonstrates both these significations. See also Mappa Mundi, ‘Ebsdorf,’ 1284, and that in Hereford Cathedral made by Richard of Haldingham, one of the Prebends, 1290-1310.”
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HOURS OF HORUS NOW IS IS NOW HEAR ME SAY I SAY ME HEAR HERMES THE MESSENGER THE MESSENGER HERMES
THE ELEMENTS OF THE GODDESS Caitlin Matthews 1989 Page38 "This ennead of aspects is endlessly adaptable for it is made up of nine, the most adjustable and yet essentially unchanging number. However one chooses to add up multiples of nine, for example 54, 72, 108, they always add up to nine"
THE ENNEAD 55555 ENNEAD ENNEA+D 55555 ENNEA+D THE ENNEAD 55555 ENNEAD
CREATION SEE REACTION SEE CREATION C REACTION C REACTION C CREATORS C REACTORS REACTORS SEE REACTORS
SOUL SO U LIVE SO U LEARN SO U LOVE
REAL REALITY REVEALED REALITY REAL
LOVE EVOLVE EVOLVE LOVE LOVE EVOLVE EVOLVE LOVE
SHAMANIC WISDOM IN THE PYRAMID TEXTS THE MYSTICAL TRADITION OF ANCIENT EGYPT Jeremy Naydler 2005 The Sarcophagus Chamber Texts Page 199 "Figure 7.11 shows a relief fragment from the pyramid temple of Unas depicting (in all probability) the king sitting in front of an offering table on which are arranged long slices of bread. In his left hand he holds the seshed cloth, which, as we have seen, was a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over death.32"
THE SUN Tuesday, December 27, 2005 FRONT PAGE "IT WASN'T DEATH THAT WON THE DAY. HUMANITY TRIUMPHED"
666 SIX SIX SIX = 777 = SIX SIX SIX 666
RA THE SUN GOD THE SUN GOD RA RA'S AR'S RA'S ARSE = EARS RA'S AR'S RA'S ANUS A SUN IS IS A SUN ANUS URANUS U R A SUN A SUN U R URANUS
I INCA SON OF THE SUN
LANGUAGE LAND U ENGAGE U LAND LANGUAGE
MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN G. I. Gurdjieff 1927 Page 64 Bogachevsky That summer, also in Alexanderopol, I met with another phenomenon for which I could not find any explanation. Page 65 Across from my uncle's house was some vacant land, in the middle of which was a little grove of poplars. I liked this spot and used to go there with a book or with work of some sort. Children were always playing there, gathered from all parts of the town-children of all colours and different races. There were Armenians and Greeks, Kurds and Tartars, and their games made an incredible noise and commotion-which, however, never disturbed my work. One day I was sitting under the poplars, busy with some work ordered by a neighbour for his niece's wedding the following day. My task was to draw a monogram on a shield-to be hung over the door of his house-a monogram combining his niece's initials with those of the man she was to marry. I had also to find space on the shield for the day of the month and the year. Certain strong impressions somehow deeply imprint themselves on one's memory. I remember even now how I racked my brains to find the best way to fit in the figures of the year 1888. I was deep in my work when suddenly I heard a desperate shriek. I jumped up, certain that an accident had happened to one of the children during their play. I ran and saw the following picture: In the middle of a circle drawn on the ground stood one of the little boys, sobbing and making strange movements, and the others were standing at a certain distance laughing at him. I was puzzled and asked what it was all about. I learned that the boy in the middle was a Yezidi, that the circle had been drawn round him and that he could not get out of it until it was rubbed away. The child was indeed trying with all his might to leave this magic circle, but he struggled in vain. I ran up to him and quickly rubbed out part of the circle, and immediately he dashed out and ran away as fast as he could. This so dumbfounded me that I stood rooted to the spot for a long time as if bewitched, until my usual ability to think returned. Although I had already heard something about these Yezidis, I had never given them any thought; but this astonishing incident, which I had seen with my own eyes, now compelled me to think seriously about them. Looking round and seeing that the boys had gone back to their / Page 66 / games, I returned to my place, full of my thoughts, and continued the work on the monogram, which was not going well but had to be finished at all costs that same day. The Yezidis are a sect living in Transcaucasia, mainly in the regions near Mount Ararat. They are sometimes called devilworshippers. Many years after the incident just described, I made a special experimental verification of this phenomenon and found that, in fact, if a circle is drawn round a Yezidi, he cannot of his own volition escape from it. Within the circle he can move freely, and the larger the circle, the larger the space in which he can move, but get out of it he cannot. Some strange force, much more powerful than his normal strength, keeps him inside. I myself, although strong, could not pull a weak woman out of the circle; it needed yet another man as strong as I. If a Yezidi is forcibly dragged out of a circle, he immediately falls into the state called catalepsy, from which he recovers the instant he is brought back inside. But if he is not brought back into the circle, he returns to a normal state, as we ascertained, only after either thirteen or twenty-one hours. To bring him hack to a normal state by any other means is impossible. At least my friends and I were not able to do so, in spite of the fact that we already possessed all the means known to contemporary hypnotic science for bringing people out of the cataleptic state. Only their priests could do so, by means of certain short incantations. Having somehow finished and delivered the shield that evening, I set off to the Russian quarter, where most of my friends and acquaintances lived, in the hope that they might help me understand this strange phenomenon. The Russian quarter of Alexandropol was where all the local intelligentsia lived. It should be mentioned that from the age of eight, owing to chance circumstances, my friends in Alexandropol as well as in Kars were much older than I and belonged to families who were considered socially higher than mine. In the Greek part of Alexandropol, where my parents formerly lived, I had no friends at all. They all lived on the opposite side of the town in the Russian / Page 67 / quarter, and were the children of officers, officials and clergymen. I often went to see them, and getting to know their families, gradually gained the entree into almost all the houses of the quarter. I remember that the first person I spoke to about the phenomenon which had so greatly astonished me was my good friend Ananiev, who was also much older than 1. He did not even listen until I finished, but authoritatively stated: 'These boys simply played on your credulity. They were pulling your leg and have made an ass of you. But look, how smart this is!' he added, running to the next room and putting on, as he came back, his brand new uniform. (He had recently been appointed a postal-telegraph official.) He then asked me to go with him to the public gardens. I made the excuse of not having time and went off to see Pavlov, who lived in the same street. Pavlov, who was a treasury official, was a very good fellow but a great drinker. At his house were the deacon of the fortress church, Father Maxim, an artillery officer called Artemin, Captain Terentiev, the teacher Stolmakh and two others whomI hardly knew. They were drinking vodka, and when I came in they asked me to join them and offered me a drink. It must be said that that year I had already begun to drink, not much, it is true, but when I was invited to do so, as sometimes happened, I did not refuse. I had begun to drink owing to ah incident in Kars. One morning, being very tired from studying all night long, I was about to go to bed when suddenly a soldier came to call me to come to the cathedral. That day a service was to be held at a certain fort-I do not remember in honour of what-and at the last minute it was decided to have the choir for it, so the attendants and orderlies were sent to all parts of the town to call the choristers. Having had no sleep all night, I was so exhausted by the walk up the steep hill to the fort and by the service itself that I could hardly stand on my feet. After the service a dinner had been prepared at the fort for the people invited and a special table had