Adam and Eve

Adam then breathed in the essence of life,
Born with the earth of his Lord the Creator.
There in his eye was a land in the sun light,
Man was resolved by the rhythm of nature.

Genesis named and inspired the new creatures;
Two at a time did the first stand in line,
Once recognized by the style of their features.
All were made equal for each was divine.

Butterflies formed and then found in the meadow,
Adam in person, the dawning of history.
Then with their wings did the doves of his heir,
Crown him in silence with leaves from a prayer.

In twilight he saw the first stars as he prayed,
Kneeling as one who was yearning for symmetry.
Angels came down to take plots from his dreams:
Beauty and truth inside out; drawn was Eve.

Treasure Hall of the Holy Mists

A steely light darted from this monkey’s eyes and flashed as far as the Palace of the Pole Star. This shaft of light astonished the Jade Emperor as he sat in the Cloud Palace of the Golden Gates, in the Treasure Hall of the Holy Mists, surrounded by his fairy ministers.

Seeing this strange light flashing, he ordered Thousand-league Eye and Down-the-wind Ears to open the gate of the Southern Heaven and look out. At his bidding these two captains went out to the gate and looked so sharply and listened so well that presently they were able to report:

‘This steely light comes from the borders of the small country of Ao-lai, that lies to the east of the Holy Continent, from the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. On this mountain is a magic rock, which gave birth to an egg. This egg changed into a stone monkey, and when he made his bow to the four quarters a steely light flashed from his eyes with a beam that reached the Palace of the Pole Star. But now he is taking a drink, and the light is growing dim.

The Jade Emperor condescended to take an indulgent view. ‘These creatures in the world below,’ he said, ‘ were compounded of the essence of heaven and earth, and nothing that goes on there should surprise us.’

Monkey, Wu Ch’eng-en

Paradiso

The glory of him who moves everything penetrates the universe and shines in one part more and, in another, less.

I have been in the heaven which takes most of his light, and I have seen things which cannot be told, possibly, by anyone who comes down from up there.

Because, approaching the object of its desires, our intellect is so deeply absorbed that memory cannot follow it all the way.

Nevertheless, what I was able to store up of that holy kingdom, in my mind, will now be the matter of my poem.

O you who are in your little boat, anxious to listen, having followed so far behind my ship which puts to sea singing,

Turn back and revisit the shores you have left: Avoid the high seas in case, perhaps, losing me, you should find yourself bewildered.

The water I venture upon has never been sailed: Minerva breathes, Apollo shows the way and the nine muses point to the bears.

You other few, who have stretched up your necks in time to the bread of angels, upon which life is lived here and no one has too much,

You may well put out on the salt deep with your ships, following in my furrow before the water closes up again.

Dante, Paradiso

Philosophers of Nature

I think that with alchemy, or if you start with cabbala, or with a good Hermetic initiatic discipline, you can find your inner path within a very short period of time. It is difficult for the mundane world to understand, but if you don’t take one of these paths, you will “go back up” in millions or billions of years.

What the alchemist, cabbalist, or other hermeticist must try and do is shorten the suffering of humanity. Not through soft-heartedness, to save lives or things like that, in details, but to put humanity back on the path that will allow it to go very rapidly to its own realization. After which, all of the trouble that appears in our material world disappears.

Philosophers of Nature, Jean Dubois

That Spring and that Summer

The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned.

There is, of course, this difference, that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not. We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into cosmic winter, or of going on into those ‘high mid-summer pomps’ in which our leader, the Son of Man, already dwells, and to which He is calling us.

It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter or to go on into that spring and that summer.

C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Gilgamesh and the Scorpion Man

The scorpion man said: “No one is able to cross the Twin Peaks, nor has anyone ever entered the tunnel into which the sun plunges when it sets and moves through the earth. Inside the tunnel there is total darkness: deep is the darkness, with no light at all.”

The scorpion woman said: “This brave man, driven by despair, his body frost-chilled, exhausted, and burnt by the desert sun – show him the way to Utnapishtim.”

