Reflection for June 16, 2013: The tree surrounded by four rivers

 

 

 

Soaring upwards
Can be like reaching down

Pushing forward

Can be like pushing back

Going right

Can be like Going left

Within is within

All things begin

And end at the cross roads

–GraalBaum 2013

 

 

This world-mountain was Nizir to the Chaldeans, Olympus to the Greeks, Hara Berezaiti to the Persians of the Avesta, the later Alborz and Elburz; a transfer, as says Mme. Ragozin, of ‘mythical heavenly geography to the earth.’ This mountain—the solar hill of the Egyptians—we shall again refer to in the next two or three chapters. At its apex springs, the heaven tree on which the solar bird is perched. From its roots spring the waters of life—the celestial sea, which, rushing adown the firmament, supplies the ocean which circumscribes the earth or falls directly in rain. At their fountain these springs are guarded by a goddess. In Egypt Nut, the goddess of the oversea, leans from the branches of the heavenly persea and pours forth the celestial water. In the Vedas, Yama, lord of the waters, sits in the highest heaven in the midst of the heavenly ocean under the tree of life, which drops the nectar Soma, and here, on the ‘navel of the waters,’ matter first took form. In the Norse, the central tree Yggdrasil has at its roots the spring of knowledge guarded by the Norns, the northern Fates; two swans the parents of all those of earth, float there. In Chaldea the mighty tree of Eridu, centre of the world, springs by the waters. The Avesta gives a very complete picture—Iran is at the centre of the seven countries of the world; it was the first created, and so beautiful, that were it not that God has implanted in all men a love for their own land, all nations would crowd into this the loveliest land. To the east somewhere, but still at the centre of the world, rises the ‘Lofty Mountain,’ from which all the mountains of the earth have grown, ‘High Haraiti;’ at its

summit is the gathering place of waters, out of which spring the two trees, the heavenly Haoma (Soma), and another tree which bears all the seeds that germinate on earth. This heavenly mountain is called ‘Navel of Waters,’ for the fountain of all waters springs there, guarded by a majestic and beneficent goddess. In Buddhist accounts, the waters issue in four streams like the

Eden from this reservoir, and flow to the cardinal points, each making one complete circuit in its descent. In the Persian Bundahish there are two of these heavenly rivers flowing east and west. To the Hindus the Ganges is such a heavenly stream. ‘The stream of heaven was called by the Greeks Achelous.’ The Nile in Egypt, the Hoang-Ho in China, and the Jordan to the Jews, seem to have been celestial rivers. This mountain of heaven is often figured in Christian art with the four rivers issuing from under the Throne of God.

Sir John Maundeville gives an account of the earthly Paradise quite perfect in its detailed scheme. It is the highest place on earth, nearly reaching to the circle of the moon (as in Dante), and the flood did not reach it. ‘And in the highest place, exactly in the middle, is a well that casts out the four streams’—Ganges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates. ‘And men there beyond say that all the sweet waters of the world above and beneath take their beginning from the well of Paradise, and out of that well all water come and go.

 

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/amm/amm07.htm

 

http://chasinghermes.com/2009/04/24/08-axis-mundi.aspx

 

 

Reflection for May 27, 2011: Exploring the Grail

I praise the Lord, Prince of the realm and King!

His rule extends across the whole wide world.

Gweir was penned beneath the fortress mound,

As tell the tales of Pwyll and Pryderi.

None before him passed into the prison,

With a heavy chain a faithful servant bound.

Bitter before the spoils of Annwn he sang,

And until Doomsday lasts our bardic prayer.

Three companies of warriors we went in –

Seven alone rose up from Elfs-castle.

 

Song rang out, honoring me with praise

In the four-peaked fortress, four its mighty turnings.

My verses from within the cauldron uttered,

By breath of maidens ninefold they were kindled.

The lord of Annwn’s cauldron: how is it made?

A dark ridge on its border, crusted pearls.

Its fate is not to boil the meat of cowards,

The deadly flashing sword is lifted to it,

And in the hand of the Leaper it was left.

Before the doors of hell the lamps were burning.

When we went in with Arthur, blinding trouble –

Seven alone rose up from Meads-castle.

 

 

Song rang out, honoring me with praise

In the four-peaked fortress, isle of the strong door.

Flowing water and shining jet are mingled,

They drink the sparkling wine before their followers.

Three companies of warriors sailed the sea –

Seven alone rose up from Hard-castle.

 

I do not deserve to be put with poetasters:

Beyond the fort they missed the valor of Arthur.

Six thousand men stood on the glass wall,

Their sentinel was difficult to speak with.

Three companies of warriors went with Arthur –

Seven alone rose up from Guts-castle.

 

 

I do not deserve the mean men, slack their shield straps.

They do not know the day of our creation,

Nor what time of day the One was born.

Who made him who strayed far from Defwy meadows?

They do not know the ox, his thick headband,

Full sevenscore links upon his chained collar.

And when we went with Arthur, woeful visit –

Seven alone rose up from Gods-castle.

 

 

I do not deserve these men — slack their will.

They do not know which day the chief was sired,

Nor what hour of day the lord was born,

Nor what beasts are kept, their heads of silver.

When we went in with Arthur, sorrowful strife –

Seven alone rose up from Box-castle.

 

 

Monks are a pack together — a choir of dogs –

They shrink away from meeting the lords who know:

Is there one course of wind? One course of water?

Is there one spark of fire?  Of fierce tumult?

Monks are a pack together, like youngling wolves

They shrink away from meeting the lords who know:

They do not know when night and dawn divide,

Nor wind, what is its course, nor what its onrush,

What place it ravages, nor where it strikes.

The grave of the saint vanishes, grave and ground.

I praise the Lord, great Prince of the whole world,

And so I am not sad, for Christ endows me.

further:

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/annwn.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preiddeu_Annwfn

http://igerne.tripod.com/annwn.htm

http://www.celtic-twilight.com/camelot/poetry/taliesin/spoils_annwfn.htm

 

In the center of the Castle of Brahma, our own body, there is a small shrine,

in the form of a Lotus flower, and within can be found a small space.

We should find who dwells there and want to know him….

for the whole universe is in him and he dwells within our heart.

–Chandoga Upanishad

 

Or, as one might say; In the center of the Castle of the Grail, our own body, there is a shrine,

and within it is to be found the Grail of the Heart.

We should indeed seek to know and understand that inhabitant.

It is the fragment of the divine contained within each one of us- like the sparks of

unfallen creation which the Gnostics saw entrapped within the flesh of the human envelope.

This light shines within each one, and the true quest of the Grail consists in

bringing that light to the surface, nourishing and feeding it until its radiance suffuses the world.

–John Matthews (“Temples of the Grail” found in At The Table of the Grail: No One Who Sets Forth on the Grail Quest Remains Unchanged )

 

 

The Grail Mystery Returned underground, wrapped itself again in its esotericism

and waited for another time toi unfold its inner revelation. Such a point was reached

after the Reformation, when the inner Grail mystery…surfaced again in the Rosicruccian

movement of the early seventeenth century. At this time…the Rosicrucians tried to incarnate

an Esoteric Christianity within the Protestant movement…in order to provide a much needed

resolution of the polarities of Protestantism. Thus we should see the Rosicrucian

movement as being inwardly related to the Grail mystery. The spiritual alchemy that

was the esoteric foundation of Rosicrucianism can be seen as a development of the Grail impulse.

–Adam Maclean (“Alchemical transmutation in history and symbolism” , found in At the Table of the Grail 1982)

 

 

The

intrinsic definition of Limitlessness is that It lacks nothing and can

receive nothing, for It is everything. As It is everything,

theoretictically It is the potential to be an infinite source of giving.

 

The

question arises, however, that there is nothing for It to give to

because It is everything. It would have to give to Itself. This has been

a major creation. conundrum in philosophy and theology for thousands of

years.

