All that, however, merely scratches the surface of the Egyptian understanding of Ma'at. It is the basic principle of Kamite tradition and the link to the Gods. Here is where China and Egypt share in making ritual so important, which is how the Egyptians knew Ma'at. In "Her Bak" we learn that Ma'at is the key to the reason for man's life and the key to the mystery of Egypt itself. It is the mediation between man and the gods and serves, moreover, as a bridge between all disparities. When we ignore tradition, we soon drift into error. One of man's more noticeable failings is a lack of perseverance, but whenever we emphasize anything, we call up the opposite of emphasis, i.e. spontaneity and change: Priest vs. Shaman. Evil, then, is ignorance caused by the absence of Ma'at. Gnosis - the knowing of the divine names - brings us back. Ma'at is the necessary balancing of the paradoxes of wisdom and that is why it is characterized by a feather, so the necessary balance can be extremely subtle.
The word in this form is found with precisely the same meaning (or mystery) in most European tongues and even in Japanese majutsu, (which they no doubt borrowed from the Portuguese). Elsewhere, however, we find different senses altogether, such as the old Teutonic Helliruna (lit. "Hell's secret") which is surely a folk etymology of the Arabic word for "mandrake", albiruhan or alyabruhin, the same word we find in Spanish as the word for "magician", el brujo, because alongside that there is indeed the Old High German word for "mandrake", Alruna. The only question we need ask is which form came first, but we find the Arabic influence extending east as far as Mongolia, where, in passing, we may note ilbi for "magic."
The otherness of ego enwraps each of us like a prison, but the magus takes all of earth as his body. Magic itself is but a symbol of the greater Magic, which is Unity. The Oneness frees us from the dungeon of darkness and the self and resembles the teaching of Buddhism.
From yet another perspective, magic, mind and life are the same thing: living cells are sometimes kept alive in labs. A specialized cell, so protected, fed and allowed to reproduce, eventually turns into a basic and undifferentiated cell. This indicates that life is not only exceedingly plastic but that it is also purposive. If such adaptation were attributable to mindless mechanics, a bone cell would go on reproducing a bone cell and a blood cell a blood cell forever.
Since all things are connected, then experiential reality, which is Mind, can be altered by the implementation of the Will and Visualization. There is no "orthodox" doorway of the "Self" through the various universes, so the magician must build his own bridge, without assistance, across the Abyss, from the otherness of the separate ego to Cosmic Unity. Since the goal and purpose of existence is knowledge, then the magus is obliged to seek experience on numerous planes of being reached via perichoresis and also to effect material changes in the earth's reality. Thinking isn't just the beginning of creation, it is creation itself.
Marc Edmund Jones classifies magic into categories. Divination is the effort to gain knowledge, particularly of the future (in order the better to assist the "Divine" plan). The evocation or invocation of elementals or angelic powers, functioning through the ethers, is another class of magic. Then there is hypnotism, which works through "imitative" magic. Finally, there is tantrism, or the development of supernatural siddhis.
Colin Wilson suggests that magic is simply the development of the Will and the Imagination, Versluis that it is "not a means to an end, but a means to heighten means." Clearly, the object of magic is the raising of consciousness. The magus is empowered to effect events only to the extent that he is able to recognize that inside and outside are one. To transform the world is to transform oneself and vice-versa. Traditional rituals, the using of symbols and the altering of consciousness through herbs, smells, sounds, repetitions and meditation are all inward-directed processes designed to educate, focus and strengthen the faculties of Imaging and Willing. Alchemy is the same endeavor directed outwardly. We fail to control the transformation of our selves to the degree that we isolate ourselves from the world, just as we lose our ability to change the world at the exact moment that we begin to lose touch with ourselves.
However, although those who don't know what they are doing are obliged to perform magic strictly through the observation of rituals, those who understand its real nature and purpose can move directly to its center and act from there, without incantations and conjurations.
Here are some definitions of M/magic(k) by various authorities on the subject:
ANONYMOUS: "Magus Nascitur Non Fit."
ALICE BAILEY: "No man is a magician, or worker in white magic, until his third eye is opened, or is in the process of opening." (That means 'transmission of consciousness to the universal mind').
WADE BASKIN: "The art and science of magic is based on three basic principles. 1) one may communicate with other realms, or planes of existence, through the medium of the Astral Light; 2) the power of the magician is unlimited; 3) external characteristics (signatures) are signs through which everything internal and invisible can be revealed."
