Wheels of Time

‘Then discern the Gods, Goddesses
That the one so named, ‘Orion,’
Calls to mind his ancient history,
Sees the wheels of time that move on.

‘‘Here’s the truth.’ He thinks in silence:
‘Now I comprehend my story.
Memories of the tears of Isis
Come and thus reveal my glory.

‘‘More than all the Gods of Greece
Could muster. Pales the golden fleece;
And yet that rogue – the Lord of tricks –
Has caught me in a spell of Nyx.

‘‘Something must rejoin the fragments
Here in time of Egypt’s ruler.
He’ll release the captured psyche
With a force that’s unifying.’

Redefines the world’s whole history

‘As he has this reawakening
Lord Apollo calls Prince Hermes,
Guardian over endless journeys,
He who made the turtle-lyre sing.

‘Whispers he to Hermes: “Good friend,
“Tell Orion wisdom stories.
Sow in him some inner vision,
Else, I fear, he could get boring.”

‘Smoother than a bust of marble
Is the Prince’s arching eyebrow.
He, the son of Maia, whispers,
“Dear Apollo, you must stop now.

‘“Sun-God, where’s your measured reason,
Has it burned your brains to ashes?
This is sport outside the season.
See his eye; the lightening flashes.

‘“Give him peace or fear tomorrow.”
Warns wise Hermes, eyes ablazing,
“You shall bring the Greeks such sorrow,
Should Osiris’ ire be wakened.

‘“I must pit my wits against him,
Lest the one that’s everlasting
Redefines the world’s whole history,
Buries all our memories deeply.”

The Code’s Appliance

‘‘That’s the good news – more may follow –
But for now, this pill you’ll swallow:
Floods are overdue, I’m thinking;
All of Egypt’s hardly drinking.

‘‘Let there be a great disaster,
Something of a future mystery,
Just to show I’m Lord and Master,
Godly King of timeless history.

‘‘Thinks me now, it’s time to end the
Wider ocean realm. Atlantic
Trading ceases now and Cretans –
I have deemed – are sacrificial.

‘All the learned priests, however,
Those who keep the sacred science,
They’ll escape, I think, to Egypt,
Therein teach the code’s appliance.

‘‘See, vain Greeks, the Mother Isis,
She who yields the greatest brightness,
Guarded now by this, the dog-star;
Point on which to ponder, Priestess.

‘‘Look into the West, fair brothers,
See the setting sun of Horus,
Eye of Falcon prince – the symbol
Once of Ra – who’s ever-watchful.

‘‘Lo, behold, the East, fair sisters,
See the golden calf of Horus,
Which, by noon, shall wax enormous,
Such a bull to beat all others.

‘‘That, you’ll find – beloved Hermes,
He who dared through time to journey –
Should be just enough to conquer
Taurus and those other monsters.’

Moon Queen

‘‘Then the maidens – those with honour –
Artemis in love, Selene,
Keep thee near the world as Moon Queen,
Govern tides and turn. Athena

‘You shall take the name, Minerva,
Teach the legions with your learning;
Help the Romans conquer Hellas,
Thereby, still be known as Pallas.

‘Hestia, keep your honoured status,
May the Earth exalt your greatness.
You, Demeter, shall be Ceres
Governing over every season.

Zeus who radiates with lightening,
Thunderbolts so freely striking,
Then be Jove with circles binding –
Halos – rings of dust surrounding.

Though I shan’t recall the priestess,
She who kept the gold-leaf mystery,
Shroud the oracle of Delphi
With the endless veil of history.

Time Atomic

‘Then her great, beloved brother
Smiled a little, charmed sweet Isis.
‘Sister, bride, my only lover,
Let this not be made a crisis’.

‘‘Let the depths of Dionysus
Hidden stay; and so his mystery
Shall become a sign of our love
So he shall preserve our History.

‘‘All who preach the resurrection,
All who speak of life, eternal,
All who walk in love’s reflection,
They shall keep the faith, diurnal.

