Remembrance of God

And in the first states of trust, four miracles befall you. These are the signs and evidence of your attainment of the first degree of trust.

These signs are crossing the earth, walking on water, traversing the air, and being fed by the universe. And that is the reality within the door.

After that, stations and states and miracles and revelations come to you continuously until death.

And if you do not stop with this, He reveals to you the surface signs, you will be admonished with terrors and many sorts of states will befall you. You will see clearly the apparatus of transformations; how the dense becomes subtle and the subtle dense.

And if you do not stop with this the light of the scattering of sparks will become visible to you, and there will be a need to veil yourself from it. Do not be afraid, and persevere in the remembrance of God, for if you persevere in the remembrance of God, disaster will not overcome.

Ibn ‘Arabi, The Journey to the Lord of Power

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.

The Vernal Lamb

‘‘Come, fair queen, the virgin Isis,
Wife of mine who loves me tender,
One who made me whole, my goddess,
She who is my soul defender.

‘‘Where the sun doth shine at midnight,
In a place of cryptic splendour,
Let the mage of mathematics
Make an early learning centre.

‘‘In my belt are three magicians
Come to praise a child, the true king,
In whose arms the vernal lamb lies.
Spring has come; the falcon Prince flies.

‘‘‘Royal Stars – Antares, West light;
Formalhaut of Northern waters;
Aldebaran, Bull’s Eye, East Side;
Regulus, the Solstice, South sight –

‘‘Cross in space, the throne upholding.
Fix for Earth the four directions.
Keep in place the sign, the sun’s King.
All uphold the resurrection.

‘‘Let the rainbow – seven colours –
Born of light, be veils for Isis.
Maiden bright, a Holy Mother,
Star more bright than any other.

Doors once closed shall then reopen

‘Let the veils be drawn now, Hermes,
Cloak the truth, you might encrypt it.
Keep the signs but aide the journey
Of the searching soul, the mystic.

‘‘Draw thyself the hieroglyphics –
Found in space, the deep harmonic –
Bind in books our thoughts: Ellipses,
Angles, curves, through time atomic.

‘‘Water bearer, step up lightly.
By your side an angel rises;
Prince of ‘Peace’. The star burns brightly;
One for all is King and rightly.

‘‘Then, at last, shall seals be broken,
Holy words shall be respoken,
Love, in spirit, shall be woken,
Doors once closed shall then reopen.

‘‘No more bound the heart, Prometheus;
Free at last, the fire bringer.
As Pandora stands divested
Of all things but Hope, which lingers.

So Apollo’s wolf shall wander

Through the forests, undercover

Of the moon. Her golden brother

Thus returns, reveals The Lover.

The Ineffable

They who have received the mystery of the Light, if they come out of the body of the matter of the rulers, then will every one be in his order according to the mystery which he hath received. Those who have received the higher mysteries, will abide in the higher order; those who have received the lower mysteries will be in the lower orders.

In a word, up to what region every one hath received mysteries, there will he abide in his order in the Inheritance of the Light. For which cause I have said unto you aforetime: ‘Where your heart is, there will your treasure be,’–that is up to what region every one hath received mysteries, there shall he be.

And that mystery knoweth why the stars of the heaven and the disks of the light-givers have arisen and why the firmament with all its veils hath arisen.

And it is the mystery which is in them all, and it is the one only mystery of the Ineffable and the gnosis of all these of whom I have spoken unto you, and of whom I will speak unto you, and of whom I have not spoken. Of these will I speak unto you at the expansion of the universe and of their total gnosis one with another, wherefor they have arisen. It is the one and only word of the Ineffable.

And the soul which receiveth the mystery of the Ineffable, will soar into the height, being a great light-stream, and the receivers will not be able to seize it and will not know how the way is fashioned upon which it will go. For it becometh a great light-stream and soareth into the height, and no power is able to hold it down at all, nor will they be able to come nigh it at all.

But it will pass through all the regions of the rulers and all the regions of the emanations of the Light, and it will not give answers in any region, nor giveth it any apologies, nor giveth it any tokens; neither will any power of the rulers nor any power of the emanations of the Light be able to come nigh that soul.