MORRIS BERMAN: "Magic is not necessarily gnostic in nature, since it is not particularly dualistic, and it never includes the notion of an outside savior or redeemer, which Gnosticism (particularly in its early forms) sometimes does."
HELENA P. BLAVATSKY: "The art of divine Magic consists in the ability to perceive the essence of things in the light of nature (astral light), and - by using the soul-powers of the Spirit - to produce material things from the unseen universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought together and made to act harmoniously". (The Secret Doctrine).
"Magic is spiritual wisdom. Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery.
"Magic was considered a divine science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity itself."
"Magic was the highest knowledge of natural philosophy... and the magician differed from the witch in this, that, while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands of demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of science, which was only within reach of the few, and which these beings were powerless to disobey."
BERNARD BROMAGE: "The word has, more often than not, been used, not for illumination, not as a guide to ascertainable verity, but as a camouflage to conceal a man's ignorance; and, worse, his calculated ineptitude and folly. The word can be said to have ceased to be a word and to have become a byword: a symbol surrounded by an evilly phosphorescent light, of man's infernal capacity for avoiding the issues. . . Magic, tout court, is immensely concerned with the 'Extension of Consciousness'; the widening of frontiers; the increase and development of every variety of sense perception. To be a magician one must learn to investigate all phenomena with the eye of the scientist who scorns no possible hypothesis nor neglects to take into the fullest consideration the complete structure of our actual and potential being. . . it is not a solace for the frustrated, but a reward for the pure of heart. Its final appeal is not to curiosity or greed, but to reverence and acceptance."
PETER CARROLL: "The world is magical but designed to make us believe we are not magi."
"All events are basically magical, arising spontaneously without prior cause. Physical laws are only statistical approximations. Consciousness, magic and chaos are the same thing. Consciousness also makes things happen without prior cause."
ALEISTER CROWLEY: "All Art is Magick"
"The Goal of Magick is the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel."
NEVILL DRURY: "Magic is the technique of harnessing the secret powers of Nature and and seeking to influence events for one's own purpose. If the purpose is beneficial it is known as white magic, but if it is intended to bring harm to others, or to destroy property, it is regarded as black magic."
"High Magic is intended to bring about the spiritual transformation of the person who practices it. This form of magic is designed to channel the magician's consciousness towards the sacred light within, which is often personified by the high gods of different cosmologies. The aim of high magic has been described as communication with one's Holy Guardian Angel, or higher self. It is also known as Theurgy."
"Whereas science deals with empirically observable causes and effects, occultism deals pragmatically with methods of altering consciousness to produce certain effects. One of these is the assimilation within the self of the characteristics of a deity, another is the separation of consciousness from the physical body."
DION FORTUNE: "Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will."
KENNETH GRANT: "Magick is the apotheosis of the Irrational, the acme of the absurd, and the reification of the impossible."
GURDJIEFF: ". . .I decided to call those undertakings which required intentional action of higher centers - those centers which are properly the feeling and thinking centers, capable of emotional sensing and of mentation respectively, but which are ordinarily unformed through absorption of their rightful impressions by the false emotional and intellectual centers of the psyche - objective magic, having as its result the obtaining of real knowledge."
"I thus separated this objective magic from its ordinary counterpart, 'magic of the psyche', in which purely fantastic results are obtained, and self-calming and amusement are the only attainments. Under this category I placed my former endeavors as a medium and psychic, as well as those results obtained by theosophy, occultism and so forth, all of which up to then had quite fascinated and attracted my attention."
WILLIAM JAMES: "We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self. . ."
MARC EDMUND JONES: "Occult, as distinct from secular, science; Occult as the effort to compel the cooperation of others, as well as deity, nature, in enterprises of self, illustrated by miracle or thaumaturgy, known as white when ethical and black when amoral."
ELIPHAS LÉVI: "The Arcanum of the Magnum Opus is the mastery or government of Ignis."; "Would you learn to reign over yourself and others? Learn how to will. How can one learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initiation. . ."
MACGREGOR MATTHEWS: "To practice magic, both the imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work. . . The Will unaided can send forth a current. . . yet its effect is vague and indefinite. . . the Imagination unaided can create an image. . . yet it can do nothing of importance, unless vitalized and directed by the Will."
JOHN MIDDLETON: "We may say that the realm of magic is that in which human beings believe that they may directly affect nature and each other for good or ill, by their own efforts (even when the precise mechanism may not be understood by them) as distinct from appealing to divine powers by sacrifice or prayer (i.e. religion)."