been laid for the choristers. The choir-master, a hearty drinker, seeing how weak I was, persuaded me to drink a small glass of / Page 68 /vodka. When I had drunk it I did in fact feel much better, and after taking a second glass all my weakness disappeared. After that whenever I was very tired or nervous I took one or two, or sometimes even three, small glasses. On this evening also I took a glass of vodka with my friends, but, however much they tried to persuade me, I refused a second one. The company was not yet drunk, as they had only just begun drinking. But I knew how things usually went in this gay crowd. The first one to get tipsy was always the father deacon. When only slightly intoxicated he would, for some reason or other, begin to intone a prayer for the repose of the soul of that true believer, etc., the late Alexander I. ... But seeing that he was still sitting there glum, I could not resist telling him what I had seen that day. I did not, however, speak so seriously about it as I did to Ananiev, but instead spoke somewhat jokingly. Everybody listened to me attentively and with great interest, and when I finished my story they began to express their opinions. The first to speak was the captain, who said that he himself had recently seen some soldiers draw a circle on the ground round a Kurd who begged them almost in tears to rub it away. Not until he, the captain, had ordered a soldier to erase a part of the circle, was the Kurd able to get out of it. 'I think,' added the captain, 'that they take some vow never to go out of a closed circle, and they do not go out of it, not because they cannot, but because they do not wish to break their vow.' The deacon said: 'They are devil-worshippers and under ordinary circumstances the devil does not touch them, as they are his own. But as the devil himself is only a subordinate and is obliged by his office to impose his authority on everyone, he therefore, as you might say, for the sake of appearances, has limited the Yezidis' independence in this way so that other people should not suspect that they are his servants. It's exactly like Philip.' Philip was a policeman who stood at the street-corner and whom these fellows, having no one else available, sometimes sent for cigarettes and drinks. The police service there at that time, as is said, 'even made the cat laugh'. / Page 69 / 'Now if I,' the deacon continued, 'make a row, let's say, in the street, this Philip is obliged without fail to take me to the police station, and for appearances' sake, so that it should not seem strange to others, he will of course do so, but as soon as we turn the corner he will let me go, not forgetting to say, "Please, a little tip ... " 'Well, the Unclean One is just the same, you might say, with his servants, the Yezidis.' I do not know whether he invented this episode on the spur of the moment, or whether it had really taken place. The artillery officer said that he had never heard about such a phenomenon and that, in his opinion, nothing of the sort could exist. He much regretted that we, intelligent people, should believe in such marvels and, still more, rack our brains about them. Stolmakh, the teacher, retorted that on the contrary he firmly believed in supernatural phenomena and that, if there were much that positive science could not explain, he. was fully convinced that, with the present rapid progress of civilization, contemporary science would soon prove that all mysteries of the metaphysical world could be fully explained by physical causes. 'In regard to the fact you are now talking about,' he continued, 'I think it is one of those magnetic phenomena which are now being investigated by scientists at Nancy.' He was going to say something more but Pavlov interrupted him, exclaiming: 'The devil take them and all the devil-worship pers! Give them each a half-bottle of vodka and then no devil will hold them back. Let's drink to the health ofIsakov!' (Isakov was the proprietor of the local vodka distillery.) . These discussions not only did not calm my thoughts, but on the contrary on leaving Pavlov's I began to think all the more, and at the same time began to have doubts about people whom I had until then considered educated. The next morning I met by chance the chief physician of the 39th Division, Dr. Ivanov. He had been called to see a 'sick Armenian neighbour of ours and I was asked to come and serve as interpreter. Dr. Ivanov had a good reputation among the / Page 70 / townspeople and had a very large practice. I knew him well as he was often at my uncle's. After his visit to the sick man, I said to him: 'Your Excellency,' (he had the rank of a general) 'please explain to me why Yezidis cannot get out of a circle.' 'Ah, you mean those devil-worshippers?' he asked. 'That is simply hysteria.' 'Hysteria?' I queried. 'Yes, hysteria . . .' and then he rattled off a long rigmarole about hysteria, and all I could gather from it was that hysteria is hysteria. This I already knew myself, as there was not a single book on neuropathology and psychology in the library of the Kars military hospital that I had not read, and read very atten tively, carefully going over almost every line in my intense desire to find, through these branches of science, an explanation of the phenomenon of table-turning. Therefore I already well understood that hysteria is hysteria, but I wished to know something more. The more I realized how difficult it was to find a solution, the more I was gnawed by the worm of curiosity. For several days I was not myself and did not wish to do anything. I thought and thought of one thing only: 'What is true? What is written in books and taught by my teachers, or the facts I am always running up against?'
A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1*2*8*3*4*5*6*7*8*9*1*2*8*3*4*5*6*7*8*9*1*2*8*3*4*5*6*7*8 A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K LM N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
1 B C D E F G H I 1 K LM N O P Q R 1 T U V W X Y Z A 2 C D E F G H I J 2 LM N O P Q R S 2 U V W X Y Z A B 3 D E F G H I J K 3 M N O P Q R S T 3 V W X Y Z A B C 4 E F G H I J K L 4 N O P Q R S T U 4 W X Y Z A B C D 5 F G H I J K LM 5 O P Q R S T U V 5 X Y Z A B C D E 6 G H I J K LM N 6 P Q R S T U V W 6 Y Z A B C D E F 7 H I J K LM N O 7 Q R S T U V W X 7 Z A B C D E F G 8 I J K LM N O P 8 R S T U V W X Y 8 A B C D E F G H 9 J K LM N O P Q 9 S T U V W X Y Z 1*2*8*3*4*5*6*7*8*9*1*2*8*3*4*5*6*7*8*9*1*2*8*3*4*5*6*7*8 A B C D E F G H 9 J K LM N O P Q 9 S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G 8 I J K LM N O P 8 R S T U V W X Y 8 A B C D E F 7 H I J K LM N O 7 Q R S T U V W X 7 Z A B C D E 6 G H I J K LM N 6 P Q R S T U V W 6 Y Z A B C D 5 F G H I J K LM 5 O P Q R S T U V 5 X Y Z A B C 4 E F G H I J K L 4 N O P Q R S T U 4 W X Y Z A B 3 D E F G H I J K 3 M N O P Q R S T 3 V W X Y Z A 2 C D E F G H I J 2 LM N O P Q R S 2 U V W X Y Z 1 B C D E F G H I 1 K LM N O P Q R 1 T U V W X Y Z
ZERO ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE ZERO ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE Z5RO O55 T5O THR55 FOUR FIV5 SIX S5V55 5IGHT 5I55 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 Z5RO O55 T5O THR55 FOUR FIV5 SIX S5V55 5IGHT 5I55 ZERO ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE ZERO ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE
WISE W IS E WISE WISE W IS E WISE 5IS5 5 IS 5 5IS5 WISE W IS E WISE WISE W IS E WISE
WISDOM W IS DOM WISDOM WISDOM W IS DOM WISDOM 5IS5 5 IS 5 5IS5 WISDOM W IS DOM WISDOM WISDOM W IS DOM WISDOM
LOOK AT THE E LOOK AT THE E LOOK AT THE E THE E THE E THE E
THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER E
Letter frequency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia1 Relative frequencies of letters in the English language .... the frequency distributions of the 26 most common Latin letters across some languages. ... Relative frequencies of ... - Relative frequencies of the ... - See also
►English alphabet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The English language was first written in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc runic ...
Show more results from wikipedia.orgWhat is the Most Commonly Used Letter in English? 25 Oct 2010 ... The most commonly used letter in the English language is the letter “e”. This is the case in the general language, in fiction and ...
