The Power of Inexorableness

Wisdom is the that streams out from the interior of a being in many directions. It is what dwells, actively present, in the interior of the being itself, comprehending its surroundings not in a one-sided way, but many-sidedly. If we wish to represent this schematically, we draw a point – for wisdom is contained within the human being. Out of the point, wisdom issues forth in many-sided forms. Thus we have the sign of the Sun. This is the expression of wisdom – which is inner and, at all the same time, comprises everything. It radiates forth equally in all directions – it is universal. The life force is in fact this striving of the inner being outward towards universality.

And the struggle that wisdom, as well as life, must endure in existence consists precisely in the fact that a power must be developed out of wisdom that can put up a resistance to one-sidedness, to impact from without, from right and left. For wisdom is the condition of a being that is capable of relying upon itself, of not needing any point of support, whether from right or from left, of relying upon nothing save its own inner strength of being, and of not being drawn into one-sidedness.

This is the power that lives in the principle of wisdom. It was shown in the Gospels in deeply moving portrayal when Christ Jesus was scourged by his fellow human beings. The ability to be centred in oneself – to stand, out of the power of one’s own inner being, in spite of all assaults from without – this is the power that is developed through scourging. What constituted the essential heart of the old Sun, what caused the planet to shine forth, was the same power that manifests and endures in the scourging. The planet of the scourging was the old Sun.

And if we now move on to the old Moon, we find the astral element being poured out into existence through the Spirits of Movement. At the same time, this astral element was taken hold of by Lucifer, and a battle then took place in the the heavens. Human Karma began on the Earth, but cosmic karma began on the old Moon. We can also put it this way: If the human fall into sin took place on Earth, then the cosmic fall into sin took place on the old Moon. And as a guardian was placed on Earth to guard the threshold, so also – when the spirits fell – a guardian was placed on the old Moon, one who took karma onto himself. This guardian was the realiser of spiritual karma.

By remaining true to themselves, spirits received the dignity of the guardian of the divine intentions. The dignity of the guardian is what is expressed by the crown of thorns. The crown of thorns symbolises a dignity that indeed corresponds to a state of being crowned, but at the same time it wounds the one who is crowned. For the power that the guardian, the representative of karmic necessity, must unfold from within is the power of inexorableness. It is the principle of taking a oral stand so that the Truth and the Law will be fulfilled. Pity must be overcome by the being who assumes this guardian’s mission.

And so the spiritual beings who had to represent the karma of the worlds needed, on the one hand, to look upon the Luciferic being with the greatest pity, and on the other hand they had to repeatedly overcome this pity in order to stand unshakably on the cosmic threshold. The power that reveals itself in being crowned with thorns is that of being obliged to judge while experiencing an inward pity that must, however, be constantly controlled and overcome. Thus this crown pricks the wearer himself. And that is what happened in the cosmos during the time of the old Moon that during this time the crown of thorns came into being in the Cosmos.

If we now pass on further to the development of the Earth, we find earthly existence represented by the cross. The carrying of the cross is the fundamental note, the fundamental motif, of earthly existence, and every being connected with the Earth has to experience it in some form or other. During the development of the Earth, humanity must, on the whole, reach the stage of carrying the cross; again and again individuals will have to take the cross upon themselves and learn to bear it through the whole cycle the whole circle, of their experiences. The symbol of the Earth itself expresses bringing to fulfillment of the carrying of the cross.

Valentin Tomberg, Indian Yoga in Relation to the Christian-Rosicrucian Path

The Mysteries

He feels anew the faith of all on earth,
The power of salvation streaming thence;
But as he looks, he feels his very soul
Pervaded by a new and unknown sense:
Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?
It is entwined by blooming clusters dense,
Profusely spreading just as though they could
Endow with softness e’en the rigid wood.

While light and silv’ry clouds, around it soaring,
Seem heavenward with cross and roses flowing,
And from the midst like living waters streaming
A threefold ray from out one core is glowing;
But not a word surrounds the holy token,
The meaning of the symbol clearly showing.
And while the dusk is gath’ring grey and greyer,
He stands and ponders and is lost in prayer.

At last he knocks. The myriad stars above him
Look down with shining eyes as they appear.
The portal opes, and he is bidden welcome
By brethren wont to comfort and to cheer.
So he relates how far by hill and valley
The will of higher Beings led him here.
They stand amazed, for well they see their guest
Was sent to them by heavenly behest.

They crowd around him, and their inmost being
They feel by a mysterious power stirred,
Their breath they hold to listen, for he rouses
An echo in their hearts with ev’ry word.
Like deepest lore, yet uttered by a child,
The wisdom flowing from his lips is heard:
He seems so innocent, like crystal clear,
As though descended from another sphere.