JOHN O'KEEFE: "Magic is the defense of the self against the malevolence of society."
PARACELSUS: "The exercise of true magic does not require any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making of circles and signs; it requires neither benedictions nor maledictions in words, neither verbal blessings or curses."
JOHN COWPER POWYS: "Magic is simply the choice between emphasis and rejection."
DIANE DE PRIMA: "Look at the forces behind the things rather than just at the object or event. If I have a working definition of magic it's that behind every single thing in the world an infinite tunnel opens of reference, cross-references, and forces, and how these things interlock in nets. What I basically say is, yeah, learning to see force. . . learning to see the etheric and the astral, etc. to the thinner and thinner layers of stuff. And learning to work off those layers rather than . . . if you want to push that rock you don't necessarily have to go out there and put your shoulder to it."
RIMBAUD: "The Poet transforms himself into a seer through a long, immense and determined, rational disordering of all his sense. Every form of love, suffering and madness he seeks within himself and exhausts in himself all poisons, preserving but their quintessences. Ineffable torture where he will need all of his faith and superhuman strength, making him among men, the great Sick Man, the Thrice-Damned, the Arch-Criminal - and the supreme Savant! - for he arrives at the Unknown! Since he has cultivated his soul, already richer than any other man's, he thereby reaches the Unknown, and, even if, insane in the end, he should lose every shred of understanding gained so laboriously, he will have had his Visions! He may perish in his leap into those innumerable, unnameable things, there will follow other terrible workers. They will begin at the horizons where he fell."
MARTIN DEL RIO: "An art or skill which, by means of a non-supernatural force, produces certain strange and unusual phenomena whose rationale eludes common sense."
ROMULUS: "Magic is living poetry."
"Magic is the invocation and exploitation of synchronicity. All practices build up a momentum of their own. What we desire eventually comes true, with interest."
"Every magician's tricks are his own, to help him with own special problems, to get himself over his own inner obstacles. Our Individual tasks are to learn and overcome our own obstacles. That's why the study of great men and women is so very instructional and worthwhile. Not because they teach us to be like them, but because they show us how they became themselves! "
"Self-confident, integrated personalities already are fairly much in control of their powers and are magical to some extent. When circumstances intrude, such as sickness, enmity, financial loss, etc. and self-confidence wanes, the 'magical' side begins to seem spurious. The more 'magical' we try to be, the more charlatanry rises to the surface in us."
FRANCIS KING & STEPHEN SKINNER: "Four basic assumptions of magic: 1. That the [physical] universe is only a part of total reality. 2. The human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained and concentrated, and that the disciplined will is capable of changing its environment and producing paranormal events. 3. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination. 4. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences, but an ordered system of correspondences, and the understanding of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to use them for his own purposes, good or evil.
HUTTON WEBSTER (1948): "As regards purpose, Magic is divinatory, productive and aversive. The magician discovers or foretells what is otherwise hidden in time or space from human eyes; he influences and manipulates the objects and phenomena of nature and all animate creatures so that they may satisfy actual or human needs; and finally he combats, neutralizes and remedies the onslaught of the evils, real or imaginary, afflicting mankind. The range of magic is thus almost as wide as the life of man. All things under heaven, and even the inhabitants of heaven become subject to its sway.
COLIN WILSON: "Human perception is 'intentional.'" (Consciousness is a muscle).
"The great personality-inhibitor is caution. . . even in a few people who seem fairly well integrated. I can suddenly catch a glimpse of a more sophisticated, confident personality that has never succeeded in emerging . . . Even criminality is a form of caution, the desire for immediate and tangible returns, based upon the feeling that the universe has no intention of giving you anything you are not prepared to take by force. In fact, the study of murder leaves one with an impression of weak and crippled personalities who left half their potentialities to stagnate."
"Outside our everyday personality there is a wider self that possesses greater powers than the everyday self. . . When the will is hindered by too much self-consciousness it often produces the opposite effect from the one intended. (Poe called it "the imp of the perverse"). The wider self would be happy to oblige, but the contracted ego is somehow opposing itself, like someone trying to open a door by pushing it instead of pulling it. So it does the next best thing." (Psychokinesis).