‘‘Orpheus shall keep with thee
A vision of the deepest mystery.
As we’ll share the vine shall Bacchus
Pass the knowledge down through history.’

Looking through the space for Hermes,

Author of a timeless vision,

King of Egypt clicks his fingers,

ummons then a great revision:

‘‘Thoth the Ancient – Time Atomic –
Step beyond the cloak of Hades.
You have made a greater promise;
Once, upon a time, you made it.

‘Show me now the emerald shining
Deep within your mind – your greatness –
Show my wife the sacred Ibis,
Let us all forget our lateness.’

Hermes gives himself a second
And a third, so time is taken –
Rather than make haste, unreckoned –
Pauses while the epochs waken.

The Fairy Ship Sails Upstream

It is not the purpose of this book to trace the subsequent history of Christianity, especially the later history of Christianity; which involves controversies of which I hope to write more fully elsewhere. It is devoted only to the suggestion that Christianity, appearing amid heathen humanity, had all the character of a unique thing and even of a supernatural thing. It was not like any of the other things; and the more we study it the less it looks like any of them

I have said that Asia and the ancient world had an air of being too old to die. Christendom has had the very opposite fate. Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave. It is so true that three or four times at least in the history of Christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of Christianity; and almost every man in his heart expected its end.

The Church in the West was not in a world where things were too old to die; but in one in which they were always young enough to get killed

At least five times, with the Arian and the Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died. How complete was the collapse and how strange the reversal, we cars only see in detail in the case nearest to our own time.

A thousand things have been said about the Oxford Movement and the parallel French Catholic revival; but few have made us feel the simplest fact about it; that it was a surprise. It was a puzzle as well as a surprise; because it seemed to most people like a river turning backwards from the sea and trying to climb back into the mountains.

In short, the whole world being divided about whether the stream was going slower or faster, became conscious of something vague but vast that was going against the stream. Both in fact and figure there is something deeply disturbing about this, and that for an essential reason. A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. A dead dog can be lifted on the leaping water with all the swiftness of a leaping hound; but only a live dog can swim backwards. A paper boat can ride the rising deluge with all the airy arrogance of a fairy ship; but if the fairy ship sails upstream it is really rowed by the fairies.

G K Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, The Five Deaths of the Faith

Walking on Water

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea rose because a strong wind was blowing.

When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened, but he said to them: It is I; do not be afraid. (John vi, 16-20).

And Peter answered him: Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water. He said: Come! So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out: Lord, save me! Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying: O man of little faith, why did you doubt? (Matthew xiv, 28-31).

Jesus Christ walking on water reveals still another mystery than that of the sun of the spiritual world, the centre of celestial gravitation. For not only did he stand on the water – which would suffice to reveal and demonstrate this truth – but he also walked on the water, ie, he moved in a quite definite direction in the horizontal sense. He walked towards the boat where his disciples rowed.

There, in his walking towards the boat, it is already contained in germ – essentially revealing it – his whole work, temporal and eternal, ie, his sacrifice, his resurrection, and all that is implied in his promise: “Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the world: (Matthew xxviii, 20).

The boat with his disciples is, therefore, and will be until the end of the world, the aim of the I am walking on the water. His enstasy, his profound centreing in himself, does not distance him from the navigation of the agitated sea of history and evolution, and does not make him disappear into the other sea – the calm sea of nirvana – but rather, on the contrary, it entails that he walks, until the end of the world, after the boat with this disciples.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XII, The Hanged Man

Synchronicity

Naturally every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all the previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned!

It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history. This melancholy fact will present us with the greatest difficulties as soon as we set about collecting empirical material that would throw a little light on this dark subject, for we shall we quite certain to find it where all the authorities have assured us that nothing is to be found.