The Mysteries, Goethe

Memory

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

IO PITAR

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

Imagining Orpheus: enchanting the landscape

Imagining Orpheus is a different matter. Most people can recall two things about him: that he was a musician, and that he went down to the Underworld to fetch his wife Eurydice. His story is the archetypal myth of the power of music.

With the lyre that was the gift from Apollo, Orpheus could move everything in creation, from stones, trees, and beasts, through humans, to daimonic and even divine beings (whom we might call angels and gods).

Armed only with his songs, he charmed the denizens of Hades and persuaded Pluto and Persephone to let him take Eurydice back.

Orpheus was a prince of Thrace, the land to the north of Greece. His mother was Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry. Some say his father was Apollo, and certainly Orpheus stands under the patronage of that god. Apollo also had northern connections, either coming from Hyperborea (the land beyond the north wind), or else visiting that far northern land after his birth on the island of Delos.

Where was Hyperborea? As it was said to contain a circular temple to the sun, some have identified it with Britain, and its temple with Stonehenge, a monument far older than any in Greece.

Stonehenge, and the people who constructed it, were Apollonian in the sense of being dedicated to the sun, to astronomy, mathematics and music. A number of modern researchers have penetrated beyond the limitations of academic prehistory to reveal, through intuition, the bases of this ancient science.

John Mitchell, the pioneer in this regard, has reconstructed the diagrams and dimensions that seem to lie at the basis of megalithic design. Jean Richar has shown that there is an imaginary zodiac whose twelvefold symbolism links mythology with the geography of the Aegean area. Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller have traced a plethora of Apollonian sites in geometrical alignment, all the way from Ireland to Palestine.

Mitchell, in addition, has traced the myth of ‘perpetual choirs’ maintained at ancient sanctuaries for the purpose of what he calls ‘enchanting the landscape’. If one is attentive to such findings, it is clear that there was a high and orderly civilisation well established by the third millennium BC, of which the archaeologists know almost nothing.

This enchantment of the landscape is exactly what Orpehus is reputed to have done with his music, casting a benign spell over nature and bringing peace among men. As part of his mission, he reformed the cult of Dionysus and tried to persuade his followers to give up their blood sacrifices. In place of Dionysian orgies, Orpheus founded the first Mysteries of Greece. The purpose of these, as far as we can tell, was to transmit some kind of direct knowledge that was helpful in facing the prospect of death.

Orpheus’s journey to the Underworld to fetch Eurydice should be understood in the context of the Mysteries. In the earliest versions of the myth, he did succeed in restoring her to life.

Joscelyn Godwin, The Golden Thread, The Orphic Mysteries

Love transforming the soul

Vision augments experience; inspiration augments knowledge just as it does understanding; and intuition is the metamorphosis and growth no longer of what one experiences and understands, but rather of what one is. Through intuition one becomes another, through inspiration one apprehends new ways of thinking, feeling and acting, and through vision one’s domain of experience is enlarged – one has a revelation of new facts in accessible to the senses and to intellectual invention.

In practice it is not so that vision, inspiration and intuition are successive stages following the order – vision, inspiration, intuition. For there are those on the spiritual path who have only the experience of intuition, and still others who are only inspired, without ever having visions. But whatever the kind of mode of spiritual experience may be, at the final count it is always a matter of becoming, ie, intuition.

Thus one can say that in principle vision and inspiration are only means for arriving at intuition. Now, intuition takes place in the blood, inspiration in tears and vision in sweat. For an authentic vision always entails an increase of effort in order to bear it, in order to remain upright in the face of it. Vision has a weight, sometimes overwhelming, which demands a great effort on the part of the soul in order not to give way under the weight of that vision.

Authentic inspiration always entails an inner upheaval. It pierces the soul like an arrow in wounding it and in making it experience that profound emotion which is a synthesis of sorrow and joy. The symbol of the Rose Cross – a cross from the center of which a rose blossoms out – renders the essence of the experience of inspiration in the best way I know. The Rose Cross expresses the mystery of tears, ie, that of inspiration, with force and clarity. It portrays the joy of sorrow and the sorrow of joy, which together comprise inspiration.

With respect to intuition, it is no longer a matter either of the weight of riches or of the romance of the engagement of the Rose and the Cross, but rather of consummating the marriage of life and death. What lives, thereby dies; and what dies, thereby is reborn. Thereby blood is mingled with the Blood and is transformed alchemically from the ‘fluid of separation’ into the ‘fluid of union’.