"Modern civilization induces an attitude of passivity. When a Stone Age hunter set out to trap wild animals, he was aware of his will as a living force. When the prehistoric farmer scored the surface of the earth with a crude plough, he knew that his family's survival through the winter depended on his effort, and his will responded to the challenge. When a modern city dweller walks down a crowded thoroughfare, he feels no sense of challenge or involvement. This city was built by other people, all these shops and offices are owned by other people. He can get through an ordinary day's work in a state approximating sleep. Most of his routine tasks are carried out by the 'robot'. There is neither the need or the opportunity to use the will."
ZORN ZUCKERMAN: "The 20th Century has been so much a time of everything 'losing its magic, that the only thing left is magic itself."
Life without magic is not possible. Moreover, the important "passages" of life cannot be handled except in a frank context of High Magic: birth, adolescence, marriage, death, etc.
Divination The Occult Thaumaturgy
ESP Theurgy Yoga
Religion Voodoo Ceremonial or Ritual
Black Magic White Magic Tantra
Legerdemain
Since everyone who lives is possessed of the magical ability to transform matter and to produce mental worlds, then everyone is a magician and no one dare single himself out as a being special. For this reason, early Tarotists preferred to call this card "The Juggler" in order to indicate one who has made a profession out of exploiting that very illusion which is the real material world. The Magician, however, in the most archetypal sense, is a representative of male sexual virginity.
For divinatory purposes, The Magician signifies the overcoming of a problem through sheer invention, drawing from the deepest levels of the self without anyone's help.
Finally, fundamentally, the Magician is the juggler of the dual current, comprised of the Active and Passive Alternating Forces of action. He is the circuit of the electricity that moves the world. He is the initiator of any action, the generated thesis.
The Egyptian God of magic, Thoth (or Tahuti, "The Speaker") is self-created and dwells in chaos. As he speaks, each word becomes a created thing (as in Greek a "poem" means anything that has been made). Hunchback: Is Chaos the Void or is it merely the pre-linguistic, Briatic world?
In our time when the television commercial has raped and perverted language for the sake of profit, when words have little more value than the squawking of parrots, it is difficult to imagine that there was once a mighty and living oral tradition. The true magician has not forgotten.
Therefore the adept must be adept with words. The unitiatated believe that Magic is entirely the result of uttering certain catchwords or phrases: "Hocus-Pocus-Dominocus!" or "Hey Presto! Hi Jingo, begone!" Oddly enough, this bit of folk wisdom is not as far off the mark as it might seem. Words do have power. Spells can be evoked. PKD once said that for every individual in the world there exists a special word or phrase, for him alone, which upon his hearing, would result in his death. There is also another word that would heal him of anything. Most of us, however, go through our whole lives without hearing either of these vital words or phrases.
The words used by magicians, when they are not the nonsense syllables of charlatans, tend to be words from archaic languages. Today these are primarily Latin or Greek (in our culture), whereas in the 18th and 19th Century, ritual words were usually taken from Hebrew. Hebrew magic itself borrowed from the earlier Chaldaeans, Babylonians and Assyrians. Finally, there is Buddhism and Yoga from Sanskrit, Tantrism from Tibetan, Taoism from Chinese and Sufism from Arabic.
Says Her Bak , "Do not be negligent in finding and using the right word. Thoth never replies to inexact medus."
There has long been an association of the mandrake root
with magic; indeed in popular culture of a half century or more ago, there was a
fictional comic strip character known as "Mandrake the Magician". Circe used the
root in her brews and in Genesis 30:14 it figures as a love potion. However, it
no longer seems to be especially psychedelic and unlike mushrooms or peyote
cactus doesn't appear to offer much in the way of inner transformation or
enlightenment. Perhaps botanical species evolve out of their human-bonding
natures. The Chinese claim it to be a youth restorer, i.e. an aphrodisiac, and
insist that when you pull it from the ground, it actually screams. It makes up a
considerable portion of Chinese herbology, although they call it "ginseng."
Probably, we no longer understand how to use it properly, having been too long plied with substitutes for the real thing. It was common at one time for unscrupulous merchants to carve the quite similar bryony root into the shape of a mandrake root and sell it.
Our word, "mandrake", is merely the shortened form of the Greek Mandragoras. It was once believed to be an emetic, a pain-killer, an assistance to conception and a producer of drowsiness. John Allegro suggests that we can probably connect mandragoras to Nam-Tar-Agar, the Sumerian word for "the sacred mushroom", the same from which modern psychedelics derive.
Here is an old pain mantram:
Swords miss, knots loose!