 

Kabbalah

suggests one way of dealing with this issue. It says that as long as

the infinite source of giving has no “will” to give, nothing happens.

However, the instant It has the will to give, this will initiates a

“thought.” Kabbalah says, “Will, which is [primordial] thought, is the

beginning of all things, and the expression [of this thought] is the

completion.

 

That is, the entire creation is nothing more than a thought in the “mind” ofEin Sof, so

to speak. Another way to express this idea is that the will to u give

instantly creates a will to receive. The idea that an infinite giver can

create receptivity in Itself is what Kabbalists call tzimtzum (contraction). It has to make an opening within Itself for receiving.

 

That which is given is called light. That which receives is called vessel. Light

and vessel are always in balance, because light comes from an infinite

source and thus will fill a vessel to its capacity. If we put a bucket

under Niagara Falls, it instantly fills. If we put a freight train

there, it also instantly fills. Imagine that the entire universe rests

under a Niagara Falls of light, continuously being filled.

 

According

to Kabbalah, the interaction between vessel and light is what makes the

world go around. Everything in the universe is a vessel that “wills” to

receive the light of theinfinite bestower. Each molecule, plant,

animal, rock, and human is a vessel; each has the “will” to be exactly

what it is.]

 

Human

consciousness is unique in that it has the quality of being “in and the

universe. If we the image of God.” This quality is expressed by what we

call free will, and free will at its core is nothing more than the

ability to bestow light. That is to say, human consciousness has an

inherent will to give. This human capability of acting like God in being a bestower is the fulcrum upon which the entire universe is balanced.

 

The

reason this is so important is that if there were a will only to

receive, as described above, the universe would be completely

predictable. Everything would be predetermined, all receptivity would

find shape in its implicit design, and every aspect of the unfolding of

creation could be anticipated. The wild card introduced here is the

premise that human consciousness is informed by a soul force that gives

it the capacity to emulate the infinite Bestower.

 

 

Thus

human beings have an extraordinary capacity to influence the direction

of creation. Each time we make use of our free will by giving, we are in

copartnership with the infinite Bestower. When this is accomplished,

with clear awareness of what we are doing, we raise the consciousness of

creation.

–David A Cooper (God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism)

 

Reflection for May 7, 2009: Habits, Ritual and practice.

“A sense of well-being is achieved not only through the effects of healthful practices but through the very act of taking good care of ourselves. Regimens, by contrast, are nothing but aimless effort and sacrifice, whereas diets mean a new way of life. Diets imply constant change, being constantly on the move.

 

        Changing has to do with being able to free ourselves from conventional attitudes that we repeatedly imitate without realizing it. The more they are repeated, the more vulnerable to the evil impulse we are. And this tendency to form habits—which are something mechanical that is neither thought about nor chosen—ends up blocking us from freeing ourselves. A story about the lighting of candles on the Sabbath exemplifies this fact. Legend has it that when returning home from work or the synagogue on the Sabbath eve, a person is escorted by two angels, one on either side, a bad one and a good one. On arrival, if he finds that the Sabbath candles have been lit, the bad angel will have to humble itself and say along with the good angel, ‘So be it next Sabbath!’ If, however, the candles have not been lit, it will be the good angel who is forced to utter along with the bad one, ‘So be it next Sabbath!’

 

        Every time attitudes are put into action, they reinforce themselves. As depicted in the story, there is no impartiality—we either change or become more the same. Rabbi Aaron of Karlin used to say, ‘Those who do not rise, fall; those who do not get better, get worse.’ One who follows a regimen is like one who follows a recipe without paying attention to what he or she is doing, or taking medicine while repeating again and again the unhealthy behavior that caused the illness to begin with. The one who avoids dealing with real causes and real hungers is sure to suffer a relapse. At every relapse, one gets farther and farther from the goal, for attitudes are never neutral. Relapses reinforce our habits even more, to such an extent that the regimen becomes just another one of our habits.”

 

— Nilton Bonder (The Kabbalah of Food )

 

Here we can see a clear example of why the “Goal” of Magick is to not do Magick, something few Magick practioners know/realize/ approach. Ritual itself of course can lead to madness, arguably we find this in the example of Abraham Abulafia, who’s use of God name permutations changed the face of practical Kabbalah forever. He also thought he had been annointed by God and commanded to kill the pope….. so who knows?

 

The Re-emerging Mother-Goddess

The Re-emerging Mother-Goddess

 

(from “Pagan Rites in Judaism)

 

 

 

by

 

Theodor Reik.

 

I. In a Synagogue for the First Time

If Hamlet had known the insight psychoanalysis has given us into the laws of mental processes, he would certainly have added that strange phenomenon to his praise of man (“What a piece of work is a man!” – II, ii). The wonders of unconscious thoughts would have surprised him as they still amaze us every day even though we have been familiar with that particular “piece of work” for a long time now.

    Why did an early childhood memory suddenly pop up in my thoughts, which had been focused on a research project? It dealt with the problem of what happened to the great mother-goddesses, common to all the peoples of the ancient Middle East, in the religion of the prehistoric Hebrews. There was no discernible connection between that research project and a reminiscence from the past of perhaps seventy years ago. Only much later, when my exploration had progressed to a certain point, did I become aware of a latent thought-connection that had remained concealed for weeks.

    It was a memory: I must have been four or four and a half years old when my grandfather took me to a synagogue for the first time. I was not astonished by the sight of men in prayer shawls because I had earlier seen my grandfather covered with such a mantle.

    What amazed me was the scene that took place shortly after our entrance. Two or three men went up to a platform and to a kind of recess or closet, the curtain of which they pulled away. After they opened that recess they took out a strange object. Or was it a person? Was it a prisoner who had been locked up there?

    I am sure that my first impression must have been that it was a woman the men lifted from the closet. What I saw must have confirmed that impression: there was a wonderful long dress with many adornments and decorations and a beautiful crown on the head of the figure. Was she a queen? Everyone had jumped to his feet when she appeared.

    There were, it was true, no feet visible, but the figure had a long dress as was the fashion in those days. Later on I saw something like a hand – a real hand – that seemed to come out from the dress, following the lines the men read from the parchment.

    Only much later I understood my mistake. The closet was of course the recess, the ark, in which the scrolls of the law are kept, and that mysterious, richly dressed figure was the Torah. Naturally the boy was then too scared to ask.

    The belief of the little boy who was fascinated and looked at the scene was strengthened when he saw that the men were “undressing” the figure. They took her precious clothes off and removed the crown, while they prayed or, actually, sang. But even before that, they had done something which must have confirmed my impression that the figure was a woman, and a highly respected or loved one at that. She was carried around in a brief procession to the lectern. The men of the congregation near her touched her mantle with their prayer shawls (talith) and kissed them on this spot.

    I still remember that when the men had removed the wrappings and adornments of the figure, they lifted the white scrolls high, showing them to the congregation. I vividly remember the feeling of sudden shame I experienced then. The corporal form of the Torah did not allow any doubt. The kissing had supported my belief: I had been a witness to the process of undressing a woman so that the figure appeared naked now. I had been present at a kind of peep-show, an exhibition shared by all the men present.

    It cannot be denied that this impression renewed earlier attempts of the little boy to peep, but the scene in the synagogue was itself enough to convey that distinct impression. The physically or corporeality of the Torah in its center was of great weight.

    This childhood memory, whose significance became recognizable only much later, should merely form an introduction to the treatment of the subject of the mysterious disappearance of a mother-goddess in the religion of prehistoric Israel.

