Life | Alchemical Weddings

Lazurus, come forth!

Jan 222012

The resurrection within Christianity of the Hindu and Buddhist spiritual life, to which the church owes the arising of the whole monastic movement and the founding of religious orders in late antiquity, as not the last event of its kind in churh history.

Others followed according to the law that all truth and love of the past that have timeless values are called back out of the realms of forgetting, sleep and death into the daylight of Christian spiritual life through the call that from age to age reminds, rouses and awakens.

Through this call sounding forth from Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, saying ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ – the most noble and valuable aspects of pagan antiquity were also resurrected.

The Platonic and Aristotelian treasury of thought arose radiant in transfigured form and inspired great spirits of the church to take up the philosophia perennis, in which lay the task of lifting up the chalice of pure human thinking and sacrificial offering to divine revelation.

For this was the essential aim of the scholastics: the raising up of the chalice of crystal clear human thinking upon the altar of Godhead – the Godhead manifesting in divine revelation.

Lazurus, come forth!, Valentin Tomberg

A vestige of this night

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Jan 082012

And to be sure, the Resurrection is a victory, but it is at the same time the emergence out of this night into the world that has no desire to understand.

Once again, the Lord enters into his relationship, not only with the Mother, but also with the disciples, who constantly fail to understand and constantly must be converted anew.

Of course, the Lord now carries the mark of the Resurrection, but the sign of the night remains, and at no time will the Mother forget how it looked beneath the Cross. And John will never recover from it; he is the witness, he knows what he saw.

And the others know at least what they heard about it. All of them carry in themselves a vestige of this night. And the fact that the Lord then ascends into heaven and sends out the Spirit and makes the disciples into true apostles, who are permitted to die as martyrs in the manner established by God, does not free them from the fact that the Son died on the Cross for them, it does not free them from this night and from the contemplation of this night.

They remain – and every believer and person at prayer remains – encompassed by the night, by a world that is not of this world, by a fulfillment that goes beyond any promise, by a mystery that does not belong to them, but to God alone.

Since the Son is both God and man at once, the contemplation of his essence and life can move in both spheres; but it must always pass from one over into the other. Neither sphere may be cut short on account of the other.

Adrienne von Speyr, Light and Images

Birdsong

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Dec 192011

The world is full of implicit religion, and the inspired saints and poets, who say that the birds ‘praise God’ when they sing, are in no way mistaken.

Because it is in their tiny life itself which sings the ‘great life’ and makes heard, through its countelss variations, the same news which is as old as the world and new as the day: “Life lives and vibrates in me”.

What homage to the source of life is expressed by these small streams of life: the birds which sing!

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XI, Force

The Divine Matrix

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Dec 102011

While we speak to the Divine Matrix through the language of feeling and belief, previous chapters also describe how the Matrix answers us through the events of our lives.

In this dialogue, our deepest beliefs become the blueprint for everything that we experience. From the peace in our world to the healing in our bodies, from all our relationships and romances to the careers we pursue, our conversation with the world is constant and never ending.

Because it doesn’t stop, it’s impossible for us to ever be passive observers on the sidelines of life…if we’re conscious, by definition, we’re creating.

Sometimes the dialogue is subtle and sometimes not. Regardlesss of the degree of subtlety, however, life in a reflected universe promises that from our challenges to our joys, the world is nothing more – or less – than the Matrix mirroring our deepest and truest beliefs.

And this includes our intimate relationships. Although they present honest reflections, sometimes the mirrors we see of ourselves in other people can be the most difficult ones to accept. They can also be the fast track to our greatest healing.

Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix

Memory

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Nov 122011

Let us consider the domain of forgetting and remembering – the memory.

Memory is magic, in the subjective domain, which effects the evocation of things from the past. It renders past things present. Just as a sorcerer or necromancer evokes the spirits of the dead by making them appear, so does the memory evoke things of the past and make them appear to our inner mental vision.

The present remembrance is the result of the magical operation in the subjective domain, where one has succeeded in evoking from the black void of forgetfulness a living image from the past.

A living image from the past….imprint? symbol? copy? phantom? It is all of these at once. It is an imprint in so far as it makes use f my imagination to represent a reality which goes beyond its imaginary representation; it is a copy in so far as it only aims at reproducing the original from the past; it is a phantom in so far as it is an apparition from the black abyss of forgetfulness and in so far as it recalls to life the past in making it present to my inner vision.