The scorpion man said: “Ever downwards through the deep darkness the tunnel leads. All will be pitch black before and behind you, all will be pitch black to either side. You must run through the tunnel faster than the wind. You have just twelve hours. If you don’t emerge from the tunnel before the sun sets and enters, you will find no refuge from its deadly fire. Penetrate the mountains’ depths, may the Twin Peaks lead you safely to your goal, may they safely take you to the edge of the world. The gate to the tunnel lies here before you. Go now in peace, and return in peace.

As the sun was rising, Gilgamesh entered. He began to run. For one hour he ran, deep was the darkness, with no light at all before and behind him and to either side. For a second and a third hour Gilgamesh ran, deep was the darkness with no light at all before and behind him and to either side. For a fourth and a fifth hour Gilgamesh ran, deep was the darkness, with no light at all before and behind him and to either side. For a sixth and a seventh hour Gilgamesh ran, deep was the darkness with no light at all before and behind him and to either side.

At the eighth hour Gilgamesh cried out with fear, deep was the darkness, with no light at all before and behind him and to either side. At the ninth hour he felt a breeze on his face, deep was the darkness, with no light at all before and behind him and to either side. For a tenth and eleventh hour Gilgamesh ran, deep was the darkness, with no light at all before and behind him and to either side. At the twelfth hour he emerged from the tunnel into the light. The sun was hurtling towards the entrance. He had barely escaped.

Before him the garden of the gods appeared, with gem-trees of all colours, dazzling to see. There were trees that grew rubies, trees with lapis lazuli flowers, trees that dangled gigantic coral clusters like dates. Everywhere sparkling on all the branches, were enormous jewels: emeralds, sapphires, hematite, diamonds, carnelians, pearls.. Gilgamesh looked up and marvelled at it.

Gilgamesh

Chaos in the elemental world

When Christ appeared twenty centuries ago, he came for the benefit of humanity. His descent took place vertically in the sphere of human existence. The consciousness of nature, however, is on a horizontal plane. Consequently, the effects of the Mystery of Golgotha are accessible to nature only through human beings.

The world of nature does not experience the being of Christ directly, and, because of this, a certain sense of hopelessness is becoming stronger for nature. We can say that humankind is the destiny of nature; we must bring salvation to the world of nature, because we have the moral connection with the spiritual world. But nature has a dynamic connection with the spiritual world; it must obey the world of spirit.

Nature can experience the warmth that comes from the sun, but not the moral warmth, which can come only from human beings. Unfortunately, this does not happen. Because of this, misfortune occurs again and again in the elemental world.

The Bible mentions the primordial chaos (tohu wa bohu). The Genesis of Modes portrays the earth’s becoming, particularly from the view of the elemental world. At that time, the beings of nature, the animals, were brought before human beings, who gave them names. Through this act, a certain influence proceeded from humankind toward the beings of nature, and this determined their karma; human beings determined nature’s karma.

Chaos is again arriving in the elemental world. It is the duty of humankind to return order into that chaos by using moral powers.

The etheric return of Christ will signal a restoration of hope for nature; it will be a sign of resurrection for nature….Much is taking place, and anyone who is truly paying attention can see this.

Valentin Tomberg, Christ’s return in the etheric

Philosophy of a Lunatic

I feel so close to God, so inspired by His Spirit that in a sense I am God. I see the future, plan the Universe, save mankind; I am utterly and completely immortal; I am even male and female. The whole Universe, animate and inanimate, past, present and future, is within me. All nature and life, all spirits, are co-operating and connected with me; all things are possible. I am in a sense identical with all spirits from God to Satan. I reconcile Good and Evil and create light, darkness, worlds, universes.

John Custance, Wisdom, Madness and Folly: the Philosophy of a Lunatic

He who has found and awakened to the Soul that has entered this conglomerate whole – he is the maker of everything, for he is the creator of all; the world is his: indeed, he is the world itself.