 

II. The vanished Mother-Goddess

It is likely that for all the Semitic migrants who wandered from Arabia into the fertile lands of Mesopotamia and Syria “the moon was originally the supreme deity.”¹ Even Moses Maimonides states that moon worship was the religion of Adam. The name of the moon goddess in ancient Babylonia was Sinne; she corresponds to the great goddess Manat in Arabia and to Venus, and Aphrodite in other countries. The moon was the emblem of Israel in Talmudic literature and in Hebrew tradition. The mythical ancestors of the Hebrews lived in Ur and Harran, the centers of the Semitic moon-cult.²

    The moon did not long remain the ancient Hebrews’ only goddess. As did all people of the ancient Middle East, they imagined that man had been produced by a divine couple as the product of their sexual intercourse. The Egyptians and Babylonians believed that man was conceived in the embrace of heaven and Earth. In the psychoanalytic interpretation of the Genesis saga, Otto Rank arrived at the reconstruction that Adam was born as the product of sexual intercourse between a father-god and the mother-goddess Eve or Adamah (the earth). The myth-formation we know, the tradition that Adam gives birth to Eve, is a reversal of the original version that Adam was born from Adamah, the great earth-goddess.³

    Adamah or Eve would correspond to the great mother-goddess of the ancient Orient, to the divine mother of the Babylonians called Ishtar, the Egyptians Isis, the Phrygians Cybele, the Greeks Aphrodite, and the Romans Venus. All these goddesses were consorts of their divine sons, called Osiris, Tamus, and so on. After the liquidation of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, the Jewish refugees in Egypt associated Yahweh with two goddesses. The name of the Lord was blended with that of the goddess as Anath Yahu.⁴ When Jeremiah came to Egypt in 585, he gave the Jews there a severe lecture (44:2ff), but the men answered that they would continue “to burn incense unto the queen of heaven and pour out drink offering unto her as we have done, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.”

    Only tangential notice can be given here to the idolatry of that generation and of the preceding ones because our attention is given to the question What happened to that great mother-goddess of the ancient Hebrew tribes? What, for instance, was the destiny of the female deity who produced the first man according to the primal tradition? Did she disappear? Do we here encounter a surprising reversal in the form “La recherche de la maternité est inderdite”? And what happened to other, later female deities?

    Before we try to answer this question we hasten to add that other goddess-figures of ancient West Asia were also subjected to changes of various kinds. The divine family (preferably in triads of father, mother, and son) had various histories. There were in early Babylon, for instance, as many goddesses as gods; each male deity had at least one female companion. The city goddess Ninlil, the lady of the great mountain; Nana, the patroness of Uruk; and others later changed their functions. Some became “more shadowy reflections of the gods; but with little independent power, and in some cases none at all.”⁵ There was, as Edwin D. Starbuck once called it, a kind of “twilight extinction” of goddesses in early Babylonia and Assyria and among other nations eager to conquer the world.⁶ There were various forms of the subjection and transformation of the goddesses.

    The strangest was defined by W. R. Smith: “In various parts of the Semitic field we find deities originally changing their sex and becoming gods.”⁷ It is questionable whether such change of sex was really, as Robert Briffault and others assume, the outcome of the struggle of patriarchal principles against the survival of matriarchal society. In any event, such change makes an odd impression, and it is difficult for us to imagine its development.

    But to return to our particular subject here, the vicissitudes of the ancient mother-goddess of the Hebrew tribes, we know (better: we assume that we know) what happened to her: She became a victim of the great religious and social reform we connect with the name of Moses. This tyrannical and intolerant leader of the Hebrew tribes and his followers banned the figure of the mother-goddess into the nether world. That removal was performed so radically that scarcely any trace of her previous existence remained in the official Hebrew religion. Occasionally Yahweh, the victor, took over her functions, saying “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you: and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” Even the root of the goddess-idea was torn out: there is no feminine form of Adon, the name of the Lord.

 

III. A Mysterious Story and a Mystery Story

The idea that a goddess changed her sex and become a god is entirely alien to us, and we have no means to help us understand this transformation. There is a lack of communication between us and the mental world of the ancient Near East. To facilitate our understanding of the mentioned change and of others, I shall introduce here a comparison that will, in a lighter vein, prepare us for acceptng some peculiar aspects of the problem. The question is not only how the figure of the mother-goddess disappeared, but also what happened to her afterward. We would like to investigate the circumstances of her disappearance, but we also want to find out if she turned up again in some disguise or other within the Hebrew religion. We know that she reappeared as the virginal Mary, the mother of Jesus, that this was in Christianity, a religion whose roots were in Judaism but which severed all ties with it. What happened to that originally female figure before that and what since?

    The comparison I am introducing is with a mystery story. Here is the plot. The elderly wife of Lord A had disappeared. A sleuth, a figure similar to Agatha Christie’s Monsieur Poirot or Inspector Maigret, whom George Simenon created, takes over the task of investigating the manner of her vanishing and, if possible, the task of finding her again.

    No trace of the missing woman is discovered. Investigation brings to light the fact that there was a severe marital conflict between the Lord and his wife, who was unwilling to accept his autocratic rule. A young butler or major-domo called Moses, engaged only a short time before, plays a sinister role in that conflict. Lord A has made him the delegate in the household. Some rumors indicate that the Lady left after a furious argument with this major-domo – who ejected her and forbade her to enter the house again.

    What happened to her and where did she go? There, is a temporary suspicion that Lord A or this major-domo murdered her, but it cannot be confirmed. Could she still be hiding in some secret room of Lord A’s palace? No one saw her leave the house. Since she left no belongings, it is as though she had never lived in the palace at all.

    A long time after the disappearance of the mistress of the house, new persons appear on the scene: women who hold highly responsible positions. The detective who is still suspicious of the Lord considers it possible that one of those new women-figures is the Lady in disguise, but his suspicion seems unjustified. These women are not only much younger, but also very different in character and behavior. The unavoidable exploration of Lady A’s life had revealed that she had had several lovers – there were even rumors that she had once been a prostitute. These new women seem extremely virtuous and have spotles reputations. Nothing indicates that there is any sexual relationship between them and Lord A, who is harshly puritanical.

    The detective who quietly observed those women inside and outside the house could find nothing that confirmed his suspicions. In vain the detective asked himself again and again: where is she now? There was not the slightest physical or psychological resemblance between the vanished Lady and any of the women-figures. Yet the detective could not rid himself of the thought that there existed a relationship between them.

    So much for the plot of the fanciful mystery story introduced here for the sake of comparison. The reader will have guessed long ago what the points of comparison are. The Lord is, of course, Yahweh; the vanishing Lady the original goddess whom the Hebrews at first worshiped like other Semitic tribes – a mother-goddess, but also the goddess of love and sexual desire; the major-domo is Moses, the religious reformer of the Israelites, who banned the goddess as well as her divine son, ejecting both of them. But who are these women-figures who came to the house much later to hold mysterious and responsible positions?

 

IV. Personifications

After this Intermezzo in a lighter vein let us return to the question of what happened to the missing goddess of the Hebrew tribes. For many centuries she remained lost and forgotten. As a matter of religious fact, she has never been heard of, only traces of her existence have been found in the early creation myth of Eve and a few distorted Biblical passages. There is no female deity in Judaism.

    We expressed our astonishment at the fact that some goddesses of the ancient Semites changed their sex and became gods. Even more odd or freakish apears to us another peculiarity of ancient mythology: the personification of an abstract idea or of attributes of the gods. Yet those phenomena are universal in ancient and primitive religions and have their roots in the animistic beliefs attributing a soul to natural objects and later to the powers of nature. Such personifications are not, as one would assume, results of late developments. They are present among the aborigines of Australia and Africa and are found as well in early Babylonia and Egypt. And are they entirely alien to us? Do we not ourselves sometimes personify death and time? On the monuments of great men of the last century you often see symbolic or allegoric figures such as Courage, Virtue, or Victory, quite independent of the personality presented. Justitia, for instance, is still alive for us as a bindfolded figure holding a pair of scales in one hand and a sword in the other.

