Mass of the Immaculate Conception

‘The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his ways. I existed before he formed any creature. I existed from all eternity, before the earth was created. The abysses were not yet and already I was conceived. The fountains had not yet come out of the earth; the heavy mass of the mountains had not yet been formed; I was begotten before the hills.

He had created neither the earth, nor the rivers, nor strengthened the world on its poles. When he prepared the heavens, I was present; when he confined the abysses within their bounds and prescribed an inviolable law; when he confirmed the air above the earth; when he balanced the waters of the fountains; when he shut up the sea within its limits and imposed a law on the waters, so that they should not pass their bounds; when he laid the foundations of the earth, / was with him and I regulated all things.

Mass of the Immaculate Conception

The Four Winds

The spiritual revelation recorded in the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel affords us what we need for our task. In that chapter, the karma of evil is boldly outlined. The delineation begins with the picture of “the four winds of heaven [that] strove upon the great sea” (Daniel 7:2).

This figure shows us the cosmic scene of the conflict between good and evil. Space – with its four cardinal points of north, south, east, west – is neither one of the three abstract categories of Kantian philosophy, nor is it merely the distance that must be covered to reach some particular point; it is an ocean of forces at rest, set in motion by four active forces. These four active forces are the spiritual influences within the elemental world – the “winds” that cover the elemental world.

The currents caused by the four “winds” in the elemental world give rise to the four elements, which are impregnated by the four realms of elemental beings (salamanders, sylphs, undines and gnomes). These four groups of elemental beings are simply the lowest expression of the “four winds”. Their origin is rooted in the eternal Trinity, from which issue the cosmic impulses called ‘north’, ‘south’, ‘east’ and ‘west’. The Father being works through the cosmic impulses of north and south’ the Son and the Holy Spirit are active in the impulses of east and west.

When these impulses work together, cosmic good results; when the “four winds” work against one another, the result is cosmic evil. This is why the description of Daniel’s night vision begins with this image: “The four winds of the heaven strove.” These winds striving against one another are the four currents of cosmic evil. They are not controlled from Heaven, but from the depths of the ‘sea’; their origin must be sought in the “four….beasts” that appear out of the depth of the sea:”And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse from one another” (Daniel 7:3).

Christ and Sophia, Valentin Tomberg

Fellowship with the Angels

The poor distressed soul was so terrified and amazed, that it could not speak one word more.

When it found that it stood in the form and condition of the serpent, which separated it from God; and that the devil was so nigh it in that condition, who injected evil thoughts into the will of the soul, and had so much power over it thereby, that it was near damnation, and sticking fast in the abyss or bottomless pit of hell, in the anger of God; it would have even despaired of divine mercy; but that the power, virtue, and strength of the first stirring of the grace of God, which had before bruised the soul, upheld and preserved it from total despair.

But still it wrestled in itself between hope and doubt; whatsoever hope built up, that doubt threw down again. And thus was it agitated with such continual disquiet, that at last the world and all the glory thereof became loathsome to it, neither would it enjoy worldly pleasures any more; and yet for all this, could it not come to rest.

On a time the enlightened soul came again to this soul, and finding it still in so great trouble, anguish, and grief of mind, said to it:

What dost thou? Wilt thou destroy thyself in thy anguish and sorrow? Why dost torment thyself in thy own power and will, who art but a worm, seeing thy torment increaseth thereby more and more? Yea, if thou shouldst sink thyself down to the bottom of the sea, or couldst fly to the uttermost coasts of the morning, or raise thyself above the stars, yet thou wouldst not be released. For the more thou grievest, tormentest, and troublest thyself, the more painful thy nature will be; and yet thou wilt not be able to come to rest.

For thy power is quite lost; and as a dry stick burnt to a coal cannot grow green and spring afresh by its own power, nor get sap to flourish again with other trees and plants; so neither canst thou reach the place of God by thy own power and strength, and transform thyself into that angelical image which thou hadst at first. For in respect to God thou art withered and dry, like a dead plant that hath lost its sap and strength, and so art become a dry tormenting hunger. Thy properties are like heat and cold, which continually strive one against the other, and can never unite.

The distressed Soul said: What then shall I do to bud forth again, and recover the first life, wherein I was at rest before I became an image?