What is the force at work in the subjective magical operation of remembering? There are four types of memory that one experiences: mechanical or automatic memory, logical memory, moral memory and vertical or revelatory memory.

Vertical or revelatory memory is not a memory of the past in the sense of the horizontal line: today, yesterday, the day before, but rather in the sense of the vertical line: here, higher, still higher. It is a ‘memory’ which does not link the present to the past on the plane of physical, psychic and intellectual life, but which links the plane of ordinary consciousness to planes or states of consciousness higher than that of ordinary consciousness to planes or states of consciousness higher than that of ordinary consciousness.

It is the faculty of the lower self to reproduce the experience and knowledge of the higher self or, if you like, the faculty of the higher self to imprint its experience and knowledge upon the consciousness of the lower self. It is the link between the higher eye and the lower eye, which renders us authentically religious and wise, and immune to the assaults of sceptism, materialism and determinism.

It is also this which is the source of certainty, not only of God and the spiritual world with its hierarchical entities but also of the immortality of our being and reincarnation, wherever it is a matter of reincarnation. “Dawn is the friend of the muses” and similar proverbs relate to the benefits of vertical memory form which one benefits in the morning, after the return of consiousness from the plane of “natural ecstasy” or sleep.

Meditations on the Tarot, Unknown Author, Letter XIII, Death

Rainbow

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Nov 092011

It was clear from the start that the work was more brilliant than any other I had encountered and as the story unfolded I drank it in like nectar, the most sublime poem that had ever been written. I tried to commit the piece to memory but so perfect was the arrangement of words that my mind could barely comprehend their beauty, let alone learn them completely. Only one word would I remember, and this stood out as clearly as the others eluded me:

Rainbow

This is the only thing that I remembered for sure from what I read, that an early or integral part of it was of a rainbow, sign of God’s covenant with the Earth. But if the words were veiled, the meaning of the writing was evident at once.

I held in my hands the most heart-breaking love story that had ever been written by one (a male) for the other, at one and the same time human and divine, natural and supernatural. The character of the author was laid bare by the words but the object of his love seemed to have been absent from his existence for an eternity, or no longer present, except as a memory or product of the imagination. A tale of lost or unrequited love.

In this tale I beheld the power of love, as if tears that sprang from a broken heart had fallen from the eyes of the beholder and transformed themselves directly into words on a page. This was a passion so great that I wonder how I even bore witness to the fruit of its longing, beauty and sorrow combined with infinity and sown as a microcosm of nature.

So deep was this love that from the pain had been born the work of creation, which encompassed the whole of nature and found fragile first expression in the rainbow, wherein may be seen the depth of love as a blend of enlightenment and tears.

As I read on, enthralled and governed by the power of these words, they were seamlessly transformed into a pictorial continuation of the scene being described. I was completely taken up with what I saw, which seemed to satisfy every yearning for understanding within myself, even though the complete meaning was beyond my realm of knowledge.

I found myself in the outer limit of deep space, truly the middle of nowhere, suspended by the unseen force that was author of the magical words I had just been reading. Below me I saw planets, but mostly was aware of simply the infinitude of space – the infinity he had to cross in order to reach her. Where had she gone and why – was she lost, had she run, did she die – what terrible catastrophe had befallen them to rend asunder the love that created the universe.

The whole of this space was the filled with the hymn of God to his lost love and my gaze was fixed on this impossible expanse of nothing, the overwhelming sorrow that was wholly without end; how I arrived there I shall never know.

When I became conscious of his mission – his determination against all odds to find her – the scene at once changed and I found my self upon the ground, but not within my room. I saw green fields appearing in front of me as if I were standing at the edge of a botanic kingdom. At the centre of this world was the largest and most wonderful tree I had ever seen. Could this have been the tree of life, I wondered, or the tree of knowledge of good and evil, perhaps?

Writing on the Walls

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Nov 092011

I saw no more through that window and moved through the door into my room. It was then that I saw the writing on the walls. I had never before been given cause to think about the writing on the walls until this time.

The room was its usual shape with all the regular features firmly in place, including my own empty body on the bed, wearing a light blue sweatshirt. I saw my body just out of the corner of my eye and did not study it too closely lest I became frightened by the sight of myself. In any case, the bedroom walls presented me with something far more fascinating than my sleeping self ever could.