    Scholars have described great numbers of such personifications in ancient Egypt, where some were worshiped as gods and goddesses while others had no cult. The same is true of Babylonia and Greece as well as of the ancient Roman civilization. The most frequently mentioned of all Egyptian personifications is Maet (“:that which is straight or direct or what is the truth”). She is depicted as a goddess with a feather on her head and is thought of as the daughter of Re and closely connected with her spouse Thoth, the god of law and regularity. She had a cult of her own in an early period. We know that there were similar personifications in prehistoric Israel (for instance the Depth, corresponding to the Babylonian Tiamat ), but they too fell into oblivion following the severe religious upheaval of Yahwism

 

    In the following paragraphs we shall be exploring the three most important personifications, all female, of a much later period, beginning perhaps after the close of the biblical canon. All these figures present emanations or attributes of God, but increase in their importance as time passes. (They can be compared to the women with responsible functions as the house of Lord A in our interlude.)

    The first of these figures is perhaps Wisdom (hebraic Chochma), known to everybody from the Wisdom literature of the Bible. It was always understood that Wisdom is of divine origin, but she developed by and by an individuality of her own. As Samuel J. B. Wolk points out, Wisdom made speeches, exhorted men to follow her if they would find God – “The adjective became a substantive.”⁸ A human quality became a distinct personality (Prov. 1:1-9; Sirach 24). On account of the rigid monotheism of Yahwistic religion. Wisdom could never attain a thoroughly independent personality such as that of Ea, the Babylonian god of wisdom, or the Logos of Philo whom we later encounter as the second or third person of the Christian trinity. Wisdom developed an individuality but did not become a creator or competitor of God – “hypostatized, but never apotheosized.”⁹ Wisdom was identified with the Torah. In Ben Sirach Wisdom quotes (Deut. 33:4) and applies the verse to herself (24, 23).

    The Babylonian god of Wisdom dwelt in the great Deep, in popular theology associated with the Tehom Rabbah (Babylonian Tiamat), but the author of Job energetically rejects the ancient myth and lets the depth say that wisdom “is not in me” (28:4). Yet chochma “was the first of the works of old” (Prov. 8:22) and “the Lord by wisdom founded the earth” (Prov. 3:19).

    A philosophical discussion erupted later concerning whether Wisdom was a being of herself or an attribute of God. She was certainly once conceived as something outside of God. Who consulted her in the process of creation. Is such “consultation” perhaps a later diluted form of a more vital participation of the wisdom-goddess in the process of creation?

    The second personification to be discussed is the Shekinah, the female figure as is Chochma, but one who has quite a different function. Shekinah means the omnipresence of God. The word is derived from the Hebrew shchan - to dwell. Philo assumes that Shekinah corresponds to logos. This is also the view of Maimonides.¹⁰ The Cabbalists and the mystics regarded Shekinah as the real entity. In the Talmud and Midrash the Shekinah descended into the Tabernacle in the wilderness in the form of a cloud. We find her again in Solomon’s temple. In the Talmud, Shekinah appears as the omnipotence and is synonymous with the divine light.

    The mystical philosophy of later Judaism assumed that there was first unity between Creator and Creature.¹¹ With the Fall of Adam there arose a barrier between them. God did not entirely withdraw from the world. When Adam was driven out of Eden, an aspect or emanation of the Divine followed him into his captivity. She went before Israel, going through the wilderness. In the same way the Shekinah follows everyone as long as he observes the precepts of the Torah.

    The Shekinah also followed Israel into the Exile. It is said that she “always hovers over Israel like a mother over her children!” It is because of Israel that the Shekinah dwells on earth. The doctrine of the Shekinah has a central place in the doctrine of the Cabbala.

    None of these female figures is comparable in impact to that of the Torah, the image of God, the creator of the world. The Cabbala explained that the stories we find in the Torah are subordinate to her essence.¹² Those stories are only her “garments”; without them the world could not endure her.

    Together with God and Israel, the Torah forms the base upon which Judaism rests. She is considered older than the material world and was assigned a cosmic role as an instrument whereby God created the universe. Even in this thoroughly diluted form we recognize the primal female goddess who, with God, produced the world.

    Shekinah, Chochma, Torah – these are the disguised, scarcely recognizable figures of the Hebrew primal mother-goddess. Driven out, they returned by a side door in order to remain in the house – especially true of the personified Torah.

    It is remarkable that the unadmitted cult of those female figures is sometimes at the expense of Yahweh, whose emanations they represent. I was once present at a heated discussion between one religious Jew and another. Impatiently brushing aside an argument, one said: “Who speaks of God? I am talking about the Holy Torah.”

    The ability to personify those remnants of the primal Hebrew mother-goddess did not perish even after the Talmudic period. It continued to live in the artists who kept old traditions alive. E. M. Lilien presented Sabbath as a queen.¹³ In Heinrich Heine’s Hebrew Melodies, Princess Sabbath is praised and celebrated because she changes the doggish life of the Jew into that of a prince every Friday evening. He sings then the old hymn:

 

“Lecho Daudi Likras Kalle,”

Komm, Geliebter, deiner harret

Schon die Braut, die dir entschleiert

Ihr vershaumtes Angesicht…..

 

["Lecho Daudi Likras Kalle,"

Loved one, come. The bride already

Waiteth for thee, to uncover

To thy face her blushing features.

This most charming marriage ditty

Was composed by the illustrious Minnesinger

Don Jehudah ben Halevy.

In the song was celebrated

The espousal of Prince Israel

With the lovely Princess Sabbath

Whom they call the silent princess.]

 

This hymn, erroneously ascribed here to Judah Halevi, was composed in 1540 by Salomon Halevi Alkabeth and reflects the old Cabbalistic tradition in which the disavowed mother-goddess reappears in another form.¹⁴

 

V. Return to the Childhood Memory

Even if the Hebrew names Shekinah, Chochma, and Torah were not feminine, one could easily guess that they are women from the descriptions we have of them. Their prototype, the mother-goddess, suffered a rude expulsion more than two thousand years go and was never officially readmitted. In the best Old Testament fashion, even her name was expunged from the records.

    Yet let us look at a few myths or tales connected with those substituting figures and let us consider the tales as definite evidence of their true identity. There is, for instance, a tale about the Shekinah. As mentioned before, the Shekinah followed Israel into Exile “always hovering over Israel like a mother over her children.” In the Cabbala the Shekinah is called “the Matrona,” which is itself revealing. The mystics predicted that in times to come, God would restore the Shekinah to her place. There would then be a complete reunion and the Lord would be one, and His name one. It may be said: “Is He not now one?” The answer is no, for the Matrona is removed from the king. The king without the Matrona is not invested with the crown as before. But when He joins the Matrona, who will crown Him with many resplendent crowns, then the supernatural mother will invest Him in a fitting manner.

    The Cabbala does not consider that the Lord as long as He is without crowns has less responsibility (“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”). But now that the king is not with the Matrona, the supernatural mother withholds her crowns. Therefore, as it were, He is not one. When the Matrona shall return to the place of the temple, the king will be wedded to her. Then all will be joined together without separation.

    It is easy to recognize that in this Cabbala prediction the primal mother is readmitted and the old Semitic myth of a sexual union of God with her has returned from the area of the repressed after many centuries of expulsion.

    The other tale or simile will bring us closer to the quintessence of my childhood memory, especially to the boy’s impression of the indecent “undressing” of the Torah in the synagogue. The Jewish scholars declared that the stories to be found in the Torah are to be compared to “outer garments,” as Simeon said. Whoever looks at them otherwise, woe to that man! He will have no portion in the next world. We are told that one has to observe the things beneath the garments. The Torah has a body made up of the precepts called gufe Torah (bodies), and that body is enveloped in garments made up of worldly narratives. The senseless people see only the garment, the mere narratives. Those who are somewht wise penetrate as far as “the body” while the really wise penetrate right to the soul.

    This is the doctrine of the Cabbala and the comparison is, of course, meant only as a simile. Yet the word Torah has a double significance, a literal and a symbolic one. The little boy who saw several men take out the queenly dressed Torah from the ark and who looked, half-curious and half-ashamed, at her undressing was not entirely mistaken when he assumed that the mysterious object was a woman.¹⁵

 

---

^1. Otto Weber, Arabien vor dem Islam (Leipzig, 1901), p. 19.