But all the regions of the rulers and all the regions of the emanations of the Light, every one singeth unto it praises in their regions, in fear of the light of the stream which envelopeth that soul, until it passeth through them all, and goeth to the region of the inheritance of the mystery which it hath received, that is to the mystery of the One and Only, the Ineffable, and until it becometh one with its Limbs. Amēn, I say unto you: It will be in all the regions in the time a man shooteth an arrow.

Pistis Sophia

Lifting the Veil of Hell

It is recorded that, at the hour of his death, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain” (Mark 15.38); this indicated that a new karmic balance had been established between good and evil when the curtain was lifted from Hell. Then, too, the curtain (or “veil”) was lifted from the “Holy of Holies”.

Now, however, the consequence of this new karmic relationship is this: when the mystery of good and the secret of evil have both become available to human experiential knowledge, goodness gains by being known, while evil loses by being recognised as such. This is the essential difference between good and evil: good gains by being recognised; evil loses when it is recognised.

The most sublime act of cognitive courage occurred when Jesus Christ renounced the “veil of Hell” and (instead of witnessing the life tableau) descended with his whole being into the darkness of the subterranean spheres. That “descent into Hell” was an event that no human speech can describe. There is nothing more unsettling than the disappearance of Jesus Christ into the darkness of the lower spheres, out of sight of he beings watching from the spiritual world.

A breathless expectation was maintained in expectation of either the most triumphant victory or the most disastrous catastrophe. During those days, only one thought and one question filled the whole world of the hierarchies: Will he return? Will he emerge from the abyss? Again, all human speech is powerless to give even the faintest reflection of the cosmic exultation that ensued when the risen Christ reappeared from the darkness of that abyss in the realm of twilight. Cosmic Easter was celebrated in the realms of heaven, a cosmic festival that continues for all time as the archetype of all human festivals on Earth.

Valentin Tomberg, Christ and Sophia (The Mystery of Golgotha)

Golden Lotus

How I have dreamed of you, my secret love, in days of never-ending summer and nights of infinite stars.

You were unfolded in perfection before my eyes, lovely and unbending by the golden lotus,

Like the flower that reveals in its splendour a vision of the coming magus, who walks alone in the garden of my desire.

Long is the road that would lead me to my secret love, marked only by the scent of the ever-opening bloom.

A charm the magus weaves is cast before my longing face; a veil of beauty that intoxicates my sense beyond the realm of understanding.

In solitude I comprehend this mystery, which leads me ar along this, the only path I know.

I see the destination of my soul. In the rising sun it shall be be found with you.

Between Heaven and the Abyss

He came bearing gifts and paid in large measures of gold to have me sit before him on the tripod in my closely woven veil.

My sisters watched from beyond the darkness of the pillars surrounding me on three sides.

“It seems to me, he loves her” Whispered Erato to Calliope, knowing full well that I was listening. “I have seen how his eyes follow her form – as if she were a doe and he the stag! – and now he sets a king’s ransom before us like a dowry.

Calliope laughed in delight: “Love; ah, the story of a lifetime!” I could tell she was thrilled by the very idea.

“It will all end in tears,” checked the fateful Melpomene. “What mortal man has the right to desire one so beloved of Phoebus Apollo?”

“If it is written in the stars that they are for each other, then nothing can change things, nor unfix that which is set by fire upon the face of heaven,” my solemn sister Urania announced in portentous tones.

“We must end this speculation, which will – as soon you shall see! – disturb our peace. The fact is that every man on Earth seeks the God’s attention and it seems to me that many of them will come bearing gifts for our sister.”

Thus were the sanguine ruminations of my elder sister, Clio.

I was thankful my hot cheeks were shielded from the watching world as I struggled to breathe more easily. My almost overpowering urge to run towards him was kept in check by the force of the god holding me in place. The result was that I could neither speak nor move an inch from the position in which I found myself, suspended between Heaven and the Abyss, fixed at that point in time on solid, immovable Earth.

He betrayed no emotion at all and I wondered if I had only dreamed of his kiss with the unfulfilled desire of childhood. Too soon he was gone.