Letter frequency More recent analyses show that letter frequencies, like word frequencies, tend to vary, both by writer and by subject. One cannot write an essay about x-rays without using frequent Xs, and the essay will have an especially strange letter frequency if the essay is about the frequent use of x-rays to treat zebras in Qatar. Different authors have habits which can be reflected in their use of letters. Hemingway's writing style, for example, is visibly different from Faulkner's. Letter, bigram, trigram, word frequencies, word length, and sentence length can be calculated for specific authors, and used to prove or disprove authorship of texts, even for authors whose styles aren't so divergent. Accurate average letter frequencies can only be gleaned by analyzing a large amount of representative text. With the availability of modern computing and collections of large text corpora, such calculations are easily made. This Deafandblind link details examples from a variety of sources, (press reporting, religious text, scientific text and general fiction) and there are differences especially for general fiction with the position of 'h' and 'i'. The example differs from the linotype 'etaoin shrdlu' to come out as 'etaoHn Isrdlu'. There is an unproven statement[by whom?] that conversation is similar in frequency to general fiction. Herbert S. Zim, in his classic introductory cryptography text "Codes and Secret Writing", gives the English letter frequency sequence as "ETAON RISHD LFCMU GYPWB VKXJQ Z", the most common letter pairs as "TH HE AN RE ER IN ON AT ND ST ES EN OF TE ED OR TI HI AS TO", and the most common doubled letters as "LL EE SS OO TT FF RR NN PP CC".[1] The 'top twelve' letters comprise about 80% of the total usage. The 'top eight" letters comprise about 65% of the total usage. A spy using the VIC cipher or some other cipher based on a straddling checkerboard typically uses a mnemonic such as "a sin to err" (dropping the second "r") to remember the top 8 characters. The use of letter frequencies and frequency analysis plays a fundamental role in several games, including hangman, Scrabble, Wheel of Fortune, Definition, Bananagrams, and cryptograms. Letter frequencies had a strong effect on the design of some keyboard layouts. The most-frequent letters are on the bottom row of the Blickensderfer typewriter. The most-frequent letters are on the home row of the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. Contents [hide] Letter Frequency In English, the space is slightly more frequent than the top letter (7% more frequent than, or 107% as frequent as, e), and the non-alphabetic characters (digits, punctuation, etc.) occupy the fourth position, between t and a.[3] [edit] Relative frequencies of the first letters of a word in the English language Letter Frequency |3||16.924% [edit] Relative frequencies of letters in other languages *See Turkish dotted and dotless I The figure below illustrates the frequency distributions of the 26 most common Latin letters across some languages. Based on these tables, the 'etaoin shrdlu'-equivalent results for each language is as follows: French: 'esait nrulo'; (Indo-European: Romance; traditionally, 'esartinulop' is used, in part for its ease of pronunciation[15]) [edit] See also Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency"
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Answers.com - What are the most popular letters in the alphabet In: Food and Cooking, English Language, Shopping [Edit categories] ... What is the most common letter in the alphabet? In English, 'e' Actually all of the ...
What is the frequency of the letters of the alphabet in English ... The world's most trusted dictionaries ... Dictionary; Other language resources. Help. US English; World English ... However, this gives the frequency of letters in English text, which is dominated by a relatively small ... The third column represents proportions, taking the least common letter (q) as equal to 1. ...
Thousands of Lists - ListAfterList.com - Most Common Letters in ... According to a study done by AskOxford, using thier Concise English Dictionary, these are the most common letters in the English language. The letter "E" is ...
Word Records > Longest Words This is the longest word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Interestingly the most common letter in English, E, does not appear in this ...
What is the most common letter? | Answerbag What is the most common letter? the bills they keep sending me. ... Im Alec. The most common letters in the English language are, in order, ETAOINSHRDLU. ...
Herbert S. Zim, in his classic introductory cryptography text "Codes and Secret Writing", gives the English letter frequency sequence as "ETAON RISHD LFCMU GYPWB VKXJQ Z", the most common letter pairs as "TH HE AN RE ER IN ON AT ND ST ES EN OF TE ED OR TI HI AS TO", and the most common doubled letters as "LL EE SS OO TT FF RR NN PP CC".[1] "ETAON RISHD LFCMU GYPWB VKXJQ Z"
Show more results from wikipedia.orgWhat is the Most Commonly Used Letter in English? 25 Oct 2010 ... The most commonly used letter in the English language is the letter “e”. This is the case in the general language, in fiction and ...
THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER "E" THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER "E" TH5 MOST COMMONLY US5D L5TT5R IN TH5 5NGLISH LANGUAG5 IS THE L5TT5R "5"
THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER "E" 285 4612 36446537 3154 352259 95 285 5573918 31573175 91 285 352259 "5" THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER "E"
THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER "E" 285 4612 36446537 3154 352259 95 285 5573918 31573175 91 285 352259 "5" THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER "E"
Herbert S. Zim, in his classic introductory cryptography text "Codes and Secret Writing", gives the English letter frequency sequence as "ETAON RISHD LFCMU GYPWB VKXJQ Z", the most common letter pairs as "TH HE AN RE ER IN ON AT ND ST ES EN OF TE ED OR TI HI AS TO", and the most common doubled letters as "LL EE SS OO TT FF RR NN PP CC".[1] "ETAON RISHD LFCMU GYPWB VKXJQ Z"
THE MOST COMMONLY USED LETTER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE LETTER E
O BLESSED AND BELOVED DREAMER OF DREAMS THAT INBETWEEN INBETWEEN THAT
THEN WE ALL STARTED SINGING LOOK AT THE FIVES LOOK AT THE FIVES LOOK AT THE FIVES THE FIVES THE FIVES AND THEN LO AND BEHOLD YOU GOT THE MESSAGE AND YOU STARTED TO LAUGH AND SING AND SUDDENLY OUT OF NOTHINGNESS WOWEEWOW WE WERE ALL LAUGHING SINGING AND DANCING WOW O WOW NOW WE KNOW KNOW WE NOW
I THAT AM THAT I THAT AM THAT I THAT AM THAT I THAT IS WEPWAWET WENNEFER WHEREVER WHENEVER
THEN WE ALL STARTED SINGING LOOK AT THE NINES LOOK AT THE NINES LOOK AT THE NINES THE NINES THE NINES AND THEN LO AND BEHOLD YOU GOT THE MESSAGE AND YOU STARTED TO LAUGH AND SING AND SUDDENLY OUT OF NOTHINGNESS WOWEEWOW WE WERE ALL LAUGHING SINGING AND DANCING WOW O WOW NOW WE KNOW O KNOW WE NOW
I THAT AM THAT I THAT AM THAT I THAT AM THAT I THAT IS WEPWAWET WENNEFER WHEREVER WHENEVER OSIRIS THAT SON SETS THAT SON SORISES THAT SUN SO SETS THAT SUN SO RISES THAT SUN SO SETS THAT SON SO SETS THAT SON SO OSIRIS THAT SON
The Fingerprints Of The Gods Graham Hancock 1995 Page 274 "The pre-eminent number in the code is 72. To this is frequently added 36,
making 108, and it is permissible to multiply 108 by 100 to get 10,800 or to
divide it by 2 to get 54, which may then be multiplied by 10 and expressed
as 540 (or as 54,000, or as 540,000, or as 5,400,000, and so on).