^2. Robert Briffault, The Mothers (New York, 1928), p. 32.

^3. Otto Rank, Das Inzest motiv In Dichtung and Sage (Leipzig, 1921), p. 317, and Psychoanalytische Beiträge zur Mythenforschung (2d ed.; Leipzig and Vienna, 1922), p. 77. I modified and completed Rank’s theory in my The Creation of Woman (New York, 1960).

^4. Eduard Meyer, Der Papyrusfund von Elephantine (2d ed.; Leipzig. 1912), p. 63, and A. Cook, The Cambridge Ancient History, I, 206.

^5. Morris Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (New York, 1898), p. 104.

^6. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, V, 857.

^7. Religion of the Semites (2d ed.; London, 1894), p. 52.

^8. Universal Jewish Encyclopedia , X, 537.

^9.  Ibid.

^10. More Nebuchim 1, 28..

^11. In this description I am using Abraham J. Herschel’s chapter on the mystical elements in Judaism, in Finkelstein (ed.), The Jews (Philadelphia, 1949).

^12. Ibid., pp. 613ff.

^13. Universal Jewish Encyclopedia , IX, 296.

^14. Herschel, loc. cit. , pp. 614ff.

^15.Addendum 1963. When God destroyed the Temple, Abraham rose up as a complainant against Him and demanded who should witness that Israel transgressed the Torah. God answered that the Torah herself would bear testimony to that effect. Summoned by God, the Torah appeared. Abraham reproached her, saying, “My daughter, dost thou forget how, when God did lead thee from one people to another and none would receive thee, Israel alone did welcome thee? And thou, in this nation’s time of stress, wilt come up as a witness against her?”  These words abashed the Torah and she refused to give evidence. Abraham was thus victorious over God. (Immanuel Olsvanger, Contentions with God, A Study in Jewish Folklore [Capetown, 1921], p. 8) Olsvanger points out that according to tradition the Torah was drawn up even before the creation of the world. As Midrash says, God himself acted in accordance with it “as an architect with his plans.” Olsvanger compares the Torah as the supreme law which stands above God with the Greek Tyche, to whom Zeus later eventually submitted (p. 13).

My son Arthur reminds me that I had already presented the view of the re-emerging Hebrew mother-goddess more than forty years ago in a book not yet translated (Der Eigene und der Fremde Gott [Vienna-Zurich, 1923], pp. 57ff.).

How could I forget that? Here is a confirmation of Freud’s statement in a conversation with me that one easily forgets what one has oneself written. What one has written is, so to speak, intellectually and emotionally conquered and will therefore be easily dismissed from one’s memory.

 

 

Reflection for January 15, 2009: The Diet Book

Never think you have lost your way
Or when you stumble think the day
Holds no light for you. I myself
Am lost in you — but glad to stay.

–Labyrinth (Rafael Alejandro Jara)

Reason teaches us that nothing is difficult for the high gods: they are able to achieve any effect at will, in any place and upon any created thing, for without reason they are rightly called omnipotent. Perhaps you will sometimes be greatly astonished at the marvelous, stupendous, and indeed divine works that you will hear me relate. For art does all it can to imitate natural things, but divine things are certainly impossible for any created genius and intellect to copy or emulate without divine help and inspiration. For this very reason none should let himself be swayed by doubt, but should calmly take note in his mind that things unknown to us are possible to the higher ones, as I saw for myself.

–Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream

….

In our society, we are great believers in education. We believe that knowledge makes a cultured person civilized. Civilization, however, polishes the person superficially. Subject our noble and sophisticated gentleman to stresses of war or economic collapse, and see what happens. It is one thing to obey the law because you know the penalties and fear the consequences. It is something else entirely to obey the law because you have cleansed yourself from the greed that would make you steal and the hatred that would make you kill.

Throw a stone into a stream. The running water would smooth the surface, but the inner part remains unchanged. Take that same stone and place it in the intense fires of a forge, and the whole stone changes inside and outside. It all melts. Civilization changes man on the outside.

Meditation softens him within, through and through. Meditation is called the Great Teacher. It is the cleansing crucible fire that works slowly through understanding. The greater your understanding, the more flexible and tolerant you can be. The greater your understanding, the more compassionate you can be.

You become like a perfect parent or an ideal teacher.

You are ready to forgive and forget.

You feel love towards others because you understand them.

And you understand others because you have understood yourself.

– Gunaratana Mahathera

Sidney said, “We’ll begin our learning for the day with a text.

“When Moshe left the Temple, his first project was to expand his sermon on the Maimonidean diet into a book. He began by translating the diet from the Hebrew. The text is from that translation.

“The way you learn a text is much the way you tell a story. You need a part­ner. One speaks. The other listens. Back and forth. But a text you question and challenge. The questions are more important than the answers,

“This is a good one to begin with. There will be a lot more before the day is done.”

Sidney distributed the text.

“No,” he said when the partners fell into comfortable pairs. “As much as possible, learn with someone new.” The two young couples split and paired with each other, the man in shorts with one of the long skirts, the remaining long skirts with each of the executives.

Good pairings, Stephanie thought. Enough variety, enough challenge to keep a text alive.

Since a body must be healthy in order to follow the proper path, since it is impossible to divine any understanding of the Creator if you are ill, it is therefore necessary to remove yourself as far as pos­sible from those things which damage the body and to conduct yourself in such a way as to remain healthy, and this is the proper way. You should never eat unless you are hungry and never drink un­less you are thirsty and should never delay going to the bathroom; rather, when the need arises, you should go to the bathroom at once.

You should never eat to the point that your stomach is com­pletely full. Rather, you should stop one-fourth short of being full. You should never drink water during the course of a meal except for small amounts, and wine should be diluted. After the meal begins to digest in your intestines, then you can drink whatever is necessary, but you should not drink too much water even after the food has begun to digest. You should not begin eating unless you examine yourself carefully; perhaps it is necessary to go to the bathroom. You should not eat until after you have had some exercise, until after your body has begun to heat up a little bit, or until after you have done some work or exercise. Here is the rule: you should exercise every morning until you warm up, then you should rest a while and settle down and then eat. If you should wash in a hot bath after ex­ercise, that is good. Afterward, rest a while and then eat.

If you choose to eat chicken and beef together, eat the chicken first. So it is with eggs and chicken, eat the eggs first; and for lean meat and fat meat, eat the lean meat first. This is the rule: always eat first what is easy to digest and save what is difficult to digest for later.

Sidney allowed the students ten minutes to read and discuss. Then he said, “It took Moshe maybe two hours to translate the entire diet. The entire diet, not just what you have here. For the next two weeks he tried to write the commen­tary. He wrote and erased, typed and deleted. After two weeks the translation still stood naked. He couldn’t add anything to it. He gave up writing the book.

“In the Temple he had given a sermon and taught a class. If you remember, no one lost any weight. Why not? Because the students were learning a diet without the motivation for the diet. The whole diet is in the opening lines. The reason a person is to keep his or her body healthy is to follow the proper path and gain some understanding of the Creator. The purpose of the diet is to in­tensify one’s relationship with the Divine, not to lose weight. When Moshe taught the diet in the Temple, he said that he had lost forty pounds in twenty weeks. He had. But that had been a by-product of his learning, not the purpose of it. When he came to teach Maimonides, he taught the diet. The relationship with God was secondary. With Maimonides, God is never secondary.

“After two weeks, there was no commentary. Moshe was depressed. The Rabbi can leave the Temple, just like that.” Sidney snapped his fingers. “But the Temple doesn’t leave the Rabbi that quickly.

“There is no story associated with the diet, at least not from that time. Later I heard Moshe teach that text. He had learned how. But then, after two weeks. the story was a blank piece of paper.”