The enlightened Soul said: Thou shalt do nothing at all but forsake thy own will, viz. that which thou callest I, or thyself. By which means all thy evil properties will grow weak, faint, and ready to die; and then thou wilt sink down again into that one thing, from which thou art originally sprung. For now thou liest captive in the creatures; but if thy will forsaketh them, the creatures, with their evil inclinations, will die in thee, which at present stay and hinder thee, that thou canst not come to God. But if thou takest this course, thy God will meet thee with his infinite love, which he path manifested in Christ Jesus in the humanity, or human nature.

And that will impart sap, life, and vigour to thee; whereby thou mayest bud, spring, flourish again, and rejoice in the living God, as a branch growing on his true vine. And so thou wilt at length recover the image of God, and be delivered from the image or condition of the serpent: Then shalt thou come to be my brother, and have fellowship with the angels.

The Signature of all Things, Jacob Boehme

Open the Closed Circle

Magic is the study and practice of the control of Nature’s secret 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 that, “Magic, we could say, is the materialism of t he 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.

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

The Philosopher’s Stone

The fundamental thesis of scholasticism was that philosophy is the servant of theology. Intelligence certainly cooperated, but it played only a subordinate role. Thus, scholasticism did not succeed in achieving the marriage of the sun and moon, the result of which is the third principle, called the ‘philosopher’s’ stone in alchemy.

The ‘philosopher’s stone of alchemy is described in the Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus as follows:

The father thereof is the sun, the mother the moon.
The wind carried it in its womb; the earth is the nurse thereof.
It is the father of all works of wonder throughout the whole world.
The power thereof is perfect, if it be cast on to earth.
It will separate the element of earth from that of fire, the subtle from the gross, gently and with great sagacity.
It doth ascend from earth to heaven.
Again it doth descend to earth, and uniteth in itself the force from things superior and things inferior.

This means to say that the process of induction (which ‘ascends from earth to heaven’) and that of deduction (which descends to earth), the process of prayer (which ascends from earth to heaven) and that of reveleation (which descends to earth) – ie human endeavour and the action of grace from above – unite and become a complete circle which contracts and concentrates to become a point where the ascent and descent are simultaneous and coincide. And this point is the ‘philosopher’s stone’ – the principle of the identity of the human and divine, of spirituality.

It is the solution of the problem posed by St Paul, or rather the accomplishment of the task given by him, when he wrote of the Cross being folly to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, but which “to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians I, 22-24).

Now, the historical and evolutionary mission of Hermeticism is to advance the progress of alchemical work engaged in developing the ‘philsopher’s stone’ or the union of spirituality and intellectuality. It is called to be the crest of the wave of contemporary human effort aspiring to the fusion of the spirituality and intellectuality. This effort and aspiration is larger than the group of Hermeticists, properly said, who are dispersed in the world.

There are probably more people who are not avowed Hermeticists and who are engaged in the endeavour aiming at the fusion of spirituality and intellectuality than there are Hermeticists, properly said. …..The Spirit blows where it will, but the task of the Hermetic tradition is to maintain – without pretension to a monopoly, God forbid! – the ancient idea of the ‘the thelema of the whole world – which ascends from earth to heaven, descends to earth, and uniteth in itself the force from things superior and things inferior’. It’s the task is that of guardian of the great spiritual world.

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XXI, The Fool

Threefold Knowledge: Glory of the Holy Trinity

Our threefold knowledge (mystical-gnostic-magical) of the world has dedicated itself through the course of the centuries to the glory of the Holy Trinity, just as the threefold knowledge of divine revelation through the Holy Scripture (the Old Testament, New Testament and the Apocalypse) does.

Are we not called, we theologians of the world, and you, theologians of the Holy Scripture, to watch at the same altar and to fulfill the same task of not letting the lamp illumined to the glory of God be extinguished in the world?

Is it not our common duty to provide for it, to provide the holy oil of human endeavour so that its flame is never extinguished, so that it always bears witness to God by the very fact of its existence, and so that it continues to burn from century to century?