The Fingerprints Of The Gods Graham Hancock 1995 Page 273
JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS Thomas Mann 1875 - 1955 MINERVA 1997 Page 890 8 x 9 = 72. "In all there were two-and-seventy conspirators privy to the plot. It was a proper and a pregnant number, for there had been just seventy-two when red Set lured Usir into the chest. And these seventy-two in their turn had had good cosmic ground to be no more and no less than that number. For it is just that number of groups of five weeks which make up the three hundred and sixty days of the year, not counting the odd days; and there are just seventy-two days in the dry fifth of the year, when the gauge shows that the Nourisher has reached his lowest ebb, and the god sinks into his grave. So where there is conspiracy anywhere in the world it is requisite and customary for the number of conspirators to be seventy-two. And if the plot fail, the failure shows that if this number had not been adhered to it would have failed even worse."
JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS Thomas Mann 1855 - 1955 Page 890 8 x 9 x 0 = 72 / "...The ancient records dazed her small and scheming brain, so that she made up her mind to have Pharaoh stung by a serpent, to instigate a palace revolt and set on the throne of the two lands not Horus- Amenhotep, the rightful heir, who was sickly anyhow, but the fruit of her own womb, Noferka-Ptah. Page 891. 8 x 9x 1 = 72 7 + 2 = 9 / "... And then all at once the lid blew off. Possibly at the last minute one of the seventy-two decided . . .
THAT SO EVEN SEVEN EVEN SO THAT
Melvin Morse Souvenir Press Ltd 1991 Page 78 CONJURED DEATHS AND ANCIENT RULERS
"Deep in an underground chamber a solemn group of men is seeking guidance from death. They are dressed in white robes and chanting softly around a casket that is sealed with wax. One of their members is steadfastly counting to himself, carefully marking the time. After about eight minutes, the casket is opened, and the man who nearly suffocated inside is revived by the rush of fresh air. He tells the men around him what he saw. As he passed out from lack of oxygen, he saw a light that became brighter and larger as he sped toward it through a tunnel. From that light came a radiant person in white who delivered a message of eternal life. The priest who is attending this ceremony is pleased with the results. "No man escapes death," he says. "And every living soul is destined to resurrection. You go into the tomb alive that you will learn of the light." The man who "died" but is now reborn is happy. He is now a member of one of the strangest societies in history, a group of civic leaders who induced nearly fatal suffocation to create a near-death experience. Sound like a cult from some place in northern California? ex-hippies looking for a new high, perhaps? Not at all. This was the cult of Osiris, a small society of men who were the priests and pharaohs of ancient Egypt, one of the greatest civilizations in human history. This account of how they / Page 79 / inspired near death is an actual description of their rites from Egyptologists who have translated their hieroglyphics. One of the most important Egyptian rituals involved the reenactment by their god-king of the myth of Osiris, the god who brought agriculture and civilization to the ancient Egyptians. He was the first king of Egypt who civilized his subjects and then traveled abroad to instruct others in the fine art of civilization. His enemies plotted against him. Upon his return to Egypt, he was captured and sealed in a chest. His eventual resurrection was seen as proof of life eternal. Each new king was supposed to be a direct reincarnation of Osiris. An important part of the ceremony was to reenact his entombment. These rituals took place in the depths of the Great Pyramid and were a prerequisite for becoming a god-king. It is my guess that many slaves perished while the Egyptians experimented to find exactly how long a person could be sealed in an airtight container and survive. Nonetheless, these near-death experiences were more important to the Egyptians than the lives of a few slaves. After all, this was the age of the bicameral mind, a period in which men believed that their thoughts came to them from the gods and were not internally generated. For the Egyptians, thoughts and dreams were gods speaking to them.
Fingerprints Of
The Gods
Graham Hancock 1995 This page introduces chapter 45 and is absent of numberPage 419 " 'The House of Millions of years', was dedicated to Osiris,4 the 'Lord of Eternity', of whom it was said in the Pyramid texts:
WISDOM OF THE EAST by Hari Prasad Shastri 1948 Page 8 "There is no such word in Sanscrita as 'Creation' applied to the universe. The Sanscrita word for Creation is Shristi, which means 'projection' Creation means to bring something into being out /Page 9/ of nothing, to create, as a novelist creates a character. There was no Miranda, for example, until Shakespeare created her. Similarly the ancient Indians (this term is innacurately used as there was no India at that time). who were our ancestors long, long ago. used a word for creation that means 'projection'.
THE WHITE GODDESS Robert Graves 1948 Page 337 Chapter Eighteen THE BULL FOOTED GOD "Isis is an onomatopoeic Asiatic word, Ish-ish, meaning 'she who weeps', because the Moon was held to scatter dew and because Isis, the pre-Christian original of the Mater Dolrosa, mourned for Osiris when Set killed him."
THE WHITE GODDESS Robert Graves 1948 Page 149 Chapter Nine GWIONS HERESY "The Essene initiates, according to Josephus, were sworn to keep secret the names of the powers who ruled their universe under God. Were these powers the letters of the Boibel-Loth which together, composed the life and death story of their demi-god Moses? 'David' may seem to belong to a later context than the others, but it is found as a royal title in a sixteenth century B.C inscription; and the Pentateuch was not composed until long /Page 150/ after King David's day Moreover, David for the Essenes was the name of the promised messiah."
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References C 1 V 16 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLESPage 1148 (Part quoted) "MEN AND BRETHREN THIS SCRIPTURE MUST NEEDS HAVE BEEN FULFILLED WHICH THE HOLY GHOST BY THE MOUTH OF DAVID SPAKE"
THEM O THEM
ATUM 1234 4321 MUTA
ATUM Atum (or Tem or Tum) was an early god of Heliopolis, and a predynastic sun-deity. The Heliopolitan theologians interpreted his name to mean the "complete one." A reference to their belief that Atum created himself out of the waters of Nun, either through the effort of his own will power or by uttering his own name, which was the power of the spoken word. He also was called Neb-er-djer, "Lord to the Limit" or Universal God. http://www.themystica.com/mythical-folk/articles/atum.html
THE WASTE LAND AND OTHER POEMS T.S. Eliot First published 1940 PagE 62 7 JOURNEY OF THE MAGI "...All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death."
I LOVE EVOLVE LOVE ALL IS LOVE IS LOVE IS ALL AUM MANI PADME HUM ALL HAIL THE JEWEL AT THE CENTRE OF THE LOTUS
I ME A MAN A NAME A MAN A NAME I MEAN AMEN THE NAME PROMETHEUS ORPHEUS MET ORPHEUS PROMETHEUS THE LIGHT BRINGER PROMETHEUS MORPHEUS ET MORPHEUS PROMETHEUS
I ME EGO PARADISE AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN PARADE EYES IN THE GARDEN OF NEED
THE RA EXPEDITIONS Page 14 "The largest reed boats in Peru were depicted as two deckers. Quantities of water jars and other cargo were painted in on the lower deck, as well as rows of little people, and on the upper deck usually stood the earthly representative of the sun-god the priest king, larger than all his companions, surrounded by bird-headed men who were often hauling on ropes to help the reed boat through the water. The tomb paintings in Egypt also portrayed the sun-god's earthly represen-tative, the priest-king known as the pharaoh, like an imposing giant on his reed boat, surrounded by minature people, while / Page 15 / the same mythical men with bird heads towed the reed boat through the water.
ASTROLOGY A STARRY LOGO I S
www.kididdles.com/lyrics/t023.html - Cached - Similar►Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English nursery rhyme. The lyrics are from an early nineteenth-century English poem, "The Star" by Jane Taylor. The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is sung to the tune of the French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" (oldest known publication 1761).[1] The English lyrics have five stanzas, although only the first is widely known. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7666. Contents [hide] Twinkle Twinkle Little Star -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Repeat: When the blazing sun is gone, Then the traveller in the dark, In the dark blue sky you keep, As your bright and tiny spark,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high Like a diamond in the sky Twinkle, twinkle, little star How I wonder what you are!