–Mitchell Chefitz (The Seventh Telling)

….

“To find life we must die to life as we know it.  To find meaning we must die to meaning as we know it.  The sun rises every morning and we are used to it, and because we know the sun will rise we have come to act as if it rose because we wanted it to.  Suppose the sun should
choose not to rise?  Some of our mornings would then be ‘absurd’–or, to put it mildly, they would not meet our expectations.”

–Thomas Merton

 

Reflection for November 24, 2008: Nothing is hidden

I am alone in the world with a different loneliness form that of
Christ. He was alone because He was everything. I am alone because I
am nothing. I am alone in my insufficiency–dependent, helpless,
contingent, and never quite sure that I am really leaning on Him upon
whom I depend.

Yet to trust in Him means to die, because to trust perfectly in Him you
have to give up all trust in anything else. And I am afraid of that
death. The only thing I can do about it is to make my fear become part
of the death I must die, to live perfectly in Him.

–Thomas Merton

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all ages.

–Thoreau, “Walden“

Often people come to Gnosticism or whatever spiritual path because they feel cheated, empty or angry. They are running from religion in a perceived need to remove themselves from old modes of being that are perhaps “spiritually” insufficient and maybe unsatisfying. As people most of us prefer a “satisfying meal” than just a “snack” to keep us fed for the day. Give us this day our daily bread, as Christ said….

Religion means to tie or to bind. To bring together. Religion typically here in the west is often though of as exoteric and esoteric. Exoteric meaning for the many and esoteric for the few. It is tempting to place a greater value on one depending on your perspective.

However one could argue that there is no inner or outer, no esoteric or exoteric, no occult (Occult means “hidden”) or unhidden. There just is. One could argue the very “act” of supposing or “making’ the esoteric/occult/inner creates a false separation.

The Esoteric (for the few) is often used to mean the “spiritual” or more “in depth” or closer to the divine than the Exoteric (for the many).

As Brother Lawrence states:

The time of action does not differ at all from my time of prayer; I possess God as tranquilly in the bustle of my kitchen –where sometimes several people are asking me different things at one time—as if I was on my knees before the blessed sacrament…It is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God; when it is finished, if I have nothing to do, I prostrate myself on the ground and adore my God, who gave me the grace to make it, after which I rise, more content than a King. When I cannot do anything else, it is enough for me to have lifted a straw from the earth for the love of God.

–Brother Lawrence

Largely then once could argue those “fixated” on the “occult/esoteric” will never really “gain the grail” they will just “sup from the grail.”

This “argument” would be like saying something like “I want a secret decoder ring, by using my secret decoder ring I am special, I no longer need the cereal box it came in, I don’t care that I will be starving to death by not eating…cause I have a special decoder ring”

So perhaps the idea that one “only needs inner initiation” is incorrect in that, it is like saying

“I no longer need to eat; ‘cause I can now sup from the grail, but actually obtaining it (becoming the Grail) is not something I will reach, as I only need my decoder ring, not my cereal.”

This is perhaps typified in two Buddhist quotes I like:
….

There are no mundane things outside of Buddhism,

And there is

No Buddhism outside of mundane things.

–Yuan-Wu

…

I gained nothing at all from supreme enlightenment
It is for that very reason it is called supreme enlightenment.

–Buddha

The problem occurs when people “think” they are involved in the esoteric and/or the occult and thus no longer need the exoteric or the un-hidden

To put it into real world less flowery language terms…

It is like a person who partakes in the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet works by cutting down on carbohydrate intake and increasing protein intake. Yes, I know first hand the Aitkin’s diet does work. Cutting down on “carbs” and eating predominantly meat will indeed promote weight loss. But there is the danger of keeping with that diet. Which would cause imbalance, clogged arteries maybe, and even death….?

Does this mean too much esoteric and too much occult without their “opposites” leads to death? In a very real sense, I would say yes….

I think this is very similar to Christ’s temptation by Satan and Buddha’s temptation under the Bodhi tree

A good way to combat this would be to actively “Be in the world but not of it.” Join a local church or group. By actually serving, we are actually serving.

“Like grapes, we ripen best on the vine.”

…………..

Further:

The Grail a Brief Introduction

 

Gnostic word for October 15, 2008:Tripartite

Tripartite: Meaning to have three parts. “Triple Headedness, or Triple Power,” or a state of three something like as described in the texts “Trimorphic Protennoia,” “Gospel of the Egyptians” or “Tripartite Tractate.” May refer to the developing state in Gnosis where one learns to perceive oneself in the sense of being in the psychic, living, as in the pleromic state. As a process, man transcends in becoming Hylic, Psychic, and Pneumatic (Gnostokoi or Enlightened). ”Mankind came to be in three essential types, the spiritual, the psychic, and the material, conforming to the triple disposition of the Logos, from which were brought forth the material ones and the psychic ones and the spiritual ones.” (‘Trimorphic Protennoia‘)

May also have references to other sets of three such
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or soul, mind, spirit, or spirit, mind, and
body, etc.,

related to the concept of the triad in the Sethian Monadology.
Corresponds to the Supernal triad of the Kabbalah, Kether, Chockmah, and Binah, in the study of the ”Tree of Life.”

Synonymous with the Chinese concept of ‘San Ti,’ known as the Taoist Trilogy, ”man (Man’s mind or heart) is the same as heaven and earth.” (”Kenpo Gokui,” Tatsuo Shimabuku. See also; ”Xing Yi Quan Xue,” Tang, Unique Publications, 2000., Pg.’s 69, 80.) In Hinduism, the Trimurti (also called the Hindu trinity) are three aspects of God, or “Parabrahman,” in God’s personae as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. This Trimurti concept is a tenet most strongly held in Smartism, a denomination of Hinduism as well as Ayyavazhi. VishnuBrahma – the Source/Creator (Tamil: Vethan in Ayyavazhi.) Vishnu – the Preserver/Indwelling-Life (Tamil: Thirumal in Ayyavazhi.) Shiva – the Transformer (Destroyer-Creator) (Tamil: Sivan, in Ayyavazhi). The Trimurti itself is conceived of as a deity and artistically
represented as a three-faced human figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti

Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva

 

Reflection for January 16, 2008: For the sake of the water

The beings of appearance are like those in a dream.

By their personal karma, they are bound as individuals.

They wander among samsara’s many joys and sorrows.

Though their nature is suchness that is egoless

Still these unknowing children fixate I and ego,

And so samsara’s torments are ever on the rise.

 

–Commentary of “The Great Perfection” (Dzogchen, Tibetan Buddhism,)

……………….

 

If we are really to help the living world-order to which we belong, what animals need is not for us to be nice to them: it is in large measure the ‘negative’ gift of leaving them alone, of granting them their place and honoring them with a recognition outside our own activities. And as the global crisis deepens, it might be a truth worth pondering that, in the end, no amount of legislation will work to save the earth unless we transform our attitude. It is of little use trying to improve our ecological performance if we still retain the assumption that things are usable and dispensable. Ultimately, only recognition of their intrinsic values, their sacredness, is sufficient. Unless we undertake to purify our seas and rivers ‘for the sake of the water,’ and not just our own use, we shall only be postponing not resolving the most urgent problem of our time.

–Andrew Welburn

……………….

 

When Christ -in renewing the Law of Sinai, which he came to “fulfill” and not to “destroy” – teaches the love of God, he distinguishes between “heart”, “soul”, “strength”( Torah: “might”), and “mind”; this “love” thus excludes no faculty that unites with God, and it cannot be merely one term of an opposition, as when love and knowledge confront each other. If by the word “love” the Torah and Gospel express above all the idea of “union” or “desire for “union”, they make it clear by the adjectives that follow, that this tendency includes diverse modes in keeping with the diversity of man’s nature; hence it is necessary to say, not that love alone draws towards God, but rather that only what draws towards God is love.

–Frithjof Schuon (Gnosis divine Wisdom)

…………………….