Asclepius, Apollo, Hermes, Zeus!
So long as we continue to let go of the lower rung in oder to reach for the higher, we can ascend the ladder of evolution. As we give way to fatigue we settle for mere repetition and holding fast. Similarly, the Yoga of Death teaches us to pass through the gates between worlds with courage. Life and Death are but ways of matter which Spirit sometimes uses. In life also we are capable of moving between dimensions, from one world to the next. And if we know how to travel indefinitely from dimension to dimension, it follows that we can ultimately alter exterior Reality by both natural magick and objective magic. Self and World are connected. This does not mean, however, that we have the right to consign whomever we choose of our fellow souls to some unfortunate dimension, without understanding what we are doing. To attempt to remove evil from one sphere is simply to send it to another, perhaps even less appropriate place. Nor may we ourselves blithely move from one dimension to the next, whenever the problems of the world begin to weigh a bit heavily on us. That would be to leave an endless trail of unfinished business and irresponsibility behind ourselves like muddy footprints. The best life, therefore, is the life of sacrifice in the here and now - not sacrifice through dying, but through living.
Time is reckoned in units of 20. Thus 20 tun make a katun, 20 katun make a baktun, 20 baktun make a pictun, 20 pictun make a calabtun, 20 calabtun make a kinchiltun, and 20 kinchiltun make an Alautun, which latter amounts to 163,040,000 years.
The present cycle began in the year 3113 B.C. and ending in 2012 A.D., is the final part of a 26,000 year cycle (a zodiacal age), and (according to José Argüelles) June 20, 1986 was "10 Ben, 9 Kayeb, 12.18.14.18.9" meaning baktun 12, katun 18, year 14, vinal 18, day 9 and kin 1862599 (number of days elapsed from the initiation point of the Great Cycle)."
The "Harmonic Convergence" of 1987 was the beginning of the end of the last five years of the Hell cycle. 1992 is the beginning of the final 20-year countdown to the completion of the 26,000 year galactic cycle. (The time it takes the sun to circle the Pleiades). One of the stars in the Pleiades is called "Maya."
Since the discovery of meaning is spontaneous, the magical work is a collection of discoveries - they must absolutely be left behind as so much excrement. The magician is interested solely in the green edge of consciousness. On the other hand, meaning is absolutely forbidden to Xtianity and to practical science alike. Their mutual common denominator is always, "Thou shalt not know!"
When, however, societies become too fraught with magical meaning, that also becomes a burden and rigid order begins to take the place of freedom of action. Eventually, structured tradition drives out magic and the cycle begins anew.
is Mercury, Ninurtu is Saturn, Shamash the Sun and Sin the Moon.
However, this is confusing, because there are only 28 paths on the Assyrian
tree, not 32. Moreover, the Assyrian syllabary has 30 signs, not 22 letters as
in the Hebrew alphabet. The 8-rayed star, symbol of divinity, may be taken as
the eight atus missing from the conventional Tarot. Moreover, Ninurtu, "Saturn"
is missing from the above diagram and the Gods (corresponding to the planets)
are placed differently. The Babylonian system, being much older than the Hebrew
version, must be taken as more correct, but the details have not been completely
worked out. It's clear that they used a 60-based numerological system and that
they practiced an early form of gematria.
Notice in the Assyrian Tree of Life that each branch has 7 leaves ("for the healing of nations") which are repetitions of the 7 large leaves near the top. These leaves represent the planets. Therefore the historical attributions of the sephiroth must not be quite correct. They may be zodiacal representations.