"I TALK TO THE TREES BUT THEY DON'T LISTEN TO ME. I TALK TO THE STARS, BUT THEY NEVER HEAR ME"
I TALK TO THE TREES But suddenly my words reach someone else's ear I can see us on an April night Then I'll tell you how I passed the day Then I'll tell you how I passed the day (Orchestral Interlude) I tell you my dreams and while you're listening to me
Frani's words. Letter dated 28th October 2010. Sweet Oak, Silent, strong, alone Me, silent, fragile, alone. I sit at your side, me grounded, you reaching for the sky. We connect, Spirit, mind, touch, we feel. Free woman, brother oak, Brother tree, sister me. I live on the edge of the wind. I change direction with it. I am gentle like the summer breeze. I am ferocious like the raging storm. I am wild like it. Feel me gently on your face Feel me teasing through your hair Hear me singing softly in your summer garden Hear me screaming madly on the storm filled night. I am free like it . . .
HOLY BIBLE SCHOFIELD REFERENCE SAINT JOHN C 6 V 63 Page 1124 "IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT QUICKENETH; THE FLESH PROFITETH NOTHING THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU THEY ARE SPIRIT AND THEY ARE LIFE.
THOMAS MANN MARIO AND THE MAGICIANS 1875 - 1955 Pages 286 7-8-9 - 90 91 18 THE TABLES OF THE LAW
"DO NOT OPPRESS THEM. LOOK ON THEM AS YE LOOK ON YOURSELF AND GIVE THEM EQUAL RIGHTS, OR I SHALL CRASH DOWN UPON YOU. FOR THEY TOO STAND UNDER THE PROTECTION OF JAHWE. IN SHORT, DO NOT MAKE SUCH A STUPID, ARROGANT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THYSELF AND THE OTHERS, SO THAT THOU THINKEST THAT THOU ALONE ART REAL AND THOU ALONE COUNTEST WHILE THE OTHERS ARE ONLY A SEMBLANCE. YE BOTH HAVE LIFE IN COMMON, AND IT IS ONLY AN ACCIDENT THAT THOU ART NOT HE. THEREFORE DO NOT LOVE THYSELF ALONE BUT LOVE HIM IN THE SAME WAY, AND DO UNTO HIM AS THOU DESIREST THAT HE DO UNTO YOU. BE GRACIOUS WITH ONE ANOTHER AND KISS THE TIPS OF YOUR FINGERS WHEN YE PASS EACH OTHER AND BOW WITH CIVILITY AND SPEAK THE GREETING, 'BE HALE AND HEALTHY'. FOR IT IS QUITE AS IMPORTANT THAT HE BE HEALTHY AS THAT THOU BE HEALTHY. AND EVEN IF IT IS ONLY FORMAL CIVILITY THAT YE DO THUS AND KISS YOUR FINGERTIPS, THE GESTURE DOES LEAVE SOMETHING IN YOUR HEART OF THAT WHICH SHOULD BE THERE OF YOUR NEIGHBOUR." TO THAT SAY YE AMEN AND THEY ALL SAID AMEN
THE LOST LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLISM AN ENQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF CERTAIN LETTERS, WORDS, NAMES, FAIRY-TALES, FOLK-LORE AND MYTHOLOGIES Harold Bayley 1912 Page 284
THE JESUS MYSTERIES Page 177 "THE GOSPELS ARE ACTUALLY ANONYMOUS WORKS, IN WHICH EVERYTHING,WITHOUT EXCEPTION, IS WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS, WITH NO HEADINGS, CHAPTER OR VERSE DIVISIONS, AND PRACTICALLY NO PUNCTUATION OR SPACES BETWEEN WORDS. THEY WERE NOT WRITTEN IN THE ARAMAIC OF THE JEWS BUT IN GREEK"
Aubade I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Philip Larkin
I ME EGO OGRE CONSCIENCE SHADE HADES SHADE ENTERS THE NETERS FUNERAL REAL FUN ISISIS FUN REAL FUNERAL
O NAMUH FOR YOU THERE IS ONLY ONE JOURNEY THAT JOURNEY THE PATH OF PTAH ENTERS O NETERS CONSCIOUSNESS INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS AWAKENING INTO UNIVERSAL MIND UNIVERSAL
ILLUSION GENERATED WITHIN REALITY THAT THAT THAT ISISIS ISISIS THAT THAT THAT ILLUSION GENERATED WITHIN REALITY
LIFE DEATH LIFE GODS LIFE DEATH LIFE THAT THREAD OF THE R DEATH THE AWAKENING
GODS CREATIVE CONSCIOUS CREATIVE MIND ABSORPTION AND MERGING I THAT AM INTO ME GODS ME INTO AM THAT I MERGING AND ABSORPTION
I ME EGO OGRE COMSCIENCE THE SENSES SELF SENSES THAT THAT THAT ISISIS BECOMETH WHOLE OF SOURCE LIFE DEATH LIFE GODS LIFE DEATH LIFE THAT CYCLE OF THE CIRCLE OF THE CIRCLE OF THE CYCLE
THE GROUND GOES ROUND GODS ROUND GOES THE GROUND
PROMETHEUS PROMISE THOU US PROMETHEUS THAT E THAT PROMETHEUS PROMISE THEE US PROMETHEUS
PROMETHEUS MOTHERS PROMETHEUS HOMER HOME ROME MORE MORSE MORPHEUS SUPREME TERM SURE USER USE SUE SOME POUR PORE PRONE PROM SPUR TREE TOP HOUSE THE PROM ROMP OPUS ME MET MUSE MOTH MEET EROS SORE ROSE SPERM SPURT PUSH PORT POEM PROSE HOSE HORSE THEM MESH SHEM
PROMETHEUS ORPHEUS MET ORPHEUS PROMETHEUS THE LIGHT BRINGER PROMETHEUS MORPHEUS ET MORPHEUS PROMETHEUS
ELECTRIC ET CIRCLE ET CIRCLE ET ELECTRIC
ATUM 1234 4321 MUTA MUTA 4321 1234 ATUM
IN SEARCH OF EXTRA TERRESTRIALS Unsolved UFO sightings... strange secrets of the moon... new evidence that alien astronauts are exploring the earth Alan Landsburg 1976 Page 79 " The words of J. B. S. Haldane came back to haunt me. He once wrote, "Now my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming."
REACH FOR TOMORROW Arthur C. Clarke 1956 Introduction to 1989 Edition "However I have made some interesting discoveries; for instance, on the very first page of the first story, I see the number 9000. Ive no idea why I selected it again for HALs serial number 20 years later. . . " I see the number 9000 Ive no idea why I selected it again for HALs serial number 20 years later. . . "
THE LOST WORLDS OF 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1972 Page179 "A long time ago," said Kaminski, "I came across a remark that I've never forgotten-though I can't remember who made it. 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' That's what we're up against here. Our lasers and mesotrons and nuclear reactors and neutrino telescopes would have seemed pure magic to the best scientists of the nineteenth century. But they could have understood how they worked-more or less-if we were around to explain the theory to them."