There are three ways of ‘seeing’ the Cross: the Crucifix, the Rose Cross, and the Gilded Cross bearing a rose of silver. The Crucifix is the greatest treasure of vision. It is the vision of divine and human love. The black Cross with a rose blossoming from it is the treasure of inspiration. This is divine and human love speaking in the soul. The Gilded Cross bearing a rose of silver is the treasure of intuition. This is love transforming the soul.

Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XIV, Temperance

Future Knights of Christ

Here is the circle of science: ascending from the visible to the invisible in theory, and descending from the invisible to the visible in practice. It is the ancient symbol of the serpent which bites its tail.

Because the circle is closed – not in the sense of the circle’s dimension, since it can grow indefinitely, but rather in the sense that it is always will be a circle without opening (in contrast to the spiral, which is an “open circle”).

The forces of warmth, magnetism, electricity and nuclear forces are thus discovered – and a series of other forces, more hidden and still more subtle, can be discovered – but only forces are discovered, ie, the causes of mechanical movement. It is in that this circle is closed that it is why – without intervention from outside of it, such as that of Teilhard de Chardin – it is a prison and captivity for the spirit.

What is true of natural science is also true of personal or arbitrary magic. The latter proceeds exactly as the former – ascending in theory and descending in practice. Modern authors on magic are perfectly right in advancing the thesis that magic is a science and that it has nothing to do with miracles as such:

Magic is the study and practice of the control of Nature’s secert forces. It is a science – pure, or dangerous – like all sciences….(Papus).

We have to add here only that this is true, and also that “Nature’s secret forces” are secret only for a limited time, notably until their discovery by natural science – which simply discovers and renders controllable the “secret forces” of Nature one after the other. It is therefore only a question of time until the pursuit of magic and that of natural science coincide and become identical.

But, on the other hand, it is also true that the closed circle of science, which is a prison and captivity for the spirit, applies also to personal magic. Magic, in so far as it is a science – and it is one – has the same fate as science, ie, captivity in a closed circle. And when Papus says further on in the introduction to his Traite methodique de magie practique that, “Magic, we could say, is the materialism of the future knights of Christ….”

He admits with this statement the fact of the captivity of magic as such – in a closed circle of a single aspect of the world, which he names “materialism”. And he gives expression to his hope that in the future there will be an intervention from beyond this closed circle by future magicians (“knights of Christ”)…in other words, that future Teilhard de Chardins will do for magic what he has done for science: that they will open the closed circle and transform it into a spiral.

Meditations on the Tarot, Unknown Author, Letter XVII, The Star

Mystery of the Cosmic Sacrifice

It is with his inner life that the practical occultist is most concerned….when it comes to dealing with the forces of his own inner life, he must work out his own methods and build his own instruments. This is the real secret veiled in the words describing the thirty-second path [‘Administrative’ or ‘Assisting Intelligence’].

It must be remembered that subconsciousness works wholly by deduction. Give it a premise, and if the premise is false, it will work out so orderly a sequence of consequences from the initial false statement that only the keenest critics can detect the error.

On the other hand, subconsciousness is just as orderly in its development of the seeds of the right knowledge. Thus, invention ever follows close on the heels of observation. No sooner do we perceive, for example, that our thoughts, words and deeds are integrated with an inseparable from the whole cosmic process than subconsciousness begins to elaborate the consequences of this perception.

She does this in two ways: firstly by developing a philosophy of life; second, by helping us to invent means for better expression of our relation to the whole. These means include methods and instruments for dealing with the forces of our inner life, as well as for controlling the forces and conditions in our environment. It is with his inner life that the practical occultist is more concerned.

Out of the fury and bondage of the Great Work, which has Time (Saturn) for its primary condition, shall come peace and rest.

The Fall into manifestation is to be followed by the Redemption from the misery that our misunderstanding now brings. The power that brought about the Fall is identical with that which is to bring about the Redemption. This, in very truth, is the mystery of mysteries that Jesus revealed in his parable of the Prodigal Son.

The fifteenth path begins in the sixth sphere of the Tree of Life, in the grade of Lesser Adept, for the Magus must be perfected in imagination, and must be able to make definite mental patterns. Yet when he does so, it is not of himself, as in the case of the Lesser Adept.

The Magus’ vision is the creative sight attributed to the letter Heh and The Emperor. He sees the world with God’s eyes, and sees it always, therefore, as proceeding in orderly sequence from the centre that is within himself.

The path of the letter Heh is said by Qabalists to be that of the Constituting Intelligence, “because it constitutes creation in the darkness of the world.” Qabalists also say that creation took place with the letter Heh.

