The role of sacred magic in the world

The throne on which the Empress is seated represents, as we have said, the role of sacred magic in the world. It is its place in the world and in the history of the world; it is, lastly, its basis. In other words, it is that which attends it, desires it and is always ready to receive it. What is this?

In view of the liberating function of sacred magic, it is all that which is deprived of liberty and is bound by necessity. Concerning this, St Paul says:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it to hope; because the creation itself will be set free fro its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans viii, 19-23)

It is therefore the mineral, plant animal and human realms of Nature – in a word, Nature it its entirety – which constitutes the domain of sacred magic. The reason for the existence of sacred magic stems from the Fall and the whole domain of the Fall – comprising fallen Nature, fallen man and the fallen hierarchies. These are the beings belonging to it who hope ‘with eager longing’ to be ‘set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.’

How does sacred magic operate towards this end? How, for example, does it deliver man?

The throne of the Empress has a back. It strongly resembles two wings, so that certain interpreters of the Tarot have seen the Empress as being winged. Others, however, see only a back. In view of the context of the card, the meaning of the coat-of-arms bearing the eagle, the sceptre surmounted by the cross, and the two-layered crown, could one not see the back here in the form of two petrified and immobilised wings, but which had once been genuine wings and which are again potentially so?

If this interpretation is accepted, not only would it reconcile the two apparently opposing points of view but also it would agree with all that the card teaches about the sphere, the aim, the power and the legitimacy of sacred magic. To give movement to the petrified wings…would this not be in accord with the liberating mission of sacred magic and with the words of St Paul?

Meditations on the Tarot, Letter III, The Empress

Jundi-Shapur

The Catholic Church, strongly influenced by the remains of the impulse emanating from Jundi-Shapur, decreed as a dogma at the Eighth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in AD 869 that men were not to believe in the spirit. … This was because the Church did not desire that everybody should be enlightened about the Mystery of Golgotha, but that it should be kept hidden. In the year AD 869, belief in the spirit was abolished by the Catholic Church.

The dogma then decreed was to the effect that men must not believe in man as spirit, but only as body and soul, the soul possessing certain spiritual qualities. Thus the truth that man is a being of body, soul and spirit was abolished by the Catholic Church, acting directly under the influence of the impulse of Jundi-Shapur. History often presents a different spectacle from the one in which it is presented for the ordinary use of those whom one party or another would like to control.

Through the Mystery of Golgotha, however, man was related more closely to the spirit. Consequently there are two forces in him: the force whereby in his soul he is allied to death, and the force which liberates him from death and leads him inwardly to the spirit.

When we can experience powerlessness and recovery from it, the benediction of actual relationship with Christ Jesus is vouchsafed to us. For this experience is the recovery of what we experienced in the spiritual world hundreds of years before our birth. We must seek here, on the physical plane, for its mirror-image in the soul. Seek within yourselves and you will discover the powerlessness! Seek, and you will find, after the experience of powerlessness, the redemption from it, the resurrection of the soul to the spirit….

The Christ experience does not consist of the unitary realisation of the Divine, but of the twofold experience of the death in the soul wrought by the body and the resurrection of the soul wrought by the spirit. A man who can say that he feels not only the Divine within him — as mystical theosophists eloquently assert — but can speak of the two experiences — of powerlessness and the resurrection from it — such a man is speaking of the true Christ experience

Rudolf Steiner, How do I find the Christ

The Anointed

God’s will to behold God in the mirror of the Universe sustains existence from the beginning to the end of time. Everything is brought into being for this reason; the history of mankind and the life of each individual are part of this purpose.

Some events, like those in our story, mark a turning point in the world’s evolution, as well as a man’s fulfillment of his destiny. In such moments Divinity sees its own image in a perfected Adam, as the Anointed One of that time reflects the Divine.

The Anointed, Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi

Ecstasy and Enstasy

One can no longer deny the fact that, in the psychic domain, nothing dies and that the whole past lives present in the diverse layers of the depths of consciousness – the ‘unconscious’ or subconsciousness – of the soul….

…For this reason nothing perishes and nothing is lost in the domain of the psyche; essential history, ie real joy and suffering, real religions and revelations of the past, continue to live in us, and it is in we ourselves that the key to the essential history of mankind is to be found.

It is in we ourselves that there is to be found the ‘Edenic’ layer, or that of paradise and 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.

You will know, ie, you will have certainty that the Biblical narrative is true in the most profound and authentic sense of the word – in the sense that you must deny yourself, deny the witness of the inner structure of your own soul, in order to be able to doubt the intrinsic truth of Moses’ account.