Hypnosis sheds a faint light on certain levels of consciousness beneath the ordinary. By means of the intense concentration and focusing of attention that hypnosis evokes, we are able to accomplish feats of mind and body that otherwise only yogis know. Hypnosis works by forcing a thread of memory awareness deep into the mind labyrinth, which, however deeply it may penetrate the darkness, is always tied tightly to the ordinary consciousness at the top. Without that Ariadne's thread, the more deeply we were to concentrate on something, the more we would be lost to the world. The more attention we bring to bear on anything, the deeper into a simulacrum of sleep we proceed, as our surroundings and the outside world disappear into this darkness and outer sensations are walled off - presumably to prevent distraction. Since this state of concentration so much resembles sleep, in fact, the slightest lapse of the will sends us drifting towards unconsciousness. Ordinary sleep is a mirror-like repetition of the fragmentation of superconsciousness that we shall see results in abandonment of the self. However, as concentration proceeds ever more inward, the more the inner landscape is illuminated and narrowed. This "inner light" of laser-like consciousness is shared by the vegetable kingdom. (Its character can be recognized in psychedelic intoxication of various kinds). Finally, as we proceed into the unconscious itself we enter a quantum universe of our own. Here we find ourselves in the very "consciousness" of matter itself, with its links to everything in the universe. Presumably, death is but a deeper descent still, a proceeding into the actual heart of Mind, leading into the Void, which is the womb of all manifestations. Ordinary consciousness is obviously the link between higher and lower planes. It is a delicate balance between retreat into self-absorption and abandonment of the self to the sensory experience. It is maintained with great difficulty, for we have a tendency to drift out of it into one or the other of the two diametrically opposed realms of experience that it separates. These realms, of course, are infinitely more attractive than boring, old, routine mind. Within this narrow water-hole of ordinary consciousness, however, lie all the accomplishments and discoveries of human history. Indeed, it is this narrow and unreliable bridge that human society has learned to exploit as "civilization". Unfortunately, it has been examined but superficially and little has been done to stretch its dimensions or protect it from disintegration. Consequently we know almost nothing either of its limitations or its potential powers.
Heightened awareness is the opposed of focused attention or concentration. Attention becomes more and more generalized and cognizant of every petal on every flower in the garden, then every vein in every leaf. . . But now, as attention fans out, mind loses its coherency and begins to fragment. Under the influence of psychedelic drugs the attention is so fragmented that it merges altogether with the outer world and the inner self is abandoned to the chaos of the interface. The loss of the inner self, however, is usually accompanied by extreme panic as it attempts to jump from scintilla to scintilla.
For a time, the fragmentation of expanding mind can be kept under control by the use of amphetamines or cocaine in ever-increasing dosages. By means of these substances, alertness and intelligence are increased because attention is spread infinitely thin across a wider and wider spectrum of sensory experience coming in from the outer world. The "outer world" includes, of course, the consciousness of one's own body, as well as reflexive self-observation. At the same time, the inner self is being supplied with increased energy and speed too, so that it can maintain consciousness of itself and stave off chaos by racing back and forth around the ever-enlarging periphery of experience. As we are all very well aware, however, this path quickly comes to an end.
Fortunately, the heightening of externalized consciousness can be achieved without drugs, through mysticism. The sensory awareness can either be bypassed or used as the vehicle of its own transcendence. If the inner self is voluntarily released to heightened consciousness, which we sometimes refer to as leaving the ego behind in order to enter Nirvana, peace descends at once and chaos is transformed into the so-called "mystical experience." This process, once begun, can continue into such total absorption that the individual consciousness ceases to exist at any point and we could refer to that as a more or less permanent trance.
In the French comic strip, Asterix le Gaulois, the tribal wizard, Panoramix, using his golden serpe, collects mistletoe for potions. These potions faithfully confer superhuman strength on the drinker, much as spinach does for Popeye. It's inevitable that we should think of physical strength as virility (maintaining erection) and from virility to fertility is a matter of course.
The word is Anglo-Saxon misteltan (the -tan being a "twig") from German Mistel, "mistletoe", a diminutive of Mist, "dung". For the mythic mind, excretion and birth are synonymous. Mistletoe was assumed to be the oak's product - hence, fertile. This also reflects, as we've seen many times before, the association, by the Unconscious, of supernatural powers with any "product" of the body.
We nature-deprived postmoderns should bear in mind that mistletoe is botanically unique. It is the only highly-evolved flowering plant that is parasitic; this unusual botanical fact should automatically alert the M/magic(k)all mind to the possibility that it must have unusual pharmaceutical properties as well. A cure for barrenness, of course, and an aphrodisiac are two entirely different things. There is no known chemical substance that has a specific, predictable aphrodisiac effect on human beings. We have too many complicated and individual reactions for that. Everyone knows, for instance, that alcohol isn't really an aphrodisiac. It simply releases inhibitions, some of which may be sexual, but not necessarily. Most drugs don't stimulate the sexual centers at all. They cause fatigue as they wear off and it is the fatigue (or lactic acid) so generated that acts as the stimulant.
Amongst the Germans the decorating of trees for religious effects goes back to pagan times. The Teutonic religions, however, borrowed much from the more advanced Celts and "tree-worshipping" is always associated with the latter. In the 8th Century it was St. Boniface who dedicated the fir tree to X, thus profaning the sacred oak of Odin (we see how the Teutons and the Druids had already joined forces). But the custom of bringing greenery into the house during the winter solstice is an ancient custom, long preceding Xtianity.
The Egyptians were not such sticklers about keeping boundaries between monotheism and polytheism. If the Xtians were honest they'd admit that the Trinity is pure polytheism. Indeed, not even the Jews are strictly monotheistic, as their hierarchies of angels indicate, as the Hebrew language itself betrays its polytheistic origins. And as Hakim Bey says, if the muslims understood Islam, they'd worship idols.
Astrophysically the moon is a "corpse". But then most of the planets are "dead" worlds. The greenhouse effect on Venus is horrific, the atmosphere of Jupiter is poisonous, the outer worlds are frozen solid and so on. We might say that the Sun is "alive", but if so, it is much too alive for us, certainly, with its nuclear explosions and temperatures upwards of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. No, we must, as Genesis instructs, think of the lights in the heavens as "illuminators" and "signs", rather than as possible human abodes. By that token, the Moon is not a "dead world" but Diana's silvern lamp!
Some astrologers say the Moon is the Personality, whose chief characteristics are "protection and envy. What they mean is that it is the archetypal Anima (as the Sun is the archetypal Animus) and the ruler of the emotions, moods, feelings, desires, etc. The actual "New" Moon is not the conjunction of the Sun and Moon in the same sign - that phase is known as the "Dark of the Moon". The fine crescent of the "New Moon" occurs in the sign just following the conjunction. It is the beginning of the lunar month and known as Sahar Dag. It occurs five twelve-hour periods after the listed new moon.
The Atu corresponds to Khephra about to rise, says Crowley, hence is one of the three sacred "lights" and cannot be evil. It is also the realm of Yesod on the Tree of Life.
Come with me where kappas reach,
Where Elementals and Archangels
teach,
Where Aliens craft down to visit Earth
And covered,
creviced Shangrilas do hide
Their minarets and migdalors
From
spies and eye of plane,
Where rainbow cliffs o'er green-decked
trees
Through gold-lipp't clouds connect
The several astral
skies.
Although imperfect souls must be liberated from their bodies for the
good of evolution, so that they can be reincarnated and re-worked, the Egyptians
did not want the souls of the Adepts to be reabsorbed. Therefore the bodies of
the exceptional ones were preserved in order to act as anchors and talismans for
their souls. Body and soul, it will be recalled, were not all there was to the
spirit. Since matter and spirit are the opposite poles of the mystery, material
evolution and spiritual manifestation occur in tandem, complementing one
another. Every physical shell, as a manifested spiritual entity represents a
lengthy history, a culmination of many immaterial lives acting as Spirit, Soul
and Mind on the Archetypal, Formative and Creative planes. In this way, helpful
analogies can be abstracted from the body's movements, gestures and positions.
Similarly, in the Adepts, the speech, the ideas and hopes of the soul become
guiding beacons and the lessons of life and death can
There is a practical reason for keeping silent about private or creative projects, especially while they're still in the planning stage. Any talking about a plan will be a talking out of it, because talking is an action of it own and automatically substitutes for physical action. Those poets and novelists who hang out in coffee shops engaging one another in endless serious discussions should hardly be surprised when they return to their silent rooms only to find they have nothing left over to put on paper!
Plans must also be hidden until the moment comes to act or others will interfere with them.
It has been said that the wise man speaks in riddles as much as possible. Enlightenment is best expressed through ritual, works of art, joking and exotic behavior, rather than through actual messages in so many explicit terms. Esoteric words are used to ensure that the seeker can understand only if he has reached a certain level on his own. For example, to convince an ignorant person that he is a God would be to unleash not merely an intolerable egotism but could even trigger overt psychopathic behavior. The greatest truths are multi-dimensional life-long fonts of revelation, disclosing themselves to successive stages of understanding, little by little, in keeping with one's experiences.
But throughout all of this, notice that the command is "Silence" and not isolation. It is permissible to read and write books at any level, because the reader can exercise selectivity and can stop and start wherever he chooses at the writer's "silent" words on paper (or vidscreen). One is always a captive audience of the spoken word, whereas to read is an outgoing, positive activity taking place in total freedom. Therefore, the reader has proved, by virtue of his persistence and attentionality that he is entitled to instruction - having found the tree he is allowed to extract its fruit. Then, having tasted, he will discover for himself whether or not it is life-sustaining.