 

 

 

I am in everything, I bear the skies, I am the foundation, I support the earth, I am the Light that shines forth, that gives joy to the souls.

I am the life of the world: I am the milk that is in all trees: I am the sweet water that is beneath the sons of matter.

 

–Manichaean Psalm Book

………………………………………

Wheel of Life (Samsara):

Already well-established in India before the time of the Buddha was the psychological system known as The Wheel of Samsara, or The Cycle of Existence, or The Path of Transmigration. It is depicted as a circle divided like a pie into six realms, each having numerous subdivisions. Following Shakyamuni’s enlightenment, four more realms outside the bounds and bonds of samsara were recognized: those who hear the Dharma (sravakas); those who understand the Dharma (pratyekabuddhas); bodhisattvas; and Buddhas.

…………

Saṃsāra, the Sanskrit and Pāli term for “continuous movement” or “continuous flowing” refers in Buddhism to the concept of a cycle of birth (jāti) and consequent decay and death (jarāmaraṇa), in which all beings in the universe participate and which can only be escaped through enlightenment. Saṃsāra is associated with suffering and is generally considered the antithesis of nirvāṇa or nibbāna.

 

He who sees himself only on the outside

I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

–Revelation 22:13

Actually, the ground of everything is within me and it is God, and it’s within everybody too. And there’s one ground for everybody, and this ground in the Divine Mercy. . . . The peo­ple of the unveiling, that is to say the Sufis, ask the Mercy of God to subsist in them. These are the ones who ask in the Name of God and He shows Mercy upon them only by making the Mercy subsist in them. This is a totally different outlook. It is the outlook whereby the Mercy of God is not arranged on the outside in events for me-in good and bad events-but it is subsisting in me all the time. Therefore what happens is that if the Mercy of God is subsisting in me-and that goes to say if I am united with the will of God- . . . if I am completely united with the will of God in love, it doesn’t matter what happens outside, because everything that is going on outside that makes any sense is grounded in the same ground in which I am grounded. The opposition between me and everything else ceases, and what remains in terms of opposition is purely acci­dental and it doesn’t matter. And this is . . . a basic perspective in all . . . the highest religions. You ought to get down to this, you get down to it in Christianity, you get down to it in Buddhism, you get down to it in Hinduism, and so forth. It is arriving at a unity in which the superficial differences don’t matter. It doesn’t, mean that they’re not real, it doesn’t mean that they’re not there. They still subsist… .

–Thomas Merton

1. Left Hand Path Practices in the West

“Satanism is not a white light religion; it is a religion of the flesh, the mundane, the carnal – all of which are ruled by Satan, the personification of the Left Hand Path“

The Satanic Bible, Book Of Lucifer 3:paragraph 30

The Left Hand Path is solitary, individualistic, personal, based on self development, self analysis, self empowerment. Altruism is materialistically equated as long term selfishness. I think all forms of Satanism are considered Left Hand Path, even Devil Worship and inverse Christian-Satanists are Left Hand Path, although they are frequently considered deluded. Frequently called “evil” and “dark” by non Satanic religions, the followers of the left hand path often have had to remain in the darkness or face severe persecution from the religions that ironically call themselves “good”. This is testimony enough that the image of the purely “good” icons is a veneer; a non-truth.

Features of LHP philosophies frequently include:

• Emphasis on freethought, not dogma or strict systems.
• Highly individualistic
• A distinct rejection of absolutes and moralism
• Personal, not universal.

Freethought, Individualism and moral relativism
Left Hand Path philosophies all have an emphasis on freethought; not dogma or strict systems. The “rules” in LHP religions are frequently merely “guidelines”. The same attitude it applied to all knowledge, including that of the knowledge of reality and morals. Subjectivism and relativism are almost universally assumed amongst followers of the left hand path.

Personal Belief, not Universal
Left Hand Path philosophies do not claim that they are the best religion for all people and frequently claim they are only a valid religion for some people. “Satanists are born, not made” _{Anton LaVey}. Satanism and the LHP is striking for the lack of missionizing. This is probably the result of the admission that no religion, philosophy or belief system is suitable for all people.

“Yes, I can see why the idea of free thought, individualism and moral relativism (which requires the effort to think for yourself before judging something right or wrong) may be a turn off for some people or why they just don’t get it. I hope that doesn’t apply to you.”

 

oh I get it, I understand it fully

at a fundamental level I think it is un-Christ like though…

give and receive…vessels and light…kabbalah, that is all there is.

I know many see the divine as a nice treasure chest to plunder…I don’t.
I think the “gimme gimme gimme” approach to life and the divine is childish.
At a very real fundamental level it is rape to my mind, forcing the hand, taking the fruit before it is ripe

Agenda is agenda. Agenda is always wrong, as you are not following the true self, the “divine will”; I realize it is your path and that it embraces selfishness and sees that as divine will…to some extent.

However I will never agree to something that is fundamentally about the self, survival is one thing, taking and empowering at the expense of others is another

This is not meant to be an attack, it is just my view.

You wrote
” Self development? Isn’t that what spiritual training is supposed to offer? Isn’t this the point of alchemy?
Self Analysis? Aren’t we supposed to learn about ourselves? Don’t we value the inward path?
Self Empowerment? Don’t we prefer to be beings that have significance in the world of others or do we prefer to be
ineffectual?”

No it is Self development, not self development. In the east views generally speaking there is ONLY self. This is the root of one of the misunderstandings of the LHP since its inception. That self is NOT the self, it is THE SELF; or, GOD. The self development of alchemy etc. is to grow the true self as Thomas Merton calls it. It really has nothing to do with the self at all.

The I before is I and WE, the I after is I, and only I as there is no WE. And there is no i.

 

That is the fundamental point. Your view is like a man who opens a door..but refuses to enter. They are happy quickly going in, and running back out. Having gotten something that they want it is time to stay outside the door. This makes illusion more attractive, nicer, you are indeed self empowering. But illusion is illusion.

 

Like a drug addict you have to carry on taking more drugs to keep that high. That is of course part of where other people come in; little fish feed on big fish at a very real physical and spiritual level. Exploitation. There is someone at the top of the pyramid, sat back laughing, gaining all the power.

Just as the Buddha gained many great powers along the way, he also rejected them all. For trinkets and power is not what it is about. That is the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert.

So no, I would say spiritual training has nothing to do with self development, no matter how many paper bags you put over your head to “look nice”, you are still wearing a paper bag… This goes for knowing yourself also, knowing yourself is NOT KNOWING YOURSELF. This is fundamental basic thing.

 

 

“He who sees himself only on the outside,

not within, becomes small himself and makes others small.”

–Mani (turfan fragment M 801)

Power and influence, again this is a false notion. God is the only Rabbi as the Jewish proverb goes. Only God has power. Mankind may think he can build a dam and conquer nature, but he is fooling himself. Power is for the weak. Power in its “correct” application is about serving and sacrifice. Agenda is agenda, and again is un-Christ like.

You said

“Emphasis on free thought, not dogma or strict systems? What’s wrong with respecting members to be conscious and
sentient adults who are capable of thinking for themselves and deciding what is the right or wrong course of action
instead of slavish devotion to some ancient text or the words of some “authority figure”? “

There is nothing wrong with free thought. But often it becomes childish. Too often people seek the mysteries, spirituality etc etc out of rebellion.
Free thought is good, rebellion is good it helps grow new branches, new plants, where none would have grown. However it soon devolves into as what James Dean said “What you got?” Until the point is reached when all you are doing is rebelling. You gain a new uniform, a new prison. Your prison becomes that of the “rebel”, the “free thinker”

The fruitfulness of our life depends in large measure on our ability to doubt our own words and to question the value of our own work. The man who completely trusts his own estimate of himself is doomed to sterility. All he asks of any act he performs is that it be his act. If it is performed by him, it must be good. All words spoken by him must be infallible. The car he just bought is the best for its price, for no other reason that he is the one who has bought it. He seeks no other fruit than his, and therefore he generally gets no other.