Page 189 "The other is Clarke's Third* Law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
GODS OF THE DAWN Peter Lemesurier 1997 "As Arthur C. Clarke's perceptive Third Law puts it: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
THE SECRET HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT Herbie Brennan 2000 "The British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is said to have commented that "any sufficiently high technology is indistinguishable from magic"
THE BIBLE CODE Michael Drosnin 1997 Chapter Four THE SEALED BOOK Page 70 "The astronomer Carl Sagan once noted that if there was other intelligent life in the universe some of it would have certainly evolved far earlier than we did, and had thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions, or hundreds of millions of years to develop the advanced technology that we are only now beginning to develop. 'After billions of years of biological evolution - on their planet and ours - an alien civilization cannot be in technological lockstep with us,' wrote Sagan. 'There 'have been humans for more than twenty thousand centuries, but we've had radio only for about one century,' wrote Sagan. 'If alien civilizations are behind us, they're likely to be too far behind us to have radio. And if they're ahead of us, they're likely to be far ahead of us. Think of the technical advances on our world over just the last few centuries. What is for us technologically difficult or impossible, what might seem to us like magic, might for them be trivially easy.' 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Page 163 pages 69-75 Chapter notes,
"The astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that an advanced alien technology 'might seem to us like magic' in Pale Blue Dot (Random House, 1994), p. 352.
The author of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, made a similar observation: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' (Profiles of the Future, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984). Paul Davies' imagined 'alien artifact' is described in his book Are We Alone? (Basic Books, 1995), p. 42. Stanley Kubrick, in his famous movie version of Clarke's 2001, showed a mysterious black monolith that seemed to reappear at successive stages of human evolution, each time we were ready to be taken to a higher level. When I told him about the Bible code, Kubrick's immediate reaction was, 'It's like the monolith in 2001.' "
FIRST CONTACT THE SEARCH FOR EXTRA TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE 1990 SEIZING THE MOMENT A UNIQUE MOMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY Michael Michaud ANTHROPOCENTRISM GOOD-BYE Page311 "The most profound message from the aliens may never be spoken: We are not alone or unique. Contact would tell us that life and intelligence have evolved elsewhere in the Universe, and that they may be common by-products of cosmic evolution. Contact would tend to confirm the theory that life evolves chemically from inanimate mat- ter, through universal processes,implying that there are other alien civilizations in addition to the one we had detected. We might see ourselves as just one example of biocosmic processes, one facet of the Universe becoming aware of itself. We would undergo a revolution in the way that we conceive our own position in the Universe; any remaining pretense of centrality or a special role, any belief that we are a chosen species would be dashed for- ever, completing the process begun by Copernicus four centuries ago.
The revelation that we are not the most technologi-cally advanced intelligent species could lead to a humbling deflation of our sense of self-importance. We might reclassify ourselves to a lower level of ability and worth. This leveling of our pretensions, this anti-hubris, could be intensified if we were confronted with alien technology beyond our understanding.
"ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAGIC"
THE SUPERGODS Maurice M Cotterell 1997 Page 118 "Sacrifice at first appears as penance, difficult and tortuous, attracting few followers. In the Hindu holy book, the Bhagava-Geeta, the teacher Lord Krishna supports this view saying: Hear further the three kinds of pleasure. That which increases day after day and delivers one from misery, which at first seems like poison, but afterwards acts like nectar - that pleasure is pure, for it is born of wis-dom. That which is at first like nectar, because the senses revel in their objects, but in the end acts like poison - that pleasure arises from pas-sion. While the pleasure which from first to last merely drugs the senses, which springs from indolence, lethargy and folly - that pleasure flows from ignorance. (BG, 18:36-9) "(BG, 18:36-9)"
HARMONIZED Page number omitted THE STUDENT'S ASSISTANT ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR FIXED STARS, FOR PAST AND FUTURE YEARS. PREFACE "A work of this kind may not be so amusing to some individuals as a pleasing romance; yet it is hoped will prove to the Astronomical Stu-dent and learner, gratifying and instructive. At the request of a select number of students, the present laborious calculations were made, in order to give others and themselves an opportu-nity of more perfectly understanding the appa-rent motions of the superior Planetary bodies herein mentioned, together with an illustration of the various phenomena the above planets present to us, the observers on this Earth, caused by the revolution of the planets and the earth, around the Sun, as the centre and great point of attraction tion to the Solar System. I have given a correct Table of the longitude and latitude of 144 fixed stars, calculated up to 1836,..." "Table of the longitude and latitude of 144 fixed stars, calculated up to 1836,..." Page 9 (number omitted) INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY. "THIS Introduction is merely intended to con-vey a sufficient idea to those who are not already acquainted with the solar system, the propor-tional distances of the Planets' orbits from the Sun, and the Earth, together with the apparent motions of the superior planets, as viewed from this Earth, called their geocentric places or motions. The path of the Planets or circles which their orbits describe in the heavens, is called the Zodiac. Suppose it a belt 20° wide with the Ecliptic, orbit, or path of the Earth in the centre thereof; in as much as a planet's orbit differs from the exact plane of the Ecliptic, or orbit ,of the Earth, so much is the planet's latitude in degrees and minutes; the points where these imaginary circles intersect the Ecliptic, are cal!ed the nodes: The ascend-ing node is that point which the planet enters / Page 10 / for north latitude, the opposite is the descending node for south latitude. The Zodiac is divided into 12 Constellations, called signs, each sign divided into 30 degrees, each degree into minutes and seconds."
UNCONDITIONAL LIFE MASTERING THE FORCES THAT SHAPE PERSONAL REALITY Deepak Chopra 1991 A Mirage of Miracles Page 89 "The Mask of Maya" "...denoting the ability of gods to change form, to make worlds, to assume masks and disguises." "Maya also means magic a show of illusions" "Maya also denotes the delusion of thinking that you are seeing reality when in fact you are only seeing a layer of trick effects superimposed upon the real reality True to its deceptive nature, Maya is full of paradoxes. First of all it is everywhere, even though it doesnt exist. It is / Page 90 / often compared with a desert mirage, yet unlike a mirage Maya does not merely float "out there" The Mysterious One is nowhere if not in each person. Finally Maya is not so omnipotent that we cannot control it - and that is the key point Maya is fearfull or diverting all powerful or completely impotent depending on your perspective." "The fearfull illusion becomes a wonderful show if only you can manipulate it."
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1. Overture. Apostles: Jesus: Apostles: Jesus: Apostles: Jesus: Apostles: Mary Magdalene: Jesus: Apostles: Jesus: All (save Judas): Jesus: Apostles' women: Mary Magdalene: Apostles' women: Judas: Mary Magdalene: Apostles' women: Jesus: Mary Magdalene: All: Priest 1: Caiaphas: Mob outside: Annas: All: Mob outside: All: Priest 2: Priest 3: All: Mob outside: All: Priest 2: Priest 3: Caiaphas: Annas: Priest 3: Caiaphas: Annas: Priest 3: Caiaphas: All: Caiaphas: All: Priest 3: Annas: Priest 3: Caiaphas: All: Caiaphas: All:
SIDE TWO Caiaphas: Crowd: Jesus: Crowd (with Jesus): Simon Zealotes: Crowd: Simon Zealotes: Pilate: Moneylenders and merchants: Jesus: Crowd: Jesus: Jesus: Mary Magdalene: I never thought I'd come to this - what's it all about Judas: Annas: Caiaphas: Annas: Caiaphas: Annas: Caiaphas: Caiaphas: Judas: Annas: Caiaphas: Judas: Choir:
SIDE THREE Apostles: Jesus: Apostles: Jesus: Judas: Jesus: Judas: Jesus: Judas: Jesus: Judas: Jesus: Judas: Jesus: Apostles: Judas: Jesus: Judas: Apostles: Jesus: Jesus: Jesus: Peter: Peter & Apostles: Jesus: Crowd: Caiaphas: Jesus: Annas: Crowd: Peter: Soldier: Peter: Old man: Peter: Mary Magdalene: Peter: Mary Magdalene: Pilate: Soldier: Pilate: Jesus: Pilate: Mob:
SIDE FOUR Priest 3: Caiaphas: Judas: I don't know how to love him Choir: Caiaphas: Pilate: Jesus: Mob: Jesus: Pilate: Jesus: Pilate: Jesus: Mob: Pilate: Mob: Pilate: Mob: Pilate: Mob: THIRTY-NINE LASHES Pilate: Jesus: Pilate: Mob:
Rock Lyrics: Andrew Lloyd Webber: Jesus Christ Super Star lyrics
Pilate: Choir: Voice of Judas: Choir: Jesus:
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE Lyrics Sting and Police Just a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh Ill send an s.o.s. to the world I hope that someone gets my Message in a bottle, yeah A year has passed since I wrote my note Ill send an s.o.s. to the world I hope that someone gets my Message in a bottle, yeah Walked out this morning, dont believe what I saw Ill send an s.o.s. to the world I hope that someone gets my Message in a bottle, yeah Sending out at an s.o.s.
SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS
I SAY IS THIS THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GREAT DIVIDE ? NO ITS OVER THERE I HAVE JUST BEEN OVER THERE AND THEY SAID IT WAS OVER HERE
THE GARDEN OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER Longfield Beatty 1996 Page 207 / 208 "And the next quotation is "relayed" from Budge (op. Cit., p. 521), having come from Papyrus No. 10188 (Brit. Mus.) There have been some omissions in order to reinforce as much as possible the particular aspect of it which is our immediate concern." " THE LAMENT OF THE SISTERS "
"Hail, beautiful boy, come to thy house, draw nigh after "Hail Beautiful Youth, Pilot of Time, who groweth "The Lord! How much more wonderful is he than his "Come back to us in thy actual form; we will embrace "Come thou in peace, our Lord, we would see thee. "Great Mighty One among the Gods, the road that thou "The Babe, the Child at morn and at eve, except when "Come, thou Babe, growing young when setting, our "Come in peace, Great Babe of His Father, thou art "Whilst thou travellest thou art hymned by us, and "Hail Beautiful Boy, come to thy exalted house.; let thy "Babe! How lovely it is to see thee! Come, come to us, "O ye gods who are in Heaven.
WHY SMASH ATOMS A. K. Solomon 1940 Page 77 "ONCE THE FAIRY TALE HERO HAS PENETRATED THE RING OF FIRE ROUND THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN HE IS FREE TO WOO THE HEROINE IN HER CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP"
THE TRUE AND INVISIBLE ROSICRUCIAN ORDER Paul Foster Case 1981 Page 108 " Concerning the Invisible, Magical Mountain and the Treasure therein Contained."
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN Thomas Mann 1875-1955 Page 466 "Had not the normal, since time was, lived on the achievements of the abnormal? Men consciously and voluntarily descended into disease and madness, in search of knowledge which, acquired by fanaticism, would lead back to health; after the possession and use of it had ceased to be conditioned by that heroic and abnormal act of sacrifice. That was the true death on the cross, the true Atonement."
FOUR QUARTETS BURNT NORTON T.S. Eliot 1943 Page 15/16 "AT THE STILL POINT OF THE TURNING WORLD. NEITHER FLESH NOR FLESHLESS; NEITHER FROM NOR TOWARDS; AT THE STILL POINT, WHERE THE DANCE IS, BUT NEITHER ARREST NOR MOVEMENT. AND DO NOT CALL IT FIXITY, WHERE PAST AND FUTURE ARE GATHERED. NEITHER MOVEMENT FROM NOR TOWARDS, NEITHER ASCENT NOR DECLINE. EXCEPT FOR THE POINT, THE STILL POINT, THERE WOULD BE NO DANCE AND THERE IS ONLY THE DANCE"
LORD OF THE DANCE I danced in the morning when the world was begun. Dance then wherever you may be; I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee, I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame; I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black- Dance then wherever you may be;
I AM THE DANCE AND THE DANCE GOES ON
Antiquity - Early and High Middle Ages - Late Middle Ages to Renaissance
►Necromancer The monster, instantly recognized by all who knew it in life, seems at first to breathe and have a pulse, but, alas, it is beyond Necromancer's skill to ...
Necromancer - Guild Wars Wiki (GWW) 30 Sep 2010 ... Necromancers , calling on the spirits of the dead, and even death itself, to overpower enemies and assist allies. In sacrificing Health and ...
Necromancer | Guild Wars 2 A necromancer is a practitioner of the dark arts who summons the dead, wields the power of lost souls, and literally sucks the lifeblood of the enemy. ...
The Necromancers' Guild www.necromancer.org/ - Cached - Similar
Necromancer Games: 3rd Edition Rules, 1st Edition Feel Producer of adventures and supplements for fantasy role playing under the d20 license. Requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, ...
Necromancer - guildwars@wikia, an unofficial Guild Wars wiki The Necromancer is a versatile class that focuses on manipulation of performance , health and energy of foes and allies, as well as their unique ability to ...
Necromancer - Diablo Wiki The Necromancer is a mage with the strongest summoning abilities. Unlike the Sorceress with her powerful elemental skills, the Necromancer's killing power ...
Necromancer - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster ... nec·ro·man·cy. noun \ˈne-krə-ˌman(t)-sē\. Definition of NECROMANCY. 1. : conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the ...
Necromancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaNecromancy is a form of magic in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirit of a deceased person, either as an apparition or ghost, or to raise them ... Antiquity - Early and High Middle Ages - Late Middle Ages to Renaissance Necromancy In Renaissance magic, necromancy (or nigromancy, by popular association with niger "black") was classified as a forbidden art, and Johannes Hartlieb (1456) lists demonology in general under the heading. The word necromancy derives from the Greek νεκρός (nekrós), "dead body", and μαντεία (manteía), "prophecy, divination". The compound νεκρομαντεία itself is post-classical, first used by Origen in the 3rd century. The classical Greek term is nekyia (ἡ νέκυια), in Hellenistic Greek also νεκυιομαντεία, rendered in Latin as necyomantia and in 17th century English as necyomancy. Contents [hide] Strabo refers to necromancy as the principal form of divination amongst the people of Persia (Strabo, xvi. 2, 39, νεκρομαντία), and it is believed to also have been widespread amongst the peoples of Chaldea (particularly amongst the Sabians or star-worshipers), Etruria, and Babylonia. The Babylonian necromancers were called Manzazuu or Sha'etemmu, and the spirits they raised were called Etemmu. Necromancy was widespread in Western antiquity with records of practice in Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.[2] The oldest literary account of necromancy is in Homer’s Odyssey (ca. 700 BC).[2] In the Odyssey (XI, Nekyia), Odysseus under the tutelage of Circe, a powerful sorceress, makes a voyage to Hades, the Underworld, in an effort to raise the spirits of the dead using spells which Circe has instructed.[3] His intention is to invoke and ask questions of the shade of Tiresias, in order to gain insight on the impending voyage home. Alas, he is unable to summon the spirit without the assistance of others. In Homer's passage, there are many references to specific rituals associated with necromancy; the rites must be done during nocturnal hours and around a pit with fire.[2] In addition, Odysseus has to follow a specific recipe, which included using sacrificial animals' blood for ghosts to drink, while he recites prayers to both the ghosts and gods of the underworld.[2] Greek Mythology most often refers to the dead living the underworld. This is the main form of necromancy in Greek mythology and most often involves heroes traveling to hades and claiming souls. Rituals, such as these, were common practices associated with necromancy, and varied from the mundane to the more grotesque. Rituals in necromancy involved magic circles, wands, talismans, bells, and incantations.[4] Also, the necromancer would surround himself with morbid aspects of death, which often included wearing the deceased's clothing, consumption of unsalted, unleavened black bread and unfermented grape juice, which symbolized decay and lifelessness.[5] Necromancers even went as far as taking part in the mutilation and consumption of corpses.[5] Rituals, such as these, could carry on for hours, days, even weeks leading up the summoning of spirits. Often these practices took part in graveyards or in other melancholy venues that suited specific guidelines of the necromancer. Additionally, necromancers preferred summoning the recently departed, citing that their revelations were spoken more clearly; this timeframe usually consisted of 12 months following the death of the body.[6] Once this time period lapsed, necromancers would summon the deceased’s ghostly spirit to appear instead. Although some cultures may have considered the knowledge of the dead to be unlimited, to the ancient Greeks and Romans, there is an indication that individual shades knew only certain things. The apparent value of their counsel may have been a result of things they had known in life, or of knowledge they acquired after death: Ovid writes of a marketplace in the underworld, where the dead could exchange news and gossip.[1][7] There are also many references to necromancers, called "bone-conjurers", in the Bible. The Book of Deuteronomy (XVIII 9–12) explicitly warns the Israelites against the Canaanite practice of divination from the dead: 9When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. 10There shall not be found among you any one who maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or who useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12For all who do these things are an abomination unto the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee (KJV). Caesarius of Arles [8] entreats his audience to put no stock in any demons, or "gods" other than the Christian God, even if the working of spells appears to provide benefit. He states that demons only act with divine permission and are permitted by God to test Christian people. Caesarius does not condemn man here; he only states that the art of necromancy exists, although it is prohibited by the Bible. [edit] Early and High Middle Ages Many medieval writers believed resurrection was impossible without the assistance of the Christian God. They translated the practice of divination as conjuring demons who took the appearance of spirits. The practice became known explicitly as demonic magic and was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.[9] Though the practitioners of necromancy were linked by many common threads, there is no evidence that these necromancers were ever organized as a group. Medieval necromancy is believed to be a synthesis of astral magic derived from Arabic influences and exorcism derived from Christian and Jewish teachings. Arabic influences are evident in rituals that involve moon phases, sun placement, day and time. Fumigation and the act of burying images are also found in both astral magic and necromancy. Christian and Jewish influences are found in the symbols and conjuration formulas used in summoning rituals.[10] Practitioners were often members of the Christian clergy, though some nonclerical practitioners are recorded. In some instances, mere apprentices or those ordained to lower orders dabbled in the practice. They were connected by a belief in the manipulation of spiritual beings, (esp. demons), and magical practices. These practitioners were almost always literate and well educated. Most possessed basic knowledge of exorcism and had access to texts of astrology and demonology. Clerical training was informal and admission to universities was rare. Most were trained under apprenticeships and were expected to have a basic knowledge of Latin, ritual and doctrine. This education was not always linked to spiritual guidance and seminaries were almost nonexistent. This absence allowed some aspiring clerics to combine Christian rites with occult practices despite its condemnation in Christian doctrine.[11] Medieval practitioners believed they could accomplish three things with necromancy: will manipulation, illusions, and knowledge. Will manipulation affects the mind and will of another person, animal, or spirit. Demons are summoned to cause various afflictions on others “to drive them mad, to inflame them to love or hatred, to gain their favor, or to constrain them to do or not do some deed.”[12] Illusions involve reanimation of the dead, food and entertainment, or conjuring a mode of transportation. Knowledge is discovered through demons. Demons provide information on various things including identifying a criminal, finding items, or revealing future events. The act of performing medieval necromancy usually involved magic circles, conjurations, and sacrifices as shown in the Munich Handbook. Circles were usually traced on the ground, though cloth and parchment were sometimes implemented. Various objects, shapes, symbols, and letters may be drawn or placed within that represent a mixture of Christian and occult ideas. Circles were believed to empower and protect what was contained within, including protecting the necromancer from the conjured demons. Conjuration is the method of communicating with the demons to enter the physical world. It usually employs the power of special words and stances to call out the demons and often incorporated the use of Christian prayers or biblical verses. These conjurations may be repeated in succession or repeated to different directions until the summoning is complete. Sacrifice was the payment for summoning. Though it may involve the flesh of a human being or animal, it could sometimes be as simple as offering a certain object. Instructions for obtaining these items were usually specific. The time, location, and method of gathering items for sacrifice could also play an important role in the ritual.[13] The rare confessions of those accused of Necromancy suggest that there was a range of spell casting and the related magical experimentation. It is difficult to determine if these details were due to their practices, as opposed to the whims of their interrogators. John of Salisbury is one of the first examples related by Kieckhefer, but as a Parisian ecclesiastical court record of 1323 shows, a “group who were plotting to invoke the demon Berich from inside a circle made from strips of cat skin,” were obviously participating in the church’s definition of “necromancy”.[14] Herbert Stanley Redgrove claims that necromancy was one of three chief branches of medieval ceremonial magic, the others being black magic and white magic.[15] This does not correspond to contemporary classifications, which use nigromancy and black arts synonymously. [edit] Late Middle Ages to Renaissance [edit] Modern necromancy Because of their themes of spirit contact, the Houdini Seance at Excalibur (nightclub) and the long-running show, Supernatural Chicago advertise their lead performer as "Neil Tobin, Necromancer." An Encyclopedia of Occultism[16] states: The art is of almost universal usage. Considerable difference of opinion exists among modern adepts as to the exact methods to be properly pursued in the necromantic art, and it must be borne in mind the necromancy, which in the Middle Ages was called sorcery, shades into modern spiritualistic practice. There is no doubt, however, that necromancy is the touchstone of occultism, for if, after careful preparation the adept can carry through to a successful issue, the raising of the soul from the other world, he has proved the value of his art. [edit] References Kieckhefer, Richard. (1997). Forbidden Rites. Sutton Publishing.
[hide]v • d • eMethods of divination Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Did Spacemen Colonise the Earth? Robin Collyns 1974 Page 206 "FINIS"
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN Thomas Mann 1924 THE THUNDERBOLT Page 715 "There is our friend, there is Hans Castorp! We recognize him at a distance, by the little beard he assumed 'while sitting at the " bad" Russian table. Like all the others, he is wet through and glowing. He is running, his feet heavy with mould, the bayonet swinging in his, hand. Look! He treads on the hand of a fallen comrade; with his hobnailed boot he treads the hand deep into the slimy, branch-strewn ground. But it is he. What, singing? As one sings, unaware, staring stark ahead, yes, thus. he spends his hurrying breath, to sing half soundlessly: "And loving words I've carven He stumbles, No, he has flung himself down, a hell-hound is coming howling, a huge explosive shell, a disgusting sugar-loaf from the infernal regions. He lies with his face in the cool mire, legs. sprawled out, feet twisted, heels turned down. The product of a perverted science, laden with death, slopes earthward thirty paces in front of him and buries its nose in the ground; explodes inside there, with hideous expense of power, and raises up a fountain high as a house, of mud, fire, iron, molten metal, scattered fragments of humanity. Where it fell, two youths had lain, friends who in their need flung themselves down together - now they are scattered, commingled and gone. "Its waving branches whiispered and thus, in the tumult, in the rain, in the dusk, vanishes out of our sight. FINIS OPERIS
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