I might have been anywhere at any time as I watched the multi-coloured words began to form and multiply, so rapidly that in an instant it seemed that every surface was covered. I discerned again the rainbow, literally because of the myriad colours displayed in the writing. The subject was again one of love and love’s longing for paradise. The only word, in fact, was Love, repeated over and again on every plane.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

All of history contains tragedy in proportion to joy. I was overwhelmed and found myself lying on the bed in the position I had left my body in. I turned my head to look at the mirror hanging over the radiator, which had somehow transformed itself into a window, through which I could see into another window in another house.

I was fully aware that this change in my usual surroundings had taken place and, whilst unafraid, I was perplexed. I saw two middle-aged women who appeared to be washing clothes, both wearing dark dresses and with dark hair tied up into top-knots, like widows. They were looking in through my window at the place where I lay, talking about somebody who seemed to be me but was actually this man.

They spoke of this man who lay (or had lain) on the bed in the room, and discussed his sadness to themselves as if he were dead. I realised that my astral projection, vision, dream, whatever it might have been, was losing coherence, and I regained ordinary consciousness a second later.

When I opened my eyes I was instantly alert and stretched my body in satisfaction. I felt a strong sense of physical wellbeing, as if I had been to a spa for the afternoon. I felt that I had never understood love until that moment. I felt like I had made it through to another stage and, for the first time, acknowledged that I might have been loved myself, if only I could have seen another beyond myself.

It is not necessary to feel completely alone in pain. When you suffer and feel sadness in your heart, in truth you are engulfed by the wings of a guardian angel who shall seek on your behalf the dawning of a brighter day that you may return to the land of living.

It is surely the case that half of the world is shedding a tear at this moment, as the rain falls according to the season, be it a tear felt on the inside or a drop from the edge of a blinking eye. In every such tear is contained the soul of love and though you might ask to be raised up fully from the depths of your sorrow, it is there that you are closest to the love of your life, who is ever upon the Earth beneath your feet, though you might seek him in the pinnacles of the sky.

Knowledge of the Powers of the Netherworld

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Oct 212011

Since the time of Descartes, the brain has been considered the source of thought and feeling, but always some people have refused to accept this view. D H Lawrence expressed this reluctance as follows:

Man is a creature that thinks with his blood: the heart dwelling in a sea of blood that flows through the body always in two inverse tides is where chiefly lies what men call thought.

And to quote Norbert Wiener, one of the originators of cybernetics:

Messages which cause conditional or associative learning are carried by the slow but pervasive influence of the blood stream. The blood carries in it substances which alter nervous action directly or indirectly.

Compare now these ultramodern theories with the view expressed by a Memphite physician over 4,500 years ago.

The seeing of the eyes and the breathing of the nose bring messages to the heart. The seeing of the eyes and the hearing of the ears and the breathing of the nose bring messages to the heart. It is the heart which causes all decisions to be made, but it is the tongue which reports what the heart has thought. Thus is all action, whether simple or complex, carried out. The manipulation of the hands, the movement of the legs and the functioning of every limb. All is in accord with the command which the heart has devised and which has appeared on the tongue. Thus is determined the specific nature of everything.

These few ancient phrases summarise extraordinarily accurately the concept of mind-body relationship and its role in evolution which our contemporary behaviourist biologists are now struggling to formulate.

Egypt symbolised [the] vision of life energies driven by a symphonic celestial tuning in its well-known texts concerning the twelve divisions or hours of the day and night and of the Dwat, commonly called the Netherworld, or the world of transformations, in which transformations are depicted occurring everywhere – in food, flesh, energy, mind and spirit.

The Dwat is the inner region of transformation beneath or within appearances….The introductory text of the Book of What is in the Dwat, which is divided into twelve chapters, corresponding to the twelve hours of the night reads:

This is the knowledge of the powers of the Netherworld. This is the knowledge of their effects, knowledge of their sacred rhythms [or ritual]. To Re [the Solar Deity], carrier of the knowledge of the mysterious power [or unconscious drive], knowledge of what is contained in the hours as well as in their Gods…[concluding]…O Flesh, who belongest to Sky, but who liveth on earth, O Flesh, Glory to thee. Come Re in the form of the Living One, breath through me here in the Netherworld of the Hours…Transverse the field [or region], O Protector of the body. He shines, the great Light-giver Re drives away darkness.