The Secret Wisdom of Israel says that the fifteenth path bears the name MOMID, Ma’amiyd (Constituting), because it constitutes the substance of creation in pure darkness. A hint of similar import is in the Gospel of St John. “That which hath been made was life in Him (the Logos), and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not.” (John 1:4,5)

The same L.V.X. (ie, light), appears in Bible symbology under the figure of the Lamb, borrowed from the Hindu symbol of Agni, god of fire. The Lamb refers to the mystery of the cosmic sacrifice. In one sense the wise have always regarded creation as a self-sacrifice of the Life Power.

By traversing this fifteenth path, the aspirant to the grade of Magus associates himself mentally with the cosmic sacrifice. Thus, he unifies his being with the current cosmic, creative impulse. Levi says, you recall, that he who can master the currents of the Astral light becomes the depository, even of the power of God.

Paul Foster Case, The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order, The Grade of Zelator and The Grade of Magus

Esoteric Wisdom of Altai

Between 1923 and 1928 Nicholas Roerich went on a series of travels throughout central Asia, accompanied by his son George. In 1926 – the same year that the Nazis sent their first expedition to Tibet – Roerich was also in that country. He spoke with many Lamas and other Tibetan occultists and mystics. They spoke of the imminent arrival of the Maitreya, the Buddhist Messiah, and imparted to Roerich the spiritual meaning of Altai.

It seems that, among other things, the chief mountain of the Altai range was regarded as the dwelling place of the gods. The Bear and Orion were singled out as being constellations associated with the esoteric wisdom of Altai. The seven stars were seen as the seven Wise Ones, and were also associated with the Mongol legend of Gesar, the Mongol Maitreya, despite his being a warrior rather than a sage. And Gesar was always linked in legend with the Tibetan stories of Shambhala.

Beluka, the principal mountain in the Altai range, has also been put forward as the possible origin of the legend of Mount Meru, abode of the gods. And from Tibet, from the Altai range, civilisation gradually began to spread outwards.

Both black and white magic are possible; one can always choose whether to follow the left or the right hand path. But magic in itself is morally neutral. Tibet held within itself both black and white magicians, and it was, of course, those initiates dedicated to the dark powers of evil who helped Hitler and the Nazis. But other powers existed in Tibet as well, and Roerich, among others, made contact with them.

Roerich himself said, in his book The Heart of Asia, that Shambhala was the fountain and crown of all true wisdom. ‘If you wish to understand Asia and to approach her as a welcome guest’, he wrote, ‘you must meet your host with the most sacred word – Shambhala.’ Roerich and his expedition were based in the Himalayas and had extensive contacts with wise men in Tibet. Roerich became a vehicle of transmission of a Mahatma Morya, who taught a system of Agni Yoga, based on the Kundalini power. Roerich states that a Lama passed through an underground passage in order to reach a sacred place. And the borders of the ‘hidden land’ were marked out carefully with occult symbols.

Michael Fitzgerald, Hitler’s Occult War

The Golden Wheel

I left myself to journey into the ‘other’ world with full confidence that my meditations thus far would bear fruit and that I had sufficient protection from the force of my guardian angel and the others.

In what seemed to be no time at all I saw my ‘other self’ in the inky void of deep outer space, where I perceived no stars. In the far distance, below me and somewhat to the right, I almost immediately saw a round, golden ‘wheel’ or ‘seal’. I approached it rapidly and soon perceived that certain symbols and/or words/pictures were engraved on the round, golden wheel. At once it rolled to one side, revealing a black hole behind it.

In the next scene I was standing on a high and exceedingly pleasant mountain plateau in pale sunshine and fresh air. There was no sight of the golden wheel and the ‘black hole’, as I now could see, was the perfectly round entrance to a cave in the side of the mountain.

Logic dictated that there was a reason why this should be so. I do not know why – although it was very clear to me at the time – but I felt it was my mission to call forth whichever waiting souls there were therein. As soon as I arrived, therefore, I stood on the edge of the entrance to the cave (having been vehemently warned not to set foot inside) and shouted very loudly through cupped hands:

“PRAY!”

I do not recall whether I repeated this word but before very long – rushing from the very depths of the cave, out from the complete darkness – came a group of identically dressed men of Arab or Indian appearance. Indeed, not only were they identically dressed, in long, white robes with red sashes and red edges on their turbans, but they seemed to me identical in every particular of their appearance.

The body of them – each of slender build and even height with black beards of medium length – came all at once from the cave and rushed into the middle of the plateau. As I turned to follow them with my eyes I saw this to be the most breathtaking panorama, stretching out for what seemed an eternity, facing the gold-hued horizon.

They had each sat down cross-legged and begun to pray with perfect synchronicity. There seemed to be between 30 and 40 of them, arranged into a number of regular rows. I saw then that they were a river springing forth from the mouth of the cave within the sacred mountain.