The spiritual history of Christianity is the history of the successive resurrections of that which is valuable from the past, worthy of eternity. It is the history of the magic love reviving the dead. It was thus that Platonism became resuscitated and will go on living for ever – thanks to the vivifying breath of he who is the resurrection and the life. (Ego sum resurrectio et vita, John xi, 25). It is thus that Aristotelianism will participate in eternal life. And it is thus that Hermeticism, also, will live until the end of the world and, perhaps, beyond the end of the world.

Moses and the prophets will live on for ever, for they have acquired their place in the eternal constellation of the Word of resurrection and life. The magical poetry and songs of Orpheus will be resuscitated and will live for all eternity as colour and sound of the Word of resurrection and life. The magic of Zarathustra’s mages will be revived and will live as the eternal human endeavour of aspiration towards light and life.

The truths revealed by Krishna will join the retinue of the ‘recalled to eternal life’. The ancient cosmic revelations of the Rishis will live again and will awaken in humanity anew a sense for the marvels of the ‘blue, white and gilded…’

All these souls of mankind’s spiritual history will be resuscitated, ie, will be called to join the work of the Word that became flesh, that died and rose again from the dead – so that the truth of the promise – I have come so that nothing should be lost but that all should have eternal life (John vi, 38-40) will be accomplished.

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter VIII, Justice

Reunification of Soul Mates

800px-Black_pearl_and_his_shell — Black Pearl by Mbz1

Because women tend to complete their spiritual correction sooner and more easily than men, they are also more often freed from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth required of those who have not yet achieved their tikkum.

A woman’s soul, therefore, may have the privilege of residing in the Upper Worlds while her male soul mate must reenter the world. However, she may so strongly wish to assist him in his efforts toward correction that she voluntarily comes into the physical dimension. She reincarnates to become the wife of her soul mate.

He must merit her presence, however. Many lifetimes may pass before this is the case, but it is worth the wait. In fact, Kabbalah teaches that the reunification of soul mates is a greater miracle than the parting of the Red Sea:

When their time to be married arrives, the Creator who knows these spirits and souls joins them as they were before they came into the world.. When they are joined together, they become one body and one soul, right and left in proper unison. As it is written, “There is nothing new under the sun,” because this is nothing new but a return to how they were before coming down to this world.

You might say, “But we have learned that a man obtains a soul mate according to his deeds and his behaviour.” It is assuredly so! If he is meritorious and his ways are correct, then he deserves his on soul mate, to join her as they were joined when they left the Creator, and before bonding with a physical body.”

Nothing that takes place in the physical dimension is more celebrated by Kabbalah than the joining of soul mates, and toward that end almost any hardship or sacrifice is permissible.

The Essential Zohar, Rav P S Berg

Turning the World

600px-Blue_Marble_(Planet_Earth)_(2222523486) — The World (Magnus Manske)

The immediate possibility of coming down from the Benedictine high was out of the question and I did not bother to even contemplate such a thing.

Instead, I submitted myself to the force of the higher power which had first taken over me the two weeks earlier. In other words, I proceeded logically and without any waste of ‘time’.

(‘Time’ is bound in order to be seen as captive rather than captivating).

In my state of heightened reason it seemed entirely appropriate that I should start to spin with this somehow supernatural energy.

Therefore, shortly after Benedict’s departure I stood in the centre of the room and started to turn around, faster and faster in a clockwise direction until the room was a whirl of spiralling white light.

I built up enough momentum to perform such a complete turn-around that it occurred to me in passing that I could spin the whole floor along with myself.

Detachedly impressed with this accomplishment, it seemed a relatively small step to make the spirals spread outwards until I was going so quickly that the centrifugal force caused the world to spin around with me. It was the beginning of a full-blown revolution.

I span around for a number of minutes until the world got going at finite speed – held ad infinitum with the momentousness of gravity – and then, when I felt aligned with a certain mysterious point, stopped dead on the very same spot (from which I had not once deviated) without falling, feeling dizzy or even moving at all.

Now, I’m sure you will agree that not only was this physically an incredibly impressive feat for any person – let alone a very stoned person – there is something highly unusual and somehow also relevant about having perceptibly turned the world.

The World is Thine

“Meek”, He said, “the World is Thine.

This the reason; Just, Divine.

Bless these words, inform the start:

Energy, Created Art.”