The descent into the depths of your own soul in meditating upon the account of paradise in Genesis will render you incapable of doubt. Such is the nature of the certainty that one can have here….

….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’. Now, 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 state (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 awaens within oneself 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 enstasy is effected. one can compare it to a chemical experiment undergone on the psychic and spiritual plane.

The second initiation experience – that we have designated ‘Pythagorean’ from a historial 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.

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

One Golden Glance

I tarried not to tie my sandal shoe, but haste, post haste, through air my winged chariot flew

The Led display of the mobile phone revealed that it was almost one. She listened intently to the voice that came into her room via the radio. A drama was set to unfold, of that she could be sure; it seemed as if a kind of magic was taking place.

A gust of wind blew the window open with a bang and she jumped violently, shaken from her reverie by the sudden noise and rush of cool air. As he silently slipped inside she searched in vain the indigo space he left behind him. A magnificent aura had filled the room, sparkling like a billion shimmering flecks of silvery gold dust.

He watched while she turned her head north and south, seeking what – or whomsoever – had disturbed the rose-scented ether.

One golden glance of what should be.

She knew she was no longer alone, for a profound change had occurred in the atmosphere. Lush, electronic sounds swelled like waves and swept through her body and soul, as a deep history of time unfolded in his fathomless mind.

She was wearing gold-coloured sandals – shoes that were a gift from her father – and a midnight blue dress. Around her wrist was a bracelet full of charms and with his bright, ancient eyes, he saw that the necklace at her throat was made from the stuff of magic; a gift from her mystery-loving mother.

He had challenged the doors of time to reach her and the wait had seemed an eternity. 2,611 years had passed since she had been this close to him. On that occasion the moon had been perfectly halved by the shadow of the Earth. Jupiter, then, was at the same point in its orbit as it would be in precisely three and a half hours, that self-same night.

The Love Inflection

Starlight is the love inflection; Flame, Air, Water, Earth, Reflection

The setting sun saw the Master facing East in a seemingly effortless but distinctly prayerful posture; calling the Earth to witness. In time the Moon rose and Venus emerged triumphant like a diamond on its band of gold.

Looking up at the sky, the Master saw how the quintessential force of the evening star was thrown into relief by the glowing pharos of Mars, silently beckoning his paramour as he bequeathed to her the dark and endless night. The imperator of war was in a state of surrender at the temple of beauty, but he also had a message to impart:

Here in orbit turn the star-lings – planets binding, suns inclining – in such ways that whole dimensions fold inside the vaults of Heaven.

The Master wondered about the possible effects of Mars’ conjunction with Venus, pouring out onto Earth the magnified force of a sublime alchemical wedding.

This compelling planetary event was irresistibly conspiring with the imminent precession of the equinoxes to create the most potent cosmic conditions that had ever been witnessed from Earth; at least since the Star of the Magi had heralded the turning point of history. Or so it seemed.

How could the signs at this time be ignored? Thought the Master. The answer was that they could not! That the divine plan might remain unfulfilled was inconceivable, but how, precisely, it would manifest was nonetheless a mystery of Mysteries.

When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with Wisdom.

Secret Silver Soul

Air, Ancient, Apollo

Beauty, Cosmic, Dawn

Divine, Earth, Fire

God, Gold, Heart

Heaven, History, Human

Joy, King, Knowledge

Life, Light, Love

Magic, Meditations, Mind

Moon, Mystery, Nature

Orion, Power, Reason

Secret, Silver, Soul

Spirit, Star, Sun

Time, Truth, Vision

Water, Wisdom, World

Alchemical Weddings

The Last Judgement

The last judgement will be the last crisis. The Greek word for judgement is krisis, ie, crisis. Friedrich Schiller said rightly that “the history of the world is the judgement of the world”, ie, it is a continual crisis, the states of which are “historical epochs”.

The last judgement will therefore be the culminating point of history. It will be simultaneously the aim, the meaning and the summary of crises of history. For this reason Jesus Christ, who is the moral and spiritual centre of gravity of history, will be present there. The second coming will be the objective manifestation of the stake of history.

In this sense Jesus Christ will be the “judge” at the last judgement. His presence alone will set in relief all that which is not like him, all that which is incompatible with him for the awakened conscience.

But he will not restrict himself to being present; he will participate in the last judgement and will take an active part, namely that of judge. But he will judge in his own way: he will not accuse, he will not condemn, and he will not impose punishments – rather, he will give forces to souls undergoing the trial that the awakening of conscience and complete memory entail.