Reports of remarkable isolated cases, however well authenticated, are unprofitable and lead at most to their reporter being regarded as a credulous person. Even the careful recording and verification of a large number of such cases, as in the work of Gurny, Myers, and Podmore, have made next to no impression on the scientific world. The great majority of “professional” psychologists and psychiatrists seem to be completely ignorant of their researches.

The results of ESP and PK experiments have provided a statistical basis for evaluating the phenomenon of synchronicity and have at the same time pointed out the important part played by the psychic factor. This fact prompted me to ask whether it would not be possible to find a method which would on the one hand demonstrate the existence of synchronicity and, on the other hand, disclose psychic contents which would at least give us a clue to the nature of the psychic factor involved.

I asked myself, in other words, whether there were not a method which would yield measurable results and at the same time give us an insight into the psychic background of synchronicity. That there are certain essential psychic conditions for synchronistic phenomena we have already seen from the ESP experiments, although the latter are in the nature of the case restricted to the fact of coincidence and only stress its psychic background without illuminating it any further.

C G Jung, Synchronicity

A Prophetical Riddle

Poor mortals, who wait for a happy day,
Cheer up your hearts, and hear what I shall say:
If it be lawful firmly to believe
That the celestial bodies can us give
Wisdom to judge of things that are not yet;
Or if from heaven such wisdom we may get
As may with confidence make us discourse
Of years to come, their destiny and course;
I to my hearers give to understand
That this next winter, though it be at hand,
Yea and before, there shall appear a race
Of men who, loth to sit still in one place,
Shall boldly go before all people’s eyes,
Suborning men of divers qualities
To draw them unto covenants and sides,
In such a manner that, whate’er betides,
They’ll move you, if you give them ear, no doubt,
With both your friends and kindred to fall out.
They’ll make a vassal to gain-stand his lord,
And children their own parents; in a word,
All reverence shall then be banished,
No true respect to other shall be had.
They’ll say that every man should have his turn,
Both in his going forth and his return;
And hereupon there shall arise such woes,
Such jarrings, and confused to’s and fro’s,
That never were in history such coils
Set down as yet, such tumults and garboils.
Then shall you many gallant men see by
Valour stirr’d up, and youthful fervency,
Who, trusting too much in their hopeful time,
Live but a while, and perish in their prime.
Neither shall any, who this course shall run,
Leave off the race which he hath once begun,
Till they the heavens with noise by their contention
Have fill’d, and with their steps the earth’s dimension.

A Prophetical Riddle, Gargantua and Pantaguel, Rabelais

Twofold Teaching

History – as, moreover, the life of the individual – is ‘worked’ by day and by night. It has a diurnal aspect and a nocturnal aspect. The former is exoteric, whilst the latter is esoteric. The silence and obscurity of the night is always full of events in preparation – and all that which is unconscious or superconscious in the human being belongs to the domain of ‘night’.

This is the magical side of history, the side of magical deeds and works acting behind the facade of history ‘by day’. Thus, when the Gospel was preached by the light of day in the countries around the Mediterranean, the nocturnal rays of the Gospel effected a profound transformation in Buddhism. There, the ideal of individual liberation by entering the state of nirvana gave way to the ideal of renouncing nirvana for the work of mercy towards suffering humanity. The ideal of mahayana, the great chariot, then had its resplendent ascent to the heaven of Asia’s moral values.

This is the formula of the twofold teaching – by the speech of day and by the knowledge of night; of the twofold tradition – by verbal teaching and by direct inspiration; of twofold magic – by the spoken word and by silent radiation; and lastly, of twofold history – ‘visible’ history by day and ‘invisible’ history by night.

…and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night (Genesis i, 4-5)

And the act of separation of the intelligible from the mysterious signifies at the same time the establishing of cosmic respiration, which is the analogy of ‘the Spirit of God moving above the face of the waters’. For the divine breath (ruach ‘elohim) above the profoundness of peace (‘the waters’ – it is this which is the psychological as well as the cosmic reality of nirvana) is the divine prototype of respiration.

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter V, The Pope