Brhadaranyaka Upanishad

Spiritual megalomania is as old as the world. Its origin is found well beyond the terrestrial world, according to the millennial-old tradition concerning the fall of Lucifer. The prophet Ezekiel gives a most moving description of this:

You were the signet of perfection, you were full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; You were covered with every kind of precious stone: Sardonyx, topaz, and diamond, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, emerald, and gold, with which you were adorned, and which were prepared for you on the day that you were created. You were a guardian Cherubim, with outspread wings; I placed you, and you were, on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of stones of fire…Your heart was proud because of your beauty, You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour. I cast you to the ground, I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you…..

Ezekiel, xxviii, 12-17

Here is the higher (ie, celestial) origin of inflation, superiority complex and megalomania. And since ‘that which is below is as that which is above’, it is repeated below in human earthly life from century to century and generation to generation. It is repeated above all in the lives of those human beings who are detached from the ordinary earthly setting and the state of consciousness belonging to it, and who transcend it, be it in the sense of height, in the sense of breadth, or, lastly, in the sense of depth.

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter VII, The Chariot

The Essence of Initiation

It is in we ourselves that there is to be found the ‘Edenic’ layer, of that of Paradise before the Fall, of which an account is to be found in the book of Genesis of Moses. Do you doubt the essential truth of this account? Descend into the depths of your own soul, descend as far as the roots, to the sources of feeling, will and intelligence – and you will know.

It expresses in symbolic language the first layer (first in the sense of the root of all that is human in human nature) of human psychic life, or its ‘beginning’. Knowledge of the beginning, initium in Latin, is the essence of initiation. Initiation is the conscious experience of the initial microcosmic state (this is the Hermetic initiation), and of the initial macrocosmic stage (this is the Pythagorean initiation).

The first is a conscious descent into the depths of the human being, to the initial layer. Its method is enstasy, ie, experience of the depths at the foundation within oneself. Here one becomes more and more profound until one awakens within oneself to the primordial layer – or the ‘image and likeness of ‘God’ – which is the aim of enstasy. It is above all by means of the sense of spiritual touch that this experience is effected. One can compare it to a chemical experiment undergone on the psychic and spiritual plane.

The second experience – that we have designated ‘Pythagorean’ from a historical point of view – is based above all on the auditory sense or sense of spiritual hearing. It is essentially musical, just as the first is substantial or alchemical. It is by ecstasy – or rapture, or going out of oneself – that the macrocosmic layers (spheres or heavens) reveal themselves to consciousness. Pythagoras’ ‘music of the spheres’ was this experience, and it is this which was the source of the Pythagorean doctrine concerning the musical and mathematical structure of the macrocosm.

Christian esotericism unites these two methods of initiation. The Master had two groups of disciples – ‘disciples of the day’ and ‘disciples of the night’ – the first being disciples of the way of enstasy and the latter those of the way of ecstasy. He also had a third group of disciples ‘of day and night’, ie, those who possess the keys to both doors at once, to the door of ecstasy and that of enstasy. Thus, the apostle, John, author of the Gospel of the Word-made-flesh, was at the same time he who listened to the heart of the Master.

He had a twofold experience – macrocosmic and microcosmic – of the Cosmic World and the Sacred Heart, of which the litany says: Cor Jesu, rex et centrum omnium cordium. It is thanks to this twofold experience that the Gospel which he wrote is at one and the same time so cosmic and so humanly intimate – of such heights and depths simultaneously. There, the macrocosmic solar sphere and the microcosmic solar sphere are united, which explains the singular magic of the Gospel.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter VI, The Lover

Omnipotent One

When we landed, we fell to extolling these master touches of the Creator’s hand, for, indeed, the place was, at it were, born of fragrant musk – so fresh and beautiful and full of all delights not made by man.

Selecting a rare spot on the bank of a stream, I sat apart, meditating upon the wonderful works of the Omnipotent One. There the soft zephyrs singing in the trees, and the stream murmuring at my feet, lulled me to slumber; and when I awoke later, I looked forth upon the sea and lo, the ship was far out on the wall of the ocean sloping to the sky.

They had forgotten me and I was left alone upon the island.

The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor, The Arabian Nights