Here we encounter a blending of physiology with cosmology, the transformative living field of the body expanded into a vision of cosmic transformation. Rhythms set forth in galactical space, passing through hereditary levels, are transmuted into rhythms of incarnate life and mind.

Robert Lawlor, Ancient Temple Architecture, Rediscovering Sacred Science, edited by Christoper Bamford

In this Seraphic vision

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Oct 192011

Know, dearest friar, that when I was on Mount Alverna, all rapt in the contemplation of the Passion of Christ, in this Seraphic vision I was by Christ thus stigmatised in my body; and then Christ said to me:

“Knowest thou what I have done to thee? I have given thee the marks of my Passion in order that thou mayst be My standard-bearer. And even I, on the day of My death, descended into limbo and drew thence all the souls I found therein, by virtue of my stigmatas, and led them up to paradise, so do I grant thee from this hour (that thou mayst be conformed to Me in thy death as thou has been in thy life) that after thou has passed from this life thou shalt go every year, on the day of thy death, to purgatory, and shalt deliver all the souls thou shalt find there of thy three Orders, to with, Minors, Sisters, and Penitents, and likewise the souls of thy devoted followers, and this, in virtue of thy stigmatas that I have given thee; and thou shalt lead them to paradise.”

And those words I told not while I lived in the world.

[This said, St Francis suddenly disappeared]

The Little Flowers of St Francis

IO PITAR

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Sep 172011

What is Jupiter? Jupiter is found in Roman, Greek, Latin mythology. Greek = Zeus, Roman = Jupiter, Latin = Io PITAR

IO was, is and will always be, the symbol of the two polarities. I = positive masculine force, O = feminine force. These two forces in combination create. IO is always related with androgyny. Andros (Greek) = man, Genica = woman.

We are not talking about the male of feminine physical body, but talking about polarities. IO means male of female forces out of form. IO is the Divine Androgyny. PITAR, the Pitaras, is related to parents.

In this case it is the forces that create; therefore they are called parents, not man and woman, but male and female forces. Divinity has no form but is the symbol of the parents or God, who is both female and male energies.

Jupiter is the Father of the Gods – referring to the first couple, the forces that created the universe, the representation of God in each one of us. In Kabbalah, we find the word Jehovah, which is again Androgynous. Iod Heve = IO = Male and Feminine aspects of Divinity. Jehovah Elohim is also the God of Gods, and is the origin of life – he made man and made him male -female in his own image.

The first man created was also androgynous. Adam was not a physical being with masculine sexual organs, but was androgynous, with both sexual polarities at the same time. Jupiter is the superior part that is above the Spirit. Our own Spirit emanated from Iod-Heve, Jehovah, Jupiter, IO PITAR.

Jupiter is in Christianity the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is also an androgynous force – meaning that it polarises itself into masculine and feminine. The forces of the Holy Spirit, when descending from above to the physical plane, express themselves through the sexual organs of all the human beings, all the animals, all the plants, all the minerals.

So these forces of the Holy Spirit are everywhere – everywhere is light and life. The Holy Spirit is called the Giver of Light an Life. Kabbalah in Christianity: the Sacred Family – Joseph, Mary and Jesus. These are also related with Initiation. In the word Joseph with find – IO – and Cephas (stone).

And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jonah: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone. John 1.42

this stone is the Philosophical Stone of Yesod, it is the Ninth Sphere of the Tree of Life. This stone is the sexual organs. When we say IO – SEPHAS, we say “the power of IO in the Stone” – this is Joseph. Mary – Miriam – but esoterically we say RAM-IO, is the symbol of the feminine aspect of the Holy Spirit. This is represented in woman.

This is how the pentagram is being born in each one of us. When it is the right way up, it represents Jesus, because Jesus is the perfect man. The perfect man is written with five letters – the Pentagrammaton. This is the Sacred Family in relation to Divinity, in relation to Jupiter. Therefore, all Solar Initiates are children of IO-PATAR, IO-PETER, IO-Piter, the forces of IO within the Stone of Yesod.

The World of the Klipoth, Samael Aun Weor