If we believe ourselves in part, we may be right about ourselves. If we are completely taken in by our own disguise, we cannot help being wrong.

 

–Thomas Merton

We exchange one strait jacket for another. Instead of embracing what is called the middle way. If we are rebelling we eventually miss the basic truth, the basic truth is we are all on the same boat. Spending your life preening and shouting “look at me, I am special, I think for myself, not like you” is great and dandy, but it really is childish. Like a teenager who dresses up as a punk or a Goth. Nihilism and solipsism only serve to embrace the self as opposed to the SELF. Spiritual masturbation serves no purpose, it may feel good, and seem good..But again, like a drug addict you have to carry on doing it perpetually; or you are back to square one.

Instead there is another way…you open yourself to the wind and fly like a kite, like a kite that is unrestrained..guided by the wind…taken and changed and moved by what is. Instead of fighting the wind and insisting that the wind does not exist. Like the Shakespearean king….you can try to hold back the sea all you like, you are really fooling yourself.

You wrote

” A distinct rejection of absolute moralism? What is wrong with seeing that what may be considered right yesterday may not
be right today (such as burning witches, jews, locking jews up in ghettos, killing in the name of religion, executing
homosexuals, not giving women the same rights as men, etc.). And what is wrong when thinking that what may be
acceptable may not be so tomorrow and that there is a better way? Is this “moral relativism” worse than the moral
absolutism that created the atrocities mentioned above?
Personal, not universal? What is wrong with accepting that there are many paths to spiritual growth and development and
that each person has a right to choose which is the best for them? “

Now right and wrong are arguably subjective terms, yes I agree. In Gnosticism (as you’ll read below if you read it) there is no good and evil per se, there is more “levels of imperfection.” So what are we to do when faced with good and evil, morals and dogmas? We have discernment. Like a good parent would never hand a box of matches and gasoline to a child, we need to work out what is helpful and what is not. For the LHP there is often stated the phrase “nothing is wrong, everything is permissible.” This is the mantra of Chaos magicians, as I am sure you know. Well find and dandy, if we follow this logic, it means we should stick pencils in our ears and nose…after all it is not wrong, and ultimately will help in our spiritual development. Clearly this is absurd. Everything is permissible is nonsensical, an excuse for debauchery and to again bathe in temporary pleasures…back to taking drugs, again.

Your rejection is based upon the idea that absolute moralism=hatred. This is untrue. Anything taken to extremes and to an unswerving ascetic extreme is wrong. Atrocities are atrocities, and are again about the individual not the group. The individual hates the Jew and the homosexual. The individual wants them gone, dead, removed. These people are of the collective, the collective is the collective. By singling out the Jew, the witch, the homosexual…these acts are selfish. Suffer not a homosexual or Jew to live.

“The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.” –Adolf Hitler.

The act of purification, inquisition…again is serving a part of the collective, it is serving individuals. NIMBY or “Not In My Back Yard” mentality. “I do not mind homosexuals or blacks, as long as they don’t live near me.”

In the end LHP becomes miniature acts of solipsism, misanthropy and nihilism.
Solipsism is, well just plain “silly.” I have interacted with the non physical since I was child. Before I even knew what I was doing. So I reject solipsism.

Nihilism is rejection, to take it to a tongue in cheek extreme; I would say the ultimate goal of nihilism is suicide. I would argue nihilism is suicide on a smaller lesser “vibration.”

Just as Nihilism is suicide, misanthropy is purely selfish. But that is the LHP, “selfishness and indulgence.” There really is nothing else to the LHP at a fundamental underlying basic level. If Nihilism is suicide, then misanthropy in its embracing hatred of all mankind can only lead to one conclusion. Misanthropy requires you to kill everyone, but yourself…in order that you are more and more self empowered. Of course this never happens, but on a smaller level people try… Or as the rock star Marilyn Manson wrote “There’s no time to discriminate, hate every motherf****** that gets in your way.”

To conclude, this is what is wrong with the LHP, as you can see, I have indeed thought about this…for a very long time. I really do like to think for myself. But I am not afraid to admit and embrace knowledge, experience “energy” etc. that is far more wise, profound and simply BETTER than my self….as opposed to my SELF.

 

“To respect the personal aspect in man is to respect
his solitude, his right to think for himself, his need
to learn this, his need for love and acceptance by
other persons like himself. Here we are in the realm
of freedom and of friendship, of creativity and of
love. And it is here that religion begins to have a
meaning…”
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, (N.
Y: Doubleday, 1989) p 82.

Further (although flawed, but still interesting):

“TRUE SELF” AND GAY SPIRITUALITY

 

Dear Friends,

I am posting my response to a question in our Yahoo chat room about

the meaning of the term “archon.” I hope this very brief discussion

may interest you in finding more about the subject, perhaps in the

Nag Hammadi text “Hypostasis of the Archons.”

I will be posting a brief discussion before the end of the week in

combination with this one — What is an “Aeon”?

-Matthew

Here is the archon discussion:

An archon, sometimes translated as a “power,” is a spiritual entity

or force that serves the demiurge, the creator of the physical

world. To be really crude about it you could say they are bad

angels, but it is a lot more complicated than that.. just consider

them the forces that define and limit physical existence.

One of the Nag Hammadi texts is called the “Hypostasis of the

Archons,” and has a mythological discussion of their nature.

You know how in Christian mythology there are some beings

called “archangels?” That is borrowed from this same greek word,

meaning “ruler..” so an arch-angel is an angel that is really

powerful and rules over the others, whereas in Gnosticism the

archons are the “rulers of this world,” the princes of the world

that Christ referred to, for example, in the story of Christ being

tempted in the desert. The tempter shows him the world and promises

to give him the “principalities of the world” if he will bow down in

homage…and we would interpret those principalities as the realms

of the archons, so to speak.

The thing I should caution you against is thinking that they

are “demons” or something like that… there are no demons or devils

per se in Gnosticism, because ultimately there is no metaphysical

category of “evil,” just various forms of imperfection. The

demiurge is in some way the full realization of imperfection, just

as God is of perfection. The demiurge personifies and draws within

himself the ultimate manifestations of physical form, limitation,

physical space, time, as well as the dimensions of space-time, as

well as natural laws and natural processes that govern the physical

world — including the law that everything that lives must die.

+Matthew

 

…………….

–
Better than one thousand verses
Where no profit wings the word,
Is one solitary stanza
Bringing peace of mind when heard.

 

the acorn

a small acorn falls from a great height
It lands below on the ground
The rain rains down upon it
fed by the leaf litter and other nutrients of the soil
the acorn begins to grow
over time the acorn grows into a tree
many years pass the tree is tall and old
the tree stands old and dying
slowly it rots and decays
it falls down to the ground slowly
it becomes one with the earth and leaf litter
nearby
a small acorn falls from a great height
It lands below on the ground
The rain rains down upon it……..

Metempsychosis

“What is the good (of erecting a tomb)? The body is dirt and rubbish when once the soul has left it!” – from Mandaeans of Iraq & Iran, pg 184

 “Awake, brethren, chosen ones, on this day of spiritual salvation, the 14th of the month of Mihr, when Jesus, the Son of God, entered into parinirvana.”. - Parthian Manichaean fragment M104 from Turfan

Greek Term	Aramaic Term	Jewish Term
Soma/Sarx (Physical Body)	Pagra (Physical Body)	Guf (Physical Body)
Hyle/Soma (Instinctual Soul)	Napsha (Instinctual Soul)	Nephesh (Instinctual Soul)
Psyche (Emotional Soul)	Ruha (Emotional Soul)	Ruach (Emotional Soul)
Pneuma (Spiritual Soul)	Nishimta (Spiritual Soul)	Neshamah (Spiritual Soul)

The Fate Of The Body & Soul At Death According To Gnostic Sources