Christ’s judgement is the comforting of those who judge themselves and his eternal commandment addressed to those who judge others is: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone…”(John viii, 7). It is thus that Jesus Christ judged during his life, thus that he judges now, and thus that he will judge at the last judgement.

Meditations on the Tarot, Unknown Author, Letter XX, The Judgement

Dwellings of the Philosophers

“I do not remember if I spoke to him first”, says the great Initiate, “or if he was the one who questioned me; but I have a very fresh memory, as if I were still hearing hem, of how he talked to me for three long hours in a language which I know I had never heard and which bears no relationship with any language of this world, but which I understand more quickly and more intelligibly than that of my wet nurse.

He explained to me, when I inquired about such a marvelous thing, that in sciences there was a truth, beyond which we always found ourselves away from simplicity, and that the more an idiom strayed from this truth the more it went below our conception and became more difficult to understand.

Similarly”, he continued, “in music this truth is never encountered without our soul, immediately elevated, blindly going for it. We don’t see it but we sense that Nature sees it; without being able to understand how it absorbs us, it cannot but delight us, although we cannot know where it is.

And it is the same thing with languages. Whoever encounters this truth of letters, of words, and of continuity can never, while expressing himself, fall below conception: his speech is always equal to his thoughts; and because you do not have knowledge of this perfect language, you do not know what to say, not knowing the order or the words which could express what you imagine”.

I told him that the first man of our world indubitably used this language, since each name that he imposed on each thing declared its essence. He interrupted me and continued: “This language is not simply necessary to express everything that the mind conceives, but without it we cannot be understood by all. Since this idiom is the instinct or the voice of
Nature, it must be understandable by everything that lives in the midst of Nature.

This is why, if you knew it, you could communicate and disclose all your thoughts to animals, and animals to you all of theirs, because it is the very language of Nature by which
she makes herself understood by all animals. Therefore be no longer surprised by the ease with which you understand the meaning of a language which your ears have never heard.

When I speak, your soul encounters, with each one of my words, the Truth that is gropingly looking for; and although its reason does not understand it, it has within it a nature which cannot but understand it”.

However, this secret, universal, indefinite language, in spite of the importance and the truth of its expression, is in reality of Greek origin and genius, as our author teaches us in
his History of the Birds. He has some very old oak trees speak— an allusion to the language which the Druids used in this manner:

“Think of the oak trees which we feel you are looking at: it is we who are speaking to you, and if you are astonished that we speak the language used in the world whence you come, know that our first fathers are natives of it. They lived in Epire, in the forest of Dodona, where their natural goodness moved them to give oracles to the afflicted people who consulted them. For this purpose, they had learned the Greek language, the most universal then in existence, so as to be understood”

Fulcanelli, Dwellings of the Philosophers

Whatever hasn’t happened will happen

‘Truth never prevails’, said Planck, ‘but her adversaries always perish in the end.’ And Einstein: ‘I do not believe in education. Your only model ought to be yourself, however frightful that model may be.’ But the struggles these men were engaged in had nothing to do with the Earth and its history, or with day-to-day happenings.

They felt themselves responsible only to truth. And yet political events overtook them. Planck’s son was assassinated by the Gestapo, Einstein driven into exile. The present generation, everywhere and in all circumstances, is made aware that the scientist is closely connected with world affairs. Almost all useful knowledge is concentrated in his hands, and very soon all power will be too.

He is the key figure in the adventure on which humanity has embarked. Enmeshed by politics, harassed by the police and information services, supervised by the military, he has about an equal chance of ending his career with the Nobel Prize or facing a firing squad. At the same time his work leads him to scorn the trivialities of the individual and the particular, and enables him to think on a planetary, even cosmic level.

Between his own power and the powers that be there is a misunderstanding. Only an arrant coward could hesitate between the risk he runs himself and the risks to which he exposes the world. Kurchatov broke the seal of silence and revealed what he knew to British physicists at Harwell. Pontecorvo fled Russia to carry on his work there. Oppenheimer got into trouble with his Government.

The American atomic scientists took sides against the army and published their extraordinary bulletin: The cover drawing represented a clock whose hands move towards midnight every time some formidable experiment or discovery falls into the hands of the military.

‘This is my prediction for the future‘, wrote the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane: ‘whatever hasn’t happened will happen! And no one will be safe from it!‘

Matter liberates its energy, and the way to the planets is open. Events such as these seem to be unprecedented in history. ‘We are living at a time when history is holding its breath, and the present is detaching itself from the past like an iceberg that has broken away from its icy moorings to sail across the boundless ocean.’ (Arthur Clarke, The Children of Icarus).

The Morning of the Magicians, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier