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CACABUS
Greco-Roman equivalent of Hebrew
kochav or "star".
CADUCEUS
(keryx, "herald - a herald's wand,
kerukeion). Representative of the spinal column: matter and spirit
intertwining to produce the manifest world and to create a channel for the
sexless Sushumna power. Pingala and Ida, the two serpents, are male and female.
Ultimately, the embodiment of Kundalini: the sexual, hence vital force or
"healing power." The doubled serpent is unconditional, absolute wisdom. A
herald's wand confers immunity in all regions - protection from attack
(especially since the serpents are vipers).
Apart from being the emblem of the wandering healer, the caduceus also stands
for the Qabalah as a whole. The staff itself is the middle pillar and the
serpents are the two flanking pillars, representing the slippery extremes that
reflect one another back and forth. A recently unearthed hieroglyph depicts
Thoth with a staff surmounted by two cobras bearing, respectively, the crowns of
Upper and Lower Egypt (the conscious and unconscious mind). In medicine, the
black and white serpents signify disease and health.
CANCER
The fourth sign of the Zodiac (June 22-July
23). The Crab is the final resolution of material manifestation, symbolized by
the depth of the sea or the lake between the mountains. It is the sign of the
soul's incarnation and the beginning of material life.
All the other creatures of the Zodiac move in a forward direction, but the
Crab is able to move backwards and sideways as well. This indicates that Cancer
is the sign of the time-traveler. (The Chariot is a time machine). Colin Wilson
(a Cancerian himself) believes that the Crab symbolizes the fact that when we
have our skeletons on the outside we are undeveloped followers of the will of
others and must learn to grow our own skeletons on the inside so that we can
become leaders. Thus Cancer is the sign of both slaves and rebels.
For the Egyptians, Cancer, coinciding with the rising of Sirius, was the
"Theme of the World", the universal horoscope (what today we call the "mundane
chart") in which, according to Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, the planets, etc.
were in the position they occupied at the very beginning, long before the Age of
Aries. It is therefore, associated with Sirius, the Dog Star, or beginning of
the Egyptian year.
Famous Cancerians: Alexander the Great, John the Baptist, Count von Zeppelin,
Mary Baker Eddy, George Orwell, Helen Keller, P.T. Barnum, Jean Cocteau,
Rousseau, Pirandello, Charles Laughton, James Cagney, Buckminster Fuller, Ingmar
Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Hermann Hesse, Kafka, Hawthorne, Proust, Thoreau,
Rembrandt, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, George McGovern, Marshall McLuhan,
Rube Goldberg and Nicola Tesla.
CAP OF MAINTENANCE
(Like that of St. Nicholas). Worn
before nobility, as a show of respect - sometimes worn by nobility as well.
CAPRICORN
The tenth sign of the Zodiac (Dec. 22 -
Jan. 20). As symbolized by the mountain-top, the Fish-Goat is the culmination of
all the signs (as its opposite, Cancer, is the origin and Nadir of all the
signs). At this point materialization is complete and it is time to enter the
spirit. It is the sign of kings and messiahs who sacrifice themselves for the
common people.
Famous Capricornians: Tycho Brahe, Carlos Castaneda, Alan Watts, Humphrey
Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Gurdjieff, Mao-Tse-Tung, Matisse, Nostradamus,
Paracelsus, Pasteur, Woodrow Wilson, Stalin, Loyala, Joan Baez, Nixon, Albert
Schweitzer, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Benjamin Franklin, Poe.
CARPOCRATES
A 2nd Century Gnostic, who advocated
promiscuity and thereby earned the hatred of orthodox Xtianity, which in turn
delighted in distorting his philosophy. What Carpocrates intended to show was
that the flesh is of so little importance compared to the soul, that it can be
used and abused for a higher purpose. Since the body is a prison, it is
necessary to transcend the flesh through experiencing it and thereby free
oneself of all desire. Any human experience missed will simply cause
reincarnation in another body. If we do not break all the divine laws, we cannot
free ourselves to return to the Unbegotten. Carpocrates is credited with having
said, "Nothing is evil by nature" and his ideas can be traced to Plato and
Pythagoras. Another thing that made Carpocratians unpopular with the orthodox
Xtians was their idea of communal property, an early form of Communism.
CASSANDRA
This daughter of Hecuba who had
inherited her mother's gift of prophecy rejected Apollo who, in revenge, caused
her predictions to be disbelieved by everyone. Just as no one rejects Apollo who
expects to attain popular success, so no one who cruelly paints the truth always
in harshest colors or without some artfulness will be heeded.
CASTANEDA, CARLOS
Author of many books on Mexican
brujería, centering on the Yaquí sorceror, Don Juan Matus, a healthy
championer of mescalito and peyote.
Don Juan considered himself a "warrior", patiently awaiting the opportunity
to use his will. He taught that we must learn how to see correctly. His
four overcomings for the warrior are: Fear; Power; Calrity; Old Age. We still
ignore the lesson of the success of Xtianity, which failed to historify Jesus,
yet prevailed all the same. Similarly, critics attempt to prove that Don Juan
never existed, hoping thereby to discredit the teachings. Perhaps it's time we
admitted that fiction can take many forms, including philosophy and metaphysical
initiation.
Don Juan is much like Jesus Christ: an entity of tremendous mythic power who
is only diminished by attempts to over-authenticate or historicize him.
CATECHUMEN
A pagan who has been chosen for Xtian
brainwashing.
CATHARI
In 12th Century France, the Cathars were
also known as the Albigensians, elsewhere sometimes equated only slightly less
accurately with chiliastic Manichæanism (the belief in a dualistic universe
ruled by Good and Evil) and early Gnosticism. They held that the world was
created by a blind demiurge and is under the dominion of Evil. The Albigenses
(from the town of Albi), believed that Lucifer was God's first son and Christ
his second son, whose role was to bring spiritual order to Lucifer's evil
domain. Most historians persist in describing the Cathari as sexual "puritans"
but it was actually reproduction that they condemned. Their priests did not eat
eggs or milk because they are the by-products of reproduction.
It is most curious that contemporary mention of this sect almost always
ignores this most important aspect, viz. their insistence that human
reproduction or procreation is the only unforgivable sin. Since this world is
hell, to foist existence on innocent beings is a crime. Hence, they were the
first practitioners of compulsory birth-control.
Some of the Cathari were quite ascetic frequently fasting, always chaste and
were called Parfaits or "Perfects", hence the modern French dessert.
Others believed that sodomy was a logical way of avoiding procreation. In
Bulgaria, where Cathari were equated with the Bogomils, sodomy was routinely
practiced as an alternative to reproduction hence the origin of the word
"bugger" from Bulgar.
The Cathari (and other Gnostics) understood what our postmodern world has
forgotten. A society that puts all of its meaning, purpose, faith and
future into its children, is a society that has lost touch not only with the
present and with its sense of responsibility it has lost touch with life itself.
Those least qualified to teach are those who are most fertile. Those who grind
out children like links of sausage cease to take the slightest interest in the
very things that their children value the most and those things that most ought
to concern society, what most needs to be preserved. People who have had
children no longer demand of themselves the time, energy, courage or inclination
to attempt the rigorous, perilous and unpredictable experimentation essential to
authentic personal, social and racial growth.
As the Catholic Church was considered by the Cathari to be strictly "the work
of the Devil" and the Cross an affront to God, the Cathari were universally
despised. The Church opposed this heresy vigorously through pogroms and
massacres, so that by 1330 there were no more of them left to persecute.
CATHEXIS
Projection of psychic energy
inappropriately onto some other unrelated person, thing or idea.
CAVE SEDEM
Lat. "Beware of the chair!" An ancient
reminder to keep fit, because medieval scholars tended to forget to exercise.
Today, in light of the fact that everyone and his backup has to make a spectacle
of jogging and yet cannot discuss any subject but the latest football scores, I
would suggest to them that it is not the lard on their asses that should concern
them, but the lard in their heads!
CERBERUS
Twin of Orthrus, who is symbol of Set. The
tri-cephalic dog with the dragon's-tail guarding the gate of Hades, who permits
entry but prevents exit, is probably derived from pre-Hellenic Ker + bero
(pherontes), meaning simply "head-bearing", for originally he had a
hundred heads and not merely three. His three heads stand in parallel to and
midway between the three rivers leading to Hades (Phlegeston, Styx and Lethe,
which divide the dead from the living) and the three judges within Tartarus
Rhadamanthus, Minos and Aeacus who judge men's souls. He is the Greek equivalent
of the jackal-headed Egyptian God Anubis (or the wolf-headed deity of Abydos,
Wepwawet, "Opener of the Ways"). Proof of this can be seen in the fact that
whereas Cerberus is the offspring of Typhaon (the terrible stormcloud or
cyclone, and the last of the titans) and the serpent-woman, Echidna, Anubis is
the son of Osiris and Nephthys (sister of Isis), who assisted in the putting
back together of the parts of Osiris and his resurrection. As Gods descend from
one people to another, they usually degenerate into monsters. We see this
readily in the transformation of pagan deities into Xtian demons. Anubis is god
of the three processes of death, resurrection and reintegration, who leads the
soul to the underworld under his protection, but Cerberus is merely a monster
who guards the pathway. Mention should also be made of the three
ultraexistential "beyond" Gods: Ain Soph, Tao and Abraxas.
CETOGENIC
Of cetacean origin (as psi force, mass
hallucination), according to Swigart, UFO's are cetogenic, the last desperate
cry of the whales to man.
CHALDEAN
A synonym for "astrologer", since it was
the Chaldaeans who were most advanced in this art. The following alphabet is one
of 20 or 30 different Chaldean alphabets in Edmund Fry's Pantographia
(1799); it is called "celestial" because it was believed to have been designed
by ancient astrologers "from the figures of certain stars" (i.e.
constellations):
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CHANNELING
Very popular practice of the 1980's.
To channel is to act as an amanuensis or vox for an "etheric world
intelligence". If one acts as such a channel, one allows one's own voice to
speak in a relaxed and non-interfering way. The channeler is often not aware of
the meaning of the message until it has been completely written down or
recorded. The knowledge so transmitted is generally of an intellect much beyond
the channeler's. Automatic writing and ouija contact were formerly rather rare
talents, but almost anyone can learn how to channel. We spend most of our time,
in fact, forcing the conscious mind to close (and lock) doors to the
unconscious, to deny intuitions, to ignore telepathic intrusions, to block out
all inner and outer "voices".
CHAOS
The first step away from the Unknown Absolute.
HPB says it is "the impenetrable veil between the incognizable and the Logos."
Apart from its ordinary meaning, Grant calls it "the ultimate substance of
anti-matter." Its number is 156 (same as Babalon). Mostly what we call "order"
is but an arbitrary arrangement of chaotic elements, as when we give an
arbitrary frame of stars the name of a constellation.
Chaos is an endless fount of original realities in which anything is possible
at random. Who hath in himself no chaos hath no power to create a star! However,
since all things are but a repetition of the one, all things have the same
creative handle on them. That is, our worlds are unpredictable as to form, but
not to content - or vice-versa, depending on the morphogenetic rules. Science
says of chaos, "Highs are followed by lows. Lows are followed by
unpredictability." (Which, or course, is to say nothing).
CHAOS MAGICK
Basically, it is that aspect of
magic that deals with entering the "Abyss" or, on the common level of
understanding, facing the unknown Chaos being simply "The Unknown" as apparently
devoid of meaning. Chaos Magic was largely the invention of artist Austin Osman
Spare in his Zos Kia Cultus. Later, a form of Chaos Magick was developed
by a few others in the 1980's as a form of the magic of solipsism. It was best
expounded in the 1980s by Pete Carroll in his Liber Null & Psychonaut
and comprised the magic of the "Illuminates of Thanateros", and in the 1990s is
best exemplified by such groups as AutonomatriX and Z-Cluster, and moreover by
myriad individual (or rogue) practitioners such as Andrew Chumbley and
Stephen Mace.
The very mystery of being itself, said Carroll, is fundamentally connected to
how we deal with chaos. We react to chaos by earthing it to its opposite. Once
an action or result enters consciousness, then the chao-energy or "cause" has to
be carried all the way through to its end "effect" and hence is already
implicitly manifest in the thought, even as it rises. If the impulse, however,
is thwarted for any reason or scattered by ignorance, it falls back and
disappears into its opposite polarity, i.e. its concealment in chaos. Hence
pre-meditation is the bane of action and Crowley used to warn against the "lust
for results." (The action is the result!).
CHAOSPHERE
It is hollow and contains all
implements. One of the spikes can be withdrawn as a weapon. Greg Bear
(Aeon) says the chaosphere should be used as the signifier for
information that is not accessible to the unauthorized.
CHAOS PREDICTION
Mathematical Chaos
Prediction is the next step after Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, now used
partly (in ignorance) by computers, stockbrokers and oil-dowsers. If the
wrong people get hold of this key they will be able to control all random
factors in the world to their advantage. James P. Crutchfield say, "Innate
creativity may have an underlying chaotic process that selectively amplifies
small fluctuations." The amplification of small fluctuations (characteristic of
Chaos) and its bibranching can be examined by values of growth factors at which
bifurcations take place using "Feigenbaum's Number": 4,669.
Its whole number factors are 7, 23, 29, 161, 203 and 667. Note that 23 is
already claimed by R.A. Wilson as the "number of synchronicities" and 7 is the
mystical number par excellence, the "Holy Merkabah", the zodiacal sign of
Cancer. 29 = Hebrew Dacha, "Crushed". Further, from A.C.'s 777: 161 is
the Heavenly Man or Exalted Man, the "Congregation of the Eternal", 203 =
Initials of the Trinity: dead; feather: created; ambush : foreign;
esoteric. 667 = "oil for lighting". It is fortunate that 4 + 6 + 6 + 9 = 7.
Thank Gods, it doesn't add up to One! Then we would be in trouble!
CHAOTE
A person who recognizes the chaotic nature of
our world. Most post-modern chaotes know that consensual reality is doomed.
Hakim Bey refers to chaotes as "anarchs of the new paradigm."
CHARACITH
The 18th Kala. A distortion of The
Chariot. The magic is the power to cast spells and the sickness associated with
Characith is the danger of becoming a vampire.
CHARIOT, THE
The seventh Arcanum, lettered Cheth.
The path connecting Binah and Geburah, hence, according to Nevill Drury, the
warrior-like aspect of the Emperor, who, in contrast, is thought of more as a
father-God. Here his role would seem to be that of the Destroyer. Since most
authorities assign Cancer to this Enigma rather than Aries (which would be more
fitting for The Emperor), such a role seems questionable. Others see the
Charioteer as simply the passenger of the Merkabah. The chariot in its
historical sense is the vehicle of triumph.
The sleeping (referring to the unconscious mind), black and white (positive
& negative) sphinxes represent the two-headed earth god, Aker. His two heads
are now sphinxes, now lions (the latter are reminiscent of the hieroglyphic
"lions of yesterday and tomorrow", facing opposite directions on the horizon).
Bicephalous Aker guards the eastern and western doorways to the Underworld. He
is the outer "limits" of earth (that is, limitations of matter).
For Crowley the Charioteer is the balancer and controller of opposing forces
- the opposite of opposing forces going awry, as in The Tower.
CHELA
(Hindu). A disciple or follower of Yoga,
associated with "guru", the teacher, hence, by extension, any student.
CHERNOBOG
The old, Pre-Vladimir Slavic black demon
(lit. "Black God") of the Varlagi Russians, represented by a black dog. The
similarity of the name of this demon with Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant
disaster of 1987, caused great distress amongst the Russian people. Premier
Gorbachev's forehead birthmark did not help to allay slavic uneasiness, since it
was read as the Apocalyptic "mark of the beast."
CHESED
(Or GEDULAH). The fourth qabalistic power zone
of the Tree of Life. It is the top of the pillar of "Mercy", the feminine
counterpart of Geburah on the other side. The rule of the manifest
universe.
CHESS
Several metaphysicians (Crowley, Shallis,
Carroll, etc.) have suggested that chess is really a medieval computer
simulacrum, a magical model of the world, or of Time, in which various forces
confront one another. The black and white squares are happenings of evil mixed
with good. The pieces are fixed stages of mental development. The pawns are
ordinary mentalities, with few choices open to them, who can move but forward in
hope of eventual enlightenment (embodied in the queen). The knight is the
initiate, the bishop ecclesiastical power, the castle or rook temporal power.
The king, of course, is the inner self or life-force revealed at death or
apotheosis, depending on whether one wins or loses. One's opponent king is the
source of the tyranny of the outside world, the "other" that the self must
battle. Originally the game was played with four players, each having four
pieces and four pawns - with no queens.
Ithell Colquhoun notes that Yeats and the Celts before him (fidchell)
had a chessboard representing the four gates to the cities of the four elements
and in which the squares were cromlechs - mystic, upright stones. Gwenddolen, in
Arthurian legend, is said to have possessed an enchanted chessboard that played
by itself.
CHIROPS
Bat God - one of the mysterious "supreme"
deities. (Cf. Satan's batwings and the triliteral Arab root kh-f-sh,
which depending on the vowels can mean "bat" or "ruin", destruction"). In
Mesoamerican religions, the bat stands for enlightenment, since it awakens in
the darkness. The Mayan god is Camazotz.
CHOKMAH
The second power chakra of the qabalistic
Trinity of the Tree of Life. The male principle of light that goes out to
uncover the "Hidden" Wisdom (Lux in Tenebris). It is the zone of the
Magician and Ra.
CHORONZON
Guardian of and "Dweller in the Abyss"
(Demon of Dispersion) = 333 (Noznoroch). Crowley called him the "first and
deadliest of all the powers of evil", sole inhabitant of the Abyss, capable of
assuming any shape, the very Lord of Chaos. In 1909 Crowley and Neuburg did
battle with him on a mountaintop in Algiers, thus making Neuburg a "secret
chief". The reason he is so deadly is that his force is the opposite of
M/magic(k) and he is therefore a special threat for the Magician who has to
grapple with him on his own. Choronzon's open sesame to Hell is "Zazas, Zazas,
Nasatanada, Zazas!"
CHOZZAR
The "Pig God" - Blavatsky says it is the God
of the magicians of Atlantis, one of Grant's Typhonian Teratomas or symbols of
Set.
CHRISTIAN, PAUL
French occultist (1811-1877), best
known for his Histoire de la Magie (1870). He regarded the "Book of
Thoth" as containing, in its 22 arcana, "The Science of Will, the principle of
all wisdom and the source of all power."
CHRISTOS
(Greek: "anointed"). This is a direct
translation of the Hebrew meshiach, "annointed, "which designates a king
or venerated person. The Jews were looking for such a "king" who would lead them
out of servitude. The practice of smearing kings and priests with fat, oil and
blood goes far back into deepest Africa, where conquering warriors painted
themselves with blood and witch-doctors ritually smeared themselves with semen.
CHURCH OF SATAN
Founded by Anton Szandor
LaVey, in San Francisco. His aeon (Anno Satanas) commences on
Walpurgisnacht, 1966. It is LaVey's contention that Satan is the "spirit of
progress and liberation" and that Xtianity, sanctimonious and hypocritical, is
opposed equally to the body and the intellect. The traditional Black Mass,
however, is outmoded, both in form and intention, and LaVey's rituals are
refreshingly different. The Church of Satan is not altruistic, is frankly
selfish, however, as LaVey says, "Evil is live backwards." The Satanic
Rituals, which is the companion to the Satanic Bible, contains
virtually all that any modern magician might require by way of invoking the dark
gods.
CLAIRVOYANT THEORY OF PERCEPTION
(Title of a
book by M.M. Moncrief). Even in the "easily accessed" areas of cerebral/somatic
color memory, the speed of response can't encompass the range of input. We don't
always perceive which color is actually there. For instance, if you're looking
at a scene bathed in blue light, an object that is supposed to be pure white
will appear blue enough, but you'll see it as "white". In other words, the
merely objective color is meaningless alongside the actual subjective
experience.
If the latter is true, then perhaps we do a lot more "compensating" than we
generally acknowledge. A person who is hard of hearing provides a common example
of ambiguous perception. How much of what he hears is actually perceived and how
much is "reconstructed"? My father, knowing my proclivities, might hear "All
seems well within the dozen adjacencies!", but suspecting that I am honoring his
interests will correct that to what I really said, "Our team will win the A
series."
Some ultra-pragmatic, super-materialistic people can be exasperating when
they insist on rigid adherence, without interpretation, to strictly
sense-perceived data. Arsenic in the soup would simply indicate careless cooking
habits. A burning cross on the lawn would be a "fire hazard."
The point is not so much that we're all psychic, as that we've almost lost
the faculty through total reliance on logic and analysis. The senses were
originally designed to serve as microscopes and telescopes for zeroing in
specifically, to fine-tune what we already know in a general way. This is,of
course, the reason you experience ESP in the twilight zone near sleep. The
normal brain is like a cat that as a kitten allowed to suffer touching
privileged paw to common earth, so that now it can't walk!
CLOACONIMBUS
A permanent smog overhanging
heavily polluted areas (such as Mexico City), composed of dried or vaporous
fecal and other excremental materials.
COBRA
The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous
explains the metaphorical aspects of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The first entry
is about serpents. It seems the Egyptians used the cobra to designate royalty
because of its power over life and death. Since, when coiled, its tail
disappears, it is also a fitting symbol for eternity. The Greeks called the
serpent oura, or "tail", whence the "Uraeus", which is the Greek word for
the cobra-shaped crown worn by kings and gods alike. To demonstrate its
"eternal" aspect, the Greeks depicted the serpent devouring its own tail
(Ouroboros "tail-devouring"). Oddly enough, the Greek letter rho
is similar in shape to the beta, and some scholars think oura
(read ouba) is taken from an old Hebrew word for sorcery ob. (See
OBEAH).
This is all very instructive, to be sure, but what interests us is that the
Egyptians believed that the cobra was so deadly that it didn't even have to sink
its fangs into a person. It barely needed to graze him. In fact, it merely had
to "breathe" on someone to inflict its venom. Now, since we already know that
the "king" cobra was associated with royalty, its not surprising that the Greeks
should call it, in their language, "the little king" or basilisk,
bringing along with the word the Egyptian version of its natural history.
By the time we reach the Middle Ages in Europe, the basilisk (since cobras
don't exist in Europe) had turned into a fabulous beast with wings and a fiery
breath fatal to every living thing. A similar transformation happened to the
poor white rhinoceros of Africa; in Europe the unicorn was turned into a
fabulous horse with a horn. And when we learn that the most fearsome of sea
serpents, the Nichus, was born of a medieval monk's mistranslation of an
original misspelling of the Latin version of the "Nile" river (Nilus), an
obnoxious pattern emerges: the decay of truth into superstition, simply because
of linguistic ignorance.
COMITY OF STARS
Refers to our planet's entry into
post-historical galactic union after the Ultimate Temporal Culmination of 2012.
CORYBANT
Priest of Cybele, characterized by noisy
music, wild abandon.
COSH
An acronym for "Church of Secular Humanism,"
Xtians refer to Secular Humanism as a religion. COSH is the hyperbolic,
cosine-haversine function of celestial navigation and engendered by
transcendental numbers e and pi, which in turn derive from Gaussian complex
numbers involving i, the irrational square root of minus 1 (that is to the power
of pi to the power of i = 1 or {[(e to the power of x) - (e to the power of -x)]
divided by 2}.
This is fitting enough, since calling secular humanism a church is also
hyperbolic, deriving from transcendental irrationality. Since Gauss's parents
were "liberated from the shackles" of the Xtian religion it gives the ultimate
origin of COSH an infinite lineage. Since the fundamentalists have themselves
conferred religious status upon Secular Humanism, it is the opinion of COSH's
founder, Gerald Baker (1984 Iowan candidate for the Big Deal Party), that it
ought to be given tax-free status so as to empower it to solicit funds for the
purposes of widespread evangelism.
COSMIC SWITCHBOARD
- The Grid of Omniscience or "Universal Mind" into which anyone may tap at
any time to obtain any datum or understanding of past, present or future. We
are all eventually hooked into omniscience, but in order to avoid being
overwhelmed by a chaos of information and meaning we set up a thick wall
between ordinary consciousness and omniscience. For the uninitiated, the light
of omniscience is so glaring that picking and choosing specific information is
impossible.
- On the assumption that extraterrestrials who desire to contact Earth would
probably avoid conventional electromagnetic technology and obviously prefer to
communicate directly with human beings of choice, an intake must be devised
for those who ordinarily and unconsciously repress all telepathic reception. A
series of dice throws, in which several letters of the alphabet are assigned
to each side of the die, will result in a choice of letters which are then
translated into words by the use of intuition alone. This is not a very
dependable or pragmatic method, but at least "chance" provides something
received that is not totally due to the imagination.
CREED
My own belief, eminently mutable and if belief
it be, is this: I am a God containing within myself all the Gods - because the
part is equal to and more than the whole. Both the universe and myself I created
and I dwell forever in Eternity, as I was, from the beginning, that very maker
of the Original Void whence all Gods flow. The Self, my selves, the
ordinary and Higher, the soul and Lower, are but changing, lambent tongues of
Spirit. I do not worship, for this is none but myself. Instead, I invoke the
presence of the Archetypes at will. I do not repeat, but only create. I
metamorphose myself and transform the world.
As a God is not his robes, nor a serpent his cast-off skin - as the Earth
itself, in becoming corrupt, is cast out like so much rotten fruit, so this body
is subject to corruption and death. Yet I am not this body.
To be is to know. My purpose in coming into existence is to know myself.
There is no other reason for birth. Know this, then:
Each God-Person is a center, focus and collection of power-embued matter
transforming itself. Within that self-universe, from the star at its center,
radiates a confluence of materia, yods, animals, plants, machines, chariots and
other orders of being in one Microcosm infinitely opening inward, rising like a
bubble within the vast Macrocosm, below as above, the One in dazzling
simultaneous parallelism with the All.
COURT CARDS
The royal cards of the Minor Arcana. Pages
represent "establishing", Knights stand for "initiation", Queens indicate
"desires" and Kings are "controls". Kings are sometimes referred to as Princes -
that is, son rather than spouse of the Queen. In addition, the Pages are
earth, knights fire, queens water, Kings air.
CROSS
Ancient symbol, far predating Xtianity, and
taking many forms, such as the swastika and the Egyptian Ankh. It symbolizes,
amongst many other things, centrality and the union of male and female in divine
conjunction. When circled it symbolizes the earth and serves as an apotropaic.
Most of the associations attributed by the Galileans to the cross of their
crucified god have been lifted over the centuries from concurrent pagan sources.
CRYSTAL
Crystallized rock, quartz and gemstones are
the highest forms of the mineral kingdom. If you accept the fact that the earth
is alive, as the entire manifest universe is alive, then crystals, although not
biodes, are centers of mineral "intelligence", deriving from elemental
proto-evolution. It is through crystal that messages are broadcast via the
air-waves and as earth is the amalgamating force, crystallization precedes
formation of the most primitive amino acids of life. Thus, for the adept,
crystals are avenues of cosmic information, quantum change and negentropy.
CRYSTAL SKULL
A replica of an ancient human
skull hewn out of a single rock crystal and found by Anna Mitchell-Hedges in
1927 in the Mayan burial-ground, Labaantún, British Honduras. Light reflected
from the zygomatic arch and funneled along the optic bridge causes the
eye-sockets to shine brightly. The skull also emits concentrated pinpoints of
light and serves as a magnifying glass and scrying ball. If suspended properly,
the jaw will open and close, the eyes will flash and it will easily nod yes or
no. Tests reveal that it was not carved by metal tools.
Small crystal skulls have throughout the past couple of centuries been
unearthed in Central America and a large one, similar to the Michell-Hedges
skull, was already in the British Museum. The M-H skull is of far superior
quality, however, and the British version is derived from the former.
CSICOP
"Committee for the Scientific Investigation Of
the Paranormal," founded in 1976 by New York professor of philosophy, Paul Kurz.
Its membership originally included many well-known, rigid authority figures from
the scientific establishment, such as B.F. Skinner, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan.
It is dedicated single-mindedly to the discrediting of any technically
unsubstantiated, over-imaginative or simply "unscientific" point of view.
CTHULHU
(H.P. Lovecraft's cosmology). Great Evil
One, dead or asleep and dreaming beneath the sea in the sunken city of R'lyeh
(Atlantis?), revived by Kenneth Grant. As the powers of evil and darkness
threaten to break through into this world, this great "behemoth of the deep",
awakens to lead them. His totem is the Egyptian hippo goddess, Ta-Urt. His
number is 52, the same as Semitic K-L-V or "dog", referring, no doubt to Anubis.
(Ta-Urt, however, be aware, is a secret aspect of Isis).
CYBERPUNK
Timothy Leary, in an article in
Reality Hackers magazine #6, compared the computer to Tarot and the earth
pantacle to "stored algorithms". For him the Baby Boomers are recapitulators of
theology, having grown up with Zen, Yoga, Crowley, etc. in minihistory and
graduated to the cognitive world of Artificial Intelligence.
CYCLOPS
(Pl. Cyclopes) The monocular giant sons of
Gaea and Uranus who forged the thunderbolts of Zeus: Arges the
brightness, Brontes the thunder and Steropes the lightning bolt
itself. Poseidon also had one-eyed giant sons who were shepherds and cannibals.
One of them, Polyphemus, was blinded by Odysseus.
CYNICS
(From Greek kynikos, "canine"). They
were so called by Aristophanes in the 5th Century because they were critical of
materialists and "snarled at worldly conceits". Interestingly enough, today's
cynics tend to snarl not at materialists but at idealists and visionaries.
Increasingly, however, in the postmodern world, cynicism directed towards the
most firmly established segments of society is coming to be seen as the highest
mark of intelligence.
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